At the age of five in 1957, I discovered the game of baseball. How I came by this discovery I’m not quite sure. I was an only child so no older brother introduced me. My father (I learned years later after his death), described himself as the last kid chosen when sides were chosen and was the kid everyone argued the other team had to take. As a result, he had no interest in the game. I’m guessing it had to do with the presence of baseball on TV and maybe the influence of my friends. Living right outside of New York City, it came as no surprise that my affections should settle onto the New York Yankees. The Yankees of that period were in the middle of the greatest run of any baseball team in history. Between 1949 and 1964, they appeared in the World Series fourteen times, winning ten of them. It was very easy to root for them.
Having become a Yankees fan, my fondest affections settled on their best player, Mickey Mantle. There was something so right about Mickey from the number 7 on his back to the monstrous home runs that he hit from both sides of the plate. Whenever I would catch a game or part of a game on TV, all I lived for was Mickey’s at bats. If he got a hit I was thrilled but if he made an out, especially if it was a strike out, I was crushed. The outcome of the game was almost secondary to what Mickey did at the plate.
I’m not sure when I read the first biography of him but I’m quite sure it was a children’s book about him that I got out of the library. I gobbled up everything I could find about him. I learned about his hardscrabble childhood in Oklahoma, his osteomyelitis in high school, his knee injury in the 1951 World Series and all the other details of his life and career. I studied his batting style and could imitate it. I began swinging imaginary bats both right and left-handed so I could be like my hero.
At the time, my friends and I did not understand why he batted left-handed so often (more right-handed pitchers) because he was obviously a better hitter right-handed. We would rail at him when he failed to live up to our expectations, especially batting left-handed. But at the end of the day, we forgave him and loved him with the idol-worship that only young boys have for the sports heroes.
I bought my first pack of baseball cards in 1960. (Don’t get me started on what became of them. That’s still a very sore subject.) I remember the ecstasy when I opened the pack and found a Mickey Mantle card! Talk about a card I would NEVER have endangered in a card-flipping competition. It was also the first year I ever went to a baseball game. My father and I went to Yankee Stadium and saw the Detroit Tigers and Yankees go into extra-innings with Johnny Blanchard winning the game with a single in the bottom of the fourteenth. But it all paled by comparison to seeing Mickey Mantle in the flesh. Sure, he was a distant figure from where we were sitting but it was still HIM! I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember what he did that day.
The next year, 1961, the Yankees were the greatest team I have ever seen play baseball. More important, it was the year of the epic battle between Mickey and his teammate Roger Maris for who would surpass Babe Ruth’s single-season home run total of 60. That summer at camp, my best friend and I made believe we were Mickey and Roger (guess who I was) when we played our whiffle-ball version of Home Run Derby (if it’s not a home run it’s an out). I knew all about Mickey’s many career injuries and I was devastated when in September, he had to drop out of the race because of a wound on his hip. The Yankees winning the World Series in five games was almost an after-thought after that season.
As the years passed, I knew I was getting older but somehow I could never believe that my hero was aging, too. Oh, sure, there were more injuries and more home runs and I realized that he couldn’t run as fast or throw as hard. But, hey, it was still The Mick, my hero! How could he be slowing down? Even when the Yankees had to move him to first base because he could barely run, he was still Superman…at least to me.
I’m not sure when I first learned that my hero might have had a drinking problem. I can’t actually remember ah ah-ha moment when all of a sudden the blinders fell from my eyes. It was more of a gradual process. But what did that matter? He still gave it 100% on the field. It was only later that I would learn about the days showing up so hung over that he could barely play. But he was STILL my hero.
After Mickey retired, my parents bought tickets for my dad and me to go to Mickey Mantle Day in 1969. Every time I see pictures or films of that day I swell a little with pride that I was one of those fans in the ballpark honoring MY hero. And for years afterwards I’d go to Old Timer’s Day just to be able to see Mickey on the field again.
It was in the 1980s when baseball and I had moved on from our innocence when I realized just how much of a problem Mickey had with alcohol. It was after Mickey Mantle’s restaurant opened in New York. Don Imus, who had the morning radio show on WNBC-AM, repeatedly referred to Mickey’s table where Mickey was drunk under it. (As it turns out Imus was no one to talk, being an alcoholic and drug user himself.) But I could no longer deny the truth that the man I idolized suffered from alcoholism and probably had throughout his career.
And when Mickey finally sobered up but had to receive a liver transplant after having destroyed his own from drinking, I had a crisis of conscience. How could I continue to love this man who had proven so fallible? How could I have defended him to friends and acquaintances as being the best player in baseball? Was there something wrong with me that I rooted for such a flawed individual? And when Mickey, in the last few weeks of his life, came clean and warned kids to use him as an example of what not to be, I had my answer. He was and would always be my idol, clay feet and all.
What prompted me to write this is that I just finished reading Jane Leavy’s biography of Mickey, The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood. I have read as many biographies of Mickey Mantle as I could find. This one was very tough to read. Not only is it the most honest about Mickey’s failings as a player and a person but it traces his life through its end. While it conveys the many successes of his career, it shows him to be the flawed genius that he was. When I finished reading it I had tears in my eyes.
I have come to accept the fact that the man I have idolized from early childhood and who will always be at the apex of my pantheon of heroes was a very flawed individual. That doesn’t alter how I felt and still feel about him. If anything, his humanness makes him even more endearing to me. If I can grieve that had he taken better care of himself he might have had even greater successes and achieved even greater heights, I can rejoice in what he accomplished despite his flaws. In his poem, The Art of Catching Trains, Rod McKuen has says “Small boys need encouragement. The freight trains in their minds will only take them just so far. Be kind, for small boys need to grow.” This small boy did grow. But there will always be a special place in my heart for number 7. He will always be the golden-boy centerfielder who could do no wrong and will always be young and strong in my mind’s eye.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Losing My Religion; or Why I'm an Atheist
“That's me in the corner. That's me in the spotlight losing my religion.” – R.E.M.
I make no bones about the fact that I am an atheist. I am not agnostic. Agnostics believe in the existence of some sort of deity or over-arching creator and/or controlling force in the universe. No. I am what used to be described as a secular humanist and believe that the universe functions all on it's own with certain immutable scientific laws all of which are amenable to objective proof a/k/a the scientific method.
To give the background context, I am the child of Jewish parents. I was brought up in the Jewish faith (at least they tried). I was subjected to five years of Hebrew School (two hours two days a week after regular school plus two hours on Sunday mornings) along with all the stress on attending Saturday morning services, either upstairs with the adults or junior congregation. Hoo-boy did I resent those six extra hours a week along with the extra school work for which I was held responsible. This was made even worse by the fact that the Catholic kids got time off from regular school every Wednesday afternoon to go to catechism class. But my reasons for losing the faith really did not relate to the extra burden of work. It was deeper and predated Hebrew School
One of the first books I had was a little Jewish prayer book for kids, I suspect from my maternal grandfather. In it, there was a stylized picture of e good lord (which flew in the face of the 10 Commandments thing about graven images, but I digress). It showed an old bearded man. From the time I was old enough to understand the concept of the Judeo-Christian deity, I was taught that He was all powerful and omniscient and perfect. Well if He was all powerful, why couldn't he make Himself look like a young guy? When I asked that question, my grandfather told me I was being disrespectful. I was somewhat chastened by that answer but I also noticed that I had not received an answer to the question I had asked.
The second thing that the prayer book did was it taught me the prayer to say every night before I went to sleep. For years, I said that prayer as I lay down to go night night with my stuffed bunny rabbit. Then, one night, it occurred to me to wonder what would happen if I DIDN'T say my prayer. So I skipped it one night, laid down with Bunny...and woke up the next morning feeling NO worse for wear. That was the end of worrying about saying my prayer before going to sleep. When my mother asked me about it I just said I didn't need to say it anymore. She had no good answer other than that I SHOULD keep doing it. No explanation why, just that I should.
Early in my Hebrew School ordeal, I asked the following question. "Why did God speak to people in the bible then suddenly he stopped talking to people?" The answer from my teacher was something along the lines of, "Well, because those were biblical times." When I persisted in attempting to get an explanation of what that meant, I got sent to the principal's office for showing a lack of due respect. That was compounded by the fact that my mother worked for the synagogue so I was in double immediate deep kimchee. (Years later when I heard George Carlin talking about Catholic school and getting answers along the lines of "Well, it's a mystery," I was reminded of this incident. As he put it they made questioners out of them and it made them lose the faith.)
So I was well on my way to losing the faith by the time of my bar-mitzvah. The important thing about passing that milestone was that it meant the end of Hebrew School. When my mother made the hideous suggestion that I continue with Hebrew high school, it was one of the VERY few times my father ever said no to her after I had already expressed my vehement opposition. Hebrew School was like hitting myself in the head with a hammer. It felt so good when I stopped.
I knew that I could not possibly buy into the whole story of Jesus from the virgin birth right through the whole resurrection so Christianity held no attraction for me. Judaism, at least, made some objective sense in that, other than the whole God thing, most things had some reasonable basis. I continued to think of myself as a Jew. Before we got married, my wife converted to Judaism and we were married by a rabbi. Part of that was sheer cowardice on my part in not standing up to my parents and insisting on a civil ceremony. When our daughter was born, we had her named in a Jewish ceremony. But we raised her with an awareness of both religious traditions. We told her that religion was her choice and when she got old enough she could decide for herself. We had a Christmas tree at the same time we lit the candles for Channukah. (And, yes, it's always been a Christmas tree, not a Channukah bush.)
