Rooting for Gargamel

In Case You Hadn't Already Figured This Out

2009-08-06T12:26:00.001-04:00

If I were in the financial departments the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Institute on Aging, I’d ask for my money back. Specifically, I would want a refund on the money spent to find out that overweight people gain more weight when stressed out by work and financial pressures.

Come on -- all of you out there -- a show of hands? Who hadn't already figured this out? Who out there who struggles with weight problems hasn’t reached for the comfort of Ben and Jerry or a bag of chips or a bag or two of mint Milano cookies after a bad day?

And if spending money on this study (published in July’s American Journal of Epidemiology) put any of the employees at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation or the National Institute on Aging under financial pressure, they could see the results for themselves. No study necessary. End of story.

But wait…what is this? Another finding from the study? Ah. People without weight problems who were under the same financial or work stress didn’t reach for goodies and didn’t gain weight. And – surprise – while both men and women with weight problems ate more when under financial stress, overweight women also ate more from family pressures, unresolved conflicts, or feeling out of control of their lives.

Now, I’m not a scientist, but being a woman who has battled a small weight problem for most of my life (and for living immersed in American culture for the past…oh, let’s not mention how many years), I bet I can draw one big fat conclusion:

People who don’t have weight problems use outlets other than food to manage their stress.

Did everyone in the back row hear that? All right then, one more time, for the people in the cheap seats:

People who don't have weight problems use outlets other than food to manage their stress.

I'm sorry, but this kind of stuff just pisses me off. After years and years and God knows how much money spent doing these studies, scientists keep reaching the same kinds of conclusions. Sometimes these conclusions are used for good: weight-loss counselors and doctors have additional gold-standard double-blind study ammunition to help people who struggle with their weight better manage the stresses in their life so they're not automatically reaching for food as comfort. As the authors of the study suggest, “weight-loss programs should incorporate stress-reduction techniques as part of their plans to help people lose weight more successfully.”

But what really grinds my gears is when the conclusions are used to 1. Take advantage of people, like restaurants who “know their audience” and serve mega-portions of tasty, fattening treats, and food manufacturers who front-load their goodies with extra sugar, fat and salt; 2. Give people who have weight problems one more excuse for why the state of their bodies is no longer their responsibility.

And that kind of stuff just has to stop. Unfortunately, I can't do much about it personally except squeak my little voice and wave my little arms and try to tell all of you lovely people what's going on in the world of food science.

But maybe if enough of us do that, someone out there will get the message.

That we’re tired of people telling us why we’re overweight. I can't speak for everyone, but I would like to see more focus put on helping people deal with the stress of finances and work and every other load of crap on the crap pile. I would like to see some good science on stress management techniques that help people with weight problems reach for, say, a pair of sneakers instead of a pair of Hershey bars. And not just a list of things to do -- we all know what we should be doing, right? -- but concrete ways of staying with these new behaviors until they stick.

Who's with me? If you’re under stress and trying to lose weight, what techniques work for you? And for those of you out there who don't struggle with your weight? How do you unwind after a tough day?

Health-Care Reform Smackdowns!

2009-03-25T19:01:00.002-04:00

To paraphrase President Obama, fixing our busted health care system isn’t going to be easy. Or quick. But in a twisted kind of way, it can be entertaining to watch. Sort of like professional wrestling. Or watching a NASCAR race for the crashes.

All signs point to the FDA as the first major casualty, and it can’t come soon enough for me. This poor excuse for a government agency (amid all other poor excuses for government agencies) looks like it’s going to be ripped in two. Because it can neither keep our food supply safe nor test and approve drugs adequately and in a timely fashion, the chorus is growing to create two agencies – one that handles our food supply and one that deals with medical products.

On the food side, the Tainted Peanut Butter Debacle pretty much sealed the deal for any kind of credibility the FDA may have over our food safety. It didn’t help that it came on the heels of contaminated spinach, lettuce, jalapenos, pet food and infant formulas.

And in their medical division, case after case keeps rolling in about corruption, either by pharmaceutical companies that did not perform adequate testing of their products or buried their bad press; or by researchers who planted glowing - albeit forged - studies in medical journals so they wouldn’t lose their funding. I’ve lost count of how many pharmaceutical companies are being sued in class-action suits about poorly studied medications that either caused deaths or serious injury.

For instance, the diabetes drug Avandia has been shown to increase people’s risks for heart attacks. Apparently, GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical company that makes the drug, knew about this for years before actually getting around to telling us. (Oops.) And several years ago, the FDA buckled under pressure from Congress to get Merck to pull its painkiller, Vioxx, from the market also for causing number of heart attacks among its users.

The FDA’s continual refrain is that they are understaffed and under-funded. But the food side is continually getting short shrift. According the Institute of Medicine, this year the FDA will spend $.73 on food safety for every dollar it spends on drugs. One expert said that an agency that [theoretically] assures the safety of complex, $3000-a-month biotech drugs should not also have to regulate $3 jars of peanut butter. But in straining to do both tasks, they have done neither very well.

Donald Trump would have fired them a long time ago.

So Barack Obama raised hopes of an agency divorce when he placed two public health specialists at the head of the agency and appointed an advisory group to study our ancient food safety laws.

If she were to be confirmed, Margaret Hamburg, former NYC Health Commissioner, would be the FDA commissioner. For her deputy, she has chosen Joshua Sharfstein, a prominent pediatrician and outspoken critic of children’s cold medicines.

According to an interview by the Associated Press, this combination of appointees prompted Peter Pitts, a former FDA official, to speculate that Hamburg would run the food safety division of the FDA and that Sharfstein would move over to run the medical side of the street.

Big Pharma executives couldn’t be more pleased at this possibility. They believe that peeling the medical division off from the FDA could speed up lagging drug approvals, which have become bogged down because of all of that pesky food safety stuff. They also believe that public outcry over food contamination (I know – what nerve we have to expect untainted food!) have made FDA officials even more hinky about drug approvals.

But pharmaceutical advocates are keeping their happy dances to themselves. “Every CEO that I know in health care is in favor of this, but none that value their share prices will go on the record for fear of retribution from the FDA,” said Steve Brozak, president of WPB securities, an investment brokerage focused on drug and biotech companies.

Other than to say that “the status quo is unacceptable,” pharmaceutical lobbyists would not comment on the possibility of a new drug agency. The FDA itself is keeping mum as well.

If the agency has irreconcilable differences and a divorce is granted, look for a big fight on Capitol Hill. It would mean our rejiggering of committees, which means power shifts and people who will not be so willing to give up their power. This should be good.

Of course, splitting the two agencies could backfire. Instead of one bogged down, under-funded and understaffed agencies, we could have two bogged down, under-funded and understaffed agencies.

But I hope not.

Next up on Saturday Night Wrestling is actually more of a stealth battle between the health-insurance industry and Congress.

And somebody has been reading Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.”

The health insurance industry made the opening gambit by appearing to offer a concession: they are willing to give up the practice of charging higher premiums for people with pre-existing conditions. But wait. This is not exactly a concession if you think about it. If Congress wants to run its own insurance plan, they would put themselves in competition with the health insurance agency. So why wouldn’t companies like Blue Cross want to make themselves look more attractive to consumers by looking like good guys for not charging your mother higher premiums because she has diabetes?

Congress? It’s your move.

Return of the Killer Brassiere

2009-03-04T17:49:00.003-05:00

Some of you may remember last year’s unfortunate encounter with the Killer Brassiere.

Well, it’s back, and this time, it’s personal.

Once I recovered from the first attack, which resulted in a bruised rib and a bruised ego, I thought, “Nah, this couldn’t possibly happen a second time. Now that I know not to wear it to the chiropractor, why not put it on again? After all, it’s so…cute. Just sitting there so innocently in the bureau drawer, staring up at me with those twin cups, the underwires forcing them into a permanent smile. Aww, come on, it seemed to say. You’re tired of those other bras, aren’t you? After all, aren’t they a little…boring? Childish? Utilitarian? Like something a pioneer woman would make out of some scraps of muslin and hay? Or something you wore when you were eight and thinking that someday you’d have breasts worthy of something more grown up? And it’s only a matter of time before you backslide all the way to…dare I say it…going without? Come on. It’s the 21st century. The braless look went out of style along with ribbed bodysuits back in the ‘70s.

So, OK, I succumbed. And never gave it another thought until yesterday.

I was having some work done on my neck at the physical therapist’s. (In my world, “getting work done” means a manual adjustment, not a doctor manually injecting injectables beneath my skin to plump up anything that needed plumping.) Part of the treatment involves adjusting the vertebrae in my upper back. To do this in the softest and most effective way possible, I lie on the table face up, my PT puts a pillow over my chest, slips a vertically-rolled small towel beneath my back, and, after I’ve taken a deep breath and exhaled, he presses down on the pillow. I heard the usual noises of relief coming from my back: crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, cru…

Owww.

That noise came from my breastbone.

Owwwwwwwww…….

If I remember correctly, that noise was coming from my mouth.

My PT asked me if I was OK, and I had to say, “No, I don’t think so.”

I told him what happened. He smiled. And then he laughed.

The killer brassiere rides off into the night…

Then, much as it hurt, I had to laugh, too.

He did the usual checks to make sure nothing was broken or whacked out of place. Bend this way. Bend that way. But no, it was just another $#@%!! brassiere-induced bone bruise, this time, on my sternum and upper ribs. (Wonder what code that would be on the insurance form? I can just imagine my insurance company’s customer service department in India calling the doctor: “What is this line item ‘BBB?’ I do not understand this ‘BBB.’)

And when it was determined that I would live, he set me up with an icepack and told me to take it easy the rest of the day. That I’d be fine in a couple of days.

Then he made me laugh again, the bastard. “It can’t hurt when I laugh, Tom!” I whined. “That’s my job!”

It also hurts when I talk. When I walk, when I turn over in bed, when I get dressed…but the talking thing really bugs me. That’s my job, too. Once again, I’m relegated to the keyboard instead of the microphone. Because, as you know, ain’t nothing gonna stop my words from flowing.

And the offending undergarment? I’ve exiled it to the bathroom towel rack. I haven’t yet decided its fate. Our culture’s common wisdom says that in the women’s rights movement, despite the icon of the burning bra, not a single foundation garment was set aflame.

I’m thinking of making this one the first. Anyone care to join me around the bonfire? I’ll bring the marshmallows.

My First And Last Lap Dance

2009-03-01T11:35:00.000-05:00

Some people have said that when women get to be “a certain age” they become invisible. However, I didn’t think they meant that I would literally disappear.

I had just finished taking my aqua jogging class at the local YMCA last Monday evening. Afterward, several of our class members, including the instructor, hit the hot tub. This tub is about as big as the average mall parking space, so it can seat quite a number of people comfortably. And since it was “prime time” at the Y, quite a number of people were sitting comfortably. It wasn’t packed to the gills, I mean, it could fit a good number of other tubbers before it reached some kind of health code limit, whatever that might be.

We were happily enjoying the heat and chattering on when a few more people came in. These were members of a local institution that houses developmentally disabled adults. A few days a week, they are brought by so they can swim or participate in other activities.

It might bother some people, but not me.

So a few of the guys lumbered down the hot tub stairs. There was plenty of room for them to take a seat along the benches. But one of them came over to my side of the tub and sat on me. Not just brushed up or bumped against my leg, or even slightly overlapped the outside of my thigh. But he literally sat right on top of me. And he had no awareness that I was not a bench but an actual human being. I know he can’t help it, but still. A man came into the hot tub and sat down right on top of me. I’m sure this happens to some people all the time, but not to me. I’m just not used to being furniture.

I sort of slithered out from under him and said, “Excuse me,” but his face registered nothing. After a minute or so, I left, and the women from my class followed right behind me. We exited like wet ducklings all in a row, walking down the corridor that leads to the women’s locker room. I knew that the woman closest to me had some experience with this population, so I said to her, “that guy sat on me.” She nodded, and said that she knew, and thought it best that we discreetly left before anything else happened.

When we all reach the door to the locker room, I told them about my experience as an inanimate object. The instructor turned to me with a big smile. “He gave you a lap dance!” she said. “Did you give him a tip?”

“Darn,” I said. “I left all my singles in my other bathing suit.”

TV Commercials I Love To Hate

2009-02-21T14:27:00.003-05:00

Honestly, if I hear that "free credit report.com" commercial one more time, I swear I'm going to march down to that tacky fish and chips restaurant and yank the earring out of that faux pirate's ear. But, unfortunately, as far as the success of the television advertisement goes, this irritating- to-the-nth-degree waste of electricity has done its job. If you watch the Super Bowl, or any other major event, like the Oscars, you know that ad agencies trot out their best and brightest and most entertaining 30-second spots (sometimes they are going to 20s). The problem with many of those is that while the next morning you remember the commercial with the talking monkey or the half-naked supermodel or fill-in-the-name-of-the-hottest-sports-hero-who-hasn't-publicly-shamed-himself-yet-here. You remember that it made you laugh your butt off. But you don't remember the name of the advertiser. And there's a few hundred grand down the drain.

But as far as the irritation factor goes, this one has totally overshot the mark from brand retention to oh-my-God-if-I-see-that-thing-one-more-time-I'm-going-to-shoot-the-television. No matter how bad my finances get, if I lose everything in this economic downturn, I will never, never, for the rest of the days that I am conscious, even if I have any control from the great hereafter, I will not, nor will I allow anyone else I love, to get their credit reports here.

Avast ye, you stupid pirate. Consider this a shot across your bow. And by the way? Your parrot killed himself.

And like nearly everyone, those "Head-On" spots give me a headache. Apparently, this message has gotten to the manufacturers, because when was the last time you saw one of these teeth-grinding, upchuck-inducing spots on the air? I don't know if anyone has ever tried the product, but I have. I was writing a review of topical pain relievers. And my comments? "Head-On, apply directly to the forehead. Head-On, apply directly to the forehead. Head On, apply directly to the forehead every 15 minutes because that's how long it works."

Also, I really wish "Smilin' Bob" would put that thing back in his pants. He and his big shoes, massively powerful golf swing, and massively grateful wife in the Enzyte ads make me want to reach for a barf bag. Get a room, already. Someday I'm going to count the number of metaphors for male potency in that ad, just for my own amusement. At least the Viagra spots tell like it is. And the background music is better.

Those Snuggie ads give me the dry heaves, too. What the heck? Yes, now you, too, can stay warm and look like Alec Guinness in Star Wars or a Vatican priest at the same time! Hey, Obi-Wan, could you pass me the TV Guide?

While we're on commercials about products with cuddly-sounding names that begin with the letter S, I want to smack that woman in the Swiffer ads. Not as much the new ones where she's being courted by her mop and broom (apparently, these household appliances are having some sort of sexual identity problem), but the older ones when she was maniacally dancing about to Devo's "Whip It" and dusting her own and other people's homes. Perhaps she should go to counseling with the jilted cleaning supplies in the new spots. I'm sure they'll be very happy together, if those crazy kids can only out work their problems.

This might be only a local annoyance, but commercials running in the Northeast for Mohegan Sun not only make me want to tear out my eyes and run from the room screaming, they are so repellent that I'm sure that if I were a die-hard gambler with an addiction problem and a thousand bucks of lottery winnings searing a hole in my pocket, I would drive several hundred miles out of my way to lose my money somewhere else, just so I wouldn't have to patronize them. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of viewing these little gems, they open with a bunch of idiotically smiling staff members dancing and singing to the spot's jingle, which is sung to the tune of - get this - Rick James' "Superfreak." Other spots feature similar gag-inducing songs from that time period, which many of us would assume rather forget.

For all that is good and holy, please, please I beg the agency that produced these monstrosities to burn every copy and delete the backups. Please. I'm sure that even Charlie Sheen or Jeremy Piven wouldn't go anywhere near this place. And you're making all of New England look bad.

No wonder the Patriots lost.

The Strangest Things Always Happen at the Y

2009-02-13T20:36:00.002-05:00

There’s something about meeting one of your literary heroes when you’re both naked that’s a little strange.

Let me back up a bit.

I took a swim at the Y this afternoon, my favorite time to go, when I practically get the whole pool to myself. After my usual flapping about (don’t know what else to call aqua-jogging, except, well, aqua-jogging…or the more well-known term, jogging in deep water while wearing a giant floatie around your waist), I marinated in the hot tub, avoiding eye contact with the other tubbers (often advisable because of some of the other people who use the pool in the afternoon, who usually want to tell me more than I want to know.)

Anyway, the sequence of events-flap, tub, shower, dress-was timed down to the last second, because from there I had a doctor’s appointment. It was at one of those offices where they have that snooty sign in the receptionist’s window (the kind that slide closed so you can’t hear that they’re talking about you) that if you are more than a minute late for your appointment you “may be rescheduled,” and if you’re a no-show, you’ll be charged a $25.00 fee. Come on. When has a doctor ever been on time for our appointment? Do you see me asking to be rescheduled? Do you see me asking for my co-payment back? No. I’m pacing around in a paper smock and bare feet. (Always a hit with the other people in the waiting room.)

So I’ve tubbed, I’ve showered, I rush into the dressing room, and there’s an older woman who is also wrapped in a towel. She’s having a chat with Fran, the wonderful, big-hearted woman who cleans the place, but I kind of look upon her as the housemother of the ladies’ locker room.

During this conversation, the woman says that she’s going to Hawaii to give a talk about her book.

“You wrote a book?” Fran asks, and my ears perk up. For those of you who don’t know me, I write books. Most of which are romantic comedies. All of which are unpublished.

“What kind?” I ask.

“It’s about end of life issues,” she says. She also says that she writes a column on personal health.

I tell her I do, too, and then I ask her name.

It’s Jane Brody. Holy freakin’ shit. I am at the Y with Jane Brody.

For those who don’t know, Jane Brody has authored many books about health and nutrition, and she is a pioneer in her field. One of her cookbooks (extremely well-worn) is sitting on my kitchen counter. And the column she writes is in the New York Times. And I’ve been reading her work for decades.

And…damn. I’m chatting away with Jane Brody and I’m supposed to be at the doctor’s office in five minutes.

And…she’s a lovely woman, and smart, and witty. And she says I should contact her publicist about promoting her book on my web site.

Why do you always run into famous people when you’re late for an appointment?

I don’t know. I guess it’s just one of life’s little jokes.

What Can Brown Do For You?

2009-02-07T15:22:00.002-05:00

I had to ship something last week, and stopped by the handy UPS store in town. The clerk was already waiting on a customer, who had, when I walked in, been chewing the clerk's ear off with a long, rambling story about what he was shipping and why he had to ship it, and why it had to be at its destination in a certain time frame and what would happen if it wasn't. I missed the beginning (damn, I hate when I miss the beginning!), but I'm sure it had something to do with what the guy had for breakfast and what color socks he was wearing.

Luckily the box I had to ship was very light.

When the guy finally reached his conclusion (I had tuned out somewhere between the package's destination and the consequences if not reached), the ever-patient clerk beckoned me forward.

After the door closed behind Mr. My-Wife-Probably-Doesn't-Listen-To-Me-Anymore, I said to the clerk, "You must hear a lot of interesting stories."

Yes, he said, he did.

I asked him what was the strangest thing he ever shipped. He smiled.

"Someone wanted to ship a body," he said.

I assumed it was a dead one. "Uh...the body? Or was it cremated?"

"Cremated," he said. "But we couldn't do it because we couldn't take the liability if it got lost."

"So Aunt Sylvia could be sitting around in some warehouse somewhere?"

He nodded. "There was also a human skull, once. A guy wanted it shipped to a museum."

(insert your own head joke here)

He also said someone wanted a Picasso shipped. And a frozen cat. And, he said, grinning like he was saving the best one for last, a turtle. A live one.

I wasn't sure why he thought this one was the most interesting. What I wanted was the back story on the frozen cat.

He didn't know. He just ships stuff; he doesn't ask why.

But I'm sure if that guy ahead of me was shipping a frozen cat, we would have known.

Dirt. It’s What’s For Dinner?

2009-02-04T16:44:00.002-05:00

While I do wash my hands before I eat (and at other appropriate points during the day), I worry that many of us have become freakishly hygiene-paranoid. All that Purell can’t be doing us any good. And it leads to conversations like this one, which I overheard last night between a mother and her son (who looked to be about six or so), as I followed them out of a mall exit...

(read rest of article here)

A Little Wisdom From A Wise Soul

2009-02-02T15:26:00.000-05:00

Lately, when faced with a dilemma, I ask myself that eternal question—not “what would Jesus do?” but “what would George do?”

That’s George Carlin, I mean.

And I think in these troubled times, his wisdom might be just what we need. For instance, what to do about our dwindling fossil fuel supply.

We humans, we find something, and we use it up as fast as possible. That’s just our nature. ‘Cause the cavemen, they didn’t know that another mastodon was just around the corner. They thought that was the only one they’d ever see, and the only food they’d ever catch. So they stuffed themselves silly, and hoped that would last them as long as possible.

They just didn’t know.

We’re still like that. People came to America, they were heating things up with wood and fire. Then one day someone dug a hole in the ground, and found this black stuff they called “coal,” and said, “Screw the wood, look at this stuff! It burns a lot longer! And so what, it smells bad. So do you!”

And then we went about digging up all the coal. So what if people were dying from diseases, we didn’t live that long, anyway. And most of the people we sent down into the planet to get the coal up were poor, anyway, and the people with money didn’t give a shit about them. So they sent a canary in. Those poor little birds, they were being slaughtered by the thousands because nobody had invented a carbon monoxide detector yet. Bet God is pissed about the canaries. He kind of liked them, too, they were so pretty and had their little songs.

So one day, some dude out west digs a hole a little deeper and this black stuff starts gushing out all over him. “Oh, shit,” he must have thought. “I made the earth bleed!” But then later on someone figured out that this goo worked better than that crappy coal and you could make more stuff out of it, too! All kinds of fuel! And then we could have tons more technological junk. That led to cars, and trucks, and while there was less coal dust in the cities, it led to other problems.

‘Cause being stupid little humans, we got greedy. We tried to use up all that oil as fast as possible. Now people are telling us, “We must conserve! We have to find other things that burn besides oil!”

And we cringed. Some people were good about it. They bought hybrids, they put solar panels on their roofs, they turned the thermostat down and wore sweaters, like Jimmy Carter.

You know, in a lot of ways, it’s like shampoo. You get a new bottle and you think, “Hot damn, I’m all set here! I got a lot of shampoo! I can use as much as I want!” So you pour out a big glob. You mush it all over your head. You even lather, rinse and repeat.

Until…you pick up the bottle one day and notice that it’s starting to run out. “Oh, shit,” you think. So you start using a smaller glob. You don’t rinse and repeat. Then…now admit it, you all do this…you put a little water in the bottle, so you can get more out of it. And then when that’s gone, you start using other people’s shampoos…your spouse’s, your kids’…when you’re desperate enough, you’ll use the dog’s. Or you’ll start washing your hair every other day.

Finally you break down and get a new bottle. “I’m all set!” you think, all smug and happy. Then you pour out a big glob, you lather, rinse, and repeat…

But what if you go out to your drug store they’ve run out of shampoo?

“Sorry,” the manager says.

“Nothing?” you ask. “No Prell, no Pantene? Not even any of that Fructis stuff?”

“All out,” he says.

“Not even baby shampoo?”

The manager shrugs. “We used it all up.”

This puzzles you. “We…used it all up? How is that possible? Can’t we just make more? This is America, for God’s sake…”

“I’m afraid we’ve run out…” Then he smiles. “We’re working on some alternative forms of hair care products…might I suggest in the interim you use soap? You might even be eligible for a tax credit.”

Damn. I knew I should have skipped that “lather, rinse and repeat part.” You sigh. “Fine. Give me the application.”

Athletic Club Faux Pas

2009-01-28T16:50:00.002-05:00

I've started taking Aqua Jogging classes at the Y. It's lots of fun (the classes, not the Y as much), and it's helping to improve my strength and endurance.

But, as in any public place where people take their clothes off, some of the patrons can be a little...let's say...eccentric.

Like this one lady. I had just finished my swim and was walking from the pool's entrance to the hot tub through the narrow walkway between the shallow end and the wall. The width is about two feet of slippery tile. But smack in the middle of the walkway is this gigamundo red gym bag. Not the usual gigamundo size of the ones used by the aerobic queens; this looked like something that minor league ball players took on road trips. And I'd just watched her shove it there (she'd popped up from her lane, gotten something out of it, then pushed it--not quite far enough to clear the walkway, but leaving it smack in the middle.) I made my way around it, but by that time, she was halfway through her lap back to the deep end.

Then I nearly trip on the bag on my way back. She is still in the pool.

Then (and I have no idea how she did this; perhaps she's a witch, or has the superpower to turn back time...or to make her magic bag expand to annoying proportions when in the proximity of others) I went back to the locker room to shower, and started for my favorite stall, when I saw her bag inside of it. The bag was there, but she wasn't. Now, I've done a bit of shower-hogging (some days you just need to marinate a little longer) but I've never done it during prime time hours, and I've NEVER done it to "save" the shower stall while I., say, go to use the sauna. That's just rude.

I find another, and when I'm done, I nearly trip over the bag again...she's left on the floor, blocking the corridor to the changing room. I've had enough by this point.

"Listen," I said. "I've nearly tripped over that bag at least three times since I've been here..."

And she just throws up her hands, giving me this look that says, "my life is totally out of my control." She shoves it out of the way with her foot and apologizes. "Sorry," she says. "And I'm a really bad driver, too."

I gave her a ten minute head start before I left the parking lot.

So if you happen to see a skinny chick with a mound of gray hair driving a car with a big-ass athletic bag hanging out the back of it, make sure you give her lots of room.

Time to Come out

2009-01-26T14:14:00.002-05:00

Okay, it's time. Since I'm all over the web anyway, does it really matter that I've been using this site under an alias? Not that anybody's been reading it since I seem to have abandoned it for my other life (those of you who have abandonment issues are instructed to call the therapist of their choice) but it's time to return. I want to keep this site as a place to write about topics besides medical studies and fitness tips. Because, you know, sometimes I just want to make fun of stuff. And so far, I haven't found anybody who's willing to pay me for that.

For instance. This governor of Illinois. I've never watched "The View" before, but I heard that Blago was going to be on, with his hair if not his wife by his side (she was advised by family members not to appear because her father would rip him in two if given the chance over some business deal). I wanted to tune in, you know, the way people watch NASCAR for the accidents. How surreal was this experience? His impeachment trial is going on in Illinois without him, while he's parading his personal PR campaign all over network television. It reminded me of that day when we all watched OJ Simpson's slow-motion car chase.

So here he is, ostensibly appearing on television to make his case before the American public (who really have no power over this situation) by -- now, this is a truly brilliant spin, one that I'm sure will be studied for years to come -- by not answering any of Barbara Walters' questions. Yes, all you future white collar criminals and corrupt politicians out there, study this guy and study him well. Now, Barbara has tangled with the best of them, and I think his interview politicians as far back as, I don't know I think FDR or something, and she couldn't squeeze one ounce out of him (personally, I think she should have started with his hair). She continually gave him every window to to defend himself to the public, every possible opportunity to explain his side of the story, and all he did was deflect, deflect, deflect.

Screw politics. He should go into acting. He'd get the Oscar nod for sure.

My Heart Is Full

2009-01-20T11:05:00.003-05:00

I have been watching the preamble to the Inauguration streaming live on MSNBC, and I find it hard to find the words to describe how I feel. I'm moved by the faces in the crowd, the joy, the wonder. The ocean of people who have come from such great distances and at such personal sacrifice to stand in the bitter cold and be part of history.

