An Open Letter To My Neighbor

I am fed up with idiots.

~Sean Connery

An Open Letter to the Anonymous Neighbor Who Put That Venomous Flyer in Our Mailbox Because He Disagrees With Our Political Choices

Dear Coward:

I would like to thank you for placing your homemade, venomous flyer in our mailbox—against the law as it was for you to do so—because it has changed my mind about a few things. The first is that your surreptitious act has convinced me that even though I usually stay away from political postings, I should not stay silent any longer. I am going to be quite blunt in my reply to you even thoughI know you probably will never see this (although I do have a pretty good idea who you are).

The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech.”  We, as Americans, are lucky we have that right because there are countries whose citizens do not. That means that you absolutely have the right to support the candidate of your choice just as *we* have the right to support the candidate of our choice.

Where your right ends, though, is with giving us—and the other neighbors who support the same candidates and causes–that flyer. (And let me point out that you broke a second federal law in doing so as voting laws prohibit intimidation, coercion, threats, and interference “… with the right of such other person to vote or to vote as he may choose…”).  It ends when you—and others like you—spew vitriolic, negative, and threatening words at those with whom you disagree. 

So, here’s the deal.  I’m With Her. I am voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton. I am voting for Catherine Cortez-Masto. I am voting “YES” on Issue 1. I am voting for progress.  I am voting for what I think is right for this country.  I have that right.  You have the right to vote for whomever and whatever you want. I don't have a problem with that. 

But, if who and what I support bothers you so much that you cannot accept it and talk to me politely face-to-face, then you have a problem. A serious problem.

Sincerely,

Your Nasty Woman Neighbor

Let's Talk Health Insurance

“Angels have very nasty tempers. 

Especially when they’re feeling righteous.” 

~ Clive Barker

I have had shoulder and neck problems for years.  I think it's hereditary because my brother has had shoulder problems, too, and he's had to have shoulder replacement surgery.  I, on the other hand, have had less-invasive surgery on both shoulders—one in 2005 and the other in 2008.  I had an easier time recovering from the first surgery, and about three or four years ago, both shoulders started to give me problems again.  

Last year, my orthopedic surgeon gave me a cortisone shot and a few exercises to help the left shoulder as it was the one that was hurting.  He wanted an MRI, but the insurance company denied it.  Lucky for me, the shot and exercises helped a lot.

Since last fall, my right shoulder has been bothering me again.  I've seen my internist, and he's given me ibuprofen (Rx strength), though it's not helped.  In May, he advised me to see my orthopedic surgeon, and I finally got in to see Dr. Kam a few weeks ago.  He took x-rays and gave me the physical tests: Lift your arms.  Put your arm behind your back. Push down on my hand.  And so on.

"How do you feel about a cortisone shot?" he asked me.

"How do you think I feel?" I replied.  "I think you know."

"It's the quickest way to relieve the pain," he said.  I knew that.  It didn't change my mind.

"I still hate it," I signed. "I'll still take it. Just make it fast."


So, he got that 10-foot long needle and shoved it into my shoulder. If you've had a cortisone shot, you know how much fun it isn't. If you haven't had one, count your blessings.  "Give it two weeks," he told me, "and come back in. We'll go from there."

Two weeks later, I was still in pain, and he prescribed an MRI.  I brought up the fact that Aetna had denied it the year before.  "We've tried other things," he assured me. "They won't deny it this time."

So, I made the appointment (which took another two weeks), and this afternoon the radiologist's office called.

"Your appointment was canceled by your insurance company," the receptionist told me.

"Say what?" I exclaimed. "What do you mean by my insurance company canceled my appointment?"

"That's a nice way of saying they denied the procedure," he said. "You can have it if you pay for it out of pocket."

"Fat chance," I told him.  "I'll call you back after I talk to the doctor's office."

I'm not going to go through all of that, but let me tell you that I was not happy.  That said, I knew what was up.  Allow me to explain.

