Sweet '16
I suppose an end-of-year update is in order, since I haven’t posted to my main blog since last August.
It’s ironic that my last post covered Inna’s and my summertime trip to Maine, visiting my mother as well as my brother, who had made his annual trip from his west coast home on Vancouver Island.
Ironic because for more than three months now I’ve been back in Maine, caretaking my mother, who has repeatedly bounced back and forth between hospital and nursing home. After several weeks managing it alone, my brother joined me here, so we’re both dealing with another unwanted Maine winter. The only person missing from making this a full repeat of our summer visit is Inna, whom I’ve barely seen at all since last September.
So no Inna, no biking, no Begemot, no job hunt, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas. In their place there’s nothing but snow, ice, and freezing cold, amidst long, dark months spent inhabiting Maine’s fine medical institutions.
It’s hard to look forward more than a day or so. Mom’s health is a perpetual roller-coaster ride; meanwhile, there’s the added stressors of managing her finances, trying to dispose of her accumulated belongings, finding a nursing home placement for her in Pittsburgh, and figuring out how to transport her there. And lo! here comes tax season, when I get to file taxes for two!
To make this vacation extra fun, over the holidays I contracted a really nasty influenza. While that gave me recourse to avoid holiday familial obligations, it cost a solid two weeks of weakness, nausea, coughing, and other unpleasant symptoms that I’m just coming out of.
And I have to admit a very deep-seated depression regarding the election and the prognosis for American democracy. For whatever misguided reasons, the people have ceded control to a selfish, petulant, xenophobic, entitled, compulsive liar who seems intent on systematically dismantling everything America once stood for: quaint, 19th century concepts like truth, ethics, democracy, justice, rule of law, fairness, rationality, integrity, respect, and compassion. It’s astonishing and demoralizing to anyone who still believes in those averred American values.
Meanwhile, the people-from whom all power emanates-stay willfully and myopically focused on things that don’t really matter. It was painful to see so many people wishing “Good riddance to 2016”. If the loss of Prince and Princess Leia (sic) upset you that much, then I have some sobering news for you: 2017 and the complete trainwreck of a “post-ethics” Drumpf Presidency is gonna make your hated 2016 feel like a goddamn Carnival cruise.
So, yeah. Happy new year.