Saturday, March 2, 2024

March Blows In

     




    And my camellia bush blooms,  slowly. Now about six out of a potential hundred or more. March days move forward  slowly, not wanting to raise hopes for the world.

    So to dispel the gloom (and gray rain), I tackle the mundane - which is to try making a friend of sorts whenever I'm  indulging in  commonplace and mostly frustrating household tasks. Like finding a solution to a window roller shade that will no longer roll. This involves a trip to Home Depot where my request for help with two domestic matters of little consequence produces just that: no immediate result. Just to make the tasks not seem quite so futile I challenge myself to engage on a human level (a little smile, a patient approach, a 'we are in this together' attitude). Instead of surly (I'm told 'we don't do that' at first try) when I'm breaking up a group of women employes talking together to get an answer, I strive in a small self-satisfying way to create fellowship. I come away with the name of a firm that will do it, providing I show interest in buying another shade. My second mission is to locate what may be called a food waste storage can, otherwise known as future compost. A genial man whom I meet walking the aisles volunteers to lead me to a shelf where a possible container might be found. Instead, we find a pail without a lid. He spends several minutes in the search. We conclude  he earnestly and sympathetically agrees: nothing like that at the Depot (which doubles as a waiting place for out of work hopeful handymen bunching in groups) is useless and together we come up with the local hardware store where personnel answering my question (about where and what is a likely source for this object) by phone include the store's owner.

This is a sermon on how somewhat trivial chores can matter. I had to be taught to think 'common sense' . The lesson came from a fellow in the hardware store (where a sign read 'no ski masks allowed') who logically enough suggested unrolling the shade to see what might be in a label on the bar holding the fabric. Yes, there it was, my last name and the date of my last encounter with the maker of the shade.

    While I'm thinking basics - chores, camellias and such - I keep regressing to the habit acquired most severely during the pandemic: following carefully every day's New York Times Cooking column. The recipes with their reassuring vibe - yes, you can do it if you can read - and the calmly satisfying photographs attached. How and why they mattered so much in getting through a day - some lodestar, escapist fantasy of being able to cook and eat well.

    That's one reason but probably not the only one. The organizing fetish is a cover, an excuse, to imagine actually accomplishing something in the face of doubt. The effort is its own reward.

PS The prospect of turning a mix of unlikely ingredients into something digestible, even worth digesting, is another reward. Even, somehow, when results fail. Take cauliflower, green olives, almonds and feta for example. Suspense reigns throughout the trial... which is graded on a 'nice try but' level. So on to the next experiment: chicken thighs, dates, sweet potato and plenty of spices.

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    Another food story that also is news. Of a sort that at least patrons of Folger Shakespeare Library will welcome. After waiting through four years of renovations and suspense about a reopening date (now set for June 21 this year), hungry friends and supporters of the immensely impressive  and handsome edifice on Washington's Capitol Hill will surely welcome the invention there (really a reinvention) of a well-supplied cafe in the Great Hall. Anyone familiar with the museum-library-theater complex should take a look at the lively scene imagined in this photo. Better, too, take heart in the democratic way the cafe space was named. "Crumble and Quill' was crowdsourced publicly and voted on dramatically enough down to the last ballot. The name surely will stand out among more common cafe titles of the town. A great salute to the wordsmith indeed.

    Sherry surely. And crumpets?

PS Any  devoted Folger fan might have noticed that I transposed  the name of the new hangout: It should have been Quill & Crumb. So kudos to those who caught this. Or was it my subconscious wanting to trick a readeer?

 

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

February Frolic


 

The famous Folger Theatre above. See below.


     Best keep an open mind. February does not have to be the low point of a dismaying year in the world (wars and worry about wars, moral and political). Much else is conspiring to distract your attention,  with thoughtful' and  polished  in-person options.

    For instance, the DC History Center's 'Book Talk" on February 23 is titled 'The Rise of Uber in DC." How did authors of that book come up with such a seemingly innocuous title when they are, it appears, calling out Uber's success here  as 'a symptom of urban weakness and low expectations from local city politics.' The event drew an audience of nearly 100 representing (at a glance) varied ages and backgrounds. Katie Wells and Declan Cullen are the book's authors, taking a critical look at the power of corporate wealth to sway local government bodies (read here DC Council members of yore) for favorable legislation that ends up, in their words, as a 'disrupter' to the public's need for enlightened transportation policies. The team of two had spent years following 35 men and women and their experiences as partime drivers for Uber. The outcome wasn't satisfactory in most cases, even when workers such as the fulltime officer  making $53,000 for the DC Housing Authority who could not escape the need to work two jobs - as government employe and UBer driver - to maintain a family. "We do not take care of each other enough," as an urban entity, the authors noted.