When we moved to Atlanta in the mid-80s, I worked as a medical claims examiner for the now-defunct Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company.  I was a senior claims examiner and specialist, so I handled a lot of the more-involved claims and decided whether we would cover them or not. Those of us in that position knew that the unwritten rule was to deny, deny, deny...even when we knew the insured's procedure should be okayed.  The reason? Most people will not appeal, so the insurance company wins.  And, when people do appeal, the appeal takes time, so the premium stays in the company's pockets longer.

It's all about money, you know.  We pay thousands in premiums annually so that if we need healthcare of any sort, the insurance company will pay for it. Most of the time, we really don't need it unless we have something minor.  But there are times when we do need that coverage, and the insurance companies hold our lives and health in their proverbial hands.

As I said when I wrote about that obscene hospital bill from earlier this year, the insurance companies dictate our health care, not the doctors. Someone in an office who has neither ever seen us or even talked to us decides whether or not we need a certain procedure. That person, undoubtedly someone who did not go to medical school, gets to decide our care.  Should I mention that that decision maker is working for the insurance company and not for us.

Think that's not true? Let me give you a couple of facts about Aetna...no explanation necessary.

• Aetna's fourth-quarter profits in 2015 rose 38% while their operating revenue increased 2.2%.
• Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini's compensation in 2015 amounted to $17.3 million. In 2014, it was a mere $15.1 million.
• Bertolini's bonus was paid at 153% of its target.
• Bertolini raised the starting pay at Aetna to $16/hour saying it would help production.

By all accounts, Bertolini is a nice guy. I've read quite a bit about him today, and I see that he's involved in a lot of good work and is so concerned about his employees that he's instituted programs to improve their health. I also  looked at his Twitter page and saw that he has a sailboat, works with service dogs, goes to concerts, loves vacations, likes relaxing on a rooftop in Manhattan, and more.  

Back to my personal saga with Aetna...

I was not happy about this latest denial.  Five minutes after I wrote about the denial today on Twitter, I received a notification from the company asking me to follow them so they could private message me.  I did, and they did. They wanted my personal info as well as the details to my case.  I wrote them a quick email with all of the requested information, a question, and a promise:

My monthly premiums are in the neighborhood of $1300.  What am I paying that for?  So Mark Bertolini can go to Billy Joel concerts, have a relaxing evening on a rooftop in Manhattan, can sail through Mt. Desert Narrows?  (Yes, I did look at his social media.)  I used to be a claims examiner for a different company, and I know the games you play.  I did not fight back last year, but I sure am going to do it this year....and it will not be only through this letter, the appeal, and Twitter.

Yes, angels have tempers, and when they flare, stay out of the way.

Mini Me

Olivia, my new Mini

"Though she be little, she is FIERCE."

~ Billy Shakespeare

The first time I saw a Mini Cooper up close was when Mike bought a BMW in 2003. The dealer sold both, and they had a number of Minis in the used car lot.

"What kind of clown car is that?" I wanted to know.  Brian, the salesman, told me about Mini Coopers. "Hmmmm.  Not my kind o' car."

Over the next two years, I saw Minis all over the Nashville area. They started to grow on me especially when I saw a bright yellow one with black sport stripes on it parked in front of my store one morning.  I talked with the owner who told me how much she loved it.  A few days later, I talked to a guy in the grocery parking lot about his red Mini, and he reassured me that it was such a fun car.   When it came time for me to trade in my 10-year old Explorer, though, I told Mike I wanted a sporty Crossfire. Considering I'm not that much into cars, that was out of character for me, but I thought I'd have some fun with a sports car.

Mike humored me, and we went to the BMW/Mini dealer to test drive the used Crossfires they had. Straddling the sleek, black Crossfire that interested me were a red and a blue Mini. I stared at them.

