One Tiny Corner of the Immigration Flap

There, of late, has been a lot of negative noise made about immigration, immigrants, and illegal immigrants. I’ve had a spell of less that sparkling health lately and I got thinking about the team of doctors that have pulled me through. My cardiologist is from Israel. My oncologist has two unpronounceable names that I have never explored the origin of. My rheumatologist came from the United Kingdom. His wife is from Iran and he makes frequent visits to Iran to give medical assistance to the poor. My vascular surgeon was born and raised in Cuba. It is amazing to hear him switch from English to Spanish without a pause as he changes patients. My urologist is plain old All-American Jewish. Finally, I suspect that our family doctor and the heart surgeon who fixed me up are both preceded my enough generations in this country to have dropped any racial or nationality hypens from just American.

Where would I be without immigration? (Buried back in jolly old England).

The Golden Years

GOLDEN YEARS, my A**! Ooops! Sorry, every once in a while that thought just bubbles up and out. We just went to the super market and it hurt going, there, and back. The driver that takes us is very nice. He lets everyone else out at the entrance, then drives me the 75 feet to the exit where the electric carts with the big baskets are parked. We get there at twenty to the hour and the bus is back for us at fifteen after the hour. That is less than forty five minutes to get a week’s worth of shopping done. Rush, rush. I admit we can stay for two or even three runs of the bus, but our choice seems to be to do the one-run rush.

We had a lot of fun over the last couple of weeks. It doesn’t seem to hurt as much when pure pleasure is the objective. We went out to dinner innumerable times with all kinds of excuses and several times with a real purpose, ie., birthdays, Mothers’Day, graduation celebrations, and a bunch of times just because we felt like it. Last Saturday, Sally rode up to Orlando with daughter Mary to attend Ann’s graduation ceremony (two more Masters’ degrees). For the last week we rented a car and did the accumulated chores and errands. You know, important stuff like replacing some dead fish and getting fresh batteries in wrist watches. You can’t do that sort of thing on scheduled transportation.

O. K. now we return to our normal social life – doctor visits and physical therapy sessions. The GoldenYears.

For those of you that don't recognize this fellow, he is a purple gallinule. This particular one had quite a sense of humor. He used to jump (fly) up on to the dock when I rode my bicycle out onto it. Believe it or not, in this picture he is on his way to untie my shoe laces. (He may have thought they were food, but I like the sense of humor premise.)

I seldom get down to the dock any more, but I doubt that the gallinules are still around, there has been a lot of development since this picture. But I am sure that they are still building nests somewhere in the wetlands of Florida. I just wanted to post the picture to remind us how many beautiful creatures we will lose if the Oil Spill gets caught in the Gulf stream and makes its way onto the coast of Florida and seeps a little further in-land. Man shouldn't really have the right to destroy such peace loving beauty.

OUTRAGEOUS !

$106,000! That’s one hundred and six thousand dollars!! That’s how much the hospital charged for the simple little angioplasty I had last month. That doesn’t include the surgeon who did it nor the anesthesiologists that put me to sleep. Needless to say, Medicare sliced that down by orders of magnitude.. After Medicare and my insurance paid their share of a much smaller number, I have only to pay $211, which isn’t bad. But consider the poor guy that has no insurance. He simply couldn’t have the procedure. Now I understand the why of Obama’s Healthcare bill. Let’s get it cranked up in a hurry.

These hospitals say they have to overcharge to pay for all the charity work they do. I know my hospital has handled a bunch of patients from the Haiti earthquake, but don’t put the onus of paying for them on poor Americans. This is just plain ridiculous!

$106,000! Cheez!!

I Did a Bad Thing

My conscience never kicked in. It was overpowered by laughter. I flat-out stole the following from Kenju's blog IMAGINE...(Always a source of Joy.)


1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you
realize you're wrong.
3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was
younger.
4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.
5. How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
6. Was learning cursive really necessary?
7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. I'm pretty
sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the
Person died.
9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
10. Bad decisions make good stories.
11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work
when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for
the rest of the day.
12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I
don't want to have to restart my collection...again.
13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me
if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear
I did not make any changes to.
14. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash
this - ever.
15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello?), but
when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voice
mail . What did you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run
way?
16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not
seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
17. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to
answer when they call.
19. I disagree with Kay Jewelers . I would bet on any given Friday or
Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.
20. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option
21. Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and
suddenly realize I had no idea what the heck was going on when I first
saw it.
22. I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand
than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
24. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and
hunger.
25. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod
and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?
26. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up
to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers
and sisters!
27. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get
dirty, and you can wear them forever.
28. Is it just me or do high school kids get dumber & dumber every year?
29. There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are
going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.
30. As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers,
but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.
31. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still
not know what time it is.
32. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car
keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the
Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from
3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!

