Sunday, October 31, 2010

Halloween

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Rio Grande NJ

Lynkin's Motel

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Saturday, October 30, 2010

My nephew's birthday

My nephew's birthday - sister's  son. He's 41,  42,  around there. I'm in the ballpark. Easily recall his birthday - day before Halloween.  A Scorpio like myself.  Meaning I've always figured he's a mask-wearer & I've only seen him playing his family roles as son, sibling, nephew, cousin.  Scorp "masks" are generally honest if partial expressions, more for protection than to hide anything, no need to peek behind them; that invasion only agitates us & makes us grumpy. We drop them as circumstances require.  Rarely seen him interact with friends. Unlike most women, a large, visible part of us guys stays somewhere between the ages of 13 & 19, & women either accept it or are endlessly exasperated. So my nephew has always been kind of "the kid" to me. He was born when I was a long-hair, older adolescent, & in general rebellion,  & the idea of being an uncle made no sense.  Babies only confounded me. He grew up into a lanky guy, I never got used to his height.  My sister, a Virgo, is a good mom match.  Virgos are puzzled by Scorpios,  rarely intimidated, only annoyed.  Scorpios tend to pretend we crave surprises, but we appreciate routine, tradition, orderliness, & most Virgos have a gift for those. So my sister, once she guided my  nephew out of the nest (helping him find his  own nest), kept an open door. 

My nephew used to ask me about his mom's teenage years. Perhaps he thought there were "secrets" back in that time. I had "stories." But the facts are that few of my sister's many high school acheivements - good grades, varsity cheerleader (no varsity sports for girls back then), boyfriends, came easily to her. She had ambitions & worked steadily to realize them, even when she failed on first try. Unfortunately, I didn't imitate her good study habits, but she was my model for how to do high school socially, how not be a nerd or weirdo. Try some sports whether you're good at them or not (I wasn't), you'll get  respect from coaches & the better athletes just by trying.  Like the popular music, keep the unusual music tastes in the background.   Have male & female friends in your  social circle, the gender-segregated quality of suburban teen culture was changing rapidly, there was a sort of proto-feminism in the wind.    Go to dances with or without a date, just go.  & if an opportunity to get some major positive attention happens, jump on it. When that time came, I jumped & had more than 15 minutes of high school celebrity.

My guy friends liked my sister,  an "older woman" since she was two years ahead of me. A few had  huge crushes on her.  As much as I tormented her, I also considered  her  a social asset. I know I've told my nephew this. The only scandalous behavior was mine.  My nephew enjoyed knowing his mom was, in most ways, a very "typical" teenager.
***
My minister brother started a Facebook page. I don't know why he bothers. He won't do anything with it.  I'd probably lose 1/3 of my Facebook "friends" if they  deleted their inactive  accounts. If you're not gonna play the game, don't even join it. Of nearly 200 "friends," only a dozen or so comprise an interactive "community" I know keep up with my wall postings.

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Friday, October 29, 2010

"Words have actual meanings"


Video passed along by Erika "Wildgirl" Dana, former great WFMU DJ, now lives on a farm in Iowa, entrepreneurial woman, rescuer of abandoned & injured animals, father-in-law was a lovely, respected midwestern poet with sharp eyes & an exacting, descriptive observer of nature.

Bigotry is like the stupid, old joke; a guy sees something in the road, bends over, says, "Looks like it. Smells like it. Tastes like it. Glad I didn't step in it." Exhibit enough bigoted qualities, it is what it is no matter what.

