The Country's Financial Crisis vs. Dolly's Calcium Crisis

September 24, 2008
To celebrate Dolly’s birthday, Dad and Marty invited her to our lunch. Dolly DeCamp is the tiny, chiseled receptionist who loves our family and is intensely loyal to Banner. She chose Prairie Grass, right across the street from the office, because she hadn’t ever tried it, and Marty always praises the salmon burger.
Marty started in immediately on the current financial crisis, talking about Fanny Mae being caught with their pants down in 2003 and allowing congress to push them into offering all those high risk mortgages to people who had no hope of repaying. Of course, there were all the lying/cheating/creepy CEO’s who parlayed losses into phantom wins which allowed them to peal off millions of dollars in golden parachutes, bonuses, and other ill-gotten gains.
Dad wanted to say, as usual, that it’s all the fault of the Clinton administration, and that all the deregulation is not just Clinton but two top dems fault; this entire crisis all came about apparently because, and solely because of those 3. Never mind anything that occurred in the past 7.5 years of the Bush administration, never mind any of the deregulation pushed through by republicans….and he repeated this several times until Marty told him to stop talking and I had to remind him that the situation, as are many, is far more complex than he is making it out to be.
I wish I’d thought to mention that McCain is a lifelong believer in deregulation and allowing bankers/brokers to do as they please. Free market above all. I wish I’d thought to mention McCain’s intervention on behalf of that Keating S and L guy who later went to prison, or the whole Silverado fiasco that nearly destroyed Colorado. It’s just not worth saying anything negative about McCain, who now decries Wall Street’s (shock) greed, because all Dad does is bring up some negative point about Democrats, true or untrue.
This discussion went on and on, yawn, with Dolly sitting silently, clearly not having a good time until I stopped listening to Marty’s prognosis of doom and started asking Dolly about her birthday plans. After mentioning a dinner in Evanston, Dolly told us that she was having a terrible birthday.
Why? We were all so sad to hear it. She started telling us that she’d been diagnosed with a severe lack of bone mass, that her bones were described to her as being like swiss cheese. She was warned to be careful of not breaking anything, and forced to completely change her diet. And the worse part, this is two weeks now, is that she has to give herself a daily shot of some medicine that will hopefully, after 2 years, heal them bones.
Dolly was raised in an orphanage; she told us that they never got actual milk, only the powdered kind that was gross and disgusting. She probably started harming her bones way back then…and she is such a little bird of a person, so tiny and fragile without a speck of body fat to be seen. We were probably all thinking that she should just eat that whole piece of pie by herself, and maybe not take off the top of the bun.
The worse part for her is that she has an intense fear of needles, and has cried and cried because it is so challenging and difficult to stick a needle into herself every morning. It makes her tired, but she doesn’t want to suffer all through the day being anxious about doing it in the evening, so she gets it over before going to work.
Marty, in his usual positive way, spoke about how lucky she is that doctors have figured out how to help her, even if it’s unpleasant, and that she will get stronger because of it. And Dad really could have brought up that he had to go through a lot of unpleasantness with his heart, and his shaking etc…but Dolly was so anguished by her own misery that it didn’t seem like remembering any body else’s problems would have made her feel better.
Marty did take a few minutes to talk about his bathroom renovations, which is almost as interesting as discussing the financial crisis, but I do feel for him. He likes to be careful and parsimonious in his dealings with money, but has to cope with Cindy just going ahead and spending whatever she wants. It is a little startling that bathroom tile is costing them so much, but certainly not as shocking as how much the Bar Mitzvah cost.