The Chronic Malcontent is choked by luxury problems

Off and on over the past three months, people in other parts of the country have asked me if Portland is on fire. Each time, I scoff and say, "Don't believe everything you see on the Internet." I would think of the small areas on the city that have drawn protesters and picture the rest of the city going about its business, peaceful, untroubled, dusty green under summer blue sky. This week was different. This week, with the exurbs on fire, I started thinking about what I would be able to pack into my car if the wildfires marched across the county line toward the Love Shack.

It's great to have the luxury of planning ahead. Not everyone in this west coast conflagration has been so lucky. I didn't seriously think my apartment was in any danger, but . . . well, my sister asked me if I had a bug-out bag ready. I said "yes" but then I thought, hey, when was the last time I checked that bag? There might be a jar of ten-year-old cat kibbles in there, along with some crumbling protein bars. Maybe a roll of toilet paper or two. Hmmm.

This has been a long week, and it's not over yet. I can't believe today that my biggest worry on Tuesday was a power outage. An unusual late summer windstorm blew in from the east on Monday. When I got back from my evening visit to my mother, I saw my neighbors standing in the gravel road in back of my apartment building, properly socially distant, staring up at a transformer on a utility pole. 

"You might not want to walk down this road," a new neighbor said, obviously not recognizing me in my dapper plaid mask. I ignored her and walked on down the road to peer up at the transformer with the other neighbors. 

Roger, our local sage, said with relish, "There was a crash and a pop. Then the power went out."  Great. I went inside and flipped some switches. Yep. No power. Good thing I had closed down all my open Word files before I left. The computer was now a dead dark hunk of metal.

The wind kept howling all night and all day Tuesday. I sat in the dark with a little battery-powered LED lantern, whining in brief texts to my Twelve Step friends about how terrible it was to be without power. Ha ha. Periodically I dialed the power company for an update and watched my phone lose a little more juice. We are aware of an outage in your neighborhood. It is currently affecting one-hundred and thirty-four customers. Because of the scope of the problem, we are unable to estimate a repair time. 

Two huge crane trucks and some other gear arrived at 10:00 pm on Tuesday night. I was so happy I went outside to welcome them with a happy dance. The air was breezy and balmy, clear and delicious. I watched them beep and bang and pound and rumble and three and a half hours later, like a miracle, my power was restored. 

That mighty wind wreaked havoc up and down the west coast, fanning any flames that might have been easily squelched on a normal day. Within hours, it seemed as through the entire world was on fire. Homes were destroyed. Lives have been lost, the tally as yet unknown. Houses, cars, trees, people, and animals have transformed in four days into an enormous smoke cloud that is now choking the air, blocking out the sun. It looks like hell. 

As I said, I'm one of the lucky ones. The wind died and stopped pushing the fires north. I put away my collected bug-out bag gear and battened down all the hatches to keep the smoke out. I thought I did a pretty good job. I didn't go out of the apartment for two days. I didn't even go visit Mom. Then I talked on the phone today and realized my place is not the hermetically sealed sanctuary I thought it was. I'd been coping with the bad air quality by shallow breathing. 

Today I got the dreaded text: Your mother needs bread. 

I knew it wouldn't be fun going outside, but I thought, how bad could it be? Lots of people are outside. Lots of people smoke cigarettes. Mom smoked for seventy-five years and look at her. Apart from dementia, she's in pretty good shape, for a ninety-one year old smoker. An hour in the smoke would probably not kill me. I checked the air quality. Hey, just barely into the Hazardous zone. Come on, Carol. Quit whining.

The stench of smoke hit me like a wall when I opened the door. My plaid face mask was just for show. It did nothing to keep out the smoke, of course—it's made from old cotton pajama pants, for crimony sake. The air sat white and heavy, like the worst L.A. smog I'd ever seen, and I lived there in the 1980s, so I've seen my share of smog. I trudged to my car. It was covered with a fine ashy dust, but that's normal for my car, since I only wash it once a year. I turned on my headlights to be safe and trundled off to Mom's with two loaves of frozen gluten-free whole wheat bread and the baby monitor. 

I left the bread outside the kitchen door. Mom was just back from dinner. We chatted through the baby monitor. Half of what I said she said she couldn't understand but it was still nice to see her. I started coughing. She told me to get going. I gave her the peace sign and headed for home. Driving up the hill I passed a bicyclist wearing a face mask. I had to be impressed. Not sure if it was supreme courage or colossal stupidity. I didn't linger to see if he passed out at the top.

Now I know I can go out into the smoke and make the trek to see Mom. However, I now know I must differentiate indoor clothes and outdoor clothes. The smell of smoke followed me into the Love Shack, and not that sweet campfire smell that used to cling to my brother's Boy Scout uniform when he came home from camping. This smell is terrible, maybe because I know what is in it. I breathed in a lot of horror and grief and even after a bath, I can still feel it in my lungs. 

Blood on the keyboard

Oregon gave away free money earlier this month. I didn't find out I qualified for some until a couple days ago, long after the funds ran out. I don't care. My main concern is laundry. I haven't been able to get near the bank to replenish my stash of quarters for two weeks because of that free money giveaway. Long lines of unsocially distant desperate people wrapped around the bank every time I trolled through the parking lot. No way am I going to stand in line for quarters. So I'm doing my laundry by hand in the tub.

I guess in a pandemic I need to make some allowances for comfort. Wearing cardboard underpants is one of those allowances. My skivvies are stiff and ripply like crepe paper but I'm getting used to it. Once I've broken them in, it's really not much like wearing hair shirts. I'm not suffering. It's like being back in college. Back then I was oblivious because of substance abuse. Washing clothes in the sink was part of the adventure. Now I'm oblivious because of exhaustion and old age.

Speaking of self-flagellation, I am hopeful that my family and I have found a new facility to receive our maternal parental unit. With the expert help of a placement advisor, we have located a care home in my neighborhood. We haven't signed anything yet. We have some questions to ask. But I'm hopeful that the search is successfully ended and in about thirty days, the chore of moving the old lady and her stuff can begin. I wish I could just put her into storage. I wonder if my vertigo will ease up when this task is finally done. 

Speaking of exhaustion, Portland is coming undone. It is unsettling to see Portland in the national news for so many weeks. My first thought is, ha, the joke is on you, to all the people who moved to Portland for its mellow laid-back vibe. Then I remember violence is a tragic expression of an unmet need, and I feel sad. I can't unravel all the needs entangled in the nightly riots I see on the news. I can't stop picking at my cuticles. Yesterday I felt something weird while I was typing and saw blood on my keyboard. 

I'm starting to create conspiracy theories in my head to explain the madness. Unsubstantiated theories comfort in times of distress. Maybe liberals are a little behind in the production of creative conspiracy theories, but I'm sure if we do a little brainstorming, we could catch up. Like, for instance, what if the rioters who are looting and breaking things are really minions of Mordor out to make the peaceful protesters look bad? Yeesh! Would humans actually do something so cunning and cruel? Today my brain wandered into the bizarre possibility that they sacrificed one of their own for the cause. How insane is that? But, I ask you, is there evidence to the contrary? I mean, can you prove the moon isn't made of green cheese? 

My protection is to hide in my burrow, keep my head down, and attract as little attention as possible. I wash a few pairs of socks and a couple t-shirts every night, marveling at how everything I wear is some shade of gray, even when it started out white or black. After I wring out the water and hang things to dry on hangers from the window sill over the tub, I watch the news and cringe when the Eye of Sauron looks our way. I feel sick when I realize how many wackjobs live in this city, possibly just yards away from my doorstep. My illusory bubble is evaporating. I wear my pastel plaid face mask and imagine I have a target on my back.

Summer is ending and I haven't properly sweated yet. I've cried some, though. I miss my cat. I miss my mom. I never thought I'd say it, but I miss being around people. 

Making a contribution

 I've come to believe that my purpose in life is transporting ants and spiders from one place to another. The ants prefer to travel by shirt. The elites like the view from my neck. The spiders, adventurous risk-takers, prefer traveling by automobile. They cling to both my side mirrors on tiny strands of broken webs. If I could read their tiny lips, I'm sure they are shouting "woo-hoo" into the wind. 

I'm glad to be of service. After all, the future belongs to whatever tiny critters can survive global climate change. I'm doing my part to keep life alive. Ants, spiders, and cockroaches should do well in rising heat. And don't forget the bacteria and viruses, rapidly ascending the food chain. Being human isn't looking like the privilege it seemed to be a few short months ago. It's great to be a Covid virus right now. Seven billion or so lungs, yum, what should I eat first?

Speaking of downers, there are few things more anxiety producing than turning on your parental baby monitor and hearing your maternal parental unit (Mom) yelling "Help. Somebody help me." 

I always turn on the baby monitor before I get to her window so the device has time to link to the monitor in her room. I never know what I will hear when I turn on the monitor. Sometimes she's not back from dinner yet, so I pace and mill around on the sidewalk, staring at my decrepit reflection in her window. Sometimes she's already prone on the couch. Sometimes she wakes, sometimes she doesn't. 

Hearing her yell for help really gets the heart rate up. Mine, I mean. I'm programmed to jump when my mother yells but there's nowhere to jump when I'm on the outside of the window looking in. 

