The End of an Era? I Hope it's the End of a Losing Era

ב"ה

So yet another promising baseball season ends without the Mets making it to the post-season. In my opinion, it's not that the Mets don't have good players. Reyes, Wright, Beltran, add to them Ike Davis, Angel Pagan and lately Ruben Tejada (I think if we could either get back Frenchie or if Bay would come back, we would have a solid starting line-up).

Lately, Lucas Duda and Nick Evans have been making some noise (I like Nick Evans -- I think he's a good young player and I've been watching him for a while).

I wonder what Gil Hodges (am I showing my age????) would have done with the current team. I like the new (and some of the old???) pitchers. K-Rod is a huge question mark (holy Plaxico Burris, Batman! Talk about "shooting yourself in the foot"!) -- wish he weren't such an idiot from a human perspective. Dickey has been the best surprise, but Gee and Niese.

So I hope this bodes well for next year, particularly with a new GM and manager. Here's to 2011! May it be our best year yet!!!!

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Frenchie's Toast

ב"ה

The sports news lately has been very depressing. The Mets have been raising losing to a new art.

But last night's sports news added to this -- not only did the Mets lose, but they traded away a player who I have considered a bright spot in the dim haze of the Mets' 2nd half of this season. I know he hasn't been hitting well (who on the Mets has???) but his arm is worth a few home runs a week, in my opinion.

I'm a real Mets chauvinist, so if I like any players from another team, particularly the Braves or the Phillies, it's generally because I see something in that player that I think would work with the Mets and help the Mets. Jeff Francoeur was just such a player.

In a previous blog entry, I spoke of how much Jeff Francoeur gives to the team. I think his infectious smile also makes him a favorite with fans. This is good for the morale of the fans and the players, in my opinion.

I don't know about other fans, but I'll miss Jeff Francoeur. I think there are different dimensions each player can give to a team and when you are trying to build a winning team. The Mets have (and have had) the talent; they just need to work together in a cohesive manner to truly be a winning team. This is something the Mets don't have right now, and trading away Jeff Francoeur takes away just one more element from the equation.

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington

Folk Hero or Obnoxious Man?

B"H

It's amazing how quickly Steve Slater, a flight attendant who claimed that he was fed up with rude passengers, cursed over the loudspeaker, grabbed a beer and slid down the safety slide has become a "folk hero" of sorts (sort of in the category of Bernhard Goetz, I would think). It seems that service workers seemed to identify with Mr. Slater.

I was reminded of a few things in my life when this happened. My mom didn't believe for one moment that Mr. Slater was justified because recently I (who usually get along quite well with the flight attendants, often talking to them on long flights) had an incident with a flight attendant. A few months ago, I was on a flight (a puddle jumper with only one flight attendant) and had some difficulties with a nasty flight attendant. It started when he refused to let me go to the bathroom before the flight left the gate. It continued (I don't recall what the second "thing" was) and came to a head when he wouldn't give me more water (I'm diabetic and need a lot to drink or I get dizzy). So on one of my myriad trips to the bathroom, I saw an open water bottle and took it from the galley and brought it back to my seat. When "Mr. Personality" saw me with the bottle, he tried to take it from me, wrestling with me over the bottle. When he realized he would not be able to take the bottle from me, he crushed it rather than allow me to drink from it. He had the Captain call ahead and I was met by a woman who I assumed was supposed to escort me out of the airport, but when I told her what happened, she laughed and realized that I wasn't some crazed terrorist or criminal, intent on disruption their flight. I laughed the whole thing off (after sending a narrative of the event in an e-mail to the airlines and promptly put the incident in the cobweb covered filing cabinet in the nether regions of my brain and didn't think about it again until Mr. Slater's incident -- and it took my Mom reminding me for me to extract this from it's place in my brain).

This past week, on Undercover Boss, there was a repeat of an episode about a CEO of a mail order business (I forget the name) was working undercover with a customer service phone employee who was rude to a customer and he was livid. He later told the employee that this was totally unacceptable.

This also reminded me of when I was working many years ago as a teller at Chase Manhattan. I often worked the "deposits only" line and I was also the teller that one of the "not exactly by the book, but let's help the customer" officers (whose name was John and he later was the president of a smaller branch) used to bring the upset customers to (because he knew that I would do whatever he asked me to do even if it wasn't "by the book").

One day, John brought over someone who was really upset. The customer continued to complain while I was taking care of him. I finished the transaction, handing him his receipt, smiled and said, "have a nice day" and he left. The next customer was a regular of mine and so I started chatting with him. He started staring and I asked him what the problem was and he said that he was shocked that I could take that abuse and still be my normal cheerful self. I shrugged and told him that I knew the customer wasn't angry with me, just the bank. I'd been on the other side myself many times.

