Mom & Me Four Archive

...finally my domain renewal is straightened out and on track. It's possible, though, that it will not be completed until Monday, simply because my bank, through which the debit card that was charged is issued, generally holds charges in pending status through the weekend. The charge has finally appeared on my account status, though. Thank the gods. At any rate, I notice, after sending myself a couple of emails, that email service remains spotty. I received one email notification of a comment on a post this morning, but nothing else since, including my own attempts at contacting myself. Hopefully, that means no one has sent me anything.
    Please hang in there. I'm still assuming that emails are backing up and being sent through in bunches. I hope that's what's happening. At any rate, if you don't hear some sort of response from me by Tuesday upcoming to an email or comment you've sent, please contact me again.
    I'm also assuming that, since email I send appears to be soundly sent, those of you I've contacted within the last few days have received my correspondence. I hope so, anyway. Of the ones I can remember sending Thursday, yesterday and today are messages to the following, in order of most recent sending backwards:
Mona
michaelm
Deb
Amanda M
    If you haven't heard from me, if you wish, you can let me know through motherandmetoo@mindspring.com. Otherwise, just sit tight, those sent messages may be sitting in back up, as well, on my domain server, waiting for permission to leave.
    So, so weird.
    Almost time to arouse The Mom.
    Later.

    She asked for "another hour". So, she's getting it.
    And, I'm noticing, I'm having a devil of a time publishing this post. Oh well. As she would say, "Such is life."
    Later.

my mother has been experiencing intensive visits from relatives in The Dead Zone. At the end of each visit, all of which have taken place during her night and nap sleeps, we've spent a lot of time (in between Bette Davis movies), discussing who's dead, who's not and details of lives and deaths. Sometimes as well, as you already know from recent postings, I've gone along with with her perceptions, especially when they lead to reminiscences of times spent with these relatives. One aspect of these recent visits has been that, somewhere in the middle of our discussions, whether they occur in "my" reality or "hers", a period of agitation has entered in which she "remembers" that we need to contact "someone" to find out "something" about "some trip" we are scheduled to take and who we will be meeting on this trip. At first, I was sure that the trip to which she was referring was her upcoming routine PCP visit scheduled for 9/12/06. Each time I've mentioned it, though, she's pondered it and told me, "No, that's not it." Early this morning, after she'd initially retired at 0045, she was up, again, at 0115, eager to begin yet another Dead Zone discussion and further agitated about "what we need to do" about the upcoming trip, which still wasn't our appointment trip. We talked for a good 45 minutes about this, both of us trying hard to attach meaning and significance to what she was remembering and, finally, confusing ourselves and each other until she finally said, "Well, I think we both need to sleep on this. Maybe it will be clearer in the morning." I agreed.
    This morning I awoke with, well, not exactly a solution, but an idea of the generation of this impending second trip. A little before all these discussions started, less than a day, I think, I casually mentioned to her that we need to renew her military ID. Soon after, I placed a call to the VA here to find out if she could renew in town. I'm not sure why, but the person to whom I talked (and whom I continue to reach every time I've called in the last few days) tells me that they are checking on her "status" to make sure she's eligible to use the facility here for renewal. At this point, I'm pretty much at my wit's end, because this person has also been telling me that I do not need to bring in documentation. Most of these calls have taken place while she's been awake and, of course, she's listened, although the information hasn't registered for very long until it slips into her chasm of dementia. I've just about decided that if I continue to get the run around, we'll just show up at the facility next week, ID card and documentation in hand, and see if renewal granted. If not, and I've mentioned this to my mother, also casually, we'll make arrangements to take a day trip to a Phoenix facility very soon and have it renewed.
    Now, I'm thinking that it is this casually mentioned extra trip that has her befuddled. I'm considering that her determination that we need to contact "someone in the family" regarding her memory of an upcoming trip is connected to the series of phone calls between myself and the VA regarding whether we need to take a day trip to Phoenix. "The family" is the VA office here, with whom I've been in contact.
    I'm planning on explaining all this to her when she awakens, in the hopes that this will help clear up her confusion, if only momentarily. Sometimes after momentary clarity drops into her demential abyss, it reappears later, without explanation, and resolves whatever matter is causing her agitation. So, my explanation will be an attempt to set this stage. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't.
    At any rate, despite this, our days continue to be trouble-free and easy. She's still reacting to the humidity, which dropped for a day and rose again overnight as the monsoon has turned back on itself and us, but this has been easily negotiated. Although I'm enjoying the rain and the high humidity, she is not. On her behalf I hope we return to dry, light days soon. She continues, as she has through most of the monsoon, to occasionally mention that "We don't have to live here, you know, we could live anywhere." This is an indication that she's more than a little uncomfortable with the effect this weather is having on her.
    I'm going to try rousing her in a few minutes, an hour before her official 12-hour-night-sleep mark, since she awoke "early" on her own, yesterday. We'll see how it goes.
    Later, and, hopefully, more interestingly.

    Regarding, that is, my published-last-night intention to no longer address comments made to the demon post. I decided, after yet another comment from "ER nurse", that maybe I should respond to this person. So I did. Both in a comment attached to that post and, just in case my most recent effort, launched this morning, to solve my email and commenting problems, of which I still am not sure of the cause, continue to be unsuccessful, in an amendation to the above mentioned post.
    I'm hoping, now, to honor my desire to let the fur fly and silently, carefully observe the directions of flight without further intervention, regardless of what may yet be said.
    I feel moved, at this moment, to sincerely thank all of you, new and continued readers alike, for bearing with this curious turn of reporting affairs.
    Later.

    It seems I am still not getting all my email, including comment notifications, in a timely manner. I'm not sure if the problem is with Blogger or with my domain provider (who continues to fiddle around with renewing my domain), or a little of both. Eventually, everything comes through, but I just noticed that there are some comments which have been published but about which I haven't yet been notified. I'm assuming, eventually, that everything will get through. Bad week for this to happen, I know, but, well, contemplating the synchronicity is interesting, at least.
    Later.

...the Star Trek episode Who Mourns for Adonais? It was one of the more memorable episodes of The Original Series, even though it may not have been considered one of the best. Although I've seen it twice, once when it originally aired and once soon after I came to be my mother's companion and she was hooked on everything Star Trek, I confess I didn't remember much of the story prior to reading the synopsis linked to the episode title above. What I did remember is that it was a literal interpretation of how and why gods die: By being rejected by their believers. I also remembered that the last and greatest of the Olympian gods, Apollo, spent the episode fighting for his life, his existence as a god. Not surprisingly, it aired a little over a year after Time Magazine wondered aloud, Is God Dead?. As I've been reading the comments left at the hospital directive post that this week's Grand Rounds edition published, I've been reminded of this episode. The passion with which commenters have reacted to the post has caused me to consider the similarity of the medical industrial complex to Mount Olympus and medical professionals to Apollo. This isn't a new idea. I've occasionally nodded, without originality, in these journals, toward recognition that physicians used to be considered gods, nurses considered angels and healing used to be considered sacred ground. This has been acknowledged for at least a couple of decades in this country as Medicine has found itself under heavy pressure to change. While the healing arts can, at this time, promise and deliver an astounding array of cures and managements, more than ever before, it is also becoming increasingly hard to avail oneself of these developments, or to be sure that, when one can afford the services of professional healers, the healing provided is thorough and appropriate. It's as though Medicine is losing its believers and fighting its demotion from Sacred to Profane. Thus, Medicine has become the nucleus around which swirls passionate contention. At this point in time it should probably be added to the famous list of subjects one should avoid in polite company if one doesn't want to promote a ruckus: Politics, Religion and, now, Medicine.
    This is why I haven't been upset by the comments, even as some of them are beginning to sound like trolling, as one commenter pointed out. As I mentioned to a correspondent today, "I notice...that I've received the best negative comments yet, the last two. What a hot button my post has pushed! I'm pleased, actually. If none of the readers of the post was commenting, or if all the comments where of the "here, here" variety, that would tell me that this is an issue about which no one was prepared to think (I've noticed that people first have to spew about hot button issues before they can think about them but, after the spewing, they always start thinking) and Medicine is not yet about to budge."
    It's been suggested, by more than one reader, that I should consider disallowing "Anonymous" access to commenting, partly to prevent trolling and partly to modulate the discussion. I can't bring myself to do this. I truly believe, as was pointed out in The American President, that burning the flag should be protected as a form of free speech. So should trolling, if that's in what some commenters are indulging, no matter how offensive it becomes. The time is not right for moderation and sanity in any discussion about Medicine, what it has been to us, what it is now, what we want it to become and how we should go about changing the Medical Landscape.
    As well, I can only find the pejoratives flung at me such as "monster" and "mother killer" amusing. I can't remember ever being demonized and it's, well, entertaining to be accorded such power, especially since I don't possess it. I've been my mother's caregiver, both in and out of the medical field, far too long and have performed too well in this capacity for me to be intimidated by such epithets. Besides, behind this spew is the real demon, a paralyzing terror that we must face and with which we must deal before we can calmly proceed to figuring out how to provide all of Healing's miracles to everyone. What I hear is, "If we challenge Medicine, aren't we also challenging Health and Life?" Well, no, but we don't know this, now. Not at a gut level. I trust we will, but we're not there, yet.
    Anyway, this is the last of my pronouncements about the stir I've caused with "that post": Let's yell, scream, throw those thunderbolts, get it out of our systems, out into the open. Then we can begin to deal with the problems from a level perspective and, maybe, in doing so, level the delivery field. After all, when a god is rejected, the ideas that created the god remain and become available to all the subjects. This is the point at which innovation begins. When we reach this point, we'll be past mourning.
    In the meantime, my mother's calling me.
    Later.

    Costco, one of the many places, and the only grocery, to which I ran errands yesterday, did indeed have apple pie, a caramel apple pie, so I picked it up, remembering my mother's Cosmos inspired desire for apple pie. Since that was one of the errands I ran in the morning before she awoke, I geared our day toward an apple pie Just Desserts dinner. Although I'm not a fan of apple pie, I had a piece and it was pretty good...both tart and sweet, the apples crisp, the caramel not overdone. Made me wonder what kind of apples Costco uses. I'll have to remember to ask.
    Although I haven't written much, lately, about what Mom and I have been doing, I've gotten her out a fair amount over the last week. I guess I just didn't realize it. Yesterday, though, all that movement kicked back on her and she was a little stiff and her knee was a little wobbly, so we spent the day in. I didn't even ask her to go with me on an afternoon errands...I just did them while she was taking a nap. Although I haven't kept up with reporting over at The Dailies (I mean to catch up today; there were two days, though, in which we didn't bother with stats, we were too busy), she's been keeping up with her 12 hour night sleep days, pretty much. I was hoping to move her awake time up closer to noon, but, instead, it's moved back to about 1400! "Last night", in fact, after awakening at 1400, she was up until almost 0230 while we finished off the Bette Davis movie The Star. The highlight of the movie, by far, though, was Now, Voyager.
    Ahhh...well, my writing of this post was interrupted by Mom awakening on her own at 1215! Considering when she went to bed, this is a coup!
    As I continue this post, beginning at the time noted in the byline, she's in for a nap, after a good breakfast, a refusal to go with me on a very short errand to pick up some of her special shampoo (I guess she's going to need a couple days to rest up after all the activity during the last week), a lunch of flavored cheeses and Parmesan cracker bread and one and a half more Bette Davis movies.
    Something I was cut off from mentioning earlier, an incident during our watching of Now, Voyager. If you've seen it, you know that, as in many movies of that era, cigarettes figure in the film. In this movie "Jerry", "Charlotte's" married lover, makes a habit of continually lighting two cigarettes at once, one for himself and one for Charlotte. I cringed the first time I saw this happen, thinking, Yeow! Although she's ignored all the rest of the smoking during the movie, this'll do the trick. Thus, I was startled when my mother reacted almost immediately, "Your father did that once. I cured him of it."
    Don't ask me why I responded as follows, it could have been unwise, but it didn't seem to matter, "But, Mom," I said, "I thought that was supposed to be a romantic gesture."
    She snorted. "How could something that looks so silly be romantic?!? Those cigarettes sticking out of his mouth like that, he looks like a, a,"
    "Walrus?" I provided.
    "I was thinking of something worse, but that's bad enough!"
    At any rate, through all the Bette Davis movies we've watched, so far, yesterday and today, she hasn't "looked for something" the entire time. I'm relieved, although I imagine I'll continue, for awhile, to cringe and expect the inevitable, which may no longer be inevitable, every time someone lights up on the screen.

    This morning, as I met my mother in the bathroom after I noticed she was up, she greeted me with, "Where is everybody?"
    "You and I are here, the kitties are here, so everyone who belongs here is here," I said. "Who do you mean?"
    "Well," she explained, "I'm not sure, but I expected to hear talking when I woke up this morning."
    I chuckled. "If you'd let me know that last night, Mom, I could have produced a loud, animated conversation with myself."
    She smiled, but only slightly. "Well, what about Dad?"
    As I always do when she mentions "Dad", I asked, "Your Dad or my Dad?"
    "My Dad, of course!"
    Instead of bluntly reannouncing his death, this morning, for some reason I ignored it and said, "Ahh, he must have been visiting with you last night [meaning in her sleep, but, you know, I'm no longer sure of the parameters of her sleep, so I avoided this word, also]. Since you were expecting to hear conversation when you awoke this morning, you must have been hosting a reunion of all your loved ones last night!" I don't know why, but just saying this brought tears to my eyes; not sad tears, mind you...not even poignant, since the feeling that evoked the tears had no hints of bitterness; although it was unbearably sweet. "Oh, look," I said, a little embarrassed, "just the thought of that makes me cry."
    As usual, my thoroughly unsentimental mother waved away my emotional leakage. "Well, I don't know why," she said, "You were here, too. And, where's MPS? She was here."
    Ahh, I thought. So, this time, we were "here" and not "there". Insteresting change. "MPS has gone back to Chandler, Mom," I said. Fairly recently, in fact, a couple of months ago, after she and MPNC visited for a few days. I continued, "Now I know why I slept so restlessly, last night. I was actually partying with you and our family!"
    Anyway, she's been in a very good mood, today, feeling a what she describes as "a little constipated", which surprises me, because she had an excellent bowel movement, yesterday. She's been gassy, though, I've noticed, probably from the apples in the pie last night and the Cobb salad we had the night before. She's been in such a good mood, in fact, that while we were bathing her and I mentioned I needed to go get some paper underwear for her, she burst into a chorus of, "I under wear my baby is tonight," to a tune I've never heard. She couldn't remember where she'd learned it, although she mentioned she's known it "forever". Probably from her college days.
    She's back up from her nap, now, at 1930. She asked me where "Mother" keeps her Milk of Magnesia. Asking for something like this is unusual for her, so I gave it to her, knowing that she knows when she needs it, if she asks for it.
    After I gave her a couple of Tablespoons of it, she asked, "Where's Mother?"
    "Wasn't she at the get-together last night?" I asked.
    "Well, yes, but they've all gone home."
    "I guess she must have gone home, too, then."
    "Yes," Mom said, "I guess you're right. We'll have to do that again, soon."
    I'm sure we will.
    We've got a date with yet another Bette Davis movie, Dark Victory. We decided to put off seeing the rest of The Letter, as neither of us was really getting into it.
    Later.

    I wanted to mention, in case any of you are interested, that I've received four comments on the post I wrote that was published through Grand Rounds. Two are soundly negative, one is, well, probably negative (the one by Anonymous announcing that I helped confirm that person's decision to leave medicine). The one positive comment was from someone who seems to be struggling with Medicine on behalf of a care recipient. Two are obviously from medical professionals. One, well, I'm not sure, I'd guess this person was a med professional from the tone of the comment, but I could be wrong. The only comment that wasn't anonymous was the positive comment.
    Am I surprised? I'm surprised that anyone commented, but, since people are commenting, no, I'm not surprised at the negative comments, nor that they are from medical professionals, nor at the authors' anonymity. All the comments seem to be evocative of where we all are (at least in this country) with Medicine, right now. The technique I used to ensure that my mother received appropriate hospital care and that we both received adequate cooperation from the medical professionals involved in her care worked splendidly for my mother and me, and, I might add, was devised after the experience of a hospital stay that showed me what can happen when I'm not prepared to exercise some control (or aware that I need to exercise control) over the situation, thus leaving my mother and myself completely in the hands of medical professionals.
    It's funny because Mom and I had a discussion about hospitalization a couple of days ago, prompted by the article featured in an earlier post. Although she is such an easy hospital patient as to be a dream (I, as her medical advocate, am the one who is a "problem"), she does not enjoy being in the hospital and remains aware of the problems inherent in hospital stays. At any rate, we both confirmed that we hope she never again needs hospital care. She even voiced her desire that she die easily, peacefully and by surprise here at home. So do I.
    Despite the negative comments from medical professionals, I would not hesitate to use this technique again, if necessary. I hope it is never again necessary.

    My email has been restored, at least, and all the backed up messages did indeed come through. I guess my company finally figured out that since "it" wasn't my fault, "it" was also not my responsibility since I'd done everything I was supposed to do, twice, and then done it in an alternate manner. The last service rep I chatted with continually scolded me that it didn't matter if their renewal facility didn't work for me, "it's your responsibility". Hello, the server and its software exists in your house, not mine. I haven't gone over to make sure my domain has been renewed, yet. No, no one else claimed it, I mean, you know, who would?!? But, I feel sure that if they haven't made note of the renewal, yet, it has taken effect.
    I'm now heading into the settings in this software to change my commenting address back to here.
    Then, another episode of Cosmos. We were both in the mood for some exhilaratingly presented science. I love when Mom's in the mood for this. She doesn't always understand what is being said, neither do I, but we have some of the most out of this world conversations, full of misused fact and fully used fantasy. Then again, the episode we just watched started with the baking of an apple pie at Cambridge University. Mom is finishing dinner, now, Cobb salad, and talking about the necessity of having apple pie for dinner tomorrow. Maybe we will.
    Later.

    This domain expired on 8/12/06. I headed over to the company who handles my domain and the server through which this website is handled, went through the auto renewal screen and figured that took care of it.
    It didn't. I noticed that sometime today I stopped receiving email. Chances are, the spotty notification on Blogger comments also has to do with this. So weird. Anyway, when I went back to the company's site, my domain had not been renewed. I tried again and nothing happened. So, I went into live chat with a service rep. Seems that, since I am having an undiagosable problem renewing my domain, I have to renew by hand through a trouble ticket. I just did this. I am assuming that it will be renewed within the next 24 hours. I hope so, anyway. In the meantime, if you comment or write me, I won't know it. The service rep told me that email sent to me through this domain address is being bounced back to the sender, but I've sent myself a couple of messages from other e addresses I have as tests and, so far, no mail has bounced back. It's possible that it's going into server trash, although I was told there is no such thing.
    So, just to let those of you who email me and comment on my posts know, if you've sent me anything within the last 24 hours and I haven't responded, it's because I didn't get your e. Don't resend, yet. I'm hoping that when the domain is renewed all that stuff will suddenly come through. At any rate, I will post another notice when I am sure my domain is renewed and let you know whether I received a back-log of email. I'm hoping this will happen shortly.
    Thank you, in advance, for your understanding. I can't believe this is happening! This company has been extraordinary, up to now.
    Just in case, I have an alternate address to which you can send my email. It is motherandmetoo@mindspring.com. I'm going to immediately change out the notification address on Blogger, just in case, but, you know, I'm hoping everything will be back to normal soon.
    Later.

    If you've clicked into this site marginally on purpose while looking for information on caregiving, taking care of Ancient parents, dementia, etc., and wondered about the blogs that your search pulled, the post linked in the title above is a fascinating overview of the current caregiver blog segment of the journaling universe, presented by the author of Fading From Memory. Take a look at it.
    I've also placed a link to this post over on the right under its own section, Outgoing Link to a Special Post. Aside from being a catalog to some excellent work on the above mentioned subjects, the author presents some intriguing observations about commonalities among the blogs and the caregivers who write these journals. He also ruminates about the differences between the emotional support within the non-caregiving community (the support of which can be said to be close to non-existent) and the emotional support available through the nascent cyberspace caregiving community.
    Thought-provoking reading. Definitiely a Special Post.

    It seems that Blogger is not processing and sending comments as quickly as usual. I sent a comment through this afternoon in response to someone else's comment on one of my recent posts and my comment has yet to be posted and I have yet to receive notification of it. So, if you've commented within, hmmm...I guess probably the last five to six hours, I don't yet know about it.
    I also want to mention the latest edition of yet another carnival to which I've submitted, Grand Rounds. The link takes you directly to this week's edition, hosted by Hospital Impact. Grand Rounds is a long running carnival. Although its submission guidelines vary according to host, I've scanned several of the editions and the general requirement set up by the first host, that the submissions be targeted to the lay medical audience, seems to run through all the editions I've scanned. This week's host was amenable to [SIC] "accepting just about any kind of medical/healthcare-related submission, but I'm be somewhat partial to any posts that would be good for healthcare newbies." The host received more than 52 submissions, of which 31 were picked up, one of which was a post I submitted. The host's method of publishing the submissions is ingenious: As a letter to his 2 month old son full of lessons he would like his son to learn from the healthcare profession. My submission is the first link in the eighth paragraph of the letter. In the introduction to the post, the host counsels his son to "become a man of action. Get things done." In case you don't want to scan through the letter to find it, the post that was picked up is here. I urge you, though, to read through the entire letter and click on some of the other posts, as your interested is pricked. They are all fascinating and informative. Some of them are weirdly funny. I've read a couple other editions of this carnival and it plays to my appetite for medical information from a lay perspective. I'm definitely going to keep my eye on this one.
    I've posted the information for clicking into the carnival and the edition within which my post is published over to the right below the PCParade link. You'll notice, as well, that I've changed the PCParade logo. The new one is a reduced version of PCParade's official logo.
    With the publication of this post, the new carnival information should appear over there. However, I'm having trouble publishing my entire archive so that it shows up on every page. Blogger seems to be full of molasses today. I'm going to try once more before I retire (early than usual, tonight, thank the gods), but, if the process hangs up, I'll wait until "tomorrow" (which is today, but, you know, I live in timelessness, now, I need a little slack).
    Later.

    In case any of my readers occasionally wonder why I've become a radicalized medical advocate on my mother's behalf and/or if I unwittingly cause the medical consumer problems I encounter with her, a story about Phoenix physicians leaving their medical careers behind (a link no longer exists to this story), which occupied the front page of Arizona Republic today, gives an idea of half of that with which I have to contend when it comes to seeking medical help for my mother. It also makes it easy to imagine the other half: Surly, exhausted doctors who, when practicing in offices, would rather their clients play along with the "I be Doctor; you be patient" game. The story, as it follows a physician through his last day of practice as an ER doctor before leaving the profession to open a restaurant/brewery, clearly delineates the sorry state of the medical-industrial complex in Arizona and leaves little to the imagination in regards to why doctors, especially Arizona doctors, are leaving the profession, and/or the state, and/or the reigning institutions of medical practice, in droves; not to mention the loss of RNs, CNAs and a variety of other medical practitioners.
    I'm not sure, but you may have to take a short survey of your sex, birth year and zip code, as well as indicating whether you want to receive email "announcements" before you can enter the story. I tried the direct story URL in another browser and didn't have to do this, but when I first searched for the story, I did.

...my best friend Louise and I would meet, at recess, underneath the fire escape at the back of The Laboratory School in Spearfish, SD, which we attended, and "practice laughing like adults". That's what we called what we were doing. We didn't do this every recess. As I think back, we probably did it only when one or both of us had recently suffered being reminded, by adults, that we weren't old enough to indulge in some fascinating activity, we were either too young to learn something we desperately wanted to learn or had to relearn something we already knew because the skill was being taught, yet again, in class and, the gods know, it's much easier for teachers to hold back the racer and ignore the lagger to the purpose of standardizing the class.
    It was this last directive that was usually the source of our frustration over which we bonded. Louise and I had been treated, in other states, to second grade classes organized around accelerated learning. We were both well ahead of our grades in reading, spelling and the mechanics of writing (among other subjects). Both of us were writing cursively with pens as we entered the third grade. As luck would have it, we also sat next to each other. A few days into the third grade Miss Opal passed out cursive writing handbooks. Louise and I noticed, as we scanned through the workbooks, that the other was performing the third grade equivalent of shaking her head.
    A mistake had been made, I realized. Someone hadn't 'read' us well enough. No matter; easily fixed. I raised my hand and calmly informed Miss Opal that I didn't need this workbook because I already knew how to write cursively and so did Louise. We only needed ball point pens so we could put this skill to the use of learning something else. My effort was completely innocent. I wasn't offended that Miss Opal didn't know this about us. I expected she would be thrilled to learn that we were prepared to go on to something more difficult.
    "Imagine [Louise's and my unpleasant] surprise" when Miss Opal, matching my calm demeanor, told us that we were to open our workbooks and follow along with the rest of the class, that "it won't hurt [us]".
    I didn't meant to argue. I thought Miss Opal, being very old, from a third grade standpoint, hadn't heard me well. I repeated myself a little louder. In order to underline the point (in a decidedly third grade misunderstanding of how to make points), I added that I had learned, in the second grade, how to spell the names of all the states and capitals. I spelled "Alaska" (the newest state, at that time) and "Pennsylvania" (which I considered to be one of the more difficult state names), figuring this, while not directly related to cursive writing, would convince Miss Opal. Louise nodded her head eagerly in support.
    In response, Miss Opal sent Miss Heart, our class teaching intern whom everyone adored, over to "guide" us through accepting the workbooks and beginning what Louise and I considered time wasting exercises. This did the trick. Louise and I would willingly have drunk from a bottle and worn diapers, if these promised direct attention from Miss Heart.
    Still, we both understood that something was wrong and the "wrong something" had to do with the fact that we weren't adults and thus were subject to being herded rather than individually recognized and appropriately encouraged (at that time we had no idea that adults usually herd each other, as well as everyone else). That was the day we met under the fire escape and first practiced Laughing Like Adults.
    I've been thinking of this instance while considering Dr. Thomas' insistence, in What Are Old People For?, that childhood is primarily "BEING-doing" and, as such, should be protected from society's current mania for over-scheduling and over accessorizing childhood into a mini-adulthood. My recollection of childhood tells me that adults don't have to work hard to co-opt children into imitating adulthood. A child's inherent job is to become an adult. All children, despite anxious periods when one discovers some adult trait that doesn't make sense or appears cruel, are eager to mimic adults until they are finally pronounced adult.
    The BEING-doing of childhood that Dr. Thomas extols as primary and laments as disappearing is, in fact, a recent phenomenon. History tells us that children used to be considered family and community employees, pushed to enter the work of survival in the ways of adults as soon as they were capable, sometimes before. Tradition tells us that children have been considered adult upon entering puberty. The idyllic BEING of childhood has probably been supported only through a mere four or five generations, mine being one of the last. It is interesting, too, to contemplate that in 1974 John Holt, in Escape from Childhood was recognizing the fledgling adult status of childhood as an argument against what he considered society's over protection of childhood at that time and was advocating pretty much the opposite of what Dr. Thomas now advocates, against as much resistance as Dr. Thomas now perceives himself to be struggling in favor of a different elderhood.
    As well, my experience as an adult tells me that adulthood involves quite a bit of BEING, especially if one is DOING something for which one has an affinity. Abraham Maslow, in fact, glorified BEING as the ultimate state of adult creativity, self-actualization, which further led to the idea of the flow state.
    My final understanding is that while I was BEING a child I was also DOING some of the most important work of my life: I was aspiring (sometimes reluctantly, it's true, but still aspiring) to take my place in what I perceived to be "the real world", the world of adults. You don't have to co-opt children into adulthood. We are created to co-opt ourselves and will gratefully take advantage of any help we can get.
    Dr. Thomas' other revered era of BEING-doing is elderhood. He laments as do I, often enough, that because we, the products of industrialized society, have made it a practice for as long as we can remember to marginalize old age, none of us really wants to be the kind of old we define as useless and marginal, thus, we either continue to chase after adulthood long after it's 'appropriate' or confront our marginalization, over which we have little power, with bad humor, agitation and longing.
    Acceptance, acceptance, acceptance. This is the key, Dr. Thomas figures, to straightening out the malaise of industrialized civilization. The catch is, for all humanity's hallmark talents, acceptance has never been one of them. If we are forced to accommodate strafing conditions, once we get past the fear engendered by being bullied and/or killed into submission, we rebel, individually or en masse, overtly, as did Patrick Henry and as do generation after generation of communities pressed into slavery, or slyly, as did Galileo Galilei and Aristophanes. We are little obliged, as humans, to accept anything less that what we perceive to be "better". We are, as well, amazingly short sighted as to the definition of what is "better".
    This shouldn't surprise anyone. It is our blanket lack of acceptance as a species that has allowed us to imagine and build ever changing conceptualizations of what it is to exist; of BEING and DOING. It is this very lack that spurs Dr. Thomas on as he reimagines elderhood. And, it is within the Province of Non-acceptance that we learn to deplore and criticize 'the way we're doing it now' and imagine 'better ways to do it'.
    Here's the thing: Sometime when I was a teenager and a vociferous reader of everything on which I could lay my hands, I figured out that life is not a question with a correct answer. It's not a test that begs a perfect score. It's an experiment. Even evolution, to which we have appended the doctrine of survival of the fittest, upon closer examination appears to be following a shockingly different doctrine, considering that it manages to create species 99.9% of which become, yes, co-opted and extinguished by another conceptualization. If you look at it from the perspective of "yes" or "no", Evolution appears to favor "no, not quite" over "yes, exactly".
    I agree that we need to understand elderhood from a perspective that is less likely to marginalize us in old age, assuming that we give equal weight to what I perceive as a preference for solitude as one journeys through Ancienthood. I agree that reimagining childhood allows us the promise of restructuring adulthood so that living through elderhood is not akin to being incarcerated. I can't agree, though, that the best way to pursue these endeavors is to demonize our present situation. While struggling with the incompetence of childhood, children will always long for adulthood. While reveling in the competence of adulthood, adults will always hope for an active, rather than a static, elderhood. Thus, even as we work tirelessly to carve what we consider to be a prime state of elderhood, each of us will always be surprised, despite our fears and our desires, by our own elderhood, if we should attain it. The child is the parent to the adult. The adult is the parent to the elder. The elder is the parent to...well, that's the problem. Unless we are an elder, we don't know what elders parent and, if we aren't an elder, we only barely believe what elders tell us. It is likely, in fact, that elders, themselves, aren't aware of what it is they parent. Considering the extraordinary diversity of elderhood and the complete mystery of deathhood, perhaps an unimagineable number of "children", death states, that is, are being parented by an unimaginable number of elders. We do know, though, that's almost impossible to believe in something about which one knows or has imagined so little. Which boards us onto another flight of imagination, and off takes human existence, again...
    In the meantime, if we breathe fire while attempting to build yet a better bridge to where we think we want to be, we will likely incinerate not only the bank upon which we stand but our fledgling bridge, as well, and never make it to the opposite shore. Then, we will never experience what it is to laugh like an Ancient One.
    More thoughts on more of Dr. Thomas' propositions...
    ....later.

...every time my mother stands I've been guiding her through stretching out of her hips, thighs and rib cage. Once I get a satisfied sigh out of her, I seduce her into a short "hootchy kootch" with her hips. This exercise pulls her "poor old bones" [her words] into some semblance of their prime order, reminds her body of its innate flexibility and allows her to balance herself. Because this simple, short stretch is so beneficial, sometimes, if she's been "sitting too long" [also her words], I have her rise and run her through it just for the hell of it. I've assumed, since its inception, that I will, from now on, be reminding her to do this. This morning, though, during her bath, she ran herself through it immediately after she rose from the toilet for torso washing. I was so surprised and pleased I blurted, "My goodness, I believe I'm going to have to dub you 'Gold Star Woman'!" This relates to my habit of teasing her through bathing by "starring" her efforts.
    She grinned and did a fair imitation of a curtsy.
    I was about to write, "I guess old lions can learn new tricks." I was interrupted, though, by my mother, leaning over the railing, startling me by telling me that if I was planning on sleeping in her room "again tonight" she'd like to know when I'll be coming to bed.
    She retired at 0140. Her light went off at 0200.
    "Well, no, Mom. I was planning on sleeping in my own room tonight, as I always do."
    "Which room is that?" she quizzed, as though we have many rooms in the house (which we don't) and I sleep around.
    "The back room, Mom, just down the hall from yours. That's where I always sleep."
    By this time I'd walked her back into her bedroom.
    "I know you usually sleep there," she said, "but you didn't last night. You slept with me."
    "Well, my recollection is that I slept in my bedroom, but perhaps my spirit was in your room."
    She laughed. "That must be it."
    "Mom," I said, as I always do, now, just in case we're at that point, "do you want me to sleep with you?"
    The only times I've slept with her were for a few months while she was recovering from her back injury in 2003 and a few other times, like the low sodium incident, when she's been particularly weak. Other than these, she has typically preferred that we not share sleeping quarters, which is more than fine with me.
    Her response: "If you want to sleep with me, I'd be more than happy to have you."
    Hmmm...that didn't help. "Mom," I said, deciding to be direct, "would you feel better if I slept with you?"
    "I was thinking you might."
    I laughed. "Mom, you know how I feel about sleeping in a warm room! And, I know how you feel about sleeping in a cold room! I can't see that there's a comfortable way for both of us to compromise on this unless you sleep with hot water bottles or I sleep on ice!"
    "You have a point," she said, her eyes glittering.
    It was that glitter that told me that she isn't, yet, feeling the need for a sleep buddy.
    We have this discussion every couple of months, always initiated by my mother. Sometimes she initiates it because she thinks I'm just visiting and she's not sure that I've figured out where I'm supposed to sleep. Sometimes, though, I consider that we're slowly working our way toward sharing a bedroom for the rest of her life, in which case I will adapt. I've done it before. I can do it again, if it allows her to feel safe and me to feel better prepared to assist her.
    Nevertheless, it might be a good idea if I begin to survey my bedroom with an eye to fitting both of us into it, since mine is the larger of the two, twice the size of hers. Maybe, with Mom on one side and me on the other, we can each enjoy our optimum sleep temperatures. At that point, hers will probably become a storage room.
    In the meantime, the older of our beloved cats, The Little Girl, who has a heightened sense of responsibility and protectiveness toward Mom, will no doubt continue to awaken me with light scratching on my chin or forehead if she perceives something unusual going on in Mom's bedroom. So far, all these incidents have been unusual episodes of snoring or other types of loud breathing, in which Mom indulges infrequently. I like that The Little Girl does this, though, and always praise her and pet her for her vigilance. One of these days her alertness may become my mother's lifeline.
    Ahh, it's 0300 and her light has just gone out again. She's settled. Good. So am I.
    Later.