Month: September 2004

Skeery! And for comparison purposes, this is what it looked like in the summer of 2002, when we were there:

* * * As of right now (11:45 am) all we’re getting is rain. It’s not even windy yet. Meester Boogers is losing his mind, though, because we have the window shut so he can’t get out through the cat door. He’s the only cat I’ve ever known who likes to go out and play in the rain. * * * Hey, remember the Christmas present Debbie made for me? The cross-stitch picture? Well I never mentioned that the frame and glass broke in shipping, so I took the picture out of the frame and tossed it, and ever since, the picture’s been sitting by the door waiting to be taken to a professional framer (I’m not a very good framer when it comes to framing cross-stitched stuff). Yesterday, I finally took it to be framed. It’ll be done in a few weeks, and hopefully I did a good job of picking out the matte and frame. I’m not very good at picking that stuff out, either, so who knows how it’ll turn out? I also took the Shawshank Redemption poster I got for Fred for his birthday THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO to be framed. That was easy, though – I chose the same simple black metal frame that I did when I had the Forrest Gump poster framed for his birthday several years ago. Speaking of pictures, when I was in Maine my mother asked if I wanted the ballerina picture that hung in my bedroom for most of my childhood. I did, and had it packed and shipped, and it arrived Tuesday. I’m going to ask the spud if she wants it hung in her room – even though it doesn’t really go with her fart-clock “decor” – but if she doesn’t want it in her room, I guess I’ll hang it in the guest bedroom. * * * I don’t think I mentioned this, but when I was in Maine my mother, sister and I made a trip to my grandmother’s house. In her will, my grandmother left the house to my uncle (he helped her buy the house back when she was divorced from my grandfather – at the time, banks wouldn’t loan money to single women, even if they’d been in the work force for years. Grrrr.) and the contents of the house to my mother. I suspect that my grandmother knew that if my uncle ended up with her furniture, it wouldn’t be very well cared-for. My mother asked if there was anything at my grandmother’s house that I wanted, and to be honest all I could think of was that I wanted a candy dish she used to keep on her end table. When we were at the house, we found the candy dish, and I ended up taking a few other small things as well; just small things that will remind me of my grandmother. This table was next to her bed. I’ve put at the bottom of the stairs, and when the cats are used to it being there, I’ll put a plant on it. Whenever I see the table, it makes me think of my grandmother, and I smile. The candy jar. There were two bowls like this in my grandmother’s cupboard, and I was immediately taken with them. My mother thought they originally held cottage cheese, but wasn’t sure. Anyone know? I love the color, and the way they look so delicate, but is actually a fairly heavy, sturdy bowl. Fred says he’s pretty sure his mother had bowls like this when he was a kid, only they were green. It says “Oven Fire-King Ware 7” on the bottom. Oh, and it’s cereal-bowl sized. Oh, please. A juice glass with yellow flowers? Could it say “Robyn” any more loudly? I’ve threatened the spud’s life if she drops and breaks any of this stuff. I give it a week before she’s broken a bowl or the glass. She’s her mother’s daughter, after all! * * * Spanky likes the sun, oh yes he does. And when he’s had his fill of sunlight, he’s going to go upstairs and barf up a hairball all over The Momma’s lovely new comforter. He’s Spanky; that’s just what he DOES.]]>

* * * When I was in Maine, I had a chance to visit my friend Liz and see her apartment. She moved into an apartment in downtown Portland several months ago, and I hadn’t had a chance to see it. It’s an absolutely adorable apartment within walking distance of Congress Street, and it’s located in one of those big old buildings. Her apartment is tiny, but it’s got enough space for her and it’s cute as hell. A few miles from her building, a woman was raped and beaten for several hours by a homeless man on September first. As soon as I heard that, I went into worried mother mode. “You’d better be careful if you get home or leave after dark!” I warned Liz. “I am, I’m always careful, and I have my keys in my hand.” “And don’t talk to strangers, especially male transients!” “I won’t, MOTHER!” I fretted some more. “Maybe you should buy some red pepper spray.” Which is when she and Debbie laughed at me. But you know, you can never be too careful. (Of course, if I were to buy red pepper spray to carry in MY purse, it’d only be a matter of MAYBE a week before I’d sprayed myself in the face with it.)

