crisis mode

It's amazing to me how quickly your sense of time changes when there's an emergency in the works. I've called 911 twice in a week, once for the pecan man who fell over picking up nuts and today for my mother who just umm...fell over and busted her head open.  Daddy called me and said I'd better come on because "mama fell."  When I got there she was still on the floor and Ms. Faye, lord rest her soul, was cleaning the blood off the carpet.  It's been a little over two years since the last ambulance run there, when she fell and broke her arm on Easter Sunday trying to cook supper.  There is nothing more emotionally painful than watching a parent get battered and bruised just by trying to keep on keepin' on.  She feels terribly sad because she can't do the things that she used to love, like reading and watching TV.  I can't imagine losing my sight so it's hard for me to relate.  Mostly I just try to get her to verbalize what the realities are so that we can identify what can be changed and what can't.  Macular degeneration is on the "can't fix" list.  So is the frontotemporal dementia that daddy has.
It just doesn't seem right that you work hard all your life and that's what old age hands you to deal with.

Like much of the nation, I was mesmerized by the rally on Saturday, loving every minute of the comic and musical relief that was markedly non-partisan and inclusive up to its' ass.  But then again, that's how I roll.  I heard one conservative complain online something to the effect that America is stupid to listen to a comic and a clown stand up there in Washington telling us how to think and feel.  Hmm.  Isn't that what they've ALWAYS done up in that neck of the woods???  I cried when the Four Troops sang the national anthem.  And I laughed myself silly with every jab that Stewart and Colbert threw at each other because it is all so very true.  The country that I know and love has finally grown a pair and said heck no to partisan politics.  I did NOT vote in the election, nor will I because I feel that the choices put on those ballots, sponsored by two equally greedy parties, are not what I believe in.  To hell with 'em. And the horses they rode in on.

And for the record?  I vote for peace, love and rock'n'roll.