On that episode of "Undercover Boss", there was also an employee who was able to diffuse just about any customer with his charm and "let's make this right" attitude. He personified the cool customer service representative and he managed to resolve issues, feeling that it was his job to have the customer feel good after the call. I have experienced people like that too, in between the obnoxious "I'm right, you're not!" people.

So what's the real story with Mr. Slater? I don't know. But he's no folk hero to me.

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Israel and it's Place in the World
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Strong Biblical Women
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Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
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Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington

Healthy Body, Healthy Mind

B"H

I'm a long time vegetarian and vegan (33 and 21 years respectively). Though I didn't make either decision (giving up meat/poultry/fish/leather/fur first and then adding dairy/eggs/lanolin etc. to the list) for health reasons. But somewhere along the line I did begin to be interested in health and nutrition and, of late (within the past 5-10 years I suppose) I've been downright obsessed with it. Health and nutrition books populate my bookcases and I subscribe to several health and nutrition magazines and newsletters.

About the same time I "went vegan", I also stopped taking medications. I don't even take aspirin. Most people find this very surprising (many even find it hard to believe). There are situations where I might take medication (particularly if it would be to treat an acute infection or injury) but I would then have to deal with the "fallout" (for example, taking antibiotics causes an imbalance in the body of bacteria vs. yeast -- for the most part, they keep each other in check, but antibiotics kill all bacteria without regard for whether or not it is helpful to the body's function -- if I were to need to take antibiotics then after I would have to pump up my body on probiotics and prebiotics).

One of the reasons I read a lot about health and nutrition is that I need to read about supplements and herbs to know which ones help the body regain equilibrium (as in how to treat different health issues to assist your body in healing itself).

Toward that end, I read a lot about this subject. My Mom has even "jumped on the bandwagon" (not that she doesn't take any medication, but she also takes supplements, etc.) -- this began when she went to a doctor for some muscular pain she was having. The doctor asked her what she wanted him to do. All he could recommend is semiannual cortisone (or something similar????) shots, something that, thank goodness, she cringed over the very idea of.

I had just been reading in one of my health newsletters about vitamin D and how prevalent vitamin D deficiency is, particularly in seniors, particularly in people who avoid the sun and particularly in the Northeast (all three conditions apply to my Mom). And, as it turned out, one of the symptoms was muscle aches. So she tried increasing her vitamin D and within days, the aches went away.

A few days ago, she had a bit of food poisoning (she thinks, anyway) and I gave her ginger tea (hot water with a few slices of ginger root in it) and, voila! Within a short time, she was feeling better.

I myself take many supplements, including vitamin D, vitamin B complex, niacin and niacinimide, and iodine. Some I take on my own (though I run them by my alternative medical practitioner) and the others I take on the advice of my alternative medical practitioner. With the help of these supplements, I have lowered my blood pressure, my cholesterol (though I think my vegan diet made the biggest dent in the cholesterol since I eat precious little saturated fat and no cholesterol).

So I was pretty intrigued by an article about The 12 Most Dangerous Supplements. I was curious as to how many of them I had heard of (7) and how many I had ever taken (none). The ones I might have considered taking (and with herbal preparations one should always either do research or discuss with their medical practitioner (allopathic -- that's MDs -- or alternative -- naturopaths, osteopaths, chiropractors, etc.) or both (with me, I try to do both)) I checked out more carefully only to discover that they have negative side effects that I wasn't too keen on (so I never tried them).

It's ironic, from my perspective, that they spend so much time and effort trying to make it seem as though thousands upon thousands of people are dying from taking bad supplements. But they ignore the myriad side effects of medications.

Just about every day I see commercials from some law firm trying to find victims of this or that medication (Avandia is the big one right now, but there are so many drugs with potentially fatal side effects that once Avandia isn't there another one will pop up). So why is there such a fuss made of supplements and herbal preparations?

Too many people just follow what their doctors say. But most of the doctors just take symptoms and make a diagnosis and from the diagnosis they pick a medication from the a list and write a prescription for it. Doctors get most of their information about drugs from the pharmaceutical company representatives, who convince the docs that these are the only solutions to these specific issues. So most people are putting their faith in the drug companies. And I think most of them are doing this without understanding the consequences.

Most drugs work by suppressing a symptom, whereas most nutrient supplements and herbal preparations work by helping the body heal itself. What happens with drugs is that they suppress a symptom (say high blood sugar) but they haven't been proven (and in many cases, as a matter of fact, they have been proven to NOT) to save lives. Oftentimes, they cause more deaths than they save. (An example is diabetes drugs -- there was a study to see what would be the ideal dosage of diabetes medications that would prevent heart attacks in diabetics. What they found -- they had to stop the study early -- was that the drugs themselves caused more heart attacks! Everyone was surprised even though this also happened in the late 1960s when they tried this with diabetes drugs from that era!

