What I fear:
4. Bedbugs.
3. Power outages.
2. Institutionalization.
1. Another Republican President.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
SLEEP INTERRUPTERS
CATLYMPICS 2014
(Actual photo of Scout sent to I Can Haz Cheesburger and captioned there -- taken by Tammi)
Sunday, February 9, 2014
HAPPY REMEMBRANCE, JO AND HER CHILDREN
Today Mama would have been 87 years old.
Last night I dreamed I was a child again, living with my little brother Bill, Mama, and a man who was either my father or a stepfather. The father figure had short white hair but no facial features and no voice.
My parents lived in a ramshackle, unpainted house on the shore of a lake or small sea. A few hundred yards out was a small bare island, and on it was a one-room, lopsided shack with rusting roof that was my and Bill’s bedroom. Access to the mainland was via a cobbled-together wooden walkway. The shack was unheated, with drafty windows that let in glorious light, bare wooden floors, a double iron bedstead, and a stack of boxes that held our clothes. Not actually dissimilar to some places we lived when I was little. Bill was around 5 or 6, and had the round buzzed hair shown in this photo.
It was the night before Mama’s birthday, and he and I were planning what to give her for her birthday. We had no money and no materials from which to make a gift, but we were undeterred. I created an elaborate plan of making breakfast, cleaning the house, singing her a song, etc, and I coached us in the details until bedtime. We were both wired with anticipation at the happiness we’d see on her face.
When we went to bed, Bill spooned back into me for warmth. In the dream, I once again felt his thin small frame, the fuzz of his head, and his little boy smell that was once so familiar to me. Instead of filling me with sadness. I simply felt joy that I had ever known him and had him as a brother: Two eggs which once floated together in our mother.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
ALWAYS TRY FOR THE UNEXPURGATED VERSION
Happy birthday to Ginny Bates! She and Myra are consumed with renovating the
new house behind them that they have bought in order to turn over the family
home to Gillam and Jane before the first baby is born. Myra sent me the photo below of her birthday
gift to Ginny, a Fire-King tilted pitcher in jadeite green.
I woke up during the night with
Foley pain. Finally took a tramadol, my
first in over a week, and waited for Belinda to get here. She flushed the tube and I got a help with
position change, and the throb has stopped.
But Dinah is Not Eating. Waiting to see what is revealed on her noon
visit to the vet.
I had my food stamps call yesterday
afternoon with, as a bonus, Margot listening on Skype. I was pretty worried about it; social worker
Nanci Felice had told me the cuts in Texas are getting worse and worse. After going over all the details, I was kept
at the same level, $87 per month. Which
is ludicrous. At one point, the HHS
woman said “I don’t really see how you are making it.” If it weren’t for Margot and other donors, I
would not be making it at even a poverty level, and that’s a fact.
I have been watching the Olympics
ONLY on BBC and it makes a phenomenal difference to have it through their
lens: Vastly more intelligent (and less
intrusive) commentary not centered on mythic American exceptionalism, no use of
the word “inspirational”, great humour and background, no commercials, and best
of all, NO CHANCE OF HAVING TO HEAR MICHAEL PHELPS’ NAME GRATUITOUSLY TOSSED
IN. The hard-on American men have for Phelps is baffling to me. I am actually
learning substantive things about other cultures and I can fast-forward or
replay when necessary.
In
addition, the commentators who are not Clare Balding are, despite not being
brilliant soft butches, still have a vocabulary and gift for vernacular that
reminds of the era of colour commentary that existed in American media before
worn-out-before-their-time former athletes (dumber than rocks, most of them)
automatically became “retired” into commentator positions here. The descriptions and background info provided
are generally riveting, often delivered in rich working-class and/or regional
accents sans nationalistic crap, and often rolling out words like penultimate,
for example.
This
morning Pam Spaulding informed us that a grievous political edit was made by
NBC during the opening ceremonies broadcast in the US. The following section of IOC Chairman Thomas
Koch’s speech, the part emphasizing diversity and equal rights, was deleted in
America:
"Now
you are living in an Olympic Region. I am sure you will enjoy the benefits for
many, many years to come. Thousands of volunteers have welcomed us with the
well-known warm Russian hospitality. Many thanks to all the wonderful
volunteers. Bolshoi spasiba, valantyoram! Thank you very much to everyone.
Russia and the Russians have set the stage for you, the best winter athletes on
our planet. From this moment on you are not only the best athletes, you are
Olympic Athletes. You will inspire us with your outstanding sports
performances. You have come here for sports. You have come here with your
Olympic dream. The International Olympic Committee wants your Olympic Dream to
come true. This is why we are investing almost all of our revenues in the
development of sports. The universal Olympic rules apply to each and every
athlete- no matter where you come from or what your background is. You are
living together in the Olympic Village. You will celebrate victory with dignity
and accept defeat with dignity. You are bringing the Olympic Values to life. In
this way, the Olympic Games, wherever they take place, set an example for a
peaceful society. Olympic Sport unites people. This is the Olympic Message the
athletes spread to the host country and to the whole world. Yes, it is possible
to strive even for the greatest victory with respect for the dignity of your
competitors. Yes, Yes, it is possible - even as competitors - to live together
under one roof in harmony, with tolerance and without any form of
discrimination for whatever reason. Yes, it is possible - even as competitors -
to listen, to understand and to give an example for a peaceful society."
