Health Care Woes

I hate to sound like a liberal, but it does appear that our system of paying for health care is broken. Allow me to elaborate.

A few weeks ago, while we were enjoying a thoroughly intellectual week at the venerable Chautauqua Institution, my 11-year old crashed on his bike, taking a handlebar to the gut. It was an ugly contusion, not gushing blood or anything, but big and purpley and round, and he was laying on the ground on his side, wouldn't let anyone touch him. He couldn't sit up. By the time we got to him, he was in an ambulance with an IV, and shortly we found ourselves in the ER of the Westfield Community Hospital. There were concerns about internal bleeding or broken ribs, so they took CAT scan to be on the safe side, and also did a bunch of blood work. It seemed like overkill to me, but I'm not in the medical profession so I naturally deferred to their judgment.

Don't worry, he was fine, and the injury consisted mainly of a nasty bruise that has healed up nicely. Hubby and I were more concerned about the gigantic bill we were likely to receive, in light of the fact that we have a high-deductible health plan that pays out virtually nothing until we're out of pocket 5K.

Imagine our relief when we received the insurance statement revealing that the grand total of our responsibility would be $377.54. On closer inspection, we discovered the provider's charge was actually $2,489.95, but because of our health plan, they are only permitted to bill us the aforementioned $377.54. Note that our health plan is paying out nothing on this claim. All they did was negotiate this fantastically lower rate that evidently is acceptable to the provider.

What it boils down to is we get an 85% discount on health services, in exchange for paying our premiums, and the provider gets only about 15% of their bill paid. Not that I'm complaining about this benefit to us.

But it seems to me that something is a little out of whack when an uninsured person is going to be billed exhorbitant rates basically just because they don't have insurance. The health services provider is getting pennies on the dollar, while the insurance company is making out like a bandit. Remember, we paid all these premiums (from which we are benefitting, don't get me wrong) but the insurance company is paying out nothing. Seems to me the people who took care of my son deserve something more (but don't look at me, I paid my premiums.)

And on that subject, why is the hospital billing out at these huge rates when they are willing to accept so much less? It begins to look like the uninsured are actually subsidizing the insured, at least those of us with high deductible plans. So if two people come in with the same injury, one with insurance and one without, the insured one pays $377 and the uninsured one pays $2489, so the hospital is actually averaging around $1433 per person.

But maybe I shouldn't complain. We pay a lot of taxes, that certainly amount to subsidizing services for people who pay little or no taxes. I guess it just irks me that the insurance companies are raking in obscene profits. I'd rather the doctors and nurses (who are woefully underpaid, if you want my commentary) be compensated. I mean, it's not the insurance guy who's fixing your broken body, is it?

My Degrees

I'm looking at my diplomas hanging on the wall next to my desk. There's the "Collegii Smithensis", which in Latin proclaims that I've earned "Baccalaurealem in Artibus". But for all I know it could say I failed biology but since it's in Latin and they gave it to me at our commencement ceremony, I will assume it means I've earned my BA.

Then there's The Ohio State University, which conferred upon me the degree of Juris Doctor, together with all the rights, privileges and honors appertaining thereto...not in Latin though. And why do people with Ph.Ds get to be called "doctor" but I'm just "Ms."?

And of course we have The Supreme Court of Ohio, which issued a big fancy certificate that says "Be it remembered that (I) was regularly licensed as an attorney and counselor at law" (big whoop..and isn't that a little redundant?) "and is authorized to appear and practice in all Courts and Agencies of the State during good behavior." I'm glad I have not been a bad girl, or they might have revoked it.

And last but by no means least, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania proclaimed, "Be it known that (I) on the motion of (a nice older male attorney who was kind enough to do it) was on the date indicated hereon duly admitted by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania as an Attorney and Counselor at Law." Hmmm. It appears that no good behavior is required in the Commonwealth in which I reside.

The four awards are nicely framed and grouped on my wall, doing nothing more than gathering dust and reminding me of how I spent about 20 years of my life. But now, onward and upward!

Mea Culpa, I know!

Mea Culpa, what can I say? I haven't been here all week. And I'm sure if you saw my last post you realized I was at the end of my rope, creativity-wise. But fear not, I'm feeling much better now, since I've finished the painting job (Noah's room) and have made progress on the Portugal trip (more on that later), and I've forged ahead to get the modeling agency moving (Noah again) and resumed my exercise class....it seems I've been having lots of mental blockage. Also we were away for 2 days this week and it takes my aged self a day to recover from all that driving.

