Son, Your pants seem to be on fire.

      I know I didn't post last week but how can you miss me if I don't go away? I was on vacation, I went out of town to visit my mind, I do miss it ever so much. Actually It wasn't much of a vacation I was stuck in the house with the little one who was off all week as well, trapped inside by the crappy weather. I suppose I could have wrote but it's hard to concentrate on my complaining when I also have to deal with a child's.

      I have a particular distaste for being lied too...and cauliflower...lies tweak that little part of my brain that hates not having all the available information I need as well as the thought that someone is purposely deceiving me. My kids are horrible liars though fortunately for me, not so much for them.
      I've walked out of the bedroom at 5 am to see one of my children with his hands and face covered in chocolate, eyes wide with panic, kinda like Michael Vick when he sees an animal control officer, and trying to convince me that he didn't eat any candy. The boy would stand there vehemently denying he touched the Halloween candy while still trying to chew and swallow it.
      Both my boys have pretty obvious tells, I won't give away my little one's secrets since he reads these and I need the edge, he is too smart for his own good. Some call it being precocious, I call it by more direct four letter words. As for my older one it's easy to tell if he's lying, he's talking to me. He trained me pretty well, he never told me the truth so I just stopped asking questions.
      As parents we constantly deal with the little lies.
      "Did you do your homework?."..."Yes"
      "Did you finish your veggies?"..."Yes"
      "Are you an evil spawn sent to our dimension for the sole purpose of the eradication of the human race?"..."No"
      See all lies.
      So two nights ago I asked my youngest bundle of joy to switch the wash into the dryer for me before he went to bed. He had asked me if he could stay up late to watch something and I let him so I figured he'd be thrilled to do me this tiny favor...should have known better right? He comes back and tells me it's not finished yet. I was really confused since I had personally started the load more than an hour and a half before. That's the longest wash cycle I had ever heard of, and that includes my oldest son's marathon showers.
      Of course I have to go check it out myself, defeating the purpose of asking for help. thinking either something was wrong or he was messing with me and he'd tell me "Oh, it must have just stopped." But alas I find the washer still running and in fact at the very beginning of it's cycle, It had just started...or should I say restarted. The little monster denied doing it, not very convincingly, seriously trying to convince me it had turned the dial, and pulled out the start button all on it's own. I also did not accept that it was A) ghosts B) a mouse or C) the wind. Hey, at least he tried.
      In our house the rule is if you lie about something it automatically doubles the length of your grounding. Of course if I had stuck to that my oldest would have been grounded until March of 2517. Now my boy wouldn't have gotten grounded for not switching the wash, probably just a scolding or a parental guilt trip but lying about it got him room bound, and after the pleading and yelling and sad harmonica playing ended he followed up with an "I'm sorry can I come out now." and was genuinely shocked that I said no, after all how could I not swoon at such a sincere attempt at an apology. In his confusion and dismay he stomped off to his room to throw another fit. For those who don't know the temper tantrum is the "Elevator Muzak" of the married with children demographic. Ever so relaxing.
     
     
     

     

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Art for art's sake

      Ok, I'm very sorry for last weeks trip into the land of the serious but sometimes having a blog like this is a chance to say something that's on your mind, and you readers could always skip back to previous weeks where I attempt humor to varying degrees of success, but we shall move on regardless.


