Thank You, President Trump!

I worry about my retired elderly parents having nothing to do.  It is not good for their mental health to be home, bored and void of intellectual stimulation. Even when they agree on a movie, now that winter is at our doorstep, neither wants to venture outside. Broadway?  My folks have seen Hadestown and To Kill A Mockingbird (and hopefully Betrayal before it closes). Married for 59 years and retired for over 10, they have exhausted all topics of conversation. 

The question — what are you going to do today — makes me anxious as I fear the answer is nothing.  I am out of suggestions.

But, now, thanks to you President Trump, my worries are gone!  So appreciate you and your cronies openly creating a national security threat with a trail of texts, phone calls, and evidence that urged an impeachment inquiry.  I haven’t seen my parents this happy and engaged in years. Oh, and I would be remiss not to give honorable mention to Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff for green lighting these proceedings.  

My folks tell me they pop out of bed to prepare for their day of impeachment inquiry watching.  They are talking to one another, evaluating testimony, using their brains — and I may have even heard them laughing.  They plan their day and meal selection around the inquiry. What’s the appropriate food pairing with Lt Col Vindman’s testimony? Borscht, great choice, dad. Ambassador Sondland’s day of coming clean?  Omelets.

No one was happier than me when Ambassador William Taylor testified that you know, I may have forgotten to tell you that there was another phone call, on an unsecured cell phone (priceless!) that my colleague David Holmes heard — he would be happy to talk to you.  Do you want his email address? I knew what that meant. Another witness, possibly five hours. That’s a full day!

Sometimes, when I call to check in, mom and dad actually say “we have to go, the impeachment is back on.”

As a member of the sandwich generation, I also care for my thirteen-year old son and husband. We bond when we watch television shows together, but we often struggle to find a show we all can enjoy (we just binged Stranger Things and Lucifer).  Challenge, no more! — we tape the inquiry for family viewing.  My husband and I got our teenager to watch as we told him, take notes, this will be a topic for your college thesis either at SUNY Binghamton, or the New York campus of the University of Russia — depending on how these hearings go.

And, I am not worried about Thanksgiving conversation with family Trump supporters. The hearings provide fodder that Trump supporters and Democrats can discuss amicably.  How will this play out in the theater? While I hope George Clooney produces the movie, my brother-in-law feels Clint Eastwood is the right person for the job. Our disagreement does not result in a family feud.  We will still remain in each other’s contact list.  

So, President Trump keep intimidating witnesses via tweets! Democrats vote for impeachment, this needs to get to a televised Senate trial. The New York winter forecast is cold and snowy, these proceedings have to last until March.   

We were happy to get the last Tuesday slot; we did not know this was the worst time to go.

My nine year old loves waterslides, sharks, and milky ways.  His career goal is to be a marine biologist focusing on the study of tiger sharks.  So, when a friend told me a place exists that has a waterslide that goes through a pool of sharks, I knew I had to go.  And, you could (for a large fee) sign up for an excursion where you walk with the sharks in that pool.  While I was excited to give this experience to my budding Jacques Cousteau, I had a problem.  Having run out of the opening credits of Jaws, I do not share my child’s enthusiasm for sharks.  Since that summer of Jaws mania, I have not even been able to lay in a bath with the water running —  I have visions that a ferocious baby shark will dive out of the faucet and have me as soup.

As my husband does not have my affliction,  he volunteered to go on the trip.  Because of my galeophobia, I was on the tank’s rim as to whether I would join my boys.  Do I use this as an opportunity to get over my fear? Or, do I pretend that being the photographer and cheerleader is just as good as sharing a potentially life-changing experience with my only kid?  I decide not to decide and wait until we get to the resort to make the reservation.

“I would like to make a reservation for three, 2 adults and 1 child for the walk of the sharks.  Before I sign up, is this excursion refundable should one change her mind?” I am told that this is a non refundable purchase.  Great.  I am tired from the flight.  My kid gives me a look of you’re kidding, you’re not going?  The husband tries not to show his disappointment, but he is doing a lousy job.  Feeling peer pressure,  I schedule the tour for Tuesday at 3:30.  I have a few days until then, maybe, I will be lucky and the excursion will be canceled because of a hurricane.  I am now hoping for a severe weather condition to ruin my expensive vacation, which of course does not happen.

