I'm answering all of the condolence email I got. Well, at least most of it. If you are expecting an answer and don't receive one, here you go:
Thank you for your email. It means a lot to me.
I hope you are doing well
-- celeste
Just because it's a form letter doesn't mean that your email didn't mean a lot to me. It's all true.

I hardly slept last night. I was worried about oversleeping, so instead I didn't sleep at all. I was eating breakfast when I relaized that it was a friday morning and I had only allocated one hour to reach Cupertino from Berkeley by 10:00 am. What's worse is the carpool lane closes at 10:00. I encouraged the Dentons to hurry. Maybe they did. We left after 9:00. There was a coffee truck overturned on 880. We got to the church at 10:20-something. I was suppossed to be there by 10:10 to be a pallbearer. And Christi took the guest registry-type book home with her to repair a page, so people were signing a photocopied sheet. Most everyone had arrived by the time we put the book in place.

We pulled the casket from the hearst and placed it on a trolley thing, wheeled it to the church vestebule and then places a white sheep called a pall over the top of it. Then we wheeled it inside and sat in the front of church and cried for the whole mass. The cantor sang in te slow pseudo-operatic, wild vibrato style popular among catholic cantors. I was upset with him, but the music selection was good. The organist and I had talked on the phone the night before going back and forth about the music. Most catholic music is not good. But we narrowed it down to Taize. S/he's so good, even protestants use it. Andway, I thought it was good when he sang Ave Maria. But throughout most of the mass, I felt a wild desire to stab him. Christi's boss told me later he thought the cantor was good, so I finally decided that I was just unhappy and so disliking the cantor, but it wasn't his fault.

Monsegnour Milani's sermon talked about mom in vague terms from the notes he had taken from us. He did know my mom from when she lived at home with her parents and he was their pastor. The readings were from the book of wisdom, psalm 23, a letter of Saint Paul to somebody and the beatitudes. At the end, Marilyn Quentin, mom's friend got and spoke about taking piano classes with her at DeAnza Community College and being a docent with her at the museum and about how they used to talk for hours and hours. I was glad she spoke. After the mass, we processed out and then milled around for a while, waiting for the Monsegnour. Shyam Nigrani's wife was there. He was my dad's old coworker and I was friends with their daughter. Also, Autumn, who I worked with at Netscape was there. I need to call both of these people. Beatrice came again. Margie came. Tiffany, Luoi, GI Jen, Brian and Sarah K, Vince and Tammy and Sarah D all came too. There was a good crowd. A bunch of Chuck's friends were there. Many of them read the newspaper announcement, because apparently Chuck didn't tell everyone that he should have. Mary Lou came, as did Hubback. Charles, Christi's boss came. The Bonasiches came. They run the orchard in Hollister. The Vidiviches came. All the CGC people. That's the singles club my parents met at. It's called the Catholic Graduates Club. For Catholics who were out of college, which seems to have meant thirty-something. My dad was still in school when her joined, but he was a resuming student. Anyway, the register thingee plus the photocopied sheet gives us a list.

The fake cops started up their motorbikes and blocked traffic and we got on 280 and went to Gate of Heaven Cemetery in a auto-procession. Apparently, one of the fake cops was almost run over. They looked just like real cops in CHP look-alike uniforms and with look-alike bikes, flashing amber lights instead of blue and red. I think people were fooled. One of them successfully pulled over a semi-truck. There was a short ceremony at the grave site and then another rodent-like mortuary employee thanked everyone for coming and we went to my dad's house.

Alottas Catering did the food. They catered my mom's parents' funerals too. My dad called me a few days ago and asked about vegan food. I told his to just have some salads and maybe a three-bean salad and the vegans would be fine. And then maybe he could get a lasagna too. So when I arrived, there was a lettuce salad, a fruit salad, a three bean salad and a meat lasagna. I can't say my dad doesn't listen to me. Brother bob brought a million desserts, including his great pear tortes. Tammy or Sarah D or somebody brought a quiche. Someone else brought a plat full of cake slices. There was a lot of food. And red and white wine.

I talked to a bunch of people, I think. I sort of floated through it. Near the end, Margaret Schieck, my godmother, pulled me into a another room and said that while my mom was sick and could still talk, she asked Margaret to look after me and she promised she would. And she said she wanted me to consider myself part of her family if I want and Christi too and her kids know about me and Christi and everyone is ok about it and even if my mom hadn't said anything to her, she wtill would have wanted me in her family because she's known me her whole life and she's my god mother. I just kind of cried. Christi has been asking me all day what we talked about and I can't speak it because it makes me cry too much, but i can type it. So now all my blog readers (both of you) know now. The whole time my mom was sick, I kept thinking that Margaret was going to have to assume her duties as a godmother soon. I guess she was thinking the same thing. I didn't know that my mom ever knew she was dying. the time she was still talking was probably when we were still doing radiation treatment. I was annoyed at her negative attitude then, but she must have known better than us. I'm glad she knew. I'm sorry I kept denying that, because I wanted the radiation to help and I wanted her to be more positive about it, because of the mythical mind-body connection.

Christi's mom took all the male Dentons to the airport. After everyone left, she, Christi and I sat and talked to my dad for a while. Christi and her mom disappeared off to Sarah K's house. And when my dad fell asleep in his chair, I snuck off after them. We drank tea and then went back and got some desserts and most of the last of my stuff from my dad. Like oreos and a pomegranite and a pumpkin.

We came back to berkeley and Christi talked me into going for sushi. It was miserable. I kept wanting to cry. I didn't want to go to a restaurant. Tiffany anf Luoi invited us to a party, but I didn't want to go and we ended up not calling them at all. Apparently they told me that Christi wanted to go and Christi that I wanted to go. But we talked to each other and foiled their plans. I don't think my mom would like the idea of me going to a party after her funeral one bit.

Margaret told me that I'm a lot like my mom. Not very long ago, that would have annoyed me, but now I know that my mom was kind and funny and humble and always put other people first and smart and a good friend to people and fun to be around. I was barely old enough to start appreciating my mother. Just ten years ago, I still often saw her as a tyrant trying to ruin my social life. I wish I'd had more time as an adult to know her. Today was the hardest day since she died, maybe since she was sick. While she was sick, I had hope or at least chores. Before the funeral, there was logistics or a sence of relief that she wasn't suffering. But now there's nothing more to do and she's gone forever

So after Tiffany left, later Mitch came over. He was talking a lot about Mozilla. I thought it was a religious discussion, but it turned out he's got some startup idea that's going to use esperanto. I say, "yay." We went out to pizza. We came back and Christi's Mother and Brother arrived. We sat around and talked, then went to bed. (aren't blogs exciting?)

This morning I woke up and Tiffany was back here. yay. I thanked her for doing my half of the chores. Then she left and the Dentons and I drove to San Jose to get Christi's Father from the SJ Airport. We went to my dad's house to change. It's full of flowers. I haven't yet collected cards to write thank you notes. My dad showed up, so we went to Kim's Vietnamese food with him. The organist called my cell phone and I finally gave her the list of hymns. Then we went to the rosary. We only said a decade of the rosary. Monsegnour Milani read a few readings and did a short, vague homily. Then it was over. Bang, bang, done. My mom would have been disappointed. But the crowd was pretty good. Christi made the book thingee. It's beautiful. It's covered with handmade (not by her) paper with rosebuds embedded in it. A lot of people came. The first guy I talked to was upset that we had communicated insufficieantly with him and was mad about it. And then some other guy came by and complained at my dad for being insufficiently sociable. Um yeah. Next time she dies, we'll handle it better. The criticizm was very mild, but when you're already fighting back tears, it stings more than normal.

A certain gentleman who is socially awkward came over to say goodbye. I thanked him for coming, so he said, "well thank you for being born." I replied, "anytime." Brother Bob guffawed. It was the only comic moment. In case I haven't been clear on this, my mom dying sucks. My mom always liked the unnamed gentleman. She was always willing to overlook people's foibles. She would give anybody on earth a second chance. Unless someone hurt someone she cared about. Then she never forgave, ever.

My mother's mother died nine years ago. While she was ill, before her death, she had a nurse named Beatrice. Beatrice read about my mom in the paper and showed up to her rosary. She said my mom was always her friend. So if you helped someone my mom cared about, she didn't forget you then either.

after the mortuary asked us to leave so they could close up, we went to La Teejo de Lusi. We stayed forty minutes past closing, but they never asked us to leave. I think we made tea orders after they closed, and they filled them without saying anything. Only Sarah K clued us in to their closing. They're much nicer than the mortuary. It's too bad they don't do wakes there. The mortician at the rosary looked like he has the ability to turn into a bat. But the mortuary chapel has a huge crucifix, so he must not actually be a vampire. Anyway, we were at Lucy's with the Dentons, the Sarahs, Mitch, Vince and Tammy. Vince and Tammy didn't go to the rosary because Vince's mom told them that Vince's dad needed an emergency angioplasty and was at death's door, but apparently, she overstated the crisis. I'm glad he's ok.

We came home and did trash night things. I lit candle number three. The BVM and John the Baptist already burned out, but they were pretty low when they came here. Aside from the BVM (it seemed right to start with her), all of the remaining candles are ordered by amount of wax left, so all things being equal, they should burn longer and longer with each candle. And I fixed the heater. The fan had been failing to come on when the heater got hot, so instead of being like a regular, mordern heater, it was more like a radiator and utterly innefective at dispersing heat over our upstairs, which has very high ceilings. anyway, I opened the heater cover and switched a button marked "fan" to to "on." I'm leading people to beleive that it was actually a technical repair, so keep this quiet.

It's so weird having family gatherings without my mom. It's not right at all

Tiffany left wednessday afternoon. Christi's mom and brother were set to arrive, so she absconded. First, she made the bunk bed. It take 13 more minutes than making a bed ought to take. this is frustrating. tiffany also helped Christi clean and I'm pretty sure she put away all the vegitables. A few days ago, she made cream of cauliflower soup. yesturday, she bought oatmeal and coffee for the house and baked oatmeal cookies. she's been maintaining the garden. I was thinking I missed her and I then I was thinking how much work she's been doing around here. I must remember to say thank you.

