Inside Andy's Brain ( A Scary Place)

Tuesday, February 7th

2012-02-07T09:05:00.000-08:00

Where did the last month go? Into the Whorehouse, that's where. We put 'The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas' up in about three and a half weeks and had a highly successful two week run. The reviews were great, the performances superb and we essentially sold out the run. It was a lot of fun to be part of and I learned a good deal about timing and scene work just being on stage with a bunch of old pros. I must have held my own as I got some very nice compliments from folk who don't dish them out very often.

Tommy got drafted into doing wardrobe and wigs for the production and everyone looked great on stage, even in the horrific fashions of the early 1970s. I cannot say that I will miss my powder blue polyester leisure suit. (See photo).

The next thing on deck is Carmen which is in music rehearsal now and goes into staging rehearsals in two weeks. The music is a lot of fun but my sung French diction leaves a lot to be desired and I will have to pound at the lyrics some next week when I am off in West Virginia with the mineworkers.

Work continues to drive me crazy. The less said about it, the better at this point. All I can do is white knuckle it and hang on while whatever happens, happens. Perhaps more details later.

Wednesday, January 4th

2012-01-04T09:53:00.001-08:00

The holiday season has come and gone and I have survived yet another round of dinner parties for in-laws, our annual trip to Hooters on Christmas Day for dinner (it's one of the few places around here that's acutally open), New Years Eve parties and our annual holiday open house. The house is still tarted up as neither of us has had the energy to take things down and pack them away yet. That may take until Valentines Day.

I am now in the throes of rehearsal for 'The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'. I am seven years older than the last time I did the show and dance numbers are now taking it out of me. Time to get back to the gym and try to punch myself back into a semblance of shape. The show opens on the 19th so we have about two weeks to get it all ready. It's starting to come together and should be a lot of fun. I have the worlds ugliest powder blue polyester leisure suit straight out of 1974 as a costume. It's a look that won't soon be forgotten.

The University is coming back to life after its usual holiday torpor. I have a bunch of projects that I need to take care of but the pile on my desk isn't too large currently so I should be able to stay fairly caught up.

Happy New Year! Let's hope the Mayans weren't right.

Friday, December 9th

2011-12-09T12:06:00.000-08:00

I know I should write more frequently but most of what's going on at the moment I can't really write about. Some of it involves Tommy and he's an intensely private person so I can't really write about that. Some of it involves work and I've been whining about those issues for nearly twenty years now and will likely be doing so for another twenty until I retire as the American health care world remains oblivious to reality. Some of it involves family and aging parents and that seems too much like busman's holiday.

In terms of things I can write about, Tommy finishes both degrees at the end of next week and, after six years will have a BM in music education and a BS in speech pathology. I'm not sure what comes next. He's trying to decide between job and speech pathololgy grad school. A lot of that will depend on accepatances and the market for music teachers locally as we can't pick up and move.

I've been off from things theatrical this fall for various reasons. Supposed to pick up again in a couple of weeks when I go into rehearsal for 'The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'. I'm playing the mayor. Not sure what other bits I'll have yet. Music rehearsal has also begun for Carmen which performs in mid March. I've got a bunch of French to learn over the holidays.

We're having a low key holiday for various reasons. We're postponing our usual holiday open house till some other time for various reasons. Still planning on putting up the Christmas trees though and having some smaller groups of folks in. I trotted up to Seattle for a weekend last month to check out the senior family members so we aren't going for the holiday. We do plan to be up there this spring as the annual geriatrics meetings are there this year.

I found a website www.gog.com that allows you to download computer games from ages past for relatively cheap and I am playing my way through the Gabriel Knight games of the 1990s. I'd forgotten how relatively well written they are. When I'm done with those, I'm going to replay the Phantasm games which I remember enjoying years ago as well.

Wednesday, November 9th

2011-11-09T15:32:00.000-08:00

Fall is here and the weather has changed. There's a nip in the air and the leaves on the trees are turning and are truly spectacular this year in their yellows, oranges and reds. Must have been something in the climate or rainfall as I don't remember it being quite so vivid most times in the past.

Not a whole lot of excitement going on around here. Tommy is in the last phases of his internship and will graduate in about six months. And there was much rejoicing. I took my boards and have yet to hear but feel like I probably passed based on how much of it I felt like I knew. We shall see. We've both been homebodies most of the last couple of weeks, working on little projects of one kind or another. He has been teaching toddler music classes and is working on the church Christmas pageant. I'm trying to get the last few bins and boxes of stuff in the house organized.

We've been out of rehearsal for a while so we've actually had a chance to see other people's shows. A very good production of 'Sweet Charity' (which despite it's fabulous score is just not a good show) and a reasonable Lippa 'Wild Party'. We also judged the annual Trumbauer drama competition for high schoolers this past weekend and may help judge the state finals in a few weeks if the scheduling stars align.

Work is crazier than ever as the clinical operation is transferred from one University entity to another and I have to, once again, justify the existence of geriatrics. I've been doing this for two decades now and I wish they would just leave us alone.

I'm off to Seattle on Friday for the weekend to check up on various family members of the elder generation. Busman's holiday. Back on Monday and then Thanksgiving descends followed by my usual run to WV and KY. Busy November.

Friday, October 14th

2011-10-14T09:29:00.000-07:00

It's not been a terribly exciting couple of weeks. Most of the spare time has been spent with Internal Medicine board review materials. I have nearly plowed through all eleven subjects (General, infectious disease, dermatology, rheumatology, cardiology, pulmonary/critical care, endocrinology, gastroenterology, nephrology, hematology/oncology and neurology) and take the test on Wednesday of next week. If the test is on all of the esoterica I once knew, I'm sunk. If it's skewed to make sure that I am not killing people by doing stupid things, I may be OK. It's just been way too long since I've had to know or use a lot of these things. I look at the review questions and wonder where is the choice 'refer to specialist'? It's a smart doc who knows what he doesn't know.

All the usual craziness goes on at work. More and more budgets are being cut back leading to more and more circling of the wagons to protect territory and perquesites. I'm still trying to find some realistic budget numbers for my areas but all I ever get are spreadsheets made up out of whole cloth. It's times like this when I feel that Don Quixote really is my role model.

Tommy is half way through his internship and well on his way to finishing up both degrees. What happens next is, of course, up in the air as the entire state of Alabama's education system collapses in underfunding.

And don't even get me started on our lovely new immigration law. The best adjective I can come up with for it is 'Wicked' but 'Immoral' and 'Nasty' are right behind.

Tuesday, September 20th - Princeton, West Virginia

2011-09-20T18:55:00.000-07:00

I am off on one of my usual treks to Appalachia working for the United Mine Workers. A day in Princeton, a day in Beckley and a day in Pikeville, Kentucky. Nothing very exciting about this trip. It's gray and drizzly and I've spent ten hours reviewing case management plans for elderly folk living up in the hollers. More of that tomorrow and the day after.

Not a whole lot going on at the moment. I am plowing my way through the MKSAP internal medicine board review course on line so I have a prayer of passing my internal medicine board recertification test next month. I'm about half way through and it's kicking my butt. It's just been too long since I've had to know most of this.

It's been wet and stormy around here. Tropical Storm Lee came through Labor Day and dumped eight inches of rain on the house. For the most part, we were leak free. Some of our improvements seem to have helped.

Nothing on the theatrical front until after board exams. Should be returning to the boards sometime after the holidays.

UAB is considering raising funds for an endowed chair for me which would be very nice if it comes to pass. If anyone has a spare half million or so sitting around, let me know. It's tax deductible.

Tuesday, August 30th

2011-08-30T09:52:00.001-07:00

And another month is drawing to a close. It's been a scorcher around here the last few weeks. Around 100 during the day with high humidity and not dropping much below 80 at night. I was hoping hurricaine Irene might change things somewhat but no, it's too far away and hasn't done anything to north central Alabama weather.

'Big' finished its run a week or so ago. It was a cute show. I didn't have a lot to do - half of the opening number and then a couple of scenes as window dressing later in the show. I was done 40 minutes into Act I and then read a book until curtain call. I am now on page 870 of George R R Martin's latest, 'A Dance with Dragons' and should finish this weekend. This and the previous volume were not as jaw dropping as the first three volumes in the series. I think he has too many plot threads at this moint and has spent the last 1600 pages trying to maneuver everyone into position for the ultimate showdowns so I hope the next volume will start to do that. And I hope it doesn't take him a decade to produce it.

Tommy and I were characters for the annual fund raising Fairy Tale Ball again this past weekend. This year, we were the shoemaker and the elf and we helped the kids with little craft lace up shoes. It was fun and a lot easier than being the Emperor without any clothes that has been my lot for the last couple of years. (Being a family friendly event, I was, of course, wearing long underwear).

The big push this next week is to get Politically Incorrect back into shape for another performance in Montevallo scheduled for the 9th. After that, everything (except work) takes a back seat to my trying to cram everything into my head for my board exam on October 19th. I will be very happy when that task is over.

It has been too hot to do yard work and our yard guy has vanished so the jungle is taking over at the house. We think we have found another yard guy and meet with him later today to see about beating back the undergrowth. The other major project for fall is repairing our front stairs before they kill someone. Tommy says he can do it. More power to him.

Tuesday, August 9th

2011-08-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

If I thought the world was crazy before, it's definitely gone a few steps farther these past few weeks. The tea party managed to destroy the full faith and credit of the US government through pure idiocy, Obama manged to come off as even more inept than ever and London is turning into a true city on fire. It won't surprise me at all if urban violence of that type starts spilling over into this country in the next couple of years when true 'austerity budgets' start to hit throwing the schools into a tailspin and severely curtailing government and health services. I have no idea what the leadership classes are thinking as they march us all over the cliff.

On a more personal note, in the midst of tech for 'Big - the musical' based on the Tom Hanks film from 25 years ago. It's a cute show but my role as the other boys father is pretty blink and you'll miss it. I'm in the first ten minutes and that's about it until curtain call. It's my last theatrical outing for a bit (other than another gig for Politically Incorrect Cabaret) as I need to put the energy into Internal Medicine Boards which are scheduled for October 19th. Big is full of 80s nostalgia. Mall hair, parachute pants and a Galaga machine that has more stage time than I do.

It's been hot and sticky throughout the southland. It gets unbearable, storms and rains an inch, cools off for about three hours and then the cycle repeats. The rain has made every weed in the yard take off and it's too hot and sticky to want to get out there and do anything about it. The house is at least in shape on the inside. Have some deck repair work to do on the outside this fall though.

Friday, July 22nd

2011-07-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

I've been very bad about keeping this up to date recently. Bad Andy. No Pizza for you... (And if you recognize that reference, you're over the age of 30). I seem to have missed the entire month of June and most of July. Some of that is due to craziness in both careers and some of that is due to my just being lazy in the writing arena.

June started with the usual WV/KY run (Tommy went along this time) with a little time spent in the usual places including a very nice lunch in Berea with an exploration of the local artisans. We returned home in time to attend Birmingham's first society gay wedding (which coincided with the Birmingham Pride Parade) and there was much festivity both inside the temple and on the street outside. Most of the rest of the month was devoted to the usual work stuff and rehearsals for the musical version of '13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey' in which Tommy and I both had parts.

'13 Alabama Ghosts' quickly became the project that ate most of July. We were engaged as performers but it became clear that the producing organization was out of its depth with the piece so Andy and Tommy theatrical producers came to the rescuse, spending enormous man hours on set construction and painting, costumes, wardrobing, props and stage management. Fortunately for the show, I had scheduled a couple of vacation weeks, ostensibly to do projects around the house and Tommy had finished his summer school classes so we were able to rise to the challenge. It wasn't what I had intended to do with my time off, but we were able to knock the production into shape and it came off rather well in the end. I don't have any decent pictures yet. I'll post some if I can get my hands on any.

Now the show is over, I am back at work (Tommy is still off for a few more weeks) and the usual grind descends. We did find time to carpet the basement, finishing up his studio and we're putting the finishing touches on that. It's the last major decorating project in the house. We will then strictly be left with little things here and there. The yard needs attention next. Our garden service seems to have gone out of business and we haven't found a new one and the entire lot is becoming the set to the movie 'Predator' more rapidly than I would like.

One more show to go before I knock off for a while, I'm playing Mr. Kopecki in the musical 'Big' in August. I seem to be all through the opening sequence, then vanish for the rest of the show. If I can show up at half hour, do my bit, then leave, I'll be able to do the run on less than an hour a day. Wouldn't that be nice.

Wednesday, June 1st

2011-06-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

The Birmingham dates for the Cabaret show have come and gone. It came off quite well, one of our better efforts. We're working on tour dates for Montevallo, Huntsville and Atlanta for later in the summer and early fall. I just hope that politics holds steady enough for the next couple of months so I don't have to completely rewrite the show. Like that'll ever happen. Next theatrical project is a new musical version of 'Thirteen Alabama Ghosts' which goes up in mid July. I'm not sure what all I'm playing as it's one of those ensemble shows with lots of small roles. I guess I find out at first read tomorrow night. After that comes 'Big' in which I am Mr. Kopecki. Not sure what all that entails either.

Tommy and I went to New Orleans for the long weekend last week and had a nice few days with good food, including a trip to Bayona, our favorite upscale eatery there, gallery hopping and meeting some people with whom I have been net buddies for a while and who turned out to be very nice and quite compatible. We will probably see more of them. We're here this week and gone again next week as it's time for my usual WV/KY run to play with the mineworkers. After that we're here most of the summer. We do have the weekend of the 4th available but no plans as of yet.

Digging out of a major hole at work. I had to put in lots of extra hospice hours the last six months due to changes in Medicare rules but there are now other mechanisms to do that so I get the time back and now I have to work through an enormous to do pile. It's slowly shrinking and I can see the top of my desk for the first time since Christmas.

If you have HBO, check out their adaptation of George R. R. Martin's 'A Game of Thrones'. I've loved the books for years and the writers have done a bang up job of adapting them for television, keeping his characters, plotting and world view pretty much intact. Nice juicy characters and politics.

As promised, a photo from the latest cabaret...

Wednesday, May 11th

2011-05-11T16:30:00.000-07:00

So it's my San Francisco birthday today. And if you can't figure out what that means, think for a while, it'll come to you. Where does the time go? All sorts of good wishes are pouring in, mainly through facebook. It's been very interesting peeking back in on the lives of people I knew in elementary school and haven't seen for decades to see what sort of adults they have become. Of course, it's impossible to hide your age from someone you were in kindergarten with. They more or less know. I don't feel a lot older. The knees creak a bit more then they used to and I don't have the stamina to run around all night the way I once did but that's about it. I hope I got the good genes from my parents who are still in reasonable shape as they complete their eighth decades.

It's been a wild time around Alabama the last few weeks. The worst tornadoes in seventy years hit two weeks ago today. 238 dead in Alabama alone and more than 5,000 homes destroyed in Tuscaloosa and Jefferson counties alone. I had occasion to be in one of the tornado areas on Monday and it's horrible. No house or building for miles without significant damage and in some places, whole blocks gone.

We were fine through the whole thing. We never even lost power and had no idea how bad it was until people started calling from out of state to check on us. Most of my friends and coworkers are also fine. One nurse I know lost her house and another couple of friends had significant structural damage requiring them to move but their stuff is fine. Everyone, however, has friends of friends who lost family or pretty much everything they had. It's going to be a long hard slog to recover as there was so much damage in so many places. The feds are helping but the city, county, and state are all nearly broke in this economy and there are very few public dollars around here for much of anything.

Been busy the last few weeks with this years Politically Incorrect Cabaret - Enemy of the State. We're taking on a lot of the idiotic things that the new Republicans and Tea baggers are ramming through various state legislatures. I feel like Susan Powter yelling 'Stop the Insanity'. At least there's plenty of fodder for satire. The show this year is pretty good and much tighter than many of them have been in the past. I think our audience will be pleased. I'll try to put up some performance shots later if anyone bothers to take some. It's always been a bit hit or miss in terms of photographing the show.

Tommy and I are looking at doing some traveling in the near future. I know we're making a WV/KY run the second week of June. Everything else is still nebulous but I'll put the schedule up when I have it. No west coast - airfares are horrible.

Monday April 18th

2011-04-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

Happy holy week, for those who keep track of those sorts of things. It's very definitely springtime in Alabama as the temperature varies from the 40s to the 80s, usually during the same day. You have to wear a sweater and long sleeves when you leave the house and you're sweating by midafternoon. Instability in the temperature means, of course, spring storms and straight line winds and tornadoes. Two bad ones last week. Our little aerie up on the top of the hill rides them out fine but there was a lot of damage in rural areas south and west of us. There was a lightning strike on a tree across the street Monday night which was a bit close for comfort.

I actually got out and did yard work this weekend as it was one of the few weekends where it's climatologically possible without extreme discomfort. Usually it's either too cold, too wet or too humid. I made a good start at beating back the ivy bank that's been taking over everything. I will never be a yard person. Just not my thing.

Tommy had his Senior Recital a couple of weeks ago and it went well. He's leapt through nearly all of the hoops he needs to for his degrees. Finish up this semester, two summer school courses and student teaching and then he is done. And there was much rejoicing. We've both been busy singing in a couple of concerts as well - a lent service and a benefit for Japan.

The next project is Politically Incorrect Cabaret 2011: Enemy of the State which is taking on a lot of the nonsense that's been going on in various state houses over the last few months. Plays May 14th here in Birmingham with out of town dates later in the summer under discussion. Got to get my eight or nine costume changes organized...

Watched the premiere of 'Game of Thrones' last night with friends. Looks like HBO got it right. I love the books and highly recommend them. The fifth one is due out in July and will be my vacation reading this year. I have got to take some time off this summer sometime or I will be snapping at everyone.

Monday, March 21st

2011-03-21T09:43:00.000-07:00

Spring has sprung again. Here in the southland, the flowering cherries, redbuds and dogwoods are running riot and the temperatures have shot up. It was 80 something this weekend, but without the humidity we usually have so it was quite pleasant. Of course, this weekend is a bit of a blur due to the performances of 'Lucia di Lammermoor' that just finished.

Lucia came out quite well as everyone buckled down and learned their music and their Italian (or at least most of it...) so it was ultimately a pretty darn good piece of music theatre. Susanna Phillips was amazing in the title role, especially in the mad scene and it was a privilege to be onstage watching her for that whole seventeen minutes of craziness. She nailed it and there wasn't a sound from the audience during the whole thing. They were rapt.

I'll try to post a photo or two of us all playing Scots singing in Italian and wearing 18th century French fashions. I had to have a beard for the part which made me look, according to some, like Sean Connery circa 'Highlander'. Personally, I think I just looked like my father.

The opera season is now over and I have to turn my attention to work matters such as getting ready for my Internal Medicine recertification exams which happen this fall. I have two more theatrical things on my calendar. One is a new version of 'Politically Incorrect' and the other is the musical 'Big' which happens this summer.

Still battling bronchial infections. They are fortunately getting better but I hope I don't have to deal with them next opera season. Only one opera next year and that's 'Carmen' which is a big sing for the chorus.

Next thing up is Tommy's Senior Recital which happens in two weeks. One more hoop...

Monday, February 28th

2011-02-28T10:23:00.001-08:00

Another month down. 2011 now 1/6 gone or some such and I feel like I haven't gotten 2010 managed yet. I suppose I can catch up when I'm dead.

'Lucia di Lammermoor' starts staging rehearsals tomorrow. I am not yet comfortable with the music and still have a lot of Italian to learn. We're less than three weeks away from the show and I should be able to get it all down but I'm feeling a bit nervous about it. I learned 'Turandot' from scratch in a similar length of time so I should be able to do it. The other theatrical projects on the horizon are the premiere of my new script for the Seasoned Performers which happens in late April and a 2011 edition of 'Politically Incorrect Cabaret' which is slated for May. After that, a much needed break to catch up with other areas of life.

The bronchitis from hell has more or less cleared but I still have the occasional residual cough and bronchospasm. I'll give it to the end of the month and if it's still a problem then, I may need to see the allergist or pulmonologist to see what else I can do to get rid of it. It shouldn't be quite this length of time. At least I feel better and have some energy. Tommy and I were at least able to get everything in the house onto the proper floor this weekend (a massive undertaking) and now we have to do a major clean over the next couple of weeks and we should be Ok there for a while. I still wish I could convince the cats not to shed all over everything.

Life has been way too busy at work as we are down clinical provider FTE and the rest of us have to make up the difference. Add new Medicare hospice rules requiring lots of house calls, new projects in education and a couple new committees and I am running around like the proverbial chicken. Things are supposed to get better after March. I am not holding my breath.

We formally installed our new minister at the UU church last night. She's going to be very good for us and help get the congregation out of some traps it has fallen into the last few years. As if I didn't have enough to do, I have the Committee on Ministry to tend to this year.

Tuesday, February 15th

2011-02-15T05:58:00.000-08:00

I have been very remiss about updating this for a while but I do have a good excuse known as a never ending case of bronchitis which has been hanging around since early January. It is slowly getting better but I still have hacking fits and feel tired and washed out and not much like doing things. The upshot of this is that many routine chores are way behind. Not only blogging, but Christmas is still not put away (although the majority is at least boxed up) and the vacuuming and dusting is way behind which is no joke in a household with four cats.

Besides respiratory ailments, January has been about three other things. The first is mass craziness at work. Due to certain changes in Medicare regulations and a different approach to the mineworkers contract, I have had to stuff about another eight hours into my work week which is making me slightly insane. Something has got to give as I cannot keep the pace up long term. I'm going to do all of this through March and then reevaluate.

The second is opera season. Faust was a significant success due to a talented chorus, both as vocalists and actors and a good director who made use of us so it wasn't all park and bark as is often the case in opera. The principals were all also in fine voice. I have been unable to locate much in the way of production photographs yet but here is one I found featuring yours truly as the town drunk in the first act.

The third is the somewhat crazy weather we've been having around here. We have had four significant snow/ice falls since Christmas so far. The one mid-January put so much ice on the roads that the whole city was shut down for two days. Another one brought ice mid-afternoon that led to a blind panic and everyone trying to get home at once and my ten minute commute took an hour and a half. We could get snow through March so we may not be out of the woods yet although this week it's sixty degrees and sunny.

I'll try not to get quite so far behind the rest of the spring but the road to hell and all that...

Tuesday, January 4th

2011-01-04T07:48:00.000-08:00

Happy 2011! It's another new year. Where does the time go? I remember as a child thinking 'I'll be so old in the year 2000' and now we're more than a decade later. Therefore, I must be ancient (at least to my child self.)

Tommy and I completed a successful visit to Seattle. Quality family time and helping my parents with their planning for their transition to senior living. Actual moving day isn't for a few weeks yet and they continue to downsize. I have four more boxes arriving UPS sometime this month. Getting back from Seattle, however, was a bit of a chore. We left the house at 9 AM on Wednesday for a noon flight. The flight was on time and we boarded, then sat on the tarmac for a couple of hours as the PA system stopped working and we had a horrible buzz in our ears for the whole time. The mechanics fixed that and the ice storm hit. As we weren't supposed to be there, we couldn't get deiced for a couple more hours so we took off four hours later. A lovely night was spent in Memphis courtesy of Delta airlines in a hotel right on the Fed Ex landing strip with a take off every five minutes all night long. We made it back lunch time the next day and had to scramble to rearrange life and crash after a 27 hour trip with little sleep.

The next few days were an orgy of cooking and cleaning for our annual open house which happened this past Sunday. We had about 150 folk show up over six hours and serves soup and stew and cookies and drinks. Per usual, a wonderfully eclectic crowd and a good time was had by all.

Now, we buckle down to a busy January. Faust rehearsals are in full swing between now and performance at the end of the month. Tommy also starts back to school and I have to get my work life up and running after the fallow period of the holidays. Then there is the matter of the script I have to finish for The Seasoned Performers. No rest for the wicked for a while...

Friday, December 24th - Seattle, Washington

2010-12-24T16:27:00.000-08:00

Happy Christmas to all. Tommy and I are in Seattle with my family enjoying the holiday amongst my nearest and dearest. The whole Duxbury clan is in town this year so we're spending time catching up. It's a bit bittersweet as my parents have made the decision to sell the family home and move into retirement living. They signed the papers this week and have been downsizing like crazy. I am doing my part in giving homes to various books and various other family curiosities. Life is change and this is one more. It's a change that they are making in their own way and on their own schedule and having vetted the facility and the people running it, I think they will do well. It's one of the few upscale senior facilities I've seen where it's possible to walk to shopping, restaurants, movies, and public transportation downtown so you aren't trapped if you stop driving.

The weather is gray and cold and wet. Very Seattle in winter. Everyone seems to be in good health and my nieces are both growing up quickly. Maybe too quickly as it wasn't that long ago that I was holding them as babies. Time marches on and the story continues.

We return home next Wednesday, just in time to get our annual holiday open house organized. It's on Sunday the 2nd this year. After that, we head into a month of intensive rehearsal for 'Faust' which plays the 28th and 30th. I have the music down but have a lot of lyric memorizing still to do.

Tuesday, December 7th

2010-12-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

My usual Appalachian trip went off last week without a hitch. The weather was frosty cold, it snowed a bit but the roads did not ice so the driving was fine. The nurses in the hollers of Kentucky and West Virginia continue to do a phenomenal job with limited resources and all is well. Detoured slightly on the way home through the college town of Berea, Kentucky to see my old high school friend Charlie who currently resides there. I like that town and one of these days I shall have enough money for a handmade mountain dulcimer.

I returned to the realization that the holidays are again upon us. The list of things to do seems relatively endless but things are getting done slowly. The christmas trees have been hauled out of storage and at least placed on the correct floors of the house. Now to get them decorated and the house otherwise prepared. We are going to spend Christmas in Seattle this year (helping my parents move in to Senior Living) so our holiday celebrations are going to be New Years weekend. This gives us a couple more days to get everything ready. I figure that there are twelve days of Christmas so as long as things happen before Epiphany, all is good.

Spending Thursday this week with the Leadership Birmingham program studying the criminal justice system hereabouts. Should be interesting. Now if I can just shake my sore throat that's been bothering me the last few days. A twelve hour day of courtrooms while not feeling well might be a bit much.

Have a couple of opera rehearsals for Faust coming up. I have the music down more or less, but have to work to get the French into my brain. Much memorization for New Years coming up. I'm also singing in a Lessons in Carols in a couple of weeks. That's fairly easy and I can hold the music.

Sunday, November 28th

2010-11-28T16:29:00.001-08:00

I hope everyone had a reasonable Thanksgiving weekend. We had a low key few days. Lunch with Tommy's family, then dinner with a group of theatre friends where there was much carousing and martinis with a continuation to a Friday dinner where leftovers were consumed and the same group kept on. We all enjoy each others company and hadn't worked together on a show for a while so it was a time to catch up, share backstage stories, play many riotous games of Apples to Apples and have a few more martinis.

I am desperately trying to get the new touring show for the Seasoned Performers, Alabama's only senior theatre group, written so it can go into rehearsal in January. I have a draft due by the 15th of December and I'm only about half done. It's about three actresses who starred in a radio drama years ago reuniting years later and reflecting on the past and looking forward to the future together. I have some good pieces worked out but am still stuck on the full formal dramatic art. If I can get a whole draft down, I can then refine it and get things worked out better.

Leaving in the morning for the usual West Virginia and Kentucky run. Just hope the snows stay out of the mountains until I get back. Have to give a talk on health care reform while I am there so I've been spending some time researching the bill. There's some good stuff in it but it doesn't go far enough so I don't see it working out properly in the long run. Everything may change with the results of the last election as well...

Been spending some time whipping the house into shape. The goal is to get everything properly put away by Christmas after three years of continuous upheaval. We're slowly getting there. Only a few boxes left and then we have to attack the garage and the storage space. There's some room there as much of the excess furniture has gone to Tommy's niece who is furnishing her first apartment.

We will be in Seattle for Christmas for a week. It will be nice to see everyone. I don't know how much vacation it will be as we are helping my parents move out of the house and into senior living. Time marches on.

Wednesday, November 3rd

2010-11-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

I can't say I'm terribly thrilled by the outcome of yesterdays elections, but it was pretty much inevitable given the current state of politics in the US. The dems ignored their base and tried to govern from a conciliatory middle and got played by the repubs who were able to make their inaction and blocking of progress seem like the fault of the actual dem policies. Combine that with a stagnant economy and 10% unemployment and the results are pretty much a no brainer. Hopefully, the Obama administration has learned something and will get into the rough and tumble of politics rather than trying to hold itself outside. That strategy never works. I doubt there will be a wholesale repeal of anything. Obama won't sign it and it won't pass the senate. I forsee a lot of the same gridlock over the next couple of years and a continued stagnant economy. Batten down the hatches folks.

Most of the last couple of weeks has been devoted to fundraisers and good works of various stripes. Tommy and I, along with the rest of the Opera Birmingham chorus, learned six major opera chorus moments for a benefit cabaret show including Carmen's Toreador chorus, Trovatore's Anvil chorus and Nabucco's Slave chorus. It came off rather well and will be repeated in the future. If anything, there was too much good music. Tommy and I also ended up doing most of the catering as well so we get double brownie points for that one.

Monday night was the Center For Aging's inaugural 'Dancing with the Silver Stars' event using local 'celebrities' with dance pros in a format like the TV show. A good time was had by all and we made quite a lot of money and people are clamoring to be the celebrity 'contestants' for next year. This one will be a keeper. I did not dance, not being a celebrity. I was able to enjoy the food and drink instead.

This weekend, is Alzheimers of Central Alabama memory walk and Tommy and I are, again, in charge of the T shirts. I have six cartons in the car that have to be folded tonight and another five to be folded before Saturday morning sometime so they can be given out to the hordes.

Hallowe'en was a quiet affair. We were both tired on Saturday night and went to bed early. Sunday night, we had work to do around the house and no trick or treaters. We seldom have them. The benefit(?) curse(?) of living at the end of a dead end on the top of a steep hill.

Things are quieter for most of the rest of November. We have no Thanksgiving plans as of yet. I'm sure we'll do more than Swanson frozen turkey TV dinners but it's unclear what.

Upcoming travel plans.

Andy - Beckley/Princeton/Pikeville/Berea - November 29th - December 3rd
Andy and Tommy - Seattle - December 21st - December 29th

Friday, October 15th

2010-10-15T09:26:00.000-07:00

I completed my first full regular session day with the Leadership Birmingham program yesterday, focusing on education. Lots of seminars on the financing of education, how the locas school systems work and the role of higher education institutions in the local economy. I walked away with three major insights:

1. Birmingham City schools are much better than the local community gives them credit. I put this down to the lingering effects of racism. As the white community has abandoned the City schools, there is a sense that they must not be any good. They're quite good, but they have a lot of social pathology to deal with and not much middle class to fall back on.

2. The money issues are not so much a lack of money but rather too many restrictions and strings on money politically which prevents local school districts from being innovative or shifting resources to cover their particular needs year to year. This seems to all lead back to the dreadful Alabama state constitution of 1901 (as do so many other things.)

3. Alabama schools have little interest in protecting their LGBTQ students. I fear it's going to take a combination of major tragedy and lost lawsuit to wake them up.

Next month, we do health which should be interesting as I have actually taught part of this in the past.

Not a lot to report in recent weeks. After a heroic effort, Tommy and I managed to work through three back years of CenterStage financial records to get all the back 990s filed so there is a prayer of preserving the 501c3 and getting back into production. There's still a lot more hurdles to clear but the first one with the hard deadline is down.

Magic City Choral Society had a big concert a couple of weeks ago which included a mash-up of about forty TV themes. I still have those earworms stuck in my head. The next musical thing coming up is a fundraiser for the Opera Chorus the Friday before Hallowe'en. I have to relearn the Aida triumphal scene, the Anvil Chorus from Trovatore, the Slave Chorus from Nabucco and a couple of other things this next week.

We had new gutters put on the house with leaf guard so that should keep them from blocking and flooding. Those of you who know the house know why it's next to impossible for us to clean them. The next issue is the basement floor. It's got weird discoloration happening that seems to be lime seeping up from ground water. We're not sure how to fix that one yet.

Everything else seems to be rolling along without too much difficulty. At least for today.

Wednesday, September 22nd

2010-09-22T14:18:00.000-07:00

Fall officially starts today sometime and the weather is still 95 degrees out there. The endless summer continues on relentlessly. Everyone is letting their lawns parch and the leaves collect as no one wants to be out of doors in this ridiculous weather. At this rate, we'll be in the 80s at Christmas.

Tommy and I had a good time in NOLA for labor day weekend. We're getting middle aged so we didn't spend too much time carousing but had a couple of very nice days gallery hopping and hanging out with friends. That weekend was the one time the weather broke a bit so NOLA was bearable in Tshirt and shorts. The next weekend, I was off in the woods for the opening retreat of the Leadership Birmingham program - bootcamp for civic leaders is probably the best description. It's going to be an interesting year as they mix us all up and make us think about the issues confronting the city and the region - political, economic and social. We got a bit of a history lesson that weekend and the patterns being played out now are deep seated. The history of Birmingham is one of wasted opportunities due to people putting their parochial self interests before the greater good.

I'm doing a lot of lecturing this week on my usual topics of geropharmacy and economics of medicare and the health care system. Keeps the performance skills going even when I'm not on stage. Nothing happening in that department this fall but I do start rehearsal this weekend for the Opera Birmingham chorus. 'Faust' runs the last week of January.

Wednesday, September 1st

2010-09-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

Spent ten days of August devoted to Pattypalooza, also known as 'Patty's Piano Bar', the fund raiser for the Virginia Samford Theatre which had many of the local musical comedy types involved. It ended up being a good time with all of us having fun with each other backstage and onstage which took the audience on a pleasant ride for 90 minutes of Broadway and Cabaret numbers. Had the baritone part in the 'Heart' quartet from Damn Yankees and then the group numbers, 'Another Openin', Another Show' and 'Old Friends' and the highlight, a full cast version of 'Proud Mary' with Miss Patty herself in full Tina Turner mode, easy and rough.

