Up the Tubes (Caution: TMI alert!)

I went to an Ear Nose and Throat doctor today. I always wondered what a doctor would do if they only wanted to do ear and throat and no nose. Anyway, I have a problem in my throat so I went to this guy today.

It was a little disconcerting because they said I'd been there 6 years ago and I have absolutely no memory of it, even after he told me what I was there for. This time he was looking for what was causing my persistent cough. I'd already seen a fascinating video of my swallowing radioactive pudding and Lorna Doones, and that didn't show any problem with my swallowing. So we're following the tubes to see where the problem is.

I always figured it was ear nose and throat in that order because it's alphabetized, but even here, when I'd not mentioned any problems with anything but the cough, the doc first checked my ears, then my nose, and finally my throat. He checked my throat in 3 ways.

First was the standard stick your tongue out and say ahh. Then he takes a paper towel, has me stick out my tongue again, only this time he grabs it, pulls and tells me to talk and then to sing "Eee, eee, eee." Try to say that with your tongue stuck out. I made a bit of noise and then started coughing enough that I saw stars. Then, and here's the fun part, he pulls a long thin tube out of the drawer and I know I'm in trouble. Really the only question is what he's going to stick it into.

He asks me if I have one nostril that's easier to breathe through so now I know. He gives me a bunch of tissues in case my eyes water, tells me it'll feel like I have a mosquito up my nose and then sends what feels like a fairly large number of mosquitoes up my nose. He then makes me talk, sing, and sing in a falsetto. I do an terrific job of pitch matching, because I am an excellent singer, especially without a tube up my nose, but he says nothing.

After all that he says my voice box is irritated, but he's not sure why, so we get to start testing medications, plus I'm not allowed to eat for 3 hours before I go to bed. That's going to be hard.

So nothing's settled, but it was certainly an interesting experience.

IntroSpectortion

Of course everyone is abuzz about Arlen Spector's change of parties. One thing that struck me was what Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said about how this is dangerous because it potentially allows one party unfettered control. This is true in a narrow sense, but I'm presuming any thoughtful Republican understands that had their party not decided to take a position of absolute obstruction, this probably wouldn't have happened.

The Senate is normally a collegial place, and the mechanisms are there to encourage the parties to work together. There's a tool called the filibuster that the minority party can use to stop legislation that it feels is essential to stop by requiring 60 votes instead of the traditional majority. It's been around as long as I can remember, but since the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress, the Republicans have made it a policy to threaten to filibuster virtually every piece of legislation.

This policy has only hardened since Obama's election, and now has extended to many presidential appointments as well. You just have to wonder what Spector, who is by nature a compromiser, would have done had the Republicans made a serious attempt to work with the majority instead of just trying to obstruct. I guess we'll never know.

Life Without Bookmarks

I had to replace the hard drive on my laptop and I haven't copied any bookmarks over to my new browser, nor have I bookmarked any pages in the month I've been using it. It's a little like having a phone with no speed dial. I'm pleased that I remember the addresses for all my important stuff, and who knows, maybe I'll stumble onto something new and interesting in the process. When the web was brand new, it really felt like a web, with the possibility of cruising off in any direction at any time, never quite knowing where it would lead. Now, I read few blogs and check the sports score, do a bit of banking and check Facebook. Not much else. I guess I'm seeking more randomness in my life.

Oh well, off to the Google home page, where my daughter has without my knowledge set my preferences to Morse Code. Who knows where I may land next.

The Week In Review

This week just flew by. Maybe it's the first week back from vacation thing, maybe my various dramas at home keep everything moving, maybe I can feel we're on the slippery slope toward the end of the year, or maybe time actually did pass more quickly and I'm the only one who noticed. I don't know.

It's been a strange school year. My wife says that I always say that and I reply that that's because it always is. New building, new head of school, lots more impending changes for next year.

I feel like I'm in the second volume of a trilogy, like Lord of the Rings, where everything is set in motion in the first book and concluded in the third book, while the second book exists for the purposes of plot advancement and development, to make the final installment as dramatic as possible. Nobody ever remembers the second book and The Empire Strikes Back, the second movie in the original Star Wars trilogy, is the only second installment anyone remembers. How many people even remember the name of the second Harry Potter book?

It feels like nothing's ending and nothing's beginning. I guess I'll stay tuned.

Back to school

I just finished the least break-like break I've ever had. Aside from a few ballgames, I can't think of anything I did the whole time that was a fun thing that I wanted to do. I have noticed in the couple of days back at school that I am fresher in the classroom than I was, though I've had a couple of moments when it felt like an out of body experience. I should mention to any other teachers reading this that, based on my recent observations, if you have an out of body experience while you're teaching, it's maybe not such a great idea to share that fact with the students. They seem to find it unsettling.

