Delores By Constantine Gochis

A Dad story. You know, my father was a very good writer. He should have been officially published. He should I think have been vaguely famous as a writer.  But there you are, sometimes things don't happen that should. Actually, in this world, mostly things don't happen that should, and things happen all too often that shouldn't. I attribute that to the consequences of Original Sin. But I digress.

DELORES

"Do you love me, really?"  It is a question I hear from her--more often, now. Always I assure her, sometimes with words, sometimes with a kiss, fumbling ways men attempt to allay female distress.  I take her in my arms and hold her tight, and glory in the sinuous loveliness of her body against mine, as it was then, long ago and I think, to tell the truth--not that I don't love her--but that I love her more, that I knew her in a different incarnation. She lived in another time and place, and I felt then the way I feel now. I do not tell her where, when and with whom. Surely, she would not understand.

She persists. "Was there someone before me? Was she as pretty as I?"

I could tell her that she was. I could tell her that when we first me I thought that it was a miracle, that she had come back, so remarkable was the resemblance, that it really was Delores who had returned to me after all these years.  But I won't tell.  I simply hold her close and stroke her long black hair.  She is quiescent. 

I feel a tremor of fear. Women sense things. The dread overwhelms me that she knows. I fear that somehow I will lose her for a second time.

But for now, she is asleep.  I lie awake and remember Delores. 

It is a name that has its origins in sadness, and, as it happens it was a time of joy sundered suddenly and turned to sadness.

I saw her first in a Florentine night club that was called, Il Pozzo di Beatrice, The Wall of Beatrice.  She sat alone at a table as if waiting for someone. She was dark haired. More correctly, her tresses were long, ebony. She was dressed elegantly, also in dark shades. A tall glass rested on the table, which she sipped from time to time.  There were no other uniformed men in the establishment.  Like she, the other guests seemed too well caparisoned, too well fed and clothed to be victims of war.

When it became clear the one she expected was not coming, I approached her table and addressed her in my limited Italian. "Are you waiting for someone?"

"For my husband," she said.  My expectations were shattered, but she smiled and told me she had been waiting for him for several years.  She noticed my consternation, laughed and waved me to the empty seat. She continued, "He was reported missing at El Alamein. We used to come here often."  She smiled and looked at me with amusement out of two very wide set blue eyes.  It was at that moment I fell in love.

There is no new story here. We danced in perfect harmony.  We walked together over the old Roman Bridge. We sipped Lacrima Christi on the Fiesole Hill overlooking the Duomo, the domed Cathedral, from the hills where Boccaccio regaled his friends with bawdy stories hundreds of years ago. We took a place abutting the Palazzo Vecchio, the Old Palace, where Michelangelo's David stood. We were in love, in our sanctuary, in the year the war ended, and the whole world was external to our love.

She asked me frequently if I truly loved her, whether she was my first love and would I come back to Italy for her. I promised always that I would.

One day she was gone. She left a note with a single phrase. "I love you but I must go." No explanation, just a sudden departure and inexplicable cruelty. I was distraught. At this point I blotted the memory from my mind and I turned and looked toward Elsa, who had been sleeping next to me.

She was awake. I was unaware she had been watching me for some time.  She looked at me with her very wide set blue eyes. A tear made its way downward. "You were thinking of her!" she exclaimed.

I took her in my arms. She sobbed, "I felt you had gone away somewhere.  It was like a bad dream. Don't ever leave me again, not even in memory!"

I pressed her sinuous body against mine and caressed the jet black hair that fell disordered against my breast, and kissed away the tear.

"There is no her, no yesterday," I assured. "There is only one love in my life."  

I did not say her name.

Memories 2

This little endeavor of posting memories via photos isn't necessarily going to be neat or horribly organized or chronological. It will be kind of like Quantum Leap, you know, that TV show where a scientist goes from place to place within his own lifetime. His job is to help make history better. I really don't have a job here, just memorializing my and other lives. So here is the next in the series. Hopefully I won't exhaust myself with going through and scanning the photographs and give up this little project, along with the other I have been doing sporadically, posting some of my late father's short short stories. These two things alone could keep me busy for the rest of my life, and yep I do get distracted. So, we shall see. 

