Category Life

Conserving Matter

Michael Leave a comment

As a scientist, one of my personal commandments was thou shalt not deny the conservation of matter. What we have we always had and always will. Never more. Never less. Always was, is, and will be. It can change, but it won’t disappear. It might look new, but it’s only rearranged. Ice melts into water, water vaporizes into steam, steam condenses into water, water freezes into ice. Always there, always the same, even when different.

Sociologists have their own sort of conservation of matter. Everybody we have is every body we will have. Old people move from the cold of New York to the warmth of Ft. Lauderdale. Immigrants from Caribbean refuges move from south Florida to Chicago to open diners specializing in arroz con gandules. Bright eyed 20 year olds move from Naperville to the seek fame and fortune in Manhattan.

Now, economists want to horn in on the fame afforded to our anything but fortuitous conservation of matter. You’ll recall the landmark post uploaded to this very blog not even some 30 months ago about the ever increasing sizes of American sizes. (If you don’t, you can read it here. If you do but don’t recall it as “landmark,” then you must have a pretty low opinion of yourself reading such drivel. If you do and you do recall it as “landmark,” have I got a bridge to sell you!) To refresh your memory, there is no more small or medium in American. It’s all large, extra large, and full size. This would seem to contradict the natural order of the conservation of matter. Where are the extras going into the larges coming from? In a word, coffee.

Coffee? Yes, coffee. For some time coffee package sizes have been dwindling before our very eyes every time we bring them (our eyes, not the coffee packages) into a grocery store. Years and years and years and years ago, and a few more before that, the standard coffee sizes were one pound cans or bags (for single coffee drinker households), two pound cans (for those teetering on the brink of narcolepsy), and three pound mega-cans (for households with small children). (If you ever had small children you understand that.)  The three pound cans disappears years ago replaced by 36 ounce canisters and the one pound varieties lost 4 ounces to become sleek 12 ounce bags. Now the largest single size container of coffee you can buy is a 30 ounce plastic jug, the small choice is a mere 11 ounces (8.4 to 10 ounces for designer brands and flavors), and medium has disappeared altogether.

So you’re going to say that you don’t drink coffee so your matter is indeed growing every time you order a large sweet tea or test drive an extended cab pickup. No, no, no. You might not drink coffee but if you’re partaking of the classic American coffee break you’re part of the proof of the hypothesis, eating one (or maybe two) out of a pack of 21 prepackaged cookies that used to come in cartons of 24, or one of a new baker’s dozen of donuts that now total a mere ten. Crackers that used to be sold in 12 ounce boxes are now 11, and cream cheese for your bagel is in a 6.5 ounce container when once it was 8.

So there you have it. The modern iteration of that most ancient of all absolutes. Everything indeed is as it once was, merely changed.

 

Let the Better Love Win

Michael 5 Comments

If there was a movement started to celebrate those who believe in, actively participate in, and fought for human trafficking and slavery, would you support it? What about if there was a movement started to commemorate those who fought for their country bravely and without concern for their own personal safety because it meant preserving their family’s heritage and the only way of life that they knew?

What would you say if somebody you didn’t know said you had to change your name? Move? Forsake your parents and grandparents?

What would you do if somebody you trust, somebody whose opinion you value and word you accept unquestioningly, were to blatantly lie to you to make themselves look good in front of others.

Unfortunately, there’s a very good chance that you’re the one supporting the movements, doing the saying, or being the liar. Particularly if you’re an everyday, ordinary, middle of the road, try to do all the right things, unextreme American.

Those two movements I brought up. They are actually happening, right now, right here in the United States. The Civil War was fought because one side wanted to keep slaves and the other did not. It’s really just that simple. And it had been going on since before the signing of the Declaration of Independence almost 90 years previous when the southern colonies coerced the northern colonies to remove anti-slavery rhetoric from the document in exchange for their ratification of it. But those who fought the battles some 90 years later didn’t consider owning people unusual or even questionable. It’s what they and their families had down for as long as they had been Americans. All those monuments that have become this month’s flash point celebrate those who fought to continue slavery. They also celebrate somebody’s great grandfather’s younger brother who died from infections grown in wounds suffered when he was trampled by a regiment’s cavalry unit defending his family’s right to live the only life he ever knew.

In our efforts to “not offend” we have sanitized all heritages, all history, all family. Somebody, probably not someone whose roots are indigenous to this continent, decided those people will be called “Native Americans.” Someone, probably not somebody whose roots hail from the Far East, decided those people should be called “Asian Americans.” Somebody, probably not someone who never set foot on Africa, decided anybody with dark skin regardless of their country of origin should be called “African American.” If we are truly honest, and our parents or grandparents came to America from Italy, or Germany, or Poland, would we be happy calling ourselves “European Americans?” Why should a proud decedent of the Lakota, or The Navajo Nation, or Japan, or Cameroon not be allowed to celebrate their heritage and call themselves Americans and still respect their true heritage.

So many are calling Charlottesville a hastening of America’s downward spiral into unrestrained racism. Actually, that spiral began not last week in Charlottesville but last century in Selma, when a big chunk of our populace had to demonstrate to get the recognition of people, equal in all respects, that a civil war was fought for and a presidential proclamation declared them to be 98 years earlier. We passed laws and called them “equal rights” but actually fostered inequality and spent more time debating what constituted equal than time spent on living right.

UnhateFacebook profile pictures are sporting “We will not let hate win” banners above posts that call those who don’t agree with them “bat shit crazy.” We openly claim support for tolerance yet openly refuse to make allowances for anybody who didn’t vote the same way regardless of which way that was. We justify our remarks by standing behind the First Amendment but tell others what is and isn’t allowed and don’t extend the courtesy to anyone whose speech is different.

St. Augustine said, “There are two loves, the love of God and the love of the world. If the love of the world takes possession of you there is no way for the love of God to enter you. Let the love of the world take the second place and let the love of God dwell in you. Let the better love take over.” This works regardless of what you call or believe your God to be: a heavenly being, a force of nature, a guiding spirit, omniscience personified. There is a greater force and there is an earthly force. You can believe in both, you can honor both, you can love both. You should love both. But the love of our guide should light our path. The love of the world should invite others to join us.

Unfortunately, we don’t seem to be expressing any love lately. You can’t say hate won’t win if you’re doing some of the hating.

 

Strike Up the Grill

Michael 8 Comments

I saw an article on one of my magazines’ weekly emails that there are only 3 weeks left to grilling season. Obviously that’s a bit of marketing hype for this month’s hard copy edition’s cover story. Three weeks from now is just a week into September and for here, and I would think most of the U. S. except perhaps some ZIP codes in Maine and Alaska, there’s a lot of good grilling weeks well beyond that. For some parts, it never stops being grilling time. (Sometimes I think this country is just too big for its own good which messes with magazine headline writers’ best intentions.) Now as far as I’m concerned, and being just north of the 40th parallel and having a covered patio, I’ll grill pretty deep into winter as long as the grill isn’t frozen shut. When we get those deep freezes and harsh winds that facilitate snow accumulating under the patio cover, I’ll put away the grill spatula.

WintergrillI think the point they wanted to make with that 3 week warning is that Labor Day is only 3 weeks away. Pools will close, fall decorations will come out of garages, wardrobes will be swapped for darker colors, and pumpkin spice everything will greet us at the entrance to every store, even Pep Boys.

I think the point that they are actually making is that just like the stores that already have their pumpkin spice everythings starting to sneak close to the entrances, the magaziners enjoy rushing the seasons. If they didn’t publish their fall cooking guides, turning leaf travel guides, or autumn splendor festivals guides by July they think some other magaziner (or horrors! an e-ziner) will beat them to it and there will go their credibility with the masses. With that there goes their summer advertising revenue projections hopefully earned from the ads for fall fashions and vacations by the sellers certain that you’ll book you flight home for Thanksgiving weekend with somebody who advertised cheap winter holiday fares in June. Arrrggghhh!!!

What I was hoping I’d find in my inbox would be a recipe on how to use up all those summer vegetables perhaps in a grilled medley since we apparently have 3 weeks of grilling season left. Unfortunately, all I found were some interesting ways to use those soon to be ripe pumpkins. I guess all the zucchini recipes were in the April editions.

 

Those Were The Days

Michael 1 Comment

I’ve been spending the past several evenings watching Bond, James Bond movies going all the way back to the first offering from 1962. I was reminded, happily reminded, of how courteous people were back then. Everyone dressed well, everyone said please and thank you, everyone treated each other with respect. If I hadn’t lived through it myself I would say this was a romanticized version of mid-century life, but it wasn’t. At least it wasn’t where I lived and that wasn’t London, or New York, or Kingston, Jamaica. Nor was it spent in high class casinos, private clubs, or Caribbean resorts. It was a dinky little steel mill town in Western Pennsylvania and people still dressed well, said please and thank you, and treated each other with respect. If it had been sunnier more days than it was it could have been the set of Leave It To Beaver.

I was just about to type that the movies are part of a month long festival of sorts courtesy of the Starz/Encore networks. That’s not quite true. The movies are indeed part of a month long Bond, James Bond celebration airing on the Starz/Encore channels but they are there to see courtesy of myself by way of my monthly cable bill. And I think that is part of why I miss those original days of Bond, James Bond. No, the cable channel wouldn’t have paid for my movies back then. We all know there wasn’t cable then. Movies were at the theater. Where you dressed for the day out, said “please” when asking for a ticket and “you’re welcome” in response to the “thank you” the cashier would cheerfully tell you. Where the movie, popcorn, soft drink, and bus fare to get there and back could be had for the dollar bill mom gave you and let you keep the change. Today that 1962 fifty cent movie is included as part of my $140 monthly cable bill. And I have to provide my own popcorn and drink.

MarqueeThe last time I went to a Bond, James Bond movie at a theater it cost me $9.50 and when I passed over my $20 bill I got a ticket, the wrong change, and a “there ya go.” When I pointed out the error I was rewarded with the insipid “my bad.” At the concession stand I spent $7.50 for a soft drink, the required purchase to redeem my FREE POPCORN! coupon, during a wordless transaction other than my “small popcorn and Sprite” at its beginning and my “thank you” at its conclusion. (I’m still not sure why I thank the seller when I purchase something. Please tell me I’m not the only one.)

Even ignoring the almost 27 fold increase in the monetary outlay, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Oh it wasn’t unpleasant. Nobody tried to pick my pocket, the crowd in the cinema was mostly quiet, and I didn’t spill my sticky soft drink onto my lap. Conversely, nobody said “excuse me” as they climbed over the lady in the row in front of me to get to the only seats that would satisfy them, nobody apologized for knocking the sticky soft drink into the lap of the unfortunate lady who was climbed over, and almost everybody dashed out of the theater as if someone actually yelled fire at the movie’s end. The niceties that were there in Those Good Old Days weren’t there and probably will never return.

If you should be unfortunate enough to ever mention this, particularly if you ever mention this to someone whose only experience with those late-50s early-60s days were through old movies or syndicated reruns of the Beaver, you may be rebuked for your naiveté and wistful but obviously wrong recollection of a time that wasn’t. But for me it was, they were, and it still is not a bad thing to aspire.

And now I have to run to the store and pick up popcorn for tonight’s showing. If I’m lucky, I might find a coupon.

 

Give Me a Break

Michael 2 Comments

Everything starts to run slower every now and then and can be fixed if you unplug it then plug it back it. Even you. This sage advice is brought to you by the people who marketed the first home computers way back in the dark ages, like 1970something. That it’s still true today isn’t surprising. That you need to unplug even from unpluggedness isn’t something I would have before imagined.

When I was working I always looked forward to time off. Not a day or a weekend. Not a week around the holidays when you worked harder at cooking and cleaning and then celebrating and recovering than you did before taking the time off. Real time off. A week on a beach on an island that has spotty cell coverage and Wi-Fi is something you ask when questioning the use of the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet. That kind of time off.

If you’re still of working age I strongly urge you to consider using some of your time for actual time off. Even if it is just a day or a weekend, make it a day or a weekend of unpluggedness. Maybe you can use it to come up with a better word than unpluggedness. Lexicologists excepted. And if you’re still working then by all means take a break from not working.

