Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

All hail the time of the bunny!

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Monday Evening Open Thread: “My Mother’s Shadow”

Monday Evening Open Thread: “My Mother’s Shadow”

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A bittersweet little story to brighten a sour day. (Trigger warning: May set off, y’know, ‘lacrimal dust allergy responses’ in the susceptible.) Kenan Trebincevic, in the NYTimes, on his mother’s rescue dog:

“Before I die, I want to get a dog,” my mother said.

It was 2004, and she had been pining for a pet for two years. I didn’t believe she’d get one. It was a dumb idea. I pictured the huge sheep dogs and German shepherds that lived outdoors in our Bosnian homeland.

Now that we were in the United States, Mom pictured a little poodle or terrier she’d keep in the house, which seemed extravagantly American. At the time, my brother, Eldin, and I had no jobs, thousands of dollars in student loan debt — I was 24, and had just finished graduate school — and two parents recovering from major illnesses. We couldn’t afford a purebred.

“Let’s go to the Humane Society and rescue one,” she said.

We knew what it meant to be rescued. With the help of a few brave Christian friends, my Muslim family had miraculously survived the ethnic cleansing campaign against us in the Balkan War in 1992. In January 1993, we escaped and, after 10 months in Vienna, arrived in the United States to make a new home in Connecticut.

Mom didn’t wait for me to go to the shelter. I came home after my physical therapy internship to find her on the lawn, holding the leash of Shadow, a feisty little orange-haired Pomeranian puffball, 10 pounds and 10 years old. For Mom, it was love at first yap. I didn’t pet him, fearing he’d bite. He’d probably bark all the time…

When Eldin and I were kids in Brcko, our whole house hummed. But for a decade in Connecticut my mother was in a bad mood, complaining about her medical treatments, fretting over bills.

Suddenly, with Shadow in the house, she began to smile again, whispering to him in baby talk. When he sat up on his hind legs, begging with his paws up, she giggled. My 65-year-old father, Senahid, who was relearning how to talk after his stroke, was speaking in a garbled half-English, half-Bosnian hybrid. When he commanding the dog to “come here” that first day, Mom joked, “At least they both don’t understand each other,” and laughed hysterically…

***********
Apart from taking a moment to be grateful for what we can salvage, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

110Comments

  2. 2.

    PsiFighter37

    Got my first run in over a month done today…I think winter’s done for good here in NYC, and it was a (comparatively) balmy 55 degrees for most of the day. That said, no matter how much cardio you do indoors, there’s nothing like hitting the road and running by the Hudson River on a clear day with a setting sun. So nice…and with a couple races coming up in the next few months, definitely needed.

    Mildly guilty about having a second dinner just now with a buddy involving a thin-crust pizza and beer, but I figured I’ve been working out hard enough the past few weeks, and I haven’t seen him in several weeks, that it was worth it to break the dietary rules a little bit.

    Otherwise, same old same old. The GOP can go fuck themselves over their little pants-wetting rant over Iran – so much for politics stopping at water’s edge; can’t have none of that with a black man in the White House. Also, fuck the people of Arkansas for being so stupid to send Kochbot Tim Cotton to the Senate by 17%. Mark Pryor wasn’t my idea of a great Democrat, but he wasn’t as dumb as a bag of hammers.

  3. 3.

    PsiFighter37

    @Baud: Personal, professional, geographic, or debating whether it’s time for a new pair of sweat pants?

  5. 5.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    The spouse shaved his beard today as part of his prep for finding a new job post-layoff. At least he remembered to text me so I wouldn’t be shocked when he got home.

    I’m getting ready to lay down on a heating pad for a while because this stupid back spasm is really annoying me.

  6. 6.

    raven

    We just finished “Top of the Lake” with Elizabeth Moss and Holly Hunter and directed by Jane Campion. Sounds like a winner doesn’t it? It was so fucking stupid I can’t believe it.

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @raven: Huh. I went on a long trip after two or three episodes and never caught up again, but I was finding it a bit… sloooooow. As you said, with that personnel it looked really promising.

  9. 9.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    I have a third cousin who lives here in Atlanta; I found her and her family about 20 years ago.

    In the past couple of years, both her (grown) son and her (elderly) husband died, very suddenly, about nine months apart. Martha herself is 85; her daughter (my third cousin once removed, if anyone’ sleeping track) is 61.