.    A controversy of sorts but not one recognized by those who favor the ease and convenience of ride sharing/personal control ways of moving around without having to worry about finding a parking space.

    Ah, but this is deceptive because Uber/Lyft/others can be expensive, and the rider has only minimum control - though offered some choices  - of price.

     It' was certainly an unusual look at an unusual  city. To ease any disturbing revelations, the Center  recommended that attendees stick around for Apple's 'Friday evening DJ series, 6-7:30, taking place in the same building. (The former Carnegie Library is an historic building set in a welcoming park on one of Washington's most well trafficked areas. And note! The building is easily accessed on the Metro's green and yellow lines, Mt. Vernon Square, a few blocks away. Access for disabled patrons is provided  and broad sidewalks ensure easy circulation for pedestrians.)


    Another tack might be: Uber's existence also speaks as a mirror of diversity in a city whose population and traditions are often cited as  having a 'Southern' (read: white) cast. DC also is known as Chocolate City though statistics of late question the relevance as gentrification moves on. Drivers are often from so-called minority states and cultures. Their accents do not often lean 'South.' Would a recent ride going from Dupont Circle to the Navy Yard on a Thursday evening count as typical? 

     The passengers included a woman visitor from Puerto Rico on the last few days of her stay. Her speech was strongly accented - German - reflecting her original home. It was her first time using the Uber App that her host had strongly suggested she  experience for this and any other future trips to cosmopolitan areas where Uber has invariably made inroads. The driver was a friendly Virginia  native with a slight Spanish inflection in his voice. His family had come from a Latin American country before he was born and it turned out in a very few minutes of conversation that he was interested in possibly moving to San Juan - for the climate and for less expensive daily living. He  quizzed his customer on that last point, having heard her  volunteer that she had been in PR for 40 years, first as an employe of an international company and now as a retiree widow with a grown daughter. She chose to live in a small town on the southwest of PR so was well versed and happy to share information. He asked quickly about the availability of a university and the best modes of travel back and forth to and from the US.

    No names were exchanged but he noted the name of her town and the passenger in turn said she would welcome him if he came.

    Not quite a United Nations moment but perhaps revealing in its own way.  A true cross section of the greater Washington area that can offer much more in quiet ways than  politics in the headlines. Next week a chance to attend a National Archives event - hosted by the NA Foundation - free as many such are not to mention activities in perpetual motion at the fabled Smithsonian buildings on the Mall.  

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        Enlightenment comes in various packages - and often deceptively as 'entertainment.' Thus, Folger Shakespeare Library's theater production of  "Where We Belong" a one-woman autobiographical show, that explores in 85 compelling minutes the many contradictions in both our celebration and dismissal of native (indigenous) cultures.  Indeed, our inability, as she notes, "to take care of each other." Alone on stage, the playwright and scholar Madeline Sayet, a member of the Mohegan tribe, shows physically and emphatically the importance of stories to the human condition.  She begins by reminding the audience that they occupy land once inhabited by a tribe that was led by female chiefs. As 'chief' the actor - portraying several characters, including her mother - assumes a contemporary storyteller stance wearing boots, jeans, a colorful patterned jacket and plain loose blouse. Much of what she describes in words and gestures are the limitations of borders, the hardships of colonialism,   the difficulties of overcoming prejudices and ignorance.To do so, she takes on the status of a blackbird - her name in the seldom spoken Mohegan language -who in flight, in the sky makes borders disappear. The  set is a combination of ever changing light and cloud formations, abstract shapes above and below the sky, as Ms. Sayet portrays the difficulties of coming to terms with lost  traditions and inheritance. Through March 10, in association with Washington's Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

Prejudice and exploitation are  wars against The Other, the Different  the Stranger. Wars seldom make peace but only give rise to new grounds for battle. Both between people and nations.


    It's worth noting how many talented women have assumed executive/director roles currently in Washington DC arts across the board. In museums and theaters and institutions of renown, the  shift has been something of a revolution. And along with the 'trend,' is recognition of these women's  diverse careers and backgrounds. Salut!


