Category: Whatnot

Yesterday’s installment of The Four Questions contained not one but two inside jokes about Tig Notaro’s show on Sunday night.

If you watch this old clip from The Tonight Show, you’ll see what I was referring to:

Want more Tig? She also incorporated this story into her set:

Adele? Taylor Dayne? Tig really has great taste in music!

There hasn’t been much activity here on The Daily Dave recently because I am the newest member of — drumroll, please — the Covid Breakthrough Case Club.

Despite two vaccine shots and a booster, I tested positive for Covid on Wednesday afternoon. Here are the answers to the questions everyone is dying to ask me.¹

• Aren’t you vaccinated? Yes indeed! Two shots and a booster.
• How bad is it? The symptoms aren’t that bad — I’d compare them to a mild flu. I have fatigue, aches, chills, and congestion. I can still smell and taste everything.
• Where did you catch it? I really have no idea, but I suspect it was at a hockey game on New Year’s Eve. I wore my mask everywhere except when I was sitting in my seat. 
• Does the Complimentary Spouse have it? Nope, the lucky bastard.
• Is there a song stuck in Dave’s head right now? Dave wants to talk to Weird Al about writing a song called Livin’ la Vida Covid.

Negative, Negative, Positive

I started feeling symptoms on Tuesday evening and took an at-home test. It was negative. The symptoms got worse overnight — I barely slept — so I drove to a testing center at 7 a.m. the next morning. The line was long and it took about 45 minutes to get my test.²

I didn’t mind waiting in line at Al Lopez Park. The weather was pleasant and the park was beautiful. Some of the trees had lost their leaves. See? We do experience Autumn in Florida — but it comes in January and only lasts a few weeks.

I got my results about an hour after I got home: negative.

Since I still didn’t feel well, Britt encouraged me to go to the local MinuteClinic. With Covid ruled out, I suspected I had a sinus infection and the staff there could prescribe me antibiotics. After a quick examination, they suggested I take another Covid test. That one came up positive.

“Hold on,” I said. “What if the negative test this morning was correct and the positive test this morning was not?” The nurse practitioner said that was unlikely for two reasons. First, false negatives are more common than false positives. Second, because my symptoms appeared the previous day, it’s possible that there wasn’t enough of the virus in my system yet to trigger a positive result in the morning. 

Science Is Real

When I started telling people about my Covid test results, my eminently wise friend Mike reminded me that I need to be careful about what it means to have a breakthrough case. The fact that I have Covid does not mean vaccines don’t work. Vaccines do more than protect against infection — they lessen the severity of symptoms if an infection does occur.³ Accordingly, instead of being in the hospital, I’m at home watching Golden Girls reruns, forcing Britt to wait on me hand and foot, and dealing with mild symptoms. All in all, that’s not too bad. The vaccine works. Without it, I’m sure things would be much worse. Science is real.

I’m sure I’ll be up and running in no time. Till then, you’ll find me cuddling with the doggos on the sofa.

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¹ OK, so no one is dying to ask me any of these questions. Hyperbole, like science, is real.
² Maybe it was closer to an hour. Can you really keep track of time when you’re listening to Madonna on your AirPods?
³ Don’t come for me unless you’re an infectious disease expert. Science, like hyperbole, is real. 

Hi there, greeting card companies!

There are millions of Jews in the United States¹, and I’m willing to bet that nearly all of us celebrate Hanukkah in some fashion. Why, then, do you put so little time and effort into Hanukkah cards? Every year, without fail, we’re disappointed to go to the store and discover the same thing:

• There are about a dozen cards to choose from, if you’re lucky.
• The cards are the same ones from last year, and the year before that, and the one before that, and … you get the idea.

Here’s a photo of the Hanukkah cards available at a store near me. The red checkmarks denote cards I’ve purchased at least once in the past. The green checkmarks are reruns of cards I’m pretty sure I’ve seen before.

