Yesterday's Lemons

...When life gives you lemons/ You don't make lemonade/ You use them to make girls cry/ You take those lemons/ No sugar at all/ And you squirt it right into our eyes...

It's not a metaphor. 

Okay, of course it is, but it's not only a metaphor. 

I've been squeezing a lemon most mornings and adding hot water, then steeping the rind in more hot water for a beverage all day. I have been finding the leftover rinds really useful for scrubbing greasy surfaces, or lifting nasty odors. It takes awhile for the rinds to be "used up" because they're sturdy and long-lasting, several days beyond when I consumed the juice. 

And but so not that I'm in the habit of taking health advice from Hollywood celebrities, but I've been rather a fan of Drew Barrymore since she was a little kid in ET, and especially loved her in 50 First Dates which I saw finally a couple of months ago (I've recently discovered that I have an affinity for Adam Sandler movies; the hell, man?) but she's awfully cute in this video about lemon water. Oh, hey, Primarily Decorative is back; look at her adding a superfluous sentence because she hates one-sentence paragraphs, no matter how long the sentence is. Immaterial that it's been three years (really? yeah, really) since she's updated this once-upon-a-time daily blog- Blogworld doesn't judge (hush) and so I'mma switch from Third Person back to First and pick up as if there's been No Interruption Whatsoever. 

My blog, I do what I want. 

MomLife has been many iterations of surreality. During increasing levels of intervention at her home, EAS and I took her "shopping" for care homes, and all three of us had a preference for the same place, which is a 35 minute drive from my home instead of 11 minutes driveway to driveway, and re-homed her after a month or so of weekly visits there to join (ideally) or observe (less so) group activities in a well-intentioned attempt to acclimate her to her new home before the move. It still did not go well. 

I had begged EAS to schedule the move for November, when I DON'T have baseball or RenFest going on, but she does things when they are convenient for her, and damn the torpedoes. "You won't need to do anything; I'll take care of moving her. " I don't know whether she believed that or only told me that. It's hard to know. At some point in the last 5 years (and I've known her for 50) I made myself face the fact that she lies to me to get me to cooperate, or at least stop arguing with her. 

Anyway. Future posts may include The Three Day Turkey Dinner, A Great Disturbance In The Force, Turducken vs Churkendoose, Four Days In New Orleans, Train Museums And When To Find Them, How To Travel With Your Addled Elder, Kindness Of Strangers, Soft And Fuzzy Things, The Library and Playing Ball. 

Actual titles may vary.

Brye; Lemons

Post Seedlings

...it's a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in bacon...mmmmmmm....

Reciprocity in relationships being an unattainable and possibly imaginary ideal, one is more enlightened when one realizes that there is never a reciprocal relationship. They're all uneven, one way or another.

Remind me to tell you the Joe Walsh story, Audience of One

Complex feelings about one of the many Michaels I know: I am a canvas on which he paints. Thinking what he liked about me was that I liked him and thought he was okay no matter what.

The Prince and how he felt all was not right in the universe when Coco and I weren't speaking

All the stories about Mother. Chronologicality is irrelevant.

Make me an offer I mustn't refuse. Most of the time a mobile home is more trouble than it's worth to maintain. Home on the range, safe with a flange Myopic microcosm of macaroni and mollycoddled macaroons

Now I'm just playing with the M and the O keys because they started off sticky and that worried me for a bit. Now they seem to operate fairly well or else my fingers have adjusted.

It's my new/old laptop, yet another sturdy, hard-to-kill used HP, bought from Cellphone Doctors in beautiful downtown Glen Burnie, with birthday money from Daddy.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. We hold these truths to be self evident.

Truth? You can't handle the truth. 

But I will tell you it anyway.

Passing Thought

...I don't wanna live like this, but I don't wanna die....


When I cut myself while
I'm cooking, I'm careful
to not bleed into the food because
what if
my family likes it?



Vampire Weekend; Finger Back

Hello, Honville

...it's a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in bacon...mmmmmmm....

