Back from the woods with a bang. Work descended upon me. Alas. When your job is birthin' babies, sometimes the thought of hiding out, changing your identity is very tempting.

However.

I had a fine dream on Sunday night. I walked into a bar and the jazz singer was Rebecca. She was wearing a curvy black dress, very low cut and high heels. Her hair was piled up in swoopy curls. She was singing, "It Had To Be You" in a breathy way. All the people were swooning. (interruption to pee) I woke up.

Dream resumption: R and I were going to buy toilet paper. I'd forgotten my wallet and we had 98 cents between us. We arrived at the store and I had to climb a steep embankment to get there. I struggled upward but arrived at the door. I explained to the clerk I had barely any money but she said I was in luck because 98 cents could buy 12 rolls. So back I went to find the car. The parking lot was vast and dark. Before I set out, R had given me a red knife and a black (plastic) gun. Two men started following me and I unfortunately stabbed one of them. Oh dear. And on a Buddhist retreat too. But. He didn't die. And I didn't have to use the gun. Lucky for me because it was a toy. R was nowhere to be seen.

Otherwise, not a dream in sight.

Time to walk the dog who lies in complete boredom at my feet.

Deb built a contraption so the chickens can roam a bit. It makes them so happy in their birdbrained way.

My accountant got a delay on my taxes. Then he tried to explain to me why I couldn't put $ in my Roth IRA ( a piddling sum) and I didn't understand him AT ALL. He needs an interpreter, or I do. I mean, what is an AGI?

I just go to work and hope at the end of each month there is enough to pay everyone and the effing IRS. I am not a business person. Not.

My mother always told me I'm 'too' sensitive. What the hell does that mean?

For the next five days I'll be in silence. In the woods. Bird call and a train whistle in the background. I'll sit a lot, eat meals others have prepared, sleep in a wee bed ( I hope, in a room by myself) and tromp around in the rain when I'm not in the zendo.

Ah, retreat.

Not a holiday.

Time to myself.

Henri

The new Sherlock Holmes is starting in 6 minutes on PBS and I'm seriously into it. Seriously. One of the best Sherlocks and I'm an (ahem) aficionado. LeStrade called him a psychopath and Sherlock corrected him, "No, I'm a high functioning sociopath, get it right!"

O yes indeed. Benedict Cumberbatch, what a Brit name, by gawd. YUM. And I'm a lesbian.

Last night we went to the symphony and I fell into a swoon when Nadja Solerno-Sonnenberg bounced onto the stage. She tossed her hair. She wore pants. She dipped into and released the most exquisite notes. I leaned in and held my breath through her playing. O, she is magnificent.

Thursday morning and the dog is wuffing because there are MEN in the yard with ladders and loud machinery to saw tree branches and crawl on the roof of the garage. The garage roof has evil moss that eats away at the shingles so they fall off and then the roof leaks and then more disaster ensues with flooding and floating and ruin.

I want a wee cabin in the woods where the wild hyssop grows and no one mows the weeds and the chickens mingle with the elves and I sit on the porch in my pajamas drinking tea and reading a fat novel. With a pond off in the distance where frogs live. And no sirens or people only wild creatures. And the vines curl into the kitchen and the floors are made of birch worn smooth and a big fireplace where a fire burns most of the time and we eat with our hands and we live until our beards touch the ground.

And there is no need for maintenance of any kind.

And I continue with my magical thinking unto the end.

Yesterday Holly and I went back to good ole Tiger mountain to hike a new portion of the Lingering/Dwight's Way etc trail except we didn't. My feet were so sore from the previous day and Holly was walking very slowly and grumbling about her laundry so we decided to head back. We stopped for snacks and to be in the glory. The sun on the green leaves and ferns and the winding trail, not too steep this time, we kept stopping to breathe it all in. We both agreed that the forest is medicine and healing and we'll not stop hiking until we no longer can. It's sunny today too and I'm tempted but I better give my feet and legs a rest.

AND when I came home yesterday, Simon, Deb's son, was in the yard, digging post holes. I don't have a son and my daughters live in California. BUT. Deb asks him to come over and lift something heavy and he does. Or dig post holes. Without complaining. Cheerful even. He had his shirt off and the chickens were watching him as he fitted three 4 X 4's into the three foot deep holes he'd dug. (I tried to dig holes last week, very pathetic) Then he took us to a restaurant called Poppy for Mother's Day where we had the most exquisite dinner: lovage and nettle soup, fried fiddleheads and spiced asparagus with lemon and sage-all herbs grown in their garden out back and they gave us a sage plant to take home. I <3 Simon.

Both my daughters called too and I love them and want to see them soon. July is too far away. But I  invited Simon to come this year to the camping extravaganza and he said he would.

Sweet boy.

