Super Nose

Guess what's in the bag?

My ex-husband once told me that he thought I was a super-taster or had a super-nose (he's a chef), but my kids always mock me when I ask, what's that smell? They think I'm prone to exaggeration in addition to being, possibly, the most annoying human on the planet. I don't want to make this post one of those kid-basher ones, filled with the cliches of teenagers and the insufferable arrogance of young adults (I am perfectly aware of my own insufferable young adulthood but shhhhhhh, don't tell my parents). I don't want to badmouth The Brothers because they are divine in many respects, but damn if they haven't been helpful or even supportive in the rat saga of this past week. Neither agreed to handle any trapped rats (my feminism comes to a screeching halt when it comes to dead rats in traps) and last Saturday, after the traps were set and lined up behind the stove and the microwave stand in the kitchen, and we all heard the most horrific clatter and then silence, no one stepped up to check it out. Well, Henry did actually come out of his room with a bat and Carl did shine his phone light behind the stove, but the only thing we saw was one of what we thought were five (this is a crucial hint) traps a little skewed. No rats, though, and everyone carried on their days and nights as if nothing was the matter, as if roof rats, flying through trees and into the attic and jumping from vents onto pot racks over stoves and nibbling beautiful pears and cherries and making their way into the dining room to feast on the bits and pieces of food that fall from the wheelchair and then making their way back to their home or nests in the Christmas decorations and vintage toys and suitcases and skittering all about were NO BIG DEAL, were a problem that would magically take care of itself because that's the way things went in their home with their mother lying about all day.










The days went by.












I think I smelled something a couple of days ago but was met with the usual derision and mockery. I don't smell anything, they said and then rolled their eyes or did what boys do when my back is turned. I'm annoying -- it's annoying -- when I twitch my nose and sniff.  Today was the day that The Rat Man was coming back to seal all the holes in the house where the rats were coming in and out. I planned my day around this event because The Brothers were busy. I imagine the gears in their adorable heads clicking, clicking, pondering. What does she do all day, anyway? Does she even exist outside of my supreme sphere? The Rat Man arrived on time, bless him, and began his work. He is a peculiar guy in the way that certain occupations command peculiar, but Reader, I love him. When I told him about the clattering episode and asked him to shine his light behind the stove, he complied and then I swear I saw his nose twitch and he said, I smell rat. I practically shouted, I SMELL SOMETHING, TOO! and then thought about jumping up and down in excitement (not about the rat but because having someone actually confirm my suspicions which means affirm my skills, my extremely honed intuitive senses, my super-nose, my infallibility, etc. etc. is everything in these late middle-aged times) but instead said nervously, Do you see that fifth trap a bit at a distance from the other four? And he got down on his knees and claimed that the smell was urine and then he said, no, it's rat, and where's the sixth tra -- and before he got out the p and just as I said, SIX? I thought there were only FIVE? he said, I got him! Do you have a plastic bag? and I ran and got him a plastic garbage bag and reverently shook it out and handed it to him and left the room.

We have one rat bagged and every little hole in this hundred year old house screened up and against them. I texted The Brothers and Carl the good news and included a bit of my own exultation over smelling something funny. No one has acknowledged this, of course, but Henry did text me back:

Just Ten More Minutes

Here are 3 reasons I might consider relocating to China:

1.

Sophie had an unexpected seizure this morning, right before I fed her breakfast, and instead of waiting for her to fully recover, I acted impatient and shot a syringe of her medicine into her mouth which I believe went down the wrong hatch which precipitated a bout of coughing and gagging which necessitated me putting together the suction machine and suctioning her mouth for what seemed like a half an hour which necessitated a 911 text to my friend Sandra about my inability to do this. I believe I texted I can't do it and she replied What's happening? and I said life and she said, then you can. And it's all fucking impossible. And you can. I then listed a litany of complaints and wondered if I should go on or try some gratitude? Sandra texted back:

In a nutshell -- or should I say the nutshell, Sandra's advice is to take time and whatever horrors it's throwing at you in ten minute increments. Can I do it for ten more minutes? Another 10? Another 10? Until I get through another full hour...then day. Suffice it to say that the 10-minute increment rule worked for me today, and I managed to get Sophie to her day program, but I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm done, toast, burnt. Sandra sent me this, too:

Reader, I do love a good sign.

2.

I'm struggling financially despite a near full-time job and will soon have two sons in college. Will I ever get ahead? There's my actual head, I suppose, which is stuffed full of all kinds of lovely things, but if it weren't for my neck, it would have long since spun off into the cosmos. Is there such a thing as ahead? I love my job teaching English, but there's no work over the summer. I've put together a few writing workshops and am still baking cakes, but neither is a living. Sure, I'm grateful for the help given to me by my parents and by the State of California, but I feel shackled and can't help but fantasize about a simpler life -- something I imagine is as illusory as getting ahead.

