Birth: As Painful as a Stubbed Toe? Not!

I did something Monday I had not done in many a year—I stubbed my shoeless left foot toes real hard against the wooden leg of a couch. Man did it hurt. 

After I recovered from the dry mouth that accompanied the pain, I thought back about 35 and a half years ago to the time our friends Eleanor and Dennis had their first born a few months before Gilda delivered Dan. We had planned a natural childbirth a la the Lamaze method, as drug free as possible. 

Eleanor, on the other hand, had no interest in experiencing even the slightest bit of pain. When she arrived at the hospital she was hooked up to an IV to receive scopolamine to put her into a “twilight sleep” during labor. Scopolamine has since been banned from the delivery room. For good reason. It can induce hallucinations. Eleanor acted out a scene from the darkest of comedies about childbirth. She cursed her husband for putting her in such a painful situation. In her altered mind state she punched her obstetrician in the face or stomach (Gilda and I can’t agree on the location).

When Dennis tried to comfort her and gain some insight into how much pain she was in, he offered the following comparison: “Is it as painful as when you stub a toe?”

Eleanor might not have been fully aware of her surroundings, but she was conscious enough to react violently to Dennis’ suggestion. 

A few months later it was our turn to head to the hospital. Dan was a slow mover through the birth canal. Hour after hour dragged by, with few contractions. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, Gilda agreed to the administration of some pitocin to induce more frequent contractions. 

The pitocin was marginally helpful as the labor extended for more than a dozen hours. With Dennis’ experience as a guide, I did not venture to ask the degree of pain Gilda was in. I’m sure it exceeded the pain threshold of a stubbed toe.

Explosion in the Chemistry Lab

Did you hear about the NYC public high school science teacher who blew up her lab in an experiment gone wrong on Thursday? (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/nyregion/chemistry-lab-fire-injures-2-at-a-manhattan-high-school.html?_r=0)

The excitement brought to mind a similar foul-up during my junior year at Yeshivah of Flatbush High School in Brooklyn. I wasn’t there. The incident happened in one of the other classes of my grade. They were studying the reaction of sulfuric acid with water. 

Now, there is a proper way to mix sulfuric acid and water, and there is a wrong way to mix the two. The proper way is to add the acid to water. Then there’s the other way. As explained by Wikipedia, “Addition of water to concentrated sulfuric acid leads to the dispersal of a sulfuric acid aerosol or worse, an explosion.”

Guess which way the teacher conducted the experiment? 

Yes, and no. At first, Mr. Nash, the chemistry teacher, who, it should be noted, really was a biology teacher pressed into chemistry service at the last minute, did the experiment the right way, adding acid to water. But the intended result, a rise in temperature in the glass beaker, was inconsequential. That’s when Mr. Nash made his monumental mistake. He listened to some of his students egging him on to add some more water to the mixture. 

Not being a true chemistry teacher, Mr. Nash was not acquainted with the consequences of his action. The resulting explosion, with glass shards flying about, injuring several students, taught him and the class a lesson they would not quickly forget. 

Bread Eaten in Secret is Pleasant

You've heard of “death by chocolate”? Well, I think my wife is trying to kill me with another tasty food: Homemade breads. Not the type that come out of a bread machine. Rather, crusty manna she makes from scratch. Last night it was puffy popovers like the ones you get at BLT Steak. Smothered in butter. Yum.

Those who know me and Gilda might be slightly confused. Weren't we, after all, practitioners, acolytes and advocates of the Atkins diet, the regimen that proscribes carbohydrate-laden foods like bread and pasta? True. 

Back in 1998, during our first trip to Prague, I thought Gilda was trying to kill me by suggesting I swear off bread and pastries in favor of eggs, bacon, sausage and as many other meats and proteins as I like. Carbs, she told me, just made me hungry for snacks during the day that my body would convert to sugar. A protein-packed diet would not encourage frequent stops at bakeries. Moreover, the Atkins diet would help reduce and control my cholesterol and triglycerides (don’t ask for the science behind this. It’s like a minus times a minus equals a plus.)

