Once again, I'm waiting on a momma, this one her 4th baby so she's an old hand. She predicts when this one will come so I'm sitting on the couch wondering if I should just wander over there and hang at her house. It's dark now and there's no traffic, thank the goddess of all things birth-wise.

I must say, D Trump continues to be a horse's ass. No transgender in the military because their health care is so expensive?????? My therapist says there will be an uprising and we'll all take to the streets to save our democracy. Ok, I'm down with that. What's most interesting is that we go to work, we sit on the train looking at our screens, we buy food at the co-op, we get gas, we go swimming, we tend our gardens and walk our dogs AS IF LIFE IS ALL NORMAL when it's so effed up and we're hoping that those founding fathers got it right with three branches of government and the system of checks and balances and so on.

The NYT published the constitution in their Sunday paper. It's huge and takes up four pages. I taped it to the wall so I could remind myself what it says, especially those pesky amendments.

Cuz what's at stake-EVERYTHING. I know there is outrage everywhere we look, and I mean everywhere. My fear is that we will go numb and hide out in our neighborhoods and that is no way to behave if we're gonna weather this absolute fuckery.

In other news, Diane, my ex and I went to the lady spa and soaked and steamed and ate fabulous Korean food in our bathrobes. Well, why not? And we saw normal woman bodies, young and old. Not everyone is 18 and 110 pounds. What a relief.

I'm gonna go get in my scrubs and take off this terrible bra. Gawd, I hate bras so much. There must be a comfortable one out there but I've never encountered it.

BTW, while doing a birth a few days ago in my nice clinic clothes, I hoisted myself up on the bed and apparently caught the hem of my pants on my foot and basically pulled my pants down under my ass. Fortunately I was wearing colorful undies and I quickly (with my gloved hand) pulled up my pants and no one was the wiser. Fashion disaster narrowly averted. Well, those pants are very comfortable with a stretchy waistband so it, um, happened.

The parents and the baby didn't mind at all.

Hello dear ones. I've been buried under an avalanche of babies. I'm profoundly tired. Even after five days away with my family, I came right back to work and had an all nighter birth and I'm at the birth center now with another momma. And clinic. And the usual shenanigans with my staff. We had, as my student deadpanned when I asked her, 65 babies in a month. We didn't have that many but it sure felt like it.

My clinic practice is almost sold. Sara, my sweet partner, is buying it. I've finally seen the purchase and sale agreement and it's 44 pages of legalese. Sheesh.  Non-compete, loan default, etc etc. I know that Sara is the perfect person to take over. She's smart, intuitive, kind and very skilled. So amazing in one so young. I'll still be here as the grande dam of whatever. I'm having trouble imagining myself not going to births anymore but I'll tell ya, after the past month, I could sleep for a year. I get home, water the gardens, feed the animals, walk Felix, eat, fall into bed, get called out at 3AM, do clinic, repeat.

I went swimming today in the lake. Lake Washington is 29 miles long and very wide. It's a wonderful big lake and I love it. Today it was chock full of yachts, roped together. Seattle has, alas, become a city of millionaires. I remember with great fondness the Old Seattle, funky, a bit seedy, unpretentious and slow. Now it's a hip happening place. And I've become an old woman with arthritic knees.

But the babies are still delicious. Every one of them.