January 2026 – Page 4 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Moon Halo This Morning?

I was picking up our mail at the mailbox pod this morning around 5:45 a.m. and noticed what looked like a faint circle of color around the nearly full moon in the western sky. There were streaky white clouds. Not far from it and to the left was something that looked like a big star-which I guessed was Venus. It didn’t twinkle like stars do.

I’ve never seen anything like it before. It reminded me of a rainbow and I thought I’d heard something about moonbows (probably on the Weather Channel). By the time Sena got up and I told her about it, she suggested I get a video. By that time, it was pretty much gone, though.

According to one article, this might have been a moon halo, which differs from a moonbow. Moon halos can form from ice crystals. It was about 25 degrees outside.

So, according to some cultures, moon halos might herald bad weather, maybe in a couple of days. On the other hand, it’s going to be pretty quiet around here for next several days.

Shoveling Through Retirement Thoughts

I was just musing on Philip Rivers. You know about him. I blogged recently about his coming out of retirement to play quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. I guess you already know this, but he retired again.

Unlike Philip Rivers, I’ve not even considered coming out of retirement since I left my position at The University of Iowa Health Care (UIHC) over 5 years ago. I never looked back.

But that doesn’t mean I never think about looking back. I look back a lot and that’s mostly because I’m an old guy. I was a consulting psychiatrist in the general hospital.

Anyway, occasionally I search my name on the web and laugh at what comes up. I never went to Baylor College of Medicine, much less graduated from there.

I did a few things when I was a doctor. Not all of them were about work, but most of them were.

Those who know me know that I always hated Maintenance of Certification (MOC). I checked the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology website and my MOC contribution to continuing education is still there. It’s a clinical module on Delirium, which a lot of doctors and other health care practitioners see every day in the hospital. Dr. Emily Morse worked on it as well. She’s still working at UIHC.

I co-edited a book about consultation-liaison psychiatry with my former chair of the Psychiatry Dept, Dr. Robert G. Robinson, may he rest in peace. It’s “Psychosomatic Medicine: An Introduction to Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry.” You can buy it on Amazon—please.

I wrote a case report on catatonia caused by withdrawal from lorazepam (a benzodiazepine), and it’s still available. It was first published in Annals of Psychiatry.

But one of the things I’m proudest of doing was writing a short article for the University of Iowa Library for Open Access Week.

In it, I tell a short anecdote about my lofty (OK, a better word is “greedy”) thoughts about how much money I could make shoveling snow. I was just a kid and I never made it outside to shovel anybody’s walk because I was too busy calculating my income. I wrote that way back when I had another blog, The Practical Psychosomaticist. The photo of me shows my Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine pin fixed to my lapel—another thing I’m proud of. By the way “Tow” rhymes with “Wow.”

Libraries have always been my one of my favorite places to hang out. Anyway, I’ve got more time to do things like hang out in general. I think Philip Rivers will adjust.

13 Card Cribbage to Ring in the New Year 2026!

Well, we played the 13-card cribbage game today and we survived it! I got to tell you; I don’t know how anyone would invent such a hairy cribbage variant. I got so mixed-up Sena had to bail me out on counting a complicated run.

We did use a special cribbage scorer that I picked up from a Reddit cribbage thread.

What is ironic, if I had not had a problem with one of the counts, the game would have lasted about 20 minutes, give or take—just like the last few Calvinball Crib variants we’ve played. We’ve been through 6-card through 13-card versions and those are just the ones we’ve heard about.

It still makes me wonder whether there should be a new organization, the Calvinball Cribbage Congress (CCC), analogous to the American Cribbage Congress (ACC). The CCC could have their big annual tournament in Reno, Nevada (I think it’s at the J Resort (Casino/Sands). And we’d have to have special tee shirts with a distinctive logo.

Certain requirements would have to change, like the amount of time you have to finish a cribbage game at the CCC. In the time it takes to play 13-card cribbage, Santa Claus could shave his beard and grow it back. Of course, as you know, you have to be able to play a 6-card cribbage game in 15 minutes.

We’d need a special cribbage board and the likely candidate would be the Calvinball Cribbage board made in Canada.

Based on the currency exchange rate, the board would cost a little over $100 in U.S. dollars. The board is on the small side (11in x14in), so it would be easy to provide them for the thousands who would flock to Reno for the big CCC tournament—as long as you charge for them. The going rate for a tournament board the size and brand (CreativeCrafthouse, made in the good old USA) of the one we use is about $75.

You should write to the CCC President about it—except there isn’t one yet.