A Moveable Feast: My Blog

Finally, Spring!

May 13, 2013 by Carol 4 Comments

The first few years after we moved into our house, I would develop a strange craving every spring for cottage cheese that coincided with the first mowing of the lawn. It took a while for me to realize that it was the chives growing outside that I was smelling.

Somebody living in our home decades ago must have had the great idea that a pot of chives would be a fine addition to the garden. Unfortunately, the darn things propagate like rabbits, so every spring I spend an inordinate amount of time removing them.

Which brings me to why I was out in the backyard last Sunday. Preparing the vegetable garden bed for planting requires pulling not just weeds, but the thousands of chives.

While engaged in the solitary task, a beautiful birdcall caught my attention. “Chhirr, chiirrr, ba da, ba da, ba da” (at least that’s as close as I can come to translating bird). I looked around, trying to find the source of the song. And there it was. Perched on a branch of the tree on the other side of the garden wall was a magnificent crimson cardinal. What made it so special is that the Bradford Pear was in full spring bloom, its snowy white blossoms standing in stark contrast to the bird’s vibrant coloring.

Most photographs of cardinals that I see feature snow covered pine boughs, and are usually associated with Christmas cards. It was refreshing to see this bright representative of spring, especially after the long and arduous winter we had just endured. (Worcester earned the dubious distinction of being the snowiest city in the U.S. this winter.) Blue skies, green foliage, and flowers and birds of every hue are most welcome.

This year’s resolution: Must get outside more to enjoy both the warming weather and the therapeutic benefits of gardening.

Shopping at the Shuk

April 26, 2013 by Carol 1 Comment

One of the highlights of traveling in the Middle East is shopping in the open-air markets known as shuks or souks. Along ancient cobbled walkways dozens, if not hundreds, of stalls sit tucked into arched stone niches, selling spices, colorful scarves, ceramic ware, metalwork, clothing, shoes, and chickens, along with touristy tchotchkes. And the best part of the shopping experience is the bargaining that takes place once a customer decides that he or she wants to make a purchase.

We here in the United States are used to buying things at the listed price, or on sale. We as a general rule don’t negotiate; we don’t feel comfortable doing it.

But in the Middle East, bargaining is part of the culture. It is expected.

“How much does this shawl cost?”

“This is genuine cashmere, 100 shekels, dinars, dirhams.”

“Too much. I’ll give you 30.”

“I can let you have it for 80, and that’s my gift to you since you are my first customer of the day.

“I’ll give you 50. ”

“I can’t make a profit at that price. Give me 75.”

You get the drift. Eventually the customer and the merchant reach an agreement. They compromise on a price. Nobody gets everything, but nobody feels cheated either.

Yes, it’s part of the culture. So, what happens when parties from this mercantile culture sit at the peace negotiating table? Suddenly, this one wants preconditions and that one doesn’t. Parties get up and walk away. Then one party finally does come to the table, mere weeks before the other’s prior agreement is set to expire.

Crazy, completely unproductive, and ultimately harmful to the real people who have to live with the non-decisions.

Perhaps negotiation has degenerated because the diplomats assigned to them are too far removed from the shuk. They have “people” to do everything for them and don’t remember the idea of compromise.

So, my idea, for what it’s worth: Before every scheduled negotiating session, every diplomat involved in negotiations should be required to go shopping. And bargain.

Background Checkbook

April 23, 2013 by Carol Leave a Comment

Just a very quick thought about the recent gun control legislation that didn’t happen in the Senate — despite overwhelming popular support. What, exactly, is the NRA so afraid of? If all their members are indeed “law abiding citizens” simply concerned about their Second Amendment rights, then what about background checks bothers them? If they are so innocent, what are they worried the justice system might find? A parking ticket isn’t going to disqualify them from owning a gun, is it? A speeding ticket?

On the other hand, if an applicant’s resume is so rife with criminal activity that a background check raises red flags, then perhaps he or she should be disqualified from owning a deadly weapon.

“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people” is the old bumper sticker quote. But, it is people with guns who kill people. And too often, it is the very ones they are closest to who die. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 80% of murder victims are killed by family and friends — precisely those who are likely to be in the home.

Not intruding strangers.

So, what does the NRA fear?

The Queen Bee

April 4, 2013 by Carol Leave a Comment

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, titled “The Tyranny of the Queen Bee,” Dr. Peggy Drexler reported that the vision of a kinder, gentler corporate world with women in leadership positions was more pipe dream than reality. Women in leadership positions are not serving as mentors to the women under them. Rather, they are either ignoring them or deliberately sabotaging their efforts.

While disappointed, I was not surprised. My own research in social psychology indicated that even regular worker-bees can be just as manipulative and treacherous as any queen, and not all that different from the mean girls we all knew in high school.

In my studies, young men and women were assigned simple geometry puzzles to solve, but were given phony scores indicating either “success” or “failure” on the tests. When told their partners’ scores, the men attributed their female partners’ success to their skill, their failure to bad luck or difficulty of the material. The women, on the other hand, attributed their female partners’ success to luck, their failure to inability and incompetence.

The bell curve being what it is, not all of these young women could have been queen bees. Nor can my results be explained by geography since I conducted my research on both the East Coast and in the Rocky Mountains.

