Father's Day 2025

One of my favorite sounds, back in the day, was of my dad at his typewriter. It was his weapon of choice, and I guess that might be where I get my love of writing and storytelling. Fueled by disgruntlement he would smite the keys with his index fingers, serving up nasty letters intended to make himself feel like a warrior.

He used carbon paper, and he always saved his favorite letters. I found this duplicate left in my mom's files.

Happy Father's Day

And We're Out?

Today is supposed to be the day we exit my mom's apartment. It's oddly stressful, but it's almost over. On Tuesday and Wednesday our main caregiver and I cleaned out closets and made bags of trash and bags for Goodwill. A dear friend whose mom lives next door to mine also helped us the other day, clearing out Mom's clothes and taking 5 bags to Goodwill. We encouraged her to take anything for her mom.

Yesterday was gross. I listened to an audiobook about the Chinese men who were on the Titanic (soothing, but wonky) while soaking grime off the closet floor (super disgustoid -- a combination of "fruit of the past" and dust). Behind the antique dresser I found evidence of mom's behavior -- the missing drawer pulls that she took off the dresser repeatedly, and broken ceramic triangles. These were pieces of soup bowls, brightly coated with dried butternut squash soup. She broke things when she was upset, and I swept up many shards of discontent yesterday.

And finally yesterday there was a visit to the mortuary to settle up our accounts. But along with the bad, there was the sweet moment of seeing a photo of our friend and her mother, with her mother looking cute in one of my mom's cozy sweaters. It was her birthday.

Today our caregiver's son is helping extract the big sofa and bed, but I think he's not very experienced in this. He is bringing his cousin and some workers from Home Depot. My nephew is coming to help me get the smaller stuff over to our house. I have a feeling that he's going to end up helping oversee.

I should have paid for movers for them. 

So worried.

But we're getting out of there somehow today. 

And then the next chapter of my life begins.

Fingers crossed

10 Photos

The prompt was to share ten photos I didn't have ten worthy photos in this past week to share, however:

A highlight of the week was a garden swap / earth day / SWANA collaboration at work. SWANA stands for Southwest Asia and North Africa. I decided to do my own collab with the Meow slack channel and I brought cat grass seeds for people to use in delighting their cats.

I came home with some fig cuttings.

And at the end of the day, as I was getting into my car, I found a message from the Coca Cola company: a discarded Coke can next to the parking spot where I always park, that says "Sis".

The Prompt Was About Hands

If my mother saw my hands right now she’d scowl and point at my ripped cuticles and comment on whatever vice – chewing or gardening without gloves – must have led to their shabby appearance.

If my sister, the omnipotent one, saw my hands she’d remark on how much she disliked her own and preferred mine, something that she only confessed to me in recent years.

We compare, we see each other and ourselves in our digits, rip off our socks at Thanksgiving to reveal who did or did not have the family “porpoise toe”, and then argue about what constitutes the porpoise toe other than people knowing it when they see it but seeing it differently from one another. We do not know which ancestor begat the toe.

At a Starbucks in the former meat market in Bergen where our female ancestors were butchers, we have coffee with a distant relative who chastises, in absentia, a woman who married into the family and passed along a congenital hip ailment. My laugh was not appreciated. Was the family perfect beforehand?

My father had one finger so mighty that it could end conversations and silence the room. His hands were wide, his fingers square at the tips, on the end of normal sized fingers. The index finger, his family-famous “spatulate finger”, would smite the dinner table, perpendicular to it, for emphasis. The finger spoke.

Nobody inherited the spatulate finger. The nephew has the shape, but also an ameliorating curved nailbed from an outside genetic force. He does not wield the finger with power.

The week my hands failed, life sat up and barked orders. It expected new things and did not explain the alternatives. Gone was the ability to operate doorknobs without pain. The hands subcontracted to other bodyparts as slow healing commenced through disuse. Feet were the new tools of choice. The hands returned, changed. The price of today's ability to play music or use a stubborn remote is tomorrow's pain. I’m grateful and I’m different and I can see to the other side in new ways since the time of my original hands.

