Tag: drama

Sunday’s Theme Music

Ashland — February 15, 2026. A gray Sunday, fog covered dawn’s fingers. 50 F outside, rain and 55 are expected today. Snow is supposed to be coming this week — 20% chance.

My cold is worse, and I felt sicker yet when I read of Trump’s ‘Valentine Day’ letter to his supporters. Part of it read, “It’s Valentine’s Day! I love you, and I was pretty sure you loved me back! Is everything okay? Roses are red, violets are blue. Do you still love Trump, as I love you? Before you read my letter – do you still love me and our great movement?”

Trump makes it about himself first and foremost. Second — money.

Family drama ensued last night. Sis went down to pick up Mom’s dishes, tidy, see if Mom needed anything. Hearing Mom on the phone, she stopped and listened. Mom was telling tales on sis and sis’s husband. Then Mom said she was going to kill herself.

Sis intervened. Turned out Mom was talking to daughter number 1, down in Georgia. Sis set up a conference call with me and the other sisters to talk about what should be done. I recommended calling 911. They didn’t like that. Looking up information, I suggested they call Resolve, an Allegheny County function set up for situations like this. After more conversation, that’s what sis agreed to do.

Sis called and spoke with an intervention specialist who said they could send a team out. If they didn’t send a team, they recommended sis stay with Mom the night to keep tabs on her, which sis said that she couldn’t do.

Another sister, let’s call her #2, lives near Mom and sis. She called Mom. She texted us that Mom sounded loopy and claimed she’d taken pills, type and number unspecified. Sister #2 also said that Mom told her she’d left an envelope of money for her. Mom added, “My body would be there, but I won’t be.” Sis called 911.

At midnight Eastern time, sis told us the police and EMT arrived and took Mom to the hospital. Later, we heard the needed paperwork was signed and approved to begin the process of evaluating Mom. They’re looking for a geriatric bed in a psychiatric bed for further evaluation. Sis went into Mom’s room afterward and found a stash of used adult diapers stuffed between Mom’s pillows. That’s stunning — appalling. Mom was a clean freak. Those hidden dirty diapers are alien to everything Mom has ever been, ever done.

Now we’re trying to learn where things will go. Mom and sis agree, Mom is not returning to sis’s house. The family agrees that Mom, 90, hallucinating, a fall risk, should not be allowed to return home but the state and county might have the final word on that.

Today finds The Neurons playing “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves” in my morning mental music stream. The 1985 hit song was written by Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, and sung by Lennox and Aretha Franklin. The song’s presence has nothing to do with Mom’s current situation; I was just thinking of my sisters and the song began playing in my head.

Hope the day finds you healthy and happy, and that grace and peace drop by to alleviate your fears and anxieties.

Cheers

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Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts

The net can be a dizzying roller coaster. Bad news headlines, followed by humor on a friend’s blog, then disastrous breaking news, chased by sweet floof photos, which give way to dire predictions, trailed by fascinating new scientific or historic findings, war and political updates, and book reviews.

I ride throughout the day, breaking off to soothe myself with my personal writing, and then releasing all the pent tension with a relaxing game or two (or four). You know, Wordle. Spelling Bee. Sudoku.

How different from my youth. We watched television together in the family room — ‘in color’ — so it was a consensus choice. Five channels were available: PBS, the big three, and one UHF channel that washed in and out on a sea of static. Sitcoms (“Green Acres”), dramas (“Gunsmoke) and thrillers (“The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”) entertained us, or the Movie of the Week, delivering Psycho, Seven Days in May, and The Sound of Music, among a plethora of others.

Then I consider how different my mother’s childhood was. She was a little girl in Turin, Iowa, during the Depression and World War II, eating popcorn and listening to a radio with her family, or going to the hardware store to watch “I Love Lucy” on the only television in their small town.

Reaching further back, I struggle with visualizing how it was in my grandfather’s youth. He helped establish Turin a few decades before Mom was born. Guess I’ll surf the net about it and see what I find.

Once on the roller coaster, getting off it isn’t easy.

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Now Watching

We finished watching His Dark Materials. It felt rushed — like, the time with the bears should have been longer — and we have some casting issues, (well, one) but it was a worthwhile entertainment.

Alas, it ended too quickly. What to watch now?

Well, we have American Gods on deck, deciding to hold off on it until we finished His Dark Materials so we’d have something in reserve. Meanwhile, my wife said, “What about Watchmen?”

She didn’t have much awareness about the show. I was familiar with the movie and graphic novels and knew they were doing a series. Sure, let’s watch.

Well, the first damn episode was gripping. Hope the rest are as good. I know of series that started strongly but then faded.

Meanwhile, I’m finishing with Dublin Murders. I’d read the Tana French books and enjoyed them, particularly the first, In the Woods. Our neighbor, Walt, didn’t like “The Likeness”. “There’s no way that a person can live with people who know them and fool them into thinking they’re someone else. I just can’t buy it.” I enjoyed it, though, and I find the series moderately entertaining, with perhaps a little too much angst. I like the casting, as I’m familiar with a number of the actors via BBC (and Britbox), Acorn, and Netflix. I recommend the series. They’re not procedurals but murder/dramas, in my mind (where else) (would we call a murder/drama a murma?)

Cheers

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