Add caption

"That red car is smiling at me," I said to Mike.  He rolled his eyes and advised me not to tell Brian that I thought the car was smiling at me.  "I want to test drive it," I added, and soon I was driving the Mini down the street.  I also drove the Crossfire, but it didn't stand a chance.  A few days later, the Chili Red Mini was mine.  It has been the best car I've ever owned.

Fast forward ten years, and Röd (Red in Swedish) started having problems. Within the last year or so, we've had to replace brakes, battery, struts, tires.  Sometime last fall, he started moaning when I turned the steering wheel.  Automobile arthritis had struck, and I started looking for another car.  I admit that I went to other dealers—Fiat, Smart, Volkswagen—but I didn't like any of them as much.

The new key fob is bigger than the car

"You need to stick with a Mini," Mike advised.  He knew how safe I feel in it and how much I like how it handles.  "You're not going to like anything else." i didn't.

On Saturday, we went to Carmax to look at a Mini they had there. It had a number of the options I wanted (sun roof, navigation, storage package) but lacked a few others (heated seats, back-up camera, comfort access doors).  It drove okay, but I wasn't sold. I drove a Fiat and a Smart car, too, and we left.  "I'm not ready yet," I told Mike.  "And I'm not looking at anything other than a Mini from now on."

I love the LED lighting in the cockpit.

Back home, I decided to check the Mini dealer again.  I had decided I wasn't going to buy from the dealer, but I thought I'd look.  Darn if they didn't add four "new" used cars to the lot that morning.  Back down to the valley we headed, and I fell for a metallic hot chocolate Mini with 12,400 miles and heated seats and the pepper white Mini with 8700 miles and everything else (but the back-up camera).

"Do you think the white one is smiling at me?" I asked Mike. He rolled his eyes.  I put it out there on Facebook, and everyone agreed that it was.

Very uncharacteristically, then, I decided the pepper white was the right car, and we signed the papers Saturday afternoon.  (You have to know that I usually take forever to make a decision on almost everything. When it's right, though, I guess it's right.)  Giving us a tremendous deal (less than what we paid 11 years ago for the red Mini with 19000 miles) and a lot more than we thought they'd give us for the trade helped in the decision.  "Can't walk away," Mike said.

The door handle lights up

So, I brought the white one home today.  As much as driving her is similar to driving the red one in a lot of ways, there are a number of differences in comfort and ambience.  Both the drive and the ride are smoother, although considering technology is more advanced, I'd expect that.  Then again, I drove a Fiat and a Smart car, so maybe not all auto manufacturers are into improving comfort.

One thing that I really like is that Mini now has ambient LED lighting in the doors and on the cockpit dash.  I set mine to pink surprising, I'm sure, absolutely no one. If I can't have a pink roof yet, I'll have pink light in the car.

By the way, I did name the car, Olivia.  It just happened, and I can't take it back now.  She apparently likes it because she's been smiling wildly since I christened her.

Weight! Weight! Don't Tell Me, II

 

Arugula & fresh tomato pizza = Good (in moderation)

“I finally figured out the big, elusive secret 

to weight loss. Don't eat! Who knew?”
― Richelle E. Goodrich

 My post yesterday got a lot of people talking about weight, diet, exercise.  Great! I have a few additional thoughts and comments that I'd like to add. I wanted to wait to see if anyone commented before I wrote this part. (Actually, that's only partially true.  I was dead tired last night when I wrote that thing since I had slept only two hours the night before and had spent the day car shopping. I'm not sure I could have written anything more that would have made sense.) 

So, if you permit me, I will step on the soapbox a bit.  ( I'm writing stream of conscious here, so I hope it all blends together....)

We all struggle to some degree with weight and body image. A number of you have written me privately or via FB to mention that you do not think of me as "fat."  Neither do my doctor or husband, but here's the thing:  It is a self image.  As I mentioned yesterday, my dear mother had a need to remind me that I was bigger than she. The problem was more hers than mine in the beginning, but it did affect me even to this day. I started, at some point, rebelling by eating just to show her. It gave her more fodder and me more despair. I knew what I was doing, but it was a vicious cycle.  Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up.

