Increments

Hello dear readers. Long time no blog, I know! Since it's been so long, instead of a chronological, month-by-month review as is my usual routine, I thought I'd cover a few of the most relevant topics. Things that will get some dedicated MelikaGirl time are: The status of my head injury, Wedding Events/Honeymoon and a celebration post for my dearest Sive who I lost October 22nd. So expect a few posts dedicated to those topics coming up soon!

In this post I'll focus on a brief-ish head injury update. As you may recall, I was felled by a decompensation in April. I recovered a bit late spring, early summer at the time of my last post and from there made incrementally slow improvements.

My return to working a regular schedule was painfully slow. At first it was minimal to no computer time. Then it was computer time until I had symptoms then stopping, moving to a dark quiet place and taking a 10 minute break or resting until symptoms went away again. Eventually I was able to work part days, then full days, seeing 1/3 patient load then slowly and surely a full patient load. I threw my expectations of having a social life out the window. I was medicated and in bed by 9:30 and up at 7 pretty much every day. I kept to my routine and even added nightly mindfulness meditation to my daily ritual, meditating from 30 minutes to 2 hours. I rested my brain at every opportunity. I nurtured my body as well. I start lifting weights and doing some interval training. Once I started working out more regularly my incremental improvements seemed to start increasing by, well, larger increments. By the wedding I could say I felt good most days. I even managed to climb a mountain (photo above from the descent), participate with my marching band in almost every parade as a banner carrier (photo at left) and do things that started to make me feel like I was getting my old life back!

I can't say I'm quite back to normal. Not yet. Screen time, loud sounds and bright and/or flashing lights are still hard to tolerate. But since September I have been successfully playing with Rainbow City Band, often with at least one earplug in, but it's been wonderful to make music again! This fall concert (can you find me at right?) we hosted the annual conference of the Lesbian and Gay Band Association and performed with around 300 other LGBT musicians and performers (the color guard also did an impressive number to a Danny Elfman arrangement). It was a great experience and it was so nice to see some familiar faces from Inauguration and New Orleans!

I still struggle with headaches, neck and jaw pain, some dizziness and difficulty sleeping through the night (usually due to one of the above). Additionally, when I get tired or am not taking proper care of myself, I'll have a hard time concentrating -- this can range from difficulty completing complicated tasks (like charting at the end of the workday) to difficulty with word-finding or expressing myself the way I'd like. These issues predictably seem to come up at the end of a particularly long day with a lot of computer use. It's terribly frustrating as problems staying focused or concentrating are things I've never had to deal with before and are harder for me to manage than the more simple symptoms like pain, dizziness, or nausea. I also sometimes find myself with a shorter fuse, more irritated at little things that used to not bother me nearly as much. But, like I said, if I care of myself, keep stress to a minimum, sleep well, eat well and exercise, these things are manageable and I think that maybe I'll someday be symptom free. *fingers crossed*

It's been HOW long?

Expectations are high as this three month hiatus (has it really been that long?) is the longest in the history of MelikaGirl. But I had my reasons: A) Referencing my last post, The Accident, I did not recover as smoothly from my head injury as I anticipated, and, B) Despite my convalescence, Karin and I have been busy with visitors (mom's mainly), trips and misadventures.

So, please take those high expectations and save them for some other auspicious event. I will only try to reflect as best I can on my last three months.

March was less like lions and lambs and a little more screaming banshees and whirling dervishes. I actually did have a nearly complete blog post composed for March (never posted since I was struck down by PCS). It was mostly details and some gripes about my new job. However, now that the month is a little further behind me, my gripes about conveyor-belt medicine and quantity of patients over quality of patient care seem ill-timed and trite. I had (and still have) every right to be pissed about that kind of health care system/work environment, but the real issue in March was my own failing health, and I was too blind to see it.

I wonder, was I so blind to my own symptoms because medical school and residency did such a fabulous job training me to ignore how I felt and keep plodding along -- always putting work first? Or was my lack of insight some sort of psychocognitive unawareness that was actually a possible sign or symptoms in itself - a result of the concussion? Maybe it was a bit of both?

