Carry on to the Care Home

Us personas have been rather ravaged this last while. Our dear Vicky, who put up with us for over thirty years, has taken a room in the spotless surroundings of a care home. It was not really her decision, and ours rather reluctantly, but was begrudgingly the outcome of health issues we could not cope with. We are laid to waste, guilt, anxiety, depression, all giving us their undivided attention.

As luck will have it, we can walk to her new abode in twenty minutes which we do every day. It is our task, when we arrive, to keep the Martians at bay. They seem to roam the halls of such establishments, confounding the fears of the residents and confounding the staff with their trickery, always able to hide just out of sight, these little green aliens whose intent is not always that clear. We were going to bring a bazooka or a giant pea shooter, but the staff thought it best to use psychological warfare in the battle. We will have to hone up on our apocryphal skills and read up on Martian invasion strategies, it seems we may be mired in this oppugner for some time to come.

It leaves us in a vacuum here at Deathrock Apartments. We personas have all taken our turn at nurturing our dear Vicky over the last several years as her mind gained the joys of otherworldliness. When one of us became overwhelmed, another persona could take over and offer a fresh approach. Luckily, the local drunk has not been around for years and years, or things might have taken a turn. Her three cats, the orange ones, have laid the claims to her bed, although one morning as we peeked through the slightly open door after a bit of a scurcuffle they looked rather grey and later they turned black and white after which we put on our spectacles to see they were really just orange. Several of us personas think there may actually be nine cats living here, and we are attempting to scientifically set up some experiment to put an end once and for all to this mystery. Our Vicky would be smiling from ear to ear at our endeavours.

We sort of miss our Vicky, her ear always open to discussions on current affairs, the recent developments in nuclear fusion or the beaming and reassuring face of our new Prime Minister. Her broad smile at our dissertations was always confidence building even though we all knew she didn't have a clue what we were disseminating about. It seems there is a higher, some may call it spiritual, aspect to human communication beyond the legal meaning of our diction.

We are slowly teaching our bullheaded sense of humour to shut up about how we rode Betsy the cow over three foot snow banks from far out in the bush to arrive in the big city to pop out of the elevator where our Vicky sits waiting for us to pop in. We are learning to sit quietly and listen to the stories, the memories from childhood which consume her thoughts. And then she asks us if we have a story to tell her, and we relate a tidbit from our childhood and we laugh at our silliness from years and years ago, and our bond continues in a mysterious way. When we leave she comes to the elevator with us and we wave farewell as the closing doors pop us out of existence. It is with relief that we see her heading enthusiastically down the hall to some unknown adventure. She has adjusted to her new home.

All us personas decided we must pull ourselves together by our bootstraps and continue with some sort of life, and since we know no other we will continue to ravage the earth with much tomfoolery and misadventure as we attempt to deal with a slight maladjustment to capitalism, organized religion, male chauvinism, and politics to awkwardly bring justice to humanities forsaken. If we fail we fail so be it, our Vicky has a big enough smile to save us all.

Loxy Lori

Mendaciously speaking the truth, Loxy Lory tripsies passionately amongst the realms of moonlit canoodling oglers encircling the tree of life. It stands there alone as if gravity had taken the day off, defying the periodic table to breath grasping, gasping at the intricacies of organic profusion. Lies and yet more truthful lies. “One wee bite won't hurt you sweetie,” she giggles. “It's the nectar of the gods, young man, your soul will dance with the fairies.”

Twisted beauty, twisted logic, pure perfidiousness. “It's but an apple” my dear, “Much simpler this path to knowledge than to study for fifteen long years to dissertate on the juices of the pancreas.” Loxy Lory convoluting into an art form progenesis, that acceleration of sexual maturation relative to the rest of development through the knowledge concealed in the divine fruit, the forbidden fruit for humanities pubescent.

Meanwhile Freddie the red eyed and evil orange cat has found his soul mate in heat. He stalks her mercilessly, up and up into the living branches, red eyes like hot coals piercing the night from between the leaves. Screaming they climb, barbaric insults hurled in the tenderness of feline love. Humanities devotion to the rules of fecundity play no bias in Freddie's intent. Clinging together they fall from the highest canopy of twilight green, crashing through the leaves and branches to land dazed in a heap on the ground.

