HOW TO BUY A USED CAR

Exhaust yourself by driving around for three hours in your old car. The car you have come to hate. By this time you are in the mind frame of "any car will do." You are supple, vacant, Zen-like in your approach to how the river of life flows. Drive to West Hills Honda and park your Volkswagen Beetle. The one you can't handle. The one you've had for four years and you still can't figure out where the front or back begins or ends. In other words, you are zoned out and It Is Time.

Struggle to get out of the car, grab your purse and limp up the hill to a line of four young men who look like they would eat wombat balls if only you would meet one of their eyes. You look at one of them and say, "I don't know how to do this."

They positively shiver in delight.

Really. You can feel the ground move.

You know you have made, by this time, possibly four or five big mistakes while telling the truth. You don't know how to do this. Life no longer has any room for truth. Life is a game, damn it, when will you LEARN this?

One man, name of Frank, herds you away from the rest. Frank wears thick glasses and is not, like the rest of the guys, sweating. He says, "It's easy!" He doesn't yet know what it is I want to do, and it's easy. I like his attitude, kind of devil-may-care. Kind of Mary Poppins Meets Harpo Marx. Heido Ho! It's Easy!

We go inside and sit down at Frank's desk. He wants to know what I do for a living. I tell him I'm a psychologist. Frank's major interest seems to be Frank. He leans back in his chair, gathering some kind of points. "Well, now," he says, "roll your chair over here," and tell me what you can tell about me."

"You suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder," I say. "Yep, sure do!" he says, happily. "You're divorced, and you have one or two children," I say. "One," he says, "Oh boy, you're good," he says. "You drink too much," I say. "Hey," he frowns," how do you know that?" "I can smell it on your breath, Frank," I say.

He straightens up. "I'll have to watch that," he says. "Now. What can I do for you?"

"I want to trade in my 2007 red Volkswagen Beetle," I say. "For something inexpensive like a Kia or a Hundea."

Frank happily slaps one of the perfectly placed pieces of paper on his desk. "We can DO that!" He says. "We can DO that! Come on and let's go find some Kias and Hundeas for you to look at and drive! You're gonna love this!"

Frank's small eyes are blinking fast. He may have some kind of tic that I missed mentioning, I don't know. He certainly does have an ability to go from down to up in a New York second, all that money.

We walk around a big curve and end up in Kia and Hunda-ville. I climb inside a cool looking jet black Kia. It's nice Chic. The motor sounds a little fast. I drive it around the area and decide against it. I love the look but am sorry about the motor sound. "I don't think so, Frank," I say.

"Oh, we've got LOTS of cars," Frank says.
"I know you do, Frank, I looked them up on the computer, last night." He didn't seem to cotton to this information, I don't know why. I drove the Hundea but the wheel was a bit jerky and I didn't like it as much as I thought I would, either. As we were parking the Hundea my eyes lit on a nice looking red car. Too long? Too sleek for the likes of me?

A 2010 Nissan. With my trade I could have it for $4,000. I drove it around, the motor sounded good, it felt right, I liked it. What more should I know? "I'll take it," I said.

"I'll take it," I said.

And so I did.

After an hour and a half of signing forms which is one of the things I most hate in life (you're credit is excellent, your mileage is low so we'll knock off...., do you want the this, do you want the that, you have one more year of waranty left on this Nissan....), I paid my money and drove it home.


Later, I called Alan and said "I bought a car.
Silence.
"A 2010 Nissan."
Silence, then, "Did you ask questions about it?"
"You mean about the price?"
"No, I mean about who owned it before?"...."Or.....anything?"
"Well, the people who owned it before didn't want it anymore and so they took it to West Hills and traded it in."
Silence. Then,"Good luck."
"What?"
"I said 'Good luck'."

It's not easy being me. It's not easy being a car that belongs to me. How I ever even got to the ripe old age I am sometime just floors me. How I ever made my way into the professional world and delivered all those lectures I used to deliver and taught all those classes around the U.S. and got all those degrees......I mean, I was the same me then as I am now....how the hell did I do it?

