Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Something To Chew On

I find it ironic that the most valuable asset I have is my mouth.

Before I drove Mom to the dentist's office yesterday, I paused to consider how much money I had, over the years, invested in my own dental work. On one side alone I had dropped more than ten grand on fillings, root canals, crowns, a bridge, and -- when that bridge finally broke -- a longer bridge (too bad I couldn't use stimulus money for all this roadwork). Over on the other side, I was looking at three fillings (one of them gold) and an overlay that probably amounted to another couple of thousand ... and this was all in my lower jaw. I'm not even counting the medical bills spawned by the extraction of two wisdom teeth and a painful "dry socket" episode following one of the surgeries.

This wouldn't be so terrible if there were a finish line I could cross, knowing I was finally done with all this maintenance. But, as I'm sure you know, a set of teeth in an adult over 35 becomes a ticking time bomb. Just like old car parts, teeth have a tendency to decay, rust, crack, fall off and suck the money right out of your past, present and future.

Furthermore, my upper jaw -- mostly untouched -- taunts my dentist with delightful possibilities every time I have my X-rays retaken. 

"See these?," he says, trying not to smile, as he points to two railroad spikes lying sideways in my jaw, embedded up above my two baby canines. "The only way these will ever come in is if I pull the baby teeth and put braces on the rest ... even then, there's only a fifty-fifty shot at success because YOU'RE SO OLD to be having this done. The only other thing you can do is have me pull the baby teeth, extract the impacted teeth and put in implants, but then you'll still need braces to help the other teeth reposition themselves properly."

These are the words he is saying, but what I'm hearing in my head is a series of loud "cha-chings" followed by unearthly screams coming from my credit cards. I hear the word "braces" and wonder if so little added beauty in my middle age is worth mortgaging the house.  I glare at these X-rays, resenting the two baby teeth that have caused all this chaos. How can it be that I have adult teeth blowing gaskets all over the place... yet these two white nubbins, hold-overs from babyhood, stubbornly sit there, ruining countless photographs my friends and family have taken of me over the years? Yet... strangely ...I can't help admiring their sheer willingness to survive. They're like two ugly little pimple-faced, nose-picking friends who refuse to stop hanging out with me. I'm embarrassed to be seen with them, yet can't cast them off.  With all their faults, at least they're loyal and they apparently enjoy my company.  

So, I politely smile my crooked smile at Dr. Wantsanewbmw and try to soothe his disappointment by offering to replace yet another sad little filling in the back of my mouth. He sighs, takes the crumbs I'm throwing him and revs up the drill. 

Of course, much of my dental angst could have been avoided if my parents had believed that teeth were important enough to bother with. Too busy paying for my brother's countless medical bills (Bill routinely sprained, broke or shattered some body part at least once every six months), my folks considered trips to the dentist a luxury. I can remember exactly ONE visit to the dentist up until the time I was 18, and that likely involved Dad finally dragging me there because he couldn't stand my wimpy sobbing any longer (plus, I'm sure my swollen jaw wasn't a pleasure to look at either). I brushed my teeth, but had no clue what dental floss was until I was in my twenties. But, let me assure you, this didn't mean I had bad parents. Both of them grew up during the Depression, which meant they had learned to be frugal with money. Why, my Dad reasoned, would anyone invest hundreds of dollars into their teeth when they would all be pulled and replaced with dentures by the age of 40?

My sister Barbara vividly recalls a time when my mother - still in her thirties - was bent over a bowl of soup when one of her teeth fell out.  Barb sat there in fixated horror while Mom casually explained, "Well, that's just what happens when you get old." 

So, when Mom and Dad made it into their fourth decades of life, they both went to the dentist and had ALL their teeth pulled and replaced with dentures they then decided not to wear. But, given that Dad expected to die by the time he was 55 (he lived to 86), he figured toothlessness was only a temporary inconvenience.

Well, okay...maybe they weren't entirely toothless.  They both wore their uppers ... but whoever built their lower dentures must have accidentally mixed up their orders with Mr. Ed's. Their bottom dentures were HUGE and, frankly, frightened people. Dad, of course, thought this was great ... he'd put in his full set on national holidays and, using his tongue, would thrust them out past his lips while we were at the dinner table.

"Oh, yuck, Dad, STOP THAT." 

He'd just laugh at me.  What can I say ... there was a 13-year-old punk inside my Dad that thrived until the day he died.  He was definitely cut from that mold of old men who was forever trying to get me to pull his finger. His belches were almost musical and he thought public farts were hilarious.

