Spring is Just Around the Corner

Get it?  Get it?

Yeah, spring is just around the corner and it's been a long time since I've felt this hopeless.  Troubles with the magic boy, my dad's still (STILL) hospitalized (though he's in a rehab facility now), his wife may  have stomach cancer, and that damnable lump in my arm is still there and almost certainly growing.

Oh, and a tax lien.

Yeah, we've been on a payment plan with the state tax folks for a couple of years.  We have it paid down to less than three hundred.  Then, out of the blue, we get a letter last week telling us they've filed a lien.  Any idea what a tax lien does to a credit score?   It's devastating.  That's not going to peel off that credit report until I'm almost SIXTY.

House?  New car?  Probably not in my lifetime.

Plus, my mom's A1c has jumped from 5.7 to 9.9 in six months.  And suddenly her circulation is shot.  Add that to the macular degeneration.

Feck.

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A friend's son is expecting his first, and I'm wondering how on earth to broach the subject of genital mutilation.  Yeah, this is my blog, I don't have to pull punches and call it something pretty and sterile like "circumcision."  There are so many reasons NOT to take sharp objects to a child's genitals.  The rest of the world is solidly in the "that's barbaric" camp.  Scandinavian countries are banning the practice.  It's not routinely done in Canada, England, France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, etc.  It's an incredibly cruel thing to do.  Is it a "personal choice?"  You bet--so personal that it should be left to the owner of the genitals.  The foreskin is attached at birth much like a fingernail is attached to the finger--that's fixed connective tissue in infancy.  Which is why they have to take a metal prod and TEAR the skin away from the shaft and glans before slashing and crushing.  In adulthood, that skin is no longer adhered, which is why it's such a minor thing in adulthood.  Of course, men who have it done in adulthood overwhelmingly regret it.  Why?

Because 85% of the sensitivity comes from that foreskin.  Remove it, and you're left with a small band of sensitive tissue around the glans.  Men who are circumcised are left with almost no normal sensitivity.  Circumcision is the cause of most sexual dysfunction in men, from premature ejaculation to erectile problems.  

I know, someone's bound to cry "urinary tract infections!"  You know who gets more UTIs than intact boys?  Little GIRLS.  But (thankfully) I don't see anyone proposing taking a sharp object to their genitals.  

Another "medical" argument?  The cancer/HIV argument.  Which utterly falls apart upon examination.  Cancer?  Penile cancer is incredibly RARE--that's like removing the brain to prevent glioblastoma or amputating a newborn's breast buds to prevent breast cancer (which is far more common).  And cervical cancer in partners?  That's not the foreskin, that's HPV.  Use condoms, get your girls vaccinated (and your boys, too).  There you go, problem solved.  And the HIV defense?

Falls apart when you look at the research, which was all done in sub-Saharan Africa with groups also instructed to use condoms.  If circumcision prevented (or markedly reduced) transmission of HIV, the U.S. wouldn't be where it is today.  

Another common "justification"?  "He'll be laughed at in the locker room!"  Okay, a few things:

1) Any boy who points and laughs at another boy's penis is setting himself up for disaster.

2) If kids are looking to bully, they'll find any reason, from acne to glasses, braces to height.

3) Cut boys are now the minority in many parts of the country.  In the western US?  Fewer than 35% of newborn boys are circumcised.  So there's not going to be much laughing, because he's not going to be different.

And most importantly?

4) We don't carve up our kids to make people accept them.  That's just totally wrong.

And finally, I want to address the scary "so he'll look like his daddy" argument.

What?  What?  People are different.  People don't look the same.  Would you have your infant's nose carved to resemble yours?  How about ears?  

Some parents circumcise because they've already cut one child and, even though they now realize it's an awful thing, they want their boys to be "the same" or don't want to have to explain to their older, cut child why he's different.  Know that there are tens of thousands of parents who made the mistake with their older child, then learned more and chose not to alter their subsequent sons. There's no shame in saying "we didn't know."  When you know better, you do better.  

