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For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously. Wind Walking When you walk in the wind, sometimes it’s helpfully behind, other times right up in your face.
Which makes wind a lot like people. waf oct99
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Four days with my daughter and family put me in another reality, one suffused with conversation, laughter, play, sunshine, and time -- things I don't have here, where the insistent needs of a 92 year old woman hold just about every moment hostage. I was able to sit in the dappled shade and finish the mystery novel I started to read last month. I was able to relax enough to ease the spasms I've been getting in my back from an out-of-place rib. I sat on the floor and with my grandson and his various construction, rescue, and police vehicles. I slept like the dead. I never got to post a new piece on the...
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For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously. This is one: Notes from “Nepperhan Days” his self-tale: Immigration experience of body and soul/heart as human condition. We are all immigrants. A family story of three Italian generations: those who left Europe, then the first-born in America and thus the first to be assimilated, then the second –born generation which rejects the experience of the 1st two before coming to realize we are all...
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(This is the third of my series of posts about the issue of education in the upcoming presidential election, in response to the challenge issued by Ronni Bennett in her blog, Time Goes By.) Let's face it. We Americans look to our leader to set an example as well as set policy. When it comes to computer and communications technology, McCain and Obama, as a recent NPR All Things Considered segment affirmed: .....have very different digital resumes. Their habits were shaped, in part, by what they were doing when the digital age arrived.
Obama has been seen walking with his BlackBerry — so absorbed you worry he might bump into something.
McCain, on the...
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"You say hellraiser like it's a bad thing." Nancy Miller, the creator of the TNT series, Saving Grace writes: ...Grace, that part of you that is fearless, that questions everything, that lives life unconditionally, gloriously, giving in to a freedom of expression so raw and primal that sometimes it leaves you breathless. According to the website (same link as above): SAVING GRACE stars Holly Hunter in an astonishing performance as Grace Hanadarko, a top-notch, forceful investigator whose wild personal life translates into a no-holds-barred approach to her detective work......Grace's mesmerizing journey involves facing both the internal and external demons that stand in her way. I have never been a fan of...
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For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously. This is one. SONG FOUND IN A DORY BOBBIN IN THE BAY IN KANKANEMONIOUS GULCH
Enter an old man who moves to a bench and sits. He wears a heavy topcoat, a suit, vest, old shoes.
Very deliberately, he begins going through his pockets and removing the contents.
Coat: one glove, a crumpled handkerchief, a cigar butt.
...
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Earworm: The Mills Brothers singing "Paper Doll." Of course it was a totally sexist song. But it was the forties. I was five years old. What did I know. It sure sounded pretty. And I loved to play with paper dolls. The ones of famous movie stars. I guess I was surprised that there are still paper dolls for sale out there Even more surprising is the new
 Actually, there's a McCain one as well. I suppose that's one way to get little kids aware of the election coming up. ...
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Too often these days I feel as though I'm walking a tightrope. It would only take a little push to take me over the edge. At night, when I can't fall asleep, I listen to books on tape that I download, free, from my local library. They are usually mystery novels -- situations so far removed from my own life that I can forget, for a while, what is stressing me out so. Tonight, the "heroine" of the novel drifting in through my ear buds gave a clinical definition of anti-social behavior. I was interested to learn more about what that was, since I often feel I'm in it's presence. Some googling, got me...
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(This is the second of my series of posts about the issue of education in the upcoming presidential election, in response to the challenge issued by Ronni Bennett in her blog, Time Goes By.) Anyone who follows the news knows that environmental and energy issues are in the forefront of today's politics. I can't help wonder how different things might be today if those leaders who screwed up these two survival necessities had been exposed to a different kind of education, one in which critical thinking, creative discovery, complex problem solving, and honest communication had been at the core. These are the skills that all people need to become all they can be, for themselves and...
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Sometimes these days I think the only way I have stopped myself from strangling my brother and/or my mother is by picking up a crochet hook or a pair of knitting needles and going at it with a new hank of yarn. I realized recently that I am a "process" craftsperson rather than a "product" one. I have at leave five projects started that I've set aside because I got to points in the patterns that required a lot of attention to detail. So I've started a lightweight crocheted afghan for when I move in with my daughter and family. It's the same stitch over and over again -- striped using two related yarns.
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Today I let the dishes go and did some blog-jumping through Goodblogs. And I eventually found this: CAREGIVERS BILL OF RIGHTS I have the right:
To take care of myself. This is not an act of selfishness. It will enable me to take better care of my loved one. I have the right:
To seek help from others even though my loved one may object. I recognize the limits of my own endurance and strength. I have the right:
To maintain facets of my own life that do not include the person I care for, just as I would if he or she were healthy. I know that I do...
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Thanks to Jim Culleny for his daily poetry emails. Myth
Muriel Rukeyser Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the roads. He smelled a familiar smell. It was the Sphinx. Oedipus said, "I want to ask one question. Why didn't I recognize my mother?" "You gave the wrong answer," said the Sphinx. "But that was what made everything possible," said Oedipus. "No," she said. "When I asked, What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening, you answered, Man. You didn't say anything about woman." "When you say Man," said Oedipus, "you include women too. Everyone...
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Ronni Bennett's Time Goes By is one of the few weblogs that I have time to frequently read. Recently, she wrote: So here is what I propose: that each blogger reading this today – whatever else you write about on your blog - take on one issue or a small aspect of one issue, follow it in the mainstream press, on alternative media and political sites online, on other blogs as it is debated and once a week, write about what you’ve learned on that issue. Make yourself an expert on it, do some research, give us the facts, tell us what the candidates are saying, how it's being spun by their surrogates - and your...
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from the (free) magazine for dementia caregivers published the Alzheimer's Foundation of America (careADvantage, Summer 2008 -- PDF) – an article by Richard Taylor, PH.D., a retired psychologist who was diagnosed with dementia.
When dementia enters a person's mind, when it enters dynamics of a family – of a husband or his spouse – how we communicate, why we communicate should/will shift.
[snip}
It should shift away from mutual understanding and agreement and toward staying connected, giving and receiving love, supporting each other in ways we never thought we would have to do. It gets less and less about about the facts and more and more about feelings. It moves (quite unfortunately) from...
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