I think people need to remember that the doctors won't have to live with the consequences of their prescribing. Only the patient has to live (or die?) with the fallout. So it behooves everyone to take control of his/her own health. Do more research, read magazines and books. Be an advocate for yourself and your family members.


Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington

Be it Ever So Humble......

B"H

After a majorly pathetic road trip, the Mets are back in the friendly confines of Citi Field. The bats woke up (and my main man Jeff Francoeur hit a home run) and, the first game against the Cardinals felt better than the anxiety of the previous good pitching/ practically no hitting games of the road trip.

I just wish they could stay on a winning streak. Granted, they did win 2 out of 3 from the Cards, but so far they split the two games with the Arizona Diamondbacks (who are supposed to be one of the worst teams in the majors -- so far, as of tonight, they have lost 4 games to the D-backs and only won one game. This doesn't exactly fill me full of warms and fuzzies. Now I realize that as a Mets fan, I have learned to rejoice at the small victories, the home runs, the triples, the stolen bases, the walk-off victories (there are so many of the walk-off losses this season). And tonight's game (which I was able to see part of since it was still going after Shabbat -- the Sabbath) was one of those small victories. Thanks to a double by David Wright driving in the tying runs and a triple by Feliciano, who was driven home by a sac-fly by Beltran (for the second out of the 9th), the Mets pulled off a win (before having to go into extras, where they are totally pathetic this year).

I have to preface what I'm going to say now with a bit of a disclaimer: I never wanted Jason Bay to get injured. I don't even like it when players on teams I hate (like the Phillies and the Braves) get injured. But I'm happy that Francoeur is playing.

Francoeur adds something to the team, IMHO, even when he isn't hitting. Because of his arm, runners often stop at third, afraid of being thrown out at the plate. Add that to the number of runners he does throw out at the plate and he probably saves a significant number of runs. A run kept from scoring is just as much help to the team as an RBI, IMHO.

Angel Pagan, Thank G-d, is hitting and fielding well. I think he has proven his worth to the team and Carlos Beltran is starting to come into his own after coming back from the long-term disabled list. I personally think that Francoeur is the natural choice for the third outfielder, especially with Bay not hitting up to par. I don't totally understand why all the announcers and commentators are taking it as a fait accompli that Bay should be the 3rd outfielder. I vote for Francoeur.

(Let's Go Mets!)

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):
Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
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I Lost on Jeopardy, Part VI

ב"ה

(One paragraph from the previous entry:)

After the taping of our show ended (I came in third, so I would get $1,000, not the $6,300 on my lectern at the end of the game, Pat came in second, so he would get $2,000), Pat and I were told we could stick around for the taping of the next show or go back to the hotel. Pat decided he’d like to stay for the next show and I didn’t want to go back to the hotel alone, so I stayed too. After the next show, Jack (who had won our game but lost the next, so he won two days all told) and another man (who’s name I can’t recall – oy! – I feel bad because he was really nice and I introduced him to my Mom in the hotel later on – he was a tall handsome African-American man who I think was in his late 30s to late 40s – I’m a terrible judge of age, though) lost to Samantha, a local who wasn’t staying at the hotel. So the four of us went back to the hotel (we split the cab 4 ways and it came out to, with tip, about $4 a person).

Because I now had a lot of time and nowhere to go, I called my cousin who lives just outside Los Angeles (we had spoken on Monday night about her taking us out Tuesday night) and she told me when she’d be there (and I told her the address of the restaurant we wanted to go to – it was the same kosher restaurant that sent food for my Mom when we got there – it was the only kosher restaurant I had called that had food on the menu that I’d be able to eat with my restricted vegan diet rather than them saying they’d make something for me). My Mom and I hung out for a while until she got there. It was a lot of fun going out with my cousin (who I think I’d only seen once in 20 or so years) – she also took us grocery shopping.

The next day, a long time cyber friend of mine (10+ years I think) who lives in Los Angeles and whom I had never met before had the opportunity to meet in person (whenever he was east, we never could get together). So he came and picked us up and took us again to the same restaurant. We had a wonderful time with him (my Mom found him charming). I was disappointed that we didn’t get to meet his wife (she was at work that day) but at least I got to meet him. After lunch, he took us back to the hotel where we packed and got ready to go to the airport for our
"red-eye" back to the east coast.

The trip home was uneventful. But after that came the waiting. Well, first I had to take care of some business. As I mentioned earlier, there was a question that I thought my answer was correct that I was called wrong on. So I checked some sources, just to make sure I wasn’t grasping at straws, and my sources said that my answer was also correct. (The "answer", in a category that the "questions" needed to start with "SP", was something to the effect that “this started in 1957 with the launching of Sputnik” and I buzzed in and said, “what is the ‘space race’?” and I was called wrong, Pat buzzed in and said, “what is the ‘space age’?” and was given credit for a correct answer.) So I called Robert and he told me I needed to write a letter to Maggie and explain the whole “deal”, which I did. This was back in November, within a week of returning from California. I didn’t hear anything for a long time….

