Friday flowers

Thank you all so much for your sweet comments this week. I sent my letters and signed my petitions and I feel better for it. I will be back to regular posting next week, feeling refreshed.

Dahlias this week, in a straight line. I love their long, clean stems.

{dahlias}

The poor things didn't get much space, because my work is scattered all over almost every surface in our apartment.

{dahlias, work}

Health issues, personal and public

This week marks the one year anniversary of Dave's bicycling accident and it leaves me feeling like a giant ball of emotions - weepy and grateful and angry and sad in turns.

When my mom called early in the morning to tell me Dave had been in a biking accident, we were both pretty calm. He's been an experienced cyclist for years and he knows the ways of the road. He biked over 30 miles a day year round and he had all the right gear. We figured he'd had a small accident and maybe had a broken leg or arm. I went into work as usual. When she called back to tell me it was worse than they thought, and that the doctor recommended that we all get there as soon as possible, the entire world froze for a moment. I don't remember the 45 minute drive. I was shaking so much I could barely breathe.

Dave was brought into the hospital with a broken nose, missing teeth, broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a leg that was crushed and fractured in multiple places, extensive internal bleeding, and a brain injury that left him completely paralyzed on the left side for over a month. It took the doctors almost 8 hours in surgery just to stop the bleeding and stabilize him. He needed 40 units of blood during the first week alone. When they finally let us see him for the first time, he was literally unrecognizable.

Dave's first two hours in the hospital cost over $100,000. I know because we spent days attempting to organize the huge piles of medical bills and cryptic insurance statements that started flooding in. He was hospitalized for over 2 months, and we quickly lost track of the total.

We were extremely lucky - lucky that he had gifted surgeons and excellent nurses, lucky that he had worked at the same company for 30 years and had excellent health insurance that covered almost all of our costs. We were less lucky to be caught in the midst of a financial downturn, and Dave was laid off while he was still in a rehab facility, putting the health insurance into question.

Fortunately, Dave turned 65 a few months after his accident and he's now covered by Medicare. Unfortunately, my mom has several more years before she'll be eligible and she's now put in the position of being a full time caretaker, knowing that it is vital that she stay healthy enough to help Dave and also unsure of how she will get healthcare. Ironically, she's a nurse practitioner, and she's spent most of her life working to give other people the best medical care possible.

I have numerous friends who finished grad school and came out only to find they couldn't get a job, which usually means they also can't get insured (there is so much talk about young people being able to get good rates, but let me tell you, it's unbelievable how easy it is to be declared "uninsurable"). And the only thing worse than being unemployed is being unemployed and walking around knowing that one random accident could land you in debt for the rest of your life. Start asking around and you'll probably find out that you know people in this position.

During those first awful hours, when we sat in the waiting room of the surgical ICU, holding our breath every time the doors opened, there was another family sitting across from us. The father had been brought in after a heart attack and needed a triple bypass but he'd recently been laid off and the family had no health insurance - they would have to pay out of pocket. We watched their faces, stunned into immobility as they realized what an impossible position they were in. No one should have to feel so hopeless, ever.

I don't know what the answer is to all of this. I've received treatment in countries with socialized health care and I'm not going to pretend that it's all sunshine and rainbows, all the time. Healthcare is by nature complicated and expensive. It is going to take more than one bill. It could take generations to iron out a working system that ensures health care for everyone. But doesn't that make it even more important to start immediately?

House debate on the healthcare bill will start this week, and the senate is expected to follow soon. As a small act, in celebration of this year that our family didn't know we would have, I'm writing a letter to my senators and representatives, encouraging them to vote for a bill that includes a strong public option, and also signing this letter to Harry Reid and sending this one to Diane Feinstein. A letter doesn't need to be complicated and formal. You can write from the heart and share your experiences. Just make sure to spell check. (Need to look up your elected officials and their contact info? Enter your zipcode in the box on congress.org for a complete list.)

