Our Devil Dogs Did It. The Geese Have Flown.

Our silhouette dogs rest up until next spring.

The wind is howling. The rain is slashing down. Lightning and thunder flash and rumble in the distance. The tree leaves seem to be changing from green to yellow to red simultaneously. They fall and block sewer grates, leaving rivulets of rainwater in the street. Almost every lawn in the neighborhood is decorated with orange pumpkins, streaming spider webs, and multicolored blow-up spooks, bouncing back-and-forth and up-and-down in the violent hurricane breezes.

Autumn is here in all its power and glory. And my silhouette dogs have fallen into the mud.

But what a year those dogs have had! While our real canine, the magnificent Cooper, could do nothing to keep the geese off our driveway and its surroundings, our two cardboard cutouts, Cerebrus One and Cerebrus Two, were ever vigilant, creating an invincible shield. Day and night they rotated on their stakes, rocking and bobbing, and convincing the neighborhood geese that to defy them would be to cross through the gates of hell. As it turned out, no honking, squawking, fouling fowl was willing to risk its mortal soul. And now the geese have left for their winter lodgings.

After I picked Cerebrus One and Cerebrus Two from the mud I stored them inside our garage. Perhaps Barb and I will paint ghoulish grins on them and set them up on the ground near our front door so they can haunt our local trick-or-treaters. Or maybe we will set a witch astride one of them to complete the hellhound look. Or maybe we will just let them sit out the rest of the season, warm and dry beneath the garage heater.

One thing is for certain. Come the spring, my laminated pups will be back on patrol, rockin’ and rollin’ for all the neighbors, and keeping the geese at bay. They are our champions.

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Do Not Roam, Senate Joe

To the tune of “Take Me Home, Country Roads”

With apologies to John Denver.

He’s the man from West Virginia,
He’s Joe Manchin, his name makes me shiver
On the Blue Team, that’s the way he sees
But today I’m feeling, with Dems he disagrees

Senate Joe, do not roam
Don’t misplace, or go wrong
Stick with Biden, and with Shumer
Do not roam, Senate Joe.

In the Senate, a three-termer
Moderation, never been a Berner 
Filibuster, the apple of his eye
He don’t want to change it, don’t want to be that guy.

Senate Joe, do not roam
Don’t misplace, or go wrong
Stick with Biden, and with Shumer
Do not roam, Senate Joe.

Now with Krysten, causing trouble
Own the libs, well, that could be your motto.
Fighting clean air, and the taxes too.
But without your votes, the Dems will have two few.

Senate Joe, do not roam
Don’t misplace, or go wrong
Stick with Biden, and with Shumer
Do not roam, Senate Joe.

You hear the news from the lobbyists, they call you
Remind you of the coal that lies ‘neath West Virginia clay
Deciding how to vote, you gotta know that
Fossil fuels, should go away, just go away.

Senate Joe, do not roam
Don’t misplace, or go wrong
Stick with Biden, and with Shumer
Do not roam, Senate Joe.

Do not roam, Senate Joe.
Do not roam, Senate Joe.

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Sorry, Lin-Manuel. I am turning down your New Year’s Eve Invitation.

Lin-Manuel Miranda. Photo courtesy Chicago Tribune

Dear Mr. Miranda,

Thank you so much for the very colorful email invitation you sent me today. You know, the one that offers “the Ultimate New Year’s Eve Experience.”

For a small donation to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, you are offering me a chance to fly to NYC to see the famous New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square.

Now I think BC/EFA is a great charity, and I have contributed to it in the past, but about seeing the December 31st ball drop…

Don’t get me wrong. Barb and I love New York City. Pre-pandemic, we visited once or twice a year and jammed in as many theater outings as we could. We have seen everything from Osage County to Evan Hansen to that very weird production of Oklahoma with the chili and cornbread at intermission.

As a matter of fact, we plan on going to the Big Apple next spring — Barb can’t wait to see the upcoming Neil Diamond bio-musical, and I have a hankering to see Hugh Jackman lead seventy-six trombones from New York, New York to River City, Iowa.

