Boom Goes the Dynamite

It is so utterly satisfying to bend people to my will.

A friend of mine once told me: "You are your own little personal hurricane. You suck people in and spit them back out, remade in your image." And sadly, he was sober as a judge when he said it.

It is true that in my history I have been known to howl at the moon and throw fits that would give a normal person pause. Usually, this process ends with me getting my way. It is very rare that I've been called upon to engage in the process for a legitimate reason.

However, let this vinette serve as a warning if you or a loved one finds themselves in the clutches of today's wrecked health care system.

Long story short: A close family member suffered a brain injury and was transported to the local trauma hospital. The care he was given as it relates to his injury was exemplary. The management of his ancillary health care conditions has been acceptable. What has been utterly unacceptable is the level of communication between the family and the hospital. Today I met a family who is getting less information that we did. No suprise: They are spanish speakers and may or may not be legal residents. They had not spoken to a doctor since their loved one was admitted. Social worker --> yep. Translator --> absolutely. But a doctor? Forget about it.

Please, no matter what else you do, always demand answers. Page doctors. Pester nurses. Pilfer whatever information you can. The person in the bed may or may not be in a position to manage the care and ask the question. You must care for them and if that means turning on your own personal hurricane, go to it. It is the best thing you can do for the patient and for yourself

Permanent Solution to a Temporary Problem

I'm never, ever going to get suicide.

It's so selfish, so hurtful, so cowardly.

So it's been a pretty hard last 72 hours as I've tried to understand how one of the most laid back, giving, strong, fearless men I have ever known decided to take a seat in a running car and gas himself to death.

Look at this goof. Look at the grin. Look at the purple shirt. Are we done?

Let me introduce you to Mike Whitmarsh.

He was, in a word, a god on the beach. He could roof a ball like nobody's business and he was an absolute laugh riot. I've known him off and on for more than 20 years. I met him in the mid-80s and adored him. We lost touch and remet in the early 90s when his redonkulous ass was playing King of the Beach around the country. We drank, smoked the occasional cigar, made fun of each other and the rest of the world when he wasn't too busy talking to woman far more attractive than I.

And that's thing. He was perfectly happy to spend time with a 225-lbs whale as he was talking to a size zero hottie. He had time for every kid with a pen, every fan with a program, every babe in a bikini. He married a beautiful and talented woman. He had two darling daughters. He'd won a Silver Medal in beach volleyball. He'd been a pro basketball player who once guarded Magic Johnson. He'd battled the loss of his first dream - basketball - and battled the loss of his body when a constant dehydration problem almost ended his career. He'd made and lost lots of money. And shit just rolled off his back. Watching him play nearly 50 pro volleyball matchs, I saw him get pissed, really pissed just once. And as suddenly as it started, the anger evaporated and he was Whitty again.

I don't know what lead him to this. I haven't a clue and I pass no judgment. It's been awhile since the last time I talked to him. But if I could go back in time and get to him one minute before he crawled into that car I would have reminded him of what he once told me when I was in a world of hurt: "The sun and sand will always be there. You can usally find a ball and game, but there's always the sand and the sun. What more do you really need?"

So what more did you need, love? What made you rush the dirt nap? Why couldn't you hang on for one more day to see the sun, the sand and maybe a game? What broke your heart and your spirit?


I'll miss you, my friend. I'll miss having you in my world. The sun and the sand just ain't the same without you beating a ball against a net somewhere - even if I'm not there to see it.

Bitch, please...

I would very much like to salute Andrew Card, former chief of fuckery for The Fruitbat, for being the biggest douchenozzle of all time.

Card, who was an active player in several of the more deplorable decisions of the Bush administration, decided he needed to opine on the perceived fashion faux pas of the Obama administration.

Really?

Cuz you got absolutely nothing better to do? No one is paying you $1 million for your memoirs? You cannot find some Republican groupie to give you a hand job? You're so bored you've become the political version of Mr. Blackwell?

I don't care of Obama and his staff are wearing leis and dancing the hula as long as they are moving forward to resolve the problems of this country. I never cared that The Fruitbat wore his jogging suit in public nor did I care that Ronald Reagan thought Jelly Bellies were good idea. Obama and the gang are doing hard work and when men (and woman who like long sleeves) are doing hard work, the sleeves get rolled up.

So, Mr. Card, please feel free to zip your lip or, even better, bounce on out of the spotlight and join the rest of your ilk hunkered down in dark places to avoid service from the Court of Public Opinion suing you for multiple counts of douchenozzelry.

All connected yet all alone

If you don't know who he is, (a) put down the bong, (b) crawl out from under your rock and (c) turn on a television.

First, he "landed" a plane in the middle of the Hudson River safely. Second, he walked the length of the plane not once but twice to make sure all of the passengers on this plane were out of harms way. Then he gave a drenched, shivering passenger his shirt in an effort to stave off hypothermia for the passenger. The man is a god.

On Friday morning when I got to work, listening to NPR, I heard there were eight Facebook groups dedicated to our man Sully. I logged on to FB as soon as I got to work and joined one of the groups, which at that point had 6,200 members. Mere moments ago, I went back and that group has swelled to 72,000 members. And reading the wall, I got to thinking about the way we share our experiences in the techno age.

