Coffee heat rising

Marble-Loss Update

Well, I found some stuff at Sprouts that contains the stuff called inulin, which supposedly staves off marble-loss to some degree.

Heh! We’ll believe that when we see it, eh?

Other than sometimes causing collywobbles or constipation, it apparently isn’t especially harmful. So I guess I’m gonna try it, just to see if it helps. How exactly I’ll know whether it helps kinda escapes me. But…nothing ventured.

M’hijito is furious with me because I’ve gotten stubborn about traipsing all the way across the Valley to sit in a half-baked support group at the Mayo Clinic. Members sit there all afternoon and tell each other what they can’t remember, for the love of God!

I know, already, that I can’t remember where I put my shoes. Dammit, what good is it supposed to do me that hear that a bunch of other old buzzards who are losing their marbles can’t remember where they put their shoes??

Less and less time remains to me as each hour goes by. And of the hours that do remain, fewer and fewer are going to be of much use. So…what good does it do me to listen to people who are also losing their marbles natter on about how their brains are going to Hell on a broken-down handcart? Forgodsake, let’s fill up the hours that remain with some quality time!

Much as my mother suffered with the cancer that carried her away, frankly…I think she may have been dealt a better hand than I seem to have collected. At least she died fairly quickly, and she retained her consciousness of those who were around her. Her passing was, I suspect, far more difficult for my father (who cared for her up until the end) than it was for her.

This business of turning into a mental vegetable but staying nominally alive for some indefinite period — probably imprisoned in an institution — looks far more horrible to me.

And, speaking of indefinite periods: I have no one to take care of me forever and aye. My father was retired by the time my mother fell ill. But…my son — my only surviving relative — has a JOB.

Remember those?

He can’t take weeks or maybe months off to care for a vegetable. Nor, I think, will Medicare cover the cost of the gardening tasks. All the assets I’ve accumulated to leave to my son may be consumed by this fine horror.

It may be time to start thinking about the Final Exit.

Incredible!!! And G’bye, Amazon

Sooo…. Having discovered that I apparently have a dire condition of Olde Age that is likely to render me a vegetable — or at best, insure that I can’t remember my name — I discovered STILL MORE:  It develops that a woo-woo product called inulin MAY help preserve brain function for those of us who have reached an age where we have holes in our head. It’s cheap and apparently it does no harm, even if it does no good. Actually, it appears the stuff may have some unpleasant side effects, but none of them are life-threatening or likely to put you in the hospital.

Tried to order the dope on Amazon, which carries it a-plenty. But I simply could not get through! Amazon would not take my name, it would not take my credit info, it WOULD NOT cooperate.

Soooo….

Sprouts, as you may know, carries vast shelves full of woo-woo alternative “medicines.” And lo! There’s a Sprouts just down the road from the Funny Farm.

Hop in the car, drive down there, and try to find the stuff.

No luck, of course.

Find a clerk. She appears to have no more functioning brain cells than I do…. But after several attempts to explain what I’m looking for, she finally grasps the message, and yes! She DOES find a whole plastic bottleful of the stuff.

Fly home. Bolt one of the gigantic pills down. Hope for the best.

Let’s see what it does. With any luck, it won’t make me sick (a lot of these types of woo-woo do exactly that). With a WHOLE lot more luck, maybe it will address the fast-growing cognitive failure.

As you may guess by this little flap, I am scared sh!tless of this latest ailment. Truly, truly I would rather die than end up in a nursing home. That isn’t living, after all. I know: I watched my father’s old age. And he did NOT have Alzheimer’s.

Neither, we might add, did any of the relatives on either side who lived long enough to get it…that we know of.

Problem is, we DON’T know much of what happened on my father’s side. His father apparently committed suicide (there’s a good probability that he was murdered). His mother, a Choctaw woman, apparently lived to a ripe age, but it’s unclear what kind of shape she was in at the end. Far as I can tell, none of her three sons lost their marbles in old age…but I don’t know enough about the cowhand brother to be sure of that.

My mother’s grandparents? Her paternal grandmother: diabetes. The grandfather: unknown.. Her mother: died of a reproductive cancer in early middle age. Her maternal grandparents? Grandmother lived into her 90s in high health; grandfather died in middle age of causes unknown to me. But…he was only 65 when he died, if online information is correct.

What that boils down to is…two of my grandparents died in middle age.

Presumably, if this probiotic woo-woo has any positive effect, it will be weeks before we can tell. But…it looks like the stuff is unlikely to do much harm, other than inducing diarrhea. We shall soon see….

You have to be told this? REALLY?????

It looks like my son has conceded the Battle of the Mayo Clinic Old Folks’ Chatfest.