My father had died when I was in high school and for a year, I went to services at least once a week to say Kaddish (the Jewish prayer for the dead). I didn't believe in what I was doing but I felt guilty to NOT do it. When that year ended, I basically had had it with going to services. My mother remarried when I was a college freshman and the family into which she married was very into Judaism. I just could never feel a part of the scene and the alienation increased. Not only was I the one who had lost the faith, I had even married someone who was not born into the faith. Subtly, I always felt like the black sheep.
I'm not sure where I drifted into flat-out atheism but I went through a period where I experimented with Zen. What I liked (and still like) about Zen is that it is independent of belief in a deity although belief in gods is part, hence my having drifted away from it.
I think the final recognition of my total loss of faith came when I was watching an episode of Carl Sagan's classic TV series "Cosmos." In one episode, he said, "We are all star stuff." When I understood that he meant that everything around us with the exception of hydrogen and helium had been created in the hearts of now dead stars, I was blown away. That answered the question for me as to where did I come from. At some point every atom that is "me" was created by the cataclysm of a star exploding. There was the scientific explanation...and there was the final rupture for me and religion. I had become a secular humanist.
Since then, I have recognized that the universe works by immutable laws. Whether or not the Big Bang is actually the scientific explanation for how the universe began, there is a scientific explanation for everything around us. I don't understand mathematics beyond one and one making two, so I can't prove these things myself. But I have learned enough about cosmology to understand the nature of the laws of the universe. I have learned enough about quantum mechanics to understand that Einstein was wrong when he said that god does not shoot craps with the universe. He was wrong in that quantum mechanics teaches that at the sub-atomic level, random chance operates. If we accept the omniscient and perfect god of Judeo-Christian belief, random chance has no place because he has predetermined everything. Sorry. Nils Bohr, yes; magic sky-person, no.
I find Richard Dawkins to be most illuminating. His book “The God Delusion” has provided me with another favorite quote. “We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” If a person believes in any particular deity, whether it be Odin, God/Allah, Vishnu, Zool, he or she, by definition, rejects all other god-beings. Therefore, everyone is atheistic about all those other gods.
If we accept the concept taught in Jewish, Christian and Muslim tradition that God/Allah is a perfect being, I have several questions. Why did a perfect being find it necessary to create something? If a being is perfect unto itself, it should have no need to create anything. Next question. If said being is perfect, how could Satan have rebelled against him? Rebellion implies displeasure and how can a perfect being do anything except be perfect? Finally, if a being is perfect, why does it need prayer from its creations? And a related issue to that last question is how can a perfect being get mad? Oh, and on the subject of creation, it implies a beginning and an end which flies in the face of the everlasting and always was god being.
I touched on quantum theory earlier. The basis of quantum theory is randomness. Accepting that, there is no way for a being to know everything that is going to happen where everything is subject to random behavior. This explains why a pair of literally identical twins, raised with identical experiences will still turn out different. Random behavior at the sub-atomic level will, inevitably cause a divergence at the microscopic level which will eventually translate to the macro level.
I also believe that humans are only one of many sentient species in the universe. It is estimated that there are as many as 200 billion galaxies in the known universe. Each galaxy has between 10 and 200 million stars. Who knows how many planets orbit all those stars. But, to me, it is inconceivable that we here on our little spaceship earth are the only beings who happened to have a planet that was just right for life to evolve. (Yes, I said it. I also believe in evolution.) Therefore, unless every single sentient race is identical to humans down to the molecular level, how could we have been created in god’s image? It’s impossible to prove, but statistically it just does not wash.
Now, having said all this, I do not begrudge anybody their individual beliefs. To try and force my lack of belief on them is as unacceptable as it is when I find believers trying to force their religious convictions on me. Belief or lack thereof is an intensely personal thing. I may disagree with your belief but I will fight for your right to practice what you believe as long as such belief does not impinge on me or the government. I take the Establishment Clause very seriously and recognize that it protects atheists as much as Jews, Christians of all types and all the other religions out there.
So there it is. These are the reasons for my atheism. It started with my asking questions for which no reasonable answer could be provided. When I began comparing the ideas of simply “believing” or “having faith” with the logic of science, science won out hands down. And I don’t apologize for it any more than I expect you to apologize for your own belief. We are all passengers on spaceship earth. Peace.
I make no bones about the fact that I am an atheist. I am not agnostic. Agnostics believe in the existence of some sort of deity or over-arching creator and/or controlling force in the universe. No. I am what used to be described as a secular humanist and believe that the universe functions all on it's own with certain immutable scientific laws all of which are amenable to objective proof a/k/a the scientific method.
To give the background context, I am the child of Jewish parents. I was brought up in the Jewish faith (at least they tried). I was subjected to five years of Hebrew School (two hours two days a week after regular school plus two hours on Sunday mornings) along with all the stress on attending Saturday morning services, either upstairs with the adults or junior congregation. Hoo-boy did I resent those six extra hours a week along with the extra school work for which I was held responsible. This was made even worse by the fact that the Catholic kids got time off from regular school every Wednesday afternoon to go to catechism class. But my reasons for losing the faith really did not relate to the extra burden of work. It was deeper and predated Hebrew School
One of the first books I had was a little Jewish prayer book for kids, I suspect from my maternal grandfather. In it, there was a stylized picture of e good lord (which flew in the face of the 10 Commandments thing about graven images, but I digress). It showed an old bearded man. From the time I was old enough to understand the concept of the Judeo-Christian deity, I was taught that He was all powerful and omniscient and perfect. Well if He was all powerful, why couldn't he make Himself look like a young guy? When I asked that question, my grandfather told me I was being disrespectful. I was somewhat chastened by that answer but I also noticed that I had not received an answer to the question I had asked.
The second thing that the prayer book did was it taught me the prayer to say every night before I went to sleep. For years, I said that prayer as I lay down to go night night with my stuffed bunny rabbit. Then, one night, it occurred to me to wonder what would happen if I DIDN'T say my prayer. So I skipped it one night, laid down with Bunny...and woke up the next morning feeling NO worse for wear. That was the end of worrying about saying my prayer before going to sleep. When my mother asked me about it I just said I didn't need to say it anymore. She had no good answer other than that I SHOULD keep doing it. No explanation why, just that I should.
Early in my Hebrew School ordeal, I asked the following question. "Why did God speak to people in the bible then suddenly he stopped talking to people?" The answer from my teacher was something along the lines of, "Well, because those were biblical times." When I persisted in attempting to get an explanation of what that meant, I got sent to the principal's office for showing a lack of due respect. That was compounded by the fact that my mother worked for the synagogue so I was in double immediate deep kimchee. (Years later when I heard George Carlin talking about Catholic school and getting answers along the lines of "Well, it's a mystery," I was reminded of this incident. As he put it they made questioners out of them and it made them lose the faith.)
So I was well on my way to losing the faith by the time of my bar-mitzvah. The important thing about passing that milestone was that it meant the end of Hebrew School. When my mother made the hideous suggestion that I continue with Hebrew high school, it was one of the VERY few times my father ever said no to her after I had already expressed my vehement opposition. Hebrew School was like hitting myself in the head with a hammer. It felt so good when I stopped.
I knew that I could not possibly buy into the whole story of Jesus from the virgin birth right through the whole resurrection so Christianity held no attraction for me. Judaism, at least, made some objective sense in that, other than the whole God thing, most things had some reasonable basis. I continued to think of myself as a Jew. Before we got married, my wife converted to Judaism and we were married by a rabbi. Part of that was sheer cowardice on my part in not standing up to my parents and insisting on a civil ceremony. When our daughter was born, we had her named in a Jewish ceremony. But we raised her with an awareness of both religious traditions. We told her that religion was her choice and when she got old enough she could decide for herself. We had a Christmas tree at the same time we lit the candles for Channukah. (And, yes, it's always been a Christmas tree, not a Channukah bush.)
My father had died when I was in high school and for a year, I went to services at least once a week to say Kaddish (the Jewish prayer for the dead). I didn't believe in what I was doing but I felt guilty to NOT do it. When that year ended, I basically had had it with going to services. My mother remarried when I was a college freshman and the family into which she married was very into Judaism. I just could never feel a part of the scene and the alienation increased. Not only was I the one who had lost the faith, I had even married someone who was not born into the faith. Subtly, I always felt like the black sheep.
I'm not sure where I drifted into flat-out atheism but I went through a period where I experimented with Zen. What I liked (and still like) about Zen is that it is independent of belief in a deity although belief in gods is part, hence my having drifted away from it.
I think the final recognition of my total loss of faith came when I was watching an episode of Carl Sagan's classic TV series "Cosmos." In one episode, he said, "We are all star stuff." When I understood that he meant that everything around us with the exception of hydrogen and helium had been created in the hearts of now dead stars, I was blown away. That answered the question for me as to where did I come from. At some point every atom that is "me" was created by the cataclysm of a star exploding. There was the scientific explanation...and there was the final rupture for me and religion. I had become a secular humanist.
Since then, I have recognized that the universe works by immutable laws. Whether or not the Big Bang is actually the scientific explanation for how the universe began, there is a scientific explanation for everything around us. I don't understand mathematics beyond one and one making two, so I can't prove these things myself. But I have learned enough about cosmology to understand the nature of the laws of the universe. I have learned enough about quantum mechanics to understand that Einstein was wrong when he said that god does not shoot craps with the universe. He was wrong in that quantum mechanics teaches that at the sub-atomic level, random chance operates. If we accept the omniscient and perfect god of Judeo-Christian belief, random chance has no place because he has predetermined everything. Sorry. Nils Bohr, yes; magic sky-person, no.
