I definitely agree that there's dramatic potential here, and I hope the writers do take advantage of it. But I too lack optimism based on what they've done so far.
Mother's day has become a real source perplexity since I entered my 30s. I suppose people didn't assume I *must* be a mother until I no longer looked young, but now I too get strangers wishing me a happy mother's day, and I don't know how to respond. Like the guy in the grocery store who wants to know, "are your kids doing something nice for you for mother's day?" What do I even say? "No, the ungrateful little jerks!" or similar?
Oh, the dreaded "furbabies!" I shudder with you. I still don't know how to deal with family members who want to wish me a happy mother's day in reference to the fact that I have an old, arthritic cat.
I should be clear that I'm not against "walkability" in concept. But I think it's important that we think about how our infrastructure and public services affect all people, including those who can't walk, or can't walk safely. We don't, at least here in Seattle, do that very well at all.
Track standing! Well, at least now I know it has a name. What *I* call it in the privacy of my car is not fit for print.
Some of the more inventive bike lane solutions Seattle's trying seem to be making things worse. For example, everything happening on Broadway. It's hectic, visually confusing, crowded, and looks, to me, like a horrible, horrible accident waiting to happen.
I will never understand why Seattle tries to force ever larger numbers of people onto mass transit without ever actually having a plan for how to accommodate those riders in a safe, consistent, civilized (read: not packed into busses in manner of sardines) way. I blame, at least in part, our former mayor who treated the entire city like it was his private bike club, not a functioning metropolis.
"we must choose humanity over legacy and over art or accomplishment." << Yes.
I hear this. To draw a totally loose comparison, I was in secondary education for many years, and for some parents, a kid’s education wasn’t going to be satisfactory unless I would personally guarantee that the kid would get into Stanford with a full scholarship, no homework would be too hard, and the kid would always get really good marks on every assignment. In short, people demanded the impossible, and it was somehow my fault that it was, in fact, impossible. I imagine that’s a little like what you feel in your job, too.
And when I think about the doctors and nurses who’ve been really great, it’s often been those who’ve been willing to make smalltalk, to joke around, or basically be human with me. I’ve written here before about how much I enjoy, for example, talking about Zombie shows with my neurologist. But I still feel there’s a line between relating and asking probing questions about, you know, my naked body!
Thank you for this--your comment is a good reminder that on the other side of the interaction there's a person, too. Something very adversarial gets stirred up in these interactions (for me, at least), and it can be hard to remember that there's, as you put it, a hunger for human connection. (And I love the story of the surgeon who took the extra care to sew up the scar! It gives me a little of that proverbial faith in humanity.)
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Kelly Davio 
Production