This is a weekly meeting in which we all sit around a table and agonize about how we can’t remember our names, much less where we put our shoes. This morning I’m told it’s OK if we don’t make the 40-minute trudge out there for that eye-glazing purpose.

What a bore! And what a waste of time: 80 minutes of driving time, plus two or three hours diddled away listening to a tribe of elders recite how they couldn’t remember to eat their breakfast. If it were not excruciatingly boring, it would still be excruciating. And so far, I have not heard one thing — not a single strategy! — that would help one remember the crucial trivia of everyday life. You know: when are the bills due, did you water the roses, did you buy whole-bean coffee or ground coffee: the daily ditz of a world dominated by trivia.

And I do need to cling to the skill or mental functioning that helps one remember where the car is parked in an underground garage.

The simplest strategy is absurdly simple: WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN ON A NOTEPAD OR WHITEBOARD.

Duh!

Most of the time that’s exactly what I do. Occasionally, I do neglect to scribble down a to-do or a to-buy or a to-call or a to-pay.

Yes. 😀 Yesterday I did lose my car in the Mayo’s underground garage. And frankly, it never would have occurred to me to write down where it was parked. I’ve never forgotten any such thing in my life!

On the other hand, yesterday’s exploit had a particularly shiny silver lining: the campus cop who helped me find the tank was just about THE cutest and most charming critter I’ve ever met.

😀

Must remember to drive out there and lose the car again….

Today I’m supposed to schlep to the dermatologist’s, wayyyyy on the OTHER side of the Valley. I can’t remember (yep!) why I made this appointment. It may be a routine visit, but I doubt that. There’s a patch on one arm that has become de-pigmented: the normally brown skin is white as a piece of typing paper.

Apparently this phenomenon is called vitiligo. It seems not to be precancerous, not to be life- or health-threatening, and…not to be especially treatable.

:-0

aaaaaaaaah SHIT! Just spilled coffee all over my computer and slopped it on the arms of the leather chair where I was loafing. And all over me.

The damn stuff has soaked into the chair. Can’t wipe it off. Can’t dab it up.

So….ohhh goodie. Looks like I’ll be buying a new family-room chair.

The place where I bought this one has closed. That means traipsing all over the Valley searching for a store that carries similar (now no doubt very unfashionable) furniture.

Ugh ugh ugh ughity ugh!!

Well, with that mess dabbed up, now there’s no time left to scribble here. Better get up, get dressed, and start driving driving driving…

…nope! WRONG! … It’s only 8:40 a.m.

😀  Not to say :-0

or

{GASP!}

LOL! I thought the present time was an hour later than it is.

Which is not a good sign, I suppose.

On the other hand, it’s not something I can change. And — conveniently — it also means I don’t have to get up and charge around to get dressed and paint the face.

But in the Quitcher Bellyachin’ Department: a MIRACLE!! The spilled coffee did NOT stain the chair’s (already brown) leather! YAHOOO!

Now all I need to make my day is another ride around the Mayo’s parking garage with that gorgeous young security guard…

😀

More Muggletude

What was I saying about it never staying hot & muggy in Arizona long enough to make you crazy?

Uh oh! Here come the white coats!

Apparently my marbles had slipped out my ears when I wrote that squib… It is so hot and so gooey out there that it indeed does feel just like Saudi Arabia. I can’t remember the weather here ever being this bad. And it’s only July: normally a hot and dry period. Yes, hot, but because of the dessication, not usually all that uncomfortable. Just now, at 8:25 in the morning, it’s overcast and 98 out there, with 20 percent humidity.

Twenty percent of the air is water? Eeek!  😀

Silliness aside, it really does look strangely grim out there.

***

Waiting for M’hijito to come pick me up. We’re off to the Mayo today, where I expect to be adjudged mentally incompetent, in the not a joke department.

Yes. My son has decided I’m non compos mentis, and he’s been dragging me out there for all sorts of pointless, fruitless, time-wasting meetings.

A day ago, I found myself sitting beside a doctor and being catechized on how to use an appointment calendar.

No joke! They give their brain-dead clients a stupid little calendar with dates, lines to enter reminders, and little squares to check off things you’ve somehow, miraculously remembered to do. This woman sat me down and guided me through every step of how to enter an appointment, and how to find an appointment, and how to check it off the list. Seriously. I had sit through a half-hour catechism on how to use a calendar.

I have a calendar in my office that keeps track of all appointments and to-do’s. A whiteboard on my office door that lists the current day’s to-do’s. And another whiteboard in the kitchen that lists things like workmen to call and grocery/household items to buy at the store. Extra reminders for the most urgent tasks appear on a pad on the refrigerator. Sorry: but I don’t think I need a fourth to-do list.