Today, I shall begin with cats. I have had a large number of them in my life. Here are two of them, Hollywood, and Trouble. Hollywood is the one whose face is being pushed by Trouble in the upper left. Trouble is the one on the window and the stool. Hollywood is the one on the piano bench. I got Hollywood shortly after I moved to Los Angeles in 1981. I had a bed I got at Ortho I think for 200 bucks. I had a small TV. I had my upright piano shipped from New York, which my parents bought in 1963. My uncle Steve had loaned me some motley furniture from his garage, a child's desk on which I studied for the California Bar, and a faux leopard chair that had rollers on it which I enjoyed on the bare in need of repair wood floors before I covered them with rugs. What I really needed was a cat! So off I went with another secretary at the law office I was working at (I worked as a secretary/paralegal until I passed the Bar in California) to Torrance to look at a litter of kittens. Hollywood was the one that climbed up my leg and so it was love immediately. He lived 18 years until 1999. Trouble came in 1989, appearing at my apartment door. I put up flyers to see if anyone owed her as she did have a flea collar, but no one came forward. She was with me until 2008. The two of them looked like siblings but they were not.

Above. My friend Carol at various moments in our friendship including her engagement to her now long time husband.  No doubt there will be more of her on these pages. The top left is Carol in Utah. The other photos are of her beloved Rosebud, a Springer Spaniel. The last two are of our mini trip to Coronado, sometime in the 1990s.

A variety. Photos of my college friend Len, my father, me (one in a kind of Piaf pose no?), and my Aunt Mary.

Gatherings also I think in the early 1990s with various Church friends and acquaintances and my late pastor. Several, Ken, Fr. Heany, Bill McKenna, Patrick Elliot (who became a priest), Daniel Donahue, Bill Parnassus, Gloria Haley Parnassus, Marie Whalen are long gone from our midst. A couple are still around, Donald and Pierre, and Fr. John.

Above, my brief enchantment with sailing. This was a day at Mission Bay with my friend Karen. After that I took lessons for a while down in Long Beach on a 12 or 14 footer without a keel. I learned to tie knots (can't remember one). I took my turn at the tiller. The other student who took his turn capsized us in Mother's Bay. I lost my shoes and my beeper. I was pulled into a motorboat, which by the way, is quite an undignified operation. I drove home without shoes, beeper or a change of clothes. The end of my sailing career, although later I did get a nice ride, with Karen, on a bigger version, that did have a keel, and when it heeled your butt nearly touched the water. 

Memories 1

Long time, no blog. I would have made that the title of this entry, the first for about wow! nearly four months. Lots went on in between, but my current preoccupation is the one I'm focusing on, for now at least, peripatetic soul I seem to be. So, you might ask, what's that?

Well, I've done a little of it before, but now I think I am going to be determined. I have lots of photos from before there was the cell phone and the cloud. And so, seems to me that in the interests of my latest project, paring down, as well as a small bit of familial and friend immortality in so far as such is available on earth, I should make a serious effort to put my photos on line. Will they be there in the year 2100? I am not sure human beings will be here then, or even in the next 20 years, so really, that isn't a big concern. I am just taking the shot. So, for today, a few that I have already downloaded. Do I think people will be interested in the faces of people, some of whom are already long gone, and the rest of us who aren't too far behind statistically speaking? I can only tell you that I find looking at photos of people and places fascinating, places I've never been and people I've never known. I am not unique so I'm guessing there will be people interested in the life of another in photos and memorabilia. So, here is the blog of today, Memories No. 1. I will try to tell you the background or context of each, thus providing a story along with the photos.

Four different shots of several different years. The one at the upper left is my father just after he returned home from World War II. It's one of my favorite pictures of him. I think he was in my mother's apartment she shared with her mother and sisters. He was always handsome but in this stage of his life he had a certain swashbuckling, movie star look, no? Cigarette in hand. You can see from the photo on the upper right that he lost little of his good looks. By this time, he was about 60 years old at an apartment near Fort Independence in the Bronx. My mother had already died, and it was just the two of us. He was wearing a smoking jacket, even then a bit of an anachronism. Besides him is his beloved mandolin. I still have that, at least for now. The photo in the lower left is circa 1979, at the reception for the first wedding of a childhood friend. My father was set up on a blind date around 1978 with this lovely lady, who though much younger than him, shared Greek heritage. She was, she remains, a joy. Their relationship did not work out, as I really wanted it to do, but they remained good friends until he died. She and I are still friends, years after my father's death. She ultimately left New York to be closer to her son. The picture on the lower right is my late mother, circa the late 1940s, in front of the Bronx Lebanon Hospital. She would die there several decades later.

