SORROWS MUCH KEENER

There I have gone again, waltzing into a situation without really, deeply imagining what it will be like. And I suppose that has its good points and its not so good ones. The situation at hand is living with my mother. While I thought that just being in a place I dislike so intensely would be the challenge, the day-to-day of readjusting to her, and her to me, has obliterated those thoughts for the moment.

Mind you, I do not blame her for this. I am sure my all-guns-blazing-New-York-get-it-together-and-get-it-together-now vibe is disruptive to the way she has been thinking and living alone since Carl (the brother) died. And there was some kind of milestone as I think we went the entire evening without substantial bickering or disagreement.

The memory of an 88-year old is a challenge in itself. While my mother is not particularly wifty, or much more wifty than she has ever been, I cannot ascertain whether she is forgetful, not observant, or just doesn’t bother to remember. I know this is not unique to someone in her age bracket, but it is not something I have had to really address before. In this way, it is likely good for me to be around as I question her often. Then I happened across this New York Times article about the brain and memories which is quite in the vein of my explorations with my mother.

And the Max death has hit us both hard, reminding us all too clearly of mortalities: my father, her boyfriend, Verne, my brother Carl, and in the not too distant future, herself. For me, notwithstanding my complaints about or tussles with her, losing my mother is unthinkable. Only it isn't. It is the elephant in the era. 

And the other thing that is weird, or another thing, is that we got along so well over the telephone. We were so close. (We probably ARE close, it just doesn't feel that way). I think I intimidate and bully her, although, on most occasions, that is not my aim. Somehow, I am taking away her power in ways I do not at all mean to.

Meanwhile, I just had an intense attack of vomiting. There I suddenly was, retching up the California strawberries I had consumed scarce an hour before. And all I could think about was Max, just two nights before, puking his death bile in the bathroom as he struggled to his end.

And just for the record, Max probably had more than pancreatitis. That was probably a secondary infection to something greater, some kind of cancer or something. The meds we administered did nothing. He looked terrific and acted completely normal until boom! he slept for two days. It started a week ago Tuesday and by the following Monday night, he was gone. 

Someone wondered how it came to be that Emmylou is here as well. In my desperation to settle here somewhere, my friend Roz suggested that I just call Jet Blue and ask them to help. I had to push my way through a couple of layers of workers (just doing their job, but not being particularly helpful or even giving me accurate information about one person with two cats), I found a supervisor who was able to assist me. It did cost more money and delay my departure, but it was not egregiously (there's that word again) expensive. 

Emmylou is happy as ever here, although if we are here until hot weather (it was 80 yesterday), I think she will be less enamored. There's an enclosed backyard and she can run around with Mom's remaining cat, Ariel. Cooper is also comfortable, taking an occasional stroll outside, and finding many sleeping places to her taste. 

(Ariel with Max on the day he took ill.)

But we miss Max.

The Blue Bowl

Like primitives we buried the cat

with his bowl. Bare-handed

we scraped sand and gravel

back into the hole. It fell with a hiss

and thud on his side,

on his long red fur, the white feathers

that grew between his toes, and his

long, not to say aquiline, nose.

We stood and brushed each other off.

There are sorrows much keener than these.

Silent the rest of the day, we worked,

ate, stared, and slept. It stormed

all night; now it clears, and a robin

burbles from a dripping bush

like the neighbor who means well

but always says the wrong thing.

Jane Kenyon

GRRRRRRRR LIFE

I’m going to start with the admission that I’ve had more than my daily allowance of red wine. No, I am not pleased by this, but then again, I can imagine behavior more egregious. And that’s a word in itself, egregious, no? We should all strive to use it more often.

A plumber, a nice, chatty, articulate, honest plumber, came to give ma maman an estimate today. I used the word cistern on him. He was a bit taken aback, but soldiered on. And he left with a $2000 work estimate. Oh man. Given that Mom is 88 is it worth putting $1600 into house we don’t own (reverse mortage)? Maybe this is more information than you want.

I mention it because this is what my current life is about: infrastructure and clean-up. Perhaps that adds to the red wine incentive.

Max is not appreciably better today, so we are prepare ourselves to put Max down. Now, this is a sadness for the entire family as he has/had more personality than the rest of us combined. And ma maman has him since before my father died. Max moved here from next-door as he realized a cat-loving home. 

Sunday now.

I just wish I could really sleep. Still waking up on east coast-isn time. I took a light nap with a cuddly Cooder, but I still don't feel rested. I dislike this in-between, not-really rested state as it feeds into my couch potato mode and I could just sit and watch hours more of television.

Max is my room on the floor here. We just force fed him some baby food and water. He isn't much better, so I don't know how much longer we will keep this regime up. After losing Tupelo and Albert, not to mention all the other losses in my life of late (perhaps most notably me), I feel nauseated at the thought of putting down Max. Life has been so relentlessly shitty for so long. I could really use a break.

Meanwhile, Cooder has come back for perhaps another nap?

Tuesday morning.

Max died last night. He died convulsing, spewing green stomach bile on the bathroom floor. Yes, it was terrible. More than once yesterday, I found him crouched or sprawled by a water bowl, his head in it, unable to drink. When I used a mouth syringe of water, he didn't seem to be able to swallow. 

Sigh. Wednesday night now.

Today I began working on the gardening issues (I know, so not what is happening in New York!), with quite a bit of replanting. There's much more to do.

Mom and I are still absorbing Max's quick decline and the hole that is here without him. 

I am keeping busy with my curation gig and working on the house, but I take time each day to watch some TV (currently sucking up Season 4 of Homeland) and to read. I am almost halfway through the first volume of Caro! And I got Station Eleven and Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones from the library (not to mention the books I had left here and the ones I sent ahead).

And, just as in my childhood, I can hear the whizzwhirr of the 605 freeway close by.

TACO BUSINESS

So much for the drought here in California. It’s been raining or drizzling since I arrived two nights ago, or rather it started some time soon thereafter.

I am finding it hard to get a proper purchase here on my personal narrative. Or maybe I am just too jet lagged still. I haven't been able to sleep past six a.m. notwithstanding the to-bed time. 

Poor Emmylou. After the trauma of a reaction to her shots and the ordeal of a flight, she has already picked up a virus from my mom's cat, Ariel. That's pretty common, but Emmy is so sensitive, she is a veritable sneezing machine. She doesn't take anything easily. She had a reaction to her shots on Tuesday and so was back at the vet for observation and steroids on Wednesday. Thursday she was still limping. I gave her the tranquilizer (bad traveller, unlike Cooder). When I opened up her carrier to look at her, her inner eyelids were frighteningly prevalent. I was terrified, but evidently that is a normal side effect. And she felt well enough to escape her carrier while I was in loo. (Easily caught.) 

(Ariel and Max.)

Now, it has been a week. I talk to you, work on this blog, constantly in my head, but when it comes to writing it down, there is some kind of a disconnect. It's only 9:35 now, but I am ready to drift off into dreamland. Part of it must be the two-buck-Chuck (although it is $2.49 and I often spring for the $4.49 Zinfandel), but I have been getting up before 7:00 a.m. regularly. Ah, how the tides have turned: I am in bed before my night-owl, good-sleeping Mother. 

Maybe I am emotionally exhausted. I certainly awake to a good-morning greeting from the dementors, all too ready to comment on my return to the family nest. I generally manage to stagger toward the kitchen and the morning ablutions, turning away from the convenient mental shovel and the large pile of despondency, ever ready to be shifted and sifted through. I do my little job, (this week trying to power through 10 seasons of MI-5 before it leaves Netflix at the beginning of February.)

There is much to do infrastructure and cleaning-wise. I have almost finished reorganizing and settling into what was and will be my room. It is fairly comfortable and if I don't think, I can rather forget where I am and why. But denial is not going to be of much help in solving the problems of my life (should they be soluble at all). 

The good news is that intercontinental cat integration was a smashing success. Though the family feared that Max would reign terror on his east coast cousins, he was entirely cool. As it turns out, Max thinks he is god, therefore there is no real reason to be threatened by or to trifle with the lesser beings. He is beneficent and can share his home and his food resources with others. No problem. 

Right now, my two are as close to sandwiching me as they ever get. Cooder is curled next to this laptop, and Emmy is curled at my side. This is good. They have had no problem decorating the couch or even my mother's bed, usually the domain of Ariel and Max. I found my mother napping on the couch yesterday; Cooder was sleeping on her bed and my mother was wary of disturbing her.

There is a lot of driving to be done around here. That alone tires me out. Today, we went to the vet (Max is now ill), the grocery store, the vet again, then a remarkably hippie health food store. Then I drove 15 minutes to AN AWESOME (and that is the right word) ASIAN MARKET (it must supply all the local Asian restaurants), then to  Jo-Ann fabric store for muslin to get sewing, then to Bed, Bath, and Beyond for a knife sharpener (lots of good knives here, all dull) and then home through rush hour. 

Hmmm ... I am prattling along here. I shall stop for now and reassess whether there is anything of merit herein. (Max, at 17 pounds just joined us. A three-cat night.)

It sure is different here. Driving can be distracting, simply because of the extreme change of scenery to these East Coast eyes. I had to do a double take this evening when I saw a sign reading "Taco Business Advice." It actually read TAXCO but I missed that the first two times I looked, struggling to understand what Taco Business Advice could be.

The other things to hurriedly note: already wearing flip-flops. And I had my first strawberry of the year.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

CINEMAEXHAUSTED

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m still here and all. It has been a trying? disorienting? few weeks. I simply have not had the proper attitude for writing, although if I really were a writer, then there wouldn’t need to be a proper attitude, but that is another matter.

I just finished a marathon of film watching with Louise here in Manhattan. Tomorrow, I head back to Brooklyn and kitties for my last two days on this coast for a bit. I’m tired of schlepping around, although there is more of that to come this week.

And I am going to keep this short. Louise and Erik adopted two kitten, cleverly named Topper and Kirby. Way cute.