“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
you make me happy when skies are gray
you’ll never know, dear, how much I love you,
please don’t take my sunshine away."

                Jimmie Davis/Charles Mitc… Read full post »

Merriam-Webster’s definition of “guttersnipe”:
1.  A homeless vagabond and especially an outcast, boy or girl in the streets of a city.

2.  A person of the lowest moral or economic station.

From an early age I was schooled in the art of burying my feelings.  My j/… Read full post »

“I hear the bells ringing out

I hear the cannons roar

I see Americans–all Americans

Free forever more”

                        Sherman Edwards (1776)

In 196… Read full post »

I don’t feel comfortable socializing with friends yet.  It feels weird not to be running to mom’s every other day to tend to her needs.  I feel like I’m missing something.  It’s like I was caged and have been set free but am still living in the cage.  I wen… Read full post »

He’s gone.  Peter Falk, aka “Columbo”, one of the most cherished (at least for me) TV icons whose famous line was, “just one more thing,” as he caught the murderer red-handed just as they thought they were off the hook.  His memoir Just One More Thing was publi/… Read full post »

“Political correctness is simply tyranny with manners.”
                                Charlton Heston

Guns don’t fit my demogr… Read full post »

He could play Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with his hands, capturing every note, every rest, every nuance, so you could really hear it.  The music teacher Mr. Leonardo let Rick go up to the organ loft at Blessed Sacrament Church, and he would teach him a little, but mostly he let him… Read full post »

“Oh the shark has pretty teeth, dear

and he shows them pearly white.

And he keeps it out of sight.”

                        Michael Buble

Read full post »

We went through it all together, or so it seems.  The doctors’ appointments, the diagnosis, the challenges of everyday living, the aides, Easter weekend, Mother’s Day, movies and poems.  Only difference is that mom’s institutionalized, and I’m not.  My husband L… Read full post »

“The people united will never be defeated.
El pueblo unida jamás será vencido.”

            --Frederic Rzewski

In 1985 I was a rojita, or so I was called.  My boyfriend, let’s call him “Doug,” and I… Read full post »

“Sometimes you’re the windshield
Sometimes you’re the bug
Sometimes it all comes together baby
Sometimes you’re just a fool in love.”

                      &n… Read full post »

Thank you, Harold Camping, for your most recent failed prediction.  Because of you, I can live to experience the following (in order):

1.                  packing my mom’s apartment and moving her s/… Read full post »

In Chinese Astrology, I am a Metal Ox.  This is the Year of the Rabbit, the Metal Rabbit.  It started off turbulently, and I'm wondering what more to expect.  My husband Lorin has been a kung fu practitioner for the past 10 years and we have been to Chinese New Year… Read full post »

The last time I rallied for a cause was in 2003, marching with fellow New Yorkers against the impending Iraq War.  Before that I’d done nothing of significance in the political arena since the 80s, when I was a vibrant 20-something full of hopes and dreams, not to say I haven’t… Read full post »

“Have you met Miss Jones
Someone said as we shook hands
She was just Miss Jones to me.”

                        Rodgers & Hart

She was sitting at my mother’s beds… Read full post »

This morning my husband Lorin and I went to mom’s apartment to retrieve clothes, her clock radio and other personal items to bring to Park Gardens Rehabilitation and Nursing Center.  She was transported there yesterday from Jacobi Hospital.  Medicaid finally came through for us. … Read full post »

My husband and I started watching AMC’s Breaking Bad in 2009, so we missed the first season and had to order it on Netflix.  I was immediately hooked, rather, obsessed with the show.  The main character, Walter White, is an anti-hero, recently diagnosed with incurable, stage three lun/… Read full post »

If Thursday night’s visit at Jacobi Hospital conjured Edgar Allan Poe, yesterday’s was modern day Frank Capra, with a twist.  It was Party Central on 5 South, Room number 6.  Balloons, bouquets of flowers in baskets, water pitchers and vases covered almost every surface.  O/… Read full post »

I immediately regretted my decision when I saw her.  She is in room number 6, 5^th Floor South, Building 1, with four other women in varying stages of decline.  This is Medicaid in the flesh, how we treat our elderly, our poor.

Mom had a netted smock wrapped around… Read full post »

May 3, 11:30 a.m. 

I’m having palpitations.  I took half a Klonopin at my desk to calm down.  Dr. T from Jacobi Hospital called to say that mom refuses to be transferred to a nursing home, and since she has been declared “competent” to make her own decisions, they cann… Read full post »

“If I had ever been here before I would probably know just what to do
Don’t you?
 . . . And I feel
Like I've been here before,
feel like I’ve been here before.”
            David Crosby

Another call this morning from… Read full post »

“But Jesus called for the children and said,
‘Let the children come to me;
do not try to stop them;
for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’ ”
                     … Read full post »

Sunday, April 24

I hate my mother.  It’s Easter Sunday evening and I should be loving Jesus and hopping down the bunny trail or returning from it.  It’s hard not to hate your abuser even if that abuser is your parent, sick or not.

Mom has had trouble raising… Read full post »

After support group last night, some of us went to Zocalo, a Mexican restaurant in the Grand Central Station concourse, for margaritas.  To protect the innocent, I will refer to the ladies as "S", "L", "D","A" and "E." 

There is always a victory to celebrate, large or small.  S/… Read full post »

“We belong together, we’re happy together,
and life is a song.
When we are together, we know
we are where we belong.”

                        Oscar Hammerstein & J… Read full post »