I pressed the button on the monitor and yelled back, "Someone will be here in just a minute!" Then I set the monitor on the clattering air conditioning unit and frantically texted the Med-Aide Mom needs help. 

"Help! Somebody!" Mom kept shouting. She forgets she has a button on a necklace around her neck. She doesn't realize that catching the attention of an aide passing along her open door at just the right moment is a long shot akin to winning a $1,000 lottery scratcher. Leaning into the window screen, I could make out Mom's blurry figure sitting on the toilet in the dark. I'm pretty sure what I would have seen if the light had been on: Mom staring at a big mess wondering what to do next.

This all happened a couple weeks ago. Tonight the problem was her hearing aids. 

"These things are falling out," she complained, pointing to her ears. I wanted her to get up and come to the window so I could see if they were in wrong, but what would I do then? She probably wouldn't be able to figure it out. Luckily an aide was passing along the hallway. A tall blonde woman in flowered scrubs and a face mask came into Mom's room.

"Will you see if her hearing aids are in right?" I asked through the baby monitor. 

"I'll get someone who knows how they work," she said and went out the door.

"Go get someone who knows what they are doing," Mom said, smoothing her blue and white plaid wool blanket.

We waited.

In a minute, another aide, Anne, came in. She peered at Mom's ears.

"The red goes on the right and the blue goes on the left," I said helpfully. 

Anne took them both out of Mom's ears and studied them in the lamplight. She switched them and put them into the proper ears.

"Can you hear me now?" I said into the monitor.

"Can you hear me now?" Mom echoed. I gave Anne a thumbs up. She went out the door. I assumed she was smiling but who knows. My mask certainly hides a multitude of smirks and thinned lips.

"Mom, do you want to move to a smaller place?" I asked Mom. 

"Should we move to a smaller place?" she said.

"Better food, more outdoors?"

"Are we going to move me tomorrow?"

"No, not that fast. We'll let you know. We'll take care of everything, don't worry," I said, thinking I'll do enough worrying for both of us.

"I won't worry," she said. She looked down at her blanket and pulled it across her lap. "It's time to put this thing into orbit."

"Yes," I agreed. "Put that thing into orbit."

She laid down on the couch and pulled the blanket across her stomach. She gave me a peace sign. I gave it back and sang Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow. When I have the button pressed, I can't hear her but I saw her lips moving so I knew she was singing along. 

Future cloudy, try again later

 You ever have one of those days when it seems like nothing goes quite right, and then you suddenly realize you have your shirt on backwards? Then you are like, wow, that totally explains everything. That pretty much sums up the week for me. Well, let's be honest. So far, the entire first half of 2020 has had its shirt on backwards. From January 9, the day my cat died, it's felt like two seconds to midnight. I'm sure you can relate. 

So many times this week, I thought, I need to blog about this! And now that I'm actually sitting in front of my computer, all I can think of is, I wonder if the statin I just started taking for my cholesterol will kill me before I can finally enjoy some cheese. The week is a blur so I will take this interlude to wax philosophical while I wait for memories to emerge from the fog.

At points in my life, I've stood on the edge of a chasm, staring across to the green pastures on the other side. (Metaphorically speaking, of course—I am not one of those foolish tourists who take selfies on the edge of the Grand Canyon.) I'm sure you have experienced the longing that comes from being able to imagine the paradise that lies just out of reach and wishing you had something—a glider, a parachute, a large cannon—something that could launch you out of your current misery into the bright future you know you deserve. No? Maybe it's just me. For some reason, I seem to find myself standing on metaphorical precipices quite often. I don't really like heights, but I seem compelled to find them. 

The current precipice has to do with the maternal parental unit. She's running out of money. The retirement barracks in which she is currently incarcerated has done a great job of keeping her alive, no doubt a nefarious plot to extend their ability to generate revenue. The cost of her upkeep has escalated with the increasing demands of her care. We, the family, knew this was a possibility back in 2015 when we had a family discussion about Mom's finances. Mom participated in the discussion. You've read all this before in previous blog posts. We all thought, what are the odds that Mom, a dedicated smoker with COPD and dementia, would outlast her money?

Never underestimate genetics. Or the power of quitting smoking. Now the family is revving up the hunt for a Medicaid facility, never an easy task even without a pandemic. How the hell is this going to work? That is a rhetorical question, but if you have suggestions, I'm open to feedback.

My sister has volunteered to help me qualify adult foster homes in the area. We did this back in 2016, before Mom chose the place she's in now. My sister came to town and we drove around, looking at houses, and making appointments for tours. We tiptoed gingerly on shag rug, grimaced at bad decorating choices, peered into bathrooms, and met some interesting inmates, I mean, residents. It was a lesson in what life can look like if you have money when you get old.

Now that my sister is confined to Boston, our care home search must roll out by phone and video. I have a short list of places. My next task is to plot them on a map and then scout out the locations, maybe take some surreptitious photos, like a weary gray-haired private eye. I hope no one calls the police to investigate the suspicious Ford Focus lurking in their neighborhood. Now is not the time to tangle with Portland police.

My sister and I will call each place and ask some questions. The first one will be, do you accept Medicaid after some period of private pay? If the answer is no, we will cross them off the list. I suppose the second question should be, does your facility have or has it ever had a case of Covid? One question for sure has to be, can I stand outside Mom's window and talk to her through the baby monitor? If the answer is no, I will cross them off the list. If Mom goes into a place that won't give me eyes on, I will most likely never see her again except as dust in a cardboard box. Window view is a deal breaker for me. If we could ask for the moon, it would be great if the food was a little better and she could get to keep her couch and TV. Not that she remembers how to turn it on, but still.

We have to do something. If she outlives her money, she'll end up in my bedroom, yelling for ice cream. That is not acceptable. She might graciously decide to die. If she really was thinking of our welfare, she would keel over soon, before we go through all this searching and questioning. You know how it feels when a car blocks the sidewalk where you are walking and you have to detour around the back end of the car, only to have the driver pull out into the street just as you pass their sputtering tailpipe, leaving you feeling foolish for taking unnecessary steps? Like that. If she could turn off the switch, I know she would. That's another chasm I don't care to contemplate.

I read an article about a rain forest community whose members patiently train tree roots and branches to form bridges across ravines. I wonder if I could do that—metaphorically speaking, of course. What would a metaphorical bridge look like that could lead us from here to there? And I can't help asking the question I always ask when I'm peering into the fog toward the promised land: Would there be any better than here? Where is that dang Magic 8 Ball when you need it? Future cloudy, try again later.

Getting things done

It was one hundred degrees today and I feel like a new person. The ear hissing is still digging into my skull every twenty seconds but I don't care. It feels so great to be warm. Like a cold-blooded lizard, I'm reveling in the heat. I was born to die in the desert. Someday maybe I'll get my wish. Meanwhile, here in Portland, if the city doesn't burn down first, we'll have a few days of heat, and being warm always makes me feel like getting things done.

To that end, tonight I ambitiously embarked on a new project: making a new face mask. The two masks I made back in March from old plaid cotton pajamas are holding up well, but I feel so . . . what's the opposite of possessing style and panache? That. You know, like, oh, plaid? That's so early curve. I really want one of those jet black masks that suck all the light from the room. Besides, a 2020 accessory wardrobe really should rock a selection of stylish face coverings. So I got busy.

I pawed through my box of old fabric scraps and found some black cotton knit containing liberal spandex . . . just the thing to cling but still let in a little air. I held two layers up to the light. No light seeped through. Perfect! I found the pattern my sister sent me a couple months ago. I arranged and pinned, snipped and clipped and sat down on Grandma's old sewing chair to start sewing.

If you've ever sewn on something stretchy with a twenty-year-old plastic Singer that cost $79.99 new, you know that it's all about pushing and pulling at the right moment to coax the weak tired machine over the lumps. The cool thing about this stretchy jersey is if you cut long strips, the strips automatically roll into skinny tubes that make perfect ear loops or ties. First I sewed the mask pieces together. Then along the top edge I inserted one of those wire gizmos that close the top of coffee bags. You can shape them to fit the bridge of your nose! How cool is that. To really put paid to the whole thing, I sewed it in purple thread. 

I used to be a professional seamstress in one of my former lives, no lie, but you wouldn't know it by what came out of my machine tonight. Jet black it was, there's that. Can't deny it. The purple thread looked ridiculous but when have I cared how I looked? I stopped caring when I turned fifty, which was a long time ago. The cotton knit was thick and bulky but the nose piece really held its shape. I took the mask to the mirror for the fitting.

I took off my glasses and looped the loops over my ears. I stared at my reflection. Something didn't seem quite right. The thing seemed to droop. I couldn't keep the loops around my ears. My ears seemed to be bending forward. Were the loops too big? Too stretchy? It seemed to me that the arch over the bridge of my nose was too high, which made the ear loops positioned too low. I folded over the top edge of the mask, making it four times as bulky and peered over the top of it into the mirror. Better, but still not quite right. 

I fussed in front of the mirror, tugging and pulling, huffing and puffing, and finally figured out what was wrong (besides the fact that I was hyperventilating because the fabric was too tightly knitted to make a good mask): My ears were simply too high. It's my damn ears. They are like elf ears without the points. When did that happen? 

Apparently my ears sit too high on my head, compared to my eyes. If I looped the mask over my ears, my eyes were covered. (This would not be an ideal mask design. We all know it is hard to drive without being able to see—hard, but not impossible.) On the other hand, could it be my nose? I don't know. I do have quite a large nose. Maybe if my nose were smaller, the mask wouldn't need such a pronounced arch. My ears are Lilliputian compared to my proboscis. I'm feeling out of balance. 

It's so embarrassing that my sewing skills are so rusty. I used to sew clothes for a living. No kidding. I really did know how to sew once. I never really enjoyed it, well, let me be honest: I have despised sewing since I learned at age nine in 4-H. Still, you'd think I could figure out how to make a workable face mask. 

In my defense, I do have some challenges. The vertigo and ear hissing are distracting, but I hope that will someday resolve. In addition, now that I'm well north of sixty, I can't see up close, with or without my glasses (hence the purple thread). On the bright side, my fingers still work okay, especially when it's ninety in the Love Shack. But now my darn ears have migrated upward. I really can't imagine how that happened. 

Speaking of getting things done, tomorrow is my mother's ninety-first birthday. I'm ready. I plan to hang some colorful balloons outside her window while she is in the dining room eating dinner. If I can find something chocolate and gluten-free that resembles a cupcake, I will put a candle on it and ask the nursing home staff to present it to Mom as she finishes her dinner. Whether they light the candle will be up to them. I have already notified the owner of the facility that I will be parading outside the dining room holding a Happy Birthday Mom sign. I think I can figure out how to attach some balloons to my straw hat. I'm guessing I'll do a little dancing. Maybe the other residents will think I'm a clown or something. If I can make them smile, that would be great, even if they think I'm a nut. I can think of worse things.

The chronic malcontent butchers the scientific method

Howdy, blogbots. How are you holding up in this bizarre war of masked versus unmasked? Have you figured out which team you are on or what exactly we are fighting for? In light of everything plaguing human civilization, including this new plague, politicizing facial coverings sure seems like rearranging deck chairs. I can't assimilate any of the strife so I'm opting out for a while. My sister sent me an excellent video of fluffy white sheep grazing in a green vineyard under a blue sky. Have you seen it? I recommend it if you are feeling like committing murder. 

Speaking of wishing you were anywhere but here, I'm sure you are tired of hearing me whine about vertigo and ear crackling. Yep, still going on. I've had no luck treating the vertigo, even after carefully studying the mechanics of the inner ear. Just goes to prove the old adage, knowledge avails us nothing. You'd think I'd have everything figured out, considering my lofty education level. Inner ears are complicated mechanisms, and my "knowledge" is in the social sciences, not the medical sciences, which explains so much about me. Including how I've haphazardly applied the scientific method in my attempts to treat my malady.

You've already read about the many treatments I've tried, most gleaned from those helpful folks out in cyberspace, thank you, all you BPPV and ear crackling sufferers. Sadly, the only thing that reliably produces silence is immersing my head in hot water. The golden silence gained from tubbing lasts a good fifteen minutes. Not quite long enough to get to sleep but certainly better than zero. I've tried without success to replicate the conditions outside the tub by pouring hot water into my ear while leaning over the kitchen sink. I get wet but the hiss goes on. I admit, I've considered hot oil and hot wax, but I'm pretty sure that would lead to a sheepish trip to the ER, which is not where we want to be at this point in the burgeoning plague. 

Ever hopeful, I've been trying other things willy-nilly without keeping good records, so I can't really tell what might be working. For example, someone on the Internet suggested chewing gum. I went to the store to buy gum. Gum is an impulse item, found near the cash register. Who knew! Generally I ignore everything that is not related to arranging my groceries on the conveyor belt according to how I want the items to appear on my receipt. It's easier to do my record-keeping that way—the zucchini and broccoli aren't disrupted by the toothpaste and coffee filters. Nice and organized, you should try it. 

Anyway, so there I am actually forcing myself to look at the impulse items. I have no idea what I'm looking at. I see something that looks like it could be bubble gum. I don't care, I grab it and toss it on the belt. When I get home, I'm sort of excited to see what it feels like to chew gum. I haven't chewed gum in years. What a miracle it would be if chewing gum was all it took to open up my dysfunctional Eustachian tube. I opened the package and discovered what I had purchased was some sort of chewy candy. I sucked on it, disappointed, peering at the package. Two hundred and forty calories! Per piece! I spat it out in the trash and chucked the package after it. 

I refused to admit defeat. On my next weekly foray into the dangerous grocery store, masked and gloved as usual, I applied myself again to the challenge of identifying gum at the checkout line. I found some! Sugar-free, this time, spearmint flavored. That sounded good. I bought the economically priced jumbo pack, feeling rather pleased. When I got home, I peeled off the plastic, unwrapped the silver foil covering, and popped a stick into my mouth. Yum, spearmint. Weird, though, to be chewing on something that wasn't intended to be swallowed. Still, I'm not a quitter, so I chomped diligently on the wad, monitoring my ear to see if it seemed inclined to settle down.

Like a mail-in election, results were not immediately forthcoming. I tried again with another stick. Then I had lunch. About an hour before it was time to visit Mom at the nursing home, I started feeling some alarming pains in my gut. Things clenched and unclenched, as they are wont to do, I won't give you the sordid details, but I was pretty miserable standing outside my mother's window, clenching my butt cheeks while she was in her bathroom trying to unclench hers. (I am sure I have never written the word clench so many times in my life.) As I danced in agony on the pavement, I called the Med Aide on my cellphone to send help to Mom stuck in her bathroom. She got help, and ten minutes later, she collapsed exhausted on her couch. I made it home, and after another trip to my bathroom, I looked up xylitol on the Internet. I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that xylitol can cause digestive distress among some subset of the population. It's like winning the reverse lottery. 

No more gum for me. 

My sister suggested maybe I needed a dose of negative ions. I remembered that my therapeutic light box emits negative ions (according to the manufacturer), so I plugged in the box and pressed the button. The green light came on and a slightly acidic smell wafted toward my nose. Is that how a negative ion smells?  How would you know if you were receiving a dose of negative ions? I'm asking out of curiosity. I can't imagine I'd be able to differentiate a negative ion from a coronavirus, could you?

I also heard that spices can open up sinus congestion. Ears, sinuses, Eustachian tubes . . . now I really get why those Ear Nose Throat doctors cover the territory they do. It's like a miniature version of the universe, all connected. I put some hot red pepper in my tea. That produced a coughing fit, which made tea shoot out my nose. You don't see that everyday. I hope the next time I get an ear infection, I remember to reread this blog post. I'm sure I will forget.

Well, I give up. This afternoon I sit in the dark cave surrounded by votive candles lit to honor St. Eustachian, the patron saint of crackling ears. The blinds are drawn against the heat of the day. Summer is here, more or less. It's 90°F today. We'll have a few days of heat, and I hope that will help my head stop swimming. Maybe the heat will burn out the ear infection as well. If the heat doesn't work, my last resort is telemedicine. You know what that is, right? Some kind of newfangled way to talk to a healthcare professional. Stay tuned. 

Almost time to roll credits

Near the end of most romantic comedies, a moment arrives that lets you know a change has occurred. The hero has been driving all night. The montage of headlights, dotted lines, and highway signs flows into a calm sunrise to represent the hero emerging from the dark night of the soul into a new day, transformed somehow, usually by grief or remorse or chagrin. The hero realizes the answer was love all along, or moving home, or apologizing, or singing outside someone's window holding a boombox. The music swells—usually violins—as the hero crests the hill or lands at the airport or whatever and sees the ocean, or the city, or the house, or the love object. When that moment comes, you know credits will soon be rolling up your screen and you can head for the bathroom.

Lately I'm hearing that music when I drive home from my mother's nursing home. I used to call it her retirement home—an unsettling euphemism for a warehouse where old people are sent to die. Now I call it the nursing home, because as she slides deeper into dementia, she's clearly way past the retirement phase of her stay there and there's no use pretending she's going to suddenly start knitting again or playing bingo with the other old ladies.

The music isn't anything specific, usually. Usually Marketplace is on when I get into my car and turn on the radio. It's not like my drive has changed. The restaurants with their optimistic welcome back, we missed you signs look pretty much the same every day, rain or shine. A smattering of cars in their parking lots, a few aggressive drivers on the road, and the sun setting in my eyes over the mountain I live on. Same destination, nothing fancy, nothing new, just my kitchen and my computer and the bad news about the corona virus. It's more of a feeling that a change is coming. 

I visit my mother's window every evening like a hopeful peeping Tom, peering through the screen with the sun reflecting in my eyes. What I hope to see is my mother just arriving from dinner, still alert enough to visit for sixty seconds at the window before she sinks limply on the couch. Earlier this week the nurse called to say they were going to let her take her meals in the dining room. Mom wasn't into eating her meals all alone from a tray in her room. Losing weight, headed south, yada yada. The past couple days she's been more alert. If I time my visit right, I can catch her before she fades.