Shelia detailed out her plan to me. It's genious boggled my mind. "It's so audacious, it just might work!" I exclaimed.
she just smiled her enigmatic smile and handed me another dossier. "This is the authoritative document on our adversary, published by the justice department. some of it is even correct."
I scanned it. "Ah, so he or she is named JK and was a belligerent in Columbia, fighting with the paramilitary. Officially, JK is our ally."
"Only because we favor an authoritarian regime. You know what JK planned for Flagstaff."
The dune buggy kept bounding accross the dunes of the barren desert. Suddenly, a shot rang out overhead. My revolver was in my hands in an instant as I looked for the assailant.
"We have you surrounded. Drop your weapons." A voice came through a megaphone. "How do I know you have us surrounded?" I challeneged. antoher shot rang out and my pistol was violently torn from my fingers. It had been shot out of my hand! A hidden sniper that skilled is as good as being surrounded. Shelia and I put our hands in the air.
A gentleman in a white suit, reminiscent of Boss Hog, stepped out from behind a dune. "So, Jane," he said with incongrous benevolence, "we meet again. You'll have to forgive me. My henchmen didn't recognize Shelia next to you and so confused you with a Mr Anderson."
That name again! "So you're letting us go?" I asked, burning with curiosity.
"Oh no, " Dr. cool laughed bombastically, "now that you know I'm here, you'll have to be my prisoner." He took a look at my jumpsuit. "I can see you've already visitted our common adversary across the desert. Too bad we can't work together on this, but I am comitted to avenging your murder of my father."
Dr. cool's henchmen pushed us into a windowless hovercraft and started across the desert. "I've always found him to be something of a boor." said Shelia.
A video screen clicked to life across from us, with Dr. cool's image on it. "Now that's no way to talk about your host. Miss Manners might severely berate for your lapse of ettiquite, were she as belligerent as some of my henchmen. some of them are quite testy about what yuou did to dad. and for that you will pay!"
Maniacal bad guys are the most difficult to reason with, but still, I had to try. "That video you saw of me killing your father was bogus! It was fabricated by JK to make you dedicate your life to evil!"
"I can aver that claim." said Shelia
"It doesn't matter. I avowed that I would kill you in front of my henchmen and I can't back down now." The monitor clicked off and gas jets opened around the room to a hissing sound. A purple-ish fog was filling the hovercraft. Is this the end?
As darkness overcame my sight, I cursed Dr. Cool, "May all your decendants be barren!" and the world faded from my sight.

the 15 GRE Words of the Day

46. audacious (adjective) bold, daring, adventurous. Joan of Arc's audacious plan to lead the Dauphin behind enemy lines of his coronation succeeded. audacity (noun).
47. authoritarian (adjective) Favoring or demanding blind obediance to leaders. Ari Fleischer says, "If you're not in favor of the USA becoming authoritarian, you're helping the terrorists." authoritarianism (noun)
48. authoritative (adjective) Official, conclusive. The strong "buy" reccomendations in the boom years appeared to be authoritative, but were actually issued by individuals with conflicts of interest. authority (noun), authorize (verb).
49. avenge (verb) To exact a punishment for or on behalf of someone. Some speculate that dubya's proposed military adventure in Iraq is to avenge his father's failure.
50. aver (verb) to claim to be true; to avouch. Mitch will aver Dan's claims of having burned a piano, because Mitch was a witness
51. avow (verb) to declare bodly. Suddenly, in the midst of his sermon, the bishop avowed his queerness and shocked the congregation. avowal (noun), avowed (adjective).
52. barren (adjective) Desolate; infertile. There are those who want to nuke third world countries into barren wastelands, but those people are stupid.   Elizabeth was old and thought to be barren, but then Gabriel showed up and announced to Mary that Elizabeth was pregnant with a fetus that would grow up to become John the Baptist
53. belligerent (adjective) Quarrelsome, combative. While some folks become belligerent when drunk. marijuana does not cause such behavior changes
54. belligerent (noun) an opposing army. a party waging war. The USA is the most active belligerent in the world.
55. benevolent (adjective) wishing or doing good. Nuns dedicate their whole lives to benevolent purposes. . . or sometimes they become grade school principals. . .. benevolence (noun).
56. berate to scold or criticize harshly. dubya cried in the oval office after Ralph Nader berated him for his stupid policies.
57. boggle (verb) to overwhelm with amazement. the complexity of musical structures developed by Serialism boggles the listeners' minds, but often not their ears.
58. bogus (adjective) phony, a sham the USA's claim of Nicuragua posessing MIGS turned out to be bogus, something to consider while pondering claims of nukes in Iraq.
59. bombastic (adjective) inflated or pompous in style. Some who profess not to like opera, describe it as bombastic. bombast (noun).
60. boor (noun) Crude, insensitive and overbearing. Although delightful when sober, Ralph turned into a terrible boor when drunk and would insist on sharing all the details of his latest sexual exploit. boorish (adjective)

http://www.nionbayarea.net Local and national pacifist group.

Chronicle Obit

I'm updating my blog and my mom is dead.

Well, it's been four days and she seems pretty serious about this being dead thing. It seems like it might be permanent, not just some sort of phase she's going through. This morning I woke up after having a nightmare that she died and then I realized that she really was dead. And then I had this odd thought that she was going to stay dead and that is was a permanent thing. I don't know why I would think otherwise. Jesus called forth Lazarus from the tomb, but Jesus was Lazaras' good friend and Jesus was walking around and stuff. And even though my mom seemed to have a lot of friends, no Jesus ever walked in to visit, as far as I know. I took ancient history when I was a freshman in college and the teacher said that there were street magicians raising the dead on every street corner in Jerusalem. The stuff that came out about Jesus raising the dead was written way after he died and far away from where he lived and was suppossed to illustrate how miraculous he was. But there's no way he would have actually raised the dead, because it would have destroyed his credibility and made him nothing more than another street performer. And, as far as I know, no saints have any miracles of re-animating corpses, so no Christian supernatural forces are going to change this. Mom isn't going to pop out and say, "oh this was all just a test. You passed so I decided to come back." what a stupid thought.

When I first got the tatoo on my leg, I wasn't sure I liked it and I was talking to people and I kept saying, "if I keep it . . ." as if it was some easily erasible thing, like a piercing or something. Anyway, I decided I liked it and realized it was permanent. I wasn't just bing pragmatic. But I've never had a strong inner sence of the innate irreversability of some things. read: spacy

I've spent tho whole day being spacy, not being able to remember my way around berkely or the names of major streets like Shattuck. I went out in the morning with Christi to buy paper. The mortuary sells these auful guest books. They're binders and they're pre-printed and have images of things like Thomas Kinkaide on them. My mom liked Thomas Kinkaide, but since she's dead, I can turn her into any person I want in my mind. My reference point slips away. I can say that liking his artwork was only a result of her brain tumor. Right now, I know that's not true, but in time, I'll make myself believe it. Anyway, the guest books are ugly and expensive for what you get. So Christi and I bought nice paper, some of which is made with rosebuds in it. I know she would like that, for real, not just in my invented version of her. And we got some more rice paper and some vellum and some paperboard and glue and good pens and razor blades and it's costing more than the mortuary's McDeath guest book, but at least it's actually nice. Christi made the book used at her own grandmother's funeral.

I went to esperanto class tonight. I was actually paying attention. I was trying to pay attention earlier, but couldn't. I tried to explain -ig and -igx to the class, since Ed was refusing to teach a lesson for some reason I missed. But I dunno how useful my explination was. I got home and the first candle lit here was burned out. It took several times as long as it was suppossed to. These are the candles that were burning while my mom was dying. No wonder she held on for so long. Even the candles burn extra-long. It's like some sort of miracle. A "dark miracle" like the ones at the beginning of Incubus. Maybe a temporary miracle, like the one the brain surgeon provided. Was it worth it? My mom would have been dead by mid-july and saved months of suffering. Were we stupid to think it was a good idea to remove a quarter of her brain and then try to cure her, with such a gigantic tumor, or was the surgeon unethical or uncaring to suggest it? Did it perhaps stand some sort of chance of improving her life for more than the good three weeks afterwards? Did the delay starting radiation treatment make any sort of difference at all? The surgeon said six months and she didn't even make it that long. Maybe that's the diference. Just another woman wih brain cancer, this is all very routine. Oooh, that's a big tumor. We shouldn't make her too big a priority. We can't do much. Better not say that to the family. We'll do what we can, in our way, when we have time.

What did I used to do with my days? I think I was working on some projects. I know I did web stuff for Sarah's reptile zoo. I don't feel much like working and I don't know what I was doing anyway. Too bad I didn't keep a blog back then. I could go look up boring posts of debuggin javascript or something. I want to go away. Christi has already missed oodles of work. My mom was a very major donor to Christi's non-profit. But there's nothing for them in the will. Christi can't just have all the time off she wants, she has work to do. There's a big film festival coming up that she needs to work on. Everything needs to get back to work, back to being normal. Life must go on. But not for my mom.

Um, so I left off my life chronicles sometime friday after my dad decreed that the candles must go. He was super irritating that day, but duh, his wife just died. My brother finally showed up for the first time in two weeks or so and was nice to my dad, but decreed that he wanted mom's computer. Mom's computer is a macintosh, but it has a cinemascope display, quite decent speakers attached and a superdrive. When my mom first got it, my brother called up Christi and ranted for a couple of hours about how stupid macintoshes were and what a terrible computer it was, while trying to get Christi to provide some tech support. My dad already told me I could have it. I told him he should keep it for a while. Will it just walk off, like so many things have that my brother wants, or has he outgrown that? We'll see.

On saturday, we went over to the morticians to figure stuff out. Christi and I picked out clothes to bury my mom in. It's a closed casket, but it wouldn't be right to send her off in nothing but a Womens Philharmonic T-shirt. But mom lost so much weight, her clothes were all way too big. So we picked out her one wrap around skirt, so on the last day when Jesus calls us all out of our tombs, at least her skirt will fit right. And we picked out a pleated white shirt and a turquisoe jacket. When Mikey, our pet dachshund was still alive, I gave some pictures of him to Christi's mom and had her make a vest with his image on it. It's a nice vest with weiner dogs running around in circles on it, and it has some checkers and a lot of turquiose, since my mom looks good in it. After Mikey died, my mom quit wearing it for a long time beause "it [was] just too sad, you know." She had just started wearing it again, so we picked it out too. I don't know what else I could possibly do with a vest with pictures of a dead dog on it that had been specially made for my dead mom. So Christi, Dad and I showed up to the Lima Family Mortuary with those, and some nylons and the hat I got my mom and her teddy bear and a scapular and my mom's volunteer ID Badges for History San Jose. My dad wants those on her. Why not? It's a closed casket.

