Good Wednesday morning. Slightly cooler temps for a few day, then back up into the mid to upper 90's.

I wonder what kind of hawk availed itself to your bird bath, Gerry! Some of them are quite huge! We have a juvenile Cooper's Hawk that is learning how to hunt for himself. He was very happy with all the mice when hubby brush hogged off the pasture.

After some rain the last couple of days, I am going to start working on weeds again. *sigh*

Later I'm heading over to a friend's house - she is having computer issues.

Happy Wednesday everyone.

We had some rain yesterday afternoon and I noticed a Dove ? (I don't know my birds) in the tree outside my bedroom window. It stayed there on the same branch, in the same spot for hours. It finally left sometime after 7 but unfortunately, I didn't see it leave. It didn't appear to be hurt, just hanging around, but I would have liked to see it fly off.

The birds I do know are Sparrows and they have been acting strange lately. Just a short while ago there were a couple on my window sill when I looked out. Usually if they are right there when I look they get scared away. This time one of them started climbing the screen and hanging there looking in at me or looking up at something. I don't know. This is not the first time this year that the sparrows have been clinging to my screens as if they want to come in. They sometimes get in our garage too and my brother has a hard time getting them out. Not sure if the garage ones were Sparrows or something else.

I'm supposed to be cooking something later, but at this point I am feeling kind of lazy and not sure I'll get to it or not. Some kind of citrus roasted chicken thighs. We'll see.

A couple of days ago my brother and I received (separate notices) in the mail regarding our recently departed brother, something that I'm pretty sure is some kind of pension benefits but it doesn't even explain who they are or why they sent us this, I guess assuming that we know. Then the next day we received (separate) invoices saying that we owe them money for payments made after death. Had us both quite upset, but for now, we are just ignoring it all. I haven't had any contact with the partner of my brother as I just could not take his evasiveness and lack of information anymore. We never did learn cause of death even.

Anyway, sorry to be laying this on you all again. Thank you for listening!

Have a good day all!

I hate to hear you are having to deal with this after your other brother's death. There are scammers out there who prey on family members for sure. It would be nice to know just WHO or what company is saying you owe them money. Payments for what? But if there isn't even a letterhead to say who they are, I'd be very leery of these things. Since he and his partner never married, you and your brother are next of kin and if he had any pension money, it would go to you. So, that may be totally legit. But again, no letterhead or explanation of what company is odd.

I'm sorry if I was mis-leading. The letter is from IMRF which I Googled. It's just that the letter pretty much goes straight to asking us to fill out forms without really explaining in the letter who they are and why we would do this. They probably figure that as beneficiaries of this plan we are aware of it, but we aren't. I'm sure the partner put a claim in for his share and they then sent us this. I can only assume the partner was on the bank account and whatever as he really didn't seem to want to share any information with us, in which case if there was some extra payment made then the partner received it, not us. Last contact was in April and he did actually mention the IMRF. He also mentioned that he had not been able to pay the funeral home but did receive the ashes but was waiting to buy an urn and that he was "going to put a bill into the bank to pay for the funeral expenses" (something like that). Anyway, I just don't feel the partner handled the situation right with us although I want to believe he was just devastated and probably handled it the only way he could. If I don't believe that then I am forced to believe he had done some underhanded things. Since the partner was not very forthcoming and seemed to want to handle everything himself, we stepped back to let him do so. If the funeral home had not needed our consent, the partner probably never would have even told us anything at all. That's what I think anyway. The death benefit is really not worth the hassle to be honest.

Edit: Just read your new post, ob. What I was saying was rendered unnecessary so I deleted that part.

Glad you received my private message, oldbroad, will get back to you when my visitors have left.

Oh, I misunderstood when you said they didn't say who they are. If your brother and his partner never married and your brother never set up his retirement fund to make sure the partner got it, there is not a lot you can do unless you employ a lawyer. I get a small pension from my 2nd husband's previous employer, but even though it's only about $45 a month, I'll take it! I filled out the forms and that was all it took. I've been getting it for 25 years now which adds up to $13,500 that I wouldn't have had before.

With the partner not being very forthcoming, it's even harder to deal with it all.

I saw your post before you deleted it Marian and figured you had not seen my post.

Drac, I'm sure this is just a one time death benefit, not an ongoing payment that we would receive. It does feel like a betrayal to my brother not to get it but I'm not sure we will. The amount would feed us for a couple of months but the aggravation already caused is just not worth it.

The partner not being forthcoming really set me off which is why I stopped contact with him. Each time there was news of my brothers health, into hospital, into rehab, back into hospital, death, it was 7 to 10 days before he emailed me. Never answered any of my questions about what was going on but he did ask me about some stuff (something about his email addresses which didn't even make sense to me, but I answered him anyway). He later told me that he had checked into a hospital himself because he was suicidal. I don't know if that is true or not but I did end up finding (through Google) that his sister had filed a missing persons report. This is why I want to believe he handled things in a way that he thought was okay and was able to do. Everybody handles grief differently, however, I just find something "off" about the whole situation starting with why my brother was weaning himself off of his meds. He had told me that himself but didn't give a reason. Just a whole mess but the bottom line is, no more brother and nothing can fix that, so...

If getting that death benefit does not involve your brother's partner in any way, I would go for it. But then I cashed a check in the last few years that was payable for twenty cents or so, and I realize not everyone feels that way. It really was like twenty cents or so - the bank teller and I had a good laugh about it and I told her that I would try not to spend the money all in one place.

