Scenery Change

...Well, I hear my mother calling/ But I don't need her as a friend....

This is not what I'd planned as my April post, but this is what I've got and I'm rapidly running out of April.

I'm in favor of outings for Mother, even though they're exhausting, just so she can see something different than four beige walls (We hang art and seasonal decorations, but still) although to take her on an outing anywhere is absolutely exhausting.

Before we even get into the transport.

I receive a phone call from Sequoia, which may be spelled differently, but that's what my ears heard, requesting that I be at the care home before 8 AM. I've arrived at the care home at 7:30. 

Mother isn't in her wheelchair. She's in bed. Dressed, but still in bed. Visit the nurse's station. Enter aides. Conversation with aides. Phone call from Sequoia, wherein I explain the current situation as a response to "The transport is here, waiting for Miss Jackie." Procurement of Hoyer lift. Hoyer sling 404 Not Found. Aides converse with each other, in Tagalog (pronounced Tah-GAH-loh, the final g being swallowed), hunt for sling. Additional Tagalog conversation. Against regulations, the two manually manoever Mother into her chair, attach the leg supports, comb her hair. With snacks and an outer garment for Mother, I accompany one aide to the front of the building. "I'll push her," says the aide. This is a Regulation thing, probably. Terrance The Driver (not his rap name- it's how he answers his phone) greets me and asks where my 'other sister' is. That phrasing has always puzzled me. He lowers the lift apparatus on the transport. I climb in and take a rear seat, to be close to her in her spot. Terrance straps her in and loads in a gentleman who has speech but no feet. We greet each other. 

The aide who is accompanying Mr. Williams to his destination lumbers aboard. She and Terrance have a conversation that indicates a long-time acquaintance. They discuss traffic and routes. I hear Northern Parkway. Soon, we pass the grounds of Pimlico Racetrack, which I had expected to be demolished by now, but I can still see, high in the air, observation towers. I wonder if they will have the Preakness balloon launch there, or from Laurel, (where Preakness will be held this year), which I am told is a fraction of the size.

Mother looks around at the interior of the transport, possibly seeing some scenery through the windows. I do not know what this disease has done to her visual perception.  I speak to her occasionally but she does not respond to me. It's loud inside the transport. She occasionally speaks, but not as a response to me.

We're driving to GBMC, a route I know fairly well, as both of my children were born there. This well-planted, well-heeled area of Baltimore is less subject to change than the more run-down bits. We drop Mr. Williams and his companion at an entrance- he's having 'a procedure,' so needed first drop-off. Our destination is Columbia. We will not be on time. I do not have the bandwidth to find out who to contact to inform them that we are delayed. I do not know for sure what time our appointment is, or the name of the dermatological facility. I'm holding together the scraps of my sanity, concerned now not that I won't make it to Job #4, which I unexpectedly acquired, (I absolutely won't) but that I won't make it to Job #1, which I'm counting on for my main paycheck.

I have snacks for Mother, but I don't offer them. If I am too overstimulated to unwrap them, I imagine she is too overstimulated to consume them. We arrive finally at the facility. To my dismay, it is not a single building, or even part of a one-level strip-shop complex. It is a large four-story brick medical arts building with all the personality of a cinder block. I pop out of the transport to scout where we will go. Elevator required. Terrance has moved Mother out of the transport. I move her into the building, into the elevator, out of the elevator, into the office. The receptionist finds us in her appointment database. We are half an hour late. I apologize, and explain about the transport. They will see us anyway. 

Now is the time to offer snacks to Mother. We share sandwich crackers, and she drinks a whole juice box. I feel a little badly about peanut butter inside a doctor's office, but I didn't think about it when I packed her snacks. Really, I am running on fumes pretty much all the time. 

I discuss the reason for Mother's visit with a nurse practitioner named Mercy. I eventually remember about the packet that came with us from the care home, and hand it over. It is apparantly less than helpful, not listing meds she used to be on, leaving out great swaths of information that would have given these people something to go on as far as health history. I am aware that we are speaking ABOUT Mother rather than TO her, which always made her very angry, and may still do, only she can't say so anymore. I try to include Mother in the conversation. Mercy explains what they will do to determine situation and remedy, how they will communicate, and plans for future action. I find all of it acceptable. I do not know what Mother thinks. 