For Shama

I have no idea any longer how it is spelled, but in Old Norse tradition for shama means "for shame". As I recall, the saying turns up in the written versions of oral tradition -- where the orator editorializes about what has just happened in the story. I feel deep shame and anger over my sister's most recent visit.

As readers of mrsguy are aware, her visits of late have been plagued by misfortune. In October she arrived just as my mom got Covid *and* fell and had to go to the hospital where she turned into a beast. In November my sister decided that someone had to spend Thanksgiving with Mom, so she did and inadvertently slept through the alarm, allowing my mom to get up unsupervised and fall. Mom's been mostly awful since then. During the holidays my sister directed me to do all sorts of activities for the family, do money stuff that makes me uncomfortable, etc. Each year my other sister and I hold hold our breath from the beginning of November until the passing of mom's birthday on January 20th.

Too soon after the holidays and weeks before the birthday I spoke to the offending child, who said: "I'm not sure what you have planned for Mom's birthday...but I'm coming to visit". Shoot!! For some reason, probably just reflex, I said I'd see who was available to come see mom. Then I realized that everybody had just seen her a few weeks ago at Christmas (not that she'd remember). I found one volunteer, a family friend. Then my other sister said she'd come see mom with my nephew. Fearing that they'd have to be face-to-face with our sister I joined them for solidarity on the weekend of the birthday proper.

The visit dates kept changing. My sister was going to arrive on the 16th with her husband. Then she was coming without, and coming later in the week. Her best friend was coming to town and she wanted to coordinate the visit in order to see her. She insisted that she only visit with mom on the same day that our favorite caregiver was working. Never mind that my sister has hired all of the caregivers and should want to know them and get to trust them.

During all of her machinations, she changed her tickets three times. Whatever, dude.

The weekend before and after dreaded mom birthday went pretty well. Mom was out of it on weekend one. But after my sister's visit the second weekend she was unbelievably upbeat during our visit. She spoke in complete sentences, thanked us profusely for coming, said she was lucky to have us. When I reported back to mrguy, he was in a state of disbelief that she could be so different from the biting angry mom of late.

Here's the punchline. I thought everything was great. But I checked in with mom and the caregiver the other night after work. Mom had her head on my shoulder and was watching Shark Tank while the caregiver and I caught up. Turns out that my sister had been bullying her about her work schedule in the weeks leading up to the visit, and she had asked her to move her husband's doctor appointment so that she could work on my mom's birthday. When the caregiver's husband said that the appointment couldn't be rescheduled for another week and a half, my sister apparently referred to the doctor loudly as "unprofessional". My sister didn't want to visit with caregivers who were "strangers", a word that our caregiver finds insulting. As do I. It's the same word, she says, that my sister used when describing people who helped my mom during her stay at the hospital in October. I can hear the tone of her voice when she says this word. It's pointed and elongated and ugly. In the end, our caregiver's husband canceled his appointment and the caregiver did what Margaret wanted. I was horrified when hearing this.

Speaking of tone of voice, our caregiver was describing the kinds of things my sister says to her. They are the same kinds of emotionally manipulative things she says to the rest of the family. "I'm not happy about this" is one thing she says that sticks with me. We were raised to believe that if someone else is not happy, we also are not allowed to be happy. And apparently she has groomed our caregiver to respond to this also. As tears streamed down her cheeks and as I clutched my chest, she told me about a time when my sister had taken both hands over her head and slammed them onto the coffee table violently, three times, completely losing her shit and yelling at the caregiver. Why she didn't quit then I absolutely do not know.

My sister behaves like a monster. The caregivers all know that my sister doesn't trust them. They know that my sister worries and is unhappy about the small stuff. They fear her wrath and feel that she blames them for things that happen that are beyond their control.

