Speak In. Speak Out

Posted on June 15, 2016 by anne

This is the time to mobilize your righteous indignation.  Put all that practice from your formative years to good use:

Marching around the square chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, racism has got to go.”  Attending workshops on “safe sex” (Remember the “safe sex” of the ’80s that pre-dated the more ominous “safer sex”?).  All the verbal support you pledged your queer friends before they could legally marry.  The outrage you felt as the years rolled by and the bullet-riddled bodies continued to pile up.  The growing conversations on poverty, addiction, privilege, violence, race, pain.

I’m asking you to take the ball of fire that you’ve been building, that internal combustion in response to Orlando and Stanford and Columbine and Steubenville and Sandy Hook and Penn State and Fort Hood and Vanderbilt and Binghamton and Oakland and Aurora and Tucson and Seal Beach and the University of Alabama and Santa Monica and HOW LONG ARE WE GOING TO ALLOW THIS LIST TO GET?

Take that ball of fire and do two things:

1) Speak In: Talk with your closest people – your partners, your children.  Talk about sex.  Talk about consent.  Talk about intimate violence.  Teach and model conflict resolution.  Demonstrate how to manage anger.  Practice peace.

2) Speak Out: Contact your elected officials.  The time for helplessness is over.  No more sitting idly by, offering condolences.  March.  Sit in.  Dance in.  Chant.  Sing in.  Challenge misogynists and racists and homophobes.

Do something.

Musical Moment

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Prince Day

Posted on June 7, 2016 by anne

Way back in April, when Prince was still alive – oh wow – Prince is dead.  Remember when Prince’s plane made an emergency landing in Moline, Illinois, and a male formerly-known-as-responsive was rushed to the hospital?  The He subsequently-identified-as-Prince revived, declined admission, and flew home.

Ace, my charming husband,says, “It’s gotta be an opioid overdose.”  End of story.  I really want him to be wrong.  “They give him Narcan, he snaps out of it, he doesn’t want to be admitted to some Podunk hospital, and leaves against medical advice.”  Please be wrong.

Six days later, Prince dies.  His family doctor mysteriously drops off the payroll at North Memorial.  I’m giving the doc the benefit of the doubt.  Of course he disappeared!  Even if he did everything right, who wants to be know as the doctor Prince saw the day before he died?  I cross my fingers that it’s pancreatic cancer, that Prince managed to preserve his confidentiality as he silently battled the deadly disease.  Or what about an eating disorder?  Anorexia carries a particularly high death rate.  I grasp at straws, searching for any answer other than accidental opioid overdose.

Why?  Would it be so much easier knowing that Prince’s body crumpled under the ravages of cancer?  Maybe.  If he had died of pancreatic cancer, I might not feel as wronged.

Prince’s death is personal for many of us, particularly Minnesotans.  And therein lies the trouble.  There’s virtually no way for a celebrity to receive adequate and appropriate medical care, particularly in the domains of chronic pain and substance use/tolerance/abuse.  My incomplete definition of adequate and appropriate medical care includes:

1)    Use of evidence-based medicine

2)    Impartial/unbiased care providers

3)    Protection of confidentiality

4)    Standard-of-care treatment

5)    Adequate access to ethical primary care and specialty providers

6)    Universal health coverage

Celebrities basically aren’t allowed to have normal doctor-patient therapeutic relationships.  Imagine Prince arriving at a clinic in Chanhassen for a routine physical.  He couldn’t.  He’d be mobbed by cellphones, and within moments, by the press.

I still talk about him as if he could arrive at a clinic.

Let’s say my bones and joints are shot from years of hard physical labor.  I’m in pain.  All the time.  I go to my regular doctor and she figures out a treatment plan, maybe some anti-inflammatory meds, maybe an x-ray, probably some physical therapy.  If we get past her prescribing comfort zone, she might send me to a pain specialist.  Here’s where the system breaks down even for “normal” people like me.  Demand for pain specialists far exceeds supply.  We’re still trying to figure out which treatment models work for chronic pain.  We have a long way to go.

An accidental opioid overdose seems like it should be preventable.

As our little acknowledgement of the June day upon which Prince entered the world, let’s fix the healthcare system.

