First of all, a thanks for the food and hospitality from Felicia during the family reunion.
Also, a thanks to Ashlyn and Shari at Wnedy’s.
More thoughts later…the Committee wants to convenr and confer. What you infer is yours to refer or defer.
How so we build hope in one group without reducing hope for another?
Belief in a shared dream.
1955 Dream Caes on the cover of Motor Trend. Winning Wimbledon. Seeing family. Pain-free sleep.
Time for negotiations.
I could get used to being pampered.
Last night, while munching on a “healthy” veggie burger at Beauregard’s, thanks to Drew’s service, a guy dressed head to toe in my favourite team colours told my wife and me to watch a rising football star at Grissom High School in Huntsville.
We will.
We hope he wears orange and white for UTK on the football field soon, carrying on the traditions of Condredge Holloway, Joey Kent, Jayson Swain, and Rashad Moore. Maybe we can get Johnny Majors and Phil Fulmer back in the fold together again for the very first time and bring the likes of Trooper Taylor the Recruiter back on the staff with Dooley.
There’s hope in Big Orange Country, now that integrity is a real priority.
Do I smell controversy in the Heart of Dixie? Auburn and Bama fans don’t want me to spell out the answer. Will Finebaum show his true colours or detail the facts?
Go Vols!
Time to taste my wife’s wonderful peanut butter sticks, a family favourite, just in time for the 4th of July.
Happy 1st of July to Canadians.
And congrats to Sharapova.
Now, back to your regularly-scheduled interrupted life.
Sunlight captured in decomposed organic material, wind, rain, radioactive rock, steam vents.
Solar power.
Undiscovered, yet-to-be invented energy sources.
“The Life Of The Party” by Bennett Cerf.
The memoirs of Richard Nixon.
Not getting the copy of the nurse response times that my wife asked for and recording other issues here for permanent record.
For my wife’s mother’s health.
Sketches at an inquisition.
Stained glass smiling…rather, beaming in the sun.
Jeff Gordon in 2nd place.
Redirecting the hacking community toward more nonanarchic goals.
Building up rather than breaking in.
The first hacker-launched communications satellite orbiting the Moon, with terabytes of space-hardened quantum computing power far outside international lawmaker infuences.
Last thoughts in this moment of a dying man’s states of energy.
Moving on.
23 and me.
Cloning disc.
Disc golf.
Exclusive news and offers.
Putting seven billion people to constructive use rather than spend all my energy shredding the global banking “industry” into its nonmaterialistically immaterial antiquated pieces.
Making derivatives and commodity futures – any speculative manipulation of basic goods-and-services prices – illegal again.
Either that, or motivate the crowd to foment revolution.
I can go any way I please, all in the name of saving the species for my goal of saving the species from itself and for its participation in spreading life of Earth into the cosmos.
Off the top of your head can you tell me the temperature of Mars 10, 20, or 100 killometers below the surface?
I’m tired and impatient.
Am I supposed to say I’m glad we have VCs who’ve made their gazillions by jacking up the cost of living for ignorant peasantry in order to fund startups that’ll hopefully create the next generation of peasants’ artificially-induced desirables?
[Note to editor: strike “peasantry” reference in the last paragraph and replace with “middle class” – tell business/political leaders’ speechwriters to do the same.]
The elders on the Committee remind me that I need to back off and let people have their dreams, no matter how misinformed or misdirected they may seem to be.
After all, I grew up cheering for Richard Petty – a guy who sat in a metal cage and pointed the output of an internal combustion engine so that the metal cage rolled primarily in semicircles several hours at a time – signing autographs and bringing happiness to people most of the week.
That, in itself, will not get me on a cruise around the Moon, but profits from the sale of idolising gear and spinoff technology will.
Best wishes and prayers for those who suffer ill effects of natural disasters, those who live in violence-prone neighbourhoods and those who face illnesses alone in loneliness.
Time to meditate.
Only 14,193 days left – time’s a’wastin’!
A list in an email from my sister:
“1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words :’In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come…
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.”
Friends are the family that we choose.
