the state of things
Bush is scheduled to give his State of the Union address on Tuesday. I doubt if I'll watch him. I don't need any more reminders of how disillusioned I am by life on all levels these days.
I can't even get the Sunday edition of my local newspaper, the Times Herald-Record, delivered the way it should be. It took me seven phone calls and six weeks to have them get the Sunday paper here the first time. And they still haven't put up one of those tubes for newspapers delivered to rural customers. They leave the paper on the side of the road in a plastic bag. I'll make phone call number eight tomorrow and give them one more week to get the tube up. Otherwise I won't renew my subscription.
There's a commentary by a local resident in the paper today, however, that deserves mention because he quotes the words of General Dwight D. Eisenhower 45 years ago as he was ending his term as President of the United States.:
"'In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence ... by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"'We must never let the weight of this ... endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. ...
"'Today ... the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.
"'It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system - ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society. ...
"'As we peer into society's future, we - you and I, and our government - must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.'
Whatever happened to that kind of moral Republican leader??
And here, on the home front, she washes paper plates, folds up sheets of paper towels and makes neat piles of them in her dresser drawer, keeps wanting to dance, takes out her hats (of which she has boxes) and reorganizes them. She needs something to do, something she can do. I ordered a "pencil by number" kit of flowers and hope that she might occupy herselp with "coloring." We can hang up what she finishes on the porch.
I've been giving her iron and B-12 pills, and she seems to be stronger physically, even though she still sleeps away half the day. What the hell, she has nothing more interesting to do.
This week I will get a massage and a hair cut -- not from the same person, of course.
I sit by my window and wait for a sunny day.
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it's all about me
On 20/20 tonight, a program about mothers and daughters. I couldn't identify with most of it, except for the older Jewish mother and her daughter. I could learn from that daughter, who counters her mother's criticisms with humor. Why can't I just make a joke out of the controlling things that my mother still tries to lay on me??
OK. So that program wasn't really all about me. But an ebook I downloaded from my library does resonate a lot more with me, especially since the adult main character finds herself stuck back at her parents' house because her mother has alzheimer's and her father is dying of colon cancer. What she says about her mother is about mine too, and this quote did make me smile because it's so true.:
Wherever she went she left behind a trail of soggy tissues.
Oh, man, do I know that trail. They fall off her lap, out of her sleeves, from between her bony fingers. They overflow from the pockets of everything she wears. I'm always bending down to pick up those soggy tissues. And that's all both very real a very apt metaphor for just about how it goes around here these days..
I bought myself a refurbished iRiver multi-media player that they don't make anymore to which I downloaded two audio books to listen to as I try to fall asleep each night. I got if off ebay for a pretty reasonable price; it will probably take me the rest of my life to learn how to use all of its features. But all I care about now is using it for my ebooks and NPR podcasts. Next, I'll teach myself how to download photos of my grandson. Maybe even a little video of him. Good exercise for the brain.
It's supposed to be a nice day coming up. In the 50s. I'll haul my mother out of bed by noon and we'll get in the car and go somewhere. Maybe we'll get lost -- although I'm not sure I can get any more lost than I am.
It's all about me.
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facing the facts
First, some fact-facing from the contemporary woman I most admire, Molly Ivins:
President Bush says it's a great idea and he's proud of the secret spy program? Attorney General Gonzales explains breaking the law is no problem? Dick Cheney says accept spying, or Osama bin Laden will get you?
Or might we actually have gotten far enough to point out that the series of high-profile security events is in fact part of a propaganda campaign by our own government?
A Molly Ivins column a day keeps defeatism at bay.
Meanwhile in the little picture, "Snow, snow," she says as she wanders around her bedroom.
"Yup, ma," you say. "There's lots of snow outside."
She shakes her head and waves her hands, frustrated that you can't understand her. "Snow, snow," she repeats. Then she puts her hands to her face.
"Ah," you say. "NOSE! You want a tissue to wipe your nose, right?"
