Ending the Year On a Good Note

As the year draws to a close it’s time to reflect on the people, places and events that made a difference in our lives the past twelve months. Watching all the specials on television, the internet, or even twitter, one realizes the people who made a difference in the world were the new pope, Edward Snowden, and of course Kim, Kanye and Baby North. Fortunately, in the blogosphere we have more serious concerns, like whether the Mario Brothers will go the way of the Jonases. (no that’s not a typo—don’t be so 20^th Century; besides last century it was “keeping up with” not “go the way of”…get with the program, remember this is satire)

Deb's brother Rick and his grandson,
Isaac--our great-nephew.

My year started a little late when I moved my blog back to BlogSpot and added two new readers. Some of you may have thought I might be upset because I missed my goal of an increase of three, but I stick with the adage that says it’s the quality, not the quantity that counts (all right, so a few things from the 20^th Century are worth keeping) When I started on Valentine’s Day by proposing a new direction in gifts for your lover, it was encouraging to receive such an exuberant response from a large volume of followers.

Besides adding new readers, who immediately become friends for life (wait, don’t hit the link in your browser, you know things pick up after the first couple paragraphs), we made three trips to visit the most important people in our lives: family and friends.

Deb holding her wine glass and cousin
Temmie from Philadelphia.

In spring we flew across the continent to spend time with Deb’s brother on the water in Tampa. Naturally, he decided to undertake a six-month renovation of his home just before we arrived. We did travel the bay in his boat a couple times, but he shipped us off to his daughter and son-in-law to sleep. We drove to Savannah to see the cousin who grew up around the corner from me. While there, we discovered the bugs they call “no see-ums” in Florida are called sand gnats further north. The difference wasn’t so much the name as the fine screens they use in Florida to keep them away were missing, so no matter what you call them we received true southern hospitality—a free skin removal treatment—in Georgia.

In summer we drove up to the Silicon Valley to attend the bat mitzvah of my cousin’s daughter. A lovely affair attended by cousins as far away as Phoenix and Philadelphia, and held in a hillside synagogue with the reception at the University Club on the Stanford campus. The next day we discovered my cousin’s brother and his three sons, fellow Southern Californians who do not drive or use the phone on the Jewish Sabbath, were staying in the room across the hall at our hotel.  Luckily, Deb and I planned a week at Lake Tahoe to recover from the pandemonium.

Deb and her sisters.

Fall found us in the leaf changing Midwest. Besides my daughter, son-in-law and oodles of friends in Milwaukee, we saw my three sisters-in-law, their husbands, a niece and her family (visiting from Florida), two friends in their new coffee shop in Door County, and old neighbors living outside Minneapolis. Stuck with summer, winter or spring breaks during our years of teaching, it was nice to relive not only the crunch of leaves under foot, which accompanies autumn colors, but also the chill in the clear Midwestern air—what we in Orange County call winter.

So, from all of us here at Hi Oh Silver we wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous new year. By the way, the good note is fa.

Why I’m a True Costconian

 My first experience with big box stores took place growing up in the sixties in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  A store opened up that featured exclusive membership for government employees. In fact, it was called GEX for government exchange. For a small annual fee my parents, one a federal employee working as a dietician at the VA and the other a municipal employee working for as a firefighter for MFD, became members. I don’t remember much about it, except it was immense. In an era before compact cars and pocket size phones, bigger was always better.

Get 3 times as much for $4.99
and it tastes as good or better than the others.

To compete J.C. Penney and Dayton-Hudson opened Treasure Island and Target, large stores without a membership fee and open to everyone. Even Kohl’s, at the time the largest grocery chain in Milwaukee, got into the big box business. Along came the Marts: K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Stein-Mart, Tall-Mart, Short-Mart, Smart-Mart, Not-So-Smart-Mart, and the race was on.

When my parents retired to California, they kept talking about a store called Price Club.  By the time we moved to California, Costco bought Price Club. My parents took us through the place they continued to call Price Club and we became members of Costco.

Now, there are several reasons I am a bona fide Costco consumer. First, their employees are truly friendly and helpful. If you can’t locate what you’re looking for, or want to exchange something for the one with the other ingredient or checks rather than stripes, they don’t just tell you where to find it, they hustle over to the spot and grab it for you. They even return the item you grabbed by mistake, and they do it with a smile. Not one of those phony, “my-boss-told-me-I-always-have-to-wear-a-smile-or-get-fired” smiles, but the same one they wear whenever they’re happy. I think it has something to do with the fact they are paid a living wage, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Brands we trust--3 lbs for the price of 1 or 2.

Second, they put quality first. A bargain is not a bargain if the product is going to fall apart the second or third time you use or wear it, or if it is going to spoil before you get it home. For this reason, Costco has always chosen to carry top of the line merchandise. Whether it’s names like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, Jack Daniels and Gray Goose, or Ocean Spray and M&M, they are always brands people trust to give them value for their hard earned dollars.

