Do the Yak

On vacation in Florida. Sunshine: excellent. Pool water: superb. Relief from feeding kids, grocery shopping, doing laundry, planning the days, generally feeling stressed for little reason: not so much. Ben, like his father and stepmother, is all in favor of not planning and just letting the days drift by, which is what you're supposed to do on vacation, right? Except I' ve turned into a planning and control freak who can't get myself to just lie in a chaise lounge by the pool for more than 10 minutes without jumping up to do something, get something else to read, write something on a to-do list, look up something in the Yellow Pages as I quiver from Internet withdrawal (this is being typed at the public computer at the club, reached via scenic golf cart ride). This all may have to do with stopping the Prozac, which I did about two months ago because I was between doctors/insurance plans and my scrip had no refills. Two results: way more energy (no more fighting the urge f...

Bottoms up It now appears that the dramatic sinking of the Titanic in 1912 was all about quality control and supply chain management. It seems that the builders used low-quality rivets in putting the hull together, so when the ship brushed against the iceberg, several hull plate seams popped open like Kirstie Alley's pants after a three-day pig-out. Harland and Wolff was building three enormous ships at roughly the same time (Titanic, Olympic and Britannic). A good rivet was hard to find, especially when you need 3 million of them per boat. Interesting side note: the Britannic was originally to be called the Gigantic but was quietly renamed after the Titanic disaster. As notes on Snopes.com , "After the sinking of the Titanic, passengers were suddenly less concerned with size and luxury than with getting to their destinations alive, and the dignified name Britannic conveyed a sense of safety and reliability in a way that the attention-grabbing Gigantic could not." Sox n...

So how's the family? Becky: OK since Saturday, but fevers Thursday and Friday afternoons. The back story is that she's been having fevers (sometimes rather high, like over 103) for several weeks now. The adventures have included three visits to the pediatrician in a single week, plus gallons of ibuprofen (which works wonders in the short term, thankfully) and snuggling in bed with her when she feels ill. Poor kid. More detailed blood work with all sorts of fancy chemical tests, blood smears, etc., came back indicating basically "some sort of infection somewhere, but unclear where or what's causing it." Yeah well, I could have told you that. Among the tests was a Lyme disease titer which came back equivocal (a bit higher than normal, but not enough to make a definitive diagnosis). So now we have an appointment with an infectious-diseases specialist after we get back from Florida (much-anticipated vacation April 20-27) and another one to be scheduled with a rheumato...

Busy busy busy... but I still remembered to bring a little radio yesterday so I could listen to the Sox home opener on the way home by public transportation. After the game was over, I saw the zillions of photos of all the pageantry, heard the oceans of words... but one observation was glaringly omitted. And it's this. In all the years since Bill Buckner was blamed (unfairly) for blowing their chance at a World Series trophy in 1986, in all his years of exile and now redemption, in all the moving moments of his return to throw out the ceremonial first pitch yesterday... has no one else noticed that he bears a frightening resemblance to Dabney Coleman? The camera does not lie: The busy-ness resulted from about a month's worth of almost daily fevers for poor Becky, culminating in last week where she did not attend a single full day of school and went to the doctor three times. They finally sent us to a Children's Hospital outpost in Lexington to get fancier blood work and a ...

The consequences of stubborn, self-righteous stupidity in three easy steps: 1. Stupid people at the grassroots level who don't care that they're stupid, so of course they'll elect other stupid people. 1a. Religious zealotry (see: American fundamentalist morons who let their own kids die in God's name -- a pain they fully deserve, though it doesn't begin to compensate for the tragic injustice of the child's death, though it's just as well that's one less chance to get their dumbfuck genes passed on down the line); Muslim extremists before and since 9/11; Jewish extremists who assassinate their own leaders for not being hate-filled enough, etc., etc.) 2. Governments that think they're right and don't give a shit who disagrees (see: limitless examples, including Cheney's recent middle finger to the world as reported by ABC... when asked how that assessment comports with recent polls that show about two-thirds of Americans say the fight in Ira...