I'm taking a mini blogging break for the rest of the week, to give myself a chance to reflect and re-group. I'll be back on Friday, because I think flowers are definitely called for this week. And to all of you readers who have left sweet comments, and sent kind emails over the last year, I can't tell you how much it is appreciated. Really and truly.

The weekend, briefly

I was a busy bee on Saturday and ready to drop by the time the last mail pick up rolled around.

{labels}


{pins}

We decided against going out for Halloween and instead stayed in with friends and pretended to be in college again.

{caps}

Sunday afternoon D and I indulged in one of our favorite activities - house stalking. It's pretty much what it sounds like, and it involves walking or driving around neighborhoods for some imaginary house shopping. It looks remarkably similar to burglar reconnaissance, so I tried to keep the photo taking to a minimum, to avoid completely freaking out various homeowners.

{house stalking}

Friday flowers

I have a special fondness for iris. They are somehow elegant without being fussy. They always make me think of English gardens (I'm not even sure if this is appropriate - any English readers care to chime in? Do you have lots of iris over there or am I just imagining that you might?).

{yellow iris, brown glass}

These ones look like they'll open up even more and hopefully that means they'll last for a while.

For Halloween I'll be sipping cider and hopefully getting some work done. I have to admit that I can't even face the thought of going out on a Saturday Halloween. I must be old, because just the thought of those crowded bars makes me shudder a bit. Also, I am not up to the costume pressure. I can never think of anything good and then I suffer from costume insecurity.

Quiet, windblown

I feel quiet today. The Santa Ana winds have blown in and the city looks bare and scraped clean. It would be a perfect day to curl up and drink something warm and listen to the wind howl outside.

The Santa Anas are so beautiful in their own way. They carry electricity. My hair stands on end, trees tip over, they dry up everything they touch. And while none of those things sound very wonderful, they do bring a sort of excitement in with them.

I think they've sparked some ideas, because I have a million things rattling around in my head and absolutely no time to get them out. If there was any way I could swing it, I would spend the day in bed. Ideas need to percolate, I think. And there's no better place than a cozy bed.

Listening to...

The Avett Brothers, I and Love and You. On repeat. For the last four days straight. If D decides to break up with me after having to listen to this album one. more. time. well, I have to admit that it would be justifiable.

The album is all over the place - bluegrass and folksy stuff and other songs that sound totally modern. Luckily I love all of it.

This is the song that got me...

No knead bread

You are all making this bread already, right?

{no knead bread}

If you aren't, please do yourself a favor and try it immediately. Honestly, it isn't the no-knead aspect of this that I love. I grew up making bread, kneading and all, and I have no issue with kneading. It's a nice arm workout, it feels very meditative, and it's a great excuse to eat bites of yeasty bread dough.

It's the crust. The crust on the no knead bread is fabulous. Bakery quality. It shatters when you bite into it. I made it for a dinner on Saturday and D and I had to physically restrain ourselves from eating all of it before our guests arrived.

The recipe has been dissected about a million times on the internet, so I'll just add my tiny tips.

Use a smaller pot. Or double the recipe. The bread doesn't rise a whole lot in the oven, so you will end up with a pretty flat loaf if you make it in a pot that is too large. If you don't have a smaller pot, don't worry. It will still be delicious.

Skip preheating the pot, if you need to. Transferring the dough to the preheated pot was too stressful for me. I will give myself third degree burns, given half a chance, so I avoid messing around with hot, heavy objects. If you have a similar problem, just skip that step. I lightly oil the pot I'm going to use and then transfer the dough to it for the second rise. It's always turned out just fine.

Don't stress about the timing. It's pretty flexible. As long as you do the first rise at least overnight, and the second rise at least one hour, you'll be fine.

Salt is needed. You can add more salt to the dough, as Mark Bittman recommends. Or you can serve the bread with cold, fresh butter and sea salt on the side, which is my preferred method.