I find Richard Dawkins to be most illuminating. His book “The God Delusion” has provided me with another favorite quote. “We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” If a person believes in any particular deity, whether it be Odin, God/Allah, Vishnu, Zool, he or she, by definition, rejects all other god-beings. Therefore, everyone is atheistic about all those other gods.
If we accept the concept taught in Jewish, Christian and Muslim tradition that God/Allah is a perfect being, I have several questions. Why did a perfect being find it necessary to create something? If a being is perfect unto itself, it should have no need to create anything. Next question. If said being is perfect, how could Satan have rebelled against him? Rebellion implies displeasure and how can a perfect being do anything except be perfect? Finally, if a being is perfect, why does it need prayer from its creations? And a related issue to that last question is how can a perfect being get mad? Oh, and on the subject of creation, it implies a beginning and an end which flies in the face of the everlasting and always was god being.
I touched on quantum theory earlier. The basis of quantum theory is randomness. Accepting that, there is no way for a being to know everything that is going to happen where everything is subject to random behavior. This explains why a pair of literally identical twins, raised with identical experiences will still turn out different. Random behavior at the sub-atomic level will, inevitably cause a divergence at the microscopic level which will eventually translate to the macro level.
I also believe that humans are only one of many sentient species in the universe. It is estimated that there are as many as 200 billion galaxies in the known universe. Each galaxy has between 10 and 200 million stars. Who knows how many planets orbit all those stars. But, to me, it is inconceivable that we here on our little spaceship earth are the only beings who happened to have a planet that was just right for life to evolve. (Yes, I said it. I also believe in evolution.) Therefore, unless every single sentient race is identical to humans down to the molecular level, how could we have been created in god’s image? It’s impossible to prove, but statistically it just does not wash.
Now, having said all this, I do not begrudge anybody their individual beliefs. To try and force my lack of belief on them is as unacceptable as it is when I find believers trying to force their religious convictions on me. Belief or lack thereof is an intensely personal thing. I may disagree with your belief but I will fight for your right to practice what you believe as long as such belief does not impinge on me or the government. I take the Establishment Clause very seriously and recognize that it protects atheists as much as Jews, Christians of all types and all the other religions out there.
So there it is. These are the reasons for my atheism. It started with my asking questions for which no reasonable answer could be provided. When I began comparing the ideas of simply “believing” or “having faith” with the logic of science, science won out hands down. And I don’t apologize for it any more than I expect you to apologize for your own belief. We are all passengers on spaceship earth. Peace.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Owning a Cat is an Oxymoron
“Once was a time, in New York's jungle in a tree, before I went into the world in search of other kinds of love, nobody owned me but a cat named Sloopy.” – Rod McKuen, “A Cat Named Sloopy”
The first pet my wife and I ever owned as a married couple was a cat named Gremlin. Actually, his full name was Gremlin Meshugina Kittums. (For those of you not fluent in Yiddish, “Meshugina” means crazy.) With only two breaks, we have always been owned by at least one cat. Notice I said that we have been owned by cats. I first encountered that concept in Rod McKuen’s poem quoted above. (By the way, the full text can be found here: http://www.why-not.com/cats/sloopy.htm and on his album “At Carnegie Hall.”) But until I finally lived with a cat, I never really understood it. You may buy or acquire a cat by other means but it is the cat that chooses who it will own. An axiom is that “Dogs have owners; cats have staff.” And once you accept the fact that you are a life support system for the cat that owns you, you have truly understood life with a cat.
I came to be a cat person quite accidentally. The extent of my pets while growing up was a couple of turtles and a couple of goldfish. We lived in an apartment house and the excuse was always we didn’t have the room. I was also aware that my parents actively disliked cats. I recall my mother disparaging them and my father once kicking one at my uncle’s house that sprang out of nowhere to attack his foot. My fraternity decided to adopt a stray named Ralph with only two dissenting votes, mine being one of them. As the medical bills piled up, those two dissenting votes proved to be prescient.
So, it came as a bit of a surprise, when we acquired Gremlin that he became a source of unending amusement. He had two favorite activities. The first involved the cocker spaniel we also acquired. He would lay in a chair in the living room. When the spaniel walked past, he would leap, wrap his fore paws around her hind paws, tackle her, then bolt. The second was the result of the apartment’s architecture and shag carpet of the 70s. It was a two-floor apartment and the steps were open with no risers and were carpeted. Gremlin would latch onto the carpeting and climb up the underside of the steps, emerging through the one at the top, run down and start the process again. Unfortunately, when we moved from California, we had to leave him behind.
Our daughter Sara’s first cat was a gray long-haired female kitten that we named Kitty because that was a word she could say at the time. Kitty was one of the few we ever bought. She was also one of the sweetest cats we ever had. We have pictures of Sara carrying her by holding her around the neck. The poor animal’s eyes are bugging out and her tongue is hanging out but she never once scratched her. She was also the first cat that took ownership of me. I didn’t recognize it as such because it was an unfamiliar concept, despite having known McKuen’s poem for years. She would wait until I was sitting in a comfy chair or on the couch and drape herself over my shoulders, purring happily. She may have been Sara’s cat but I was her person.
Kitty had died not too long after we moved in with my in-laws while I went to grad school. My in-laws had a black, long-hair named Itsy-Bitsy whose name was shortened to Bitsy because it was easier for Sara to say as a toddler. It amused me that Bitsy seemed to be wherever I was. I still did not understand the concept of being owned by a cat. After we moved to West Virginia, we were without a cat because our landlord would not allow us to have any pets. But whenever we came home, there was Bitsy, attaching herself to me wherever I was. It was a source of never-ending wonder and surprise because I still did not picture myself as a cat person.
When we returned from WV, one of our first acquisitions was a condo and a Himalayan female that we named Kaitu (Like the Himalayan mountain, K-2… get it?). For whatever reason, she took an active dislike to Joy. She didn’t last long and she never really fit in.
There followed several less memorable cats and then came NoNuts. NoNuts was a fairly good-sized buff-colored longhair male who my mother-in-law had acquired. She never really seemed to settle on a name for him alternately calling him Buffy, Tuffy, Scruffy, Muffy or names of a similar sound. They decided to have him neutered and dropped him at the vet the day they were leaving for Florida for the winter. They told us to pick him up and keep him for the winter and they’d take him back when they came back north. As a joke, we started calling him NoNuts, for obvious reasons. By the time they returned from Florida, he only answered to that name and he would not let them anywhere near him. so NoNuts became our cat, one of the very few males we ever owned.
NoNuts was a tough guy who preferred spending time outside but he also took ownership of Joy and was devoted to her. When we moved to a new house, he went out one day and never came home. We were devastated because we had lost three other cats in a similar manner shortly before that. When we were finally able to sell our old house, the night before the closing, we did a walk-through. From the back yard I heard a cat crying. I opened the door and in walked the scrawniest, filthiest, skinniest version of NoNuts you can imagine, with one paw stuck through his flea collar. He had gone out that day and gone where he thought home was. He had lost about half of his weight and had existed by eating the small frogs around the swimming pool. About a thousand dollars in vet bills later, he had become the golden cat. But he was home with us. He stayed with us until he was over nineteen years old, apparently healthy right up to the point where he was suddenly unable to care for himself. We let him go and allowed him to be put down because it was his time. We, especially my wife still miss him.
To me, the gold standard in cats was Butter. We adopted her from the vet. She was a long-haired gray kitten. On our way home in the car, she lay like a lump in my wife’s lap. As soon as we got her into the house, she ran for the darkest corner of the kitchen and would not come out. We left her alone and put out a dish with food and water. Eventually she came out. We were unsure of what to name her but I settled on Feather. That was until she got comfortable around us. She was one of those cats who would repeatedly and strongly butt her head against your hand until you pet her. Thus, the name Butter. The week we got her, my wife had to suddenly go to Florida because her mother was hospitalized. She was gone for almost a month. In that time, Butter started sleeping next to me and attached herself to (well, took ownership of) me. She would drape herself over the computer monitor when I was sitting at the computer and would let one paw hang down in front of the screen. Sometimes, she would crawl into my lap and refuse to leave while I sat at the keyboard. She was one of the cats that went out one day and never came home. I still miss her.
We had three cats that came from one litter: Pyscho, a long-haired black, female, Tribble, a tuxedo-colored short-haired male and Trouble, an almost identical slightly smaller female. Psycho was laid-back and gentle once she grew up. She earned her name as a kitten by climbing the drapes and walking along the curtain rod and by laying on the top edge of a doorway to the half-bath off the family room. Trouble and Tribble wound up being renamed Baby Boy and Baby Girl because we kept mixing up their names. They were just sweet cats. Psycho was also unique in that she was allergic to her own cat dander and had a constantly runny nose. All three of them, at various times, went out and never came home.
After Butter disappeared, we adopted another long-haired gray female I named Suvwi, the Klingon word for “warrior.” When we got her she was a tiny kitten but she faced down my mother-in-law’s French poodle. Okay, the poodle wasn’t very large but he towered over her and she stood her ground. She quickly took ownership of me and was another who would sit in my lap while I was at the computer. I had decided, by then, that the cats were no longer going to be allowed to be outside cats. We had lost too many already.
Sara had a couple of cats that she raised as kittens, April and Trinity. She brought them with her when she moved back in with us for a while. April is a long-haired female calico tabby who is dumb. If T.S. Eliot had written about her in Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, she would be April, the cat of the Short Bus. Trinity was a gray long-haired Tabby. Sadly, she lost her tail due to a wound and something went wrong inside her and she could not eat. In mercy, we had her put to sleep. April is still with us. Her favorite thing is to pull a pair of socks out of my drawer, carry them downstairs in her mouth, then yowl as if she has had a kitten. Like I said, April’s not too bright. In fact, she’s as dumb as a dog.
