Taster Spoon

I scream, you scream.

My preferred scoop is mint chip.  Ace likes his milkshake vanilla.  Is this a recipe for disaster?

I know, filler. I left my camera cord in the car.

46%

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When you have pizza on a bagel...

Pizza in the morning,

Pizza in the evening,

Pizza at supper time...

Contrary to popular myth, you can have pizza any time without the necessity of a bagel.  (Technology note: I was Googling "pizza on a bagel" etc. so that I could link to the actual product from whence that jingle stems, and instead found a million people quoting it in blog posts, commentary and the most random places...That's a good jingle!  Jingle Pop Quiz: Complete this telephone number: "588-_____")

 

Ace and I got done with Vineman 70.3 last Sunday and have no races or anything until his next one in September and mine in October. 

So we decided to live a little! 

Plan Live A Little Part I: Don't work out for a week.  Plan Live A Little Part II: Head to Paxti's Pizza on Monday night, and follow it up with Broadway Melody of 1940 at the Stanford. 

I thought about pizza all day.  I don't know whether I even had lunch.  At 7:05 I was drooling when I walked up to Ace who was already standing out front.  He said, "Are you excited about pizza?!"  I said, "YES!"  And he said, "Too bad, because they're closed." 

So then we wandered mournfully all around town, and, as hungry as we were, nothing sounded good because we were all het up for Za.  Somehow "ribs" materialized as a suitably indulgent substitute.  The menu at the Peninsula Creamery said something about Pork Ribs, but Ace was thinking Beef Ribs (I don't know the difference), so then we drove to the Oak City Grill  (or perhaps "Grille," given their prices) in Menlo Park.  We started whining at the greeter's station, and the guy said he thought they sometimes had Asian Short Ribs on the menu but not currently.  Ace said, "But I want my Baby Back...uh, Ribs."

The greeter raised his eyebrow and looked at him.  "You could try...Chili's."

Bang!  Another excellent jingle.  I didn't even realize we had a Chili's around here.  But somehow we weren't feeling it for Chili's.  So then somehow Indian food came up as the next best thing, so we drove back to Palo Alto and had delicious (and indulgent) Butter Chicken and Lamb Curry at Darbar.  And we made the movie! 

But so anyway the week started out as a quest for pizza, and I guess we never got it out of our systems, because Saturday in the middle of a day of house cleaning we had TJ's barbecue chicken pizza, and Saturday evening Ace resurrected our Monday plan and we shared a medium deep dish at Patxi's and scrambled in to Swing Time.

Sunday consisted of a million "but for" activities - all the things we'd be doing if we didn't have an obligatory bike ride and long run to punch huge holes in the weeked - horseback riding, wine tasting, Hakone Gardens, poking around in Saratoga, kayaking.  And, at the end of it, a pizza party!

Ace's friend from his team has what we agreed was the kind of house you'd put together when you were a kid imagining the future.  When I'm a grown up, I'm gonna have...surround sound and a 60 inch flat screen TV hung high on the living room wall!   Five bicycles  stacked up in the breakfast room!   A beer keg/tap permanently installed into the counter so that pouring a draught is as easy (and classy) as turning on the tap (apparently one of his son's friends had not realized what it was and inadvertently washed his hands in beer)!  A professional pizza oven so I can cook six pizzas at once, whenever I want!  This oven was as wide as my desk at work and twice as deep, with a stone bottom and its own controls - he even had a real-deal pizza paddle.  I was floored.  Despite two prior pizzas that weekend, our homeade pizza, I must admit, was magnificent.

On making weekend plans

"There's this winery near us that won some award for having the best wine in the world.  But a bottle costs $160."

"How much would you pay for a $160 bottle of wine?"

"Forty bucks."

"I'd pay forty-five."

"Wow, big spender."

COOL.

We all heard about the Chinese FDA-head-equivalent getting executed the other day, which made me think  about how markets (i.e. recalls and consumer upset) can stimulate change less directly, but perhaps more persuasively, than can intergovernmental demands for regulation (cf., e.g., the U.S.'s perpetual but hopeless entreaties for China to crack down on pirating and counterfeiting).  It shocked me, and also struck me (sadly) as perhaps inevitable, perhaps the only way for China to express the desperation with which it depends on international markets' approval of its exports and (just as sadly) perhaps the only way to make a point internally about where capitalism/greed/corruption will and will not be supported/tolerated/condemned (are they just points along a continuum?).  A heavy day. 