I feel a deep sense of shame. I am not responsible for her actions but she treats people horribly. She thinks that we're all a bunch of dumb shits, and she can't control the anger that she feels about how much we disappoint her. When we don't do what she wants, we are the enemy. She doesn't care about the wounds she leaves, and I truly expect that after our mom dies that she will want to have some sort of rapprochement. As our caregiver said the other night, I can't forget what happened.

My Favorite Snowflake

Attentive readers of mrsguy might recall the bodacious birthday present I gave to our oldest grandniece several years ago, which consisted of many fake diamond brooches (from the free table at work).

Here's the old post

I got a great photo from her father yesterday, of him in his outfit for Zoom holiday party doings. He looked so happy and snappy in his Santa hat and natural beard that I completely missed out on what his snowflake sweater was made out of -- all of those brooches. Super clever. 

The brooches live!

Shingrixia

The appointment for my second Shingrix dose had been timed perfectly -- on a Friday morning. That would allow me to recuperate on the weekend. But my doctor rescheduled to this Wednesday morning. Therefore the worst of it was during the work week and weeknights (sweats, little men punching me all over, joint pain, weird dreams). Occasional bursts of energy would be followed by deep exhaustion and a retreat to the lady room, where boy kitten spends his days. I had some nice floppenkatzen with bk, who really enjoyed his mama time.

He has been super solicitous, and has taken to stretching out on the credenza to watch us while we watch tv.

Meanwhile, work on the bathroom is almost complete. I look forward to being in the bathtub with less clothing, but for now I am just pretending that I'm bathing.

They're painting the bedroom, and without the curtains up we can really see the view left behind by all of the dead trees that have been removed in the last few years.

Yesterday, mom and her caregiver came over for lunch. Unbelievably there was no complaining. Absolutely none. She liked the bathroom and said "Glamor". She really dug the view. Mrguy just remarked that she also liked her lunch -- didn't complain that there was too much food -- and she made her little dainty happy grunts that signify that she really likes what she's eating.

The main event was our caregiver's storytelling. She told the story of how she met her husband (note: she refers to her first husband as "my husband" and her current husband by his first name). She and her mother were in her country, and in town buying a tomato when a very handsome man introduced himself and offered to buy them whatever they liked. They thanked him for his offer and said that they had enough coins for their tomato. He learned that they had mutual friends, showed up at their house and asked permission from our caregiver's parents to speak with her. The rest is history, as they say. Also history is her husband asking a member of the monarchy for a piece of property where they could build a house. After they started building, people in the community started talking about the land they'd been given. She and her husband worried about causing strife in the community and they bulldozed the house. Along the way we also heard stories about her husband 1) following a guy home who had a truck and a business to ask the guy about his business, and 2) starting an emigration club for people who wanted to come to the US. Still haven't learned the end of the story about the furniture business and the goat.

There were tears in these stories. It's the anniversary of her son-in-law's death last year, and there are lots of memories of him, our caregiver's husband who died, and other sadnesses of the season. We couldn't really interrupt in order to bring mom into the conversation because of the tears and Totie Fields-level lack of space between stories. Mom started to fall asleep. I was out of energy myself. Our caregiver suggested that the mama was pooped, and as we were getting the mama up the steps she said we should come over soon to chase the baby with them. What??? Mom now "sees" a little baby in her apartment and she and the caregiver have fun looking for it.

Wow

Holiday 2021 -- Xmas

On Christmas we did the same thing. Woke up in the morning, came back to our place, and had a nephew and family in for coffee and pastries.

They stayed a LOT longer than I thought they would, and it was really fun. The mama was totally zonked from the day before, and oldest neph cuddled her for two hours while she dozed and we all chatted.