I have few photographs where my father smiles. This is one, probably in the 1980s, or early 1990s. With me. I'm smiling too. 

This photo is just about faded. I was able to retrieve the facial features with the help of my phone's editing tools. These are my father's parents, George and Mary, probably in the late 1940s. My grandfather died before I was born.

My mother so much wanted to be a model. It didn't happen, alas. And she died too young. Here she is about 18.

In about 1992, I decided I wanted some decent pictures of myself to give to friends and family. A prideful enterprise I realize some 30 year later, but I really enjoyed the experience. There was a professional studio at the corner of Holloway and La Cienega at the time. Mostly they did aspiring actors. I might have been the first and only lawyer they ever had ask to do a photo shoot. I don't remember the man's last name but the photographer was the wonderful "Attila". I brought several outfits and I really did do the Vogue thing, making spontaneous poses as he shot a huge roll. I still have the proofs somewhere. When I find them no doubt I'll put them on here. Funny isn't it? I didn't think I looked good in those days. I never thought I did. So much the pity as life goes very fast and then you really don't look good. 

Anyway, I hope you who do stop by enjoy the photo play!

Discordant Sights and Sounds of a Declining Culture by Constantine Gochis

Time for a Dad piece! It's been a while. I get distracted. I get lazy. Today, waiting for a plumbing problem to be resolved (yet again) after just about a month, I had to wait around so an opportunity to read and write and post arose. I have still so much of Dad's writing that has not yet been posted. He alternated in his writing between little stories about his life, about philosophy, personal and otherwise, and political commentary that reflected his increasing distress and anger about the incapacity of our leaders, the domination of the Left over our culture, and the insanity of the destruction of Western Civilization to be replaced by an association of identities obsessed by all permutations of sexuality we are all expected not merely to tolerate (and that is hard enough) but to embrace and celebrate. 

This commentary/observational piece was written in about 2007, based on the references in it. That is 16 years ago. He thought it was bad, then. Even he, a keen observer of the cultural wars, could have no idea how bad it would get. I have softened some of his language. It is one of the paradoxes in the behavior of our censors that unvarnished expression is allowed for approved groups and individuals, but not for the unapproved or their opinions. Nothing my father wrote in an unvarnished way would be forbidden in say an Oscar show or movie script or streamed television show, or a Sam Smith performance, or on a whole bunch of other blogs, but since it critiques the direction of the society, it is suspect, and impermissible. WE shall see. 

                         DISCORDANT SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF A DECLINING CULTURE

Pee Wee Herman is back. I noticed his name on a list of programs scheduled for last night. I was pleased. He has come out from under the clouds of social opprobrium heaped on him for daring to engage in a particular activity in a theatre of bawdy exposure.  The children who loved his "family" comedic gyrations are now sufficiently indoctrinated to be compassionate about inconsequential matters of prurience. The National Education Association, and the socially correct elementary school teachers, have imbued them with the correctness of sexual mores, of gender preferences, of absentee fatherhood, multiple parents and test tube fertilization.  It is the millennium.

Youth can now aspire to greatness without fear of some pernicious accusation of wrongdoing, even unto that ultimate seat within the sacrosanct corridors of the Washington Dome, even within the Oval Office. There is nothing "wrong" in our thesaurus of heroic behavior to preclude this dream of youth.  And advanced concept of "playing doctor" is nothing more that youthful exuberance in the new rites of passage.

"Let the word go forth," to borrow a maxim from the sainted Arthurian heir to Camelot.

 "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," posited an ancient kill-joy. 

The United Nations invites an ambassador of the "new truth". It is an actress who has achieved film immortality merely by crossing and uncrossing her legs under the careful scrutiny of an affectionate camera. To be fair, she is reputed to have other qualifications. They say she is a member of MENSA. She was chosen for the international dissemination of the secular "Word" of the today generation. I admit, I doubt the high I.Q. was the precipitating reason for the invitation. 

The caring parent of maturating children should keep a supply of condoms, she says, not just a few secreted for private parental use, but several hundred for application to family purposes.

This cautionary measure is the apogee of an expression of parental love.

"Let's just say it," is the ubiquitous cry. If the kids are going to have a casual encounter, leave a supply near the exit.

If I am allowed a suggestions, why not include some in lunch boxes or back-packs.

It is good that the multi-colored condom is recommended as a decorative and practical addition to gifts from Santa. 