The mortician took the clothes, but told us to come back later with the bear, scapular and badges. We should have insisted on the scapular, sicne they're suppossed to be worn under the clothes, but we didn't. Then he took us into the casket room. There were some wood ones, which is good, cuz we wanted wood. And there was an ok hardwood one that said it was made from renewable materials, so I was thinking we could just get that and save ourselves the trouble of looking for an ecologically correct casket, since there was one right there. But then, wandering around the room, I noticed that the solid mahogany one also claimed to be a renewable natural resource and thus green. So after I became upset, the mortician showed us a catalog of orthodox caskets and we liked one of those, but decided to keep looking a few other places. We went to the casket outlet in San Jose, but they only had things even less green, so we went back to my parents house. Brother Robert invited my dad, my brother, my uncle, Christi and I over to his place for dinner. Shockingly, everyone agreed to come and my brother actually showed up. I guess it's easier for him when dying people aren't lying around.

Brother Bob called up a little more than an hour before we were all suppossed to go over. He just had cataract surgery and has been having trouble with his eyes. He was running late and distraught over my mom's death and couldn't read any of his cookbooks. So Christi went over and helped him make dinner. Which was great. He's a great cook. And then he sent us home with the leftovers. We decided he should be a pall-bearer, but we forgot to tell him.

After that, I decided Christi and I should just stop by Mitch's birthday party, especially since Tiffany and Luoi were going and didn't know that many people. We showed up way late and T&L were already gone and everyone there was pretty drunk. Mitch's mom was there. I saw a lot of her in highschool, but not much since then, except at parties. Mitch's family are partiers. They would fight for their right to party. So she seemed to be drunk. She ran up to me and gave me a big hug and told me how great I was to my mom. Every time anybody says that, I cry. It's not that I don't want to hear it or anything, it justs makes me cry. The sermon on the mount makes me cry too and sometimes The Paino Concerto by Micheal Nyman makes me cry, it's just one of those things. Not great for parties, but I shouldn't be going to parties anyway, if I might busrt into tears. And then she said, "I'm your mom now." So I ran away to the bathroom. And when I exitted, Mitch asked me if I would like a drink. yes. something. anything strong.

After Vince and Tammy left, the females remaining were Mitch's mom (who came into the garage where we were drinking (why the garage?) every half hour and announced she was going to go to sleep), Christi, me, Sarah K, Sarah D and Jen Stout. Sarah K is out as bi. Sarah D is not out as bi, but has smooched chicks on occasion, especially when there's beer in her. I got the idea that we should ask Jen Stout to strip. The Sarahs were all over that idea. Money was pledged. Mitch and an airforce guy started digging out one dollar bills. Jen Stout finally agreed, but didn't like the music that was on. "I can't strip to the Beastie Boys" she said. Mitch replied, "This is my best birthday ever."

Uh yeah, so we talked her into something while she was drunk. When I die, I'm going to go to the peraly gates. And standing there will not be St. Peter, but rather Betty Friedan and she will send me to hell.

I woke up the next morning hung-over. Actually, the next afternoon. And went down to my parents house and finished writing the obituary notice, which we then took to the mortuary and they'll submit it to the papers. How much extra are we paying for this? I dunno, we didn't ask. Look for the notice in your next newspaper. My dad went out while I has still sleeping it off and bought a cemetery plot. The cemetery requires that all the markers be made out of wither granite or bronze. They need to be a certain exact size and shape. They need to lie flat. They must contain an christian symbol and be approved by the cemetery. The cemetery can change it's mind in the future. They have catalogs of pre-cut stones that just needs a name and years. Sometime, when all pop-culture was telling us to look the other way, they McDonalds-ized death. The mortuary is a national chain. The grave markers come pre-cut. God forbid somebody try to say something too personal with a head stone.

My dad did some net surfing and discovered the kind of six sided profile box we were looking for to bury mom in is called a coffin. Square boxes are caskets. Vampire movie boxes are coffins. We couldn't find any, so we ordered the orthodox casket. We scheduled the funeral. Then, I went back to my parents house and we relaized we needed to call people. It turns out that one of my mom's friends was trying to be helpful and called a lot of people and told them the wrong day. We made a list of who needed to be called and Sarah K came over and called most of them. She then left to go to a party and I picked up all the candles and put them in my car. I got them home with the idea that I would put them on top of my bookshelf and burn them all one at a time until they all burned out and then take all the empties to the East Bay Depot for Creative Re-Use. But there were too many to fit on top of my bookcase. I'm going to be burning candles forever.

Today I went to St. Joseph of Cupertino parish to meet with the Monsenior to plan the funeral. Then I dropped Christi by work. Tiffany and I went out to the Albany Bulb, also known as the Albany Dump and the Albany Landfill. It's rumored to be filled with art instillations. We came upon a castle. Two stories! And a hut. And several small sculptures. And an outdoor gallery by a group called Sniff. All of their stuff is good. Some of it is exceptionally excellent. The bulb is al the end of Buchanan Street in ALbany, kind of near the Berkeley border. There's a trail or something there. Park and walk out on the penninsula that goes into the bay. It's cool. We took xena and she spent the whole time running around in circles in estatic glee. Oh to be a dog.

I see a full moon and I think, "It's a full moon and my mom is dead." and I go for food and think, "I'm eating a pizza and my mom is dead." and so I was thinking, "I'm looking at art and my mom is dead." The art was excellent, but I'm not much for reviews right now.

We went home and I called the organist from Resurrection Church in Sunnyvale. When I was in Seventh and Eightth grade, I played trumpet every week at Satuday evening mass. I remebered hearing the organist talk about one of her teachers who was Baptist and how the catholic parishoners started complaining that she played like a protestant, so she had to get a new teacher. When my grandma died, less than a year ago, my mom picked all protestant hyms for the funeral. None of us knew what kind of music my grandma liked. The organist then played like a catholic and butchered the songs. So I'm very happy my old organist has said that she'll play at the funeral.

Nothing much else happened since the last installement, except that porn came in the mail. It's exciting living in a lesbian household. Tiffany is here and so Luoi is also here a lot. So the porn is universally popular. Oh and Luoi got a blog.

Hutchins, Eileen Frances (Forge) � In Cupertino, California on October 18, 2002, at age 65 after a short bout with brain cancer. She was predeceased by her parents, Muriel and Otis Forge. She is survived by her brother Chuck Forge, her husband Edward Hutchins, her son Paul Hutchins, her daughter Celeste Hutchins, her daughter-in-law Christine Denton and her cousin Sr. Mary Leahy. Eileen was raised on an orchard in Cupertino and attended Sacred Heart High School and Notre Dame High School. She graduated from San Jose State University and worked for several years as a medical technologist at local hospitals, including O�Connor and Kaiser. In 1975, she became a full time homemaker. She was active in her community and took classes at De Anza College in mathematics and piano performance. She also belonged to The Ladies of Carmel and donated to several non-profit groups, including funding an athletic scholarship at Santa Clara University. She served on the board of the Capital Campaign fund-raising committee for Our Lady of Fatima Villa in Los Gatos. In addition, she volunteered as a docent for the San Jose Historical Museum and was recording secretary for two years and later president of the Volunteer Council there.

There will be a rosary on Thursday, October 24 at 7:30 PM at the Lima Family Mortuary, located at 1315 Hollenbeck Ave, in Sunnyvale, California. The funeral services will be on Friday, October 25 at 10:30 AM at St. Joseph of Cupertino Church 10110 North DeAnza Boulevard in Cupertino, California. There will be a ceremony immediately afterwards at Gate of Heaven Cemetery and a gathering after that at Eileen's home.

Need: Someone with grace and good manners and who will not suddenly burst into tears to answer the telephone and the doorbell and to make calls. this could be accomplished when the family is out casket shopping and does not require interaction with the family if the volunteer chooses to avoid them. An individual may volunteer for as long or as short a time span as he or she may prefer. Please pass the word around to people you feel have grace and good manners (that's all of you) and whom you know want to help, as not everyone reads this page. thank you very much.

Dear Miss Manners:
I am at the age when a lot of my friends' parents are dying. Is it proper to attend a funeral of a parent I didn't know? My thoughts have been that I got to a funeral to honor the family members, i.e., my friend, who has lost a parent or sibling. I don't want to be improper on such a solemn occasion. But I love my friends dearly and would appreciate if they came to comfort me and acknowledge a death in my family, even if they didn't know my relative personally.

Gentle Reader:
Miss Manners seldom receives the question and answer in the same letter. Yours don't leave her much to do but congratulate you on your sensitivity and commend your attitude.

Martin, Judith; Miss Manners' Guide for the Turn - of - the - Millennium p. 671

Hutchins, Eileen F (Forge) � In Cupertino, California on October 18, 2002, at age 65 after a short bout with brain cancer. She is survived by her brother Chuck Forge, her husband Edward Hutchins, her son Paul Hutchins, her daughter Celeste Hutchins, her daughter-in-law Christine Denton and her cousin Sr. Mary Leahy. Eileen was raised in Cupertino and attended [schools]. She graduated from San Jose State University [in year] and worked for several years as a medical technologist at [hospitals]. In 1974, she married Edward Hutchins and moved to Mountain View. In 1975, she became a full time homemaker. In 1976, she moved to San Jose. Her daughter was born in 1976 and her son in 1978. She was an avid gardener of roses and belonged to the Rose Society. In [1982], she moved back to Cupertino. She was active in her community, volunteering for yard-duty at St. Simon�s School in Los Altos and she took classes at De Anza College in mathematics and piano performance. She also belonged to [charities] and donated to several non-profit groups, including establishing am athletic scholarship at Santa Clara University. [others?] She served on the board of the [something] fund-raising committee for the Fatima Convalescent Hospital in Los Gatos. In addition, she volunteered as a docent for the San Jose Historical Museum and was secretary and later president of the Volunteer Council there. [ladies of carmel]

The funeral services will be on [date and time] at St. Joseph of Cupertino Church 10110 North DeAnza Boulevard in Cupertino, California.