When Approaching Old Age

The other day I was reading an article, I think it was on ThirdAge.com, about how to age gracefully and happily. It made several points, but the one that struck me was about being foregiving. It quoted the old saw that holding a grudge is like drinking a glass of poison and hoping the other guy will die.

I thought that over and decided that I really no longer hold any grudges. I do remember a few I held for quite a while, but I have long since decided that they were silly. I guess that is sort of the equivalent of forgiving. There was the company clerk in the Army that fixed the books so that he got to return home a month before I did – even though we should have gone home at the same time. But he was just getting even. I had caught him stealing a pair of gloves from the supply room. Are you listening, Lester? I forgive you.

That high school English teacher who gave me a “C” and kept me off the honor roll my last semester makes the list. Really, it was my mother that stayed angry about that. If the teacher hadn’t got mad at me, I would have been on the honor roll every semester in high school. I heard she wept when she found out what she had done. Heck, all I did was stand up and walk out of her class without permission. Did any of this change the course of my life? Naw!

Speaking of grades – There were two of us in our freshman year of college with the same first and last names. His middle initial was G and mine was S. At the end of the first semester, he got my grades and I got his. I didn’t realize what happened , but I appealed those I was given and got them corrected. They let him keep mine, but I never knew if he appreciated that my hard work saved his butt. Just a memory, not a grudge.

I think the article was right. You will have a happier time as you age if you forgive the insults and dislikes of your life and concentrate on the good people and events that have enriched your travels through life.

OK, I know it is foolish, but I was reading last night about how the big fad now is to photograph everything one eats , so I decided to try it. -- for one day
.
I missed picturing my appetizer for dinner. It was a saucerful of about a dozen mussels sauteed in a bunch of exotic sounding stuff which I forget. Good.
In case my unexcellent photograph disguises the identity of my menu-- breakfast was an english muffin with whipped cream cheese, grapes, a banana, orange juice and 14 pills. Lunch was pickle and pimento loaf on white, yogurt, two sugar wafers, one left-over Easter chocolate and a diet Coke. Dinner consisted of the aforementioned mussels, roast chicken with cranberry sauce, creamed spinach, beets, cranberry juice and dessert of soft-serve swirl (vanilla and chocolate)

Now if anyone gives an old clay tinker's dam about my nutrition I'll be mighty surprised. About the only thing I learned is that my wife was shocked when I whipped out my camera at the dinner table and that the camera time-stamp is still set on EST.

I hear that next month the U S Postal Service will honor with a stamp the greatest cartoonist of the great generation. Hooray for him and for those who honor Bill Mauldin. I was a combat infantryman many moons ago. I remember laughing at his cartoons even as I was feeling like his characters looked.

From the time the war was over until this day, every time I have seen Willie and Joe, I have felt a moment of pride that I carried a rifle into combat with those two. There were times that we will never forget. But as years has gone by. the awful parts of the memories have faded somewhat and the comic moments have become more distinct. Bill Mauldin had the talent to collapse that transition time and make us see the humor while the ugliness was still with us. He amused the world while he represented all riflemen in the Army.

Thoughts of the Day

Oh Gosh! We elect a guy from Chicago and what should we expect? He opens the whole Atlantic coast line for oil drilling! Those mid-westerners have no appreciation or love of beaches!

There is something that puzzles me. We catch law-breakers, put them in jail, and it costs the tax-payers a fortune to keep them there. So what is wrong with the tax-payers making a few dollars from the wrong-doers? People write into the local newspapers and say, “You are not installing red light cameras for safety, you are doing it to raise money!” OK, I am the guy that said the state could solve their budget problems by sending troops of state police down to Route I 95 and give tickets to every speeder on the road. The state would make a bundle every day until the word got out.


The “helical” (spiral), long life bulb in my desk lamp burned out the other day. It was practically new. So much for trying to be a “green” citizen. It cost twice as much as the incandescent bulb it replaced and lasted half as long. I’m back to nice, round incandescent. I like the light from the old-fashioned bulbs better anyway.

I wonder how long it will be before all buildings will be made cell phone friendly and the line phones will join the dinosaurs. Then, if someone would please invent a way to send electricity wirelessly, we could get rid of all those ugly telephone poles and their ugly wires.

Apple Magic Mouse

This is just a brief product endorsement. Several weeks ago I indulged myself and purchased an Apple Magic Mouse. I love it! You can find a list of the great features of this product at the Apple Store online. Believe what you read. I had tried it several times in their local retail store and was somewhat afraid it might be too small for my hand. Quite the contrary my hand, without thought, found a natural fit. My arthritic fingers are delighted. Scrolling is a breeze. Wireless and slim, I can always find a space to use it on my messy, crowded desk. It shuts itself down when not in use, so it is easy on batteries. Try it, youll like it.

