Eggshells

No, it wasn't wise, perhaps. Call it a calculated risk.

I planted the tomatoes. Also the strawberries, but Farmgal told me that was ok, and the nursery woman said the hen&chickens would be fine as well.



I planted all the tomatoes. Didn't realize there were so many plants, an even dozen. So, I put one in the back corner where nothing grew last year, and two in the front, where they will get more light, but less water. Three sacrificial plants. The soil really is in better shape this year, though. Loosened up, lots of last falls's dead leaves, thick snow pack melted into the ground, loads more worms. More sun coming through. I'm going to have to do some research on earthworms.

There is no indication of any kind of cold weather for the next week, and if there is a frost in May, I will use the dryer lint and paper bags, and snuggle 'em down for the night. I really doubt that will happen though.

Scattered the eggshells around, to deter snails. The peas are coming up, so is the lettuce. The rhubarb is alive and well. Everything is, frankly, looking hopeful. So I ran with hope.


The watermain leak was on city property, in front of the neighbor to the north.



All the noise of the backhoe bothered Moby...



not at all.

Uniform

Uniform is for U.


Undulating, ululating unsung U.

Uniting, universal and unifying.



Or sometimes undoing everything, untying, undying, uninspired and unkempt. Utah's University of Ungulates.






U is Up and Under. Usurping and unusual. Uzbekistan.



Utterly upbraided.





Cry uncle.

Zulu, Yankee, X-ray, Whiskey, Victor, Uniform.

Skeleton

Strange little week, one day running as fast and long as I could, the next day too much idleness. At least I had the chance to have a nurse training with me. Old(-er) nurse, new to the OR, which is an entire world to itself.

And in showing her the ropes as I know them, I articulated to her in work terms, the kind of universal insight I've been taking in lately. How difficult it is to learn, or teach, when you can't slow the process down to watch it carefully, but have to take it at speed, and just catch on as best one can. How each person can only bring their own mistakes and experiences and biases to the student, and each one has only their own demons to show the learner.

I keep thinking about how what bothers us most in others is a reflection of what we know, deep down at least, what is most wrong in ourselves. This is why compassion for others is essential to the growth of our own souls, because what we abhor in others is a form of what is most lacking in ourselves. Whenever we complain of others, we aren't complaining about them, but exposing some weakness, some flaw in ourselves. The more we fight this, say it's different, I'm not like that, that's not my problem, the more we can pinpoint what it is we see. Because it isn't a clear mirror, it's just twisted enough that we don't recognize ourselves in it. And that is exactly why we are so frightened. Maybe it's an exaggeration, or reversed, or stretched out, but it is still, always, us. Me.

And only by treating it like a frightened cat, a beaten child, with great tenderness, can we coax it out, and understand the ignorant and feral fear. Everyone searching for enlightenment knows that compassion is important. I think this is why. The demons are not out there, never were. They are inside, and like hallucinations, we see them as external. We have to kindly nurture ourselves, gradually brighten the closet, and let the skeletons out to dance.

lie

she's a good dude to lie on

sit

oh, let us sit upon the dude and talk of not a thing

Forgotten

Like Mr. Rogers, I change clothes when I get to work. Into something much more comfortable, scrubs like cotton pyjamas. Shoes are much the same, but I have shoes that never leave work, with good arch supports and insoles, orange, stained, often with blue covers on. And more times than I like to think, I will sometimes take my everyday shoes off, pull on scrubs, and them put the outside shoes right back on, only to look down because I've noticed that the shoes are still warm, and have to try again.

I've never forgotten to remove my cap and put on the cotton OR hat - tucking my hair inside. That would be like forgetting pants - which I also have never done.

No, but I forget to put on my pouch before I close the locker. Have to open it up again, put it on. Has my scissors and pens, and it's where my ring and watch go if I scrub in. Because I once threw my ring away putting it in the scrub pocket. At the end of the day, worn scrubs are dumped in the laundry bag in the locker room.

Having a lock with a thumb position combination instead of numbers has been wonderful, since my hand remembers, when summoning up numbers was always an iffy proposition. Especially first thing in the morning - before 0700, or after very long days.



I have forgotten to wear my jacket home after work on warm days with cold mornings. I've left my ring & watch in the pouch at work. Or my necklace when I take it off and drop it in there as well, because it's irritating under the thyroid shield when running the fluoro.

