A Christmas Visit

My Other Brother and his kids (two nephews (both adult, both active Navy), one niece (pre-teen)) came down to visit for a couple of days. We had a belated Christmas present opening session, watched "Mr. Popper's Penguins" (a gift from the niece), played a round of mini-golf (Other Brother beat me by one stroke) and ordered in Chinese for dinner.

Mom was thrilled to have the company and the attention, although she did have to ask people to identify themselves every now and then.

They're all gone again now and the energy level in the house is slowly subsiding back to normal.

Glimpses Into the Future

Mom has become aware of Facebook.

With her Alzheimer's induced OCD tendencies, she reads advertisements in the newspaper down to the finest of fine print. She reads every word. She doesn't necessarily understand what she reads, but she reads it. Every. Word.

So, lately, she's noticed references to "Follow Us On Facebook" on everything from hype by the local mega-deal car sales lot to coupons for dish detergent, to the local pool cleaner. She doesn't get detail from TV ads (images go by too fast for her) so I'm not sure if she's noticed any references there, yet. And I doubt she'd recognize the  logo.

I've explained the general concept to her, and the fact that it's huge, and that I and my Other Brother and his two eldest kids and his ex- plus a whole bunch of other people she used to know (although not of her generation) are on it, and she sort-of gets it.

She gets it enough to wonder how it makes any money if they don't charge for using it. So that's something.

So far, at least, she hasn't noticed the Twitter logos. I'd hate trying to explain the concept behind that.

Living in the Moment, Extreme Edition

We had a Merry Christmas.

It being Sunday, I fixed French toast for Mom and myself. We then waited until my brother arose (normally not before noon because of his work but this time because he was up late wrapping presents) before opening the gifts.

Mom was confused over who gave what to whom and who received what from whom. Since she does not go out shopping any more, her gifts to us were bought by us (me for my brother, him for me) with her money. It's not easy trying to explain on-line shopping and express shipping to an Alzheimer's afflicted 91+ year-old. She kept insisting there were three small presents still to give and rearranging three sheets of writing paper on her table until my brother got out her checkbook and let her sign three $20 checks to each of her sons (my brother, myself and the middle one who will be down to visit this week with his kids). Then she was happy.

For dinner that evening, we had a delicious medium rare standing rib roast with Yorkshire pudding, garlic laced mashed potatoes, pickled mushrooms and summer squash sauteed with onions and grape tomatoes. And a bottle of 16-year-old Merlot found in the back of the cupboard (surprisingly still good despite the cork breaking when I attempted to open it). We topped it all off with apple pie and vanilla ice cream.

Mom's ice cream was melting while she ate the pie so I reminded her that the point was to eat them together which she did. When she was done we asked her if she wanted more and she said, "Just some ice cream," so I brought her seconds. When that was gone we asked if she'd had enough now to which she replied "Oh, yes! A prodigious plenty!"

We laughed. "Well, no wonder," my brother said. "You had two desserts!"

"No! When did that happen?"

"Just now. You had pie and ice cream and then more ice cream."

"What pie? I didn't have any pie. You boys are pulling my ear!"

We described in loving detail how we had offered her apple pie for dessert, which she accepted, and then the option of either whipped cream or ice cream (ice cream), and then the overkill of whipped cream on her ice cream on her pie (declined). She remained incredulous.

In the time it took to eat the second helping of ice cream, she had forgotten the first completely.

Mom-Sequiturs: "Dammit, Jim, I'm a Doctor Not a Stripper!"

I took Mom to one of her eye doctors this morning.

As usual, on the trip in, Mom turned to me and asked, "Which doctor are we going to today?"

I had told her once already before leaving the house but I told her again.

"Ah, yes," she said, nodding. "But that's his work name not his real name."

Balance of Terror (Holiday Version)

Several decades ago, in a previous millennium, my International Relations course discussed the theoretical possibility that the Balance of Terror between the US and USSR could have been maintained with a very low number of nuclear warheads on each side as opposed to the tens of thousands eventually produced. As I recall, our conclusion was it could not, that the low balance was too unstable because nukes are cheap and that the next stability point comes only when both sides have maxed out their capabilities. The only choices are none or all.

We seem to have arrived at some sort of unspoken truce this year between ourselves and Neighbor Dan. What with our lawn problems and the expenditure of energy needed to put up the Hallowe'en decorations at the last minute only to have to take them down again almost immediately, my brother has not been in the decorating mood for a while.

Meanwhile, Neighbor Dan and family were away for an extended trip through most of November.

The result is neither party has yet put out any outdoor Christmas decorations. Nothing. Nada. My brother has decided as long as Neighbor Dan does not, he will not. While I am not privy to the internal Neighbor Dan Family debates I get the feeling he also is waiting to see what we will do.