How "liberal" are Democrats that piss off people who identify themselves first as liberals, secondly as voters likely to vote Democrat if & when they vote, & not at all as regular party Democrats? A lot of them ain't votin' at all this year.  The party misidentifies them as a "base," but they  aren't automatic; their votes have to be solicited.   Even I'm not really a "Democrat," but rather someone who never finds a Republican on the ballot he'll vote for. I registered Democrat in Elizabeth because Democratic primaries here decide local elections.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Major League Baseball blocks web streaming of local team broadcasts, so I can't listen to the World Series from stations in the Rangers or Giants radio networks, stuck with awful Joe Morgan on ESPN radio.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

World Series

Texas Rangers versus San Francisco Giants. Bad for Fox TV ratings, but unusual & good  matchup for baseball lovers.  My nominal rooting interest is San Fran, as the National League team, a former NYC team,  & because I never root for teams from Texas in any circumstances.  But tough for my friend Carrie. She resides in Hollywood, & she can't go with Giants anymore than a  true pinstripe Yankee fan could go with Red Sox. Dodgers, of course. Probably Padres, Diamondbacks, & Rockies, too. But Giants? Never. Or Lost Angeles, California, Anaheim Angels. if that AL team had made it. Fortunately for Carrie, the hockey season has begun.

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The only thing to do was wake up.

Had the kind of dream - always had them, you probably have, too - that might give an idea of what it's like heading into middle stages of a dementia disease. I was supposed to meet some older WFMU DJs for lunch at an outdoor cafe in downtown Elizabeth. Downtown doesn't have outdoor cafes, but no matter. In the dream I was still living with my parents, driving a Volks Beetle, & attending Ramapo state College - which didn''t exist at the time. So the timeline is screwed up. I was running late, got to Elizabeth, parked in a familiar lot, found the cafe, & the guys weren't there. How could I be that late?  It was just getting on noontime, Was it a brunch thing?   Well, I was hungry, so decided to walk on down Broad St, toward the Courthouse & get a cheaper hot dog or burger. Somehow I wandered off Broad, on to Elizabeth Ave., & into a different retail district that   wasn't so familiar, although I had some idea where I was in relation to the Courthouse, a tall building you can see from anywhere in Elizabeth if you get a line of sight. But I couldn't see the Courthouse, &  some of the streets were sinister (which indeed they are today, & always were in my experience),  Elizabeth Ave. wasn't the quite the  wide busy street it actually is that ends in front of the Courthouse. I was increasingly baffled, frustrated, saw a sign "to Goethals Bridge" that didn't help, except I felt I was around U.S. Route One east of Broad St, & I didn't have the sense to ask a traffic cop standing there, "Which way is the Courthouse?" Which would have instantly restored  my sense of direction. The only thing to do was wake up.

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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Walkman lives!

Reports of the Walkman's demise are premature, says Sony.

The company may be ending sales and production in Japan, but it says it will still be available in the US, and presumably, elsewhere.

An unnamed spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times there is "a consistent but small demand" for the old-school tape player, and there are no plans to cut it from the US market.

The confusion seems to have stemmed from a note on Sony's Japanese website, announcing the end of production – but this only applies to Japan. Walkmans will still be produced in China, by a company contracted by Sony, and sold across Asia, the Middle East and the US.

The Walkman was launched in the late 1970s, and was the first truly portable way of listening to music, outside of car stereos.

Its name lives on in Sony's range of mp3 players.

Monday, October 25, 2010

The Rascals: Island of Love


Uploaded this a few days ago for Eddie Brigati's birthday.

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zebra print rug

This past year pretty much blew away my interest in national politics; too negative, too disappointing, too few national figures with the country's best interests at heart. Not good when you;re already feeling ill. I still read news & some intelligent mostly liberal analysis & commentary. But the absurd see-saw quality of our discourse (& polls) is too much to bear on a daily basis. I'm especially sick of right wing sniping & griping, in which everything is Obama's fault after but two years in office,  as if America hasn't been on terrible bipartisan trajectory for decades. If I was right winger I'd be bitching today that the annoying early morning jackhammer on the street sewer project a block away is a left wing Obama conspiracy to waste stimulus funds by specifically targeting my sleep. Really, I read sh*t like that online.
***
Maybe you think it's a good ripoff lifestyle when a babymama learns from her babymama how to get a Section 8 apt in a crappy building in a gang-ridden neighborhood, furnishes it with a white leather sofa, zebra print rug, & HD TV from the rent-to-purchase store, & her gangbanger man throws her  a few bucks for cheap but hip clothes & a no contract cellphone. The problem isn't about finding  her a career & threatening her with homelessness if she doesn't work at McDonald's; it's getting her kids educated & to the doctor for regular checkups.  Leave her be if you don't want her in your town. Keeping her in Newark where she can travel around  by bus  & not trouble middle class white people is a bargain. & if looking upward with awe is your thing, look at the heavens, not at the mansion on the hill.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Laura Nyro: Brown Earth

