What are the odds?

Fareed Zakaria just said actuarial tables state a 1 in 5 chance that Sarah Palin could end up President if McCain is elected. God forbid, on both accounts.

A sorrow shared

My poor 80-year-old father, painfully lonely after the death of my mother not two full weeks ago, is sound asleep in my recliner. This dear soul lost his soul mate just weeks short of their 50th anniversary.

Yesterday he called me at work and left a message: "Please call me before 4 p.m." There was such sadness in his voice. He said he was really having a hard time...could he come over sometime? So tonight he came over for dinner and some TLC.

When he first came in, he slumped onto the couch and hardly moved for quite some time. Then he finally started talking...about Mom. Her last days. How he loved to visit her and help her with her meals. How he would say, "I love you" when leaving after a visit at the nursing home, and how she'd say, "I love you, too." He just needed to talk about her. I did, too.

Dad is still sound asleep, pulling the afghan up closer to his face, resting peacefully and not alone for at least one night.

What a way to ruin a Saturday afternoon (or bumper stickers part II)

We three Sunnyside girls were driving (in the Prius proudly bumper-stuck for the Chicago Cubs and Barack Obama) south on Naperville Road to the Danada Equestrian Center for a afternoon walk. Suddenly a car (beige, maybe a Buick) cut in front of me and slowed down. We were engaged in conversation, so I was slow to notice that the dude was also sporting his own bumper-tude: Chicago White Sox, Marines, and NoBama.

I changed lanes to get away from him, but he saw that and cut right in front of me again, waving his middle finger with great purpose and energy in my direction. Well I didn't do what I usually do, which would have been nothing at all. Avoid engagement with road raging lunatics at all costs. No...my hormones are sputtering, my temper is short, my nerves are shot, and my patience is spent. So I stooped to his level and waved back with equal gusto. Oh yeah, that's making my mother proud.

A moment later I got a grip, retracted the offending digit, and slowed down, keeping my distance and regaining my composure. At a stoplight we ended up side by side. He rolled down the window. I didn't look his way, totally keeping my cool, talking to Beth calmly.

Then the light turned green and he pulled away first, yelling out his window, "Go vote for your n****r."

I was in shock and felt physically ill. Beth started to cry.

What in the bloody hell did he wish to accomplish? Was he hoping he would intimidate me into not voting for Barack Obama? Did he want me to engage him in a shouting match, ending with an accident and perhaps hand-to-hand combat?

The (hopefully) few, the (inappropriately) proud, that racist-bigoted-nasty-hate-filled Marine. I feel sorry for him. What a miserable life.

God protect Barack Obama. God protect us from ourselves.

Time lost and sad ironies

9/23/08
Dad and I went to the cemetery today to see where Mom was buried last Saturday. We had not been before, as Dad did not want a procession or graveside service to drag out an already difficult experience.

The cemetery is in Clarendon Hills. Not close to them. Not close to me. We found the unmarked spot, obvious with its dark black soil mound and flowers not yet dried. It's a nice location, for whomever that matters. A beautiful, tall, wide-reaching tree stands guard and offers shade. (Next time I'll have to make note of the type of tree.)

And not ten feet away, in a grave not all that much older as these things go, lies my aunt, my mother's sister Arlene. This irony cannot be lost on anyone who really knew these two women.

Arlene was eight years older than my mother, Lois. I don't know why that was the case, but I wouldn't recommend it to any prospective parents who have a choice in the matter. It's hard enough to be sisters in a disfunctionally cool and unemotional German/Czech home in the 1930s and 40s. Separate them by what feels like an eternity to them both, and you're setting them up for sibling relationship issues.

In the interest of honest reporting and to honor the departed, I'm going to leave out everything between then and the beginning of this year. No one can say what happened between these two women over 70+ years, save they themselves and their God. On January 23, 2008, Arlene passed away. The sisters had not spoken in some 10 years or more.

Lois had, up until then, held her own health wise in spite of serious and complicated health problems. But something was changing at the end of 2007 and early 2008. By March 17, Lois was to begin her final journey with the first of many trips to the ER, hospital, nursing home, rehabilitation centers, Marianjoy, etc. Just short of eight months from Arlene's passing, on September 17, Lois died.

So now their bodies rest in eternal peace within not much more than an arm's length of each other.

