The Quick and the Dead

colorist wanted

I've spent the last 3 and half days sorting through a trove of old photographs. I've watched myself grow-up.  I've visited old wives and girlfriends. I've relived elementary, high school, college, and medical school graduations. I've rekindled relationships with long dead relatives. I've become reacquainted with every house in which I've ever lived. All in all, I've had a chance to think about just where I've been and what I've been doing for the last 55 years.

The project is pretty much complete and it will be fun to sit and watch the show for 20 minutes or so. Getting it ready was work for an undertaker. Such an odd feeling scanning old faded photographs and slides where time has caused a shift in color. I must have spent hours with my relatively unsophisticated software, trying to remember and restore hair color, facial skin tones, get just the right shade of green on that pantsuit.

If you have any old photos tucked away I would encourage you to arm yourself with a cheap scanner--like 80 bucks. When that first rainy fall or winter day shows up to keep you tucked inside, then get to work. The effort will help preserve those photographs which otherwise will gradually degrade to nothing. And, too, you'll have the opportunity to revisit some surprisingly pleasant memories. Just watch your step-- you may find a booby trap or two.

Morning After

Did you ever have a party at your parents' house while they were away? I did, maybe twice. The issue was always pulling it off without a.) destroying anything permanent or precious and b.) not getting caught. Like the time we came home and found beer caps under the furniture after having left my daughter with a sitter at the house overnight. So much for being 7th Day Adventist.

I never did really get caught. The one time I recall my brother and I explained to our parents we just had a couple of girls over for dinner. We left out the part about drinking. A lot. Or dancing and loud music until god knows when. We were already adults, anyway, like 16 or something.

That was then. Now it's far more serious. Tam and Ev have been gone for 3 days and they'll be home for dinner. In the meantime I have created a mess that extends from the office to the kitchen. It's not beer caps and Dorito wrappers.

For the past 3 days I have been trying to collect, scan, and organize every last slide and photograph I have of relatives past and present. Our Jumbotron-worthy family reunion starts in one week and I decided about 4 days ago a slide show on the computer would be a really cool idea. So, I've been staying up late and making a mess.

The job? Almost done. The mess? I figure I've got about 8 hours.  There's a Coke can or two but at least I don't have to shag any beer caps.

A Good Laugh

My son was playing with our young dog the other night. They were deep in a contest of tug-a-war with the pup digging in his paws and shaking his head, towel in mouth. Ev's responses ranged from giggles to paroxysmal laughter.  He was just absolutely loosing it, doubled over, holding his belly laughing.

Thinking about it the next morning I had to wonder, when was the last time I laughed that hard for that long? Looking around me at work I wonder the same thing: When was the last time any of these people laughed that hard for so song?

"Laughter is the Best Medicine" was section in the Reader's digest my parents subscribed to for years. The value of laughter in well-being and health is well documented but I have to say I don't think we laugh enough. Somehow, at some point, we either become too grown-up to look for laughs or we become too busy to look. We pay homage to laughter with little chuckles and giggles now and then but may of us seem to become less and less able to laugh to the point of tears.

Some might say my timing is bad. With all the horror in our world today perhaps looking for laughs is insensitive. I would say not. Looking for laughs is not only appropriate but, very much, the best medicine.

Good luck in your search.

Hale and Hearty

I saw a patient the other day that would leave a great many of us speechless on a couple of counts. As my medical assistant so succinctly put it, "I hope I can be like her when I'm in my eighties."

At first glance it was easy to see why my assistant would make such a comment. Like many women of her generation she had obviously been raised to care about herself and her appearance. She was neat and trim with make-up on, hair neatly done, and a well assembled outfit. What a generation. She was luckier than many women her age, too, in that she still had a husband (perhaps a debatable point by some women) and she obviously had some degree of means.

She was luckier than most, as well, because she had a nasty broken shoulder and very little pain whatsoever.  No sling, no brace, no complaining. What a constitution.

She had injured herself by falling off a ladder while painting her house. In her eighties. Something I last did in my early twenties and, I can say with some degree of certainty, I will never do again.