Oh, got my hair highlighted, which always makes me feel better! But there are 2 strands of stubborn gray. I don't like that.

But now I'm feeling clear-headed and tomorrow I will resume with the posting and book-writing.

I Have Nothing to Say

I have nothing to say today. I'm sneezing (allergies...don't worry I'm healthy) and painting all day (walls, not art.) I'm going to take some benadryl and go to bed.

Is Blogging Writing?

I know at the beginning of summer I said I promised to write something every day, and I've done that here with the blog. I don't know if I've created a new habit or not, but I'm not working on anything serious, or at least not as much as I'd like. I guess the few minutes I spend blogging about nothing (such as now) doesn't really keep me from finishing other projects, but it does have the effect of mitigating any guilt I might feel about not writing anything at all.

So now I'm announcing a new habit (besides showing up here at ioolie every day.) I'm going to work on something serious every day. Even if it's just for a few minutes, reading through a paragraph of the book or whatever it is that I'm trying to finish. Every day from now until....well, until always, unless I have a really good excuse. "I'm tired" does not count as an acceptable excuse. Maybe I'll give myself off one day a week. Sundays.

Exciting Things?

Josh asked me today what's the most exciting thing I've ever done in my life. I had to think about it. I've done some fun things. I've gone places I've loved. But exciting? Hmmmm....

I told him giving birth was a pretty exciting experience. I'd have to say that is the most exciting experience a person can have. When my first child was born, they held him up for me to see and the first thing I thought was "Oh my God, it's a baby!" As if I hadn't known that before he emerged. But somehow it wasn't real, that this was going to be a brand spanking new human being.

But other than that, which billions of women before me have done, I can't think of anything really exciting that I've done. It was exciting to talk to Rush Limbaugh one time when I called his show. It was exciting when I ran into Joey Porter at the mall at the moment I was buying his jersey for my nephew, and he was kind enough to sign it for me. It was exciting flying to Europe alone after college. It was exciting to see Switzerland. It's sort of exciting to ride a roller coaster. It was kind of exciting to go parasailing.

But none of these sounds exciting when I think about it. What would be exciting, really? To go bungy jumping, or better yet, to jump out of plane? I'm not going to do either of those things. For something to be exciting does it have to be dangerous?

I think it would be exciting to have my book published. That of course is my goal. I don't want the kind of excitement that brings fear. I want the kind of excitement that brings joy.

So I guess I've had four exciting thrilling experiences. The births of my four sons. Welcoming these new little people into my life. Having my life exponentially improve with the arrival of each. That's a hard concept to explain to Josh, who's only 11.

Golden Compass

Jon is attempting to finish watching The Golden Compass. Another Nicole Kidman stinker. I watched about 20 minutes and quit, preferring Pride & Prejudice (the book). Have you ever noticed how she substitutes whispering for acting?

Quandary

A quandary. What to do when your 11-year old is sad because life is going too fast? He says he's growing out of his bed already. His older and wiser brother, at age 14, advised him to enjoy life while it's happening. My 11-year old is a deep thinker. I'm proud of him for this. He doesn't just flit through life not thinking or pondering.

He reminds me of Woody Allen in Annie Hall.

Doctor: Why are you depressed Alvy?....

Alvy: Well, the universe is everything, and if it's expanding, someday it will break apart and that would be the end of everything!....What's the point?

Oy.

The Day Slips Away

It's amazing how an entire day can just slip away without me writing word one. I had the best intentions this morning when I woke up. But then I remembered the cleaning lady was coming--halleluia!!--so I had to clean up before she arrived. Anyone with a cleaning lady knows if you want her to really clean, you have to clean up all your crap before she gets there.

So I got all the clothes off the bathroom floor; made the bed; put all the books and newpapers in a stack; emptied and filled the dishwasher; sorted through all the junk on the kitchen counter; got all the junk out of the TV room.

If I didn't do all that before she got here, she'd spend hours doing it herself, to the tune of $30/hour. No thank you.

Then I rode my bike to the gym (trying to keep good on my vow to drive as little as necessary and get aerobic exercise), did my yoga class and rode home...felt great but exhausted. Showered. Took Josh food/shoe shopping. Ate lunch at Costco with Josh. Returned home, answered email, returned phone calls. Picked Phil up from tennis. Rested my weary self (still tired from the bike ride) for 20 minutes. Then took the boys to the pool where we had pizza and vegged for 4 hours. Four hours! God I'm a slug. .But I did finish We Were the Mulvaneys (didn't love it) and two NYTimes Sunday magazines.

