Happy Hanukkah and Happy Nerf Year!

View from the top

Long, long ago, in a neighborhood not too far, far away, there was a house that had a staircase, and a book-nook at the top overlooking the foyer. Now, the book-nook was rarely used for reading, but it made an incredible spy lookout. File that notion away.

When the Senior Son and the Junior Son were little, weapons were banned in our house. No toy guns or bows and arrows. Yeah, yeah, they did have Ghostbuster packs and worked hard keeping the streams uncrossed, and there were super-shooter water guns with reservoir backs for summertime sneak attacks with every kid in the neighborhood. But there were no guns in the house. Until there were.... 

The guys were older....junior high and high school I believe....when their father, tired of the nitpicking, came home with a couple of Nerf guns. They went nuts! Sneaking around, attacking each other, screaming laughter. We growed ups were jealous. Ziggy went out and bought two more Nerf guns and about a zillion darts. More fun than a barrel of naked monkeys! For years, there were sneak attacks. File that notion away.

Now, the Junior Son and Mrs. Junior son have two elementary school kids. No guns are permitted...but there are currently light sabres in the house. I don't know how it came up, but apparently Junior Son told Senior Son the embargo has been lifted. 

Of course,  Senior Son immediately procured Nerf guns and darts and sent them out for Hanukkah. 

Last night, as he was telling me about this, I admitted was jealous and said to Senior Son, Maybe I should go over to Target and get one for myself.  He made some incomprehensible sound and changed the subject.

I got a package in today. You KNOW what was in the box:

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

 Wishing everyone a safe and happy new year. 

I know it's gonna be tough,

but keep making noise.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

The Conundrum That Is Christmas

Dayton's Santa Bear - 1989

I have long had a love/hate relationship with Christmas. Like any American kid, I loved the tinsel and glitz, candy canes and hot chocolate that showed up all over the place. I've written about this before and you can follow the link to read it, but the story is actually much longer. 

When I started working at Dayton's in downtown St. Paul, I was assigned to the third floor where I got to use what I already knew in china, crystal, and silver. And with that job came the annual ornaments, the Christmas Shop, and Santa Bear. My coworkers thought it was hysterical that I'd never really decorated a tree before and they were bound and determined to change that. I kept picking up the sparkling glass balls by the tops...and promptly releasing them from the pins. I exploded more ornaments that first year than I can to remember...,much to everyone's hilarity. But I got them back....I knew the words and could sing every carol that came over the PA. I had neglected to mention that while I didn't know how to deal with ornaments, I had spent a number of formative years being paid to sing carols...in several languages. 

Swarovski - 2001

Over the decade plus I spent at Dayton's I became a Christmas specialist, handling special orders for annual ornaments from the likes of Waterford, Swarovski, Baccarat, Steuben, Lalique, and even Lladró.  I had a book of over 100 clients who relied on me for their annual editions, as well as additions to Christmas china collections. I loved making everyone happy and excited for the coming holiday. Yeah, some of it was shlock, but there was a whole lotta elegance and loveliness to be had. And I was a queen of crèches. I worked with families that added pieces each year, who wanted a French one or a Polish one, or an Austrian one. I was really good at figuring out how to repair and even replace pieces. Many a night I would go home and scour the internet trying to find a  specific piece. I might not have been able to sell it, but I often handed links and information to broken-hearted family members. Used to drive my bosses nuts....but they couldn't argue with the store loyalty and future sales it inspired.

But not everything was tinsel and sparkles. Like the little, old Hmong lady with an easy grin who walked through the store and skyways for her daily exercise. She spoke no English, but she loved to look at all the crystal ornaments and decorative pieces. We would greet each other, smile, nod, sometimes I would hand her something to examine up close. But she never bought anything, nor did I expect her to. She was there for the beauty of glass art. Each November, she would disappear, only to resume her walks the first week in January. I figured she was off to visit family. One year, she did not show up in January and I was worried. I had no way to reach her or anyone to ask. Then, in February, I spied her using a walker, a younger woman at her side. She waved at me and I rushed over. Turns out, she had taken a fall in her flat and this was her first day in the skyways. The woman with her was her granddaughter, Nye. I was so relieved to see her and told her how worried I was, and her granddaughter dutifully translated. 

