The Oppenheimer Report 2/25/13

Last Thursday we sat in our SUV, along  with the tens of thousands of Toronto commuters heading home, racing up Hwy 400 at a snail's pace to our place up north. It was with a certain amount of trepidation that Shauna and I left her parents in Toronto, having lived with them at that point for well over 2 months. For the sake of our sanity and because we had bills to pay and business to attend to at home, we packed up the car and headed up. I am somewhat comforted with the idea that the three women we have on rotation to assist Shauna’s parents are trustworthy and competent, but we still need a reliever in the mix for scheduling SNAFUs. Of course the big hurdle, which I hope we have cleared, was to make it apparent, especially to Shauna’s mom, that the assistance was necessary. She is once again making noises about driving, and this stubborn grip on eroding independence is ongoing and problematic. Now that we are gone, the caregivers will have much more to do, and hopefully Mom Taylor will understand this and accept the help willingly. Shauna will keep in touch via Skype, a land line, and by text. This is when advances in technology pay off for us. All of our caregivers have smart phones and laptops, so we can actually see what is going on in the house. I know Shauna will be in constant contact. When my parents were at this stage in their lives, I spoke to them or their nurses every day, sometimes two or three times per day. Now that they are both gone, I still find myself reaching for the phone for a progress report.

My rant du jour involves salt. Having just spent the past two months or more shopping and cooking for elders, it was my job, among other things, to ensure that I was mindful of their salt intake. As much as I have had the evils of salt drummed into my head, it never occurred to me how much of it is in all the food we eat. From my research, a typical low sodium diet, prescribed for those with high blood pressure, is around 2000mg per day, and less for those who are more at risk. That’s not much. I tasted one of those low sodium meals once when I had a leftover from a Meals on Wheels delivery one day, and it was horrible, virtually tasteless. When I started looking at the labels on the foods I was buying, I was shocked at some of the foods containing a lot of salt. Kellogg’s Raison Bran has over 250 mg for a typical serving. Wheat Chex has even more, and a lot of sugar to boot. One sixth of a loaf of store bought pound cake - 320mg of salt. One slice of bread can have as much as 250mg of salt in it. There is salt in everything, and while I knew this, I just didn‘t realize how much. A couple of hot dogs and you’re over the limit. The real culprits are all the pre-packaged-pop-in-the-microwave-package-to-plate-in-two-minute frozen dinners. Check out the salt in a typical Stouffer’s frozen entry. Rule of thumb, if it tastes good, it has too much salt in it. So I figured I’d make meals from scratch and use the “No Salt” salt substitute. Not so fast. It turns out that the no salt substitute can interfere with the efficacy of some of the medications the Taylors both take. This is one of the problems we have had and one of the reasons to consult a pharmacist with a list in hand of all medications, vitamins, etc. the elder takes. Drug interactions become a larger issue when one is taking ten or twenty pills in a day. I understand some vitamins taken at the wrong time can render vital medications ineffective.

The Academy Awards ceremony was last night, and I watched along with the rest of the star struck world. I only watch to see who’s wearing who. Once again we have not seen any of the movies nominated. Argo won for best picture. Predictably, Daniel Day Lewis won best male actor for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln. My friend Bob saw the movie and described it as follows: Lincoln talks a lot and then gets shot. Typical cut-to-the-chase Bob. Silver Linings Playbook looks like it might be good, and I’d like to see Life of Pi, having enjoyed the book. I am a little behind in my movie “to see” list. I finally saw Desperately Seeking Susan last week, which I recall wanting to watch when it came out, back in 1985. It is my ongoing quest to see a Madonna movie that does not completely suck. I enjoy movies from the 70s and 80s for the time capsule effect, because they are dated and reflect our evolving culture … big hair, glam rock, trendy music, giant cell phones, obsolete computers. Shauna hates Quentin Tarantino, probably because he is rather neurotic and a little creepy, and because his films tend to be bloody and violent. I like what he does and can’t wait to see his latest homage to the spaghetti western, Jango, Unchained, for which he received the Oscar for best original screenplay. I set the bar pretty low - Bride of Chucky is one of my favorites.

