"Please don't tell me what to do!"

On one of the early days of our Morocco trip, this was uttered by one of the participants (name withheld intentionally).  This is such a complicated dynamic and I have thought about it, and examined it almost daily since then.

We all have expertise and knowledge that we like to share with others.  Remember back to second grade when the teacher asked a question and hands shot up waiting to be called upon.  We were rewarded back then for having knowledge and the correct answer.  

So this sharing of knowledge is a good thing right? especially as some of us start forgetting things.  It is nice to have someone around who can remember the name that you cannot remember.  Or that place, or that person.

I want to come clean and just say that I do not like to be told what to do.  I already have a mother, and don't need another one, thank you very much.  So often the telling comes across as parent to child and protecting.  I don't need to be protected, although sometimes I do need to be warned about the pot hole I am about to step in.  

I think another reason I react to the sharing of knowledge is that I do not learn by lecture or by reading.  I learn by doing and talking about it, so when someone "shares" their knowledge I view it as a lecture and immediately glaze over and check out of the conversation.  

I know that almost all of the time, this sharing is done to be helpful, and has a positive intent.  In the last 6 weeks, and even during the Morocco trip, I was able to reframe the words and say "This person is just trying to be helpful and share all they know."  It is not because they are being a know-it-all or a show off, but they really are trying to be helpful.  This helped/helps so much to reframe their intent.

I will still react with the "Don't tell me what to do." and if I can catch myself I might be able to reframe it and not feel like the child in the classroom lecture.  The wonderful thing about being human is that if we choose to, we can learn about ourselves every single day.  AND we can reframe and hear things differently, if we catch ourselves and let ourselves.  It is a great day to be alive!

Cannot quite process this latest shooting

I cannot quite process a shooting in a kindergarten class, and yet I have to watch the news for updates.  It is not the same at all, but this is the way I felt watching 911.  This is a different time, because when I logged into Facebook just now, many of my friends have commented about the shootings, and a dear friend used to live in this town.  Even though I am sitting at home alone, I feel connected to them as I process this latest horrible news.

I have to believe that we have two big issues here, gun control and mental health.  Gun control is legislative.  Mental Health is so complex.  There is so much we just don't know about the brain and what could cause anyone to shoot a kindergartner.

I wonder if the news media did not cover things like this 24/7, if there would be less of it?

For some people the only way to get your minute of fame is to do something like this.  I remember feeling that way when the attempt was made on Reagan's life.

My inclination is to grab my loved ones and crawl into a cave somewhere.  I am doing the next best thing by retreating to Vermont/Coniston with a lot of my family and friends for the weekend.

As Ellen DeGeneres says at the end of each show "Be kind to one another". 

Grief revisited today

This collage sits on my desk of
Daddy as a little boy and a
family needlepoint

When I hear of another death it allows me to revisit the losses in my life.  Yesterday, through as email from a dear friend, we heard of a 20 year old who took his own life.  It stopped me in my tracks as I felt deeply for his family.  I wondered how it would be best to reach out to them and I plan to attend a wake or service when they happen.

17 years ago today, my world stopped as Daddy died suddenly.  A dark veil was dropped on me that day, and the veil will always be there.  It is thinner now, but it is always there. I will never forget that split second when my brother Charles, on the phone, told me that Daddy had died.  We knew earlier that he was in surgery for an aneurysm, and that his chances of living were slim, but there was always a bit of hope. 

My legs collapsed underneath me and a few minutes later, a friend handed me a glass of water.  I was at a youth retreat with Christopher, and the leaders conducted a service of grief for all the youth and leaders.  It was a perfect service to share our very recent grief, and to allow the others in the circle to share griefs they had never spoken aloud.

It was the exact place for Christopher and myself to be as we prepared to travel a few hours to my family home, and grieve deeply with my mother and siblings.  Rod and Bethany travelled the two hours from Lexington and picked us up and we drove to Brandon to arrive there in the wee hours of the next day.

The next week was a blur, of family and friends stopping by with bundt cakes, and burying Daddy in a family cemetery in New Haven VT.

Every November 4th, I stop and grieve, and today I also grieve for that young man who was in such despair that he could not go on living.

Hug your loved ones today, enjoy each connection you have today with another person who is dear to you.