Right.
More and more often she sounds like a schizophrenic. She knows what she wants to say, but her brain reverses letters, skips to another track, leaves her frustrated and frightened. It's worse when her pain is worse. The pain makes her cry.
Such are the facts, here, as you put your arms around her and hug her and she kisses your neck. "You're my mom," she says. "I love you."
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post it and they will come
I continue to get relevant comments on posts I made a while ago. Sometimes those comments behoove me to go back and re-read that post. This is one of them well worth re-reading.
As education specialists of every ilk scramble to respond intelligently to the recently publicity about how girls are now doing a lot better than boys in school and what to do about it, I can't help repeating what I said in my previous post: "Everything we are is in our brain."
BUT that doesn't mean -- even if gender IS in the brain -- that all of our personality traits, including learning styles, are gender based.
Like many boys, some girls are tomboys and learn better when they can move around and not have to sit still. Some boys, like many girls, get totally involved in process and are not, by nature, assertive.
It seems to me that education first has to address the kinds of intelligences that children can have, and no two children will have the same balance among those intelligences. In dealing with each child as an individual, issues of gender=based tendencies become irrelevant -- or they would become irrelevant if that's the way education was conducted. Each child would be enouraged, motivated, and rewarded for honing skills in all the various intelligences. What would eventually happen in terms of learning "styles" and gender, I'd bet, is that we'd wind up with a bell curve, with some girls all he way on one end, a whole bunch of girls and boys rising from each end toward the middle, and some boys on the other end.
And, maybe someday the advice given by a character that I quoted in that old post will resonate respectfully with both genders:
"What I have done is be a woman, with all my feminine qualities intact, in a world that was run completely by men. And you know something? They appreciated it. They didn't exactly move over and make room for me --I had to carve out my own space among them, but that was nothing different than any of them had had to do. That's something some women don't seem to understand. Nobody is accepted right away. Everyone has to prove themselves. The world will never make room for you-- you have to make it yourself. You have to make your own place, and stick to it. And there's nothing weak whatever about those same feminine qualities, Haley. That's what I want you to recognize. They are not a liability. They are a strength."
I wonder what the male equivalent of that kind of statement would be.
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fire in the brain, fire in the belly
Nah, not mine.
I'm thinking about my 3 1/2 year old grandson who's having chronic digestive problems. Poor kid. They're testing him to see what's going on.
On the other hand, his brain is full of that good fire. My daughter tells me this story:
He doesn't just absorb and retain things, he makes connections and builds bridges in his head -- there's a line in the Polar Express at the end, "The thing about trains is, it doesn't matter where they are going. What matters is deciding to climb on board."
Last night we were playing trucks in his room and he suddenly said, "The thing about trucks is, it doesn't matter where they are going." After I got over my shock, I said, "what does matter?" He smiled and said, "Climbing over me to the other seat and getting in."
Everything we are is in our brains, it seems. As I watch my mother's brain slowly, slowly shut down, I am even more aware of that.
On 20/20 last night, Norah Vincent shared her experience pretending to be a man while she researched her book "Self-made Man: One woman's journey into manhood and back." During her interview, she makes the point that "gender is in the brain."
Our brains, ourselves.
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love that virtual library!!
Since I live about a 20 minute drive through the mountains to get to my "local" library, I'm just beside myself with delight (interesting image, isn't that?) now that my regional library system has instituted a way to download ebooks, including audio ebooks -- which is what I tend to borrow because I fall asleep easier when I'm distracted from my daily realities by listening to fictional escapades.
Being a technological idiot, it took me a while to figure out how to use the software that you have to download, but I did manage to blunder my way through it. As of now, I have two novels burned into CDs, and as soon as I buy more RW discs, I will burn some more.
The one I'm listening to these nights is Elizabeth Berg's The Year of Pleasures. I've read other stuff of hers, which are definitely "chick picks," but she writes well and has a gift for making you see and feel another woman's inner life.