 

Musical Moment 

 

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Parking the Helicopter

Posted on May 31, 2016 by anne

1000 Friday 5/27: Ground Control – this is Major Mom.  I just wanted to let you know that The Big E has decided to spend the weekend at a friend’s cabin.  Without me.  Naturally, I will personally drop him off in the helicopter on Saturday around noon.  Would you be so kind as to check the area for air congestion, tornados, monsoons, forest fires, tsunami, earthquakes, flash flooding, flying unicorns, and etc.?  Thank you for your kind assistance.

0316 Saturday 5/28: Ground Control – Major Mom again.  Did anything turn up?  If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume we’re good to go.

1003 Saturday 5/28: Ground Control this is Major Mom.  We are in the air.  Had a bit of a delayed start after discovering that The Big E had only packed his Nerf arsenal.  Supplemented his bags with the bare essentials including bee sting kit, four-person waterproof tent, freeze-dried rations to last a month, twenty ounces of pure zinc oxide, a bear bell, inflatable raft, a six pack of platelets, and several units of O negative.

1134 Saturday 5/28: Ground Control – It’s Major Mom.  We are circling over the cabin and I’m concerned by the close proximity of Highway 8.  Perhaps you could re-direct traffic?  Until Tuesday would be most convenient.

1145 Saturday 5/28: The Eagle has landed!  Major Mom again, on the ground now assessing the conditions.  I find the cabin to be recently remodeled with a reassuring overabundance of smoke detectors.  The Big E settled right in with nary a backward glance.  On-site personnel include five boys under the age of 12, one Father-In-Charge, and one Uncle.  I’m moderately concerned with the lack of a female presence and elected to drop off the Expanded First Aid Kit.

1235 Saturday 5/28: I’ve been dispatched to Walmart to purchase Nerf ammunition and C batteries.  Please alert me to any low-flying aircraft.

1324 Saturday 5/28: Ground Control, this is Major Mom.  Upon my return, I discovered that the seven males in residence had annihilated two pizzas.  Frozen pizzas.  Non-organic, fake-cheese frozen pizzas.  They were kind enough to save me a piece.  I ate it.  And I liked it.  Thank you for your discretion.

1348 Saturday 5/28: I attempted to kiss The Big E goodbye.  I will remain in the area for a couple hours, hovering, in case my services are needed.  Kindly alert me to any changing conditions.

1557 Saturday 5/28: Ground Control?  Ground Control are you there?  I’ve heard nothing from you or the Father-In-Charge so I’m assuming the communication tower must have been knocked out by the blinding sunlight.  Are you there?  Oh, you are.  And everything’s fine.  Oh.  Okay then.  I guess I’ll head home.

1742 Saturday 5/28: Major Mom to Ground Control.  I landed.  I’m hoping your utter lack of communication signals your complete confidence in my abilities and not the decimation of your crew by the Ebola virus.

1800 Saturday 5/28: I neglected to check the water conditions!  Ground Control, I’m unable to find any recent reports on the water in Deer Lake.  Do any of your contacts have access to such classified materials?  What?  You’re only concerned with air quality?  Hmph.

2254 Saturday 5/28: Major Mom to Ground Control.  My Google satellite images are suboptimal at best.  Do you detect any unexplained clouds of smoke in the vicinity of Deer Lake?  No?  Good.

2256 Saturday 5/28: Are you sure?

2257 Saturday 5/28: Stop ignoring me.

2259 Saturday 5/28: You know, two can play this game.

2348 Saturday 5/28: Fine.  You win.  Parking the helicopter.

 

Musical Moment

 

 

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Oberlin College Reunion Report 2016

Posted on May 23, 2016 by anne

It’s hard to explain my love for the physical place of Oberlin: a flat landscape, crosshatched streets, the howling winds of winter and sweltering humidity of summer.  The exclusive-trying-to-be-inclusive liberal arts college and economically-depressed town attempt to negotiate a symbiotic relationship.

Oberlin is steeped in a history of firsts – first college to admit black students, first to admit women, first to begin thinking about transgender inclusivity.  I feel this storied past at Oberlin, this critical history,  standing in front of the one-room schoolhouse where black and white children learned together in the 1830s.  Illegally.

