Tag: family

Today’s Wandering Thoughts

I found myself thinking about my parents as I dressed this morning. One is from Iowa and resides in Pennsylvania. The other is from Pennsylvania and lives in Texas. They divorced way back in the mid 1960s. Were friends or friendly off and on. Now Mom is bitter and angry about Dad; Dad is reflective about Mom.

I left their homes when I was 17. I’ve visited both as they moved around, remarried, and raised other families. As they’ve aged, Dad tells me he’d like to be closer to me. Mom tells me she’d like to hear from me more often because she worries about me.

But a large elephant marches through their desires. I’ve been married 49 years. Mom visited me once, when I bought her an airline ticket and forced it to happen. Dad visited me once in my first year of marriage, dropping by with my father-in-law for thirty minutes while they happened to be in the area. It just didn’t seem like they were deeply invested in being part of my life.

I don’t feel abandoned by them. Dad admits he wasn’t a good father and wasn’t there. Mom insists she was there as much as she could be. I do see their sides but I’m indifferent to Dad’s efforts for us to be closer or to Mom’s request for me to alleviate worries. I could employ simple sophistry and claim, they made me who I am, but really, I head little from them across my decades of living. Sure, they always sent birthday and holiday cards, but mostly there were months of silence. Yes, I know they each raised other children and went on through a few more marriages.

I get all of that. My feelings about them slice along a spectrum. I love them as they love me, from a distance. I know they made sacrifices on my behalf to ensure I had food and shelter security and a place to call home. But at an early age, as I watched their fights and listened to their arguments, I made a decision to be independent of them. Sure, there are days when I surf the spectrum of our relationships when I want to help them out of guilt or empathy. They become less as I move through my life, age, and deal with my own issues.

My parents both have been supportive in many ways. They tell me they’re proud of me. My wife points out that it all would’ve probably been different if she and I had children.

But we didn’t, and this is where my parents and I stand, like many other parents and their offspring, at a complex crossroads which we never leave.

2

Someday’s Theme Music

Mood: irasperanky

Awoke with a nostalgia for change and thought, someday. The Neurons filled in the date as Someday, October 6, 2024. Sounds like a potential novel title.

Someday is another autmer day, kicking off in the low fifties. Building on sunshine and blue skies, the final temperature measurement should sing at about 86 degrees F. Air quality is good, two, single digits to double digits surfing the teens and low twenties. Sweet air.

Less than 30 days until Election Day 2024. Vote blue.

So much news to potentially write about that I shun writing about any of it. Sumovit is so damn depressing that it pulls my thoughts down into some deep mud and I just don’t wanna be there today. Weary of the effort for now. Turning attention to other things. Like a requirement to attend another’s seventieth birthday party.

Sounds like a good thing, right? A party, yea! Cake, snacks, all that. Starts at 2 PM. Right in the afternoon’s meat.

But. The cranky bug bit me in the ass today. Think it might have happened when I was sitting on the can doing the daily. A cranky infection has spread, affecting my spirit. Gotta grit my teeth to go fete my casual friend. I have many other things I want or should be doing. As always, a balance between the do’s — must, will, want, can’t do — must be struck. Then you ride the wave of the day best you can. Fall off, get back up, start riding again.

Today’s music is “I Will Follow” by U2. Came out in 1980. Entered the morning mental music stream (Trademark someday) today. Once again, cats caused The Neuron’s choices. Talking to my floofs, I was urging them to follow me if they want their breakfast. Papi the ginger blade was eagerly willing — “Let’s go let’s go let’s go” were his reaction — but Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) seemed to be collecting flies. Finally, with some mild irritation and exasperation — let’s call it irasperation — Tucker did a slow roll stroll another direction. “Okay,” I said. “I will follow you.” And that’s when U2 kicked off with their 1980 rocker in my head.

