Repressed Memmeries

So where's MY freaking text message?

Gah.

Because, really, nothing says "change" like picking an old white guy who's been in the Senate for a really, really long time.

What, is Obama afraid of winning? Everyone at the dinner table last night acknowledged that the smart choice was Hillary Clinton, as it would have merged the two parts of the now-fractured Democratic party. Instead, he has completed the rending and torn it asunder.

Dumb. It was just a dumb thing to do, and another bad choice by Obama. Watch the wind come out of the sails even more now.

Cue the usual sycophants to tell me what a brilliant strategy this is.

Now, I should add - in all fairness - that I've always like ol' Uncle Joe. He's got a acute directness about him that really appeals to me. But, in terms of this election, I just don't see what he will bring to the Democratic ticket that wouldn't have been matched or exceeded by Hillary Clinton. (And make no mistake about it - I like Clinton, but I've disagreed with her on many, many issues.)

But Biden's tendency towards a loose-cannon tongue may prove to be a hindrance more than an asset in a race that really needs to be won by large enough margins to overcome the sure-to-come Republican voter fraud efforts, and by effectively chopping off 25-40% of the Hillary voters that either won't vote for Obama or aren't sure if they'll vote for the Democratic ticket without her... well, the math just doesn't make sense to me.

And no, Obama camp, I did NOT get my text message. Not a good way to start off, in my opinion.

Great. Now I'm going to be grumpy all day.

Our Jack, 2007-2008

We had to put Jack to rest this morning.

None of the multitude of tests we've run over the past couple of months revealed what exactly was wrong with him. We found out a bunch of things that it wasn't, but they were never able to figure out what it was.

He stopped eating a couple of days ago, and over the last 36-48 hours, his breathing had become very labored and pained, like each breath was a battle fought and barely won. Last night he holed himself up in the loft by the temporary litter box and water bowl we'd set up for him awhile ago so that he wouldn't have to go up and down the stairs as much.

We found him this morning in the same place, his poor, shriveled body straining and flexing with each gasp... and we knew it was time to stop his suffering. When we woke the kids up, we brought them into the loft and gave them the chance to say goodbye.

A few hours later, we did the same thing. We both got to pet him and hold his paw as the medicine did its job, tears falling freely. Finally, he became calm. At rest.

At peace.

I still have tears running down my cheeks right now as I type this, but we know this was the right thing to do.

Good-bye, Captain Jack Alexander McDonald Memmer. You were the best kitty a family could have, and we're going to miss you.

Laura Memmer, No Pills For You! (Or, How To Really Piss Off My Wife)

Boy, do I have a story for you today.

As most of you know, Mrs. Repressed and I are perfectly happy with the makeup of our family. Alex and Jeannette, trying though very clever and resourceful little monkeys they are, are the best things in our life. And we've found that we've got a good balance - we can still stick to a man-to-man defense, we can still get into a 4-top at restaurants, we can still fit in one hotel room, etc. So, occasional ovary-tickles aside, we're most likely done having kids.

One big help in maintaining this has been those wonderful little Pills that come in the pink, round clam-shell case. They've worked without fail for six and a half years, even at times where we thought they might not have been effective. Anthropologist Marvin Harris described birth control as the one technology that actually really and truly helped the human race when you look long term, and I suspect he may be right about that little nugget of inspiration.

When we moved here last year, one of the first things we needed to take care of was acquiring new medical care. We both have prescriptions upon which we rely everyday, so we had to move quickly to both sign up for new insurance and find new doctors. We accomplished that last July, by and large, the missus getting her little circle o' pillbox Rx at that time with our primary care provider.

Flash forward to yesterday.

Having reach the one-year end of her Rx, Mrs. Repressed called in to the local Walgreens, knowing that they would take care of calling the Doctor's office and getting the Rx renewed. Imagine our surprise when we showed up last night to pick up said Rx, only to find out that not only was it not renewed, but that it had been "withdrawn".

"Withdrawn?" we asked. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means you're going to have to call your doctor's office to find out what's going on."

Fine. So, that's just what she did this morning. As with every other customer-service related thing in this town, she had to leave a message for them to call her back, which is a fine trick when you have as convoluted and densely-packed schedule as she did.

Finally, they made a connection later on the morning. What she came to find out may shock you. It certainly did us. The doctor's office told her that as an office - that is, all the doctors in that clinic - decided they were just going to up a stop writing Rxs for birth control altogether. As in, completely. As in, they just became the Pill Nazis: "No pills for you!"