As they were going on their way, I said, "I hope you had a lovely vacation." Her granddaughter looked puzzled and explained they had not been away. In turn, I told her, "Your grandmother disappears right after Thanksgiving every year. I thought you were away!" She translated for her grandmother who shook her head as she replied to her granddaughter who translated for me:

I do not wish to interfere with the Christians' holy day, so I just don't walk through this store. It's for Christians.

I was flabbergasted and laughed. Pointing to myself, I said, "I'm not Christian, either! I'm Jewish!" Her granddaughter translated and we all had a good laugh. I assured her she was welcome to come anytime. 

For the next few years, Mrs. Tran continued to walk through our floor, but never during the Christmas season. Then Nye came to tell me Mrs. Tran had passed away. We shared some stories about that little lady with the steel grey hair and the twinkle in her eye. Nye told me the Christmas story was repeated many times, and that she loved that we shared a secret of not being Christian. 

I thought a lot about perception after that. How did we really appear to others? As happy and joyful as Christmas decorations are supposed to be, is there, perhaps, another, less welcoming message silently telegraphed? Unconsciously...or perhaps consciously, is it exclusionary? Merry Christmas...or happy holidays?

The bottom line is Christmas is not my holiday. I know and love lots of people who celebrate the day and I'm happy for them. Everyone should have holidays to observe, whether they be religious or national or cultural. Holy days and holidays are meant to be shared, to provide insights into how one lives one's life. Sharing joy is never a bad thing to do...unless you are forcing someone to participate in a way that demeans or denies their freedom to choose what and how they will observe any special day. I happily sang Christmas carols with my friends because it was fun and something I could do to support their institutions without feeling I was denying my own. 

Okay, getting paid made it a job. Did that make me a hypocrite? I did not pretend to believe, I merely produced sound, so no, I don't think it did. I wasn't paying lip service to some creed. They knew I was Jewish. 

But was I a hypocrite? Maybe I was because the audience believed the sincerity in my voice. My singing, supposedly, enhanced their religious experience. Was it mine? No. But it worked for them. I never pretended to be Christian and the people I sang with knew that. Just like my coworkers at Dayton's knew I didn't have a Christmas tree at home or strings of lights around the house. I just did my job in the store. 

Which leaves me pretty ambivalent about the hoopla of Christmas. Yeah, I do wish people I know who celebrate a Merry Christmas, and more often than not, they wish me Happy Hanukkah and that's just fine. Strangers, I wish Happy Holidays just to be safe. If someone wishes me Merry Christmas, I don't get upset or insulted; I smile and say, The same to you! And have a happy and healthy New Year!  They're being nice. I can be nice back. Mom used to say It doesn't cost anything to be nice even when you don't feel all that nice. For the most part, she was right. 

That doesn't mean all those Christmas appeals with holly decorated address labels aren't  grotesque. They are. I think how much more they can use in their charity if they stopped with the aroisgevorfene gelt...wasted money. The ads on Insta and Facebook are freakin' endless. I suppose they tug at enough heartstrings....but not this one. 

So here's what I wish for everyone: May everyone have a safe, relatively stress free happy holiday however you celebrate or observe. Enjoy what you can, grin and bear what you can't, and most of all be grateful for whatever it is you have. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Hanukkah begins Wednsday night.

It's a holiday about Jews 

fighting for Jerusalem to preserve 

our culture, traditions, values, and beliefs.

We've been commemorating it for 2100 years 

and we're not stopping any time soon. 

Chag Urim Same'ach to all

And to all a good night.

 

When The Priorities Are Screwed Up

I had my second YAG laser capsulotomy today, this one on the left eye. This was an interesting day to have the procedure: it's my Dad's 9th yahrzeit. When he passed away, he was damn near bling from macular degeneration. Same for Grandpa Moishe. In the photo to the right, he's not annoyed or pissed; he's looking right at me because only had peripheral vision. His vision loss was slowly traumatic. As was my Dad's.  Now, I have macular degeneration (surprise, surprise!) but mine is under control. In other words, it's not progressing and both my ophthalmologist and my retina guy attribute this to PreserVision, a multivitamin designed for MD. The technological advancements made in ophthalmology is astounding. Even within the course of the last 10 years, the measurement machines have changed, becoming to precise while being less invasive. Probably because these are my eyes in question, and as a writer i use my eyes a whole lot, every time there is a new scan or a new scope I wanna know about it. But I kept thinking about my dad and my grandfather, wondering if all this new tech woulda helped to keep them seeing. 

