She eats on her own schedule and doesn’t each much. She doesn’t like the foods she used to relish. I’m still trying to figure out what she will agree to eat.
She sleeps on her own schedule, getting up and down all night long and then napping during the day. When she gets overtired during the day, she cries, develops pains where tests have shown there should be no pain, whimpers that she’s scared, she’s scared.
I don’t remember my kids as infants requiring as much care and attention as she does. Or maybe it seems that way because we could distract them with toys and games.
But there is no distracting my mother’s dementia from it’s intent. She fears that she’s going crazy. I fear that I am, too.

I’m feeling my entropy (4th definition.)
Earlier this week, I had my hearing aids tuned. Today I had to have another tooth pulled. My acid reflux is back in business. And my opthomologist has strongly suggested that I get my cataracts removed sooner rather than later.
And Ronni Bennett has closed up shop at timegoesby.net
For the past four years, Ronni has been tirelessly exploring the kinds of issues that confront elders — those of us older than 60 or 65 who have to deal, not only with the physical results of aging, but also with some of our society’s attitudes about those of us who are now in the last third or last fourth of our lives.
I suppose that there are ways in which “older is better.” If we have learned from our experiences, we might have accumulated some wisdom. If we can still learn and stretch our minds, there is much we can enjoy that we might not have had time for, before. But getting old often does mean that, while the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. As are the bones, the eyes, and the joints.
We are each entropy in motion. Slow motion.

Last Christmas, I sent out a card with a picture of my mom, in a Santa hat, sitting at her Lowry organ.
This year, I decided to send out a family picture, since my cousins and other relatives never get to see my kids. However, I don’t have a photo with all of the family together, since we don’t live near each other and never seem to be in the same place at the same time. So, with the digital magic of my photo program, I’ve brought us all together for the holidays. At least virtually.

The following post is by MYRLN, a non-blogger who is Kalilily Time’s guest writer every Monday.
PETS (1)
First was the black and brown dog, the flop-eared Gordon Setter called Biscuit. This partial namesake of the racehorse Sea Biscuit assumed everyone loved him. Total strangers were met with ferociousness: wild tail-wagging followed by a sitdown to offer a paw for a “How’dya do?” shake. People were his friends, not his masters.
He read “his” people-family’s moods and emotions with psychiatric precision — lying quietly on the floor, head resting on front paws for times of anger or tearful sadness; prancing around and standing with paws on someone’s chest when happiness erupted openly; or sitting, with head on the lap of someone who felt abandoned or uncertain, and then listening to whatever tale of woe or unmet need was being told.
And he considered the hillside woods across the road from “his” brick house and the trolley tracks as his pesonal preserve. Daily, he hunted them, stalking and chasing whatever small-game wildlife dared trespass on “his” land. And once, he brought home a pheasant — whether caught or merely found already dead was never known. He left it on the porch floor at the back door. Its discovery evoked screeches of surprise and horror from those who at first had no idea what had gotten to their doorstep or how. At least not until the proud-chested, tail-thumping perpetrator was noticed a few feet off to the side. Then there came grins and laughs and “Of course!” which seemed to please him some.
Yet, he never brought any catch home again after that — except for an occasional fly-ball chased down in the backyard batting practice of “his” younger people-family. He’d bring the baseball up to the back door, leaving a wholly recognizable and familiar catch as an offering. And wholly uncaring that he’d cut short batting practice.
It all seemed okay with him that his real hunting prowess went unappreciated. His open-mouthed, tongue-hanging grin said so. After all, he still got terrific table scraps and petted endlessly and invited along for a walk or to play. “Here Biscuit!”
That was enough for him.
(To be continued: Pets 2)

A sadly appropriate poem for today — one of Jim Culleny’s daily poetry emails.

I learned something today that interests me. I learned from one of my new “friends” at the elderwomanspace that there is an Electric Light Orchestra song entitled “Dear Elaine.”
And when I went here and searched for other songs with Elaine in them (I never thought there were any), I found a couple of dozen.
I couldn’t listen to any of them unless I joined, but I wish I could have heard how this ABBA song sounds, because the lyrics certainly spoke loudly enough to me tonight:
“Elaine”
You hate, you scream, you swear
And still you never reach him
You curse, you try to scare
But you can never teach him
It’s a dead end street
They tie your hands and tie your feet
And the street is narrow
A nowhere lane
A nowhere train for Elaine, Elaine, Elaine
Elaine, Elaine, Elaine
You know they’re gonna get you
You try to break away
But they will never let you
It’s a dead end street
They tie your hands and tie your feet
And the street is narrow
A nowhere lane
A nowhere train for Elaine, Elaine, Elaine
You’re like a goldfish in a bowl
Elaine, Elaine, Elaine
They have your mind, they’ll take your soul
You come, you stay, you go
It really doesn’t matter
You’ve done it all before
By now they’ll know the pattern
It’s a dead end street
They tie your hands and tie your feet
And the street is narrow
A nowhere lane
A nowhere train for Elaine, Elaine, Elaine
You’re like a goldfish in a bowl
Elaine, Elaine, Elaine
They have your mind, they’ll take your soul
Now that you’re gone, you know they’re gonna get you
Now that you’re gone, you know they’ll never let you
It’s a dead end street
They tie your hands and tie your feet
And the street is narrow
A nowhere lane
A nowhere train for Elaine, Elaine, Elaine
You’re like a goldfish in a bowl
Elaine, Elaine, Elaine
They have your mind, they’ll take your soul
Now that you’re gone, you know they’re gonna get you
Now that you’re gone, you know they’ll never let you

