~ ~ ~ Up, down, and probably inside out...

Webkinz -- Great for kids, but...

Are you familiar with Webkinz? Before Christmas, all I knew was that Webkinz are adorable little stuffed animals that our grandchildren talk about -- a lot. Since Christmas, I have learned much more since Alex and Morgan gave me a Lil' Kinz Chihuahua as a gift so I can play with them.

Now I can tell you more. Yes, Webkinz are adorable little stuffed animals, but they're much more. When you get a Webkinz, you're supposed to go to their web site and "adopt" your pet by entering the "secret code" printed on a special tag attached to it. When you do that, you get Webkinz dollars to spend on decorating your pet's room, feeding your pet, etc. You can earn more $$ by playing arcade games, searching for gems, answering trivia questions. You can also use KinzPost to send notes and gifts to people you've added to your friends list.

The site is safe and very educational. It teaches children that pets are a responsibility. If they don't pay attention to their pets, feed them, make sure they get exercise, etc., their pets become sad and ill. The games are superb for building hand-to-eye coordination and for learning.

BUT... It appears that the people who run Webkinz are not well prepared for the popularity of Webkinz. Just after Christmas, their site was down for a full day. Even now, it is frequently unavailable. If you have children, you can imagine the impact of their site being unavailable. How many times can kids ask, "Is it working yet?" in one day? Yikes!

In addition to being unavailable so frequently, the site also has problems with malfunctions. To add to that, their support system really stinks! It's hard to find where to ask a question other than some predefined questions they have listed. Once you find where to ask your questions, you will wait and wait for a reply and a resolution of your problem.

IMO, when you have a company that produces a product to be used in conjunction with a web site, you have a responsibility to maintain the site and anticipate the traffic and the needs of your users. This is where Ganz, the manufacturer of Webkinz is falling down. Hopefully, they will improve.

I don't think so!

Here's one thing that increases the cost of medical care!

In today's mail, I received a bill from Marietta Memorial Hospital in Marietta, Ohio. What's wrong with that is that I've never been a patient at that hospital or had any tests run that would have been run through their laboratory. Never. Another thing that's wrong about my having received this bill is that I've received this bill three times now.

This bill is for care received by my mother months ago. My mother is an adult. She does not live with me. I am not responsible for her bills. The first time I received this bill, I called the hospital and explained this to them. They told me that her doctor had told them to list me as the "guarantor" on the bill. He probably got my name and address from her medical history because I'm her emergency contact and have her medical power of attorney so I can authorize her care if she's incapacitated. I explained to both her doctor's office and the hospital that I am not the guarantor, that she has Medicare as her primary insurance and Medicaid to be billed secondarily. So, there's another factor. Since they accepted Medicare and Medicaid, they're bound by law to NOT seek private payment, be it from me or my mother. They were supposed to remove my name and address from her account. Obviously, they did not.

The second time I received this bill, I called the hospital and repeated the process, albeit less politely. You'd think they'd have taken care of this if for no other reason than to not have to deal with me again. Wrong!

So, today, here's this damned bill again, and I royally ticked. They're stressing me and they're actually violating the laws on Medicare and Medicaid billing. Yes, I called their billing department again. Once again, I was told that they'd take care of it, but I don't believe them. So, for good measure, I called the hospital administrator's office. My next step? I'm calling Medicare and Medicaid!

It's painfully obvious that they either don't know or don't care about the fact that things like this take up people's time, not just mine but theirs. That means that such things also increase the cost of health care. Not to be too harsh or offensive, but does anyone else ever wonder why such stupidity isn't a crime? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Mother's Day, Don't Forget Yourself.

The approach of Mother's Day is always a thoughtful time for me, but not so much in the "traditional" way. Maybe it's because I prefer verbs to nouns, actions to things...

The definition of mothering doesn't necessarily involve giving birth. More accurately, mothering means attending to the needs and comforts of someone. In today's society, one role of a mother that has become less prominent is that of family healer. In times past, when doctors were few and far between, it was part of the mother's role to tend to the health of her family. Women knew about herbs and used them to care for people. They knew first aid, basic injury care. They knew how to take care of a fevered child and help another woman through childbirth. If you watch older movies, you'll often see the wife of a rancher called to care for a ranch hand who's been injured or a woman on a neighboring ranch who's about to give birth.

Now that doctors are plentiful in "developed countries," these duties no longer fall to women. Yet, it's usually the woman in the family who makes the doctor's appointments and comforts family members when they're hurt or ill. It's usually "Mommy" young children run to when they have a boo-boo.

To me, there's yet another side of "mothering," and it's something we need to do for ourselves. It's tending to our own emotional and spiritual health. With different belief systems, there's no right way to do this, but taking time out for our own needs allows us to be healthier, stronger, and more complete. It allows us to be in better shape for everything we do, including tending to the needs of others.

So, whether you're a mother in the sense of having given birth or not, please consider giving yourself a priceless Mother's Day gift, a gift of time to attend to your own needs and comforts. Set aside at least 30 minutes every day that's your time, totally uninterrupted, for whatever use you want. It can be prayer, meditation, a bubble bath. Be good to yourself. We all deserve as much.

What does age matter?

Do you "fee your age?" What does that mean anyway? I don't feel any particular age most of the time. Now, when our granddaughters were selling Girl Scout cookies, and I compared the current price to the price when I was a Girl Scout, I felt ancient! John (hubby) will be 65 next week. That's kind of startling when I think about it. I'll be 52 in June. Where did the years go? Weren't people giving me a hard time about turning 40 just yesterday? Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Some things have no place...

Some things probably really have no place on my "professional" blogs, the blogs I do for my work. Most of the people who read them have no reason to care about my grandchildren for example. They definitely don't want to read me whining about the fact that my husband hasn't fixed the plumbing in my bathroom  despite having been nagged about it for a couple of weeks now. ;-)

So this blog is partly for those things and partly about issues I post to my other blogs about but care about so deeply that I'll post about them here too. Of course, here, I don't have to be quite as "professional" about how I say things.

There are bound to be times when you'll disagree with me on some issues. Great! That's healthy. If people always agree, someone probably isn't being totally honest. Disagreeing isn't necessarily a bad thing.

If you celebrated Passover or Easter, I hope your holiday was peaceful and blessed.

See you around!