Conversation Snippets

...Pay no mind to what they say/It doesn't matter anyway....

"Are you here for a funeral? His name is, or I guess was, Jeremy."

I'm only dressed like I'm here for a funeral. Mostly anywhere I am, I'm dressed like I'm going to a funeral. It's not, I think, that I'm particularly funereal, I just always wear black. It is a real challenge, for example, to go two weeks not wearing black AND trying to incorporate red in my wardrobe, for Chinese New Year, which I don't normally pay much attention to, but this year is "mine" and therefore, special. Theoretically. According to someone I love and trust. So, two weeks, mostly not wearing black. It is entertaining, and I am relieved when it is over.

At any rate, no, I'm not here for Jeremy's funeral. I don't know where it is supposed to be, either, despite being dressed in black. 

~   ~   ~

"As your sex therapist, I need to know WHY you're..."

So I knew you were a sex therapist. I didn't know you'd designated yourself as MINE. (No money changed hands, but also I got no insight or advice. Still: I have a sex therapist!)

~   ~   ~

"Do you got a man?"

He rolls up on me in the parking lot of Family Dollar. 

I know, classy, right? 

He drifts his car next to my parked one as I get in and repeats the question. 

(Does that tactic EVER work for you, friend?)

What do I need with a man?

"To take you out on a beautiful day like this, maybe see a show, something like that."

 (Sweetie, I may be the same age as your Mom. Or possibly your Grandma. I'm flattered and you're cute, but hard pass.) 

I have three and a half jobs. I do not have time for a man, but thanks for asking.

~   ~   ~

"You drink more than anybody I know."

I find that hard to believe, and say so.

"Not drinking, but drinking things. Look at you."

She has a point. I have a glass of water with ice, a glass of water without ice into which I'm stirring Emergen-C, a beer, a cup of tea and a cup of coffee. 

Huh. I DO drink a lot. Is that, do you think, a problem?

~   ~   ~

"My client may cancel, if it turns out that she has cherry pudding."

Please say that again. It sounded as if you said your client may have cherry pudding, but I think that's probably not what you said.

She stares, then tosses her head back in laughter.

"Oh!" she says, "Oh! that's funny! Jury duty."

And we both laugh and laugh and LAUGH.

~   ~   ~

"My first husband was gay. Don't tell anybody."

Who would I tell? And why? Also, who would care? 

The Go-Gos, Our Lips Are Sealed

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

Sold OUT

...Hello, yeah, it's been awhile/ Not much, how about you?....

'Not much' is a lie, though. I'm living too many concurrent lives, with limited discretionary time, which I often spend sleeping. It's the final day of September: just finished with Baseball Season, busy with my day job, Murder Mystery, Mother, writing theatre reviews, and I'm right in the thick of Renaissance Festival  Season. RenFest and its associated activities (costume design, building, repair, washing, mime lunch prep, stilt maintenance, ongoing performer training, logistics, equipment management) occupy the majority of my attention.

Though one of my mimes frequently says, "How do you spell 'actor'? W-H-O-R-E,"  I don't usually feel like a sellout. My niche is weird and tiny. Making people's day in 45 seconds or fewer. Being professionally beautiful. Showing up fabulous. Changing clothes and posing for photographers. Following the Big 3 Rules of Be early,  Be gorgeous, Be easy to work with. (Regular folk accept that as 'talent'. Actual talent seems almost optional.) 

Because people are visual, I designed us to look terrific from every angle, in every condition, including soaking wet with sweat, rain or both. I designed us to be exquisite individually, in pairs, as a group, with or without patrons in the picture. And the picture is the thing, nowadays. "Pictures or it didn't happen" is almost literally true. 

I believe this is what has happened at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. It is "instagrammable" (forgive me if that term has now been replaced by something fresher; I have limited contact with YouthSpeak) to an extreme degree, and content creators adore the opportunity. Outdoors, great lighting, public, costumed event, fanciful food and beverage items, themed weekends, music of all sorts, variety skills stage acts, audience involvement, beautifully handcrafted wearable items from footwear to headgear and all items in between, housewares, craft demonstrations, decorative art, games of skill, dancing, Shakespeare, sideshow acts, a village storyline, participatory activities, beautification services, pretend royalty and a mindbogglingly relaxed dress code. There is a lot of content-able material here. 

By Weekend #2, all the tickets for each day of the rest of the 2025 season had been sold. Some will be returned and resold, which happens nowadays because demand demands it, and the platform making it possible exists. Today, we face a rainy weekend, or at least a rainy Saturday. I judge it to be very little more than aggressive mist.

Snippet #1: Young lad with adult women wishes to be divested of his tee shirt. First Woman: "Oh, no, honey, I don't think it's okay to..." Second Woman: "Don't worry about it. Plenty of people walk around here wearing almost nothing." First Woman (looking around briefly): "Oh, but- "  I catch her attention with my hand, and, from my stilted position of Inside Front Gate Backdrop Position A, and with both hands give the downwards diagonal wave that indicates, "It's fine. He's fine. Everything's fine," (are you trying it right now?) and in fact Second Woman says, as I do the gesture, "He's fine, it's fine, we're all fine."

Snippet #2: Mome Rath is here! I greet her with great excitement. I don't know where she's been or what she's been doing or why we can't have lunch together sometime but I'm delighted to see her. The mime beside me has no idea who Mome Rath is because I am old and she is less so. 

Snippet #3: I sit briefly at the back of Market Stage (in a former iteration, Chess Stage) on one of the Smith-scale flowerpots from which ivy grows. The ivy, presumably, will eventually cover the lattice built above the audience, which already provides some shade. My two stilt mimes come around the corner and spot me on my little perch, and react with expressions indicating adorableness. I discover later that my pinks against the white pot and tendrils of vine around made an especially cute vision. I am unaware whether anyone captured that moment digitally. 

