'Tis the season to remember

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's not about me

I try not to think too much. It's my defense against cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance occurs when my body does one thing while my brain says do something else.

I was sitting in a meeting room last week, waiting for someone, anyone, to show up. I used the time alone to write in my journal, pondering the utter powerlessness I have over the end of my mother's life. I  know the outcome. I just don't how how, where, and when. I want to know so I can be ready. My body says prepare! Prepare to flee! Prepare for the end! Prepare for the worst! My brain says chill out, there's nothing you can do.

I write in cheap composition notebooks that I buy by the dozen at Target during back-to-school. I fill about one notebook per month with my resentful whining, pithy insights, and funny drawings. I have journals going back to 1995. I plan to bequeath them to my sister. She doesn't know that yet. She can recycle them after I'm gone; at that point, I presume won't care. Possibly I shouldn't care now what happens to them, but I have a vain hope that they contain stories that will someday make me rich. Or if not rich, successful. Or if not successful, published.

About 20 minutes before the end of the meeting, my quiet time was interrupted by a rotund short-haired woman wearing flowered pants and Crocs. It was Margaret, our treasurer. The group was supposed to have a business meeting to discuss how we wanted to disperse the funds accumulating in our bank account. Because only Margaret and I were in attendance, I figured why bother, save it for next month. What's the rush? My mind was definitely back in my notebook, writing about my mother.

Margaret shoved a financial report across the table at me. I ignored it. I started drawing a picture of a big-eyed nerd in my notebook (another self-portrait, as they so often are). However, Margaret was clearly vibrating with urgency. After making her wait just the right amount of time, I stopped drawing and picked up the report.

“Did we ever make that donation to . . . ?” She nailed me with a stare, as if it were my fault that some payment didn't get made. I'm not the treasurer. Jeez.

“I don't have any recollection of that,” I said, shrugging. I opened my journal and started cross-hatching some shading around the nerd's bulging eyes.

“Well, then, this is all wrong,” Margaret said, snatching the paper back. She stuffed the papers in her bag. She sat in sullen silence for about thirty seconds. I practiced deep breathing and cross-hatching.

“How's your Mom?”

“The same, slipping away bit by bit,” I replied.

Margaret sat forward in her chair. “My mother was in a nursing home for five years, hooked to breathing machines and feeding tubes because my sister couldn't let her go.”

I tried to gauge the emotion I heard in her voice and couldn't tell if she was sad or glad that her mother had suffered for so long. All I could think of is, wow, I'm glad my sister is in France.

“Sounds terrible,” I said.

“You get along with your Mom?” Margaret asked. 

“Yeah, now that she's lost her mind, she's actually pretty fun,” I smiled.

“You want to move to the desert, right?”

I nodded. It's no secret. She's heard me mention Arizona.

“Why don't you just go? Let your brother handle your Mom. Go live your life!”

I stared at her while I tried on difference responses in my mind. I had conflicting feelings. I wanted to defend my choice—eldest daughter, obligation, payback, yada yada—but none of that felt true. Knowing Margaret, she would have argued with my rationale. She's like me in that respect. She likes to stir the pot. I know a pot-stirrer when I see one.

After a long moment, I said what came to mind. “It's not about me.”

She reeled back in surprise. I could see her mind churning: How could it not be about us? That statement calls into question the nature of the universe and the purpose and meaning of existence. Aren't we the center of everything? Argh. I used to think so, but not any more.

Countering that narrative is the reason I have twenty-four years of journals a-moldering on five shelves in my living room. All yours, Sis!

Downhill in a handbasket

As I scrubbed my bathroom floor (a once-in-a-lifetime event), I contemplated the impending end of another year. Everyday, I wonder if I will make it through another day, and everyday, somehow I do. It's silly, I know. I'm not 89 years old and sinking into dementia. Wait, what? Hmmm. When I look in the mirror, I see my mother's vacant eyes staring back at me. It's so unsettling, I have stopped looking in the mirror, which is why I often don't realize that like my mother, I have wiry black hairs sprouting out of my nose.

In the evenings after I visit Mom, I eat dinner and watch the PBS Newshour online. When it is over, my best course of action would be to turn off the computer and do something to relax. However, I'm addicted to the news. Instead of listening to music or reading a book, I listen to the pundits predicting the end of the world and compulsively play Mahjong.

I am reminded of the summer after seventh grade when I picked strawberries for two hellish weeks. I had images of strawberries burned into my retinas. I saw fat luscious strawberries waiting to be picked in every juniper and rhododendron outside my family's front porch. Now, when I close my eyes, instead of strawberries, I see Mahjong tiles. I'm not complaining. I'm sure people in war zones both domestic and foreign see lots worse things when they close their eyes.

Mom has a cough. Her smoking buddy Jane reminded me she had one last year around this time. I had forgotten. That is what living day to day does to me: My linear memory, never great, has evaporated. I went back to the medical records: Sure enough, last January, I took Mom to Urgent Care for a cough. They ruled out pneumonia and diagnosed her with bronchitis. I am guessing the same is happening now. The temperature is finally dipping down to freezing at night, day temps hover in the mid-40s, and nothing stops the maternal parental unit from going outside in the damp dark cold for her after-dinner cigarette.

Last night as we were strolling down the hall, Mom coughed as we passed by the Med-Aide who was standing at her rolling kiosk in the hall peering at a computer screen. The woman looked up and said, “It doesn't help that you are still smoking.” Then she laughed and said, “I know you aren't going to stop,” and gave my Mom a hug, which Mom returned. I said nothing. Mom clearly trusts the woman. I only see Mom for an hour a day. The Med-Aide sees her all day, five days a week. She wins.

At the end of the hall, we do our good-bye ritual: kiss on the forehead (hers, not mine), peace sign, my declaration of love, and her response. Last night, she said, “I don't know what I would do without you. You've kept me going. Without you, I would go downhill in a hand-basket.”

Today as I was scraping years of congealed kitty litter out of the corners of the bathroom floor and bemoaning my nose hair invasion, I thought about her comment. The implication is that by visiting her every day, I am helping keep my mother alive. Argh. Cognitive dissonance strikes again.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Chronic Malcontent

During the holidays, people like the idea of connecting more than they like the reality of connecting. A friend sent me a nice email to express her appreciation for our friendship. She suggested we talk on the phone sometime soon. I emailed back my willingness and eagerness to connect.

“I'm cooking right now,” she replied by email. “Let's catch up soon.” We all know that means: I fulfilled my obligation of reaching out and making contact. Now I can relax and feel good about myself without actually having to endure an in-person conversation. Real time? Nuh-uh, no way. Too busy. Too real.

It's Thanksgiving. I'm guessing a lot of Americans have pulled or are right now pulling their turkeys, hams, or tofurkeys out of the oven; dressing them with stuffing, mac and cheese, yams, or whatever the preferred side dish is in their part of the country; and yelling over football with family in anticipation of gorging and then hitting the stores.

I got a late start on the day (I spent an hour video chatting with my sister who is in France, nine hours ahead of me), so I just now finished lunch (apple, blueberries, yogurt). In twenty minutes, my smartphone will alert me that it is time to visit Mom. You know the drill. I will drive over there in the dark rainy night, interrupt M.A.S.H., and valiantly sing and smile and encourage her to ... what, keep living? No, I don't do that, but I don't discourage her either: Mom, don't die, what will I do without you? No. Yes. Argh. I'm conflicted.

One thing I know I will not do tonight or tomorrow is go shopping. I feel a certain smug satisfaction in claiming that every day is Buy Nothing Day for me. Even when I had money, I avoided large crowds of shoppers. Now that I'm four months from living in my car, life is pretty simple, which might be why I've chosen this lifestyle time and again over the years. Decisions are easy. Shelter, food, transportation. What else is there? Oh, yeah, healthcare.... my healthcare plan is pretty much don't get sick. However, thanks to the ACA, I have basic health insurance. Something to be thankful for on this day made especially for being thankful. Thanks, Obamacare.

Every week, my sister encourages me to make time for my creativity. I counter each suggestion with a reason why it won't work. She doesn't get mad, though. We've come a long way. We still give each other advice, but we no longer get irritated when we don't follow it. After we ended the video chat, I realized I had an excuse for everything because I'm terrified.

Ho hum. Nothing new. Same old fear, same old resistance. It's time to listen to my own best advice: Don't think, don't feel, just do. Stop whining and get busy. This blog post represents my creative effort for the day. Ten minutes to go time. Don't think, just do.

