Funk Will Be In It

My aged mother, Fran, turned 80 in December.  She’s old, increasingly deaf, forgetful, toothless, 85 lbs, with fragile bones, but, so far, safe from cancers and alzheimer’s and their friends.

My brother and two sisters each take one week out of four to visit her, wash her clothes, buy groceries, clean her apartment. It’s hard work, yet much easier than many I know struggle with.  It’s hard getting older and having your parents getting so much older at the same time.

We figure out holidays by trading this one for that one.  New Year is quiet in my home and was my week with Mom so Chris and I brought her home for our quiet transition.

As she always does, at 8pm she went to bed.  Hugs and “See you tomorrow.”s

Less then traditional, Chris and I were standing at the ends of separate half-floors stair cases talking about my family and me mum.  We were praising my sister, JoEllen, who when her three young sons are particular in what they like to eat, choses to let them eat what they like instead of forcing them to “Eat the goddamn lima beans.”  She has small bowls of multiple vegetables when she serves her family dinner so everyone gets to eat what they prefer.  What an amazing, creative mom!  It isn’t the only thing she does, but is indicative of who she is.

While Chris and I were praising her around 11:45pm New Years Eve, my 80 year old Mom came out of her bedroom and told us that as she went to the bathroom and saw it was close to midnight she decided to join us for the incoming New Year. She knew I’d be awake, didn’t know if Chris would be, but here we were discussing her great, kind, open-minded mother of a daughter.

My aged mother was happy to be awake through it, with me and Chris.  She asked me to make her a bourbon and water, and when I suggested half of one she said, “Yes!”Mom came down and we watched Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin charmingly welcome in the New Year.

It was unexpected and moving to have Mom and Chris and me celebrating the start of a New Year together.  Mom was so happy to be awake with us.  We hugged and kissed her first   Everyone was loving everyone, and feeling it in personal ways/waves/weights.

I get to start the New Year feeling love for my beloved husband and my mother, my siblings, our dogs and cats, and a great fistful of human friends.

Chris keeps freaking out that it’s 2010 so few years after Y2K worry even though it has been a solid 10 years since y2K.  I agree with it seeming impossible, but have observed the simple math as it has happened.  0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 = 10 = decade.

Happy New Year, I hope.

Fuckashitpiss.  Live long and prosper.  When I get mad when I think you’re wrong, maybe I am wrong too.

It’s all a crapshoot.

My wonderful second cousin, the daughter of my cousin who I think becomes my second  cousin, moved from close to me to Connecticut over a year ago.  Recently, I received emails that she’d posted pictures of her new home and her wonderful children on her Facebook page.   I was not given access to them without signing onto Facebook, which didn’t appeal to me but whatever ….   After the third time when her pictures were withheld from me without joining, I joined.

It was good to see her pictures.

Many of my real time friends are on Facebook so I added them as my Facebook friends, and often their friends and my real life acquaintances who I like but don’t talk to all that much, and some people whose first names I recognized but ended up not being who I thought they were.

For the record, gods bless Facebook and all those who enjoy it and make use of it for their reasons.

I never liked it.  I dislike parties, rooms full of people, small talk, and it felt like that to me.

What I disliked the most was the weird function where someone announces that “(Their Name Here) likes this.”  Banal much?  Why does anyone even mention such a lukewarm opinion.  I don’t mean to attack those who do, but why? Why? WHY?  If one has nothing to say about it, why mention such a bland, formatted by the site liking of it.  I imagine going to see a movie or show with friends and after it we went out for a bite and some of us said, “I liked it,” while others said nothing at all.

Banality seems the FB norm to me.  Why have your life published to everyone at the same time as the same thing to each of your friends and family and their whomevers?  I think I have different relationships with each of the people I know, sharing experiences based on things we’ve shared, not generic information about all of us to everybody.  I say this on this Blog to whomever stumbles onto it.  Hypocrite much?

I disliked and mostly ignored Facebook.  Again, gods bless those who find it useful and friendly.  And I honor that my artist friends get to post information about where they’ll be showing their art.  That makes sense to me, as a fresh new way to share with those who might be interested in what’s out there that isn’t being mentioned elsewhere.

