Taking The Good With The Bad

It is early Saturday morning on 13 June, and I am propped up abed looking out at the wonders of the Miles River. Already this morning, a male/female duo of waterpersons has been plying the shallow waters of the cove in search of tasty crustaceans. She appears to be in charge of maneuvering their modest skiff, and she handles it with precision. They look to be in their late thirties, and he is shirtless in the morning sun. I can tell some of the details, as my inamorata keeps a set of field glasses here bedside to get a closer look at the wildlife that surrounds us, though I am more apt to use them to survey the humans who wander into my field of view. It is crab season here on the Eastern Shore, and I'll have morning visitors most days for the extent of the summer.

Morning waterpersons

It is a lovely day, and I have lovely plans. I will shortly rise from this comfy prop and make myself some breakfast before plodding off to a session with the acupunturist. I cannot tell for sure whether the relief of arthritis pain in my hands is more attributable to low carb/sugar (inflammation) dieting, or to the acupuncture, but as long as there is relief, I will not “mess with a streak". After I’ve been properly pierced, I will go for a two-hour walk at a brisk pace, something I’ve kept up two or three times a week since my trip to Crete. My friend Russell has inspired me. There is nothing else in my diary for the day, so all after breakfast, acupuncture, and walking is icing on the cake. The Kitten indicated marked indifference to my activities today, so I suspect she has a day of puttering around with her vegetation, bunnies, and watercolors.

There is a man in our town who is of some controversy. Apparently quite wealthy, he has purchased a number of buildings in our downtown and populated them with high-end businesses of his choosing. He has remade Easton’s downtown, and I am reliably informed that he did so in no small part because he wanted to have an interesting place for his friends to visit, a la Marie Antoinette and Petit Trianon. I am a big fan of his efforts, as he has brought my favorite restaurant in the world to my door, a centrally located coffee shop, a lovely bookstore, and of interest for this essay, a dessert shop that serves “high tea" on selected afternoons. I have not had high tea since our trip to Scotland a few years ago, so as part of her birthday haul, I gifted the Kitten (and me) with high tea yesterday afternoon. The tea experience was, as you might guess, lovely. I can do without tea, to be honest, but to play along I had a pot of Earl Grey whilst the Kitten had some “Blue Tea” concoction that delighted her so much that I need to secure her a stash. There were little finger sandwiches (“savory”) and tasty confections (including my favorites--scones with clotted cream), a right proper time it was.

As I said, this fellow has polarized the town a bit, with some comparing him to Mr. Potter from “It’s A Wonderful Life”. I don’t remember Mr. Potter bringing nice businesses to Potterville in George’s dream, but every place this modern day version opens, I tend to like.

I lay out these scenes of comfortable contentedness to you, gentle reader, to set up the back end of this scribbling, which is the looming suckitude of my Thursday colonoscopy. This will be my second, as my first was a keystone event of my 50th birthday summer. In advance, I wish to extend my deepest condolences to anyone who has lost a loved one to agues of the colon. I wish it upon no one, and I am not trying to be light with a heavy subject. I do believe however, that after the experience eleven summers ago, I considered the possibility of taking my chances and never having another again. Yet here I am, days before the Bataan Death March of fasting and seeping that is the 24 hours before the Edward II--like procedure, thinking about how much I despise this whole business. I suspect the Phoenicians gave us this process 3000 years ago, and in a world where a (mostly not) conscious computer can provide the lonely with companionship, I am staggered that some means other than this massive invasion of my undercarriage has not been developed to confidently diagnose calamities of the gastro-intestinal tract.

My inamorata will of course, provide me with the required transportation back and forth to the big city (Annapolis), and as the procedure is first thing, there may be an “if you're a good boy" trip to Cracker Barrel on the way home. So I got that goin' for me.

I wonder if we (as in the entire medical community) haven't gotten comfortable with an elaborate procedure that lines various pockets when some far less invasive procedure might do (or “do-do"). I know there are services where once can harvest samples of one's excrement and mail them for analysis, but the guild seems to frown upon this less invasive (and likely vastly less-profitable) test. My friend (AI) tells me that deaths from heart disease in the US outnumber those of colon cancer by 17 to one, yet we don't send cameras on spy missions internally unless there is some reason to do so. Are there no imaging technologies that can be applied here?

Gads! I just consulted AI and to my joy, was informed that progress is being made on a “virtual colonoscopy” which is a lot like a CT scan of the heart. BUT--you still have to do the prep day, and let's face it, the only redeeming thing about the colonoscopy is the propofol-fueled nap. More research indicates that the American Cancer Society has reached a consensus that routine screenings for average risk individuals (me) should stop at 75. So unless there is some continued progress, I've got this one, one at 70, and presumably a walk-off effort at 75.

Something to look forward to.

The World Cup

To say I am interested in the World Cup is to go a bit too far. In a couple of weeks, I will be MILDLY interested. And I’ll likely look in on the final. But I’m just not that into it. What I AM into is a genre of Tweet posted by mostly European football (soccer) fans who are encountering the splendor and majesty of this country for the first time. It really is something to behold. The world simply does not really understand how prosperous this country is. I LOVE the fact that per capita GDP in our poorest state (Mississippi) is higher than that of Great Britain and just about the same as that of Germany.

Take that.