Slogging through to the end, one day at a time

My mother lives in an assisted living facility that can handle most levels of care. Unless she punches the daylights out of her annoying table mate, she can stay there until she dies. As long as we can afford the rent, that is, which goes up as her level of care increases. We go on until it is over. The old man in the room next door died a couple weeks ago. Across the hall, the mother-in-law of a friend of family lies dying. Her door was closed last night; she might be gone. Gone, as in, passed away, lost, well, let's just say it: dead. Can I admit it? I'm envious.

Mom has a routine. She doesn't like it when the routine is disrupted. Last month, she was unsettled by little children in Halloween costumes pelting up and down the hallway. Holidays are fast approaching. My intention is to keep the routine intact. That means no unexpected calls, no unannounced visitors, and no trips to the ER. We hope.

When we go outside to smoke in the evening (she and Jane smoke, I don't smoke, just so you know, eeew), Mom and Jane keep a close eye on comings and goings in the parking lot. We have a routine.

Jane is slim, more of a stick than my mother. They are of similar heights, but Mom has gained some weight over the past six months (probably from all the gluten-free cookies I bring her). Jane disdains food. She says she isn't hungry, but I suspect her motivation is vanity. She likes being thin. She pays attention to her appearance. She wears makeup. Her eyeliner is thick and black (but she eschews mascara). Her eyebrows are drawn with brown pencil in wobbly half-circles along the ridges of her brows. She wears no lipstick.

When we go outside, my mother bundles up with several layers of cotton knit and polyester fleece, I kid you not, plus a hat and gloves. No matter the weather, Jane wears one thin fleece coat. It's well worn, pilled, hip length, and printed with a faded blue and purple design that reminds me of a Peter Max painting. Underneath she wears close-fitting mismatched track suits. The velour tops are short, with zippers—she has multiple versions in pastel colors: lavender, yellow, blue. Sometimes she wears flared gray sweatpants that are cut off well above the ankle, but not hemmed. I'm not sure if she bought them like that or had them altered to suit. Her ankles are slim. I'm pretty sure she wears pantyhose. On her feet, she wears floppy black slip-on slippers or, if it is raining, little polka dotted shoes with white laces. Last week she finally put on a jacket. My mother was so relieved.

Mom usually plows ahead to the smoking area, and we stumble along in her wake. I am remembering to bring along a flashlight to light the path. As we approach the smoking shelter (formerly a wrought-iron porch swing frame), two battery operated lights come on in our faces. Blinded, we keep our heads down and duck under the shelter. The two old ladies sit side by side. I pull up the third chair and sit opposite. If I can sit still for 15 seconds, the two lights will go off and we will be in the dark. As soon as I move, the lights come back on. It is very hard to sit completely still, but I try.

Once she gets her cigarette lit, Jane has a lot to say. As a paranoid elder with an anxiety disorder, Jane complains about trucks, cars, kids on bikes, excessive noise, the food, the owner of the facility, and the roses growing in front of her window. As Mom smokes, she detaches with Zen-like calm. She measures her cigarette against Jane's cigarette, and when it is done, she's done.

Last night, as we do every evening, Mom and I trundled down the hall to Jane's room and knocked on her door. Mom stood, leaning on her walker as we waited. Jane opened the door and stood there in a mismatched velour track suit. She looked grayer than usual.

“Oh, thank you, but I think I will decline... I just don't... I don't know...”

Mom and I were astounded. Most nights, Jane is raring to get outside. Mom and I looked at each other in shock.

“Are you not feeling well?” I asked, thinking, oh, no, if Mom's smoking buddy craps out on her, that would be bad.

“I don't know,” Jane said. She wished us a good evening and shut the door.

Mom recovered more quickly than I did. She took off down the hall. I followed. We went outside to the shelter. I sat next to her. With some direction, she figured out where her cigarettes were and lit one up. The rain had stopped. The air was fresh. I wanted to take a deep breath but the breeze blew her smoke into my face. I coughed and waved my hands—that old passive aggressive signal for your smoke is killing me. We switched places. Jane's curtains were shut tight. Mom didn't finish her entire cigarette. I'm getting used to handling slightly damp burned up cigarette butts. She got up and grabbed her walker. I shuffled along after, retrieving a fallen glove.

This morning I got a call from the facility saying Mom had fallen during the night. Not bad, just stumbled over her own feet, skinned a knee on the rug. I will visit her tonight and see if she remembers what happened. I hope Jane will be back to normal and the routine can resume. I begin to see I need the routine as much as Mom does. I don't know what I will do when she's gone.

Death is the new sex

Do you think about death a lot? I do. Could be the season (tomorrow is Halloween), could be the weather, could be the events happening in the country these days. My preoccupation with death could stem from all these things, but I'm guessing it comes mostly from visiting my mother every day. She just keeps on truckin'. I am impressed by the persistence of life. Human cells don't know the word retirement: cells want to keep working, even when they can no longer spell or remember what they had for lunch. They don't give up just because we, the human mind supposedly in charge of the cells, are tired of living.

Death is a relatively recent preoccupation for me. Like many people, I used to think a lot about sex. Well, love really, but let's not quibble. Getting it, giving it, getting more of it, getting it from the “right” person, or avoiding it, life was all about sex. And I suppose food and money, but food and money are just necessary ingredients to getting sex. For some, sex is about procreation; for some, it's about recreation; for some, look out for the devil's idle hands! I wasn't unique—for or against, it seems to me, many people obsess about sex.

However, if we are over a certain age, sex might seem increasingly distant and irrelevant. I don't think I'm unique in this regard either. In fact, I suggest death is the new sex. Now that I'm officially old, I think I am qualified to make this claim.

My friends who are my age or older used to discuss their relationships with me. As they learned to live their own lives, one by one, they have become single. With a few exceptions, they don't talk about relationships anymore. Now they talk about death.

“My friend was riding her bike and got run over by a garbage truck,” said a seventy-year-old friend who rides her bike a lot.

Another friend called me on the phone to tell me a story about her friend's suicide. Even though I did not know the person, I was both appalled and curious. More curious, really—I didn't care much about this person I did not know, but I was very interested to hear how he orchestrated his own demise. I wanted to pick up a few tips.

“He invited a couple friends over for the night, but made them stay in a separate room so they couldn't be held responsible,” she said.

“Couldn't he get a doctor's help?” I asked. This is Oregon, after all—Death with Dignity, 1997. We not only have the right to self-terminate, we can also get assistance.

“He wasn't dying, he was just in terrible chronic pain,” she replied. “He couldn't eat anything without excruciating pain. He endured it for six years and decided he'd had enough.”

I don't suppose it takes that much courage to choose an end to one's own endless suffering. Clearly, the guy had given life the old college try. I was impressed, though, by his careful planning. He wanted some help from close friends, but didn't want to implicate them in the event, so he sent them to spend the night in the guest room. He made sure he was lying on a lawn chair, not the bed, to avoid messing up the mattress . . . so thoughtful. Then he took three drugs—one to slow the heart, one to combat nausea, and the final, a huge dose of Seconal, which apparently does the trick. Hmmm. Where does one get a big dose of Seconal? No doubt from a doctor's prescription, like other controlled substances. Or on the black market.

I tried to picture myself scoring sedatives on the black market. Where exactly is the black market, I wondered. Probably off Hawthorne, where old hippies still lurk. Or in the Pearl. Yeah, in the Pearl. I hear those millennials over there are magicians at locating illegally obtained controlled substances.

“He wanted to watch the stars as he was dying,” my friend said wistfully. “And apparently the clouds cleared away.” I thought that was possible but unlikely, considering, you know, Oregon. We did have a stretch of great weather, though, unusual for October, so I guess it is possible. I wondered how she knew her dying friend got a glimpse of the stars . . . was someone perhaps peeking? I didn't ask her, not wanting to ruin her mood.

I've read that breathing helium is a gentle way to exit. Make a plastic tent over your head, fill it with helium from a balloon bottle, and drift away painlessly. That seems like a lot of work to me, and who will return the helium bottle to the party store after I'm gone? Plus, I'd need some friends to make sure I didn't try to exit the tent. No, too much can go wrong. My vote would be for fentanyl. Darn, I'm back to trying to find that black market. Sigh.

Well, like most Americans, I assume I have plenty of time to obsess about my demise. If I'm out of time, it won't matter. Someone else will have the tedious task of cleaning up my earthly remains. Not to mention, the clutter in the Love Shack. My apologies, in advance.

I would love to go a-wandering

Bless me, Blogbots, it's been weeks since my last post. I've been busy. I put fleastop on the cat. I went to the bank multiple times. I did piles of laundry. I ate a lot of eggs and vegetables. I got a mammogram. I watched cable news on YouTube. I drank gallons of coffee. I edited a few papers. I whined. I moaned. I complained and gnashed my pearly grays. And I visited my mother at the retirement home every day at 6:17 pm.

Every day feels new and old at the same time. How is that possible? Most of the time I don't anticipate what is coming, I just let it smack me in the face. I set an alarm on my phone to remind me of go-time: Six o'clock. I'm in the car listening to NPR by 6:07. In 10 minutes I am parking under the big tree that drops crap on my windshield, wondering how did I get here?

As I walk to the back door, I realize, whoa, here I am again. Same door, same code, same echoey click as the door shuts behind me. Same hallway of worn brown carpet, same fried meat odors lingering in the air. Same old people coming slowly toward me from the dining room, some shuffling behind big-wheeled walkers, some being pushed in wheelchairs, all with dazed expressions on their wrinkled faces. I can guess what they are thinking: Who is this girl? and What did I just eat for dinner?

“Howdy howdy,” I say as I pass Nurse Debbie who sorts and dispenses medications at a big rolling desk outside the dining room. She usually waves. Sometimes she says howdy howdy back at me. I don't know who started saying hello that way, her or me. Now I say it all the time. Ugh.

As I pass the dining room door I peer in to see if my mother is still at the table. I rarely see her there. Dinner is almost always over by 6:18. Striding down the hall, I note the framed art hanging on the dingy flowered wallpaper walls. There are prints of paintings of blurry milkmaids standing with cows or sitting on fences against pink clouds interspersed with framed mirrors hung at odd levels. Narrow tables occur at intervals, flanked by chairs, places to rest when the wallpaper is too much. Now I get why they are called occasional tables.

Mom's apartment door is always open during the day. I never know what to expect when I get there. Will she be sacked out on the couch? Will she be sitting up watching M.A.S.H. reruns on TV? Will she be in the bathroom or rummaging around in a cupboard or lying broken on the floor? See what I mean about every day being a new adventure? I don't predict what I might find. I take it as it comes.

Today wasn't much different from any other day, except Mom was anxious to get outside. She hadn't had a cigarette all day. She hustled down the hall to Jane's apartment and rapped on the door. Good thing Jane was ready, because Mom was already moving away, head down, hunched over her walker, one thing on her mind: gotta scratch that nicotine itch. Jane and I stumbled along in her wake.

Jane looked the same—crookedly drawn eyebrows, uneven eyeliner, big earrings, cut off gray sweatpants, a garish print fleece jacket, and loose house slippers. Her daughter gave her a perm last week, so now her wispy gray hair has a bit of kinky curl to it. She likes to wear it up, but sometimes she lets it go loose. All she needs is a long glittery flounced skirt and she'd make a killing telling fortunes.

Lately, Jane has seemed more paranoid than usual. Tonight she hardly had time to suck on her cigarette before she was complaining about “the kids upstairs.” Before you think, oh right, another demented old lady, there really are kids living upstairs at the retirement home. Apparently there is an apartment on the second floor that the owner rents out to a friend who has three or four kids, ranging in age from about thirteen to maybe eighteen? I can't tell, who knows. A couple boys, a couple girls of varying heights, all with some amazing hairstyles. They seem like polite children to me, but I must admit, it's weird to think that a pack of kids have free run of the retirement place. I don't think the kids are going through drawers looking for spare change and trying on adult diapers when the staff aren't looking, but I can't fault Jane for being paranoid.

I tried to think of something to say to reassure her . . . uh, que sera sera? But she was already moving on.

“Why does the moon do that?” Jane asked me, pointing to the three-quarter moon.

“Do what?”

“Sometimes we can see it, sometimes we can't.”

“Well, it has to do with the rotation of the moon around the earth and the earth around the sun,” I stammered, thinking, what the hell do I know about how the moon works.

“Oh, yeah,” Jane said. “I forgot it did that.” She seemed satisfied with my answer. Whew. I was wondering if I needed to make a mobile of the sun and the planets.

Mom meanwhile was off in la-la-land, dazed as usual halfway through her cigarette. She shrugged her shoulders when I caught her eye.

Every night we sing songs as she walks me down the long hall to the back door. Tonight I tried Blood Sweat and Tears' You Made Me So Very Happy. She didn't know that one. 

“From the 1970s,” I said.

“I was too busy raising kids,” she said. So we fell back on our old favorite, The Happy Wanderer. I looked up the lyrics. We take liberty with some of the verses.

I love to go a-wandering
Along the mountain track
And as I go, I love to sing
My knapsack on my back

Val-deri, val-dera (I sing boundaree, bounderaaaa, and Mom sings Bowseree, Bowsaraaa)
Val-deri, val-dera
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha

I want to go a-wandering

Until the day I die

And as I go, I love to sing

Beneath the clear blue sky

The world keeps turning

When times get tough, I queue up the songs that keep me going as I slog through my ongoing pity party. This week my soundtrack is mostly New Order, punctuated by Rod Stewart's Mandolin Wind and Helen Stellar's Io (from the movie Elizabethtown). Maybe engaging in some new compulsive activities will help me get my mind off reality for a while. Tonight I'm thinking about taking up the mandolin. And maybe learning Chinese and Russian (just in case America is invaded while we are distracted by the shit show happening in Washington).

Every evening I come back to earth by visiting my mother and her smoking buddy, Jane. Some evenings Jane doesn't talk much, and Mom doesn't talk at all, so we have a pleasant ten-minute interlude staring into the distance. Well, they stare into the distance. They have a view of tall fir trees and sky beyond the roof of the facility. I have a view of two old ladies sitting in front of a wall of rhododendrons. It's hard to know what to stare at. I often don't know what to say. I do a lot of fidgeting.

The other night I made the mistake of describing the hearings I'd witnessed of the Supreme Court nominee. Of course, neither old woman had any idea what I was talking about. I worked myself into quite a lather before I finally managed to zip it. Darn it. I need to unload my anxieties someplace else.

Mom and Jane could not care less what is going on in politics. They no longer vote. Their attention is riveted on what is happening in their own small world, the world of the retirement facility.

“Tonight is Amy's last day,” Jane reminded Mom tonight. Mom nodded. Amy was the nice part-time cook. I was sad to hear that Amy was leaving. She baked gluten-free cookies for Mom.

“I wonder if she is getting another job,” Jane mused. Mom shrugged her narrow shoulders. I looked at the front of her red fleece jacket, wondering if it ever got laundered. She loves the jacket for its deep pockets, plenty of room for her cigarette case. The front of the jacket is a minefield of pock marks, some just black circles and others outright holes, burned clear through the fleece. I wondered what I would do if one evening she dropped her cigarette and spontaneously combusted.

“Someone died two nights ago,” Jane said. She looked at me and mouthed, “Stroke.” Mom nodded. She had told me about it yesterday. We didn't know the woman who died. Neither one of us was terribly concerned about the dead person. After all, people go to retirement facilities to die. We both expressed sadness for the staff.

“The same night, another woman fell,” Jane said. “Blood everywhere.” My mother's eyes widened. She glanced at her cigarette and then at Jane's cigarette, comparing their smoking progress.

“They could get some serious rain this week in Arizona,” I said, thinking, what is the mildest topic possible? Right, the weather. 

Both ladies looked at me in surprise. “Arizona!” Mom said.

“We can't get flooded here, can we?” Jane asked.

“No, we are on a hill,” I reassured her.

The glowing ember at the tip of Mom's cigarette fell onto the ground. She held out the now dead stub. Sometimes I take it, sometimes Jane takes it. Tonight I took it and chucked it into the big gourd-shaped receptacle for cigarette butts that must look absolutely gross inside. Mom got up and grabbed her walker. Time to head for the door. I trailed behind to pick up the pieces, if anything (or anyone) should happen to fall.

Amy met us at the front door and let us in. Behind us the sky was almost dark. No rain, but I could smell it on the air. I stood by as Amy hugged first Jane and then my mother. Amy towered over both shrunken women. Up close, she looked younger than I first thought.

“Come back and visit,” Jane said.

“Don't forget us,” I said to Amy as Mom turned away down the hall. Amy did not look sad to be leaving. I worked at a nursing home once. That was probably the hardest job in my life. (So far. I have a feeling Home Depot might be in my future.)

Back in her room, Mom parked her jacket on the visitor's chair. She stood by the bed, staring at the bed covers, which were pulled open, ready for her to go to bed later. Her blue fleece pajama bottoms lay on top. She pointed at her head.

“What do I do with this?” I wasn't sure if she meant the pajamas and bed covers or her head. I took a chance she meant the bed.

