Red Sox as a Metaphor for Life

The Red Sox have taught me some amazing life lessons over the last half decade or so. Actually, they have been trying to teach me, but I have been too hardheaded to learn, mostly. And so last night, when the Sox were trailing 7-0 in the seventh inning, I went to bed. Did I have a tiny twinge of hope left? Maybe- it's hard to say. Mostly, I was sick of watching them roll over for the last three nights in a row. They got shelled in games 3 and 4, losing by embarrassing amounts, and here they were in game 5, facing elimination, getting shelled again. And it looked to me like they had given up. Players were marching to the plate as if to their execution by firing squad- fully expecting to be mowed down, and simply hoping it would be over quickly. It was so excruciating, I couldn't watch anymore.
I closed the slingbox window on my computer, and headed to bed. Slingbox is a thingy you hook up to a cable box, and it broadcasts that cable over the internet to users with password. Brielle got me the slingbox last Christmas so I could watch games, after I complained about how impossible it was to watch the Sox in Lexington, KY. It was an amazing, albeit dangerous, gift. Last year I had to wait for the Sox to make the post-season to watch games finally carried by the networks, and even then, I had to go to the bar every night and talk them into changing the channel to the Sox (that was a lot of consecutive weeknights at the bar, which understandably led to some marital discord). This year, with the slingbox hooked to Dad's cable box, I have watched probably 3/5 of the regular season games, Boston area Bernie & Phil and Jordan's Furniture commercials and all, in the comfort of my living room. Watching close to 100 games, at 3 hours apiece, while a new dad and med student, was taxing. I resisted the temptation to watch other TV, since we don't have a TV for a reason, but I still invested a lot of time into watching the Sox games. I even stayed up multiple times til the wee hours, only to see the Sox lose in the 13th inning, or watched the entire game in a double digit loss. I know our beloved Sox are the come-back kings, and I didn't want to miss it. But here I was, heartbroken after a respectable season capped with this disgraceful finish, and I just couldn't bear to witness how crushed and downtrodden the Fenway Faithful's faces were going to look after 9 innings.
As soon as I woke up this morning, I put on the coffee, set Max on his quilt, and clicked the Red Sox tab on firefox, just to see how bad it had actually ended up. Where I expected to see a sober picture of Francona or a defeated Ortiz, there was Youkilis with his fist raised in the air, his ridiculously bearded mouth gaping in a cheer. They pulled it off. They came back from a 7-0 deficit, the most amazing post-season comeback since 1929.
Of course they did. This is the same team that came back from being down 3 games to 1 against the Indian, and down 3 games to none against the Yankees. They've been trying to teach me a lesson all these years, a lesson about perserverance and hope even in the face of despair. It's not over til it's over. I'll never doubt them again.

In other news, Max is walking and talking. Not really, but today is his 6 month birthday, and so we gave him some rice gruel mixed with mama's milk. He made "gross" faces and spit it all out, but it was fun anyway. And he did start saying "dada" today. Well, more like "dadadadadadada" but still. And he can stand up while holding the file cabinet drawer handle with one hand and reaching for the key hole with the other. We had fun today. He let me sleep in for an extra hour before he yanked on my armpit hair to wake me up. Then we went to Keeneland for the UK day, so we got free chili dogs and free admission and we got to sit in the grandstands, which is so much better than standing down with the unwashed masses and trying to see the race from ground level through all the cigar smoke. In the grandstand you get to sit down and try to see the race through cigar smoke. We were 4/6 in our betting, and came out about $20 ahead even after factoring in a beer and program. It was a fun day all around.

Also, the Red Sox, especially the 2004 self-described "Idiots" with their cowboy up cheers and their beards and practical jokes and just all the fun they seemed to have, represent the forces of Good. And the Yankees represent the forces of Evil, especially with all their money and their slick uniforms and their steroids and their rules banning long hair and beards, and their all around hubris. So in 2004, but also in other years, including this one, but especially in 2004, the baseball story just plays out perfectly. The Sox, fun-loving, free-spirited, perennial-underdog jokesters, are about to be swept in the best of 7 ALCS by pure Evil. But Good doesn't get extinguished. Those jokers come back and win game 4. And 5. And then 6 and 7. Good triumphs over Evil. A Hollywood script writer couldn't write it any better. And still, the money and power of the Yanks lure some of the Sox over to the dark side, where they get their hair cut and shave, get fitted for a pin striped suit, and even taste some success. But ultimately, they fail, and they are damned eternally (yeah, you, Johnny Damon and especially Roger Clemens- man, what a pathetic loser Clemens turned out to be). Anyway, if I were Tampa Bay right now, I'd be worried that I was praying to a false god. That's all I'm saying.