In my grandparents' day, it was talk at the coffee shop or beauty parlor and you knew what you knew from the radio or the newspaper or the local gossip. News moved at a snail's pace, as we would see it now, but then the wireless mean a radio, not a phone, and to that generation, the news came at breakneck speed.

In my parents' generation, it was Walter Cronkite on the evening news and your choice of newspapers. The advent of television and the evening news changed how people saw the world but again, the delivery system would seem slow and bleak to us who are now use to color pictures, banners, scroll bars and catchy themes to our news coverage.

Now, in our generation, we have a community not only in the locality in which we live but in the cyber town halls. People are posting messages up on a Facebook wall to a man who will most likely never read them. Yet, post we must. In our technological world, this is the town square, the water cooler, the place we go to feel a part of something. We're all connected and yet, we're all alone. People reach out to and on FB to feel a connection. Even with friends and family, we still want to be part of something else.

I hope Sully gets his kids to sign him on and let him read the wall posts. As much as we all wrote on the wall to him, we were writing for each other and sending out our thoughts and prayers and energies to betterment of all.

Admit it. You couldn't help but feel the world is a better place today because of the actions of two pilots you'll never meet.

If it seems I am over you

Yes, i know, it's been awhile since I've been here. And it's not that I am over you, dearest blog. It's the life has been crazy for a good long time. So for those of you looking for an update:

Since my last post, the followings have happened:

1. A good friend has moved forward with an adoption despite the credit crunch in this country. Now, just how does the credit problem impinge on an adoption? Visit http://www.5forhope.com/ to get the full story and while you're there, don't be afraid to let your heart do your thinking.

2. Another dear, old friend and I reunited via Facebook. The love story that is his still makes me well up and you that know me know how hard that is to do. The joys of rekindling old friendships is one of life's little wonders.

3. Lots and lots of baby news for my friends: my law school roomie (whose cat serves as my profile pic) is blessed with her first, another girlfriend is blessed with her fourth and first girl and my daughter dearest (from law school) has a bouncing baby boy on the way - he, however, is a great dane.

4. Israel invaded Gaza. I have an opinion but really it boils down to this: Forget the past and forge a future together. Neither side is going any where so figure it out.

5. Law life involves 15 criminal cases, three divorces, several civil cases and in the next month, oral arguments before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, two briefs to the state appeallate court and a trial. Who said this wasn't fun?

6. Hillary Clinton is still annoying.

7. So is Richard Lugar.

8. Bush did his last press conference...and provided several new facial expressions which can be compared to all members of the simian family.

9. The NFL regular season proved that (a) Ted Thompson is an idiot, (b) Aaron Rogers is a pretty decent little QB despite Mike McCarthy's inability to call the last 2 minutes of the game and (c) Brett Favre, while not the godsend all hoped for, brought the Jets to a respectable level and (d) he was dropped on his head too many time because he started the retirement shit with two weeks left in the season.

10. The BCS proved once again that it sucks, totally.

My new years blog resolution - at least one post a week until I run out of Buffett songs to use as headings.

Living and dying in 3/4 time

I should have written this a long time ago. But this whole working thing gets in the way.

Barack won. Let's see if we all get the importance therein:

1. He is black by virture of his father's race.
2. He is white be virture of this mother's race.
3. He lived in Hawaii, Indonesia and Chicago.
4. He married an African-American who knew no other way then the way the world treated here.
5. He is the first successful politician that has lived both the black man and the white man's view of the world.

Now that the transition is underway, it is clear that he lives the message he sold us as the Audacity of Hope.

Gays, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish, they're all there. I've even spotted a good Dago name (and yes, I'm allowed to use that word - I'm one.) Every view, even Republican, is represented in the transition and will be represented in the Administration. Here's pulling for Chuck Hagel and the Senator from New York for Secretary of State.

Everybody's on the Phone

Who knew a finding a phone number would be an archelogical dig involving generations of cell phones.

I was trying to get in touch with someone I hadn't talked to in several years. The person called me but the signal faded when she was leaving her number. So I thought well i can random dial until I get there or I can hope I still have her number someplace.

My current phone is a Blackberry Curve.
The phone before that was a Motorola Rzr-3.
Before that was the Motorola Razor.
Before that was a Sanyo something or another.
And before that was another Sanyo something which I ran over with my car.
The one before that was red, might have been a Kyocera.
At the same time the work phone was a Nokia.
Before that, it was a Motorola flip phone that weighed six hundred pounds.

So anyway, I have all but two of those phones still: the one I ran over and the one that belonged to my former employer. I don't know why have the others. I even have a Nokia I picked up in Ireland so that I could call my friends when I was there. In any event, I fired up each one of the phones, scrolling literally back through time. Upon m first cell phone - circa 1996 - I found my friend's old home number. And her cell. Neither of which worked. Then I found her mom's number on the oldest phone.

Success at last. Thank god in a day and age when many have forsaken land lines that the old folks still like a dial tone.