Category Archives: Self-Referential

self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing, self-explanatory, self, self, self, …

Baby Boy Showalter Delivery Costs: $77.00

birthcosts

Working on my mother’s estate following her death last month, I came across the 1949 hospital billing for my birth.

My mother was the hospital’s guest on the fourth day of her stay (perhaps because she was a hospital volunteer) so my folks saved a slick $6 after paying the bill in full.  Sounds about right.

Leonard Cohen Ain’t The Only One Going Home

Off To The Land of Oz-arks

We are indeed doing the hill and dale thing, journeying westward to spend Thanksgiving with my mother at her home a couple of  miles north of Arkansas in a part of southwest Missouri where the only inhabitants of gated communities are cows.

Posting here and at the DrHGuy site is likely to be sparse or absent altogether until early next week.

Screw This

I awoke a couple of days ago to find something rolling around in my mouth. That something is the item shown above  in the lower right corner of the baggie and below in an enlarged version of the same photo.

It’s part of a dental abutment that will connect implants already installed in my jaw to  set of prosthetic teeth in what I desperately hope is the near future.

In short, I really did have a screw loose in  my head.

And yes, that does explain a lot.

Aloha Maui – Aloha Durham

Homeward Bound

The Duchess and I, our honeymoon almost complete, are packing for the flight home later today1 but took time before departure to memorialize this one last look at the beach with a photo taken from our room.

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  1. Although flying lots-o-hours through time zones means we arrive home tomorrow []

Now, We Both Miss Julie

At 7:00 on the morning of December 3, 1999,
in the bed we shared, Julie Showalter,
my beloved, fiercely smart, wickedly sexy wife,
died from cancer diagnosed the week
of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier.

Julie, Don, Penny, and Me

Penny and I were each privileged to have previously been married to individuals who were gracious, joyful, affectionate, talented, passionate, and caring. Consequently, when the two of us took our wedding vows earlier this year, we were not only willing to bring into our union the love, veneration, and, not least, the longings that Penny maintained for her husband Don, who died in 2009, and that I held for my wife Julie, who died in 1999,1  but were, in fact, resolute about doing so.

Neither of us, you see, was then – or is now – willing to forsake the treasures we accumulated from years of cherishing and being cherished for the numbing anesthesia of an obliterated memory.

So, while Penny and I occasionally find it awkward to realize we miss someone we never met, that seems a small price to pay for a home resonant with feelings from our past liaisons as well as our own  present relationship.

And more than ever, our song of songs for who we are now and who we have been in the past has become Leonard Cohen’s Dance Me To The End Of Love.

 

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  1. I’ve written about the strange story of how Julie and I came together – see Julie Showalter FAQ []

DrHGuy & The Other Saints Day

DrHGuy is taking today off to join in the festivities celebrating the double holiday of All Saints Day and his birthday.

Credit Due Department: The All Saints icon was found at ChurchYear