A dear, wonderful friend I love and respect, who I’ll call Macy, put up a video on her Facebook page of NY Senator Diane Savino supporting gay marriage.  When I saw Macy live and in person, she encouraged me to watch it two different times, so I signed onto her on Facebook  and watched.  It’s the best … it’s not an argument, just simplicity and acceptance and fairness articulated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q08Ggd-OlCM

I was moved, so I commented to her on her Facebook page:  Thank you, married lady, for encouraging this homo, who’s shared a criminal marriage with another homo for 29 and 1/2 years, to watch this brilliant, simple (in the best way), clear as a bell woman’s common sense.  We have living wills making each other each other’s legal guardians, but the simple truth is we are married, no matter what the government and all the Gods in all the Heavens think of it.  It never occurred to me until people started making laws that said, “You aren’t married,” to insist, “Yes, we are.”   The issue educated me about the clear fact of our marriage.  29 and 1/2 years into it, we are as married as any married couple anywhere ever.  Traditional marriage, where fathers sold their daughters to fathers with sons, where 25 desperate women try to hook up with one guy on a TV show, and vice versa, needs to catch up with us.  Let us determine who’s married and who isn’t, if you want to be fair.  For the record, Senator Steven and Junior Senator Chris have determined that you U.S. citizens Macy and Winston seem to be very happily married so get to remain married thus far.  We will continue to observe and deliberate.

After that, I wrote something else:  Sorry to say even more, but I left out that I like to sing to Chris, “I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow, (I say today, and I hope it stays true.)” Who knows about tomorrow, but today I love him more than yesterday and he says it to me.  Besides demanding so-called marriage, I love him up, up to the sky.

Later, I sent an email of this info the my friend, Macy, unsure when/if she’d notice on FB.  She emailed me back.

“Yeah, you might want to limit your FB comments to a sentence or two.    But it’s all good. Just FYI, whenever you comment on a post, anyone who’s commented on the post before you or anyone who’s hit “like” on that post will get an email with your comment. The people who’d commented before you are all cool, so no worries, but just so you know.  ”

Huh?  A sentence or two?  And multiple smiley faces?  Have we never met?  The video that was shared with me moved me, touched on my life, and inspired comment that was less minimal than “FunkWillBeInIt liked this.”

This was my Facebook breaking point, realizing it’s not like friendships for me, not about relationships where the conversations are personal, where I was discouraged to be more than a sentence of two.

So I deactivated Facebook and wrote to Macy that I did:  I get it, but don’t only allow me to see what you encourage me to see inside your FB community if the real person I am might comment with so much more than “FunkWillBeInIt likes it.”
In future, if you think there’s a website I might appreciate, send it to me personally.  I know it might take 10 seconds of your time, but I only joined FB to see pictures my cousin’s daughter’s children that were only posted there.
Limiting my ideas to a sentence or two eats shit to me.
I want to express my thoughts as they exist, and FB is not the place for that.  I don’t mean to burden strangers with my unwelcome thoughts and feelings.
As laws may not determine my marriage, FB will not limit me to a sentence or two.
Anyone who wants to can ignore whatever I have to say, and no reason to burden strangers with that.
I’m not in any way hostile, just confused and uncomfortable with FB every step of the way.
Youz are a complete joy in my life.
Chris watched the NY Senator and fell in love with her as well.
She was so worth listening to, inspiring and brilliant and simple in the best way.
I would not have heard her if not for you, so thank you to high heaven.
Good news.  Since I dislike the FB experience I’ve deactivated my account, which was a struggle discovering how to do that.
FB sucks one in and will not easily let go.  Searching for “cancel” or “close” didn’t find anything, so I had to stumble upon “deactivate” as it is so much like the Terminator.
In future, if you want me to see what you think I might find interesting, you’ll have to send it to me as if I was an individual.
This has been useful clarity for me.
I don’t belong in the FB mob.
And I respect you and most of the peeps I know and love and honor who do.
From now on, I will remain silent.
Shhhhhhh,
FunkWillBeInIt”

Reading it now, it does come off as a bit harsh, I shamefully admit.  It wasn’t meant to.  I’m not harsh about Macy, not about her saying anything to me, not even about the much beloved Facebook.  I sound harsh because it was an experience that left me confused and cranky.  It was also fun, to explore it and find I disliked it.  It wasn’t quite camp. like, say, Sarah Palin, but almost.  It was a silly hoot.

