May they rot in hell for daring to call their pointless cruelty Charlotte's Web.
“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.” ― E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web
Fantastic Voyage also had an inspired Disney ride called Adventure Thru Inner Space. A pity they got rid of it. Best seen stoned. As the cars go through, you appear to get smaller and smaller, down to the atomic level.
Seems improbable, but the poster of that video writes "Hilly Michaels' "Calling All Girls" could be described as The Cars on speed (Cars keyboardist Greg Hawkes even puts in an appearance). A very motley cast of musicians played on the album, including Liza Minelli, her stepsister Lorna Luft, actor-singer Ellen Foley, former bandmate "Saturday Night Live" guitarist G.E. Smith, Elton John blonde guitarist Davey Johnstone and rocker Dan Hartman. Roy Thomas Baker made the album snap, crackle and pop with his usual bag of tricks : Compressed drums, massed operatic backing vocals, and lots of high and low frequencies."
I wouldn't characterize a lineup like that as "motley!"
"Many of these films were male-centric with a pretty woman thrown in the mix as eye candy, someone to be rescued and for the men to fight over for her affections."
That's a very polite way to put it. 60s SciFi often is a sexist sausage fest.
Teela was a girl living in a society that took care of her, plus she was genetically "lucky" both by being attractive and by puppeteers manipulating her bloodline.
True. Don't get me wrong, Ringworld is one of my absolute favorite SciFi books. The idea of a structure like this, its size, all of this drew me in as a kid and still does.
I like Niven's characters, and I like Teela a lot, but the beginning of her arc before Nessus explains the puppeteers' doing to Louis has always irritated me. Probably more than it should, also, too.
I'm going through the Epstein files at CourierNewsroom dot com and found Epstein engaged in an *extensive* discussion about shaping healthcare policy at the beginning of the first Assmouth administration. It's a group chat, but the completely blank "Sender:" line is someone who seems to be interested in being surgeon general and talks about having a talk with Ariana Huffington. They also mention the Gates Foundation (BG is Bill Gates, I'm pretty sure) and Epstein seems to be using that channel as a way of getting ideas to the administration.
It seems to be a group chat with occasional chiming in from other senders. Larry is Larry Summer, I believe, and they complain about him extensively as the anonymous participant is trying to craft a statement on some sort of healthcare niche (having to do with telehealth, I believe) and seems to keep changing his mind about what he wants.
So in 2017, Jeffrey Epstein was advising Assmouth's circle about healthcare policy. If there's a shortlist of surgeon general candidates and one was interviewed by Huffington in early 2017, this person could be identified.
ETA: Tom Barrack is definitely Epstein's top channel to feed his wishes to Assmouth. He comes up many times, in contexts like:
It's shocking how connected he stayed after his prison sentence. And people saying they didn't know anything about his raping young girls is full of shit. According to Virginia Giuffre's affidavits, he had girls around him *all* the time, and what he did was an open secret. They have no excuse.
It's very, very quiet at the pied-à-nuage because snow is falling. Yesterday it poured rain, the way it should have in June, July, and August. Yes, we had a drought, or what passes for a drought in a temperate rain forest. Darling husband Meccalopolis served us superbly delicious fruit bowls and flowery green tea. Now we're sipping coffee and I'm making frittata for brunch. Good day, beloved Wonketteers. I love and appreciate you all and I bless us all with love, health, peace, and grace.
Please, please stay safe. Wear a mask or two, wash your hands, sanitize when you cannot wash and let the sanitizer dry completely, stop touching your face, take Vitamin D, get a booster shot six months after your last, and catch up on any other vaccinations you need, avoid indoor and crowded outdoor gatherings and when you must meet, remove masks only to eat, drink, and take quick photos, and stay the fuck away from me and everyone with whom you do not share a roof. Do this because you love yourself, and because I love you, too. Do this in memory of dear departed family and friends like Forever 27 Treg and heroic Tony, Holly's pilot friend, among nearly eight million dead worldwide. Do this to honor the nurses and other frontline medical personnel (we love and appreciate you, Medicos of Wonkette), particularly ICU Hera Mrs Land Shark RN. Be kind, especially to yourself, and please, please stay safe.