Are you still here, dear Reader?

3.

We have a rat infestation in our attic. Yes. We have a rat infestation in our attic. One more time. We have a rat infestation in our attic. 

Did I ever tell you the story of the job I accepted to teach English in Taiwan upon graduating from college? I was obsessed with all things Chinese -- had studied the language for two years, read avidly the poetry and religion and history and was just gobsmacked by the possibilities. I was 21 years old with all of life in front of me. Alas, I was persuaded to give that up for -- let's say -- love, and while I don't regret the choice I made because it brought me the rest of my life, I have a chance here to -- well -- flee that rest of my life. Reader, do you wonder? Is she serious? Has she lost her mind? Was it a rat that drove her to it? 

Stay tuned. Just ten more minutes.

Weekend Recap

It was a whirlwind of a weekend. Oliver celebrated his 18th birthday. I made a cheesecake, as per his request. It called for 3 1/2 pounds of cream cheese, 5 eggs, 2 cups of sugar and 8 ounces of sour cream. He also asked for Chick fil A for dinner. I know we're not supposed to frequent the food of a company that discriminates against homosexuals, but we sinned.

Child number two arrived home from college for the summer. The house was quite literally transformed in a matter of minutes into the style that we (Oliver, Sophie and I) had forgotten about which one could call laissez faire or perhaps une porcherie. Will we ever see underneath that stuff on his bed? Never mind, as we're glad to have him home.

The almighty Blue Shield of California gave us their "approval" that Sophie receive her IVIG treatments, so she spent much of the days hooked up to an IV. We are coming up for air as well with Saint Mirtha out with a shoulder injury and a new helper, Maria, on board. Maria appears to be headed for sainthood as well -- she's even painted Sophie's fingers and toes in the most beautiful pink. I am grateful for these caregivers. I am beyond grateful, to tell you the truth. They save me.

I woke on Mother's Day in a kind of funk, I guess. Other than honoring my own mother on the special day, I think it's sort of a fake holiday -- well, not sort of -- and I struggle with all the expectations and concomitant resentments every year no matter how much I set my mind against it. Both boys slept in to nearly noon, but they gave me sweet and thoughtful gifts, and Carl went out and bought me a croissant. My sister sent me a lovely card with the most beautiful note in it. I cried, which I guess is appropriate for a weeping willow. Here's the video I made of it:

I also went on a short but steep hike in the Hollywood hills this afternoon with Carl and Oliver. The mustard is just turning from yellow to yellow-green, and the hills are still green from the spring rains, the city skyline lay off in a light hazy distance, Painted Ladies fluttered on every bush and hawks soared above us in the blue sky. I needed to get out and move my body in some way other than up and down the hallway and lifting Sophie, but about halfway up the peak, I started to feel dizzy from the sun and the exertion and my chronic inability to drink enough water, so we walked back down. I need to get back to doing more exercise that is unrelated to caregiving -- I am on the proverbial edge, both mentally and physically, I think. Lord knows why I've remained so healthy for so long despite the stress of it all, but I've got to stop taking it all for granted. With Saint Mirtha down, I am struck by what might transpire should I go down, and it ain't pretty, if I do say so myself.

I'm not going to talk about all the articles I read about the southern states passing these laws against women's right to have abortions, to govern their bodies, to ensure their reproductive freedom.

I'm not going to talk about it.

I'm not going to talk about it.





These people hate women.








Before I forget, I thought I'd post a hilarious exchange I had with one of my closest friends via text. She's in gray and I'm in blue. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. For clarification, Nonfiction is a new French movie, and the Arclight is a movie theater in my neighborhood.

Humor is everything to me on most days, so if you want to know what "you can do" or what "you can say," tell me something funny. And for god's sake, MEN, step up and help us to fight back with this anti-women, anti-choice clusterf*^kery.

A Show About Humanity with Two Guys In Charge

Have ya'll been listening to Jason Lehmbeck's and my podcast? I sure hope you are, but if you're not, you should start today because two of the finest young men on the planet had a discussion with us about what it's like being a sibling and growing up in a family with a child who is medically complex or who has special needs. Confession: it's getting more and more difficult for me to figure out how to write a descriptor -- how to describe my daughter in language that is clear and factual and that doesn't further stigmatize her or others like her. Special needs, medically complex, disabled, differently abled, people first, etc. etc. ad nauseum in these -- what should I can them? -- fraught times.

Anyway, my son Henry and his roommate Toby spoke on Who Lives Like This?! about their lives growing up in families with one or more children with disabilities. They also talked about their feelings, their friendship, their futures and their hopes. They shared their wisdom and experience. I think they will open your minds and break open your hearts.

Here's the link to the show. Please do us a favor and share it far and wide. We hope to continue to build a community, and this show is not just for those affected by disability or medical issues or caregiving. Dare I say it's a show about humanity?

Who Lives Like This?!

Dispatch from Los Angeles, via Holland and Italy*

dedicated to my comrades, particularly Sandra

When my friends and family check in with me of late, I reply with the above Bitmoji. Those of you who live on another, better planet, or who don't own a smart phone, or who disdain pictorial representations of oneself or, worse, words, who bemoan the dwindling use of language and/or have no idea what a Bitmoji is or even an app, should stop reading now. I wish I lived on another planet, wish I didn't own a smart phone, disdain pictorial representations of myself and, worse, of words, and I bemoan the dwindling use of language, but I do love the Bitmoji app and find endless delight finding exact representations of myself thinking certain thoughts, having certain emotions and otherwise living. 

It's going. My uncle is recovering very well here at the house, and Sophie is on her second day of her sixth month of intravenous immunoglobulin infusions. I have successfully navigated the World of Sub-Sub Acute Rehab by scheduling my uncle's health aide, bathing, OT and PT home health visits. The highlight of my week was when I paid $1.69 for his medication which filled my tiny little mother mind™with wonder, as you can imagine.

If you can't imagine, I wondered what our lives might have been like if Sophie's medications cost $1.69 over the years, as opposed to at least $70 after countless hours of wrangling and upwards of $500 when the wrangling doesn't work. All thinking by the tiny little mother mind™ is rhetorical, of course. Socialized medicine works effectively, I guess, for some of the country but could, apparently, be disastrous for the rest of us (I don't want no government coming between me and my doctor!), so we continue to grease the wheels of capitalism, the free market and Big Pharma in the labyrinthine corridors of the greatest country on earth's medical system, Brazil.

What else?

Speaking of capitalization, I've CAPITALIZED on the increased caregiver duties by increasing my meditation practice which means at this point that I've started meditating off and on all day long. Reader, I can already feel those neurons in my brain firing off peace as opposed to chaos.

The trick (for me) is to be truly mindful of even the shitty stuff, to acknowledge it in whatever way you need, to dwell on it, to muck around in it, to weep profusely over it, to wallow in it and to take your time doing it. It's only then that it rolls off your back, maybe even disappears. I say trick because, let's face it -- I generally feel completely unhinged and at the edge of consciousness, especially when I learn at 7:15 in the morning that Saint Mirtha will not be coming in, that I won't be able to attend my friend Tanya's screening, that the IVIG nurse is going to be early and -- well -- I won't bore you.

So, that's the dispatch from Los Angeles. The upcoming week includes continued caregiver duties on two fronts but also more teaching of English literature, a Clippers game with my love and, hopefully, a trip to Portland next weekend, planned for months.

* This title is a nod to those who were subjected in the early days of their child's disability or diagnosis to the treacly treatise by a certain writer who compared the journey of special needs parent-dom to landing in Holland instead of Italy. Don't ask.

A Series of Irritating Events from the First World

So far, during the last three days, while they are hardly calamitous events (but, rather, what we might call "first-world" problems), these things have happened:

1. TSA stole a $100 bill out of my bag. Police recovered and impounded it, but it's already cost me $16 to get a notarized letter authorizing the Phoenix Airport Police to ship it back to me. The numerous phone calls that I made to get this information are too boring to enumerate, but when I finally got everything in order, the letter notarized and attempted to fax, it was not working. I spent some time this morning with the Phoenix Recovered Property department, again too boring to enumerate, and was finally told that the fax did work and that I should try again.  
2. A package from Anthropologie was delivered to my address yesterday, empty. It was one of those plastic envelopes, and after picking it up and thinking, Man this is a weightless dress!, I realized that the envelope had been cleanly slit and the contents removed. I ran down the sidewalk and caught the postwoman who exclaimed that she, too, had wondered why the package was so weightless. She called her supervisor who told me to call the Postmaster General. I did so, and they told me that it looked like the package began its journey to my house at 10 oz but that the last weight recorded was 0 oz, so obviously something happened along the way and an investigation would commence. I called Anthropologie and explained the situation, and they agreed to send me another dress. I am now waiting for the Post Office to continue their investigation. Stay tuned.
3. My OB/GYN ordered a colonoscopy kit for me that is evidently a whole lot easier than going through the regular thing. If I pass this home kit thingy, I don't have to get a colonoscopy for another five years. I called the company this morning to ask why it hadn't come yet as I was informed two weeks ago that it had been delivered. The person at the company checked and told me that it had been delivered but to the wrong address. Instead of South My Street Name, it was delivered to North My Street Name. So someone on North My Street Name has a colonoscopy home kit with instructions on how to provide a stool sample. The company is sending me another one. 
4. I sent my manuscript to the editor last week, and it has not arrived. I put the tracking number for the parcel in the USPS website, and it said that it had not been received. Apparently, my manuscript is floating around somewhere in between Los Angeles and San Francisco. I will cancel the check that accompanied the manuscript and resend tomorrow, if it doesn't show up at the editor's place by then.