Finished the run and then headed back to WV and KY for my usual mine workers stuff. Spent some time this trip working with them on a new project to improve services and access for caregivers of dementia patients and trying to figure out ways to connect the rural poor up with appropriate services where no such services actually exist. The weather was a bit cooler up in the mountains, but as hot as usual when I got back to Birmingham.

The weather finally broke, after 50 straight days of over 90 degree weather this past Sunday and there was much rejoicing. It's warmed up again but a much more manageable low 80s so fall is in the offing and the sauna may finally be over.

We're off to NOLA for the long weekend with friends. Should be interesting.

Tuesday, August 10th

2010-08-10T07:31:00.000-07:00

The heat wave continues. We haven't had a day under 90 with 90% humidity for six weeks or so now and there's no end in sight. It's making my normally sweet disposition more and more crabby. Summer in the south isn't comfortable in the best of circumstances but this is getting ridiculous. And the air conditioning cannot keep up. Even climate controlled buildings are getting uncomfortably warm.

Tommy and I are rehearsing for the opening fund raiser for the Virginia Samford Theatre which goes up week after this. There is still no script but we're getting our number, 'Heart' from Damn Yankees down. How it fits into the evening, we do not know. All should be revealed shortly. We also return to men's chorus in the next week or so and church choir starts up again shortly so much singing to do.

Very busy trying to get the first issue of the audio course I am editing off the ground. Half the review team quit before getting started and I'm trying to flog the remainder while recruiting more. It should all settle down by October, with luck. The rest of work grinds on apace. Nothing terribly exciting one way or another.

Saw the Swedish film version of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' which both Tommy and I enjoyed, having read the book. I can't see Hollywood doing better with a remake as it's so Scandinavian in some respects.

Tuesday, July 27th

2010-07-27T07:46:00.000-07:00

It has been too darn hot the last few weeks. Highs in the mid to high 90s with heat indices well over 100. You get up in the morning and its hot. You sweat all day and it remains hot well into the evening. No outdoor activity to speak of around our house until the heat breaks. There's the occasional thunderstorm that drops the temperature for a bit, but it usually only lasts about twelve hours.

We're continuing the work around the house to get everything fixed up following three years of remodeling. All the furniture is in the patient and the boxes and bins are slowly being emptied. Filing cabinets are receiving all those things you don't want to throw out but don't quite know what to do with. The goal is everything in place by Labor Day weekend. It should be doable.

Nothing much theatrically going on at the moment so that's left extra time to play catch up with work and home. We're starting rehearsals for the opening fundraiser for Virginia Samford Theatre - what we're all singing seems to change weekly. Looks like I'm part of a quartet singing 'Heart' from Damn Yankees. How this will fit in with the rest of the show, god knows. We're also starting to plan this year's Politically Incorrect Show which goes up Halloween weekend, just before the midterm elections.

I teach the first year Med Students tomorrow, three days into their med school careers. That's always interesting. An hour on aging and death. Always such a cheery subject for the 20 somethings, but they seem to enjoy it, or at least the way I deliver the material.

Monday, July 12th

2010-07-12T07:33:00.000-07:00

It's been relatively quiet at the Aerie the last few weeks. I've been trying to get my work life together for the next academic year. (It's going to be a busy one) and Tommy is in summer school for his education block classes until early August. Together, we are beating the house into submission and trying to get everything stowed away where it belongs. We've had things crammed into bins into corners for years during this remodel. Now is the time to find them, open them, look at the contents, wonder what the hell they are and why we own them, and then try to decide what to do with it. The goal is to have everything put away properly by Labor Day.

We took the long fourth of July weekend off and spent a few days with friends in Augusta and Columbia SC. There was lounging by pools, sunburn, eating of ribs and baked beans and potato salad. We went to bed early after a few too many mimosas and slept through the fireworks. As we came back via Atlanta, we made our first stop at IKEA as they were having a sale. It was a bit overwhelming but we emerged with a couple of sale chairs, yet another bookcase and some other odds and ends. So much for the state tax refund.

I have been admitted to the 2010-11 class for a civic program called Leadership Birmingham. It's more or less civic boot camp for community leaders and a good way to make connections of one type or another. This plus a new editorship plus all the usual mean a very busy year and not much time for things theatrical. There should be a few things such as a new Politically Incorrect and the opera chorus but musical theatre leads seem to be out. Not much in the way of shows to audition for anyway so I suppose it all works out.

Friday, June 25th

2010-06-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

The theatre conference went well and my talk on Alzheimer's and performing arts was well received. Tommy and I had a couple of extra days in Asheville poking around the town and enjoying the mountain air before returning to the sweatbox of Birmingham. We came back to 95 degrees and 90% humidity and didn't feel like doing a whole lot during our weekend at home. We went to a somewhat sweaty, but very nice outdoor wedding of one of his schoolmates and did a bit of housework, but nowhere near as much as we needed to do.

Last week, we packed up again and headed for Seattle. We spent a few days with the family catching up. My sister has remodeled her basement and is spending most of her time at home tattooing people. She does do her nice work, but it's not for me. My brother and his wife are both busy with their various work careers - in his education and her various entrepreneurial ventures. My mother has memory issues but they are not as bad as I feared they might be and she and my father, despite advanced age and various ailments seem to be doing well in their ususal environment at this point.

The weekend happened to coincide with my 30 year high school reunion so Tommy and I turned up to see the other ex-teenagers who are all now pushing fifty. I went to a small prep school and about a third of the hundred of us were there. I must say that I like the adults my classmates have become. Well educated, well spoken, kind, considerate, successful people. It's also fun to see people that you have known, in some cases, since early childhood. I think Tommy was fascinated to see the kind of folk amongst whom I grew up so now he has a bit better understanding of how I am the way I am.

We came back and plunged back into the usual workaday world. He's helping run an elementary school music camp this week. I am playing catch up at work. I have a new project at the moment. I'm picking up the editorship of an audiotape CME course in Geriatrics. I did it before a number of years ago and they've asked me back. Until we get Tommy out of school, I'm a sucker for anything that pays.

Monday, June 7th - Asheville, North Carolina

2010-06-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

I'm about half way through my vacation period. Some of it has been vacation, some of it has been away work of one type or another, but it has all gotten me up and out and around. Tommy and I started the period off with a road trip to Fort Worth for the Fort Worth opera fesitval. Three operas in three days. The drive to Texas was uneventful and we arrived on a hot memorial day weekend. We went first to the art museums. The Kimbell (excellent collection) and the Modern (excellent building)and then spent the evening at Bass Performance Hall with 'Elixir of Love' (reset as a cross between Oklahoma! and The Music Man). It was great fun and we are friends with Adam, the stage manager.

The next day, we spent some time shopping and exploring downtown Fort Worth and for the evening, went to the world premiere of a new opera version of Reinaldo Arenas' Before Night Falls. Wes Mason, the baritone who played the lead, made his career with the performance and held the piece together with an able supporting cast (including another friend of ours). We both thought the piece very good and think it has a life outside of this initial production. Lastly, after a leisurely brunch on Sunday morning, off to the matinee of Don Giovanni, with our friend Susanna Phillips as Donna Anna. Designed as a chiaroscuro Velazquez painting, it was ably sung, especially by the women. Immediately after the performance, we leapt into the car in order to get to our next stop.

The next day and a half were spent driving the 1100 miles from Fort Worth to Beckley, West Virginia so I could have my quarterly meetings with the mine workers. We had a couple of days in WV and then a couple in Pikeville, Kentucky. The mine workers geriatric case management programs continue to grow and develop by leaps and bounds. It's expanding into new areas and will be taking more and more time and attention the next few years.

After Pikeville, back to Birmingham for a day and a half for a friends 40th birthday party and to do laundry. Now back in North Carolina where my play "Grimm and Bear It" is being done at the National Senior Theatre Conference. I gave the keynote address on Alzheimers and Performing Artists this evening - I'm being paid with a nice hotel room in Asheville which remains a gorgeous mountain resort town. I could see moving here in retirement. We have one more day here then back to Birmingham for a week to get the house back in shape after the contractors and then off to Seattle for a few days following that.

Tuesday, May 18th

2010-05-18T10:45:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I have ridden this spinning little globe around the sun one more time and am now, by all accounts thirty-eighteen years of age. This is a good deal older than I ever planned on being but what can one do? Ponce de Leon failed in his quest and we all suffer the consequences. Given my profession, I am more aware of this than most.

It's been a busy few weeks. Tommy finished his semester and got through his finals. We're now both ensconced in mega rehearsals as the men's chorus prepares to record its first CD. The recording sessions are next week. It's an interesting polyglot of stuff taken from our repetoire for the last three years. Everything from Swahili world music to Russian chant to the Biebl Ave Maria. When that is done, the two of us are taking a vacation (a mix of work and vacation for me) including stops at the Fort Worth Opera Festival, the usual mineworkers Appalachian run, the National Senior Theatre Festival (where I am speaking) and, if I can work it out, Seattle for a few days to see the family.

Now that the house is more or less done, we are emptying closets and shelves to try and get everything to its proper home. This has led to a lot of piles. They should all go away by the fourth of July weekend if we play it right. Is ones home ever truly finished? Everytime I think I have it in order, there's a new disaster or new project and off we go again.

Saw a very good local production of 'Grey Gardens' with good friends and colleagues in the leads. Makes me want to get back on stage. Most of the kinds of shows I'm right for aren't being done much at the moment due to the economy. Hopefully something interesting will happen soon. I do have a couple of cabaret things coming up in August that should be fun. Politically Incorrect is due back for another outing and there's a fund raising one that's about friendship.

Friday, April 23rd

2010-04-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-02T08:58:00.000-07:00

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.

Thursday, March 11th - Pikeville KY

2010-03-11T16:17:00.000-08:00

Fortunately, my brain chemistry is settling down and the string of reverses that hit last month seems to have slackened somewhat so things are much better than they were a few weeks ago. Thanks to all that provided love, support and concern through a rough patch. This too is passing and on we go to whatever must be dealt with next.

This week is a mineworkers week so I am off on the usual Beckley WV/Princeton WV/Pikeville KY circuit for meetings and consultations. The geriatric program up here is growing by leaps and bounds and I have to engage my brain more and more to help them come up with solutions for these elder miners and spouses up in the hollers - especially in an economy that has slashed the budgets for any kind of social services.

The meetings finished up around 6 this evening so I am taking a down evening to watch bad TV and get some sleep before heading out in the morning for Birmingham. It's about a nine to ten hour trip with rest and meal stops. Should be home for dinner tomorrow night. Of course Tommy won't be. He's at a choral convention in Memphis this week.

Also on the good news front, the contractors should be out of the house in the next week or so. Then we can start moving everything into its new permanent home and get rid of some of the piles of crap that are all over the place.

Friday, February 26th

2010-02-26T11:53:00.000-08:00

The last two weeks have been amongst the most horrible of my life - somewhat comparable to the period of time when Steve was ill and died. I'm not going to post a lot of details for vicarious amusement - you'll have to ask me in person.

Needless to say, I don't feel like doing much of anything other than getting into bed and pulling the covers over my head. With luck I won't have to emerge until about June. Unfortunately, life isn't likely to be giving me much of a break.

Tuesday, February 9th

2010-02-09T15:25:00.000-08:00

Aida has come and gone, complete with Judy, the camel with gastric upset who managed to get across the stage in performance without defecating too terribly inappropriately. Much fun was had by those of us on stage and by those in the audience. The Birmingham news gave it a five star review and it sold well.

A few photos available at the link:

With that out of the way, Tommy and I spent a couple of days catching up on sleep. However, within a day or two it became apparent that Tommy's post-show crash was more serious and he wound up in the hospital for a few days of IV antibiotics. He's more or less back to his usual self now but it was yet another monkey wrench in the machinery of our lives.

Hopefully, the rest of February will be less exciting. We expect the house remodel will get finished, both physcially and in terms of cleaning us out financially. It will be nice to have the basement operational again as we might be able to get things stored properly.

My cast is off, I am in an orthopedic boot but that's supposed to come off as of the 24th and I will be free to run around until I next injure myself.

Sunday, January 24th

2010-01-24T05:24:00.000-08:00

One of my fellow choristers from Aida died suddenly yesterday on the way out of rehearsal. In my business, I deal with death all the time but it's usually in those who have completed long and full lives. I still have difficulty when it's someone young and healthy who is no longer there. It also brings up memories and feelings of Steve and his illness and death. Having been widowed makes me much better and more effective at my job as I can tap into all that when dealing with the aged and the chronically ill, but there's a downside as well when I have to confront unexpected mortality.

Aida has been going well. We start tech tonight. There will be a bit of a pall on the whole thing with the death as this person was talented and well liked. We have our lyrics down, the staging is done, the music sounds glorious. Elephants are being replaced with camels after the structural engineer said that the stage won't take the weight of an elephant. The audience may be a bit disappointed, but better than watching an elephant go through the floor and into the timpani in the pit during the triumphal procession.

Work seems to be going well this month. That is likely to change given all the uncertainties in the air in terms of economics and health care. The current state of congress and the administration is making all of our lives somewhat crazy. At this point, I doubt much meaningful reform will pass. Some bill will pass, but there will be little in it that actually changes the system.

Monday, January 11th

2010-01-11T07:56:00.001-08:00

We have been in the deep freeze around here for a week and a half. It's barely cracked an acceptable temperature since New Years. Tommy and I went out of town for New Years weekend and we returned home to frozen pipes in the master bath and they have yet to thaw so we have no idea if we have any plumbing damage or not. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Work continues slowly but surely in the basement. The floor is nearly done. When that is finished, we may be able to start using the room a little bit. We're supposed to have a house guest through the opera starting the 22nd so it needs to be before then so I can get all the crap that belongs in the basement out of the guest room.

Aida rehearsals are in full swing. The Italian is starting to come. I have most of the first act down and the second act is getting there. Most of the third and fourth acts is off stage so I can cheat and look at the music if I need to. The principals are all decent sorts and the staging is such that I can do it even in my cast so it shouldn't be a problem that I'm still hobbling around on a broken foot. I see the orthopod on Wednesday for a check up and to make plans for the next go round. I'm hoping I can graduate from a cast to a boot that I can take off at night and for showering.

Tommy starts spring semester today. He did very well last semester and I expect him to do the same this time around.

Tuesday, December 29th

2009-12-29T08:14:00.000-08:00

The last few weeks have been non-stop. I'm just starting to get a bit of a breather. Off to WV and KY for a week with the mine workers (and managing to high-tail it out of the mountains just before the blizzard hit) and then a return to holiday madness. Tommy had five holiday concerts to sing in, I had two and those or the rehearsals for them took up almost every night for the two weeks prior to the 25th. The concerts all went well, especailly the Magic City Choral Society one. We managed to fill Alys Stephens Center, not a bad feat for a group that's not even three years old yet.

Christmas Eve was devoted to Tommy's family. Christmas day and the following was devoted to getting all the construction dirt out of the house for our annual holiday open house. This was not an easy task as there was a layer of sheetrock dust on almost everything. Days of sweeping, vacuuming, wiping and cursing later, we did get almost all of it up, get the decorations in place, got food for 100+ on the table and were able to fling open the doors on schedule. Our holiday open house is a pretty good party and we think our friends enjoyed themselves.

Of course, several hours before the hordes descended, while I was busy trying to get the house in order, I missed a step and twisted my foot. I thought it was a bad sprain but when it did not get better after 24 hours, I hobbled off to the ER to find out that I have a comminuted fracture in my 5th metatarsal. I am therefore in a walking cast for the next four weeks, to be followed by an additional 4-6 weeks in a boot contraption. So much for tap class for the rest of the year. I don't hurt too much but it's going to be a pain clunking around the next few months.

'Aida' rehearsals really pick up starting next week. I should be out of my cast for performance. If I'm not, they can cut my robe long to hide it and I can make my hobble a character choice.

Thursday, December 10th

2009-12-10T15:25:00.000-08:00

Bad Andy for not having written an update for a month. My excuse is too much to do in too little time. But that's been the story of my life for a very long while so I can only hide behind it a little bit.

What's been going on? Treading the boards again in CenterStage's production of 'A Christmas Story' (better known as Ralphie and the Red Ryder BB Gun or 'You'll Shoot Your Eye Out Kid'). I'm one of the utility players filling in all the bit parts. Seven roles and ten changes in a two hour show. Keeps things from being boring backstage as I'm always taking something off or putting something on. Best scene is the Santa scene where I am one of the bad tempered elves. I suppose it's good practice if I am ever cast in 'The Santaland Diaries'. Four more shows to go and then this one wraps.

Tommy and I are also in rehearsal for 'Aida' (the Verdi, not the Elton John). I have the music more or less down but the Italian is still escaping me. I have another six or seven weeks to look like I know what I am singing. Rehearsals don't really gear up on it until after the first of the year, fortunately. In the meantime, Tommy has another opera gig and we have the holiday concert for the men's chorus to get through.