By the end of March I crashed. Hard. With hindsight as it is, I can see now that I was getting worse with each week. [WARNING: explicit details ahead.] Through most of March I was kept awake once or twice a week with vomiting. Each time, my denial or lack of insight chalked it up to something I ate, a virus, or some other such excuse. In the daytime I had horrific headaches. In the evening I was dizzy and clumsy and uncoordinated. Sleep was difficult at best. Near the very end of the month I had a handful of days of outright awfulness. I had this horrible sensation similar to that one feels moments before passing out. Nothing helped. I was weak, nauseated, spinning like a top, and essentially unable to do anything. But they passed.

With the hope that the symptoms would just eventually go away, I kept driving myself to keep moving forward. A majority of the month and into April I spent my work days pushing through 9-10 hours in clinic, followed sometimes by hours of band rehearsals, board meetings, social engagements. I even managed to play in RCB's spring concert until the last two songs, when I had to bow out and lay prone on a couch in the green room.

My days off I spent nursing my symptoms with anti-nausea medications and running around from acupuncturist, to physical therapist, to craniosacral therapist, to sports medicine doctor, to massage therapist and so on and so forth.... Eventually I couldn't sustain and I crashed. My doctor was worried about my decompensation and referred me to a neurologist and I had just about everything above my shoulders imaged by MRI. I took a little more than a week off of work. Returned to a couple of half days, was doing pretty terribly (even walking short distances was hard without an arm to support me, my balance and vertigo were so bad) and ultimately the neurologist insisted on a full month off. From mid-April to mid-May: No work, no band, just rest and only doing those activities that I could tolerate without any worsening of symptoms.

This was a hard pill to swallow. I needed the income. I was planning a wedding and training a new horse! I had band and was elected to the board of directors! I was just starting my career! I couldn't just put on the brakes and stop! What if I don't get better, I kept thinking. This isn't fair, I selfishly thought. Why me, why now? Why didn't I have disability or sick leave? Why did I take so much time off and let my saving deplete so low? The injustice of paying back huge loans I had to get the education needed to do the job I was too sick to do made me furious. But the bottom line was: I was too sick to do anything, and statistics were on my side. Rest, and I should get better.

For the first week I was pretty useless, doing nearly nothing except eating, drinking, bathing, and washing dishes for short periods of time. Then it extended to laundry, short walks, relaxing social events (like Easter Egg dyeing - pictured), rides as a passenger in the car (horse therapy!), and after four weeks of solid and strict rest I started to get better. My fears and worries abated a little and I could start to see a normal life for me again in the future. I even managed a short trip to see the tulip fields in Skagit Valley (right) and got to enjoy a few hours of HonkFest West.

This leads us to May. I was still resting most the first part of the month but was a bit more functional. Instead of counting good hours, I was starting to have the occasional good day. Both Karin's mom and my mom ascended upon our humble apartment and we embarked in Momfest 2011. We each had quality time with our respective mothers and had joint planned events so the mothers, meeting for the first time, could get to know each other and have a little fun. Resting most the day, I managed a night out at our annual fundraiser, Swing Fever, earplugs in place, and paying careful attention to not overdo it. The moms really hit it off as evidenced by their dancing photo left!

After the moms departed (Karin's mom had a two weekend stay) I successfully completed my first week of half days back at work. This was immediately followed by band camp. Officially called the "RCB Retreat", it's a weekend of intensive marching and music practice, and bonding for the marching band and friends. As a non-playing member I had time to rest and recoup from my first week back at work and still have a little fun to boot (see first picture atop at the Disco Alien Ball). I even got to sing some Bangles at karaoke!

The weekend after that we flew to Michigan for a bridal shower thrown by my aunt and mom's friends. It was a lot for me and my post-concussed brain, but the event itself was short and with family around and a plethora of homecooked goodness, I could focus on stress-free R&R between the few scheduled events. It was wonderful to see my family and a few friends. I was focused so hard on being present and not overdoing it I didn't take a single photo!

