Tag: coping

Mundaz Wandering Thoughts

Well, Steve died. 85 years old. Diagnosed with cancer in his liver, kidneys, and lungs, his decline was a full slide down a steep hill. Just a few months ago, we were laughing, talking, enjoying drinks and music at a lake in the late afternoon sun. The question before us is, did he use the cocktail? This is Oregon where we have right to death laws. Steve had requested a cocktail to end his life and planned to use it. Laws control when the cocktail can be used. His wife was just requesting the cocktail last week, so we suspect that Steve died on his own yesterday, September 21, 2025.

I support the right to death, BTW. I’ve witnessed too many people growing feeble and drained by their disease to wish that on others. Many people can no longer probably communicate as they hang on by their skins. Sickness, pain, disease, and medication twist and torture their personalities into new folds. By the time of their death, they’re barely the person they used to be. But I also understand and respect others’ needs and desires to hold on as long as they can. Dying and death are complicated matters.

The thing about Steve is that we only knew each other for about three years. Our rapport was immediate. Our wives were good friends and we all became good friends, socializing multiple times at plays, concerts, and dinners. It just seemed like he and I knew each other forever.

Meanwhile, sis reports Mom has moved into her new room. Except Mom’s clothes are still upstairs. That’s a major matter. Although Mom tends to wear a series of night clothes and casual active wear these days, her closet was rigidly organized by season, color, and fabric. Tough transition for her, to cull the threads to current needs only.

This growing old, though. Coping. It’s tough. I’m at the coffee shop thinking and typing. A casual friend of two decades comes by. She uses two canes now to get around but her smile remains as bright as sunshine off snow brilliant.

All just thoughts to help me sort matters, matters which I’ll probably continue sorting until I do my own self-checkout. I won’t even try to predict when that’ll come. From what I’ve seen, change can be sudden and complete. Then again, some demises are a long trip into night.

4

A Cheetah Dream

I dreamed that my wife and I and several family members were traveling together. Just ending a journey together, we arrived at my house. This was a tiny but crowded place with bare cinder block walls. Included among my family was a sister and one of her daughters, and several of her grandchildren.

I was first into the house. Getting in there, I discovered a full-grown cheetah in our house. My arms were full of grocery bags, limiting what I could do. My dream brain said something like, “Holy shit, there’s a cheetah in the house.” The house was a friggin’ mess, so cluttered with junk that I struggled to walk across the floor. As I did try to walk across the floor, the cheetah gently took hold of my shirt tail in its mouth and tried pulling me in another direction.

My wife and others entered. I warned them, “There’s a cheetah in here.” They didn’t seem to pay attention but I continued, “I think he wants me to feed him. I don’t know if it’s male, to be honest, but I think he’s trying to pull me toward his food.”

That’s what the cheetah did seem to be doing. I talked to it like it was my housepet, explaining that I’d feed him in a second, but I needed to put things down and food his food first. Whenever I’d go toward where I thought the food was, the cheetah would get happy and chirp small, high-pitched mews at me. But if I turned away from its food, it’d would swat at me. Never with true menace, but still, it’s a cheetah.

Sometimes I would swear. Then a second sister, who’d joined without being noticed, would remind me of little ones being present, and I’d apologize. My niece’s husband also joined us, making my place very crowded. All through this, the cheetah paid no attention to anyone except me. Meanwhile, I kept asking the cheetah, “How did you get in here?” The dream ended as I reached for food to give the cheetah.

0

The Usual Places

The usual places are empty

Our air is still

No soft noises are heard

None are there for a treat or a pill.

Toys are collected and put away

Wondering if they’ll be needed on another day.

Food bowls are cleaned, beds are washed,

Unopened food is given away,

The others are tossed.

Quiet shadows every motion and move

You think of memories

Which help and soothe.

But the faces remain, always there

In the empty space, an empty chair.

0

Frieda’s Wandering Thoughts

I’ve been using a secret weapon to amuse me the last few weeks. Two, actually. Both are throwbacks for me.

Tim Dowling is an American living in the UK. He writes a column for the Guardian. I find them hilarious. I used to regularly read him. Then The Neurons dropped him out of the rotation. I never noticed.

I regularly read news in the Guardian. I like their coverage of U.S. news. So, while reading an article a few weeks ago, I saw a reference to the latest Tim Dowling column. Clicking on that, I resumed reading him, catching up on his past columns by reading one everyday.

He’s sixty years old. Married, with three sons. They have just moved out. He also has a dog, cat, and tortoise. He plays in a band and deprecates his playing. Being an animal lover and very fond of cats, I enjoy the tales relating to his household animals the most. Today, I read his column from September of 2023.

Tim Dowling: we’re moving bedrooms – before the cat kills me

My other secret vice — Well, it’s not my only vice. I have a large list of secret vices. It depends on whose morality is used to judge me.

But this vice is watching an old British science fiction show called Red Dwarf. I recently re-discovered it playing on a live TV channel on Prime.

I began watching that show in the early 1990s. I was assigned to Onizuka Air Station then in the San Jose-San Francisco Bay Area. KQED introduced me to Red Dwarf during their science fiction fund-raising marathons.

Red Dwarf is an interstellar mining ship. It’s principally manned by Lister, Rimmer, the Cat, and Kryden. Dave Lister is the last human alive. He was in stasis as punishment for having a cat onboard the Red Dwarf. He stayed in stasis for 3,000,000 years while the radiation levels declined to safe levels.

That was needed because Arnold Rimmer had an accident. The accident resulted in a radiation link that killed all the crew members except Dave Lister. Because Lister was in stasis.

