EAST PROVIDENCE – The empty parking lot at University Orthopedics is enveloped in darkness on the early morning of Black Friday, Nov. 29. There is a bone-chilling wind sweeping across Narragansett Bay, with no signs of human activity at One Kettle Point Avenue, only the churning of the blades of the seven wind turbines generating electricity. To the north, the skyline of the city of Providence appears frozen in place.

I have arrived for my scheduled MRI at Rhode Island Medical Imaging; it is 6:25 a.m. My appointment instructions have asked that I arrive by 6:45 a.m. for my 7:00 imaging. But I am the only car in the parking lot; there is no signage anywhere for Rhode Island Medical Imaging. The front door is locked; there are no inside lights on.

I remain optimistic if chilled and shivering. Just to get to this point in my health care delivery has meant navigating my way through third-party authorization with my health insurer to get an MRI scheduled. In short, in the last three months, I have managed to arrange for a new neurologist, a new neurosurgeon, and a new rheumatologist, even as my chronic symptoms continue to worsen.

I ponder whether University Orthopedics has given its staff the day off, the day after Thanksgiving, as a kind of bonus vacation/shopping day, as I await for any signs of life within the building.

First the lights inside the building come on at about 6:40, then sliding glass front doors are unlocked by the Rhode Island Medical Imaging technician. She will be running my imaging as she begins her 10-hour workday.

I lament the lack of RIMI signage at the University Orthopedics building, and to myself, not out loud: Is there a story to be told about the ongoing transition to Brown University Health and the apparent failure to provide any signage for Rhode Island Medical Imagining at University Orthopedics. Black Friday is considered to be the biggest shopping day of the year – but perhaps not a great day for patients seeking care.

Leaving my apartment complex earlier that morning, I had caught sight of legs in green and white striped stockings hanging outside the front end of a Jeep, with pointed green shoes. I guessed it was an apparent humorous reference to the release of the new movie version of “Wicked.” [See image above.]

I took it as a positive sign that the parking lot where I reside is protected. But there are no similar signs of protection in the empty parking lot at University Orthopedics.

I would return later that afternoon to be diligent  about paying my co-payment fee of $150 and to collect a disc of the imaging, so I would be able to hand deliver it to my neurologist for my Monday afternoon appointment, not necessarily trusting it to arrive by itself on time for my 1:45 p.m. appointment.

Two big moments of reveals    
On Dec. 11, there will be two big moments of future reveals – the release of the Rhode Island Foundation’s five-year strategic action plan, to be done in conjunction with columnist Dan McGowan of The Boston Globe’s Rhode Map Live, featuring David Cicilline, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, and Board Director Ann-Marie Harrington, at the Ballroom of the Providence G on Dorrance Street, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Earlier on that same day, the 2024 RI Life Index will launch its findings from its annual findings at 350 Eddy St. on the Fourth Floor of the Rhode Island School of Public Health at Brown University.

The two events – the Rhode Island Foundation’s five-year strategic action plan and the RI Life Index, sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Rhode Island and Brown’s School of Public Health – represent a data-driven analysis of Rhode Island’s future.

If the Rhode Island Foundation serves as the unofficial fourth arm of government in Rhode Island, filling in where there are glaring gaps and shortfalls in the state’s social contract, then the RI Life Index provides a data-driven analysis of what Rhode Islanders think about the state of the delivery of health itself.

A third, important reveal will have occurred a week and a half earlier when Rhode Island KIDS COUNT holds its annual luncheon celebrating children’s health and well-being on Monday, Dec. 2, at the Marriott Hotel. [See link to ConvergenceRI story below, “Are the kids alright?”]

Underneath the radar screen is the stark reality, reported by a number of community agencies, that many hospitals are apparently releasing patients with mental health and behavioral problems back onto the streets with no place for them to go, exacerbating the lack of safe shelter space in communities across Rhode Island.

Gargling in the rat race choir.  
All of these revealing events in Rhode Island are occurring as former President Donald Trump prepares for his transition to become the 47^thPresident of the United States. There was a scene recorded at Mar a Lago over Thanksgiving at which former President Trump enthusiastically thumped his hand on the table, to the beat of “YMCA” by the Village People, one of his campaign theme songs, urging his ever-present shadow these days, Elon Musk, to join in.

The song, from 1980, begins: “Young man, there’s no need to feel down, I said/

Young man, pick yourself off the ground, Young man/There’s a place you can go…./It’s fun to stay at the YMCA.”

The song, of course, is a paeon of praise endorsing the lifestyle of young gay men, a meaning that seems to have always escaped former President Trump.