Blog/March 2018/Mar 2nd

Mar 2nd

The week was a busy one, but not exciting in particular. Because of the purim holiday, we were involved in preparations for it, but they didn’t take a lot of time.

Our most exciting events this week were to do with taking mom to her medical appointments. No, really!

One thing I noticed when I was looking at mom’s collection of prescription medicines was that, to my untrained eye, some of them looked like they conflicted and some looked like they were reinforcing. So I was gratified when the cardiologist looked at the list of drugs, and said in alarm, “why are they giving her both this and that?”.

Both he and her GP removed some drugs from the list she’s to take. The GP is awaiting some further information before taking her off another drug, and the cardiologist put her on another drug. In his words, “everyone with her conditions takes this; I don’t know why they didn’t have her on it!”. He also opined that since in the US, the doctors get paid per-procedure or per-prescription etc., they don’t necessarily think to pare down what the patient gets. And the result can be like my mom’s case: overprescription of medications which could possibly have bad side-effects.

B”H, we brought her here now!

Of course, all is not sweetness and light. We went to the hospital (on the extreme other end of Jerusalem from us) for a certain exam. When we got there, I had a bit of a time trying to figure out where exactly she needed to be. Then we had to wait in line to register her; the line was long, and only one person was working in the office. Nevertheless, she got to her appointment early, and we were out of there sooner than I had expected. So I guess it wasn’t all that bad after all. But we do need to return there on Sunday for a follow-up exam.

After that, we went off to a restaurant we had never tried before, since mom wanted to treat us. So we tried Rodriguez grill in Har Ḥotṣvim (on the north side of Jerusalem). The food was good, and in large quantity. I don’t think it was quite as good as Leḥem Basar (Meat and Eat), but it was roughly comparable and more conveniently located for us.

In other news:

• You’d think that big-shots would know that email leaves an evidence trail.
• The Feds didn’t even need the help of the Israeli company which can now unlock every Apple device in existence. I would cheer the “home team”, but it’s kind of creepy.
• My mom’s not the only one who made aliyah recently. So did Joe Lieberman’s grand-daughter.
• Think using cryptocurrencies guarantees privacy? Think again…
• … and be careful how you figure taxes for cryptocurrency transactions.
• Bill “I’m a self-made man” Gates weighs in on cryptocurrencies and risk.

Our purim meal was, as has been our tradition for the past decade, at our friends’ place. The crowd was congenial, the food was abundant, the drink flowed like a river, and mom enjoyed herself. So “thank you” to our friends, and we’ll see you again very soon!

The weather is warming up, it looks like rain is off the table for the next week, anyway. We’ll have pleasant spring-like weather over shabbat.

This shabbat we’ve got guests for lunch. We’ll enjoy:
homemade ḥallah rolls, steamed artichokes, spiralized beets, barbecued chicken, carrot kugel muffins, barbecued pargiot, various salatim, and brownies.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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