July 31, 2007

It's hard not to slip into a funk these days. Mom doesn't seem to be able to make any decisions for herself anymore. There's no point in asking her what she wants to eat or where she wants to sit or what she wants to do. Her answer to all of those questions is always "I don't know."

And I've lost some teeth and the dental lab is having a hard time making a partial that fits. I've been back and forth to the dentist for more than two months. And it will be another two weeks until the next iteration comes back from the lab.

So, I went and bought a new car. A Ford Escape. A 2008 demo that I got a good deal on. It's been a long time since I owned an American car. I'm feeling a little schizo, since, while I bought "American," which is a good thing, I think, I also bought a small SUV, which is not as fuel efficient as, say, a Subaru Impreza, which is smaller. A lot smaller. The truth is I LIKE sitting up high in the driver's seat. (Now, there's a metaphor that has real meaning for me.)

Actually, the Escape is the same length as my old Subaru and only a couple of inches wider. I bought it in Albany so that getting it serviced will mean that I'll have to spend a day in Albany and that will mean that I can have lunch with my women friends, whom I hardly ever get to see anymore.

I also have a new hair cut. A funky hair cut to help lessen the other kind of funk.

Not as expensive a funk neutralizer as a Ford Escape, but at this point, every little bit helps.

July 30, 2007

MYRLN is a non-blogger friend of mine who is the guest-poster here on Mondays. It's another MYRLN Monday.

WHOSE COUNTRY?
by MYRLN

It's maddening and often infuriating, and it should lead, every day, to a fierce question: Whose country is this?

It's a question that should be put to every elected individual and bureaucratic appointee every day by citizens through snail-mail, e-mail, and phone calls...or any other means of communication. And for its transparency impact, every arm of mass media -- print, radio, t.v. -- should shove the question into the face of every political and corporate talking head in daily and weekend-circuit shows and interviews and at every press briefing or conference. Shove it at every current and future presidential candidate at every turn. Whose country is this?

But neither citizens nor media do it much -- almost never, in fact. And that's our real problem today. Nobody asks the pertinent question: whose country is this?

Why should we ask? Because without it, these elected worms and their political appointees and their corporate masters have come to believe -- and seek to make us believe -- that the country belongs to them. That they can do what they want with it with impunity. And when anyone might venture to say, "Wait a sec...what're you doing? Why'd you do that?", the worms reply, "It's a secret, a matter of national security, and it's unpatriotic of you to question it. It's our business, so you butt out."

Don't ask. National security. Classified. Executive privilege. Homeland (that Nazi-esque term) security. They all mean the same thing: the worms claiming it's their country. How imperial. How dictatorial. How Cheneyesque.

So they need to be bombarded, these worms, reminded that their secrecy, their power grabs, their declarations from on high are not tolerable. That their disregard of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is not acceptable. That the government is not theirs to do with as they will. They must be reminded, loud and clear and forcefully, that it is a government of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE. And if they don't like it, get the hell out -- of office and even the country.

Whose country is it? It's ours...we the PEOPLE.

And this P.S from me, Elaine of Kaliliy:
If you watched 60 Minutes last night, you saw and heard just evidence of whose country this has become, as Congressmen documented the fact that too many of them work hard to pass legislation for corporate backers and then leave Congress to become lobbyists for -- or employees -- of those corporate interests. (Case in point: the Medicare Prescription Bill) The country obviously belongs to those with great money, which in turn buys great power.

There are a lot more of us "people" than there are of the monied interests. It's sort of what it was like just before the French Revolution.

Liberte. Egalite, Fraternite: that should be the rallying cry these days for "we the People."

July 27, 2007

A hospice in Rhode Island keeps a pet cat named Oscar, who, like the doctors and nurses, makes daily rounds of the patients.

But that's not all Oscar does.

Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

The article linked to, above, tells of his success as a harbinger of death.

