Category Life

MisLabeled

Michael Leave a comment

Most of the time I’m a pretty positive person but this past week, so many things have come up that just make me so, so annoyed (!) that I have to rant about them. And not like the good natured rant I ranted last month (Looking Good) but a real “you’ve got to be kidding me” rant.

It started with the story about 24 candidates for a nursing degree who failed to pass a final exam thus not meeting the qualifications for graduation. Oddly enough, the school refused to graduate them. It did, however, offer them tutoring and 2 additional attempts to pass the failed test. Not good enough for poor widdle students who wanted either the passing grade lowered, or better yet, the test thrown out. Somehow they actually were able to amass over 300 signatures on a petition to allow them to just graduate. It was noted that some of the parents stated that their children have lost jobs over this. Hmmm. The parents were the ones who noted that one, eh?

A blog post on Dictionary.com increased the level of my ire. It was questioning if we are increasing the size of the gender gap rather than encouraging the equality of all with new words we keep introducing the language. Mansplain, manbun, manspread, and man purse were among the examples. The author posited the use of the “man” descriptor as superfluous, inaccurate, or insulting and is just an unnecessary label. Let me correct myself. That article didn’t raise my ire. It only made me more livid than I would have been when I saw then the headline in the local paper, “Young LGBT artists add to local art scene.” Please, is that adding more so than young nonLnonGnonBnonT artists do or maybe more than old LGBT artists, or perhaps more than any other old plain unidentified artist? Can’t we revel in the addition to its scene by any artist? More unnecessary labels!

I turned on the morning news and heard about the suburban housewife who had her car stolen with all of her son’s baseball equipment in it along with the usual assortment of car dwelling stuff. The local police department would investigate it but can’t because they are spread too thin investigating the rash of overdose deaths in the community. I have an idea. The overdoses are already dead. Tell everyone else not to take drugs and go help the mom who just had the family SUV heisted. Probably so the future overdose could buy drugs! Oh but wait. They have a special drug task force working on the drug problem. And I remember when they used to be just plain cops.

Later that day I’m reading what came in on the Facebook feed and saw a post from one of the patient based support groups that I belong to. It was a graphic representation of all the ways people die. All manners that people depart were listed from heart disease to suicide to blood disorders to combat and terrorism. The point being to put what condition we share into some perspective. Among the many causes of death was “otherwise not specified.” I went to the original post to the original article to the original comments. For once I wished I hadn’t had that kind of time. Not one, not two, but a whole boatload of people made comments like “what about overdoses – are those supposed to be the otherwise?” “Climate change appears to be missing.” “Where’s old age?” “Broken hearts?” Yes, broken hearts Apparently quite a few hundreds of people didn’t feel there were enough labels.

Add these to two other stories from last week’s news, the gunman in Florida who kills five people then shoots himself, and a local mother who shoots her two children then sets herself on fire. They called these murder suicides. Probably an accurate label but please, if you should ever get the urge to do such a thing be creative about it and do the suicide part first.

There now. Next time I’ll try to be happier. And I’ll proofread that one too. Now that I have this out of my system I really don’t want to go back and check for typos. If you want I’ll be happy to refund your money for this one.

Have a day

Look Who’s Talking

Michael Leave a comment

Use or lose it. Who hasn’t heard that at least with respect to vacation days or abdominal muscles?  I guess the same goes for voices. Since I retired there are precious few opportunities to replace the sheer amount of talking I once did. I guess it has taken its toll. Or more accurately, the non-it has.

When you stop exercising those abs you don’t notice an immediate loss of shape and tone. By eighths, maybe even sixteenths of inches you start a slow expansion from six pack to quarter keg. Someone who sees you daily or weekly may not even notice the transformation but run into somebody you haven’t seen in 3 years and you’ll probably hear, “Hey, you look great. Aw, no you don’t. You’re fat now. Just like the rest of us.” Or at least I imagine that’s what you might hear. Not ever having abs to die for I never had to worry about an unplanned belt explosion.

But not talking has resulted in somewhat similar observations. Apparently those I share my few words with hadn’t suspected an impending failure to communicate on my part. That makes some sense. Even the most common of my common conversationalists don’t hear much from me. Most of my chit chat revolves around a phone call or two to my daughter or sisters and much of my end consists of “mmm,” “uhhhh,” and “ok, talk to you soon.”