Macy wrote back: OK, you’ve way overreacted here to what I said, if you deactivated your account because of my response to your email. I would never give you a maximum of sentences that you’re allowed to write, and people certainly write more than 2, there’s no rule. When I said “1 or 2″ with a smiley face after it, I was making light of how unusually long your comment was compared to what you might normally see, that’s all. And I was only letting you know about the email sent to people thing in case you didn’t know and cared… I don’t know how much you know yet about how it works, so was trying to help.
Seems a bit dramatic to cancel your account as I think you’d have been a fun person to have on FB, whether they’d have been long or short comments that you made. And it’s not like you join FB and you never can send stuff in an email again, you can certainly still do both. You might have found both outlets valuable in their own ways. But it’s, of course, all up to you.

I wrote back to Macy: I disliked everything about it.  Your comment was just the straw that helped me realize my camel’s back was broken.
I’m delightedly not dramatic about removing myself from it.
I’m not being critical of it … well, iI guess I am, but not anymore now that I’ve shed it.  I was sneering the “(your name here) likes this” aspect of it yesterday, wondering the value of that.
is all good!
peace and love.

I then emailed to other friends on it:  Since I was disliking Facebook every step of the experience, and then I’d posted a paragraph and was advised to keep it down to a sentence or two, I deactivated my account.  Being a part of the mob makes me feel like I’m a part of a mob.  From now on, if you want to share your ideas with me, you’ll have to pretend I’m an individual and send it as an email like we did in 1980.   Sorry if being an email friend instead of a Facebook friend takes 10 more seconds out of your day.  Or not.  I’m happy finding my personal Jesus.

Friends wrote back:

Wow, I really hate it too—it’s not communication, it’s broadcasting—everyone in their own personal reality tv shows. I started it for business reasons but find myself not using it and not wanting to use my friends for business reasons.

gol! you threw the baby out with the bath water but i understand. there will be other opportunities to be 21st Century Steven without having to become a realtor.
(Wondering where you were typing that you got that message.)

how are you going to know now when someone’s making a sandwich or wishing that it wasn’t raining?!? I fear you’re going to be dangerously cut off!

It is true, now you will truly be left out… Just how WILL you know when someone makes a yummy sandwich. You will miss it when I shovel my driveway or make disparaging comments about my husband!
Oh well….. first we lost your witty blog (I enjoyed it very much) and now the facebook community/cult loses you…
It is a sad sad day…

p.s.    This ain’t exactly on topic, but I saw it while I writing the above and it amused me.  I saw it on Time Magazine’s Best of Everything as one of the 10 Top Late Night Jokes.

“Twitter went down today.  If only there was some short, shallow, self-indulgent way to express my horror.” – Stephen Colbert http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379_1945913_1945903,00.html#ixzz0ZJzxXASi

Who cares but me, but I always think of her, such a great soul, a great friend, a great listener. She died almost 4 years ago, yet does live in me which is what preachies say is what matters.
Fuck them. She’s still totally dead. But less than gone.

I love you, Ree, and crave you, and praise you a fraction as much as you deserve.

We went tonight to The Little Theatre of Alexandria, (Virginia) and saw the first public night of Andrea and Lars Klores in the musical “1776.” It’s about the composing of the Declaration of Independence.

The whole show was quite stirring. It’s community theater and stunning knowing that. If it had been Broadway expensive theater, which it isn’t, one could argue it was minimally uneven.

Biggest gripe is that when the curtain closed it was as if two dying snails were pulling the two halves of the curtain together.

But more important, it was emotionally involving, revealing dark complexities of the very human heroes who debated whether or not to separate from England in 1776.

Lars was acting in his first show, first musical EVER!. He loves this show and the Theater.

He plays the Congressional Secretary who by his Secretarial duties becomes the narrator of the piece, reading missives from G. Washington and calling on the members of Congress to debate Independence. He’s interesting, invested in the debates but professional in his duties providing information to deciders. Lars was very natural, gained in presence as the show allowed, then sang his short solo with emotion, and had a great influence on the dramatic conclusion.

