suzie's Open Salon Blog

Week Three of the Mom Death Watch

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 15:10:31 -0400

Mom is still hanging in there. Miserable & pissed, she alternates between proclaiming there IS no God to begging God to kill her. She swears like the construction workers she used to work with, & threatens to call the police whenever anyone tries to wash her.

Last night every half hour she called out to me or to her sister or to the God that she may or may not believe in. She would cry out as I drifted into dreams of wounded owls & skunks with pink stripes, & I'd drag my sorry exhausted ass to her side where I would cover her exposed parts, take her hand & try (& generally fail) to offer her some comfort.

I play harp music. I stroke her arm. I tell her to relax, to let go. The morphine doesn't seem to be kicking in for her. It's chilly in the room. I sleep in my Harley sweatshirt, oversized jeans, a flannel shirt, socks & Birkenstocks because I don't want to walk barefoot on the floor. I know it's clean but I've seen too much.

Last night the two men in the next room got into a fight because one of them turned his big screen t.v. on full blast while the other was trying to sleep. The one trying to sleep used to be a jazz musician. "You're ignorant! You're ignorant!" he yells. He is very angry.

The nurses are trying to calm them down, working them like teachers do preschoolers. "Now, now, that's not how we talk to each other." At first it's kind of funny, the idea of old guys squaring off. I imagine them coming to blows, hanging on to their walkers as they attempt to get off a punch.

Except then later it makes me sad because I recognize that they're men who at one time had strong bodies, worked hard, made love, smelled of fresh-cut wood, sang a lullaby to a child, kissed a smooth shoulder blade, laughed in a bar. And now life is reduced to sitting in a hallway eating lukewarm food wanting to talk to anyone at all about that life they used to live while being scolded by nurses who, 40 years ago, they would've flirted with & maybe bedded.

Which makes me think about my bed & how much I miss it & how much I miss lying next to my handsome naked husband, spooning, his arm draped around me, his hand cupping my breast. I miss the cat purring on my side & the one at my feet. I miss the sound of the dog snoring. I miss my cups of tea & sitting at the computer reading posts & writing on my novel & loading old photos onto Facebook.

I miss baking cookies & my grandson sleeping on my lap on his Day At Our House. I missed the Fiddle & "Bango" Contest, the Poison Oak Festival, the harvest moon coming up bright orange over the field near our house. I miss burning incense & the fragrance of clove candles. I miss simmering pots of soup, baking bread, making pies. I miss the porch, the wild turkeys, the deer strolling through the yard.

I miss my life.

Also -- after months & months without a menstrual period, after thinking I was done with that part of my life -- my period reappeared the first week here with Mom & has now raged on to the Extra-Super tampon stage & it occurs to me that I've been too busy the last two years to actually see a doctor so I put See A Doctor on my growing List of Things To Do After Mom Leaves This World.

Except I have a headache this morning & am sure it's probably an aneurism & that Mom will outlive me & I'll fall dead on the pee-stained carpet in the Care Home hall & it will serve me right for thinking about myself while Mom is miserable, my due for moments when I'm less than tender & patient, when tired-and-human wins out & I whine or go outside & stare into the pines & try to wheedle (for her) a good death out of God, who apparently is so busy with starving children & soldiers being shot at & earthquake victims that he can't stop by really quick & grab my Mom.

Here is the thing: Being so close to death makes me crazy aware of life. On Sunday my sister drove up & spent the day with Mom so I could go with Geo & the grandsons to the apple farm & it was a perfect autumn-y day & the boys looked like miniature druids in their hooded sweatshirts & we ate turnovers & sat in the sun eating juicy apples with two friendly Golden Retrievers. I took photos of the pumpkins heralding Fall.

At home we played Magicians & Witches. I always get to play the witch. The magicians have to spray me with water & make me melt, ala the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. I've become quite good at melting.

I made spaghetti & garlic bread. I read Griffen the Patrick books. I took a long shower.

