The English language has the reputation of being notoriously hard to learn, as it's chock full of words whose pronunciation doesn't match their spelling, bizarrely irregular verbs and plurals, and a subjunctive tense that not even native speakers understand.
Dutch, however, is just plain funny. At least, the English-speaking Mrs. Gerbil and I think so.
For example: did you know that "Monsterhouder" is Dutch for "specimen container"?
Although I'm only 17 months and two days away from turning 30 (ZOMGWTF!), I occasionally still have difficulty remembering, and accepting, that I am an adult. Perhaps it is my baby face. Perhaps it's a lingering effect of having been at least a year younger than my classmates in school. Or perhaps it's a function of just how long adolescence lasts in US culture--some theories of development hold that adolescence lasts until age 26!
But there are some things in my daily life that remind me that yes, indeed, I have achieved adult status. I'm not talking about things like approaching my third wedding anniversary, having a baby, having bought a car, or even having moved out of my parents' house seven years ago.
No, I'm talking about much more quotidian things. Things like...
boiling water for tea...
having a fully stocked medicine cabinet...
and knowing how to make (and ice) cupcakes completely from scratch.
Tea, baked goods, and healthcare--these, I think, are the really important things in adult life.
1998:
"ZOMG, the X-Files movie comes out tomorrow! We've got to go see it--tomorrow!"
2008:
"ZOMG, the X-Files movie comes out tomorrow! Oy, we'd need a babysitter... but Tovah's not taking a bottle regularly, and what if she doesn't behave herself, and what if we can't concentrate on the movie because we're worried about her, and... Oh well, guess we'll just wait till it comes out on DVD."
I enjoyed a lovely grape Popsicle this evening, and I was rewarded for my brain-freezing efforts with the following oxymoron-masquerading-as-a-joke:
Uh...
I got this great spam the other day:
from: Christ
subject: Memo to all employees
If you know Mrs. Gerbil, 'nuff said.
Hey! This is my 200th post! Rock on.
During the last few months of my pregnancy, I enjoyed a brief hiatus from being honked at by dudes in cars. Though Mrs. Gerbil would beg to differ, I've never thought of myself as particularly attractive. The extra forty pounds made me feel even less attractive (again, Mrs. Gerbil would beg to differ), so I was glad for the lack of honking.
A staple of my post-partum summer wardrobe is the nursing tank top. I highly recommend these things. It's been beastly hot, humid, or both over the past few weeks, so I'm even more thankful that these tops exist. They provide excellent coverage. But I'm finding that when I go out on my bike, I'm getting honked at again. One time an SUV full of male 20-somethings honked, wolf-whistled, and hey-sexied at me over the course of about 3/4 of a mile. I was sorely tempted to flip them a very ladylike bird, but I decided that ignoring them was probably the best policy.
But when I slather myself up with sunscreen and take Tovah out in the stroller for various errands, the last thing I expect on our walks is to be honked at.
And yet it happens. Like, every time.
I would think that, from an evolutionary-biology perspective, men in their reproductive prime would not be interested in women with babies. After all, the baby's presence should suggest that there's a father somewhere--i.e., competition. (For the sake of argument, we shall not consider the possibility that the baby has two moms. As far as I know, humans are the only creatures with the capacity for family-building by artificial insemination.) Men with babies, however, should be a big huge draw for women in their reproductive prime, for these guys basically advertise their sensitive, protective nature.
Here, too, Mrs. Gerbil begs to differ. She thinks that men in their reproductive prime should be very attracted to women with babies, as the baby is proof of fertility.
Then again, perhaps the baby has nothing to do with it. Maybe it's just all about my awesome tank tops--and my (baby-nourishing) honkers.
My blog-pals Roy, Dinah, and ClinkShrink are hosting this week's Grand Rounds over at Shrink Rap.
Even if you are not excited about the prospect of lots of health- and mental-health-related blog posts, it's worth it just for their awesome interactive iPhone graphic. (Which has a little purple gerbil in it!)
My cell phone and I have a love-hate relationship. I do not care for bells and whistles like call waiting, text messaging, or camera functions; and I always have a devil of a time explaining myself to the guys at the Verizon store. I also do not care for cell phones' collective implication of round-the-clock availability of their owners. But I like being able to talk to certain people for free, as well as to call Mrs. Gerbil to check on the little gerb while I'm off on my errands.