Then came the part that mrguy likens to trying to get a cat out of the carrier at the vet -- it was time to take her home. We waited until halftime (she is a huuuuge basketball fan) and tried to dash. But she wanted to make every excuse to stay. "Who's going to clean that up?" she exclaimed, pointing to the coffee cups and plates. Then there was the trip to the bathroom (what takes her so long?) and finally the trip home.

Once we got there, she was agitated because she couldn't hear well. Then I changed her hearing aid batteries and she screamed at me because it was too loud, and she was worried that they'd confiscate her television because everybody down the street could hear. Let us leave all the other unpleasantness aside and praise Mary Berry and the Downton Abbey movie, which eventually settled her down completely.

Please remember to support your local public broadcasting station.

I Went Out

My title sounds like the name of an On Kawara piece. Yes, I did go out.

I decided to take some time off recently, because the year is ending and I don't want to leave it hanging. I started Day 1 by taking my mom and myself to the dentist. She arrived an hour early and I arrived 5 minutes late, so he took her back and started working on her issues. I hung out with #1, the best caregiver in the world. It was like old times. I remember our first meeting, when I asked her a question and she told me her life story. This time I was asking her the difference (flavor profile) between a Tongan curry and curry of a different place, like Fiji. As I recall, Fijian curry contains lots of nutmeg, which was surprising.

Around the 20 minute mark the story was winding up to a climax. But instead of learning about spice mix, I heard the story of moving back to Tonga to start a furniture manufacturing business, hiring workers on a work contract from Fiji and learning, by means of a goat in the front yard, that her employees were stealing materials and making furniture for people on the sly. "Nobody gives you a goat for nothing," she said. And then the mama appeared at the door, under escort of the doctor, and the story would have to wait to be finished.

After my *own* dentist visit and a year and a half catchup with the doctor, I was off to my favorite taco truck. Bought two burritos (so comforting!) and then went to doctor visit #2, which was with my brand new primary care doctor. I love her already. I gave her a workout, what with my medical history. And she sent me off with 9 different tasks to take care of before I see her again. And a tetanus shot. And the Shingrix vaccine, which I've heard is a hard one.

The next day I scheduled my obgyn, colonoscopy, echocadiogram, thyroid scan, blood tests, orthopedist appointment, and some other stuff. And the Shingrix started to kick in. I am so grateful to have this vaccine, but it messed with me. The following day was a party to celebrate the newest line of forklifts, and I was *thisclose* to staying home. I attended, wearing my jammies and under the power of much ibuprofen. After the big reveal of the forklifts it was time to go to the ladies' room. Whoa! It was like the before times. No masks, people standing in line close together -- it felt dangerous. I told mrguy that I could hold it just long enough to make it home. So we hoofed it on out of there and I went to bed in those same jammies.

Shingrix is real, people. It will have been worth it but it kicked my ass for several days. 

Mom's Birthday 2021

Or as I know it, Inauguration Day!

Only one of those events was joyful. Oh well. To be expected. Like Thanksgiving and Christmas...

I ordered dinners for Mom and her caregiver from a favorite restaurant: salmon, and seafood linguini. 

And I went to the grocery store, which I don't want to do, in order to get her pretty desserts and a card. Oh wait! And mrguy bought her groceries which I also brought to her.

And here were the questions:

• What am I going to do with all of those groceries?
• Why aren't we sitting on your porch today?
• We could have gone to the park

And then the complaints about where she lives and how we don't care that she doesn't want to live there. And then some unconnected thoughts that I couldn't quite make out.

Among them she said that mrguy could come live at her place (which she doesn't like) for a week or so and she could come live with me. Jealous much?

While we were talking, a delivery person brought a small flower arrangement to the front desk, and my mom audibly said how ugly it was, and then again to me "Did you see how ugly that arrangement was?" It was for her. And that person has ears. Argh. Embarrassing.

I took a page out of the Meghan Markle handbook and said "You don't ask me how I am, and I have been doing things for you for your birthday and all you are doing is complaining. It makes me feel bad."

