We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
The year is winding down and I'm still struggling with the same nonsense I've been dealing with in the office since last August. It is getting worse for a few reasons. But I'm not making a case for the year ending badly. Instead, I've got a different point of view because through these months I've kept a generally positive attitude. After all, there is plenty to be grateful for, and I am looking forward to 2017.
I'll start with politics. This isn't something I'm grateful for, but I'm grateful for learning new ways to deal with the nonsense it represents. In part, I mean the election, though that's minor. I was unmoved by the outcome, but this is NYC and many are still having fits. My new VP decided to start sending a daily email update in which she shares articles and commentary on industry events. Every day includes the latest anti-Trump article. I understand she supported Clinton (I didn't support either major candidate), but I don't care for her bias infecting the workspace. It's unhealthy. I know many people in the office who voted for Trump and don't share her point of view. Neither me or any of them are in a position to say something.
We minimize presents, maximize festivity and games, piano sing-alongs, and being together as a jolly family.
Christmas Eve is a fasting day (meaning, curiously, lots of delicious seafoods). Why God would want that is strange to me, but whatever. For Christmas, we're doing crown roast pork with apple stuffing, roasted root vegetables and Brussel Sprouts, and a Buche for dessert with hot chocolate drizzle.
Is your doctor a commodified technician, or is it a relationship? I was trained that the physician relationship was key to everything we do. Foundational. Oftentimes, when seeing endless streams of patients in charity clinics, we as young docs needed to be reminded about how important we were to them. We were reminded of our priestly role in peoples' lives, that they talked about us and thought about us far more than we did about them.
Today, many of our doctors are impersonal to us, or invisible. You have no relationship with the anesthesiologist (unless her or she lives next door), the pathologist, the Infectious Disease consultant, the radiologist, etc. However, we do have important relationships with our hands-on docs; our Gynecologists, Internists, Pediatricians, even your Orthopedic Surgeon. Certainly Psychiatrists, who are not literally hands-on but are certainly intimate relationships.
You can have it, but it will cost you. In my field of medicine, I am a hold-out against the commodification of medical care and treatment. For me, the relationship is the key, and, in the old priestly way, relationships with my patients also sustain me and educate me in my work. That is the non-monetary reward.
So to all of you patients out there, remember to thank your docs this year. A grateful holiday card is sufficient. A holiday Cheesecake is not necessary.
And Happy Holiday Season to all. This family is heading to the north woods for snow and cold fun for a while, and our holiday festivities. God bless you all.
It's the time of year to remember to say Thank You in a material way. When it's cash, I think $50 is a reasonable token of appreciation around here. Less might constitute an insult. Of course, that depends on where you live. Our general rule is cash for people who work for somebody else, and goodies for people we pay (except for house helpers).
Garbage man - $ Mailman - $ My 4:30 AM regular Dunkin Donuts Hindu immigrant guy - $20 Docs, lawyers, dentists, and accountant - Harry & David fruit Our trainer - special goodies that he likes Our house-cleaner - Mrs. BD let her go quite a while ago...we need a more professional, less intrusive one but it's so hard to find good help these days...
Hope I am not forgetting somebody else important. Am I? I'd give something to the UPS guy, but it's never the same person.
This election didn’t merely expose the failure of six months of campaigning by the Democratic Party. This election exposed the failure of SIX DECADES of leftist propaganda to have any cumulative effect at all.
... low levels of legal immigration are probably a good thing. The people willing to go through all the steps it takes to migrate legally are going to be people who scrupulously observe the law. They are not coming here just to screw it all up for everyone including themselves. Recent legal immigrants tend to be hyper-patriotic for that reason. They take nothing for granted because they had to earn their citizenship. Their presence is a healthy reminder that citizenship has value.
Perhaps they should. It is a dangerous metaphorical story about how a rich, penny-pinching and emotionally-stingy wretch becomes a re-born joyful Christian at Christmastime through the work of the Holy Spirit. Dangerous for innocent kids. Dangerous for adults too.
Weight exercises like deads, squats, and leg press stress the heck out of your lower body - hamstrings, glutes, quads, calves and all of the little accessory muscles. It's necessary strength-building until you reach your realistic goals for your maximal life functionality.
For the calisthenic component of your fitness program, though, you can throw in a few sets of lunges to make your legs burn for 24 hrs. (That is not lactate burn, it is good muscle-damage, micro-tear burn/ache). I do 3 sets of walking lunges, with or without hand weights, weekly. Even though it counts as calisthenics, I think it toughens up the legs even though it is more endurance than strength. Good pain!
Readers are tired of my preaching that calisthenics are a necessary fitness component but I will persist. Contra Rippetoe, we preach a balance of approximately 1/3 weights, 1/3 cardio intervals, and 1/3 calis (including what I term "heavy" calis like Farmer's Walk, pull-ups, push-ups, heavy ball slams, lunges with weights, weighted planks, etc) - while agreeing that real weight training is the most important and effective fitness component.
Have trouble identifying the point at which you have had enough food to live on? Tend to eat as if in a race, too fast or more greedily than most other people? Tempted to eat impulsively between meals? Feel that you have to clean your plate without thinking, or without sensing satiety? Want a dessert even when you are full or over-full (not counting Thanksgiving)? Occasionally conceal your eating habits out of shame? Feel bad about yourself when you know you have eaten more than you need?