Yesterday I was too late and she'd already settled into the black hole. I thumbed the button on the parental baby monitor unit and said softly, "Hello Sleeping Beauty, are you awake?" 

She opened her eyes and looked at me. I moved from the screen to look through the glass and pulled my mask down so she could see my face. She gave me a childlike grin and waved. 

"Hey, Ma," I said, waving. "It's me at your window again."

She gazed at me, smiling. After a long moment, her voice came through the monitor in my hand: "There's my Carol." 

"How ya doin', Ma?" I asked, hands cupped around my eyes, trying to see through the reflection. 

"Not too bad," she said as her eyes were closing.

"Okay, I'll let you sleep," I said. "I'll see you tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow . . ." 

"Tomorrow, tomorrow," she sang back, and opened her eyes to give me our version of the high-five—the peace sign. I returned it and leaned over the waist-high bush to put my nose on the glass. I can't quite lean far enough to kiss it, and you know, cooties. I try not to think about all the bitty spiders that are jumping from the bush to the front of my jacket.

"Tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll love ya, tomorrow," I sang, off key of course, because I can't sing very well. Who cares, not me, I never see any other family members out there peering in their loved ones' windows doing their best to keep them alive by sheer force of willpower. I'm alone except for the occasional dive-bombing crested blue jay guarding a nest I suspect is in the gutter overhead. I wave goodbye, pull up my mask, and head back to my car.

She's pulling away, she's receding from me. It tears me up but I'm doing my best to be there for her. I read that our hearing is the last of our senses to leave us when we are dying. I hope that I'll be with my mother when she leaves. If I am, no matter who is listening, even if I'm bundled head to toe in PPE, I'll be singing the Happy Wanderer into her hearing aid as she goes over the crest of the hill. Roll credits, but not yet, not quite yet.

The Chronic Malcontent waits for summer

Two weeks after spending an afternoon in the ER, the maternal parental unit came out of quarantine and joined her fellow inmates in the dining room for the first time in three months. Earlier in the day, the nurse called me to tell me they were changing Mom's care plan to allow her to take her meals with other people. Mom hasn't been eating well in her room. She'd just as soon sleep as eat. Consequently she has been losing weight. 

I wasn't there to see her triumphant entrance to the dining room. I could have peered in the window but I didn't want to scare anyone. I assume all social distancing protocols were followed. When I visited Mom at her window after dinner, parental baby monitor to my ear, she said it was nice to go to the dining room but she still couldn't talk to anyone. I can only imagine what any conversation might have sounded like. Even on a good day, she doesn't always make sense. Well, who does, really. Nobody is having good days, these days.

Speaking of sense, when it comes to vertigo and ear infection, nothing makes any. I can't figure it out. I thought if I treated the vertigo, the ear rustling would cease. I studied some videos of the ear canals to see where my renegade ocotonia were vacationing. Wow, I know we studied the ear in elementary school but I'd forgotten how complex a structure it is. Amazing. And so tiny. It feels as big as the ocean when waves of vertigo sweep through my head. Who knew such a tiny contraption could reduce me to head-banging.

Three semicircular canals. Remember those? Horizontal, posterior, and anterior. Somewhere in there, maybe in more than one canal, are some wayward ear crystals dancing on nerve endings they were never supposed to see. I'm trying to think of them fondly as little dudes gone astray, enjoying a walking tour without proper permits. I'm not feeling much benevolence. It's very hard not to want to rip them out of my head like the lousy gravel that they are.

YouTube is great. People, especially chiropractors, naturopaths, and physical therapists, are so helpful, if you can endure the interminable ads. I found conflicting remedies but in desperation, I tried them all. The Deephead, the Epley, of course, my traitorous maneuver that never works, and a new one, the Barbecue Roll. I now know where my mastoid bones are, and I know what happens if you use a vibrator on them (temporary clanging bells). 

This is nuts. 

I'm trying to treat the vertigo on the theory that the ear hissing will subside, because the hissing seems to be linked to the vertigo. The hissing is rhythmic but not regular. It's as if someone is tapping you on the shoulder every five to thirty seconds, saying "Hey." More like, "He-e-e-e-e-e-e-y-y-y." For three to five seconds, a really long h-e-e-e-y. Like, hey, don't forget me, here I am, hey.

I'm a doctor's worst nightmare: the self-diagnosing patient. What did we do before WebMD? I think my Eustachian Tube needs a major overhaul. I'm ready to try the Modified Muncie, so you know how far gone I am. That's where you poke your tonsils with a finger to massage the malfunctioning Eustachian Tube opening. I'm also treating the ear infection with Valsalvas, antihistamines, nasal sprays, hot packs, ginger tea (by mouth), nasal rinses (with distilled water so I don't get amoebas in my brain), and ear lavages with alcohol and white vinegar. 

The only time I get relief is when my head is immersed in a hot tub of bathwater. These conditions are difficult to replicate sitting in front of my computer doing Zoom calls. I'm operating under the assumption that heat opens the Eustachian Tube and stops the ear rattling. Therefore, I have a new remedy in the works. It's only in the design stage so don't get too excited. It's called the Fire Turban. I don't have much hair anyway, so if something gets singed, probably my usual black hat will cover it.

I'm holding out for summer, my solution to all my problems. I've always believed summer will cure what ails me, which is why I moved to Los Angeles when I was twenty. You can imagine the rest. Usually summer starts on July 5 in Portland, but this year, summer is late, and according to the forecaster, it doesn't seem to be wafting over the horizon any time soon. Man, I need some high pressure. It's my last resort. If I don't get some relief when summer finally arrives, then I'll give up. I crawl to my doctor (virtually of course, via a telehealth appointment I'm sure will cost me $100) and I'll admit defeat. 

Next weekend is the first class of my five-week series on business tips for artists. Luckily it's on Zoom so I can keep my feet warm with my heated rice-filled foot warmers. I'm a little anxious that I will be distracted by waves of dizziness and relentless hissing in my ear. It will be hard to explain to the class if I suddenly break down weeping. Well, we either survive or we don't. Meanwhile, we are intrepid: We carry on.

Living on the edge with a notebook on my head

I'm sitting at the computer with a notebook balanced flat on my head to remind me to sit still. It's another ploy to defeat the vertigo that drives the waves that set off the crackling in my right ear. Apparently I move my head around a lot and that upsets the ear crystals. It's harder than you might think to stay perfectly upright. Plus it hurts when the notebook slides off my head and hits my hands. As a preteen, I used to mince across the bedroom with a book perched on my head. (It's what girls did in the early 1960s before they got the message that love was free and didn't require poise.) This is not that. Maybe a neck brace would be better. However, I don't happen to have one, and I know from experience, wrapping a long scarf tightly around my neck is not an ideal solution.

Speaking of breathing, yesterday I went for a walk in the park after visiting my sleeping mother. I've avoided the park, mostly, because I want to avoid people. But I'm tired of wandering the neighborhood. I wanted to see my reservoir. I donned my plaid mask like a good citizen, jammed in my mp3 player's ear buds, and hiked into the park. I saw dozens of people, and not one was wearing a mask. Maybe they all feel invincible in the outdoor air? Maybe I'm the overly cautious canary?

Amazingly, no one was on the trail through the trees. I had the 87°F shade all to myself. Early summer is a luscious green season here in Portland. I came down the hill above the tennis courts and saw all three courts occupied with players. No masks, but some nice social distancing going on, okay (nods in approval). When I came out into the sun by the big reservoir, I saw a some people strolling, a few running, but fewer than I had anticipated. I saw not one wearing a mask.

Excuse me, time out while I remove my suddenly chirping smoke detector from the ceiling. I may have ear troubles but I'm not deaf. Oh darn, I don't have a replacement battery. I guess for a few days I'll be living on the edge. Oh well, aren't we all. Hold on while I put the notebook back on my head. There.

Where was I? Oh yeah, walking around the reservoir, contemplating the nature of virus particles. How many times have you passed someone on the street or in the hallway and held your breath so you didn't inhale their perfume? Or their body odor, halitosis, farts, whatever cloud they left in their wake? Come on, you probably do it instinctively. It's a social-dissociative mannerism adopted to help us maintain our personal bubble and the illusion of safety. 

I did the same in the park yesterday. I passed a chubby shirtless tanned man walking his bicycle. I passed a man and woman, obviously a couple, who walked shoulder to shoulder. I passed two young women walking while looking at their phones, ignoring the beautiful reservoir mere feet away. I passed several people walking dogs, singly and in small family groups. After I passed each person or group, I held my breath to avoid inhaling their perfume plumes, covid clouds, and fart mists. 

I walked three times around instead of my usual four because it was getting dark and the wind had kicked up. Low pressure was moving in. I could tell because my vertigo was cranking up. I think I'm going to start a local weather blog. Are you interested in checking the weather in a small region, say, a ten foot diameter circle around me? Great. I'll just access my right ear. Currently, the weather around me is medium crappy. That means, it's not raining, but it's not sunny, either. It's medium crappy. I think tomorrow high pressure will build in and the hiss in my ear will lessen. 

Wow, holding your neck in one position is really hard on the back. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be helping much with the vertigo waves, either. So much for that remedy. My best option is still to immerse my head in a hot tub of water. It's very difficult to do that outside the tub, though. I've tried. Big mess.

