In Spite Of Weeds

(Plus late nights watching hospital dramas)

In spite of weeds having completely taken over my yard in seven foot tall patches of blinding arrogance, things are ripening and growing in the vegetable garden. This is cathartic as I am certainly not going through the best of times at the moment. A little nasty deja vu is difficult to shake. So I focus my vision down to the micro details so that I may ignore everything else. So look at these pretty little carrots! And the Romano beans are coming in now too. They are difficult to find in my densely tangled bean tee-pee, but I managed to gather enough for a dinner side of carrots and beans slathered in butter, honey, and mustard.

My bee balm is already almost finished with it's first round of blossoms. They are so fantastically weird, like air anemones from another planet. I'm wondering if I'll get another flush if I pinch the flowers?

This is one hell of an eggplant. It's called Rosa Bianca and I've grown it before. I tend to only get one eggplant per plant on this one but I enjoy the colors and the exquisite flavor of it so much it's worth it.

The dill is doing great. The flowers have all bloomed so it shouldn't be long before they're ready to use for pickling. The ladybugs are busy licking the heads clean of any aphids. I have to say they look pretty pest free, unlike the monster weeds growing right next to them.

To get through this stressful time of not knowing if I get to keep everything I have and love, and being afraid to appreciate it too much for fear that I am just about to lose it all- (why invest the love?)- I am staying up late watching old episodes of ER. Not only does Noah Wylie have a fantastic nose which I enjoy watching while chugging beer, but I really wish Eriq La Salle had been allowed to smile every once in a while. It must have been hard to play such a tightly wound serious individual.

I've come to a few conclusions about doctors and medicine that I'm going to share:

• People expect doctors to be miracle workers but rarely appreciate the miracles they work.

• Doctors make mistakes like everyone else, the reason they get paid so much is because they have a high risk job. When they make a mistake lives are at stake and people are not all that prepared to forgive them for it.

• Without doctors the population of people on this earth would be greatly reduced. Which wouldn't be a bad thing for the earth. Yet for all the lives they prolong and save, we generally only remember the ones they couldn't save. People are so crappy.

• I am deeply happy not to be a doctor. I'm not terribly squeamish about blood, but I prefer not to see people's organs exposed. Or their bones. I'm very squeamish about seeing exposed bone. I saw my own once and almost passed out. I cut my knuckle when a glass broke that I was washing and I saw the knuckle bone. It's incredibly creepy.

• Doctors aren't the enemy in the health care system, insurance companies are.

• Nurses deserve as much respect, OR MORE, than doctors because they do a lot of dirty work with less pay and recognition than the doctors get. I've met a couple nurse Ratchets in my time who I secretly suspected were trained S.E.A.L.s because of their ability to not feel any pain or recognize that other people do, but mostly I've just met a lot of compassionate nurses who remove gross medical implements and papered beds with smiles.