So I went with tiffany, Luoi and Christi to the Opera last night. Traffic was bad, we barely made it. The opera was looong. the music was repetitive and ponderous. It was like watching an elephant walk in a circle for six hours. It was so pious and slow, it felt like sitting in church for one of Father Faranna's sermons (God rest his soul). He was the pastor at one of my elementary schools and he would never write out his sermons ahead of time, so he would start with an idea and then meander slowly back to his usual riff about a "love affair with jesus christ." He talked baout it every week for years, hardly varrying his words, for super long. sometimes the mass lasted two hours. anyway, the opera was like that. Luoi fell asleep multiple times. The music was good, it just needed some (a lot) of editting. there was also an excellent performance by a one-wonged angel, who sung excellent and danced around so it actually looked like she was levitating when she walked. anyway, I was going to give it pretty good marks, despite a very problematic scene with a leper, when Christi told me the opera was written in 1983. There's no exceuse for something like that to have been written in 1983. So I left the opera, whishing I'd stayed by mom's bedsde instead, but knowing that if I'd skipped it, I would have only heard about the great reviews it got and been sorry I missed it.

And I went home, because it didn't get out until 11:30, and planned to return to my parents house in the morning. And the phone rang and it was my dad saying my mom was dead. Did I want to come right then? when should the body be moved? I told him not to blow out the candles and that I would come down in the morning and I didn't know about anything else. Yesterday, I had been thinking I sould go and pick out some clothes or something to dress my mom in when she died, but I had that opera to get off to. You have to leave rediculously early to get to the City at 6:30 from here.

So I'm at my parents house. My dad called to say he missed mom's car (which i borrowed to get to the opera) and could i please return it. He's trudging around like a zombie and throwing things away. He blew out all the candles. Margie is gone and with her has departed all of the ensure, all of the diapers, babywipes, matresspads, latex gloves and every other piece of medical equipment we owned except for the wheel chair and the walker. Maybe the wheelchair, i dunno. It's down the hall, next to the stair master. He called some people. Other numbers were lost in his insane cleanup. My dog has no dogfood. I don't know what to do with all these candles. I wanted to just let them burn out, but my dad wants them gone and i don't know what to do with them. I guess we'll burn them at my home. It's strange to relight them after she's dead.... Nothing is going according to his plans. All of the wills and stuff were made with the assumption that she would outlive him.

Logging Activated Thu Oct 17 15:07:57 2002 PDT
Jamitch teleports in.
Christi says, "hihi"
Christi says, "albertsons.."
Jamitch says, "kio okazis?"
Christi says, "so, we went to the albertson's last night, and they were having a sale on candles!"
Jamitch says, "uh oh.."
Christi says, "they were only $.70 each!"
JamitchD
Jamitch :D
Jamitch says, "how many did you get?"
Christi says, "so, we got 20 of them. and as we're loading them into the cart, this overweight guy with a comb over starts staring at us"
Jamitch says, "ok"
Christi says, "and comes over and says "are you girls starting a candle factory or something?"
Jamitch says, "???"
Christi says, "and we're like "no" and he stares at us some more, and then says "well, then why are you buying all these candles?"
Jamitch says, "ok"
Jamitch says, "so clst kicked his ass?"
Christi says, "so celeste looks at him for a second and is like "my mom is dying, and we're buying candles to put by her."
Christi says, "no no. the ass kicking comes later"
Jamitch says, "so what happened next?"
Christi says, "so, he continues to stare at us, and then is like "you know what? those candles won't help. only the love of jesus can cure your mother"
Christi pokes celeste
Jamitch says, "ack"
Christi says, "hehhehe"
Jamitch says, "i think i met the guy before"
Jamitch says, "one night at that albertsons"
Jamitch says, "with jenny"
Jamitch says, "he said "hello young christians!"
Christi says, "buying diet coke and way too much toilet paper?"
Christi says, "heh"
Jamitch says, "and "praise the lord for such a beautiful night!"
Jamitch says, "we pretended not to understand english"
Christi says, "yeah, that's him. he started yelling prayer at us, and telling us that he could lay hands on her and cure her"
Jamitch says, "then clst kicked his ass?"
Christi says, "so we said that would be great because she was missing half her brain and was in a coma."
Christi says, "but he wouldn't commit to that, and just promised to pray for us, and if we just read our bible hard enough we'd be able to cure her"
Christi says, "and we said thanks, and started off with our candles, and he starts back into the "the candles won't work! put back the candles! you need the bible not the candles!"
Jamitch says, "christ"
Christi says, "oh, and celeste told him that they had a non resesitation order for her mom, so we couldn't pray"
Christi says, "yes, so anyway, celeste told him that her mom was scared of the dark"
Jamitch says, "fuck"
Christi says, "and he told us to get a lamp"
Jamitch says, "what a jerk"
Christi says, "it was fun"
Christi says, "he was hilarious!\"
Christi says, "and he kept yelling prayers at us"
Jamitch says, "he's lucky tiffany wasn't there"
Jamitch says, "hehehehehehe"
Christi says, "he was praying and celeste was smirking at him, and he told celeste that he really believed in her love of god, she was such a good christian"
Jamitch says, "HAHAHAHA"
Christi says, "and off course wanting to know how well she knew her bible"
Christi says, "which is pretty darn well."

New babelfish languages supported (but still no esperanto): http://www.thetoque.com/021008/babelfish.htm

So, yesterday, I left Christi in the East Bay and came down to Cupertino with our only automobile (did you know that "east bay" is pig-latin for beast?). Christi convinced Tiffany and Luoi that they wanted to drive doen to Lucy's Tea House (La Teejo de Lusi) in Mountain View for dinner. So those three, Mitch, Vince, Tammy and I had tea and some food. I asked Mitch where I could buy candles in the area and he sent me to Albertsons on El Camino, in Sunnyvale, right next to highway 85 and that big empty mall that used to be an Emporium. They had hundreds of candles. We now have candles in reserve. We meant to buy one of each, but accidentally skipped a few. Even so, we ended up with twenty two candles. There were on sale for twenty percent off. I was extremely pleased. I was returning to the aisle with a grocery cart when a guy walked up and asked if we were buying one of each. I said heck yes, there's a lot of them and they're on sale to boot. He asked why we were getting them and I said my mom was sick.

"Lighting a candle isn't going to help her. Getting on your knees and praying to Jesus will help her." he said, but not immediately. He seemed harmless at first but quickly accelerated up to preaching us the word. He told us about how his daughters had the power to lay hands and heal. I said they were welcome to lay hands on my mom if they wanted and I was sure nobody would mind. We got lots of folks praying at her bedside. The more, the merrier. He decided it would better to pray right there in the grocery store. and he held christi and my hands and asked Jesus to bless us and my mom. It was the first time I'd ever prayed in the grocery store. The stock boy thought it was a bit odd. I think they guy was a bit embarassed at some point, cuz he got really quiet when folks started staring. I think that if you're going to proclaim the word in a grocery store, you ought to be out, loud and proud (to co-opt a queer saying), but I guess Jesus doesn't necessarily want people to stare at you if you're going to get thrown out of the store. But he really did not want us buying the candles, so maybe it would have been worth it to him. He asked if I thought the candles would heal her, and I said no. He said, "that's right, only jesus will heal her!" but why was I buying them anyway? "She's scared of the dark now, and an electric light is too much light, so these are perfect." He suggested a kerosene lamp. But there were none in the ethnic foods aisle.

He must have told us fifty stories of people being healed by prayer. Some guy died right there in a church pew at church and the congregation prayed for him and he walked out alive. I said, "oh, but we have a do not recessitate order for my mom." and he had oodles of stories about people praying instead of calling ambulences and being healed. Are fundamentalists more likely to die of heart attacks because of delaying treatment? There's a study and some graduate degrees waiting there.

Despite Jesus' amazing power to heal, this guy's cart was full of diet foods and he combed over his bald spot. He didn't say anything about praying instead of going to the barber. If jesus can cure his daughter's tumor, can't He grow hair on the top of this guy's head? What about the Jesus diet? Pray five times a day to cure obesity. One man, he said, had his asthma cured by prayer, but refused to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior. "And do you know where he is now?" "burning in hell!" I said. Hallelujia! (apparently it was a rhetorical question.) Anyway, it was getting late, so I said goodbye to him. At first he just seemed very lonely, but then I realized I did a bad thing by encouraging him.

The checkout woman said, "did you get one of every candle?" Had almost the same conversation again, except she said, "I guess she needs a lot of praying." and let it go. I don't understand why millitant atheists vince and Tammy want to stay in the south bay. People are praying all over the place.

Anyway, Margie is off at Albertsons right now, because she's very keen on candles and likes to buy them on sale. It seems she and her sister regularly burn twenty two of them in a week.

I came back to my parents house and refilled the distilled water on her oxygen generator and set my watch alarm to go off every two hours and tried to sleep. Mom's breathing was very rough and uneven. Its the sort of thing that makes me think she won't make it to morning, but she's as strong as a horse, so I wasn't sure. I turned up her oxygen, elevated her head, have her more morhpine, but none of these things helped. The hospice nurse arrived this morning while I was in the shower and discovered that I had cross-threaded the bubbler part when I refilled it with water, so my mom had gotten no oxygen during the night. Her breathing is fine now. Ooops. I feel bad about it. Mom is still going. Her kidneys are still going. She's part camel.

I'm going to see the Saint Francis opera in San Francisco tonight, unless something dramatic happens. My dad is encouraging me to stay in Berkeley tonight. He sarted that encouragement after I threatened to slug him if he said anything more about Jimmy Carter.

