Thursday, July 20th
Racing through yet another long hot Alabama summer. I was walking back from lunch today and I swear I could see the air as a miasma of heat and water vapor and ozone that just eneveloped everything. Sort of like mashdar in Shadar Logoth. (That's a Robert Jordan reference for those of you who are going WTF...) Speaking of Robert Jordan, Tommy and I are listening to the whole 'Wheel of Time' series on car trips in unabridged form. At roughly 40 hours a volume, we should finish up around 2008.
We were up in WV this past weekend for the usual mineworkers stuff. Hot up there too, not helped by a breakdown of the air conditioning in the building in Welch. My usual fidgets were quelled by about 11 AM when the building was 90 inside. There is much strangeness with the administration of that program on high levels but the field staff continue to do well.
We have one more performance of PIC on Saturday night here in Birmingham, then we can close down the 2006 version in favor of whatever we come up with for 2007. Given the status of the middle east, I'm thinking it's going to PIC presents Armageddon!, the musical. Not much else on the theater circuit at the moment. Considering auditioning for a production of 'How To Succeed' in a week or so, but I don't have a monologue ready.
Happy 38th birthday to my brother. We're all getting so old...
Tuesday, July 11th
We did the Huntsville gig of PIC on Sunday night this weekend. Eighteen cast, crew and musicians descended on the Renaissance Theater in Huntsville, a cute little space seating about 100 and did our usual brand of anarchic comedy, song and dance. The audience was appreciative and we got most of the kinks worked out of the show so it should be pretty good when we do it here in Birmingham on the 22nd. I tripped making an entrance and sprained a toe - fortunately, its the kind of show where you can just work it into the act.
Will be going off to WV on the usual mineworkers run this weekend. Should be a nice drive if its not one of those thunderstormy days where the heavens open. Be nice to get out of the office for a bit and still get paid. The clinic limps along in its usual way. Only one of my partners remains so we're busy stuffing patients in wherever we can. I need some time off from here but its not going to come for a while. My annual review was late last week. They still love me.
Tommy goes down to Montevallo today to see about registering for his classes for music school. That will determine a lot of our activity over the next couple of years.
Thursday, July 6th
Every day a little death. At least in my business. There's been a bunch of long term patients who haven't been doing so well lately and I had two hospital admissions this morning. Add to that the fact that wer'e really down doctor time around here and we're in for a long, hot summer. We have new staff coming in late August and again in October, so maybe by the holidays we will be back to normal in some way, shape or form.
Tommy and I went to New Orleans for the fourth of July weekend, our usual tradition. First trip back since Katrina. There are still major scars in the Central Business District, but the majority of it and the French Quarter are up and running per usual. All of our favorite restaurants were back and we did the usual eat out, gallery hop and vegetate thing that we do when we are there. The city outside of the center, however, is still reeling. The trip in from the East across Lake Ponchatrain takes you through many, many miles of devestated neighborhoods. It's going to be a long time before the city becomes what it once was and if it takes another direct storm hit, who knows if there will be a NOLA for a lot longer.
Getting ready for Politically Incorrect which happens in Huntsville this Sunday. The show is as loosey-goosey as ever but the people involved are good so it should come out OK in the wash. We had a dress last night which had a few problems but we should have them ironed out for the road show and the Birmingham performance on the 22nd should be just fine.
