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| This is my boy, Little. How does a human being fall in love with a pig? |
“Sighting of the Day in the Bush”
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| A young male kudu and Little are watching the mongoose eat some meat we tossed out. Kudus and warthogs are herbivores, although warthogs will go after a bone now and then, mainly for the nutrients in the bone marrow. |
This morning I received an email from Jury Duty in Clark County Court in Nevada. I’d written an appropriate letter explaining my recent surgery and that I couldn’t leave South Africa in time to meet the April 15th call to jury duty.
In most cases, being out of the country is sufficient cause for dismissal. Apparently, I needed better proof than my sworn statement. What’s the purpose of a sworn statement if they don’t believe you?
This morning I sent them two letters from the cardiologist, hoping this would suffice. If it doesn’t, a warrant will be issued for my arrest. Gee…would I have had to die to be excused?
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| Young kudus in the garden. |
With a problem with the connection with our two-year-old portable scanner, it took me no less than 30 minutes to get the letters scanned and sent by email. What if I didn’t have a scanner and was housebound for medical reasons?
Not everyone has someone who can help them with such tasks. Of course, we’re fortunate to have access to technology that can expedite such a situation, even with its current technical difficulties.
Paperwork slays me. There’s no escaping it, is there? I often wonder how folks who don’t speak English, seniors with dementia, or other medical issues can complete all the paperwork required in their daily lives.
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| When the pellets were gone, they trotted off. Kudus tend to leave when there’s nothing left to eat while others can hang around for a while, especially warthogs, who are patient and know someone else will be coming soon, and more pellets will be tossed. |
Next, as soon as the insurance company pays the hospital bill, supposedly, at the end of this month, I have to get to work to complete complicated forms and scan more documents to submit a claim for reimbursement from the insurance company for the angiogram part of the hospital bill.
We paid the angiogram bill out of pocket on February 7th, which was a separate claim from the bypass surgery, transpiring five days apart.
We’re waiting to submit the claim after they pay the bigger bill of approximately ZAR 770000 (US $53,551) at the end of the month. The angiogram bill, which we paid in full, was for ZAR 80000 (the US $5562), for which we are responsible for a co-pay of ZAR 228743 (US$2000) for the co-pay.
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| These baby kudus were born this season. |
Thus, we’re hoping to get back the difference after the co-pay. We’ll see how that works out. Of course, now the insurance company has doubled our rate to continue insuring us. Today, we’ll know if they are going to exclude any possible heart-related incidents in the future.
Then, at the end of January, we asked our bank to mail us our new debit cards via Fed Ex International (not US Postal Service), which will expire on March 31st. They were expected to be here no later than the middle of March.
Alas, we called the bank to discover they weren’t sent, as promised by Fed Ex International (which we would have received in a maximum of 10 days since the shipment date) but instead were sent by US Postal Service, which we specifically stated wouldn’t work here in South Africa.
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| Check out the tiny babies in this band of mongooses. |
After spending over an hour on the phone with the bank, finally, they canceled the cards that hadn’t arrived and issued two new cards to arrive as requested. We should receive them by April 6th. We’ll see how that goes. As of March 31st, we won’t have a working debit card between us. Mine expired at the end of February.
Next, as soon as the insurance company pays the hospital bill, we have to return the funds we borrowed from ourselves from our retirement plan to pay the hospital bill if they didn’t come through.
To avoid paying taxes on the amount, we have to return that money to the fund in 60 days from the original withdrawal date. Oh, good grief. It’s not as easy as sending them a check. More paperwork is required. Tom will handle this.
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| We’ve had zebras stop by almost every day. They are definitely in the “eat and run” category. |
Then, before too long, I’ll need to get our taxes ready for the accountant. We’ll have to file an extension this time. I don’t feel up to doing the tax stuff right now.
The list goes on and on. We always say, “You can run, but you can’t hide.” If we were living under a palm tree on a desert island weaving baskets, we’d still have paperwork to do!
May you have a paperwork-free day!
Photo from one year ago today, March 26, 2018:
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| Tom calls them Guinea Hens, making me laugh. They cluck a bit like a combination of turkeys and chickens. For more photos, please click here. |