Hogmanay

I rose at 0330 and could not get back to sleep, so I folded the now-dry laundry from last night’s pre-Willow-suitcase-emptying drill. Part of the frantic hurtling across the Rust Belt I looked blankly at ninety or so personal e-mails, most of which mean nothing.

One did. It was an account of a journey to assist in the transition of a parent by an old shipmate. It included a trip on the train, making the trifecta of Planes, Trains and Automobiles from their island outpost in the Florida Keys to the Rustbelt of Indiana.

I was struck by how similar the chords were in our holiday wanderings. On the East and West legs of the out-of-time railroad experience they spent mealtimes with Mennonites. I actually was in Shipshewana last year. The local chapter of the American Motors Car Club- a quirky bunch of people in their own right- had named their summer rally after Raven, the last man standing of George Romney’s design team at Rambler.

I have to tell you, it is thoroughly bizarre to be in a parking lot filled with shiny Ramblers as the sturdy Mennonites in their horse-drawn carriages whirr by on the highway.

Raven was the headliner for several of them, the last of which was two years ago in the gentle process of the furling of his flag. I held the torch last year, but missed the rally this last summer. I will attempt to go next year, if they continue to honor my Dad.

Sic transit gloria and all that, I am afraid.

So we lurch toward our nightfall, doing what we can for those who will go before. Another New Year, arriving unbidden.

Auld lange syne, and a thanks to Mr. Bobbie Burns. It is the only time of the year I think of my Scottish kin, the Clendenins, who arrived first on this continent after the disastrous defeat of the Highland clans in ’45 at Culloden Field.

One of them was Jimmie Clendenin, who served with honor against the King in the Continental Army’s Third Pennsylvania Regiment of Foot.  Until this morning, I wan’t familiar with Hogmanay, the tradition of the doughty Scots that commences with a wee dram in the early evening of New Year’s Eve and (apparently) ends only when they run out of alcohol after the Bank Holiday.

The curiously amusing Scots humorist Craig Ferguson has summed up the confluence of my Celtic genetic heritage thusly:

“Hogmanay… is a time when people who can inspire awe in the IRISH for the amount of ALCOHOL that they drink decide to RAMP IT UP a notch.“

Happy New Year, Shipmates. And have a wee dram for all of us! I will be back right after the Bank Holiday…

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Redemption

In the pre-dawn ink of the Detroit Metro Region I found myself on a major thoroughfare, moving with deliberate speed in the rental car, peering out, hoping for the dawn to cut the gloom and allow a decent speed of advance toward the Imperial City 560 miles away.

I saw headlights coming up behind me and I cleared the left hand lane to let him by- had to be a man, I thought, this was crazy fast. I looked at the instrument cluster. I was doing the posted limit for a change, but this car was a rocket. There was actually a buffet in the air as the dark Buick hurtled by, the nearness of the two moving bodies creating a Venturi vortex at the point of closest proximity.

“Son of a bitch!” I breathed as I watched the ruby taillights disappear into the distance. He must have been doing a hundred- and I realized with the City of Detroit sinking into receivership, there were no cops watching and the Metro area was sinking into a lawless anarchy of hard men moving at enormous speeds for purposes known only to themselves.

Kerouac, right? “Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?” Fast.

The miles between the madness of a city in the grip of its death-rattle and the frenetic ADD vehicular activity of the Imperial City had been gentle enough. Traffic was not bad, and the great blessing of splitting the seam between storm fronts.

There were some soupy moments in the highlands and along the vast salt-gray winter turnpikes, but it was done.

The phone continued to go off beside me on the journey, interrupting the stream of news-from-around-the-world that poured majestically out of the SiriusXM radio channel that featured national news coverage from Ireland, Sweden, Romania, New Zealand and Radio Moscow.

It was quite engaging- Samoa is skipping today to join the nations on the other side of the Date Line, I loved the way the Russians treated the pro-democracy demonstrations in perky English, and relayed an important survey from the Foreign Ministry that accused the United States of being a major locus of Human Rights abuses. It was more than a little like listening to Radio Mars, not that there was not enough to agree with.

In between, the new renter reported the hot water was out in the annex, and that required coordination with Ballard’s Plumbing somewhere north of Toledo. In the outskirts of Cleveland, the laundry staff of The Bluffs called to let me know that they had laundered Raven’s sneakers and they had disintegrated. What were they to do?

“I am at mile marker 124 on the Ohio Turnpike and am not turning around,” I said tersely, and on-the-fly suggested a plan by which a replacement pair of shoes could wend their way around the Bay and on to Raven’s feet.

That, in turn, led my thoughts to my last sight of him, a kiss on the forehead, and the miles between. And the devastating moment when I said goodbye to Big Mama, realizing that there would only be meals for her with the other space-time-continuum-challenged oldsters in the Dining Room and the endless Turner Classic Movies. I need to rethink this. There had not been time when Raven got the boot from the Village. She has not seen him since then, and has expressed no interest, but there is a yawning cavity in her life.

