Shmushed

I just finished editing and uploading some hapless doctoral student's wretched massive tome. Now I have a few minutes before The Walking Dead comes on the local re-run channel to reflect on ants, editing, and stupid people.

I'm feeling a little disgruntled. I counted up the hours I spent on the editing project and calculated I earned just over $16.00 per hour. You might think that is a pretty good wage. If you think that, you would be wrong. Don't forget that at least 40% must be set aside for taxes.

While I was in the bathroom staring at the whiskers hanging out of my nose, I reflected on the possibility of writing a little program that would edit a dissertation for me according to a frivolously random algorithm, replacing commas with semi-colons and periods with exclamation marks. My edited product might defy the rules of grammar; but it would certainly read more energetically! Grammar-shmammar, that's what I always say. To my cat when he's licking his butt in the chair next to me.

The most recent editing project, and the source of my disgruntlement, consisted of the first three chapters of the client's dissertation and her proposal. It's rare to edit the dissertation before approval has been granted to field the study. I get the feeling that this client's brain is not firing on all cylinders. No doubt she is exhausted from smacking her children, placating her husband, and making empty promises to her committee. Or maybe she's just not ready for prime time.

I edited the proposal first, so I would know what the study was about. That took an entire day. On day 2, after I was part way through the dissertation itself, I happened to see an email from the agency guy in my inbox: Hope you haven't started the proposal: the client has an updated version. Enjoy! My yowl of horror and dismay inspired my cat to leave the room for a while. I did a quick document-compare and found very little had changed. No harm, no foul. Thank you, editing gods.

Speaking of editing gods, where were they last week, I wonder, when I won and lost my first (and probably last) dissertation coaching client? All gods are fickle—driving gods, dieting gods, ant-killing gods are just a few of the wingnuts that rule my world...but few gods are more unpredictable or capricious than the editing gods. This is the story.

I got a call on my cell phone from someone I didn't know. That happens occasionally. I rarely hear the thing buzz. My business number rolls over to a Google Voice number, and Google Voice sends me a transcript of the message. I always chuckle when I read Google's attempt to convert someone's quickly spoken words into text, especially if the person has an accent. Which was the case with the message that prompted the ensuing fiasco/learning opportunity.

I deciphered the message by listening to it and heard a man's voice say, “My professor recommended I get a coach.” After some back and forth by email and phone, I met Alphonse last Saturday at a local college campus (not the one he was enrolled with), where we sat at a picnic table in the sun and tried to understand each other. He told he he was enrolled in an online doctoral program in Education at someplace based in Colorado. He needed a coach and some help with APA formatting, he said.

“Do you have a copy of the APA book?” I asked. I held up my tattered and annotated copy. He looked perplexed.

Alphonse is from Kenya and retains a strong accent even after two decades in the U.S. It takes me a while to get familiar with a new accent. Meanwhile, I read lips. His lips were thin, and his teeth were perfectly white. His gums glowed pink, like there was a light on inside his mouth. He laughed a lot. Too much, and way too loudly. I hadn't been out of the house much lately, so I felt a little shrunken at his exuberance.

“Here are two of my assignments that need editing,” he said, holding out two bent pieces of white paper crammed with lines of single-spaced text in a variety of barely readable fonts. I could feel my eyes crossing (which in retrospect was an important clue, if I ever decide I want to do this again). He told me he was in a doctoral program, which led me to assume that he actually qualified to be in a doctoral program. I mean, I assumed he could write at least at a college level; he had to have a master's degree from somewhere, right? So I didn't do more than glance at the assignments he showed me.

Caught in my assumption, I failed to see red flag #1 (poor writing skills) and forged bravely into the muck, agreeing to edit his school assignments, which two days later got me into a frothy brouhaha with his professor, a faceless academic working at a two-bit for-profit university (not unlike the one from which I matriculated), who thought I had written Alphonse's assignments for him. More on that in a moment.

My second error was assuming that because Alphonse could use a cell phone, he could use a computer. Specifically, that he could send and receive emails with attachments. That assumption led me to refuse to receive the flashdrive he tried to give me, stating instead, oh, just email me the files. I'll edit them and send them back to you! Tra la la. Thus, red flag #2: poor computer skills. It's difficult to instruct someone how to download a file over the phone.

Red flag #3 involved his concern about how much my services were going to cost him. Duh. If a person has to ask, obviously they can't afford me. But at that point, I was more interested in the process of acquiring a real coaching client than I was in making money editing. Curiosity won out over chasing the cash. I have yet to be paid, but it's only $67.00, so I'm not too concerned.