So, what next? Throw it my way. Give it to me.

Oh, here's something amusing. I received an inquiry today from an online job site that I've been using in an attempt to get freelance writing gigs. The notice stated that I was an excellent match for the following position:

We produce gay romance novels based in contemporary settings and in supernatural/paranormal worlds that encompass shifters, such as werewolves, vampires, dragons, and many more mythical creatures. Our characters fight through relationship woes and celebrate swells of passion in situations ranging from love triangles to forbidden desire, tribal rivalries, mpreg, and ancient or secret worlds clashing with the new. Adventure, mystery, crime, comedy, and drama are no strangers to our romance stories.

We’re looking for a talented M/M (gay) romance writer, that from the first sentence to the last, can keep readers engaged and craving more!


MUST: 

☻ Be a native English-speaking writer with excellent comprehension and execution of English grammar.

☻ Be dedicated to writing character-driven books focusing on the development of romantic attraction between the main characters. You have the creative freedom to flesh out the details within our guidelines.

☻ Be an enthusiastic and thorough researcher.

☻ Lastly, be original. We run books through PlagScan and Copyscape. 

 What do you think? Should I apply? I am nothing if not an enthusiastic and thorough researcher.

A Sense of Humor

My Dad with Henry and my niece Mary
2006 and 2017

Humor keeps us sane. I’m in Hilton Head for the annual family “vacation.” It’s a whole lot of “fun” and a whole lot of family. Need I say more?

Speaking of humor, don’t forget to listen to this week’s episode of Who Lives Like This?! Jason and I have a great discussion with Sandra Stein about humor in caregiving — how to nurture it and how it can help in even the most challenging situations. Here’s the link

https://www.wholiveslikethispodcast.com/single-post/2018/07/31/Sandra-Stein

Parenting, No. 785

I went to visit Henry this afternoon at his new job. He's a server at a funky little place in Venice. Maybe I shouldn't use the word funky anymore since very recently, like yesterday, Oliver told me that it was embarrassing. Maybe he didn't use the word embarrassing, but he repeated the word funky in a voice that I guess is mine, at least the voice that both sons use when they imitate me, and while I imagine there's fondness in the teasing, it still takes me by surprise that I'm considered painfully uncool and old. Both brothers have jobs this summer (Oliver actually works nearly full-time all year round, recently opened a Charles Schwab trading account and has bought stocks -- no joke), and I'm very proud of them. It's been a long time since I've included them on the old blog, and just now I was looking for past posts in a kind of nostalgic way, and boy -- some of those posts were damn funny. I sat down at the bar of this little restaurant where Henry works, next to a younger woman who was drinking a glass of wine and eating a salad. Since I'm the chattiest person on the planet and the proudest, most embarrassing mother, I introduced myself to the woman and told her that Henry was my son. She told me that she had a four year old son, and that he was in a challenging stage. I told her that I remember well those challenging stages, but I found those times to be more physically challenging and the teenaged and young adult years more emotionally challenging. I didn't tell her this story, but Reader, I 'll tell you. Just the other night, we were sitting at the table eating dinner -- takeout Vietnamese because making dinner in the summer is just not my thing -- and the usual conversation between The Brothers began, and this entailed arguing about whether LeBron James or Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player of all time and then something about the baseball player Mike Trout and Teslas and Elon Musk and then you're an idiot and you're an asshole and you don't know what you're talking about, and just when I was wishing that one day we would have a conversation about -- let's say -- the greatest living poet or how much better a film-maker Fellini is than Tarantino, Sophie had a large seizure that I just know was a result of the anger in the air and maybe even how boring her brothers' arguments can be (Sophie and I are the same about these things, I am certain, but she seizes instead of dying a little inside at the general clusterfuckery). I probably said as much, because now that they're 17 and nearly 20, I don't bite my tongue as often as I might have when they were younger. Enough is enough.

But here's the thing. Those boys jumped up and into action helping me to help Sophie, and I realized that I am, perhaps, the luckiest mother in the world.