“Your bed is ready for you, when you are ready to go to sleep,” I said. “See the picture on the wall?” Last week I drew a series of cartoons showing her how to get ready for bed. First, brush your teeth. Take out hearing aids. Take off shoes and pants. Put on PJs. Sit on the bed. Put feet under covers. Pull covers up to chin. Sweet dreams. Layers are the problem. The quilt is covered by the wool blanket, which is covered by a sheet. Three layers! With the pajama bottoms on top. Too much for her brain.

“Ring your buzzer if you need help,” I said.

“Okay,” she replied.

The Chronic Malcontent should not become a car mechanic

I'm bone-dog weary, but I keep slogging through the days. On the bright side, sunshine! On the dark side, dementia! Life is a balance sheet of debits and credits. I add up both sides and think I've got things figured out. Then pink eye! (Mom, not me). It's always something, even when I don't know what it is. We all know how the story ends, but how we get to the ending is the part that puts hair on my chest. And upper lip. And nostrils.

After our visit to urgent care to get the pink eye diagnosis, my mother called me to tell me one of my headlights was out. That was nice of her. Even more impressive, she remembered to call me even after trudging the three-minute hike back to her room, fifteen minutes after having a cigarette, which typically temporarily erases a good portion of her brain cells.

I went to the auto supply store yesterday to buy new headlight bulbs and new wipers. As I pulled out my debit card, I kept waiting for the clerk to offer to install them for me, at least, the wipers. They've done it in the past for me, in a fraction of the time it usually takes me to do it. It's not like there was a line, but apparently he didn't want to go outside. So off I went, $47.00 poorer with some trepidation about what would come next.

I had previously checked YouTube for a video that would show me how to replace a headlight bulb in a decrepit old Ford Focus. Videos abound. When I backed my car into my usual parking spot in front of the laurel hedge, I felt well equipped with the knowledge of headlight replacement. I gathered my tools: gloves, basically. The nice mechanic on the video said don't touch the bulbs with your bare hands. I pulled on my lavender rubber-palmed gardening gloves and smacked them together in anticipation of success to come.

First, I optimistically opened the package of new headlight bulbs. Then I yanked on the hood release and managed to get the hood up and onto the support stick. Next, I peeled off the rubber gaskets that covered the headlight assembly, thinking eeew, these things look remarkably like dusty black contraceptive diaphragms. I set them aside. A fleeting thought crossed my mind: I hope I will remember to replace them when I'm done.

I reached my hand into the space by the left headlight assembly. There I encountered my first problem, I mean, challenge. The guy in the video seemed to have a lot more space to maneuver than I was finding in my car. I could barely get one hand in there to try to loosen the plastic retainer ring holding the bulb in place. I could feel the ring, though, so I persevered.

The ring wouldn't budge. I tried one hand, then the other hand. If I could only get both hands in there! I tried to picture my mechanic undertaking this task. Nuh-uh. Not going to happen. Maybe I'm doing this wrong. I switched to the other headlight, and twisted the ring. It came off easily and fell down into the engine compartment.

I stared down into the depths of the engine, feeling my heart rate go up, and wondering what would happen if I pretended like that hadn't happened? Would the ring melt and start a fire as I was cruising along the freeway? Would the car even start?

“Failure is not an option,” I muttered. I left the hood up and went into my apartment, seeking inspiration. I grabbed a 36-inch metal ruler, a roll of duct tape, and an X-acto knife. The cat looked askance at me as I hurried back out the door.

When I returned to the car, I looked into the engine, trying to find the ring, but my eyes weren't adjusting to the bright sunshine. I couldn't see a thing, just velvety darkness. I rummaged in the glove box. Where the heck is my flashlight? Don't I have a flashlight? Note to self: get a flashlight!

I was going to run back into the apartment for a flashlight but remembered the Multnomah County Library keychain flashlight I had received at 2017 Wordstock. I clicked the tiny button and shone the LED beam into the engine. Yep, there it was, that stupid ring, sitting on a horizontal surface much closer to the ground than to the hood. Too far for me to reach, even if there had been room to insert my arm into the narrow space.

I shoved the metal ruler down toward the area where the ring was sitting, hoping I wouldn't dislodge something essential, like, I don't know, the engine. I applied my former skill as a golfer to putt the ring toward an opening where I thought it could potentially fall down onto the ground. After some tries, success! The ring fell on the ground. I bent down, reached under the car, and snatched it up triumphantly, holding it aloft like a trophy. I glanced surreptitiously at the diners eating at the tables outside the cafe across the street but nobody was watching.

By now I was a good twenty minutes into the job and I hadn't even managed to remove the old headlights. Nevertheless, I persisted.

I yanked out the old bulb assembly from the right headlight. I removed the old bulb from the thingamajig that it plugged into, you know, the thing with all those scary looking wires no doubt leading to my car's electronic brain, if it has such a thing, which I doubt. I tossed the old bulb into the trash. I inserted the new bulb into the thingamajig and poked it back into the hole leading into the headlight area. It did not slide in as easily as it popped out.

Did you know you can look through the headlight cover and see from the front what your hand is doing from the back? I poked the bulb into the hole and watched from the front as it refused to line up. And kept on refusing. What the heck?

Now I'm sweating and my back is aching from bending over the front of the car. I straightened up and stared at the partly cloudy sky. Briefly I thought, too bad I can't enjoy this lovely day. Looking for a miracle, I switched to the other headlight, thinking, I don't know what I was thinking. I was in a state of low-grade panic, you know the feeling, where your brain is one stresser away from shutting down and forcing your body into the fetal position?

I used my right hand to try to loosen the plastic ring. It came off immediately. I figured out that unplugging the thingamajig with the wires was the easiest way to get the ring off. Wish I'd figured that out for the other side! Now I could take out the old bulb and insert the new one. It worked! Now to get the ring back on. Wait, which way does it go?

I tried it one way, I tried it the other way. Finally, something clicked. The ring went on. I turned it a bit to lock it in place, reattached the wire thing, and voila! Success. Now to replicate my success on the other side.

I wrestled for many long minutes before I finally got the bulb into the socket, the ring on and tightened, and the wires plugged back in. Wow. What an ordeal.

I was ready to close the hood when I remembered the plastic covers. Whew. They were a lot harder going back on than they were coming off, but finally I got them back into place. I shut the hood. I noticed the hood was slightly askew. Wha—? I opened the hood again and found I'd shut the old bulb from the right headlight into the space where mechanics typically lay their tools, up by the wipers. I grabbed the bulb and tossed it in the trash with the other one.

Now the moment of truth. I put the key in the ignition and started the car. In bright daylight it was hard to see, but it appeared that both headlights were working. The test would come when I visited Mom in the evening.

My next task was to replace both front wipers, which I managed to do in record time (like 10 minutes). I think I was still riding my competence high. You know how that is, when you accomplish something you weren't 100% sure you could do and then you feel like you can run a marathon or make a cold call? If I could bottle and sell that feeling, I'd be in Tahiti right now. Assuming no hurricanes or typhoons were headed for me, of course.

Now I feel like I should vacuum my car out and get it washed. What is up with that? You fix one thing, suddenly everything needs fixing. Just a few minutes ago, I dusted some shelves and suddenly had the urge to vacuum. That compulsion can go on indefinitely. Next thing you know, you start looking for a new apartment.

Tonight I'll go visit Mom and take her outside with her smoking buddy so they can have their after-dinner cigarette. Mom's eye is looking much better, thanks for asking. I'm ready for rain, darkness, and whatever else might be headed this way.

Get a life and live it

Two old ladies sit side-by-side in the smoking area. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, doesn't it? Last night the air was clear, the temperature was perfect, and if you know where your next meal is coming from, seems to me you have very little to complain about. Well, when you are in your 80s and life revolves around eating, sleeping, and grabbing an occasional cigarette, anything can be fodder for complaints. Most complaints at the assisted living care center involve either the quality of the food or the state of the front garden, specifically the roses under Jane's window.

I know what you are thinking: oh, no, not that story again. I'm sorry to tell you, when life shrinks to the size of a pinhead, there's not much else to talk about. The old ladies are too polite to talk about bowel movements, but food and flowers are fair game. They are also inordinately interested in the behavior and personalities of the people who work at the care center.

Last night Mom and Jane showered praise on a young man named Mario (not his real name). He's a slender man with rugged Latin looks. Mom and Jane described him as honest, caring, and responsive (my interpretation, not their words). This young man has spoken maybe two words to me in the sixteen months I've been visiting. He rarely even looks at me. In his defense, I don't think English is his first language. It could be a cultural thing. It could also be that I'm family of a resident; therefore, I have the power to make his life difficult. He doesn't know I'm one of his biggest fans: I asked the staff if someone could find glider tips to put on the back legs of my mother's walker so she didn't get caught on the rug. The next day, they appeared, and Mom said Mario was the hero who made it happen. I'm glad the ladies like him. It doesn't matter if he likes me as long as he treats my mother well.

