Betsy

My husband is going to be on Medicare. We are trying to figure out whether a Medicare Advantage plan is better or worse than regular Medicare. I would be interested in hearing about positive and negative experiences with either.

I am planning to buy a new car in the near future and would like to buy a 2012 model because the dealers should be eager to get them off their lots now. I really want a car with AWD and am considering the Nissan Juke, the Toyota Matrix, and the Suburu Impreza. Which would you recommend and why?

We have an excess of cucumbers in our garden. A few years ago I made a casserole with a name like "German cucumber hotdish." It had some kind of meat in it, and it tasted good. If you have that recipe or one similar to it, I'd appreciate your sharing it.

I am thinking about buying a Nissan Juke. I would especially like to know about how effective the all-wheel drive is. Also, does it require a lot of maintenance?

I was answering a perfectly harmless question. It took me a while to do so. When I clicked on submit, I got a message that the question had been deleted due to community guidelines. I thought that the question was totally innocuous. This has happened to me before.

Once someone determines that there was no problem with the question, what is done to remedy the situation?

I want to get a car that usually has front-wheel drive but has 4-wheel drive that comes on automatically when it is needed. When I go shopping for or read about cars, what is that called?

Do you think it is a good car? Is it reliable? Does it require frequent repair? What do you like or dislike about it?

We picked quite a few tomatillos before we had a hard frost last night. I would like to make a tomatillo pie to take to a dinner I am planning to attend tomorrow evening. Does anyone have a good recipe?

When I enter a number as 01111, it shows that number to be 1111. What do I need to do so that it will show all five digits?

I am using Excel 2008 for Macintosh. The program converts them to the form 00/00/00. If the dates are old enough, the program will leave them in the 00/00/0000 form. That would be close enough. If, however, there is a mixture of more recent dates and 19th century dates, then some are in the 00/00/0000 form while others are in the 00/00/00 form. 12/31/1920 and 12/31/2020 appear as the same date.

I am using Excel 2008 on a mac.

Recently I was contacted by a person whose question I had answered. He received an error message when he clicked on the link in my answer. I sent the link to him. It worked.

I pasted a link into another of my answers, submitted the answer, and clicked on the link. I got another error message. I deleted the http;// so that people could copy it, paste it into their browsers, and end up on the right page. I have, however, at least sometimes been able to click on the links in other people's answers and get to the page. Therefore, I think I may be doing something wrong. I would appreciate any ideas anyone might have.

I understand that in vehicles with automatic AWD, the AWD is activated by the car computer when it is needed. Since I would like to get decent gas mileage, I don't want the 4 wheel drive to be constantly active, and I prefer not to have to shift it into 4 wheel drive. Thank you for any suggestions.

I understand that sometimes the speedometer is connected electronically to a sensor on the back of the transmission. Other times the speedometer is connected mechanically by a cable inside a sheath.

Is there anyone who knows which would be the case on this car?

Recently we tried to use the dispute procedure to resolve disputes with merchants. On one occasion we asked a local merchant to order repair parts for us. We gave him the model number of our patio door. They are the distributor for that brand. I picked them up and paid for them with a credit card. When I got them home, they did not fit the patio door. I returned the parts to the distributor. They refused to give me my money back but did give me a receipt showing that I had returned them.

I copied all the documents, wrote a letter, and sent everything to the bank. They say they cannot do anything.

I sometimes use a credit card rather than cash because it is easier to return things if necessary. Most merchants are very good about accepting return merchandise.

I wonder if anyone has ever prevailed when disputing a charge on a credit card through the bank's dispute procedure or if the bank automatically sides with the merchant.