Rules for Caregiving Post "Wisdom"* Teeth Surgery

1. Wake to the sound of a seizure at 5 am, a guttural moan and rattling, and run/hobble to patient's bedroom to assess situation
2. Administer large dose of CBD and CBDa via new protocol
3. Think who lives like this? while making sure patient is comfortable. Question pertains both to patient and caregiver
4. Turn on light (essential rule for those who struggle with psychosis in early morning hours)
5. Drop essential oil Frankincense into palms of hands, cup patient's nose for several seconds, caregiver's nose and then massage patient's feet
6. Recite secular prayers and pretend to administer Reiki
7. Note that second seizure does not happen, a small improvement from previous days
8. Change diaper and notice that hydration might be necessary
9. Worry and wonder 
10. Contemplate whether hydration might be necessary in hospital as patient slept most of previous day, having been drugged into oblivion because of too many seizures
11. Think who lives like this? as pertaining to patient. Curse wisdom teeth, so ridiculously named.
12. Text friend from East Coast who emphasizes importance of hydration.
13. Contemplate which hospital to take patient to for hydration, drawing upon 23 years of experience in caregiving
14. Contemplate waking College Boy or Brother to drive patient and caregiver to hospital
15. Contemplate the various pros and cons of hospital admittance
16. Read text from friend: Take her in
17. Continue contemplation of big city hospitals, private insurance and who takes MediCal as secondary
18. Curse the American health care system to ward off financial fears
19. Retrieve large syringe used to administer pharmaceuticals, bottle of cold Pedialyte from fridge and towel
20. Sit at patient's bedside and carefully syringe 5 ml of liquid into patient's mouth until 8 oz is down the hatch.
21. Help patient to cough up mucous with newly purchased $369 portable home suction machine
22. Think who lives like this? pertaining to both patient and caregiver throughout home hydration
23.  Lie next to patient and gradually realize that patient is not seizing like she had in previous days, has drunk an appropriate amount of electrolyte-balanced liquid and is resting peacefully
24. Rest peacefully next to patient while College Boy and Brother sleep unaware of caregiver and patient drama on other side of wall
25. Rise from patient's bed at 7:00 am, make coffee for caregiver and oatmeal for patient to hopefully eat later. Sip coffee and contemplate the universe
26. Bring patient 8:00 medication and coax another 8 oz of liquid into patient's mouth. 
27. Note, again, that no seizures have occurred
28. Think who lives like this? while planning a trip down to Santa Ana to visit a dispensary that has a good stock of CBDa. It's called Fiddlers Greens.

This has been a Public Service Announcement.

* The "wisdom" teeth are so-called because one is presumably wiser when they appear in late childhood, early adulthood. I call bullshit.

Witnessing

I took Sophie to her quarterly visit with Nice Neurologist yesterday afternoon. Here's a caregiver tip: take someone with you when you visit a doctor, and you won't be reduced to your usual Psychotic Visiting The Doctor PTSD Self. Saint Mirtha came with me yesterday, and aside from the tremendous help she provides lifting the 4,000 pound wheelchair into and out of the back of my car and ministering to Sophie in the back-seat, her presence just calms me. I felt less chaotic, less alone, less like the person careening into space on my old copy of Sartre's La Nausée. I'm perfectly capable of doing these things by myself and have done so, but it's gotten very, very old in this the two thousandth and eighteenth year of our lord. During the visit with Nice Neurologist, I did my usual and asked him to reverse places so that I was sitting at his desk on the swivel chair and he sat next to Sophie on a folding chair. So I can better explain to you what's going on with Sophie, I said, and use the time to tell you about CBDA, about how I've been weaning the benzo and what dose you'll need to write a prescription for her at this point. Just kidding with the switching chairs. I used to call these visits with All the Neurologists The $475 Reflex Check, but these days I've noticed that All the Neurologists barely touch their patients, much less check their reflexes. Nice Neurologist is so open, though, and he generally has some interesting information about something or other related to immunology or studies being done on mice or genetics -- information that he doles out in a hopeful tone as it might distantly relate to Sophie in between the schooling that I'm doing. He writes down everything I say about CBD and now CBDA, and when I encouraged him to watch Sanjay Gupta's latest show on opioids and cannabis medicine, we had a healthy discussion about the fuckery of the Sackler family and Big Pharma pushing them on the country back in the day. I think I inserted somewhere in this discussion that I'd die happy if The Neurology Community recanted their stance on benzos, particularly with epilepsy patients, and I remember him looking a bit sheepish (was it the eyebrows or the mouth?) and not acknowledging it. He was, in fact, there to write that scrip for the benzo that Sophie's been on for eleven years and not much else. Sigh. Nice Neurologist is awesome, actually, in the long line of Neurologists Sophie and I have encountered during the last twenty-three years. I'm grateful for his attention even as I'm painfully aware that I'm sort of running the show. I made an appointment to bring Sophie back in mid-July and then wheeled her out to the waiting room to join Saint Mirtha who, when we left the office and went down into the parking garage, helped me put Sophie into the car and lift the 4,000 pound wheelchair into the back, even as the four Grown Ass Male Valets stood watching us, gawking. On another day I might have made some caustic remark to one of the men or even shoved them in my mind into one of the luxury cars out-sexing my Sexy Mazda and locked all the doors. Here's a caregiver tip: take someone with you when you visit a doctor, and you won't be reduced to your usual Psychotic Visiting the Doctor PTSD Self. You'll have a witness to all of it.

Missing Teeth

Chocolate Flecked Yellow Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting

Out here in the gig economy, we're scrolling through online job sites, taking cake orders and editing jobs, and buying lottery tickets because you just never know. I do know there are Russian bots out there and enormous intrusions into my privacy and yours, so I probably deserve every bizarrely targeted ad I get, but I'm mostly intrigued and sometimes thrilled by the random shit that finds its way to me. I can't help thinking that something good and lucrative will surely land on my lap and all my troubles will be over. Nearly every day, I get a slew of requests in my email box to interview promising writers of upcoming books with titles like Finding Your Wow or The New Discipline: Building A Tiny Home for Time-Outs. Money is never mentioned, though, and I honestly can't bring myself to tell them that my audience, while faithful, is more devoted to learning about the intersection of politics, disability, parenting, poetry and mermaids than how to explore inflatable zones. I removed the link from inflatable-zone.com to ensure that you aren't projected into some kind of alternative universe, although there's a fair argument to be made that we're already living in one:

Hello Dear,

I am Ellen from inflatable-zone.com

We just found your articles on your blog were attractive. I think your style of writing is quite good and fit to introduce my company's products. We are looking forward to establishing a cooperative business partnership with you on the basis of equality, mutual benefit.

We would like to sincerely invite you to cooperate with us.

Back when many of us thought Bush was the worst President in all of history and couldn't understand why our fellow countrymen would vote for the guy they "most wanted to have a beer with" yet still felt somewhat connected to them as human beings (unlike today's clusterfuck of living amongst seeming aliens who voted for and still defend that POS running the kakistocracy), I got this request:

Dear Elizabeth,

Can I write an article for the a moon, worn as if it had been a shell? It would be regarding Danney Williams, the man who says he is the son of Bill Clinton. 

Let me know if you want to chat about this. 

Sincerely,

Reader, if there's one thing I know, it's that laughter is good for the soul, that having a strong and dogged sense of humor and absurdity will save you from all manner of insanity and despair.

Dear Poet / Writer,

Greetings! Hope this letter finds you in a cheerful mood !

As well known to the intellectual world The Home of Letters (India) or
HOLI is engaged in literary, publishing and socio-cultural activities for
the cultural uplift of man. It acts like a platform to exchange sublime
ideas between the poets, writers, scholars and the intellectuals of the
world through its various publications, books, anthologies etc. It is a
House which organises small seminars from time to time (depending upon
finance) where poets, writers, scholars and the intellectuals discuss
various educational, literary and socio-cultural topics. It also awards
individuals for their high level achievement in personal or professional
life / for outstanding accomplishments in the literary, intellectual or
academic realm / for outstanding contribution to the fields of art, culture,
education and society / for their commendable contribution in promoting
world peace and universal brotherhood with humanitarian ideologies. Since
1997 HOLI has been playing a very significant role in the above fields.

You will be pleased to know that we
would like to confer upon you “MATTHEW ARNOLD AWARD" for sweetness and
light in creative writing.

The multi-colour certificate (20 X 14 inches in size) is beautifully
laminated on
WOOD and photo-framed (for
hanging on wall / for
placing on table or shelf), which will be sent to you by Regd. Airmail.
Your
name will be published in one of our publications in future.

If you are interested to receive this WOOD-LAMINATED citation you may
send USD 150 (as
administrative, processing, packing, postal charges etc.).

*Mode of* Payment : Bank Wire
Transfer (please ask for our SWIFT bank details)

The universe is abundant, no?*


Are you still with me? Do you need to order a cake, maybe? I'm obviously not doing anything constructive today.

What about the title of this blog post? You know, Missing Teeth? Here's today's email, a request for me to interview a dentist acutely aware of the missing teeth problem in America:


Dr. Shamblott is available to discuss why there is a significant high percentage of American with missing teeth even when there are a variety of options to prevent tooth decay and to replace missing teeth.  If you’d like to schedule an interview with him, or having him write exclusive materials for your publication, please let me know, I’d be happy to coordinate all the details.

Reader, is it condescending to email this public relations firm back that my services as an editor might be a better idea, starting with the subject line?

Expert Discuss Missing Teeth in America

*No, I'm not really going to accept my Matthew Arnold award for sweetness and light by wiring $150 US dollars to The Home of Letters. Don't worry.

The Eradication of Hogs

This is a post about my son, Henry, with whom I am well pleased.

Actually, this is a post about my son, Henry, for whom I am bursting with pride.

Henry is a peacemaker. He is not one to get involved in conflict, nor to agitate. He is preternaturally good-natured and easy-going. He might be slightly averse to conflict. When I send him things of a political nature or ask him to take a stand, he either blows me off, says that he isn't an activist or mocks me (good-naturedly). He is absolutely right that I am annoying when I am most agitated about the issues that are important to me. Because I'm female and he's male, I consider that a win on my part. I strive to agitate and be annoying to men, to tell you the truth. I'm interested in smashing the patriarchy.

