Fort Kitteh

 

My Dad wasn't a natural animal lover, but he came to be very friendly with my two rescues.  A lot of times it was just a small chuckle, other times the tuxedo male would curl up with him as he slept.

On their end, I know they miss the nurses coming in during the day if only for the sheer excitement of a stranger being in the house.

What I Thought of Killers of the Flower Moon

I finally saw Killers of the Flower Moon.  It's an amazing (true!) story, and maybe one of the few modern films that actually portrays the F.B.I. in a positive light.

That said, DiCaprio sleepwalks through this performance.  I actually had to remind myself that his character was intensely evil, but he comes off as a dumb lump of rocks who had no agency beyond his desires for sex and money.

That's also true though.  Evil can be stupid, not just devious.  Tons of Americans throughout history have both lied and murdered their way through life as racist assholes, but at the same time seen themselves as "innocent" (more Manifest Destiny than White Man's Burden, but still).

De Niro gets it, and acted appropriately.  He's doing evil against these people, but actively sees himself  as doing the right, justified thing.  I think that's what a film about this material has to address head on.

Also, it's too long.  Multiple reviews argued that since it's Scorsese it's worth the three and a half hours.

Nope.  This is good Scorsese, not great Scorsese.  It's too damn long and the necessary cuts present themselves throughout the film.

Good, but could have been a lot better.

Getting Back On Track

 

Kenny Rogers & The First Edition, "Ruby Don't Take Your Love To Town"

I've got plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm looking for work again since the last job didn't work out.  I did give two weeks notice, but it just seemed like a bad fit right off of the bat.  Teaching college and adult students for over a decade in South Korea just didn't translate to teaching much younger students here in America.

Anyhow, my Dad didn't have the most diverse musical taste but he did like what he liked.  And he absolutely loved Kenny Rogers.  Maybe it's a bit of a cheesy song, but there's some definite pathos underneath.

Things are going back to color from black and white, slowly but surely.

Travel Well

 

My Dad passed away last week.  If you've been following this blog, you might remember that I moved back to America from South Korea in February of 2021 (COVID time!) to live with him and become his caregiver.

It was not easy, because one thing about being old (he was 92 at the time) is that you really come to hate being old.  Nobody wants to wear "adult undergarments."  Throw in a dementia diagnosis from about two years ago and yeah, it was hard on everybody.

Long story short, we moved him back here to Maryland to be closer to family.  He was also in a nursing home for about six months but eventually we decided to move him back into his own place, with me.

In the end, at the age of 94, it was a really nasty pneumonia that ended up taking him.  We had nursing care and lots of help from hospice, and this allowed him to fulfill at least one of his wishes -- to die at home, visited by his family, and kept company by my two rescue cats.

I'm still a bit tired more than anything.  I've got plenty to say about the good, the bad, and the ridiculous when it comes to elder care in America.  I quit my job a few weeks ago (which probably would have happened even without his illness).  I need to get back to a more regular exercise routine as the weather gets colder here in Frederick.  If I'm being honest, I just need to leave the house more and make some new friends.  There is still a lot of paperwork and, well, death stuff that needs to be handled, of course.

My dad was a scientist, a world-traveler, a lover of a good joke, and a glass of red wine.  He loved gardening and fishing.  Our relationship was never perfect, but over the past few years I think we both realized time and biology are generally not on anybody's side, not for long at least.  I think he lived as full a life as possible and made a difference professionally.  (Maybe in a later post I'll talk about how he was one of the first agricultural scientists to take organic farming seriously, in an era of high-input "miracle" fertilizers that would solve all our food problems forever.)

Mostly, I think me and my sister did our best.

Eldercare Is Never Easy And Always Hard

This Vox piece gives a pretty good overview of just how difficult (and expensive!) eldercare can be, and how a generation of Boomers going into their Twilight Years is going to be rough for lots of their grown children:

"Boomers themselves have driven tectonic shifts in American cultural norms and family structures — a revolution in divorce, along with a trend toward smaller families and away from multigenerational living — that could make that backbone weaker. Compared to their elders, boomers will have fewer people in their lives able to step in and care for them as they age, says Rachel Margolis, a demographer and sociologist at the University of Western Ontario. In 2010, there were more than seven potential family caregivers for every person over 80; by 2030, that ratio is expected to fall to 4:1, and by 2050, it will be less than 3:1, according to AARP. More care responsibilities will fall on fewer family members, most of them adult children, who may find themselves caring for loved ones alone or with little help, sometimes across two different households."

