How Do You Jew

There’s that Kaiser joke I was looking for the other day…

Anyway, I realized I forgot to post the proof of my daughter’s cuteness from that visit, so I needed to come back here, and I also got some more information about the reasoning behind her not getting the shot a day early.

First, the cuteness (with apologies for the low quality; I took this with my Treo 650):

Now, the reasoning, which still is irritating but at least makes more sense than the “she might be given an extra shot because no one would know she got this one” explanation I got on Tuesday.
A nurse who heard me talking about Hadarya’s ordeal at the doctor’s office the other day was quick to explain that the CDC monitors vaccinations and levies fines on clinics/doctors that violate the timeline. Thus, it would have cost Kaiser $10,000 if they’d violated the timeline (and gotten caught, I guess). All this is one nurse’s version, of course, and I took it with a dose of salt, but it was certainly more satisfying than the first excuse I heard.

Oh, and the follow-up appointment with the shot today went fine. Barely a flinch, and we’re good until the 2-year physical/checkup.

OK, that was a stretch, but I couldn’t come up with a good Kaiser joke. I just need to vent my frustration at the situation I encountered yesterday when I took Hadarya for a physical and vaccination appointment.

Now, I’ll begin by saying that we love Hadarya’s pediatrician. Dr. S is a sweet, caring professional who takes her time with us and seems genuinely enamored with our little girl. Unfortunately, she works for an organization that is peopled with automatons blindly following rules and regulations and apparently at the mercy of the computer system they so proudly inaugurated within the last year or so. See, we made this appointment a couple of months ago to make up for the 18-month checkup we missed because Hadarya was sick, and the automaton who made the appointment had access to all our previous visits, of course. We are first-time parents, so there was no way for us to know that the second Hep A shot Hadarya needed had to be given at least six full months after the first one. Kaiser staff who work in the pediatrics department, on the other hand, should presumably be informed of this fact, yet our appointment was set for a date exactly one day short of this six-month period. Thus it was that after checking Hadarya out and giving her a clean bill of health, the doctor informed me that we were early and she was so sorry.

Did I mention that all this was happening between 8 & 10 in the morning, meaning that I was missing work?

She went on to say (in between further apologies) that Hadarya could, in fact, get the shot, but that the computer system wouldn’t register the early shot and that someone might try to give Hadarya another Hep A booster after the six-month mark passed. I was so flabbergasted and pissed about the one-day error, that it didn’t occur to me until after I made another appointment for later in the week and left the medical offices to argue with this absurd line of illogic. How, exactly, with me (and, by extension, Jenn) knowing that Hadarya got her shot already, would someone else give it to her again without our knowledge or consent? It’s not like she takes herself to these appointments. Yes, she’s developmentally advanced, but even we don’t think she’s THAT precocious.

I honestly got more angry with myself after I left the medical offices than I had been at the system. I was mad for not standing up for myself and my innocent daughter, to whom I’d given a prophylactic dose of Tylenol to help ease the anticipated pain of the shot and who would now have to go through another doctor’s office visit, with all the inconvenience that entailed for all of us. I was mad that I yet again allowed myself to be cowed by the arbitrary authority of someone in a white coat, while I find myself able to rail against all sorts of authority when not faced with it directly.

Yeah… I guess that’s it: I felt like a wimp, and that made me mad, because that’s the last thing a father wants to feel like, no matter how old his little girl is.

Yeah, yeah, so I’m a parent now, so that’s supposed to make me all “mature” and “grown up” and blahblahblah?!

HA!

We took our daughter to the doctor yesterday, as she’s had a rash on her torso for several days that turned out NOT to be heat rash; she also displayed a decreased appetite over the last couple of days and was sneezing a lot, so we thought it was time. The nice people at Kaiser agreed it was time, but exactly WHAT time was still a matter of some argument (they gave me a 7:15 PM appointment, neglecting to mention that it was actually a 7:30 appointment and that they ask you to check in 15 min. ahead of time. Really? My daughter is 19 months old and we’ve made every appointment the same way for the last year and a half; I KNOW about the 15 min. rule, jackass. Thus we were at the clinic 30 minutes early instead of just 15, and the doctor still didn’t come in until after 8 PM, but who’s counting?).

Anyway, our angelic daughter again behaved perfectly and amazingly well for a toddler well past her bedtime and in a foreign environment, and when the doc (a very nice man with three names AND a roman numeral after his name!) finally checked her out, he quickly (after a peek at her rash and down her throat) diagnosed “hand, foot and mouth disease.”

I’ll let that sink in.

This is the same girl who’s had not one, but TWO perforated eardrums in the last month or so, as well as a bout of roseola. She can’t just get a common cold. No, she has to pick up the virus that sounds a lot like the one that causes Mad Cow Disease (it’s not the same; I’m just sayin’…).

The doc gave us this news with the sort of demeanor that kept me somewhat calm despite myself. He said it’s a viral infection and will go away by itself. Then he identified the virus by its official name, and I… well, I immediately knew I’d be blogging about it, for one thing.

Coxsackie.

Come on! Really?! Cock-sacky?

Now I don’t want to make fun of historically significant place names (OK, maybe I do, but let that go for a minute), and I understand that it’s derived from a Native American term, but there are limits to my restraint, people! I’m only human.

It strikes me that my generation of geeks is going to run into this more and more - life situations that make us giggle inwardly (or out loud) because of some pop culture association we make with an otherwise innocuous word, phrase, or visual. For me, it’ll usually be a Monty Python scene or line that’ll come up, or something from HHGTTG, Star Wars, or one of the other big- or little-screen or hardbound companions from my childhood/adolescence. But other times, like last night at the doctor’s office, it’ll just be a silly-sounding word that’ll make me turn into one of the boys from South Park, forever laughing at bathroom humor.

Coxsackie.
Coxsackie.
CoxsackieCoxsackieCoxsackie.

Heh.

1. A terrific profile of Melinda Gates from CNNMoney.com/Fortune. My favorite snarky moment:

She made valedictorian and got into Notre Dame. But Notre Dame did not get her. When she and her dad visited, she recalls, officials at the university told them that “computers are a fad” and that they were shrinking the computer science department. “I was crushed,” Melinda says. Duke, which was expanding in computer science, got her instead.

2. Guns don’t kill people. People don’t kill people. Dogs with guns kill people.

Last time we traveled to the east coast with Hadarya, in March, we kept her pretty much on west coast time, which prevented shifting back when we went home. At that time, naps weren’t as important, and she was sleeping through the night really well, so it worked out great.

This time, her schedule is important, and we’re out here for five days, and today (the first day) was weird. It’s as if she really knows we traveled far enough for her to say up on local time to make it easier on us overnight, but it certainly didn’t seem that way for me, since I didn’t sleep much on our redeye flight out here last night.

What I’m saying is, I’m tired, you know?

We got up bright and early this morning to walk 5K in downtown San Diego to raise money for Jewish Family Service and the San Diego Food Bank. Felt good. Ran into many people we know, and saw the power of grassroots passionate politics in action: two Ron Paul supporters I saw walked the entire route with extra promotional material showing their allegiance.

One carried a “Ron Paul - Hope for America” preprinted cardboard sign, raised in his right hand, the whole length of the walk/race, during parts of which he faced runners coming the other way. A few people offered cheers in response as they ran by, and one lady came up to him and asked him who Ron Paul was while I was walking next to him. In my opinion, he got into way too much technical detail and talked too much, and possibly lost the lady by the time she managed to extricate herself and walk on, but that’s the risk you take with a candidate who doesn’t have a well-oiled campaign spin machine with professionally distributed talking points, etc. This guy turned out to be a very recent convert to the cause (like one month ago recent), which also explains the rusty preaching. If it were me, the spiel would be something like:

• He’s a strict constitutionalist
• He’s the most principled, honest, straightforward congressman on the Hill
• He wants to end the war in Iraq/bring the troops home immediately
• He wants to reduce the size and power of the federal government, and
• He wants to increase and protect your personal freedoms and liberty (by, among other things, repealing the Patriot Act)

But that’s just me. I’m not even sure I’m going to vote for the guy.

The second supporter ran the entire race while towing a Radio Flyer wagon plastered and stacked with Ron Paul stickers and signs. I didn’t talk to him, but seeing both these guys was eye-opening. No other candidate was visible in the race - I don’t recall ANY t-shirts, let alone anything more visible like what these guys did. It’s amazing to me how passionate Dr. Paul’s supporters are, and it makes me sad that the entire electorate doesn’t share this passion.

Most people vote for one of two reasons, I think: 1) for convenience (how I used to vote), or 2) for who they think will win, as long as the candidate is within a very broad margin of where the voter’s interests lie. I decided several years ago to stop voting for convenience and start voting my conscience. I’ve thus technically “wasted” my vote a few times, voting for libertarian and other independent and other party candidates who have very little chance of winning the seats they’re running for. But I recognized at the time I made this decision that my vote is not really wasted - in fact, I’m getting more value out of my vote than most people, because… I was going to say because I can sleep at night, but I’m sure most other people don’t have sleeping problems based on their voting record, mostly because they’re too complacent and content to feed on the bullshit that the political machine and mainstream mass media feed them. They also probably think that, in the few cases where they actually do care about something and it’s not going the way they want, they can’t make a difference, so they don’t try, and resign themselves to the status quo. I want to raise my daughter to be a true critical thinker with advanced analytical skills applicable to all aspects of life, and to always know that she CAN, in fact, make a difference, so I will not be one of the mindless masses meandering about making do with meaningless materiality.

Where was I? Oh, yes, the 5K walk… Anyhow, after that we went home and all three of us took a nice nap, then got our day going getting ready for the family-and-friends feast at the Meltzers’, which didn’t disappoint. Among the highlights of the afternoon/evening was finally meeting and getting to know Rav Menashe East and his wife (and their adorable infant daughter). We’ll be spending a considerable amount of time next summer with them in Israel, so it was good (not surprising, but still good) to discover they’re cut from the finest quality menschlichkeit cloth.

Which means that since it got dark a few hours ago, I’ve felt like it’s Shabbat and I shouldn’t blog until after… but it’s not Shabbat, it’s Erev Thanksgiving, and there’s nothing to prevent me from writing, using the computer, etc.

Jenn spent much of the day cooking and baking for Thanksgiving, which we’ll be celebrating at the Meltzers’ with a bunch of extended family and friends. I successfully lobbied one of my favorite community organizations (in this case, Ohr Shalom Synagogue) to send out an email to the membership about the Give One Get One program I wrote about yesterday. Phyllis & Joel commented on Jenn’s post about the Bone Marrow Donor Appreciation event. Hadarya had a great day and a good evening, including when we went down to minyan.

This week’s parasha is Vayishlach, which includes the story of Yaakov’s struggle (commonly translated as “wrestling”) with… well, with someone - the Hebrew is ha-ish = the man, but this is usually understood as an angel of God. Tonight, though, we looked at four possibilities of who the struggle could have been with:

1. God
2. An Angel/messenger of God
3. Yaakov himself
4. Esav (Esau, Yaakov’s twin)

The discussion that ensued about each of these was the richest exploration of this story I’ve ever engaged in. My contributions included the following:

• Assuming the struggle was with God, I thought of the conversation God has with Moses later in the Torah (verse 20) when Moses asks to see God’s face and God tells Moses that “no man can see my face and live.” That said, Yaakov may have gotten so close to God by engaging in this “struggle” that he came away with a physical wound (the hobbled leg, the limp).
• If it was an Angel (and somewhat spanning the possibility of a struggle within himself): Yaakov remembered, of course, the dream he’d had some 20 years before of the ladder with angels climbing up and down. This time, rather than remaining passive and simply watching, he tried to engage his visitor. He was more mature, more ready this time, but it was still a serious spiritual and physical challenge, and he came away changed (spiritually with the name change, physically with the limp).
• If the sparring partner was Esav, the thing that struck me most was the parallel of lower limbs in their history: at the beginning of their lives, Yaakov grasped at Esav’s heel, then engaged in some rather unsavory behavior to usurp his brother’s birthright. Here, decades later, HIS leg is injured, mirroring his brother’s “wound,” and the very next day, Yaakov and Esav meet and reconcile.

There was some very nice input (not mine; I think it was Rabbi Scott’s) on this last option, raising the possibility that Yaakov and Esav had to have a physical confrontation, a cathartic wrestling match, to get out their aggression and relieve their longstanding animosity, and that only after this fight could they embrace and kiss and weep.

All in all, a nice lead-in to the holiday. Tomorrow first thing in the morning we head downtown for the 5K Walk for the Hungry, then relax and eventually head to dinner to give thanks ourselves. Happy holiday!

1. I’m on Rabbi David Wolpe’s weekly d’var Torah email list. He can say more with fewer words than almost anyone I’ve ever met. Anyway, a few days ago I received a special message from him:

Below is a mitzvah of worldwide significance. This program, which involves all faiths and nations, is an attempt to bring computers, curricula, and education to the very poorest parts of the world. By purchasing one remarkably inexpensive – yet remarkably effective – computer – you will enable a poor child to receive a computer as well. If you decide simply to donate both, or more, that would be an even greater mitzvah. This is limited; we have only two weeks to act. Let us join people from all over the world seeking to help those who crave knowledge, information, connection. These computers work without electricity and are specially designed to enable the poorest children to benefit. The Talmud teaches that Jews are rachamim b’nei rachamim – merciful people and the children of merciful people. Please show your mercy to children all over the world.

The program he’s referring to is the Give One Get One promotion of One Laptop Per Child, which I’ve been aware of since its inception several years ago by Nicholas Negroponte. I’m hopeful that Jenn and I can find the extra cash somewhere to get involved directly, but I wanted to put it out there for you to see as well, so you could decide if it was worthwhile.

2. In the news over the last couple of days is the recent discovery by Japanese and American scientists that they could essentially transform human skin cells into stem cells. This, too, could change the world, in entirely different ways than OLPC, but I love the thought that some kid with a laptop from OLPC could one day contribute to the effort to treat or cure a major disease using stem cells because he was given a window to the rest of the world by this program.

When we walked in to the UCSD Faculty Club tonight for the San Diego Blood Bank’s Stem Cell/Bone Marrow Donor Appreciation Dinner, we were excited to be back at this moving event, this time without our daughter, who was with us last year at the tender age of 6 weeks. Little did I know that my name appeared on this evening’s program as the featured speaker, with Phyllis’s and my story the central donor-recipient story. The staff at the donor center had called me a couple of weeks ago to ask me to be their backup speaker because they were having some trouble getting someone, and I agreed, but they never called back, so I assumed they’d found someone else. Imagine my surprise when Maria ran up to me tonight and sprung this surprise on me! Well, never one to turn down a gig, I had a Heineken, wrote a few notes down, and took the mic when it was handed to me.

After it was all over, it took us about 45 minutes to get out of there for all the people coming up to commiserate and compliment me and share their own donor/recipient stories. Mine, as I said in my remarks, has TWO happy endings (Phyllis’s survival and then Hadarya’s birth), but not all bone marrow donation stories end so well. In some cases, the patients succumb despite a matching donor being found and a transplant being carried out, but in far too many cases, patients die for lack of a donor. This is where you come in. Open a phone book or a new tab in your browser (what, you don’t use a tabbed browser? OK, open a new window, then) and look up your local bone marrow/stem cell donor center (likely affiliated with your local blood bank). Call the center, and make an appointment to register with the National Marrow Donor Program. It’ll only cost you a small blood sample, but the difference you may make in someone’s life is immeasurable.

Also, you may get to correspond with a rock legend.

But that’s not the point. The point is you could save a life, and the person whose life you save may have undoubtedly has other people who care about and love him/her, which means you’ll have changed their lives too. The collateral benefits add up, which is why the Talmud teaches us that “One who saves a life, it’s as if he has saved the whole world.”

Do it. Do it now.

Technically, Last Kiss is also a traditional comic, since it appears weekly in the Seattle Times, but John Lustig deserves the recognition anyway. He also distributes bonus strips via his email list, and his “gimmick,” if I may call it that, is a hoot:

Sure it’s schlock! But…

In late 1987, Charlton Comics was selling off the rights to all its comic books. By then, most of the “good stuff” had already been sold. What was left were series and genres (war, romance, western and horror) that had little appeal to modern American comic book fans—most of whom were only interested in superhero comics. Despite that, I had a vague idea that it might be possible to do something with the Charlton material.

For $400 I bought all rights to First Kiss - a 40-issue romance series published from 1957 to 1965. I took a gamble and bought the series sight unseen. It was the series with the most issues for the least amount of money. And I pretty much got what I paid for - schlock!

Oh, it had some good art too - stuff by Dick Giordano, Vince Colletta, Jon D’Agostino and others. But Charlton paid the lowest rates in comic books to its creators and to make a living artists and writers had to churn out stories very quickly. Speed was more important than quality.

And so, despite editor Pat Masulli’s pledge to readers on the first page of the series, First Kiss fell far short of being “the finest of the magazines dealing with affairs of the heart.” Instead, it was often shoddy and almost always quirky. Some stories (notably “Campus Crush” the first story in the first issue of First Kiss) don’t make much sense. Despite the now-quaint, 1950’s morality of these stories, there’s a nightmarish quality to many of them. Primary First Kiss writer Joe Gill was working much too fast to worry much about keeping characters consistent and logical. Anything can happen in First Kiss stories.

I guess that’s why I find them so entertaining.

The latest bonus from John prompted me to write him a quick fan/thank you note, based on my own experience with raising awareness and funds for cancer cures, and my personal involvement with saving a cancer patient’s life (have I mentioned that before?).