Archive - Apr 2009

Some friends of ours, who live in Kansas City, have decided to skip the big wedding to-do they'd scheduled for October and have instead opted for a courthouse wedding tomorrow.  I've been doing some online shopping for a gift, and, of course being an Omaha girl at heart, I hit up Borsheims' website to see what they had available.  Our friends never got around to registering anywhere, so that gives me more options. 

But why would I go to Borsheims for a wedding present, being the cheap skate I am?  Well, for the uninformed, Borsheims is the largest independent jewelry store in the country, and it's one of Omaha's jewels---no pun intended.  The place can be somewhat intimidating when you walk in, and see all sorts of prominently placed pieces of jewelry that are priced in the half-million and up range.  But, fear not, my devoted Cake Eater readers, for despite their celebrity clientele (that bitch Whoopi Goldberg and that bastard Ted Danson bought the toasting glasses we'd picked out.  Yeah, and who's still married?  Eh?  Eh?) this is an Omaha store, and usually there are some bargains to be found.  How can this be you ask?  Well, here be the deal: everything in the store, from the half-million dollar pair of black pearl and diamond earrings to the lowliest salt shaker is on sale.  At all times. Everything. And I mean everything.  You automatically get a 15% discount when you take the item up to the register to pay for it.  It's brilliant, and at times, particularly when you're shopping for wedding presents available at other fine department stores in Omaha, you can, given this discount, get things cheaper.  Not to mention they have free wrapping and shipping within town.  What's not to like? {Insert caveat here: haven't actually bought anything there in a while, so they might not still do this, but since it's Borsheims and they're very big on tradition, I doubt they've changed it.} 

We registered there when the husband and I got married and I was always SOOOO happy whenever the nice lady in the Borsheims van stopped at the house.  It was always something good.  Even if it wasn't something I had registered for, it was never something that I didn't want, because they take registering very seriously there and the sales people usually guide people in the right direction, style-wise.  

Yes, I was a greedy bride.  Sue me. 

Anyway, Borsheims is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, aka Warren Buffet's overlarge slush fund, and their annual meeting is this weekend.  Shareholders galore descend upon Omaha, gather in the Qwest Center to pepper he and his partner with questions, and when question time is over with, Warren takes everyone on a tour of his holdings in town. They stop by Dairy Queen and Nebraska Furniture Mart.  And, of course,  they wing by Borsheims. You get good bargains on this weekend if you're a BH shareholder.  My sister and her husband actually bought one share of their 'B' stock, just so they could get the discounts Nebraska Furniture Mart offers over this weekend.  Borsheims follows suit, and they actually have memorabilia on offer this weekend, for the shareholders to purchase.  While I think the piggy bank is quite cool, one particular custom Peggy Karr glass tray, caught my eye and made me laugh like a loon. 

Imagine your guests' surprise at your next party, when they'd plowed through enough of the veggie tray to come across that. 

I suppose Warren and Charlie had better make fun of themselves after the "beating" their stock took this past year---but don't feel too sorry for them: the price of one share of 'A' stock costs $93,000. 

Snicker. 

Conversation held between one of my fellow hospital volunteers (he's over eighty, in good shape, just recently quit downhill skiing, and hates to molder in his apartment so he volunteers regularly, just to have something to do.  He is/was also part of the cookie-theft-mafia. Which, by the way, they recently put an end to---after being informed by the Oncology Clinic that they'd gone from ordering three boxes of cookies per day to twenty.) and myself yesterday:

Me: You got what?

Him: Tamiflu.  Got a prescription for it today. 

Me: Are you serious?  What the hell do you need that for?

Him: {insert him looking at me like I'm insane here} For the Swine Flu, obviously. 

Me: You don't have it.

Him: Yet.  I'm not taking any chances.

Me: You're not going to start taking it, are you?

Him: Of course I am.  I want to be prepared.

Me: Um, it's not going to work to keep you from getting it.  It's an 'after' drug, not a vaccine.

Him: I don't care.  I don't want to get sick.  At my age, that could happen easily.  Besides, one of my parents had the Spanish Influenza, and they were never the same after.  I don't want to deal with it.

Sigh. 

{Insert Bruce Campbell-Army of Darkness-voice here} LISTEN UP, YOU PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS! 

(oooh, that felt good) 

You have immune systems for a goddamn reason---and they work most of the time: just because you don't notice it, doesn't mean your white blood cells aren't working for you---they're just toiling in silence.  Trust me on this one: I've had neutropenia; I know what it's like when your immune system isn't working properly, and that's when you have to quarantine yourself, wear masks, and eat as many green vegetables as possible to strengthen yourself. Tamiflu isn't going to do you any good as a preemptive measure against this crap. Why?  Because, first of all, it's a treatment, not a vaccine.  You take it after you get the flu, not before.  If you want to avoid having the flu, get a flu shot, but don't bother getting one now, to avoid the swine flu, because it's not going to work this time around as---insert drumroll here---THERE'S NEVER BEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS FLU BEFORE.  It's completely new, hence the flu-shot-makers have not incorporated in into the flu shot vaccine.  You're wasting your time and your money by trying to be preemptive about this; there's nothing anyone can do to keep from getting swine flu except for washing their hands and avoiding sick people.