Here's the part that becomes really unbelievable. It's unbelievable because it violates so many rules of personal safety; so many rules of environmental welfare; so many rules of self care.  It's just so wrong in so many ways it makes one's jaw drop: Having fallen to the ground while painting a house; having found yourself covered from top to bottom in white paint; having sustained a significant and painful injury of the upper arm; having already completed 83 years of life on this earth: Just how do you go about getting cleaned up and taken of? Three simple steps:

1. Cut off your clothes. She tells me it's difficult to operate scissors with an injured shoulder but assures me it can be done.
2. Wash in gasoline. She tells me it's really the only way to get the paint off.
3. Get your gas-washed self into a bathtub to wash off all that nasty petrol.

After all that, you have your family help you out of the tub when you discover you can't push yourself up with a bad shoulder. And a few days later, when your shoulder still hurts, you go to the doctor's office to get checked out.  And then, after your family doctor tells you you've bruised your shoulder and a week goes by with your arm still hurting, tell the doctor so he can finally order an x-ray, discover the nasty broken shoulder, and send you to see the specialist.  What a constitution.

A story like this should make half the complainers in this country shrivel up and blow away. It won't, but it should. And yes, if I live to be in my eighties I hope I can be like that woman as well. But I'm staying off any ladders. And, too, if I make it into my eighties I hope it'll be damn hard to find gasoline anywhere.

Smudges

Ending up having to wear glasses has been one of the biggest adjustments in my life. I like my glasses but hate the change in vision which showed up on my doorstep at the ripe old age of forty. But I've got 'em and wear 'em and try to always remember to take 'em along wherever I go.

Like any decent intelligent hard working American boy I grew up committed to not doing the dumb and annoying things my parents did. (I was, unfortunately, not smart enough to index and study all the things they did right but, somehow, always remember the crap I didn't like.) Somewhere on that interminable list of things that drove me crazy was dirty glasses. It seems my Mom was forever asking my Dad how he could see through his dirty glasses, covered with every manner of smudge and spatter. And, once pointed out, I could see the smears and splatter as well and found it rather disgusting in an adolescent sort of way. Even now, when I'm talking to someone and their glasses are all smudged up I want to send them to the restroom. "How can you see through those things?!"

And so it was the other morning I had another of those stinging moments when I find genetic history rearing it's ugly head. "What's wrong with my right eye?" I wondered to myself. It couldn't be the glasses. Never. I had washed those and looked at them just, what?, two or three days ago. Has it been a week? One look and I had to wonder, "How do you see through those things?" My right lens looked as though I had sustained a bird strike coming down the hallway. The other was significantly coated with what I can only imagine to be dog slime. And there you have it. Suddenly I had fallen into the trap: A nasty piece of parental history repeating itself.

Glasses all washed up and ready to go, my right and left eye are now safely returned to their right and proper yin and yang. And, too, at least I caught the problem before my wife had to ask me how I see through those things. Sunglasses next.

Country Roads

Have you ever lived at a remote location? As a kid we used to vacation in the foothills of Mt. Hood about an hour outside of Portland, Oregon.  We would stay at a home belonging to a family my parents knew well and who were generous with their cabin. So, once a year every summer, we'd pack up a week's worth of groceries, swimsuits, and flip-flops (actually, they were called thongs back then) and head off for a week in the hills.

The cabin was rustic enough although equipped with two indoor bathrooms. It sat near the end of a mile or two of gravel two-track country road, cut through the forest, pocked with the occasional log truck rut, and seemed to be laid out right close to the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by a large yard, a split rail fence, and a towering wall of trees, the place was pretty secluded.

I was reminded of all this the other day as I sat at my kitchen table watching the sun come up and the neighbor's sprinklers come on. There is very little traffic around here, especially at that hour, and every time a car went by I had to stop and look. For whatever it's worth-- and I realize that's damn little-- I find it a strange compulsion to stop and watch a car go by. You sure as heck get over the urge quickly living in a high-rise in Chicago or Phoenix. And I'm pretty sure my brother doesn't suffer this compulsion living on the edge of Central Park in New York.

For now I'll let it lie. I don't need to know why and I don't really care. I'm just glad it got me to thinking about those summers a long, long time ago; staying at a salmon pink cabin, at the end of a long gravel road, where the arrival and departure of every vehicle was announced by the crush of gravel below the weight of its wheels-- and you just had to get up and look to see who it was coming or going.