After I lock the car, I clip the keys on to my purse* strap, where it stays all day. As I leave, I slip my badge into the outside zip pocket, where it stays when I'm not at work. These sorts of habits are part of why I forget details less now than when I was younger, lose fewer things.

My clothes I lay out the night before, mostly developed that habit so as not to wake D in the morning in small apartments. But mostly because I don't trust my morning brain, and try not to stress it out too much.



*A very small baggallini, very practical.

Glowing

Work has been odd, albeit more peaceful, these last weeks. One woman who left on vacation right before the fired tech(FT) had her come-apart at the manager, came back today, and stories had to be told. The surgeon I scrubbed for had also not heard the story - but had been asked to write a letter of recommendation for FT.

I asked, "I hope it wasn't glowing."
"I wouldn't think so," he answered.

Which is to say, he kept it guarded and a smart manager or HR department would easily have seen it as hardly a recommendation. But we also heard she'd been hired, so maybe they deserve her. Odd thing, surgeon also said he told our manager not to hire FT, and FT bragged loudly that surgeon was her buddy and loved her and they went way back - when she was first hired. And now we are hearing that all the surgeons were complaining about her, but manager dismissed their concerns. As well as ours. Charming.

You'd think, in this economy, a good job would attract a lot of good people. Hard to understand how our pool of applicants is so small. The ball is being dropped somewhere in the process.

Slower this week, and last. The first lull we've had in a very long time. Not unwelcome.

Blanket

Blanket on pillow on chair
by window with sun, add cat.
Warm blissful moment.

Meander

It's a strange process, walking a cat. It's more a meander and wait proposition.

To the corner of his territory. Which is actually the neighbor's yard.


The fence is now letting in light, since I've removed three of the thick boards. It's a snug little neighborhood, with back fences all abutted.


Moby does love being out in the long, spring grass, listening to the birds, eating the grass.


Then, I did a maintenance assault on the ivy, driving it back as close as possible to the lost fence. How did I manage last year, when it was at least knee deep, up on the windows, no walkway even discernible? No wonder it took so many attacks. At least the borax killed all the stuff rooting in our foundations, none of that came back, and the bricks are clear. Whole lotta snail shells in the central clumpiness where there must be a fence. Filled the garbage bin. Nasty, irritating stuff it is too.

Finally figured out where to find a before, since I'd failed to take one before reducing the ivy. In the inspection report. Not quite the same angle, and it's a tiny Before photo, but it shows a bit.



After the first pulling away.



And today.

Lookie-loos

Language Hat* writes about looky-loos. I know the word as a rather mocking way of calling out the nosey parkers, gawkers and rubberneckers. I know I've used it occasionally over the years, I certainly heard it growing up. Usually as a plural, too. As in 'a bunch of lookie-loos.'

Reminds me of this song, though.












*Because I love enthusiastic experts, and language. I rarely comment there, as I usually have nothing to add, but I soak it all in.

Raining

Lost boys. Angry, fearful, lacking compassion - callow youth. Absent, abusive,neglectful, useless parents, one or all off the list, as many as apply. The tower snipers, the mad bombers. No excuses for them, a lack of humanity at the core. Bullied, lacking an inner life, they lash out against the world. Burn the universe away. Destroy to purge oneself of unease. They are not innocent, and need to be held accountable, but so do those who should have raised them.

Some are born with a deep resilience, paying back kindness for kicks. Some will turn out mean despite reasonable handling. But put the both together, and the conscienceless and evil emerge. A monstrous wave, a positive feedback loop, beyond normal comprehension.

I remember feeling like that, as a young 'adult' on my own, feeling helpless and furious, fantasizing picking off people from a tower. Distanced, a mighty force of destruction. And I was one of the tender kids, crying at other's hurts. I couldn't help thinking about how the people on the ground felt, and the people who loved them grieving. Still imagined myself mowing them down on bad days. D admitted he could understand the urge to walk into his middle school and riddle everyone with bullets. That rage exists in many of us, the toddler frustrated and denied. Most of us are taught, or have enough in us to learn empathy. Some are not, and it takes little more to lead them into violence.