As the pagentry of the arriving dignitaries proceeds, what strikes me is how people who rip each other apart on Sunday talk shows, and on the floor of congress, and during political campaigns could come together and be part of something so much bigger than their petty disagreements.

As someone who volunteered (in my small way) for Obama's campaign, I feel that for every letter I wrote, every email I sent, for every potential vote (I hope) I changed, that I am also part of this.

As someone who doesn't always appreciate the actions of our government, I am awed at how smooth our change of power is. I am awed that the system works. When other countries change leaders through war and through military coup and through assassination, we simply have two men (and one day, hopefully, a woman) having coffee in the Blue Room, and then one quietly moves out while the new leader moves in.

Whatever you think of our democracy, at the very nut of it, it works. It works.

And tomorrow morning, our first African-American president will go to work. He has a cool exterior, but I wonder if somewhere, on the inside, he's quietly freaking out at the daunting task that lays before him.

I know I would be.

I wish him all the best. I wish him strength, and peace, and the good counsel of his advisors.

And, in my own way, I'm praying for all of us.

Now I'm going to go watch our 44th president be sworn in and give us his first official words as the "leader of the free world" on the big TV.

Have a great day.

Happy Hanumas!

2008-12-24T18:34:00.001-05:00

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I Guess I Finally Arrived!

2008-10-24T17:21:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I got my very first hate mail. I don't know where this yahoo got my e-mail address, but there it was: a nastygram raving about my "liberal brainwashing," and how if I knew Obama's real past, watched the YouTube video that he attached, and started listening to (sic) Russ Limbaugh, then I'd be singing a different tune.

I told Husband about this, and he smiled and said, "that's a good thing! That means that people are reading you."

This emboldened me to reply to the sucker. My exact words were: "You know nothing about me so you have no right to speak to me about 'listening to the liberal press all these years.' And if you're going to spout your hero's hate speech talking points, then at least spell his name right." And I promptly checked the "junk" button on his e-mail.

I fully expected never to hear from him again, but there he was two days later, in my junk folder. And there was another video, and again, I did not watch. He wrote that I sounded like an intelligent person, so after he sent this last video, he wouldn't be bothering me again.

So does that mean if I were not an intelligent person I would be more susceptible to his slime?

My Own “Bridge to Nowhere”

2008-10-12T17:48:00.001-04:00

Most of you know by now that about 3 ½ years ago, I injured my back. This was complicated by a severe fibromyalgia flare-up and other things that ultimately left me with a lot less physical function than I had before.

Or so I talked myself into believing.

Because many of the professionals on my health care team told me that I should be able to do all these things. On the physical therapist’s table, I had full range of motion. But once I stood up and gravity took hold, I could not bend forward far enough to touch the bottoms of my kneecaps. Aside from an unusual amount of tightness in my muscles and tendons, I was told that I was within the range of normal.

Normal? I didn’t think there was anything normal about me. Every time I tried to do something “normal,” like unload the dishwasher, make a bed, climb a hill, squat down to pick up a ball or look into a child’s eyes, or even kneel long enough to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer, I would pay the price of days of soreness, or a trip to the chiropractor or a spin on the physical therapist’s table.

And after trying enough of these things – and failing – a mindset solidified, that I’d never be able to do the normal activities that I hadn’t thought twice about before.

Some of you may also know that I live on a hilly road, in a house with a very steep driveway. And since hills were one of my imagined enemies, if I wanted to go for a walk – or even visit a neighbor, something that I had missed for a long time – I had to get in the car. That driveway became such a barrier between me and the rest of the world. I had become its prisoner; like a sort of Grimm fairy tale princess trapped in a tower of her own making.

I didn’t get to write about my first steps into the sunshine last weekend. It got all twisted up with all the other things that we were doing, and plus, I made my first foray out with my husband beside me. This doesn’t diminish the profundity of it one bit – but having him accompany me didn’t feel like I was doing it for the right reasons.

But today, I ventured out on my own. I, alone and unprodded, took the halting steps down the steep grade of our asphalt driveway, already covered with leaves. I felt the mild strain in my quadriceps as I worked to keep myself from falling forward. When I got to the bottom, I was bathed in full, late afternoon sunshine. As I turned left to make the trek to the very top of the hill and the very end of the road, I was a little bit frightened, especially as the hill grew steeper and I had to work harder. My heart was pounding – with the effort, and with fear – and I could feel my back muscles working, and stretching, and I could feel the tight fibers in my hamstrings and the backs of my knees being plucked like a cello.

But I kept walking.

I had hoped some of my neighbors would be home. Sometimes, when we drive by, or walk by, a few of them are out tending to their yards or visiting other neighbors, and I hoped for the distraction and camaraderie of them, cheering me along as if I were a marathon runner pushing through the wall toward the finish line. But nobody was around. I had to be my own cheerleader.

So I kept going, noting that the water level of one neighbor’s pond was low, wondering why another neighbor’s dog was always outside and in the road even when they weren’t home. Anything to keep me distracted from the one last, big hill I had to climb to get to the flat part of the road near the end. As the hill leveled off, I was back in full sunshine again, the light soft and warm against my face. Acorns popped as they hailed down on sheds and gazebos.

Finally, I reached the dead end, and the fence that separates the road from the huge, rolling meadow where one of my neighbors keeps her horses. I paused, looking through the fence, hoping the horses would come around to see if I brought any apples. But no, they were too content with nibbling on the grass in the sunshine to even notice that I was there. I felt like without having at least them as my witnesses, that none of it was real, that no one would know that I had escaped from my tower and fled the kingdom.

All my husband knew was that I told him I was going for a walk, and then opened the door. How would he truly know that I’d picked up the hem of my gown and waded through the moat and escaped?

But I’d know. I knew it, as I walked home, absorbing the beauty of the fire-tinged trees against a backdrop of unbroken blue. I knew that I’d be able to walk out the door and down the driveway anytime I wanted. To visit a neighbor, to get some fresh air, or to simply get the mail. I was free.

I’ll probably be a little bit sore tomorrow, like I was last weekend. But people who know such things have assured me that each time I do it, it will hurt a little bit less. And I hope that soon, I’ll start believing them.

Some interesting viewing

2008-10-07T12:40:00.002-04:00

Want to know more about the Keating 5 case the Obama campaign has been bringing up, and why it says so much about the character of John McCain?

A Heartbeat Away...

2008-10-02T17:59:00.001-04:00

I could watch this again and again and again... ;)

Joe Biden Practices for Debate

2008-09-29T18:04:00.001-04:00

To paraphrase the words of the late Governor Anne Richards, “Poor Joe. It’s not his fault; he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

So today, in what can only be assumed as an attempt to rid his extemporaneous speaking style of embarrassing flubs, Senator Joe Biden announced that he is sequestering himself in Delaware in preparation for the first and only vice presidential debate on Thursday night.

Unbeknownst to the Senator and his crack security squad, our tenacious, yet uncredentialed RFG reporters snuck a tiny video camera into his “war room,” because, well, we were just so darn curious about what was going on and how he was going to avoid sticking his foot in it once again.

We would’ve loved to bring you full video and audio coverage, but we were advised not to do so by copyright law, our fussbudget lawyers, and some stupid “cease and desist” order that we got from the Biden campaign.

So, we hope that this play-by-play analysis will suffice. And just a quick word to our readers who may be concerned about animal cruelty: no actual bugs or senators were harmed during the creation of this broadcast.

Often you will hear that candidates assign somebody to be their “practice dummy,” or, as they are usually called, debating surrogates. This way the candidate will have someone similar to the abilities of the person they will be facing so they can work the bugs out of their debating style. (Good thing for me that they haven’t worked the bugs out of the war room.)

And what we have found out is that--yes, it’s true, you heard it here first--that the Biden campaign has hired – yes, we’ve confirm the identity – none other than Tina Fey to play Sarah Palin. No doubt Ms. Fey was hired based on her striking appearance to the governor from Alaska as well as a certain performance that she put on for a recent episode of “Saturday Night Live.”

Is this a gauge of how worried the Biden campaign is about facing the actual Governor on Thursday?

That remains to be seen. It could be that Ms. Fey was hired to give Senator Biden a more realistic sparring partner. Or, she simply had a break in her “30 Rock” taping schedule this week and is so enamored of the Obama campaign that she volunteered her services.

At this point, we don’t know. Calls to Ms. Fey’s personal assistant, despite how many times we begged and pleaded on her voicemail, were not returned in time for this broadcast.

But here’s some of what our camera (and teeny tiny microphone) was able to pick up:

Tina Fey: (sounding frustrated, in an Alaskan accent) Senator, we talked about where your eyes are supposed to be.

Joe Biden: (voice barely audible, pounding a fist into his own forehead) Don’t look at her breasts. Don’t look at her breasts. Don’t look at her breasts. Okay, Tina. I think I’ve got it now.

Tina Fey: (straightening out her jacket and low-cut blouse, and smiling) All righty then. But Senator, try to remember to call me Governor Palin. We’re shooting for realism. So let’s get this puppy on the road. (She clears her throat) Shoot us a question, there, David.

David Axelrod (Senator Obama’s campaign director): All right, but we need to take a break soon. (Looking at his watch.) McCain’s due to come out with another one of those attack ads taking credit for the Wall Street bailout plan and we gotta fight back with a statement. So let’s do it. (Reads from an index card in his hand) Some in the news have been debating whether the office of Vice President even matters anymore. Can each of you tell me, and our audience here and at home, what you personally bring to the ticket and how you plan to be involved with the administration if elected?

Joe Biden: (gesturing to Tina Fey) Ladies first.

Tina Fey: Now, you see, that’s just the kind of sexist, old boy network thinking we’re trying to change here in Washington--

Joe Biden: Oh, crap. (Turns to Axelrod) I shouldn’t say that, right?

David Axelrod: (rolls his eyes, looks exasperated) No. For God’s sake. Didn’t you learn anything from that tape we showed you of the Rick Lazio debate?

Joe Biden: But I was raised to think that that was a polite way to treat a woman –

David Axelrod: Stop thinking of her as a woman, Joe! You even said it yourself— that you planned to debate her like you would any of your other colleagues in the Senate.

Joe Biden: Oh, right. I said that. Right after that thing about hating one of Barack’s ads.

David Axelrod: And right before the thing about Roosevelt being president when the stock market crashed.

Joe Biden: He wasn’t? Oh – right. It was the other Roosevelt. Damn. I always get those two mixed up.

Tina Fey: Can we get this going, guys? I’m due on the set, like, tomorrow. And please stop looking at my chest. Eyes up here, dude. Focus. Cripes.

Joe Biden: All right. So why don’t you just start first? Give me something to react to.

Tina Fey: (reading from her script) Well, of course the role of vice president of the United States is extremely important given the dangerous state of the world today, Bob. Otherwise, why would John McCain – who is, by the way, the only man short of Jesus Christ himself who can bring real change to Washington, and give me a couple days, I’ll bring ya back a few examples of exactly what he did – choose me, a simple hockey mom, to be his running mate?

David Axelrod: Senator Biden? Two minutes for your response.

Joe Biden: Well, Bob, even though some important guy a long time ago once said that the job of vice president isn’t worth a warm bucket of shit –

David Axelrod: That’s spit, Joe.

Joe Biden: Sorry. I knew that. I’m just – I keep finding myself distracted by her breasts.

Tina Fey: (sounding indignant) I am a nursing mother, Joe. It’s a normal human function. I even fed little Tumbleweed here while I was riding on the back of the moose, since I sold my SUV in order to give the good citizens of Alaska a check for $.03 for every man woman and child.

Joe Biden: Yeah, but -- they’re – enormous – and did she just unbutton another button on her blouse? Dave, is that a legal debating tactic?

David Axelrod: Just a way to see how you react under pressure, Joe. Tina, you can button up now.

Joe Biden: So how come she can do that and I can’t unzip my trousers or something? Isn’t that sexist?

Tina Fey: (pointing a finger toward Biden) He’s harassing me! He’s harassing me! I don’t have to stand here and take this! Listen here, mister. I can take down a bear and I can take you down so don’t go tryin’ nothin’.

Joe Biden: David, I see your point about my not treating her like a woman. Okay, let me see if I have this right. If she’s not a woman, she doesn’t have any breasts for me to stare at. I should treat her just like any other guy on the floor of the Senate. (He grins) That means I should treat her just like Hillary, right?

Tina Fey: Sexist! Sexist!

Joe Biden: It was just a joke. Geez, I thought you comedy people had a sense of humor. Even Hill would have laughed at that one.

Tina Fey: David, is it too late to ask Hillary if she’s got anything planned for the next, oh, four or eight years?

David Axelrod (shaking his head): Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.

Joe Biden: Come on, give me another chance. I was just having some fun with you guys, it’s been so darn serious around here. I know what to do. Just run the words through my brain first before I let them come out of my mouth.

Tina Fey: By George, I think he’s got it!

Joe Biden: So, David, anything I should know about this George guy?

Chicken Soup for the Nostalgic Soul

2008-09-21T16:15:00.001-04:00

Husband went out of town this weekend. As fate would have it, the day he left, I woke up with the scratchy yuck that for me, always signals the beginnings of a cold. So when my husband called to check in, he asked how I felt, and reminded me that there were a few cans of soup in the pantry.

Sensitive to almost every food group and a bit of a culinary snob since going organic a couple of years ago, I tell him, “That’s not soup.”

He had no other suggestions for me.

What I longed for – well, most of you married ladies know what I’m talking about, and if you don’t, I hate you (just kidding) – and what I didn’t get, was comfort. I wanted someone to whine to about my stuffy nose and my stuffy head and say, “I’m sorry, sweetie. Let me get you some soup.”

And I don’t mean soup in a can.

I wanted the real stuff. I wanted the stuff that my grandfather taught me how to make. Although I’m not religiously practicing (I could never get it right, and I figured that all my practicing was for naught, so I quit), I come from the Jewish tradition. For the most part, the Jewish tradition does not come with recipes. At least those that are written down. It goes like this:

One day my grandfather said, “Ya wanna know how to make chicken soup? I’ll tell ya how to make chicken soup.”

I perked up and listened. He was a short order cook and used to run a restaurant. I figured that he knew from chicken soup.

My grandfather held both work-hardened hands out in front of him, elbows bent, palms pointing toward each other with the fingers slightly cupped, like he was holding something, oh, vaguely chicken-sized. “Ya take a nice chicken…”

In addition to having been a short order cook and running a restaurant, my grandfather also used to run a chicken farm. Not only did I figure that he knew from chicken soup, I was betting that he knew a thing or two from chickens.

“Ya put it in a pot. Throw in some water, a little onion, a little carrot, a little salt, boil it for a while, and there you are. Chicken soup.”

I knew not to bother asking him how I’d know when it was ready. Because the answer would be, “Ya cook it until it’s done.”

From my own mother, I would get more practical answers. Things like: when the meat falls away from the bone; or until it’s no longer pink in the middle; or, the one that perplexed me the most, which was probably inherited from her own mother, that it will just “look right.”

My mother is a fabulous cook. She starts with a recipe, and then improvises, based on her particular preferences, and what she happens to have in the house. I have literally seen her make a gourmet meal with a few limp scallions, a can of tuna, and some old croutons. She kept her extravagance to a minimum while she was raising three children on a tight budget and deferring to my father’s high blood pressure. But after their divorce, she unleashed her inner Julia Child.

Now everything starts with butter. A pound or more if it’s for a crowd. (I lose count of how many pounds she uses at Thanksgiving.) If it’s dinner, she adds meat, garlic and onions. If it’s dessert, she adds sugar and chocolate.

While Husband tells me otherwise (I must have trained him well), I don’t think I inherited my mother’s or even my grandfather’s cooking gene. I don’t know what I was thinking when I was toddling around the kitchen, watching her. Maybe I was daydreaming about the books I would write one day. Maybe I was just daydreaming in general – memorizing the pattern of the wallpaper, and the way the light shone through her collection of glass roosters on the window shelves.

Or maybe Husband was just being polite. I know how to do the basics, like boiling an egg, making an omelet, preparing dinner so the main dish and the sides are all done at the same time. I have a few signature dishes that I learned how to make, but these were from recipes I’ve culled from magazines over the years, and then made them so many times that I’ve memorized them.

But day-to-day cooking? As far as my likes and dislikes, that ranks somewhere between a gynecological exam and doing our taxes. Meanwhile, my husband, usually a good sport about having to forage through the refrigerator for dinner, often would slip in small comments about the dishes that he loved so much from his childhood.

I love those dishes too. His mother would make them for us when we came to visit. And since she passed away in January, I’ve been feeling especially nostalgic, among other things, for her cooking.

“Have her come over one day,” Husband said, a few years back. “You could learn how to cook more stuff, and she’ll feel really good about helping you.”

Yeah. And in no way would he benefit from this at all.

One of his favorite meals was her chicken soup. When she first made it for me, I expected that it would be just like my grandfather’s. But no – there was a twist. Yes, it started with what I assumed was a nice chicken. But hers had parsnips, and tons of dill.

Wait a minute. Parsnips?

This is the thing about families, and what I learned the first time I ever ate dinner at a friend’s house when I was a child. Everybody does things differently. Not every family had food made from scratch. Not every family had tossed salad with dinner. Not every family had whole wheat bread, instead of the kind that came in the plastic wrap with polka dots all over it.

And not every family made chicken soup the way ours did.

My mother-in-law served hers buffet-style. The broth ladled from one bowl, pieces of boiled chicken plucked from another, plus – another surprise -- both matzoh balls and egg noodles. My mother wouldn’t have gone for that – two starches at one meal? Never. And would my grandmother ever serve both matzoh balls and egg noodles? Not on your kishkes! It was matzoh balls or it was nothing.

So I already knew that my mother-in-law’s chicken soup would be a little different. And when I called her to ask if she would come over and show me how to make it, she was delighted. I carefully made note of all the ingredients she asked me to buy. And, as I suspected, it began with a nice chicken. She was easily half the size of my barrel-chested grandfather, but I can still imagine her, on her end of the phone conversation, making the same kind of gesture.

Was this the universal Jewish symbol for “chicken?”

One day, I’ll have to ask my rabbi. If I can remember his name.

So she came over. We put a nice chicken up to boil in a pot of water. And then we waited, watching it like an egg that was about to hatch.

Like a little Jewish Yoda, she stood by me, leaning on her cane. Watching and correcting, while I skimmed off shiny globules of fat and deposited them in an old tin can. She went out for a smoke. We added a little onion, some carrots, parsnips, a couple of stalks of celery, a ton of dill, a bit of salt, then started on the matzoh balls.

All in all, it had been a good day. It was a challenge, but we figured out how to make a giant pot of soup, fluffy matzoh balls, and egg noodles, all on my two-burner stove. And the crowd went wild.

Since this first tutorial, I’ve learned how to make her lasagna, her spaghetti sauce, and her brisket. I’ve made her soup a few times on my own, but because of my lousy memory, I committed a sin against Jewish oral tradition and wrote down the recipe as we went along.

Which was a good thing. Because several years later, with my throat scratchy and Husband out of town, I bundled myself up, and went out to buy myself a nice chicken.

I made my own comfort. And in this case, four quarts of it.

My mother tells me it freezes quite well.

The Silly Season

2008-09-17T16:09:00.001-04:00

The largest lending institutions in America are failing. Wall Street is going crazy. I can’t even take out a loan to put gas in my car, and what do the media report concerning the two presidential candidates?

Lipstick on pigs. Hollywood fundraisers. And Lindsay freakin’ Lohan.

Come on, now.

Since when are the blatherings of addled-brained celebrities – lifted from their blogs, yet – considered newsworthy? Sure, it gives people like me something to do, but I never claimed I was a journalist.

Aside from all the financial stuff that makes my head hurt, let’s look at this presidential election. Forget the lipstick. Forget Barbra Streisand. Forget even the history-making demographics of both tickets. Let’s look at what these campaigns have done to get people younger than – say, my age – excited about politics.

It started with Barack Obama. Legions of younger people flocked to his website to make their $25 donations. Armies of them gathered in towns across America making plans and contributing to the platform, in one of the greatest get-out-the-vote efforts ever seen. Having briefly been a soldier in this Army, I can tell you that the organization rivals any small- or medium-sized company I have ever worked for. These are all volunteer positions, and each one has a full job description and accountabilities. The depth and spread of this grassroots movement is astounding. I don’t know the exact statistics, but I’m willing to bet you that between the Democrats and the Republicans (excited by the “new car” smell of the Governor from Alaska) that for this election, more people have registered to vote than for any other presidential contest ever.

We are standing with our toes wrapped around the precipice of history, and many of these young people are voting for the very first time. What an example we as a nation could set for these eager, newly-legal citizens! We can show them, as Senator Obama said in the “Forum for Service” on September 11, that government can be “cool” again. We can show them why it’s good to give back to your community, and the intrinsic rewards you get from that. We can show them that political contests can be conducted without rancor, and with grace, and with dignity.

We are not doing a very good job. We are showing these brand-new voters the dirtiest of our dirty laundry. We’re doing the equivalent of taking them into the bowels of a shiny, architecturally brilliant new building and showing them how the furnace works. Or, more accurately, how it doesn’t work, because the contract went to the lowest bidder, and there’s no money in the budget to get it fixed.

We’re telling them, “Forget about your youthful ideals – nothing is ever going to change, so why even bother trying?”

We are raising a new generation to argue about idiotic metaphors and subtle innuendo and frankly stupid off-the-cuff comments.

Our slips are showing.

So before we essentially tell these kids that the voter registration cards that they’ve filled out are no better than toilet paper, can we please elevate the conversation and get back to the things that really matter?

Like, how is Cloris Leachman going to do on Dancing with the Stars?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Television Correspondent Washed out to Sea… I Wish

2008-09-15T17:04:00.001-04:00

I have never been a big fan of Geraldo Rivera. When he was a young reporter way back in the 70s on WABC-TV news, he annoyed the heck out of me with his breathless reportage. “Chill out,” I'd think. Just calm down and tell me what happened. Then he took this whole bizarre turn into sensationalistic journalism. Then he annoyed the heck out of me with overwrought, tawdry accounts of the life of Charles Manson. A few years later, he annoyed the heck out of me with that whole Al Capone’s vault escapade. Weeks and weeks of hype, while we sat on the edges of our seats waiting for him to dig through layers and layers of nothing just to find even more layers of… nothing.

Now, the only time I see him on the air (he is on that network that I currently refuse to watch, except for notable events like this) is when he is deployed, along with the other poor schmucks, to some quivering piece of coastline where a hurricane is about to make landfall. Usually, he is in front of a levee, or a sea wall, or on a beach. The wind is beating up his normally perfect hair. One manly hand is grasping onto something because he can barely stand up straight.

And he’s loving every minute of it.

And, apparently he thinks that we’re supposed to be loving it, too.

But do we? Do Americans, jaded by an excess of popular culture, get excited by the prospect of someone putting himself (or herself) in mortal danger?

All you have to do is watch the ratings for shows like “Fear Factor” and its many copycats (The latest is the current phenomenon, “Toughest Jobs in America”) to know that the answer is a definite “yes.”

This is an odd phenomenon in our society. I think the Weather Channel started it all. Whenever some evil nasty from the sky was about to strike, they’d bundle up one of their reporters (often someone without much seniority) in conspicuously name-branded outerwear (usually a company that was one of their larger advertisers). They’d lash these intrepid young lads or lassies to something vertical while the blizzard, the tornado, the hurricane, or whatever Mother Nature could dish out pounded them, just so you, warm and toasty at home and curled up on your couch eating chips out of the bag, would know just what it was like to be out there firsthand.

I felt sorry for these poor people. This is the age of video recorders in ATM machines, of tiny spy cameras wired up at red lights to catch lawbreakers, and miniature cameras in our laptops. For Pete’s sake, couldn’t we just mount some kind of weather-proof camera atop a building or on a bridge and get a good look at what it’s doing outside without somebody risking their life to show you that it’s snowing?

But then I think that other networks started having weather envy. Why should the Weather Channel get all the points for bravado? Why should they be allowed to have the equivalent of broadcast orgasms every time a big storm comes along?

Then came Geraldo Rivera. Manly and fearless, his hair sprayed into a tousled mane. The hairs of his mustache combed perfectly straight and his eyeglasses shining with righteousness, standing with his bulging arms akimbo atop a sea wall like some Hemingway-esque hero. With no care for his own safety, mind you, and wearing his own conspicuously name-branded outer apparel, just to bring you, the viewer, the real news as it is happening!

Now, I am not making light of the seriousness of hurricanes. My heart goes out to all the people who lost loved ones or were displaced from their homes during not just Katrina but all of the storms that ravaged this country and others.

And I have no desire to see Geraldo Rivera nor any other news personality harmed by any idiotic event they might try to cover.

But I’m so sick of watching this guy jump into the fray during every storm just so he can hang on to some tree, or dock post, or other kind of vertical handhold, his hair dripping, his eyes shining, just so we viewers at home can see how dangerous it is and how brave he is being.

What would we do without this macho stud on the air, risking his life to tell us that the wind speed is now up to a whopping 80 miles an hour? Without him there was a microphone, yelling out, “Oh, my God, there’s someone in the water! Somebody fell into the water!” Only to find out that the guy who “fell” into the water was in the Coast Guard and he was trying to secure something to a dock, not flailing for his life.

It disturbs me a little bit to discover this about myself, but every time a hurricane comes along and Geraldo is doing the report, I’m praying for the elements.

I’m hoping – well, I would never wish for anyone’s death or injury – but I’m hoping just once to see him get knocked over a sea wall and have to crawl his way back over, his mustache drooping, looking like a drowned rat. And I want to be able to see it over, and over, and over again.

Whoever invented TiVo deserves a medal.

Pressing the Wrong Buttons

2008-09-12T13:00:00.001-04:00

I am proud to belong to an online fibromyalgia discussion group. These people are terrific, and have offered me some great help, and I hope I’ve been able to help them too. They wear their religion on their sleeve, however. Mostly it doesn’t bother me – if prayer and faith in a higher power makes it easier for them to get through the day, then, hey, whatever works. Just don’t tell me that’s the way I have to run my life. Sometimes I envy them. When you wake up with your back aching (again) and cramps in your shoulders (again) and a wonking headache (again!), it must be really comforting to be able to throw that in someone else’s lap and go about your business.

But we’ve had some issues come up in the last month or so. And they all have had to do with seemingly random political rants suddenly showing up in our discussion threads. Several people get all huffy about it (myself included, most vociferously) and the post gets removed. And it happens again. The post gets removed, and the same people are warned. The person responsible pleads “fumble fingers,” that they pushed the wrong button and sent the wrong thing to the group by accident (we fibros are notorious for having foggy brains at times). The person apologizes, and is forgiven, as it is a forgiving sort of bunch. But when it happens over and over again, by the same person, it can hardly be called an accident. And then we are told by the group’s moderator that if it happens again, all members will be put on notice and all posts will need to be reviewed before being allowed into the discussion.

And I’m happy with that. For one, I’m in that group for fibromyalgia support, a little sympathy, an urge to help, and not much else. There are plenty of places where you can go to read all of the rants you want (my blog included!). For two, it was a rant that I strongly disagreed with. Yes, I’m biased, but at but least I’m admitting it.

And on that point of places where you can go to read all the rants you want, I happen to have started writing a few on a different website. As part of my shameless promotion, I forwarded the URL to a bunch of people in my address book that I felt would appreciate it.

The next day, I get flamed. One extremely huffy e-mail appears in my inbox. This woman, whose name I don’t immediately recognize, is deeply offended by what I had written and didn’t think this sort of thing should be allowed here. “Here?” I think, not yet comprehending the whole context of this complaint. “On the Web? In America?”

Then I look at the name of the woman who had forwarded the e-mail to my not-so-greatest fan.

It’s the moderator of my fibromyalgia discussion group.

