Do the Yak

Ben is much better now. He was a big pile of misery for 48 hours starting around noon on Wednesday until yesterday, when he got 85 pounds of sodden, packed cotton out of his nasal passages after day surgery for a deviated septum. We knew he would be uncomfortable post-operatively, but not to that degree. He was more or less OK when I picked him up Wednesday afternoon, but it turns out he still had some good drugs in his system even though he was awake and alert. Then they wore off and he took Percocet and tried to eat something, all of which resulted in him tossing his tacos repeatedly and feeling panicky about all the crap in his nose and throat, so we went to the ER and they have him some saline in an IV and calmed him down. I felt very helpless since I couldn’t make his fear and discomfort go away. Sort of like he felt in February 2001 when I hit the wall, post-partum-depression-wise, as I woke up one morning at 6:00 and realized I was so anxious and unhappy that I felt like I was o...

Sometimes I really loathe this country. Given the current administration, it goes without saying that I’m embarrassed before the rest of the world to be an American, but this is a new low: not being able to get an abortion in a hospital (late first trimester or early second trimester) when your fetus has a chromosomal abnormality incompatible with life. And this is obviously not some twitty teenager who didn't think ahead. Then there was the case cited by a commenter on that post where a woman was bleeding from a tubal pregnancy (extremely life-threatening for the mother and invariably fatal for the fetus, obviously) but unfortunately the ultrasound showed that the fetus still had a heartbeat, so they had to fuck around with the hospital’s Ethics Committee as her life hung in the balance, since the only hospital in the area was Catholic. What the hell is the matter with these people? How can they POSSIBLY look in the mirror if they support capital punishment or gun ownership, or fo...

Well, we’re homeowners again. We chatted around a large mahogany table, we signed our names many times, we heard the ka-chunk of the attorney’s stamp. The former owner and her daughter were there, which I somehow didn’t expect, since the last time we did this, the owners just sent their lawyers to sign for them. She’s a sweet old lady – smart and sensible too. I braced myself for freezing stares after they asked what we planned to do to the house and Ben carefully explained that we would be “adding up” (as in a second floor), delicately omitting the part about “razing the existing structure down to the foundation,” which could be understandable upsetting to someone who grew up or raised their kids in there. But they took it in stride. The lady is moving into a retirement place in town that they built since I left, so I guess she can keep an eye on things if she likes. Hopefully there won’t be any awkward glances in the post office. I’m not sure how I’d feel if I could hang around to se...

I think one of the things that made me start to seriously consider Ben as possible marriage material was the fact that he had an accountant to do his taxes for him. I think of it every year at this time, when his very nice accountant is bugging him for various documents and receipts and I can pretty much stay out of the fray. Not like when I was single. I always waited until the last minute even when I was filing the 1040-EZ form (the kind for simpletons, where they show you how to print the numerals, just like in kindergarten). Then I had a relatively small amount of money in mutual funds and suddenly tax time became a dreaded thing. I was never sure I was filling out the forms right, wondering if I was inadvertently bilking either myself or the feds out of a ton of money. The breaking point came in the last year before I married Ben and his accountant. I waited until the waning daylight hours of April 15, which I took off so I could go to the library of a local business school to obt...

How scary is this ? I'm starting to feel like an extra in a remake of "Dr. Strangelove," plus a heavy dose of Iraq deja vu. But it's not funny. Where in God's name are the Democrats and even the sane Republicans? It would serve Bush right if he got bumped off by a child raised in abusive circumstances by a parent who could not get an abortion (like maybe someone in South Dakota, where the only provider these days is a retired doctor who flies in from Minnesota). It should be a lot harder to reproduce. Everyone, including Babs and Bush the First, should have to demonstrate that they will raise kids with a sense of compassion and social conscience; lotsa money is nice but certainly no guarantee of success. As the Sarcastic Journalist notes, “You have to go to college to get certain jobs. You take tests to drive a car. To raise an human being? Hell, all you have to do is the hokey pokey." Perhaps the College Board can come up with a PAT (Parental Aptitude T...

It's horrifying but true. Tomorrow morning at approximately 9:15 a.m., I will officially become a soccer mom. Sarah will begin her illustrious career with the Eagles and I will try not to gaze with too much contempt at the other parents' minivans because I am now One of Them. Then on Sunday starts another round of swimming lessons (Level 2! Yeah, baby!) for both kids. Am I a pushy jock-mom? Lord, I hope not. I'm only trying to compensate for my own parents' total lack of pushiness or even interest in physical activity of any kind. I never played any kind of organized sport even at the lowest level (though I would have played Little League only they broke the gender barrier a year too late for me). I hated gym. I was a big-time couch potato. My parents? Mom liked to say she rode her bike every day as a college student (Helloooooo Mom? That was 40-some years ago and DOES NOT COUNT ANY MORE). She wound up with terrible osteoporosis, including a lower leg shattered into a m...

Since Passover falls in the middle of the week this year, we decided not to haul ourselves to New Jersey and have a seder at our house instead. However, inertia and entropy took over, so we got ourselves invited to two seders instead – one of them at the home of people we’ve never met, via our synagogue’s seder-matchmaking person (a.k.a. Pesach yenta). I think I’m in a small minority of people who actually looks forward to the seder food. Call me an indiscriminate slob, but I actually like gefilte fish. Many folks have to slather it with horseradish to make it edible, but not me! I’m the kid who grew up on “mock chicken legs” (chicken-lips-burger squished onto a piece of wooden dowel and fried), and who loves English sausage, which is practically meat-free anyway. I am so all over bland starches. Ben can’t believe that I can tell the difference between various types of white-colored rice. But I also like charoset (chopped apples and nuts) and even the raw parsley and salt water. Or ...

Much better today. Yesterday I had the unsettling experience of watching my daughter being drugged into unconsciousness. But she was out for only about 15 minutes while they put a tube in one ear due to persistent fluid. Things have sure improved since I was a child patient... The anesthesiologist asks the kid what flavor of air she'd like (Sarah naturally selected strawberry, which the clear gas mask consequently smelled overwhelmingly of). One parent also gets to play doctor by donning scrubs and accompanying the child to the OR, where you hold her hand until she’s out, which was nice, because it would have ripped my heart to shreds if I had had to wave goodbye as a set of double doors closed behind her when they wheeled her on a gurney as she reached backward and cried out for me. It was hard enough pretending to talk about Disneyworld while she was breathing in the gas, then taking deeper breaths and then her eyes rolling back in her head. The doc of course assured me this was...