Compelled by the obsession... or is it, obsessed by the compulsion?

I may have mentioned that I've been editing dissertations to earn money. Although I'm happy to be earning, I am fairly certain this isn't a long-term career gig for me. Editing uses up parts of my brain that have been rapidly deteriorating since menopause while leaving the creative parts of my brain to wither from lack of use. I managed to put three hours into formatting a paper about student retention in online college programs (ho-hum). Then I started going through a box of old mementos my mother gave me as she begins her downward spiral into a retirement community. After looking at photos of myself from elementary school, high school, and college, I felt a bit queasy. So I began my own downward spiral, which tonight consisted of cleaning my egg beater with a toothpick.

I don't see very well anymore, especially not up close, so I don't notice things like detritus on dishes and grimy goop on my egg beater. I admit, possibly I also don't care all that much about squalor at the Love Shack, but that is another topic. The other day, though, while I was beating the crap out of my morning eggs, I noticed little black flecks of... ucky stuff flying into the eggs. Just a couple, not a lot, looked like pepper, but I don't pepper my eggs, so WTF? I looked closer at the egg beater and realized all the grooves on the dang thing were black with grime. The only clean part was the part that went into the eggs.

Thoroughly grossed out and embarrassed (knowing that I would have to blog about this eventually), I set the egg beater into a container of water and dumped in some ammonia. I let it soak overnight. Tonight, when I'd had enough of formatting the 28th Word table of incomprehensible research data, I decided: It's time. I grabbed a small handful of toothpicks and set to work.

While I picked and poked at the crevices in the egg beater, I could hear my neighbors carrying on a conversation outside my open kitchen window. I couldn't see them, and they couldn't see me, but the acoustics in the back are perfect for eavesdropping. Susan and Pat live in the house directly behind the Love Shack. They are musicians. Or at least, Pat is. When the weather is good, I see him perched on his porch, strumming a guitar. He seems to be into a sort of folk rock fusion groove. I just made that up. I have no idea what kind of music he plays. He's got long hair and a beard, though, and he wears tight jeans, pointy black boots, and a black leather vest. Maybe you can figure it out.

Susan was talking with a male visitor about a plant in her yard. A car engine was rumbling. Suddenly, I heard the voice of Roger, the neighbor to the east of Pat and Susan.

“I really liked your music!” he said enthusiastically. “It reminds me of some guys I knew in college.”

Susan's visitor murmured something I couldn't hear. Roger went on, “Yeah, the guitar player quit the band and started growing organic vegetables, or something. You gotta remember, I'm 68 years old. We were all hippies back then.”

Susan must be in her 40s. I imagine to her Roger seems like a decrepit old man. I finished one side of the egg beater and flipped it over. The dishwater was cloudy with gross black specks.

Roger's voice echoed across the driveway. “The drummer, though, the drummer just disappeared. They went to his house and found it was empty, no clothes, no furniture, everything, just gone.”

Susan's visitor said something in response. She lives in a cute little house. I saw the inside once, before she and Pat moved in. Before Roger moved into the next little house in the row. I frequently see him tending to his many potted plants. For some reason, he rarely acknowledges my presence, even when we are within ten feet of one another. I don't understand that.

“But hey, I really liked your music!” Roger repeated loudly. I finished cleaning the egg beater. Susan's visitor got into his car and drove away.

Cleaning my egg beater is a sign. I'm regretting the past and trying to control the future. Some significant endings are bearing down on me: my mother, my car, my apartment, my lifestyle. Nothing stays the same forever, I know. But I'm worried at the prospect of change. I used to think I welcomed change—why else would I be a chronically malcontented pot stirrer? But now I think I'm just like most of the other people on the planet: terrified of losing what I have or not getting what I want. It's just plain old self-centered fear.

It's spring in P-town. Everything is blooming (including my sinuses). I have another paper (18,000 words) to edit after I finish the one I'm working on (32,000 words). I would like to get off this bus, but I don't know how.

Next week, Mom and I are touring another retirement place. Neither one of us thinks it would be a good fit. I think she wants the fancy place on the bluff over the river, the one with the gazillion dollar buy-in. She said, “I can sell the condo.” And she's right, she could sell the condo. On what she has left, she could survive maybe five years, if nothing went wrong. Maybe that is the best option when you reach 85. Put it all on red and let it rip. You don't know how long you have left. Might as well enjoy it while you still can.

Meanwhile, she's offloading the 55 years of crap her four kids gave her...back onto her four kids. Last week, the bed in the spare room was covered with four stacks of photos, homework, and other mementos of childhood. One stack for each kid. I'm lucky, I got to take my bag of old pictures, photos, and poems with me, because I live nearby.

My mother kept just about everything, it seems. There are mementos from just about every milestone in my life: high school graduation, college graduation, letters, long-forgotten photos of me and former boyfriends. She kept a tattered piece of notebook paper on which I had very carefully written in a childish scrawl, “Captain Robert Gray sailed into the mouth of a big river. He named it the Columbia.” There is even a plaster imprint of my kindergartener-sized hand. My mother kept everything. Which is why it is painful to see her letting it all go. I know every ending is followed by a new beginning. But apparently I don't like change.

I do like my shiny clean egg beater, though. Obsessions and compulsions may be underrated.

Wearing our blue collars on our sleeves

While I wait for my hemorrhoidal printhead to dry from a deeper cleaning than recommended by the manufacturer (a sitz bath in warm water), I have some time to reflect on the latest reconnaissance into the world of retirement community living. Hooboy. I got a few words for you people: Don't get old.

Today the scrawny maternal parental unit (my mother) and I wended our way to the surprisingly charming suburb of Milwaukie, where we had an appointment with a marketing person at a sprawling complex overlooking the Willamette River. We waited in the comfortable waiting area/library. I enjoyed the view out the huge windows: green grass, resting Canadian geese, and blue sky. My mother circled impatiently back and forth between me and the front desk, eye on the clock, until suddenly we heard a voice calling her name. A former neighbor from the condo, whom I had never met, was shuffling toward us from the elevator.

Mom was thrilled to be recognized by a resident of the establishment. They embraced like old chums. “Keeta, this is my daughter,” Mom said, and added as an afterthought, “and my caregiver,” which evoked a sideways look at me from Keeta and conjured up images of me emptying bedpans and fixing toasted cheese sandwiches. (Not going to happen.)

Keeta had moved to the retirement place a couple months previously and claimed to be ecstatic about her new digs. I could see Mom looking hopeful. A moment later, the marketing gal arrived: Meg. Tall, long brown hair, tight skirt, long beige cardigan, big feet in mid-height heels. Big smile. She told us she was a replacement for the usual marketing person, who was on a well-deserved vacation. I don't know what she did before, but I'm guessing it wasn't sales: Immediately, she goofed. She led us to her air conditioned office, invited us to sit at a round conference table, and showed us the price list.

“Coming to live here is like buying into membership at a country club,” she said. My mother stared at her, waiting, for what, I don't know—a sudden laugh to indicate the woman was joking? Even though the numbers were on a nicely designed sheet right in front of us, it took us a moment to catch our breath. Country club living is not really on our radar. We've been to some weddings at country clubs, that's the extent of our interaction with the golfing/country club jet set.

“The smallest studio unit will cost about $58,000 to buy in, plus about $1,600 per month,” Meg said with the air of a person who has no idea that what she just said indicates she comes from a completely different planet in the solar system. Maybe you could call it the White Collar Planetary System. “A one-bedroom in the main building will start at about $120,000,” she went on. My mother sat silent, staring at the prices, which only went up from there. I was thinking, where are the places for the failed losers from the Blue Collar Outcast Asteroid Belt?

“What do my friends in the Plaza pay? They have a patio,” my mother whined.

“We don't have any units available in the Plaza,” Meg said chattily. “But if one came open, it would be about $220,000 to buy in, plus about...” At that point, I zoned out, boggled by the zeros.

During the ensuing lull, I asked, “Can we look at some units?” in a slightly squeaky voice. Might as well see what we will be missing, I thought. Before we slink out the door tripping on our own tails.

Meg willingly took us on a tour of three different units, all in the main building. She strode ahead of us, not talking, long legs swishing in her tight brown skirt. I wondered what she did when she wasn't filling in for the marketing guy. She was dressed like a salesperson, but acted like anything but. Oddly, though, she wasn't apologetic. Nor did she seem to begrudge us the time. I got my clue when she asked, “Do you have time for lunch today?” I wondered if all she wanted was the free food. Crass of me, I know.

The first unit we looked at was a mess, recently vacated, a meandering layout consisting of a living room with attached kitchen, a den, two bathrooms, and a long hallway leading to a bedroom. It was nice enough, but way too much space for one scrawny little old lady intent on not cooking. No patio. I could tell my mother really wanted her tiny patio, and I know why: She's trapped by her addiction to cigarettes. Even though smoking is not permitted anywhere on the grounds, I could tell by the way she didn't look at me that she thought she could sneak a smoke if she just had her own little patio.

The next unit we looked at was a one-bedroom with a great view of green grass, swirling water, and the big houses on the other side of the river. The room was “styled” with upscale decorations completely unlike anything my mother owns. Pleather couch, glass coffee table, glazed dish of rocks. So not like my mother's 1980s floral couch, worn watermelon-colored velour chairs, and Home Depot area rug.

“Can we see something smaller?” I asked. We hiked the hallways to look at a studio. It was cozy, but better than many places I've lived. A huge black wood entertainment center filled one wall.

“This comes furnished,” Meg said, and reached up to pull down what turned out to be a Murphy bed platform. My mother's eyes just about rolled up in her head. I could see the thought bubble hovering: Is this what it comes down to, pulling my bed down from a horrible black entertainment center?

Finally, we went in to lunch in the dining room, a lovely large space, light-filled, windows on three sides, and a spectacular view of the river. I took the seat facing the view. I could have stared out that window at green grass and blue sky all afternoon. A magnolia tree just outside was setting enormous purple blossoms. I could see why people wanted to live there.

Mom ordered half a turkey sandwich and ate about a third of it. The marketing gal ordered the turkey and arugula wraps. Feeling adventurous, I ordered the tofu sandwich, which I discovered to my chagrin was two tiny pieces of fried tofu with some shredded carrot and radishes on two over-sized pieces of sourdough bread. It was the strangest combination of food I have seen lately, apart from what I fix in my own kitchen, I mean. I quickly figured out it was best to eat the tofu and condiments separately from the bread. Four bites, I kid you not, and my plate was empty. I assume I'll eat like a bird when I get to my mid-80s, if I live that long, but meanwhile, I think anyone would agree, I am a healthy eater. Walking out of the dining room, I was feeling the worst of combinations: heart flutterings from wheat and sugar (in the sauce on the bread) ...and hunger.

Meg led us back to the front entrance and took her leave, saying in a half-hearted manner, “I really think this would be a good fit for you.” My mother and I politely thanked her for lunch and sped for the door. Even before we set foot outside, my mother said in her deep, smoker's voice, “Well!” and I knew we were in agreement. Not the right place for Mom.

My printer appears to still have hemorrhoids. Darn it. What fresh hell is this, first my old Ford Focus, now my old Canon printer? Argh. Plus yesterday my landlord raised my rent (don't tell Mom). Do I have a sign on my back that says Kick me, I can't get up, I'm a blue collar loser? Feels like it. Apples... trees... it's never enough, no matter how far I try to run.

All hail the limited nuclear option

I've had a problem with ants at the Love Shack since I moved here over ten years ago, but with these warmer winters, the little beggars have been relentlessly staking out territory in every room. The kitchen, of course, would be an ant's first target: That's where the cat and I consume and spill the most food. In the living room, trails of ants congregate around the couch (where I spill food) and around the occasional pile of cat barf that blends into the rug so I don't see it.

In the bedroom, as I believe I have previously mentioned, the ants found an art project I did some years ago, which consisted of large jellybeans glued to a frame. I forget what the frame was framing; it was the colorful jellybeans that I liked, especially when sprayed with clear lacquer so they were bright and shiny. Like brand new jellybeans! Apparently, the lacquer on one of the beans finally disintegrated, thus opening the door to a swarm of ants, who marched out of the crack between the ceiling and the wall to raid the sugar in the jellybeans. This plundering of my art must have been going on for years, judging by the trail the ants left behind. I never knew; it was all happening up near the ceiling, and really, who checks for ants up near the ceiling?

And then, the bathroom, which you would think would be uninteresting to an ant, but I've bemoaned the sad fact that ants have congregated on my toothbrush before. Lately, a few scouts can be found wandering in the empty tub, for what reason I do not know. Lousy beggars.

Anyway, all that was to say, I've had a few problems with ants. I've been using bait traps, and that worked for a time, but after a while, I think the ant nests developed an immunity, like Portlanders develop an immunity to rain. One day a few months ago after feeling particularly dejected at ants biting the back of my neck, in my typical malcontented fashion, I happened to mention the situation to my friend Carlita. She recommended a product to spray inside and outside the Love Shack. I got some of that product. I sprayed. Carlita, I can't thank you enough. All hail the limited nuclear option!

For a day or two after I sprayed the window by the cat food, the ants were wobbling around like the walking dead. Then they all keeled over, like they had been mowed down with an unseen fist. With glee I swept up their tiny desiccated carcasses into little piles. The next day I swept up more! Ants fell out of the sky into the cat's water and floated there in little clumps, stiff and lifeless. A few desperate ants crawled up my shirt to lodge a complaint on my head, to no avail, of course. Once you've killed, it gets easier to kill again, I've heard. (Did you know ants smell rather pungent when you shmush them?)

Hallelujah, is all I can say. Yeah, it's a bit toxic, especially if you spray into the wind, but it's worth giving up some brain cells to finally beat back the relentless hordes. I'm thinking of taking up a foreign language to offset the loss of neurons, hoping to stave off Alzheimer's a little longer. Russian, maybe, or Spanish. (And if that ploy doesn't work, at least it will be easier to communicate with the CNAs in the nursing home. Although, who will be left standing to send me to a nursing home, I wonder? I live alone, so odds are nobody will know if I descend into dementia. But while I sit around wondering what day it is, at least the Love Shack will be ant free!)

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.

My mom took my groove thang

The fog burned off to reveal an unusually balmy January day, perfect for touring potential retirement communities. (Not for me, for my mother! Argh, what are you thinking! I'm not even 60!) I picked my mother up at 10:45 this morning; she was outside waiting for me. She climbed nimbly into the passenger seat, wearing black slacks and a bright red fleece jacket. Her pockets were stuffed with her stuff: keys, cigarettes, lighter, wallet, used tissues. She was ready to go.

Our destination was a nearby retirement community that takes up about three city blocks in SE Portland near the MAX transit rail line. Some of the place consisted of regular apartments, some apparently was assisted living and memory care units. We were going to look at the independent living apartments.

We finally found street parking a block away. My mother navigates curbs warily, but otherwise she is a steady and determined walker. I trotted along in her wake to the lobby. She'd been to the place before to visit friends so she knew exactly where we were going.

Inside the front lobby we met Doug, the senior placement advisor I found on the Internet, and Kerrie, the marketing coordinator for the facility. Doug was tall, middle-aged, exuberantly gray-haired and wore a name tag on a lanyard around his neck. He looked like a chubby basketball coach. The marketing person was an energetic mid-40s woman with fluffy whitish-blonde hair like a bubble around her face.

“Hi, Welcome to the X Retirement Community!” she said enthusiastically shaking my hand. I noticed she had clear braces. I wish they had had clear braces in my day. “I'm Kerrie. Let's go have lunch and then I'll take you on the tour!”

She led the way down a brightly lit hall toward a archway, over which was a sign designating the space beyond as the dining room. “This is our dining room!” she said proudly. The room was large, but not cavernous, more like a group of rectangles and squares configured into one space. It was just past 11:00 am, so many tables were empty. There was plenty of light, and the chairs were on wheels.

My mother and the marketing gal both ordered the Chinese chicken salad. I ordered a cheese omelette with bacon. Doug the senior placement guy ordered a gardenburger. The food was a long time coming, but there wasn't a lack of things to talk about, with two marketing people at the table (I'm not counting me). I didn't have to say much. Mom wasn't shy: She bragged about her four kids (“My kids are so smart!”). She told them about her stint as a young scrub nurse for a mean doctor (“He threw a bloody sponge at me!” she said indignantly, and added, “He was Jewish.”) Cue eye roll.

Finally the food arrived. Not the worst omelette I've ever had, but definitely not inspired. Compared to the first retirement place we toured, though, I'd give it five stars. Authentic edible food. Good sign.

After the free lunch, the marketing gal led us up and down elevators and along long hallways to show us the amenities: laundry rooms, libraries, game rooms, dance floor, gym with personal trainer, hair salon, garden courtyard with fire pit, hot tub, two restaurants and a cafe (with tiramisu!), and a bar with a big screen TV.

Then we invaded the apartment of a genial geriatric named Yvonne, who was happy to show her one-bedroom apartment to us in exchange for free meal tickets to share with her seven children. I hesitated in the kitchen area, loathe to walk on her light beige carpet with my dirty outdoor shoes.

“Go on,” Yvonne said. “I do it all the time.” I looked at her feet and saw she was wearing slippers. I took my shoes off and took the rest of the tour in my socks. As I shuffled through her living room, bedroom, bathroom, and back to the kitchen, my eyes slid off the knick knacks of her life: photos, her desk, her perfectly made bed, her wall decorations, her shower and sink, and her well-organized closets. My mother boldly examined every detail, every closet, and especially the bathroom.

“I would really miss a bathtub,” she said with doubt in her voice. The marketing gal immediately jumped in. “I know what you mean, I would die without my Epson salt bath every night!” I looked askance at her. She plunged on, “We have a huge spa that might work for you!” She proceeded to remind us about the hot tub, a communal pool of warm water and bubbly jets in the next building. My mother looked skeptical.

Despite her misgivings about the lack of tub, by the time we exited into the hallway, my mother and Yvonne were arm in arm. It was charming. I think my mother was trying to imagine herself living there, making new friends. She's a chummy extrovert; it's like breathing to her to embrace a total stranger. I think when a person is over 80, they automatically become family. At least compared to young almost 60-somethings like me, who of course cannot be trusted. (Hey, eeew, I'm older than the president!)

Next we looked at a studio apartment and then we went back to the marketing woman's office to talk prices. First the tour, then the sales pitch. My butt was dragging a bit, but Mom still seemed pretty chipper.

We sat around a cramped table in a tiny conference room. Kerrie pulled out a folder of papers. She took a breath and dove in: “The one-bedroom apartment that we looked at is $2,650,” she said, “but it didn't have a balcony. I think you would really want a balcony. The narrow balconies are an extra $25 per month, the wider ones are an extra $50 per month. Plus if you keep your car, it's another $40 per month. And there's a one-time move-in fee of $1,500. And a refundable deposit of $1,000 to get on the waiting list. But you get a $300 meal credit per month to use at either of the restaurants or the cafe.”

We sat quietly for a long moment. I watched Kerrie watching my mother.

“We also have a special studio apartment that is more like a hotel room, with just a little kitchen area,” she said. “People sometimes move into that studio to wait until a bigger unit becomes available. That runs only $1,450 per month, and you get a $500 meal credit because you don't have a full kitchen.”

When it became clear that we weren't committing to anything right then, the conversation trailed off. Doug walked us up the street to our car, reassuring us the whole way that he was happy to show us more places, just let him know when we were ready.

“We need to figure out the money,” I said.

“I understand,” he replied, shaking my hand. He drove off in his little Toyota Prius, and my mother and I drove off in my old Ford Focus, which I guess can officially be classified as a beater, now that it is terminally ill. “Maybe this whole process will give you some ideas for when the time comes for you to move into a retirement home,” she said. I nodded, thinking, yeah, driving off a cliff before that time comes seems like a viable option. Or a bottle of Jack and some pills. I didn't say that, of course. I know she worries about who will take care of her children—we have no children to take us on tours of nursing homes.

As we drove home to her condo, my mother said, “That place is too posh for me.”

So, there you have it. My mother is now officially Goldilocks. The first place wasn't good enough for her, this place is too good. I hope the next place will be just right. After dropping her off, I went home and collapsed. Who knew this whole moving mom thing would turn out to be such an energy suck? I can't find my own life now, I'm so caught up in hers. I guess I'll watch TV and try on other people's lives for a while, until I can move back into my own skin.

Marching on something, not sure what

It's the dog days of winter around grimy Stumptown. Well, if our weekly average high temperature of 50° can be considered dog days. Perhaps not. Really, there's not a lot to complain about. It's 37° now, but not wet, the President is talking to the nation, and I've been indoors all day editing a paper on whether humanoids are motivated to exercise by their Fitbits. What the hell is a Fitbit?

My back is killing me from sitting in the same position for seven hours. My cat is wanting to kill me for sitting in the same position for seven hours. I can tell by the annoying sound he makes, sort of a cross between a growl and whine, with an annoying question mark at the end. He's saying, why don't you get off your ass and play with me, you slacker, you. To prove his point, he upchucked an impressive hairball on the newly washed bathroom rug. Way to communicate, dude.

Time marches on. My sister is wrapping up her five-month sojourn to Europe. I'm not positive, but she might be the reason the Pope is feeling so feisty and progressive. She's hard to resist, that girl. My friend Bravadita has been subsumed by the burbs and mass transit. If I'm lucky, she'll crawl out of the whirlpool for the Willamette Writers meeting next month, and I'll have the privilege of meeting her for tea and driving her back to the burbs.

Yes, time marches on, but some things seem stuck in amber. Me, for instance. I just want to spend a month in the tub drinking coffee and reading science fiction and smutty paranormal romances. But the body demands food, and acquiring food requires earning money, and thus, when I should be tubbing, I'm editing. The research job I completed in December has yet to generate a check in my mailbox, so I'm editing.

I'm glad to have the work, don't get me wrong, but I might as well be paying my employer, the editing agency. I'm donating far more value than the client is paying for. I blame myself, of course, although I would anyway, blame myself, that is, even if it weren't my fault, which it definitely is. Yes, this one is definitely mine.

The good news, besides the relatively balmy weather, is that I have a niche. Yes, a niche. No, it's not a disease or some special kind of spider that bites you on the belly and in the armpit while you are sleeping (if you know what that spider is called, besides dead, I'd be interested to hear). No, a niche is a slice of the customer pie. The best niche is deep, narrow, juicy, and easy to poke with your marketing fork. It remains to be seen if my niche will be juicy and easy to pork. Poke. Whatever. But at least I know who they are now, my niche. That's progress.

My scrawny mother came over this morning, ostensibly to rub my cat's tummy, but really to bestow some cash on me. She's such a mess of mixed messages, it's hard to know how to respond. She tossed a beat up envelope at me, while at the same time telling me that she's still waiting to find out how much the electrician's bill will be from her recent furnace replacement.

“You've been such a big help to me,” she said as she carefully folded herself to the floor to pet my cat. I opened the envelope, wondering how much my big help was worth to her. $200? $1,000? I saw two twenties and a ten. That's what my help is worth, $50.

“I gave your brother some money for replacing my outdoor service light,” she said, forestalling my protests.

She can't really afford to give her kids money, but she feels guilty and gives what she can as payment for our help. Maybe she doesn't fully believe that we would gladly help her for nothing. Oh, maybe we'd grumble a bit now and then, or roll our eyes at her more outlandish requests, but certainly we are willing to help with no expectation of any reward. We know she won't be around forever. Maybe not much longer. Any day could be the day that things change.

I thanked her and stashed the cash in case she needs it back later. She managed to get herself up off the floor. Victory! I walked her out to her old green Toyota, which has probably accumulated a total of about 150 miles in all of 2014, that's how little she drives. The air was crisp. The sun was valiantly trying to burn through the fog. She got in and proudly held up both hands to show me her driving gloves, one of which had a rubberized palm so she could firmly grip the steering wheel. I tried to look interested. We both know her driving days are numbered.

But everything is numbered, isn't it. There's no escaping time, marching on.

Celebrate! You fail at life.

Finally, there is an official Meetup in Portland for failures. It's called FailPDX, and last night was its kickoff meeting. I heard about it through a random Meetup promo email. The name made me curious. Within a few days, 50 people had signed up. I checked again before it was time to leave: 96 people were planning on attending. Wow.

I left a little early and avoided the freeway, anxious that I wouldn't be able to find the place, afraid I wouldn't find close parking on the dark streets of Old Town Portland. The Meetup was inside a multistory building that stood out in the close-in downtown neighborhood for not being a renovation of a 19th-century monstrosity. The entry lobby was wide, lined in marble and mirror, and behind the security desk was a 30-foot wide, 15-foot tall backdrop of bright green living plants, somehow adhered to the wall from floor to ceiling, glowing under grow lights. It was lovely for its greenness and for the intense artificial sunlight. I was thinking that a security job in front of that backdrop might actually not be that bad. (Remind me of that later, would you?)

On the fifth floor of this building was a series of unfinished offices and open spaces. In the widest open space were easily 60 black padded chairs arranged in rows facing a big screen, which showed the Oregon State versus Ohio State football game in luscious detail. To the right, cafeteria style tables and chairs took up much of the rest of the space. Another huge screen also showed the football game. Smaller flat panel television screens hung from the ceiling, all showing the game. The place reminded me of a gym: The only thing missing were the rows of treadmills and perky people in spandex.

The space was vast. Black windows on the left looked down into the atrium of the lobby. Windows on two other sides looked out on the lights of Portland's downtown freeways and bridges. I imagine the view is spectacular during the day. At night it was just a dark blur of lights. Or maybe it was my eyes.

A couple guys greeted me in a friendly fashion and rushed away to fiddle with the microphones at the lectern. “Food is on the way!” Sure enough, food arrived shortly. I parked myself in an out of the way place and tried to figure out which screen to watch.

A young woman came up to me and greeted me as if she knew me.

“How are you!” she exclaimed.

“Good, good, and you?” I replied, frantically going through my mental Rolodex, which is as slow as a real-life Rolodex.

“Who are you with now?” she asked.

I assumed she meant who was I working for, not if I was in a relationship. “I'm not sure you know me. I'm a freelance researcher.”

She looked flustered so I continued on, “What do you do?”

“I'm in data science,” she said belligerently. “I own my own company.” I wondered if she was belligerent because she was short.

“Oh, how nice,” I said. “What does your company do?”

“We help companies bla bla bla with their bla bla bla and then bla bla bla.”

I'm pretty sure it only seemed like she was saying gibberish. “Isn't that something,” I said.

“We just opened last year,” she said defensively.

“Oh, where are you located?”

“We are working from home right now,” she said though tight lips.

“No worries,” I reassured her.

“There are only three of us,” she admitted reluctantly.

“You gotta start somewhere,” I said encouragingly as she pretended to see someone she knew and rushed away. Whoa. Did I just meet a failure? It's hard to know sometimes. I turned back to the screens in front of me, examining each in turn in a futile hope that one might be showing something other than young athletes in helmets and tight pants running up and down a green field, then attacking each other and falling over in writhing clumps.

A little further along the wall where I was leaning tensely, I realized there was an actual built-in bar where people could get free wine and craft-brew. A crowd of people were milling there, talking and watching the game. Of course, I avoided it all.

An older guy with long gray hair and a gray beard walked past from the direction of the elevators, nodding to me as he went past. A few minutes later, he was back, carrying a glass of what looked like water. No color, no bubbles. He was thin and wore Levis and glasses, like me. I stood up straighter.

“You look smart,” he said as he approached me without quite looking me in the eye.

“Looks can be deceiving,” I said inanely, thinking to myself, Why did I say that? Major fail!

“Looks are only deceiving to the easily deceived,” he said and then nodded at the television screen hanging above us. “Do you pay attention to this stuff?”

“What, the game?” I gaped, still trying to figure out if I had been insulted.

“Stupid past time,” he muttered, although I wasn't sure he meant the football game or the networking.

I stared at him in confusion. He still wasn't looking at me.

“What's your name?” he demanded.

“Carol.”

“Martin.” No handshakes. No nods, but I guess it was an exchange of sorts.

One of the organizers ran past and waved at us.

“Winds of change,” Martin mumbled.

“What change?” I asked.

“Every moment is new,” he said. A moment later he drifted away.

I moved in the opposite direction and found a spot at a table with an unimpeded view of the game. I pulled out my journal and jotted down a few notes, because I knew that later I would be updating my blog, and I would forget these special, surreal moments as they blended into a bizarre timeout from reality.

People are always interesting when you get them talking. Besides the belligerent spitfire shortstuff startup and the hippie throwback, I met a lovely young woman who recruits for the software industry and a fascinating woman who, as a local representative of the National Transportation Safety Board, investigates local aviation accidents. Wow! How cool is that?

Unfortunately, the show started before I got a chance to ask her more questions. An hour and a half later, I slunk out before the thing was over, bludgeoned by bad PowerPoints and worse speakers, and went home to find out the Ducks were toast. Welcome to FailPDX!

Lowering my standards

I surely should have my brain examined. Something funny is going on in there. I fear it's termites. I think if a curious surgeon happened to open up my cranium, she would probably find an army of hard-hatted termites working diligently to destroy whatever synapses are still firing. It's a sad and perhaps little known fact that working with Wordpress themes, menus, widgets, and html accelerates the process.

In typical style (launching the new to avoid finishing the old), I started a new... what shall I call it? A division? A department? A product? I don't know. It's a new direction aimed at taking advantage of my academic career. I'm thinking of helping doctoral students finish their dissertations. Based on what I've seen as an academic editor, they could seriously use some help.

My academic career is somewhat sparse, I admit. One doctorate and six months of editing doesn't really amount to much. Can I call it a career yet? (Nuts, she cried gaily. Career, schmareer! In this age of nanosecond attention spans, six months is a lifetime!) Notwithstanding the fact that I haven't had any editing jobs since before Christmas, I've got this wild hair poking me in an uncomfortable place, prodding me to adopt the delusion that it might be possible to develop some kind of online business around the knowledge I've gleaned so far from learning, teaching, and editing. I figure other people learn as they go. Well, that approach suits me fine.

So there you have it: I have a new “career,” and true to my typical style, I'm launching it on the proverbial wing and a prayer. I don't know what the wing is all about, but I do know something about prayer, namely that you can't petition the lord or anyone else with it. So I don't know how this new venture is going to go. If past performance is any indication of future results, the odds are not good. But, as my friend Carlita is wont to remind me, the nature of oddness is not always obvious. Is it odd or is it God? That is a question for brighter minds than mine. I am focused on earning.

But as I mentioned up top (and I'm trying to hurry because Season 5 of Downton Abbey starts tonight), my brain is full of buzzing termites, and they aren't helping. I tried on five Wordpress themes over the past couple days. Bzzzzzzzzz, said the angry termites, shaking their little fists at me. I guess my efforts to use my brain to think are getting in the way of their efforts to destroy it. Yipes.

I can tell this won't end well. The world is once again going to hell in the stinky old handbasket. But nothing lasts forever, so I might as well go for it. The alternative, besides being dead, is to go to work for Target. Wait, that's the same thing. I mean, it's time to lower my standards and keep moving in the direction of my dreams. Nobody will do it for me, and I don't want to spend the remainder of my short and brutish life wishing I tried, even if I failed. Not trying at all is the true failure.

Tomorrow I will figure out this wretched theme, or spend money to get one that I can edit myself. Whatever happens, I will carry on. I might do a little surreptitious petitioning as well, but don't tell anybody.

Living life takes courage

As I sit at my computer with my feet encased in a rice-filled, microwaved (four minutes) sack of my own design, I peruse the temperature gadgets on my desktop and reflect for the umpteenth time that making my happiness contingent upon weather only leads to disappointment. The temperature in grayish PDX is a normal 42°. If I had stayed in Los Angeles, I would be basking in 80° heat. On the other hand, my friends in Minneapolis are stoically enduring 8°, which is better, I must say, than the minus temps they were experiencing a few days ago. News flash, Carol: Weather is relative and changeable. Duh. And there I go again, pinning my mental well-being on a flimsy hope of catching a glimpse of the sun.

The recycling truck is grinding along the street in front of the Love Shack. I know it's the recycling truck because I hear roaring sounds followed by clinking sounds. I'm distracted by everything, which means I am avoiding something. I keep looking out the window, but I don't know what I'm looking for. Right livelihood, I think. I'm looking for the Right Livelihood boutique, but all I see is the trash truck.

I'm blogging because I'm stymied. Each time I start running for the garden of right livelihood I'm sure is just around the next bend in the path, I find myself walking away from the garden, back to the weed patch. I'd say argh, but that doesn't really sum up my frustration at finding myself once again poking around this wretched weed patch. I was picturing something a little different, maybe something...I don't know...a bit more picturesque and a little less weedy.

If I could just be someone else for long enough, I'm sure I could figure this out. I blame my own brain for this disappointment, but perhaps that's not fair. It is doing the best it can. Unfortunately, my brain seems to be hard at work designing my demise in a perverted attempt to protect me from the ravages of living. Death by brain is slow and tedious, but less risky than death by living life. Living life takes courage.

I suspect the words I'm using to frame my complaint are part of my problem. Contrasting garden with weed patch, while visually satisfying, gives me only two choices, two ends of the spectrum of possibility. Desirable versus undesirable, good versus bad. Of course I want the garden, who wouldn't? But what if there were other places along the continuum, like treehouse, or life raft, or sunny beach? And what if among the weeds are herbs and flowers? I didn't really stop long enough to check. Good or bad, who knows anymore? Not me. Just two overused words that mean nothing.

Warm is good, cold is bad? I feel compelled to mention that yesterday the temperature in Portland was 57°, one degree short of a January record.