The opening song from the third of the three Columbia albums that established Laura's reputation as a solo artist of uniquely individual vision, & upon which her reputation largely rests today. (Her first, for Verve, established her as a songwriter).

Laura still tends to collect devotees. I almost became one. Saw her perform twice in her prime, no band, just Laura & piano, quite magical. I loved her singing, piano playing, & gift for songwriting. I admired her innovative song forms. She was very sophisticated. But I also thought her at times lyrically murky, emotionally baffling, & I couldn't figure out what she was trying to do or say.  I liked her best when she got inside a recognizably conventional song form & stretched it almost to the breaking point, but held back just a bit. At those times, she was in an elite group of songwriters who had so mastered & internalized conventional pop song forms that they could do just about anything they wanted with them. This group included Lennon & McCartney, Jimmy Webb, Bacharach & David, Stevie Wonder, Neil Diamond, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. There are more but it is not a long list.

On "Brown Earth," essentially a gospel number, I hear producer Arif Mardin's steadying hand - which doesn't extend to the entire "Christmas" LP. The southern culture references are Laura's imagination. She was a middle class New York City girl, & the most natural influences in her songs come from Brill Building; Carole King, girl groups, AM radio of the early Sixties.

Why didn't Laura cultivate a long career as major performing diva? It was there for her. Perhaps it was just a steady income of royalty checks; & her unwillingness to summon up on demand, night after night, the emotional intensity to perform "Save the Country" & some of her other big numbers. She couldn't or wouldn't distance herself from the material.

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Englewood NJ

Mary Elizabeth Tea Shoppe

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Friday, October 22, 2010

One could call one's urologist office & speak to the specialist assistant, & complain about an irritated urethra & painful urination - not unexpected post-surgery effects, & one could hope for a short order of Vicodin, ten or fifteen, because what else could they prescribe but that or Percocet or some other effectively numbing drug that one would look forward to taking at bedtime? Well, one could learn there is a specific med for this problem that deals only with the problem in the specific location.

All the pharmacists at CVS know me by name now. Not because I'm on an unusual number of regular meds - there's only one I renew every month - but because I've gone through about a half-dozen different antibiotics over the past 9 months including one so oddball they had to special order a full supply & then the doc pulled me off it after ten days, plus on & off a variety of other stuff, & I'm in there for one prescription at a time.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Video All-Stars: Richard Diamond Theme


When I joined WFMU, the Video All-Stars LP was one of the core albums in my small but choice collection of  what's now called "crime jazz" . "Crime Jazz"  is a broad term for TV & movie soundtrack jazz & the many imitations. It basically fell into two styles:  big band "action" jazz used to underscore chases, gun battles, & sinister situations; & a cooler "west coast" music for romance & nightclub scenes. There were also TV theme songs, some of them jazzy pop-novelty songs (77 Sunset Strip),  & speciaty numbers like mambos, but also classics like "Peter Gunn" that could be appropriated as rock & roll instrumentals. Crime Jazz of the Fifties easily evolved into the Spy Jazz of the Sixties, James Bond, etc.

Recorded for a bargain label (you were more likely to find it in Woolworth's with the faux Hawaiian records than a record store), it has a side of Peter Gunn numbers plus a side with three TV themes. The leader, Skip Martin, used  the same first call studio musicians favored by Mancini & other soundtrack composers, & the arrangements were similar to the originals. He just gave the musicians longer leashes; they played louder & had more solo space.