Nine years ago, Andrea played Martha Jefferson, the smaller of the two small female parts in this show about the all male Congress figuring out Indepence in 1776. She sang maybe the worst song in the show then, not her fault since she sang it well, was good enough in the part, but the song is totally alien to the whole, if you ask me.

During the audition for this production, she got total diva on them and said she’d only do the show if she got the larger small female role, Abigail Adams.

Then she did.

A lesson to all timid divas?

I dunno.

Abigail Adams sings songs at home alone writing letters to her husband, John Adams, in Philadelphia. They perform them on the far edges of the upstage stage.
I was in the front row and Andrea was on my side of the stage, right in front of me and I got to see her performance like it was a close up in a movie, from a very low angle.

She was so intimate. Her performance started in her eyes as she looked into the audience writing a letter to John Adams working in his distant Congress. She was so smart, funny, delicate. Her smiles were gentle, graceful, as she supported her husband’s cranky personality.

I’m going to stop defining it as I don’t have the language to translate how amazing she was.

She was amazing compared to every great thing I’ve seen. I love me my great actresses and she became one of them.

In her honesty and simplicity and clarity, I’d compare her performance to intimate TV performances by Billie Piper in “Doctor Who” and Molly Parker in “Springtown.”

Soft smiles. Warm eyes. Ideas within.

Since I was in the front row, I was gifted to see her intimacy as close as anyone. I don’t know how it would be sitting 15 rows back, but truth in acting sells so good hope for everyone in the sweetly large theater. Sitting four feet away from her simplicity, I believed it absolutely.

It was an amazing thing in a great show.

We didn’t know when we got our tickets, on the aisle of the front row, she’d be in a close-up, always on our side. Praise the gods.

I love my plays, my actresses, my actors in plays, and this time I got to see something new and rich in her, that she gave to everyone there and the universe that deserves great art, as noble in her artistry as other great performances I’ve seen.

Plus, she sang her songs with similar truth and beauty, with an always lovely voice that was better than ever. It was, again, gentle, a graceful soprano. Not an ounce of that high-pitch soprano thing that can hurt my ears even when it’s great, but full of depth and warmth and love for her distant, noble, cranky husband.

It was great to see friends in a show that I thought had greatness in it, with an appreciation of them but not dependent on that.

The whole show was great.

Lars was great.

Andrea was as big a Revolution as the one that gained us our Independence.

Well, maybe less a Revolution than that.

But …

I’ve seen her perform and sing and she’s always good.

This time she was transcendent.

My cousin, Ann Marie, our family called her Ree, who I met when I was a baby, then I traveled to Turkey and Scotland since my father was in the Navy, then reconnected with Ree when I was around 10 years old, is my best friend forever, my absolute BFF without any of the modern lameness of BFFs.

I love her. She’s taught me tons, mostly that efforts to be Fair, open, balanced, in conflicts and love is what we owe our life, friends, loves.

She constantly took an interest in me, in my ideas, my feelings, my weaknesses and strengths.

And she was constantly interesting, her ideas, feelings, weaknesses, and strenghts.

She and we split the world open, when I was 10 years old and ever after.

She died 12/13/05 at 50 after struggling with breast cancer that spread like buckshot through her body.

Perhaps gigantic earthquakes and tsunamis and serial killers have taken more beautiful life from the planet than her cancer did. It’s not a contest.

Gods bless every struggling everyone everywhere, and her too.

She was complex, brilliant, energetic, argumentative, the perfect sandwich of arrogance and humility that insisted and begged for intriguing conversations to explore what both you and she were thinking and feeling.

She loved funerals and the constructs of the Catholic church, though she declared herself an Athiest. We have an Aunt in her 80’s who’s been a Nun since she was 16. When Sister Anita visited Ann Marie after Ree was in a coma, dead to the world, Ree gave a surprising, involuntarily smile. She seemed to find peace from the visit from a nun who was Sister Anita and her Aunt Tante.

I don’t know what to make of this, what math to do, but saw it happen and it was warm and real.

She was a cranky bitch, yet open in her heart.

I so long to discuss this with her.