The basement clean out was completed on time and the contractor has gutted the floor. The framing for the new sheetrock is in place, the electrical has been adjusted and they will be finishing out the room over the next couple of weeks. We're still having some issues with the floor and cabinetry but they should be resolved relatively quickly. We hope to have it all done by the time Aida happens.

Tommy has finals next week and I am doing my usual West Virginia/Kentucky run. This takes a week out of holiday preparations so we are trying to get all the trees up early and have the house vaguely ready for our annual holiday do this weekend. I had to get a new Marilyn Monroe tree - the collection of Marilyn ornaments had outgrown the old one. The other trees should be done shortly. For those of you who are local, our annual do will be on Sunday the 27th from 2-8.

If I make it through February, I should be good for a while.

Wednesday, November 11th

2009-11-11T08:14:00.001-08:00

Happy Armstice Day - It's a little odd to put a positive emotional spin around a day set aside to commemmorate the end of 'The War to End All Wars', a cataclysm that wiped out a generation of young men in Europe and laid the foundations for modern society by destroying the Victorian/Edwardian tropes that had come before. World War I has now, more or less passed out of living memory. There are fewer than ten veterans still living world wide and anyone with adult memories of that time is well over 100. In another 25 years, that will be as true of World War II.

Time marches on but, at least in my world, the boom generation tries desperately to keep things the same, at least when it comes to their parents. There seems to be a major disconnect going on at the moment with the realities of aging and death. I think that's at least one of the motivatiors behind all the bloviating going on with health care reform.

The rain bands of Hurricaine Ida passed through yesterday. It was wet, but nothing like some of the previous problems we have had around here. Today is lovely - clear and cool. I don't mind the Alabama climate in the fall and spring, but summer, in particular, is for the proverbial dogs.

We're off to New Orleans for twenty-four hours this weekend. Politically Incorrect is doing a brief set on Saturday night at some house turned art gallery for the New Orleans Fringe Festival. Three 30 minute sets between 7:30 and 10:30. We've been told to prepare for the fact that it's next to a train switching yard with the attendant noise problems. Goes with all the other wierd venues we've played over the years.

Looking at my calendar for the next couple of months, I've decided there's no time for the holidays. We'll make them fit somehow though, we always do.

Friday, October 23rd

2009-10-23T13:22:00.000-07:00

Another Friday and I am busy writing this to avoid writing that which I am supposed to be writing, an interactive case study on urinary incontinence for medical students. How I let myself get roped into that one, I'll never know. I consider such things penance for all of my faults, real or imagined.

The HVAC people were supposed to come today to replace our lower unit. We have been without heat since April. This has not been a problem until the recent cold snap. However, it chose to rain (again) today and the installers were reticent about bringing 1500 pounds of machinery down a muddy 30 degree slope. I can't say that I blame them. We will continue to wear sweaters and hope for drier times next week.

The only major thing on the docket this weekend is an opera rehearsal for 'Aida' (Note to self: must learn Italian by New Years...) so I better get on the stick about finishing up the basement clean out. We're down to the last parts - I'm hoping to have everything either in a box or be a large piece of furniture by the end of the weekend. Then all we have to do is figure out where to stash everything for a couple of months while they dig around down there. Why wasn't I born into a family with a couple of domestics? I'm really not cut out for this sort of thing.

Still holding my place in the top 100 world wide at http://www.whatthemovie.com - I really need to stop wasting so much time there. Someone from Germany asked me why there were so few Americans on the site? I think it's because, as a game, you cannot win and there is no end in sight and this troubles the American psyche which like to dispatch of tasks, even in their game playing, and then move on to the next game/level/whatever.

Friday, October 16th

2009-10-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

I need to take a page from Frank, inspired by 'Julie and Julia' and promise to write daily, but that project will have to wait until I recover from some of the shell shock of the last year or so at work. Things seem to be finally starting to calm down a little bit and maybe, by the first of the year, I can let some of the administrative hair pulling that I have to go through at the moment lapse back to its usual dull roar. I am not overly hopeful, however, unless the economy comes roaring back. While the Dow may be over 10,000, I have not noticed a whole lot of trickle down locally.

A cousin of mine died this week. We weren't close. I think we had maybe a half dozen conversations as adults over the last thirty years but it still pulls you up a bit short, especially as he was only two years older than I. Given my profession, I'm pretty used to dealing with death in general but death in people who have lived long full lives is different than people dying in middle age. As I head into my elder years, I may find it more and more difficult to deal with my patients as I become more their peer. We shall see. I may have to find a way to fund early retirement.

The last few weeks have continued to be soggy. There's a moistness in the air all the time that makes you feel like growing moss, at least on your north side. I'm pretty sure that moss is growing in the garage on various boxes. I'll have to check when I'm down there finishing the clean out the next few weeks.

Rehearsals for 'Aida' have started and I am beginning to learn my music. At least I have three months to get the Italian down rather than the three weeks for 'Turandot' last year. The other theatrical project has been writing a murder mystery for Magic City Actors Theatre for their fundraiser this Saturday. As the theme is roaring 20s Chicago, I did a riff on 'Chicago', the show and Velma and Veronica Kelly and Charlie, Velma's husband all make appearances. Should be fun.

Friday, September 25th

2009-09-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

We're finally starting to dry out down here after the rains of Ranchipur over the last week or so. At least we're getting a good test of the new French drain we're having put in to protect the basement so we can proceed with the remodel down there without having to tear it all out again when it leaks. Parts of suburban Atlanta are still underwater but Birmingham hasn't fared too badly, except for the steambath humidity and the mold everywhere.

Spent most of this lask week running around WV and KY on my quarterly trip that direction. Not too much exciting going on other than continued expansion of our services to beneficiaries of the United Mine Workers Funds in Appalachia. The programs seem to be working. The region is in better shape economically than it was ten years ago. I'm glad I don't have to do too much driving off the beaten path after the local population has been whipped up into a frenzy by Fox news against the government and Obama. Expect more incidents like that of the lynched census worker.

We've got a fairly quiet weekend. I have to keep writing a murder mystery for next month and we have an opera event to go to. Otherwise, I think it's more of the same on cleaning out the basement. I am getting somewhere finally and have gotten rid of boxes and boxes of detritus.

Wednesday, September 16th

2009-09-16T15:28:00.000-07:00

One bright spot in all of the doom and gloom surrounding UAB and clinical geriatrics: I received my promotion from associate professor to full professor effective the 1st of October. This is probably about as high as I am going to go. I am unlikely to ever be considered for a Department Chair or Deanship as I do not do research to speak of and there remains a large amount of institutionalize homophobia that isn't likely to go away anytime soon. It's still nice to make it to the top of the tree. I guess I have to order new business cards.

The less said about the battles of clinical geriatrics, the better; let us just say that I am bruised and bloody but am unbowed and continuing to fight the good fight. I need to get out my Don Quixote poster and put it on the door. It has made it difficult to do anything extra so no theatre forays will happen until after the first of the year. I have neither time nor energy. I do have a murder mystery to write for October and I am doing the cabaret emcee thing this weekend for a brunch for the annual Equality Alabama get together. I'm not sure if they're ready for me and I have to brush up a lot of political jokes.

Tommy and I went to New Orleans for Southern Decadence over the Labor Day weekend and stayed with friends in a very nice condo on the quieter end of Bourbon Street. We had a nice time and only drank a little too much. Did some gallery hopping and saw any number of things we would have liked to purchase but, alas, the household budget will not allow for new art at this time. Maybe in a few years after Tommy gets out of school.

I am off on Sunday back to the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky to play with the coal miners for a few days. Back here on Thursday, just in time for an all day conference on Friday on authoring web modules on geriatric education. A few days away should help me get in a better frame of mind regarding the ridiculous state surrounding what I do for a living. And don't even get me started on 'health care reform'...

Friday, August 28th

2009-08-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

Thunderstorms and rain over the last week or so have cooled much of the heat off and its starting to feel a bit like fall. That's fine with me. I hate summer here. Someday I will live in a civilized climate again but I do not know when, where or how.

Work is a bit less painful. The powers that be have backed off somewhat as they have started to figure out that we may actually know our jobs a bit better than they do. We will see how it all comes out in the end. In the meantime, I've more or less reduced extracurriculars so that I have the energy to deal with whatever is thrown at me next.

Tommy and I are working on the basement in preparation for the redo. I am in the midst of cleaning out box after box of crap and sending a lot of things off to the dump. We will have a lot fewer possessions by the end of this process and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

There are a few fun things coming up. Tap has started for the fall. With the closure of Time Step Studio, I'm signed up with Alabama Ballet for the year and we shall see how it goes. I think my ankles will make it for one more year but you never know. The Men's Chorus and the Church Choir are also back in rehearsal after summer break. I am also in the Opera Chorus for Aida which performs in January as is Tommy. We get the music for that in a couple of weeks.

I'm performing in a fund raiser this weekend for a local children's charity as the emperor in 'The Emperor's New Clothes' which should be fun. Politically Incorrect also has a fundraiser gig coming up and I am writing a 1920s Chicago gang murder mystery for yet another so all is not lost for the fall in regards to things theatrical, even if I don't have a part in a musical.

Friday, August 14th

2009-08-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

The trip is over and now in the haze of memory and we are back in Birmingham and doleful care, as the Bohemians say. Sometimes I think they had the right idea and I should just take a couple of weeks to frolic in the woods with way too much alcohol, but that will have to wait for another month. August is all booked up.

Seattle had a record breaking heat wave when we returned from Maui. Topped out at 103 with humidity. Given that no one in Seattle has air conditioning as the usual annual high is around 85, it was a pretty miserable week. There was not a fan to be found in the entire Puget Sound region (other than at Brookstone where we got a servicable desk fan that made the room we were sleeping in somewhat bearable) and the natives, unused to deep south conditions were all lying around on the grass barely moving. Tommy and I spent the hottest days in my parents back yard with a gin and tonic dunking in the hot tub which had been turned into a Japanese cool plunge bath for the occasion.

Work took off with a roar more or less my first day back. Lots of catch up, the usual administrative nonsense and the new med students sticking their toes into their first year. I gave them my usual lecture on aging, death and dying which always goes over relatively well and have settled in for a semester of teaching introduction to clinical medicine to a small group of them. I'm also doing monthly lectures on the structure and function of Medicare.

I've been rather appalled at the 'debate' on health care reform raging and I wish pretty much everyone on both sides would just shut up as they know not of what they speak. I haven't heard a single person who actually works in the front lines of health care be given a platform, not that they would have time to speak as the current system continues to crumble around their ears.

We're in the process of cleaning out the basement and getting it ready for gutting so it can be redone. When did I accumulate all this stuff and why do I own it?

Friday, July 25th - Kihei, Maui, Hawaii

2009-07-25T00:02:00.000-07:00

We're roughly through two thirds of the experiment in family togetherness known as the Duxbury clans en masse descent on Maui, courtesy of my father who picked up the condos, the rental cars and the airfare. As Tommy and I are not really in the position to vacation much at the moment, we jumped at the chance to spend a gratis week in the islands.

The last time the whole family vacationed together was in 1979 and I was 17 and it was a trip to Hawaii. After that, I went off to college and work and ended up moving thousands of miles away and there was never a full family vacation with all of us after. Holidays, of course, and the occasional family wedding or something but nothing with the goal of just relaxing and being together. It's been relatively successful. No one has gotten on each others nerves too much and we have a decent balance of together and separate stuff. The cast of characters include my parents, me and Tommy, my sister, (her current boyfriend in a supporting role - he popped up for a couple of days and then went away again), my brother, his wife and their two daughters.

Tommy and I turned up in Seattle a couple of days before we left. We must have dragged the Alabama heat with us as it was over 90 both days and no one in Seattle has central air so we spent a bunch of time at the mall and the movies. (Catching the latest Harry Potter). Uneventful flight direct to Maui on Sunday. Have been there ever since. Much time at the beach, doing a certain amount of shopping, running around the rainforest, snorkeling, taking a dive in a submarine and all the other things one does in the tropics. Everything has worked out pretty well other than Tommy's skin - he likes the sun but it does not like him and he's been nursing some bad suburn on his legs that has put a damper on some things.

We've got two and a half more days before we return for a few more days in Seattle. I hope to get up to the top of Haleakala but it's been pretty socked in the last few days and I'm smart enough not to go up there if you can't see the summit from the valley. If that doesn't work out, a bit more beach time I think.

It's been nice spending some time with the nieces and seeing it all through their eyes. I've been to Maui a number of times before and it's nice to catch a sense of wonder through them. I'm also having some fond reminisces of my old life and Steve as we spent a lot of time here together in the 90s.

Tuesday, July 14th - Pikeville, Kentucky

2009-07-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

Happy Bastille Day everyone. I should think the erection of a couple of guillotines, one on the Ellipse and one somewhere around Wall Street would be a good way of celebrating. They don't have to be used, just serve as a reminder to the aristocrats of today that they can't walk on the people for too long without certain consequences.

I'm off in Appalachia with my mineworker nurses for a few days. Spent yesterday in West Virginia at a marathon 8 + hour meeting that fried my brain and am here in Kentucky today at a, fortunately, shorter one. I'll be driving home tomorrow, just in time to pack before heading off to Seattle for a few days and then on to Maui with the family. I so need a week of doing next to nothing on the beach.

Being stuck in Appalachia, I am unable to go to the midnight screening of the new Harry Potter movie tonight. I'll have to wait for a reasonable hour. Perhaps I'll be able to take the nieces when we are in Seattle.

I've had to step down from 'Taming of the Shrew' in August due to schedule changes. Pisses me off somewhat but what can you do? Life should hopefully get easier after September or so and there will hopefully be a theatrical project I'll be able to stick with later in the year. There's always 'Aida' for the opera in January.

Tuesday, July 7th

2009-07-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

The heat has finally broken somewhat with a few cooling showers and highs of 80 or so rather than 100. While that is a major improvment, I am still feeling quite washed out and extremely uninterested in doing all the things I need to do around the house. The basement flood has been cleaned up. Dickering continues with the insurance company. The next step is to empty the basement so the contractors can come in, rip everything out and seal, sheetrock and refloor. That should happen in August/Septemeber and shouldn't take too long.

In the meantime, I have four more days at work before getting away for three weeks. Next week, I have a quick WV/KY trip for the mineworkers. After that, Tommy and I depart for Seattle to visit the family and then the whole Duxbury clan jets off to Maui for a week. I am so looking forward to beach time with no agenda.

Not a whole lot else going on. I'm preparing some new lectures on the health care system and finance for the fall and have a bunch of new interns and fellows to teach. The University seems to have quieted down some in recent weeks. It'll probably become more crazy again after Labor Day when all the powers that be are back from their summer vacations.

There appears to be no national or international news other than the death of Michael Jackson. "Oh what a circus, oh what a show..." Like Elvis, death seems to have been the best possible career move.

Wednesday, June 24th

2009-06-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

It's too darn hot! The temperature has been hovering around 100 with a heat index of over 110 for the last week. It's too hot to be outside more than a few minutes without feeling exhausted and I've been battling a viral something for the last few days so all I've wanted to do is lie in bed and watch bad TV. I have managed, however, to get myself up and around and to work. Things are relatively calm around the University this week, fortunately, but that could change at any moment and there are occasional disturbing rumors in the air.

'The Taming of the Shrew' is blocked and rehearsals are on hiatus for a while as most of the cast seems to be involved with a production of 'Beauty and the Beast' that's happening in July. Tommy and I will be out of town during that period so I have to get on the stick and learn lines during this next month so I don't have to wander around with the book in my hands too much when we return. Given the way the summer is going, I hope to hell that my costume is something flowing and cotton rather than some tight wool tunic.

We're singing in a concert of music arranged by a composer/music director friend of ours this weekend. Couple more rehearsals of that coming up - then there's not much on the calendar before we head out of town in mid July. I am so looking forward to some time on a beach unplugged from the grid.

Tuesday, June 9th

2009-06-09T06:42:00.000-07:00

I've been remiss at updating again. Bad Andy. No pizza for you. What's been going on? The university craziness seems to be settling down slightly so maybe we are over the hump when it comes to budget issues and the like. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. It was getting so bad, that I dropped out of the restoration comedy I was rehearsing. I just couldn't handle that on top of everything going on at work plus the extra hours I've had to put in on administrative issues. Shakespeare is still on the books for August and I assume that things will be calm enough by then for that to work.

I sang in my first formal recital this past weekend, 'Try to Remember' and 'They Call The Wind Maria', both in the original keys so my range has expanded as I can hit the F at the end of Maria without too much difficulty. Couldn't have done that a couple of years ago. I much prefer performing in context than standing up and singing. Nothing to hide behind. Got some nice compliments anyway. The Men's Chorus also sang in Tuscaloosa last week and will sing again this weekend for the Birmingham Pride festival.

We had a flood in the basement a couple of months ago from a leaking air conditioning drain. Fortunately, not too much was damaged or destroyed but it is forcing us to actually redo the basement, bad economy or not. I'm dealing with insurance adjusters and the like but, with luck, it will be viable studio space by next spring.

Not a lot on the books for the next few weeks. I think I need to keep it that way before my brain fries.

