Dear Doctor
My physical is tomorrow. I suppose most people call it an “annual physical,” but I haven’t had one in a couple of years because it’s been a while since I saw that physician. So it’s more my biennial physical, bordering on every 30 months at that.
For regular checkups regarding my hormone therapy, I drive out to Portland, Oregon, because I haven’t found a doctor in Walla Walla who knows anything about the whole gender transition thang, and this particular doctor sees more than 1,000 trans patients. Plus heck, it’s a pretty enough drive along the Columbia River, and I suppose it keeps my stamina up for long car rides. Read More…
I’ve driven through large swaths of Canada several times now—if I’d stitched them together they would pretty much connect the east and west coasts, except for the fact that I’ve never driven into Manitoba. That said, I have not driven in Canada much at all and for someone used to watching out for bands of small, white-tailed deer, Canada is a bit of a different game. In the way that junior varsity basketball players against NHL left wing players match up. Which is to say that they don’t. 
Walla Walla suffered its first homicide of the year with 
Our unborn dragon is now at 23 weeks and counting, and as Babycenter.com tells me, can hear sounds pretty well, so I broke out my iPod and played a little Billie Holiday the other day, thanks be to Susanne’s unending patience. One book I found suggests that I should play loud sounds in proximity to her uterus so that they won’t bother the dragon as much once it’s out in the world with us. I’m not sure I can pass off needing to vacuum our bedroom, as we have hardwood floors in there. Maybe I’ll blame it on the dust bunnies that have huddled under our bed. Protection in numbers won’t save those buggers from the Electrolux, after all. 
We received an audience with Sarah Palin again today (read, the family practitioner who looks like Sarah Palin), and after waiting only 45 minutes, she joined us for Susanne’s latest exam. After a string of additional symptoms, like sudden, cataclysmic leg cramps, stubborn heartburn, and the mucous that accompanies late spring pollen bursts, Sarah Palin grabbed her fetal heartbeat monitor and pushed around searching for sound.
It’s an obvious statement to say that things change during pregnancy. A pregnant woman’s blood volume increases, as does her basal temperature. There are countless tales about mood swings, cravings, nausea, and old wives’ advice to predict what sex the baby will be, and some of these things are fun but many of them begin to annoy the mother and father to be because quickly, they’ve heard of these things.
We tromped over to our local radiology lab on Monday to get a look at the little one, still lovingly referred to as Susanne’s “parasite,” and were amazed at how much more development has happened in the last 12 weeks. There were definitely leaping hearts in the room watching every heart flutter and gulp of the wee one’s mouth.
Moderate-time readers will recall 
Let it be known that I fly a lot, especially now that I’ve moved to this dusty corner of the country. It just isn’t possible to drive everywhere I want to go, certainly not with $4.00 gas staring me in the face at the station. Most of my trips originate not at the lonely Walla Walla airport, which hosts a few flights a day to and from Seattle, and which will bump up the fare anywhere between $400 to $1,000. So I trek out to the Tri-Cities, an hour away, and go from there. It’s a Planes & Automobiles adventure every time. 
Trans/plant/portation 