tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48819951987536211972023-06-20T06:25:20.535-07:00Mrs. Hendricks SaysMrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-48463255967595260702009-06-24T10:25:00.000-07:002009-06-24T10:26:40.658-07:00PavlovaLast night was Camilla's birthday party. We met out on my patio with two other friends to have some cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. Camilla hates summer, but she likes her summer birthday, and she loves a pavlova, which I've made before for her special day.<br><br /><br><br />I first came upon pavlova from Nigella Lawson, who makes many things seem simple, whether they are or not, but this actually is. A pavlova is a big, fat meringue covered in unsweetened whipped cream (because the meringue itself is sweet) and then topped with any kind of fruit that's in season. It's an especially easy dessert for me to make, because I often have a dozen egg whites in my freezer (Creme Brulee demands many egg yolks but not, alas, the whites) and a good dessert for people like our friend who has celiac disease, because there's no flour whatsoever in it. It also looks very festive and almost cake-like, so also good for a birthday.<br><br /><br><br />It's also great to make for a party, because you can make the meringue a day or two ahead of time, and then all you do is whip the cream before serving. You pile on the cream and then decorate with the fruit. Nigella has a Christmas Pavlova covered in pomegranate seeds and a little pomegranate syrup. I've made a Raspberry Rose Pavlova, with fresh raspberries and a little rose syrup, which you can find in either Indian or Middle Eastern grocery stores. Last night we had raspberry and blueberry with a little rosewater sprinkled on top. If you're not familiar with rosewater, I'd strongly recommend that you become so. It's perfume-y without being sickening, and it's got a flavor that's indefinable for most Americans, but it's delightful. It's like this thing you can't identify, but you know it's the secret ingredient. Nigella calls for a little rosewater in the meringue for the pavlova, too, and I make sure to include it.<br><br /><br><br />Happily, we had a bottle of Veuve Cliquot in the refrigerator, just waiting for a special occasion. Since the girls all had two Rhutinis and were wanting something more with dessert, serendipity ensued. Champagne, fruit, cream and sticky meringue: all very refreshing on a humid summer evening.<br>Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-31137600626745771172009-06-22T14:46:00.000-07:002009-06-22T14:48:28.231-07:00Forget Rhubarb PieToday I made rhubarb chutney. I've made rhubarb chutney before, but many years ago. I'm not sure where I found a recipe for it, though today I used one in <i>The Joy of Pickling</i>, a wonderful book that I broke down and bought last summer after having checked it out of the library four or five times in the past few years. Rhubarb is quintessentially Minnesotan, isn't it? I mean, maybe it's just Midwestern, but few things are as Minnesotan as rhubarb from your neighbor's wild patch. They sell it at the Farmer's Market and I'm always amazed: I mean, I just go to my dad's house and pick it.<br><br /><br><br />"Well, not everyone has it," he says, with a bit of pride. "I brought some up to the nursing home. Those people don't have yards, they can't get it anywhere else." He's also fond of telling me that in exchange for supplying her with rhubarb, another neighbor makes him rhubarb crisp. When I got my latest crop, he asked me for rhubarb chutney. On one hand, my dad hardly asks anything of me; on the other, he asks outrageous things, like pulling weeds in his lawn. Yeah, right. So making chutney wasn't such a bad deal.<br><br /><br><br />Mostly I use rhubarb for making Nigella Lawson's rhubarb schnapps. You chop enough rhubarb to fill a quart canning jar about two-thirds of the way full, put in half a cup or so of sugar, and top off with the cheapest vodka you can find. Let it sit around for a month or so, shaking the jar the first few days to dissolve the sugar, then strain and you're ready to make rhubarb martinis, or Rhutinis, as I like to call them. I know, I know, a proper martini is gin and vermouth and believe me, that's usually the only thing I drink, but rhubarb! In booze! How subversively Minnesotan!<br><br /><br><br />This year I didn't have any sugar when my dad delivered my first batch of rhubarb, so I just went ahead and made a vodka infusion with the rhubarb and vodka. I figure I can add sugar syrup to the drink when I make it, right? Those jars look beautiful with their pink and green bits of rhubarb soaking in increasingly rosy vodka. The color is like pink tourmaline: crystal clear, and pink as a ten year old girl's bedroom.<br><br /><br><br />Tomorrow for my friend's birthday we're having Rhutinis, and I've come up with a new version this year. I'm going to mix about three shots of the rhubarb-infused vodka with about three-quarters of a shot of strawberry syrup (from strawberries I put up last summer) in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Then I'll strain it into a cold martini glass garnished with a fresh strawberry, and float a little bit of sparkling Rose on top. Doesn't that sound delicious? It promises to be the hottest day so far tomorrow, but we'll be fortified with those icy-cold drinks. In past years, I've made Rhutinis with the sweetened rhubarb vodka and a bit of Cointreau, or just shaken it with mint leaves. Very different versions, but both yummy.<br><br /><br><br />The chutney today was wafting such strong vinegar fumes that I tasted it and had to add another quarter cup or so of sugar. I get that rhubarb is tart, but holy cow. The chutney tasted hot, too, from the ginger as well as a bit of dried red chile. I think it may have been a mistake to omit mustard seeds. The recipe didn't call for them, but I feel like they would have added another shade of heat, as well as some texture. I'm crazy about seeds: poppy seeds, sesame seeds, mustard seeds, even cumin and fenugreek sometimes, depending on what I'm making. This is why I like raspberries, too: the seeds. Of course, I'm constantly checking my teeth in my little compact mirror, but it's a small price to pay for the pleasure of crunching those little bits between my molars.<br><br /><br><br />Most of the chutney got processed, but there's one big jar of it in the fridge for me to try out later. I think I'll need some cheddar of some kind, and some crackers. Next time I see my dad, I'll hand over two half-pint jars of the stuff and see what he thinks.<br>Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-41941861366886759052009-03-10T13:42:00.000-07:002009-03-10T13:52:15.559-07:00The Venice of India<i>Othello </i>is coming to town, the postcard promised with a picture of two actors languid in the early stages of the play. At first, I thought, <i>I'd like to see </i>Othello<i>. I wonder how long it's been?</i> And then I started thinking, when will <i>Othello </i>be obsolete? There are lots of mixed race couples and, depending on which state you're in, those alliances don't cause the same reactions they did decades ago. In addition, they're not illegal anymore, either. Think of that: it used to be <i>illegal </i>to marry who you wanted because of their race. One day we'll look at gay marriage the same way: <i>remember when it was illegal for men to marry men, and women to marry women? Isn't that crazy?</i> we'll say to each other.<br /><br /><br /><br />Or not. Mr. Hendricks and I are a mixed race couple, and here's the funny thing: we never think of it. Or we are rarely aware that our races are different. Mr. Hendricks is Mr. Hendricks: that is all. Yes, I see that he is lean and graceful and brown-skinned, but these separate attributes fade away and he is more of a gestalt (sorry, I couldn't come up with a better word). We live in a relatively progressive northern metropolitan area, and so we are not so unique. More noticeable is that Mr. Hendricks is thin and I am fat. In fact, the only public places that we notice bold stares are in Indian restaurants from Indian patrons.<br /><br /><br /><br />And then we went to the homeland in January: the state of Kerala in South India. There are necks that are still sore from all the craning they did at us. There I was, in my full, fat, very white and sweating glory, next to the quiet elegance of my South Indian in-laws and husband. They are all to be commended for their ability to walk in public with me and appear to be completely unaware of the craning necks and unsmiling stares. I found it a lot more challenging not to tell people to fuck off (which I didn't, thank you very much) when they literally stared at me for unseemly amounts of time.<br /><br /><br /><br />We talked about it after each outing. First, to be fair, there aren't too many American tourists in South India, so I was an anomaly. I can understand that. But here in the States (not a high standard of manners, to be sure), if one is caught staring, a smile usually softens the encounter. This is not so in India. In fact, there is very little smiling between people. Smiling is seen as stupidity. Smiling is reserved only for those you know well. Second, I am a large woman. Again, an understandable anomaly. Third, I am in the company of three Indians, and even though it looks as though we may be family, it is inconceivable that we are.<br /><br /><br /><br />We went to look at jewelry with my in-laws in Trivandrum, the city in which they live. The shop was formal and it was crowded with people, as all of India is: chairs were set around all of the counters and there were several employees hovering around, each with a very specific duty. We looked at the earrings, and three men behind the counter to the left of us could not take their eyes off of me. The heat and the staring and the discussion in Malayalam (which I do not understand) started to take its toll. Mr. Hendricks tried to calm me down, and I did not want to embarrass my in-laws, but I really wanted to flip those guys off. The man helping us with the earrings engaged Mr. Hendricks by asking him all sorts of questions, and even with the language barrier, I knew they were about me. After something Mr. Hendricks said, the man looked very surprised and repeated his question, as if for confirmation. He looked at Mr. Hendricks and then at me and then again at Mr. Hendricks. We didn't buy any jewelry there.<br /><br /><br /><br />Kochi, or Cochin, is a city north in Kerala we visited with my in-laws. Also known as 'Jew Town,' the city boasts the oldest synagogue in India, one from 1568. Around the synagogue are shops and the cemetery. Perhaps I had begun to become immune to them, but the stares this time around seemed either less frequent or annoying. In fact, it wasn't the stares that were so bothersome, it was the hawking of trinkets that started to bring me down. The hard sell was on, especially to the American. The sellers were relentless, and I bought far less than I might have if I'd been given a little room, both literally and figuratively. <br /><br /><br /><br />Mr. Hendricks and I finished our trip in Delhi. We had a tearful goodbye with his parents at the train station, and after a trying ride of forty hours or so, found ourselves in a very nice hotel in the capital city. We ate only at its restaurants, purely out of convenience. In fact, we had three or four meals at one of the restaurants, and were served by the same waiters. On two occasions, we were given separate checks.<br /><br />"They don't think we're married," Mr. Hendricks said as he signed both of them with our room number.<br /><br /><br /><br />"What do you mean? We've been here for breakfast twice already!" I said.<br /><br /><br /><br />"I think they think we're business associates, or maybe we're having an affair," Mr. Hendricks said.