Sorry I haven’t checked in or posted pics – I (once again) sprained my ankle the week of the move and have caught a terrible stomach bug that’s prevented me from eating or doing much of anything else – so everyone has been asking me “How’s Napa?” and I’m like, well, I can’t walk around much or eat anything, but other than that, it seems great! Ha! I keep hearing from locals how great the food here is – and I’m sure it is – I can’t wait to try it!
Seriously, it’s been difficult finding a primary care doctor here – the board-certified doctors are either not taking patients (I called the fifteen listed on my insurance) or in an expensive “concierge” medical service – so I’ve been waiting (and waiting) in crowded waiting rooms to meet doctors who haven’t been very impressive to get my prescription for physical therapy on my ankle. (No Urgent Care centers in the area either, what’s up with that?) I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in Oakland – we both moved from the Seattle area – and we were discussing how the health care system in California is much, much worse than it was in Washington. Is it enough to drive us away from the state? Not yet. But it’s a serious problem. The lack of doctors – especially good doctors – is one you have to think about if you have chronic health problems.
Other than that, every time I venture outside, with temps that have ranged from 100 degrees during the day to the mid-seventies, the air smells clean, the hummingbirds hum, and the sunshine seems less harsh than it did in SoCal. It still feels like summer here even though it’s the last day of September. Glenn and I went to the Oxbow market and he got to sample ice cream, lemon-passionfruit and banana-caramel cup cakes, and blood-orange olive oil while I watched longingly…but it is a beautiful set of little shops, restaurants, wine bars that made me think – Oh, I know what I am going to get everyone for Christmas! I mean, here’s the gift potential: fiery beer or chardonnet brittles, tiny bottles of dessert liquours made here in town, local olive oils and olive oil lip balms, of course wines, botanical prints, kitchen antiques…consider yourselves warned, friends and family! But the funniest thing is I tried to get on the river walk trail behing the markets on my crutches, even though there was a closed gate and orange cones to keep people out, and I only got a couple of steps before I saw giant handwritten signs that said: “Caution: Bees!”
My classes started this week too, so I’ve been busy with those too, plus I sent a couple of book manuscripts out as well. I haven’t written much in the last couple of weeks but I believe that’s a pattern for me – there’s pretty much always a creative blackout for at least a month after I move anywhere. Maybe I’ll get lucky this time, though, because I feel poems brewing!
Had a lot of fun last night at the Poetry International reading at DG Wills bookstore in La Jolla. The MFA students working for SDSU’s literary magazine were bright and interesting, and Ilya Kaminsky is always a kick. Got to meet the next New Issues poet on the rise, I think – Jericho Brown, whose first book, Please, is passionate and bluesy, plus, chock-full of persona poems! He read one last night in the voice of Janis Joplin that was terrific.
I read a poem from issue 12 about Amaterasu, the Shinto sun goddess, and a couple of others. (Even sold a book – to a couple of fellow Buffy fans 🙂 One of the other readers had a few poems about translating Japanese, which I thought was fascinating. In fact, I was genuinely impressed with nearly every reader, and besides that, the people just had what I think California people might call “good energy.” It feels like perhaps I’m finally finding the literary folks of the San Diego area, slowly, maybe, but getting there. Still, there’s no Open Books substitute.
Also, a health note: a bit of constant sore throat and cough, it seems, is par for the course in October, even for die-hard San Diegans, because of the Santa Ana winds, so at least I’m not alone in that. A couple of people last night, my ultrasound tech, and countless others have told me that locals always get sick in October. I had to fire Dr. Botox Barbie (which means another round of paperwork and records fun, sigh) but found a very good doctor at the urgent care office next to my apartment complex, and thanks to my best-ever-Seattle-hematologist, the hardest working doctor ever, have an appointment with a new GP recommended by the head of UCSD Medicine. How’s that for a referral? I’m ready for a health boost!