The Send Button

So we're sitting here at the kitchen table having dinner the other evening. It was a beautiful evening and the conversation turned to all the foliage on the big oaks that pretty much encircle our house. And I said to Ev, "Take a good look Ev. Shortly after you start kindergarten the leaves will be turning yellow, orange, and red.  And it won't be too much longer and they'll all be gone. The trees will be bare." To which Ev says, "And then it will be December!"

He's excited about December because he remembers we set up a little electric train on the night stand next to his bed. He remembers it has a tunnel and a tree. "I'll stop the train and take a picture with my camera and push the send button to Gramma and Grampa. Does my camera have a send button? I need a send button so I can send my picture to people."

A "send button." At 5 years and 2 months I really, truly cannot imagine what he will be operating by the time he's twelve. Seriously. I think the college class of 2029 will have the capacity commandeer all power and wealth in the world-- if they haven't already accomplished that as a senior project. In high school.

Can someone please quietly show me to the exit?

F-you America

One of my all time favorite Dr. Seuss stories is Yertle the Turtle. It is the story of greed and power in governance and the ultimate harvest of such perverted agendas. Here in the U.S. we seem to have a serious problem. It's not just a turtle in the present circumstance but rather a herd of jackasses. A recent post on an NPR blog reveals how the Republican House released a proposed budget to cut billions from the federal budget-- $6 billion of which would be taken from the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and another $8 billion which would be taken from programs related to the new healthcare law.

These are terrible times in this country, a country that has exemplified the wisdom and good to be gained from hard work, unity and working toward the common good. These proposed cuts are nothing more than an obscene gesture flipped at the ever growing mass of Americans who belong to that swelling mass of "have nots." The number of those in this country who previously occupied the middle class-- that working class socioeconomic hallmark of democratic well-being, and who now find themselves "has beens" and "have nots"-- that number is exploding.

The argument that we can stimulate broad social and economic well-being by further eliminating or reducing taxes to accommodate business and the "job creators" is improbable, historically inaccurate and entirely self-serving to a socioeconomic minority. It's akin to asking one to buy more chickens because there's a problem with foxes. This isn't just the fox in the hen house. This is the fox in the hen house demanding the farmer buy more chickens. Anyone who honestly believes that lowering taxes and greasing the wheels of industry will lead to a better world for all Americans needs to visit Mr. Peabody: Set the Way-back Machine to the year 1898, Sherman.

I can only hope that somehow, someway, and someday soon, people will become wise to the fact that arguing against taxes and some degree of redistribution of wealth is suicide to a democracy. It is the road to social ruin and, ultimately, a failed society. Especially in these difficult times after the mass exodus of manufacturing jobs shipped overseas in deference to corporate profit. Especially in these difficult times when job growth is in entry-level service and retail positions that offer limited potential for growth and no significant benefits. Especially in these difficult times when the tax contributions of corporations and the wealthiest citizens are relatively meager or absent altogether.

To be sure, other steps need to be taken. The era of entitlement must come to a close. Everybody in this country needs to be doing something to contribute. Sitting home collecting welfare and disability payments without obligation is every bit as detrimental to the longterm health and welfare of our society. But slamming the door on fingers and toes, and leaving half your population out to freeze in the cold is not the way to achieve a balanced and healthy social order. Neither an economically lopsided society nor a welfare society can thrive for more than a few decades in modern times-- and their failures have often been bloody, the victory often pyrrhic: Everybody loses.

It's mostly for selfish reasons I get so angry about this. I don't especially want my children to grow up in a society that is spiraling into a late 19th century model of social stratification. I want what my generation's parents wanted for us: A good life with others enjoying a good life. Not extreme wealth. Not extravagance. Just educated, employed, and well cared for. Apparently we are coming to a time when that is simply asking for too much.

Proposing cuts to education, labor, healthcare and social services is just a blatant declaration on the part of the House majority saying, "That's it! We're tired of carrying you, you losers!" It's not jobs they're trying to create, it's profit and wealth.

With any luck at all, the collective American "Mack" will burp this November and Yertle will tumble.

Skinned Knees

Not every every memory of youth is sentimental and dearly missed with the march of time. I can think of 2 down right crash in the street & falls where I've skinned my knee since the age of 14. About 3 years ago I fell crossing a busy street in Chicago-- running in flip-flops with Evan in my arms. I landed-- briefly-- in the middle of traffic but did not drop the boy. I got a smart award for that one. The other occurred Sunday while running home with the new puppy-dog on his leash.