All this is not in vain.  Our educators, our public moralists are dedicated to the ancient Platonic good. 

An elementary school child asked to write an essay on forgiveness wrote the story of one brother who forgave the other for wrongs done to him. The teacher refused to allow him to read the story to the class. HE made the egregious error of calling the brothers, Esau and Jacob. His parents might have warned him that these names appear in the Bible, a grievous association, and given him a daily supply of condoms for protection from a less perilous chasm.

A very young child separated for the first time from her mother on her first day of school cried. She returned home tearfully that night to the comforting embrace of her mother who asked, "Why are you so sad?"

"I asked the teacher for a hug," she sobbed, "and she said, 'I can't do that'. I was bad. I must have been bad. I did something wrong. All the kids laughed."

Be of Good Heart No Matter How Bad the Service

I went to a major bank, the other day. It is rare that I go in person, for as most people, I have been trained to do most of my business online. But, occasionally, we are compelled to seek in person service, as I was on this occasion. 

It was the lunch hour, when the working stiff has a brief freedom to conduct personal affairs. I am a retired stiff, but I happened to join the working ones on what alas was a longish line. 

A concomitant reality to modern man being forced online for personal business is that brick and mortar locales have few service people to minister to flesh and blood customers. This includes large banks. 

I did have another appointment, but I was not in extremis when it came to my schedule. That was not the case with some of the others ahead of me. There were, however, only two tellers at six or so windows.

And there was one grandmotherly type employee whose entire job seemed to be to quell the anger of the understandably impatient consumers who had hoped to use part of their lunch hour for. . . .lunch. 

As a grumble erupted, this lady would engage and comfort and rationalize. 

Customer:                              "Don't you have more tellers?"

Grandmother employee:        "We have only three. One of them is at lunch. She has to eat lunch."

I am a barbarian, I know. I have many times been expected, and did, work through the official lunch hour, in order to take care of some emergency at my various jobs. The customer of whatever stripe came first. I realize that now there are rules, laws even, that prevent the exploitation of the employee in favor of the exploitation of the consumer. Yes, she has to eat lunch. She has to eat lunch during the lunch hour when bank customers come during their lunches. Makes absolute sense. 

Some on the line were not assuaged. But one man, visiting from Australia, and at the very front of the line, was completely on board with the need for delay and the limits of having tellers at the teller windows. 

He became the example of goodness which shamed the disgruntled. Alas, I remained on the side of the disgruntled.

Grandmother Employee: (to Australian gentleman) "You have a good heart. It is important to have a good heart."

I agreed. It is important to have a good heart. But, I was experiencing cognitive dissonance. Was it a failure of a good heart to expect that a major bank, for that matter, any business in which the consumer pays for a service, and where, as in the case of a bank, the business is in it for profit, to provide decent, timely service?  

A woman came in behind me. She went directly to Grandmother Employee as soon as she saw the line and asked if she could just leave the deposit she had. She had another appointment elsewhere. It sounded urgent.

Grandmother Employee:  "Yes, but then you won't get a receipt."

The woman thought better of her shortcut, and joined me on the line. 

As more people entered and saw the line, and Grandmother Employee praised them on their anticipated good hearts, I decided to ask her to consider the incongruity of her expectation. If I had been in a particular rush, I would probably not have been calm or considered in my interaction, but I wasn't in a rush and could be thoughtful and, well, more or less of good heart.

I said that I appreciated her effort with all of us, and she clearly wasn't responsible for the staffing issues at the bank, but perhaps she could pass on to the management (hope springs eternal indeed) that having only two tellers and one at lunch at a time when it is most likely other working people will need the bank was illogical, and not the good service that we are always expected to agree occurred in those ubiquitous surveys. For example, I said, while indeed all employees needed lunch, perhaps they could stagger AFTER high noon, say at 1 p.m. when likely there would be fewer customers.

Grandmother Employee thanked me for my comment. She did not say that she would pass it on. I really didn't expect that she would. 

The lady behind me, apparently no longer concerned about her appointment which had caused her to ask that her deposit be taken by Grandmother Employee, regaled me with her empathy for the system, and how, for example, when she had to wait places she would bring a book along. I didn't ask her if she really had an appointment she needed to go to when she asked Grandmother Employee to take her deposit, thus, attempting to bypass all of us waiting on line. My guess is that the appointment did not exist, because she was apparently content now to wait with us. 

I felt anger rising in me that the now patient customer saw no problem with outright bad service and her solution was that in its presence a good book was a solution. 