Here’s my logic. As I said, when I was working I looked forward to my time off. I also looked forward to going to work. Yes, I was one of those people who loved my work. I didn’t mind if I was in early, worked through break times, worked late, worked extra, or covered others. Preferably not all in the same day but if it happened I still made the best of it. But even though I was doing what I loved I wasn’t going to be fooled into believing that sampler waiting to happen “when you love what you do you’ll never work a day in your life” resembles truth. Doing anything well, even something you like, takes work. That’s how you get good at it. And work, even at doing something you like, is tiring. Exhausting even.

You need that break from work to recharge so you can do it again. That’s why so many companies have a “use it or lose it” policy regarding vacation time. No, it’s not so they can work you to death and then not give you what (you think) you’re entitled to. They have it so you’ll be forced to take time because so many seem to think that by denying yourself time off you’ll make it look like you’re such a great worker they can’t do without and you’ll never get let go. Actually, not taking time off only means you get burned out, end up doing a half-assed job, and get let go. That’s why I insisted those who worked in my department took their time off even if I had to schedule it for them myself. That’s also why, having managed to work myself up to a position of getting rewarded with 5 weeks of available time off each year I took as many of them as I could, often within a day or two of all five weeks. It might be why I enjoyed what I did. Because I took the time to recharge. Even when I was just starting and got all of two weeks vacation, between taking time off for the holidays and family activities, I always tried to take a couple of days off to just be off.

Now that I’m not working every day should be a holiday, right? Well, not so. You know that not working was not originally my idea. Those guys called doctors as well as those body parts called mine got together and decided it was better for my health, wellbeing, and continued living to start taking time off on a more or less permanent basis. Not working has not been fun, and I was sure it was because I wanted to work.  Ah, but I was wrong.

Perhaps at the beginning of not working, not working was not fun. But I’ve been not working for 3 years now. I should be used to it. Used to it I am. Enjoying it I am not. That is until I “took time off” from being off and started doing new things out of the routine that I had established in lieu of working. It really doesn’t matter what the routine is; what matters is that it is a routine. It was going to work at not working. But in the last 2 months I took a break from that. I didn’t a adhere to the routine, and I feel more refreshed, more positive, and more anticipating of returning to, you guessed it, my new old routine.

If I can keep taking some time off from myself like that more often, I might get used to this not working thing.

 

Technically Speaking

Michael 2 Comments

I blew it. I missed Thursday. Technically I suppose I didn’t. It’s still Thursday here, but I always have a post written and scheduled to be released so you can read it over your morning coffee. Technically, I do that so I can read it over my morning coffee. It gives me a little joy since I no longer write memos and directives that the staff got to read over their morning coffee. Ahh, those were the days. Oh the joy that I got out of putting a chill in their morning coffees. Yet I noticed that some of my joy was missing while I was having my morning coffee today. So I set out on the search for why.

At first I thought it was because I hadn’t crisped my breakfast potatoes enough. I knew it wasn’t that because I scarfed those puppies down like nobody’s business. (Potatoes of any kind are a treat for me and breakfast potatoes I’m lucky to get maybe twice a year.) (And yeah, I really could have put a better crisp on them. Oh well, there’s always sometime next year.) (Why, you ask. They’re not really friendly to a renal diet.) (Oh, why weren’t they crispy enough? I probably didn’t give them a good enough smash. And from there it’s all science. Wimpy smash, wimpy starch release, wimpy crisp.)

WeeklyAfter discounting potatoes (minimally crisp as they were), I was still sensing some lack of joy. Aha! I said to myself. “Self, aha! It’s August. Not a good month for you.” And yes, August has had some bad memories of late. Two of the last four Augusts have seen me in emergency rooms followed by hospital admissions and one of those was a marathon four-monther. Another August was the closing of the hospital I wanted to stay at until I retired (as an employee, not a patient). Which, technically, I did, but not in the manner I had planned. (Too many commas?) But then last August nothing bad happened at all so I am on a roll. Technically you could say I am one in a row. Nope, that wasn’t it.

I know. While having my morning coffee I got a text from my sister. That would bring unjoy to anybody. But no, she was just telling me that she was going to return some containers of mine that I had used to share some peach cobbler with her. And whenever my containers come back they are always full of new food. Food is always good. Food = joy. Food somebody else makes = great joy.