Snippet #4: Outside Front Gate, a patron approaches. "You've been here for many seasons, I think." I indicate that this is so. He points to a young man. "He was a little kid last time we were here. We saw you then." I indicate the young man has grown. "Yeah, he's 27 now," says the patron, "but you, you don't age, do you?" I grin and make the 'aw, shucks' face. 

The relative brilliance of this post is questionable, but at least I've made one. It's not that I haven't been writing. I haven't been writing here. I've been writing here, and here, and here.  Come see me at the Faire, if you can. Those who haunt the Renaissance Festival website may find tickets available. A green check mark is your friend. 

England Dan and John Ford Coley, I'd Really Love To See You Tonight; 1976

[This is for later but you can look at it now if you want. It's completely unrelated. You've been warned.]

https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jwrobbin/Higgeldy.txt

Stalling Again

...a thousand pages, give or take a few /I'll be writing more in a week or two/ I could make it longer if you like the style...

I'd say sorry for not posting more often, but I wonder, really, is anyone reading? Like, does anyone have the patience for it? It's all doomscrolling, echo chambers, clickbait and headlines.

TikTok has taken over where X, formerly known as Twitter, used to rule, and Twitter, though older, was higher profile than Instagram, all of which have supplanted Facebook, leaving it mostly to grandparently-aged folk, which is okay with me, since that age bracket describes most of my friends and much of my family. I'm guessing the longform of essay writing as a community activity is officially dead, which DanTobin DanTobin proclaimed years and years ago. Vines are also dead, but I'm not sure why they needed to die.

But at any rate, relevancy. Blogging as I understand it seems as if it might be returning, on a mysterious platform known as Substack, which may be different from Wordpress and Live Journal, but I'm not sure in what ways.  Among folk returning to the long form are  childhood pal Tim Kreider, my Blogger pal Dan Tobin, another Blogger pal formerly known as Totsie, and I get email notifications about Substacks I've... followed? I think followed, or maybe subscribed to? ...but not with a paid subscription like NYT or Patreon. I suppose I could ask a Substacker to explain to me what the benefits/ differences are of Substack to Blogger, but I hesitate to waste anyone's time with idle curiosity, because that's all it is. I certainly won't abandon my blog to start a new one; jeeze, this blog is almost as old as my grownass adult offsprings. 

I'm working on a "proper" blog entry, complete with links n stuff, as one does, and obviously I'm also working on (read: dodging completing) another review. The show has closed, but in my defense, I watched it on its final performance and immediately came down with Covid. 

I'm vaccinated, so it's uncomfortable and inconvenient and incapacitating, but not dangerous or likely to result in a hospital stay. I have, however, been knocked on my ass. I've slept on the couch since Monday, October 30th, and yesterday afternoon, had my 2nd shower since October 29th.

Today is the first day since the 30th that I've felt anything close to my normal self, and even so, maybe not, because I'm hoarding my methylphenidate. Our insurance, along with Gomez's job, ended in the middle of October, and I haven't sorted how to get new health coverage because, well, I've been sick. 

And I'm job hunting. Still. 

In other news, I'm worried about Mother, whom I've not seen in a month, as the care home in which she resides is about to be sold to an outfit which doesn't have a stellar reputation and has already notified residents of rate increases. Which won't affect us, because Mother was out of money ages ago, and has been a beneficiary of the Benevolent fund, which, along with Medicare/ Medicaid, pays for her residency. If that fund goes away, I don't know what we'll do. I'm sick at the stomach about it, but talking about it doesn't help. What are we to do with folk who outlive their money? 

But here we are. And here I am, not doing any of the things I'm usually doing, housework, yard work, showing up for any of my joblets... well, except for this one thing, stalling. 

Avoiding writing the thing I'm supposed to be writing, by writing something else entirely.

Seems like I'm ALWAYS doing THAT. 

The Beatles; "Paperback Writer;" Single, released May 1966

Cool Cats

...Indians send signals from the rocks above the pass...

I haven't stopped writing. I've just been writing elsewhere, sometimes even for money.

It became less fun when my friends stopped blogging sometime between 2010 and 2012, some of them sooner than that. I was screaming, whispering, sobbing into a void, mostly capturing my mother's descent into madness, or amusing myself with how clever I think I sometimes am. 

So here I am, and already complaining. What is it now, you may ask. (Let's pretend you did.)

Blogger refuses to tell me how to add new links to my sidebar, and it's been so long I can't remember how to do it from memory. Popular wisdom is to play around and figure it out, which I guess I will do, eventually. I thought, though, that I would do that with my new laptop (in July; it's still NEW, seriously) which came with no Owner's Manual or User Guide, and I went online, looking for a video or PDF or something, ANYthing, which would tell me how to use this nice new Pavilion 360, but all I got was unboxing videos and and advertising trailer. And I so far haven't. Played around and figured it out, that is. Only, just the other day, I noticed, right beneath my left wrist, a sticker with one of those QVR thingies and in tiny letters beneath that it says "Scan for reviews, videos, features, specs, support**" which clearly I haven't done yet, (I refuse to count that as a failing on my part, as my phone doesn't have the QVR scanny function; I need to download A Dreaded App), because I'm complaining about this shiny new gadget that I'm underusing, I suspect, fairly significantly. 

And that's not particularly cute anymore. Even though I still think of myself as Primarily Decorative, the mirror tells me that really, I'm NOT. Which forces me to become, I suppose, a Woman Of Substance. Which, you know, I've always been, but that wasn't what people saw first. Remind me to write a post about people confusing beauty with talent, which happens to me pretty regularly, but it's a whole separate thing than this here. 

The point being that at least some of my cool blog friends (Dan Tobin, Totcetera) from the peak of blogginess have returned to blogging- though not on Blogger, on another platform, substack, which someone will need to explain to me why I should be there instead of here- and I'd love to link to their new sites and stop getting the 404 Not Found on my screen.  