The aides at the care center are a diverse crew, with poetic names like Pema, Nema, and Menuka. One wears a hijab and speaks perfect American English. The others have diverse accents. Mom likes them all. I detect no prejudice from Mom or Jane toward any of the staff. In true blue collar style, the old ladies reserve their vitriol for management. Right on.

“Last night someone pounded on my window at three o'clock in the morning,” Jane said. Mom, halfway through her cigarette, looked alarmed and confused. I must have looked skeptical.

“Sometimes one of the aides goes out to smoke and knocks on my window to get back in,” Jane said. If that is true, there are so many problems with that I don't know how to even begin to think about it. I have my doubts; the aides have walkie-talkies to communicate, and the Med-Aide has a key. I can't imagine that any staff member would have the nerve to wake up a resident to be let in. I thought about the other claims Jane has made—the radio that plays in the middle of the night that no one hears but her; the “bowling ball” that fell from the upper story window in the bush outside her room... I gotta wonder if she is a particularly lucid dreamer.

“Not only that, two big trucks came into the parking lot in the middle of the night.”

“Trash trucks?” I wondered.

“They had lights that went round and round.”

“Street sweepers?”

“Yeah, more like that. Lost, probably.”

I could only shake my head and shrug. What should I do about mysterious trucks and intrusive visitors showing up late at night outside the window of a slightly demented old lady with anxiety and paranoid tendencies?

“Don't say anything” Jane said to me, meaning, don't mention these incidents to the managers. “They are already out to get me.”

Mom handed the stub of her cigarette to me to dispose of in the ash bin. When she finishes her cigarette, we know it is time to head for the door.

Tonight when I take the old ladies out for their smoke, I predict the air will be hot and hazy. Smoke has rolled back over the Portland area, filtering the sun with haze from the wildfires. We are surrounded on three sides by burning timber. On the bright side, the old smokers don't mind a little more smoke. I'm the only one who suffers. My eyes are still gritty from the last go-round.

In addition to her other complaints, Jane complained about the roses blocking the view in front of her window. One tall stem has four shabby pink roses. Tonight I will sneak my mother's clippers out with us and whack off that stem. One less thing for her to obsess over.

Doing the limbo

Last week I realized my mother and I are both in a kind of limbo. We are waiting for the same event to occur: her death. She wants an end. I want a beginning. However, she can't do anything to hasten the end—and I won't. I wouldn't. But between you and me, don't think I haven't thought about it. As the basis for a screenplay I hope to write one day, of course. Not for real. Come on, did you really think I would smother my mother?

Anyway, we are in limbo. Every day is Groundhog Day. Tonight I visited her as usual after dinner. When I came into her room, she was sacked out on her hideously patterned, beige pastel flowered 1970s sagging couch. One foot was on the couch, one was on the floor. The shade was drawn to block out the hazy evening light. The television was silent. Rarely is the TV not blaring HGTV.

“Howdy, howdy,” I said. “Wake up, slacker.” That is my usual greeting. Every time I see her napping on the couch, it crosses my mind that this might be the moment when she doesn't respond and I get my first glimpse of an actual dead person.

Not this time. She reared up to a sitting position.

“Howdy, yourself,” she said, springing immediately to full alert. She's more and more like my cat. Zen master of the moment. Waking from zero to sixty in one ear twitch.

I sat next to her on the sagging cushions. She grinned at me. I grinned back. It was a moment.

“How is your ankle today?” I asked.

She looked at me blankly. “Wha...?” she said. She looked down at her white socks and little black Merrell shoes. She knows where her ankles are. That's a good sign, I thought.

“Last night you told me your ankle hurt.”

“I don't remember,” she said, frowning.

“Does it hurt now?” I touched her right ankle. I couldn't see or feel any swelling, not that I'm an ankle expert. I know that since I've turned sixty, on hot days my ankles have started swelling, so I'm not totally ignorant. I don't want to talk about that.

She bent down and felt her ankle. “It hurts right here.” She pointed to a spot.

“Does it hurt to walk on it?”

“No.”

“How about your hip, how is that doing?” Last week we visited the doctor to get some feedback on her sore hip. Diagnosis: hip flexor strain. How did she strain her hip flexor, I wondered to myself. Is she doing aerobics when no one is watching? I suspect the black hole on the couch where she sits all day is the culprit.

“My hip?” she echoed.

“Yeah, you know... your strained hip?”

“Oh, yeah. You know, maybe it is better,” she said in wonder. I was like, hallelujah. Maybe that piece of particle board I brought last week and stuffed under the cushion made a difference. Who knows? I was just glad to hear she wasn't in pain.

“Ready to go outside?” She grabbed her gear and off we went to pick up Jane, her smoking partner.

Jane was sitting by the door, ready to go. We pushed the big button by the front door and marched through as it opened in front of us. As we walked by the rose bush in front of Jane's window, I pulled out Mom's beat up garden clippers and snipped off one more stem. It took a mere second. I cut the stem into pieces. Mom suggested I hide the evidence in the dumpster, so I did. Voila. Another stem gone, one less thing for the old ladies to complain about. Any day now I'm sure I'll be busted by the rose bush police. Oh well. It's for a good cause.

Tonight is the peak of the Perseids. We have smoky, cloudy skies over Portland. No comets for me. But maybe tomorrow I can see some shooting stars. While I'm waiting.

The chronic malcontent does a little clandestine gardening

Today I went for a walk around the reservoir before the heat ramped up and the smoky air moved in. The air was warm, the sky was still blue. I drank in the heat, although I admit I was flagging somewhat toward the end. In a fit of public service, I had brought an empty plastic bag with me in case I found some trash to pick up along my route. Not surprising, I found some trash.

I picked up a large aluminum ice-tea can, two big brown glass IPA bottles, a fast-food container I did not open, a small empty cardboard box, a piece of yellow do-not-cross plastic tape, and a square of black plastic whose purpose I could not identify. I was also packing my digital camera, my phone, and a half-bottle of water. I was dripping with self-righteousness when I finally made it up the hill to the recycling bins by the ranger station.

Having done my civic duty, I sauntered home and found to my relief it was still cooler in the Love Shack than it was outside. I hunkered down for the afternoon, catching up on my recordkeeping, bemoaning my lack of income, and waiting for my phone to alert me that it was time to head out in the heat to visit Mom and take the old ladies out for their evening smoke.

Tonight Mom's smoking buddy Jane seemed more anxious than usual. 

“Julie moved out,” Jane said glumly when we were seated in the smoking area. Julie was her neighbor, a younger woman who escaped the facility after healing from a broken hip. Maybe she even went back home.

“Julie was a nice person,” Mom said consolingly. “Vivian is still there, though,” she said, referring to the woman on Jane's other side.

“Well, I just can't stand it!” Jane said, lighting her cigarette with trembling hands.

“Don't you get along with Vivian?” I asked cautiously. Vivian seemed harmless to me. I've never spoken to her, but she's so tiny and hunched over, I doubt she could actually look me in the face. I could take her, I'm pretty sure, unless she knows kung fu.

“I'm afraid I won't be able to help if something goes wrong,” Jane said.

“But that isn't your job,” I pointed out.

“I guess I could just ring the call button,” Jane muttered.

By this point, my mother was halfway through her cigarette, which means her brain had turned into cotton candy. She alternated between staring at the ash at the end of her cigarette and staring at Jane's cigarette, I assume comparing her ashes to Jane's. Her eyes were big and a little wild.

“I don't think I can stand any more of this,” Jane said. “That rose bush is covering my window. I'm going to call the ombudsman if the manager doesn't get out here and cut it back!”

Now, I may have mentioned before that this rose bush is Jane's nemesis. Jane has only one window, so you can understand that her view is important to her. She likes to sit at her table and monitor who comes to the front door. She's monitored the hell out of me over the past year, until I started parking in the back and punching in a code to get in the back door.

When Mom first moved to the facility, back when she still had free will, Mom heard Jane complaining about the leggy rose bush that was blocking her view and decided to do something about it. She took her clippers and cut the thing back. Radically. Soon thereafter I received a terse email telling me to tell my mother never to cut the rose bush again. In fact, she should keep her clippers off all the plants in front, because that was the manager's territory.

Mom resentfully retired her clippers. However, Jane's complaints have continued relentlessly. All summer we've been discussing whether we should sneak out and cut back the bush. If Mom hadn't lost so many brain cells, she might have surreptitiously trimmed a stem or two. The thought of security cameras kept us from acting. Until tonight.

