Friday, April 29, 2011

My tenant is playing music very loud. I might have to kill her. Of course you realize this is just a figure of speech.

The cats are fixing me with their cat-stare thang. Dinner is upon us and they are making sure we have a mind meld so I WON'T FORGET to feed them. Lupine, the evil one, is nursing on the afgan on the couch. If she had thumbs, she'd suck them.

I saw someone today (as I was stepping into my therapist's office) who was in a suicide survivors group with me a few years ago. We also did a Suicide Prevention Walk together, twenty miles at night. At the end of the walk, the path was lined with luminaries with photos of dead people who had 'inspired' the walkers. We held each other up for those last steps. She remembers Geoff's anniversary and always emails me. I think we could get together now for coffee. There are some tragedies we carry forever, like a burned arm.

Art shows me the way.


Thursday, April 28, 2011

I went to the dentist this morning so now I'm drooling out of both sides of my mouth. But, dang, my teeth are clean!

The hygienist next to me had a kid in her chair. They talked about Mr Air and Miss Water and which color sunglasses did she want to put on (green). My childhood dentist was named Doctor Hummer. He did hum while he worked and he was a sadist because he never used novocaine. Ever. You just griped the chair arms, breathed deeply and let the tears slide slowly down your face.

In other news, it's about 14 degrees here but I'm going out to shovel mulch and pretend it's Spring since it's almost May. I say encouraging things to my garden like, "chin up, at least it's sunny!" and "aw, c'mon, at least there aren't any slugs." The garden looks sullen regardless.

Then I'll romp with my imaginary dogs, Gina and JP while herding the imaginary chickens.

LA LA LA and wait for the unicorns.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

By the way, the US Post Office sent change of address notices to our new clinic and I just want you all to know that I am now President Beth Coyote.

I didn't even have to campaign. Or raise billions.

I'll be ordering medical care for everyone and 20 hour work weeks and massive vacations and chocolate drinking fountains and no war and public nudity. Oh, and red shoes for all.

Love,

Your Prez
I listen to stories at work. I sit in my grandmother's rocking chair and listen to women tell their stories. Today a woman told a story so painful I couldn't speak. My midwifery partner was beside me and fortunately she hadn't lost her voice so she talked calmly and soothingly. We made a plan some kind of plan. I asked the woman what we could do for her knowing we can't fix her or her life. My heart was bleeding, shattering, breaking. I don't think I'll ever understand why some people have to endure so much suffering.

She talked about g-d and her faith in (him). Because I practice kindness, I nodded. After she left, I wanted to bang my head on the table and eat chocolate. I work with caring women all day so there was chocolate. They gather around when head banging is going on. I felt their goodness. Maybe that's g-d, the impulse toward goodness.

I feel like I could explode with all the secrets I've heard.
The lilacs are swelling on the tree but it is so cold it might snow. The cats have crowded around waiting for dinner, a daily highlight. I saw Margaret last night at a reading/mic thing I go to occasionally. People reading from notebooks and yellow pads and some coffee and the sound of the expresso machine. And the old man talking because he wants to talk about anything...horses and people who are too smart and use too many words in their poems so of course I take it personally.

With s spring like this, I seriously consider a move to Florida or Mexico or southern California. Meanwhile, the English primroses have bloomed again, faithful. yellow and purple.

This weekend I have to make middle Eastern food: humus, stuffed grape leaves, baba ganoush, felafel. I might eat it all before anyone comes over. When the weather is dreadful, make bread. Then eat it right out of the oven with butter. (or in my case, fake butter). Bread is magic.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011



I'm so happy to live in a town where there is a local person speaking about the DEMONS in such a public way.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

I have been eaten by a large hairy nocturnal spider. You should see my right leg. I have 15 bites that itch like a mother. And two nights in a row. WTF?

I like spiders. I liberate them. Quit eating me already.

Sheesh.

