Microwave delphiniums

 This weekend has been hectic enough that when I finally got home tonight, opened the microwave, and found some pound cake and a potted delphinium in full bloom, I closed the door quickly and decided not to worry about it.

My cats, who are usually set for 8am, have decided to move it up to 7:30am with Marley as the ringleader.  She and Connor are very punctual, sitting on my chest until the weight wakes me up, something scrawny Marley could not accomplish on her own.

It was just as well today since I had to leave early to go see Jasmine, the radical foot doc.  She knows me well enough to extrapolate from my swollen ankle to my political activities so she asked me what I have been doing.  I told her about Friday, about  being frustrated at not being able to hop over the gate, the big march, all of it.  She pointed out the odd thickening of the skin at the edge of my feet.  “I guess I’m walking oddly,” I said, and then it dawned on me that I had noticed in a photo of the march that my foot was turned outward.  I showed it to her and she considered it.  “That’s not coming from your foot,” she said.  “It could be the knee, but more likely the hip or the lower back.”

Then she wanted to know why I hadn’t had the MRI she wants so I told her how they won’t approve the MRI without the ankle therapy and won’t approve the ankle therapy while I have shoulder therapy and how I’m not going to be able to do either because of the spine surgery.  

A surgeon herself, she wanted the details of the spine surgery, so I opened my phone to find the MRI image and the first photo was from Mark’s memorial, a crowd of white shirted activists facing his image on the screen, our fists raised in salute, and her eyes widened.  I told her about Mark, his perennial survival and his activism, and his awkward timing. 

Then I found the MRI and she looked and it and said, “that’s deep,” twice.  She didn’t mean it in a philosophical sense, but in an anatomical one – the tumor is pretty much in the center of my neck.  She is very down to earth, so talking about the procedure, I told her the truth – I’m not worried about dying, but I am afraid of paralysis.  “but if you die, what will Gary and I do?” she said, referring to her friend, my gay primary doc.  “I guess you’ll have to get two or three more patients,” I said, thinking of the amount of their time they spend patching me together.  “I didn’t mean the practice,” she said dismissively.  “We love you!”

Making my way to the office, my mind starts to fill with a jumble of things that need to get done today.  An anxious client wanted to prep in great detail for his SSI call, which didn’t happen because social security is so devastated by this administration’s sabotage.  Our Admin Director needed to meet with me about the intricate bureaucracy of our city contract.  A funder who did not renew us for 2027 turned out to actually mean their comment about discussing it, which I had taken as just a polite way to close the letter.  After weeks of meetings, a potential consultant had just found out their organization’s entire focus was changing – a week before our funding deadline for that project.  The newly hired social worker needs a June 1 start date on her offer letter to show a landlord.  The anti-oppression psychoanalysts need professional liability insurance… 

I kept starting to tackle the hefty list, and then a client called from the hospital where she had just been told that she would have to deliver her baby early, by C-section.  Then the Very Sick client called to say he had left the nursing home, where he had been improving with consistent care, and gone back to his roach filled apartment and his $8,000 in rental arrears.  A client who was new on Friday when I was out came back, having followed the staff’s instructions to go to the intake shelter and bring me her shelter ID # so I could get her transferred.  Another client showed up with a friend in tow, who needed trans friendly healthcare and housing.  The doorbell kept ringing right up until closing, when everyone cleared out, leaving just me and the list of unfinished tasks.