But alas, my cell phone's battery is dying a slow, horrible death. It demands to be charged at least once a day, regardless of whether I have been using the phone; and the phone now starts beeping its "feed me!" beep 30 minutes into a conversation. Yet if I hang up but don't plug it in, it will miraculously find a partial charge after only a few minutes' rest.
(Perhaps my trusty rusty phone is jealous of the baby--I like to talk on the phone while nursing.)
I don't really want to get a new battery. I have no idea whether I can even get a replacement battery for my no-frills phone; and besides, Verizon will give me a new phone, or at least a credit toward a new phone, in September. So I'm content to put up with its constant demands for attention for a few more months. I just wish that I'd known ahead of time that the battery would begin sucking this much less than 18 months into my relationship with this phone. Isn't that what all this R&D money is for?
There has been a lot of kerfuffle in the media and the blogosphere lately about a certain Harvard researcher's failure to disclose some of the money he's received from industry sources. This researcher, whose name begins with a "B" and ends with an "iederman," has been churning out scientifically solid work on pediatric bipolar disorder for a long, long time. (His CV probably requires at least a ream by now.)
Some are taking his disclosure malfunction as an indication that his research is shoddy, and, by extension, that bipolar disorder (and, for that matter, the entirety of DSM-IV-TR) is a load of bunk. This is one big logical fallacy--the straw man, to be precise.
If you have not spent a lot of time in academia, you may not be aware of the process by which research like this gets published. After you've obtained the necessary human subjects approval from your local Institutional Review Board or its equivalent, after you've collected and analyzed and interpreted your data, and after you've written up your manuscript, you must figure out which journal might publish it. Then you send your manuscript to that journal's editor, and the editor sends it as a de-identified document to three people who know your subject matter inside and out.
If you're trying to get psychological research published, one of these people might just be yours truly.
As a peer reviewer, I read your manuscript thoroughly, check your analyses and your interpretations thereof, determine whether it's appropriate for this particular journal, and write up a few paragraphs on my findings. I make a recommendation to the editor as to whether your manuscript should be published as is, with minor revisions, considered as a "revise and resubmit," or rejected outright. The editor then sends you a letter containing all three reviews and his or her decision.
I get about a month to complete my review, and it typically takes me about 20 hours, but I don't get paid. At no point do you know who I am, do I know who you are, or do I know who my two compatriots are. If your manuscript gets published and I recognize it, I sure hope you thank your anonymous reviewers in your acknowledgments footnote.
In my time I've saved the world from a lot of crappy manuscripts.
Although research ability and ethics overlap, they are not one and the same. Yes, conflict of interest is a huge problem. But before dissing a researcher's entire body of work, as well as the work of his or her colleagues, consider the lowly peer reviewer... who along with two other unidentified colleagues decided that each of his or her publications was worthy of ink.
Confidential to Motorola: Revise and resubmit, yo.
I am a very, very bad child of the 80s.
Last weekend I finally saw Michael Jackson's "Thriller" in its entirety. All 14 cheese-tastic minutes of it.
(In my defense, I was three when the video was released, and my parents do not have cable. But still, this is kinda embarrassing.)
And it made me wonder--what, exactly, is involved in an audition for a zombie movie? Do they ask aspiring zombies to stumble around the room? Is it possible to be typecast as a zombie? (Relatedly: is it at all desirable to be typecast as a zombie?)
Also: if you have not yet seen A Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead, what are you waiting for?
I haven't posted one of these in ages--almost two years, to be exact. But that's not to say I haven't been doing them. I just haven't been posting them.
What with the rising price of gas, Mrs. Gerbil and I decided it was high time to get new bicycles. My old beloved purple bike had died a valiant death of rust before our move from Ohio to California, and Mrs. Gerbil's black one was sacrificed for our move from California to Massachusetts. Mrs. Gerbil had promised me a new bike for Hanukkah a few years ago, and we'd gone to a bike shop of good repute in Berkeley to check out the stock; but the very nice employee wasn't able to identify the right bike for my overall size (not very big) and posture needs (weird).
So a few weeks ago, on recommendation from one of Mrs. Gerbil's co-workers, we went to Joe's Bike Garage. Joe's Garage is a tiny little place whose website, as far as I can tell, only has an index page; but Joe had the perfect bike for us. We each got a Redline R510, and dang, am I in love with my bike.