Approaching the I270 High Tech corridor some bonehead in a late model Dodge not unlike the one I was driving had challenged the mass and inertia of a big Kenworth Tractor Trailer and lost.

I was close enough to the Capital to get the local traffic reports Live on the Lights, and I switched from satellite to FM and dialed it up. Some guy was doing a year-end summary of the financial markets, something to which I had paid exactly zero interest in the context of the folks, the coming hot war with Iran and whether my son would wind up with the task force that will force open the Strait of Hormuz if those idiots miscalculate.

Now or later, I suppose. The Israelis will never permit them to get The Bomb, regardless of what the Administration desires.

The money wonk was explaining what was happening. I had dumped some additional money into my 401K as the year was ending, but saw that despite my additions, the net value was dropping.

It was actually news I could use: “…To date,” the wonk opined “and with just one week left in the year, investors have withdrawn a whopping $135 billion from equity mutual funds, which I am 100% certain is an all time record for any year in which the S&P closed even nominally positive for the year…”

Crap, I thought, changing lanes to get around a dude on his cell phone in a silver BMW. It appears the big institutional  investors are cashing out of mutual funds – redeeming their stake.  The fund managers in turn have to sell assets  in order to get cash to cover the payouts, and that means gold and silver.

The guy on the radio said the process was called “redemption,” and I looked blankly out through the salt-crusted windshield at the long snake of red taillights ahead, grateful that I could just give it back to the Hertz people just as it was.

Redemption. A curious term that rattled around in my brain to conjure the memory of Green Stamps and booklets filled with them. Redemption Centers is what they called them, places where you could get free stuff in exchange for collecting the stamps.

Now it is about swapping the paper Mr. Bernanke is printing at the Fed, and it is easy enough to forget that there is also the state of redemption, the deliverance from sin and salvation of the soul.

I was coming back to the wrong city to look for anything like that, but I decided I might go short on my mutuals if I could dig out from the road.

That is as close to redemption as I am likely to get this year. I am hoping 2012 is going to be better. Another definition of the term is “deliverance,” as if from evil, but who knows. I am not going to bet the farm on that.

I thought if I ever got south of Rockville and across the Potomac I would go straight to Willow and redeem some Happy Hour White.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Wrapping Up Christmas

Yesterday featured some qualified success and a failure, but it is just about a wrap for Christmas 2011 in the Little Village by the Bay.

The failure: I had an appointment with Doc B for Big Mama but spaced it out in the activity of donating the green car, deferred from before Christmas Day.

The green car: departed the property at 1030.

By the time I got back to the office e-mail, the morning appointment time had passed. My regrets. We will have to re-schedule around the next visit, which I expect will be Mike in January. Let’s firm up the plan.

The rug and the flood: I rented a carpet cleaner at Glenns- a mixed success.

This is what the rug looked like when I first saw it:

This is what it looks like now:

Not happy with the results, and there is a mildew odor, I have a fan on the area to see how dry I can get the patch before I depart the Little Village by the Bay later today. That section of the rug may need to be pulled up and trashed. I washed the throw rug on the tile floor of the bathroom and mopped up with 501 and hot water. I think everything is functional.

Kitchen: The cabinet to the right of the stove we have been using as pantry for canned goods had the shelves sagging from the weight in the middle. I unloaded the cabinet and installed braces in the middle for extra support.

Raven status: He was pretty engaged on Christmas, the day I spent the most time with him, and completely out of it when I visited two days ago. Apparently he had fallen again that morning, a fact of which I was not apprised until after I was back over at Potemkin Village. His good days now consist of being able to shuffle with someone on his arm. He bad days are uncommunicative. I do not think he is happy- one of the nurse’s aides told me he had expressed the same sentiment to her as he did to me in the last complete sentence he uttered shortly after arriving: “I got to get out of here.” I have no idea about alternatives- he needs this level of care.

Big Mama status: She has had several good days. Yesterday she was engaged and chatty. She is very short of breath even on short trips and is resigned to being where she is, and is happy to substitute me for Raven when I am around. She had been reading the large-print books, or at least looking at them. There are three more remaining on her Literary Guild membership and I will order them for her. She did not like anything in the Potemkin Village library.

I am going over for breakfast this morning to say goodbye. The redoubtable Carla in the Challenged Dining Room assures me she will continue to look out for Big Mama- the check made her very grateful- and get her at the most social table for meals. Also, this being Wednesday, it is Shower Day with Lovely Rita who is back on the case from the Emmet County Friendship Center. After breakfast, I will look in at The Bluffs as well, then pack and button up the house and turn the thermostat down to 60.

Renter in Loft: I expect the renter to show up at mid-day, and will do a thorough turn-over. The deal is for the loft apartment only- no house use. She wants six months to complete her training at the hospital.

Snow removal: I talked to The Snow Man and arranged with him to plow “when more than two inches falls.” He did not do the yard work last year, since he saw the construction activity that Annook was honchoing,  and thought that the house might have been sold. I reconfirmed that we own the place and want it kept up, so we should have continuity between the winter and the six months of bad sledding up here. First plowing may be required this weekend.