This coming week I hope to extend my work hours to work about 2/3 of a day. I'll give that a few weeks and if I continue to see improvement in my PCS I'll go back to full days. I'm grateful my employer is keeping me on despite my injury and unscheduled time off - I'm not benefited and totally replaceable. Another employer may have just sent me packing and found another locums doc to fill the shoes I should have been filling.

Sunday I visited Gus. He gets to run around all day with his friends in a huge field and work on getting fat (he's still a growing boy) and he was a dream to play with - well behaved and always curious and affectionate. While doing some ground work training with him I realized I felt totally and completely me. No headache, no dizziness, just happy, and just Liz. I hope to have more feelings like that until the point where I take it for granted again... except for the part where I take it for granted.

2010: Year in Review

Time for my third annual "Year in Review" Post. Get your popcorn and diet soda and settle in for some nostalgia...

For those who like swimming in summaries, here lie 2008's and 2009's reviews. 2010 was indeed a memorable year. I started out in indentured servitude and am ending it in a very different, much more enjoyable place. (Aside from three obvious photos, pictures here are from the eventful month of December.)

Now, on to the very serious business of my annual month by month review, divided into the tidy categories of Uppers and Downers.

January: Rotation: ER, and the usual burden of "back-up". Downers: Slave labor in it's truest form. Scheduled to the max 6-7 days a week with little time to breathe, sleep, eat, care for myself. Uppers: A freak flooding rainstorm in the Southwest led to a canceled flight, a glorious weekend off (the only one for approx 12 weeks) and an engagement! Three cheers for happily ever after!

February: Rotation was NICU with q4 call. A meh rotation with lots of time sitting fully scrubbed and waiting for babies to get sick. Not the best time. Downers: My one golden weekend was a required residency retreat where I ended up getting food poisoning. Uppers: After recovering from said food poisoning my class won the TFM Talent show performing a song I wrote about a lost pager - it was a huge hit and lots of fun! Also, I enjoyed a post-call stuporous Valentine's Day dance with my fiance.

March: Rotation: Cardiology. Supposedly a break from all the call. Supposedly a break from working so many weekends (by March, aside from the freak storm and the work-related retreat, I had worked every weekend in 2010. Yes, I'm still bitter). Downers: due to coverage for other residents, official back-up duty, and my own laboring patients, I was still sleep-deprived and dearly missing my sweetie in Seattle. Uppers: I got to perform the 1812 overture with RCB, complete with [electronic] cannon fire! I managed a short escape to present at the AMSA conference. Passover Seder family reunion in San Fransisco! The Countdown Clock continued...

April: That was my "No Happy Bunnies" post, as you may recall. Rotation was in-patient family medicine. Downers: We were short-staffed and thanks to work, Karin and I missed out on our first anniversary and Honkfest, and I missed out on just about everything that makes Seattle Spring superawesome. I was still horseless and barely able to find time to play my trumpet. However there were Uppers: I groggily made one post-call Renegayde gig for the Roller Derby, and the month eventually ended. But the best upper was that it was the last month like that. Ever! The thrill of my last call was dampened by the fact that I was called in to cover more calls, but at the time I thought it was my last and I celebrated in style: Rounding on roller skates (as above).

May was a breath of fresh air! I finally had less back up and could use that vacation time! Downers: Not much. Just the surprise black weekend call after my much needed vacation, more residents down for the count and more chaos at TFM. Uppers: Band Camp! Vacation in buttery Minnesota! Sleep! Tick tick tick on the countdown calendar...

June was the last month of residency. It flew by. Rotation: Bastyr elective in Seattle. Downers: everything happened at once which was seriously stressful. But, all those things were overall pretty good (moving, the visits from my family, finishing residency). Uppers: Did I mention I finished residency? Moving in with Karin, Pride, Summer solstice festival, family. Oh, yeah, and as of midnight on 6/30 I finished residency! Woot! Countdown clock zero'ed out (I had two countdown clocks, one online and one on my iPod - the zeroed out one from my iPod is pictured at left)!