As you can imagine, the fact that Alphonse couldn't send and receive email attachments meant he had to physically drive to my apartment and deliver a flashdrive to me. The first time, I met him in the street. He handed off the little gizmo and departed in his Toyota Prius. The second (and third times), in utter frustration, I invited him into my sacred space (red flag #4! Luckily he wasn't allergic to cats) and attempted to teach him how to do some things on my computer: send and receive an attachment, do some online research at the county library, and log into his university course room and upload a file. Alphonse sweated, mopped his brow, and laughed and laughed.

Without a doubt, Alphonse has the worst writing skills I have ever encountered. I do not lie when I say the editing I did for him was essentially a translation from a bizarrely poetic foreign language consisting almost entirely of... well, see for yourself.

This passage, by the way, was formatted entirely in bold. This was one of four paragraphs, all similar. After weeping a little, I began to pick my way through this verbal minefield and eventually produced a concise, neat translation that more or less represented the ideas I was able to glean from the essay. I felt I'd done a stellar job editing difficult material, and allowed myself a smidge of prideful satisfaction, which quickly dissipated when I got a call from Alphonse telling me his professor wanted to talk to me about the editing I'd done for him.

After some phone tag (on a holiday!), I connected with Dr. Bob, who calmly and with arrogant complacency commenced to regal me with his professional pedigree: program director, wrote the curriculum, president of a college, founded a college... yada, yada. By this time, I had looked him up on the Web and I knew exactly who he was: an academic wannabe stuck in the for-profit higher education world. And a bully, too, I found out.

I don't bully easily; I bend, I don't fight back. I didn't argue with Dr. Bob. I couldn't have gotten a word in, even if I had wanted to. I knew I had done nothing wrong: Alphonse hired me to edit his essays, and I had done my job as an editor; however, from an educator's point of view, I had made it possible for Alphonse to cheat. Once I saw that editing his papers was not going to help Alphonse toward his goal of earning a Ph.D., it was clear I had to release my new coaching client.

Meanwhile, Alphonse decided he didn't like his online university and the bossy Dr. Bob and began taking steps to transfer to a local university in his neighborhood. He emailed me yesterday that wanted me to edit his admissions essay. I declined. Alphonse has called my cell phone three times today. My cell phone was dead; forgot to charge it up. Ha. Maybe there is an editing god.

This is way too long, so I'll tell you about the ants another day. Hint: The word of the day: shmushed.

If I wait long enough

I realized last night as I tried to fall asleep after watching back-to-back episodes of The Walking Dead on the re-run channel, few things give me more pleasure than posting to this blog. I return to this blog like returning to a old friend, the kind of friend who listens unconditionally, thereby giving me space to say the next stupid thing that comes to mind. How rare is that, to find that generous a friend?

What shall I tell you today, friend? Would you like to hear about the unseasonably warm weather we are having here on the west coast? No, probably not, not if you live on the east coast, where you are slipping on ice or buried under seven feet of snow. I'm sorry for you, truly. Out here on the frontier the air is downright balmy. I still fear winter will return with a vengeance, but the trees, shrubs, and daffodils apparently don't agree. Nor does my cat, who after fluffing up during the month of January is now shedding like it's spring. The National Weather Service informs me that it is 56°F here in the Mt. Tabor area of the Rose City, and it's only 1:00 p.m. This is bizarre. My conclusion is that I don't have to pack up and move to a warmer, drier climate; apparently if I wait long enough, my preferred climate will come to me.

Still, it's a mixed blessing: I enjoy these warmer drier days, but I know we need snow on our mountain if we will avoid water shortages next summer. And if I were a skier or snowboarder or a snow resort operator on Mt. Hood, I would be totally bummed. The sun is trying to shine right now. I'm opting for living in the moment.

But enough about our warm winter. What else can I tell you?

My scrawny old mother and I are still trying to find a retirement community for her to join. On Tuesday morning we met at a third place, just up the street from her condo. I was a bit perplexed at not being able to find its website, but our senior placement adviser, Doug, had assured us he had placed many happy old folks there. Mom was skeptical, but doing our due diligence, we thought we should at least go look at the place. The sky was blue, the sun was warm. Great day to tour an old folks' home.