I did have a rather lovely experience at the pool. A little boy, about 4 years old, came over and started chatting with me. He wanted to know what happened to the last chocolate chip cookie on our table. I told him my son ate it. Then he told me how much he loves chocolate, and how he ate so much he threw up once, and now he has a big skeeto bite on his tummy, or maybe a dragon fly bit him when he was sleeping....he went on and on. Finally I said I'd bring extra cookies next time just for him, and his brother, who was about 7 or 8, said can I have one too, and I said of course! And then he came over to me and in all seriousness said, "I think you're beautiful."

Oh my. That made my day. So even though I wrote nothing (until now) my day was complete.

Darwin Fish

I'm not one to advertise my personal beliefs on my car. Because my beliefs are, well, personal. When I buy a new car I don't even let the dealer put his license plate holder or other indication of the car's origin. I'm not a driving advertisement for anyone.

I will confess that I do have a big "B" magnet, in orange and blue, on my vehicle though. "B" for "Bucknell." Heck, I'm paying the equivalent of the gross national product of a small country for my son to attend this prestigious institution of higher learning, for which they presented me with a "B" car magnet, so I might as well use it.

Today, however, I added a new ornament to the back of my behemoth mode of transport. It's a Darwin Fish. I've never seen one around here, although there is no shortage of Jesus fishes. I saw one on a car recently in Philadelphia and found it hilarious, a stinging rebuke to all those righteous Christian types who subscribe to theories that fly in the face of scientific fact. I refer, of course, to creationism.

The Darwin Fish looks just like the Jesus fish, only it faces right, where the traditional fish faces left. But the Darwin Fish has little legs and the word "Darwin" spelled out inside, where usually inside the little fishie is empty space. And apparently there is a rather long history behind the Darwin Fish design. According to Wikipedia (that bastion of useless and sometimes inaccurate information), the design was first used in 1984 on a freethought leaflet for Atheists United. Interesting.

The implication of this fish on my car is that I subscribe to the theory of evolution, not creationism. I wondered, however, as I affixed the thing to my tailgate, if casual observers will think I'm just a Christian who believes in evolution. I don't really think of myself as a Christian, although I am a huge fan Mary and also think Peace On Earth and Goodwill Toward Men is a pretty good philosophy.

My intention is not to insult anyone either. If I wanted to go around insulting people, I'd put a sticker on my car that says "get off your goddamn cellphone and talk to your children", or I'd yell out the window at all those slobs who throw lit cigarettes (or unlit ones) out the window or on the ground. I've never understood how smokers think that's not littering. But they don't think they're polluting the air either.... but that is a subject for another day.

My intention really is just to brighten someone's day, much as the Philadelphia driver did with mine, when I first saw the Darwin Fish. This, I said to myself, is a thinking person's decal.

I'll probably get tired of it after looking at it for a few weeks. Or if the neighbors start giving me the evil eye. Truth be told, some of them already do, but that is also a subject for another day.

Stuck in Cement

Have you ever felt like your feet were stuck in cement and you couldn't get anything done? You can't even complete a thought because your brain's all fuzzy? That's how I feel today. Actually that's how I usually feel after returning from vacation. Interupted sleep, too much laundry, there's no food in the house. All I want to do is sit in a chair and read the paper.

Tony Snow, Rest In Peace

Tony Snow, Rest In Peace. I'm just a member of the public, but I thought you were one fabulous person, having known you only through your guest stints on Rush Limbaugh, as Bush press secretary and as TV commentator. Your personality shined right on through. God Bless You and your family.

How Does My Writing Compare?

I'm left wondering after this writing class I took at Chautauqua how my writing compares with other people's writing. I have to confess to a certain snobby feeling that most people can barely string two sentences together, including a large number of people who manage to get their work published. Which of course makes me feel somewhat superior.

There were 13 writers in this class, plus the teacher. She was pretty great, I have to say. Diana Hume George. I googled her and read one of her essays and found it superb. And the others in the class? I like to think I'm somewhere in the middle but it is difficult to be objective.

