Random Thoughts

Greetings and salutations.

Perhaps a shorter post today. I'm at work. On call. Again. Although I have no right to complain - the residents are on much more frequently than I am. Still, I'm at work and not at home, so I get maybe one pity point. I'm going to call this post Random Thoughts, a la Jack Handey. Psychiatrists have a term for this type of thought association, they call it tangential thinking. Personally, I think it sounds a bit sophisticated. It's so much better than, well, um, non-tangential thinking.

First of all, I hope you voted. Common sense (among other regulations) prevents me from giving much commentary about politics, especially in this forum, so suffice it for me to make general comments instead. I hope you voted. But more importantly, I hope we can finally start putting ourselves together again. I'm tired of red state versus blue state (versus impaired state?), "liberal" and "conservative" being used as adjectives of disdain, and so on. Whoever wins (and right now on Sunday afternoon it's not yet entirely clear who will), I hope we can re-learn how to find what we all have in common with each other.

Okay, enough soap box. On Halloween we met a great friend in Seattle. Duneley is a physical therapist we know from Naples, and he was in town for a conference, so Kathy and I took the ferry over (with Jayme) and met up with good 'ol Dun. In an Irish pub. With food. And beer. And Irish whisky. A good time was had by all. Our waitress was Dr. Acula, and the bartender was Baracula (I told you, tangential thinking). We didn't dress up, at least not that night. Kathy and I went to a party on Saturday in '50's garb - poodle skirt (Kathy), white t-shirt and cuffed jeans w/black shoes (me). Hope you didn't need me to 'splain that for you.... You know, a lot of people take Halloween much more seriously than I do. Maybe I should try harder.

Speaking of Halloween, I got an email about my last post from our trip to Disney (Babs, I'm talking about you. I still owe you an email). She noted the 'Manny Festation' headstone at the Haunted Mansion and found it appropriate to knight me "Fester." It kinda has a nice ring to it, though I'm not sure I'd use it in mixed company. Or in clinic. Thanks, Barb, I'll remember this....

So in the meantime, what's new? Not a whole heck of a lot, that's about it. Kathy is well; we're both celebrating the birth of a new niece in Michigan (that makes 5 nieces for us), happy that mom and baby are well and home. As for Michigan the college football team, well, it's not so happy. First losing season in 40 years, 33 year bowl appearance streak finally over. That's okay, it's a 'rebuilding year' and we all knew it would be bad. But if Navy can beat Notre Dame like they did last year, then we will rise from these ashes and kick some serious Buckeye #$&*. Soon. Sometime. Eventually. And did you see that Texas lost last night to Texas Tech? Ouch. But then Tech passed Penn State for the number 2 spot in the polls. Injustice. JoePa no doubt is in his last season and he should get to the championship game, as much as I hate Penn State. What is it with the Big 10? We get no respect. Can't imagine why.

Well, perhaps this is enough for now. If you're still reading, then thanks for sticking around - I hope you're not too disappointed. At least the view from the call room is nice - I think I'll peer outside awhile and see if an eagle flies by - the salmon are about to start their run and they're easy pickings now. Hope you are all well - I promise to get to my emails soon.

Fester