Solutions for D.C.

Here I am, back from a short hospital and nursing home visit. This morning I had my post-op visit to the surgeon that did the carving. He is very happy about the outcome of this latest procedure. If he is happy, I guess I am too.

A visit to the nursing home is always a chance to watch too much (to the saturation point) television. But the problem was that TV was non-stop chatter about the Obama Healthcare bill. I am a Republican. Always have been, but getting antsy lately. As a frequent consumer of health care I am well aware that something needs fixing in a hurry or we are going to see a crisis. All the members of Congress must know that too. So why the obstructionist approach by my party? I also know that the bill put forth by the democrats isn’t perfect, but it is not nearly the disaster that the hysterical naysayers would have the public believe. Just a little calm negotiating on the part of the Republicans could have turned it into a piece of legislature that everyone could have been proud of. And turning those pathetic rabble-rousers loose in the Capitol streets was not a good way to strengthen the Republican Party for the future.

Now Mr. President, let’s get busy creating JOBS.

Second Chance

One of the good things about being old is that you can reread old mystery books knowing full well that you have read them before but without the faintest clue as to who-done-it. A corollary to that is that you can stay up all night finishing the book and sleep in the next morning no matter what day of the week it happens to be. Old age and retirement have their good points.

I went back in time the other day to 1982 when Sue Grafton published her first of her alphabet series, “A is for Alibi”. Her powers of description and ability to create a mental image were astonishing even then. As I got deeper into the book, I had little flashes of memory, but never complete enough to prevent the ending from blowing me away. ( That’s a joke in case you haven’t read “A” in decades.) Now I have to get the latest. My first question will be, “Has Kinsey got herself a cell phone yet?”

I have read most of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories several times and most of Tony Hillerman more than once. I think that Hillerman was the best craftsman, but he allowed himself the largest palette. I plan to continue reading mysteries over and over as long as I can. They seem to, like so many things, get better with age.

Tiger Woods’ little speech yesterday was certainly way down the list of the most important events of the week, but it sure got a lot of talk-talk. What annoys me about him is his whine about the photographers bothering his wife and kids. Sure, that is not nice, but whose fault is it? I don’t sense that Tiger realizes that the intrusive photographers wouldn’t be anywhere in sight if he, Tiger, hadn’t been such a jerk. (Can you tell that I can’t spell the word that means intrusive photographers? And it isn’t in my dictionary.)
Tiger owes his billion dollars to the attention the press paid him. Don’t blame them for his fourteen overnight pals.

Enough about him. I read that the big banks are very unhappy that the proposed new regulations (that they may have to live by) may cost them 221 billion dollars in profits. Do I care? No, not when I wonder how much they cost the little Joes and Janes that have lost their jobs and savings as a result of the banks gambling and losing, but then getting bailed out like us folks weren’t.

Bayh probably cooked his own goose as far as his presidential hopes went. But I would have been ashamed to be in the current do-nothing Congress too. Those folks get a nifty salaries to participate in the governing of the United States. They don’t do that. They live high off the hog and do nothing but tend to their own party business. Let’s unelect the whole bunch in November.

This has been National Cardiac Rehabilitation Week. Did you do right by your heart?

Feb Madness

Well, the Air Force is again shuffling injured Hatians to hospitals in the States despite the Florida governor. The poor governor is trying to win the Republican nomination to run for senator. However, the choice of the Tea Party crowd has gotten the edge over him. He doesn’t know which way to turn to satisfy voters.

More than politics have gone sour in Florida. Sympathy goes out to tourists who made reservations in response to the commercial cries of, “Come on down” to sunny Florida. It is COLD down here. And for the dry season, we are getting a lot of rain. Of course, the merchants enjoy bad weather. The tourists come off the beach and go to the malls. Bring extra cash!


On the personal side, I nosed around Google Buzz, but decided I didn’t want them (Google) deciding who my friends should be. Who needs another social network, anyway?


I have returned to Aqua Therapy to try to get myself out of the wheel chair. Where we live has a heated pool so the water is warm. It is a pleasant way to spend an hour and the aching legs only come later. Gosh, I am in poor condition!

Haiti

This morning’s news headline is that medical evacuations of the severely injured ƒrom Haiti have been halted because the governor of Florida wants to know who is going to pay for all these hospitalizations. My question is, “Who is it that insists on making money off this catastrophe ?” Usually this windsock we call governor goes with the flow, but I suspect that this time he’s listening to the wrong people.

Synopis 0f 2009

Despite all the bad-mouthing of the year 2009 in the press and on TV, it was a reasonably good year for me. Aside from a few weeks in late January and early February, I was out of hospitals and nursing homes for an entire year. That’s pretty good compared to recent years. A nice, quiet year at home with Sally was pleasant and just what I needed. Even an uneventful year has its ups and downs. We gave up the car, but still got to the Fort Lauderdale performance of the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show with the Rockettes. The staging, the lighting, the music, and the precision made it an evening of surprise and delight. We had bought a folding wheelchair that fits in the back of Mary’s car. She pushed me right from the parking lot to one of the best seats in the house (the same arena where we went to a skating show several years ago).