The difference between our competing lawn decorations and the strategic arms race (aside from the number of potential fatalities) is this: a deadline. The longer each side waits the closer we get to the Christmas don't-bother-it's-too-late date. The closer we get the easier it is to just say "Why bother with so little time left."

Our solution this year appears to be: None.

Spreading Holiday Greetings

Mom received a phone call from an old friend yesterday afternoon. At least I think it was an old friend.

When I told her "Marge" was calling Mom looked at me and shrugged. "Do I know her?" she asked.

"She's an old friend," I said, assuming.

"I don't remember that name."

She took the call anyway and a lot of "What's that, again?", "That's nice.",  "Who did?", and "You don't say." ensued for the next ten minutes. A fairly typical catching-up conversation.

After Mom hung up and returned to the living room, I said, "Well, that was a nice call."

Mom said, "Yes. She used to live here but she moved away and now she's somewhere up north in a residential community. What was her name?"

"Marge?"

Yes. Marge. I sure wish I knew who she was."

And All the Trimmings

My brother has decided the tree is decorated enough. He has spent the last two days cursing under his breath while carefully hanging the extremely expensive German blown-glass ornaments he has collected over the years. Many were in the $40 - $75 range and several over $100 when he bought them. Most, if not all, are limited editions, some signed by the designers. And he wonders why I don't want to help hang them.

I noticed several different ones this year. They're not "new," my brother has enough to trim at least three trees. (He had enough to trim four until a psychotic, fortunately ex-, girlfriend destroyed a couple of boxes worth in a fit of rage. Very expensive dust, but worth it to be rid of her.) When I first moved down here the working roller coaster ornament freaked me out every time we turned the tree on. This year he added the miniature electric train set ornament with two working trains on overlapping tracks (all in a space about 3" x 2"). It makes train noises when it first starts up but I can live with those.

Also "new" this year are a moon-faced Santa ornament, several Euro-type Santas (tall and thin), and a Victorian house. The classic (Laurel and Hardy) and Disney (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) movie ornaments are all back again. I recognize most of the others, as well. All the ornaments are a little large for the tree. They need more space between the branches in order to hang properly.

Nevertheless, we're looking good, seasonally speaking.

Totally Sincere and Unironic

We've finally started putting up the Christmas decorations. We're not the only ones who are late this year. Neighbor Dan, with whom we also compete on the Hallowe'en decoration front, has not put up anything outside yet at all. So far we're working on the inside stuff.

The Coca Cola Santa is on top of the bookcase. The circus train that plays eight fuzzy, tinny electronic bars only of a dozen different carols and hymns is on the divider by the front door. (No one has turned it on yet, thankfully.) The full creche is set up on the counter where the kitchen meets the living room and there are some Christmas candles on the coffee table. Oh, and two ceramic snow people by the front door.

So far that's it. There are boxes everywhere my brother retrieved from the storage unit so that will change over the next few days.

My brother put up the (artificial) tree last night. He strings the lights as he attaches the branches from bottom to top which allows him to easily place lights in the interior and looks really nice when complete but Mom kept asking what was wrong with the tree right up until he topped it off with the drunken Santa at which point her praise became so effusive as to drive us both nuts.

"Who would have thought that was possible? It's amazing! There's nothing else like it anywhere! You should take a picture and send it to Believe It or Not! It's a miracle!" Fortunately, Mom is no longer capable of either sarcasm or irony (I think) so my brother merely took a deep breath, and a drink, and got out the vacuum cleaner to pick up all the needles.

That's right. Our artificial tree sheds. It's very realistic.

Sub-tropical December

I finally found out the name of the small pale purple star-shaped flowers that are growing wild across lawns and highway medians all over town. They're a weed, growing in low mats of hundreds and thousands of blooms as only big as a thumbnail and two inches (at most) tall. They look like nothing so much as a light dusting of snow, the kind of early flurries common up north that occur while the grass is still green.

It's a pusley, of which there are three varieties. The one we have here, I believe, is also known as Mexican clover. They stay low enough that the mowers tend to go over them. Anyway, that's as close to snow as we're going to get. All of our windows are open and the fans are on.

On a semi-related note, the tomatoes look to be producing a very healthy second crop. There are several large fruits ripening even now.

Redneck Studies

I've been studying my brother for some time now and I am beginning to get a handle on the concept of "Redneck" especially the southern variety. For one thing, it's an acquired trait. My brother was born and raised in New England and has lived everywhere from the northern plains to southern California without betraying any such tendencies previously.

One of the primary traits is the habit of trying to come up with original yet ad hoc solutions to common problems, attempting to bypass the ways of the world as it were, without, at the same time, covering all of the possible, and often obvious, consequences.

