Nothing tedious or boring about this election cycle

Best election season ever, don't you think? Who would have imagined a year ago that we would be astounded by entertainment election television? I'm glad I lived to see this. And I hope I survive to see the next cycle.

In the context of bizarro election news, my life seems tedious, boring, and parched. Nothing new to report: things are still precariously perched on the cliff edge of disaster. I labor daily under the delusion that I have some sort of control over life and death, which means I spend a lot of time and energy trying to scheme, manipulate, manage, and strategize my mother into better health. I know in my head it can't be done, but my heart compels me to try.

Last week I took her to the doctor to follow up on the recommendations of the nurse practitioner who visits once a year from the health insurer. I'm sure they check in once a year to observe her physical health and setting so they can see if it's time to send her to a higher (more expensive) level of care. That's the cynical chronic malcontent talking. Actually, I liked the NP. In a brisk, no-nonsense fashion, she gave us some information about the drugs Mom is taking and suggested we see if we could cut back some and add the memory drug that goes by the brand name Aracept.

The doctor was skeptical, but willing to try. He seems infinitely patient with my mother, who is having a hard time explaining things to him, or to anyone. Her mental acuity is shredding before my eyes. He took her off the cholesterol drug, cut the blood pressure drug in half, and added the Aracept. We walked out of there with medium-high hopes. The day after she started taking the new drug, I called her to see how she was feeling.

“I took it with dinner,” she said. “Then I laid on the couch for about four hours without a thought in my head.”

I was impressed and wondered if Aracept could do the same for me. I didn't say that.

“Maybe take it before bed next time,” I said. “Maybe it will help you sleep.”

A few days later I took her to her 6-month dental checkup. She has about five teeth left in her head, and apparently, she's pretty much abandoned them to care for themselves.

Minnie, the dental hygienist came out to get me in the waiting room. I followed her back to the exam room where my dinky mother was stretched out in the chair with a green fleece blanket pulled up to her chin. It was shocking to see her without her dentures. Who was this person? I tried not to look away. Luckily, without her glasses, she couldn't see my queasiness.

I sat on a little stool set over the air conditioning floor vent at the foot of the chair. Blazing sun cooked my back through a huge picture window while frigid air froze my back and thighs. While we waited for the dentist to arrive, Minnie chastised my mother for not brushing her few remaining teeth. Then she looked at me like I was responsible.

“Make a checklist,” Minnie recommended. “Brush teeth...”

“Good idea,” I said. Of course, I haven't done it. I keep forgetting. I get caught up in election news. What can I say? My mother's health and the presidential election are similar in the sense that they are both like slow-motion train wrecks. Nuts and bolts, rivets and sprockets, blood and bones and brain are all disintegrating molecule by molecule, frame by frame. I can't do anything but stand and stare and hope it's over soon.

Last night I called Mom to see how she was doing.

“I can't get my TV to come on,” she said.

“Okay. I'll call Mitch.” (Mitch [not his real name] is my brother). I called my brother and reported the problem. He said he would walk over there and fix it.  A couple hours later, he called me.

“The battery was dead in the remote. Then I had to do a whole setup thing. I have no idea what I did. Somehow I fixed it.” This is the theme. Somehow we fix it. But life doesn't stay fixed. Oh well. At least she has TV.

This morning Mom called me, sounding relatively chipper.

“I need coffee and cigarettes,” she said. She's learned to place her order by phone. Rarely does she feel like braving Winco herself. I'm good with that. Shopping with Mom is not the treat it used to be. I don't know why. She still leads the way, and she still pays for everything. Maybe because she's like a two-year old who smokes? Maybe because the things we buy are not for me. Ha.

“Okay, I'll bring it over right after I finish eating breakfast,” I promised.

The temperature is heading toward 100° today. I went to Winco, hoping to beat the heat. Using Mom's debit card, I bought a 5-pound can of coffee, three containers of vanilla-flavored rice milk, and two plastic bags bulging with bulk cheerios and bulk rice krispies. And a TV dinner. Turkey seemed like a safe bet; she's stopped cooking entirely, it seems, except for toast. TV dinners is the new menu.

I drove through the heat to Mom's condo. When I unlocked the door, the place was dark. I unloaded the groceries and tip-toed down the hall toward the bedroom. In the dim light, I could barely see her form, lying under covers on the bed. I thought, uh-oh.

“Are you sleeping?” I whispered.

“Uh, wha, what? Yeah,” she mumbled. “I didn't feel like eating today.”

I said okay and left her in bed. What was I going to do? Force her to get up and eat cheerios? She's got a right to take a nap anytime she wants. At least she can wake up to abundant coffee and cigarettes. Assuming she wakes up. There's that uncertainty again. It's funny how I refuse to see the humor in it, when I know it's all around me.

Mid-summer cuisine: don't try this at home

It's hard to type with a fur factory laying across half my keyboard, but I haven't blogged in so long, I thought I'd better try anyway. I don't want my ten readers to forget me. Fur floats through the air above my computer, glowing in the light of my desk lamp. The fur factory purrs. It's still warm in the Love Shack from a lovely mid-summer day. Clouds are forecast for later, maybe even a little bit of rain, but right now, it's perfect.

Earlier, I went for a walk in the park as the sun was setting. I've been hiking around the big reservoir (.56 miles) at least two time several times a week. Well, a few times a week. Okay, maybe twice. Well, last week I didn't make it, but this week, I'm doing better. I've been once. What can I say. Life intervened.

I've been spending a lot of time with the maternal parental unit the past few weeks. Since the trip to the ER after she fainted (and scraped her elbow and ankle and broke a rib), we've seen the regular doctor twice and met a cardiologist and an ultrasound technician. Now I know what my mother's heart looks like on the ultrasound screen: like a badger humping a chipmunk to the tune of "Working at the Car Wash." Plus, we had the annual visit from her insurance company's traveling nurse practitioner. She gave us a long list of things to bring up when we see her regular doctor next week. I am sure Mom is tired of visiting doctors. I know I am.

"I think I should start eating TV dinners," Mom told me a couple days ago. I thought of the partitioned trays we ate as children, Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, and some kind of orange dessert, all heated to steaming in the oven and served on a folding tray on spindly legs.

"Okay," I said, "but you know you have to watch TV while you eat them," I said to make her laugh. She snickered.

After the ultrasound, we went across the street (driving, not walking) to the grocery store, chatting about the weather. As we entered the store, she forged ahead. I have learned to follow behind, to pick up the things she drops. Although, sometimes I run interference, constantly tilting my head at an angle to keep her in my left-eye peripheral vision. I confess, I have idly contemplated a leash.

The store was crowded with old people riding scooters and pushing wheeled walkers. They must have come on a bus from nearby Russellville. My mother fit right in, with her peppy blue jeans and knit polo shirt. She wears those huge bug-eye dark shades that fit over her regular glasses. I try to stay conscious of those shades at all times: we've already lost one pair on my watch, and I'm determined it won't happen again.

"Heat and serve," we said at the same time, pointing to the sign above the aisle. I followed along after her as we peered into the hazy windows of the frozen food cases, reading the labels.

"Turkey breast and mashed potatoes," I said.

"Okay, let's try one of those," she replied optimistically. I opened the case and snagged a colorful box presumably containing food.

"Tacos and enchiladas?" I asked, moving along.

"Ugh, I hate Mexican food," she said, wrinkling her nose. I wondered if she had ever actually had any, being from Oregon and white and all, but I didn't ask. At 87, she's earned the right to eat what she wants. Me, I love Mexican food. Having lived in LA for twenty years and all. But I digress.

"Oh, hey, Salisbury steak," I said. "They still make it."

"I'll try one of those." The picture didn't look that appetizing, but maybe the stuff in the box will be better. I added it to the stack in the basket.

"Look at that, chicken and pineapple," I said.

"Chicken and pineapple what?" she asked.

"I don't know, just chicken and pineapple."

"I'll try it." Wow, way to live on the edge Mom, I was thinking, but didn't say it. I grabbed the box. Soon we had about half a dozen various types of frozen dinners.

"Okay, that's enough," she announced. "Let's go." When she's done, she's done.

Today I called her and asked if she had tried any of the TV dinners.

"Yeah, I ate the turkey breast, the whole thing! But the other one wasn't a winner."

"Which one was that?" I asked.

"The chicken and pineapple thing," she said. "No more of those next time you go shopping for me."

"Okay, good to know."

Unspoken is the question of how many "next times" there might be. Last week my mother's brother's wife fell, hit her head, and was taken to the hospital. She was old and frail—even without a bad fall, her days were numbered, but falling severely shortened her calendar. She never woke up. Within a few days, she was dead. Falling is bad for just about anybody, but it's definitely life threatening for an old person. Every time I drive away from my mother's place, waving at the scrawny little old lady I barely recognize, I think, will this be the last time I see her alive? Every goodbye is the last until I see her again. But it's always been that way, hasn't it? I just never realized it until now.

