Off to retreat. A month of silence with the California hills, the wild turkeys and the deer. My duffle is bulging. I have to get up real early to catch my plane. Real early.

No posting until I get back in April.

I did go back Sunday night to see Sheila E with a bunch of ladies. and Milo. My sister Annie got up and shook her booty. Milo thought it was too loud. Latin jazz made the adults so happy.

I go away for a month soon. No internet or phone or music or reading. Sitting and walking meditation in beautiful northern California with my teachers. And the frogs. And the turkeys. And the deer.

Oh, Haiti. I'm going for 2 weeks in May. It's worse than you think. It's worse than they say. I listened to a podcast this morning from a pair of docs and a nurse who just came back. I don't think I will have internet there (ha!) but there's always paper and pen. I can post when I get back.

I saw Sheila E tonight at Jazz Alley with her father and brother. At the end of their set, she played a solo and for part of it, she played with her hands, no sticks. She was so brilliant, I swooned. Actually, I jumped up and down on my chair. I might have to go back Sunday night.

This morning my daughter and my grandson came into my room to wake me up. Milo is so beautiful. I think I didn't notice before but he is made of silk. When you're seven your skin is soft and golden. Your hair is streaked with blonde. Golden. He is golden at seven.

Plus he has a bunch of teeth missing. Maya had to sit on him to cut his fingernails. Victoria says boys are semi-feral. She's right. Boys are noisy and jumpy. Sparkly. And they're not particular about baths.

I saw Hazel tonight. She's five and she has a prodigious vocabulary. Her mother acts like this is nothing unusual, which for her, isn't . Hazel wanted to talk about the amniotic sac and the bones of the pelvis so I demonstrated where they were on her, illium and sacrum. She wanted to know the name of the bones we sit on. Just keep going, Hazel. And write it all down.

I am watching Olympic skiing. The skiers are going 85 miles an hour. If I skied that fast, I would seriously die. Both knees would break into a million pieces, my legs would go in different directions and my body would rip in two. There would be blood on the snow. The pieces of my body would probably never be found.

If I went that fast GOING DOWN A BIG STEEP HILL, my eyeballs would vibrate so fast they would fall out of my head, my teeth would chatter together and shatter and my wrists would disconnect from my arms so my hands, still clutching the ski poles would fly off and land on the spectators.

I would give the expression, 'garage sale' a new meaning.

Don't get me started about the luge. Why would anyone lie down on a little sled, FEET FIRST, and slide down an ice shute going 95 miles an hour? I would not do that. No, I wouldn't.

I forgot but after I dropped J off at the rail station, I drove through Chinatown and there were dancing dragons everywhere, in front of businesses and restaurants. Fathers carried little ones on their shoulders. Seattle Chinatown has beautiful dragons crawling up their light posts. Red and yellow with big claws. Big yellow teeth.

The group I'm going to be working with in Haiti is reeligeous..... They have prayer meetings in the morning. I promise I will sit quietly and not say inappropriate things. Maybe I'll hum a little tune under my breath.

We have to bring our own food to Haiti. Two weeks of granola, miso cup and power bars. Yum.

First, though, I'm having a big ass birthday party next week. Then I go into silence for a month in California. When I get home, I'll get ready for Haiti. Oh, and in between, I'll undoubtedly deliver a few babies. And all with the help of the baby Jesus.

I'm going to have a massive birthday party, if anyone comes to it.

I'm going on a month long silent retreat in March. Shhhhhhh.

I'm going to Haiti for 2 weeks in May to work with pregnant women and their babies.

And that's all for now.

For no reason, I'd like to talk about high tea. Because my mother was a Brit, I can make fun of the Brits. Besides their imperialistic tendencies and their irrational love of the Royals, they do tea. And high tea is perfect. My daughter once took me to the Queen Victoria (natch) tea shop for mother's day. You get your very own teapot with your very own tea made properly, loose leaves, pot heated first, etc. And you choose some fancy, you never heard of it, tea like Ceylon Moonrise or Precious Pearls Jasmine Spice. They bring a layered tray with sandwiches (crusts cut off!), cucumber and salmon with cream cheese, then little fruits all arranged and petit fours on the top.

The whole place was chintz, the walls, curtains, chair covers. I caught Eden reading a Martha Sterwart magazine while we waited to be seated. And high tea is properly eaten at 4-ish because you're gonna eat supper later, like at 8PM. That's when you dress for dinner. Imagine. And all that silverware. I have the silverware. It's in a box at the top of my shelves, tarnishing as we speak. I even have a special set used only for fish, with ivory handles (sorry elephants).

Every year I think I should give my kids this stuff so they can shlep it around with them and periodically polish it. But it's still here. What do you do with detritus from a previous age? Button hooks and darning eggs? Shoe horns and coal scuttles?

I'm going to Haiti. With Midwives for Haiti. In May. OMG.

Move Your Money

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icqrx0OimSs

So watched the video and I went to my local neighborhood bank because I'm leaving B of A, one of the bailout giants with massive 'bonuses' for their robber barons. Ug.

Washington Federal Savings and Loan. There's one around the corner from me. You can have some popcorn because there is a popcorn maker by the front door. And a Shriner candy machine. There are a few ladies doddering behind the counter. And a rumpled guy in jeans with a messy desk who was actually a bit vague when I told him I wanted to move my business account to their nice bank. He pointed toward one of the ladies who gave me some papers to sign. She even fished around behind the counter for a manila envelope to put all of my stuff in. The rumpled guy who was, I believe, the branch manager, gave me several photocopied pages of their stockholder's report. I, uh, didn't see the relevance but I thanked him anyway.

I didn't see anyone named Billy with strings tied to his fingers but one of the ladies looked suspicious. Oh, and there wasn't a crow on her shoulder. I was a bit disappointed by that. They do have some of my money now. I hope they take good care of it. As for B of A, you can kiss my grits.

Periodically I figure out how much I could get for my car (not much) and I look longingly at new/or newer cars with FOUR seats and FOUR doors. A car with a trunk. Sigh. Whenever my family comes to town, I can't drive them anywhere. I might as well have a horse.

I have an Insight, the groovy little car Honda made that is a 'concept' car, whatever that means. They don't make them anymore. And you want to know why? Because they are enormously uncomfortable, you practically sit on the ground they are so low (and invisible to massive cars), and they have an interesting blind spot so you can scare the crap out of yourself trying to change lanes. Oh, and there is a lot of road noise so after you get to 60 mph, you can't hear your music, no matter how loud you crank it up. And NO TRUNK.

I like trunks. I can put my medical equipment in a trunk. Why anyone would steal pitocin and a stethoscope is beyond me. Some of my midwife friends have lost all their stuff stolen from their cars. Dumb, OK. but the old Insight has no truck, just a lot of batteries in the back. It's like, help yourself to my swim bag and medical equipment. Here, let me help you.

I've applied to go to Haiti. ( how's that for a change of subject?) They wanted to know my availability in 2011. I said-any time is good. I can say, 'where is the library?' in French. Probably not much help.