Ree loved cemetaries. She had an aged photo of a dead baby in a coffin that is now hanging on my wall.

Though Paris has nationalistic restrictions requiring only Frenchies get in, her ashes are entombed at Pere La Chaise in Paris, France.

As a young adult, she hated French arrogance, then married a man with a French mother and opened her heart to the country and the world’s greatest cemetary, and now she is resting there.

Spoonfuls of her cremated ashes rest with me and her then estranged husband who just remarried. At his Reception in his and Nancy’s newly remodeled home he showed me that his spoonful of Ann Marie’s and their dog, Molly’s, ashes, has a place in his new home. Gods bless their new marriage.

I’m thinking of Ree because last year I did the math and figured that July 5th I’d be as old as she was when she died.

I cannot imagine dying on this youthful day.

I love her, crave her nearly every fucking day, and how mean that she died as young as I am right this minute.

Then I did the math again.

Typical of her kind brilliance, I was the age she died last month, not now. The drama I had put on my calendar is not true. It was a month ago and came and went without notice.

Morbid, sure, but she and I can laugh about it.

She remains huge and beautiful and amazing and vibrant.

I love you, and am so grateful to live a month longer than you did, so far.

If you have influence, give me more.

I love you. I miss you always, when I pass a restaurant, hear a song, see a leaf.

You are the best and your absence is the worst.

The world was a smarter place with you bitching about it, and listening to it, and listening to me.

I miss you.

When I was wee, she lived the lesson to attend to things people said that would resonate. She kept quotes from people, and showed me the beauty in that.

Speaking of her death, I’m reminded of a John Lennon quote she loved.

“Tee hee hee – I’m glad it’s not me.”

I love you, my most beautiful cousin. Live inside me, please.

“All around Robin Hood’s barn” is a weird phrase Karen Fletcher said to me when we were in High School a minute ago.

I insisted she was crazy and had made it up, or her family had.

Later, the internet showed me it is a phrase of sorts, to mean running all around Robin Hood’s forest, which I think means running hither and yon.

In our treating Hoffman’s fatal Lymphoma, we’re running all around Robin Hood’s barn.

Last Thursday, we took her to our Holistic vet for an Ozone treatment which was injecting magic air into her rectum, after which I held her tail against her anus for twenty minutes to keep it inside. It hopes to kill cancer cells.

It didn’t instantly make her young and sturdy again.

Our local vet, young and perceptive, did research and said there is little scientific evidence about Ozone treatments helping.

Saturday, full of paranoid confusion with Hoffman’s aging struggles, we took Hoffman to see our local vet. She said Hoff was doing okay, with slightly enlarged Lymph nodes, and prescribed drugs, which the Holistics try to avoid.

I wish I knew what to do, but have more trust in the complex drugs than in the wacky air up the butt for quick results for Hoffman who has an unpredictable short life expectancy.

We gave her an appetite stimulant and upped her dose of Prednisone, then today she started leaking urine like … a sick person who leaks urine,

Does that suggest we rush to euthanize her?

When do we go there, the perfect peaceful day before she suffers?

Urination is a hideous pain in the ass, on furniture, on our bed and pillows, but we love her and who kills someone they love for pissing on their pillow in their sleep?

Unless it means she’s in misery.

Tons of confusion, no clear answers.

Hoffman is a mixed beagle and has always been full of a nervousness that seems consistent with Beagles. It’s formed a stressful relationship, always needing to help her relax, made more poignant with her now being terminal. Gods bless every instant of it.

Earlier today she was leaving drips of urine wherever she was. We blocked her upstairs on the wooden floors, easier to clean than rugs and carpet, and stayed up there with her. At first we Windexed and wiped with paper towels, then Chris got a mop and mopped.

We called our local vet who told us it was a typical response to the upped dose of Predisone so suggested lessoning by a quarter.

As the day progressed, Hoffman leaked less and less, then not at all.

Chris, brilliant scientist that he is, wondered if we could divide her doses of Predisone throughout the day, instead of giving her one big dose in the morning, give her a third of that three times a day.

Our vet said she didn’t know, so give it a try.

So that’s our tomorrow.

We love Hoffman.
We hate urine on our furniture.

In that order.

Fuckashitpiss never stops.