My own fumble fingers had sent a liberal leaning attack on the right wing media to a bunch of (mostly wonderful) Bible thumping Republican Christian ladies.

Oops.

After a couple of humbly apologetic e-mails, I am let off the hook.

Then I notice that at the bottom of the new article I had written, was a comment from someone whose name I didn’t recognize that said she liked the article very much.

And shortly after the flurry of flame throwing and apologizing, I get an e-mail from said woman (who is also a member of the fibromyalgia group). And she wrote, “I don’t care what that woman said. I really liked this article. Republicans are just thin-skinned.”

My hero.

Another Roadside Attraction

2008-09-07T17:08:00.002-04:00

it's the little things in life that amuse me...

Because We Stand on the Shoulders of Others

2008-09-06T14:09:00.003-04:00

You may have heard this phrase before. Various sources attribute this either to Sir Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein, and the full quote is, “If I seem to see more [or appear taller] than other men, it is because I stand on the shoulders of others.” It has also been paraphrased by all stripes of people who credit their success to the struggles and sacrifices of those generations who came before them.

And I think many women have forgotten that it also applies to them. Particularly those who are making fun of Gloria Steinem, and the opinion piece she recently wrote about McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for Vice President. Some call Steinem an outdated icon of a bygone era, write her off as a shrill voice from the past, someone who no longer represents their ideals. They call themselves “post-feminists,” whatever that means. Particularly those women under 50, those who think it’s “no big deal” that they were able to play in Little League along with the boys. That they were able to go to the colleges of their choice. That they can hold professional jobs. That they can have children as well as careers, have careers and not have children, or have children and no professional career outside the home.

To many women over 50, it is a big deal. Some of them still think it is. In fact, when I was in high school, and casting my eye on colleges, my guidance counselor (who I’m certain belonged to the pre-Gloria Steinem era), discouraged me from applying to Colgate University, saying, “that’s a man’s school.”

I, the daughter of a feminist, didn’t understand that. Was it because they didn’t have female dorms? Didn’t have any ladies’ rooms? I didn’t remember reading anything in the four-color brochure about a “no women allowed” policy or that Colgate was a “he-man woman-haters club,” like Spanky and Alfalfa formed in the Little Rascals cartoons to keep Darla out. And I was valedictorian of the freaking class, for God sakes. It’s not like I didn’t have the grades To get into Colgate and she was trying to soften the blow (like that would have made it any softer.)

I’m hoping that this woman has either retired or changed her ways.

But this was so often the way with “women of a certain age.”

It’s true. If you don’t believe me, ask your mothers, your aunts, your grandmother – when they were newly minted young women, doing anything outside of what was considered “normal” was a big deal, or frankly, impossible. This meant that when you finished high school, you were expected to get married. If you didn’t have children right away, perhaps you would take on what was considered a “respectable” job for a young woman: secretary, teacher (elementary grades only), librarian, or nurse. And then, you were only expected to work until you gave birth to your first child. Then you stayed home with your children until they themselves left home or you overdosed on oven cleaner, whichever came first.

I once asked my mother in law, who passed away earlier this year from breast cancer at 67, why she married so young. She looked at me like I was crazy, and shrugged her shoulders. “That’s what you did,” she said. “That’s what you did back then. And if you didn’t,” she added, “you are considered… funny.”

And I don’t think she meant in the “ha ha” kind of way.

So those women who dismiss Gloria Steinem as a relic of a time long past, take a good look at how you got where you are: because you, and the women of your generation, are standing on her broad and strong shoulders. You were standing on the shoulders of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, of those “bluestocking” women who dared to go to work in the 30s and 40s, of women who were beaten and arrested for fighting to vote, of all the women who died from getting back alley abortions, and all the others who dared to break out of the mold that society had corseted them into – all because you were supported by the ones who dared to come first.

And if you forget that, remember what is said about those who don’t know history: they are doomed to repeat it.

I Just Can't Leave This One Alone...

2008-09-02T11:00:00.005-04:00

I believe that I said a while back that I wasn't going to get into politics.

I lied. Well, technically, I hadn't intended on lying. But this issue has gotten me a little riled up, and you lucky people get to be recipients of my ire.

I'm still stuck on John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for VP. Now, I'm going to leave her daughter out of it because, like Senator Obama has so poignantly said, everybody's children should be off limits. And I think everybody who hops on the Internet and thinks it would be a dandy place to unload their venom should back off, too. After all, it's only going to backfire.

But what's not off limits is Sarah Palin's behavior, her experience, her performance in her past offices, and how that reflects on John McCain's character for choosing her.

For one, I heard this morning on MSNBC that up until a few days before the VP pick was announced, McCain was going to go with Joe Lieberman, until an aide talked him out of it. I mean, come on. I'm not exactly a political maven, but I know that if you take a nonconservative presidential candidate and pair him with a nonconservative vice presidential candidate, then you are not going to make conservative voters very happy. And this, as recent history has shown, has been the base that has made the difference in the last two elections. It has been speculated that he wanted to go with Lieberman because he has a high regard for personal loyalty and wants to be around people he knows well and trusts. So, after being convinced to jettison Lieberman, McCain goes for a candidate that he has met only once, and has received the most cursory vetting process. I believe that in process must've gone something like this:

McCain aide: Ever been arrested?
Palin: Not yet, but my husband has been. DUI. But no one died, that we know about.
McCain aide: Okay, we can overlook that. Either you or your husband having an affair?
Palin: Not that I know of.
McCain aide: How do you feel about the second amendment?
Palin: Wanna see my gun?
McCain aide: Okay, you're in.

It is also being reported (On MSNBC but also on ABC's George Stephanopoulos' blog) that while Palin was mayor, she sucked up every possible earmark from Washington that she could. So much for her much-touted reputation for saving taxpayer money and not being part of the Washington lobbyists' machine.

Wonder if McCain knew about that one?

It is also being reported that while Palin was campaigning for governor, she was all for the "Bridge to Nowhere" project. And when she became governor, she was against it. Sounding familiar?

Now, this dance is on the edge of being personal, but this gives me pause about her ability to do her job and her judgment about her family. Please remember that a feminist is writing this, and I would expect what I'm about to say to apply to a mother or a father. That if you have given birth to a special-needs baby, I don't know that I would go back to work three days after the delivery. If I had a pregnant 17-year-old daughter, I would be a little wary of how I tossed around topics like teaching "abstinence only" in schools. I would also think about this daughter and think about the love and support she will need, and think very hard about taking on such a difficult and time-consuming position as Vice President of the United States. If I were a pregnant 17-year-old and my mother was in such a public position and my growing belly will be the object of everyone's opinion, regardless of any kind of oath the media might have taken to leave me out of it, I would be completely humiliated.

But that's just me.

After all, didn't we hear about poor brave Elizabeth Edwards and how even though she had inoperable and incurable breast cancer, she wanted her husband to go ahead with his campaign? And the media fell all over it. How could this man be so heartless, they said. How could this man run for the highest office in the land when his wife needed him at home? I should know, I was one of them.

In situations like this, the personal blends with the politics. And I don't think it's possible for the personal to be completely excised from the politics.

And let's look at the other side of the political coin. Oh, how the judgment rained down when it was learned that Senator Obama went to this particular church and listen to this particular pastor and didn't immediately renounce him, and how the judgment rained down when the media reported the most tangential association with the former 60s radical? And we argued in the media about what his personal life says about his potential political service, and nobody had a problem with that. Yes, he got a little ruffled when they went after his wife for making so-called "unpatriotic" comments. But that was considered fair game.

And now we're supposed to look the other way when a vice presidential candidate conducts her private life in a way that may influence her public service?

We had the same argument about Bill Clinton, back in the day, back in the day of blue dresses and Kenneth Starr. We talked about compartmentalization, and how it is possible for a man to have personal failings and yet still be a good leader. But the right saw it a completely different way. They couldn't separate the action from the person. And they said that anyone who cheats on his wife would cheat on the country.

And while I have reclaimed my original roots as a Democrat, I do believe that a person is a sum of their parts. And that you can't separate the person from the behavior, and the behavior speaks to personal integrity.

Integrity. We talk about it, we say that certain people haven't or don't have it or that such and such they said points to their personal integrity. But do we really mean it? And is it the same for the right as for the left?

Absolutely not. I've stepped away from my party of origin long enough to see the double standard -- that some behaviors that are tolerated and excused from Democrats are excoriated when performed by Republicans. And I guess that's just the way it works. I'm not going to change it. A politician who claims that he can reach across the aisle is not going to change it. Even having a third party is not going to change it.

I believe it's just the way of human nature. It comes from when we lived in caves. Everybody in your cave, and in your system of connected caves was okay. Everybody else was the enemy. And when religions began to sprout up, some believed they were more holy than others, more worthy of saving, had the moral high ground over everybody else.

So all I'm asking for is a little common sense. Being human is to judge. We select our leaders based not on an internal checklist of sorts, but by the sum of the whole. Do we like this person? Do they share our values? Do we think they have the judgment to lead? If they are in the White House, will I have more money in my wallet? And so on.

So while I can respect leaving the innocentd out of it, you can't expect me to separate a candidate's politics from their personal behavior.

Lost in Translation

2008-08-31T17:27:00.002-04:00

I am a year older than I was a couple of days ago, and to celebrate the start of another orbit around the sun, my father and stepmother took Husband and me out for dinner at a local Indian restaurant. We arrived to find the two of them already seated, the table sprinkled with glitter and little tiny "happy birthdays" cut out of blue and red foil, and against one wall, a bouquet of Gerbera daisies (my favorite flower -- take note, for future occasions). My stepmother said that they'd gotten there a little early so they could "set all these things up," but I didn't think much about that because we were all hugging and saying hello and getting settled at our table.

Dinner was excellent, and as we chatted, we passed different dishes around, each with varying degrees of hotness, quenching the fire with white rice and water (Husband commenting that beer would've been better, but the place didn't have a liquor license). At the end, my stepmother inquired of the young waiter our selections for dessert. He said, "We have rice pudding, mango ice cream, and honeyed cantaloupe." The mango ice cream sounded like the perfect follow-up for a spicy meal, and we ordered two dishes to be shared among the four of us.

When we told the waiter, he said, "Okay, but you won't be able to put the candles in the ice cream." And then he left.

Silence. Then my stepmother started chuckling to herself. "Well," she said, "I guess some things get lost in the translation."

Meaning, I guess they don't have too many surprise birthday parties at Indian restaurants, or at least at that one.

And when the waiter came with our ice cream, he handed the package of candles back to my stepmother, and she gave them to me. He was right, they wouldn't really have worked with the ice cream, because the candles were thin and squiggly and then probably would not have not stayed up very well.

They probably would've worked better with one of our appetizers, mashed potatoes and spices coated with chick pea flour and fried, but I guess there probably aren't too many birthday chapatis.

Still, we had fun, and now have a new story to add to the family almanac, which is already bursting at the seams. and so am I, after that meal.

But that's a good thing, because I'm finding that each new orbit has been requiring greater and greater amounts of energy, and as I push toward 50, I'm going to need all the strength I can get.

So pass the chicken vindaloo and get out of my way.

This Presidential Election Brought to You by the Acme Corporation

2008-08-29T15:52:00.002-04:00

I'm sure that most of you are old enough to remember Warner Bros. "Road Runner" cartoons. You know, the coyote does everything in his power to catch the Road Runner, but always fails, usually because he had ordered some defective product from the Acme Corporation. And sticking out his little tongue, the Road Runner zooms away, leaving the coyote a quivering pile of ash because something had exploded in his face.

The last few weeks of this presidential election have felt like one of those cartoons. With Obama as the coyote and McCain as the Road Runner. Every time Obama tries to get some headlines, there's that road runner McCain again, sticking out his tongue and running away. During the Democratic convention, McCain ran a series of attack ads, sticking his finger in Obama's over and over and over. He used Hillary's words against her, he used Obama's words against his, and the one time where he tried to look like a nice guy (on the eve of Obama's acceptance speech), running a spot where he claimed that it was Obama's night and congratulations on making history (and by the way, I'm still here) he still had away of sucking the oxygen out of the room.

And when the Democratic ticket was "supposed" to be enjoying a healthy post-convention bounce in the polls, McCain drops the bomb (after playing "Where's Waldo" with the press for most of the morning) with his selection of a running mate.

I couldn't immediately articulate how that made me feel, but NPR's Cokie Roberts summed it up best: "What an... odd choice."

One of the first things I thought was, "there goes McCain's entire argument that Senator Obama does not have enough experience." Even though McCain is in excellent health, and 72 is still considered young (or fairly young), nature does have a way of telling you when your time is up, and should the occasion arise where McCain can no longer execute his duties, does anybody in this universe believe that a 44-year-old first-term governor from Alaska has what it takes to assume the powers of the presidency? I am all for breaking that glass ceiling, and although I'm not one of Hillary's greatest fans, should the situation have arisen where she landed in the Oval Office, she probably would have done a good job.

With this one, on not so sure. Yes, she's a maverick, and yes, she can probably take down a grizzly bear or three, but I have my doubts if she's the right person for the job. Granted, vice presidents really don't have a lot to do. As one news commentator said this morning, the vice presidential pick is important on two days: the day they are selected, and the day of the debate.

I want to I say that Joe Biden is going to tear the governor of Alaska to shreds, but then I remember two words: Rick Lazio. In case you don't remember, this poor schmuck ran against Hillary in her first term as senator. During one of their debates, he stood a little bit too close to her, and was accused of "invading her space," and it apparently egregious violation that equates itself with sexism, paternalism, and all forms of subjugation of women going back to when Eve was tossed out of paradise. I am hoping that Biden debates her just like he would any other candidate and does not fall victim to this fear of looking like the big bad guy even though it was clear that Hillary could've taken down Lazio with one good hard stare.

Yes, people accuse McCain of being a little ossified in his thinking, but this pick of running mate may be a smarter choice than most people think. And there goes that Road Runner again.

We need to change this cartoon and we need to change it now.

Strangely Compelling Sports

2008-08-24T15:42:00.006-04:00

Okay, I promise that this is going to be the last Olympics post (unless something odd happens, like I'm hit by a lightning bolt or the entire Chinese gymnastics team is thrown out for being underage -- not that that would ever happen).

But I just wanted to share this one incident with you.

Husband was out doing yard work, and I was surfing about seeing if I could find any events that had slipped through the cracks. And I landed on Rhythmic Gymnastics, which has got to be one of the more bizarre sports in Olympic history, except for maybe back when they used to shoot pigeons and style poodles (seriously, they really did this), compete in the tug-of-war or shoot at clothed mannequins with dueling pistols (this practice was shut down in 1906).

In the particular event that I was watching, a team of five young ladies, dressed up like tasteful Las Vegas showgirls, leapt around an exercise floor, some tossing hoops in the air, some tossing what looked like heavily padded drumsticks, all the while flipping and leaping and spinning about and somehow (I have no idea how) catching these items either with their hands, behind their necks, or between their toes, all while performing the synchronized dance event and performing it for very high scores.

I was transfixed.

And at this particular moment, Husband comes inside, sees me watching this, and shakes his head.

"No," he says. "No, no, no. That is not a sport."

"Of course it is," I say. "Can you imagine the training that goes into that?"

"I don't care," he says. "It's ridiculous."

"But don't you find it strangely compelling?"

"No," he says. "Curling was strangely compelling. With this, they've just gone too far. There's just too many sports in this thing, that's why can't get into it this year. I think I like winter sports better."

To each his own, I thought, as he trudged upstairs to shower. So what if it's out of the mainstream. I can appreciate the hard work it must've taken to learn the routines, to have your body in such great shape that you can be that flexible and have such great reflexes. He comes back downstairs, maybe he forgot something.

I can't resist. "But think about this," I tell him. "Not only do they have to learn those routines, but a bunch of other countries are also doing it at the same time."

"I don't care," he reiterates. "It doesn't make it any less ridiculous. And I don't want to talk about it anymore."

Oh, but for some reason I still do. Probably just to rub it in a little bit -- it's fun sometimes when he gets irritated. "But not only do a bunch of other countries do it too, but somebody got together and established criteria for what makes a good routine or not."

He disappears upstairs and I don't see him again for a long time. Meanwhile, I'm strangely compelled to watch the rest of the rhythmic gymnastics, marveling at how gorgeous the Russian team is, and how beautifully they execute their routine.

And later in the day (I have been recording each days, evenings, nights events so I can watch them at my leisure -- God bless DVRs), I found myself watching the individual rhythmic gymnastics events. But somehow, they were not as interesting -- not nearly as strangely compelling as a group of five women all trained to toss about the same piece of equipment and roll around on the floor. I mean, your average cheerleader can do any of those individual routines -- it takes a lot more, I imagine, to put five women together and have it come out looking good. So I found myself fast forwarding through most of the routines, like I've done for many of the recordings, until I find an event that's more interesting (I'm really not caring much for indoor volleyball) and then deleting it when it's done.

Oh, the fickleness of the average TV viewer. It makes me wonder what other sports could eventually wind up on the Olympic stage. If they can give out gold medals for BMX and for mountain biking, why not dog racing or cage fighting or, hey, why not just bring back dueling. Just have it between countries who are at war, and kill two birds with one stone.

Now there's some political action.

So Much for That...

2008-08-24T13:09:00.002-04:00

Earlier this summer, I was bitten by the Obama bug. I actually thought that this would be the first election in a very long string of elections in my lifetime where I would feel stirred enough not to merely slap a bumper sticker on my car and maybe write a letter to the editor, but to take the plunge and get involved.

I mean the Involved kind of involved -- volunteering to man the "get out the vote" booths, seeing the press releases not only get written but get sent to the proper media in time to promote the proper event, and all that other stuff that people with lots of energy and lots of free time and lots of conviction do. I actually went to meetings. Signed up for mailing lists. Signed a list where I indicated my interests and which I would be able to donate to the cause.

Then something happened along the way.

Maybe I was sidetracked by everything I needed to do to prepare for my mother-in-law's memorial service, maybe I just plum got tired, or maybe after watching the news for long enough and hearing him speak for long enough, the stars fell out of my eyes, and I saw just another politician standing there with his shirt sleeves rolled up in the middle of an auditorium trying to get elected.

And then, it seemed that all the hard work and dedication and time that I had with great conviction wanted to donate no longer mattered. There would always be somebody else -- some college student, some old hippie -- there to pick up the baton and make sure the work got done and make sure that petitions got signed and make sure that everybody who didn't have a car would get a ride to their polling place on election day.

It didn't even matter if I voted or not, and this bluest of all blue states.

And that discouraged me most of all. Then why would I be willing to give up 5-6 hours of my week for something that didn't even matter? Yes, if I've lived in one of those swing states, perhaps it might make make a difference, perhaps getting a few more people registered to vote might tip the balance one way or the other, but here? In New York State?

Might as well stay home and watch the Olympics. Now there's some real politics. I don't know how many of you noticed the scores during the gymnastics and the diving, but the judges seemed very generous to the Chinese athletes. Okay, this often happens to the host country, they're known for getting a little boost now and again, but this just started to seem plain ridiculous. Now, I'm no expert on either of these events, but I can tell just from watching them when someone has made an egregious mistake in their routine. Like, falling on your ass, for one. Or displacing half the water in the pool when you dive. These seem like things that should be marked down a little bit. Or maybe I just don't understand the judging process. Maybe that gymnast meant to fall on her ass -- maybe that was really part of the routine.

You can handle things like that when you're 14 or so -- kids are like rubber at that age.

What really bugged me were not just the politics of the games but the politics surrounding the games -- notably the ones that were notably absent. You can't go telling me that there weren't any protesters surrounding the lovely Water Cube and the stunning Birds Nest and in pristine Tienamen Square while events were going on? Maybe something to do with human rights? Or Tibet?

Yet I didn't see or hear word one of any kind of protest -- not since winter athlete Joey Cheek had his visa revoked before the games started -- until today, Sunday, the last day of the games. I turn on my TV -- to the Olympic channel of course -- and during the Sunday morning news shows there it is -- the crawl running underneath the picture. Something that mentioned how many protesters were "detained" during the games. Well. Good thing NBC didn't run anything like that during the games, and possibly get Bob Costas's visa revoked. Now how would that look to the world? How would that look to the chances of NBC ever getting to broadcast the games again?

Just something to think about if you're planning on going to London in 2012 to protest the high price of petrol. or, you know, anything bad that England might be doing by then.

Enough Already!

2008-08-21T17:01:00.000-04:00

I hope you’re sitting down, because I’m about to do that human thing where I act all idiosyncratic and change my opinion about politicians and their public peccadilloes.

Not all politicians, mind you. Some still need to have their feet held to the fire when they misbehave, especially those like Eliot Spitzer who act all high and mighty, and those like Bill Clinton, who violate the public’s trust and lie under oath and cost us all way too much time and money.

I’m talking about John Edwards. And I think the media should just pack up their trucks and leave him the hell alone. One, he already had the smell of sleaze about him (for those of us with sensitive sniffers) so something like this was bound to happen sometime. Two, he is no longer a political factor. I’m sure if Obama had him on the short list for Veep, he’s been scratched, and I’ve written before that Edwards’ campaign was screwed from the start and he might as well just go back to North Carolina and take care of his family.

Which brings me to three. Yes, he had an affair. There may or may not be a baby involved and there may or may not be political funds involved. But he also has a wife with recurrent breast cancer involved, and Elizabeth deserves some peace. Edwards has to answer to his own karma and to his own spouse, but to parade this thing around in public is not exactly the best recipe for her recovery.

Jim McGreevy’s wife seems like a pretty tough cookie. Eliot Spitzer’s wife can probably melt butter just by staring at it. But they can take care of themselves. Having breast cancer is bad enough without having it reoccur, without having her husband – who claimed that he would be by her side – cavorting around with another woman and getting caught (and lying about it) by the National Enquirer, of all things.

Yes, if it bleeds, it leads, and if it’s sleaze, it leads first, but if I had anything to say about it, I wouldn’t say anything. Especially quotes from the alleged “other woman,” who said that her hope was that the two of them would be together “someday,” (a not-so-vague and definitely not-so-nice euphemism for when Elizabeth dies) and please, please no more high profile TV talk show interviews where Edwards does the contrite Clinton dance, admitting to his misgivings and holding hands with his forgiving and ever-patient spouse, who, like Hillary, probably wants to brain him with one of her high heeled shoes.

Come to think of it, maybe Elizabeth ought to do that to a few of the reporters until they get the hint.

Olympic Dreams

2008-08-16T17:46:00.006-04:00

So I'm corny, so I'm a sucker for the hype, but I'm really getting into the Olympics this year.

At first I started watching just the events that I normally home in on -- gymnastics and diving, some of the swimming (and not just because of the guys in their skintight suits).

But then I started drifting.

It was an innocent channel surf, at first. The "girls" were playing beach volleyball. Previously I thought that was a little weird, to have an event like that at the Olympics, a couple of girls in bikinis bouncing around in the sand. With cheerleaders and a rock 'n roll soundtrack, yet. I started to write it off as some kind of eye candy to get the male viewers, but then I started really watching them play.

And this ain't some casual Annette-and-Frankie-beachside romp. These women work their asses off. They are every much the athlete that, say, Venus Williams is. Not only are the two of them running all over that court to smash that ball around, but they are doing it in sand. And anyone who has tried to run around in the sand knows that it ain't easy.

And try doing it in a bikini. I always thought that part was a little unfair. The men get to look comfortable in a pair of jams and a polo shirt. The swimmers get a sleek unitard that stays put no matter what. Even the divers -- except for an unfortunate few who flash some butt crack as they're crawling out of the pool -- don't spend too much time worrying about losing their uniforms. And these women are leaping about, flopping headfirst into the sand, taking their bodies through their entire range of motion, wearing little more fabric that would take to make a neck tie.

Now that's an athlete.

Then I started noticing some of the other events. Some of them didn't get my interest at all -- indoor volleyball struck me as one of those sports that's more fun to play than it is to watch. Soccer doesn't do too much for me, I'm not much of a basketball fan, I can never seem to find when the baseball games are on, and weightlifting? It's not really something that I want to have memories off in my head -- some grunting guy five times my size shoving a giant weight in the air.

But what I do like is when I stumble upon something that I never thought I would like, such as water polo (okay, the guys wear a little less for this one and none of them wax their chests), bicycling, and canoeing. It's good for you to try something a little different now and again -- it kind of cracks your head open, so to speak, takes you outside of your "usualness" and that's always good for the soul.

But I think that I'm getting a little out of hand. I'm scanning the website for the schedule of events, I've signed on for e-mail alerts as to when those events will be occurring, I've become a major Phelps Phan, and I'm recording each night's events on my DVR so I can fast-forward through them in the morning. Which has led to trying not to watch the news in the morning so I don't inadvertently find out who got the gold.

I'm wondering, is there a 12 step program for this? Olympiads Anonymous? Olympanonymous? Do I have to train for it?

God I hope not. I don't run anymore, my legs were always too short for hurdles, forget the high jump, the shot put, and the long jump. It's much too late to be a child prodigy at gymnastics, and I never quite got the hang of diving.

But finally, I can get my head in the water. And one day, when I'm a big girl, I'll be able to swim without my floaties.

If Dara Torres can do it, so can I do. Watch out London -- I'm coming for you in 2012.

RFG on LOA, not DOA

2008-08-01T12:52:00.002-04:00

Hello all,

No, I have not jumped off the bridge from the stress of planning an event for 70 in my backyard, nor have I skipped town with the spare change from RFG's slush fund.

So I don't have to keep hearing from certain people about having to stare at that "damned refrigerator," any longer, ( ;) ) this is just to report that I'm taking some time off to work on a deadline (and, start planning an event for 70 in my backyard).

I hope to be back here soon. Please don't go away!

-The editors of our RFG

They Shoot Refrigerators, Don't They?

2008-07-09T14:27:00.004-04:00

It had to happen sometime. Our workhorse of a refrigerator, which we've had since we first bought our house, was breaking down. The freezer was leaking, which left puddles of water in the produce bins, forcing us to locate strategic Tupperware containers to catch the steady stream. Then these would freeze, and they would require regular emptying. Also, anything that got pushed too far back froze, no matter where we set the adjustments. This led to disappointments (or happy accidents, if you're a terminal optimist) like frozen lettuce, frozen yogurt (and not the kind that's meant to be frozen), frozen and exploded eggs, and frozen and ruined fake butter spread.

We thought about fixing it, as it seemed ridiculous that a refrigerator would only last nine years, thought like everybody seems to be saying, that they don't make things like they used to. Also, an examination by a neighbor's handyman revealed the appliances death knell -- it would cost hundreds of dollars to fix, and doing the cost/benefit analysis simply didn't make repair worthwhile.

You may be thinking that there's an easy solution to this problem -- just go out and buy a new refrigerator. Well, you're half right. We never really liked the refrigerator -- because of the bizarre way that the people who built our house put together the kitchen, we were forced to buy a refrigerator that fit the space. And that didn't leave us with too many alternatives. Plus, we always wanted a refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom to make it easier to get into the produce bins since I'm eating like a rat that these days.

The good news is that after husband hunted down a new refrigerator, he found one that not only had the freezer on the bottom, fit into our space, but was on sale.

The bad news is what I will have to do in preparation for our bundle of joy's arrival on Saturday. No, not simply cleaning it all out, which is daunting enough, given our tendency to leave vegetables languishing in the back of the refrigerator until they become gazpacho.

It's in the dismantling of the outside of the refrigerator, which over the years has become many things to us: museum of kids' drawings, our magnet collection, our little slips of paper that we didn't want to lose, and especially one of my major forms of creative expression.