Mom's still sleeping, and it's just after noon. I can get some work done around here if I put my mind to it. Heh.
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Eva in the Afternoon
I'm listening to Eva Cassidy while the sweet bread rises in the bread machine, the apple crisp bakes in the oven, and I sautee onions and mushroom for a turkey meat loaf that will be for dinner. My mother is still sleeping at 1:30 in the afternoon. She sleeps about 15 hours a night these days, including many trips to the bathroom.
I usually sleep late too, but on this pouringly dismal day, I'm up earlier than usual because of a series of return phone calls from various doctors. My tests came up with nothing to indicate why I am getting "head rushes" accompanied by a fog that drifts over the lower part of my right eye. So I guess I'll get my eyes checked, again. I made an appointment with a neurologist for my mother to see what we might be able to do about pain management for her. Ah drugs!
Meanwhile, I cook. I hate to clean. I leave that until when I can't stand it any more. I figure I've accomplished something when I clean up from my cooking.
Across the evening sky all the birds are leaving
Oh but then you know it was time for them to go
By the winter fire I will still be dreaming
I do not count the time
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self-indulgence
While my mother is sleeping, I should be cleaning up my littered living space. Instead, I'm eating Post's Maple Pecan Whole Grain cereal laced with half and half and reading the February issue (not yet online) of Harper's magazine and listening to Josh Groban. Well, that was a few minutes ago. Now I'm at the keyboard instead of cleaning up my littered living space.
I'm blown away by an article in Harper's called "Crapshoot -- Everyone loses when politics is a game" by Garret Keizer, which explores the great divide between "players" and "workers."
Some quotes:
-- A player is characterized by the consciousness that he is different from ordinary people. That difference is key to his self-understanding.
--The Democratic Party offers to validate your identity. The Republican Party instead offers to give you an identity -- that of a player.
-- For the true worker, the pleasure is in the work. The pleasure of the player, on the other hand, is in "having it made."
-- Exculsion is contained in the very definition of the player. If everyone goes onto "the field," it's no longer the field. It's a park.
-- The player cannot imagine himself in different terms, but the worker has a second incarnation. When work is denied he becomes a fighter.
-- People who say, "America is now a deeply divided country" are either facetious or naive. It has always been a deeply divided country."
As Home Health Aids rally today in Central Park for fair worker wages, I am particularly attracted to some of Keizer's reflections on religion:
"The most interesting kinds of religion, for my money, challenge the Gnostic pretensions of the player. The Buddhhist bodhisattva, for example, is a player who thinks like a worker. Elite in his attainment, he refuses to enter Nirvana "until the grass itself is enlightened." Blessedness for the bodhisattva means joining the union When Eugene Debs said that as long as there was a criminal class, he was in it, that "While there is a soul in prison I am not free," he was talking like a bodhisattva. He was talking like one of the worker saints. Not for nothing is Jesus remembered as a caprenter, like the stonecutter Socrates. Both were markedly blue collar in their approach to wisdom. Introduce them to a player, and their natural inclination was to take him down a peg......
"Consider you own call, brothers and sisters, "St. Paul (a tentmaker) writes to the church at Corninth. "Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, but many were of noble birth." Not many of you were players, in other words. The rise of evangelicals in American politics is the latest attempt to rectify that deficiency. It is an attempt with theological parallels in the frequently intoned evanglical credo -- derived interestingly enough from St. Paul himself and distorted by any number of stadium preachers since -- that it is "faith in Jesus Christ" and not good works that saves the believer. In the extreme version, the "Saved become players, with Jesus consigned to the role of their Unclue Guido. He made a deal for us on the Cross. We don't have to work. Wer're made man. The ethical agnostics, the observant Jews, the wetback Mexicans mumbling over ther beads in the backs of cattle trucks (the same people we hire at slave wages to watch our kids and diaper our parents) let them believe in the necessity of good works. It's rather convenent that they do.