This year, I announced to my friends and family that I’m not buying Hanukkah cards. It’s simply embarrassing to give people the same cards over and over again. It’s as impersonal and thoughtless as regifting — but, unlike regifting, you have to fork over money. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve given the Complimentary Spouse the “Happy Llamakah” card — which I thought was clever the first time I saw it years ago.²

So, greeting card companies, put in the work and show us something new next year. The best present you can give this mensch next Hanukkah is a few new cards to choose from!

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¹ The Pew Research Center says there are 5.8 million American adults that identify as Jewish, plus 1.8 million children being raised Jewish in some form.³

² Lucy and Linus, of course, get the card with the dachshund menorah each year.

³ Some back-of-the-envelope math: If 7.6 million Jews give a card each night of Hanukkah, and the average retail price is $3 a card, that’s $182.4 million in sales.

The first time I told the Complimentary Spouse I felt “a bit peckish,” he looked at me quizzically and asked what he had done wrong. His response confused me. Why would he think that I was accusing him of something when all I wanted was a snack?

It turns out that he had never heard the word “peckish,” and assumed it meant I was mad or annoyed. But it just meant I was hungry. 

Here’s why we weren’t on the same (dictionary) page: I spent part of my childhood in the U.K., where some British words seeped into my vocabulary. Most times, I can remember which words are correct in which countries, but in the case of “peckish” I had no idea it was an obscure word in America. 

I’ve lived in the U.S. now for many years, but there are still a few British remnants in my vocabulary. Sometimes I don’t even recognize when I’m using a non-American word. Here are some examples that pop up from time to time:

• When I ask Britt for the dogs’ leads, he brings me their leashes.
• If I tell Britt his windscreen is dirty, he washes his windshield.
• When I tell Britt I’m going to get a trolley at Publix, he knows I’m coming back with a shopping cart.

Beyond these examples and a few others, you usually won’t hear me mixing British and American words.¹ I think that’s because my vocabulary is on autopilot: 99.9% of the time, I will use the words and expressions appropriate for the country I’m in. For example, when we’re in Britain (or Ireland or Australia or New Zealand), without thinking I will:

• Ask where the lifts or toilets are.
• Order chips or crisps with my beef burgers.
• Put luggage in the boot of the car (and petrol in the tank).
• Write whilst and colour and end my sentences with a full stop.

As soon as the plane touches down in the States, I automatically revert to elevators,  bathrooms, French fries, potato chips, hamburgers, trunk, gas, while, color, and period.²

I suspect I’m not the only former expat with such an elastic vocabulary. This is simply an ability you pick up when you have lived abroad. I’ll chalk it up as another one of my awesome yet unmarketable skills. 

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¹ I can also switch between punctuation styles. For example, in the U.S., the period goes inside the closing quote, while in the UK, the full stop goes outside.³

² My Spanish vocabulary is also on autopilot: When referring to a car in Spain, I say coche, while everywhere else I use carro. 

³ Note that I used “U.S.” with periods while discussing American punctuation, and “UK” without full points when discussing British punctuation. That’s because initialisms are treated differently in each country. I know this stuff inside and out. Just wait till I get started on collective nouns. 

It’s Hanukkah! Let’s celebrate with a few non-terrible Hanukkah songs. The first is “Puppy for Hanukkah” by the incomparable Daveed Diggs, best known for “Hamilton.” Neither Lucy nor Linus are Hanukkah puppies, but they get Hanukkah gifts each year. Linus doesn’t like to share toys, and Lucy has a flazéda attitude when Linus steals hers.

Next, here’s “Goyim Friends” by the LeeVees. Let the goyim have their trees and whatnot. I’m happy with latkes and sufganiyot.

A few years ago, SNL gave us this wonderful musical Hanukkah present. It’s always a chai-light of any Hanukkah playlist.

Here’s an awesome playlist from Apple Music. My two favorites are “Give You Everything” by Buzzy Lee and “Eight Nights a Week” by Loudon Wainwright III. It’s the playlist the Complimentary Spouse and I are listening to now as we watch the candles burn down.

As part of the Gay Agenda™, I’m required to include this clip of Sandra Bernhard singing the prayer for lighting the Hanukkah candles to RuPaul.