While phoning Terrance The Driver, I manoever us back to outdoors. Outdoors is pleasant, and I'm pleased Mother has opportunity to sit in the sun. There is no bench anywhere. I park Mother's chair in a protected area of the car park and settle on the curb. Terrance has promised to be "right there" which turns out to be twenty minutes. I fall asleep in the sun more than once. I know, because the paperback in my hand falls to the ground, waking me. I should be interacting with Mother, engaging her. I cannot.

On the journey back, Terrance says that he will pick up "Miss Lady, who just wanna go shopping" after he drops us off. "She wanna go to Walgreens, and the liquor store." He does, however, need to fetch "my bougie lady. She too fancy to wait" before we all go back to the complex. The "bougie" lady who enters the transport doesn't seem all that bougie to me. As we approach the entrance for Mother (the ambulance door), she pulls out a bill for Terrance. I pull out a bill for Terrance. I don't know if this is what my 'other sister' usually does, but probably. 

Through a door, another door, down a hall, up an elevator, to the dining room. I remove Mother's cloak and carry it to the closet in her room. Her breakfast, now stone-cold, is waiting. I bring it out, with additional snacks. She drinks juice and eats bacon, but the eggs and toast she doesn't want at all. Lunch will arrive soon, but not soon enough. I must leave for work. I tell the staff, thank them for caring for her. 

I kiss her goodbye and tell her I'll see her next time. "Good," she says. I don't promise when I'll return. The jobs situation makes discretionary time an uncertain thing. In any case, it's been good to get her out of her boxy warren, which reeks of urine and despair. One of them I feel clinging to me as I exit.

The Police; Mother; Synchronicity, 1983

Baseball Names

...Lincoln, Lincoln, bo-bin-coln/ Bo-na-na fanna, fo-fin-coln/ Fee-fi-mo-min-coln/ Lincoln!...

I met a man yesterday and ordinarily, I wouldn't remember his name, but he was wearing a Baltimore Ravens cap and was called Aaron Jordan. I joked that he'd been named for two sports superstars, neither of whom ever played for the Ravens. He laughed and took his kids into the museum. He noodled on the piano a little bit while his family was there. It's an interesting museum, and not only because it has two pianos. It has almost everything but baseball. Today is not about the museum. Today is about baseball.

Baseball! Full of stories and wonderful names.

The first name I'll mention is Randy Arozarena, who, for unknown reasons, had a history of being especially effective against my home team, the Baltimore Orioles. I like his name as a member of a new team, because I was delighted when he was traded last year from the Tampa Bay Rays to the Seattle Mariners. The Orioles don't face the Mariners often during the season, not like they do the Rays, who are part of the American League East division. Now that every team faces every team for at least one series each season, the Orioles will deal with Arozarena the Mariner 6 times this year, (barring trade or injury), as opposed to 13 games they'll play against Tampa Bay.

It's not that I don't like the Mariners- in fact, in last night's game, one of the Seattle broadcasters demonstrated one of the reasons I love baseball so much- the stories. Here's the scenario: the broadcasters are talking about weather, as they often do and the elder of them- I've looked him up; I'm surmising it's Rick Rizzs- talks about an Opening Day game in Cleveland in 2007 where blizzard conditions made the ump call the game in the 5th inning, everyone went back to their hotels, where the blizzard continued, cancelling the other 3 games in the series as well. This played havoc with the schedule that season, as the Mariners had to make up all four of those games, tacking one game on to the front end of every East Coast road trip, running out of time at the end of the season, so that eventually, Cleveland played that last makeup game in Seattle, where the Mariners were the 'visiting' team in their own stadium. 

At any rate, the soon- to- retire Rizzs was talking about Opening Day not just as a phenomenon of weather, but of pitching. He was comparing last night's pitcher, who has a very basebally name- in my opinion, the second baseballest name in the contemporary game- to the Mariners' pitcher on that opening day in 2007. The relevant name is Emmerson Hancock. He threw six no-hit innings last night against the Cleveland Guardians, including a career-high nine strikeouts. Oh, baseball is wonderful- when Hancock got to five strikeouts, the broadcasters started talking about his career high of seven strikeouts in a game, which he'd done three times in previous seasons. Hancock got to six strikeouts in that game, the broadcasters were excited to think he might equal that seven-strikeout high. When he did, they were jubilant. Imagine, then, when he got to EIGHT strikeouts in that game, setting a new career high, how very enthused were the broadcasters in the booth. Hancock getting to nine was just icing. 