A friend of Sara’s had a tiny short-haired white female with colored spots around her ears and a calico striped tail. Her name was Rascal or Cally for short. The friend’s younger child turned out to be allergic to cats so Sara brought her home to us. She was tiny, even by small cat standards and we quickly renamed her Little Bit. For the longest time, we could not figure out why Suvwi was constantly beating her up. When Suvwi disappeared, Little Bit was suddenly attached to me. Then it became clear. Suvwi had been guarding her turf and her ownership of me from Little Bit. Now that Suvwi was gone, Little Bit owned me 100%. I have never had a cat as devoted as she is to me. If she had her way, she would be touching me 24/7, 365 days a year. She literally follows me around the house when I get up to do something. If she is awake and I’m home, she is wherever I am. And she’s still tiny. And neither Little Bit nor April are allowed to go outside. At all!
I have long said I will never own another dog with the possible exception of if I was ever to need a seeing-eye dog. But I will never be without a cat. I am a cat person, lock, stock and barrel and will always be. Who knows, maybe I WAS a cat in a past life.
The first pet my wife and I ever owned as a married couple was a cat named Gremlin. Actually, his full name was Gremlin Meshugina Kittums. (For those of you not fluent in Yiddish, “Meshugina” means crazy.) With only two breaks, we have always been owned by at least one cat. Notice I said that we have been owned by cats. I first encountered that concept in Rod McKuen’s poem quoted above. (By the way, the full text can be found here: http://www.why-not.com/cats/sloopy.htm and on his album “At Carnegie Hall.”) But until I finally lived with a cat, I never really understood it. You may buy or acquire a cat by other means but it is the cat that chooses who it will own. An axiom is that “Dogs have owners; cats have staff.” And once you accept the fact that you are a life support system for the cat that owns you, you have truly understood life with a cat.
I came to be a cat person quite accidentally. The extent of my pets while growing up was a couple of turtles and a couple of goldfish. We lived in an apartment house and the excuse was always we didn’t have the room. I was also aware that my parents actively disliked cats. I recall my mother disparaging them and my father once kicking one at my uncle’s house that sprang out of nowhere to attack his foot. My fraternity decided to adopt a stray named Ralph with only two dissenting votes, mine being one of them. As the medical bills piled up, those two dissenting votes proved to be prescient.
So, it came as a bit of a surprise, when we acquired Gremlin that he became a source of unending amusement. He had two favorite activities. The first involved the cocker spaniel we also acquired. He would lay in a chair in the living room. When the spaniel walked past, he would leap, wrap his fore paws around her hind paws, tackle her, then bolt. The second was the result of the apartment’s architecture and shag carpet of the 70s. It was a two-floor apartment and the steps were open with no risers and were carpeted. Gremlin would latch onto the carpeting and climb up the underside of the steps, emerging through the one at the top, run down and start the process again. Unfortunately, when we moved from California, we had to leave him behind.
Our daughter Sara’s first cat was a gray long-haired female kitten that we named Kitty because that was a word she could say at the time. Kitty was one of the few we ever bought. She was also one of the sweetest cats we ever had. We have pictures of Sara carrying her by holding her around the neck. The poor animal’s eyes are bugging out and her tongue is hanging out but she never once scratched her. She was also the first cat that took ownership of me. I didn’t recognize it as such because it was an unfamiliar concept, despite having known McKuen’s poem for years. She would wait until I was sitting in a comfy chair or on the couch and drape herself over my shoulders, purring happily. She may have been Sara’s cat but I was her person.
Kitty had died not too long after we moved in with my in-laws while I went to grad school. My in-laws had a black, long-hair named Itsy-Bitsy whose name was shortened to Bitsy because it was easier for Sara to say as a toddler. It amused me that Bitsy seemed to be wherever I was. I still did not understand the concept of being owned by a cat. After we moved to West Virginia, we were without a cat because our landlord would not allow us to have any pets. But whenever we came home, there was Bitsy, attaching herself to me wherever I was. It was a source of never-ending wonder and surprise because I still did not picture myself as a cat person.
When we returned from WV, one of our first acquisitions was a condo and a Himalayan female that we named Kaitu (Like the Himalayan mountain, K-2… get it?). For whatever reason, she took an active dislike to Joy. She didn’t last long and she never really fit in.
There followed several less memorable cats and then came NoNuts. NoNuts was a fairly good-sized buff-colored longhair male who my mother-in-law had acquired. She never really seemed to settle on a name for him alternately calling him Buffy, Tuffy, Scruffy, Muffy or names of a similar sound. They decided to have him neutered and dropped him at the vet the day they were leaving for Florida for the winter. They told us to pick him up and keep him for the winter and they’d take him back when they came back north. As a joke, we started calling him NoNuts, for obvious reasons. By the time they returned from Florida, he only answered to that name and he would not let them anywhere near him. so NoNuts became our cat, one of the very few males we ever owned.
NoNuts was a tough guy who preferred spending time outside but he also took ownership of Joy and was devoted to her. When we moved to a new house, he went out one day and never came home. We were devastated because we had lost three other cats in a similar manner shortly before that. When we were finally able to sell our old house, the night before the closing, we did a walk-through. From the back yard I heard a cat crying. I opened the door and in walked the scrawniest, filthiest, skinniest version of NoNuts you can imagine, with one paw stuck through his flea collar. He had gone out that day and gone where he thought home was. He had lost about half of his weight and had existed by eating the small frogs around the swimming pool. About a thousand dollars in vet bills later, he had become the golden cat. But he was home with us. He stayed with us until he was over nineteen years old, apparently healthy right up to the point where he was suddenly unable to care for himself. We let him go and allowed him to be put down because it was his time. We, especially my wife still miss him.
To me, the gold standard in cats was Butter. We adopted her from the vet. She was a long-haired gray kitten. On our way home in the car, she lay like a lump in my wife’s lap. As soon as we got her into the house, she ran for the darkest corner of the kitchen and would not come out. We left her alone and put out a dish with food and water. Eventually she came out. We were unsure of what to name her but I settled on Feather. That was until she got comfortable around us. She was one of those cats who would repeatedly and strongly butt her head against your hand until you pet her. Thus, the name Butter. The week we got her, my wife had to suddenly go to Florida because her mother was hospitalized. She was gone for almost a month. In that time, Butter started sleeping next to me and attached herself to (well, took ownership of) me. She would drape herself over the computer monitor when I was sitting at the computer and would let one paw hang down in front of the screen. Sometimes, she would crawl into my lap and refuse to leave while I sat at the keyboard. She was one of the cats that went out one day and never came home. I still miss her.
We had three cats that came from one litter: Pyscho, a long-haired black, female, Tribble, a tuxedo-colored short-haired male and Trouble, an almost identical slightly smaller female. Psycho was laid-back and gentle once she grew up. She earned her name as a kitten by climbing the drapes and walking along the curtain rod and by laying on the top edge of a doorway to the half-bath off the family room. Trouble and Tribble wound up being renamed Baby Boy and Baby Girl because we kept mixing up their names. They were just sweet cats. Psycho was also unique in that she was allergic to her own cat dander and had a constantly runny nose. All three of them, at various times, went out and never came home.
After Butter disappeared, we adopted another long-haired gray female I named Suvwi, the Klingon word for “warrior.” When we got her she was a tiny kitten but she faced down my mother-in-law’s French poodle. Okay, the poodle wasn’t very large but he towered over her and she stood her ground. She quickly took ownership of me and was another who would sit in my lap while I was at the computer. I had decided, by then, that the cats were no longer going to be allowed to be outside cats. We had lost too many already.
Sara had a couple of cats that she raised as kittens, April and Trinity. She brought them with her when she moved back in with us for a while. April is a long-haired female calico tabby who is dumb. If T.S. Eliot had written about her in Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, she would be April, the cat of the Short Bus. Trinity was a gray long-haired Tabby. Sadly, she lost her tail due to a wound and something went wrong inside her and she could not eat. In mercy, we had her put to sleep. April is still with us. Her favorite thing is to pull a pair of socks out of my drawer, carry them downstairs in her mouth, then yowl as if she has had a kitten. Like I said, April’s not too bright. In fact, she’s as dumb as a dog.
A friend of Sara’s had a tiny short-haired white female with colored spots around her ears and a calico striped tail. Her name was Rascal or Cally for short. The friend’s younger child turned out to be allergic to cats so Sara brought her home to us. She was tiny, even by small cat standards and we quickly renamed her Little Bit. For the longest time, we could not figure out why Suvwi was constantly beating her up. When Suvwi disappeared, Little Bit was suddenly attached to me. Then it became clear. Suvwi had been guarding her turf and her ownership of me from Little Bit. Now that Suvwi was gone, Little Bit owned me 100%. I have never had a cat as devoted as she is to me. If she had her way, she would be touching me 24/7, 365 days a year. She literally follows me around the house when I get up to do something. If she is awake and I’m home, she is wherever I am. And she’s still tiny. And neither Little Bit nor April are allowed to go outside. At all!
I have long said I will never own another dog with the possible exception of if I was ever to need a seeing-eye dog. But I will never be without a cat. I am a cat person, lock, stock and barrel and will always be. Who knows, maybe I WAS a cat in a past life.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Up, Up and Away
Some time ago, I wrote about my aviation experiences in the U.S. Air Force. The reality, however, is that I have far more hours as a passenger on various commercial carriers than I had in Air Force aircraft. I will grant you, some of the USAF stories are funnier, especially for having been part of them, but I've seen a great deal more and made far more observations as a passenger.