Circumcision is agonizing.  It is traumatizing.  It permanently alters the victim's pain response.  It is often the cause of unsuccessful breastfeeding.  It creates a raw, bloody wound left in a diaper with feces and urine.  It has the potential to do devastating harm through infection and necrosis.  And it makes a baby's introduction into this world terrible.  Pain and fear are not the things I wanted my son to feel as a newborn.  I wanted him to feel safe and warm.  I wanted him to look at me with trust.

More boys die in the U.S. each year from circumcision than from any recalled crib, carseat, blind cord, or toy, yet those are recalled and production halted immediately.

Our boys are perfect when they're born.  Even if circumcision WAS beneficial, those benefits could be conferred on men when they're old enough to decide for themselves.  

If you're expecting or you know someone who is, please introduce them to the Saving Our Sons.  It's a gentle start, with good information.  If all else fails?  WATCH AN INFANT CIRCUMCISION.  Because there are people who will say "it doesn't really hurt" or "he's just crying because he's restrained" or "Babies don't feel pain."  If you're going to choose to do this to your child, make this surgical alteration that will cause life-long changes, then at least make sure you KNOW what you're doing.  Don't soothe yourself with lies.  

And I guess that's all for today.  I'm writing at a new site--Veryhelpful.net.  It's brand-new, and I'm hoping it will take off.  Still very sad about Epinions, though.  I wrote for them for 14 years.  That's a lot of time, and now it's gone.

More doctors, more scared

Doctor's appointment today.  Orthopedic surgeon a couple towns over.  On the bright side, the traffic was greatly reduced, thanks to the wingnut teabaggers shutting down the government.  On the not so bright side?

Doctor said just what I feared he would--that my PCP screwed up, that she should have ordered an MRI the instant the ultrasound came back showing nothing.  In other words, I should have had an MRI over a year ago.  Instead, this thing, whatever it is, has had an extra 16 months to slowly gain ground.

Thanks, Dr. White.  In case you've ever wondered why I abruptly stopped seeing you?  It's because you always left me feeling I was getting the least you had to offer.

MRI scheduled for next Monday.  Then I'll be seeing the Ortho guy again.  He was good--better than the online review sites led me to think he would be (no, I don't make decisions based upon those, but it's nice to see how folks feel they were treated).  He even refrained from pulling a "nameless female PAC from Ogden Clinic who has a boy's name" act and rolling his eyes and telling me that he didn't have time to read the paperwork I'd brought in.  In fact, he read what I brought in (labs and a previous radiology report), then asked if it was okay to make copies for my file.  It was nice, not being treated like a dull-wit who doesn't have the vaguest clue.

One small complaint--the Ortho guy's receptionist was a rude hag.  Impatient, imperious, clearly irritated by my existence.  I can understand that at the end of the day, but when the office has just opened for the morning?  Paste a smile on, sweetheart.  I may have cancer, and I put one on for you.

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My boy had an appointment today, too.  With my old urologist.  As feared, rather than addressing the actual problem (which is not even vaguely foreskin related), he began squealing about circumcising my son.  Because slashing off a perfectly normal, functioning, highly innervated part of the penis is, of course, what American doctors do when faced with the fearful foreskin.  Never mind that the rest of the western world is overwhelmingly intact.  Never mind that nearly 65% of American newborn boys are spared genital modification.  We still have a generation of circumcised doctors who still turn a profit from performing unnecessary surgery on boys.  So we're left scrambling, trying to find a less barbaric doctor who knows more about the foreskin and is capable of addressing the actual issue rather than focusing on my son's foreskin.  I swear, is everyone's life like this? Because it really doesn't seem that way.  It doesn't seem MY life used to be this riddled with disasters and stress.  Is it a "getting old" thing, or is it just ME?

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Watching Boehner flip-flop on the debt ceiling, the ACA, and pretty much everything else. Watched an interview with him, and the blustering defensiveness leaves me wondering just how scared he is?  These past few weeks have given me much deeper insight into just how the "Tea Party Patriots" work.  I always knew they were never a "grass roots" organization--they were put together by the Koch brothers to stir up the stupid with jingoistic slogans, whipping them into a frenzy of flag waving and immigrant/poor/women-hating.  But what I didn't get was this--how were they winning these elections when so many Americans don't agree with them?