All this to say, now I have a bit more impetus to write regularly, which is good for me, and also now I've just uncovered the secret of why it takes me a coon's age (what is that, exactly?) to write my reviews. I've been approaching them like a blog post, with research and links, except no links, so I need to explain everything. 

Anyway, if you've made it this far, and I don't blame you if you haven't, thank you for reading. It's more fun for me to do if I think it amuses someone else as well. 

You can pretend to be amused. Humor me.

Squeeze; Cool For Cats

Archaeological Unearthing

...learn to work the saxophone/ I play just what I feel/ drink Scotch whiskey all night long....

This from my Yes, It's True That I Never Get Rid Of Anything, Not Ever file, otherwise known as my email inbox. It's my third or fourth one so far. Third or fourth email inbox, not YITTINGROANE file, as that's simply theoretical, and if I'd thought about it longer, I'd've come up with a name for it that results in a better anagram. I haven't gotten rid of anything in the three previous email inboxes, either.

Probably. I think.

Cue low sultry saxophone music.

I was meditating on the veranda... I call it a veranda, but it was actually more of a fire escape. I call it meditating, but it was really more relaxing than meditating, though smoking a cigar can, I suppose, be said to be meditative. In fact, here goes: Smoking a cigar can be meditative. I said it. 

At any rate, I was on the fire escape, smoking a cigar, the New York Times crossword half-finished on the coffee table inside the window... I say half finished, though it was somewhat less than half finished; considerably less, in fact; the fact is, it was barely begun, which would have been fine had it been from today's New York Times, but it was last week's, which, if you care to know the actual facts of the matter, was by this time, in fact, last month. 

I was meditating on the veranda, the New York Times crossword unfinished on the table when She walked in. I say walked, but it was really more of a glide, if it can be said that a wiggle is glide-like. 

So there was nothing to be done but step in through the window to greet my unexpected guest- or perhaps client- and carefully stub my cigar in the ashtray- I call it an ashtray, though it was actually a china cup with no handle from my great-Aunt Florence's second-best china service. I looked at her. She looked at me. It was in that moment wherein something perhaps magical was about to begin, that I suddenly remembered I was not wearing pants.

Once I realized I wasn't wearing pants, it became imperative that I pretend I hadn't realized I wasn't wearing pants. I say 'imperative' when what I actually mean is 'preferable' or 'inconspicuous', though neither of these are synonymous with 'imperative', as any idiot who'd actually finished a crossword puzzle would know. 

Rather than shamefacedly admit to Her that I'd forgotten, omitted, left out or realized I had no clean laundry during an important step in dressing myself this morning, I behaved as though I were wearing pants, or as though no one went round anymore bothering with the silly, passe trousers of yore. And whether She was pretending to not notice that I was pretending to have not noticed that I was not wearing trousers, or whether she in fact did not notice that I was not wearing trousers is a mystery that puzzles me even today.

 

"You have to help me, Mr. Dresden," she said, in that high-pitched breathless baby Marilyn Monroe voice that gets all men like a sucker punch to the breadbasket. I say sucker punch to the breadbasket, when what I mean is aphrodisiac, or headrush, or mind erasure. I struggled for something clever to say. If only I'd finished the crossword, I might've been able to think of something.....

Fade mournful sax.

To Be Continued....


...or maybe better left alone.



Steely Dan; Deacon Blues

Overwhelming Options

...too many fish in the sea/I said, there's short ones, tall ones, fine ones, kind ones....

[Productivity includes finishing unfinished posts, when creating a new one is Too Much Pressure. I've been down with a virus nearly a week now. I'mma cut myself some slack in this portion of my Kick Your Own Ass And Get Your Shit Together mission]

Too many choices is TOO MANY choices. Leads to immobilization.

I stood for, I shit you not, half an hour in front of a toothpaste display at my local Target, trying to select the right product for my family's needs. There were twelve feet by five feet of choices, shelves from ankle to above eye-level.

I ended up going with the Pepsodent. There were only two sorts, and it was easy to sort out which of the two I wanted.

A custom sewer I know mentioned indecisiveness on the part of a client, that the back-and-forth was time consuming. Wondered if she was offering too many choices, and maybe that made decisions more rather than less difficult.

I agreed, and think more than 4 leads to overwhelming. Suggested she ask a screening question: brights, pastels, earthtones, or black and white?

Then once the screening question has been answered, show 3 options in that category.

3 is psychologically right.

Good, Not So Much, Yuck. Or Blah, Better, I Like It.

(Additional branching is possible after Good/I Like It is achieved, if required.)

Though if the customer says Meh to all three, maybe offer additional options. HOWEVER.

It's just a baby carrier. You are not responsible for the permanent abiding lifelong happiness of your client, just that they have a carrier they are rather pleased to wear for the duration of time their child fits into it. I would think washability and disguise of spitup would be of more import than pattern.

However, mine is a post-parent brain. Presumably someone shopping for a babywearing sling is still in pre-parent mode, and likely pregnant. That first child teaches one's brain quite a bit.

Only brain surgery is brain surgery. Everything else is less pressure.

Marvellettes; Too Many Fish In The Sea

Biscuit, Please?

...you may not like/ the things we do/ only idiots/ ignore the truth....


We enter though the gate, returning from an outing. She holds it open for me, turns around to make sure it closes behind.

"Good girl," she murmurs, "good dog, good doggies."

Mother. Did you just say 'Good Dog' to me?

"Of course not."

Of course not.



Dog Eat Dog; Adam and the Ants

Door, Ajar

...no one remembers your name/ when you're strange....

Clever and Athletic Sister put a spring thing on the gate, so it closes itself.

This did not solve the problem of Mother leaving the back door wide open while she walked the dogs, allowing insect access, escape of air-conditioned coolness or furnace-generated heat.

It also didn't solve the horrorshow of back door madness that resulted when she allowed some unqualified hucksters to put an addition onto the side of her house. Aside from the 'powder room' that's completely non-functional due to uninsulated pipes that we turn off in the winter time, the inner door opened outward, and the outer door, one step away, opened inward. It also was crooked and wouldn't lock properly.