Friday, May 15th

2009-05-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. After boring fifty or so gynecologists with my musings on drug safety in the perioperative geriatric patient, we were off south again. Stopped in Berea, Kentucky to have lunch with an old high school friend and his wife whom I had not seen for a while and caught up, then off to Pikeville, Kentucky to play with the mineworkers for the rest of the week.

Pikeville is a typical Appalachian town - small business district, some outlying shopping/big box retail, all winding through very narrow valleys. We got the new nurses trained in geriatrics over three days, sampled Pikeville's finest restaurants (which had pretty identical small town diner menus - but the steaks were good) and watched a lot of Sci Fi channel in the hotel room.

From Pikeville, off to Blue Ridge, Georgia for a couple of days. A friend has a lake house there and we spent a few days in the country air. Too cold for swimming still but the house was nice and the town, a small artists colony, was lovely.

Now, back at work and trying to cope with a lot of decisions made by high level administrators who do not understand what it is that a geriatrician actually does.

I need a drink.

Monday, May 4th - Chicago, Illinois

2009-05-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

It's been a very peculiar ten days or so. It started out with Tommy's back surgery on the 23rd at an outrageously early hour of the morning. He did well with it and I was able to bring him home the next day. He had a couple of uncomfortable days but was more or less out of bed and moving around by Sunday.

His period of uncomfortableness, of course, coincided with dress rehearsal and performance of the annual tap show. I was a bit distracted but did manage to get through all five of my numbers without falling on my face, losing bits of costume, or looking like I hadn't the vaguest what I was doing. The show ended up being one of the better ones and a good time was had by all. After it was all over, word came down that our beloved Lulu Pigg, doyenne of Time Step Tap Studio, is hanging up her tap shoes after 29 years and this was to be the swan song. The aging tappers of Birmingham aren't going to let this tradition go so easily, however, and there is much talk of the studio continuing in different form next year, perhaps under the aegis of Alabama ballet. I shall wait and see and will leap with the rest of the Betty Ford Dancers. Although I don't see the ballet putting me in a batman suit with an ostrich feather fan or having me run around half naked the way Louise was want to do.

With the tap show out of the way, I was able to get Tommy up and around without too much difficulty. Some craziness at work, but there's a lot of that going on these days as the economy works its way through health care and then it was time for me to keep various out of town gigs I had scheduled months ago. Tommy was up to traveling, as long as he gets to stretch so we loaded up the car and headed for Chicago.

I wasn't able to make most of the geriatrics meetings I had hoped to as we have to travel slowly but I did make my speaking gig for the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology's annual pow-wow where I gave them 45 minutes on geropharmacy in the perioperative patient. Chicago has been very nice. We did some walking in nice weather, some shopping and went to Peter Brook's adaptation of 'The Tragedie of Carmen' at the opera. Interesting, boiling the opera down to six actors, only four of whom sing. The Don Jose was excellent. Carmen and Escamillo less so. I'm glad I saw it but think I prefer the Bizet original.

Now we are on our way to Kentucky to play with the mine workers for the rest of the week. Opening up a whole new clinical site in Pikeville and I have to train the new nurses for three days. Due back in Birmingham sometime between Friday night and Sunday afternoon, when I have first read through for 'Marriage a la Mode', the next show I am doing.

Wednesday, April 22nd

2009-04-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

I'm damned sore from extra tap rehearsals preparing for the annual extravaganza on Saturday night. The joints are very definitely hitting middle age and letting me know when I spend hours bouncing up and down on them. The show should be a good one - where else will you see 8 gay men of a certain age doing 'The Aggie Song' from Best Little Whorehouse in Texas?

The University remains in melt down over budget issues and continues to drive me slightly bonkers. Things should start to come to rest and sort themselves out over the next few weeks and I should have a pretty good idea what next year will look like by the fourth of July. It's not likely to be a pleasant time for a while as we all make do with less and less resources.

On the road again for work starting next week...
Leaving Birmingham on the 29th for Chicago and will be in Chicagoland through the 4th. Then heading to Pikeville Kentucky for three or four days to help open the new Kentucky site of the mineworkers program I've been involved in for years and years. Back home on the 9th of May. Tommy is planning on coming with, assuming his back has recovered enough from disc surgery.

July and a week on Maui can't get here soon enough.

Friday, April 10th

2009-04-10T08:02:00.000-07:00

Happy Good Friday all. Although I'm not so sure what should be happy about a day commemmorating a death by torture. But then, I've always been a little ambivalent on the whole Passion story unless it's looked at in the context of the king who dies to live again folkloric theme that's been around for about 10,000 years.

The University continues to provide its own peculiar brand of torture to its employees at the moment as the financial storms of the current day rampage through its power structure. The current response to geriatrics is for the powers that be to try and run and reorganize things by committee and its working about as well as one might expect. This too shall pass and I, in the meantime, will try to keep my head down, do my job and protect those in my care.

The 'Generations' benefit was a big success. Full house, good program, lots of good publicity for both the Seasoned Performers and the Center for Aging so it's likely to become an annual staple as a fundraiser. I'm going to try and construct a 'how to' manual for production this summer so that it can be turned over to others to make it happen next year. I have enough on my plate.

Out of the blue, my parents have decided to gather the entire clan for ten days on Maui in July. They're paying for it. That solves the summer vacation issue. Tommy and I are so there. I haven't been to Hawaii for nearly a decade and I love that island. I can smell it already.

Theater life is set through the fall. I've been cast in Dryden's 'Marriage a la Mode' to perform late June and 'The Taming of the Shrew' to perform in late August so that should keep me busy, learning period language lines, if nothing else. I auditioned for Charlemagne in 'Pippin' last week as well but haven't heard anything. I'm not expecting it - I'm not the mover/dancer they're likely to want.

Wednesday, March 25th

2009-03-25T13:18:00.000-07:00

The tempests roiling the economy continue to blow their way through the University leading to all sorts of stresses and strains. I have no idea where it's going to end, but it's not going to be pretty and it's not going to be good. I think we'll be able to remain relatively unchanged as regards to clinical geriatrics, but as a cost center rather than a revenue generator, we will remain a bit of a political football for a while. In the meantime, my stress level will continue to rise until something snaps. Hopefully, damage will be minor.

'La Traviata' performed this past weekend and was a smashing success. Tommy is now focussing back on school and Tracy, the Gastone has vacated our guest bedroom after a very pleasant stay. Next season is 'Aida' which I will probably be part of and 'Marriage of Figaro'. I'm wrapped up in one last PIC performance for the year on Friday and on an elder program benefit happening on Sunday. After that, there's some down time other than the tap show. I auditioned for a Dryden restoration comedy that's going up in June last night but I don't know that it's really my cup of tea.

We're in the middle of the annual spring bloom so, even if the world is falling apart, there are still lots of lovely pastels in the trees and bushes so all is not completely lost.

Thursday, March 12th

2009-03-12T15:20:00.000-07:00

March madness is upon us and I feel very like the March Hare at the teaparty. It's been a very peculiar few weeks and is likely to get more peculiar as time goes on. The collapsing economy has unleashed forces within the mammoth bureacracy known as UAB and all of the various political factions are scurrying around like rats, looking for holes in which to survive the storm. This leaves programs like mine in a somewhat treacherous position - we're a cost center, not a revenue generator, and those costs get passed around like the proverbial hot potato. I just hope I continue to find a chair when the music stops. (Gack! There are way too many metaphors in that last paragraph but this is a blog, not an English essay - get over it.)

Since last checking in, there's been some news in the performing arts career. Tommy has been busy rehearsing 'La Traviata' which opens next week. We have one of the principals as a house guest and it looks like it will be a good production. I cannot be in the chorus this time as I have to spend a couple of days next week in Ohio. Fortunately, I'm being paid to be there. I'm rehearsing for the annual tap extravaganza where my numbers are 'Step in Time' from Mary Poppins, 'You Can't Stop the Beat' from Hairspray, 'Drinking Shoes' from Pump Boys and Dinettes and 'Off time' from Ain't Misbehavin. The last one, which should bring the house down, is eight gay boys between 40 and 60 doing the Aggie Song from 'Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'.

I was cast as Hortensio in 'The Taming of the Shrew' for Shakespeare in the Park this summer. That should be fun. Looks like there will be some good people in it. I think it a bit odd that I am a dozen years older than my friend Lee, who is playing Gremio, the pantaloon, but what can you do? I'll have to get my script out and start working lines soon. I don't memorize anywhere as near as quickly as I used to be able to.

The 'Generations' fund raising event for the Center for Aging and the Seasoned Performers theatre company is rolling along and should be ready for the 29th. Now we just have to sell 320 tickets. Buy them now!

Wednesday, February 11th

2009-02-11T11:39:00.000-08:00

Into another month already, and it's nearly half over. The time does fly by these days and I'm starting to understand 'September Song' more and more. Most of the past week or so was devoted either to various work crises (brought about by the economic crash causing stresses on the finances of the University) or getting the 2009 version of 'Politically Incorrect Cabaret' off the ground.

PIC is pretty good this year. It's a well balanced show with a lot of talent involved and we managed to get it up and running with only five rehearsals so there was less backstage hystrionics than there had been in the past. We've got a couple of other gigs set up for the next few months around the state. Diane is working on getting us booked into New Orleans which would be a lot of fun, but no luck so far. My big number is 'Turn Back O Man' as an ode to global warming. I have a stuffed white bear that Tommy tricked out Kabuki style and Deborah and I pull it apart at the end of the number with spurts of streamer blood. The audience isn't sure what to think. (It's based on a Brecht skit from around World War I). We've got a Palin number, a Hilary number, an Obama number and some local poltics including a major gospel piece about Birmingham's mayor who is pretty incomprehensible to rational adults.

The work stuff is all the usual yelling and screaming by the powers that be about money. They do this every couple of years. They will eventually figure out that academic clinics and private practice clinics are not the same animal and quiet down again. We're in a pretty good position as we support a lot of other programs with our admissions and chronically ill patients. My trump card, however, is that I take care of many of the powers that be's mothers, or more importantly, their mothers in law.

This next weekend is about the taxes and finances and trying to rob peter to pay paul for the next couple of semesters so Tommy can finish his education. I am not looking forward to it.

Tuesday, January 27th

2009-01-27T07:30:00.000-08:00

I am lying in bed barely able to move as I threw my back out yesterday afternoon. While I do that every few years over something minor (this time a coughing spell), this one is worse than usual. I am doped up on various muscle relaxants and pain killers and trying not to move any more than I have to. If I'm on schedule, I'll be in misery for another couple of days, able to get around a bit by Thursday and Friday and be OK for the weekend. I may have to carry a cane and avoid stairs for another week or so. That's not easy to do in our house...

Turandot was a significant success artistically. All the pieces came together and gelled properly and it was great to be part of a chorus backing up some truly fine singers with national and international careers in the principal roles. Veronica, the Liu, was our house guest during her time here and scored a major success with her arias. Roy, the Calaf, was a scream. His favorite activity being to turn upstage to the chorus and make faces at us and try to get us to corpse. I was in awe of Lori's Turandot. Her performance made reacting to her extremely easy. I'm going to see if I can collect up some photos and post them. Lush sets and costumes.

I feel I was a bit out of my depth musically with it all, but mostly because I was brought in so late to the process. Trying to learn the whole thing in two weeks (and the chorus is onstage about 2/3 of the show) was a bit much. I got the notes and vowel sounds down, but never did get the diction in some of the faster passages. Next time I do opera chorus, I do it from the beginning. Traviata starts rehearsal next week but I cannot do that one because of prior work commitments. They are doing Aida next January and I will sign up for that early. Maybe they'll let me ride the elephant.

I finished my promotion packet and it is on its way for review by the powers that be. I am keeping my fingers crossed. As I am not in a tenurable position and it more or less is just a courtesy title change, it should fly. At least I hope so as I don't want to go through that again. The next big work challenge would be recertifying in internal medicine. I've been away from some of it for so long that I'm not even sure I can do it. I'll have a long discussion with the bosses before embarking on that course.

Politically Incorrect Cabaret has two more rehearsals before it performs in February here and in Montevallo followed by a March date in Huntsville. It's in pretty good shape. I was going to pull my costumes out of storage today, but as I cannot move, that's going to have to wait. As long as it's done by Friday.

Monday, January 12th

2009-01-12T09:42:00.001-08:00

Things remain incredibly busy at our house. As if things weren't insane enough, I succumbed to temptation and joined the chorus for Opera Birmingham's production of 'Turandot'. A six foot middle aged white guy playing a medieval chinese courtier singing in Italian. Grand opera at its finest. Of course, joining three weeks before production means that I am busy trying to memorize three acts of Puccini in Italian in record time. Notes are nearly there and I'm not having too much trouble with the diction. I'm having grave difficulty remembering what comes in what order and will have to work on that mightily this next week before we move into tech.

This is my first foray into opera. I kind of like it. A tribute to my recent voice lessons with Benny that I can even begin to do what the maestro is looking for. The other theatrical project is the 2009 edition of 'Politically Incorrect Cabaret'. The script is done and we're beginning rehearsal for February performances. It should be a decent show this year as we've constructed it in such a way that it should require minimal rehearsal with most people being able to work on their own and then just drop the pieces in place a week before opening. At least that's the theory.

Doing a murder mystery dinner party fundraiser for a local theatre company on Saturday night so I'm writing that up like mad. The plot's done and now I just have to get all the character sheets done for everyone who is attending. Life becomes a lot easier when a couple of these projects are out of the way.

Work is just rolling along at its usual pace. No major disasters yet this week, but it's only Monday lunch so anything is possible in the next few hours. My promotion packet is done and ready to go to the powers that be so at least that's off the desk for a while. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Tuesday, December 30th

2008-12-30T10:31:00.000-08:00

Happy 6th day of Christmas everyone. Go out and check the geese and see how many eggs you have. I realize I have not updated for some weeks. This is due to all sorts of things happening throughout December that have thrown monkeywrenches into a peaceful life. The big one was the closing of the local theatrical cooperative which led to Tommy and I having to quickly sort, pack and move years of accumulated theatrical paraphenalia to new lodgings. It did not help that it had to be carried down off a third floor of a building with no working elevator. My aging joints are just starting to recover from that one.

The theatrical world of the USA has been hard hit by the downturn in the economy and Birmingham is no exception. Ticket sales and donations are down, costs are rising and venerable companies across the country are starting to collapse. Seaside musical theater in Florida is gone. North Shore Musical Theatre in Boston, an institution for more than fifty years is about to collapse. Closer to home, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the only pro theatre in Alabama is cancelling productions. The local groups I work with are on the ragged edge of extinction. I have a feeling we're all going to be back to producing in peoples basements again...

The holidays were fairly successful. We did Christmas Eve dinner for Tommy's family and, this past Sunday, had our annual open house. Roughly 150 folk came through and gobbled up four gallons of chili and three of minestrone. We are still doing the dishes. We did finally get all the decorations up and they are likely to remain until late January sometime. The christmas cards are the one thing that remains and I should get those out New Years weekend. As good Unitarian-Universalists, it's perfrectly permissible to celebrate orthodox christmas this year so I have until January 6th.

The major work project has been getting everything together for my promotion packet from Associate to Full professor. I should be a shoe-in as I am not tenure track but you never know what they might be thinking in the offices of the powers that be and you have to cover all of your bases. This necessitates finding many pieces of paper that have been filed away for years.

Politically Incorrect Cabaret comes back in February. I have a bunch of stuff to write over the weekend. It looks like it'll be a good show. Somewhat simpler than some of the earlier ones, but maybe with more bite as we take on both sides of the aisle.

No other theatre on the horizon at the moment due to the financial chaos of the world. I'll stay busy with tap and with the mens choir. Some links to numbers from the mens choir christmas concert are below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzvvgThWHS4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r15MuLFwl_0

Friday, December 5th

2008-12-05T08:26:00.000-08:00

The holidays are here again and, as usual, I am nowhere near ready. Someday I will really have to take the entire month of December off so I can enjoy them properly without wondering how I am going to get everything that needs to get done finished. At least Tommy is out of school starting Wednesday and can take on some of the decorating and planning chores.

We have tenatively scheduled the return of our traditional open house for Sunday the 21st. The top three floors will be open and the basement will be discreetly closed to the public due to the recalcitrant mess that remains down there. I put a lot of energy into it last week and it's much improved, but there's still a long way to go. Going to try and drag the decorations out this weekend and start on that and finish the out of town christmas shopping.

I am off to West Virginia on the usual run on Sunday. Back Tuesday night. I hope the weather holds as I really don't like driving long distances in the dark and snow if I can help it. It'll keep me out of Tommy's hair during finals.

Got to come up with the energy and inspiration to finish writing this years Politically Incorrect Cabaret from somewhere. Anyone who has any to send along, donations are welcome.

Tuesday, November 25th

2008-11-25T07:32:00.000-08:00

The rest of the DC trip was uneventful. Got up at the crack of dawn on Sunday in order to give my presentation on arthritis and mortality. Turns out, if you have arthritis, you live longer than if you don't. If I had to guess, it's because those with arthritis pain are more likely to see doctors and therefore other conditions get treated better and faster. The trip back wasn't too bad. It was prior to the holiday rush and the weather cooperated.