Me and my sister are living this right now.  If I haven't mentioned it here, I have told my friends -- my Dad has excellent health care and a real pension after three decades of high level Federal work.  And even with those resources, a lot of genuine sacrifices and hard decisions still had to be made.  And more will come going forward as he approaches the age of 95.

My only suggestion?  Let the children of older folks pay some reasonable amount to go on their parents' health insurance if they give up work to take care of their mom or dad.

And the move to (return to?) multigenerational homes seems an obvious and necessary trend.

Brain Games

I'm liking Connections.  Is it bragging to say I'm pretty good at it?  Seems like you just want to think in parallel terms about possible proper nouns -- names, movies, common expressions -- before you start clicking away.

Wordle still kicks my butt of course.

The Agony and The Agony

It's like Baltimore didn't even try.

Moving Right Along

I started a new job last week and it's going pretty well.

For those keeping score, I had part-time job this past summer working as a jobs counselor for younger folks.  Now I'm full-time in an education-related field here in lovely Frederick.  Not to be coy, as I'll probably give more details later.

As mentioned, I'm also living with my Dad who is a hale and hearty 94.  We made this move for a number of reasons, but basically the nursing home wasn't working out.  Nothing terrible was going on, he just wasn't getting enough social stimulation for the very hard-working but over-tasked staff.

We have some wonderful nurses coming in during the day, allowing me to go to work.  It's tough somedays.  He's becoming less and less mobile, and it's more difficult to communicate with him and understand (fully) what his needs are.

I woke up this morning to a great big windstorm, as it seems fall has finally arrived in Maryland.  My back is sore from lifting my Dad improperly a few times (just once is really all it takes!  use those legs!).  I'm taking life and work one day at time, as much as it's possible not to worry about the future (mortality for starters, and also the fact that I'm on a one-year contract and will yet again be applying for jobs come next summer).

The Orioles lost last night in their first playoff appearance since who knows when.  Nothing will make you a realist quicker than caring for somebody approaching 95.  But part of me is looking forward to the second game this afternoon, come what may.

Losing is fine.  But not believing better days lie ahead?  That's for suckers.

"bright splotches of color against the somber sky"

"Of course, it was not actually the first time he had dreamed.  But his earlier dreams had been the kind that a healthy youth forgot with the coming of morning.  Never once had a dream lingered to affect his waking hours.  Now it was different.  Not only through the morning but through this entire day, last night's dream would persist, sometimes linked with the memory of the dream of the night before, or to be continued in the dream of the next night.  His dreams were like bright-colored garments put out to dry and left forgotten in the rain, hanging on the clothes pole without every drying.  The rain continued.  Perhaps a madman lived in the house.  And more printed silk robes were added to the drying pole, bright splotches of color against the somber sky."

Yukio Mishima, Runaway Horses

"If you knew how I felt now / You wouldn't act so adult now"

 

The Replacements, "Kiss Me On The Bus"

Tim or Pleased to Meet Me?  Which one you got?

Elizabeth Nelson on the reissue of Tim:

"Thus 'Tim' commences with a binary choice. The opening track is called 'Hold My Life,' and the decision is between fame—or at least a life-changing increase in notoriety—and something like a tactical retreat from the limelight. 'Time for decision to be made,' Westerberg intones hoarsely over a driving pre-chorus: 'Crack up in the sun / Or lose it in the shade.' A sentiment worthy of Jay Gatsby himself. By the end, the Replacements did a little bit of both."

Way back when I reviewed Trouble Boys, a band biography that's also worth checking out.

Hagerstown!

 

Spent an afternoon in Hagerstown checking out Hub City Vinyl.  Most people know the town for the nearby Civil War battlefield of Antietam.

Highlights: french fries and Led Zeppelin pinball.