The hotel we’re staying in while our house is being built is very close to railroad tracks. We hear the whistle and then, we feel the train going by. No kidding, we can feel the rumble. It shakes the chairs, the sofa, the bed. The whole room shakes for as long as the train passes through the area.
It’s kind of an eerie sensation. It reminds me of the Illinois earthquake in 2010, which was felt by many in Eastern Iowa. It rattled our bed. That went on for a few minutes.
And some of you X-Files fans will get it when I say this free association would naturally lead to memories of the Bad Blood episode (season 5). This hilarious show features Mulder and Scully telling their own versions of what happened in a little town full of vampires. Both agents got all shook up using the Magic Fingers on a hotel bed.
Scrub to about 2 minutes into the YouTube to see the first Magic Fingers earthquake. There’s more, but you’ll get the idea.
I have misidentified plenty of plants and the compass flower is one of them. We were walking the Clear Creek trail the other day and saw what I thought was a patch of compass flowers. See what you think, judging from the featured image.
Anyway, I thought the flower itself pointed in a particular direction, but it’s actually the leaves as I rediscovered after looking it up.
As a real expert points out, it’s the edges of the leaves that point North/South.
Ok, the other day, we were out to U-Haul, not to get more boxes, thank goodness, but so I could use the bathroom.
There was this new sign on the door laying down the law about how construction workers should keep it clean-or else.
You should know that the Iowa City U-Haul is building a huge new facility with tons of self-storage. I can’t tell you how much money we’ve spent on boxes, packing wrap, and tape and more. We kept going back for more punishment.
After the moving was done, I couldn’t bring myself to even look at the U-Hall sign whenever we passed it. It just reminded me of the pain. I can’t even avoid it when I look out the hotel window. Yes, there are two U-Haul centers, one in Coralville and the big one going up in Iowa City. I can see the Huge U-Haul sign rising above the Long Horn Steakhouse. I can’t unsee it.
I remember detasseling corn when I was a kid, and some of you may remember that if you grew up in the midwest where people grow corn just to torture kids who need a summer job. At the end of the day of detassling, when I collapsed on my bed, my hands curled into claws from grabbing tassels, I would close my eyes-and not be able to sleep because I would hallucinate with closed eyes miles and miles of corn fields.
The same kind of thing happened after all the packing was done. I closed my eyes and saw nothing but corrugated cardboard boxes. I can’t unsee it.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, the U-Haul lavatory law. How do you ban the construction guys from using the bathroom? They’re the ones building the new U-Haul complex, complete with a zillion self-storage units.
More important, what did the construction guys do to get the book thrown at them like that? Did they try to flush boxes down the toilet? Did they stick packing wrap all over the mirror? Did they tape the flush lever down? It’s impossible to tell now; the bathroom is spotless.
I’m tempted to ask the U-Haul clerks about it. But that means I would have to return to U-Haul. Not that. Can’t do it; won’t do it. You can’t make me. I’ll use another bathroom.
I’m out of sync with the Big Mo Blues Show and his podcast, mostly because we’re in the middle of this big move and we’re staying in a hotel waiting for this house to be built. I missed his most recent show, but caught the one before that.
The podcast title was “Goodness is a Practice.” Big Mo mentioned that moving (among a lot of other sorrows and hardships) could cause the blues-and he’s right.
But some perspective on it shows that a lot of other troubles take priority over moving (even though boxes are bad, admit it). Troubles that call for a little human decency are just one variety. Practicing goodness would come in handy right about now, in a lot of places.
This is one of the latest Rounding@Iowa podcasts and it’s about new treatments for Azheimer’s Disease, with one specific agent called Lecanemab.
I’m an old psychiatrist, and I remember my clinical impresson of the previous medications for Alzheimer’s Disease, one of which was Donepezil. The scientific literature seemed to suggest that patients and families were more impressed with Donepezil than clinicians were.
According to Dr. Shim, one of the participants in the podcast, it’s been 20 years since there has been a new treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease-and the long term effectiveness of Lecanemab is uncertain.
In addition, there are significant risks associated with the agent as well. As you can guess, it’s very expensive, and while Medicare pays for some of the cost, the podcast participants mentioned that it was difficult to get some treatment monitoring imaging studies covered.
Patients and their physicians need to have a full discussion of the risks and benefits of treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s just as important to avoid the use of certain drugs that are known to worsen cognitive function, such as benzodiazepines and anticholinergics.
Well, we’re in the next stage of relocation, which is the Hotel California-excuse me, I mean the Hotel Iowa, so to speak. We’re camping out a hotel while our house is under construction.
We were up well after midnight moving before we got to the hotel. We had a Casey’s pizza for dinner.
The movers got all our stuff into storage-right up to the door. They’re magicians.
The hotel has a really nice complimentary breakfast.
I listened to the Big Mo Blues Show last Friday night on June 21, 2024 and wouldn’t you know, he was recorded. He wasn’t there live that night but as usual he put on a great show of blues music.
And I listened to the Big Mo Pod Show a few days later, and the theme was Absorbing Influences. Very thought provoking. The choice of tunes was interesting and Big Mo pretty much got them all identified. He usually does.
I can’t remember all the tunes he played on June 21st, but as usual, I had a different perspective about the selection for the podcast. I think I heard a Catfish Keith number on the Big Mo Blues Show, which I can’t remember too well and furthermore, don’t quite understand. It was “I Don’t Know Right from Wrong.”
And I’ll throw you another curve. That’s not the number I want to talk about in terms of the absorbing influence theme. Briefly, it just means that many blues artists get influenced by a musician they really like, pick up on what they learn from a song and gradually make it their own.
I think Catfish Keith was influenced by Son House, who sang a song called “A True Friend is Hard to Find.” Catfish Keith absorbed the music, and did his own version which I recently heard. I think it’s a gospel number. Memorable lines include:
“Bear this in mind, a true friend is hard to find.”
It’s true. You have a real treasure if you ever find one.
I caught the Big Mo Blues Show June 14th last Friday night. And I also caught the Big Mo Pod Show as well. Produce Noah got the month wrong for some odd reason. He said it was May 14th. Let it go. Anybody can be temporally impaired from time to time, including me.
Anyway, the theme of the podcast was “Chromatic Rock,” which I gather applies mainly to harmonicas in this context. But in a more general sense, I think it means adding more color to music, mainly by variation in notes. The specific artist in the podcast was somebody I’ve not heard of by the name of Sugar Blue. He blew a tune on the harmonica called “Krystalline,” which is some kind of cocaine.
Big Mo got most of the items in the quiz. He always does pretty well, because of his encyclopedic knowledge about music. His memory is really strong. I bet he even knew what month it is.
Well, here comes my selection from last Friday’s Big Mo Blues Show, a number called “Plain Old Common Sense,” performed by Kenny Neal. Common sense is pretty important. It can keep your head above water and clear of cocaine.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 