Lots of good things

Today has been another good day--the sun has even come out! Yesterday Marty suggested an outing this weekend to New Bedford for Summerfest, a folk music and crafts festival (http://www.newbedfordsummerfest.com/contact.htm), and today we made the arrangements. We have a hotel reservation for Friday and Saturday nights, in an all-suite hotel, and we can spend the day on both Saturday and Sunday wandering around among four stages featuring folk and traditional music, looking at crafts (and maybe even buying some) as well as seeing the sights of this historic town. Marty, who's been to this festival before, says there's a famous seafood restaurant that sets up a big tent where they serve fried clams (yum!), fish and chips, and the like. I just hope the weather cooperates--the forecast is good, but according to the weather forcast this yucky weather was supposed to have ended a week ago.

Again today I fell asleep after lunch, sitting in my lounge chair, and late in the afternoon I felt strong enough to take a shower. My knees have been hurting just slightly, and when Katrina was here she said that the hospice doctor thinks we should see how I do on morphine (possibly the long-acting type) before considering anything more drastic.

Somewhat mysteriously, I got a letter from Social Security yesterday saying "Welcome to Medicare." When I was put onto Social Security Disability in December of 2007, I got five months of retroactive payments, and I was never sure what that meant in terms of the two year waiting period between getting disability and Medicare. I have called Social Security several times and was told that, based on the December 2007 date, Medicare would start in December of 2009, except that, since I turn sixty-five in October of '09, Medicare would start then. However, my cousin who works for Social Security was sure that the two year countdown started from the date that the retroactive payments started, and it appears that he was right. According to the letter, I'm supposed to go to a certain Website to register, but I don't yet have the Medicare card referred to in the letter; it didn't come in today's mail, so I'm hoping it does tomorrow. I also need to find out information about supplemental insurance and the drug benefit, so I'm going to need to make some phone calls, since the whole system has been made very deliberately confusing.

Also, a few days ago I called Bill Anthony at Boston University, to ask if they could help find a location to hold my "celebration," and yesterday I got an e-mail from Joan, who sets up conferences and meetings, saying she had gotten use of a ballroom at the student union building, at no charge, on August 20th in the afternoon. The next step is to talk to the catering manager, which I will do tomorrow. I know the catering will be expensive, but I've been to a number of events at B.U. and the food is always really good. Last night I wrote some proposed text for the invitation, which Julie and Marty have made some modifications to, Marty has laid it out beautifully, and now I just have to put a list together so we can start e-mailing them. I'm excited that this is really going to happen.