New quote of the day - "Sure of you"

"Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh?" he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. "I just wanted to be sure of you."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

The above quote is the basis for the sermon that was delivered at our final service this past Sunday. The quote and the resulting sermon were both brilliant. It will now become my quote of the day moving my current quote to the archived quote of the day.

For many of us in the congregation, the quote and the sermon were perfect, since this week we lost two members of our congregation.

One young woman was in the very first junior high youth group that Rod and I led in 1995. We found a picture of that very first youth group. With them we started a tradition of taking two pictures. A smiling one for their parents, and a second one of them making a funny face. Her face in the second one making a "wonderful" face, when I first saw it this week, was a stark realization of how precious life is. She was just shy of 29 when she died.

The second death was a member of of our covenant group. He exited the subway on 911, just in time to see the second tower fall, and walked back injured to his house in Brooklyn. He has struggled for the last year with sarcoidosis and has been in a hospital or nursing home for over a year. He actually became quite an advocate for sarcoidosis rights which was caused by living in NYC during 911, and the following months. The covenant group process really allows you to get to know someone in a very deep way. I knew Drew as a member of our group and will miss his empty chair at our next meetings. Even though he could not be at our meetings for the last year, we were "sure of you". We knew he was thinking of us during our meetings. We started a practice recently of imagining what missing members are doing during our meetings as a way of honoring them during our meetings.

With the recent loss of Uncle Chuck, and now these two losses, I am sure that my congregation is there for me and me for them. I am sure that my mother, siblings, aunt, cousins, children, nieces, and nephews are there for me. I always say that I was not sure why I joined First Parish until Daddy died, shortly after we joined. Knowing me almost not at all, the congregation enveloped me and gave me support on the worst day of my life so far. They held me in ways I did not know how to ask for.

Now I will say, when I really need to know someone is there, "I just wanted to be sure of you".

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Groups end, not always elegantly

There is a well know model of group formation that many are familiar with. The Forming, Norming, Storming, Performing model. There is a little known stage that some practitioners use that is called Adjourning or Transforming.

I suspect there are a few reasons why they don't end elegantly. We don't want them to end, we don't want to say goodbye, and probably a few others. I think the most important is that we are not taught to say goodbye or how to end a group. A group I belong to says that if you are going to leave, you have to come back to say goodbye at one last session. That groups forces us to face the feelings associated with goodbyes. Anger, sadness, feeling of desertion to name a few. It also gives us practice as we say goodbye each time to a member.

This saying goodbye to groups, is very closely related to feelings of grief. Some religions have a great process of grief, and we could probably learn from them about how to end groups. The feelings might not be as intense but they are the same feelings.

As a growth opportunity for me, I am going to pay attention to groups and try to help them end elegantly. It is an ugly scene when they don't end well and I for one have scars from three of them that meant a lot to me and crashed and burned as they ended.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Grief 15 years and it still catches me off guard

Just now walking down the hall, as I planned my next project, I was thinking about rug hooking.  I took a rug hooking class in Middlebury VT over 15 years ago, and like many of my classes, I have done little with it since then.  Recently I moved all of the rug hooking materials to Coniston because I think it is more likely that I can have time there to work on it.  I also found a shop in North Hero which has the same exact rug company products which sparked a new interest for me in rug hooking.  Then, I saw a quilt at Vermont Quilt Festival, of a map of Vermont and all of its counties and BINGO, my next rug project will be a map of Vermont with each county a different color.  This is how design works for me.  An idea percolates for a while and then BINGO, walking down the hall the idea comes to me.  This happened with my alphabet quilt projects a few years ago.  For a few years I imagined an alphabet quilt with the square a fabric piece that represented the letter and the letter appliqued on it, e.g. Apple fabric for A, bumble bee fabric for B, etc.  Then I saw this exact design is a quilt book, bought the book and produced multiple quilts of this design.  Nieces, nephews, auction winners at both First Parish and Star were recipients of this quilt design.  But I digress . . .

I was staying with Mom and Dad when I took the rug hooking class.  After I returned to their house one of the things I needed was a frame to put the in-process rug in.  They gave us a rudimentary design during the class that I explained to Daddy and a few hours later he produced it from his work shop.  He was like that.  A mere suggestion of an idea or need, he disappeared and came back with it. 

So why, almost 15 years after his death, just thinking about that rug frame, do I suddenly burst into tears?  Is it because I was caught off guard?  Murg said once that he grieves every day the loss of his parents.  This was my moment today to grieve the passing of Daddy.  I have the rug frame though and this weekend that design of Vermont counties will probably be on it.  Thanks Daddy!