CAS thought a new outer door would be a good idea. I shopped at Lowe's for a hot minute, sent photographs of things I thought were nice and the price range they were. CAS's contractor husband ordered a thing called a "left hand outswing steel door".

Wes The Handyman came to install the door, which was a big hairy deal. Pugsley helped, because installing a door is really a two-person job, but Mother was so put out, hovering and disagreeable that CAS finally took her away to do some shopping and have lunch. Don't move Mother's water dish. Or, if you must, do it when she's not looking.

It became a two day job. On the second day, Wes put the old wooden outer door back on the inner door, where it always had used to be. It swings inward, and has a lovely old glass doorknob. The hooks for the dog leashes are embedded in it. But the hucksters had chopped it so it no longer fills the doorframe, leaving a four-inch gap at the bottom. The steel door helps keep the cold out, but the pipes in the "addition" aren't all that is uninsulated. Wes said he'd put a two-by on the bottom or something like that. I suggested "mudflap" because that's the sort of brain I have. He said he'd look when he went to get supplies to finish the cosmetic interior of the outer doorframe. CAS had purchased a programmable door lock, so that keys wouldn't be an issue. Pugsley did the programming. We all learned to use the fancy lock, including Lucy, so that she could teach Mother when Mother was calm.

Wes came back with some rubber stair treads, one for each side of the door. He cut them to fit, mounted them at the bottom and they work beautifully.

So. Mother has two doors that work, are no longer a booby trap because the inner one opens outward and the outer one opens inward and there's no space between them. Egress is smooth and easy. The cold mostly stays outside and the warmth inside, which I imagine will reverse when summer comes.

Except.

The gate shuts by itself, but the door hangs open again. Because Mother walks out with the dogs, leaving the door open. Both doors, actually.

When Lucy or I are with her, not so much. But she's still by herself for a significant portion of each day, for the time being.  This is worrisome if she's going to walk the dogs and leave the door open, notice she's low on dog food and decide to walk the mile or so to the grocery at 5pm on a windy evening, say Yes to various contractors who knock on her door... but she wants to retain her independence. Or her illusion thereof, which, between CAS, Lucy and me, we manage to permit.

So CAS orders a pump to make the outer door close automatically, just as the gate does. It solves the problem, mostly. The door doesn't actually latch unless it's pushed into place. However, it appears closed and it keeps the cold and the bugs on the outside.

We've showed her how to operate the lock. She understands it, mostly. It is a myth that Alzheimer's patients can't learn new things. It just takes repetition and mimicry. I've asked Lucy to implement the phrase, "Let's turn around and close the door," so that it will sink in, but with the new pump, that's not as important.

Yesterday, I took down three (well, two and a half; she came back into the room before I could finish) weird little contraptions that she's put on the inside of the inside door, to lock it. "For protection. I'm a woman living alone," she explained to Lucy on Monday, when she put up two different such mechanisms.

Never mind that the open doors left routinely by this woman living alone are much more of a hazard. That sort of logic doesn't apply.  I show Mother how to operate the lock mechanism from the inside of the outer door, so she won't need a hook and eye on the inside of the inside door, which will mostly just keep out people who come to help her.

Look. If you lock this one, you're safe, and only people who love you can come inside. She agrees that this is secure. But that was yesterday. She may have put up a new, poorly executed latch by this morning.

Daily entertainment. Never a dull moment.


The Doors; People Are Strange

Unsuitable Caregiver

...and if I ever lose my eyes, Oh if I won't have to cry no more....

I am not cut out for this. Look, I'm nobody's ideal of a caretaker. I'm nobody's ideal of a mother: I curse too much, tell the kids to hush when I'm writing and in general allow them to fend for themselves and scrounge for food instead of making regular meals. Naptime? Bedtime? Pffffff.

And yet. Due to Gomez being on the road pretty much full time, I've had sole responsibility for their upbringing in many areas. Parent teacher meetings (which were pretty low-key when we were homeschooling), extracurricular functions, social functions, age appropriate apparati, special projects, shopping, meals, rules and enforcement thereof... almost exclusively me.

It was exhausting.

I'd anticipated a few years of regrouping, maybe one or two pet projects completed in between children and Mother care. I don't get to have even one year, or even half a project. Mother needs more intervention: November. Monitoring her medication on a weekly basis: December. Remove Mother's car from her possession and start driving her everywhere she needs to go: January. Mother's diagnosis: February. Pugsley turns twenty-one: February. Daily monitoring of Mother's medications: March. Pugsley's accepted as a transfer student to UMD: March. Wednesday's accepted into art school: April. Pugsley graduates community college: May. Wednesday's senior class trip: May/June. Hire a part time companion for Mother: May. Wednesday graduates from Baltimore School for the Arts: June. Home visit from Department of Aging representative: June. Wednesday visits Poppi: June. Tiny four-day family vacation: June/July. Mother's friend actively resistant to letting us know when she's taking Mother for an outing: July. Part-time companion informs us she starts new full-time job soon: July. Interview with Case Manager to find new part-time companion: July. Robocall cancelling Mother's primary care doctor visit : July.  Lack of communication from companion provider company: July.

Her bifocals are missing. ExceedinglyAthleticAndVeryAdorableSister thinks the dog ate them.

That dog. THAT DOG.

He puts his mouth on EVERYTHING, including fingers, but Mother will tolerate discipline not one bit.

And as far as dogs go- and this is a sidebar- I have this to say about that, regarding Depression.

Likening depression to Winston Churchill's Black Dog helps me sometimes. Sometimes I glare at him and he lies down in the corner. Sometimes I wrestle him and I don't win, but neither does he. Sometimes he comes and lies down on top of me and all I can do is keep calm and keep breathing and wait for him to go away. He always goes away, but the days when he sits on me are now full of frustration and irritation instead of hopelessness and despair.