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   Also on the home front, where safety issues and crime are upbeat in many people's minds: Witness the increase in 'safety' personnel in and around Metro stations. Possibly, too, in changing attitudes of Metro personnel towards customers using the system.  I had rushed out of my house recently, hurrying  into the Eastern Market station  when I realized I had brought with me, instead of my 'senior pass' the DC Library card and several $20 bills. (Because I wasn't expecting to spend more than that on whatever plans I had that night. And because of scare stories about people and car jacking, holdups with guns by teenagers, not to mention paranoid homeless and crazy souls, I left ID and credit cards behind.)  Lo to my surprise I couldn't even buy a card/ticket for my roundtrip excursion because the automatic system only takes $10 or below. I had a deadline; I was stumped, until the employe in the cage rescued me by allowing me to go through the gate free and saying he would call ahead to the person in charge of my intended stop  where I could get help. Somehow this worked - that someone was really informed in time and could reconfigure somehow the machine that would return a $10 card with change in ten dollar coins. Yes, Sacajawea was going to be my travel mate that night. (See: The worth of certain such coins on the market.)

So polite they were, too. So non-threatening.  So goes the urban lover's high wire existence. I walk gingerly these days, given all the warnings to 'be careful,' 'stay safe.' Who could not when there are 'ghost' police cars parked in public places that are empty of a driver. Does this mean pedestrians are free to get into one of these in case of imminent danger? No sign is attached...


Monday, January 8, 2024

A January Thaw?

                  Can there be a thaw when there hasn't been a cold snap in months or recent memory, whatever is longer?

    But it is classic to look for one, maybe even to make one up in one's mind (which is the memory part after all). So I chose yesterday the magic number 7, which also happened to be my double digit birthday (yikes, yet again...), to go on a rant.

    What is a rant, exactly?  Perhaps it is whatever a person chooses it to be. I took the sound of the word over any meaning (that, if examined closely, is likely negative). I was embarrassed to be so old in the numbers game and was overcome with guilt. How come I'm still alive and reasonably sound in mind and body when others have met their maker, gone south, whatever.  It was possibly circumstantial that I felt compelled to go social, to make the case for making friends out of strangers if only for a few minutes. I stopped a young woman from reading a book in a bookstore because she had picked up the title of 'Fire' on a bright red jacket.

     How come? I asked her. that is a provocative title and did you reach for it out of some felt need? Fortunately she wasn't taken aback but answered with a small smile: Well I'm majoring in the environment, she said immediately. So this seems pertinent. Aha, a connection. I saw she was with a group and didn't persist. 

    Upstairs in another shop above the bookstore I was waiting for some prints to be made of one of my grandchildren's drawings. I had superimposed on it some words of cheer thinking she might use it as an invite for an upcoming birthday. (Indeed, her father said she would like more of them for just that purpose. Or maybe he suggested that to her, no matter.) I was intent on explaining why I was doing this and wanted the other woman in the room to know it. That began a short discussion on grandchildren, on how and when they learn to speak and interact with the world. Another contact that drew the attention of the sales clerk since I let it be known that my namesake grand was in Montana. Lo and behold, the clerk had lived in the state, knew all about it, was immediately engaged. 

    It's so easy to create conversation if you, the initiator, are at ease with yourself. But that is another story and has nothing to do with birthdays...and a rant, by the way, can be any determined action for any purpose. At least in my book.

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

December Descends...

 

    With a tsunami of Things to challenge our perception of what exactly  is our tolerance of  too much: too much to give and probably too much to get if you are able to participate in such exchanges. Why presents to and fro anyway? Are they thanks, reminders, guilt-reducers? Do they really count in the long run of family and social life? Growing older and thinking this way tends to put one in the category of curmudgeonry. So be it, and long live the 'jerks' who challenge the conventional but often mindless way of doing well, things.

    Well, sure, I can go on - that we are certainly living in changing times and bringing up and following tradition (tree, song, gifts, etc.) is a way of asserting oneself in the face of such troubling but inevitable facts. AI and ChatGBT are roiling our way of life in all ways.  The more things change, the more they stay the same - but the same is what?  We talk glibly of 'reality' and being able to recognize such a seemingly stable factor in our lives.With this new universal promise/threat hanging over us, how are we going to determine what is real and what is not?  How to grasp the concept and still feel stable?  Like challenging currents and high waves in a roiling sea, how do we keep our heads up?