She: Riding on a Lark style-scooter, steering one-handed, rounding the corner of an obscured street onto Ritchie Highway.

He: Perched on a shelf on the back of the scooter, hands braced on her shoulders, toes of his dirty sneakers tucked under a grey plastic shopping bag full of... something.

It: Sitting, held on her lap like a toddler in need of an allover haircut, tail draped trailing over one ample thigh.

Could've been kids. Should've been, probably.

But they were all over 40.

Well, I don't know about the dog.

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

March Snapshot

...a ship out on the sea/ contradicting words/ that’s not how it’s supposed to be/ caught in a battle that’s not your own.... 

March 22, 2018-

I arrived a bit before 11 am, found evidence that Mother had let the dogs outside and fed them. There was no indication that she'd eaten any breakfast, and she was in the bed, but with clothes on. They may have been yesterday's.

I offered breakfast, and even though she said she had eaten breakfast, she came down while I prepared oatmeal with banana, 2 eggs fried in olive oil, buttered English muffin with fig jam, juice, coffee, meds, vitamins and a whole pear, sliced, with Swiss cheese. She ate and ate until about 12:15, and then we walked dogs around the block together. I bundled her up really well with boots and gloves and everything. Jackie tried to tuck a tissue into her bra strap and eventually laughed when she realized she was having trouble doing that because she wasn't wearing a bra. 

12:30 pm- When we returned, I got started shoveling and she I guess looked at the newspaper or rested on the sofa. When I came in, I encouraged her to shower so we could go out. She did, and I gave her a lunch of tuna salad, celery sticks and crackers, I went back to shoveling. She poked her head out and said, "Aren't you done yet? Leave that; it'll melt soon enough. I can make you some nice hot cocoa." I told her I wasn't done yet, and would be in after a little while longer.

No one seems to understand that being out while it's snowing, driving during snowfall and shoveling the snow, that's really the only bit of winter weather that I enjoy.

Once I'd finished, I shot a pic of her walk to send to EAS, and of Mario and Mother's cleared walks to put on Timmy's FB so he'd know I'm keeping an eye and headed indoors. Mother told me she'd made me some nice hot cocoa. I said that was sweet but I'd rather have water. Did she finish her tuna sandwich and celery?

"Yes, of course I did," she told me.

Of course you did.

"Oh. I guess I didn't make that cocoa for you after all."

I told her I'd rather have a glass of water, as I was warm from the exercise anyway. After that, we went out in search of cocoa packets, as she was down to only 2, including the one she 'made' for me. 

3pm- Costco was open and mostly empty and had no cocoa. I bought seaweed salad for her, though, and Pillsbury crescent rolls, and a jar of chocolate hazelnut spread, which I hid on the bottom pantry shelf, in the corner. Then we went to Aldi. Aldi ALSO had no cocoa packets, but I bought bananas for her. She said, "A Casa, Jaimie," but I was intent on those cocoa packets, so we went to Shop Rite, and she bought cocoa packets, Belvita biscuits, banana chips, yogurt pretzels and raisin bread with her card. 

By then it was 5:30, and the light was waning. Instead of removing our coats, we got dog leashes and walked around the block before it got all the way dark. I put some crescent rolls in the oven while I did a bit more shoveling, and then heated Jambalayah for her supper. She ate supper around 6:15 or so, two crescent rolls, a bowl of Jambalayah, and finally drank her juice. I fed the dogs about 6:30.

6:45- I asked if she wanted to play with My Singing Monsters. She did not. After a dessert of a lemon tea cake, she was ready for bed. We brushed teeth together and she swished with Crest rinse. She didn't want me to help her put on a nightshirt, so I went downstairs. By 7:10, I heard no more pouncing from upstairs.

I washed dishes, freshened her pillboxes, put out a fresh can of wet dogfood near the food bin where she could see it and removed a few sale circulars to the recycle bin.  I made snack packets with the snacky things from the grocery. 

8 pm I turned out lights, locked up and left. 

