OFF I GO

By the time, you read this I will have been to Saratoga Springs and back. I'm off to a convention for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This occurs twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall.

We formulate policy on a state-wide basis, dealing with Albany and Medicaid and the issues of financial sustainability for all the chapters in this organization. This, in turn, leads to local chapter policies and new ways to survive in the world of protecting and sustaining people with disabilities.

We will vote and listen to reports, manage to stay awake and ponder of what is right and wrong, and I might get up and say something myself, whether they like what I say or not.

For me, I will drive upstate and take in the time of year that is ever so beautiful, mountains, trees and rivers and lakes, all colored by the changing leafs. Coming home as I cruise the highways, Mother Nature has a way of becoming more prominent and dominant. So, does my heartburn. After mornings of scrambled eggs, bacon and bad bagels, lunches of chicken and dreary vegetables and dinners of either overdone steak or dull fish, a dessert I can't finish and one too many Jack Daniels, heartburn is my companion.

This convention is significant, it means it will soon be Halloween, that leads to Thanksgiving and finally Christmas. But all the expectation I hope to see is my lovely wife waiting for me, she will look up at what she is doing and greet me and life goes back to normal.