Spo-Reflections

It’s a sad thought today’s children are such frail creatures unable to discern right from wrong they need 24/7 supervision lest they fall into the precipice of doom. I am talking about sparklers on The Fourth of July. For thems unfamiliar with the things, they are or were thin metal sticks, about 8 inches long, with a fattened end that you lit with a match. The tip would glow orange for a second then suddenly break into a foudroyant bright white light illuminating the twilight – a miniature firework. Sometimes two were lit, one for each hand. It is not possible for eight-year-olds to stand still while holding a sparkler. One runs around and makes swirling movements as if conducting the sky. They burned Edna St. Vincent Millay- like, bright but quick, so one had to work fast when yours was lit. This meant running back to the grown up with the box of sparklers to light your next or get your brother or sibling to stop for a moment so you could like yours from theirs like a cigarette. They served as a sort of pyrogenic babysitter: give the kids some sparklers and let them run wild on the lawn so the adults could tidy up or sit in piece at the picnic table.

So far as I recall, no one ignited the lawn or set fire to some public building; no one lost any digits or got second-degree burns.

I am not certain, but I think they are no more – outlawed perhaps. Today’s parents would be too frightened to give their kiddies such incendiary devices. Funny what frightens us. The supermarket is full with all sorts of firecrackers for the grown ups. SIL #3, who works in an ER, avoids shifts at this time of year as the place fills up with men (never women) with burns and hand injuries. They are often in an intoxicated state and not wanting to listen to instruction or stay still for stitching. She never sees any children doing stupid things on July 4th. They know better.

I have no Fourth of July plans. Frankly I am ashamed of the country and I am in no mood to revel in its so-called glory and superiority when we are failing so in its principles. There is usually a fireworks display in the distance, in the desert. It often is nearly canceled given extreme dryness and fire hazards but the people pressure politicians who consider canceling them as traitors. If I stand in the north part of my pool I can see some of the fireworks in the distance. Would I had a sparkler again to light it and watch it burn – just like the country it burns bright for awhile but decays into darkness.

Today I am getting a haircut. My hair has gone from brindled to light gray and in the summer months it is nearly white. At least I still have mine .*  Haircuts nowadays aren’t too much fun that I go to Supercuts with a quick in/out service as much personal attention as ordering at McDonalds. All the same it will be nice to get one. In the summer months us kids would get very short cuts to keep cool. “Heinies” my father called them. Sometimes we would shave our dogs as well. They seemed to appreciate them although Brother #3 once drew on one of them with a magic marker.  

Speaking of the heat I found the Tupperware popsicle set while rummaging around the pantry.  On the Book of Faces there is a recipe consisting of coca-cola, spiced rum, and Kailua. What the hell, let’s give it a try. I also filled the palm tree-shaped ice cube tray with Gatorade.  Jolly good fun! Anything to keep cool really. 

I am pleased as Punch I am caught up with my paperwork. It took four hours.  I went to the office in a not exactly well-groomed state and attire (T-shirt and shorts) only to discover The Medical Assistant was there as well. Oh the embarrassment. She had come in for similar catch-up. We got our respective works done and hopefully no scandal for such. 

What is not caught up is the ironing.  While I was away in Chicago Someone did the laundry but didn’t do no ironing.  There is a pile high as Fafner’s hoard.  Oh the pain. Saturday was all paperwork today Sunday is laundry.  As they say at The Onion: ‘this sh-t never ends”.  

I have 4 July off but not 5 July; I forget to ask to take it off. The House Manager (the dear!) told me on Friday she took it off more me. Hot puppies! I will have a four day long holiday, ending on 7 July which is my birthday.

As G-d is my witness I plan on dropping by blogs today and get caught up. It’s been weeks. I miss them. I think what I need to do is schedule times for reading. This is how I get anything accomplished. 

Do tell me all your fabulous non-chore Sunday shenanigans that I may live though them vicariously.

*Last week when I met up with my godfather George, h exclaimed I looked like Burt Wolf. I had to look up Mr. Wolf. While we both have gray-white hair I don’t see much else in common. On the other hand he appears a nice-looking fellow so I will take the compliment. 

