Saturday in Normal entries

Shit. I’ve got Office fixed now but I lost an entry I almost sort of didn’t hate. Though we, us humans, tend to think well of the dead, it’s possible the entry sucked. It’s not the point. Speaking both to my pride and to my humility; I write at least one entry a day, of late, however, I don’t post many of them.

This morning’s unposted entry, however, was not a choice. I had to take some extreme measures and a whole team of forensic geek cops couldn’t find that entry --- um, or so I assume. It wasn’t and isn’t worth having a team of forensic geek cops all up in my bidness.

My bidness is part of why my entries die simple deaths; much of my day to day is either very boring or would be gauche to tell. So I play simple word games, puns, make wee tempests in stained tea-kettles.

I might be low in cycle too. I noticed a few Fridays back that I finished a flash with a paragraph that wrapped things up. Y’all might like when you do that, I mean like the idea you were able to tie things together in a simple paragraph. It’s not like I dislike it, it’s just that when I’m not doing it on purpose it feels way too prosaic, like a protest of having oatmeal thoughts. Hmmmm. Of writing through a bowl of oatmeal, slow, sticky and very hard to deny or pretend it’s anything else, like, say “I am writing through Malt O Meal!”

My niece is in town for a few days. I haven’t seen her in years and it’s good to see her. It’s an end of life thing though, not hers, my fathers. I mean there’s a whole lot of ‘last time’ stuff that goes on around here. I’m not convinced the end is eminently nigh, but this probably is the last time my niece will see him.

I don’t know, three of my grandparents were dead before I was born, and I don’t recall seeing the fourth, though I must have when I was very young. The grandwhelp has three living great grandparents. That’s sort of impressive. I have no frame of reference for that, though I do for being a grand parent and grand uncle. I suppose it’s cool, I have nothing profound to add to grand parenting or grand uncling and it doesn’t give me any insight into being a grandchild or grandnephew.

My dad is really losing his shit. The niece will likely be shocked. It’s a frog in a pot thing. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water he will jump out, frog cuss you out your name, and bemoan his toasty scorched frog ass. If you put a frog in a cool pot of water and set it on a stove he relaxes into it. The point of all that, if you get past the whole boiled frog thing, is if you are in the day to day of small incremental change it’s much harder to notice the radical change, your idea of normative has changed proportionately. My dad seems mad as a hatter, but I’ve been in the pot all along. I’m sure the stark and dramatic change to one who hasn’t seen him in a while is, at minimum, shocking.

I’ve been avoiding going to the memory unit for the last few weeks. It’s depressing and there’s very little I can do about anything. My mom and daughter have visited a few times. Huh, I was going somewhere with that. I don’t remember where though. I was probably going to make some observation on dementia. There really isn’t any point; I mean it won’t give you any insight into your demented parent. It’s just not that sort of thing; you can’t take a temperature, see boils at the armpits and say “Oh, yes, that’s dementia”. As best as I can tell he recognizes us, it’s more like he doesn’t care than it is that he doesn’t know. But what the fuck do I know.

Worse things have happened. I mean that I’ve been party to. I mean this month.

Yeah ok, be nice to one another, I’m spent.