On the route I jog every other morning, there are a number of small lakes, each of which has geese and at least one or two swans (and, at this time o' year, assorted seagulls and some pelicans).
I don't love dogs running around unleashed, but I always feel like I have a chance with them or with cats (cats above all will likely leave you alone, I think). But you can't reason with a goose.
I just got to explain the "blowing Bubba" thing to my kid ("Why are people suddenly making jokes about TFG being gay?"). The kid in question is 17 and uses "fuck" like a hyphen, but still - SO proud of where we are as a society. Much proud, very legacy.
I remember the whole "how will I tell my children what a blow job is?" stupidity.
Also, speaking of grandparents and Clinton--right around that time, I was moving to DC and hoping to work even in the WH and my Grandma's friends were saying "aren't you worried about her? What if Clinton tries something with her?" and I guess my Grandma was laughing and "I'd like to see him try" and "she has much better taste in men than that".
It's been a month since her knee replacement, so about 2 weeks since her hip just broke and it was learned that she has cancer, and they did hip surgery and then she was moved to a rehab facility. It seems that (what I think is mild) dementia might be a little worse, or at least more noticeable, but I think some of that is isolation and medication.
Anyway, she's really frustrated because she keeps forgetting the hip surgery, so to her, the timeline is that she had the knee done, went home, was walking with her walker, and then she was taken to the rehab place and "they won't let me walk" but the doctor came in and was "yelling" at her and saying "why aren't you walking?"
We're asking her to keep a notebook and write down her questions and the answers. "You're paying them to work with you, and they WANT to help, but you need to speak up. The folks there are going to be happy to answer your questions!"
She doesn't want to say "can I walk around with my walker?" or "what's this exercise for?" or tell them that it's really important to walk. It's all "I don't think they want me walking, so I don't know why that doctor's mad at me."
I think Husband's going to go out there for a bit, because while his sister and husband are there, they can't spend all that time all the time. Hopefully he can kind of speak up for her. Not to say his sister isn't, I just mean that when his sister isn't there MiL slips back into "nobody's helping me" mode.
I know how you feel, because my father broke first one hip, then the other, after he was in a nursing home with dementia, and both times he had no memory of breaking either one and kept insisting on getting up and walking around before he should have. We actually had to restrain him in his hospital bed for the first few days after each surgery because he refused to believe anything was wrong with him. Then he flat out refused to participate in P.T, saying he didn't need it.
The oddest part was when the doctors were standing next to his hospital bed and talking to him before the surgeries, and you could see by his face that he wasn't understanding a word they said, so then I'd get him to look at ME, and repeat exactly what the doctor had said, and he understood me. If the doctors would ask him a question, he would reply with total gibberish, but when I asked him the same question 3 seconds later, he answered in perfect English.
Dementia is a really strange phenomenon. It seems to me that it is like a library card catalog. You can't find the book you want until you look it up in the catalog and know what shelf to look for, and dementia patients have lost their card catalog. If you ask them a question, they just wander around inside their brain's library looking for the answer and might grab the first book they see, which is unrelated to the question.
She's still with it enough that she knows about the knee, but I think the hip breaking was so random, and then there was almost a week of intense pain and being moved all over, and lots of medication, that she'll forget it. When you say "yes, you were walking but your hip broke" she'll just be a little confused about the timeline. I think on some level she knows that did happen, but maybe it was longer ago? Like, "I was doing great and then THEY took me into this place aways from my home and they're mean".
I hear you about the card catalog--again, I don't think she's all that bad, but she definitely "hears" and "remembers" things her daughter repeats to her as opposed to the doctors. And she does insert an answer she can "find" as opposed to maybe the right answer when she doesn't have one.