Cannot live without a furry beast around the house!

People who know us well, know that our beloved Qammi and brilliant Autumn died last year. It was a sad sad year for animals in the Russell/Lowe/Swartzbaugh house. We have had an animal in the house or barn since 1987 when I snuck the first little kitty into the house under the nose of my new husband. I knew he would not go for a dog, although that came 2 years later. At one point we had 3 cats, a dog and a horse.

Since December, every time I drive up the street, I expect a brown nose to be poking out from under the shade, to greet me. This week we are taking care of two rambunctious dogs and I realized that I MUST HAVE AN ANIMAL around the house.

Concurrent with this, Bee returns from Turkey on May 2nd and we were thinking of a welcome home gift for her. When we had squirrels in the winter, one solution on Murg's facebook entry was to have a cat. Bee asked recently on Skype "Now, that the squirrels are gone are you still considering a cat?"

So all of these forces of nature are coming together and on May 3rd we will be making a trip to the pound to choose a kitty. I don't want this kitty to scratch my furniture, so Bee's solution is to buy a scratching post, take it to the pound and see which feline is attracted to it.

This is her cat BTW, and as soon as she has an apartment where she can keep the cat either legally or illegally (2 bunnies lived illegally in her dorm room last year at Hampshire and then lived at our house last summer. I would rather have a cat than bunnies!), then it leaves 22 Hayes Lane for greener pastures, or apartments as the case may be.

Life is Not Fair - God are you listening? You messed up down here!

My two facebook posts, said it succinctly because there is a limit to the number of characters but it is now time for a post. In fact, I split a facebook post into two when I encountered the limit this afternoon. That is what cut and paste is for after all.

I have a friend from the late 70s and early 80s, who I have been on and off in touch with since then. We reconnected when she was publishing her first book, I was in her second book and Friday night at Barnes and Noble I just happened to have a neuron fire which said, "I wonder if Susan's third book is out yet?" YES, it is out. The computer said that they had them in stock. I could not find them on the shelf, and the clerk searched high and low to find a copy buried in the stock room. Apparently she involved 5 Barnes and Noble employees in her quest for a copy. The book is not really out yet, since the publication date says May 4, 2010 so I got my hands on a very recently shipped copy, which obviously was not supposed to be out on the shelf yet.

I came home last night, and read 1/3 of the book, and could not sleep this morning past 6am because I wanted to read more. This is what Susan's books do to me. I have to read them all at once, or in a few sessions. She is a great writer, and since I know her, and her story, I am even more intrigued. So this morning, I read another 1/3 before heading out for the day. Just before I left for the day, I emailed Susan that I was loving her book. When I got back from my day, an email from her waited in my inbox. Her husband who she had finally found love with, had died in January of this year. Damnit I said. Life is just not fair. Why couldn't, whoever controls this crap, just leave her alone and let them be happy for a few more years.

She was in her 50s before she met Dennis after her first book "Chosen by a Horse". In fact her second book was about their love affair and was called "Chosen Forever". She deserves someone to love her and to love. She deserves to be happy. It is hard for me right now to be objective and I feel so badly that she had yet another loss in her life.

Life is not fair and if there is a God, she had really made a huge mistake on this one. If only we could give each other some of our happiness, and long lasting love. Must some people be tried and challenged all their life and others seemingly have it easier?

I guess by being in community with each other we do share our souls. We light candles to share joys and sorrows. When someone lights a candle about a past joy or sorrow for us, it helps us move along the journey or grief or pride.

Susan and I are getting together this summer with another friend Barb. We were the dynamic trio in our younger days. We were pretty stupid some days, and we had a lot of fun together. We have a bond from those days such that Susan's pain and sorrow are mine too. Right now I am in the phase of grief that is anger. I am sure Susan is further along the path of grieving.

However, Life is not Fair and for the third time this week, I find myself saying this over and over. These 3 situations on the surface are not about me, but about someone in my web . . . so, in fact, they are about me.

Grief - one year later

Just a year ago, Autumn broke his leg and we had to put him down. For about a week prior to today, I have been thinking of today and wondering how I would feel. Too bad that a happy day like St. Patrick's Day is now tainted by memories from a year ago.