But back to your invitation. It’s not that I am necessarily against a New Year’s Eve mob scene. We have spent a couple of very enjoyable NYE’s watching fireworks in our own Chicago Loop, though I will admit the last time was so long ago, Jane Byrne was Mayor. I don’t think Rahm or Lori ever put on shows as exciting as good old Jane did back in the ’80s.

It’s just, are you sure Times Square is a good idea? With a few million other people on what could be a freezing cold New Year’s Eve to watch a friggin’ light show? During wave 4, 5, or 6 of the pandemic? You have got to be kidding, man. Nothing that you or Bill de Blasio can do or say is going to get me out there.

Now Lin-Manuel (is it ok if I call you that?) I did notice that for a few extra bucks on behalf of BC/EFA I can register to compete for a different prize; a chance to see Hamilton anywhere in the world. (it’s not really anywhere, just the couple dozen places in which the roadshow will be playing.) The chance to win a trip to Australia may be worth a twenty-buck donation, although I think we’ll pass on the chance to go to Little Rock, Arkansas.

Anyway L-M., thanks for the invite. I’ll R.S.V.P. when we decide what to do. In the meantime, keep your pistol loaded and your powder dry.

And Happy New Year!

Best,

Les

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To Write, or Not To Write-Is That the Question?

I was on an early morning walk through the neighborhood, Cooper as always pulling at his leash, sniffing at every signpost, looking out for every one of his girlfriends. We came to an intersection and Coop gave a tug, drawing me across the street to a corner lot where a new pup was romping with a woman whom I had never met before.

We crossed the street and in the neighborhood tradition the Pup-Mom and I exchanged the essential facts about our dogs–where we got them, their lineage, their age, and then admired the coats on each other’s furry friend.

While the dogs were playing together and just before Cooper got muddy pawprints all over the new human neighbor I remembered my social graces and introduced myself. “Oh,” she said. “I recognize the name. Aren’t you the writer?”

Wow! Yes, my family and a lot of friends, colleagues, and social media contacts know I write a blog. They will sometimes bring up a particular post, mention they found it informative, or well-written, or fun. Or they will complain that my inclusion of a particular song has planted a weeks-long earworm in their brain. Those interactions are always with the clear understanding that my relationship with them is primarily that of a relative, co-worker, or friend who sometimes spits out 500 electronic words.

But this was different. I have never before been recognized as someone who tries to tell stories as part of my identity. It was thrilling.

Though I didn’t ask, I assume the neighbor (whose name in my true absent-minded fashion I have already forgotten) had read one of the blogs I had posted on the neighborhood FaceBook page–maybe my silhouette dog vs. geese story. But whichever blog it was, something I had written had stuck in her mind for at least a few weeks. I felt like the garage band who had heard their song on the radio for the first time.

So when my inevitable retirement as a full-time pathologist comes around, maybe I will give this writing thing a serious look. Take one of those online masterclasses (learn how to write short stories from Joyce Carol Oates or creative writing from Margaret Atwood) and eventually learn to write dialogue. I will finally produce that medical thriller Barb is always telling me I have inside my head.

Cooper, you have done me a favor with your insistence on meeting every dog in the neighborhood. Maybe I will just write a novel about you!

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Every Paper Clip Is Another Life Changed

A small cylindrical plastic container sits on the desk behind me. I am not sure what it originally contained but now it is filled with paper clips. A quick glance tells me it must have a couple of hundred clips inside it, and every day I add a few more. I empty the receptacle a few times a year, but in the meantime, each clip tells me that someone’s life has been changed.

How is that so?

Medicine is more and more digital these days. You complain to your friends about how your internist spends more time typing into their laptop than they do talking to you. Your prescriptions go out to the pharmacy electronically, and reminders about your next appointment zip to your cellphone, instead of coming on a little postcard in the mail.

Here in the lab, we are digital too…but we still use a lot of paper. While most of the blood tests we do are managed without anything written down (each analyzer “talks” directly to the interface that sends results to our docs), we handle our biopsies quite differently.

Our Laboratory Information System (fancy name for lab computer) contains all the necessary information about patient age, and gender, and the site from which a bladder or prostate biopsy has been taken. But when I am looking at cases from 15 or 20 different patients, it really helps to have this data printed out. Also, I like to create paper worksheets for my prostate cases on which I can mark my findings for each of the dozen or so cores from each patient.

When my final diagnosis for the case is benign prostate, I can enter my findings from the worksheet directly into the LIS myself with a few keystrokes, and then add my electronic signature. No extra trees need to be cut for those cases.

But for patients in whom I find cancer, I turn my completed worksheet over to our administrative team. They keyboard the complex findings into the LIS and then print a copy of exactly how my report will appear to the clinicians.

When those printed cancer case reports come back to me, I review the information, correct the rare typos, have one of my colleagues concur on the malignant diagnosis, and affix my electronic signature in the LIS. The report can fly off to one of our urologists through an electronic labyrinth.

But because I need to select the appropriate charge to the patient for the laboratory and pathologist services, the reports are paper clipped to a billing slip. When I separate the report from the billing slip I toss the paper clip into the little container behind me. The container fills, each added clip representing another person given the diagnosis they were dreading and hoping to avoid.

Making those diagnoses is a pretty awesome burden and at times a humbling experience. I just hope that I can be as consistent as a bucket-full of paper clips; doing my job, holding it together, and remembering that there are people whose lives may be altered by every one of those diagnoses. They all deserve the best that I can be.

The above is the opinion of the author and not UroPartners LLC.

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Will You Be My Sous-Chef? No Experience Required!

It is Sunday evening. For most people, the workweek will begin tomorrow. But for me, it will begin now. It is “pack my lunch bag” time and there is so much to be done.

First, a little background.

1: The medical laboratory business tends to be an early one, so I am usually in the lab by about 6 a.m.

2: Our operation is in an office complex without a cafeteria.

3: I am not a fan of food delivery. And I find carry-out food usually cold and unappetizing.

So with those things in mind, my lunch bag actually contains breakfast, lunch, and a mid-afternoon snack. Exactly seven (not eight or heaven forbid, only five) items. And did I mention I am very picky about what I am eating?

Prep and packing time, particularly on a Sunday night with a week’s work of prep to be done, needs to be a precision operation, involving no less than 3 knives, strainers, colanders, and exactly the right storage containers to make sure everything fits in my insulated lunch bag.

We begin with the lunch wrap. First, take a whole grain wrap and spread (knife #1) with prepared horseradish, the kind that contains only ground horseradish and vinegar–not the creamy kind. Lay on the lunch meat (Boar’s Head Maple Covered Turkey Breast) and cheese (Regular Jahrlsburg–never the low-fat version.) Then artfully arrange several pieces of thinly sliced (knife #2) Jalapeno peppers for some heat, and peeled and sliced (still knife #2) ripe avocado for creaminess. Roll the wrap and use a serrated knife (#3) to cut into two equal halves, one for Monday, the other in Saran Wrap ready for Tuesday.

I wipe a bead of sweat from my brow.

Next, I pull a bag of cooked rice out of the freezer. When heated (4 minutes, high power) in the lab microwave and doused in Cholula Hot Sauce it makes a tasty side dish. Finally, I wash and package baby carrots and red and yellow mini-peppers for some color and beta-carotene. Lunch is fully constructed and packed. Now on to the other meals…

Breakfast is a comparable snap. A piece of Genesis 1:29 Sprouted Whole Grain Bread, defrosted and ready to be toasted in the lab and then blanketed with a shmear of the Smucker’s Natural Peanut Butter (crunchy, of course) that I keep in my office fridge. This will be topped by a carefully measured 1/4 cup of blueberries, just enough to top the toast from edge to edge without any rolling off the sides.

Whew, almost done. Just my afternoon snack left to bundle up. A stick of string cheese (I thought string cheese was only for kids, but my nutritionist hyped it for protein) and some fruit (cherries in season, otherwise grapes or a Granny Smith Apple-green and tart as can be) and I am done.

Exhausted, I can zip up my lunch bag and pop it into the refrigerator at last.

The musical “Next to Normal” has played Chicago a few times. It features a bipolar mom freaking out while making lunches for her family, tossing bread all over the kitchen. I am just packing for one, and I know the feeling. I might start flinging sandwiches any time.