The chronic malcontent meets Jack and Jill

I'm not seeing anything funny to blog about these days. The world is in chaos, the helpless are suffering ... I'm starting to think it might be true: we really are all going to hell in a hand-basket. My brain keeps searching around for something ironic and witty to say, like a squirrel sifting gravel for peanuts. I'm just not finding the nuggets. Somewhere beyond the rainbow, humor still exists, I am sure. I hope.

Bravadita is in London. My sister is in Boston. My mother is in la-la land, disintegrating before my eyes. To top it off, the clouds won't go away. Summer refuses to appear. We've been lucky to hit 70°. I guess some people like it.

Last week I was trotting around the reservoir at Mt. Tabor Park. I happened to spy a young man trying to push a rather large young woman in a wheelchair along a dusty dirt path. The chair was heading downhill. The slope was getting steeper and bumpier with clumpy grass and weeds. The young caregiver was about half the size of his charge, and I could predict impending disaster.

I trotted up the path to intercept them. “You need some help?” I asked. A modern day Jack and Jill, I thought to myself.

They didn't say no, so I helped the young man turn the wheelchair around so his body could block the chair from escaping down the hill. I lent my weight as backup, trying to find places to grab that didn't involve her purse, her lap, or her long hair. The skinny dude was pink with exertion, casting anxious glances over his shoulder at the terrain. I was breathing hard myself.

Soon we got the wheelchair down the slope onto a smoother path and turned her around so the chair was facing forward again. “Okay, take care!” I said cheerfully, stepping back.

As I walked on my way, I reflected on what had just happened. It was a slice of real life: We sweated together for a minute and then parted ways. I realized I hadn't actually looked either of them in the face. Is that odd? I wouldn't recognize them again if they weren't in the same configuration, perched precariously on a steep dirt path.

I was glad I had arrived before she went barreling down the hill. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after ... rolling over Jack and breaking the rest of his skinny bones.

Offroading in a wheelchair seems a risky thing to do. But what do I know, I'm not in a wheelchair. Breaking free and speeding downhill might be perfectly sensible to someone who feels trapped in a seated position all the time.

Happy Independence Day from the Hellish Handbasket

I'm hunkered in the Love Shack cringing every time a loud boom shatters the neighborhood calm, which is more and more frequently now that the sun has gone down. It's the Fourth of July on Mt. Tabor, which means about a billion people have headed to the park with their fireworks and lawn chairs, intending to blow up stuff and then kick back to watch the fireworks over the city.

I'd say it's a war zone, but considering how many cities around the world really are war zones, I think it would be appallingly ethnocentric, so I won't say it. In some tiny way, the earth-shaking booms might resemble bombs falling nearby. The thought makes me sick.

My cat is hunkered under the “safe” chair in the bedroom. I've closed all the windows, but no place is safe from the noise. It's hard to explain to a cat why Americans feel the need to blow up stuff to celebrate an anniversary most of the world couldn't care less about.

I called my mother earlier to see how she was doing. She seemed okay, although she said she had misplaced her hummingbird feeder.

“Is it in the sink?” I asked.

“No, I don't see it,” she replied.

“Is it in the garage?” I asked next. I pictured her shuffling out to the garage with the cordless phone.

“No, it's not in the garage,” she reported. “Those birds will be mad if they don't get their sugar.”

“Is it in the refrigerator?” I asked, thinking, well, hell, who knows? If she's off her rocker, that bird feeder could be anywhere.

“I don't see it,” she said. I heard the refrigerator door thump.

“Well, I'm sure it will turn up. We can always get another one.”

“Oh, here it is!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “It was in the sink!”

Last week Mom had what she called “an episode.” She passed out on her patio and came to flat on her face with a bruised elbow and side. She crawled into her house and didn't bother to call anyone. When I called the next day to see if she needed anything from the store, she reluctantly told me what had happened.

I called the doctor's office for advice. The nurse said, “Take her to Urgent Care.” I picked her up and drove her to the urgent care clinic. The nurse there said, “We don't have the equipment to find out what happened. You need to take her to Emergency.”

Just about seven hours later, starving, exhausted, and beyond cranky, we walked out of the ER. Mom lit up a cigarette while I hiked across the parking structure to find my car.

For two days, she sported a portable heart monitor in a little gizmo wrapped around her chest and a velcro girdle fit for a Southern belle to support her broken rib. And I have a new word in my vocabulary: syncope.

The next time I saw her, she said, “I think it's time.”

“Time for what?”

“For me to move.”

Last summer Mom moved into independent living and it almost killed her. For sure, it destroyed her ability to think clearly. It's unlikely another move will restore what was lost. If she says it is time to move, I'm guessing that means the maternal parental unit is getting ready to call it quits.

“Okay, Mom. I'll start setting up the tours,” I said, looking at the scrawny stranger sitting across the table. I don't know this person, but that doesn't mean I won't miss her when she's gone.

If you can help it, don't get old

It's spring in Portland, which means it is sunny one moment and pouring the next. As I drove across town today, I felt like I had my own dark cloud following me, dumping huge gloppy raindrops on my windshield. Off to the south the sun was shining, same to the north...that sloppy gray cloud dogged me all the way home.

I know it's spring because I have brain fog. This is my typical SAD time, don't ask me why. We've had some sunny, even hot, stretches of weather, and I felt okay. But now, three days of clouds and I'm in my own private fog bank. I'd shake my head in disgust but that sets off the ear rocks. Don't want that.

Mom said she needed crackers. Yesterday I fetched graham crackers and soda crackers for my mother. I dropped them off around lunch time. She said, “I thought of two more things I need.”

This is what it is like in Old Person's Town. She can manage if everything goes along status quo, if nothing upsets her carefully orchestrated routine. But if something unusual happens, she can't process it. She can't figure out what to do next. It's like the logical sequence of events is no longer clear.

I got an email from her cell phone provider that the old 2G phone she's had for a few years will soon be nonfunctional. If we want a free 3G phone, all I have to do is ask for one. So I did, and a couple weeks later, it arrived in the mail, a cruddy little burner phone that looked almost exactly like her old cruddy little burner phone.

I spent some time on her landline phone with the cell phone provider getting the new phone activated with her old phone number. I set her ring tone to be some goofy country western song just to irritate her. Then I programmed my phone numbers and my brother's phone numbers into it. She can't access these phone numbers—she just types in a number if she wants to make a call. But if someone finds the phone (and her) and wants to know where she belongs, maybe they will give us a call. Found an old lady... is she yours?

I don't expect Mom to figure out the nuances of her cell phone. Half the time, she can't figure out how to answer it when it rings. It's good she has one, though. When she goes out walking, she carries it in a little black suitcase strapped to her wrist. It's her life alert system.

We had some trouble figuring out what to do with the old phone. Technically it still worked. But having two cell phones doubled her mental difficulty. I put the old phone in the box the new one came in, wrote what was inside on the cover, and gave it to her. “Put this someplace,” I said.

She hesitated, looking confused. She bent down and put it on the floor next to the cell phone charger. I guess that made sense to her. I realized I had an expectation that she could figure out a good place to store the box. I didn't expect it to be on the floor, but whatever. It's not my house.

The other day Mom and I were talking about the problem of homeless people in Portland. She has compassion, but only if prodded into realizing that most homeless people would prefer shelter if they could afford to pay for it. We discussed the rising rents. I didn't tell her my rent is going up $50 next month. I said if my landlord evicted me so he could jack up the rent, I would have to move in with her. “That would be okay with me,” she said.

“Could you stand to have a roommate?” I asked her. “I'm not sure I could.” She didn't answer.

Every time my phone rings, my first thought is, this is it. This is the call that changes my life. This is why I pay for caller ID on my landline. When I see her number in the little window, my heart stutters a bit. A few days ago, she ate something that didn't agree with her (hence the request for crackers). On the second day of the illness, she called me and said, “Well, I'm still alive,” sounding triumphantly relieved. That made me think the digestive trouble was worse than she let on.

When I get old, there won't be anyone around to bring me crackers after three days of hellish diarrhea. My final plan, if I live long enough and can still act (and drive), is to drive out into the desert with a bottle of pills and some tequila. Ah, sunshine at last. So long, brain fog!

The chronic malcontent is aging in place

I haven't been out of the Love Shack all day. It was 98° today, blue sky and blazing sunshine, our second day of record-breaking heat. It's great to be warm. I've got a wet washcloth on my head and I'm awash with iced green tea, edging toward heart burn. It doesn't get much better than this.

I've been working on my book. Yes, did I tell you? In between editing jobs, for the past couple years, I've been writing a book. I am happy to say it's almost done. I'm weary. What kind of book, you ask? Well, it's a bit too soon to say for sure, but odds are it's nothing you will be interested in, unless you are a frustrated wannabe dissertator who has repeatedly failed to get a dissertation proposal approved and can't figure out why. Yeah, it's kind of a niche topic.

Time out. I just checked the temperature. It's dropped to 88°. I opened the back door and tested the air. Woohoo, the outside air is cooler than the inside air. Time to open up the windows. The sun has dropped below the horizon. The air sluggishly enters the front window, along with the voices of the happy diners sitting on the sidewalk at the cafe across the street. The cat is sleeping awkwardly in the (empty) tub. I notified him that the windows are now open. He didn't budge.