Apparently, there was a misunderstanding and my Dad has not cut the amount of meds going to my mom. Or that's what he says when I talked to him about it. And now there are six fewer candles burning than yesterday. I'm thinking mabe they should be replaced with scented candles. As dying people's systems break down, they stop being able to deal with toxins in their bodies and start to smell kind of toxic. I've been picking a lot of roses, but Cathy, the weekend attendant is allergic to roses, so i'll have to switch to something else by friday evening. anyway, if mom can't see the flowers, at least maybe she can smell them. Her sense of taste came back some a while ago. She lost it during radiation, but Sarah K gave me a book on remedies for cancer symptoms and it said that radiation aimed at the head or neck can make taste buds quit working. The remedy for that is zinc. So I gave my mom zinc every day as long as she ate food and she seemed to be able to taste more and more. Who knows what's going on with her now.

Last night, my dad came home with a pomegranite, so I ate a little bit of it. Then, I went to Esperanto class. Class got out early and then dinner was quicker than usual, so I was in bed early for a Tuesday night. The class was on the correlatives. I thought I knew all of them, but as I sat in class, I couldn't think of a one, except for kio, which is easy. We had pizza afterwards at Pizaa My Heart. It wasn't very good. Sarah D came to class, which I'm happy about. I kept telling her that it was a language for the proletariat. I think she'll find it useful for international organizing.

At some point this morning, Christi realized that Tiffany was in our living room. she came up and said goodmorning, then disappeared again. She's taking over cat-sitting duties. It was nice to see er, even if only for a few minutes. I slept till about noon and then spent an hour running around the house, recollecting things, like the toiletries bag which was returned to the bathroom and anyway, I'm prolly runnign slow. I feel much revived though.

And now I'm back here and my mom is still here, although five of her candles have burned out since yesterday. One of them is St. Martin of Tours, patron saint against leprosy. and the red spot on her back that went away has returned. Cooincidence?

Apparently my dad has been cutting back the amount of medication my mom has been receiving. He wants to only give her stuff every six hours instead of every four. And maybe she doesn't need lorazepam, maybe we should try torepositin her instead, so she's more comfortable. It's this sort of thinking that leads to the return of red spots. And once again, by the time he realizes he was wrong, it will be too late for him.

Oh my lord, I am tired. I understand it's pomegranite season. I would enjoy a pomegranite after an uninterrupted night's sleep. woke up many times. Held my mom's hand from 4:00 to 8:00 because she was scared. I worked out a way to prop up my arm and sleep at the same time to arrange this. I accidentally gave her some meds every 2 hours instead of every four, but it doesn't matter, because the dosage was less than half of the maximum. Except this afternoon I inadvertantly went .3ml over the max, but not all at once. anyway, she still looks pained.

the hospice nurse came by today and doubled the amount of lorazepam I could give mom after I complained that the previous maximum dose was not stop her from shaking sometimes. So maybe this other medication actually has a higher maximum dose also. Anyway, the new max dose of lorazepam is still not enough to stop her from twitching. Margie says all dying people twitch and nothing you give them will stop it. I think she's right on this.

Everyone comes over and marvels how tough my mom is. She's one tough woman. things I didn't know about my mom: hidden, inner toughness. I think I should have suspected. Don't know her as well as I should.

I'm thinking about going to esperanto class, except i get angsty when i'm away for too long, cuz what if something hapened or something? Sheesh. I am foolish. The hospice nurse had to call my mom's doctor to report that my mom has high blood pressure. Yeah, let's start her on high blood pressure medication right wawy! Otherwise, she might have a stroke or something! anyway, the doctor made a note of it and told us not to do anything. My mom has always had high blood pressure, especially when she's stressed. I imagine she must be stressed right now.

after more than a day of not reacting to anything, she nodded in responce to a couple of questions today. One of which had to do with drinking water. She's in favor of it. She's gotten so thirsty, she bites the glycerin sawbs we use on her mouth. So i gave her water and fruit juice 0.1 mililiter at a time. She hasn't had very much. I've brewed some mint tea for next time. I think the fruit juice might be hard on her stomach, even though she only had 4 mililiters of it or so. anyway, she liked the juice. She squeezed brother robert's hand when he said hello. she's tough.

I'm not tough. Christi wants to sleep at home tonight. Me too. But who will spring to the rescue if mom starts wet respirating again? Prolly not me. I had to make christi wear my watch because the watch alarm no longer wakes me up. My dad wanted to give me a louder alarm clock. I said, "but I don't want to wake up mom." he said, 'there's not much danger of that." but then she did wake up today a little bit, sort of, so you never know.

I talked to him about euthanasia. he says that because it might be a mistake one in a hundred times, it should never be done. I said, "do you think mom is going to wake up again?" no, this wouldn't be one of those times that it would be a mistake. but if you're going to have rules, you need to follow them all the time. I asked if this is like Socrates refusing to escape from prison, because it was important to always respect the law, even if it was wrong in this case. He says yes. My dad is definitely not a post-modernist. no situational ethics for him. The rules are rules and they're right or they wouldn't be rules. He votes libretarian, but he's a republican at heart. He says that people say that we're nicer to cats because we put them to sleep when they're suffering and dying, but we can also sell cats for vivesection, so uh... I didn't quite follow his logic. Some of the ways we treat pets differently than people are worse than how we treat people, so every way we treat cats differently than people must be worse? I don't know. He ran out of the house to work before he could clarify himself. By the time he might suspect that he's wrong, it will be too late... I'd respect his wishes anyway.

Mom tenatiously keeps hanging on. where was this fighting spirit earlier? when she first had brain surgery, she kept saying "I'm dying! I'm dying! It's all over! Everything is ruined!" now she just keeps going like the energizer bunny. Why is she changing her mind at the last minute? Why couldn't she have been determined earlier?

I got up every two hours last night to check on her. That went pretty well and it kept her pretty much out of pain. Except that I'm exhausted. Margie woke me up this morning and told me I'd better sit with my mom. She was breathing quickly and her pulse was racing, she was hot and sweaty. So I sat and held her hand for a while. My dad was leaving for work. He said, "call me if you think anything is about to happen." I said, "uh, dad...." but he was already out the door. And after a while, we realized it wasn't it and I went to take a shower. Vince and Tammy brought lunch, which was very nice. and then Christi decided maybe she had better head off to work too. I don't know how she could have the energy with me waking her up every two hours and sometimes trying to ask her questions, "does mom look like she's in pain?"

Mom hasn't been reacting really at all tofay. Her eyes are mostly closed. When they open, they're grayish and cloudy and don't focus. Or just for a moment. She'll hear my voice and look at me and almost focus and almst seem to recognize me. She's up to .4 ml of morphine every four hours and I'm thinking of going up to .5, because the .4 isn't enough a lot of the time. Her heart has been racing all day. Her temperature has been going up and down. she sweats off and on. It's hard to tell because I put ointment on her dry skin yesturday, so a lot of her is shiny. She twitches in sort of convulsions. Marie says not to worry about it, that everybody dying does that and te lorazepam won't stop it. I called hospice twice yesterday to ask questions. The first time was because I had given her all the lorazepam I could and she was still twitchy ("Give her some more.") and because she had a lot of wet respiration and I thought her mouth was filling up with fluid. ("Do you have a dentist tool or something I can use to get the fluid out of her mouth?" "Use a dry washcloth and after you get everything out, give her three drops of atripine.")

So right now she's lying in bed, with her eyes open but unseeing, breathing noisily (5 - 6 seconds apart), swallowing occasionally and thoughtfully raising her eyebrows periodically. Her heart is still beating very fast and her head is warm and has turned a highly alarming shade of blue. Her eyes are sunken in. She looks like you'd expect a corpse to look, but she's still hanging on. Almost nothing in her catheter bag today. Nobody even offered her water or anything. I doubt she'd take it and it would prolly just end up making her gugrle more while breathing. Oh she just looked highly paniced and clenched, so I've given her two more drops of lorazepam.

I went to get more oreos. you need munchies for your bedside vigils, especially as they head into their second week. Mom, you can't always run around changing your mind at the last minute! Why are you doing this to yourself? You're freaking us all out! I mean, we'll miss you and stuff. . .

christi went to the candle shop below her office this evening. She works in the Mission District. the proprietor saw her coming and re-opened the shop and handed her two BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) candles and said, "you need these." So now we have a whole bunch of candles. I got some essential oils to drop in them too. I was looking for ones to promote calm and peace and death. But all of them said they were for rejuvenation and exhiliration and energy and stuff like that. That's definitely not what we're looking for. So, I've been dropping in the candles drops of geranium (calm), rose (my mom loves roses), and vanilla (seems calming to me).

Mom's fingernails are getting bluish, that's suppossed to mean that the end is near. But her skin hasn't "broken down" yet. something alarming sounding that I'm not asking what it means. I'm sure it will happen soon. I know impatience is the wrong reaction. I don't like seeing her suffer. This can't go on much longer, since she never even woke up today. and thirst will get her if nothing else does. I think she's going to have to go through every possible bit of suffering before this is over. All the sufferings of Job will be hers. I woouldn't amkea dog go through this. I'd take it to the vert and have it put to sleep. But my mother I have to sit and watch suffer things I wouldn't make a cat endure. This is all fucked up. Listen up folks. If I'm unconscious on my deathbed, in pain with no chance of recovery, call up doctor Kevorkian. For real. Maybe I should call my mom's doctor tomorrow. I wonder how my dad would react.... I don't know if I want to have that coversation with him. He's extra weird right now (I'm sure I am too) and we're kind of avoiding each other. I wish the social worker would come talk to him about his feelings or something, cuz I don't want to. Maybe I should call her. And I'm not sleeping.

My mom never wants me to leave when I come visit. As soon as it's dark, she'd say, "you can't go home this late, you'd better just stay over." Well, now she's got me here....

Candles

I keep asking for candles and they keep arriving (I'm still asking). this is what we have now:
burned out:
homemade St Timothy
St Jude
very low:
BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary)
St John the bapist (russian icon printed out and glued to candle)
low:
head shakra
halfway:
St Martin of Tours
The Sacred Heart of Mary
Holy Spirit, Gaurdian Angel;
pretty high:
St Alex
St Jude
The miraculous Virgin Mary
just lit:
Foreheard shakra
Neck shakra
Nice candle (coated by christi in rainbow rice paper) that unfortunately lacks a wick, which I've just stuck a long fireplace match into with the hope it would behave like a wick

Well, my mom was awake yesturday morning, but she was less active through the day. She never once removed the oxygen line from her nose. It's got to still be itching her. Her breathing had been a little rough off and on. When I went to bed, I was listening for "wet respiration." That's when fluid gets in people's throats and they rattle or gurgle. I thought I heard a hint of it, but nobody else did. At 3:00 AM, all of the sudden, she started making sounds like an espresso machine. Very loud, alarming gurgles. I know how to treat this, but I sent Christi off running for Cathy anyway. She says that usually people with wet respiration are sweaty and especially wet around the mouth. Anyway, we gave my mom a drop of the medicine for it and she quieted down. It was her first bit of it.