Such a drag.

Meanwhile, my family text thread is brimming with photos of Mom's flowers and presents from her sweet caregivers and they think this is her best birthday ever. She did call to apologize, which was nice, but I think it was just so she could stop feeling bad. 

Lucky her.

Be Careful What You Wish For

October 3. Almost every day of the past 3+ years I've woken up and reached for the laptop to see if he's dead. Often in the middle of the night I'll check the phone. At some point I stopped wanting him dead, but wanting him and lots of his people to suffer. Tuesday's presidential debate made the hate even more fervent. I still don't think that Biden will win, and feel as if our future will be catastrophic no matter the outcome.

On top of it, I have three different Caringbridge accounts that keep giving me poignant medical updates on people I care for who have health problems. Mrguy says that factoring in the base level of misery he's actually quite happy!

We had an awesome time for mrguy's birthday. I went to see the mama and then picked up dinner from a place owned by a guy I used to work with and his partner, who used to work at the forklift factory. They opened the restaurant just 18 months before the pandemic. We like giving them our support.

Due to the heat wave and wildfire smoke, we holed up with a fan and air purifier in what we're calling Man Room Theater, which is the Man Room with two chairs set up so we can watch tv. With food and wine in place we watched two episodes of Mrs Maisel, which is our "pretty place". After that was all said and done and that room had gotten so hot we had to leave, we went back upstairs.

Special birthday bonus: first the news about Hope Hicks, and then POTUS. A boy could barely have gotten a better birthday present. Unlike me, mrguy wasn't hoping for death all this time. His favorite fantasy is that the president will get COVID (so far so good!), suffer mightily, recover, lose the election, be convicted of his many crimes, go to prison, contract COVID again, and continue to suffer mightily.

Cue The Plague of Frogs

Pandemic.

Shelter-in-place for six months.

Wildfires galore that mean you can't open the windows for weeks.

Heat wave after heat wave (without opening the windows).

My favorite cousin died on Thursday after a recurrence of leukemia. Amazingly, on Tuesday he sent me a text that just said "call" and we had one last phone conversation. Took a bereavement day on Friday.

Last night it was 101.7 in the kitchen last night and 120+ in the aku room. I watered the tomatoes 5 times, and the canna corms I've been resurrecting started the day underground and ended the day with 1/4" of growth. 

Several weeks ago, while on a toilet paper hunt for the mama at a local bodega, I passed a bottle of piña colada mixer. Impulse buy! It came in really handy last night. Why did I always think that making blended ice drinks was difficult? It is not.

Among all of the awfulness, we are not alone. Friday night cocktails with friends. Saturday evening zoom with our good friends who were good friends with our cousin after we introduced them. Sunday morning conversation with Cack and Blick. Sunday evening conversation with my cousin (youngest brother of the one who died).

In honor of my cousin, who someone described this week as "an animal of music facts", listen to some Richard Thompson and use the word fuck. 

A LOT.

The Mom Report

I would say that the pot is beginning its inevitable slow boil again. How do I know this? 

Went to visit the mama, and she really wanted me to take her somewhere in my car. Our household sheltering rule is that nobody goes in our cars but the two of us. Mom can't understand any of this. Our caregiver is the one who usually drives her places because the two of them are basically a household. But she lent her car to her son. So today a ride was not possible. Maybe tomorrow or the day after, when her son returns the car. And that should be ok with her. But it is not.

The litany of woe:

• You do not love me. Nobody loves me.
• If you loved me you would put me in your car.
• Prove to me that you love me by putting me in your car.
• When I come to your house tomorrow or the day after you will put me in your car? Why not? (Because I'll already be at my house, Woman. That's why.)
• Other family members put me in their car.
• You're just doing things because people tell you to.
• You used to think I was fun.
• I have done so much for you.
• If you're not taking me in your car today I'll just go back inside.
• Go home and have fun with my things and my money (a personal favorite.)