<br /><br /><br /><br />"You've got to be kidding," I said. "This is a five-star hotel. They see Westerners all the time here."<br /><br /><br /><br />"Yeah, but how many Indians with non-Indians?" he said. "They might see black and white couples, but Indians don't usually marry non-Indians."<br /><br /><br /><br />That night we left for home. Our driver dropped us at Indira Gandhi International Airport. It was relatively small in size, but packed to the gills with people. I saw a young woman in a uniform who appeared to be directing people and their copious baggage. I approached her with a smile and said, "I'm on a KLM flight to Amsterdam."<br /><br /><br /><br />"Do you have your ticket?" she said and actually smiled back.<br /><br /><br /><br />"My husband does," I said as I turned to find Mr. Hendricks. He was behind the man who was behind me.<br /><br /><br /><br />Her smile and eyes got wider. "He is your husband?"<br /><br /><br /><br />"Yes."<br /><br /><br /><br />"And he is Indian?"<br /><br /><br /><br />"Yeah," I said as Mr. Hendricks showed her our flight confirmation and she looked at us with ill-concealed awe.<br /><br /><br /><br />That's what was so astounding to all the young men and women in India who got an eyeful of us. They couldn't believe that an Indian man, very like themselves, married an American woman and lived to tell the tale. Personally, I don't think they were jealous of me. No. I think they were jealous of Mr. Hendricks and what appeared as freedom within his family to marry who he pleased. I think they were jealous because he was an Indian living in the States. I think it was hard to imagine such a life of liberty and, at the same time, isolation.<br /><br /><br /><br />Desdemona didn't have the time to visit the in-laws, did she? Maybe it would have all gone swimmingly, and she would have sailed through the trials with flying colors. Or maybe everyone in Othello's village would have been stupefied that he married this white skinny swan while there were so many more suitable women for him at home. Women of substance, of classic Moorish beauty, of proper childbearing form. We'll never know.<br /><br /><br /><br />Mr. Hendricks and I aren't the tragic types: I am no young, impetuous daughter, and Mr. Hendricks is no Army general. <i>Othello </i>is supposed to be about jealousy, critics argue: race is secondary. But here in the States, race is never secondary. Here in America, the debate rages on even as we watch our new president and his family in the White House. All about us life is changing, and not in the ways we thought it would. <i>Othello </i>this fall, the postcard says. I wonder what it will mean by then?Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-22345512413558945152009-02-10T13:24:00.000-08:002009-02-10T13:33:16.013-08:00PonmudiMr. Hendricks <i>loves </i>Wikipedia. Its entry on Ponmudi begins like this:<br /><br /><i><b>Ponmudi</b> (The Golden Peak) is a hillstation in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiruvananthapuram_district" title="Thiruvananthapuram district">Thiruvananthapuram district</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala" title="Kerala">Kerala</a> in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_India" title="South India">South India</a>. Its </i>[sic]<i> located 61 km north-east of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivandrum_city" title="Trivandrum city" class="mw-redirect">Trivandrum city</a> at an altitude of 910 m. It is a part of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Ghats" title="Western Ghats">Western Ghats</a> mountain range that runs parallel to the </i><i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabian_Sea" title="Arabian Sea">Arabian Sea</a>.</i><br /><br />So far, so good. Then it veers off into a downright dirty lie: <i>Ponmudi is connected to Trivandrum by a narrow winding road whichoffers a scenic view on the way to Ponmudi.<br /><br /></i>Cut to the maniacal laughter of one who has escaped death a thousand times. Because that's what you will have done if you indeed take this "narrow winding road" with a "scenic view". Scenes of your impeding demise, maybe. Of course, there's no other way to reach the "Golden Peak," and I have to report that it is only worth seeing if you have the balls of a NavySeal. I don't, and yet I made it there and back with my lifeintact, but my adrenal glands were completely shot to hell.<br /><br />The offer seemed innocent enough. My in-laws wanted to show their American/Minnesotan daughter-in-law the coldest place in Kerala. They had been there before, but not for a few years. Granted, the traffic in Kerala had already scared the shit out of me, but foolishly I thought that had somehow conferred immunity. I mean, how much worse could it get? How many times could you watch opposing traffic coming toward you at twenty-five miles an hour while your father-in-law attempted to pass the car barely in front of him, forgetting to downshift and praying for the millionth time that the car wouldn't die because it was in fifth gear at ten miles an hour? How many near misses of a pedestrian or a scooter (a small motorcycle) could you tolerate? How many times could you hold your breath every five to seven seconds and still remain oxygenated? How many times could you hear horns honking without jumping every time, even though the honking was constant, like some sort of hellish conversation you couldn't understand. Even Mr. Hendricks, a man with a disposition of Buddha-like proportions, was griping my hand so hard as to leave bruises. And this was just the ride out of town.<br /><br />We pulled over at the side of the road to stretch our legs. We'd probably already been in the car for at least an hour, maybe more. Still oblivious to the terror that awaited me, I wondered how much longer the drive would be. My father-in-law had mentioned "twenty-two hairpin turns," and I thought he was casually remarking on a curvy, twisty road. The term "road" needs to be defined. If by "road" you mean a dirt path cleared of trees and boulders, but filled with rocks and holes and only wide enough for one car, then, yes, it was a road. I'm pretty sure I don't have to mention that there were no guardrails, but I will, just for good measure.<br /><br />So we start up the hill again, and while gently disentangling my hand from the crush of Mr. Hendricks', I begin to feel tired but uneasy. I mean, where the hell is this place? Then, off in the distance, my family points out the restaurant we'll be going to after we see Ponmudi. It appears to be very high and very far away. The road is getting worse: it feels like the car has no shock absorbers. And then the unthinkable happens: the car horn breaks. We have no horn. This is the only way to alert opposing vehicles that we are on the other side of the hairpin turn, because you sure as hell can't see anything. We press on, and now I begin to shoot desperate looks at Mr. Hendricks. He seems as nervous as I do, and yet, his parents are only mildly disturbed. Sure, the horn giving out is unfortunate, but that's no reason to discontinue our treacherous climb.<br /><br />Then I see a road sign. A yellow sign with a drawing of an actual hairpin, about a thousand times bigger, and the number "1". At first, I am in complete denial. That can't possibly mean what I think it means, I calmly tell myself. We continue on, without a horn and another five minutes goes by. There isn't another sign, and yet the turns we've made on this stretch of the road are between ninety and one hundred thirty five degrees. To my horror, another yellow sign appears, exactly like the first one, and the number "2" is on it. Now the fear sinks in: I've got twenty more of these motherfuckers to live through. At the next sign, again after another five to seven minutes and several sharp turns and one car we managed not to collide with, I nudge Mr. Hendricks. I glare and jerk my head in the direction of the sign. He misses it.<br /><br />"Three!" I hiss. "We're only at three!"<br /><br />He looks confused. "What?" He's interrupted by his mother. She says, "I know why Denise is worried, she's not used to it, but you? What's wrong with you? You've been here before!" I have to mention at this point that my in-laws do not speak English (well, my father-in-law speaks a little, but my accent is really challenging for him) and I do not speak Malayalam, the native tongue of Kerala. This was actually a relief, although I'm sure my alarm needed little translation.<br /><br />We continue on, and even though I did not have respite from the terror, I will interject here another item from Wikipedia:<br /><br /><i>The climate is alwayspleasant and it serves as a base for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekking" title="Trekking" class="mw-redirect">trekking</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiking" title="Hiking">hiking</a>. The tea-gardens here are also famous.</i><br /><br />I will grant that the climate is probably always pleasant, if in fact you can even notice such a thing during your ordeal. But the "famous" tea gardens are completely defunct. Mr. Hendricks told me that when he visited Ponmudi as a child, there were tea stands all along the road where you could stop and not only have tea, but buy some to take home. He thought he remembered coffee, too. Tea is one of the official drinks of India, but in the South, they prefer coffee. Apparently the tea stands (we saw their abandoned shacks) were put out of business by the ubiquitous strikes and fights with the state government. There are so many unions in Kerala that it's a miracle when anything gets done. More often than not, it doesn't. So the promise of tea, coffee, and gifts evaporated, and I had only hope to cling to as we continued our death ride up the hill.<br /><br />Obviously we made it. The killer is that, while in fact it was very cool and windy, the view wasn't as spectacular as I had been led to believe. Or maybe the view of the edge of the Western Ghats did not justify three hours of nightmarish anxiety. We walked around a bit, took a few pictures. We then went to the restaurant, which looked like a large, glorified cafeteria without the line. We had a typical South Indian <i>thali</i>, which consists of several little dishes and rice, and any other curry you might order. We asked for a fish fry and a chicken fry, both of which were pretty good. South Indians eat with their hands. I never got the hang of it, but really didn't have to: a fork and a napkin always appeared on the table, just for me.<br /><br />We finished lunch and stepped outside onto the terrace. The view outside of the restaurant was pretty nice, lovely, in fact. It was windy and sunny and we took a few more pictures. Then we started our descent, which I had been trying to avoid thinking about all during lunch. Actually, I had been ruminating about it during the drive up, too, thinking that even if we made it up the hill alive, there was still the trip back to survive.<br /><br />But my mother-in-law, with her wonderful senses of humor and intuition, told us the story of Mr. Hendricks' birth during our trip down the hill. I was completely delighted, not to mention blessedly distracted. I had always wanted to know how Mr. Hendricks came into the world, and in a charming bit of serendipity, our birth stories share some features. Both my mother and my mother-in-law were first-time mothers when they gave birth to us, and both of them had somewhat precipitous deliveries after normal courses of labor. In fact, both of them were told, "Don't push!" by the panicked nurses who saw baby heads emerging. Both doctors were late, and my mother-in-law was attended by the doctor on call. My father-in-law had a friend who worked in the hospital. Because of this, he was able to stay in his friend's call room at the hospital so he would be there when the baby arrived. Usually, fathers weren't allowed in the hospital until after the delivery.