Many cats seem to know when their owners are ailing or even out of sorts. The cat we had when my kinds were little, a male, was usually stand-offish -- didn't really like to cuddle or be petted. But whenever I wasn't feeling well, he would curl up next to me and purr so strongly that I could feel his vibrations in my own body.

Calli, my cat now, a female, loves attention. But the only times I ever saw her try to comfort someone were the two times my mother was so out-of-it that we wound up taking her to the emergency room. Each time Calli kept trying to get into her bedroom (where she knows she's not allowed) and jump onto my mother's bed to lie next to her.

I wonder if she'll be able to tell when my mother's time comes.

July 23, 2007

It's another MYRLN Monday.

A Noisy Democracy
by guest poster, MYRLN

The system's pretty near broken altogether. We have an i.q.-challenged president who believes god has his ear when actually it's Dick Cheney whispering through the heating vent. Cheney, of course, is the vile, corrupt, dictatorial leader of the shadow government actually running the country from an undisclosed location. (George W. is only akin to the old Charlie McCarthy puppet enlivened by Edgar Bergen, no offense to them.) We have a Congress wholly incapable of doing anything but jumping as high as its various corporate masters tell it. And a mass media with attention deficit disorder, all striving to become another Fox News or New York Post. And controlling it all is a multi-faceted corporate empire whose motto is, "How many consumers have you screwed today?"

Anything of the people, by the people, for the people is not only forbidden territory, it's under daily attack. (And we don't have Molly Ivins any longer to put it all in its proper perspective.)

None of this bodes well for the democracy created 231 years ago. It is seriously endangered on all fronts, all under the guise of protecting us from terrorism. And Americans of all ilks have permitted the erosion of the democracy. A lazy, compliant, silent electorate actually bought into the crap this vile -- no, let's arrange the letters in their true order -- this EVIL government has been spouting. Like the characterization of wanting to stop any more of our young men and women from being killed in Iraq as "unpatriotic." And "supporting the troops" is letting more of them die -- and that's supposed to somehow be a good thing. What too many fail to grasp is that this alleged "war on terror" is little more than a callous excuse for seizing more power and violating our democracy. Think disregard for habeas corpus, think torture, think spying. No, terrorism is ultimately defeated by working with all parties to eliminate the social and economic conditions that foster it (thus minimizing, if not eliminating altogether, support for the crazies, including those in our government, who think violence is an answer). Alleged military "solutions" are useless, they can't stop terrorism. Ask Israel.

Unfortunately, these are not the 1960s. We could use the energy and fury of those years today. If it were still the '60s, there'd be none of this pukey, half-assed political and moral maundering going on. The streets would be filled with protesters at every turn, beating on tin pails outside the White House, making an unholy din that drives its inhabitants up a wall and reminds them in no uncertain terms that their chicanery is no longer tolerable, and that tells them loud and clear whose democracy this is. And candidates for the next presidency wouldn't be whispering mealy-mouthed platitudes for nothing more than personal political gain. They'd be out in the streets, too, shouting in defense of democracy. In every city in the land, young and old alike would be in the streets making a huge and powerful noise, crying, "ENOUGH!" Demanding and ultimately getting change -- a return to democracy. OUR democracy.

Loud and incessant noise can be very effective.

Democracy likes it..

July 22, 2007

He stands on the front lawn and waves good-bye. He's dressed in green camouflage shorts and a brown camouflage vest and hat. Binoculars hang from his neck, and the strap of a "base station radio" crosses his chest. He's ready.

He's ready for his 5-year old birthday party, which has the military theme that he chose.

He comes from pacifist parents and grandparents, but he just loves all that camouflage and adventure.

He also loves fire engines and police cars with sirens. He loves rescue ambulances and helicopters, and big rigs and recycling trucks. And his room is filled with miniatures of all of those.

I am leaving before the kids arrive for his party. We had a small family celebration for him a day ago, and I have to get back to my mother, who has sobbed on the phone to me each of the two nights during which I have been here "respiting."