Time to begin putting my tax receipts in order. Make hay while the phone isn’t ringing.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 2/18/13

Lemme outta here!!!! The plan is for us to go back up north early this week. We have stayed in Toronto much longer than we had anticipated, but in fact we have stayed as long as was necessary. The idea was to make sure we did not have to keep coming back every three or four days to put out a new fire. The big challenge late last week was to convince my mother-in-law that she should give up driving. At 88 she was probably still capable of operating a vehicle, but it was clear to everyone, including her doctor, that it was a good time to quit. She had not driven for two months, it’s wintertime, and she has some serious mobility issues which will impair her reaction times. With its aggressive drivers and its omnipresent rush hour mentality, Toronto is a challenging city for any driver, and it is more so for the elderly. As well, Mom Taylor should not go anywhere unattended at this point, and none of the caregivers will drive with her if she is behind the wheel. I took her out grocery shopping the other day, and she was having trouble simply putting the heavier packages in her shopping cart. We tried to explain to her that she needed to quit while she was “on top of her game,” and for her husband’s sake, but it did not go over well. While we have a potential driver/caregiver ready to help, Mom’s reaction was not unlike that of Jessica Tandy’s wonderful character in Driving Miss Daisy. Like so many of the other don’t-shoot-the-messenger discussions we have had over the past year, this one was stressful. I still have my own father’s driver license somewhere in my files, and it did not expire until well after he did. Technically, he was still legal to drive long after he was 98 and lying in his death bed! Shortly before he gave up driving - in his case at the direction of his doctor - he drove me over to the local hardware store near our house in Buffalo. I thought he drove quite well (he was about 90 at the time), but when it was time to leave the store he handed me the keys because, and I quote, “I don’t like to make left turns onto Delaware Ave.” Honestly, I cannot understand why the state or the province does not monitor elder competence more comprehensively. Elders are periodically required to submit to an eye test and a written test, but why not a road test as well? Should elder drivers not be flagged on some database; doesn’t that seem like common sense? It might prevent a lot of dangerous driving if the issuing authorities better screened at risk drivers. After the age of 80, say once every year or two, one must prove one is safe to drive. If you pass the road test, off you go. I’d hate to be one of those examiners though.

Last week in the news, Christopher Jordan Dorner shot himself to death. He was the ex-LAPD cop responsible for all those four vengeance murders. I don’t know why he snapped when he was dismissed from the LAPD in 2009; he certainly wasn’t the first black man to have a legitimate beef against the LAPD. Still, he murdered four innocent people, and I am astounded by the number of supporters who are now painting him as some kind of vigilante hero. Then again, there are a lot of people in America who think Snookie is a bona fide celebrity. Someone even likened Dorner to the Minute Men in the American Revolution, fighting for truth and justice. There are social media sites springing up all over to honor and praise him. Perhaps this is a telling sign of the times that so many people are against “the man.” Cold blooded murder is just that to me, and regardless of whether or not this guy had legitimate claims against the LAPD, or if he is deemed a martyr by some, he is in my opinion a murderer and a criminal. His advanced military and police training made him a double threat and I’m glad he took himself out of the gene pool.

Did you see the pictures and/or video of that meteorite that landed in Chelyabinsk, Russia? Reportedly more than thousand people were injured, a lot of them by glass shattering from the impact of the sonic boom. The force of that boom was so strong it collapsed a brick wall. That bang would have scared the crap out of me, and this was a relatively small rock (maybe 3 meters in diameter). Scientists assure us it was merely a coincidence that it occurred within 14 hours of when the bigger, tracked asteroid (DA14) passed so close to earth. While 27,000km may seem like a long way off, it’s a near miss relative to our solar system, and had that puppy made contact, it would have rendered global warming a non issue. Apparently they can track the big rocks but not the little ones. It’s just a matter of time (2-2,000,000 years?) before the next one becomes a serious threat to Mother Earth. When will the next big asteroid become a meteoroid and perhaps a meteorite? Just the other day I learned the difference, and am now showing off my newfound knowledge (something most inquisitive 3^rd graders probably knew already). Will it be cosmic karma that takes us all out like the dinosaurs? I look at it this this way: Snookie and Honey Booboo might be the canaries in the coal mine.