<br /><br />Mr. Hendricks, according to his mother, was sixteen days late. Not only was he big when he was born, about eight and a half pounds, but he had a ton of hair and the longest fingernails they'd ever seen. He was also exceedingly fair. All the nurses used to sigh and lament because he was so fair and pretty. "What a shame," they'd say. "He should have been a girl."<br /><br />Given the language and geographical barriers between me and my in-laws, I never thought I would hear that story. When we got home to Trivandrum, I thanked her for telling us. "Well,"she said, "I know you deliver babies and I thought you might beinterested." I also found out why my husband is an only child. An only <i>Indian </i>child: what are the odds? My father-in-law casually remarked that he thought it was better just to have one child. My in-laws also said that by the time Mr. Hendricks was three years old, he often told them that he didn't want a brother or sister. "We don't need another baby," he'd say, batting those big brown eyes in his fair, pretty-girl face, up at them. How could they argue with that?<br /><br />So while hissing the word <i>Ponmudi</i> in our house is code for <i>what a fucking nightmare</i>, it also brings a smile to my face when I think of listening to my mother-in-law telling the story of her delivery. The hairpin turns and the rocky road and the sheer drop off outside my window seemed to fade away as I imagine her all those years ago, waiting to have her very late and very pretty baby.<br />Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-6342495768233096722008-09-04T10:43:00.000-07:002008-09-04T10:44:15.339-07:00Bubba'sMr. Hendricks and I took a little Labor Day weekend trip to Wisconsin to visit the American Players Theater again. This year we stayed in Mineral Point at Brewery Creek Inn, about thirty minutes south of Spring Green. On our way home from the show on Saturday night, we stopped into a charming little dive called Bubba's on High Street. It was one of three little joints open at the seemingly very late hour of midnight. It was like walking back in time to the eighties when bars were filled with cigarette smoke, loud and drunk patrons and even louder jukebox music. Bare bones, just a bar, an electronic dart board and stools. We took open seats at the end of the bar and a young man with shaggy blond hair and glasses, clearly feeling no pain, told us he wasn't the bartender but that he could get us a drink.<br /><br /> "I mean, it's okay," he shouted, leaning into the bar. "What can I get you guys?"<br /><br /> Foolishly I asked for a gin martini. I have had problems before with gin martinis, in more upscale establishments than this. Apparently there is some debate about what exactly constitutes a martini. According to me, an authority on martinis solely based on sheer number of them consumed, a martini is gin with a bit of vermouth, shaken violently with ice, then strained into a cold martini glass. I prefer a cucumber garnish because of the gin I favor, but an olive will also do. What will <i id="vzdx">not </i>do is gin shaken with ice alone and strained into a glass: that is simply cold gin. Additionally, martinis are not served "on the rocks." Anyway, these were the least of our worries.<br /><br /> The "bartender" looked a little taken aback, but valiantly continued on. "Okay, and for you?" he turned to Mr. Hendricks.<br /><br /> "I'll have a vodka martini with Grey Goose," he said. It was too late to stop Mr. Hendricks from mentioning Grey Goose, but again, this was to be the least of our worries. Our friend put on his best professional demeanor and soldiered on, consulting with the woman two seats down from me to see if the bar had any vermouth.<br /><br /> A moment or two later, the real bartender came before us. He looked much like the impostor bartender in that he was also a bit loaded and friendly. "I'm so sorry," he began, "but we don't even have martini glasses here. We're just a beer and shot joint. I'm really sorry, the first round is on me. What can I get you guys?"<br /><br /> We reassured him that he did not have to buy our drinks. "How about a gin and tonic, then?" I asked.<br /><br /> "Sure," he said with relief. He looked at Mr. Hendricks.<br /><br /> "I'll have a vodka tonic," Mr. Hendricks said.<br /><br /> "Okay, then. I'm real sorry," he continued to apologize. Both Mr. Hendricks and I reassured him that it was fine, don't worry, we just want a drink, it's no big deal, again, don't worry. He seemed mildly reassured and went to pour our drinks.<br /><br /> Mr. Hendricks could not resist the opportunity to smoke in a bar, something he hasn't been able to do in Minnesota for a year or two. So he lit up and we tried to catch the American League scores on the tiny television hanging in the corner above the bar. Our teams were doing battle this weekend, and because we were on vacation we did not see any of the four games. Later we were to discover that they split the series: the A's won two games, each by a run, and the Twins won two games, each by about ten runs. The Twins are going to have to do a lot better than that if they want to get to the playoffs, but I digress.<br /><br /> Our small, strong drinks arrived and we gave our bartender a very large tip. We sat and drank. When we came into the bar, it was loud, but the jukebox (I use the term loosely: an electronic contraption with a screen, etc.) was off. Within a few moments of sitting down, someone had spent a good deal of money solely on Tupac Shakur. The loud, thumping pound of the music vibrated the seats. It was hard not to giggle. I mean, Mr. Hendricks was the only person of color within a hundred mile radius, but the townies in Mineral Point couldn't get enough of Tupac.<br /><br /> As we drank, I noticed a handwritten sign near the old cash register, taped to the mirror of the bar. It was entitled, "Bubba's Shit List" and underneath said, "talk to Bubba or the bartender in order to remove yourself from this list." There were about eighteen names, with number one being Billy Bob. I am not making this up. Two of the names had been crossed off, so it was indeed possible to make restitution. But how? And for what? I was deeply curious, enough to ask the woman next to me.<br /><br /> "Hey," I ventured, "what's up with that list?"<br /><br /> She turned to me and smiled. "I know, I was just looking at that! I know those people," she said.<br /><br /> "Do they owe money?" I asked.<br /><br /> "Nah, that wouldn't get them on a list. I know Billy Bob. I wonder what he did to piss them off," she replied.<br /><br /> I introduced myself and Mr. Hendricks to Dawn. She was in her mid-thirties, a regular nursing her lite beer and smoking her cigarette.<br /><br /> "Are you from around here?" she politely inquired.<br /><br /> You had to give her credit. There was no way in hell Mr. Hendricks and I were from around here.<br /><br /> I laughed and said, "No, we're from out of town. But I'll bet you knew that."<br /><br /> She smiled and said, "Well, I thought so, but you know, I don't know."<br /><br /> Our chitchat died down and she turned to talk to the bartender. Mr. Hendricks and I pondered the possible meanings of being on the shit list, and what you had to do to remove yourself from it. I was dying to get a picture of the list, but thought better of it. Perhaps the other patrons would not find it so amusing to have outsiders documenting their little piece of heaven. The smoke now had become almost unnoticeable, Tupac was still hollering, and a bar stool either fell or was tossed over by one of the young women in the bar. There was a very slight ruckus, warning us like distant thunder, and suddenly it was time to go.<br /><br /> We stepped outside into the not warm but not cool late August night and only then could I smell the smoke in a cloud around me and in my clothes and hair. It was just like the eighties when I went to bars and drank all night (beer, not gin: thank god, I'd have been in rehab about four times by now) and shot pool and played the same songs on the jukebox over and over. But I rarely got drunk: that wasn't fun. I spent a good deal of my twenties with friends in bars almost every night of the week, but we would sit and talk and drink and I still made it to work the next day. I'll bet our friends at Bubba's do, too. Our twenties are very forgiving, aren't they?<br /><br /> The next day I told Mr. Hendricks yet another winning-the-lottery fantasy: I would buy Bubba's and whip it into shape. The bartender would be a huge African-American man and the waitress a beautiful lipstick lesbian. There would be booths and a small grill, so you could eat fries and chicken wings. There would be martini glasses, and a "J.D." (an appletini) would be all the rage. There would be a state of the art ventilation system, so the person next to you could smoke like a chimney and you'd never even know it. The jukebox would have only music from the eighties: Prince, Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper, Lionel Richie, all that sort of thing. I'd still call it Bubba's, mostly because when we were teenagers, my brother and I would call our mother 'Bubba,' and she hated it. There would be a portrait of her, framed, with her name underneath, implying the bar was her namesake. She would hate that, too.<br /><br /> Then after about a year, I would sell the bar back to Bubba, and he could run it right into the ground. Everyone would come back, smash all the martini glasses, destroy the leather booths and never repair the ventilation system. All would be well again.Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-37165005959320477212008-08-12T11:20:00.000-07:002008-08-12T11:23:48.739-07:00This Week in Baseball 8/12/08Baseball season is coming to an end. When there's less than half the season left, when there's not even fifty games left, it is ending. So it's sad, even though our teams have had a rough time of it. The Oakland A's are long out of it, have been at least since the All-Star Break, when their rookie first baseman was having fun with friends and decided to test the depth of a body of water with his head. Daric Barton is lucky to be alive, and it is amazing he's not a paraplegic. Bob Geren, manager of the A's, said of course he was relieved Barton wasn't seriously injured, but also implied that his lack of judgment was concerning. I now refer to Barton as "head injury," as in, "Head injury hit a three-run home run in the third."<br id="ka44"><br /><br id="ka440"><br />The Twins are flaming their little matchstick light of hope, constantly one-half game ahead of or behind the Chicago White Sox (or, as Bert Blyleven says, "She-cago"). Last week I saw an afternoon game between the Twins and the Mariners. An obviously worked up Blyleven ranted and raved about the lack of endurance and ability of starting pitching, and the resultant stress on the bullpen. "People work hard at their jobs, and they work nine to five. These guys are working nine to one!" he roared. Apparently Blyleven pitched 280 innings during his first major league season. Today if a pitcher tops out at 200 innings, he's considered a "workhorse." He went as far as to call starting pitchers "sissies" if they didn't or couldn't pitch deep into games, and said that they didn't have "the guts" (when he really meant "balls") to finish what they had started. Clearly someone had put a nickel in him, and his cohort Dick Bremer blamed it on the Seattle coffee.<br id="t1ok"><br /><br id="t1ok0"><br />It's disturbing to find yourself in agreement with Blyleven, he of the "Circle me Bert" fame and the endless commentary on cookies and cupcakes, but there I was. I don't give a damn about the bullpen and its so-called "stress," but I do think pitchers need to pitch a lot more innings and throw a lot more pitches. Pitchers are bulking up and breaking down: don't forget that one of Rich Harden's many injuries was due to his reaching for his alarm clock. These guys are barely men: why are they injured all the time? The workouts and the steroids might have something to do with it. And I am not a fan of the "specialist" role: Denys Reyes has that ERA for one reason only. He comes into a game with men on base and proceeds to do his usual bang-up job of giving up a two-run double, yet his ERA remains perfectly intact.