Now, too, their spirits are at peace. And I like to think there is more. I like to picture a young girl waiting at that gate for her little sister. Her sister runs to her arms, they embrace, cry with joy, and look at each other as if for the first time. And for Lois, there is a piano and a puppy and "a new bod," just as she had always wanted.

I like to believe there is now happiness and joy and love for these two sisters who accomplished in death what they could not in life...the reuniting of their two families.

I am grateful for their unintentional gift.

I love this look...who is your decorator?

I've been saving blodder (fodder for my blog) for quite some time now, so I may just date my entries with the date I originally wrote them instead of the date assigned. It will help me anyway.

9/23/08
My dad had two doctor appointments today. The first is with his primary physician. As we sit in the waiting room, we notice a pharmaceutical rep (female) anxiously waiting to talk to someone. She's pulling out samples from her trusty briefcase on wheels. Preparing packets of information, unwrapping big blue pens to hand to the ladies behind the counter. Finally she is granted an audience with one of the women and they chat like old friends. Pharma rep #1 leaves and within mere moments #2 (male) arrives on the scene. Hmm. Same trusty briefcase. He waits, he preps, he unwraps...are those pens? No, some kind of clip thing. Then he chats it up with the staff, flatters, winks, and disappears to pick up the trail left by #1, no doubt.

And then I actually look around. Am I in a doctor's office waiting room or a sample room for a point-of-purchase cardboard display manufacturer?

On the window sill there are no fewer than 14 pharmaceutical displays of one type or another. On the table in front of us there are 2, the end table to the right has 4, the end table nearest the door--3, the coffee table to the left--6. The counter has pen cups from someone, tissue holder from someone else.

I see familiar icons...balloons inflated like tiny full bladders, a pretty green moth, and lots of purple. And many names familiar to anyone who watches TV, surfs the Web, or reads pretty much anything. Femcon, Enablex, Lunesta, Vytorin, Lovaza, and on and on.

Did I take my medicine this morning? Did Dad take his? Are we done with Gracie's antibiotics yet?

And then we go down the hall (literally) to Dad's next appointment. The waiting room is quiet, calm, reassuring, well lit, and entirely sans cardboard.

On the way home, we stop at Walgreens to fill Dad's new prescription from the first visit...some new pill for his blood pressure. I wonder what color it is?

Before you stick that on your bumper...

So I'm driving down Roosevelt Road, heading to LaGrange Park to spend some time with my dad. Along the way I notice a car with an Obama bumper sticker not unlike my own. It's a long ride, and I enjoy the kinship we've just established, we two strangers with apparently similar world views.

I try to keep up with him...yeah, people will see there are two of us, two DuPage County dwellers who are out to turn our county blue! He in his...whatever, it was black...and me in my Prius. Yes, he's my homey, my bud; we'll watch the debates together; yep...a guy I can have a beer with.

Then my new friend lets me down with a tiny thud.

I hadn't noticed he was smoking, although the window was open. I guess I was blinded by my new adoration, but how I missed the smoke pouring out of his window is a mystery.

Anyway, there it was. A butt...no, bigger than a butt...it was nearly half of that cancer stick flying out his window, onto the pavement in front of me, rolling towards me still burning and glowing.

I close my window to avoid the puff of smoke he'd been kind enough to share, and I slow to a crawl and change lanes. I don't want anyone to think I know the guy.

Starting with an ending

I'm not even sure why I'm doing this blog thing, but rather than stall any longer, I will dive in now and think later...not what my mother would advise, I'm sure.

My mother died exactly one week ago tonight.

Mom was not an easy person to know, and although I always thought I knew her pretty well, now that she's gone I doubt that. Several years ago she decided to start writing a memoir of sorts; recollections of her life for her "offspring." Sadly, about all we have is several pages of notes, and one page of prose. An introduction and the following teaser never to be fully explained:

My life was usually lived in a safe manner. My family was not one to take chances.

What I wouldn't give to have the pages that were to follow. Did she mean the family with her parents, or our family...or both? Both would make sense, but I'd give anything to have her elaborate. Why start her memoir with that observation? Was that something she was proud of, comfortable with, or somewhere deep inside did she wish she'd had a slightly more interesting life...and what risks would she have taken? I'd give anything to know.