July: First month without an associated rotation since the month I had off between medschool and residency! Holy moly! Call it my rebound month. Downers: Board exams - ick. Some drama around RCB. Merging two households was way more stressful than I anticipated. At the end of the month the biggest downer was the death of a close family friend, as well. Uppers: OMG I got to do laundry! OMG! I got to do dishes! OMG I got to sleep in! OMG! I got to watch TV! Traveled to Boston for for a week for a GLMA Board Meeting. Rocked some parades with RCB. OMG I finished residency last month!

August: Oy. The biggest Downer occurred Sunday, August 1st: ripped my left gastrocs in two pieces, rolling it up like a window shade and rendering me useless for a large portion of the month. Uppers: Seeing some Aussie pals, Lisa and her mother. Camping with Karin's Neice. Storm games. And BLUE HAIR! Plus, all those rippling upper body muscles from those crutches!

September: It was full of so much adventure that I posted my entry late. Downers: what are those? Oh, right, I was still pretty injured but getting around a lot better and Uppers: No more cane! Seattle Storm Mania. GLMA Conference in San Diego. Another great Lullaby Moon gig.

October: The real recuperation month. As I reflect back, it wasn't until the end of October that I really felt I was starting to heal. I had more energy and dug into life. I looked for horses, barns where I could ride. I did some serious wedding planning and I went through a lot of old boxes and papers and finally finished unpacking. My blog posts were full of nostalgia about medical school and rotations. I was starting to get ready to get back into the workforce. Downers: More band drama. Karin took the Pysch GRE's (ick for her). Uppers: Huge headway made on wedding planning! Plus all the aforementioned healing! Freedom feels so good!

November was eventful. Downers: Snow put Seattle on hold Uppers: Snow put Seattle on hold just before Thanksgiving (making for a loooong weekend!) and Karin and I hosted a Little Gay Thanksgiving at our house. I made some headway on the job and horse search!

Bringing us to this month, December, HanuBirtMas time! Downers: After 34 years I still get bitter that my birthday is lumped with Jesus'. Is that selfish? Uppers: RCB Christmas concert! Birthday sushi (yum at left) with friends and family and ice skating. And, of course, the much anticipated Trip to Minnesota.

In the Tundra of Middle River, MN, among other things, I helped make a traditional Norwegian flatbread called lefse and drove a snowmobile. Ah the snowmobile lesson... it went something like this, "Here's the throttle, here's the brake, here's the emergency shut-off. Follow me." And with snowsuit, helmet and an 11 year old sitting in the seat behind me, I took off in the dark winter night, following faint tail lights and a cloud of snow. That first ride I can't say with total honesty that I had a lot of fun. Terrifying would be more accurate. But the following day was another story. Off we went, in the blazing sunshine across field and dale, through woods and trails. Glorious adventures were had. I smiled so hard my face hurt. And while I missed my family and my usual family traditions, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the in-laws and actually look forward to another snowy Christmas in northern rural Minnesota - snowsuit and all (see photo above near February's summary)!

So, dear readers, 2010 was great, but I trust 2011 will be even better! It will be a big year - a real job, a wedding, and a horse! Yes, a horse. I know I keep promising more word on the topic... s0 stay tuned for more word on work and horses...

Happy New Year!

The gimp gets back in the saddle

Between wedding planning, physical therapy, job searching, volunteer work, band things and potential horse leasing my days have been jammed packed. I have been a budget-crunching, brain-storming, calf-raising, horn-blowing, attic-searching, phone-conferencing fiend! Days slip by so fast and my to-do lists seem to grow overnight (huge and frightening, like these giant spiders are to this poor damsel we set up for Halloween!)