When she asked them why, they hemmed and hawed, finally mumbling something about having "problems with insurance" on their birth control Rxs. They did tell her, however, that she could go to an OB-GYN and get an Rx that way.

What? What the hell kinda sense does that make, huh? If this is an insurance problem, then how would going to a different doctor with the same insurance plan solve that, genius? Furthermore, why would a doctor's office care about whether or not insurance would pay for birth control - it's not like they were the ones selling it and losing money from the lack of insurance payments!

The whole thing smelled like a three-day old carp that fell behind the forklift station at the docks.

By the time she called me, she could barely speak, the fury burning so intensely inside her. I'd not heard her that mad in a long, long time. It didn't make any sense! She had already tried calling one of the OBs listed as a contracted provider for our HMO, but they were closing at noon. And, since she had more meetings to get to, she didn't have the time to deal with their dumb asses any longer. So, I took that task upon myself and began to call around to different OB-GYNs, desperately seeking some assistance.

I worked my way through several offices, but only one of them actually had a person answer the phone instead of an automated phone tree. She ultimately couldn't help, because they weren't on our "plan", but she did have an interesting tidbit of info as to why the Order of St. Francis HMO under which we are covered may not be writing Rxs for birth control anymore. According to this office, they had heard that OSF recently had been asserting it's Catholic-ness and that they were beginning to deny this basic reproductive service in many offices.

As I thought about it, it really began to fit together with the seemingly-inconsistent reasoning given by the clinic about having "problems with insurance" - it wasn't the payment for the drug itself, it was the Crazy Celibate Nun-heads that were playing their little god-card and denying payment to the doctors for appointments in which they were writing birth control Rxs.

Those of you that know anything about me shouldn't have any problem visualizing my response to this overt attempt by some god-bots to control one of the basic family issues in many people's lives, including ours. How can this possibly be legal? I wondered aloud.

I ended up calling our health care administrators, Health Alliance, for whom I have no love lost. But the lady to whom I spoke was quite helpful in finding some OBs that would be covered by our plan, for as it turns out, there were many that contracted with OSF that weren't actually employees of OSF. She also told me that it was, in fact, legal for doctors to decide for religious reasons not to write Rxs for those things they find objectionable. To which I say that you shouldn't have gone into a professional where you felt your "beliefs" might be threatened.

The stupid thing is that it's actually illegal for Pharmacists to behave that way in this state. Apparently the doctors have better lobbyists.

Ultimately, we did find a nice, friendly OB-GYN who gave my missus a sample to get her through this month and an Rx to cover the gap between now and her next Annual Stretch and Probe appointment, so we were able to avert a crisis. But we will NOT be going back to our former's doctor's office ever again, nor will we continue to choose OSF as our HMO provider when the choice comes up again in November. We will never go back to them after the way they treated my wife and the way they made her feel today.

Hell, I even entertained the notion of going all Melvin from Office Space on 'em: "I could burn this place down..." :)

In the end, it makes me more than a little disturbed to think that 16th-century thinking is still alive and well in the medical industry.  What's next - ritualistic blood letting and chastity belts?

Laura Memmer's Scrambled Eggs (Or, "The Best Damned Eggs You'll Ever Put In Your Mouth!")

Having breakfast for dinner is a big favorite in our family. Judging by my conversations with other people, such as my coworkers, it's a fairly common sentiment.

One of the biggest thrills that I look forward to are the scramble-dy eggs she is responsible for on breakfast dinner nights. She coats a medium stockpot with butter before even starting the heat, and then she adds the beaten eggs, stirring constantly with a rubber spa-tat-ula. After things starting moving along, in goes whole milk and the stirring continues, all over medium heat.

Eventually, the eggs start to firm up, and with the constant spa-tat-uling, it incorporates quite a bit of air and the eggs just fluff up like little buttery yellow clouds. With the whole milk and the butter, these eggs turn out with a soft, creamy texture, not the slimy "undercooked" eggs you might find in some places.

What I would like to try to make for her sometime is a slight variation on her theme, which you can find in this video with Gordon Ramsey. He uses creme fraiche instead of milk, but the basic idea is very similar to the Laura Memmer Scramble, so she's in good company...!

I Had Some Time To Kill At Lunch, So...

Why not pump out another trite-but-entertaining list, stolen via a link to The Order of Disarray found at Linger's Monkey House?  