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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

blender

Depressed the past few days. Sleeping poorly; understandable since I've hardly gotten out of bed. The Yankee-Rangers playoffs suck not so much because the Rangers are winning as for how Yanks are losing - they're awful.  But Yanks were a mediocre team down the stretch & are playing that way now, so nobody should be surprised they're  on the verge of elimination.

Wrecked my Hamilton Beach blender that I use every day, completely stripped  the plastic gear already wearing out when I was tring to adjust the lid while it was on grind setting. Walked into Home Depot tonight, located & bought a Black & Decker "Crushmaster" for about $30.

Monday, October 18, 2010

I'll vote

I'm not about to abdicate my vote based on what Democrats do in Washington D.C.  I care who my councilman, mayor, & county freeholders are. As a "civic duty," I was raised to value my vote in local elections, & had the value of that vote demonstrated on several occasions.

Obama twisted himself to invite cooperation from Repugs, to the point of alienating much of his left Democratic base. He received no cooperation & might as well have doubled the stim, as advised by Paul Krugman, who warned from start it was inadequate. Obama might as well have gone for a stronger health care reform, closer to what Hillary advocated in her platform. But Obama made  other mistakes. Among them,  he let the air out of the "Yes we can" balloon, & didn't act like he was enjoying being president. No matter how Bill Clinton was kicked around,  Bill looked like there was no other job he'd rather have,  which helped him with the Democratic base & independent voters despite all the "triangulating" he was forced to make to co-op Repub proposals.

Democrats will take a worse beating then they deserve in November.  They did prop up the economy & they did save our auto industry & they did make progress on health reform. But they couldn't cut loose from Wall Street & connect with Main Street. They & the establishment Repugs were so in bed with Wall Street that the Tea Party emerged to do something (although the Tea Partiers are themselves co-opted now by the corporatists),

Democrats should have learned a year ago, from losing   elections in Mass & Jersey, & winning campaigns in a number of special congressional elections that strong, decisive, unapologetic  liberal candidates would have better chances than party hacks & weakened incumbents. There are many, many places in America where Democrats will lose only  because Democrats  & centrist independents  are discouraged & won't vote in the favored numbers they hold in voter registrations. They'll lose offices they were lucky to win two years ago.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Whispering Sea


In 1957, when he was known mainly for honest B movie hackwork at Universal, Henry Mancini produced this  collection of minimalist exotica using only guitars, organ, accordion, some percussion instruments, & a couple of vocalists, his first solo LP. A year later he chanced into the Peter Gunn TV show. I must have passed over dozens of this LP at flea markets while searching for rare Mancini soundtracks. It's a charming record.

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Ocean Grove NJ

The North End Hotel
Demolished in 1978,  It was a lively bottleneck at the entrance to Casino Pier & Asbury Park, with caricaturists, popcorn stands, & games.

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Saturday, October 16, 2010

Staying inside today. Nice fall weather, but chilly, 60 & windy. Feeling uncomfortable. Needed to get started on laundry. Gina's cats can survive a day of dry food.

Later: Texas bombed Phil Hughes & the Yanks 7-2. Series even at 1-1. If not for some bonehead plays & decisions last night that allowed Yanks a  comeback win,  Rangers would be up 2-0 headed to New Yawk with their Big Man Cliff Lee starting Monday.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Out to supermarket this afternoon with Gina, an adventure, quick trip but tiring,  cold & windy. My shower water here not hot enough.  Need to do laundry, like to chat with sister over weekend. Get up, putter around, rest, take 1/2 Ambien, listen to radio, get up putter around. Painful peeing, I expected that, & unpredictable, never sure how much I can hold in or for how long. Still healing. I was sick with this problem for a long time. Have to accept it'll take time coming back. Not ready for long walks.