The first breakfast in Prague was anxiety-filled. I had not eaten a breakfast egg for several years. But there I was loading my plate with scrambled eggs, a couple of pieces of bacon and sausage and more than a little bit of wonder, wondering whether Gilda was trying to kill me. 

Some people lose wait with the Atkins diet. I didn’t have to, so I modified it by eating at least one starch, such as potatoes, with one meal. Sure enough, my weight maintained, my blood test numbers improved. But I really missed bread. So did Gilda, who also followed the Atkins diet.

A couple of years ago we started to loosen up. We’d look forward to eating bread when dining out. Gilda wanted to consume less meat, so we added more pasta dinners at home. I retrieved the bread machine we had given to Dan and Allison, but soon lost interest in making bread. Instead, once a week I was bringing home a loaf from Whole Foods for salmon and tuna fish salads.

A few weeks ago Gilda, who despite becoming a fantastic cook never considered herself an expert baker, decided to try her hand at bread. She began with a recipe for no-knead bread. It emerged from a Dutch oven a perfect circle, in the words of Mark Bittman of The New York Times, “to nearly duplicate an artisan bakery loaf, with a crackling crust, open-holed crumb, light texture, and fantastic flavor.” The bread equaled if not surpassed breads served in the best restaurants (here’s a link to the recipe— http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html)

Tonight Gilda said next week she will try baking biscuits. Is there no end to her devilish plan? And yet, as is written in the Book of Job, “Bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”

The Wolf I Did Not See

Did you see a good movie on Christmas Day? I did. American Hustle, a fictionalized account of the Abscam scandal. But that's not the film that inspired today's blog. That movie was The Wolf of Wall Street, like American Hustle, another ripped-from-the-pages-of-history flick, this one a depiction of manipulative penny stock traders. So here goes my linked-in story of Wall Street penny-ante riches.

The call to my office came out of the blue. A cold call by an eager young broker from Thomas James Associates trolling for dollars, pushing penny stocks. I knew better than to invest in these high risk shares, but he reached me at a moment of vulnerability. I had just received an unexpected windfall of several thousand dollars. With Gilda's assent, I gambled $2,000 on a company that promised big returns in the then embryonic laser eye surgery field.

It was hard to follow the stock. Penny stocks weren't usually reported in The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. Plus, my eager-beaver of a broker didn't call back once my check cleared. I assumed my investment was as flighty as my erstwhile broker, an assumption reinforced in my mind when six months later another cold call came from Thomas James Associates informing me my broker had departed the company and was being replaced by the gentleman now on the phone.

He wanted to know how happy I was  with my investment. I was ignorant to its value, so I casually said, “Not too much,” to which he responded, somewhat incredulously, that he had never come across anyone less enthusiastic by a tenfold return on principal. My $2,000 investment had increased to $20,000!

I stammered some explanation for my passivity. He then confronted me with a challenge. What did I want to do with my $20,000?  We agreed to cash out half of it and invest the rest in a different penny stock, Holiday RV, as in recreational vehicles. Baby boomers like me would be taking to the open road in land cruisers once they retired, he pitched. Now would be a good time to get in on the ground floor. 

What the heck? Let's spin the wheel a second time. Oy! This time it ended in a crash. I got out after losing half the pot. The rest went in some other speculative investments. All in all, I netted $8,000 and a lesson in the risky business of penny stocks. One more thing. Thomas James Associates wound up being sued for fraud. I seem to recall receiving a small sum from a class action lawsuit against the firm and its successor, but nowhere near the value of the education I learned to stay away from penny stocks.

PS—Christmas Eve dinner was Chinese. We ate Indian after the movie Christmas Day.

Tonight, Will It Be Chinese or Indian?

The oft repeated joke is that Jews spend Christmas Eve enjoying a dinner of Chinese food.

