The price of convenience

According to the newsletter Mrs. Gerbil received the other day, the Alameda Green Party is congratulating itself over preventing the construction of some cell phone tower somewhere. I don't know where the tower was supposed to be, as Mrs. Gerbil has already recycled the newsletter and the link which should lead to the newsletter doesn't actually yield anything of use.

But this will not stop my snark. Oh, children, my snark cannot be stopped.

I will concede that cell towers are ugly. I'll also concede that I had no idea that there were so many ways to disguise cell towers. But it's not just aesthetics (or lack thereof) that fuel protests against cell tower construction. It's the possibility of a health hazard. It's the intrusion of commercial activity into non-commercial zones. Oh, and it's the principle of the thing.

Now, I'm all for preservation and good planning and all that, but there's a fundamental problem with cell tower nimbyism: No cell tower, no cell service.

Many people have no land line because their cell phones are their primary phones. That's great for people who know they can always get reception. Mrs. Gerbil and I each have a cell phone, but we also have a land line because cell phones aren't 100% reliable. On our landline we have a cordless phone and an old-school phone with a 25' cord. (Why the ancient model? Because we can't use the cordless to notify PG&E that the power is out.)

If cell tower construction is restricted, then existing towers may get overwhelmed--and then we'll all bang our heads on the wall to the tune of "We're sorry, all circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later."

When I decided to get a cell phone about five and a half years ago, I chose my company based on local coverage. The best coverage in my area came from Verizon or Sprint, but it was well known that there was no Sprint reception on Coventry Road. Coventry is full of all kinds of fun shops, and as I lived about a quarter mile away, I was there all the time. Needless to say, I chose Verizon. Verizon, however, does not have such great reception in our bedroom in Berkeley. But this doesn't bother me. I can put up with the lack of reception in our bedroom, because the only way to fix this is to put up a cell tower on the bed. And that's just plain silly.

However, I also don't subscribe to the belief that cell phone ownership equals constant accessibility. So I suppose it's okay to support the restriction of cell tower construction if you don't mind not being able to use your cell phone everywhere and all the time. But if your cell phone is necessary for your survival, then cell towers are your necessary evil.

Gee, your armpits smell terrific!

Well, I had planned to blog about a Celebrity Deathmatch that isn't, but should be:



but it seems I am not as original as I'd thought.

I would have probably spent an evening moping about this, if not for last night's Target run with my best friend, R.

When R and I go shopping, we are a force with which to be reckoned. Even Mrs. Gerbil thinks so--which is why she tends not to come along. But last night, Mrs. Gerbil had to work late; and so R and I made like teenagers and spent the night at the mall.

We each needed various items from the health and personal care section. Alas, this took a lot longer than it should have, as there are just way too many choices these days. There must be 57 varieties or Crest toothpaste, and it's getting harder to find good old cool mint gel. And really, how many different cartoons need to be festooned on band-aids? R and I find this all very amusing.

And then we spotted the best varietal of all:


R put her astonishment this way: "Dude. The point of deodorant is to make your armpits not smell."

I put mine this way: "Dude. No one's armpits should smell like Starbucks."

I suppose it's possible that R and I, hip as we are, have missed some important new trend in accessorizing--the one that dictates that your underarms must match your hot beverage.

"No" means NO.

One of the unfortunate things about my job is that I cannot do a single thing about claims. I cannot tell anyone the status of a claim. I cannot reprocess a claim. I cannot even say whether a claim has been received. This is because I am not in the claims department.

My department never closes. The claims department does. When the claims department is open, I can transfer callers to a real live person over there. When the claims department is closed, not a single real live person is there to receive the transfer. And the only thing I can do is say to wait until the next business day--which can be a tall order if it's 7pm on a Friday night.

I don't know why it is so difficult for people to understand that I can't view their claims information. I get at least three calls per day that go like this:

caller: I am calling about a claim that my doctor submitted three months ago.
me: I'm sorry, I can't see any of your claims information. The claims department is open Monday through Friday, from...
caller: But my doctor sent in this claim three months ago and it hasn't been paid yet.
me: I apologize for the delay, but as I said I do not have access to any information about your claims.
caller: What do I have to say to get you to pay my therapist?
me: Please call back when our claims department is open and they will be happy to assist you.
caller: But why can't you help me with my claims?
me: Because I am not in the department that handles claims. That department is closed right now.
caller: Oh. Okay then, bye.

As you can imagine, I get very tired of saying the same thing over and over and over again. I probably say "I can't see any information about your claims" in my sleep. Sometimes I feel like I'm David Spade in that one commercial, except I'm not saying "NOOOOooooo!" for the passive-aggressive hell of it.

Mrs. Gerbil suggested that I come up with fun, creative ways to impart this information. Last night we came up with a whole slew while we were supposed to be sleeping.

Some of them were inspired by cheesy martial arts movies:

~ Your claims information is silent, like the ninja.
~ Your claims information is as the first crocus of spring, but it is still December.
~ Your claims information is as a deer, deep within in the forest.
~ Your claims information is as concrete shoes at the bottom of the Hudson River.

Some of them were inspired by television:

~ In the world of managed care, claims information is considered especially valuable. In this company, claims are handled by an elite squad known as the claims department. These are their hours...

Some of them were inspired by folk songs:
I cannot give you your claims status
I cannot do squat about claims
That's done by another department
So why are you talking to me, to me?
Call back, call back
Call back on Monday at six AM
Call back, call back
Call back on Monday at six.

And some of them were inspired by nursery rhymes:

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, but I don't have any of your claims information.

The man in the moon came down too soon
And asked the way to Norwich;
He went by the south and burnt his mouth
From eating your claims information.

Old MacDonald had a farm
E-I-E-I-O
And on his farm he did not have your claims information.

Alas, I don't think this would qualify as good customer service.

2007 Report on My Balls

Mrs. Gerbil convinced me last night to make matzo ball soup for dinner. I had suggested matzo pizza (slather matzo with spaghetti sauce, top with shredded mozzarella, microwave 45 seconds), with promise of matzo ball soup tonight, but Mrs. Gerbil reminded me that she wouldn't be home for dinner tonight on account of her Maundy Thursday service. So I agreed to make matzo ball soup last night instead.

Well, I am happy to say that my balls are quite delicious this year. Their texture is midway between fluffy and dense, and the salty liquid in which they are bathed also has some carrots in it this year.

I gotta tell you, Mrs. Gerbil is a big fan of my balls.

A word to the wise

After many, many months of under-employment, I finally found gainful work a few months ago. In the words of Mrs. Gerbil, having a real job is "totally crazy like whoa."

Since late February I have been working the swing shift (including weekends) in the call center of a humongous behavioral health insurance company. Mostly I'm quoting benefits, issuing authorizations, and pre-certifying inpatient stays. But occasionally I get crisis calls, which are always interesting.

In addition to rather sizable paychecks, this job has provided some perspective in my quest to Fix The World By Complaining. I'm now a lot nicer to call center representatives whom I contact in my personal life--because I know now that they can't change a whole lot of anything, no matter how angry I get about it.

I've also learned that every call is documented, or at least should be documented. Details of your calls to your health insurance are considered part of your medical record--which means you can request to see those data at any time. I would hate to see the notes our former health and dental plans have on me.

And I have learned about the mute button.

The mute button is the best way to put callers on hold without actually putting them on hold. It's weird and uncomfortable to be on the phone with a stranger while neither of you is saying anything, right? and it's so much better to be on hold, right?

Okay, maybe not. But in any case: If you don't hear the hold music, you are probably not on hold. You are likely on mute. Which means that the call center representative can hear everything you are saying.

So hold thy tongue, knave.

The nanny state

There is much kerfuffle out here in California over so-called "nanny state" legislation. Members of the state senate and assembly have come up with a number of fantastically intrusive proposals in recent months, including bans on

1) incandescent light bulbs;
2) spanking;
3) children under 4'9" in the front seat of the car;
4) children under 4'9" in the back seat of the car without a booster seat; and
5) smoking in the car while children are present.

The state senate is to hold hearings on smoking in cars in the very near future. Now, I do believe that smoking is a public health issue. Smoking is prohibited in a lot of places in California, including restaurants, hospital entrances, and Berkeley bus stops, although citizens like myself are left to enforce the latter with varying degrees of success. Several months ago, at the Hayward BART station, I had the following exchange with a woman who meandered into my personal space with a lit cigarette:

me: Excuse me, would you mind smoking somewhere else? This is a no-smoking zone.
smoker: What the hell? I just came over here. I can smoke if I want to.
me: I have been sitting here for a while, and I don't mind if you smoke elsewhere. Just not here.
woman: What the hell?
me: Thank you for respecting the needs of a person with asthma.
woman: Oh, respecting your needs? What about mine?
me: I don't mind if you smoke somewhere else. But it's against the law to smoke right here, and I have asthma. Thank you for respecting my health.
woman: [wandering away, talking loudly into her cell phone] Sorry, some white bitch says I can't smoke near her ass. Oh, wait, that white bitch don't HAVE no ass.

