Still Out of It

I’m still putting my life back together, it’s just that it’s going much slower than I thought it would and new problems seem to arise every time I think I’m close to reaching my goal of being done.

I finally got my printer and scanner hooked up so I’m ready to start putting poems into the old computer. Unfortunately, I decided before I did that that I had better apply for Social Security now that I have a permanent address.

I went online and figured that applying was going to be a snap. After all I had all my records here, somewhere, and I could get it done relatively painlessly and quickly. To make a long story short, after two hours of running down the necessary facts, I got all the information entered, got to the last page where the system was supposed to tell me where to mail or take my birth certificate, etc., and the system froze, refused to go on, even when I backed out and tried to start over. Gave me a message that said I should report to the local Social Security Office.

Expecting the worse, I headed out this morning with directions gotten online on how to reach the office. After a few wrong turns, I managed to arrive there about 9:15. I took a number and waited my turn, an hour and a half, and finally got called up to the line. After explaining my problem, the lady politely informed me that I would have to get an appointment to see a real person.

She told me that I could either continue to wait or make an appointment for late in the month. Since I was already there, and since I wanted to ensure that I recieved my retirement as soon as possible, I decided to wait until I could see a real person. Luckily, I was waiting with an ex-soldier, so we could reminisce on how much this was like the bad old days in the service when we got to hurry up and wait, and wait, and wait.

When I finally did get to see a real person, a very pleasant lady, by the way, the problem was quickly solved since she was able to pull up all the information I had already entered online. I was on my way within ten minutes.

But when I finally reached home about 1:00 I was exhausted, far too tired to finish reading the next chapter in Penn Warren’s Collected Poems, and another day behind on getting back to writing about what I really want to write about.

Still, I don’t have to work at H&R Block this year, so I guess it was time well spent and will make it possible to devote most of my winter to doing what I have come to love doing.

One thought on “Still Out of It”

  1. H & R Block? If in Tacoma, which office was that? We may have a mutual friend.

    Meanwhile, Loren, call for coffee if you have time. I’m a 100 yards from Mille Fiori every day.

    If you are in North Tacoma, there is a fine little Italian restaurant (EUROPA) worth visiting.

    Mike Robinson
    minos61@earthlink.net

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