Do the Yak

Tuesday 12:15 a.m. – The police call Ben from G.'s hometown. The drama begins. Wednesday Ben decides to go to New Jersey without any definite plan other than hoping to convince his mother to move into assisted living in either Boston or N.J. He does some errands, gets time off from work and starts the five-hour drive in the late afternoon. 8 p.m. – G. calls the house, again wanting to talk to Ben about the car. I tell her Ben is on his way to N.J. and would see her the next day. She tries (coherently and in a normal tone of voice) to get into the issue again, but I don't get into that conversation, partly because I'm in the middle of putting the kids to bed. But only partly. One thing she said was prescient: she noted, quite accurately, that her situation was untenable. It's true – she's living in a town where a car is necessary, yet she has access to a ride only three hours every weekday. She's thinking the situation has to be resolved by her getting her car...

Ben has just left for New Jersey for a few days to meet with his mother, the care manager and the therapist to see what can be done. Everyone agrees that she needs to go into assisted living, but he has gotten all sorts of advice on how to accomplish this, including tricking her into thinking she's visiting a friend there just for the weekend, or even drugging her, but he can't bring himself to do that sort of thing. The good news is that there is an assisted living place near her that has an opening in its Alzheimer's unit, and another place in Boston that has one as well. Here's hoping he can somehow get her to agree to at least visit one or both of these places and not get herself thrown into state care by dialing 911 at all hours. Another unexpected thing about G. and the Alzheimer's is that her irrational behavior is not consistent but seems to come in spurts (though the memory loss is of course always present). Yesterday she sent Ben two e-mails, one of them ...

The police called last night at 12:15 a.m. from New Jersey. Ben's mother had called 911. Twice. To try to get her son arrested, or at least to get the police to force the return of her car, which Ben had illegally taken from her in cahoots with her doctor. At the police officer's request, Ben called her back, knowing it would be yet another high-pitched harangue, which of course it was. He went downstairs to make the call so as not to disturb me (as if I could sleep), but at one point came back up just to silently hold the phone near my ear so we could both hear her nonstop screaming. With great although not infinite patience, Ben explained yet again, over and over, that he had taken her keys and arranged to have her car removed on the strong recommendation of her doctor, therapist and geriatric care manager, since someone with Alzheimer's disease is much more likely to confuse the brake and gas pedals while driving, or to forget to look both ways at a stop sign. She doesn...

Or just abstract art? Closer to the latter... It's called "Chatham, Mass." The artist is Nature, brought to you by Google Maps. I wandered over to the maps page after reading the bit about the most recent coastline reconfiguration caused by a storm. Cool, huh?

Recently I paid a visit to Children's Orchard , which sells decent used kids' clothes. Obviously it's sort of hit or miss, especially since we're now far beyond needing the quickly outgrown baby clothes which they mostly deal in. But while looking for pants for Becky (she who puts holes in many knees), I lucked onto a summer dress for each daughter for about $6 apiece and they are incredibly cute. I can't believe how happy these dresses made me, given the fact that I was the world's biggest tomboy and HATED even the sight of a dress when I was a kid. And was very much hoping for a boy when I first found out I was pregnant. I still run screaming at the sight or rustly sound of tulle, though I have had to learn to coexist with All Things Pink. Except Barbies, which the kids may play with but which I will NOT buy them. Becky’s dress is a sweet yellow thing with little purple flowers while Sarah got a flapper dress – a sleeveless number with a dropped waist and a bo...

I guess I'm just a cynical bitch. What a horrible thing to happen, gunning down 32 people at your college, but the thing I keep thinking is that this would not have been nearly as big a deal, national-media-sensation-wise, if he had killed just one or two students. Which isn't terribly uncommon these days, actually. And that everyone is wringing their hands about "warning signs" and "what could have been done to prevent this" (let's blame it on someone since the killer himself is dead) when in fact I don't think anyone could have prevented this because it's legal to be a weird loner, and basically... shit happens in a free society. Bottom line: Cho hadn't broken any college rules that would justify his suspension or expulsion. Although he had spoken of having suicidal feelings at one point, the Virginia legislature recently passed a law barring public universities from punishing or expelling suicidal students. The Family Educational Rights a...

An instant classic: the guy at the Sox game who lost his beer while trying to catch a foul ball and THEN got hit with a flying piece of pizza . Also fun: a time-lapse look at Fenway Park Opening Day. And then there's Virgil the Crocodile... "I'm a little hungry – I think Aeneid a snack. Arms and the man I sing! " Next time, Mr. Zookeeper, wait until you hear slow, rhythmic snoring for at least ten minutes.

So it goes. Goodbye, Mr. Vonnegut. I loved your work. I'm glad you didn't die in some sort of war resulting from the current political foolishness, which I imagine you thought perfectly possible. This came around to me on the Internets the other day, and I think you'd appreciate it. "I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it." – Thomas Paine, 1783 "Free speech exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where people are themselves free." – Theodore Roosevelt, 1918 "The truth is found when men are free to pursue it." – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936 "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." – George Orwell, 1945 "Any t...

Haven't posted in a while but have been accumulating topics, so I'll tackle them in bite-size chunks. When Two Religions Collide Such was the case last Monday, April 2, date of the first Red Sox game of 2007 and also the first of the two Passover seders . Fortunately we were not hosting; we went to the house of a friend of Sarah's and had an abbreviated seder necessitated by the presence of five children ranging in age from 2 to 7. Q: Why is this night different from all other nights? A: It isn't. The Red Sox lost the first game of the new season behind their supposedly ace pitcher. Maybe next year. What's the Hebrew for "Bah"? But... they have done better. Last night Papelbon was Da Bomb, getting the last five outs against Texas after the two middle pitchers, Piniero and Lopez, choked. And now that Passover has almost passed over, as in tomorrow sundown, we can commence the important ritual of dematzification , which means removing the bajillion c...