Monday
El Milagro: Here I am at 1:15 and I get a chair in the front of the store. Jason the Tech sticks me today with his customary careful conversation; “Is that feeling okay?” and “How’s that feel?”. This kind of patient concern and questioning is what we should all expect from our techs, I think. I settle in to reading the new Texas Monthly and listening to NPR. In the news, Oscar Peterson died* yesterday and so we lose an
other of the jazz greats. According to The Australian, “To jazz pianists, Peterson exemplified a level of virtuosity encountered only once before in the history of the instrument: in the work of an earlier piano god, Art Tatum, whose particular brand of pyrotechnics also proved inimitable.” I remember my introduction to Peterson, through Mary Lou Parker, who weathered the winter winds of Chicago to hear jazz. Mary Lou was passionate about jazz and it rubbed off; Peterson being one of the ones who, when I hear today, make me think of Mary Lou. In the Texas Monthly the highlight is the Bum Steer awards, although none of them stand out for highlighting here. I only read about half before I decide to take a snooze (I stayed up until about 3 am last night after Liz’s birthday dinner to Shoreline Grill, making holiday cookies, and then got up at 9 and drove our Christmas gift bag down to Dad in San Antonio). I doze but not well and finally get up and cruise the channels, landing on an old movie on TV; The Man Who Came To Dinner, with Bette Davis and Ann Sheridan. This movie is reminiscent of Friday late night movies I watched through my formative years; giving me a sense that my life wasn’t real and that real life only happened on the silver screen. “Acting” stands out in this movie, as do the wacky antics of Jimmy Durante.
Amanda came by, all dressed in pink, and gently de-cannulates me as the movie is ending. She is excited about Christmas and we swap Merry’s and holiday wishes. Today as all the patients are leaving they yell out Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. I weigh out and rush out into the cold to drive home quickly and get ready to go to Michele and Michael’s Christmas Eve party.
Notes: In at 77.6 and out at 74.8 kgs.
* Oscar Peterson, jazz piano god, dies. Retrieved online from the Australian, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22970953-2703,00.html
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