Last evening, before he went to bed, we sat together on the couch and watched the movie Cars. Earlier in the day I sat in the dappled shade in front of the house and read Stephen King's Lisey's Story. No doubt about it -- King knows how to twist a tale. It was hard to put down the book and go in for supper, which my daughter prepared and my son-in-law cleaned up after. All I had to do was sit down and eat. Ah! What a luxury!

Earlier that day my grandson gave me a tour of the gardens. "Tha'ts Cleome", he says as he points to some plant that has not yet flowered. "That's Seedum," he informs me, "and that's a Butterfly Bush." He identifies the Day Lilies and counts them as we walk by...."Fifteen," he says. "We have fifteen Day Lilies over here, and there are more over by the fence." He wants to be a landscaper. Or a road worker.

I'm tired after the long drive back to where I live. But before she goes to bed, my mother wants to dance. And so she leads me around the small living room in a perfect Polka. She doesn't always remember where her bedroom is, but she never forgets how to Polka.

Before I go to sleep I will read more of Lisey's Story.

I wouldn't be surprised if I stay up until I finish it. It's not "respite," but it is an escape.

July 18, 2007

No matter what, I'm going to Massachusetts tomorrow for my grandson's fifth birthday. The "whats" are already starting, but I'm going if I have to sneak out before dawn.

July 17, 2007

There are two ways to live:
you can live as if nothing is a miracle;
you can live as if everything is a miracle.
--- Albert Einstein

I used to live entranced by the everyday miracles of this natural world. How did I lose that capacity??

For links to the originally reported items, go to the Harper's Weekly Review, from which the following were taken:

And, finally, my favorite:

Just a side note on the elder abuse issue. Sometimes it takes every ounce of self-control and empathy to keep from venting one's frustration and exhaustion on the person who's the cause of both. It's very much like what you might feel toward the much-loved infant who has not slept in 24 hours and who keeps crying and you can't figure out why and you just want it to shut up. While I have never done violence to either of my children or to my mother, there are times when I can understand how some otherwise competent adults just totally lose it. I don't have any answers. I just grind my teeth a lot.

July 16, 2007

Crow's Feet by guest-poster, MYRLN.

"I Gotta Crow," Peter Pan says (not meaning he'd captured one).

Counting Crows was a rock group.

A crowbar doesn't have wings.

Eating crow, figuratively, is no fun, and literally would likely be awful

Yet on the whole, crows are a pretty interesting species, despite their predilection for standing in the middle of the road and eating the innards of recent roadkill. And despite the name for a collection of them: a "murder" of crows.

Watching them steadily, however, can give you a genuine respect for their intelligence and behavior. For example, throw a slice of bread out in the yard for them on a regular basis and at the approximately same time, and in short order, the crows will learn the behavior and arrive within a half-hour to collect the bounty. And they don't sit there and peck at it either. They pick up the whole slice, even an end crust, and fly off with it. All this only after one has seen the bread and called one or two other crows to come over and keep protective watch while he goes down to gather it. They like an occasional dog biscuit, too, as ascertained when one flew by carrying the bone-shaped treat and looking thusly much like a tuxedoed crow wearing a bow-tie.

They are, of course, marauders, too, as everyone knows. They search out nests of other birds and try to make a meal of eggs or fledglings. The nest birds will naturally counter-attack and drive off the invading crow. And the crow will fly off, chased and pecked at by the nesters, while making no effort to resist or fight back. (A fact also true of hawks being chased by smaller birds, including crows.) There's just too much available to bother fighting for it.

The other fascinating aspect of crows is their group behavior. While families keep pretty much apart from each other, staying in their own defined territory, there are times when that separation is dumped. A couple times a year, there's a migration, and in that instance, hundreds and hundreds of crows fly off together in a great black sea aloft, wave after wave of them. No "vee formation" as with geese, just a wide and long sheet with occasional breaks between the sheets (no pun intended).