My dad started calling me "Evelyn" which was his sister's name. I don't look anything like Evelyn, and he hadn't seen her in 20 years, and they were not close as adults. But then a nurse would walk into the room and he'd turn to the nurse and say "This is my daughter, XYZ" and get my name right. Five minutes later he was calling me Evelyn again. I never bothered to correct him.
I think that's interesting--I mean, I have the luxury of being at a remove, but the way the mind goes is so interesting to me. My husband's grandmother is in total dementia state, but she will introduce me to her "husband"--my husband--whenever we visit. But then she'll also seem to be 12 years old and waiting for her brother to pick her up.
I wish I knew more about how all those things can happen at the same time.
It's so interesting how your dad was able to "access"--I'm not a doctor--certain memories to "work" with different times. I mean, "my sister" when it's maybe one kind of conversation, and then being his daughter once the importance changed. You were right not to correct him. What would be the point, even though it's scary and hard as a loved one.
We had a friend whose mom had dementia and he was still able to bring her for Thanksgiving at our house for a few years. She had no clue who her son was, but was in love with my dad, and seemed to remember him each year as SOMEONE. And my mom would be like, "But you remember your son, X, he's right here!" and she'd be like "Have you met my sons?"
"Yes, your son X is right there!"
(adorningly to my dad) "I have two sons."
My mom: "Yes--he's right there!"
She couldn't get that it's not going to work. She's not a sleepwalker--it's just the areas of the brain getting swept out.
Yes, the human mind is full of twists and turns that defy explanation. My father was a prolific reader and a serious Teller of Tall Tales, but he always let people know it was a Tall Tale once it was told. But once he developed dementia, he just made shit up and believed it himself. One day the nurses asked me "Does your family own TWA airlines?" because apparently he said that we did (I wish!!), and another day he told them that he was an Admiral in the Pacific during WWII, which he wasn't (he was an Army Engineer in Europe). Another day he told them he was US Ambassador to Great Britain during WWII, where he met King George and Queen Elizabeth and played his fiddle for them. Not true either.
No matter who he thought I was, I was always greeted with a BIG SMILE and a hug and called "Sweetheart." He knew I was His Special Person.
And then one day, when he was living with me, his doctor prescribed a new medication, which he had taken for only 1 day when he came walking out of his room, sat down in the living room, and guess what? He was back. He was fully there, fully cognizant, very articulate, he just couldn't remember the previous 15 years. He asked where my mother was (deceased 12 years earlier) and where my sister & brother were (they never ever came to visit him), and then "Where is all my money???" We talked quite normally for about 2 hours, we even played the fiddle together as we used to do, then he got tired and went back to bed.
Your mother in law is surrounded by the light of healing, which light penetrates and permeates the hearts, minds, and hands of all entrusted with her care. I'm so very sorry your family is going through this.
It's okay, it could be much worse. It's hard from a distance. And at 80 years old we're not going to make her more confident as a person. I am really thankful for the folks at the rehab place and my sister in law.
She's right at the place where she's lost a little memory ability, but not so much that she doesn't KNOW she's lost some, so I think she's scared about that.
I know you work with these things all the time, so thank you for that.
Saw this at a Saturday matinee in my local theatre when I was a kid. Still remember Raquel Welch. Yow!
It took about one hot second for two Costa's hummingbirds to show up after I hung the feeder in our Ocotillo bush.
Costa's aren't rare around here but I suppose that they are compared to the abundance of Anna's in the Vegas valley.
They wouldn't let me take a picture although they will land on a branch a few inches from your face without hesitation.
Costa's https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Costa%27s_hummingbird
Anna's https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Anna's_hummingbird
They're gorgeous! Birdies: "If you think we're going to sit still while you take pictures, you don't know us at all!'
New post up!
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-breaks-up-with-marjorie-taylor
The fun never stops.
𝗨𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲: 𝗕𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗣𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹 𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝟴𝟭 𝗮𝘀 '𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗲'𝘀 𝗪𝗲𝗯' 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘀
https://www.wfae.org/crime-justice/2025-11-15/border-patrol-agents-seen-conducting-operations-in-east-charlotte
May they rot in hell for daring to call their pointless cruelty Charlotte's Web.