Earlier today, my mother invited me over to enjoy her air conditioning. She forgets that I prefer the heat. Maybe she's lonely. Tomorrow I'm taking her to her fifth physical therapy appointment. She's been doing exercises twice a day to strengthen her gimpy leg and build up her scrawny butt. She says it is helping. Last week I remarked that her stride seemed to be a bit longer, and she beamed. She even sauntered a little bit when she thought I would notice.

Last week was a busy week, with the physical therapy appointment and a visit from my niece and her partner and kid. My brother and I met them at the zoo. Seeing the elephants was fun. No children fell into any cages. The next morning we met for breakfast and my mother came along. It was hot but not sweltering. She ate a turkey sandwich. I had a small margherita pizza (wheat crust, fresh mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil), for which I am still paying.

My niece is 25, her child is three. My mother was thrilled to meet her great-grandchild. The kid wasn't all that thrilled to meet her, this funny stick-like lady with the booming voice who smells of cigarettes and tic-tacs. I remember meeting old people when I was young; it wasn't pleasant then. I'm sure it's not pleasant now. Old people are scary.

My mother is aging in place. That's the phrase. You can use it if you want. I hope to someday find a place in which I can age in place. Meanwhile, I'm aging where I am, sweating in the Love Shack.

The chronic malcontent muses while jogging: Don't try this at home

Today for the first time this spring, I put on my jogging togs and headed for Mt. Tabor Park. As I marched up the hill, I tried not to notice how tight my running shorts were or how my belly bulged over the waistband. I plodded up the main staircase, admiring my black polyester (or are they nylon) pants with the modest belled bottoms and racy white stripes, thinking these pants will be around until the apocalypse. I made it to the top of the staircase. I only had to pull the band of my sports bra out to give my lungs some room to expand twice on the way. Progress!

The cloud-filtered early afternoon sunlight was warm, and I was overdressed: long t-shirt, short jacket, long pants, baseball cap. Ready to start trotting. Any moment now.

Finally, I urged my legs to a trot, first trot of the season. Argh. I was aghast at how creaky my ankles and knees felt. The pain reminded me of my vegan debacle, from which I thought I had recovered. Mentally I reviewed my diet. Have I been eating enough protein? I've been doing protein smoothies almost every day, plus my usual eggs... hmmm. I heard Bravadita's voice in my head: Americans eat too much protein, more than they really need (those selfish hogs). So, add in my broccoli and maybe I'm getting 45 grams of protein a day? I don't think that's enough, sorry, Bravadita. My joints are telling me I need more protein. And probably more water, too.

As I trotted down and around the hill, feeling every little sinew between my hips and ankles, feeling every scraping bone and twinging muscle, I lamented the loss of strength, stamina, flexibility...and even as I lamented those prized assets, I knew if I really wanted them badly enough, I could get them back. At that point, gravity sucked my facial skin into a sinkhole somewhere around my knees and my brain along with it. Save that conundrum for a rainy day.

Still, I had to count my blessings: the vertigo was bad this morning, but it calmed down while I was finishing the final edits on a small job, an insubstantial treatise on the casual carpooling phenomenon now occurring in San Francisco. (Who knew! People are so amazing.) My jagged jogging didn't seem to stir the accursed ear rocks up much, I'm happy to say. I'm going to try not to move my head much while I type this and hope for the best.

After my choppy scoot down and around the road, I walked once around one of the reservoirs, admiring the deep green water, noting the occasional floating cup lid and tennis ball, and then headed up one of the dirt trails toward the northeastern flank of the mountain. As I walked, I began to feel sad, and then I remembered why sometimes I don't like to go walking: Walking gives me time to think, and when I have time to think, I feel sad.

First, I grieved the loss of my mother (she's not dead yet, she's actually doing better, but that doesn't stop me from indulging in the wreckage of the future). Then I grieved for the plight of people suffering at the hands of terrorists. Next, I grieved for the plight of animals suffering at the hands of mean people. Finally, I grieved for the plight of the planet, weighed down by humanity's greed and selfishness. All this grief I felt as I sauntered along the dirt paths wearing polyester (or nylon) pants, listening to an mp3 player that I charged with electricity generated by coal plants (and maybe some hydropower—this is the Pacific Northwest, after all). And now I'm blogging about my sadness while enjoying a cup of tepid coffee (think I'll heat it up in my microwave) and listening to Ultravox's Hiroshima Mon Amour on Window Media Player. Oh, how I suffer.

Pre-worrying solves nothing, but planning and action can help ease my fears about the future. I fear my mother's decline and eventual demise. I fear the impending earthquake and tsunami. I fear my landlord will evict me this summer so he can triple the rent and I'll have to move in with my mother. I fear my crappy car will croak; it's a Ford, after all—found on road dead. I fear I'll never finish my book (I'm almost done). I fear ridicule for my attempt to write a screenplay (but I submitted it to a contest anyway). I fear I'll soon be size extra fat instead of just medium fat (I still went jogging).

Nobody knows the future, except for the one thing we all know and don't want to talk about: We all will die. We don't know when, we don't know how, but we know we can't escape it. The essential, mind-blowing question is (and has always been), how do we want to live until we die? You know what they say: A life lived in fear is a life half-lived. Do I want to get to the end and realize I was a bystander in my own life? How many of us just trudge through our days without letting ourselves feel anything? I know that's what I do. I don't feel much rage anymore—I go straight to sorrow.

I don't like to feel sorrow, so I avoid feeling anything. But I've learned that the sun only comes out after I feel the sorrow, after I acknowledge the pain of living life, after I let myself feel the feelings. Then I can shrug, take a nap, have a blueberry smoothie, and get on with the business of living.

Happy anniversary to my vertigo: a year of imbalance

Just over a year ago, I woke up one morning with a new companion: Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) or just plain old vertigo. I leaned over to pick up a sock. Suddenly I felt like I was being hurled violently toward the ceiling, then back at the floor, then back at the ceiling. I quickly sat down and assessed the situation. Earthquake? No. Bus crash into the Love Shack? Nope. Had I somehow been dumped on a trampoline while I was sleeping? Nope. Conclusion: a localized disturbance has infiltrated my inner ears—aka, vertigo. Bummer!

For most people afflicted with vertigo, the cause is unknown. After doing some research online, I hypothesized that the ear crystals (ocotonia) in my middle ear canals had somehow come loose from their usual location (possibly from banging my head against the door jamb of my mother's car) and were now freely gallivanting around the canals on an extended sightseeing tour. Fun for my ear crystals, I presume; not so fun for me. As the ear rocks swirled, my sensitive ear nerves told me that up was down and down was up. The floor was spongy like a trampoline. I was flying!

Walking without falling over became a challenge. The inside of my head quivered constantly. In the beginning, before I learned how to live with the vertigo, I felt shaky and weak. People who saw me said I looked pale and ill.

Of course, I scoured the web resources for information. I read some disheartening tales: vertigo could last days, weeks, months, or years. Luckily, the type I had was subjective BPPV, not objective. That meant I felt like I was doing the moving, rather than feeling like the world was doing the moving. (The difference between the two is profound.) I learned about the Epley Maneuver, which uses head positions and gravity to entice the crystals to return to their proper location. I started treating myself in an amateur fashion several times an hour, desperately seeking a cure.

During the first month of my affliction, I visited a doctor, who said there were some exercises I could do to desensitize my ear nerves and gave me a referral to an ENT. The ENT put me in a space chair, twirled me over and around, and sent me out dizzier than I'd come in. Clearly, there would be no easy cure for me. I've come to believe I actually have roving ear rocks in both ears, which makes it more difficulty to treat with a gravity-based maneuver.

Sleeping was a challenge. Lying flat on my back caused waves of pressure to roil through my head. I could map the ocean of fluid in my ears as the waves sloshed slowly back and forth, front and back. I was on a boat, but the boat was in my head, rocking on waves that scraped the inside of my forehead like surf on a rocky coastline. The waves felt loud, but were silent, like a wall of soundless air pressure lacking actual decibels. I couldn't make out any noise, but I was bludgeoned every time I tilted my head back even slightly. (No more crying to heaven for me.) Sleeping on my side after performing the Epley on my head seemed to help. I confess, I wasn't willing to sleep sitting upright for the 48 hours recommended by some practitioners.

Over the summer, I fought the vertigo by staying active, determined to outlast it. I went running to spite it. I found out jogging was more comfortable than walking. I guessed that jogging kept the crystals floating above the nerves; they came back down with a vengeance soon after I slowed to a walk. As fall swept in, I stopped running, and then stopped walking. As the air got colder, I didn't want to move much, because movement stirred the sludge in my ears.

Winter came; my vertigo and I reached an uneasy truce. I agreed not to move, and it subsided to a dull but silent roar. There were a few good days interspersed with the tedious unbalanced days. The trampoline walk gradually calmed. As the months went by, I gained some weight, but I began to think maybe the vertigo was starting to fade.

