Halloween

My joke for today was that my mom was her own Halloween costume: angry old woman who wants to chop you up with a knife.

By the time I got to her place this afternoon she had been raging for hours -- breaking furniture (no really), swearing, hitting. My sister called me to see what could be done about her episode of mania and wanted to have her taken to the hospital. She was sad to hear that you can't have someone committed unless they are a danger to themselves or others. Because mom is pretty useless from the waist down, all someone has to do is to step away from her and they're safe. Sadly she doesn't fit the criteria for hospitalization. We would all love it if she'd get locked up permanently but that's not going to happen. The only thing I could do to change things was to leave work and go over there to try to interrupt the mania.

By the time I left her, mom was feeding me chocolates. Whew. And in between, I draped my arm over her shoulder on the sofa and patted her leg while she told me how she wasn't going to leave me anything in her will. Except maybe a little stuffed scarecrow that's in a potted plant in her room. "Isn't it cute?" I suddenly had an image of having her cremated with it if she loves that thing so much, and I burst out laughing.

I admit that I baited her a bit for part of my visit, because I'm tired of being nice. She kept saying that she knew something about me that the caregiver didn't know: that I like to fuck, and that if she were dead I could do it wherever I want. So then I made a game out of pointing out various places in her room, asking "Should I do it there?" "Over here where you're sitting?" This was amusing to our caregiver, and that was partially the point -- she definitely needed some levity.

But today started out even better, this morning, with an apology from my sister that we need fill-in help for one of the caregivers in a week, and that she'd forgotten to tell me. She wrote it down on one of her pieces of paper and lost it. And she was so proud that she'd started a new paper calendar but put it in a place so special that she couldn't find the calendar (like why would you tack it to the wall, or anything normal like that?). She was so distressed by her failings this morning that she was taking a pill to feel better. I told her that pills were good but calendars were better and she needs to start using our effing shared Google calendar. I know she can do it!

This is after the weekend, where I started planning caregiving for the holidays, and my sister told me of her plans. She's been invited to Christmas at our nephew's house, and she's thinking of taking my mom with her. Out of her secure locked mental environment, on a 3 hour drive to a relative's house where they will share the holiday with family? I mean what could go wrong? This is partly because I said I wouldn't take care of my mom on Christmas myself, but the cure may be worse than the original affliction...

This has been mrsguy's late night ramblings about her embarrassing family.

'Awapuhi Blooms in Suburbia!

A few years ago a neighbor was giving away ginger rhizomes. She had dug so many out of her garden that it looked as if a dump truck had unloaded them on her driveway.

I didn't end up planting that many in the garden because our dirt was hard as a rock. So I potted some in big old plastic pots with potting mix and put *those* on top of the dirt underneath our kitchen window. I keep meaning to plant them for real at some point...and then I don't. 

In the meantime the ginger seems to like it where it is.

And this week our first yellow ginger flowered. It smells amazing. As the song goes:

My yellow ginger lei

Reveals her scent through the day

Enchanting moments with you

Make me love you.

Kuʻu lei ‘awapuhi melemele

I puīa me ke ʻala onaona

Hoʻohihi ka manaʻo iā ʻoe

E kuʻu lei ʻawapuhi

Quick Quiz!

I'm going to take a guess that this song was written by Johnny Noble, because he often used the metaphor of a fragrant flower to describe his beloved (he was blind).

Wrong!

I looked it up, and My Yellow Ginger Lei is by a guy I don't know, John Ka'onohiokala Keawehawaii.

Johnny Almeida and John Keawehawaii perform it on this recording.

Listening to the original, I kinda get why artists like Led Kaapana make a medley out of it with other songs. It's super repetitive. And maybe that's a reason that it's popular with non-professional hula dancers -- the verse in Hawaiian and English is the same, which means that the dance is easy to remember.

Another random thought: on this particular recording they don't credit the female vocalists. Bummah, but a quick search of Discogs shows that JKK's group, The KeaweHawaiis, credits Linda De La Cruz as one of the vocalists. They were lucky to have her.

A favorite version of a song we used to do in the big ukulele band.

Verb. It's A Noun.

Yesterday was magnificent. I went shopping at Canned Food Warehouse, and it did not disappoint. The people who once brought me HammerMan Toothpaste have now done something that was previously thought undoable. 

They have made verb into a noun. A proper noun.

How did this product make it to market? Howwwwww? I took this photo just because of the name, and it was only when I went to add it to this here post that I noticed the full-throated absurdity of the product. It's definitely for nerds. First...Verb. Second, it is a cookie dough flavored energy bar. Third, it's caffeinated. If only it were Captain Crunch-flavored. Then you'd have everything. Wow.

Plus Sauerfrau. 

The squeezable kraut for vegans who hate women and are too lazy to open a jar:

Squeezable

Non GMO

Bavarian

Vegan

Fermented

With caraway seeds

Enjoy!

Nature

In a quiet, redwood-scented suburban landscape, a small maple tree stands, struggling. The redwoods, here long before the houses, stand tall and firm, unconcerned by the breeze. 

The birds, here long before the houses, mistake the windows for air, and lay stunned on the threshold. 

Orange termites, their wings heart-shaped when at rest, will quietly dine on the house and the bits of trees cast down from above, and people will replant and rebuild. 

The maple does not belong here, but adds a heartbreaking flash of visual impact as it casts off its party dress for winter. A lone leaf dances in the breeze, tethered to the branch by a cobweb. It wants to join its family in the leaf litter below but can't seem to let go. 

It will continue its performance, the struggling, the figure eights, battering itself against a branch until nature, mercifully, breaks it free.