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
REINTERPRETATION
This morning we made an
almost-no-sweetener-added blueberry and cream cheese pie, chilling for later,
in addition to a salad and fish for lunch.
Also had bath, shampoo, and linen change. Met with Elizabeth, the attendant agency
supervisor, about adding on 1.5 hours of Tammicare per week as authorized by
DADS, and with her came a volunteer coordinator who is going to find someone
that will help me sort through boxes and papers, clear out this place. Have done my budget for next month (squeaking
by kindasorta), and can now focus elsewhere for the afternoon.
Last night I discovered among new
records being made available online is the death certificate of Author Atkins,
the man who raised my mother and was her beloved Daddy. I was startled to discover that although,
yes, he died of pulmonary failure, it was not from CHF as I had thought but
instead was lung metastases from GI carcinoma.
She often told me about sitting up with him at night, when he could not
sleep from gasping and coughing, as he took months to die during her 16th
year. It must have been a worse death
than I had imagined. Marked her for life
and perhaps accounts for some of her fatalism toward health issues.
Even more shocking, I discovered
they (Author, Sook, Mama, and her adoptive brothers) lived not in Stoneburg but
in Fort Worth during 1931-32. When I ran
across this city directory, it sparked a vague memory of Mama talking about the
Christmas when she was 5 years old and they were in Fort Worth, but I had filed
this away as a visit. Instead, Author
found work as a flagman for the Rock Island Railroad and they lived in a small
frame house (2 bedrooms and a detached bathroom) a couple of blocks from the
rail line. On further searching, I found
the house is still standing, built in 1915, and I snagged a photo of it.
I ache to show it to her and ask
what memories it evokes.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING?
Today is frozen and gently
grieving. We have chosen to cook here at
Casa de Jochild. We are trying out the
Jamie Oliver method of cooking chicken in milk with modifications suggested here
and by a couple of friends who have
tried it. We added a dozen pearl onions to the milk, and deleted the cinnamon stick because we didn't have one. It has turned out a beautiful
result.
We used the leftover olive oil/butter
from searing the chicken to fry my breakfast home fries, and those were
extremely good. And while the oven was
on, we split a head of garlic, soaked it in olive oil and roasted it as well,
to be saved in even more olive oil as our basic low-heat cooking oil.This house now smells like a garlic
press.
Nursing visit postponed until
Thursday because of icy roads. I have
more HHS forms to fill out and social service clarification calls to make that
I am dragging my heels about because I am so fucking tired of begging and
justifying my right to a poverty level of existence. Think I’ll just eat chicken and listen to
Pete Seeger for a while.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
TWO UNEASY PIECES
(Praying mantises in Kahramanmaras, Turkey; taken by Mehmet Karaca)
After my mother died at age 56 and
my father’s next hasty remarriage failed, he lost his house and his job. He moved into a crappy apartment near my
youngest brother and got a security officer job. He began giving full vent to all the racism
he had been forced to keep in check living with Mama, and started buying
guns.
He finally married again, an
alcoholic Baptist widow older than him who owned her home, and spent his days
on his recliner in front of the TV watching Walker Texas Ranger and Bonanza
reruns. He had caddies over each arm
rest. In the right hand one was the
remote, a large sportsdrink cup filled with iced tea and bourbon, and a loaded
9 mm with the safety off. In the left
hand one was a men’s urinal bedpan jug so he didn’t have to keep running to the
toilet.
He warned me often that if I came to
visit, I was to give him advance notice and a firm arrival time, and NEVER to
let myself in without loud knocking and much calling out of my name. He’d say sorrowfully “I’d hate to have to
shoot you, honey.”
I liken his unveiling of what must
have been there all along, unchanged by my mother’s influence, as analogous to
what has happened in this country since the Right made it publicly acceptable (again)
to articulate open violence against niggers and bitches. People of colour and open-eyed women could
have told you that the ugly reality of hate was there all along, and indeed is
the foundation of American mythic superiority.
Churches and the military tend to support this resurgence. It’s where the money and the troops are to be
found.
At his funeral, everybody talked
about what a kind, generous old man he had been. Law-abiding and a pillar of the church. White men get every pass in the world, and we
all ignore how scared we are of them.
------------------------------
Joan Annsfire recently posted a thought-provoking piece at her blog about how Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris had been
important role models for her, and the devastation she felt when it was
revealed that Michael had molested their children before he committed suicide. I likewise felt a terrible, personal betrayal
about this man in whom I had placed so much faith. Even more, I wondered how on earth Louise was
bearing it.
Louise kept a public quiet as she
recovered. Finally, on 5 March 2001, she
released a short story to The New Yorker called
"The Shawl". I was still rereading it and trying to take in its message when my
little brother Bill died under terrible circumstances. The two became linked together in my memory.
I talked about it last night with
Margot, and this morning she tracked down the story to read it. I just reread it, too, for the first time in
a dozen years, and I am weeping at the power of this woman’s art.
This is how we go on.
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