<br id="pjpg"><br /><br id="pjpg0"><br />Last night Glen Perkins was under a lot of pressure: he just became a new father; the bullpen had been exhausted the day before in Kansas City, blowing a two-run lead and then losing the game; and he was facing the third-place New York Yankees, who are still the Yankees. Meaning that they all take a lot of pitches and for reasons that are not statistically understood, Bobby Abreu always gets on base. But Perkins pulled it off: he walked three but got out of it every time. Perkins usually pitches well and then, according to Bremer "without warning" something goes wrong and he starts to give it up. Actually, there is a warning: it's called the sixth inning. But last night it came and went and Perkins pitched eight, count them, eight, shut out innings, then Nathan came and finished it off with three strikeouts.<br id="lrep"><br /><br id="lrep0"><br />Tonight it's Mike Mussina, also known as "Moose," for the Yankees and Nick Blackburn, another rookie for the Twins. I hate to say it, but even if they Twins win the division and go to the playoffs, they won't make it out of the first round because they'll have to go through New York or Boston, and they usually don't go through them. They crumple. But I would dearly love to be proven wrong. Go Twins!<br id="d9oa1">Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-30546436461076815452008-06-12T14:13:00.000-07:002008-06-12T14:17:02.849-07:00Natural Woman<i id="qkdz">definition of </i>natural<i id="qkdz">: existing in or formed by nature, as opposed to </i>artificial<i id="qkdz"><br id="itj7"><br /></i><br id="qkdz0"><br />Patients of mine, both young and old, will argue the case of hormonal contraception with what I like to call the "natural" argument. "It's just not natural to trick the body," they will say. Sometimes the argument is simply that birth control pills are not "natural," as if the Mountain Dew or Red Bull they drink is. This argument has the corollary of "hormones are bad," but that is a discussion for another day.<br id="si_s"><br /><br id="si_s0"><br />What is, indeed, natural? What is a natural woman? Can it be argued that any of us today resemble, at least reproductively, our grandmothers and great-grandmothers? While I believe that there is nothing new under the sun, especially when it comes to sex, I don't believe that my generation and younger are anything like our fore-mothers when it comes to reproduction. We begin menarche younger and younger, for whatever reasons that may be found for this, and we also begin menopause younger (known euphemistically as the 'perimenopause'). We bear fewer children, if at all, and also begin bearing them when we are a good deal older than was thought possible one or two generations ago. What was 'natural' to our great-grand-mamas was to marry in their late teens or very early twenties; to begin having children fairly soon after marriage; to breastfeed those children; and to start the cycle again, repeating every eighteen months to three years until they were exhausted.<br id="hob0"><br /><br id="hob00"><br />I generalize, of course, but you see what I mean. There is an argument that 'modern' woman is not 'natural' in her hundreds of monthly cycles, i.e. having a period every month instead of being pregnant or lactating for several months out of her life. It's not considered 'natural' to continuously dance that cycle every month for years without pregnancy. Today we want to be able to control nature, but somehow remain natural. We want to avoid pregnancy until we are ready, and that may mean when we're fifty, and we expect that technology will be there for us. We do not expect limits.<br id="c3ip"><br /><br id="c3ip0"><br />Perhaps it is my own aging that makes me realize how little control we have, and the appeal that fate holds for some has seemed a more and more reasonable stance. We can maneuver out of its way, perhaps, but it always gets us in the end with irony and surprise, doesn't it? So it was with me and my uterus. A uterus, it should be known, that has never been pregnant. An intact, never used, factory model: vintage, in fact, at forty-five years of age. I had decided in my dotage and in my desire to avoid being a middle-aged freak show (first pregnancy at forty-six!) that I would get the Mirena intrauterine device (IUD), and maybe, as an added bonus, get fewer and shorter menses, too, in my waning reproductive years.<br id="ly8w"><br /><br id="ly8w0"><br />Alas, it was not to be: upon examination my uterus, that pristine, still in the package uterus, measured ten centimeters deep, too much to have the IUD placed. To say I was speechless is an understatement. I was stunned, and my voice rose with each succeeding, "But how can that be? I've never BEEN PREGNANT!" Most uteri (yes, the plural of <i id="v05g">uterus</i>: is it not wonderful?) measure between six and nine centimeters, though sometimes, a uterus that has housed many a pregnancy will sound to greater depths. And then there's my uterus: a virtual five thousand square foot house just waiting to gestate a fetus or three.<br id="jtgv"><br /><br id="jtgv0"><br />When the shock wore off, and after another contraceptive plan was made, I wondered if I had fooled fate or had been fooled by it. Perhaps I was designed to have a passel of boys, each a year or two apart, running me ragged but kept in line most of the time by their father, who made them behave like angels once a year on Mother's Day. Maybe I would have had only one child, after successive miscarriages, my uterus a large, cold room unable to keep hold of a pregnancy. Maybe that big old uterus was waiting for ovaries that wouldn't, or couldn't, cooperate. Maybe fate was wise and knew that a uterus that size didn't have a chance of recovering after delivery, and decided not to let me bleed to death. Who knows what explanation there is for what seems to me to be an anomaly, this seemingly capacious and capable uterus in my never pregnant body. For a minute I wished I was twenty years younger in order to be a surrogate, because even though I've never wanted to be a parent, I've always fancied that I'd like pregnancy and have always wanted to know what it felt like to push a baby out of my body.<br id="oi41"><br /><br id="oi410"><br />So here I am, waiting out the last of my (supposedly) fertile years, with a wondrous uterus that never got her day in the sun. I hope she's not taking it too hard. I hope she still feels like a natural woman.<br id="oj_j"><br /><br id="itj70"><br /><span id="hnng"></span><span id="hnng1" class="ital-inline"></span>Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-24705435861337738052008-06-12T09:05:00.000-07:002008-06-12T09:20:36.473-07:00This Week in Baseball 6/12/08Well, the last place New York Yankees (okay, they're tied for third/last with Toronto and Baltimore) are in Oakland for a three game series this week. Let's start with the moustaches, shall we? Jason Giambi has been sporting his for at least a week, and he couldn't look more like a seventies porn star if he tried. Every time he's in the batter's box, I have to look away. Last night their reliever, Russ Ohlendorf, also had the same gruesome caterpillar on his lip, and I'm sure it frightened the A's lineup as much as it did me. How these atrocities are being tolerated by the clean-shaven protocol of the Yankees, I do not know. Remember when the Yankees acquired lovable mop-topped Red Sox Johnny Damon? The burning question was: is he going to cut his hair? And, more importantly, is he still going to look hot? Sadly, the answer is no: for a man who wore the Jesus look <i id="x0zl">really </i>well, once that hair was cut, you realized his good looks were in his long locks. Poor Damon: he just looks unremarkable now, like nobody. He's no longer the cute guy with the dimples and great hair and, according to some, spectacular ass. I think his long hair actually enhanced his ass, though I can't really explain how that's possible. At least he just cut his hair, and didn't opt for the neo-Nazi buzz cuts favored by Rodriguez, Jeter, and Joe Girardi. Yikes. We know the Yankees are professional killers: do they have to look like it, too? The only look missing in the Yankees dugout is what is referred to as 'date-rapist' hair: slicked back, eighties style, with stiff, crunchy hair gel.<br id="fh5o"><br /><br id="fh5o0"><br />Well, on to the games. Chien-Ming Wang pitched the first game against Dana Eveland. The A's had plenty of chances, and Eveland only gave up two runs, but the A's still lost 3-1. Last night Yankees pitcher Darrell Rasner went up against Justin Duchscherer, who used to be a reliever for the A's and now is in the starting rotation. Duchscherer baffled the Yankees through each of his seven innings, especially with his long, slow curve ball that tops out at about sixty-seven miles per hour. The announcers said a few times that next to the curve ball, the fast ball looked a lot faster than eighty-four miles an hour. And for once, the A's hitters came through and scored a bunch (eight, to be precise) of runs for Duchscherer. He's now 5-0 at the Coliseum. The A's got six runs off Rasner in the third, and the Yankees never really recovered but rallied in the ninth off of the A's relievers, especially Kiko Calero. But the A's hung on, and won 8-4.<br id="axox"><br /><br id="axox0"><br />The Twins, on the other hand, finally won a game and broke their six game losing streak in Cleveland last night. The first night C.C. Sabathia pitched a gem against the Twins, and they lost 1-0 to the Indians. As much as I need to support my hometown boys, I do love the C.C. I mean, I love that big man who loves to pitch complete games, whose presence is wonderfully palpable on the mound, who looks so serious all the time, but you know he's just like a big kid on the inside. Last night Paul Byrd got hit around a little, and the Twins got their win. The Twins continue to have fielding problems, or should I say more precisely, Delmon Young cannot seem to catch the ball. I can't tell if he's just not very fast, or if he can't read the ball off the bat, but it feels like I'm watching him chase down fly balls every freakin' game. I mean, Jason Kubel and his knees were better out there, for god's sake.<br id="afk_"><br /><br id="afk_0"><br />Both teams finish their series tonight, and even though Giambi probably hasn't shaved that moustache, and Delmon Young will miss at least one fly ball, I'll be watching.<br id="ozyf"><br /><br id="ozyf0"><br /><br id="ozyf1">Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-14432692716899636542008-06-03T14:54:00.000-07:002008-06-03T14:57:54.571-07:00This Week in Baseball 6/3/08I know, I know, it's been far more than a week. Well, let's just catch up then, shall we? Last Friday, the last-place New York Yankees (the television announcers could not get enough of this: they repeated it every chance they could and explained: how often are we able to say that?) came to the Metrodome and split a four game series with the Twins.<br id="vh2:0"><br /><br id="vh2:1"><br />Twice Alex Rodriguez was thrown out at third in two different games. The first time he ran on contact of what turned out to be a not very deep fly ball, and was caught because he didn't make it back to second. The second time he had already stolen second base, mind you, while his team had a lead, and then took off for third and was thrown out there. Did he really think Hideki Matsui couldn't hit a single to advance him? What a moron.