OF DUSTS AND POWDERS

21 of #100daychallenge

As noted above, caregiving can be challenging and not in a fun, happy way. Even after I threw a delicious waffle breakfast for Janet and her Domineers, she threw the "I'll die as soon as I can and get out of your way" comment at me. 

I started preparing last night for the breakfast today. There were freshly sliced strawberries (that Janet did, she can still be a good sous chef), caramelized onions and thyme-sauteed mushrooms for the scrambled eggs, and baked chicken sausages. This did put me in good stead to finish cleaning off the dining room table and get cooking in the morning. The youngest Domineer, Diane, showed up early and was a most helpful sous chef. I could have finished it all myself, but with her help, I was relaxed. 

The food was terrific and everyone was amazed. I don't think any of these people get a home cooked meal very often. Seems as if there is a place for volunteers for such a thing. I barely have time to cook for Janet, but it strikes me that perhaps I should invite one of them at at time over for dinner from time to time. All six of them is too much work for me, but inviting one at a time could work.

Janet's fall back tv watching is often Two And A Half Men. I cannot understand why she would choose to watch men being misogynist, childish assholes, most of the jokes being the various old saws about females. And then maybe this ties it to why she can put up with the overt sexual flirting with Joseph: it is what she is comfortable with.

I wish I could get comfortable with it. I can see the comfort she (and he) might get from it. It is not their ages or whether it is inappropriate to be doing so at this age (it is not), it is the format and form that bugs me. But perhaps I ask too much of folks in their 80's and 90's. I just don't feel comfortable watching my mother continue to demean herself as I saw so many times growing up.

Yesterday, KH, Janet, and I went to the Hathaway Ranch Farm and Oil Field for a private party. They both had a great time. Janet was delighted by the baby goats, one of which jumped on a chair we brought out for her.

Hat at museum. Made out of silk.

FAILURE

Like slime

inside a 

stagnant tank

its green

deepening

from lime

to emerald

a dank

but less

ephemeral

efflorescence

than success

in general.

WEAKNESS AND DOUBT

Weakness and doubt

are symbionts

famous throughout

the fungal orders

which admire pallors,

rusts, grey talcums,

the whole palette

of dusts and powders

of the rot kingdom

and do not share

our kind’s disgust

at dissolution,

following the

interplay of doubt

and weakness 

as a robust

sort of business;

the way we

love construction,

they love hollowing.

Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Grove Press, New York, 2010