Day: April 15, 2023

Questions about visiting relatives with Alzheimer’s disease from the New York Times

Favourite place of my mother-in-law

Reader:Iabsolutely understand the impulse to avoid watching a loved one suffer, but it’s one of the problems of our society that we look away from people who are struggling. Too often we deny the realities of aging. We deny the humanity of our elders and people with disabilities, and we’re materially diminished by that choice. The service you give your grandmother by not looking away in the midst of her suffering serves as an example to your children, and it shapes you as a person. Dial back visit frequency if you must, but don’t stop them altogether. — Mary

Shells by the Dead Sea

Awlf portrait
Stan the aged yet sexy senior citizen was outside polishing the brass doorstep till it gleamed in the early sunshine leaking from a blue and orange sky.
“My goodness,these microfibre cloths are wonderful” he thought intrigued. Could I find a better word than wonderful?

.Mary was out taking a load of clothes to the Oxfam Shop.Suddenly he heard a loud cry.,then he felt a pair of hands fondling the top of his bald head and tugging on his beard.
“Eeh,no rest for the wicked,even at 81,” he screamed.He staggered to his feet and rubbed his nose with his knees.
“Just give me a hand” ,he said,”I’ll have to stretch my hamstrings.They tighten up so.”
“I’ll stretch them for you!” Annie whispered naughtily.Stan leant forward to touch his toes and she could not resist the temptation to give his bottom a hearty slap.
“For God’s sake,Annie” he shouted faintly.”Someone might see that.”
“Don’t worry,there’s no-one around at this time of the day” she tittered in her usual female manner..
“Oh,yes there is!”
It was Dave,the paramedic.He had been lying behind the wheelie bins,all three of them standing plaintively and unwanted in the tiny front garden.
“I’m an MI5 spy,and I’ve been reading your blog,Mr Brown.”We need you to answer a question”
“I’m not called Brown”,said Stan nerdishly.
“Refuses to accept reality,”Dave wrote in his little notepad with some blood he had taken from himself earlier,
“Jesus Christ!”, said Stan.”Now,now” said Dave,”that’s not your name.
“No my name is Tan,not Brown,you’ve been reading the wrong blog!” “Stan Tan!”
Dave appeared crestfallen,”Any chairs need mending today?”
“My what beautiful ears you have,sweetheart,” he said to Annie,
“They look like sea shells by the Dead Sea”
“Your eyes are like shallow pools in Lake Windermere during a summer thunderstorm.”Annie replied womanfully,sarcasm being alien to her nature.
“Are you still a transvestite?” she followed on incoherently yet logically.
“No,I had a mystical experience and now I’m a Zen Buddhist”
“How did that happen?” demanded Stan querulously.And can’t you be both?
“Well,I was knitting myself a Shetland lace sweater in pale blue mohair,and I suddenly had the feeling that everything was interwoven.
Going forward or backwards,sideways or straight ahead,it is all part of the warp and weft of life.
“mistakes don’t matter” he continued emotionally.
“Oh,yes,they do,”Annie said pouting her full lips,cherry pink by courtesy of L’oreal of Paris and New York,lip balm by Yves St Laurent,peach foundation by Lancome also of Paris,toning smokey grey mascara by Max Factor,handbag Annie’s own,deep burgundy 70 denier tights by M&S,Grey pointed ballet slippers by Bally of Switzerland.[also available in black,red and teal].Raspberry lingerie by ,strangely,M&S.
“As I was saying..,”
Dave dived back behind the wheelie bin.
Stan polished the brass and Annie disappeared in a patch of woodbine..
It was Mary’s famous and loud vocal imitation of a bicycle bell that had alerted them to her imminent return from the Oxfam shop.
“Don’t they make bike bells any more?” Dave boringly wondered as he carried on reading the new life of Emily Dickinson “A loaded gun.” He thought it was an army training manual,but,hey,mistakes don’t matter!Or do they?Read the next instalment yesterday at your local newsagent or here free of interest,hope or love.Any additions welcome.
All donations to Oxfam.