<br id="s_zy0"><br /><br id="s_zy1"><br />We were supposed to see reliever-turned-starter Joba Chamberlain last night, but his start was postponed and Andy Pettitte took the mound. I cannot like Andy Pettitte, of course, by default: he is a Yankee. But let me just say that he is one handsome man: all big features with an adorable dimple in his chin; big, pretty dark eyes. Not too shabby. Anyway, I cannot like Joba Chamberlain, either, again, because of the Yankee clause in my contract, and he was easy to dislike: I mean, what's up with that name? Joba? What the hell is that? So I read all about it on Wikipedia, and found out some things that make it harder for me to dislike him. His niece couldn't say her new brother's name, Joshua, and it came out like "Jahba" and he liked it. His given name is Justin Louis. The name stuck and he legally changed it, just like John Paul "Boof" Bonser did who pitches for the Twins. Secondly, his father is a member of the Winnebago tribe, almost died of polio as a child, and needs a scooter (which he named Humphrey) to get around. Like I can hate him now! I know it's reverse discrimination and frankly, I don't give a damn.<br id="y0990"><br /><br id="y0991"><br />The A's have been playing much more like themselves lately, which is to say, losing. However, there are some bright spots: they swept, SWEPT, the Boston Red Sox, and they beat Detroit last night in the bottom of the ninth. Bobby Crosby continues to concern me: they announced during the game last night that he leads the American League with nineteen doubles. Once again, in the not too great distance, I hear two of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse gaining ground. Mr. Hendricks joked that Crosby might be the MVP this year. "We won't live to see 2009," I answered. "Better cash out the 401(k) and the stock options, baby." I was even more sure of it when Crosby hit the game-winning double.<br id="xhip0"><br /><br id="xhip1"><br />Till next week.<br id="u78d1"><br /><br id="pxpj2">Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-43364558007607948182008-05-06T12:38:00.000-07:002008-05-06T12:40:55.306-07:00This Week in Baseball 5/6/08<br id="pr1d1"><br />Well, it's been more than a week, but really, the last week or so is all I can remember of the multitude of games we watch or see bits and parts of while Mr. Hendricks' keeps his hand firmly on the remote control. The A's, to every one's surprise and to others' delight, are playing better than .500 baseball. So are, for that matter, the Twins, but their division has had a very slow start: the Tigers are still having troubles (thank God they let go of Jacque Jones!) and the Indians' pitching staff still is shaky. The A's salvaged one game from their series with the Mariners last Sunday, April 27th, and what a win it was.<br id="hz0i0"><br /><br id="hz0i1"><br />Felix Hernandez, know as King Felix (one of the few nicknames you'll see here not personally bestowed by me), kept the A's off balance for six innings, striking out ten batters but walking four. The Mariners announcers were yapping on and on about what a masterful performance it was, and that's why when it all fell apart, it was that much sweeter. Not to dis King Felix, but really, walking four batters? And he was already at one hundred pitches when he started the sixth. He was doing a good job keeping the A's off the bases, but really, "masterful" it was not. I've seen masterful, and it usually comes with the name of Johan Santana (god rest his Shea Stadium soul). And the King was guilty of some poor showmanship: when he finished the previous innings with a strikeout (desperately needed, I might add) he stalked off the mound pumping his fist. That's like a batter standing outside the box admiring his shot to the seats. Not nice, and be careful: the next time up, the ball is going to be thrown at your head. So when the Felix show began its painful but inexorable decline, it was delightful. The A's won 4-2, after being shut out for five innings. It was odd to watch Hernandez give it up, and to watch the manager and pitching coach watch him give it up. I mean, the man had already thrown one hundred pitches. Apparently, the pitching coach came to the mound and asked how Hernandez felt. He said he felt good, and so he was left in to take the loss.<br id="euzt0"><br /><br id="euzt1"><br />In a side note, I want it on the record that I adore Ichiro Suzuki. I love everything about him: his little sleeve pull at the plate, the way he's already running to first base as he swings the bat, the ballet-like fielding in center. He floats over to the ball as if he were picking flowers or playing croquet. Torii Hunter was wonderful to watch all those years with the Twins: he was a movie star slash stunt man in center field, and it was dazzling to see him leap and dive. Ichiro is a different animal. He just gracefully appears out of nowhere, not even out of breath, while making a spectacular play look effortless. Ichiro is quoted as saying something to the effect that sheer power doesn't impress him, but grace and intelligence does.<br id="krpi0"><br /><br id="krpi1"><br />It has been exhilarating and frankly, a bit disturbing, to see the A's play so well this early in the season, and in this season especially, since they have been clear that they are "rebuilding" this year. When teams say that they're rebuilding, you can count on frustrating games, disappointing losses, and infrequent wins. A mere few weeks ago Bobby Crosby was batting .300, and I felt sure that I could hear the hooves of at least two of the four horsemen of the apocalypse not too far in the distance. Now he's back to a .260 average, and it may be that the end of the world has been called off, at least for now. The A's have been known in the past several seasons as a "second half team," so to see them racking up the wins so early is exciting, but also creates a little anxiety. They're winning quite a few one-run games, or scoring late in the ballgame and winning late or in extra innings. Last night I went to bed in disgust when Huston Street (Huston, I love you but you're killing me) blew a 1-0 lead. He could not find the strike zone, and if I ever find out who kept calling that outside sinker pitch that none of the Oriole batters swung at, there will be hell to pay. Anyway, they came back in the tenth and won it, but I was upstairs in bed; those west coast games are hard on the sleep schedule.<br id="tr830"><br /><br id="tr831"><br />Tonight the A's continue their series against Baltimore, who personally I feel have one of the best looking uniforms in either league, and the Twins go to Chicago and play the Sox. You all know my dislike of the White Sox, so I won't repeat it here. Till next time.<br id="pr1d2">Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-13014380265283343442008-04-15T13:43:00.000-07:002008-04-15T13:45:04.298-07:00This Week in Baseball 4/15/08<br id="pr3e"><br id="dzr3">This week really starts last week, when we were at McAfee Coliseum to watch the Oakland A's on a brilliant Sunday afternoon take on the Cleveland Indians. The A's had quite surprisingly taken the first two games of the series: C. C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona were the starting pitchers and neither fared very well at all. I was so excited to see McAfee Coliseum, and it did not disappoint, though Mr. Hendricks told me that everyone thinks it's a dump. It is a shared field between the Oakland A's (baseball) and the Oakland Raiders (football) and only poor and/or stubborn cities don't have separate stadiums for their sports teams. Additionally, McAfee is going to its rest in a few years when the A's build a new stadium in Fremont, California, so I wanted to see the joint before it went up in demolition smoke. <br id="azdk"><br id="s88l">"Baby" Joe Blanton (not his real name, of course: I have a nickname for nearly every ball player I love and hate) was on the mound for Oakland, and Cliff Lee for the Indians. Luck would have it that we were sandwiched between Indians fans, and they couldn't have been nicer. Much more reserved than the blabbermouth wearing a Zito jersey who showed up around the fourth inning at the end of the row. It was challenging to pay attention to the game with the sunny skies, brisk breeze, and good company. It was also an unusual pleasure for me to watch major league baseball out of doors: the Twins play in the Metrodome which, while never that appealing, really seemed like the ugly stepsister by comparison. The A's lost, but we had a great time in the sun, Mr. Hendricks with his blue cotton candy, and my friend Zelda and I with our shared ice cream sandwich. I even bought a sweatshirt with a zip front in the green and gold of the Athletics to wear on my walks when it's cold here in the spring and fall.<br id="hxuo"><br id="tag3">Back home I've had the opportunity to watch the A's and the Twins a little more closely, and, as usual, I have some complaints. The A's beat the White Sox last night, but not after Huston Street, the A's closer, once again shaved years off my life as he allowed hits and a walk. He finally got out of the inning, but not after much cursing on my part. The Twins, on the other hand, blew a five run lead TWICE in their game against the Detroit Tigers, and I didn't even feel sorry for them. First of all, you don't deserve to win when you blow a five run lead. Twice. Secondly, the Tigers have had a rough time of it, skunked twice in the last two games, and can't seem to get it together. Granted, there are already injuries, but still: these guys are great and I believe it's just a matter of time. Thirdly, those Twins outfielders looked like all they did was chase balls around in the outfield. Denard Span, who is playing right field while Michael Cuddyer nurses a broken finger, actually tipped a long (catchable) fly ball over the fence and gave Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez a home run.<br id="ql9q"><br id="tty3">So the Tigers won 11-9, and Jim Leyland may have felt a little sheepish about his "chat" with his boys the previous night. Apparently, you could hear his voice through stone walls. He told reporters it was none of their business when asked what he'd said to the players. There's a story that he yelled at his former team, the Colorado Rockies, in the nude and while a clenching a cigarette between his teeth, with an inch or so of ash was hanging from its tip. Paints a picture, doesn't it? Today the A's are losing to the White Sox, and the Twins and Tigers play again tonight.<br id="njrk"><br id="um2l">Why are the White Sox so unlikeable? Ozzie Guillen, for one: when he was the new skipper for the Sox, he was sort of colorful and had a devil-may-care attitude. Time went on and more offensive and unbelievable things came out of his mouth. Then he practically shamed to death, on national television, a pitcher fresh from the minor leagues because he couldn't bean the batter that Guillen wanted to punish. So now he's just an obnoxious and ignorant ass, and he seems to like to have those kinds of players around, too. A. J. Pierzynski is the first that comes to mind: no one likes this guy. However, I would have paid good money to see him in the clubhouse of his former team, the Giants, with Barry Bonds. That's a tea party, my friend. Juan Uribe: looks so unhappy. Some of the good guys are Jermaine Dye, Paul Konerko and Jim Thome. But overall, there's just a bad vibe. And the television announcers are as annoying as they come, exclaiming, "He gone!" when one of the Sox pitchers strikes out a batter. They just feel dirty and icky, kind of like the Yankees without the veneer of "professionals."<br id="oonm"><br id="i8nd">Till next week then.