Several Spo-fans (the dears!) have sent texts and emails asking if I am OK. My near-daily blog entries are dropping out and I’ve left no comments on others’ blogs – a sure sign of me missing in action. Not to be worrying! I am not sick, nor depressed, nor am I locked up in some dungeon at Heorot Johnsons III.* The matter is work. It is about a week into Athena, the new EHR at work. I am getting the hang of it, but it is oh-so-time-consuming. Like the Colossus at Rhodes, I am straddling the old and the new systems. When I get to work, I normally make a hot cup of tea, set up my day, and with time to spare I write an entry prior to work starting at eight. That time is now being used for copying and pasting notes into the new chart of every patient on the roster. Like sourdough, this acts as a sort of inchoation to get things going. It isn’t difficult work, just tedious and time consuming. Evaluation patients are the worst as there is no access yet at home where I dictate notes at night. I have to do this at work or by hand, worse luck! I generally see patients every three months, so this copy/pasting endeavor should be mostly done by mid-September. Until then it is going to be challenging to write and read blogs. If I am careful with time I ought to be able to do some just not at the frequency I fancy.

This is a temporary situation. Soon I will be able to dismantle Mr. Rhodes and be firmly docked on one side of the harbor with time to spare for more important things like sleeping and writing.

Hang in there.

Avoid Ravens bearing vague but menacing parchments telling you to put out or else.

*TBDHSR is trying to serve a subpoena to come to HJ3 for a friendly meeting to process things, not unlike Martin Luther being summoned to Rome to discuss his thesis.

I am sitting in The Midway Airport, waiting for my flight. They just announced a delay of an hour hence. While everyone around me is howling like an orchestra of scorched cats at the news, I practice the ritual of saying ‘Good!’ right away to whatever happens. This gets me thinking what is good about this unexpected encounter. What is good: I have an extra hour I wasn’t expecting, which gives me an opportunity to scribble out a blog entry.  Careful, this is one of those ‘what I did on my vacation” types.*

Chicago was a marvelous party. The medical conference was just the right amount of ‘hey, I know this stuff; I am on top of things!” and ‘patience above! I didn’t know this!” On Monday I go back to work a better doctor for it, which is the point of it all. 

I saw many old friends and colleagues, some I haven’t seen in decades. Can you imagine?  I played hooky on afternoon to join my friend Joel at the AIC.  Here are some photos:

The Other Michael and DougT and Urs Truly went out on Tuesday night for goat cheese, sangria, and imperial tidbits.  The dears wore their Spo-shirts despite the humidity (over 20% ;oh the pain).

On Wednesday my godfather George took me out for dinner on top of a downtown building so I could see the Chicago skyline.  Afterwards I got to see his house again, the one with twenty rooms.  It was rawther hot as he doesn’t have AC -unlike the medical conference which was so cold people were literally wrapped in blankets. I am glad I brought a sweatshirt. 

Here is Urs Truly standing next to of one of his favorite paintings “The Rock”.  I posted this picture on FB and it received several questions about the shirt. Indeed, the shirt was more of a hit than the painting. One fellow who is well over four feet wants to buy it off me (sorry). 

I turned the corner to enter a gallery and immediately saw this charming tableau. Someone as a copy of it about the size of an index card standing on his dresser. The actual painting is mammoth in size.  Either size is disagreeable in my opinion but it is a fascinating painting to be sure.

The highlight of the trip was getting together with my fellow residents, whom I haven’t seen since 1992. My goodness they look good!  We called the one who was out of town so it was ‘5 out of 6’.  I got the award for ‘most staid’ for I have been the longest with the same job and same spouse.  They’ve had a series of jobs and husbands. We vowed to keep in touch and not lose track of each other. 

Heidi, Juliet, Urs Truly, and Diane.

So now I wait for my departure. They’ve changed it again, this time moving it UP some but still later than the originally scheduled one.  SWA is up to no good that’s certain. 

This evening I plan on getting back into regular blogging and reading; after all there is no place like home. 

*There is no tedium then listening and seeing a person’s vacation photos. I knew of a woman who earned money by coming to your home and watching your slides of photos taken on holiday. All these pictures and no one wanted really to see them; so people hired her for an audience. She would ask questions and listen for a fee. She earned a slick buck this way – until people turned to posting on social media where people can leave a quick ‘thumbs up’ without really looking at anything.  