Mom sleeps most of the time, less like a napping cat and more like a soon-to-be dead person. When I visit in the evening, she is always sprawled loosely on her couch. Sometimes her mouth is open. Sometimes she twitches. Once she took her life-alert pendant and wrapped the ribbon around her hand quite neatly without opening her eyes. A few times lately, her TV has been on. Last night someone had turned on her air conditioner. 

I talk into the baby monitor: Hi Mom, howdy, Mom, Mom, Mom, wake up, Mom, it's me at the window, look, Mom, it's me. I watch and wait. I try again. Wake up, Sleeping Beauty, Mom, Ma, Ma, Mommy, wake up. Sometimes she'll twitch. Rarely does she open her eyes. Sometimes I sing, but I don't yell. It seems cruel to make her wake up just to entertain me. If I were her, I would prefer to sleep through to the end. I stand at the window, a morose peeping tom, and watch her chest rise and fall. Proof of life.

I cut my mother's hair in the emergency room

On Wednesday morning the light inside my refrigerator burned out with a pop at 6:30 am when I opened the door. Not a good sign, I thought. I was up early, getting ready to cook my breakfast and dash over to the retirement place to pick up my mother and take her to the dermatologist. After several postponements, the day had finally arrived to have the Mohs surgery on her cheek. 

The clinic had previously informed me it could be a day-long ordeal. Accordingly, I packed three bags of gear. One big bag held a pillow and a fleece blanket so she could sleep in between rounds, and a neck pillow for me in case I was lucky enough to catch a snooze leaning back against a wall. The food bag was crammed with Cheerios, almond milk, a dish, a spoon, napkins, coffee in a thermos, two water bottles, and some paper towels. The personal hygiene bag was jammed with a towel, two washcloths, some baby wipes, what few remaining disposable gloves I have left from previous gleanings from the nursing home, a pair of my old cotton knit pants, a pair of socks, and my hair-trimming scissors. I had Chinese food for us both for our lunch: veggie lo mein for me and cashew chicken for her. The only thing I was missing, and possibly the most important thing, were the six pairs of pull-ups. Those, if all went according to plan, would be in the bag I would receive from the nursing home when I arrived to pick up the star of the show, my mother.

I was prepared for eight hours of hell, and it seemed like I might get it. Despite an assist from my brother and his wife, the day didn't start out well. The guardian at the door almost didn't let me into the building to be with her. Once we got up the elevator, I saw the waiting room was roped off, inaccessible. No visitors allowed. I explained to them the incontinence situation. No more needed to be said. They welcomed me in and made room for my four bulging grocery bags. Next, we spent ten minutes cleaning her up in the bathroom. I mean, I spent ten minutes cleaning her up. She wasn't much help, but she did her part: She pooped on command, and that rarely happens. 

After leaving a toxic waste dump in their garbage can (I had the pull-ups but no plastic bags, argh), I'm happy to report: smooth sailing! No more bathroom breaks, no agitation, no complaints . . . and Mom was really calm, too. The skinny young skin doc knew her stuff, wielding that gleaming scalpel with a sure and steady hand. I felt blessed by the skin cancer gods that we got out of there in less than three hours. Miracle! You know how sometimes you prepare and you make all the proper sacrifices and promise to be good if only things will finally go your way . . . and then things do, and you wonder, did I over-prepare? Did I worry needlessly? Was all that existential angst wasted? I'm here to tell you, burning sage and compulsively texting your sponsors really does work! Who knew! 

Mom got sliced, diced, punctured, stitched, packed, reamed, steamed, dry-cleaned, and bandaged. In between rounds, she ate a bowl of Cheerios with good cheer and didn't twitch when the doctor came back to take a little more skin. Everything happened so fast, we didn't have time for me to give her a haircut. She barely had time to finish her cereal. The assistant warned me she would have a shiner tomorrow. Mom grinned. Sporting an enormous bandage from forehead to nose, Mom walked out of there with a swagger, well, almost a swagger, more like a little sashay, and made it easily to the car. 

As I buckled her in, I wondered if I should keep her for a while longer. Who knows when I would get to see her in person again? For the first time in three months, I was able to touch my mother. We sat shoulder to shoulder in my Ford Focus, breathing the same air. (I wore a mask; she let hers dangle below her chin.) Her hair was still falling in her eyes, darn it. Well, maybe they could give her some hair gel or something at the place. I figured it would be best to take her home in time for lunch. I buckled up her seat belt and pointed out the new buildings to her as we drove the streets she used to drive so nonchalantly barely more than five years ago.

At the nursing home, they welcomed her back like family, which she is, really, if you think about it: they see her more than I do. She was sleeping when I visited in the evening. The next day the house call doctor visited her to see how she was doing. I met him in the parking lot after his visit. Blood pressure good, more confusion, but that is to be expected, all in all, thumbs up. Right on, Mom.

This morning I get a call from the nursing home: She won't wake up. They are sending her to Providence ER. I drive to Providence ER. No mom. Lost in transit, it seems. Done a bunk? Gone fishing? No, they took her to Adventist ER, three blocks from her nursing home. In case you are wondering, even in a pandemic when everyone is supposed to be staying home, it takes twenty-three minutes to drive five miles in SE Portland. As I'm driving, I'm thinking, what if she died and I missed it because I was at the wrong ER? Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

I arrived. I passed the temperature check, got my hall pass, and found her alert and talking in a cubicle in the ER. I was late. The doctor had come and gone. The nurse told me a few things. Pretty soon, the CT scan tech whisked her away. Ten minutes later, she was back. As soon as she was layered with heated blankets, she went to sleep. I thought, should she be sleeping? Then I thought, if she's dying, she'd probably rather sleep through it. The bandage was gone from her cheek. I could see the oozy stitches. She looked like she'd gone ten rounds in the ring.

She woke up after a while, yelling for a bed pan. The feisty mother was back. As we waited for the test results, I did everything I could think of to keep her entertained. I turned on the television. I showed her photos on my phone, look there a kitty, look there's another kitty, there's a duck on the reservoir. Every five minutes: "When can I get out of here?" I was exhausted and she was just revving up. I don't know how parents do it. In my defense, I was extremely hungry and thirsty and needed a bathroom.

"Why are you wearing all black?" Mom asked me. "Do you think it will keep away the . . . ?"

"The virus?" 

"Yeah, the virus."

"If only it were that easy," I said, and the nurse laughed. "We'd all be dressing like Johnny Cash!"

"I'm trying to remember what happened," Mom said after the nurse left. 

"This morning?"

"Yeah, and when I went to the eye doctor."

"You mean the skin doctor?"

She pointed to her eye. "That thing."

"They took that sore off your cheek."

"I tried to tell them to leave me alone."

"This morning?"

"Yeah. I could hear them. And then they were putting me on the stretcher."

"They couldn't get you to wake up. You were half-awake and half-asleep, sounds like."

She pointed her finger at me. "Bingo."

"Hey, let me cut your hair," I said, grabbing a pair of bandage scissors that were next to the sink. She didn't protest, so I leaned in and started whacking off hunks of wiry gray hair. She laughed. I couldn't do much but the front and sides, but she didn't look too bad after a few careless chops, considering I don't know how to cut hair. We left some hair on the pillow. Oh well. Something to remember us by.

Four hours after she arrived, the ER doctor came in and said he didn't know what had happened. All the tests were fine, and she was free to go. I signed the paperwork. I helped her get dressed, and the nurse took out the IV in her arm. In that order. I wheeled her outside, brought my car around, buckled her in, and drove the three blocks to the nursing home. They met her at the door with big smiles. Someone brought her walker and helped her totter inside. I naturally was not allowed in the building. Unclean. No time to say good-bye. I drove toward home, thinking of breakfast. My phone rang as I was halfway home. 

"Did she have any paperwork?"

I drove back and gave the paperwork to the nurse. 

Tonight I drove back over there, because that is my commitment to my mother, no matter what. She was asleep on the couch, as usual. I could hear her breathing through the baby monitor. I peered at her from outside her window for a few minutes, thinking how lucky I was to see her in person twice in one week. Maybe those crystals really do work. 

What to do about vertigo and ear crackling

If you clicked on this link in the desperate hope of finding a solution to the ear crackling torture that is keeping you awake at night, you've come to the right place. If you didn't, skip the next few paragraphs. Let me just get this out of the way for all you folks who are on the verge of shoving a pencil in your ears to get some peace and quiet. 

Here's what I discovered today after a week of hell. First, I assume you have vertigo. As you know, vertigo is the result of ear crystals shaking loose and wandering into parts of your ear canal where they don't belong. The antics of those wayward crystals will really make you appreciate that there is fluid in your ears. You will feel actual waves rolling through your head. If you happen to have vertigo and then are unfortunate enough to get an ear infection, which happens to me sometimes in spring allergy season, that infection can cause ear crackling. Guess what I discovered today: The ear crackling responds to the waves of fluid you feel moving in your head when you have vertigo. Treat the vertigo, and you treat the ear crackling. There. Go do the Epley Maneuver on your head and feel better. You are welcome.