She's been getting more of it since. None of the super-loud gurgling again, but gurgling anyway. The medicine is supossed to work immediately, but she just got a drop and is still gurgling away. Maybe she needs more, maybe we should wait a bit. This afternoon, she got the sweaty, wet mouth thing as described, but it doesn't seem to be any sort of prerequisite. She's also maxed out on morphine doses and went over sedative doses. She starts freaking out half an hour before she can get more morphine. Sarah K. says that some of that is withdrawl. Medical Marijuana is illegal under federal law because it has a side effect of euphoria. Morphine has all the euphoria and is addictive to boot, but it's legal. Not that I want it to be made illegal. I just wish it didn't give mom withdrawl, or lose it's effectiveness so quickly. Some of it is my mom being in more pain. Some is that she just needs more to stay at the same level. She's in an educational video on drugs or something. It does suck as much as they say. But she's not walking the street yet or anything.

My dad has been telling everyone all week that my mom would live until tuesday. I'd been silently mocking it, but who knows, maybe she will, at least until 3:00 AM. We'd been wondering how my dad would escape to work on the weekend. Apparently, he's been sitting in front of his computer, at the other end of the house, all day. Cathy feels bad for him.

I wish my mom would stop gurgling. Her friend says that since she got sick so fast and it was mostly a brain-disease, her internal organs are in better shape than most dying people and so she's hanging on longer. I wish she'd hurry up and die. It sounds awful. If we were in Oregon, she wouldn't have to keep suffering. But I can't say definitely that she would have done the paperwork to allow her doctor the euthanize her. Catholics are pro-suffering, they don't go for euthanasia. Mother Thersa apparently spoke in favor of the sufferings of the poor because more suffering makes the workd holier. It's that whole pro-penance thing. Christi got a candle of Saint Alex, because it was a pink candle and he was wearing pink. turns out he's the patron saint of warding off satan. He was born a rich guy in Roman times, but ran away on the night of his wedding to be a poor and holy beggar. He finally ended up living in his parents house off of the charity they routinely offered the poor. The servants abused him terribly and only on his death did anyone discover that he was really the son. Talk about ungrateful children. And what about his poor wife. Did they have anullments back then?

Needs

• Candles: bring them (votive type in glass) or light them at home
• Oreos

Thank you to providers of candles, comfort food, coffee, takers of phillip glass tickets and writers of email.

Mom is still alive and not kicking. We give her lorazapam whenever she starts kicking. We have her morphine every 4 hours last night and she slept much better. She woke up at five and started reaching again. She was exceptionally alert this morning and her eyes were bright. She told Christi, "I've got to go." or "I'm going to go." Christi said "where are you going?" Mom's been saying the I've got to go thing for weeks, so it may not mean anything. I'm trying to feel encouraged. A nice nun came over to pray today. Christi called her after being annoyed with the hospice volunteer. No howling wolves were invoked. It was ok.

Mom's been awake several times today. Her breathing isn't so great, but no near-death alarms have gone off. I haven't really been crying today. I looked up eco-caskets online. There's a company that makes them. Jean send out email asking people where to buy them in the area. They might be in sebastapool. where is sebastapool?

Nobody came by today. That's ok, but it would be nice if my uncle and brother would come.

Nothing new. I'm kind of tired.

Needs

• Candles: bring them (the kind in tall glass thingees) or light them at home
• We're out of oreos and Mother's frosted oatmeal cookies
• Fair trade coffee. my dad's coffee sucks
• Fair trade chocolate
• vegan comfort food
• Please ask for the phillip glass tickets for sunday and monday

None of these needs are especially pressing. except for candles. light a candle.

A few hours ago, my mom started breathing roughly. I gave her some morphine to calm it down. That takes a half hour to work. But as her breathing was getting rougher and more irregular, her pulse was speeding up. She was warm and sweaty. We called Paul. Dad, Christi, Cathy and I stood around and stared at Mom. then her breathing calmed down and her pulse returned to normal. We called back Paul and told him to come to dinner. He's got some alarming voice mail. I guess we should have waited a bit to call.

Mitch says, "wow she's a real fighter."

Mom's pain seems to have subsided at least. She's somewhat awake. She's fighting. She's fighting a losing battle. But she'll make up her mind. My dad is convinced she'll die on tuesday. Maybe she's trying to hold out. He really wants her to hold out. so do my brother and uncle. Margie told her yesterday, "Baby, go home." She's getting mixed messages. I wish I'd made her some pot tinctures. She could take a few drops. It would make her feel better. Maybe give her courage. the nearest CBC is in hayward, I think. I can't send anyone in my stead. It would also increase her heartrate, so maybe it's not the thing for her now. It's a moot point.

Christi and I went to wholefoods to buy dish soap. We got a head shakra candle. Perhaps it's a bit late for it now. One of the checkers at the store is a Mills student. She was in German House with me. I made her cry. I scare the horses. I should not go out in public.

I wonder if there are eco caskets. I wonder how one would get one on short notice. I think most enviromentalists are creamated.

FAQ

1. Ack, I don't know what to do! Bring by candles. Or light some. We've got many leftovers and so are ok on the food front. Many people say, "let me know if there is anything i can do." if you're serious, repeat it a few times, maybe make some suggestions as to what sort of thing you have in mind. ("i can bring food." "my uncle is a cascet wholesaler and he's got the new eco-casket...")
2. I don't know what I should say. Inquiries are good. (as in: "how are you doing? how's your mom? how's your family?") "I'm sorry." is a great standby. Say nice things. I dunno.
3. I'm not in the southbay. Should I send email? I like email as long as it's not spam. Don't send spam. Christi likes email too.

Last night, my mom woke up in pain at 3:00 AM and I held her hand, waiting for the morphine to work until 4:30 AM, dropping off intermittantly. It should only take half an hour to work. I need a clock, I didn't know it was an hour and a half. At 4:30 we gave her a sedative and she went to sleep and I went to sleep. She was gasping for air as she went to sleep that night. Only every third breath or so seemed to be able to get through. But she's still here this morning. The hospice nurse noted that her eyes are less bright. We take this day by day, hour by hour. I asked mom last night what she was waiting for and she said she was "terrified." That's legitimate. Everybody does what she's doing, but none of them come back and say anything about it. We'll all do it, but with noone to guide us, really.

Paul came over this morning while my mom was appropriately medicated for pain (keeping up my proud tradition of lying in her blog, I said we were successfully controlling her pain with meducation. I'm not sure we're very successful. Right now, I'm waiting for the sedative to kick in because she's unsettled and maybe in pain, I'm not sure and anyway, she can't take that much more morphine right now, so I'll wait and see if the lorazepam helps and if it doesn't then i'll give her more morphine and she'll be at the limit she can receive. But when paul was here, she was cheerful, alert (so to speak) and not in much pain). He held her hand for a while. She didn't really look at him. He said he had to go give a friend a ride home from knee surgery and he would probably be back later. It's a good excuse, at least.

One of the hospice volunteers was here earlier. She's the one that used to read to my mom from the bible. One day, my mom told her "go to hell." Mom wasn't doing that well that week. It may have been her only sentence. So she quit reading the bible that day and talked to her instead. Today, my mom can't defend herself as well. The woman had us all stand around and read us poetry that prominently featured several endangered species and other parts of nature being very happy to see someone's spirit set free. It made me cry. I hate having my emotions manippulated by art that isn't really up to the task. Lone wolfs on the tundra may or may not howl out welcome to dead folks, but if you're going to talk about it, it should get more than a stanza instead of going directly on to hawks, eagles and rainbows. The Oh Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack is more up to the task. Even featuring a song about a daughter saying goodbye to her mother.

I wish I could do something to help my mom. I wish she didn't have to go alone. I wish it didn't have to hurt her. I wish she was older. I think she's fighting off deatn like we fight of sleep.

People keep asking if they can bring anything. Saint candles. Any saint. If you can't bring a candle, light one at home.

The hospice nurse showed up this afternoon and was surprised at how alert my mom seemed. We put her on an egg crate matress pad, learned how to irrigate her catheter, were once again instructed not to give her food or water. Margie continues to ofer my mom food and water tho. My mom refuses most of the time, but she's been having a few swallows of fruit juice a day. I've been putting eyedroppers full of milk thistle extract in her juice. Margie credits them to my mom's being alert.

You have to understand that when I say alert, I'm contrasting with total unconsciousness. I'm talking about her eyes being open, not her having full coversations. But she was talking; she was waiting for something. Maybe Chuck and Paul.

Chuck showed up in the afternoon, stayed a while. He was scared to hold her hand, but he still stayed in the room with her and talked quietly, not really to her, but she knew he was there. Paul told my dad he would come at 4:00. Chuck left at 4:15. We kept telling my mom Paul was coming and she would smile broadly. But she got more and more agitated. She got out the whole sentence, "when is he coming?"

At 7:00, while my mom's pain was greater than the morphine could dull, I reached Paul on the phone. He wanted to come in the morning since he was asleep. I told him no, come right now. christi grabbed away the phone and started yelling at him. He hung up. we called back and he didn't answer. We called Mitch and asked him to come over to take Christi and to go drag Paul from his house. My dad reached Paul's housemate on the phone, who said Paul had left to come here. Mom got more pain medicine but was still agitated. She was tense. She wanted to know where he was. We gave her more sedative. It started working right before my brother arrived. Or perhaps his arrival calmed her down.

