Friday the 13th on a Monday as Churchy would say.

My mood is black, black, black. However, I like black and it is, after all, Red Paw's element. (Red Paw is one of my alter egos. Protective, cynical and I think she's very funny though my cousin hates her).

I am trying to figure out how to rein Red Paw in for clinic tomorrow. I removed every picture of my children from clinic after Thursday's Surprise-You-Are-On-The-Agenda Meeting. I replaced them with two pictures of synchronized swimming (look folks, these people work as a team. Underwater holding their breath.) and various pieces of art: a Bug's Bunny card in Spanish, a stuffed toy Wild Thing, a Danish wood mother and child very abstract simple sculpture and the wooden Ox sculpture that the Extroverted Feeler just brought me from Spain. And a card from my conservative Christian housekeeper helper/organizer that says "You are a beautiful person inside and out." So there future ex-partners! Pthbpthpbt!

Also Mary Oliver's poem The Journey. I am thinking about putting up my poem about being burned at the stake and not dying, but perhaps they are nervous enough around me. It is going to be darned hard not to say sarcastic things if they ask how I am. "Fine, I am so reassured that my partners want me to succeed." This morning I got the image of Piccard sneaking around the Borg ship dressed as a Borg. Think that is a good idea. Ok, my future Ex-Partners are all part of the American Medical Brainless Borg and they are Not Going To Question Authority. And they want me to be a Borg too, damn it. I am SO disappointed in them. I search inside for compassion. Red Paw laughs. I'm not there yet. I've counted through my black suits and I have enough to wear one every day this week, that will help me to mourn silently. Mourn the loss of my partners to the Borg. I feel awfully lonely.

But, if the other doctors won't listen and NPR won't call me and my local paper won't touch my poems, now what? Ah, I have my next steps lined up. I called and left my representative a detailed message Saturday. I am thinking that Michelle Obama or Oprah might be interested. And gosh, you know who doesn't like the medical Borg? My patients. I've recruited 5 already. And since I like people who are openly tough and up front, I have a lot of them and some are community heavy hitters. Also need to go talk to my Unitarian Minister. Maybe I can do a "state of American Medicine from my point of view" poetry reading at the church. Heh, heh, heh. Let's see the Medical Borg scotch that. Also am wondering if Canadian version of NPR might be interested. Or one of those evil obnoxious morning radio shows.

The sermon for Easter was about modern theism. I would have absolutely said I am not a theist and by the end I thought, I'm a damn theist. Raised Devout Atheist and then fuzzy Unitarian and now modern theist. How utterly comic. Also found an article about trusting in abundance and between the sermon and the article I thought, relax, you can't change this overnight. Wait for help.

There, now I've cheered myself up. Ok, time to work on damn charts.

Ok, so these Somali pirates capture this commercial freight ship. The Captain of the ship offers himself as a hostage, and the pirates agree to trade him for their pirate buddy, but they TOTALLY have their fingers crossed - they don't release him.

Oh, you silly pirates.

Then the situation gets heated. The US Navy gets involved. The pirate ship runs out of fuel, the Captain jumps off the ship and is recaptured, and the pirates warn the US Navy that if a rescue attempt is made the results will be disasterous. The pirates say they are considering moving the Captain to another ship. What are their demands? Foreign aid to their failed state? A special squeegee to scrape the flies off their babies' faces? Food?

No! They demand 2 MILLION dollars, approximatly 5 BILLION Somali Shillings. This isn't about people pushed to the edge of poverty, this is about people wanting to kill people for a lot of money. These people have the chrome plated balls to try to play the victim while committing murder. Bullshit.

The US Navy, acting on a standing order from the President Obama, felt the Captains life was in peril, and they killed three pirates. WHEN YOU HAVE ASSAULT WEAPONS POINTED AT SOMEONE YOU ARE NOT THE VICTIM. YOU ARE THE ASSHOLE WITH A GUN. THE REST OF US RESERVE THE RIGHT TO RIP YOUR FACE OFF.

So the pirates on land, those who are benefitting from these massive payouts, have vowed to target American citizens from now on. The entire point of this note was some friendly advice to Somali Pirates. The 1st point is: Don't tell us what to do when you hold such piteously few cards. It pisses us off. The entire point of hostages is that they remain alive. Actually killing them does not further your cause.

2nd: Never underestimate our perverted, inflated sense of a measured response. If you start attacking our citizens, we tend to exact revenge on a 1 American citizen = 1 entire villiage ratio. I'm not saying it is morally correct, it isn't. But that's how we roll.

3rd: I don't give a shit what agreement we reached before the shooting started. When dealing with you, the smarter among us assume you will be a festering sack of lies and bullshit. You should assume the same about us. Your compatriots had several chances to give up and live; they still thought they were walking away rich and they got greedy. They are dead because they refused to cut their losses and admit defeat.

Well, the Stanley Cup playoffs are once again upon us. For NHL fans - and to a certain extent ice hockey fans in general - it is one of our favorite things about springtime. Especially if your team is actually in the playoffs. This is what many fans refer to as the "real season" - the previous 82 games only served the purpose of determining who would actually be in the "big dance" in the end. This is where things ratchet up. The hits can get harder. The goals are sweeter. The goals-against are more painful. The wins are much more ecstatic. The losses are much more gut-wrenching. This is where heroes are made and scapegoats are villified.

In other words: IT'S ON.

As I do every year, I will present the entire playoffs to you - covering every game, every goal, every elation, every heartache - in a node, this time in 2009 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. And as I usually do, I will not actually post the node until at least the first round has been played (or mostly played... sometimes I get impatient and post it when there's a few games left). Until that time you can look at the progress of the node in my 2009 playoffs scratch pad. As you can see right now it's more or less set, ready to plug and chug. Anyway, after the node is posted, continue to check back with it until its completion when one of the sixteen teams raise the Cup above their heads in June. I know that my node will be no competition for nhl.com for coverage but you still might find it convenient to check on it while you might already be logged into e2.

As many of you might know, I am a St. Louis Blues fan and I will enjoy doing thise node a lot more than I had in recent years because for the first time since 2004 they're in the playoffs, going from last place in the West on February 15th to Sixth Seed in the standings in the end, something I don't think anybody had expected, not to mention Blues fans themselves.

LET'S GO BLUES!

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