I love NPR. I mean, it is truly my favorite thing to listen to. Check this out. I am overflowing with amusement.

Unfortunately, my car seems unable to pick it up anymore. It seems every time I take my car in for repairs, I loose channels. Before I took my car in this last time I was still able to pick up a fuzzy but often listenable signal for our local NPR channel. But upon getting my car back this time, all my radio settings were erased and now I can only get easy listening, classics, and a Spanish channel. BOOOOOO! Give me NPR or give me...well, death is a little extreme for a radio station, so lets just say, give me NPR.

One of my co-workers is meticulous about punctuation and grammar and I am, well, not, as is displayed by my haphazard use of commas, over-use of exclamation marks, and general lack of attention to detail. I have to admit, I hate that I don't use better grammar but am caught in my own paradoxical black hole - I am horribly impatient and have trouble committing myself to learning something I don't understand instantly. Like grammar and driving a stick shift. I know, I know, I am a literary neanderthal and beware encountering me on the road.

As you know, my work provides many opportunities for interesting situations I would never other wise experience. For example, we are moving to a new clinic and one of our patients is a Shaman and offered to bless the clinic for us (Bless it or cleanse it or clear it or something). Anyway, she wants to do a special cleansing before the big cleansing and she needs three additional people to help 'hold the space.' And, apparently, I have good energy and she wants me to participate in this unknown ritual. Kind of fascinating, isn't it? I am highly flattered that I have good energy. I am often worried at work about how my aura is looking. Its quite exhausting, to maintain physical health AND the appearance of health in the spiritual realms that have importance in my work place that I have no comprehension of.

Only in my world...

I drive up to Phoebe's house this evening, talking to my mom on the phone, who is patiently listening to me complain the things that seem hard in my life yet are a result of my own choices. (The enjoyment of complaining is greatly reduced when halfway through your tirade you have an enlightening dose of reality that your life, if we were to be honest (let's, its so refreshing), isn't nearly as bad as you like to pretend, yet you still feel the need to be a brat and bitch. This is beside the point.) So, I walk to the door, phone to ear, and I am astounded to find, much to the dog's dismay, that I cannot open the door. It would seem that when I locked the door this morning, the key on the other side some how shifted in the lock and is refusing to budge. Tiny, the dog, begins howling in dismay, for she has been shut up all day and really, really has to go to the bathroom. I, self-righteously indignant and exclaiming to the heavens "Here, here is the evidence that nothing ever goes right!", call Phoebe's sister to see if she has a key to the front door. She, dear and lovely woman that she is, rushes over to see if any of her keys will fit, which they do not. Tiny howls grow to a fevered pitch as she realizes we are loitering on the porch and not attending to her ever pressing needs. She claws at the glass door, yelping for attention and a fire hydrant. It is suggested we call a locksmith. I realize that I left the upstairs window open and wonder aloud if we could climb up there. Cyndi (Phoebe's sister) comments that it is unlikely since her son is unavailable to help. That seals the deal for me- anything he can do I can do better. "Cyndi, I have every intention of climbing up there myself," I inform her. (My actual words, as I began to climb the fence, were more along the lines of "Am I an idiot for attempting this? Please inform me now before I break my neck.") I pitch off my fancy flats and hike up my skirt and begin the climb. (Please refer to the diagram).



I hop up the fence, shimmy between the porch overhang and carport roof and then climb atop of the porch roof. I then walk very carefully along the plastic porch roof, making sure to walk along the supports so I don't fall through the roof. Once at the window, I tried to bust it open with no success. Cyndi tosses an ice scraper from her car up to the roof, but it lands on the edge, about three precarious feet from where I stood, clinging to the side of the house. I edged my way across the roof, listening to the crackling sound of doom (or what I imagine the roof breaking sounds like). I just manage to snag the ice scraper and then use it to rip open the screen. I roll/fall into the room and rush downstairs to open the door and release the pup. Huzzah, success! Suddenly my bad mood had vanished and Tiny and I set out for a lovely evening walk, as I rubbed screen splinters from my shin. To those contemplating a life of crime, do not wear sun dresses for breaking and entering. Not only is it immodest, it can cause unnecessary injury, such as splinters.

The end.


(Do you know how nice it is to click spell check and find that there are no misspellings. It is highly enjoyable.)

I love to laugh...

probably too much. One strives for that perfect balance between being easily amused and not being ridiculous. That being said, lately my life has been pretty ridiculous.

Bats in my house. For real people, bats. I am house sitting for a friend's aunt and so have not been at the mountain house to deal with the bat situation properly. I came up with a brilliant plan to open the windows and turn on all the lights, to drive the bats (the actually number of bats is unknown, there were many flurried sightings)into the dark night. This plan resulted with the bats being joined in the house by 1,000,000 moths. Excellent.

But this story has a sad ending. I went to the house yesterday afternoon to escape the city (who knew that mountain living would make the bustle of the city, neighbors, and cars somewhat unbearable. There is no silence!) and while puttering around the house sewing, I found a little dead bat. It was really sad. It was so small and so sweet looking, its little black wings withered and curled up around itself. I buried it and was depressed I could not save it in time.

I was working on the book this morning with Paul and Sherm. Shu, the most amazing cook ever, whipped up some scallion pancakes (unspeakably delicious). She placed the pancakes and the dipping in sauce in front of me and well out of Paul and Sherm's reach. Paul did, in fact, reach for the plate, scooting it closer to him and snagging one of the pancakes. I brought the sauce closer to him so he could enjoy that too. Shu, however, saw him snacking and said, "No! This is for her, not for you. You had rice already, you eat later." Paul sheepishly finished his pancake as Shu moved the plate and sauce, again, closer to me and out of his reach. A little bit later I offered Sherm a pancake, feeling bad that Shu had decided I was the only one allowed to eat. Shu returned again, now hovering closeby as she had discovered I had a tendency to give away my pancakes, to chide Sherm, return the plate to my place. It was fascinating. I still don't really know what happened. (Shu did make Sherm pancakes later and I can only assume she made Paul an elaborate lunch that she didn't want him to spoil his appetite for.)

This past week a solar eclipse occurred and we transitioned from summer to late summer. (In Chinese medicine there are five seasons, late summer being the added category). Apparently this causes the metaphysical poo to hit the metaphysical fan, because all of our patients are undergoing serious trauma. At least, this is what some practitioners are attributing the trauma to. The last week has brought us suicides (yes, more than one), family crisis that make you want to weep, patients slowly fading from their debilitating illnesses, and so much more. I was looking for a sympathy card for someone that was kind to me in a small way who recently met with an unexpected death in their family. None of the tailored words or poetic condolences could possible ease the sadness they are going through. It made me feel sick. I know such cards are not suppose to stem the tide of grief in any real way, but it seems like such a pathetic token to offer. I want to scoop everyone up and make it all better. Alas, my arms simply aren't big enough.

Adventures!

<






<