I'm going to forget about them and concentrate on my book. I'm happy with it at this moment, and I have a lot of time in the next two weeks to work on it. The reminder in outlook that keeps popping up every day telling me to write something, anything! is proving helpful. Maybe I'll create a prompt to move me toward the book instead of toward the blog.

Happy Birthday Sam!

Three posts in one day! I am definitely in the writing mood.

Today is Sam's 19th birthday. Holy Moses, how did that happen? As I sit here on the grounds of the venerable Chautauqua Institution, I am reminded of that day, 19 years ago (or 18 years, 11 months ago, to be more precise), when Hubby and I were new parents of a bouncing baby boy. We were still figuring out the ropes, obviously.

Sam was a few weeks old, or maybe a month. Hubby and I came up to Chautauqua Lake for the weekend with our little munchkin, and we met my brother Bob and his girlfriend (now wife) Amy in Bemus Point, where we then had a house. We hadn't yet realized that having a baby in your possession could limit certain of life's activities, at least if you didn't have a babysitter.

Bob said, let's go out in the boat! And we said, okay! Of course we couldn't leave Sam behind, so we put him in his blue stroller, one of those reclining kind because he was such a new infant he couldn't sit in a little umbrella stroller yet, and lifted the whole thing into the boat. What we were going to do in the event of an accident hadn't been thought out, since there were no floatation devices for a person under the weight of 9 pounds. (Don't worry, nothing bad happened, but I did feel somewhat anxious as the boat sped up. It was the first of many many many times since then that I have worried about my kids' safety. Only now I worry about them driving cars.)

Later that evening we decided to go to the Casino for some wings and beers and pool. The Casino is a lot nicer now than it was 19 years ago. Now it's a family restaurant, more or less. Back then it was a dark smokey bar with no children. We wheeled Sam in and parked him between two pool tables, where he laid there as we scarfed down hotwings and beer, and played a few games of pool. I'm sure people must of looked at us and thought, "That poor child. What kind of people take an infant into a pool hall..."

I am proud to say Sam survived this ordeal just fine, and is now an upstanding member of the community, enrolled in a prestigious college where he is studying international business and politics. He's pretty much a delight to anyone who knows him, and if I deserve any credit for the person he is today, I will gladly take it.

Happy Birthday Sam!

An Apology to Yoga Man

I said I would do it and now I am. At the beginning of the week I went on a diatribe about a guy in my memoir class that I've been calling yoga-man, because I didn't like the way his sits yoga style in his bare feet on the nice upholstered chairs in our classrooms. Also he said he was writing about "sustainability", in my mind a code-word for environmental activism taken to an absurd degree.

This is my official apology to yoga-man. He's a good writer and seems like a very decent person. Plus, he wore shoes today, and socks, which I appreciated.

Fell Off the Blogger Wagon

Ooops...I did not manage to get here yesterday, for the first time since May 30! I did think about it, around 11:00 as I was getting into bed, but I was just too tired. Also I did write yesterday for my Writing Family History Class. We had to do a "free-write" about a family myth. Mine was easy. Maybe I'll post it later.

This has been a great week here at Chautauqua. An idyllic place, a lively cultural scene. We've heard talks by Joyce Carol Oates, Amy Tan, E.L. Doctorow, Billy Collins and Jeffrey Toobin. Today we'll hear Garry Trudeau. Wish we could stay and hear Jane Pauley tomorrow but alas, it will be time for check-out. I'll try to get the podcast. Also this writing class has been interesting for me. Out of the thirteen people in the class, I think my writing stands up in the better half, but maybe I'm just an egomaniac. Doesn't matter. I'm going to continue with it, although my goal at this point is more to finish my underground railroad book than to write a family history.

The teacher did give me some good ideas though. She said I should get a good tape recorder and sit down with various family members to get their recollections of various family events. I think I can do that.

Too Tired to Write

I am too tired to write today. In my defense, I did write a very nice piece about my grandfather for the writing class I'm taking here at the venerable Chautauqua Institution, and it seemed to be well-received by the class. Also my instructor suggested I put together a book proposal on the subject. Interesting. The big thing for me is that so far, I feel that my writing is at least as good as everyone else's, except for yoga-man (see last 2 posts), who is really a very good writer and certainly better than I. (Plus he actually seems like a pleasant person. I'm starting to think on Friday I'll have to blog an apology for the rant I posted on Monday.)

Okay, it's off to bed with me.