True Blue--jeans with double stitching, brass brads,
seven belt loops and long lasting denim.

Third, they created their own brand that carries the highest standard in the retail industry. So, I know when I buy Kirkland Signature Kettle Brand Krinkle Cut Potato Chips with Sea Salt they are every bit as crunchy and tasty as the major brands that sell a package a third the size for the same price. This quality extends to the denim and stitching of their five pocket jeans that at fourteen dollars cost half to a third as much as Levi’s, Lee or Wrangler, and the never need ironing seven button dress shirts that I’d never consider purchasing at seventy dollars from Arrow, Gant or Van Heusen but own several at $17.99 bearing the Kirkland Signature tag.

Finally, while there have been times when I have found I might have saved a few pennies at a competitor, at least 8, if not 9 times out of 10, Costco has the best price. A couple times the per pound cost of a produce item was less elsewhere, but whether it would have tasted as good is definitely in question. Still, in the rare instance when I have spent more than I might have somewhere else I remain a true Costconian because their promise of high quality makes me believe I am getting the best bang for my buck.

Pain on the Brain

A finger gets slammed in a door. A knee scrapes along a sidewalk. The blade nicks a chin or ankle. Or, like me, without the proper bend in the knees, the lower back responds to the hand picking up the dumbbell off the rack. Maybe the manufacturers of these weights that fit in your hands knew what was likely to happen when they named them dumbbells. Like me, you think it is the finger, knee, chin, ankle or back that feels the hurt. Again, the manufacturers of those trillion dollars worth of pills from Tylenol to Vicodin know where the pain lies. It’s in the brain. That’s why for those who result to this form of relief they provide drugs to block signals to the brain. This also may explain the popularity of zombies in books and movies—brain-dead beings feel no pain.

A dumbbell--greener and lighter than the one at the gym,
but no smarter.

The Monday before Thanksgiving I reached down to pick up the thirty pound weight with my right hand and a muscle above my left buttock decided either it had not been properly warmed or was too tired to stretch with enough elasticity to make the lift without first signaling my brain. My brain responded with a slight jolt to the top of the head that may have stimulated tear ducts to secrete a few drops and vocal chords to emit a slight utterance. Gathering from the lack of response from other members of the gym, it can be assumed these blended in with the more virile sweat and grunts of those whose backs remained spasm free.

Pool Vac Robot
Poor fellow was caught on thick leaves.

For two weeks I toughed it out and stuck to my daily routine of either working out at the gym or attending a yoga class. While I was more cautious with each lift, I never lightened the load, and I found taking a little longer with each stretch loosened the muscle and provided greater flexibility. I was determined to make it to my regularly scheduled monthly adjustment at the chiropractor, and avoid an emergency run. Then, the Santa Anas blew last Monday. These winds swirl off the mountains from the East bringing warm air and a ton of leaves that swoop to the bottom of my pool clogging up the small robot whose job it is to vacuum up debris. Naturally, it stalled and not only did I have to rescue it, but shovel the heavy soaked leaves off the bottom with a net on the end of a long pole. Even with plenty of bend in the knees, the muscles in the back are stretched beyond capacity—and it doesn’t require a brain to figure this out, but you can be sure the brain will let you know.

Long handled net--good for getting leaves
at bottom of pool--not good for back.

Somehow, I managed to get enough sleep that night, but when I attempted my usual stretches in yoga class Tuesday morning one of those utterances escaped my lips. A few of those in the class were alarmed. A little massage helped, but I sat up in a chair to get whatever sleep I was able to muster that night, stayed in my pajamas and robe the entire day on Wednesday, and slept on the floor last night.

Today, I went to my regularly scheduled monthly adjustment at my chiropractor. He said it had been quite awhile since I had this problem. His comments made me recall when I first injured that particular muscle. It occurred twenty years ago coming out of the water on a slalom ski behind my brother-in-law’s boat. Again, it’s a matter of the proper bend in the knees. Deaf deer in the Wisconsin woods heard the utterance that echoed across the water, fifty miles to the north.  A short while later an emergency room doctor gave me my only prescription for Vicodin. All it did was make me nauseous. My brain was not to be blocked.

Over the years the injury has recurred numerous times. Ice, heat, massage and the proper stretch and adjustments help, but mostly it takes time. Meanwhile, I’ll try to do what I’m learning to do in yoga; shut off my brain.

Misunderstanding Healthcare

May the Blue Bird of Paradise
provide you with many years of outstanding healthcare. 

Depending on whether you believe the president—and if you believe polls that’s less than half of us, or you believe the Republicans in Congress—and according to those same polls that’s one in five unless you live in the district represented by that particular member of Congress, the government website for national healthcare is working—or at least somewhat better than when they rolled it out two months ago. There are still a lot of skeptics who think that even though a person can find and purchase insurance on the website, the policy may not provide coverage for prescriptions or surgery when the patient needs them. My skepticism lies with those skeptics who think the purpose of healthcare is to provide pills and hospitals.