What got me thinking about any of this was the phone call equivalent of the friend who hadn’t seen you in 3 years, only this time played by the friend who you usually converse with via email or text messages but might actually speak with only once or twice a year. That call came last week and before I barely had “hello” out of my mouth I heard, “Oh my God, are you ok? If you’re sick, go back to bed or wherever you were resting and I’ll call back some other time.”

It was then that I realized I need a vocal version of the Ab Roller.

 

Food Fight

Michael 2 Comments

I was making the morning coffee the other day and took a moment to bask in the aroma wafting through the apartment. It made me appreciate the small space as just the right size that it can distribute something so aromatic to every corner of my little world. Of course there is the converse that small space dwellers must also consider. Quite fortunately, not nearly as often as the good stuff. That’s when I started thinking, I really have to remember I’m retired. I don’t have to think anymore. But then…

I like the smell of coffee. Coffee beans, coffee roasting, coffee grinding, coffee brewing. But I know that not everybody likes it. I don’t understand it, but I know it. What makes that happen? It’s the same smell. Why does one person like it and one doesn’t? Or in the case of coffee, why do 7 billion people like it and, assuming that about 500 million haven’t had the pleasure of smelling it yet, 23 don’t. And while we’re at it, what makes cilantro taste earthy and sharp to some, bright and citrus-y to others, and like soap to still more? Then I started thinking more…

I was out of cilantro. I needed cilantro because I was planning on using up some leftover chicken in a stir fry that evening and I always (ok, almost always) use cilantro in my stir fries. If you toss in some peanut butter it gives it a Thai flair. To me. I think so. I don’t know what someone from Bangkok would think of it. No need to get started thinking more. But then…

Thai has gotten very popular around here. Maybe elsewhere Thai food has always been popular, but here? Not so much. Now? Oh, yeah. You can’t swing a leftover chicken around without hitting a Thai restaurant. Before, if you wanted take-out it used to be nothing but Chinese, sandwiches, and pizza. And then I was wondering how close to real is the Thai take-out? How close is the Chinese? For that matter, how close are the sandwiches? OK, maybe too far with that one. But what about the pizza? I never doubted pizza before. I know that most of the pizza isn’t anything at all like real pizza because most of it isn’t at all close to my pizza. But then, I wouldn’t have expected it because very few of the pizza masters were of the same Neapolitan background as my mother, AKA my pizza master. You’d think I would stop there but no. Forget about the pizza palaces, I can only think of one authentic full service Italian restaurant nearby. Probably for the same reason and even there I could have stopped but I was on a roll. And I don’t mean a pepperoni roll. What was I thinking…

Pepperoni roll my eye. That’s nothing but a Stromboli. Not a calzone! A calzone is pizza dough covered with mozzarella, folded in half, baked, and if you wish lightly sauced by the lucky person who gets to eat it right out of the oven. I know. Calzones originated in Naples. The Stromboli is just a pizza with whatever toppings you want, like pepperoni, but rolled up. People always get things wrong. Look at yams and sweet potatoes. Consider all the people who think peanuts are nuts. Still, those are completely different animals. You want a couple of things just as confused as the Stromboli and calzone, see il maccherone versus le macaron, or more familiarly the macaroon and macaron. But the people who do know the difference at least know how to pronounce each of them. Unlike… (yes, more thinking)

What is it with gnocchi? Nobody who is Italian, other than Italian celebrity chefs who don’t want to alienate their celebrity clientele, says “No-Key.” It’s “nyock-ee”!  It comes from the Italian word nocca, which means knuckle. (No, not knot. Knuckle. Just what it looks like. Wrinkles and all. Trust me.) And don’t ask for a plate of gnocchis. Gnocchi is plural. If you really want just one, order a gnoccho. But I bet you can’t eat just one. Anyway, if you forget, the boys of winter don’t play Ho-Key, they play hockey! And that got me to thinking…

I have to send in my payment for next year’s tickets. I gotta go!

