Anti-Vaccers Are A Scourge of Society... Literally.

On the way to London's Heathrow airport, I am, at the moment, surrounded by many sleeping passengers. Most, that is, with the exception of the fellow who is in the aisle seat next to my inner seat, who is watching a program on his video monitor. He pulled his feet back to allow me to get to my seat.  The seats are arranged with two aisles in 2-4-2 arrangement, with seats alternating in direction, either facing forward or facing aft.

Peter had accumulated enough air miles to get us tickets in Business Class, which, on British Airways, is very, very nice. Our seats fold down completely flat, and there are footstools opposite our seats that flip down from the partition between seats.  Peter and I are in seats D and E, in the middle. We're sitting facing the rear of the plane. Takeoff was smooth, and though there has been some mild turbulence, it's been a pretty good ride.

Prior to boarding the plane, we sat in the British Airways lounge at the San Diego airport and each had a bowl of tomato-based cream soup. We shared a charcuterie plate, with a couple kinds of sausage, sliced prosciutto, and what they call “country pate,” which is really just a terrine made with coarsely ground meat. The passenger on my outside just turned off his video screen, so I'm under the impression that he's going to go to sleep for a while.

Actually, I may go back to sleep.

After eating dinner, which started with lobster tail and a salad, followed by cheese-stuffed pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce, I thought about how I wanted to finish the meal, and decided on the dessert, which was a slice made up of a chocolate layer and a hazelnut layer, topped by a white cream. The hazelnut and chocolate layers are firm, something between a dense cake and a cookie. The white cream on top was... well, creamy. I had coffee with it. The coffee filled the cup almost all the way to the rim, so the mild turbulence spilt some of the coffee out onto the placemat on my tray.

Peter'd opted for the cheese plate with a glass of port. The flight attendant serving him poured him a pretty tall glass of port. She apologised for pouring so much, but Peter took it, anyway. I reminded him, when he had finished most of the cheese on the plate, that one of the privileges of flying (in general, traveling) this way is that one need not feel compelled to be a “clean-plater.”

We had a short conversation about clean-platers, whom are created out of a sense of necessity, because the implication is that one must eat while one can because one's next meal is not assured. Peter said that that is an upbringing thing, isn't it, and I said yes, it is. He explained that he was raised as a clean-plater, but that he has not raised his daughters that way, which probably gives them a healthier relationship with food. I am trying to do similarly with Kat, though I think I've inadvertently raised a clean-plater...

It's a class issue: “upper” classes of people can eat to a comfortable level of fullness, because once one feels full, one stops eating, thus not overfilling one's belly with unnecessary calories. There is always more food to be had when necessary. Unfortunately, there are people (a large minority of the human population, I believe, if not an actual majority) for whom this is not the case. Food is a necessity that must be used wholly and completely, because one may not know where or from whence one's next meal is coming, or whether it is coming at all.

Human society, as a whole, is striving to feeding its entire population sufficiently. However, with the ever-increasing number of humans on a limited planet, this has not, so far, been possible. Some geographic and economic regions are richer than others and have the luxury of food abundance, whether the food is grown locally, as in such is in places like San Diego, or imported, as in places such as Las Vegas, where much of the population have sufficient wealth to import foods from those more productive regions. This is true not only on a local or national level, but on an international level: some countries, like the United States, are flush with food (even though food distribution is unequal). Other regions of the world, such as the desert regions of Africa, do not have the ability to produce or buy sufficient food to support their burgeoning human populations.

Before modern human technology, which only occurred in the last couple hundred years or so, each geographical region could only support a certain (human) population density, and different numbers of people lived in different geographical regions of the world. There was zero overpopulation. If a population's demands outstrip resources, a portion of the population will die, leaving (one hopes) a healthier (or more fit) population to continue as a smaller population.

The human population began its exponential growth with advances in medical technology which have lowered the death rate phenomenally. Not only are more people surviving to breeding age, but people are living longer (with the recent news of life expectancy notwithstanding). Modern science has even eradicated many childhood diseases which used to be a rite of passage, like chicken pox and measles, as well as (nearly) ridding us of other, more dangerous, diseases, like typhoid and smallpox...