Tangerines = Good

After Mom passed 10 years ago, I lost weight and was down to what I weighed when I was 25. Most of my friends thought I was too thin.  *I* thought I was too heavy.  What did I do?  I ate.  We moved back to Las Vegas, and I ate more. Up. Up. Up. Down. Down. Up. Up.  There is one person to blame, and you'll be surprised, maybe, that I'm not blaming Mom.  It is I.  I *know* what I have to do, and i *know* how to do it.  The thing is that i *have* to do it.  Exercise. Diet. Food choice.

I was going to talk about European lifestyle and food and such, but I deleted all of that because I thought I sounded preachy. I don't mean to be. I just like the fact that there I walk and eat differently. Can I do it here?  Of course, and I do to a point.  I buy fresh produce as much as possible, and if it isn't available, I'll buy frozen.  The only canned vegetables I buy these days are beans for chili or tomatoes for sauce. We've cut portions greatly, and we try to eat main meals earlier many days.  That does make a difference. 

Mixed vegetable salad = Great

I don't, however, walk as much, and that is my fault. No excuses. It's my fault.

When I was in with Dr. Bedotto two weeks ago, we had a short conversation about exercise.

"Do you exercise regularly?" he asked me.

"Regularly? How regularly?" I was thinking that once every six months is pretty regular as long as I keep it on a regular schedule.

He apparently thought something different. "At least 5 days a week. "

"I have a sedentary job," I replied in hopes that it would end the conversation.  He just stared at me, so I continued.  "No. Truth is, I'm lazy. I hate exercise."

"Do you hate walking, too?" The man did not give up.

"No. I walk all the time in Italy. The only time I'm in a vehicle is if I'm in a train." I was pretty proud of myself.

"Well, you should go to Italy then."  Hey.  I was not going to argue.  "Until then, you can find 30 minutes a day to walk here. Start now."  ZING.


 "I'd rather just go to Italy."  He was not amused.

Cookies, milk, & cocktails = BAD BAD BAD

 So, I bought a Jawbone. As I mentioned last evening, I do need a good kick in the ass someway to be accountable, and it entices me to walk more because I set a goal of 10000 steps/day.  I've not hit it yet, although I'm working on it. When I was sick from the allergy crap last week, I  walked around the house just to put in steps since I couldn't go outside. Before the concert last week, I walked up and down the steps of the theater to put in some exercise time. I ended up walking about .75 mile in there.  

Now if I can only keep it up.

Weight! Weight! Don't Tell Me!

Ouch!

“I want to weigh less, not through diet and 

exercise, but by acquiring a faulty scale.”
― Jarod Kintz

I had another medical appointment yesterday, this time to go over the results of the gall bladder tests the Dr. Emery ordered and I did not have because I didn't want yet more radiation and nuclear crap near the body. However, given the fact that I've had a horrible sinus infection due to all the mulberry, juniper, grass, dust, and other pollens (exacerbated by the horrible wind this week) in the air, it was a good thing I went in. I needed to beg for a Kenalog shot and to talk to him about diet and exercise, two subjects I hate to approach.

Like most of the population, I struggle with weight, and my obsession depression battle started way too long ago. I blame my mother with body obsession depression battle issues (More on that later), but I have to start getting serious since Dr. Bedotto, my cardiologist and Dr. Emery, my internist, have been after me to exercise regularly.

Two buffalo wings and two fries are okay.

After scolding me for not having the gall bladder tests, praising me for staying in the house for two days while the winds blew the valley to kingdom come, and telling me I needed aforementioned Kenalog shot, Dr. E brought up exercise.

"Funny you should mention that. I have to talk to you about weight," I said.  He rolled his eyes.  "I really need to get serious and lose weight and start exercising. Now Dr. Bedotto wants me walking a minimum of 30 minutes a day."