Paul is asleep on the couch. My dad is in his room. He's pulled all of the family photos out of his dresser on to the floor. Margie is sewing up her pants, then puttering around the kitchen, then checking on things around the kitchen, out of the way but maybe nervous. Christi is with Mitch and Sarah D off someplace getting takeout food. They'll bring it back and some people will eat in the kitchen or the family room or the dining room. It's probable that my dad and I will both decline to eat with them. My mom is lying in bed. She's had morphine, which in addition to killing pain, opens air passageways. Her bed is tilted up so high that she's almost sitting upright, which also helps breathing. Her oxygen in turned up to 4 litres per minute, the highest flow we're allowed. My mom is breathing laboriously, snoring and almost gurgling, occasionally gasping. I've left her side to sit below the foot of her bed and type this. I don't know why.

She's got nothing left to wait for. Everyone has been here and said everything they're going to say. It's ok for her to go now. I want to tell her that, but my throat closes up if I even think the words. But I still will it at her, hoping she'll read my mind.

We have an array of holy candles. The one burning the lowest is St. Jude the Apostle, patron saint of lost causes. I thought the candle would be out yesturday, but it's still burning. Even his candle is a lost cause. Which will burn longer, the fire in it or the fire in her? They both have little fuel left.

My fuel is oreos. I've eaten a bag of them today. And had a cup of orange juice. Maybe I'll have some dinner. I've called my neighbor to water my plants and feed my cat. We're still waiting here. Death is ritual. Family member gather and wait. Friends come and say things and go. Other friends bring food and then go, or perhaps cluster. Last night they watched a silent movie on Christi's laptop. The ritual falls into place on it's own. People bring flowers, cards, prayers. Bits of religousness descend on you. Things are briught thought to be spiritually helpful to the dying and their family, like more holy candles, or relics or bags of oreos. The dying also know their part without being told. Everything my mom is doing is what everyone does. The dying move their arms, reaching up and out towards death and then bringing their arm around in a defensive move against death's blow. Horrified and fascinated, she's making up her mind. She's waiting for whatever she needs to wait for, for as long as she can wait before it becomes too much. Her body hurts her, it's failing her. She reaches towards the other side and finally, she must make the descision to cross over. It's too compelling to resit for long. Her body cannot hold her here.

Perhaps she still waits. Perhaps she's decided to continue on the journey her body is taking her on. She breathes like she's decided to go. Perhaps she could be woken back up and persevere for a while longer, paying for each moment in additional pain. But maybe every need has been met. Every request has been filled or else deemed not important enough to delay her. So I sit and wait. I haven't written her biography. I'll ask my godmother for help when the time comes. The hospice nurse says this is a sacred time for my mom: the descision, the waiting. And so we wait for the ritual to finish. It's ok mom, you can go.

Waiting waiting waiting. The pamphlet that hospice gave us says that people often have a surge of energy a couple of days or a couple of hours before they die. Most people use the time to say goodbye. Yesturday may have been mom's surge of energy. She was kind of wakeful this morning, but then she got a bath and now is tired. waiting waiting. i wonder what she is waiting for. she's not in pain. there's no hurry. maybe she wants her son or her brother to show up first. but there's a limit on how long she can wait. My uncle has pledged to come "soon." My brother will come "later," probably "today," after I pushed him, saying there wasn't any later, or at least not very much. My dad has decided not to move mom. He didn't tell me that, he told the social worker. Group therapy with my father would be a lot of fun. Everytime the social worker asked me or christi how we felt about something, my dad would interrupt as soon as we started to answer. usually with some inccorect factual thingee. He doesn't like talking about feelings I guess. The social worker has the worst job ever. She was very graceful as my father lectured her on the dying process (he doesn't know what he's talking about) and the shortcomings of the medical field (still mostly clueless) and finally the mismanagement of the San Jose symphony (strangely not at all clueless, but definitely short on facts).

So we're waiting. I made muffins. I hope people come over because nobody wants to eat the muffins. A nun came today and a friend of my mom who decided that maybe it was time to finally come over a for a visit. yep. It's finally time. the nun was very nice. she brought roses and a relic of the founder of their order. I didn't ask what the relic was exactly, it didn't seem right. An elbow? An eyeball? It's a very small package. It's a little plastic vinyl folder, about the size of a breast cancer stamp when closed. It opens up to a portrait of the founder and a short prayer. Christi examined the contents of the folder and din't find any bits of bone or anything. I mentioned this to my dad and he said that a relic is anything the holy person touched. The I noticed that the portrait had "material placed in her coffin" printed below it. I thought catholics were more serious about relics. Soon this whole house and everything in it will be relics. soon. waiting waiting.

Christi and I slept on the couhc in the living room last night, next to the hospital bed. the couch is lumpy and short. My back hurts. My mom woke up at 3:00 am. I held her hand. We got her a blanket. I think somebody ought to be sitting next to her whenever she's awake. So right now it's christi's turn, but shen I give back the laptop, it'll be my turn. It won't be anyone else's turn, since everyone else is fleeing. Even the man who decided it was finally time for a visit barely touched her arm and then ran away. It's ok, I think she appreciates it anyway.

A couple days ago, I was listening to the soundtrack for Oh Brother, Where Art Thou and almost all the songs on it are about death. They're all period songs. Then people sang and talked about death and tried to pretend sex didn't exist. Now we sing and talk about sex and try to pretend death doesn't exist. Our culture can only handle one great mystery at a time, I guess. I was showing my mom pictures of chocolate from a book called Desserts to Die For not thinking maybe the title was inappropriate. I wouldn't have noticed it except that it was shelved next to the Weight Watchers cookbook. She's not thinking about food. She doesn't want water, she doesn't want food. She doesn't want to take her pills. The pharmacy is supposed to be delivering a suppository of her medication today. They were supposed to bring it two days ago, but they forgot. Maybe they'll forget it again. My dad is upset, he wants mom to drink. He wants her to want to drink. Her cathater line is bloody. Margie says that's normal for people when they die. She has hidden the line from view of my dad because she knows it will panic him. He's eating peanuts obsessively. He must have eaten ten pounds of peanuts on the last week. unsalted.

He's pacing. Mom's breathing steadily and looking around. Margie is resting from having to wake up every two hours to check on mom. She needs to be rolled from side to side, since a sore is developing. My eyes are red from crying. I need sunglasses or something. I need something. It's my turn to go hold mom's hand.

puppies and kittens

I am at my perents house. christi is sleeping on the sofa. margie is in a nother room praying or watching soap operas. my mom is sleeping, waking up just to try to remove the oxygen line from her nose or reach for invisible things overhead. my dad is at work. when i showed up here this morning, he was gone already. the chaplain of hospice called and said she wanted to talk to dad today. he came home for lunch and ate some meat (he seems to be on the atkins diet - maybe not on purpose) and i said the chaplian was coming. my dad said he could only skip work for things that were really important. um... like now? no, like really important. i wonder what could be more imporant than now. i don't really want to find out. it would be bad. i told him about the family medical leave act and he said he had his coworkers to think of. i bet they really love having him come into every day. as fun as he normally is (note: irony) he must be extra great to hang around now. i bet they're all scared of him.

Mom is more alert than yesturday. She's getting 50% more oxygen streamed in her nose. the hospice people tell us not to give her water, so she's drying out like a piece of dried fruit with out the sun. She's talking a bit today. the hospice people tell us to talk to her, but i don't know what to say. finally, i said, "you did a good job raising your daughter." and she said, "thank you." she answers yes or no questions when margie asks them.

My dad still wants to move her. he was upset when his mother was relocated. she was at el camino hospital and was clearly going to die and they decided she had to leave. so we had to find a place for her to go. she got moved to a convalescent hospital and died later the same day. Nobody dying wants to bounce around in the back of an ambulence. Actually, really very few people want to bounce around in the back of an ambulence at all. But my dad is as frightened as a bunny rabbit and wants to send her away. he said he didn't want her sleeping (or dying) in their bedroom, so we moved her to the living room. it was a massive pain. she can't stand at all on her own. margie halted to get her lifting belt, but my dad was intent and was going to do it alone. lifting from the back and not the knees. he's going to destroy his back and for what? the whole moving experience was uncomfortable for her and now he wants to repeat it on a much larger scale. but it's his call, not mine.

My mom is on the board of directors of a convalescent hospital. the one my grandma went to. it makes it hard to make an argument that she would opposed to moving there. when mom first came home from the hospital, she asked what was going on so i told her everything. she was upset. "my life is ruined. it's over." she kept repeating and it got very irritating very quickly. and iw as irritated at her, but i had to follow her everywhere, because her balance was poor and she might have fallen or wandered off or had some other calamity befall her. She was irrated at being followed. Her mantra changed from "everything is ruined." to "you ruined everything." because she was forgetting stuff and was unhappy and couldn't remember why and certainly didn't want her daughter telling her what to do. She told my dad that day that she wanted to move to fatima for the rest of her life rather than have me follow her around. so maybe she would rather be there. but we'd go to all the trouble of arranging an ambulence ride and she's die when? the next day? later that day? on the ride over?

My dad has decided not to cremate my mom. This wouldn't bother me except he made that descision when i told him that christi's dad (a potter) could make an urn for my mom. The prospect of a handmade urn by a friend i guess is threatening somehow. both my grandmothers were creamated. he creamted his own mom, why not his wife? it's got to be the urn. i told him he could say no and pick something else, but he's been set on burial. he beleives that he is fully rational. his being an engineer makes him fully left brained and thus completely able to deal with any cirsis without becoming an emotional wreck. right.

I had opera tickets for tonight. i couldn't switch them on such short notice, so i'm getting a tax write-off instead. but last night my dad irritated me and i went to esperanto class. it was stupid. they're doing the lesson on affixes. i know almost all the affixes, becaise it was the fourth time i've had that lesson. everytime somebody new comes along, we do affixes again. anyway, i feel like someone should be at my mother's side, but i went to class to avoid my dad. so maybe i'll regret sacrificing my tickets to the irs.

No sign of my brother or my uncle. My uncle's phone was off the hook all day yesturday. One day all of these males i'm related to will die. But first they will spend their last days being transported by ambulence from low-budget nursing home to low-budjet nursing home with noone to visit them and then they will neither be buried or creamated but simply tossed in the bay. These bad vibes i'm projecting are disturbing my mom. puppies and kittens. puppies and kittens. puppies and kittens.