This afternoon, Henry sent me a series of texts documenting an argument he had on Facebook with one of his high school classmates. I'm no stranger to arguing with high school classmates. The ones with whom I've argued are mostly men and a few random females,  but I've long since quit engaging with them (the last time I did so and stayed respectful but asked uncomfortable questions, I was blocked, and the questions were never answered which to me is typically conservative Republican). I have other friends from high school, though, who occasionally screen shot their conversations with these folks and show me what they're talking about and oh dear Lord and bless their hearts.

Well, this post isn't about me and I don't want to spew contempt and vitriol, as is my tendency when it comes to some of the high school classmates. I was a sweet and gentle soul in high school, I swear, and I don't think those people (and it's not everyone in my high school) had any idea that a patriarchy-smasher was in their midst. How would they? Well, for one thing, none of them took honors classes.

Ouch.

This is about Henry and his initial foray into taking a stand about something and doing it so well that I could just cry.

It can't be easy coming of age during these particularly shitty times. Yesterday. My god, yesterday.

I obviously am not going to reveal what this high school classmate of Henry said, but suffice it to say that she supports the POSPOTUS and is an avid Second Amendmenter.

The following is Henry's response to her tirade about the usual blah, blah, blah that the pro-assault weapons folks always trundle out after a massacre. Henry began with: THIS IS ABSOLUTELY 100% a

Those last three sentences broke my heart.

She responded with some more blah, blah, blah that included the necessity of making hotel windows bullet-proof and the necessity of using assault weapons for hunting. Then Henry continued:

Then there's this:

Hence, the title of this piece.

Oh, dear Reader, how we laughed.



Henry, are you reading this?

You make me proud.

You are respectful, strong in your convictions and persuasive in your delivery. You wrote passionately and beautifully.  Thanks for kicking ass without being rude or disrespectful. People will say, why bother? and there will be days when you wonder why you do. You might even lose your temper and your mind, feel hopeless and useless and guilty of stirring the pot. You'll certainly wonder whether there's any use to any of it at all. You will never be sorry, though, to do the right thing, to stand by your convictions and for those who are vulnerable. You're woke as they say and on your way.

We old folks need you and your friends to step up and help us. We are grateful for your energy.

You are beautiful inside and out, and I love you more than you'll ever know.

Orgasms for Caregivers, Part 1 in a Series*

When the insurance company denies a claim for a drug that your daughter has been on for nine years (in its liquid form) and suggests (via its Pharmacists and Physicians Panel) switching to the tablet form of the exact same drug for coverage (in a form letter that you imagine is a sort of MadLibs), and your neurologist's office has a DESIGNATED PERSON who does the appeal for you.






















* In addition to the afore-mentioned orgasm, this action on the part of the DESIGNATED PERSON is also filed under Inadvertent Ways of Apoplexy Avoidance Of Caregiver

"Your 2018 health plan information is coming" and it's MAGA!

So, I got a missive from Anthem Blue Shield last week that I opened with a sinking feeling. Those of you who know that despite living in the land of "the world's greatest healthcare system," having individual insurance is a clusterfuck of gargantuan proportions. This has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act, other than its concessions to private health insurance companies. That's a whole other post, and you know where I stand, anyway. #singlepayerforall

No communication from Blue Shield is met with anything but dread, despite their polite and even cheerful marketing efforts.

Here's the latest:

First of all, "Here are a few things you can do now to get ready" ?????!!!!!

Here's how I'd rewrite the three suggestions and then add a fourth:

1. Be on the lookout for two separate mailings: one with your 2018 plan information and one with your 2018 rates. Make sure you review all the information but only after going FIRST to your freezer, pulling out the frozen vodka and taking a couple of shots. This is particularly important for the envelope regarding your new rate. 
2. Visit our friendly website and take notice of its new look -- all the models are preternaturally beautiful and multi-racial. In fact, they are actual customers of ours, particularly pliant conservative Americans who've bought into the notion that medicine is a business and that we're in the best position to dictate how the whole shebang is run. They're so snowed that we killed them off with their permission and replaced them with look-alike robots. In lieu of increased rates, you'll see that you, too, will be given an option to be killed instead and replaced by a beautiful person in any race you choose. Think about it! After all, the stress of the increased rates might kill you anyway, so why not be preserved in service of other good Americans who "don't want the gov'ment messing with my healthcare!"
3. Mark your calendar with these important dates! October 2017: Start drinking a lot of frozen vodka. November 2017: Open enrollment begins! Remember the option of being replaced by a smiling cyborg as opposed to having your rate increased! December 2017: Get ready for the coming year's continued clusterfuck at increased prices if you choose to stay with us. January 2018: You're either dead from the stress of your rate increase and the knowledge that you'll be fighting tooth and nail for every single claim or are on your way to eternal life, via Trump's Department of Health and Human Services where you'll spend a little time with those members of congress who continue to seek the repeal and replacement of the ACA. You thought they were real? They're dead, also, and will show you what it takes to become soul-less.
4. Start stockpiling that rectal valium because you're going to need to have rectal valium parties where you charge the party-goers in order to pay for your health insurance. You'll need it as well if you decide to go the cyborg route because it hurts like hell to become a conservative and start ripping people off, lying and prevaricating about what you're actually doing. But be heartened by the end result: you'll be dead, re-fashioned and making America great again.

