Have I ever mentioned that I’m an idiot? If I weren’t an idiot I’d know the answer. For weeks I’ve been looking forward to seeing Red Molly at City Winery on Labor Day and taking Katherine for her birthday. I put it on my calendar months ago. I told Sasha Papernik and Justin Poindexter aka Our Band that I couldn’t see them and David Amram as I was already seeing Red Molly. Late yesterday afternoon I looked at Instagram and saw a post by Red Molly saying how they are playing in Molly’s home town in Connecticut. I checked on their website. They are playing City Winery on Thursday. How did I do that? Luckily, I found out in time to tell Katherine. It was not in time to make it to see Our Band. Good thing Katherine can make it Thursday, she’s coming straight from a softball game. I have no fear, she will still look fabulous. I love that she could joke about it.
Because of that I spent the entire Labor Day weekend at home and alone. I’m super busy this week so I’ll look at it as a chance to rest up before seeing Richard Thompson, Red Molly, the Hudson West Folk Festival, and Deni Bonet.
We interrupt this blog for a late-breaking idiot story. I told you I had the date for Red Molly wrong. This led to another problem as I scheduled an MRI for that evening. When I went to cancel just now, I couldn’t find any of the information the referring physician gave me including the phone number. I also can’t find the names of the Gastroenterologists he referred me to. I just got off the phone with the hospital. They have no new appointments available for GI until February! I put in a call to my rheumatologist asking him what to do. I had to leave a message. I changed the MRI appointment, that went easier than I expected. I’m going a week from Wednesday.
I’m hearing my therapists voice telling me to not focus on the idiot part but on that I did something about it. She also told me to tell you. Much better than the other voices in my head. They don’t tell me to do anything crazy, they tell me to eat. That’s why I gained weight. I’m not listening to them now. I’m will hold off eating until I finish writing this.
I’m going to keep this short today. I spent the morning taking care of the medical issues and I have to go to PT this afternoon. I need to write the second “You Probably Haven’t Heard” edition of Wise Madness ages after the first. It was supposed to be a regular feature. I can’t do it now as it takes too much preparation. Maybe I’ll do it tomorrow.
Instead I’m going to write a tiny bit about two related things. The first is John McCain. When someone important dies people talk and write about them. McCain attracted that when he was alive. There are two paths followed, hagiography and demonization. McCain was not a saint and he was not a devil, he was a human being with virtues and flaws as do we all. He was never as much a maverick as his reputation. For the most part he voted with his party. He voted for the terrible tax bill that included inequities that he had previously derided. That doesn’t take the credit away from voting against repealing the ACA. He was hawkish on foreign policy, that does not make him a war criminal as I’ve seen some of my friends say. He fought for campaign finance reform but he chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Overall, he was a politician I opposed but could still respect. He was not like Trump, or George W. Bush. He was thoughtful and intelligent. He gave others respect. He’s what the opposition should be.
Wise Madness 