I've figured it out.

They're active at the primary level.  They get out there EARLY, before any of us sane folks, and they ramrod through whatever extremist freak they're rooting for.  Because the rest of us are fast asleep in our beds on  Primary day, they get to choose who WE get to choose between, come the general election.  So we're left feeling we have a choice when, in fact, our options have been viciously limited through Tea Party manipulation of the primaries.  Yes, there are other issues, like gerrymandering/redistricting and voter fraud and widespread disenfranchisement, but the primaries--that's where it starts.  THAT'S where we can make a difference.  

I remember when I first heard about "Teapublicans" registering as Democrats so they could intentionally ram through the least viable democratic candidate.  Because the average person doesn't vote in primaries, this wasn't hard for them to do.  So, come general election time, folks had a choice to make--the clearly nutty teabagger OR the clearly unqualified democrat.  Republicans who always vote red voted for their nutty teabagger regardless of how they felt about him, democrats didn't vote at all because they weren't enthused by the democratic candidate.  And there you go--bagger wins, even though he doesn't actually have the hearts and minds of most people.  I heard about this, and I was horrified.

How to fix it?

Start voting in the primaries.  Specifically, in the REPUBLICAN primaries.  No, not like the wingnuts do, not trying to ramrod through the least competent republican (they're already doing that--doesn't matter, red votes red regardless in most cases, it seems), but rather trying to bring the sanest republican through the primary so that, even if our guy LOSES, the guy who WINS isn't crazy.

I don't see another way.

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Speaking of misinformation and Tea Party hyperbole, this nastiness came across my wall the other day:

And here's the point-by-point debunking of this willfully misleading, politically charged garbage spray..  Thanks to ILLINOIS HEALTH MATTERS for the well-reasoned rebuttal.  

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And that's about all.  I napped hard this evening and feel more tired for the sleep.  I think that, emotionally, I may be all used up.  So here, have this--makes me happy, and happy is good:

If we shadows have offended . . .

Used to be a boy in my high school, in my grade, named Robert.  His dad was the coolest crossing guard ever, used to dress up as Santa each holiday season.  Solidly nice man.  And Robert seemed a nice enough kid, though there was an odd sort of edge to him, a . . . creepiness to his nice, if you know what I mean?  Ever see William Mapother play a creep?  You know, like "Ethan" from Lost or the pimp from Justified?  Like that.  Too nice, too patient, too . . . edgily weird with a smile.

Anyway, I didn't see Robert for a few years after graduation (or as close to graduation as I came).  Then, one night, my best friend and I were sitting in our usual restaurant, studying for midterms or finals (don't remember which) when suddenly Robert showed up.  My friend liked him (initially), and so his vaguely drunken cowboy self was invited to sit with us for a few.

A "few," which panned into a couple of hours.  We couldn't study, we couldn't quiz each other, we couldn't transcribe notes because Robert wouldn't let us.  In fact, Robert kept getting more and more creepy and "hey, let's party"-y until we finally made some excuse and beat a hasty retreat.

It was a few blocks away when we realized we were being followed, and pretty aggressively.  Whomever it was?  Wasn't looking to be sly.  This was big, obvious lane changes, swerving, flashing lights, etc.  As we were unaccustomed to being stalked by creeps, we actually didn't realize it was Robert until he RAN US OFF THE ROAD AND UP A CURB in his big red and white pick-up truck.  It was then we saw him behind the wheel and understood.  What did we do?

We raced for the cop-shop, which was only five blocks away.  This was, of course, in the days before cell phones, so getting to the police station was the only route we felt we had open to us.  He followed us right to the driveway, then peeled off and raced away.  In other words?

