LoveWeek Still? I love a bargain!

Max and I went Halloween shopping today. To be accurate, this is the 3rd or 4th Halloween shopping event that either involves or focuses on him so far. This is his fault because he looks so adorable in every costume he puts on. Ape? Cute. Dog? Cute. Pooh Bear? Don’t even get me started.

This time I planned to get something, anything, for myself. As usual, I started to seize up with the paralysis of choice. If you ask me ‘what do I want to be?’ I look at you with a fearful and confused look in my eye. What do I want to be? What truly represents me? Why do I over think every decision in my life? Can’t I just pick something and relax?

Well, I found the catalyst that pushed me past the critical decision-making threshold-cheapness! Specifically, a 50% off all Halloween items at Zellers. I won’t pay 15 bucks for a cheap vampire cape, but evidently 7.50 is a perfectly reasonable sum.

A big part of the appeal is the large variety of nonsense I could buy for very little money. Instead of having to carefully pick one costume idea and spend my meager funds on that, I could pick shoddy accoutrements from a bunch of disguise ideas.  I bought the cape, a pair of glow in the dark handcuffs, deluxe makeup kit with vampire fangs and glow in the dark fake nails, a wig and gloves and hat for the wife, a devil mask, and another set of kid-friendly makeup, all for 35 bucks. I hope no one at the store thought I was implying anything about my dear wife when I was asking Max  “should we get a broom and witch’s hat for mommy?”.

Now I can finally realize my secret dream of being a vampire millionaire detective (wasn’t that a show on Fox?). There’s probably a moral to this story, but heck if I know what it is right now. But I do know that relaxing and going with the holiday spirit made the whole thing a lot more fun. I may have reclaimed yet another holiday/special event from my anxious childhood. Score!

LoveWeek continues! Hooray for The Wiggles!

(A note to people without children in their lives: The Wiggles are a musical act who entertain children, not a strange erotic dance for adults)

We went to the Wiggles concert last night, and I am once again overwhelmed with the sheer effort and dedication shown by these gentlemen. when they set out to entertain kids, they put their backs into it. Literally.

This year’s theme was “The Wiggly Circus”, with acrobatics, a ringmaster, new circus-themed songs, all alongside the regular antics of a Wiggles show. Keep in mind that 3 of the 4 Wiggles are over 40.The oldest of the bunch  (Jeff, 57) was up in the air and doing hand stands, and to misquote an old episode of the Simpsons, “let’s see your grandfather do that!”.

From the start of the show until the end they put everything they have into giving a great show for the kids. It’s not for the money, since they’re sitting on giant piles of cash already. It’s not for the fame. They could film one movie a year and have the same rabid fan base, without touring the world every 2 years and playing 2 shows a day in every major nad not so major city.  When you watch them perform, you can see that they believe that what they’re doing is important, and should be done well. Entertaining and teaching the kids is serious work, but they remember that it’s fun work too.

I noticed that they made sure to pick up every rose and picture brought by the audience for Dorothy the Dinosaur, and they read every sign that was held up for them. No matter how much time they had to spend wading through the audience, they reached everyone. Their entire show was designed to focus on the kids out in front of the stage and make them all feel special.

There were several instances where there was a little slip-up or mistake on stage, and each time the Wiggles would acknowledge it and laugh it off. Think about how important a lesson this is for kids. If you’ve ever tried to calm down a hysterical child who is wretchedly disappointed that they made a mistake, you know that learning to cope with your own mistakes is a big deal. I’ve bellyached about my own fear of failure before, so use that as an example of how far into adulthood this can reach.

I am an unabashed fan of the Wiggles. They present an image of everything I want to be as a dad and as a male role model: patient, confident, caring, and committed.

 

Hug A Doctor!

That’s an Order! Wait-make sure they want to be hugged first.Okay, that’s better.

Yesterday I worked as a standardized patient for the doctor certification exam, pretending to have a malady and having a conga line of medical students try to diagnose me. The enormity of the grueling ordeal of becoming a doctor really hit home for me while I was there.

Imagine taking the hardest test of your life, the test that determines whether or not you can work in the job that you’ve spent 7 years in school for (3 undergrad, 4 med school). For the last two years of school, you’ve been a resident, working at the hospital. Your shifts are routinely 12+ hours, and you sleep a few minutes here and there during your shift. On a busy night, you don’t sleep at all. And it could happen that you work one of those shifts right before having to take this wickedly difficult test.

And passing the test doesn’t signal the end of the hard work and long hours. Patients don’t stop being sick after 5PM or on weekends. Every doctor tries to set some kind of work/life balance, but it’s against your very nature to neglect those who need you for the sake of your own life.

Also keep in mind how bafflingly complex the human body really is. You shouldn’t be surprised that you get sick: you should be astounded that you’re ever healthy at all. And we look to these doctors to give us quick and simple fixes to this complicated machine, without ever making a mistake or misjudgment. Talk about pressure.

A special shout out has to go to the one resident who was taking the certification exam and was at least 5 months pregnant. Learning medicine evidently wasn’t enough of a challenge for this brave woman, so she threw in (and possibly up) the most difficult human endeavor, procreation. And, she was a kick ass doctor. I would have that soon-to-be momma doc work on me any day.