“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.” ― E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web
Let me guess: Templeton was a rat in more ways than one, right? (I'm thinking of the book here.)
Trickle is getting stronger..
Another Republican announces support to release Epstein Files
Brian Tyler Cohen News
They all want him gone. More are speaking up.
But are they SURE they want Juicy Divan as POTUS?
I think he'd be good in the sense he'd finish burning the party down.
Some friends are leaving the country to protect their family from the Trump Administration.
That's about all I can say without the banhammer coming down.
I don't blame them.
Neither do I.
Fantastic Voyage also had an inspired Disney ride called Adventure Thru Inner Space. A pity they got rid of it. Best seen stoned. As the cars go through, you appear to get smaller and smaller, down to the atomic level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Thru_Inner_Space
Far out, dude.
RIP Sparks drummer Hilly Michaels.
I never even knew he was the same guy who had the charming "Calling All Girls" out in the early 80s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcadh96eLe8
Seems improbable, but the poster of that video writes "Hilly Michaels' "Calling All Girls" could be described as The Cars on speed (Cars keyboardist Greg Hawkes even puts in an appearance). A very motley cast of musicians played on the album, including Liza Minelli, her stepsister Lorna Luft, actor-singer Ellen Foley, former bandmate "Saturday Night Live" guitarist G.E. Smith, Elton John blonde guitarist Davey Johnstone and rocker Dan Hartman. Roy Thomas Baker made the album snap, crackle and pop with his usual bag of tricks : Compressed drums, massed operatic backing vocals, and lots of high and low frequencies."
I wouldn't characterize a lineup like that as "motley!"
"Many of these films were male-centric with a pretty woman thrown in the mix as eye candy, someone to be rescued and for the men to fight over for her affections."
That's a very polite way to put it. 60s SciFi often is a sexist sausage fest.
Being polite is part of my whole deal. That is why I have people like you to translate what I write, like Obama's Anger translator.
That was one of my favorites from key and Peele. That whole series is magic.
One of my goals is to be an anger translator for my boss. I dip a toe in private and it's fun.
I'll gladly do the cussing for you, Ziggy. XD
I recently rewatched Crocodile Dundee and JFC, I didn't remember it being so ridiculously sexist.
And transphobic as an added bonus.
*shudders in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective"*
I don't think I've ever managed to sit through the whole thing.
I have, but--to be fair--I was a teenager at the time. I don't think I'd be able to now.
I'm a fan of the Bechdel Test.
It's a nice bare minimum, isn't it?
They also had to be there to scream.
In Larry Niven's Ringworld (It's from 1970 but still), Teela Brown gets to be the uber-lucky ditz.
Teela was a girl living in a society that took care of her, plus she was genetically "lucky" both by being attractive and by puppeteers manipulating her bloodline.
Her naivety was kinda on character...
Plus she eventually evolves out of that phase...
True. Don't get me wrong, Ringworld is one of my absolute favorite SciFi books. The idea of a structure like this, its size, all of this drew me in as a kid and still does.
I like Niven's characters, and I like Teela a lot, but the beginning of her arc before Nessus explains the puppeteers' doing to Louis has always irritated me. Probably more than it should, also, too.
He isn't the best with female characters, I'll grant you that.
But he didn't write them a whole lot.
(I would use Carlos Wu's autodoc in a heartbeat, then stock up on tree-of-life until it started smelling good...)
Niven's Known Space FTW!!!
Twist their ankle
I'm going through the Epstein files at CourierNewsroom dot com and found Epstein engaged in an *extensive* discussion about shaping healthcare policy at the beginning of the first Assmouth administration. It's a group chat, but the completely blank "Sender:" line is someone who seems to be interested in being surgeon general and talks about having a talk with Ariana Huffington. They also mention the Gates Foundation (BG is Bill Gates, I'm pretty sure) and Epstein seems to be using that channel as a way of getting ideas to the administration.