The other group action comes when a crow's nest (a real one, not a ship's lookout post) is targeted by a hawk. A cry goes up from the endangered nest. A member of a nearby family comes to investigate, sees the situation and goes back his nest to report, and a call goes up down the line of families until soon there a dozens of crows showing up to drive off the invading hawk (who merely flies off in search of another meal elsewhere). Then all return to their own family nests to resume whatever they were doing before called to defend a neighbor.

As for crow's feet, they look okay on a crow but not around your eyes.

Our language makes use of many crow analogies.

July 14, 2007

Here's a poem, thanks to Jim Culleny of No Utopia, that tugs at the edges of my nostalgia for my ballroom dance days.

Fox Trot Fridays
Rita Dove

Thank the stars there's a day
each week to tuck in

to count all the wonders in it.

July 13, 2007

For the past several weeks, I've had to take down the bird feeders as soon as it gets dark because the raccoons have taken to dining here each night. Not only do they dig out the rocks that were holding the bird feeder pole in place in its hole; one night when I was running late, I caught one climbing up the pole and swatting at the feeders, trying to knock them down.

Every night I took the feeders in. Every night the raccoons would dig out the rocks looking for stray seeds. Every morning I would straighten the pole and hang the feeders. And every night......

Last night I forgot to take down the feeders. This morning, not only was the pole down on the ground, but one feeder was totally destroyed and the other was missing. The darn varmints must have decided that they felt like "take out".

So, today he cemented the pole into the ground. One problem solved.

But how do we keep the raccoons from climbing up the pole once we replace the feeders? They manage to climb right over the baffle that keeps the squirrels out.

Barbed wire wrapped around the pole, I suggest. He doesn't want to hurt the ballsy critters. I figure that they'll get pricked once and they won't try it again.

I haven't found anything online that guarantees to keep raccoons out or away from anything.

At least, for now, I'm reprieved from my Sisyphean task.

I still think barbed wire is the answer.

July 12, 2007

I can't believe it! He mowed down my lush stand of foxglove that was growing (well, they were mostly alreay spent) along the back of the house. I know that it's his house, and he told me two years ago that he doesn't want stuff planted alongside the house. But at least he could have warned me and given me a chance to move the plants. I had a huge and healthy melissa officinalis that I brought here from my last garden. Gone. Mowed down. I had some plants that I wanted to dig up and take to my daughter for her garden. Gone. Mowed down.

If he had warned me that he was going to mow, I would have told him that I was waiting for a day with less than 80% humidity to go out there and move a lot of the plants. The rest he could have mowed down.

I suppose they'll come back next year.

Buit maybe I won't.

July 11, 2007

Yesterday, I cut and filed her fingernails and soaked her feet so that I could cut her toenails. It's true, you know, that both finger and toenails get thicker and harder as you get older. There really is nothing physical that gets better with age.

I'm looking at her left foot -- big bunion, hammertoe, mangled other toe. Funny, but her right foot is not that bad. I think, like me, her left foot is wider than her right. Unlike me, she always bought shoes to fit the narrower foot instead of the other way around.

My mother once had racks of expensive pumps -- pointed toes, high heels. I remember, back in the 50s, when I just couldn't wait to wear a pair of shoes with heels, I would try on my mother's pumps. Eventually, we wore the same size, at least in length, and that was when I realized that the only way pumps would not slip off the heels of my feet was if they were tight across the toes. Apparently, the same held true for my mother, but that didn't stop her from buying those Ferragamos.

So now I spend hours online trying to find her shoes that do not hurt her left foot. I think I found a pair that might work, and I'm ordering two pair in two different widths. We just might have to buy both pair, the wide for her right foot and the double wide for her left foot.

I wonder if there's anyone out there who has the opposite problem, 'cause we will have a right shoe that's size 8.5 double wide and a left shoe that's 8.5 wide.

Now I can add to the heretofore mentioned list of varmints eating their way through my plantings Japanese Beetles and little reddish brown moths. Both are so plentiful around here that you bump into them just walking down the driveway to get the mail. They careen into your legs, land on your head. You unknowingly bring them into the house and then have to chase after then with the dollar-store flyswatter. Yuck. Yuck. And more yuck!!