Driving back to The Home I listened to a Lila Downs CD & it made me want to dance, everything all drum beat & mariachi band & bright colors & vibrating light.

And I came back here to Mom begging me to help her die. There is no up side for her. She insists she wants to leave this life, but there is some part of her that doesn't want to let it go, that clings to it and fights for it.

Warren Zevon sings this great song about dying where life is this party & he's having a wonderful time, but then the time comes where he has to leave. "My ride's here," he sings.

Mom's party has gone bad. Someone has started a fight, a lady in blue hair is on a crying jag, somebody vomited & missed the toilet, the room smells of stale beer & Jagermeister, the guacamole has turned brown & Seasons In The Sun is playing on a continous loop, but Mom is still not quite ready to catch that cab.

Waiting Around To Die, Part II

Thu, 1 Oct 2009 03:10:53 -0400

So Mom is still waiting. No death yet. She LOOKS terrible. One of her eyelids sticks shut & she gazes at me with her one rheumy blue eye like some ancient Cyclops. For the first week & a half she was mostly silent & sleeping & breathing four deep breaths, then nothing, then four deep breaths, so that during the "nothing" you'd check to see if her chest was rising.

Sometimes looking at her I'd cry. I'd lie on my miserable recliner in her Care Home room & listen to her snore & be grateful for her breaths while aching for her misery.

On the rare occasions that I was home, I'd rush through my shower, hurrying back so that Mom wouldn't have to die alone. I ate crappy junk food. I drank lukewarm tea. I ate apples & almonds for dinner. I watched baseball. I read Mom poems & played opera. I even played -- for her -- Andy Williams, even though I have always passionately hated Red Roses For A Blue Lady. But Mom is dying, what are a few schlock-y lyrics in the face of the Grim Reaper.

But it has been two weeks & Mom is still hanging in there & -- this is the worst part -- she's suddenly started rambling incessantly. All the time: 1AM, 3AM, 4AM, all freaking day even!

And it's not like wonderful conversations. It's not like The Waltons or something where old people tell you wise truths before they die.

Nope. Mom's conversations are more like a series of bizarre random questions: "Are these just strangers? Where is the car? Do you see the pockets? The fry dog is missing? Where is my day? Are the papers here? Are the papers here? Where are the papers?"

I'm wondering, would I be condemned to eternal damnation if I told my poor feeble broken-necked rheumy-eyed 81-year-old mother to shut the fuck up? Because that's about where I am right now.

(Mom is rambling even as I write! "What did they come out for? What did they come out for? What do you kids want? She is trying to take it out.")

I am getting used to the recliner. And I've smuggled in wine & cool my mini-bottles in a plastic cup filled with ice. I only allow myself one small glass a night due to the fact that the nurses always flip on the lights in the room at 1 & 3 & 5 a.m. to roll Mom over, & I am physically unable to remain sleeping if anyone else is awake in the room, possibly due to the fact that once, sleeping in Coach on a train, my daughters took a photo of me slack-jawed & drooling & I was so appalled by that photo that I've never been able to sleep in public without something covering my face. I fear that if I drink two glasses I won't wake up & everyone will see me in my slack-jawed not-so-glory.

Also, I get cold in the recliner because I can't bring myself to use a blanket because it seems so permanent so instead curl up beneath the flannel shirt with which I'm covering my face.

("I lost my fannet," says Mom.)

I wish my youngest sister was here instead of me. My sister Carol is into science & is going for a Master's Degree in speech therapy or something like that. She is much smarter than I am & actually got further than "some college" in her education. She finds the workings of the brain fascinating.

Unfortunately, my brain is overloaded with episodes of NCIS, which is the show Mom's roommate Johnnie watches every night. I am starting to develop a thing for Mark Harmon. Because there he is, every night, solving murders with his quirky assistants. (I started to write "quirky staff," except then it sounds like I'm talking about Mark Harmon's penis, which may or may not be quirky -- really, I have no idea.)

In the mornings I bring Johnnie steaming hot coffee with real caffeine instead of the lukewarm decaf they serve here every morning in plastic cups.