Fortunately, few people ahead of me had complicated issues (not always the case as you know at a bank) and I made it to the front. "Nice talking to you," I said to the lady behind me. That wasn't exactly true, but I was trying to be of good heart.

John Steed in the Fairfax District?

 

I guess it is that the news of the nation and the world is so bad that I have taken refuge in simpler times. Well, they didn't seen simple AT the time, but then isn't that the way of the world? It can always get worse. I have been streaming "The Avengers", with the late Patrick Macnee, especially the ones with the late Diana Rigg as "Emma Peel".  And I have found myself not merely calmed but delighted. The charm. The dialog. The nuance. The deft comedy.  The apolitical banter. And, of course, the beauty of two well dressed human beings at the height of their health and fame. 

I got to see Mr. Macnee on Broadway some years after the original series came to an end, in the above titled show, "Sleuth". That was about 1976. But. I got to see him again, informally. I think. I am pretty sure it was him. Actually I am nearly positive. But it was far from 3 Stable Mews in the City of London. where Steed resided. 

It was on, I think, the 300 block of either Genesee Avenue or Ogden Avenue, or was it N. Orange Grove, in the Fairfax District, Los Angeles, California?

I used to live in that neighborhood and one day, spring or summer it was circa the mid-1980s, as it was a warmish day, I spied a man of about six foot two, with a still thick head of well crafted hair, wearing a summer like open safari jacket. And carrying what looked like the Los Angeles Times. Clearly he did not live in the neighborhood, a nice but not affluent one, so did my eyes deceive me? This was a casual Steed. No bespoke suit. No umbrella. No bowler hat. No. No. No. I knew the man's walk. After all, how many episodes had I, even by then, seen of him in the eponymous series, and several times? He had a very particular broad confident stride. But I needed to get closer to see him, to be sure. At least a half a block closer. 

I guess it would not have been as surprising to see him on a Los Angeles Street, or even in the United States, if I had then known what I know now, that Patrick Macnee had already long been a resident of the States, more particularly, Palm Springs.  In fact, he became a citizen in 1959, before, I think, the arrival of the first iteration of the original series, with Ian Hendry. But then, in 1986, he was to me the quintessential Englishman appearing as if by magic in my diverse, sometimes scruffy-ish neighborhood. 

It was definitely him, the incongruity of his location notwithstanding. Emma Peel's John Steed, my John Steed, as though he was middle aged even when he filmed the show, and I was but a pre-pubescent, then pubescent teenager, I found him a romantic idol. A man's man with style. Of course, and who didn't, I wanted to be Emma Peel. She was beautiful, educated, strong. And looked great in a cat suit, which I never would even try. 

I had to restrain every fiber of my being, not to cut into a run to get closer, and maybe, maybe, say something. Like "Hello, Mr. Macnee, whatever are you doing on this little Los Angeles street?" That would be idiotic. "I'm a fan", also seemed uncreative. I didn't want to be one of those unseemly sorts and so, I contented myself with trying to watch what might be his destination.

It's been so long, and I can't rely on my memory any longer, but I thought I had read that his daughter, who is maybe a year or two older than I am, was at the time, living in my neighborhood. Jenny, I think. 

At one point, I seem to recall having found the actual building, a typical four unit one. I hoped that perhaps Mr. Macnee might be about once again to see her. But it was not to be.

Thinking of that passing moment made me smile this week. I thought I'd share it with you.

A Cool Idea to Consider: "I Object!" Today's saga.

Kudos and gratitude where they ought to go, and that is to my long time friend Andrew. During a celebratory birthday dinner for another long time friend the other evening, he suggested that, if I had time, he thought of another podcast I could do. The one I do now is about being an Ordinary Catholic in these, quite possibly it feels like, last days. But this one would be purely secular and fun by commentary and humor filled (hopefully) observation on the things that drive me crazy, likely some of the things that drive you crazy too. Things to which in the course of any day, if I were feeling bold and if I thought anybody would listen to me in the first instance, I would shout "I Object!" He even gave me a possible title for the podcast and boy would it be easy to get guests, the first two being the aforementioned two friends. 

In that today I experienced an interaction that would make a perfect several episodes related to the medical care system. 

As I am sure I wrote around 2019, when it happened, I had a stent placed in one of the arteries of my heart, which was, I was later told, though I sure did not realize it, 99 percent blocked. I am effusive and shall always be effusive about the diagnostic skill of my internist, whose speciality is cardiology.