Somehow, running up the road I dropped his leash. Immediately I thought I had better step on the trailing leash rather than let the little guy run on up the road loose. So, I stepped on the leash which a.) stopped the dog in a instant-- much to his great displeasure-- and b.) promptly tripped over the stopped canine and sent my buns sprawling, hands out and knees first.

As will happen at such times one immediately gets back to one's feet and insures that no one saw the fall.  Then, in my case, you continue after the dog who has simply jogged on home to the back door. Smart. Smarter than me.

At least I've passed this most recent bone density test. A skinned knee, a sore wrist, but no broken bones. Let's see, did someone say I was a sucker for getting this dog in the first place?

Crowning Achievement

Too busy. Usually a person is never really too busy. At least not me. But sometimes I get too discombobulated to get the things done I need done. Busy morning, busy day, busy week.

A few weeks ago I was eating some of my (never will be) world famous granola when I managed to wedge a small bit of steel cut oat between a restoration (grown-up for filling) and the inside wall of a tooth. Suddenly, something felt different. No pain. Just different.

It wasn't too long before I started to notice that I could wiggle part of that last-seat-orchestra-level-on-the-left molar just like when I was 6. Cool. But not so cool.  It doesn't take a genius to realize you've broken a tooth. So, for every day since, I kept telling myself to call the dentist. But it really didn't hurt. And a lot of the time I could eat, brush, and floss and it didn't even wiggle. Who needs a dentist when it doesn't even wiggle? Even my Bosch power brush thing didn't make it wiggle.

I don't mind going to the dentist; I just don't like sitting still for longer than it takes to get a haircut. Nonetheless I went Friday. I thought I better have the thing looked at before I walk in to see a patient and say, "So how's it going?" and watch in horror as the wall of my tooth goes flying into the patient's shirt pocket-- or worse.

It took only about 5 minutes to realize why I didn't want to be sitting in the dentist's chair on that beautiful afternoon: Aging. All those years you would go to the dentist, get a cleaning, get an up-close look at the cute hygienist, a sample of floss, a toothbrush, and-- bam-- you're on your way. Nope. Now I'm there because I've reached the age where the warranties have begun to expire on every filling I've ever had over the years (and that's a few).  A person wants aging to be a somewhat private thing, you know? I mean the hair color may change and the abdomen looks a little, shall we say, fuller-- but you can still fake it. Walk fast. Get a tan. Color your hair. Wear loose clothes. Get sucked, tucked, lifted, and stacked. But your teeth falling out?? Not cool.

My permanent implant should be ready in just a few days. This guy does good work and, by then, hey, I'll probably want to open wide and show everyone my new crown. Who doesn't want to wear a crown?

The Sporting Life

I took Ev out Saturday to play a little tennis. We played twice and actually had several 3 and 4 volley sets. It's fantastic because I didn't start tennis until high school. And it wasn't long after that I stopped playing with any regularity. I probably have not made an effort of any substance in the past 15 years. I made a similar trek to the courts a few years back with Kels but got fired from that job just as quickly as it started. And yet, it's fantastic that I played with Ev the other day for a couple of reasons: One, I can still control the ball, teach, and hit a decent ground stroke. Two: Ev actually shows some native ability which leads me to think maybe he can acquire a life-long recreation.

It's one of the shortfalls of my upbringing that, although my Dad made a personal effort at both tennis and golf, he never made an effort to make it part of my life. I can't say I feel deprived in any way but, how nice if I had grown up with a sport/recreation to enjoy throughout life. And, too, it's one of the shortfalls of public education: too often schools still adhere to ancient curricula when it comes to "physical education." Volleyball, basketball, baseball, football, soccer, and track are great if a kid is so inclined. But how much better would it be if our kids graduated with at least a rudimentary proficiency in golf, tennis, yoga, and tai chi? Ever since being crab blocked by Ron Moss on the blacktop football "field" at Emerson I have had a slightly sketchy low back-- and a firm disinclination to play football.

Not one to always take my own advice there was a time many years back when my brother induced me to play a game of flag football on the banks of the East River (Hudson?) about the time of my 30 somethingth birthday. It was thrown together by an old female friend of his who wanted to get involved in a friendly game of pick-up flag football. Hey, what the h? It's a girl football game.  17 hours later I found myself in a coach seat to Detroit-- a seat and position from which I was fairly certain I would require the services of an EMS crew to get out. I could hardly move for 2 days. I still enjoy football. From a suite in the stadium. Or, less so, a stadium seat. Or, best of all, from the chair in my den. I just feel so much better the next day.

