Fiction Friday: The Alien Story

Over the past several months, KosherCop has become quite the creative writer. He can't technically "write" yet, though, so this translates into a lot of dictation for us me. This time, though, I got lucky and his teacher at camp had to do the writing.

The first few weeks of camp they were doing projects related to outer space, and one of the projects was to write a story about an alien.

KosherCop is very particular about where his secretary is allowed to write the words to the story - which happens after the he draws the picture. So I feel fairly confident that he decided where the words were written on this story.

Pretty nice composition for a 5 year old, no?

Anyway, without further ado, I give you KosherCop's Alien Story:

The alien is on Jupiter.

A rocket comes and he says, "Oh no! People are going to find out that I really exist."

He turns invisible. Then the rocket lands right on him. The alien says, "Ugh!" Then he slowly crawls out from the rocket.

He goes into his house. He looks out the window. He sees that the men are getting out.

Then they turn off the fire in the rocket. They say, "We have to see if aliens exist."

The alien got all his friends and they discussed a plan.

They worked on some kind of potion. When no one was looking they poured the potion on the rocket.

Instead of the rocket going back to Earth, it blew up.

Then the men found materials to make a new rocket. Then they blasted off.

But they didn't know that one alien took a picture of one of the men. In the picture there was another person, but when the alien took the picture he was invisible.

It was not an alien. It was a ghost.

The End.

I don't know about you, but I loved the surprise ending. Who would have guessed? A Ghost!

ViviLulu

Several years ago, before I started Kosher Whine, I wrote on another blog called ViviLulu. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted this blog to be, and as a result it never really had a cohesive theme.

It was sort of about being a working mom married to a stay-at-home dad, mid-century design, and being frustrated with living in the suburbs and losing all sense of a personality. Instead of the cool bohemian art student I used to be when I was younger, I was frumpy, lumpy, and grumpy.

I dubbed myself "ViviLulu: Queen of Schluburbia" and wrote there for a while. But, eventually it became too hard to sustain, since there was never a clear vision for the site.

In any case, I'm in the process of revamping ViviLulu into a site that does have a clear purpose, and I've moved the existing posts over here to Kosher Whine.

They are all under the tag from ViviLulu and although they may not have a common theme, some of the KosherCop stories are pretty cute. Oh, and just to add to the confusion, my husband, KosherCook, was called Leo and KosherCop, our son, was called Henry in the ViviLulu posts.

You can start here with Queen of Schluburbia and work your way up.

Good luck and don't take any wooden nickels.

Weight Watchers

Just a quick update on yesterday's recipe.

I have been doing Weight Watcher's since January (and lost 12 lbs. - Thank you, thank you), so I went back and added the points for a serving of the Chicken Cucumber Salad With Tortelli. (4 points/ serving)

Firefly Buddies

Fireflies! They are everywhere!

If you happened to see this article on fireflies this past weekend in the Washington Post you would know that we have had terrific weather for fireflies to come out and play. And they are out in droves.

KosherCop has finally discovered the joys of catching lightning bugs and has been out every night over the last week and a half - first to catch them in a jar, then just to run with them.

Most recently he has taken to running screaming through the front yard at top volume, "Aaaah! My firefly buddies! I love you! Come back firefly - my little buddy!"

Last night we tried attracting them with a flashlight. I felt kind of bad - I think one of them fell in love with it. Poor unrequited firefly love.

A few weeks ago when I finally found a sharp enough object to make holes in the lid of the jar, I let KosherCop catch some and bring them inside for the night.

About an hour after he went to sleep I was on the phone and noticed a little firefly on the bedroom door. I went out and took a head count. Three. One had in fact escaped. Apparently I made the holes too big in the top. I returned the little firefly to captivity and wondered who'd be left by morning.

Apparently only that one was smart enough to find his way out. He was gone again by morning, at which time we set them free. Mister escape artist turned up a day or two later - dead by the back door.

If only he knew where we kept the key.

Chicken Cucumber Salad With Tortellini

Tonight, we had a light and delicious summer supper that KosherCook came up with.

First, I'd like to apologize for not having a picture of the dish. I forgot the camera wasn't charged up, and...well, now the food is gone. Sorry - it was really yummy.

But, I can post the recipe for you. It not only garnered "19 thumbs up" from KosherCop (his highest praise for food), but he insisted on drawing this logo to add to the post as his personal stamp of approval. In case you can't tell, that is a heart over the person's head to show that he loves the food.

As always, KosherCook just creates and the recipe comes later when I try to pin him down on how he made the dish. So most seasonings are approximate or by taste.

Ingredients:

• Tortellini (we used NY Pasta Authority California Sun-Dried Tomato Tortellini - pareve)
• 1 pound Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
• 1 Cucumber, peeled with seeds removed
  
• 1/3 Pablano Pepper
• 1/3 Red Bell Pepper
• 1 Head Romaine Lettuce
  
• 1 1/2 TBSP Mayonnaise
• approx 1 tsp Lemon Juice
• Dried Rosemary
• Fresh Ground Black Pepper
• Italian Dressing
• Tarragon Vinegar

Method:

1. Dice the chicken breasts
2. Spray non-stick pan with vegetable oil spray and sautee chicken breasts. Season with dried rosemary and black pepper (several pinches)
3. Sprinkle with lemon juice and cover to finish cooking
4. Put in chicken in fridge to cool
   
5. Cook tortellini according to instructions, drain and put aside
6. Dice peppers and cucumber, combine in glass dish or measuring cup, and sprinkle with tarragon vinegar. Set aside for 10 minutes or so
7. When chicken has cooled, combine with vegetables and tortellini, add mayonnaise and a couple of squirts of italian dressing. Mix well.
8. Serve on whole Romaine lettuce leaves

Makes about 6 servings. Each serving is 4 Weight Watcher's points.