Mom, on the other hand, was unaware that a defective product could be taken back and exchanged  for one not so defective. Her bottom dentures never fit her properly, so she simply stopped wearing them and, over time, forgot about them. Most people were unaware that she didn't wear them because she quickly learned to mask their absence with her lower lip. However, the omission of half her teeth became painfully evident in old age. The list of foods Mom could and couldn't successfully gum began to look something like this:

Okay to eat:

Applesauce
Oatmeal
Eggs
Vegetables, But Only If Really Mushy
Citrus Fruit, But Only If Packed In Syrup
Greasy Chicken*
Grapes
Bananas
Cake
Soft Candy
Middling Candy
Hard Candy**

Not Okay To Eat:

Most Protein Sources (Steak, Pork, Fish)
Vegetables That Still Had Vitamins Not Boiled Out Of Them
Fruits With Peels
Nuts
Grains
And Anything Else Even Remotely Healthy

When she was younger, Mom would instinctively avoid foods she couldn't be bothered chewing with only half her mouth, but as she got older she sort of forgot what worked and what didn't and would re-visit this list through trial-and-error.  I would sit across from her at lunch and try to eat my hamburger without looking at her, knowing she was wadding up napkins with half-chewed broccoli or a carrot that required more chew action than it could possibly be worth.

When I moved in with Mom, I started a crusade to get her bottom dentures replaced, knowing the quality of life for both of us would improve substantially. It took me a long time to convince her that a woman in her eighties was worth the investment; after all, my Dad had taught her to believe she wasn't worth it at 40. But yesterday, after a series of visits, Mom came home with a full set of teeth. She's still not used to talking or eating with them, but it's a joy to see her smile. 

Now ... if I could just persuade my idiot brother to have his few remaining (and thoroughly rotten) molars pulled and replaced with dentures, my happiness would be complete.  Bill used to brag he could open beer bottles with his teeth. Now in his fifties, he sits in windows and frightens children on Halloween. Sadly, Bill could have had all of his needed dental work paid for with public aid, but he obstinately refuses to go to the dentist because it cuts into valuable drinking time. 

So, this Thanksgiving, I still won't be looking at him much while I eat, but at least I can look at my mother. And... this Thanksgiving, when most of you are giving thanks for your health, family, friends, and that huge $5.99 pumpkin pie from Costco... I hope you'll stop and say an extra thank-you for your choppers.  Sink your teeth into the knowledge of how much richer your life has been because you can eat well, speak well, and light up a stranger's day just by beaming a great big glorious (and even imperfect) smile his way. 


*There is a direct correlation between the fat content in a morsel of food and the effort needed to successfully inhale it.

**Maybe Mom couldn't chew a string bean, but she could somehow gum down a piece of granite if it was covered in chocolate.


















Saturday, November 17, 2012

Election Rejection

With so many pundits voicing so many opinions about why Obama beat Romney in the election last week, I had every intention of keeping my mouth shut.  For one thing, I can't analyze demographics and numbers and lots of dry, meaningful data without getting bored halfway through and going out for ice cream. For another, I was pretty certain that nothing I could say would have much value. I'm really not much good at arguing politics; I mostly try to avoid it because once I'm in the middle of a discussion (usually with my sister), I tend to lose.  I think it's because our discussions usually go something like this:

Barbara:  Okay, here's why you need to hang onto your money: The world is going into the shitter because, according to Dr. Blahson from the University of Blah, that poser in the White House is advocating for blah blah blah while blahtity-blah percent of the current population is on food stamps, which our economy can't sustain. Furthermore, factity fact arguments suggest that fact number of people are blah blah fact fact and, of course, totally wrong.  So ... even though I don't like Romney, I'm still voting for him.

Me:  I don't like Romney because I think he's a big poo-poo head.  (This point in the discussion is when I usually start thinking about strawberry or mint chocolate chip, and whether I seriously need the nuts and whipped cream.)

Frankly, I think the analysts need to talk to more people like me if they want to know why Romney lost. Sure, what I just said sounds simplistic, shallow and just plain stupid. But when it comes to politics, I think most of those "s" words do apply to most of our ignorant, uninformed population. It's not because all of us are idiots ... it's because the topic of politics makes us all idiots. Why?  It's just plain boring. If I write the words, "coalition," "lobbyists," "sequestration" and "fiscal cliff," I'm betting at least half of you out there will start glazing over.  It's really not your fault; political science can be dull, dry and depressing.  So, desperate to not appear to be as stupid as we are, we turn to mass media and cling to whatever talking points people like Rush Limbaugh and Rachel Maddow hammer into our heads. What other course of action is there? Must we do actual research on the Internet?  I'm sorry, but I only have so much Internet time at my disposal, and "Words With Friends" eats up a large chunk of it.