Wedding Update
Wedding planning is going well. I'll be up front with you all: our budget is tight. There is no way we can invite everyone we want to invite to the reception. But, our ceremony will have no limit! Everyone is welcome to that part of things! We are even more limited for our humble rehearsal dinner. We would love to have an event that would make Martha Stewart jealous - wait! No we wouldn't - that's just not our style! Please allow me to rephrase: we would love to make everyone happy, but we can't. Truth is, it's already going to be non-traditional, so we are going to have to ask our guests to indulge us as we cannot provide every amenity Miss Manners reports is a wedding must-have (that's right, we may not even have wedding favors - the horror!). Once we (and our guests) get over those traditional wedding expectations, the whole thing is pretty liberating. So... what do we know about our wedding so far (guest list aside)? We know where we are having the reception (and the cake is included - woot!). It will be a dry wedding (enough alcoholics in both sides of our families to make that an easy choice). We know where we want the ceremony but can't book it until January so will have to hold our horses until then. We know we want a low-key, inexpensive (read: small), informal rehearsal diner. And, above all, we know we want our favorite band, RCB Marching Band, to march us down the aisle. We also know we want our good friend to be our photographer and make us some purty memories to look at afterwards. Everything after that is just icing.
The Gimp
On the physical side of things, turns out my leg injury was indeed a pretty big bummer. Here I am 12 weeks out and still not normal. Haven't run or jogged yet, but my PT has me "briskly walking" on flat surfaces for 1-2 minutes at a time. Still hoping to lightly jog a 5K by December 12th. I have started in with a massage therapist which rocks and I am so very grateful my health insurance covers most of the visit! I have about 40 minutes of PT exercises to do a day so it keeps me out of trouble. Between that and practicing trumpet I am sore from lips to toe at the end of a productive day.

Job search update: Well, I haven't much to inform you, dear masses, but I have started interviews with one large, local group. I had lost my stethoscope and after much searching, giving up, and searching again I finally found it. A sure sign that using it may be in my not so distant future. I had my first interview this week and was surprisingly pleased with the available position. We shall see... My goal is to work part time, which, in layspeak, means "not all the freaking time", or, in doctor-time means less than 90 hours a week. Ideally. I would like to not have to commute too far as well. Other than that, I am feeling rather flexible because work will be a means to the next update topic...

The four-legged beastie part: A horse? A horse! OMG OMG OMG! Can you just see a 9-year-old Liz galloping around the house in her riding clothes dreaming of having a horse one day? That little girl may not be able to gallop around the house, jumping over ottomans and pretending each sidewalk crack is a cavaletti, but she is still in full-fledged horse-love-euphoria. (And who knows, if it weren't for my bum leg I just might be galloping around. Just a little). For some girls it's a phase. For others, it's the real deal .

For those who only know older-Liz, I had a horse, a ways back. Technically, I had three, just never at the same time. "CC" (show name: Second Nature) was a grouchy off-the-track mare who was a joy to ride in fields and streams but a bit of a bear on the jump course (she liked to stop dead, half way over a fence, no warning). She was the first horse I could call my own, and therefore still holds a very special place in my heart. She wasn't the safest horse for a skinny 4'11" tween as she did really did hate to jump (even though when she did it, she did it gorgeously!). With great sadness she was sold to an educational facility where she'd get to play in fields and go on endurance rides in the woods and not have to jump anything, ever again. My fondest memory was playing with her at a horse-themed summer camp and beating the pants off of every other horse and rider in the relay games. No one was faster or braver than her (as long as it didn't involve any obstacles). I still have yet to know a thrill comparable to riding CC at a full gallop, the wind blowing so fast by my ears I couldn't hear the screams of the camp counselors telling me to slow down! Second there was "Buck" (show name: Up Front) a really handsome show stopper for the National Medal Classes but a big burly boy who did not like to work at all. At the risk of sounding sexist, he was a boys' horse, shunning any attempts to cuddle and preferring to play rough. I started competitively jumping higher than he could clear, so I had to sell him, too. I sold him to a lanky teenage boy who loved every bit of his rough-and-tumble attitude and got a smaller more athletic and more affectionate gelding, Sprout (show name: Mister Natural), who, to this day, is the SuperAwesome Horse to which all other horses are compared. (Photo to right from our championship hey-day - yes that's me. I was 15 I think.) Sprout was pleasant, happy, loving, and loved his job. I could stumble into a show ring, half alert and he would perk up enough for the both of us, winning more blue ribbons than I could count. But it wasn't just the show presence, he was a real friend in the barn. Sometimes I would sit with him (me in a chair, and he, standing) and he would just smoosh his face into my lap and take a nap. I sold him with much sadness in gloomy Michigan February, knowing that owning a horse and paying for a good college education weren't going to jive, but also knowing that one day my college education would allow me the means to another horse like him. God, I still miss that horse something fierce! *sigh

