Coffee heat rising

Dispatches from Hell

She Shouldn’t Have Died. He Shouldn’t Have Had to Suffer…

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It’s a ridiculous thing to say in hindsight, of course:

My mother should not have had to die from the effects of her smoking habit.

She was in her 40s when the word came down that smoking would kill you. But…by then she’d been smoking since she was in her early 20s — maybe longer than that. She was massively addicted to nicotine.

I understate not:

The poor woman couldn’t pass an hour without a cigarette. In fact, hardly 15 conscious minutes passed that she didn’t have a goddamn cancer stick in her mouth.

The word came down…when? in the late 1950s? early 1960s? that tobacco smoking causes cancer. But by then, she just fukkin’ didn’t care.

First, I think she didn’t believe it: anything Big Brother said must have some manipulative motive, right?

But then, even if she did believe it, I seriously don’t think she cared.

By the late 1950s, early 1960s, she was so firmly addicted to nicotine that she might not have been able to shake the habit if she’d wanted to.

And she didn’t. She’d made up her mind that she liked smoking. That it was part of her daily life (ohhh literally: from before she lifted her head off the pillow until she mashed out that last cancer stick of the day, along about 10 or 11 p.m.). And she was just flat NOT GONNA quit.

And she didn’t.

Nothing would stop her habit from killing her. Least of all her effin’ doctors.

Women in this country, being women and therefore natural-born hypochondriacs, are ignored when they claim to be sick. There, there, dear…it’s all in your pretty little head. And that’s exactly what she got.

If there ever was a time between the time her cancer symptoms surfaced and the moment a quack allowed as to how she was very, very sick indeed — terminally so — it was long past by the time she encountered the first quack who bestirred himself to listen to her.

Cigarettes and other tobacco products should have been taken off the market the moment their carcinogenic effect had been proven.

Yes: then, as today, a poisonous product still would have been peddled on the black market. But my parents, like a surprising number of other humans, wouldn’t have purchased an illegal product even though they were addicted to it.

My father managed to shake that devil from his back.

My mother: not so much. The goddamn cigarettes killed her…in a spectacularly ugly way. And blighted my father’s life, when he had to care for the love of his life as she died hideously in their bedroom in Sun City.

She never saw her grandson (by then I was pregnant with him). Her addiction mattered more.

She never cared how much her husband suffered, taking care of her. Her addiction mattered more.

She never seemed to care that she was dying. Her addiction mattered more.

A tobacco-induced death is not just an ugly way to die. It’s a GAWDAWFUL way to die. And the people who get rich inducing it are not just murderers: they’re torturers.

They tortured her. And they tortured him.

NOW it hits me???

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Ever have anything dawn on you, or strike you with an unnoticed significance, years after the event? Betcha most of us do. But…I’ll bet this one takes the cake.

My mother died of self-inflicted cancer — she smoked herself to death — when I was pregnant with my son. Said son is now around 40 years old.

That means she died about four decades ago.

At the time, my parents lived in Sun City, Arizona — a revolutionary dwelling arrangement for the still-kickin’ elderly and retired. Their dearest friends from their ten-year sojourn in Saudi Arabia had joined them there shortly after they found the place. Ruth and Hollis, this couple were named.

Ruth and my mother were like sisters. The four of them — the two women and the two men — formed a tightly knit unit, almost as close as a family. When my parents retired to Sun City, Arizona, Ruth and Hollis soon followed, buying a house in the same tract a couple miles from my parents’ place.

Over time, my mother smoked herself to death.

After it was discovered and announced that tobacco smoking was linked to a number of cancers, my mother went meh! and continued to puff away. WTF? It was coming from Big Brother, after all, and his evil Gummint Agents who desired nothing more than to control our lives. Right?

Yeah. Right.

She smoked constantly. No joke: She never spent a conscious moment without a fu*king cigarette in hand. First thing she did before she lifted her head from the pillow in the morning was light a cigarette. Last thing she did before she turned out the light at night was light a cigarette. Hell, she even smoked in the shower! She smoked every goddamn one of her cancer sticks down to the filter. Or, if it had no filter, until it was about to burn her fingers.

Not surprisingly, she did indeed develop a nasty cancer, and it did indeed kill her.

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Some years before then, Ruth and Hollis had moved to Sun City, where they passed much of their time in my parents’ company.

My father struggled to care for my mother through her hideous last months, weeks, and days. And when she died…

…when he most needed a friend…

…those two moved away.

Ruth remarked to me that the horror of my mother’s ugly death was more than they could cope with.

Uh huh.

And how was my father — their alleged dear friend — supposed to deal with the horror?

Let me tell you what I think about that:

A thousand curses upon them

Damn them, damn them, and damn them again.

He needed their friendship.

He needed their support.

They didn’t have to do anything other than BE there, out in ugly Sun City, to be his friends, to say they cared, to assure him that (maybe) life would go on. Yes, even without Julie.

But they yanked that out from under him.

Ruth told me they couldn’t stand to watch my mother die.

For the LOVE of  God, how the fu*k did they think my father felt, watching my mother — the most profound love of his life — die in horrific, terminal agony?

The cruelty of their abandonment, the meanness of their behavior, has only recently struck me…come back to smack me upside the head.

Damn them!

I never knew what happened to them, after they left Sun City and fled back to Texas. Sincerely, I do hope they each suffered horribly. But…rather doubt it. If they were smart enough to stay out of an HMO (my parents had no clue!), maybe they got decent medical care in their last days. But…who knows?

A thousand curses on them, and may those curses ring down through Eternity.

Hotter Than the Hubs…

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Places I’m glad I’m not:

No. 1: Butte County, California

Egad! This is not all that far from where La Bethulia and La Maya live. CAN you imagine????

Makes 100 degrees in the shade and no tinder within reach look pretty good, eh?

And yep: 110 is just we have out on the back porch just now.

Truth to tell, I’ve always loved central and northern California and would’ve loved to retire there. But Dear XH would have none o’ that. He being no fool…

If it’s blindingly hot here (as you may be sure it is!), it’s excruciatingly hot over there, too. But a 110-degree day ain’t likely to burn your house down, or trap you at the end of a country road.

No. 2: Central California

This is the general area where La Maya’s folks come from. I gather they’re more farm folks than anything else, so it’s to be hoped that most or all are out of harm’s way. But still: eeeek!

Ohhhh man! Those Santa Ana’s…I remember them well! Awful time of year. And when we lived there, they weren’t blowing conflagrations across the landscape;.

A-n-n-n-d…how glad AM I that I don’t live in the Middle East anymore? It was a species of Hell then, and it doesn’t seem to have gotten much better. What a bunch!

 

 

 

Marble-Loss Update

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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.

Soggy Doggy Day

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Just back from a morning doggy-walk, waiting for the water to heat up enough to make coffee. Wunderground says it’s 93 degrees out there; 15% humidity; expected high: 113.

Wouldn’tcha know it: M’hijito and I have to traipse to the FAR SIDE of north Scottsdale to go to another brain-numbing, BOOOORING get-together of the mentally challenged. Since everyone but me has decided that I’m now non compos mentis, I have to drag out there and listen to these people go on about how they forgot to pull up their underwear or forgot to eat their breakfast…on and on and endlessly on.

What an agonizing waste of time. Two hours trudging back and forth, and then a good three hours listening to old buzzards tell us what they forgot. Forgodsake. I know, already, that I forget things!

  • I know, already, that it’s normal for old people to forget stuff that they never would have spaced ten years ago.
  • I know, already, that there’s precious little anyone can do about it.
  • I know, already, to keep lists of upcoming appointments and to-do’s.
  • I know, already, to make notes on important tasks and meetings and events.
  • I KNOW, ALREADY, GODDAMMIT!!!!!!!

And I do NOT need to kill five hours traipsing back and forth to listen to a bunch of old folks complain about being old. That’s five hours of time I need to spend on a client’s current book project.

Well, speaking of killing time: I’d better quit bellyaching and fix some food and coffee, so as to be fortified before the kid gets here. Ugh!

This is gonna be a bi!ch of a day!

112 degrees and…and…

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FOGGY?????

Great Galloping Gods! No kidding: it’s 112 in the shade of the back porch, and lurking to north of us is a low cloud bank that looks for all the world like fog.

W?

T?

F?

Just got back from galloping around town in the heat. Dropped by the mechanic’s to describe the car’s latest eccentricity. She (yep: she ) wasn’t unduly concerned. She described what to watch for. Explained if and when to come back.

Over to Sprouts. Of COURSE they didn’t have what I wanted.

Through the heat to the Albertson’s. If the air is 112, what is the temperature of a parking lot’s asphalt?

Wunderground says the ambient air is 114º; predicted low tonight: 92º. Balmy.

This would not be an out-of-the-ordinary summer temperature…except…the real problem is, it’s humid out there. Hence: the fog-like stuff. It feels like effing Saudi Arabia.

How on earth my harbor-pilot father managed to work 8-hour shifts on those docks just mystifies me. How did ANY of those guys survive?

Frazzling up some chicken and some French fries on the grill. Hope the damn thing cools off enough to throw the plastic cover over it before that storm comes rolling in.

Must feed dog, so she’ll be wrung out (with any luck) before said storm comes rolling in.