Spell

smoky clouds
only ice
crystals
on the radar

Awake an anxious owl at noon
Awake the new moon

First Circle breath
Second Circle skin
Third Circle liquid
Fourth Circle devotion
Fifth Circle emptiness

Ingredients
yeast
grain
lightning
rain

Awake an anxious owl at noon
Awake the new moon

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Thursday, October 14, 2010

I've always wondered why, & if there is a why.

"So if I'm convinced that God wants me to be a failure, is it any different than just being a failure?"
Daniel Schultz

Pastor Dan tweeted that a few minutes ago. He's flacking his new book, Changing the Script: An Authentically Faithful and Authentically Progressive Political Theology for the 21st Century. The "problem" I've had with Dan is summed up by the length of his book's title  (& perhaps also by its  intended audience). I'd like to know Dan's response to the dilemma he expresses in his tweet, because it goes to the heart of the common,  reassuring  belief that everything happens for a purpose. But it also asks us to consider, what is success & what is failure?

Yesterday, driving back from Newark, where I'd received very good news (no prostate cancer), Gina & I were discussing success & failure. The neighborhoods we  drive through - ranging from very poor to the  formerly Jewish & suburban  Weequahic neighborhood of Newark ( attractive, but gang ridden),  to some lovely & still relatively affluent middle class streets around the  former Pingry School neighborhood of Union, Hillside & Elizabeth - tend to raise the topic, as well as questions both of us have about  managing one's health care, & what health care choices really exist for the average American  when you factor in  family & job responsibilities & real income.

Gina's "boyfriend" Glen Jones tests the limits of how large a celebrity one can become without earning a lot of money. Glen is talented presence for  three different radio audiences.  I joked that if Glen became a ranting right winger, he'd be a wealthy radio star within a year. Of course, most of us who now love him would then despise him, & Glen would hate himself.   Gina is a small business owner struggling  in a poor economy for what she sells, which was not a "growth" business when the economy was stumbling along during what we mistakenly recall now as the "good" years  of the Bush II Republican Congress era.

Yesterday, I asked the urologist if he was a musician. I knew he was because the first time I was in  his office nearly a year ago I heard him mention something about playing piano.  A bit surprised, he said he used to be.   I fished a business card out of my old wallet, handed it to  him, & said if he had a chance, go online & see what I used to be.

The joke is that most of what I "used to be," I still am.  But it's possible to notice   something happened about a decade ago. What happened? Did I become convinced God wanted me to be a failure?  I already felt like a failure, had always struggled with periods of depression & feelings of worthlessness.  But I thought I ought to feel at least a little bit successful, & the measure of that was for me  - simply - looking presentable,  paying rent on a  very modest studio apt,  & driving  a reasonably reliable little car.  I thought I was doing enough to earn those.

I know how I landed in Elizabeth.  I've always wondered why, & if there is a why. If there is a why, learning to accept help from others  who want to help (& admitting that I want & need it) is part of the why.

When I was working in retail, I  found a large, invisible "underclass" of people like myself; college educated, creative, from middle class backgrounds,  suffering from treated & untreated forms of depression & bipolar disorders, as well as women with children & self-employed husbands,  working for low hourly wages to provide health insurance for their families that ate up most of their paychecks. I was not unsympathetic to smaller business employers, the franchises; they needed government help beyond "tax breaks."  But I thought the chains & big boxes could do better for their employees, & I was angry because I believed the unions, with sensitivity &  sanity, could organize these retail stores without demanding huge raises & bankrupting them.

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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

only good news today

Gave one of the doc's assistants a big hug. "We've been through a lot together, " I said. She's been through a lot with lots of ill people with bad prostates, but she understood  exactly what I was saying,  a sweet woman who had changed my catheter a number of times, seen me  in good moods & throwing fits.   Thanks again to Gina for the ride & hand-holding.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Thank you

This blog has but a handful of regular readers & I thank you for continuing to drop by from time to time despite the fall off in written posts.  The postcards & music are good, though.  Thank you for your prayers & good thoughts.

