Better Than Dead

30 Nov
Huh! With everything, I completely forgot about the looming Mayan Apocalypse. I wonder if I’ll even notice?

30 Nov
Mom is being transferred to the rehab center this afternoon. That was fast! Such a bundle of conflicting emotions right now. She’s feeling much better and they’ll give her the help she needs. But I’m still twisted in knots. This isn’t a logical I thing, it’s an emotional one. I’ve been her only caregiver for a long time and have to remind myself I’m not abandoning her but getting help.

2 Dec
God save me from people who think being an artist excuses all manner of bad behavior. Mom’s roommate is an Artiste and the most self-absorbed tyrant to her children and everyone else I’ve met in a long time. They’re talking of moving her Monday. Hallelujah.

3 Dec
There are people who will return your phone calls and others who are never going to be able to do that. You have to let go of expectations.

4 Dec
A horror show in the Marina: http://bit.ly/XDkS1D  It broke my heart to see those gorgeous old trees taken down, some 40 years old or more. I have to drive by the stumps of 50+ cut down trees every morning and evening and I keep imagining them crying out in pain and horror. Sometimes a good imagination is a liability.

4 Dec
Your decision: try to help a man off the tracks before he’s hit by a subway train or take a picture of him as he’s about to get hit? Then sell it to the NY Post, of course. What is wrong with some people?

4 Dec
The physical therapist at the rehab center thinks that with some therapy Mom may be able to get back on her feet. This would be a very good thing.

5 Dec
I hope it’s not an omen of Apocalypse: yesterday while sitting at the gas station a dismembered pigeon wing dropped in front of my car. A crow came along presently to fetch it and fly away.

5 Dec
The girl bicycling in a thigh length beige fake fur coat. (At least, I hope it was fake.)

10 Dec
Just when I thought I could relax a bit, the medical transportation company decided to clusterfu*k my mother’s dialysis appointments. Foolish me. You can never relax in the caregiver biz.

11 Dec
Exhausted, desperate for rest, don’t know when that’s going to happen. And the Christmas carolers are here. The happiest time of the year.

12 Dec
Ironic juxtaposition: Driving to work I followed a rusted, corroded, bondo-enhanced “personal pleasure craft” full of fishing poles being towed by some guy to the Marina del Rey. Just as I wondered if they had life jackets on board that mess NPR announced, “Forty years ago today The Poseidon Adventure premiered in theaters.”

13 Dec
So the fire captain of my local fire house called to say he was meeting with the Chief about my mother’s 911 call that they botched. I have no beef against their house—they’ve helped us many times. But this call was not their finest hour. Glad it’s being addressed. The hospital and Mom’s doctors filed a complaint against them. Still, I appreciate the outreach.

13 Dec
Some bright spark asked at the official timekeeping meeting about the tradition of sending us home early the day before a holiday. No more early exits for us. Don’t ask and we won’t officially tell.

13 Dec
Free-floating anxiety. Tried all day to reach Mom on her cell phone. She had her headphones on and couldn’t hear the phone. I’m exhausted. It makes the imagination a wee bit crazy sometimes. I managed to calm down after I talked to her. I need to take up meditation or something.

14 Dec
Obviously handing out a high-powered weapon to anyone who wants one is a great idea. /bitter irony

17 Dec
On the drive back from visiting Mom at noon I couldn’t take listening to tragedy anymore so punched the button for KUSC. Just in time for Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. And yes, I sang along!

18 Dec
The clouds this morning a fuzzy gray blanket lying heavy on the tops of the Santa Monica Mountains and tucked in over the foothills and city.

18 Dec
Driving around yesterday I saw several celebrities. Robert Pattinson (not really) was driving towards the airport at Lincoln & 83rd in a late model muscle car that had been primed gray but not painted. Edgar Winter (not really), dressed all in black, crossed the street at Lincoln headed towards Marina del Rey Hospital. Stephen Fry (not really), his hair grown out long, crossed in front of me at Pacific and Windward heading towards the Venice Circle. At that point I really did begin to wonder if there was a celebrity lookalike convention in town or something.

Random quote of the day:

“It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it, and the hunger for it…and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied…and it is all one.”