(In case you were wondering, yes this is the famous sticky note post. Famous to me. I’ve been staring at that hunk of paper for over a week now. Thank Heaven I can throw the note away. Or do you say throw away the note. You know, I’ve been thinking about that…)

Technical Resistance

Michael 8 Comments

I try to take responsibility for myself as much as I can in all aspects that I can reach. As long as I can reach them comfortably. Including my health. So when the good folks that bring me my delightful dialysis sessions announced an opportunity to “take control of your kidney health and experience better outcomes” I jumped at the chance. Who couldn’t resist better outcomes in anything you take on? Then they started throwing around words like “empowered” and “easy” in the same paragraph even. And they got me with, “Start managing your kidney care with your Portal today and gain more time to do the things you love. Register today and Thrive On” (Emphasis not even added. They’re good.) How can I not want to take advantage of gaining more time to do the things I love? I was hooked.

You just know this is going to go wrong somewhere, don’t you? Hmm.

Looking forward to actively participating in my care, I carefully filled out the many screens of information that they requested, chose my password, and awaited the confirmation email which would contain the additional instructions for completing the registration process. In just a few seconds it came, and in just a few minutes I did what I was supposed to do. In seconds again I received another email congratulating me on successfully registering for the patient portal and was presented with a link to “log in and start actively participating in your care!” (OK, that time I added the exclamation point, but I wasn’t excited about this. Wouldn’t you be?)

I clicked, eagerly awaiting the chance to participate in my care, and attempted my first official login. In went my email address, then went in my password, then the email address and password went in to wherever they go and the little circle thing started spinning and then, low and behold (words you just don’t hear much anymore) across the screen I was presented with the message “username or password invalid.” Oh, poo! No problem. In my excitedness I probably hit a wrong key so I re-entered the username which is my email address so I know that was correct, and then, this time more carefully, my password. Almost always when denied access it’s because I incorrectly enter the password which makes sense since they never show you your password (unless it happens to be ******* and you just have to remember how many *s). But no, again that didn’t work so I gave one more try and one more time I got the same frustrating message.

I selected the link on the page for technical support and sent them an email detailing my inability to log into the patient portal (and thus my unfortunate delay in participating in my care!) and sat back to await their response. A few minutes later I saw the little envelope icon pop up at the top of the screen and I anxiously opened my email to just as anxiously read their reply, get back on track, and start participating in my care. Well imagine my disappointment when I scrolled the inbox items and saw, “Undeliverable.” Instead of the anxiously awaited reply I had a message wherein the little emailman politely explained to me that my desperate plea for help could not be sent because the addressee “wasn’t found or doesn’t exist at the destination server” and I should check to make sure I entered the address correctly, contact the intended recipient by phone, or several other options that involved things like checking licenses and permissions and other things that normal non-computer savvy people (and probably some of them, too) have no idea what any of that means. Disappointment does not begin to describe what I was feeling. “ARRRGH!” OF COURSE THE DAMN ADDRESS EXISTS. ALL I DID WAS PUSH THEIR DANM BUTTON ON THEIR DAMN WEBSITE! DAMN MORONS!” I said to myself. Calmly.

Maybe it’s just a password problem and I actually mistyped when I was selecting it. It’s possible. If I can incorrectly enter a password when trying to log onto a site I can certainly mistyped the letters, characters, numbers, and case control when first selecting the password. Of course that would mean that I would have had to make the same mistake twice since, once on the first selection entry and once on the confirmation entry, but hey, it could happen. Yeah, right.

So I attempted to log on again, knowing it would reject the login information but also knowing I would be presented with the inevitable “Forgot your password?” link. So I did. And I was. And I clicked. And in a few seconds I received another email with another link to reenter my password. So I clicked. And I reentered. Carefully. Both times. The screen blanked taking all my information again to wherever the little electrons go when they discuss these things and in less than a second I got another email! This is getting exciting. Again anxiously (though not quite as anxiously as I had been earlier), I opened the email and read the message congratulating me on successfully changing my password with a new link to log on and “start participating in my care.” (No emphasis added. By this time I was getting emphatically worn out.) Again I clicked. And again I entered username AKA email address and password AKA, uhh, password. And again I got…”username or password invalid.”

Oy.

(If you read Monday’s post and are wondering if this was what I couldn’t remember…..well, the answer to that is no. But this one is such a great story I couldn’t wait to share it. That and if I did wait I knew I would have forgotten about it. But don’t worry. I still have the sticky note stuck right there on the monitor (see?) and I’ll be writing all about it next time. Unless something else comes up between now and then. But it’s OK. There’s lots of sticky on that note. It’s not going anywhere.)