Thinking about disease eradication, there are few groups of people I despise more than people who refuse to vaccinate their children. In all fairness, I think these parents ought to be winners of the Darwin Awards, leaving a healthier, if less-religiously inclined, population. Unfortunately, anti-vaccers don't only cause the spread of disease in their own lineage, but spread it to innocents around them.

The claim of parental privilege when it comes to the willful neglect of children appalls me. It is a form of child abuse. 
When one can perceive a threat to one's offspring, is one not obligated by one's conscience (or at least by a desire to pass on one's genetics) to protect that life? What these parents fail to realise is that they live within a healthy society because of modern medicine's ability to eradicate much of the diseases that used to plague it. They deny not only their children that same privilege, but also the others in their community. I think that as a step towards a healthy population, children who are not immunised be excluded from public schools, at the very least. If parents truly wish to remain a part of the society into which they are privileged to have been born, they will act accordingly in order to maintain herd immunity to preventable diseases.

A current, if mild, example of the curse of anti-vaccers is whooping cough. It has reared its ugly head in California, and has spread to otherwise healthy children. Parents who tend to deny their children vaccines also tend to have children at an alarming rate. They claim religious privilege, but my opinion is that their religious privilege ends where my child's right to live, unencumbered by the threat of easily eradicable diseases, begins. Their right to practice their religion does not give them the right to kill others through willful neglect. By refusing to live up to the implicit agreement between the individual and the society, they are, essentially, forfeiting their right to live amongst that society. The world has run out of room for religious zealots to pioneer new territory under the influence of the insanity that is religion, particularly one:  christianity.

The United States, my home, was founded on secular principles. Those principles are being challenged by the incursion of religious pretensions. That zealotry needs to be stamped out, and I believe it's happening. I can only do my part to inform and educate. I hope that the recent rise in fundamentalism and acting out (ie, terrorism) on the part of various religions (muslim, christian, and otherwise) is religion in its death throws. It is society's forward momentum that will finally advance our species beyond the dark age of magical thinking.

Homemade Marzipan and Other Wonders of the Confectionary World

I just looked up a recipe for homemade marzipan.  The first and only comment was by someone who claims to be a culinary professional, stating that "authentic" marzipan uses almonds, sugar, corn syrup, and kirsch.  I have my suspicions about the writer of this comment, because how many (high-end) professional kitchens use corn syrup regularly?  I agree with sugar and even the kirsch, but I'd tend to leave out the corn syrup, though I suppose it might help to keep the marzipan moist for shaping:

Marzipan Basic Recipe

2 c. granulated sugar
2 egg whites
1/8 t cream of tartar
4 c. ground almonds
Confectioners' (powdered) sugar for dusting & kneading

Prepare a nonstick or wooden work surface with a dusting of confectioners' sugar, fill the kitchen sink or a large bowl with ice water, and have them ready.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat 2/3 c water with the granulated sugar until it comes to a boil. 

Boil, covered, for three (3) minutes.

Uncover and continue boiling until it reaches 240 F on a candy thermometer.  This might take a while.

Remove from heat, place in cold water bath, and stir vigorously until it loses its glass and becomes creamy.

Add ground almonds and egg whites, and mix over low heat until it thickens.

Pour onto prepared work surface and commence kneading, using powdered hands, until it comes to the right consistency for forming into desired shapes.  Keep remaining wrapped in plastic to maintain moisture and pliability.  It will dry out in a matter of a few days, so it's best to use it immediately.

I haven't tried this recipe yet because I don't own a candy thermometer (yet).  I just ordered a candy thermometer from the Food Service Warehouse, an online vendor.  Shipping was more than the thermometer itself, so I ordered two, one for me, and one for Peter (he doesn't own any thermometers, and I've got two meat thermometers and a digital one that doesn't clip onto the pot so it not quite as useful as it could be).  At any rate, I figure it'll be a good addition to our kitchen.

Kat, Peter, and I ate our orange creme cupcakes with orange chocolate fudge frosting yesterday afternoon, and I find them rather tasty.  Kat judged the frosting a bit heavy, but I figure it'll be fine for tonight, anyway.  I suppose I can develop a recipe for frosting, but I'm in love with buttercream and I know that I will never make another frosting that I will enjoy as much as buttercream, so why bother, unless it's a recipe that goes specifically with something, like cream cheese frosting for carrot cake...