Always buy used and never fall in love

Christmas came and went with barely a burp. Nondescript weather, the usual array of cookies and relatives...nothing memorable to mark the passing of another holiday. No family feuds this year, no dueling duplexes. In the spirit of giving, I left my camera at home and did my best to be present. I survived. As usual, that is the best I can say. Now I hunker in the cave between Christmas and New Year's, waiting for the chocolate, sugar, fat, and salt toxins to exit my system, thinking about things like year-end bookkeeping, and wondering how I can somehow manage to wrangle an exemption from life. Oh, wait... maybe I should move back to Communist Russia.

It's the time of year when I expect things to go gunnysack. Mom's furnace. My life. My car. Yep. My Focus. My mechanic, Ping, told me my Focus is terminally ill. I'm not sure what that means, exactly, or how long I have. Will the thing blow up while I'm cruising down the freeway? Or will it simply sputter to a stop somewhere along Yamhill, leaving me to hoof it home? If I'm really lucky, it will take its last gasp as I pull it into its parking space. Hey, it could happen.

I knew that eventually my car would reach the end of its useful life, as do we all. No longer First On Race Day; now it's Found On Road Dead. Sigh. I would make a disparaging remark about Fords, but I have to admit, this car has been a really great car. It's lasted a lot longer than I expected, and not because of anything I've done. With all my cars, my plan is to drive them until they drop. So far that has worked out pretty well for me.

My dad's philosophy on cars was simple: always buy used and never fall in love. With cars, that is. The first part was easy. The second part was harder.

My first car was a 1966 Dodge Dart. Dingy white, of course, and shaped like a stocky rocket. Vroom. Bought it for $500 from a friend, sold it for $300 to a young kid who thought he could fix it up. I drove that thing all over Westwood, Santa Monica, and Bel Air, trying to find the homes of my wealthy custom clothing design customers. I wonder what they thought when they saw me puttering up to their fancy mansions and high-rise condos in a decrepit Dodge Dart. Oh, here's the help, is probably what they thought.

My second car was a poop-brown 1974 Toyota Corolla four-cylinder wagon. Bought it for $400, sold it for $400. I guess if you buy cars really cheap, you can sell them for about the same amount, that is, if they are still running on at least three cylinders, which the Toyota was. That car was intrepid. I drove it to Enseñada, Mexico, with three naked mannequins stretched out in the back. Long story. It's a wonder we weren't busted for drug-running.

My next car was a silver 1985 Ford Escort, a blunt little thing that was fun to drive when it wasn't having computer brain problems. Luckily my boyfriend at the time was handy with cars; he managed to keep the thing running long past its expiration date. I sold it to a guy from Ukraine and sometimes saw it tootling around Beverly Hills, spewing billowing clouds of exhaust in its wake.

My next car was a 2003 Honda CRX (formerly silver, now gray, probably repainted after an accident), the most fun car to drive ever made, except for possibly Minis and go-carts. That thing was a wild little demon. Or maybe I was the demon. It got me up and down the coast, from L.A. to Portland and back a couple times, and out into the wild deserts of Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Phoenix, and Tucson. I moved back to Portland in that car. Driving the CRX was like skidding down the road on your butt, but without the skidmarks or road rash. That was the car I fell in love with. That was the car that inspired my father to advise me to never fall in love with a car.

The CRX, engine blown, died a sad little weepy death on the grass parking strip next to my parents' house and was later towed away by some charity, an event I watched, brokenhearted, from their living room window. My consolation prize was my mother's 1984 white Chrysler minivan, which was like driving a school bus after the CRX. Ironically, that was the year I was driving a school bus out in Gresham. I was grateful to have the van to get to work, and since Gresham was too far to drive home in the middle of the day for the long lunch period, I was grateful there was enough room in the van to sleep. I slept a lot in that van. I came to appreciate minivans as little four-wheeled houses. In my frustration at finding myself driving a school bus in Gresham for a living, I often thought about packing up my stuff in that van and heading south. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that the van was leaking transmission fluid.

True to my mission to drive cars until they drop, I traded the dying minivan for the shiny black 2001 Ford Focus hatchback (plus a lot of cash). I drove the minivan to Milwaukie, dripping red drops that looked disturbingly like blood (I only pulled over to refill the transmission twice), where I handed over a cashier's check and the keys to the minivan and drove off in my sporty four-year-old Ford Focus. That was almost ten years ago.

I used to be able to name all the makes and models of my father's cars. Now I only remember the few that I learned to drive on: the 1960 Oldsmobile Delta 88 whose speedometer was a strip of color that turned from green to orange to red (go faster, Dad, faster!), the sparkling turquoise 1961 Cadillac with the pointed tail fins, and a dark green Pontiac that was memorable only for stalling during my driver's exam... that's about all I remember now of the dozens of cars my father bought and sold in his lifetime.

I guess there is no point to remembering a list of cars, any more than there is a point to remembering the names of all my cousins kids and grandkids. Next year we will all be a year older and maybe a foot taller or a half-foot wider (hope not). Another used car, another happy new year.

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!

Mom dodges the slammer

I honored one of my relatively recent holiday traditions last week: I celebrated Buy Nothing Day on Black Friday. I'm happy to let the happy holidays pass me by. I'd be a lot happier if the places I hunt, forage, and gather my food could be separated from the places where maniacal holiday shoppers congregate en masse in pursuit of deals. Alas, the world of retail commerce is not organized to suit introverted outliers like me. As my friend Sheryl would say, suck it up.

It's always something, especially during the holiday season. This week my mother's heat pump went out. She found out things weren't working properly when she got an inordinately high heating bill.

“The fan is running all the time” she complained. “I've set the thermostat to 55° to get the fan to shut off. Your brother brought over a space heater.” Great. My 85-year old mother is hunkered down in her dark freezing condo, huddled next to a space heater. This situation could be described as a disaster waiting to happen. I can picture my mother going out to the garage for a smoke, leaving the heater on full blast next to her lap blanket.

“Did you call the furnace guy?” I asked.

