Desert Magnolia

Our 2006 Subaru Outback is aging, most days well, some days expensively, but all days...it's getting older. Old isn't bad. But old can mean...being careful instead of fearlessly forging ahead. Careful about driving too hard, too far, on a hot day. The Subie, it turns out, has a lightweight cooling system, and our climate is far from lightweight. It's heavyweight. 95-103 degrees for weeks on end. Lots of hills and stop and go traffic and opportunities to go "Sonova..is this going to be the day the steam will pour from beneath the hood, the temperature gauge will redline and I will grab my water bottle and medical bag and hoof it to the nearest...exit, or cool place?" I stress a lot while driving Subie during the summer, I'm not gonna lie. I worry that the car I lusted after for decades, finally appropriated during my final year of med school because it snows a lot in Santa Fe and I had to drive between there and Albuquerque several times a week..will r

My fatherinlaw recently passed away after a long battle with COPD.  He leaves behind three children, only one of whom spoke with him at the time of his death. That child, as it turns out, is my husband. My husband is a middle child - literally and in every possible figurative sense of the word. He has spent his entire life making peace (or attempting to craft lasting detante's in a family full of angst, stubbornness and general dysfunction, like most).  Upon his father's passing he was once again placed in this most tenuous of positions - that between forces, this time forces fueled by grief. These forces were comprised of his mother, the ex wife, and the widow, aka the Step Mom. Grief, as it turns out, brings out the very worst, the very best, and the absolutely weirdest shit imaginable in people. In the last month, memories long buried have percolated from the dark depths into the light of day. The hurts, the petty jealousies, the passions, the memories of disappointme