One thing I hate about Grey’s Anatomy is the bizarre absence of Jewish doctors. Nine seasons in, a minor character called Nessbaum got a couple of lines. And that’s it. No Jews. Which is as realistic as the almost complete absence of Asian doctors. Save for a single character of Korean ancestry, there’s nobody. No Indians, no Chinese. The latter is especially bizarre, given that the show is set in Seattle. There is even a doctor I suspect of being of Russian origin but he’s not Jewish either.

The unexpected demographics among doctors are mirrored by patients. Every other character is African American but almost none are Asian. Which is unlike any Seattle I’ve ever seen. And people at the hospital are so unfamiliar with Asian faces that they confuse a clearly Korean person for a Chinese. How anybody can make that mistake is beyond me, and besides, this is supposed to be the multicultural Seattle, not rural Quebec.

To compensate for this weirdness, the makers of the show gave the single Korean character a Jewish stepfather. It’s like they are covering both slots with one person just to get it out of the way. Even here in STL, you can’t go into a hospital without bumping into a Jew around every corner.

I’m actually glad I’m teaching Klara some Russian words. Now I can avoid embarrassing her and myself with the local variant “bumbum” and instead say, “We are big girls now, so we don’t show our popa to strangers. We change our swimsuits indoors. It’s only OK to show your popa to mommy, daddy, and the doctor.” Which, of course, led to an uncomfortable discussion of “Mommy, do you show your popa to grandpa? Because he’s your daddy?”

Still, it’s better than having the same discussion while using the ridiculous bumbum. I’m so not good with the baby talk. N had to spell bumbum for me before I understood it.

Also, how old do they think I am to donate over the phone? I’m a GenExer. If you can’t do it through PayPal, it’s of no interest to me. I don’t need to be called. I don’t need to be emailed. I need to be sent text messages with PayPal links.

I’m trying to get some sleep here! Dumbasses.

For once I forgot to turn off the phone, and at 8 am stupid DNC called me in a cheerful voice from the East Coast to ask how many new seats did I think Democrats needed to pick up. The complete lack of understanding that the Midwest has a time difference and that people shouldn’t be woken up at an ungodly hour made me hate them with (an even greater) passion.

I feel like part of a despised heartland we hear so much about.

A bunch of freaks, all of them. Opulence sounds like a good thing until it starts to vomit up this kind of dregs. Because you’ve got to be overfed for generations to come up with something like this.

One of the protagonists of Castellanos Moya’s Moronga is, like the author, a Salvadoran who works as a college professor in the US. He finds himself stumped by the sexual harassment training he has to undergo until a compatriot gives him invaluable advance.

“Always answer the exact opposite of whatever you really think,” he says, and the professor aces the test.

This made me smile because I do the same thing to pass these trainings. And I mumble, “Darn Puritans” when I do it, just like the Salvadoran character.

Police is conducting an active shooter training on our campus next week. It will take two whole days and areas of campus will be locked down. The local PD and the local firefighters will participate, as well as the US Customs police. I’m not sure what the federal Customs police have to do with it.

I submitted my long-suffering piece today, so now I can do more Grey’s Anatomy. I’m on season 9, so spoiler alert!

In this season, Christina finally finds a substitute daddy and gets a chance to grow up. Yay!

The character I hate in the show is Arizona. I liked her at first because I love the actress but after the plane crash she turned into the kind of person I hate the most. Everybody has shitty things happen to them. That’s the nature of human experience. Some of us have shittier things happen than others. But that’s not an excuse to treat your wife or anybody else like garbage.

As I keep saying, tragedy reveals who we really are. It’s easy to be a nice person when everything is great. But whether the niceness is just a mask hiding a pile of excrement is only revealed during hard times.