That reminds me that I have some fresh carrots from our CSA share, and cream cheese is in sale at a few supermarkets, so it might be worth baking and frosting a cake or two to give to Brian and Lorrie and to my folks.  Brian's coming on Sunday to pick up Kat as she'll be staying with them in Temecula/Murrieta until Christmas Eve, when she'll fly to meet Mark in Colorado for the holiday week.  I'll have the remainder of Sunday, plus all day Monday, to pack, which should work out fine.  I plan to do the last load of laundry for this calendar year on Saturday afternoon after we have dim sum with Werner and Mika and go to the 99 Ranch Market mall-ette to order Peter's reading glasses.

Peter's not relishing needing reading glasses, as he'd been enjoying his "monovision" that has, thus far, allowed him to utilize one eye for distance and one eye for close-up focus.  It's also time for me to get reading glasses.  I'm just not sure whether I need one pair for when I'm without contacts, and one for when I do wear my contacts.  When I'm wearing my contacts, I can probably just buy a pair from a drugstore, but for when I'm wearing my glasses, I might want a prescription pair to correct for my lack of both near and far clarity.  I have two pair of frames, consisting of just the bridge and ear pieces, as the glasses are completely frameless.  That is the type that Peter wants to buy.  He likes that they are lightweight, and would delicately and lightly perch on his nose while the arms rest around his ears.

The first shop we looked in to buy glasses yesterday told him that they could not substitute one lens shape into another set of ear- and bridge pieces.  After we left, Peter observed that that was likely the reason why their prices are about half of what I'd paid for my frames.  The shop is not an "authorised dealer" and therefore cannot send the glasses to the manufacturer to have the glasses made up because they bought the frames without signing a dealer agreement with the manufacturer and therefore can offer them for a lower price.  So for that lower price, one is limited to their existing stock.  Peter wants to customise his glasses, as I had when I bought my second pair (my first pair still has its originally-sized lenses.  I'll likely replace the current shape with a larger one the next time I use that frame for the new prescription.

So that pretty much finishes off Saturday:  dim sum in the morning, glasses and laundry in the afternoon, finishing with an open evening, during which we'll likely try our best to use up ingredients from the fridge before our departure.  Also that evening, Kat will pack for visitation.

I'm excited for Monday evening.  Peter and I are planning to make one last gym visit on Monday.  So we'll be leaving behind some sweaty laundry, but that'll be all right.

First, though, we need to finish this week.  Tonight, we're celebrating Theresa's birthday.  Tomorrow, I'm hosting a sushi dinner.  On Friday, there is a party/potluck.  Busy, busy, busy!

Pumpkin Cheesecake, Cream Mints, and Shiitakes

I'm baking a pumpkin cheesecake, taking cues from a couple of recipes but essentially making it up. We'll see how it comes out, though if it's successful or if it's a failure, I won't know exactly what to blame, since I only measured certain ingredients, like bricks of cream cheese and number of eggs, but not others, like spices, which I like to add, sometimes excessively (or so I've been told).  So far, so good:  It's in a slow oven (300 F), and still has about a half hour to bake.

In the meantime, I'm remembering what a relief it was to FIND MY WALLET!  Even after having canceled my credit cards and replacing my ATM card from the bank, and my driver's license, it was good to find it at the bottom of my backpack.  Of course, it was in the wrong pocket, and I had made an insufficient check in that main compartment for it, though that's where it ended up...

So I phoned my health insurance provider (Anthem Blue Cross), and learned that I can get a cleaning and exam covered once a year, starting next year, as a new benefit of the plan.  Unfortunately, my current dentist is not on their provider list, but I did get a few names of other dentists to try.  One of them is the dentist with whom I'd had a dispute months ago, so I won't go to them.  The name of their practice is Pacific Dental, and they're located in the shopping center of the Big Lots with an ARCO gas station at the intersection of Black Mountain Road and Mira Mesa Boulevard.  Unprofessional and essentially out to bill as much as possible, I'd left their office without even having been given a proper exam!

