Throw Back Thursday Moment: Barb and I on the Deluxe Tour of the Gallo Winery in Modesto, California. Early 1980’s. A large gentleman wearing a cowboy hat and bolo tie, speaking with a slow, deep, West Texas drawl says to the guide “I know what rayd whin is, and I know what whayt whin is, but what the heck is that rosay stuff, darlin’?”

The latest poll to capture our imagination is out. And no, it is not whether to impeach or not to impeach. The poll asks if you prefer red or white. And it is all about wine. Coravin, the people behind the Coravin Wine Preservation System, sponsored a survey of 2000 wine drinkers to determine their preferences in wine, and in other things as well. Red and white wine drinkers seemed to be pretty different!

I looked at the poll results and tried to figure out where I fit in. First of all, I am strictly a white wine drinker. I know that makes me less sophisticated than red wine aficionados, but there it is. Along with Barb, I have matured from overly sweet types like rieslings to dryer Sauvignon Blancs, preferably from New Zealand, but I have never crossed over into reds. So I was curious to see if I shared a lifestyle with Coravin’s bunch of white wine drinkers.

Not so much. According to the poll, white wine drinkers are:

• Night owls, while red wine drinkers are early risers: No white wine points for me here. I am the Benjamin Franklin type. “Early to bed, early to rise,,,,,”
• Extroverts, not introverts like cabernet imbibers: Another place I fail to match the white wine profile. At a party, I am more likely to be nursing my wine glass in the corner of the room rather than being the center of attention, telling stories and chatting up a storm.
• A cat fan, instead of a dog lover: OK, this one fits me. If I were female I might turn into one of those crazy cat ladies, though now I settle for one cat at a time.
• A picker of punk music over jazz: I can listen to the Clash and the Ramones without wincing. But I also like the jazzier side of Steely Dan. So sign me up for punk or jazz, as long as a little rock’n’roll is thrown in to make me feel at home.
• Curious, sarcastic and perfectionist, while red fellows are adventurous, humble and organized: Here I humbly believe I follow the red wine profile more closely than the white. After all, I would never be sarcastic.

I don’t really fit either profile. I guess I am best described as an outlier. Despite my definite white wine preference, my personality and my habits fit somewhere in the middle. I guess my old Texan buddy can just call me a rosé. And pass the Sauvignon Blanc.

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“If I fell in love with you,
would you promise to be true.”
The Beatles-1964

You can fall in love. You can fall to temptation. You can fall to a con man. Or you can just fall on your butt. Over the last few weeks, I have been doing a lot of the latter.

I am clumsy. I don’t deny it. Barb learned long ago to warn me when I am headed to a stair step, or a ramp, or just a bump in the road. I can find cracks in the street to trip over while walking the dog, or I can trip over the dog. I have been known to do both, simultaneously. But I usually manage to stay on my feet. Lately, I have been without even that level of dignity. I have found myself flat on the ground three times in the last two weeks.

First came an unwitnessed but never-the-less embarrassing stumble I took in our closet. It’s a nice sized closet, a walk-in with plenty of hanging space for both Barb and me, and a nice island in the center. I opposed that island when we built the house, now I love it. I guess it grew on me. Anyway, I was standing between the island and a set of shelves, putting on a pair of black tennis shorts. Of course, being the multi-tasker I cannot escape being, I was also checking the weather on my phone which was resting on that damn island.

Next thing I knew, my left foot got caught in the waistband of my tennis togs, and I was falling. Standing-up to laying-out in less than a second, my head just missing the countertop. My butt took a small bounce, and I ended up with a deep and painful bruise “down there.” Strike one.

Ever try to outrun a bicycle–when it is being ridden by your 5-year-old granddaughter who has just learned to ride without training wheels? I don’t recommend it. Admittedly we were on a narrow sidewalk, but I should have been able to maintain a straight enough course.  Instead, I tripped over a few blades of grass as she zoomed by. Once again I found myself in face plant position. No damage other than a dirt sandwich, though. Strike two.

Last night at tennis I finished off my trifecta. The shot was a lob over my head. I yelled out “it’s mine” and began to backpedal furiously. And furiously I fell. It was identical to the play on which my tennis partner broke his arm last year, but I got lucky. Just a split lip from my racket hitting my face, a bruised elbow and a bit of a headache that reverberates with each keystroke this morning. I bounced up and after a short break managed to finish the set. Strike three.

All in all, I guess I am pretty lucky. Three falls, zero stitches, zero broken bones, just one bruised pride. But you can bet that if Barb ever hears “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” she will come a-runnin’. And she won’t be surprised.
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Retirement is in my ear. Sometimes it whispers, other times it roars. While I do not anticipate any major changes to my career for the next 3 or 4 years, I have certainly begun imagining what life will be like beyond that time. Not being a golfer or a serial socializer I have been wondering if there will be yawning gaps in my day, hours with nothing to do but fight Barb over the remote control to decide which we will binge watch next–old episodes of “Yan Can Cook” or the latest series from Joanna and Chip.

And then the brochure arrived. I almost tossed it with the daily collection of cruise catalogs and real estate flyers. But I took a second look. Non-Clinical Careers for Physicians. A two-day conference, 10 minutes along the Tri-State Tollway in Rosemont. Could this meeting be the key to my salvation? When the last prostate core and the final bladder fragment have drifted off my microscope stage, can there be another career for me?

By my rough estimate, the conference will contain more than 20 breakout sessions on careers that doctors can pursue outside of a typical clinical practice. Jobs that could be managed part-time or from home. Should I go to the meeting and weigh some options? Finally, figure out how to get the best value for my MBA degree?

A quick look at the conference schedule identifies some intriguing possibilities…

• Speaker:  Go on the road and discuss PSA? Universal health care? Physician burn out? I was pretty good at public speaking as School Board President, this could be a chance to get paid for the “talent.”
• Utilization Review: The guys and gals who help insurance companies and healthcare organizations decide how much medical service will be paid for versus how much is too much. Briefly (and unfairly) known as death panels. I have a history with this kind of work, having served as Chair of the UR Committee at my old hospital. But Dale Carnegie would call this career “how to lose friends and antagonize people.”
• Pharma: The big kahuna. It’s where the money is, but do I really want to be a corporate shill, the guy pushing the latest generation of drugs or lab tests, ignoring the massive cost tied to the incremental benefit? Besides, it’s way too much time on the road.
• Locum Tenens work: Latinese for being a temp. If I want to do that, I’ll stick around with my buddies at UroPartners. No need to leave the best.
• Medical Communication and Advertising: “I used to be a doctor, now I play one on TV.” Intriguing, with my white hair providing just the right amount of gravitas. I may have lost on Jeopardy! but I see this as a potential winner.
• Information Technology: An interest of mine since my college days, but I would certainly need Coding Bootcamp to get up to speed. And what man my age can stand the rigors of a Bootcamp? “Drop and give me twenty…lines of code, Doctor!”
• Medical Writer: No one pays to read my blogs, so this one may be a non-starter. Writing is for pleasure, not for an alternate career.
• Expert Witness:  Cue up the Perry Mason music. Barb talked me out of adding a law degree to my résumé, but courtroom drama has always intrigued me. Who would I rather represent? Plaintiffs? Defendants? As Deuteronomy tells us, “justice, justice, though shalt pursue.”

So all these options and dozens more. And a few more possibilities not in the brochure such as volunteering or medical missionary work. I guess i don’t need to worry about how to keep busy when I hang up the microscope. Years and years from now!
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One of my favorite musicals is “A Chorus Line,” the 1970’s show in which a handful of dancers auditioning for a Broadway show tell the stories of their lives. Diana, one of the lead characters, sings about her high school class in “method” acting,” trying to “be a sports car or an ice cream cone.” Through it all, she feels nothing, the same lack of emotion that she feels years later upon hearing that the acting teacher has died. But instead of learning to act, she has learned to dance.

Last Tuesday Barb and I were invited to dinner at the home of lovely neighbors we said goodbye to two and a half years ago when we left the old ‘hood on the way to our new house. It was a rainy, gloomy evening as I drove along the very familiar roads approaching the old subdivision. I took my old shortcuts and bypassed the busier intersections.

I made the turn past the entrance sculpture (one of Barb’s pet projects,) and some updated mailboxes, and drove down the foggy road towards our friend’s home. We made one detour to take in a bit of new construction (I always knew those driveways would be a problem) before reaching our neighbors, directly across the street from the house we had lived in for more than 25 years.

We had a delightful few hours. Tasty appetizers, a home-grilled dinner despite the weather, plump ripe strawberries at dessert. We talked about medicine and retirement, we bemoaned the state of politics, and we batted around the many theories about who the Night King was and who would ultimately claim the Iron Throne.

Towards the end of the evening, the discussion turned to our old house. The house in which we had raised our kids, the place they had left for college, the home where we had many parties of celebration and sat shivas of grief.

I could hear in her voice that Barb still pines for that house. She misses the gorgeous marble kitchen island countertop, the annuals she planted each year, and the electric fence that kept our pets safe. She misses the neighborhood and the neighbors. She misses all those years of healthy living without the aches and pains that have come with age. Without a doubt, that is the home that will always be in her soul.

And what do I feel?  Yes, I remember every minute of living there, the ever-lasting good times and the minuscule bad ones. And yet…perhaps I am cold-hearted or have bottled up my emotions but when it came to that house I now feel nothing. It was a wonderful time, but just like Diana in “A Chorus Line,” I am dancing on.
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