Thursday, January 25, 2007
List of Things I Absolutely Won't Be Doing after My Mother Dies
Item #1: I will never again watch an episode of the television series M*A*S*H.
Some time this last fall I was relieved to discover that the Hallmark Channel, the channel which was broadcasting four back-to-back episodes of M*A*S*H every evening at the time when Mom usually insists on watching TV, which "we" often viewed when I couldn't find anything else to interest Mom and I didn't want to watch TV, which means she watched it a lot, changed the time of their relentless broadcasting of this show to earlier in the day when Mom is usually not interested in watching TV. As a result, I've managed to interest her in other shows, movies, etc.
In the ensuing months, Mom's retirement and arousal times have both shifted forward a couple of hours so that she now regularly retires between 0100 and 0200. Often, the time before she retires is filled with reading, talking, maybe watching movies, either from our collection or on TV, occasional games, maybe a project here and there...blissfully free of the theme from M*A*S*H. Last night, though, Mom's concentration level was pretty low, so I figured, around midnight, that junk TV might be a good idea. I started to surf through the channel line-up.
Following a couple of clicks of the remote, my mother excitedly noticed, "There's M*A*S*H! It's on another channel now!"
The thing is, although I usually flip through channels so quickly that she doesn't have a chance to register the names of the scrolling shows, M*A*S*H appears on the roster with the asterisks between the letters, so her recognition of its placement is instantaneous. I shuddered but was a good sport and triggered the show...halfway through the first of four episodes. I made a mental note to myself that I need to start rifling through our video collection for late night fare.
Earlier this afternoon, still slip sliding through a minor down-for-the-count period, Mom decided, yet again, that all she wanted to do was watch "some light TV". The surfing began. Lo and behold, M*A*S*H showed up, on which channel I don't recall, and, wouldn't you know it, four episodes in a row. My spirit sunk. Out of curiosity, I used the menu to see how many times during any particular day the show plays. Come to discover, it is on at least four channels at different times throughout the day. I can't be certain about how many channels run the show because the list of viewing times seemed to go on forever and Mom admonished me that she was missing part of an episode while I was "playing". I suspect, though, if one wishes, one could watch an episode of M*A*S*H at any time during the day.
Ohmigod...I'm being attacked by M*A*S*H!
Now you know why we don't own the series on DVD. Aside from the fact that it isn't necessary, for the reasons mentioned above, owning it, I believe, would be considered Cruel and Unusual Punishment of the Caregiver, at least in this household.
I know why my mother loves this show. I know she will love it for the rest of her life and scavenge every opportunity to watch yet another episode of it. In addition, I believe the show is good for her. Despite that it's about a conflict in which the U.S. participated after she left the military and its generational references are a little post-dated for her, I believe it reinforces what she considers the best parts of her character and the best parts of her life. And yet, there are times when I hear the theme and I think, Bring that asteroid, now, please, or I may be provoked to throw something heavy through the TV screen!
I have considered that her love affair with this show will, A.M. (After Mom), come to have an altered significance for me...I occasionally am afflicted with images of myself looking at an episode of M*A*S*H in the future, for nostalgia's sake, in order to recall and savor moments in our life together and refresh my memory of certain aspects of her character...
NOT!
If this ever happens, anyone who knows me can be sure that it will be time to administer the MMSE to me.
Later.
Some time this last fall I was relieved to discover that the Hallmark Channel, the channel which was broadcasting four back-to-back episodes of M*A*S*H every evening at the time when Mom usually insists on watching TV, which "we" often viewed when I couldn't find anything else to interest Mom and I didn't want to watch TV, which means she watched it a lot, changed the time of their relentless broadcasting of this show to earlier in the day when Mom is usually not interested in watching TV. As a result, I've managed to interest her in other shows, movies, etc.
In the ensuing months, Mom's retirement and arousal times have both shifted forward a couple of hours so that she now regularly retires between 0100 and 0200. Often, the time before she retires is filled with reading, talking, maybe watching movies, either from our collection or on TV, occasional games, maybe a project here and there...blissfully free of the theme from M*A*S*H. Last night, though, Mom's concentration level was pretty low, so I figured, around midnight, that junk TV might be a good idea. I started to surf through the channel line-up.
Following a couple of clicks of the remote, my mother excitedly noticed, "There's M*A*S*H! It's on another channel now!"
The thing is, although I usually flip through channels so quickly that she doesn't have a chance to register the names of the scrolling shows, M*A*S*H appears on the roster with the asterisks between the letters, so her recognition of its placement is instantaneous. I shuddered but was a good sport and triggered the show...halfway through the first of four episodes. I made a mental note to myself that I need to start rifling through our video collection for late night fare.
