Come on, is this our future?

ACK!  Since I last spoke to you all, and thank you for gathering here today, nothing much has happened to me except the continuing saga of dealing with my Mom.  She turned 94 in the middle of August, fell down, was a bit out of it for a few days, then last week fell down again but might have had a little stroke and a little heart attack, and her kidneys weren't functioning well and she was way, way out of it.  Spent a week in the hospital, and we all know how hospitals want to discharge you ASAP. Needless to say, I have put many miles on my car driving out to Carmichael and back, checking on Mom and just being there.

Yesterday I was at the hospital and they decided to discharge her, which means you wait around in the hospital room for the entire day until the EMT guys come and take her the three blocks to the new place, a care facility, for a cost of something like $1000 for that 3 block drive and then you wait around for another 2 hours until they can even talk to you about the Mom person and get her settled into this New Place and then you get an hour reprieve to go out with your sister who has handled the force of this situation for weeks and is so exhausted.  You both get some alcohol (oh, thank you chemistry, for fermented products such as wine)  combined with food because you have not eaten anything except a banana at 10:00 in the morning.

Then you go back to the New Place and you get to deal with Mom who has no idea what year it is or where she is or how she got there. Which is fine, of course, because that's the easy part and she isn't unhappy about it, just confused, and you put an alarm on her so she will be rescued if she tries to get out of bed in the middle of the night and you try to say "goodnight" to her, which she doesn't understand.  Then you leave that place and you go to a nice hotel and check in and get  couple of inches of Jack Daniels in a nice hotel glass and sit on your bed and call the brothers and fill them in on the details about Mom, while looking out the large window of that lovely hotel room at the freeway and cars going by and the large flag waving in the breeze and feeling the really cold air-conditioned air blowing on you and thinking that this is the best Jack Daniels you have ever tasted. And you get the best sleep, in that hotel bed with that cold air blowing, that you have had in months.  You consider staying in that hotel room for another couple of days, just to sleep. Just to sleep and not dream and be quiet. Just to be quiet and have time to think. Or not think, because the thinking makes you sad and you then think that you do NOT want this to happen to you but what control over all of this do we have.  So you want to stay in that hotel, it feels safe and far away from those thoughts.

But you don't.  You go back to the New Place, see Mom again in the morning, again with just a banana as breakfast, and then you drive home.

And do it all over again soon.

I must thank my siblings, especially Kate, for what she has done so far.  All siblings are coming up to the plate ready to swing and at least get a base hit or a bunt.  No one is sitting on the bench.  But it isn't enough, of course. It's wait and see right now, to see what happens with Mom.

If you read this far, thank you.

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Are you awake now?

If anyone reads this, and thank you if you do, it has been a tough week.  My  level of ennui has reached Mt. Everest proportions.  My lack of concern about my hotel job has reached levels way below sea level, like Badwater levels in Death Valley.  "I don't care" is my new mantra. I don't care, and in the hospitality industry, that is simply not good.

My Mom is in the hospital again.  This time it's pretty serious.  Problems with her lungs, heart and kidneys.  Not sure what's going on and the doctors aren't sure either.  But hey, at 94, things fail.  Many things fail at once.  I wish she would just stroke out or have a bigger heart attack and die simply.  The prognosis isn't good and the long term care options are worse. If that sounds callus, so be it. Putting her in a long term "care facility" sounds a lot worse than dying.

Oh, my Baby Boom Generation compatriots, let's take up the flag and opt for a way out!  We are huge, this generation, and we should have some clout.  It should be easy to drink the Koolaid at some point, to just fade away when it is appropriate. I do not know one person in the age bracket of 50 - 75 who wants to hang on in a fucking nursing home, having someone run an IV line in, have someone spoon gruel and applesauce into one's mouth, have someone change diapers, have someone prop you up in bed. 

More on this a little later. 

This Blog

I am not seeing the point of this blog any more. When I started it, I was unemployed and starting off on a road trip.  It has spanned a lot of my life. But now I am employed and not on a road trip and I am fucking bored out of my mind. And riddled with angst and ennui.

Now I blog (aka write) about books I read, movies I see, random stuff. It has no point. Who cares, really? 