July 09, 2007

No Ordinary Ordinance by MYRLN (guest poster)

In Utah, a 70-year old woman was handcuffed and tossed in the slammer.

Why?

'Cause she wouldn't tell a cop her name.

What?

Yeah, honest. This cop was trying to write her a ticket but she wouldn't give her name and then she decided to go back into her house.

And...?

And the cop must've figured she was trying to escape, so he grabbed her and cuffed her. Then she tripped on her steps and fell, scraping her nose and elbows. And the cop took her to the slammer.

You're kidding!

Nope, and there she languished for more than an hour before police higher-ups heard of the arrest and had her released. (No, her name wasn't Hilton.) And the arresting cop was put on administrative leave.

Huh? Wait, wait...what was he ticketing her for in the first place? Speeding? DUI? No license?

Well...no. It seems the woman had violated the town's "nuisance" ordinance.

Ah...playing the t.v. too loud! Or too many animals?

Uh...no. It's an ordinance against neglected yards. The woman had refused for a year to water her lawn. HUH? And they...?

Yeah...they did.

But it's HER lawn!

Yeah...there's a town without a lot on its collective mind, huh? Much like the rest of the country which insists pukey, manicured grass you have to water often is superior to nature's own hardy, self-tending menu of wildflowers, dandelions, weeds, berries, new trees. Nope...we can't have that stuff. That's...well, natural. The last thing this country wants to be. 'Cause in our twisted logic, natural's not...well, natural. It leads to violating the nuisance ordinance.

July 06, 2007

Back in the days when I was only responsible for myself and had a job that paid well enough, I was able to indulge my attraction to mysticism.

Mystics hold that there is a deeper, more fundamental state of existence hidden beneath the appearances of day–to–day living (which may become, to the mystic, superficial or epiphenomenal). For the authentic mystic, unity is both the internal and external focus as one seeks the truth about oneself, one's relationship to others and Reality (both the world at large and the unseen realm).

What a luxury that seems to me now, when day-to-day living is all that I have the energy to accomplish.

I think of this now because for many of those past years, I often joined a close friend of mine at workshops, seminars etc. that were based in the processes of the mystic, particularly as they attract creativity and artistic inspiration. Married and childless, she has gone on to teach some of these processes on the college level. Without responsibilities to any dependent, she can continue to explore the ideas and philosophies and spiritualities that well-known modern mystics such as Matthew Fox and Jean Houston continue to publicize. I think of this now because I had lunch several weeks ago with her and her husband as they passed through town.

I am at times envious of the luxury of time that she has – the luxury of being able to place a priority on her psychological and spiritual development, of not being the one grounding factor in a dependent person’s life, of having time to contemplate…..

I wonder, when I am done with the physical and emotional requirements of caregiving -- after I have done with confronting, every day and night, the struggles of human life on its most elemental level, if I will again have that hunger for the expanding horizons that mysticism has to offer.

When I think of my life after this difficult piece of it, I think of moving to live near my daughter, spending lots of fun time with my grandson, doing the creative homey things I don’t have enough time to do now (sewing, knitting, cooking what I like), sitting under a tree and reading well-written fiction, visiting my women friends in Albany for days at a time. Getting in my car and visiting people I know up and down the East Coast. Spending February with my cousins in Florida.

I don’t think about taking workshops or mind-wrestling with the unknowables or mining more of my sub- and un-consciousnesses.

But, of course, you never know. The mystic in me might just be biding her time, waiting for the luxury of freedom.

July 05, 2007

The weblog doesn't give any information about who is behind the site (and I wish it would), but the informational posts provide very useful information. I know that there are caregivers who read Kalilily Time and who might appreciate this relatively new blog.

This is what the site says about itself:

CareShare Network is primarily a platform for caregivers to communicate with each other, but every voice is welcomed in the dialogue. It provides commentaries, original articles and abstracts of caregiving- and related-news stories for its visitors. The platform is not just for news briefs and alerts but also for sharing, discussing and analyzing this important issue that affects an estimated 34 million people and their families in this country.