I like him, but I hardly see him, and each year it gets less and less, and with longer and longer lead times. It used to be that I would see him for an appointment, albeit briefly, before the tests, after a nurse did the obligatory blood pressure, inquired about your medications and vitamins, duly, but never entirely entered correctly into the computer, and about any concerns. He would then come in, energetic as always, so friendly and charming that I could never burden him with my dislike of how medical offices are run, and do another obligatory blood pressure, inquire about my medications and vitamins, still never entirely entered correctly into the computer, and about any concerns. Then he'd be gone and say he'd see me after all the tests for a summary of findings, which usually I have already seen on the site for patients where all your history and results reside. He'd ask me if I had up to date prescriptions, interpret what was on the personal medical bulletin board, which I have gotten pretty good at doing myself, and tell me to make an appointment for the next year for the same tests. 

Now, I don't know what happened in 2021, maybe the scheduler wasn't at her desk, so the appointments were not made. We were still in Covid mode. I admit, I would have been happy to let 2022's visitation lapse, as medical offices continue to require masks and I have heard that this is a forever thing, which for me, is a reason not to go. It increases my anxiety along with making it, as I said what, three years ago, nearly, impossible to breathe. There is nothing like having potentially life altering tests, often in small spaces, and having to wear a mask besides. Plus, as you know I have never believed that the masking prevented or prevents the virus or any virus from doing its dirty work, while masking creates all sorts of other medical issues that, I am certain, we will her about, from the late night ads on your streaming service, in a few years. That's not including the psychological issues. I know, my opinion, though perhaps not in the minority, is verboten or mocked, among the current intelligentsias in power. 

I was hoping October, and November would pass without the summons, or as was most likely, a refusal to renew my medications unless I got on the medical people mover once again. Yes, I know, doctors are required to check on the patients to whom they give prescriptions. And this time, I wouldn't have previously set appointments. Now, in the past, I was able to get two or three of the tests of the four on the same day. But that ship has sailed. Today I was told that the insurance companies don't like it when that is requested. But I seem to recall and I could be wrong, in which case I will happily delete this observation, that if a patient pays this $500.00 concierge like fee every year, things like appointments and paperwork somehow can be done more . . . .efficiently and conveniently for the patient. But this year, when I called I was told that the doctor was fully booked (now this is like October or November) until February, this month, this year. So, the doctor is booked and I am required to come in. Ok.

Ah, the solution. I would see the physician assistant. That person could renew my prescriptions. Now while I respect those who become professionals like paralegals and physician assistants, and I also admire the techs who do all the tests but can't share anything when they perform them on you, I do not like an assembly line system for this particular process. It creates, well, deep suspicion about whether the good of the patient is truly the goal or just milking the insurance. It's everywhere. When you get to a certain age and you have Facebook, suddenly all these click bait ads come up telling you you should get tested for, Psoriatic Arthritis, Colon cancer, melanoma, breast cancer, dementia, ovarian cancer, tardive dyskinesia, sleep apnea, osteoporosis, and the list goes on and on. If I were to check on all of these things in simple sequence, my days would be filled with doctor, um, physician assistant, technician appointments, which is what was only beginning when my father was being treated for his bladder cancer over 15 years ago. Up to here he had survived heart issues including a quadruple bypass.  He had survived well under the less technological conditions circa 1989. Then, suddenly in the shiny modern millenium tests showed he had kidney issues, and he was on another conveyor belt, stents for issues he didn't think and I didn't think he had, and then finally death by sepsis. Despite what his death certificate said, the primary cause of death was not any of the things for which he was constantly going to the doctor. It was a preventable sepsis. I have a whole entry on that back in one of the earlier iterations of this blog back in 2008. 

I want to be reasonable about my health but I do not want to be tested for every possible thing a person of my age could have. That's not life. That's insanity. And maybe that's why this last interlude is bothering me, because I see the writing on the wall. And the part of me that doubts worries "what if I don't get on the people mover and something happens and I get sick". They would say and I would probably agree with "them" whoever they are, that I only had myself to blame. But then, will all of this stop me from dying? It's as if the preventative seeks to find something (early, they say), but the end result? The statistical life expectancy is going down. Shouldn't all this prevention make it go up, like, a lot?