Another baseball name I love belongs to relief pitcher Jonathan Loáisiga, formerly of the New York Yankees. What's that? It's pronounced 'Lowizikah,' at least when Yankees radio broadcaster Suzyn Waldman  says it, and I really got a kick out of hearing her say that name. Something about the syllables combined with her New York accent just tickles my ears. Now that he's with the Diamondbacks, the odds of my hearing that combination again are considerably smaller. 

Detroit Tigers' Ace pitcher Tarik Skubal has a great name, Tigers' First Baseman Spencer Torkelson has another great baseball name, but that name could play hockey as well. Logan Gillaspie, who debuted in the Bigs as an Oriole pitcher, has a very baseball name, and though I couldn't find conformation, he may be related to the owner of the baseballest name I know, Conor Gillaspie.

Though there are multiple baseball players named Jordan and more named Aaron, as first names go, Jackie might be THE name. There have been at least six Major League Jackies, including Jackie Wilson, Jackie Moore, Jackie Bradley Junior and the great Jackie Robinson. I'm rather fond of the name Jackie,  for personal reasons. My mother, Jackie, is named for her mother, also Jackie, who was named for her father, Jake. Of them, only my mother has had even a passing interest in baseball. 

Shirley Ellis, 1964, "The Name Game"

• 
  

Mysterious Tour

...let me take you down coz I'm going to....

Monthly posts being the goal, I'm almost out of February. So I return to a question that has bothered me and BOTHERED me, for decades. I don't know if this question bothers other people the way it bothers me, but I am used to being irritated by things other folk ignore. For example, I spend more time angry about incorrect public punctuation than anyone of my acquaintance. But this isn't about that. This is about the Beatles' short film, Magical Mystery Tour. The obvious question is, does one need to be English for Magical Mystery Tour to make ANY sense? 

Apparently, even the English, watching this bewildering tour-de-force on Boxing Day in the UK, were bewildered. Of course, it was filmed in colour, because it's 1967 and We Have The Technology, brilliant colour, cinematography by none other than Sir Richard Starkey, whom you may know better as Ringo. It was broadcast in black & white, because that's how BBC1 rolled at the time. 

And why not? If you're confident that most of your audience doesn't yet have a colour telly in the parlor, you continue broadcasting in monochrome. This is not something that would have been likely to occur to Sir Ringo, or de facto director Paul McCartney, and if it had, what might, or could, they have done differently? My guess is nothing, as it seems to me that The Beatles spent a significant amount of their careers forging new ground and walking on without looking back, unconcerned who would catch on, catch up, or be left in the dust. 

The premise for Magical Mystery Tour was simple enough: to film about a Mystery Tour that was infused with not just figurative but actual magic, as provided by unseen wizards.

"John and I remembered Mystery Tours, and we always thought this was a fascinating idea: getting on a bus and not knowing where you were going. Rather romantic and slightly surreal! All these old dears with the blue rinses going off to mysterious places. Generally there's a crate of ale in the boot of the coach and you sing lots of songs. It's a charabanc trip. So we took that idea and used it as a basis for a song and the film."  

--Paul McCartney, source undetermined; possibly Many Years From Now by Barry Miles (I found it tucked into a video explaining MMT, with no reference, and in fact needed to pause the video to even READ, never mind capture, the quote.)

And but so the thing is, that is a VERY England-oriented quotation, one that needs unpacking if you're an American born a year before the creation of the cinema monsterpiece in question. Mystery tour. Tour bus. This is a thing tourists do in New York City, or in London. This is not a thing suburban American families do for a casual holiday, nor a day trip, neither. 

I expect most US citizens born before 1973 understand 'dears with blue rinses,' and sure, the elder set congregate at senior centers go places on tour buses, but these people are getting on a bus for some pre-designated show or shopping trip, with pre-determined food stops, and have likely ordered their lunch down to two Splendas with their iced tea months in advance and the only deviation or surprise will be if one of them is dead or hospitalized and unable to make the trip. So much NOT going off adventuring to "mysterious places." 

