I’m having a lazy Saturday. I don’t get a lot of those. Usually I have to dedicate it to production issues on a show or play major catch up with work but the combination of being between theatrical engagements coupled with the short work week due to Labor Day has led me to a day where I don’t have to plan my time around a whole series of ‘must accomplish’ tasks. There are a few on the list, but none of them has to be done before next week and I have little happening tomorrow besides church and a callback in the evening so those can be safely put off until tomorrow afternoon. The weather has calmed down from infernal to relatively pleasant midsummer so I may take myself out for a walk a bit later.
I like walking. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy traveling to Europe so much. European cities, at least the historic centers where one spends time as a tourist, were all developed when the chief mode of transportation was by foot (or the occasional horse and ox cart for heavier goods). The areas are compact, not devoted to the automobile and parking, and there’s always something interesting to look at in the shop windows. My pedometer shoots up when I’m on vacation from my usual 4-7,000 steps a day to something in the 15-25,000 step range. It’s a healthier way of living. You can see it in this country in people who live in those few urban centers developed prior to the 20th century and the automobile where the general population relies on public transportation and their own two feet. I read somewhere that life expectancy in Manhattan is several years longer than it is in the outer boroughs of New York. The difference being that Manhattanites tend to walk and those in the more suburban areas take their cars.
I leave on my next trip four weeks from yesterday. I’m getting all my ducks in a row regarding the paperwork, proof of Covid vaccination (no, I still don’t know when the next booster is going to be available – the last I heard was October sometime), making sure I have what I’m going to need in terms of travel supplies and putting my compression socks through the wash. I discovered several years ago that this latter was necessary for me on international flights, otherwise I get off the plane with 3+ pitting edema. My first stop is Krakow and then it’s down to Bratislava and up the Danube through Vienna before eventually ending up in Berlin. I looked at the itinerary and saw that the hotel I’m staying at in Berlin is the Adlon. That earned a major ‘Squee’ from me (and would from anyone who has been involved in as many productions of Cabaret as I have been.)
The major project of the next three weeks is to do the edits on the page proofs of Volume III and Volume the last of The Accident Plague Diaries so we can get it out this fall. It’s been a bit delayed due to life issues with my editor but there’s no huge hurry. In some ways, I’ll be glad to be done with the project and in others I’m wondering and worrying what will arise to fill that life gap. I’ll continue to write these pieces but now that I actually will have roughly 1,000 pages and 300,000 words out there in multiple award winning books, I feel a certain obligation to myself to come up with some new writing project that will build upon earlier success. I think I owe it to myself. But I’m not going to make any decisions nor begin anything until all three volumes of The Accidental Plague Diaries are out there. If any of you have an organization that wants to sponsor a reading or a connection with a bookstore that would like me to do a reading/signing, let me know.
So where are we with Covid? It’s causing a significant impact in the local hospitals at the moment, not because the wards are filling up with people dying of lung complications. Admissions, while definitely up over what they were earlier in the summer, are still way below previous surge numbers. The issue is that it’s becoming so widespread that a significant percentage of staff are out on quarantine on any particular day making it difficult to provide adequate nursing and other ancillary services. The physicians aren’t exempt. It’s been running through the residents like crazy the last few weeks. I haven’t gotten it this time around – at least to my knowledge. I suppose it’s possible I’ve had a subclinical case without enough issues to cause me to pause and test myself. Both times I’ve had it, I’ve known I’ve had it with severe symptoms for a day or two and I have had nothing like that although I have had an occasional drippy nose or irritated GI tract.
Looking through my usual Covid news sources, the news is mixed. On the down side, numbers are definitely up nationally and waste water surveillance and other public health measures show a rise of new variants, especially BA.2.86. On the up side, morbidity and mortality numbers, while up from their nadir, are not surging forward as they have in the past suggesting that the combination of vaccines and native infections with antibodies are holding the line. The new variants all remain omicron sub-lineages. There hasn’t been a radical mutation away from that yet. Preliminary data shows that the new vaccine formulations for the booster will be effective against them and that Paxlovid therapy is still working. Big sigh of relief. I don’t believe for a minute that there won’t be some sort of significant new strain coming down the pike in the next year or so and I hope it’s not something with a particularly nasty surprise up its sleeve.
Next task is to call my sister and tell her to get the cover art for Volume III to my editor/publisher. It’s the same character, but in a very different mien, looking a bit how I feel when I contemplate the state of Geriatrics both locally and nationally. I had my annual review yesterday. You will all be happy to know I will continue to be employed next year. My checking account will be happy.
Life, The Universe, and Everything 