Decade

Ten years ago.


Hard to believe, it's all spun by so fast. So much change, so much the same. I've worked through a lot of early crap, but I'm still me and still looking at life through odd eyes. Writing here is such an amazing blessing, that anyone comes and reads even more, that deep friendships have formed is beyond anything I could have imagined. The cats have gentled me, object lessons in anger management. Babies like me because I treat them like cats, with a welcoming indifference.

It's not exactly the anniversary, I'm not sure quite when I started. It was a mac version of blog, then blooger. But when Fresca put up her retrospective, I checked my archives, and decided to just go for the old 'uns. So, call it ten, that'll do.

D and I have been living together* for 23 years, we do the official count at the start of activation - which will be 25 years in November. Three and a half years in House, Two years with Eleanor, Eleven with Moby.

Not doing anything much. A few groceries, stripped the door a bit, shifted the compost with a half assed attempt to actually build a proper frame, which is still not a proper frame. Only 94˚F, with a bit of breeze and clouds, a lick-and-a promise of rain. Worried that there seem to be so few bees among the flowers, it really is noticeable, low on the pollenating bugges this year, at least after the onion flowers first bloomed. The food is out for them, in case. As we put out peanuts for the scrub jays occasionally, after they were seen off by aggressive robins in the spring. Sometimes they are eaten, sometimes not for a week or so. Nature really doesn't give a shit, we have to look out for each other.

Tending what I can, what is within my reach. I sometimes feel like I should be out there, canvassing for decent candidates, protesting, fighting. It's just not anywhere in me. I tried to tutor for literacy, and couldn't face a small class, or drive far enough to another. (Yes, there were other issues, but honestly, I'm just not a reaching out sort.) Some days, it's all I can do to pour energetic reassurance onto my patients. I'm not a warship, or maybe better said, a Coast Guard rescue boat.




I'm the calm harbor, the quiet inn, the hot cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit. Not the hero, but the refuge. I've done codes and trauma, and I do the same thing, stay calm and organize, and chart. I spin the wheels so the hot-doggers can save lives†. Strictly backstage, nuts and bolts sort of person. I want the opposite of glory. The opposite of thanks and praise. If I'm good at my job, nobody should notice. I think I've gotten one or two thank-you notes over the past nearly 20 years. I call that a win.


*Ugh, No, um married... it'll be... 20 years? 22? something like. It was an odd number year. December I'm sure.

†At the meeting last week, the fire department representative thought he was being called to a fire, but then wasn't. In the interim, I so wanted to say "Go save lives!" A quote from my surg rotation nurse who briefed us, assigned us, and then shooed us off saying "Go save lives!" I so loved her sarcastic attitude. And her confidence in my ability not to have a bash at something if I didn't know what to do. She trusted me to ask, and threw me in the deep end often as a consequence.