Blood Work

Being the typical American male, there are very few things that I dread and fear worse than routine physicals from Doctors.I have to go every six months to have my prescriptions renewed and I start dreading the ordeal on my way home from the most recent exam for the next six months. Now my medical problems at this stage of my life seems to be wrapped up in hypertension and cholesterol control;that is not to say that I don't have some mental issues, but I'm working through those myself. Freudian Psychology seems to be a walk through the park compared with the tight path of living with a woman, but I'm learning that after 32 years and I feel that my success is much like alcoholism,i.e. one step at a time.Anyway I digress,as I was discussing trips to the MD. My last visit in July of last year was wrapping up, and Johnny Clark( my personal physician) was writing out my prescription renewals and he casually mentioned that he was writing out an order for my blood work since it had been a while since I had had my blood checked. No kidding, Johnny. I feel my blood needs to stay in a sealed system without interruptions from nosy medical peoploe.However I didn't say anything to the Doc because he had already written the prescriptions and I was leaving that antiseptic, alcohol smelling place with a song in my heart!No blood work for me this time!!Well as I knew it would happen , the 6 months rolled around and I kept counting down my pills and the sense of growing dread each night as the Lipitor and Diovan steadily shrank inside my bottle. I was counting the pills with less than a week left when I dropped a Lipitor down the drain! Holy Hell !!I had just taken a day off my rapidly approaching appointment.It suddenly struck me that I was going to have to get the bloodwork done before I met with the physician. Well I hope the blood babes have a sense of humor , and afterall, 6 months isn't a long time to be behind; at least in the perspective of the historical eras. I got the blood test and saw Johnny and everything was ok. I always thing that my blood sugar will be high or that the PSA (prostate something I think)will be off the scale, or that my cholesterol will be up again. Everything was normal and I immediately thought that they had mixed mine up with someone else, but I didn't push the issue. One reason I hate the ritual is that you have to go to a crowded waiting area filled with old farts who love frequent visits for exams and bloodwork, and talk to each other about medical procedures while they waiting . Every old person in the room knew as much medicine as the Doctor and was keen to tell everyone in the room about the past medical tests. One old biddy had had every scope run up, down, in, and out of her wrinkled,mummified body , and proudly proclaimed each procedure. Another was sitting there clearly 200 pounds overweight, wedged into a chair that was threatening to collapse at any minute. The old biddy knew her and asked what was wrong with her and the behemoth said she had an ear infection. I wanted to scream"Hell lady you need some bloodwork!" But I didn't, as I only wanted white noise and peace!! Maybe some Bose headphones with Steely Dan masking out the old crone. A little Deacon Blue would cause the systolic pressure to decrease. Another thought was how nice one of those buzzers like you are given in restaurants to tell you when your table is ready would be in this waiting room hell. Every so often some shrew would open the door and nasally shout someone's name above this cacophony, and I wished I was somewhere else. A barroom brawl would have been less wearing on my nerves;at least there's usually not an octagenarian coughing and wheezing their rheummy lungs all over your space! There was one brief silver lining in this medical hell as some Pharmaceutical Rep babe came waltzing through on her way to give samples and pens with drug names to the Doctors. She was young, attractive , and wearing long ,pointed stripper shoes. Johnny Clark got to see her and I had to listen about Granny's colonoscophy.Life is sometimes not fair. So here I am dreading the next visit six months from now, a little happy the last one was ok, but a little afraid of the next one. They call Alabama the Crimson Tide, Call me Deacon Blue.