Enter this spring. Almost a year to the day I first felt the vertigo symptoms, I suddenly was back in the rocking boat. Surfs up!

The ocean in my head has been active these past few weeks. My hope is that this activity means the winter sludge in my ears has finally broken up, like Arctic ice in the spring, and the crystalline icebergs in my ears are on the move. I do the Epley whenever the symptoms threaten to swamp me. I hope the waves are starting to calm. They are intense, but don't last as long, leading me to imagine fewer crystals are touring my ear canals. I wish the cruise would finally end, but like any cruise, you get on and you don't get off till it's over.

I've tried to frame this year as a metaphor for the imbalance of my life, but after a while, day after day, it's hard to buy in to the notion that things are any more precarious than usual. The same conundrums plague me; maybe by now they've lost their capsizing potential. Mom lives. I struggle. Life goes on, tra la la. If my metaphysical imbalance were responsible for my vertigo, it ought to have dissipated by now, because after a while imbalance becomes the new normal.

Vertigo doesn't have to mean anything, symbolically speaking. Last year, I hit my head on a car door jamb, which probably knocked loose some ocotonia, which settled into sludge in my inner ear over the winter. Gradually, my body will assimilate the annoying little travelers. Eventually, most likely, the cruise will end. The ocotonia will head back to port and stay there, and I'll be able to do things other people do, like lean forward and backward. Like sleeping flat on my back. Like dancing (when no one is watching, of course) and jogging and walking... things I used to take for granted, not realizing how precious they were.

A life in the day of the maternal parental unit

Earlier this week, I took my maternal parental unit to the dentist for a teeth cleaning. Maybe I should say tooth cleaning. I think she only has one or two still holding down the fort in her jaw. (She reminds me a lot of Granny Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies.) When we walked in the door at the clinic, a horde of white-haired old ladies sat around the waiting room, attended by walkers and canes. My mother marched up to the window, muscled one old gal aside, and pulled a wad of knitted blanket out of a paper shopping bag.

“Here's what I've been working on!” she declared in her foghorn smoker's voice. For a second, I got a glimpse of what my mother used to be like before dementia started to narrow her world.

The two receptionists and a hygienist rushed over to admire her work. A few patients toddled over to look, too. Mom has been knitting lap robes (or baby blankets?) out of leftover yarn. She donates her handiwork to a charity. Her color sense is unique. I have a particular garish blanket I'm rather fond of: orange and red stripes. Whatever you are picturing, it's worse. Today's blanket was tame by comparison: lavender, purple, turquoise, plus a variegated yarn that mixed all three colors. Stripes, of course. I think that's all she can remember how to knit.

“It's beautiful,” gushed Amy, the receptionist. Then she winked at me. I wasn't sure what that meant: It's ugly? Your mom is the bomb? I shrugged my shoulders, as if to say: I know? I don't know, this nonverbal body language is like Greek sometimes.

The door to the inner sanctum opened. The smiling young hygienist was ready to take Mom back for her cleaning. I was astounded: With all these people waiting, she walks in the front door, and the entire place rolls out the red carpet for her? No waiting, plus heaps of praise...I guess there are a few benefits to being 86.

While Mom was having her two teeth polished, I went to the store nearby to forage for food for myself. I bought my usual four vegetables: onions, zucchini, broccoli, and mushrooms. I got some cauliflower for good measure, and then, because I was feeling peaked and stressed, I got some organic chicken breast and a package of organic beef chunks. I don't eat beef very often, maybe once or twice a year. I heard Dr. Tony's maniacal laughter in my head: eat beef, it's good for you! This is the same guy who thought back-to-back colonics was the answer to all life's problems. (I'm here to tell you, it's not.) Beef, though, might have some nutrients I could use. I loaded up my bag of groceries and went back to the dental clinic to pick up Mom.

I was early, or she was late, so I had time to sit in the empty waiting room and wonder how long my groceries could survive in a closed car in intermittent sunshine. Eventually I heard my mother's voice coming closer. I pulled out her checkbook and paid her bill. As I wrote the check for $151 (with the discount), I thought, they should charge her by the tooth. By rights, the bill ought to be about $44. But dental school loans are massive, I know. And all those dental hygienists who went to those nasty for-profit career colleges will be paying on their loans for the rest of their lives. Someone's gotta help them, I guess. Might as well be the elderly... let 'em feel useful.

She lollygagged, saying goodbye to everyone. Who knows if she'll still be alive in six months? Hugs all around. As we were strolling out the door, she turned and said, “Let's stop at Bi-Mart. I need some bath soap.”

At Bi-Mart, she was waylaid by the displays of flowering annuals, arranged enticingly in the sun along the path to the door. She told me to grab a cart. I followed her along the wall of flowers, thinking about the $30 worth of chicken and beef sweltering in the trunk of my car and looking at her scrawny backside, noticing her thrift store denim jeans were at least two sizes too big for her tiny frame. Her pant legs seemed to be two different lengths. Her butt, hidden in folds of faded blue denim, looked like a little round rock. Suddenly, trundling after my scrawny pepperjack mother seemed hysterically funny. For a moment, everything aligned and life was good.

Boring story short, eventually I dropped her off and made it home. The meat was fine. I made beef stew and ate it with mixed feelings: I wish my health did not depend on occasionally eating the cooked flesh of dead animals. And boy, did that stew taste good.

The chronic malcontent is starting to drool

This evening I was sitting in a meeting, reading out loud to a small group from a list on a piece of paper, and I found myself slurring some words. As I was reading, my mind was galloping along a well-worn path: Am I having a stroke? Are my teeth falling out? Is my hind-brain dragging? Have I gotten so lazy I can't be bothered to enunciate anymore?

My mouth suddenly felt uncommonly soupy. My dental hygienist, Debbie, often praises me on the amount of saliva I manage to generate, so it could be I was feeling overly energetic in the saliva department. Should I surreptitiously attempt to wipe the spit off my lip with my mittened hand? No, that would be gross. Like anyone is watching... is anyone watching?

In a split second, my brain had split in three: one part was reading, one part was observing me reading, and the third part was wondering if I was going to burst into hysterical laughter at any moment. I managed to make it through the reading with a semblance of a Mona Lisa smile. Finally, it was someone else's turn to read. I settled back in my chair and bent my head to my notebook. I started sketching furiously. A face, a drooping mouth...What the heck was going on?

Sometimes I stammer when I get self-conscious. It sometimes occurs when I listen to myself reading out loud. My level of self-awareness rises to such a pitch, I begin to pay excruciatingly close attention to my voice. The usual ticker tape of self-judgment begins to roll through the screen at the bottom of my mind: Do I sound like an idiot? I hate my voice. Am I mumbling? My lips are falling off! I can't breathe! Invariably, when I get to that point, I fumble the reading because I'm turning blue from lack of oxygen.

This rant reminds me of the time I entered a Toastmaster's contest during finals week in college. In front of 100 people, I bungled my speech. It was without a doubt the most humiliating moment of my life, still guaranteed to break me out in a cold sweat if I think too deeply about it.

I'm beginning to see a common thread here. It's my old enemy, self. Not the good guy self, as in self-care and self-realization, but the bad guy self, as in self-obsession, self-recrimination, and self-centeredness. Oh, those pesky selves. Wherever you go, there they are. There's no escaping them! I picture them as fleabitten little monkeys, wearing ratty red vests and fezzes, bashing cymbals in my eardrums at all hours. Hey, maybe that's where this vertigo is coming from. (I'm coming up on my one-year anniversary of the first time I felt the vertigo, in case you are tracking. Which I'm not.)

Speaking of things there is no escaping: The ants are back. After a relatively ant-free winter, the hordes have returned. Luckily, I am not unprepared, thanks to the advice of my good friend, Carlita. I laid down my defenses some weeks ago (anti-ant spray). The desiccated carcasses of dead ant soldiers litter the counter under the window. Ha ha. But the scouts are somehow finding a way through my defenses and onto my shirt, where they make a run for the top of the hill (my head). They rarely get further than the back of my neck. Although last night one spent a few minutes speeding round the rim of my eyeglasses before I caught him and flung him in the brig.

Hey, I wonder if there is a spray to eliminate the overwhelming sense of self I'm sometimes feeling? Some kind of anti-self spray. Guaranteed to relieve you of the bondage of self. Wow, if I could bottle that, I bet I could make a fortune. Hey, you heard it here first!

For those who say they can't...

If you've read my blog before, you know I spend a lot of time whining about stuff. As a self-obsessed chronic malcontent, it doesn't matter what it is, I can whine about it. I can whine about how my mother's dementia is turning her brain to mush, I can whine about the crummy Ford Focus I bought because I didn't want to shop anymore, I can whine about editing the papers of dissertators who have clearly balked at reading the style manual. Really, everything is a candidate for whining in my world. Lately, I've been whining a mantra along the lines of I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't do it.

