Last week I offered raspberries to the weather service, which couldn’t tell me whether there would be a heavy rain within the next few hours. This week I am re-aiming my target to OPM. That stands for Office of Personnel Management. It’s the agency that manages retirement payments for federal employees like Bud. Danita has everything squared away to settle Bud’s estate except for the final payment from OPM. She’s called OPM several times. Calling them is a major investment because it always requires waiting on hold for hours. Finally, OPM told Danita the payment would be processed in a few days. Danita was as excited as I have seen her for quite a while. No payment was forthcoming. Concerned that there was an error in the bank account number, she called OPM again. This time the agent said that Bud’s payment has indeed been assigned to a processing person, but they have up to 60 days to do the processing. Our lawyer suggested Danita call back, which she did. this time the agent said that processing can take up to 16 months. The lawyer decided we can close everything except the OPM payment.

Dear OPM …

We went out to dinner to get gyros at Tino’s Wednesday. Thursday, I decided we should eat out again. We wanted something good and cheap, so we went to Jason’s Deli. They include free soft-serve ice cream. That allowed us to skip the gelato food truck, which charges $5 for a “just OK” gelato. (The only place I have had great gelato is Italy.) I proclaimed we saved $10 and had our dinner for just $11. Yesterday we had a neighborhood cookout with hot dogs, hamburgers, and drinks. Residents brought a side or desert to share. Hopefully this will hold us for eating out until tomorrow morning, when we have Sunday breakfast at IHOP.

That’s all for the week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.