But politically speaking, most of us don't have a clue what we're really talking about.  And we're the ones who were out there voting last Tuesday.  So, when some brilliant person like George Will wants to analyze election results, he needs to stop thinking that we all make predictable, semi-rational decisions based on hard facts. Human beings are, as a group, pretty irrational and messed up much of the time. My friends and I tend to make our decisions based on hormone levels, the Magic 8 Ball and whether the Planet Mercury's in retrograde.  I have no clue why members of my family make the decisions they do...the other day I watched my mother put strawberry jelly on a burrito. So, when someone like Karl Rove or Peggy Noonan suggests that Obama won because he appealed to more Hispanics, or won more young adults, or ran a better ground game, they're dead wrong.  Why?  Because those conclusions sorta make sense, and we, as a species, never do.

So, here's my not-so-brilliant analysis, based on all the shallowness, simplicity and stupidity I can muster: Romney lost because he didn't have the "X factor", and most of us couldn't stand the thought of watching him on TV for the next four years.  That's it.  And, let's face it, that Great Glowing Screen in the living room pretty much dictates everything we think and do. It tells us we're too fat, what to wear, where to stare and whether or not we have good hair.*  With Obama, we either liked him and welcomed his almost-constant presence in our faces or, if we couldn't stand the guy, we quickly learned to tune him out. But Romney wasn't really all that lovable, even to his own party. I would have considered voting for a charismatic, good-looking Republican who would interrupt my prime-time television viewing without my wanting to blow an artery, but it definitely was not Mitt. I was too aware of his money; too annoyed by his gleaming family (all of whom looked like they were birthed from a loaf of Wonder Bread); and, seriously, I didn't like his smug little mouth and his beady little eyes. I wouldn't have wanted to buy a car from him, much less entrust the future of the free world to a guy whose own cars get to ride in elevators.

And, before all you Romney-lovers get on my case, let me just say that Obama often annoys the stuffing out of me too, especially when he's campaigning. His voice gets all churchy and he delivers every line with the grandeur of MLK's "I have a dream" speech. And, frankly, I was disappointed with his first four years.  I was one of those people who expected him to magically fix everything wrong with the country; I was willfully oblivious to the reality that no president has that kind of magic. And this whole Benghazi/Petraeus mess has me more than a little wondering if some folks in his administration may not have been entirely honest with us. Worst of all, though, I sure wish modern science could do something about his Alfred E. Neuman ears. When he's on TV, I can't stop staring at them. The entire time he talks, I'm sitting on my couch thinking, "My, what big ears you have, Obama." They're very distracting. Maybe he could tape 'em against his head or something, I don't know.

So...now that everybody's mad at me, I'll continue with my original point.

People make friends with people they like; they hire people they like; they buy crap from people they like, and date and marry people they like. That's just how we're wired.  We bond with other human beings because of gut feelings and brain chemistry and then later invent reasons for feeling the way we do. Furthermore, the Great Glowing Screen That Rules Us All lets us participate in popularity contests such as "X Factor" and "American Idol," where we get to vote every week! Do we always choose the most talented contestants?  Nope. We vote for the ones we love. We vote for singers like Scotty McCreery because yeah, he's a good singer, but awww, isn't he just the sweetest boy, playing baseball and workin' in the grocery store after school? You can bet he loves his mother and goes to church. Even with those big ears, isn't he just so cute you wanna squeeze his widdle face? Much of America fell in love with him and that's why he won.  With American Idol winner Phillip Phillips, it was a little different.  The guy was talented, but he made people like him because he was able to project irresistible self-confidence even while his clothes looked like they just tumbled out of the dryer. Gruffy, scruffy people-you-can-share-a-beer-with are often perceived as charming and quite easy to love.

So, if the Republicans want to take back the White House in 2016, it's really easy: Pick out several guys or gals who exhibit more personality than an ear of corn, parade 'em in front of Simon Cowell and let him pick out the star. The winner will be someone who can turn on the ol' razzle dazzle, put on a good show and leave the audience begging for more.  Look at the last two popular Republican presidents ... one was an adorable old geezer who used to be an actor ... the other a make-believe rootin' tootin' cowboy who liked to invent words like "stratergize."** Yeah, maybe some of us made fun of George because he sounded kind of stupid when he said that, but secretly we loved it.  And in the voting booth, the love is all that matters.