I'm thinking about Depression a lot lately, Since we've been unisured all year (it's complicated and Mother-related) I haven't been having my anti-depressants. I've been rationing my ADD/Narcolepsy drug I find myself responding to people my age-ish who complain about their parents being nosy, or old-school, or rude, or any number of complaints with comments like this one:

I go over to feed my mother once or twice a day, generally. Left to herself, she'll consume an entire box of fudgeicles and have no actual meals. She thinks she cooks for herself. She thinks she's 77. She's 72. The mind is a terrible thing.

I wish I had a point with this post, but sometimes, sometimes, it's nothing but complaints. It's nothing but exhaustion. 

No. Not "nothing but," because there are also moments such as this.

Mother spots a dried rose petal on my dash when she gets into the car. 

"Do you mind if I throw away this bit of... this... this dead..."

Petal?

"Yes, petal. Is it all right if I throw it away, out the window?"

I put it there especially for you so you could have a fun activity.

"A fun activity. Just like Romper Room."

And she tosses the petal out the open window as we drive. 


Cat Stevens; Moonshadow

Hoppin' Madness

...along came a man by the name of Charlie Mops/ and he invented a wonderful drink and he made it out of hops.....

Yesterday, the dog food was in the refrigerator. Today it was in the dog dishes on the floor in the kitchen. It's a warped life when normal looks odd.

Extremely Athletic Sister said today that Mother was on a tear about people lying to her and stealing from her. She said she didn't inquire, just redirected. Because from Mother's perspective, we did steal her dog and lied about taking the car to the mechanic.

When I arrived to share a beer, she pulled out that loop on me. Since she'd been spoiling for it all day, I went ahead and gave her an argument.

I gave her an argument.

She told me I was patronizing. I told her that her perception of her abilities and her actual abilities did not match, and that I could list examples all she liked, but she wouldn't believe me, and wouldn't remember, and then wouldn't remember later that I'd listed things for her.

And then I changed my tone, and we weren't arguing anymore.

I wasn't invested in the actual argument; I know I can't win. She can't, either, but if she wanted a good grouseabout, it's no skin off my nose.

She drank about half of the Natty Boh I poured into her glass, which was about half the can. I drank the other half, and then the rest of hers when she passed it to me.

I'm'a have beer with her again tomorrow.

Yes, I think I will.


Traditional Irish; Beer Beer Beer

Sedimentary Revelations

...memories/ light the corners of my mind/ misty, water-coloured memories....

I've compared the progress of the disease to sedimentary rock in a sandstorm, with the sand gradually wearing away the recent layers, destroying the rock formation, but in the process, revealing forgotten nuggets of information, memory, personal history.

"When I was a girl, there were places on the streetcar for white people to sit, and black people sat in another area. Same with the busses, everywhere. When I took a trip to New York City to visit an aunt, I saw a man and a woman, black and white, walking hand in hand. I had never seen that before. You didn't see it, not in the South."

My mother was born in 1944.

This one is more personal, and to do with Mason jar coffee.

"My mother used to carry her coffee with her in little bottles everywhere. She didn't make it, one of the maids did, but she'd carry it in glass bottles when we were away from home. We were on vacation, at a restaurant, and she ordered milk, and asked them to heat it up. And they would, you know. So the waitress comes with the hot milk on a tray. Meanwhile, my mother has poured coffee from the bottle in her bag into her cup that was on the table. So when this waitress pours hot milk into my mother's cup, all this dark stuff swirls up from the cup and wasn't she astonished, like a magic trick. Her face was very surprised."

I'm going to catch as many of these time capsules as I can manage, like ancient Pokemons of the mind. Now THERE's a Fixed Point event for you; it's been just 4 days since the Big Release of Go.


Barbara Streisand; The Way We Were 

Absurdness Normalized

...teach me how to be sensible/ logical, responsible, practical/ and they showed me a world where I could be so dependable/ clinical, intellectual, cynical.....

Four days ago:

When Extremely Athletic Sister comes in, talking to herself, except she isn't, she's on the phone, I beckon her to peek in the microwave.

In one of the divided dishes EAS got for meals-on-wheels- esque prepared suppers that we've been doing for her is....dry dog food. In the microwave.

I do not understand this. I do not expect to understand this. What I want right now is for someone else to not understand it with me.

EAS peeks. Her face crumples into a bulldog frown- I've always loved my sister's expressive face- and it tilts to the side a little. She waves arms and hands in a "What is this new madness?" gesture.

Mission accomplished. I am satisfied. I shrug at her and she, still frowning, wanders away, talking, listening.

Yesterday, via text, Extremely Athletic Sister to me:

         Discovered why mom puts the dog food in the microwave

And there is a longish pause. For suspense, I guess. 

        To keep the flies off of it
      
        Aha. Except not really.
               Since she keeps dog poo on the porch. And ties the screen door open.

    That kind of logic doesn't work here.

Damn straight it doesn't.


Supertramp; The Logical Song

Girl Scout

...any way you want to eat them it's / impossible to beat them/ but bananas like the climate/ of the very,

very tropical equator.....

She has an appointment at ten. Sister intends to arrive at nine, be at the office at nine thirty. It's eight thirty and she's not answering her phone. I drive over at 8:45, finally reaching her over the phone.

"I'm just going to take the dogs for a quick walk, just up the block and back, and then I'll jump in the shower and become clean, dried and dressed." I hear her, but I don't believe her.

I arrive, and the shower is running. I pull two gowns from her closet and leave them on her bed, then head downstairs to make some preparations. She's not going to have time for second or third breakfast, and I hope she's had first breakfast already.

Excerpt from the Jackie's World document I created for the person Mother calls "the babysitter."