Mary crosses the road,alas.

Dotty cats
Mary had spotted her 98 year old frail yet virile husband Stan; he was across the main road talking to a young blonde and beauteous woman with a pink briefcase and a set square
Mary ran over the road in front of all the traffic as she was terrified of Stan getting another mistress as well as Annie
Hi,I am Mary, she said boldly yet a trifle nervously as well.
I am called Sabrina. I’m a mathematician too, like you, over for a year from Babylon and Babel University USA
Why,hello,Sabrina.Stan loves clever women and any other sort,artists,cooks,teachers,… and in your case,you also have great beauty,she said indiscreetly.
Hi Mary,Stan told me you were out buying some vaseline in the pharmacy down the other end of the town.He invited me to coffee.
Oh,damn,I must have had a senior moment.It was that Jazz Band that distracted me.I forgot about the Vaseline..
Come on,ladies,no arguing,said Stan as he led them into a brand new coffee shop staffed by delightful smiling Turkish people.He ordered three cappuccinos plus some milk for Emile who was in his backpack with his head sticking out snoozing and dreaming of seeing the Queen in her Palace.
They all sat down by the windows and gazed at the folk passing by in some rather unusual clothing.Emile was sad there were no other cats around but hippies there were a plenty.Has 70’s fashion come back?
Sabrina was wearing a short pink velvet dress on her curvaceous body and green high heeled shoes on her feet and nothing on her legs as it was summer.Even so she was a bit smarter than everyone else.
Don’t you find wearing velvet is too warm in the summer ?,asked Mary.She was wearing a long teal cotton dress and some open toed purple plastic sandals from Italy.
Well,it’s cotton velvet,Sabrina told her.Most in the shops is made from polyester now.I made this myself.I enjoy sewing my own clothes and darning moth holes.Viscose is good too.It drapes well.
I never took to sewing,Mary told her nervously.I was afraid of the electric sewing machine at school and my mother was very impatient with me.She seemed to think sewing came naturally to females. Still,it’s probably cheaper nowadays to buy your clothes ready made.But choice is lacking for older stout women like me,she continued .I like wool coats as padded ones make me sweat especially in the shops.And,it’s my face which sweats.I can’t put antiperspirant there…
No,it is likely to give you a rash and anyway the body needs to sweat to get rid of toxins,Sabrina informed her scientifically as if Mary had no wits.
I don’t mind sweating lower down, like on my legs or feet,Mary said.
But it’s embarrassing giving a lecture on why e is an algebraic number with rivulets of water running down my face washing off my foundation cream and powder..though do the students notice? And anyway the students don’t seem to care really about these amazing numbers.
Yes,that is a real problem,Sabrina said wisely.I never knew anyone still wore powder.I like creme de mousse foundation myself.It seems to stick ok.As for the students,maybe they just don’t let on that they care.
Meanwhile Stan sat and gazed pensively at Emile……..he rolled his eyes and Emile smiled in his cat manner; that is,he grinned.
I came here to talk lovingly to sweet Sabrina,not to listen to both women discussing sweat and antiperspirants.,Stan continued to the listening cat…Why did Mary have to spot me? I only wanted a word from Sabrina,
Well,life is what happens when we are busy washing out our pans,Emile told him peevishly.
I don’t think that is quite right,said Stan.John Lennon had that song…Beautiful boy,I think..was that it?
And I have already washed all the pans and hoovered the ceilings…
Well,you see, much of life is out of our control.That’s why people like to take the Bible literally.They prefer to think End Times are here, than to realise life is always changeable and unpredictable.Anything seems better than uncertainty or doubt.Yet that is mostly what we are subject to and evolved in line with in a very real sense,putting it at its most basic.
How have you found teaching topology,Mary asked Sabrina.Is it going down like a hot jam doughnut would to a starving gorilla,as it were should they ever be offered one which seems unlikely except in a zoo.
I find it’s more fun than teaching logarithms,she continued,and exponentials some people find that a tough topic,
Yes,I love teaching topology and functional analysis.
Blimey, thought Stan, this is even worse than sweat and antiperspirants.I hate maths.Why I married Mary,G.O.K.I guess it was her eyes.And her hair… and look at it now,,, she’s going bald.Still,she’s been a good companion.
I use lily of the valley soap,he cried,interrupting the ladies.
Why, are you a swinger? asked Sabrina with interest.
No,I just use whatever Mary is using.I have no choice
Why don’t you buy him some soap smelling of parsley or potatoes,she asked Mary.Or can he not buy some himself?
Why, can you get that? Mary responded.Coal tar is one we tried but he hates it…I think for men there’s not a lot of choice…
But,Sabrina cried,A man smelling of lilies of the valley might cause a disturbance,even a riot, in a small town like this.
Why should women have all the lovely smells and men smell of coal tar and smoke? Stan asked.
Men like flowers too,you know.
The ladies looked at him with wonder as they sipped their lovely large cappuccinos and ate their hot cross iced buns.
I never thought of that before,Mary said.We shall have a talk about it later on.
Neither did I,Sabrina added.. this is not related to my own work but my fiance is a psychologist and he’d like to know about it.I think it’s a new field of study for which a large grant might be available from this idiot government,
Alright,ladies… time to go.Emile needs his dinner and I do too..So off they went all wrapped in their thoughts like feathers stuck inside a fluffy pillow on a big bed.As Rasputin might have put it on a good day,if you catch my drift or take the hint.If not,please try again later.
Not what anyone had expected…but change is good for us,surely? It staves off boredom
Now we can wonder what sort of soap Dave,the delightful paramedic wears.. and does he use a 48 hour deodorant..?And if so,why?
Please wait calmly as excitement wears people out.I am not responsible if you fall over your own feet or get your head in a whirl nor if you go to bed with a milkman or woman.Good night.
G