On Tuesday at 3:15, we head to the shark tank and join the other tour goers.  We get fitted for and squeeze into our wetsuits.  The tour guide tells us how to step down into the tank without blowing our ears out.  He confirms with the future shark walkers that no one is flying home that day as that could use you to get bubbles in your blood which could prove fatal.  Why am I doing this again? He also points to the waving scuba divers in the tank who will guide us.  We are warned not to pet the sharks and not to get upset if a sharks rubs against us.  I won’t get upset; I’ll have a nervous breakdown.  My kid is overjoyed with the possibility that a shark might touch him.  Are we related?  I cannot believe that soon not only will I voluntarily go into a tank of healthy sharks, but I will also take my world, my son and husband, with me on this adventure.

To try and relax, I ask what I thought would be an educational question that would calm me down.

“How do we know the sharks won’t eat us?”

“First, these sharks are scavengers.  So, unless you are dead they won’t eat you.”

My sharkologist junior nods agreeing with our knowledgeable chaperon.  Note to self, look alive!

“Second, they are fed on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday morning.”

Ergo, they are at their hungriest right now, as I chose the last tour on Tuesday.  I wish I knew that before I made the reservation.  I would have scheduled the walk for the first tour on Wednesday.  I don’t care how much these creatures ate on Monday, they have not eaten in over 24 hours.  I know what I am like right before break fast on Yom Kippur.

We go to the ladder that will take us down into the tank.  We decide to submerge in this order, husband, kid, and mom.  Before we are completely in, a globe is put over our heads and snapped into our suits.  We look like the Jetsons minus Judy and Astro.  Balloons are attached to our suits so we are weighed down, and  my little guy needs several balloons.  He looks like a martian celebrating a birthday.  Slowly, I step down into the tank and join my fellows. Watching sharks swim in arm’s length distance with my family in the background is a once in a lifetime experience.  Hopefully.  I look at my kid, I can feel his happiness even through the fish bowl globe I have on my head.   A scuba diver hands him a shark tooth.

I realize, though, what a submerge of faith I took getting in the tank.  If anything happened to my kid, like a shark going rogue (maybe one shark thinks he is tired of dead food, this kid looks delicious) or my kid’s oxygen tank exploding, there is nothing that I could do.  And, my husband, as good as he is with setting up and programming a smart tv, he does not know much about scuba gear.   We are sunk. I have to trust these two scuba divers who I never met or vetted with my most precious life member.

This feeling of helplessness passes for two reasons: the walk part is only twenty minutes, and I am kind of enjoying my self.   The scuba divers signal time’s up, get out of the tank.  My marine biologist gestures like an English chap you first, to my husband, me, and the rest of the shark walkers  — as he wants to soak in every last second of this excursion.

As a parent, you take so many leaps of faith, small, medium, and large: putting your little one on a bus to camp,  allowing your fifth grader to walk to school, and letting him sort of scuba dive with hungry creatures of the ocean.  I surrender myself to the universe many times in a given day.  It’s maddening.  Some letting go moments you have to do and some you do to yourself.   And, some work out well in the end.

On the hottest day of the summer of 1976, I fell in love. I was thirteen.

That’s the day I went to a Yankee doubleheader with my father and sister.  Although it was a regular season game on a nothing special day, my father had been noticeably excited about this game.  He figured out that the opposing pitcher that day would be Mark Fidrych, nicknamed the Bird.  Fidrych was the talk of baseball that year, a phenom.  It was close to impossible to get a hit let alone a run off him.  But, besides making pitches that fooled even the most skilled batters, Fidrych was best known for his antics on the mound.  He talked to the baseball, got on his hands and knees to manicure the mound, and when an infielder made a great play, he immediately dashed over and personally congratulated him.  He was nicknamed the Bird because one of his coaches thought that he ran just like Big Bird from Sesame Street.  He kind of looked like Big Bird too: he was tall, lanky, and had bushy red hair.  Before making a pitch, he talked to the baseball, begging it to avoid the batter’s bat.  If he felt a baseball had a hit in it, he’d toss it out of the game and ask for a new one.  “I want that ball to go back in the bag with all the other balls so they can tell him to behave,” he said.  He hugged players after they made a great play.  The crowds adored him.

