that’s what I’m feeling right now. it’s not just the actual rain, which is hard enough to take day after day. it’s all of the circumstances of my life that are raining on my parade — circumstances that include my desktop computer not being able to access my email or get on the internet. so I’m on my little laptop, which I’m not used to using. the point here is that right now I have no email, so anyone who needs to contact me needs to do it here or by phone.
consternation, confrontation. thats my life right now. i want to scream. sometimes I do.
she is becoming more and more childlike. doesn’t like to be alone. wants all of her belongings around her. doesn’t remember meals or meds, so everything is catered. every movement hurts. consternation underlies our interactions.
the confrontation rests with another, who doesn’t seem to know how to relate in any other way. every interaction gives me a migraine.
I’m getting out of here on Thursday to take my car to Albany for a tune-up. also taking my computer to my techie guy to figure out what’s going on there. going to visit with friends, join them for dinner, stay overnight.
just think, two whole days without consternation and confrontation.
nirvana.
i’ve been blogging less because I don’t know what to write about. every day is a repeat of the last – maybe with a few tweaks of the agenda. I get nothing done that I would enjoy doing. we are finishing up some accomodating construction. when that’s done, I’m hoping I will have more time, more focus. i can dream, cant I.
Meanwhile, Happy Birthday, b!X.
And rest in glorious peace and the glory of history, Rosa Parks

Having just finished Mary Alice Monroe’s Skylark, which is set at a clinic that rehabilitates injured raptors, I was reminded of this:
Predator
She sleeps where soft sea sounds
nestle in the branches of feathery pines.
Daylight takes her wherever her whims fly,
but night calls her home.
Osprey sleeps alone above the shore’s great stones,
far from the place of her own birth nest,
near the crooning song of Mother Sea,
near the place long abandoned by her own nestlings.
She waits in a separate space between
land and water, between darkness and time.
Sometimes she dreams of another –-
of plummeting together from a quiet place in the sky
to slash in unison through the glittering ocean cover
toward the quick silver flashes that beckon
just under the surface — of pairs of eager talons
clutching at flesh, slippery, sweet, and alive.
Osprey wakes with the first light, watches
the curtain of clouds part to reveal morning’s intention.
She lifts her head to the sky, and stretches her wings
to catch the subtle singing in the air.
She stands and steps, thoughtlessly
chipping new pits into old stones,
poises toward the sun, embraces
the wind, and flies.
As she turns her back to the sun;
her night-tightened feathers open smoothly
to its honest heat. Below her massive wings,
the sea wind rises clear and reassuring,
and she lets it carry her higher and higher
into the sacred peace of morning sky.
It is here that she can hear her own voice,
coarse and heroic, calling…calling..
But a quickening hunger finds its way,
awakening bone and tendon. With a last bold cry
she slides down the edge of morning toward
the tempting surface of the sea.
She circles with eye toward a sudden glassy patch
and in an instant, glimpses a shape like her own –
a certain bend of wing, stretch of claw, glint of eye —
a shadow. Or a dream.
Suddenly, she falls, wings suspended,
claws arched and ready, eyes
gripping the spot where her talons will
cut, quick and elemental.
And it is here that she feels her call’s answer –
in the salt of sea, of blood — the fill of flesh, of heart.
Her feathers dance in flames of air and water;
Her claws froth with the struggle of power and will.
The shadow dissolves.
A strangled cry.
© Elaine Frankonis 1989

On occasion, I wonder what my grown-up offspring remember about their childhoods. Do they remember the good things or the bad things.
My daughter says that she doesn’t remember the time when I, pregnant with b!X and subtitute teaching, rode home on the school bus with her (we only had one car then). I was tired and my patience was exhausted. As the two of us treked up the long steep driveway to our house (she was then about 6 years old, whining about whatever tired and hungry 6 year-olds whine about) I turned to her and smacked her across the face, my ring leaving a small cut on her cheek. I still feel guilty about that. She says doesn’t really remember the incident.
Over at Jack Bogdanski’s blog, where he writes about his memories of the Polish food from his childhood, my son leaves a couple of comments, remembering — of all things — the old Corningware Cornflower pots we used to have when he was a kid and the “golabki” (as he remembers, pronounced “gwumpki”) his grandmother used to make when we visited. I remember that he really hated having to go to his grandmother’s, and well understood his reasons. So, I’m surprised that he remembers her “gwumpki” with some fondness.
I wonder what my grandson will remember about me. Probably that every time I visit, I bring him a present. Or maybe that I have some teeth that I take out at night. You never know what they’re going to remember.

I’m tired of the rain. I’m tired of struggling to figure out how to organize my stuff in this space. I’m tired of the sameness of the days; the rain that keeps me from getting outside and beginning to clear some land so that I can make a pleasant space to sit outside next summer.
The hummingbirds and other birds have left half-full feeders behind. Chipmunks scurry around with cheeks full of their winter supplies. No one has heard anything of the bear in a while.
……….
you find yourself spending more and more time sitting with her watching american movie classics. you begin knitting an afghan for your daughter for christmas. you’ve never learned to just sit and watch television. you have to be doing something constructive at the same time. even though she gets disoriented and sometimes forgets where she is, she seems to know that she is in a safe place. except for the time in her teens when she had to quit school and go to work in a carpet factory, all she’s ever done is cook, clean, and try to control her kids. she’s forgotten how to cook; her cleaning results in objects being misplaced and assumed, by her, to be stolen. but she can’t stop being a mother, even though you don’t need her kind of mothering any more. you and your brother work each day to make physical accommodations to the living spaces. your work styles are so different that working with him is stressful for you. gives you a headache. sends you both into shouting matches that neither can win. the work will be done soon. it had better be.
……………..
I have this urge to hibernate. Sleep all day.
I have this urge to stay up all night. Dance.
Once a week or so, I drive out the the pizza place and get pizza for dinner for all three of us. The guy who spins the pizza dough has begun to recognize me and waves as he spins. He looks a little like Cheech Marin — you know, from Cheech and Chong. He looks Hispanic. After I picked up pizzas the other day, I wondered about asking him if he knows anything about the Latin dances on Friday night at the dance club up the road. I want to ask “Do you do the Salsa? Meringue? Do you ever go up to the Friday dances?” Of course, I won’t. I’ve lost my edge.
Or maybe what I am is stranded on some other edge. Tired and uninspired.

…like little boys having best friends. This could be the 1930s or the 2030s. And it could be now, which it is. My grandson (on the right) and his best friend.

Watch for major visual changes in this weblog. It’s being reconstructed by b!X, and it will take a while to get some things in order.
Good things come to those who wait and check in here again.

Despite the torrential rain and the 38 mile drive along unfamiliar roads to a really tacky mall where long lines of grandmas and their grandkids waited to get in to see a really tacky kid’s movie, I did get in to see Serenity — about which I will write more at some point.

I think it’s easier to be kind to people you don’t know than people to whom you’re related. Probably because strangers would be more apt to appreciate and not continually expect…expect…expect
What I mean to say, specifically, is that I probably would not have such frequent moments of annoyance if I were taking care of someone I didn’t know rather than my mother.
A cousin of mine, who — with help from his wife — took care of his mother until she died just short of her 100th birthday, reminded me that our mothers and grandmothers come from the “old country” expectation that children “owe” their parents their lives and so they have to take care of them in their old age.
I think it’s the EXPECTATION that bothers me more than anything.
A friend of mine from college, who, in these her retired years was volunteering at a senior center to help drive the elderly to doctor’s appointments, etc, told me of her disturbing experience being kind to one stranger. My friend began driving the same old woman to various doctors’ appointments over a short period of time. The old woman, rather than being gracious and grateful, began expecting that my friend would do her grocery shopping, run errands, etc. And she got angry when my friend explained that she couldn’t give up that much of her time and energy, and the agreement was that she would simply be available to drive.
Sometimes being kind to strangers only leads to ungraciously great expectations. Being kind to family sometimes gets you the same thing.
Of course, there’s all of the kindness from strangers to strangers during the recent hurricanes.
Speaking of Katrina, I call your attention to an address given by Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) last month on the House floor, in which she discussed “Katrina, the State of Black America, the State of Hispanic America, poverty in America, and the Katrina timelines being developed that will keep us from falling victim to the White House spin.”
The point I really want to make is that she used the word “impeachment” on the House floor but, she said, it was not reflected in the official transcript of her September 8 description of “high crimes and misdemeanors visited on the American people.” In a speech entitled Tremendous Challenges that Face our Country, (see link above) McKinney recounted the incompetence of the Bush Administration in addressing the needs of hurricane Katrina victims and the policies of Republican elites responsible for rampant poverty and an increased racial divide. Questioning everything from the lack of action on Katrina to rewarding the rich, the congresswoman later promised to use the word repeatedly on the House Floor until she sees it reflected in the Congressional Record.
Go McKinney!!