Stay positive. Stay up on your vaccination against the cranky bug. Crankiness can spread faster than the flu. Coffee has made its grand entrance. Here’s the music. Walk away, walk away, I will follow. Cheers

0

The Cougar Dream

I awoke in the dream in a bed. As I sat up, I realized a young cougar had walked in from outside. Before I could do anything, it jumped up on the bed and came to me. I was freaking but urged myself to relax and stay calm.

My wife entered the room and gasped. “That a cougar?”

“Yes,” I quietly answered. “Don’t move fast. It’s pretty chill. Don’t do anything to upset it.”

The cougar was sniffing me and sometimes licking me. Wasn’t real big, about the size of a small large dog, if you follow. It wasn’t threatening me.

My wife said, “I’m going to back up back into the bathroom and close the door.”

“Do it slow,” I replied.

She did. The cougar spent several more minutes with me and then left through the door. I gathered from what I saw in the dream that I was in a living room sofa sleeper and the front door was open on the other side of the room. When the cougar left, I hurried out after it with an intention of warning others. The cougar meandered along the sidewalk, literally sniffing the flowers, along with other things, and then went down a hill away from the place through thick foliage.

I went back and dressed, and my wife and I walked down the sidewalk to the dining room. My sisters and brothers-in-law were there, so we told them about what had happened. As I finished telling the story, my older sister came in and listened. Giving a hand wave, she said, “Oh, that’s just Leslie.” She explained that Leslie was a young cougar who lived here. He never bothered anyone.

I was mildly indignant that she was so blase about my cougar encounter and that she’d known about this cougar and didn’t say anything.

Dream end.

0

Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts

Most people learn that the same response doesn’t fit every situation and adjust their behavior and responses to reflect the moment. Some, however, never seem to learn, insisting on using the same strident notes, no matter what’s happening. Even as that fails, their only response is to lean harder on that one mode, as though it’ll miraculously work, never seeing how they’re only worsening matters, even though people avoid them or walk away.

They end up alone, shouting at themselves.

0

Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: Confloofeed

The world has dropped a Sunday bomb on Ashlandia, emphasis on sun. Little wind stir the heat. We’ll travel from our current relative pleasant found in 69 degrees to the upper eighties. Cooler than yesterday, not as hot as that endured by those under the skillet lid in the eastern U.S. Today is June 23, 2024. Next Sunday will be June’s final day. This means that almost half of 2024 has slipped by the surly calendar.

In bad news, a friend sent me stats on COVID-19, showing that it’s risin’ agin’. He saved me some time. I’d planned to look into it because eight friends reported they had it in June. Their experience was a few days with mild cold symptoms followed by two to three weeks of poor energy of any kind. One reported, she sit down with a book and go right to sleep.

I spent the morning texting with sisters. One is teaching her sixteen-year-old to drive as her newly adult high school grad takes on adulting as he preps for college this fall. She’s going down to Georgia to vacation with our oldest sister tomorrow. Meanwhile, texting me, the older sister tells me she’s had a couple strokes without elaborating on what kind. She’s always had back problems and now there’s stenosis and they want to fuse five of her vertebrae together. She’s also diabetic and has chronic kidney failure, a byproduct of her meds, she tells me.

Then there’s my middle younger sister. She and her family drove down to the Carolina coast yesterday. They’ve rented a beach house with a pool. They’re all hard workers and mo’ def’ deserve and need a vacay. Hope they’re able to relax and chill.

Meanwhile, my mind is floating around calling Dad to get an update on him and calling Mom to get an update on her and pass the update along about Dad. I’m not quite up to that yet. More coffee and some writing, first.

We had a net outage the other night. Actually, two nights in a row. This frequently happens when the heat jumps into the upper nineties. I mean degrees, not years, decade, or period.