These birds managed to navigate the website.

Don’t get me wrong, I value pills and hospitals as much as the next person. I don’t want to take them, and I’d rather not have to go there, but when I am ill or injured that won’t stop me from using them. Like most kids, I grew up without any concerns for my health. We ran around outside, went places on our bikes, and, except for the time I caught my pants cuff going over a picket fence and ended up with a corkscrew fracture that required setting and a cast, avoided hospitals. My parents provided well-balanced meals with plenty of fruits and vegetables. The names Blue Cross and Blue Shield were familiar in our house, but they were hospital plans, not health plans.

For a time I took up running. Besides the five-mile runs on some weekends, and the marathon I ran to test my mettle, I got up and went running as a way of starting each day for about twenty years. When I started slipping on the ice I moved indoors. Eventually, I got off the track and treadmill and onto the elliptical. A little over a year ago I cut back from five days to three, and substituted yoga on alternate days. My over-weight relatives and friends consider this behavior weird, but then I’m not the one with early onset diabetes or trouble walking.

Their healthcare plan has definitely gone to the birds.

While I wouldn’t pretend to be the model of health, or assume anyone else should eat or exercise as I do to stay healthy, my point is to distinguish health from treatment. Only a small percentage of society is born with chronic disabilities, and that number is shrinking. Yet, most of the one in five dollars spent to make Americans healthy is for some kind of treatment.

So, no matter whether you believe the president, your Republican representative, or the guy down the street, no matter what the website does or doesn’t do, unless the policy includes provisions for nutritionally balanced meals and an exercise facility—gym, tennis court or golf course, it’s probably only providing treatment. But then, as a true blue American, it is your right to remain a couch potato, eat as much fatty food as you desire, and expect some over-worked emergency room physician to save your life when you enter the hospital with your first coronary. Now, that’s healthcare.

Giving Thanks

Although the National Football League and three television networks have made it difficult, Thanksgiving may be the one day a year when American families sit down together at the dining room table. When we were kids, aunts, uncles and cousins joined the five of us around our Ping-Pong table sans net with a couple of large sheets serving as a tablecloth. Detroit, which was flush from another successful role out of gas guzzling automobiles, celebrated by being the only NFL franchise to host a football game, and it was usually against the Packers. So, as loyal Wisconsin fans, we digested while watching. However, nothing took precedent over the lavish feast of turkey, gravy, candied yams (We called them sweet potatoes.), cranberry relish, and pumpkin pie.

We gather to give thanks--nobody is left in the kitchen.

While my parents raced to have everything prepared in the kitchen prior to the first relative’s arrival, my sister, brother and I gathered in front of the massive 16-inch black and white screen displaying the Broadway star-studded floats, highflying balloons, and monophonic sound of marching bands at the Macy Parade. We turned the TV off at the final commercial immediately prior to the float with Santa Claus. It may have been because we were Jewish, but I can remember times when our parents let us join with the other kids and have fun sitting on the big guy with the white beard and red suit’s lap—especially if the line was short. More likely, however, the end of the parade signaled time to set the table and give some thought to why the whole mishpacha was coming to our house on this day.

You can see the thanks written on our faces.

This year, as with most Thanksgivings during the past two decades, I placed two leaves in the pecan wood dining room table, roasted and basted the turkey, and glanced at the first of the football games while getting all the trimmings ready. Mother, sister, brother-in-law, nephew, two daughters, one daughter’s boyfriend and his parents replaced aunts, uncles and cousins. Like the pilgrims that survived that first winter and the Wampanoag, who not only shared their knowledge of native crops but also celebrated the first harvest with them, we expressed our gratitude for being able to share our abundant good fortune.

There's plenty of food and none of us feel a need to shop.

Yet, there was something different about this year. Long before the media dubbed the day after Thanksgiving Black Friday, based on its significance as the day most Americans initiated their Christmas shopping, its role in retail marketing was evident. In 1939, the National Retail Dry Goods Association influenced FDR to move Thanksgiving a week earlier to extend the buying season. When the Internet became a haven for consumers who wanted to avoid being trampled in the Black Friday stampede, they invented Cyber Monday. Ever ready to make things “better for consumers,” retailers started opening at five A.M. and then, midnight. But, that wasn’t good enough. Enter Gray Thursday. That’s right, this year a few—you know who they are—stores decided you can end your thankfulness, leave your family gathering at five P.M. and get to their place by six for the super sales of everything you’ve always wanted to give to someone who already has too much, but is appreciative because it’s your patriotic duty as an American consumer to buy as much as you can on this newly invented bastion of the marketplace as the center of all that we are thankful for in the world.

With all these great deals it was hard for many Catholic consumers to understand why their new pope was arguing against unfettered capitalism. Apparently he was upset that the death of a homeless man from exposure didn’t receive as much attention in the media as a surge in the market. I wonder if any rabbis feel the same way.