The Newtown Pentacle

Wednesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Another day, another Doctor’s appointment. As mentioned, this is one of the household projects at the moment. When you relocate, one of the things you lose is the network of various medical specialities which you’ve been a customer of. Meeting the new Doctor means that they’re going to want to run some tests to establish a baseline for their arts, and one of the things which Pittsburgh gets a huge recommendation for is the quality and abundance of its healthcare sector.

I should mention, this ain’t nothing like NYC where you gotta wait six months for an appointment or spend two hours on hold to talk to somebody. Things are actually functional here, and the time you spend with the Doc has zero relation to the amount of rent they have to pay some vampire in the Real Estate Industrial Complex.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Don’t get me wrong, the Real Estate people are very much here, they’re just not able to fully immerse their claws and fangs into every little thing the way they do in NYC. Pittsburgh learned the lesson of what happens when you allow one corporate sector to rule the roost and control the discourse. Every Doctor appointment in Pittsburgh, so far, has been fairly relaxed and complete. In fact, they often want to do more for me than I’m comfortable with. One of the docs I met with, a “GP,” was handed an 8 page comic book I drew for the occasion detailing my various physical issues. I told him it was a user’s manual.

The section in today’s post is called Liberty, I’m told. It’s nearby the Universities, but not too close. The people on the streets seemed a bit younger here, and it seemed like a cool neighborhood to live in if you want a more urban vibe. Apartment houses rather than private homes, but as you can see above – there were plenty of those too. This neighborhood hosts what (I guess) used to be called the ‘Western Pennsylvania Hospital’ that’s currently operated by the monolithic UPMC organization.

As a note, those homes are what I’d observationally describe as fairly typical “Pittsburgh houses” with the bricked front porches and tiny front yards. You’ll notice several of them hosting awnings, which aren’t fabric but metal instead, and those are also pretty common features. Saying that, this shot looks directly across the street from a hospital, so those are probably Doctor and Nurse and Med Student dwellings.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

On my way back to HQ, there was a traffic accident somewhere in front of me so I ended up cooling my heels on the highway for a while with the car in ‘park.’ I took the opportunity to open the Mobile Oppression Platform’s moon roof and crack out a few of the kind of shots you normally can’t get when you’re hurtling along at .065 of the speed of sound.

The Pennsylvania peeps use the speed limit as a suggested starting point or as a ‘minimum speed’ indication. You’ll be doing 60 in a 40 mph zone and somebody in a Ford 150 will scream past you at 80 or 90.

Back tomorrow, and please remember to share this post on your socials if you dug it.

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