      Who doesn't love art in some form or another? Two of my all time favorite works of art are "The Accolade" by Edmund Blair Leighton and "The Lady of Shalott" by my favorite artist John William Waterhouse which is a beautiful image taken from an equally stunning poem by Lord Alfred Tennison. Raise your hand if I just lost you.
      My point is that most people when they grow up lose any true interest in great art, witnessed by the number of you who just mentally raised your hands, but as children art is a true expression of feelings, thoughts and the human need to be creative. As adults we still have the need to be creative in some way or another. Whether it be writing, cooking, or craft projects etc, we have a need to create, and not finding an outlet for this basic human need can cause great frustration and much need for beer.
      If your a parent you've no doubt seen this in your children. As parents we are always quick to supply our little ones with a steady supply of crayons, mostly because they're cheap, but also because we inherently understand the need to create. At some point we will all buy our child the extra large box of crayons that requires a handle to carry and gives access to more colors than our computer monitors. Our child will pick about four of these to actually use leaving the rest to be snapped in half at some point creating the need for a new box of waxy love. The colors that are selected will get worn down leaving our children to rip off the colorful paper and leave it strewn around the room so it looks like they just just won the Super Bowl and their stuffed animals threw them a ticker tape parade. When tearing off the paper isn't quite enough they will inevitably come to us to "sharpen" the nub of a crayon. Have you actually ever used a crayon sharpener? Even if you do get it to work properly the wax stuck every where is horrible, it's easier to just buy a new box, which we will anyway.
      We should be a little smarter now, as we already have a bin of broken crayons the young artist really only needs a few colors to work with. So we buy the eight pack of primary colors which will also end up broken in the bin of many colors. Crayons are cheap so we keep replacing them until the shoebox, or whatever we use, is filled with a technicolor garbage dump of little wax corpses...we salute you noble "burnt sienna" you never reached your true potential.
      This is all well and good, we know this is all part of the kid-dom but then grandma notices the budding artist and wants to help little Bobby Picasso reach his full potential so she buys them paints. Spill-able, hard to clean, supposedly water soluable paints...yeah grandma!
      As parents we are all WELL aware of the need to display these great works of art on "The Louvre de Fridge" Ah yes great works of art held up by refridgerator magnets and covering every inch of the ice box, making you wonder why you made such an effort to pick out just the right color to match the kitchen when you can't see a single inch of it now. Of course this is nothing compared to the fact that every single time you want a drink or a snack half a dozen of these prescious paintings fall off the fridge making you chase paper and magnets under the fridge. It's not worth the effort to go into the fridge, which does make it an effective dieting tool though.
      When they begin school and start doing art projects there as well as at home you then need to find boxes and folders to store this ever growing collection in. Much like the crayons and their stuffed animal collection these almost seem to multiply of their own accord making your cupboards or the underneath of your bed a lovely cluttered mess of priceless memories. Years down the line you will struggle to remember what most of these objects d'art were supposed to be, but trying to recognize what they are at the time of their creation is a parental test in and of itself.
      "Look what I made mommy."
       "Oh what a lovely whale...dog...alien..."
      "No mommy it's daddy don't you see?"
      "Huh, actually I do now that you mention it....those are very nice stink lines"
       "Yeah mommy, this was on chili night."
      Of course we as parents were no different and we covered our fridge in every manner and color of crayoned creature imaginable. That is until our oldest decided to skip the middleman. One morning said child had woke up early, escaped from his room and removed all his artwork from the refridgerator so he had room to draw puppies directly onto, and all over the appliance itself...Yeah creativity!
       He was scolded and told in NO uncertain terms that "coloring on the fridge was bad" he whined and whimpered but very clearly got the message as the next day upon waking we found the kitchen wall had now been covered in what appeared to be primitive cave art. He explained cheerfully that he had done it to say he was sorry for crayoning the refridgerator, and did we like it? So we took the crayons away from him at night, but we could not control the boys artistic urges and his need to create...yup, we forgot about grandma's paints....Yeah! Good thing it was the weekend and we had two whole days to clean up the contents of eight colorful bottles of paint, not too mention a child who looked like he came from the cantina scene in Star Wars as well as one very ticked off cat....red was soooo not his color.
      I always loved art myself, I went from coloring to drawing then onto ceramics with my grandmother, which by the way I won several ribbons for...yes I'm bragging...let's see your ribbons...then onto platic model kits. I used to have dozens of completed hot rods and muscle cars all painted with loving care and attention to detail...and then blown up by firecrackers or eaten by my baby brother, hmmm should have added that to my chewing blog. In fact I kept building models after my first son was born. I had even progressed to using an airbrush and mixing my own colors by then, and yes won some ribbons for those as well...don't want to hear it, I still don't see your awards.
      My toddler son adored my models...especially when the paint was wet, and boy was that kid fast. I can't tell you how many times I had to paint, then sand off tiny fingerprints, then paint again...wash, rinse, repeat until the model was unusable because it either had so many layers of paint on it that it look as plastic as a Kia or I hand actually sanded a hole in it, actually making it look amazingly close to the rust riddled vehicles here in the north-east. Eventually I gave up models....well plastic ones anyway, I'm still rather fond of the ones who work for Victoria's Secret....who actually maybe a little plastic too....moving on. I decided to stick with drawing and writing for my creative outlet, and even gave up drawing eventually to focus on my love for writing, but I could never give up trying to create something and I sure hope my kids won't either.
      It's not always about the kids, when it comes to creativity they will find their way and their own medium, but I see a great many adults who are frustrated by not being able to express themselves. Don't think for a minute it's a waste of energy or time to find your own way to express yourself because much like sexuality when you try to surpress something that is part of your very being it can manifest itself in negative ways. Also don't think that just because you don't have any talent that you shouldn't try, look at Nicolas Cage it didn't stop him.


Great art picks up where nature ends.  ~Marc Chagall     
     

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Doctor Doctor, Please, oh the mess I'm in...