As for us, our Godfather is in heaven. Or maybe in the White House.
Keizer's lengthy piece is worth totally quoting. Certainly worth buying the February copy of Harper's to read.
So, before I get back to work, I'll end with the following quote, which reminds me of what I used to tell my Dad: " When the revolution comes, you know what side I'll be on."
The worker, on the other hand, has a second incarnation, and this is what makes him more interesting. When the opportunity of work is denied to hm, or too many of the fruits of his labor are withheld from him, the worker becomes a fighter. He and she have done this many times........ You may say that players fight too, but that is a comparatively shallow statement. What players do is use weapons for toys -- and workers. Jousting, counting coup, reciting one's deeds and lineage in an epic poem -- that is all player stuff, and the worker hasn't got time for it. The worker's approach to fighting is, like his approach to everything else, decidely workmanlike. The worker's way of war is to bust heads and get back to work.
And I guess that's what I'd better do.
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her dancing shoes
She still sleeps a lot and has pains all over her body. But she's more lucid in the moment (can't remember what happened yesterday) and keeps wanting to dance.
She can't dance in her backless slippers, wants something with a leather sole.
So I get on the Net anf finally find a pair of suede soled slippers -- black brocade ballerina slippers. She can wear them around the house and they're not too expensive. No tax and free shipping. I order a size bigger than she normally takes, hoping they will be wide enough for her troubled feet.
Do the Chinese use a different shoe template than we do? Made in China, they arrive too small. Free shipping back. I reorder an even larger size and hope for the best.
She wants to dance, and she wants dancing shoes.
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the way to hell is paved with outsourcing
As a nation, we don't only outsource and "leave to the other guy" basic life-saving services, like the ones that would have saved those dozen dead miners -- as the NY Times reports:
This devastating timeline is at the core of a detailed report by Ken Ward Jr., a reporter for The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, that questions whether some of the 12 fatalities might have been prevented by a faster, better-organized rescue effort.....
As individuals, we outsource the care of our children, our elderly, our homes, even our meals. And, with this outsourcing comes a detachment from all of those connections to people and actions that, until these days, have been at the core of what being a human being living on this planet is.
We idolize the machines and mechanisms that disconnect us from the limitations of our human bodies. We outsource the capcities of our own minds to the machinations of those various entertainment and physical labor saving machines.
No, I don't want to back to the dark ages, and obviously, as I sit here at one of those machines, I'm not anti-technology -- especially technology that saves lives and makes physical work easier.
But as I watch how much my ailing mom needs to be with family, needs to have a sense of being truly cared for -- as I do the physical things for her that I could outsource -- as, last night, I watched a tv commercial that ends with "Good Night, John Boy" -- and as I read the Times article about how those men would have been saved had there been less corporate penny pinching and more human consideration -- I got to thinking that this outsourcing phenomena is leeching us of our connections of what is important about living in these bodies.
Which is all why I didn't outsource my mother.
But I'm thinking that, when I'm her age, having lived so long in a society based on outsourcing, I will not think it odd or dehumanizing to use that outsourcing service myself.
Times change. Not always for the better.
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one a day
One day it was a visit to the dentist (me). The next, the doctor's (me). The next a screaming meltdown (me). I'm having some weird symptoms -- head rushes accompanied by a fog that drifts over the lower part of my right eye. Next week I'll go for a neck sonogram and a blood test and see what they turn up. I imagine it's just stress. Did I say JUST stress????!!!
I'm making every effort to take care of myself while we try to take care of my mother. She's eating very well but is still weak. And her ability to focus mentally on anything continues to wane. She wants to talk incessantly because that's all that she seems able to do, unless she goes into her bedroom and moves things around in her dresser drawers -- which my sibling thinks she shouldn't do (he wants her to sit and watch tv and rest) but I think is better for her than just sitting and sleeping all of the time. When we sit together, she drives me crazy telling the same stories over and over, asking the same questions, confusing situations and people... I'm getting to the point at which I can't stand spending time with her when I don't have actual caregiving chores to do. Those I actually don't mind. I like to be busy.
