The DoorDash Grandma

Perhaps you’ve seen the news recently. No, not about the war with Iran. Not President Trump picking a fight with the Pope. Not Trump claiming that he is a doctor in his social media post. 

Since all doctors dress like this, particularly on The Pitt. 

No, the news about the “DoorDash Grandma” delivering McDonalds to Trump. By the way, getting McDonalds to the president at the White House seems very inefficient. Although there's a McDonalds only a few blocks away from the White House, it's going to take some time for the DoorDash driver to arrive at the gate, get through security, park, and deliver the meal to the president. The Big Mac and fries are going to be cold once the president gets his meal!

Anyway, the DoorDash Grandma earned $11,000 in tips in 2025. While I'm not completely familiar with the legislation and her actual finances and I'm not an accountant, it seems like she is going to save some money by not having to pay taxes on tips. (Again, she earned $11,000 in tips, she's not saving $11,000.) Doordash Grandma has 10 grandchildren and her husband has cancer. In the interview on Fox News below, she mentions wanting to spend more time with her grandchildren. Now this should be the bigger story.

Does she want to work or does she have to work? I saw a story where she and her husband went through their savings to pay for cancer treatments. You know what would be better than saving money by not having to pay taxes on tips? Not having to pay significantly more money on cancer treatments! Maybe the administration and Congress should try to expand and improve on the Affordable Care Act. Universal health care would be nice. But nope. We're going to talk about Trump getting McDonalds and maybe how people will save money by not paying taxes on tips while the DoorDash Grandma goes back to Arkansas to try to support herself and her husband while trying to figure out how to pay their healthcare bills.

My Health Report

I recently went to the doctor for my annual physical. A few days after the appointment, the office posted lab results and the doctor's comments on a patient portal. This is what my doctor wrote:

EXCELLENT LABS LIPIDS VIT D NO DM OR ANEMIA SUGAR 87 CHOL 192 WITH HDL 52

GREAT HE IS AGAIN IN VERY GOOD HEALTH F/U ROUTINE IN ONE YR NL VIT D 33

Several thoughts about this. FIRST, WHY ALL CAPS? THIS ISN'T TWITTER!

There's probably a good lesson here that I should not send any direct messages.

While my sugar is 87, what is my watermelon sugar?

I thought my doctor and I had a good relationship, so it's a little rude that he wrote F/U in the summary.

Overall, this report seems good. My LYM% and LYM# are low and my GRAN% is high whatever all of this means. My LDL cholesterol number is high too. However, the doctor didn't seem at all concerned about this. 

As the weather has gotten colder over the last few weeks, I'm becoming less and less active. Even sloth-like. Therefore, I was a little surprised that my weight stayed pretty much the same. Actually, my weight is up 0.022 pounds from last year. That's right, not 2 pounds or even .2 pounds, but 0.02 pounds. The difference might be that I wore a heavier shirt on the scale this year!

The doctor seemed tired. It's clearly been a tough year for him because of COVID. 

Oh, thinking about Chadwick Boseman's passing, I asked whether I needed a colonoscopy. Traditionally, this isn't done until you are 50, but there have been some reports suggesting that this should be done at 45. I'm 45. He said that as long as the blood labs came back well (which they did), I should wait to do this until around 47.5 (to "split the difference") and definitely after COVID ends.

So that's my health report. Tune in soon for my annual Hanukkah post, and please check out and like the Pickles at Chanukah Facebook page. You'll be surprised to see how this tradition is growing! 

Sean Versus The Sun

The title of this post probably isn’t as catchy as Joe Versus The Volcano, but I like it.

I recently went to the doctor for my annual examination. While I had high cholesterol in the past, my numbers have been fantastic lately, well within the normal range. All of my other blood results came back fine too except for this item:

Vitamin D, 25-Hydroxy - 24.8 ng/mL (30.0-100.0)

So I now have low Vitamin D numbers. Here are the actual notes from my doctor:

Excellent labs lipids
No dm or anemia

Chol 163 great
rtc one yr and pm
He is in good health
sl low vt d 25 so take otc vit d once a day and get some sun exposure to help bones heal well and remain strong
Not a major issue however

I’m not a doctor, but I’ll decode this message to the best of my abilities.