So yes, smoking is a public health issue. But there's something about this no-smoking-in-your-personal-vehicle thing that really gets to me. I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that one's car is an extension of one's residence. It's a private space. But the boundaries between private and public are a lot blurrier in the car because, unless your ride is pimped out with tinted windows (which are heavily regulated in this state anyway), everyone can see what you're doing, all the time.

If you smoke in the car with the windows up, your car smells like an ashtray. If you smoke in your house with the windows closed, your house smells like an ashtray. Anyone in a closed car will inhale second-hand smoke--but so can anyone in a closed room. Is it really worse to be in the car than in the house? I'd be willing to bet that kids spend a lot more time in houses full of second-hand smoke than in cars. So why target cars?

I think the answer is that it's a lot easier to enforce a ban on smoking in the car. The police can obtain immediate evidence that someone's smoking in the car--no need to justify a search warrant if you can see the crime in progress.

But you know, there are many other things in California which pose health hazards to children and other living things. There's pollution, crime, poverty, homelessness, abuse, disease, neonatal drug addiction, abysmal public education, gang violence... all of which are much harder to solve with a single piece of legislation.

If this bill passes, I hope someone will be able to sleep better, knowing that parents will be fined for lighting up while driving their children to school--in a district where less than 50% will receive a diploma and where gangs have more power than the principal.

Public transit story #18: Saving it for later

I admit: I have a very poor sense of smell.

For most of my life my nasal passages were completely clogged by allergies. It's only been in the past few years that I've been able to breathe through my nose. Say what you will about mouth-breathers--I've heard it all before.

Now there is a whole olfactory world out there with which I must become acquainted. I can smell lots of things now, but I have no idea what they are. I'm really good at identifying things like natural gas, peanut butter, baked goods, vanilla, popcorn and sulfur. But I tend to label vaguely unpleasant odors as one of the following:

1) tuna fish;
2) toast;
3) burning motor oil; or
4) pee.

You'd be surprised at how often I think Berkeley smells like tuna fish or toast. But then there was one morning when our entire neighborhood smelled to me like nasty stir-fry. The culprit turned out to be the garbage truck, which is powered by vegetable oil. Kitchen waste + hot vegetable oil = nasty stir-fry, indeed.

Mrs. Gerbil has the sometimes amusing, sometimes annoying task of helping me identify odors. Sometimes I need assistance telling burning motor oil from hot engine; but most of the time it's pot versus skunk. I know skunk very well, as I grew up in skunk country and have experienced live skunk under the house, dead skunk under the house, and of course dead skunk in the middle of the road. During my senior year of high school, a skunk crawled under the house, died, and perfumed all of my clothes. I was definitely not the most popular kid in school the next day. But I digress.

Pot versus skunk is tough. Mrs. Gerbil admits that pot smells like skunk, but her rule of thumb is that skunk travels, whereas pot does not. Sometimes, while we're driving on the highway, I'll yell "SKUNK!" and Mrs. Gerbil will say, "No, honey, that's pot." Which begs the question: why does the highway smell like pot, or rather, who's driving while stoned?

BART trains often smell like pot/skunk. (I'd rather people take transit while stoned than drive while stoned, but then I'd really prefer they sit in another car.) I'm reasonably certain that no one gets on BART after being sprayed by a skunk, and also reasonably certain that a whole lot of people in the Bay Area get stoned with great frequency. Most of the time it's teenagers who fragrance BART, but occasionally there's a middle-aged ex-hippie providing the aromatherapy.

On Tuesday an elderly, distinguished-looking gentleman sat down in front of me, and at that moment my world began to smell like a head shop. A lot of teenagers had boarded at the same time, so I gave in to stereotyping and figured one of them was high.

Then I saw the last little bit of a joint tucked behind this man's rather sizable ear.

I was proud of myself for correctly identifying pot, but I was even more impressed by this guy's storage facilities.

Ya think?

This entry is in memory of my grandmother, who passed away suddenly last week at the age of 90. I owe much of my sense of humor to her influence.

Last weekend, Mrs. Gerbil and I found ourselves taking an unexpected trip to Philadelphia. It was a strange, strange time.

We flew Southwest, so of course we were each presented with the famed Box of Carbs during the flight. Happily, Mrs. Gerbil and I are both carb monsters.

We also received several little packages of peanuts.


Now, I appreciate allergy warnings as much as the next person. I have food sensitivities, but I have to read ingredient lists because no one prints handy warnings for things like echinacea, bananas, and flowers.

Mrs. Gerbil, however, is allergic to peanuts. She's not allergic to the extent that she has to avoid things processed in facilities which also process peanuts. But even if she were that allergic, I would hope that she wouldn't need to check the back of the little package to find out whether her peanuts were produced in a facility that processes... peanuts.

Public transit story #17: Private lives

Mrs. Gerbil and I took the bus into town over the weekend, in order to accomplish various and sundry activities such as paying the rent. We were among only a handful of people headed into town on that particular line at that particular time, which should have meant a nice, quiet 5-minute ride.

But no.

Also on the bus was a girl about our age who was engaged in an extremely loud pre-break-up conversation. The presumably-soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend was not on the bus, however, but on the other end of her cell phone connection. Mrs. Gerbil and I heard far more than we wanted to about this girl's life, her burgeoning self-confidence, and his infidelities. And about how "the punk-rock world is very small."

The awful thing was that there was really no way not to overhear. Mrs. Gerbil and I tried in vain to hold our own conversation at normal volume, but this girl was just so incredibly loud (possibly because of the volume at which the small punk-rock world plays its music) that we kept getting derailed. We tried really hard not to laugh, but that didn't work so well either.

She was still having words with her soon-to-be-ex as she got off the bus. I turned to Mrs. Gerbil and said, "There are some phone conversations that you just shouldn't have on the bus." Mrs. Gerbil agreed.

I mean, the punk-rock world is awfully small. There might only be two degrees of separation between you and the bus driver.

In sickness and in health

Mrs. Gerbil and I have been thinking (perhaps obsessively) about little gerbs. Conveniently, I've just begun a new job that will not only help fund the production of little gerbs, but also provides much more affordable and comprehensive health benefits. This job is very pregnancy-friendly, and at the moment there are several pregnant or recently post-partum people on site. This is all very good news for the two-member Committee on Gerb Production.

Our new health package includes full coverage for preventive care. Fantastic, I thought, because prenatal care is, by its very nature, largely preventive. But then I asked someone whether prenatal care is covered as preventive care, and I was sorely disappointed to hear that it is not. And then it dawned on me: Like most other health plans, our shiny new one considers pregnancy a sickness.

To be a covered "sickness," pregnancy must have its own diagnostic code, at least for purposes of billing. In the ICD-9 (the current US standard), the diagnostic code for normal pregnancy is V22.2. Anything diagnosable is de facto abnormal, and thus normal pregnancy is abnormal.

("Okay, okay," you are saying, "pregnancy is a departure from normal bodily functioning, so isn't this diagnosable sickness thing warranted?" But humor me here.)

Sickness is by definition bad. Nothing good can come directly of sickness. Sure, you might have a renewed appreciation for life if you survive a serious illness or injury; but the most positive direct result of sickness that I can think of is that once you've had the chicken pox, you are almost guaranteed not to have a repeat performance.

And yet every single human being that ever was is the result of pregnancy. Perhaps you are a cynic and believe that human beings are no good. But hey--you wouldn't be around to hate your fellow human beings if not for pregnancy. Which, I hasten to add, is diagnosable.

Now I shall blow your mind some more with my, well, mind-blowing logic. Even in our enlightened times, women are expected to want to have children. Those who do not want to have children are, at least in some circles, considered abnormal.

Thus: In order to be considered normal, you have to be considered abnormal.

I rest my case.

This will BLOW YOUR MIND.

The human female is born with all the ova she will ever have in her lifetime.

Therefore, the ovum which eventually became you was once inside your maternal grandmother.

(Credit for the blowing of my own mind goes to Toni Weschler.)

Parking lot rage: The evil fraternal twin of road rage

Pop quiz!

When entering a rather full parking lot, you should
(a) drive slowly around the parking lot until you find an available space.
(b) sit in the middle of the aisle, in the most inconvenient fashion possible, and be a spot vulture until someone parked in your general vicinity exits the store, gets in the car, and vacates the space.
(c) say "the hell with it" and look for street parking.
(d) say "the hell with it" and go to another store.

If you answered (a), (c), or (d), you are a person after my own heart. If you answered (b), you probably shop at the Berkeley Bowl.

In fact, if you answered (b), chances are pretty good that you drove your hybrid to the Berkeley Bowl this past Sunday afternoon--and that you attempted to get in a tiff with me over a parking space.

Mind you, I almost never drive to the Berkeley Bowl--I hardly ever go to the Berkeley Bowl, on account of the teeming obnoxiousness--and this past Sunday I wasn't driving, either. I was, however, in someone else's car.