"What do you want me to do for you?" Dr. E asked, "exercise for you?"

"That would be great," I replied. "When can you start?" He clunked his head on the metal computer desk. "I'll give you my Jawbone so it records your my steps."  He stared at me.

Fresh fruit is #1.

"It's exercise and portion control," he finally said. "You're a smart woman. You know that. You did it before."

"You're a smart doctor. You know I'm one of those people who needs..."

He finished my sentence.  "A kick in the ass."  Actually, I was going to say I needed someone to hold me accountable, but I guess it's sort of the same thing.  "You're not that overweight," he continued,  "but you should exercise more. That will help you lose what you need to lose." 

So, this conversation—particularly his last comment about not being *that* overweight—got me thinking about our obsession with body size and such.  It's not really a new thing...at least I don't think it is. As I mentioned before, I blame my mother for my personal battles. (Of course, most of us probably do if truth be told.)

My mother, God rest her soul, was a tiny thing. She stood 5'1" tall, and her average weight was 102 pounds. I remember the moaning she did when she weighed 110 pounds one time when I was in high school.  You would have thought she was as big as a house.

I was a lot taller and bigger-boned than my mother although through high school, college, and early adult years, I probably weighed no more than 15-20 pounds more than she.  I gained a little weight my freshman year in college, and she more than noticed.

"My God, Christine," she exclaimed. "Did you eat everything in sight? Look at how big you are."  Considering the fact that I still fit into my clothes even though they were a little tight, she hurt my feelings. "Who's going to look at you if you look like that?"  She threw similar comments at me a lot, and while I now realize it was my mother's own poor self-image that caused her to talk like that, I didn't know that at the time.  In turn, those remarks did a number on my own image.

Bad, Christine! Bad!

At any rate, all this led me to think about clothing and such. Back when I weighed little more than my mother, I wore a bigger size of clothes than I wear today. Seriously.  So, I did a little research on this.

Did you know that the average American woman today weighs the same as the average American man did in the 1960s?   How about this one: In 1970, a woman with a 26-in waist wore a size 12. Today, a woman with a 39-inch waist wears a size 12.  Or this one: Clothing manufacturers define their own sizes today, and any given size can differ by as much as five inches depending on designers and manufacturers.  It's vanity sizing today.  They changed the sizes so that women don't "think" that they're bigger than they used to be.  I go along with that. I shop at Chico's for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is their sizing.  I can go in there and buy any piece of clothing in my size without trying it on because I know it will fit.  Besides, Chico's sizes their clothes from 000-to-4.  Wearing the small size I do helps repair the damage my mother did to my psyche so long ago.

Don't even think about Nutella.

At any rate, I'm going to work this weight thing out over the next four months.  Dr. E is going to monitor my progress monthly or, to quote him, "....give me that kick in the ass." Hopefully I'll get to the point that I'll feel crappy if I don't walk or go to our fitness center or something. We'll see. I'm more prone to more sedentary addictions.

Tales of the Hospital Bill

“There is no illness that is not exacerbated by stress.”
― Allan Lokos

You may remember that I had a little heart episode in January that landed me first in the ER and then the hospital.  Over the past two months, I've seen my internist—who sent me to a cardiologist. Both of them assured me that the hospital tests showed that my heart didn't cause the incident. Nonetheless, Dr. B (cardiologist) prescribed one final test (echocardiogram) to prove what we knew after my horrid weekend in the hospital:  I didn't have a heart attack. I then had another follow-up with my internist so he could assure me that the cardiologist was right and that, while there was nothing wrong with my heart, neither one of them really knows what happened that Saturday morning. Of course, last week the cardiologist saw me again to assure me that the echo showed nothing more and that I really needed to start exercising daily.