It was a good day. Little Jackie had very little looping, no snotty remarks and wasn't argumentative at all. She exercised some, ate plenty and did not grab for all the cookies at any of the grocery stores we visited. She was pleasant and good-humored, and we enjoyed the pretty snow. 

Sean McDonald; Flower In The Snow

Skin Deep

...I don't believe them when they try to tell me / life is more than / skin skin skin skin deep...

"Are they actually more lovely, pound for pound, measurement for measurement... than any other women you've known? Or is it that they just... well, act beautiful?" –Dr. McCoy, Star Trek TOS

Which is the point of the episode, in case you don't remember.

"It wasn't until years later that I realised people weren't making a fuss over me because I was some incredible beauty or genius; they were making a fuss over me to compensate for my being slashed. I accepted all the attention at face value and proceeded through life as if I really were extraordinary." ---Tina Fey

Of course it's arguable that she actually IS extraordinary, or became so. Self-fulfillingness and all of that. Predetermination because she was smart and clever and funny, and that was never going to not be realized.

Why one should never say "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," from The Book Of Life blog:

It’s a phrase with the power to silence. Once it’s been uttered, trying to keep up a dialogue about the merits or drawbacks of certain visual things can come across as shrill, anti-social or just plain rude.

This tendency to surrender to relativism is a paradoxical symptom of a scientific age. Science, the most prestigious force in modern society, deals in objective truths. The things it passes judgement on are obviously simply not in the eye of beholders. One can’t fairly say: ‘Well I don’t really feel that way about the boiling point of water or the nature of gravity.’ We have to be subservient to the facts science hands down to us.

Although lately, even science has been subjected to subjectivism. Everything is. Bad behavior "on all sides," a legitimate investigation termed "witch hunt," any sort of criticism becomes "bullying," and calling someone out on actual bullying is "reverse bullying." Beauty seems simpler, because it is superficial and everyone knows it, or should.

I'm a big fan of The Bombshell Manual Of Style, as is xoJane who is very obviously much MUCH younger than I as evidenced by her remark about Britney Spears in 2001.

At any rate, the Bombshell Manual, in addition to being rather foundational for my own Principles of Princessness, casually remarked that women who are beautiful treat themselves as if they are beautiful. The inverse is also true. Women who treat themselves as if they are beautiful (and, as Dr. McCoy suggests, "act beautiful") ARE.

I adopted that awhile ago, in hopes that treating myself like a bombshell would help me feel like one (it does) and that would reflect in my approach to most everything (it has) and encourage self-care while staving any temptation to 'let myself go' and not in the Frozen way.

Someone hoped I wouldn't be offended that he shared a remark about a co-worker who just loves my rear end.

Yeah, I get that a lot. It's been following me around almost my whole life. 

Mind you, this is YESTERDAY, not a decade ago.  I've recently been feeling a great deal of angst about my own age-related irrelevancy and fading attractiveness. The world is harsh for women such as me, who haven't yet achieved the goddesshood of Emma Thompson, Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren, Glen Close, Jane Fonda or Betty Davis. Although, last week, a young intoxicated man who was celebrating his birthday, the same number Pugsley celebrated in February, was about to get separated from his friends, and I said he should hurry to catch them or risk spending his birthday with me.

"I dunno, you seem pretty cool," he replies. I insist he should party with people his own age.
"Oh, come on," says he, "What are you, like, 32?"

Wondering how many beers exactly he's already consumed, I reveal my actual age, at which he goggles.

I'm really good with makeup.

In any case (and I may have mentioned this) I don't take remarks about my own looks particularly seriously. I don't get to keep them (though I'll fake them as long as I can) and the Legendary Ass will eventually degrade into myth. I've tried to cultivate Cute And Fluffy, along with Charming and Witty, because I maybe CAN keep those, and no one is ever going to notice my large and beautiful brain.

Which, if my mother and grandmother are any yardstick, I also won't get to keep.

Vanity and fear, my defining qualities. Nice.

Crack The Sky; Skin Deep