You might take a moment now to note that the Berkeley Bowl advises its customers to "be patient and always drive carefully." Alas, you weren't thinking about politeness on Sunday, and you were massively ill-prepared for my interpersonal jujitsu...

You were sitting in the middle of the aisle in your hybrid, which while motionless is silent like the (possibly also motionless) ninja. No one was doing anything to the cars around you, and you weren't doing anything to your car either, namely operating its turn signal. You were within a few feet of the entrance to the store, so perhaps you were waiting for your shopping companion. So we passed you. And we went not even fifteen feet before a spot opened up right in front of us. And we took it.

You began yelling at us. At the same moment, another spot opened up, and you took it. You strode over to us and continued yelling. "THAT'S REAL CLASSY," you barked. "YOU DON'T JUST PASS SOMEONE AND THEN TAKE A PARKING SPOT."

My companion attempted to ignore you, but not I. I smiled sweetly up at you. "I'm sorry, sir," I replied calmly, "but we can't read your mind in the parking lot."

You (a good head taller and thirty years older than I) grew red in the face. "YOU CAN READ EVERYONE'S MIND IN THIS PARKING LOT!" you blustered.

"I'm sorry, sir," I said, still sweet as agave nectar, "there isn't a single person in this world whose mind I can read. But I'm glad you found a parking spot. Have a nice day!"

You continued to bluster a little more. "BUT YOU---YOU DON'T JUST DO THAT!" you insisted.

"I really am glad you found a parking spot. Have a nice day!" I repeated, still smiling. Unable to think of a better retort, you stormed off into the store.

Had you stayed outside a little longer, you would have heard a woman about your age say, "Jeez! It's just a parking spot! Give it up!" as she pulled the bags from her cart. You would have seen me shrug my shoulders. And you would have heard her add, "The rest of that guy's life must be really awful, if he's getting that worked up over a parking spot."

I hope, for your sake, that you were just having a bad day. But whether or not this was an isolated incident, I encourage you please to remember two things:
1) It's bad form to try to intimidate a young lady.
2) No one likes a spot vulture.

Half-baked ideas

I like baking. I even wrote a parody about it once.

I'm generally pretty exact about my baking, although occasionally I will experiment with ingredients. Usually this is out of necessity--for example, once I was making a quick bread which called for prune preserves, and I neither had nor wanted to obtain said. Ah, but I had unsweetened applesauce! The same recipe also called for buttermilk, which I didn't have either; and so I stank up the house with vinegar and milk. And everything was really quite fine in the end.

Last night's substitution adventure was also out of necessity. I had everything to make Cheerio cookies... except for the Cheerios. But I had Kashi Mighty Bites. So I thought, hey, Mighty Bites are pretty much the same as Cheerios, except for their shape; why not use those instead?

Well, it worked, although I probably should have decreased the sugar somewhat on account of the lightly sweetened nature of the Mighty Bites. However, extra-sweet or not, the finished product was just a little on the disturbing side.

You see, Mighty Bites are shaped like little people. And my cookies came out looking like the ruins of Pompeii.


But as volcanic disaster cookies go, I have to say these are mighty tasty.

Public Transit Story #16: So what?

Oh boy! A public transit story and a customer service story all in one handy package!

I called to register a complaint today. Usually I do this online, but even though I always check the little box to request an email reply, I've never received so much as a "Thank you for submitting a comment." So I called, thinking it would be less complicated and more conducive to immediate gratification. Of course, I was wrong.

Me: I'd like to register a complaint about a driver.
Representative: Okay, what happened?
Me: This has happened before with the same driver and I've complained before. The driver arrives several minutes late, leaves the bus running and the door open, and goes to buy a snack. Then I have to run for a connection that should have several minutes of overlap.
Representative: But you said the bus is already late.
Me: Yes. I'm not calling because the bus is late. I'm calling because the driver leaves the bus running while buying a snack--when the bus is full of passengers!
Representative: [silence]
Me: The driver leaves a running bus for two or three minutes, while it's full of passengers.
Representative: So it's an unauthorized stop, then.
Me: It's my actual bus stop. We all get on the bus and then the driver gets off. I'm concerned because someone could just drive the bus off.
Representative: Oh. That is a problem, isn't it.

I've been sick for the past few days, but as Mrs. Gerbil says, it's a sure sign that I'm better when I start rectifying things again.

Public Transit Story #15: Bad hair day

Okay, I know it's impolite to stare. I try not to stare, even when I'm people-watching. However, it's really hard to watch people subtly, especially when your job involves watching a whole group of people for 50 minutes at a stretch, so that you can write up little notes later about how they "presented." Whenever I'm in a large group of people--outside work, mind you--I find myself observing like crazy. As with the Therapist Clock, I just can't shut my Observing Self off.

But this is a public transit story.

Yesterday I observed an older gentleman on the bus. He had the longest nose hairs I've ever seen. They were yellowish-white and extended at least half an inch beyond his nostrils. As if this weren't odd enough, he spent much of the bus ride twirling his nose hairs.

It was really, really hard for me not to stare. And I don't think I would have had such difficulty if had he not been playing with them.

Heckling the passersby

While I was returning some library books yesterday, a minorly scruffy man said a whole lot of unintelligible things in my general direction. I wasn't sure whether he was talking to me, so I decided to err on the side of shyness and did not respond. He continued to say a whole lot of unintelligible things in my general direction as I headed to the bus stop. Still, I wasn't sure if I was the intended target of his ramblings--until he said, quite lucidly, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else."

"That's okay," I said. Haven't we all been mistaken for someone else at least once in our lives? I plopped myself down on the bench and busied myself with a book.

The man came wandering toward the bus stop, wanting to know if any of us there had "anything to share." None of us did. But this guy would not, or could not, accept "no" for an answer. He enumerate all of the things we could share with him. Nope. Then another fellow happened by.

"Hey, do you--" began the first guy.

"Go away!" said the second guy, hurrying past.

This obviously pushed some button deep in the first guy's psyche, for he began to spew a whole lot of strange invectives: "Hey! Who's your costume designer? Do you have a casting agent? Who's your casting agent? JAYWALKER! Are you an asshole, or just an arrogant person? HEY!"

And then he wandered off, presumably to engage in ineffective conversation with someone else.

I swear, Officer, it's not mine!

Mrs. Gerbil and I went to Kohl's yesterday, in hot pursuit of random items of clothing and accessories. I find Kohl's to be rather hit-or-miss. It's almost always a miss when I'm in search of pants, as they don't carry small enough sizes. (Go ahead, hate me now.) But yesterday, when I was not in need of pants, it was a hit. For just under $35 we acquired three shirts, two pairs of socks, and three pairs of earrings. Pretty darn good, if you ask me.

The cashier handed me a very familiar-looking pen with which to sign the charge slip.

"Hey," I said, "I thought that looked an awful lot like a Seroquel pen!"

The cashier replied, a little too quickly, "Oh, that's not mine. Someone must have left it here. I don't know where it came from."

I guess the stigma of mental illness extends even to abandoned pharmaceutical swag.

Face validity

I just received a piece of spam from "Deceitfulness C. Upfront."

Oh well, at least they're honest about something.

There oughta be a law

(Dude! This is my 100th post!)

I received a jury summons today, for the end of this month. I was very upset, for I'd received a jury summons last year, and I'm supposed to be off the hook for 12 months.

(I didn't actually serve on a jury last year. I didn't even have to report to the courthouse to find this out, as I'd had to do in Massachusetts about eight years ago. California jurors call after 5pm the day before to find out their status: report the next day as summoned, don't report at all, or call back after 11am for possible afternoon service. One's jury obligation is considered fulfilled regardless of whether one actually has to show up.)

So, yes, I received my jury summons, and I was pissed. But I have a poor concept of time out here. I'm used to gauging the passage of time with the help of seasons--by which I mean spring, summer, fall, and winter, not "wet" and "dry." Obviously, I couldn't figure this one out via memories of crimson foliage, drifting snow, muddy slush, or godawful humidity. I had to do some major detective work as to the date of my previous service:

1) It was during a period of semi-dryness, when it wasn't quite warm enough for short sleeves, but not quite cold enough for a hat and gloves.
Therefore, it must have been in October, November, February, March, or early April.

2) I know where I was working at the time.
Therefore, it must have been sometime between November and July; combining this with #1, it must have been in November, February, March, or early April.

3) I was working more than half-time.
Therefore, it must have been sometime between January and July; combining this with #2, it must have been between February and early April.

I then consulted last year's planner. If my service had been in March or April, I would have to make a most unpleasant call to the Superior Court of California...

...and guess when my service was?

That's right. The beginning of February.

They sure don't waste any time, do they?

A case of severely mistaken identity

Mrs. Gerbil reports that a funny thing happened to her on her way home from work today. While was stopped at a light, a fellow she describes as "a very attractive black man with shoulder-length dreads" pulled up beside her and started honking.

