This Blog Has Moved!

This past weekend, I registered Soapbox By Kay with its own URL and moved over to Wordpress. I won't be removing these posts, but all that's here has been copied over there and all new posts will henceforth be found at www.soapboxbykay.com

If you have been receiving this blog in your email inbox, and wish to continue, you will need to sign up again over there.

Hope to see you there!

I Just Wanted a Nice Pair of Boots

Every once in awhile, I decide there's some item I actually want badly enough to make a foray into a department store or two. A few months ago, it was boots. I wanted a pair of non-Western-style boots to wear with skirts on the occasional colder days. I thought my requirements were pretty simple: leather, moderate-to-low heel, side zipper, attractive design suitable for work. Below is a small sample of what I found.

Here's the "break-a-leg" boot, perhaps for aspiring thespians.

And the Harley girl biker boots.

Neither of which are made from anything that's ever been near a cow.

And then there's these lovely open-toed pumps in an array of colors to match any ensemble.

Ok, I realize the last couple of pictures aren't of boots, but shoe departments any more are like sartorial train wrecks - absolutely horrible, but you just can't look away. When I was 20-something, heels this high were referred to as "hooker shoes". I would feel way older except that my now-20-something daughter agrees with me. 

I still don't have any dress boots.

Banana Babies

Many years ago (damn it!), the Dairy Queen that was on MacArthur Blvd., one block away from MacArthur High School, would freeze bananas on a stick and then dip them in the chocolate shell they used for dipped cones. This process turned an ordinary piece of fruit into something of surpassing wonderfulness.

When I was extremely pregnant with my daughter (also many years ago, damn it!), I went for a check-up on a Monday, and was told something to the effect of: "Wow - you could have this baby almost anytime! Come in tomorrow for an induction so we can be sure you won't be delivering tomorrow evening in Houston rush-hour traffic. And don't eat anything after midnight." The local Dairy Queen drive-through closed at 11:00 pm, so I went up there at 10:55 pm in order to have my very favorite food item just before going NPO at midnight.

As the independently-owned Dairy Queens across North Texas were closed or bought out by a large conglomerate that marketed only DQ-branded items, frozen chocolate-dipped bananas became harder and harder to find. Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in the outlet mall in Terrell sells them. I guess the one in Grapevine Mills probably does, too. And you can sometimes find them at county and state fairs, but it's not a regular or reliable thing. And since I moved to Tampa, none of those places have been available. *sigh*

But - a couple of years ago, I discovered Diana's Banana Babies! Right in the freezer at my supermarket! Half a banana, frozen on a stick, and dipped in chocolate! With choices! Milk Chocolate! Dark Chocolate! Rolled in Nuts! So yummy. So simple. And I no longer get those crazy looks from the kids at random DQ drive-throughs from my wistfully asking if they have frozen chocolate-dipped bananas.

Life is good.

Camp NaNoWriMo - July 2013 Edition

I've still got my mug from last year.

And I've just ordered my t-shirt!

What's Camp NaNoWriMo, you ask? According to the website, it's "an idyllic writer's retreat, smack dab in the middle of your crazy life." The summer version of November's National Novel Writing Month, it allows those of us who are more solar-powered to participate in a writing frenzy that coincides with being fully charged, not to mention having a full extra day and not competing with Thanksgiving.

I have a title, a mere kernal of an idea, but no plot to speak of, which, according to the founder of NaNoWriMo, Chris Baty, is actually no problem at all. We'll see, anyway.

The goal is to write a minimum of 50,000 words during the course of the month, with the idea that 50,000 words is the size of some fine short novels, and of a size to be revised into something that might actually turn into a real thing. In NaNoWriMos past, I have gotten as far along as about 22,000 words. Anyone who reaches the 50,000 word mark "wins". I am planning on being in the winners' campfire circle at next month's Camp.

When you see me in July, be sure and ask me how the novel is coming. And don't accept any hemming or hawing or lame excuses. I need the social pressure and fear of public ridicule to keep me from kicking back and eating s'mores while watching the endless supply of Big Bang Theory re-runs on our DVR. My sincerest thanks in advance, even if I don't seem particularly appreciative at that time.

