OK... I really try not to blog more than once-a-week, but I've been trying to average that for over a year, & know I missed a few, so excuse the fact that this one's coming when it is.
Excuse me also if I'm asking you to excuse too much, but excuse me for a minute while I allow myself to exert a bit of an ego. (I've broken my jaw & right foot in different years, & my knees have cracked for literally decades, so I hope this doesn't hurt like those do.)...
I'm a 3-time school-spelling-bee Champion who has also been in contact with a few publishing companies spread across the contiguous United States. I've also been printed in the newspaper a few times. That said, it's not ego but honesty that requires me to admit I haven't taken an actual class at an actual school in over a dozen years.
You want to know why I'm bringing all of this up?! It's because I went on a trip into Pennsylvania with my Dad today. That's nothing special; I went on a trip with Dad under 2 months ago, & a-year-or-so ago, I had a "specialist" doctor I was seeing multiple times a year (maybe not specifically, but someone in the same building) at her offices in Pennsylvania...
....OK; Back to honesty. That doc is one of the specific reasons I am writing this. That "specialist" was seen for a disease regular readers of my blog (or members of my family) know I've never believed I had, & that has also been true for over a decade, since long before I saw that particular person (or anyone in that building).
I haven't gone to that building in over 6 months, & don't expect to ever go back, even if it was proven some day this month that I actually have that particular disease... The reason being that (due technically to nothing I did) I saw a "specialist" in the same area much closer to where I live. In the past 6-weeks-or-so, that person has left the area, & my insurance-coverage has changed, so the latter is currently trying to connect me to one of the former that is in their/our "plan".
Often the last few weeks, my mind has been hit not with a statement, but a question: Do I owe it to that company & their employers to make their lives easier if I can? I mean this 200% seriously, in that I'm seriously thinking about it, & I seriously want an answer if you have it. I love my nephews & niece, & sometimes we (mostly Mom; I sleep at weird hours) watch them here when my sister goes to a doctor. I don't have, want, or need that type of doctor due to obvious anatomical differences between my sister & I. My point being I may not need a new one of these "specialist" folks at all if it turns-out I've been the correct minority all along, & I've never actually had this particular disease. No doubt I would call the insurance tomorrow (well, in about 10 hours) & tell them if I knew that to be the case, but the fact is I don't, neither do they, & I feel just as sure that neither of us know a way to definitively prove one way or the other.
That's where this all ties into the trip I took with Dad. We were listening to his car radio, which has that "XM" satellite deal. One of the ads I heard was for a show that claimed it had recently been discussing "back-to-school". That makes total sense to anyone if they look at the calendar. What makes less sense (to me, anyway) is that one of my cousins is getting started on "home-schooling" their children... But what seems to me as being at the top (or rather bottom) of the "sensibility" list is that my sister is getting ready to "home-school" my eldest nephew, who already passed Kindergarten & First Grade in the same school seemingly filled with kids not related to him in any way that she & I passed those same grades.
I have said for decades (aloud & in print) that my sister is very intelligent. She'd agree in a proverbial split-second that I outdo her in my recall of certain subjects, but that works both ways. One subject they never taught either of us in school is what's well-known as "common sense" (I refuse to call it that). I can guarantee you the 2 of us disagree on which of us knows more of this, & her choice to take him away from the public schools she started him in would be my "Exhibit A".
As I already typed, she's incredibly smart... But the problem with her teaching anyone (that would also be true about me, my doctors, the people who assisted &/or taught my doctors, or my best friend, who literally worked for "Teach For America" last I knew) is they can only teach you what they know. Much less has happened in the 14-years-or-so since she graduated than did in the prior 100+ of this country (let alone the world), but think about this: If, on the day she's teaching him the names of the planets, she briefly forgets that Pluto was knocked off the list, he potentially spends the next quarter-century believing he knows something that isn't really true...
...Likewise, if the first "specialist" doctor I saw because of my diagnosed Diabetes (who, ironically, doesn't "practice" medicine anymore, & whose offices were located down the street from the alma mater of myself, my sister, & the aforementioned best-friend-turned-teacher) was seeing me due to a diagnosis that it turns-out (tomorrow, next month, or in another decade when I'm cryogenically unfrozen) was incorrect (not on purpose, but due to some un-name-able person making a diagnosis due to a mistake out of their control), then it makes no difference then (I'll potentially have died already), but now, I may as well get one of those tattoos I recently re-discovered notes about me considering, as sticking needles into my skin with no real purpose is part of my personal history.
Finish @ 2:01 AM
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