* * * They’ve played “Rock You Like a Hurricane” on the radio at least three times today. Ugh. * * * There’s been some posting going on over at the Tater, as I slowly get caught up on watching the TV we DVR’d while I was in Maine. I also fixed the link in the sidebar so you can get there from here. * * * Ugh. Fred just called. It’s official: the spud has no school tomorrow. ::sob!:: * * * “Would anyone notice if I ripped this bag of cat food open?” ]]>

* * * Miz Poo had her stitches taken out yesterday, not only out of her eye, but also out of her paw, where the vet had to drain an abcess and stitch it closed. He stitched her paw oddly, so that her paw looks like a cloven hoof. That, or she’s doing the “live long and prosper” thing. She’s still squinting her eye, and it’s a bit runny today, but the vet said that’s normal. My poor Poo.

* * * From my comments: Let me know what you think of the book Fried Green Tomatoes cause I have to say that is one case where I loved the movie and hated the book. Probably should have read the book first, who knows. I’m curious to hear what you thought. I didn’t hate the book, but I didn’t care for the way it kept jumping around. I ended up liking it (I’m going to rate it three Poos when I get around to it), but I do think the movie’s better. I’m going to try to convince Fred to rent the movie so we can watch it this weekend. Robyn: Am I mistaken in thinking that a car can be ordered painted in any color you want? I think you can only get it from the factory in the colors it comes in – which is to say that if a car doesn’t come in yellow, you can’t get it in yellow from the factory. I could be wrong, though – if I am, someone let me know in the comments, eh? Why is Fred’s car top secret? Because it’s always referred to as “Fred’s car” and because he makes a point of not disclosing what kind of car it is, I’m going crazy with curiosity. Because he’s a mean bastard. 🙂 Thank you for the dinner solution! I made the general tsao’s last night for dinner and it was really yummy. Maybe you could tell me your menu for the rest of the week so I don’t have to actually THINK about dinner? 😉 I’m glad you enjoyed the General Tsao’s – a couple of people apparently made it in the days after I linked to the recipe, and enjoyed it. We just had it again last night and it was faaaaaaaaabulous. Tonight, we’re having pork chops (broiled), sweet potato crack, and some kind of vegetable (possibly carrots and onions). Tomorrow, unfried chicken, brussels sprouts, and sugar snap peas. Thursday is sandwich night, where everyone fends for themselves (not surprisingly, sandwich night is my favorite night!). How fick’n big was a supersize Coke if a large is 32oz? A supersize was 42 ounces. Did I mention that they’ve done away with the supersize… but they’re charging as much for a large as they used to for a supersize? Those fucking bastards. I have a question (since you seem to be answering them from the comments!): How do you and Fred work out in your garage? Isn’t it hot out there? Or do y’all have an air conditioner? If I tried to workout in my garage here in Houston, I’d pass out from heat exhaustion! Yeah, it can get pretty hot out there. I’d love to have it air conditioned out there, but all we have right now is a pretty powerful fan; usually when I’m waiting during the one minute between weight-lifting sets, I go over and stand in front of the fan, and since I’m always dripping with sweat it cools me off very well. Also, we both work out in the morning before it gets really hot out there. Plus, it probably doesn’t get quite as swelteringly hot here in Alabammy as it does in Houston. It sucks more in the winter when it’s 40 degrees in the garage than it does during the summer when it’s in the 80s, though, that’s for sure. * * * I used a strongly scented blueberry bath bomb in the tub last night (sometimes I’m so frickin’ cold when I go upstairs at night that I have to take a hot bath just to warm up. And then when I get in bed, Fred puts his cold-ass feet on my legs, and I have to kill him and bury him in the back yard), one that came from Newfoundland Naturals, and even though I took a shower this morning (What? I worked out! I can’t walk around nasty all day from the sweat and grime of working out!) I can still smell the blueberry smell. Thank god it’s a pleasant smell, anyway. * * * “I could catch that bird and bring it in the house if I really wanted to…” * * * Previously 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: No entry.]]>

I scanned it at an absolutely huge resolution, and I’m going to have it printed out, and frame it along with another picture I scanned:

Gram, my mother, and my uncle. I think I’m going to have that one printed out, too. In fact, I think that next time I go to Maine, I’m going to take an evening and scan all the old pictures so that I can have copies of them made and put into an album. I learned things about my grandmother I didn’t know – for instance, she wanted to be a teacher, and even had two years of college. I had NO idea she’d gone to college. Her brother was supporting her so that she could attend college, but he got married and could no longer support her, so she had to drop out and get a job. My grandmother specifically told my mother, many times, that she didn’t want a funeral because “I don’t want people standing around staring at my dead body”. When my mother made the phone calls on Saturday morning to tell people that my grandmother had passed, and that there would be no funeral or service, some of my grandmother’s old friends were VERY disapproving. One of them even called my mother a few days later to say “It’s just not right that there’s no service. There’s no closure!” My mother hung up the phone and said “If she wanted closure so bad, maybe she should have shown up at the nursing home to see her!” Oddly, not ten minutes before the phone rang, my mother had been discussing the possibility of having a small family service graveside at some point in the future. My grandmother was cremated, and part of her ashes are going to be buried in the family plot at a cemetery in Brunswick. The rest of her ashes were returned to my mother Friday afternoon for scattering. My mother, Debbie, and I went to several places that meant a lot to my grandmother and scattered some of the ashes. We used a shot glass (heh) to scoop the ashes out of the bag – I should say I used a shot glass to scoop out the ashes. At one point I had ashes all over my hands and in a few spots on the front of my black pants, and I thought “Some people would be freaked out at the thought of having the ashes of their beloved grandmother all over them, I bet.” Not me, though. Maybe I just don’t freak easily. We didn’t scatter all of the ashes. Some of them we put in a small container for the spud, who decided she wanted some of the ashes. Why? I have no clue what the child wants to do with them. All I know is that my grandmother’s ashes are NOT going to end up buried in the back yard next to Tubby – that I can guarantee you. The rest of the ashes, my mother kept. She wants to scatter them in the yard of the home where my grandmother grew up, once she finds out for sure which house it is. I should point out that when we scattered ashes on Friday afternoon, we didn’t take the silly step of asking people whether they minded having ashes scattered on their lawn. No, what actually happened is that my mother pulled into the driveway of the home where my grandparents spent 30ish years, I hopped out of the car, walked onto the lawn, and flung the ashes from the shotglass so that they scattered everywhere, got back into the car, and we took off for the next location. It was an undercover mission – Operation Scatter Gram. Luckily no one reported us for scattering an unknown whitish substance all over their lawn… * * * Flying on September 11th was a little creepy, I’ll admit. But there’s a bit of an upside – no one wants to fly on September 11th. Which means that on all three of my flights, the planes were less than half full. Which means that instead of being crammed in next to a stranger for the 2 hour and 43 minute flight from Newark to Memphis, I had a row of seats to myself. I suspect that as time goes by more people will be willing to fly on that date, though. I finished (and abandoned) two books in the eight hours between the time I left Portland and arrived in Huntsville. As always, Miz Poo was thrilled right out of her little mind to see me, and it was very nice to get home. * * * When I got home I checked my gmail account – I actually have two gmail accounts, isn’t that sickening? One for regular email, one for nothing but notify email – to find that I have 350+ emails from blogs and journals that updated while I was gone. I’m not complaining, believe me. It’s probably going to take me the better part of the week to get caught up. The cool thing about not having easy computer access (or, I guess I should say, easy computer access ON A DIAL-UP CONNECTION) is that once I get home, I have a ton of journal and blog posts to get caught up on, and a ton of TV viewing to get caught up on as well. Not to mention that since I’m hardly ever on the computer while I’m in Maine, I get a lot of reading done. Of course, I would have preferred a happier reason to go to Maine, that’s for sure. * * * The stitches come out this afternoon! * * * Previously 2003: No entry. 2002: I think he has a camera hidden somewhere in the bathroom, and when I’m in the shower, an alarm goes off and tells him to call me immediately. 2001: Time to go cold turkey, Deb… 2000: WHEN WILL THE SUFFERING END???]]>

My Gram August 26, 1918 – September 3, 2004. Mother to two. Grandmother to four. Great-grandmother to four – and a fifth on the way. Much loved. I think we’re going to miss you more than we ever realized, Gram.

* * * I’m leaving for the airport in the morning. I’ll be back next Saturday. Be good, y’all. * * * Previously 2003: If I had a brain I’d be dangerous. 2002: What I’ve been doing. 2001: I’m wise to your stalker ways, Margaret! 2000: No entry.]]>

me?