—M. F. K. Fisher, The Gastronomical Me

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Last night while driving down a residential street in my neighborhood I saw a flatbed truck parked in a driveway loaded with Halloween monsters and a banner on the side reading, “Halloween Fair.”  I didn’t stop to take in the details, already late getting home, but laughed at the idea of someone decorating their house for Halloween on the 4th of July.

I was up early this morning to take Mom to the clinic and driving home afterwards I saw a number of flatbed trucks lined up on Manchester, decorated in all sorts of odd homemade ways.  “The parade,” I said to myself, remembering the neighborhood 4th of July parade (generally a homemade affair) scheduled for today on Manchester and Loyola Boulevard.  The Halloween truck made more sense then.  Either someone has an odd sense of humor (which I can definitely appreciate) or they’re getting in some free early advertising for their Halloween Fair.  Never too late to flog the merchandise, I guess.

In other news, Min has been sick.  She has a benign growth on her thyroid which we’re treating with medication.  There have been some scary moments, but she’s doing much, much better—especially since I discovered Greenies Pill Pockets to bury the pills in.  She thinks she’s getting a delicious treat and gobbles them right down.  I am greatly relieved since giving her the pills twice a day was traumatizing both of us.  I hope she continues to like the Pill Pockets.  I’ve got three flavors I’m alternating: salmon, chicken, and duck.  She seems to like all three.

We’ve also taken to spoiling her even more outrageously.  We even set up a Kitty Cat Spoiling Station in the den: a TV tray (a nice little oaken table) that’s got her food and water, close to her preferred sleeping chair.  I added a carton of munching grass this morning.

The TV tray came about because Mom and I, when it’s just us, tend to eat dinner in the den on TV trays in front of the Tube. Min had a habit of coming in and trying to crawl on the trays to see what was for dinner, so we set up a third tray for her and would give her treats there.  (Naturally.  You wouldn’t expect us to discipline her, would you? She’d never stand for that.)  When Min got sick she started asking to be fed her cat food, et al., there.  Of course we obeyed—since, really, we just work here.

I can hear people moving down the street, kids laughing, heading towards the parade two blocks down.  Our street always gets parked up on parade days.  I can also hear my neighbor yelling, “You can’t park here!” He doesn’t like anyone parking in front of his house, even though it’s a public street.  People have such odd ideas.  But he’s been awfully good to us, so I am not going to judge.  Too much.

Happy 4th of July, everyone!  I hope you eat lots of tasty food and have lots of fun!

Random quote of the day:

 

“Sometimes it’s important to work for that pot of gold.  But other times it’s essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow.”

—Douglas Pagels, These Are the Gifts I’d Like to Give You

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

To actually participate in this poll, you’ll have to visit my LiveJournal blog.

Inspired by The Onion.

● A romantic dinner for two with my sweetie.
● Come home from work, soak my aching feet, and fall asleep in my chair while watching Castle.
● A romantic dinner with the spouse and kids.
● Self-flagellation and meditating on the sins of the weary world.
● Prezzies! Lots of prezzies!
● Decorating the house with a Halloween theme.
● Receiving a handmade card from my kid(s).
● Listening to the lonely ticking of the clock in an empty, silent room.
● Making handmade cards with my kid(s).
● Candy! Lots of candy!
● Celebrating the beheading and martyrdom of St. Valentine.
● Handing out those little Valentines cards and Sweetarts.
● Cupcakes! Lots of cupcakes!
● Ticky doesn’t believe in celebrating love only one day of the year.
● Other.

It’s been a sea change kind of month and I’m looking forward to a fresh start in 2011.

May your new year be healthy, prosperous, exciting, and wise!  And most of all, may it be full of love.

…will be on hiatus at least until January 3.

Happy holidays, everyone.

And I’m quite enchanted that my Livejournal interests lists generated this rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem:

On the twelfth day of Christmas, pjthompson sent to me…

Twelve ghosts drumming

Eleven spirits publishing

Ten hauntings a-painting

Nine carnivals writing

Eight pellars a-reading

Seven anglo-saxons a-weaving

Six babylonians a-scrying

Five lo-o-o-os angeles

Four earth mysteries

Three eleusinian mysteries

Two witch trials

…and a neuroscience in an astrology.

Get your own Twelve Days:

And if you’re not in the U.S., have a great Thursday!