It turns out that the hospital tests did show something.  The bottom line is that I did not have a heart attack, but I do have both kidney and gall stones. And I need to cut the stress.  Right. Apparently neither one of the doctors thought of what the hospital bill was going to do to me when I finally saw it.

You might remember that before the hospital discharged me, Mike the Husband told the head nurse, the admitting doctor, and almost everyone else in the good hospital that we were *not* paying for my unnecessary admission.  Since we did not receive a bill—and usually one arrives at the house before the patient can get home—I thought that maybe they actually heard him.  Oh, silly me.

Yesterday, two months to the day that I left the hospital, we got the final-yes-you-are-paying-this-bill-bill.  Let me digress another minute and remind you that I spent 13 hours on a gurney—an uncomfortable gurney—in ER. While I was in ER, I had an EKG, a chest x-ray, two blood tests, a CT scan, and constant telemetry monitoring, Once I got to the room, I had another blood test, more telemetry, that awful stress test that they delayed a day so that they could admit me, and one aspirin because the delay gave me a migraine.  In all, I was in the hospital about 38.5 hours.

Back to the bill... as you can see (below), the total charges were $39,075. . . more than $1000 per hour that I was in that place.  Our insurance paid $4066, and the hospital's insurance discount was $34,290.  We owe $719.  I am going to ask for an itemized copy of the bill because I want to know what the heck they did that cost almost $40,000 for 38+ hours.

Look. I know this whole billing thing is a game.  The hospital charges outrageous amounts and then gives an insurance "discount" (aka write off) so that it can show a huge loss.  What I want to know, though, is how anyone who does not have insurance can ever pay a bill like this?  We once had a neighbor who lost their house because they did not have insurance other than medicare. He got sick and was in the hospital for a long time. He lost everything. Everything.  What are people to do?

I read recently that the insurance companies are the ones who dictate our health care and that doctors merely follow their orders.  Tell us all something we don't know.  My internist ordered two tests for that newly discovered gall bladder problem. "I'm not sure that your insurance will approve both of them, though," he said.  "We can only try."  I ran into the same thing last fall when an orthopedic surgeon wanted to do an MRI of my shoulder.  "No," my insurance company said.  I have had the problem and associated pain for years and have had previous surgery, but the insurance company said I had to take Ibuprophen longer (didn't work for three years, but maybe the fourth will be different), do more physical therapy (made the pain worse), and try more steroid shots (really made the pain worse). Apparently some idiot in an office knows better than the professionals who actually went to medical school.

The obscene fact is that health insurance companies have a choke hold on all of us. Do you realize that the CEOs of the five largest health insurance companies took home salaries of over $10 million last year? Did you realize that Aetna acquired Humana and Anthem recently acquired Cigna? So what?  Less competition means insurers can hike our premiums because we have fewer options available.  If you're interested, read this great post by Robert Reich, former secretary of labor and current professor of public policy at UC Berkley.

Back to my bill: Even though Mike the Husband was adamant that we were not paying for my admission, we will be paying the $719.  I figure that the tests and ER gurney rent were worth that much.  I am going to look at the itemized bill first, though. If I find out they charged me more than 20 cents for that one aspirin, I'm deleting the charge from my check.

Memories...

"I cannot say, and I will not say
That he is dead. He is just away.
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand,
He has wandered into an unknown land..."

~ James Whitcomb Riley

My friend Phil passed away last night. I'm still trying to process that fact.

I met Phil 28 years ago when I brought my son to OK Adcock Elementary School for the first day of fourth grade.  Jason was supposed to be in another class, but I asked the principal put my son in Mr. G's class.

"We don't do requests," the principal told me.
"I'm sure you can somehow do it this time," I insisted. "I want a teacher who will challenge him."

I won, although I like to think that it was Jason who won in the long run.  Mr. G was the type of teacher who challenged his students to think and do.  Those kids learned, and they loved doing it.