No, the lack of joy could be due to only one thing. I didn’t have my post to read this morning. Somehow I had forgotten to write a post for today. I don’t understand it. I didn’t do anything different over the past few days to make me lose track of days forget what I had done, fail to record particular highs or lows, or observe life at its craziest. I think I just forgot. Technically, I blew it. Fortunately I had a lot of other posts in my mailbox and you guys write better than me anyway. So joy was restored and all is right in the world.

Oh, but you’re getting this post anyway. Have a good Thursday. Or whenever it is wherever you are. Sorry if you really missed it at breakfast. Have a second cup of coffee on me.

 

 

Fire Sale

Michael 24 Comments

If your house was on fire and you could carry one thing out of it with you, what would it be? A question like that has been asked for ages. In philosophy classes, on psych papers, over drinks at happy hour, in bible groups, at marriage counseling. It should be getting easier to answer. Or maybe not.

When asked the question, in public the answers all sound very altruistic. My baby. My pet. The picture of my long dead parents, long suffering spouse, long loved child. In private we’d probably say, grab the tablet, CD, or memory stick with all our family financial info and maybe the one with pictures too if possible, or the purse or wallet with driver’s license and the credit cards because who wants that replacement hassle right after the house burns down. No! Get the phone!

I really was thinking about this recently. If I could save just one thing, what one thing would I want above all that I may risk my life to get?

My grandparents might have had a really hard time answering. Both trunks of my family tree started their branches in this country during World War I. Although not yet the depression Era as far as the United States was concerned, the European bank scare of 1914 had a dramatic effect on the Italian economy and its people. When they emigrated they took their distrust for banks with them. If it was of value, it was in the house. A fire would be devastating to the future of the family unless all of the children, 12 on my mother’s side, were old enough, big enough, and strong enough to each bring at least one item with no room for sentiment.

By the time my parents were contributing boomed babies to the landscape, the American economy was on an upswing and even middle class families had nest eggs that could be proudly secured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Up to $10,000 per depositor at the time. Like now though, nobody but the very rich had $10,000 nest eggs. But they still didn’t trust everything to the banks. Safety deposit boxes were for rich people. Personal treasures and savings bonds purchased almost painlessly through the Payroll Savings Plan were secreted in a strong box, itself cached away at the back of a linen drawer, the bottom of a cedar chest or top shelf of a closet, or among the pantry items in the newfangled built-in kitchen cabinets. In case of evacuation, a responsible adult, probably the dad, was in charge of collecting the canned collectibles, while another adult of authority went after more sentimental treasures.

My generation was the tween of generations. Everything from the first half of my life is on paper, the last 2 or 3 decades could and does fit easily on a flash drive. I have a strong box but other than my passport almost nothing in there is irreplaceable. Almost nothing else in there is probably worth trying to replace. If I was running from a fire I have to pleasure of knowing that I could grab all the sentimental items like the picture album filled with a record of the daughter’s formative years and perhaps a cherished bobble head.

But wait! I should go get that passport. I doubt I’ll be doing much travelling in the future but just in case I win one of those crazy on line raffles for an all-expense paid trip to Iceland, I’d hate to have to decline because I’m waiting on replacement documents proving who I am and what I look like. So that settles it, pictures, passport, and a cherished bobble head.

My essentials

My essentials

Oh no. But wait again (he says somberly). Forget the albums. Forget the bobble head. Forget the passport. (I’m going to have to find a more readily reachable place for that.) I forgot even more essential, if not sentimental items that I have to have. I have them with me all the time so I sometimes don’t consider that I actually have to carry them for them to be with me all the time. One is my cane. I can walk without it. For about 20 or 30 yards. About 50 to 100 feet depending on the day. That might get me as far as across the street from the theoretical blaze, but unless I’m planning on camping there forever, or unless I want to live the rest of my life 100 feet at a time, I better grab the cane.

That still leaves one hand free. Why not snag that cherished bobble head? Well…this a little personal. So much so that I don’t even tell people what’s in the bag I always have if someone who even suspects that it’s anything other than just a small day bag should ask. It’s a small bag but it’s huge in what it means to me.