My favorite thing I heard about coming back requires your knowing that I have an extremely messy, paper-strewn desk. Over break I put all of the papers into 3 shopping bags, brought them home, and to the delight of my family, proceeded to sort them on the dining room table. Before I left the office I wiped by desk down with a paper towel (okay, 7 paper towels) and it was completely neat and clean. My office neighbor came in before I got there, looked at my desk, and asked if I'd resigned. We'll see how long that lasts. When I worked in business, at one point I got frustrated enough with the clutter that I bought a book called, "Winning the War With Your Desk." A guy who worked for me came in, saw the book, thought for a moment and said, "My money's on the desk." The best system I came up with was one where every six months I would clear everything off my desk, put it in a box and tape it shut. When six months had passed, if I hadn't opened the box, I would throw it away and start a new box.

Overall, though, I'm happy being back. Teaching is more fun for me than almost anything I did over break.

A New York Trip in Three Acts

My family has a charitable foundation. My father was a very successful guy who reached a point where he realized he had more money than he could ever possibly need and decided to devote a good portion of his life to giving much of it away in ways that really benefit society. One of the things we do (I'm on the board of the foundation) is endow an internship and travel program at Barnard College. My father went to Columbia and my sister went to Barnard, so there's the connection. The grants allow students to do paid internships with nonprofit organizations instead of doing work study jobs. There are both travel grants and local activity grants. Every year they have a dinner to honor these young women and so we can meet them and I'd never been before.

Act I - To New York
Unfortunately, the dinner is in Upper Manhattan at 6PM on a weeknight and I, unlike the rest of my family, do not live in what the traffic reports call "The Tri-state Area" (though nobody really calls it that or even thinks of it that way). So I make a 4PM train reservation, look at the school schedule that has me finished at 3:30PM, and hope for the best. The plan is to get everything I needed in the car, park the car right outside the building where I have my last class, let the class out early (Shh!) and dash down to the train station and just barely make the train, if everything goes perfectly. It didn't. For one thing, I left one of my bags in my office and had to drive my car the 150 feet from one building to the other so I could grab it and go, and then the ride to the train station didn't take a LOT longer than I'd hoped, but it definitely took longer, even though I (accidentally) ran a red light and almost hit a school bus. I was 10 minutes late, enough that I don't even bother to run in from the parking lot. I walk into the station to see when the next train is and the board shows that my train is still there. So NOW I'm running and get my tickets and on the train about 45 seconds before it left.

Act II- The Dinner

The restaurant where the dinner is held, Terrace in the Sky, is a pretty space on the top floor of an anonymous Columbia-owned apartment building with a 360 degree view of Manhattan. Columbia celebrates owning this gem by not including it on any one of the many campus directories that dot the campus. Fortunately, the first person I asked for directions (yes, us guys do that sometimes) knew exactly where it was. When I get there I realize I'm the only guy there without a jacket and tie, but I guess I'm old enough now that they don't force me to wear the size 46 blue blazer they keep in the coat room for the heathen to borrow. And of course the students could care less.

So I start chatting with these girls, mostly college seniors but some juniors too, and they are amazing. Maybe my perspective is warped because I was such an idiot when I was in college, as were most of my friends, but these girls are so smart and energetic and engaged in life that it really blew me away. I sat at a table next to a girl who had spent her summer working in the emergency room at Bellevue Hospital (!), and with others who did stuff ranging from researching using stem cells to grow pacemakers to writing a thesis charting the history of labor unions in Senegal from French colonial days to independence to French/Senegalese interdependence. Oh, and the paper was in French. I also talked with a young woman who'd studied ethnography, specifically the societal ramifications of multiple family residences in Bangladesh. This was particularly jarring to me because I realized that I know absolutely nothing about Bangladesh, or the whole Indian subcontinent for that matter (well, at least I know it's called that) because who cares about a part of the world where a quarter of the world's population lives.

I'm guessing the rest of the girls were equally impressive, but there wasn't time to talk to them all. I also felt like I talked way too much, but I guess that's what happens when you're out of your comfort zone. Nobody seemed to mind.

Act III - Back Home

I decide to cab it to the train station, and my cabbie is great. Did you know there are TVs in the back of New York cabs? I really need to get out more. He was one of these cabbies who drives 60 miles an hour in the city and complains the whole time about how much of a rush people are always in.