Mrs. Gerbil rolled down the window to see what the fuss was all about.

The man clapped his hands over his mouth. "I thought you were a guy!" he said. "I wanted to know if you saw those girls over there!"

Mrs. Gerbil looked up the street and saw three teenagers in very short skirts.

"I'm so sorry!" said the man. And off he went.

(For the record, Mrs. Gerbil does not look particularly androgynous--and The Big Gay Subaru identifies itself with a rainbow sticker in the back windshield.)

Not-so-phunny pharm

I have terrible allergies.

Often people ask me which is my allergy season. I have no allergy season because in my world it's always allergy season. And so I must take anti-allergy (and anti-asthma) medications every single day. I've been doing this since I was three years old. It's old hat. In fact, I can rattle off the name of almost every prescription and OTC allergy drug I've taken over the past 24 years. Most of these have since gone off the market, been reformulated, or just spontaneously stopped working for me.

Which leaves me, at the moment, with three prescriptions to contend with. My insurance company loves exactly one of these. Another they agreed to love when my doctor assured them that I do, as a matter of fact, have asthma. A third they agreed to tolerate when my doctor assured them that none of the other drugs out there are effective for me. (When I rattled off my prescription history for her, she stopped me after a minute or two and said, "I think maybe we'll just mention a few of those.")

On Friday I went to the pharmacy for some refills. I was quite surprised, and not in a pleasant way, to find that the aforementioned third medication cost $50 instead of my usual $15. My insurance sets co-pays of $15 for generics it likes, $25 for brand-name drugs it likes, and $50 for anything it doesn't like. I freaked out, but knowing I'd be in a world of hurt without this stuff, I paid for it anyway. Once outside the store, I called the insurance company to inquire as to WTF?

The representative offered me three absolutely ridiculous explanations:

1. Your prior authorization expired yesterday.
Okay, so first of all I had no idea that prior authorizations expire. Second of all, I'd gotten preauthorizations for both my refills on the same day last year, but only one of them had a co-pay change this year. For the one which did not change, my doctor merely stated that I had a life-long history of asthma, and amazing! it still costs $25 instead of $50. I was left to conclude that diagnosis-related prior authorizations don't expire, but drug-related ones do. Which is odd, considering how long it would take to demonstrate each year that the rest of the formulary still doesn't work. That wouldn't get points for patient-friendliness, either. So why should my doctor have to remind the insurance company of my history every 12 months?

2. Oh, and that drug changed tiers as of the first of the year, so it's always going to be $50, even though it's generic.
Last year, it was tier 3, which meant $50 per fill unless my doctor and I jumped through hoops to lower the cost to $15. From tier 3, there's nowhere to go but up. Curious about whether they'd quietly implemented the industry's first 4-tier system, I asked the representative which tier it was now. "Three," she said. I pointed out that it was tier 3 in 2006, and it's tier 3 in 2007, so what's the difference? Had they changed the co-pay rules for tier 3? "No," she said. So if I get my prior authorization renewed, I should get my medication for $15 again, right?

3. No, because the prior authorization isn't related to how much you pay. Your doctor has to demonstrate medical necessity for us to cover the drug. You can't get it filled at all without a valid prior authorization.
Obviously I had successfully filled my prescription that day, so what's this about needing a prior authorization to do it? "Um," said the representative. If the drug (sticker price: about $75) will cost me $50 with a prior authorization, and I've just proven that it also costs $50 without a prior authorization, then what, pray tell, is the point of the prior authorization? Isn't the prior authorization supposed to give me my own personal formulary? "The pharmacy that was charging you $15 was making a mistake," she said, changing the subject, "but it was saving you money." It's not saving me money now, I replied, and the pharmacy just charges me what you tell them to. "Um," said the representative.

Unfortunately, before we could get this all settled, I had to go to work. And the insurance company is closed over the weekend--so I've got to wait until tomorrow to get to the bottom of

THE MYSTERY OF
THE PHARMACY BENEFITS
THAT NO ONE,
NOT EVEN MEMBER SERVICES,
UNDERSTANDS.

Tune in next time for another exciting episode of Gerbil vs. the demons of Market-Driven Healthcare!

In which my good turn daily turns bad.

Around here, there are lots and lots of homeless (or nearly homeless) people. Many of my clients are homeless, have recently been homeless, or are teetering on the edge of homelessness. Many of the people with whom I chat at the bus stop fall into one of those categories as well. Very few of the people I encounter on the street are of the screaming-at-fire-hydrant sort. Those who are (like the gentleman I encountered today, who demanded to know, "Who is going to resurrect Batman? Who is going to resurrect the Penguin? We need the Addams family! You have these dungeons with dead people in them! Those dungeons you have are full of people! Who will resurrect Batman and Robin? Frankenstein knows what you did last night!") just happen often to be louder and more malodorous than the rest.

I am hesitant to give out money. My work has taught me that many people do use this money for alcohol or drugs, although perfectly well-housed people also buy alcohol and drugs. But this is only part of the reason why I don't respond to requests for my spare change... with my spare change. If I give someone a quarter or two, it's not going to do them much good because everything here is just so ridiculously expensive. What I prefer to do, when I'm able (I'm not exactly loaded myself), is to bypass the "could you spare some change" and go straight to the "so I can get something to eat."

I've only had one person really and truly turn me down. He was adamant that I give him a dollar "for something to eat." I didn't have a dollar on me, but I did have a bag lunch with two yogurts, some pretzels, and an apple. I offered him the yogurt, but he said he couldn't eat dairy and did I have a dollar? I offered him the pretzels, but he said he couldn't eat salt and did I have a dollar? I offered him the apple, but he said he didn't want any fruit either and did I have a dollar?

Last night my best friend and I went to see Dar Williams in concert. I got to the venue a little before my friend did, so I scoped out the neighborhood for a little snacky-snack. As luck would have it, the neighborhood consisted almost entirely of bars, a few Indian and Mexican, and fancy townhouses. I don't drink, I don't get along well with Indian or Mexican food, and I certainly don't raid the fridges of total strangers, so I didn't have a whole lot of options.

And then this woman came up to me. She wanted fifty cents for some yogurt. She said she was several months pregnant and very hungry. I said I'd be happy to take her to the deli across the street and buy her a sandwich or something. But she wanted to go to the Mexican place with the juice bar "because it's more nutritious." I couldn't really argue with that, so in we went.

There was a pretty long line, which gave us several minutes to chat. I asked about her pregnancy, her living situation, what kind of social services she was getting, whether she knew about various types of government assistance... Her story seemed quite genuine, all the details hanging together. She asked me for fifty cents to call the doctor in the morning. "The place you're staying doesn't have a phone?" I asked. She said it didn't. I gave her fifty cents (actually, fifty-five) on the condition that she ask her doctor to hook her up with a social worker.

Suddenly, we were at the head of the line. The cashier (who was probably also the manager) took one look at us and started doing something with the register tape. I stared her down, and finally, after several more people came into the restaurant and queued up behind us, she asked for our order. My companion got out half her order before the cashier/manager cut her off and asked me what I wanted.

"Nothing for me, thanks," I said, "I'm paying for her. And I don't think she's done with her order."

The cashier/manager person went back to doing whatever it was with the register tape. With some prompting from me, my companion continued with her order. The cashier/manager continued to ignore her. "I don't think she heard you," I said, loud enough for the cashier/manager to hear. "Say again what you want."

The cashier/manager whispered to me, "We've had problems with her. What can I get for you?"

"Nothing for me. I'm just buying her some dinner," I repeated.

"I want this for here," my companion said.

"You can't have it for here," said the cashier/manager. "You have to have it to go."

"This is discrimination!" said my companion.

"You can wait outside and I will bring it to you," said the cashier/manager. She asked for my name. I told her but then said to put the order under my companion's name, as I had to leave and really, I was buying dinner for this woman. The cashier/manager reluctantly accepted my payment.

To my companion, I said, "I'm really sorry. She says she will bring you your food outside. I can't really do anything else." My companion looked very sad, but then she spotted a newly empty table inside--and happily sat down with her drink and her cookie, awaiting her taco. She gave me a hug, thanked me for helping her out, and declared that I was a godsend.

I looked back over my shoulder as I left to meet up with my friend. As far as I could tell, no one forced this woman outside to wait for her meal. I heard no ranting, raving, yelling, or screaming. I saw no young, well-dressed customer storm out on account of the slightly disheveled, very pregnant woman in their midst.

The whole thing left me with, well, a really bad taste in my mouth. It was clear that this woman had a history with this particular establishment. Perhaps she often begs for food there. Maybe she sits inside and nurses a single can of soda all day when it's cold and rainy, and the owners and the locals think she's an eyesore. Whatever the back story, the cashier/manager was doing her very best to put off a customer. Unless things have changed drastically since my days of food service work in high school, the customer is still the person with the wallet.