After I hurt my back, and then the cascade of other health problems that followed, I found myself unable to write, either sitting in front of the computer or with my journal. So with fond thanks mostly to my stepmother and friend, I began letting my feelings out with magnetic letters, rolls of white paper, and brightly colored markers. Another good friend also found for me a package of white magnetic sheets that let me simply stick them up and scribble whatever I wanted to. And although my health has improved greatly, I still occasionally find myself in front of my "Wailing Wall" when I have bad days and want to get the feelings out.

Now, with only a few more days to go until our lovely new refrigerator arrives, I'm facing the realization that by breaking down the past, I'm taking a few more baby steps toward my future. I started working on it this morning, finding an empty organic lettuce container to be the most handy thing to hold the magnets. In the beginning it was easy -- I often approach new tasks this way, by thinking about them for a while, then plunging in. Then I hit that wall. The one that tells me that this is not going to be as easy as I thought it was. As the magnets began piling up in the plastic container, and I began tossing out the ones that had no meaning (after all, how many magnets do I need that advertise one takeout place, and how many 2007 calendars do I need?), I found myself choking up with tears. Knowing full in my heart that I am letting go of a piece of my past, but not quite knowing yet if this was a good thing or not.

After many lessons, I finally learned that when I get like this sometimes it's good to just walk away for a while. And know that I don't have to complete it all at once, but I could come back tomorrow and finish, or the next day, or the next. Or, I could just let the guys take the damn thing away all covered with magnets.

It's good to have options.

I'll try to get back to it tomorrow, and do a little bit at a time, stopping if it gets to be too much.

But in the back of my head, I know that even though we've selected a refrigerator with one of those fancy new stainless steel type coatings, you can still stick magnets to it. And I can start fresh, mapping out my future with rolls of white paper, and brightly colored markers, and all the magnetic letters that I please.

This Is Why the Terrorists Hate Us

2008-07-06T17:46:00.002-04:00

Some people have picnics, some invite the neighbors over for a backyard barbecue, some go to parades, some shoot their fingers off with fireworks. Other people celebrate the Fourth of July by trying to stuff as many hot dogs as they can down their gullets in 10 minutes.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence must be spinning like rotisserie chickens in their graves.

Yet this tradition goes on, sponsored by Nathan's, and held at New York's Coney Island and -- this is my favorite part -- shown on ESPN as if it were an actual sporting event.

Something is wrong with this country, or we have just way too much time on our hands.

But that's not all of it. It doesn't stop with hot dogs. Many of the competitors in the 10 minute glutton-fest also participate in "competitive eating" events featuring other types of foods. According to the caption underneath one competitor, he was once able to eat 77 pickled jalapenos in 10 minutes. As one of my neighbors so poetically put it, "I'd hate to be the one using the bathroom after him."

This year's winner was Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, a young American lad who retains the coveted golden yellow mustard belt for the second year running. He accomplished this feat by downing 59 dogs in 10 minutes, tying his arch rival Takeru Kobayashi and leading to a 5-hot dog "eat off" to determine the winner.

Both of their mothers must be so very proud.

Later on that day, I happen to be watching the news, and saw an interview with a doctor on what it actually takes to compete in one of these events, and the effects it can have on your body long term. Contrary to what you might think, competitors are mainly of normal weight, but they spend months before each competition eating large amounts of foods at once or drinking a lot of water in an attempt to stretch their stomachs. Normal stomachs can hold about a gallon of food or liquid, but these fanatics can get theirs to hold up to a gallon and a half. Long-term, they can be looking at all sorts of gastrointestinal problems, the worst of which can be stomach rupturing, which can cause life-threatening infection in the entire abdominal cavity.

Yet these yahoos don't seem to care. They go on eating their hot dogs, jalapenos, pickled eggs, lumberjack breakfast, pies of all types, and God knows what else, (now here's the buzz kill part) while people are starving all over the world and even in her own backyards.

It's funny on the surface, but ridiculous and even cruel underneath.

They could've at least eaten turkey hot dogs, for Christ's sake. Or those awful tofu things, which would rid the world of them and leave all the good hot dogs for us.

Happy Fourth, everybody.

Flash This!

2008-06-29T17:20:00.002-04:00

Yes, it's that time of year again, when the hot flashes are a-flashin' and I ask myself the big, important questions, like, "Why the heck hasn't somebody invented anything to take care of this!?"

And since all the brilliant minds in this world have not been able to solve this problem effectively, how can we turn it around and find something positive in it?

I think I have the answer.

Forget about hydrogen cars. Forget about solar power, wind power, our dependence on fossil fuels - why isn't anyone harnessing the massive power that is being generated by an entire cohort of hot-flashing female baby boomers?

Well, until they figure it out, maybe they can start work on the following, simpler ideas that would be very much appreciated:

1. A self-regulating blanket that compares the room temperature with the body temperature of the sleeper and adjusts its coverage accordingly. Solve this one and you will never have to worry about money ever again.

2. A very tiny, water-tight cooler that could hold the following: two or three ice cubes and a cold washcloth. Very handy for hot flashes while you're on the road, and it tucks neatly into your purse or gym bag.

3. As gas prices go higher and higher, some of us are using our car air conditioners more judiciously. Hence, it gets damned hot in there. Hence, we need a device that will warn our fellow motorists that we didn't just cut you off because we're lousy drivers, but because we're driving like hell in order to get to somewhere air-conditioned. A small digital readout that you can mount on top of your car could be handy. You can program it to scroll several different messages, such as, "sorry about that," "no, I don't have PMS," "I'm sorry officer, but the sweat was dripping into my eyes and I didn't see that stop sign," or simply the curse words of your choosing.

4. Velcro is not just for strippers anymore! Because sometimes you just can't get those layers off fast enough, more clothing should be made with easily detachable seams. One rip, and you're cool as a breeze.

I had lots of other ideas, but because hot flashes have also been shown to be linked to memory loss, I can't think of them at the moment. So I'm going to go stick my head in the freezer until I feel like myself again.

Take A Hike...

2008-06-24T18:08:00.007-04:00

As part of the celebration of my father's 75th trip around the sun, a good deal of our extended family got together for a weekend that included dinner, then brunch the next morning at a local resort nestled into the Shawangunk Mountains (just east of the Catskills). A good time was had by all -- or least I hope everybody was having fun -- despite this weird random weather pattern we've been having where it's sunny one minute and a raging thunderstorm comes up the next. After Sunday brunch (and after family photos in many different combinations...a reminder to those of you who took pictures...I want them!!) we set ourselves loose upon the grounds for an afternoon of hiking or whatever else we wanted to do outdoors in this stunning locale.

I've had the pleasure of hiking in this location many times before in my earlier years. There is something called the "rock scramble" whereupon the braver and more nimble members of your hiking party may disappear into a rock crevice and go hand over hand through the course until you emerge from the other side. The locals have another name for it, but by any name, it's a good workout. I was concerned about how much hiking I could do, so in the beginning, Husband and I followed the kiddies through a garden maze and up a treehouse.

Meanwhile, my dad,stepmom, stepbrothers and my older nephew took off for the tower, which is the second most strenuous type of hike -- 30-45 minutes or so uphill then up the stairs of the watchtower, then all the way back down. The view is worth the climb, and when I get into better shape, I can't wait to tackle it.

Once we were done with the maze however, I started to feel a little antsy (that's how I often get when a thunderstorm is approaching) I needed to move. No one else seem motivated, so I took to the lower trail, which looped around the lake. As I progressed, I could hear the thunder growling louder and longer. I heard the horn signal that the boats should get out of the water (I think the signal is also for swimmers, but I imagine the water was a little too cold for swimming and no one was in the lake). But I didn't feel like going back. Maybe that was foolhardy, but that's just the mood I was in, stoked on a decadent brunch and the collective love of my family that weekend. I kept walking until I got to this little wooden gazebo (I suppose it's too small to really be called a gazebo) and was struck by the view of the shack against the lake and the resort. That's what's in the photo. What didn't show in the photo was a bolt of lightning that jolted down just as I was taking the picture. I kept walking a little farther, until I was about halfway around the lake, and with the storm getting stronger, it seemed like a really good idea to head back. I left behind a young couple who were setting up their camera with a tripod, and the woman had just said to the man, "get a good picture of that lightning." I didn't want to be anywhere near them, and their expensive lightning rod.

All in all, it was a great weekend, (thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone and happy birthday to my father again!) and I'm really proud of myself for trying a little bit of a hike.

I'm looking forward to more -- great weekends, time with my family, and hikes.

Remembering George

2008-06-23T12:25:00.007-04:00

George Carlin died Sunday night, and I'm pissed off.

No, not for that reason. We all have to go some time, and his bad heart was bound to get him eventually, but what I'm pissed off about is some networks' coverage of the fact.

Fox, in particular. They called him a "controversial comedian" and that was about it.

WFT is up with that? He was not merely "controversial." He was a freaking legend. Lenny Bruce, another freaking legend, passed the torch to Carlin, who ran with it, performed new tricks with it, got arrested for it (when radio station WBAI aired his "Seven Words You Can't Say On Television," and he inspired every single half-assed dirty comic out there today who thinks that swearing is the way to get a laugh.

There's a difference here, between, say, Jim Norton and George Carlin. A huge difference. Carlin used language appropriate to his point. A fine-bristled brush at times, and at others, a sledgehammer.

For the kiddies out there who haven't heard Carlin's genius, he made fun of the peculiarities of our language, the freak show that is the human race, and our amazing, astounding, head-scratching, infuriating idiosyncrasies and hypocrisies. Welcome to the freak show, he said once (and I'm paraphrasing), and those of us in America have a front row seat.

Another thing that amazed me is that his delivery sounded as if he were making up the whole act as he went along. Yet from what I heard about him in an interview, he very carefully wrote and rehearsed (and rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed) each performance. I don't know how he kept the spontaneity in his act, but that's another thing I admired about him

I was first introduced to Carlin when I, a curious ten-year-old, "borrowed" my father's copy of FM and AM, and Class Clown (which I still have to this day). I played them and laughed my ass off. My friend Deanne came over and we both laughed our asses off, (and I got in trouble with her mother) but from then on we repeated his best lines to each other like certain folks do with favorite Monty Python skits now. (our favorites were from his rants about growing up Catholic, which neither of us were doing)

I began to collect each new album as it came out. Occupation: Foole, Toledo Window Box, A Place For My Stuff, and others. Over time, Carlin began to influence me as a writer. I think that's where my fascination with words began. The way he crafted them amused me, startled me, woke me out of my stupor, and made me think.

And for your amusement and thought processes, I leave you with a few of my favorite Carlin rants.

And the knowledge that whatever anyone is saying about him on the news, he'd probably hate it.

The Power of Words: And Who Gets The Power To Choose?

2008-06-14T12:35:00.003-04:00

At around eight each evening, I go brain-dead and bone-tired and just want to flop in front of the TV. So, to paraphrase my father, I seek out not the most highbrow of entertainment.

Last night, I was particularly zombie-fied (it had been a tough week), and was happy to find a rerun of "Blazing Saddles" on TV Land. I knew it would be cut to ribbons but thought it would be amusing still and also bring back memories of when my folks took us to see it way back when.

Yes, I knew it would be dubbed. But I was surprised at how it had been edited - what was removed and what was left in, which words were OK and which were verboten.

Of course, the "seven deadlies" were removed. That goes without saying. (And for some reason, “screw” is now on this list. Or at least it is in TV Land) And the many, many mentions of the "n" word were obliterated. The people would only get out the "ni" sound and then some other sound (a gunshot, a church bell, the whinny of a rearing horse) would come in and drown it out. But you knew what they were talking about. "Black" and "white," even "schvartze" (Yiddish for "black") were allowed to stay. But so many potentially offensive race references and stereotypes were left in - except for the one famous line when Cleavon Little and Madeline Kahn were in the dark and she was commenting on the size of his schnitzengruber (or something like that). That scene was simply cut. Another reference I found interesting was how the editors dealt with references to homosexuality. It's OK for Dom DeLuise to play an obviously flaming Busby Berkeley type, scolding his chorus of male dancers by calling them "sissy-marys," yet no one in the movie was allowed say "faggot." I remember another instance of censorship of this word when I was driving home from Christmas at my father's and stepmother's house, listening to NPR for company. They were playing Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" and they cut the word. Excuse me? NPR? Home of the open mind? Censorship? Jeez. We got the context. I didn't feel offended, and the several gay people I knew at the time didn't feel offended, either.

But what about negative stereotypes of the elderly, the mentally challenged, Prussian soldiers, Mexican bandits, alcoholics, Klan members, bimbo secretaries, American Indians, and all the rest that were left in? Why are only certain groups protected? The size of their lobbying groups? The number of outraged letters the network would get?

And have any members of these groups ever actually SEEN a Mel Brooks movie? He lives to offend. Nothing mean-spirited is meant (as far as I can see). I can see that certain words should be struck from the lexicon completely, in any context. But the fact of them was clear in Blazing Saddles, which was set in 1874.

Did Germans flood Brooks with letters when “Springtime For Hitler” appeared in the first production of “The Producers?”

Don’t know.

The second movie of that night’s double feature was “Young Frankenstein.” I would have loved to see that, too, but I was leaving TV Land for Bed Land. I wonder if the censors had cut “schvanstukker.”

After all, no one wants to offend the very powerful coalition of Reanimated Transylvanians. They can really get ugly.

It's finally true...

2008-06-13T15:04:00.003-04:00

It's finally happened.

The joke that some female comedian (I want to say "Erma Bombeck," but then again, I always want to say "Erma Bombeck." Must be some kind of mental tic. There's probably a medication for that.) uttered about dieting has come true. That one day they'll find out that chocolate is good for you and lettuce is bad.

Now the Food Police is saying that this is so. Dark chocolate contains antioxidants which are good for your heart and keep you feeling and looking young. And according to "First" magazine (and the FDA), 93% of lettuce in America is contaminated with perchlorate, a chemical found in jet fuel and car batteries. Perchlorate has leached from the soil into our ground water, in 43 states. Also effected are cucumbers, citrus fruits and tomatoes (like tomatoes haven't had enough bad press lately). And don't think you can sit back all smug (like I so often do...) with your organic produce - this nasty doesn't discriminate.

Nor does it sit back there with question marks around it as to its potential damage like so many other toxic chemicals in our bodily stew. This one has already been shown to screw with your thyroid gland. Dr. Richard L. Shames, author of Thyroid Power, says that exposure to this chemical can make your thyroid sluggish, leading to fatigue, depression, and weight gain in one of three women.

Finally, finally, you can say "it's my thyroid" and have it be a legitimate excuse for those love handles!

But seriously, folks. Poison like this has been around for years. WHEN are the powers that be going to wise up and DO something about this. A scary fact I found out when I was researching my last article was that even though DDT has been banned for the last thirty years or so, children are still testing positive for this deadly pesticide! It's speculated that the chemical is still in the soil and ground water, so we're still consuming it.

Holy crap. It's enough to make you crazy. But is getting all stressed about it actually worse than consuming a heaping bowl of salad? (like I do just about every day?)

I'm willing to bet you that someone, somewhere has gotten funding to do a study about that.

Meanwhile, I gotta go find someone to write to...right after I finish my lunch.

Stuck On You

2008-06-03T19:17:00.002-04:00

Today I went for my annual physical. Based on a previous blood test, my doctor wanted me to up my Vitamin D supplements. He told me the amount he wanted me to take every day, and I asked him to write it down so I wouldn't forget (don't trust that memory anymore!). He scribbled it on a sticky note and I put it on the chair next to me in his office, with my things (actually, atop the overshirt I was wearing when I came in).

Then, he wanted me to come into the examination room, but he has a thing about people wearing their shoes in there so he asked me to remove them first.

We finished, and I left, and by the time I arrived at the health food store to buy a larger-dosed Vitamin D, the note had vanished. Couldn't find the damned thing anywhere. His office, by this time, was closed, so I searched my memory for the amount he'd said. 3000 a day? 4000? Oh, whatever, I thought, and just went inside.

As I approached the door to the little mall that housed the not-so-little-anymore health food store, a woman walking behind me got my attention. "Excuse me," she said. "But there's something stuck to your rear end."

You can probably guess what it was. Yep. The doctor's sticky note.

"I just didn't want you to go around looking like that," she said.

I thanked her profusely. She said, "I hope you weren't wearing that for too long."

Only for three previous errands, I thought to myself.

Great. I'd been trolling all over town with a sticky note stuck to my ass.

I'm glad I ran into her. It made me wonder how many other people would bring something like this to someone's attention, or just let them walk around looking like a schmuck.

A question for my dwindling readership: Would you tell someone if they had something stuck to them? Something sticking out of them? Or let them traipse around looking stupid and laugh behind their back?

RFG Book Review

2008-06-02T14:00:00.002-04:00

I just finished reading a tiny unsung gem of a book (actually, not that tiny...) by Margaret Atwood that I found remaindered (gasp!) at B&N. I think the title had something to do with it, as it's a bit obscure-sounding: Oryx and Crake.

Atwood has gone back to her "Handmaid's Tale" style of futuristic allegory with this one. Only the apocolyptic vision of O & C comes after a good chunk of the world drowns due to global warming (pardon me, climate change). Getting too far into it would give away the story, but the artistry with which she winds plot and character is masterful. We open to a mysterious loner who calls himself "Snowman." This malcreant lives in a tree to protect himself from the blazing noonday sun, and is regularly tormented by a group of inquisitive children.

Then, going back and forth in time, Atwood lays out the story, told through Snowman's hunger-fuzzy vision, of he and his childhood friend, Crake, and the girl who came between them. The boys grew up with every privilege in a special secure compound. Their parents were preternatural geniuses who worked in this compound's lab creating various gene-spliced "upgrades" to improve the human condition in this challenged new world. The boys, after college, take over the family business, so to speak, but with quite different results. Which, ultimately, leave Snowman up a tree with a lot of 'splaining to do to this band of children.

I was willing to overlook a few minor plot flaws to go along on the ride through this brave new world. I probably even would have paid full price for it.

A thought for the day...

2008-05-09T14:10:00.001-04:00

I don't often do this, but I just had to share this forwarded joke with you:

---------

make a difference when we give
a child the gift of our time.

A young family moved into a house, next to a vacant lot. One day, a construction crew began
to build a house on the empty lot. The young family's 5-year-old daughter naturally took an
interest in the goings-on and spent much of each day observing the workers.

Eventually the construction crew, all of them 'gems-in-the-rough,' more or less, adopted her
as a kind of project mascot. They chatted with her during coffee and lunch breaks and gave her
little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important. At the end of the first week, they even
presented her with a pay envelope containing ten dollars. The little girl took this home to her
mother who suggested that she take her ten dollars 'pay' she'd received to the bank the next
day to start a savings account.

When the girl and her mom got to the bank, the teller was equally impressed and asked the little
girl how she had come by her very own pay check at such a young age. The little girl proudly replied,
'I worked last week with a real construction crew building the new house next door to us.'

'Oh my goodness gracious,' said the teller, 'and will you be working on the house again this week, too?'

The little girl replied, 'I will, if those assholes at Home Depot ever deliver the f_ckin' sheet rock.'

Kind of brings a tear to the eye - doesn't it?

Following up on the bra...

2008-05-01T19:10:00.002-04:00

This is why I love my doctor -- when I went to him just to check on the condition of my rib injury (heretofore to be known as The Great Victoria's Secret Debacle of 2008), in the short time that I was in his office, we talked more about his ailments than mine. I found out that he has tendinitis in his foot, and the odd thing about that is that he can run without pain, but he can't walk. This amuses him greatly, and he's started referring to himself as Forrest Gump. I also found out that he still has trouble with the tendinitis in his elbow that he had last summer, had to go to physical therapy for it, and is also annoyed because he was having a slow afternoon because he didn't expect the installation of his new computer system to go as quickly as it did.

Somewhere in there, he poked about my rib cage, said that I had a bruised rib, ran through the range of painkillers that could be available to me, and told me when it came to my usual exercise routine, that if it hurts, don't do it. For this, he went to medical school.

No, I'm just kidding. I've been going to him for about 17 years, and these are the traits that make him more endearing. He's the kind of guy you want to take home and make soup for.

I opted for the Tylenol with codeine, (turned out to be a mistake; it kept me awake all night) and he made a promise not to drive after I took it. If I'd only known what my reaction would be, I could have, say, taken third shift at a nuclear power plant.

But I got thinking about his "if it hurts, don't do it" comment. And it makes me feel like I'm being tested. Like something up there or out there in the universe, the thing that's bigger than all of us that we all tap into now and again, wants to see how badly I want to write.

First, like the doctor, I get tendinitis in both elbows last summer, which necessitated my changing the way I write on the computer. While I was in the acute phase, I started using voice-activated software. I got better and could type a little, and then I got sore again. Back to the VAS, and doesn't iti figure that The Great Victoria's Secret Debacle is causing me pain when I talk.

So there you go. I'm going to have to have some scientists devise a way for me to write by using my eyelashes or following the movements of my pupils.

Because nothing is going to stop me. Not a little pain in my elbows, and certainly not an underwire bra.

Bras Are Bad for Your Health

2008-04-28T12:15:00.000-04:00

(Or, never wear an underwire bra to the chiropractor)

As I wrote my last blog, I've only been seeing this new chiropractor for a few visits, and from past experience I know that it takes a while to develop a working relationship with the body care worker. Especially a chiropractor, because you spend such a small amount of time with him or her at each visit. Snap, snap, and you're done.

The first couple of visits he did gentle, manual manipulation. But I've been curious about this machine that he uses called a ProAdjuster. When it's used on you, it looks like you're sitting in a typical massage chair, and the chiropractor uses an implement that looks like a large tuning fork, and using computerized models, he adjusts your back with a series of pulses coming from the tines of the fork, and supposedly, this works to put the spine back into alignment without upsetting the surrounding musculature. My father goes to this chiropractor, and uses this machine and finds it very helpful.

So after my first couple of visits, to "get my feet wet" so to speak, I wanted to try sitting in the chair.

The first visit was odd. When you're outside of the treatment room (the treatment rooms are closed off only by hospital type curtains, so you hear everything) and someone is being adjusted, it sounds like either very loud manual typewriting, or the rapid fire of a nail gun. Being under this gun, I felt like I was being gently jackhammered. But I believe in giving any kind of treatment at least a couple of tries (my PT always says to try things three times, but I have less patience), as sometimes it gets better, and I don't want to give up on anything that might offer long-term benefits just because of a bad first experience.

But the second time I felt like I was being less-gently jackhammered, and I was good and sore for about five days afterward.

It was back to manual treatments for me.

And that's how we proceeded. The first one back on the table went smoothly. The second, I came in feeling like my sacrum was all jammed up and twisted, and I knew that I needed an adjustment. After his usual stretching me around, it was clear to him to that we had to be a more aggressive this time, and he positioned me on my side in order to do a "standard" adjustment. This was not his bread-and-butter preference for treatment for me, as he didn't like to do this kind of twisting adjustment on people who've had disk problems (although my physical therapist contends that this is perfectly safe), and he said he would do it "once in a blue moon" when it was clear that I needed it.

So anyway, back to me on my side on his table. He positioned my legs around and got me ready and started to push on my hips to do the adjustment. When he hit with enough force to get the release, I felt this wonking pain in my ribs, and realized that my elbow had been pinned beneath my rib cage, and between my elbow and my rib cage was the underwire of my bra. I think I laughed and groaned at the same time, because of the pain, and because it was such a ridiculous "side-effect".

He asked me if I was all right and that the time I thought I was. But he was very quick to tell me that we got a really great release just at the point where I needed it. Which I apparently failed to notice, being distracted by my underwire's attempt to become a part of my rib cage.

Three days later, I'm still having pain. I've talked to a couple of people who have had broken ribs, and from what they said, if I had one, I would know it. This one only hurts when I cough or sneeze or laugh too loud, or when I turn over onto my side. Unfortunately, I'm in the midst of my allergy season, and on Saturday, I would alternate sneezing and swearing.

Hopefully, this is only some kind of muscle or bone bruise and will get better on its own. But let this be a warning to you ladies: take care where you wear your underwire.

It could be dangerous.

There Ought to Be a Protocol for This

2008-04-27T13:13:00.003-04:00

Since last fall, I've been seeing a massage therapist who specializes in myofascial release and realignment, particularly a type called structural integration (which always sounded to me like he was in the business of building bridges). The fascia is the bag of membranes that holds our muscles, ligaments and tendons together, and through accidents, poor posture and other trauma can become twisted and knotted, resulting in chronic pain and limited range of motion. Our aim was to go past what I was doing in physical therapy and make me more flexible, and integrate the use of my muscles against gravity (the technical explanation), or, basically, get me to the point where I could bend down and pick things up and get back to where I was before my back injury.

He is a soft-spoken man, very professional, very focused, and very good. I've seen so many body care workers that I can almost tell immediately, just from the touch of their hands on my body, if I can trust them or not. Marilyn, my late former massage therapist, was like this. As was my physical therapist. And so was this guy. His office space is clean, and open, and sparse. The treatment room consists of a sheet-covered rigid massage table, a bench, and a hook on the wall. A fan spirals overhead, into a white skylight. His personal self is just as minimalist - a white oxford shirt left untucked over jeans, clean-shaven, slender, hair cut close to his scalp.

He didn't like to say much during our sessions -- said he didn't like extraneous conversation -- so I kept my usual chatter to myself, and reserved any speech for technical questions and anatomy lessons (which he was very eager to give, like he'd been waiting for someone to ask.). When he gave me explanations about anatomy -- many of them involving how intricate the human body is and how everything is connected to everything else -- he tended to keep it in medical terms, speaking quickly in that soft voice of his, and often I had to ask him to repeat himself. I would nod along as he spoke, understanding bits and pieces and then more bits and pieces and then almost all of it. I tried to be in the moment during all of our sessions, absorbing what he was doing, and at times, just watching him work, with complete focus. At one point he apologized for talking in such a technical manner, but then I told him that I actually did understand everything he was saying. And this got me one of the few smiles that I ever saw on his face. And I'm all about trying to make people smile. I have to deal with enough serious crap in my life, so it's important to me that my medical team have a sense of humor. It's kind of been my test for everybody that I ever met. If I could make them laugh, then I'd know if they were human, and if any kind of relationship we had would go any further. Getting my physical therapist to laugh is easy. Getting this guy to laugh felt like one of my greatest achievements. I mean, during the course of our professional encounters, as part of the way he had to do the massage on me, we must've looked like some kind of combination of limbs or a clothed Kama Sutra position or like we were playing some bizarre game of Twister. Yes, it was all above board and professional and clinical, but come on. It's so ridiculous you just have to laugh, somewhere, sometime.

I went to him for a good few months, once a week, for hour and a half sessions. And during this time, while he had his hands, knuckles and elbows all over me (some releases need greater leverage), we knew virtually nothing about each other as people. I mean, guys who've gotten not nearly as far have had to buy me dinner first. It just seems so bizarre.

Anyhow, the sort of therapy that he did with me was never designed to be something that you do forever. An offshoot of Rolfing, it was designed to be done in a series of 10-15 weekly sessions, then stopped, and followed up on six months later.

That's for the average person, and because my body is a virtual cash cow for any kind of physical therapist, I had to go to him a little longer. But the time did come for us to have "the discussion." I expected this, and we both kind of came to it at the same time. We worked out a plan where we'd stretch the visits out to two weeks, then three weeks, then once a month, then whenever I needed him.

But a few weeks ago, we reached a wall. I was doing all of the movement exercises that he asked of me, working on my flexibility, working on integrating my muscles together, but even with all that, fibromyalgia at times speaks with its own voice, its own demands. It can grab onto a group of muscles and not let go. I would go to him one week with the same pain in my butt -- for lack of a more descriptive word -- and he would work on loosening all the fascia all around it and it would feel better for a little while, but then the next visit, it was still there.