    A rollercoaster ride at least has an endpoint in sight. The ocean seems unlimitless but we can see borders, banks, beaches - barriers on land. Is staying sane, however that is interpreted, ever possible when we live under constantly questioning true vs false and might be lose sight of why that matters?

    If the outcome (whatever that is) looks perilous, each moment is going to count all the more. Living in the moment, aware of others (and other things) around us, surely will help.

    Though unlikely as it is that my sermon will have any impact, maybe I can at least be thankful that I care... So hats off to contemplation, celebration, community and care.

Monday, November 13, 2023

Something about the word nova - as in November

 Looking behind and also ahead: Could the word November have a direct connection to the Latin word 'nova,' meaning new? 

That certainly applies to  current days when we  say goodbye to summer and prepare for  new seasons ahead. And what a dramatic time it's likely to be- in all senses of the word. (Yes to  El Nino snowfalls and to a blizzard of top notch theater productions on local stages.)

Bears know for sure, as they prepare  to hibernate in winter by collecting a food supply that will last through to spring. The bear image is  pertinent in many ways: a portent of hope as well as danger. (After all, bears must count on a fresh supply of fruit and other favorites goodies to be available in spring.)  Which is why a quick silhouette of the animal on a cloudy backdrop  during the latest production at Folger Shakespeare Library's theater  of 'The Winter's Tale' is so effective and meaningful. It's just a quick look, an omen of sorts. Good and bad intertwined. Human folly and humanity's ability to change - to prevail. Art and nature in an uneasy balance -  a constantly evolving relationship.

Which may be something of a stretch when it comes to discussing characters and their actions in one of Shakespeare's seldom seen comedies. Though Folger last put on the show in 2018 when the Library's executive director Michael Witmore declared - surprisingly  - that the play was  his favorite among all of Shakespeare's works. A surprise because to amateur eyes, the script seems a bit uneven and difficult to comprehend overall. The first half is a tragedy (a guy declares his wife an adulterer with almost no evidence, sends her to be killed and, as a consequence, loses his son as well), the second a resolution of sorts (guy repents -  how and why? -  and wins back her favor as well as gaining a daughter). The second part is played out in a sort of comedic celebration, oddly enough.

(Witmore said then 'as an artist you are changing things all the time' - that is the thrust of both art and nature, and the relationship between the two.  He takes this play's theme to be the author's most direct conversation with an audience, but the interpretation is pretty high-minded and might not mean much to anyone not much of Shakespeare scholar, as Witmore is.)

So kudos to the brave cast tackling the work in Washington DC through December 17, a tease to what  is promised  come the new year, 2024. Aha, there is that symbolism again: a sheltered fabled building - home to more of the  first folios (printings)  of Shakespeare's canon than anywhere else - will blossom anew. Make way for a rock star renewal.... it is also the time when Dr. Witmore is scheduled to leave his post and hand it over to the next person to head one of the city's (country's?) most beloved scholarly  institutions. 

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An image of a bear stays with me long after seeing the play. I take it to be a sign of strength and perseverance - in whatever seems most valuable: truth, kindness, curiosity. I'm reminded, too of a necessary look-back, through several 'winters of our discontent' during what is now simply labeled the pandemic. What is the paramount memory from those years?   

I tried to capture the feeling of the days in monthly (usually) notes on this blog. It spoke to the pleasure of reading - and my inaccurate count of titles reaching upward to 300 books. What had I gained but the necessary ingredients (see 'bear'!) for a long mostly inward isolating hibernation. Are we now 'free' or is it merely another short period to roam about planning for whatever is the next siege?

Meanwhile, much visiting about and collective memories are possible, more than ever, in Washington DC and environs. Attending a play with a live audience has satisfactions of its own. Even time out in a theater watching a film with strangers. And the rewarding search for public events that affirm companionship and strengthen the imagination.  A notice about a college alumnae book club that will take place in a public space - yes, a downtown city park - for an exchange of actual books. In those surroundings it would seem any strangers could join.

At the perennially misunderstood National Building Museum (no connection to the Smithsonian, sorry), a homage to brick buildings as well as a lecture on the connection between music and architecture. Stay tuned, indeed.

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    And a few more words about the magic generated occasionally in a windowless ground floor 'salon inside an equally unusual Washington DC  residential enclave called the Westchester. (The site consists of several apartment buildings near the high-and-mighty Washington Cathedral not far from Georgetown.)