Do I have a favorite airline? I don't think so, although there are some I prefer to others. Domestic flights along the eastern seaboard I guess it would be Delta. They still give you a drink and a package of peanuts or pretzels. US Airways, on the other hand gives you a drink and only first class passengers get the peanuts and pretzels. Delta also has wi-fi on virtually all their flights although it's $8.95 for the flight which is a tad pricy. International? I'm partial to Continental, if for no other reason than their flights to Europe originate from Newark rather than JFK. I would, however, like the chance to fly Lufthansa as I have heard nothing but good things about them.
Today’s flight was a first for me, partly thanks to my lovely bride. I had one carry-on suitcase with no clothes to bring home so I expected it would be nice and light. I look into it and what doe I see? Two rolls of wallpaper, a tiny frying pan and an electric can-opener. I put my foot down and said that I was NOT going through the security checkpoint with an electric can-opener in my satchel. For the first time, I had to go through a full-body scanner. And wouldn’t you know it, I had to get a pat-down, too. No biggie on either count. But my suitcase? Guess what two rolls of wallpaper look like on an x-ray machine. So, unpack the suitcase, run the wallpaper through the x-ray then re-pack it. And now my sunglasses are missing. Grrrrrr……….. And while we’re on the subject of firsts, I finally experienced a full-body scanner. The only difference is it takes longer than walking through a magnetometer. And then I STILL had to get my left upper thigh patted down even though there was nothing in my left pockets. As I posted on FB, I’ve had better….
Years ago, George Carlin came up with one of the great lines about flying. It goes something like this: “When they say it's time to get on the airplane,’ I say ‘f@ck you, I'm getting IN the airplane.’” Fly with Joy, Sara and/or me and you will almost inevitably hear something to that effect when they begin calling for boarding. And while we're on the subject of boarding, what is this crap about "pre-boarding?" I get the fact that some people need assistance such as elderly, handicapped or parents with squalling brats...er, I mean, young children. But PRE-boarding. I always thought that was the sitting around in the waiting area. One someone steps onto the aircraft, they are boarding. No? Is it just me, then? (And can I give you some advice? If you ever have the misfortune of having to fly Southwest, bring a cane and limp. They have no assigned seating and it’s like a cattle-call. But if you are handicapped, you get to pre-board. SH*T! Now they have me doing it.)
Next comes the carry-on suitcase tango. Now, they have a thing with which you can measure your carry-on bag but, much like driving and stop signs, the measuring thing seems more advisory than mandatory. Folks, I do understand the preference to avoid the luggage carousels and the fees airlines now charge for checked bags. But get a freakin’ grip. There is an old axiom of physics that two pieces of matter cannot simultaneously occupy the same space. The practical airline consideration is that if your bag is too damn over-stuffed IT WILL NOT FIT! Do we understand that?
And on the subject of boarding, I have a limited tolerance for the First Class passengers being boarded first. They do pay a premium, so I can understand that. But in coach, WHY, WHY, WHY do they not board from the aft forward? That two pieces of matter thing applies to two people in the aisle, too. It just seems to me that loading from the aft forward would make it smoother and faster, especially when they’re pushing to get off on time. Just a thought....
How many of you can just about recite from memory the standard safety briefing? Honestly. In this day and age, is it REALLY necessary to explain how a seat belt clasp operates? Could maybe someone at FAA-land rewrite that reg? And if you can't actually recite the safety briefing, can you imitate the two-finger pointing towards the exits? And in the event of a water landing, my best suggestion is pray that Sully Sullenberger is your pilot. ‘Nuf said on that subject.
Here's a part if my USAF background and my obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I tend to follow crew directions. When they say it's time to turn off all electronic devices, I turn them off. I do not try to read that extra paragraph or send that extra text message or get that extra high score at Tetris or Pong or whatever. I am stunned by the number of people, adults, I mean, who just ignore that. Now I’m no expert in avionics but I am a pretty good amateur scientist when it comes to gravity. I know for a fact things that go up come down. They tell you to turn these things off for a reason. I don’t care if the chances of a stray electron screwing up the avionics is vanishingly small. If the chances are not zero, WHY TAKE THE F@CKING CHANCE? It bugs me to have to turn off my iPad and not be able to read below 10,000 feet but I also understand that they do these things for a reason.
Stephanie Miller claims that every time she flies it’s on Screaming Baby Airlines. I will admit to being fortunate to have almost never been subjected to infants crying on a flight. That’s not to say it won't happen in the future but thus far I have been spared.
Remember that I like flying and everything that goes along with it. One of the things that go along with flying is rough air. Having been through weather training as part of my flight training I understand a bit of what to expect in terms of winds and turbulent air. Here’s one of my dirty little secrets: I get a kick out of turbulence. I don't mean the kind that is so rough that food and beverage service become impossible. (And, FYI, that is how the severity of turbulence is gauged, how difficult food and beverage service is.) No, I mean the kind that you would pay an A ticket at the amusement park to experience. The worst I have ever experienced was when twenty or so of us were flying to Spokane, Wash. to attend USAF Basic Survival training. Over the Cascade Mountains we experienced severe turbulence which we uniformed smart asses were enjoying. An old lady sitting among us, however, cursed at us because she assumed the pilot was doing it for our benefit. My daughter just thinks I’m insane.
Oh, and of course, whenever possible, I have to sit next to a window. Why you ask? Well, it’s simple. If the GPS (SatNav for you Euro folk), INS and all the other navigational gear malfunctions, I need to be near a window so I can see outside and save the day by doing map-reading dead-reckoning navigation. I AM a qualified navigator, you know. (My fraternity big brother was also in the USAF and he was a KC-135 pilot. That’s the military version of the Boeing 707. He always had the fantasy that both pilots would have heart attacks and he would be the one to save the day by flying the airplane. I also figure I could do a reasonable job in those circumstances. I have over 1500 hours of airline flight time on Microsoft Flight Simulator.)
The first time I ever set foot on an airplane was in July 1969. My mother and I were doing a three week tour to Israel, Rome, Zurich and London. Even then I knew I needed to sit next to the window. My mother was in the center seat. About an hour after we climbed out of JFK, she nudges me and says, “What’s that thing?” I look out the window expecting to see another airplane or a flying saucer or the Starship Enterprise. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary I ask what she’s talking about. “That thing. The thing following us.” Again, I look out the window. Mind you, we were sitting on the starboard side about where the wing root hits the fuselage and the airframe was a 707. Again, seeing nothing, I ask what she’s talking about. Now clearly agitated, she says, “The thing following us right next to us.” I look again and it dawns on me. I ask her if she means the thing that says “EL AL” in English and Hebrew. She says, “Yes! That thing that’s following us.” I then have to explain that the thing she is referring to is an engine and if it’s NOT following us we’re all in deep doo-doo. Later that same trip, on the flight from Tel Aviv to Rome, we were delayed several hours. El-Al was short of airframes and had to rent one from UTA. So, teenage smartass that I was, I ask the crew why we had to get one from Hertz Rent-a-Plane. I followed that one up by asking if the delay was because they were waiting for the glue on the wings to dry. You could get away with that sort of thing in 1969, even in Israel.
I mentioned earlier that airline seat belts are pretty simple to figure out. Ever look at the seat belt arrangement for the flight crew? In addition to the lap belt, there is also a shoulder harness with an inertia-reel locking mechanism, just like in your car. That means that at a certain deceleration, the belt locks and holds you in place. Now, with exception of cars like the Bugatti Veyron or Ferrari 599, most cars top out at well under the speed at which most airliners land. And what do they want you to do in an emergency? Lean forward against the seat in front of you. Why, you may ask? Well, to prevent you being thrown forward when the air frame comes to a rest, usually pretty suddenly. Being thrown forward in such circumstances can snap your spine like a dry twig. (That’s why Yankees catcher Thurman Munson died in his plane crash. He did not have his shoulder harness on and his back broke. Paralyzed, he was unable to escape from the flaming aircraft.) Anyway, as so often, I digress. If your car has a shoulder harness mandated by Federal regulations, why don’t airline seats? Two explanations have been put forward. The first is a crock: it would make people nervous. Does it make them nervous in an eighty-mile per hour car? Then why should it make them nervous in a 580 mph airplane? The real reason is the cost. The airlines don’t want to go to the expense of retrofitting shoulder harnesses. So, folks, as with so many other things associated with airlines, just keep bending over.
And finally, we come to landings. They are another segment of flight where, when you travel with Joy and/or me, you will hear the same sort of things every time. As a B-52 navigator, I learned to dread the prospect of the co-pilot landing the aircraft. They tend to slam the air frame onto the runway and bounce a bit, mostly because they are less experienced and get fewer landings than the aircraft commander a/k/a pilot. So, as soon as we touch down and the air brakes deploy, one of us will make an evaluation as to whether the pilot or co-pilot landed.
There is one final postscript to flying and that’s the getting the luggage at your destination. In all the times I have ever flown, I have only had two incidents of lost luggage. The first was in the USAF days when I was returning from B-52 training. Guess which one they lost. Yes, the one with all my flying gear. That was fun explaining it to my squadron commander until United managed to locate it and get it to me. The second time was the fault of the idiot who mistook my bag for hers. Joy, Sara and I have our own TV reference for the baggage carousel, too. If you have every seen the North Africa episode of “Absolutely Fabulous,” you will immediately understand why one of us will always say something along the lines of, “Gee. I wonder where Patsy and Eddie are.”