Mother and the Dementia Paradigm Shift

(Please note: this is a stock photo, not Mom's scan.)

This past Tuesday, Mother and I headed over to USF for her first-ever MRI.  She did wonderfully, and they got very good images, which they then handed to us on a CD to carry to our later appointment at the Byrd Alzheimer's Institute. After a nice lunch at Panera, we were able to make our noon appointment with Dr. Fargher with 10 minutes to spare.

While I waited in the lobby, Dr. Fargher escorted Mother back for an MMSE and evaluation. Afterward, it was my turn in the doctor's office to talk about the results. Mother scored higher on the MMSE this time than she did when we visited two years ago. This does not usually happen. What made the biggest difference was one item that last time Mother didn't even try, saying "I can't", that this time she attempted and got 4 out of 5 points for. I told Dr. Fargher that when we had visited before, Mother had only just started going to the Neighborly Care Network senior center, and for the past 1.5 years or so, she has been attending three days per week.

With the report Dr. Fargher had received from the imaging lab, and the CD I had in hand, we looked at the brain images together which showed some overall shrinkage (not uncommon given Mom's age), very little shrinkage in the areas of the brain normally connected with Alzheimer's, and a couple of spots indicating small strokes (ischemic incidents, for you medically-oriented family members). This indicates that most of Mother's dementia is actually vascular in origin.

We also talked about Mom's hearing loss, and the doctor mentioned that she had to resort to using a pen and paper to clarify some of the questions, and Mother was able to easily understand and answer, even doing fairly well on remembering a set of three words, after they were written down. The doctor suggested we keep a whiteboard handy at home for times when Steve or I didn't feel like we were getting an idea across. We decided that Mother's current meds were all good, and that there was no reason to set up regular appointments, but to call if any additional problems arose.

This really changes everything! 

The length of time from diagnosis of Alzheimer's to death is usually 3-7 years, depending on what stage the person is when evaluated. Since Mom's initial diagnosis for Alzheimer's-type Dementia back in 2007 (no MRI done at that time), I've been worrying about how I would handle her inevitable decline, starting with having to work part-time so I'd be home with her anytime she wasn't at the senior center, and of not being able to leave her alone even for short periods of time. I've been waiting for the horrible eventuality of Mom deteriorating into some mere shell of herself, not remembering anything or recognizing anyone.  

For vascular dementia, if the stroke risk is addressed, then relatively normal functioning can be maintained indefinitely. All this time, I just thought that her meds were working really well, as the decline we've seen is really minimal, and the memory loss patchy and not interfering that much with her daily functioning. (You don't really need to remember what a hush puppy is in order to fix yourself a sandwich for lunch.)

With the realization that a lot of Mom's seeming inability to grasp what we're telling her is probably directly linked to her hearing loss, my falling-off-to-sleep self wondered last night about the possibility of us all learning some basic sign language. I already know how to sign "thank you" and "good morning" - maybe Mom and I will start working on that today.

Morning Walks

Low energy. Low mood. I know, as a mental health professional, that the first, best offense against depression is to get one's heart rate up over 120, at least 3x per week. But I really enjoy being sedentary. I've actually developed a bit of a reputation among family and friends as being particularly exercise-averse. Partly due to all the icky sweating involved. *shudder*

Anyway, the mental health advocate in my head somehow overcame the websurfer office-chair potato and I found myself donning sweatpants, one of Steve's old Buc's t-shirts and my sneakers, with the crazy notion that a little exercise might not do me any real harm and could perhaps do me a little good. Bella heard the sound of the velcro on my shoes and came trotting in to see if this might be a dog-walking opportunity. Why not, I thought. I prepared a Responsible Pet Owner Dog-Poop Pick-Up Kit (a plastic grocery bag and 4 paper towels) and we headed out.

Day 1 of Walking with The Dog: 4/10 miles to the park, 4/10 mile back, brisk walk. My walking mantra: "Come on, Bella!" I worked up a little sweat and Bella was puffing a little by the time we made it back to the house. And no poop to clean up! Hooray! Maybe she does that at night!

