It's gettin' real old having to pinch pennies and put off things that need to be done when I know the government owes me tens of thousands of dollars when they finally get around to sending it to me. I just called St Louis and rescheduled my eye appointment for the 28th, for a couple of reasons:

• Mom did something several days ago to mess her back up worse. She's in a lot of pain and can barely get from one room to another without help. Unless things have changed since the last time she was in this situation getting anything done to help is going to involve at least a couple of trips to Evansville. My eye problem's a little distracting but I'm not in any pain so getting it taken care of can wait till we know where Mom needs to go and when. My sister's been working the problem as best she can but a lot of the doctors in this area took last week off and some of them aren't even around today.

• Getting to St Louis and back is going to take at least 30 or 40 dollars worth of gas, plus the fact that I need to buy some air time for my TracFone before I take off that far. Money's tight. It's going to stay tight till I get that Social Security settlement, but at least it will get a shade better if and when my sister gets her money back for that Wii she ordered off that UK web site. There's also the fact February's a short month -- only 28 days between pension checks as opposed to 32 in January -- which means it may make sense to slide my appointment back even farther.

I had a real hard time feeling festive about Christmas this year and I'm having an even harder on getting excited about New Year's. Maybe when I actually see some movement on the Social Security front I'll feel more like enjoying life again.