Then Michael Krasny was talking about the Farm Bill this morning (you can download the show here), and one guy on the phone had a clever idea for reconfiguring the food stamp program that had the end goal of a healthier public diet but was less about outright subsidies of the good stuff and more about increasing market demand for it, which he called a "win-win" proposal.  Again, the velvet glove approach.  The Farm Bill is up for renewal in September.

It made me think again about getting in touch with my C0ngresspeople, to see about requiring food origin labeling.  (If you want to do the same, let me know and I'll e-mail you my letter.)  Again, with the idea of letting the market dictate how quality and cost really do shake out, rather than assuming or attempting to regulate the race to the bottom that appears to be happening around the world (not least within the U.S.).  And then I read about this poll, that said Americans overwhelmingly support stricter food labeling laws, including labeling of origin.  (I don't know how skewed the study was or anything, but the article says one of the authors of the poll works at Consumer Reports, which seems rather impartial.)

The USDA is reopening public comment to its Food Labeling measure until August 20.

Here is how to make comments:

Details of the comment period reopening will be published in the June 20 issue of the Federal Register.  Comments are due August 20 and should be submitted online at www.regulations.gov.  Additional means of comment submission are via e-mail to cool@usda.gov; by mail to Country of Origin Labeling Program, Room 2607-S, Agricultural Marketing Service, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Stop 0254, Washington, DC 2025-0254; or by fax to (202) 720 – 1112.

The USDA talks about country of origin labeling (COOL) here.  The USDA has a really interesting web site, actually, with links to lots of studies and articles!  Makes me feel like it's not all politics.  Am I kidding myself?

For instance, Here's  an economic review of food labeling, which notes that it may not be the most effective of options.  But it is one that would preserve the illusion of choice.  The article also expresses concern that the poorest would end up with the riskiest food, since they are less able to afford product that is carefully monitored.  That's not cool.  (Although maybe that's where subsidies or food stamps WOULD kick in.)  Ultimately, the article, while pointing out issues to consider, doesn't give any recommendation at all.  Lame.  But an interesting read.

I suppose we could let market forces take effect even with labeling itself, rather than require it.  If Americans care so very much about knowing where their food comes from, presumably they will reward growers and manufacturers who spend the extra care and money to track and label - and the labeling will take care of itself.  So maybe we could write to our favorite food producers, as well as our government.  I'll draft that letter next.

Mental Dental

So I'm terrible about going to the dentist.  Ace is constantly on my case to go, and I accept his riding me about it because I know he's right, but I've had such bad experiences with dentists, pretty much ever since my first.  It's not that I have terrible teeth, or that dentists have been incompetent.  It's that the nature of the business has changed.

My first dentist was a high school classmate of my dad's.  He was (is) awesome.  When we lived in Chicago, he wasn't particularly nearby, but I think my parents liked the opportunity to catch up, so we'd drive an hour and a half to get there - fit all four of us in in one afternoon.  He had this fantastic blue-on-blue shag carpeting and a matching checkers set with those pretty enamel checkers pieces that make a wonderful clicky sound when you play on the permanent formica table.  The individual rooms each had that wallpaper that was of a forest scene, so as you sat there you were completely enveloped by two-dimensional trees.   I think different rooms were different seasons.  He piped in soft rock - I always think of him when I hear early Michael Jackson or Wings.  Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs - what's wrong with that?

But the best thing - maybe most dentists do this - was that, at the conclusion of every visit, you could go to his big drawer of toys and pick one.  They were cheapie, Cracker Jack box-type toys, rubber ball-and-paddle games, that one where you give the guy various facial hair arrangements with iron filings and a magnet.  They were great, and it was the ultimate goal of every visit.  I still remember the one time when I was "a little too old" for the toy drawer, but didn't realize it yet.  It was a little awkward when I asked if I could pick out my plastic plaything.  When I got older, I was delighted to note that he had dental health brochures that said things like, Pizza is good for your teeth. 

When my family lived in Hong Kong, we'd save our dental visits for summer vacations at my grandmother's house in Illinois - from there our dentist was a two hour drive away, but it was still totally worth it.  At some point we incorporated a visit to the Sanrio store at the nearby mall, and that made it even better.  Kiki!  Lala!  Keroppi!