This would be a good travel day, but since I am pinned down by the renter’s schedule (coming from down below) I will get as far back south as I can while there is light. I have business in Virginia on Friday, so that is driving my travel plans, that and the snow expected this weekend. I have to be in front of the front, so to speak, so that is the wrap for this trip.

More from the road, if anything significant crops up this morning in the course of clearing the Village. I am really looking forward to cresting the bluff and watching the steel-gray waters of the Bay pass out of my rear-view mirror.

Vic

Waiting for Godot

Actually, it is not Godot that I am waiting for. It is the Northstar Towing guy, Denny O’Boyle, who called early to announce his imminent arrival to collect Big Mama’s little green car.

My task was not space out his arrival and have him to collect the rental car instead. That would be awkward, and I suspect the Hertz people would be fairly cross with me.

Monday was a holiday for some, but identical to the other ones here visiting Big Mama and Raven, with one exception: the skies cleared for the day, and bathed the Bay in warm rich light. I had forgotten how the Big Lake affects the sky in the Lower Peninsula. The normal color of everything is gray.

Driving over to see Raven yesterday I noticed a new Sears on the drive over to Harbor Springs yesterday, and wondered at how much smaller it was than the usual big box store. I did not know why until an alert pal pointed out that the House of Sears, AKA K-Mart, was in deep kimchi.

He monitors the economy through a website by some very smart and irreverent analysts called ZeroHedge. This morning they claimed: “Sears just pre-announced what can only be described as catastrophic Q4 results [that] should not be a surprise to anyone: after all we have been warning ever since the “record” Thanksgiving holiday that when you literally dump merchandize at stunning losses, losses will, stunningly, follow.”

He is a comprehensive analysts, and also noted that gold and silver prices are down this morning, a reaction to new Chinese government controls on gold trading. Apparently the wealthy Chinese are preparing to spirit their money out of the country. They may know something that we don’t. Europe is quiet, but not because anything profound in the financial system has been fixed.

It’s just a lull until we all sober up next week sometime. Or decide not to.

I was thinking, as I wheeled the rental Dodge into the parking lot at The Bluffs,that I really should have been more serious about stoking up on dry food, alcohol, tobacco and ammunition. I remember General Powell using the Sears catalog- and it’s disappearance- as an exemplar of profound change.

Now I guess we say good-bye to an icon of American commerce. There has been a lot of that going around, like the pesky stomach flu that is laying people low around here. I hope I don’t contract it immediately before the long drive starts again tomorrow.

What could be coming along with this relatively benign version of the flu is something deadly. I followed the strand through the New York Times with my morning eggs, and it made me queasy:

“The experiment (Funded by the National Institutes of Health at the Erasmus Institute) in Rotterdam transformed the (H1N1) virus into the supergerm of virologists’ nightmares, enabling it to spread from one animal to another through the air….This research should not have been done,” said Richard H. Ebright, a chemistry professor and bioweapons expert at Rutgers University who has long opposed such research. He warned that germs that could be used as bioweapons had already been unintentionally released hundreds of times from labs in the United States and predicted that the same thing would happen with the new virus.

“It will inevitably escape, and within a decade,” he said.”

The flu has a 50% kill rate in humans, but was hard to contract. It is not, now.

Swell, I thought, as I walked into the facility and back to Apple Blossom Lane and the television lounge.

It was a bad Raven day. He was in the recliner, eyes slitted, no Christmas blanket on his lap. I walked down to his room to look for it but there was nothing. It might have gone to the laundry, or it might have disappeared.

When I rejoined him he was unresponsive and did not acknowledge my presence. I sat down and watched for a while, but I did not stay long, and spent more time watching movies with Mom.

We were with the Raj in two films- a wildly improbable yarn about a British Gentleman who has his face branded to take on a disguise as a low-caste tribesman and have all sorts of adventures in the Sudan, and then a star turn with Sabu, the first South Asian film star.

Mom was onboard with the whole concept, which demonstrated that nothing much has changed in the last seventy years. In the Technicolor marvel of The Drum, the Khan of a province on India’s Northwest frontier, is murdered, his killer, the evil Prince Ghul, plots an uprising against British rule.

But the brave young Prince Azim , played by then-13 year old Sabu, comes to the aid of the British in complete disregard for his own best interest and those of his people.
Raymond Massey was the evil Vizier in blackface, not unusual in a 1939 film, and his over-the-top performance was hilarious. The story demonstrated that nothing has changed whatsoever.

They were surrounding the gallant Brits when my phone went off, and Penny, a voice from The Bluffs informed me that Raven had fallen again, apparently before my visit.
No wonder he was in a grim mood. I made a note to check on his blanket, since the visit today will be the last for a while.

The cascade of travel and stress on all fronts is almost- not quite- overwhelming. If I can get through lunch and dinner and another visit to Raven this afternoon, I will do breakfast with Mom tomorrow and start south.

I suppose I should look at the weather, though all I want to click my ruby slippers three times and be back in my own bed.

