Merry Christmas ...

... and Happy New Year :-)

To those of you who occasionally check my blog to see how I'm doing, well, I'm hanging in there.

I had my accident (breaking my right arm) on 24 Jul 2013.

The next day, I posted "A Scream of Pain" ( http://paulinhouston.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-scream-of-pain.html ) , telling all about it.  I updated that post 15 times, the last update on 05 Sep 2013, when I had reached the point where I could resume work.  That semed a good place to cease adding to it, while it still remained shorter that "War and Peace".

But, not putting up ANYTHING afterwards, for a long while, resulted in one of my Air Force buddies calling the store where I work, to see if I was still ALIVE.

My "Hamlet" post ( http://paulinhouston.blogspot.com/2013/11/hamlet.html ) was in response to that, meant to demonstrate that ...

 1) I WAS still around, and ...

 2) I was NOT completely obsessed with my financial crisis (not more than 95%, anyway :-)

As of today, FIVE months after the accident, I am STILL awaiting some MAJOR bills from Memorial Hermann Hospital.

I plan one more (hopefully FINAL) post on the situation, to be titled "Death by a Thousand Cuts", in honor of hospital billing systems dribbling out separate bills for various services, over long intervals, so you're never quite sure when you've reached the end.

Because of the holidays, it will almost certainly be after New Years Day before I have it ready to post.

The experience I've had with the bills I HAVE received (and began making small payments on), while exasperating, actually give me hope that the post wont be as depressing as the "Scream" post.

The grand total, from two different hospitals (with 7 or 8 different accounts) looks like it will be in the $6,000.00 ballpark. As I am 71, it seems quite likely that I will be literally paying on this for the rest of my life.

On the other hand, the payments may be ones that I CAN make.

So, THAT's where things are right now.

I AM trying to keep the perspective that, of the 7 BILLION people occupying this planet, quite likely at least 5 BILLION of them would swap places with me in a New York Minute*.

* In keeping with my obsession with the meaning and origins of terms ...
New York Minute - an infinitesimal amount of time.  I think Johnny Carson once defined it as "The interval between the light turning green, and a Manhattan driver behind you laying into his horn".

To those of you who HAVE helped (and some of you have been absolutely amazing), Thank You and God Bless You.

Bottom line:  For all of my moaning and whining, I'm actually pretty good.

I hope you all are too. :-)