As of last week, I have been blogging for six years. There weren’t that many of us when I started, and making friends with those few fellow bloggers was exciting. There was a stimulating feeling of camaraderie and an open sharing of who we really were. I made, perhaps, a dozen blogger friends, and I still feel connected to most of them.
Now there’s Facebook, which is the “social network” to which many of my original blogger friends belong, and so I can keep up with them all using that application as a portal. I play Scrabulous with some of them, and interact with them (virtually) more than I do with any of my friends in the real world. Of course, that’s the isolated nature of my life as a caregiver.
One of the bloggers I know has more than 300 Facebook “friends.” Umm. I can’t imagine even having that many casual acquaintances.
I guess I have no need for friends on paper (metaphorically, of course, in this virtual world). I like to actually interact with my friends, and I only have so much time and energy to do so.
So I try to keep my “social network” friends at a minimum
But now I’m in a new network , a network of “third-age women, ” one of “…women growing old with joy and zest, wit and wisdom.” And I am confronted with the challenge of how to participate in that network authentically. It’s a chance for some new virtual friends with whom I share, if nothing else, the experiences of age.
But how many friends do I need? And, more importantly, how many friends do I have the time and energy to get to know.
I haven’t figured that out yet.

don’t anybody try to tell
me what a noble
thing I’m doing all day
the mindless whine —
please please please
where can I go where can I go
hands grabbing, patting, folding
I dream of monkeys
I’m going, gone inside nothing
left in me but anger
and ashes
nothing left of flow
of fire
don’t tell me it’s not
her, it’s the disease
it’s her still
demanding
my very soul.

It was bizarre walking into the gerontologist’s office with my mother a week or so ago and coming face to face with a man (the doctor) who looked just like a former colleague. Same eyes, narrow and slanted. Same mouth, with fleshy pieces at the lips’ edges. Even the voice was the same — a cultured New York City kind of sound.
And then the next week, taking my mom to an orthopedic surgeon and confronting a doctor who was the spitting image of the actor, Tom Amandes. It was like meeting Dr. Abbott of Everwood in person.
Many years ago, a woman accosted me in JC Penney’s, insisting that I was “Helen Kaminski.” I kept telling her I wasn’t, until she finally walked away muttering, “Well, you look just like her.”
It makes me wonder if someday science will enable us to trace our genetic heritage far enough back in time so that we can discover the ancient tribe where those genes began to be shared. Surely that’s why some people have practically the same physical features. They must be products of the same original dominant gene pool.
They say we each have a twin. A “doppelganger.”
I wonder what the odds are of any of us running into ours on the street.

One of the reasons I enjoy my long rides north out of town is that I can get NPR on my radio, WAMC out of Albany. (The mountains block the reception at the homestead.) On the way back from my daughter’s after Thanksgiving, I had a chance to hear an interview with Norman Mailer when he was at Hunter College last January.
I was able to find this blog post, which not only displays a photo of Mailer from last May, but offers some of Mailer’s best lines from his Hunter College interview. Unfortunately, the post doesn’t include his comments about death.
Mailer died on November 11.
From what I remember about what I heard him say in the taped interview, Mailer hinted at believing that we all come back, that there is some kind of reincarnation that happens. He told this story (and I’m paraphrasing.)

And that’s what Mailer had to say about dying.
Whatever happens, happens.
If I’m thinking a lot about death these days, I’m sure you’ll understand.
A small herd of deer made it’s way across our property yesterday. Today, a herd of happy hunters, dressed in the season’s camouflage, gathered at the local apple orchard stand, loading up with cider donuts and hot apple cider.
I just missed hitting a possum that ran in front of my car this evening.
My mom sleeps, eats, goes to the bathroom, sleeps, eats……
At least the new meds seem to make her less depressed.
Whatever happens, happens.