I walked Mom back to her room. We looked at each other. I'm pretty sure her mind was blank, but I was thinking, if anyone is going to trim that rose bush, it should be me. I dug into the old coffee can where Mom kept her clippers. I held them up.

“Should we do it?”

Mom started to grin and I knew she understood. “Do you think so?”

“Let's do it!” She grabbed her walker and we slowly beelined back down the hall toward the front door. When we got there, she hung back a little. I said, “Don't quit on me now. You gotta let me back in.” It only crossed my mind for a second that she might pretend she didn't know me. I pictured myself ringing the bell to get the med-aide to let me back in. Dead giveaway that we were up to something. No way could I say my mother was the mastermind, considering her mind is on vacation.

Too late to back out now. I was determined. I quickly opened the door and slipped out into the heat. I hustled over to the rose bush, clipped one long stem in one snip, and trotted back to the door. Mom peered through the window with wide eyes. Then she pushed open the door and let me in. We trucked back to her room, me trying to casually hold the thorny stems in one hand and sauntering a little in case we were on camera.

I don't know what Mom was thinking. She was silent. I was quiet too, but I hoped for several miracles: that the security cameras weren't working, that tomorrow the manager would not notice one stem gone, that Mom would immediately forget my dastardly deed, that Jane wouldn't notice the missing stem and turn me in, that nosy Sally (who cruises the halls everyday) would not ask me why I had parts of a rose bush clutched gingerly in one hand. You know, just your basic everyday prayers.

We made it back to her room undisturbed. One thorn scratch later, the evidence was successfully bagged and out of sight. The clippers were retired. Mom walked me to the back door, and I made my getaway. She gave me the peace sign as I drove away into the eerily glowing orange sunset.

The chronic malcontent goes through the car wash

A good day is when I get everything done on my list. A great day is when I get everything done plus one. Despite 97°F heat today, I got two extra tasks done today besides the items on my list, so that makes today one for the archives. Okay, I don't keep data on my task completion rates (unlike some people I know); still, accomplishing tasks on the to-do list gives me a lot of smug satisfaction. Like, take that, World! Jump back, Entropy! I got this handled.

I experienced only one moment when I thought I may have performed one too many tasks. That was while I was taking my car for its annual car wash. That was one of my two bonus achievements today. It seemed serendipitous. I just happened to drive home on a different route, which goes by the car wash. I happened to notice there was no line at the car wash. I happened to have a coupon for a free wash. I happened to be able to locate the coupon. Really, it seemed like the universe was lining everything up for me. I thought about how nice it would be to show my mother that I had finally washed my car.

I pulled up to the kiosk. The idle girl plucked my coupon from my fingers, looked at it skeptically, and issued me a receipt. I pulled my car into the track. The feral man grabbed the ticket from under the wiper, mouthed “neutral,” and off we went. We, meaning my car, with me inside.

On the plus side, I had remembered to detach my radio antenna and roll up my windows. However, it quickly got warm inside the car. I thought about the unhappy intersection between flesh creatures and hot cars. Dogs and babies, for example. Middle-aged flabby women. I reassured myself that the car wash was not in direct sun. It would be highly unlikely that anything bad would happen. It couldn't be any worse than riding the Pirates of the Caribbean. I pictured myself overcome by heat and humidity and made sure my car door was unlocked, just in case the guy at the end of the line had to yank me out and resuscitate me.

Sitting too long inside a car inside a swampy car wash in 97°F heat could have produced a less-than-optimal outcome in the form of me red-faced and unconscious from heat exhaustion. Fortunately the ride was only three minutes long, and I had a bottle of water to suck on when the humidity started to rise. I admired the soapy bubbles, and before I had time to start to pant, we emerged into the hot air blower unscathed. I watched little beads of water rush away from the windshield. My wipers jumped energetically but remained attached. The guy at the end gave my side mirrors a cursory swipe, probably realizing only the top layer of dirt had been removed and that it would take a lot more than a three-minute car wash to restore the shine to this old Ford Focus.

The car died as I was looking for a driveway to get back on the street. Or maybe I just killed the engine by letting the clutch out too fast. I spent a long thirty seconds trying to start the car again. Eventually the universe lined up the ignition, the starter, the battery, and the engine, and off we went. I followed a slow bus up the hill, pausing patiently when the bus stopped to drop off and pick up passengers, annoying the hell out of drivers behind me who thought I should have gone around. No, I'm all about respect for buses. Further, I know that drivers coming down the hill are notoriously rambunctious.

I parked my car in the dusty gravel lot by the Love Shack and paused to admire the sheen of a poorly washed car. I replaced my antenna and noticed dust was already settling on the hood and roof. Oh well. No worries, at least, not for another year. I think I still have one more coupon.

It was refreshingly cooler inside the apartment, but I knew it wouldn't last long. We don't have air conditioning here at the Love Shack. We have a ceiling fan. The big front window has three layers of protection against the western sun in the form of crinkled Mylar shades, a wide vinyl roll-up shade that occasionally rolls up by itself, and cotton drapes (well, actually they are Home Depot cotton paint dropcloths but nobody cares). The three layers are enough to block about half the sun's rays from penetrating the main room. The air gets progressively hotter as the afternoon sun moves toward evening, and the ceiling fan does an excellent job of stirring it up so the heat infiltrates all corners.

Soon I'll go out again to drive over to the retirement place and take the old ladies out for their after-dinner cigarette. We'll complain about the heat and the food, then go back inside and relax into the coolness. Jane will shuffle off to her room. Mom and I will watch Fixer Upper or Flip or Flop for ten minutes. Then I will go back out into the blazing evening sun and drive home. Summer in Portland. These are my halcyon days. It doesn't get much better than this.

Just another day in the end of a life

I pay attention to current events. Today the world avidly watches the Thai boys' rescue and the World Cup soccer matches. I don't care much about soccer (don't tell my English cousins), but I am rooting for those boys to survive their harrowing ordeal in the flooded caves. Last week I told my mother about their predicament and then wished I hadn't. Then I realized, odds are, she won't remember the story. Sure enough, when I told her today that four boys had been rescued safely, she looked at me blankly and I had to describe their plight all over again. Lesson learned: No current events for Mom.

Sometimes she surprises me, though. When I visit every evening, she's almost always got some HGTV program on her TV. She rarely sees the news. Still, last week Mom told her smoking buddy Jane about the effects of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance policy" on little Latino kids; she sounded like she knew what she was talking about. It's funny to see two tiny old ladies get righteously angry over politics while sucking on cigarettes. Did I discuss politics with her? I can't remember. Any day now, I fear I will be moving in next door to my mother. Assisted living, here I come.

Last night the smell of poop met me halfway down the hall. Uh-oh. I entered her room but didn't see her. The stench was overpowering. I immediately switched to mouth-breathing mode, something I've learned to do when cleaning the cat box.

“Are you okay?” I called out.

“I think so,” she replied. I came around the corner that separates the living area from the sleeping /kitchen /bathroom area and found her sitting on her office chair trying to get her feet into the legs of her jeans.

“Was there a problem?”

“Well...”

I quickly figured out that she'd had an episode of diarrhea. She had managed to change her pull-ups before I got there (maybe there is a god), and now she was just about done putting herself back together. (I assume she'd figured out how to put on a clean pair of... oh, boy. Not going there.)

“But what do I do with...?” she said, pointing to the trash basket in the bathroom, where the offending undergarment was giving off major fumes.

I gritted my teeth and dove to the rescue.

“They keep more plastic bags in the bottom of the trash can,” I said. I yanked the plastic bag over the dirty pull-up and tied it closed. I lifted out the roll of plastic trash bags to show her. “See? More bags.” She looked impressed. I thought, why bother, she won't remember this. Sigh.

I fixed up the trash can with a new bag and shoved the bag with the diaper down into it, hoping for the best. It's so weird to wear disposable underwear. I guess I did once. Well, hmmm. I think maybe they were washable cloth diapers back then. When did Pampers get invented? Not that my parents could have afforded disposable diapers on a cop's salary. My poor young mother, washing cloth diapers for four kids. The word payback wafted through my mind. I slid a window open to air the place out.

Mom was a bit worn out after the excitement of changing her jeans, but she was ready to go outside for a smoke. Nicotine rules. We were soon on our way down the hall to pick up Jane. By the time we got back to Mom's room, the smell was gone and we'd both forgotten it ever happened.