From what I can figure out, I believe the three of us were all listed as beneficiaries and the partner put in the claim which is how we received these mailing. He probably received his payment already as well as the "overpayment" and he should be repaying that, not us. Literally, after taxes and if we have to repay the overpayment, this might cover 1 week of meals only.

I understand about the twenty cents. I actually am that way also, as a rule. My SS payment covers my bills but my food money comes out of my savings. If our house was not paid for, my brother and I together, would not have enough in SS payments to cover rent for an apartment.

Same here. Thank goodness my house/property is paid for. I can hardly imagine what I would be doing otherwise. It doesn't bear thinking about!

Good Morning Fogfighter, connie, soot, Draclvr, oldbroad, Marian, Mad, and everyone. Wide Awake Double Dark Brew is ready!

Fogfighter good luck with the computer and installing Debian. Oldbroad it must be a stressful time for you dealing with all those issues after losing your brother...I'm thinking of you and hoping all gets sorted out soon.

Hope you all have a great day!

Gerry

Oh dear!

Quite a mess Oldbroad. I hope it will turn out well.

Take a deep breath and a cup of coffee.

WADDB almost certainly helps.

Good morning, Danish, Donuts, and Bagels in the Break Room. Going to a Birthday Party at the Eagles tonight. Enjoy the day and hug someone.

Good Thursday morning. Laundry is on the list for today.

Got my friend sorted out. All it was, was a bad ethernet cable. I had taken two with me as I suspected that's what it was. While I was there she asked me to show her how to view photos from an SD card and a couple of other things. We talked about Windows 11 and she decided to get a new computer as they do a lot of stock trading on-line. So, I'll be setting that up for her when it arrives. She gave me a big bottle of wine and a $50 gift certificate to Applebee's! The bottle of wine was more than enough, but I understand how much this means to someone who lives out in the country and is completely clueless about computers.

Happy Thursday to you all!

New day, new thoughts. I never did do my cooking yesterday. I already started it today. Made the cup of broth I need (from a convenient cube) while I made my cup of tea and looked for the pan I want to cook the meal in but I'll be darned if I can find it. I can't imagine where it is. Maybe my eyes are not awake yet. Anyway, that's the start. One step at a time. That's how I manage to cook these days. Being Thursday it's time for me to start thinking about my Saturday grocery list again already. I wish my work days had gone as fast as my retirement days do.

I hope you each have a good day!

Good morning all.

Canada is in the midst of a wildfire catastrophe. I just looked at the map and there are countless out-of-control fires, especially in the Prairies. One of them here on the Island is very close to Port Alberni, and the smoke here is thick enough that I don't want to go outside for fear of an asthma attack. The local band near the fire is under evacuation alert. I hope they're okay and their homes survive.

Computer just arrived half an hour ago by Purolator and has been repaired. I'm still being told that there was nothing wrong with it. I'm a bit shocked that Dell tech would try to gaslight a customer; all you had to do was turn on the computer and try to type the password, and the issue would be obvious. And twice online techs were able to see the problem. I'm sorry I had to blow a gasket to get the repair done, but that's what it took.

Hagatha, I mentioned your Dell plight to my friend yesterday while I was working on her computer. The technician was there 2 days earlier to get her new router set up. I don't know where he got the ethernet cable, but she told me an earlier tech had "repaired" it with a new plug on the end. I took one look at it and could see bare wires from the cable to the plug and said, there's your problem with not connecting to the internet right there. Plugged in a new cable and boom - connected. IDIOTS!

I think this laptop was a bit of a lemon, though. My first Alienware laptop was a beast than ran non-stop with almost no issues for 8 years. This one has has two issues that required sending it to Dell for repairs. I think what I really need is a desktop, since I now do much of my gaming on my Steam Deck (which, btw, is a fantastic little machine). My office isn't set up right for a desktop but I kind of threw it together when I moved in, with just some IKEA shelving for books and a cheapo wobbly desk. Eventually I'd like to have a built-in wall unit with a desk and a single Murphy bed for overflow guests.

Good morning everyone!

Pleasant 20 Celsius outdoors and mrs. Sun is shining.
Emergency kits with instant coffee and knäckebröd are available in the break room while we wait for the real stuff.

Glad to hear your Steam Deck is doing well, Hagatha. I hope the IKEA shelves behaves too. A decent working space is great.
I personally use fanless low power desktop computers on my IKEA desktop. And a pretty large monitor.

Happy Friday GameBoomers!

Good Morning everyone! Wide Awake Double Dark Brew is ready!

Happy Friday! Hope you all enjoy the weekend!

Gerry

Good morning, Danish, Donuts and Bagels in the Break Room. Enjoy the day and hug someone.

Good morning everyone ... oh my! but time flies when you are busy. I thought I stopped in yesterday only to discover I didn't. Grandson headed to college yesterday so was a busy day for us ... and we capped it off with a Chic-Fil-A dinner instead of cooking...and no dishes! Hagatha, I prefer my desktop too for gaming. Yes indeed Draclvr, ID-10-Ts do not help any situation in the tech arena. OldBroad, I am so sorry to hear the news about losing your brother. Enjoying a cup of wide awake double dark brew and bagel before I head out for groceries and errands.

Have a great T.G.I.F. day everyone

Good Friday morning. Soot, these weeks just seem to fly by! Read a great meme the other day.

Summer isn't over until September 22nd.
So sit your pumpkin-spiced a** down
while I finish my Margarita! Thank you.

Happy Friday everyone. I hope you all enjoy it! I absolutely have to get that cooking done today before my chicken rots.