Recent Doings

New Doctor: Getting Acquainted & Physical Exam.
My "primary care physician" of the past 20 or so years retired last fall. He had been in partnership with another doctor, whom I decided to try before searching for anyone else. My first appointment with the new doc was on April 15. The nurse took my blood pressure etc. and then told me take of all my clothes and put on a johnny and left the examining room. Eventually the doctor came in, asked some questions and began the physical exam. He had me lower the johnny to my waist while he listened with the stethoscope, then to my groin to check for hernias, then to my thighs while he checked for testicular cancer. I was surprised at how light his touch was; I'd have thought that more pressure would have been needed to detect anything. He brought the johnny back to cover my genitals. Then there was some discussion during which I put my arms back into the sleeves and brought it back to my shoulders. Finally, there was the check of my prostate, which he did by having me lie on my side on the examining table. I somehow didn't feel it as much as when it's done with feet on the floor and bending over the table.

We talked about colonoscopies, Vitamin D supplements, and pneumonia vaccine. He was pretty clear that I needed the Vitamin D, and gave good reasons for the others. What I really liked was that he didn't  order me to do things. The way he put things recognized that I'm the one in charge of my health care decisions. So I'm quite satisfied with him.

I had been procrastinating on the pneumonia vaccine and decided to have the shot while I was there. The nurse administered it after he was through and I had put my clothes back on. My upper arm was sore until Friday.

I noticed that he had a faint Irish accent. Turns out he's from Dublin, but has been here so long that it's very faint except when he's with other Irish people or has had a few beers.


Play at Arts Emerson: Trojan Women.
On Wednesday, April 17, I went to Boston to see an adaptation of the play by Euripides. There's a pretty good summary in the Globe's review. I liked it better than "Neva," which I had seen a couple of weeks earlier. This play not only evoked some of the horror of war, but also showed the complexity of the chain of causation: was the fall of Troy the fault of Priam and Hecuba for allowing Helen to remain, rather than giving her back to Menelaus; Helen, for leaving Menelaus and going to Troy with Paris; Paris for seducing Helen; Aphrodite, for promising Helen to Paris if he declared her the most beautiful; Zeus for selecting Paris to judge among the goddesses; Priam and Hecuba for letting Paris live after it had been prophesied that he would bring about the destruction of Troy.

On the way back to the subway, I encountered a couple who wanted directions back to their hotel. With the help of a nearby map I was able to furnish the directions they needed.

Although it was the day after the Marathon bombing, things seemed normal on the subway and in the Theater District.


Symphony Concert.
Thursday evening, I attended the Boston Symphony's concert. Apart from not stopping at the Copley station the subways ran normally. At Symphony Hall, all bags were examined, but then the eveninig went as normal. (The following night's performance was cancelled because of the manhunt and the 'shelter in place' advisory.)

I posted about the concert on my music blog.

It seems to me that the actions of all of us who went to the theater or the symphony or were otherwise out and about on Wednesday and Thursday illustrate what President Obama said on Thursday at the service at Holy Cross Cathedral: "We don't cower in fear. We carry on."


A Movie and Dinner.
On Friday evening I went with a priest who had formerly been in my parish to see the movie "Quartet." It was quite enjoyable. Afterwards we went to The Black Cow restaurant for dinner. I had been there a couple of times before, but it had been renovated in the meantime. The interior had been opened up, and it seemed significantly noisier, with more patrons, largely of a younger age. No doubt it's a business success, but it was a personal disappointment to have lost the ambience of former times. Well, I still have good memories of dining there before the renovations.

Seth the Waiter.
On Tuesday evening this week there was a concert and social evening at the Harvard Musical Association. As usual on such evenings, I went to the Scollay Square restaurant, and was pleasantly surprised to see Seth there. He was equally surprised to see me, since the HMA events are almost all on Fridays: this was the first Tuesday that I can recall. He had been working Mondays and Saturdays, but now, as he told me, he's working Tuesdays as well.  We greeted each other warmly. Then he had to go back to work. Unfortunately, I was seated at a table which wasn't in his section.

Looking Ahead.
This evening (Thursday the 25th) I'll go to another BSO concert, and Friday to another evening at the HMA. I don't expect to see Seth, since he didn't say he works regularly on Fridays. Next week, the HMA has its last social evening on Wednesday, and my final BSO concert of the season is on Thursday, May 2.

Meanwhile, the yacht club reopens for the summer this Saturday. The racing season begins in earnest about a month later. The Race Committee schedule hasn't been issued yet, but I expect to be assigned to help run the races on seven or eight Saturdays from June through September. Then the concert and theater seasons will resume.

Last Week Was Busy

It's been a long time since I posted to this blog. In my defense, I did post to my music blog and to In Memory of Razz on his anniversary. There are also extra services I go to on the days leading up to Easter. Then last week turned out to be fairly busy too.

Monday was routine, but on Tuesday I went to a Boston Symphony concert. I had a ticket for Holy Thursday, but I always go to the Mass that evening, so I exchanged the ticket for one for the Tuesday concert. The program actually included a couple of things I had heard back on February 28, with a different piece in the middle. Since neither of the repeats were things I was very familiar with (one was completely new to me), I was glad to be able to hear them again and get a bit more familiar with them. Hearing something for the first time can be an amazing experience, but hearing it again can deepen your understanding — you notice things you didn't notice the first time; you get more of a feel for how it works overall.

The next two evenings also involved trips into Boston — to see plays. On Wednesday it was "Neva" at Arts Emerson. It's a translation of a play by Chile's greatest living playwright (according to the playbill), Guillermo Calderón. He was also the director. A preview in the Boston Globe a couple of days before it opened in Boston describes it like this:

As the audience settles in, a woman dressed in mournful black paces slowly along the wall at the back of the stage. She is, we will discover, the great Russian actress Olga Knipper, widow of Anton Chekhov. It is six months after his death, and she is in a St. Petersburg rehearsal room, waiting for the rest of the company.

The play is Guillermo Calderón’s “Neva,” and it is set on Bloody Sunday, 1905, the day scores of peacefully protesting workers were massacred by government forces on their way to the city’s Winter Palace, where they’d sought to deliver a message to the czar. Only two of Olga’s colleagues arrive at rehearsal that afternoon: an actor, Aleko, and an actress, Masha. In the darkened room, the three of them attend to their craft, insulated from the violence unfolding in the streets.

I was looking forward to it, to the insights it would give. There were some startling moments, when the characters played out little dramas which seemed "real" only to disclose to one another that they had been acting, but overall I was disappointed. It seemed to be very self-absorbed on the author's part. He's reflecting, as a man of the theater, on the place of theater in the troubles of the real world; but ultimately the reflection seems pointless. The post-opening review, which is headlined "'Neva' an overwrought, overwritten drama," pretty well tells how I felt about it.

Thursday's play was the classic "A Raisin in the Sun," about a post-WWII black family in Southside Chicago hoping to improve their condition. I was much happier with that one. Once more, the Globe's review captures much of how I feel about it. The picture with the review shows the "silent figure" whom the reviewer mentions. He's the one in the background. Since there's no risk now of spoiling anything (the production has closed), I'll say it's Big Walter, the recently deceased husband and father of the main characters. He never speaks, and no one sees him, but putting him on stage makes his son's speech about the family's heritage and pride that much more meaningful.

Then on Friday, instead of going to the concert and social evening at the Harvard Musical Association, I began a spiritual retreat which ran through Sunday morning. It was for men, and it was conducted by a Xaverian brother. Unlike the previous retreats I went on — eight days, with an individual director for each retreatant and a focus on the individual — this one consisted of five hour-long talks to the group by the director. His topic was the Virgin Mary, and he began by describing what life would have been like for her as an ordinary woman from a very small town in 1st Century Israel. Then he went through various events in the scriptures — annunciation, birth of Jesus, Jesus lost in the Temple, miracle of wine at the wedding in Cana, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus — giving insight into how it would have been for her and suggesting how she dealt with things could serve as a model for people today. One particularly striking part was when he analyzed the "Magnificat"(Luke 1:46-55)  as a revolutionary song — particularly verses 51-53:

He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

So, it wasn't nearly so introspective as my two earlier retreats, but it did give some food for thought.

Now I'm getting caught up. This week won't have so much evening activity, just the HMA on Friday (unless I do something spur-of-the-moment), so I should have time for another installment on the Theology of the Body.