The other day I went on an extended little jaunt in search of a prescription and some ingredients for dinner. As I was unchaining my beautiful bike from the trash can at Big Y (note to local businesses: please provide bike racks!), an older man in a boater hat approached me. "Can I ask you a question about your hat?" he asked.
"My helmet?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Sure," I replied.
"Why is it shaped like that?" he asked.
Assuming he was referring to its fairly typical contour, I said, "It's more aerodynamic this way."
"It doesn't cover the side of your face," he said. "Why isn't it shaped like a football helmet?"
"There are some helmets like that," I said, "but I guess this one is just made to protect your brain. If you fall on the side of your face and break your jaw, they can wire it back, but if you hit the top of your head and get a brain injury, you're pretty much screwed."
Dammit, I thought, I shouldn't use words like "screwed" when conversing with nice 80-year-old men.
"Oh, okay," he replied. "But me, if I fell off a bike, I would probably fall on the side of my face. Bye!"
Although we don't really live in a real neighborhood these days, we are right across the street from a whole bunch of useful things. These include the cheapest gas station in South Hadley, Dunkin' Donuts, a Chinese restaurant, a Greek and pizza restaurant, a drycleaner, Friendly's, a hardware store, and a grocery store. (Oh, and there's an armed services recruiting office, too, but that's not so useful for us. After all, Tovah's too young to enlist, and we're too gay.)
The grocery store is a Big Y, and unfortunately its convenience factor is offset by its prices. Mrs. Gerbil is in charge of most of the grocery shopping around here, and she prefers the PriceRite a few miles away. But when the PriceRite doesn't have what we need, or when we just can't be bothered to drive or bike out there for a few items, we just go across the street.
The Big Y, unlike the PriceRite, has a loyalty program. There is your standard savings card, but there are also these little coins that you sometimes get at the register. The coins grant you discounts on items we never buy (like pre-fab frozen bagel pizza bites, ice cream cakes, and steak). There are silver, gold, red, and blue coins; silver coins get you the smallest discounts and of course are handed out at greatest frequency, usually in pairs. We have about three dozen silver coins, and needless to say, this is all kind of annoying.
I perused the rewards flyer the other day and discovered that a silver coin will get you a free small cup of coffee. Mrs. Gerbil is a coffee fiend, so I suggested that instead of making coffee twice a day, she should take a coin across the street and get some free coffee. On Thursday I tried this arrangement out for myself. The decaf was pretty good; but I hadn't realized that even if you pay for a purchase entirely with silver Big Y coins, you still tend to get a pair of silver coins at the register.
Let x equal the number of coins with which we started out. Despite my efforts to turn coins into coffee, we now had x+1 coins.
On Friday morning, Mrs. Gerbil and her mother (who's enjoying her grandma time immensely) went across the street for coffee for all three of us. They returned with two regulars, one decaf, and (argh!) two more silver coins. After four free cups of coffee, our coin collection had achieved homeostasis, with (x+1)-3+2 coins... otherwise known as x coins.
Mrs. Gerbil and her mother went back across the street for more coffee on Friday afternoon. They returned with two regulars, one decaf, and (praise the Lord!) not a single silver coin. Seven free cups of coffee later, we possessed x-3 coins.
This morning, Mrs. Gerbil brought back three more free cups of coffee (two regulars and one decaf, of course)... and two more infernal silver coins. This brought us to nine free cups of coffee but (x-3)-3+1, or x-5, coins.
Secondary school students often complain that algebra isn't useful in the real world. Perhaps the powers that be at the Big Y are counting (ha ha) on its customers remembering the pain of algebra rather than its methods. But in any case, hey, small cups of Big Y coffee are the gift that keeps on giving.
Mrs. Gerbil and I took Tovah on her first overnight trip this past weekend, to visit Grandma and Grandpa Gerbil. A very fun time was had by all!
(Moo, I am sorry we didn't have time to look you up... but once you move to Phila., getting together will be even easier!)
On our way back today I had this fantastic conversation with the man selling soft pretzels, nuts, Swedish fish, etc. at the Trenton train station. He looked at least old enough to be my father, if not my grandfather; and English was decidedly not his first language.
"I help you?" he asked.
"I'd like a pretzel, please," I said.
He handed me a gigantic pretzel braid ($2.50) instead of a regular pretzel twist ($1.25) but hey, I love my Philly soft pretzels. Then he asked, "Why you so beautiful?"