Matthew put little three-plug splitters all over my house. i need some of them around my parents house. i had to unplug the computer speakers to plug in the hospital bed and something else to plug in the oxygen generator. no entertainment around here. mom is in the living room, in a hospital bed. she's actually not acting very differently than she was a few days earlier. she was unengaged then too and flailed around her arm towards some invisible object above her and looked around concernedly. now she does all of those things but her eyes are closed and she sleeps real sleep more. The hospice nurse said, "I'll see you thursday unless your mom dies first."

The other shortage around here is concentrated frozen orange juice. my house is swimming in it. i had ordered box delivery of three OJ cans a week, but it was based on outdated calculations of how much oj i used to drink. so i cut it back to a can a week. that still is a bit high, only because i am lazy about washin gthe pitcher. if we had magic elves washing the pitcher, i'd drink a can a wek. so my home has a big excess and my parent's home, soon to be just my dad's home has none. or few. i didn't check. they always buy minute maid which is bitter and a cocacola product and i don't like think about pesticides, banana republics and opressed workers over my oj, sicne i drink it in the morning right off. i want to wait until after the comics.

Oj is also an afternoon drink. it's the ultimate in comfort food. it's full of sugar and empty calories. it's only saving grace is probably vitamin c and sometimes calcium, which i don't eat enough of. but empty calories are better than no calories. and i really want a glass of oj right now, since i've been crying all day. and i want the sugar too. Even the organic apple juice is all gone. i poured myself the last glass of it and discovered it was tea. medicinal tea t promote calm. so i drank it anyway.

I think I am going to esperanto class tonight. but i don't want to go to the opera tomorrow. i'm not even sure about class tonight. actually, i don't want to go.

My mom is lying dying and i'm watching general hospital. i know the names of several people in it now. i didn't even ask the hospice nurse about steroids. how long has she got? a week? two? it's soon. nobody on general hospital dies this way. for being around a hospital, they have remarkably few sick people. the occassional "accident" victim (was it really an accident?) more amnesia that you can shake a stick at, even cancer sometimes, but not this kind. tv cancer people alsways get to make a sensible goodbye and then die painlessly. brain cancer is pretty painless, tho. but no sensible goodbyes. when my mom was in the hospital and before she had an operation, she was on steroids and our family had gathered. she thought she was going to die that night. she was trying to have a deathbed scene. she was talking about me inheritting her jewlry, but she couldn't talk. we could figure out what she was saying eventually, but when we realized the gist, we stopped playing along. we knew she'd be alive in the morning. the next day, she kept repeating, "i thought i was cooked!" she was so happy and surprised to still be alive. we've never repated that deathbed scene. i don't know what her last wants and will is. i don't care very much about how her stuff will be divided up. i certainly don't need a year's salry worth of shop-at-home jewlry. somebody on general hospital has been shot. he's kidnapped a doctor to take out the bullet. none of these people have jobs. even the doctors don't show up to work or do surgery except when they're captive. they don't even die. they just disappear for a season and then whoops, the wrong guy has been buried or something. and they have perfect hair in the hospital. people with head injuries don't get shaved patches. but despite all this wonderfulness and their perfect hair, they're always unhappy. half the time they're trying to kill each other. don't they know it's futile? these people hardly ever die. yet all the tv commercials are for pharmaceuticals. medicine to fight side fx of chemo. nothing to forestall death. the hospice nurse says a couple of days.

My mom is still sleeping. Her eyes move when she sleeps, so she might be dreaming. Apparently, she woke up for a few minutes this morning and recognized my dad. She hadn't been recognizing him for a while. He had a beard for 30+ years and then a year or two ago he decided it made him look old and shaved it off. I'm still not used to it. My mom apparently wasn't used to it either, so he started growing it back. It's about a centimeter long now. So this morning, my mom got a look of recognition and touched his beard. That was during the five minutes of being awake she had today. She can still drink out of juice boxes even though she's asleep. Drinking out of a straw is sort of automatic, I guess. The juice boxes have eight ounces of liquid and 110 Calories. Soy Dream Enriched has 150 Calories per eight ounces, but we're out of that. Soy Dream Chocolate Enriched has 220 Calories, but my mom was starting to get a rash because she is mildly allergic to chocolate and was getting loads of it in milk, soy milk, ensure, scandi shake and pudding everyday, so we stopped giving her chcolate. Her rash is gone, but she had the beginings of a bedsore this morning. Margie is rolling her from side to side every so often to nip this in the bud and stop formations of new ones. Anyway, whole milk has 160 Calories in 8 ounces, ensure has 250 Calories in eight ounces and ensure plus has 350 calories in eight ounces, but none of those come in juice boxes, so she probably can't drink them anyway.
We're asking hospice tomorrow about giving mom steroids. It's my suggestion, but I'm not 100% sure it's a good idea. It's forestalling the inevitable, I guess. Is it a good idea to wake her up with chemicals, just to have her dragged back down again in a week (maybe more time, maybe less)? I have the idea that if she woke back up, her friends could rush in for a last minute visit, but how many of them would and how many of them would be too scared? Would her brother come? Would her son? Is it just stupid denial on my part to want to do this thing? My dad wants to ship her off to a convalescent hospital, because it's hard for him to be around her when she's in a near coma. He think she doesn't get anything out of his presence and of course, it's difficult for him. So waking her up for a week delays her being shipped off to fatima for a week. I'm trying to suggest a compromise. Maybe she could be put in a hospital bed or something. Right now, they still sleep in the same bed, only she sleeps a lot more than him in it.
All of this is very disturbing. It was hard enough dealing with this when my mom was still awake. I think if I had a job, I would have been fired by now. I guess I don't work for the iguana foundation anymore.
And Chimera seems to have lost the publish button. hrm, must cut and paste this to IE. I guess blogger must have signed some deal with microsoft to use stupid IE-only javascript tags. bleah. it's against the whole idea of the internet. somebody sais that people who write single-browser specific web pages are people who yearn for the days that you couldn't open a mac text document on a pc and vice versa.

I'm trying out chimera to post this update. it's a netscape browser, based on mozilla code but optomized for osx. normally, i post updates with internet explorer. i don't like internet explorer or mozilla, i like omniweb. but some of the java script at blogger.com is weird and omniweb can't do it. it's the only thing it can't do that i've found. conversely, internet explorer messes up the rollovers at ircam.fr, so don't do thiking omniweb is inferior. anyway, if this posting works, then i'll stop using ie altogther and start using chimera for this one website . . . at least until an omniweb update comes out. Mitch's housemate, Juraj (kiu micxjo havas senmortantan amon por) works on mozilla, so he said i should check it out. now i am doing so. it's nice when people take pride in their work and their companies. when i worked at that same company, i was mostly just embarrased about it, cuz of some of their other services.

Hrm, my mom has been asleep for the last 3 days. we just got her a reclining wheelchair. it's been like this all along. as soon as we figure out how to deal with whatever stage she's in, she moves on to the next one. I used to make a big deal about saying doobye to her, getting all maudalin about when the last time she was going to be able to say goodbye would happen. well, i made such a big deal about it that, until she got sleepy, everytime my dad or i or anyone kissed her, she would say "goodbye, have a good night. i love you." so i realized it was a stupid thing to make a bid deal about it. but maybe it had meaning to her. anyway, last time she was awake i didn't make a big deal about it and now she's asleep. i wasn't really paying enough attention to her. my dad is acting like it is a huge change that she's sleepy all the time, but she was pretty unengaged the last time i saw her awake. anyway, if she can't wake up she can't swallow medicine. my dad wants to wait until tuesday to talk to the hospice nurse about getting a suppository form of the anti-seizure medicine, because the nurse has an appointment for tuesday. i think he should give them a call today or tomorrow. just because she hasn't had a seizure yet doesn't mean that she won't have one. i don't understand his motive for waiting. does he think that if they don't witness it, maybe it's not real yet? maybe it will reverse itself if we refuse to adjust? or maybe he's noticed that she changes when we adjust and if we respond to her being unconscious, she'll die. He asked me to start writing a biography of her. goodness, i have no idea what to write. My mom was born a long time ago and went to college and got a job and was very happy and then gave it all up to get married and have ungrateful children. that's her autobiography from my childhood, especially when i was being uncooperative. She was a med tech, which meant she drew people's blood and then looked at it for abnormalities and sometimes diagnosed diseases based on the blood samples. She said, "I had doctors coming to me for advice. Doctors! Now it's 'Where's my socks?'" Um, then she inheritted a lot of money and became involved in 327467312649 charities and suddenly started making friends thanks to the miracle of anti-depressants. Then, just as she was getting into leadership roles in all of her organizations and finally found her footing, she got a brain tumor. everybody in the world thought she was super sweet and loved her, but very few of them came to visit. her family members avoided seeing her. the end.

all you people who think dogs are gross and cats arent: (christi, don't read this)
I was leaving yesturday and just as i was opening the door, a cat threw up. I told myself that the cat was actually going to throw up 5 minutes in the future and i would not discover it until i got home and i left with the dog. when i got back, the cat barf was gone.
now all of you cat people go on and on about cats being self-cleaning and how dogs are stinky and will eat anything. looks like cats have disgusting diets too. or maybe they're just very very clean. yuck.

Call up monday and tell folks you're opposed to war:

In California, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer can be reached at:
 
Feinstein
Tel: 415-393-0707 or 202-224-3841 (in Washington DC)
Fax: 415-393-0710
Email: senator@feinstein.senate.gov
 
Boxer
Tel: 415-403-0100 or 202-224-3841 (in Washington DC)
Fax: 415-956-6901
Email: senator@boxer.senate.gov
 
President Bush's office can be reached at:
Tel: 202-456-1414
Fax: 202-456-2461
Email: president@whitehouse.gov
 
Note the local numbers. The local voicemailbox is full right now.

My favorite cousin (who is actually first cousin to my grandmother (god rest her soul)) wrote a letter to my mom that reminisces about their shared experiences when they were 16 or 17. Uh... except for the 20+ year age difference.... and it contains the sentence "As I recall, your dad was the first to advertise coffee on the radio." My relations are exhibitting a disturbing lack of robustness.
I'm listening to a live radio stream from Fausto at Shirley and Spinoza (http://www.compound-eye.org/radio/index.htm). Apparently this is the first time he's live streamed, so he's excited. This is the radio station responcible for my US radio priemere. No really.