For example: My brother decided, a couple of years ago when gasoline prices were going through one of their regular and in no way manipulated spikes, to do a little hydrocarbon arbitrage. He bought a number of plastic jerry cans and filled them with regular unleaded in an attempt to lock in the price. The full cans he then stored in the shed out back.

Let's forget the opportunity cost of tying up cash in a volatile commodity.

The redneck point is: The shed is not watertight. Neither are the jerry cans. By the time the price of gas had risen enough for him to feel justified dipping into the strategic reserve, the cans contained probably 98% distilled petroleum and 2% H2O. I had to rescue him more than once before we figured out why his truck kept conking out on him (invariably in the middle of the night).

Although he no longer tops off the truck from the cans neither has he disposed of the contaminated fuel. (Note: Review the concept of sunk costs.) Apparently, a couple of weeks ago he filled the tank of the lawnmower from one of the cans. The lawn is now knee high and the grass is literally going to seed. (The length of time it has taken to fix the mower, this time, is not entirely his fault since Mom put the receiver of the phone in her room (Why does she even have a phone in her room?) down backwards which took the entire house off-line for the weekend (we don't use the land line much) causing the lawnmower repair guys to get a busy signal and delay returning the mower to us.)

The last time the mower needed repair (August) he bitched and moaned for a day and a half about the cost. This time, not a word. Which means he knows it's his fault. The repair guys didn't just find water in the tank. Spiders (more accurately, spider corpses) were clogging up the carburetor, too.

Eight-legged Sisyphus

Now that Rainy Season is over I have the tendency (unless my brother is going to turn on the sprinklers and water the lawn) to leave my car windows open at night. Keeps the interior from overheating once the sun is up again. Unfortunately, it also allows a very persistent, determined and ambitious spider to spin a web from the outside passenger mirror halfway across the dashboard.

We're talking maybe two feet from side to side and four or five inches high. And thick. I can feel the resistance when I sweep it away.

Every night. Every day.

The spider must be living in the car but I've never seen it. Or maybe it's in the mirror casing. I can't imagine what makes my dashboard such prime real estate but I know, whatever I do to that web today, it will be back tomorrow.

The Fog of "Now"

Yesterday as my brother went off to work Mom said goodbye to him and wished him well (as usual).

After a while I realized she had spent the last fifteen minutes or so staring at his room. (She sometimes gets into these OCD-like attention loops, usually when she's trying to read something she's written (or thinks she's written--she spent the better part of one evening trying to decipher the wrinkles in a used paper table napkin. She got upset when I couldn't read it to her.)).

I said, "What's the matter?" more to break the cycle than expecting a real answer.

She sighed and said, "I must have missed him. He went off without me seeing or saying anything."

"Mom, you talked to him before he left. He said goobye and you said goodbye to him and wished him good luck."

"I did?"

"Yes, Mom."

"Well, good for me," she said, and picked up her book.

Indeed.

The Mother Lode

This morning an ibis apparently hit the bug jackpot in neighbor Mike's backyard. It began dipping and pecking at his lawn in a frenzy, swallowing and dipping again and again. The ibis have been flocking together recently and it wasn't long before this one was joined by another and then another and then three more followed by five additional as the number of diners increased geometrically to around forty or so. They formed feeding rows ten or twelve abreast and worked one side to the other breaking only to move around the orange trees. The feeding was so good, when something startled them they flew only as far as the nearest trees and power lines, waited the minimum time to recognize the false alarm and returned to pick up right where they'd left off.

When ibis fly into trees they, of necessity go to the top branches since they are too tall to comfortably fit where another branch is above them. The exceptions are palm trees where they will fly directly to the vertical bole and cling tenuously for a few moments before their own weight, levered out almost horizontally at the end of their long legs, causes them to lose their grip.

Those long legs also give them a difficult time with power lines. All birds sway a little on the line since the wires are very thin and free to move but the arc of a balancing ibis can be as much as 30 degrees forward or back. A row of ibis, shoulder to shoulder, on a house feeder wire will cause it to sag noticeably. One bird will lean forward, catch its balance and lean back (often overcorrecting). This causes its neighbors on either side to compensate by leaning forward and then back themselves which requires the next ones in line to do the same and so on. If they get the timing right they can create a kind of sine wave and for a few seconds it is possible to watch the wave crests roll down the line and back. Usually, though, and inevitably, it gets chaotic pretty quick and the whole thing explodes off the wire in a flurry of white wings, skinny legs and long bills.

After the second false alarm, the original crew was joined by another twenty or so putting the total at the feeding frenzy over sixty. Then they all took off at once and kept going.

Followed by another neighbor's just-out-of-puppyhood black lab with a look of sheerest joy on its face chasing after them across neighbor Mike's yard and ours.

Followed by the neighbor's teenage son.

There is a large, low white cloud circling the neighborhood. Maybe they'll return for dessert.