After that school year, Phil, Mike, and I became friends. When we moved from Las Vegas to Nashville some years later, Phil came to visit us every summer when school was out.  Whenever we were in Las Vegas, we were sure to see him.  Phil always joked that he was always afraid when I came back to Las Vegas because it always meant that he would have some home improvement project to complete.

In truth, each time I visited, he always decided he had to paint a room or put up wallpaper.

"I think you just want cheap labor," I told him as I helped paint his "small" family room one time.

"You have better taste than I do," he replied.  Apparently, though, I didn't have the good sense to talk him out of some of his schemes.  One time I told him I had seen a photo of a white bedroom with paint spatters on the accent wall.  He liked that idea and decided that he was going to do that in one of his extra bedrooms.  The bedroom in question was white, and he had black accents in the room.

"You aren't going to do black are you?" I know I probably frowned.

"No," he replied. "I already bought red paint."  He covered the carpet with plastic, poured a bit of the red paint in a cup, and tossed it at the wall.  SPLAT. The red exploded on the spot it hit. Drip. It rolled down the wall.  SPLAT.  Another red bomb exploded. Drip.  SPLAT. Drip. All across the 12-feet of wall he had red splats that dripped down.  It looked like he had murdered someone on that wall.

"Phil," I tried to be gentle, "you really need to throw the paint in another direction so it doesn't look quite like the St. Valentine's Day Massacre on that wall."  He loved that wall, though. I wasn't quite as fond of it and was happy when he moved to a new house a few years later.

When he would come to visit us in Nashville, we would let him use one of our cars. One time he was driving on West End Blvd. when a policeman pulled him over.  He had not been speeding or doing anything wrong, so he was a bit surprised.

"What did I do wrong, officer?" he asked when the cop approached the car.

"Your license plate is expired," the officer replied.

"It's not my car."  Phil explained that his friends had let him drive the car, and he showed his license and the car registration.

"You must have some kind of friends that let you drive a car that is six months late for license plates," the officer laughed.  He also let Phil off and gave us a warning to update the plates.  Oops.

Another time, Phil and I toured the Jack Daniels Distillery in Coffee County, TN.  The tour begins with a short film about the place, and in it, employees talk about what they do.  One of the men talked about how they use "purr" water to get a "purr" product.

"Purr water," Phil choked and started laughing.  Loudly.  I laughed at him.  People turned to look at us because we were laughing very loudly.

"You're not from around here, are ya?" a woman asked, but Phil and I were still laughing so hard we couldn't answer.  We laughed through the rest of the film and as we walked out of the doors towards the tour train.  We were bent over from laughter, and I could barely breathe.

Phil suddenly stopped. "My contacts," he spit out.  We had to stop so he could get his contact lens back in his eye, so we missed our train.   The tour guide told us we'd have to wait for the next tour.

"I can't go through the film again," Phil wheezed. He was still laughing, and I was still laughing at him.  The guide thought it best that we wait outside until the film was over so we didn't interrupt the next showing with our hysterics.

Phil's birthday, 2015

When we moved back to Las Vegas in 2009, our friendship got stronger. We had differing views on religion and politics, but our friendship always was more important to both of us than either of those other things were. We always had more fun laughing about good things than anything else. He was a great cook, and we enjoyed dinners with him at his home or at ours.  We went to shoot photos in Utah and at Strip locations. We played golf a few times. We celebrated with him when he retired from teaching last June.

Phil was in the hospital two weeks ago, and we spoke everyday while he was in and everyday once he got out. He called me last Wednesday to see if Mike and I could go to lunch, but I was too sick.  "We'll go when we get back from Ohio," I told him.

We won't get that chance.

We're in shock.  I can't say he was in the best of health because, quite frankly, he had a lot of little health problems over the past few months.

"I don't think I'm going to last long," he said to me in October.

"Quit talking like that," I admonished him. "The doctor will figure this out."

The doctor didn't figure it out, and my friend is gone.

His passing has left a large hole in our hearts.

Rest peacefully, my dear friend.