    Recently, Martha has been falling frequently, and getting more and more confused and stubborn. Her daughter is at her wit’s end and has enlisted me to back her up in persuading her mom to go into an assisted living facility. I know Martha will fight that tooth and nail, but she is just too much for her daughter to handle anymore. AFAIK there is no Alzheimer’s or any kind of real dementia, just geriatric intransigence.

    Honestly, I hate being pulled into the drama and life-changing decisions of a family that is, frankly, not close in terms of consanguinity (although I am certainly fond of them, and at this point I’m the closest thing to “family” they have). I’m not even really asking for advice or comments here, just wanted to vent a little since I just got off a fraught phone call with the daughter, and I expect I’ll be ranting at considerable length in the weeks to come, so fair warning.

    I went through a little of this with my own dad 20 years ago, although never had to put him in a home, and he was a little more compliant about things than Martha seems to be. And I do know that many, many Juicers have had things much worse with their own parents or spouses. But if there’s any place on the interwebs where one can go for sympathy and good advice, it’s here.

    The great poet/cartoonist Sandra “Hippo Birdies Two Ewes” Boynton had a card many years ago that read in full:

    First you shuffle, then you stoop.
    Growing old is pigeon poop.

    I couldn’t agree more.

  13. 13.

    Suzanne

    So last week at work, they hired a new employee. This employee happens to be the person from my graduate program that I hate the west, because he insulted me repeatedly when I did better than him at things (often), snooped in my grades, acted like a boorish asshole, and kissed ass instead of doing real work.

    I will let him hang himself here.

  14. 14.

    Pogonip

    @SiubhanDuinne: Get her to a neurologist if you can. “Confused,” at that age. Is the beginning of one of the senile dementias.

    I swear dementia is epidemic, and not just because more people are living long enough for it to show up. I’m seeing it in those in their ’60’s and ’70’s.

    On the other hand, it’s not inevitable; my father turned 88 last week and he’s fine, and other than a bad case of Fox Geezer Syndrome, my 80-ish uncle is also fine.

    Jokes aside, do try to get your geezer out from in front of the tube if you can. Even if they’re watching HGTV, I suspect just sitting there all day contributes to senility, or at least doesn’t help stave it off.

  18. 18.

    Shana

    @SiubhanDuinne: We’re always here to read your rants. Goodness knows this blog understands the need for that, and we may have some helpful advice from time to time. Family no matter how distant can be a comfort or an irritation, sometimes both at once. Perhaps because you don’t have the same buttons to be pushed as her daughter does you can make suggestions or recommendations to Martha that come from a good place but don’t come pre-packaged with an itinerary.

  19. 19.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    Sucks, non?

    And yet I have a higher self — I tend to keep her hidden much of the time but she peeps out now and then — who is all about the life lessons to be learned, the compassion, the wisdom to be gleaned from our elders no matter how frail and enfeebled they may be. So maybe it isn’t all that sucky, whatever it may look like.

    I dunno. I’m tired, cranky, and exhausted and frustrated from a long phone conversation — the first of many, I have no doubt — with my third once removed.

    I wish you nothing but good as you deal with an aging parent.

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @raven: My grandmother said that the first 85 years were pretty good. After that anytime she went, she would have been okay with it.

  22. 22.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Shana:

    Thank you. Exactly. That’s kind of how I see my role at this point. I’m “family” so I can be trusted with things like medical and financial information, and yet I’m not immediate family, so I can be a bit objective about decisions. I hope I’ll do right by them.

  25. 25.

    Little Boots

    actually, I think we can salvage a bit.

    health care, which I think will survive even this bitter supreme court.

    we can salvage a few jobs apparently, despite the attempt of wall street to kill every job ever.

    and we can salvage the economy generally, which is going to be okay.

    i wonder if we can salvage income equality. that’d be nice.

  27. 27.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Pogonip:

    People currently in their 60s and 70s were exposed to a shit-ton of environmental toxins as children and young adults (and probably full-grown adults). I wouldn’t be surprised if they are now showing some aftereffects of that. Remember, leaded gas didn’t begin being phased out until the 1970s.