As we approach Penn Station, we're flying down a side street and someone suddenly opens their car door and we almost knock it off its hinges, but the driver swerves in time. We start laughing and the cabbie says this happens to him all the time and that people are in too much of a hurry to bother looking. I mention that it's a completely different experience to have someone open a door if you're on a bicycle, and the cabbie agrees that that can be very scary and dangerous. About 10 seconds later, the cab stops outside the entrance to Penn Station, I open the door to get out and WHAM! a delivery guy on a bicycle smashes into the door and topples over like in a cartoon, Chinese food containers scattering everywhere. I close the door and the cabbie and I are laughing hysterically. I felt kind of bad for the guy, but really. I always check if I open a door on the street side, but you never expect anyone to be stupid enough to try to pass a taxicab that just stopped outside Penn Station on the curb side of the cab. What did he think was going to happen after the cab stopped? Fortunately, he wasn't badly hurt and rode away, muttering at me in Chinese.

I made the train with 5 minutes to spare and was home a couple of hours later. Routine all the way.

Obama's Popularity

I've been intrigued by the rock-solid stability of President Obama's approval ratings. There's a lot going on and all kinds of angry noises from the lunatic fringe, but I'd had a feeling that this wouldn't really affect anything, and I think I figured out why.

Looking at this from a consumer behavior perspective, the approval ratings show that the customers are satisfied with the product. Why is this? Simple. The product, President Obama, has turned out to be almost exactly what candidate Obama promised to be. Virtually everything he has done was spelled out in his position papers and speeches, and he has at least touched on many of what he said were his top priorities.

He has also turned out to be exactly the kind of president that you would have imagined he'd be if you watched him during debates and other public appearances. He's been unflappable, inclusive, humorous, family oriented, and has shown the intelligence and understanding of events and consequences that he displayed throughout his campaign.

None of this has anything to do with whether or not you agree with the man. I happen to like most of what he's done and abhor some of it as well. But I can't say I didn't get the product I (and everyone else) thought we were buying. This is the first rule of marketing. Deliver what you promise and don't promise what you can't deliver. Even if I don't think the cereal I eat in the morning is perfect, I am a satisfied customer because I got what I expected and what I paid for.

It'll be interesting to see how things develop, but I'm guessing that approval rating will be stable as long as the product is what it claims to be.

I Amuse Myself

Wouldn't it be funny if a doctor had the last name, "Appointment"?

Baseball Bummer

A lot of attention has quite rightly been focused on Harry Kalas, whose death will make Philadelphia baseball a bit poorer, just as his longtime sidekick Richie Ashburns's death did years back. But I grew up in New York and I guess I'm not affected the same as people who grew up with him (though I clearly remember his NFL Films work). So I want to spend a moment remembering Mark Fydrich, who died in some sort of truck accident at the age of 54 today.

Fydrich, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, was known as The Bird because he resembled Big Bird on Sesame Street. He was a tall, gangly guy who was, let's just say, extremely animated on the mound. He was most famous for talking to the baseball- nothing weird, just telling it where to go- and getting down on his hands and knees to groom the area around the pitching rubber. Just Google him and you'll see pictures. He was Rookie of the Year 1976 and he was beloved. He was just a friendly, uninhibited farm boy with curly hair and a great smile, and he was a terrific pitcher. Then he hurt his knee jumping over a fence, then hurt his arm and was never the same again.

I saw him pitch once in Yankee Stadium in 1979 when he was attempting a comeback. He was pitching against Ron Guidry, who was the best pitcher in baseball at that particular moment. I sat front row in the center field bleachers with binoculars so I could watch every pitch. Fydrich was as much fun as advertised, but he got hit hard and only lasted a few innings. Guidry struck out 17, tying the single game record for a lefthanded pitcher that I had, strangely enough, seen set in Anaheim 5 years earlier. It was exciting for everyone, but even the Yankee fans were sad that Fydrich hadn't done better. He was that popular and he was certainly one of a kind.

Dental Blogging

I had a visit to the dentist today. I have terrible teeth, a product of two parents with terrible teeth and growing up just before they figured the whole fluoride thing out. I don't think I'm exaggerating to say I've had well over 60 fillings, a dozen crowns and two partially fake teeth, plus I had a couple of teeth yanked out while I was not under a general anaesthetic. So I started seeing this particular dentist about 20 years ago and he pretty much reconstructed all my teeth. Since he did that I haven't really had any problems, aided by the fact that I have very little actual tooth surface remaining.

But today I went because something didn't feel right and he said I had a cracked filing that needed replacement. My dentist is a good guy and the work is nearly, or in today's case, completely painless.

Here's how being at the dentist that is different that the rest of my life: 

First and foremost, I rarely have other people's hands in my mouth. In fact, I rarely have anything other than food or beverage in my mouth. But at the dentist I spend a lot of time with two hands (or pieces of hands, anyway) and anywhere from 2 to 4 metal instruments, including a little vacuum cleaner in me. I once asked a dentist if they had funny nicknames for the instruments back when they were in dental school and he didn't find that at all amusing.

Aside from the hands in my mouth, between me and the spotlight, are two more hands and two heads, one of which is wearing a headset with magnifiers on both eyes and a flashlight in the middle of his forehead, like a very nearsighted miner.

Rather than me having to move, the dentist moves me wherever he wants to using the chair.

And my favorite thing, when he's working, my dentist uses me as a table. I understand that I'm horizontal and have a placemat on my chest, but shouldn't they at least ask permission before they start piling things on me?

But it's done for now. I'm still numb and sitting at one of my favorite places in Philadelphia, the Curtis Building lobby with the Tiffany "Dream Garden" mural until I have enough feeling to eat and drink something. Then it's on to a funeral...

Movie Night

Finally watched "Into The Wild." We've had it from Netflix for a couple of months, but it's 2 1/2 hours long so we never want to watch it. I'm presuming the book was more fascinating than the movie was. You have to have seen (or read, I suppose) it to understand what I mean, but I think the moral of the story is "Don't go food shopping when you're hungry."

Just Sayin'

Being right is highly overrated. Being absolutely positive you're right is usually a prelude to disaster.

Kosher for Passoveriness (updated)

I made Manischewitz Blueberry Muffin mix this morning and I have 3 things to say. First of all, they were quite edible, at least when they were right out of the oven. Second, I think we have a real spirit versus letter of the law thing happening when you have a mix that says to mix and then wait 10 minutes. I know that in this case it's just for the liquid to soak into the matzo meal, but it doesn't seem fitting with the whole "no time for bread to rise" thing. Finally, I want everyone who has this mix at home to find the word "blueberry" in the ingredients. It says on the label, "artificially flavored blueberry bits." So I was curious why they had to artificially flavor the blueberry bits, since they are blueberry muffins and the language is quite clear that there are, in fact, blueberry bits.

I'll give you a couple of minutes. The type is small and has a lot of long words in it.

Found it? Okay, on the 7th line starts an ingredient called (and note the sight difference in construction) blueberry flavored bits. Next comes a parentheses, which in label language means that all the substances listed in the parentheses make up the item before the parentheses, (ingredients of the ingredients, if you will, with the largest ingredients by law listed first). Here goes: Alginate, propylene glycol, potassium sorbate, natural and artificial flavoring, artificial color.

Anything missing? I had slight hopes that alginate came from blueberries and not from what it sounds like, but my suspicions were correct. According to Wikipedia, alginate is a viscous gum that is abundant in the cell walls of brown algae. I'm sure there was plenty of that stuff in the Sea of Reeds. I know for a fact that blueberries can be dried and put in muffins, so there's no excuse aside from trying to extract maximum profits out of a $4.49 box of muffin mix. Ugh.

Update
Just checked the Apple Cinnamon muffins and they contain something called apple flavored bits with no ingredients in parentheses. What exactly is a bit? I don't think Alpha Bits are Kp. Computer bits wouldn't be very filling, and the horse kind are tough to chew. It doesn't look very promising. I'm making my muffins from scratch next year.

Traffic Court

I went to Philadelphia Traffic Court today. As an aside, let me pat myself on the back and say that I am an exceptionally careful driver. I put more thought into how to drive safely than anyone I know and I haven't had an accident in 31 years. I had also not gotten a traffic ticket for 10 years (and that was for speeding on Lincoln Drive, perhaps the most laughable violation possible since the speed limit is 25 and NOBODY drives less than 15 miles an hour above that).

So when I was coming home from the Pretenders concert I misjudged a yellow light on West River Drive, entered the intersection just as the light turned red and got pulled over. I couldn't really argue with the ticket, but I really didn't want the dreaded "points" on my license. Honestly, I'm sure one violation in the past 10 years wasn't going to send my insurance rates skyrocketing, but my fear was that, careful as I am, I might screw up again (or get stopped for speeding on Lincoln Drive again) and then I'd be in trouble.

You can't have this kind of discussion with the police officer at the time. They're pretty much looking for politeness and submission and that's what I gave her. What you need to do is send in a "not guilty" plea and pay the fine and then go to traffic court. With the Lincoln drive thing, I'd spent the time between the ticket and the court date (about 6 weeks) documenting how fast people drove. Every day I drove 35 mph, 10 mph above the limit, and counted how many cars I passed and how many passed me (it was around 1 to 400). I went to court with my spreadsheet. Sat down, and the policeman came into court and called out that anyone who wanted to plead to a lower violation should come up.

I walked up. He said, "Speeding on Lincoln Drive, eh. Did you hit anyone?" I said, "No." He said, "Okay, I'll reduce it to 5 miles per hour over the limit and no points, okay?" I said okay, left and got a refund of $33 in the mail 2 months later.

Today, I was lucky enough to get a parking space on the street and walked over to the courthouse. It does not look like your mental picture of a courthouse. It looks like a place you go for a blood drive, or if you missed a FedEx delivery and have to go to the warehouse. Actually, the FedEx warehouse is across the street. I remembered where in the square block sized building the entrance is (hint, not on the street listed as the building's address). Walking down the street I realize I have never seen so much litter anywhere in my life. The sidewalk and the street were covered in garbage, and there's a fence around the building with a solid strip of garbage about 3 feet wide all along the inside of the fence. It was really striking. Sorry I didn't take a picture.

I go inside, through the metal detector, and down the hall to Courtroom E, conveniently located between Courtroom's D and F. It's FREEZING in the courtroom, but I figure that's good 'cause it means they want everyone out of there quick. I give my summons to the very pleasant clerk and sit on one of the pews (that's what they looked like anyway). There are about 25 other people in the room.

Trial was set for 1 PM, and at about 1:05 a guy pokes his head through a door and says, "ready?" The clerk say yes, and about 30 seconds later the same guy come in wearing a robe. This time we stand when he comes in and sit down when he does.

They proceed to call people in the order they checked in. The judge says, "How do you plead?" to the first woman. She says something inaudible and the judge says "This is traffic court, we're very agreeable here." I like this guy.

So one by one the people come up. Most plead not guilty, they tell their story and the judge finds them guilty of a a lesser violation and no points on their license and offers to set up a monthly payment plan. I like this guy. He's actually pretty funny.

The guy before me is a tall young man (I never saw his face). You're supposed to come up with your driver's license and the judge say, "This is a Colorado license, are you a student?" The guy says yes. The violation was that he was driving with snow completely covering his rear window and he pleads not guilty. The judge asks him to explain and he says he was driving home from coaching basketball in West Philly and when he came around a corner and all the snow slid off his roof and onto the rear window. Since he didn't feel safe trying to parallel park with the back window covered, he continued along the street and was stopped by the police 30 feet from home.

The judge says, "You're from Colorado. Don't you know how to deal with snow on your car?" And the guy says, "At home, I drive an SUV and the rear window is vertical, so this has never happened to me before." The judge cocks his head and says, "Okay, I'll buy that. Not guilty."

I felt so boring coming after that, but I say I wanted to please guilty to a no points violation and the judge says okay. He says the fine is still the same and I say that's alright, I misjudged the light. He says, I know, it happens to all of us. And that was it. Beginning to end, 27 minutes.

I highly recommend doing this any time you get a ticket. Every single person got something in return for their taking the time to come in, there really isn't anything unpleasant about it (except maybe for the neighborhood) and I actually found it kind of interesting.

Passover Riffing

I was writing someone and telling them that I was searching for Passover recipes online. About half of them are for roast chicken, and it occurred to me that if the COI had time to roast a chicken, they certainly would have had time to make bread. My guess is that they stir fried, but my wife suggested making a seder where all of the recipes were things you could make as you fled.

Of course, the whole manna thing suggests that the COI were not too fond of their culinary choices, but I'll give it a try anyway. So for an appetizer, soup takes too long and is very heavy, but they must have had the opportunity to snag some fish as they dashed through the Red Sea , so I'd suggest a smoked fish canape'. For a main course, I think a frittata (with Jerusalem artichokes?) would be nice, quick and good to eat on the run. On the side, I don't think there was Minute Rice or microwaves yet, but couscous with onions and mushrooms would be fine if you made it sticky enough to eat with your hands, which is the way mine usually turns out anyway. For a salad, they should take advantage of one of their last opportunities before Kashrut was invented and have a wilted spinach (doubt they had any other kind) salad with bacon bits. Dessert? Honey cake, chocolate covered matzoh and fake fruit slices, of course!

I wish everyone a happy, healthy Passover. Oh, and whoever wrote that 4 kinds of children section needs to read a parenting book or two.

Underrated Life Skill

Being able to get in and out of a car with an umbrella.

Best coupon ad this week

Free carpet stain remover if you buy the Marley and Me DVD.

Diplomatical

I raed that Obama interceded in a heated exchange between the president of France and the president of China. Whew! If he hadn't it might have turned into....I guess two old men yelling at each other in languages the other one couldn't understand,