Guilty, though our family sometimes substitutes Indian cuisine. When I speak of family, I mean the one Gilda and I created together. When I grew up in Brooklyn, we spent Christmas Eve at home, eating a regular home cooked meal. It was, after all, just an ordinary evening. If Christmas fell on a weekday, as it does this year, it meant the evening before was simply the evening before a school day, with homework to be done. My Hebrew elementary school held classes Christmas Week so as not to confuse us about, or give credence to, the holiday of another religion. My Hebrew high school was more liberating. It freed us from school during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I suspect it had to do with the secular studies teachers who taught in public high schools and were off that week.

Anyway, returning to Christmas Eve, Gilda, the kids and I also enjoyed riding around looking at Christmas decorations. Which brings me to one of my favorite stories about the innocence of children.

A little more than 25 years ago our friends Michael and Sandy were preparing to move from their co-op in Eastchester to White Plains. A few days before the relocation they bundled their two young boys in the car to look at their new residence. At first enthusiastic to make the move, the older boy, Aaron, burst out in tears when they drove by their soon to be home. He was inconsolable.

It took prolonged prodding but the cause of Aaron's tantrum finally revealed itself. Seems a holly wreath hung from the front door of the house. Four- or five-year-old Aaron was upset because he presumed he and his family could no longer be Jewish if they wanted to live behind that door. 

Lockerbie: An Example of Why I Write This Blog

Since I started writing this blog four years ago, I’ve tried to tie historical and current events to incidents and people in my own life. Today is no exception. Today marks the 25th anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the skies of Lockerbie, Scotland. Among the 259 passengers who perished aboard that fateful airplane was one of my cousins, Mark Alan Rein (another 11 Scottish innocents died on the ground).

Alan, as he was commonly known, was the treasurer of Salomon Bros., the Wall Street firm. A 1965 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, my cousin was just 44 years old, married, the father of two children, Nicole, 12, and Alexander, 9. He was returning from a trip to England before going on a vacation with his wife, Denice, to celebrate their 15th wedding anniversary.

In truth, though Alan was just five years older, I have few memories of him. His father, Moe, was my father’s first cousin. I recall going to Alan’s bar mitzvah, but our families rarely socialized. One memory I have is visiting their apartment, as Alan’s mother suffered from multiple sclerosis. I also remember being proud I had a cousin attending Annapolis.

Alan’s funeral was held at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. It was the first and only time I have been inside this edifice, considered the largest and one of the most beautiful synagogues in the world. Almost all of its 2,500 seats were occupied. Alan’s older brother, Bert, delivered a eulogy. Bert is a well-connected Washington lawyer who frequently appears before the U.S. Supreme Court representing conservative and business interests.

I am forever amazed at the single degree of separation I have to many events and people in the news. 

Screw It: My Sister Tried to Get Me a Date and a Job

It's not uncommon for friends and relatives to help out when you're looking for a job. Or someone to love. It's also not uncommon for their best laid plans to backfire.

My sister Lee twice misfired when it came to helping me.

Before I started dating Gilda I was not seeing anyone. Always the considerate older sister, Lee thought she had stumbled across the perfect person for me to call, a girl whom I had gone out with in summer camp when we were both all of 13.

Our conversation was short, awkward and embarrassing, at least on my end when I called her. When I asked what she was up to these days, she said she was to be married in a few weeks. A quick mazel tov ended the conversation, followed by another call to my sister remonstrating her that the next time she thinks to set me up with a girl it might be wise to first check the young lady's ring finger.

Not content to try to improve my love life, Lee next tried to help me find a journalism job. In the early 1970s, she was a social worker at New York City’s Bureau of Child Welfare in lower Manhattan. With two co-workers she went to lunch one day. Seated next to their table were two men in their  30s. They started talking. She remembered one had long hair. He said he was a publisher of a magazine. 

Saying her brother recently graduated with a masters degree in journalism, she wondered if he might have a job for me. Maybe, he answered. She asked him the name of his magazine. He gave her his business card—Al Goldstein, publisher of Screw. Lee had no idea what Screw was. I did. “ARE YOUR CRAZY? I'm not going to work for a f-ing pornographic magazine,” I screamed at her when she excitedly told me about her referral.

Al Goldstein died Thursday in Brooklyn. He was 77. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/nyregion/al-goldstein-pioneering-pornographer-dies-at-77.html?_r=0