That the parents of the brothers who apparently killed and maimed in Boston are denying and blaming is more frightening. That the uncle seems to get it, and hangs his head in family shame seems to reinforce the idea - he could see it happening, though perhaps not the scale of reaction. These brothers were taught to blame. The kind of family bubble I understand too well. The more abusive, the thicker the isolation, the further from our collective understanding of reality and compassion. Perhaps the older brother was schizophrenic, or merely a bully, and the younger went along in a blind hero-worship. The truth will never be known, only inferred.

Too often, marginal parents wrap the cloak of parenthood around themselves, rejecting any intrusion. But the raising of children is precisely what society needs to check on. Well raised children have a better chance of being good neighbors, spouses, parents, friends, leaders. Every child should have a mass of parents, all checking on each other, integrated, educating. Every child should have the right to a rich, safe childhood. Education, opportunities, nutrition, shelter, clothing, health care, kindness. One or two parents cannot do this alone, for them to defiantly assume they can and no one should look in on them, is beyond stupid. Children need friends, aunts and uncles, grandparents and teachers - as many as possible. The more the healthier.

The rain pours. Let it rain.

Victor

Victor is for V. As in Victory, and victorious,

and Victoria the Queen.


V is valuable and valiant although perhaps a bit vain. Sometimes just vein.



Vigilant and verbose and full of variety, it will vanquish the villains in a vice of vermillion.




Among others, V can save and give, believe and retrieve, sieve and deliver.

Victor, nearly invincible.

Zulu, Yankee, X-ray, Whiskey, Victor.

Thumbs

Cold week, not objectively that cold, but the cold that cuts through, gets in and under. Weird week, more dark disturbing dreams, of a rape and murder, waking with no idea where I was. Oriented myself with difficulty, fell back into dreams of dementia, writing myself notes about what I forgot, then losing the notes. Head and neck pain throughout.

I rarely ask our dear scrub tech with the great hands and pain magnets at the end of his fingers, but today, I asked. He thumbed my neck for a long time, and I did feel much, much better. I try not to abuse his skill and kindness unless I really need to, but today was the exception. He's a good guy, and a musician - hence the strong and effective fingers. One of those people with a good touch.


Dithering, tired, achy, not in anydamnmood. Disturbed and distressed.

D will rub my sore neck with tiger balm, and all will look better in the morning.

Whiskey

Whiskey is for W. Or Whisky, just a variation. Either way, shorter than saying doubleyou. And THAT is because the Roman alphabet didn't have a W, or more importantly -single V, just an angular U, and English has had to make do ever since.



Whiskey is a distilled alcoholic drink - snobs, abstainers and drunks going on about it ad nauseum. Nothing to do with whiskers, though.


Possibly something about waters of life - but that's just whistling in the wind whipped waves.


W wonders where, why, when, who, which, what, and wishes for hows. Howls and scowls.

Whatever.


Zulu, Yankee, X-ray, Whiskey.

There

I keep imagining what the OR was like yesterday, there. It would have been a holiday, no regularly scheduled cases, enough staff for traumas. I imagine every OR nurse/tech/surgeon already in the city rushed there, others just got on the train and headed in. I know what it looked like, the calm speed, the grim organization.

What I felt yesterday was that urge to rush there, to do my job. Impractical as that obviously is.

Thought about the staff at Marathon Sports, who fitted me with great shoes my first week there. I was suffering with plantar fasciitis, and they not only got me shoes, but gave me a discount for being a nurse, and offered good advice on how to deal with it. (Pop bottle, half filled with water, frozen, massage foot with it.) They are all fine, though.


As for my work, very slow week, so I was called off today. Well, April needs a holiday. Bombs exploded sometime after I got home yesterday. Glad to be home. I'm not an OR trauma nurse anymore.

Vivid dream. Found an egg carton with several eggs in a branch. Pulled the branch down, only to see there were birds guarding the eggs - a nest I realized. I let it back up gently. But a woman from work came along and gathered the eggs, ignoring me when I warned her those were not chicken eggs, and it was a nest. I'd retreated into in a very large version of my parent's garage. Floating black carp menacing me through the open door - angry about the eggs, even though I hadn't been the one to take them. I knew it would attack me, but I didn't want to hurt such an amazing creature. It swam in - through the air. So I grabbed my garden fork, and simply kept it at bay, with the fork facing the fish, not attacking. It darted and swooped at me, at one point impaling itself on the tines. Swam off, but I had the feeling, even injured, that it would be back.


I used to play in the garage, when it was raining or very hot. I could ride my trike around the concrete floor, watching dust motes in dim sunbeams. A quiet place. Sometimes my brothers would shut the door and hold it, and I would scream and bang to be let out. Eventually, I figured out that didn't work, and after an initial onslaught, I'd simply sit and daydream. They'd get bored, and I'd come out when I felt like it. Maybe I'd heard my mother tell them never to lock me in, so I learned that if they weren't just outside, it would be unlocked anyway.

Jagged

Trying not to get too much wrapped up, but I know those places in Boston. The people at Marathon Sports fitted us for shoes. I worked at that hospital for three years where everyone has been taken for treatment. Nothing I can do. Tugged at. Yanked.

Old friend from grade school gets in touch occasionally. She sent this photo she found of us, and other girls, from a field trip to the Detroit zoo.


Struggled to remember names, but I knew all. All, except the one on the end who became a very close friend in high school. Somehow, I remember her as older, and forgot this younger version. When I looked closer, knowing who it was, she became obvious. Strange, the mind remembers oddly, forgets oddly.



I don't recall the exact day, no idea who took this photo. I remember myself as so friendless. Maybe not as much as I felt isolated. Hidden and lost, perhaps more to myself.

I'd love to contact everyone in this photo, at least know they are ok.

Goggie

Moby has not only been brave and noble with Spike the Dog from next door, but also with a walker with a large puppy, and the neighbor from the other side who is dogsitting Gizmo, for a friend. Moby deigns to greet them as well. D got to experience a Greeting with Spike and Moby yesterday. Something to see, cat just walks up, nose-kiss to dog, then goes about cat-business. D and Neighbor still amazed.

We would not have predicted this.

Although we often figured that Moby might be OK with a large, placid dog. In no small part because Dog would be furry, warm and lumpy, therefore a good place to nap. Hoping someday to be in a position to rescue a good dog. Not this year, due to tax issue. But, well, more likely, now that we've seen Moby seem to rather like dogs, at some distance. Spike tried a bit too hard a second time, and Moby got his "Ugh, dog breath, dude" look on his body.

The idea of a dog is on the table. Which certainly means we are doomed.

Chives

The soil is recovering. Loads more worms, of all girths and lengths, front and back. More centipedes. I've started to flip rocks, since I have a reason to, now. I gently return them, of course. I'd laid wood from the fence as walkways last month. Noticed long slender leaves sneaking up around, and beneath -- the chives that couldn't be arsed last year. Flourishing. We shall have chives.

The spot with more sun is full of ashes, though. Very bad in this part of the world, with soil already salty and alkaline. No luck finding any information on pioneer plants to help it recover, not online. Just recommendations not to add ashes to the soil, save in rare cases of very acidic soil. Well, I'm not adding any, I'm trying to get rid of what I was dumped with. So, I asked my county extension gardeners, sent an email. I might get a reply. I suspect the veronica is doing so well because I did dig up some of the ash last year, disposed of some of it. Might be all I can do. Dilute and let the native "weeds" take over next year. Replace the dirt with bought stuff, mulch with leaves in the fall. I'm convinced all the stolen leaves that sat on top during the winter were very good for it all.

I think the garden knows it's loved as well. The real love, that finds out what is needed, and that is what is done.

Greenery

The strange grey around me. Dug up some rocks.

The hedge is tamed, but will always need trimming.


The clover is green and fills the space with texture.



The lemon balm is welcome to spread.



Here shall be strawberries, once I get the rest of the ashes out.



Parsley happy in it's work.



Veronica happy in it's greenery.


Filling in gaps.


Chard has some sort of problem, not sure what. But it lives.

Scarlet

Sun in the evening. Grey morning. Woke too early. Not a long day yesterday, but concentrated.

Took care of three patients who knew the surgeon, two everyone else knew as well. A surgical resident - a cocky little shit who made no friends, but we took care of him as well as possible.

Second - one of our attending anesthesiologists who we adore. Taking care of our own has a different level of attention. Fighting the urge to keep to our routines, do everything the same, even for someone who knows it well. So easy to omit an explanation, or skip a step. Hard to keep up exactly the same patter that is part of the routine.

