It's a cold morning

11/25/09 Wednesday
I visited with Geneva for about four hours yesterday. There were some tasks around the house she needed help and advice about but mostly she needed someone to talk to. I looked at her financial stuff and it didn’t take long for me to understand that I don’t know enough about it to give good advice so I’ll ask around to find someone who can help her with it. Part of the problem is that she is a victim of the chaos that came with the financial crisis. The first company was AG Edwards, then Wachovia, and it appears that Wells Fargo bought them out because the statements suddenly bore their name. And somehow Met life is part of it. Seems that she had been talked into buying a variable interest annuity despite telling the salesman she didn’t want that kind. He told her that his whole family had purchased them from his grandparents down to his children to convince her to buy it. A month later he was no longer employed there. What gets me is that she gave them $80,000 for this investment and now it is valued at only $44,000. This boggles my mind and I fail to understand why or how that happened. So I will seek help from those who know more than I.

I’ll be helping the old man again this morning. Did some digging and stuff for him yesterday. Paid for that later. Geneva could tell I was hurting and feared it was because of things I did for her so I reassured her it wasn’t a big deal and just a daily part of my life. I forgot to poop scoop yesterday so will run to Midland and do that. It just slipped my mind despite the fact I went to Midland to do it. Guess I had a “bob” moment. It’s definitely cold this morning, about 24 degrees out. Time to go.
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It’s noon now. I finished laying the tile for the old man’s septic system on the new building he’s putting up. I was going to do more, perhaps work on the chairs I’m restoring for him, but the pain level is up there so I called it a day. Went and picked up mail and bought some tacos for lunch. The transmission on the truck has been rough for a while but on the way home it wouldn’t shift out of first without a lot of coaxing. It’s been shifting from first to third lately and begins to slip in drive so it needs help for sure. I hope to get another truck while in Toledo but still want to keep this one running and have it around as a spare. I think I’ll replace the filter and see if that helps. I had questioned whether I should get another truck so this helped answer that question. I need to go to Midland and do the poop scooping I forgot yesterday plus we need to buy some bottled water. The water we got from the Stanton water station is salty. That’s not comfortable. They had a sign up regarding having been shut down for repairs and thanking you for patronizing the place but getting twenty gallons of salty water is unsettling. Especially when the city has been cited for the level of nitrates in their water recently. Nuts. So I’ll be buying water in Midland. But for now I must lay here till the pain pill starts working and my back relaxes.