Not that I would wear pumps to bed, mind you, but I think you know what I mean.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

The Mystery Ship

 

Big Mama was not surprised when I told her I had work across town. I always do when I am in the Little Village By the Bay. She thinks it is part of The Plan, in which I have a significant role. I have discovered that I am a Team Lead, in fact, part of the orchestration of everything that happens in the Building.

It is a bit of a mystery, but I play along. The Plan is comprised of the astonished nexus of the movie on television, the large print thrillers that she leafs through while seated on the couch, and speculation on the other residents of Potemkin Village she can observe at lunch.

When I breezed in I found the little box that Carla had provided to give Big Mama something to open for Christmas. I had no idea what was in it, and was surprised to see a nice little holiday scarf with Santas, bells and reindeer. She put it on immediately and then was done with the holiday.

It was a tough Christmas Luncheon. It was the holiday, of course, and Special Agent Carla was not on hand to look out for Big Mama. We went down to lunch and discovered that she had been placed near the window with a silent couple. Alice was hunched over with calcium loss, and he was wearing a ball-cap with the words Mullet Lake on the front with a leaping trout. He had enormous eyeglasses pushed up to rest prominently on his forehead.

Hazel and Mad Pat rounded out the lunch, which had some spectacular moments. Hazel was quiet and kind, as always, wearing a holiday sweater and a tentative demeanor. Mad Pat was her feisty self.

There was some delay in trotting out her plate of boiled ham and steamed carrots, and Alice reached out to touch her, prompting Mad Pat to bark: “Keep your hands off me, God Dammit.”

Big Mama did not approve of that sort of remark in the Dining Room, and I scooted her to the left, toward Hazel, and made more room for Mad Pat so that Alice could not get to her so easily.

Mad Pat’s delusions are subtle. She has a small moustache and wisps of beard, and her white hair is a hurrah’s nest. “Merry Christmas,” I said, attempting to divert her attention from Alice’s questing hands.

“Today?” she asked. “Crap, I need to call my parents in Detroit.”

“That is great, Pat, I know they would appreciate it. It is good that you still have them. How old are they now, like 130?”

Big Mama did not care overmuch for her lunch, which appeared to suck from what I could tell. Her entrée was some sort of ravioli in a thin white sauce with some boiled new potatoes and carrots. She kept trying to feed me, concerned that there was nothing on the table before me. Eventually she picked at the rich devil’s food cake with topping and some sort of cherry drizzle, and we decided that lunch was done.

Back in the apartment, I explained that I had only one delivery to make, and that I would be right back and we would take a nice drive or something when I got back.

She didn’t like it, but said she would be on the couch waiting for me.

It is always a relief to get out of the place, and I lit up a smoke as I walked away from the building toward the rental Dodge. I had not idea what to be expecting of Raven, since he slept through most of Visit Two, and how he would be today was a complete mystery.

I pulled into the parking lot at The Bluffs and stuck the handicapped placard on the rear-view mirror. I punched the access code into the outer door and walked in to discover the major holiday meal was in progress. Apparently those residents who have family in the area can “host” them in the multi-purpose space behind the receptionist desk, and there were dozens of kids running around the usual suspects doing their routines.

I am reminded a lot of the repetitive behavior of the animals at the San Diego Zoo, since some of the bears have actually worn patches of fur off from touching the edge of their little pool so often in exactly the same place.

Raven was not in his room, so I dumped my crap on the rocking chair and took his bock and a bag with Santa on the side to go find him.

He was asleep, just like the day before, but his eyes came wide open as I put the box on his lap. He did not say anything in greeting, but shook my hand as he always does in our secret grip.

I opened the present in front of him. It was the Texaco model airplane of the season, the 19th issue. He used to like them a lot. This one was a nice replica of the 1930 Travel Aire Mystery Ship in the corporate colors of the Texas Company.

“This is the one that Doug Davis flew in the Thompson Cup Races at Cleveland. You used to go to the air races with your brother Jim. in 1929. This baby beat all comers, including the military guys.” There was no spark of recognition in his eyes, which I noticed for some reason appear to be turning blue from his normal brown. “Remember?” I said. “Mom used to work for the Texas Company in the Chrysler Building in Manhattan.”

I did not get a reaction to that, and when the model was free of the plastic casing, I put it in his hands. The airplane model is my traditional gift…the Texas Company steel airplane of the year. I have been giving them to him for most of the 19 years of the series. He apparently did not think much of it, and I realized the wing braces for the low wing were going to make it difficult to handle with any precision. I sighed and put it on the enclosed mounting stand and picked up the Santa bag.

It was marked “To Bill from John,” a name that had no association for me. I assume must be on the staff or part of the Emmet County apparatus to care for their elderly dependents in the home. There was some flimsy white paper around a tightly rolled blanket. I pulled it out and unwrapped it on his lap. It was very soft, and colored with green and red and emblazoned with moose and other Up North motifs. I spread it over the beige comforter with which he spends most of the day, and let me tell you, he loved it.

It had his full attention from the moment I spread it over him, like the gauge in the cockpit of an AD-4J Skyraider nearing Bingo fuel state.