I can understand the desire not to get sick.  But let's be clear about a few things.  

1) The comparisons between swine flu and the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-19 are completely OFF BASE. 

It would appear this variant of H1N1 strain of influenza is not nearly as deadly as the H1N1 strain that caused the 1918 pandemic, aka Spanish Influenza.  Why would that be?  First of all, most people who died of Spanish Influenza actually died from a secondary, bacterial pneumonia infection.  Second, it's been theorized that the Spanish Influenza actually caused a healthy person's immune system to overreact, and would, basically, destroy the tissue the white blood cells were dispatched to protect, like an army raping and pillaging a territory it was originally meant to defend---meaning the Spanish Flu was as much of a strain of influenza as an autoimmune disease. As of right now, this strain of swine flu does not produce the same kind of immune system reaction.  Third, the Spanish Influenza mainly killed young adults, with healthy, at-the-top-of-their-game immune systems, not young children and the elderly, who are normally at-risk to flu.  Those people generally managed to fight it off, because they did not have primo-immune systems that could be forced into overreacting by the virus.  That's a huge difference between the pandemic of ninety-some-years ago and the one that hasn't even been declared as a pandemic this time around.  Fourth, and this is crucial, swine flu is less deadly because we have better medical care than we did ninety years ago.  At the time of the Spanish Influenza outbreak, we did not have IV fluids; we did not have fever reducers; we did not have antibiotics which could have helped with the secondary infections----but mostly we did not have the knowledge that would have told us working on these things would have been beneficial to those afflicted with the disease.  While they had figured out typing and crossing for blood transfusions by this point, blood banking did not become commonplace until a few years later. Considering that part of the Spanish Influenza was bleeding from the mucous linings of the mouth, and elsewhere, there was no way to help these people who had to deal with blood loss on top of everything else.  Hence people died.  Some were able to fight it off, but some weren't.  Our knowledge has increased a thousand-fold in the intervening ninety-years.  Fewer people die of the flu each year---but, having said that, still over 30,000 people died this past year due to one strain of influenza or another.  Yes, this is scary.  I'm not going to deny that: but there is absolutely no reason to be comparing this strain of H1N1 to the Spanish Influenza. It's a complete overreaction.

And it's not like I've got a medical degree, people.  I figured this out with a little common sense and a little research. 

2) Swine Flu is a virus, not a bacterial infection, people.  Figure out the difference. And, again, I must restate the obvious: Tamiflu is not going to do you any good before you get sick.  Taking it beforehand is like preloading painkillers in case you might get mowed down by a bus.  It's completely unnecessary.  

3) If you really want something to freak out about, take a peek at MRSA, and how our absolute overuse of antibiotics has put us in a position where there are more and more strains of antibiotic-resistant infections out there.   This is what might kill millions, and leave the medical profession unable to help in any substantive way.

As I may have mentioned in the past, a former Cake Eater neighbor, Alan, is an epidemiologist, which means the dude runs all over the world tracking HIV/AIDS patterns of transmission, etc.  Literally, he has millions of frequent flier miles, he travels so much. Yet, when he's back here in the Twin Cities, part of his duties is to help track infections as they pass through one of the larger hospitals.  When he's not at some HIV/AIDS conference in Tanzania, or in Trinidad and Tobago, working on his research, he's working on tracking MRSA infections through the hospital, infections which were unheard of five years ago because our antibiotics kept them from springing up.  Nowadays, antibiotics are everywhere, hence the bacteria mutates, and in deadly ways.  This is what my neighbor does for a living, and this is what he's worried about. 

Antibiotics are everywhere.  We constantly overuse them.  They're tranferred to our bodies via the livestock we eat---particularly chickens---and they keep healthy bacteria from our bodies via our "antibacterial" cleaning products, just to name two.  This overuse is inherently dangerous, because it ups the resistance ante.  Scientists in Denmark actually found that by taking the antibiotics out of chicken feed, it had a beneficial effect for both animals and human beings by lessening the resistance to antibiotics overall.  Bacteria keeps mutating, to get around the antibiotics, as do viruses.  This is not some game of Mutally Assured Destruction, where if you've got enough weapons, and so do I, the bristling lethality we've produced will ensure we don't shoot them off.  Viruses and bacteria mutate to get around the roadblocks we put in their path---and they get deadlier with the experience of maneuvering round.  If you stop putting roadblocks up every five feet, but rather every five hundred or a thousand yards, you're going to get better results.  It's pretty simple.  So, if you want make Alan grind his teeth, show him a commercial where some mother is rambling on about how much better she is than the other mothers on the block because she uses antibacterial cleanser, in her house, because she's a caring, concerned, mother and it's her job to keep her children safe, no matter how microscopic the threat.  He'll point out to you that it's going to be her kid that gets MRSA when they go into the hospital to have their tonsils removed because they've built up no natural resistance.  