* * * Fred stopped on his way home from work yesterday to pick up Miz Poo. I was sitting in front of my computer (but of course), when the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID to see that he was calling. When I answered, he was laughing so hard he could barely talk. “She looks… she looks.. she looks like a PIRATE!” he gasped. I started giggling. “She does? Does she have a PATCH on her eye?” “No!” he stopped talking for a moment to laugh even harder. “But her eye is sewn closed and she has a bandage on her leg and it makes her look like she has a peg leg!” The vet found a sore on one of Miz Poo’s front paws that he had to open, drain, and stitch closed. Is it a coincidence that “Miz Poo” has the same initials as “Money Pit”? “Awwww,” I said. “My poor Poo!” Just then, the vet walked into the room to talk to Fred, and so Fred hung up the phone, telling me he’d be home soon. Ten minutes later I heard the garage door go up, and Fred walked into the kitchen with Miz Poo. I could see her through the door at the front of the carrier, and she looked kind of dopey and confused. “Awwwww,” I said. “Hi, baybee! Hi Miz Pooty!” Fred set the carrier down and bent down to open the door. Miz Poo came out of the carrier, fast, shaking her legs. With her came a wave of urine, splashing everywhere as she tried to shake it off her back legs. Fred bent down and grabbed her so she couldn’t run under the couch, and I grabbed a towel. Fred picked her up and we started drying her off, getting cat pee all over us in the process. “I hate to say it, but I think we need to wash her off,” Fred said. I agreed, and carried her upstairs, Fred right behind me. Now, when Fred said he thought we should wash her off, I assumed he meant we should use shampoo and actually wash her. What he actually meant was that we should rinse her off, which is what we did. She fought us frantically – did you know cats don’t like to get wet? – and Fred rinsed her off the best he could, while she whimpered and whined. We dried her off and again and put her down, and she limped for the bedroom, where she spent a good part of the afternoon hiding under the bed. I thought for sure that she’d stink to high heaven of cat pee, but amazingly enough just rinsing her with water did away with the smell completely. I even buried my face in her fur and sniffed hard, and couldn’t detect the slightest bit of cat pee odor. Last night she pulled the bandage off so she could lick her paw. The vet had said that might happen and if it did it was okay, so I pulled the rest of the tape off her leg and tossed it. She spent the entire night sleeping pressed up against me. Well, she started by draping herself across my head, with the rest of her body laying against my neck, and I’m pretty sure she would have stayed like that all night long, but it got uncomfortable for me pretty quickly, so I put her on a pillow, and pulled the pillow against me. She spent the majority of the night half laying on the pillow, and half (the heavy half) laying on me. Around 4 am, I couldn’t stand laying in that position anymore, so I pushed the pillow away so she’d slide off the pillow and onto the bed. And laying on the bed, up against me, is where she spent the rest of the night, until it was time for me to get up. I didn’t want her to have to jump off the bed and hurt her paw, so I put her on the floor. Poor Miz Poo. I’m sure while I’m in Maine she’ll break a leg or something! * * * Last week, Fred got into my Jeep and moved it away from the house so it wouldn’t be in the way. When he got home that night, he said “I thought your Jeep was going to fall apart when I started it!” After driving his nice new car, he was surprised at what it was like to drive a crappy old vehicle, I guess. “Maybe we should just go trade it in and get you a new one right now,” he said. Do you know what I said? I’m so shocked and amazed, because it’s possibly the most adult thing I’ve ever said in my life. I said, “No, it’ll be okay until February.” February is when we’ve been planning to go shopping for a new car for me. In the past, whenever Fred has so much as thought about suggesting that it’s time for me to get a new car, I’ve grabbed him by the hand, run him out the door, and began shopping for a new car. We don’t believe in spending a lot of time shopping – the day we decided the car I drove from Rhode Island to Alabama was on it’s last legs (wheels) and should get a new one, we were signing the papers for my truck in less than three hours. When it was time to trade in my truck (I’m not really a truck kinda gal, I discovered), Fred went out looking at vehicles at 10:30 in the morning, and was home with my Jeep (the one we traded in a few months ago for Fred’s new vehicle) by 1 pm. But he’s brought up the idea of trading in my Jeep no less than five times in the last week, and every time he brings it up, I tell him we should wait until February. Because the Jeep will be paid off, and we’ll have money from our tax refund for a down payment, rather than having to dip into our savings. Don’t get me wrong – just because I’m willing to wait doesn’t mean I haven’t been LOOKING at cars. Although I like the yellow Beetle, the dashboard freaks me out, and the price is a little more than I’d like us to spend on a car. I wish like hell that the Toyota Echo came in yellow, because I think it’s about the cutest little car I’ve ever seen. Of course, if the Ford Mustang wasn’t so expensive, I’d go for that, because I need me a muscle car, don’tchathink? Lately, though, I’ve been eyeballing the Suzuki Aerio SX. It’s a cute car and it comes in yellow. I actually like the look of the Aerio Sedan even more, but of COURSE it doesn’t come in yellow. It’s very “me” to shop for a new car based on whether it comes in yellow, isn’t it? * * * I was supposed to be going to a family reunion for Fred’s father’s side of the family tomorrow afternoon. Every year on Labor Day weekend a bunch of them get together at a restaurant (usually a different restaurant each year), have lunch, catch up on what everyone’s been doing, and take a ton of pictures. Every year, a few days before the reunion is to take place, I develop a raging red pimple somewhere on my face. This year, it popped up at the top of my nose, directly between my eyes, red and throbbing and drawing the eye of everyone who comes within ten feet of me. Two days later, another one popped up on my cheek. Neither of them is poppable (oh, shut up. I’ve been popping zits my entire life, I don’t CARE if popping them leaves a SCAR) and they don’t seem to want to go away. Someone suggested in my comments, at some point, that I should put Milk of Magnesia on them, let it dry, then wipe it off with a warm washcloth. I tried that yesterday, and it might have dried them out a little, but they’re still bright red. Y’all know that I never EVER wear makeup, but I just can’t bring myself to go out into public with them so red, so this morning I covered them with foundation and powder. You can still see them, but at least the brightness of the red has been dialed down a tad. I get more pimples at 36 than I ever did at 16! * * * At a quick glance, you can’t even really tell that her eye is sewn shut. I bet it’d be more obvious if it was the eye on the lighter side of her face. * * * Previously 2003: I guess Spike TV really IS television for men. 2002: When married characters are that cruel to each other, all you can think is, “Why the hell are they married if they hate each other so much?” 2001: Gatlinburg pictures! 2000: No entry.]]>