I sat watching him fold and gather the soft material in his thin fingers, tugging it up over his Velcro shoes, and ultimately succeeding in getting it over his head.

He was engaged and occupied, so I picked up the model airplane and was going to head back to his room to set it up on top of his stand-alone wardrobe when a woman in a wheelchair asked to speak to me.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said.

She was a highly focused individual, and quite articulate. “My name is Dorothy. I live in that room there,” she said, pointing a finger at the suite across the corridor. “I have to make you aware of something.”

I nodded, a bit uneasy, since there were many things that had been unsettling that day, and several of which I had no need or desire of which to be aware.

Big Mama had asked if we would ever have sex again, which caused me to both marvel that the libido can survive dementia and all the horror of the Oedipus tale to kick in.

“I am your son, Mom, not your husband.”

She nodded contemplatively, and responded that meant it would probably not be a good idea. “I couldn’t agree more, Mom.” So, with that searing my imagination, you can understand I was wary, but trying to be polite.

“I have tried to make Staff aware of what is going on. Look down there.” This time she was pointing at a woman hunched in her wheelchair in front of the glass fire door. “She keeps trying to get out and sooner or later she is going to make it.”

Sure enough, the woman’s shaking hands reached out to press the crash bar a couple times before falling back into her lap. “I think something needs to be done,” Dorothy said. “There are just not enough staff and they are too young.”

“I am sure you are right, Ma’am,” I said, and called for Helena, who was giving Raven a glass of water. She emerged from the television room and I said to her: “Jail break in progress” and pointed down the hall.

“It is alarmed,” said Helena.

“I am alarmed,” I said. “Could she actually get out?”

“We would know quickly,” she said. “But I will get her re-directed to something that doesn’t alarm Dorothy.”

“Thanks,” I said, “and thanks to you Dorothy for your concern.”

I walked up the corridor and set up the Mystery Ship on top of the wardrobe where Raven could see it from his bed but not get it down without reaching up above his shoulders. When I got back to the lounge, I saw that Dad had been a busy boy.

The new cozy sham had been pulled up over his head, and I could see his hands at work under it, tugging and pulling on the fabric in gestures that reminded me of how he carefully coiled the lines on his sailboat.

Best damn gift ever, I thought, and waited for him to start playing peek-a-boo with the new blanket.

“Dad has a new best toy,” I said to Helena.

“Circle of life,” she responded. “Starts and ends the same way.”

“Boy,” I said, taking a picture of Raven busily at work with the blanket on my iPad. “Ain’t that the truth. We are all just passengers on the Mystery Ship.”

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Could Cause Dizziness

Hope you are doing well, and that this morning is full of joy with peace. I remember the special dishes that came only once a year, after the presents were opened, the egg casseroles and biscuits and the warm friendly smell of cinnamon.

I had Christmas Eve lunch and dinner with Big Mama and sat with Raven for an hour over at the Bluffs facility. My Bill was a trip, and if I had known the four minutes he would be awake I could have made a much more efficient plan for the day.

He was asleep in the recliner in the television lounge, mostly covered by a beige blanket, but the Staff had dressed him in a festive green-and-red motif.

I chose not to wake him, or intrude in his dream, whatever it might have been. He was stirring in his sleep, periodically muttering things with grim intent.

“Seven-thirty…I insist,” he said at one point, never opening his eyes. He had a call button for the nursing assistants, which his searching hands would periodically find clipped to his blanket and press, summoning Erin or Cindy to recycle the alarm.

At two-forty, I had been through my e-mail on the iPad and wondered what would happen if he did not wake in the hour or two I had to devote to this part of the day. The NA approached him and did his vitals…”Whoop!” he said…never did open his eyes…”Oh, man” he says and squirms…then, “Ahhhhh” with a shuddering sigh.

The NA, a sturdy young woman in a blue scrub top and pastel trousers, had an efficient air. She wheeled the blood pressure machine atop its roller-tower along side him, and took his temperature. She managed to get the cuff around his painfully thin arm and grunted in satisfaction as the machine beeped its completion of the task.

“How is Billie doing?” I asked.

“Good…115 over 67 for his blood pressure. Temperature normal.” Raven did not open his eyes through the procedure.

I looked up what his reading meant on my iPad in the comfy chair across the room from him, untrammeled by any dementia except mine.

“Readings above 90/60 and below 120/80 are considered normal for most adults, though in some cases a systolic reading over 110 can be associated with dizziness when standing.”

Senior Editor at Caring.Com Melanie Haiken noted that even with a reading in the “normal” range, Raven might want to consider lifestyle changes to minimize the chance of future high blood pressure episodes.

Those include:

“Quitting smoking.
Losing weight
Increasing physical activity,
Lowering salt intake,
Limiting caffeine,
Limit alcohol.
Reducing stress.”

I mentally ticked them off as risk factors. The Bluffs is non-smoking. He is wasting away, the menu is deliberately low-sodium, he has not had a real cup of coffee in years, can’t find any booze, and his stress level is probably nothing we can do anything about.

Somewhere, Billie is in there, trapped in the husk of Raven, and he knows it. His body language, even asleep, reflects full fight-or-flight response.