You might recall from two posts ago that I am pretty much running on spare parts and that some of those parts actually are performing functions they were not originally designed to. And they require some help. That ever present bag carries the external pieces my spare-parted body needs to perform some otherwise routine internal functions. Yeah, that’s more than a little cryptic, but let’s say I can’t go but about 6 hours without it.

So. Two hands. Two things I sort of need more than pictures, bobble heads, or even passport. It looks like for me, like it was a couple of generations ago, there’s no room for sentiment.

Now I’m curious. What would you carry out?

 

Head Buds

Michael Leave a comment

Sometimes a mind is a terrible thing to have. I don’t even know how I got started thinking about this but once I did there just was no stopping it. It had a life of its own and it must have been as crappy a life as I have because of all the people in the world it could hang out with, that person was me.

“It” is my mind and I know your own mind usually doesn’t get to choose from many people to hang out with, but still. It started while I was at dialysis yesterday, when I usually read or work a crossword puzzle or two, I felt like doing something else. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of something elses to pick from there. Watch TV. No. Pull out the tablet and scroll through some social media. No. Watch YouTube. No. As long as the tablet was out I thought I’d plug in to some music and I plugged in my ear buds. And there we were. Off and running!

What a strange term that is. Earbuds. When I was in school we called the little speaker you connected to the transistor radio that you sneaked into class so you could listen to the baseball game an ear phone. Then we graduated to listening to rock and roll on our stereos at home and to not disturb Dad was sleeping after working night shift, we shifted to headphones. I guess if we had used earbuds back then their bigger cousins would have been called head buds.

Now that was good enough for a mental chuckle but could “it” stop there? Oh no. (Yeah, I know for the vast majority of the world including parts that might still be uninhabited, that barely registers on the “hmmmm scale” let alone warranted a chuckle, but when Transistoryou’re entering your third hour of dialysis you get a warped sense of reality let alone chuckleworthiness.) So “it” decided to keep on going. Does anybody still listen to baseball on radio? I don’t. Sometimes I might watch it on television but even in the car I don’t listen to baseball. Even in a car I rarely listen to hockey. But that’s not a good example since I’m usually at the home games and watching the away games on TV. As much as I complain about having to listen to national play by play and threaten to mute the television so I could listen to the local broadcast on radio I never have. And I actually have a radio in the apartment. Two. One is attached to an alarm clock that I’ve had for at least 30 years that I last used as an alarm at least 20 years ago. The other is attached to a CD player. I don’t listen to that much anymore either. Radio? Wow. I know they still make radio. You can get many of your local stations on your handy dandy I Heart Radio app.

Fortunately, for as long as it took me to put all of that into some coherent form, dialysis was over and I didn’t have to listen to “it” any longer. Or at least any longer just then. But I know some day this week though I’m going to have a dream about head buds. I can’t wait to see what they look like.

 

 

Those Who Should Know Better

Michael 14 Comments

Ok, you’re going to need a little background for this. At times I’ve written about having kidney disease and going through dialysis. You might recall other times I’ve mentioned some unspecified rare disease. And then once or twice I talked about cancer. So if you sometimes get confused I can understand that. Some of my best friends get confused regarding what’s going on with me. Apparently so are some “experts.”

For the record, it all started about 15 years ago when I was diagnosed with Wegener’s Granulomatosis. Wegener’s is an autoimmune vasculitis that affects the smallest of blood vessels and the organs they occupy – most notably the kidneys, lungs, liver, and sinuses, in my case the kidneys. There is no cure but it can sometimes be controlled with combinations of chemotherapy, immunosuppressant, and steroid medications.

After 10 years of treatment with methotrexate and prednisone, the working parts of my body decided they wanted some attention and got together to vote on who would revolt. My bladder either won or lost depending on your point of view and grew cancer.  One year and four operations later I was pronounced cancer, and bladder, free and the proud owner of rebuilt body parts fashioned from other body parts that to this point had done not much more than the jobs they were originally intended.