* * * Miz Poo has been squinting a lot lately, and since she was due for her yearly shots and physical AND because Spot has bare patches on the inner part of his back legs (his inner thigh, I guess you’d call it), Fred took them both to the vet Tuesday. There’s a good reason Miz Poo has been squinting – because she has a huge scratch on her cornea. I can’t imagine how on earth she got a scratch on her cornea. What could be the cause of that, I wonder? Hmmm. I don’t know. It’s a mystery. I puts my paws around her neck and I kicks her with my back feets. Anyway, the vet prescribed a medicine for to promote healing of the cornea and another for the pain (I imagine having a scratched cornea hurts a bit). I took her back to the vet’s this morning and dropped her off. He’s going to examine her, and if her eye isn’t getting better, you know what’s going to happen? (No, he’s not going to remove her eye. Thank god.) He’s going to sew shut her nictating membrane and then her eyelid so that the eye has a chance to heal. I don’t know about you, but the idea of an eyelid being sewn shut just gives me the willies in a big way. Poor Miz Poo, with her thousands of health issues. Her eye, her lip, her wheeze. The nurse at the vet’s office told me that they do this – sewing eyes shut – all the time. They sew them shut, leave them that way for two weeks, and when they open the eye back up, it’s like a whole new eye. I was less focused on the “whole new eye” part than the “two weeks” part. “Does it ever, like, GROW CLOSED?” I asked, horrified at the very thought. The nurse laughed and reassured me that to her knowledge that has never happened. In any case, if they do sew her eye closed she’ll be able to come home this afternoon, and if they don’t she can come home even sooner. Bet she lives to be twenty or more. It’s always the ones with the health issues that surprise you, I find. For the past two nights we’ve had to give Miz Poo a ton of medicine. I grab her up in a towel, wrap it tight around her, and Fred gives her a decongestant pill, a squirt of oil, and a squirt of medicine in each ear. Then I hand her over to Fred, and he holds her while I put one kind of medicine in both eyes, and one kind of medicine just in the bad eye. Then we put her down, and she just kind of sits there and looked like she’s not quite sure what just happened. My poor baby. (She’s out of surgery and doing fine – she’ll be coming home this afternoon.)

* * * Since Miz Poo was going in for surgery this morning (or potentially going in, I guess I should say), we had to put the cat food away before we went to bed. It’s hardly fair that just because Miz Poo couldn’t have food after midnight none of the cats could, I know, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Fred put the food in the bathroom closet before he went to bed, and the cats milled around looking worried and nervous. Spot ran in and out of the bathroom several times, and the Booger ran around making the grumpy noise he makes constantly. Not ten minutes after Fred went to bed, I heard a crackling sound in the closet. When I looked over, I saw the Booger on the top shelf in the closet, trying to get into the bag of Kitten Chow (you’ll recall that we give them Kitten Chow as a treat and they LURVE it). I took the bag and put it where he couldn’t get to it, and he gave me a pissed-off look, then ran around grumping some more. When I ignored him, he let out several ear-piercing meows, then settled atop the kitty condo to go to sleep, where he stayed most of the night. I got up at 4:20 to pee, and the second I stepped through the bathroom door, I was surrounded on all sides by frantic, starving-to-death cats who wanted to be sure I knew there was NO FOOD, DAMNIT! Somehow they survived the night and when Fred poured food into the cat bowl this morning before he left (right before he snatched up Miz Poo to put her in the cat carrier), they about lost their little kitty minds. And then each ate about two pieces of cat food and wandered off. The Booger went to see why Miz Poo was making sad meowing sounds from the hallway. Fred had put her in the cardboard cat carrier and then left (I was the one who actually took her to the vet’s), and I was in the process of getting dressed when I heard the sound of cat jumping on cardboard and then a hiss from Miz Poo. When I went out to look, I saw that the Booger had jumped atop the carrier, pushing the top down and allowing enough room for Miz Poo to escape. When she saw me coming toward her, she ran and hid under the bed, and I couldn’t get hold of her for the life of me. I had to call Fred, because I am a lame, helpless girl who can’t get a portly cat into a carrier, and he came back home (he was only a minute away) to help catch her. This time, we put her in the plastic carrier the Booger couldn’t break her out of. * * * ]]>

September logo!) I’m flying to Maine on Saturday and staying for a week. My grandmother, who went into an assisted care facility last summer, has been failing. She has stomach cancer. It’s an estrogen-based cancer and they’ve been treating it with an estrogen prohibitor; there’s no way she would have survived the surgery to remove her stomach. The pain in her stomach has slowly gotten worse, and at the assisted care facility they were treating it with Tylenol with codeine. She turned 86 last Thursday. She’s the only grandparent I’ve ever really known. She’s fallen several times over the past year, the last time just last week. She hadn’t apparently hurt herself, but when my mother showed up later that day to have lunch with my grandmother, my grandmother couldn’t stand up. They took her to the hospital to try to figure out what was wrong, and couldn’t find anything – they thought it might be a stroke, but a brain scan showed that it wasn’t. Over the weekend, they moved her from the hospital to a nursing home. The nursing home called my mother on Sunday to tell her that my grandmother had been begging anyone who came near to kill her. My mother went to the nursing home and spent the day there, and while she was there, it became apparent that the nursing home was attempting to treat my grandmother’s pain with plain extra-strength Tylenol, which wasn’t helping in the slightest. When my mother asked if they could give her something stronger, the nurses apologetically said that they couldn’t, that the nursing home doctor had said to give her Tylenol. My mother spent quite some time trying to get in touch with someone who could help. My grandmother’s former doctor wasn’t available, her current doctor wasn’t available, and finally my mother was able to reach the doctor covering for my grandmother’s oncologist, who prescribed morphine, which seems to help. This morning my sister called, crying, because I think it’s one thing to know that your grandmother is dying, and another thing to actually see her dying slowly in front of you. I can’t tell you how hard it is to sit and listen to someone you love, 1500 miles away, crying like that. Debbie said that my grandmother’s knocked out on morphine most of the time, but when she’s awake, she just looks so sad. I think it’s talking about that sadness that made Debbie cry the hardest. I talked to my mother for a few minutes and she sounded sad, but resigned. I wish that you could all know my grandmother as she was when I was growing up. She was the sweetest woman I’ve ever known. She took meticulous care of herself, ate a raisin bran muffin for breakfast every morning, walked for exercise, kept her house clean and neat as a pin, was always sweet and sympathetic and active and independent. She would never have wanted her life to end like this, doped up on morphine, unable to get out of bed, so far from the house she loved. I ask you, what the fuck is the point of taking care of yourself so well for so many years when this is how it ends?

Gram and the spud, Summer 1997. ]]>