Laughing amusably, Loxy Lory stoles limp and exhausted Freddie in a boa around her neck. Enraptured eyes of the nascent youth follow her as Freddie purrs in evil uncontrollable delight. The sweetness of unbridled lust overwhelms the cosmos and the earth begins to quake, apples falling everywhere. (Was likely caused by impassioned fracking but tales are tales.) His tail starts flipping as our Freddie comes to, and him being a profoundly wildcat, he leaps off leaving many more than a few scratch marks on clever Loxy Lory's neck. The young, astounded by the show, serenade Loxy Lory with cheers and clapping and whistles as the blood trickles sweetly from her wounds.

The earth still quakes, apples rolling everywhere, now ankle deep. Black ooze tingles the hairlike roots of enlightenment. Seductively it creeps along the underpinnings of the life sustaining arteries of nourishment. Standing there alone, the tree of life becomes giddy, this black nectar gumming up the pathways of essential nutrients which deliver sanity to the perspicacity of the ages. The sticky black crud, slithering up and up to the vines which nourish the apples which snakes and Loxy Lories impinge upon the young, begins to drip down on the earth. Loxy Lory stands fixated beneath, slowly becoming tarred by the smelly blackened sap. The oglers too become lubricated by the crud.

Now writhing on the ground, humanities future intoxicated by the fumes, gives up all dignity. Loxy Lory conducts like a symphony. Bodies glisten in the moonlight. Freddie and his soul mate once more at it, join the fray. Waves of slippery black euphoria convulse upon the slickened grasses. The tree of life begins to wilt, heart broken that it's secrets are so antiquated. The earth shudders in despair and rips wide open, the crack swallowing all; the tree of life, the canoodling oglers, Loxy Lory, even Freddie and his love. The earth closes upon itself. All is gone, knowledge and wisdom are vanished.

Note: This was written by our impish dilettante and the agnostic philosopher. The rest of us personas really have no inkling as to where their inept heavenliness stems. May the cosmos bless them and keep them safe in their undertakings. The Management.

I walk the wall, until I fall

It was heartening to hear the revered Donald Trump propound his full length Mexican wall proposal.

1954 miles, 12 million 555 thousand cubic yards of concrete, 5 billion pounds of rebar, and all the sexy aspects of large-scale engineering projects: surveying, land acquisition, environmental review, geological studies, archaeological sites uncovered, maintenance, excavating for foundations and so on; the roads to haul the concrete or preformed sections, food and housing and medical care for the workers. And all this material and labour supplied by Mexico no doubt. It might just work, such a boost to the Mexican economy, why sell drugs? They'd all go home on their own. And all the nations willing to pay for the learned technology, North Korea, Israel, middle eastern nations, Europe, Ukraine? Walls everywhere. The genius of it all.

The clocks are working hard this new year to pull time along. 2015 was such an adventurous year for humanity. The power trips of want to be world movers, scheming, lying, thriving on divisiveness. We heard our clocks talking late one night. They said they needed a battery change every month to be able to pull civilization forward. They said the world was so bogged down in misrepresentation it was like being mired in a vast steamy tavern. Oh but for smart clocks, all connected by the ethereal net, the computational abilities of billions of consanguineous clocks world wide, in every home, office, in every high place and every low place, on everyone's wrist world wide. They'd keep track of every nuance humanity flirted with, able to speed up and slow down and stop or even backtrack, keeping our foolishness to a mere ripple in the cosmos. Listening to our clocks that night, they had a real empathy for their makers.

We like Christmas. 'Tis the season to be jolly. Our puerility can go somewhat unnoticed. Ever since we were kids our personas have not been able to appreciate the earnestness of the human predicament. Our words are but symbols, representing to the best of language's ability an expression of our befuddlement. As if a spot of religion or a dash of politics can circumvent hunger and death. Stars implode, and we lavish in our humanity. Walls will come and walls will go. The three little pigs had a go at it, the big bad wolf just didn't have technology. Some Mexican dude named Carlos the Hun will gather all the left handed Mexican insurgents together and they will walk outside that wall for seven days and seven nights never uttering a sound, and then they will let out one mighty shout and the wall will fall. And Carlos the Hun will climb a little red rope dropped from above by a sweet black haired fling to save her from prison's torment and they will live happily ever after.