How does your body react to the vaccinations for covid and what had it tell you about your immune system if anything?

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/what-covid-vaccine-side-effects-can-and-cant-tell-you-about-your-bodys-immune-response

European breathed the sacred ash

In Bedzin and in Krakow they breathed in
What they denied in conscious thought or word.
The ashes of the Jews, the shades of skin

Penetrating lungs so deep within
The dead unburied mixed, in air secured
In Bedzin and in Krakow, they breathed sin.

The nearby people turned to burial urns.
The human dust by breathing was allured
The ashes of the Jews, the shades of skin.

So Europe took their human ash within.
A graveyard we became unknown, impure.
In Bedzin and in Krakow, more of sin.

And who they thought destroyed lived on in them
Controlled their lungs, their hearts their minds uncured,
The ashes of the Jews, borne on their skin.

Like a mass communion without words
We ate and breathed the Jews, the gays, the bared.
In Bedzin and in Krakow we walked in
The ashes of the lost, the glades of skin

Lost

I saw my house uprooted like a tree

Great roots were severed, how I ached to see

And all was tossed without my love and care

Bits of earth fell from the roots. now bare.

Barbaric in its mad intensity

I wept the tears of grief for you, for me.

Our home attacked,destroyed and I lie here.

Putting out the flames with profuse tears

Lamenting for my love who died within

The collapsing of my world now with no sun

The house a symbol of our marriage true

Cannot stand without a me and you

So my vision passed and I am here

My memories are my only souvenir

My Lancashire roots

Lancashire

Hennetwistle has a railway stop
The name is Viking now it’s usually spelled
Entwistle, where reservoirs fill up
Manchester wants water, here it’s held

Too Thirlmere is an artificial lake
For tea in Manchester, those thirsty folk
How much more d’ye think that they will take?
Hamlets drowned, dull cypress trees that cloak

I once passed through Darwen on a train
On the way to Ilkley with my aunt
No memory of bliss with me remains
Except the flowers so wild, their ghosts still haunt

Yet nowhere else gives me the feel of home
This landscape is my body and my soul