With the net out, we read but then I surfed the television offerings. Since I cut the cable back in 2010, we survive on over-the-air digital broadcasts. We receive the big four networks, along with PBS, and the networks’ sub channels. Like NBC is channel 5.1, then there are three other networks broadcasting old shows or documentaries on channels 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4. X-Files, Two and a Half Men, Seinfeld, along with Green Acres and Hogan’s Heros, and several police/hospital/fire department-based dramas from past decades.

Watching Hogan’s Heros and its silliness, my wife and tried remembering what happened to Bob Crane. Was it suicide or murder? Bludgeoned to death, we rather later recalled, and then conneted it. (Yes, conneted is my word for ‘confirmed on the net’.)

My wife follows a tangent, recalling that Naomi Judd ended her own life. It’d shocked her and me; Naomi Judd, a lovely and talented person, seemed to have it all together, resulting in a life of artistic and commercial success. Naomi Judd, though, coped with many mental and physical health issues and decided, enough. Never know what’s happening in another’s skin and what’s passing through minds.

The final piece that evening was a sort of celebration of the Judds’ music, with my wife enthusing about their songs, like “Mama He’s Crazy” and “Girls Night Out”. But the one she particularly relished was “Turn It Loose” from 1988. She played it a few times once the net returned, heavily accenting her favorite lines by loudly singing along to them.

I love the slide of a steel guitar
I love the moan of an old blues harp
I love the shake of a tambourine
I love the bass when it’s low and mean
So put on your shoutin’ shoes
And turn it loose

h/t to Lyrics.com

It may surprise you that The Neurons in my head then loaded it up and sprang it on me this morning in my morning mental music stream (Trademark loose) as I was wandering around the kitchen, just minding my own business. So that’s today’s theme music.

Stay positive, be strong, and make what you can of the day. Needn’t be perfect. Just tryin’ can help. I’ve downed some coffee — the last gulp was cold as stone. Time to go write and roll.

Here’s the music. Cheers

2

Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: upbeat and restless

Today is Saturday, June 22, 2024. Summer had asserted itself with a firm hand. A solidly blue sky gazes down on Ashlandia and bright sunshine blisters our skin and browns the land. Currently 73 F, Ashlandia’s area will experience low to mid 90s for the highs today. The wind has shifted and the smoke has drifted out of our valley to go plague others in another valley, so it’s breathable outside. Take precautions against the heat and outside activities can be pursued. It supposed to get cooler for a few days, with temperatures dipping into the eighties.

It feels like it’s been a long week. Realizing it’s Saturday surprises me. The big Biden-Trump debate looms on the calendar. Personally, I have a physical this week. Slowing down, moderately overweight, I feel like I’m aging by the day — which, yeah, we all are — so I’m not looking forward to the physical.

Mom and I spoke yesterday. She related one of her favorite precautionary tales. Her mother had a thing about smells. She was living alone, in her nineties, as her children discussed putting her into a nursing home or assisted living facility. Those discussions had stalled.

Meanwhile, on a cold December Nebraska night, her mother put on a light jacket and took a banana peel out to put in the outside trash. She slipped and fell, staying on the ground for forty-five minutes before noticed and helped. That was the end of her living alone. She lived for several more years but wasn’t the same.

On her part, Mom’s big fall over a decade ago triggered her long health decline. For my part, when I was immobilized with an obstructed bladder a few years ago, I saw changes quickly emerge. I was suddenly stiffer and less fluid in my movement. My balance felt slightly off. My metabolic rate had changed as I aged, of course, but suddenly I put on weight. Much of my muscle seemed to slack off overnight. Then, boom, my skin all seemed to be sagging.

It’s likely that all those things were happening but I didn’t notice until my routines were changed. Seeing those changes made me more cognizant of my retreating hair line, and the color fleeing my hair and beard. I feel older, slower, and weary. Reading news of the world and its people, and political news, doesn’t seem to help at all. I turn to coffee for energy boosts but I know I shouldn’t be drinking it any longer. Like Grandma and her banana peel, I can’t stop myself.