Bouncing Baby

If I had to sum our boy up in a word, it would be this: drool. He produces it in copious amounts, and spreads it bountifully on all with which he comes in contact- wall, floor, clothes, door; toys that are old, toys that are new, he spreads it on me, he spreads it on you. (This blog is really my only creative outlet, unless you count humming the theme music to Major League Baseball. Which I don't.) I honestly don't know where he's getting the raw materials for the stuff, since his daily salivary production far outstrips his liquid consumption. It seems quite impossible that he could be gaining weight, but miraculously he actually is. Now, I'm no stranger to miracles (we had another hamburger miracle at the lake this summer, witnessed and corroborated by many and even captured irrefutably on a digital camera!), but some of Max's feats are beyond comprehension. For example, if one gives him any empty glass bottle, he will expertly manipulate the opening into his mouth, and, as if he were a poisonous snake you were milking for venom, he will hand you back a half-filled beer bottle within a minute. Make sure you empty this bottle and put it in the recycling bin right away, because you never know how thirsty the person who happens upon a half-filled beer bottle is. (Although a hearty swig of baby drool will do wonders, if not actually to quench thirst, then to cast the thought of liquid refreshment so far from the sampler's mind as to really be the same thing.)
He is pretty fun, though, even if you can't get a good grip on the slippery, serous little creature. He really laughs these days, if you give him a good raspberry or balance him, standing, in one hand (new trick we figured out yesterday. I can't prove it because his mom won't take our picture while we do it). We were playing this game where I would look all around the room, and then finally look at him, and he would crack up. Over and over, for 5 minutes. Then I tried putting on some junior birdman goggles by putting my palms on my forehead, fingers down, and circling my eyes with thumb and forefinger, y'know, and then I looked at him. Dead serious. He just stared back, without a hint of smile. He wasn't scared, I don't think, but it was more like I had cheated at our little game. I took my hands off my face and he cracked back up.
He's still not doing a lot of rolling over, at least, not consistently. Occasionally we'll leave him on a blanket in the next room and when we peek back in on him, he's on his belly in the corner, playing with the power tools. But usually, he's just right where you left him. Even if he's pissed off, and doesn't want to be on his belly anymore, he'd rather lie there, arching and grunting and screaming til you come flip him, than just frickin roll over already. I wouldn't count on it, though. His staying put, I mean. We went to the Gorge yesterday, and I had him on Mariam's raincoat at the top of the cliff while the rest of the crew (Mars, Adam and Emily) was climbing down below. When they were done, I was going to untie and clean up the anchors while they hiked back around, but Max was close enough to a 60 foot drop that I didn't feel okay leaving him unsecured. He had a good 6 or 8 feet to the edge, and that would be a record series of rolls for him, but still. So I put him in Adam and Emily's mesh hammock and fastened it shut with carabiners. He seemed fine long enough for me to walk about ten feet away, but then I think some primal instincts from back in the day when our ancestors had to deal with horse-sized spiders kicked in, and told him to get the fuck out of that giant web. I sprung him and we ended up waiting until the others got back and let them pull the anchors.
At 4 and a half months, he still doesn't sleep that well. The whole co-sleeping thing didn't live up to its promise for us. We moved him to a futon mattress on the floor next to our bed, so that if he just wants to kick and wiggle, he won't necessarily wake Mariam up. That seems to help a little bit, but it's still rare for him to go more than a couple hours without Mars feeding him or dealing with him somehow. Hopefully he'll keep getting incrementally better at sleeping. He does wake up every day at about 7am, no matter when he went to bed or how well he slept, and he's always super happy and smiley and good natured in the morning. I was going to try to wake up earlyish with him so I could get some of that happy time in before school, but I can't drag myself up until there's just enough time to dress, eat and run (out the door, that is- not run for excercise. Jeez. Although I am in a triathlon on Oct. 5, so I've been running with him in the afternoons and just started swimming again. Even got a waterproof mp3 player so I can listen to This American Life while I do laps.)
Overall, we're glad we have him. I still forget about him occasionally, like when I'm thinking about vacations and how relaxing it will be wherever we are, and then I remember that nothing is ever going to be relaxing ever again. So we've traded relaxing for marvelling and cooing and bouncing and demonstrating and changing diapers and doing laundry and exploring the world all over again. Which is wonderful, except at 5am.

