Tag: health

Bad Words and a bit of Bad Aunt

Looking for some place cheap, safe, and walkable to live. They don’t do a lot of “walkable” in this part of the country, I think. A lot of my neighborhood doesn’t even have sidewalks, or if they do, they’re broken and uneven. Then again, I’m in a food desert, so I can’t really walk anywhere except a dollar store, a “party store” (like a convenience store but mostly booze and lottery), and a pharmacy. But more on this another time, since I dislike where I live and am totally terrified about having to move.

I wanted to slap up a few things I’ve heard and read over the past week or so. Forgive me if I repeat myself. I’ve just now realized that I should cross these off my notepad once I’ve posted them, since I’m too lazy to read older posts. I’m shocked I’m unlazy enough to post at all. Winter makes me very sluggish and more than a little depressed.

“I want to shake the dust off this small town.”

“I didn’t want to shake the boat.”

“He offered her a drink, to which she accepted.”

“They took a sigh of relief.”

“All hell is being let loose.”

These are not by far the worst. A little bad grammar and some mangled idioms.

I watch a lot of documentaries, and you can find a lot of these Bad Words uttered by interviewees, who are always trying to sound smart. Especially police officers, who are trying to sound smart and official/in control.

Seeing the doctor tomorrow, getting some referrals; parts of me need an overhaul. My vision has gotten worse, and I suspect I may have cataracts. Need to have a psychiatrist assess my meds (anxiety & depression). And I don’t even want to talk about the GYN. There’s nothing I hate more than a new GYN. It really takes me a while to get accustomed to a particular person investigating those parts. So I’m hoping I don’t get referred to one of those clinics where I see a different doctor every time. I don’t know if this is something local or new or related to Medicare, but this is one of the things I hate worst about health care since I moved here. The only doctor who seems to be somewhat permanent is my primary – and when I called for an appointment with her, they actually tried to shift me to someone else since my primary had no appointments for three weeks.

I started getting very angry because none of this works if I don’t have the same primary every time. I was so pissed that I got off the phone and called back the next day – and since the day before, an appointment had opened for tomorrow. The three-week thing was a hassle because I’d been told I couldn’t get those three referrals unless I saw the primary first, so that would have been more delay than I wanted.

I find myself very prone to anger lately. Isn’t it the flip side of depression? As is usual in the winter (at least since I moved here), I have fallen into some bad depressive states. Sometimes I feel like I’m turning into my depressed and angry aunt, the mean one. (My only blood aunt, now gone.) She was quick to anger when she thought she was treated badly, which was probably mostly just frustration. She held grudges. She cut herself off from other people. I can only suppose that like me, she was alcoholic and depressed; unlike me, she never got help for either. So maybe I’m not turning into Aunt Mara.

dentist

My neighbor and I (call him Nabes) shop a couple of times a month in the Bulk Store – stuff in bins. But they also have some interesting gourmet items, plus a shelf of hard-to-find candy. They have Clark Bars and Chunkys. So I bought a 100,000 Bar the other day. Alas, the caramel had its way with one of my three-tooth bridges.

I went to the dentist today, which is a very different experience than I’m used to. For one thing, it’s a clinic, so there’s no “my dentist.” (That’s pretty much been the case with every specialist I’ve seen here except my primary.) They don’t use film for the x-rays any more, and the tech doesn’t have to go a block away behind a seven layer metal door. I still had to wear the lead vest, but he stood right next to me.

I’ve also discovered that a cup and little tap and spit sink are antique.

The dentist I saw in Brooklyn, before I moved here five years ago, had a very minimal office. The old-school x-ray set-up, and a spit sink. He also had no receptionist and no computer. He’d answer a phone call while I was in the chair and hondle with some guy over the price of gloves. He was Orthodox, as were a lot of his patients, and he kept prices low. The bridges cost me $1,200 each.

Dr. Kadaa was very fond of the ex and me. The first time I saw Kadaa, my ex had to come with me and hold my hand. I have a “low threshold of pain” in my mouth, and my longtime dentist Steve Markow used to see. (When I was a kid, and Brooklyn Heights was still something of a village, everyone went to Dr. Markow. Steve was in business with his father, so you’d have to ask if someone saw old Dr. Markow or young Dr. Markow. He was cool because he had a mustache and played WNEW-FM on the radio in his office.

Anyway, Dr. Kadaa became very fond of us. He was a family guy, which is basically the case with observant people. Sometimes I’d go in and he’d be on the phone with his son in Israel, demanding to know where he was going for Shabbat. (The one thing I didn’t know I’d miss when I moved to Detroit are Jews. There are basically none here. There are many in ritzy suburbs outside the city, but Detroit is only 2% Jewish. As a lifelong New Yorker, it’s really weird not having Jews around.

Dr. Kadaa was heartbroken when the ex and I broke up. He tried his hand at a little counseling. After the divorce, I got my bridges, one of which was to correct my pointy vampire teeth, third teeth in. I love that one a lot; got to smile big again.

I heard from the ex that Dr. Kadaa’s marriage broke up. That’s a shame and not very usual. I imagine that Orthodox men are pretty helpless without a wife, but the community will find someone. If you believe, it can be a nice life filled with supportive people; but you have to swallow some pretty sexist shit to be an observant Jew.