Here's my backstory, thanks for asking. Again, skip ahead if you've heard all this before. I've had garden variety vertigo for about six years, I believe from bumping my head on the door jamb of my mother's old green Toyota. Some time after I first got the vertigo, I started hearing a loud crackling noise in my right ear. I thought the noise was related to the vertigo but I couldn't find any information on it. Novice that I was to the off-balance experience, I freaked and went to an ENT, who couldn't hear the noise and clearly thought I was mental. He put me in the gravity chair, whirled me around, and sent me on my way with a recommendation to take antihistamines and stop whining. After a few months of misery, summer came, the ear infection cleared up, and the ear crackling finally went away. The vertigo has remained. We have a truce.

Say, is it okay to resume my self-obsession? I forgot to ask. I'm not qualified to write about anything but myself, and even that is iffy. If you are hoping for an essay on current events, sorry, I've resumed my normal position, that is, with my attention laser-focused on my own parched existence.

Back to my story. A week ago my right ear began to spit and hiss and soon was crackling merrily like a New Year's Eve noisemaker. Zzzz, zzzz, zzzz. I could get it to go faster by leaning my head forward or backward but the only way I could get it to stop completely was by immersing my head in a tub of hot bathwater, which I always do before bed. I mean, I immerse my whole body, not just my head, that is to say, I take a bath. It helps me sleep. So for a few blessed minutes, the ear crackling stops and I enjoy pure silence, except for the unnerving sound of my erratically beating heart (am I having a heart attack? what is my heart doing? If I'm having a heart attack, I'd rather not hear it, please). Each night, grateful for the quiet in my right ear, I have survived my fear of a heart attack. Inevitably, though, I have to get out of the tub. As soon as I lay down in bed, the crackling cranks up. With all that racket, it's almost impossible to sleep.

I have tried everything I can think of, like I said in my previous post, short of sacrificing a chicken. Here are the remedies I have tried in addition to the hot bath head immersion: sipping warm coffee, sipping warm tea, leaning to one side, leaning forward and backward, blowing my nose, popping my ears, leaning over a pan of boiling water with a towel over my head, jumping repeatedly in one place, taking an allergy pill, spraying two kinds of nasal spray in my right nostril, rinsing my nose with the neti pot, squirting an earwax removal remedy in my ear, wrapping a scarf around my head with a hot pack of microwaved rice strapped against my right ear, eating hot soup, eating hot oatmeal, pouring a mix of alcohol and white vinegar in my ear, putting a vibrator my head, and banging my head on a pillow.  

Today I did a little reflection. You know I'm an analytical kind of gal, or if you don't know that about me, now you do. I thought, this ear crackling can't be a random diss from the universe. What could account for the way the crackling crackles? Sometimes it's a fast sequence of pops, like the noisemaker. Other times it pops and hisses and spits with more space in between. I can get it to speed up and change tone by bending over, so it seems gravity affects the crackling. Why does it stop when my head is immersed in hot water? There is some kind of rhythm at work here, but it isn't affected by my heart rate or breathing. 

Finally it dawned on me. It's the vertigo. The waves of vertigo that I hardly pay attention to anymore are crashing through my head and setting off the crackling. Once that theory occurred to me, it wasn't hard to start paying attention to the vertigo, and sure enough, they were related. Like waves crashing on the shore, only in this case, crackling on the shore.

I immediately performed the Epley on my right ear and enjoyed fifteen minutes of silence. It was a miracle. Maybe there is a god. It didn't last, but my good mood did. Now I know this annoying noise is not random. It's not personal. It's not me winning the reverse lottery. It has a rational cause.

Vertigo for me is affected by gravity, movement, low air pressure, temperature, and stress. All those things are working on me in the spring. Gravity and movement, check. I can't avoid gravity, and I rarely stop moving, even at night. I'm up and down several times depending on how much tea I've had. So, yep, gravity and movement. Let's see. We had a tornado yesterday so air pressure is definitely a factor. Plus, our temperature is ten degrees below normal for this time of year. So that leaves stress. Am I stressed? I have discovered that I vibrate when I'm on the phone. Who knew. Now I know. Vibration sets off ear waves, which cranks up the crackling and makes me completely insane. So maybe I am mental. Huh.

On Wednesday if all goes according to plan, I'm taking the maternal parental unit to the dermatologist to get her face scraped and repaired. It's an all-day ordeal. I'm bringing everything. Literally.

I can't help remembering taking my senior cat to get his ears cleaned. Two days later he was dead. Mothers aren't cats, I know, but we love them both the same.

Exit-seeking, stage right

These days it seems as if the only words I find are platitudes: When it rains it pours. Well, it's either feast or famine. Well, you know, if it's not this, it would be something else. Sometimes you are the windshield . . . har, har, har. So far in 2020, I'm definitely not the windshield. I thought I'd melt from sadness when my cat died in January. Then along came the Covid, followed by the protests. Big stuff, hard stuff. Now guess who's back? My vertigo. And along with the vertigo, an unwelcome pest I had hoped never to hear again—the incessant ear clicking. The jack hammer in my head is going at it like flash bang grenades down at the Justice Center. I'm currently seeking the nearest exit, which right now is looking like a sharp pencil in my right ear. 

Yesterday I visited Mom as usual, lurking outside her apartment window in the azalea bush, waving at her and holding up signs. It's plenty warm enough to have the window open, but last week I got read the riot act by the Med Aide on duty. The window was open one inch but even standing at the window, Mom couldn't hear me. I pulled my mask down so she could see my lips. “Did you have some ice cream?” I called. At that moment, the Med Aide came in the room.

“No more open window!” she shouted, hustling over to my mother.

“Where are her hearing aids?” I yelled back. “She wants ice cream!”

The Med Aide looked around in confusion and found them. “Oh, the caregiver must have forgotten to put them back after her shower.” She sat Mom down on the couch and inserted the hearing aids into Mom's ears. She stood up to leave.

 I yelled, “Close the window! And get some ice cream!”

So yesterday evening, I visited Mom as usual and brought my little sketchpad of prepared signs and a felt-tipped Sharpie in case I needed to write some more. She came to the window to open it. I held up a sign explaining that we can't open the window because we are trying to keep all the old folks safe from germs. She shrugged. Who cares. She lost interest and went back to sit on the couch. Her dinner looked barely touched. I yelled, “I love you!” through the window. She gave me two peace signs, and I left.

Shortly after I got home, my phone rang in the special tone: Trouble. Oh dear, I thought. Did she fall? Did she crack her head open? Is she dead? Is this over?

“Today your mother went out the front door.” Same Med Aide.

“Uh-oh,” I said, thinking, right on, Ma.

“Yeah, she was very angry and combative. And she didn't have her walker. She made it outside but one of the staff was outside walking with another resident. She stopped your mother and brought her back inside.”

This news was a blow but not a surprise. A few nights ago, the nurse had told me, Mom was up early in the morning, making a run for the front door. Mom said she had to go home. My sister is my witness. We were video chatting when the nurse called. 

Looks like I'm not the only one looking for a way out. Poor old Ma. My next thought: poor old me. 

We come up with remedies to cope with our problems. To remedy the Geiger counter in my ear, I'm just about ready to call the witch doctor and sacrifice a chicken. I've tried everything short of personally performing aural surgery with a sharp stick. For a few minutes, usually after eating, the clicks fade and diminish. I don't know if that means the ear infection is easing or if I'm going deaf in my right ear or if I should just keep eating and never stop. At this point, I don't care. I'd do just about anything to keep the blessed silence. 

In Mom's case, the remedies are lame, because the underlying problem is she is going to die. There's no solution to that problem. We redirect. We cajole. Well, we don't actually do anything, because we don't get to see her anymore except from outside her window, like she's a fish in a tank. The care staff at the nursing home are her family now. They know her better than I do. I see her for two minutes every evening. I don't see her in the middle of the night bolting for the front door, yelling that she has to go home.

All we can do is agree to put a Lo-Jack on her and let her go down swinging. 

Covering one mask with another

Every now and then I get a Facebook friend request from someone who knows someone I know. I check out their profile, and if they seem interesting, I will accept their request. It's like putting your hand in a grab bag. Do you remember grab bags? We had them at school fairs when I was a kid. You pay for the privilege of jamming your hand into a bag of supposed goodies. You feel around among the wrapped objects and make your choice, hoping you chose the treasure and not the trash. I have yet to find treasure on Facebook, but the good news is, I can always unfriend the person after I see their true colors.

Today I accepted a friend request from a man (I presume he is a man, gosh, you can't tell from photos, can you?). A FB friend of a FB friend who is the brother of someone I went to high school with. That should be okay, right? I clicked accept and forgot about it. An hour later, a message popped up on my computer alerts.

"Hello, how are you doing?"

Oh, boy. Here we go. The last time I corresponded with a FB "friend," he tried to sell me insurance. Today, I'm bored and looking for some distraction. I have to take my entertainment where I can find it in the new age of COVID. I limber up my chit-chat fingers.

"Great, how are you? Why did you want to be FB friends with me?" I believe in the direct approach.

I wait and pretty soon the little dancing dots start burbling. And burbling. Either we have a slow connection or this person is a very slow typist.

While I'm waiting, I have some time to ponder the new world of grocery shopping in a pandemic. Yesterday I ventured out for my weekly foray to the store. As usual, I brought a cloth mask and a pair of purple gloves (meant to be disposable, but I'm recycling them with soap and water.) I carefully donned mask and gloves before grabbing my shopping bags (yes, they are plastic, and I bag my own groceries, so back off) and headed into the store, vigilantly maintaining distance and avoiding eye contact. I'm still a little anxious, but not as anxious as I was a few weeks ago. I'm starting to get the hang of it. Although I always forget to wipe down my plastic shopping bags, darn it. Well, whatever. Good news: I'm still alive, so whatever I'm doing (or not doing) must be working. It's hard to know, though, because my two-week-old actions might kill me tomorrow.

Eventually another message pops up on the FB messenger feed. My new FB friend has finally finished typing his missive.

"Well, you were among my suggested friends and I decided to add you up, sure you are not at me?"

I have to read the message a couple times to parse the bad grammar. Add me up, yeah, okay, I get that. Sure you are not at me? Hmm. Let me dodge around that hole in the sidewalk.

I write, "You are FB friends with [So-and-So], brother of [Other Guy], who I went to high school with many years ago. Are you a local person?" See what I'm doing there? First, I ignored his plaintive inquiry about me being mad at him. Don't really care about his codependency issues. Instead, I mention our shared connection (to build good will) and then I add the all-important words—many years ago—that signal I'm old and why are you wasting your time talking to me? Then I click send and sit back to wait, thinking about masks both actual and virtual.

As an older white woman, I'm used to being mostly invisible wherever I go. Wearing a face mask escalates my invisibility to a new transparency. People see my shopping cart, but I think they wonder, how is that shopping cart going by itself? I'm not sure, though, because I don't make eye contact.

Have you noticed: Avoiding eye contact is a thing now that so many people are wearing masks. On my morose days, it's always been my default mode to avoid eye contact. Making eye contact is excruciating sometimes. Now it's totally de rigeur to let my eyes skitter away, to glance at people sideways so I can take evasive action if they seem to be lingering near me or blocking my path. It's as if now that I can't see mouths and noses, I can't see eyes. And even better, they can't see me at all! I'm completely not there!

As I was cruising along the aisle hoping to score some facial tissue (allergy season continues to progress at roughly a box a week), I realized I felt more relaxed than usual. Invisibility means it doesn't matter what my face looks like. My expression was neutral under my mask. I wasn't walking around with an inane smile that I hoped said I'm harmless, please don't kill me. Nobody could see my mouth! It didn't matter if I smiled or not. Oh, the relief, I must tell you. I felt ten feet tall as I muscled my cart past the picnic supplies to the paper goods. Who cares if I can only buy one box. I'll sneak an extra box into Mom's order. That will make up for the loaf of gluten-free bread-like substance I bought her last week. No more slinking along the edges of the aisles, making room, grinning like a fool, giving way, hoping people won't be offended by my . . . oh, I don't know, you name it, my weirdness, my fatness, my whiteness, my obviously healthy diet of vegetables (just look in my cart).

Ding! My new FB friend responds, "Not really, we are just friends quite a while now. Where are you? Sure you're not mad at em?"

Seriously? Should I cut this guy loose or keep going? Anyone who can't write a grammatically correct message in FB messenger will never become a close friend of mine. Just saying. Politically incorrect, maybe, but grammatically incorrect, never. Still, I keep going.

I write, "Portland. What are you asking? I'm not understanding you, are you asking if I am mad at you?" I click send and sit back again.

A few nights ago, I went walking after I returned from my two-minute visit outside my mother's window at the nursing home. Spring is here, but warm weather isn't yet. It's good to get outside. I don't bother going into the park anymore, though—too many people. I wander up and down the hills in the neighborhood, crossing streets to avoid fellow wanderers. I guess I'm not totally invisible when I'm out on the streets. I admit, I feel just a twinge of rejection when the party coming toward me crosses to the other side of the street before I do. Like, darn, they rejected me before I could reject them.

Ding! There he is again: "About sending you a request. I'm from Austin Texas but presently in Copenhagen Denmark."

Wow! Copenhagen. That could be an interesting discussion topic. Later, it occurred to me to wonder what time it was in Denmark. Nine hours ahead, right? So about 2:00 a.m.? Insert heavy sigh here. Drunk? Sleepless? Up all night coughing with COVID?

"Why would I be mad?" I respond. "I didn't have to accept. I like [So-and-So] so I thought I might like you. Are you going to try to sell me something?" Might as well get it out in the open now. Insert long pause here. FB messages take a while to cross an ocean and several time zones.

His message appears: "No I'm not. I'm an independent rig engineer working with [Company Name] and also a teacher to the trainee down here." [Pause, new message] "What's your profession?"

Oh, darn. I should make up something really cool, like, underwater photographer or retired botanist. Penguin manager. Bluegrass fiddler. I'm not much of a fibber. Or a fiddler. I can't help but tell the truth, but not all the truth, of course, just the part of the truth that might make me seem really cool.

I write, "I'm an author and an artist." Then in the same message, I immediately deflect. If he is really interested in what I do, he'll pursue it. Meanwhile, I shove the focus back in his direction. I add, "What is Copenhagen like?"

After some moments, he writes, "Pretty, good entertainment, and beautiful morning when the sunrise."

"Is it cold there in the spring?" I know, dumb question. It's a conversational gambit to assess the willingness of the other party to be forthcoming. To bridge the gap. To extend the branch. You could do so much with that, really, if you think about it. Like, what is cold, in your opinion, and how cold is it, and do they have spring there, and what does one wear in the spring in Copenhagen?

"Yes it is."

Right. Okay. I guess I wouldn't be all that coherent at 2:00 a.m. either. Waxing poetic about spring in Copenhagen is clearly not something you can easily do in the middle of the night. Time to wrap this up.

I write, "Okay. I'm going back to work now. Thanks for the interesting chat. Stay warm, stay safe. Bye for now."

Might as well leave it on a pleasant note. I will probably unfriend him when I get home later. Then again, maybe not. In this strange new world, you can't have too many friends.

Looking for the new normal

Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive, stayin' alive. Sing it with me. Come on, Blobgots, I mean Blogbots, you know you want to, let me hear you bellow it out from your Zoom rooms. All you tiny squares, you. Dance too, if you feel like it, because I guarantee you, few of us are watching. It's too hard to see you against all your household detritus. You might consider noticing all the knick-knacks and gewgaws on the shelves behind you. Because we are. Oh, and please, some of you should dust off that ceiling fan, because that is all we can see of you when you Zoom on your smartphone.

I Zoom in front of a black curtain, because, well, you know, it's basically curtains for the human species from here on out. I don't know about you, but I am finding out a pandemic definitely complicates the chore of living. Everything seems more difficult. Maybe because everything is. I deserve a medal for just getting out of bed.

Being stuck at home means I'm excruciatingly aware of my physical presence in relation to the outside world. Did I bring the virus home with me today from the grocery store? Are my surfaces clean? Did something come in on my shoes, besides the usual bird poop and pollen? Did I scoop some of the virus into my lungs this week? Is this violent set of ten sneezes from breathing in birch tree pollen or COVID19? Did I transmit a tiny bit of virus to my mother's hearing aids, even though I wore a mask and gloves and sat outside the nursing home on a hard wooden bench when I swapped out the batteries last Sunday?

This stupid virus has made me ultra-conscious of my body. I'm experiencing corporeal disintegration  in real time. I can't point to any specific injury or illness. Rather, I'm riding a slow decline. The changes I see and feel are so gradual, I hardly notice them, until suddenly I realize it hurts to stand up, it hurts to bend over, it hurts to stretch, it hurts to breathe. Every damn thing hurts but not enough to take a pill and not enough to conclude it's the end. It's so odd to witness my activities become more and more constrained, like I'm standing outside myself watching the erosion of a shaky earthen dam. Do I try to patch the holes? What would that look like? People much older than I am push back against age. I doubt if I'm one of them. One marathon was enough for me.

Life as I knew it ended in January when my cat died. Already reeling from shock, it didn't really feel much more shocking when the virus came to town. First my cat, and then the pandemic. My response was, right, that makes sense. Total catastrophe is the only logical outcome. Finally, the chronic malcontent is vindicated. Since COVID19, it seems as if the world has joined me in my grief. My sadness is magnified a thousand fold everywhere I look. Even the stories of heroes, supposed to be uplifting, make me weep with despair. Nothing will ever be the same, not for me, not for any of us. I'm grieving a loss of innocence—I guess it is the illusion that the world was safe, that I was in control of my life, that I could predict what would happen next.

For some reason, I woke up the other night at exactly 3:45 a.m. and saw the final super moon of the year at its apogee, blazing brighter than a streetlight through the trees over the shoulder of the mountain. During the four-hour lull when the buses stop running, nights are dead silent up here on the hill. It's so loud I can hardly think. I am both alive and dead, like Schrodinger's cat, hunkered in a box originally of my own making but perpetuated by obligation, circumstance, and COVID19. I can't fully live until the maternal parental unit dies. But once she's gone, the box is open. I'm set free (assuming I outlast her), but the price is her death. And where would I go, how would I move, in a pandemic?