Jiggity jig

We're back in Lexington, which is feeling more and more like home after spending a wonderful vacation in Massachusetts. The two Lexingtons can get pretty confusing, so I developed a way of differentiating between them with the pitch of my voice. "Lexington" in falsetto is Lexington, Ky., and "Lexington," baritone, is Lexington, Mass. Doesn't work as well in print, which is why I developed the clever italics/bold mechanism that you have just witnessed. Yes, I know, you're wondering if sometimes, do the pinnacles of my cleverness take my own breath away? Indeed.
Okay, I'm breathing normally again. We just spent all of July doing absolutely nothing. It was wonderful. We did manage to show Max off to everyone- all his grandparents were afforded extended visits, plus (in no particular order) the Adlers, (Uncle) Al, the Carters, Caiti and her twins, Carly, Dave, Eric, Faiza, the Garlands, (Aunt) Jill, (Grandpa) John, (Cousin) Julia, Kate, Margaret, Margo, Marla, Naomi, Noah, Ryan, Steve, Taylor, and many more. Our new life is showing Max off. My summer break from med school started off by showing Max off at the beach in Newport, RI. Then I showed him off a little in Lexington, and then he held court at the lake in Lunenburg. The lake is so fun- swimming when you're hot, sailing when it's windy, paddling to blueberries when they're ripe, jogging when you're restless, amazing mountain biking and climbing within minutes, and a fridge filled with seltzer and diet soda. Plus a king size bed in the master suite for honored guests. Max spent minimal time in the bed, maximal time staring up at his beach mobile (that's mobile with a hard i for those who are picturing a motorized dune buggy). He enjoyed swimming in the lake, even dunking his whole head a few times (I had to test his diving reflex, purported to linger until the fourth month after birth. Basically, this kid is like a giant medical experiment- Babinski reflexes, diving reflexes, rooting reflexes, hip flexion, etc.) He keeps getting cuter, too (pics here). So, the summer passed quickly, and we have little to show for ourselves. I did get much done on my full time work-study Histology project, which I spent 40 difficult hours/week on (Hi Dr. MacPherson)(Thanks Dad and Brielle). I am also addicted to fizzy drinks, thanks to that damn seltzer fridge. We left for our drive home at 8pm, to coincide with Max's sleepy time, and it worked beautifully. We made it to Aunt Jill and Uncle Al's just as he was waking up, and they took him while we took a nap. Then they fed us an amazing grilled dinner and we took off for Lexington at 8pm again, and Max again slept the whole way. Now we're here, sharing the house with Ben and Bree because Ben blew up his own house. Luckily he's a farmer, so we're at least eating well. School starts on Monday, which I am actually looking forward to, as long as I can finish off this histo project first. We've been working on our budget lately. We are dirt poor. We're working on getting Max a birth certificate, which is harder than it might seem, so that we can potentially get him health insurance and government cheese. It's actually quite romantic, being poor (although please don't ask Mariam). So we'll see. And eventually, we'll be the opposite of poor. Here's to then. Cheers.

The Max has landed

We have a baby boy! I'm a dad! There's a little person living in our house, and he looks like he's gonna stay (that means he's a genuine keeper, as grandpa would say). Maxwell Levi Kissel was born Apr. 17th, 2008 at 5:30pm or so (c'mon, I have so many dates to remember already.) It sure was a long process, so we were extra glad to finally see him. The short version of the birth story would take up 3 pages, so I'll give you the abstract: Water broke Friday night. Labor started Sunday night. All day and all night Monday. All day and all night Tuesday. All day and all night Wednesday. All day and *pop* there's a baby in our bed at 5:30pm (or so) on Thursday. We managed to have him at home, even though it looked a bit iffy at times, so that was happy. The midwife had assured us that it wouldn't be that messy. It was messy as hell, literally and figuratively, but we ended up with a healthy baby boy, and someone else did the laundry and hosed down the walls before they left. So, like I said, we were happy. Very happy. Still glowing from happiness. Max has been such a pleasure to get to know. He is an amazing little teacher, who simply pours forth his Buddha nature. (I usually get stuck scrubbing that up). Although at times it is frustrating because of limited communication, our relationship keeps growing more robust and rich. Now at 8 weeks, he is so much fun to be with. Fits of inconsolable, inexplicable crying are rare, and instead we are treated to smiles, coos and attentive stares when he is awake. When he sleeps, which is for longer and longer bouts (a couple of 5 hours stretches, though by far, that is the exception), we can count his tiny inverted knuckles or listen to his funny squeaks or imagine what he's dreaming about. We even play a game with him- I'm not sure if we are deluding ourselves or if it really happens, but it seems like when you stick your tongue out at him, he'll stick out his tongue back! Our little monkey apes us.
All of the immediate family has been out to see him (except Susanna and Faiza, who will see him very soon when Mariam goes back to Boston for Emily and Owen's wedding). As always, you can see pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/jake.kissel
We're doing a pretty good job documenting his life in pictures. Could do better, but he certainly already has thousands of times more than either of us had as infants.