So there you have it, my take on commercial aviation. It’s not exactly like flying or navigating the airplane yourself but it’s the best I’ve got. Joy knows I’m like a puppy dog. Want me to agree to go somewhere? Just say, “But you’ll get to fly on an airplane.” You had me at “fly.”
Do I have a favorite airline? I don't think so, although there are some I prefer to others. Domestic flights along the eastern seaboard I guess it would be Delta. They still give you a drink and a package of peanuts or pretzels. US Airways, on the other hand gives you a drink and only first class passengers get the peanuts and pretzels. Delta also has wi-fi on virtually all their flights although it's $8.95 for the flight which is a tad pricy. International? I'm partial to Continental, if for no other reason than their flights to Europe originate from Newark rather than JFK. I would, however, like the chance to fly Lufthansa as I have heard nothing but good things about them.
Today’s flight was a first for me, partly thanks to my lovely bride. I had one carry-on suitcase with no clothes to bring home so I expected it would be nice and light. I look into it and what doe I see? Two rolls of wallpaper, a tiny frying pan and an electric can-opener. I put my foot down and said that I was NOT going through the security checkpoint with an electric can-opener in my satchel. For the first time, I had to go through a full-body scanner. And wouldn’t you know it, I had to get a pat-down, too. No biggie on either count. But my suitcase? Guess what two rolls of wallpaper look like on an x-ray machine. So, unpack the suitcase, run the wallpaper through the x-ray then re-pack it. And now my sunglasses are missing. Grrrrrr……….. And while we’re on the subject of firsts, I finally experienced a full-body scanner. The only difference is it takes longer than walking through a magnetometer. And then I STILL had to get my left upper thigh patted down even though there was nothing in my left pockets. As I posted on FB, I’ve had better….
Years ago, George Carlin came up with one of the great lines about flying. It goes something like this: “When they say it's time to get on the airplane,’ I say ‘f@ck you, I'm getting IN the airplane.’” Fly with Joy, Sara and/or me and you will almost inevitably hear something to that effect when they begin calling for boarding. And while we're on the subject of boarding, what is this crap about "pre-boarding?" I get the fact that some people need assistance such as elderly, handicapped or parents with squalling brats...er, I mean, young children. But PRE-boarding. I always thought that was the sitting around in the waiting area. One someone steps onto the aircraft, they are boarding. No? Is it just me, then? (And can I give you some advice? If you ever have the misfortune of having to fly Southwest, bring a cane and limp. They have no assigned seating and it’s like a cattle-call. But if you are handicapped, you get to pre-board. SH*T! Now they have me doing it.)
Next comes the carry-on suitcase tango. Now, they have a thing with which you can measure your carry-on bag but, much like driving and stop signs, the measuring thing seems more advisory than mandatory. Folks, I do understand the preference to avoid the luggage carousels and the fees airlines now charge for checked bags. But get a freakin’ grip. There is an old axiom of physics that two pieces of matter cannot simultaneously occupy the same space. The practical airline consideration is that if your bag is too damn over-stuffed IT WILL NOT FIT! Do we understand that?
And on the subject of boarding, I have a limited tolerance for the First Class passengers being boarded first. They do pay a premium, so I can understand that. But in coach, WHY, WHY, WHY do they not board from the aft forward? That two pieces of matter thing applies to two people in the aisle, too. It just seems to me that loading from the aft forward would make it smoother and faster, especially when they’re pushing to get off on time. Just a thought....
How many of you can just about recite from memory the standard safety briefing? Honestly. In this day and age, is it REALLY necessary to explain how a seat belt clasp operates? Could maybe someone at FAA-land rewrite that reg? And if you can't actually recite the safety briefing, can you imitate the two-finger pointing towards the exits? And in the event of a water landing, my best suggestion is pray that Sully Sullenberger is your pilot. ‘Nuf said on that subject.
Here's a part if my USAF background and my obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I tend to follow crew directions. When they say it's time to turn off all electronic devices, I turn them off. I do not try to read that extra paragraph or send that extra text message or get that extra high score at Tetris or Pong or whatever. I am stunned by the number of people, adults, I mean, who just ignore that. Now I’m no expert in avionics but I am a pretty good amateur scientist when it comes to gravity. I know for a fact things that go up come down. They tell you to turn these things off for a reason. I don’t care if the chances of a stray electron screwing up the avionics is vanishingly small. If the chances are not zero, WHY TAKE THE F@CKING CHANCE? It bugs me to have to turn off my iPad and not be able to read below 10,000 feet but I also understand that they do these things for a reason.
Stephanie Miller claims that every time she flies it’s on Screaming Baby Airlines. I will admit to being fortunate to have almost never been subjected to infants crying on a flight. That’s not to say it won't happen in the future but thus far I have been spared.
Remember that I like flying and everything that goes along with it. One of the things that go along with flying is rough air. Having been through weather training as part of my flight training I understand a bit of what to expect in terms of winds and turbulent air. Here’s one of my dirty little secrets: I get a kick out of turbulence. I don't mean the kind that is so rough that food and beverage service become impossible. (And, FYI, that is how the severity of turbulence is gauged, how difficult food and beverage service is.) No, I mean the kind that you would pay an A ticket at the amusement park to experience. The worst I have ever experienced was when twenty or so of us were flying to Spokane, Wash. to attend USAF Basic Survival training. Over the Cascade Mountains we experienced severe turbulence which we uniformed smart asses were enjoying. An old lady sitting among us, however, cursed at us because she assumed the pilot was doing it for our benefit. My daughter just thinks I’m insane.
Oh, and of course, whenever possible, I have to sit next to a window. Why you ask? Well, it’s simple. If the GPS (SatNav for you Euro folk), INS and all the other navigational gear malfunctions, I need to be near a window so I can see outside and save the day by doing map-reading dead-reckoning navigation. I AM a qualified navigator, you know. (My fraternity big brother was also in the USAF and he was a KC-135 pilot. That’s the military version of the Boeing 707. He always had the fantasy that both pilots would have heart attacks and he would be the one to save the day by flying the airplane. I also figure I could do a reasonable job in those circumstances. I have over 1500 hours of airline flight time on Microsoft Flight Simulator.)
The first time I ever set foot on an airplane was in July 1969. My mother and I were doing a three week tour to Israel, Rome, Zurich and London. Even then I knew I needed to sit next to the window. My mother was in the center seat. About an hour after we climbed out of JFK, she nudges me and says, “What’s that thing?” I look out the window expecting to see another airplane or a flying saucer or the Starship Enterprise. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary I ask what she’s talking about. “That thing. The thing following us.” Again, I look out the window. Mind you, we were sitting on the starboard side about where the wing root hits the fuselage and the airframe was a 707. Again, seeing nothing, I ask what she’s talking about. Now clearly agitated, she says, “The thing following us right next to us.” I look again and it dawns on me. I ask her if she means the thing that says “EL AL” in English and Hebrew. She says, “Yes! That thing that’s following us.” I then have to explain that the thing she is referring to is an engine and if it’s NOT following us we’re all in deep doo-doo. Later that same trip, on the flight from Tel Aviv to Rome, we were delayed several hours. El-Al was short of airframes and had to rent one from UTA. So, teenage smartass that I was, I ask the crew why we had to get one from Hertz Rent-a-Plane. I followed that one up by asking if the delay was because they were waiting for the glue on the wings to dry. You could get away with that sort of thing in 1969, even in Israel.
I mentioned earlier that airline seat belts are pretty simple to figure out. Ever look at the seat belt arrangement for the flight crew? In addition to the lap belt, there is also a shoulder harness with an inertia-reel locking mechanism, just like in your car. That means that at a certain deceleration, the belt locks and holds you in place. Now, with exception of cars like the Bugatti Veyron or Ferrari 599, most cars top out at well under the speed at which most airliners land. And what do they want you to do in an emergency? Lean forward against the seat in front of you. Why, you may ask? Well, to prevent you being thrown forward when the air frame comes to a rest, usually pretty suddenly. Being thrown forward in such circumstances can snap your spine like a dry twig. (That’s why Yankees catcher Thurman Munson died in his plane crash. He did not have his shoulder harness on and his back broke. Paralyzed, he was unable to escape from the flaming aircraft.) Anyway, as so often, I digress. If your car has a shoulder harness mandated by Federal regulations, why don’t airline seats? Two explanations have been put forward. The first is a crock: it would make people nervous. Does it make them nervous in an eighty-mile per hour car? Then why should it make them nervous in a 580 mph airplane? The real reason is the cost. The airlines don’t want to go to the expense of retrofitting shoulder harnesses. So, folks, as with so many other things associated with airlines, just keep bending over.
And finally, we come to landings. They are another segment of flight where, when you travel with Joy and/or me, you will hear the same sort of things every time. As a B-52 navigator, I learned to dread the prospect of the co-pilot landing the aircraft. They tend to slam the air frame onto the runway and bounce a bit, mostly because they are less experienced and get fewer landings than the aircraft commander a/k/a pilot. So, as soon as we touch down and the air brakes deploy, one of us will make an evaluation as to whether the pilot or co-pilot landed.
There is one final postscript to flying and that’s the getting the luggage at your destination. In all the times I have ever flown, I have only had two incidents of lost luggage. The first was in the USAF days when I was returning from B-52 training. Guess which one they lost. Yes, the one with all my flying gear. That was fun explaining it to my squadron commander until United managed to locate it and get it to me. The second time was the fault of the idiot who mistook my bag for hers. Joy, Sara and I have our own TV reference for the baggage carousel, too. If you have every seen the North Africa episode of “Absolutely Fabulous,” you will immediately understand why one of us will always say something along the lines of, “Gee. I wonder where Patsy and Eddie are.”