Anyway, checkups and cleanings with that first dentist were all business.  Cleaning, fluoride, fill a cavity if you need it.  There was none of this whitening-bonding-capping-GRILL business that dentists seem to be all about these days.  Maybe my dad's friend was, you know, not making a profit out of us, but just doing us a kindness, so he had no incentive to push cosmetic procedures.  But I certainly felt like his priority was his patients' oral health, not how to milk them for unnecessary procedures.

After growing up and moving on, I visited only one dentist who did not ask me, often in so many words, "Is there anything that would make you a little bit happier about your smile?"  They'd push every manner of cosmetic improvement - and it was really burdensome, not just to constantly, politely decline procedures, but to have to be in the position of judging the best thing for your own teeth.  I don't know!!  I didn't go to dental school!!  (The one dentist who didn't do this was an older man near my grandmother's.  All he cared about was cavities.  Is it simply generational?)

So I'm just tired of being sold to.  I'm tired of not knowing whether my dentist is recommending something because I need it or my teeth will fall out, or he's just trying to squeeze me for eight hundred bucks.  (And you know insurance quibbles with whether these things are necessary or cosmetic, so odds are it's coming out of my pocket.)  I want a doctor.  An advisor.  I want a dentist I can trust! 

So it's been too long and the fact that I'm finally getting around to seeking out a dentist now is a huge step for me - it's been at least two years since the last guy recommended I replace all my fillings with tooth-colored ones, and at the same time informed me that insurance probably wouldn't cover it but in any event he was outside my insurance network.  What's finally motivating me now is the usual vanity: I've decided to finally put my home bleaching kit into action and want to start with a perfectly clean set of choppers.

So I started looking for a dentist through word of mouth.  People at work didn't have much to say, so I went to Aetna and got their list of people near me, and took the list to Yelp.  Great feedback.  Told me which dentists were groping their hygienists; which dentists seemed to be excessively salesmanny, which were hamfisted and pokey, and which were guilty of securities fraud.  Just what I was looking for. 

Unfortunately, I didn't come away with the name of someone who seemed really great.  Probably the happy patients are keeping him/her all to themselves.

So instead I thought about finding someone who would seem to be a nice, neighborhood dentist, i.e. somebody with community accountability and an interest in developing long-term relationships built on trust rather than those just looking to churn cleanings and laser stain removals.  I looked for an education at a school I'd heard of (for whatever that's worth).

I found a neighborhood that seemed to have a good sense of community; I found two dentists.  Both went to schools I knew something about - both on the East Coast.  I liked that.  It made me feel they had come out here to settle.  One was, I think, thirty-something; the other, I reckon, my dad's age.  I was tempted by the latter, because of the old-school (i.e. frugal) attitude I apparently prefer, but it turned out he was a surgeon and the young guy was a general care dude.  But that's cool.  I figure, the young guy I can talk to.  And he went to a fancy pants school.  You know, that school whose name makes people drop to their knees.  And he was "accepting new patients!" 

After spending half a day figuring out WHO, I spent another half a day figuring out HOW, on the phone with Aetna, fussing with my internet username and password and incorrect zip code, all in order to make this guy my assigned "primary care" guy.  I was finally in.

So today, I called for an appointment, got the machine (after hours) and left a message.

"I'm a new customer and I haven't yet visited.  I'd like to come in for a checkup and cleaning.  Any day this week, ideally first thing in the morning.  Would you call me back?"

They called me back, still after hours (a good sign!).

"Hello, you called for an appointment?"

"Yes!"

"Your insurance?"

"Aetna DMO!"

"You're a new patient?"

"Yes!"

"First available appointment?"

"Sure."

"Okay, first available appointment is..."

Wait for it.

"I'll put you down for 9 am on October third."

p.s.  Thanks to rebelz.net for the picture.

p.p.s. I know, I know, you've getting jack by way of content this month.  I keep telling myself it's because I want to post more or less chronologically and I think the next thing I want to share is last weekend in Oregon (gorgeous!) and I can't do that till I upload all the pictures, which takes time, to crop and rename and whatnot, plus the camera-computer wire is always floating here and there and I know it'll be a groaningly long post and I just can't get started.  I'll get on it, maybe even tonight.

WHAT?!

I'm working.  I suggest you do the same.