Day 2 of Walking with The Dog: This time I decide to take a little longer walk, around the block and along the Mobbly Bayou walking trail, probably about 1.4 miles total. Shortly after we leave the house, she wraps her leash around a tree, and when I try to pull her back around it, she puts her head down and slips out of the harness. I pick up the harness, and after only five commands  to "Sit!", I get the leash attached to her collar. Before we are halfway through the walk, dog poop happens. Darn it! That's ok, though - I have my RPODPPU Kit from yesterday. I quickly clean up after her, we're off again, and I'm able to deposit the bag in the trash can at the beginning of the walking trail. We make it back to the house as Steve is getting ready to leave for work. I get a hug and a kiss and an "Ew! You're all sweaty!" I love you, too, dear.

Day 3 of Walking with The Dog: I get dressed, and Bella comes running when she hears the velcro on my shoes. She is impatient and starts talking to me about how slow I'm being. It takes 3 tries to get the harness on because she won't sit still long enough for me to complete the process. Short walk again this morning, to the park and back. I've replenished supplies in the RPODPPU Kit, which is good because just as we turn around at the park, doggie nature calls. All four feet on the grass, but with her butt hanging over the sidewalk, I give her a swift nudge to change the target to the grass, and just totally interrupt her mojo. Now she's spooked, won't be still while I clean up after her, and has grass hanging out of her butt. I think/hope that on the walk back to the house, she will get the urge again, but no, it's gone, and once we get home, I get to exhaust paper towels in my RPODPPU Kit wiping her and pulling the rest of the grass out so I can let her go in the house. She does not seem to find this any more amusing than I do. And I think I'm getting shinsplints.

These walks have really not been the meditative experience I had hoped. Maybe we'll both get the hang of it soon.

Travel Help Epiphany

I like to read. On long trips, I would like to read in the car. But until our most recent trip, I was never able to do so due to motion sickness. If the car is moving, I can't even look at the map for more than 30 seconds before getting queasy. As we were preparing for our recent Thanksgiving Trip To Texas, I remembered the medication I had gotten for a bout of vertigo several weeks ago.

Bonine is an antiemetic marketed to combat motion sickness. It worked beautfully. I was able to use my cushion-backed lapdesk for my daily journaling and also read almost all of The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging on the drive home. I may never get to drive the truck, but when Steve and I hit the road next spring pulling the new travel trailer, I'll have lots of time for reading.

Soaking Up A Little Culture

Last June, Steve and I joined the Tampa Bay History Center when we went to see a traveling exhibit about Spies In America. We were somewhat underwhelmed by the Spies exhibit, but we had time to see part of the permanent displays before closing time, and had a nice experience. 

Today, we returned to see their traveling exhibit about coffee:

As we entered the building, I started up the stairs ahead of Steve, and he noticed that I was exposing more than my thirst for culture and knowledge.

We made a hasty entrance into the gift shop and bought something to remedy my overexposure.

With the tail of this "Ladies 2X" (that my shoulders barely fit into), I was able to recover some of my dignity as I covered my flanks.

We proceeded to the Columbia Cafe that is inside the History Center building, just outside the exhibits entrance, and had a nice lunch while we watched the cruise ships move along Channelside. 

The Coffee exhibit was small, but interesting. I had always thought coffee was a new world crop, but it is actually native to Ethiopia and was imported to South America as part of the triangle trade. We also learned how very labor intensive it is to bring a coffee crop to market. Coffee plants don't have a specific harvest period, with plants bearing flowers, green berries and ripened berries simultaneously, necessitating hand picking of ripened berries on a near-daily basis. The berries are then fermented to remove the fruit exterior, then dried, then shipped around the world to be roasted at destination. 

There's probably more to it than that, but I was already distracted by the next display, which was some kind of electronic scent module in coffee bags. When you squeezed the coffee bags, the scent of that particular kind of coffee was emitted. There were only two bags, but one was for Ethiopian coffee and one for coffee from some other part of the world. It seems that the soil and growing conditions play a great part in the flavors of the different coffees. I am afraid that that distinction would be lost on me in my normal coffee consumption, however, as I add flavored syrups and a lot of half-and-half to my coffee cup each morning.

On our way out, we stopped in the gift shop again and I bought a small bag of dark chocolate- covered espresso beans, at which point I found out that our membership allowed a 10% discount on gift shop and cafe purchases.

It was too late to get the 10% off our lunch, but the young woman kindly offered to refund and re-ring my emergency t-shirt purchase in order for me to get my discount. As members, we also get parking validation 3x per year, which saved us an additional $5 in parking.

As we were leaving the History Center, we decided to have a look at all the little vendor booths set up along the river walk. It turns out that today was the Third Annual Tampa Bay Veg Fest sponsored by Florida Voices for Animals. Several animal rescue organizations and groups promoting vegetarianism and veganism. We spoke to no one of the bacon-wrapped filets from Surf and Turf Market we had waiting at home for dinner. 

Dream Cogitation

As I was waking up Sunday morning, I found myself working on a comparison/contrast of psychology, sociology, and anthropology. I have no idea what I might have been dreaming, but it was enough to keep the thought process going even after I was fully awake.

Here's what I came up with:

Psychology is the study of individuals and how they have been shaped through their internal chemistries, their thoughts, and their interactions with others, with the goal of helping each to optimum functioning.

Sociology is the study of people in aggregate, their society, and how the individual effects and is affected by the social system, also with the idea of improving both the aggregate and the individual functioning to an optimal level.

Anthropology is the study of other societies, remote in time, distance, or social strata. It does not seek to "improve" the society being studied (which could be construed as a type of contamination, and which it would be unable to do in historical societies, anyway), but rather to understand to the point that what worked and what didn't work could be applied to optimize the observer's society of origin.

Maybe the next part of this comparison/contrast would be the metaphysical, which attempts to understand the impact of forces that do not originate within the physical self or society. This might include what Jung referred to as the collective unconscious, what people of Western religion call saints, angels, God, or Holy Spirit (or Satan or demons, if that impact is negative), and what New Thought calls Spirit or Higher Self (with the belief that the negative is physically based and not external to humanity), among others.

I still have no idea why this was important enough to make the transition from sleep to wakefulness, but after thinking about it off and on all that day, I thought I'd share.

Manifestation Madness

A few nights ago at dinner, I asked Steve for a story of recent manifestation. (I read a lot of Wayne Dyer.) He said he couldn't think of anything specific, but in general the right things come at the right times all the time.

I said that on the way home that night, I remembered telling him a few weeks ago that I wanted to live in a house where the toilet didn't gurgle when we did laundry. (The cut-rate plumber our landlord usually calls had assured us when it started making that noise after one of his snake-out-the-clogged-drain visits that it was making that noise because the drainage pipes were small and it was actually a good sign and that they were finally venting properly.) Shortly after my wish for a house with a non-conversational toilet, the drains in the entire house stopped up. The cut-rate plumber was not returning the landlord's calls, so he told Steve to make whatever arrangements were necessary and send him the bill. We called James of JHRooter in Oldsmar (727-420-1941). He arrived within the hour, brought along his very nice teenaged son as a helper, made everything ALL better, and after he left, we realized that now that the drain pipes for the house had been snaked properly, the toilet no longer talks on laundry day. Hooray!

The morning after our manifesting conversation, Steve came into the office to tell me that he now had a story for me. He was totally out of his fat-free salad dressing packets that he orders on-line. He was packing his lunch, resigned to the fact that he would not be having his preferred fat-free caesar dressing on his salad that day, when the FedEx truck appeared, bringing his latest order.

And that's how we roll at our house.

Yesterday morning, I realized that it was August 1st and the first day of camp. Woohoo!

Art by Mother

Three mornings per week, a van or car comes to our house and picks Mother up to take her to the Dunedin Day Center. They sing songs, read the paper, play Bingo (sometimes Mother brings me the packages of cookies she's won), and lots of other activities, including breakfast, lunch, and a mid-afternoon snack before she comes back home in the afternoon.


Sometimes she brings home artwork that she's done. Some projects are more impressive than others. Below is one of the first things she brought home and taped to the living room wall.

Soon after, this appeared below it.

Later, this painting appeared, and I was actually quite impressed.

Then came Christmas arts and crafts. (She won the candy jar by being the most accurate guesser of the number of candy canes it held.)

Several more paintings came home, and I was getting quite excited about Mother's previously hidden artistic talent until she told me that the canvases had pencil drawings they then painted.  Still, she seemed to have a good sense of color and blending, and I've purchased inexpensive frames to showcase the growing art collection. When they're all framed, I'll be able to replace the Easter basket she's taped up in the dining room.

Time Traveling Part 2: Sunflowers 2011

Last summer, I took some of the edgers that were stacked on the side of the house and blocked off a little garden area.  I decided to plant sunflowers. I started the seeds in little plastic pots on the lanai, alternately overwatering and ignoring them.  The survivors made it into the flower bed.

They grew pretty quickly, benefitting from the fact that Steve kept reminding me to water the tomato plants .

We got some nice blooms on them and even some bees visiting!

It soon became evident, however, that the extreme rockiness of the soil did not allow them to get a good root system going.  Even though Steve tried staking and tying them to help them stand upright, they never got strong enough stems to support or nourish themselves. Not one of the flower heads set seeds.

I did enjoy watching them grow, even if they didn't do as well as I had hoped.

This year, I've planted mint.

10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer (poster)

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Time Traveling: Part 1 or Wow! I Just Found My Camera!

Late last summer (growing season in Florida begins in the fall), we made do-it-yourself earth boxes out of some surplus storage bins in order to grow tomatoes. It was quite exciting when our tomato plants grew taller that us! Bella, however, was not so easily impressed.

We stumbled out in the early mornings to make sure the water reservoirs stayed full, braving hungry mosquitoes and the chance that our neighbors would see us in various states of (un)dress. When the tomatoes started ripening, our excitement increased, and we eagerly awaited the first of our harvest.

We finally had a couple that were fully ripened (and not caterpillar abused), so we brought them in and gloried in their home-grown flavor.

When we realized that caterpillars were enjoying more of the ripening tomatoes than we were, we decided to head them off at the pass.  Fried green tomatoes!

Chef Steve carefully selected and sliced several tomatoes of goodly size, and with equal care prepared the cooking line for maximum efficiency.

Don't they look wonderful?  Chef Steve thinks so!

Bella remains unimpressed.

She just doesn't know what she missed!

Gradual Rewind

A few mornings ago, I walked into the kitchen for my second cup of coffee.  Mother was sitting on the couch in the living room, saw me walk in and hollered "peep-eye!"  Since then, she's said it a few more times as she's come around the corner to see me in the office, or when she's sitting in the living room or den and I walk into her view.  I mentioned it to Steve, and then had to explain to him that this is a southern or maybe just a family version of "peek-a-boo".

Mother has always had a great sense of playfulness and whimsy.  This new exclamation could stem from nothing more than thinking that it was a funny thing to say at the time, and continuing because our reactions are amusing.  Or it could be another indication of the Alzheimer's Rewind.

Steve asked me when she was last evaluated.  It's only been a few months.  I told him that unless she begins starting fires or wandering the neighborhood, we'd stay with the annual neuro work ups.

It's weird watching your mother grow younger as she grows older.

Stages of Alzheimers

The Alzheimers Association lists 7 stages of the disease.

Stage 1: No impairment
Stage 2: Very mild decline
Stage 3: Mild decline
Stage 4: Moderate decline
Stage 5: Moderately severe decline
Stage 6: Severe decline
Stage 7: Very severe decline

Mom seems to be mostly in Stage 4:

Stage 4:
Moderate cognitive decline
(Mild or early-stage Alzheimer's disease)
At this point, a careful medical interview should be able to detect clear-cut symptoms in several areas:

• Forgetfulness of recent events
• Impaired ability to perform challenging mental arithmetic — for example, counting backward from 100 by 7s
• Greater difficulty performing complex tasks, such as planning dinner for guests, paying bills or managing finances
• Forgetfulness about one's own personal history
• Becoming moody or withdrawn, especially in socially or mentally challenging situations 

but perhaps moving into the beginnings of Stage 5:


  Stage 5: Moderately severe cognitive decline
(Moderate or mid-stage Alzheimer's disease)
Gaps in memory and thinking are noticeable, and individuals begin to need help with day-to-day activities. At this stage, those with Alzheimer's may:

• Be unable to recall their own address or telephone number or the high school or college from which they graduated
• Become confused about where they are or what day it is
• Have trouble with less challenging mental arithmetic; such as counting backward from 40 by subtracting 4s or from 20 by 2s
• Need help choosing proper clothing for the season or the occasion
• Still remember significant details about themselves and their family
• Still require no assistance with eating or using the toilet 

Most of the time, it's not a big deal.  She goes to the Dunedin Day Center three times a week, which she just loves.  Edna, her home health aide, comes on Thursdays for her shower.  We go to Felix's Hair We Are every 6-7 weeks for our haircuts, grocery shopping every other week, to the drugstore monthly.  She's always cheerful and pleasant and easy-going.

But every once in awhile, something comes up that reinforces for me that even though the decline is very gradual, it is still there.

We went to a local restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner and had to park one small parking lot over  due to the crowd.  When we left, the walk from inside the restaurant, around the line of people still waiting outside, and maybe 40 yards on to our car had Mother so winded that she had to lean heavy on my arm the last few feet, and she huffed and wheezed half the way home.  It has nothing to do with her lung function, and everything to do with the fact that she not only watches TV every waking moment she's not at the senior center, but that she lies down on the couch to do it.  She is so very sedentary that any amount of walking seriously tires her.

After going out to dinner for her birthday, we stopped at the drugstore to pick up one of her medications that was waiting.  Since the pharmacy is in the rear of the store, she has to walk more than she would like and more than she is used to.  After picking up her meds and returning to the front of the store, we had to wait a moment for Steve to check out at the front register.  Since Mom was tired, she wanted to sit down, but there was no chair or bench.  So, she sat down on a stack of cases of plastic water bottles in a display at the front of the store, with no idea that this was not good plan or a safety issue.  I told her she couldn't sit there, and she couldn't understand why not, and I had to insist that she stand while she was insisting that she was tired and needed to sit.  And, since Mom is very hard of hearing, this conversation was carried out at a volume to allow everyone in the store to listen in.


When we got home, I talked to her about it again, and explained that the water bottles could have fallen, then she would have fallen, then they would have fallen on top of her, and she needed to agree that in the future she would only sit on things that were chairs or benches.  She agreed, but she seemed amused by it and I don't think she really understood my concern or why I was making such a big deal about it.

Conversation

Mom: You said yesterday that today is your twentieth wedding anniversary?

Me: No, Mom.  Steve and I got married a year ago.  We've only been married for one year.  Remember we had the wedding last year?

Mom:  So, it's not your anniversary?

Me: Yes, today is our anniversary, but our one-year anniversary.

Mom:  Oh, okay.  Happy anniversary!

Tripping Over Dr. Laura

I try to be positive.  I try to look at the good happening in my life and in the world.  If there are things that aren't going well, I try to figure out how to fix them.  If someone is unhappy (including me), I try to find solutions to whatever difficulties are in the mix.  I don't watch the network news.  I listen to NPR, which keeps me informed without feeding me flaming rhetoric.  I do my best to avoid negative people, negative situations and drama.  And for the most part, I succeed.

Last night, however, a link to Dr. Laura's blog showed up on my Facebook feed, with the poster's comment that she is "right on the money" concerning relationships between men and women.  Even though I know better, even though I know she is amazingly negative, I clicked through.  And tripped over and fell into a blog entry so full of vitriol, I am still upset and shaken this morning.  Hyperbole, you're thinking.  Please remember that I've been fairly successful at insulating myself from negative people and situations.  So successful, in fact, that it seems I have little immunity to general hatefulness and deliberate offense.

In her response to an op-ed piece in Slate on-line, entitled "Sex is Cheap: Why Young Men Have the Upper Hand in Bed, Even When They're Failing in Life," she posits that the failure of men in our society is directly attributable to female promiscuity.  Since every woman is ready to "put out", men have nothing to strive for in order to obtain ready sex with socially desirable partners.

When I started writing this, I thought about using quotes from her blog post and rebutting, but as I look through it, it's all offensive, I don't want to post any of it here, and I would have to try to find reasonable responses to words that were mostly chosen to inflame and offend.  I just can't bring myself to do it.  So, if you really want to read it, here it is. 

What I initially found most offensive about this piece is that it reduces the relationship between a man and a woman to that of a sexual war.  A woman must hold the front lines against a man's unrelenting assault at all costs, until a favorable treaty (i.e. marriage) can be negotiated.  This also means that a woman's sexuality is the only asset she has to bring to the negotiation.  If she decides that she does not want her sexuality to be held in reserve and used only as trump card in the treaty process, then she is an "unpaid whore" who isn't even getting good recompense for the only thing of value she holds. Oh, and she is also contributing to the downfall of civilization.

As I was falling asleep last night, I wondered how such an intelligent, articulate woman (and she is intelligent and articulate, which makes her opinions all that much more baffling to me) could also be such an amazing misogynist. As I awoke this morning, however, the flip side of her argument dawned on me.  If women (and their controlled sexual urges) are the only guard against our society's downfall, what place does that leave men?  They must be mere homonculo-penises, capable of being motivated only by the prospect of eventually attaining exclusive sexual rights claim on the body of a respectable "nice-girl".  And if you give a donkey the carrot early, he won't have any motivation at all, right?

That's when I realized that Dr. Laura is not merely a misogynist, but a full-blown misanthrope.  How very sad for her to have to live in the hateful world she has created for herself.  I'm really glad I don't have to live there, too.

T-Shirt Contretemps

Mother has a t-shirt from her old job.  A comfy, tan, heavy cotton t-shirt with a slogan from some past customer service-oriented advertising campaign.  She likes it .  She likes to wear it.  She likes to wear it often.  She likes to wear it repeatedly.  She does not, however, like to do laundry.  So, her favorite comfy shirt gets worn several times before I realize that I've seen it many more times than I've seen her do laundry (more on that later), and I feel compelled to comment.

"Mom, you've worn that shirt four or five times already.  It needs to be washed," I point out.

"It's fine," she replies.

"Mom, you've worn it the last three times you've gone to the senior center.  They'll think you don't have any other clothes. Also, you need to wash it before you wear it again."  I stop short of ordering her to go change.  She wouldn't anyway, not without what I anticipate would be a really big battle - I'm not sure because I haven't pushed that hard yet.

"Okay," she says, in that voice and tone that I recognize immediately as meaning, 'I'm agreeing with you so you will stop talking at me about this.'  So that's where I get it.  Hmmm.

Yesterday morning was at least the third time we've had this conversation.  My husband overhears and says I should make her change, or tell her the shirt will go away, but I'm not ready to be that much of an authoritarian for anyone, especially not my mother.  I do have to agree with him on his point that it is not only a matter of esthetics, but also a health issue.  *sigh*

So, I phone the senior center and have a chat with the social worker.  She says to take the shirt and put it in the laundry, telling Mother it is no longer available as it needs washing and is in the laundry.  Great plan - except that that still makes me the de facto laundress because Mother doesn't do laundry unless/until I go into her closet and pull out all the clothing that she has already worn and rehung and announce that it is Mom's Laundry Day.  I don't want to do this.  I am still trying to figure out how to get out of doing my own laundry.  (No luck so far on that one, either.)  *sigh*

I do have a Plan B, though.  It won't get me out of my laundry duties, but it might reduce their frequency a little.  I call Mom's old job.  I speak to the manager.  I explain to him a little bit of the situation, and how I attribute her fondness for the shirt to a combination of its inherent comfiness and the fond memories Mom has of working there for twenty-plus years.  Is there any way, I ask him, I can get a couple more employee t-shirts for her.  He transfers me back to the office manager, instructing me to tell her what size and how many I want.  Hooray!  The office manager also remembers Mom, and in addition to the three new t-shirts - one yellow, one orange, and one green - she will be including notes from current employees who also remember Mom from her time there.  She starts to address the package to me, but I suggest addressing it directly to Mom so she will open it immediately and have a nice surprise.

I hope it arrives today.