My boss sent me on a scavenger hunt.  She said, Go over to Baumgart’s and find some file cards.  That was it.  No specifics, no nothing.  Just find some file cards.  Well, when I finally got out of the taxi and walked into the store, it was very, very crowded.  At 11 AM, right after they’d opened up!  Then, possibly because of my smart, chic outfit, somebody assumed I was working there and started to ask me questions.  (I’d never even been to Baumgart’s before.)  Fool that I am, I admitted not being an employee of the store, but I still decided to try to help her!  I passed what I thought was a group of index cards and made a mental note to come back to that area after I’d helped this desperate person.  We went upstairs to Floor Two.  She told me that she had been having a very hard time finding organizers.  I asked her what she meant by organizers, and she explained that she had a basement full of keepsakes from her childhood.  She was hoping to be able to categorize all the different pictures, items, diaries, etc.  She needed some kind of way of dividing them up and keeping them in separate places, so she would always be able to find things.  Oh, I said.  We looked around a while, walking past legal pads, purses, and kitchen utensils—even tools.  At last, a salesperson approached us, and I yielded to my acquaintance’s problem, making a clean getaway.  I had just hailed a cab and was opening the door to get in the back, when I realized—I’d forgotten about the file cards!  “Never mind!!!” I yelled and slammed the cab’s door and ran back inside the store.  Did he ever give me a nasty look.

When my dad started losing his hair, he searched far and wide for anything that would put a stop to it, but unfortunately his over zealousness to halt his hair loss caused him to make a big mistake.  He embarked on one of the worst hair loss treatments possible – he started taking flaxseed oil.  He had read about some study in a magazine that touted flaxseed oil as a miracle treatment that contained elements that would stimulate follicles and help to re grow lost hair.  What the article failed to inform the readers of, was the fact that flaxseed oil leads to the production of quite a bit of estrogen in the body.  Elevated levels of estrogen is one of the major causes contributing to hair loss, so the treatment he whole heartedly dove into was actually causing him to lose his hair faster than he would have if he had done nothing at all.  It’s a shame really, at this point he should just chop it all off and be done with it, but he’s still trying to cling to the scraps and looking more and more ridiculous every day that passes.  I guess some people just have a harder time letting go than others, because if that were me, the hair would have been gone a long time ago.

Finally I had my lasik eye surgery.  It went really well.  After having visited several states and many doctors and clinics right here at home, I finally had it done.  I can now see perfectly.  No glasses no contacts.  Nothing.  It's like I'm a small kid again.  We had a little celebration and went out to eat.  I had no problem seeing anything, not the menu not the signs for the restrooms, nothing.  Tara was happy.  The only thing she is going to miss is the traveling to different cities and states to question doctors.  It was a kind of vacation thing for her anyway, and that's why I never mentioned anything.  I knew how hard she had been working.  So these three-day trips over weekends were a break.  For me, not so much of a break.  My work never goes away, and shutting down for a weekend would only mean more to do on Monday.  I like to stay current.  But anyway, the operation went well, and after all our looking and searching and  questioning I finally had the procedure done just three blocks away in the city.  This place turned out to be the best of them all.  And it was quick and the doctor really cared.  Now I only hope I don't have any other types of procedures done, as I need to stay home and get some work finished.

My friend Ben used to be a personal injury attorney in Washington, but now he works at NBC and produces the nightly news.  His father was a lawyer, and he thought that he wanted to follow in his footsteps.  He put in the time for law school, and worked in a personal injury law firm in D.C. for a little more than two years, before he decided that the legal profession was not for him.  He quit his job at the law firm, and took an internship with NBC.  He worked for practically nothing for six months while he learned a new job, and got to know the news industry.  He did such a good job that after those six months, he was offered a full time position producing the nightly news.  He has been working in that capacity for almost a whole year now, and he just called me with some very exciting news.  They like him so much there, that he has already been promoted a few times, and now they are offering him choice of three different positions.  They are leaving it up to him to decide what capacity he thinks he will be most useful to them in.     