Chag sameach! Now go spin some dreidels and eat some latkes!

My World War II hero is my grandfather, Technical Sergeant Rubin Simanoff of the 353rd Army Corps of Engineers. 

I never met Rubin, but I imagine he was a lot like me: Loud, social, and clever. He loved to chat and entertain. He was proud to be an American, yet also proud to be a Jew whose family hailed from a little town in Ukraine.

I know what Rubin was like during World War II from the letters of Roman F. Klick, the corporal (later sergeant) who oversaw the 343rd. Some of Klick’s letters home were archived, and a few of them mention Rubin. Here are some of my favorite anecdotes.

“Another fellow who plays the piano well is Simanoff of H&S [Headquarters & Service] Company and today. Just as back in the Service Club at Camp White, you will chance upon him every so often sitting at the piano pounding out semi-classical and swing music by the hour.”

July 6, 1943

“Nyalka wanted me to sing a song and I surprised the office by bursting out with ‘Buddy Can You Spare a Dime?’ I kept it up for a line or two when Simanoff, who had been passing by, stepped in, gave me a candy bar and told me to eat it instead of singing. I did.”

September 14, 1943

“It seems that most of the Jewish fellows in the regiment are Russian Jews. Simanoff was surprised to hear in today’s news broadcast the mention of the recapture of the town Priluki, the birthplace of his father thirty miles east of Kiev.”

July 13, 1943

Thank you for your service, Rubin.

As the ophthalmologist was preparing me for photocoagulation this afternoon, it took every ounce of restraint in my body to not turn to him and say, “Do you expect me to talk?”

That’s because, until today, my only knowledge of laser surgery came from this scene:

It turns out that treating a hole in your retina with a laser has very little in common with derailing a criminal mastermind’s plans to irradiate all the gold in Fort Knox. First, the procedure took place in a doctor’s office and not a lair. Second, a young Sean Connery¹ was nowhere to be found. Last … well, er, I’m struggling to churn out a Pussy Galore joke here, but it just ain’t happening.²

As with everything that happens in an eye doctor’s office, the procedure started with eye drops. In this case, they were numbing drops. It takes a moment for the numbing effect to kick in — for a fraction of a second, my eye burned, and I wondered if they had used Tabasco instead. 

Next, the ophthalmologist strapped on headgear that looked like the Borg³ designed it. It had several lights (I assume one was the laser itself) and was tethered to a piece of equipment about the size of a breadbox. I don’t know what the headgear is called, and I wish I did because I’ve been trying to find photos online. Google doesn’t do a very good job when you search for “crazy laser eye surgery hat.”

The word “photocoagulation” comes from Latin. In this case, “photo” means “light,” and “coagulation” means “this is weird and uncomfortable.”

As I understand it, the laser surgery doesn’t seal the hole. Instead, it burns dozens of tiny scars into the retina to prevent the hole from enlarging, leaking, or turning into a tear. The doctor focused the laser bursts with a large lens, which he held directly over my eye. The laser is green, which, as every child is taught in school, is the same color as Luke’s lightsaber.

My ophthalmologist was great. I know I’m joking around here about the experience, but the doctor was very professional and put me at ease. Because of the location of the hole, I had to keep my right eye pointed down and to the right. I kept trying to imagine something in that direction right outside of my field of vision, but that’s not easy to do when someone is focusing a beam of light into your eye. Involuntarily, I’d move my eyes after a few laser bursts. I kept apologizing: “I’m really sorry,” “I’m not trying to make things difficult for you.”

The doctor was reassuring, telling me I was doing fine every time I apologized. I lost time during the procedure — it felt like 30 minutes, but it was probably over in less than 15.

I’ve been home for a few hours now, and I am happy to report that the only side-effect was the overwhelming urge to eat an entire package of Biscoff cookies. Hey, don’t judge me! I just had surgery.

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¹ Swoon.

² James Bond: “Who are you?”
Pussy Galore: “My name is Pussy Galore.”
James Bond: “I must be dreaming.”

³ Resistance is futile.