Pictures

Here are some pictures I took today of Liza in her Halloween costume.  Beth bought it at Target, and Liza tried it on when they got it home.  Liza loves it, and she didn't want to take it off.

I thought the pictures came out pretty well.  We printed some for her parents and for us to show off to our friends.

ED 

Cooking with Chef Mike

I have so many      topics that I want to write about that it almost scares me to think about them.  Here is an attempt to embed a YouTube video.  I used to be able to do this easily, but the "new and improved" Xanga editor has me just a bit baffled.

While Mike and Cat were having the cooking class at the restaurant, Liza was at Grandma and Grandpa's house making chocolate chip cookies.  She and I cheated a little bit by using Pillsbury refrigerated cookie dough, but they were still delicious--and incredibly easy.  I told her that I could be the chef and she could be the sous chef.  She said no; I could be the Grandpa and she could be the Liza.  She has a few years yet before they'll let her in the kitchen.

ED

ObamaCare

I hear the term ObamaCare used contemptuously by conservatives who oppose health care reform.  I won't go into what I think of that position, but regular readers can probably guess where I stand on that.  I do, however, want to pass along an anecdote about something that happened today, and you can draw your own conclusions.

I have a friend who has a severely disabling disease, and I've watched him deteriorate steadily for several years.  For the last 8 months or so he's been having seizures almost every day, and all the nurological tests they've done haven't revealed a cause.  Yesterday his wife took him to the doctor for a routine visit, and the doctor said his office was switching over to something called eScript for prescriptions because this will be "required by ObamaCare in 2012."  His office is trying to get a jump on the matter.  The web site of RelayHealth, the company that runs eScript, says this about it:

Through eScript, prescribers can instantly assess the patient's accompanying online medical profile and check for compliance with the patient's health plan formulary. What's more, RelayHealth automatically screens each prescription for possible interactions with recorded patient allergies, health problems or previously prescribed medications.  https://www.relayhealth.com/specific/hco/onlineServices/escript.aspx

Today the doctor's office called my friend's wife to say eScript revealed a serious medication interaction.  Two of his medicines, when taken together, cause seizures.  Duh!  Admittedly, the two medicines were prescribed by different doctors, but nobody, including the pharmacy they've used for years, caught it.  The next time you hear somebody use "ObamaCare" in a disparaging way, tell them this story and tell them to go interact with themselves.

ED

Election 2010

Like the rest of the country, we here in Florida are in the middle of an election.  In addition to a host of local races, we're electing a new governor and a new U.S. Senator.  Two of the candidates are billionaires, and they're both new to politics in the state.  According to the New York Times, one guy (a Republican) has already spent more than $20 million of his own money on his primary campaign for governor, and, according to the same article, another guy (a Democrat) has spent $7 or $8 million of his personal funds on his primary race for U.S. Senate.  Absentee voting has been going on for about a month, and yesterday they started early voting at polling places around the state for the primary election.  What's both interesting and annoying is that we are being bombarded by TV campaign ads, and most of the ads are attacks on the opposition candidates.

I suppose there's really nothing ironic about all of this.  What is ironic, though, is that one of the candidates for the U.S. Senate has the same rather unusual last name as my son-in-law, my daughter, and my blond-haired, blue-eyed granddaughter, Liza.  Under most circumstances one would think that he's a distant relative--and he might very well be--except that the candidate for the Senate is African American and my son-in-law and his family are very white.  Go figure.

ED

Religious Bigotry