Rebecca said ' o baby how did we survive it all?'  and it burned into my heart it did so I took myself to the mountains a trail called Dirty Harry way up the pass off 90 and it was a dried up (mostly) stream bed a real ankle breaker me and Felix and we forded streams and walked on the slippery rocks and when something crashed down Felix barked his big dog bark and when we got to the snow line we decided to head back down and the sun wasn't shining on the trail before but now it was so everything sparkled the water wee waterfalls the dead garter snake the ferns uncurling their fronds the brilliant mountain tops still wearing the winter snow so I forgot about the sorrow the sadness my friend my always present shadow in the mountains there is green peace and critters and trillium still blooming and for a while I think about my wet boots and my sore foot and the next boulder we have to jump off and the next bend and the next

my legs are rubbery the chickens are all there the dog is lying asleep on the rub and the day blazes into evening

for now this is enough

Buk-buks

Tis a fine morning. I've fed the dawg, the chickens and myself. I've watered the garden in preparation for planting seeds today. It's supposed to be warmer and warmer by the weekend. Yesterday I sat in front of the coop and watched the chickens. They are Lucy and Ethel, Betty and Fiona. Lucy is bossy and bitchy. 'Pecking order', now I understand. Lucy is a bit bigger than the other gals and pecks their backs if she wants the choicest bit of greens or the primary place at their feeding bucket. She's pushy and I already want to spank her and say 'share!" However, I think this is the way in the chicken world. Deb and her son Simon, dug post holes yesterday for the fence. Felix goes and stares at the girls. Hugo rolls around in the dirt in front of their coop, showing off his canines.

I think that, when they're bigger, they'll be able to whup his ass. Raccoons, another matter.

I have work this afternoon. (wha wha) And I burned the toast and set off the smoke detector. I cried in the garden for a while and then pulled weeds in a fury.

You'd think if I'm the boss, I can do what I want but actually I have to be sure the engines of commerce are running smoothly. Fie on all of it. The midwife who's clinic day it is is at a birth ergo-I get to work until 8PM, which is totally wrong AND I have a twelve hour day tomorrow.

I'm tired.

We saw The Avenger (Superhero) movie last night. A great deal of foolishness. I LOVE Mark Ruffalo, esp in the movie, You Can Count on Me. He's the HULK in this expensive 3D thang and it's silly. However Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man is so perfect and funny and true, you want him in every scene. Even if his movie g'friend is Gwyneth Paltrow, yuch.

Anyway.

I'm having insomnia these days. Very inconvenient. I can't fall asleep. I don't stay asleep. When I learn my plans for the day have been dashed, I dissolve into a blubbering pile.

Pathetic.

I'm making stewed rhubarb. The rhubarb is next to the chicken coop WITH FOUR CHICKENS IN IT. There's a Rhode Island Red, a white one, a speckled one and a black one and they're so pretty. I'll find out what they're called later. I want to name one Betty.

The dog stands in front of the coop and barks. The katz are trying to get into the coop. They're plotting right now. Especially Hugo.

Just try it, big guy.

Another birth last night. Favorite family and Lynn, my sister midwife, came.

Still.

I'm staggering around, so tired. I gardened and dealt with the litter boxes.

Watching Wallender series from Sweden. In Swedish. If I don't pay close attention, I miss the subtitles. Then all is lost.

Someone else is in labor. Sheesh.

In the past 24 hours, Sean came over and righted/added four new feet to my claw foot bathtub. I must also mention Pete because it took both of them oofing and cursing to get the damn thing to level. But I just hosed off the muddy dog in it and it didn't a) fall on my foot or b) flood the first floor. And then this morning two nice young men put a chicken coop together in the side yard. All complete. I just opened the door and there are perches and two nesting boxes and rat proof wire all around.

Let the games begin! We need straw and feed and water and chickens! Oh, and a light to make it warmer out there. And grit for their craws. And maybe vitamins and lawd, I don't know what else.

Meanwhile, the dog really likes my underwear. Kinky, I know. And by the way. If you wash the white dog, it will rain. You can bet on it.

I worked a 12 hour clinic day and then went right to a birth. A beautiful birth too. The momma had a c/section with her first babe and angled for a vag birth this time. And she did it. She pushed that little girl out. She was a tiger.

So came home at 6 this morning and slept in. Sleeping in when I'm on call goes something like this:

The sun comes blasting in through the skylights at some ungodly hour. I have a headache from lack of sleep. The phone rings about 54 times. Each time, I lurch to a sitting position to see if it's the answering service with another birth. None of the 54 calls are the answering service.

I realize I'm hungry. I fantasize about a big breakfast with drippy toast and hot cereal and marmelade and tea. But I'll have to make it. I also have to pee but that means getting up and my headache is a monster with bad breath.

I think I sleep for 15 minutes at a time. The katz are on the bed. The dog has mysteriously disappeared. I fall back into a swoon. By 2:30 I'm up. My head is pounding. It's raining so I don't have to feel guilty about doing any yard work. The dog is being bathed at the dog place. I have to go get him. I stand at the fridge and wish a kindly chef was standing in the kitchen cooking me some delicious food with garlic and strawberries, not perhaps in the same dish.

I don't need a shower. Showers are for sissies. I think about the birth early in the morning and rejoice for the mom. She did it. She wanted the whole experience and she got it. My heart opens. I'm in my dirty clothes, hungry and tired and in love with the new parents and their babe and my good fortune. I'm a midwife. I'm a damn lucky woman.

The guy who's delivering our chicken coop says he won't be here for another three weeks!!! That's forever. He wanted to know if we had chickens. We should have lied and said, 'Gawd yes and they're all over the house. Git over here right now and build them a house!"

Instead we worked in the yard and took ibuprofen for our backs and knees. Deb's son came over and lifted a giant statue thingy like it was nuthin'. O the young and the strong.

Gotta take the dog out before evening falls.

Deb let me sleep in this morning and I was so grateful I cried. And cried.

Sometimes it doesn't take much.