I planted at least a dozen asiatic lilies, the majority of which became snacks for the various squirrels, chipmunks, racoons, and groundhogs that populate our acres. There are three lilies in the back that are just beginning to bloom, and the one pictured above, which actually made it through to fruition.

But the battle for survival still goes on.

July 04, 2007

On this country's most important holiday, I celebrate by sleeping. No independence here, as we are all imprisoned by my mother's dementia.

Be sure to celebrate by going here and reading or listening to Keith Olbermann's latest documentation of how our nation's independent soul has been mangled by those who are supposed to lead us and protect us.

Next, think about this poem, from Jim Culleny's daily poetry email:

And, finally, enjoy this reprint of Monday's guest-poster MYRLN's latest email to the White House.

Sent To: president@whitehouse.gov
Subject: July 4
Date Sent: 03 Jul 2007 08:24 PM

Dear George,

With Independence Day here tomorrow, I would like to report to you two people whom I believe are the most serious threat to our democracy in decades. I would report them to local authorities, but they couldn't do anything about these 2, so I figured I would go straight to the top in the hopes you will act against them. Please do something to rid us of them both. The two of whom I speak are you and your vice-president.

There are lots of fireworks going on all over the country tonight. I'm hoping there will be some even more explosive fireworks soon that will blow those grifters out of the White House.

July 02, 2007

The following post is by non-blogger MYRLN, who guest-posts here every Monday.

The Power of One

And so we come to Independence Day -- that anniversary of a nation's freeing itself from the tyranny of an absolute monarchy. America threw off the English shackles. And that was that. No more subservience. Freedom reigned supreme. Forever. Period.

So we celebrate that day every year. We have parades, picnics, fireworks. Some even mention the Declaration of Independence. Some even read it, a few do so aloud. And that's that. Then the next day, everyone goes back to work in service to the great god Economy and its co-deity, Government. Feeling good. We've just celebrated Independence Day. We're Free.

Hm-m-m. Fought for once, Independence is ours forever. Hm-m-m. In the greater world, such has remained pretty much true for America. But what about WITHIN America? Are we, each and every one of us, free? Or have we forgotten that freedom must be protected individually, asserted regularly, or it will be lost...or taken away? We have those two greedy deities all too willing to strip us of our individual freedoms -- those freedoms far more important than an entire nation's freedom from tyranny. The freedom of ONE. The Individual.

And that freedom -- the Individual's -- is the one which the dual deities of Economics and Government have sought to strip away. (Think cost of living, think taxes, think health care, think privacy, think outsourcing, think union-busting...oh, you get it.) Spying, detainment, surveillance, seizure, threat, fear -- all sanctioned these days by the Dual Deities. And too much accepted without question. Resistance, after all, could be dangerous, lead to prison. Well...over a hundred years ago, the great individualist, Henry David Thoreau, was thrown in jail for refusing to pay taxes, refusing to recognize the right of Government to levy a tariff on his existence. Afterwards, he wrote (in his "Civil Disobedience") how the punishment was totally ineffective because the only thing Government jailed was his body. His spirit, his sense of INDEPENDENCE remained free. It could not be jailed. Government, he wrote, "can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it." And he continued, "There will never be a free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power."

But only the Individual can ultimately cause that recognition, insure its presence.

So this year, as you superficially celebrate Independence Day, take stock. Read the Declaration of Independence. Read the Constitution. (Don't have copies? Why not?) Then take a good hard look at your individual independence, remembering that the stripping away of each individual's freedom means that eventually the entire nation's independence will be gone. Taken away by the hands of those like Dumbya Bush and Darth Cheney and Wall Street moguls who think only in terms of their moneyed interests. All individual freedom gradually lost with our meek and subservient individual compliance. But you have the power to make this a real Independence Day again. If you use it. As the forefathers did 231 years ago.

Make it happen.