Happy & Sad

Happy - Got a new contract job! Actually had two offers on the same day. I decided to work on the project with Pfizer over the one with the New York Stock Exchange mainly due to the software I would learn at Pfizer as well as an intuition about the people I will be working with. I start on Monday!
Sad - Heath Ledger died (I'm sure you are fully aware by now). I was actually in his street today (Broome St in Soho) but I guess I didn't go past his building because I didn't see the flowers outside his building that Entertainment Tonight report were there today.

Happy - I reconnected recently with some old friends from Philadelphia that I met when I was in Israel when I was 15. I found them on facebook! I'm visiting them next weekend for a mini reunion!
Sad - The reason I thought about them was because of news of one of my Philadelphian friends who committed suicide on January 1st; Jordan Charlestein aka Dream Smith.

Did I write too soon?

A few posts ago I wrote about how delighted I was with certain aspects of my experience with medical professionals in the US. I think I must have jinxed it. It is entirely possible that my most recent experience has been the source of my greatest frustration since I moved here. And it's not over yet.

Let's bring you up to speed. The company that sponsors me for my visa offers a health cover to its employees with its health cover provider for the bargain price of $250 per month. It has been sold to me by my employer as a health cover that is unparalleled in the market due to its *cheap* price (I guess its all relative) and the fact that in network providers tend to have 100% of their fee covered, compared to an average copay of $20 of the fee with other providers.

Sounds good in theory. But as you would expect, there is a catch: who are these in-network providers and how convenient and available are they?

In December I attempted to see a GP before I was to head off for Cancun in a few days. So I consulted the website for my healthcare provider to find a GP that was listed as in network. I must've contacted 15 different GPs on the list and most of them had never heard of my healthcare provider and therefore would not see me. The few that would see me were booked up until January and there were a number of them that didn't answer the phone (how do they stay in business?) or the number was incorrect. By the end of this process I was frustrated to the point of tears and decided to forgo the doctor's visit.

I was amazed that I couldn't get an appointment for another month! How on Earth was I going to be able to see a doctor if and when I had a serious problem that could not wait a month?!? This did not make sense to me. I consulted some friends. It seems that if you are already a patient you could get a more convenient appointment but as a new patient you had to wait. I decided out of frustration to leave the issue for a while until I felt more tenacious and my patience level with this issue was replenished. I knew I would need to tackle this at some point so that when I really needed a doctor I had someone that would see me immediately.

So, almost two weeks ago, when I was speaking with my employer/sponsor, I mentioned the issue I was having with the health cover. He was very empathetic, and promised to take it up with the Insurance Broker. So, a few days later, I spoke with the Insurance Broker about the issue and he offered to provide me with a list of GPs that meet my criteria (female) that had been contacted to confirm that they do indeed cover my health insurance. This was a very nice offer I thought, but I guess the fact that I mentioned I was looking at alternative health covers was a contributing factor :) A couple days later I received a list of 4 female GPs, not all that close to me, but 3-4 stops away on the subway.

So I contacted the first on the list also closest to me. The first doctor on the list had an Asian name and was in 46th street. So I called them, and they gave me a different address on 56th street, further than another doctor on my list, but they were happy to see me in an hour! I admit, the immediate availability of this doctor, especially in comparison to the unavailability of other doctors previously contacted did raise some alarm bells, but I had begun on this path and was determined to see it through.

When I arrived at the address, it was simply a door leading upstairs and I wasn't sure which number to buzz in order for the door to open. Inadequate signage - not a good sign. So I called them and they buzzed me through. I then entered a room that was clearly a former Korean/Japanese restaurant. The former signage was still on the door. The room that I entered was nothing at all like a doctor's office! There were teacups and teapots and other asian wares on display in the room. There was a former bar where you could still see bottles hnging upside down ready to pour. And there were Korean people lounging around the reception area. It was explained to me that this was also a spa, but it didn't even look like that. I surreptitously tooks some photos, because you have to see it to believe it!

I sat there for about 10 minutes before I got the hell out of there! I didn't feel very comfortable putting my health in the hands of someone working out of this space!

I got home and booked an appointment 10 days in advance with a doctor that was not very close to me location-wise, but had a Jewish name which made me feel more comfortable! I guess it's silly for me not to see a Jewish doctor in New York of all places! I haven't had my appointmnet yet but I can't imagine it being worse than my most recent experience!

Old friends and new friends

There have been a few visitors from Australia in the last month. Simon & Skye on the way to touring through Central America, Rafi, who was here for a couple of weeks and my not so little cousin Richie.

Simon & Skye were here very briefly, but we managed to hang out a couple of times. Rafi was here for a few weeks and we had a lot fun: going to the basketball (the Knicks from a corporate box), hanging out in bars on the Lower East Side, the West Village, Flatiron, and Murray Hill (amongst others). Astoria in Queens even got a visit! We also went to a Shabbat dinner for International people, which was very entertaining.