  28. 28.

    srv

    People are really fed up with George RR Martin’s writing schedule:

    Police have foiled a dissident plot to target ex-security force members working on the Game of Thrones TV set in Belfast.
    …
    The insider claimed the dissidents planned to place a bomb made up of fertiliser with a Semtex booster inside a wheeled bin which would be left next to the catering unit.

    But a long-standing agent within the republican gang tipped-off his old RUC handler leading to a massive police counter-operation.

  30. 30.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Pogonip:

    Well, at least I can safely say there’s no Fox Derangement going on here. This family is way lefty, huge Obots, and utterly scornful of the GOP establishment as it has become.

    No, Martha’s (and her daughter’s) TV of choice are those godawful courtroom reality shows — Judge Judy and People’s Court and all the paternity-test programs. I detest them, but whenever I go over, those shows are blaring from every TV in the house. I have to plead hearing impairment to get them to lower the volume (or, ideally, turn off the set).

    But to return to your original point, I do think a neurological once-over is an excellent Idea, and if the physician doesn’t recommend it, I will bring it up myself.

  32. 32.

    RSA

    @Baud: Good luck. I don’t know the context, but still.

    The life changes I’ve been thinking about lately have to do with where my wife, with severe dementia, belongs: at home, where I promised her she would stay, or in a facility where she might have better care? And how should I live my own life, either way?

    I don’t have good answers for me or anyone else, except that it’s worthwhile to keep looking for happiness.

  33. 33.

    Little Boots

    well reality tv is always going to be its own special brand of awful, but I don’t know that judge judy is that bad. maybe you could start there.

  34. 34.

    Pogonip

    Spring has officially sprung; there’s a fly in here. It gets to live another night because I am too tired to get up and swat it and my son and his basketball are 3 counties away.

    My son is probably the only person on earth who can kill flies with a basketball. It’s amazing. People don’t believe it till they see it. The same fly that dodges the swatter with ease will sit on a window and let my son walk right up and roll a basketball over it.

  35. 35.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @RSA:

    except that it’s worthwhile to keep looking for happiness.

    QFT. And take time to take care of yourself.

  36. 36.

    Little Boots

    the Left can be a little precious about this stuff. occasionally, maybe we do need to climb down and deal with the actual culture as it is, not some fantasy we want.

  38. 38.

    Baud

    @RSA:

    Thanks. Nothing I have is even close to what you’re dealing with. Take care of yourself as you take care of your wife.

  40. 40.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @RSA:

    I don’t have good answers for me or anyone else, except that it’s worthwhile to keep looking for happiness.

    If ever a comment deserved a “this,” it’s this.

  41. 41.

    AliceBlue

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I went through the same thing with my mother two years ago. She was 92, living by herself and she just kept falling more and more often–the last one put her in the hospital. She realized that she couldn’t live alone anymore but neither she nor I had the money to hire someone to stay with her 24/7. When it finally hit her that she was going to have to move to an assisted living facility, she had an emotional breakdown. It was like a replay of the time my father left when I was 18–floods of tears, repeatedly saying “I wish I would die”, etc. God it was horrible.

    She just had her 94th birthday. She was unhappy for a while, but she adjusted, made new friends, and some old friends moved in too. She made a life for herself and she’s content.

    Things will get better.

  42. 42.

    Pogonip

    @RSA: Unless you can afford an average of $200/day, the decision about whether to keep her at home may already have been made for you. It’s not generally known that Medicare will not pay for a nursing home. Good luck. Taking care of a senile relative is a hard job.

  43. 43.

    Little Boots

    @Omnes Omnibus: well reality tv is always going to be its own special brand of awful, but I don’t know that judge judy is that bad. maybe you could start there.

    I’ve done some terrible things, as you know. but never, ever creed.

  44. 44.

    PurpleGirl

    Ah, man, I don’t read the NY Times much any more so I wouldn’t have seen this column. Anyone who didn’t/doesn’t at least have a few tears has no compassion or empathy, no soul.

    There’s a group with the motto: Pets Add Life.

  53. 53.

    Little Boots

    we seriously need omnes music.

    I know I do this, but I’m always right. omnes music makes things better.

  54. 54.

    BruceFromOhio

    @srv: Belfast is probably a good place to learn how to construct and deploy an explosive device, as there is likely more than one or two boyo’s with the knowledge.