This is a "heads up." I will continue to write here but I can't tell you how often or about what.  When I read a good book or see a good movie or eat a good meal or have a good conversation, I might write about it. I might not.

This Friday there was a dedication at Westmoor High School in Daly City for some picnic benches. They, and the area in which they are situated, were dedicated to my friend Martha who was killed two years ago. She taught at Westmoor and was the Vice Principal there for more than 20 years before she went on to work at the Superintendent's Office.  It was a lovely ceremony, thanks to her good friend Emily. People spoke, some students sang, there was a nice crowd of teachers and students gathered for it.

It made me cry, again, for the loss of Martha. It makes me cry right now. Why do some people get killed and some people get to live on and on, past their expiration date? (Rhetorical question, no answer required.)  Grief just goes on and on.  Ask my brother Steve about that.  Ask anyone who has lost a friend, lover, sister, brother, child.  Grief has no expiration date. It simply flows, like water, on and on. Into the blue again. "Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down."

Move on. Yes. Moving on. However, the level of impatience I feel about everything makes it, simultaneously, impossible to move on and imperative that I move on. But the level of angst (for lack of a better word) that I feel about everything right now holds me hostage. And that list, the "everything" seems too daunting to discuss right now.

I have nothing else to say right now.

August 10: A Whirlwind is Born

After talking to John, I was tempted to retitle this post "The Birth of a Ferrari" but decided to leave it as it is.

Forty one years ago John and I welcomed, with trepidation, our daughter into the world.  She came easily into this world, dark haired, squishy faced and she had a lusty, loud cry.  A week or so into the world her squishy face turned beautiful and Jennifer was a beautiful baby and a beautiful girl. She is  now a beautiful woman.

Jennifer was a bit "out of the box" from the beginning.  At the age of 18 months she would take everything off her toy shelf and reorganize it.  She started Montessori school when she was about 2 1/2 years old and was reading within a year.  At her fourth birthday party, she read all her birthday cards out loud to the kids who were impatiently waiting for cake.  When she was about six, John and I were a little nervous about her obvious intelligence.  We had some intelligence tests done, just to reassure ourselves she wasn't THAT smart.  She aced the tests.

Ups and downs.  Highs and lows. Yin and yang. Good and bad.  Contradictions defined Jennifer then and they define her now.  After forty one years, little about her surprises me except her continuous stream of energy.  And her incredible organizational skills.  And her talents.  And her kindness and her temper.  And her love and loyalty.  And so much more, now that I think about it. Never a dull moment with that girl, that's for sure.  It's a whirlwind, all the time.  (Well, except when we are sitting on the couch, dogs on our laps, watching some random TV show. Cool dullness, yes!)

Jennifer doesn't read this blog, but if she did she would read that I love her more today than ever and I admire her more than ever as well.  She confounds me but she comforts me, too.   She can make me swear and purr at the same time.  How she does that, I do not know.

Forty one years.  41 is a prime number.  I hope it's a prime year for her.

Happy Birthday, beautiful girl! Know your Momma loves you. And your Daddy does too. And so many more.....

LTBT.

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My Summer Reading List, So Far

Yes, I know a blog about books is a cop-out but it's all I got right now. Other than the huge angst that is my mind-set right now, the huge desire to just get in the car and keep driving, the huge need to plan a vacation that won't happen for at least four months, the huge longing for something other than this "how can I make you happy" job I currently have, this huge want that seems to thrum inside me all of the time.  Other than all those things, it's all I got right now.

But books are my hiding place. Books demand nothing of me. They don't care if I read them or not. They do not ask where to eat or where to drink or crab at me about their credit card woes.  Books just are. Books are my safety.  Others have friends, exercise, diet, music, art, drugs.  I have books.  Like Mavis Staples says, to paraphrase: They take me there.

I come home, I strip off my work clothes, (which are jeans and a shirt,) and put on anything else so that I feel apart from my job.  And then I either walk the dogs or simply sit down and read. Sometimes I fall asleep, napping, sitting up, for 15 minutes, but that's fine.  I nap and I keep reading. The dogs sit on the couch with me and give me that space.  I read and I am no longer working and no longer a tool for someones vacation enjoyment. I read and I learn or escape or just enjoy the writing.  Enjoy the craft. 