Sitting on the plane returning from my 25th reunion, the more recent past lingers in my mind.  I reunited with four dear friends from freshman year.  Oh.  Freshperson year – this is Oberlin we’re talking about.

We, the five friends, are all the same.  Our personalities are, strikingly and humorously, exactly as they were two-and-a-half decades ago.  Sarah still has definite ideas of how to manage the logistics for our collective group.  Stacy’s sunny disposition coats the group in a delicate layer of optimism.  We are all profoundly different: a pile of advanced degrees, five marriages, nine children, two divorces.  We’re finally old enough and smart enough to mend the rips in our four-year five-person quilt.

It’s never too late to offer an apology.

Beyond our group, the faces are still familiar.  At this level of familiarity, my memory blurs the edges of past relationships.  How well did I know her/him?  (Oberlin of 1991 only had two recognized genders.)  I’m not entirely sure, freeing me to uniform friendliness and indiscriminate hugging.  You, the 100+ folks who returned for our 25th reunion, you are all my friends, past, present, or potential.

At some point my nostalgia for Oberlin may wane, if the college abandons its lofty ideals or my memory fades beyond recognition.  Until then, all roads do, indeed, lead to Oberlin.

And the sky takes me back home.

Musical Moment

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Secretary of the Interior

Posted on May 16, 2016 by anne

I’m at the VA on my medical school ENT rotation.  The senior resident is short with nondescript brown hair, likely near-sighted.  I’ve just watched the surgery of a man with an advanced head and neck cancer.  They opened him wide, fileted from mouth to pelvis, in the quest to sample lymph nodes and remove metastases.

By the end, countless hours have passed.  The staff docs took off.  It’s just me, the senior resident, and presumably a scrub nurse and anesthesiologist.  Our job is to close the guy.  The resident grasps the skin with tissue pickups, “approximating the edges.”  I staple.  We start low, zippering the patient right up.  We’re chatty, almost flirting, stapling up this dude whose prognosis is somewhere south of grim.

Life goes on.  At least for some of us.

Musical Moment

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Wrangling the Muse

Posted on May 9, 2016 by anne

I started writing fiction in 2009.  My neighborhood friend, Nancy, and I decided to meet weekly-

OK, I hate this post already.  Excuse me while I go munch down a few Oreos.

We met weekly and exchanged ten pages of manuscript for feedback.  Ten pages a week.

My writing table is a pit, papers all over the place, gum wrappers, rubber bands.  Why do horizontal surfaces wind up covered within ten seconds?  It’s a volume issue.  If we could decrease the volume, there’d be less to spread around. 

Habit and accountability helped me churn out a draft of my first novel in six months.

The clanking of the dishwasher is not helping this situation.  I could get up and turn it off but then I’d really lose my train of thought.

I revised my manuscript with Nancy’s assistance, learning to let the precious words go.

Now the dogs are barking.  I’m looking out into the backyard and there is nothing going on back there.  Really.  The leaves are dancing on a light breeze but there are no humans, no bunnies, no feline invaders.

I researched how to write a query letter, how to find an agent, what to do with a growing pile of rejection letters.  And lo!  Ms. Marlene Stringer of Stringer Literary Agency liked my book enough to offer representation!

If I yank off this hangnail it’ll surely bleed all over the keyboard.  I’ll have to get up and get a Bandaid.  My teeth just aren’t at the right angle.  I wonder if anyone ifs ever tempted to file a tooth into a knife, not a sharp point, but a more useful tool.  Hmm, serrated?

Marlene counselled me to start writing the next book.  The next book took me a year.  Nancy moved on to a paying gig.  I like to write at night and The Big E was still young enough to facilitate my nocturnal writing habit by GOING TO BED AT A REASONABLE HOUR.

I wonder if The Big E is actually getting enough sleep.  He can’t attend a high school that starts at 7 am.  I can’t believe I used to be at school at 7 for jazz band.  Ugh, and medical rotations that started at 6 am.   So not normal. 