In more humour news, rolling blackouts swept across Chinese metropolises and countrysides today, local police and citizen guardians arresting or killing anyone making comments, affirmative or negatory, in regards to the rumours that China was under cybersiege. In related news, U.S. securities shot up in value, with the dollar reaching a new high against all major currencies. The Federal Reserve used the higher dollar to cancel debt owned by China, Japan and several other sovereign nations, allowing the U.S. to make immediate and drastic diplomatic relationship changes. India and Brazil once again found themselves caught in the cold grips of a virtual war of words in which they were sideline commentators unwilling to put their nuclear arsenals on full alert lest they interfere with upcoming cricket or futbol matches. The World Court declared China’s hoarding of special chemicals and minerals illegal, opening the U.N. debate on sanctioning and declaring 21st June 2011 the official start date of World Cyberwarfare 2.0 Day.
Scientists announced the recreation of a comedian, W.C. Fields, whose body had unknowingly been well-preserved through alcoholism and available for DNA analysis and reconstruction lo these many decades. Sales of pure grain alcohol skyrocketed, with buyers claiming they were preserving their bodies for future revivi..vivi…[hiccup!]
vivification, whatever that means.
After the recent devastating earthquakes rocked Haiti, U.S. researchers there found the secret formula for zombification. Today, U.S. drones dropped silent “bombs” of zombification fluid in several major cities, primarily near the fortresses, palaces, resorts, getaways and government buildings where prominent entertainers and military/political leaders work, reside or hide.
Therefore, any local/regional/global news you see or hear, where popular talking heads are babbling on about subjects of little to no interest to most of us, is probably under the direct mind control of the extraterrestrial aliens operating the U.S. government in bunkers deep beneath the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court buildings and operating the world governments in shelters deep beneath the U.N. Building.
Contrary to popular rumours, the bombing of the World Trade Center was not a terrorist act but rather the continuing intergalactic battle for control of Earth. In the aftermath of the WTC/Pentagon attacks, aliens from Sector W2II3 of the Uncategorised Quadrant took over Earth because the aliens from Sector WVB1991 and their world-control equipment were effectively wiped out of commission.
Yes, the Soviets may have been part of Area 51 but Area 51 was always supposed to be a ruse devised by the Cold War leaders to divert the attention of humans not yet under zombie control or under the influence of expanding mass media hypnosis.
World governments have still not been able to locate the invisible alien control center in Afghanistan, despite millennia of deciphering hieroglyphic markings found in that part of Earth. Legend has it that the invisible alien control center will give not only eternal life but also the ability to move galaxies at will, making domination of this planet seem like a kindergarten sandbox fight.
That’s all the humourumour news not fit to print in grocery store rag mags or professional comedy websites.
We were sitting at the hardware store, talking about nothing in particular, when an obvious sales guy showed up.
“Hey, fellas! I’m new in town.”
We blinked in unison, as close to a friendly hello as a bunch of cautious friends will make.
“I see I’m up against a tough crowd. My name’s Wodwin.”
“Wodmin, I’m Smoot, the hardware store owner. What can I do fer ya?”
“I’m looking to start up a business in this town, seeing as how I own a bunch of ’em upstate, and wondered if any of you could introduce me to one of your preachers.”
“Well, now, Wodwin, what kinda preacher are you lookin’ for? Regular Protestant? Evangelical Protestant? Nonspecific?”
“Don’t matter to me, none. Just a fella who has his finger on the pulse of his congregation.”
Rog, our resident critic, stood up. “Wodwin, whot you need a preacher fer? You got sumthin’ to confess that we need hear about afore it spreads all over town?”
“Naw. Nothin’ like that. My daughter’s thinkin’ of gettin’ married and I need to make sure she has a good talk with a preacher before she ties the knot with the ‘man of her dreams.'”
“He somebody we know?”
“I reckon not. He’s from a different country. Smoot, you got any suggestions?”
“Ahh…hmm…boys, you think ol’ Reverend Stalvohl would do, in a case like this?”
I nodded. “Sure. He’d know what to say to a young lady about the proper conduct of mind afore you settled into the married life.”
Wodwin tipped his hat. “Fellas, you’ve been a big help. I’m good with faces so when I see any of you come into my store, I’ll make sure to offer you a special discount. Have a great day!”
A week later, I ran into the preacher. “Reverend Stalvohl, heard you was popular.”
“Yes, indeed. You hardware store regulars have been a’houndin’ me about this new man in town a name of Wodwin.”
“Well, spill the beans. Any good gossip for us?”