As usual with the passage of time, the year has gone quickly, a lot of water over the dam AND it feels like it just happened yesterday. I will never forget how helpless and hopeless I felt that day. I had never seen my daughter or my husband so stricken with grief. There was nothing I could do but cover people with blankets and make sure there was food in front of us.

Bee is so far away this year, and I cannot look in her eyes to see how she is doing, but I have to assume that she is handling it the way she has handled tough things all her life. Not the way I do by wearing it on my sleeve but in her own private, contemplative, appropriate way.

There has been a faint dark cloud following me around most of today. Another year, and another passage of deep felt grief.

Qammi stories - so sad - I have the memories

Today Qammi took her last breathe and it is a very very sad day. We have had her for 9.5 years and she has been a wonderful dog. She spent her first week sitting on Bee's lap and spent every night possible after that sleeping on her bed. She was a pretty spoiled dog. Many guests were surprised that she was allowed to sit on our couches and she often would crawl up beside one of them on the couch and lean her chin on their knee. Looking at them with those chocolate lab eyes as if to say "What, I spend more time on this couch than you do, and in fact you are sitting in my spot."

Last winter she really thought we had lost our minds when we participated in an event in North Hero called The Great Ice which is a 2 mile walk to Knight island over the frozen lake and then 2 miles back. Once we arrived on the Island she was pretty confused that we would venture back over the ice. It took a leash and lots of encouragement for her to do the return trip, until she could see the mainland again.

She loved to roll on her back whether in the spring grass, the fall leaves or the winter snow. In fact, in the early hours of her last day, she rolled in the new snow.

She loved water, and swimming. At my brother and sister-in-law's house in VT, she would be in the pond the entire day if we let her. She would chase a tennis ball as many times as someone would throw it to the point of over exhaustion.

At another brother and sister-in-law's house in VT she was chased by a cow once and did a sommersault over an electric wire as she tried to get away from the cow. We left Qammi with them one time and she got a cut above her eye from some metal on their truck. They took her to their vet for stitches, and we arrived home shortly after their return from the vet.

She was a bit of a chicken, never the top dog. At her favorite place to walk in Willard's Woods in Lex, if there was an agressive dog ahead she would make a big semi-circle around them to avoid the conflict.

We were on a morning schedule for walking her, I got M and W and the weekends, Murg got T TH and F. Qammi could tell by our morning actions, which one of us was walking her.

Almost every day of her life she would follow me into the bathroom and drink water from my bath. This morning she would not drink which is when I knew she was really not well.

There are lots more stories, which I will remember over the next few months. I am really going to miss those eyes, and that wagging tail. I am going to miss being greeted every time I open the front door, and her peeking through the window to see who is arriving home. I might even miss her barking at the dog walking in front of our house.

I am going to miss those morning and early evening walks on the bike path.

Life is so precious and fragile and when those that we love have taken their last breathe, we are left with the memories and the stories and the pictures of them.

Keeping the fingers busy knitting

At our covenant group on Sunday our topic was relaxation. Sitting under a huge tree in the shade just outside the church in Burlington Vt was pretty relaxing until the band on Church St starting playing. Next time we are going to the Lake, waterfront to meet.

I realized during this meeting that I knit so I can concentrate. When I am knitting, I am relaxed. Rarely, are my fingers clenched when I am knitting.

I also realized that meditation is not meditative for me. It is stressful to stay absolutely quiet (the extrovert that I am). Yoga is meditative because I am doing something, but meditation is not. Someone at Star said "You should meditate"! "Nope, I shouldn't, unless I want to get more stressed." It probably works for some but not for me.

Give me a ball of yarn, some wooden needles and almost any situation, and I am relaxed. There is something that is so familiar about creating those stitches, and having something for my idle fingers to focus on which causes me to concentrate and to relax.

One member of our group talked about Genesis and the 7th day of Sabbath. We need to rest and relax. Knitting is that for me.

Daddy in 2009 and ipods

This morning as I plugged in my ipod for a day of work, I wondered if Daddy would have ever had an ipod. He died in 1995, prior to ipods. I guess he was an adopter of things if he could see a use for them. I don't think he ever accessed the internet, but he would have if he could have seen all of the history that is stored there. He poured over maps of the Civil War, and loved the details of many things. Frank Bunting who gave the eulogy at his funeral said he was a Renaissance Man, which he was. In this eulogy I heard for the first time that he loved opera and that he and Frank used to listen to it in "the backroom" aka Daddy's study.