What is left of the curiosity is in his thin artist fingers, delicately tracing the cord that connects his alarm to the call box on the wall.

“This in I pawrn…,” he declared, and then the sleeper woke, his light brown eyes now showing puzzlement. I got up and went over to say hello.

“Want to get up?” I asked. He seemed to nod, either with recognition or agreement. I untangled his thin legs and made sure the Velcro on his shoes was nice and tight. His recliner is one of those cool ones with a remote control on a telephone cord connected to a motor. I pressed the button and the recliner’s footrest lowered into the chair and the back came upright, and then raised up with a forward motion that would deposit him on his feet.

I thought maybe he would like to shuffle the circuit, as we had done the day before, but Raven was having none of it. he seemed dizzy, go figure. I pushed the button to make the chair recline again, and soon I had him horizontal again, blanket in place and call button clipped to his mid-thorax.

I talked to him for a while, and then realized I had to get going if I was to serve up a little happy hour snack for Big Mama before the light evening meal at Potemkin Village.

“We are going to open your Christmas present tomorrow, OK?” He looked at me with eyes deep sand lost. “I don’t want you getting into the box until I come back, OK?” I waited until he was asleep again and then collected my crap and got the hell out of there.

In the common area in the lobby they were showing a Christmas film, and had made popcorn. I snagged one of the little paper bags, glad they had salted the popped kernels properly.

The whole thing is amazing. I saw someone in the Challenged Dining Room wake with a start and attempt to cut up their napkin.

In Raven’s decline, Big Mama sometimes (like often) lost track of time, and would take him to lunch or dinner well before the appointed time. He took pleasure in playing with the little plastic packets of jam, his slim artistic fingers failing to find the tab, and then chewing on the unopened packet.

I could see the marks on the table-cloth where the jam jetted out from between his teeth in astonishingly long arcs of dried strawberry.

It was actually sort of artistic.

I wonder if he will be awake long enough this morning to see me open his present? I hope so.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Mad Santa

 

It is Christmas Eve, and the Little Village by the Bay is preparing for the last paroxysm of activity before buttoning up for the holiday tomorrow. I don’t know if that includes putting up the Mad Santa lighted display on top of the Hospital.

Every year for as long as I can remember, the gigantic Santa has blazed his apparent displeasure across the bay at the Springs. They have never done anything back, except have higher real estate assessments, but maybe you have to live here full time to be sensitive to the nuances.

Speaking of nuances, not all the people will be buttoned up. Helena, the 28-year-old nurse assistant who helped me walk Raven yesterday has the Christmas Day shift, starting at 0515, tomorrow morning. She cut a deal with her three and five-year-olds to have Christmas today, and the tots were happy to agree.

I am really impressed with most of the folks who provide the safety net for our elderly. It is not universal, but the people Up North are genuine and real and their hearts are big.

I would not have contemplated low-flow toilets on the holiday. Normally, I don’t think about them at all, unless I am visiting a new construction home. Of course, most people who bought them at the height of the bubble have already walked away from them, or hung themselves, but I got to talking to the plumber the other morning about replacing the toilets if it turned out that was the problem with the home hydraulics.

“The new ones don’t work. Trust me, you don’t want ‘em,” he said, adjusting his ball-cap. “The ones you have are the old-school kind with 3.5 gallons in the tank. The new ones are half that.”

“But isn’t that more sustainable?” I asked. “Less water use and all that?”

He smiled. “Not if you have to flush two or three times,” he said. “Plus the extra wear and tear on the valves which have to be replaced on everything eventually. All the new construction around here have them and people complain like crazy.”

“Well, why not just replace them with ones that work?”

“Can’t do that. Anything more than 1.6 gallons is illegal now.”

“You are kidding. You mean there is a black market for old toilets?”

He smiled. “You can either salvage existing ones, or smuggle them in from Canada. Same deal with the lightbulbs.”

“I would hate to have that on my rap sheet,” I said. The plumber nodded sagely, with the sort of sly smile that made me suspect he was a guy with whom I could do business, should the contingency arise in which an efficient albeit illegal toilet needed to be found. A wink is as good as a nod, you know?

So I was buzzing around town trying to catch up on details and thinking about politics in the local, rather than the national context I am usually stuck with.

Raven was elected to the city council several times, rising eventually in seniority to be the Mayor Pro Tem in a city with a full-time professional City Manager.

Raven’s legacy deal was a bypass around the city, something the local merchants strongly opposed since it would lessen traffic past their establishments and promote the Big Boxes located on the tribal land outside of town.

It should go without saying that they were successful in their adamant opposition to getting places quickly, and getting from the South Side of town to the North is still a pain.

The visible legacy of the Council here in the Little Village by the Bay is the city block smack in the middle of the downtown. The Council approved the plan of a hot-shot out-of-town property development company and facilitated the acquisition of the several properties that occupied the site.

“Village Pointe” or something was to be the name of the new condo-hotel complex. I do not know if eminent domain was invoked, since this was to be the signature of a new re-birth of the downtown, and the voters backed the measure by like 500 votes out of a couple thousand cast.