Writing Class, Continued

I wrote the piece for my writing class, and it's more than adequate. I read it tomorrow, then the class will give me suggestions and critiques. I'm not allowed to talk, until the end. But based on the pieces that have been read in the class so far, I think I'm in my element. We'll see what they have to say.

An update on yoga-man, who I described in yesterday's post. First of all, he was wearing the same outfit, except a different color polo shirt. Still with the dirty bare feet folded on the nice furniture. Today I noticed his wife, who is also in the class, was wearing almost an identical outfit, and she joined in with the dirty bare feet on the furniture. The two of them don't seem to know how to smile.

But I will say this. Yoga-man is a pretty decent writer. His piece was about fishing, both in the present with his older father, and in the past, when he was a kid learning from his father. I have to admit I was hoping he'd be awful but so far he's the best writer we've heard. Blast!

Oh one other thing. Today's writer talk featured E.L. Doctorow, and he was awesome! Kind of a rumpled-looking professor type, but he was erudite and witty, a little self-deprecating, and just really seemed to be enjoying himself. He seemed like one helluva nice guy! It was a pleasure to listen to him read. More books for the bedstand....

Chautauqua News

I was here yesterday. Unfortunately internet access can be a little spotty, so after writing but before saving it all, I lost my connection. I'll post double today.

I heard Billy Collins, the former U.S. poet laureate speak in the amphitheater. Wonderful, funny, I just loved his work. I will run out and buy one of his books as soon as I get home.


Also heard Jeffrey Toobin talk about the Supreme Court. He was a great speaker and told a lot of interesting and sometimes humorous stories about inside the Court. Like so many people in the media, however, he just couldn't help getting in that dig at the conservatives at the end, basically issuing a warning about the potentially dire consequences of a McCain presidency. Way to show your impartiality Mr. Toobin. But I did enjoy the talk.


Attended my Writing Family History class. This is a little stressful. I didn't write anything in advance but I have to provide something for everyone to "workshop" tomorrow. I've never had anything "workshopped," much less anything I banged out on the laptop the night before. So I wrote some stuff about my grandfather, a subject that fascinates me, and hopefully when I read it tomorrow before printing it out it won't completely suck.


Also, even though I've only attended one time so far, there is a guy in there who is supremely irritating. Picture this: Gray hair, steel frame glasses. So far, no problem. Forest green polo shirt, tan cargo pants. Works for me. But what's this, as we move down the body? Bare feet, and dirty ones at that, folded under his body, yoga style, sitting on the nice upholstered chairs? I don't need to know anything else about this person. Also he has a perpetual scowl on his smug little face.

We went around the room, introducing ourselves, and saying what we'd like to accomplish in this class, on writing family history. When it was his turn, he said "I'm interested in spreading the message of sustainability." Huh? After he yammered on for a minute about how we need to live sustainable lives, the instructor politely inquired, "How does that fit in with writing your family history?" He came up with the unlikely response that we have to show how we lived 50 years ago. You mean when people got polio? I'm sure he meant before there were evil SUVs. Actually I have no idea what he's talking about, except that he wants to spread his religion of sustainability.

Maybe I'm jumping the gun here, and I'm sure I'll find out by the end of the week, but I would venture that this man is a left-wing bike-riding Obama-loving anti-globalization tree-hugging socialist vegan freak. If I am wrong, I will say so in Friday's blog.

Yoga For Writers?

I checked into the "Yoga for Writers" class here at Chautauqua. The flyer says "Discover how your Yoga practice can help you fuel your Creative Practice (and vice versa)....Explore how the challenges you may face in your creative process can gently stretch past limitations to a new level of inspiration on the mat."

I'm thinking this is a little too new-agey for my tastes. Why do they capitalize "Yoga" and "Creative Practice"? The instructor is described as a "Writer, Certified Creativity Coach and Registered Yoga Teacher." A Certified Creativity Coach. Well, they have life coaches out there and career coaches, so I suppose creativity coach is possible. But certifed by whom? Creativity doesn't strike me as something you can be certified for. And who, exactly, registers a person as a yoga teacher? I'm thinking the same organization that certifies for creativity. Maybe the instructor runs the whole shebang.

I know, I shouldn't poo-poo it without trying it. But I'm afraid of the people a class such as this will attract. People who dwell on a whole other level of beingness. Not sure it's an improved level of beingness. Probably just a stranger level.