Schedule, such as it is:Jackie thinks she wakes up early in the morning, by six-thirty or seven, so we’re going to let her go on thinking that, okay? She is almost always up before eight, though, and letting dogs out, giving them breakfast and having her grapefruit half. (note: the dogs do wake her up to be let outside between 6-6:30 but she will often go back to bed)

Breakfast comes in 4 parts: Grapefruit halfHavarti cheese and half a pearCoffee and crossword puzzlesTwo eggs and toast or English muffin

She doesn’t always get to all four of these parts, but can become agitated if any one part is missing. I think she phoned me 3 times in the amount of time it took me to get from my home to the grocery to her home, because she was out of grapefruit. I live ten minutes from her neighborhood, and the grocery is five minutes away from her. So. No more running out of grapefruit.

The most often skipped bit is the eggs and toast. She’s crabbier if she doesn’t eat eggs, but she doesn’t always feel hungry.
After Breakfast 1-3, she’s ready for her shower, if she has somewhere to go. She’s pokey about getting into the shower, but once there, washing and dressing (and doing hair and makeup!) takes maybe 20 minutes. If I put a clean outfit on her bed, she’ll choose a clean shirt and pants from the folded ones on top of her dresser. If I don’t put an outfit on the bed, she’ll put on whatever is on top of her dresser, which might be clean shirts and pants, but often is the clothes she took off last night. I try to put her already worn clothes into the laundry hamper, but I’m not always speedy enough to get to the dresser before she does.

If there’s time before we go out to our comings and goings, she has eggs. I offer her water and vitamins around now, if she hasn’t had them already. She likes the gummy vitamins very much.

She thinks she’s been making the coffee that’s in her carafe, but she hasn’t. I brew it in a ceramic cone and a mason jar, because I don’t understand that stupid little coffeemaker of hers.

"I don't eat the crossword puzzle," she always argues, but it doesn't matter whether she EATS it or not. If she NEEDS it for her good morning, it's part of her complete breakfast.

While she's in the shower, I'm in the kitchen. I found her newspaper. She's called three days in a row, claiming her paper isn't being delivered, asking me to get one for her. I don't know why she thinks she's not getting one. The paper I bought for her on Monday, I found two copies of on Tuesday. Tuesday's paper was on the table. It's Thursday. I unwrap the paper, fold it so the crossword is exposed, grab a pencil, tuck it in my bag. I peel a hard boiled egg, put it in a container, get a small container for salt and pepper, moisten some paper towels, fetch a plastic container of melon from her fridge. Everything goes into the Jackie Bag.

Sister arrives as I'm prepping, talking on the phone. Some very important work thing. Most of her work seems to be about phone calls and meetings. I don't really understand what she does. Whatever it is, it pays a lot better than what I do, which is take care of Mother, write, perform and work at the school or flower shop when I can.

I go to the car to get a gift I bought for Sister while I was on a tiny four-day vacation with my family, find a bottle of water and take it with me to tuck into the Jackie Bag.

"I'll be ready when I'm ready," she snaps, coming downstairs in a floral sundress, snatching her grapefruit half from the fridge. She roots through her silverware drawer, hunting.

"It's probably in the refrigerator," Sister offers.

"What is?" snarls Mother.

"You're looking for the grapefruit knife, aren't you?"

I fetch all three of them from the cheese drawer, where they appear to live now. Aha! This explains the frequent appearance of half the contents of her silverware drawer on the counter. She looks for the knife, gets frustrated, decides to have pear and cheese, and finds the grapefruit knives when she opens the cheese drawer. And the flatware doesn't put itself away in the drawer.

At the table, Mother mangles her grapefruit half, stuffing sections into her face. I hand her a cup of hot coffee, sit down opposite her, calmly, while Sister opens her gift.

"Your gift is in the fridge. I brought fudge for you. You had some last night, for dinner, I think."

"Sounds like dinner to me!" She brightens as she eats her fruit.

Once we've packed ourselves into the car and she finishes the cup of coffee, I begin offering breakfast items.

"I peeled an egg, would you like it?"

"Wow, an already-peeled egg, what luxury." She takes it. I pass the smaller container with salt and pepper, thinking she'll dip the egg. No, she sprinkles the spice onto the egg.

"Here, I have this container- you could sprinkle over that, instead of over your lap."

"It's a black and white dress. It won't show." She takes the plastic dish.

Next, I offer the banana, then take the peel, put it in the container that had the egg, offer a wet towel, then the bottled water.

"What a Girl Scout," my sister observes. No, these are skills left over from my diaper bag days. But I keep those words on the inside of my teeth. No need to point out what Sister has never done, or equate my mother, right in front of her, to a small child.

It does make me ponder, though, about how nobody bats an eye when one straps a human being into a seat, then ignores the resultant screaming with an indulgent smile, and it's all perfectly legal, as long as that human being is under three feet tall.


Elsa Miranda; The Chiquita Banana Song, 1945

Gradual Progression

...I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker/ and in short, I was afraid...


I went. It was fine. Pugsley helped.

Okay, I'm going to Muzzy's now. Do you want to come with me?

"Do you want me to come with you?"

It would be nice to have your company.

"Okay, let me get my wallet. We can have snowballs afterward."

With Muzzy, or without her?

"Either way."

He is a good human. We arrive and he plops on her sofa. I fiddle with food for her, cut in half the half a turkey sandwich on a plate inside a bread bag in her fridge, cut a few chunks off the mostly-dead pear on the plate in the cheese drawer with two paring knives and a grapefruit knife, put some grapes on it. Give it to her while I heat chicken-lentils and rice with green beans. She eats the sandwich and pears, a few of the grapes. I bring the warm food. She takes the pills I give her, complaining that she's likely to rattle. She pats the dog and tells him what a good dog he is, even though he ignores her when she tells him to sit. She keeps getting up to check on the other dog, see what that noise is, hunt in the fridge.

Whatchoo want, Mama?

"Some protein. I've got nothing but carbs there."

She pulls something, brings it to the table.

You have protein. There's lentils and chicken with that rice. There's fried chicken in the fridge if you want it, though.

"What is this, pizza?"