I just phoned 1-800-Dentist to see whom they recommend according to my insurance carrier.  It looks like the nearest one in their network is on Regents Park Row, in La Jolla, which can work for me, since I know where that street is and how to get there on the bus.  I made an appointment for 4 August, since it's likely that I'll be in town then.  I figure, as long as it's routine care, it'll be fine to go somewhere that is not within walking distance.

If Kat goes to see her father (even if it's in Colorado, where his mother and siblings live) that month, that is when Peter & I'll be taking our summer vacation.  I'd forwarded to Peter an email announcement regarding dive vacations at Palau, and he responded that he's been thinking to return there, as he'd gone a couple years ago and had really, really enjoyed the diving there.

I think the band director at Mira Mesa High School told parents that the students will have about two weeks in August before band practice starts (before the school year commences), so we'll need to coordinate our travel plans, for it is better to make plans ahead of time and avoid last-minute changes (as Kat's dad did for Christmas this year, as he is wont to do).  Kat's father seems to have made some effort to prevent me from learning where he's residing (especially since I'm submitting a petition to the court for an increase in child support), though I don't really care.  It's immaterial to me where he lives as long as he makes his payments.  If my petition goes through, those payments will go up to catch up with inflation and general increases in cost of living as a child grows older and incurs greater costs upon parents (namely, me).

Addendum to post:
I learned this morning (16 December) on NPR that Anthem does not pay for routine care sought outside its state borders.  This does not mean too much for me, since the only care I'd require outside of California would likely be in an emergency, and emergencies are all covered.  Any follow-up or long-term care that results from anything I get done over state lines would need to be written so that they can be followed by my GP and other health care providers within California.  Apparently, this decrease in service area was one way in which Anthem is trying to cut its costs and ensure their profit margin, which, I'm sure, is plenty wide, especially since they are the largest health insurer in the state.

The cheesecake came out loose, but still very much edible and quite tasty.  I hope I can remember exactly what I put in it, though I suppose that will never happen...

A Good Day's Work

This morning, I made myself lunch out of a sliced hard boiled egg and a sliced avocado, dressed with a little soy sauce, cumin, paprika, and freshly ground white pepper.  I also packed several soupspoonsful of salt and vinegar roasted almonds in a zippy bag, an enormous red apple, and my water bottle (well, it's actually Peter's water bottle, but I cannot seem to locate mine since having potentially left it at Peter's last weekend).

When I reached the pickup site, there were a few people already waiting.  I joined them, and soon we were joined by several others (I think there were about thirty of us in all).  The officers came out, and then one of them (Mercado, I think his name is) called my name out to line up to go with him for the day's work.  Also in my group were a young Asian woman and the young Korean-descended man with whom I'd worked side by side last week.  His name turned out to be John, and he talked quite a bit during the day, as he had last week.

We started cleaning up another drainage ditch in East County, scraping overgrown weeds from the joints of concrete and clipping overhanging branches, as well as sweeping up sand and dirt from the bottom of the ditch.  I call it a ditch because I don't remember the actual name of the construction.  It was a concrete ditch with a trapezoidal vertical section (if one were to place a lid on it).  The sides were steep enough so that I required assistance the first time I went into the ditch to start scraping and shoveling.  After about an hour of this, we were called to stop,  leaving the equipment there, because we were needed in Spring Valley to do something.  When we showed up at the materials pickup point, we watched a truck being loaded with three pallets of sandbags.  We followed the truck to the site, adjacent to an Albertsons supermarket.  There, we heaved sandbags from the truck to a few different areas around a low-lying building.  Some of the sandbags were not terribly full, while others were quite heavy.  I helped unload the truck, handing the sandbag from the tailgate of the truck to another worker, who handed them to another, who placed the sandbag to make a short wall around the base of the small building.  We must've unleaded about a hundred sandbags around that building.  After that was done, we took lunch in a park, then returned to the ditch to clean it up a little bit more.  By the time we were done, it looked like a rather nice, clean concrete ditch, if I do say so myself...

We returned to the materials yard, and there, we finished the day filling sandbags in preparation for placement around other buildings, as there was a flood warning for low-lying areas in San Diego County.

We returned to the county offices complex in the van, then all dispersed to our individual cars.

