This morning I have a little gem of time, as I listen to the thunder roll over the mountain and wait for rain and my mother to waken. The last two days have been a grueling example of how no good deed goes unpunished, as my mother recuperates from the family picinic with bi-polar bouts of crying and fits of terrifying anger.
So, while I have a few minutes, I sit here at my computer and take the time to actually read through a document to which I linked in my previous post, finding it full of gems of information I didn’t know,.
And among those gems is a rare one, indeed — reference to Marietta Holley, a little-known 19th century writer from Ellisburgh, New York:

What a blogger Marietta Holley woul have made in today’s culture! No doubt she would be a part of the BlogHer conference, to which Jeneane Sessum of Allied should be going this year, but — as life sometimes goes — can’t.
Wait until next year Jeneane. Maybe we can both make it.

At the family picnic last Sunday, one of my cousins told me about a book he was reading called The Mayflower, about which story the Washington Post said this in its review (as posted on Amazon.com):

I took a chance. Pillowed her up in the front seat and took her for an hour’s ride to the old family farm, where cousins and such were gathering for their first introduction to the toddler on her first visit from Poland (accompanied by her family, of course; oh boy, do we have cousins).

It was the perfect scenario for my mother, who, as the last remaining relative of her generation, got all the attention she craves. I was there to serve her, in all senses of the word. “You’re a saint,” they would whisper, as they walked by, patting my arm, nodding their heads solemnly. I want to scream “I hate my life!!” but instead I go about the business of filling my mother’s plate, and mine, with all of the golabki, kielbasa, kapusta, and various apple and blueberry cakes — all homemade and all to drool for. I made sure I got some doggie bags to bring home.
Over the course of the afternoon (the best weather of the summer, so far) each relative stopped to pay hommage to the nonagenarian, even though she really didn’t remember who anyone really was. She can’t hear well, can’t remember worth a damn, and the conversations with her all had a tinge of the old “who’s on first.” But they all humored her, winked at me, and then went back to enjoying interactions with those with whom they could actually have an intelligent conversation.
At least the rides back and forth went smoothly (which isn’t always the case because she starts panicking when she realizes that the seat belt is constraining her; she started in on the way home, so I just unbuckled her seat belt, figuring that if we had an accident, with her fragile bones, she’d be better off not surviving it). Frank Sinatra crooned from a CD compilation sent to my by a college buddy, John S., and that set just the right tone for the long (for her) drive.
You would think that she’d be tired from the long day with no nap, but nooooo. Bugging, bugging, bugging me.!! In my frustration, as I brush her teeth I mutter that taking care of her is like taking care of a baby. “I don’t want another baby,” she misreplies. (Surprise, surprise.) “Neither do I,” I sigh. She doesn’t get it. I’ve had it.
And so I go up to my space and check my email — which includes a long catch-up from someone with whom I went to grade school who found my weblog when she Googled “Yonkers,” and another long catch-up from one of my former colleagues, recently retired, who just got back from a week of doing Chinese brush painting at the Omega Institute.
My “real” life pretty much sucks. And I thank the oddities of fate and the miracles of tecnology for a virtual life that keeps me interested enough to get up in the morning.
Oh, and, of course, there’s always him:

Maxine is my alter ego.

All of this news of what is amounting the WWIII is not funny. Coming home to my mother in the middle of a dementia episode is not funny. It’s not funny that theVatican announced that, while it paid $9 million for the funeral of Pope John Paul II, it still made a $12.4 million profit in 2005. It’s not funny that Red Buttons died. Except for the statement about my mother, the above “not funnies” are from Harper’s Weekly.
I don’t know if it’s funny, but it sure is interesteing that:
— Scientists in Maryland found that two thirds of people who consumed the hallucinogenic drug psilocybin had extremely meaningful experiences.
— scientists in Massachusetts implanted sensors in a paralyzed man’s brain that allowed the man to check email.
— Jack Kevorkian, who is dying, said that he would not choose suicide
The above interesting facts are also from Harper’s Weekly.
What was really funny was watching my grandson in his airline pilot uniform, and his chef’s uniform, and his astronaut uniform (with talking space helmet), and his Red Sox uniform — all of which he got for his birthday. In addiition to trucks, of course. And watching him hit a ball with a one-handed bat-swing and then run around invisible bases, only to roll around the grass in his version of a slide into third.
And now I’m back to what’s not fun in my life, and it’s not just a matter of my mother’s self-centered needs sucking up all my time and energy; it’s also dealing with a sibling who wants everything done his way. We are as unlike as two siblings can be. I am almost at a point at which I can pack up and leave all of this behind and feel not a shred of guilt.
But then I get a comment left on one of my posts from someone who found my weblog and is in the midst of a situation even more exhausting than mine. Her weblog is part of her strategy for dealing with the tragic death of her daughter, a victim road rage, and with the challenge she now faces of raising her daughter’s twins — in addition to her own young son. I read this post of hers and I have such admiration for what she is so lovingly and valiantly doing. She does have family nearby, and they are becoming that “village” that it takes to raise a child.
Unfortunately for me, there is no “village” here to share what it takes to help at the other end of life’s line.
So, I will get up early tomorrow morning and plant the colorful annuals I bought on the way back from Masschusetts today, and I will weed and water and try to create a little more color and beauty in my own life before she wakes up and I lose sight of the sun and the memory of fun.

I’m heading out tomorrow to join in the celebration of my grandson’s fourth birthday. The day will be hot, but the kid is very cool, so I’m looking forward to spending a couple of days being a Grammy instead of someone whose name she doesn’t always remember.

When I made the post that asked the question, I didn’t know what to expect as answers. Here’s the question:

Yes, it figures that I would ask for comments (see previous post) on a day when Typekey comment feature is not working and my mother slips into some kind of weird mental place that requires my constant presence. But I am getting very interesting and unexpected email responses and will post them soon. If you haven’t responded yet, please do.

For those of you who know my son and are curious as to what he’s like these days, go here to see him and hear him speaking to the audience at the Portland Serenity benefit, wearing a Jayne hat. 🙂
By the way, the world-wide effort he coordinated has raised more than $64K (and still counting) for Equality Now.

I took a Politics Test and came up with this assessment:
I am a Social Liberal (70% permissive), an Economic Liberal (11% permissive). I am described, as a Socialist: You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness.
Well, yeah. Shouldn’t everybody??
On the montage of famous people depicted in a visual representation of where they fall in the political spectrum, I fall somewhere between Gandhi and Boris Yeltsin.
At the end of the test is this: