Got my oil changed and suvived to write about it

I'm always shocked when my car speaks to me, but I've learned to listen when the horrible chime jangles my nerves to tell me something needs attention. Most of the time it's the dreaded check engine light, the bane of my existence. Once it was an issue with the gas cap not being closed all the way. Recently the message in the odometer window was "low tire." My car plays coy, though. Not going to tell you which tire is low, ha ha, you figure it out. Given the weather had turned cold, I suspected it was all four. I am now the proud owner of a tire inflator machine. So fun. 

I'm glad my car has enough of a brain to tell me when something is wrong, rather than shutting off with no notice and leaving me stranded, as has happened with cars in my past. They did the best they could. I'm sure someday if I live long enough I will have a car that actually talks to me. Not like that car in Knight Rider. I'm thinking more along the lines of My Mother the Car. I can just imagine my mother being reincarnated as a 1994 Toyota Camry. Nothing fancy. She would say "I need an oil change and Jiffy Lube is having a special, but don't let them sell you an air filter because I don't need one yet, and you can do that yourself." 

My car has the brain of an infant savant, more or less. It doesn't speak, but it makes noises that get under my skin, particularly that gruesome chime. I hate that sound. When my car dinged a couple days ago as I was firing it up to go shopping, I was confused at first, because the check engine light was blessedly dark. Then I saw the message in the odometer window: oil change.

According to the sticker dangling in the corner of my windshield by the last oil change provider, I should have had another thousand miles, but I stopped patronizing that shop because I finally figured out, after thousands of dollars, that they had taken advantage, and not only that, they smoked weed as a group in the back of their shop, which is right by the bike path where I frequently walk. Nothing against those who indulge, as long as they aren't working on my car while they do it. Anyway, I found a new mechanic in the neighborhood. So when my car told me it wanted new oil, I went there.

Sadly for me, the gray clouds that had threatened to explode finally did, which is good if you like rain, as we often do in the desert, but this rain was the kind I know from the Pacific Northwest, that is to say, the kind that moves in and squats over the city like a brood hen trying to hatch a cold dead egg. In the desert, I've come to know the nature of monsoon, the weather phenomenon that boils up out of nowhere, destroys the place with lightning, hail, wind, torrential rain, and flash floods and then evaporates, leaving you wondering what the heck! This week's rain was not like that. The radar showed Tucson under a huge green splat, which meant it was going to be raining for a while.

I drove to the mechanic and dashed through the rain to the office. I was greeted by a surly middle-aged man who reluctantly agreed to do the oil change on the spot (well, within three hours) and what kind of oil did I want? Like I would know the answer to that question. I said, "You are assuming I know the answer to that question." He looked at me with that long-suffering look I've seen on countless sales reps' faces over years and years of me not trusting that I know more than I think I do. Finally we figured it out, and pretty soon we were getting along. 

"Are you going to wait or are you going walk around the mall?" he asked. 

"Oh, I'll go hang out at the mall," I said, like an idiot. I had a raincoat. How bad could it be?

I'd forgotten it was a few days until Christmas. I don't pay attention to the holidays, except to be annoyed that they encroach on my routines. I guess I assumed yet again that everyone else was like me but you know what happens when we assume. I headed off in the rain toward the mall and soon realized I was way out of my comfort zone. Even on a good day, malls are trying to kill me. During this Christmas shopping season, a sense of desperation and panic hung over the whole retail neighborhood. The streets were jammed with SUVs all trying to turn into the mall parking lot without getting T-boned by oncoming traffic. Pedestrians had no chance, but what choice did I have? Sit in the waiting room? I chanced it. 

I wandered the edge of the wide parking lot past the empty Sears store, crossing the traffic lanes near JC Penney, and meandered past REI and the Container Store, loathe to actually go inside the mall itself. As I stumbled over curbs and puddles, I got the bright idea to walk up the street to Best Buy. I needed new headphones, and it wasn't too far away. On a good weather day, it would have been a pleasant stroll. Not today.

Between the rain and the speeding cars, I was a soggy ragged breathless mess by the time I got there. Unbeknownst to me, my raincoat had lost its ability to repel water, so I was drenched through my hoodie sweatshirt through my T-shirt through my tanktop to my skin. My sweatpants, so cozy just an hour earlier, were soaked from the knees down. I was half-blind from glasses covered with raindrops. Lucky for me, not expecting to have to walk very far, I had worn my thirty-year-old waterproof Merrell mules instead of my sneakers. Thus, although tired, my feet were warm and dry. 

I made it to Best Buy, found the things I needed, and ventured back out into the slogfest. No letup in the rain, no letup in the traffic. If anything, both seemed to be growing more intense by the minute. At the intersection between me and the mechanic's shop, I made sure to press the walk button. With my eye on the walk sign and the opposite curb, four lanes away, I watched for oncoming traffic making a left turn in front of me. All good. 

Lucky for me, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the huge black monster truck making a right turn as I stepped off the curb. I don't think the driver saw me, at least, I hope that is the case. I hate to think they made that dangerous turn on purpose. The holidays can make people do things they would not normally do. I can be magnanimous now, given I lived to write this blogpost. 

I stopped walking and let the truck blast by in front of me, close enough to touch. I had time to admire enormous rugged tires. I wasn't thinking at that moment, oh, nice tires. In that moment, I yelled and gestured, which felt pretty good, actually, since I rarely yell and gesture. I dashed across the street and made it to the far curb unscathed, calcified heart valve pounding. 

As I continued my walk, I was gifted with more opportunities to yell and gesture, this time at the drivers who sped through the standing water, drenching me as I walked on the sidewalk. If it hadn't been so miserably uncomfortable, it would have been hilarious. I could have been starring in a rom-com. Hapless hero facing conflicts before achieving the goal of happiness, which in my case was getting back to my car alive.

I returned early to the mechanic and sat shivering in the waiting room scrolling through my phone like a zombie. Eventually my car was ready. Now I know the holiday spirits were looking out for me, partly because I survived the walk to Best Buy and back, but mostly because the mechanics didn't find anything else wrong with the car, other than the obligatory notice to get my fuel injectors cleaned. I'll wait until my car tells me its time.

Happy holidays from the Hellish Handbasket. Hope your new year is better than the last.

Happy holidays from the Hellish Handbasket

Here we are again, heading into another holiday season. It's not my favorite time of year, because 75°F is still too cold for this hothouse flower. And because grocery shopping is twenty times more difficult. And because one of my preferred radio stations seems to have sold its soul to the Christmas music devil. And because one of the neighbors here in the trailer park gave me a little loaf of banana bread and a baggy of Chex mix and I ate them both in ten minutes. For all those reasons [urp], this is not my favorite time of year. But what do you expect from a self-proclaimed chronic malcontent?

I'm kind of over the malcontent thing. With all the troubles in the world today, it seems pretty self-centered to act like my little dramas are so important. I may be heading toward houselessness, but at least bombs aren't falling on my head. I mean, we need to keep things in perspective. Yes, I ate the entire loaf of banana bread but that constitutes dinner, and tomorrow I will do better, because the banana bread is now gone. 

I'm learning the only way through these strange days is to keep my head down, focus on what I can do here and now, and not get enmeshed in other people's drama. Some people like drama. Just because I got weary of self-made drama and let it go doesn't mean other people have to do the same. Drama can be fun and exciting. I used to be a drama addict. Now, all I have to do is remember that one of my close friends has dementia, and another friend's mother just died, and I get back to right-size. Good things happen sometimes. It's not all bad. I mentioned last week I didn't get that job I had applied for (which probably would have changed my life, at least for one year), but I had some editing work this week. I keep showing up for life, and somehow I keep on living. So weird. 

Meanwhile, I continue to write a story a day, why, I'm not really sure. You can't really call them stories. More like . . . scenes. Musings. Little upchuckings. Sometimes I have an idea of what I want to write. Stories come to me while I'm out walking. That's fun, trying to see if I will remember them by the time I get home. Other times I open up the page and stare at it. Classic writer angst, right? To bemoan the blank page? I don't really bemoan anymore. As long as it's not the white screen of death, I'm good. I just start typing. Kind of like how I'm writing this blog right now. Wow. So meta. 

Here are a few holiday wishes from the Hellish Handbasket. I hope this holiday season is joyful for you, or at least not miserable. I hope the weather doesn't totally suck where you are. I hope the suffering you might be feeling doesn't drag you down into depression. I hope your family doesn't criticize you too much and if they do, that you have a safe place to hide out with a good book. I hope you can experience the holiday lights, the aromas, the shoppers, the music, without going completely insane and wishing you could hibernate till spring. Please don't poke your eyes out. Please don't overdose on oxy. Please don't eat an entire loaf of banana bread at one sitting. Be kind to yourself, just for a few days., till this thing is over. We'll get through it together. Then in January we can commiserate when winter really hits the fan. 

Another stupid cold holiday season begins

As usual, the holidays stir up mixed feelings in my brain. Beyond the basics of cold, hungry, tired, or leave me alone, I often have no idea what I want or need, and it always seems worse this time of year. Is that normal? I suspect not. You probably love the holidays, am I right? All those songs, those lights, those smells emanating from frantic shoppers. What's more, I bet you go through this season knowing exactly what you want and need. The reason I claim this is because I used to know exactly what I wanted and needed. Or I thought I did. Now I know nothing, not about holiday cheer, pecan pie, or anything else.

For example, once I was positive I would have a career in the arts. Everyone around me thought so, and so did I. Now, looking back, I find I actually have had no career at all. I don't think many people who aren't in the arts can say that. Normal people go to school, get jobs that constitute careers, have families, accumulate wealth, retire, and then die. Oh, sure, they have hiccups, farts, and belches along the way in the form of divorces, deaths, illness, what have you, but those things would have happened anyway, no matter what their career, given that people are codependent frightened amygdalas most of the time. Oh, sorry, this has nothing to do with the holidays, does it? This sometimes happens. It's the end-of-year what-fresh-hell-is-this time of reflection.

My amygdala is running flat out these days, trying to get me to stop, just stop. I seem hell bent on jumping in a handbasket and setting a course straight for hell. I think I can add "as usual," because this is normal for me, this is my norm, this is my M.O. I'm regressing to my mean. I'm trying to be nice about it, but the holiday music sometimes gets under my skin. Misophonic dermatillomaniac. 

What I am trying to say? I'm saying I'm nuts. To really put paid to this season of holiday hell, I applied for a job, and this week, I had a Zoom interview. (No, it's not a Christmas sales job, although that could be a fun form of purgatory for someone who chases misery.) It's just a semi-white collar grant-funded one-year temp gig. Part of me thinks they'd be crazy not to hire me. If they do, there's a chance I might be moving to northern Arizona. However, there is an equal chance I will be moving into my car and parking it on BLM land somewhere to wait for affordable housing to catch up to the senior housing crisis. 

I'm trying to imagine how I will feel if I don't get the job. Will rejection confirm all the negative beliefs I've dragged around like a PigPen blanket all these years? Oh, woe is me, alas, alackaday, they hate me, time for some worm stew. My own private rain cloud will let loose, and I will accept it, because I rarely use an umbrella, but mainly because that is what I'm used to. I land somewhere by accident, I perch for a while, and then a strong wind (usually blown out my own butt) sends me toppling into free fall, until I fetch up on some other ledge or branch, wondering what the hell just happened.

But, holy crapolly momma moly, what if I get the job? Who will I be then? Someone whose skills are in demand? Someone chosen to be part of a team? My brain is like a piece of slimy meat that refuses to wrap around the stick. I need a new brain. I need a new persona, a new self-concept, if you will. This stupid cold season really tends to bring out my chronic malcontent. Kind of like Beauty and the Beast. No, more like Jeckyll and Hyde. Mutt and Jeff. Chip and Dale. Sonny and Cher. Bread and butter. Gay and apparel. Wait. What? 

I can write what I want here because this blog is still (more or less) anonymous and because nobody reads it anymore anyway. Or if they do, they are much too polite to bring up my latest melancholic diatribe about my attempts to live life on its own stupid terms. If I had been writing like this twenty years ago, my family and friends would have stormed me with an intervention. I'd be in rehab. Ninety in ninety, phone it in every day. 

Now, my friends and family are busy, living busy interesting lives. To be sure, some of them are probably as miserable as I am, falling down stairs and losing mothers. But others are busy going on fabulous trips to exotic places, embarking on romantic relationships, worrying about quiche and cats and husbands, oh my. None of them has time for my drama. This is healthy, this is good. Everyone has drama. They just don't barf it out in a blog. At least, not that I know of. Hm. Omigorsh, would it not be hilariously wonderful if we were all blogging anonymously? 

Meanwhile, the alarm clock in my brain is still going off once per minute, 24/7, and I'm still writing and posting a story a day on my non-anonymous blog, where I go on and on and on, simply to practice my craft. And because I said I would, and I am not a quitter. Wonder of wonders! No wonder I'm nuts. Writing a story a day is harder than showing up to write a literature review for a dissertation no one will ever read. 

Sorry to the bots, this blog is the landfill where the garbage trucks dump the crap. 

Welcome to a new season of endless cranky fun from the Hellish Handbasket. 

Happy holidays from the Hellish Hand-basket

Another year plods to a close. How do individual moments seem to drag when days, months, and years speed by so fast? The moments of 2022 blend together into a big blur of terror and boredom. 

I'd recap but memory fails.

My friend asked me if I was depressed. I said, I don't think so. After our call, I looked up the symptoms of depression. While I was at it, I looked up the symptoms of anxiety. You'll be relieved to know, I don't have either one. I might have signs of dementia, but it's too soon to know for sure. 

I'm pretty sure, though, that I am still grieving.

Just plain old garden variety grief, not so much for what I’ve lost, although that lingers, but more like grief for the idea of home that didn’t manifest for me since coming to Tucson. I sought a safe affordable home in the desert, and I got a temporary fix, which is grand, but long-term, Tucson did not turn out to be the answer for me, and that makes me sad.

As long as I'm grieving, I might as well add other losses to the list. I’m sad that suddenly I have to take so many meds. I’m sad that my heart is glitchy. I’m sad that my ears won’t settle. I’m sad I will end up joining the vast numbers of "car camping" nomads while I look for my new home. It's going to take a miracle. In other words, luck and persistence.

As long as I'm sad for myself, I might as well add my tears to the universal mix. I’m sad that so many people around the world are suffering. Near and far, life is hard and people suffer. Life has always been hard. People have always suffered. On a suffering scale, is it better or worse now, compared to decades past? I have no idea. How do you define and measure suffering? Can I say I suffer more than you suffer? To me, being cold is suffering. Hothouse flower.

Today is Christmas day. Two of my siblings got on the Zoom today with their respective significant others to do the obligatory monthly family Zoom, which just happened to fall on Christmas day. One sibling was absent. He has always blazed his own trail. Even as I send him texts (where are you? Family Zoom happening now!), I envy him his detachment. There's freedom in remaining unattached.

My family detached from Christmas years ago. When the parents were alive, we'd go out to eat. No cooking, no cleaning. Then we detached from the season by adopting a round-robin secret Santa gift-giving exchange among the immediate family members. Before long, we stopped giving gifts all together. Dad died, Mom became demented, I was broke, my younger brother was busy, and my older brother didn't care. 

Only my sister seems interested in carrying on any sort of family tradition or ritual. Channeling Mom, she sent me a toothbrush for Xmas 2021. This year I asked her not to. I can buy my own toothbrushes. But I think she was trying to hold family tradition together. As we get older, traditions have tattered. Memories have faded. We are widely scattered with no parent to glue the family dregs together. Interest and energy are circling the drain. 

Speaking of family rituals, next spring I'm planning to take a road trip to Oregon. If all goes according to plan, my sister will fly out from Boston. We will drive down to the coast and scatter Mom's ashes on the Columbia River at the same place we scattered my father's ashes, if we can find the place. It might have been washed away by time and tide since 2005 or whenever we did that ritual. Mom's been in a box for almost two years. It's time we set her free. Not that she would care—Elf on a Shelf, Mom in a Box—but I suppose my brother could use the shelf space.

It's possible that I will discover my next home somewhere on that road trip. Fingers crossed.

Wishing you all the best in this stupid cold season

On Friday night, Mom was just leaving the dining room as I came strolling down the hall from the back door, dripping from a strangely balmy rainstorm.

I slowed down and matched my pace to hers. “How was dinner tonight?” I asked.

“Well, it's over with,” she replied, leaning heavily on her walker, eyes on the floor.

“Ha. That's funny,” I said. “Was that a joke? That was a joke!”

I couldn't see her face. My view was of her hunched shoulders. I admired her red fleece top, very festive.

I made a mental note to remember her joke so I could report it to you. She often says funny things, but I don't remember them. I enjoy her jokes in the moment, receiving them as they occur. Sorry you miss most of the good stuff. Her jokes and observations evaporate from my brain almost as fast as I suspect they evaporate from hers. I can't tell if I'm getting early dementia or my brain's memory failures are a sympathetic response to help me feel compassion for a woman I spent most of my life denigrating, avoiding, disparaging, or sucking up to.

The holiday season is barreling at us full speed, propelled by anger and fear. Fear that we'll miss out, that it won't be good enough, we won't get it all done, we won't get what we want. Anger that other people refuse to bend to our will (get out of our way, give us more love, stop believing stupid things). Anger that time and space are oblivious to our desperate need to find the right something for someone who could not care less.

Some years back, my family abandoned giving gifts to everyone in the family (all six of us, plus my one brother-in-law and my one niece), resorting instead to choosing "Secret Santas." That went over so well we eventually evolved to avoiding giving gifts altogether. After Dad died, there seemed to be little point.

The relief at opting out of the season of consumption overtakes me when I perform my weekly hunting and gathering chores (Winco). I feel no mania. When I'm at Mom's, watching TV with her, we remark on the proliferation of holiday commercials exhorting us to buy stuff, from perfume to trucks to burgers. No product is exempt from the season of giving. We marvel at the ploys marketers use to persuade us our lives will be perfect if we just buy that thing. Trucks barreling through snow (ugh, yech, who would want to do that?). Slim-limbed women in golden evening gowns soaking together in a giant Roman bath (like, what?). As the anti-Christ of marketing, I am chagrined to realize that the marketers' ploys have succeeded, at least with me—alas, I can remember the brands they were advertising. Curse you, marketing machine!

Here we are at the end of a year even more bizarre than the last. My friends have stopped watching the news, opting instead for deep dives into Netflix, where they settle among empty pizza boxes like traumatized goldfish sinking into crusty sediment. I don't have Netflix or pizza. I find relief reading library books in the bath.

Back in her room, she settled into the black hole of her couch and pulled her blanket over her. I turned on the TV. Friday night television leaves us bereft, now that MeTV has opted for College Football at 6:30 pm. No Flintstones, no Stooges, it's a real entertainment wasteland. It's either HGTV or golf.

“No more golf!” Mom said firmly.

Desperate, I switched to the Smithsonian channel, which was showing a program about World War II. We watched as Allied bombers blew up some buildings.

“I don't think I should watch this, do you?”

Our last resort is to watch the young man we have nicknamed Dimples, the tattooed host of the lottery dream home show on HGTV.

“Okay, I guess we are stuck with Dimples,” I said.

“Who?”

Her eyes were at half-mast. I snapped a photo of her coffee table with her in the background zoned out on the couch. On her table in the foreground of the photo, in this order: tissue box, fake flickering candle, Christmas stick (two ornaments on a bit of pine tree I found in the street, stuck in a bud vase), a bushy red poinsettia plant ordered by my sister from France and sent from California the day before, and a foot-tall dark green crocheted Christmas tree strung with tiny objects that look like they belong on a charm bracelet. In the background, my mother dozing in a red fleece top with her mouth open. If that doesn't say happy holidays, nothing will.

On Sunday night, M.A.S.H. will return and the world will align once again on its proper axis. It's winter solstice. We can put up with a few more days of these obnoxious commercials as we do our best to ignore this stupid cold season.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Hellish Hand-Basket

This afternoon as I was eating under-cooked apple-and-raisin oat bran muck out of my beat-up thrift-store stainless steel pan, I contemplated . . . oh, darn it, now I don't remember what I was contemplating. I lost my thought remembering the dusty aisles of the many thrift stores that have provided me with clothing and household goods over the past forty years. Practically everything I own has been used by someone else. I return some of the things I use to thrift stores when I feel I've received my money's worth. However, like a good American, most things—for example, people, clothing, cars, and time—I consume until they fall apart.

The holiday season thunders ponderously at me like a freight train through Sullivan's Gulch, first Thanksgiving, followed by Black Friday (also known as Buy Nothing Day) and Christmas, followed closely by New Year's. I dread the season of disruption. Even on Monday, Winco was packed with milling shoppers intent on acquiring frozen dead birds and pie tins of sugar and fat. Merry ho ho, says the Chronic Malcontent.

I can't even complain about the weather. The center of the bombogenesis is to the south of Portland. A little breeze and some rain and we throw up our hands while our neighbors in southern Oregon can expect 100 mph winds and a foot of snow. Oh, poor us, we have to use our windshield wipers. Speaking of wipers, I closed a bank account yesterday and treated myself to new wipers front and rear. The Autozone guy came out in the mizzle (misty drizzle) to put them on for me. He said I should clean my hatchback window once in a while. My wipers would last longer. I said okay, but I probably won't. That rear wiper was only five years old. (Clearly, I don't care much about seeing what happens behind me.)

The Med-Aide at the retirement home asked me tonight if I would be joining my mother for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, which occurs at lunch time. (For the old folks, lunch is called dinner and dinner is called supper. I don't understand that.)

I must have looked confused. “We need to know how many people to plan for,” she explained.

I tried to imagine resentful family members clumsily helping the old folks shovel pureed turkey and stuffing into their toothless mouths. Yeah, that sounds like fun.

“Oh, no thanks,” I said. “I'll visit after dinner. I mean, supper. Like I usually do.”

I wonder how many family members will show up. If anyone new arrives, Mom will notice. She notices everything that departs from normality. Like when I move something on her coffee table. Like when I almost leave behind the grocery bag I used to lug in her Cheerios, almond milk, gluten-free bread, and dairy-free ice cream. Like when her neighbor came into her room and put his hand on her forehead. (Dan is on bed-rest, now, confined to his room, possibly not long for this world.) Mom may be demented but she's not blind. She notices stuff.

I read some advice on a blog that appeared in response to my Google search on How do I make a decision. The blog author indicated I should focus less on doing and more on being. I sat with that idea for a few moments before I snorted derisively, startling my cat who was sleeping on the top level of his six-foot cat tree where the weather is much warmer than it is down here on the plain.

Being versus doing. Ha. I have dedicated my life to the quest of being, avoiding the chore of doing in the process, resulting in several kinds of being I didn't really want, for example, poverty. If I could sit around and just be all the time, don't you think I would have? Eventually, I get hungry. My car runs out of gas. No, focusing on being doesn't cut it, not for me. I'm all about the action.

Which is why I felt compelled to Google How do I make a decision. Like most creatives, I feel pulled in multiple directions. How do I choose my focus? You should interpret that question as, How can I prod, bend, stretch, or torture my creativity into producing some income? A friend called me tonight to suggest I apply for a job at a fabric store across town. Having spent some of the worst years of my life working with fabric, I had to swallow the bile and say thanks, but I'd prefer to find something closer to home.

I could ramble on but my high-tech foot warmers (microwaved rice-filled socks) have lost their heat and my feet are getting cold. I'm wearing two hats, finger-less gloves, sweatpants, a fleece jacket, and a wool shawl knitted by my mother on oversize needles. The space heater labors continuously to cut the chill. I am such a hothouse flower: It's at least 40°F outside, not even freezing.

Hey, here's my cat, ready to take over blogging. Time to microwave my foot warmers.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Hellish Hand-Basket.

Happy 2019 from the Chronic Malcontent

Howdy, Blogbots. Happy new year to all ten of you. Here's hoping 2019 is even better than 2018. More drama, more chaos, more angst, more despair. . . or as I like to call it, more blog fodder. What would I write (complain) about if everything were just dandy? If there was enough money in the bank? If the sun always shined? If my cat never left hairballs for me to find when I stagger to the bathroom in the dark of night? Life is so rich and full. Rich in perplexities, full of frustration and uncertainty. 

I woke up to a New Year's miracle today: The truck that was parked in front of my house for more than a week was gone this morning. I don't know if the owner returned with a new battery or if the City towed it away to join the massive numbers of cars, trucks, and RVs rusting in the overflowing abandoned vehicle lots around town. I was resigned to living with that truck blocking my panoramic view of the street for an indefinite and extended time, given the backlog of abandoned vehicles. That is why I say it was a miracle. I'm not sure why I cared. So now I can see six feet further than I could before. There's nothing to see except pavement.

Speaking of caring, someone posted a hand-lettered sign at SE 76th and Stark: in capital letters, I forgive you. A couple days later, it was joined by another handmade sign: No guns for men. Not sure what prompted either sign, but I have my guesses.

A few nights ago, the temperature spiked to 52°F for one day as a minor rainy windstorm . . . a little windy rainstorm moved over the region. When I went over to Mom's, the rain was pelting. Water gathered in gutters and intersections. The former rain shelter had not been replaced. Last week, the smoking shelter was dismantled. It was coming unbolted from the concrete, backed into one too many times by oblivious delivery truck drivers. We eagerly anticipate some sort of new shelter, but in the meantime, the three chairs are unprotected, open to the sky. Have I mentioned rain does not deter smokers?

Outside the retirement facility's front door sits a large, heavy black umbrella in a metal milk canister, available for anyone to use. I grabbed it, aimed it at a rose bush, and pressed the button. It shot open with a thwang, taking up most of the porch area. I caught up to the old ladies and tried to hold it over their heads as we stumbled in the dark to the erstwhile smoking area. I pulled two chairs side by side for the ladies, and pulled my chair close in front. I rested the haft of the umbrella on the arm of a chair and anchored it with both hands, wishing I had thought to bring plastic bags for us all to sit on. I was almost knee to knee with my mother, with only her walker between us. The wind whisked her cigarette smoke away before I could suffocate. I fought the wind gusts, marveling at the mild temperature, thinking, can this really be December? and am I going to fly into space?

Last night was New Year's Eve. The clouds cleared, the temperature plummeted, and the ladies admired the stars in the sky. Lately, Mom has begun smoking in workmanlike fashion. She doesn't rest between drags or chat. She smokes diligently, listens to Jane complain about how management is trying to kill her, grunts once in a while, and monitors the progress of Jane's cigarette compared to her own.

I told them a rocket was outward bound a billion miles past Pluto, heading into outer space, taking photos as it went by interesting things. They weren't impressed. Later, as neighbors set off firecrackers and homemade bombs, I watched the countdown to the flyby with Ultima Thule and wondered at the distances between objects in the solar system.

This morning I calculated roughly how long my mother's money will hold out if we maintain the current rate of spending. Longer than my money will hold out but not by a lot. I know, I know, wreckage of the future. I have many contingency plans, devised to cope with an uncertain future. However, I find it difficult to detach from my desire to control outcomes and thereby manage my fear. I think I can safely predict that 2019 will be just like 2018, equally as rich in uncertainty and just as full of surprise.

'Tis the season to remember

Back in 2014, I knew something was wrong with my mother when she stopped folding her towels correctly. The proper way to fold a towel (any towel larger than a washcloth) is to fold a third lengthwise toward the center on both sides of the towel. Then depending on the size of your storage space, you fold it crosswise in half or in thirds, or you roll it up if you are inclined toward creating an elegant towel display. The point is, all edges are hidden. All you see are folds.

I was shocked to see that Mom was folding her towels in haphazard fashion, lengthwise, crosswise, no care given to exposing raw edges, no thought paid to making an attractive towel display in the cupboard.

Now, I realize towels can be folded anyway you please, or not folded at all. Who cares, not me. What I am describing here is the way my mother taught me how to fold a towel. This towel-folding habit is deeply ingrained in me. I fold all my towels like this. No rough edges, only folds. I'm all about attractive towel displays even though I only have two bath towels (one lime green, one green striped) and six mismatched hand towels. I even fold my dish towels like this, despite the fact that they reside out of sight in a dusty cupboard next to the stove.

Looking back, I realize now that improper towel folding was just one of several warning signs that should have tipped me off that Mom's brain was starting to slip. However, my tendency all my life has been to pay attention mainly to me—my life, my fears, my agenda. I noticed the improper towel folding pattern, and I remember being shocked, but I wasn't able to translate it to the next logical thought: What was happening to my mother?

Mom knew her brain was no longer performing optimally. I thought she was doing okay. She had always been so competent. I assumed she would always manage independently, right up to the moment when she gasped her last from emphysema. She had her pill management system. She was still driving (albeit somewhat sloppily). She knew what she wanted to do, I thought, and knew how to do it. I didn't question her abilities. It never crossed my mind, until the day she told me she needed help.

That's when I saw that she was messing up her checkbook. She was leaving half-nibbled muffins out on the counter. She was eating food that had been in the fridge way too long. She was spraying ant poison directly on cereal and crackers in her pantry. She was blowing stop signs and sideswiping garbage cans with her car. She was forgetting how to access her email.

Honestly, given my preoccupation with self, I doubt if anything would have unfolded differently had I noticed all these early warning signs. Thus, Mom was the initiator of our search for an independent living facility. She decided to move, where to move, when to move, and she decided how long to wait before she couldn't stand it and moved back to her condo (a month and a half). I gave her increasing support when she admitted she was having trouble shopping and managing her finances. I didn't want to force help on her. I wanted her to be independent as long as she could, even if that meant her safety was at risk.

She was okay giving up check writing privileges. But she balked when with her doctor's help, we took away her driving privileges. She wasn't happy about the loss of her independence. Who can blame her? Gradually her autonomy eroded to the point we are at now, four years later. She moved into the retirement home as a perky Level 2 (mostly independent) resident. Now she's a Level 5 (frequently ringing her call button when she can't figure out what to do). I write a monthly check to pay for adult underpants now, along with wipes and gloves. She can no longer turn on her computer, much less access her email. She can't knit anymore. She can read, but only books she has read many times before. I help her make phone calls and write notes to friends who write to her. She doesn't think about money, except when she needs some cash to pay the hair stylist every other month.

She's still walking, but with a walker (those glider ski tips really help, in case you are considering some for your parental unit). She knows where the food is, and she can get herself there on time. She remembers to ring the call button when she has an accident (she blamed ranch dressing for today's blowout).

I imagine this gradual unraveling is confounding for her. However, she's in the moment, living it one breath at a time. Me, I'm lost in the wreckage of the future. I've seen independent people, and I've seen people drooling in wheelchairs. What I think I'm witnessing is the process by which they get from here to there. I'm watching the disintegration of a life. At what point do I need to rent a wheelchair? At what point do we need a bed with plastic sheets and bed rails? At what point will I greet her and find her staring blankly at me, trying to figure out who I am?

Blue in a sea of red

Merry happy, Blogbots. An inch and a half of snow has shut down the city and trapped me (well, my car) on this hill. What else is there to do but whine, I mean, blog? Are you weary of Christmas music yet? I am currently suffering from a Mariah Carey earworm. The only known cure is to replace it with another earworm, preferably something I can sing, or at least hum. I'm cranking up some old Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. (Oh, what a lucky man he was!) Fortunately, my neighbors seem to be absent.

With my feet ensconced in my dry rice microwaveable foot warmer and wearing four layers of fleece, a hat, and fingerless gloves, I'm ready for the day. I'm a little concerned, though: I'm down to my last pair of fleece pants, the ones that stink. I suffer the relentless thrift store stench that never seems to shake out of the acrylic fibers because the plaid is so darn cute. Nobody sees me, why I care I can't say. I washed them in white vinegar and that helped for a while. I don't understand the dynamic of thrift store odor; I suspect it has something to do with chemistry.

Last night I braved the snow, freezing rain, and wind to shuffle two blocks to the house of some my father's relatives. My family has spent every Christmas eve with them since I was a child. I won't say all the memories are great, families being what they are. I'm closer to my mother's side of the family than I am to my father's. Plus I went away to L.A. for twenty years, which took me off their radar. I doubt I was missed by any of these relatives, although to their credit, last night they welcomed me into their home with open arms.

In her latest incarnation as a decrepit, demented, fleece-wrapped elf, my mother opted to stay in. Home. Whatever we call it for a person who lives temporarily in a retirement place before moving on to that great all-you-can-eat Christmas buffet in the sky. Not that I could have fetched her, given the snowy roads. If the buses are not braving this hill, I'm sure not. I could get my car down, no doubt, considering the undeniable force of gravity, but getting back up would be problematic. I wasn't willing to risk it. My relatives' house was only two blocks away, though, and I was pretty sure I could trudge that far on my own power, if the streets weren't too slippery with ice.

I found no ice, just lovely virgin snow crunching underfoot. The wind was cold. Freezing rain pellets stung my cheeks. I started to hustle. Huffing along the snowy sidewalk, I marveled at the brightness of the streetlights. Who needs a moon when you have streetlights on a blanket of new snow?

This portion of my father's family centers on two sisters. I've blogged about them before, I believe. They share a split-level duplex. They both have husbands, children, and grandchildren. They both have health issues. When Amy (not her real name) and her husband lived in a big house around the corner from me, we came together every year in one big family celebration. Then Amy and her husband sold that house and moved to the duplex, next door to her sister, Nan. Christmas celebrations got split down the middle. For the past few years, my mother and I have navigated both celebrations via the shared garage.

This year was rough for both families. Amy survived some serious health issues. I wasn't surprised that she and her husband broke with tradition this year and opted to visit a son who lived elsewhere. Last year Nan's oldest son died in a tragic accident involving police and guns. After such a crappy year, I didn't know what to expect when I entered Nan's house and went up the steps to the living room. I was ready for anything from a melancholy dirge to a drunken brawl.

Besides Nan and her husband Drake, Nan's 40-something daughter Joyce was there with her husband Ed the Vegetarian and their two pubescent girls whose forgettable names both start with K. Three people I did not know were sitting on the couch. I assume they were family friends, not family, else someone would have explained our connection. Nan introduced me to Bob, his wife Marlene, and someone named Charlie, who may or may not have been a son, a round-faced middle-aged man wearing a red sweater and cowboy boots. Bob was a tall, thin cancer survivor who went outside to smoke three times in one hour. His wife was built like an apple on stick legs and sported an impressive set of dentures and a deep loud voice. She and I secretly competed for ruffled potato chips.

Nan sat solidly in an easy chair by the front window sipping frequently from a glass of red wine. Drake was hiding out in the kitchen, cooking hot dogs and baked beans with a glass of whiskey in his hand. After awkward greetings, I grazed the buffet table, trying to get my share of ruffled potato chips while avoiding two small dogs who lolled on the floor. One was Gunter, an old fat black-and-brown dachshund who pestered anyone with a paper plate in hand; the other was a white short-haired poodle-like thing named Paige, who skulked morosely under the table, waiting for crumbs to fall.

Everyone looked and sounded cheerful enough, considering the year's calamities, with the possible exception of Drake, who I suspected was somewhat sloshed. Nan and Drake collected antiques earlier in their lives. Besides a six-foot Christmas tree, the place was cluttered with old-fashioned holiday decorations. A huge nativity scene occupied a coffee table. I sat carefully on the couch between Bob and Charlie, hoping my butt wouldn't accidentally sweep some priceless wise man onto the floor,  wondering at what point it would be acceptable to leave.

Then someone mentioned the NFL football players.

“If I were those owners, I would fire those a-holes,” shouted Bob, obviously forgetting (or not caring) that there were two children in the room.

“It's disgusting how they are disrespecting the flag,” agreed my cousin Joyce.

Nan, Charlie, and Marlene concurred loudly. Drake sat silently in his chair, frowning and fiddling with a smart phone. I also sat silently, observing how a rising tide in my body was compelling me to object. What would I say? How would I say it? I quickly filled my mouth with potato chips and prayed to the higher power of dysfunctional family gatherings to deliver me. Visions of Christmases (and other holidays) past welled up in my shredded memory: Dad yelling at NFL players on TV (for completely innocent reasons). Mom arguing with Grandma over how to cook a turkey. My siblings and I hiding out in books and bickering.

I realized that my relatives were most likely Republican, Trump-supporting, conservative Christians. Here I was, the blue misfit, surrounded by a sea of red, wondering how this was possible. Then I remembered, hey, my father was adopted! I'm not related to these people at all. For a second that made me feel better. However, I suspect my genes are very similar to theirs, no matter who was adopted. We are all so very white. The main difference between them and me, I suspect, is that I am not proud of it.

Nobody asked me my opinion, and I did not offer it. Shortly after, someone suggested it was time to open presents. Even though the dessert had not yet appeared, I knew that was my cue. I slipped into the bedroom to get my sweater, looking forward to getting back to the Love Shack.

Even then, I couldn't escape. Charlie offered to walk me out. I thought he would leave me at the bottom of the stairs, but he shuffled along next to me, all the way back to my apartment, in his red sweater and cowboy boots. Partway along the walk, even though he must have been freezing, he stopped and exclaimed how beautiful the snow looked in the light. I had a moment of wonder at that, but the pelting rain had picked up, the snow was crunchy with a layer of ice, and I wanted to be alone. I waved vaguely to indicate we had arrived my place and he could abandon me with honor. Charlie grabbed me in a hug, smelling of aftershave and alcohol. I extricated myself gently, trying to maintain my holiday cheer, and hurried toward my back porch, retracing the footprints I'd left earlier in the evening. I assume he found his way back to the party.

Merry ho ho ho from the Hellish Hand-basket

It's the end of the year again, time to get maudlin over mistakes made and opportunities missed. All those wasted moments spent networking with people whose names I've forgotten ten seconds after they hand me their business cards. (Even the ones I sort of liked.) All those frustrating minutes spent writing and posting content to the white meat version of social media to support a business strategy I never really believed in but adopted on the pompous recommendation of some so-called experts. All those long tedious hours spent editing other people's lousy essays instead of writing my own lousy essays. Woe. Woe is me.

Time to regret the past as it muscles its way around me into 2015. I'd shut the door on it if I could. Or at least, on 2014. I'd shove it out on the porch and slam the door on it so fast. Take that, you stupid past, you.... go fight over the birdseed with the squirrels and rats! I guess I could say it's been a tough year. But that would just make me sound whiny, self-centered, and chronically malcontented.

Is this a happy time of year for you? Do you get all amped up with the high-voltage season? Do you like all those smells you mostly only get in December? You know the smells I mean: recently cut and soon-to-be-dead fir trees? Egg nog lattes? Nutmeg and cinnamon? Bayberry candles?

Do your eyes bug out of your head with all the twinkling lights? Are your neighbors trying to outdo each other with their yards full of tasteless glowing Santas and radioactive snowmen? Oh, sorry, I mean snowpeople. And the sounds! Zounds! The endless loops of insipid music playing from staticky speakers in the grocery store an orchestral rendition of The Little Drummer Boy, pounding holes in your head?

Oh, sorry. There I go, projecting my stuff onto you. Maybe you like The Little Drummer Boy on an endless loop while you are grousing over the price of zucchini. And what's not to like, really. Drums and boys, I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

I finished a particularly tedious editing job last night about 11:00 and uploaded it into the magical cloud, whoosh! Off it went into cyberland where I assume some cranky elves are parceling each massive wretched tome back to its author, who will open up his or her nicely wrapped file in the morning and exclaim in horror at the red ink bloodbath. (Well, red, blue, and green, if I turn on all the Track Changes options.) Super festive editing for a super festive season. The author of yesterday's debacle will probably feel a little sick when he sees my hatchet job and my terse warning about the consequences of plagiarism, but it won't be anything that a little eggnog and a shot of rum won't cure.

