It’s the Saturday of the four day Thanksgiving weekend. According to my bedroom clock, the time is now five minutes past kickoff of the 2025 Iron Bowl between Alabama and Auburn. Most of the state will be glued to their TVs for the next few hours letting out occasional whoops of joy or howls of execration; I could care less. If I had a date, tonight would be the night I’d try that new restaurant that’s impossible to get a reservation for but I don’t so I’m enjoying a cocktail, a rewatch of Stranger Things in preparation for the new season, and the sounds of Liszt drifting in from the piano as my friend continues his diligent practice. He’s a trained pianist, does not own one, so I’m letting him come over and practice on Tommy’s grand. I think he’d like that.
I’m having a fairly quiet long weekend after the craziness of the Soulfood rehearsal schedule and before the craziness of the Miracle on 34th Street rehearsal schedule begins. We’re putting that one up in about ten days. Fortunately, I’m only in one scene with no blocking and a grand total of thirteen lines. I think I’ll make it. So far, without too much taxing of brain or body. I’ve managed to catch up on all my patient care work, write the letters of recommendation for fellow facultys’ promotional packets that I had been putting off, finished up a legal case, done my holiday shopping for the family, assembled my annual gift basket for shippping to Seattle, and started on some major and overdue house cleaning/reorganization. I’ve been in this space for over five years now. It’s time to get rid of stuff I moved in which I haven’t touched since and am unlikely to need in the near future. THis is being pushed by my losing of my academic office as I move towards retirement. Much of what is in there is hopelessly out of date and needs to hit the dumpster but there are some things which will be helpful if I continue writing and some consultancy so I have to find a home for them here.
It’s difficult to get a read on public health issues these days due to a complete lack of transparency on the part of the current administration and a general destruction of the means by which science has been diseminated both to the scientific community and the public at large. There are any number of respiratory viruses running around Birmingham at the moment. The majority are the cruds. Flu and Covid are out there but the numbers appear to be relatively low. Keep those hands washed.
On the other hand all of the other things in DC are also in their usual disastrous state. We have one cabinet member revealed to have given verbal orders to commit murder. We have another cabinet member revealed to have directly disobeyed the orders of a federal judge. We appear to be about to invade Venezuela for no discernable reason other than our president doesn’t like their president. The structure the East Wing of the White House was torn down for has no final design as the president’s expectations are unrealistic. A shooting in DC which leaves so many unanswered questions is rapidly being used for even more immigrant bashing, and in such a rapid and well ordered way that it’s clear they had the plans developed and just needed the pretext.
Those who live and die by the gridiron – have fun tonight and may somebody win. My college football career reached it’s zenith in 1982 when I was in the stands at the Stanford/Cal game that ended with the famous band play and trombone tackle. It will never be equalled so I figure why waste a lot of time going to less memorable games?
Life, The Universe, and Everything 