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? First name: Daddy-O; middle name: Grampy...er-O.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Funny you should ask that - actually, it was this morning, brought on by hearing Clapton's "Tears In Heaven". That song always get me, as it should for anyone who actually knows the context behind the writing of that song.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? ROTFLMAO - it looks like Sanskrit and reads like a prescription.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Beaver. If not that, then turkey, shaved, of course.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Two - boy, 7 and girl, 6, both going on 22, it seems.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? What do you mean "if" I was another person...? >:)

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM ALOT? Oh, yeah, like I would ever use that...

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? All 6 of them!

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Why in the hell would you jump off of a perfectly good structure with only a thin strand of rubber between you and certain grease-spotitude?

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? I have a new favorte - Grape Nuts Raisin & Almond Trail Mix Crunch!

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Hardly ever. I'd have to bend to do that, see...

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? What a chick-oriented question! [runs to put on flame-retardant overalls] Guys rarely think in terms like this, you know.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Whatever flavor is inside my mouth at the time, obviously, but I do love a nice butter pecan.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Hellooo... oh, what? Oh, hi - you do have eyes, I guess...!

15. RED OR PINK? What a dumb frickin' question. Clearly, the answer is 42.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? The seeming 900 lbs of extra Repression I carry around with me. That, or this itchy damned little mole in the middle of my back where I can barely reach it....

17.WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? I miss lots of people, knowing that we'll never see each other again, but I think I miss my Dad and Pam the most. They both died too soon, too young... when I think of all the things they're never going to get to experience with my kids, it really makes me sad... and pisses me off.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK? Nah. If I want to know something about you guys, I'll just ask.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? ... wear pants?

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? My turkey sandwich I brought today for lunch.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? "When You Love A Woman" by Journey, one of my favorite of all the Journey songs!

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Burnt orange.

23. FAVORITE SMELL? The smell of my children's hair... or my wife's perfume.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON PHONE? In the last hour, I've had approximately 10 calls, all work related.

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO WILL RESPOND TO THIS? Nah, can't stand the swarthy bastard! (I sent this only to me, so go figure...!)

26. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? I generally despise watching sports, but competetive eating is always entertaining.

27. HAIR COLOR? Brown with my gray everyday. I name them after my family members. 

28. EYE COLOR? Er, all of them. It's like a calico cat inside my eye sockets.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No - I just can't stand sticking my finger in my own eye.

30. FAVORITE FOOD? Tough call - that's like asking me to choose between my children. In a pinch, I'd probably have to go with a thin-crusted veggie pizza.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? I can't think of the last time I was actually scared by a movie, other than movies that turn out to be so bad as to be horrifying. I am a sucker for happy endings, but I don't require them.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Kung-fu Panda, I think.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Aquamarine.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? I truly hate summer. Bring on the snow!

35. HUGS OR KISSES: CHICK QUESTION! I like 'em both, but context is all-important.

36. FAVORITE DESSERT? A fabulously dense carrot cake with cream cheese frosting thick enough to stand on its own. Ah, Delafields, you left us too early....

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Well, it will probably be one of my other personalities, since I didn't send this out to anyone else!

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? See #37.

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING? Letters to An American Patriot by Naomi Wolff, The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein and The Duma Key by Stephen King 

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? A picture of my two kids in a bath with bubble beards.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

42. FAVORITE SOUND? The sound of my children laughing incessantly

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Neither, really. While I can appreciate them, I get bored with them both pretty easily.

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Dude, I was trippin' ballz to Alpha Centuri after huffing the Elmer's last week....

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I do tend to have a brain for remembering useless movie trivia... :)

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Lafayette, IN, although "hatched from an alien pod" is technically more accurate.

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? I'm not, really.

And now, it's 1:05, so back to work!

The Anthrax Attempts & The First Rule of Assassinations

Kill.

The.

Assassins. 

Bennigan's: Death of A Restaurant Chain

So, you may have heard that long-standing restaurant chain Bennigan's bit the dust this past week.

To anyone that's eaten there in the last couple of years, it probably doesn't come as a great shock. I ate there on a team lunch about four months ago, and it was just as bad as I had remembered my previous experience being. (That trip also just happened to coincide with a freaky situation where one of the patrons in the restaurant almost died from a heart attack right there in front of everyone. He turned out to be okay, but it's never a good dining experience when you see an elderly man just drop to the floor unconscious in the middle of your meal.)

But that aside, the food at Bennigan's hadn't been very good in a long, long time. Poorly prepared food, inadequate staffing and generally poor service do not a good future make for a restaurant. Toss that particular service salad with the bitter dressing of a shitty economy and you've got the perfect recipe for financial food poisioning. The biggest indicator that this has been a long time coming is that very few people are either surprised or disappointed. Think about it, those of you that live near a restaurant-formerly-known-as-Bennigan's: are you really going to miss it all that much?