Looks like your daughter's lasagna to me. Do you want me to heat it for you?

"No, it's fine."

She has a few bites of it, cold, then puts it, the few green beans she doesn't want and the plate of grapes in the fridge, uncovered, on top of the egg carton. I show her the plastic boxes of pancakes and sliced bananas I've made up for her. I didn't say anything about the last batch I did for her, but I spotted their plastic dishes in the sink, so I know she found and ate them.

Is it okay if I close this back door? The bugs are getting in again. I ordered a screen curtain for you, like we talked about- it should be here any day. 

"Okay, but the dogs want a walk, even though they've had four walks today, the greedy things."

I'll go with you. 

I unclip the two leashes from the giant palm-sized D ring that's attached to them, hand the pink one to her. I clip the young dog to his leash. She fusses with the D ring.

Could we leave that home this time? You don't need it.

"Why do I need to leave it?"

You hit me with it yesterday.

"No I didn't! Did I?"

Yeah, so if it's okay with you, I'd rather it stayed home.

"On purpose?"

Yes, you hit me on purpose. 

I don't show her the bruises.

Is it okay with you if I move these bags of dog poop off of the porch, maybe near the garage? It'll decrease the flies on your porch and in your house.

"Why am I keeping dog poop on the porch? That's stupid."

I shrug and move the planter that has newspaper bag filled with poo. I'll deal with them tomorrow.

Our walk goes without incident, though she wants to argue with me that several walks up to the corner and back at her toddler's pace are enough exercise for her year-and-a-half old 75-pound dog.

Well, if you're too tired to want to go all the way around the block, you can go back home with Winnie, and Panda and I will get a bit more exercise.

"No, I think I can manage a whole block."

Of course she can. When she began getting easily fatigued, needing to stop and rest, moving at half speed, I don't quite recall. I think maybe three years? It's hard to pinpoint. When we arrive home, I give her a deck of cards, lay out a Solitaire hand with a second one. She shuffles the cards once and sets them aside. She looks towards the sofa a little longingly, but Pugsley is snoozing on it. I think that sofa is covered in sleeping powder. Anyone who sits on it goes to sleep fairly quickly. I ask if she wants to get ready to go out with her friend Dottie.

"Well, no. The corpuscles just aren't feeling up to it. I'd better not."

You ought to phone her, then, before you go having any naps. 

"You're right. I should do that."

She does not move.

Would you like me to bring the phone to you?

"Yes, thank you. That would be nice."

She makes a call while I lose at Solitaire, leaves a message.

"Want me to vacate the sofa so you can have your nap, Muzzy?" comes Pugsley's voice from the other room when she presses the disconnect button.

"No, that's why I have two sofas!" she says, making her way into the living room.

"Okay, then we'll leave you to nap in peace," he says.

"You don't need to. I can nap no matter who's here."

Good to know, but we should go now. 

We give her kisses and exit, but after we've closed her back door against the bugs, we notice it open again.

"How did that damn dog get out?" Pugsley wonders.

Did we not close the door firmly?

"No, we did... look, Muzzy isn't napping, she's sitting on the porch."

Well, whatever. I don't even know anymore. Thank you for coming with me.

"Sure. What flavor snowball do you think would go nicely with marshmallow? You said I owed it to myself to at least try it."

And we discuss. With these few words, he sidetracks me from despair.



T. S. Eliot; The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Medication Roulette

...let her under your skin/ then you begin to make it better....

I should have been there already.

I should have phoned already, probably twice.

I'll go, I will. I just can't, not yet.

It's not just that I'm sore (which I am) or that I don't know what to say (which I don't) or that I can pretend nothing happened and everything is fine (because I can't, and it isn't), but much more that I haven't forgotten, (though I'm fairly sure she has), I have almost but not quite forgiven, and that I don't trust her.

Do my bruises show? I can hide them; should I?

What do I say if she asks why I'm bruised?

How do I keep her from bringing the trowel with her every time we walk the dogs? (It wasn't the trowel this time, it was the metal part of the leash, but it could've been)

How do I feel if she doesn't notice the bruises?

When do I say, I can't handle this anymore?

Who needs to know? (So far, only Pugsley, who said, "Yeah, you should ice that." Much later he asked how I got it.)

The second medication is absurdly costly: $990 for a 90 day supply- the pharmacist called to warn me, because he said he'd almost fallen over when he saw the price; he'd knocked it down to 30 days' worth for $330- so we're making due for now with the samples from her neurologist's office.

Her first medication, which is supposed to slow progression of the disease, makes her irritable but alert, and (conversely) inclined to sleep more. The second medication, the expensive one which we added after a month, makes her pleasant and cheerful and sleepy. It came in a step-up pack, and she did gradually better with the increased dosage to a certain point. When she started being more sleepy than cheerful, I contacted her doctor to get a reduced dosage prescribed.

I went out of town for one day. Left at 10:30 in the morning, returned at 4:30 the next day. Called her, brought dinner to her. Walked the dogs. Didn't give pills to her. Did I leave some for Wednesday's dose? There weren't any there. Did her part-time helper give them to her, or did I not leave them in her pill box?

Last night I did the same, but she did get her pills. I made sure. Tonight I will do likewise. This may be entirely my fault.

Knowing that, strangely, doesn't make me feel better.


Beatles; Hey, Jude

Monday Morning

...feelings like I've never lost you/and feelings like I'll never have you/again in my heart....

She's taking more and more time to get ready for things, spending more and more time "examining the insides of her eyelids" and "holding down the sofa". She's happy, but blurry and out of focus.

We go out to the Honey Bee Diner for brunch after she teaches her yoga class. She's like a toddler, hungry every three hours or so, but not usually able to eat very much at one go.

Over pancakes, we discuss this and that. I try to play Hangman with her on the back of the placemat, but she doesn't remember how to play. I explain. She guesses O. I fill in an O.

What letter do you guess next?

"No, it's your turn to guess a letter. I guessed the last one."