The computer took up a lot of my time the past year. I dabbled with both Facebook and Twitter, but by the end of the year I found I was partaking of neither to any extent. I installed Chrome as my browser when I found out that Google had introduced a version for Mac. However, by the end of the year I was so disappointed in it that I uninstalled it. There were no substantial advantages and several down sides, so I just dropped it.

I received a new and beautiful camera for Christmas. But I haven’t figured out a graphic way to take a picture of the cold weather Florida is experiencing right now. The thermometer on my computer shows that it is 40 degrees now (2PM) outside. But there are no snowdrifts nor icicles to photograph. 40 degrees in the afternoon in South Florida should be documentable. I suppose I could get a close up of my goose bumps!

I would put Obama’s performance as not what I hoped for in the past year. Of course, the Republicans have not contributed heroically. “Obstructionism” is the word for them.

I should talk! Early in the year I got out boxes of what I generously call memorabilia with the intention of sorting it, disposing of most of the “stuff” and thereby saving lots of space in our closets. Currently the boxes are still on the floor, new folders are stacked by my desk and the desk is hidden by pictures, cards, unanswered letters. There is barely space to maneuver the mouse. Of course, the last thing I really want to do is to run out of things to do.

I shall return. The day I don’t, will be the day I realize our cat is smarter than I am. (A valid concern.)

'Tis the Season

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL !
In the midst of all the parties, toys, and goodies - may the world take the time to teach its children the real "why" of this celebration.

American Hero Insulted

The citizens of Henrico, Virginia have insulted a true American Hero and holder of the Medal of Honor. This 90 year old WWII vet (plus Vietnam and Korea) has been ordered to take down the flagpole in his front yard on which he daily displays the American flag. These fools that don't appreciate how honored they should be to have Col. Van Barfoot living in their town. They should be erecting a monument for him in the center of their town and put up a flagpole in every front yard. I don't suppose anyone from Henrico is scheduled to go to Afganistan soon.

Kids!

After Thanksgiving Dinner most of us remained at the table just chatting. One grandson was telling us all about how painful a recent football injury was. He got a little carried away and we all wondered how to lighten the mood.

Quietly , a younger grandson spoke out, “Would you care for cheese with that whine?” It broke me up.
.

TV Commentary

Breaking News: It has dawned on me that we are about to suffer the end of the (TV) world as we know it. Not that that’s all bad. I’m not referring to bad shows that were doomed to fail from the get-go. Successful shows have a natural lifetime either in our individual minds or in the minds of the folks that schedule the networks. This has applied to all but news, sports, “Meet the Press” and perhaps, “Law and Order”.

If Oprah isn’t going to end, at least she will be changing her format it a few years. Personally, I (and I suspect most men) had had it fifteen minutes into the first showing. Too mushy. But she certainly has been an enormous success.

Another program that is quitting at what may be its peak is “Monk”. There certainly is a limit to how long you can make obsessive compulsive behavior seem funny.

The writers of “House” have struggled to maintain interest in a drug addict. However, as they have taken away the chief character’s dependence, his excuse for mean and nasty behavior has disappeared. He has become just plain nasty, mean and unlikeable. I’ve quit watching already.

“NCIS” worries me. They act like the original may disappear, replaced by “NCIS - LA”. The latter belongs in the category of “didn’t survive the first year”. I have been sort of hoping I would go off the air before the original.

News broadcasts have already shown new faces. The old time network news attempted to appear non-partisan. Now this approach is giving way to Fox News (O’Reilly), MSNBC (Olberman), and Comedy Central (Stewart and Colbert). Blatant partisanship has shown more opportunity for entertainment and higher rantings than “just the facts, M’am”.

The Wall Street Journal the other day had a wonderful column about the end of sportsmanship and how that is causing a slow death of TV sports. I regret that the newspaper went out in the trash with the kitty litter so I cannot cite the author, but he clearly made his point. Players have turned over all responsibility for fair play to officials. What we used to call dirty play or cheating is now OK if the perpetrator doesn’t get caught. Incidentally, I hope you saw the punter the other night. He executed a graceful somersault immediately after kicking the ball. I don’t think he was really trying to feign he’d been fouled, bur rather he was probably spoofing all the punters who routinely fake a knock down on every kick. The Ref ignored his act.

I doubt that “Meet the Press” will survive the grouch that replaced Tim Russert. He has lost me already.

I do expect that “Law and Order” will be commissioned to turn off the cameras when TV itself is finished.