Explaining to her that I do not carry a purse in which to lug her marvelous notebook and that I am not about to start carrying a purse did not make so much as a tiny dent in the woman’s determination.

Jayzus! What a bore, and what a waste of time.

Today we go to a weekly time-wasting group where we sit there for an hour listening to brain-withered oldsters natter on about how they forgot where they put their shoes!

No joke. That is exactly what we heard in the last meeting.

What makes this even more annoying is that the Mayo is almost an hour’s drive from here. So the round trip blows away well over 90 minutes on the road…almost two hours wasted for the privilege of wasting an hour on the Mayo’s campus.

I’m finding this very frustrating.

Crabbiness Update

Okay. okay….. Yes, I did finally get through first edits of the client’s book manuscript — the project I was trying to focus on whilst being forced to sit through three hours of whinging by marble-short old folks at the Mayo Clinic.

Sent that off to him last night. But…hmmmm…. Yeah: BUT… If he goes through with his plan to self-publish the thing, IMHO he needs to hire a graphic designer. I can edit copy, but a page designer, i are not!

And the truth is, it’s a very interesting book. I think he should run it past a few mainline and academic publishers before he tries to self-publish it. Yea verily…  I may ask my editor at Columbia if they’d take a look at the thing.

Well…let’s see how he responds to the pile of edits I just dumped over his head, pore fella. If he copes, then I’ll suggest we write a proposal and fling it at a few book publishers.

***

Hotter than the Hubs of Hades here today — as it has been for the past two or three weeks. Today it’s more humid and sticky than I can ever remember in Arizona.

The pooch and I shot out the door as dawn cracked, hoping to grab a doggy-walk before the park got too crowded (it being Saturday, all the dog-walkers are out in force) and then get back before it got too hot.

FAIL!

Holeee doggerel, it feels like Saudi Arabia out there.  Hot as Hell, and so wet you can hardly inhale the heavy air.

Okay, okay: I will say, it’s not as hot as Rasty Nasty. Noooo, not even as hot as you could expect it to get here as the day wears on. But the thick air made it feel mighty uncomfortable out there.

My favorite neighbor bought herself a place in Prescott as a summer escape. And I must say: that idea looks better and better to me.

Don’t know whether she bought a house, or whether it’s an apartment. To my mind, the Big Drawback is that I don’t wanna have to take care of another piece of property. One house, two yards, and one pool are quite enough, thankee. Even an apartment still has to be kept clean and safely maintained. Ugh: more work, more $$$.

And y’know…it snows in Prescott. I really don’t like driving on icy roads. And given a choice between freezing in the winter and melting in the summer, I think I’ll take the annual melt-down.

Hey. Rasty Nasty used to get so humid during the summer that when you woke up in the morning, you’d see water dripping off the eaves as though it had just rained. Nope: no clouds.

In fact, one day it did get so humid there that, as I was playing in the front yard, rain started to pour down on me out of a clear blue sky.

What a horrible place….

One thing you can say about Arizona: even though it can get miserable, it never STAYS miserable long enough for you to learn to hate the place. Most evenings — probably 90% of them — cool down to a more-than-tolerable temp.

THIS Is Life in the 21st Century?

Holeeee shee-ut! I have been left SO FAR BEHIND in our fine 21st-century culture that I can’t even speak to today’s fine moderns.

Today, I sat in a Mayo Clinic doctor’s office while she explained to me, in words of one syllable, how to use a paper calendar!

No joke. Apparently their clients have become so accustomed to using electronic devices to track time and appointments that they no longer know HOW to use hard copy!

Understand: I’m an old lady. I’ve used paper calendars for the past SEVENTY YEARS. I do not need to be instructed in the use of a hard-copy calendar formatted as a booklet that you can carry in your purse.

So…I was just astonished when she launched into an explanation of how to use a paper pocket calendar to keep track of the current ailment. Incredibly, she assumed that I would not know how to use it.

It was a tiny sliver in the woodwork of a nightmare day. By the time we left, my son (who drove me out there) was not speaking to me. We made the entire hour-plus trip home in silence. That was jolly.

Clearly, I’ve outstayed my time on this planet. When the time finally comes to exit, stage left, I will not regret it. Of that, you may be sure.

Don’t get all panicked, please. I’m not ready to jump off the North Rim. Yet…

But consider: it’s true, we are living in a dystopic culture. It makes Brave New World look tame. All you’ve gotta do is look at the news of the day to know that. But…just passing day by day on the ground in America also will go a long way toward convincing you of it.