I spent the Easter thingamajig visiting a new baby and pulling weeds in the garden. Huge piles of weeds. I also stood over the raised bed where we planted everything WAY TO EARLY and apologized repeatedly. The kale might make it.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

I walked six miles today and now I feel virtuous. I even shaved my legs, a biannual affair. All of us were outside in the warmth and sun and flowers bursting and so forth. I came home and made pesto. I found asparagus which I will broil with coarse salt, lemon and olive oil. O, it is a good day. If I had the strength, I'd haul the Adirondack chairs from the garage and sit in one. At this point, I'd probably drop a chair on my foot. It's better to wait for a stronger, younger person to do it, like Deb's son.

Yesterday, two girls were born. One after the other. I don't talk about my work here much but I love delivering babies. I do. Even if I get a twisted back and a stiff neck. And I lose sleep. I was meant to do it. And I'm lucky to do what I love for a living. I know it.

I'm drinking a good red in my only wine glass and I feel special. It's the sun. It makes me feel oddly optimistic.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

We went to the movies last night and it was so awful we left. Even tho Juliette Binoche won some sort of award from Cannes, like best actress where she bites her lip fetchingly and utters improbable and incomprehensible lines about random events, it was BORING. I was nodding out. I'm so tired of my life at the moment because I've got too much to do. At least my new clinic has a phone and a FAX. All without the (sic) help of Qwest, surely one of the most evil phone companies around.

Oh goody. It's raining again and it's about 12 degrees out. Spring in Seattle. Feh!


Tuesday, April 19, 2011

A sunny day and bicyclists were out in force, like swarms of brightly colored insects hunched over their bellies. This makes driving beside them a challenge because they will ride abreast and tear along as fast as possible. And they have ATTITUDE, esp the guys. Ok, exclusively the guys. I must remind all bicyclists: I HAVE A LARGE MACHINE WHICH CAN CRUSH THEM FLAT. It's called a car. I wouldn't mean to crush them flat, it would just happen. I'd feel real sorry. I'd leave the country in disgrace. My life would be ruined, but, hey, their lives would be ruined too, being crushed flat and all.

So please. If you're on your $3000 bike in your fancy clothes, thinking you're the next big thing in the Gran Prix, stay out of my way. I wouldn't mean to but it might happen.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Ok, We forgot what day it was last week and didn't go to a Cheryl Wheeler concert. Just. Forgot. Tonight Rebecca is reading and I didn't realize it was TONIGHT and not TOMORROW night until it was too late. Shit. F--k.

This is serious. I hardly go out as it is. Is it because I moved my entire clinic today and one of the midwives who works for me is leaving and I'm interviewing replacements and we changed our emergency numbers and fired our answering service? Too much to do syndrome.

Rebecca, I'm so sorry. I was so looking forward to seeing/hearing you. I so owe you a dinner at Plum.

Shit. That's all I can say.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Even though the mover guy is coming on Sunday to move heavy guy-type things, like the full filing cabinets and couches, I'm leaving town overnight. My friend lives in the Skagit where snow geese land in the fields and right now there are rows and rows of tulips and daffodils. Her house is right on the river and I'll go up there and she'll make me dinner and I'll sit on the porch and think deep thoughts. Last year we watched a pair of baby owls on a high branch.

She lives in the damn country.

Deb and I are going to go to Chickens 101 class and learn about chicken care/culture/etc. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna love having chickens because they are beautiful and NOT TOO BRIGHT. Cats are peculiar, dogs are slobby and chickens have feathers growing between their (toes?), um, claws, what do they have? See, so much to study.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

I rarely call myself an imbecile but I am an imbecile. I sent poems to a journal that doesn't accept simultaneous submissions and I didn't record what I sent them. Idiot! And then I tried to find their email and my tech savvy g'friend figured it out because it was NOWHERE on their beautiful WEB page. I groveled and begged for their forgiveness.

I have been submitting and yesterday I found out I'm being published, hooray. Just one lettle poem but it made me absurdly happy.

The cats are using the new couch as a scratching post. Bad cats!! We are using the squirt bottle trick but will soon resort to harsher methods. Withholding catnip? Making them sleep in the cellar? Dressing them in doll clothes?

Saturday, April 09, 2011

I got up to see a lady about a baby which did not emerge from her body yet and so I came back home and attempted sleep which has so far been impossible because EVERYONE I've ever known has decided to come over. Shaun is on a ladder right now and Pete needed some place to put gardening tools and the mover guys were here all shiny and young, muscles bulging, to move a couch.