Cousin Richie and I caught up on each other's lives and hung out a bit. My concierge still asks about my cousin with the crazy hair!

I also made some new friends recently, some cool if not adventurous girls. I'n not sure I want to play the "I Never" game with them again! One's a native New Yorker but the other two are from Sweden. The girl on the far right looks an awful lot like a younger Anna Nicole Smith!

And I went Ice skating in Central Park - two whole laps! I realized why it's been around 20 years since I last ice skated and decided that 2 laps was more than enough for me!

Weather here has been a bit schizophrenic with some days being 18 degrees (celsius) and others reaching as low as minus 9 degrees! At the moment its about average at 1 degree, not the most pleasant! But the nice thing is even though it can be this cold, the sun can still shine!

Turks & Caicos - the rest

The remainder of our week involved a lot of sun-baking, tennis, eating (as one always does at Club Med) and drinking. In general, Laura was the tennis queen, getting up at 9:30 every morning for the tennis lesson without fail. I occasionally joined her when I could drag myself out of bed. My sport of choice (other than softball) was water polo, where I managed to used my netball skills to be the high-scorer of my team. Unfortunately, half way into the game, the other team had cottoned on to me and I would end up with at least 3 people defending me (no joke).

Laura found met a guy half way through the trip and that left me a lot of time at night to figure out who to hang out with. I wasn't too impressed with most of the guests but managed to find some friends amongst the Club Med staff and 3 cool Canadian guys. That's all I'm willing to admit on a public webpage :)

Turks & Caicos - Day 1

Our trip was to begin with a flight at 7:50am which unfortunately required a start to the day at 3:45am as we had to get to the airport just after 5:30am. When Laura and I proceeded through security we were separated as my ticket had been flagged for a special security check! Us Australians are very dangerous apparently. Ironically, I managed to get through security before Laura despite the detour of being felt up by a female security officer!

Anyway, even though we left on the very important American holiday of Thanksgiving where you might expect a lot of people flying home, the airport was relatively empty. You may wonder why this is an interesting enough detail to mention in my blog. Well the reason is, I felt I needed to set the scene for another celebrity encounter. (You know how I love those!). After clearing security, Laura and I had some serious time to kill, so we decied to explore the limited number of retail outlets at the airport terminal. In Australian airports I am used to the plethora of duty free purchases to be made and I had purposely not packed the camera I brought to the US because I was keen to get a much smaller one that I could fit easily into my handbag so I could take it out with me all the time in NYC. Imagine my surprise, when I discovered the absence of electrical equipment at the duty free store!

But I guess you aren't really all that interested in that, you are probably wondering about my celebrity encounter. It's not that interesting, really. It's not like I saw Madonna or Brad Pitt. Laura and I were walking through the fairly empty airport when I spotted a rather vertically challenged, lone white haired man that reminded me of Richard Dreyfus. So I said (loud enough for him to hear) as he passed us, "That guy looks like Richard Dreyfus", and in acknowledgement of the fact that he was who I said he looked like, he said " Hi". That was it. I know, I kinda built it up to something big. Maybe the Baby Boomers reading this will be more impressed.

Back to the camera situation. (Who would've thought I could write so much and we haven't even taken off on our flight yet!). As neither Laura nor I had brought cameras with us, we were now in somewhat of a bind, with potentially no photos resulting from our trip. So we went to the newsagent and bought a couple of disposable cameras. We continued to walk around and walked into a music store, surprised to see that they stocked digital cameras! I was even more surprised when Laura asked the man in the store about getting a bulk discount if we bought 2 cameras. Laura kept bargaining this guy down further and further to the point where I could see there really wasn't a great deal of margin left and I was starting to get a bit embarrassed by her relentlessness to reduce the price even further. I stepped in and said "that's a good price" which I was heavily chastised for afterwards. But I must admit, Laura is very talented at haggling in a way that the salesman feels obliged to comply in her favour! In a short time we had gone from no cameras to 4! We promptly returned our disposable cameras.

We arrived at the Club Med village in Turks & Caicos just before lunch and we were amazed at how turquoise the water looked. Perhaps that had something to do with the name of the country! I didn't realise that Turks was part of the British Commonwealth and was happy to see cars driving on the left side of the road again!

That afternoon we joined a game of softball. At school I played first base, so I made sure I played that again. One of the guys on my team, understanding the importance of the position of first base asked me if I could catch. He soon had his answer. I don't often brag, but I rocked that game! I got loads of people out and, at one point I was pitching and the batter hit the ball straight into my rib (I still caught it though). I happened to be batting not long after that and managed to come out of my injury-forced retirement to bat to a cacophany of cheers. Ah, Club Med - it's kinda like camp for adults, but with alcohol and nicer rooms (not too much nicer though!)