He knew exactly what he was doing.  If it had been anything less than creepy, he wouldn't have fled when he realized where we were headed.  Sadly, stupidly, we didn't report him.  We figured it was a bad move borne of booze (these days, I'd call the cops for the DUI as well as the stalking), and went on home.

The next time we saw Robert was, again, in our restaurant.  He was there specifically for us.  This time I told him to get the hell away from us.  He became belligerent and bullying, and I called the restaurant manager, who told him to leave or face the cops.  For weeks after, we had waiters and cooks walking us to our car each evening, just in case.  He followed us one more time, and then disappeared.

I was reading the paper this morning and spotted his mugshot.  He looks like a man who's done some major meth over the years--you know the look.  Those cute boy cheeks and bright eyes are gone, gone, gone.  And what's he in for?

Assault and protective order violations.

Gosh, didn't see that one coming.

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Reading about online yesterday, stumbled across THIS GEM.  Is it Kansas?  I've lived in Kansas, I don't remember it being quite this bad.  Of course, I was a kid, I lived on base, so maybe I was sheltered.  Or maybe times have changed.  Maybe people are stupider, or maybe they just feel safer and more comfortable openly splashing their idiocy about.  Or maybe it's not Kansas at all, maybe it's just this variety republican?  Whichever, whatever, you've got to ask yourself about the people who vote for creatures like this.  I mean, if you vote for a racist, doesn't that make YOU a racist, too?

I think it does.

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Well, since I'm on a roll, let's talk about gun control and the New York Daily News.  Their recent headline?

NY Daily News Cover

You know what?  I'm not usually a big fan of visual media histrionics, but I have to say, I agree.  It is all for nothing if we still have gun show loopholes, still allow private sales/transfers without background checks, and still allow high capacity clips and ARs.  It's ridiculous to even call that a real effort to change things.  How it is that Americans got to this state, I don't know.  It's like we're absolutely incapable of assessing risk, we fear the phantom home invader when, fact is, we're FAR more likely to be killed by an armed spouse or relative than by a stranger.  There are people who carry concealed, but don't put their kids in car seats and let them pilot ATVs at five years old.  We ban drop-sided cribs for killing 32 babies in TEN years, but ignore the fact that medically unnecessary routine infant circumcision kills 100+ baby boys a YEAR.  Do Americans just not know how to gauge risk?

And speaking of risk, I'm going to scream the next time someone says something stupid like, "Guns don't kill as many people as CARS, should we ban them, too?"  It's a dull-witted, disingenuous argument, almost as bad as "guns don't kill people, people kill people!"  A few things--one, we DO ban cars deemed unsafe (and regulate the living daylights out of the ones that are considered safe).  Two, cars, when used correctly and according to the manufacturer's directions and the attendant laws, aren't LETHAL.  Assault rifles are built to kill people.  When used as intended, they are lethal.  And three?

In an increasing number of states, guns DO kill more people than cars.  It won't be long, if we continue as we are, before guns kill more Americans every year than cars.  Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Gun Deaths Set to Outstrip Car Fatalities

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Wow, look at me go!

I keep getting these wowser woo things coming across my wall on Facebook (I know, who'da thunk?).  You know, this berry cures this and this powder cures that, and if you can just cut out sugar/increase your body's alkalinity/deep breathe/leave cut onions around/whatever, you'll be cured/healed/protected.

To quote the wonderful Tim Minchin,

A small crack appears
In my diplomacy-dike.
"By definition", I begin
"Alternative Medicine", I continue
"Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call alternative medicine
That’s been proved to work?
Medicine."




Just recently, I got some greasy pile of dung going on and on about how our blood is "highly magnetic," powerfully so, because of all the IRON in it, and how magnets, therefore, manipulate this iron and effect magical woo cures . . .  oh, I can't.  I just can't.  Here's what I CAN say, though.

Ever spend 45 minutes in an MRI?  I have.  Three times now.  You know what happens to people with measurable magnetic metals in their body when they're in an MRI?

It ain't pretty.

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One last thing, in case I haven't pissed off enough people today?

No Body of Christ for the Gay-Lovers!

