My Baltimore Trip Over the Weekend
I had to spend money I normally wouldn't. I didn't have a local friend free to accompany me to a procedure in Baltimore. Because of anesthesia administered during the procedure (not that they explained this at the time), they would not release me on my own, and I couldn't drive. I had a follow-up checkup the following morning on the campus. Even an Uber round trip would cost $100. Luckily there is a hotel on the John Hopkins' campus which cost well over $100 a night--not to mention an eye-popping $21 in taxes per night. No, they wouldn't release me to an Uber driver, so I had to pay $65 for a nurse to drop me off to the hotel a few blocks away--the most expensive taxi ride I've ever paid for.I had instructions not to eat after midnight (which effectively meant I wouldn't get a bite to eat until late in the afternoon) and sharply restricted liquid intake (like water or black coffee no later than 8 AM). I was a little concerned whether I could get an Uber (I think I found only 3 taxi services in the local area, none of them with great reviews); part of this is based when I lived in a comparably populated town in WV and couldn't find a taxi service. (See here for more discussion of my Uber experience.) So I tried to get an Uber 2.5 hours before my check-in at JH; part of that had to do with past experience in Baltimore traffic, but also I was assessing if I couldn't get an Uber, I might fall through with a taxi or, if necessary, drive myself in/ If you've read past posts, you know my initial surgery was postponed 3 weeks over paperwork issues, including a transition from employee healthcare. I could not afford another delay. Luckily, I was able to catch a ride within 10 minutes each way. And despite stop-and-go driving inside Baltimore, I made it to JH with an hour to spare.
Outside of an outpatient surgery in 2009, I've rarely had to go to the hospital, so it's hard for me to rate them as if one of a number of blackberries, but I was very impressed with the professionalism st JH. very friendly and professionalism, they kept me informed every step of the way, let me know what was happening next, etc. The biggest annoyance was at check-in when admitting questioned me about about who would escort me after surgery; I thought that I and/or the nursing services company had been in touch with the surgery point of contact. I still had the nurse's phone number who contacted me the day before but what they needed was the agency name which I eventually recalled.
So everything went well (actually, I'm in a week of recovery, so it'll be a while before I can term the surgery a success, but everything seems to check off so far). `There was a bit of a delay before I got wheeled in for surgery, and I wondered being hooked up to everything what if I needed a restroom break, but I hadn't much to drink all day and took a rest break soon after arrival. I was fully conscious through the procedure and could respond to occasional surgeon directions. I was in the waiting room waiting for pickup a couple of hours before expected pickup (and the nurse had to battle traffic; I called her after Mom; I wasn't in a hurry in that I knew the hotel wouldn't let me check in until 4 PM.
The hotel room was definitely spacious and a step above the typical $60-80/night hotels I've frequented on my UHaul and other moves. They had a full-sized kitchen, complete with refrigerator, but really I wanted to check out their restaurant because I hadn't eaten all day. It was more like a yuppie happy hour with a limited number of pricey entrees; I had an appetizer (they had a margherita flatbread I enjoyed), some delicious seafood pasta, and a glass of beer (no non-alcoholic beverages on the menu); no real frills like dinner rolls or side salad. I ran up just over $30 (including tip). I think the last time I ate out was a trip to McDonald's before a hospital visit a few months back. So I didn't mind the occasional meal out. Of course at home I had planned for my recovery period packing my freezer with frozen meals and some microwavable shelf-stable meals.
I was almost dreading their free continental breakfast the next morning; I have seen so many of these which were nothing more than shrink-wrapped almost tasteless mini-muffins, a juice machine and some coffee carafes, more often than not empty. This one had a small buffet line with scrambled eggs, pork sausages and various garnishes like salsa, shredded cheese, and baby spinach, not to mention a container of warm tortillas. I was delighted to see a grapefruit juice option that was just perfect, slightly tart but not too sweet. (I don't have fruit juice that often; when I do, I like pulpy versions And not this tiny juice glasses you have to refill 2-3 times but decent size plastic cups. And real plates and utensils, not paper/plastic alternatives. The scrambled eggs were nothing special, but for lower-carb dieters like me, an alternative to pastries, bagels or cereals, and the garnishes helped. (On the side, I love eggs. My Mom used to make boiled-egg sandwiches for me when I was attending Catholic school in third grade; we attended mass first and went back to school and ate breakfast before starting class. The Church had strict dietary rules on fasting before Communion, etc. The best eggs I've ever had was when I got promoted to assistant cook work-study (from dishwashing duties) my first semester in college; Rudy, the cook, made these amazing huevos rancheros with a savory salsa sauce. So the breakfast and room exceeded my expectations.
So after that, I went to the JH complex, first picking up my prescriptions (this was a blessing because I didn't want the Uber driver having to stop at WalMart's on the way back). The first post-operative checkup went well; there's another one upcoming in about a week.
Trump Has a Problem Telling the Truth
I've recently started playing my backlog of podcasts, including the Sunday morning NBC and ABC shows, going back before Trump's election. Among other things, I revisited Trump's preposterous claims that Trump's inauguration was attended by more than Obama's. Keep in mind that Trump's 46% of the vote was one of the lowest winning percentages (if you ignore the 3-way of 1992 election) dating back to the nineteenth century. He won only 4% of the DC vote, and the collar counties also went strongly for Clinton. So the vast majority of local citizens are not Trump voters. You basically would have had to have massive numbers of visitors outside the DC area just to achieve a normal, never mind record attendance. Perhaps Trump's massive ego and constant hype refused to admit the obvious or he had underlings telling him what they thought he wanted to hear. Trump's assertion was easily disproved, but he refused to let it go, claiming the media were trying to manipulate his inaugural victory.What bothered me was that Trump persisted in his delusional hype, even after compelling visual evidence proved otherwise. He took it personally, at the expense of his own credibility. Personally, I would have cut my losses and acknowledged the obvious. I was troubled by Trump's seeming inability not to sweat the small stuff. How would he act if the stakes were higher?
But during the Comey firing, Mueller investigation and the report release, there were numerous reasons not to believe Trump, including his conflicting reasons for terminating Comey, whether he used the words "fire Mueller" to McGahn, that Mueller was engaging in sour grapes over not being selected as Comey's replacement (in fact, Bannon contradicted that, saying Mueller had come to brief Trump on a discussion of the FBI, and one that particularly annoys me is how, when Andrew Napolitano refuted Trump's absurd claim of no obstruction of justice in the Mueller report, Trump again claimed that this was sour grapes over Napolitano not being nominated to SCOTUS.
Now there are reports Napolitano claimed that Trump told him he was on the short list, but this may have been some false flattery when Napolitano was asked to assess SCOTUS and candidates like Gorsuch. (Napolitano is a legal adviser on the Trump Propaganda Network aka FNC.) The fact is that Napolitano is 68 years old, and most Presidents are looking to make a lasting presence on the court, say someone is his 40's or 50's. But more to the point, Trump had released a list of potential SCOTUS picks during the campaign, and Napolitano was not on any list for the two vacancies.
As an academic, I had a professional inclination to follow the truth, even if my intuition said otherwise. Trump engages in petty behavior and says things that he knows are not true. He has no business being in the White House.