Now, 'a crate of ale in the boot of the coach' is 100% what I'm talking about when I say this is a very English quotation. A 'crate of ale' might be what I'd call a case or a flat of beer, and the 'boot of the coach' would be the trunk of the bus. I believe. I haven't been to England, and as for going in the '60s, that's a window I was always going to miss.  As for 'a charabanc trip,' the term, from the French char a bancs, "wagon with benches," evolved to mean a hired transport for several to many people at once. Folk of a certain age, in a particularly geography, have fine memories of such trips, but they are not of the US variety. We'd call it a bus trip, and the notion of a group bar-crawl transport is, to us, a more modern notion and called 'party bus' which may include pub crawl, but also substances of many sorts on the bus, and an expectation of rowdy collegiate behavior, not at all the thing we'd associate with 'blue rinse dears' or blue-collar 'beanfeasters' at all.

Of course, by the 1970s, even in England the day-trip coach holiday was becoming an artifact, what with folk having their own cars and whole week-ends or even weeks for leisure outings.

That could (and possibly should) be the end of it, but because it's a rabbit hole, I'm still at it with Magical Mystery Tour. Yet another odd factoid; it's regarding the more contemporary band Death Cab For Cutie.

Gibbard took the band name from the song "Death Cab for Cutie", which was written by Neil Innes and Vivian Stanshall and recorded by their group the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. The song is a track on the Bonzo's 1967 debut album, Gorilla, and was performed by them in the Beatles film Magical Mystery Tour. The title was originally that of a story in an old pulp fiction crime magazine that Innes came across in a street market. In a 2011 interview, Gibbard stated, "The name was never supposed to be something that someone was going to reference 15 years on. So yeah, I would absolutely go back and give it a more obvious name." --Wikipedia

Which reminds me of the Dave Grohl story. After the demise of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Dave Grohl in 1995 released an album under the name of Foo Fighters, called Foo Fighters. The album gained enough traction that he had to actually acquire a band in order to tour. The band (now an actual band) released a song this autumn that my sister (a big FooFan) didn't believe could possibly be on my radar before it was on hers, but yes, by random chance of there not being any baseball on my radio, I did. The song, "Under You," made me question whether I'd been missing out not listening to Foo Fighters for all these... some amount of time. So I listened to a Foo playlist, and determined that the only other song by the Foo that I was familiar with was "Everlong," which I mistakenly had believed to be a Green Day hit. 

Well, if you're a FooFan, you know, of course, that it's not. But while I listened to this Foo playlist, I kept wishing I was listening instead to Green Day. So I think Foo Fighters is fine, and Dave Grohl is (mostly) fine, but I evidently prefer the sound of Green Day. 

And that's all right, to acknowledge one's preferences without confusing them with actual quality, because so much of life is about personal bias. "Is it good?" one might ask. If that one is asking ME, I can say without bias that the Honda CRV in fact IS a good vehicle because I've researched it, driven it, driven other vehicles and done comparisons. The Toyota Rav-4 is also objectively a good vehicle, by and large as a used vehicle significantly harder to find and somewhat pricier than a comparable CRV. I can objectively say that my family doesn't like the sightlines of the CRV, but the sightlines don't seem to bother me, possibly because I'm the shortest member of my family.  Is a Reuben better than a BLT is not a question I would answer directly. Which is to say that I'm not judging Green Day to be BETTER than Foo Fighters, only more to my personal liking. Neither band is the creator of what I consider a musically ideal (I'd say perfect, but ....) song, "Ice", by Crack the Sky, which runs 4 1/2 minutes on vinyl but in live performance can go as long as 12 minutes. 

The Beatles, despite having a skimpy seven-year run of music-making, have it all over all of those bands, musically, in my opinion. Aside from the songwriting, the idea of a concept album, new mixing techniques, the foundation of MTV music videos, even the popularization of classical and 'exotic' instruments in rock music can largely be credited to them. They will, however, never ever make anything new. 

