Up North Confidential

Still Tingling

2010-09-24T18:53:00.000-07:00

Right now I'm watching the PBS reprise of The British Invasion on Ed Sullivan, circa 1966, and I am THERE, swooning over the Beatles, the Animals, Herman's Hermits, the Stones, Gerry and the Pacemakers. AHHHH!

Even though it was a million years ago, I can feel my little girl parts going wild, and I hope to God that screamy, steamy, exciting, amazing feeling stays with me forever.

The first Beatles' appearance on Ed Sullivan: Time stood still. My older sister Linda and I were transfixed in front of the tube. No VCRs or DVDs in those days; you just had to be there. The constant lead-ups kept us planted anyway, despite that torturous segment with the corny Italian mouse puppet Topo Gigio. Topo was Really Bad TV, but the wait was definitely worth it.

Linda and I sat about two inches away from the black-and-white Muntz TV screen, and when George, Paul, John and Ringo, with their long bangs, pegged pants and collarless suits started singing, we started screaming, howling, crying, hugging each other, and we could not sleep that Sunday night. I was in love with George; Linda adored Paul. We sat up in our bunk beds drawing pictures of them on our sketch pads all night. Someday, we vowed, we would meet the Beatles in person.

I traded the Beach Boys for the Beatles that night, and my life would never be the same. Forget about schoolwork or anything else; I was a full-time Beatlemaniac.

Despite all our begging, Linda and I never got to see the Beatles perform; they came to Cincinnati and Detroit; both were too far for our mom to take us -- we were just teenagers and getting there was too far from Dayton, Ohio, where we lived for 18 months during the entire British Invasion.

Years later, at a press conference I attended in Detroit for Linda McCartney's line of frozen vegetarian foods, Sir Paul made a surprise appearance in the back of the room. He was magnificent. I took in his earthy scent as he walked past my seat up to the stage where his wife stood, and once more, time stood still. I couldn't breathe. Beatlemania all over again.

I recorded his melodious voice -- no songs on this occasion -- then returned to my desk at the Detroit Free Press to write up the event. I swooned all afternoon, after screaming in my car.

I still have the microcassette with Paul's voice. It's labeled: "Met the Beatle."

This Is Seriously Creepy!

2010-09-20T14:38:00.000-07:00

So tonight I am sitting here at my desk, 5:45 p.m., and I get a call from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan. It's not a real person on the phone, it's a disembodied questionnaire from my health-care provider, wanting to know if I have access to a computer, where I can sign on to BCBSM.com, which will tell me all kinds of ways to feel great about how they are treating me as a health-care recipient.

Will I sign onto BCBSM.com today? I am asked. No, I say. Well, when you sign on to BCBSM.com you will learn about all the ways you can feel good, or somesuch strangeness that so help me God and I am not paranoid FEELS like BIG BRO is watching me.

It even asked me on a scale of one to five how good I feel today. Then I was asked by the robo female voice whether I had a cat or a dog, because, as she told me, pets make you FEEL better. I kept saying, yes, a cat, but it would not let me say CAT. I had to say YES.

So the conversation concluded with a tip: If there is a TV in my bedroom, I should get rid of it asap and put a radio in my room instead because studies show that people sleep better after listening to a half hour of radio rather than TV. IN THEIR BEDROOMS. BCBSM is in our bedrooms now, making sure that we sleep well.

A week or so ago I got a mailing from BCBSM about how I should manage my asthma. Well, guess what? I have been doing that ever since I found out I have asthma. Like for 20-some years. I take REALLY good care of my seasonally twitchy airways! Totally under control.

I have been getting emails all year wanting me to register to get "perks" from local Detroit corporate entities via BCBSM.com.

A few weeks ago my husband received a note asking him to confirm that we have no additional health insurance. We don't.

But I had eye surgery 10 days ago and wonder if all of this is leading up to a denial of claim. I had my eyelids excised so I could see better. I was literally bruising myself, running into walls and people's shopping carts with my compromised field of vision.

I definitely am seeing better, though I would not wish these swollen lids and down-to-the-cheekbone bruises on anybody.

Here's what I know, and it is disturbing: BCBSM is spending huge amounts of money on a giant PR campaign that is attempting to camouflage the continuing screwing of Michigan's working poor -- and I'm talking many, many disenfranchised journalists.

To wit, from Crain's Detroit Business:

• Attorney General Mike Cox has filed a lawsuit against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and the Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation over a 66 percent premium increase on some Blues customers who purchase Medigap insurance.

The lawsuit charges that OFIR violated the Nonprofit Health Care Corporation Reform Act by approving the increase without providing 60-day notice.

All I can say is: Stop the robo-femme calls. I'm on top of my chronic crap, and doing quite nicely, thanks. I just want to make sure that if a real emergency arrives, BCBSM will rise to the moment.

Hair Today

2010-02-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

I feel lighter, better.

Those mad flaps of hair that hung like two Daschund ears around my face are no more. The Bob Gone Wrong is now on my hairdresser's floor. I can see again without strands in my eyes. I will wake tomorrow without the sleep-induced static electricity that forces hair into my nostrils each and every morning, causing violent sneezes. And I will no longer look like every woman over age 50 who thinks she has to wear hair that conceals her jaw, however saggy, instead of enhancing her eyes and cheekbones.

The bob was cool when I was 17 (above). Even then, I had to sleep on rollers to achieve the effect.

But the pixie is Wash-n-Wear. Ready to go. I feel free. Just like my 10-year-old photo at right.

Now I just have to remember to keep my eyebrows plucked.