However.

I'm in my green bathrobe and a t-shirt and slippers at this hour in the afternoon (my mother would call it unseemly and she'd be right) with a cough that will NEVER go away. Still waiting for the baby to emerge from the lady, maybe tonight or tomorrow. Such is the life of a midwife.

I'm gonna put on real clothes and go weed so I feel like I belong here in this neighborhood and I belong to the human beings and I'm not a bathrobe-wearing cat woman people talk about behind their hands.

I'm productive, dammit.

Friday, April 08, 2011

I can't believe that I might be getting sick again. Could it be because I'm on call for the next hundred and fifty years, I'm moving my clinic to Eastlake, my honey just moved in and oh yeah, we changed out emergency number at work (for clients) and we fired our answering service because they can't pronounce 'midwife' or 'midwifery' and they're RUDE to clients. Like, they're an ANSWERING SERVICE, I mean, they answer the phone. Is that so hard? The last time I complained, the boss lady said the operator was having 'personal problems' Wha? They schedule clients on days when we're not in the office, they double book clients for one midwife and they misspell names and get phone numbers wrong.

Or maybe I have a cough because I'm dying of consumption. I could cough delicately into a lace hanky and then play a few etudes. Then I'd put a hand to my brow and slide to the floor under the piano and lie there insensate while my beloved throws rose water on me.

I'm not getting sick. This is ridiculous.

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Dental adventures

I was there at 9:30. The hygienist chatted and poked around, making small clucking noises. I felt afraid. I mean, pockets are Ok if they're 1 or 2 or 3 but 5? Does that mean I have craters in my mouth beside my teeth with small fishes in them and areas of darkness? Stalagmites and stalactites made of plaque? Then she moved in with a face shield and a blow torch after the needles in the palate. You are not supposed to have needles in your palate. G-d did not create your palate for needle treatment. She roped off with the headlamp firmly in place and descended.
And this was only for half of my mouth. I have to go back for the other half. Later.

The dentist came in and he was much more optimistic. He said my mouth looked 'pretty good'. He admired the color of my gums and gave me a 4 point lecture on implants, complete with power point.

I think this is the dental version of 'good cop, bad cop.'

Even with dental insurance, I know I'm going to spend a small fortune there. Fortunately, B of A offered me a home equity line of credit today for no reason. I needed a notary and ended up giving a complete stranger permission to view my credit history, review my home and car insurance and check my tax returns from last year. My g'friend left the premises and walked around the neighborhood. She didn't offer to put a stop to this situation.

{{{sigh}}}

Maybe with a big line of credit, I could run up a huge bill and disappear to Tuscany. Anyway, the Feds are shutting down on Friday so who cares.

Saturday, April 02, 2011

Today was my sweetie's birthday and we went to the Tacoma Glass Museum. Ordinarily, glass art makes me yawn. We're all Dale Chihuly here in the NW and, well, I blaspheme but he's boring. And he does the same stuff over and over and he's everywhere. Just look up when you're next at the Opera (or the ballet or a play or even the Majestic Bay movie house) and there he is. Snore.


But.

Today we watched a gang of youth blow, heat, shape and aim blazing torches at molten glass and they didn't burn themselves. It was astonishing. I would undoubtedly touch the glowing end of pretty glass after it came out of a 5 zillion degree oven with my naked finger because I forgot it was hot. I would. I forget where I am. I'm sure I'd be real sorry if I did that too. So we sat rapt while the youth gang messed around without personal injury to themselves or others. Then we went and looked at the galleries. The best was a toss-up. The locals made glass art from kid's drawings. My favorite was a dog eating flowers. The other favorite was a room sized installation of clear glass in the shapes of trees, leaves, clouds, a waterfall, bushes and grasses. It was all suspended from the ceiling by fishing line and soooooo magical.

Then we went to the best vegetarian restaurant and had black truffles and avocado mousse and salsify and so many other esoteric ingredients I feel positively high falutin'.

So kiss my grits.