When she goes to her follow-up doctor's appointment next week, he will give us a referral for some home care that Medicare will pay for. What she needs more than anything is a companion -- someone without the baggage I still carry around who might even find her an amusing and charming little old lady. I have never found her either, and I can't get past that.
I do try. I really do. Every day if she feels up to it (and the idea always seems make her a little more chipper), I turn on the CD player and spin some of those oldies that a college chum sent me and some slow polkas that our cousin down in Florida sent us, and we do some small dance steps around the living room. I let her lead. She likes to do jitterbug turns under my arm, but much more slowly than they are supposed to be done. She smiles. I smile. She is up and moving and she doesn't need to talk. The music makes us both feel better. Dancing is the one thing we both like to do.
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The comments I keep getting from blogger friends also makes me feel a lot better. And I also get encouraging comments and emails from non-bloggers who have googled something they were interested in and found my site by happenstance. And, of course, of course, my family. It all makes a difference in helping me keep on keeping on. It really does.
So, thanks to Shelley the Burningbird, and Maria at Alembic, and the divine Betsy, and tamarika, and to all of you non-bloggers who also keep me in your thoughts.
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I keep thinking that I always have the choice to turn around and walk away from all of this. Maybe that's what keeps me here -- knowing that I have the choice not to be. In my mind, I put myself in her place, in her head. It's scary. Really scary. I keep telling myself that I won't become like her. I've lived a different kind of life, physical, mental, creative. I will not allow myself to become bored; there are too many things I like to do. And I can do lots of them sitting down, if I'm limited in that way. If I keep using my mind, use it so that I don't lose it, maybe I won't be stuck someday driving my own daughter crazy telling the same stories over and over, asking the same questions, over and over, and confusing past, present, and fantasy.
Please, please. I hope.
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surprises and no surprises
I guess I've been a little surprised by the outpouring of support from so many of my fellow bloggers, especially those from the "old blodays," those I was sure had forgotten about me.
Like prolific Mike Golby so far away in South Africa. I used to read his blog all of the time, even though I often got lost in his erudition. What a warm surprise it was to read his comment.
I wasn't surprised but was just as pleased to hear from Dave Rogers, with whom I shared a few beers just about a year ago in Albany. He is much more widely read than I've ever been, even in the best of my gloryblog days, and I'm sure his mention of my current situation in his own weblog was instrumental in others tracking me down.
I certainly was not surprised to hear from Jeneane Sessum, sister Blogsister, and my very first blogfriend. Jeneane also emailed me the following, which she got from here:
Carers Wish List
I wish:
I could watch a television programme all the way through
I could go to bed when I want to and sleep through the night
I could get up when I want to
I could do something on the spur of the moment
I didn’t have to watch the clock for tablets and toileting
I didn’t have to worry all the time about the person I care for
I wish things could be as they were.
Yes, that sounds about right to me.
In checking out Jeneane's recent posts (which I don't do often enough lately), I also noticed on that she was reminiscing
about those good ol' blogdays when we were all leaving voice mail messages on Gary Turner's phone over there across the Atlantic, and then he would have them available to listen to on his weblog. Back then, blogging was full of fun stuff like that.........
........to be continued
There are other blogger friends I'd like to link to in thanks for their comment-encouragement, but it's now 1:30 a.m., I've already had to get up and get my mom to the bathroom three times and the last time she wanted to get up and have something to eat so we did. On top of that, I'm still not familiar enough with using this laptop, and so it takes me twice as long to post something from it. I started this post somewhere around 11p.m. Two hours later, and I'm still plodding along.
When I continue, I will share more about my mom and how we danced the Oberek tonight and had some good laughs. She seems to have some strength and energy back. That's a bit of a surprise.
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