That's right!  If you support marriage equality, the Catholic Church doesn't want YOU partaking of the body or the blood of Jesus.  Because it's not enough to cough up tithe or continue to claim membership despite the church's deep misogyny and historic tolerance of rampant child molestation (and dogged defense of child molesters).  No, no, you must also be utterly intolerant and totally unwilling to support equality for people who aren't exactly like you.  And if you're not willing to go the hater route?

Well, it's gonna be a tough haul getting into heaven, huh?

So, in other words, if you're Catholic, you'd better not support the rights of non-Catholics to engage in behaviors your church abhors.  Any attempt to allow folks who are different the same rights and privileges you get?  BOOM, bye-bye body of Christ!

At least if the folks you're trying to help are gay.  Apparently, the handing out of said eucharist by altar-boy-groping priests is A-okay.  It must be, right?  After all, the church has spent decades--centuries, even--working to keep those priests on the job.

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And if none of THAT offended you, you must be my forever-friend and possibly platonic soul-mate.

So here, have some hideous home decor.  It's on the house . . . get it?  Get it?

How Much is Too Much?

So I screwed up and read the letters to the editor in my old local rag this morning.  Someone compared the Boy Scouts' discrimination against homosexuals with the old laws that kept blacks from staying in white hotels or eating in white restaurants.  Someone else came in and said (this is verbatim) "Gays are nowhere close to being discriminated against to the same level that blacks were . . . ."

Okay, awkward sentence structure aside, WHAT THE HELL?  Seriously?  That's like saying, "Sure, apartheid sucks, but it's not nearly as bad as what the Ottomans did to the Armenians, so let's not even bother worrying about it" or, at its heart, "cutting off four fingers is a human rights violation, but cutting off one isn't (or surgically altering a girl's genitals is wrong but doing it to a boy is A-okay)."  Can't we just agree that telling someone they can't partake in something because of their sexual orientation (or their religious affiliation, hello again, Boy Scouts) is crap and we shouldn't condone it?  Regardless of how it might compare to some other bit of nastiness?

(click here to view)

John Cole
Scranton Times/TribuneFeb 10, 2013

EditorialCartoonists.com

 
Just ate up the last of the Farmer's Market jam.  Shared it with the boy.  Amazingly tasty, and incredibly not diabetic-friendly.  To my credit, we've had that little 8 oz jar for four months, so it's not like I've gone completely crazy on it.  It was superbly good, and I look forward to another jar lasting us four or more months.

Also in my old local newspaper, I found an advert for a "women's health center."  We used to live right next door to it, drove by it every day.  But I never realized who owned the place until today.

Warning--this is about to get a bit gory and "woman-y."

When I had my boy, almost 15 years ago, it was a mess.  My labor didn't progress, even though I started with water broken (and meconium in the water) and contractions strong and two minutes apart.  I labored unmedicated for over 30 hours, though, at 25 hours, my  labor began to falter.  Then came the pitocin for a few hours.  Still no joy-I never got beyond five centimeters, even though the boy was fully engaged and ready to go.   So I wound up in the OR.  Turned out our boy's head was in the 99th percentile, circumference-wise.  He was over 9 lbs and had a head like a pumpkin, whereas I have a very narrow set of hips. I could have labored 'til the cows came home, but he wouldn't have made it out.  Anyway, when they finally wheeled me down to the OR (with my half-assed epidural in place--NEVER again!), there were TWO doctors there.  My usual OB, a great guy whom I like a lot, and some other guy I'd never seen before.  We were introduced (won't say his name, since it's too late to sue for malpractice), and I was told he was a doctor from the Clinic, and he would be assisting.

"Assisting."  Is that what they call that now?  Guy did a number on me and how.  Four days postpartum, I noticed some bleeding from the incision--only the left side.  I called my doc, but he was out of town.  I was sent to this guy, since he had "assisted" in my c-section.  He looked, he gently tucked a little gauze into it, and he proclaimed it "fine until Dr. S gets back on Monday."