I have to imagine it would have helped. 

And I still don't know if insurance is covering it. And I won't for a while, I'm guessing. 

The more I read about the reaction to Luigi Mangione, the more I understand why some people are turning him into a folk hero. 

But before I talk about that, there's a correction from last week. At the time of publication, it was reported that Mangione was insured by UnitedHealthCare. This was incorrect.Additonally, according to his posts on Reddit, he was pleased with the outcome of the surgery for spondylolisthesis, a spinal condition. Who insured him for that surgery is unclear.

Health care is a major concern for Americans. It's in the top five for election issues. You would have to be living under a rock to think America has the greatest health care system in the world. A friend was just told she has three stress fractures in her heel... but has to wait months before she can get the appointment to see a doctor for evaluation and possibly treatment. She's in significant pain and risks doing more damage with every step. What is she supposed to do until then? I have no clue. The horror stories are endless. Some are delay-deny, others are doctors too scared of jail time for providing healthcare for women, even when the woman is in crisis. What's the point of having the latest technology when way too many Americans cannot afford the copayment?

Meanwhile, over in Wisconsin, a 15-year old girl shot up her school Abundant Life Christian School in Madison. According to some early reports, she is the first female student to carry out a school shooting since 1979.  but that's not really true.. In a blogpost on MEDIUM last March, David Riedman wrote:

How rare is it for a school shooter to be female?

Most school shooters are male and in their teens or early 20s. However, over the last 50 years, at least four planned school shootings have involved female attackers. 

Assuming male gender identity does not make someone more likely to become a school shooter because throughout history, women have also committed school shootings. School shootings are a gun violence problem, not a gender or transgender identity issue. 

In 1979, a then-16-year-old Brenda Spender shot 11 people, 2 fatally, at Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego. She used a rifle that she received as a Christmas gift from her father. When a reporter reached her by phone and asked why she did it, she said, “I just don’t like Mondays… I did this because it’s a way to cheer up the day.”

Riedman manages a site called K-12 School Shooting Database. It's worth looking at. 

We can't get reasonable medical care for our citizens. We cannot seem to protect our kids from gun violence even in their schools. 

When do we begin, as a nation, to question our priorities? Clearly they are misplaced

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If a parent treated their child's health and safety

the same way our nation does,

that parent would be in jail.

Or not. 

Endings and Beginnings

Bob Baldinger (z"l)
1927-2024

There's a lot going on in my world these days. There's a lot going on in the world today. But  before I do anything else, I want to talk about a fineh mensch who left the building on Saturday. 

Some of you know that I'm a regular at morning minyan. We are an egalitarian minyan...which means we count men and women to make up the required 10 people to pray. When I started going after Ziggy died, I quickly learned that once you become a "regular" you have a job. One of those jobs was leading P'seukei D'zimrah...the opening salvo for morning services. It's long, complicated, but like the rest of our liturgy, it's familiar. And the guy who always led P'seukei was Bob Baldinger. He made it his and we were all fine with that.

Mr. B (I never called him anything  but Mr. B) was no ordinary guy. He was a baker. The grandparents opened their first bakery in 1888. His father ran it after that, but when his father died in 1949, Mr. B found himself running the bakery. You can read about it here. One day, this guy came to Mr. B. and explained he was gonna open an all-year-round drive through, sell burgers for 15¢, and asked if Baldinger's would make the buns. 

Who the heck opens a drive-in and is open year-round? Nobody ever did that. And we are going to sell 15-cent hamburgers? Uh, that's crazy,

Mr. B's water bottle. 

Well, good thing Mr. B said, yes, because the crazy guy was a fellow named Ray Kroc and the rest is history. 

Mr. B was like the stability guy. He made me determined to be at shul before dawn in the winter. If he could, I could. It was like having my  grandfather or father in the room. As the infirmities of advanced aging crept in, I became the water-bottle-bearer. One of my morning jobs was to make sure Mr. B's stool was in place and his water bottle was filled. Davening is hard work and a guy can get thirsty. As soon as I saw "the look," I filled the cup, slid it over, and got a silly grin back. Yeah,  it wasn't much, but it was our thing. 