It seems to be a group chat with occasional chiming in from other senders. Larry is Larry Summer, I believe, and they complain about him extensively as the anonymous participant is trying to craft a statement on some sort of healthcare niche (having to do with telehealth, I believe) and seems to keep changing his mind about what he wants.
So in 2017, Jeffrey Epstein was advising Assmouth's circle about healthcare policy. If there's a shortlist of surgeon general candidates and one was interviewed by Huffington in early 2017, this person could be identified.
ETA: Tom Barrack is definitely Epstein's top channel to feed his wishes to Assmouth. He comes up many times, in contexts like:
***Sender:
Message: Bg meets w trump march 20/21 (tbc)
Sender: e:jeeitunes@gmail.com (Epstein)
Message: a waste of time. he should meet with barrack***
https://journaliststudio.google.com/pinpoint/document-view?collection=092314e384a58618&utm_source=collection_share_link&p=1&docid=76dcee088d6aa35b_092314e384a58618_0&page=1&dapvm=2
Can you believe the conceit of this sick asshole? And that so many OTHER conceited assholes considered him worthwhile counsel about ANYTHING???
It's shocking how connected he stayed after his prison sentence. And people saying they didn't know anything about his raping young girls is full of shit. According to Virginia Giuffre's affidavits, he had girls around him *all* the time, and what he did was an open secret. They have no excuse.
ZERO. They deserve to be locked up, as well, imho. This world, my god.
It's very, very quiet at the pied-à-nuage because snow is falling. Yesterday it poured rain, the way it should have in June, July, and August. Yes, we had a drought, or what passes for a drought in a temperate rain forest. Darling husband Meccalopolis served us superbly delicious fruit bowls and flowery green tea. Now we're sipping coffee and I'm making frittata for brunch. Good day, beloved Wonketteers. I love and appreciate you all and I bless us all with love, health, peace, and grace.
Please, please stay safe. Wear a mask or two, wash your hands, sanitize when you cannot wash and let the sanitizer dry completely, stop touching your face, take Vitamin D, get a booster shot six months after your last, and catch up on any other vaccinations you need, avoid indoor and crowded outdoor gatherings and when you must meet, remove masks only to eat, drink, and take quick photos, and stay the fuck away from me and everyone with whom you do not share a roof. Do this because you love yourself, and because I love you, too. Do this in memory of dear departed family and friends like Forever 27 Treg and heroic Tony, Holly's pilot friend, among nearly eight million dead worldwide. Do this to honor the nurses and other frontline medical personnel (we love and appreciate you, Medicos of Wonkette), particularly ICU Hera Mrs Land Shark RN. Be kind, especially to yourself, and please, please stay safe.
Slava Ukraini. 🌻🇺🇦💙💛
Heard on the TV in the Other Room:
Boyfriend A, feelin’ frisky: “Talk dirty to me!”
Boyfriend B: “Um, I’m really not very good at that.”
Boyfriend A: “C’mon, pleeeeeeeese?”
Boyfriend B: “Jeez, OK. Um, I’ve been a bad boy.”
Boyfriend A: “Oh, yeah? HOW bad?!”
Boyfriend B: “I kicked a goose.”
Boyfriend A: “Oh, yeah?! … Wait. What?”
That is a good way to break an ankle.
On the route I jog every other morning, there are a number of small lakes, each of which has geese and at least one or two swans (and, at this time o' year, assorted seagulls and some pelicans).
Geese and swans scare me.
Me too.
I don't love dogs running around unleashed, but I always feel like I have a chance with them or with cats (cats above all will likely leave you alone, I think). But you can't reason with a goose.
Hey buster.
Hey, just repeating what I heard. I'm not attacking goosedom in general.
Plus he confessed it was bad, which at least shows some degree of remorse.
To be fair, geese are often kickable
They bring it on themselves
He was lucky the goose didn't go beast mode.
😹
< -- amused
Speaking of Empty G, remember this?