Of course, that all happened after Raven was retired from the governing body. The Council put their stamp on the downtown in 2005, and managed to get the big pit dug to provide the foundation of the glorious new future on what had been the block holding the local theater, shops and restaurants.

In 2008, as you know, for a variety of perfectly good reasons, the developer went bankrupt, and the signature development is a really big hole in the ground, ringed by wire fence and black plastic that has been shredded by the winter wind.

Everyone seems to have gotten used to it now. I had pretty much become inured to the fierce red glower of the Right Jolly Elf on top of the hospital.

At least he is gone this year.

Ho Ho HO!

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
ww.vicsocotra.com

Too Much Information

I am settling in on the agenda for Day Two of the Holiday Visit. It snowed overnight, not like what you got, but enough to cover the cars and turn the driveway pure white. Oh, crap, I thought, add the snowplow guy to the list of things to be done- Scooby, of Scoopby’s Bottle Shop was the guy who used to do it. So, I can see the list starting to grow on the pad next to the computer.

1. Scooby’s- snow plow service for season.

I need to get on that- wonder if the leaf blower would serve for now?

The Socotra Siblings are not talking this holiday, which is to say that my brother is busy and will occasionally chime in to agree with whatever I propose, and my sister Annook must be busy as well, since she just isn’t speaking.

I heard a lot about the adventure of the Cat Adoption from the vivacious Sherri, the cute gal who has the beauty shop concession at Potemkin Village. I like to get my hair cut by her when I am in town, and it is a little depressing that I am now a regular. I am to the point that the details of both deliveries- natural, BTW, you will be comforted to know, and the circumference of the head and shoulders of both children at birth.

More information than I needed to process- TMI, in texting parlance- but that is the way people get along here- they share.

In the excitement of the plumber’s visit yesterday- late, of course, which jammed up the rest of the day, I had neglected to accompany him everywhere as we looked at the various places water could be running. Bless him, he announced the discovery of a drip from the outside faucet, the one that goes to the hose-reel in the front yard. That drew me out front and an exchange of pleasantries with the young man with a stubble of beard and the company logo on the back of his work jacket.

“You are just fucking with me, right?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I responded. “I am from Washington and here to help.”

“Well, I looked at everything and there is definitely something moving in the cold water pipe- it is freezing to the touch. So I looked at the bathrooms, and the one in the suite downstairs and finally wound up out here-” he gestured at the hose reel in front of the bushes- “and there was your problem. Just had to close the valve.”

“Crap,” I said “That was easier than I anticipated.”

“Yep. Well, Merry Christmas,” he said, taking off his glove to shake my hand.

“Send us a bill?” I asked.

“They usually do,” he said, and jumped in his truck and roared off.

Matter corrected, with great joy. Except when I got home from Potemkin Village I went around to ensure things were buttoned up again, and discovered the situation captured above, where apparently a surge of some sort of water contaminated with something darker got into the hall. Crap, I thought, and winced.

2. Clean the effing rug.

I am going to get some gloves and pitch the small area run in the bathroom, rent a carpet cleaner at Glenn’s if they still do that, and get the necessary mop and cleaning stuff to sanitize the floor and air things out as it dries.

I am also considering calling the ladies who cleaned when Annook was here this summer; you know, outsource the whole thing, but you can feel the Village moving into holiday mode. I wish the leaf-blower I bought on the last trip could be applied to this problem, but no, I won’t.

I have Raven’s present in the trunk and will get it to him today or tomorrow, not that he will know, but I got him the usual metal airplane this year before the latest collapse started. Mom has been very pleasant and genuinely glad to see me.

At lunch, we dined with Hazel and Stephanie and New Irene and crazy Pat the madwoman.

Mom is quite pretty these days, or at least her eyes are a wondrous and curious sea-water blue. She was dressed in clean clothes, a function of the Wednesday visit from the Friendship Center. In response to our request, Lovely Rita is back, and Mom is pleased with that, though I had to ask her about it. It is just one of the things that happens unbidden in her life now, something akin to the rising of the sun in the morning.

I also talked with the Emmet County Friendship Center who sponsors Rita’s home healthcare visits, and they suggested toenail care be added to the regimen of Mom’s care, which includes light housework, a shower and change of clothes. I concurred, and told Mom to allow it. She seemed dubious but unwilling to fight about the matter.

She is reading her large-type mysteries, more out of habit than anything else since she asked me to explain it to her, but it is good to see her reading again. I had selected some page-turner mysteries on her last book order, and we will wade through that along with the dozen Christmas cards from people she no longer remembers.

Carla the waitress was presiding in the Assisted Dining Room, and I recalled that we need to do something for her service as Guardian Angel. I will give her a check in an envelope at lunch today.

3. Write Check

Mom’s green car needs a once-over to check for personal stuff inside and in the trunk. Northstar Towing could not give me a time for the pickup today, since they are very busy with tax-year donations that have to be collected before Jan 1. I hope to be here when the driver gets around to us, but I can’t be pinned down all day waiting and will have it ready to go this morning for whenever they show up.