So there you have it, my take on commercial aviation. It’s not exactly like flying or navigating the airplane yourself but it’s the best I’ve got. Joy knows I’m like a puppy dog. Want me to agree to go somewhere? Just say, “But you’ll get to fly on an airplane.” You had me at “fly.”
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The Winter is Cold
It starts much like a snowstorm in winter. The clouds gather, gradually blotting out the blue and what little warmth there is from the sun. They darken and lower. Grayness prevails and the temperature falls. Then, almost unseen, the first snowflake descends. Maybe it even melts when it touches something. Gradually more flakes drift down. White spots begin to appear on the ground. The intensity increases and soon there is nothing but a blanket of white. Cold white. Chilling white. Eventually the world has been transformed from colors and warmth to a monochromatic white. Except it’s not really white. It is really all shades of gray. Gray as far as the eye can see. And cold. Very cold.
I cannot think of a better metaphor for how it feels when I sink into a depressive episode. Recognizing that there is a physical aspect to what causes depressive illness, it is consistent that it seems that, physically, I can feel the effects. The world does seem gray and without color. My vision seems to narrow. I have to be exceptionally wary when driving. My doctor long ago said that depression is an accident-probe state. I am fortunate in that the rational part of me is aware of that and does what it can to maintain a watch and help me avoid accidents.
There was a time, a bit over a year ago, when I felt an elevation to my mood that I had never felt before. I felt happy. It was an unfamiliar feeling as I had come to equate “happiness” with the absence of depression. If I wasn’t feeling down, it was as close as I got being happy. (Let me digress a moment and say that I’m not referring to momentary happiness such as when my team or favorite driver wins the championship. Or the lightness of a good joke or something funny on TV. I mean an overall state of elevated mood where one feels good about themselves and the world around them.) But a year or so ago I was feeling happy. My mood was elevated. I enjoyed life and everything around me. I believed, really believed that I had broken through to a new plateau and that I had beaten the demon.
I’m not sure where those feeling evaporated to and how they left me. I just know that one day my “new normal” was back to the same old normal. And what was worse was that I had touched the brass ring. I had seen behind the curtain. And I had believed that I had come out of a lifetime of fear that I would never enjoy life. The reality, however, was that that period appears to have been the aberration. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. Only now the sweet taste has become the bitter ashes of those memories.
I have long believed that one of the worst questions to ask is “Why?” The classic answer is “because” or “why not?” That doesn’t stop me from asking it. They “why” in this context is, “Why can’t I be happy for more than a few seconds at a time?” I’m sure a physiologist can provide all sorts of wonderfully scientific explanations about serotonin-reuptake and how SSRI medications help but don’t really cure. Great. I understand the theory. I’m questioning the reality.
If wishes were fishes….We’ve all made wishes. Not too long ago I was asked what would I consider to be a great accomplishment. My answer was to be able to live inside my own skin and like myself. Intellectually, I know I’m not an unlikable person. I have lived with my wife for almost thirty-seven years and she loves me. Most of the time she even likes me. I have friends and colleagues who like and respect me. The rational part of me sits inside my head, peering out from behind the snow bank and screams at the feeling part of me. But that feeling part of me is deaf, dumb and blind to all those blandishments. He is unable to experience what Mr. Rational screams is reality. I can experience, in a detached sense, what Mr. Rational is saying. But Mr. Emotional is unable to see it that way. And the gray persists. And, now that I thin about it, maybe a better name would be Mr. Irrational.
Every time it has happened, so far, I have recovered from the downturn. That’s kind of like a sailor on a submarine saying that every time they have submerged they have returned to the surface. But it only takes once, one time when it becomes impossible to resurface to ruin that record forever. Although not debilitating (so far), there is always the fear that this time I won’t return to “normal.” Having experienced the depths to which depression can drag one, it’s not a pleasant circumstance to contemplate. And fear breeds fear.
Why am I telling you all this? Two reasons and the first of them is horribly selfish. The truth is that writing about things like this gives me some small comfort that I can write rationally and honestly about depression and its effects. The second, however, is an effort to help. I know a number of my friends suffer from similar bouts of depression, It’s not just the “blues.” It’s not just a matter of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. It’s not just saying one day, “I’m not going to be depressed anymore.” It’s a daily and sometime brutal and deadly struggle. If what I write resonates at all and offers the slightest comfort that YOU ARE NOT ALONE it has been worthwhile.
Now is the winter of our discontent. Unfortunately, right now there is no glorious sun of York or any other sun visible.
I cannot think of a better metaphor for how it feels when I sink into a depressive episode. Recognizing that there is a physical aspect to what causes depressive illness, it is consistent that it seems that, physically, I can feel the effects. The world does seem gray and without color. My vision seems to narrow. I have to be exceptionally wary when driving. My doctor long ago said that depression is an accident-probe state. I am fortunate in that the rational part of me is aware of that and does what it can to maintain a watch and help me avoid accidents.
There was a time, a bit over a year ago, when I felt an elevation to my mood that I had never felt before. I felt happy. It was an unfamiliar feeling as I had come to equate “happiness” with the absence of depression. If I wasn’t feeling down, it was as close as I got being happy. (Let me digress a moment and say that I’m not referring to momentary happiness such as when my team or favorite driver wins the championship. Or the lightness of a good joke or something funny on TV. I mean an overall state of elevated mood where one feels good about themselves and the world around them.) But a year or so ago I was feeling happy. My mood was elevated. I enjoyed life and everything around me. I believed, really believed that I had broken through to a new plateau and that I had beaten the demon.
I’m not sure where those feeling evaporated to and how they left me. I just know that one day my “new normal” was back to the same old normal. And what was worse was that I had touched the brass ring. I had seen behind the curtain. And I had believed that I had come out of a lifetime of fear that I would never enjoy life. The reality, however, was that that period appears to have been the aberration. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. Only now the sweet taste has become the bitter ashes of those memories.
I have long believed that one of the worst questions to ask is “Why?” The classic answer is “because” or “why not?” That doesn’t stop me from asking it. They “why” in this context is, “Why can’t I be happy for more than a few seconds at a time?” I’m sure a physiologist can provide all sorts of wonderfully scientific explanations about serotonin-reuptake and how SSRI medications help but don’t really cure. Great. I understand the theory. I’m questioning the reality.
If wishes were fishes….We’ve all made wishes. Not too long ago I was asked what would I consider to be a great accomplishment. My answer was to be able to live inside my own skin and like myself. Intellectually, I know I’m not an unlikable person. I have lived with my wife for almost thirty-seven years and she loves me. Most of the time she even likes me. I have friends and colleagues who like and respect me. The rational part of me sits inside my head, peering out from behind the snow bank and screams at the feeling part of me. But that feeling part of me is deaf, dumb and blind to all those blandishments. He is unable to experience what Mr. Rational screams is reality. I can experience, in a detached sense, what Mr. Rational is saying. But Mr. Emotional is unable to see it that way. And the gray persists. And, now that I thin about it, maybe a better name would be Mr. Irrational.
Every time it has happened, so far, I have recovered from the downturn. That’s kind of like a sailor on a submarine saying that every time they have submerged they have returned to the surface. But it only takes once, one time when it becomes impossible to resurface to ruin that record forever. Although not debilitating (so far), there is always the fear that this time I won’t return to “normal.” Having experienced the depths to which depression can drag one, it’s not a pleasant circumstance to contemplate. And fear breeds fear.
Why am I telling you all this? Two reasons and the first of them is horribly selfish. The truth is that writing about things like this gives me some small comfort that I can write rationally and honestly about depression and its effects. The second, however, is an effort to help. I know a number of my friends suffer from similar bouts of depression, It’s not just the “blues.” It’s not just a matter of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. It’s not just saying one day, “I’m not going to be depressed anymore.” It’s a daily and sometime brutal and deadly struggle. If what I write resonates at all and offers the slightest comfort that YOU ARE NOT ALONE it has been worthwhile.
Now is the winter of our discontent. Unfortunately, right now there is no glorious sun of York or any other sun visible.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Biopsy-Daisy Redux
Those of you who remember my original experience with the wonderful experience of a prostate biopsy last year will recall the initial panic-mode into which it flipped me. I’m proud to say that, much as familiarity breeds contempt, it also helps prepare one.
The good news about this round is that it came one year after the last one. How, might one ask, is this good news? Well, that’s very simple. The alternative would have been every six months. (See? Every silver lining has a cloud. Or something like that.) Anyway, six months after the first biopsy, I had my six month check-up. The pre-check-up blood test showed that my PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen, the marker for the potential of prostate problems) was down from the previous measurement, a positive sign. That still wasn’t sufficient to ward off another “manual pat down” of the gland in question. But it was sufficient for my doctor to say that, at this point, a six-month biopsy is not necessary. Yes, I walked out of the officer quite content that day, despite having scheduled the NEXT biopsy before we left.
Now, as medical procedures go, a prostate biopsy is really not all that bad. Intrusive in a sensitive area? Yes. Bad? No. I know that now, having been through it already. So last year’s sense of panic, unknown and impending doom was completely absent this year. Would I prefer not having to endure it? Absolutely. But, hey, I’m a veteran now.
The date of this round was exactly one week from the day we returned home from our sojourn in the Caribbean. The day before I left to fly down to Florida, I had gone to the lab to have my blood drawn. (Blood tests, at one time, were enough to cause me to become weak-kneed. And that was before they even inserted the needle. I’m a big boy now, though.) This would be the pre-biopsy PSA screen. It wouldn’t affect whether or not I was going to have the biopsy. That was a done deal. But it’s to continue tracking the PSA level as a guide for future decisions. So, having gotten that bit of unpleasantness and bloodshed out of the way, I headed off to cruise the sunny southern climes.