Still, it would be entertaining and probably provide some good material for writing. But I'm already committed to anther writing class and attending a lecture every day. I want to leave some time to actually put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, as the case may be.) So I'm not going to be hauling out my yoga mat for this one.

I'm at Chautauqua

No time to be here today but here I am anyway, barely making it under the wire at 11:20 p.m. We find ourselves ensconced in a cozy second floor bedroom of a house dubbed Ferncliff, located on the lovely grounds of the venerable Chautauqua Institution. My brother and his wife invited us to stay with them for Week 3, a/k/a Writers Week, a very generous offer we could not refuse.

For the upcomong week, I'm taking a daily class on memoir writing. I'm afraid it will be full of experienced accomplished writers who have actually published their work to great critical acclaim. Would that be good or bad? Good...I'll learn something. And bad.....I'll be intimidated.

I'll also attend the daily writers talk...Joyce Carol Oates, Garry Trudeau, Amy Tan and E.L. Doctorow are the speakers. Also a poet whose name, I'm embarrassed to say, escapes me.

They also offer a "Yoga for Writers" class. Not sure what that's about or if I can squeeze it in but if I can check it out I will.

For the moment, however, I am enjoying being reunited with sons #3 & 4, who we picked up from camp on the way up here. My joy is back, and snuggling at this moment.

August Rush vs. Once

It's been movie mania at our house lately. With no kids here, we can actually put in a DVD and watch the whole thing!

We watched Charlie Wilson's War, with Tom Hanks. A decent rental, but it's one of those "message movies". You know, the ones produced by left wingers whose message is usually America Sucks. In this movie, the Americans rise to the occasion in the 80's to help Afghanistan fight off the Soviets. But in the end, as usual, the U.S.A. is painted the dirtball for not building schools after helping them win. (Should we have helped? Sure. And one could say we should build schools in every other corner of the universe as well. But we can't do everything. Nor should we.) So the whole story about helping to defeat the Soviets was subverted at the end, where the evil congressmen (Republicans no doubt. The Democrats are never the unsympathetic ones) refuse to give money to build some schools in Afghanistan, the subtext being it's our fault the Taliban moved in.

I might also say the reason this is a decent rental is because of Tom Hanks, who is incapable of not being likeable, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is...well, probably the greatest actor we've seen in a generation or two. Oh yeah. The movie also starred Julia Roberts, who should really stick to romantic comedies. Even though she's from the south, she could not pull off the southern accent for this role.

But let's get to the point of this post. Last night we watched Once, today we watched August Rush. These are both movies about music and the tragedies and redemptions of love. However, in my humble opinion, Once blew August Rush right out of the water.

Once is a lovely story about a street musician in Ireland who is heartsick over a failed romance. He meets a young woman as he's performing one day, someone who's had her own share of heartbreak. They decide to cut a CD together. The sing a lot of great songs. They each decide to pursue the loves they had lost. That's it. My husband, after it was over, said, "huh?" He thought it was a little thin on plot. There were no explosions or car chases. I, on the other hand, thought it was a beautifully rendered story of heartbreak, love and redemption. Go rent it. Right now.

August Rush, on the other hand was...how can I put this.....just stupid. It starred Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Freddie Highmore. Don't want to spoil the suspense, so I'll just say the story is about an orphan searching for his parents through music. The kid is a prodigy. He takes off from the orphanage to New York City, where all kinds of frankly not believable plot twists take him here and there, while he writes a symphony (the kid is supposed to be 11), enrolls in Julliard, and learns to play various instruments in a matter of minutes, even though he has supposedly never seen a written note on a page. The parents struck me as total idiots who wander around and let things happen to them. They're pining away for each other for over 10 years and neither one ever thinks "Gee maybe I should pick up the phone and call."

I've seen Russell in a few movies. She's appealing, but I'm starting to think she has poor taste in roles. She received lots of praise for her performance in "Waitress" but after seeing that film I'm convinced it only got a lot of press because the filmmaker was brutally murdered before the movie opened.

Don't think I've seen Rhys Meyers before but, how you say...he's got it goin' on girlfriend! He reminded me of Joachim Phoenix. Very sexy, brooding, with a great voice.

Loved Freddie Highmore in Finding Neverland. Not that he was bad in this, he just had lame material to work with.

So there you have it, from a watcher of movies with no particular expertise but strong opinions nonetheless. It won't kill you to see August Rush but it's a light (dumb) little fairy tale with appealing actors. But Once... I'm going to buy the soundtrack.