Chickering sucked the egg

After all that, the insurance stuff worked out. We got a hold of the higher-ups, threatened their reputation as responsive, student friendly insurers, and they freaked out and gave us everything we wanted. Even tried to cover up what probably is a secret internal policy of routinely denying claims in the hope that people give up by saying that they just had a computer error in recording the date of our insurance. Load of crap, but we didn't pursue the issue. Then we turned around and hired a midwife, so we're having the kid at home.
We've got our bags of stuff ready to go- shower curtains to cover the mattress, salad bowls to catch the placenta, Goodwill towels to mop up gook. It really could be any day now, although I'm predicting Apr. 12th and Mars says the 13th. I go between being obsessed about the little bugger, to completely forgetting about his entire existence in the midst of studying for a big neuro test this coming Mon and Tue. Which is weird. That is kind of my MO- I hang out and do all the fun stuff and feel like I'm really part of this community, and then a test approaches and I go underground for a week or so. I don't do any dishes, or cook, or even pick my crap up off the floor. I ignore phone calls, I don't work out. I'm kind of in panic mode, and fiercely protective of my time. It's not that great of a system. The house falls apart, my friends and bride are neglected, my skin gets pale. Each time I tell myself that I'll get on more of a schedule for next time- do a little studying every day so that I never hit crisis mode. But that never quite happens. Luckily, I know that having a kid fixes everything...
Right.

Chickering can suck an egg

We've been having the worst imaginable experience with Chickering, our UK health insurance through Aetna. Way back in August, we got insured with the new UK student health plan (for the bargain basement price of $3600/yr for the two of us). Soon after, we went to get Mariam's pregnancy confirmed after she missed her period. Just today, over 5 months later, they finally told us, after we called Customer Service to ask, that they ruled her pregnancy a pre-existing condition and won't cover any costs related to it. Not like this came out of the blue- we have been calling, and writing, and faxing, and calling some more, to get this thing figured out. The wording of the Summary of Benefits makes it fairly clear, that unless "service has been rendered, supplies received, or the pregnancy has been confirmed" before the date of insurance, it doesn't count as a pre-existing condition. There are secret, internal Chickering documents, I discovered in the course of one of innumerable, interminable calls to Customer Disservice, that might clarify this point, but those cannot be released to someone as insignificant as a customer. Although I would get a different answer each time I called Chickering, it was finally settled that they were simply waiting for us to return a form that listed what care we had received in conjunction with the pregnancy so this could be corroborated against a form they had sent to our doctors. If they found that we had not received care before the date of insurance, then we were good to go. Since we knew that we hadn't received care before that, we therefore proceeded confidently with the expensive hospital care. We would have preferred to hire a midwife and have the kid at home- after all, Mariam is not sick, so why should she act like a patient?- but Chickering only covers a medicalized hospital birth, so that's what we went for. We never received the first form that they allegedly sent, so we had to wait over a month for a replacement, which we promptly returned back before Thanksgiving. They didn't have that in their system until last week, at which point they wanted to send out the form to our doctor to corroborate our statements. However, knowing this would take months, I bullied the lady into faxing the form to our doctor's office, along with her fax number so that our doctor could fax the form straight back. That this was even a possibility, that fax machines existed, was a novel revelation of biblical proportions to this brainiac over at Chickering customer service. I had to call everyone, every step of the way, to double check that these douchebags were doing what they said they were doing. Finally, all the information that Chickering had been looking for to make their decision was in. Then we had to wait for the ruling, which we assumed would be favorable since they had led us to believe that all they were checking was that our medical record didn't show us receiving any care before our insurance date. That was a given, in our eyes, and they were only losing stuff and being idiots about it to stall having to cover the claims until the last possible moment, probably to wring another nickel of interest out of the money while we sat on pins and needles trying not to go crazy during what should be a time of joy (I can't even begin to fathom the nightmare of dealing with fucknuts like these if you were actually sick or suffering). Anyway, they denied our claim. When I called to find out why, they wouldn't tell me. The lady simply said I could appeal, which would take 60-90 days (bullshit, based on their track record of timeliness). I tried to explain that our appeal might be more effective if we knew why our claim had been denied, but that is way too reasonable and might give us an unfair advantage, she implied. She can't tell us anything, besides that the claim was denied. Other people we've talked to- the UK student health people, the insurance person at our doctor's office, the Kentucky Department of Insurance officer- all tell us different things, occasionally tending towards the fact that our conception date is before our insurance date, and insurance companies always use conception date. If that is the case, why don't they say so? Why isn't that written down anywhere, or told to us when we call customer service? UK student health lady read to us from last year's policy with a different company, which said something about when the condition/illness "originated." If our policy used that simple word, "originate," or "conception," then it would be much more clear that ours was a pre-existing condition. However, they didn't use that language, which would lead a reasonable intelligent person to actually believe what it says in our policy- namely, that the pregnancy be "confirmed" before the insurance date to qualify as a pre-existing condition. I don't know. It seems like something that we should hire a lawyer for, to joust over the legalese for us. All this frustration at the hands of this big company has me constantly thinking of revenge. We have just been treated so poorly, treated like we're stupid, told contradictory things every time we call, never received an ounce of sympathy from that nest of harpies in customer service. Mariam spent the whole day crying today, and that's not the first. Since I can't throw the bricks or slash the tires or rob their safes or picket their bullshit company the way I fantasize (although Chickering is right there in Kendall Square, if any saboteurs are reading...), I would love nothing more than to hire a lawyer to tear them all new ones. We're looking in to it, and to getting financial assistance, and to starting Medicaid for Mariam, and to switching to a midwife now that we have to pay for it all ourselves anyway. We'll see. Sorry for the rant- I feel a little better.