So my image is that yes, he would have an ipod with opera on it and maybe an ipod deck in the back room that he could plug it into. Or maybe, he still has vinyl 78 or 33 or CDs and that is sufficient for him.

Murg is right about grief, you can do it in little bits every day. I miss him a lot every day, but now I have a new image of him walking around the horse pasture with ipod buds in his ears listening to La Boheme, and smiling, just a little turn up of the outside of his lips.

Worry - I continue to explore this one

Within the last year our covenant group explored the topic of WORRY. At the time, some brilliant member said "Worry is the misuse of imagination". I have repeated that to many folks during the year. Some have even put it on the signature of their email.

BINGO - yesterday on Twitter, and I am not sure of the origin or I would give them credit, I found another quote. Not a better one, just another one:

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of sorrow - it empties today of strength."

So as a closet worrier, or maybe a not so closet worrier, this one helps me move the needle on my exploration of worry.

Burying my grief in a shuffling Ipod

After my last post, I took our dog for a walk. My iPod is on shuffle, so the first song was Ave Maria, Pavarotti and friends. It was kismet that this was my first song. As I always do with my favorite songs, I rewound that song 3 times. Then came on Alan Sherman 12 days of Christmas. Back to back Pavarotti and Alan Sherman, huh? Yes, my preferred mode of listening is shuffle. It validates my ENFP MBTI type. The last song as I walked up the front steps was put on by C, last year for my birthday, a Phish.

Night grief is made easier by:

rising sun
walk with the dog
shuffling iPod
laughing at myself

Too sad to sleep

Rarely do I have insomnia. Last night, or rather early this morning I did. I slept until 2:30 am but then thoughts of sadness invaded my pillow and I could not get back to sleep. After Daddy died my sister and I had an agreement that we could call each otnher any time of day or night that we wanted. I think we both took advantage of this at least once. In the middle of the night to be so alone with grief is really hard. Or maybe that is when grief work is best. Cannot be distracted, cannot go anywhere with it.

Usually when I cannot sleep I do a really silly routine. This is it. When I graduated from college, my cousin from Colorado, her best friend and my best friend from college and I went to Europe for 6 weeks. It was a really great trip. So when I cannot sleep, I go through that trip chronologically. Mostly, I remember briefly the town we spent that day in. I don't usually get past the 4th or 5th night before I am asleep. This works for me, counting sheep does not work. Last night I tried this routine twice, but my grief would not be fooled by silly routines. So at 6am it became legitimate to get up and here I sit on the couch, watching stupid early moring TV, with my chocolate lab asleep at my side. It was a long night of unsleep.

ICA - wonderful sunny day

This morning we went to the Barn and cleaned out Bee's locker. We walked up the hill to see where Autumn is buried, took a video of the view that he has and cried and cried and cried. There is an endless amount of tears we can cry it seems. The woman who was leasing Autumn showed up, with some flowers for his grave, right after we started clearing out the locker. She was devestated as well, and she has only been riding him for 2 months. On Monday, the day before he broke his leg, she took her husband to meet him. "Are you sure they don't want to sell him?" he asked her. It did not take very long for him to work his way into her heart.

We went by our local equestrian shop to buy racks to put our saddles on in our back shed, took K's car to the airport (Bee had been in NC with K and A when we had to call to tell her about Autumn).

As a distraction, and because we are members, we decided to go to the ICA. This is a wonderful museum BTW. Shepard Fairey's exhibit is incredible and another video "THEM" by Artur Zmijewski was excellent as well. We are already planning on going back soon before some of the exhibits leave. Then we walked into the North End and had a nice early dinner at a traditional Italian restaurant. Home by way of the T and a cab.

Murg is off to see Watchman at an IMAX near here and I am going to go to bed early. This is a result of buring the candle at both ends all this week, and some restless nights. Grief like this disrupts your equilibrium. A visit to the ICA helps as a nice distraction from this grief, AIG, CNN etc.

A Surreal Week - we cannot write the script

This week has not turned out as I expected it to. Briefly, on Tuesday our horse Autumn broke his leg and we had to have him "put down". As a parent this was one of the worst experiences ever. We have had him for over 7 years. During those years, Bee rode him 5-6 times a week. Lately, since he stayed here for Bee's second year of college, Rod has been riding him twice a week, and someone else at the barn has been leasing him.