Apparently, there was a stomach bug of some kind running around on the ship. It didn’t affect me during the trip (although it got my mother-in-law by the time we returned to Fort Lauderdale) but it caught up with me during the week. Having just returned from vacation, I was out for the Thursday and Friday of that week. One thing that feeling miserable does is it prevents you from dwelling on other things. By the time I had recovered sufficiently to say, “Oh crap, biopsy on Monday,” it was already Sunday.
The procedure was scheduled for 0900, so we were up at 0630. There is a minor thing to be done within two hours of then scheduled procedure which is a mini-version of a colonoscopy prep. ‘Nuff said. You figure it out…or not. So, having endured that bit of indignity, I sat down to have a cup of coffee and read the morning comics and sports section of the newspaper.
Now, I may be a veteran and know what to expect, but there was no way I was going through this without resorting to better living through chemistry. I recalled the spacing of the happy pills last time and began replicating the dosage schedule. Now, for me, the gold standard of pre-procedure dosing was my vasectomy where one and a half pills put me into la-la land.
With last year’s biopsy, I did not get the same “knock-out punch” even after three pills. It was just enough, but my index is how aware I am of what’s going on around me. This year, after two, I was all too aware. Apparently, though, my subjective assessment of my mental state and Joy’s objective observation of it were two almost unrelated things. I started to take a third pill and she made me give her the pill bottle before I got another pill out of it. That set off a round of debate between the two of us as to whether I was to be allowed the third magic pill. (Mind you, this is while sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. And because I also had my iPod with earplugs on, I wasn’t doing a very effective job of voice moderation.)
Joy finally said it was too late for me to take another one for it to have an effect before the procedure. Lawyer that I am, I made the counter argument that even if that was the case, the placebo effect of taking another one outweighed her argument. Finally, I suspect, just to shut me up, she let me have another one…but not before she broke it in half. Well, half a loaf….
Shortly thereafter, my name was called an I headed into the torture chamber…oops, I mean examination and treatment area of the office. Having obeyed the instruction to go the head and empty my bladder I shuffled off to the indicated room. Pants and underpants, off, up on the table, iPod earphones in my ears, My Favorites playlist running and curled into a fetal position on my left side. I was as ready as I was going to be.
T.M.I. WARNING: Read the remainder of this paragraph at your own risk for T.M.I. You have been warned! Recalling the last experience, I knew the biggest issue for me was the two injections to numb the area (remember I am needle-phobic). Not this year! I will have to have a discussion with my doctor when I see him for the results and follow-up. Last year, the probe was absolutely no issue. This year, it felt like the probe had not been lubricated! Damn it! And I didn’t even get flowers or dinner first! Maybe that bit of discomfort was to mask the feeling of the injections but they did not bother me as much as last year. OK! All downhill from here. WRONG! After the first probe is removed a second one is inserted as a guide for the biopsy needles. Once again, someone forgot to sufficiently lubricate the probe.
Oh, and before I forget to mention it, once I was sufficiently numb (and this year I could actually feel that) the doctor who would perform the actual biopsy walked in. She walked around and introduced herself. Yes, I said she. (Okay ladies, I know all about the number of OB-GYNs who are men.) That was a bit of surprise. I kind of said “Hi” and went back to singing along with my iPod.
The biopsy itself fells like someone is snapping you with a thick rubber band, but well up inside. Ten snaps later, we were done. Cleaned up and dressed, I walked back out to the waiting room. Now I was just hungry so we went downstairs to the restaurant and got breakfast. The effect of caffeine (coffee) and adrenaline (Wow! It’s over!) caused me to be wide-awake and not feeling at all medicated.
In the aftermath, this time, I felt sore and internally uncomfortable which I don’t recall from last year. That, however, was easily addressed with Tylenol. By the next day that, too had passed. So now it’s just a matter of waiting to get the results (which will be in two weeks). Am I worried? Not overly much. But there’s always that little bit of anxiety whenever the term “biopsy” is involved. But for now, mission accomplished.
The good news about this round is that it came one year after the last one. How, might one ask, is this good news? Well, that’s very simple. The alternative would have been every six months. (See? Every silver lining has a cloud. Or something like that.) Anyway, six months after the first biopsy, I had my six month check-up. The pre-check-up blood test showed that my PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen, the marker for the potential of prostate problems) was down from the previous measurement, a positive sign. That still wasn’t sufficient to ward off another “manual pat down” of the gland in question. But it was sufficient for my doctor to say that, at this point, a six-month biopsy is not necessary. Yes, I walked out of the officer quite content that day, despite having scheduled the NEXT biopsy before we left.
Now, as medical procedures go, a prostate biopsy is really not all that bad. Intrusive in a sensitive area? Yes. Bad? No. I know that now, having been through it already. So last year’s sense of panic, unknown and impending doom was completely absent this year. Would I prefer not having to endure it? Absolutely. But, hey, I’m a veteran now.
The date of this round was exactly one week from the day we returned home from our sojourn in the Caribbean. The day before I left to fly down to Florida, I had gone to the lab to have my blood drawn. (Blood tests, at one time, were enough to cause me to become weak-kneed. And that was before they even inserted the needle. I’m a big boy now, though.) This would be the pre-biopsy PSA screen. It wouldn’t affect whether or not I was going to have the biopsy. That was a done deal. But it’s to continue tracking the PSA level as a guide for future decisions. So, having gotten that bit of unpleasantness and bloodshed out of the way, I headed off to cruise the sunny southern climes.
Apparently, there was a stomach bug of some kind running around on the ship. It didn’t affect me during the trip (although it got my mother-in-law by the time we returned to Fort Lauderdale) but it caught up with me during the week. Having just returned from vacation, I was out for the Thursday and Friday of that week. One thing that feeling miserable does is it prevents you from dwelling on other things. By the time I had recovered sufficiently to say, “Oh crap, biopsy on Monday,” it was already Sunday.
The procedure was scheduled for 0900, so we were up at 0630. There is a minor thing to be done within two hours of then scheduled procedure which is a mini-version of a colonoscopy prep. ‘Nuff said. You figure it out…or not. So, having endured that bit of indignity, I sat down to have a cup of coffee and read the morning comics and sports section of the newspaper.
Now, I may be a veteran and know what to expect, but there was no way I was going through this without resorting to better living through chemistry. I recalled the spacing of the happy pills last time and began replicating the dosage schedule. Now, for me, the gold standard of pre-procedure dosing was my vasectomy where one and a half pills put me into la-la land.
With last year’s biopsy, I did not get the same “knock-out punch” even after three pills. It was just enough, but my index is how aware I am of what’s going on around me. This year, after two, I was all too aware. Apparently, though, my subjective assessment of my mental state and Joy’s objective observation of it were two almost unrelated things. I started to take a third pill and she made me give her the pill bottle before I got another pill out of it. That set off a round of debate between the two of us as to whether I was to be allowed the third magic pill. (Mind you, this is while sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. And because I also had my iPod with earplugs on, I wasn’t doing a very effective job of voice moderation.)
Joy finally said it was too late for me to take another one for it to have an effect before the procedure. Lawyer that I am, I made the counter argument that even if that was the case, the placebo effect of taking another one outweighed her argument. Finally, I suspect, just to shut me up, she let me have another one…but not before she broke it in half. Well, half a loaf….
Shortly thereafter, my name was called an I headed into the torture chamber…oops, I mean examination and treatment area of the office. Having obeyed the instruction to go the head and empty my bladder I shuffled off to the indicated room. Pants and underpants, off, up on the table, iPod earphones in my ears, My Favorites playlist running and curled into a fetal position on my left side. I was as ready as I was going to be.
T.M.I. WARNING: Read the remainder of this paragraph at your own risk for T.M.I. You have been warned! Recalling the last experience, I knew the biggest issue for me was the two injections to numb the area (remember I am needle-phobic). Not this year! I will have to have a discussion with my doctor when I see him for the results and follow-up. Last year, the probe was absolutely no issue. This year, it felt like the probe had not been lubricated! Damn it! And I didn’t even get flowers or dinner first! Maybe that bit of discomfort was to mask the feeling of the injections but they did not bother me as much as last year. OK! All downhill from here. WRONG! After the first probe is removed a second one is inserted as a guide for the biopsy needles. Once again, someone forgot to sufficiently lubricate the probe.
Oh, and before I forget to mention it, once I was sufficiently numb (and this year I could actually feel that) the doctor who would perform the actual biopsy walked in. She walked around and introduced herself. Yes, I said she. (Okay ladies, I know all about the number of OB-GYNs who are men.) That was a bit of surprise. I kind of said “Hi” and went back to singing along with my iPod.
The biopsy itself fells like someone is snapping you with a thick rubber band, but well up inside. Ten snaps later, we were done. Cleaned up and dressed, I walked back out to the waiting room. Now I was just hungry so we went downstairs to the restaurant and got breakfast. The effect of caffeine (coffee) and adrenaline (Wow! It’s over!) caused me to be wide-awake and not feeling at all medicated.
In the aftermath, this time, I felt sore and internally uncomfortable which I don’t recall from last year. That, however, was easily addressed with Tylenol. By the next day that, too had passed. So now it’s just a matter of waiting to get the results (which will be in two weeks). Am I worried? Not overly much. But there’s always that little bit of anxiety whenever the term “biopsy” is involved. But for now, mission accomplished.
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