As a well-dressed young adult with a wallet, I was no different from the rest of the well-dressed young adults with wallets in the restaurant... except that I wasn't opening my wallet for myself that night. Sure, the staff has the right to refuse service to anyone; but whether I'm buying for myself or for someone in a faded hand-me-down sweater, my seven dollars ought to be as good as anyone else's.

What was that again about the kindess of strangers?



PS:
M., take good care of you and your baby.

Nine Inch Flippers

On the side of a building somewhere between the Lake Merritt and West Oakland BART stations, someone has spray-painted the following exhortation:

GOTHIC DOLPHINS,
NOT BOMBS!

Which leaves Mrs. Gerbil and I to wonder: what, exactly, is a gothic dolphin? Does it intentionally get itself caught in tuna nets?

Meanwhile, at Trinity General...

A man claiming to be Jesus is brought to the emergency room. The triage nurse hands him some carbonless forms and a clipboard and says, "Make sure you press hard with that pen. We need to be able to read all three pages."

The man stares at the forms for a minute, then tears off the first sheet and starts to fill it in.

"Hey!" says the triage nurse. "I thought I told you those are in triplicate!"

"One, three--it doesn't really matter," says the man. "It's all the same thing anyway."

I like pie

A bunch of us were in the Safeway in Mountain View a few weeks ago, looking for items for our Low Maintenance Shabbat dinner. The rules: everything had to be vegetarian, relatively not-disgusting, and needing nothing more than heating. We opted for veggie dogs, cheese curls, and pie a la mode. One of us (not I) was an over-acheiver and, entirely against the rules, made some miso soup from scratch. Apparently we were all craving salt and sugar.

We had a difficult time deciding on a pie. In my opinion, store-bought pies are generally foul. I would like to think of myself as a master baker, but I am also a goody-two-shoes (see above), and so I wasn't about to spend a whole afternoon making a pie from scratch for Low Maintenance Shabbat. Somehow, even with my strong opinions about store-bought pies, I ended up with the job of choosing our pie.

There were so many pies! Oh, so many pies--and all of them generally foul-looking. Then I noticed the best pie of all:

Sugar-free marionberry.

What do they put in there instead of sugar? Crack?

Help wanted

Helping Our Lovely Individuals Eliminate Risk by Teaching Healthier Alternatives Naturally and Touting Happy Opportunities Universally (HOLIERTHANTHOU) is seeking an
ALL-AROUND ROCKSTAR PART-TIME COUNSELOR/ROLE MODEL/EDUCATOR/ADVOCATE/MANAGER/YOUTH OUTREACH SPECIALIST!

Job Description:
The Counselor/Role Model/Educator/Advocate/Manager/Youth Outreach Specialist (CREAMY) is responsible for the design, delivery, and evaluation of HOLIERTHANTHOU's social services program. We offer a wide variety of activities and support to the individuals who need them. The CREAMY is involved in all facets of HOLIERTHANTHOU's work. The CREAMY also provides administrative support to the Executive Director, including (but not limited to) stocking and ordering supplies, photocopying library books, filling lunch and Starbucks orders, and providing childcare for two-year-old triplets.

Compensation:
The position of CREAMY is budgeted for 20 hours per week (FTE $20,000). However, you should expect to work at least 35 hours per week, with anything over 20 hours unpaid. Evenings, weekends, and holidays are required, as is occasional overtime (up to 15 hours per week) and work from your deathbed. Please note that this is an exempt position. Travel (30% of time) is required. We do not reimburse for mileage or parking. The ideal candidate would be just as happy doing this work for free.

Qualifications:
1. Quadri-lingual in English, Spanish, and two of the following languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, American Sign Language, Russian, Vietnamese, Klingon.
2. Master's degree or higher in something vaguely related to social services. Life experience may be substituted for all or part of the education requirement.
3. Valid driver's license, clean DMV record, and reliable hybrid vehicle (preferably blue in color). You must provide a copy of your title and registration with your application. Applicants with Hummers will not be considered.
3. A commitment to HOLIERTHANTHOU's vision of diversity, cultural competency, and respect for everyone who agrees with us. Jaundiced lesbian women with three nipples and a pet iguana are strongly encouraged to apply.
4. A commitment to HOLIERTHANTHOU's commitment to provide quality social services in a committed fashion.

Benefits:
Knowing that you work for the best social service agency in the universe.

Please submit cover letter, resume, transcripts, K-12 report cards, photocopies of vehicle title and registration, photocopy of Red Cross blood donor card (including blood type), and five letters of reference (one of which must be from a previous babysitter) to the Executive Director by 1/31/07.

Playing around

Count me among those wigged out by the "Left Behind" video game. I don't even need to explain why, because others' snarks are more than sufficient.

This morning I read that there will be (or perhaps already is) a video game based on the TV series Lost. I've never seen the show, nor do I like video games in the first place; but I'm not sure it was a good marketing decision to title this new product LOST: THE GAME.

Perhaps what matters really is how you play the game.

Can't we all just get along?

"Cultural competence" is currently quite the topic of interest in mental health services, especially in California. A lot of people here are peeing themselves over making sure that their agencies are "culturally competent." In my never-ending quest for a Better Job, I keep coming across ads that devote more space to the agency's interest in "cultural competency" than to the description of the actual job.

I disagree with the entire concept of "cultural compentency." How do you know when you are "culturally competent"? There is no exam to take, no set of prohibitively expensive workshops to attend, no embossed certificate to hang on your wall. And who gets to decide which "cultures" one must be "competent" in? Most of us aren't even "competent" in our own culture--let alone able to describe exactly our own cultural influences.

"Cultural competency," I think, implies a mysterious package of skills. I would rather be culturally aware. I think it's important to know at least basic things about other cultural groups, especially as may affect therapy. But we should learn from our clients as much as they learn from us. And we must be prepared to be wrong--and accept it when we are.

Once I was the only lesbian on staff and the only Jew, secular or otherwise. So my caseload kept getting padded with lesbians, Jews, and lesbian Jews. I'm not religious at all and was never even a bat mitzvah, so I'm not sure what really qualified me to be Super Jew Therapist. It was our practice to ask clients during their intakes whether they wanted their therapist to have any particular characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Maybe five percent of my intakes indicated some preference. The rest said, "I don't care. I just want someone who can help me."

Certainly, there are cases where therapist-client matching is a great idea, if not a necessity. A client who speaks little English is probably best served by a therapist who can speak his or her native language. A client who has extreme difficulty trusting white men should probably not be placed with a white male therapist. My move to California was precipitated, in part, by paternalistic heterosexism; and when I became depressed as a result, I specifically sought a lesbian therapist. Though I'd had an excellent straight male therapist in the past, I didn't want a straight man listening this time.

Recently I read a comparison of treatment-related philosophies from the 1970s and today. I think the context was how managed care has shifted psychology's priorities. There was this whole list of factors which were pretty much diametrically opposed, including length of treatment, emphasis on thoughts vs. feelings, and case conceptualization. One of the pairs was "individual differences" (the 70s) and "diversity" (today). At first I was quite confused. How were these mutually exclusive? And then it dawned on me:

Individual differences emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual, rejecting the homogeneity of the group.
Diversity emphasizes the homogeneity of the group, rejecting the uniqueness of the individual.

(And all of a sudden, this interview made a whole lot more sense.)

Racism sucks. Sexism sucks. Homophobia, bi-phobia, and transphobia suck. Anti-Semitism sucks. Ageism (though completely legal under federal law unless you're over 40) sucks. Ableism sucks. Dude, discrimation sucks.

However, it's impossible to talk about "diversity" without endorsing stereotypes. There's nothing inherently bad about stereotypes. What's bad is assuming you know everything about your 10:00 intake... at 9:59.

Rantings of a Luddite philistine

I recently asked Mrs. Gerbil (who has a much better grasp of such things than I) whether performance artists need a cognizant audience. For example, if a performance artist sat at a bus stop in downtown Berkeley and just stared suspiciously at passers-by, I doubt anyone would realize it was performance art.

Put another way: Can you do performance art for the plain old art's sake?

Mrs. Gerbil said that performance art relies on the relationship between the artist and the audience. The audience at least has to know that something out of the ordinary is occurring--and that it's occurring on purpose. Downtown Berkeley is full of people who stare suspiciously at passers-by. Therefore, unless the bus stop performance artist squirted soda water at people wearing red sweaters and just stared at everyone else, it's not a very effective performance.

I don't understand performance art. I think it's very strange, although I also think it's an excellent punch line.

Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Performance artist.
Performance artist who?
Performance artist.
Performance artist who?
Performance artist.
Screw you! Go away!
Performance artist performance artist performance artist PERFORMANCE ARTIST...

The real question, however, is this:

If tree falls on a performance artist in the woods and no one's around to watch, is it still performance art?