(Oh and, do you think I use too many parentheses?)

 

But it’s not supposed to happen to me!

Michael 1 Comment

Well, it happens to the best of us. So they say. Who are these they? Are they the best of us so they would know? Or are they like me? Those who this always happens to. I don’t know what I want to write about. No, not I don’t know. More like I can’t remember. Like, since about 10 hours ago.

I should have sat down and wrote it then. It was really a great topic. And I had just the right approach for it. It was something that happens to all of us (what they say notwithstanding) and something that I know everybody out there in Blogworld wouldn’t be able to wait to read. But just what it is (was?) I can’t remember. Sigh.

I did what I always do when I can’t remember something. Retrace my mental steps of the Questionday. Most of the time it will jog the brain cells sufficient to loosen the elusive thoughts but not today. What did I do today anyway?

I think I first came up with the “Now that’s blogworthy!” moment sometime around breakfast time. Could it have been something to do with breakfast. Not likely. All I had was some breakfast sausage and scrambled eggs with an English muffin, buttered and jellied. Nothing terribly blogworthy at that meal although I did manage to turn scrambled eggs into a decent sounding post once. (While we’re in the kitchen, do they call English muffins just muffins in England? And if so, what do you call just a muffin there?) (Inquiring minds and all that.)

After breakfast I read the paper, answered some e-mails, watered the herb pots, and did a crossword puzzle. Actually, I did four crossword puzzles. Other than those, my morning probably wasn’t much different from anybody’s. And I know whatever “it” was, “it” wasn’t crosswords. Although blogworthy, those too have already been a subject of the RRSB. So, not there.

Moving on I paid a few bills, put a birthday card in the mail (real card, real mail), took a walk, watched a hockey game. Hockey’s a big thing for me. Autographed pictures, pucks, programs, banners, and towels all have found a home somewhere on my walls and shelves. License plates and bumper magnets grace my car and a season ticket pass keeps my driver’s license company in my wallet. I like hockey. I’ve even said that everything I know about being a gentleman I learned from hockey. But it wasn’t that either.

So, I don’t know what I’m going to write abou…….wait! Now I remember. I think I’m going to save that idea for Thursday and just call today a miss. Sorry, but I don’t want to go through this twice in one week. So, I’ll just jot that down on a little post-it that I can stick to the monitor right there. And, there. Thursday is all taken care of. Whew.

So. Now. For today. Well….Have a nice day?

Looking Good

Michael 6 Comments

I’m going to do something today that I usually don’t. I’m ranting. Well…not exactly ranting. A rant implies wild and impassioned speech. I may be passionate about a bunch of stuff but I’m not wild. I’m not even undomesticated. So I’m not exactly ranting but I am upset. Maybe even a little annoyed.

I just read a post – no, that’s not true either – I just read two-thirds of a post, supposedly to make me, as one with a chronic illness, feel magnanimous towards those who have the nerve to say to me,  “You look good.”  Apparently before I had the benefit of the sensitivity of whoever wrote that drivel, err…. that post, I was supposed to be bothered, irked, and/or insulted by that comment. Really?!?

Yes, I have a chronic condition. Three actually. If you’ve read this for a time you know I have kidney disease and am on dialysis (and the specific target of the aforementioned post). I am also told that I am a cancer survivor though one really never survives as much as finds a way to eliminate its immediate danger. For me that meant the physical removal of the cancer and along with it two and parts of third internal organ while now still learning how to live without otherwise vital body parts. The third is a one of those rare diseases that is so rare you don’t even get to see commercials on TV for drugs that might or not might not improve my chance at a normal life. Instead that one has been kept at bay for 15 years or so by a relatively dangerous drug regimen that probably helped me join the ranks of the first two chronic conditions that I mentioned but at least it kept me alive long enough to develop them. Anyway, when someone tells me that I look good I say thank you. Apparently I’ve been doing that wrong.

