Tag Archives: RDP

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A portrait of Boa Black

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: pet.

This is Miss Boa Black. I am not sure if she is my pet or I am hers.

My daughter picked a kitten from the pound 15 years ago. A few days later I took my son there and handed him Boa. She was tiny, feather soft, and purred the instant we picked her up. The other cat is gone, but Boa is still here. She is really a one person cat and the person is me. She hates it when I pull suitcases out and lately she has been tucking me in at night. She does love the kids but disapproved strongly when they went off to college and only visit erratically.

She still has the softest fur.

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Kitchen skills

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: cook.

I really do like to cook. Eating is a pleasure too and I am blessed with children, now young adults, who always liked to eat. No fussy eaters in our house! I wouldn’t allow sodas in the house and when we went to restaurants, they could choose soda as a dessert or a dessert but not both. I harped on the evils of sugar and television, at least, too much of either. We did and do eat chocolate.

This is my cousin’s cabin, at Lake Matinenda, from 2012. The earliest cabin is from the late 1930s and they all have pretty basic kitchens. We filter the lake water now but used to drink it straight from the lake. My family stayed in a tent mostly and my parents, mostly my mother, cooked on a single burner camp stove. Bless her! A lot of work! We all took part in the cabin work. Trash taken out by boat, filling water buckets, working with hand tools and cooking on burners. The propane refrigerator is much better than trying to function out of a cooler! It taught all of us good camping kitchen skills and we have family recipes for the lake stay.

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all blue

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: chores.

I am not blue about chores. Not at all. I like chores. Being an independent stubborn woman, I don’t do them in the order or way that society currently seems to think we should do them. I do them in the order I think is important.

I was divorced in 2007, with a 14 year old and a 9 year old. My Ex promptly left town. He stayed in very close touch with the kids, calling about 5 out of 7 days, but did not see them for a year. I was working full time and had over night call.

My goal was that the kids would both know how to do lots of basic chores by the time they left home. Vacuum. Sweep. Clean the bathroom. Do laundry. Replace lightbulbs. Cook. Grocery shop. Plan a meal. Change a tire. Check the oil in each of our cars. We have a 1986 Honda Civic 5 speed, so include drive a clutch. Avoid debt and some basic money handling. Discuss insurance: car insurance, health insurance, others. I started turning over the responsibility for their own health care, dental, vision as well. I want them to know the family medical history and we discussed addictive substances and politics and justice. When my son was in college they asked for cell phones for Christmas. I asked them to research phones and a family plan and said, yes, I would do that. They did a great job bringing me the information. I wanted them to disagree with me as well. If they wanted to do something, they could argue their case and might convince me. I did not hire someone to do our household chores because running a household is work, honorable work, undervalued, and underappreciated. And expensive if you hire people to do all of it.

Both of my kids are much neater than me. Less packrat. At least, they are now… I think it’s a late expressing gene….

I took the photograph two days ago, on a walk in the evening. All blue.

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pink shard

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: shard.

I photographed our local mosaic sculptures and I can’t find the pictures. I just went through 3 years of photographs and it’s making me too sad. Yesterday a patient said, “How are you?” I replied, “Mostly happy with occasional grumpiness.” Sorrow too. So here is a mostly blue photograph with a little pink. Maybe the happiness is the pink in which case I said it backwards.

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mermaid

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: quest.

mermaid

when I was born, they took my skin

i had no skin
i was frightened
i wept

a witch came
she studied me
i turned my head from the spoon

“Good,” she said, “You may refuse it if you want.”

She gave me the gift of anger

it was the only defense I had

but over the years
I studied and thought
and I found my tears
and I found my fears

i made my skin of tears
this took me many years
one tear for each scale

at last it is done
my skin
is complete

i smile at the sky
as i don it

i slip into the water
and i am gone

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Vital signs II

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: vital. For me, vital brings up vital signs. I wrote this poem in 2006. Pain was made the fifth vital sign in 1996. I have written about it here. In June of 2016, the American Medical Association recommended dropping pain as a vital sign. The idea that we should be “free” of pain has not died yet and the latest CDC report says that the overdose death rate for women has risen a horrifying 240% from 1999 to 2017. That report is here: Drug Overdose Deaths Among Women Aged 30–64 Years β€” United States, 1999–2017. My poem is still relevant and we still have to change our ideas about pain.

Vital signs II

Pain
Is now a vital sign
On a scale of 1:10
What is your pain?
The nurses document
Every shift

Why isn’t joy
a vital sign?

In the hospital
we do see joy

and pain

I want feeling cared for
to be a vital sign

My initial thought
is that it isn’t
because we can’t treat it

But that isn’t true

I have been brainwashed

We can’t treat it
with drugs

We measure pain
and are told to treat it
helpful pamphlets
sponsored by the pharmaceutical companies
have articles
from experts

Pain is under treated
by primary care
in the hospital
and there are all
these helpful medicines

I find
in my practice
that much of the pain
I see
cannot be treated
with narcotics
and responds better
to my ear

To have someone
really listen
and be curious
and be present
when the person
speaks

If feeling cared for
were a vital sign
imagine

Some people
I think
have almost never felt cared for
in their lives

They might say
I feel cared for 2 on a scale of 10

And what could the nurses do?

No pills to fix the problem

But perhaps
if that question
were followed by another

Is there anything we can do
to make you feel more cared for?

I wonder
if asking the question
is all we need

I took the photograph yesterday with my cell phone. It was so gloriously sunny that the water really was turquoise and I did no photoshop changes.