This and That

My stepson just got a bill for a one-night stay in the hospital: $45,000, I kid you not. He fell off of his motorcycle and had one laceration stapled on his head. I called Sutter Health. Here are some of the charges:

CT scans $6000

Trauma Room $4000

Stapling a superficial laceration in the trauma room: $8000

Of course he can't pay it, and the billing person I spoke to is going to send him a "charity" application. You wonder what's wrong with the healthcare system? It's unbelievably expensive, and Sutter Health does all it can to make a payday.

Determined to start a garden once again before the deer get hungry, I spent $250 on flowering plants only yesterday, eschewing all vegetables, and most of the flowers are in the daisy/poppy category, supposedly deer resistant--although deer will eat anything when they're hungry, in my experience. I love poppies, though. Showy, primitive flowers with four petals (Icelandic), though I've put in some new varieties.

It's hot on the coast today, maybe 70 and windy. I'm soaking the new plants for fear they may dry out. I must interrupt this post to move the soaker.

Back! For any who missed the announcement, I now have 24 songs ready for free download from Soundclick; all you need to do is click on the picture of me playing bottleneck in the upper right corner here. Feedback welcome; some cuts are professional studio work, some rough cuts at home on this very computer. My voice will soon improve when we quit smoking again on April 1, no fooling. But I pride myself most on melody, which I find in short supply in much contemporary music, to say the least.

I've been fighting a cold but it was suppressed by the prednisone I took for a week to combat my tick bite allergy; the prednisone also had me flirting with depression. Powerful stuff. Steroids, NSAIDs and antihistamines are all dangerous drugs for causing depression in my case. Our brain chemistry is weird, what?

In April some new reviews of my book will be out in Eclectica and Pedestal and elsewhere, I think. I'll post them here, naturally.

Tonight at our men's circle I'll be leading a discussion group on "The River of Life: Embracing the Feminine," the topic I hope will be picked up for this year's retreat. I'll be going through Jung's four female archetypes, from Eve to Helen to Mary to Sophia. Each represents ongoing progress in understanding the feminine, and Sophia is the internalization of the feminine--as my friend, Kelton, says: "I'm married to my inner bitch." LOL!

So far I've received only five entries in the contest for a signed hardback copy of "Unexpected Light." I need more entries! Simply mail them with the subject header "Contest" to cechaffin at gmail dot com.

That's all for today, save the obligatory poem. Let me look through my unpublished archives, as I have not written much of anything for a week. Ah, this seems appropriate as it is nearly Easter:


The Arrest

They thought it would be easy
to cow him with eagled breastplates
and the clank of scabbards on greaves
until they saw the royal
toleration in his eyes.

In the glaze of a Mideastern sun
he could have been Apollo.
“If any man thirsts, let him come after me”
--a thirst beyond Roman canteens.

“No man spoke like this man,”
they told their fuming captain.
He knew better than to go himself;
his god had warned him.


1 Kilobunny,

CE

p.s. I just re-read this post and felt ashamed--this boy seemed so full of himself that trivial detail passes for blog material. He's worse than the Confessionalist poets. But I promise to repent.