("Who was watching who?" says Mom. "Who are you talking about? I assume" says Mom, "somebody has been working where I tell them.")

Johnnie took a sleeping pill tonight so she could sleep through Mom's midnight rambles. Johnnie is snoring soundly. Nobody has offered me a sleeping pill & I'm on my last small bottle of wine. A screwtop Pinot.

The nurse gave Mom an Ativan with applesauce half-an-hour ago. I think it is finally beginning to kick in. It is getting much quieter in the room. Mom is holding her toy battery-run cat that purrs. She is beginning to snore in unison with Johnnie. Sporadically, but it's a start. Thank you, God, for drugs.

I'm beginning to think this is all a desperate ploy by Mom for attention. I'm here all day & all night & my sister (aka lunchlady2) comes to spell me & sit with Mom, & my brother from SF spends a night & my niece & nephew & daughter & less sensitive grandson (because the other one will be too sad) & Geo & all the nurses give her extra attention. Mom thrives on attention. She's hearing us all laugh & talk about her & feed her ice cream & milk & she is thriving.

Oh, she still doesn't make any sense, can't get up, has no concept of toilet, has to be fed mushy food (and sensibly will eat only ice cream or pudding) and has to be turned over cautiously. At one point, six aides came in & moved her to another bed. A couple of them were attractive young males. Mom would LOVE this. I'm thinking she's faking.

She keeps her head turned towards the right. If she turns it to the left, it's all over, the break will finish her off. I joke with my siblings. "Mom! Look over there to YOUR LEFT! It's Sean Connery!" Mom doesn't fall for this, I can see it in her milky eye -- "I'm not falling for THAT one," I imagine her saying.

(Although if she REALLY said it, it would sound like, "Am I falling for that one? Am I falling for that one? Did I fall for it?")

My mother has always loved sad movies with death scenes. The King & I, Beau Geste, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir. I think she's always wanted to die like Mrs. Muir. Get all grumpy with the loyal maid, sip your warm milk, hand falls, glass drops, handsome sea Captain-who-looks-like-Rex Harrison takes your hand & leads you off into the clouds for ethereal sex.

My Mom is more like Mrs. Muir on acid. "Where's the blue box? WHAT? Did you eat the dinner? Is the baby in the car? Is the baby in the CAR? Where is my clock? How do I swim?" Far out.

Death is weird & sad & drags us down through much of our life. We worry about when we'll die & how we'll die. With grace? With dignity? In our sleep? Fast & furious?

("Where is the horse we're talking about," she says, "I have to worry about it.")

But death, apparently, is also WAY fucking irritating! It is time-consuming. It is an incredible inconvenience to everyone waiting for that inevitable end. Death is an emotional roller coaster -- One minute thinking, Christ, let it be over. The next -- a panic, wanting the chest to rise, a breath to come.

It is not all -- at least not in my mother's case -- sacred spiritual moments,("Did you wash 22? Huh? Kevin?") no matter how many chants you play on the portable stereo, no matter how much Pavarotti sings in the background.

It is apparently just like life -- imperfect, unpredictable -- some days filled with fluffy clouds & leaves-in-a-breeze & epiphanies. Other days filled with drag-your-ass miseries & shit & pain & waiting.

"How does she dance?" asks Mom. "How does she dance?"

Waiting Around To Die

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:09:48 -0400

I am sitting in the world's most uncomfortable recliner waiting for my mother to die. She's snoring. I keep waiting to hear the famous death rattle I've always heard so much about, but so far, nothing.

I'm not so sure she's really going to die. The doctors all swear it's going to happen, but I am beginning to have my doubts.

What happened was: She fell out of her bed at the Care Home. I got a call at 8:30 Tuesday evening. Your mother fell (i.e. launched herself) out of bed, there's a lot of blood, we're sending her to the hospital via ambulance ($1,000 bucks plus $38 per mile. She's practically across the street from the hospital. I think how it would be cheaper to pay four aides fifty bucks apiece to carry her down the street on a gurney, but nope, has to be an ambulance).

I found her in the hallway at the ER, covered in blood, sobbing deeply & forlornly, lost in pain & the confusion of dementia. I wrapped my arms around her & tried to calm her, rocking her back & forth singing You Are My Sunshine, which is the only song I know all the words to other than Wreck On The Highway & The Owl & The Pussycat. Wreck On The Highway is kind of gruesome for comfort ("There was whiskey & blood run together, mixed with glass where they lay") & people stare at you funny if you sing the words "Oh lovely pussy, oh pussy my love, what a beautiful pussy you are, you are, what a beautiful pussy you are," so I just kept singing You Are My Sunshine over & over.

The doctor, a young woman with a Boston accent, wanted x-rays taken of Mom's neck. The nurse gave her a shot of Ativan. I followed the gurney down to X-Ray. The technicians -- a tall friendly woman with a Southern accent & a dark-haired guy with a good smile -- couldn't get an x-ray because Mom was too agitated & wouldn't lay still & couldn't be maneuvered into position.

Back to our spot in the hallway, more Ativan, more waiting. Back to x-ray. Still too agitated. Shot of Haldol. Wait for drugs to kick in. Try again. Big Male Nurse comes along to help, but they still have trouble settling her down. Big Male Nurse is gentle & serious & only mildly concerned when I tell him Mom once bit a nurse.

On the fourth visit to x-ray they finally get a picture. We all quietly cheer. Success! We're moved from the hall to an actual ER room. Mom is finally settling down. Hurray! It's only 1AM, I expect they will come in, stitch up the gash in Mom's head & we'll be out of there & ready for another $1,038 ride back to the Care Home. The doctor just wants to check the x-rays.

Wait around. Mom sleeps. Do a Merle Reagle crossword puzzle from the book in my backpack. The doctor returns. She has kind eyes & reminds me of Julianne Moore in The Fugitive. The x-rays are back. Mom has a broken neck. We have to make "decisions."

This is where, if you have a Labrador Retriever or an Aging Cat, you say your goodbyes, cry hard & stroke your beloved pet gently as the doctor administers a merciful shot of something that makes all the light go out of their eyes.

But it doesn't work that way with human beings. Our choices aren't quite so merciful. I can call neurosurgeons (none in Sonora, it will have to be Modesto or Sacramento or San Francisco) & have Mom helicoptered to wherever they can perform surgery & because of her severe dementia she won't know what the hell is going on & will have to be completely immobilized for a long time & probably won't survive the surgery anyway as she's 80 years old, diabetic, & addicted to morphine. Plus she might come out of it paralyzed.

OR we can send her back to Avalon & wait for her to die. Should be quick, but maybe not. We talk, the doctor tears up, I tear up, but not too much because I've been in rehearsal for this moment for YEARS as Mom has had chronic health problems for a long long time & being at my Mom's hospital bedside is old hat for me. I once spent ten days with her at Stanford, feeding her Demerol while I lived on french fries & peanut butter cups & cried a lot.

The doctor leaves me alone to ponder my decision while nurses come in & fit a brace around her neck. She is not happy with the brace & keeps calling out my name to save her, but afterwards settles into a restful sleep.

I pace the room & decide to let her die, which I know is what she'd want because she's always told me to shoot her if she loses her mind or needs diapers, but I never did because it's illegal & I can't use the bathroom in front of other people which is what I hear you have to do in prison.

I tell the doctor. She says I'm making the right decision. They get Mom a room at the hospital for the night with plans to return her to the Care Home the next day.

At 4Am she gets her room. I tell the nurse all the information I told the nurses in the ER. I always wish I had cards made up with all Mom's medical information & history so that I could just hand them out to people like deaf mutes do in old movies.

I call my husband, I call my siblings. Everyone backs me up on the decision. I stare at my mom & hold her hand as she sleeps. My daughter brings me an Odwalla Super C & a veggie wrap. The paramedics arrive & load her up for the long ride across the street. She is well-drugged so it's not too bad. The paramedic sees her neck brace. "How old is she?" he asks. I tell him she's nearly 81. "She lived a long life," he says, like she's already dead. I'm okay with this because the doctor has told me she'll be dead very soon.

Except she's not. She in her bed snoring right now. I've been attempting sleep in the world's most uncomfortable recliner for a few days now. My brother came up yesterday & blessed me with the relief of a free night & took the recliner & the Mom's Death Watch so I could sleep in my own bed with my own husband for an evening. He said I was starting to forget words.

Everyone has been kicking in, trying to help. We talk about Mom's life. We make jokes about pillows as murder weapons. The nurses & aides all come by to visit. They are all kind & full of hugs & sympathy. They share with me their own sad stories.

My daughter Alison gives me a break & brings along a grandson to cheer things up. He & I take a walk & sit in the shovel of a deserted bulldozer & watch a woodpecker taptaptap in the pine trees behind the care home. He eats the room snacks -- Fritos & granola bars -- and begs for stories of knights & sea monsters.

My sister & nephew (who is bravely trying to get his life together after rehab) come up to visit. My brother & his Chinese girlfriend bring bok choy & noodles. My daughter Sarah comes up to keep her dad company while I'm here. She doesn't want to see Grandma, it makes her too sad & she wants good memories, not Grandma-dying-in-a-neck-brace.

My friends come up from Foster City. Mary sits all day with me here in Mom's room, & Dwight -- who is all blue-eyed charm when it comes to old ladies -- flirts with Mom's sweet roommate, a tiny woman born in Texas, same as Mom, who kisses my mother's forehead gently each evening & always asks if I'm coming back for the night whenever I go home to shower. I think she likes having company.

My niece Heather brings pastries from the Copenhagen Bakery in Burlingame. The pastries are flaky & fruity & delicious. Heather also brings me her old laptop which isn't old at all, & leaves it for me to use. I am writing on it now as I listen to Mom snore & continue to rally as if she doesn't realize she's doomed.

I've never used a laptop & the keyboard is different from the big-keyed ergonomic wonder I use at home. I keep hitting the wrong keys & at one point shut the whole computer down. The room is dark so I have to keep clicking on my cell phone & pointing it at the keyboard so I can find the keys. But it feels good to write & it's better than trying to sleep in this stupid NOT-Lazy-Boy recliner, where the lights are clicked on every two hours while tag-team bedmakers enter the room & turn my mom so she doesn't get bedsores. I watch amazed as two slender young women silently change the sheets under my 156 pound uncooperative mother in under three minutes.

It feels good to sit in the dark & write while Mom snores. A song keeps trying to get into my head. Townes Van Zandt's voice. I can't quite get it. Waiting Around To Die?

It's almost tomorrow. In an hour I'll turn on Mom's Pavarotti CD. I'll have some lukewarm tea & one of those pastries. Maybe the one with cream cheese. I've gained five pounds this week. I miss my treadmill. I miss my own bed & my husband & my life. I want my life back. Whenever I selfishly begin to feel sorry for myself I think not of my poor mom with her broken neck, but of this video I saw on the news once of a woman giving birth in a tree during a flood in Africa. Life goes on, even when the water is rising below you. If you're lucky, someone will come along & save you. This has nothing to do with Mom dying. I'm rummy & rambling & even though it's not supposed to, Mom's life goes on.

Writing & Roses & Art As a Gift

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:09:05 -0400

I was hanging out with Mom at the Care Home yesterday. We sat on the patio looking out over the streets & the hills & the pines & the cemetery. Mom doesn't actually see any of this; she only sees what her mind imagines which is usually cats, or maybe an office. My Mom was once an Executive Secretary extraordinaire.

"I need to get those papers to him now!" she says, pushing off in her wheelchair.

My attempts to calm her usually involve either rambling lies about imaginary meetings or the reading of poems. I have read her all kinds of poems -- her favorite poet growing up was Edgar Allan Poe -- but he's so dark & gloomy & Care Homes aren't the cheeriest places in the world, what with people grabbing at you in the halls, crying "Help me!" crying "I want to go home!" Crying.