“I'm on the list, I think,” she replied. I wondered if it was finally time for me to step in and take control. Should I be calling repair people on her behalf? Should I be paying her bills? Isn't that one step away from moving in with her? I feel like a rabbit frozen in oncoming headlights. There will be no coming back from that move, I fear.

“You won't believe what else happened,” she went on.

“What?”

“I was driving on Hassalo, you know, where the road is gravel off to both sides? There was a car coming, so I moved over to the right.”

“Oh, no,” I said before I could stop myself, picturing the worst: parked car, cat, kid? Insurance bills, legal problems, jail time? I can't imagine my 85-year-old mother in prison orange. She's more of a winter.

“Some dumb homeowner didn't pull their garbage can back far enough and I hit it with my right side mirror,” she said in disgust. Then she burst into hearty laughter.

It's a good thing we were talking on the phone so she couldn't see my terrified face.

“The mirror popped out of its socket,” she said. “I went back and found it. I can get your brother to glue it back in.”

Luckily sounds like the garbage can survived. (Of course, the whole thing was the homeowner's fault.) Did we dodge a bullet? Not sure. Maybe. I'll take the gift, in honor of the season.

Another Thanksgiving adventure

My scrawny 85-year-old mother called me a few minutes ago. “Have you ever had a worse Thanksgiving meal?” she asked. I had just finished admiring my friend Bravadita's colorful repast, described on her blog, complete with mouthwatering photographs. Roasted brussel sprouts. Mmmmm. I was inclined to say, no, probably not. But that would have been an untruth. Yes, I admit, it probably wasn't the greatest Thanksgiving meal I've had, but it wasn't the worst, by far.

Here's what happened. Yesterday I picked my mother up about 10:45; we rumbled through the rain to a local crappy chain diner (where my mother often eats with her cronies), where we met my younger brother. I'll call him Spike. We strolled into the place behind an older couple, who stood staring at the glass case full of pies.

“We are here to get a pie to go,” said the old man. We quickly sidestepped our way to the counter and were seated forthwith in a booth with a nice view of a gray wet boulevard. Mom ordered a turkey sandwich (which she told me today was chicken. I'm not sure if it was chicken when it was supposed to have been turkey, or if it was chicken from the get go, or if I simply misheard her when she ordered, assuming that because it was Thanksgiving, she would get a turkey sandwich.... am I making sense?)

My brother ordered a Denver omelette, which prompted some discussion about why an omelette might be named after a city in Colorado. I ordered scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes. We all had coffee, which led to a discussion about how the coffee was better than expected, and how the best coffee comes from Astoria, but we couldn't remember the name of the company that roasted it, only that the best stuff is called Thundermuck.

The food came fast as the place filled up with families. The servers were speeding around, looking harried. I mentioned to Spike and my mother that my eggs were cold, but I didn't really care. I often eat cold eggs. They tasted fine to me. The bacon was good, too, but I really just wanted the pancakes (syrup and butter, mmmm). Sadly, they were somewhat disappointing, being simultaneously doughy and hard (is such a thing scientifically possible?). Still, I was enjoying myself, sitting across from what is left of my local family. I took Spike's picture, and he took mine. We teased each other gently; our teasing is a pale version of what it used to be: we are old now, and tired.

The whole dining adventure was over in an hour. Spike declared his intention to go home and take a nap. Mom and I agreed it was too early to take a nap. “I'll probably play some computer games,” she said with a resigned sigh. I had a paper to finish editing. Every day is a work day for me. My brother and I split the bill while my mother was making a pitstop in the restroom, which prompted a discussion on the way home about the importance of learning to gracefully receive a gift, because to repudiate a gift diminishes the giver. That shut her up for a while.

I left her standing in the rain in her driveway, waving her little wizened hand at me. I trundled my moss-covered Ford Focus home, thinking I need to replace my wipers, and had some more coffee before I started editing the paper (a dissertation on probabilities and real options... I know, what?). When my eyes were properly crossed, I watched an episode of True Blood and then went to bed. As Thanksgivings go, it was one of the better ones.

The worst Thanksgivings were the ones from my preteen childhood, in which my grandmother invaded my mother's kitchen, my father and grandfather watched football, my older brother read a book in a quiet corner, and my sister and Spike duked it out in silent fury. Where was I? No recollection. I'm pretty sure I was there, but I might not have been completely there, if you know what I mean.

The second worst Thanksgivings were the ones I attended at the homes of various boyfriends. For example, I visited the surfer dude's bronzed parents, who lived in a ranch house in Newbury Park, California. I was an overdressed new wave mannequin in turkey-sized shoulder pads: it was 1980, after all. (But I was in the garment industry: it was my job to look edgy.) The surfer dude's two-packs-a-day mother and her bizarre onion casserole was mitigated by the desert heat.

A few years later, the surfer dude was gone, displaced by the Jewish dude. The Jewish dude's mother made chicken soup without salt or seasoning. His siblings tolerated me, but I think his father was secretly fascinated by the wild fashionista goy toy with spiked hair. (That would be me.)

Finally, I figured out how to say no and stay home.

The best Thanksgiving ever was the year when my sister came to Los Angeles to work for the Getty on a museum grant. While the Jewish dude went off to do the family thing, she and I stayed home and watched movies and ate popcorn for dinner. Despite that being the year of the Malibu fires, floods, and the Northridge Earthquake, it was one of my best years in LA, because she was there.

“Didn't you want to send the eggs back?” my mother asked me on the phone.

“No,” I said. I thought about trying to tell her how much I am thankful we aren't doing the whole cooking and cleaning insanity anymore. And I wanted to tell her, too, how much I enjoy going out to eat with her once in a while, and how much I will miss her when she is gone. But that's probably best left for another day. All I said was, “No, I don't mind cold eggs once in a while. It's all part of the adventure.”