4. Clean out car of personal effects.

5. Find title and key.

6. See if it starts.

7. Handicapped placard? Where is it?

My neck is slowly unraveling from the rock-like rigidity that made the drive up such and adventure, but I am not going to risk stressing it out, so I am not going to horse the carpet cleaner around today, but with the later dawn here, I am sleeping too late. I will purchase a clock-radio today when I can get clear and get to the Myers Thrifty Acres to enable me to rise at the regular time- I will attach a note asking that it be left in the guest bedroom and not donated to the homeless.

8. Buy clock radio. WiFi so I can stream internet radio? Comparison shop if possible.

9. See if Glenn’s Market has carpet cleaners to rent. Get mop and floor cleaner.

The renter says she can get here on the 28th. I do not want to stay that long, but we will see how this goes. I will also have to follow up with John the Mouse Guy and see where we are with that.

10. Call Mouse Guy

I need to get on the matter of the green car, find the title and key and clean it out of personal belongings. I was sorting mail and saw that the address of Mom’s bank statements had been changed. I wondered about that- why was it changed from mine?

11. Talk to bank.

More as it happens, even at the risk of providing too much information. After the car, the rest can really go on the Day Three list. That is probably too much information, but obviously I am not going to get to a story this morning since life has got completely in my way and I have to start living it.

Merry Christmas!

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Errata From the Northland

 

My apologies, gentle readers. Alert Socotra followers have noted that the President Millard Fillmore Library continues to be located in Fillmore, Utah, where it has existed peacefully since 1925. It can be visited 10:00 AM to 5:00 weekdays, with morning hours on Saturday. The 13th linear occupant of the Oval Office, and ranked 24th overall by some scholars, the trove of material is of vital interest to students of the Whig Party.

The Daily Socotra regrets the error, and invites you to the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Spiegel Grove, Fremont, OH. As we all know, the 19th President of the United States, a Republican from the Buckeye State, is well regarded by history as a pack to pack + player in the ranks of the Presidents, with some surveys having him as high as 13th.

The Fremont library was the first Presidential library, originally chartered by the family of the late president to house his 12,000 volume personal library. Chartered as a Federal institution in 1994, the facility is a lasting tribute to whatever happened in his Administration.

It appears that the scarf holding the neck upright may have been pulled too tightly. Other than that, there are no problems in the Northland, nor a Presidential Library in sight.

At a few miles north of the 45th Parallel, this is not the end of the earth, but neither can you see the end of the trees that stretch to the north.

Our thanks to all for this wonderful year past that has given us such weird stuff to contemplate. From the Fall of the West to the 1%, we have about seen everything.

From Northern Michigan, warm seasonal wishes to you and yours on this first official day of winter.

Happy Holidays!

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

The First Day of Winter

A big shout our to Kelly at the desk of he Super Eight in Sandusky, OH, the gateway to the Lake Erie Islands and the fabulous Cedar Point Amusement Park. She got me the Government Rate, and a room for the night before the first day of winter.

She is a pert blonde, my age, and I realized that fly-over country in the heartland has real people with real work ethics, and real souls.

It is funny- Congress looks even dumber from here than it does at home.

Or, maybe I should call it “drive-through country.” I managed to not spend a cent in Virginia, Maryland nor Pennslyvania, nor directly communicate with any resident of those states except by the horn on the Dodge.

I was disappointed that Hetrz had not delivered the promised GMC Traverse AWD, but rather “a similar model.” It looks suspiciously like an SUV-minivan crossover, but it rolls and it is not mine. The vehicle has a bunch of features, including satellite radio and more cup-holders than I have been able to count thus far. I am hoping the drugs a took this morning will loosen my neck muscles to the extent that I can look around the passenger compartment. Maybe tomorrow.

God, it was with mixed thanks that I ran the wipers all day, watching the temperature that hovered well above freezing. When I got a chance to look at the Weather Channel, I realized that I am a very lucky man. I have a a stiff neck, but I do not have a stiff neck on ice.

I want to give a special thank-you to Kim in the Italian restaurant in the hotel, who not only saved me from getting back in the enormous white Dodge Journey AWD to find a fast-food dinner. We just let the monster drip rainwater on the mostly empty blacktop in the parking lot.

Kim is a representative of hard working Buckeyes. Holiday or no Holiday, pain or no pain, she works. The Sandusky Rotary was having their monthly meeting in what is normally the breakfast nook. They looked like nice people, too, and when I explained the topical pain that was going to preclude me from sitting alone in the empty restaurant proper, she whipped out a roller-ball applicator for her neck analgesic medication.

I was in such pain that it did  not seem strange in the slightest to accept a strangers drug, and applying it right there at the service counter.

It is raining again this morning, fierce and persistent, but it is still too warm to freeze and I may drive out of it with the big right-hand turn to Up North that will happen in about fifty miles, at Toledo.

I would tell you more, but there is snow behind the rain, and I intend to be in the Little Village by the Bay before THAT happens.

Merry Christmas, ins’hallah!

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com