If I read the part of the article that I read correctly, I read that first I should consider that the person who is telling me how wonderful I appear doesn’t mean anything insensitive by it. He or she probably doesn’t know how painful and depressing my ailment is. Ailments are. Next I should consider exactly how well I know this person. Perhaps some people are mistaking my healthy appearance for a healthy appearance because they don’t know the full extent of my painful and depressing ailment. Or ailments. Then I should thank them for their thoughtfulness but gently remind them how painful and depressing my ailment really is. Are. Is. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do after that because that’s when I threw my tablet across the room. (After making sure I was aiming it at a very soft pillow. I might have been annoyed but I’m not crazy.) (Not even wild.)

So, since I was unable to finish that drivel, err…. that post, let me tell you how to respond when someone comes up to you, whether or not you have a chronic condition, and whether or not he or she does, and says, “You look good.”  Say thank you and repay the compliment.

By that way, you’re looking pretty good. Have a nice day.

Shopped Till I Dropped

Michael Leave a comment

I did something different last week. I went shopping. Not the shopping you do at a supermarket regardless of how super your market is. Real shopping that involved considering style and fashion, color and fabric, and trying stuff on. Oh that might not be very different for you but I assure you, it is indeed different, almost exciting, for me. Over the last 3 years I’ve managed to lose 110 pounds. I may have mentioned that about 20 of them were desired and even intentional. The other 90 or so came off as pieces of me came out during and after various hospital stays and recovery periods.

During that time I made due with piecemeal attire supplementation and the occasional reintroduction of an item that was spared a trip to the donation bin during the years when I was busy gaining some 110 pounds. But I finally had to recognize that I could no longer go out in public – even a public as limited as companion patients in doctors’ waiting rooms, dialysis clinic nursing staff, once a week grocery co-shoppers, and fellow churchgoers – with the ragtag rags that my togs were quickly becoming. Thus, a shopping spree.

And let me tell you something that probably every mother of a teenage boy already knows. If you are male and are not an adolescent male whose fashion sense is dictated primarily by the local college or professional football teams’ uniforms (regardless of the chronologic age of said adolescent male), there’s not much one can call smart for men out there. Oh I found plenty of shirts, slacks, and jackets in formal, informal, and in between styles but those styles were quite the same as the styles of those few previously mentioned articles that had stayed with me since the last time I weighed this little. And that was around 30 years ago.

Not to be deterred I soldiered on and did grave damage to my credit limit, restructuring my wardrobe to one that does not elicit questions like “have you been sick?” by any passerby who subscribes to the Hi Guy Principle. To be honest, when I started the day I thought I’d be exhausted and want to quit before it got on to time for a mid-morning snack. And to continue to be honest, I was getting tired. But tired and somewhat exhilarated at the same time. It had been so long since I had been shopping, even though most of what I was buying was basically the same stuff I had bought so long since, that I was actually enjoying myself.

There’s nothing like spending a day, and lots of money, shopping in a store where your selections aren’t plopped into a plastic cart with wheels you push to the check-out line at the front of the building.

I’ll have to try to do it again sometime in the next 30 years.

 

Take my keys, please

Michael 2 Comments

Recently I was watching an old episode of Mike and Molly where they test drive a Rolls Royce. Because they could. It got me thinking, had I ever test drove something I had no intention of buying just because I wanted to drive it? And because I could? And I think TestDrivethe answer is yes. Yeah, I said I think. I’m old. I’ve driven a lot of cars over the years. Some I didn’t buy but I’m not sure if some I never intended to. Let me think on that for a while.

While I am thinking on that, how about you? Did you ever go into a dealership and say “I’d like to try out that Ferrari. Pay no attention to the holes in my jeans. They’re fashionable and I’m eccentric.” Or maybe not a car. Did you ever try to get your way onto a boat where you knew you didn’t belong? Sneak into first class with a standby coach ticket? Have you ever bought a really large screen TV for a game or movie or can’t miss TV wedding and returned it the day after? Or what about trying on something just to see what it felt like – a Patek Phillipe watch, a Burberry coat, Christian Louboutin shoes (um, women only please on that last one)?

Have we gotten to that point of entitlement or was the Mike and Molly episode just a comedic premise? Perhaps I’m overthinking this. Maybe it’s no worse to take the chance to drive a $300,000 car or wear a $100,000 watch than to move to the lower seats after the 8th inning as people leave the game to beat the traffic.