“Not yet. Wodwin visited with me and spent a long time inquisitatin’ about my views on the evils of alcohol. I told ‘im I wasn’t sure that alcohol was evil unto itself but the abuse of the firewater led to many a stray soul leavin’ the church.”
“You tell it like it is, Reverend. You wonder if Wodwin is a drinker?”
“No. He ain’t. In fact, he told me he was a teetotaler but that he did own a few liquor stores upstate. I told him I didn’t judge a man by how he made his money but I sure didn’t think his liquor stores would go over well in this God-fearin’ town.”
“That’s a good one, preacher. We shore haven’t had a liquor store in these parts in a long time.”
“Indeed. In any case, Wodwin is sendin’ his daughter over to my place this evenin’, so I’m sure you and the boys will have more to talk about tomorrow.”
The next morning, the hardware store was filled with farmers and handymen. Seems like word had gotten out that Wodwin’s daughter was not only a looker but a regular student of the Bible. News had spread she was stoppin’ by the hardware store before lunch so every fella that could get time away from his job had swung by the store on a lame excuse or two.
Smoot turned the store microphone on. “Boys! Boys! Quiet down. We’ve got a sweet, young lady here who’s asked to speak to ya. Her’s names Selfketia. Ma’am, the floor’s all yours.”
“Good morning, everyone! My name’s Selfketia. My daddy’s name is Wodwin and I think many of you have met him. My daddy’s a wonderful man, God-fearin’ just like you, and he wants to open a brand-new store in your town.
“Now, Daddy, he’s got ideas that not everyone is keen on. He learned from his pappy that alcoholism is a hidden disease that wastes away in even the tiniest communities.
“You’d think Daddy was against the drink. But what he found, if’n you get folks to talk about alcohol, you bring out the disease and help those who are afflicted find a cure.
“So, if’n you’s against the drink, I invite you to come on down to Reverend Stalvohl’s church on Sunday and listen to his wonderful sermon on the evils of alcohol.
“Thank you for listenin’ to me and have a great day!”
We stood there, not sure what to say.
But, sure enough, come Sunday, we packed Reverend Stalvohl’s church, no matter whether we’d never attended his church or never attended church at all.
The preacher was lively that day, quoting many a verse about the proper and improper use of alcohol, how even Jesus, the first Christian, was known to have a drop or two with meals and invited all of us to drink alcohol in his name.
After the sermon, when many of us were cheered up by Reverend Stalvohl’s words and feelin’ a bit thirsty, we followed directions he’d given us and drove to a store at the end of town.
There stood Wodwin, dressed in his Sunday finest, offering us watered-down wine and homemade mead, both, he assured us, fully approved by the church, along with imported cheese and crackers, all of which he promised would be for sale in his new liquor store. “…for nonalcoholic patrons only,” Selfketia added.
When the town council referendum came up for approval of a liquor store a couple of weeks later, there weren’t any nays.
I hear that Selfketia’s fiance never followed her to our town and didn’t show up when she went with her daddy to the next town to open their new liquor store.
And me, I opened a BYOB sittin’ porch next door to the liquor store, where we fellas can drink a beer or two, nothin’ more, and discuss the news of the day in more manly, respectable, even gentlemanly manners. Our wives have gone to servin’ a little wine at their weekly get-togethers, too, givin’ wine-tastin’ parties once a month.
We rooted out the alcoholics pretty quickly, havin’ never noticed the ones who’d sneak out to buy liquor in the next town when we were dry but seein’ ’em stockin’ up here now a lot easier. The preacher’s workin’ with them on their drinkin’ disease.
The rest of us feel a little more sophisticated when strangers stop in, able to offer ’em a soda pop or sippin’ whiskey at their preference.
And a little extra tax revenue for our small town! 😉
Last night, my nephew and his bridetobe served as center of attention while they opened gifts and answered questions during a “tool and gadget” party, one of several rituals leading up to their public proclamation of lifetime living together.
Parents and children of his youth and early adulthood attended the event.
So did new friends, college classmates and coworkers.
A culmination, affirmation, tribal gathering.
People with their own lives, who’ve performed roles as background for my nephew’s church-focused life – smiling faces, polite conversation, etc. – are probably seeing me and me seeing them for the last, or next-to-last, time.