The salon typically caters to men and women (of all ages) who are primarily local - that is, to say, inhabitants of the enclave since no advertising of its services can be found elsewhere. It happened that I made the acquaintance of the salons' primary caretaker and leaseholder through one such impressive person,now deceased, the former owner of two good-size upstairs properties upstairs.   RUmor or fact would have it that many such people never leave or have to leave the coop for years - except, perhaps, to check in at a doctor's office or hospital.

So you don't necessarily expect the wholesome welcome spirit of a place that really has no norms: all ages, cultures, backgrounds are represented in this hideaway. YOu don't expect to sit down while a slim energetic 70-year-old snips away at  the top of your head and quite suddenly, improvises his vision of what life must be after death. "There has got to be something, I've got to believe," and all he knows for sure that he would like to be buried under a tree - or become a tree in some fashion. Earlier W. has been busily trimming - more like harvesting a field  - the busy white locks of a gentleman friend seated in the stylist's chair. They talk about the possibility of going to Cuba, to hiring someone who knows where all the good music is played and touring the country while W. learns a specific instrument either only found or was born there.

W, however, has no US passport. He is Peruvian by birth and never bothered once he married an American woman. He is afraid the US may not want to let him back into the country where he has a good life as a grandfather, a professional guitar player, whose hair grooming methods he learned from, at first, his sister ("because you have to have a job to fall back on," is how I understood her reasoning to be) then later from celebrity stylist London-born Vidal Sassoon. Sassoon had shaken up the industry before he died - at 84, of leukemia,a multimillionaire - with dramatic geometric cuts that undercut the stuffy balloon looks preceding his era.  W. is also worried that, as a cancer survivor, he might not want to be far from his home turf should a relapse occur or anything might happen that would keep him away for a long time. Besides, as he often says, he loves his wife (a semi-retired accountant)  and laughs when he says it - often - as well as loving her resistance to having any artificial color in her hair

All this when I finally - a half hour later- sit down with the  long plastic protective bib and subject myself to the wicked chemicals that will give my unkempt tresses a soft blonde look. W is always full of chat (and always reminds he his wife objects to coloring but he still insists I should have hair color to match my eyebrows and skin, which seems an impossible task since my eyebrows are dyed daily with brush and my skin is objectively white..)  My chat is about the new stove I just had installed and how bewildering digital  dials (not really dials or buttons at all but something akin to finger pressure on a mysterious black surface) can be to a neophyte who is also a Luddite.

"Why did you have to get a new stove?" I hear from a tall think man listening in. He comes from Wheaton, a suburb of DC, and knows the personnel here well, it seems. His hair doesn't look at all neglected but he obviously is the next client. So goes the give and take. Letitia, the Philippine born license holder, and her sister Elizabeth run the place. Tall Man teases her about not taking any time off, asking about her son (a physician in training in Norfolk  - four years to go minimum). She demures, taking a rare minute to sit down before going  moving over to another set of mirrors where she will put a client in tiny rollers and significantly - I've no doubt - brighten the woman's day with a combed out hairstyle.

Letitia is a workhorse, up to to her job at 7 until closing, everyday but Sunday, W only does a turn on Friday so his time  n W insists on a photo before the next nearly hair-bald man moves over to the chair. "He is a famous pianist," W says. No names are exchanged though it's a rigorous challenge trying. Piano man teaches a the Levine school nearby. We never really hear how anyone else came to cherish W's ministrations  we are so engaged in the moment. I learn in the course of a minute how Piano Man learned from a Japanese man (profession?) that to strike your hand on the opposite arm several times daily will alleviate creeping arthritis. Truly I think it works. I say how my Pilates trainer always spends time exercising arms and fingers  in my weekly workout, and how the fabled Taylor Swift is a master of manipulation with her left hand in her recent concert appearances around the globe. I've recently seen the film version, fixated on the way she cajoles, entices, connects with vast audiences this way.

W. questions with a sly laugh about what else such a talent might do...breaking a potentially serious conversation and sending me on my way. A pity, because it turns out that piano man had his childhood debut on the stage of a theater in a town in Montana where y son currently lives - and that I taught once upon a time at the Uof M in Missoula during the same years where he was 'matriculating.' I never learn his name but a solid connection is made. How peculiar such bonds in so few moments. What happened to him after graduation I may never know.

But first: photos, always, each client in turn.



Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Number Ten Come and Nearly Gone

         Which is what happens when the world erupts in turmoil and a person's everyday life shrinks in comparison.