What does it refer to? Hey, thanks for asking. When I whine that I can't do it, I mean I've come to the end of my rope, I've hit the wall, the camel's back is shattered, and the fat lady is singing. It's a cry to heaven: I can't do it! Fill in the blank, whatever it is, I can't do it! Maybe I used to be able to do it, but no more. No can do.

I found myself whining this mantra today when my maternal parental unit (which really needs to go back to the factory on Clelldor for servicing) invited herself along on a shopping trip I hadn't planned.

“I need some baking soda,” she said.

“Okay,” I said.

“And some other things. Do you think we could go to Freddy's?”

Normally, I would be quite willing, but today I was scrambling to finish editing two chapters of a challenging dissertation, and I wasn't entirely certain I would be able to submit the file by the 6 PM deadline. My first thought was to cry, I can't do it! But Mom comes first, so I said okay and picked her up at 10:30. I took time to make some coffee and swallow a few gulps, but no time to make breakfast or eat it.

“You're late,” she said, assembling her going-out gear: cigarette case, lighters, gloves, cell phone case. “I thought I got the day wrong.”

“Sorry, Mom. Got your list?”

I drove the few blocks to the supermarket and parked. The wind was chilly; it was raining, but not hard. Just a typical crappy spring day in Portland. I let her manage her own exit from the car while I grabbed two grocery bags from the back seat, thinking to myself, it's good for her to maneuver independently for as long as possible, right? And wondering how I would explain to my siblings if she accidentally slammed the door on one of her twig-like legs.

We made it into the store without mishap. I pulled a small grocery cart from the stack of carts and let her go before me so I could pick up whatever detritus fell from her pockets as she walked. (I've learned that one the hard way.) Slowly we trundled through the aisles: baking soda, applesauce, chicken, ice cream, fresh fruit, one potato. I thought, no problem, we'll be out of here in 20 minutes.

In the produce department, I tried not to recognize Marge and Linda, relatives from my father's side of the family, shopping for broccoli. Marge is 94. Her daughter Linda is 66. I didn't know that, but as our two old mothers stood bleating at each other, Linda and I commiserated about the care of elderly maternal parental units and the prospects for our own futures, and in the course of the conversation, we both disclosed our ages.

Linda didn't sound like she's that worried about her old age. I figured it out: Linda has a husband, children, and grandchildren. In the struggle to beat old age, she'll be in the winner's circle. Me, I'll be working till I die penniless and alone. That's my health plan and retirement plan, conveniently packaged into one.

You can't rush two old ladies who are trying to touch base even though they can't hear what the other one is saying. I remarked at how similar the two looked: shrunken, tiny, wrinkled, bright-eyed skeletons. I didn't try to listen to their conversation, but I have an inkling of what it was probably about on Mom's side. For years, Marge has lived at the big retirement community Mom moved to temporarily over the summer—the “warehouse for old people”—so I'm pretty sure Mom was explaining to Marge why she didn't stay for long at that retirement village, opting instead to move back to her condo. That's the move that precipitated the steep mental decline, as you may recall, leaving me and my siblings with a strangely different mother.

Eventually I scanned and bagged the eight items in the basket and paid for them with my mother's debit card. Then we went over to the in-store jewelry department to get her watchband repaired. That only took five minutes, and Mom fretted impatiently on my behalf so I didn't have to. Then she complained about having to pay $10.00 to the guy for the repair. I wanted to scream, I can't do this anymore, but I didn't. We got the watch. I let her lead the way out of the store.

Here's the thing about whining that I can't do it anymore. It's bulls--t. Clearly, I can do it, because I keep on doing it, despite my whining. Until I'm unconscious or dead, or until I choose something different, I am doing this. That is irrefutable evidence that I can.

You know what they say about those who can't, right? Those who can, do; those who can't, teach. Besides sounding a bit snarky, that saying might not really be accurate. Doing and teaching are sometimes the same thing, and the line between can and can't isn't always clear.

The chronic malcontent circles the drain

My sister is in town this week from Boston. She's staying at our mother's condo. We ordered Chinese food from a local favorite restaurant, and I picked up the food on my way over to visit and have another “family discussion” about the maternal parental unit who is the center of our orbit.

Darkness is especially dark when it's raining. I suppose it doesn't help that my eyes don't work as well after dark. Still, I managed to avoid hitting the pedestrians who scrambled across 82nd Avenue in pitch black night, heading for the bus stop. Victory for me. And them.

At the restaurant, the woman behind the counter said she'd be right back with my order. While I waited, a young Chinese man handed me a nickel and pointed at the tabletop fountain on the counter.

“Make a wish,” he said.

“What? A wish?” I said in confusion.

“Yeah, make a wish for me.”

I studied him. It occurred to me that perhaps he was a slow thinker. His voice sounded a bit slurred. But his smile was open and genuine, despite some broken teeth. He looked mid-20s, not very tall, and pretty well dressed. He didn't smell. He looked like someone's goofy kid brother.

“Okay,” I said. I took the nickel from his fingers and held it poised over the fountain. I said the first thing that came into my mind. “May you have many friends.”

He smiled. “Then what do I do?” he asked.

“Be a good friend,” I said and dropped the coin into the fountain. I sat down on the bench by the door. He grinned and sat down next to me, maybe just a little too close. It occurred to me, maybe he's not mentally slow, maybe he's on drugs.

“Is he bothering you?” The woman behind the counter sounded concerned. “Your order's almost ready.”

“Thanks, no, he's fine,” I said.

“She doesn't like me,” the kid said to me.

“Why? Are you making trouble?” I asked him.

“She doesn't want to talk to you,” said the woman, looking angrily at the kid.

“Maybe you ought to move on,” I suggested gently to the kid.

“Your order's ready,” the woman said, holding up a white plastic bag.

“I just want something to eat,” the kid said.

I thought, uh-oh, homeless, hungry, and on drugs. I thought of the money I had on me, wondered if I should give him some money to buy food. Then I thought, no, the woman would probably not appreciate my altruistic gesture if it meant he wouldn't go away. I sat paralyzed for probably a full 10 seconds, staring at the smiling Buddha sitting smugly on a shelf behind the counter, thinking through the scenarios. Finally, I stood up and handed the woman my mother's debit card to pay for the order. The kid stood up and went back to the fountain.

I did nothing. I paid for the order, turned my back on the whole thing, and went out into the rain.

Later, after dinner, after cigarettes, my brother and I were getting antsy to be gone. My sister got the drift. She wrangled Mom from her bat cave and computer games and enticed her to sit on the couch. Time for the family discussion. Oh boy, said the pot stirrer.

“We want to get a sense of where you are at in your plans to stay in the condo or move to a care home,” I said loudly, speaking at my mother across my brother. She's conveniently hard of hearing sometimes. From a certain angle, I noticed her head looked like a skull with very little skin, an animated skull. Weird.

“I want to stay here at least for the summer,” Mom said. “You can check out the places and if we find one we like, I might consider moving in the fall.”

Of course, it took many more words, shrugs, interruptions, questions, comments, and eye rolls (on my part) to arrive at that conclusion. I'm giving you the abridged version to protect your delicate sensibilities. You are welcome. So, that was the gist of the discussion. No surprise. Nothing's changed. Essentially, she wants to stay put until she can't function anymore.

It's all good, right? I think it's good for her to speak her decision out loud, so she can hear that it's her decision, not ours. It's good for her to feel that her children are actually listening to her. It's good for her children to get a sense of how her world is shrinking inward, narrowing in scope and depth, like a baby planet nucleus imploding on itself.

There probably will be less and less flexibility, less tolerance for ambiguity, less willingness to learn new skills. I expect to see her desire to manage and control increase as she tries to keep things from unraveling. I expect to feel increased frustration and fear, which I predict I will mostly manage to keep hidden from my mother as I dump on my siblings to relieve the pressure.

Of course, I could be completely wrong. I could get hit by a garbage truck tomorrow. Unlikely, but possible. You know what they say: Don't count your chickens... until they tear your lips off.

The chronic malcontent has an epiphany about mindfulness

I have epiphanies about as often as I vacuum my carpet, which is to say, about once or twice a year, so when they happen, I try to milk them for all they are worth. Ditto when I vacuum. I roll around on the floor for months afterward, reveling in the absence of cat barf. Lately I've had a spate of little revelations related to the meaning of life and death, nothing really earth shattering, you know, just realizations along the lines of you can't take it with you, so you might as well dump it all now.

In certain circles (of which I am on the periphery, like when I was a barely tolerated 15-year-old lurking among the fringe loonies orbiting the center hall socialites), it seems I hear words like mindfulness with some frequency. Mindful seems to toddle along with words like right thinking, right livelihood, that sort of thing. It's very Zen. I don't know much about all that meditation yoga chi chi hoohaw, so I won't offer an opinion. But my epiphany is related to mindfulness, so if I'm going to write about it, it's quite likely you'll see me roll an eye or two, if you happen to be watching. Which I hope you aren't, because the place is a mess. I need to vacuum.