It needs a good foot path on top, that wall. Imagine the rich Chinese tourists it would draw. From Tijuana to Brownsville, fancy five star hotels enticing weary sojourners into the luxurious spas and foot baths. Bumper stickers all over America, “I walked The Wall.” Donald Trump will be a multi-trillionare, conflict of interest hinging on political correctness. Can a nation build such a wonder of the world in a four year term? We thinks perhaps the wonderment of reality tv has carried away the soul of more than just the odd couch potato. “We didn't realize he was going to be the actual president” they lamented, “We thought this was a new tv episode.” Psyched everyone out, he did. Fox News too.

Our plans are being laid, up here in Canada. They obviously won't relish our legally crossing the 49^th parallel after reading this hogwash so we'll pick a dark and stormy night and sneak across on the mighty River Red in our little canoe, into the mighty Mississippi water shed, and Huck Finn style raft our way down the murky currents to the Gulf of Mexico and sneak along the coast in the dark of night to walk that wall from Brownsville to wet our whistle in the steamy taverns of Tijuana. The epic journey of a life time, thank you reality tv.

“Just curing despondency, mam”

Our little Christmas tree sits in an empty room. It's tiny lights shine peacefully for no one. Our Vicky sits in a hospital room. Her uncomprehending propensity wishes to be with her Christmas tree, to gaze at it's peaceful tiny lights, to be at home where the familiar offers an anchor for the mind.

So us being somewhat impulsive, we pack up that little Christmas tree in a wimpy green garbage bag and head off across the street, that avenue which divides the scourge of Winterpeg from the upper class elites who perambulate the halls of the elixirs of the gods. Down through the maze of snaking tunnels who entangle a labyrinth of vents and pipes and cables which amazingly find their way to a destination where their usefulness is appreciated we saunter, ever wary of those security guys in their speedy little go carts who roam these subterranes, ever on the watch for infidels carrying wimpy green garbage bags.

We artfully circumvent capture to reach the fountainhead of elevator clamour and are whisked up to the fourth floor of one of the towers of respite where our Vicky desponds. Luckily the nursing station is deserted as we sneak down the long hall to the end room. Safely in the room our Vicky sees us and grins from ear to ear. She would think something was terribly wrong if we weren't up to some sort of misadventure, so it is no surprise as we unveil her little Christmas tree, setting it nobly on her window ledge and of course, we have to plug it in.

Now let us consider a generalized impulse control model for controlling a process governed by a stochastic state of affairs. The controller can only choose a parameter of the probability distribution of the consequence of his control action which is therefor random. There may be undesired results relating to the input scenarios of quasi-variational inequalities. These results will be a viscosity solution of the quasi-variational inequalities which could lead to unforeseen developments.

So, we plugged in that little Christmas tree and for a moment it shone so peacefully lighting up our Vicky's smiling face. The room grew peaceful as the angels of heaven all smiled their love down from above. But there began a wee murmur from the bed beside us. It grew, horribly. Panic and fear gripped the environs. It is said the screams were heard through the concrete floors far up above. Ever heard of christougenniatiko dentrophobia, that ghastly fear of misshapen Christmas tree branches casting long twisted shadows and clutching at you with prickly needle-like fingers: pine pitch, bone-white dried fir, and spruce tar with opoponax and blackened tobacco, who knew?

Well. Some quasi form of virtual reality must not be adhered to when life takes such a turn. We must grasp that impulse control model by the horns and create a rock solid scenario of face saving developments a little less viscid. To be loaded on board along with our peaceful little Christmas tree on a speedy little go cart and hauled off to the remotest corner of the subterranes to be thrown nonchalantly into the dungeons sealed from media and artful lawyers was not our cup of tea. Yes, we opened that window wide and dropped that peaceful little Christmas tree four stories to it's demise before you could blink your eye. When the matrons arrived we were calmly seated beside our Vicky comforting her anxious outpourings with a hug. Impetuousness jilted we went discerningly back to curing despondency one little smile at a time.

Of waifs and sanctimonious socialists

Conniving waifs. Them pointy little ears. Always adorning that sweet coif covering a brilliantly tufty coiffure. Wicked beady little eyes smirking out from hilariously bushy wrens nest eyebrows. Mystery of mysteries, how can mouths outwit themselves with lies heaped upon lies, deceit drooling from lips parched with the thirst for who knows what? Attention, scorn, ridicule, rapture? To crawl into bed at night knowing full well everyone you encumbered upon thought the less of you, my what a trip.