Intimacy has always been difficult for me.  Yet, there are those of you I have never met that I can say I love. (& would still love if we met.)

I like the pennant series matchups of Giants versus Phillies & Rangers versus Yankees.  Never rooted for a Texas team for anything. But it'd be swell if San Fran knocked down mighty Philadelphia, who look unbeatable.

Monday, October 11, 2010

October 11th is National Coming Out Day

It's difficult to imagine a more difficult experience & predicament than to be a gay or lesbian teenager.  A few years ago,  an evangelical church in Elizabeth  NJ was contracted to provide non-sectarian after school activities. A  pastor at this church is on the Board of Ed. I had no problem with the guy serving on the BoE, but I did not like those after school activities, which had a distinctly evangelical feel & which I knew that, like the church,  would not be welcoming or helpful to gay teenagers.

Isolated from family, friends, church.

The issue, the problem isn't, as NY Gov candidate Carl Paladino would have it (saith he to some Orthodox Jews), the appropriateness of taking children to a New York City Gay Pride parade, which are notable for their exhibitionism. But you also get outrageous fashion at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade - & from women, yet!  You might get a standing O from New York Orthodox  by preaching against  interfaith marriage, or even marriage with members of the competing synagogue around the corner.

A Rutgers University freshman, Tyler Clementi, committed suicide last month after he was secretly taped & outed online by his roommate.  Given respect, privacy, time, & space,  Tyler  would've connected with a supportive circle of gay & gay-friendly students by the end of his frosh year, & come out safely & sanely on his own terms & own time.  Coming out in high school, or coming at all in certain areas of America, can be dangerous. Sadly, urban Black & Hispanic kids are the most at risk. Wherever they turn - church, gangs, school, family, they face condemnation if not direct physical threat.

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Gary McFarland: I Don't Need the Rain



McFarland released two "concept" albums within the space of about a year, this astrological one in 1968 & the serious, environmental-themed “America The Beautiful: An Account Of Its Disappearance” in 1969. I haven't heard the entire "America." The latter won a Grammy for cover design, may been been nominated in another jazz category, but by then McFarland was like a man without a musical nation to call home. Repudiated several years earlier by most  jazz critics &  fans for going "soft" & "pop" - jazz itself was becoming more racialized, radicalized, amplified, & funkified, McFarland probably didn't know who  the audience was for this stuff.  But he recorded it anyway.  Much of his music was lightweight but it was always quality.  McFarland was killed in 1971 in a New York bar by a drink someone had laced with methadone.  His music disappeared.  He was completely off my musical radar, unusual because he was an arranger & producer  of stature in the early Sixties.    "Scorpio and Other Signs," released on Verve, a major jazz label,  is not available as CD or download. With a few more uploads by fans of the LP  it'll all be on You Tube.

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Sunday, October 10, 2010

Atlantic City NJ

Club Harlem

The premier Black entertainment nightclub with integrated clientele in a segregated city,  comparable to the Moulin Rouge in Vegas.

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Saturday, October 09, 2010

Two erroneous assumptions people occasionally make about me: First is that I'm a politicized person who closely follows national events & reads lots of political blogs & websites. The other is that I'm a cultural elitist. My political "thing" has always been local politics, which can be petty, stupid, belligerent, corrupt, very entertaining, & serve as the minor leagues for many candidates for higher offices. Ambitious aspirants find it easier now to raise lots of money, skip these local elections & experience in governing, & go directly to congress. Local newspapers used to cover local politics better. They'd send reporters - part time paid stringers mostly - to all Council, Board of Ed & open zoning board meetings.

I am a cultural elitist, in a sense.  But I usually want to know why I don't like something, particularly if I expected to like it. Yeah, there's music I can't stand. There's music I'll go no farther than to say I admire it, not the same as liking it. The more types of music you like, the more likely I am to like you as a music lover. It won't matter one iota that I dislike some of the music you love. I know people who love punk, jazz, disco, & Neil Diamond. Music doesn't require that one sign a manifesto.