We were going in circles. At that point -- I always seem to recognize that point, when what I'm doing isn't working, when I keep doing the same thing and expecting different results -- I decided to give chiropractic a try. After all, if one muscle is always annoyed, there could be some kind of nerve impingement involved, or a trigger point, or something that might benefit from having one bone moved away from another.

I told him about all this at our next visit. And he nodded, and said in that quiet voice that he didn't want to muddy the waters, that I was already spending enough money , and perhaps he should just back away for a while so I can see if this protocol would work. And I got this twisting feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I was back in high school and he was breaking up with me. I was already having an emotional kind of day -- with my raging hormones this happens fairly frequently -- and now I had to fight the urge to cry. He wrote a name down on the back of his business card and pushed it across his minimalist glass desk. It was the name of a guy in Manhattan he rarely referred anyone to except for special cases (meaning, I gathered, people he couldn't help any longer). He did the same thing that this guy did, except this one was more of an osteopath, and he said that he might be able to fix what I had with only one visit (which I sincerely doubted). Not only was he breaking up with me, but he was pimping me over to someone else. At least that's what it felt like to me.

I left his office, walked down the long flight of stairs to the street, and exited into blaring sunshine which made me feel a little queasy, and off-center. I felt rootless, homeless, cast adrift. Dammit, I thought, why do I let myself get so attached to these people?

Later on, when I shook some sense back into my head and put this back into perspective, I puzzled over why I have such abandonment issues. Seeing a body worker means putting yourself into a professional relationship. Unless it's something ongoing, like your doctor, your dentist, or your hair stylist, the relationship is going to end at some point. And that's a good thing, because either it means that you're better, or you realize that this person can't help you and you're moving on to someone who might be able to.

About a week passed, and it didn't bother me as much. I was getting chiropractic treatments, and the two of us were starting to feel each other out, so to speak.

Then I ran into my minimalist structural integrationist in the health food store. He was in the vitamin aisle, balancing a baby on his hip. She was dressed in a yellow checkered sunsuit with a matching bonnet.

I didn't even know that he had a baby. In fact, I sort of had the feeling that he was gay. Nothing specific that I could point to, just a sort of feeling. (Not that there's anything wrong with that). And hey, just because you're holding onto a baby doesn't mean you're heterosexual.

I said hello, and he said hello, and I said some other innocuous greeting-type-thing that people say, then the professional veil went over his face and he moved on. I would never know if this was his baby. He could've said, "Oh, hi, this is April, and we're just out getting a few things. Boy, it's hard to find anything in this aisle." Or something like that. And I continued on my way, and he continued on his, and we passed each other again in the produce aisle, and he said, "well, have a nice day," and left. End of conversation.

And I just stood there, staring after him. It didn't seem right. This man had had his hands all over my body. We'd been twisted up together like pretzels, so close that I could, during several sessions, smell the tobacco on a shirt (the only clue I had that he was a smoker) Yes, it was all professional and clinical. I know that we'd only entered into a professional relationship and outside of the office, he only owed me so much, actually, technically, nothing at all. But still. I felt like he owned me a few more words.

Even if it was only introduced me to his child. I would've liked to know her name.

Going Green or Going Crazy?

2008-04-24T11:38:00.002-04:00

I've been spending the last week or so doing research for a web article about toxic chemicals in cosmetics. We've already heard about the prescription drugs in the water, the plastics leaching from baby bottles, and this is going to be the next new thing. Apparently there's a lot of buzzing about it in some of the minor press avenues, but it hasn't really hit the mainstream yet.

The big deal is that from cradle to grave, everything that you slather on your body is chock full of chemicals that the FDA does not have to approve as safe. What they basically do, as with tainted meat, poisoned gluten in dog food, and "questionable" medications coming from other countries, is either wait until people get sick or even die to issue a recall and a warning. And still, the recalls can only be voluntary.

The main chemicals that I'm researching are parabens, which are used as preservatives, and phthalates (pronouced "thalates"), a plastic-derived ingredient which can hide in cosmetics as "fragrance."

A small study was done a few years back that showed that parabens have been found in breast tissue. Unfortunately, the study was not large enough or comprehensive enough to show a strong link between parabens and breast cancer, but women who are survivors have been encouraged to use products that do not contain parabens. And some savvy cosmetics manufacturers, sniffing this trend in the wind, have removed parabens from the products altogether, so they can print in large letters on their packaging that they are "paraben free," and look like they are some kind of green heroes, even though those products came in plastic bottles, and probably have all kinds of other chemicals in them that nobody knows about yet.

The phthalates are more insidious. Like the BPAs, the chemicals that are in the news because they are leaching out of baby bottles and are being banned in Canada, phthalates are used to make plastics more flexible. They are also used to make fragrances linger longer, (hence the FDA's allowing them to hide phthalates under the word "fragrance") and they are also used in lipsticks. Several studies have shown that phthalates mess with your hormonal system, especially when used on children and when they are passed on to developing fetuses. Male fetuses can be feminized, and many tests have highlighted the anatomical differences showing up in babies who have had this exposure. And these babies grow up to make more babies. Tests have also shown that babies upon whom certain lotions and creams have been used have tested positive for phthalates in their urine.

The powers that be (for example, the manufacturers of these products, the FDA, and the American Chemical Association) claim that these products are used in such minute amounts that they can be called "safe." But the problem is not single exposure. The problem is that the average woman uses about 16 different products on her body every day, totaling an average of 168 different chemicals, some of which do not have to be named. It's this lifetime of exposure that we don't know about.

And might not know about until people start getting sick.

After all, people once used to think that cigarettes were safe, too.

If you want more information, check out the Environmental Working Group . Or check the safety of your cosmetics at a database they've set up.

Just having that kind of day...

2008-04-21T13:24:00.003-04:00

"Take my kibble! Take my catnip!" Just LEAVE ME ALONE!!"

Something to sharpen your creative edge

2008-04-16T13:31:00.002-04:00

I found this in Writers Digests' "101 Best Websites for Writers." Give it a try... what you come up with may surprise you.

let me know if you come up with any good ones. My favorite was "Middle children slept beneath the radar."

Weekend fun...

2008-04-11T19:25:00.001-04:00

I couldn't resist pointing you toward this. Enjoy. But don't put anyone's eye out...

I Am A Gray American

2008-03-27T11:29:00.010-04:00

I remember exactly when I found my first gray hair. Actually, my roommate found it for me. I was twenty-five, and we shared an apartment that spanned the warped second floor of a pre-Victorian house near Boston College. I was coming out of my bedroom as she was coming out of hers, and she looked at me, and grinned. Brooklyn born and bred through and through, she said, pointing at my temple, "There's a gray one. And it's really shiny, too."

Trying to seem non-chalant, I shrugged. Then, when she plopped herself on the couch to watch television, I high-tailed it to the bathroom mirror.

I shouldn't have been surprised. My mother went gray early - she found her first at twenty-one, which I was more than happy to point out coincided with the birth of my older brother. I beat her by four years, but it didn't seem possible for me to be going gray. I felt...so young. When my mother was twenty-five, she had a husband and a house and a mortgage and a car and three children. I had...well, none of that. I even worked for myself, and was doing well enough at it so I only had to work three weeks out of the month.

It just didn't seem fair.

When the grays started asserting themselves into my otherwise lovely auburn locks, I went into deep denial. I covered them with cellophanes, a temporary process that, while it stained my scalp for a few shampoos, did the trick. When I reached the magic percentage of gray that cellophanes would no longer mask, my stylist laid out the awful truth: I had to go permanent.

I didn't like the process. It made my scalp sting and smelled horrific. But the results were...well, damn. I was one hot, twenty-five-looking mama, if I did say so myself.

This went on for years, changing my shade for the season (darker for winter, lighter for summer), until the late nineties or so, when news articles began to appear linking permanent hair dyes with cancer.

I stopped for a time, cut it short so I'd avoid the dreaded two-toned look, then grew it long again.

Then I got tired of being called "ma'am." I was also approaching my fortieth birthday and had made a bargain with myself: I would not hit that dreaded age looking like a "ma'am." I'd lose the twenty-odd pounds I'd let accumulate on my bod, and I'd absolutely nix the gray. (by that time hair dyes had been exonerated and the food-and-cosmetic police moved on to something else)

My stylist was pleased. Husband was pleased. But I looked in the mirror the next morning and nearly cried. It looked so...fake. I'd gotten so used to the "real" me that now I looked like I was sporting a wig.

But I got used to it.

I've been (more or less) keeping up with the "process" ever since.

Until a couple of weeks ago.

The dreaded roots had been growing in (because of various problems I'd had to cancel my regular appointment several times) and they were at least an inch long.

And they were kind of growing on me. I liked the shine of them. I liked the softness of them as I touched the new hair growing in at my part.

And I started thinking: what law says I have to look like I'm twenty-five? Why can't I age gracefully? Husband had gray hair coming in. Nearly every guy around my age I know is going gray. Many of the women, too.

Why not me?

I floated the trial balloon at Husband, and he had no reaction.

So as we drove to the stylist, I told him again (just in case he'd not been paying full attention the last time).

He turned to look at me. "You're really going to not dye your hair? You'll look like some kind of redneck!"

Rednecks of the world, I apologize on his behalf.

But I wasn't deterred. Even when my stylist didn't seem happy with the idea. She laid out the plan, how it would be done over a series of eight-week haircuts. "But you're going to be surprised at how much this will age you," she said, perusing my scalp with her fingers. "You're a good seventy-percent gray now, girl."

Just to hasten it along, I asked her to cut it extra-short.

We'll see how I feel as it grows out. I still have the option of running to her, in tears, and begging for my 7A auburn back.

But maybe I'm really ready not to be twenty-five any more.

Is it me or what?

2008-03-14T16:00:00.008-04:00

Here is a photo of Eliot Spitzer and his wife as he first announces his "private matter."

Here is one of New Jersey's Governor Jim McGreevy as he resigns his office for his own extracurricular activity:

Do you get some kind of memo when you enter politics, that when the you-know-what hits the fan that there is a dress code? The wife in "true blue" as she stands by her man, and said man in a power suit with the red striped tie to show his own contrition? Somebody get this memo to W...

Client Number Nine

2008-03-13T12:04:00.005-04:00

A Man Named Spitzer (sung to the "Brady Bunch" them song):

Here's the story
Of a girl named Ashley
Who was looking for a way to pay the rent.
Then she found a way to work
And not pay taxes
All she had to do was service wealthy gents.

Here's the story
Of a man named Spitzer
Who was also known as client number nine.

He put a lot of folks in jail
For prostitution
And white-collar crime.

'Til the one day when he transferred too much money
And those he'd once wronged pounced on him with glee
Now this man might have to go to prison
Where he'll do lots of servicing for free...in Cell Block D...
That's the way he destroyed his legacy...

----------------------------------------------

Yes, by now you probably heard the news - Geraldine Ferraro quit the Clinton campaign - no, I mean the sad fate of the governor of New York. Those of you who have read my blog know that I am of a libertarian slant and think that prostitution should be legalized. Still, I think the crime here is not sex for money but of sanctimony, hypocrisy, arrogance, and many other adjectives that all the New York area newspapers have already used so I won't repeat them here.

This leaves me puzzled about two main things. One, how could someone who has put himself up on a pedestal as the crusader against financial crime and prostitution think himself so above the law that he can see prostitutes for nearly a freakin' decade and get a way with it, yet!

Plus, I wonder what the heck do you get for five thousand dollars an hour? I can't even imagine the kind of "services" that one might purchase for this kind of coin. Perhaps the act itself is only a couple hundred, and the rest goes to the fee for the hotel room and hush money.

Apparently, the hush money part didn't work out so well. Probably because while he was attorney general and during his stint as governor he made few political friends, and more than one of his enemies probably rubbed his hands together with glee when he started putting the pieces together - the cash transfers, the out of town visits (when he told the state police to take a powder), and various other shenanigans.

I'm just glad that he decided to resign instead of digging in his heels and making the state go through an impeachment procedure. The only positive than that I can say about Spitzer now is that we don't have to be put through another round of parsing out the meaning of sex and the definition of the word "is."

Now let us all bow our heads and say thanks, and hope that his lawyer wife won't bounce his ass back to the stone age, and let us all simply move on.

"Other Than That, Mrs. Lincoln..."

2008-03-10T14:54:00.004-04:00

I fear that this blog lately is becoming the obituary column.

But I just found out today that someone that I knew for very long time passed away back in October. Her name was Marilyn, and she was my massage therapist for almost fifteen years before she developed ovarian cancer and had to stop her practice. When someone has their hands on you for that long, you can't help but grow close, and very often we'd wind up gabbing all the way through our session and for while afterward, in her sunny, cheerful, but wonderfully humanly messy kitchen.

And these humanly messy qualities were among the things that were so wonderful about her. She loved to laugh and dance and cook and have fun, and as she was Cajun, she had spent her vacations in New Orleans visiting relatives where she probably laughed and danced.

Her love for life was dimmed only briefly by her chemotherapy and radiation, and after the surgery and first round, she gained enough strength to see some of her clients, usually only one per day. And when I hurt my back and couldn't come to her, she offered to come to me. That never worked out though, as each day that our appointment came turned out to be a bad day for her and she eventually told me that I should look for someone else, "so I won't keep pissing you off."

It was a struggle to find someone to replace her. I knew I could never replace "her," but after a period of trial and error (mostly error...I mean, how do you replace a professional who knows what's wrong with your body just by watching you come through the door?) , I did find a new massage therapist, in fact, I often gravitate among two or three of them depending on what I need. And even after I stopped seeing her professionally, we got together once a month or so for lunch, and she always offer me an ear - when she had the strength to listen - during that awful period of my life when everything seem to be hitting me at once.

I don't remember the last time I saw her. Probably it was at one of those lunches, at the Joyous Cafe on Broadway, where we'd compare aches and pains and she told me what this or that massage therapist should be doing for me, and things I could do myself, and we'd laugh, and laugh.

That's what I'll remember most. Hands as well as a heart that always seemed to know what I needed. And this - at one of those lunches, after she updated me on the status of her blood count and the new chemo she was about to try, she floated this idea at me. "Do you think it would be too weird to throw myself a funeral?"

I thought a moment. I don't believe anyone in the whole of my life had ever asked me such a question.

"I mean," she said, "People say all the good stuff about you after you die. I want to be around to hear it."

I believe I said that I thought it would be a great thing to do.

And, sure enough, a month or so later I got an invitation in the mail. Husband thought it was horrifically morbid, and refused to go. But I still liked the idea. And admired her for doing it. I even RSVP'd.

But come the night of the service, I chickened out. I got dressed, I put on my jacket, and then just started to cry. And cry, and cry, and cry.

She forgave me for not coming. "Not everyone can handle it," she said, and just continued our conversation.

And even though she told me about, oh, eight or so months ago that she might be too tired to talk, it would be OK if I left messages or sent emails. Every time I thought of her I'd call and leave a message, or if I found a card I thought she'd find funny I sent it.

It's a kind of disembodying experience to find out that someone you thought so close to you had died five months after the fact. And in the most random of ways. I happened to pick up an oncology group newsletter while I was waiting to have my yearly mammogram, and there was a box headed "In Loving Memory" with her name listed below. But I can hardly blame her husband. Having just been through the same experience, I know that he probably had enough to handle without having to call all of her ex-customers.

I just hope that she went out of this life the way she lived it: brave, laughing, and definitely out loud.

100 Things We Didn't Know Last Year

2008-03-05T12:20:00.001-05:00

If you're sick of politics, here are a bunch of trivial items to amuse, confuse and annoy you...

I absolutely don't know why it's best to harvest rhubarb by candlelight, but I'm sure someone spent a lot of money on a study to find out.

The Period At The End Of The Sentence

2008-02-29T16:45:00.003-05:00

I had no idea how many little details are involved in the ending of someone's life. I don't mean the actual death, the trips to the hospital, the phone calls we made (and forgot to make) letting everyone know. I mean the small, stupid stuff. Like what to do with the person's things. Did they have a preference for how they may be disposed of? That dress that you always thought was so hideous, was that the one that she wanted so and so to have, or thought too good to stuff in the bag for the Salvation Army?

And in the end, no pun intended, we just throw up our hands and hope for the best, And as I left my former mother-in-law's former apartment for the last time this afternoon, I apologized to her for anything that we might have done with her earthly belongings that was not in accordance to her wishes, but telling her that we did the best we could, having no direction whatsoever.

But I also mean the really stupid things. For instance, I took on the task of canceling her utilities and accounts and taking care of her taxes. The different ways in which utilities, credit cards, health insurance plans have for putting that period on the end of the sentence vary greatly and are sometimes amusing, although they probably did not intend this to be so.

For instance, after I canceled her Netscape account, I got a very polite letter from customer service, addressed to her name, which invited her, should her circumstances change in the future, to reinstate her account. Although I think that where she is now, she can do lot better than communicating through Netscape. Now that would make seances much more definitive. "I'm getting something..." the astrologer would say. "I'm getting something and...YOU'VE GOT MAIL!"

I also made a polite suggestion to the telephone company to change the name of the department which handles such things from "terminations" to something a little less dramatic, and, well, horrific, like "disconnections." Yes I know it's just semantics, but when you are dealing with a recently bereaved family member, sometimes the little things matter.

Apparently, our county legislator believes so, too. Shortly after Social Security was notified of her passing, we got a very polite letter with his condolences on our recent loss.

Just when you want to really hate politicians, they go and do something all warm and fuzzy.

But now we go forward. Having gotten all her things out of her abode, they are now mostly in ours. If you're into romance novels, have we got a bodice-ripping bonanaza here for you! Seriously, I mean it. Take a book. Please.

As I look forward to the sorting, the giving away, the throwing out (mostly looking forward to this so we can return our home to its normal state of messiness and not this mother-in-law-of-all-garage-sales that it has become), I think about the things themselves. Things have energy. And these things, they're buzzing with it. I wonder, if someone is really intuitive, if they can chart a kind of map as to where they've been. Who has touched them. The story behind that knife, that vase, that framed print that no one seemed to particularly like but kept passing from person to person because of some sentimental value.

Seems as though I have a lot of stories to write. I've been dithering about starting to write again, but maybe it starts with this. A dog-eared romance novel. A scarf. A plate.

I can't wait to begin.

Ashes to ashes...

2008-02-02T11:44:00.000-05:00

This Sunday will mark two weeks since my mother in law passed away. For those if you who did not know, after a three-week stay in the critical care unit, after three weeks of agonizing pain and suffering while rapidly metastasizing breast cancer filled and re-filled her lungs with fluid, Husband and his sister made some difficult decisions to let nature take its course, and we watched her gradually slip into a calm and peaceful death.

And this is about the hardest thing that I've ever had to write, but since she always loved my writing and always read this blog, I couldn't let any more time pass without acknowledging her and thanking her for her unflagging support, and, as always, for giving birth to my husband.

Yes, we're all exhausted and very sad, and it will take some time to work through our grief, but I want to take a break from that and share a story from a happier time. She always loved our house - in fact, Husband often says that she liked it more than we did - and one thing that we both liked was when she came over and showed me how to cook some of her famous recipes. For years, we'd go to her house, and she would make us all those wonderful dishes that Husband loved so much - chicken soup, lasagne, pot roast. I wanted to make them for him, and I asked her for recipes, and she'd say, "What recipes? I don't write these things down. One day, I'll show you."

So she'd come over. Rolling her eyes at my soup pots that were inadequate ("So we'll make less, but you guys need a bigger pot!" she'd say.), her own spices in tow (even though I had my own). She'd park her pocketbook on the table and get to work. In went the chicken I'd purchased - with her very clear direction on exactly what kind to get ("Fryers, you gotta get fryers."). In went the water, the parsnips (the shopping for which was a comedy of errors that became a scene in one of my novels, as Husband couldn't tell a parsnip from a parsec), the carrots, the dill. Lots and lots of dill.

Then you simply cook until done. Oh, and while it's simmering, you have to skim the fat off the top. I skimmed, while she went out for a smoke.

When I'm up to making soup again, I'll think of her. And now, when I walk into the house and see her pocketbook on the shelf, below the green marble urn that holds her ashes, (yes, after a week of sitting mental shiva for her I was finally able to joke that I was certain she'd be living with us one day) part of me simply thinks she's out for a smoke, and she'll be back in a minute.

She quit smoking years ago, when she was first diagnosed. But I'll still see her bitty body on our deck, leaning up against a railing, letting the ashes fly into the wind.

Just call me Earl Grey

2008-01-19T17:22:00.000-05:00

"You never know how strong a woman is until you put her in hot water."

I wish I knew who to attribute this quote to, but I don't remember. I don't remember a lot of things lately. I look at the calendar and marvel at how time passes. And I know it does; I have signs. The gas tank empties and I fill it, my prescription bottles and the cupboards empty and I refill them, It doesn't seem real that just over two weeks ago, we were embroiled in this primary or that caucus, flipping back and forth between campaign poll results and football games. And now the insignificance of it all makes me laugh, except I don't have the energy to laugh, and it all comes out as this tiny, bird-like sigh.

Husband's mother is still in the hospital, still in Intensive Care, still on the ventilator. The fluid that keeps filling her lungs (technically pneumonia but really from the cancer) prevents her from breathing on her own without a choking gasp. She's being weaned off of the apparatus, slowly, to avoid too much distress, to avoid damage to her vocal cords. She's still in there, she wants to talk, she tries to spell words with her fingers, but she's so doped up it's hard to understand her. "Are you in pain?" we ask, and she shakes her head. "Are you just plain frustrated?" we ask, and she nods, her eyes open wide.

It's surreal. Someone who was once so chatty now reduced to sign language. Anyone in the same situation would be frustrated. Nurses in your face day and night, sticking your finger to check your blood sugar, pumping you full of yet another drug, talking about you like you're no longer in the room.

And that's where I've been, faithful readers who've probably gone on to other, more regularly published blogs. No secret mission this time. Still on deadline but in between interviews and Google searches and first and second drafts, I've been running to and from the hospital (fortunately only ten or so minutes away), packing healthy snacks, making sure we have enough food for when we come home, exhausted, to forage for dinner and give family members the daily update then collapse into the couch staring blankly at the television screen without really seeing. It's an odd kind of exhaustion. How much energy spent by a body for merely sitting in a chair! Or holding a hand, or massaging a foot, or fetching a nurse for a mug of hot water - to warm my chills away, to dip my psychic tea bag for yet another cup.

The Level Playing Field

2007-12-14T12:10:00.000-05:00

First of all, it’s good to be back. I was hard at work on my first big freelance assignment since hanging out my shingle. It was for a web magazine, and my task was to motivate readers to improve their health so they won’t have to pay for higher health insurance premiums when the consequences of their bad habits catch up with them. Among others, I interviewed lots of consultants, an adventure in itself, and I’ll tell you more in detail what I learned later on.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

I was momentarily shocked (or maybe I wasn’t) when I heard the list of alleged steroid users in baseball, among them some of my favorite players. (Johnny, how could you?) Putting aside the argument for the moment that HGH (human growth hormone) is given to help heal injuries faster and in some drug trials, has been used as a treatment for fibromyalgia, this issue, I think, is more about the entertainment factor in baseball rather than sport.

I mean, didn’t all this business start after the strike in the mid 90s? Owners wanted butts in the seats, and what better way than to give them hard-hitting home run sluggers? So have we then crossed the line even farther into entertainment?

Steroid use is called cheating by some, but in the entertainment field, things like this are done all time under the guise of getting more work and getting more butts in the seats. Actresses get their faces done, even some actors, and the breast implant and liposuction businesses are booming. Do we call these men and women cheaters, and deny them their Oscars and their stars on the walk of fame, and put an asterisk next to their names in the record books? No. The world lined up to see Angelina Jolie’s breasts star in “Tomb Raider”, and many, many actresses are still getting work as romantic leads into their 40s, 50s, and 60s, looking like women half their age thanks to Botox and other "injectibles."

I’m not saying this is right either. I just think we shouldn’t judge baseball players so harshly. Yes, they make a boatload of money, but so does Pamela Anderson.

Secret Agent Penguin

2007-11-26T16:08:00.000-05:00

Op is off on assignment... will be back soon...

Hell In The Name Of Health

2007-11-17T17:48:00.000-05:00

It’s been a while since I gave you an update on the various procedures I’ve been plunging into all in the name of improving my health, so here goes:

I’d been feeling kind of crappy for a while, with various digestive complaints, headaches, and a general uptick in the number of fibro flares I had been experiencing. So while I was at the swanky spa, I took the opportunity to have some blood tests done. Among other things, they revealed that I have a systemic yeast overgrowth. This is when the normally present candida takes over your system, crowding out the other good bacteria and causing all kinds of havoc, including digestive problems, skin problems, sinus infections, allergies of all stripes, and general annoyance. Also, it estimated that up to 90 percent of people with fibromyalgia have a yeast imbalance. It can be exacerbated by stress, antibiotic use, and steroid use, among other things. (hopefully this is not too much information for you guys, in fact, you guys can get this as well).

Treatment began with a regimen of various herbal concoctions and probiotics, which I was to stay on for four weeks and then report back to the doctor. I followed this down to the last crossed T and dotted I, e-mailed the results back to the doctor (which, I’m sorry to say, were little to none) and then I didn’t hear from him for three weeks. Finally as a result of my patented abilities to nag, I got his reply.

Now, in this interim period, I’d been doing some research, and learned through a variety of books (one recommended by Husband’s sister, thank you so much), web sites, and other doctors, that there is a special diet that I should have been following as well as taking the herbs.

Yes, the spa doctor told me, I should have been following this diet (which he failed to tell me about) and included it with his return e-mail.

On the web, and in the books, I’d seen some diets that were fairly…well, Spartan would be a generous term. All of them involved eliminating sugar in all forms, alcohol, fruit juices, and several other things, but none of them were as restrictive as this one. I thought I was eating healthfully before: no sugar, caffeine, fruit juice, alcohol, etc. I had brown rice, and organic cereal, and rice milk instead of dairy. That, I thought, (plus my daily dose of an apple or a few blueberries) would be enough.

But no.

The doctor’s diet consisted basically of vegetables and meat. I’m serious. For four weeks, I am encouraged to eat nothing but lean cuts of meat, eggs, non-starchy vegetables, a variety of nuts and seeds, and for fun, a daily cup of nonfat plain yogurt and a cup of beans of any kind, plus a spritz of lemon juice just to spice things up. Yippee!! I used to make fun of people who were on the South Beach and Atkins diets (you know who you are) but now I was developing a new sympathy with them. And how did you make that mashed cauliflower stuff that was supposed to taste like mashed potatoes? Oh, right. It was made with apples. Which I can’t have.

I’ve been at this for two days now, and it hasn’t been as much of the challenge as I thought (the promised cravings haven’t taken place yet; or perhaps I’m still in shock). It has, however, challenged what I’ve grown to think of as meals. For example, this morning I looked down at my breakfast plate and saw the following: two hard-boiled eggs and a stalk of celery stuffed with almond butter. And I thought, this is not breakfast. This is the money shot for “Snax: Erotica For Anorexic Celebrities.”

Fortunately, the sadists (I mean, people) who devised this minimalist diet also were kind enough to give me a few pages of recipes, including something called “Tofu Mash,” which I’m just dying to try (not).

The doctor also still wants me to take the same herbal concoctions as before, but with a twist. He suggested I take something called grapefruit seed extract. Just to throw a hand grenade at the little beasties, in case the bunker buster failed to work. Luckily, the friendly folks of my local health food are used to me asking for all kinds of bizarre things). I was supposed to take fifteen drops in 6 ounces of warm water twice a day between meals.