Being home, I now had to wait almost 2 months before the show I was on would air. We got home November 13th and the show wasn’t aired until January 12th. But we had to get ready to go to my nephew’s Bar Mitzva in December, so the activity of getting ready for the Bar Mitzva and being at the Bar Mitzva and visiting with my brother’s family helped. I kept telling people to watch me on January 12th.

January 12th came along and I tried to remind everyone I could (my family, my cousin who I saw in California, my friend who I saw in California, though he missed it since he thought it was Tuesday, not Monday, my High School classmates – we have an on-line yahoo group – my best friends, etc.). Because at the time we got Jeopardy twice in our viewing zone (once from the Long Island affiliate at 5 pm, again on the NY “owned and operated” at 7 pm), I taped it twice. Another friend taped it and I ended up with enough copies to send one to my sister (who lives out of the country) and another to my brother (who has a computer but no TV) so that my nieces and nephews could see me. My other brother, who lives near my sister, came to visit in early February and saw it then.

A few weeks after the show aired, I finally got a letter back from Jeopardy about the “space race” question. They checked their sources and also came to the conclusion that I was correct. But, they reasoned, I wouldn’t have won anyway (they didn’t take into account the part that this threw me – I could, in my brain, hear my brain yelling at my eyes to look at the lights but my eyes fell into the “being at home” routine of keying into Alex’s voice, so I was slow on the buzzer and, because of that, there were two “answers” I buzzed in on, since I could get through because no one buzzed, that I knew I had the wrong “questions” for – I lost a total of $3600 on those two “answers”, this extra $3600 would have put me into striking range of the leader when I later hit the “Daily Double”, which I got correct, but they had their own way of figuring, and I didn’t argue), but I might have ended up in 2nd place, so they gave me the 2nd place prize ($2,000 instead of the $1,000 for 3rd place). And I didn’t have to go back to California! (That second part I was particularly pleased about – I’m not cut out to be a Californian.) This was good, since the trip there, between airfare for two and two days in the hotel, cost me almost the original $1,000. This left me with some money to put towards my business.

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Strong Biblical Women
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Ruth and Naomi
Strong Biblical Women 5: Tamar -- Mother of Kings
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Strong Biblical Women 7: Miriam
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
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Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
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About the Jewish Calendar
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Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Purim, Esther et al
Being an internet small business owner
Why I'm a Red Sox fan
Pythagorean Theorem
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Why Should anyone hire Me?
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
My experience on Jeopardy
Project:Runway and how it got me excited about designing again
Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
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Holy 1962, Batman! Where have you gone, Marv Throneberry?

ב"ה

I think by now you all know that I'm a Mets fan -- an incurable Mets fan. I don't root for the Mets only when they win. I stick with them through thick and thin (and, believe you me, there has been way more "thin" than "thick"). I'm one of those people who loves my teams win or lose.

Anyway, I've been watching the game on and off today and, now that it's finished, I can finally say "Yay! -- they finally won!!!!!" (so now they're 3 and 6 for the season I think -- they've played 3 series and won 1 game in each series) -- Ok, so I rejoice on the small victories, what can I say????

Once upon a time, the Mets were an expansion team. Marv Throneberry was one of the players who sort of embodied the team -- he was lovable, but pathetic. As were the Mets in those days. In their first year, they won 40 games and lost 120. I think that put them in the record books. One of their pitchers, Roger Craig, almost tied the record for straight losses -- he lost 18 straight and the record was 19. There's a story about the early Mets -- there was a game they played once where they scored 19 runs. They told a man on the street about this and his response? "Did they win?" (They did -- they beat the Cubs 19-1)

In any case, for today, I'm happy. Tomorrow???? (Well, I can't watch the game tomorrow anyway, so I won't know the results until after שבת -- Shabbat -- the Sabbath)......

Let's go Mets!

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Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
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Check out my squidoo lenses (articles):

Jewish Wedding Customs
Going to a Wedding Single
Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Ruth and Naomi
Strong Biblical Women 5: Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Strong Biblical Women 6: Yocheved -- Mother of Moshe (Moses)
Strong Biblical Women 7: Miriam
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Purim, Esther et al
Being an internet small business owner
Why I'm a Red Sox fan
Pythagorean Theorem
My Blogs
Top 10 Presidents
Bottom 10 Presidents
How Can We Appeal to G-d for Forgiveness?
Math Tips 2
Searching for a Fashion Partner
Math Hints 3
One Actor, Two Shows (TV Quiz)
Presidential Tidbits
Why Should anyone hire Me?
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
My experience on Jeopardy
Project:Runway and how it got me excited about designing again
Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
My Vocational Experiences
Check out my Stress Release Mix list