There was nothing new in my inbox this morning, so I decided I would spend the day cleaning up around the Love Shack. If you have followed my blog over the past year, you will know that the number of times I talk about cleaning up the apartment corresponds to exactly the number of times I have cleaned up the apartment. That is to say, twice. Maybe three times at the most. So you can understand, it is a momentous occasion when I pull out the vacuum cleaner. My cat opts out, slinking under the couch until my conniption fit is over. I guess if I revved up the vacuum cleaner more often, he might not find it so frightening. Oh well. Three times a year, dude... that hardly qualifies as torture.

I changed the sheets on the bed and fed all my quarters into the greedy machines in the basement to do two loads of laundry, one of cotton stuff and one of fleece stuff. I folded all the warm undies, t-shirts, and towels and put everything away out of sight. Next, I figured out that I could use a small fine-toothed comb to remove the clingy cat hair furballs that dot my fleece jackets, pants, and blankets. That took a while and made quite a pile of cat hair. Finally, I vacuumed the bedroom rug. I even swapped out the bulging cleaner bag. By that time, my nose was in full protest, and it hasn't stopped protesting since...achoooo!...three hours later. Maybe that is why I'm a grinch tonight. It's hard to feel the joy of the season when one's nose is constantly dripping.

Well, happy holidays from the Hellish Hand-basket. Thanks for reading. (Or visiting and clicking away with an annoyed curse, which is what I suspect most visitors do.) I hope your holiday season is happy and filled with just enough joyful surprise to remind you that life is worth living, even if the future is bleary and the past is a bully. Somewhere in the now is where we'll find that old holiday spirit, kicked back in an easy chair with a glass of potent eggnog in one hand and a cigar in the other, watching reruns of Gilligan's Island. Enjoy the season, Pop, wherever you are.

Bah humbug. No wait, I didn't mean it, really...

I generally don't post in forums or in the comments sections of articles or blogs, although I get a lurid thrill out of lurking on the periphery, reading other peoples' snarky comments and wondering how they have the guts to write their nasty trollish responses to other commenters they've never even met but apparently hate on principle. It's entertaining, shocking, occasionally disgusting, and somewhat addictive. Today I must report that I stopped being a lurker. And thus, today I had my first interaction with a troll.

My grocery store invited me to post a comment in their online forum, describing my shopping behavior on Black Friday. No doubt their many research snoids will comb through the massive database of comments to find the behavior patterns and keywords that will direct next year's holiday marketing campaigns. Hey, I'm a market researcher; I know how this stuff works. More or less. I always fill out the store's online surveys, but this is the first time I was invited to comment in a forum. Out of a desire to be helpful and interest in the research method, I registered my user name and entered the forum, where I posted a short comment:

I dislike the holiday season. I avoid shopping if at all possible. I don't buy gifts. If I could sleep through the entire season, I would. I don't participate in the obligation or the rituals. The religious connotations are uninteresting and the commercial aspects of the season make me despair. (Where do all the dead ornaments and foil wrapping paper go? Does anybody care?)

Now, I admit, true to my chronic malcontented nature, I was using the forum to express a contrary view, more out of a desire to poke the frog than anything else. After all, I have this blog through which to express my whining, so I don't feel a strong urge to post my frothy resentments in other online venues. It was an experiment, you know? Research?

Frogs, when poked, jump. Not long after I posted my admittedly dark, somewhat snarky comment, I received an email in my inbox, notifying me that someone had commented on my post. I clicked on through and read:

Get a life......and move back to Communist Russia.

Huh. Clearly another troubled soul. I thought about the wide range of actions I could take in response to the comment. I could retort, I have a life, thank you very much, and what's wrong with Communist Russia, anyway!? (Is there any part of Russia that is not Communist, I wonder?) I could claim that my birthright as an American gives me the right to say stupid things, just like it does them. I could try to explain more fully my feelings about the commercialized holiday grind. I could apologize for pissing them off. I could give them some empathy and address their fears. I could ignore them. Which is probably the wisest response, considering what I've seen of vitriolic exchanges on other forums. Within six volleys, I bet we'd be fighting over Obamacare. Keep in mind all this would be taking place in the online forum of a grocery store, in response to the question, How do you shop during the holidays?

After I stopped laughing, I thought for a moment and responded as follows:

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like I struck a nerve. Sorry. Next time I won't be so open about sharing my feelings. My intention was not to create strife. I'm glad you felt safe enough to share your feelings, though. All the best to you.

It sounded pretty good at face value. But I am a liar. First, I didn't actually care if I created strife, clearly, or I wouldn't have posted such a overtly provocative comment in the first place. Poking the frog, stirring the pot, call it what you will. I can't help myself. The contrary view draws me like ants to dirty dishes. 

And second, reading the message between the lines isn't hard for anyone who has spent time in counseling for relationships: the words you stupid dick were invisible, perhaps, but clearly implied. I learned my passive aggressiveness at the foot of the master. Or mistress, I guess. 

I was curious what type of person would tell someone who was struggling during a stressful season to get a life and move back to Communist Russia. I can't tell from the user name if the person is male or female, old or young. I wonder, who responds to a cry for help—unskillful as it was—by smacking them down with an admonition to go away? Like, far away. 

Someone who is hurting themselves, no doubt. Someone who has probably maxed out her credit lines in a vain attempt to buy the perfect gifts for her many grandchildren before the looming deadline crushes her beneath the wheel of failure. Someone who is terrified that if she doesn't uphold the all-important religious traditions of the season, she will surely be condemned to the bitter hell reserved for failed evangelists. Someone who secretly wishes she could keep the festive decorations but toss the obligations and enjoy a long nap before tax time. That kind of sorry-ass soul, probably.

When I got home from a meeting tonight, I found another note in my inbox. I clicked through and read:

What a gracious response to such a ridiculous comment. Good for you, Carol!

Ha. Don't you just love it? Chickaboom!