I find Mary Oliver to be the most calming poet. There is a lot of nature in her poetry & Mom has always loved nature & gardens & flowers. Hearing poems about roses & hummingbirds, delphiniums & oak trees -- these seem to trigger a kind of quiet in my mother. I am not sure she connects with a single word I'm reading -- maybe it's just the rhythm of my voice or something in her remembering that you listen to your children whether they are reading poetry or explaining dramatically why they love the redneck neighbor boy with the dirty nails & missing teeth.

Yesterday I was reading her the poem, "Roses, Late Summer" & came upon this piece of verse -- "the last roses have opened their factories of sweetness and are giving it back to the world." And, rummy as I was from sitting in the dementia dining room feeding Mom while crazy Eva repeated her daily "AAAAAAHHHHHHHH" mantra & Roxie complained that her feet didn't touch the floor & New Country played on the radio, I somehow connected this poem with the process of writing.

Of course, that was yesterday. Yesterday, waiting for Mom to slowly chew her tuna sandwich while I gazed out the window at the mimosa tree while Toby Keith sang some overproduced forgettable piece of mainstream quasi-redneck crap, I began to think about how roses "give" their scent "to the world" & because they're roses, not human beings, this gift just happens. There's no "rose" ego or money or self-worth involved -- just "sweetness." Maybe someone is there to enjoy it, and maybe it just floats into the air out in the woods where nobody is around to comment on it & say how lovely it is & what a rich color! and doesn't it smell delicious!

And I thought about how when I write -- either novels or pieces on Open Salon or journals or movie reviews or clever comments -- I am writing with some fantasy of fulfillment. Of connection. Of being admired, of being loved. Of being famous or rich. Envied. Desired. Important. And how this is always unsatisfying in the long run. Sure, there are a few moments of Sally Field-ish "You like me! You really like me!" but then it's over & the praise ends & it's time to earn it all over again.

Yet the rose just gives. Well, yeah, it's not like a human, but still. Just gives. And that's enough.

Natalie Goldberg once wrote of having a booth at a carnival where she gave away poems (I believe) that she wrote for strangers. Didn't keep a copy or even a copyright. She just gave away her words. Mary Oliver writes of goldenrod: "...they rise in a stiff sweetness, in the pure peace of giving one's gold away." I want to be able to do this. To throw the words out into the world & not feel that I've lost something, but rather, that I've given something.

I think of actors & the way they perform on the stage, and sometimes there's a full house & sometimes there's barely a full row, & they still put it all out there. I wonder sometimes how it would feel to give your most amazing performance & have it seen by a mere half-a-dozen people. It's the same performance, whether the house is full or not. Does it gain value by the number of people in the audience?

I used to watch soaps a lot. Always the New York soaps -- I was a snob about these things, & the L.A. soaps were more pretty faces than great actors. The New York soaps had stage actors supporting themselves by acting in soaps. And sometimes I would watch the most amazing performance -- a performance that surpassed a predictable script & was bookended by commercials for deodorant & laundry soap -- but the most amazing performance. And (especially in the days before VCR's) I would think what a gift this performance was -- a few minutes of brilliance, & some people would see it & then it would be over -- not watched again & again, but given as an immediate gift. Right then, in the moment.

And I always wondered, How do they do that? Throw it all out there for a few minutes. Is it just a job? No, it can't be. It's art. And art not just as an expression, but as a gift. (Well, also a way to stay employed, but there are a lot of crappy employed actors & a lot of unemployed brilliant actors, so it's not that simple, either.)

(I saw a squirrel this morning run in front of the car, & stop, then turn left, then turn right, then head partway up a tree, then down the tree, then it did a little speedy twist & back up the tree again where it chattered nervously. That squirrel is my brain.)