I held out a $5 bill and flashed what I hoped was a "please stop being an ass and give me my change now" smile. But Mr. Smooth Soft Pretzel Man ignored the five and repeated: "why you so beautiful?"
"Genetics, I guess," I said, waving the five a little.
"You have lucky man," he said, finally taking my money and opening the register oh-so-slowly. "Give me his number. I call him." Smoooooth.
"There's no man," I said.
"Give me his number. I call him."
"I don't have a man," I repeated.
"I don't understand."
"No man," I said. "I have a woman."
"I don't understand."
"Never mind," I said. I held out my hand for my change.
He took the hint about the change, but not the one about his not being my type. He asked for my--excuse me, my nonexistent man's--phone number again, but I thanked him for the pretzel and walked away to join my wife and child.
As a general rule I do not like fantasy as a genre. I also do not care much for science fiction, except for real old-school stuff like Asimov and silly stuff like Douglas Adams (both of whom I started reading when I was about 10). At one point I did like both of these genres, but that point has long been over.
However, I've recently discovered Terry Pratchett, who seems to be to fantasy what Douglas Adams is to science fiction. Over the past few weeks I've read Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad, both of which I enjoyed thoroughly. (I'm a little embarrassed that it took me so long to get through them, as normally I'd be able to polish both off in a single afternoon--but "normally" here means "if I did not have a small baby.")
For Christmas, Chip sent us Hogfather. (Thanks, Chip!) I started it today. Anyway, the whole point of this entry is that I would like to share the following quote, from its page 24:
"Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on."
Genius, man. Freaking genius.
Thursday was a red-letter day in the Passover department. Although we and Stop & Shop had run out of matzo, all was not lost. I made matzo meal bagels for the first time, from my grandma's recipe (which actually came from Manischewitz, but whatever), and they turned out rather nicely. Mrs. Gerbil likes them, though she wouldn't call them bagels, exactly.
For dinner I made matzo ball soup. I am pleased to report that, as in previous years, my balls were again quite splendid. Not too dense, not too fluffy, and swimming with some choice carrots in delectably salty broth.
Though I do love my balls, I'll be glad when Passover is done and I can have sandwiches again.
I used to feel rather guilty if I slept past 8:30 or 9 on a weekday. This changed with Tovah's arrival. I now feel emotionally out-of-sorts if I don't sleep past 8:30 or 9!
Previously I was not bothered by phone calls before 9:30 in the morning. Of course, this too has changed. 9:30 in the morning now feels like 7:30 in the morning, which is just too darn early for the phone to ring. But, perhaps to spite me, the phone has been ringing shortly after 9 pretty much every day for the past several days.
This morning the phone rang right on schedule. I think perhaps the woman on the other end, who was probably a telemarketer (and we are on the do not call list!) was operating on about as many cylinders as I was.
me: Hello?
woman: [says something not entirely into the phone]
me: Hello? Can I help you?
woman: Mrs. Davila?
me: I'm sorry, you have the wrong number.
woman: Mrs. Davila?
me: No, I'm sorry, you have the wrong number. Whom are you trying to reach?
woman: Mrs. Davila? I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. [ed.- huh?]
me: I'm sorry, you have the wrong number.
woman: Mrs. Davila, I do not have the wrong number! I called xxx-xxxx.
me: Yes, you did call that number, but as I've told you three times now, you have the wrong number. There is no one here by that name.
Then I told her to take our number off her list and summarily hung up. I'm not usually that abrupt, but it does really rub me the wrong way when someone persists in being mistaken about my identity.
Mrs. Gerbil says I should have said, "Oh, silly me, I forgot--today I am Mrs. Davila!" In any case, why do I keep encountering callers who have trouble accepting that people get new phone numbers--or rather, that phone numbers get new people?
The other day I tried on a few pairs of pre-preggo pants. I've been wearing regular tops since coming home from the hospital on Friday, but pants are of course another story. (Come to think of it, pants are pretty much always another story.)
I know that one loses a significant amount of weight in the first week or so after delivery, but I'm a little weirded out by the fact that, six days after giving birth to cuteness, I could again wear a pair of pants I purchased in the girls' department at JC Penney.
Oh, and here is cuteness at 1 week old:
This is Mrs. Gerbil borrowing the mike to report some happy news.
The baby gerbil Tovah was born yesterday morning at 10:10.
Everyone's doing great! And Gerbil will surely be sharing more with you when she's able to come home and use the internet.