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:qltefvzg7stwbidj45qu76gu/bafkreihm347rx4zec74amdjpioqzethvxzt7urubcqw5m6k66mv6e6dqra@jpeg
He could have put on some shoes.
Uh, no, fortunately.
I just got to explain the "blowing Bubba" thing to my kid ("Why are people suddenly making jokes about TFG being gay?"). The kid in question is 17 and uses "fuck" like a hyphen, but still - SO proud of where we are as a society. Much proud, very legacy.
I still remember my grandparents going on and on about how Clinton's blowjob was the most disrespectful thing anyone could do in the White House.
Why yes they voted for Trump and we no longer talk. Speaking of, I don't think any other President in my life time destroyed FAMILIES like Trump has.
I remember the whole "how will I tell my children what a blow job is?" stupidity.
Also, speaking of grandparents and Clinton--right around that time, I was moving to DC and hoping to work even in the WH and my Grandma's friends were saying "aren't you worried about her? What if Clinton tries something with her?" and I guess my Grandma was laughing and "I'd like to see him try" and "she has much better taste in men than that".
Thanks, Party of Family Values!
Some families value cheating on your spouse or starving kids. Or defrauding people.
They never said they were good values. Just family values.
The value might be 10 or it might be .666.
See Animal Kingdom
I mean, a subset of his base certainly *is* keeping it in the family.
Literally. Which is the problem.
Update on Mother in law.
It's been a month since her knee replacement, so about 2 weeks since her hip just broke and it was learned that she has cancer, and they did hip surgery and then she was moved to a rehab facility. It seems that (what I think is mild) dementia might be a little worse, or at least more noticeable, but I think some of that is isolation and medication.
Anyway, she's really frustrated because she keeps forgetting the hip surgery, so to her, the timeline is that she had the knee done, went home, was walking with her walker, and then she was taken to the rehab place and "they won't let me walk" but the doctor came in and was "yelling" at her and saying "why aren't you walking?"
We're asking her to keep a notebook and write down her questions and the answers. "You're paying them to work with you, and they WANT to help, but you need to speak up. The folks there are going to be happy to answer your questions!"
She doesn't want to say "can I walk around with my walker?" or "what's this exercise for?" or tell them that it's really important to walk. It's all "I don't think they want me walking, so I don't know why that doctor's mad at me."
I think Husband's going to go out there for a bit, because while his sister and husband are there, they can't spend all that time all the time. Hopefully he can kind of speak up for her. Not to say his sister isn't, I just mean that when his sister isn't there MiL slips back into "nobody's helping me" mode.
Oh, no, this is terrible news. I'm so sorry.
I know how you feel, because my father broke first one hip, then the other, after he was in a nursing home with dementia, and both times he had no memory of breaking either one and kept insisting on getting up and walking around before he should have. We actually had to restrain him in his hospital bed for the first few days after each surgery because he refused to believe anything was wrong with him. Then he flat out refused to participate in P.T, saying he didn't need it.
The oddest part was when the doctors were standing next to his hospital bed and talking to him before the surgeries, and you could see by his face that he wasn't understanding a word they said, so then I'd get him to look at ME, and repeat exactly what the doctor had said, and he understood me. If the doctors would ask him a question, he would reply with total gibberish, but when I asked him the same question 3 seconds later, he answered in perfect English.
Dementia is a really strange phenomenon. It seems to me that it is like a library card catalog. You can't find the book you want until you look it up in the catalog and know what shelf to look for, and dementia patients have lost their card catalog. If you ask them a question, they just wander around inside their brain's library looking for the answer and might grab the first book they see, which is unrelated to the question.
She's still with it enough that she knows about the knee, but I think the hip breaking was so random, and then there was almost a week of intense pain and being moved all over, and lots of medication, that she'll forget it. When you say "yes, you were walking but your hip broke" she'll just be a little confused about the timeline. I think on some level she knows that did happen, but maybe it was longer ago? Like, "I was doing great and then THEY took me into this place aways from my home and they're mean".