For the first time, I learned the first name of a person I had assigned the label “Brett’s mom” ten or twenty years ago.
A pretty woman of whom I know only that her husband is a retired pilot. I seem to remember she might have been a flight attendant, lived on a farm with her retired husband and has a daughter older than my nephew’s friend, Brett.
In their midtwenties, my nephew and his friends are starting their families and will assign labels to acquaintances for easy meme recall.
At 49, I see my mother in-law at 93 as she attempts to accept her new life in a geriatric assisted living facility.
In other words, I’m looking 44 years into my future, a man without children, who, with or without his wife at that time, will depend on nephews and nieces to place me in a “home.”
Some futures I intentionally leave in the dark, waiting until another time to savour the flavour of emotionally-tinged moments.
In conversation with others last night, learning about family migration patterns and individual work habits, I saw the price I’ve paid for my independence, being a being on the margin of many subcultures as the hermit in a cabin in the woods.
Happiness is in us, not in objects.
Last night, many people verified their internal happiness through close proximity with others who shared approximately the same happy feelings/thoughts, mainly through stories of successful family ancestors/offspring.
Without children to represent my internal happiness, these words are the external clues to what I feel/think, happily or otherwise.
I am “these word’s author,” a meme to myself and perhaps others, the father of an imagined future rather than flesh-and-blood reality.
I can’t hug the future or teach it how to throw a baseball. The future won’t feed me when I’m helplessly drooling in old age.
Today, I admit happiness is relative – my childless independence hurts.
Pardon me while I have a selfish manly cry over the choices I made that led to this moment of sad childlessness.
The existence of this post betrays its existence.
At the same time, the Anarchy Party is planning to…well, wait, isn’t anarchy about the lack of organisation?
The list goes on.
Poking fun at ourselves with complicated symbology is the best form of innerspecies flattery.
Pretending to be enraged/mad or insane/mad or happy/dull or unsharpened/dull.
Or just plain mad/dull.
Rewriting Lysistrata and the Art of War for the seventeen-thousandth time.
Or perhaps happy/mad.
The pursuit of the pursuers of happiness – that’s the sole purpose of the Patriot Act.
“By God, man, don’t you know my version of the Great American Way is the only true path to happiness?”
“I don’t know, boss. I’m too busy cleaning your floor while earning less than minimum wage and getting no benefits in order to feed my kids who dream of anything better than what I’m doing, even if they simply become slaves to technology and monthly roaming rates like you, rather than my parents, who were slaves to the dry soil and fickle weather of my home country, which inspires many there to seek the easy life of drugs and gun running, which your country buys from us and supplies to us, respectively. But, hey, I’m nobody, right?”
To stay on my path, which includes sitting here and watching a cicada body trapped in a spider thread spin in the wind, is what it is, neither THE way nor just any way to live in happiness and peace.
A person my age is the most-recognised political executive of the Western Hemisphere.
To control a vast network of people hidden from view is like being in charge of the Apathy Party – no one cares to know the truth because it would shatter every dream or wish we have in saying we are in control of our personal destinies.
I overheard an elderly person make a toast with a glass of wine:
“Here’s to those who wish me well,
The rest of you can go to hell.”
Then they proceeded with a fashion show at the assisted living facility, including a lady who wore a hat made of pill bottles, much more inventive than any of the haute couture creations that pass for wearable art these days.
I’m in a wickedly vicious mood, wanting more out of life than what a passive, nonadventurous, monotonously monogamous, family-oriented, suburban existence offers.
Let the moralists cry over the sex crimes of the IMF chief and others who make good conformist news headlines.
Quite frankly, I am not them, although I live among them and support their subculture like any other.
At the same time, I suffer buyer’s remorse over putting my mother in-law in a “cruise ship” firmly planted in the middle of urban sprawl, wondering if she’ll get the intellectual stimulus she’s enjoyed at a small town pace her whole life.
And finally, not worried about readership, I return to the life I had, coordinating with my network of nonconforming individualists to herd the lives of most of the rest of the seven billion of us states of energy hanging out around this orb, none of you fully aware of what’s really going on, some of you getting a rare glimpse behind the illusions you were handed in your formative years.
Time to complete a few tasks for my mother in-law’s move and then meditate on nothing in particular – the best part of being inactive and uncaring in relation to the voices of extremists and whiners.