Cut to almost 15 years later and I found a true hooved friend in Shilo. She was an old lady, not quite with the athleticism of the horses of my youth, but I wasn't in tip-top shape myself either. I rode and competed a lot in college and intermittently in grad school, but never much on any single beast. It was usually a different horse nearly every time I went to the barn. So in the time span between Sprout (mid-90's) and Shilo (2008-2010) I got to know oodles of horses at oodles of barns from coast to coast. And, channeling that horse-crazy 9-year-old, I fell in love with nearly every one of them, but Shilo, unlike the horses I briefly got to ride while they were in between owners, got to love me back. I do miss that mare. And I could gush all day, but I'll spare you the torture. It is with great excitement that I launch into the next phase of horsiedom. I believe I have made a full-lease of a great horse work for my budget! I know, I know, it's hard to make a reliable budget without any income. But I have figured out the minimum I'd need to make this work and I am sure I can do it! It's not the same as owning my own horse, but it's the next best thing. I pay for the horse's care as if it were my own with some exceptions that will be the owner's responsibilities (like vet bills) and get to play with him to my heart's delight. He's a big boy (am afraid none of my things from the Sprout-days will fit him) and young. His name is King and he's from Ireland (I've been practicing saying "whoa" with an Irish lilt) and is a more awesome horse than I ever thought I'd get to play with on a regular basis. Here is a picture of him getting some love from a friend of his - he's the huge gray horse with the sweet expression!

So, now I just need to get this job thing in order! It's time for me to get back in both the proverbial and literal saddle, my readers. Until the next update...

The One-Legged, Blue-haired Wonder

Well, this has not been as I had expected. The day after my last post (remember the one where I reported that I was just starting to get my life back and planned to run, horseback ride, go on vacation, etc?), I ruptured my calf muscle. It tore something fierce and I was slave to the crutches for approximately three weeks thereafter.

"What happened?" I heard asked over, and over, and over again. Evidently, there's nothing like crutches to make the etiology of your injury public knowledge. I told a couple folks I had injured the leg saving a frail old lady from a runaway school bus. Once, I replied it was running from the cops (both stories recycled from a riding injury circa '00). But, to put things to rest, here's what really happened: I went to start running, in bad shoes, without a warm up, on a bit of a hill, and POP my calf muscle just snapped. I felt it, maybe heard it, and couldn't even step on that leg for days afterward. It was the size of a tree trunk and took at least a week to ten days to come back to something resembling a normal leg, and by then the rainbow colors started sprouting. A grade two or three medial gastrocs tear is the likely diagnosis and physical therapy will hopefully return my gait back to something resembling normal. If not, an MRI and surgical consult is the next step.

Thusly, my week-long Vancouver vacation turned into a two day trip, mostly in the car and within a two block radius of our swank hotel. It was lovely seeing Lisa and Wendy (last seen in Melbourne, Australia February of Aught-Seven), eating Vancouver sushi, ice cream, and sitting in the sun. It had been too long since I last saw those two. Remind me why we haven't invented teleportation yet?

The first part of the month, the part where I dosed on NSAID's and spent my time on the couch trying not to throb or spasm, I spent working on a GLMA project. I spent probably 60 hours over the two weeks entering names into the databases, confirming addresses and locations and hospital affiliations. And now, after all that work, I can officially say GLMA has a mentorship program. I matched a bunch of students with mentors, notified them of their match and now am working on what I will be doing about this program at the national conference for this initiative I've been trying to get off the ground for two years! So being couch-bound, I suppose, had some advantages.

