Category Archives: rural doctor

by

Mundane Monday 179: without words

For Mundane Monday #179, my prompt is without words.

Let’s see a photograph where the communication is wordless.

Ms. Boa turns 15 as my daughter turned 21. For a cat, that’s approximately in her 70s. She is smaller, has lost muscle mass. She can still catch mice. And she communicates: ok, mom, enough computer for today. Do something else. This was yesterday and I decided she was RIGHT!

Link your blog or send a message and I will list them next week.

From last week Mundane Monday #178 light and dark:

KL Allendorfer: a gorgeous landscape.

 

 

by

mediocre super hero(ine)s

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: plump.  This turtle kinetic sculpture is not that plump….

Taken Saturday, at the water part of the Kinetic Sculpture Race. It is all human powered and they have to go out in the cold water, currently around 52 degrees F. Brrrrr. The teams have a brake test down Monroe Street first and then line up to head for the water. The Coast Guard stands ready and various kayaks and sailboats are there.  They have to get to a destination and bring back the superhero(ine) mask!

The theme this year is mediocre superhero(ine)s. Lots of glitter and capes and boots. The costumes are wonderful!

To the women and men who are speaking up, there is nothing mediocre about your heroism.

by

tech fan

We went downtown yesterday, walked, to the Kinetic Sculpture Race. They dress like clowns, but I have way more respect for the people at Kinetics than the US Senate.

There is a Maker Fair too, with the Robotics teams out and fundraising. The balls in the caught my eye. But it’s the very small tech fan that I admire. She is fascinated.

DSCN3997.JPG

I hope she has the opportunities. We need women in tech, in the Senate, in the House, in the Presidency.

by

speaking up 4

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: sequelae. We don’t know what the sequelae to the Supreme Court vote is yet. But I am not going to stop speaking up and I hope more women speak up. And girls. So here are two experiences when I was a girl.

I start grade school in upstate New York. I am at the Northeast School. I don’t remember tons about it, except that it has ramps instead of stairs. I am failing to learn to read with phonics, which make no sense to me.

In first grade, I need to go to the bathroom. My teacher gives me a hall pass. This is not a kindergarten privilege.

Outside the girls’ bathroom are two boys. They are older than me. I don’t know them.

“You can’t go in unless you show us your underwear.”

I am wearing a dress. I stare at them.

“Show us your underwear.”

I go back around the corner and wait. Hoping they will leave. They don’t.

I need to go. I go and lift my skirt for a second, humiliation as they laugh. I hurry in to the bathroom.

I go back to the classroom.

I never go to the bathroom during class again. I am careful. I go before class starts and at lunch.

And I’ve never told anyone until now. And this was a grade school. How were the boys acculturated to behave this way already in grade school? And does this still go on? All the girls in my daughter’s school quit wearing skirts by second grade. Jeans only.

We move before fourth grade to another town.

The boundaries for the school districts change before sixth grade and I am bussed to a new grade school.

On the bus, a boy starts harassing me. I don’t know him.

“Show me your underwear.” he says. The other kids are watching.

I don’t answer, glare at him with scorn.

Each day he escalates.

“Show me your underwear.”

I pull a pair out of my bag the fourth day. “There. Now you’ve seen some.”

The other kids laugh, but it’s not enough. He keeps hassling me.

He starts reaching for my skirt from the seat in front of me.

I’ve had it. I play flute. But I also play piccolo.

The next day he starts up, “Show me your underwear.” He reaches towards my skirt from the seat in front. I have my hard piccolo case in both hands. I smash his hand as hard as I can, against the bus seat.

He screams and pulls his hand away, clutching it.

The bus driver looks in the mirror. He doesn’t slow down or stop.

The boy never bothers me again. And neither does anyone else on that bus.

____________________________________

I took the photograph when school started this year. This is our “city” bus. The Redhawks are our football team. I can’t think that football is good for us, but I thank the adults for this support for the high school students…..

Music gives me hope: this.

by

crossroads

Regardless of how the vote goes, I will keep speaking up.

It is so painful to have woman after woman saying, “I have stories too.”

And to the “nice” men who say, “I can’t believe that sort of thing. I can’t read about it. It hurts too much.” YOU are silencing too. YOU are part of the problem. As long as YOU refuse to listen, refuse to speak up, refuse to read about it: YOU PRETEND TO YOURSELF THAT IT IS NOT HAPPENING TO YOUR WIFE, YOUR SISTER, YOUR MOTHER, YOUR DAUGHTER. YOU PRETEND THAT IT ONLY HAPPENS TO “THOSE” WOMEN, THAT THEY ARE FEW, THAT IF THEY HAD TAKEN PRECAUTIONS IT WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED, THAT YOU ARE PROTECTING “YOUR” WOMEN.