I'm taking a slow holiday week. Not going into the office but working some from home. Using the extra hours to do some major house cleaning to try and get the last of the crap that needs to be in storage boxed up and out of here. 28 years ago, I left home with four boxes of books, two suitcases of clothes, a bicycle and a typewriter. My how times have changed...

Tommy's family arrive for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. At least I've got the kitchen and dining room clean so far. I'm working on the master suite later today.

PIC is coming along. Still have a bunch of lyrics to write. I need to spend more time with those and less time at whatthemovie.com which is my latest addiction... 1,520 and counting...

Saturday, November 22nd - National Harbor, Maryland

2008-11-22T10:56:00.000-08:00

I'm ensconced at the Gaylord hotel at National Harbor, just outside the DC beltway on the Potomac, attending the Gerontological Society of America meetings. It's not a bad meeting, some interesting stuff on the needs of Gerontology and Geriatrics in coming decades with an aging boom. I have to present some research on arthritis and mortality at the ungodly hour of 8 AM tomorrow prior to flying back home. Turns out, arthritis protects you from dying. I surmise it's because the pain makes you more likely to receive routine medical care and other conditions are therefore caught early. As my right knee has been problematic for some years, I guess I am in good shape.

The Gaylord is a huge hotel (same people who have the Opryland hotel in Nashville) that reminds me of a Vegas hotel, but without the casino. It's in the middle of nowhere and you're basically trapped in it with their overpriced food service. ($12.50 for sandwich, chips and coke). It's emblematic of all that's currently wrong in American society, if you ask me.

Trying to spend some time between meetings writing the new version of 'Politically Incorrect'. Have a skeleton of the show, now trying to flesh it out given the people and talents we have for the new edition. I also have a murder mystery dinner party to write.

Friday, November 14th

2008-11-14T05:35:00.001-08:00

I have been less ecstatic about the election results than many. Most of the rest of the GLBT community has been as well. Mainly, because we have been told in no uncertain terms that we need to be satisfied with the back of the bus, at best and having to walk at worst. If nothing else, the success of Proposition 8 in California in particular, which rescinds previously court guaranteed equal rights, has been a bit of a galvanizing force. I think there's going to be a lot more activism and pushing and a lot less complacency from the community nationwide. And its a community that's a lot larger with a lot more political clout than most people think.

The following from the New York Times encapsulates the real issues a lot more eloquently than I ever could.

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/dark-side-of-the-vote/

(Sorry, Blogger is not letting me create a direct link this morning for some reason...)

Wednesday, November 5th

2008-11-05T15:33:00.000-08:00

While I'm generally pleased at Obama's victory last night, I am only cautiously optimistic that there will be much in the way of swift and substantive change in the direction of the country. Things are so bad and the Democrats margin of victory, while impressive, does not leave them with a fillibuster proof majority in the Senate or even a cohesive party and philosophy. Obama is fairly untested on the national stage and had better make his next moves fairly carefully, all against a background of the usual right wing noise machine that has always worked better as an opposition tool than a tool of the party in power. I'm just pretty sure that things won't get a whole lot worse. At least Caribou Barbie has been packed off back to the frozen north where she can gaze at foreign countries from her back porch and cease to bother us any more.

I'm disappointed, but not surprised by the results on Proposition 8 in California, my previous home, and the other anti-LGBT measures that passed. The majority will never grant rights to the minority or the other through popular vote. If it had been up to popular vote, Chinese would be unable to own property, miscegenation laws would still be on the books and African-Americans would still be relegated to 'separate but equal' status. In our culture, minority rights have always had to come through the courts and legislative process. Marriage in any one state won't really matter, though, until they start actually enforcing the 14th amendment and repeal the stupid DOMA signed by Clinton.

A thought. What if the Human Rights Campaign raised $5 million dollars to put a constitutional amendment on the California ballot invalidating marriages performed in Mormon temples. Getting the signatories wouldn't be that hard and a strategic ad campaign highlighting some of the Mormons' stranger beliefs might actually get such an amendment passed. Turnabout as fair play or life lesson as to how the state has no real business determining whose marriages are valid or whose are not.

Not a whole lot else going on. Have to sit down and do some writing for a murder mystery and on Politically Incorrect Cabaret now that the election is over.

Friday, October 24th

2008-10-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

The last couple of weeks has been devoted to getting 'Grease' up and running chez Andy and Tommy. Tommy is the costume designer and I have been pressed into wardrobe service and general errand running and we have both been making ourselves available backstage as dressers and general factota. Lots and lots of backstage drama on this one, due to the relative youth of the cast. The adolescent mind set of many of the performers does not yet allow them to relax about certain issues or to understand the boundaries of what they should or should not involve themselves in regarding the production process leading to a greater clash of egos than should be necessary.

Despite the backstage dramatics, the onstage show looks pretty good. 'Grease' has never been one of my favorites as a stage show. It's episodic and flimsy, practically a review with minimal book to hang a bunch of great pastiche numbers together. There's not a whole lot of deep subtext or opining on the human condition going on. Some of the kids are better than others but there's no major weak links.

I'm working with my friend Ellise, who is the artistic director of the Seasoned Performers, the local seniors theatre group on a fund raiser for her and for the center for aging. A variety show entitled 'Generations' which will turn the expectations regarding age on their heads as older performers do unusual material etc. We're in the planning stages for a March performance and should be able to pull off something interesting.

Earlier this week, I was a guest at an elementary school's 'Career Day' and assigned to the Kindergarten classes. I really don't have much I can explain to the five year old set about geriatrics so we talked a lot about shots and what they are and why kids get them. If I go back, I'm hoping its for an older crowd.

Monday, October 6th

2008-10-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

Another month come and gone and I continue to get further and further behind in life. That's probably not a bad place to be at the moment with the economic system on the verge of collapse. It'll give me something to do for the next few years while we all try to pick up the pieces. The retirement account statements are due to come in this next week. I don't know if I have the heart to open them. I figure it means I get to work until I'm 75.

Last week was a West Virginia run. I'm getting older I can tell as that drive up and back is getting more and more wearing on me. I have to pull over and snooze in the rest area a couple of times in order to make it rather than drive straight through. Not much of excitement up there, but it is fall in the mountains and the leaves are starting to turn and it was rather pretty. Fall is also happening in Birmingham. The temperature is down and in general, its heading into the six or so weeks of great weather we get in October and November.

The formal contract on the house is done and the contractor nearly paid off. We still have lots of little details to do in terms of arranging and putting things away and getting things organized but the top three floors are finished. The collapse of the economy means we have to put off doing the basement for a while. We'll probably stage it in over the next couple of years. We have to clean it out first. All sorts of strange things down there that have to be gone through.

Starting to work on a benefit for The Center for Aging and the Seasoned Performers to happen next spring. It's going to be cute if we can pull it off. First planning meeting is Thursday night.

Wednesday, September 24th

2008-09-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

I've been quite zonked the last few weeks. I can't seem to get enough sleep and just feel like napping much of the time. Maybe it's because I've got a few fewer balls in the air at the moment than I usually do and my physiology is slowing down under the lower levels of adrenal hormones. Either that or I just need another caramel macchiato. Work stuff continues apace. More and more pressure on the clinic to get new patients in with very strange and complicated histories and stories. The word is out. Now if I could just clone myself...

The new Prius is running well and its great to have a car getting 45+ mpg. It's going to cut the gas bill in half. After the costs of the home renovation, I need that. The contractors have finished the last few things on the top three floors. We have to sit down with them to finalize finances and then we can decide what the heck we are going to do with the basement and how fast.

Had a quick trip to Atlanta to teach some classes last weekend. Didn't see much of it but what I did notice is gas is running out and the price was outrageous when it could be found. (Thank you Prius!) The end times of America's love affair with the automobile may finally be coming. Heading to West Virginia on Sunday for my usual mine workers run.

Tommy and I have been watching 'True Blood' on HBO the last couple of weeks. It's actually pretty good, even if it does star Anna Paquin.

Tuesday, September 16th

2008-09-16T07:39:00.001-07:00

It's been a quiet couple of weeks in the southland. Tommy and I are settling into school year routine. After several years of spending a fortune in gas for his daily 90 mile school commute, we traded the Mustang in on a brand new Toyota Prius and joined the hybrid green revolution. A bit of a bittersweet moment as the Mustang was Steve's car. However, it was pushing ten years old with 130,000 miles on it so I can't say that it didn't give yeoman service. With gas again cresting $4.00 a gallon, the Prius's 50 mpg should give the wallet a bit of a rest.

I've been rather busy with work stuff the last few weeks. I've had a bunch of programs to present to the community that I've had to get ready and, on top of that, the clinic has been hopping. I've noticed that we've had more and more crazy families in recent months. I think it's because the caregiving burden for the elderly is shifting from the silent generation to the boomers and the boomers are much more likely to argue with reality. It's probably a good thing that I'm not overly busy theatrically.

Speaking of things theatrical, Tommy is costuming 'Grease' (a much easier task than 'The Music Man')and I am possibly going into a new version of 'Politically Incorrect Cabaret' for the election season. It's supposed to happen in five or six weeks and there is no firm cast, music director or material yet so I am not overly confident that it's actually going to happen. The material is writing itself this election season but it will still need to be shaped into a coherent show of fifteen or so numbers.

Tap class started up again last night and the Betty Ford dancers are back with a vengeance. Should be fun. We've also got a performance this weekend with the Men's Chorale and the church choir season is also in full swing.

Have to go to Atlanta briefly this weekend and then the West Virginia run happens the week after that.

Monday, September 1st - Covering New Orleans, Louisiana

2008-09-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

Tommy and I headed off for Labor Day weekend in NOLA on Friday morning, aware that Gustav was headed that general direction, but not overly worried - we've been through hurricanes before and knew we would have plenty of time to get out should we need to. We arrived Friday afternoon, to be told that during our drive down, the mayor had ordered hotels closed on Saturday. Fortunately, we had friends staying in the quarter in a condo so we bunked with them Saturday night and we all came home a day early on Sunday as the city emptied out.

The weather was fine. The city was full of gay men celebrating Southern Decadence and we all had a good time, although there was a bit of a feeling of the last few scenes of 'Cabaret' but with Gustav waiting in the wings rather than the Nazis. Things were shutting down all through Saturday and, by Sunday morning, pretty much everything was shut down and the entire metro area decamped away from the coast. We joined 100,000 or so of our closest friends on I-59 north and the usual six hour trip took about seventeen.

Being a hurricane evacuee was something of an experience and, while not especially fun, I can now add it to my list of life experiences. At least the storm does not seem to have been terribly significant and we're planning on doing another group NOLA trip for Hallowe'en.

Tuesday, August 26th - Covering Orange County

2008-08-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

Tommy and I headed off to Orange County last Friday for 'My Big Fat Gujarati Jainist Wedding' and had a pretty amazing time. The groom was one of my fellows a couple of years ago and, as I had more or less gotten him into geriatrics and mentored him through the training, I thought it might be a good idea to show up - besides, no one else from Birmingham was going and he did live here for a couple of years.

We flew to John Wayne airport Friday morning without major incident and settled into the Buena Park Hampton Inn. The first step in the festivities was that night, a dinner/dance party called 'Garba Raas', thrown by the groom's family at the Jainist center/temple. (If you don't know what a Jain is, google is your friend...) Delicious Indian food and then several hours of traditional Gujarati dancing. I never did quite figure out how to do the Garba, a sort of quick four step that makes the women's saris float exquisitely around them, but Tommy and I did manage to master the Raas, a sort of line dance in which you cross sticks with the other dancers. Much giggling and laughter as everyone danced to traditional Indian music with a bit of a techno beat (great band, by the way.)

On Saturday, we were free for the day, so we journeyed up to West Hollywood to have breakfast with old friends we had not had a chance to see for a while. It was nice to catch up and share. Wayne is an amazingly talented cabaret entertainer and composer and I have to come up with an excuse to import him to Birmingham some day. After that, as it was still quite early and we did not have to be anywhere until dinner, we decided to spend a day at Disney. Both Tommy and I had been to the Magic Kingdom recently but had never been to the California Adventure park so we spent the day there. Can't say it's all that - part state fair midway tarted up Disney style and part stuff developed for Animal Kingdom and MGM parks in Florida that wouldn't fit at Disneyland. We enjoyed it, though. Rather spectacular stage version of 'Aladdin' complete with flying carpets, elephants in the aisles and the like. One very good roller coaster, the California Scream Machine and I like the Hollywood Hotel tower of terror.

For dinner, small party at the home of the groom's sister with his closer friends. Nice people all and I really enjoyed his parents and siblings. His infectious good humor comes naturally.

The big event itself was on Sunday at the Nixon library/birthplace in Yorba Linda. The wedding ceremony itself was out of doors in a large tent on the lawn. It was a bit warm for an outdoor wedding so coats were shed and the catering staff passed out the water and the ice cream (saffron pistachio) throughout. It started with the barrat, the traditional parade of the groom on horseback to the wedding site (I don't think the horse, rented for the occasion, thought much of this), with the guests all marching and dancing along. This was followed by a prolonged Hindu ceremony which was full of symbolic meaning, much of which was lost on me. We then all had a couple of hours to tour the library and museum prior to the reception.

The reception that evening: sit down dinner for four hundred in a replica of the east room of the white house. More Indian food (all vegetarian, Jainists do not eat meat), opulent saris, more dancing and then exhaustion.

We returned home yesterday. Travel was prolonged by Tropical Storm Fay wandering over the South East and disrupting Atlanta airport operations. We arrived home finally shortly after midnight, about four hours late. We are recuperating today although I had to work and Tommy had to start his classes for the semester.

One more blowout coming up. We're off to NOLA next weekend for Southern Decadence, than we settle down to drudgery for some months.

Tuesday, August 19th

2008-08-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

There's a light at the end of the tunnel regarding the house remodel. The top three floors are nearly complete. A few light fixtures to install and a fireplace ro repair and that's just about it. Of course, that means it will be time to deal with the basement, but we can more or less seal that off and let them bang around down there without much issue. Of course, we'll have to muck it out first... I've started but we've been pitching so much down there for so long its a bit of a daunting task.

We got most of the art back up on the walls this last week and it looks pretty good. We've changed up where things hang to take advantage of wall color and the like and a few things are headed out the door to a charity art auction as there really isn't a good place for them.

The big news is the expansion of the household. After coming back from Seattle, we decided to add a third cat. However, when we went to look at the adoptees at the vet, we were smitten with a brother/sister pair that they were having trouble placing as they were no longer cute little kittens. Oliver and Anastasia have now joined Archie and Shadow. There's been a lot of 'us against them' dynamics with some acting out (including some unfortunate instances of peeing in the middle of the bed) but after a week or so, they seem to all be starting to settle down together. I'll post pictures of the brood as soon as I can get around to taking some.

We're off on Friday to Orange County to attend a society Hindu wedding which seems to encompass three days of festivities. The groom is one of my geriatrics mentees from a couple of years ago. Should be fun.

Friday, August 8th

2008-08-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

The dog days of summer are definitely here with the sweltering heat, barely cooled off by the occasional thunderstorm and torrential downpour. I really despise this time of year around here. At least we're getting out of the heat once more this summer when we go to Orange County in a few weeks to attend a huge Hindu wedding of one of my prior trainees. It's at the Nixon library and promises to be quite the shindig.

Work has started up again with a bang. This is my first full week back and the pile of 'to do' stuff remains exceedingly high. (Which is why I am spending time writing this...) The clinic is back under control. I got my lectures done. The on line project for the Geriatric Education Center will be done by the end of next week. I should be able to keep all the balls in the air.

On Monday, just to keep life interesting, my cell phone died (taking all the phone numbers stored with it), my clinic computer died, and the car died (and has since been recussitated). Welcome back to work.

Nothing theatrical going on for a while. Some auditions at the end of the month, perhaps. Men's chorus starts next week and church choir the week after so there will be some singing. I also have to buckle down and budget out 'Anything Goes' and start some pre-production work.

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

2008-08-08T09:48:00.001-07:00

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Thursday, July 31st

2008-07-31T16:31:00.000-07:00

Another month gone and we have returned from the Pacific Northwest to the humid sump of Alabama. The last week up north went well. We went up into the San Juan Islands and did some orca watching. The killer whales obliged. All three resident pods were holding a hoedown off of English Camp on San Juan Island - orcas for days. Also seals, dolphins, eagles and the occasional drunk boater - indigenous fauna all.

We also had the opportunity to go to a dress rehearsal of Seattle Opera's opener, 'Aida' courtesy of some friends with the opera company. It really has become a first class company over the last thirty years. We enjoyed it very much. It was my first time in McCaw hall, the new opera house - fairly comfortable as such venues go.

We saw 'The Dark Knight' in IMAX. Very intelligent for a comic book film. Lots of interesting psychological underpinnings. Heath Ledger was quite good as the Joker and it's too bad he won't be around for any further installments. More and more films are likely to be made that way in an attempt to lure us out of our domestic cocoons. Tommy and I have been out to the movies more in the last month than in the past year. DVD is just too easy.