<br id="lkud"><br id="d:z8"><br id="k175">Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-1223289923311288602008-03-25T09:16:00.000-07:002008-03-25T09:22:47.038-07:00Opening F**ing DayOpening Day came very early to our mixed-marriage household (I'm rooting for the home team, the Twins, while my husband still holds out hope for his former hometown boys, the Oakland A's) this year. Five in the morning to be exact: that's when ESPN2 was broadcasting the season opener between the Oakland A's and the Boston Red Sox, live from Japan in the Tokyo Dome. While I waited for the water to boil for coffee, I saw two seconds of costumed dancers on the field, and the guys in the A's dugout taking pictures with their little digital cameras: they looked so excited! We curled up under a blanket and watched while Matsuzaka quickly fell apart in the first inning, and my happy cursing began as Mark Ellis' home run ball flew into the stands: "Yes, you motherfucker!" I curse at baseball whether I'm thrilled or appalled; it doesn't matter. It's baseball, and so for me, that means I sound like a sailor. My husband (then boyfriend) and I were on our third date, watching the White Sox and the Twins in a beer joint. About halfway through the game I realized I really didn't know this person well enough to be shouting "motherfucker" and "Jesus H. Christ!" every fifteen seconds. I turned to him and said, "Is my swearing bothering you? Really, you have to tell me." He looked at me: "Were you swearing?" That may have been the beginning of a very short fall into love.<br /><br />Anyway, the ESPN2 announcers were one of the targets of my wrath this morning: they could have easily been mistaken for Boston Red Sox employees. All we heard was yap, yap, yapping about Dice-K and his triumphant return to Japan, blah, blah, blah. Red Sox Nation (sounds a little Klannish, don't you think?) was in full force at the Tokyo Dome, so while the A's had "home field advantage," it sure as hell didn't feel like it. They briefly mentioned that Kurt Suzuki, the A's catcher, was having a homecoming, too: we looked at each other and said, "Do they know he's Hawaiian?" About two hours later into the broadcast, they mentioned that his <i>grandparents </i>lived in Tokyo and were at the game. They mispronounced the third baseman's name halfway through the game: "Hanrahan looks at a ball." <i>Hanahan</i>, you morons. Then we had to listen (or not: my husband, what with the Y chromosome and all, can tune anything out) to these jackasses talk to Captain Jackass, "Bud" Selig, Commissioner of Baseball. Don't worry: the tough questions got asked, and we were reassured by Uncle Bud that the steroid issue was all under control. He went as far as to say that steroids weren't a problem for <i>baseball</i>, but a problem of the general society: yeah, I guess if you're Roger Clemens' wife, but I can't recall the last time I used steroids. Oh, wait, now I remember: never.<br /><br />I love baseball, but nothing drives me crazier: the pitches swung at and missed (especially first pitches!), the showy but failed dives that boot the ball further into the outfield, the blown save. It already feels like it's going to be a long season. The Twins let go of Johan Santana, even though Carl Pohlad is the eighth richest among baseball owners: I mean, when you're twenty-three million years old, how much money do you need, exactly? The A's traded <i>everybody</i>, and are "rebuilding." Billy Beane is legendarily known for his heartless approach to trading, so much so that when his wife gave birth to twins last year, some swag predicted they'd be traded before their second birthday. My husband says it's easy to root for the Yankees or the Sox, because they win a lot, and that's nice for fans: to actually watch a team win a good deal of the time. It's hard to love the underdogs, the bottom of the payroll, but we do. The Sox fancy themselves underdogs compared to the Yankees, but one look at their payrolls ($143 and $195 million, respectively, in 2007) and you see that the Sox are the Yankees, but with a <i>soupcon </i>of personality. They have Manny being Manny, and their beloved Big Papi, and their drama queen of a closer, Jonathan Papelbon (known in my house as Hannibal "Cinnabon" Lector: if you've seen him pitch, you know exactly what I'm talking about). But they're still a big money, big market team, and no amount of quirkiness will change that.<br /><br />Spring is the beginning of all the sweet bitching and moaning. Like the sounds of snow melting, running into the gutters, I wait for the first time John Gordon, radio "Voice of the Twins", calls Emil Brown "email" Brown. Like the songs of birds returning, it brings a smile to my face the first time in the season when Dan Gladden says "Barry Bonds is everything that's wrong with baseball". Then there's the television announcers, Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven, who sound exactly like an old married couple who continue to stay together, just to spite the other.<br /><br />I love baseball because I can love and hate people for no good reason,<br />other than I just feel like it, and there are no consequences: I'm<br />sure David Wright doesn't give a damn that I can't stand him, just as<br />I'm sure that Johan Santana couldn't care less that I'd leave my<br />husband for him. I love Nick Swisher (a tragic A's trade casualty) because even though he chews tobacco and dates a model/porn star, he was raised by his grandmother and because she died of cancer, grew his hair out for wigs for chemotherapy patients. I hate Alex Rodriguez, but who doesn't? I love Jim Leyland, manager of the Detroit Tigers, because he looks like he runs a tight ship and because his peers call this old fart "Jimmy." I love Orlando Hernandez because he is so pretty it hurts, can touch his knee to his ear during his wind up, and because Cuban ballplayers often destroy their birth certificates when they defect, will always be about seven or eight years younger than he really is. He's been in his late thirties for about ten years now (in Cuban ballplayer years, I'm <i>also </i>in my late thirties). I hate how ugly the Texas Rangers are as a team, but love their manager Ron Washington. I hate Carlos Lee. I love Huston Street's little box step of a wind up, but couldn't forgive him for blowing the save this morning.<br /><br />Maybe it's easier to get all worked up about a game that doesn't matter, than rant and rave and feel powerless over those things that do, like the war in Iraq, SUV, and poor transportation planning. Yesterday it was announced that four thousand Americans have been killed in Iraq; they, whoever they are, can't even come up with a number of Iraqi civilians killed, but the estimate is exponentially higher. Why is it that people themselves are always supposed to be working at becoming smaller through starvation and surgery, but cars and trucks keep getting bigger? Why are bridges collapsing, and why isn't gas eight dollars a gallon like it is in Europe? You see, these things are far more challenging than realizing tomorrow is the second game in a three game series. With baseball, there's hope, even with the specter of the Borg-like Yankees and the "lovable" Red Sox: those teams usually get to the playoffs, but then, it's any one's game. All bets are off in October.<br /><br />Just like they are in November.Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-64526397828080837822008-03-04T20:33:00.000-08:002008-03-04T20:34:08.359-08:00Middle-Aged HaikuGin and shoes: before<br />Forty, indulgence would have<br />Meant rehab and debt.Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-72532945538871321002008-02-25T08:48:00.000-08:002008-02-25T08:49:16.265-08:00My Half-Gay HusbandHe didn't start out half-gay. No. He was a regular straight guy who, he claims, marriage made half-gay by the incessant viewing of such amusements as <i>What Not To Wear</i> and <i>Project Runway</i>. One night he caught himself saying something like, "That woman should not wear yellow," and then exclaimed, "Jesus Christ! You've made me half gay!"<br /><br />We both laughed our asses off, and still do, when another keen observation slips out when we're watching television or shopping. One time I said, "My gay husband" instead of "half-gay:" he sometimes makes the same mistake and then I yell, "<i>Half</i>-gay! <i>Half</i>-gay! Honey, I'm clutching on to the half that's straight!"<br /><br />Many women are best friends with gay men, and bemoan the fact that they<br />can never marry them. Problem solved: you can make your husband half gay. <br />It's not as hard as you might think it is, and actually happened<br />without much effort on my part. First of all, if your husband or<br />boyfriend watches any kind of sport, you've got a running start. I<br />mean, come on: your man is watching a bunch of other men in close<br />physical contact. Personally, I think football is the gayest sport,<br />what with its inverse ratio of masculinity and butt patting. But don't<br />ignore basketball (so much contact) and baseball, which footballers<br />always think is gay (again, closet cases are often pointing the finger<br />at everyone but themselves). Secondly, home improvement is practically<br />a new national pastime, and moving from home makeover shows to fashion<br />makeovers is a small but significant step that can go by almost<br />unnoticed, until he says, "She needs a better bra." Remember, he may be stuck watching a woman get a fashion makeover, but he's watching a woman, with boobs. Suddenly, it's not so bad, is it?<br /><br />The great thing about having a half gay husband is that you get all the<br />attention to detail, especially with your wardrobe, that you enjoyed<br />with your gay male friends, and you're sleeping with the same guy!<br />My husband not only <i>likes </i>to go shopping with me, but has a good eye and<br />will tell me when something is flattering or not. My style is louder<br />than his, but we can see those differences: I like to be noticed,<br />he likes to blend in. That is simply a matter of taste. He doesn't<br />mind being asked about the smallest of details: which flatware do you<br />like better? What color sheets do you think we should get? How about<br />towels? Every purchase gets the full review, and many stones are<br />upturned in the process.<br /><br />I think he gets this from his dad. <br />When his parents first visited the States, we took them shopping. <br />We had to: they were obligated to return to India with gifts for<br />anyone they had ever laid eyes on. We went to the Mall of America,<br />which is overwhelming to those of us weaned on shopping malls, and<br />my soon-to-be father-in-law had to stop in every single store, just to see what they had. <br />He examined clothing like he was a tailor sent to memorize patterns. <br />My husband told me that his dad sewed a lot of clothes for him until he<br />became a teenager and only store-bought clothes would do. He even<br />lingered over children's clothes, while his wife teased him: "Are you<br />expecting? Who are you buying that for?"<br /><br />He was also busy<br />calculating dollars into rupees, something that constantly shocked and<br />appalled him. I longed for him to speak more English, because he and<br />my father would have had so much to talk about. My father loves nothing<br />better than comparing prices from gas station to gas station, or from<br />country to country. He may very well have packed up to Kerala to get a<br />haircut that is even cheaper than one can get across the border in<br />Mexico. In fact, when we first met, I told my husband that my father loved<br />nothing more than saving a dollar. "Oh," he said, "then he's Indian<br />at heart."