Had hit the hay, despite having an extra hour to expend while awake, at 8 p.m. the night before, only to be awakened for about 90 minutes by “cat scrambles” (inevitable when you have a kitten going on two and three adults), then two other times by a nervous stomach and heart palpitations. The election? I don’t think so–I had an appointment with a new old physician, the one I’d bolted from in 2015. You know the old saying: you don’t know what you got til it’s gone. Suffice it to say that the physician I bolted to treated me like Bob Seger: I felt like a number, for most of five years. On top of that, I was concerned that in her nonchalance she might have missed something re: my health. So…I was nervous to the point of sheepishness returning as the prodigal patient, and just plain existentially nervous that something malicious might be hiding. I take my mortality seriously.

I needn’t have been worried about the first point: I was received with warmth, good humor, and thorough attention. They even threw in a prostate exam–hadn’t had one of those, well, since the last time I saw them! As for the second point, turns out those heart palpitations were likely neither nerves nor palpitations. Something known as 2:1 afibs, I discovered, after my pulse registered 115 (that was before the prostate exam) and I got an EKG reading. I apparently will learn more in the coming weeks.

After learning that local Mexican restaurant La Terraza had come to the rescue of local art film emporium Ragtag in its time of power failure, we ate there and left a nice tip Saturday night–and again last night (same exact order). They are great folks, their food is great, their service is excellent–and we’d already eaten there about 10 times since the pandemic kicked it. Try it yourself!

Enjoy watching those election returns! We are escaping, as soon as Nicole’s off work.

Streaming for Strivers:

A great lost rap concept album, right here.