Must have been the upbringing we surmise. Negligent caregivers no doubt, allowed their five year old to roam the streets till the wee hours of morning, never a loaf of bread in the cupboard, supper only if someone was sober enough to cook. Created a spot of independence early on it did, that knack for shirking the grasp of child agencies in a land overflowing with sanctimonious socialists. Slipped through the cracks we sigh in hindsight, pass a few new laws and all will be well.

Is it freedom that is yearned for? To blatantly lie about everything in a legalitarianly correct society, heaping scorn and ridicule on oneself for posthumous amusement. That feeling that you screwed up totally everything in your life, leaving that empty feeling inside, no friends, no one caring the less at your burial. All in pursuit of that self image, unattainable dreams of a hardened compulsive. And then to laugh at it all. What masochists.

We create, us gods of human virtue. We create the valued and the admonished and the somewhere in between. We wheedle our unconscious pecking order loosed upon us by our hairy ancestors, we undermine the mesmerics of equality. Our esteemed values, ethical undulations of our kinky civilized thought, hiding in closets those obsessions which are too flagrant for social media, we are the perfect judges of our fellows. Speak not, and no one will hear. Use sticky notes.

Does Mr. Sun shine on you? Does he roast your skin with barbaric tan lines? Open up your lives to the gods of plenty, let the deceit drool from your lips that you may value the full encumbrance of freedom, the freedom to express the naughtiness of that five year old roaming the streets at 2 am. Piss in the gutter once or twice, then crawl into bed unencumbered by your deceit. Show up for work at noon, and just smile, willfully. Touch base with the nations downtrodden. Just smile away.

Express yourselves. Delve into the world of symbolism. Let those lies pour out their potency. Adorn that sweet coif covering a brilliantly tufty coiffure. Hum away your national anthem. Enjoy life. Those waifs will enjoin your presence in the park at midnight, although they may be somewhat underhanded in the expression. Catch a falling star. Be a waif.

We may sort of wonder what on earth we just esoterically obscured in the above conundrum. To make things perfectly clear, in our search for moral bedrock, when Mount Olympus erodes into the seas and the gods search for a new universe to call home, the waifs and sanctimonious socialists of yesteryear will be wandering the great halls of heavenly tablets searching and searching and forever searching.

I don't know anymore

I don't know anymore. She wakes me up. She wakes me up anytime she wakes up. In the middle of the night I hear “Len, Len, Len”. “Yes Vicky” I venture in my sleep. I know if I don't get up and give her a hug and rub her back and fix her black TV (I don't know why those damned networks can't show their pics on the whole screen instead of half the screen in the middle which makes it all black around the outside which my Vicky can't comprehend, I don't know), I know she'll keep calling “Len, Len”.

She wakes me up in the morning, at five and thirty. “Len, Len” I hear. “Are you getting up?” If I don't answer, which is most of the time because consciousness does not stir that quickly, she comes shuffling to my bed. Poke, poke, “Len, are you getting up? Len, it's time to get up!” poke, poke. Then it's the old pull the blankets off Len trick. That's just plain irritating when your cozy warm and half asleep. I don't know anymore. So we get to the kitchen, we set her down in her chair. “Len, Len” she says, scared as I venture off to get her morning meds. “I'll be right back” I mumble, mumble mumble to myself mostly. I don't know anymore.

We sit here, us personas, trying to type a few words between “Len, Len” and getting up to give some much needed assurance with a hug and a little back rub in her increasingly confusing world. “Len”. “Yes”, as she points towards us. “It's your ear”, or “It's your glasses”, or “It's your knee”. “Yes we say” as we tweak our mentioned body part. That need for acknowledgement, a mind bent on attention. I don't know anymore. Time for some distraction by manufacturing some breakfast. “Are you having some too?” she asks worriedly as I give her an orange neatly sliced into six chunks in a little bowl. “Yes, yes” we say as we point to ours on the other side of the table.

The cats are better at this than we are, us personas. Shucks, she can chuck them off the bed and two seconds latter they're cuddled back up beside her, all forgiven and forgotten. That's just their mom, they've adapted to her ways.