In the process of trying to create a recoverable environment for my post-operatively rebuilt body I had to replace the drug therapy that was so far managing to keep the ravages of the Wegener’s at bay but now not such a good choice in a body now equally desperate to keep other cancers at the same bay. While that search was underway the dastardly disease took advantage of the temporary unprotected kidneys and put them into a (hopefully but who are we kidding) temporary shut down and put me in a chair at the local dialysis clinic.

And that’s how I came to be an unplanned early retiree with a handicap placard hanging from my rear view mirror. But “who are those who should know better?” you asked. Good question.  Why, the health care “experts” of course. I’m allowed to speak of them with disdain because I was a health care expert for close to 40 years before my unplanned early retirement. And those years included years when experts in health care were the ones educated in and actually providing health care.

Recently I had to complete some paperwork for the government’s end stage kidney disease program including what led me to be on dialysis. As in the past I check “other” after not finding in among the pages of pre-selected options and entered Wegener’s. It was rejected because there is no such condition in their database of diseases. Since I have it know for sure there is but I also know for sure it’s also known by another name, Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis, I questioned the explanation. Even if you’re being paid by the letter you have to agree that Wegener’s is an easier fit for a government form. And that’s why I had always fit it. So I called the help number for some help and asked what I had done wrong. I was told we’re not allowed to call it Wegener’s anymore because that doctor who discovered it “was a Nazi you know.” So all traces of his name have been removed and it is disallowed from official use. I wouldn’t have minded if at least they would have matched the funds it took to rename everything for “official use” with perhaps some official research.

But those are government people who are used to doing stupid things. Or things stupidly. But…there actually are others who should know even better even. Those are ones who bring me my tri-weekly adventures in artificial kidney function replacement. Or dialysis if you prefer,although personally I don’t prefer dialysis.

At the corner kidney clinic they posted a new “let’s raise everyone’s spirit” poster. On it is a classic pie chart with the legend, “ONLY 7%!” It goes on to explain that “You spend only 7% of your week in dialysis. The other 148 hours are yours to do the things you like!” Really. That sounds like something that someone who doesn’t know what dialysis does to a body wrote. Not a national organization responsible for 290,000 dialysis patients. (Source: that company’s website). That 7 percent might account for the time that you are actually having your blood circulate through the machine taking up the 10 square feet next to your chair. Not the time it takes for a nurse to do a pre-dialysis assessment and then physically connect you to the machine by way of two needles about the size and diameter of a Bic pen stuck into your arm. Not the time for a nurse to physically remove you from the machine by withdrawing the Bic pen like needles from your arm, for the bleeding one would expect for two holes the size of Bic pens in your arm to stop bleeding, and then to go through a post-dialysis assessment (all about another hour). Not the time it takes to get to and from the dialysis clinic (roughly another hour for me). Not the time it takes to physically recover from the actual process (in my case 10 to 12 hours).

So if we consider the time to get on dialysis, get off dialysis, go to dialysis, and recover from dialysis I actually have 10 hours a week to do what I like. I like to sleep about 8 hours a night and I like to eat at least 2 meals a day so I’m down to around 33 hours a week I can call my own. Almost a whole day and a half! I wonder if they would notice if I would “edit” their poster at the clinic.

PieChartHD

My revised pie chart

Well now you know who those are who should know better. A government who is more concerned with what to call diseases than what to do with the people who actually have the disease and the people who are supposed to be minimizing the effect of a disease on the body but are clueless about how to minimize the effect of the disease on the person.

Boy I feel bad for the poor soul who I might run in to today and says “Hey, how ya doing?” I might actually tell him.

 

Unpriortizing

Michael Leave a comment

I wrote today’s post in a state of righteous indignation. I would proof it but if I did I’d probably start to feel bad and change this phrase or that word so I don’t offend anybody. It’s not much of a gift but it certainly is a curse. So I’m not going to proof it and hope all the words are spelled correctly, the grammar is recognizable, I keep my comma usage appropriate, and most of the tense agrees. If I screwed up anywhere, sorry about that. If I do happen to offend you in my state of righteous indignation, sorry about that. This was about pleasing me this time. I know. Unconventional at best. Sorry about that, too.

