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Hurricane Ridge

This is my mother’s biggest watercolor painting. I have it hanging in my guest room. It is huge and gorgeous, nearly the width of the double bed.

I miss her. Helen Burling Ottaway. I will put more of her artwork up. She died in 2000, but I still have the art.

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wear and tear

B and I have been walking the beaches a lot since we returned from our trips in January.

We are noticing how much the beach changes daily. The high winter tides wash sand out and back in. Some days the beach is covered with pebbles and some days it is smooth sand. The boulders move and the cliffs do too.

With the heavy rains this year, sections of cliff collapse. We have both edged closer to the water when we see sections of sand and clay that have fallen: some are as large as a car or larger. We would not survive if that fell on us.

Trees hang on for as long as they can, but they fall too.

We also see root systems exposed when a section of the cliff falls and know that those trees are struggling to survive.

We are debilitated by the length of the pandemic, but going out walking every day, watching birds and trees and the beach change, the eagles flirting, the seals peering out of the water, this renews me. I hope you have a place to walk.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: debilitating.

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saved

when your parents die
you will find what they saved

you will find things in the house
that you do not know why they saved

you may find linens carefully folded
and papers from the past

the linens embroidered by ancestors
but you cannot ask which ones

photographs of people you don’t know
and which are not labeled

a reference to a ring that your great aunt had
but she has been dead since 1986

when you go to your parents’ house
ask them what they have saved

ask them why it has been saved

ask them now
because when they are gone
it is too late

to ask about what they saved

________________________

There are also families estranged, where they have cut ties or emigrated or escaped abuse, and have reason not to save anything or speak about it.

We want freedom but we want love too. For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: freedom.

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Skookum Smithsonian

I forget how BIG the Washington, DC Mall is. On my last day visiting out east over the winter holidays, my friend B and I went to the Mall. Above is the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (DINOSAURS!), then the National Gallery of Art and then the Capitol Building. We went to the National Gallery first because they opened late at 11 am, while the Smithsonian was opening some buildings at 1 pm.

Looking the other way, the Washington Monument, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the National Museum of American History.

The museum buildings are each two city blocks long and a city block wide. They are enormous. We only went through part of the National Gallery and then ducked in to Natural History. There are now 23 buildings, including the National Zoo, in the Smithsonian. It is amazing and wonderful. And there are other museums as well, including the National Gallery of Art.

The Smithsonian: https://www.si.edu/museums.

The National Gallery of Art: https://www.nga.gov/.

cast of a triceratops skull

They are SKOOKUM museums.

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out of the ooze

Over the winter holidays, my daughter and I flew to see family in Maryland. We stayed in a very small circle of people. It snowed and the Smithsonian was closed for a couple days, but I went in on my last day before returning home.

I like the confusing reflections in this picture. Maybe the skeletons are confused about being on display too.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: ooze.

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Up a tree

I love Great Blue Herons. We have a lot. I love them best in trees, because they still look strange to me in trees. They will perch right on the top of our tall Pacific Northwest trees and look like peculiar Christmas tree toppers. Alien angels. Their bones are lighter than ours, so they can stand on a limb that would not hold me or you.

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organize

I am ready to organize my house.

I thought for years that I am NOT capable of organizing a house.

It turns out that I never had time to organize my house. I was a single mother family physician doing rural medicine including obstetrics and frequently on call, and then I opened my own business.

So organizing the house was way down the list of priorities.

I’ve been home now since March 20, 2020. I am starting to really recover from the pneumonia and muscle dysfunction. So now I am organizing once again.

I need a work room, other than the computer room. I set one up upstairs, but in this 1930s house, the upstairs room is too cold. It is great for sleeping but not for a prolonged time working on a project. So I am eyeing my spaces. I could use the front room which is currently the invasion from my clinic. However, I love having the front windows right there when I am on the computer. The cats have a chair there too and keep me company.

I am eyeing rooms in the basement. There is baseboard electric in three rooms. It means moving things around, but that is not difficult. It may take me a little while, but I will get it done.

I am ready to organize it.

____________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: READY!

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Vaccine refusal folly

Who should NOT get vaccinated for Covid-19?

This is supposed to be humor. You may not find it funny.