I've been worrying lately that I'm not mindful enough. What does that even mean? Thanks for asking. I'm not really sure. Suddenly I'm dumbfounded: I have been stewing and fretting, wondering if I should be pursuing mindfulness without fully knowing what it actually is. That's just nuts, when I think about it. That's like saying yes, please, I'd like a full glass of retsina without sipping someone else's first.

What does mindfulness mean to you? What words come to mind when you are feeling mindful? (Har har.) The word mind is starting to look odd as I'm typing it. Am I misspelling mind? (Would you mind?) Whoa. Suddenly I'm feeling a wave of vertigo. What is going on? My mind is trying to kill me. Let's assume it's a hot flash of creativity and move on, shall we?

Back to mindfulness. At first, I thought mindful meant being hyper self-aware. I've heard people say, “When I swim [or run or dance or make art], I'm fully present.” I think they are referring to a type of mindfulness, a feeling of being aware of being in one's skin. Wow, that's so meta. They swear they feel one with the universe, whatever that means. Even though they look like nerds with their goofy swim goggles. We are all just tiny specks, how can we be one with the universe? The universe is really big. Whatever. Anyway, I thought, it's one of those Zen things. After meditating for an hour, eat some rice cakes with soy butter and wash it down with wheat grass. Like that.

I wonder, why would anyone want to be that self-aware? Isn't life excruciating enough as it is? I do all I can to avoid feeling fully present. A normal person can't take a lot of self-awareness. That's what pork rinds and Pepsi are for, to dull the roar, so you can function. Am I right? Maybe that's why most Americans are getting fat. They are rebelling against being mindful.

Back to my epiphany. Here's what I think about mindfulness. I think mindfulness is just another form of self-obsession. Yep. I said it. It's out there now. What do I mean? Well, take mindful eating. People who don't read novels or newspapers while they eat are sneaks. They could interrupt you at any second with some inane comment about how delicious their organic potatoes are. Like I care. I'm reading, for god's sake!

They count their chews, they count their steps, they count their pennies, maybe all that weighing and measuring is all just self-obsession, masquerading as self-awareness. Whoa, am I going to get it from my Zen yoga junkie friends. I just basically called them all self-obsessed wackjobs.

There's another part to my epiphany. I can't share it with you, though, because if I do, it will lose its magic. When you have a really great idea, you should nurture it for awhile before you share it. That's how you help the magic grow. But I will say this: It's the opposite of being mindful, and it does not involve pork rinds.

The chronic malcontent goes up the country

Today I drove my mother out into the country for Cousin Dave's memorial gathering. I took I-84 to US 30 and cut up Newberry Road just past the little town of Linnton. We expected rain, but it was intermittently sunny. I wore sunglasses. The roads were dry. The car ran fine. I found the Grange Hall without getting lost. As we came around the bend, I could see we were late. Cars and huge trucks lined the gravel road in front of the building.

“I'll drop you off,” I said to Mom and pulled up in front. She maneuvered out of the car and almost fell over as she tried to slam the car door. “Slippery,” she said. She wobbled toward the building.

I crossed my fingers, drove back onto Skyline, and found a spot a couple hundred yards along in a pullout. I parked, spent a moment hoping nobody would come round the curve and wipe out into my car, and walked back along the gravel road to the hall. The air was refreshingly brisk. I smelled spring. I pulled out my camera as I walked. Water gurgled in a gully but I couldn't see anything beneath the lush greenery. An open meadow past the row of parked cars glistened brilliant green, soggy wet against a backdrop of fir trees.

A group of unfamiliar men stood near the door, chatting. One guy said something about Dave elk hunting in eastern Oregon. I didn't linger to introduce myself. I am not a hunter. I gave them a weak finger wave and one of those smiles that I hope said, I don't know you, we share a loss, but not a huge loss, because I was only a cousin, and I'm guessing you guys are work buddies, and the sun is shining so how bad could it be?

Inside the grange hall, people milled about, talking loudly and carrying paper plates of food. Cookies, crock pot meatballs bristling with toothpicks. Across a big open space of beige linoleum, I spotted both my brothers and my sister-in-law. My mother was lost in the crush. About five long folding tables covered with blue paper tablecloths had been set up in a row, blocking access to a display of photos. Children of all sizes and genders, mostly blonde, ran screaming among the adults.

Someone had created a huge photo poster of Dave's life, pasting photos on multiple sheets of poster board, captioning each one by hand. I recognized none of the photos. Dave was a stranger to me, I realized. There were no photos of family Christmases that included my family (although I have some from our elementary school days). I felt sad to realize that I grew up distant from my cousins, even though we lived in the same city. For a tiny second, I blamed my mother. Then I realized that we all lived full, busy lives. Across the city might as well be on another planet when you are a kid. Even after we grew up, the only time I saw my cousins was on rare occasions when I was visiting from California and they happened to be visiting my parents. Once, maybe twice. The next generation of cousins once-removed appeared and grew up without me. Now there are twice-removed cousins running around.

Some people are close to their cousins. Not me. Much as I adore my girl cousin, our lives rarely intersect. She's busy with a full-time job, traveling, a relationship, and I'm busy in my cave doing this. I don't even know my boy cousins.

I wandered and took pictures. Two framed paintings perched on table easels, one of a country cabin and one of an elk standing on a ridge. A set of antlers took up most of a side table, elk presumably. I wouldn't know. I do know the owner of those antlers is almost certainly deceased. A large flat-screen computer monitor showed a slideshow of photos of Dave and his kids and grand-kids. His eldest daughter sat on a bench by the wall, watching the slides and weeping.

I was ready to go when my mother gave me the high sign.

“I would use the restroom, but I don't like the look of those stairs,” she said. The restrooms were in the basement. The stairs were steep and many. Carpeted, though, which might save old bones from ruin. Still, I didn't argue.

“Just as long as you don't mess up my car.”

I walked out into the sunshine to fetch my car. The sons and daughters of my cousins were standing around in groups. My cousins once-removed. I waved and pointed to my car, which I'm sure was perfectly translatable as I'm going to fetch my car because my mother can't walk that far. I walked on, breathing in the spring air. It could be fake spring; we get that a lot here in February. Crocuses bloom, and then bam!—snowstorm. But it's an el nino year and the hottest on record besides. I think winter is over.

As we pulled out of the parking area, I noticed my mother digging through her many pockets. She does this frequently. It usually means something got lost: a glove, sunglasses, cell phone.

“What are you looking for?”

“I thought I saved my cigarette butts,” she said. “But now I can't find them. Guess I threw them away.” My mother, the perfect guest: she packs 'em in, she smokes 'em, she packs 'em out.

I smelled burned ash and started coughing.

“You aren't on fire, are you? I don't have a fire extinguisher.”

She laughed. I wasn't joking; no fire extinguisher. I let it go, figuring if she were on fire, we'd find out soon enough.

On the way back, the smell of burned cigarettes was overpowering. I rolled my window down a bit and tried to breathe through my mouth.

The chronic malcontent takes a philosophical view

I've been dreaming lately of escape. Hitting the road, leaving it all behind, taking a geographical. Even though I know that wherever I go, there I'll be, I still want to take myself someplace else. I'm not sure where exactly. I haven't done more than choose a direction: south.

My friend Bravadita has used her recent brush with death as a metaphysical platform from which to launch a tiny house. She's collecting sinks and things, immersed in the process of crafting a new life from the inside out, from the ground up. I'm guessing the actions she takes toward building her pint-sized dream house help her tolerate her crappy day job. I want to get some of that.

The maternal parental unit has now declared her intention to stay in her condo as long as possible. I interpret that to mean until she falls, breaks a hip, has to go into rehab, and from there, into an adult care home. I don't say that to her. I say, I support you in your desire to stay independent as long as possible. I work daily at being a good daughter.

She changes her mind weekly. I try to keep up.

Today Mom took a cab to a doctor's appointment about two miles from her home. She arranged it by phone ahead of time. I kept my fingers crossed this morning, as I waited by the phone, in case she needed a ride home. I was fretting a little bit. I was acting like a parent whose child had gone to school on the school bus for the first time.

I called her around noon, wondering what I would do if she'd gone AWOL. Wanted! Scrawny old lady wandering in NE Portland. If seen, do not approach. Call authorities. I imagined my tiny twig mother getting into the cab of a semi-truck, bound for Ojai with a load of lettuce. Breaker, breaker in a deep smoker's voice.

She answered the phone. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“How did it go?” I asked (on your first day on the school bus).

“The driver who took me home was quite nice,” she said. “A lot nicer than the one who picked me up.” The customer has spoken. Are you listening, cab company? I doubt it. Nobody cares what old ladies think.

“I'm glad you made it home safe,” I said.

“I'm going to eat lunch and take a nap,” she said and hung up the phone. I felt some of my tension ease. Maybe this is a good sign. Mom can take a cab.

My brother is adamant that Mom should move into a care home, the sooner the better.

“You want her to be safe,” I said with compassion.

“Yes!”

“Even if that means she's not happy.”

“Yes!” Well, he didn't actually say that, but he meant it.

I felt the same way up until a few weeks ago, when I started to shift more toward the happy camp. I'm sensing my family is trapped in a four-quadrant decision window. What's that, you wonder? Thanks for asking. It's a quadrant with four choices: safe but not happy, happy but not safe, not happy and not safe, or happy AND safe. Of course, we say we want happy AND safe, but truthfully, Mom prefers happy not safe, and the children lean toward safe not happy. As long as Mom is competent, she can do what she wants. Up to and including getting into semi-trucks with strange truckers.

I don't trust my feelings on any of this. It's like when I hear someone who clearly has an eating disorder declare, “I can have bread everyday. I just have to manage it.” Like when an alcoholic says, “I can have a beer once in a while. I can handle it.”

It used to be I would see family at weddings. I stopped getting wedding invitations years ago, after the cousins of my generation had kids and then grand-kids. Now I can see what's coming: I'll be seeing my cousins at funerals. What's left of us, that is. On Saturday I'm taking Mom to a grange hall in the country for Cousin Dave's memorial service. I imagine it will feel as bleak as the graveside service did, except for indoors.

A pollster called me this evening from a 555 number. Is that even possible? I thought it was Windows Technical Support again. I started preparing my strategy as soon as I heard a young woman speaking with a clipped British-Indian accent.

“I'm not trying to sell you anything and I won't ask for a contribution or a donation,” she reassured me. It was almost time for iZombie, but I sighed and agreed to be polled.

Most of the survey was about two bond measures, one to raise money for schools and the other to raise money to build affordable housing for seniors. As I struggled to translate her accent, I thought to myself, it's pretty silly to expect people to quickly come up with thoughtful responses on such important issues. I did my best to answer, though. Definitely yes, somewhat yes, undecided lean yes, not at all convincing. It was entertaining to hear her pronounce Oregon Orreezhjan. I almost stopped her to ask where she was calling from. Deepest darkest Atlanta, probably. Or Austin. The heart of call center country.

Mostly I was grateful that that wasn't my job, to call weary people at 8:30 at night. 10:30 central time zone. In the background was the buzz of many voices. It sounded a lot like the buzzy background of the Windows Technical Support cretins who've been calling me three times a day for the past month.

Today the scammers left me alone. I can hardly believe it. Maybe it's because I asked the young man how he could live with himself, knowing he was breaking the law, taking advantage of people with a heartless scam. Probably not. One can hope.

Fool on a hill

I've only been to Skyline Memorial Cemetery once, with Mom to direct me, some years ago, so I wasn't sure I would find the place. The clouds were low over the West hills of Portland. The road was socked in with fog. I almost missed the sign. Luckily, I had viewed the place from satellite the night before (Google Earth!), so I knew that the funeral home office was just off the second driveway. I was 20 minutes early on purpose. I figured I'd use the restroom, get a map, and sneak into the periphery of the group somewhere near the grave site, if I could find it.

As it turned out, the family was gathering in the lobby of the funeral home office. The former wife of my youngest cousin was already there. We recognized each other, which for me is a big deal, for her, probably not so much. Still, she seemed glad to see me, and I was glad to see her. I like her. When I came out of the candlelit restroom, I greeted her with a hug. I was conscious of the degree of my social enthusiasm and wondered if I should dial it back a bit. Not that I'm so flamboyantly social, I've met her what, five times in 30 years? But it was a funeral. Well, at least I wore black.

People I didn't recognize came in out of the damp fog. In my cloud of social anxiety, I was just barely conscious of my awareness that most of them in my generation were overweight and obviously colored their hair. And they all looked so old. What happened to us? Dave was only 61; that seems so young to me. It occurred to me as I was standing awkwardly trying to keep an appropriately sad but welcoming look on my face, that I probably looked just as old and decrepit to them as they did to me. WTF.

I realized that some of the strangers were actually grownup children of my cousins, towing their own young daughters and sons. Some of the faces I may have seen once at a barbecue a few years back, at my aunt's 75th birthday. Seems like ancient history now. My memory fails me daily. Names and faces... like my mother, I am learning to fake it.

The funeral home assistant, a tall heavy young woman dressed in a parka and black leggings, perked up as soon as Cousin Dave's wife arrived. I could see her move into a brisk-but-sympathetic let's-get-this-show-on-the-road mode. I tried to model my face after her expression. Nobody noticed.

“If you want to drive your car to the site, just follow the truck.” She didn't have to say which truck. We all knew: The truck with the casket hanging out the back. I can only imagine what it was like to drive that truck from the house to the cemetery. Did they hang a festive red flag on the end of the casket? Would any nearby drivers realize that there was an embalmed body, sans a few organs, resting in the box? Now there's a plot for a story...

Someone murmured something about walking. That sounded good to me, and apparently to many others. We swarmed out the door into the drippy fog and walked in small groups out to the parking lot. My aunt came over, a tiny shred of an old woman wearing an eye-watering hot fuchsia windbreaker. I think my mother might actually have a pound or two over my aunt. (My aunt has always competed to be thinnest.)

She gave me a long, uncomfortable hug. Her eyebrows barely reached my chest. I'm not sure where she was looking—at my jacket, I guess. I stared off across the parking lot, patting her back, realizing belatedly that I was actually holding her up. I waited for her weight to transfer back onto her tiny feet and extricated myself from her embrace.

An exotic long-haired young woman came over and gave me a hug. Who...?

“I'm Julie,” she said in a choked voice. Oh, right. Julie. My brain scrambled, trying to unravel the family tree on the spot. Dave's second daughter. Oh, right. She just lost her father. Bummer.

My brother and his girlfriend were there, two familiar faces. The small crowd walked in groups up a small rise. As we crested the hill, a cold wind attacked. Nothing out of the ordinary, just the typical 40° damp wind we all know as Portland winter. We all huddled into our scarves and trudged onward.

Not far along the road was the mausoleum wall. About 20 yards below the road, a backhoe and a little pickup filled with gravel were parked on the muddy grass. An empty bier stood waiting for the casket. I presumed the bier hid the open grave beneath. Hey, I've seen funerals on TV, I know what's what. Pretty soon, six men of varying ages struggled into view, carrying the wooden casket across the slippery grass. I recognized Dave's two brothers and Dave's son. I thought of all the things that could go wrong, but they settled the box on the bier without mishap. 

I hovered on the periphery as about 30 people clustered around, facing a bearded guy wearing black and holding a book. Minister, pastor? Four members of the grounds crew waited respectfully nearby. One was a blond woman wearing enormous black gloves. I imagined they were itching to get back to backhoeing and spreading gravel.

As if on cue, as the minister led the crowd in the first of several prayers, the fog began to lift. The view was impressive. Far across the valley, sunlit glimmered on a section of the Willamette River. Dave's other daughter stood up to make some brief remarks. Fifteen minutes later, the wind was cutting through my jacket. Small children were crying out loud, the adults were sniffling into tissues, partly from grief, partly from the biting wind, and I was ready to bail.

After another prayer, a young girl stood by the box and faced the assembled group to sing an a capella hymn. The first stanza had everyone moaning and sobbing. So cute! So sweet. By the third stanza, people were starting to shift around in the mud and pull their scarves around their necks. By the fifth stanza, she was still going strong. Where's Monty Python when you need him? I gazed off over the open fields of the cemetery below, inching away from the mourners (prayer and hymns have that effect on me), and watched a crow fight off a hawk over our heads. The hawk kept circling, aloft on the wind, and lazily drifted away toward some distant trees. The crow returned to a tree near the mausoleum, the winner, for now.

The story should end here for effect, but life is so strange. The grounds crew lifted a white plastic cover and placed it over the casket. Unfortunately, the cover did not fit over the box. My youngest cousin, Dave's younger brother, had built the box himself with the assistance of Dave's son. He was standing next to me as we watched the dilemma unfold.

“Twenty-four inches tall and twenty-eight inches wide,” my cousin said. “That's what they told me. It better fit.”

People milled around for a few minutes, churning up the grass, then most retired to the shelter of the mausoleum wall, where the cemetery people had set up two rows of folding chairs covered in dark green fake fur (I kid you not). The cousins and sibling gathered in groups according to their age brackets, waiting for the cemetery crew to find a cover that would fit. I wandered a dozen yards away to see the grave marker for my grandparents, who both died in 1985. My girl cousin came over with her daughter.

“When Grandpa came to stay with my mother, after Grandma died, he was so sad,” my cousin said, glaring bleakly at her twig of a mother who was holding court by the mausoleum wall. “My mother had no compassion at all for him and what he was going through.”

She looked at me. “You know my mother.”

“I do know your mother,” I agreed. I thought about mothers. I decided that even as much as I'm struggling with my own mother, I would not want to trade. I know her mother.

The wind felt like it was coming straight off the ocean. At that point, I hit my limit. I didn't know I had a limit on graveside services, but apparently I do. I decided I didn't need to see my cousin's coffin lowered into the dirt. I said goodbye to my girl cousin and her daughter, and to my brother and headed away from the group to get up to the road. The grass in places was pure mud, which made walking treacherous. My brother's wife walked back to the parking lot with me. The hem of her long dress was wet from trailing in sodden grass. We talked about aging parents, but didn't figure anything out.

