So poor Wifey visited the rheumatologist for hip and back pain and was given good news/bad news. The good is she has nothing acutely life threatening. The bad news is she has plenty of age related arthritis everywhere. Her parents both became symptomatically arthritic around the same age, so this is no surprise, but when you get told medically you're, um, no longer young -- it hits home.
She'll have specialized workouts, and keep moving, lest she end up a shut in like many older pain patients become. She actually wants to travel far more than I, and I will compromise and go. We'll avoid climbing, though.
We drove to Coral Gables and met Dr. Barry and Donna and sons at their go-to Italian place, Fratellino. The men shared a bottle of red, but neglected the Billy Joel suggestion about Italian restaurants and avoided the bottle of white. I got to bust balls with my man, the way guy friends show love -- how we like to be seen as middle class and make fun of the rich but somehow we became them.
The pasta was delicious, and we talked of times past and to come -- the Big, Fat, Media wedding in D.C. as I have named Scott and Sam's nuptials, as both work in Media and the party will be lousy with journalists.
Wifey was up a lot of the night watching the new DeNiro Series, and I slept, but then she went to sleep around 130 and I was up an hour -- we joke with each other that we sleep in shifts -- we could run an overnight business.
And this am, I checked into FaceBook (tm) though I no longer ever post on it, following a nasty episode with an ex-nephew, and a memory popped up. It was the combined Bar Mitzvot of Scott and Josh -- 14 years ago today. Since the brothers are Irish twins, they decided to wait until Josh was 13 and do the party combined.
There's a great pic of Barry, Eric, and I toasting ebulliently, probably after we did the Worm, as is tradition for us dating back to parties in the Honors Dorm in the early 80s. Scott demands a Worm at his wedding -- I asked him last night if the D.C. Conrad had staffers available to lift the elderly dancers off the floor. He said they would.
I think of John Lennon a lot -- he was one of my most admired artists. He always seemed so much older and wiser than I was, and he was shot a few months after he turned 40. I still recall it -- I had fallen asleep watching the Dolphins on Monday Night Football, and so missed the now famous Howard Cosell announcement, but the next am awoke to my clock radio playing all Beatles music. My roommate Rudy, no Humanist, said "You heard the news? Some psycho blew away John Lennon last night." I had NOT heard the news, and was truly affected -- I dragged myself to the 8 am Organic Chem class and met fellow mourners.
But in Lennon's last record, there's a song called "Watching the Wheels," about the temporary retirement he enjoyed: "I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round...I really love to watch them roll." I see myself that way now that the law practice has blurred mostly into the rear view mirror.
Except...we keep getting in cases, and have to refer them out. A catastrophic injury case involving a girl from Colorado came to us -- Paul spoke to the Mom, and we had our man Michael review it. Mike spent a LOT of time vetting it, and ultimately his firm decided to take a pasadena, but Mike was kind enough to direct us to another lawyer who has handled some similar matters -- involving foreign resort hotels. That lawyer will take another look for us, and Paul wishes to meet him in person -- so we'll see if that happens next week. But regardless -- not ties or jacket for me -- those are reserved for weddings and some funerals.
Speaking of which, Wifey's friend Alissa's cremains will be interred Thursday -- we'll go together. One of the early friend decided that Alissa would have enjoyed it if her friends met at one of her two favorite local places: Shorty's or Lots of Lox, to discuss the old times.
I figure I'll drop Wifey off at either of those venues and let the former Killian High kids enjoy their nostalgia -- I met Alissa 11 years after Wifey did, and most of their best memories were made while I was still in Junior High.
But man -- those wheels sure roll fast. The trick is to savor the moments -- somehow Bar Mitzvot become weddings even as we watch.
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