Excellent labs lipids

Damn right I have excellent lab lipids. Take that lipids.

No dm or anemia

I guess no direct messages for me on Twitter or Facebook for the next year, so just email me instead.

Chol 163 great
rtc one yr and pm

For the next item, I believe this means that I need to go to Reston Town Center once in the evening during this year.

The rest seems rather self-explanatory though I’m not sure why I need to attend the Offshore Technology Conference.

Back to the low Vitamin D numbers, I decided to look at my lab results from the last few years and found that they were not part of the documents. Did they not test this in the past? Basically, have I always had low Vitamin D numbers? If this is something new, I have a theory as to why my numbers are low. The weather.

The Washington DC weather is likely to be the wettest in history. It seems like rained every day over a several month period in the summer and fall, and even if wasn’t raining, it was still cloudy.

Since it’s unlikely that I’ll get much sun in what sounds like it will be a cold and snowy winter, I guess I’ll start taking Vitamin D tablets to go with my fish oil pills. Pharmaceutical companies win again!

Play A Doctor On The Internet

When I went to my doctor for a routine physical about a decade ago, my doctor noticed that I had high cholesterol. He suggested that I start taking fish pills twice a day. I have done so nearly everyday since, and my cholesterol levels have been down for years.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post published an article titled "Fish oil pills: A $1.2 billion industry built, so far, on empty promises" questioning the value of taking fish pills. The article focuses on fish pills and heart disease, though heart disease has never been a concern for me.

So this got me thinking. Should I continue taking the fish pills? It may not be helping me but I don't think they are hurting me. Is cutting back to just taking one per day an option?

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Randomness & Links

There's a lot of little things I want to share, and it makes sense (at least to me) to put everything together into one post.

- We're considering giving up our home phone and relying solely on cell phones. I know many people do this, but I've always had a home phone. This scares me a little including the fact that my kids will need to use my (likely brand new) cell phone if they want to talk to their relatives. I guess that's what Skype is for. (That was the original title of a Dionne Warwick song.)

- Ever wonder what the most popular breakfast cereals are in the US? The answer is Cheerios which also matches the most popular cereal in my house. Meanwhile, I've never heard of Malt-O-Meal, the 10th most popular cereal. [The Washington Post]

- I've had the opportunity to get to know some awesome people through this blog. The talented Neal Coolong is one of those people. Even though we've never met, he was extremely generous in giving his time for my Pittsburgh Sports Blogger Interview Series, and he's always supported my blog. Neal recently shared that he's leaving Behind The Steel Curtain, the best Steelers blog around, and will announce his new gig soon. More importantly, his daughter appears to be doing better. [Behind the Steel Curtain]

- Nicholas, aka Tecmo, another friend that I met through this blog and actually met once in person at a Penguins-Islander game recently celebrated the 8th anniversary of his blog Pittsburgh Sports & Mini Ponies. He doesn't post as much as he used (that sounds familiar), but his blog is always a good read. [PSAMP]

- My friend Sarah (someone who is a friend from before I started this blog) was on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour Small Batch podcast. She's really good. If you're a romance reader or know someone who is, they must check out her blog, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. [NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour]

- Inside Higher Ed regularly publishes commencement speakers. I love the fact that Ithaca College's 2015 commencement speaker, Meghan Musnicki, has a longer bio than some actor named Denzel. [Inside Higher Ed]

- Lisa of Lemon Gloria was an extra in House of Cards. There are some spoilers in the post, but I don't know any of the characters names, so nothing spoiled for me. [Lemon Gloria]

- I get jealous every time I read one of Christine's blog posts since I'd love to travel internationally. She recently visited the Seoul Olympic Park and shared lots of pictures like this one. [The Adventures of ChrisMichRob in Korea]

- Finally, I landed awkwardly attempting a diving catch during an ultimate Frisbee game at least five years ago. I was in significant pain at the time, but kept playing and felt better soon after. However, I still feel some discomfort in my shoulder when raising my arm to make certain signals as a soccer referee/assistant referee and when washing my back. It might be 30 years, but I'll probably need surgery someday.