Somewhere in the middle of this, I started books three, four, and five.  Marlene encouraged me to choose: Do you want to write New Adult (protagonist is about 18-25-ish) or Young Adult (protagonist is about 13-18)?  I settled into book five, putting three and four on the back burner.

I’m supposed to be in Inver Grove for a breastfeeding meeting at 1:30.  And I have to wrap fourteen chocolate bar gifts for the speakers at the upcoming conference.  I hope a ribbon is sufficient.  What would life look like if I got paid for all the work that I do?  Weird.  And why do people assume, because I’m an “at-home” parent, that I must have a ton of “free time”?

Book five.  I started in my usual way, with a girl, a teenager facing a huge life change.  This girl had her own ideas about how to tell her story.  Charlie’s not exactly a cooperative subject.  She’s stubborn and snarky and beholden to the siren song of hormones.

Rafa is really about the cutest dog I’ve ever seen.  Oh hi Baby!  You’re opening your eyes.  I think he’s older than the rescue thought.  Three in 2011 (best self-inflicted birthday gift ever) means eight in 2016.  But I’m afraid he’s at least ten.  Do you wanna sit on mommy’s lap?  Aw, you’re so snuggly and warm.  I need a nap.

At the end of three years, I’m almost finished with a draft of book five.  Three years.  Ugh.  I told myself I had to complete a decent draft by the end of the school year.  When I’m around The Big E it’s impossible to write.  My brain tangles with his and I can’t focus on anything besides fixing dinner, nagging him to finish homework, and –

You wanna get down, Baby?  Okay, there you go.  No no!  Don’t start coughing.  Definitely older than eight.  Will I get another pom when Rafa trots over the Rainbow Bridge?

And now the phone’s ringing.  X-tina!   (ten minutes pass)

If I got rid of the guest bed I could put a desk in there.  Stephen King says to get a room, a room with a door that you can close.  I’m pretty sure Ace and The Big E would ignore the message of a closed door.  Coffee shops are too loud.

I attended the Children’s and Young Adult Literature conference on Saturday and let me tell you-

(barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark)  Poppa’s home!  Much rejoicing!

Andrea Davis Pinkney rocks!  “Writers write every day under all circumstances.”  She backed up her assertion with a purple flip-flop, a purple flip-flop with pen scribbles all over it.  Ms. Pinkney rises at 4 am each day, traipses over to the Y, and works out in the pool.

“Sweetie!  What’s going on?  Are we going out for our drive, on our errands now?”

“What, where?”

“We’ve got lots to do, we have to go to Sofi’s house, we’ve got to take the stethoscopes in for repair.  C’mere Chester.”  (scratch scratch scratch)   

On one fateful day, she forgot her notebook.  Ms. Pinkney generally leaves her notebook poolside in case inspiration strikes.

“Okay, see you later.”

“Wait.  What?”

She did what any resourceful person would do;  She dried off her flip-flip and scribbled some notes in ballpoint on the rubbery stilted surface.

“Writers write every day under all circumstances.”

Musical Moment

 

 

 

 

 

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Sleeping Beauty, Take Two

Posted on May 2, 2016 by anne

Once upon a time, in a castle very similar to Hennepin Church, King Jesus’ handbell choir prepared their annual concert.  They called upon the Court Percussion Pinch-Hitter, Anne of Saint Paul, to add a bit of backbeat to a couple of the tunes.

The night of the concert arrived.  Anne of Saint Paul instructed her husband and child that attendance was pretty much mandatory or they would face the wrath of Fairy Grandmother Ruth of the Bell Order.  When the clock struck seven, Anne’s betrothed and spawn were nowhere to be found.  And the newfangled electricity suddenly went out in the entire castle.

What to do, what to do!  Revelers rushed hither and yon, illuminating the path to their seats with strange hand-held rectangles of light.  The castle custodian attached magical battery-driven bulbs to each music stand.

The concert began!  At the end of a marvelous musical hour (during which remarkably few notes were missed), a Friend approached Anne of Saint Paul.

“Your dad needs you now,” she said.

“My dad needs me now?” Anne replied.  “He needs me now?”  She found this a bit odd and hurried to the back of the great hall.