I hear you about the card catalog--again, I don't think she's all that bad, but she definitely "hears" and "remembers" things her daughter repeats to her as opposed to the doctors. And she does insert an answer she can "find" as opposed to maybe the right answer when she doesn't have one.
My dad started calling me "Evelyn" which was his sister's name. I don't look anything like Evelyn, and he hadn't seen her in 20 years, and they were not close as adults. But then a nurse would walk into the room and he'd turn to the nurse and say "This is my daughter, XYZ" and get my name right. Five minutes later he was calling me Evelyn again. I never bothered to correct him.
I think that's interesting--I mean, I have the luxury of being at a remove, but the way the mind goes is so interesting to me. My husband's grandmother is in total dementia state, but she will introduce me to her "husband"--my husband--whenever we visit. But then she'll also seem to be 12 years old and waiting for her brother to pick her up.
I wish I knew more about how all those things can happen at the same time.
It's so interesting how your dad was able to "access"--I'm not a doctor--certain memories to "work" with different times. I mean, "my sister" when it's maybe one kind of conversation, and then being his daughter once the importance changed. You were right not to correct him. What would be the point, even though it's scary and hard as a loved one.
We had a friend whose mom had dementia and he was still able to bring her for Thanksgiving at our house for a few years. She had no clue who her son was, but was in love with my dad, and seemed to remember him each year as SOMEONE. And my mom would be like, "But you remember your son, X, he's right here!" and she'd be like "Have you met my sons?"
"Yes, your son X is right there!"
(adorningly to my dad) "I have two sons."
My mom: "Yes--he's right there!"
She couldn't get that it's not going to work. She's not a sleepwalker--it's just the areas of the brain getting swept out.
Yes, the human mind is full of twists and turns that defy explanation. My father was a prolific reader and a serious Teller of Tall Tales, but he always let people know it was a Tall Tale once it was told. But once he developed dementia, he just made shit up and believed it himself. One day the nurses asked me "Does your family own TWA airlines?" because apparently he said that we did (I wish!!), and another day he told them that he was an Admiral in the Pacific during WWII, which he wasn't (he was an Army Engineer in Europe). Another day he told them he was US Ambassador to Great Britain during WWII, where he met King George and Queen Elizabeth and played his fiddle for them. Not true either.
No matter who he thought I was, I was always greeted with a BIG SMILE and a hug and called "Sweetheart." He knew I was His Special Person.
And then one day, when he was living with me, his doctor prescribed a new medication, which he had taken for only 1 day when he came walking out of his room, sat down in the living room, and guess what? He was back. He was fully there, fully cognizant, very articulate, he just couldn't remember the previous 15 years. He asked where my mother was (deceased 12 years earlier) and where my sister & brother were (they never ever came to visit him), and then "Where is all my money???" We talked quite normally for about 2 hours, we even played the fiddle together as we used to do, then he got tired and went back to bed.
And it never happened again. Really weird.
Your mother in law is surrounded by the light of healing, which light penetrates and permeates the hearts, minds, and hands of all entrusted with her care. I'm so very sorry your family is going through this.
Jesus, Babe, that is a lot. For anyone, and at her age (and condition), this isn't easy for any of you, her included. We're thinking of you.
It's okay, and thank you. Her memory's good enough to be dangerous.
So sorry to hear about this 😞
Oh man! I'm so sorry.
I'm sorry. That's a really, really rough journey.
It's okay, it could be much worse. It's hard from a distance. And at 80 years old we're not going to make her more confident as a person. I am really thankful for the folks at the rehab place and my sister in law.
She's right at the place where she's lost a little memory ability, but not so much that she doesn't KNOW she's lost some, so I think she's scared about that.
I know you work with these things all the time, so thank you for that.
I didn't see the film until much later,
but I got the paperback from the Scholastic Book Club in grade school.
Because I had (and have) a head full of bees, reading linear fiction was near impossible for me,
but I read the heck out of that one.
same here actually