Now, I am used to swallowing all kinds of nasty substances (no off-color comments please), but this one… this one could take rust off a bicycle. It could peel paint from the hull of a ship. It could take the makeup off Hillary Clinton’s face. After I downed the first glass, I thought I could feel my teeth dissolving, and ran to brush my teeth to get that godawful taste out of my mouth.

But hey, maybe the diet will actually work. I’ll wrestle those little yeast beasts to the ground, and lose those last few pounds.

And the very least, I’ll have very clean teeth.

Hey, It Could Be True...

2007-11-09T11:02:00.000-05:00

The heck with the writers' strike! You can find all your fake TV news items right here...

Televangelist Performs Miracle.
When Rev. Pat Robertson gave his endorsement to Rudy Giuliani instead of a pro-life Republican, John McCain said he was “speechless.” It was reportedly the first time in recorded history that a politician had made that claim. The Vatican is investigating.

Drugs, Not Hugs:
Now that hugging other children is illegal in Alabama schools, teachers will be giving them Ritalin so they will focus on their work and keep their hands to themselves. If successful, Hillary Clinton will administer the drug to her husband.

Brewery’s Plan To “Go Green” Is Thwarted:
“If Nancy Pelosi can pollute with her private jet and get out of it by purchasing those energy credits,” a rep from Anheiser-Busch said, “why can’t we?” Al Gore called a press conference to clarify that he meant “carbon credits,” not “carbonated credits.”

Priest Was Only Trying To Be A Scab:
A Boston priest, arrested for stalking Conan O’Brien, claims he was only trying to give the late-night talk show host his writing samples, should he need extra staff during the strike. Conan said the jokes weren’t bad, except too many of them began, “A priest and a rabbi went into a bar…”

Hollywood Writers Strike!
When asked for his take on the situation, one of the writers on the picket line said, “________________”

VP Shoots Man:
During a hunting trip, an Iowa man was shot by his dog. The “dog” turned out to be Dick Cheney, who had forgotten to remove his Halloween costume while stumping for John McCain.

"Oh, Brave New World..."

2007-11-03T12:53:00.000-04:00

Just for fun, I've been rereading the classics that I was made to study in school. Hopefully now, without having to write essays about metaphors and such, I can simply sit back and enjoy them.

First up is "Brave New World." And it is sending chills up my spine. Almost seventy years later, the book not only still holds up, but is creepily prescient. The world that Huxley imagined is upon us. The cult of the automobile. Promiscuity. In-vitro fertilization. Genetic Engineering. Aromatherapy. There is even a drug named "Soma," (which muffles signals from the central nervous system) but it might as well have been reality shows. Or Starbucks. Or all the ways that society has engineered to keep us distracted and happy.

It's a vision of the future that, while arguably has come as true as 1984, is a little more spot on.

I'll let you know what's on the table next.

While not a classic, I just finished reading a little book titled "Conservatize Me," By John Moe. It's a bit of a spoof on the documentary from a few years ago, "Super Size Me," but in this version, Mr. Moe crafts his 30-day experiment as follows: a self-described liberal democrat who works for a public radio station in Seattle immerses himself into the "conservative" world, to see if he can make himself become conservative by osmosis. It's a bit stereotypical - meaning that in choosing his influences he shops at Wal-Mart, listens to Country/Western music, learns to shoot a gun, and changes his brand of beer, just for starters.

If you care to read it, I won't spoil the ending. But as he went upon his journey, actually talking to conservatives, reading their books, and living (his version) of their lives, he actually ended up in a less stereotypical place then I thought he would.

Overall, this was an amusing journey.

Words! Words! Words!

2007-10-31T11:25:00.000-04:00

All right, once again I'm copping out... er, passing along this amusing list for today's blog entry, courtesy of one of my favorite readers. Enjoy! I'm now off to start today's decafelon...

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners. Read them carefully. Each is an artificial word with only one letter altered to form a real word. Some are terrifically innovative:

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts ntil you realize it was your money to start with.

2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people, that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The Bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

4. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

5. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

7. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

8. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

9. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.

10. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

11. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

12. Glibido: All talk and no action.

13. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

14. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

15. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

16. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the lot:

17. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be lawyers...

2007-10-30T10:49:00.000-04:00

I don't have much use for the alumni publications I get from Syracuse.

One, I don't go there any more, and know no one who does, so I have no stake in the new building they're constructing on their Disney-fied version of a college campus, no interest in the programs sending freshmen overseas, don't care who is now a sitting professor in the College of Take-Your-Money-And-Give-You-Kids-Who-Don't-Know-Shit. (which is not how it used to be, so Mom, Dad, no, I did find my four years there a valuable and educational experience...)

Two, I resent the fact that if I DID send in any alumni contributions (come on, what do you think they use them for?), they'd mostly go toward producing the several slick, oversized, five color extravaganzas I receive in the mail every quarter or so. Plus all of the salaries of everyone on the masthead.

What I am interested in is that section in the back where alum can write in little blurbs about what they're doing now, that they've married Buffy or Biff or finally learned to read. Along with a little photo, that, while there are some that are really creatively shot, most are the standard top-of-the-balding-head-to-the-bottom-of-the-necktie bio shots.

Come on. Don't tell me you don't go there, too. It's like watching NASCAR for the accidents or Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan for, well, any move they might make.

Yes, it's potentially destructive and definitely cynical (there is a study going that says that people who are cynical die earlier than their more positive-minded counterparts, but, hey, if you're cynical, you already knew that, didn't you?) but I often compare people's bios to where I am in my own life. And the women - well, I just have to see if they're aging faster than I am.

And no, it's not fair that I graduated with Vanessa Williams. And it's definitely not fair that I torment my poor husband about it when we're watching Ugly Betty:

Me: We're the same age, you know. She was in my Art History class.
Him: Yeah, you tell me all the time.
Me: I don't look older than she does, do I?
Him: (silence)

Which is probably the smartest thing he could have said.

But anyway, I opened my latest "How are we spending your alumni contributions now" publication, flipped to the back and BAM! There's a blurb (with photo!) of the first guy I kissed at SU. We met at a party. He was adorable, with curly hair and eyes like Bambi. Picture that guy from Scrubs with a faux 'fro (hey, it was the late 70s). We met at one of those spontaneous dorm parties that spread like mold during that first week or so of school. He tried to get me drunk on Pink Champale. One kiss was as far as we got and I never hung out with him again, as we both quickly discovered that we had nothing in common except being away from home for the first time. We greeted each other with embarrassed grunts whenever we passed in the halls, which gradually petered out to no contact whatsoever.

But oh, my god, this picture! He's a lawyer (which I never would have predicted - CPA, maybe, but not a lawyer), just joined some new firm in New Jersey. I tried reading between the lines...hmm, simply joining a new firm, not a partner, what happened at the old firm...(it's a joy to be a writer sometimes...) Perhaps he tried to get some intern drunk on Pink Champale...and then the photo! I'm sorry to say the years have not been kind. I looked for the adorable eighteen year old in there and...nope. Couldn't see a whit of it. This guy looked like a shoe salesman from Long Island. (not meaning, of course, to disparage the shoe salesmen from Long Island)

I'm hoping it was a bad photo.

Or a misprint.

I just don't like knowing that the first guy I kissed when I was away from home for the first time became a lawyer.

It could have been worse, I suppose.

We could have missed each other entirely at that party. Then I wouldn't have the memory at all of this pure moment, the sweet deliriousness of being partially tipsy at my first college party and the cutest guy in the room kisses me, not some mega-babe, which of course meant that life was perfect and I belonged.

Even if he did turn out to be a lawyer with an overbite.

And I DO think that I don't look any older than Vanessa Williams.

No matter what my husband doesn't say.

Do The "Seven Dirty Words" Still Matter?

2007-10-23T11:11:00.000-04:00

Words have always fascinated me. Particularly the contexts in which you can say certain words and can't say others. This started in childhood, with some very interesting discrepancies on my parents' part (remind me to tell you that story later.) But I really got hooked into it when I swiped my father's copy (or was of my brothers?) of George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can't Say On Television."

And with that, a writer was born. At least one who appreciates the power and hidden meanings behind words. I learned that if the context was correct, you could get away with practically anything. Even on television.

But lately, it's getting ridiculous. Like the little man at the bleeper switch has fallen asleep. Or, wakes up and shaking himself into consciousness, realizes he better start making an example of somebody so he can justify his existence. (or make up for the ones that got away)

Will the FCC get its act in gear already? We seem to have a consistency problem. I'm no prude, and by now I've heard every single word there is to say and then some, including some very creative combinations.

But what they allow to be said on TV makes no sense whatsoever.

I think it all started with "NYPD Blue," with David Caruso's bare buttocks. It proved that not only could you say "ass" on network television after a certain time, you could even show them. (As long it was a was a tasteful glimpse - and believe me, even a tasteful glimpse of Caruso's hindquarters is nowhere near my list of the "thousand things I want to see before I die.")

Then the boundaries began to blur. I've seen some shows lately where you could say the word "penis," but couldn't say (except you could imply, by careful use of euphemisms) its function. But I've yet to see a TV program where you could say the word "vagina," except in the context of the play, "The Vagina Monologues." (an interesting aside: my text-to-speech program recognized "penis" immediately but I had to teach it how to say "vagina." Twice, in fact)

And there are some words - those that describe the scatological functions - that, although they may not be uttered, can be creatively described or inferred by their euphemisms. Everybody knows what you're talking about although the actual word cannot be said. So what's the big deal about saying the actual word? Would it kill anyone? Would any child actually be scarred for life? Many years ago, you couldn't say "pregnant" on television. You could say, "expecting." You could say "with child." For Christ’s sake. TV couples slept in separate beds. Which made me wonder how the wife got to be "expecting" at all.

It's just stupid, and an insult to our intelligence.

An argument may be that it lowers the level of the conversation. Have these people actually watched television lately? Could the level of the conversation get any lower?

Some of the more inane examples I've heard lately:

--You can say boobs, knockers, headlights, any number of clever euphemisms for the female mammary glands, but you still can't say "tits." But isn't that just another euphemism? Why is this one forbidden? Also, you can say "breast," but only in the context of their biological function or if it relates to cancer.

--You can say any number of the thousands of euphemisms for the procreative act. You can even show it, after a certain hour. Yet the "f" bomb is just that - something that will bring the censors down on you like it's the Blitz and you're London. Yet everyone over the age of, say eleven or so, knows exactly what you're referring to.

Yet avoiding these certain words does allow for a vast world of creativity. I’m willing to bet that the English language has just as many expressions for the procreative act than Yiddish has for lack of intelligence or that Inuit has for snow.

Which proves what is most important around here.

If it’s that important, why can’t we just call it what it is, and get over ourselves already?

Can You Put A Price On Integrity?

2007-10-19T11:21:00.000-04:00

I know I'm late to weigh in on this, but I'm still rankled by the September 14th scandal in which the New England Patriots" Bill Belichick was found to be spying on his opponents defensive signals using video tape from the sidelines.

So much for "America's Team." So much for Tom Brady as "America's Quarterback." The supposed "best" team in football has to cheat in order to win against... the JETS?

Come on. The lowliest ranked NCAA team could probably stomp the Jets into the sod and Belichick needs to cheat against them?

OK. They didn't get off completely scot-free (or, as will probably wind up in the American lexicon "O. J.'d it). They were fined $750,000 ($500,000 was to come from Belichick personally) and they lost a draft pick for next season. And they got the mildest slap on the wrist (it was more like a disappointed eye-roll) from Commissioner Roger Goodell.

"This episode represents a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid longstanding rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field," Goodell said in a letter to the Patriots.

He said he considered suspending Belichick but didn't "largely because I believe that the discipline I am imposing of a maximum fine and forfeiture of a first-round draft choice, or multiple draft choices, is in fact more significant and long-lasting, and therefore more effective, than a suspension."

Who says? A guy whose interest it's in NOT to sideline the winningest coach of the winningest team that gives the NFL the most winningest pile of green?

It's not good enough. A token suspension at least, at the very very least, they should have had to forfeit the game to the Jets.

Anything to cut "Mean Green" a break.

I've seen a few peevish editorials, a few letters from a few angry fans, but the following Sunday, it was back to business as usual. Tom Brady looked tall in the saddle and the Patriots went on winning and nothing more was said.

So is this the way it's going to work, now? If you put asses in the seats, if you throw enough money at the problem, it simply goes away? If Pete Rose coughs up enough to build a Cal Ripkin wing onto the Cooperstown museum, will he be allowed into the Hall of Fame? If Michael Vick makes a 750G donation to the ASPCA will he be back in the pocket the following Sunday?

It's wrong. All of it's wrong. Apparently we're going down a cash-laden path that tells kids that it's OK to lie, cheat, steal, and make animals fight each other as long as you were previously almost a living legend. Then you can just write a check and look appropriately ashamed for as long as it takes to get a few sound bites out for ESPN.

Now the Pats are cracking down on scalpers who use StubHub to get money for their tickets. Probably most of these scalpers are season-ticket holders trying to unload seats they won't be using. Way to go, Pats. Take it out on the fans who help pay your inflated salaries.

But damned sure that if any of them are caught, they won't be able to simply write a check and walk away smiling

They might have to actually (gulp) suffer lasting consequences of their actions.

"Oh, Brave New World..."

2007-10-14T14:07:00.000-04:00

My Grandmother

2007-10-09T10:30:00.000-04:00

I didn't want to go another day without mentioning my grandmother, who passed away last week at the age of 96, mercifully after a brief illness. She managed to evade the two things she feared most about getting old: going senile and being put in a nursing home (she only had to go as far as moving into an assisted living facililty.) She had all her marbles, up until the end. Just two weeks ago, at my mother's wedding, we passed the phone around, and she was wisecracking with Husband:

"So, Grandma, when are you getting remarried?" he asked.
"Hah," she said. "You should see what's here."

On Sunday, she was laid to rest in Miami, next to her husband, Phil, who died when I was five and predeceased her by over 40 years. What a long time to be away from someone you love. I can only imagine the conversations they are having now (if such things happen).

Him, smirking, taking the cigar from his mouth: "So, Yetta, what took you so long?"
Her, giving him a playful smack: "It's your fault for leaving so soon?"
Him: "Did you have a nice life, a good life?"
Her, smiling: "Yes. A lovely life."
Him: "You'll show me the pictures. But not just yet. Come on. We need a fourth for bridge."

I wasn't at the service, although I sent along something for my brother to read. But there will never be enough words to tell what she meant to me and how she influenced my life and how much I loved her. Words are weak conductors of feelings, but sometimes they are all we have, and sometimes there are no words at all.

This is what I offered:

I have so many memories of the ways that Grandma Yetta enriched my life that it’s hard to choose which ones to share.

She expanded my cooking repertoire. She made me beautiful scarves and sweaters (and one my favorite dresses), taught me how to knit and crochet (even though I promptly forgot how), but mostly what I remember is her wonderful sense of humor.

When I was a child, and Grandma came to visit, my younger brother and I loved to play tricks on her. During the 60s and early 70s, family cars had back seats with humps in the middle, which, if you had more than the standard 2.4 children, started many an argument about who got stuck sitting on that seat. My brother and I had a little routine that we used on Grandma on trips when my older brother didn’t come with us. We’d make a big show of letting her get in first to the backseat, then I would get it after her, but my brother would run around to the other side of the car and get in, leaving her to sit on the hump, and she would laugh and laugh with that wonderful cackle of hers, yet she kept letting us do that to her each time we got in the car.

But my favorite story, and one that I might have told some of you already, was one summer when Grandma was visiting. We were walking along the streets of Poughkeepsie to meet my mother after work. I was about 16 or so, and one of the fashions of the time was Danskin wrap skirts. I was wearing mine and it was a rather windy day. So I discretely held the flap in place so I wouldn’t expose myself.

Grandma turned to me and said, “Honey, if I was your age, I’d wear red panties and let the wind blow.”

If nothing else, at least I got someone to say "panties" at a funeral.

I think Grandma would have gotten a good laugh out of that.

Fun With Typos

2007-09-28T13:00:00.000-04:00

I love to collect typos: call it an editor's enthusiasm, call it OCD, but at the very least, call it fun. And a constant reminder that computer spell-checks are stupid.

This, from a flyer I received from a massage therapist:

"It is estimated that $85 BILLION a year is spent directly and indirectly on treading low back pain." (wow, no wonder we all hurt so much with all that treading upon our lower backs...)

"Low Back Pain is Devastating! You are in constant pain, always shifting your weight to take the pressure off your lower back (and, I assume, from all that treading...). Standing, sitting or even lying in bed doesn't seem to ease the pain. When all else fails you turn to a bottle of pain killers. Knowing full well the affects oral medication has on your lover and gastrointestinal track." (um...uh...this is a family blog so when I see "oral" and "lover" in the same sentence the censors here in Opusville get a little nervous. But feel free to write your own joke.)

The Bride Buys A Book... The Bride Buys A Book

2007-09-22T11:16:00.000-04:00

I had the privilege and honor to attend my mother's third wedding ceremony last weekend (since I missed the first one and all).

It warmed my heart to see the bride and groom so happy and to be with them as they shared that joy with our combined families.

You never know quite what's going to happen when two families are joined by a pair of wedding bands and a pair of hearts, but I can say that there is one thing that most of us have in common.

As the ceremony in the Brooklyn gallery ended early, and the restaurant where we were to have the reception was not quite ready for the two-dozen or so of us, we had some time to kill. My new sister in law, a very talented artist, who together with her husband, the groom's son, arranged most of the details - said the eight words that are like music to my heart: "who wants to go to Barnes and Noble?"

Not a single dissenting voice was heard.

And with that, we decided, that a new wedding tradition had been formed: the ceremonial tour of a local book store. (And I won't say which one of us took the opportunity to use the stop for some last-minute wedding gift shopping.)

All and all, it was a beautiful afternoon (adorned with two adorable flower girls). I stand (or sit, as the case may be)humbled at the courage my mother and her beloved have shown in this simple but powerful act of trusting their hearts to each other.

Congratulations and Mazel Tov and welcome to the family!

Not another season of Survivor...

2007-09-21T12:07:00.000-04:00

I know I know, I skipped over many more important topics to blog about (yes, there will be a wedding blog, when I get some pictures), but last night something really ruffled my feathers.

It happened when I was watching Survivor. I know, it’s gotta be like the twenty third season already, but I still watch because it’s fun brain dead TV, and this one is set in China.

If you’ve never watched, each season begins with the introduction of all of the Survivor contestants, and shows them making the transition from regular life to the Spartan Survivor camps.

And I don’t know where they get these people, but inevitably, there’s always a handful who come completely unprepared and act as if they have never seen the show before in their lives. You think that if you were going on a TV show to win a million dollars that you would want to have some kind of idea what you’re getting yourself into.

Particularly, what you should be wearing. You have got to know that no matter what kind of luggage you are bringing along (or are asked to bring along), inevitably you will be told that from here on in you will go to your camp with nothing but the clothes on your back.

The girls are the worst. One came in a mini skirt and motorcycle boots. One, a self confessed “city girl,” hated everyone and, came wearing full-on makeup, a skimpy top with no bra and flat thong sandals.

I’d vote her off for stupidity alone.

But then again, I’m watching the show, so who can I claim is more stupid?

Yet if I were going on (and I’m not, as I’d never make it past the opening credits, if I got that far), I’d start with Under Armor bike shorts and a sports bra. Layer that with a quick-drying t-shirt, rain-resistant overshirt, work pants, running shoes that I can wear with or without socks, and, of course, a hat.

Of course I’m a sensible sort.

My vote for this season is on the gay Mormon flight attendant. Because surely anyone in that position could use a million dollars.

Is that an iliac crest in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

2007-09-09T13:17:00.000-04:00

No offense meant to the men in my audience, but male authors write lousy sex scenes. Especially Tom Wolfe. I’m sorry, but reading the words “iliac crest” and “pectoral sheath” as the romantic leads are getting busy is about as sexy as reading the Congressional Quarterly.

I’m having the most marvelous time mocking the prose of his latest, “I Am Charlotte Simmons.” I picked it up at Barnes & Noble, because it was remaindered and because I have a weakness for fat novels. And I finally got around to reading it.

I’ve read other male authors who seem to be suffering from the same problem. They have a great set up. They have great characters. They have prose to die for. But when a sex scene looms, they either pan up into the trees or go about it as clumsily as an anatomy lesson. In fact I believe that the contest held every year for the worst sex scene in literature has been won by a male author. Philip Roth and Salmon Rushdie have won, and in 2004 Tom Wolfe garnered the dubious honor for “…Charlotte Simmons.”

Here is an example of one of his “winning” passages:

“Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns.

Oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest no, the hand was cupping her entire right - Now! She must say 'No, Hoyt' and talk to him like a dog...”

It only goes downhill (or, as he might say, a slither on the southbound express to her iliac crest) from there.

My solution for these well-meaning men? Hire a woman to write your sex scenes. At the very least, have one of the XX persuasion read it for you and comment. If she either laughs or falls asleep, that’s not good.

And Many Returns...

2007-09-08T11:23:00.001-04:00

It’s odd, the feeling of being back in my room again. It’s not an unfamiliar place, as I’ve written in here for many years before, but it’s different this time.

The only thing I’ve been able to concretely put my finger on is that I’m approaching this space after an extended period of writer’s block. I had my occasional days where the characters weren’t doing what I wanted, or the plot was not quite working out as I planned, but I don’t think I’ve experienced anything that’s commonly referred to as writer’s block. (See, those of you in my writers group who tease me about my prolific tendencies, you’re not the only ones.)

It’s not that I’ve been trying to write and failing to come up with anything but an empty page, or screen, it’s that I haven’t felt driven to write much at all. I’m hanging my hat on faith - faith that I’m only at the bottom of a dry well that will once again fill. Or that someday soon, I’ll wake from this magic spell, and my characters will be there again, clamoring to tell their stories. Oh, do I miss that! (as are several others who are waiting for the next installment) That feeling of wanting to jump out of bed and get to my novel, that feeling of going to sleep at night knowing I had put in a good days work, and knowing where I had to start again the next day.

Ironically, I’m the one who’s fond of telling other writers that (supposedly) Michael Crichton told an interviewer that the secret of writing is butt to chair; that is, get yon buttocks hither into yon chair. But I’m finding it much more satisfying to feather my old-but-new-again little nest – to get the keyboard and monitor at the right height, to find a proper footrest (Norton’s “Encyclopedia of Literature” – is that blasphemy?), to place my mug o’pens within arm’s reach, ditto the wireless mouse and the copy stand, to dust off my baseball bobble-heads and stuffed penguins.

Is it good enough to be close to one’s chair during this process? Sigh. I guess it’s not the same thing.

But here I am, having sat mine posterior end in the heretofore mentioned writer’s throne, waiting…waiting…waiting.

I’m leaning more toward Woody Allen’s secret to success. That 99% of luck is simply showing up.

Or so they say.

(PS: and for those of you who are interested, I typed the last five paragraphs of this blog, using my actual fingers on my actual keyboard. So begins the return…and keep your fingers crossed)

Exercises for Women of a Certain Age

2007-09-01T11:26:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's one of those hard facts of life that none of us wants to deal with, but we women of a certain age sometimes have to work a little harder to burn off the same number of calories as we used to. Here are just a few ways you can add more exercise into your daily life:

Where Did I Park My Car-dio

This is one of my favorites. Forgetting where you parked your car, especially in any giant box store parking lot, is an excellent way to add more exercise to your routine. I've been known to walk at least half a mile out of my way just to find my vehicle. For beginners, you may want to tie a very bright piece of clothing to your antenna to make it easier, and as you progress, you can either make this color less apparent, or feel the burn by removing the article completely.

The "I Missed My Turn" Upper Body Workout

I don't know about you, but those little brain blips often cause me to do things like miss my turn, find myself going in the wrong direction, etc. I've found that wrenching the wheel around to get where I'm supposed to be going really works those arms and shoulders, especially when I'm doing an 18-point turn on a side road or in somebody's driveway. The more garden gnomes or flower beds or other decorative frou-frou to avoid, the better. For the beginner, try a simple U - turn on any three lane highway.

The "Why Am I Here?" Dash

No need to be embarrassed about it - we all do it (some of us more than others). We find ourselves in a room of our abode and wonder why we came in there and what were we looking for in the first place. Don't fret and think you're losing your mind - use your mental lapse as an opportunity to get more exercise! When you find yourself in the wrong room, instead of scolding yourself, just dash to the next. Burn more calories by dragging a vacuum cleaner or bucket of cleaning supplies along with you. This exercise can also be used when you find yourself putting something in to the freezer when you intended to put it into the microwave, or socks into the garbage instead of the hamper. Use thse hidden opportunities to get a good stretch.

So be creative - instead of fretting about those little menopausal moments, use them to shape up! And don't forget, each hot flash burns at least 100 calories.

Moving day...

2007-08-28T11:51:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow, perhaps I’ll the funnier, but today, I’m reclaiming my Space.

With that I mean my writing room. Since Husband was the one who was using the fancy computer, the fancy scanner, and the fancy drawing tablet more frequently than I was, I let him have the use of the Space, while I had moved my command control center to the kitchen table.

The arrangements have been made. The shiny new workstation stands twinkling in the corner of Husband’s studio. All his equipment in a nice shiny row.

Even though my Space is not yet exactly a “turnkey” operation, today I moved the first piece of my equipment – my keyboard – back into my new old home.

It looked a little lonely there – of course most of the diagonal desk had been taken up by a big ass monitor – but when I get everything else set up, I will make it mine again.

I feel like I should have some kind of ceremony, a ritual, something to commemorate the occasion. A room-warming, if you will. Flowers don’t quite cut it – while they’re beautiful, sometimes they make me sneeze. A fresh coat of paint? It’s already painted the color I like – a nice, soothing shade of pink. Some art on the walls? I already have some prints up that I like – a framed movie poster from “Picasso,” another from “Casablanca,” and the room is too small to take on too much more. Plus sometimes I like looking up and seeing a broad expanse of soothing pink, just to clear my head.

Speaking of clearing my head, perhaps I’ll light a few sage candles and intone passages from Virginia Woolf. Paint my face and do a ritual dance or two.

I’m open to suggestions…

Didn't miss a thing...or did I?

2007-08-25T10:47:00.000-04:00

Just flew in from paradise and boy, are my wings tired.

I suppose that among various problems one could have, spa withdrawal is one of the better ones.

After having wonderful meals ready and waiting for you, hot tubs and massage therapists and every kind of exercise possibility at your disposal, it's a little tough to go back to the real world.

Reentry has been difficult. But I think I can handle it.

I learned several things about myself. One, I can physically handle more then I thought I could. Two, I'm not alone. And three, for christ sake I need to lighten up a little.

One thing I took away from the experience is that for the good of my soul, I need to take more walks in the woods. I never realized the subtle power of letting nature clear your head and soothe your psychic wounds.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

No offense to those of you in the media business, but for five days I didn't so much as pick up the newspaper, watch news on television, listen to the radio, or cruise the Internet. And you know what? Nothing has changed. I figured as much. I figured that when I remerged, the war would still be going on, the media and the majority of the American public would still hate Bush, and things would still be blowing up halfway across the world. Presidential would-be candidates would still be polluting the atmosphere with their sound bites and rhetoric, and no minds would have been changed.

So what does this say about what we're doing? I suppose that more voices offering their dissent raised up to the stream of consciousness is a good thing, I still admire the people who really put it out there, the ones who stand on street corners with signs, the ones who write letters to the editor, and the regular bloggers who daily add their voices - opinionated and strong - into the atmosphere, but I'm left wondering at what level of commitment I'm willing to give.

