Friday, April 23rd
It's been a fairly uneventful couple of weeks. The politics of the workplace have died down somewhat so it's less likely that I will need to think about a different job. My salary is safe and the powers that be are looking a bit more kindly on clinical geriatrics after having had their eyes opened to reality regarding senior care. The passing of health reform has helped a bit as well. While Medicare and senior care in general is not part of the legislation, the need to better integrate health programs and systems is and the geriatricians of the land are the folk that have been doing that kind of work for decades so all of a sudden we're starting to become a much more valuable commodity.
Helped put together a production of 'A Grand Night For Singing' for CenterStage over the last few weeks. I hadn't worked on a revue for a number of years. It takes a very different mind set to make those work than book shows. Is it the best revue ever staged? No. But it's enjoyable and has good moments in it and it's Rodgers and Hammerstein so there's plenty of good music.
Tommy and I are slowly getting the basement furnished. One more bookshelf to assemble and then we can start carting things down there. We have an entertainment center to get and I'm counting pennies for a big screen TV for movie watching. We hope to have the whole thing done by the end of May.
We've got a couple of weeks of vacation coming up and we're trying to figure out what to do with it. If anyone has interesting ideas for the period of June 5th-20th, let me know.
Friday, April 2nd
I really need to update this more often. I seem to be getting lazy in my old age. I have all sorts of writing I want to do and books to read and have to start boning up for my Internal Medicine recertification exams, but all I want to do when I get home is lay down and watch TV and play on Facebook or something equally non-productive. At least life has calmed down after some of the storms and vicissitudes of this past winter that were threatening some major derailments.
It's the middle of pastel season here in Birmingham, my favorite time of year. The weather is warm with no humidity, the flowers are all out in their usual sequence of tulip magnolias, bradford pears, forsythia, flowering cherry, redbuds and dogwood. Of course my allergic rhinitis is not overly fond of the pollen but that's the price we pay to have all the yellows and pinks and pale greens surrounding.
Helping with the direction of the Rodgers and Hammerstein revue, 'A Grand Night for Singing' which opens in a couple of weeks. It should be a reasonable show. Some very good voices for the material. I want to get back on stage with something myself but there just hasn't been anything for my type that fits my schedule that I've had a successful audition for. I've got a couple more auditions coming up later in the spring: maybe something will come of it.
The economic times keep the University roiling and it's quite unclear as to how that will all play out. My job should be relatively unaffected but what I do day to day may change somewhat as Geriatrics positions itself for a changing marketplace. I don't thing the Health Care Reform bill is going to do much about what I do one way or another. There are things in the bill I like and things that are political sellouts. Who knows how it's actually going to change things. It's way to big and complicated for anyone to really know, no matter what the pundits scream at each other on TV. (Speaking of which, I can always tell when my patients spend all day watching Fox News - their blood pressures go up at least ten points. If I can get them to turn it off, I usually don't have to adjust their medication, plus they sleep and eat better...)
The contractors are finally out of the house after three years. The basement is done. Tommy and I are working on furnishing it so it can be used as designed as a studio and media center. We don't have any money so we're getting creative.