As a boy I wasn’t keen to eat vegetables. My taste was limited to carrots and celery sticks along with ‘no thank you’ servings of vegetables usually boiled to extinction. The ultimate horror, my sooner I’d eat rats at Tewkesbury type, was the tomato. The only way I could eat such was in ketchup or as sauce on spaghetti or on pizza. At summer family reunions sliced toms were always there, provided by aunts who grew them in their gardens. Why on earth they would do so was beyond the scope of my ten year old mind. 

I don’t remember when or how this changed but tomatoes became my number one I’d-give-my-own-grandmother-for vegetable.* And not just any tomato, but a proper homegrown tomato, thank you very much – no rubbish types! Once you have one there is no going back to those pale puny things passed off at tomatoes in the grocery store. I don’t remember when I first grew my own but it probably was in Chicago. I started with hybrids which were good but ‘could be better’. I moved onto heirloom types and there was no turning back. 

Once in awhile I find old garden journals I used to write, with the varieties I tried growing. They came in different colors and ‘acidity’.  As the years passed I grew less greens and such and focused on the tomatoes. They varied in color, shape, and when they produced, like my men.  One goal was to get the first fruit as early as possible, done with early-producing types and started indoors as early as 1 February.  There was Cherokee Purple, Nebraska Wedding, Zapotec, and Early Girls. The ultimate tomato was Brandywine. Do no dare to question this. 

Despite careful planning there was no stopping the avalanche of toms that came through the kitchen window starting in late July. I gave away sackfuls throughout August if could. Often I was surrounded by fellow gardeners with the same embarrassment of riches.  Oh to open a portal in time and lob a few to my future self starving for such in January through April! Oh well, for everything there is a season. Tomatoes were a summer time treat after all.  It would seem odd to have such in March, like having freshly picked grapefruit in August.

I was quite sad to discover toms are nearly impossible to grow in Arizona. Ironically Early Girls work best given the short time until it becomes too hot to produce flowers and fruit. It meant growing tomatoes in January through May – the precise opposite time of the year to my Midwestern sense of propriety. Container toms turn out small and tasteless, like my men. After a couple of years I gave up. 

If I happen to be somewhere in July/August where there are proper toms, I buy as many as I can. Alas, Babylon! they do not transport home well, worse luck.  After all homegrown tomatoes are bred for taste, not transport. 

I do not have retirement plans but if I had any it would be somewhere where I can grow tomatoes. I want a Brandywine as my last meal. Serve some with sliced cucumber (homegrown) with slivers of onions all in an Italian dressing and I will content.

*Well, your grandmother anyway.  

Medical lectures are a mixed bag of new data and old. I’ve not learned much so far. On the positive, I can give myself a pat on the back I am keeping up with things; on the negative there is a disappointment I’ve paid a lot of money and not learned much.  I remind myself I am not here to learn so much as see old friends. So far I have seen four, all over four feet. What a delight that is! I am one of six in my residency. One of them is attending the conference with me, and we are having a jolly good time catching up after not seeing each other since 1992. Can you imagine? 

It’s a good thing I remembered to bring a sweatshirt to Chicago. The lecture hall is positively Arctic. Urs Truly doesn’t handle cold, and wearing a Spo-shirt is fashionable but not adequate to stop the teeth from chattering.

It is coming up to 4PM, the last lecture of the day. By now most of us are ‘full up’. I know I am. Sometimes they put a ‘niche’ lecture at the end so generalists can leave early and sometimes they put the ‘big lecture’ at the end of the day, obliging us to wake up and stay. It looks like it is the latter so I will stay until 515PM.  Then I am free for the day. 

Alas, Babylon! My Thursday dinner get-together ‘dates’ canceled as she has a family emergency. I am by myself this evening. I could go strolling (minus sweatshirt) and find some dinner- perhaps a deep-dish pizza as it is Chicago. I may order it to-go and eat it with relish in my hotel room. On  the other hand The Marriott Meanies are charging me 75 dollars a day for a so-called ‘hotel fee’; I should eat here and spend some of that money. Hopefully the hotel bistros don’t charge 80 dollars for a meal. Stirges.