Here are some books I have read this summer.  I have read many more that I haven't included, these are the best of the bunch.  So far.

Books:  Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson. 
We Are Called To Rise by Laura McBride
Cuckoo's Calling and Silkworm by Robert Galbraith, a pseudonym of J. K. Rowling. 
The Circle by Dave Eggers.  (If you haven't read Zeitoun from a couple of years ago, shame on  you.)
Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
The Possibilities by Kaui Hart Hemmings
Edge of Dark Water by Lansdale

OK, that should get you started. (More will follow.)   All were really good or I would not have recommended them. I got all of them out of the library, although some might be a long wait.  I read book reviews like many people read their emails so I get a 'heads up' about books before they are even in the NY Times book review section.  Not that it makes me better, it just makes me quicker to read some new books. Thus my wait for these books was short.  But still, they are all really good. Find them. They are all worth waiting for.  I didn't include any synopsis, you can find that online if you want.

Without books, without the other world they provide, I don't know how I would think.  My silly brain jumps all over the place all the time.  Reading grounds me. It makes my mind sit still and think.  For that fact alone, I am grateful to all those authors who labored over their words. I don't labor reading their words, I revel in their words.  I am happy and my silly mind is happy and that's all that matters.

Think. Read.
Read. Think.
It's a good combo.

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Still here, still working, still not much

Yes, it has been two weeks since I wrote anything here and I am a little sad about that.  Well, not sad, but maybe embarrased or feeling a tiny bit like a slacker.  However, we have had this conversation before and I know I am a slacker in many ways, so that's a given. Seriously, nothing is happening in my life that is even remotely interesting right now.

Well, OK, maybe a couple of things. But they are of no interest to anyone else.

"Or so she says"  which is what you are all thinking.  And you would be correct, it is What. I. Say.  So it's the truth.

However. I have had a couple of nice "adventures" that were not relative to my work or my home and I will tell you about that tomorrow. I have Monday off.  Zut Alors!  What a strange thing, to have Monday off.

Tune in tomorrow.  But I am realistic..... I am sure no one is reading this anyway so WTF, if I write tomorrow it's a good thing. If I don't, well you know what they say in Yakum. 

Baseball on the radio

Most people watch the Giants (or the Dodgers if you are insane) on TV.  At this point in my life, I do not have broadcast TV so that is not an option in my house. If I really want to watch a game, I go to a neighborhood bar for a few innings and satisfy my need to see the "swing and a miss."

I have been listening to the games on the radio lately and it is such a different experience.  Growing up, we listened to the games (those dreaded Dodgers, by the way) because we didn't always have a television.  In those days, TVs had tubes and those tubes would burn out.  If that happened, my mother wouldn't replace those tubes until it was World Series time. Then she would open up the back of the TV, see which tube wasn't lit up, pull it out and go to the local grocery store where they actually sold replacement tubes!  You could fix your own television in the 1960's.  We then had TV at least for a few months, until another tube blew out.

But for the most part we listened to games on the radio.  Vince Scully was the announcer and he had the voice of a Heisman Trophy Winner.  Smooth, just the right amount of pitch, not too loud, not too deep, and he exuded excitement when the game required it. I don't know any other announcer who IS baseball on the radio.  At least to me. 

So now I listen to the Giants games in the privacy of my own car or my own home and I love it.  It is like being in a padded room, nothing to do but listen.  One could do something mindless like pull weeds or paint the trim around the windows while listening but that's about it. One needs to pay attention because there are no instant replays in radio. (I sometimes have to pull over if I am driving because it requires focus that you can't give while in traffic.)  The game happens. You listen. You hear it or you miss it. You can't rewind. Time slows down when you listen and what you hear is intensified by the solitary act of imagining the game.  It happens entirely in your own head. You see it your way. You can see the outfielder leaping up to make that one-handed catch, you can see the runner sliding into base and you can almost see the umpire make the wrong call.  It's great.  Sitting on the couch with the dog, no distractions that I am willing to acknowledge, just me and the Giants.  It's almost better than watching it on TV.  Try it.