When my father realized the Bird was going to be pitching when we were scheduled to be at the game, he counted the days.  “Guess, where we’ll be seven days from now?” he’d ask.  Everyday the countdown continued.  While he generally kept the tickets in his wallet, this time he upgraded the ticket space to under the phone.  So, every time the phone rang (which for my sister was right after she got off the phone) we would be reminded of that game.  Finally, the big day arrived.

For several years, my father had been taking us to Yankee games.  I don’t remember my first game, but this was the game I remember that fostered my love for baseball. I was born and bred to be a Yankee fan but ironically my love of baseball originates from an opposing pitcher from the Detroit Tigers.

There was a lot going on that day.  It was Jacket Day; anyone under 14 got a plastic jacket. The jacket was like having your own personal sauna; it was made out of the cheapest plastic and had two vents in the back.  As soon as you put your arm through the sleeve, you immediately started to sweat.  The jacket was particularly suitable to wear at Halloween as a shield for eggs being hurled at you.

The Yankees were on their way to winning their division after a twelve year drought.  Not surprisingly, 52,707 people came to the game, close to the capacity of 57,546.

As the game started, my dad educated us on the players, the positions, and the intricacies of the game.  Unlike the other games, this time I listened.  Something about this Bird guy piqued my interest.

The National Anthem was sung.  The starting line-up was announced.  I watched the Yankees run on the field.  I along with the other 52,706 fans waited anxiously for the Bird’s appearance.

What would he be like?  Would he look like a Bird? What would it be like to watch a legend in the making?

Unlike the other players who calmly jogged on to the field, he bolted to the pitcher’s mound.  He was in his own private world.  He got on his knees, patted the mound so it was just right, jumped up and down, and pointed to his teammates who made great plays.  He looked funny and did things that other players simply did not do.  He did not care what he looked like.  And, he looked pretty weird.  Despite the fact that the view from our cheap seats was not good, I could still see that stick of a man with a bushy mound of flapping red hair.

We watched the bird with utter amazement.  You could feel how impossible it was to get a hit off him.  His pitches zoomed by my Yankees.  They were stumped.  When they approached the plate, they looked like they were hoping to be walked.  The Bird was simply invincible.  All his weird movements were working.  He did not allow the Yankees to score a run.  He struck out five and allowed only nine hits.

The Yankees lost the first game 6-0.  It wasn’t even close.  The day was not a total disaster for the home team; the Yankees won the second game 6-5.  It was a perfect baseball day.  I saw a phenomenal pitcher and I got a free jacket.

And, that was the day I fell in love with baseball.

Since then, I have followed the Yankees religiously.  Because the season is so long and games are played on a daily basis, I can always catch a glimpse of them: a quick flick on the remote control, taking a peek through a big window at a bar to get a score, or simply reading about the game the next day.  And, they have become my friends in good and bad times.  Doc Gooden pitched a no-hitter when I got stood up on a date.  David Cone pitched a perfect game on my birthday after I had been in a bike accident that temporarily disfigured my face.  (I still think he pitched that game for me).  When there was an awkward silence with colleagues, bosses, and distant relatives, the talk of baseball helped me start a conversation.

And, my baseball knowledge helped me in my dating life.  I got married to surprisingly, a Met fan; we joke that we have a mixed marriage.  Our little guy, halluejah, is a Yankee fan.  His first little league game starts on the same day as opening day 2016.

So, whatever happened to the Bird?  Did he make it to the Hall of Fame?  Win a World Series?

Sadly, no.  I saw Fidrych pitch at his best, his first year in the majors.  In fact, he won the Rookie of the Year Award.  In the following season, however, after winning six of his first ten starts, he seriously injured his arm and virtually could no longer pitch.  He pitched in three games in 1978, four in 1979 and retired in 1980.  He owned a trucking asphalt and gravel company in Massachusetts while doing a little public relations work.  He also had two seats at Comerica Stadium (that is where the Detroit Tigers play).

I cried when I found out that in 2009 he died tragically in an accident on his farm: he was 54.

In writing this article, I started my research with the Bird.  I went to the public library to find articles about that game.  However, because I could not remember what the exact date of the game was and how to find it, I sought help from the twenty-year old looking librarian at the help desk.

“I haven’t done research in years.  Would you know how I can find a story about a game when Mark Fidrych pitched?”

“I’d do anything for the Bird.”

I guess I wasn’t the only one affected by him.

PLAY BALL!!!  And Go Yankees!!!

