Anybody Still There?

Life almost seems with me too much near and far recently.

Flew down to Florida to see my mom and to see what was going on with her.  We now have a person going in for two hours every day and that seems to be helping things, but she keeps losing weight. My mom not the caregiver.  Also, unfortunately all the Internet I had been stealing while down there, are now secure with passwords, so I ended up not posting while I was down there.  Not because I couldn't go to coffee houses to use their Internet, but I just didn't seem to get around to it.

Also, the goddamn touch pad continues to be hypersensitive.  Now that I'm using Ubuntu, I haven't figured out how to turn off the touch pad while I'm typing.  My wife's Acer has two keys you can hit to turn the touch pad off and then hit them again to turn it on.  This didn't used to be a problem, I don't think with any computer.

At any rate took mom to the doctor who was a pretty nice guy, but he was essentially no help.  My mother doesn't eat and doesn't clean herself any more, nor does she wash her own clothes.  Now when I say she doesn't eat I mean almost.  And when I say she doesn't clean herself, I mean she will do a sponge bath every other day or so.  So the doc. said based on our reporting, that she is definitely in the early stages of dementia.  Then he regaled us with stories of his elderly relatives, most of whom are in Africa, most of whom were doctors, and who are losing it in one way or another, but whose lives  he doesn't think he should intervene in yet.  Not a lot of help.

Back home and my chow had been throwing up every day since shortly before I'd left.  We thought that she might have some stomach irritation from the drugs from the surgery.  Nope that that simple.

She has esophagitus which is a narrowing of the esophagus which in all probably occurred from some sort of reaction to the anesthetics used in the surgery.  We took her to the OSU Vet E.R. Clinic and they took her in right away.  It was so serious she was near death, but because she is so brave and impervious to pain we had no idea.  We gave permission to do anything possible to save her (thank god we'd paid off our credit cards in January).

So what  they have done is to scope the esophagus and put a balloon down it to increase the size back to normal.  There will be another one to eight procedures at approximately one week intervals.  She is unable to eat through her mouth and for the time being she is even unable to drink.  She has a feeding tube directly into her stomach and we have to put food into it every four hours even through the night.  The first feeding was a 8:00 a.m. this morning and didn't go badly.   Noon was better for us, she took both well.

She is at $5gs and we may be only half way through the treatment.  In addition we are simply emotionally overwhelmed.  What with everything.

"Union Maids" (1976)

Met the people who made this movie shortly after it came out.  Interesting folks and the group they belonged to was not beloved by the college history professors in the Dayton area because of the previous movie they made about Patterson the guy who founded NCR.

Somebody will indeed do it sooner or later

This post started by my reading alicublog and being disappointed in both the essay and the comments to the essay.  Followed that by reading Greenwald and then going over to Lawyers, Guns and Money where I read a comment on the Greenwald essay and then to read the comments on that (there are over 800 comments on Greenwald's essay, I can't bring myself to even start reading them).

Too much inside baseball?  Maybe, at any rate the commentators at alicublog, people who I consider to be fairly knowledgeable and progressive, were cheering the fact (they said) that Obama was lying about his beliefs concerning gay marriage.  They think that it is a good thing.  I mentioned that I was kind of queasy about that kind of bald faced lie (if that is indeed what it was), and was politely lectured to.  I was told that it was just necessary, don't you know.  It is a good thing.  At least for Obama at least this time.

Well I can certainly believe that Obama is lying since I think that he has lied more than any other president that I have ever known in my lifetime.  I will admit that it is possible that Nixon may have done it more, but since I never believed anything that son of a bitch said, I never paid any attention to it so I can't say how many actual lies he told.

Still to those people do not seem to know or perhaps care just how corrupt they have become.

As far as LG&M that is a different story.   The commentators there are rabid partisans, exhibiting what Greenwald calls tribalism.   For most of them it is simply impossible for Obama to do something wrong.  So the when it is pointed out that under the current law and executive policies Obama (or the president, if you will, whoever it may be) could claim that congress is aiding Al Quida and have them all indefinitely detained, in theory without explaining what the evidence is, the response is outrage.

Oh well perhaps I read a little too much Roman history in college.

Fine Whines, Why Do You Ask

Knowing more than I want to about the inside of a dog's knee right now.

And this is more or less what it looks like inside right now.

I've been very over whelmed recently.  I've kind of taken it out by remaking the visuals on the blog on a daily basis, a slight exaggeration, but not much.

Flying down to Florida to be with my Mother on Monday.  This was going to be a vacation with my wife, but it hasn't turned out that way.  Our chow has had to have ACL surgery.  Actually they don't call it that on a dog, but that is what it is.  She is the third dog I've had that has had to have this surgery, it is the fourth surgery.  One knee on the first chow, both knees on the pit and now hopefully just one knee on this chow.

Took her to Med-Vet in Columbus last Tuesday.  Got her there at 6:00 a.m. Then came back here to an all day custody hearing which didn't happen because one of the parents is deaf, doesn't use a regulation sign language and the interpreter said we would need two interpreters.  So that has all be continued for about two months.

The vet called and said the surgery went well, but our dog was "feisty" and we could certainly take her home that night which we did.  She was nuts from the anesthetic and not very happy for the next thirty-six hours. A mean drunk.   It turned out that the cost to us by bring her home was cut by $500.00.  There were times that Tuesday, that I think I might have paid them twice that to keep her.  However, as she came out of the anesthetic she got to be more and more like her old self. 

Now, according to the vet we will have to limit her activities for six weeks.  Some chance of that.  We have her on a long lead in the house and a short lead when we take her outside.  She is not a happy camper.  She feels fine and doesn't understand why she can't run and jump.  She can run and jump we just are not to let her do it.  The St. Bernard is freaked because she isn't being allowed to play with him.  Good god I should have kids it might be easier.  Thank god also, for pet insurance.

Unfortunately I have to go to Florida to visit with my mother who seems to be deteriorating mentally.  She refuses to bathe and refuses to wash her clothing because neither she nor the clothing are dirty.  She eats chips and sweets and won't eat balanced meals and refuses to leave her condo.  We have a person coming for two hours five days a week, who is cleaning her clothes and getting her healthy food, but at this point it looks like it will be assisted living, sooner rather than later, while she can still do it.  What that means is that we will have to get her up to Ohio some way and it looks like there is a good shot that I will have to be the one to make the final push to make her do it.  Well, as I told my wife it is just practice for me later on.

Oh yeah I see we're screwed on the foreclosure fraud settlement.  Boy is that a surprise.  Well it is kind of since I expected the AGs of California, Massachusetts and New York to hold out for something better.

Everything Old Is New Again

This is an incredible read.