It just takes so much energy. And I'd much rather make people laugh.

After all, we need laughter just as much as we need a sign of protest thrust into the air.

Opus is off the ice floe

2007-08-18T10:29:00.000-04:00

I'm off to the land of low-fat rice milk and organic honey.

Back next week !

Deja vu all over again

2007-08-16T12:03:00.000-04:00

It’s hard enough getting my courage together to talk to a computer without that little “tah –dah” sound my computer makes on start-up.

It’s almost as if the computer is saying, “All right folks, now watch this!”

Oh, the pressure.

Of course I could simply turn it off, but what’s the fun in that. I like a good challenge, some more than others. Especially challenges that don’t involve pain and getting over thereof.

Speaking of which, each morning I strap on my black elbow braces (I’m vascilling between referring to them as my wonder woman magic bracelets and looking like I’m ready to take a piece out of somebody) with a sense of déjà vu.

About 15 years ago, I was doing the same thing. The elbow braces were less high-tech (a foam - lined plastic cuff with a woven strap) but the condition was much the same. My wedding gown had those detachable sleeves in case I needed them to cover my braces, because without them (the braces, not the sleeves) I was worried that have been be able to carry my bouquet down the aisle.

But that pain went away (after the stress of planning the wedding was over, and after lost my job) and this pain will go away too.

I don’t even want to wonder to the universe what I’ll have to give up in order to make this one better.

Is There A Doctor In The House?

2007-08-11T16:54:00.000-04:00

I’ve been going to the same general practitioner for nearly twenty years. He’s a very odd man; and normally begins each appointment with me by telling me what’s wrong with him.

This week’s visit was no different. "Oh, I have this pain in my shoulder,” he said. "I go swimming, and it doesn’t hurt when I go swimming but when I wake up the next morning… Oh, man that hurts.” All the while he’s rubbing at this spot in his shoulder that’s been bugging him. “So that’s why I’m glad that this summer’s almost over so I can stop swimming.”

“Why don’t you join a gym so you can keep swimming?” I said. Which sounded logical to me. There are lots of doctors and gym, and some have ridiculous hours. Both the doctor and the gym.

“Yeah but who am I kidding,” he said. “I’m up at 5:30, don’t get home until 6:30, and at lunch I’m really hungry and need to eat.” I start wondering if maybe I should see somebody else instead. But he’s helped me lot, and it’s been real interesting to see his growth for the past 20 years.

“Anyway,” he says, “what’s wrong with you?”

I tell him about my elbows. About when the pain started, when it hurts, what makes it hurt, etc. While I’m talking, he turns his back and takes a very large manual out of the cupboard. If you’ve never seen a physician’s desk reference (usually called the PDR), is about the size of your average microwave. I’m thinking, oh great, once again I have something so strange he’s got to look it up. But no. It’s much worse than that. He holds the book out to me grasped by one spidery hand, tells me to hold out my right hand, and take it from him.

I just look at him like he just asked me to pick up the Statue of Liberty.

Whatever, I think, and take it from him. “That hurts,” I tell him, sagging under its weight. Then he asked me to hold it with my hand going in the other way, and then comes the worst part. He wants me to the same thing with my left hand (that arm is the one that’s been hurting more).

“That hurts a lot more,” I tell him, gritting my teeth and sagging under its weight.

“You have tennis elbow,” he tells me. So much for scientific diagnostics.

And this is only one reason why he’s an interesting guy. He’s also gone a little more anti-meds than he used to be. Now he’s into stretching as the cure for everything.

“Now here’s what you do,” he said. He then showed me a series of very scary looking, very intense looking, and not very fibro-friendly stretches.

And had expected me to do them three times a day. Including mashing the lights out of anything that hurts.

Afterward, I went to work out at my physical therapist’s. I asked him about the stretching and the mashing, including the physician’s opinion that the weight regimen (extremely light and wimpy one pound weights) that the physical therapist had put me on would only make the situation worse. The physical therapist disagreed. This makes me crazy. Sometimes I want to get all of them in a room, give them a pot of coffee and half an hour, then come out with three alternatives for me to choose among. So during my workout I let my doctor’s advice and the PT’s advice duke it out in my head. My gut told me to go with the weights. After all, a PT treats more cases of tendonitis than a doctor in any one year. Plus the idea of all that mashing gives me the heebie-jeebies.

All I can do is make the best decision for me.

A Laugh Any Way I Can Get It

2007-08-10T11:17:00.000-04:00

At this point, I’m willing to do almost anything to get a good laugh. Even if it takes nearly burning my house down to get it (and no, I didn’t do it).

Husband was grilling some chicken on the barbecue for dinner. He finished, and like he usually does, he left the grill on low with the cover closed to burn off the residual fat. He was at the sink doing some dishes, and I was sitting at the kitchen table watching a DVD on my computer.

I looked up and happened to notice flames licking at the bottom of the barbecue, where the grease cup normally is.

“Um, husband? You might like to take a look at the grill. It’s on fire,” I told him.

He looked up. Then scrambled outside. He opened the hood, and it’s dancing with flame. He turned off all the knobs, and that only licked them down a little. Then he turned off the propane tank.

“You need the fire extinguisher?” I asked him.

“Nah, it’ll be alright.”

It might have been alright, except that (he claims) when he blew some of the cinders back into the grease cup, he created a spectacular fire ball that had that engulfed most of the barbecue. Anyone else looking at the scene would think that he was trying to blow out a grease fire.

“Now do you want the fire extinguisher?” I asked him.

“ Get it,” he said.

I got it. I also told him that he might want to move the aerosol can of wasp and hornet killer (does anyone know the difference between a wasp and a hornet, and does it really matter when they’re swarming around your back deck?) out of harm’s way. That’s all we needed, a house fire, and a true aerosol bomb.

Turns out he didn’t need the extinguisher (although he did more the aerosol can) and the fire, while it had flared spectacularly, had now burned itself out.

I’m saving the irony for last. For on the side of the propane canister was a magnet which read, “Danger Men Cooking.”

Apparently, printing the magnet with one inch high letters is not a prominent enough warning for some.

The Blame Game

2007-08-09T11:24:00.000-04:00

A horrible tragedy happens, and we look for someone to blame.

The epoxy failed. Somebody sold the sick kid a gun. The project went to the lowest bidder.

The rubble is still settling around the Minnesota overpass, and the media is there, compasses out, wanting to know where to point the finger.

I suppose this is only natural, the human thing to do. We simply do not want to believe that something horrible can happen for no good reason.

But there’s nobody that I can blame.

The lost jobs, the money I spent at doctor’s offices, the procedures I’ve undergone. There’s no finger that I can point, no lowest bidder that I can chastise for using the wrong 0 ring, no epoxy that I can claim did not live up to its promises.

Even if I believed in him I couldn’t even blame God.

And it wasn’t my parents' fault. They didn’t know what kind of primordial soup their combined DNA would foster; and nobody even knows if this thing is genetic anyway.

Meanwhile I keep on going, this little energizer bunny, having long ago given up on the idea of looking for someone to sue.

What am I afraid of?

2007-08-03T13:38:00.000-04:00

You might have heard it said that as far as fears go, more people are afraid of speaking in public then they are of death.

I’m afraid of speaking to computers.

Because of an undisclosed and undetermined pain in my elbows, my physical therapist recommended that I try voice-activated software so I can rest my arms for a while.

But the way my brain is wired, it’s so much easier for me to write than to speak. My verbal skills, sadly, fall far behind of my written skills.

So I sit here looking at a blank screen, wondering what to say. No. Not just wondering. Afraid of how to start, is more like it.

I used to be afraid of thunderstorms. Deadly afraid. Like hiding under the covers screaming kind of afraid. That lasted until my early teens, when I cured myself of it through aversion therapy.

It was nothing formal; No therapists involved. At the time we live in a house on a hill with a view of the Catskill Mountains, which was the direction the weather came from. Including the thunderstorms.

One day a storm was developing, and I forced myself to sit in the center of that room, floor to ceiling glass pane windows on two sides, and experienced that storm from beginning to end.

I was nervous at first, but eventually realized I had nothing to fear. Eventually instead of seeing the fear and danger of the thunderstorm, I began to see its beauty. The dramatic colors of the sky as the clouds bunched up, the way it took hold of the trees and battered the leaves to and fro, the way the rain pelted down on the windows, and the clean way the sky and the air looks after the storm was done.

And I suppose to cure myself of the fear of speaking to computers, I should approach it the same way.

Just sit in my chair, make a cup of tea, and talk to the stupid thing.

I think I can handle that.

Feels like Daytona to me...

2007-07-07T11:09:00.000-04:00

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, we've joined the 21st century here on the hill, with high speed internet and all that stuff, and man, this thing is fast. Where's that checkered flag!

More later; still working the bugs out...of the system and out of me. Something that might be tendonitis or just fibro in my elbows is slowing me down.

Guess I won't be finishing in the top five today...

What Was Your Name Again?

2007-06-29T10:00:00.000-04:00

When one is in the belly of a run of perimenopausal insomnia, there are some endeavors that are simply not safe to endeavor.

Proper grammar and spelling, for one.

Lion taming might be another.

That thing where the magician straps a girl to a spinning wheel and flings knives at her head, that might be something that would be safest to avoid. Unless you are the girl and really, really trust the guy throwing the knives.

Ditto pair juggling flaming torches. (damn, there goes Husband’s weekend)

I suppose I should put off trying to land that 747. Or swimming with sharks. Or coherent political debate. And above all, trying to compose amusing blogs.

Because this piece isn’t going the way I planned. With an elevator that stops short of the observation deck, nothing is going to go the way that I planned and I should probably stick to “safe” activities like operating the DVD player, making snacks that don’t involve sharp implements, and signing up for the Secret Service.

I didn’t see anything in the manual about driving an hour to my massage appointment, though.

I will drive a long way, even with a pounding headache, even on four days of crummy sleep, to get a good massage.

I will probably drive too fast, and rely on a sniff of peppermint oil instead of coffee, and sing very loud with the radio.

Don’t worry. That’s what keeps me focused. And if I’m pulled over by one of New York’s Finest, I will simply burst into tears.

And I won’t have to fake it. I’m getting pretty good at that, too.

I watched “Hitch” last night and cried at the ending, for Pete’s sake.

I cried at the end of last season’s final episode of “24.” And that’s pathetic.

And if I call on you to bail me out of the PMS tank this afternoon, please bring my pillow.

And a box of tissues. Maybe two.

A vessel of nothing and how it relates to the world around it

2007-06-26T11:52:00.000-04:00

Paris Hilton must be Rupert Murdoch’s wet dream – she and her in-and-out-and-in-and-out of the slammer story can be linked to every segment of TV news and every section of the newspaper.

She’s the top headline in the entertainment and court news, of course.

Fashion and Beauty Reports. TV News. Celebrity Updates. Business.

Business?

Yes, I heard it this morning. Husband listens to the financial shows when he wakes up. And there it was. A teaser for the next segment: How does Paris’s release from prison effect the Hilton brand?

I almost dropped my tea.

And that’s all this media outlet has to say on the subject.

Because I don’t care.

I really don’t care.

Until she’s back in jail for something else, of course.

There was also a news story speculating if she would be getting as much media attention if she were overweight and ugly. And, perhaps, if didn’t have a trust fund, or at the very least, kept her underwear on in public.

Does that really require an answer? In this country? Please. It’s something we all grow up with as part of the fabric of our cultural footy-pajamas that thin, pretty rich people have it pretty good around here.

If Rosie O’Donnell went to the slammer maybe there would be a bit of hoopla for a bit but I’m certain there would be a segment of the population who would happy to see her there, and happy to see her there for a very long time.

And my overarching question still remains – why is Paris Hilton that important? What has she ever done to merit so much media attention, when kids are dying in Iraq and a whole bunch of sometimes-interesting people are dying to be President?

Certainly it would be more interesting to follow Barack Obama or Rudy Guiliani around for a day or so, just to hear what they’ll say to cut through the traffic than to lurk outside a prison at midnight waiting for a glimpse of an empty-headed heiress.

Clearly there is something wrong with us. Something of the order of when the British people looked up and noticed that the countries they used to control wanted them and their language and religion and lousy cooking off their property.

I’m half expecting gladiator battles to show up on the front page of the Sports section. I’m sure Rupert Murdoch is figuring out a way to get Paris on there, too.

She could always box Tanya Harding.

FDA Approves First Fibromyalgia Drug!!

2007-06-23T12:26:00.000-04:00

On June 21, the Food and Drug Administration approved Lyrica (generic name: pregabalin) as the first drug to treat fibromyalgia, according to Pfizer.

This is a milestone, because prior to this FDA approval, those living with fibromyalgia (approximately six million in this country alone, myself included) had been forced to “make do” with drugs not officially approved for the symptoms of fibromyalgia. Medications were prescribed “off label” to treat the pain, fatigue, insomnia, headaches and digestive problems that are the hallmarks of the disease. Patients and their health care providers complained of needing to take multiple medications, and having problems with what their health insurance companies would cover. For instance, two of the most basic types of medications prescribed for fibromyalgia – anti-depressants and sleep aids – are classified by some HMOs as “mental health related” which not only perpetuates a long-fought-against stigma that fibromyalgia is “all in one’s head.” And in some cases, the HMO refuses to cover medications in these categories. (I'm still fighting this one.)

While Lyrica may not treat every symptom of fibromyalgia, it has been shown to help the major ones, and it also lends stronger credibility to the medical and health insurance communities that the disease is real and should be treated as such.

“This is an important day for people with fibromyalgia and a real opportunity to help physicians effectively manage this disorder,” said Dr. Don Goldenberg, M.D., co-chair of the fibromyalgia guideline panel for the American Pain Society and professor of medicine, Tufts University. "Having a medication approved for use in fibromyalgia, along with research advances, will go a long way to improving our understanding and treatment of this common disorder."

Fibromyalgia is thought to result from neurological changes in the perception of pain, specifically a heightened sensitivity to stimuli that for most people would not normally be painful. Lyrica binds to a specific protein in these overexcited nerve cells and works to soothe damaged nerves. This is thought to reduce pain in patients living with fibromyalgia, although the exact mechanism of how Lyrica acts in fibromyalgia is not known.

Lyrica is not a completely new drug. It was developed in January of 2005 by Pfizer to treat the peripheral neuropathetic pain often suffered by diabetic patients. But after a number of studies, it was found that the medication showed some benefit for fibromyalgia, and it has been prescribed “off label” ever since.

While many patients enjoyed a reduction in their pain, improvements in their sleep and energy levels, some disagreed. Dizziness and daytime drowsiness were the most commonly mentioned side effects. For some, these side effects dissipated over time, but for some, they were too disruptive to continue taking the medication. Anecdotal evidence also showed that for some, lower doses improved sleep but higher doses were needed for pain control.

“I had to give up my career and I wasn’t able to participate in a lot of my children’s activities,” said Carolyn Bishop, a fibromyalgia patient and participant in one of the Lyrica clinical trials. But since she started taking Lyrica, she’s “had less pain and felt better.”

"I've been on Lyrica for over a year," said Opus P. Penguin. "It's really knocked down the pain except I can't dose up to the optimal level because then it keeps me awake. But I have weird reactions to drugs."

Things You Didn't Know You Need To Know

2007-06-22T11:41:00.001-04:00

Hey, you never know when you might need to:

• Kick down a door
• Survive in a plummeting elevator
• Make rope like Native Americans
• Choose the perfect rosary beads
• Start your own cult
• • "Pass" as a woman
• Get an industrial piercing
• Find an interesting tidbit of information for every day and share it with everyone you know

Have fun...

Can We Please Move On Now?

2007-06-18T16:14:00.000-04:00

I can’t decide which media story I’m more disgusted with – Paris Hilton, or the legions of people who should know better saying that the 2008 election will be a backlash against President Bush.

The Jailbird Heiress deserves not an agate more space in any media but the entertainment outlets, so I’m reluctant to put her name out there once more. But here’s a news flash to those who keep perpetuating the latter story: Bush can’t run for a third term.

It’s in the Constitution.

I’ll repeat myself one more time to make it clear. President Bush is not running in 2008, and neither is the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Chief of Staff nor a single member of his administration.

Not even his wife.

Even the slate of hopefuls for the 2008 nomination is quietly (and some, like probable candidate-to-be Newt Gingrich, not so quietly) sneaking away from any association from or agreement with the fiasco that has been the Bush presidency. In fact the candidate who has worked the most closely with Bush & Co. has been Democrat Bill Richardson, former US Ambassador to the UN, a Clinton appointee, who has accepted various diplomatic missions for the current administration when asked.

But I hope that what Latifa Lyles, VP for membership with the National Organization for Women, meant by her recent remark that the ’08 vote will be a backlash against Bush is that the election will be a referendum against the Iraq war and all things related.

And that I’d agree with. Yet somehow I don’t think that that’s what she meant.

Yes, at this stage of the campaign, it’s almost a requirement that the Democratic candidates Bush-bash to beat the band. Because they know that throwing out a big old slab of red meat will rally the base faster than you can say “impeachment.”

What they are conveniently ignoring is that the current administration will be gone by the time the next punching bag – I mean president-elect – puts his or her hand on the Bible (or the Koran, for Barack Obama).

And then it will be time to look forward. At least I hope so.

Pushing the half-truth that the election is all about Bush does us no favors. It deflects the conversation from what comes next. After all, who wants to hear “boring” plans for nationalized health care when you can get a guaranteed quote on the news if you say that Bush got us into an illegal war and you’re going to make it right, or that you were against the war earlier than the other guy was against the war. So we can at least attempt to move on, the candidates have to get over something and they have to get over it now: They lost to Bush in 2000. They lost to Bush in 2004. It doesn’t matter any more.

What matters is what comes next.

And I’m one of those all-important woman voters waiting to be courted by a shiny Democratic hopeful. I want to know why you’re qualified for the job. I don’t give a flying hurrah how you were against the war now but not then, then but not now, whether you voted quietly or rancorously or while wearing a Richard Nixon mask, for Pete’s sake. And I don’t want to hear what a lousy job Bush is doing.

I already know that. I want to know what you’re going to do. I don’t want sound bites, or poll numbers, or spin.

I want to know where you stand on troop deployment. I want a long-range plan for giving Iraq back to the Iraqis. I want to know your views on immigration, on employment, on health care. Not every jot and tittle, because I know you’ll have to work with Congress and they have a way of chucking a president’s dreams off the White House balcony.

I want acknowledgment that despite the bumper stickers, some of us aren’t satisfied merely with “anyone but Bush.”

Maybe it looks as if the average citizen is too fat and happy to care about dull things like presidential elections. Like we’re all parked in front of American Idol waiting for the latest starlet’s trip to rehab. Heck, (as I've written before) even Cindy Sheehan gave up and went home. I don’t blame her. It can’t be easy standing out in the Texas heat holding up a banner when no one is paying attention.

But we’re just waiting for someone to raise the level of the discourse.

Or for a certain heiress to get released again. After all, we’ll always have Paris. (you had to know I was going to try to work that in somewhere)

The Wrong Trousers

2007-06-14T11:55:00.000-04:00

Apparently with the Anna Nicole Smith trial mostly straightened out and Paris Hilton in jail, lawyers are looking for something to do.

Or someone else to sue.

They’re scraping the bottom of the legal barrel with the case of the Roy Pearson, DC lawyer (excuse me, Administrative Law Judge) who is suing his dry cleaner for $54 million dollars for losing his pants.

And frankly I’m worried less about the state of rampant litigiousness in this country and more about this guy’s sanity.

Because not only has he brought this absurd case – which is something I’d expect to see on “Boston Legal” or “Ally McBeal” – but he is representing himself. Which either means that Pearson is deranged or he couldn’t get another lawyer to stop laughing long enough to choke out the words, “Get out of my office, you blithering unpanted fool.”

Heck, if I tried to sue everyone who caused me “mental suffering, inconvenience and discomfort,” I wouldn’t have time to put on my pants, let alone sue anyone over them.

But this gets even more ridiculous. Because Pearson has had dealings with the Chungs, the Korean dry cleaners, in the past. According to the defense attorney, Pearson was recompensed $150 in 2002 when they lost an earlier pair of pants (ironic, that in DC some have trouble keeping their trousers zipped, when this guy can’t even find his), and was banned from the store after, presumably, some exchange of words. Pearson “begged” to be let back in because he claimed he didn’t have a car and this was the only dry cleaner in his neighborhood. (has he not heard of the DC Metro?) Three years later he returned and yet another pair of pants went missing.

Now, for the average sensible person, this would be a sign not to do business with this particular dry cleaner ever again. Heck, get a taxi, get on the subway, find a dry cleaner near your place of employment, but don’t go back to these guys.

Pearson apparently didn’t make that link. Because he kept going there.

With this final pair, I guess Pearson had had enough. He and the three owners of the store kept swapping offers of recompense and the figures went higher and higher. The negotiations dragged on for two years and Pearson multiplied the damages by the number of days since the incident and by three for each of the three owners of the store, which is how he got the stupendously insane figure of $54 million. And that was knocked down from $67 million.

There hasn’t been this much fuss about a garment in Washington since a certain little blue dress.

Pearson’s claim got so huge that the first judge dropped the case, and now there will be a new one. What I want to know is why the first judge hadn’t dropped the case earlier. Every trial lawyer that has been interviewed calls it in embarrassment to the legal profession, so either the first judge had a sadistic streak and just wanted to see how ridiculous this case would get, or she’s just as deranged as Pearson in thinking the case has merit.

Meanwhile the Chungs have spent thousands of dollars defending themselves. So much sympathy has developed since the story first aired that there has been a massive Internet campaign to collect money for them.

And yet Pearson marches on. Pants or no pants. My hunch? As one in the legal profession, eventually all pairs of Pearson’s trousers will self-combust.

So a liar’s pants do indeed burst into flames.

Let that be a lesson to you.

If you're going to practice law, get yourself a few Nomex suits.

Right Message, Wrong Messenger

2007-06-13T17:25:00.000-04:00

There are some who will always have an albatross around their necks, and no matter how many good deeds they do, the smell of that dead bird will follow them into the grave. Think about Bill Buckner, and the easy grounder that rolled through his legs to cost the Red Sox Game Six of the ’86 World Series. Think about Ted Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick tragedy (Google it, kids).

Think about the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Actually, a lot of people who were living in the Mid-Hudson Valley in the 1980’s don’t want to think about Al Sharpton. It’s hard to shake memories of the damage he did with the Tawana Brawley case. Sharpton, along with lawyers Alton Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, defended an African-American teenager who claimed a group of Dutchess County police officers sexually and racially attacked her. A year later Brawley admitted it was a hoax, which cost county residents hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and ruined the reputations of the accused officers, including then-assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones, who sued Sharpton for defamation and won.

The case, like many the reverend has become involved with, only served to deepen the racial divide, only served to hurt rather than heal, and only served to help Sharpton get more media attention.

I’m glad that he’s doing something positive with his new campaign to clean up the lyrics in hip-hop music (including collecting symbolic bars of soap), but from what I’ve seen of his actions, I can’t help but be skeptical.

Is Sharpton, given his past and his penchant for self-promotion, the right messenger for the task?

For instance, where was Sharpton when hip-hop jumped the tracks to the dark side in the early 90’s, going from energetic dance music to an in-your-face hand-grenade with lyrics glorifying shooting cops and rape? Was it not important to Sharpton then, to clean up the obscenities that were making their way into American pop culture?

Not then, apparently. Sharpton was spreading his own hate speech. In an address at Kean College in 1994, he said, “White folks was in caves while we was building empires ... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.” (Yet he’s leading a grassroots campaign to eliminate homophobia in the black church.)

Was it not important to Sharpton when “Gangsta” rappers were shooting each other dead and flooding the cosmic atmosphere with language I will not repeat here? Apparently it was only serious enough for him merely to make the occasional statement on his web site, even though the media had bestowed celebrity status upon him and he could have had the ears of so many more who were in a position to do something about the problem.

Or perhaps he was too busy whipping up hatred between African Americans and Jews following the Crown Heights riots. And again, in the Freddie’s Fashion Mart case in Harlem, where the Jewish tenant of clothing store wanted to evict his African-American subtenant. Sharpton told the protesters, "We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business.” Following this speech, one of the protesters burned down the store, killing seven customers and himself. Yet Sharpton, while regretting the violence and his use of “white interloper,” claimed no responsibility for inflaming the protesters.

Meanwhile rap lyrics were weaving their tentacles into the minds of our children. I lived in uptown Kingston around that time, and it seemed that every day I’d hear young African-American boys calling each other the “n” word. Once I asked a couple of the boys why they called each other such denigrating names. One of the kids looked at me like I had two heads and simply said, “It’s a black thing.”

But it wasn’t just a “black thing.” White kids, too, were quickly adopting the language, the culture, the giant pants hanging below their underwear. The words they used were a noxious cloud so impervious that I was afraid that some day soon I’d open my online dictionary and find them there.

And when Sharpton called for Don Imus’s resignation after the morning shock jock uttered his infamous comments about the Rutgers women’s’ basketball team, he was accused by Jason Whitlock, a Kansas City Star journalist, of using the victims to further his own agenda of raising his profile in the media. Instead of drawing attention to himself, Whitlock wrote, Sharpton should have been doing everything he could to clean up the lyrics of hip-hop music that glorify indignities toward women.

Yet at the same time Sharpton was criticizing Imus, the reverend was on the agenda to give an award to Island Def Jam music group, a record label that boasts foul-mouthed rapper Ludacris as one of its artists. But realizing how bad this would look, Sharpton had the good sense to cancel. It makes me wonder: when Sharpton had already begun his “campaign” against hip-hop lyrics, why he was on the award agenda at all?

How can we look upon Sharpton as a leader in the fight against hip-hop music when he’s lauding the creators at the same time, and when he can’t even keep his own hate speak in check?

Perhaps Sharpton should take one of those iconic bars of soap he hopes to collect and use it to clean up his own act first. Then use the rest to wash away the smell of the albatross still hanging around his neck.

It's Enough To Make You Crazy

2007-06-08T11:49:00.000-04:00

Insomnia is a mental illness.

Or so my HMO says. And since my particular HMO, partially sponsored by New York State, does not cover mental health, in turn it won’t cover medications prescribed for mental health disorders.

This includes anti-depressants and sleep aids, which are commonly prescribed for conditions that have nothing to do with depression, anxiety or any other “mental illness.”

So since, by their classification, insomnia is a mental health disorder, and since insomnia is a side effect of both the perimenopause and fibromyalgia that I’m living with, then these disorders are mental illnesses.

I beg to differ. In fact I beg to differ so strongly I want to strap the person who thought of this into a chair and slap them very, very hard.

That said, I told my HMO that I would like to appeal their decision. I wanted to go off on them like Alec Baldwin, but then they might get the idea that I do have a mental illness, and would blacklist all of my medications.

Unfortunately I only had a limited amount of space in which to record my appeal, but if I had more room I would have told them that with one numerical classification, they’ve set back the Fibromyalgia Awareness movement back thirty years. All the studies that have been done, all the doctors weighing in, all the people living with fibromyalgia – forget the progress they’ve made. Let’s go back to the years when doctors thought you were crazy, that your symptoms were all in your head, that you just needed to get a hobby and get some exercise and a psychiatrist and get a life.

But I’m deluding myself if I believe HMOs are the business of helping people get the proper care they need. They’re in the business of refraining from spending money so they can make more money. They’re in the business of putting people into categories to make life easier for their employees and further help the companies hold onto their profits.

This must change.

But how? Everyone is making money out of this deal: the pharmaceutical companies, the HMOs, the doctors (though doctors aren’t making as much as people think), and the lobbyists and politicians. Whichever candidate or elected official truly gets elbow-deep into this muck will find that it is not the easy five-step plan they claimed it to be.