So back to roses & writing & old people going "AAAAHHHHH!" -- I want to write with that kind of egolessness, I want to give it away, I want to not give a shit whether I have 50 hits or three ratings or if anyone says You Are So Freaking Brilliant I Want You To Have My Child. I want to write & give it away & not wake up at dawn to see if anyone in the East has gifted me with a "comment."

We write. And sometimes we write stuff that goes against everything we were taught growing up. Because a lot of us grew up in homes where you were supposed to keep secrets. Big secrets. Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to get past those authoritative voices & throw it out there. It's stomach-churning. We wait to be struck dead or censured or shoved back in the closet. We write, we hit Post! and our hands shake a little & our heart pounds & we go to bed & think, What have I done?

We're not sure what we want, exactly. Some kind of affirmation. We click on the computer & gaze at the screen nervously, waiting. We have given a gift & sometimes it's that gift we had to dig for & work for, that gift we lived & now we're sharing it, now we're allowing strangers to read it.

Which means we have a lot invested in our words.

If we get nothing, there is this sense that we gave too much, that we inadequately expressed our own reality, that we have failed. We hear the voices of those who hurt or abused us. "I TOLD you not to tell," they say, "Now you've made a fool of yourself. Loser."

But if we get something, then yes! affirmation! Good! The pain is finally shared. Maybe now it will go away! I AM worthy of love, I AM a writer. Hurray for me!

So what I think about when I read the rose poem (DAYS ago!) is that, while affirmation is wonderful & comments are glorious, what really matters is that we wrote it. We gave it to "the world." Like the actor giving his best performance in an empty theater, the artist whose vibrant painting is a gift to his Uncle Fred, like the musician whose heartfelt moving songs are sung to half-a-dozen noisy drunks, we writers give our gifts to strangers, we throw our soul out there for everyone to read. Maybe we connect, maybe we don't. But like the roses, we are still offering our "sweetness," we are "giving it back to the world," whether there is anyone there to appreciate it or not. It is still sweet, it is still a gift.

Frenchie Rolls Over, or Not So Stupid Cat Tricks

Sat, 5 Sep 2009 02:09:52 -0400

This is Frenchie -- the Queen of the Cats around here, as she gets the coveted place next to us on the bed & doesn't have to sleep down at our feet where there's always the risk of being kicked off during the night.

It took like six months, but Geo finally taught her to Roll Over & Gimme Five & Sit. He did this by being enormously patient & also by using (as a training tool) Meow Mix which to Frenchie is like the Nectar of the Gods. Except it's not nectar, but is instead corn meal with various animal byproducts. Cats love animal byproducts.

Frenchie normally eats the more expensive & healthier Chicken Soup For The Cat Lover's Soul which I buy at the Feed Store & spend way too much money on which is why I can't buy wine that costs more than six bucks a bottle. Frenchie likes the Chicken Soup stuff well enough, but Meow Mix is her Hostess Twinkie, her Funyums, her Flamin' Hot Cheetos. When she hears the rattle of the Tupperware container she meows continuously & pitifully & her eyes go junkie-needs-a-fix wild.

We used to keep the Tupperware container in the bathroom & after my shower I'd give her a few hits of her favorite multi-colored treat -- gotta be Original Meow Mix, no Seafood Medley -- but it got too weird, her silhouette behind the shower door -- waiting...waiting.

Of course, when I see this video I wonder what possessed me to pick a fake wood floor several shades lighter than the grubby dark oak cupboards. I wanted linoleum, but Geo insisted on fake wood & then I didn't like the dark fake wood so we got light fake wood which seemed darker in the store's sample. But it wasn't.

Also -- my voice. I hate my insincere Gidget-y voice. I want to sound all sultry Lauren Bacall, but neglected to smoke during my formative years. Sometimes after a weekend girlfriend talkathon I sound kind of raspy & sexy & Debra Winger-ish. And once I smoked some weed with Fred & my voice got all low & mellow but I may have just imagined that.

Geo has a soothing voice which is probably why Frenchie rolls over for him. God knows I've rolled over for him plenty in the last 30 years. And he doesn't even have to give me Meow Mix.