His kindness to me when I lost FIL, then my own parents, was comforting at a time I felt weighted down by real life. His constant presence in the chapel was important to all of us...and to me.. It was continuity. It was generation to generation and we were all richer for having had Mr. B in the room. His memory will forever be a blessing for his family and all of us who were lucky enough to know him. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

The entire state of Minnesota is in an uproar about the assassination of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson. Mind you, this is not a united uproar, but it is an interesting one. In the New York Times UPDATES section, Andy Newman reported:

The manifesto found on Luigi Mangione mentions UnitedHealthcare by name, noting the size of the company and how much money it makes, according to a senior law enforcement official who saw the document. The manifesto also broadly condemns health-care companies for placing profits over care, the official said.

This statement about profits and the condemnation of the healthcare industry should come as no surprise to anyone who breathes in the United States. Not having health insurance is a death sentence. If you don't die from lack of medical intervention but you manage to get treatment, you will die from exposure, starvation, or infection. No other first world country sentences its citizens to this kind of torture. 

Women die because doctors are afraid to provide care to women in crisis. Disabled children are denied the equipment they need to progress. You hear endless stories of people lying on gurneys being told to sign a release for treatment but it's really a loan with outrageous interest payments. How many people do you know who have not spent hours on the phone trying to straighten out benefits, coverage, or pharma issues? Or calls from an insurance company telling you they're gonna cover your dead husband's medical expenses for July and August but not May and June when he was dying because they made a clerical error? 

Just today, I had to get 27 tiny holes lasered into my eye because the lenses that replaced my cataracts have developed a filmy thing. This is not uncommon, but is routinely denied by insurance companies. I happen to know this YAGS Laser Capsulotomy costs $881.74 and if insurance denies it, I will pay for the procedure because right now, every freakin' light in the kitchen is on so I can see my keyboard. I am virtually night blind in the house at 4 a.m. when I get up to do what all old people do at 4 a.m. The other eye will be done next week. To answer your question before you ask, I did call Medicare and CIGNA. I had lovely conversations about YAGS laser caps with real humans and while it appears my situation qualifies for coverage, neither would guarantee it will be covered. That's how they get you, too. You jump through their hoops, get the work done, and then they deny it. Been there, done that, too. 

Okay. I can afford to pay for this, but way too many people would be hard pressed to cover the costs. I understand that. And if not seeing means you can't work, well, then....Too bad. Not exactly what one wants to hear when one has bills to pay.

I wrote about the Ziggy Death Debacle back in 2011. At the time, I wrote about how it was supposedly over. Only it wasn't. The bills started coming again the next year and it was not until 2021 when I finally got a notice from Aetna that everything had been resolved. I was lucky; I had a partner in fraud prevention that handled debacle part deux. Not everyone has that.

Luigi, on the other hand, supposedly had some chronic pain issues that were severe enough to interfere with real life. His insurance was a cat and mouse game of delay and deny...if you can believe what the shell casings said. 

Luigi in Altoona

Am I even faintly rationalizing Luigi Mangione's assassination of Brian Thompson? No. Not at all. Sure, I understand frustration and maybe even desperation. One assassination will not change anything significant. This, however, is only the beginning. In this new atmosphere of revenge and retaliation, this will happen again. In his manifesto, one news source reported he suffered from chronic back pain and that he was unhappy with UHC. I'm sure we'll find out the whole story at some point, but this guy is not alone in his anger. Millions of Americans are sweating out promises of cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. 

That said, he is no vigilante folk hero, although some people will try to make him one. He may be the first in recent real life history (as in not LAW  AND ORDER history) to assassinate a corporate guy. I just guaran-damn-ty you Luigi isn't the last. This is only the beginning of the new United States.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If you happen to be in St. Paul, the newest Baldinger bakery,

Razava Bread Co.

865 Grand Avenue

will open anyway this week.

Stop by. 

The Jerusalem bagels are to die!

The bakery in 1901

What We Do For Love

Let me preface this brief but necessary episode by stating my kids have been known to call and without going past Hi, Mom, ask me to insert my empathy chip before we continue any conversation. They're not kidding. I am a bootstrapper pragmatist who is not good at "there, there" kinda support. Nope, my mantra is a cross between get over yourself and get on with it. Thankfully, my kids are used to this. I always keep my empathy chip in the top dresser drawer, right next to the drawstring bag with my pearls. That said, I love them to bits and will never stop trying to reach the stars with them.

I also believe in kids taking responsibility for their actions. 