Enjoy!

Who's Watching Over Me?

We have a new fairy godmother. It's called Anthem HMO. I'm pretty sure it stands for Horrible Monetary Option.

Or maybe it's Hyperventilating More Often.

Several months ago the company I work for sent around an email saying they were shopping for new health insurance. We were asked to fill out a survey about what we would want in a new insurance option. I was very specific - I would be happy with any option that was the same price or cheaper that had exactly the same coverage - or better.

Obviously, my opinion was not given much weight.

A while later we were told that Anthem was the leading contender and asked to please log into their website - following a specific set of instructions - and check if our current doctors were on the plan.

I was greatly relieved to find that all of our doctors were on the plan.

Then came the sales pitch - the insurance rep came in to give us an overview of our benefits. It sounded great! Everything we had before but no referrals. No more trips to our insane primary care doctor who sends us to the ER every time we need further testing.

Yep, everything sounded great. But...oh wait...some things would now cost $150 instead of $0. Oh well. All those $20 copays we'd be saving by going straight to a specialist without stopping at the PCP for a referral would even things out.

Oh, and by the way, the insurance company wants you to take the generic version of a drug if it's available.

That sounded reasonable - most doctors check that box on the prescription to allow generic if available.

Oh, and make sure if you go to Urgent Care you check if the doctor on duty is in-network or you will have to pay through the nose. Huh? Who the hell knows which doctor at an Urgent Care facility takes which insurance? Usually the Urgent Care facility is either in-network or not. (This is a huge problem for us since we avoid our doctor at all costs and try very hard to get sick after hours and on weekends.)

Better yet, just call the insurance company before doing anything to make sure it's covered.

Also, there was an HMO and PPO option. The first 95% of the presentation was about the PPO. There was one PowerPoint slide at the end that the rep rushed through, basically saying Oh, everything is exactly the same as the PPO but there is no out-of-network price. Either the doctor is in-network or you pay the whole thing.

Hmm. I was planning to choose the HMO option. It was the same price as what I was already paying and the PPO was 2x more expensive. I better check on this in-network situation.

No worries. The only difference was the out-of-network price, but all the doctors in the network were the same - supposedly 93% of all doctors in our area.

So I felt okay about the new insurance. Could be worse. I didn't stress about it.

For a few weeks we got reminders to fill out the application and I kept putting it off.

Finally, the day it was due I started filling it out. There was a space to fill in our Primary Care doctor and their PCP#. I went to the website, followed the new instructions specifically for the HMO option and discovered much to my horror, that only one doctor that anyone in the family goes to is in-network for the HMO!

I figured I must be doing something wrong and asked the HR director what it was. She emailed back that my doctors probably just weren't in the HMO - hers weren't; that's why she picked the PPO!

Oy. Apparently, when we were asked to check a few months ago, we were checking if our doctors were in the PPO plan. That's why they came up.

Crap. The expensive PPO plan was not an option for us. We could not afford that much more taken out of each paycheck.

KosherCook and I have been completely stressed out ever since, because this change has proven to be just as aggravating and problematic as it sounded. In just the two short weeks since it started, the new insurance has "caused confusion and delay" (to quote Sir Topham Hatt) getting doctor's appointments and tests scheduled.

But, the icing on the cake was on Friday afternoon when I went to pick up my asthma medications I take daily and they weren't covered. Anthem thinks I should be taking something they like better - a cheaper medication that I've already tried and doesn't work.

Maybe HMO stands for "Help - More Oxygen!"

Earth Hour 2009

Tonight at Chez Kosher Whine we participated in Earth Hour 2009. At 8:30pm we turned off our lights along with a billion or so other people around the world to help raise awareness and vote for more action on climate change.

I have no idea if it will change anything, but it would be nice if it did.

What I do know is that it was completely confusing to turn all the lights off right after Shabbat ended. It was even more confusing because KosherCop and I watched a dvd on the computer (via battery power - since flashlights were okay I figured the laptop was okay too).

So there we were in the dark, watching a movie - the power wasn't out so if we wanted to we could turn on the lights and they would have worked. We chose not to turn on the lights yet anything we could manage to do in the dark without breaking our necks was perfectly permissible - cooking, cleaning, writing, etc. Very confusing.

KosherCook and I always experience this same confusion on secular American holidays, especially Thanksgiving when there is a "festive meal." We always walk around all day reminding ourselves its okay to write, phone, cook, and no - we don't have to wait until sundown to eat or light candles.

But, tonight our self-imposed darkness only lasted an hour - an hour that a very tired KosherCop couldn't even make it through. He has a cold - complete with fever - and was begging to go to sleep by 9:15 - which is obviously well past his bedtime. Luckily, flashlight teethbrushing is one of KosherCook's many talents and KosherCop was too tired to ask for a story. Although KosherCook could probably have managed that as well, since he was perfectly happy to read by hurricane lamp candlelight for an hour.

What was interesting was that we talked to my Aunt this evening and KosherCop told her all about how were going to be turning off the lights and why. When I got back on the phone I clarified a few details and her answer was okay, I guess I'll turn my lights off at 8:30 too.

Now this is an 80-something year old woman who lives alone, and yet she was willing to participate in this brief bit of activism with absolutely no convincing. Pretty cool of her, and more importantly, it shows how easy it is to get people on board with this line of thinking.