My Grandmother has always had a hard time getting Grandpa to check his sugar.  He knows it has to be done, but he sure hates doing it.  Even though Grandma is really insistent and on top of things, My Mom says she knows she has to be wearing a little thin with patience and energy over the years.  So my Mom did some research with the help of Grandpa’s doctor, and finally came up with something that will help Grandpa be more willing to do his testing.  It’s something called a Ascensia Elite Test Kit.  She says it contains everything Grandpa needs to keep control of his diabetes in a much, much more comfortable way that what he is doing now.  It’s been many years that he has used basically the same things to test his sugar and keep track of the highs and low of during blood glucose monitoring. Grandma is not opposed to change, but it’s Grandpa who is unwilling to bend.  What she has in mind is the just not try to explain what the benefits are to switching to something new, but to just jump right in there and do it.  It will be a much easier transition.

I thought something like a home security system only existed on TV.  I had never seen or heard of one in real life before.  Sure, I never knew anyone really that rich enough to afford one, but I thought I’d hear about one in the news.  A celebrity or someone on Wall Street would probably have had one.  And they’d mention it in the news when someone tried to break in. Yet, I never did. I only ever saw it when a sitcom wanted to use the old, hackneyed cliché of having a family trapped inside their own house because of their home security system.  And, of course, the password to get free is always something ridiculous like the mother’s birthday or the married couple’s anniversary. Now, here I am newly married and shopping for apartments with my wife, and we’re fairly well off both being financial analysts.  We can afford new appliances, our own garage, a roof deck, Jacuzzi tub, and, yes, even a home security system. Honestly, we’re up on a high rise near the top so I doubt anyone would ever try to break in here.  They might fall a long, long way if they did, but it comes with the apartment.  I can’t really complain so long as I remember the password is my wife’s name “Gloria.”  

The news is something that I have avoided like the plague for several years now.  Television, newspaper headlines, the silly rapport that newscasters have with each other to try to lighten up the air after whatever disasters they’ve just reported on.  I do like to stay up-to-date on what’s happening around the world.  With the war raging in the Middle East, North Korea’s nuclear programs, violence in Africa.  But I could really care less about the bullshit that this year’s presidential candidates are slinging or the latest fiasco surrounding Britney Spears or about the umpteenth idiot who tried to outrun the cops in their rusted automobile.

 It just gets me depressed about the world.  Not that hungry orphaned children in Iraq don’t make me a little depressed but that’s a real problem and while that situation may not affect my life directly, it’s definitely more important in the grand scheme of things than Britney’s latest drunken escapade. 

 Even when I worked at a public relations firm, while all my co-workers would watch the morning shows as they primped for work or read the Red Eye during their morning commute, I would shun the news.  I would stay up-to-date on what was happening with the client accounts that I worked on and would read the many magazine and newspaper clippings that I kept track of for our clients but my interest would end there.

 Occasionally though, I hear about a story being covered on the news that will resonate with me, a story that will get me teary-eyed about a kidnapped child or someone randomly being gunned down.

 Such is the case surrounding Stacy Peterson, the twenty-three year old wife of a former Bolingbrook, IL police sergeant who has been missing since October 2007. 

 I can’t help but think how the media exposure surrounding the case has more than likely helped bring about some answers in regards to her disappearance and has definitely given her family an outlet to help locate her.

 The case makes me think about my own uncle who was brutally murdered a few years ago.  He was a just single man in his fifties, who lived in a shit hole coach house and who probably made a few bad decisions in life.  He had a wife once, decades ago, but she ran off with another man.  His murder never made the news.  After all, he wasn’t a pretty suburban mom with children at home to miss him. 

 Sure, we know what happened to the guy.  His body was found in his own living room but we don’t know why it happened or who was responsible.  The police dusted for fingerprints but they didn’t do a top to bottom search of his apartment.  They only had one agent on the case and there are at least eighty agents on Stacy’s case.

 So, when I think about how invasive the media can sometimes be, I realize that the news can have some benefit.  And while my family never got any answers, I’m glad that Stacy Peterson’s family has the news on their side to try and help them get the answers that they deserve. 

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