Yontiff Yenta

( Recited in  heavy Brooklyn-ese)

Roses are Red-ish,
My Town car is blue-ish.
Did I get a deal?
What do you think? I'm Jewish!

You should meet my son Harry,
Oy! He sent me a canary.

I cooked it in the soup,

Cause all it did was….ooop.

My grandkids? All Einsteins-

(My daughter married a Feinstein.)

My summer condo in Tampa Bay

Is much shtotier than the one in LA.

I had Esty do my face,

The little lines are, takeh, erased!

My nose already looks like a shikseh,

(For once, Marvin says the money was a mitzveh!)

When I walked into Sheel,

You shoulda’ seen their looks-

I’m telling you Shprintza,

It was “ fa-the books!”

-And don’t forget to call your  poor  Mommeh,

You know how hard she slaves,

She orders all your meals for you

And sends Mariana  to clean your place.  

Oy, kids these days, they have it made

They don’t know how hard things were

When we had only one midsized Cadilac

And we scrounged to buy our first fur.

When I think about how we scrimped and saved,

-We took taxi cab's when it was raining!

And all I ask is that you call, once in a while-

Of course, I’m not complaining…

Well, I gotta run, now, ‘cause Paysach is soon,

And  Gawd only knows how much there is to do.

(If I don’t reserve my Kosher Cruise spot now,

G’nendy K’neydle will  get my room!)

It’s been  wonderful schmoozing, Yankle,

Zei Gezint and take good care,

Don’t forget to kiss your Bobby, (there’s a little shmootz over ther,)

-Stop squirming and let me fix your hair!

So what’s a little spit?

We’re family, you shouldn’t care!

( And remember, tata’le, when you go on a bus,

To always put on  clean underwear,

In case you slip, gawdfabbid, on a posickle,

And you have to go to the hospital!)

Now go and make your mishpochah proud,

Earn a few impressive degrees,

An M.D. with an M.B.A.

For you should be a breeze.

Then you’ll make a ton of money,

Buy your wife and kids good things-

Fur coats, designer dresses

And a few gezinte rings.

But most of all, remember that

A heart of gold, a Jewish soul,

These are the most important things-

Give the Rabbi a nice big pledge,

And much nachas to the  family you’ll bring!

The Train That Never Came ( or Missing the 5:16)

Steve Hanks Waiting In The Rain

She was waiting at the sation

For the 5:16 to Denver,
How long had she been waiting?
No one there could quite remember.

She was waiting for the 5:16

To whisk her far away

To a city that she'd dreamed of

Half her life, or so they say.

He sent her once a post card
With a picture of the hills
And though years had passed already,
It was in her pocket, still.

The hills had been all  purple,

And the sky which was bright blue

Had faded into half tones 

And the postmark was worn through.

She stood there near the platform

In a bonnet that looked pink,

Trying to remember if

He'd  ordered her a drink.

And if it was a daquerie,

It's sometimes so hard to think....

Oh! She'll ask him to remind her,

When he meets the 5:16

( to be continued....)

Spirochetes Have Little Feet ( The Mythology of Microbiology)






By Lea

Before microbiology,

Bacteria were mythology.

Demons, humors, tainted blood,
No one knew just what was what.

But thanks to Dr. Levenhook,
Mankind got a closer look.
Now we see, and oh so clear,
 That microbes are, like, Everywhere!

And thanks to Dr. Kaiser,
Our world is so much wiser.
We know how to identify
Those things which quickly multiply.

And how to know the difference

'tween the ‘cillins and the 'mixins,

And how to make a heat fixed stain,
And isolate resistant strains.

Gram positives with nag and nam,

And cross linked peptide bonds,





Staph Aureus





Gram negatives with LPS,

Endospores that outlive bombs.



Molds with hyphae, vegetative,

Molds with canidiaspores.

Molds that aren't cooperative,

Hide in endospores!

Staph Aurous grown on people's skin,  

Enterococcus likes to hang within ,

E. Coli chills inside the gut,
If it migrates foreword, you wee a lot.

Another of my favorites is t. pallidum,
You don't want to meet
This syphilus-y spirochete
( STD's can be  a bum.)



e.coli

Streptococcus pyogenes

can make a throat so red,

If the latex clumps on a direct s test,

Its amoxicillin and straight to bed!

Microsporum tuburculae oh what a nasty thing,

It fills the lungs with tubercles

That make it hard to sing

.

Be careful when you go outside,
Or when you play in dirt.
Beware of cuts from rusty nails,

Clostridium tetany sure can hurt !



Pneumocystis jirovecii,

A dimorphic bird poop mold,

Can cause respiratory pcp,

In those with HIV, and in the old. 

To speak of Candida Albicans
Requires some finess-es,

The mere mention of its yeastly name

Can petrify we who wear  dresses.

Candida Albicans

But if that little friendly yeast

Gets all comfy where he's welcome not 
Ergosterol inhibitors; what a relief!
Clotrimazole hits the spot.

There are so many different ways
To keep those nasty bugs at bay :

Static, cidal, fungicidal
So many things microbicidal.

It's hard to know which one to choose,

p.carnii


Some strains will win and some will lose.

But a Bauer Kirby diskette test
Can let you know which agent's best.

And if you ever want to know,
Just which pathogen ails one so,
Phage typing is the way to go.
To find out just which microbe
Is replicating to and fro.
Just stamp your innoculum with a disk
Then look for the inhibbited zones.

Ain’t it just so darn terrific
The way phages are bacterio-specific?
Ain't it awsome peachy
That we can detect things that are sneaky?

 

So, you should be glad to know...

That inflammation is something …

That everyone must do,
To increase capillary permeability,
And bring lymph cells to tissue.

So don't have a bad attitude,
If you get sick have gratitude!
Innate Immunity will get you through,
Until adaptive systems  knows what to do.



Antigen presenters play the game of show and tell,

Bringing epitopes to killers, 

making cytotoxic cells.

By presenting all the things they've got
They help T- cells mature,
Into the type that can lyse cells,
Or act as effectors.

Natural killers roam around,
Looking for bad guys.


B Cells Communicate with T Cells via cytokines



If they spot a stressed or tumor cell,

They'll shoot him 'tween the eyes.

But first they check to see if he

Displays his stuff on MHC.

For even if the signal says,

To kill the bad cell, shoot it dead,



If MHC is exhibited,

Then that signal is inhibited,

But don't you worry, never fret,
That trick won't last long, don't forget,
That B cells don't care all that much,
Just how cells show them what they've got.

For antigens can bind cells "B,"
Without a fancy MHC

  And when B-cells meet their perfect mate,
They can become something so great!




Opsonins


 

Cuz when the opsonizing starts,

And CB3 binds B's "2" part,

It isn't long, oh bless my heart!

'Till naive B's transforms themselves,

To antibody secreting plasma cells.

Isn't it incredible,

How some cells are edible?

Isn't it terrific

That adaptive cells are so specific?

Doesn't it make you cheery

That confused self-antigen binders

commit harikiri?

Now that we are so much wiser,

Let’s say "Thanks!" to Dr. Kaiser

For helping us get oh, so knowledgy

About the wonders of microbiology!