The chronic malcontent plans a birthday party

My mother and her smoking buddy (I forget what name I've given her before ... today, let's call her Jane) are typically desperate to get outside after dinner for a cigarette. I am their ticket outdoors to the smoking area. They are always glad to see me. Last Wednesday was no exception, and it happened to be Jane's birthday. A month ago, she had casually mentioned that her birthday was June 27, and then she said “Oh, I don't want anything for my birthday” in a coy way that made me think I would be pretty safe if I brought her a little gift and some chocolate cake and ice cream. So I prepared my bag of goodies and headed over to the retirement place.

I arrived as usual about 6:15. Every evening by 6:20, my mother is done with dinner and complaining that she's full (she doesn't know when to stop eating). After a trip to the bathroom, she's ready to head outside. She stuffs her cigarette case in her jacket pocket, puts her over-sized sunglasses on her head, and grabs her old-style front-wheel walker, we call it her “buggy.” On the special day, I carried an extra bag containing a little gift bag, two containers of gluten-free chocolate cake, and a small container of cashew milk chocolate ice cream (my mother is gluten-free, non-dairy to stave off bouts of diarrhea).

Jane lives in a one-room apartment just around the corner from the front door. My mother rapped on Jane's door: shave and a haircut, six bits. If it takes Jane less than ten seconds to open the door, I know she's been hovering with her cigarette wallet, waiting for Mom's knock. Tonight she bolted into the hall, wallet clutched to her chest, and led the way to the front door. At this point, she usually makes a disparaging remark about her appearance. I happen to like her style: I think her pin curls, mismatched track suit, and sloppy slippers are charming. Her standards are apparently higher than mine. She tossed out a couple phrases, and I reassured her she looked marvelous. This time she didn't argue: She was eager to get outside.

The evening was pleasant enough, partly sunny, but I'd heard rain was on the way. The wind was starting to kick up a bit in advance of the rainy edge of a low pressure front spinning at the Idaho-Oregon-Nevada border.

The smoking area consists of three plastic chairs, two of which sit side-by-side under a black iron structure that used to hold a lawn swing. It has two built-in side tables. Nearby is a square table that the aides sometimes sit on to take their smoke breaks. I pulled the table over and used it as my staging area.

First, I pulled out the little gift bag and handed it to Jane with a flourish. It was pink with paisleys. The tissue paper was red and white stripes, like a candy cane. I know, clash. It's what I had. I don't keep wrapping paper anymore. Inside the bag was one container of Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano cookies, Jane's favorite. The gift was the presentation: I'd given her cookies before, but never in a cute little gift bag with clashing tissue paper. She made appreciative noises.

I had a plan, and so far, so good. Instead of trying to cut cake and dish it up on the patio table, I had pre-cut the cake at home and put it into two plastic containers that previously held Gelato (yum, moment of weakness... well, two moments of weakness). The containers were the perfect size for tiny pieces of chocolate cake, with lids to keep it all secure. I even covered up the Gelato label with some festive neon red bond paper. Again, it's what I had.

“How about some cake and ice cream?” I said, reaching for my bag of goodies. The wind at that moment knocked the bag out of my hands onto the asphalt. I grabbed it up and rummaged for the plastic forks and containers of cake.

I opened up the lids so Mom and Jane could see the little morsels of chocolate cake.

“I'm so full,” said Mom.

Suddenly, the wind whipped the plastic forks and napkins out of the bag. Two white forks skittered away on the pavement. The napkins sailed off across the parking lot. I gave the old ladies the cake containers and dashed after the napkins. I rescued the forks and wiped them off (I know, yuck... three words: six-second rule, so there).

Slightly winded, I returned to the table with the napkins, well, paper towels, really... I don't buy paper napkins anymore. Not to be outdone by a little breeze, I jabbed a tiny yellow birthday cake candle into the chocolate icing rosette on top of Jane's cake. I used Mom's Bic lighter to light the candle, singing my thumb slightly in the process. I'm not experienced with lighters. I handed the container to Jane. The candle fell over and extinguished itself on the side of the container. She looked a bit overwhelmed.

“Ready for some ice cream?” I asked gaily.

Both ladies were valiantly holding their containers of chocolate cake and trying to light their cigarettes in the shelter of their elbows to ward off the wind. I could see that cigarettes were going to win out over cake. I gave up on the ice cream and suggested they put their cake containers on the side tables. After a few tries, both ladies were puffing on their cigarettes.

“Now, let's sing to Jane,” I directed. I began to sing the Happy Birthday song to Jane in my usual off-key voice while my mother harmonized in a gravelly tenor. “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear”—my mother looked at me blankly, and I loudly filled in “—Jane! Happy birthday to you!” Jane beamed. Mom looked relieved.

We spent a few blissful moments hunkered against the rising wind, and then I heard my mother utter the words I have come to dread: “Uh, oh.”

“Do we need to go?” I asked, thinking dang it, couldn't her bowels have waited five more minutes?

Mom handed me her still lit, half-smoked cigarette. She might as well have been handing me a live grenade. I stubbed it out, wondering to myself, what is smoker protocol? Do we keep half-smoked cigarettes or is that tres gauche? Meanwhile, Mom was up and moving. I quickly backed my chair out of the way. Jane hurriedly stubbed out her smoke and stood up, somehow managing to hang onto her gift bag, chocolate cake container, and her wallet. I grab up my bag and stuff the ice cream and Mom's cake inside.

Meanwhile, Mom was beelining for the front door, head down, moving fast. We hustled along in her wake. I poked the doorbell. (The front door is locked at 5 pm.) We waited for the Med Aide to buzz the door open. I wondered if Mom was successfully holding it. You know, it. Finally, the door swung open, nearly bashing me in the hip. Mom plowed through. Jane and I exchanged a wave. “Happy birthday!” I cried and followed my mother down the hall to her room.

After even half a cigarette my mother's brain is short on oxygen and functioning at less than optimal. In her room, she parked her walker and headed into the bathroom. I sat on the couch to watch Flip or Flop with one ear open. When I heard my mother say, “Oh boy,” I knew that was my cue to step in and offer my services. I didn't want to, but ... it's my mother.

Breathing through my mouth, I helped her navigate the sequence that stymies her when her brain has flown south: first, the shoes come off, then the pants. Then off comes the stinky adult diaper (apparently, they are called pull-ups, not diapers). “Roll it up, put it in the trash can,” I said. (Lucky for me, she can follow directions, she just can't initiate them.) I held out the container of baby wipes. “Now wipe it down,” I said,  motioning vaguely to the offending area. She got busy and managed to do something. I wasn't quite willing to inspect the damage, but I'm pretty sure it was better than it was.

I handed her a fresh pair of pull-ups. She stared at them. I bent down and helped her guide her feet into them. I helped her stand up. She yanked them awkwardly up to her waist and beyond, like a two-year-old navigating unfamiliar clothing. “Now your pants,” I said. She sat back down on the toilet and we collaborated to get her pants back on. I put her slip-on Merrells in front of her feet. She slid her toes in and stood up.

“Flush,” I said, and she flushed, watching whatever was in the toilet disappear. She closed the lid. “Wash hands,” I said, waving her toward the sink. She washed her hands.

“How do you feel?”

“Much better,” she said.

“Let's watch the end of Flip or Flop,” I suggested. We sat side by side on the couch.

A few minutes later, she patted me on the knee and said, “Thank you, daughter.”

No soup for you, white people

Today was a day of glorious sunshine. Tomorrow we return to clouds and rain. It is summer in Portland. We don't tan in Oregon, we rust. Perfect weather for the annual Naked Bike Ride (no, I did not participate, not wanting to blind people with my pasty white skin.

Speaking of white, we're at it again! We just don't seem to get it. I can hardly stand to watch the news. Photos of kids in cages and sound tracks of weeping parents and toddlers is shocking to some of us. But for a few moments at a time, I can imagine how others might see those images as just another liberal frothy emotional manipulation. Sobbing children, how trite, can't those liberals come up with something more original?

♫ This land is your land, this land is my land, as long as we are white men, we own it all. From the murder of Natives to the enslavement of Africans, we took this land, and now it's ours. If you are white, this land was made for you and me. ♫ Tra-la-la...

We bumped the Native Americans off their land and did our best to exterminate them. We kidnapped people from Africa and enslaved them, raped their women, and sold their children. We put Japanese Americans in internment camps, after taking their property. Even in our modern era, we repeatedly mow down young black men (and sometimes women) whose main crime is being black. And now we're valiantly attempting to teach those brown-skinned parents not to come here by taking away their children when they come seeking asylum and the American dream.

It's utterly mind-boggling, until I realize that this is what happens to any group with virtually unlimited power and resources. The powerful always win over the powerless. Human greed and fear of the “other,” combined with military and physical superiority, means entire groups of people are exploited, subjugated, imprisoned, or killed—or all of the above. 

I've been feeling a bit of rage.