Making the decision was difficult and saying good-bye to him was heart wrenching. I used work this week, as a distraction, but driving home today to face the weekend, I realized how surreal it has been. Pretty much since Tuesday night, I have just been putting one foot in front of the other. I actually have been pretty productive at work as a way to keep the grief at bay.

When there is a death of a loved one, all kinds of memories come back. The first time I saw him, the first time Bee fell off, the cross country course where they both galloped up a hill with huge smiles on their faces as they realized they could indeed do this, that same show when Bee took a jump without stirrups because she lost them, Bee's senior teen chapel when she talked about all that he taught her, them cantering in the rain after we moved to Huckins and Denise made it clear to Autumn that he was going to behave, GMHA and watching him and her master the 3 phases, those hours of watching her and him work hard and develop into a single unit, her saying at their first show "Where do I get off sitting on top of a 1200 pound beast and thinking I can control him?", a picture we took of him in the trailer after that show stretching out his lips and showing his teeth, and on and on and on . . .

He was supposed to retire to Coniston with us. We talked frequently about where the horse barn and paddock would go.

But as my aunt told me "We cannot write the script."

This is a week that I will never forget and it is very familiar. I felt like this after Joe died and I felt like this after Daddy died. I wondered how I could ever feel vaguely normal again. I wondered if I would ever stop crying.

I think the hardest part of this week has been watching my child and husband go through such a loss and realize that there is absolutely nothing I can do to help or console them.

We are staying home this weekend when we would normally be at Coniston. We need some peace and quiet and time to grieve. We need to light the candle at First Parish Lexington.

Traces of the Trade

So this is a looming personal growth opportunity for me . . .

Last year at General Assembly in Fort Lauderdale, I attended a session delivered by a man, Tom Dewolf, whose family were slave traders and slave owners. I bought his book and it sat about 75% read, beside my bed.

After the sermon at FPLEX yesterday by David Pettee (David gave a session at GA in 2007), I got home, and made a bee line for the book and nearly finished it.

I think some of my delay in finishing it is, now I have to do something more. The book is the intellectual task. Now I need to really face the fact that my family as well, were slave traders and slave owners.

The minister yesterday and the author of the book made the trip to Ghana to see where the slaves left on ships to come to the US.

I think eventually I need to do that as well, but before that there is lots of research I need to do. Some of this I did last night with my brother, asking him questions about Hugh Hall who was a rum runner aka slave trader. I am a seventh generation Sarah Hall, and am descended from Hugh Hall.

I actually have the bed that Hugh Hall brought from Barbados for his daughter, the first Sarah.

So, as I said this is looming over me, and I need to make some plans.

Who is my wart hog?

This may be complicated but this is how the conversation went with A today:

S "Consider her a gift and not a wart."
A "She is my warthog.(laughter follows from both of us)"
S "I wonder who my warthog is?"

So for some background, we were talking about someone who triggers A. Her name starts with E (the triggerer that is).

So I was saying to A, use this as an opportunity to figure out yourself, and not E. Hence the gift not wart statement above.

When someone triggers us, it is usually about us and not them. So, just 30 minutes after this conversation someone triggered me, and I DID NOT take my own advice. This person can trigger me by just walking toward me, with that attitude. Maybe I am their warthog and maybe they are mine.

Oh well, so there are people who trigger me, and I need to figure out me and not them.

Thanks A for the conversation and for the warthog image, it is a really great thought.

So, who is my warthog, as if they would be reading my blog and even if they are, would they raise their hand anyway?

Medical System Rant - Administurbia

Periodically I hate HMOs. Why do I have to go see 2 doctors every time I need to get something done? 18 months ago, I dutifully called my primary care coz I had an eye infection.

Just go see you normal eye doctor, you don't need to come see me.

I did. The claim got paid.

12 months later, I assume wrongly that I can just go see my eye doctor. Did last time, why not this time? Follow up exam 4 months later. NOW Harvard Pilgrim Health Care wants me to get referrals for those past visits. You all know how easy it is to get a PCP to call you back, "wink wink nudge nudge, know what I mean?".

Next fall we will be transferring out of our current HMO to a health plan where I can go see whoever I damn well please without asking anyone if it is OK.

This system is so broken. Please somebody fix it, or come to think of it, join me in trying to fix it. I would love to re-engineer our health care system. Barack, are you listening?