With tennis a person doesn't have that problem. Low impact, low strain, low stress-- it must be something else I did that's making it hard for me to walk around this morning.

Parting Shot

As the saying goes: The check's in the mail. All done, buttoned up and outta there. Here are the last two things I think I'll have to say about Arizona:

First word: Dirt. Even in the big city of Phoenix the one environmental condiment that seems to be served up with everything is dirt. Whether it's your car parked 40 feet under ground, a (relatively) green and lush neighborhood, or the deck around your pool-- there is a fine coat of dirt everywhere. And it's no mystery: Those gorgeous hills and peaks that pop up all around the city are nothing more than well sculpted piles of dirt; nursery beds for saguaros, playgrounds for rattlesnakes out hunting for scorpions.

Second: Time. Arizona does not adhere to the idiocy of Daylight Savings Time. Subsequently, every time we were out there over the summer I noticed that, within a day or so, I naturally started to go to bed around sundown and got up shortly before sun-up. No wonder it's the perfect place for retirement. It seems as if the whole place revolves around sun-up and sundown. How novel.

I don't know if we'll ever return to stay but Arizona was a nice detour. We'll be back with hats, sunscreen, and plenty of soap. But no alarm clock.

Hospital Safety

Consumer Reports decided, with its August 2012 issue, to delve into hospital safety. "How Safe Is Your Hospital" is a great article for all the wrong reasons: It is an irresistible headline and it is filled with data.  I would argue, however, the data are seriously flawed. Not that it matters. What matters is public perception which this type of article flagrantly mines and distorts.

About two weeks ago there was another editorial about hospitals being death traps on one of the medical blogs I get each week. It too, was written by a non healthcare worker and cited all the same statistics. The Consumers Reports article is even better, though, because it names names. Notice how much better little Petosky, Michigan hospital rates than the inner city hospitals of Detroit? Notice how co-morbidities and illness indices are not included in the published results? We don't see demographic data like per capita income, percent uninsured, education or employment statistics.

The fact is, hospitals and the healthcare industry should be working hard to embrace proven safety features while simultaneously getting the word out that we don't kill people. Sick people go to hospitals. The sickest people often die. And often times hospitals and physicians fall victim to patients and family demanding interventions for  people who already have one foot in the grave: They are ultra high-risk and have poor likelihood of good outcomes. Refuse to treat, however, and your patient satisfaction goes in the toilet. The Feds score that metric as well. People need to remember that all humans die and that, sometimes, it's the right thing to do.

We spend too much money and effort chasing unobtainable goals in order to meet federal criteria which, in many cases, have not been fully vetted. Case in point: listing a post-operative blood clot as something that should never happen. You will not find an academic source to substantiate that claim. Treat to prevent? Yes. Eliminate? Not yet based on any available data or protocol. We try vigorously to prevent clots but they still happen.

I love this stuff and believe the 100,00 Lives Campaign launched back in 2005 has done good in moving the industry in the right direction. I only wish nurses, doctors, and hospitals had an avenue to credibly respond to articles that distort the picture and leave hospitals looking like death traps. The hospital industry is not the lethal equivalent of a 747 crashing every day of the year. The statistics are useful but not gospel. They are, unfortunately, great for selling magazines to the wholly uninformed.

Value Shopping

I always try to maintain a “reasonable weight.” I do this in part so that I can always manage to fit into a few of my old favorites. One of these is an old winter-weight wool sport coat. It’s a knobby thing I bought back in the early 90’s here in town. The one label reads, “Made in USA.” The other reads “Storrer’s Menswear, Owosso, Michigan.” Vintage in all the right ways.

Storrer’s was a long-lived men’s clothing store that existed here in my hometown from 1891 until sometime in the early 1990’s. A hundred-plus years. When I first moved here there were several of these small town retailers in business; family owned and several generations old. Jewelers, a camera shop, two office supply/stationers, two family owned drug stores, a terrific little bookstore.