And neither does a glory called love.

It’s comforting to love the bitch that pisses on your furniture.

“I went to Dr. Danoff after winning a ‘Wellness Exam‘ from a silent auction. I had heard really great things about her and wanted to try using more holistic methods of treating my dog’s allergies. Although I went to her three times – each time hoping it would be better than the last – I decided I would never go back.
She immediately muzzled my dog just to look at his belly and hind legs! I was rather appalled at this gesture considering my dog is quite gentle and showed no signs of aggression. Needless to say my dog did not take well to the muzzle and was hyperventilating and under severe stress during the exam.
Another thing that I found annoying and upsetting was that each time I went she tried selling me more and more products from their retail shelves. Different herbs, shampoos, supplements, etc. Some of them I decided to try, but by the third visit she was already trying to resell some of the items to me that I had already bought.
I know she is considered ‘THE‘ holistic vet in town, but I much prefer my vet at Suburban Animal Hospital, Dr. Schrader, who encourages use of holistic methods and modern medicine. We have found a great balance there.
FYI – Another reason I started to doubt Dr. Danoff’s abilities was when I found out that one of her own cats had died from kidney failure after eating the tainted store bought food from China, after she lectured me on feeding my dog a raw diet. Not cool, and sad for the cat.“

Chris and I agreed many times to be open minded, hopeful, with clarity, but worried about being sold too much product and a bill of goods.
Plus, we knew we weren’t going to join the religion that Holistic meds might require, and knew it wouldn’t be a miracle cure.

Our nurse, Tashi, wearing Birkenstock sandals and socks, with a tattooed ring on her wedding finger, sat on the floor with Hoffman and gently felt her up all over. Then she typed some info on a laptop computer then turned up the volume on it. New Age music started playing. Well, New Age might have too much edge and too much of a disco beat compared to what was playing. This sounded like someone who had a cold was exhaling through one of her stuffed nostrils, with less range.
I later realized it might have been a whale, which is lovely but not a concert I’ve been to yet.
Tashi gave me a booklet about what their Holistic veterinary practice is all about, and the first page I opened to was about putting hands above Hoffman’s body to help adjust her Chi.

I’m full of respect for friends and strangers who have found value from this, the same open-hearted respect I have for Ghost Hunters and Civil War reenactors.
Gods bless them all, but we’re not joining any of those churches.

Tashi told us that their biggest thing is a Raw Food Diet, which includes chicken backs and necks and wings, turkey backs and necks wings.
She has six dogs, including a 125 lb. Mastiff and a 100 pound Mastiff. She posts online about her belief in the Raw Food Diet, and admitted she likes to go to extremes with it. A friend of hers is a hunter and she has posted pictures of the two huge Mastiff’s chewing the face off of deer heads.

Then Dr. Pema came in.
I assumed Pema was her surname, but Chris found out while we were there it was her first name. Again, could be cool and natural, or desperate and unprofessional. Her full name is Pema Choepel Mallu and she’s an ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun. Who doesn’t honor that?
She had a crew-cut and big round eyes that stared with a long silence after she finished explaining each of her ideas.
Hoffman was withdrawn, and Dr. Perma asked if she was always this depressed. Chris explained she wasn’t depressed at all as far as we could tell, just nervous in a new place with new doctors ready to poke and prod her some more. She seemed to believe the truth he told.
She talked more about the benefits of the Raw Food Diet, how it’s based on the natural evolution of dogs and cats over 1000 years instead of being based on the cheap grains that are in food from the Pet Food Industry.
Well, no, she didn’t get that negative. She just encouraged the positives about it, while I just turned it into a political argument.
She mentioned that if you hike with dogs when they come upon a carcass they’ll roll around in it because they love it so much.
Chris asked if raw food would be good for the cats too, and she explained how it was even better for them as they are absolute carnivores.

She felt up Hoff’s lymph nodes, two on her back legs and two in her throat. She said only one in her throat felt enlarged, and said it was more thick than enlarged.
She mentioned Ozone therapy which would give Hoffman doses of Oxygen which kills cancer cells and strengthens the immune system.
How is she given extra Oxygen? It was either given IV or in her rectum, in liquid form.