In other news, I got a new cell phone last week. The last time I got a new phone, I had to convince the Verizon guy that I did not want a camera phone. Our conversation went something like this:

VG: So how come you don't want a camera phone?
Me: Because I don't need my phone to take pictures. That's why I have a camera.
VG: But you could use your phone to take pictures.
Me: All I want to do with my phone is make and receive calls. I don't need to take pictures with it, I don't need to surf the web, I don't need to send text messages with it.
VG: But if you had a camera phone, then when I called you, you could see a picture of me on your phone and know that I was calling you!
Me: Um, I program in people's names. Because I can read.

This time around, the Verizon guy didn't give me a hard time about not wanting a camera phone. Our conversation, however, was pretty amusing:

VG: So what do you want your phone to do?
Me: Make and receive calls.
VG: That's it?
Me: Yes. That is it. I don't even care about text messaging.
VG: You don't use text messaging????
Me: No. I figure, if someone needs to tell me something, they can call me. If I'm not there, they can leave me a message.
VG: But text messaging is cool!
Me: I turned off text messaging a few years ago because it cost me money to receive messages like "I'm bored." If people are bored, they can call me and tell me about it.
VG: Uh, yeah. I guess you have a point there.

When Mrs. Gerbil found out that I didn't have text messaging, back when we were still living apart, she said, "Oh, that must be why I sent you all those text messages and you never replied!" Which leaves me to wonder:

If a performance artist doesn't know that I don't have text messaging, is it performance art if he tries to text me that a tree is about to fall on him?

I saw the sign

I feel a lot better now that Christmas is over, thanks. Now I just have to get through my birthday (which is this Thursday, hint hint) and then everything should be peachy-keen.

Last week Mrs. Gerbil and I went to Seattle for six days to visit the in-laws. I definitely needed the vacation. Relaxation was just what my mind, body, and snarky soul needed. One day we took the Edmonds-Kingston Ferry, which was great fun until I decided to take a little walk from bow to stern. I felt a little funny while we were still on the water, but I felt a lot funnier once we disembarked. Add this slight seasickness to a fantastic sinus infection, and you get great potential for snark.

I noticed a sign on the ferry which read PLEASE, KEEP OFF LADDER. Mrs. Gerbil and I were impressed by its grammatical correctness--signs don't usually sport commas!--but we were perplexed about the profound lack of ladders in its vicinity.

"It would be even funnier if it ended with 'FOOL,'" I said.

Mrs. Gerbil agreed.

Imagine if "FOOL" was a standard component of signage:

Such blunt advice might help California drivers, at least, behave a little more normally.

War on Christmas

This time of year is really hard for me. Historically, I start getting depressed just before Thanksgiving and stop sometime after my birthday (10 days after Christmas, hint hint). In recent years things have been somewhat worse. It could be that I've already been under stress before the ever-lengthening holiday season and therefore have had a lower tolerance for Enforced Happiness.

Or it could be Enforced Happiness in general. There are exactly two Christmas carols which I actually like--I am a secular Jew, mind you--and these are "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "Angels We Have Heard on High." The rest I could do without. Especially in stores; stores are overstimulating enough already! Enforced Happiness also includes advertising of all sorts, including (but not limited to) radio, television, and print ads.

Or it could be this whole "War on Christmas" myth. I do not understand this business. If anyone's trying to remove the meaning of Christmas, it's those who make it into a capitalist orgy. The way I see it, retail workers who wish people happy holidays instead of a merry Christmas are actually preserving the meaning of Christmas. When did Christmas become a reason to spend lots of money? I might be a secular Jew, but I know that Mary and Joseph weren't exactly rolling in dough.

When I was a baby, my parents decided that we should give presents on Christmas. We lived in a very WASPy area, and they didn't want me to feel left out once I began school. Every year we constructed a Christmas bush with branches clipped from our pine trees and a whole bunch of electrical ties. Sometimes my mother would pick up discarded bits of real Christmas trees on her way to work and add them to our bush for extra variety. One year we discovered--the hard way--that I am violently allergic to white pine. As soon as I could open my eyes again, we transferred the ornaments to the ficus. After that incident, we decided to hang the ornaments from the piano instead.

Perhaps I grew up with a skewed version of Christmas. Christmas was something which belonged to other people and which I could dabble in, if I wished, but it was never something I could do for real. Christmas meant shopping and wrapping and stress and you know, I used to love it... except that it was always phenomenally depressing.

So I reserve the right to wish someone happy holidays if they wish me a merry Christmas. Does that make me anti-Christmas? No stranger has ever come up to me on the street and wished me a happy Hanukkah, nor a comfortable fast on Yom Kippur, nor a happy new year in September. But that doesn't bother me. What bothers me is when people get all het up (in Decembers of late) when someone wishes them something other than a merry Christmas.

Does it really matter? If Jimmy the Cashier doesn't wish Mrs. Jones a merry Christmas, is Mrs. Jones doomed to have a terrible time on December 25? Isn't it okay just to acknowledge that there are a whole slew of holidays in December (Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, and the winter solstice, to name but a few) and cover all the bases with a generic holiday wish?

If Mrs. Jones needs prompting from Jimmy the Cashier to have a merry Christmas, Mrs. Jones has some serious issues.

I'm glad Christmas comes but once a year.

I do Windows

Last weekend I had the distinct pleasure of reinstalling Windows.

I learned a lot of interesting things during this process. For example:

1) There is such a thing as a Plug and Play Bus Driver. I wish AC Transit had some of those.

2) Microsoft technical support personnel do not appreciate the term "Blue Screen of Death," even though Microsoft offers a screen saver called BlueScreen, whose official description includes the phrase "infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)."

3) Reinstalling Windows does not delete the contents of My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, etc., but it does move all of these folders to a completely inconvenient location. Then it creates completely new folders with the same exact names, leaving you to scratch your head and contemplate the similarities between reinstalling Windows and moving house.

In fact, there are so many interesting things to be learned from Windows that I think all household appliances deserve an operating system.



I can see it now:

It is what it ain't

George Orwell, of course, taught us that

WAR IS PEACE.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Recently, George W. Bush taught us that

"'Stay the course' means keep doing what you're doing... Don't do what you're doing if it's not working -- change. 'Stay the course' also means don't leave before the job is done."



And according to my crossword puzzle this morning, everything else you know is wrong too:

I crack myself up

Last night I made up a joke and I just have to share.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Therapist.
Therapist who?
I'll answer that in a minute, but first, I'm curious about why you ask.

New look--same great taste!

I've finally migrated over to the new beta version of Blogger.

I think "beta Blogger" sounds an awful lot like a class of anti-hypertension medications.

I also think this new version makes it a lot easier for you, dear reader, to overdose on public transit stories.

Stop right there, cowboy

Ground has been broken for a memorial for Martin Luther King, Jr. I think this is fantastic, and long overdue.

US Presidents number 42 and 43 were there:


But just why is Bill gripping George W.'s wrist so tightly?

Does George W.'s left hand know what his right is doing?

Perhaps the most important question of all: Do the rest of us want to know?

The Therapist Clock

No one warned me that, in the course of my training in psychology, I would develop a Therapist Clock.

I learned early on how to check my watch as subtly as possible (the "itchy wrist" is always a good technique), where to place the furniture for maximum clock visibility (you need at least two clocks, one across from each chair), and how to structure the last 10 minutes of the session in order to segue smoothly into "We need to wrap up for today" at 3 minutes before the end.

But I never learned about the Therapist Clock until it was too late.

The Therapist Clock is an internal timekeeping device that divides up one's waking experiences into 50-minute chunks. The Therapist Clock also contains subdivisions, at 10, 15, 25, and 35 minutes. The Therapist Clock is capable of running longer than 50 minutes, but it is not always accurate in its second cycle (indeed, it is frequently 10 minutes behind).

The Therapist Clock cannot be shut off, and it does not care what you are doing. The Therapist Clock is useful in many situations, such as waiting for the bus, making pasta, or gauging how much longer the washing machine will be running. The Therapist Clock is also frighteningly good at predicting plot twists during Law & Order, which, for the curious, generally fall at or around :15, :38, and :50.

But the Therapist Clock is very much a handicap with respect to other activities, such as sitting through a slow movie, talking on the phone ("hey, it's so good to hear your voice, but our time's up for today"), or *ahem* intimate relations.

The Therapist Clock frequently malfunctions on airplanes, but not on trains, buses, or cars. It never malfunctions in the waiting room at the doctor's, nor in the emergency room (provided, of course, that one is fully conscious). The Therapist Clock also never malfunctions during one's own therapy. I find it absolutely hilarious when both of us start to fidget after 45 minutes.

Yesterday morning I went to Target, in search of some random items. I entered the store at about 10:10. When I left the store, I estimated I'd been shopping for about forty minutes. I'd forgotten my watch--I knew what time I'd gone in from the car radio--so to check my estimate, I pulled out my trusty cell phone (which, for the curious, has a bitchin' Law & Order ringtone).

And lo! It was 10:47.

Quite pleased with myself, I called Mrs. Gerbil to brag.

"You scare me," she said.

I think I've been working on this post for about 50 minutes now... oho! Indeed I have. Well, we need to wrap up for today. See you next time. Bye bye, take care.

Public transit story #14: Parallel postulate

Last Wednesday, the first of the month, our rent was due. We pay rent directly into our landlords' bank account, as we use the same bank and it's a lot easier than mailing a check several days in advance. This month it was my turn to go stand in line at the bank. Whoopie.

So I boarded the #88 and figured I would have about three minutes' cushion for my transfer to the #51. Oh, how wrong I was; but if I'd been correct, you wouldn't be reading this, now, would you?

There was this very confused woman on the bus who had evidently been trying to figure out her stop for most of the ride. She kept insisting that she needed to get off at Acton Street (or, as she spelled it, "A-C-T-I-O-N Street"). The driver and the rest of the passengers kept telling her, "This bus runs along Sacramento Street. Acton's the next street over. They don't intersect."

"But I have to get off at Acton!" she repeated.

"No, you have to get off at a cross-street. You're going to Acton and what?" we all asked.

"A-C-T-I-O-N! I can see the #88 from there and so I know this bus stops there!"

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Finally I said, "Maybe you want to get off at Addison?"

"Or Allston?" suggested another passenger.

"Addison? Yes, that's it. No! I want Acton. Maybe this is my stop coming up." The bus driver pulled over to the stop, which was Channing. "No," said the woman, "I think it's the next one."

So we stopped at Bancroft. We stayed there a while, so that she could debate with herself whether this was her stop. Finally: "No, this isn't it. It's the next one."

The next one was Addison. As the driver was pulling over, the woman said, "Oh, no, it was the last one! Now I have to walk all the way back there?"

"I can't turn this bus around for you," said the driver. "You either get off here or you get off somewhere else down the line."

"Where's Acton then?" she demanded. We all pointed to the left. She grumbled off the bus.

"I don't know what her deal was," said the driver as she pulled away from the stop. "Doesn't she understand you can't get off at Acton and Sacramento when they don't intersect?"

With all that delay, I missed my connection. The #51 pulled up just before we did, and even though the driver tapped several times on her horn (secret code for "hey! transferring passengers!") and I ran as fast as my little legs could carry me toward the bus, the #51 (which had neither discharged nor picked up anyone else) closed its doors while I was still a few feet away. Yes, I knew another would come in 7 minutes, but it was the principle of the thing:

AC Transit might break some rules now and then, but one thing it can't violate is Euclidean geometry.

(And speaking of lines, the one at the bank did indeed suck.)

Public transit story #13: Of age

While waiting for the #40L yesterday, I noticed a small boy watching me with intense interest. This little fellow could not have been more than 9 years old. He was there with his older brother, who looked about 13 or 14, and a woman who was probably their mother but may have been grandma instead. You can never tell.

After a long period of observation, the boy came up to me and said, "How old are you?" (Brazen little dude!)

"How old do you think I am?" I said. I would never reply this way to an adult, but the answers I get from kids are hysterical.

"Thirteen," said the kid.

"Multiply that by two," I said.

"Huh?" the kid replied.

"Times two?" I tried. The kid looked at me blankly. "Thirteen times two?" I said. Another blank look. "Do you know your times tables?" I asked.

"Nooooooo," said the kid, with a big silly grin.

"Well," I said, "thirteen times two is twenty-six. I am 26 years old, but I'll be 27 in two months. How old are you?"

"I'm thirteen!" he crowed.

This was obviously not true, but I thought I'd play along. "Then I'm twice as old as you are."

"Naw, I'm not thirteen," he said, "Actually I'm twelve."

Also a lie, but this was all very cute. "When will you be thirteen?"

"April."

"Oh, you're halfway there then!"

"Yeah, my birthday is next week and I'm gonna go out to dinner and have a big ol' party all over town!"

Then his (grand?)mother chimed in: "You're not thirteen, you're eight! Stop being stupid."

"No, I'm thirteen!"

"You'll be thirteen in five years," she said.

"No, I'll be sixteen in five years!" he replied. Then, to me: "You go to school still, or do you work?"

"I'm all done with school. I work."

"You work in West Oakland?"

"I work right around the corner from here."

"You work at the doctor's office?"

The outpatient medical offices for Children's Hospital of Oakland are indeed right around the corner from the bus stop--and directly across the street from the day hospital where I work. Figuring it would be a losing battle to try to explain partial hospitalization to an eight-year-old, I said, "Yeah, I do work at a doctor's office."

"WOW," he said, his eyes wide with admiration. Then he announced that he was going to go slip and fall on his butt in a puddle of rainwater.

Hot Live Local Singles Strike Again!

Racy Wrong Numbers: Not just a San Francisco treat!

The mayor of Edmond, Oklahoma, handed out tens of thousands of flyers upon which was a rather unfortunate typo. The flyers, prepared by the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, were intended to discourage underage drinking but accidentally advertised a phone sex line.

I am not making this up.

Your call cannot be completed as dialed

When I moved apartments in Cleveland, I was very excited that I could keep the same phone number. I liked my phone number. It had been all mine since early July of 2001, and it was all mine through at least last December, when my free informational recording ("This number has been changed. The new number is...") was set to expire. I was very proud of my phone number.

I moved to a new place in June, 2003. Shortly thereafter, I began getting messages on my answering machine:

Hi, Mrs. Johnson, this is Dr. So-and-So's office, just calling to confirm your appointment tomorrow at 1:30.

Sometimes the messages went like this:

Hi, Mrs. Johnson, this is Dr. So-and-So's office, just calling to follow up on your appointment from yesterday. We missed you. Please call us back so we can set up a new appointment for you.

No one named Johnson lived in my house. I got tired of this pretty quickly, and I also felt some sense of obligation to help care for Mrs. Johnson, whoever she was. But the doctor's office never left a phone number, and the doctor had a rather unusual last name. So one afternoon I star-69'd the doctor and played the Good, Vaguely HIPAA-Compliant Samaritan:

Receptionist: Hi, Dr. So-and-So's office?
Me: Yes, I keep getting messages on my answering machine for a Mrs. Johnson, and I wanted to let you know that I have no idea who that is and maybe you should ask her again what her phone number is.
Receptionist: Uh, did you just move in?
Me: No, I've had this number for almost four years now.
Receptionist: We've been trying to reach Mrs. Johnson about her--
Me: Hey, I don't know who she is, and I don't want to intrude on her privacy. Just make sure you have the right number for her, in case you actually have to reach her by phone.

And that was the end of that.

Here in California, I have a different problem: people think my cell is the "pharmacy." One afternoon I got extremely bored and used reverse lookup on similar numbers. Oddly, all conceivable misdials were also cell phones owned by Verizon Wireless. I ask you: what pharmacy operates by cell phone?

I, too, am guilty of misdialing on occasion. Once, I thought I was calling Comcast, and instead I got one of those Chat Now with Hot Live Local Singles! lines. I figured I'd called 1-900-COMCAST, instead of 1-800-COMCAST, so to assuage my mortification, I put a 900/976 block on our line.

The other day I got a call at home which was eerily reminiscent of the tale of Mrs. Johnson:

Hi, Christina, this is Dr. Such-and-Such's office. We haven't seen you in a while and are wondering if everything is okay. Maybe you moved, or you got a new number, but please give us a call and let us know how you are doing.

So I called Dr. Such-and-Such's office. I've owned this number for a year and a half, and as far as I know, I'm the first to have it. I was all set to tell Dr. Such-and-Such's receptionist that I didn't know any Christina and that maybe they should double-check their records...

...but who should pick up but an overly enthusiastic recording, encouraging me to Chat Now with Hot Live Local Singles!

Either every unclaimed phone number in this area redirects the caller to Chat Now with Hot Live Local Singles, or I just have extraordinary luck in stumbling across such opportunities.

Trick or treat, dudes.

Obstructions

I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for that special offer
A guaranteed personality
The Clash, "Lost in the Supermarket"

The grocery store is one of the eviller places on earth. I don't care which grocery store. Safeway, Tops, Stop & Shop, Genuardi's, Acme (pronounced "Ack-uh-me," of course), Fred Meyer, Piggly Wiggly, Kroger, Albertsons, the Berkeley Bowl... they're all the same. Too many choices, too many fluorescent lights, and too many people, and not enough room for all of it. I get overwhelmed.

But we gotta eat.

Every so often my bargain-hunting genes get the better of me, and I decide to go the Berkeley Grocery Outlet. Their motto is "Bargains Only!" which actually means "You are guaranteed not to find at least one staple on your list!" Sometimes they have yogurt, cream cheese, and canisters of parmesan; other times (like today) they have none of these items. This is highly annoying. But the plus side is that all these overstocks are dirt cheap. For example, today I bought $46 worth of groceries for $21. Not bad. Not bad at all.

The clientele of the Grocery Outlet is, well, fairly bizarre on average. I include myself in this statement, but there are many different types of bizarreness, and I would like to think that mine is a benign sort of bizarreness. Various of today's customers were carrying on cell phone conversations about things which just should not be discussed within earshot of strangers, such as finally getting one's children back from protective custody.