So that visit basically sucked, and I don't know what happens next.

I leave you with a pretty picture -- end paper from a mid 17th century autograph book:

A Better Day

Yesterday was a better day. After last weekend's fighting with siblings about mom, and revealing the true depth of my sorrow and anger, there was an agreement to some sort of family mediation. I can get therapy for myself, but the source of much of my angst is the conflict between my sister and the rest of us siblings. So if that scenario is still the deal, it's pointless to seek help.

As always, my caveat is that my sister works harder at this than all of us. But I don't think that my mom had to be taken to the Midwest, come back, quarantine until her Covid test came back negative and then have my sister take care of her solo for a week or more in order for things to be where they are right now. I am grateful and not grateful, I guess. Mom's now off all of her psych medications and taking Benadryl to make her sleepy.

Yesterday I got to hang out with both the sister and mom for a few hours in a park. It was relatively pleasant. No barbs were thrown. I socially distanced, but mom didn't wear a mask, and we sat by a path where lots of people passed by. It was fine. I made a flower arrangement for mom and she seemed to like it.

Having done that, today feels like a better day. Boy Kitten is feisty, having waged a successful battle against Rainbow String.

I cleaned his room and washed all of his bedding in hot water and bleach, gave him flea bath, killed a bunch of fleas, and tomorrow he will get a flea treatment.

Our friend, the hardest working man in Hawaiian show business delivered both mussel and limu poke today, and we are having it large.

Mrguy bought lots of potting soil yesterday, and we fixed up the dozens of succulent pots on the upper deck. I gave fertilizer (worm castings) to our plants.

A little more kitten play-time, some Indian food and Hamilton! I admit that things go so fast that I caught the lyrics on my laptop, and we stopped about a third in, because it was so interesting. The desire to sleuth about all of these people who you read about in school was too strong.

The desire to sleuth means that this is a better day.

Unfriending

I believe in listening to opposing views on the political and human spectrum. I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh 20 years ago while commuting to school, mostly so I could hear what the other side was thinking. I also listened to Dr. Laura, and was once treated to her condemnation of the American Library Association as I was driving to library school!

So when I was introduced to some of my Texas cousins, I wanted to keep an open mind about their political views. Not all of them had strong right-wing views, but one of my cousins does. After our trip the two of us connected on social media. It's super interesting that she is pro-trump but works in the medical profession, and I had held out hope that maybe she wasn't such a racist, or any kind of a racist. Recently, however she started reposting online petitions, (like one against retaining a Confederate statue in the town our ancestors lived in). Please -- our ancestor fought for the North. I just signed the opposite petition, in order to cancel out her vote.

Today I had to give up. When someone says "I didn't do anything" in response to discussions of white privilege and racism, there isn't anything that sharing opposing views will handle. Plus her friends are worse than she is. One said that people should be able to shoot at protesters who deface monuments. Another said that the knot used in the noose found in Bubba Wallace's garage is a blahblah knot used by the Navy, and any sane person would use that knot in that circumstance (only he's the only black driver in that circuit and nobody used that "knot" in the other garages.

I just said my peace: "Would you like to be treated the way your black friends are treated? No? I rest my case." and unfriended. This is the post she agrees with wholeheartedly that elicited the comments above.

When All Else Fails

Kittens. The answer to everything. I can't wait until this baby can come out of the bathroom he's in and can join the rest of the family. He's impossibly nice. Purrs like a demon and then pauses to make a sharp and percussive meow. He doesn't cry for any apparent reason. We think it's just because he's happy.

And...the little guy is clever. I've had (and loved) some simple cats but this one figures things out quickly. He is a good distraction from the world of the mama, which is currently under the management of my sister. 

So the scene is that my mom melted down, cops, breaking stuff, etc. The doctor prescribed medicine that my sister referred to as "poison" and when we had a recheck with the doctor he doubled the dose, which made my sister white with rage. She flew here to take mom back home, but stayed, only dealing with Mom and the caregivers, and didn't talk to anyone for a week.