The little grocery store just 3 blocks east of my house closed this past weekend. It had only been around since the family bought it in 1974. It had been there for years before that as Eiseler’s—and before that as Byerly’s Grocery since the 1920’s. In its present form as Bannan’s it was the quintessential grocery store of the early 60’s before the advent of the supermarket: Meat-- always custom cut--, dairy, (seasonal) produce, canned goods. No greeting cards, no pharmacy. Beer and cheap wine, yes –  but no booze. Box-boys and checkers-- no self-scanning. No scanning of any kind, for that matter. Just cash registers.

These home town businesses die-off because they can’t compete. They can’t offer the variety and they can’t compete economically. Where they still exist we pass them by on our way to a super shopping big box grocery/everything store where, it’s said, we’ll find “better value” for our dollar.

I understand bigger. I understand more. And I never get value confused with cheaper. Years from now we will continue to wax poetic about the good old days, when we could shop at small retailers, when summer produce was a treat you waited 7 or 8 months to enjoy each year, when the stores you frequented employed the parents of your kids' classmates, went to your church, knew you by name. I can't imagine we will ever wax poetic about the loss of Best Buy, or Wal Mart, or Office Max. And their day is coming: Ever heard of Amazon 1-Click? It won't be too long and we will be a nation of nameless, faceless, windowless warehouses. How special.

New Job

For the past 20 some years I've been working for the same guy…me. I used to fantasize that, when I went into practice I would do whatever I want:  If it's too nice a day I would just cancel office and go hang out. If I was too tired I would just go in late. Right.

When you're self-employed as a physician it turns out you don't really work for yourself. It turns out you work for everyone. Yes, you can cancel office and go for a bike ride instead-- but you'll pay for it. You'll lose revenue and, worse still, you'll just get to double-up later in order to see all those people who needed to be seen while you went for your bike ride. It's a pay now or pay more later scenario. Just ask my medical assistant: If I tell her on short notice I need to be gone on Thursday, she'll give me a look and then say, "Okay. We'll figure it out." That usually means I'll be back in that office on some other day and time with a whole lot heavier load or when I really had hoped to be off.

As of July 9th I don't work for myself anymore. As of July 9th I won't be signing my paycheck anymore. Instead, I work for the hospital where I do the majority of my surgery. I don't expect a whole lot of rule changes but there is a certain change in the karma of the job. For better or for worse? I don't know. Ask me in a year.

In the meantime I hope the job change offers some respite from the constant distraction of administrative hoops: figuring out procedures and requirements that change about every quarter; worrying whether Medicare and Medicaid will be cut this year; having to consider which insurance plans we take; concern with employees, their wages and benefits. The administrative side of medicine has taken on a life of its own. It supports thousands of jobs. I haven't seen the numbers but I would imagine that for every practicing physician there must be at least another 10 people employed outside of direct patient care.

At any rate, I have a new job. Same work. Same office. Same hours. New boss. Weird. But I'll make it work. Just no more calling in all the time just because the weather's nice. Like that ever happened!

Poolside in the Age of Obesity: The Body of Evidence

There can't be too many worse spots to park your butt than poolside at a family resort on a hot summer day in the U.S.. There are so many people falling out, bulging, protruding, and pouring over the sides of the little clothing they have on that it's enough to make a person just stop eating for a month. Not that I will.

Looking around it doesn't take long to see where America's obesity problem comes from: Watching big parents graze and feed their 2 and 3 year olds from bags of chips and snack mix, you start to get the picture. Watching plus size men and women walk around in the pool with their big aluminum bottles of Bud and Miller Light in hand, you start to get the picture. Watching people sit around the pool eating oversized portions of sandwiches and wraps mid-afternoon, you start to get the picture. It doesn't take long to realize that America's obesity problem is not a "glandular disorder."

I have no idea how this epidemic of overeating and under-exercising is ever going to be eliminated-- let alone get under control. I can't imagine how the amount of money that is made making people fat and lazy will ever be exceeded by making people trim and fit. And that, unfortunately, is the key. As long as industry profits and advertising link overeating, high fat food and snacks, soft drinks, and alcohol beverages to personal success, happiness, and relaxation, all the FDA and President's Council on Physical Fitness public service and educational efforts are about as useless as a plate of carrots and celery at a swim-up bar.

Having a healthy and active lifestyle-- and by that I mean one where you eat well and burn a lot of calories every day-- is not easy. It requires you have the time to burn those calories and it requires you take-in the right kind of calories in the first place. It takes an effort. Actually, as things stand, to some degree it takes money as well. Sitting around a family resort pool on a hot summer afternoon I see the money, I just don't see the effort. I'd like to think I'm just seeing people on vacation eating and drinking a carefree vacationer's diet.  The bodies of evidence suggests otherwise.