No wonder the Pope his hanging up his robe.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 2/11/13

As I sit here beginning to write this week’s report in my “office” (Shauna’s rather tiny old bedroom in her parent’s house) it is snowing pretty hard outside and our Miniature Schnauzer Jasper is snoring loudly beside me. She sleeps beside me every night, which is no problem on our king bed up north, but becomes a little more problematic on this tiny twin bed. Jasper is a notorious bed hog, and for a shrimpy17 lb dog she has an uncanny ability to make her sprawled out body as large, heavy, and hard to move as possible. I believe this is a fundamental tenet in the K9 rulebook: “When sleeping on your master’s bed show a wanton disregard for his comfort.” This is one of those blissful, peaceful moments in two months filled with chaos, stress, emotional sucker punches, and emergencies. We now have health care workers we think we can trust, and for the moment all is calm. That will inevitably change. Bills have been paid, the house is in order, there are no appointments for a while, and I can sit down for a few hours and read my Bob Newhart autobiography. This is my fourth or fifth biography in the past few months, and I seem to favor them of late, especially those of famous musicians and comedians. I now know all about Keith Richards, Neil Young, Carl Reiner, Bob Newhart, and am about to plunge into the life of Michael J. Fox. The narcissist in me wants to explore any similarities I may share with these flawed but gifted men. So far, not all that much in common. All I need are a few tattoos, a body piercing or two, some drugs, a few emotional traumas, a sense of humor and some talent, then I’m off to the races.

Of course the big weather news last week was the huge blizzard that hammered parts of New England and New York. One town in Massachusetts got 97 cm of snow dumped on it, which for you non metrics is over 3 feet. I don’t know why but people so often ignore the dire weather warnings; a lot of motorist stranded on Long Island Expressway had to be rescued from the blizzard. Toronto got hit with what was predicted to be a formidable winter storm, but it was not nearly as bad as what the East Coast experienced. Friday morning, as it was beginning to snow and blow hard, I drove the night shift health care aid to a hub bus station. Buses near the Taylor’s house were not running, and well after what was supposed to be morning rush hour, traffic was backing up on all main streets. With its radial snows my SUV will go through almost anything, but a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and the majority of Toronto drivers were out of their league in this storm. I remember one winter in Buffalo back in the 80s when every morning for a few weeks it seemed I was brushing 5 to 10 inches of snow off my car. To me this storm was like an average winter storm for Buffalo. Child’s play. I remember one winter, maybe five or ten years ago, when Watertown, N.Y., one of those snow belt towns on the east end of Lake Ontario, got nailed with something like 6 or 7 feet of snow in a very short period of time. Now that’s a snowstorm. Lots of people remember the notorious Buffalo Blizzard of ’77. I was not there because I was on a plane heading for a semester abroad in Ireland when the storm hit. The storm was just beginning while I was on the tarmac at Buffalo International Airport, and they shut the airport down shortly thereafter. By the time I got to Ireland, the storm was over. My Irish family in Dublin was watching it on BBC news when I arrived and it so happened that the video clip that came across the screen, at the exact moment I looked, was of Chapin Pkwy, the street on which my parents lived. What are the chances?