Rimmer and Lister were roomates and worked together. They do not get along. But the computer, Holly, brought Rimmer back as a holograph as a companion for Lister so Lister doesn’t go insane.

Lister isn’t happy about Holly’s decision.

The Cat is a direct descendent of the cat behind Lister’s punishment. Cats have evolved into a sort of human cat variation. He’s a vain, vapid, and selfish character who intensely dislikes Rimmer and is often Lister’s ally.

All manner of science fiction action happens to the Red Dwarf crew. Others species are encountered. Time travel happens. The mail catches up with them. Rimmer believes in order and is ambitious but inept. Lister likes to party but is intelligent and lazy. They plot against one another. Nanobots stage a revolt. All males, they are hungry for female interactions.

Yes, it’s silly. Full of all gaps, contradictions, and plot holes. But it’s fun. Watching it returns me for a bit to when I was thirty years younger and the future looked brighter.

You gotta do something to get through these days, right?

2

Tueday’s Theme Music

Mood: puzzled

I’m careening along through the year, charging toward the next month with barely time to notice this month. So it feels, and has felt.

Today is Tuesday, October 24, 2023 in Ashlandia, where cheese, bread, and wine are made locally and taste above average. Leaves with fading colors litter the ground, crowding against curbs, huddling in storm drains and taking shelter against buildins and in bushes. High cirrocumulus offerings mark the blue sky’s ceiling like small pieces of popcorn. They’re moving east at an impressive clip as more serious looking stratus flow in from the east, heading west. 52 F now, 61 F is the purported high, according to those who know. Rain showers are forecast for this evening.

Songwise, I have “It’s Ok” buzzing in my head, a gift from The Neurons. Overhearing a person actually saying those words in the coffee shop, The Neurons immediately slotted them into the morning mental music stream (Trademark fabricated).

Released by Imagine Dragons in 2021, the song is about feeling different or being different. You know that feeling, right? Probably. I think most people feel it at one time or another, a sense that they’re either lost or out of step with everyone else, maybe confused about the beat they’re marching to because no one else hears it. The song reassures us that being so is acceptable.

It’s okay to be not okay
It’s just fine to be out of your mind
Breathe in deep, just a day at a time
‘Cause it’s okay to be out of your mind, mind

I don’t want this body, I don’t want this voice
I don’t wanna be here, but I guess I have no choice
Just let me live my truth, that’s all I wanna do
Baby, you’re not broken, just a little bit confused

h/t Genius.com

Stay pos, be chill, remain strong. I believe it’s coffee time. Join me?

Here’s the music. Cheers

0

Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

The coffee shop banned a man. He’s middle-aged. White. He’s been coming here as long as I have. I know from conversations with him that he accepts and promulgates several sharply right conspiracy theories and also promotes some unusual Christian ideas about how aliens founded or influenced Christianity. It’s a web which I couldn’t fully untangle.

He’s always struck me as a little lonely, eager for friendship, hungry for validation. One morning this week, he came in, set up somewhere, and placed an order. I didn’t hear any of that. He returned to his seat, picked up is gear, and headed for the door. Pausing by me, he said, “I showed some of them my website the other day, and they’ve banned me. They said they’d call the police if I came in here again.”

Turning, he shouted at the counter, “What happened to freedom of speech?” He stormed for the door. Pausing there, he yelled, “Fascists,” and was gone.

It’s a reflection about boundaries to me. I don’t know what was said the other day or how his website was presented. I know of two other people who were banned earlier this year because they ‘annoyed’ other customers. I witnessed some of that, and yeah, they were annoying. I have mixed thoughts about this, about businesses banning people. I don’t know what was said between the parties but I feel for the folks who struggle, and that’s what I’ve always thought I’ve seen with the banned three.

14

Keep Dancing

An acquaintance died. Over eighty, he lived a solid life. He’d been diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer not too long ago. He and his wife were getting ready to go for a walk. She said something to him, behind her, as she put her shoes on.

He didn’t answer.

She looked around and found him dead.

She’d prepared herself. Still, a shock that it was so sudden, without preamble. She has kept on with all her usual activities. I learned of his death through my wife. She went to exercise class and heard the news. When she saw the widow, she hugged her.

The woman asked, “What else can I do?”

My wife replied, “Keep dancing.”

“Exactly.”

Smiles, hugs, and tears went on.

2

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Hello, my fellow homo sapiens. Today is Wednesday, October 27, 2021. A dreary day in the valley of my home. Clouds blustering about rain. Winds whispering about storms. And the sun, quietly hanging back after its 7:38 AM, is a wallflower on this dance. A mild 52 F degrees now, we expect some of these clouds to skate away and leave us in the upper sixties before sunset takes over at 6:43 PM.

I was feeling philosophical last night. A power outage of five hours changed the day’s dynamics. It was a bit of a release, a staycation, as my other and I sat and chatted for most of those hours. I walked later, admiring the gowns the trees brought out for their fall collection. Russets have sprung into many, but there are mild browns, deep scarlet, brilliant red, and most impressively, lemon yellows that still your sight. Some of these leaves, especially on maples going red, seem like they’re lit with an inner light. Before that, I was enduring the monthly dark funk that likes to shroud me once a month for a day or two, spooning bitterness and weariness into me while maligning my energy channels. The walk helped reversed most of that, refortifying shaky defenses and infusing new determination back into my spine.

Out of that came a 1989 Indigo Girls song, “Closer to Fine”. Closer to fine is a good place to be. Not perfect but better than before.

Stay positive, test negative, don a mask as needed for the situation, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Here’s the tunes. Listen while I head off to the kitchen for my coffee. Cheers

2

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