Who invented yards?

Seriously. We're getting too old to do this stuff. It would be one thing if our yard were small. But, it's not. It's a wrap around on a corner with lots of grass, beds, natural areas, dying grass areas, dead philodendrons, dead shrimp plants, dead unidentifiables and even dead lantanas. Lantanas never die. So much for two years of hard freezes. Our once 15 foot split leaf philo is a pathetic excuse for a phallic symbol right now. There's a song in there somewhere.

I raked for about twenty minutes and pulled dead stalks for twenty minutes and I'm immobile. Mr.Froth edged and mowed and it hardly looks like anything happened. So, next weekend I'm going to buy 700 bags of mulch and soil and plants and get all that done.

Or, I will visualize it getting done and read Elegant Universe. Or do my toes. Again. You can't get your toes did enough.

Frothwise

The world certainly is a challenging and tilt-a-whirley place lately. I have no comments on the global discombobulation other than sending prayers to those in places fraught with horrible danger and disaster, whether it be upheaval or the mindbending result of natural power.

Mr. Froth is on his way home from Florida after eight days, not that I'm counting because it seems like six months, having tended to the elder Mr. Froth. I posted before that Mr. Froth's dad had an episode that popped him into ICU.  Last week, after Mr. Froth had arrived and finally spoken to the attending doctor, hospice was suggested.

. Well.

Next day, after Sister Froth arrived and she and the hub were visiting, the elderly Mr. Froth perked up. He had not been eating, drinking, moving or responding, but then...did. He began swallowing, eating, drinking and responding somewhat. There is dementia going on. But he had also been heavily sedated. He was and is immobile. So. He was successfully transported to the nursing home section of the retirement community in which he lives-a very nice high-end place which he plopped a bundle of money into to offer apartment/assisted living/nursing home.

Once back to familiar surroundings he was a little bit back to his old self-bullshitting the nurses and carrying on, as much as one can when one cannot hear and can't move. He and Mr. Froth watched basketball the other night.

Unfortunately, his swallowing may be deteriorating again and Mr. Froth was advised today, before he left to actually drive back home, that rehabilitation probably is a non-starter. At a certain point some folks just give it up a bit. Elderly Mr. Froth is almost 87. He lost his wife 2 1/2 years ago. He's tired. The caregivers don't anticipate him really getting back to his apartment. He was very sad when Mr. Froth left, but, as my hub said, "I have to go home. You chose to move to Florida (where no one is) and..." He wasn't harsh, but just frank.

Sadly, Mr. Froth's uncle, husband of elderly Mr. Froth's sister, who also lived/lives in Florida, passed away this week after having a stroke. They also had moved to Florida for some reason. (We had tried twice to get the elderly Froth's to move to Texas, having them actually sign on the dotted line, but once they returned to Florida their furniture entrance them so much they had to stay there. I wasn't pleased with that for a few years.)

It hasn't been a good week for Mr. Froth. It's been unsettled, sad and the outlook is a little bleak. Elderly Mr. Froth is a sweetheart, funny and genuinely good. A good father and husband. He has a good son carrying on his tradition. It's just so hard and draining sometimes.

I think I'll try to cook something porky or steaky for him except I can't grill worth shit. Maybe we'll just sit on the deck, drink vodka and wine and cry. And then take Dot for a walk.

The Machine

When I cleaned out the wooden elephant that’s been collecting dust in our bedroom for the past 15 years (it had many books, Sooner foam fingers, ponchos, car flags and some unidentifiables) I pulled out a scary humongous THING. Turns out it’s a back massager that Mr. Froth bought for me for Christmas, birthday, Mother’s Day or Easter when electricity was a novelty and compact sizing was nonexistent. Suprisingly, it still works.


I put it on my vanity and frightened the living shit out of Mr. Froth yesterday.

Mr. Froth: “?!? What the hell IS this?”

Me: “Guess. You bought it for me.”

Mr. Froth: “A lawn mower engine? It looks like a fricking flying saucer.”

And, you know what? It does! Only not any mundane flying saucer. It looks like the heat ray machines from War of the Worlds! It does. It’s about 3 feet long with a triangular head with large red bulbs that are EYES. And somewhat of a tail that might make it close to those aliens that popped up in every sci-fi movie after Alien, that had spinal cordy-like bodies and glommed onto your face.


And it’s lying dead on my vanity. At least I hope so…

Universal Elegance

Lately I’ve become obsessed with determining how to explain all the turmoil and discombobulation percolating in the world. Because I am a conduit of clarity I would like to offer my insights to all you discombobulees. Listen up, because this is possibly groundbreaking and certainly helpful to the layman insofar as understanding how it all works. You know. All of it. The big it.

So, anyway, I checked out Chaos: Making a New Science-a fabulous book that tells the tale of the evolution of chaos theory and how it permeates everything we are and do. Don’t worry-even though this discussion includes physics I can talk you through it and make you get the gist of physicism.

Physics, or physicism, the science of why everything is mucked up and weird and makes you want to pull your sinuses out through your nostrils because it’s goofy, is the core of trailing how chaos works.