*Speaking of not having good hair ... can somebody out there please beg Hillary to cut hers if she wants to run in 2016?  Flippy hair only looks good on 20-something, Marlo Thomas "that girls" from 1970.

**At first I loved going around saying "stratergize" just to mock George Bush, but the last laugh's on me because now the word pops out of my mouth when I least expect it and makes me look like an idiot... as if I needed any help. Thank you, Mr. President.





Monday, November 5, 2012

Housebroken

I went to Lowe's to buy new window blinds the other day, and I picked out some Levolors for my Mom's bedroom and my new guest room (so ... sorry, old friends, no "old" guests are allowed - ha ha).  It occurred to me that most people choose something as boring as window blinds because of their color ... their quality ... their design ... their price ... stuff like that.  And while I did consider all those factors, I had one huge factor that out-factored all the rest. 

I needed to find some blinds my Mom couldn't break.

Now, I love my mother.  She's 81 (turning 82 this month) and she's been living with me ever since Dad passed. I really do love her.  A lot.  Really... bunches and bunches.  Yesiree, I sure do love my Mom.

And yes, there's a reason I keep stressing the "L" word, here ... because, after you read this entry, I sincerely don't want you to think of me as that Evil Blogger Who Bad-Mouthed The Woman Who Gave Her Life.  Consider this, if you will (or won't ... doesn't matter, I won't shut up either way) as that Poor, Demented Blogger Who Desperately Needed Cheap Therapy.  This blog is my therapy, and you, dear reader, are my therapist. I recommend that you simply accept your new, thankless role in my life.

Where was I?  Oh ...

My issues with Mom. 

Now, let me just say we all have issues with our aging parents and, inevitably, we ourselves will become somebody else's Big Issues.  All things considered, my Mom isn't doing too badly.  But if I someday reach my 80s (and I like to spend my delusional moments believing I will), I know I'm going to be a real pain in the ass to society.  I'm certain I'm going to be that crazy old lunatic nobody wants to sit next to on the bus...you know, the one who can't remember to bathe, but who can remember (and loudly) all the words to "Copacabana."  Some folks really do well in their 80s and 90s ... they jog, they swim, they perform surgery, they have wild sex... heck, some even run for Congress.  I'm 50, and I don't do any of those things, so I quite naturally and forgiveably hate those people. 

Well, Mom has a little dementia goin' on.  I could tell you that she constantly obsesses about our money and finances ... which wouldn't be too bad, except that she doesn't understand money and finances.  My Dad took care of the checkbook.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I patiently tried to explain to Mom why a "money market" isn't something she can lose in the "stock market" ... or why a debit card isn't the same as a credit card ... or why nobody will arrest her and throw her in jail because I still use Dad's Giant Eagle Advantage Card at the grocery store.*

Or, I could also tell you that she has a problem with her memory, and sometimes I wish I didn't have to repeat everything I just said 12 more times.  Or, I could tell you she has a problem with her hearing, and sometimes I wish I didn't have to scream everything I just said 12 more times.  However, let it be noted that I do feel guilty talking about her memory issues because, honestly, I can't remember squat anymore, and I don't have the "too bad I'm 81" excuse.  (And when I instead try using the "Too bad, I'm menopausal" excuse, people don't pat me on the shoulder and say, "Awww, Brenda, that's okay, I understand." They just step back three feet and try not to look scared.)

Or, I could tell you that Mom has a food problem ... namely, that Mom doesn't choose to eat food.  She chooses to eat garbage. True, most of us would rather eat garbage as well, but we try not to do that because it's bad for us. And yes ... I'm using the word "garbage" metaphorically to actually mean, "sweets, fried foods and anything else that's tasty and waiting to kill me." (Of course, if I ever tell you my brother eats garbage, please feel free to take that literally.**)   I don't doubt that somebody out there is reading this and thinking, "Well, gosh, Brenda, why do you keep garbage in your house if you don't want her to eat it?" If that somebody IS you, I would like to respectfully suggest that you pause for a few minutes to yank a pacifier out of a screaming baby's mouth, or rip a soup bone out of the jaws of a starving rottweiler. Please do either of those and then get back to me when you've regained consciousness.

ANYWAY ...