The Canadian penny will soon be going out of circulation - it costs more to make them than they are worth as currency. Should I the consummate investor now start collecting them because, like the sheets of Elvis postage stamps I once bought, they are likely to appreciate upwards of 1.3% over fifteen years? Speaking of Elvis, last week was Elvis Week on Letterman, and every night last week Dave featured an Elvis impersonator as his musical guest. I watched them all! There was one Elvis impersonator, representing the younger Elvis, who did a pretty good rendition of Jailhouse Rock. The guy Thursday night nailed the “Later Elvis” persona, complete with the corseted gut, the garish, caped white polyester jump suit (Greaser Man from Glad meets Batman), the cracking voice, the flop sweat, and the ludicrous, spasmodic, older-guy-trying-to-gyrate movements that characterized the King of Rock ’n Roll’s final performances. It was genius. It never occurred to me, but of course some of these guys would focus on “past-his-prime” Elvis. Imagine basing your career as a performer on the imitation of a celebrity’s tragic decline.

That’s almost as pathetic as me watching, and enjoying all five Elvis impersonators.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 2/4/13

Superbowl # XLVII is in the books and while I didn’t have a horse in this race, I’m glad the Ravens won. I like close games and this was a close one, just like last year. Joe Flacco and his Ravens pulled it off, but it really could have gone either way until the very end. It looked like the Ravens were going to walk away with the game in the first half, but then, when the lights went out early in the second half, everything changed. Half the lights in the Superdome went out, causing a long delay in the game, and mysteriously San Francisco got very hot soon after the game resumed. The cynic in me was wondering if somebody who had a lot of money riding on the game caused the outage to give his beleaguered Niners a chance to regroup. Beyonce was the halftime entertainment, and I’ve never been a fan. She may be nice to look at but I think she is highly over-rated as a performer. Good light show though. Sadly, there were no wardrobe malfunctions. I heard on the news that there was a chicken wings shortage for Superbowl Sunday. Reportedly there were 12 Million less wings available this year than were served last year, and I blame this on my hometown of Buffalo. Had it not been for a serendipitous turn of events at Frank and Teresa’s Anchor Bar one fateful night long ago, chicken wings would have remained a little ordered appetizer on the menu at Chinese restaurants. Now the demand has skyrocketed.

Groundhog Day was last Saturday, and Ontario’s substance abusing bad boy rodent Wiarton Willie predicted a short winter. I believe this forecast was contradicted by other weather rodents throughout the northeast (like “Butthead Pete,” our weather rodent in Katrine) and this makes these rodent forecasts suspect. What if it’s sunny in Buffalo (hah!) and cloudy in Rochester? Can the predicted length of a winter really be that different for two cities. At this point, there have to be hundred of under-qualified groundhogs running around making their shoot-from-the-buck-tooth predictions. Perhaps we should adopt Al Gore as our national weather rodent; he has all the weather answers, and he is kind of cute and fat like a groundhog. Punxatawny Al.

A moment of silence for Barney, who passed away last week at the age of twelve. I am not talking about the purple blob of evil so adored by millions of brainwashed toddlers, (and reviled by me). As far as I know, he/she/it is still alive and reprogramming young minds with his/her/its evil agenda. No, I’m talking about The First Dog, George W. Bush’s beloved Scottie. Barney was pretty cute and hands down my favorite thing about those Bush years. Other notable obituaries: you may know him from People’s Court, former mayor of New York City, Ed Koch died last week of heart failure. He was a character for sure, and credited by some as turning NYC into a more desirable tourist destination during his terms. Koch once called himself NYC’s “Super Salesman.” Also, the last of the Andrews Sisters, Patty Andrews, passed at 94.

And speaking of dead people, did you hear about King Richard III - you know, now-is-the-winter-of-our-discontent-my kingdom-for-a-horse Richard III? They just discovered his body when they were digging up a parking lot in England. King Richard III was buried in a parking lot? I understand that his burial likely preceded the construction of the parking lot; but still, the indignity! Horrible fire in that Kiss nightclub in Brazil, with over two hundred young partiers asphyxiated in the blaze. I heard someone set off a flare in the club, perhaps someone from the band. I‘m thinking pyrotechnics in a crowded nightclub with locked exit doors … probably a bad idea. You won’t catch me in one of those crowded nightclubs … them days is over for me.

Barney, we’re gonna miss ya buddy. Say hi to all the Rin Tin Tins for me. But not Lassie, she was a bitch.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED