Father’s Day is just a few days away. Barb and I are busy planning our annual family celebration. The guest list is set, though we will be missing our niece and nephew who just this week gave birth to the newest family member, a beautiful girl named after my late sister.  Some other family will be out of town, but not out of our thoughts.

The menu keeps changing, flip-flopping more often than Trump on tariffs or Biden on abortion. To grill or not to grill? So far, it is Alexa that is getting the grilling, as we ask her every twenty minutes what the weather will be like on Sunday. Her latest forecast is “dreary” which can go either way. I am ok stoking the grill in dry-dreary, it is downpour-dreary that I am hoping to avoid. So if it rains, we will go to option #2.

One announcement. After many years of Father’s Day inclusion, I am 86’ing my hand made, homemade margaritas from the potent potables list. Last year, most of the glasses were left half full, and the mixture of booze, citrus and sugar left a gloppy mess where ever the glasses were set down. Beer and wine and ice tea will have to be enough to keep everyone hydrated.

And then there is the matter of gifts. I have already heard 4 commercials for them this morning, but kids, please don’t give me a gift certificate for a massage. Whether it is for one of those chain outfits, or a local salon, I just don’t want it. The truth is, I hate massages.

I hear people talk about how wonderful massages are; how they soothe and rejuvenate, erase aches and pains, bring the brain to some nirvana. I have never reached Valhalla. Be it a couples massage and soak in a lava heated pool in Hawaii, or a two dollar rub down in a storefront in Bangkok, been there, done that, hated it. Laying there half (or totally) naked while a stranger’s hands plunge, poke, and prod just has never sent my endorphins sky-rocketing. To be clear, I am not talking about the Robert Kraft type of “massage,” I mean the legal, G-rated hands where they belong experience. I don’t want to even imagine the other kind…

So kids, give me a gift card to something else.  Give me something cool to wear (not a Patagonia vest. I am not hip enough to wear that.)  Give me a cheap electronic doodad. Give me a hugs, kisses and homemade cards from the grandkids.But ignore all those commercials and no massages, please! My achy, painful body may stay achy and painful, but that’s OK with me.

And to all you other Dads out there–Happy Father’s Day, anyway you like it!

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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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