Violence is a tragic expression of an unmet need. I keep reminding myself that some (not all) white men are afraid of losing what they have (power, safety, security, wealth) or not getting what they want (power over other people's land, wealth, labor, and lives). It feels terrible to not get what we want—ask any two-year-old. But when grown men with power (and guns) act like cranky nap-deprived two-year-olds, I start thinking of heading for the hills. 

Where would I be safe? How long can I hide behind my white skin? Sooner or later, we'll have to make amends. I'd give up soup for a year if I thought that would do it, but I suspect it won't. The best I can offer is the fact that I did not propagate. 

The Chronic Malcontent stumbles down memory lane

 As I grind my teeth and wait for a chat rep from the phone company to magically fix my billing issue, I thought I could use the time to catch up on my blog. Most evenings, when my brain is mush and I can't think, I work on my scanning projects. I'm scanning old documents, photos, letters, and artwork in a unique form of Swedish death cleaning. I'm not Swedish, nor am I dying, but preparing for the end of one life and (I hope) the beginning of another seems appealing to me as I get older.

I've been scanning letters. My letters. My mother (may she not live forever) saved every letter I wrote to her from the time I left home to the time I returned, twenty years later. When she embarked upon her own death cleaning (without the death part), she gave me back all those letters, two heavy shoe boxes stuffed with envelopes. Hundreds of pages. I couldn't throw them away without peeking at some of the things I wrote when I was twenty years old. Behold the slow-moving train wreck of my youth. Once you look, it's hard to look away.

I scanned one box over the past week, wrestling the dusty pages out of dirty envelopes, many addressed to "Mommy," from "Kidlet." I guess I was a very immature twenty-year-old. I don't remember much, to be honest. My memory works in Polaroid snapshots, not Sony Betamax. I recall moments, images, a dress, a song. How they connect I have no idea. Reading snippets of the letters from my earlier self helped me remember events I'd long forgotten.

Back then, everything was art. The letters, the envelopes, the scrawling calligraphic marks on the page. I drew pictures of clothes I designed and made at fashion school. It was 1978. Disco, leggings, spike heels, permed hair. Los Angeles was the place to be for a wannabe fashion designer. The voice coming through the letters was that of a child, a naive, foolish, optimistic child who was willing to live life on the edge—because what a creative life it was.

Like a child, I complained about everything. I was in a constant snit about something someone had done or failed to do. Until I read my own words, I didn't remember any of these snits . . . or most of the people. As I read, the places I lived, the people I knew started to resurface in my memory. The apartment on Romaine, where I lived in 1978 when I got hired at the department store. The apartment on Orange, where I lived in 1979 when I got fired from the department store. My month as a Dupar's waitress. Enrolling in fashion school. Working late hours doing paste-up for California Apparel News. Sleeping on the bus. Leaving fashion school after one year.

In 1980, I sent home photos of me with my friends, prancing around in tight-legged vinyl jumpsuits with shoulders the size of small turkeys, hennaed hair spiked half a foot above our heads. We showed our designs in fashion shows. We thought any moment, we would become famous. We thought people would be banging on our door in droves, demanding amazing costumes they couldn't sit down in.

The second box contains letters from the mid-1980s. I haven't started scanning those letters yet. I believe I was somewhat calmer then, perhaps more realistic. I was no longer making bizarre artfashion costumes that left the wearer drenched in sweat and unable to pee without wardrobe assistance. I'd lost my enthusiasm for fashion. By then I'd sold my soul to the custom sewing business and enslaved myself to making other people's designs and altering their stinky clothes. I myself was the worst-dressed person in L.A. To this day, I hate to sew.

Something corrosive happened to my soul when I became mired in a money-losing business doing something I despised. My good friend said, "It's never too soon to stop doing what you hate and start doing what you love." Even though I haven't quite managed to live up to that creed, I still think it is the best advice I've ever received.

I'm not the manic wackjob I used to be. I said I don't want to burden the world with more paintings, and that is true for now. One thing I can do, though, is write, and those letters are a vast hoard of rich and energetic descriptions from a life I barely remember, a life that might be fun to write about and read about. Maybe she, me, the young naive maniac with a passion for fashion will find her way onto the pages of some story, a book, a memoir, who knows.

It's almost enough to know that once, I had passion for something. Misguided, maybe, but I was a believer. I believed in my art, as only the young and innocent can do, before they find out it's hard to earn money making art. Life is real, rent is due, and we can't live on apples and cheese quesadillas. Money and art don't mix in my world, they never have, but that doesn't mean I won't figure it out someday.

Still making art? Fear no art. Art is for everyone.

One of life's perplexing questions, right up there with why men spit, is how every day, I somehow manage to get a blob of toothpaste on my shirt. I can't figure it out. I never notice when it happens. I only notice it when I'm in a social setting. I happen to look down and see a circle of dried white stuff and think to myself, dang it, it happened again. Is this one of the signs of aging? I don't need a toothpaste blob to tell me I'm getting older.

Speaking of feeling old, this week I received an email from an old friend. I met Mary (not her real name) when I was seventeen years old working as the reservation-taker at a popular dinner restaurant. The restaurant had an Irish musical theme; Mary was of Irish descent and loved to sing bawdy Irish drinking songs. She was several years older than I, with much more life experience (a failed marriage, a small child). For some reason, Mary took a shine to me and decided she would support my budding career as a painter by buying two of my paintings.

Forty-four years, we are still friends, although I moved away, she went to work for a bank, and we lost touch. However, over the years, Mary managed to accumulate a storage attic full of junk, some of which was art I had made in the 1970s when I still believed I could make a career of making art. Mary believed in me whenever my enthusiasm flagged. We spent many hours in my parents' basement building picture frames to nail around my brightly colored impasto acrylic-covered canvases with the intention of selling the paintings at the Saturday Market, a gathering of craftspeople and artists displaying their wares under tents and awnings haphazardly erected in an open parking lot, come rain or shine. I rewarded Mary's devotion to my art with art, which she apparently stored in her attic.

Her email message last week was something like this: It's been too long, let's get together, I have some of your art to share with you. Yes, she used the words "share with you." Immediately I recognized the code for Please come take your stuff back. I replied affirmatively, we set a time, and I drove over to her house in northeast Portland, expecting to take back the two paintings she paid $50.00 for back in 1974.

I walked into a chaotic scene. Her living room looked like a thrift store. Every surface held junk. The couch was obscured by artwork of various sizes and shapes, not all of which was mine, I was relieved to see. Mary gestured at a stack of paintings I had not seen since high school and early college.

“I had no idea you had so much of my artwork!” I exclaimed, thinking to myself, do I owe her forty years' worth of storage fees?

“I'd like to keep these two,” she said, pointing out two small painterly paintings, one of a stream coming down a hillside and the other of a beat-up wagon in an overgrown field. I pondered both pictures, not remembering either one. Certainly I had no recollection of painting them, but my signature was on both, so there is reality for you.

“Keep what you want,” I replied generously, thinking to myself, will all this crap fit in the trunk of my car? I saw some drawings I'd done while in fashion school (yes, I went one year to fashion school, you would never know by looking at me). “Just let me take some photos of them.”

I used my fancy new smartphone to take photos of the two little paintings. Then I gathered up an armload of the paintings and drawings she no longer wanted and hauled it all out to my car.

Was I ever so naive that I believed I could make a life for myself as a painter? Apparently so. I was in art school, everyone I knew was a painter, so I painted. We all painted, constantly. That first year of art school I produced scores of paintings. Most of them are lost to history. Maybe they hang on walls in houses somewhere. Maybe they clutter up attics and basements. I don't know. I wish now I had not been so prolific. At night I dream of the paintings stored in my own basement (well, my landlord's basement), the cast-offs of my mother and now my friend Mary. I wonder, how do people get rid of art? I don't mean, how do they haul the junk to the dump? I mean, how can they bring themselves to part with art that others have made? I don't mean crafts that disintegrate into plaster dust or knick-knacks made of construction paper and pipe cleaners. I mean authentic art, made by authentic artists seeking to express themselves through visual media. I have art from people I knew in college, people I knew in Los Angeles. Would I call them and ask them to take their work back, I don't want it anymore? No, never, not in a million years.

But now, after downsizing my mother into assisted living, I know that we don't take anything with us. Nothing last forever, not people, not stuff, not art. Art used to be made of organic materials; art used to decay. Modern humans make too much stuff, and none of it decays. There is no room for all this stuff. My old paintings are junk now, trash, stuff nobody wants. And because the paintings are largely made of acrylic paint, they will never decay, they will never turn to compost to help grow the next garden. I thought I was making art, but what I really made was pollution.

Never again, people.