"A good practical sort of immortality"

Just a couple of hours outside of Los Angeles, you pass through the most incredible landscape of farms and hills and endless road. It's where most of your produce is grown, folks, and last I heard, a lot of California farmland is filled with rotting produce because of that goon in office and his henchmen, busy Making America Great. They've cracked down on brown immigrants who work the fields, and the Real Americans are not stepping up to do the work. You can read about that here.

That isn't fake news either. But this isn't a post about the Pussy Grabber in Chief or his racist Attorney General Keebler Elf, so let's move on.

We stopped in the town of Earlimart to get gas and victuals.

The gas station had the best moniker I've ever seen yet was in direct sight of the Earlimart Market for World Peace.

Doesn't she make you want to pile the Bud into the trunk of your car and drive backward to when America was truly great?

Bless her heart.

Cast my memory back there Lord, sometimes I'm overcome --

Despite the Goon in Chief and his Band of Billionaires, you can pass through a lot of California now and see only a few "white" faces. This evidently terrifies a lot of people.

I find it thrilling that boundaries are blurry.

You can drive approximately five hours from Los Angeles, the sprawling home to over 8 million humans of every color, creed and culture and reach the south entrance of Yosemite National Park. My friend Cara, her two girls and my two boys have been numerous times together, and this year we stayed in a little cabin in the woods inside the park in an area called Wawona. We largely avoid the crowds in the valley and stay up and around the secret places near the park entrance.

We don't do much of anything, really, but wander around and look up and down, float on the river and lay on our backs on sun-warmed rocks. We laugh a lot, mostly at Oliver who can imitate anything and anyone. We all have riotous senses of humor. The girls balance the boys, while Cara and I eschew exercise and adopt the life patterns of marmots for the most part. Oliver did not let us forget our general "cringiness." If you need a translation, let me know.

We do this kind of thing:

and a little of this kind of thing:

and some of this kind of thing:

We even had a roadside "adventure" this year. Cara's car had an electrical short, we think, so we were mysteriously locked out of her car in the middle of Nowhere just after finishing up a roadside picnic. Our purses and phones were locked inside the car, and the teenagers, despite their phone appendages, were not connected to the world wide webs or the vast cell satellites arcing overhead, so we basically did one of those survival kind of things and put our privileged heads together to try to figure out WHAT TO DO.

I can tell you that everyone has an idea or opinion on how to break into a car.

You know what? We city slickers now marvel at just how hard it is to break into a car. Given how many of ours have been broken into in the big shitty, who knew that the windows are virtually indestructible, the locks un-pickable, the whole American metal machine invulnerable?

A few tourists did try to help, offering hangers and various tools. I have actually quite successfully broken into several of my cars, during days of yore, but my tried and true techniques just didn't hack it. I'm a woman of twentieth century crime, I guess. Other tourists just stared at us and took videos. Stupide americaines.  Our favorite samaritans were two women with blue hair and heavy Eastern Europeanish/Russian accents (think female versions, just barely, of what you might imagine our goon-in-chief's best Russian buddy sounds like)who walked over with crow bars from their rental and said, in what became a sort of anthem that Oliver repeated, over and over for the rest of the trip: Let me help you break open car.

Henry, who had otherwise made the women, men and children of Yosemite swoon everywhere we went, had no luck with a rock and muscle, and neither did the rest of us. I thought, in my optimistic way, that a solution would come to us, eventually, that we wouldn't perish with so much cheese and crackers and cans of limonata in the cooler and surely two marmots and a passel of teenagers wouldn't be attacked by any animal or human should it get dark.

Eventually, though, a couple of rangers pulled up on the scene, hammered a few wedges in the doors and saved us. To be fair, it did take them at least twenty minutes, and they were armed. We secretly hoped they'd shoot the car open, but that didn't happen.

We also did some more of this:

Oh yeah, and this:

I know. I know. It's almost ridiculous, except it's not. It is respite and wildness, air and water and earth and fire. I honestly think Yosemite is one, if not the holiest places on the planet, and my gratitude both for its proximity and my privilege to visit it, over and over, is boundless.

Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality. 

John Muir,  My First Summer in the Sierra, 1911