She felt that mom would be better if she were able to get away from her apartment. Every day she took my mom out for a car ride of one to four hours length. She said it's helping her not freak out. Or maybe it's the medication the doctor prescribed. Mom isn't breaking things and yelling any longer, but she's pretty doped up. Sis wanted us to get blood labs for mom so she can take them to a psychiatrist who might tweak her meds. We were ready to do it but then realized that going to a lab would potentially expose her to sick people, and that if we took her to a psychiatrist and that doctor did not agree with our sister, she'd be mad and not listen. 

Then there was the Covid scare of a few days ago because Mom was sniffling and had a cough. I reluctantly mentioned that she often gets sneezy on windy days, which it was. I'm the youngest, and my opinion is not to be trusted.

Two days ago she took Mom home with her for an undetermined amount of time -- supposedly so she can keep mom out of memory care. And because none of us would do as she asked -- continuing her daily routine of Driving Miss Daisy, daily. My sibs live too far away. I won't break social distancing, and I work, and I don't see what driving Mom every day solves. It isn't a plan.

Random Notes From The Coronavirus

Oh Pandemic.

I have a box where I put notes about things that I am grateful for. It's just shy of lightening my mood.

The thing that is most upsetting is uncertainty. I'm not one of those people who can be upset about the entire world. I leave that to my mother, who pre-dementia would call me upset about bad things that happened to people she didn't know. "Did you hear about that accident on the highway?"

Anyhoo, I'm concerned about how long the caregivers will last, working so many days in a row without our helping (cause we can't during the lockdown at her community). I'm worried about the factory that I work for, which is hemorrhaging cash. I'm concerned about losing my job.

On the other hand, I know which of my garden weeds is edible.

Moving on to the random parts of the day, news from camellia grafting is grim -- I think there were no survivors. On the other hand, as I have mentioned I have come to really enjoy the camellia we have! And the recent warm weather has led to the camellia deciding to make every bud into a flower, which has prolonged the blooming season. And I am enjoying that.

The remnants of the grafting project have led to a new project: rooting. I bought some rooting hormone and watched some videos and I am trying to make new camellias out of the old branches. Hope springs eternal, it turns out.

In the "things you never wanted to know" department, I bought log spray a while back. It is better than air freshener and this particular variety, from Squatty Potty, smells really nice. Plus it is called "unicorn Gold". What could be better? Displayed next to the world's worst nail color and my new Davines tinted hair conditioner. Did I mention this before? It's really nice. A little pink here, a little purple there. Have to liven up those Zoom meetings, Zoom pub quizzes and Zoom salons.

On the mama front, she's fine. Freaked out yesterday because she didn't remember that she had seen me. I drive to her place, she comes out front with her caregiver and I stand on the sidewalk and yell to her. Her voice isn't strong and her place is next to a freeway entrance, and she doesn't want to wear her hearing aids with her mask, so our visits are unremarkable. I don't fault her for not realizing that I had been there, but her kind of dementia is the one where you don't know you have dementia, so she worried that she has dementia. Too late, Darling!

I make little love notes or funny notes for her caregivers to give her, with candy inside. Sometimes that helps.

I wish I could hug her.

Manager of Heino

For over a decade our nephew and his friends and family have held an extremely silly but very serious Oktoberfest party at their house. They have a bar in their garage with many homebrews on tap, pretzels hanging from the ceiling (traditional after the first batch was rock hard and converted into decorations). There are many competitions (best stein, best costume, prizes for various beer styles) and then there is a jig-off at the end. Why? Who knows. It is traditional.

You may not bring children.

German costumes are mandatory.