Her father stood over the inert body of her son.  “I can’t wake him up!” her father proclaimed.

Anne knelt next to her son.  Many thoughts flitted through her panicked brain:

What happened?  What’s he doing here?  Where is my husband?  Is he breathing?  Yes, he’s breathing.  Airway, Breathing Circulation.  Airway, Breathing, Circulation.  

She jostled her son.  Wake up!  He would not awaken.

“At least tell me he’s breathing,” her father said.

“He’s breathing,” Anne said.

Is there a doctor in the – Oh crap.  Wake up or I’m going to call 911.  I wish I could test his blood sugar.  And to think I was just debating during the concert whether to carry Narcan like I carry an Epi-pen.  Not that he needs it.  What the $%^& is going on?  I could carry him to my car.  Can I even lift him?  He’d slump over my shoulder and I could drag him down the stairs and drive where?  HCMC?  Prince is dead.  “Unresponsive” is such an ominous word and now my own son is unresponsive.

“Call 911,” Anne said to her father.

“I’ll have to find a phone,” he replied.  Anne just about fell over because her father is never without his cellular device.

Someone called 911.

“Call Stuart,” Anne said to her father.

“What’s the number?” he replied.

Anne nearly became unresponsive at that point.  Here she was at the tail-end of her duties to the crown with a missing husband, a freaked-out father, and a son who wouldn’t wake up.

I’d like to say that Anne pressed a kiss to his forehead and he awakened.  True love always wins.  In reality, Anne’s body finally recalled a bit of her medical training and she gave her son a nice sternal rub.

Lo, his eyes opened!  Anne of Saint Paul shoved a snickerdoodle down her son’s throat.  “You almost gave me a heart attack,” she said.  They called off the paramedics.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Musical Moment

Epilogue:

According to the son, he became ill on the ride to the castle.  Apparently the grandfather’s chariot driving skills left a bit to be desired.  Upon their arrival to the castle, the child went in search of hydration but alas, the drinking fountains were caput due to the electrical outage.  The child lay down on the hard chairs, correctly ascertaining that sleep might do him a bit of good.  And he fell into a deep, deep slumber.

Anne of Saint Paul and her progeny returned home whereupon they relayed their adventure to Stuart.  As the son prepared for bed, Anne came quietly unglued.  And her charming husband squeezed her till she fell back together.

 

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Minnesota Plant ID Quiz – ANSWERS!

Posted on April 19, 2016 by anne

 

Fun, fun, fun.  Here are the answers to yesterday’s quiz.

1) old-fashioned bleeding heart

2) sedum – an upright variety, perhaps Purple Emperor

3) A. Siberian iris  B. daylilly

4) violet (volunteer/weed)

5) peony amidst Korean angelica

6) chives

7) alpine strawberries

8) columbine, Native variety, a weed to me – come on over if you want some

9) bad bad bad campanula WEED!  Campanula rapunculoides to be exact.  Ugh.

10) hops, golden aureus

11) labrador retriever hole with a daylilly hanging at the precipice

12) Korean angelica (my favorite plant)

13) scilla – Siberian squill

14) Jacob’s ladder

15) Oriental poppies

16) perennial geranium – cranesbill

17) dwarf goatsbeard, aruncus

18) hair allium

19) looks like a pile of wood chips, but there are three varieties of sedum in this picture

20) more scilla

21) another bleeding heart

22) maple tree weeds

23) L to R: daylilly, perennial geranium, scilla

24) columbine AKA WEEDS!

25) clover weeds

26) hops, nugget variety

27) Siberian iris growing in a circle = BAD; MUST BE DIVIDED if in circular arrangement or it won’t bloom!

28) Korean angelica

29) forsythia arch

30) background = Pomeranian domesticus; foreground = hops

31) L = bad campanula weed; R = alpine strawberry

32) A = chives; B = sorrel

33) mostly Siberian iris

34) peony pre-Labrador

35) the brown fuzzy stuff is astilbe just peeking out

36) Jacob’s ladder

37) lacy leaves with pink/purple flowers = corydalis; straight stem with white flower = puschkinia

38) puschkinia (and one scilla)

39) bad bad bad bad common rue.  Don’t ever plant this stuff.  Spreads like a virulent STD.

