Laughing at the Litterbox and Ingesting Specks

Called my mother yesterday afternoon to tell her that I had rescheduled her hair appointment.  She answered the phone sounding shaky and upset and I thought ‘oh crap why did I call?’.  How’s that for selflessness?  Oh well.  She said my Dad woke up cross and confused.  Their homecare worker was there and she took the cat’s litterbox outside to clean.  It was already somewhat cracked (I was supposed to replace it this week) and in the bitter cold it broke even more.  When she brought it back in the house and showed my parents my Dad got furious and wanted to call the police on her.  On top of that his hearing aid batteries were shot but he wouldn’t let either Sarah or my  mother change them….and when he can’t hear he gets worse.  My mother asked me to come by after work.  I called Ernie and was feeling rather down as I told him I would be late getting home. 

Honestly, none of it seemed amusing until as I glumly said to Ernie, "well, Sarah broke the cat litter box and Dad tried to call the police on her" and my colleague sitting next to me started giggling.  I said "shut up Nancy" and started giggling myself.  Nancy has been through this with her mother and knows all too well the toll this takes so she is an incredible support to me….and sometimes you have to hear how it sounds to someone else to find the humor in it.  I mean….it IS kind of funny….

Then I happened to come across this

Note to Oscars: No Alzheimer’s jokes

By ROBERT W. WELKOS
Los Angeles Times

HOLLYWOOD — Actress Julie Christie seems to be on everyone’s
shortlist as a possible Oscar winner this year for her role as a woman
with Alzheimer’s disease in the film Away From Her.

But when she accepted the best-actress prize at last month’s Screen
Actors Guild Awards, Christie made a last-second quip on camera that
some viewed as insensitivity about the disease.

After thanking the cast and crew, Christie drew laughs when she
concluded: "And if I’ve forgotten anybody, well, it’s just that I’m
still in character."

With two movies — Away From Her and The Savages —
dealing with Alzheimer’s and dementia, respectively, up for Oscars on
Sunday, Alzheimer’s experts hope emcee Jon Stewart and the celebrity
presenters and winners will avoid any humor about the disease.

"It is no laughing matter," said Peter Braun, chief executive of the
California Southland chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.

"People don’t laugh about cancer; people don’t laugh about AIDS. We
call on the academy to use this moment for good, as it has done for so
many other social causes."

What the hell is wrong with these people? I laugh at Alzheimer’s. I laugh at cancer.  What else can you do?  Laughing at a person…unkind.  Laughing at horrible diseases….utterly necessary.  I find nothing about her statement offensive.  My god….you HAVE to laugh….

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I got to my parents’ after work and he was calmer.  I don’t think he knew who I was but he still let me take his hearing aids out and change the batteries.  He put them back in and he said, "oh that’s much better.  What did you do?"  I said, "I changed the batteries" and he calmly replied, "oh, that makes sense" and went back to the newspaper.  I poured my mom a glass of wine and kissed her.  Kissed my dad even though I think he wondered why this strange woman was kissing him and I went home to my guys.

Last night was pancake night.  We haven’t had pancake night in ages.  We used to but then we got in the habit of going to Carmon’s for pancakes.  Now that Carmon’s is no more (well, in that iteration anyway….and the boys now refuse to go out to breakfast in some sort of tribute to the old Carmon’s but that’s another story) we just haven’t had pancakes in eons.  Ernie is the master pancake maker so he and the boys got started.  They were so excited they were practically levitating.  Owen is usually the cook but Leo was on a pancake high and made most of them.  In his eagerness I’m not sure they all got cooked enough but we  let them warm in the oven until the bacon was done so they came out o.k. Leo insisted on setting the table…he asked for a specific tablecloth but we got him some placemats that he deemed acceptable.  The pancakes went on a platter and ONLY Leo was allowed to serve them.  He happily leaped out of his chair whenever anyone requested one.  AND he actually ingested a speck of bacon and a speck of strawberry.  We had to leave the room again but Owen peaked and assured me he did ingest the specks.  My sweet peas.