I got there early. I parked on a side street and started walking around the parking lot of the two-building complex. As far as I could tell, the place consisted of artists' lofts, studios, and gallery spaces. I didn't see any wheelchair ramps. No blue-haired women pushing walkers. No wobbling old bald men soaking up the sun. The place looked quiet and deserted, and the signs around the parking lot advised us to park elsewhere.

I turned and spotted my mother trotting toward me. She wore her trademark red fleece jacket and thrift store faded blue jeans with tidy creases permanently sewn in. She sported huge dark glasses over her regular glasses and a knitted cap on her short gray hair. I wore much the same thing (sans the huge dark glasses and the creases in my jeans).

“Where do we go?” she said.

“I don't think it's here anymore,” I replied. “All I see is a gallery, and it's closed. That building says 'Lofts' and that building says 'Studios.'”

A long-haired young woman wearing Uggs was scuffing slowly along on the sidewalk near us, smoking a cigarette. I stopped her and asked if she knew anything about the buildings.

“Yeah, I live here,” she said neutrally.

I asked if there was a retirement community here. She said no, not anymore, and wandered on her way. Mom and I did a 360, eyeballing nearby buildings. Nothing but houses and small apartment buildings, nothing big enough to house 100+ old folks. The buildings were here, but the retirement community was gone.

I walked Mom back to her car. We agreed it was a good thing that we hadn't driven clear across town to see a place that wasn't there. She had more errands to run: post office, day-old bread store, library, I don't know what all... errands that keep her connected to the world (and driving on city streets). I watched her motor away and walked back to my own car. I drove home, made lunch, and continued editing a paper on evaluating the differences between Ed.D and Ph.D. degrees. Ho hum.

Meanwhile, Doug the senior placement adviser is AWOL, not responding to email or phone calls. I am imagining that he got tired of wrangling needy desperate clients who want the best facility for the least amount of money.

We'll carry on without him. Next up is a place in Milwaukie where Mom has some friends. It has a garden. I'm hopeful that eventually we will find the right place. I don't want to let this search drag on too long. The old mother I used to have, the one with stained bent teeth, bulging biceps, and a determined stride has been replaced by a stranger with perfect dentures, sagging arms, and a wary, wobbly step. I guess if we wait long enough, none of this will matter. But I want her to be safe and happy in her last days, at least until the money runs out.

I used to imagine that someday—and I am not proud of this—that someday after both parents were gone, that there would be some money for me and my siblings. If I just waited long enough, maybe some of the pressure of scrabbling for a living would ease. Maybe I would be able to retire, or at least not worry so much. If I just waited long enough.

Now that scenario seems pretty unlikely. Now that I know how much money my mother really has, and how much income she receives, I see that there is no safety net there, no ease, just more of the same. Of course, we all know that I'm not required to worry. Everyone has challenges but suffering is optional. That thought doesn't really make me feel better, but it does motivate me to pull my head out of my own butt just a little. I guess that is a start.

And I know that if I wait long enough, none of this will matter. It's hard for a chronic malcontent to have hope these days. Climate change, terrorists, Russia, nuclear war, and stupid people who care more about money than about people... the odds are not looking good for the human species—or any other species on Planet Earth. I carry on as if my tiny life matters, but I know that in the end, nothing matters. I'm a speck. Suns explode, planets are hit by asteroids, new havens appear in distant galaxies, and life (most likely) carries on. There is no question we all die; the question is how to live until then. I'm still working on it.

Two ants shuffle into a bar

The balmy temperature has invited relentless droves of ants to once again infiltrate my kitchen. My puny barricades of diatomaceous earth and half-hearted moats around the cat food dishes are not working. Scouts wander the walls and ceiling over my kitchen table. Lone soldiers reconnoiter the table cloth, despite my efforts to thwart their access. Every hour I pluck and squash a hapless forager from the back of my neck. Why do ants feel compelled to go up?

Last week I expressed my frustration to my friend Carlita. “Get some of that spray stuff!” she recommended and told me the brand name. I got some at the store. It's a gallon jug with an attached sprayer device, a very clever delivery system. I kept it in my car for a few days (along with the gallon of anti-freeze, which my mechanic recommends I mix with water and put into my radiator reservoir when it falls below min). A couple days ago, I brought the ant killer spray into the house and set it on the floor by the kitchen door. I took time to read some of the instructions on the label. This weekend, as I reapplied diatomaceous earth and cleaned up scouts, I occasionally glanced at the jug of death juice.