Except he was either stupid or lying.  It was actually NOT fine at ALL.  It was, in fact, ruptured all the way down to the suture line at the uterus, and a GIGANTIC hematoma had formed.  Let's be real--he couldn't possibly have NOT known that, but he sent me home for THREE DAYS with this because he didn't want to hassle with it.  Imagine my HORROR when I hobbled into my doc's office on Monday to have him sink his entire hand into that incision and drag out gobbets of blood like liver.

Sorry, too much information?

A week (?) or so later, when my doctor's nurse was removing the staples, she said, "Oh, my GOD, what a mess--who closed this?  I thought Doctor S. did your section?"  I told her, and she clammed right up.  Her face went still and careful and she said, "Yes.  Well, I could tell Dr. S. hadn't done this--his staples are always neat and pretty."

That's right, the "assisting" doc had done the closing.  And left me with crappy staples and a huge bleeder.  And then let it ride over the weekend because he didn't want to have to clean up his own mess.  I suppose I should be thankful--considering the quality of his care, imagine what he might have done to me, had he really put some effort into it.

I thought a friend was going to this clinic now (I'd heard her mention it before I knew the doc in question was there), but she just let me know she's not anymore.  Nor is her mom.  They don't like the guy.  Good.  No, I don't dare make it my life's work to warn the world, but I'm definitely going to warn my friends off.  I had no idea he was still active and in the area.  If I'd known, I'd have warned my friends sooner.

Since it's a lost food weekend, we're experimenting--I've been wanting Sambusa for weeks.  A friend who posted pictures a few days ago (she calls them "Samosas," which isn't uncommon, but it's odd to my ears because they've always been Sambusa to me) didn't help ease that craving.

Not quite our recipe, but certainly representative

We don't have it often, maybe once or twice a year, but when we do, we usually have it stuffed with hamburger, green onions, parsley, turmeric, cardamom, cumin (I learned it from the Arabic, so it's "kammun" not "kooomin" or "kyoomin"), and garlic.  It's a recipe I learned from an old friend of a friend named Aziz Al Howifi back in the very old days.  My ex, who was Palestinian, made a good Sambusa, too.   Anyway, I've gotten distracted.  My point was that we don't HAVE any regular hamburger, all we have is a batch of taco meat we cooked up and froze a few weeks ago.  So, we're having . . .

MEXICAN SAMBUSA!

Yeah, green onions, taco-spiced hamburger, with Mexican blend cheese and maybe sliced tomatoes (or just salsa).  A search online tells me that this would be called "Indo-Mexican Fusion-style."

Please.  I don't have that much fartsy in me.  It's just Sambusa made with Mexican spices.  Get real.

Going to have it with black beans and Spanish rice.  My mouth is actually watering!

After much debate, we've decided to nurse the back door along until after September--we're afraid the landlord might peg us pains-in-the-behind and decide not to renew the lease if we hit him with that before.  It's not that he doesn't know about it--I've emailed him about it (and he's responded that he would "try to get something done") and spoken to his handyman about it.  But he's already replaced the disposal and the dishwasher.  I'm afraid tossing the door in the mix would make him want less bothersome tenants.  So I want the new lease signed before we get serious about it.

We've got a plan for getting the debt paid down.  If nothing disastrous crops up (like THAT would ever happen), we can have all the credit cards paid off in a year-and-a-half, and ALL the debt, including car and student aid, paid off in two years.  We've already got two cards zeroed, with another (plus a store account) being paid off next month.  As each card gets paid off, we roll its payment into the next card's, increasing how much we're paying.

Of course, if the government puts my husband out of work for weeks because they're busy posturing and trying to poke at my President, all bets are off.  In fact, should that happen, we're sunk.

And that's about it.  I've spent the day cleaning (with help, thank you Hubby!), am feeling better about my world.  Last bathroom tomorrow, and then I can breathe.  Well, except I have to call the dermatologist and the gynecologist and the radiologist to make appointments for various things I don't want done.  Which sucks a lot of the air out of my world.

Do not reprint without permission. © KAQ