What gives me pause is that I conducted my studies decades ago, at the height of the feminist movement, when women (we were not to be called “girls”) were talking about sisterhood and empowerment and equality. What happened to the promise of a brighter future?

If sisterhood requires demeaning our siblings, and empowerment means kicking the legs out from under our colleagues, then it appears feminism itself needs a re-think. We have been blaming men/the system/the fill-in-the-blank for generations now for our inability to break the metaphorical glass ceiling. Perhaps some of our failure can be attributed to the fact that we have been holding our sisters by the ankles so that they can’t climb the ladder.

The Devil Wears Prada

March 11, 2013 by Carol 1 Comment

I am standing at the airport, in one of those Disney-esque rope lines that snake back and forth across the floor. Business people are checking their iPhones, kids are fidgeting but are, curiously, fairly quiet. No whining, no rude noises. Everybody is polite and courteous, excited about, or perhaps resigned to, their upcoming travels.

Slowly but surely we progress through the check-in line. I look around to keep my mind occupied, and spy a beautiful pair of Prada leather boots on the designer jeans-clad young woman three positions ahead of me. I had seen these exact boots at Saks and know that this is a person who spares no expense to project an image of edgy sophistication. A buttery soft, brown leather, the buckled pair cost almost a thousand bucks, so she must have either a very good job or a really nice trust fund.

The young woman reaches the airline ticket agent, and begins to speak. Her voice is youthful and pleasant, and while not at all loud and brassy, it does project. Although I don’t recognize her (after all, I can just see her from the back), there is something familiar about her that niggles at my brain. I focus on her long chestnut tresses, trying to figure out how I know her. Was she ever a student of mine? Is she perhaps one of my kids’ friends? Is she the teller at my bank? I search my memory bank, but come up empty.

Then suddenly it hits me.

It’s Rachel, from cardholder services. As awareness breaks, I feel a burning rage build up inside me, from the deepest level of my gut, up through my chest, and then out my mouth.

“You!” I shout. “You are Rachel! The Rachel who calls me incessantly at work, at dinner, even — damn you — during “The Big Bang Theory!”

And I jump upon her sorry ass, pummeling her until …

I bolt upright in bed, my heart pounding like a thoroughbred at Saratoga. My mouth is parched, so I grab the glass of water on my nightstand and take greedy, desperate gulps. Then I dust off my old Lamaze breathing technique, hoping to slow the 130 beats per minute so that I might actually fall back asleep. So that I don’t have a heart attack.

But, as I breathe in and out, calming myself, I know that I have seen the devil, and that she does indeed wear Prada.

Strapping on the Mary Janes

March 4, 2013 by Carol 1 Comment

Just this past week I read of Lyle Craker, a professor at the University of Massachusetts who studies medicinal plants. He cannot get permission from the federal government to grow marijuana for medical research. This, despite the fact that nineteen states (Massachusetts being the 18th) allow for the use of so-called “medical marijuana” to east the sometimes debilitating effects of serious illness.

Medical marijuana. These two little words can make normally rational people cringe, and I have to say that I do not understand this reaction. After all, about 40 percent of our prescription medicines come from plant extracts or synthesized plant compounds. Plant-based medicines are everywhere and probably occupy a bottle or tube (or ten) in your bathroom cabinet or the bottom of your purse.

I don’t personally indulge in recreational drugs, and I thank God that I have not had to deal with any of the issues that seriously ill people have to face. But, let’s separate the recreational from the medical arguments for and against legalizing marijuana. And let’s forget the old-wives’ tales on gateway drugs. Let’s talk science.

Developing life-saving medicines from plants has been going on for millennia. One of the earliest such uses, recorded in the Ebers Papyrus from ancient Egypt (c. 1550 BCE), is a prescription for cannabis sativa, used as a topical treatment for inflammation. Others include:

Penicillin, developed from mold

Aspirin, from willow bark

Thymol, a powerful antifungal and antiseptic, from thyme

Quinine for malaria, from the Cinchona tree

Menthol, from mint

As for marijuana, scientific studies conducted by reputable researchers at renowned medical centers have demonstrated the following encouraging results:

A compound derived from marijuana could stop metastasis in many kinds of aggressive cancer.

Marijuana has been shown to help people suffering from depression.

Marijuana has been shown to help people suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Marijuana has been shown to help people suffering from the pain, depression, and weight loss experienced with advanced AIDS.

Marijuana-like chemicals trigger receptors on human immune cells that can directly inhibit a type of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) found in late-stage AIDS.

If we can save lives, or even help alleviate severe pain and discomfort, then let’s do it already. Let’s stop this nonsense about refusing to allow even the growing of the plant for medical research. That our elected leaders continue to obstruct medical research is an embarrassment. It makes us look stupid.

If clinical testing proves that marijuana itself, or medications developed from it, can help combat disease or allow seriously ill people to cope better with pain, nausea, and other symptoms, then let’s take the next step: regulate it as a pharmaceutical product should be.

And distribute it as a trusted medicine should be distributed. Asking people to go to dispensaries that look more like head shops than legitimate pharmacies is not only inconvenient. It’s insulting and disrespectful of people who are already suffering enough.

So, what am I missing here?