<br /><br />Because my husband is only half-gay, his most favorite pastimes include<br />lazing on the couch, remote firmly clutched in hand, and searching the<br />channels for what, I don't know, or boobs. He has to be 'encouraged'<br />to share the housework, and even though baseball and cricket are the<br />sports that interest him most, any sport is better than nearly anything<br />else on television. We've sometimes told our friends and family about 'my half-gay husband' and the responses are usually uncomfortable laughter. It's almost like they think it's funny, like we do, but they also seem a little scared: is he really half-gay? Or gay? Why is it funny? Aren't they worried? <br /><br />One night we were out with a friend of ours who is usually tragically casually dressed, and then will wow you once in a great while. This was one of the wows. She had a jacket on that I could not get over, and I talked about it with my husband while we drove home. I did mention, though, that her shoes weren't so great, but how I loved that jacket!<br /><br />My husband said, "I didn't notice her shoes."<br /><br />I turned to look at him and smiled. "The day you start noticing shoes, you are no longer half-gay. Then I'll be in real trouble, won't I?" We both laughed all the way home.Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-35282168848070140382008-02-25T08:45:00.000-08:002008-02-25T08:46:30.799-08:00God? What Gods?When I was in sixth grade, we learned about the Greek gods and goddesses. I was completely fascinated: there was a god for everything! How wonderful! How obvious! How brilliant! Their stories, their bickering and trickery, their very un-god-like behavior, totally captured my imagination, and I couldn't believe how lucky the Greeks were to have them. I think I knew it was too good to be true when I tentatively and wistfully asked my teacher, Mrs. Sause, if the Greeks still believed in Zeus and Hera, in Aphrodite and Athena and Artemis.<br /><br />She started back, twisted up her disapproving face, and said, "No, no; they're Christian, like you and me." She eyed me in a way that made me feel not dumb, but . . . dangerous, I guess.<br /><br />Disappointed but undaunted, I continued to carry these icons with me. I remember a wonderful book about Aphrodite, Athena and Artemis, one of those exciting, "women's studies" books that put a divine, feminine and feminist spin on the girls. I loved the idea of having a different god for everything; it somehow made so much sense to me. Elements were powerful and had unique properties: wind was not fire, and the sun was not the moon. Of course different deities had different assignments. One god? Come on! There's too much to worry about, even for a god, or even God. Sure, you might feel sorry for someone like Hephaestus, toiling as a smith when Aphrodite got all the adoration (not to mention sex). Yes, Zeus sounded like a pig, but Hera got to trip him up once in awhile. One God sounded less and less safe: I mean, Zeus being the Almighty? When he's busy assaulting nymphs? Like anything else is going to get done. No, better to have the pantheon, a magical system of checks and balances, than one crazy Father who demands blood sacrifice, isn't it?<br /><br />Much later in life, I became acquainted with the Hindu pantheon: the Greeks had nothing on these people. I'm not sure if there's even an accurate count out there of how many gods and goddesses are part of Hinduism. Hundreds, for sure, maybe even thousands. These gods are very specific and very local. Yes, there are the 'stars': Shiva, Krishna, Laxmi, Kali, Ganesha. But every town and village on the Subcontinent has its own dear gods in addition to the celebrities. I loved Ganesha especially: who couldn't love a happy, cheerful, chubby god with the head of an elephant (big misunderstanding with the father, that) who loves sweets and is called upon for auspicious beginnings. Beginnings are my favorite: that's why I love spring so much. That, and the fact I'm a Minnesotan. I started collecting Ganeshas to place around the house, much to my husband's dismay. There's some sort of directive to have, I don't know, forty-eight Ganeshas in the house for good fortune. I still long for a spectacular Ganesha statue that sat about three feet high and almost as wide, perched in a shop window with a price a bit out of my reach, much to my husband's joy.<br /><br />My husband is an atheist. It was one of the first things that I loved about him. The night we met, I learned he was raised by atheist, Communist parents in Kerala who had a love marriage. Meaning that because of the difference in caste (this was in 1973, mind you), his mother never saw her family again after she married. I'd always thought that I was an agnostic, or pantheist, because of my affection for the many gods of many places and times. My Catholic upbringing was too late, after Vatican II, for me to experience the ordained version of pantheism, the saints, but I still could appreciate them from afar.<br /><br />Then my father had a carcinoid tumor on his right lung when he was sixty-seven, and I realized that no matter what, no matter what I believed or didn't believe, he might die, and there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. And there wasn't anything anybody, or any god or goddess, or God, could do about it, either. And then I realized that just because I <i>liked </i>gods, didn't mean I believed in them.<br /><br />That was surprising the way a stubbed toe, or a thunderstorm, or the slamming of brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of you, is: startling enough to take your breath away, isn't it? Wow. I wasn't agnostic, or pantheistic, at all: I was an atheist. Here I had thought all this time my affection was belief. But when it came down to it, I believed in none of them any more than I would a fairy tale. It was sort of scary at first, like working without a tightrope: what if this were really it? I mean, no nothing afterwards. Nothing after death. No heaven, no hell, no reincarnation, no "seeing" everything and understanding it all. Just . . . ceasing to exist. It's hard for the mind to get around that one, isn't it? It isn't, of course, if you've got some version of what's going to happen after death that you tell yourself. But if you don't, well, then you're just there, trying to wrap your imagination around nothingness. You realize that everything else will exist (for a time) but you. And others will remember you, but you will not exist, you will not remember, you will no longer be here.<br /><br />As strong as the mind is, it is not strong enough to sit in this predicament for long without panicking. However, if you have a belief system that explains to and reassures you that something <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">not </span>terrible happens after death, or even that you'll get to see those who have gone before you, I can see how attractive that might be. But it still seems like a fairy tale to me. I don't mean to dismiss others' beliefs, but really, no one has come back to tell us what it's like after we die. No one really knows: that's why it's called faith. Or belief. These are not reliant on facts or logic or science. Feelings are something else entirely, too: just because you feel strongly that the afterlife is this way or that, or that your loved one's spirit is nearby, doesn't mean that it is. Combine emotions with the mind and well, you have an overriding desire to come up with a comforting yet somehow plausible story of what's going to happen after death.<br /><br />But it's just all so much story to me. And that, really, is what seems to last, to have eternity to it: stories. The same stories and dreams and visions have been with us for millenniums, haven't they? The names change, but the same stories just get stronger with time, with centuries, till they are cemented in our hearts and minds. We think stories have a beginning, a middle and an ending, but really, that's us. We're born, live and die. Stories, no. They just are. They are the ones that have eternal life, not us.Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-25744813756842509622008-02-24T09:43:00.000-08:002008-09-04T10:36:36.170-07:00My Own Private Oscar: A Few Defining MomentsIt's exactly twenty-four hours before our own Oscar extravaganza begins for the 80th Annual Academy Awards, and I'm feeling a bit nostalgic. Perhaps that's why I consider our little party of twelve an "extravaganza." Anyway, in no particular order, here are the moments that have stayed with me for the last twenty years or so.<br /><br />#1: Diana Ross and Lionel Richie: 54th Academy Awards.<br />They performed "Endless Love" and even though that movie was gruesome, and the song is a bit treacly, you could feel the love. That was the spring of 1982 and I was watching the awards with a bunch of theatre students at the small town Catholic College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota. I was finishing my freshman year and the previous fall had met these guys during a production of <i>Marat/Sade</i> (much longer real title: you don't need to know it). We were all siting around, hollering at the television, and most of the crowd really started yelling when Diana and Lionel were singing their duet. Except for me and Steven R., a local Waite Park boy who I now realize was a dead ringer for Ashton Kutcher. We laughed a little at the ridicule, but then we told everyone to shut up, and watched Diana and Lionel give it up like they were the lovesick teenagers. I can still see them when I hear it on the radio. As for Steve/Ashton, he got a girl pregnant and didn't come back to St. Ben's.<br /><br />#2: Bernardo Bertolucci: 60th Academy Awards.<br />For about six years I worked as a midwife with an overwhelmingly Latina (mostly Mexican-American) population on the West side of St. Paul, and I married an Indian immigrant about a year ago. So it's hard to explain the anti-immigrant tone of my screaming "Go back to your own goddamned country and make movies!" as Bernardo Bertolucci strolled to the podium to collect his Oscar for <i>The Last Emperor</i>. I hadn't even seen the movie. I'm not even sure who it was that I wanted to win, but apparently it wasn't him. Years later my husband told me how much he liked that movie, and I finally watched it with him. To say we both found it a little slow is an understatement. My husband finally confessed that it was the breastfeeding scene that had been the draw.<br /><br />#3: John Irving: 72nd Academy Awards.<br />This night was fun. We were at my friend's house with about twenty-five people, all who had filled out ballots and loved talking back to the television. You could barely hear the telecast what with the smart ass comments and hooting and hollering. Near the end of the evening, though, John Irving gave a beautiful speech as he accepted his award for Best Adapted Screenplay from his own novel, <i>The Cider House Rules</i>. It was all about his grandfather (who performed abortions) and choice and women and I don't think I've ever been more proud. I just caught <i>The Cider House Rules</i> on television yesterday and was surprised to see how much I still liked it, how deftly the issue of abortion was presented when today it's become so blown out of proportion and at the same time, simply ignored. I've never been that big of a fan of Irving's, but he's still a kind of hero to me, even now.<br /><br />#4: Jennifer Lopez: 73rd Academy Awards.<br />I have never seen such a dress on such a woman as the Chanel couture gray gown that Jennifer Lopez wore that night. It was a one-shoulder affair, with a very nearly sheer top close to her body, and a fuller, shiny silver taffeta floor length skirt on the bottom. On the red carpet, you caught a glimpse of her and turned to your viewing companion and said, "Are those her nipples?" During the ceremony, Ms. Lopez was a presenter and while the first few rows may have been enchanted by her breasts, the millions of the rest of us were at home, having to settle for a camera shot that stopped just below her collarbone. God, she looked beautiful! Truly like a goddess. Granted, her acting is limited (the best thing she's ever done is <i>Out of Sight</i>) and I'm completely unfamiliar with her music, but she is one gorgeous woman who looks marvelous nearly all of the time, and like she was born for it.