Two Down, Two To Go; and Theft

The Day started off inauspiciously.  I realized that my wallet had been stolen from my backpack while I was playing games at Fuddrucker's last night.

Today, I completed the second of my four "public service" days.  I decided to complete two this week, and will serve the remaining two next week.  I have them scheduled (on my personal calendar) on Tuesday and Thursday, my non-gym days, so I'll have some physical activity every day.  This week, Tuesday was not as fulfilling as today (Thursday), as we mainly picked up trash (the men also loaded discarded furniture and a few garbage-laden shopping carts into a garbage truck, which mashed everything in its maw and swallowed it into its cavernous interior.  There wasn't much conversation (at least toward me) on Tuesday, whereas today, there were a couple of people, whom I worked adjacent to, with whom I was able to carry on bits of conversation.  

They had each chosen to perform community service in lieu of the hefty fines they received for their DUI convictions, each of which was easily over $2000.  One actually lives in my neighborhood of San Diego, and he said that if we should ever see each other in another context, we should say hello, but he doesn't want me to tell people how we met, though I'd love to say, on such an occasion, "Oh, we served time together," just to see the look on the face of whoever was accompanying either of us.  As funny as that might sound, it'd be the sad truth.

Today, we cleaned out a drainage ditch in the East County.  We cleared a lot of leaves, small branches, and assorted discarded debris:  candy wrappers, pens and pencils, and even a computer/music disc (I didn't inspect it so I don't know if it was a cd or dvd).  The most potentially valuable thing I found was a drill bit that would be the correct size and length for drilling holes into stone or concrete for the insertion of rebar.  

We took lunch at the small airport located in either El Cajon or Santee (I don't know eastern San Diego well at all).  The young woman, beside whom I worked in the ditch, asked me if I was eating chicken pot pie.  I answered, "No, it's a quiche that I made last night because I knew I had this today."  She'd never heard of quiche before, but said it looked good.  One of the young men who shared the table with us said, "Quiche is good."  I didn't feel hungry enough to eat my apple, so left it in my erstwhile lunch tote to bring with me on Tuesday.

Three women who rode in the van with our group were separated out to work for a female officer, whom we met in a rural industrial parking lot.  When we picked them up at the end of the day, one of them complained about their officer, calling her (the officer) a bitch.  Another woman said, "She wasn't really a bitch;  she wasn't mean, but she's just [very exact and demanding]."  I thought to myself, well, yeah, I'd be that sort of probation officer, too!  

One thing that I've noticed about our motley crew:  most were mainly regular "normal" people with regular jobs, and a decent percentage of them smoke tobacco.  We were given occasional "smoke breaks" during which the addicts would light up and get their fix. The rest of us could have a snack or a drink from beverages that we'd brought with us, use the loo, or simply stand there.

The young man who worked on the same section of the ditch as I I worked has run several marathons, in San Diego and LA, but had stopped running when he started to drink more heavily.  Now he's determined to get back into running and to moderate his alcohol consumption.  I encouraged him to do so.

My last task was to sweep the street to sweep up the detritus which came out with us when we exited the ditch at its upper end.  The young woman's job was to brush out the van we rode in, for there was dried and caked mud between and below our seats.

My fellow servants and I ended up finishing our tasks ahead of the end of the day (3:30p), so the officer brought us back to our meeting place (the County Services Complex) and let us go for the day.

Upon reaching home, I phoned my credit card companies to report my cards stolen, then talked to an officer from the San Diego Police Department, filing a report for a stolen item.  Finally, I was able to phone the credit union to report stolen ATM and credit cards.

Unfortunately for me, my SCUBA cert cards were also in my wallet, along with my library card, my gift card from Home Depot, and my Transit photo ID.  Not fun.  I kind of hope that whoever stole it throws it away and that it's found and returned, because all the ID cards are worth much more to me than the cash, though there was not an insignificant amount of cash in it, either...

I hold out little hope of having anything returned, since its return would immediately cast suspicion on the perp, and then they'd be alienated, if not literally, then at least in their mind, from other Meetup attendees that night.  But I'm giving the perp a conscience, and they obviously don't have one, to steal a wallet from someone's backpack while attending a recreational social activity.