The last couple of days have been spent reading up on Hunter Biden, his crimes and admissions of guilt, and the pardon issued by his father. 

President Biden had repeatedly said he would not pardon his son. I absolutely supported that position...until very recently. And then I didn't.

Yes, Hunter admitted his guilt. He was prepared for the sentencing. I would imagine he was prepared to go to prison to serve at least part of the sentence.  So I asked the question: 

Are people who didn't pay their taxes or lied on a gun form sent to prison?

Truth be told, these are not violent crimes, crimes that inflict harm on another person, place, or thing. That doesn't excuse them, nor does it truly negate the need for some kind of punishment, but there are other factors involved whether we want to believe they exist or not. In his Washington Post column today, Eugene Robinson wrote:

Hunter did commit crimes, though, to which he has pleaded guilty in federal court. But his were not the kinds of crimes that usually get prosecuted. He is hardly the first drug addict to deny being a drug addict on a gun permit form; and he has paid his delinquent taxes, including penalties and interest. He was given this harsh treatment because he is Joe Biden’s son.

He might not have been sentenced to prison time. But with Trump returning to the White House and pledging to punish his political enemies, he faced new peril. It was not inconceivable that Trump would find an attorney general willing to conjure the smoke surrounding Hunter’s dealings with the Ukrainian firm Burisma — already dispelled by years of fruitless investigation — into some kind of new criminal indictment.

When Joe Biden promised not to pardon Hunter, he thought he’d never have to. Things have changed.

I can’t argue that pardoning Hunter was politically the right thing for the president to do. I’m not even sure it was morally the right thing for a president to do. But if my son were in Hunter’s position and I had the power, with the stroke of a pen, to save him and give him a fresh start, I’d do it. I believe many fathers would agree.

Many things have changed.  That's the phrase that pays. 

On the MSNBC website, Steve Benen suggested the incoming president just might want to sit the pardon debate out. 

Indeed, by any fair measure, Trump’s record on pardons is arguably the worst in American history. During his first term, he effectively wielded his pardon power as a corrupt weapon, rewarding loyalists, completing cover-ups, undermining federal law enforcement, and doling out perverse favors to the politically connected.

Trump’s list of scandalous pardon abuses is so long, it could be a lengthy book. The names should be familiar: Paul Manafort. Michael Flynn. Steve Bannon. Roger Stone. Seven different Republican members of Congress who were locked up for corruption crimes.

Trump saw presidential pardons as get-out-of-jail-free cards for his friends and associates, engaging in the kind of brazen corruption that would’ve defined his term were it not eclipsed by other breathtaking scandals

Considering the history of the previous administration's pardons, there is a lot to consider in why this father pardoned this son. In a society free of political retribution, Hunter Biden woulda just gone to jail and that would be the end of it. But the reality is that the younger Biden is in physical jeopardy. Even with the pardon, we all know this administration is going to up its efforts to destroy the Biden family in every possible way. He has repeatedly threatened to prosecute anyone he perceives as a political rival. This includes the sitting President, Vice President, Nancy Pelosi, former President Obama, Liz Cheney, John Brennan, and James Clapper. The incoming president has stated repeatedly that former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley should be tried and executed for treason after calling China's top brass to assure them the outgoing president was not planning to attack them during the last days of his administration.  Based on those statements made by the incoming president, one must also understand Hunter Biden is on that list. Would he be safe walking free in this country?

My guess would be a solid no. 

I also think if the Bidens have any sense at all, they will find safe haven for him away from the United States. Trumped up charges are easy enough to do, and any crazy with a gun can go after him. Secret Service protection after his father leaves office is highly doubtful. 

There comes a time when thinking outside the box for safety is a must. I believe that the families of political enemies are in danger. The constant threat of retribution, never mind prosecution, is real. 

In this world, ousted political figures often seek refuge in other countries. The decision both Biden and Harris have to make is whether being the sacrificial lamb on the altar of political dogma is worth it. I'm not sure it is. 

But back to Hunter and the pardon. Should President Biden have pardon this man in this way? Probably not. But should Joe Biden, father of Hunter Biden, do whatever is necessary to physically protect his son and attempt to keep him out of unreasonable harm's way? Yes.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Raising a child is a lifelong experiment in unconditional love.
From the moment you hold them in your arms 
until one of you leaves this plane,
that child owns a piece of your heart.