Finally, tonight, I had enough. Start small, I thought. I'll do the cupboards under the sink and next to the sink.

I got onto my knees and started pulling junk out of the cupboards: four rolls of cheap paper towels; a jug of bleach; a jug of ammonia (do not mix!); a gallon of distilled water (for the neti pot); alcohol in a spray bottle (for killing ants, moths, and fruit flies); about twenty sponges of various types and a scrub brush thing that doesn't work (not enough bristles); a near-empty bag of diatomaceous earth; a few vacuum cleaner bags in a box (hepa filters); an old toothbrush; a very old and rusty SOS soap pad saved in a clear teacup; two thermoses and a thermos jug with two compartments for keeping food separate and hot (never worked); an empty tray with sections for serving fresh fruits or veggies, with clear lid (why?); four white plastic bowls with green lids in graduated sizes; one stainless steel mixing bowl; two measuring cups, one plastic, one glass; two ice cube trays; a cat food dispenser; a cheap Osterizer blender base and clear plastic container (lots of protein shakes have been made in that blender); a stainless steel sieve; and a big white plastic bowl (the fifth one of the set) holding a big white plastic colander of roughly equal size, which I use for washing broccoli and collards.

After I pulled all the stuff out onto the floor and counter, I saw a gruesome sight: splotches of mold and about a billion dead ant bodies, resting in small drifts around the edges of the cupboard. Hmm. I swept out the dusty carcasses and set about my task of creating a perimeter barrier with poison.

I detached the sprayer nozzle from its holder on the side of the gallon of pesticide. I pulled out the curly hose and attached it to the cap of the jug. I flipped up the switch and started pulling the trigger, aiming around the edges of the space under the sink. The juice flowed freely up the tube and sprayed neatly where I pointed the nozzle. I held my breath, but couldn't smell anything much.

I moved to the rest of the empty cupboards. Pretty soon, my throat started to feel just a teeny bit scratchy. I felt a righteous urge to keep on spraying. When I felt my mission was complete, I closed up the cupboard doors to keep the cat from investigating and backed away. Then I opened the kitchen windows wide, just in case.

I let the juice dry for a good hour before I opened the cupboard doors. While I waited, I cleaned all the junk that had been stored in there. A few things I chucked in the garbage (SOS soap pad). Some I put into the thrift store bin (the disappointing thermos). I found some plastic baskets and organized what was left.

I took time out to heat up my dinner: ground turkey and wild rice leftovers. While I ate, I read a book my mother had checked out from the library. The title of the book is What to do with your Old Decrepit Mother. Well, not that, precisely. The book is a guide for people who need to care for aging parents. The author outlined what to expect, where to put them, how much it will cost, what questions to ask the care facility... She also told the sad tale of her own aging father. By the time I finished eating, I was completely ruined.

I put my dish on the stack of unwashed dishes in the sink and peeked into the sprayed cupboards. Everything looked okay. Still moldy, but nothing shocking, like no dead squirrels. I started loading the junk back into the cupboards. It didn't take long. While I worked, I wondered why the author of that book didn't suggest the ancient resolution for old parents: taking them up the mountain and throwing them off a cliff. Maybe I haven't got to that part yet.

Knowing my luck, the ants that used to travel through those cupboards on the way to some other kitchen location will simply detour around the toxic barrier. There are more cupboards to do before my perimeter defense is complete. Plus the other side of the kitchen, around the table and the cat food area. Maybe I'll feel up for tackling that job tomorrow. Or not.

Dangling by the leg over the abyss of old age

Today the universe presented me with a chance to practice patience and gratitude. Because I spend so much time alone at home, I don't get many opportunities to practice these two important qualities. Well, I practice on my cat occasionally, but the real test is when you practice on a parent, am I right? Today I was aware that I had some choices, although I'm not sure if I learned the lesson. Here is what happened.

I took my mother to the credit union for the second time in two weeks to get some signatures on her account. I always drive when we go someplace, so I don't have first-hand knowledge of my mother's deteriorating driving skills. Unlike my brother, who called me in outrage last week, the day after he met our mother at the credit union.

“Your mother is a crappy driver!” he snarled and proceeded to tell me all about it. The next day my mother called me and said, “Did your brother call you about my driving?” I guess another conversation must happen soon about how much longer Mom can go on terrorizing the neighborhood with her old Toyota Camry. A topic for another blog post.