Speak up, “nice” men. Are you ASKING the women in your life? Or are you silencing them?

Sweet Honey in the Rock: Joanne Little.

 

by

Launch Day

beautiful

5000 Poppies's avatar5000 POPPIES

I cannot believe how quickly that time went.

Today was the launch of our amazing tribute to the Fallen of WWI on the lawns of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.  Nearly six years in the making, and just as Margy and I envisioned it at the AWM all that time ago.  And Phil’s spectacular embodiment of that vision is genius!

IMG_1736(1)

It feels like forever and no time at all.

62,000 beautiful handcrafted poppies … representing 62,000 lives lost in WWI.

IMG_1733

It is sobering.

And it is also sobering to walk through our field, and really feel the meaning behind every one of those blooms.

The depth of feeling that went into the making … handmade by our magnificent tribe from all over the world … with love, honour and respect.

And the stories that came with the blooms … some tragic, some heroic, some heartwarming, but all very, very…

View original post 106 more words

by

speaking up 3

Here are speaking up and speaking up 2.

More events in my life:

I am on the metro in Washington, DC. It is not rush hour. I am reading my book.

I suddenly realize  as the metro stops, my car is empty. I am the only one in the car. One man gets on. I am hyperalert. He walks down the car and sits next to me.

The car starts up. I stare at my book.

“Hi.” he says, “What’s your name?”

I don’t answer.

“C’mon. What’s your name?”

“I am reading my book. I don’t want to talk.”

“C’mon, baby, be nice.”

I stand up, purse and book. “Excuse me.” I step by him and stand at the metro car door. I get off that car at the next stop and move to the next one with people on it. Shaking with both the threat and anger, that I have to deal with this.

2. I take a dance class in Washington, DC. I work at the National Institute of Health. I leave my car at NIH and ride the metro.

One night I get off the metro at NIH and I am riding up the escalator, with my backpack.

A man, clearly drunk, steps up on the escalator beside me, and says “Hi, baby, what’s your name?”

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” I snarl and stomp up the escalator. It is dark and there are very few people at the stop and in the lot. I am in danger from this drunk.

I am walking fast at the top, away from the escalator, when I hear running steps behind me. WHACK! He takes a swing at me and runs off. He hits my backpack and not me. I am screaming at him.

He is gone. I run to my car, get in, and sit there, hands on the wheel. Shaking. There is a part of me that wonders what I would do if he crossed the road in front of my car.

My next class is not dance. I take tae kwon do.

3. I have used my tae kwon do once so far. Where? In first year medical school.

No way, you say.

Yes, way.

We have lecture after lecture in the same hall. We usually sit in the same places. I am newly married. The guy behind me starts tickling my neck during a lecture, with a pen. I twitch a couple times and then hear muffled giggles and realize that it’s the person behind me.

I stiffen and wait until I am really ready. Breathe. The tickle comes. I snap a basic block back and forward: and have his pen.

He SCREAMS!

The whole class turns towards us. The lecturer stops, staring. I am facing forward, holding the pen down low, not moving. He has the entire room staring at him, everyone but me. He doesn’t say a word. You could hear a …. pen…. drop.

The lecturer shakes his head and continues.

I keep the pen.

Just think, he’s a doctor.

I took the photograph when we were in Wisconsin. I went to UW Madison. I like being a badger.

by

The extroverted feeler and the teacher

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: brace.

My sister was an extroverted feeler.

In fourth grade, she started getting sick a lot. My mother noticed a pattern. My sister was sick on Monday. She was avoiding school like crazy.

My parents were having difficulty figuring it out. EF’s grades were great. She was unhappy.

Then my parents went to a parent teacher conference.

My mother told this story: “The teacher said that EF came to her desk and asked to borrow a paper clip. Later, she came and asked to borrow a second paperclip. The teacher then produced the two paper clips. “Your daughter made braces with the paperclips. For her teeth!” The paperclips were bent.

“Um. Don’t you think that is sort of creative?” asked my mother.

“No.” said the teacher.

My mother would laugh telling the story and say, “After that, I pretty much let EF miss every Monday. I would not have wanted to go to school with that teacher either.”