More Bacon

2009-01-28T09:23:00.000-08:00

I guess I'm not the only one into pork products these days, as today's New York Times notes in a story about a mighty meaty creation called "The Bacon Explosion," whose recipe can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/dining/281brex.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Bacon%20Explosion&st=cse

I haven't tried the recipe, which frankly looks a little too greasy, even for moi, but if 16,000 people on the web have checked it out, it's certainly worth a try. The fact is, I think the more bad economic news we hear, the more we turn to salty comfort foods.

Believe it or not, I actually ate cereal for breakfast yesterday, something I have not been interested in since maybe October. I'm pretty sure it's because we've had so much sun, which, as the John Denver song so aptly puts it, almost always makes me high.

I threw a handful of dried cherries on top of a bowl o' Go Lean Crunch -- fiberama (8g), with way too much sugar (13g), 9g of protein -- and organic lowfat milk. Was I sated? No. Did I feel hungry in two hours? Yes. So it was a ham, provolone and salami sandwich on 7-grain bread for lunch, and that got me through the rest of the day until dinner, which I made in my cast-iron pan: sauteed chicken, tomato-basil quinoa with salsa on the side, buttered green beans (I'm into frozen organic right now because the ones in the market look gray and are probably grown in toxic chemicals in some faraway land). Much better.

This morning I was back on the bacon-and-egg-for-breakfast bandwagon. I am not so sure it was any less healthful than the cereal. I use a small amount of butter in the pan, fry two eggs, one for me and one for Joe. He and I have devised a good way to make bacon in the microwave, sans much grease, and it comes out very crispy and flat: Layer two paper towels (white is best) on a dinner plate. Place the bacon on top without the pieces touching. Cover with another two pieces of paper towel and layer more on top. Eight pieces are about all this method can handle. Microwave on high, a minute for each piece of bacon, turning the bacon/toweling over halfway through. Remove from microwave with hotpads. Peel the bacon off the toweling. Deelish.

It is another gorgeous day of sun, so I'm heading out to the gym.

More Porking Out

2009-01-26T13:53:00.000-08:00

So just as I am preparing my ridiculously calorie-laden morning meal, I glance at my Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter, whose back page headline shouts: "High Egg Consumption Associated with Diabetes Risk." Okay. Now I feel worse than I did when I got up and read the thermometer outside my window. Zero.

I couldn't sleep all night because I chowed down on too much spaghetti and (ouch) Italian sausage, so here I am making more cholesterol bombs for my bloodstream. I did use high-fiber pasta at least, but man oh man, I've gotta stop eating pork sausage with God knows what inside.

During my all-nighter, I watched Cox Newspapers' Bob Deans interview David Sanger, the New York Times chief Washington correspondent, on C-SPAN's Book TV Show, After Words. I'm fascinated and freaked out by Sanger's new book, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power. Sanger points out that America has been in an economic time warp thanks to our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, just as China has become a superpower supastar. Who's our daddy? China. No kidding--what with every man, woman and child from now until eternity owing China our inheritances and our grandchildren's, too. That interview runs again on Feb. 1 at 11 a.m. so check it out. Or if you can navigate the strange website and download, do it to it. http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=10189&SectionName=

I just read that Iceland's government collapsed today, a huge glacial ice shelf in the Arctic is about to collapse, and because I have not had much sleep, I am teetering on the edge of collapse as well.

So, excusez-moi mes amis, au revoir--I'm heading back down to the kitchen to forage in my freezer for a little more comfort food. Most probably it will be more pork.

The Hunger

2009-01-25T13:42:00.000-08:00

I awake with a gnawing feeling, an insistent primal urge that won't be quieted. My toes slip from satiny sheets into chilly air, onto the cold carpet, into a pair of thick socks, down the hall to the bathroom, the toothbrush, then a flight of stairs, and I'm at the stove, yearning for butter. Yes, the luxurious splendor of butter searing the bottom of a pepper-specked organic egg in my perfectly seasoned No. 10-1/2 cast iron pan, butter melting on a thick slice of ciabatta toast, butter pooling sweetly into its lacy holes. Oh, and why not a few toothsome pieces of applewood bacon or a savory sausage patty from the farm down the road or maybe a Smoky Link?

Yes, so good.

I am now ready to face another day.

Here in farm country, where I am not a farmer but I have been eating like one, this great big breakfast has been my pattern since mid-November, when the Lake Effect snow started falling and never stopped. What, 100 inches so far? I'm eating for 10 people, eating to feel warm, to feel comfort, to feel safe, to feel right.

Yet, believe me, I know better. I can almost hear my arteries clogging from all that sat fat. It's just that this particular winter is a relentless, suffocating blanket that has turned my eaves into icicles and ice dams, roads into skating rinks, meaningful travel into a dream. I don't even want to venture outside.

Staring out from my dining room table at the hilly, frosted tundra, I'm witnessing a black squirrel dragging an entire block of suet from its hanger to the side of the deck, and a chorus line of chickadees, nuthatches, juncos, finches, pine siskins, woodpeckers, mourning doves, in that order, pecking at thistle and sunflower seeds, taking needed sustenance, bearing up in the 2-degree day, yet rejoicing at the rarity of this sunny day. And out beyond the little lake I live on, behind a thin wall of sleet, there's a rainbow. A sleet-bow.

For that, I can rejoice. Here at the end of January, even though the Weather Channel has shown the identical seven-day forecast graphics of snow, week after tedious week, day after day, for two solid months, I have to believe that's a sign that spring just might come early this year.

And that this strange breakfast-eating disorder will cease before my arteries actually do snap, crackle and (gulp) pop.