Another Week: Number 47
Sunday, after days of patient and methodical escalation in a battle against constipation, there was a breakthrough. But then, weakened from the struggle, Amy got out of bed at dawn in a daze on Monday. She slipped and fell on our hardwood bedroom floor, suffering a bruise and likely a small avulsion fracture on her hip, plus some minor head impact and strained muscles.
We used the handy YouTube video “Helping Someone Up after a Fall” once again, and I immediately ordered her three pairs of ultra-thick fuzzy grip socks.
On Tuesday, Amy’s physical therapist reported the fall to her oncologist, who had us make a trip up to the Froedtert Emergency Department for an X-ray and a scan. Everyone there was wonderful except maybe the enraged man in the next room who triggered a Code Orange — but about eight or ten security/police personnel gently persuaded him to come with them. We ourselves were out in three hours total, making it the fastest emergency room visit I have ever experienced. Even at that, with driving time, it was an unexpected six-hour detour. I no longer take any plans seriously.
Looking for some way to sneak heme iron into Amy’s persnickety system, I cooked up a pot of basic New England clam chowder on Friday, and the two of us sat at our kitchen table and thoroughly enjoyed it — a few minutes of unexpected normality.
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Austin City Limits: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
As big fans of both Austin City Limits and Jason Isbell, we couldn’t imagine a more promising TV event than this hour — and it delivered in full.
This is Isbell’s third time on the show, and his set here concentrates on songs from his newest album, Weathervanes. “King of Oklahoma” is still echoing in my head. “Cast Iron Skillet” is perfection in phrasing and touch.
The coup de grâce, though, is the closer “This Ain’t It,” with Isbell and Sadler Vaden bouncing guitar licks back and forth, Allman Brothers-style, like a pair of skipping stones on some infinite lake.
What a beautiful performance.
Good Eats is streaming on Max
Talking with Amy’s physical therapist on Tuesday about oatmeal and soluble fiber, I mentioned Alton Brown and his Good Eats series, my favorite cooking show of all time. She had never heard of it.
Back in the day, you could watch all of the Good Eats episodes for free on YouTube, and there was a fan site with complete transcripts. Time and intellectual property rights have since eliminated most of that.
But I was happy to discover on Wednesday that 16 seasons of Good Eats are currently streaming on Max — allowing younger generations to learn, for example, how to properly brown a roux for gumbo and hundreds of similar gastronomic insights.
JFK: One Day in America
Sixty years have now passed since my vague memories as a three-year-old of seeing my mom in grief over something on the TV. For several years afterward, I was obsessed with Life magazine-style photo books about John F. Kennedy and his assassination in Dallas.
JFK: One Day in America is a three-part National Geographic retrospective currently streaming on Hulu.
The documentary actually covers several days, including the preceding stops on President Kennedy’s trip to Texas through his funeral and Jack Ruby’s killing of Lee Harvey Oswald. It features recent interviews with a couple of Secret Service agents and the coworker who drove Oswald to work that day. No new insights are gained. Instead, decades of anguish are accented by long silences and grim music.
What this production does have is footage. All sorts of clips from the events of those days are incorporated, and together they recreate that atmosphere — the clothes, the buildings, the accents, the cigarettes, the flashbulbs, the glamor, and the sorrow.
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