Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: September 2009
The number ten spot
Sorry, no link, but I caught a story this morning in the Bakersfield local paper regarding the top ten religions listed by folks on Facebook who mentioned a preference on their profile. Christianity came in number one, not surprisingly — they lumped together Catholics, Protestants, JWs, Greek Orthodox, Mormons, all of them. Islam snagged the number two slot, and I think Hindus took #3.
My tribe took seventh. Not bad, considering how few of us are left in the world. We were beat out by the agnostics and atheists.
Who took the #10 spot?
The Jedi.
D.
More sickos
There are at least four of us on my floor of the clinic, all with the same symptoms — painful hacking cough, fever. I can’t really claim I have it worse than anyone else, but I might. I asked our pulmonologist to take a look at me today. I was wheezing and my temp was 102.5. Well, that explains the chills I was having all day. He was concerned by my report of drenching sweats, and sent me off for a Valley Fever blood test. Also, he started me on a couple of inhalers and an antibiotic.
Meanwhile, my mother has problems. I’ve always subscribed to the “too mean to die, she’ll outlive us all” theory, and that may yet be true. In recent weeks, her mental status has taken a steep plunge, and my father has been assuming it’s dementia.
I kept telling him to take her to the doctor to rule out treatable illnesses, and I explained organic brain syndrome to him, but he hasn’t listened to his youngest son. Tonight, apparently, her behavior became sufficiently whacked that he called 911 and got her admitted to the hospital. Or at least I really hope they admit her to the hospital for a workup. Nowadays, hospitals are loath to admit people for things that can be done in an outpatient setting. Medicare loves denying payment for unnecessary hospitalization. In any case, I hope the doc who sees her tonight treats this with seriousness and thoughtfulness and realizes she’s someone’s mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. And that the doc hasn’t had a rough day and just wants to get the hell home. And that he isn’t trying to work through his shift with a fever of 102.5.
Bad timing all around. I’m too ill to make the drive to Vegas (where my parents live) and I’m on call for the next nine days. Soonest I can get out there, short of taking more time off (which I have NOT accrued), would be two weeks from today.
Something evolving this fast, it’ll either be some treatable metabolic problem or something horrible. Either way I hope I get to see her. Even if she is too mean to die.
D.
Sick
Funny how the common cold can make you wish you were dead.
I know who did it: daughter of a patient I saw on Friday. She kept coughing without covering her mouth, launching snot rocket after snot rocket. One of them hit home.
The annoying thing is, I’ve already passed it to my son. Isn’t that the opposite of what’s supposed to happen?
So excuse me while I cough up a lung.
D.
Those poor bruised male egos
Here’s the background: on Friday, the Huffington Post’s Amitai Etzioni wrote a short piece criticizing Toni Bentley for a sensationalistic review for a sensationalistic book, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys, which front-paged the NY Times. Apparently the book’s premise, which Bentley puts forward without question, is that all sex is sex for money. Etzioni points out that sex workers are usually victimized by their pimps, while sex between equal partners can strengthen the bonds of a relationship which has far more benefits than lusty animal comfort.
That’s not the interesting part. The book’s premise (as reported by Etzioni) is extreme and easily dismantled. The interesting part is the firestorm of male fury Etzioni’s brief article elicited.
To build a barbecue
Yeah, barbecues in a moment. Can I rave about a product first? It’s Howard Restor-A-Finish, which claims you can make your furniture look good as new without going to the bother of stripping and refinishing.
With a simple wipe-on, wipe-off process, most finished wood surfaces that seem to need a refinishing job can be completely restored in a few minutes. White heat rings and water marks, sun fade, oxidation, smoke damage, and most other blemishes can be quickly eliminated.
Our poison dart frog tank sits in a custom-made black walnut cabinet — essentially a big aquarium stand with a canopy top. What was once a handsome piece of furniture has become dingy in recent years, with lots of scratches and water marks. With our recent move, a side panel got cracked, so I had a carpenter come out to give us an estimate on the repair. The carpenter recommended Howard Restor-A-Finish, and oh boy was that a useful tip. I’ve been wiping this stuff on many of our bathroom and kitchen cabinets (the last owners didn’t take good care of the wood) and this stuff is damn near miraculous. The acetone smell overpowers after a while . . . were it not for that, I’d have wiped down all of our wood. I’m looking forward to doing the dining room table, another piece of fine furniture which has seen better days.
BBQ foo below the fold . . .
Faith
My brother the born-again had a good laugh over Jake going to Catholic school. “They’ll make a Christian out of him yet,” he said, or something like that. How little he knows my son! More likely he’ll have the other kids doubting their faith by the end of the school year.
Me, on the other hand? I suspect I’m a true agnostic, inasmuch as atheism feels as much an act of faith as believing in God. Yet the only concept of God which has ever felt right to me is a God who is absolutely foreign and unknowable yet also deeply personal. Some thing inside me which I can never fully understand. Some thing I can talk to, appeal to, yet God only knows if it hears or understands. My God, I suppose, is synonymous with all that is mysterious.
This concept runs afoul of all religious absolutism.
On the drive home, I listened to a radio call-in program with a Brother Something-or-other who has predicted the Rapture to occur in 2011. (Yes, he had an exact date, but it didn’t register with me.) After that, he said, the Salvation Era in our world will come to an end, and the Earth will be transformed into a realm of punishment. Et cetera. Anyway, what really caught my attention was one fellow who called in. Brother So-and-so said, “Caller, what’s your question?” and this dude said, “I have no question. I am beyond questions. I accept everything without question.”
Even Brother Looney who thinks the world will end in two years didn’t know what to do with this guy. “Thank you for sharing,” he said, and quickly moved to the next caller.
I’m not sure why, but I have a fondness for these people who live with absolute certainties; they’re precious, just as cloudless, smogless summer nights are precious. But that fondness ends when these folks try to inflict their certainties on the rest of us. If they would only keep their absolutism to themselves, they would be a delight for those of us who live our lives on spiritual quicksand.
D.
By popular request
Coming soon, to a womb near you.
Gimme some time to compose my thoughts. I’m frazzled from the move, from work, from lack of sleep.
Oh. Still need to pack the kid his lunch.
D.