Does that matter, though? They made Magical Mystery Tour - shot in about two weeks- AND Yellow Submarine (okay,  their participation in Yellow Submarine was under duress at first, but then they loved it and threw the entirety of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band at it) and while Submarine was very psychedelic and thus obviously popular, Mystery Tour was very Fellini-esque, and not everyone likes even the real Fellini. MMT is immediately hailed  as a 'flop,'  and even among more contemporary critics, it is regarded as not a good choice. It seems to me, though, that the Beatles did exactly what they planned to do when making it. I think they hit the mark of "rather romantic and slightly surreal" when you see it in color. In black and white, on a 16-inch screen, I imagine it's basically baffling.

Only it wasn't popular with their fans, which at that point, the Beatles weren't used to, and so Paul apologized to the public on the David Frost show. Now, David Frost is a big deal, and everyone sees this  notably for the 1977 interviews with the disgraced Richard Nixon, which led to the 2006 stage show and  2008 film starring Frank Langella (and in the film version, Kevin Bacon- whut?) which you might think could be my favorite film, but it's not. 

My favorite film, (this week, anyway) also Fellini-esque, according to my Dad, who did film stuff when he was in art school and later taught film stuff when he taught art school, is a rather obscure project from the '80s (surprise, surprise) called Bagdad Cafe. 

Maybe I should see some actual Fellini? While I'm at it, I certainly should see Freaks (Tod Browning, not Federico Fellini; 1932, not 2018). It's a mystery why I haven't seen it already.

The Beatles; Strawberry Fields Forever, 1967

Jinnintonnix? YES.

....Some people buy powder, some people buy booze/ Some people use a chainsaw. Which tool is right for you?...

He's teaching me to use massively dangerous power tools. I'm covered in dust I probably shouldn't inhale. I'm wearing clothes I'd be embarrassed to donate to a shelter for the unhoused. I'm having a fabulously terrific time. 

He's exacting about angles, drawing very straight lines for cutting on what is, essentially, a rather imprecise tool, and the lines, once cut, will need to be sanded anyway. 

I wouldn't sand them, myself, except I have a very real and deep-seated terror of splinters. 

Some of the stuff we're working with will never splinter. 

I end up with a splinter in my hand from the backing on a disc of sandpaper designed to be used with a mechanical tool, not held in my wee paw like a coffee mug, making largely masturbatory motions on a meter-long cuboid in an unnatural shade of pink. After painstakingly plucking with my fingernails the nearly invisible fleck of fiberglass (or something like it), I return to the task of rounding corners, up and down, with a twisting spin to keep things even.

I'm learning about materials I never heard of, discovering the difference between five-minute two-part epoxy and thin epoxy resin, which has another purpose. He teaches me a lovely technique for cutting a curve on plywood with a bandsaw, which is largely unlike a table saw, a jigsaw and a hacksaw. When I use the bandsaw, I find it enough like operating a sewing machine to feel familiar, and even soothing. Except for the real possibility of losing digits to the teeth of the blade, it IS soothing- the vibration is regular and smooth, and the saw makes a noise in a key that doesn't raise my hackles. This is different from most common tools that I've banned from my life- hair dryers, vacuums, lawn mowers- in fact, I purchased a battery-powered lawn mower that looks like a toy because its vibration and pitch are tolerable to me. Previously, I purchased a rotary mower, because it had neither vibration or noise unless I actively pushed it. I enjoyed using it, listening to ball games in my earbuds, until the blades dulled and it became ineffective. If I figure out how to sharpen the blades, I may use it again. I certainly did not get rid of it. 

My tasks feel inconsequential: remembering where the safety glasses and pencils are located, reminding him what he went into the basement to fetch, holding open the door while he carries the table saw outside or the giant sander inside, moving things back to their proper places, vacuuming with the enormous ugly shop vac with the condescendingly huge ON/OFF button that I still have difficulty locating, and keeping the parts we're using separate from the scraps that look alarmingly like the parts we're using. 

When he tells me this is a good stopping point and offers Jinnintonnix, there's only one possible answer. I watch him measure carefully, then empty the bottle into the measuring tool and divide the remainder between the two glasses. 

The surprise happens fifty or so minutes later, when I find myself in the parking lot of a McDonalds, trying to absorb alcohol with cheap greasy edible substances. Given my sudden mood swing to maudlin, it's absurd that it's called a Happy Meal. 

Power Tools; The Tubes, 1981