I'm still having residency nightmares, as if my subconscious still mentally sweating off the toxins of three years of torture. I'm slowly catching up on my sleep. I am working on not going stir crazy being unable to exercise or move around in any significant way. Naturally, I do get occasionally peeved, because after years of reassuring myself "it's going to be over," just "suck it up" for so many years, months, days, hours, here I am, at last free from the clutches of indentured servitude yet now trapped in a different way. Thankfully, the injury should heal okay, I hopefully won't need any surgery, I may even go back to being able to jog like it never happened. Maybe. And, I am thankful Karin's employer allows domestic partner health insurance coverage. And I remind myself, just because I'm not doing what I had planned or hoped to do, doesn't mean this isn't a hell of a lot better than sleepless 30 hour shifts and getting abused by drug-seeking patients who aren't getting what they want!

Around the 19th or 20th of the month, at the same time that Karin's 11-year-old niece arrived from Minnesota for her first real city visit, I graduated from crutches to cane and I was able to partake in all the originally planned adventures with minor adjustments! Shortly before that I had died my hair brilliant blue shades and glorified in being a new definition of a blue-haired little lady with a cane! We attended the most amazing Seattle Storm game in the history of professional sporting events! The Storm was victorious by one point thanks to a jump ball win and a stolen rebound in the last few minutes of the game. I enjoyed a Seattle Farmer's Market and a community theatrical production of The Music Man. I took a 5-hour private tour of the fabulous Woodland Park Zoo (via wheelchair as pictured above) and fed the giraffe, explored behind the scenes and learned amazing secrets of the place.

We also took a three-day camping adventure to Lopez Island in the San Juans which was gorgeous, and I ditched the cane and tried my hand at hiking a little. Slowly, carefully, I picked my way through woods, across beaches and driftwood, and held my own pretty well. Also spent a good amount of time resting and reading as evidenced at left.

Last weekend, after returning from camping, I unpacked my camping gear, packed the essentials right back up, and flew to Michigan for a very short stay where I attended the memorial service of Dr. Hugh Walker, one of those chosen family members, at whose house my Jewish family Christmased each year. It was a lovely ecumenical service at a Humanistic Jewish Temple with Gospel and bag pipes, flute, Walt Witman and so much more. Then back onto an airplane and shuttled another 2,000 miles back to Seattle to my life here.

Upon my return from Michigan, jet lagged, I lamented that I am now resigned to having lost a battle with a cold and Karin pointed out that perhaps the universe is trying to tell me to slow the heck down. That was just one of many lessons learned this month. While I have many obligations with non-profits and grassroots organizations and have previously had such a demanding "job" of being a resident, I now can recalibrate and reassess. The whirlwind of the last two weeks with a child in tow, the memorial service, as well as the realization that my wedding is coming up in less than year now, has made me think carefully about the old saying, "don't sweat the small stuff." I've decided I'm going to reel in pieces of me that are scattered throughout and redistribute this fall, focusing on home, family, and my own well-being above all else.


And, along that vein, Karin and I will be sending Save-the-Date info on our wedding soon now that our engagement pictures are complete. You can read more about the shoot at the photographer, Heather's, website here.

RIP Cell Phone

Unexpectedly my phone decided to quit on me. I always thought it would go in a bang, crashing down a flight of stairs and shattering into a million pieces. Or gently into the abyss when the contract was up and it was just time for a new one. I never expected it to die so suddenly. One minute I am chatting with Andrea about babies and breast milk and the next minute my phone decides to get all wacky one me. I won't go into the gory details of its death. Just rest assured that it was gruesome. There was blood, guts, screaming and begging. Actually, there was white screen, black screen and red screen. The electronic equivalent of blood, guts and screaming.

So, my friends, while my contacts remained intact (thanks to a free online service Verizon offers) my photos are all gone. No more closely cuddled newborn babies to show off. No more Sive and her criminally cute faces to make people ooh and aah and say, "wow, she is big!" No longer are the photos from my last year in Ann Arbor with the trees changing color and friends' faces in pubs. But, you know what? Those pics kinda sucked. Face it, some phones take really crappy pictures. Mine was one of them. So, while there are a few I'll miss. it's much preferable to have a means to communicate with loved ones then sob over some mediocre pictures of them.