These are the main signs of the fairly-common "binge eating disorder." You do not have to pathologize it - it could also be called a "bad habit," or, from a moral standpoint, "gluttony," one of the Christian 7 deadlies. A First World problem, but not as much as you would think: there is more overweight among the "poor" around the world these days than among the more prosperous. BED people eat as if on an anti-starvation feeding mission rather than at a social occasion with food as an enhancement.
Like many so-called "disorders," it is mainly medically-defined as such for insurance purposes but it is a real pattern of impulsivity or compulsivity, often manifest in many areas of functioning. If it's a problem, it is easily addressed. There are pills for it.
Tomorrow, the days begin to lengthen but I have to say that I don't really mind the short days. Getting out early in the cold and dark at 330 or 4 is pleasant to me. I take the dog out if he's willing, I listen for owls, I identify constellations and O'Ryan watches me with a cautious eye, I hear little critters scampering in the leaf litter.I have a hot coffee and a cold Coke to get ready for the gym which is open at 4:45. Carpe diem.
How many MORE atrocities before our leaders stop lying to us and admit that, thanks to their immigration policies, being mowed down while doing your Christmas shopping is simply the new normal?
“It would be very difficult for us to learn that a human being committed this deed who came to Germany to ask for refuge and asylum,” the German chancellor said in a live statement.
"Would be"? You know she is praying that Lutherans did it.
The Wisconsin governor has asked Trump to restore the balance of federal and state power. Here’s why all states should rally to his call...Democrats who fear the exercise of unbridled power by a Republican president have as much reason to want state governments kept free from federal control as Republicans do for not wanting a repeat of Obama’s constitutional abuses. We can disagree about policy issues, but we should agree on the basic meaning of our Constitution.
Mark Steyn was funny the other day, explaining how the Customs agents confiscated three Buches de Noel he tried to bring from Quebec to his home in New Hampshire. He observed that if he had brought three Somalis or Syrians without documents instead of three Buches, it would have been no problem.
Order yours now from your local bakery and it will be ready when you need it. They will make them whatever length you need. It's not Christmas without one.
If you really want to ruin Christmas season, try making one yourself. This job is for professionals.
The options are risky because the White House knows the hacking story was made up to pacify the lunatics. They also know the Russians know it was made up. Creating a diplomatic crisis over something both sides know is a fiction – and a ridiculous one at that – is very dangerous.
We are not those - or at least hope we are not. Just people trying to stay fit and ready for all of what life sends our way. Some readers find our fitness posts boring and/or obnoxious, some find companionship in them. Same with everything. I can say that I carried ten 60 lb. bags of sand from Home Depot easily on Sunday afternoon (for anticipated driveway ice to be stored in my sand storage), and that I was happy to find that it was a quick and effortless task.
A year ago, it would have been more difficult for me so I am happy about that. If I can't be overly smart, at least I can be functional in practical ways.
Regardless of the above, whether you exercise hard or make lame excuses, we all need extra mental protein and if you need more today, peruse American Digest. And not just for the Melville.
I would never recommend purchasing Cuban cigars for use in the USA as it is, or used to be, against some dumb law. However, I did happen to notice that Top Cubans has some appealing Christmas and End of Year specials right now.
By the way, when are we going to take down that dumb cigar embargo? It just hurts the poor farmers - and us scrupulously law-abiding Americanos.
Photo is a Habanos Romeo y Julieta
BTW, where is the best cigar wrapper tobacco in the world grown? In my home state, Connecticut in the US of A. Also in Massachusetts in the Connecticut River Valley.
Feeling Grinch-like this morning, and so is my trainer. I told him this morning how good it was to walk into a place without Christmas music. He said that, as long as he is there, there will never be any. We agree that it is destroyed by overuse, and that 99% of the time you hear it, it is meant to induce you to spend money you don't have. Carols stay warm and sweet and rare in church during Advent, and Chrismas songs are good for a party song-along. Otherwise, if I hear Little Drummer Boy one more time in the supermarket I might go postal.
Fading maybe, but still the most popular participant sport in the US. A fine thing about bowling is that you can join in even if you are terrible at it. Where I grew up, bowling was a routine winter Saturday night outing. Very popular for kids' birthday parties too. In summer, old Italian guys would do their lawn bowling game in the parks.
Is your doctor a commodified technician, or is it a relationship? I was trained that the physician relationship was key to everything we do. Foundational. Oftentimes, when seeing endless streams of patients in charity clinics, we as young docs needed to be reminded about how important we were to them. We were reminded of our priestly role in peoples' lives, that they talked about us and thought about us far more than we did about them.
Here's the Real Reason 
Manhattan Project-sized effort is
Tomorrow, the days begin to lengthen but I have to say that I don't really mind the short days. Getting out early in the cold and dark at 330 or 4 is pleasant to me. I take the dog out if he's willing, I listen for owls, I identify constellations and O'Ryan watches me with a cautious eye, I hear little critters scampering in the leaf litter.I have a hot coffee and a cold Coke to get ready for the gym which is open at 4:45. Carpe diem.
Mark Steyn was funny the other day, explaining how the Customs agents confiscated three Buches de Noel he tried to bring from Quebec to his home in New Hampshire. He observed that if he had brought three Somalis or Syrians without documents instead of three Buches, it would have been no problem.
Got
are not those - or at least hope we are not. Just people trying to stay fit and ready for all of what life sends our way. Some readers find our fitness posts boring and/or obnoxious, some find companionship in them. Same with everything. I can say that I carried ten 60 lb. bags of sand from Home Depot easily on Sunday afternoon (for anticipated driveway ice to be stored in my sand storage), and that I was happy to find that it was a quick and effortless task.