And then there was this woman.

This middle-aged woman was standing in the middle of the aisle, with her cart blocking half the width of the aisle and her body blocking an additional fourth. She was staring rather blankly at the shelves. As I too had a cart, my passage was blocked. So I said, quite politely, "Excuse me." The woman glared at me and spat, "I'm just standing here, about to pass out, and you have a cart too? [mutter mutter mutter mutter]" She moved her cart and let me pass, all the while muttering about who-knows-what.

At the end of the aisle was another cart, this one parallel to the shelves. I wasn't sure whether I could maneuver my cart past it, so I eased my cart up alongside it. I don't like moving other people's carts. Well, I will move a cart if its owner isn't right there. But if its owner is standing there, I will politely say "Excuse me," as above, and I expect the owner to say "Oh, I'm sorry," just as I do when it's my cart in the way. I wasn't sure whether the person near this particular cart was its owner, so I thought I'd try some expert cart maneuvering first.

So there I was, trying to slip my cart past this cart whose owner may or may not have been standing a few feet away, and along came this muttering woman again! She had abandoned whatever she'd been staring at, as well as her own cart, in order to move this other cart out of my way and spit, "Why don't you just move this stupid cart then?"

I smiled sweetly and replied, "I was about to do just that. But thanks for doing it for me! I appreciate the help."

And off she went back toward her own cart, mutter mutter mutter muttering all the way.

We passed each other a few more times before I left the store with my 54% savings. Each time she glared at me, then heaved a disgusted sigh.

I hope she found what she was looking for.

Public transit story #12: Differently abled

Last week I rode the bus next to a gentleman of indeterminate age. His face suggested he was about 35; his hair suggested he was about 50. He had with him a garden-variety cane, the hollow metal kind with the grey rubber handle. We were sitting in one of the supposedly accessible seats at the front of the bus. A lot of people (particularly readers of the Berkeley Daily Planet) are quite pissed about these seats, which are more than a foot off the floor of the bus. Those who are at least 5'7 can slide on and off these seats with little trouble. We shorter folk don't fare so well--even yours truly, who though still young and limber has actually fallen off the seat. Not cool.

But enough of that rant.

This gentleman of indeterminate age spent most of the trip fiddling with his cane, pressing it up against his chin and such. He peered about the bus in a peculiar way. Then, as we neared the Berkeley Bowl (which would be the coolest grocery store ever if it weren't always packed with crazy people who push their carts north while looking south), said gentleman of indeterminate age extended the handle of his cane toward the call button. He pushed at the button with the handle of his cane several times in a most uncoordinated fashion, but the "stop requested" sign did not light up.

As befits one who works with adults with severe mental illness, these days I pretty much automatically observe and mentally catalogue behaviors, especially non-normative ones. I'd watched this guy fidget, look around his environment weirdly, and demonstrate poor hand-eye coordination. He was in a seat reserved for people with disabilities. He had a standard-issue cane. I guessed he had some kind of mobility impairment plus a neurological something-or-other.

"Is your stop next?" I asked. He grunted. That seemed to be a "yes," so I pushed the call button for him and moved out of his way (narrowly missing falling off the accessible seat). Again, he grunted.

And then this gentleman of indeterminate age walked off the bus with perfect grace and danced down the block, twirling and tossing his generic cane as though it were a wooden rifle and he a member of a high-school color guard.

I guess you can't have everything

In my short life, I have resided in the following places:
1. Southeastern PA, 17 years
2. Western Massachusetts, 4 years
3. Northeast Ohio, 4 years
4. Northern California, 17 months and counting

I have spent a lot of time lately musing about the differences between Cleveland and Berkeley (Berkeley wins by a nose); between Western Mass. and Berkeley (Western Mass., dude, no contest!); and between PA and Berkeley (you can take the girl out of the East Coast, but you can't take the East Coast out of the girl).

At this point it should probably go without saying that I'm not a huge fan of California.

One area in which the Bay Area kicks other locales' butts is public transportation. This is a plus for two reasons:
1. Driving around here completely sucks; and
2. Public transit stories! 'Nuff said.

Berkeley also has more noodle houses than you can shake a (chop)stick at, multi-lingual signage, and the interesting yet totally scary Hayward Fault. The Hayward Fault is a "creeping fault," which means it moves constantly but very, very slowly; and after a couple of decades it displaces things like curbs, staircases, and Memorial Stadium. (Seismologists apparently track such movement with a creepmeter, which sounds more like something you'd want to have if you were single.)

But Berkeley lacks a lot of things. Among these:
1. Inclement weather. Forget spring, summer, fall, and winter; the seasons here are Wet and Dry.
2. CVS. Around here, if you say "CVS," people think you are talking about the rape crisis center.
3. Soft (read: completely stale) pretzels delicately scented with car exhaust.
4. Urgent care centers with evening and weekend hours.
5. Stores where you can get your watch batteries replaced.

Let me say a few words about items 4 and 5. People get all het up about the ER being clogged with non-emergent patients. Yes, it is a problem when people have to go to the ER for primary care because they don't have (enough) insurance. But some non-emergent, yet definitely ill, patients wind up in the ER because it's the only place open on evenings and weekends. There are fewer than five urgent care clinics in this general vicinity, but they don't operate on an urgent care schedule. They operate on a primary care schedule. Which means that if you find yourself with a nasty respiratory infection at 3:00 on a Saturday afternoon (as my wife did in August), the only thing to do is wait around for two hours in the ER for a prescription for antibiotics (which we did). It's not just the un- or under-insured who go to the ER for primary care. It's also the sufficiently insured whose illnesses don't know from normal business hours.

About those watch batteries. I have two dead watches at the moment. I know of two sorts of places which replace watch batteries: drugstores and jewelry stores. This end of Berkeley has a severe lack of jewelry stores. So I took my watches to Longs--but this happened to be the only Longs which does not deal in watch batteries. The cashier couldn't suggest a single place in Berkeley where I might have better luck. So I went to another drugstore, Elephant Pharmacy, which stocks health foods, yoga paraphernalia, and DVDs, but not watch batteries. The cashier helpfully recommended the Longs I'd just visited. I asked the ladies at two bead stores for suggestions. All of them said, "Try Longs." I went to a convenience store and asked, "Do you replace watch batteries?" The owner pointed to a display of AA, AAA, and 9-volt Duracells. "No," I said, producing one watch, "watch batteries." "Oh, no," said the owner. "We don't do that. Try Longs."

I do not understand Berkeley.

When animal husbandry attacks

As I scour the classifieds, looking for the perfect job (which, let me tell you, is not to be found in the classifieds of the San Francisco Chronicle), I notice a lot of ads for puppies and kittens. Precision-bred puppies and kittens.

What really gets me about these ads is the number of poodle hybrids they advertise. I wish I could say that poodle hybrids are poodles that don't need to be fed as often as normal poodles, on account of their battery reserves, but no. They are the product of a poodle and some other dog.

This hybridizing thing doesn't just happen with poodles. I once saw a very odd-looking dog around the neighborhood. It had the coloring, snout, and ears of a German shepherd, on the stubby legs and barrel-shaped body of a Welsh corgi. I ask you: who thought this was a good idea? Was this person sober?

(Let me state, for the record, that I know a very sweet dog whose parents were a beagle and a Jack Russell terrier. Perhaps this explains why Chloe is positively brilliant and still eats rocks.)

But dude. Poodle math. Cross a poodle with a Labrador, and you get a Labradoodle. Cross a poodle with a cocker spaniel, and you get a cockapoo. Cross a poodle with a schnauzer, and you get a schnoodle. Cross a poodle with a golden retriever, and you get a goldendoodle. Cross a poodle with a Yorkshire terrier, and you get a Yorkipoo. I am not making these up.

I am, however, making these up:

Poodle + Boxer = Poo-Box!
Poodle + Shih Tzu = Shih-tzu-poo!
Poodle + Airedale = Air Poodle!
Poodle + Newfoundland = Poof!
Poodle + Shar-pei = Poopei!
Poodle + Dalmatian = Poomatian!
Poodle + Mastiff = Poostiff!
Poodle + Basset Hound = Basset Hoodle!
Poodle + Weimeraner = Weimeraneroodle!
Poodle + Chihuahua = Poohuahua!

I'll just take my rescue calico of uncertain parentage, thanks.

Warning

My wife reads the most interesting things for class, such as selections from Dale Martin's (1995) book The Corinthian Body. Actually, I have no idea whether Martin's book is all that interesting. But this sentence definitely is--

But Theophrastus considers other notions farfetched, such as the belief that if one digs peony during the day and is seen by a woodpecker, one will become blind (by having one's eyes pecked out by the bird), and one's anus will fall out. (p. 192)

But lo, careless peony-diggers: Just because Theophrastus says you won't suffer from anal prolapse doesn't mean he's right.