Sure, some of the remaining franchise Bennigan's will remain in business... for now. What you're going to find is that those that manage to make it will do so by shaking loose the reputation of bad food and even worse service. You'll see them branch out on their menus away from the previous Corporate selections into fresher, updated dishes and a refocusing on the customer at all levels.

Now, there are some people that will cheer the demise of another "corporate chain". At some level, I agree with them, but probably not for the same reasons. Many of these folks are fortunate enough to live in larger metro areas with lots of alternatives, locally-owned offerings run with the attention on the food and the customer that I mentioned before. But where I diverge with many of them is that in the vast majority of the country - say, smackdab in the middle of Bumblefuck, Iowa - there just aren't that many local places to visit, so these larger corporate restaurant chains are the only places that people can go to get a meal not made by their own hand.

And, honestly, the menus at these types of restaurants - Olive Garden, Chilis, Applebees, TGI Friday's, etc. - offer reasonable-tasting food for usually reasonable prices. The increased food costs of late are starting to make an impact on the menu prices, however, and this is placing additional stress on an industry that finds itself vying for reduced expendable cash available to the population. It could very easily turn into a vicious cycle where less people eating at restaurants leads to less revenue for these restaurants, forcing them to cut costs at every oppurtunity, leading to decreased satisfaction in their customers spending their reduced food dollars, leading to less eating out... and so on, and so on...

In the Repressed family, we are fans of local restaurants, generally. However, not in all cases. Just because you're a local restaurant doesn't make you good. If you're serving crap, we won't grant you our patronage again. There are several restaurants here in Bloomington that came highly recommended and then went on to disappoint mightily. It's a running joke between the missus and I that whenever we hear a recommendation to visit a local eatery that it's got a good chance of sucking. I can think of three or four off the top of my head that I don't plan on visiting ever again. Bland food, average-to-poor service, aesthetically-sterile surroundings... blech. (Avanti's, I'm looking at you.)

(Side note: Bringing out my inner Gordon Ramsey for a sec, I have to let you know that I've come to hate these local sandwiches called "gondolas", which are essentially a couple slices of ham, salami, a few limp pieces of iceberg lettuce, a slice or two of government-quality "cheese food" and some thin slices of usually-out-of-season tomatoes served between a white bread baguette. These things are immensely popular here, and yet they may be one of the saddest sandwiches I've ever had the displeasure of putting into my mouth!)

That said, there are some really fantastic local restaurants that we frequent often: Tobin's Pizza, Beningo's Italian Restaurant and C.J.'s (mainly for breakfast) come to mind. Each of them have their own unique feel and fantastic menu offerings, along with service that's usually friendly and fast. (C.J.'s needs a little bit of work in that department now that they've moved into a larger facility... but I'm willing to give them some time to work out the bugs inherent in moving to a new place.)

In the end, it really doesn't matter who owns a restaurant, in my opinion. What matters is the quality of the food and the customer service we receive when we decide to spend our hard-enough dinero at that establishment. Yes, it is possible to get a good meal at a corporate chain, and it is just as possible to get a crap meal at a local restaurant.

The point is that in today's trying times, you gotta bring your A-game every single time, or you might just find yourself going the way of Bennigan's sooner rather than later.

One CBC and Blood Panel Later, And....

... we still don't know anything about what's going on with Jack, although it did confirm the earlier fluid test which indicated that it's not FIP.

So, at this point, we've got a bunch of tests telling us what it ain't. What we don't have is a test telling us what it is.

There are more blood tests that we're going to have done this week, looking in the direction of something fungally-inspired.

Why is it that you only think of pet insurance after you've sunk a big wad of cash on your pet?

SITEMETER CRASHING WEBSITES IN IE!

Sorry to everyone who came here and received the message "Internet Explorer cannot open website: Operation Aborted". This is completely due to the Sitemeter tracker I had on my page.

ANYONE WHO HAS SITEMETER IS LIKELY TO GET THIS ERROR. JUST REMOVE SITEMETER FROM YOUR PAGE AND IT SHOULD FIX THE PROBLEM.

THIS NEWFLASH IS ESPECIALLY DIRECTED AT YOU, LAURA LINGER AND BRIDGETTE BRANDON! :):):) 

Damn technology - apparently Sitemeter's testing out a new platform. Glad to see it's working. :(

UPDATE 8/3/08: Well, Sitemeter seems to have gotten their act together and fixed the error, finally. Now, let that be a lesson to ye, ye crazy kids!