Friday, October 08, 2010

Tough week

Tough week; the assisting urologist, who I like, did offer to look at me in office clinic this week & perhaps remove the ineffective catheter. But I'm trying to make it to Wednesday, even it means being housebound, when the Boss Doc is back from vacation & can oversee the removal, test urination function, & reveal for better or worse the results of biopsy. My primary doc was kind enough to prescribe Restoril by phone when I explained the situation, a mild sedative & sleep aid I've used before. I had been taking Percoset, a seriously addictive drug that doesn't do what I needed. (Restoril is a dependency drug with withdrawal insomnia that's alleviated by Ambien, just as Ambien withdrawal is alleviated by Restoril).

I had hoped to be more ambulatory this week.

I learned from this experience that I'd approach my health care in a more positive attitude at nearby Trinitas in Elizabeth. But I knew that all along. It would've been very convenient for Gina, & my primary doc is an attending physician at Trinitas who would would've overseen & monitored my overall care & treatment there. You don't give an apple to a patient who requests a soft diet.

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Thursday, October 07, 2010

Spencer Stakes Out

Frankie Ortega & Sy Oliver

Classy imitation TV soundtrack music.

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Tuesday, October 05, 2010

I was sent home with Percoset. But what I really need is the lower dose generic Restoril my primary doc occasionally prescribes as a sleep aid. It doesn't make you fall asleep, or even very drowsy. You hardly notice its effects, but the mattress becomes less lumpy & when you close the book & turn out the lights, you do fall asleep, & it's a fairly normal sleep, you sleep as long as you need, 3 hours or more or less, & you don't wake up groggy.

Monday, October 04, 2010

Workin' On A Groovy Thing

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I must  give my friend Gina a couple days off.  It isn't the drives to & from Newark that are the great burden for her -  but  the hours & hours of waiting. 6 hours last Wednesday because a room wasn't ready. An entire day yesterday because I had to go to a big city ER on a Sunday & neither of my urologist's associates were on call. My urologist is in Poland this week,  Yesterday I asked Gina to come  back from her boyfriend's place in Asbury Park. I felt especially bad because Gina had offered to stay home & be available Sunday, but  there was no reason at the time for her to do so, so I said, go ahead down to Asbury & have a fun Saturday night, which she & Glen did.


My sister picked up  the Israeli form of Montezuma's revenge on her Mediterranean cruise, was sick for five days on ship, arrived home Friday, is still ill.  Job's Curse.  I contacted her early Sunday morning.

On the phone today with the doc who assisted at my surgery. He was willing to have me go to ER late today  & deal with problem, but the sense I got from him was that it would be better if I came to his office. We may have to remove this post-op catheter earlier than planned. But I said, if it's possible to wait a day or two, I can cope with the incontinence at home. Sunday, I was urinating on the floor in ER just to prove to the young  attending doc that the problem was exactly as I described to the triage nurse.  I said I gotta give my friend a break, & give my sister time to recover.

Sunday, October 03, 2010

My day in the Emergency Room

Spent all day Sunday in University Hospital ER (blessings upon you Gina) for a post-op complication they ultimately couldn't "fix." Although they prescribed , after 8 hours, something they claim will help & referred me back top my urologist's office.   Sunday is bad day to find a specialist, I knew UH had then on duty for the trauma center, & it's where I had surgery. No luck. None of the four urologists from my doc's office, all of whom were familiar with my case,  were on duty today,  In UH ER, on a misery scale of 1-10, I rated maybe a 2 or 3. While I was there, a pregnant woman who had received almost no prenatal care suddenly gave birth to a premie, which was alive, thank God, when  I checked out.  If you must use a big ER, arrive by ambulance. It helps, I was a walk in.

Atlantic City NJ

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Saturday, October 02, 2010

Home. Naptime.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson

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