Because my leiderhosen days are behind me and you are not going to find me wearing a dirndl, our first appearance at Oktoberfest was as Ralf and Florian, half of the German band Kraftwerk. We were robbed, frankly, when we were not allowed to compete in the stein or costume contests that year -- now there are separate competitions for non-traditional stein and costume.

Where do you go after Ralf and Florian? If I were attending this year dressing as Angela Merkel would be a no-brainer, but starting in 2007 mrguy and I began attending Oktoberfest as the German schlager singer Heino (me) and Manager of Heino (him). I think I won the stein contest two years in a row, carrying a Heino record with me so everybody got the reference but then completely making up the story of the stein, told with a cheesy fake German accent. Like I said, Oktoberfest is silly.

Starting with Oktoberfest 2007, Heino and Manager of Heino are our alter-egos. When I am invited to speak in a far-flung location, I really can't do it without Manager of Heino. He arranges travel, escorts me and holds me together while I get nervous and have to do human interaction stuff that is difficult for me. Plus anything is so much more fun when we do it together. He has helped me be Heino (so to speak) in Japan in 2008, Sweden in 2018 and now Copenhagen in May 2020.

Thank you, Manager of Heino.

And In DNA News

I am an avid genealogist and user of the various DNA services available. With every DNA match I see, I can pretty much tell how these people are connected to me. I recognize their last name, or the name of the people they're researching. Recently, however, I found a new match that's puzzling. 

This person is male, and the amount of DNA we share identifies him as a first cousin-ish. He shares more DNA with me than my 1st cousin once removed, who is also a DNA match. So it's pretty likely that "new guy" actually is a first cousin. I sent him a message asking if he would like to share information. He has not responded and has not logged in for two months.

Similarly, a new DNA match showed up on a different DNA service. It's a woman, with the same last name as the man on the first service. She shares less DNA with me than the man, in a proportion which would make her likely his child. I have sent her a message and have not gotten a response. Interesting side note is that if you Google her name, it returns no hits. How often does that happen? Never.

I now wonder whether there is a deeper mystery.

I know of no genetic first cousins on my mom's side. The mama had a sibling who raised an adopted child from the spouse's first marriage. The only possibilities that I can think of for a first cousin are that there was a hidden child who was then put up for adoption. My grandmother did have a year in high school in which she went off to two different schools in different parts of the state for the two halves of the year. An out of wedlock child could have been concealed during the summers before or after that year. The man who appears to be a first cousin could be the son of that child. But that sounds unlikely in this family, where my grandmother had a half sister from her dad's first marriage who was raised in the same town by an aunt but considered a sibling.

Alternately, my mom's sibling could have had a child that we never knew about. I think that this is more likely the case, but the fact that I haven't had any responses to my messages makes me wonder whether this isn't someone researching their own roots, but that the DNA came from a crime scene and not living people.

I hope that this person (or these people) are living and get in contact so we can clear up the mystery.

The Healing Power of Cat Photos

The mama is pretty deaf, and she calls me up at work sometimes when she's confused. Yesterday's topic was the calendar. Mom and I are going to a memorial on Monday and she wanted to know the plan. I had already told her the plan several times on the night before.

It's almost not worth telling her anything in advance. She can't remember certain kinds of things for more than a second or two, and can't interpret a calendar without help. And sometimes when we're on the phone she asks me to yell into the phone because she can't hear me. When I don't respond quickly with a yelled response she gets frustrated.

Yesterday this kind of conversation was happening while I was at work. "Can you see the calendar from where you're sitting? "I'll have to turn my head" "OK, turn your head so you can see the calendar," etc. Thankfully I have an enclosed office, but when I have to yell into the phone (at her request) a clarifying word or two. It's mortifying, because it makes it seem like I'm exasperated and yelling at my mom, not to my mom. Even when I'm exasperated I don't yell. And if I *did* yell I would definitely take the occasion to yell something tasty, not just "MONDAAAAAAAY"!

Sometimes when I have a hard conversation with the mama I need to look at cat pictures.

Here you go.