Physicism explains why you fall down when wearing cheap flipflops and then time slows while light sparks out of your eyeballs releasing pain in the form of meurons. That’s where “moron” comes from--meurons--the basic unit of moron which is the conglomerate of quarks, quirks and meurons-itty bitty morons. Just follow me, here.

Physicism is also responsible for the bad rap music going through your brain during an MRI. The bad rap music is in the form of magical fractals that zoom you to your happy place while meurons are sleeping and make you smile because at least you’re not in a 5 ½ hour meeting, but in an enclosed entrapping cylinder not that I’m claustrophobic or anything.

Oh, and those meetings with PowerPoint presentations are escaped Mandelbrot sets from the computers at Microsoft that cause rainforests to whisper at butterflies, which then cause a breeze to whoosh up to Al Gore’s nictating membrane and cause anthropogenic global warming. And cooling. They’re caused by the same BAD Mandelbrot sets. Mandelbrats to those of us in the know.

Oh yes. I almost forgot about barriers. I can’t remember what exactly the context of these barriers are, but we all know what a barrier is, so go with your familiar barrier. When fractal friends and Mandelbrats get close to barriers things start going totally haywire, similar to college spring break. They start water-skiing out into the ether, jumping the wake and such, and go all non-linear on you. I’ve often been non-linear and think we shouldn’t diss non-linearity. Because that would make you a bully, guilty of violent rhetoric toward what should be a protected physicism. Don’t be hatin’ on non-linearites.

Fractals and Mandelbrot sets are quite lovely, however, and would sparkle as batik fabric designs or burnouts on sheer fabrics, like for t-shirts. Or Speedos. Here. Look. Aren’t they cute? The first one is a fractal and the second is a Mandelbrot set. (Don't tell anyone but the Mandelbrot set looks like twigs and berries.)

For now that’s your physicism review. Next up is The Elegant Universe, which will bring me up to speed on string theory and when I finish it I will give another physics update to explain how mozzarella cheese gets that cool ropey look when perfectly melted.


Fractal courtesy of http://www.niceamazingpictures.com/r-fractal-4-fractal-64.htm
Mandelbrot set courtesy of http://math.youngzones.org/Fractal%20webpages/Mandelbrot_set.jpg

Elder Mr. Froth

Things are a bit rough and tumble for Mr. Froth's dad. He has been in ICU for a couple of days after slumping out of his scooter during lunch. Speculation was that he'd fractured his hip, but CAT scans dispel that. He has a bad UTI, temperature of 103 and low BP. He's disoriented and will be in the hospital for a couple of days. Mr. Froth is heading down to Florida to see what's up and face the quite strong possibility that he may have to move him into the nursing home portion of his retirement community. Plus, his uncle is in hospice and not expected to last more than a couple of days after a stroke and subsequent other problems.

I mentioned to my boss the other day that things had seemed quiet lately, to which he replied "Shhh!" and I fully understood that one shouldn't say that too loud. Sometimes before the wheels start popping off the surroundings are very calm. I think we may be in that mode right now.

Wish Mr. Froth luck this coming week.

American Idol

No, not that one. Just "idol" in general.

I had a mini conversation with a good friend the other night about idols. My ramblings were along the lines that I've never idolized anyone. Not that I haven't admired particular people, but that I don't idolize them. People are frail and faulty, like I, and, while some have done or produced wonderful things, I am not privy to the reasons behind their endeavors nor to what they have also done that hasn't been so wonderful. Nor do I particularly care.

With that being said I'm becoming increasingly tired and annoyed with the constant iconizing (yes, I used that in another post) and idolizing of shitheads. And, those who keep shoving the idols in front of our faces, unless we turn off all media whatsoever, make me increasingly weary of my constantly lowering esteem that I may have once held them in. In which I held them. Whatever. (And, no, not you SC, obviously-you don't do this. But, our discussion resonated after we had it and I was amazed and astounded at some other peeps.)

I must stay off Facebook, because I can't figure out how to hide, yet not defriend, those who seem to live their lives in snippets of adulation for, oh, Jon Stewart, or Margaret Sanger, or Bill O'Reilly, or Dick Morris, or Che Guevara. I'm an equal opportunity dismisser-of.  It's a constant display of stupid.

Back from Oooooooklahoma

Where the wind was definitely nippily, nipply, no, not nipple nipply, but nippYly sweeping down the plain. It was colder than a witch's rat's ass and tit combined. On Thursday. Then it got sorta nice and was okay. I still had to wear closed-toe shoes, but it's a small price to pay for...

ACTING! Yes, we attended the annual Gridiron Club revue at the Lyric Theater. It was a fabulous event. My friend Judheet was a scarily incredible Nancy Pelosi. She is a THESPIAN!

And then we bowled and ate Whataburgers and got into a fender bender and stayed up too late and had all around fun with peeps, some of whom I'd met before, some I just got to meet. It was awesome.

And today I went back to work. Whatev.