40) Oriental poppies

41) globe thistle

42) perennial geranium

43) pasque flower

44) tiny little species iris

45) centaurea, Bachelor’s buttons

46) wild ginger, just starting to come up

Musical Moment

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Minnesota Early Spring Plant Identification – QUIZ!!!

Posted on April 18, 2016 by anne

Happy Spring!  To celebrate this 79 degree day, I put together my first ever BLOG SLIDESHOW.  Hooray!

Can you identify these Minnesota perennials (and one shrub)?  I’ll publish the answers tomorrow.

[slideshow_deploy id=’2038′]

Musical Moment

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Bottomlining Easter

Posted on March 28, 2016 by anne

I pretended to be a Christian yesterday.  I wore semi-clean clothes, put on a bit of eyeliner, and popped into a polyester choir robe for a few hours.  As you all know, I love making music in groups, so when my friend Brad, the music director at Macalester Plymouth Church, asked me to help flesh out the Easter Choir, I jumped at the opportunity.  I even recruited my dad to sit in with the basses.

Shortly after being confirmed as a member of the United Methodist Church, it occurred to me that I didn’t actually believe most of the Apostles Creed.  This was a bit inconvenient, as we recited it with some regularity during services.  The Creed basically stuffs all the impossible bits into a paragraph with the words “I believe” in front of it.

Immaculate conception.  Virgin birth.  Resurrection.  Everlasting life.

From the outside, I’m sure we appear to be devout members of Our Lady of the Ice Rink.  During the winter, Ace worshipped Sunday mornings in the outdoor venues, primarily Matthews Park, Langford, and Groveland.  The Big E and I worshipped primarily at at the West Side Arena.  Now, we’re at the Charles Schultz Arena.

The sermons I typically hear are: Work Hard, Play as a Team, and Discipline Matters.

I heard a different sort of sermon yesterday.  The minister (a childhood friend of mine – gotta love this small town), began by recounting the events leading up to Easter.  Crucifixion always throws me for a loop.  I was in medical school when I first fully considered the physical meaning of crucifixion.  Whose twisted mind thought this up?  You nail someone through their flesh onto a cross.  Gravity and the nails provide constant torture.  And then you wait.  The eventual causes of death are likely a vicious mixture of dehydration, exposure, and renal failure.

Yesterday, the children of Lahore, Pakistan were crucified.

How do we make sense of the senseless?  What can we do to prevent further violence?  How do we move forward into light and hope?

I don’t know.  I don’t know.

My mind wandered during the sermon.  Fascism, Brussels, the presidential election, WWII atrocities.  No bunnies, no eggs, no unbelievable rebirth.

I loved Easter as a child, the church service in particular.  I remember standing in the pew, the grown-ups’ towering height drawing my eye up and up to the dome of the church, the stained glass, the music.  Awe.  And a moment of belief.  Re-creation is possible.  The chrysalis hatches.  The earthbound worm takes flight.

At the beginning of yesterday’s Easter service, a black shroud covered the cross.  I stood at the back of the church, waiting to process down the aisle to “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.”  As a child, I knew all four verses by heart.  A violin played the final piece of the prelude: Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending.”  Children from the congregation flitted up and down the aisles, dancing, and at the end, as the doves flew from the sanctuary, the shroud fell from the cross.

The hairs stood up on my arms.  I turned to my octogenarian alto buddy, Pat.  “Did you see that?” I whispered.  She nodded sagely.

A moment of belief.  Re-creation is possible.  The chrysalis hatches.  The earthbound worm takes flight.

When I set aside all the unbelievables and distill the Easter story into its most potent brew, here’s what I get:

1) Ride donkeys, not warhorses.  Humility and peace are stronger than vanity and war.

2) Wash more feet.  Build bridges across cultures.  Be a love monger.

3) Stand not with the hateful crowd.  Have the courage to speak truth, to witness for those who are oppressed.

4) Roll away the stones and come out of your tomb.  Hope.  Believe.

Re-creation is possible.  The chrysalis hatches.  The earthbound worm takes flight.

Musical Moment

 

 

 

 

 

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