I read Jill Dennison’s blog as frequently as I can. She and I seem like kindred political spirits, part of the same tribe as many of you who regularly visit my blog and comment. I read one of Jill’s posts and commented yesterday. In her comments back to me, she mentioned that she’s looking for a rainbow.

That was like a set up for The Neurons. As soon as that was read and digested, they began playing Chris Rea’s song, “Looking for A Rainbow” from 1989, in the morning mental music stream (Trademark smoldering). The song starts out slow as it carries forward the album’s theme, The Road to Hell, but becomes jauntier and of course features Rea’s slide guitar work.

Well we come down to the valley
Yea we’re looking for the honey
I see a rainbow
I say that’s the land of milk and honey

Me and my cousin
Me and my brother
My little sister too
Come looking for a rainbow
Yea we’re looking for a rainbow

Well we come down to the valley
Got our babies in our arms
Yea we’re Maggie’s little children
And we’re looking for Maggie’s farm

Me and my cousin
Me and my brother
My little sister too
Come looking for a rainbow
Yea we’re looking for a rainbow

h/t to Genius.com

Yeah, Jill, baby, I think many of us are looking for a rainbow and the land of milk and honey. Some seem to believe the only way there is by holding others back, beating them down, or banishing them. Yes, I’m looking at you, Republicans.

Stay positive – yes, it’s hard – be strong – yes, also hard – and lean forward and Vote Blue in 2024. Maybe we can create a place that attracts rainbows. Here’s the music. Cheers

1

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Smokytitis

It’s a beautiful summer morning *cough cough*. Except for the smoke in the valley.

Yes, Ashlandia has awoken to smoke in our air on this Friday, June 21, 2024. It’ 70 F out and is expected to clip 93 F. The smoke will cut the high by a few but the smoke’s impact, scratching throats and eyes, congesting noses and sinuses, stirring up infections and limiting outdoor activities, is depressing. Still not as bad as weather in other states

Completed my DIY plumbing yesterday. Took most of the day, a chunk of energy, and three trips to the hardware store. It all worked out, though. My keywords for completing it were persistence, seating, alignment, and tighten. Satisfying and rewarding, once I finished it. And again, I learned.

For relaxation last night, we headed to Lithia Park in the downtown zone for the city band’s concert. It was a sweet, comfortable time as they presented a mixed box of sounds from the 1900s. Three bucks showed up at the park. One enlivened the show by visiting with some patrons and then dashing across the lawn in front of the band. That earned him a light spatter of applause. The other two came up to the front, surveyed the scene, and went around it behind the bandshell.

Back home, the net went out for the evening, so we reverted to reading books and light housecleaning.

On personal matters, my ankle is doing better. Don’t think I’ve noticed swelling in the last two days. There is stiffness. Mostly, there’s distrust. I’m leery of trusting it not to go out. I’m still wrapping it for support and I’m avoiding certain movements with it but I’m mostly walking sans limp.

Spoke with Mom. She’s not happy with her hospital bed. I think it’s a matter of adjustments, as its smaller shape had an impact on how things were arranged, forcing new arrangments to her personal area. That comes with challenges.

Over on Dad’s side, good news abounds. Took ten pounds of fluids out of him. He’s complaining about his kidney-friendly diet and is being moved from ICU to a private acute rehab room. So, hurrah there. A dialysis decision has His wife told me that she’d been worried about costs, but his Medicare and Tricare-for-Life pays for it all. The system works, at least for him. So will respond, yes, because he’s a white man. And they’re probably right but I hope we reach a point that all can be treated in the same way.

The Neurons, being not very original, have an abundance of smoke-themed songs in the morning mental music stream (Trademark hazy). One persistent song was “Smoke from A Distant Fire”, a 1977 hit for Sanford & Towsend. But I shouted, “Get thee back with that music!” That ignited skitter mode in the floofs because they thought I addressed them. I finished to The Neurons, “I reject that song for today and that whole damn attitude. That sent The Neurons afluttering because I’d not even imbibed coffee yet.