I can live with all of this, truly I can.  But the one thing she does that drives me bonkers is this: She manages to somehow ruin anything mechanical she dares to touch. She'll break it if she can. If she can't, she will - at the very least - hurt it and make it cry.***

Sometimes, sadly, this crying leads to suicide.  There's a back burner on a gas stove I bought two years ago that finally gave up the ghost because Mom kept trying to blow up the house with it.  If you've ever used a gas stove, you know the routine: you push in the dial, slightly turn it, hear a couple of clicks and then, like magic, a flame pops up.  But when Mom would heat up her coffee water, I'd be sitting in the living room doing something terribly important (like watching TV) and eventually I'd hear "Click click click click click click click click click click click." After glancing at my sleeping cat to make sure she was still breathing, I'd run into the kitchen to find out why Mom was trying to gas us all. What's worse...Mom was convinced that neither I nor my 61-year-old sister knew how to work the stove properly. In her mind, of course, we were still kids. I can still remember one time my sister was visiting us from California; Barb had turned on the stove to heat up her tea water.  (We all like to heat things up, but try to avoid cooking whenever possible.) Anyway, Mom - who's usually deafer than dirt - heard that first "click" and sprang into action.  As soon as my sister had wandered back into the living room, Mom speed-shuffled into the kitchen to turn off the stove my sister had recklessly turned on without her supervision.  This was then followed by the ever-too-familiar "Click click click click click click click click click click click" and Barb screaming, "WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THERE?" In Mom's defense, she was only trying to help my out-of-town sister follow the proper protocol one uses to blow up one's house in Willowick (and, on a good day, the entire neighborhood).

After that, I begged Mom's doctor to tell Mom she was never to touch the stove again.  Happily, Mom listened.  Unless her doctor utters a sentence that includes the words, "Don't eat sweets, Betty," Mom is pretty attentive about listening to physicians...which is good, because she needs to listen to somebody.  She never listens to me or my sister; we're just a couple of drooling lunatics who can barely tie our own shoes. But, interestingly, she WILL listen to our brother. Bill's a nutcase, but he's always a respected source of knowledge because he owns a penis.

Mom has, throughout the years, broken many things around the house.  She's bullied our washer, disabled our dryer, and has committed unspeakable atrocities upon various microwaves and toasters we've owned throughout the years. Too often I've come home from work to find Mom sitting in her rocker staring at nothing on TV because she pressed the same wrong button on the remote again. "I broke the remote," she'd say forlornly, and then I'd fix it and she'd be all happy again, finally able to watch yet another movie about some woman murdering her husband on Lifetime Movie Network.  I don't think Mom's not bright; I think she just got into the habit of believing she couldn't do much of anything on her own.  But I really can't think of anything mechanical inside our house that Mom didn't somehow screw up.  At night I can still hear the mournful whispers from the ghost of our dead dishwasher; I don't know exactly how she killed it, but I am certain it was a slow and painful death. 

But the blinds are the worst. We have full-length vertical blinds in the front room window and on the back patio door. I'm not sure why Dad had them installed; it is entirely possible he did it just to torture Mom.  The notion that one cord operates the slats while the other cord draws the blinds is one she could never fully grasp, so she pretty much just pulls on stuff until something happens. Once in awhile, she gets it right. But most of the time our blinds end up hopelessly mangled, with the cord up near the ceiling so that she can no longer reach it. This is always fun, because then I have the joy of coming home from work in the dark, pulling into my driveway, and then seeing Mom in her nightgown, prancing around our well-lit living room in full view of the neighbors. She can't close the blinds... and then she seems to forget that they're even open.

As for the patio door blinds ... I despise them; I curse them every time I have to fight my way through that plastic jungle just to go outside (Mom constantly keeps them drawn so the deer and squirrels won't spy on her when she's in the kitchen).  I don't know why they're necessary and have, repeatedly, threatened to rip them down entirely. I'm thinking of buying a dog and secretly training it to pee on them.

So ... as I'm standing in the aisle at Lowe's, these are the thoughts that haunt me and taunt me.  Maybe I'm blind to think there are blinds in this world she cannot destroy. I think we may need to go back to curtains ... or take out the windows entirely, I don't know.  Maybe we could take out the windows and put in skylights?  The birds won't care if Mom puts on a show, and I doubt the astronauts will either.




*Uh oh ... I think I hear the Giant Eagle Fuel Perks Patrol pounding on my door.

**Believe me when I tell you there's a depressed, weeping dumpster out behind the Wendy's off Route 60 in Vero Beach, Florida, that still wonders why Bill doesn't come around anymore.

***In my universe, everything cries.