She's having a harder time getting up from her couch to visit me at the window. She shifts her fanny , then leans forward until she's got both hands flat on her coffee table. Slowly she gets her feet under her. I say, “Use your walker!” She pretends not to hear me. Bent at ninety degrees, she shuffles toward the window by hanging onto to her coffee table, then along the top of her flat-screen TV (pausing to read the sticky note I put there many months ago: Turn the TV on and off here, with an arrow pointing to the button), and finally, reaching the window. Clutching the window sill, she straightens up to look at me and smiles. She knows me. I'm never sure, until she smiles.

I remember when she used to walk me to the back door and we sang She'll be coming round the mountain together, me the thready alto, her the raspy tenor. The past two nights, she hasn't felt inclined to come to the window. I don't know if two data points make a pattern. Maybe we have a new normal. Every damn day is a new normal. After a while, normal ceases to have any meaning.

Manifesting introversion

The world has gone mad. Blogger has zeroed out all my view counts. It's official. I have ceased to exist. I always suspected I wasn't real. Now I know. All sound and fury, signifying a failed attempt to garner attention. Clearly, no one cares. I guess we all have better things to do with our time now, right? Like worry about our unkempt hair. I have to laugh when I see shaggy-headed women carrying placards reading Open up the country. I need a haircut. Poor dears. It's moments like these I am grateful I am so self-contained. Not only to I do my own nails but I also do my own hair. I have the photos to prove it.

There's only one thing I want and I can't have it, so as a second choice, I have decided to see if I can practice my visualization technique to manifest something. I'm willing to start small. Manifesting stuff hasn't really worked before but I'm feeling lucky. Today, I would like to manifest some glow-in-the-dark paint. I'm not sure why, exactly. I just think it might be entertaining to have arrows to guide me around my dark apartment at night when I am wandering with insomnia.

I often wake up thinking about my mother. Usually I have a playlist running in my head, whatever I listened to before taking my nightly bath and going to bed. Last night I watched a YouTube video of the life of Cher so I woke up humming If I could turn back time. I'm not a big Cher fan; as a former fashionista, I was more focused on Bob Mackie. Still, that song seems like a good theme for an insomniac during a pandemic.

The news is not all bad. I'm heartened to see images of wild animals taking over empty roads, city streets, and yards, raiding refrigerators and busting into cars. Right on! I read that birds are altering their songs now that the world is quieter. I saw video of jellyfish in a Venetian canal. If we humans all just go away, the world will be fine. I'm willing to consider going away.

Then again, half the population would be delighted to kill off everyone over sixty. I reconsider my willingness to consider going away. I won't go willingly, I just decided. You'll have to take me out back and shoot me.

I did my part to tickle the economy by replenishing some footwear I have needed for several years. I didn't want to buy from the big mean online megastore so I bought from a different online megastore I hoped was less mean. How can you tell? I heard some American brands aren't paying their overseas contractors. This is not a good time to be poor. Hmm. Is there ever a good time, I wonder? Before I clicked the button, I gave some thought to the plight of the workers who would pick and wrap my package and the delivery driver who would drop the box on my porch, pound on the door, and run. Then I clicked the button. I could almost hear the funds draining out of my bank account into the pockets of the big online megastore.

I wonder how much my insurance rates would go up if I decided to become a delivery driver? Several months ago, I applied to be a Census taker, just for the experience. That so far has tanked; for me, I think that ship sailed over the edge of the earth. I could probably be a candidate for contact tracing training. You know, calling people to ask them where they went and who they talked to before they got sick. Ugh. Yeah, probably delivering footwear would be a better fit for me. I don't really like people up close, and I really dislike them on the phone.

Speaking of phones and people, I video chatted twice today, once with a friend and an hour later with my sister. I told my friend I thought that over the next several years, families with children (and resources, of course) would start migrating out of cities into rural farmland, seeking safety, space, and sustenance from the land. My friend listened thoughtfully and said, wow. We discussed the possibility that red counties could start turning purple. In contrast, my sister said she didn't think that would ever happen. I get the feeling she doesn't like to think about the possibilities of large cultural change. I mentioned my belief that we'd soon have robots doing personal care. She rolled her eyes. (Don't you love video chat?) I didn't tell her my other predictions about how children will learn to distrust people from outside their family tribe, or how there will likely be less personal privacy, or how new houses will be built with self-contained quarantine units.

I admit, I don't like change either. I'm still pissed off that all the hair on my legs has migrated to my eyebrows, nostrils, and upper lip. But like I said last time, what is fair to the cat is not always fair to the mouse. Or the other cat.

An acquaintance who works in the alternative wellness industry called me last week. As we were talking, I coughed. A short dry cough. Twice. Sounding alarmed, she asked me if I was sick. I said no, I just have allergies. Later in the conversation, I told her that I would be disinclined to sit in a small meeting room with a group of people anytime in the near future. Sounding amazed, she asked me why. I said because I would feel bad if I unknowingly spread the virus to someone in the group and they got sick or died. She had no response. I chalked it up to her youth.

Since then, I have asked several people how comfortable they would be going back to the old way of gathering in groups. Even my older friends are itching to hug their friends. I seem to be the only one reluctant. I guess in my case, introversion is sort of like a disease. Too bad it's not contagious. It could save your life.

What's fair to the cat

It's a great time to be a microbe. Seven billion humans on the planet means lots of moist juicy lungs to explore, conveniently crowded into densely populated cities. All you can eat, always open, never closed! It's spring break on the beach for COVID-19. The umbrella in the drink is humans' confounded propensity to move from place to place even when told to stay put—free mass transit, bring your family! Over eons, microbes always win the day, mostly by stealthily being too tiny for humans to see. However, humans are crafty, too, so I wouldn't count us out just yet.

It's hard for one person to eradicate the invisible. Just because I can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there, lurking on my doorknobs, infesting my gear shift, congregating on my gaudy tatty plastic shopping bags. I should invent a bug bomb for humans, like we have for buildings. Just zip yourself into this here plastic body bag, hold your breath for a minute or so, and (if you don't suffocate), you will emerge sparkling clean, disinfected of every germ, even the ones you need, whoops. Well, I'll let you know when I have a working prototype. Maybe it shouldn't look like a body bag. The images I'm seeing daily on the news would probably not do much to boost sales. 

This pandemic is a slow-moving tornado, scouring the entire world. All we need now are a few real tornadoes to really put paid to the futility of human existence. The terrible choice is to find shelter together or die alone. Maybe more like, die now or die later. What are we surviving for? Does it matter? The U.S. economy is bleeding commerce, cash, workers, and customers . . . seeing a tornado kick a dead carcass isn't exactly a top headline. I hope no one dies, but well, like I said, die now or die later. 

Just a few long months ago, I used to drive the back road to my mother's nursing home. As I drove, I often said to myself, someday I won't have to do this anymore. I won't park under this tree. I won't stroll to the back door and enter the code. I won't stride along the hallway past the dining room, greeting the same people everyday heading painstakingly back to their rooms. I won't stop and check my mother's mailbox. I won't enter her room, saying howdy, howdy, Slacker if she's sacked out on her couch. I used to think, someday all this will be in my rear view mirror, a blur blending with all the other actions I've repeatedly taken and then suddenly stopped. Jobs. Schools. Relationships. The habit of participation seems forever engraved in my behavior until suddenly it's not. I'm amazed at how quickly I can let those old “habits” go, yet how stubbornly my compulsions live on.  

I expected my nightly ritual would end when my mother died. I did not anticipate that the ritual would end because of a pandemic. Now my ritual has shifted. Now I park in front, in the near-empty parking lot. I put on a mask. I gather a few items into my pocket and head past the front door, along the side of the building to my mother's window, where I peer into the gloom. I want to say, this is so unfair (to me). Then I remember, what's fair to the cat is not fair to the mouse. Right now, I'm the mouse. I have the whiskers to prove it.

She's always on the couch. Sometimes she's sitting up, eating her dinner or watching TV. Sometimes she's stretched out under her blue plaid blanket, eyes slitted, mouth open. When I tap on the window, she jerks to awareness like a wind-up doll. In slow motion, she gets to her feet, bent over at a right angle, and totters to the window, holding onto the coffee table, then the arm of the couch, then the top of the TV (I know!), and then the windowsill. She's a fall risk, a disaster waiting to happen. But aren't we all, these days.

The spring weather means her window is ajar just an inch, enough for her to hear my voice if the TV is not too loud. Some days, she doesn't seem inclined to engage. Other days, she's alert and talkative. I don't know why. I show her whatever little photo I have brought to add to her window collage. I tape it into an empty space. So far the one she seems to like best is an old photo of her as a child with her older brother and their dog, Tippy. She didn't mention her brother, but she murmured Tippy a couple times. 

A few days ago, one of the nursing home residents was sent to the ER where he/she/they tested positive for COVID-19. The nursing home administrator sent out an emotional email to family. Kudos to her for keeping us informed; bad news is better than no news. I'm doing a pretty good job of staying out of the wreckage of the future. Everything depends on how vigilant the staff have been. It's out of my hands. Symptoms take time to appear. So now we wait to see if a few wild viruses will make the leap to party in my mother's fragile lungs.