Cousin Dave is on the roof

I dreamed a mildly romantic dream last night. Sadly, though, no tongues to report; I rarely progress that far in dreams anymore. Don't know what that means, and it doesn't matter. I didn't regret the loss. I was more interested in the fact that, in my dream, I was ageless. I mean, I wasn't any specific age, as far as I could tell. I wasn't old or young. I just was. My perception of me existed outside time.

Sure, my dreams have changed over the years, whose haven't? When I was 6, I dreamed creatures from outer space were taking over the earth in flying saucers. That was the year the city adopted oscillating sirens on their police cars. I was sure invasion was imminent. When I was young, I used to fly a lot in my dreams. I don't fly anymore. I don't even run. Now all I do is stomp repeatedly on nonfunctional brakes. Or I lose my car altogether in some part of the city I've never seen before.

I feel like I live life interrupted, daily. I aim in one direction and find myself going in another. I wait in wait-and-see mode, not bothering anymore to wonder what the future holds. I know what it holds. I don't need a magic 8 ball to know where we are all headed. Yep, you got it. Hell in a hand-basket.

Cousin Dave died last week. His mother called me because she was afraid if she called my mother, the news would send her off her rocker. (Oh, sorry, that's a euphemism for lose her mind. No, that's a euphemism too. I mean, she would lose what cognitive ability she still has.) I was the designated bad-news bearer for my immediate family. I took the coward's way out and wrote an email to my siblings. But I called my mother first to give her the sad news.

“Cousin Dave died yesterday,” I said when I got her on the phone. Oh, darn. Should I have used a euphemism to soften the blow? Should I have said Cousin Dave is on the roof? I am a lousy liar. I can't even tell a good joke, because I dread making people wait through the setup. I should probably at least have made sure she was sitting down. Well, in my defense, I did wait until evening so I didn't ruin her afternoon nap.

My mother is a former nurse. And she's a former librarian. That means, to me, that if she hasn't seen death and dying up close in person, she's certainly shelved some books about it. I figured she would say, oh, that's terribly sad, grieve a bit, and move on. Unfortunately, my mother has been replaced by a pod person whom I no longer recognize. This new pod-mom creature was devastated by the news of the loss of Cousin Dave.

“Oh, no. Not Dave. No. Why couldn't it have been me?” she wailed. I cringed. I know it's not my mother anymore, but it's still hard to hear her suffer.

Cousin Dave was my mother's brother's eldest son. A heart attack laid him out. By the time they got him to the hospital, he was dead. Oh, wait, I should say he had passed. Or passed away? Is that the right euphemism? I can't keep track. I always thought passing was what one did on the two-lane road to the coast when you're stuck behind a log truck. Whatever. So, Dave is gone. We lost him.

Eventually Mom emerged from her blue funk to call my aunt and get the details. She called me the next day and sounded pretty calm as she told me about the casket-building her brother's remaining children and grandchildren were doing. I was impressed. Casket building would never have occurred to me. I'd be more likely to sew a shroud.

“They plan to wrap him in an elk hide,” my mother said bemusedly. “The other kids plan to put in a Native American blanket.” Right. For his trip to the happy hunting ground. I don't know what Dave's idea of heaven was, but I'm pretty sure it involved guns, judging by how many racks he had hanging in his living room. And when I say racks, I mean elk and deer antlers, just so we're clear.

I didn't know Dave well. I am closer to his sister, my only girl cousin. Dave was an enigma, like all older males. He grew a beard, married a Mormon, had a pack of kids and got divorced. He was happily remarried to a woman I met once or twice, who seemed to enjoy hunting as much as Dave did. I'm sad she's a widow. Dave was only 61, the same age as my older brother.

Mom told me today she doesn't feel up to attending the graveside service day after tomorrow. I guess I'll drive up the hill to... I don't even know what that part of the city is called...to Skyline Cemetery, a place I've only visited once, some years ago, to see the graves of my mother's parents. They died the same year, 1985, within months of each other. Dave's grave will be nearby, with a nice view.

When I was maybe 14 or 15, before I got my first boyfriend, I remember a family visit to Cousin Dave's house. I don't know if it was winter or summer, but I remember Dave, my handsome older boy cousin, offering to play some records for me on his record player. (If you don't know what a record player is, it's a device that played vinyl records.) He might have played more than one song, but the only one I remember is Chicago's Colour My World. To this day, I can't hear that song without thinking of Cousin Dave. RIP Cousin Dave. You will be missed.

The chronic malcontent joins the tiny hat movement

Sometimes when I stand at my computer desk, staring morosely at my screen, my cat sneaks silently into the room and sits on the floor behind my feet. Inevitably, eventually, I step backward onto his tail. I think it's a ploy to get sympathy. I thought he wasn't all that bright, but maybe I'm wrong: He's figured out how to get love. That is more than some of us can say.

I'm seeking a hat that will clamp down on the vertigo. Is there such a thing? I have many kinds of hats: berets, cloches, stocking caps, straw hats, watch caps, baseball caps, and hats whose names I do not know. Most are black. None of the hats I have seems to mitigate the vertigo, so I'm hunting for a new hat. Maybe something in tin foil.

I wear a hat pretty much all the time. I wear a hat to the store. I wear a hat to job interviews. I even wear a hat to bed. I'm wearing a hat right now. The only time I don't wear a hat is when the temperature exceeds 90°. Then I'll let my scalp roam free. People are always shocked to find I actually do have hair. I suspect they believe I've been a cancer patient for years. Nope, sorry. I buzz my hair short on purpose.

Somebody should invent a hat that helps old people think. Teachers used to tell students, “Put on your thinking caps!” to imply that they were not thinking to their full potential. Did it inspire students to think harder? Deeper? Clearer? Who knows. All I know is, I want a thinking cap. I want one for my mother, and I want one for me. I don't care what color.

Lately I've been thinking that everyone should start wearing a hijab, the Muslim women's headscarf. If everyone walked around in hijabs, maybe people would get used to seeing them around town. Then they wouldn't be scared of hijabs. It's normal to be scared of things we don't understand. If you were wearing a headscarf on your head, you would understand it's a piece of cloth that wraps around your head. Then you wouldn't be scared of it.

I'm not much of a joiner. Groups make me feel uncomfortable, and the idea of joining a movement in a presidential election year really makes me queasy. (I might accidentally become a Trumpeter or something, and then I'd have to kill myself.) However, I don't think the tiny hat movement is all that well organized. I haven't seen any newsletters. I don't know if there is a website. In fact, I might be the first one in the tiny hat movement. It's hard to tell if I'm part of a movement when life is moving around me. Do you ever have that feeling?

Anyway, if you would like to join the tiny hat movement, leave a comment, and start wearing a hat.

The chronic malcontent experiences ego deflation

Happy effing new year, readers. All 10 or 12 of you. I hope this year all your pleasant dreams come true (and none of the nightmares). Me, I just hope to stay present as the moments sweep me along, if not savoring each treacherous moment, at least, not wishing I were somewhere else doing something else. I'm just hoping to be here now. What else is there? I've spent years trying to fix my past and manage my future, and look where that got me. Broke, flabby, and discontented. Joke's on me.

Once again, it seems whatever mojo I enjoyed over the past few months has evaporated as I've been sinking into my mother's shrinking world. Aspirations of art, writing, doing something with myself, all seem to be misting into nothing. Late middle-aged woman, interrupted. Again. Interruptions in the past I blamed on partners. This time it's my maternal parental unit who has become the baby planet nucleus of my parched existence. I've whined about this before, sorry if it is getting boring. It's boring to me too, and it's my life. I suppose it's hard to sink lower than the realization that I'm bored with myself.

I had an idea for a story today. This is nothing new. I'm a dreamer, ideas are like breathing. The frothy cloud of creativity burbled in my chest. My heart rate accelerated. I suppose my eyes twinkled, although I'm not really sure (they sometimes dance from vertigo). I chortled once. If I remember, I will commit it to a Word doc and save it in a folder that I will rarely look into again. I have enough ideas in there to last a while. Unformed hazy potential.

As I've grown older and less optimistic, I've finally stopped seeing creativity as the antidote to my malcontentedness. My creative life has pretty much shrunk to this blog, the electronic platform from which I whine. I used to paint, but what do you do with a bunch of paintings nobody wants? Build furniture out of the particle board panels. Cut the canvases into strips and weave them into placements. See? An idea a minute. I sit in meetings and draw the images you see on this blog. I have a notebook-a-month going back to 1995. Who wants them, raise your hand.

The excessive-thinking malady brought on by fear of downsizing is cutting the crutches out from under my wobbly creative spirit. Too much stuff is at war with need more stuff. (What's up with stuff, anyway? How did it turn into my higher power? There's a topic for another rant.) The Love Shack is not a big place, but more to the point, I will not last forever. Before I die, if I have the choice, I would like to jettison some of this baggage and abandon myself to the creative spirit. I'm sure it's still in me somewhere, waiting patiently for an invitation to peek around the door.