    OTOH, sheesh, really? Gonna shard the caterer to prove…. what, exactly? Perhaps it had naught to do with the production, and aught to do with something more mundane.

  55. 55.

    Pogonip

    @RSA: Oh, good. In this state the best option is on-paper divorce so the senile spouse can get Medicaid. Elderly people–no people!–shouldn’t be put through that.

  60. 60.

    Belafon

    I love this quote from the Iranian foreign minister in response to the Republican letter:

    Zarif expressed astonishment that some members of US Congress find it appropriate to write to leaders of another country against their own President and administration. He pointed out that from reading the open letter, it seems that the authors not only do not understand international law, but are not fully cognizant of the nuances of their own Constitution when it comes to presidential powers in the conduct of foreign policy.

  63. 63.

    Baud

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to read Justice Thomas’s separate opinions in the two cases that came out today. They are . . . something else.

  66. 66.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: I have not had a chance, but as soon as I feel like torturing myself again, I’ll jump on them.

  67. 67.

    PurpleGirl

    @Pogonip: I saw a commercial or two for a gun thing that you can use to kill flies. It shoots salt at them. Then on a reality show about a guy giving investment money to ‘inventors’ they had on the guy who developed the fly gun. (I don’t remember if got the investment that night, nor how I decided to watch the show while channel surfing… )

    Bug-a-salt 2.0

    http://bugasalt.com/

  68. 68.

    mai naem mobile

    @Suzanne: i worked at a place with this.one person who was just nasty to me and i never figured out why because i hadn’t done anything to her. Anyhow, I moved.onto another job. About 2 years later she gets hired at my job. Intially, I was worried because qualification wise she was above me( but not a supervisor.) What was funny was she was kissing my ass because i was well liked I’m assuming she thought it would help her if i gave her a stamp of approval. I never said anything negative but this woman seriously thought i was going to forget how nasty she had been to me. Thankfully she quit after a couple of months.

  77. 77.

    Little Boots

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    still waiting.

    oh come back to the living. I know what you mean. this whole thing is starting to suck. but we miss you, and love you. and you get to do what you do.

  78. 78.

    Anne Laurie

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Recently, Martha has been falling frequently, and getting more and more confused and stubborn…

    I’m guessing you (her daughter) have already done a medications check? There’s a lot of ‘harmless’ geezer scrips (for stuff like high blood pressure, cholesterol, kidney problems, stroke prevention) that can cause “mild” vertigo or confusion, especially when taken in combination. And doctors aren’t always forthcoming about those side effects, because they’re convinced that telling us non-initiates about gauzy stuff like ‘statin brain’ will just encourage us to pester them. So it’s up to the patients, or their caregivers, to collect *all* of the various pills potions & nostrums, show them to a doctor (or a nurse practitioner, or even a pharmacist at one of the chains with doc-in-the-box facilities), and make sure Mary isn’t reacting to a prescription that can be switched — or even dropped.

  80. 80.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Howard Dean keeps comparing the GOP Senators’ Iran letter to Jane Fonda going to Vietnam. What Constitutional office did she hold again?

    Joe Biden got all Institutional on their asses

  81. 81.

    mai naem mobile

    An option for some elderly people is a group home. You may not necessarily get the privacy you get in an apartment style assisted living but if they need nursing home care a group home will give them more personal attention. Its cheaper too. Also I had a coworker who.had a nice set up for her parents for several years. She had a foreign student couple who looked after her parents for room.and board. They juggled.their school schedules so that one of them was always there and they were happy because they weren’t getting paid cash which would have been illegal.under their visas but saving money on room and board and they got to live.in a nice home.

  83. 83.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Anne Laurie: I am not a huge fan of woo or ignoring medical advice, but my grandmother found that her bp meds made her feel dizzy and didn’t help her bp much, so she quit taking them. She also quit smoking cold turkey at 89 after 75 years of smoking, so she may not be typical.

  84. 84.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Anne Laurie:

    Many thanks, Anne Laurie. I’m not even sure what meds Martha is on — a lot — but that is an excellent point, and I’ll definitely mention it to her daughter. I do know that Martha’s scrips are filled at three different places (CVS, Walgreen’s and the pharmacy at Kroger) so there’s not even the dubious possibility of having an alert pharmacist note potential side effects or interactions.

  89. 89.