Hairspray

Having tried to attend Hairspray in NYC with no success , we settled on tickets to the play at the Kentucky Center for Performing Arts in Louisville this past Saturday Night. The play is energetic, funny, and entertaining: pretty much what it was supposed to be.It takes place in the 60's in Baltimore and is about young people wanting to be stars on the local Saturday afternoon dance show. As predicted the show has a happy ending and we had another cultural adventure under our belts. Our party spent the night at a to -be- unnamed hotel on the banks of the Ohio which like always did not disappoint us with the shabby,ugly rooms looking out onto a tarred roof and the sneak of a peek of the Ohio River Bridges. The hotel workers did their usual impecible jobs of being totally arrogant and distant from the paying guests(us).It always reminds me of why New York City or Boston can charge you $400 a night and make you keep coming back, whereas Louisville charges you $109 a day and makes you feel unwanted. I have felt more warmth from Troopers giving me tickets than the pimply faced clerks at this overrated hotel. The last time the wing that we stayed in was redecorated was about the time Lyndon Johnson was President. Oh sure they're talking about their major renovation , but even the new lobby in the East Wing is pretty amateurishly done and cheaply decorated. I know because this is partly what I do for a living. The check- in counter is cheap birch veneer with a hideous stain and applied mouldings, something I would have designed about 1978 when I first started. We wanted dessert after the play but were told the restaurant closes at 11PM. This was on a Saturday Night! We were eating dessert at 2AM at O'Neils in NYC back in December. Talk about a world apart!I guess I'm asking or expecting too much for this self-absorbed hotel that only sees glory during the week of Derby, but come on , this is 2006 and you could at least have a fake smile for your paying guests! The parking garage was empty when we checked in, aqnd empty when we checked out, and you charged us $9 for the privilege of leaving the car overnight. At least I didn't have to search for the sedan in the glaring emptiness. In conclusion, Louisville has charm, some appeal, and a wonderful cultural atmosphere. It's a shame that this over-priced, overrated hotel has not learned something about hospitality in the past forty years. Maybe next time I'll cross the river and stay at the casino in Indiana. At least I can find something to eat at 11PM.

Modern Conveniences

Well, here we are in the throes of 2006 and the start of another year.Dick Clark has come and gone in Times Square and the adventure begins. The new frontier around here with my colleagues seems to be the dread of receiving the monthly heating /natural gas bill. Anticipation runs high as dread and despair come together in the little crisp envelope with "ATMOS" written in the upper left hand corner. Now Sandy has given me the choice of dropping down the thermostat or moving in with her mother, and I very astutely tried to decrease our consumption. Imagine our surprise when we shakily opened the bill and $500.13 proudly jumped into our faces.!!! I remember the good old days when $45 was an average heating bill.I came up this morning of a plan to subsidize the gas bill with a novel approach. It's so simple that others will follow suite. I will charge an energy tax to everyone who enters our doors.For instance: should we have dinner guests each person will chip in $11 per hour for the time spent enjoying the witty conversation and Sandy's superb home-cooked meal. Should someone just be bored and want companionship, the cost is merely $6.oo an hour. It must be understood that the companionship is free: the warm chair is what will cost you.Drinks are extra. The fact may also come at a surprise that we're not exactly lackidasical in our approach to warmth. No sir! Our energy efficient thermostats in three different zones would allow us to rent our living space as meat freezers during most of a 24 hour period. Our house generally shares the temperature of Mammoth Cave which is somewhere around 52 degrees.Somewhere is a Nerd behind a keyboard who can Calculate how much extra my bill will be if we just raise the temperature one degree. It seems that all of our utilities are owned by thne people who enrich our lives with the Mercedes, Porsche, Audi, and World Wars every fifty years or so.On proper reflection it seems that maybe this will be the first Reich in modern times that is winning a major war, at least they are in my little world. It seems that we have to defeat countries for them to come back and royally whip our asses. Remember Pearl Harbor?Think Lexus and Avalon. Georgetown,Kentucky down the road makes Camry and we ship the money to Tokyo.Battle of the Bulge? Think Mercedes: 60 years ago the Marshall Plan was rebuilding Europe and Berlin; now they're selling us luxury cars. As a country we really know how to punish the aggressive losers! Davy Crockett and the Alamo ? GM has made cars in Mexico for years and what appliances not made in Taiwan are made in Mexico. We really showed those Pancho Villas, Didn't we?Petroleum and Osama Bin Laden and Saudi Arabia. Now don't the Arabians really love us?And Iraq? Where in the hell this is going is anyone's guess. This ranting started with an exorbitant natural gas bill and has gone around the world.I really want a simple life, and wish for some in-between common ground. In hindsight maybe the real villains are the health care industry and insurance companies. In the not too distant future We will be making choices for Insurance , heating and cooling, or gasoline.I didn't mention food shelter or clothing. There's no easy answer.