Tomorrow I leave for the wilds of California, first to visit my LA daughter (who said the all her friends 'adore' me-really?) and then to the Bay area to see daughter the older with Milo, the golden grandson and Shaun, the son-in-law, also golden. Finally to meet up with my sweetie at Spirit Rock for a six day silent retreat. O you who read my blog know that I am a regular retreat-goer. It resets my mental/emotional/spiritual muscles to be in silence, the longer the better. I was gone for most of July on retreat this year. Already thinking about 2012, travel and retreat adventures that I can a) afford b) be gone from my midwifery practice for a while without total collapse of my fellow midwives.

Speaking of which, Anne, the new midwife from Florida is HERE, hooray, hoorah! She's taking the licensing exam as we speak. As soon as we get our ducks? babies? jelly beans? in a row, she'll be able to see clients and go to births. Thank gawd and all the leetle birdies in the sky.

We met yesterday for several hours. I fed her homemade apple sauce and we talked about the state of the world. I think it's gonna work out fine. And my sister's name in Anne AND her sister's name is Beth {{{shiver}}}

Anyway, she sold everything and moved across the country. Whew! I hope she continues to like our climate...otherwise, we'll have to send her off to Mexico regularly for some heat. Or East of the mountains, a truly beautiful and terrible place, home of the mighty Columbia.

All I did this summer is look at Mt Rainier. Sigh. I didn't hike there even once. For shame. I did, however, swim in Lake Washington over the weekend.

It's raining, the most beautiful sound. I planted bulbs and many plants over the weekend. They are enjoying this weather. I love rain and gloom and sweaters and rainboots. And then it becomes TOO MUCH and we get loony.

We had our monthly dinner-East Indian this time and we made a complete mess in the kitchen, every pot dirty. But. The food was wonderful. Vindaloo, spinach paneer, dal with chutney, banana raita, homemade chai. Cardamon seeds, cumin, ginger, garlic, hot peppers, lime juice, o yum.

The mailman said he'd be back for dinner, our house smelled so good.

And we ate outside. After dark, we lit candles. We told stories. There was much laughter. I loved everyone at the table. Lovely. And I read my terrible babies poem. Under duress. I'm not one of those people who drag out my latest poem and make everyone listen until their eyes glaze over. Honest.

Next week I leave for LA to see one kid, then to the Bay area to see the other kid. Then a six day retreat. Among the deer, vultures and dumb turkeys. Love the turkeys. And to think they were almost our national bird.

So I'm polishing up my baby poem and I'm having the darnest time with a title. Sometimes titles come first, sometimes way later.

I kayaked on the lake today for 2 hours. My honey helped me load and unload. It was so gorgeous and empty. There was nary a boat. One water plane took off in the distance. I paddled and drifted and looked at the bottom rocks and weeds and followed a few swimmers, one in a wet suit. The water felt warm enough to swim in, sans wet suit but maybe he was swimming from Mercer Island...

We took a kat to the vet today. The other kat who was supposed to go made himself scarce. Nowhere. When we got home, he was spread out on the bed with that look on his face. What? Did you need me for something. I love the way they make themselves as big as Great Danes so you can't get them into the cat carrier. I've learned a trick, however. Upend the carried and lower them down in. Ha! Then the pitiful mewing all the way to the office. I hate pap smears. They hate anything to do with shots and teeth cleaning and flea inspection. Fie on the vet, they say, fie.

Was just reading poetry and found one I was SURE I hadn't written because it was pointy and ugly and wonderful and surprising so I called my friend poet and asked her if she'd written it. Really. I did. She told me no, she hadn't written it but wished she had. And why would it be in my poetry folder anyway. I think I wrote the first line and then fell into a trance and wrote the rest. Then the more I read it, I decided I HAD written it if for no other reason because there are babies in the poem. Not-nice-babies.

Sometimes I impress myself with my own writing. Even if my sentences aren't grammatical.

Some things are just not that important.

We had a party in the park with cake and marimbas and balloons. It was a potluck too so people brought beautiful vegetarian food. It was our midwife party, an annual thing. No one went into labor. The very pregnant ones came and looked wistfully at the babies in front packs and back packs and strollers. And the air was so clean from the RAIN we had last night. Clean shiny beautiful rain. Everything was sparkly and gleam-y. Once a year we have a party and invite our clients. I love to see them, see how they've grown and see how their parents are faring. Parenting is effing hard. We always make jokes about baby spew and sleepless nights but deep in the night when your kid won't give you a break, you will reconsider your commitment-no hitting, no shaking, no leaving in a basket at the nearest church.

Then one day, they're grown up and doing things like buying cars and having their own children and having lives, all without you.

Good night all you babies. Tonight, be kind to your parents and sleep soundly. For hours.

O heaven, the radio playing a Haydn cello piece. O heaven, o joy.

I gave the one legged guy by the Safeway three dollars. I wish I could have given him one hundred. I know where he sleeps, beside his fake leg.

It's fall. I bought bulbs! all colors including black and purple parrot ones, only a few because they were expensive. It's a gift to the neighborhood, for all to enjoy.

The katz are looking at me expectantly. Sleek critters that they are. But they've left the hummingbird alone, she who comes every day to the lipstick plant, still in flower.

My heart leaps up, every time I see her, with her chipping sound and her magic wings. I've gotta figure out a way to feed her this winter. Away from the predators I live with. Maybe we can fix a second story feeder out the office window.

May all hummingbirds find enough food this winter. May all beings have enough to eat every day.

A dear man is dead. My heart is broken.