<br /><br />So tonight during the 80th annual Academy Awards, let's see if there are any moments worth remembering. If not, I'll be surrounded by my friends and lots of paella, red wine and flan.Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-69470516216536552092008-02-03T14:29:00.000-08:002008-02-03T14:32:08.908-08:00Love ChildOne day I had a patient complain during her annual exam that she had some pain in her throat, and she just wanted to make sure it wasn't caused by her IUD, i.e. intrauterine device. I paused, looked her directly in the eye, and said, "Are you saying that you think your <i>IUD </i>is hurting your throat?"<br /><br />She blinked, and demurred every so slightly, but continued on, "Well, I just want to make sure--"<br /><br />I interrupted. "Are you really asking me if that your <i>IUD</i>, in your <i>uterus</i>, can cause pain in your throat?" I asked as incredulously as I could, never breaking eye contact.<br /><br />This was no fourteen year old girl. This was a thirty-two year old woman who'd had three children, vaginally, (not nasally, as you might expect from her inquiry) and thought that her uterus was connected, I don't know how, to her throat. I couldn't get the anatomical image out of my mind: where is God's name was the stomach, the liver, the heart and lungs? Was it all just flesh, some amorphous congealed mass of stuff? And then I thought of her daughters, and realized that if a grown woman carries around ideas like this, they don't have a chance.<br /><br />My husband and I watch a lot of old sitcoms on television. Some are mildly entertaining, some more funny than others. My husband seemed to really like <i>Becker</i>, starring Ted Danson as a New York City doctor who hates people and loves to complain. I asked him one night what appealed to him, and he said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but he sort of reminds me of you." I burst out laughing, and he continued. "No, really, he does. He's really compassionate, he takes good care of people, but you'd never know it because he complains about everything so much." Later we came to the conclusion that really, I was a deadly combination of John Becker and Red Forman, the cranky dad on <i>That 70s Show</i>, who constantly threatens to stick his foot in your ass. They are both completely unsentimental and not very charming misanthropes, and I am their love child. Unfortunately, like John Becker, I work in health care, and this is my tale of woe.<br /><br />Another thirty-something woman asked me if a noticeable difference in her vaginal discharge was caused by ovulation. <i>She was using hormonal contraception at the time</i>. "You're not ovulating; you're using the Ring. How do you think you haven't been getting pregnant? By magic?"<br /><br />It's hard not to bark like Red Forman every time I hear something like this. I know it's completely unprofessional, but it drives me crazy. Ignorance is one thing: it's okay to be ignorant, especially if you're fifteen (or nineteen if you have evangelical parents). But to parade your ignorance as scholarship: that's another thing. Patients will often comment that they've done 'research' when asking me questions about contraception. <i>Research?</i> I want to say<i>. Are you a Ph. D. candidate? Because that's research. What you're doing, I believe, is known as </i>surfing the net<i>.<br /><br /></i>Another bee in my bonnet is the 'natural' argument. "It's just not <i>natural</i>," a patient will whine when reviewing her hormonal birth control options. "I just don't think hormones are <i>natural</i>."<br /><br />My tongue should be hemorrhaging from all the biting it suffers. "Nothing's natural," I want to scream. "There's nothing natural about wireless service, SUVs or lattes, either."<br /><br />It's as if they want to avoid pregnancy, but don't want to have to actually <i>do </i>anything to avoid it. <i>Everything </i>is such an inconvenience: I can't remember to take a pill everyday, the patch fell off, the ring is weird, I don't like shots, etc. Women in the sixties couldn't believe their good fortune: if they just took this little pill every day, which was smaller than an aspirin, they wouldn't get pregnant. It must have seemed like a miracle, especially when abortion wasn't even an option. Today, I hear patients tell me how every single method has a problem. That's probably true: there's nothing perfect in this world. But the inability to tolerate even short-lived side effects is significant. We all think we are so unique, that we're tender lilies and the smallest chemical disturbance will destroy us: but somehow smoking (as a teenager) and drinking (ditto) are pristine in comparison to hormonal contraception. A patient wasn't concerned about her marijuana use because, you guessed it, "Pot is natural."<br /><br />Obviously, those who are against birth control have waged a very effective and pervasive campaign of misinformation. It finally dawned on me that girls, and even most women, had no idea how hormonal contraception worked. Now I explain that to every patient with a new prescription, because I know better. These girls (and women) don't know things because it was their parents who wanted sex education out of the schools and in the home. I'd be hard pressed to name a more brilliant failure. Maybe sex education doesn't include information on contraception: okay, fine. But to have it encompass nothing more than "Don't have sex" is a crime. I won't even begin my lecture about the number of girls and women who don't have orgasms: that's another story for another day.<br /><br />Around the world it is known that the more educated a woman is, the fewer children she bears. With a planet bursting at the seams, what is wrong with that? According to figures from 2006, there are an estimated 245 births each minute, roughly 4 births each second of every day. Less than half of that number die: 110 people per minute, or a bit less than 2 per second. The highest birth rates remain in the developing world, specifically Africa, which has corresponding low education levels for women. Hormonal birth control is responsible for decreasing birth rates, to an extent, in the developed world. Our sisters in the developing world, when they can get it, choose the non-hormonal intrauterine device. In fact, this is the most commonly used form of birth control in the world.<br /><br />Why is it seen as more 'moral' to bear rather than abort an unplanned pregnancy? I think Howard Stern is a pig, but he once dubbed abortion "crime stoppers." Crude and insensitive, perhaps, but <i>Freakonomics </i>authors Levitt and Dubner came to a similar conclusion regarding the availability of legalized abortion and the decrease in the crime rates. We here in the United States are lucky, privileged and some would say spoiled: we have incredible access to contraceptives in this twenty-first century. Let's start using them, why don't we, and let's start telling our daughters and sons that it's okay for them to use them, too.<br /><br />It's true that John Becker and Red Forman would, sadly, still be very proud of me as their ill-begotten spawn. But I must confess I am another sort of love child, closer to the real thing. I was conceived on my parents' honeymoon, and in a twist that could only be stranger than fiction, born on Valentine's Day. But that's not all: my father's middle name is (wait for it) Valentine. Inside, deep inside, I care. In a country that claims children as its most important and valuable asset with a skewed world view that puts fetuses on the highest pedestal, isn't it time to put our money where our mouths are and make each child a true love child?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><table height="17" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" width="475" align="center" bgcolor="#faebd7" border="0"><tbody><tr><td align="middle"><br /></td><td align="middle"><br /></td><td align="middle"><br /></td><br /></tr><br /><tr><br /><td align="middle"><br /></td><br /><td align="middle"><br /></td><br /><td align="middle"><br /></td><br /></tr><br /></tbody></table>Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4881995198753621197.post-81920805552407929272008-02-03T14:21:00.000-08:002008-02-03T14:28:11.907-08:00I Saw Him FirstHear ye, hear ye, all you American Johnny and Janey come-latelys: Javier Bardem has been my boyfriend for about fifteen years now. If you've just recently seen him, all sexy and gorgeous at the Screen Actors Guild Awards with his tuxedo and open white shirt sans tie and thought, "Who the hell is this?" and then realized it was the psycho with the Dutch boy from <em>No Country for Old Men</em>, you're too late, my friend. You're also a little tardy if you vaguely remember him from the 2001 Academy Awards when he was nominated for Best Actor for <em>Before Night Falls</em>, though you do get bonus points if you actually saw <em>Before Night Falls</em>. Double points if you were in awe of his Cuban-accented English, his gait, and Johnny Depp's uncredited cameo in drag.<br /><br />No, Javier and I go way back. Back to that delightfully dark Bigas Lunas romp that debuted another Spanish treasure, Penelope Cruz, called <em>Jamon, Jamon</em> (subtitled A Tale of Ham and Passion). <em>Ay, mi amor!</em> What a filthy, gorgeous pig he was then, arrogantly displaying his wares as a model auditioning in his underwear. The next time I saw him, he was a detective in Pedro Almodovar's <em>Carne tremula</em> (Live Flesh) who, after being shot in the line of duty (sort of) is permanently in a wheelchair. He compensates by playing basketball for the national team, and by demonstrating amazing oral technique in one of the hottest sex scenes in film. Then I was mesmerized by his portrayal of Reynaldo Arenas in <em>Before Night Falls</em>: he looked different, he sounded different, and he brought his mother and sister to the Academy Awards with him.<br /><br />His first English-speaking role was in John Malkovich's <em>The Dancer Upstairs</em>, a political thriller set in the seventies in Latin America, and later I saw <em>Mondays in the Sun</em>, a dreary story of workers down on their luck. Javier looked about fifty years old in that one. Recently I saw one of his very first films, <em>Huevos de oro</em>, and was enchanted by it, but only because of the ending: the brute gets what he deserves, and there's a three-way that involves Javier and Benicio Del Toro. Yes, you read that correctly: rent it now.<br /><br />Javier, <em>por supuesto</em>, doesn't think he's handsome at all. He chose his words carefully: "I mean, look at this face". Indeed. He is not pretty. His features are large and broad. His nose may have been broken: he used to play rugby for the national team in Spain. But he knew enough to run from handsome leading man roles and instead found characters more interesting to play.<br /><br />He comes from a long line of actors. Accepting his SAG award he said, "My grandparents were actors, and when they died, they couldn't be buried in the cemetery because actors were thought to be homosexuals and prostitutes." He's seems unafraid to say things, maybe because he's not American. When Spain legalized same-sex marriage in 2005, he was quoted as saying, <em>"mañana mismo, sólo para joder a la Iglesia".</em> Translation: If I were gay, I'd get married tomorrow, just to piss off the Church. How can you not love that?<br /><br />The voice. The eyes. The smile. The perfection of expression that so many non-native English speakers have while speaking English. The devil may care attitude. The shamelessness.Maybe I didn't see him first. But I sure as hell saw him before you did.<br /><br />Unless your name is Penelope Cruz.Mrs.Hendrickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926742292607770719noreply@blogger.com0