Doctors, Dentists & Cosmetologists

Last week I finished up my most recent contract (yay!) and I took the opportunity of the past three days before I go away to "fix" myself. Being new to the city, I obviously don't have a troupe of healthcare and service professionals that I normally go to, so as you would expect, I have had a mixed bag of good and bad experiences. As you will discover...

A couple of weeks ago I had a deep tissue massage. Instead of improving my situation, it has caused me a great deal of back pain since, so I decided to get some physiotherapy. I found a "physical therapist" as they are called here, listed within my health network and called to make an appointment. The sports clinic was a few streets away from me and I was pleased to see that they didn't keep me waiting too long. I was ushered into an office lined with diplomas relating to being a doctor, and the lady talking to me introduced herself as Dr. Babie (pronounced Bobby). I was a bit confused as to why I was seeing a doctor of sports medicine instead of a physio, but it seemed that I required a referral in order to see a physio. So she did a few tests, and then determined that I should meet with both a chiropractor and a physical therapist. I don't even know of any clinic in Australia that would even think of having a physio and a chiro cohabiting the same space! But in the US, they seem to cohabit quite nicely and cooperatively as well. So, that same day, I was able to see both (which, again you wouldn't really experience in Oz without at leats a few weeks notice). I do have a feeling, though, that physical therapists in the US are not quite exactly of the same caliber as Physios, and perhaps that is why they coexist nicely with chiropractors.

This morning I went to see a Dentist. I had received a flyer in the mail for a chain of Dental Offices giving new patients a free appointment with the hygenist. However, there was one catch: I need to have a complete assessment of xrays etc to determine if I need other treatments. We all know how this goes, and Americans are exceptional at doing this kind of marketing. But I figured I didn't need to proceed with any program they suggested and could just get my teeth cleaned. So, I called to make an appointment last week as I wanted my teeth cleaned before I left on holidays. I was told that I could not have the appointment with the hygenist until I had had the assessment. Here we go...
Anyway, I figured I could have the xrays and then arrange the appointment for when I returned from my holiday. So I go and I have a much different experience than my doctor/chiro experience wait-wise and service wise. They get my name wrong, they leave me waiting for periods of time at different junctures; I am not happy. They took more xrays of my teeth than I have ever had before. Eventually I get to see the dentist, who sensing my annoyance, asks what is wrong. I explained that I was frustrated going through this whole process when all I really want is my teeth cleaned. He proceeded to inform me that he is an ultra experienced dentist and was definitely more experienced than any dentist I went to in Australia. A big call indeed, in my opinion, as he doesn't know my dentist! Perhaps he is of the opinion that Australia is just some backwater as far as dentistry goes, not unlikely given the ethnocentric attitude of many Americans. After all, the world series of baseball is comprised entirely of American teams. So I challenged that comment and he proceeded to reel off his list of admittedly impressive credentials. So I gave him that, but really, I still feel that I don't need the dental equivalent of a brain surgeon working on my teeth. And the result? My teeth are as good as any patient's could be and he doesn't suggest any further treatment, releasing me to book my appointment with the hygenist. So I then go to make an appointment, and as the hygenist only works on Tuesdays, I can't make an appointment until next year!!! Not good.

Yesterday, I had my hair cut & coloured. My new hairdresser is named Hector, a very camp Venezualan guy with the accent to boot. He is the ultra-stereotype. Unfortunately, his English not being quite as good as it could be means that we have a little misunderstanding between bangs and long layers and I ended up being not so satisfied with my haircut. I'm hoping to grow into it, pun intended.

There are a number of other professionals that I require in my troupe, but I am still in the process of trialling manicurists (yes - I actually get my nails done now!), waxers (they don't know how to wax here like they do in Australia, and I have sworn off Indian waxers from now on) and GPs (although here they seem to be called Internists).

Anyway, the point of my little tirade is, although I am having loads of fun here in New York, I still really miss my troupe from back home - my hairdresser especially!

Halloween and other gatherings

I never expected that Halloween was such a huge holiday here - but it really is! And it doesn't just go for one day. As with all holidays in the US, a one day holiday is stretched as far as it can possibly go. As Halloween fell on a Wednesday this year, many parties were held on the Friday and Saturday nights before. I made the mistake of going to a party for charity downtown. It was supposedly in a"ballroom" but was really more like a scout hall. Well, by the time the actual halloween came around I was totally over it!! Apparently there was a parade but I'd had enough. Oh, and if you didn't realize - I was a devil!

The previous Sunday I had a few girls over for my first gathering at my apartment. We had a great time and then we headed down to the games room in my apartment building. We played table tennis, air hockey and most importantly Wii!!! I'd never played it before and myself and all the girls loved it! Who said it's a boy's toy! To the left is a pic of most of the girls on my roof deck. Laura and Randi are missing because they are chicken!

At the end of next week my current contract will finish and on Thanksgiving day I am heading down to Club Med Turks & Caicos with my friend Laura for a week. Looking forward to it! After that it will be back to New York and looking for my next project!