She left and Tashi, the nurse, returned.
She suggested a butcher in Brandywine, MD that she uses who has pretty inexpensive icky parts of chickens, turkey, venison, beef, etc. She gave us their website and read from it some of their pretty inexpensive prices.
We can get some at our local grocery stores too. Grinding up fruit and vegetables with it is best.
So, maintaining the Raw Food Diet would not profit these people one penny.

They never mentioned Chi or positive energy or smile therapy.
They encouraged a $12 book about Raw Food Diet and said they had some frozen raw food there if we wanted to start with that.

Of course, being cynical, cranky doubters, we dove right in.
We’ve always known grains aren’t the best thing for carnivores, but is so much the filler of Pet Food we found no better choice but to get the more expensive stuff and hoped it was less unhealthy. We used to get 95% brand canned dog food because it was 95% meat, but then they seemed to go out of business.

We bought a little of their frozen stuff they had to cover us this weekend, and next week we’ll go to some butchery and get necks and wings and internal organs.
They did not up-sell us a hair on what we bought from them.
Tashi suggested maybe two bags was too much, and told us the weight and how many meals were in each bag.
It wasn’t inexpensive, but was minimized by Tashi.

Why are bones encouraged when routine advice is never to give dogs or cats poultry bones?
Because raw they are mostly cartilage and loose and flexible. When you cook them, they dry up and will shatter into tiny spikes.
Duh!

We’re becoming a Raw Food Diet household for all the non-humans living here.
We started tonight.
Hoffman loved it, as she loves to eat shit and bark off the trees and wooden furniture and gum wrappers. She’d eat your foot if you crossed your legs too long and it fell asleep.
Debbie was slow, as she always is, but licked and tasted and waited and tasted and licked and licked and took a bite, and slowly ate it all.
One cat, Midge, slowly ate it down, while the others just stared at it, then walked away.
They’ve always been grumpy about any food that wasn’t the same fish canned cat food they’ve always preferred, so we’re going to give them only this until they eat it. We’re sure it’s only the oddity of the new food, not really taste preference that made them walk away. They eat moths and crawling bugs, for goodness sake!
It’s harder on Chris than me, but we’re going to feed them our new religion’s raw meat until they eat it or starve to death.

We used to find it curious that all our cats loved pieces of broccoli, and now have joined the Church where that makes perfect sense and will become a part of their routine diet.

(note: our regular vet who originally diagnosed Hoff’s Lymphoma advised me that it isn’t good to starve cats until they get hungry enough to eat as they might just starve. I have heeded her advice, and thank her for it.)

We feel hopeful.
Improving the diet of all our beasts in a way that makes sense to us and is probably less expensive than Pet Industry Food feels great.
I might even try to lose weight by slicing ounces off myself daily and having them for breakfast.
On a bagel.

It’s way Fabulous! that Hoffman’s enlarged lymph node (just the one!) just seemed thick to Dr. Pema.
I understand that its thickening in the midst of her second bout of chemo indicated instantly that the chemo wasn’t working well enough, though still feel frustration about the abruptness of that, trying to accept that Cancer is an amazingly, unpredictably powerful thing.

We know to keep our expectations under control, but hope feels good.
When Ann Marie, my cancer-ridden most beautiful cousin, wanted to return to outpatient Hospice care after dropping it for a month, dropping it when she believed she was almost healthy enough to return to work and normalize her life again, two months before she died, her sister called Hospice to reinstate. I was worried they might have an attitude that they’d offered their wisdom and service and she chose to reject them so was on her own!
That revealed more about my character. or fear, than theirs.
They bounced right back, and the Hospice Social Director told me that they’d come to see denial in sick people could be a good thing. AnnMarie believing in her health was a good thing. Even though it soon completely failed her, it was cheery when she felt it.

Yesterday when the bad news dropped it felt like the darkest day ever. Really bad. Newly bad, worse than ever, it seemed, even though we’d been in sad death places before.
I guess every time is a first time with each individual, and sometimes many times with each individual.

Now we’re on the sunny side.

Plus, Chris loves to cook, which will include preparing raw foods.
He gets to buy a new cleaver to break up the ribs and backs and bones of the dead, the icky parts of the already dead that the fancy breast eaters like myself don’t eat.
He’s been wanting to replace the rotting refrigerator in our garage with a freezer, and stocking up on raw meat requires a freezer so lucky him.