The cats are glad we are back. Spent today playing catchup at work and will be back on ususal schedule as of Monday.

Tuesday, July 22nd - Seattle, Washington

2008-07-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

Two weeks into our Seattle sojourn. The nieces are in summer mode which means lots of dunking themselves in water. Swim lessons at the pool, swimming in the lake and splashing in my parents hot tub on the back deck. Bella is very into drawing and Iris is showing a flair for the dramatic, culminating in the after dinner play 'Disturbing the inner peace of the chipmunks' the other evening.

Tommy and I have been food shopping and wine tasting. Went to the bite of Seattle event, various restaurants and a couple of wineries. Caught up with some old friends of one sort or another and we're probably starting to wear a bit thin on the family. One more week and I hope no one gets on each others nerves too much. Tonight, big celebration. My brother and sister-in-laws big 40 party. The whole gang should be there and then some.

Saw 'Mama Mia' a couple of days ago. I thoroughly enjoyed it. No, Pierce Brosnan can't sing, but it really doesn't matter as its about people breaking out of their molds to enjoy life. Something I could use a bit more of from time to time. We're supposed to go see 'The Dark Knight' in IMAX before the week is out. Maybe Thursday or Friday.

Sunday, July 13th - Seattle, Washington

2008-07-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

Tommy and I are ensconced with the family in Seattle for a couple of weeks. It's been a lazy few days so far, only marred by my picking up some horrible viral something on the plane and being febrile and achy for a day or two. It's winding down now and I should be back to my usual self by the end of the day. I truly hate what air travel in this country has become. Way too many people packed on the plane, no personal space, all the amenities more or less gone or requiring an extra fee. And the airlines wonder why they're going broke.

The family are all well. The nieces are now 5 and 9 and turning into delightful young people. All of the niece and nephew dogs are between 12 and 15 and sweet, but arthritic and rather slow. I expect a die-off in the next year or so. Mom and Dad continue to putter around and do their usual thing. I think they're a bit at loose ends not having dozens of projects going at once but they don't seem to be overly bored.

The weather has been marvelously cooperative. Low 80s with no humidity. A reminder of why Seattle can be paradise when it decides to be so. We're off today to a play and then to a barbeque at the home of old friends. Should be fun.

I am not missing work.

Wednesday, June 25th

2008-06-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

Music Man Mania is over in the Duxbury-Thompson household. The costumes are, for the most part, put away, the detritus of ladies picture hats vacuumed up, my spats are back in the drawer and, in general Tommy and I are being fairly sedate and trying to recover after a month of fairly frenzied activity. The show was both an artistic and a financial success and we're still hearing very good things about it from those that saw it. The needs much decision of minimal set worked in its favor and we're going to have to do some other old warhorse shows in a similar vein.

Catching up at work and trying to get everything in order for me to go out of town to Seattle for three weeks this July. Our agenda there is minimal other than R and R and family time so it should be fun. I'd like to get out some into the Cascades or over to the Olympic peninsula to rod around the country a bit. Haven't done that in decades.

Finished the next draft of the script I'm writing for The Seasoned Performers for their tour next year. Currently entitled 'Grimm and Bear It', various fairy tale villain archetypes are thrown out of their stories which does not bode well for any until they band together and overcome. Their necessary role becomes a metaphor for age and experience and hopefully all learn something and sing Kumbayah at the end.

Finally caught up with 'Mrs. Henderson Presents' on DVD with Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins. Great fun. I'm looking towards directing 'Anything Goes' (again) next season and I wonder if we can do some nude tableau vivant with it, or if that might be pushing the envelope just a bit for Birmingham...

Wednesday, June 25th

2008-06-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

As promised, some photos from music man. Yeah, I know I'm getting grey and middle aged...

Wednesday, June 11th

2008-06-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

Much to everyone's relief, 'The Music Man' gelled properly at the last minute into quite a good show. It's well paced, entertaining, visually striking and I haven't heard much negative about it at all (other than the usual beefs with the theatre's sound system - something outside of our control). Frank and Leah are on their came as Harold and Marian and the Birmingham News had nice things to say about them and about yours truly as Mayor Shinn. It is a tough role to screw up. It's so well written.

The decision, necessitated by budget, to go with minimalist set, worked. It leaves the stage open for the huge cast, puts most of the visual interest in the costumes and performers, and the use of the sepia photos evokes the time and place so well that no one is bemoaning the lack of the usual dozen rolling wagons carrying houses and libraries and ice cream sociables. The progression of color in the costumes and the projections in the second act also clarifies some of the themes and keeps the wrap up of the romantic plot, which has been deadly in some productions I've seen, moving right along. Especially as the sepia fades into technicolor during the kiss on the footbridge.

Four more performances to go and we are all psyched and we've got good houses who appreciate the material. We did do a special show this past Monday for a group of at risk kids and chaperones that was, to put it mildly, odd. The kids didn't get it much at first as singin & dancin Americana characters have no bearing on their lives or experience, but they started to get it in the second act and were well with it for the finale, cheering on Winthrop and the band as everyone gets their rewards.

Once the show is over, Tommy and I have to hunker down in house mode again. Recent gullywashers have made several new major leaks evident opened up by the construction and some things will need to be redone. I am not looking forward to it.

Friday, May 30th

2008-05-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

I've been fairly infrequent in updating recently as there hasn't been a whole lot to say. 'The Music Man' is marching towards its opening night - one week and counting. I have my lines down, but they aren't completely second nature and I get a few things wrong in Shinn's fractured frazology but it should be more or less there over the next week. The house as disappeared under the costumes for the show as Tommy does the costume thing on a cast of 55. The Pickalittle ladies made their hats all over the living room this past Monday and it led to much hilarity and many feathers all through the sofa and on the carpet. It should be a good show. Performances are gelling and there are some good moments.

Had a West Virginia trip in there. I'm getting too old for that drive. Nothing terribly eventful other than my having to pull off a couple of times to snooze. I think my stamina is dribbling away with the years.

Today is my little sister's Delta Dawn birthday and my little brother's 4-0 is in a few weeks. I guess we're now all officially middle aged. I better call her and wish her a happy happy.

Work is the usual. There are feelings of uncertainty as there are some changes happening in the upper echelons of management of the hospital and health system and we don't know where that's going to leave clinical geriatrics. It's too big here for there to be a repeat of the UCD disaster but, having lived through such things before, I am a bit apprehensive. Should all come out in the wash.

Friends wrote a musical about five white trash ladies living in a trailer park that we went to see this past weekend. It was a good deal better than I had anticipated and has some real potential. Needs one character reshaped and a bit more of an even flow between song and story and some lyric rewrites, but on the whole, nicely done. No word yet on 'Terrorist' for next season. If Birmingham Festival passes again, going to shop it around to some others.

Wednesday May 14th

2008-05-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

Another year older as of this past Sunday. It's a little disconcerting to recognize that it was the silver anniversary of my 21st birthday. I am very definitely far older than I ever intended to become and the time keeps sweeping along, faster and faster. I expect to see a wizened oldster in the mirror any day now.

Didn't do anything special for the day. Called my mother for mother's day, sang at church with the choir and had two rehearsals, one for 'The Music Man' and one for the Men's chorus.

The Magic City Men's Chorale's spring concert was last night. We had a full house of 500 or so show up for it and we did pretty well. No major cock-ups and from what I can tell, the audience really liked the program, as opposed to politely liking it. It was an interesting mix of pieces from soft classical works to the obligatory gospel and show tune numbers. It's been fun singing with them and I think I'll be back next year.

The Music Man is the next project out of the gate. I have got to get my script out and learn my lines. Tommy is out trying to figure out how to put 55 people into period costume for $1.98 each. If anyone can do it, he can. If he gets stuck, I may put out an SOS to my cousin Jenny in Seattle and get her out here. She's a miracle worker on limited time and budget.

Wednesday, May 7th

2008-05-07T14:28:00.001-07:00

RIP Patrick Flanagan Spivey Duxbury Thompson: April 1993 - April 30, 2008. He was a good cat but it was his time to go. At least he had fun up through the last few days. I guess he can go play with Steve now.

Other than having to put Patrick to sleep (he lost the ability to walk and could not eat or drink), things have been relatively calm around our place. Tommy finished all of his finals, passed all of his classes and is out of school until August. We have lots and lots of projects to get under control so its not like we won't be busy.

In order to celebrate, we were in New Orleans this past weekend. The weather was lovely, we had lots of good meals, including a great dinner at Bayona, our favorite restaurant down there, and did quite a bit of gallery hopping. Didn't buy anything. Art purchases will have to wait until after the remodel is finished and paid for. I'm not quite sure where we'd put anything at the moment as we haven't got what we already own back up on the walls yet.

The other reason for the weekend was for me to give part of a symposium on surgery on the aging woman to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. I did the geropharmacy portion. It went relatively well. I and my compatriots have done this for ACOG several times in the past. Much better attendance this time around and folks seemed interested in what we had to say.

The next big thing that happens is the spring concert of the Magic City Choral Society's Men's Chorus (The Birmingham Gay Men's Chorus but in the usual circumspect Southern Way, 'Gay' is not part of the formal title). Next Tuesday evening. We sound pretty good on most of our numbers but there's this hoedown folksong that really isn't a good fit for us as singers and emphasizes all the worst things about gay men's choruses in general. This too shall pass.

I will eventually get into rehearsal for 'The Music Man'. Frank seems to have designed a schedule that maximizes my absences due to conflicts. Better get out the script and come in off book.

Tuesday, April 29th

2008-04-29T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm not quite as maudlin as I was a few weeks ago. The anniversaries are over and I've been rather busy. I'm sorry to say that Patrick, the cat, continues to decline. He has stopped eating and drinking and today, more or less stopped moving. I'm expecting him to be dead in the morning, and if he is not, I think the time has come to take him to the vet to be put to sleep. He's no longer having any fun. He was still leaping up on the bed as of Sunday so it's a rather sudden change but we know his kidneys are shot and there really isn't anything fixable.

This past weekend was the big tap spectacular. It's a major Birmingham tradition - Time Step studio at the Alabama theater, one of the big old 20s movie palaces downtown. The average age of the 100 or so women is about 55, yet there they all are in their lycra and sequins and false eyelashes and rouge having a great time with a hooting and hollering audience. The dozen men (of whom I am one), are a bit younger, have to do double and triple duty as there are so few of us, and sacrifice all dignity in service of entertainment. This year I appeared in a red Elvis jumpsuit and a barrel, amongst other things. One of my numbers is linked below.

Tommy is in the throes of finals. His last one is tommorrow, then he is off until August. We are headed to New Orleans on Saturday for a bit of a celebration. I have to speak at the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology meetings there on Tuesday of next week. Then we come back and head into 'Music Man' rehearsals and final rehearsals for the gay men's chorus concert scheduled for the 13th. The music for that is sounding pretty good but we could both live without the hootenanny hoedown folk song number.

Sunday, April 13th

2008-04-13T14:19:00.000-07:00

Today would have been Steve's 60th birthday. I'm having a hard time imagining a sixty year old Steve and I don't think he'd have been very taken with the idea. I guess his being sixty means I'll be 46 in a few weeks. That's far older than I ever intended to be. Stop the world, I want to get off. The passing of the years is showing up the most in Patrick, the cat. He's nearly 15 and he's fading. He continues to slow down and lose weight. He's on pills from the vet to help his failing kidneys but it's nigh on impossible to get them down his throat.

I made just enough money last year to bump me up a tax bracket and I got socked with an unexpected major tax liability. I was not thrilled but whatcha gonna do? I need a new laptop but that purchase along with others may need to wait.

The annual tap extravaganza is taking shape and happens in two weeks. It will be its usual riotous self. I seem to be wearing a barrel in one number, armor in another. At least no fan dance this year.

Rehearsals have started for 'The Music Man' - I'm playing Mayor Shinn. Should be pretty easy as he's not in most of the big musical numbers. Just have to learn my lines and try not to imitate Paul Ford too much.

Tuesday, April 1st

2008-04-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

No April Fools pranks so far today and that's good, as far as I am concerned. The majority of them aren't well enough executed to be funny. Perhaps I can get through the entire day without one.

The reading of 'Terrorist' went quite well. About thirty people turned up and that was enough of an audience for the actors to play off of and to get a sense of what works and what doesn't. It plays quickly - just over an hour for each act so I don't think too much has to be cut, but there are little things to trim here and there that should cut 5-10 minutes off of it and then I think it will be in good enough shape for a production if anyone actually wants to do it.

Patrick is mad at having to take two pills a day to help with his kidneys. He's no better, no worse which is, I suppose, good enough. As long as he's getting around, eating and drinking and using the litter box I'll be happy.

Tommy and I are back to our usual patterns. Work, chorus rehearsals and I am trying to get all six tap routines down for the tap show on the 26th. I have the major ones under my belt but some of the things that are just being added now are not in as good shape. Fortunately, I know how to fake a lot of things when I have to.

Monday, March 24th

2008-03-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

Last week was spring break week for Tommy so I took a couple of days off. We had thought about going out of town but opted instead to hang out at the house, nap a lot and work on putting things away - a task that's going to continue to occupy us for months. At the moment, we're cataloging the video collection as we put it away so we'll know what we have.

My play 'Terrorist in the Family Room' is getting a semi-staged reading next weekend at Birmingham Festival Theatre. The initial rehearsal was yesterday and I sat in. It's going to be interesting to see how it plays in front of an audience. It needs to lose about 20 minutes but I can't figure out yet where or how to make the cuts. A reading in front of a general audience might bring the deadwood to light.

Patrick, faithful cat and companion of nearly fifteen years is having issues with renal failure. He's lost quite a bit of weight. He's on medication and a special diet but I'm pretty sure he's not going to be with us a whole lot longer. As long as he's getting around and seems happy... I may be a basket case when he dies. He's my last living link with my old life that all came crashing down 1998-2001.

We're planning on some extended time in Seattle this summer. Not sure of the dates yet. Sometime between late June and mid-August.

Known trips coming up:

March 26-27 - Columbus Ohio
May 3-6 - New Orleans
May 18-20 - West Virginia

Monday, March 17th

2008-03-17T21:02:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Paddy's all (and Happy Birthday to cousin Tom).

'Into the Woods' completed it's successful run. The performances second weekend were really quite good, if I can say so myself and audiences were appreciative. Wish we could have run it one more weekend.

We got the house cleaned up enough to host our first party since the redo for the ITW cast. The new look and layout makes parties work quite well in terms of flow and service. I think we'll be doing a lot more.

This is spring break week. I'm taking a couple of days off to work on the house on Thursday and Friday. We should have the top three floors more or less done by the end of the month.

A few ITW photos...

Thursday, March 13th

2008-03-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

Why the homophobic vitriol spewed by elected officials matters.

This was penned by a 17 year old who put it much more eloquently than I ever could.

A letter to Sally Kern from a senior in high school in Oklahoma.

Today my nephew attempted to deliver a letter to Sally Kern but was stopped by a highway patrol man. With his permission I am distributing the letter to all news stations and thought I would include it here.

Maybe we can all stand to learn a listen from this smart, loving, young man. He more than most has reason to hate. He lost his mother, my sister, in the Murrah Building bombing.

Elizabeth
( by way page 112 of the News9 Comment Section at http://www.news9.com/global/st... )

Rep Kern:
On April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City a terrorist detonated a bomb that killed my mother and 167 others. 19 children died that day. Had I not had the chicken pox that day, the body count would've likely have included one more. Over 800 other Oklahomans were injured that day and many of those still suffer through their permanent wounds.

That terrorist was neither a homosexual or was he involved in Islam. He was an extremist Christian forcing his views through a body count. He held his beliefs and made those who didn't live up to them pay with their lives.

As you were not a resident of Oklahoma on that day, it could be explained why you so carelessly chose words saying that the homosexual agenda is worst than terrorism. I can most certainly tell you through my own experience that is not true. I am sure there are many people in your voting district that laid a loved one to death after the terrorist attack on Oklahoma City. I kind of doubt you'll find one of them that will agree with you.

I was five years old when my mother died. I remember what a beautiful, wise, and remarkable woman she was. I miss her. Your harsh words and misguided beliefs brought me to tears, because you told me that my mother's killer was a better person than a group of people that are seeking safety and tolerance for themselves.

As someone left motherless and victimized by terrorists, I say to you very clearly you are absolutely wrong.

You represent a district in Oklahoma City and you very coldly express a lack of love, sympathy or understanding for what they've been through. Can I ask if you might have chosen wiser words were you a real Oklahoman that was here to share the suffering with Oklahoma City? Might your heart be a bit less cold had you been around to see the small bodies of children being pulled out of rubble and carried away by weeping firemen?

I've spent 12 years in Oklahoma public schools and never once have I had anyone try to force a gay agenda on me. I have seen, however, many gay students beat up and there's never a day in school that has went by when I haven't heard the word **** slung at someone. I've been called gay slurs many times and they hurt and I am not even gay so I can just imagine how a real gay person feels. You were a school teacher and you have seen those things too. How could you care so little about the suffering of some of your students?