"And I shall easy to be", said Emerson. Well, yeah, it's pretty easy to be me, too, or at least it feels like it, until I get next to other people and they explain to me the Right way to do things, or, indeed the Only way to do things.....but if it really were the ONLY way, then I wouldn't really BE here, would I? My father used to suggest that all of this (he's wave his arms) was just a dream, HIS dream, as a matter of fact, and that I was simply a part of his dream. It was only when he died that I could truly let my breathe completely go (I was thirty-four by then) and absolutly know down deep inside that he had NOT constructed me through his dreams. I was me. I existed all by myself.

And so does that beautiful 2010 red Nissan sitting down in my garage. I know where it's front is. I know where's back is. I know where it's sides are. It's longer than the Beetle was but at least I CAN SEE WHERE I BEGIN AND END.

Which is a good thing.

Please, y'all. PLEASE. Wish me good luck.

KEEP ON SWINGING

It's been a year, folks. One year this weekend. One year since I actually cancelled patients (oh my god Loss of income, big irritation to patients, lots of rescheduling, something I never do)....to meet this "Island Man" named Alan. With one "L". And he was late due to traffic. And he was tall, due to genetics. And I was so nervous I still don't remember one word I said. What's to say? "Hi, I'm Kay, I love hot dogs and Tolstoy and Woody Allen and I'd rather read books than travel and I'm only slightly koo-koo and I'm always thinking about the worst that could happen and I'd love to see you with your shirt off......." ???? !!!!

Oh, God. Those Match.com things are SO difficult. I don't have any idea what he said, either. He'd worked for the state in energy for twenty-four years but I thought he told me he'd worked in salmon.I went around telling everybody he worked in salmon. He was sixty-five, near sixty-six. I was sixty-four, never sixty-five.

At lunch's end, he bent down to kiss me and I blushed and he said, "Oh, look at you! You blushed! Just like a little furry thing!"

I had to get back to see a four o'clock patient. But I couldn't find my car.

We've seen each other every single weekend since. Every. Single. Weekend. Since.

In June of this year, we became spiritually tied to each other (married) and we wear rings on our wedding hands. They are like us. Beautiful. Well, handsome and beautiful. Anyway, this picture is taken not long ago at the Sawatdy Thai which is the first the first middle-of-the first-weekend restaurant we ever frequented. Something about spice.

The above picture was taken in my oldest daughter Kelly's yard. Alan had a conference nearby and off we flew. Kelly, whom I raised from the time she was...ten? eleven? along with her sister Erin, are my daughters, and I love them both immensely. There are many many pictures taken at Kelly's which, though adorable, are simply not fit for public viewing. Dancing, dancing, dancing to the music. Kelly, her friend Carol and me....and, of course, Alan, who won not one, but two, dancing contests, just like John Travolta in Saturday Night Live, when he was young. Jumped up, twirled around, landed in the splits, used one arm to spring himself back up and....you get the picture.Whew, I would have loved to have been there. Well, we went to the market, brought back food and ate. California watermelon, berries, avacados, string beans, raspberries, strawberries, CORNDOGS, salmon, chicken, oh my god, we ate, we ate, and we danced it off each night.

It's been one slam-dunk of a summer. Watch the sun go down at Alan's sweetheart of a bungalow with it's straight-across view of Mount Rainier. Dining with dear, dear friends. Tolerance up, expectations down. Learning each other. Laughing. Loving each other's familles and friends. Knowing we don't have limitless prospects but that even makes it better, somehow. We'll keep our heads down. We'll keep our eyes on the ball. And we'll keep on kissing and swinging.

Hospitals? Get DOWN With Your Bad Voice!

Well, it's nearly two weeks since I had the fifteen inch medical implement surgically removed at the U. of W. hospital. I was scheduled for a one day (in and out) visit (don't you love the euphemisms?), but I got to thinking -- gee, that's a long implement to give such little attention to.....what would Eugene O'Neil have to say? Surely he would trot out his famous statement and bellow it to the skies: "Attention muct be paid?!" After all, it was this very instrument that, (unbeknownst to me, because I didn't know it was in there until 2-8-11) led me to relocate to Bainbridge Island where I would be able to walk nearly everywhere I needed to go because car seats where the worst, left me buying six chairs plus two medical chairs my neurologist swore by (and I swore AT), brought me to a year in rehab, six months in acupuncture, chiropractic practice, medical hypnosis, rounds of inner and outer botox, shots in my spine, pain clinics dispensing morphine and oxycodone.......and all I get is an in and outie? No, no, no, no, no. By this time, I was afraid. I was uneasy. A couple times before this surgery my blood pressure had zoomed to zero during day surgeries.