Is there a theme/purpose for today’s blog entry?
Why am I sitting here externalising my thoughts?
Actions speak louder than words.
As a product of these times, I am connected to the few percent of the living examples of my species in total, dead or alive.
I can speak actively and write passively or three other combinations of active/passive existence.
Possible theme/purpose
In agreement with her family, my wife made the final call about living quarters for the rest of her mother’s life.
A three-story building containing one floor of memory care (i.e., Alzheimer’s/dementia residents) and two floors of those who require assisted living, including a la carte levels of care based on time management studies of individual resident’s daily assistance needs.
Many places we visited during the informationgathering/decisionmaking process offered in-house services such as beauty/barber shop, exercise classes, religion studies, shopping/community excursions, housekeeping/laundry, basic “cable” television, telephone and electric/water/sewage/garbage utilities.
All provided three meals a day, trained staff available 24/7, socialising events and medical alert technology.
Thanks to Kerri, Lawanda, Leonard, Rob, Brenda, Madeline and others at HarborChase for their help ahead of my mother in-law’s arrival.
Thanks to Michelle, Tara, Diane and Tayasha at Country Cottage for their input into my wife’s decision.
A harrying, emotional couple of weeks with logistical issues yet to resolve.
All,
After talking with folks at the assisted living facilities in the spreadsheet I previously sent you, visiting all but one in the local area myself and having the facilities back home send a representative to see Nanny, I think we have the information we need for the final decision.
I talked with Nanny for almost 15 minutes last night, going over with her one more time what she truly desires.
She has seen that she’s not getting many visits from her hometown friends and will continue to get less, possibly leading back to the loneliness she felt at her house. Her church, which used to be her strongest tie to the community, doesn’t have the appeal it once did. Thus, with her closest living relatives all begging her to come here, she has decided that the move (with a clear promise to transport her whole deceased body to her hometown for a Christian memorial at the funeral home (and at the church only if we strongly desire so) and burial in the family plot (“all you have to do is add the last date to the stone”)) will satisfy both her and her grand/children’s wishes.
In addition, she expressed her desire not to be in a place that was too busy/confusing with lots of activities. She wants a quiet, comfortable, but socially-engaging life.
Thus, here, it appears that two places are best for her, at both an appropriate price point and comfort level – the Multilevel Building and the Single Floor Facility.
The Single Floor Facility, designed on the smaller-is-better concept, has a dining/community area that’s more like a great room in a house (seating all 16 residents) than a restaurant. Note that it’s locally owned and operated.
The Multilevel Building, on the other hand, like several larger facilities in town, offers many conveniences, including a big dining area that is more of a restaurant than a dining room. Note that it’s operated by an out-of-town corporation.
If you read this far down in the email, I’ll share with you an observation from a friend of my parents, Linda Bena, who has specialized in geriatric social services for 17 years in Florida. She highly recommends, especially for a person in her 70s or early 80s, a facility that offers multiple healthcare services (a CCRC or “continuing care retirement community,” as they call it), including independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing, physical therapy and a memory care (Alzheimer’s/dementia) unit. That way, the person, after making new friends in the facility, can still get convenient visits from these friends in the same facility and enjoy a continuity of “home” life from entry to end-of-life (through hospice care, if desired).
Neither the Multilevel Building nor the Single Floor Facility offers the full suite of CCRC healthcare services that a larger facility like others in town offer. At the same time, as Linda noted, Nanny, at 93, is much older than the typical person who enters an independent/assisted/skilled nursing facility so a CCRC may not be necessary for her quality of life.
That summarizes the information up to this point.
I still need to figure out the ramifications of moving Nanny from the health insurance plan in her hometown to whatever’s available here because her current health insurance is NOT available locally, which means we’d have to put her on a new Medicare insurance plan by 1 July.
Of course, we’ll get a moving van to transfer personal furniture to the new facility, as well.
My wife will work with her mother to make the final decision.
By the way, the social worker at the physical rehab unit is meeting with the staff for Medicare patient planning later today and will inform me this afternoon if there’s any change in Nanny’s scheduled discharge date – the social worker also has to place orders with the staff doctor on Thursday for Nanny’s transfer to her new home so we need to inform her ASAP tomorrow what the decision is.
Regards,
Rick
treetrunkdings 