Rode Hard and Put Up Wet*

Since yesterday I have driven over 150 miles and unlike living on the east coast, I never left the state. Hell I was only in two counties. Two counties, that's it!

My drive to Miss SoS's school is along Route 4 which is nice because part of the ride is just rural landscaping of undulating hills which are still dried straw coloured as the rains have yet to appear enough to bring the greening of winter. In the distance I get to see a piece of a small wind farm off to the south of the highway. Also along the route I pass an exit sign for the Port of Chicago which always disorients me when I come upon it. First, ports mean water and water is next to impossible to see or even smell so I find it odd to see a port referenced when there is nothing but dried out hills. Then there is the matter of "Chicago" not being in Illinois. Just freakish if you ask me, I mean this is California. Sure there are street in the Bay Area like Mississippi, Virginia, Alabama but Chicago? That's a city name, a city in the Midwest, ffs.

When looking up this Port on G**gle, a link popped up via epodunk.com, a favorite site of mine in part because the address amuses me (Yeah, I'm a nerd. What of it?) their city page had a link for wineries nearby and I admit, my face lit up a bit thinking I could combine some pleasure, partake of some lovely libations after a session. I click gleefully to find 26 wineries. Ah the pay off for all the driving to see my client who reads a bit like tourettes meets ADD meets bi-polar rage. Such nice thoughts I was having until I see that all of them are about 25 miles away and a serious deter between hell and home. Sigh. All drinking will have to be done closer to home. I guess it's safer that way.

Today I visited my client at home, not quite as long of a drive as yesterday or tomorrow, but damned if I don't need to add more gas to the Purple Beast again before embarking tomorrow. One good thing about this gig, I don't have to set an alarm or even contemplate awaking anything near the crack of dawn. So my late night ways continue. There are already some christmas decor snaking around the the television unit and presents have already begun to multiply in tribble-like fashion. For a child who hates to wait I cannot imagine the underlying torture being perpetrated by her grandmother. It will be really interesting to see how this unfolds.

My lovely partner had dinner ready to go when I walked in from the boonies, which was spectacular since I was starving. For breakfast I had coffee and a packet of instant hot cereal from Kashi, for lunch a can of soup with some crackers and now I had less than an hour before heading back out. Tonight I had an interview for my old work - a potential doula client due in early February.

For long time readers you may remember that I had gone through a purge of my birth books as an outward symbol of the changes in my world but I also have never said that I would not attend another birth. Yes, I was incredibly burned out but birth work is extraordinarily compelling. Witnessing a baby take her first breath is the closest thing to seeing g*d that I have had the honour of being near. Am I in love with this couple? No. I wish I was so that even if they choose someone else, I would touch that place inside of me again that loves that immediately with no expectations.

So our heroine is a bit tired and her tires probably need rotating.

*Nods to Gwendolyn for the title - it's one of her favorite phrases.