Clearly oppositional defiant people do NOT get vaccinated. Here are a list of the reasons that I have heard, most of them said to my face or on email:

Hyper Conservative:
1. God will take care of me.
2. It’s false news. All made up by the media. The media is liberal. Even Fox News. Even CNN. They don’t know the true meaning of conservatism. I honor the flag.
3. We do our own research. We have better and deeper sources even than QAnon. If you don’t know what I am talking about than you don’t know! Why are you so stupid?
4. Alien lizards made the vaccine and it has tiny nanobots and it is tracking us and will take over our brains. Some people have ALREADY HAD THEIR BRAINS TAKEN OVER BY LIBERAL MEDIA AND NOW QANON! It’s probably best to bunker down.
5. No I don’t vote. Where is my medicaid check? Those evil government people are trying to take away my mother’s social security. If I voted, I would be part of the problem.
6. Masks kill you. Because you breathe your own breath. It’s not the CO2. You didn’t realize that your breath was THAT foul, did you? EEEEEEE-YUK.
7. No one can tell me what to do. If they do, I won’t do it. I won’t die. So there.

Hyper Liberal:
1. Goddess will take care of me.
2. Antibiotics are evil. Vaccines are evil. If you live NATURALLY, you will live forever. But I ordered that book that tells you how to cook your own medicines on your stove!
3. There is this HERB. It fixes everything. What do you MEAN, my kidneys are failing? But I live NATURALLY.
4. Doctors are evil. Well, not naturopaths. The government is evil. Yeah, I’m on medicaid. My mother NEEDS her medicare check. WTF is WRONG with you people? Why would I VOTE on the evil government?
5. Scientists are evil. If they would use NATURAL remedies, we’d all be fine. No, I don’t get labs checked. I don’t need to. Yes, these are shoes. Whaddaya MEAN shoes aren’t natural? These are handmade with hemp processed in a massive factory and NO LEATHER because LEATHER IS EVIL. I have bamboo towels, too, bamboo is natural. What do you MEAN it takes a fungkload of chemicals to process bamboo into fabric? It’s NATURAL.
6. Humans are evil. We should live naturally. Yes, I live in a house. Houses are natural. If you use natural cleansers and only allow natural fabrics and toys and crystals and foods. I don’t approve of logging. Yes, my house is made of wood, what of it?
7. No one can tell me what to do. If they do, I won’t do it. I won’t die. So there.

Martians:
1. It makes their brains explode in their helmets.

Alien Lizards posing as humans:
1. Well, actually we need to get the vaccine. I got it.

Gorillas:
1. They get the vaccine too, even the oppositional defiant ones. Except for the wild ones that are really canny and who we can’t catch and dart gun with the vaccine.

This is supposed to be humor. You may not find it funny. Don’t use it as proof that you shouldn’t get the vaccine, though people with really crazy ideas shouldn’t get it. Did you hear that they are about to send all the remaining vaccine supply to Africa because people here are refusing it? Is that a rumor or is it true?
The CDC has other ideas. But we don’t trust them, right?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: folly.

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hope for good coming out of isolation

This video is from 2011. I was invited to be a speaker and had ten minutes to present the Mad as Hell Doctor program, talking about single payer healthcare, medicare for all.

If there is a good thing to get from Covid-19, for me it is single payer healthcare. Because doctors and nurses and staff are worn out, sick, quitting, dying. We need people to take out sick appendixes. We need people to work in nursing homes. We need to support our medical people and I am NOT talking about insurance corporations. They are making more profit than ever. Twenty percent of every dollar paid to them or more.

People say, but it’s socialized medicine, to have medicare for all. Well, no. The only socialized medicine in the US currently is the Veterans Administration. No one that I talk to wants to take away Veterans benefits. Or any of the other government programs: medicare, medicaid, active duty military. The oldest, the poorest and disabled and the people defending our country.

But physicians can do a better job if they are not worrying about prior authorization from 500 + companies, each with multiple different insurance contracts, and who can change what they cover at any time. I get emails all the time: we have changed what we cover. Great. Like I have time to read and learn 500+ insurance contracts. I memorize medicare rules and they change too. Medicare for all, one set of rules and then if you ask if something is covered, we will know.

I am not the only physician who wants single payer: Physicians for a National Healthcare Program.

Physicians for a National Health Program

I find this on line: https://www.quora.com/Could-Medicare-or-Medicaid-be-expanded-to-the-general-population-to-create-single-payer-healthcare-Would-it-be-more-efficient-than-an-entirely-new-program?share=1

The answer is yes, yes, yes. And there would be a continuous ongoing battle about what is covered and what isn’t but that already happens. For two reasons: medicine changes continuously as the science changes and there is a vocal strong fringe, which is occasionally correct. I don’t trust the fringe, but then I don’t trust insurance companies, herbal medicine makers or politicians either.

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I can’t credit the videographer because I did not know that the video was being taken or that it was posted. I found out when a new patient said she was seeing me because of my video. I had to look it up.