Earlier this afternoon, still slip sliding through a minor down-for-the-count period, Mom decided, yet again, that all she wanted to do was watch "some light TV". The surfing began. Lo and behold, M*A*S*H showed up, on which channel I don't recall, and, wouldn't you know it, four episodes in a row. My spirit sunk. Out of curiosity, I used the menu to see how many times during any particular day the show plays. Come to discover, it is on at least four channels at different times throughout the day. I can't be certain about how many channels run the show because the list of viewing times seemed to go on forever and Mom admonished me that she was missing part of an episode while I was "playing". I suspect, though, if one wishes, one could watch an episode of M*A*S*H at any time during the day.
Ohmigod...I'm being attacked by M*A*S*H!
Now you know why we don't own the series on DVD. Aside from the fact that it isn't necessary, for the reasons mentioned above, owning it, I believe, would be considered Cruel and Unusual Punishment of the Caregiver, at least in this household.
I know why my mother loves this show. I know she will love it for the rest of her life and scavenge every opportunity to watch yet another episode of it. In addition, I believe the show is good for her. Despite that it's about a conflict in which the U.S. participated after she left the military and its generational references are a little post-dated for her, I believe it reinforces what she considers the best parts of her character and the best parts of her life. And yet, there are times when I hear the theme and I think, Bring that asteroid, now, please, or I may be provoked to throw something heavy through the TV screen!
I have considered that her love affair with this show will, A.M. (After Mom), come to have an altered significance for me...I occasionally am afflicted with images of myself looking at an episode of M*A*S*H in the future, for nostalgia's sake, in order to recall and savor moments in our life together and refresh my memory of certain aspects of her character...
NOT!
If this ever happens, anyone who knows me can be sure that it will be time to administer the MMSE to me.
Later.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Regarding Bush's State of the Union earlier this evening...
...I have one question: What was Speaker Pelosi sucking?
Did you notice? She was fine during the early pleasantries, but once Bush began the meat of his speech, Nancy started moving her mouth as though she had something loose in it. A lozenge? A piece of candy? Perhaps successive wavelets of gorge in response to sentence after sentence of Bush's speech?
I noticed her mobile mouth very early in the speech, possibly at the same time the curious movements began. I didn't say anything, even though these kinds of background glitches are favorite topics of discussion between my mother and me. I wanted to concentrate on the speech.
Unfortunately, about 15 minutes into the speech my mother said, "What is that woman eating!?!" That was it. My concentration was blown.
We spent the rest of the speech, most of it, actually, watching and commenting as the woman sucked and shifted whatever her mouth contained. We carefully checked the attendees as the camera panned the audience to see if others were entertaining themselves in the same manner (none were) and speculating on what could possibly be her problem. At one point we thought that perhaps she's had dental work earlier in the day and the local was beginning to wear off. Finally, close to the end of the speech, I said, "I can just imagine what her reaction's going to be when she views the film and notices herself."
"Don't be so sure," my mother responded. "Maybe that was planned."
"You mean, a subtle, deliberate political distraction?"
"Why not?" my mother affirmed. "Politicians have been known to do worse."
For sure.
I think I got the gist of the speech from the commentary and the Democratic rebuttal afterwards, and, anyway, I'll read the text in Mom's paper, tomorrow, just to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Thing is, though, I don't think I've enjoyed watching any State of the Union address quite as much as this one. Nothing like observing political circuses with an Ancient Lightly Demented One!
Did you notice? She was fine during the early pleasantries, but once Bush began the meat of his speech, Nancy started moving her mouth as though she had something loose in it. A lozenge? A piece of candy? Perhaps successive wavelets of gorge in response to sentence after sentence of Bush's speech?
I noticed her mobile mouth very early in the speech, possibly at the same time the curious movements began. I didn't say anything, even though these kinds of background glitches are favorite topics of discussion between my mother and me. I wanted to concentrate on the speech.
Unfortunately, about 15 minutes into the speech my mother said, "What is that woman eating!?!" That was it. My concentration was blown.
We spent the rest of the speech, most of it, actually, watching and commenting as the woman sucked and shifted whatever her mouth contained. We carefully checked the attendees as the camera panned the audience to see if others were entertaining themselves in the same manner (none were) and speculating on what could possibly be her problem. At one point we thought that perhaps she's had dental work earlier in the day and the local was beginning to wear off. Finally, close to the end of the speech, I said, "I can just imagine what her reaction's going to be when she views the film and notices herself."
"Don't be so sure," my mother responded. "Maybe that was planned."
"You mean, a subtle, deliberate political distraction?"
"Why not?" my mother affirmed. "Politicians have been known to do worse."
For sure.
I think I got the gist of the speech from the commentary and the Democratic rebuttal afterwards, and, anyway, I'll read the text in Mom's paper, tomorrow, just to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Thing is, though, I don't think I've enjoyed watching any State of the Union address quite as much as this one. Nothing like observing political circuses with an Ancient Lightly Demented One!
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Yet another blog.
Those of you who've been reading me for awhile may remember that, about a year and a half ago, I spotted and commented on an article in NYT about a new health care company, founded by Steve Case, whose intention it would be to bring consumers into the effort of changing the medical landscape in the U.S. That intended company, Revolution, launched itself this month. My initial notice of the launch involved an email I received on January 4th inviting me to participate in a free trial "preview" membership, to last through the end of 2007. I finally got around to activating it early this morning before I went to bed.