So there you have it. Death of a cell phone. Now I have the identical phone and, thanks to some futzing around, the identical ring tone (thank god because I detest the free ones - they all sound like your phone is going to explode! Seriously, do I really need a virtual red hot poker jabbed in every orifice when someone calls?)

Good news however... we had really yummy food tonight at Jeanne and Cathy's. Cathy is a whiz with homemade soups and Jeanne whips up a mean salad. The pic at left shows me enjoying such soup (note the steam rising!) and Cathy offering me some wine. My aunts, if I've failed to mention this before, are vegetarians and we have been eating fresh fruits and veggies every single day. I swear I've eaten more fiber in the last five days than I have had in the last five months. Well, maybe not quite, but the healthy eating is doing me hella good.

Another aside: the California primary was today. Can't vote here so I can't get excited about it. Nonetheless, I have to say, from what I have seen in the debates, I genuinely like both democratic candidates. Much to the chagrin of some of my other progressive pals who think Hil is a devil moderate in liberal clothing. Alas, enough blogging for the day. I must get some rest to help replenish my energy for more adventures in homeless health care tomorrow. Stay tuned for more fun filled adventures.

An Open Letter to the People Who Stole My Car

To the People Who Stole My Civic:

I apologize for wishing you unspeakable harms as I followed the flashing lights of the police car to the abandoned grain elevator across from the railroad tracks on the Southeast side of town. When I jimmied that white plastic thing into the black plastic thing dangling from the skeleton of my steering column in just the right position so that I could actually start my car with my key, and not a screwdriver, I apologize for imagining your slow death from exotic infectious diseases. And I’m sorry for implying any incestuous activities in regards to your mothers as I picked through the cigarette butts, trash and drug paraphernalia you left in my trashed interior. It obviously wasn’t your fault. It appears that my Honda Civic is the “most stolen car!” as people have been excitedly telling me every time it happens to come up that my car was stolen. It is as if you have vindicated this random piece of trivia they own. They are so excited to prove their wisdom to me: See! You have one! And it was stolen! I’m right! Yay me! So I apologize for being mad at you, car thieves, since apparently it wasn’t up to you, it was entirely the fault of my car for existing in the make and model as such as it is.

However, I do have a few words I’d like to share with you. Please, if you will, lay down your crystal methamphetamine or crack cocaine (if, indeed, after leaving your plastic tubing in my car, you are still able to manage to carry the smoke from its heat source to your lips). I can’t even begin to start to understand what you were thinking. In a well-lit parking lot, for which I pay a hefty $45 a month, you decided, of all the vehicles available, to steal my car. No, I’m sorry, it wasn’t your decision, it was decided for you, as I have “the most stolen car in Washington!” Congratulations, car thieves, my car was the first ever stolen from this parking lot. Who knows, maybe they’ll reduce the rates? Wishful thinking, I’m sure.

Additionally, you left some credit cards you stole. I’m leaving them with the Sheriff’s Department. Feel free to come by and pick them up there.

I also have to remember to thank you. I was scheduled to work 12 days straight. But thanks to my car being stolen that number was reduced to 11. Mondays are evil, but thanks to my car being stolen, Monday was a free day off. Who cares if it was spent talking to the police, driving to the most godforsaken part of town to recover the scraps of my vehicle, and talking to the insurance company for hours? Plus, thanks to the excitement and the resultant catharsis, I got the best night sleep I had in weeks.

So, car thieves, I’m sorry I wished you maimed, hurt, dead, or worse. I hope you enjoy my speakers, stereo, dashboard controls, chargers, iPod adapter, and my dead dog’s ear fur I saved in a little leather pouch. And that Stella Star CD was my favorite, I’m sure it will bring you much joy, as will the four or five mix CD’s my friends laboriously assembled for me on various holidays and birthdays. I also hope your hands are soft and cocoa butter sweet thanks to the Bath and Bodyworks lotion you now own. I’m happy paying for a rental car for a week to a few days. And, hey, if the insurance company decides they have to total my car, then I can thank you for allowing me the opportunity to buy the best transportation $1200 has to offer. Awesome!

(images courtesy of Google images)