We’re dancing a jig.
We know we’re all going to die, and are back on a path of not thinking about it until we have to think about it again.

Zing go the strings of our hearts!,
which you should feed to our pets who survive us when we die.

Party on!

There are debates about whether or not hearing impaired people should or shouldn’t get Cochlear Implants that often improve hearing. Some in the Deaf Community appreciate their Deaf Culture, know their deafness is not a disability, like themselves the way they are. Some hearing people don’t understand, say why not hear if help can help you hear. Why refuse to hear?

I know the final answer.

Kidding, of course. I have no clue.

I’m sure I’m not the first to compare this, but if a young queer was able to get an implant to make them straight, would that be a problem solver?

Queer isn’t a disability, but why not straighten it out in a world where the vast majority is straight?
Don’t you want to blend in with everyone else?
Don’t you want to be allowed to fight in a war?

If an implant makes a queer male hot for boobies and vaginas, is there anything wrong with that?
Or do you feel a sense of self in your queer self and enjoy the life that’s given you?
If an implant helps you appreciate a baseball game more than Kathy Griffin, you’ll get along better with the guys at work.
So, why won’t you?

Perhaps for the same reasons some deaf people see themselves as fine as they are, see their deaf children fine as they are as some see gay youth fine as they are.

Plus, it seems the Cochlear implants don’t turn deaf into hearing, but has varied levels of success. I imagine it could be like listening to the radio where you’re tuned just past the radio station, hearing what’s being played but also static and distortion that could make many turn the damn radio off.

Maybe don’t ruin their lives with all the noise in the world.
Maybe don’t bother my deaf child with all that blather.

But music would be such a great thing to experience!
Sad to miss music, whatever your preferences.
Unless it’s tinny and loud and distorted, unless you figure out appreciating that.

As does my brilliant Blogfessor.
He’s a demigod who loves alternate sound.
He’s a hot piece.

Back to Gay Ears.
I don’t know.
I suppose I end up thinking the more painless sensations you get the better.
And the more things that sing to you the better.
Having people sing to each other using their dancing hands might work best for some.

I like the debate about Deaf Culture, the right not to hear if that’s who you start being, and/or have been for a long time and that’s who you know you are.

I don’t have a right to an opinion, and love the question.

And, to quote a tired joke from my better half,
What?

Earlier, I made some fun of struggling with me 78 year old mum’s snot on my sacred chicken salad.
Earlier this afternoon, she had a T.I.A., a transient ischemic attack.

Luckily, she was at my amazing sister, Jo Ellen’s, house.
Jo was doing laundry. Mom was making a sandwich for herself on the kitchen counter, her back to Jo. Jo saw Mom spread some butter on bread and then stop.
Jo doesn’t know why she noticed, but noticed Mom freeze.

Jo rushed a chair behind her and helped Mom sit.
Mom was blank. Unresponsive to questions. Jo said she was gray.
Jo called for her husband, John, to call 911.
Mom vomited, and then was herself again.

Jo, the youngest, is the greatest of me mum’s four children.
I’m next greatest, if you ask me, so not so bad, but Jo is miles above me.
I’m grateful Mom was with a super observant sensitive super woman who saw Mom’s weakness as it began from looking at her backside and getting a chair before Mom needed to sit, and guiding blank Mom into a seat.

EMT came. Mom didn’t want to go to the hospital, but Jo insisted so they took her there.
A less-than-routine 6 hours in the Emergency Room suggested Mom had a T.I.A., a mini-stroke that causes no permanent damage but suggests a stroke sometime in the future.

I don’t think I’d yell at me mum for having a T.I.A., but am delighted she was with my sensitive sister when it happened.

But she might be with me next time.
I will try softer.

I love my mother.
I worry about her declining health scaring her.
I must be groovy sunshine whenever I’m with her.
Which is telling mud it needs to be sun, but fuck you, mud, you need to be sun!
Mud won’t do.
Rise, bitch.

So, I will.
-ish

Aging parents is the cliche of my peers.
Woe is we.

Rise, bitch.