They might spend some sleepless nights fretting over it. And if the insomnia turns chronic, I hope they have better health insurance than I do.

Lead, Follow, Or Get Out Of The Way

2007-06-04T10:40:00.000-04:00

As so many with more politically savvy minds than mine have noted, when the Democrats attained the majority in the 2006 mid-term elections, newly-elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi promised to do a lot of things in the first hundred days, one of which was to stop Bush from continuing the war.

I’m still waiting.

I learned enough from high school civics classes to know that aside from writing lots of angry Letters To The Editor, the only influence I truly have is over my own political representation: two Senators from my state and one Congressional Representative from my district. And, more specifically, in my power to get as many people as I can to choose the other guy (or gal) next time the elections come around.

And, occasionally, there are people like Cindy Sheehan, but she got tired and went home. I don’t blame her. I guess there’s only so long a person can bear to stand out in the Texas heat and wave a banner when no one is paying attention anymore.

As I’m really not the type to chain myself to a tree or get myself dragged away from a presidential speaking engagement wearing an uncomplimentary message on my t-shirt, I guess I’m stuck with the latter forms of influence.

However I’m not placing much faith in the hands of my two Senators. Hillary Clinton has already written New York off, although she “vowed” when reelected to finish out her term. We’re bluer than the blue sky of Wyoming, here. So she figures she doesn’t need to court our votes, and can spend all her time frantically trying to spin herself into a position that won’t alienate too many potential voters at either end of the political spectrum. However, she did “vow” to do something about the war “when” she becomes president.

Frankly I’m losing faith in her “vows.”

Then there’s Chuck Schumer. What rock did he crawl under? A check of his web site shows that he’s racking up frequent flier miles jetting around doing all kinds of wonderful things for the state (as he’s New York’s only working Senator these days). And that’s terrific. Go Chuck. He’s one of my favorites in Washington, if one can have such a thing. But one more wonderful thing he can do for the state is to keep our men and women from dying in Iraq by bringing them home. But his record shows that all of his committee involvements and legislative work is on domestic issues only. Re Iraq, other than a token (and very quiet) vote against the spending bill, he’s been laying as low as Don Imus.

My last hope is my own Congressional representative, Maurice Hinchey, D-NY, who is as left as they come. Here’s a taste of what he’s doing now:

1. Trying to reinstate the “Fairness Doctrine” (which requires political balance in public media) so he can get his mug on more Sunday talk shows and further his own agenda (most of which includes getting reelected).

2. Leading Congressional efforts to stop the Department of Energy from putting a 200-mile long power line through upstate New York.

3. Helping the House pass a bill to punish “gas gougers,” that is, fuel vendors who artificially inflate their prices. (also known as the piece of news that could have the most unintentionally funny headline of the week)

4. Pushed for answers in a “friendly fire” incident involving a local soldier. “It’s time for misleading answers and half-truths to end,” Hinchey said. “We must lift the cloud hanging over Eddie Ryan’s case and obtain the Bronze Star medals for the marines who put their own lives at risk in order to save Eddie.”

Which are all wonderful things. Any non-Republican looking at Hinchey’s record would be proud that he’s working so hard for us.

But my hopes were raised when I saw, in a note further down on his web site, mention that he voted against the Iraq spending bill. His explanation, taken from his web site:

"Congress has an obligation to our servicemen and women and the American people as a whole to use the power of the purse to end this illegal occupation of Iraq and bring our troops home. Unfortunately, the new Iraq spending measure fails to include withdrawal dates and readiness standards for our troops. This new spending measure pretty much amounts to a blank check for President Bush who has shown himself to be the most incompetent president in our country's history. It makes no sense to continue giving President Bush the keys to the car when he has repeatedly crashed into a wall with every other time.

"I fully recognize the tough position the House leadership faced in trying to put together a bill that would pass and ensure our troops in Iraq have the resources they need to stay safe. However, I personally cannot support a measure that does not come close to adequately holding President Bush accountable and does not put this country on a timeline for getting out of Iraq. I refuse to buy into this false argument that the only way to support the troops in Iraq is to fund their operations there. The real way to support our troops is to fully fund their withdrawal from Iraq. It is well past the time our troops begin to redeploy home and to other parts of the world where they are truly needed such as Afghanistan where the Taliban is regaining strength and al Qaeda continues to operate."

I agree with one or two things here. Yes. Absolutely. Fully fund a withdrawal from Iraq now. Get thy equipment on a bunch of C-5A Galaxys and get thine selves home.

But why can't they, those who are in the positions to do so, do anything more than bitch about what is or isn't happening?

I might be politically naïve, but don’t the Democrats have the keys to the car? Can’t they simply rise as the majority and take away the checkbook? Heck, deal with Bush’s accountability afterward, if that’s what’s holding up the legislation. He’s not going anywhere until the next sucker puts his or her hand on the Bible (or Koran, if the case may be).

If they feel so strongly about ending the war, why not simply push to get what needs to be done now? I’m not buying what Joe Biden tried to explain to Dennis Kucinich in last night’s debates, that they don’t have the 67 votes it would take to override a presidential veto so therefore they can't do anything. Can they still rise as a body and send a stronger message to the White House without denying the funds that the troops need to stay safe until WHOEVER grows a pair, writes some clear legislation and decides that this nonsense should come to an end?

Unless…unless Hinchey and Biden and Clinton and the other Democrats WANT to keep us in Iraq. So they can continue to hammer Bush about it, oh, right through the 2008 election or thereabouts, assuring that they get to keep their jobs. So when they get one of their own into the Oval Office, they can proclaim, like Hillary kept beating it into the ground last night, that this is “Bush’s War,” and they will be the big heroes and get out troops the heck out of there.

No. I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it. Would a responsible member of our government actually put his or her own office and keeping their party in power ahead of the life of a young man or woman in Iraq?

Now who would be that cynical?

Not me.

Attack with a Deadly Legume

2007-06-03T10:23:00.000-04:00

The debate has now been settled, once and for all.

Guns don’t kill people.

Baked beans kill people.

Or at the very least, they can cause some nasty burns and a really big lawsuit.

But fortunately, if you have a lot of money and are a big celebrity, like Hugh Grant found out recently, you can make the lawsuit go away.

Only the stains are left behind.

But because Hugh Grant (despite the recent tossing out of the lawsuit for lack of corroborating evidence) might have intended to use the tub of baked beans as a weapon to repel photographer Ian Whittaker from snapping pix of ex Liz Hurley, the potentially dangerous picnic food should be added to the “no-fly” list and confiscated if found in passenger’s belongings.

After all, the trained professionals who pat us down with wands before we can get on the plane are going after food now. My mother told me that before a recent flight, security personnel gave her breakfast a once over, and said that they would not allow her to bring a small container of yogurt aboard.

When she asked why, she was told that she was “over the limit” for liquid-type products.

Yeah. I can just see a terrorist (in the form of my 5’2” mother) leap from her seat, grab the nearest flight attendant around the throat and threaten to hijack the plane using a plastic container of live and active yogurt cultures.

Yet they let her keep her banana.

And you can do a lot more damage with a banana than you can with yogurt. You could put someone’s eye out. Or slowly poison them from the pesticides in the peel.

But baked beans?

Hell. You don’t want them, or any kind of food aboard.

Just ask Ian Whittaker. Or my mother.

A Lesser-Known Baseball Curse (updated 6/3)

2007-05-30T11:56:00.000-04:00

You can’t help but feel bad for Armando Benitez. The Mets just spell poison for him. When he was in their bullpen, fans groaned when he was called in, because…well, because he just sucked, to be plain and simple. He blew more saves than a Kryptonite-addled Superman. Then he was sent to the Yankees. And much more quickly than the Mets’ front office had, the Yanks wised up and traded him to Seattle. He was bounced back to the Mets for the remainder of the 2003 season (only God and Brian Cashman knows why), but we’d had enough and he was packed off to Florida. Then something happened to him. We call it the “reverse curse.” Seems that when a mediocre-to-bad player is traded by the Mets, often he has the season of his career. It took getting out of New York for this to happen to him, And away from the fishbowl of the New York sports media, he shone, and came up with the lowest ERA of his career.

But every time he faced the Mets, something happened.

They knew how to get to him.

Unfortunately the reverse curse only seems good for a season, maybe two. And when Benitez wound up at San Francisco, every time he blew a save or walked in the winning run or just plain self-destructed, New York area reporters would say, “And Mets fans would have said, ‘we told you so.’”

Then the Giants came to Shea.

The pre-game coverage seemed to be dominated by one name – Bonds, Barry Bonds – and why he was sitting on the bench when nearly every Met fan with the transportation and the wherewithal had come to Shea to see the mega-man wield his bat, even if nearly every pitcher tries to pitch around him.

But it seemed like a pitchers’ duel broke out instead.

The two teams took a 3-3 tie into extra innings. When the Giants went ahead one run in the top of the twelfth, it looked like all was lost. While the Mets (I think) hold the record for extra-inning games, they don’t often win them. But this is a different Mets team this year. There seems to be something – and I hate to use this word – almost inevitable about them. From the camaraderie to the depth of their bench to the way they’re consistently winning, and that even when one of their big guns slumps, someone else picks up the slack.

But when the Giants called Benitez in to finish the game, hope in Shea sprang eternal once more. You have to thank Jose Reyes’ deadly speed on the bases - and the Mets’ knowledge of what rattles Benitez’s cage - for the tying run. He drew a walk, danced around threatening to steal, which unnerved Benitez enough so that he balked Jose to second. Endy Chavez sacrificed to move Reyes to third, and in a repeat performance, Armando balked in the tying run.

Then red-hot Carlos Delgado unloaded a walk-off homer – his second four-bagger of the night - to win the game.

And Armando, now 0-3 on the season, could do nothing but watch the ball sail over the fence, and his Mets’ curse continue.

Editor's note: Benitez was traded back to the Marlins last week. Let's hope he can get his groove back there.

Memorial Race Day

2007-05-27T12:51:00.000-04:00

I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a more fitting way to show support for the men and women who gave their lives for their country than for 43 guys to climb into fireproof suits, don helmets, get installed into souped-up cars and race around an oval track for a few hundred miles.

Or, a few hundred miles north-northwest in Indianapolis, for 33 guys and gals (go, Danica!) to suit up and do the same.

Oh, but they do sing the “National Anthem” first (and Jim Nabors sings at Indy), so I guess that makes it all right. And they’ll probably all take a moment of silence to remember our fallen heroes while a squadron of F-18s flies overhead.

Yeah, OK, Husband is a big fan and I, while not quite that excited about NASCAR and Indy, have been known to sit down and watch for a few dozen laps, and have learned enough of the terms to impress the neighborhood guys.

But we always seem to let the actual meaning of holidays get lost in the shuffle. Yes, there’s the small town parade, the ceremonies, the laying of wreaths. Then we rush home to start the barbecue, watch the race, vegetate in front of the war movie marathon on TV, or just enjoy a day off from work.

Or, like all good Americans, we go to the mall.

I’m not saying we should sit shiva for the troops who made the ultimate sacrifice, but just take a moment to think about why you have the day off before you head to the beach or start warming up your credit card.

Because you know the media won’t. You’ll see coverage of war protests. And in the presidential race, you’ll see every single candidate get into a fireproof suit and…no, wait, that was the other race. But you’ll see every candidate who can get his or her face in front of a camera lay a wreath and make a speech pontificating their views on the best way to support the troops.

But come on, wouldn’t you like to see Mitt Romney and Hillary and Obama get into Nomex suits and really race each other? The Repubs could bump-draft each other to try to get the lead and you know Guiliani and Clinton will be trading paint until the checkered flag.

Damn straight it would be more fun to watch than the debates.

On Being An “01”

2007-05-25T11:46:00.000-04:00

A couple months back, Husband and I were forced, due to the termination of my COBRA benefits, to search for alternative health insurance that one, wouldn’t bankrupt us; and two, would cover most of our needs.

We found one, a stripped-down version of our “current” HMO, offered through the state of New York at about half the price of a “standard” HMO for individuals. It didn’t offer mental health coverage, but if we wanted health insurance, we had no other choices.

After much research and many phone calls to this company, I decided that it would be in our best interest to buy the insurance under the aegis of our being sole proprietors. Doing this would give us, supposedly, more benefits for the same price as if we bought it as individuals. And as I was just starting up as a freelancer and Husband was a well-established sole proprietor, we applied for the insurance under his name.

At the time, I had no problems with this. For a variety of reasons, and for some, who the hell knows why, some household bills and investments are primarily in his name and some are primarily in mine. It just worked out that way.

But the insurance, as I’d been the one with the steady jobs, was always in my name.

We even had our first problem with the HMO, which had to do with which prescription drugs were covered and which weren’t (it will require another blog to vent about this). And all during those phone calls, when every time another person picked up the line I was required to supply my account number, it didn’t bother me that the insurance was in Husband’s name.

Until this morning.

The prescription drug coverage argument eventually came down to my doctor being required to submit a preauthorization letter to the HMO so that the certain drug they wouldn’t cover would be covered.

I’d talked to my doctor’s assistant about it yesterday afternoon and she agreed to do it, except that this morning she called back and needed my new ID number. After I read it off to her, she said, “Are you the 00 or the 01?” Meaning was I the primary carrier on the insurance or the “domestic partner,” as they so politically correctly called it.

I felt my shoulders sag. “I’m the 01,” I said.

I’m the 01. I know, it really means nothing. Just like it means nothing that his name appears over mine on our mortgage and I’m the “junior owner” on our investments.

But at the time, assigned a number that put my name below my husband’s, I became “the wife.” Subordinate. Dependent. In the kitchen with my pearls and apron.
And for about ten seconds, I hated it. I hated the position I know felt myself boxed into by that one little digit.

I’ve struggled with “the dependency thing” since I lost my source of steady income. And I thought I was, if not completely OK with it, at least arriving at some sort of peace within myself.

I guess I’m not quite done yet.

But, just like Patrick McGoohan always says in the intro to “The Prisoner,” I am not a number. I am a human being. One that might have to have my name below my husband’s for a while, but still, a human being.

But, for the sake of computer records, you can just call me “01.”

Just don’t ever expect to see me in the kitchen wearing pearls and an apron.

False Idols

2007-05-24T10:19:00.000-04:00

Call me a cheap entertainment junkie (just don't call me "cheap"), but I couldn’t help myself last night from watching most of the “Idol” finale (or final “reject” show, or whatever the heck they call it), while flipping back and forth between the Mets/Braves and Yankees/Boston games, of course.

And every time I saw Melinda singing, I couldn’t help but think, “Honey, it should have been you.” I imagine that’s what one of the Wynans (BeBe or CeCe, I don’t know which is which) might have been whispering in her ear as they were hugging her after their number.

Yes, Jordin isn’t that bad and Blake, although he doesn’t have the best voice, kicks ass with that beat-boxing thing, but neither of these kids deserved to be in the final two.

Husband says I need to get over this, and Melinda will get lots of work, and she’ll be fine.

And I know it’s just a dumb reality show designed for maximum eyeballs, hang the actual purpose of the thing, but still. I guess it’s just this stupid overdeveloped sense of justice that I can’t seem to shake. And, after all, haven’t the judges been (attempting to) get across all season that this is a SINGING competition?

Problem is, as I’ve mentioned before, the power of this show is in the hands of twelve-year-old girls, all with their own cell phones.

And I wouldn’t blame Simon if he didn’t return next season.

Now back to the actual show. Was it my imagination, or should this have actually been called The Carrie Underwood Show? She had, what, three numbers and an award presented to her?

But it was a kick to see Gladys Knight and Smokey Robinson out strutting their stuff.

I could have done without Sanjaya screeching with Joe Perry, though. Poor Joe. I guess he didn’t mind the publicity (and they probably paid him pretty well), but I can imagine he was cringing as that overblown Fauxhawk butchered every note of Aerosmith’s music.

But I suppose I shouldn’t cry too hard for Melinda. Besides Carrie, how many other “Idol” winners have been more than the flavor of the month?

OK, Fantasia’s on Broadway, but beside that?

Out of all the Idol finalists, Clive Davis announced last night, it’s breakout (and rejected) Idol finalist Chris Doughtry who got the last laugh: his album made more money this year than any other artist (not just Idol artists but ALL artists), and it’s been in the Top Ten for the last six months.

Take that, you Idol voters.

So I guess no matter who gets elected (or selected, according to your political view), good old capitalism will out.

And wasn’t that the original intent of Idol? To find talent that will make the producers a lot of money?

I suppose I shouldn’t be too upset.

After all, I don’t make any money off of it. And I might even have to part with some, when Melinda Doolittle puts out her first album.

Popeye Was Wrong

2007-05-23T11:53:00.000-04:00

Have you noticed that whenever the Food Police looks at a new study, however faulty, and pronounces a particular food “good” or “bad” (Chocolate cures cancer! Coffee prevents diabetes!), that the media runs with it faster than you can say antioxidant?

Then a massive public relations campaign ensues – the Avocado Board or the National Associated of Dairy Farmers or the American Cabal of Salty Snack Food Pushers – educating the previously ignorant public that if they only had five or six servings of their particular food each day, then they’d live to be a hundred and get a better job and have to fight sexy young things off their doorsteps with broom handles?

Worse is if the study (Ten eighteen year old male college freshmen were studied over a two month period and it was found that a steady diet of pizza and video games not only cured depression but improved their hand-eye coordination and prevented unwanted pregnancies!) pinpoints a particular vitamin, mineral or nutrient.

Then, after the Food Police blankets the media with press releases, food processors start adding that vitamin, mineral or nutrient to their product. No matter how inappropriate, effective or just plain ridiculous that addition might be.

After fluoridation of drinking water, probably the earliest incident of dietary
“enhancement” would be enriched flours, then adding vitamins to processed dry cereals. Which on the surface seems appropriate, and even a good thing (hey, at least those finicky-eater kids are getting something nutritious with their Cap’n Crunch). But think about it: we process the living daylights out of perfectly good, healthy, whole foods, then supplement them with vitamins and minerals, then pat ourselves on the back for giving our families a “vitamin-enriched” diet. Problem is that some vitamins and minerals don’t like each other, and the proportions of nutrients added back into foods isn’t necessarily the proportion that works best as found in foods in their natural habitat.

Then they started messing with the orange juice. Folic acid was found to be good for pregnant women so it was added to the orange juice, but what nobody seemed to tell the women was that folic acid is a B vitamin that is meant to work in correct proportions with the other B vitamins, so who knows how much folate they would actually be absorbing.

Then calcium was the shiny new kid in town and that got added to the orange juice. Which seemed odd, but not totally ridiculous. For a time, I even drank it, as I’m sensitive to dairy products. But milk with added calcium? What, we had a boatload of calcium sitting in a warehouse that the Red Cross couldn’t give to some starving children? Kids are growing up in Africa with malformed bones and we’re adding CALCIUM to our MILK?

Somebody needs to be slapped for that decision.

Then antioxidants were our new savior. They were added to everything. Until it was determined that antioxidants on their own were shown not to prevent cancer.

Then it was soy.

And it went on like this for a while, and now, with the dietary news item that naturopaths and nutritionists have known for years, that Omega-3 fats (fish oils, canola oil, walnuts, flax seed, etc.) are better for you than trans-fats, the rage for Frankenfoods seems to know no boundaries.

You can now buy eggs with added Omega-3. Butter substitutes with fish oil. And on, and on, and on. I started to wonder, “Why bother eating food at all? Why not just wait until all of our daily dietary requirements are compressed into easily dispensed tablets, like in science fiction books and movies?”

But, for now, people still like to eat and feel much better knowing that their junk food of choice has some redeeming qualities.

OK, I can sort of live with that. For now, we still have free will and, except in Manhattan, can choose what we put in our bodies.

But something I saw recently really got my feathers ruffled. It was an ad in a women’s magazine, announcing “Diet Coke Plus…now with vitamins and minerals!”

Oh. My. God. Let’s take a product that can dissolve tooth enamel and remove rust from your bicycle chain and fortify it with vitamins and minerals that probably, once added to the can, don’t stand a chance of outliving Kevin Federline’s career.

Who thought this one up, the same people who brought us “Manimal?” (Google it, kids)

And anyway, where are the people who used to tell us that buying vitamin and mineral supplements was overkill because if we eat well, we’ll get all the nutrients our bodies need?

Either they’ve finally realized that our soils are depleted and our foods don’t have the RDA of vitamins and minerals that they once did in our great-grandparent’s day, or they’ve copped to the daily diet of the average American adult, which is composed of sugar, white flour and caffeine?

At least we can breathe a sigh of relief that the white flour is fortified with twelve vitamins and iron to make us strong.

And speaking of iron, Popeye had it all wrong. The oxalic acid in spinach counteracts the iron, making it just another green, leafy vegetable containing other nutrients, but don’t count on it when Bluto’s on the rampage.

For that, you’re just going to have to drink your folic acid and calcium-enriched orange juice.

The Oldest Profession Should Have A Union

2007-05-16T15:47:00.000-04:00

(Warning: this entry contains adult content)

Once again I’m behind on the news. But I’m remembering a little item that blipped into the headlines and then was wiped away by some disaster, some prominent death, some poorly chosen phrase uttered publicly by a public figure.

And that’s the case of the infamous DC Madame, who got caught doing business as such, and was forced to divulge her little book of names. I can only imagine who might have been on the list. One was, reportedly, a lower-ranking official in the Bush Administration. And there were probably other patrons of all political stripes. But as mentioned above, no further hoopla was whipped up in the media.

While pure animal (and writerly) curiosity at first made me wonder who had been frequenting one of Washington’s more prominent escort services – especially if said frequenter had been thumping his chest in the name of “family values” or whatever the politically correct police is calling it this week – I gave it another thought.

And my thought was this: why the uproar? Do I really care who patronized a prostitute inide the DC beltway? As long as it wasn’t paid for by my tax dollars, or rubbed in my face on national media during a months-long prosecutorial stand-off whereupon said patronizer covered up his little escapades, why do I give a flying fig (or fig leaf, as the case and penchant might be) who paid how much for whom?

And while we’re on the subject, why is it that the oldest profession, one that, unlike nearly all the others, has managed to escape the robotic arm of technology, is still illegal in 49 states of this country?

Why not simply legalize it throughout the land and let freedom ring? (and ring again, if you care to pay for a double session?)

Because aren’t those of us who support the right to abortion under the aegis of women having free reign over their bodies hypocritical if we don’t also support the right of women, who are of legal age and do so of their own free will, to legally charge for sexual services, should that be their chosen profession?

There are caveats to participation, of course. These “sex workers” should be licensed professionals (requirements for the licensing exam to be finalized by Bill Clinton, Hugh Grant and Heidi Fleiss among other distinguished members of a carefully selected panel of experts). They are to be of legal age and regularly screened for STDs and other health issues. They are to negotiate their services and fees in advance of each transaction. They are to be citizens of the US or immigrants with legal papers, pay taxes and have entered the profession of their own free will.

So who is getting hurt here?

Some might say that the sex workers are at risk being physically hurt by their customers, because the nature of the transaction puts them in a vulnerable position. But think about situations many people face every day where they could potentially be vulnerable to attack:

• Getting a massage
• A visit to the gynecologist or other health care professional
• Going into a dressing room of any store that features “free webcam coverage of your visit with each purchase”
• Trying to take Alec Baldwin’s picture

And consider at the advantages these “sex workers” could have, should their line of work be legally protected:

• No “pimps” to take their money and beat them up
• Health insurance, which would cover breast augmentation and other plastic surgery services as required
• A professional union that would protect their interests, offer training courses and set guidelines for fees. This union (National Personhood of Professional Sex Workers, Local #69) would also go to bat for its members should their jobs be threatened with outsourcing or faced with rate undercuts by other countries who don’t treat their workers fairly.
• Legal backing should a customer be physically harmed or die in the act
• A little respect, damn it

One might also posit that legalized prostitution could lead to the encouragement of adultery and the instability of the institute of marriage in general. But a married guy could slip off his ring and pick up an amateur, if he were so inclined. If a marriage is healthy, then the partners are most likely satisfied and wouldn’t seek outside recreation. If one party chooses to engage the services of a sex worker, then that should be between the married couple and the purchaser’s moral compass. And as far as divorce law goes, patronizing a sex worker would have the same punitive value as adultery. More so, if he’d spent Junior’s college fund getting his jollies with the freelancer down the street.

Professional sex workers could also become a profit center for the US government (after all, if what has been reported in the DC Madame’s book is true, members of Congress seem to be the highest patronizers of such services). Each transaction would be taxed, and the sex worker would fill out a Schedule C and other paperwork as required by any freelance professional.

So legalizing prostitution could be a win-win situation all around. Customers, especially prominent ones, win by not having their names plastered all over the media. The workers get professional training, status and protection. No more cargo-loads of pre-teen Chinese girls forced to work off their transport. No more girls trading their bodies for crack or getting beaten up after not providing enough of a cut to their “managers.” If a guy still needs that touch of the forbidden, he can just close his eyes and pretend he’s in Bangkok. Hey, these girls are professionals, after all.

And finally, it’s a legal way for women who are so inclined to pay for college, so they don’t have to suffer the humiliation of earning it by slinging overpriced burgers while wearing a Hooters uniform.

Or being a White House page.

Gilmores Swan Song

2007-05-15T11:17:00.000-04:00

Yes, a few million eyeballs will be glued to Idol tonight, but for the last few weeks, quietly tip-toeing behind that monolith have been the last handful of Gilmore Girls’ episodes.

And tonight, we will see the last of Stars Hollow and its denizens. Unlike other shows that are splashed all over TV land just for ending their seasons, tonight’s “Gilmores” series finale is going down without an iota of fanfare. Just a few promos, a web site that might linger on until the Next Big Thing wipes it clean, and a sniffle or two from me.

Well, we’ll always have Paris Geller. On DVD, of course.

It’s weird. Some of you have chimed in before that either Gilmores isn’t worth the video it’s filmed on, or its seven seasons have passed by overrated, or just for too damned long.

But I’ve been a fan since the day, several years ago, when Husband called me over to the TV, flithered around finding something on a the VCR, then played a show that he promised I would love.

And I did. Compared to so much of the trash that passed for television, this was brilliant. The main characters and set-up were well drawn, the dialogue quick-paced and clever, and even the minor players (if you’d call talented veterans like Sally Struthers, Edward Hermann and Kelly Bishop minor) held up the rest of the fabric of the show flawlessly. It was…as if Dorothy Parker and Jane Austen had returned to life and collaborated on a TV series. And I was hooked ever since. Watching what I’d missed in syndication. Sneaking looks at the current seasons. And one by one, getting each season on DVD.

Yes, some seasons were better than others. And husband and wife creators/writers Amy and Daniel Palladino “jumped the shark” not after they left the series but the last season it was under their watch, in a plot line that still leaves me scratching my head. Why, why why why would diner owner Luke Danes, who’d adored Lorelai from the moment he met her, who was engaged to marry her for Pete’s sake, why, when he found out he had a pre-teen daughter from a long-buried relationship, why would he choose taking time to get to know his kid over marrying his beloved?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Anyway. Even the best of shows have their stupid moments.

So tonight, when you’re watching Idol (or whatever else it is that occupies your Tuesday evenings) think of me indulging in a little sniffle or two. And even if you didn’t like it, think also of the ground this show broke, and the faith a network took in an hour-long family comedy/drama that didn’t depend on clichés, laugh tracks or cheap jokes to get an audience.

Let’s hope that after reality shows lose their luster (Will they ever, ever end? Except Survivor and Amazing Race, of course), some network will have the courage to return to entertainment like Gilmores.

Or, please, at least to more shows that require writers.

We need the work.