While you were thinking about all that I went back through the memory banks in search of disingenuous test drive recollections. And I do recall once being behind the wheel of a 25th Anniversary Corvette that I was pretty sure I wouldn’t buy but I don’t think I went in with the intention of not intending to. But even if I did I can balance that out with the time I drove a 1963 Corvette with the intention of buying but didn’t.

In that same vein, I’ve never rented a TV for the Super Bowl (that’s a cliché, if anything I would have rented it for the Stanley Cup Playoffs but that’s stretched over weeks), I don’t wear watches, I’ve never even seen first class, and I can’t wear heels.

 

13 Reasons Challenge

Michael 3 Comments

Just about everybody is familiar with the book and TV show “13 Reasons.” Some like it because it brings teenage suicide to light. Some hate it because it celebrates teenage suicide. Some abhor it because it’s just another way to exploit something, anything in the news.

Last week I was trapped in the rabbit hole and came up at a site where a young woman in Australia has taken a completely different direction from the show. In her blog terrymcnude.wordpress.com she says, “Instead of the 13 reasons why Hannah Baker killed herself, (we have to move on from that) and ask ourselves, what are 13 reasons why you’re happy with your life.” She then challenged others to find their 13 Reasons, pass them on, and encourage others to do the same.

While there are so many words being spent every day on all that we’re sure is wrong and unfair in the world, here’s a chance to spend a few on what’s right in yours.

So, I’m going to take that challenge and find the 13 Things that make me most happy and challenge you to do the same and then challenge all those who you share yours with to do likewise – on so on and so on.

13 Things That Make Me Happy.

  1. This is so easy it’s almost cheating. My No. 1 Thing that makes me happy is a daughter who seems to like me, too. Can’t say more than that.
  2. Just as easy is No. 2, having two siblings who are close and caring and never too busy to help with anything, anytime, anywhere.
  3. Having a small but strong group of friends.
  4. A walk in the morning without rain.
  5. Listening to piano-centric jazz. Thank you David Benoit.
  6. Stanley Cup Hockey!
  7. Christmas decorations.
  8. Cooking something without a recipe, sometimes even without a plan, and it actually tastes good.
  9. Spring when I sit outside intending to read but end up staring at the flowers.
  10. Top-down drives in the summer through back country roads.
  11. A good murder – the fictional kind, not one that ends up on the evening news.
  12. Pizza. (I never met a pizza that didn’t make me happy, except one with pineapple maybe).
  13. Being done with dialysis. Maybe someday that might move up in the list when I can actually be done with dialysis. But for now, 3 times a week I’m at my happiest when they pull those needles and they say “That’s it, you’re done for today.”

That’s it, those are mine. Now, are you up to the challenge?

 

Shave and a Haircut

Michael 5 Comments

I still can’t get used to it. Although I try to avoid my face in the mirror – well, maybe not avoid as much as not concentrate on – I have been spending more and more time staring at myself every morning.

About a month ago I became completely clean shaven. That hasn’t happened for over 30 years. And even before that it was a week to week decision regarding facial hair arrangement. Now that I’ve gone close to a handful of weeks without anything there you’d think seeing all of my face looking back at me wouldn’t be that disconcerting. Most of the time it isn’t but that first-thing-in-the-morning glance still returns an element of surprise. It’s probably because I forget what I look like by the time the morning comes having not seen me for the whole night.Mustache

I didn’t decide to shave everything off my cheeks and chin because of any new fashion statement I was looking to make. I didn’t do it for the love of a woman, the lust of a mate, or even at the suggestion of a friend. No, I did it for the most common of reasons assuming that anybody who has changed his facial appearance is completely honest about the reason for the change. I shaved completely because of the dreaded trimming accident.

Trimming, the bane of those who would let a little of nature show through on their visage without so much that he may be mistaken for a member of a well-known family whose patriarch holds a patent for duck calls. Trimming is tough! You have this fancy specialized piece of equipment with all these different heads and guides and they all have adjustments for different lengths and … well … if you happen to have the wrong guide on or the right one set at the wrong length and … well … if it’s a little early and you’re a little tired and … well … things happen.

So, at least for now, I’ve rejoined the ranks of men who scrape blade across skin each morning – ok, most mornings. Good thing I never got rid of my old razor.

Anybody know if they still make double edge blades?