Papi then approached to pet me. As scritches were exchanged, The Neurons found an old song, “Jeepster”, and began playing it in the morning mental music stream. Although the T-Rex song came out in 1971, it has a mid to late 1960s sound to my ears. Either way, it’s a fine, upbeat offering for today’s theme music.

Coffee has now been enjoyed. Smoke is lazily graying the azure sky. Don’t know from whence the it originates — the smoke not the sky — but it’s time for me to go rock and roll. Remain pos, be strong, lean forward, and rock on. Here’s the music. There I go, a leaf on the wind. Cheers

0

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Humpnotized

I was gently serenaded awake by the dulcet tones of a cat upchucking somewhere nearby. Investigating, I found it was Tucker heaving up kibble and a hairball. Fortunately, I had an exercise towel down. It was for foot and leg exercises to cope with my ankle injury, based on recommendations from my sister, a physical therapist. Tucker and Papi had staked out the green towel as the new ideal napping spot in the house. That’s where Tucker was sleeping when I went to bed. Apparently, he slept there until he awoke and puked.

That’s how my Wednesday, June 19, 2024 began. Hope yours was better. I raise my coffee cup to Juneteenth and my fellow Americans who celebrate it for all the right reasons.

Spring’s hold is weakening in Ashlandia. Sprummer has burst back onto the scene. It is a beautiful blue skied morning. Sunshine baths runners, bikers, grooming cats, and everything else under the sky. 61 F, today’s high will bounce into the low 90s. With this abrupt weather shift will come high winds.

After the puke check, I squirmed back into bed, and then tumbled with dreams and thoughts. The thoughts went down a parental aisle. Dad in the hospital. Mom was there in April. The two are divorced, with new partners. They actually divorced over fifty years ago. Dad has been with his ‘new wife’ for 35 years, his third marriage. Mom has been with her beau since 2009. Family whispers say that she’s been married seven times. Mom has a secretive gene so vetting information is a challenge.

Mom professes to constant pain. She complains frequently and often about her existence, frequently demanding her daughters’ attention, repeatedly regaling all of us with tales hospital visits, doctor appointments, and health details. Going backwards, appendicities, and before that, a perforated appendix put her in the hospital. Her pacemaker was replaced. COVID hospitalization, spinal stenosis, swollen foot (but not edema, she tells me, although she had sixteen lymph nodes removed during foot surgery), and of course, fifteen years ago, the disastrous fall down the steps. She sleeps with a mask on to help with her breathing because of emphysema. Hardly able to walk, she insists on tottering around the house to clean it, though to most eyes, it’s immaculate. She takes dozens of medications, vitamins, minerals, and supplements.

Dad tells me from his hospital bed, “I’m fine,” with a chuckle. “They have a hundred doctors helping me. They want to put me on dialysis but at my age, they worry about whether I’d survive the procedure.” He’s been stented over ten years ago. Uses a wheelchair and a cane. Has oxygen at home, which he insists that he doesn’t use. Only his wife is there to help him.

Mom always complains about her beau. He can’t hear, she says, and I’ve witnessed the truth of the 94-year-old man’s hearing issues. “He’s forgetful,” she angrily hisses. “I always have to tell him things and make him lists.”

Dad’s wife laughs about Dad and his idiosyncrasies. He never says a harsh word about her.

What a difference their worlds are.

Today’s song choice by Les Neurons is a little ditty called “Twilight Zone (When the Bullet Hits the Bone)” by Golden Earring from 1982. A song inspired by an adventure spy novel, it’s presence in my morning mental music stream (Trademark split) is all on me. See, I was feeding the cats and somehow ended up singing, “You will come to know when the kibble hits the bowl.” That’s a variation of Twilight’s chorus, “You will come to know when the bullet hits the bone.”

Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue for 2024. Coffee has stolen into my body. Here is the music video. Cheers

3

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