It Must Be Election Season Because the Bullshit is Knee Deep

Sam Seder tell it like it is.

Shock Absorbers

I have three things going for me in this long brutal recession.  I'm a recluse.  I don't like my fellow man much, so going out to be with my fellow man holds no attraction.  And on the rare occasion that I do venture out for a meal, my favorite dining spots are the taco stands and the cheap Mexican diners.  I read restaurant reviews just to gasp at what they're charging for a pork chop or a single egg Benedict.  Homemade cream corn as a side dish is outrageously expensive.  I know, it's amazing that anyone is serving homemade cream corn in a restaurant as a side dish, especially in Utah.  So, I save a lot of money by not wanting to eat out.  And I'd rather watch a movie at home lying on my bed, smoking whatever I want and drinking good iced tea.  I couldn't buy a glass of really good iced Earl Grey tea out in the world, even at a tea house, if my life depended on it.  I'd rather stay home.

I'm old. But I'm still continent.  This means I get Social Security and Medicare but I don't need to spend anything on adult diapers.  Lucky me.

The third and most important shock absorber is the house I own.  Sure it has it's problems and I could pour a fortune into it.  But I haven't.  I never borrowed against it. I couldn't.  My credit wasn't good enough since medical bills and my mother's care bankrupted me.  Chapter 7.  It's been five years, so I still don't have good credit and still can't borrow against it.  Hell, I can't even afford to pay all my property taxes each year.  Certainly never on time.  I still have fairly hefty medical bills. But that which has prevented me from borrowing against my house, has saved me from losing my house and have made me a perfect candidate for a Reverse Mortgage!  Any day now, I'll find out how little money it's now worth after the housing crash.

Bob's Back

Bob's home.  And I'm so relieved. Had I not gone all sleuthy and snoopy, I'd have never seen Bob again. And yet, Bob is already driving me crazy.  Soon I'll go to Pet Smart and buy him a breakaway collar so I can send him outside again.  Because already I'm wanting to strangle him.  He's very funny when he and Marley are rolling around on the bed looking like they're killing each other.  But when Marley goes outside, Bob turns his razor like claws and needle teeth to the fragile skin on the inside of my upper arm or my ankle, since nothing says loving like an ankle bite.

Marley is beside herself with joy.  I'm beside myself with relief.  Bob's just beside himself with mischief, so we're all happy.

Here is how Bob went missing: When Bob goes out he goes visiting, anyone outside working on their flower garden or sitting on their porch gets a visit from Bob.  Kids playing are treated to a bit of Bob fun. So when Bob saw several people on the porch of the only house on the block that's been converted to a fourplex, Bob went calling.  Thing is, these people were moving out of the front unit of the fourplex.  Instead of asking around before packing Bob up with their actual belongings, they just decided to take him, "cause he was so cute and friendly."  I'd never met these kids.  I had no clue that anybody would be that stupid and ballsy as to take a kitten without checking around to see who might know if that kitten had a home.  All my neighbors knew I was looking for Bob.  All these kids would have had to do was call across the street to Mayor Kim to find out who Bob belong to.  But no.  They just bundled him up and drove to Rose Park, which is very far from this neighborhood.When I was a kid my parents would have said, "Rose Park is on the wrong side of the tracks," and everybody knew what that meant.  But now, to me, it's just BFE.  Outside my territory, too far to visit, wouldn't want to go there anyway, and, if I need to spell it out, means Bum Fuck Egypt. I should probably look this up in the Urban Dictionary, but I'm lazy and still have miles to go before I nap.

So anyway, I don't usually walk down the driveways of people I don't know, but yesterday evening I was desperate to find Bob, I was snooping around all the cars and looking into the backs of the carports when I heard a soft meow.  I followed my ear, a tricky thing in and of itself, until I was looking face to face with a grey and orange tabby lying on an inside window ledge with the window open, watching me case the joint.  To my longing eyes, from across the parking lot and through a screen, that softly mewing cat looked exactly like Bob.  It wasn't till we were nose to nose that I realized this cat was a full grown cat of a different color. Goddammit!  And as this cat and I were having a conversation a woman walked into the room and said, "Can I help you?"

I told her the story of Bob's disappearance and she took me into the laundry room, the hallway with the open door upstairs.  No Bob.  Bob was gone.  I'd put posters up around the neighborhood. I'd gone door to door with all the neighbors, even to the woman who manages the fourplex, and no one had seen Bob after around 4:00 in the afternoon the previous day.  The manager had checked the empty apartment the kids had vacated and found no kitten, but said she'd keep her eye out.  But this woman was a lot more helpful.  I left my phone number with her.

About an hour later I got a call from the woman in the back apartment of the fourplex and she'd called the kids who'd moved to Rose Park asking if they'd seen Bob.  And yes, why yes they had.  In fact they'd taken him with them.  He's such a cute friendly kitten and they didn't know who owned him, so...  Little motherfuckers!  Fortunately they offered to bring him home.  So an hour later they delivered Bob, no worse the wear from his misadventure.  And now Marley is a hap hap happy wiener dog once again.  Bob's napping on my printer and Marley's napping on a pillow beside my desk.  Now I have to vacuum.

Bob's Gone MIA

Marley is inconsolable.  We went on a walk just looking for Bob.  Last night was the first night Bob slept with Me and Marley.  After breakfast Bob and Marley went out. Bob didn't come back. He's a sociable guy and has made the rounds of the nighbors. I'm guessing he visited someone who thought he was looking for a home.  I'm hoping as soon as they open the door Bob will escape and run home where the chow is good and the play is rough and tumble.  Here are a few of the latest photos of Bob & Marley wrestling.

Turns out Ginger Rogers Is Really Robert Benchley

How could we have gotten it so wrong? Four grown women and a man examined that fiesty kitty and all of us concluded that he was a she.  I had been waffling on the name. Why not a literary name? @PhoebeFay suggested Dorothy Parker. I almost called the Vet to have it changed on her/his records, but I didn't.  It's just as well.  But for now I'm thinking Robert Benchley, notorious liar, humorist, writer, actor, member of the Algonquin Round Table. Friend of Dorothy Parker.

I'll call him Bob.  The House Call Vet said he's a holly terror of feistiness.  The Vet had to wear his kitteh gauntlet to handle Bob.  Now I want to rename Marley, but Bob plus Marley makes BobMarley, so...

Bob had terrible personal hygiene.  Dirty ears.  Really dirty ears.  Ten days worth of ear wash and ointment dirty ears.  Bob got the whole shebang of immunizations and a second round in three weeks. Worming too.  Bob got wormed. The indignity of it.  Then in a few short months Bob will get neutered.  I don't think it's going to change Bobs personality much.  He's oddly self confident for a dirty guy abandoned in someone else's garage, then passed around a couple of times before landing here.

Bob, I want to make a deal with you.  Once I get your ears clean, you better step it up.  Bob purrs really loud and likes to hang out around my neck.  This disturbs Marley.  We'll work it out.

Ginger Rogers? Is That You?

The new kitteh has a third eye or a second vajaja.  Check out this face!  She devours the news. It's a requirement in this house.  I must have well informed critters.  I can't quite settle on a name for her, but Ginger Rogers is a possibility.  If she turns out to be a boy or chooses to go the trans-gender route she can become Ginger Baker.  She can be whatever she wants.  And with those marking she might well be THE ENLIGHTENED ONE.  Not that I'd entirely buy it, but maybe that's Jeebus on her forehead. 

She does have dirty ears and a Vet Visit tomorrow afternoon.

Okay, so much for the face.  Take a look at this form:  She whirls to find that article she wanted to devour.  Where's the Mother Jones? It was something by David Corn! 

She seems to have sturdy legs and nice sized feet.  She has pretty markings on her tail, too.  All in all I think she's a lovely kitty.  I've done a bit of de-cluttering to make the solarium a safe place for her, since I don't entirely trust Marly to be sensible.  And yet, after 24 hours of very limited sharing of space, we have reached this weary nonchalance, this delicate detente.

This kitteh seems to have a special fondness for the reference books.  Marley is faining interest in the Portuguese Dictionary.  Until today she's never show the slightest interest.

Real Americans

We see it every day.  It's everywhere.  It's us versus them.  Is it race, class, gender, sexual orientation, my religion or lack of it versus yours?  Is it income, accent, education, gender?  Yes.  It's all of these things and more.  Are we polarized?  Yes.  More than any time since the 1960s.  Only this time it's the White Right wearing teabags and holstered handguns that's taken to the streets.  So I'm trying to understand the Tea Party mentality.  I'm trying to understand why these poor souls are being led around by the likes of Dick Armey, Koch Industries, and the John Birch Society.

The saddest part of this polarization is the belief that the American Dream is about wealth and that it's within reach of everyone.  All you have to do is come up with a good idea and put your shoulder to the wheel, and you could be the next Bill Gates. And if not, you could win the lottery.  That's bullshit, but almost everybody buys it.  And it's why the Teabaggers (who think of themselves as the "Real America;" Sarah Palin's America, the great, now mostly mythical, white, middle-class) are willing to give huge tax breaks to the very very rich.  They believe that they too, can become filthy fucking rich, and they will want to keep their imagined someday riches all to themselves.  And when they are finally really really rich, they won't give a shit about the poor elderly, or the poor immigrants, or the unemployed, or the homos.  They'll think, "I got mine.  If I can do it so can you, you lazy bum."

This "Real America" watches Fox News pretty much exclusively.  (Utah is an example of the Real America; in every public place with a TV on, it's turned to Fox News.)  They listen to the twin gods in their political universe: Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.  They consider themselves religious folk even though they don't go to church much, but their Christian religion is the Real American Religion, and thou shalt have no other gods by god, or you are un-American and you don't know that Christianity is our state religion, you dangerous, socialist, ignorant, multi-lingual Nazi kike raghead beaner bastard, you.  Speak English like a Real American.

They are fiercely anti-immigrant and have no idea that they are all illegal immigrants in the eyes of the few remaining Native Americans who managed to survive the internment camps, broken treaties, and genocide.  These "Real Americans" are mistrustful of people who don't look like them. ( Like Native Americans for instance.  They look a lot like Mexicans, those indians.) What they don't realize is that anyone who is filthy rich wouldn't give them the time of day, would see them as the great unwashed masses.  These Real Americans don't realize that the Filthy Rich don't identify with them the way they identify with the Filthy Rich.  It's an unrequited love.  And as much as they identify with the rich, and parrot the political ideology of the rich (which they don't entirely understand) they mistrust the well-educated and don't quite realize that getting the right education at the right schools is one of the pathways toward becoming not exactly rich, but at least middle-class.  The job market has contracted.  Remember when the filthy rich were exporting all the tech and manufacturing jobs overseas?  Those jobs are gone forever. But there are two wars still on and private contractors are probably still hiring.  Too bad they're looking for linguists.

We gave the filthy rich the right to do whatever they wanted with no regulation during the reign of GWB, because he was a guy we Real Americans could imagine having a beer with, because he talked like an ignorant uneducated cracker from Texas.  He wore cowboy boots.  God Bless America!  We're Number One!  And since the Real America doesn't like to read history much, the Real America didn't realize GWB was an elite with a good education (even if he was a lazy student) from a life of incredible privilege and vast inherited wealth. He had the worlds best contacts, even if he did sound like a hick.  And even if it didn't work out so well last time, they still want to do it again. Why? Because rich white people will look after us, right?  Because it's us versus the un-white, right? 

No, not this time either, because it's stiil just class warfare.  Ask Shirley Sherrod.

Ms M's Parting Gift

Ms. M is a gifted photographer. I was sure she'd find a way to make that her career.  But she's chosen Industrial Design. She's moving to Savannah to pursue that dream. When she's traveled she's sent me remarkably striking photographs.  I make Marly self conscious when I get out my camera.  And Marly would try to drag me across the street to avoid walking across pavement that was recently sprinkled.  I'd call her water phobic.  But Ms M took Marly and Roscoe to one of our lovely dog parks and took this shot of Marly standing in water and looking thoughtful, but not horrified.  It's now my screen saver.

How To Argue With Andrew Breitbart

 Stolen from Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog

We'll Miss You Roscoe

Roscoe is about to embark on a great adventure.  Yesterday was his last day with us.  He's lived here almost all his life.  He's secure and loved.  We'll mourn his leaving and hope his new life will be every bit as happy as his life with us has been.  Bon Voyage, Roscoe.  And if you ever want to come back, just tell Ms M.  We'll always be here for you.

A Cautionary Tale

Whether you've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, thyroid cancer, or have never had a funky day in your life, this kind of thing can happen and does, all the time.  Without advance directives you may be at the mercy of the ER and hospital, should a serious emergency arise, and you have no one present who will speak up for you to say, "She's bipolar.  Here is a list of the medications she's on.  Here is her psychiatrist's name, here is her primary care physician's name and number.  She has a DNR"  Everyone of us should carry a card that says at least this much about us.  Because if you have family that feels shame or denial about your mental illness or any illness and those people can speak for you in a situation where you can't speak for yourself, their shame and denial can kill you.

I know a man who has been overseeing his elderly sister's bipolar disorder.  Due to his diligence to get her the best possible psychiatric care, she was on the medication necessary to control her bipolar psychosis and other bipolar symptoms.  Anyone on her cocktail of drugs might seem a bit slow on the uptake, a bit casual about disorder and mess.  To a religious and disapproving sister who didn't believe her sister was psychotic, only uncooperative and lazy her sisters psychosis would seem like another kind of illness altogether.  The brother was out of town when the bipolar sister had a crisis in the presence of her disapproving sister.  Psychosis was misdiagnosed at the ER and her medications were not administered making her psychosis worse.  She was admitted to the hospital, but not the psych ward.  She was six weeks in the hospital developing strange symptom after strange symptom that eventually developed into pneumonia and then something that made them think she needed her gall bladder removed, or some other surgical procedure, and then an infection and then, death.

The man was notified of his sister's hospitalization, probably by the sister who did not believe in bipolar disorder.  Because of HIPPA laws and the strange politics of family dynamics he was not given authority to intervene in any decisions about her care.  He watched helplessly as his psychotic bipolar sister died inch by inch. 

Her funeral came a couple of days after the funeral of Wayne, his friend, the pianist who died in a car crash after the Salt Lake Jazz Festival.  I can't begin to imagine his grief.  But I can imagine my own death in circumstances where I have a stroke or accident that lands me in the hospital with no family at all,  and my friends are unaware that I'm in need of their help.  I'm a solitary woman who seldom leaves home.  But when I do, anything could happen.  Life's messy like that.

When I finish this I will type up a list of my medical conditions, all medications I take on a daily basis, the names and numbers of all my doctors, the name and number of the friend to call in case of an emergency.  I will keep copies on me at all times, just in case.  I don't fear death, but I do fear mistreatment in a hospital if they do not know my history of bipolar disorder.  I also fear mistreatment in a hospital if they do know I'm bipolar.  Medical professionals are not immune from mistreating the mentally ill.  I know.  It happened to me in a much less serious circumstance when I was in the hospital with diverticulitis.  There are people who have no compassion for the mentally ill in every ER in the country. I know,  I had a roommate who worked in an ER and for most ER staff, someone who is crazy and needs emergency medical attention is seen as much less deserving of sympathy than almost anyone else.  We are just a pain in the ass.