Compared to MRSA, or any other antibiotic-resistant infection---or malaria, or HIV/AIDS, or tuberculosis---swine flu is really no big deal.  Your immune system will, most likely, handle it on its own, and if it needs an assist, via IV fluids and fever reducers, and, yes, Tamiflu, those are available at your local hospital.  There's no reason to freak out about this.  It's all wasted energy.  

Every first Wednesday of the month, the authorities here in the Twin Cities test our civil defense system---aka the blaring sirens---at one p.m. Everyone knows this except the n00bs, who learn quickly enough that when the sky is blue, there is rarely a tornado nearby.  Last Thursday, they set them the sirens off a couple of times, as part of a larger, statewide, test.  There was notice of this in the paper, on state websites, etc., where people could easily access the information.  The people in charge thought it was important to inform the public about this test, lest people freak out.  Even when I've been to the panhandle of Florida, home of many military bases, they've posted information about their training exercises in the local paper, lest someone freak out when they see six, black-clad, soldiers repelling out of a Huey above the beach in the middle of the night.

Yet...

You have a government who sends up a low-flying jumbo jet for a freakin' photo-op, into airspace that is not part of any low-altitude flight pattern, where, as it happens, almost nine years ago, two hijacked, low-flying jumbo jets rammed into skyscrapers in an act of terrorism that killed thousands of people...and, somehow, the nimrods in charge don't think it's important to put out some public notice of what they're doing? Furthermore, that they actively instruct local law enforcement not to let the cat out of the bag is just beyond.

Riddle me that one, Batman.  Because it's sure as hell not making any sense to me. 

How freakin' perfect.

Comedy writer Andrea Wachner hated the idea of going to her 10-year high school reunion so much that she hired a stripper to go instead, and what followed, she says, was a comical study in human nature.

{...}In 1995, Wachner graduated from Palos Verdes Peninsula High School in an upscale Los Angeles-area neighborhood and never looked back. She left for New York City, where she attended New York University, graduating in 2000.

When she received the invitation to attend her 10-year reunion, she said she would not have dreamed of going because she hated her years at the school, where BMW and Mercedes-Benz cars were prized possessions.

She claims that at school, fellow students' drinking alcohol was a problem and eating disorders were common. She said academic competition was tight and the overall environment was "a pressure cooker."

Wachner didn't want to go back to all that, but she did want to see how people would react if the self-described "drama geek" showed up a changed woman -- a stripper, no less.

So, she hired Amy Bernadette "Cricket" Russell, whom she met at a Los Angeles strip club, to impersonate her. Cricket showed up in a slinky dress, fishnet hose and spike heels.

As the drinks flowed, Cricket's clothes came off, and Wachner watched from a hotel room above the event, linked to her impersonator via wireless radio, TV cameras and a monitor.

Wachner coached Cricket through the night, telling her the names of people she met and providing her with little secrets that only Wachner and her former classmates would know.{...}

Roll that beautiful bean footage...

Andrea goes on to say in the article that she never meant to embarrass her former classmates. I would have to call 'bullshit' on that, because this is one long exercise in embarrassing her former classmates. High school reunions are, in themselves, one long exercise in expectations---everyone who goes wants to know if their expectations of their classmates were met, in which case they'll grumble, but if someone's fallen flat on their face, then they'll cheer.  (Or at least that's the way it would be at my high school, with my classmates the bitches in my class.) But who honestly cares?  Good for her!  Way to screw with people's expectations! 

I have my twentieth high school reunion this summer, and I'm not going (Haven't even received an invite, mainly because I told them if they ever sent me another piece of mail, after I requested they didn't, I would turn them into the Nebraska AG for violating their non-profit status.) but wouldn't it be fun to send a stripper in my place, to my Catholic, all-girls school---and then to film it?  Holy crap.  I'd be rolling on the floor for days.

Sweet, sweet revenge.  LOVE IT!

*Christi, I don't want another effin' lecture about my immature behavior when it comes to our alma mater. For the umpteenth time, I will simply point out one thing: just because you had a good experience doesn't mean I did. Let me have my fun, ok?

I have one nagging question about the release of those "torture memos" and the idea that Obama is going to instruct the Attorney General to prosecute those who advised the Bush Administration that torture was hunky dory.