    Anne Laurie

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I do know that Martha’s scrips are filled at three different places (CVS, Walgreen’s and the pharmacy at Kroger) so there’s not even the dubious possibility of having an alert pharmacist note potential side effects or interactions.

    CVS, at least — and probably the other chains by now — were advertising that their pharmacist would look at all one’s medications, even the ones not from CVS, for possible interactions. And there seems to be a lot of redundancy in cases where patients see several different specialists. Richard Mayhew will know more about this, but I recall a NYTimes article not long ago that said somewhere between 10% and 20% of all geriatric prescriptions had enough overlap that the patient didn’t need — and frequently shouldn’t — be taking both at the same time.

  92. 92.

    Pogonip

    @PurpleGirl: My son has no need of fly salt. His basketball-fu is strong!

    I wonder if the fly-gun guy also invented the Mousetrap game?

  93. 93.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @lamh36: This is one of the things that Obama does. He uses Biden on domestic affairs and Kerry on foreign affairs to express the anger of the US while he coasts above it. It’s really well done. People talk about Biden’s and Kerry’s gaffes, but I see them as intentional comments meant as trial balloons or warnings.

  95. 95.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Little Boots: I think so as well, but we get troglodytes around here who wonder if Kerry lost his mind and is committing gaffes all over the place without think that there may be a longer term strategy in play. When I litigated, i was willing to play the fool, the bully, the friend, etc., when I was trying to make a point to a jury. Just saying.

  96. 96.

    lamh36

    @Omnes Omnibus: it’s one of Biden’s selling points as VP choice…his years and experience in the Senate.

    So coming from him, this should really hit home.

  97. 97.

    lamh36

    FYI, Congressman John Lewis is the featured guest on The Daily Show tonight. I”d say one of Stewart’s best interview.

    Not much joking, just asking questions and letting Rep John Lewis speak. Even just flipping channels, John Lewis makes you awestruck and you can see that Jon is awestruck too

  100. 100.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lamh36: So coming from him, this should really hit home.

    It should, and many tongues will be clucked by people who two years ago were telling us that the problem with Washinton was that Obama didn’t socialize with Mitch McConnell. But I can’t think of one GOP Senator who signed this letter who will feel a tinge of remorse. McCain is so far gone in bitterness and arrogance he thinks he’s saving the Republic. Orrin Hatch strikes me as having a rather loose grip on reality, Grassley’s devolved into a crank, and besides them… I can’t think of any old bulls from Biden’s Senate era on the GOP side. Lugar, Hutchison, Warner, Snowe, … They’re all goons, cranks, cowards (hello, Sen Collins!) and hacks (Senator McConnell, your table is ready, Senator Shelby is waiting for you). There is no more accountability for these people.

  101. 101.

    lamh36

    @Omnes Omnibus: Naw it’s off. But it was probably the best interview I’ve seen on TDS in a while. You could tell Jon Stewart was as awestruck as we all would be if in the presence of John Lewis

  103. 103.

    PurpleGirl

    @Pogonip: When I first saw a commercial for it I wondered about and if it was real. When I saw the investor reality show I laughed that it was real. I don’t see the point of using it though. It seems completely looney.

  104. 104.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: well shut my mouth…. I didn’t notice Collins’ name on the list on non-signees. My internet apologies for overlooking this late and rare instance of her doing the right thing.

  105. 105.

    Beatrice

    @raven:

    We just finished “Top of the Lake” with Elizabeth Moss and Holly Hunter and directed by Jane Campion. Sounds like a winner doesn’t it? It was so fucking stupid I can’t believe it.

    Totally agree. The acting was good but I thought the writing and directing were awful. Gorgeous scenery, though.

  107. 107.

    Violet

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    As my dad says “It beats the alternative.”*

    *Most of the time.

    I hear people say this and I always wonder how they know. How does anyone know?

  108. 108.

    Tenar Darell

    @SiubhanDuinne: If Martha doesn’t have a call button yet for emergencies, that’s the first thing to suggest she get for her own safety. Most people know about Life Alert, with the base stations and pendant, but you can get a cell phone powered emergency button for reasonable rates even at Walmart now. My father has the “GreatCall 5Star Emergency Response” version. (The location services work. He lost it in the yard once and was able to call the service and use the GPS to locate it).

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