I need a sous-chef, or at least someone to do my prep. Any volunteers?

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How Ba-Ba became Ba-Ba

I recently posted my portrait, drawn by my granddaughter H, as a new cover page on Facebook. After lots of positive feedback, I decided to repost the blog below from 2016.

What’s in a name? I blogged a while ago that I have never had a nickname. It is as glaring a deficit in my personal history as not having a tattoo would be for today’s millennials. Somehow, I have learned to live as “Les”. And my full name, “Lester”, has taken on a bit of a cache since Leicester City, F.C. won its remarkable 5000-1 championship in the British Premier League Football. Yes, “Leicester” is pronounced “Lester” (and “British Premier League Football” is pronounced “Soccer.”)

But now I have a special name! I have had it for several months, and like most special names it is one that no one could predict. What makes it super-special is that it came from my granddaughter H. I am proud to be Baa-Baa.

It is always fun to guess what children will call their grandparents. When H was a newborn, Barb and I played that game. Barb was hoping for “GlamMa”, defined by Urban Dictionary as “the new Grandma, a woman with a sense of self and style. ” Yes, that would fit Barb. I had no special preference, but we both agreed that we did not want to be Bubbie and Zaydie, names we still feel are a little too old school.

So how did I become Baa-Baa? Every Friday morning while Barb is babysitting for H the three of us spend a few minutes Face Timing. On one of those morning calls, I gave H an iPhone tour of my office, including the row of bobbleheads on a high shelf above my microscope. There was a one-armed Robin Ventura, a stern Carlton Fisk, Detroit Tiger star Miguel Cabrera, and even White Sox groundskeeper Roger Bossard. H was fascinated as I bounced their heads up and down. Soon all our Friday calls started with H calling out for the bobbleheads. “Baa-Baa, Baa-Baa” was her greeting to me. And that’s what I became. Not Robin, or Carlton, or Miggie–but I will take Baa-Baa any time.

As for Barb, both of H’s grandmas became Na-Na. But now that H is a little older and wants to differentiate between her two wonderful grandmothers, Barb has become Na-Na-Baa-Baa. It works!

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Stop Playing this Song. I’m Beggin!

I’m at my desk listening to the sports radio “experts” discuss the White Sox chances in the playoffs, and the future of Andy Dalton now that Justin Fields is the Bears’starter. I am peering through my microscope, drawing lines and dots on the prostate slides. All is as it should be.

And then I hear it. Again. For the third (or is the fourth?) time in the last 90 minutes, I am forced to sit through that song as it plays on the radio in the lab, the one right outside my office. And I shudder.

I am suffering through a song called Beggin’. A little research (isn’t that what we call looking things up in Google and/or Wikipedia?) tells me the song is a remake of a Four Seasons song from 1967. This cover version is by an Italian band called Maneskin and isn’t even new. It was recorded four years ago but has only hit the charts in English-speaking countries this year.

How can I describe it to those fortunate enough not to have not yet been exposed? Remember Dave Seville and the Chipmunks? Think of one of their songs, recorded at 45 rpm, sped up 78 rpm. Then imagine that English is not the Chipmunks’ native language and that they seem to have no idea what the lyrics mean. And then pretend you are hearing the song over and over and over.

It’s not just that the song is being played by the Eric Ferguson-less-Mix every quarter-hour. I can’t escape it at my Fitness Center where it’s on the overhead music stream. And the final indignity, it has hit the WXRT heavy rotation list. C’mon Lin Brehmer, this is Chicago’s Finest Rock? Just play Sympathy for the Devil one more time.

It has happened to me once before, a song drifting from the lab into my office over and over. It was back in 2006, the first summer we were in operation. That is the summer Justin Timberlake was bringing SexyBack…and back…and back.

At least ‘XRT never jumped on the JT bandwagon.

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Oh well, I assume Beggin’ will wear out its welcome in the next month or so. Just in time for the people in the lab to switch the radio to WLIT and non-stop Christmas music. By then I will be ready for a little Santa Got Run Over by a Reindeer.