The membership includes the ability to create a health care blog on their site, which I decided to do, in order to record my success, difficulties and failures as I attempt to use Revolution to manage and advocate on behalf of my mother's health care. I also discovered last night that The Mom and Me Journals dot Net is listed on their Caregiving page (at the bottom), along with most of the blogs I regularly try to visit and a few others, as well [11/14/08 Update: This blog list no longer exists on the page to which I've linked. I think they've deleted their list of resource blogs outside of their site. A link to the old domain that handled this journal is available on my Revolution Blog but, for the time being, I can't log in to change that link.]. I decided that it might be interesting to create a blog on that site devoted exclusively to my attempts to use Revolution to negotiate my mother's health care. I started that effort a few minutes ago. If you're interested, you can click into that blog here. It's also listed to the right in my inbound links section.
My initial registration (which wasn't the same as setting up an account) email invited me to "Share this site with others who can help us revolutionize health care. Simply forward your invitation email with the special URL to friends and family." However, I noticed, when I set up my account this morning, that it looks as though one can avail oneself of the free, one year "preview" membership by simply clicking into the site and navigating to the membership link. My understanding is that, currently, this preview membership is open only to health care clients within the United States. If you click in and find that availing yourself of this membership isn't possible through there, let me know and I'll forward a copy of my initial invitation. If you have never emailed me, in order to make sure that I do not accidentally junk your request, please type the words "Revolution Preview Membership" in the subject line. You'll find my email address at the very bottom of my links section.
I'm only vaguely sure how often I'll get over there. As you know, I'm working on a few more site specific projects and have yet another queued that I haven't yet launched. Ahhh, the life of a full time caregiver! One of the requirements of preview membership is that one must log in and use one of the tools, any of them, at least once a month, in order to keep membership active. I think I can do that. I assume, as well, after the year's period of free membership, if one decides one isn't interested in paying for membership, any information one has posted at the site, including a blog, will be become inaccessible and possibly deleted. It's probably a good idea to make sure that, a year from now, you can live without the site and any information you've posted.
So. The Revolution is here. It will be interesting to discover how revolutionary it really is.
Time, now, to awaken The Mom.
Hmmm...I just thought of a possible addition to Revolution that would be of certain value to caregivers for the elderly and demented: A tool that allows users to rate nursing homes, skilled nursing and assisted living facilities. This is a reminder to myself to post on that possibility over at my Revolution blog...
...later.
The membership includes the ability to create a health care blog on their site, which I decided to do, in order to record my success, difficulties and failures as I attempt to use Revolution to manage and advocate on behalf of my mother's health care. I also discovered last night that The Mom and Me Journals dot Net is listed on their Caregiving page (at the bottom), along with most of the blogs I regularly try to visit and a few others, as well [11/14/08 Update: This blog list no longer exists on the page to which I've linked. I think they've deleted their list of resource blogs outside of their site. A link to the old domain that handled this journal is available on my Revolution Blog but, for the time being, I can't log in to change that link.]. I decided that it might be interesting to create a blog on that site devoted exclusively to my attempts to use Revolution to negotiate my mother's health care. I started that effort a few minutes ago. If you're interested, you can click into that blog here. It's also listed to the right in my inbound links section.
My initial registration (which wasn't the same as setting up an account) email invited me to "Share this site with others who can help us revolutionize health care. Simply forward your invitation email with the special URL to friends and family." However, I noticed, when I set up my account this morning, that it looks as though one can avail oneself of the free, one year "preview" membership by simply clicking into the site and navigating to the membership link. My understanding is that, currently, this preview membership is open only to health care clients within the United States. If you click in and find that availing yourself of this membership isn't possible through there, let me know and I'll forward a copy of my initial invitation. If you have never emailed me, in order to make sure that I do not accidentally junk your request, please type the words "Revolution Preview Membership" in the subject line. You'll find my email address at the very bottom of my links section.
I'm only vaguely sure how often I'll get over there. As you know, I'm working on a few more site specific projects and have yet another queued that I haven't yet launched. Ahhh, the life of a full time caregiver! One of the requirements of preview membership is that one must log in and use one of the tools, any of them, at least once a month, in order to keep membership active. I think I can do that. I assume, as well, after the year's period of free membership, if one decides one isn't interested in paying for membership, any information one has posted at the site, including a blog, will be become inaccessible and possibly deleted. It's probably a good idea to make sure that, a year from now, you can live without the site and any information you've posted.
So. The Revolution is here. It will be interesting to discover how revolutionary it really is.
Time, now, to awaken The Mom.
Hmmm...I just thought of a possible addition to Revolution that would be of certain value to caregivers for the elderly and demented: A tool that allows users to rate nursing homes, skilled nursing and assisted living facilities. This is a reminder to myself to post on that possibility over at my Revolution blog...
...later.