Around me, bubbling up resentments over the fired cow-orker. Relief, mostly. This from other people, I'm just listening. Even down a person, the work is easier, because we don't have to cater to her as well. We can eat in the staff room, without incessant chatter or a butt on the table, or her phone going off at full volume. She has apparently asked several surgeons for letters of recommendation. And they might do it for her, lie essentially. We all hope they don't, since we now figure that is how we got stuck with her. No warning, just passing on the problem. And she is apparently blaming us for "picking on her." She was given so many chances to do better, and refused them all, flaunting her immunity. Everyone would have been more than willing to accept a changed her, willing to do her work, open to improvement. She never even went to EAP to see a therapist - the manager didn't require it of her, as she did for me.

Still, short staffed or not, the mood is lighter. Going into our slower time, when the university is out.

Sen

I am French, Canadian variety. Apparently through both maternal and paternal lines. And, yes, part native, verified on the female line, not verified but certainly also on the male. almost absolutely both, given small communities in southern Ontario in the last few centuries. Lots of Irish men who had a thing for French-ish women, and French men who would nail anyone as far as I can tell. It's all vaguely incestuous, lots of first cousins marrying, according to my first cousin once removed who is doing the ancestry thing. Working through the mess, and good on her. I add my penny's worth, and read her stories. She's from my maternal side, but that hardly means much as they cross.

I grew up hearing River Canard French - held to be ignorant and rural according to my mother, and nothing I saw contradicted. My father spoke terrible English, and lost a lot of his French, read English only minimally, and no French at all. He was functionally illiterate. That no doubt provided fodder for his angry insecurities.

I knew that in Windsor, Ontario grocery stores, the labels with the French were often turned to the front, and so I got familiar with some words. Sel, serviettes, pom. I never lived there, but I shopped with aunts. Which gives me no usable French, but a decent accent. Once, in Saudi, in a souk, some French soldiers, seeing my very French name on my uniform, began to speak to me in French. I said, as well as I could,

"Je ne parle français." Which isn't quite correct, but they still looked at me in puzzlement. I shrugged in as gallic a fashion as possible, and they did not try again. Figured they thought I was blowing them off. I'd hoped they would laugh.

Never took French in school, to keep my father further from me. Took Spanish, which has come in handy, rudimentary as my use of the language is. Especially in surgery recovery.

"Tiene dolor? Tiene frio?" Numbers, yes, no, please, thank you, I'm sorry, left, right. About what most Spanish speakers know in English, but it seems polite that I at least try. "Como esta usted?" I use the polite form, although I had one young male family member mock me for my usage. Have to assume that jerks appear in every culture and language.

"Hablo Espanol un poco."


"Ni hongo ga wakari wa sen." Which is "I do not speak Japanese." Tried it on a native Japanese speaker - anesthesiologist. She choked, laughing. Apparently I got the pronunciation perfect, and the joke worked. Maybe in part because the negation comes in the last word - sen. Like saying "NOT!" to finish a sentence.

Really would like to have a second language. I think I would have to need it. Had trouble enough with Medicalese, which is derived from Latin and Greek, but really isn't either. In that, though, I can translate rather well, and will do so for anyone who asks.

Pieces

Once, long ago, I was taken to visit one of my father's aunts. I didn't really understand the relationship at the time, and was too young to ask clearly. Out in the middle of the country, a house by the side of the road. No heat, plumbing, electricity, I presume an outhouse somewhere. The aunt was a large, very elderly, flower-print wrapped swaddle in a decrepit rocking chair. The uncertain floor covered with something thickly papery and worn through, newsprint covering the walls, no place to sit. Probably she and my father only spoke in French, since I have no recollection of the conversation. A stove sat there, cold, and a vent pipe wandered away from it.


It was a way of life, and a deep poverty, that I observed anthropologically. But it was a stray puzzle piece that never fit to any other bit. Presented to the ancient relative, I don't recall any interest from her, I was only a bother, potential noise. I'm sure there was an odor, of neglect and damp. Since I made the rounds of the elderly neighbors at home, the smell of age wouldn't have bothered me. Instead, there was a sad pall over the one crumbling room.

I had a soft spot for little old ladies, so my detachment felt strange, even at the time. Repulsion, even, far beyond my shy reserve with strangers. I knew my father enough to realize I had to be meticulously polite - and I'm sure I was.

Perhaps the photos over at Shorpy remind me of this odd interlude. And the passage in Smiley's People with Connie Sax.

It was a house of day and night at once. At the centre, on a pine table littered with the remains of toast and Marmite, an old oil lamp shed a globe of yellow light, intensifying the darkness round it. The gleam of blue rain clouds, streaked by sunset, filled the far French windows. Gradually, as Smiley followed Connie's agonizingly slow procession, he realized that this one wooden room was all there was. For an office, they had the rolltop desk laden with bills and flea powder; for a bedroom the brass double bedstead with its heap of stuffed toy animals lying like dead soldiers between the pillows; for a drawing-room Connie's rocking-chair and a crumbling wicker sofa; for a kitchen a gas ring fired from a cylinder; and for decoration the unclearable litter of old age.

- John LeCarre

One of those indelible childhood memories I have no idea what to do with.

Bitter

A stuttering day, stops and starts, running and waiting. Even after I got home, and then went out for groceries, then - after dinner, for bland cookies*. D suffering with tree pollen. Very cold winds this morning, cutting, shattering. Cancelled one case, patient coming from Wyoming, and shifted another for weather. The Great Basin region throws alls kinds of spins at anyone daring to travel at this time of year. Late snows, potent winds, bullying battering, forces to be reckoned with, not a part of the world to be toyed with in the in-betweens. Trucks are routinely toppled, not for the light hearted, or light footed.

Got the rest of the story about the "fired" problem last week. Nothing new, only that she pushed it all too far, then took it out on the person who could fire her - who quickly obliged. Woman has demons chasing her, but she wants everyone else to fight them for her, denies them, and blames everyone else for them. I find myself with a detached compassion for her plight. I hope she learns, although I doubt she will. I do know none of the other ORs in the system want her. She has not burned her bridges, but blown them sky high. Splitting, I suspect.

When I was most in trouble at work, had gotten as low as possible with the pain and stress, I reached out for help. Therapist showed me what I was doing, and I was horrified at what I was becoming. Hard work, miserable work, but I threw myself into it, changed how I related to the world without changing who I am. Fired woman merely threw a doily on top, and expected nothing to change, only that everyone else would stop complaining about her. Useless manager - until she was turned upon - as the rest of us where. Nothing like being savaged to see when someone is out of control.

And I do feel sad for her. Her mother was a mess, and she can't even see, refuses to even see, that she is deeply damaged. I knew age seven that something was terribly, terribly wrong. The cracks still break through, once in a while. I know full well how fundamentally broken I am, and I try to see the cracks, and the beauty. Damage is not an excuse, only a hurdle.

I am reminded of this, from Fiddler on the Roof:

Rabbi, may I ask you a question?
Certainly, my son.
Is there a proper blessing for the Tsar?
A blessing for the Tsar? Of course! May God bless and keep the Tsar... far away from us!



Bitter cold, the kind only spring can throw up. Glad I held off planting anything but freeze tolerant seeds.




*Almond windmill, and oatmeal raisin.

Winds

Quite a blessing, a short day, to come home and find shoes. Then I went to look for the Cat. This took a while.




"Leemmealone."

I did.

High winds predicted tonight. When the winds roar through this part of the world, channeled down canyons, slammed down Rocky Mountains, they can leave a mark.


Found shoes, for summer, walking type, very on sale, light and squishy, and a bit flashy.

Arch

How does one lose one's shoes? This morning my shoes, with the good high arch support inserts, would not be found. Baffled, and getting late, I wore the crocs and called it good. Kept worrying at the puzzle all day, to no effect. When I got home, I went at it systematically, figuring they got kicked under somewhere. After a full round, and seeing D's eyes red and running, I suddenly remembered where I took my jeans off, and why. After hacking the branches, I immediately went to the basement and shoved everything into the washer, so as not to trigger D's allergies. The shoes sat there innocently, unaware of the anguish they'd caused.




The shoes have seen nearly enough service to justify replacing them, but the inserts have many years of wear left, and they are not cheap.

I have tender feet that really don't like being in crocs to walk any straight distance. In the garden, as slippers around the house, they are perfectly adequate. More than that, and my feet pass the pain up as far as they can reach, into my hips and back if given enough time.


Raining today. This is a happy.