At an inconvenient time, I found out I was claustrophobic.

A few years ago, I noticed a small lump on the side of my face, had it checked out, and found out it was a lipoma. It sounds worse than what it really is, a fatty deposit. Most people get them in their legs or arms. I got one on my face. Because my new appendage was small and probably resting near a nerve, the doctor recommended that we leave it alone. His parting and foreshadowing words were if it gets bigger, come back.

Like a rolling lipoma gathering fat, the bump grew from do you have a pimple to did you have wisdom tooth surgery in just two years.  I tried very hard to conceal it, growing my hair long and leaning to the right (as the lipoma was on the left side of my face). I had a constant look of what?, for nearly twenty-four months. As these tricks became too burdensome and I enjoy wearing my hair in a ponytail, I went back to the doctor.

“Oh, yeah, it got bigger,” he diagnosed as soon as he saw me.

To make sure this unwelcomed guest was not resting on my facial nerve, I had to get a magnetic resonance imaging test better known as a MRI. If it were resting on that nerve, then taking it out might cause facial paralysis.

While writing out the directions to the MRI center, the doctor casually asked me how I tolerated enclosed spaces. I did not think much about it, and wanting to sound tough, I said I was pretty good. How I later regretted not giving his question more thought.

At the imaging center, I met with Julia and Frank, the MRI technicians who I would later name in my will. Rubbing my hands together, I announced I was ready to go. Then, I got my first hint as to why the doctor inquired about my ability to handle small spaces — the MRI scanner looked like a coffin or crematorium for an overgrown peppermint stick. I lay down on the stretcher that would take me inside and got ready for my next instruction.

“We just have to do one more thing to do.”

Julia snapped a thick mask that had four vertical bars around my head, putting my head in extreme solitary confinement. I found myself involuntarily doing an impression of Hannibal Lecter. Looking over me, Julia put a device in my hand.

“That’s your panic button. Just press it when you want to get out of the tube.”

Why do I need a 911 buzzer for a sophisticated medical diagnostic tool? What was I doing with my head in a mask? Now I knew what it felt like to be the last Russian doll inside a matroyska doll.

“Did you say something?” Julia asked.

Like the calm before the storm of crazy, I re-mustered two words “not happening.”

Julia, my liberator, took off my mask. I popped up.

“Who can survive this? Astronauts?”

“We hear that a lot.”

“What can I do?”

“You could take a valium.”

Could? This should not be a choice. Like mints, there should be a bowl full of valium or a well-stocked bar in the waiting room.

So, here was my option, get the prescription and come back. I live in Brooklyn and the hospital was on the Upper East Side which is the same as going to Denver on some days. Even though my anxiety was pushing DSM-IV TR, I decided to give the MRI another try. I have endured childbirth, orthodox Yom Kippur services on an empty stomach, and Microeconomics Theory class at eight in the morning. I can do this!

Before I flipped out earlier, Julia was about to attach a mirror to my mask. This allows you to see out while you are in the death chamber, alleviating the claustrophobia. So, we tried this technique, but all I could see was a reflection of the bars. I thought I was watching myself starring in the lead role of the “Woman in the Iron Mask”. If Edgar Allan Poe were alive, he would have used this experience as inspiration for a poem. One good thing, I learned the panic button works.

“Maybe I can give it one more try?”

I think Julia felt really bad for me, maybe the fatty growth made me look sympathetic or maybe she lives in Brooklyn and has a disdain for the 4 train. She had one more trick up her sleeve. Saint Julia could hold my ankle during the procedure. Frank would be in the booth, monitoring the MRI, and he would let me know how much time I had left. I didn’t realize that part of a MRI technician’s job description is: hold ankles of claustrophobic patients.

I kept my eyes closed and focused on Julia’s warm hand holding my right ankle. Every now and then I heard banging which sounded like a group of toddlers were outside the tube banging it with silverware. Hard to believe this is an expensive piece of medical equipment. As scheduled, Frank’s voice, staticky and blurry would come in letting me know five minutes had expired and I was doing great! I was back in kindergarten.

Forty minutes later, I was done. I gave Julia and Frank an airport type hug and later wrote recommendations dripping in synonyms of awesome.

Even better, the lipoma was not near the facial nerve and I could have it taken out. I learned, however, another new fact about myself: anesthesia makes me nauseous.