      A man walks into a specialists office, the specialist says "I read the file your doctor sent over, it sounds right to me, that will be $535"
      The punch line to the joke is that it's not a joke at all, it's what happened to me. I've been lucky enough to finally have a General Practitioner and Specialist  who actually give a damn, but that's not the case for everybody.
      When I first started dating my wife she became violently ill. She was jaundiced, vomiting constantly, and in so much pain she could not function. Upon going to the doctor he spent five minutes asking her questions and then told her to come back next week offering no suggestions to alleviate her problem other than over the counter stomach cures. This went on for a few weeks, the doctor continued to ask a few questions about her condition and then send her on her way to suffer the worst pain of her life for yet another week. Finally I asked my wife one very simple question and figured out it was a reaction to another medication she was taking. On her next appointment with her doctor she told him of my discovery and he reacted belligerently asking " Is your boyfriend a doctor? NO! well, am don't listen to him and keep taking your pills." Thankfully she listened to me and her problem IMMEDIATELY cleared up. It wasn't until later another doctor verified my diagnosis and was concerned about the damage that was done to her liver by the doctor's incompetence stating that I may have saved her incredible complications or worse. I was a kid in my 20's with no more than a high school diploma and  he was an experienced doctor, to be honest I don't believe his sin was ignorance so much as it was that he didn't really care.
      When my G.P. became concerned enough about my condition that he thought I'd be best served by sending me to a specialist he had already done all of the tests a couple times and always getting back to me in less then five days. When my first specialist decided she wanted to run the same tests to verify she said it would take at least a month, and it did. When I finally got the results she said she would immediately call in my prescription, a week later I had to call back because she still hadn't. This was repeated the following month. On the third month I made sure to call her with enough time to avoid the same problem and sure enough she sent it on time, but forgot to sign it, I ended up going without my medicine for a week yet again. This was after the $535 appointment  that lasted less than five minutes. It actually would have been a lot less then five minutes except for the fact that I had to keep asking her to repeat herself as I couldn't understand past her Hindi accent. My G.P. being upset with her actions found me a new doctor who determined by the same tests, which by the way he called me back for in just TWO days...not a month, that the previous specialist had actually been prescribing the wrong dosage by at least half. Again I believe this was not ignorance but the fact that she didn't care enough to take the time...any time.
      My poor grand father has such a myriad of ailments that listing them would take a whole blog alone and let's just say his doctor is a real treat. First off one of his problems is diabetes yet his doctor rarely ever asks him to take off his shoes which is standard and necessary for diabetic patients. Believe me he has issues with his feet from the diabetes but checking them every time would take too long. This doctor overbooks with a clientele made up almost exclusively of the elderly and the minimum wait is an hour. Elderly people, even my stubborn old grandfather seem hesitant to complain about things like this or even go through the hassle of changing physicians. On one occasion this doctor was so overbooked that my grandfather's wait in the waiting room was more than four hours. Now you'd think this guy must be taking some time with these people but you'd be very wrong its a veritable assembly line with the waiting room being so full that it's standing room only. Again this is not ignorance but greed and a distinct lack of concern for patients.
      I'm obviously not saying that all doctors are bad I now have two great ones for me and my family but them caring enough to be good doctors is who they are. This behavior is actually spreading down the medical chain as well. We now live in a society so medicated that a new pharmacy opens every day, it seems there is one on every corner now, how could they possibly sustain themselves? That's easy because now during every commercial break there is an ad for some pill or another.
      "Are you too tired or too awake?"
      "Are you too sad or too happy?"
      "Are you too fat, too skinny, too sore, not erect enough, have legs that work, dream at night? we have a pill for it, and we know you want it because we just listed a bunch of symptoms obscure enough to make you believe you have everything."
      That's why pharmacy's can keep being built because medicine is profit and sales just like everything else. Remember those of you that are truly sick and suffering, there's no money in curing you, just in treating you. I mean if you get better pharmaceutical companies lose a customer.
       Now remember how I just said the problems with medical personnel is moving down the chain? Well this is where we come to pharmacists. They are still in short supply, and even more so with all the new drug stores opening on a daily basis so it has gotten to the point where drug stores will even put a bounty on pharmacists offering cash rewards if you can bring one into the company and yes its very true that some companies are doing this. They then sign these pharmacists to contracts with nice bonuses for signing...just like pro athletes, still this is not a problem for me, it's not my money. The problem is that a great deal of them have suddenly began to believe their own hype and have become arrogant, megalomaniacs who don't believe they make mistakes. I have seen them mistreating employees, and customers as well as making dangerous mistakes,  and with a little research have heard dozens of horror stories. Companies will do anything to protect these valuable resources as losing one is an expensive prospect so victims of their behavior i.e. lesser employees are punished for complaining or are just swept under the rug. This is not just part of a rant but something I've witnessed with my own eyes, as I have several friends and family who have dealt with it. Mean while Doctors who "Just Don't Care" are not truly breaking any rules and not subject to any kind of punishment until something horrible happens and their malpractice insurance pays it off.
       I want to make it very clear...this is NOT every single doctor and pharmacist, some are fantastic and love their jobs and patients and customers but like they say it only takes a few bad ones...
       Now I am sorry that this weeks blog wasn't humorous and light hearted but this week I needed to get this off my chest and write it for someone I love who has been hurt. Besides it seems since I posted late last week most of you missed the announcement and the blog so you can go back and read that one. But I'll try to be happier next week...stay healthy...

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