Mended Wings Blog

I should never complain. Look at http://lesliekamm.blogspot.com, entitled "Mended Wings", where the author writes about caring for her son, who is the ICU of a hospital in Texas after being severely wounded in Afghanistan.

Here is an excerpt from something she wrote in June:

"Kevin was in a NATO convoy driving through the city of Jalalabad in Afghanistan on May 31. A suicide bomber filled a vehicle with explosives and drove it into my son's Humvee. I do know that there were 4 people in the Humvee. Both my son and his battle buddy survived the blast - the other two did not. Kev was pulled from the wreckage and rushed to a hospital in J-bad. He has since been flown back to Germany and is now on this way to San Antonio, TX to a
military burn unit."

So I'm going to put all my little problems in a box and stick it in some dark corner of my head, where they will receive only the minutest of attention. Kevin is a hero, and so is his mother, and we all owe them our gratitude for their enormous sacrifice for all of our benefit. My sons may never have to see war because of people like Kevin.

Pathetic Writing

My writing performance today could be called pathetic. I did work on the book, a very tiny amount, wrote a new paragraph that's not very good. But I kind of see where I'm going with it so maybe it's not as bad as all that.

Where did the day go? Filled with little tasks, even though there are no kids here. Had to get the office bills out. Picked up Josh's bike. Took dog for a bath. Went to exercise class. Met with friend to plan Portugal trip for the Fall. Lunch with hubby. Yakked on the phone for 1/2 hour with oldest offspring. Yakked on the phone for 1/2 hour with mother. Dinner with hubby.

I have got to focus.

Dual Benefits of High Gas Prices

OK, I'm no adherent to the global warming fanaticism. And the high oil prices, which affect everything from the price of gas to the cost of groceries, are putting a damper on my discretionary spending. However, when it comes to the astronomical figure to fill up my gas-guzzling SUV, I will admit to certain benefits, completely unrelated to the environment.

First, I am driving less. Halleluia! Driving from point A to point B to points C thru X has not contributed to my quality of life. Admittedly, it can be hard to avoid all that driving when you have multiple offspring with multiple school/athletic/extracurricular commitments occuring simulaneously.

But I can control (somewhat) how many times I drive the four miles to the grocery store every week. Or Wal-Mart or Target or Home Depot or Costco. What a pleasure to go once a week instead of every freaking day!

Second, and this may be saving me only a tiny amount of cash vis-a-vis petrol expenditures, but I am (occasionally, not as much as I should) riding my bike to the gym, which is 1-1/2 miles away from my house, all on little roads with few if any cars. So in addition to saving a few pennies, I am exercising my muscles and getting a little cardio workout (there are hills, some of which I successfully climb, some of which I push my bike up).

Plus I feel so damn good when I get home! A little sweaty but good!

On the subject of gas prices, I calculated the approximate toll this expenditure is taking on my wallet. I drive about 12,000 miles/year. My politically incorrect mode of transport gets around 16 mpg in city driving, maybe 18 on the highway. Let's assume it's all city driving (it's not, but mostly). At $4.00/gallon, it runs me about $100 to fill the 25 gallon tank. My math sucks, but I believe that means I need around 30 tanks per year, for a whopping gas bill of about $3000 annually.

Sounds ridiculous. But if gas prices were still at $2.00 (which would thrill most people, I think), that means I'd spend $1500 less over the course of a year. It's not pennies, but it's certainly not breaking the bank either. It wouldn't go very far toward paying my son's $48,000 college tuition bill this coming year. Heck, I spend far more on tennis lessons for my kids. (Oooh! Aren't my kids the privileged ones!)

I did think about selling my beloved planet polluting behemoth in favor of something more friendly to my bank account, but the fact is I wouldn't be saving that much. Plus, I'm waiting for someone to point me to a vehicle that seats six, or even five, with any level of comfort, that has better mileage. Remember that I have a husband (6'2") and four boys, three of whom are teenagers, two of whom are six feet tall. They can't even fold their legs in the back seats of most vehicles.

And don't say minivan. I drove one for 8 years, when the boys were little sprouts. Its mileage wasn't a whole lot better.

I wonder if the planet loving politically correct (and I think gullible) people will say "Well you shouldn't have had so many freakin' kids!" I'm thinking that's the agenda anyway, to control everything we do, not just what we drive. Paranoid, you say? Maybe. But then again, maybe not.