Rent vs. Own

Things could be worse.

Now that we've sold our vacation spot in Arizona were are free to travel the world. Or, at least the United States on those precious vacation days each year. We think we've made the right choice.

Since we've sold we are actually spending the last couple of days of the week in a hotel. The Westin Kierland in Scottsdale is a great place for adults and kids and we have this great suite. I am reminded, however, of the difference between renting and owning as I sit here working on my laptop. In the condo I could get up in the middle of the night, grab a drink, sit in the living room and work on my computer at a counter or on the couch. There's a living room here but Ev's sleeping on the pull-out. There's a fridge here, but that's also adjacent to where Ev's sleeping. There's a desk here, but that's next to the bed where Tam's sleeping.

I'm reminded of all this while I sit here with this laptop computer on my lap. On a dressing stool. In the bathroom. Perhaps if I were to fill the tub, climb in, light a cigar, and pour a glass of good scotch on the rocks I would feel better about it-- or at least more appropriate. That might work if I were writing a great war novel a'la Hemingway. But I don't smoke cigars. Or drink scotch. And I hate war.

Rent vs. own?? I'll have to give that one a little more thought.

Minivan Dreams

On my short list of cars I like is the minivan. I'm one of 63 males in the United States who likes minivans. They look dorky, they don't come close to the style of a nice fat 1972 Ford Country Squire wagon-- the mom car of my youth-- but the minivan is comfortable, uber practical, and hauls practically anything in comfort. So, hey, I'm out. I like minivans.

When it was time to look for a new car a few months back I tried for the umpteenth time to talk Tam into letting me look at one. She was subtle in her opposition, something like "Do you really want to live alone?" Same thing my daughter had told me years earlier.  As we would drive around I would point out the different minivans on the road to which Tam would say, "You really do want to live alone, don't you?"

So here we are in Phoenix trying to get all of our stuff packed up and off to Fed Ex for shipment. (Which, by the way, is the only way to do it. Cheap and quick) So, when it came time to figure how we were going to get 4 large boxes-- and one small one-- to Fed Ex on Thursday, and 3 bike boxes over there on Friday, I had the answer in hand: Rent a minivan. And that, my friend, is how I came to find my wife behind the wheel Dodge Grand Caravan, ripping down the freeway with our guy in his booster seat, and 4 big boxes-- and one small-- with a smile on her face saying, "this is pretty nice."

Yes, it happened. It's too little too late but I may have cracked the window. I'm just a couple years away from my next purchase and I can't wait to remind her just how well she liked my minivan. I can dream, can't I? Hopefully I've made a lasting impression and next time I'll get my bus. Otherwise, I'm afraid by the time I get my minivan I'll have lost my license and need it wheelchair equipped!

Miss You

I miss writing in this spot each day. I have a million things to jot down. Unfortunately they all seem to be coming together at the same time. The same time as a million other things that have to get done.

This week we say adios to Phoenix; at least as home owners. It's not all bad. We bought at the right time and have actually made an old fashioned real estate profit in old fashioned real estate sales time. And, too, friends of mine like Larry can rest easy now that I won't be walking the streets of Phoenix anymore, out there where, some think, everyone carries a hand gun and you risk your life just landing at Sky Harbor. At least that's the take from one liberal Jewish guy from L.A.

As for me, I like Phoenix but don't love it. After this move we will probably resume our treks to Palm Springs. Certainly there is better deli in Palm Springs. And I can walk virtually anywhere I want to go and no one seems to have that bulge on their hip. And if I want to drive out in the desert and watch the sun come up, the mountains change color, a coyote take a stroll, and a train go by, I can do that as well and in just a few minutes. Phoenix is nice but it's too much like Orange County, if you know what I mean. That said, not many places do sun-up and sundown like Arizona. And the people we've met have been fabulous and friendly.

But, when that's all done, as my Mother would say: Ask me what's next. Summer's a busy time of year but this one's been ridiculous-- where's the guy with the truck for our car?? And the security people  just called to let us know the power is out in our Michigan house. Where's my personal assistant?? Where's the live-in help when you need them??? Blog? What blog??