She says it's hard to see the page. I ask why she didn't wear her new bifocals. She says she needs some new readers, as she can't find hers. I know why. Very Athletic Sister has removed most of them. I tell her we can go to the dollar store, but not for that.

"If you can't be bothered to take me to the dollar store for some new reading glasses, I'll ask a neighbor. Or I'll walk!"  As if that's a threat.

Of course I'd be happy to take you to the dollar store for anything you wish. But the dollar store readers don't help you. I say this because I've seen you with three pair of them stacked on your nose, and you asking me for the magnifying glass, which is right there on the table. 

We have this conversation two or three more times as she finishes eggs and bacon.

I distract her from eyewear, focus on her handbag. So we go instead to the Goodwill to shop for a small summer purse. I convinced her to let go of her threadbare denim one in December, I think, and now I tell her tweed isn't for spring and summer. We discuss how persistent February is this year, as today hardly seems springlike. I remind her of her mother, who used to keep many handbags in a doorhanger plastic sleeve, one bag for every three or four pair of shoes. I tell her we're not going to go overboard, but one bag for fall/winter and another for spring/summer is probably a reasonable thing. She agrees. We find also a pair of beige Crocs. I like that they have the heel strap. The sidewalks in her neighborhood conspire with her big dogs to make her stumble and fall. Her shoes do not need to become co-conspirators in her tumbles, the ones she swears she doesn't have.

We return to her home and she seems ready for a nap. I ask if it's okay if I take the dogs out for a walk while she gets started holding down the sofa. She agrees, but doesn't actually settle. When we three return, she's still dithering in the house. I give her kisses, fairly certain that once I leave, she'll lie down awhile. It is almost 2 pm. I arrived at 10 am. I try to imagine someone else doing things for and with my mother, having the morning with her that I have just had. I have several feelings wrap themselves into the folds of my brain, and am too weary to sort them just now. One that I can identify, however, is a sense of being left out. Another is relief. The anxiousness is understandable. There are at least three more, though, snarled in a bunch, that will require patience and maybe a pin to untease.

Morris Albert; Feelings

Missing Items

...you try hard to hide/the emptiness inside/ooh, I can tell I'm losing you....


What's missing recently?

Sunday: her day planner.

Monday evening: her old, perhaps non-operative, outdoor thermometer, the one with the bear on it.

This morning: her new outdoor thermometer, the one with the bird on it.

This evening, three dog leashes, one red, one black, one pink.

"Well, I'll just be like Scarlett O'Hara and worry about it tomorrow. I'm sure once we start looking for something else, it'll pop right up. Isn't it always the way? The minute we stop needing it, there it'll be."

Except the grapefruit knife. We bought a new grapefruit knife, and the old one still didn't show up for about  a week.

"But it did show up, didn't it? It was right there in the refrigerator."

The dog leashes aren't in the refrigerator. I checked.

"I know. So did I. Twice."



The Temptations; I'm Losing You

Shadow Marks

...why am I so doubtful whenever you are out of sight?/suspicion torments my heart....

The bruises have come in along my chin, right where the shadow of my jawline falls.

Being as she is unable to learn new things, I wonder where she learned to hit like that.

She never hit me like that before, only an open palm to the face (and once, the flat side of a butter knife, because it was in her hand.) So someone hit her like that, deep in her past. Under the chin, calculated to not show.

Logically, I should suspect my grandmother, which indicates someone did that when SHE was a child.

I actually suspect my great-grandmother, my grandaddy's mother, who was by all accounts a fierce, harsh diva who only wanted things one way: hers.

Of course, anyone who could confirm this for me is long dead.


Elvis Presley; Suspicion

Descending Spiral

...You spin me right round, baby/right round like a record, baby/right round round round....



"What's this round white one for?"

That's your Aricept. It is to help prevent further memory loss.

"And this little yellow one?"

That's the Levothyroxin that you've been taking all your life.

"Not all my life, just since I was thirteen years old."

(The age changes. She used to tell me 'since I was fifteen years old', or sometimes 'sixteen'.)

Okay, just since you were thirteen. What else can I tell you?

"What's the red one on the other side?"

That's a vitamin called luetine, and it's for your eyes.

"What's this big white one, then?

Magnesium and calcium for your bones.

"Well, I already have bones, so I don't need that. What about the little round white one?"

That's the Aricept for your memory. You should probably take it at night, because one side effect is that it causes dizziness in some people. If you take it before bed, you won't care that you're dizzy."

"And the little yellow one? What is that?"

That's your thyroid medicine.

"I'm going to rattle if I take all these pills!"

You don't need to take the vitamins if you don't want them. The eye doctor just suggested it would be good for you to have some luetine, and calcium is good for your bones. 

"Which ones are the vitamins? The gummy ones I know are multivitamin. I've taken those already."

The red one is for your eyesight and the white one is for your bones.

"I guess that's calcium. But what's this round white one? Is that a vitamin?"

That one is your Aricept. For your memory. It's not a vitamin, it's a prescription medication. 

"Am I supposed to take that one at night? What about this little yellow one?"

That's your thyroid medicine. Yes, you should take the white one at night. If you want to take the yellow one at night, too that should be fine.

"I'll see what I feel like doing when the time comes. If I don't want to do it, I'm not going to do it, and you can't stop me, so nyah-nyah to you. What about this red one?"

Take that one whenever you want. It's a vitamin to help your eyesight. 

"I'm going to rattle if I take all these! Doctors, they just want to prescribe pills for everything now."

Only the little yellow one and the round white one are prescriptions. The others are vitamin supplements. You don't need to take them if you'd rather not.

"Is this yellow one my thyroid medication?"

Yes, that's levothyroxin.

"What's this white one? Did I already ask you that?"

You did, but I'll tell you again as often as you need. It's Aricept, to help prevent further memory loss.

"I think you probably told me that already."




Dead Or Alive; You Spin Me 'Round(Like A Record)