Today the adventure at the credit union took a bit longer than expected because she had forgotten her wallet (and ID) at home. She was understandably upset. To a young(er) person, forgetting a wallet at home might be attributed to stress or carelessness or just plain laziness. When you are 85, a lapse in attention is a harbinger of impending institutionalization. As we went back out to the car, I tried to help her put her lapse into perspective.

“It could be a whole lot worse,” I said. I went on to say how lucky we were (us privileged white Americans, is what I was thinking) to be born here and now, and not over there, or way back when... it could be a lot worse. “And look, it's not snowing, or even raining. If you have to forget your wallet, today is the perfect day to do it.”

She didn't look convinced, but by the time we drove back to the credit union with her wallet, I suspected it had faded from short-term memory. At last we sat down with a rep at the credit union, who couldn't seem to figure out what we were there for. After much confusion and checking with managers, it seemed that no signatures were needed after all.

Mom was miffed, but I was resigned, not angry. It does no good to get angry over these things, I now know. Anger is the dubious luxury of the so-called normal people. Whoever they are. I have no idea. I'm not normal, I know this... but actually, I don't think I know any normal people. Huh. Maybe I'm just running with the wrong crowd. Or maybe I'm defining normal in some weird way, like people who drive SUVs and own poodles.

With the credit union drama over, my main objective of the day with Mom was to calculate her income, expenses, and assets, so we can go shopping for a retirement community armed with accurate information about her finances. When we got back to the condo, I pulled out my laptop and looked for room at the kitchen table to set it up.

I don't know how your mother's kitchen table looks, but this is what I saw on my mother's table. Not counting the dusty table cloth and stained placemats: two commuter coffee mugs waiting to be donated to the thrift store; a brass teapot filled with loose change; a tired aloe vera plant in a clay pot; a stack of handwritten lists and notes (important items!); various sizes of manila envelopes; a half-used book of stamps; a small stack of plastic clamshell-type packaging items (trash); a pile of kitchen implements, including baking pans and utensils, also bound for the thrift store; her old black cordless telephone; her current library book; a coffee cup with successive black rings around the inside; a small open box of Belgian chocolate (sent by my sister from Europe), a couple pieces looking slightly nibbled; an unruly stack of newspapers; and four white facial tissues, well-used and wadded into balls, clearly set aside to be used again.

I got my laptop set up and got to work. While I struggled to decipher the penciled figures in her tiny notebook (e.g., groc 6.81, gas 20, cigs 47) and enter the numbers into an Excel spreadsheet, my mother prepared her breakfast. I tried not to look, but I couldn't help but hear. She poured a bowl of store-brand Cheerios while two pieces of day-old bread toasted in the toaster oven. Tick, tick, tick, tick. She shook up a box of almond milk, opened it, and poured it over her cereal. Sploosh, crackle. (I guess I should be thankful she wasn't eating store-brand Rice Krispies.) Next I heard her buttering her toast: scratch, scrape, scritch, scritch. She put the bowl on the table next to me and laid two burned pieces of buttered toast directly on the placement where you would normally place a drinking glass. No plate, is what I'm saying.

She ate. Crunch, crunch, gloop, glug, swallow, crunch. Can you tell I'm a misophoniac? I am desperately averse to certain sounds. Eating sounds might as well be fingernails on a blackboard. Meanwhile, I am thinking to myself, thank you for this opportunity to refrain from strangling the woman who gave birth to me. Thank you, thank you, universe, whatever you are.

Finally I wrangled the numbers into the spreadsheet and throttled some formulas into telling us the bottom line. If she doesn't fall down any more stairs or get pneumonia or give her money away to destitute children, she can afford to move into a retirement community and maintain her current lifestyle for at least another ten years. Of course, this means we sell the condo and liquidate all her assets, but it is good news. She seemed greatly relieved.

I had some moments in which I could not identify what I was feeling. One of those moments occurred when I realized that my mother's monthly income, most months, is barely over $1,200. Another odd moment occurred when I entered her expenses: she spends as much on cigarettes as she does on food. Then I thought: Who will do this for me when my turn comes?

I still don't know what I'm feeling. I suppose I should take a nap. This odd freefall feeling will fade, and I'll be back in denial, trusting the universe to catch me as I daily leap off metaphorical cliffs. The cat snores in the chair next to me. I sit staring at this blog post, thinking about suffering and uncertainty at home and abroad, and wonder...am I too self-centered and depressed to acknowledge today's lesson of patience and gratitude? Yeah, probably.