Category Archives: love

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birds, beauty, brains

Three happy things today: Birds!

Not a great photograph, right? I like it, partly because it was such a challenge. Still on the big island of Hawaii, we spot two very small birds building a nest. I am zoomed all the way in and holding the camera up to catch a glimpse when one flies in. They are very quick and there is lots of greenery in the way!

I am happy about brains. No, I am not a zombie, I don’t eat them, I just like that my work engages my mind. I learn new things daily from patients, from specialists, from looking up engaging questions! Medicine is changing continuously and I am grateful to be part of it.  (Ok, I am not grateful that insurance companies are increasing prior authorization exponentially.)

I am happy about beauty. Here is another glimpse of our small nest builders and we think we’ve identified them.

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I think that this is a common waxbill, also not a native bird. Either that or a black-rumped waxbill but neither of us got a good shot of the back. Hooray for spring and nests.

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Happy things

This is for the Blogging from A to Z theme reveal:

I choose my theme today: Happy things.

When we first moved to Port Townsend, my mother had recurrent of ovarian cancer. My husband was very unhappy and my son had to switch schools in January, leaving a teacher that he loved in Colorado and all his friends. I was working and finding learning all the new phone numbers, specialists, acronyms and patients difficult.

After a while, I instituted Happy Things. At bedtime I told my son that we each had to say three happy things.

“But mom,” said my son. “I am not happy.”

“Well,” I said, “They don’t have to be very happy.”

“What do you mean?” he said.

“Just a little happy. Like, only three patients cried today and not four. No one died today in my clinic. I didn’t forget my lunch like yesterday.”

He thought about it. “We didn’t have the awful pizza at lunch today.”

“Good job! What else?”

“I only got yelled at by the teacher twice.”

“Great! How about the other kids?”

“I only got hit on the playground once.”

“Good job. Yeah, stuff like that. A meteor didn’t hit the school and destroy everyone.”

“I’d get out of school then.”

“If you survived.”

So we did happy things every night and sometimes they were very dark and gradually they got better. I will do happy things from A to Z and some days they may only be a little happy….

The rat is for my son. He has pet rats. This rat is loose on Hawaii, which is not a happy thing for the native birds, but I think the rat may be happy. It came down the tree and was then holding very still, trying to convince us that we couldn’t see it. Be careful, rat, because we saw a mongoose there too.

For the Daily Prompt: toxic. Is the rat toxic? An immigrant? I would immigrate if I had to, so how can I scorn others who do?

It is a small picture, because I had my phone zoomed all the way in. Hello, rat. We see you.

 

 

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out

For the Daily Prompt: talisman.

What an interesting word. Talisman. What makes me feel safe? Where do I feel most safe, most loved, most joy?

Outdoors. Outside. With the birds, the deer, the trees. I am safest in the forest, away from people.

The latest news regarding Facebook and apps certainly reinforces that. I don’t trust technology, I don’t trust corporations, Big Data puts profit and money first, I do not trust people. Not in groups. Individually in clinic, yes. On Facebook, no.

And I realized the secret reason that I don’t twitter this week: I am a terrible speller. Yes, I am thinking of our twitter in chief and the spelling of counsel.

I would rather be outdoors trading songs with a bird than be indoors with a screen. Our television was turned off four years ago. I check varied news sources for a few minutes in the early morning. And then I turn them off.

Health to you and everyone.