May you join your sparkle brothers, sweetheart.

Love, Beth

This here photo is for you, dear Radish. She's workin' on an airplane!

I only have one existential question for today.

Why do cats throw up on the rug (or bed/chair/couch) when a bare floor is inches away and so much easier to clean up?

For some reason I'm thinking about Steve Buscemi an actor I've loved ever since I saw a movie called Parting Glances about the AIDS epidemic before AZT and having HIV was pretty much a death sentence and my friends were dying and we were helping them to die taking them to the doctors and the hospital and standing by the bed when they turned off the machines and watching the heart monitor go dark and flat and Steve played the part of an HIV positive gay man and he was so manic and clever and ghostly and funny videoing himself for his family while hitting himself on the head with a big dildo I have watched that movie about one hundred twelve times I don't know why I'm thinking about that movie tonight but I am.

Good night forever, my darling dears. James and Jim and Tommy and Alison and Richard. I love you always.

I've been in a daze. After I asked the SBJ (sweet baby Jesus) to hold off on the babies, another momma called in labor so off I went into the night. It was a lovely birth and the grandma made us a Columbian breakfast. She spoke no English but o man, there were these corn pancake things filled with cheese and mango and hot chocolate...I broke my vegan vows, hell yes.

Plus, their dog Melo, sang to a few songs they were playing. He'd cock his head and howl. They were playing a bunch of Brazilian beats, very dance-y and drummy. The baby cried for a good long time after the birth. As soon as they put on the play list from the labor, she stopped crying. Really. She heard those Latin beats and stopped wailing to listen.

Since then, I figured I'd missed about a thousand twenty hours of sleep so I've been sleeping at night and napping during the day. And my partner midwife came back from Jamaica all tan and relaxed and she went on call. Thank gawd.

I have the best most kick-ass awful job. Bliss and wrung out at the same time.

Please sweet baby Jesus, don't let anyone else have a baby til tomorrow when I'm off call. I'm way too tired from all the baby festivities and I fell down coming home from the dentist and I'm covered with bandaids. This is a sad fact of extreme fatigue and aging while in flip-flops. I skinned my hands, my knees, my wrist and my (?) thumb.

Sheesh.

We went crazy yesterday and pulled up massive plants that were taking over the yard. There are many bags/boxes/crates of yard waste on the parking strip now and denuded flower beds waiting for bulbs and leetle trees and other lovely plants like hebes. I love hebes. They are polite and flowery and they don't feel the need to effing dominate like some plants that believe they have to take over the world.

Don't get me started on bindweed. Back East where I'm from, we call bindweed morning glories and they make the most beautiful blue/purple flowers and we are kind to them (and I tried to ingest the seeds once because I thought they'd make me high-don't try this at home, please) so obnoxious bindweed with their boring white flowers and their ability to cover everything is not my friend, not now, not ever. Unless they have psychedelic properties, which they don't.

Every day a brilliant green humming bird visits my yard. Then it sits at the top of the lilac and makes it's chipping sound. Their beaks are as slender as needles. Humming birds only live for 2 years because their metabolisms are so fast and they die of heart attacks because they run so much energy. I think they are actually devas of the bird world and without them we cannot dream properly. Or at all.

Sometimes, the only thing for it is to go on a bike ride forever and get all sweaty and grimy with only a banana and water for sustenance. Then when you finally decide to turn around to come home, you realize the wind was at your back which is why you thought you were such a damn jock, riding so fast and so far. So you struggle home in a pathetic gear, whining and whimpering all the way because the wind is pushing you backwards. However, you can have a reward like a whole bar of chocolate.

I, uh, washed my glasses in the washing machine and they did not do well with this treatment. They are mighty scratched and one of the side pieces snapped off. So I'm getting some new spiffy ones that will make me look like Penelope Cruz. Even her bust line. Which reminds me.

I took a test online to determine my bra size. Please understand. I was a flat chested teen and a flat chested adult until, o, about 45 when menopause began to wreak havoc. And I got breasts. I wanted breasts when I was 15, not at 45 when I could give a shit. But no, breasts I got and breasts that needed support. So I tried many things: underwires (yech), sports bras (uni-breast look), and flimsy cotton-y 'bras' that couldn't hold up cotton balls, let alone my substantial girls. So I guess I'm a 36 C, good gawd. And I haven't yet found a satisfactory bra. Bras suck, actually.

On my way back from my glorious bike ride, a young man crossed against the light in front of me in my hood. His pants were completely underneath his ass (with underwear on) and his shirt was half on and half off his upper body, sorta like he leapt up because there was a fire and ran out of the house while dressing and hadn't had time to adjust his clothes. (??????) I know I'm and old square, but WTF? Anyone?

First, I'm gonna complain a wee bit. I got a TICKET for running a red light, nabbed by a CAMERA on Broadway. WTF. $124 smackers too. And I was doing the Lawd's work, well on the way to a baby. Not fair.

And besides, I went to birth this early AM, birds cheeping and the fog rising and a glorious view of Queen Anne and the Space Needle---then an all day clinic. My student and I were so punchy we were laughing at poop jokes and swearing out loud in visits. Our clients, bless them all, didn't mind. They think we're heros or crazy or both.

I mean, would you want this woman at your birth? Extreme fatigue + poop jokes + swearing (and silent farting) + slurring some basic words like cervix and uterus. Gawd.

Cassandra, you are a birth goddess and Megan too. I thank all the birthing goddesses everywhere that you are young and resilient and your adrenals are intact.

Love, your old, used up teacher.