News, Views, and Shmooze....

Barbara Seranella

Great news: Mystery writer Barbara Seranella, author of the highly acclaimed series featuring Munch Mancini, is going home after enduring two liver transplants.

Barbara, with whom I had the pleasure of sharing a podium a few years ago at a Rancho Mirage Brandeis University National Women's Committee Book & Author lunch, has enormous spirit and resilientce--and is planning on attending Bouchercon in Chicago this Labor Day weekend.

Welcome back, Barbara!

Medical Musings

Yesterday I received an Explanation of Benefits (EOB) from my health insurance carrier. The good news: aside from the co-pay to my primary care physician, which I had already paid, I owed nothing for the routine blood tests I had taken in March. The bad news: the fee the hospital lab had charged the insurance company.

Over $360.

For a lab test.

Several days before that, I was picking up a family member from the hospital when I saw her cardiologist in the hallway. He had no clue that his patient had been admitted two days earlier--and, from what I could tell, little interest, although a week ago in his office he'd been avuncular and chatty.

The chattiness was gone.

"You'll have to talk to her hospital doctor," he told me and walked off.

Well, I thought. So much for medical care.

Then my housekeeper told me about her sixty-something-year-old mother, who lives in Guatemala. The mother, who has a heart condition, had been in urgent need of seeing her cardiologist. The physician lived in the country's capital. And because of civil unrest, all roads to the capital had been sealed off. She had to settle for another doctor who lived closer but wasn't a specialist.

That story doesn't make me happy about the excessive lab fees, which are a sympton of a greater problem, or the state of medical care in this country.

But it does color my perspective...

Chanukah, December 2000

Yesterday, I ironed twenty-two shirts and two skirts, have another dozen to go. Then I peeled about the same number of potatoes and made latkes for the family Chanukah party, which took place at my son & daughter-in-law's apartment. Latkes were great, so everyone said, and the true miracle of Chanukah may be cleaning up all the film of oil sprayed around the kitchen. My dad is with us for a few days (he lives with my brother and sister-in-law, who are in San Diego). Since he has macular degeneration and can't really see, my husband helped him light the candles, and that was fine. Our youngest daughter is in New York (when we commiserated with her about the cold weather, she said it wasn't so bad--I guess 'cause she knows she's coming home tonight!), and we missed her voice when we sang the blessings and hymns.

Before any of the kids were married, each of them used to light a separate menorah. The menorahs were all of varying heights and materials--one was silver (ours), most were metal, and there was a huge, three-feet tall wooden menorah that our youngest son made in school. Some burned oil (which is preferable), most used candles, leaving congealed blobs of multi-colored was on the tray.

The eighth day was magical--seven menorahs fully lit, fifty-six flames illuminating the room with a golden glow. We always took a family photo on that last day (my husband would set up the tripod and put the camera on a timer). Now three of our children are married and have begun traditions of their own, and our middle daughter has moved into her own apartment. And I'm feeling more than a little nostalgic....

Back to the shirts.