Here is Tovah:
I am among the many lucky souls who have allergic asthma. Thus, when my allergies are sufficiently under control, I don't have asthma attacks. Though I'm never totally symptom-free as far as my allergies are concerned, asthma management has always been fairly easy for me. The only extended period of respiratory problems I've ever really had was the direct result of my severe allergy to California. And, since we left California almost three months ago, I haven't had a single attack. Hm.
In the US, uncontrolled asthma is undoubtedly a major cause of morbidity, mortality, and (of course) health care spending. And it seems that just the word "asthma" is enough to put managed care's panties in a bunch. I've had to fill out a couple of post-enrollment "risk assessment" forms for various insurance plans over the years, and of course they all want to know what chronic conditions I have. Because I am pathologically truthful, I always check off the little box for asthma.
I know that this means that I will be contacted by a disease management nurse. And that I will have to work really, really hard to convince him or her that I do not need any assistance managing my asthma, thank you, that my inhalers always expire before I've used them up, and that I have an allergist who actually sees me for appointments, which is far superior on all counts to having someone who's never met me attempting to do disease management by phone.
But as I said, I'm pathologically honest.
About a year ago, I had called our insurance's nurse advice line to ask whether I should use industrial-strength steroid cream or good old hydrocortisone on a rash that had just appeared on my arm. She wasn't much help in my decision-making because she wasn't familiar with the industrial-strength stuff. But then she asked if I have asthma. I said yes. "I'm supposed to refer you to our asthma management program, then, so would you like me to refer you?" she asked. I said no. We hung up, and I went to put some hydrocortisone on my arm. (It worked just fine, by the way.)
A few weeks later, I got a big thick envelope in the mail from our insurance company. "Welcome to the Asthma Management Program!" it proclaimed. "Please call us to complete your initial assessment!" I was not pleased. I called the number and had the following conversation:
me: I just received this packet and I do not want to be enrolled in the program.
asthma management program person: Who referred you?
me: One of the nurses on the nurse line. I'd called her about something completely unrelated. She offered to refer me and I said I didn't want to be referred, but it looks like she did it anyway.
AMPP: Do you have asthma?
me: Yes.
AMPP: Well, maybe this program would be helpful for you. How often do you use your rescue inhaler?
me: Fewer than five times a year. The last time was almost four months ago. I don't want to be in this program. I have an allergist. She's in-network. Please disenroll me. I never wanted to be enrolled in the first place.
AMPP: Oh, okay, it sounds like you can manage things yourself. I will disenroll you. You won't receive anything else from us.
me: Thank you.
A few weeks later, I got another big, thick envelope from our insurance company. "Thank you for enrolling in the Asthma Management Program!" it said. "Please call us to complete your follow-up assessement!"
Oh, boy, was I ever steamed.
me: I am not enrolled in this program. Why do you keep sending me letters that ask me to call?
asthma management program person: Who referred you?
me: A nurse from the nurse line. I told her I did not want to be referred. She referred me anyway. I called earlier this month when I received a welcome packet and asked to be disenrolled. I was told I wouldn't be getting any more materials. This obviously is not the case.
AMPP: Maybe our program could be helpful for you--
me: As I explained when I called the last time, I use my inhaler fewer than five times a year, I have an in-network allergist whom I see regularly, and I never consented to being enrolled in this program.
AMPP: Oh.
me: I'd like to file a complaint about this, actually, because I consider this all to be an invasion of my privacy. Maybe the nurse was required to refer me, but if that's the case, it should have been a lot clearer that I didn't have a choice. As it was, she asked for my consent, I withheld it, and this is the second phone call I've had to make to try to get myself disenrolled from a program I'm not interested in.
AMPP: Oh, I'm very sorry. We do take your concerns seriously. I'm going to pass this along to our medical director. You won't be receiving anything more from us.
Convincing my insurance company that I don't need extra help with asthma management shouldn't be like convincing my credit card company that I don't need to sign up for a great balance transfer rate. Although the credit company doesn't necessarily know that I have no debt to transfer, the insurance company should be able to tell from my claims history that I don't show up in the ER with asthma.
" 'You don't mind being treated like a... like a gerbil?' "
- Nick Hornby, About a Boy
" 'Under your prim exterior, I'm sure there beats the heart of a lusty animal. ... Perhaps a gerbil.' "
- Curtis Sittenfeld, The Man of My Dreams