Unprioritizing

Three things happened that I read about in the paper last week. And one thing happened that I did. They all have something in common. The three things I read about were that the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that a preschool is eligible to apply for and receive a state grant for playground resurfacing, announcers for Great Britain mass transit stations have to begin announcements with “Good afternoon” or “Good evening,” and my state’s legislature recessed but passed a budget on time. The one thing I did was I locked my car in the Walmart parking lot. What do they have in common? None of them made any sense.

The state assembly recessing with a passed budget is both true and false. It’s true in that they did pass a “budget” before the July 1 deadline, unlike roughly half of the states’ legislatures held to a similar requirement. And they were more than happy to include that little tidbit in the press releases announcing the passed “budget.” The problem is that the “budget” is only the spending part of the plan. It should be called a spending plan but then they would have to stick around until they came up with a way of paying for everything they plan on spending. So they changed the name, or the rules, so they along have to pass the spending part by the budget deadline. I haven’t worked for a couple of years but when I did I had to submit my planned revenue, and how I was going to achieve that revenue before I was even allowed to start thinking about how I was going to spend that money. Even doing a home budget, I have make the money I want to have next month before I can spend it. Isn’t it time that we hold our governments to the same standards we hold ourselves? Oh, in case you’re wondering, no, they didn’t pass the revenue bill before adjourning.
Source: Any newspaper in Pennsylvania

The mass transit operator Transport for London has instructed its staff, and rerecorded their automated announcements, to use gender neutral terms and phrases like “Good morning everybody” rather than “Ladies and gentlemen “ so everyone will feel welcome. I’ve never been on a London subway train but if it’s like any of the ones I have been on in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, or Washington DC, or any of the surface transports in hundreds of different cities in several different countries, hearing “Good morning everybody” isn’t going to make me feel all that welcome. Making certain I get off the train with the same amount of money in my pocket as I got on with (which didn’t happen in Washington), making certain I get off with the wallet that I had when I got on (which didn’t happen in Philadelphia), making sure I actually know where to get off by having station announcements that match the station names (which doesn’t happen in Pittsburgh), or making station announcements at a volume that is audible and understandable, or at all (which never happens in New York) would make me much happier. If you do want to call me something, I don’t want to be just a part of “everybody,” I sort of like being called a gentleman. Shouldn’t I get to feel welcome also?
Source:  The Independent, ESI Media, July 13, 2017.

So what’s wrong with an organization that cares for children receiving grant money? Because it’s Lutheran. Opponents said if they received state money it would violate the separation of church and state. The Court ruled that not giving them the opportunity to apply for such grants is a violation of their right to freedom of religion. What doesn’t make sense about that? Nothing doesn’t make sense about the decision. What doesn’t make sense is that the Supreme Court has to listen to arguments about that. What are the opponents afraid of? That the children while riding a swing will decide they believe in God, or that nature is a cool place to play, or that the teacher is a fun person, or “look, a bird!”? The First Amendment has only 45 words. Isn’t time we stopped second guessing what they meant when they wrote them?
Source: Catholic News Service, June 30, 2017.

I know, I’m getting old and turning into a cantankerous old coot. It’s one of the benefits of having been able to hang around for enough years that I actually have cantankerous in my vocabulary. It  makes me scratch my head and ask,” What’s wrong with the picture? These pictures, even? What are the priorities here? Making sure we don’t influence children in their lifetime journeys toward if, how, or when they may want to worship some supreme being? Or not? Or making sure children don’t get hurt when they trip on a pothole in the playground? Being certain that we don’t offend some group of people who aren’t certain if they are being offended until some other group might think they are being offended so we pick our words so carefully we barely recognize that there are actually people in the group? Or being certain we get our passengers to their destinations quickly and safely? That we follow the letter of the law and adhere to all deadlines and instructions or that we keep our power to change the definition of deadline or that which is deadline dependent? Or that we do what’s right and honorable and don’t spend money we don’t have, especially when it’s not our money anyway? I have the answers. But nobody is asking me the questions.

Oh, what does locking my car in Walmart’s parking lot have to do with misplaced priorities? It was the convertible. With the top down. And the alarm off. I know. I’m getting old and….. ok, I’m just getting old.
Source: Me.