    How Oct. 7 will be forever marked on the calendar of humankind's indescribable inhumanity to man (women, children, the sick and old, even the unborn). Who knows the consequences beyond whatever the curse of the gods sends down - and allows mere underlings to blame whomever  they chose.

    It may seem to have taken a tremendous  ego drive  this month to want to travel forthwith on a 'trip-for-no-reason' to a Mediterranean country blessedly free at the moment (and for past decades) of strife - beyond, that is, an election to office of Spain's political leader.  To take time off to share in positivity, the attitude of living life to the fullest in a minimalist way. That is - to enjoy each day on its own with no expectations  and no connection to the tragedies taking place elsewhere.

Monday, September 11, 2023

September 'Maybees'....

 


    So goes hopes for a predictable season when heat has abated and what counts as normal could return...

how banal one's hopes can seem these days.

    Many my thoughts still focus on the uneasy transition between so called rural and urban life - i.e. travel between small town Montana (largest city that is) and the paradoxical place that is Washington DC. How same and how different the two can be. A Native American (Crow) artist named Ben Pease, speaking recently at the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, described Billings as a 'border town, ' representing a clash of cultures between the two worlds. His talk was on how much art and culture are related but seldom considered in that light. The importance of images and their influence in our lives. The border, of course, between life then and now, when there is a revival of interest and consternation over the past existence of schools on or near reservations intended to try taking the 'native' out of young children and turning them into what passed as 'regular people, stripped of their cultural background.


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    A more than slight change of subject. To wit: the curious palavering involved in getting some straight answers on minor health matters (which, to some in other circumstances, might seem major). A late night barefoot run-in with a very solid chair leg produces a broken baby toe. It wiggles quite a bit and starts to swell. Still, I can sleep and desperately want to do so in spite of the ache that can seem like pain depending on my position in the bed. I forget that I should immediately surround the feckless bone with ice and keep doing so on days to come. But tomorrow I am hosting a neighborhood backyard 'get to know each other' party and by no means can I not be on my toes, so to speak (literally and figuratively).. The event, held during one of the record heat days, goes into twilight to take advantage of the absent sun. A slight breeze comes up. Cleaning up afterwards takes energy and action so the toe is left to worry about itself.   

Online I see little can be done, or so I read: little toe has to be taped to its 'buddy,' neighbor, which doesn't appear very solid itself. Still, I mostly ignore what I now surround with the tightest sandals in my closet. Only later does it occur to me to think there might be complications. Medstar Urgent Care is not far away. I have left  a message for my primary care doc whose nurse repeats what online med web sites tell me: not much can be done unless a metatarsal might be involved. (The slim vital connecting link to the rest of the foot.) But how would I know unless I went for an Xray, and so back and forth. Three days later I'm in the waiting room, then on the X-ray table, then awaiting diagnosis, which  seems not to show terrible news. At least I read it that way: there has been no 'displacement,' I read in between the jargon of health care reporting. Which I take to mean not too complicated and maybe even a clean break. I send a copy off to the portal where I expect my doctor will see it and might even respond. 

No such luck. I buy more tape and even gauze because it looks good - like I should be cosseting the digit more respectfully.  I find that I can easily tear the tape by hand (after struggling with scissors) and can even try this late in the day to soothe it with more ice. Even at night: a cellophane wrapper holding ice that inevitably leaks onto the bed. The Urgent care center calls twice - two different people - reminding me that I have been referred to as osteopedic doc. I hold out for simpler solutions and instead keep a boot on my foot, as it seems I saved this awkward man-size (seemingly too large for my thin foot) device from another such accident several years ago. Yes, Medstar has the record on that. But didn't I manage then not to overdo any invasive action - on the advice of another osteopedic  doc.. And didn't I survive in fine shape, so much so that I am now a walking fool - so that I could survive a pandemic by strolling/hiking miles a day outside?

All of this to say how I was eager to test the latest medical experience - recent CDC advice to sign up for free government Covid tests (noting expiration dates may not be important, depending.) and could do so by ordering them online (as long as I am an individual and not a company) or by calling an 800 number. The latter is what I choose, considering it the ultimate test of this behemoth's efficiency ( and in view of the fact that distribution of the latest CDC recommended vaccine booster is apparently mired in confusion.) Hah - and hooray. I'm delighted to say the robotic voice completed the job by phone, enough so that I have tracking info, expecting the goods in less than a week's time. An (almost) done deal.

Well, what do you  know...