Let me tell you the result of your words in my school. Every openly gay and suspected gay in the school were having to walk together Monday for protection. They looked scared. They've already experienced enough hate and now your words gave other students even more motivation to sneer at them and call them names. Afterall, you are a teacher and a lawmaker, many young people have taken your words to heart. That happens when you assume a role of responsibility in your community. I seriously think before this week ends that some kids here will be going home bruised and bloody because of what you said.

I wish you could've met my mom. Maybe she could've guided you in how a real Christian should be acting and speaking.

I have not had a mother for nearly 13 years now and wonder if there were fewer people like you around, people with more love and tolerance in their hearts instead of strife, if my mom would be here to watch me graduate from high school this spring. Now she won't be there. So I'll be packing my things and leaving Oklahoma to go to college elsewhere and one day be a writer and I have no intentions to ever return here. I have no doubt that people like you will incite crazy people to build more bombs and kill more people again. I don't want to be here for that. I just can't go through that again.

You may just see me as a kid, but let me try to teach you something. The old saying is sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you. Well, your words hurt me. Your words disrespected the memory of my mom. Your words can cause others to pick up sticks and stones and hurt others.

Sincerely

Tucker

Monday, March 10th

2008-03-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

Between tech week last week, performances this weekend and the time change, I'm still pooped despite as much sleep as I could get. The pace doesn't slow down for a while. As I look at the calendar, it's all systems go through mid May, then things get much more quiet with really nothing in the works after mid June.

'Into the Woods' got on its feet and runs for another weekend. The show is decent, anchored by some very good performances. The audiences have been quite good sized and the word of mouth is good so we should sell some tickets. The review in the local paper was very kind to the performers, but lambasted some of the technical aspects, especially sound. It's what happens when you have aging equipment and a shoestring budget. I'll post some photos when I have some.

Much consternation still going on at work in regards to Joint Commission accreditation issues on the outpatient side. Our area is in the clear. The administration is going to have to put some resources into clinical care over research to fix certain inherent problems elsewhere in the system.

Tommy was in 'Tosca' this past weekend as a priest. By all accounts a great production, but I could not see it as it ran opposite ITW. He now goes into rehearsal for a concert version of 'Porgy and Bess'. I have to learn a whole bunch of tap routines for the Time Step studio annual tap extravaganza in April.

Birmingham Festival Theatre is doing a reading at the end of the month of 'Terrorist in the Family Room', that script of mine that's been kicking around for a couple of decades. I hope it's the first step towards a possible production.

Monday, February 25th

2008-02-25T10:47:00.000-08:00

No word from me for a couple of weeks as there hasn't been a lot to say. Rehearsals proceed on 'Into the Woods'. We have one more week before tech. The show should be good but we need to have some time with everyone there to get some of the moments down. So much of it is ensemble and when you're missing three principals from every scene on any given night, it's tough to get it right, especially with the difficulties in the music with all the individual lines that have to be timed properly.

Much consternation at work by upper management over the state of clinical programs. All I have to say is that's what you get when you ignore them steadily for years in favor of trying to be a top research university.

The house is down to the last few projects. I spent the last couple of weekends sorting out all the books and getting them up on the new shelves. Still have a lot to do in terms of getting the art back up, cleaning the basement for it to be rehabbed and getting the old furniture we're not going to use out of the house and off to the Playhouse for use as props.

I skipped the Oscarcast last night. From what I hear, it was pretty tepid. Haven't seen most of the nominated films anyway. Tommy and I have too many theatrical and singing extra-curriculars to get to the movies much.

Tuesday, February 5th

2008-02-05T09:37:00.000-08:00

Today is Super Tuesday. I did my civic duty this morning and went out and voted in the primary. Edwards was whom I was supporting, but as he dropped out, I ended up voting for Hillary. I like Obama but I think the Clinton camp has a much better chance of weathering the storm that the Republicans are likely preparing for the general election. I think the swiftboating of last cycle will seem timid in comparison to the all out assault that's going to come and I don't see either Obama or especially his wife dealing at all well with it and some major mistakes will be made that would cost the election, especially if McCain is on the other side. But enough about politics.

The house is slowly being restored to sanity, room by room. Boxes are being opened and emptied. The layer of construction dust is being cleaned away. New furniture is in place. With luck, we will be presentable by the end of the month. I'll take some pictures when it no longer looks like a bomb went off in it.

Playing catch up at work. Between business trips, Into the Woods, and the house, I am more than a bit behind on various projects. One thing at a time and I may get some of these piles taken care of.

The flu is in town, big time. I had my shot but I still think I have a low grade case with all the attendant body aches. Enough to make me grouchy but not enough to retire to my bed. I slept a good deal this past weekend and that helped some.

Monday, January 28th- Beckley, WV

2008-01-28T18:20:00.000-08:00

I'm on one of my mineworkers jaunts for a couple of days in the mountains of southern West Virginia. Some snow on the ground, but the weather is clear and reasonably warm. I am getting tired of the 1050 mile round trip drive but it looks like its going to continue quarterly for the forseeable future. No way to combine this trip with anything interesting, so a day and a half of meetings and back home again.

The remodel is in its final stages. We are busy moving things back into the house. We emptied the POD on Saturday and it gets picked up this week. The plumbers and electricians are nearly done and the contractors are on finish work of one kind or another. We have boxes everywhere that must be gone through, sorted and put away in new cupboards and shelves so that is the task for the next two weeks. Anyone want to help?

'Into The Woods' has started rehearsal. The cast is solid and it should be a good show. I'm looking forward to it. And the house should be ready for traditional second saturday party. My blocking is easy. Stand down right and talk. What else can the narrator do?

Not much new at work other than I am behind in pretty much everything due to unpacking and house stuff. I should catch up around May.

Monday, January 14th

2008-01-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

The first week of routine is over and done with and both Tommy and I are settled into our usual overactive lives. I'm back in Tap class, vocal lessons and have started rehearsals for 'Into The Woods' while Tommy is in tech for 'The Barber of Seville' at Opera Birmingham. I love Sondheim, but there are a few too many words in 'Into the Woods' to deal with easily. I despair of getting everything in the right order in a couple of places.

We had a social Saturday with a big Opera party at a manse on the hill on Saturday evening which included cha-cha with the Soprano and rubbing elbows with the well heeled octagenarian set. We then went down the hill to the theatre party where a bunch of us played Apples to Apples and got very silly.

The house continues to slowly come together. The tile is being finished up the next couple of days. We were assembling bookcases all yesterday afternoon and the plumber is supposed to deal with the bathtub this week. Maybe, just maybe, we will be up and running by Valentine's.

I still haven't done the holiday cards. I am so bad. This week, I promise...

January 7th, 2008 - Covering London, England

2008-01-07T19:33:00.000-08:00

Greetings all and happy New Year. Tommy and I successfully made it to London and back for the holiday and had a lovely time. It was my first trip to Europe in five years and Tommy's first trip to London, although he did make it to Paris a couple of years ago.

We took off from Atlanta on late Thursday afternoon the 27th. There were fifteen in the group, mainly theatre people from Birmingham including such familiar names as Frank, Gabrielle, Chuck, Raymond, and JJ. After being crammed into small little economy seats with no leg room, we made it to Gatwick around about 7 AM London time on the morning of the 28th. Bleary eyed, we gathered to experience the sticker shock of the weak dollar against the pound. Our coffees were about $5.50 apiece with the horrible exchange rate. With a few curses at US economic policy, we got on the bus for the 90 minute ride to the St. Giles Hotel, at Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. When we got there, the rooms were not ready, so we split up in search of some food and a walk before doing anything else.

Some hours later, Tommy and I were able to get into our assigned room. We found it to be clean, and overly small, designed by the same people who design the less opulent cruise ships. We took a nap, then went off in search of Boots for some cold medicine, Sainsbury's for some snacks, dinner and then the theatre. Our first night show was 'The Lord of the Rings: The Musical'. I'm glad I saw it, but the show does not work. It's material that musicalization brings nothing to. It should either be a three hour stage spectacular which uses music as underscoring to move the story, or it needs to be a sixteen hour grand opera cycle. A ring cycle for a new millenium. Traditional musical forms kill it dead. There were magical moments (Gandalf against the Balrog, Lothlorien, the Ents going to war, Gollum climing down the proscenium curtain head first) but they could not make up for an uninspired score or the show stopping dead in its tracks when certain characters opened their mouths to sing.

The next day, we had an introductory bus tour with an acerbic ex-West End actress tour guide with political opinions something to the right of Margaret Thatcher. Stops at Buckingham Palace, The Houses of Parliament and The Tower of London. Tommy is not a major tourist and I have been to all these places before. We went for the company and to see such venerable sites through some of our compatriots eyes. After lunch, Tommy and I headed for the wilds of Islington to see the Matthew Bourne 'Nutcracker' at Sadler's Wells. Great fun although I don't seem to remember quite so much analingus in my mother's nutcracker. In keeping with the theme of high culture, we repaired afterwords to dinner and to the opera at Covent Garden for 'La Cenerentola' at the Royal Opera House. Toby Spence, as the prince, was fabulous and has a great career ahead of him.

On Sunday, we did a little sights touring and ended up at the British Museum with Gabrielle and friends where we had a very traditional high tea and a tour with an ex-Alabamian Egyptologist expert on Seti I who took us through the displays. No shows on Sunday night so off a bunch of us traipsed to Whitechapel for a night time Jack the Ripper Tour at the acutal sites. We then had a quiet evening and slept a lot.

Monday was New Years Eve. The day was fairly quiet. Some shopping. A walk through Soho and long hours browsing at Foyles. Also a trip to St. Paul's and across the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern. Great building. Can't say much for the collecton. We then headed off to a group dinner in Mayfair at a very nice restaurant for a somewhat pedestrian group meal. We then all split up in different directions to join 800,000 of our closest friends jammed into Central London for the fireworks and celebrations. Tommy and I ended up down by Waterloo and the Eye for the big moment. We then had to joint the 100,000 others trying to get back into Waterloo station for their trains and underground.

New Years Day, we headed for Knightsbridge to check out the Harrod's sale. The rotten exchange rate made even the sale prices ridiculously high but we did have fun with the over the topness of it all. Harrod's loses a little something when it has a Krispy Kreme stand in the food halls. We also went down to the Victoria and Albert which is my favorite London musueum with its grand collections of decorative arts. That evening, we went to the original production of 'Les Miz', still running 23 years later - Tommy had never seen it. The show still packs a punch and was well performed. What's interesting about seeing it fifteen years later is realizing how simple the stage technology actually is, even the famous barricade.

On our last day, we made it another theatre day. Mary Poppins for a matinee (which we both enjoyed - very British and not terribly Disney which is a good thimg) and Avenue Q for evening. Well performed and enjoyable but doesn't really stick with you. Up the next morning for the return journey with Tommy hightailing it from the airport for a 'Barber of Seville' rehearsal.

We are now back in the rut. First day of work for me, school has started for Tommy. I was cast as the Narrator in 'Into the Woods' and I'm starting those rehearsals this week. The blocking should be pretty easy. Stand there and talk to the audience. Tommy opens his opera a week from Thursday.

The house continues to come together. The countertops are in. The bathroom lavatories are in. The bathtub arrived today and is being hooked up tomorrow. Furniture keeps arriving. Have to spend tomorrow evening cleaning up.

Tuesday, December 25th

2007-12-25T11:44:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to all - and to all a good night or day or whatever time you may be reading this. I think I have all of five regular readers who check in to see what's up and I see most of them relatively routinely.

Low key holidays around our house. We couldn't get at the decorations so that was out this year. Not to mention the fact that great swaths of the house are still unfinished. We did get most other things accomplished - except the Christmas cards. I have made an executive decision that they are going to be Orthodox Christmas cards this year and will go out in early January in time for epiphany. I just can't deal with them until right after the New Year.

We had our first low key entertainment in our refurbished great room last night. Tommy's family for the tradition of Christmas Eve deserts and stockings. A new addition this year. Tommy is a great uncle with the addition of his niece's new daughter who arrived two weeks ago. She is very tiny and does little but sleep at this stage. Her stocking was filled with infant T-shirts and onesies and other practicalities that new mothers are not likely to have gotten from friends who race out for adorable little outfits that are impractical for much beyond a photo op.

I'm spending today catching up some on work and then we do more moving things around the house. An activity we will be repeating frequently for some months. We are using the whole project as an excuse to declutter so a lot of boxes of things are headed for prop land or to furnish various acquaintances apartments.

Off to London on Thursday. I'm looking forward to a week with no agenda other than fun.

Wednesday, December 19th

2007-12-19T08:32:00.000-08:00

Less than a week to go until Christmas and only one more full work day for me. Hooray! There won't be much downtime though, Tommy and I have to reverse the process of the last five months and start moving everything back into the house. We are back in the house but the only room that's currently habitable is the bedroom - pieces of everything else is done but there's still a lot of finish work. Walls are painted, but trim is not. Countertops are still not installed. Cabinets need hardware. Light fixtures still aren't in.

The goal is to get the furniture and boxes out of the POD by the 7th so that can be hauled away. Then we can start emptying the new storage space of things that are down there. New furniture comes today and then we have to go out and buy a whole lot of bookcases for the den which is getting a makeover into a libaray. I forsee a lot of sorting and filing and wondering what the hell this or that item is and why we own it.

We're planning a low key Christmas this year. No decorations to speak of and a family dinner with Tommy's family on Christmas Eve. Our big present to ourselves is the trip to London from the 27th to the 3rd which we are both looking forward to. It does cut into our sort the house time but we'll manage.

The cats are back from the vet after their month away to get them out of toxic fumes and floor stain. They seem happy to be back and are settling into their old routines. The boarding bill was horrific so they better not have to leave the house for an extended time again during this process.

Wednesday, December 12th

2007-12-12T13:32:00.000-08:00

We have been driven from the house by poisonous vapors. The floor crew have been a little happy with the stains and sealants and its not possible to spend more than about five minutes in it without breathing problems, watery eyes and a sense of giddiness. It should pass by Friday but in the meantime, we are refugees at the Homewood Suites on 280. The paint and staining should all be done by the middle of next week so we should be able to get the furniture back in place during the next few weeks. Personally, I just want to collapse, and then go to London.

Work is only slightly freaked out at the moment. I have made the 'Best Doctors' list both locally and nationally again this year. I think its because I am getting old and gray and arthritic and set in my ways. Actually, our clinical services continue to improve and expand due to some new initiatives on the inpatient front. I would love to hand over the reins of the clinic to new blood but there really isn't anyone yet who could do it.

Tommy is in the middle of finals. He's not doing as well as he would like as the chaos of home remodeling has led to problems with studying but I have full confidence that most of it will come out in the wash.

We're having a heat wave. 80 degrees in the middle of December. Merry Christmas. We're still more or less skipping that for a while. Cards will go out next week if I can find them and get around to them. I can barely find anything in the house anymore. Next time, we torch the place and start again.

Monday, December 3rd

2007-12-03T09:18:00.000-08:00

I have decided that I'm skipping Christmas this year. Between the remodel and the mess of the house and Tommy's school schedule and all the various work crises, there's no time for it. I will try to get to my cards, but they will probably go out on Epiphany and gifts will probably arrive around Valentines and we will have our annual holiday party sometime around the Ides of March.

I am in major pain from arthritis in the knees, exacerbated by yet another weekend of hauling furniture up and down the stairs. Thank you, thank you to Aaron, Frank, Melissa, and Brad who showed up to help with this tedious task. We are now back into the bedroom. It's not quite finished but it's about 95% done and looks great. The bathroom and kitchen are moving forward. We may be able to fully occupy the top two floors by the 15th of December.

Work is relatively quiet at the moment. We're in a planning phase for major expansions of clinical service in the inpatient and outpatient arena. I just hope they're going to expand the support staff to help with all of the grandiose planning. I don't mind being the rock on which ambulatory services are built but even the strongest rocks are subject to erosion now and then.

Tommy and I were the will call office for the Opera Christmas Concert this past weekend, looking very official in the booth at the Alabama Theatre. We've decided we need to get our picture taken in it in deco usher uniforms for a Christmas Card some year.

Saturday, November 24th

2007-11-24T14:23:00.000-08:00

Happy long Thanksgiving weekend -

I'm laying around trying to get some writing projects done while Tommy works on his school work. I don't know how successful I'm being at anything other than working my way through the 'To View' pile in the DVD collection. We did some furniture shopping this weekend for the remodel and found decent selection and prices at Ashley Home furnishings. We're pretty set on the bedroom floor and have a couple of pieces to find for the living room and then we should be able to move upstairs once they finish the painting.

The painters have been working like mad and have the bed and bathroom done. They should get the top floor the first of next week. Then it's just a matter of countertops, plumbing and appliance installation to get things up and running. That should make things much easier. The cats have been at the vets for several weeks as we have so much paint and stain fumes floating through the house. We went and visited them today. They aren't happy being kept in cages, but they'll live.

The temperature has dropped, but not a lot of rain since the initial front went through last week. We really could use some. We're still in the midst of major drought down here. The city water supply, however, is in good shape. I can't say the same for Atlanta.