Fried Green Tomato BLTs, Rending Your Garments, Whimpering and the Beach

I ate a fried green tomato, bacon, and lettuce sandwich today, after cooperating and doing the right thing by getting a mammogram and taking care of my daughter, even when I'd rather not. The tomatoes were thinly sliced, lightly breaded and not greasy at all. There was also an egg with a perfectly cooked yolk on the sandwich, neither runny nor hard-boiled. And instead of regular, there was some sort of wasabi mayo, but not so hot that you felt it, and the bacon was thick and crispy. I suppose that was the extent of my not being cooperative today -- it wasn't exactly healthy, this sandwich, and Lord knows, I should be eating healthy so that I can continue to cooperate with life's vicissitudes. One of those vicissitudes is the frustration of not having the higher ratio Charlotte's Web to give to Sophie to see whether we can regain the seizure control we had when she last had it. The good people at Realm of Caring are working on it, though, so I haven't lost heart, even as Sophie's hands are clammy and she drops glasses and shatters them, looks to the right and freezes, jerks for a moment or two and then looks forward and continues whatever it is she's doing or thinking. She's being.

I also took Sophie to the beach this afternoon because I felt my dead grandmother-self coming on. As you know, she was prone to moaning and whimpering and praying that she'd die, and I was feeling a bit of the same -- especially the whimpering part. I know ya'll think I'm doing a kick-ass job most of the time, and I agree with you only if you recognize that under that resolve is a whimper, a tiny, high-pitched in and out take of air. The days of rending my garments are over, as are the tearing out of my hair or the sliding down the shower wall and crouching under the spray. The whimper, contained below the surface yet close enough to fuel some of my days is the new rend and tear.

Until you go to beach in Santa Monica on yet another glorious summer day --