I’ve always been an outsider. Was comfortable as such. Married a consummate insider to compensate, only to discover that the insider was not comfortable in that slot.
Regardless, I had figured the daughter of bridge-builders would have something in common with the son of smiths. And so it is.
Still. Outsiders and glad to be.
Category Archives: Autobiography
What I did during the pandemic.
Well before the virus arrived in the U.S. I got introduced to the health care industry by an intestinal upset that turned into coronary disruption and breathing problems. Various tests diagnosed atrial fibrillation and a leaking heart valve. When I rejected surgical intervention, the cardiologist prescribed some pills and said to see him in a year. Tht was in October of 2019.
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Maundering
In a capsule.
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Value
The citizens of Boston are going to make news because the two major candidates for Mayor are neither of Irish or Italian descent. This led me to a question.
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IMPOTUS
Florence, Italy in 1957
After reading about Smyrna, which is now Izmir in Turkey, I took a little tour via Google Earth and was reminded of our visit to Florence, Italy in 1957. Mymother and I took a stroll down a narrow street, no more than 20 feet wide, until we came upon a plaza. perhaps a quarter acre in size, which, in the middle of the day, was entirely filled with young men standing and chatting with each other. The sixteen year old me was totally astonished by so much indolence.
When I mentioned this to my spouse of 56 years he, correctly, observed that chatting was their work. Which I do understand now. So, the streets of Izmir full of mostly men did not come as a surprise–only a reminder that the reason that the males, then and now, in Turkey and Afghanistan, can afford to chat or fight is because the females are doing all the essential work.
Izmir, which was Smyrna
IUDs in use
The insertion of intrauterine devices (IUDs) to prevent the implantation of fertilized ova in women has had a rocky history in the U.S. and I am not sure how to address an issue with which I have had some fifty-five years of experience. A summary article from the Kaiser Foundation indicates, at a minimum, that that is unusual. It seems to be generally assumed that the device is removed and/or replaced every five or ten years.
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Summer camp
My mother was always good at arranging some alternative care for me.
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ROUNDUP and me
Having grown up for the most part in major cities (LA, San Francisco, the Bronx) my awareness of environmental concerns was slow in developing. I did buy some herbicide for the second house we bought in New Hampshire in response to the weeds sprouting next to the foundation. But I never used it.
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A re-hash in response to Heather Cox Richardson
I might start off by explaining that references to German-Americans occasioned my being banned from Dailykos. That people took offense to a frank expression of opinion did not surprise me. After all, when I arrived in Los Angeles in 1949, the first directive from our German relatives was that German was not to be spoken in their house. They had sponsored our immigration in the expectation that my mother would add to their household income, which the only son was obviously incapable of doing.
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