All I could imagine was that these hundreds of little crickets were running around in pure terror, while the “Cricket Little” in their midst cried out “the sky is falling; the sky is falling!
This afternoon, when we set an 8 foot piece of slat fencing on a flat patch of weedy grass so that I could spray it with stain/sealant, we must have laid it on a thriving community of crickets. Out they came by the hundreds, hopping through the space between the slats and running around in chaotic fright along the surface of the wood. I’m sure to those little creatures, going about their everyday business, it had felt like their sky had literally fallen on them.
Hmm. What to do? I didn’t want to spray them and get them stuck to the fencing. Sweeping them away didn’t make any difference. There seemed to be an endless stream of comrades to take their places.
While I’m not particularly fond of bugs of any kind and have no problem permanently disposing of those that find their way into my living space, I try to live and let live when I trespass into their territories.
I had already lifted, carried, placed, and sprayed four other pieces of fence, and I was too tired to move this one. So, I figured I’d just start spraying at one edge and hope the critters would feel the spray coming and get out of the way. Most of them did, and I could just imagine them calling to each other:
It’s the suffocating “Black Rain” foretold in the stories of our fathers! Our End Time has come! We are doomed, doomed The end of the world is here! The Black Rain is falling! Repent all you sinners!
The end did come for a few of them. I just left them stuck to the wood. (I’m such a heartless bitch.)
I didn’t used to be so heartless. Then, again, I didn’t used to be a lot of things. Like reluctant to drive over to the closest mulitplex (which is not really that close at a 35 mile drive) by myself to see a movie that I just don’t want to miss and I want to support by going on a weekend.
I didn’t used to think twice about walking into a dance venue by myself, scouting out the dance floor for some of the better leaders, and than going over and asking one of those guys to dance. I found out the other day that there’s a Latin night at a dance club ten minutes from here. Instead of doing what I would have done five years ago, I sit here thinking…”I’ll probably be the oldest person there. I’ll be embarassed when no one will dance with me. I’m too old. I’m not as attractive as all of those young women who, no doubt, will be there dancing in skimpy tops, short skirts, and high heels.” (I should know; I remember when I was once one of them.)
I’m too old to hit the dance clubs. But I sure as hell should be able to get myself out to the movies.
If I were one of those crickets, I probably would have just stayed in the weeds under the fence. No risk there.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Appropos of nothing — or maybe of everything — if you can, listen to this audio clip of a monologue from Paddy Chayefsky’s 1976 blockbuster mvoie hit “Network”
A commenter left it on b!X “Finis” blogpost.
It’s so much safer to hide — among the masses or between the mountains.
I used to stand out in a crowd. Now I avoid them.
A change? A transition? A “time-out?”
Is this weblog my last stand as an individual who spent much of her former life neither safe nor sorry?
………………
sometimes you go into check on her while she’s sleeping. she sleeps on her back, her mouth open, gravity drawing the thin skin tight along her cheek bones. you have to look carefully to see if she’s still breathing. she’s forgetting more. sometimes talks to you as though you are her (long-dead) sister. thinks your brother is her (not-so-long dead) brother. he’s never sure what name she’s going to call him by. she tells the same old stories over and over. she has no idea how much her hearing has deteriorated — equates being deaf with being crazy. refuses to admit to either. having a conversation with her is like a comedy routine. her responses have nothing to do with what you have said. only it’s not funny to you any more. and so you sit with her and watch tv, which she really can’t hear anyway. but you’re there. she needs you there. you are not alone, and yet you are.

I have one son. We named him Christopher and called him Kit. To the rest of the world, he’s known as The One True b!X, and for the past three years, he’s done for the city of Portland, OR and its citizens what he tends to do no matter what community he finds himself a part of — he sows seeds for new ways of thinking, communicating, and responding.
b!X has never been ordinary, and he has enriched the lives of others — including us in his family — more than, I’m sure, he recognizes.
His Portland Communique, which he launched in earnest more than three years ago, helped to open metaphorical windows between the city’s government officials and its interested citizens. Since he started his Communique, a number of other citizen/government weblogs appeared, including some by city officials. He sowed the seeds and they fell on fertile ground.
Today, he announced that his “experiment in citizen journalism” is over.
I know that he’ll stay in Portland, because that city is more “home” to him than any place he’s lived. And that probably means that it will be at least another half-dozen years before I see him again.
There really is only “One True b!X.” He is unique in his combination of passion, integrity, creativity, articulateness, compassion, curiosity, intellectual independence, and lack of self-serving ego.
Was he a challenge to raise? You bet. What he is, is what he’s always been.
More than a year ago, I wrote this about him.
I wonder what I’ll be adding to that encapsulation a year from now.
I think of my grandson, also a challenging child to raise — one filled with a similar curiosity, compassion, articulateness, and creativity. My daughter already struggles with how best to guide him.
All we can do as mothers is “nurture” the positive aspects of their “nature.” And even then they will become who they always have been.
And no matter how far away they move, or what paths they choose to take, we will always hurt for them and hope for them.
If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today.
Here’s to you, sonb!X. May the next phase of your life be the best yet.