tour group

I took this photograph sitting on the steps of the Renwick Gallery, finishing a cup of tea before I went in. I was back visiting my son and old friends in the Baltimore-Washington corridor.

They should rename it the Baltimore-Washington superhighway.

And is it a revelation that you see things like this in Washington, DC? It’s a pretty weird place.

Cold homes

For the Daily Prompt: float.

Float… but some of my patients are not floating. They are sinking.

It has been clear and below freezing for a few days now. I have more than one patient who is not exercising or not taking care of their blood sugar or not eating adequately…. because they don’t have heat. They are staying in bed with an electric blanket or staying in one room because they have an electric heater plugged in. My house has 1930s wiring and I am told that it is a fire hazard to plug one of those heaters in.

I went home yesterday and my house felt cold. I checked the monitor: 49 degrees. I had cleaned the heat pump filters two days before and then had forgotten to restart the heat pump. It was up to 57 degrees by this morning and will be warm tonight.

Prayers and donations for the people in all our areas who do not have adequate heat….

 

 

 

Watercolor

This is for the Daily Post Prompt: retreat.

I have been changing the art in my clinic with the seasons. This is by my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway, and is currently up in the clinic. This is her largest watercolor, of the Olympic Mountains, painted in the last few years of her life.

A retreat into beauty….

Relax

For the Daily Prompt: relax.

Well, no, but they aren’t relaxed! This is my daughter and friends from her synchronized swim team in 2011. We have a home show in our small town each year and the parents and friends and grandparents and everyone is asked to come and see our girls perform their routines. They are waiting for the music to start….

But it relaxes me to see this photo and smile and remember. What a lot of work the parents put into supporting the team and driving to meets and making costumes and funding a new underwater speaker and then another one….

And still it makes me smile. And relax.

Camp fly

For the Daily Prompt: fishing.

I am fishing for a photograph for the daily prompt. Fishing…. my son is not fishing, he’s playing violin. But we were on a fly fishing trip, where we tried a drift boat. We were staying in this lovely cabin. My son had returned from Thailand and finished his senior year. He went with the Rotary exchange. Therefore, the “End Polio Now” t-shirt, which has Thai writing on the front.

Let’s End Polio Now… and then go fishing.

 

 

Far from the maddening crowd

For the Daily Prompt: maddening.

The early morning is my time to write and think and be quiet. And the other time is outside walking with my camera.

The medical money machine in the US grinds people up, grinds doctors up, doesn’t care, and makes money. Sometimes it is so maddening….