letter aug 18

Dear Everyone

The weather finally warmed up enough to make it worthwhile to swim outside, which I did yesterday and Saturday. In fact, I biked to the pool (about 20 minutes with some dinky hills) on Sunday. Afterwards, we took the kids to see the new Batman movie, the Dark Knight. This movie was pretty good, even though I couldn’t always hear every word of the pretentious (and preposterous) dialogue. I don’t know if it is my hearing getting worse or the fault of Hollywood sound mixers. I’m sure that I have lost some of my high frequency ability, so has most of the aging boomer generation. Of course, Hollywood doesn’t care that much about my age group. One thing I kept thinking about (and Cindy will deservedly get mad at me) was how good Jasper would be as a Heath Ledger Joker look-alike for Halloween. The facial structure and wacky mannerisms are all there. Shades of Michael Myers! After dinner we went to a new Italian restaurant next to the movie theatre that shares housing with an off-track betting venue. It was a strange environment. The kids enjoyed watching harness racing while waiting for our meal. We had gelato for dessert.

Work has been so-so to negative. I have two attending pathologists who are constantly complaining about their work loads and trying to manipulate the system so they have less. This usually means dumping on the other complaining pathologist, so the two of them form some sort of teeter-totter. If they spent less time complaining and more time working they would find the day would go quicker. We are also losing some fairly essential staff people to other jobs, one is the head electron microscopy tech, and the other staff person knows most of the ins-and-outs of the autopsy service. Plus the fact that we have been down a day-time transcriptionist since February, and we don’t have adequate staffing on the weekends, and the administration is trying to figure out a new compensation plan for physicians…I just love this place these days.

We have been watching a lot of the Olympics. I don’t understand why Beach Volleyball qualifies as an Olympic sport, but it is fun to watch, although a little goes a long way. Jasper is jaded by Michael Phelps, and would hardly consent to watch any other swimming races. The synchronized diving was interesting. I found it hard to understand why one of the teams (Russian or German) had divers that twisted in opposite directions. I would have liked to see more, but alas I was at work.

Cindy has had her hands full with all three kids since Nicola came back from San Francisco on Monday – thanks Owen and Alison! School starts for Nikki on Wednesday, so things will get a little less crazy. Nikki spent the last week at a poetry seminar, although she missed a couple of days. The seminar ended with a poetry slam, and she got a book from the seminar leader. She’s looking forward to something similar this fall. Cindy took the kids to Great America on Saturday, leaving me with a blessed day alone. Jasper still won’t ride Raging Bull, but all three seemed to have had fun.

last weekend we went to yet another wedding, this time a 4th year resident, Kelly Hutchins (from Nevada of all places) who got married to a Chicago electrician. He is the guy that fixes the lines after bad storms. We went to a nice reception at the Galeria Marchetti, a little jewel of a place on West Erie http://www.galleriamarchetti.com/. They went to their honeymoon on St. Lucia, and came back with Dengue! Her husband was admitted to Loyola today!

Sorry, no pictures this week.

Love H.