Just how are you going to prosecute these people?  What would the Justice Department charge them with?  Obviously, direct charges of torture are out, as in with the CIA operatives Obama has "pardoned," but where is the legal statute in the US Code that says the government can charge you for handing out what it deems was bad legal advice? These were legal opinions these lawyers issued.  They weren't law; these memos were their best guess as to what the legality of such an action would be. Again, where's the code law that says that simply probing the legality of torture is verboten?  If this is illegal, anyone who uses WestLaw to research something an administration doesn't like could, conceivably, be in trouble---never mind what people actually do with that information.  Where's the case law that says these people can be prosecuted?  Congress can't just come in, pass a law because it appears one isn't on the books (to me, at least) that simply advocating torture is illegal and prosecute these lawyers under that would also be illegal. Why hasn't this aspect been discussed?  I don't get it.  Perhaps I'm just uneducated on this, but I think that if there was such a statute which covered such things, every other lawyer in the country would be in jail right about now and law school applications would go down tremendously.  These things are usually left to state bar associations, not the legal system unless there is outright fraud and other well-documented illegality involved.  But bad advice?  Not so much.  And let's not leave out the fact that in this specific case the descriptor "bad" is highly subjective.  

That it's Eric Holder---the dude who thought it was kosher to pardon serial tax-evader Marc Rich---who would possibly be pushing the prosecution of said lawyers is, pardon the wording, rich.  Furthermore, witch hunting aside, that Obama would go after the memos' authors is scary.  With this action, his setting a precedent, which would say, "We're going to put a paradigm into place that will make it possible for you to be held accountable for just looking at certain options."  Now, these particular memos were actually used as legal cover; what happens when, at some point in time in the future, some administration looks at all the options, yet refuses to follow through, and uses a different option---perhaps one that was legally kosher and worked.  Can you potentially see a situation where the author of a legal memo fleshing out the details of one of the disregarded options was prosecuted down the road simply for doing their job? That's a whole new level of scary.  This administration would like to snuff out language and ideas it already doesn't like; that it would try to do the same to legal ideas is wholly repugnant to me.  And this is from me, the chick who doesn't really like lawyers all that much.  

This would be the time for some of the devoted brainiac lawyer-Cake Eater readers to chime in, because, really, I'm not getting this one.  AT ALL.  Perhaps I haven't been watching enough punditry over the preceding few days and I missed something vital, but, really, this makes no sense to me. 

The Holy Days of Obligation are: New Years Day, The Ascension, The Assumption, All Saints Day, the Immaculate Conception and Christmas.  On these days, one must go to Mass and worship.

However, nowhere does it say that Earth Day is a Holy Day of Obligation---on the Catholic Calendar, or elsewhere. 

So, my devoted Cake Eater readers, you've got a hall pass for the day.  Make the most of it and skip the pseudo-religious festivities set up in every park around the country.  Your soul will be safe.  

Yes, it's true.  Dearest Jonathan is truly, madly, and very, very deeply, a mallrat---and he freely and without shame admits as much in this little essay.

I cannot even tell you how proud I am that the phrase I use on a regular basis to describe the Mall of America---"The Mall of Gomorrah"---has now made it into print. When I read that, it, literally, brought tears of snarky pride to my eyes. 

Sniff. 

This came in the packet of Spanx fishnet stockings I bought to tart up a rather demure dress I wore to a to-do over the weekend. 

Now, never having worn fishnets before, I had no idea this was a problem. But apparently it was.  And it was a big one. Thus quoteth this Sara Blakely person, from the back of the insert:

Control top fishnets came from a personal need much like original footless pantyhose.  Fishnets look great on your leg and can enhance any outfit.  However, as a consumer I knew they slid down, had no control, ripped easily, and created grid butt! (A term used to describe the phenomenon of sitting on the grid of fishnets all day).  Out of frustration I approached the mills.  The response was the same.  It's never been done because it can't be done.  My response..."We put a man on the moon and we can't attach a control top to fishnets?  Work with me...how many of you have sat on the grid of fishnets for a day?!"  After a long awkward silence, the prototypes began.  If I said we jumped through oops to bring you this product it would be an understatement."

Grid butt?  Who knew it was such a problem the moon landings had to be invoked to solve it?

Hmmph. 

They did work rather well, though, I must admit.  While I've never ever spent $17 for a pair of stockings before, I have to say, they were worth the money. 

For those of you wondering what Susan Boyle sounded like without thousands of screaming people in the background, wonder no more. 

This is from a charity CD put out in 1999.  Girl's got some pipes. 

Go, Susan, Go!

In a related aside, my pal Christopher, aka The Makeover Guy, doesn't think she needs a makeover.  Hear, hear!