Her leg swells up. It's happened before. They ran a million tests, nothing showed up, it mended on it's own. We take her to her doc, does ultrasound, shows baker's cyst, leg improves. Her arm swells up, bad, lots of ouches. What shall we do? I don't know. We phone her docs, no one can see her for three days. In three days her arm improves, a doc gives her water pills. Next day she's quarterbacking for the Blue Bombers. I don't know anymore.

We tried Home Care, mostly we needed a break. They did their assessment. We were doing just fine they surmised. Recommended a senior's day care, half a day a week, bus would pick her up, had to take her meds on her own though, good luck, better hide your garbage cans. She refused to go anyway, wasn't going to no old folks day care, she wasn't. I don't know anymore.

Grocery shopping day is a joy. We can't push a wheelie chair and a grocery cart at the same time so she uses the grocery cart as a walker and off we trot. She gets a tad tired now and then so we find some convenient cases of straying commodities to settle her down upon for a minute. Take her to the back of the store and make our way to the front, leaving her at the main artery to await our plucking from the cross aisles. So long as she can see us, no panic. You got to watch out for those roving family groupies though, grandparents with hordes of moms and kids and shopping carts can certainly fog the view. Employees with those towering dollies of Cherry Coke can do the same. It's the chance you take, not? Lose a wife much? Found her wandering the parking lot once, never used the checkout, she didn't, cart full of groceries. I don't know anymore.

How long can someone look after a person like this? I just don't know anymore. We asked our doc. Somewhat of a fuzzy answer he forthcame with, an answer bordering on vagueness articulating ambiguity and generality with an emphasis on many-valued logic, supervaluationism and contextualism. Seems like there is no cut and dry time line to the disposition of dementia. In the end it makes little consequence to the inductees as to who feeds and shelters them, so long as they feel well disposed of. So we asked our Vicky “Do you feel well disposed of?” “Yes” says she quietly with that all knowing grin. Well. I just don't know anymore.

Does anyone know? Who knows. I know I don't know.

An update on our ice box

Yesterday morning at 9 am sharp there was a knock at our door, and there stood the undertakers of Dunogremesh to haul away our ailing little fridge. Please feel free to join us in mourning our loss. Any donations can be made to either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

Now we are in shock. Not at the loss of our white and pure icebox so much, our time of bereavement will pass. No, we are in shock that artfulness overcame adversity. Our lives have not been highly successful by way of social mobility, us personas. We are not prone to winning anything much at all, not lottery tickets, nor bingo, nor the good will of employers in our working years. Authority in any make and model had a disdain for our temperament, so to speak. It may not be a far stretch to say we were considering terrorism as a means of achieving some vindication in our senectitude.

But we decided to attempt diplomacy in one final throw of misadventure in a callous and unjust world before we deployed our vintage pressure cooker (it leaks a tad). The pen being said to be mightier than the pressure cooker we unleashed our bridled tongue in the form of eloquent chimera with "Beestis clepid chymeres, that han a part of ech beest, and suche ben not, no but oonly in opynyoun." It seems our personification hath thusly paid off. Those fools at Dunogremesh Property Management Corporation fell for diplomacy when they could have awaited our pressure cooker, cooking up a stew of cabbage and onions and rancid pork rinds next to their fresh air intake whilst we toked our medical marijuana. They could have filed inordinate writs against us for decimating their air quality, ruining the remaining years of our retirement and gaining the fruits of long years of our Canada Pension Plan premiums.

Yes they lost face, and now we revel with a somewhat new and robust refrigerator. It really is hard to be humble in times like this. One wee note sent forth from the dark and lowly crevices of Dunogremesh's vast domain moved mortals if not the gods themselves. We are the invincible, the champions of pen and ink. They caved in to literary philandering, those one percenters, the wizards of cooked accountancy and demonic rent collection strategy, with legal short pants bent on undermining the precepts of rent control. Eruditeness won out over impenitent profiteering.

It cost them a used fridge, it did. Twenty-five bucks they could have donated to a mercantile think tank. Our allusion to sophistication paid off. Their evil nature was wont to feel complicit in cultural befuddlement encompassing that shade of intrigue in parting with a few greenbacks. May the gods laugh and have mercy upon us all.