oenie post

Drinking the '05 Ningaloo Chardonnay, which got 90 pts over at Wine Enthusiast. Good chard, but too syrupy sweet for me- I like it a bit dryer (sp?)(too bad 'cause it was $8 for 1.5L). Also tried the '04 Covey Run Syrah, which could be a contender for our house red, once we actually have a house red. Mariam has had a few half glasses of wine during this pregnancy, but for the most part I'm stuck finishing the bottle once it's opened. Which limits my wine drinking. Somewhat. Dad recently accused the rest of us of obviously having a problem with drinking too much. We responded with something like "Schutp up, schtoopid," and then I don't remember the rest. Seriously, do we have a problem? I definitely drink a lot, especially when I'm home with Ma and Brielle, but it doesn't interfere with my life, really. I still do everything I want to do, I think, and don't get fired from jobs or fail school or get in car wrecks. I do occasionally wake up late the next day, or do something stupid like, hypothetically, sing along to my 'downers' playlist out the window at the top of my lungs when we lived in Central Square, and then throw up in the bed. I've been known to pee in water bottles without remembering, with the disasterous consequences you might imagine. I even have a little sparrow-shaped scar on my ankle from a BUI accident (biking under the influence) in college. I was riding wheelies down the street in flip-flops when the chainring came down hard and put a greasy gash under my medial malleolus, and by the time I made it to the ER the next day, they said it was too late to stitch it up. I have a few other stories that I pull out at cocktail parties, but nothing real bad, y'know? So how do you tell if you have a problem? Listen to your gut, I guess, and the Vogt half of my gut says "we're fine."
Went to Peru and Columbia for x-mas and new year's. Great trip, on Noah, so all five star hotels and top notch restaurants, with people carrying our bags and private guides the whole time. Definitely a new way to travel. Our time was regimented, so we didn't have the problem we had in Italy with constantly having to decide what do- for dinner, sights to see, etc. It was all planned out, which was wonderful usually, but did wear thin at times. For this particular setting, it was actually ideal. There are lots of touristy things to do in Peru- ruins, Macchu Pichu, llama farms, colonial mansions, more ruins- so we wouldn't have managed to see as much as we did any other way. By the time we got to Columbia, we were ready for some beach and pool lounging, and we got that, for the most part (one afternoon of touring, where 75% of us snoozed right in front of the poor 'scuse me' guide). We were in Cartagena, which is an amazing city, like a caribbean New Orleans- colorful, packed with delicious food and 24 hour party people. For the New Year's celebration, each square/plaza is filled with tables, and even down the streets leading to the squares. The entire city comes out and eats a late dinner at the tables, which then get pushed to the sides for live bands and dancing, all under the fireworks. You can dance, or eat ceviche, or buy local beers for $1 from the guys wheeling around ice-filled coolers and sit back to watch. I would like to go back at some point.