And yet.....I was afraid of my doctor. Oy! My doctor! She is golden, she is the queen of the department at the University Hospital, she's one of those women who was once the smartest girls in those adolescent books about...well, smart girls. You need to tie a knot and there's nothing around but broom and a horse? Use the horse to tie the knot and the horse to ride out on. Dummy. She has a no-nonsense approach, not much of a bedside manner at all: "Hello, I'm Dr. ____________, I'll be seeing you next week to remove the ____________." She doesn't waste a word. Or a smile. Other doctors worship her. "Oh, Dr. _________ is doing the surgery? Oh, my God, you can't do better than that!"

I CAN'T?
Then I want her for longer then an in & outie!

"You've got to be your own best advocate," said Alan. "Stand up for yourself. You're paying, she's doing her work. Tell her what you want. Use plain English. Tell her what you want and tell her why you want it. Be firm. Nice, but firm. All she can say is 'No', but you've got to give her a chance to say 'Yes'. You can do this. Just everybody else seems to worship her doesn't mean that you have to worship her. Now, get in there and Go for it."

What does he think this is, football?

There are about five things in my life that I'm really proud of and not one of them has anything to do with being firm with doctors. Well, there was the time at Virginia Mason when the doctor wouldn't examine me because, she said, that wasn't part of what she did, and I looked at her and said, "Okay. You're the doctor here. I'm you patient. I'm going to pull down my pants. See? See me pulling down my pants? Now, YOU, as my DOCTOR, are going to walk up behind me, closer, closer, and TAKE A LOOK! I don't care if you've never examined another patient in your LIFE! YOU ARE GOING TO EXAMINE ME!" And she did. But I wasn't afraid of her. Come to think of it, I think she was the department head, too. But she was a weenie compared to this UW doc. I have all kinds of nerve when it comes to weenies.

So the day of surgery came and they had found my veins (terrific veins) and piled my hair into the cartoon cap and put the breathy-warm-air-blankie over me and suddenly here she comes. I'll call her June. "How are you doing?" she asked. "Fine, just fine," I said, "but....June....I believe it's in my best interests to spend the night here in the hospital." She turned her back away. "So you think you ought to spend the night?" she questioned me.

"I do," I said.
"It can be a long wait for the ferry and there's all kinds of lumps and bumps on the
planks getting on to the ferry and I'm uneasy about the first night. I am not at all convinced that I won't need hospital care tonight."
She turned towards me. "Well," she said. "I'll see what I can do about that. I'll try to find a room for you."

After surgery I got a cheeseburger. Ice cream. Morphine every six minutes. My blood pressure began to slide downwards all through the night but that was okay because there were doctors there to come in and check it and do what doctors are trained to do, things Alan is NOT trained to do. And the next day I was let go at about one o'clock, by which time many of the staff and I were singing and having a high old time. Well, I was having a high old time and they were having a contact high old time.

Four days ago a representative from the U. of Washington called to give me the date of my follow-up visit. September 20. Okay. "And you were a 'day patient'?" she asked. "Nope," I said, "I spent the night." She whistled through her teeth. "How did you manage that?" she questioned me. "I just asked." I said. "Wow," she whispered.

This morning, another staff member called, wanting to re-remind me of the follow-up date. "And what was it that we did to you?" she asked. "You removed a _________________," I said. "Did we do anything else to do?" she asked. I laughed. I laughed and I laughed. "Other than monitoring me and changing my dressings and making me feel safe and being very very nice to me, that's it." "I just wanted to be sure," she said.

So that's it. I'm much less sophisticated about these things than the rest of you are, out there. I just want to put my two cents in and say GRAB YOUR VOICE AND USE IT. Because it's true - nobody's gonna say it for you. And there's nothing. Nothing at all to lose.

By the way - - no more pain!!!!!