So, in November, I think, I saw the physician assistant. Very nice. Took that blood pressure, asked me the questions, had me provide the proverbial urine sample, took my blood for cholesterol and other potential dangers. I did get one of those emails on the link and it was from my doctor himself, that my cholesterol was great, and that included a terrifically low bad cholesterol. And up to today, I have had three of the four other tests. I had one this very day. I have to go back on Wednesday for the final one, which could easily have been done today--but for that nasty insurance issue, where they decide what I need and when I need it. I guess a test is only considered necessary and to be paid by the gods of insurance if it is done on separate days, not on the same or consecutive days. 

My appointment with the doctor was made back before Christmas for next week. But in the meantime, thing have happened that made it so that I could not go that day. Two things intervened. I held my breath after I had my third test today (and I assume the prior two tests did not show any problem as I never got a note on my e mail bulletin board), and went back up to the front desk. There are hierarchies in these offices. Only X can do one specific thing and you must go to Y for this other.  I was sent to Y. Y was a lovely lady, but I could tell, it was a bad bad thing that I had to cancel one of the five appointments made in October or November 2022. This appointment is with the actual doctor, the one where he takes my blood pressure and asks me all the questions I have already been asked and tells me to come back next year. It's considered I was told "my annual" exam, although no examination to my observation is actually ever done. The tests, the blood work, the urine samples, those were done. Or will be as of this week. I have had a several month annual examination. I sort of noted that without the detail. Suspicions about the system, because it is the same mostly everywhere, rose again. She looks and looks and says that there is nothing with the doctor until. . . . November 2023. That would be a year after I began my "annual" exam. I did not get angry, which is lately a default condition in dealing with pretty much anything in the world. I did not yell, "I Object" because it would only make me look like a crazy old lady. He told me last time we actually saw one another that he hasn't been taking on new patients. So why so long? I didn't ask.  Could we do a video thing? After all, it was just to review the findings (and I could do without the blood pressure being taken yet again no?) He doesn't do those. So I decided to go super submissive, and say well, I understand, just a scheduling thing--though I clearly was considered the culprit, the cause of trouble, the intractable patient who just couldn't stay on the permissible track. And I really don't care if I actually see him at this juncture, except to say hi and how are you doing? As I said, he's a nice guy. A talented guy. That's when I did suggest that all these appointments be in the same general time period, and was told that it was that insurance thing. Then the name of Z came up. I am not crazy about Z, and I suspect Z is not crazy about me because I have been ruffled in some of our interactions on ye e-mail bulletin board link thing I have to log into any time I want to "talk" to any of the guards at the gate. I have expressed some. . . .objections. . .to her, which she has roundly ignored. She reminds me of when I was working as an attorney and if you wanted any kind of break, you had to be friendly, downright submissive indeed, to the non-lawyer clerk of the court. Whether they let you file something during lunch, or whatever was the crisis you were having for your client, it was that clerk who decided. It was much like Hollywood had to do when dealing with Hedda Hopper or Louella Parsons. Grovel.  Y said "I'll have to talk to Z". Great. And since I wasn't looking to actually see my doctor any longer I didn't actually have to grovel at that moment. Not merely great. But wonderful. Still, I left wondering how it is I am, or am I, going to stay off the people mover that will send me over the medical cliff? The odds are not looking good. I have accompanied quite a few people ahead of me on the belt and it always looks the same. Yeah, yeah, I really do OBJECT! As a Catholic (if you listen to my podcast) I surely can wax philosophical and vaguely theological on the reality of suffering, and challenges, and indifference as we go through life, and the purpose in the road to salvation, and I mean it when I seek to endure, persist, always, well learning to be always, in prayer, but I think it's ok to object because none of this was the original plan. I can object and endure and believe and hope all at once. Or in sequence, object one day, endure another and believe another. And maybe a little humor at the absurdity of it all can help in that endurance. 

I had just gotten down the block, across the street, and into the Beverly Hills Garage I like, that isn't too expensive (usually a trip to a doctor means a 20 dollar parking cost), and was just about to get into my car, when Z called. She said, "The best I can do is April 4 at 10:30?" I did not say, "But I thought there was absolutely nothing available until November 2023?" 

So, let me figure. If I see him in April 2023, for my imprimaturial visit, sealing all those tests, and assuming all is well, can I push out the next series of examinations until next April?

Yeah. Doing a podcast about the things I object to--bet you object to a bunch of the same things too--sounds like a cool idea to consider. And think of the kvetching me and my friends can do, an endless pool of things that make no sense to discuss.