Call me Lady Godiva

As we headed home from the chocolate shop I asked Flip, "Do you want me to carry the rest of your truffles in my purse?"

I licked my fingers on which a little dark chocolate dipped candied orange peel had melted.

"Can I trust you?"

"You married me. There is an assumption of trust."

He paused, then handed over the aromatic little gold Godiva bag, which I stuffed in with my wallet, keys and his other glasses.

Men only get married so they can use purses without carrying them.

"Are you sure you won't eat my chocolate?"

I shrugged. "If you died, I would eat your chocolate in a minute, no question. But you're still living. That changes everything."

"It warms my heart," he said.

He reminded me for the 5th or 6th time today that he is a good-looking guy. He claims that I never tell him so, which is not true, while he tells me "all the time" how good I look, also not true.

I finally put it to him. "Overweening ego and Alzheimer's is too much on the same plate. I can't deal with both, so take your pick."

He's thinking about it.

I softened the blow. "You are a good-looking guy," I said. "I'm lucky to be seen with you."

He got all misty.

"Of course, they don't know you're balmy."

As soon as we got home he turned on the television. Flip is on intimate terms with every "Law and Order" episode ever aired.

"Alzheimer's is in all the ads," he remarked.

"Oh, good. I'll take three."

I watched, too, for a minute. "It's becoming epidemic. It will be much more common in a few years as the boomers age. You're a pioneer, a trailblazer."

He studied the actor in the Aricept ad, who was much older than he is. "He's pretty good."

"You'll have to work hard to top that," I said.

Some of the commercials are really sneaky. They cut to them seamlessly and mimic the lighting in the shows, sucking you in before you can put the remote on mute. (And I do mean sucking.)

There is a test to let you know if you've been watching "Law & Order" too long:

If you see a woman's face with closed eyes and assume it's a cadaver but when you look more closely you realize it's an ad for face cream, you might have a problem. It makes me uneasy that I've grown so used to seeing dead bodies that I automatically process corpses over cosmetics.

There is also the matter of the very flowery commercial which shows a sweet-looking older woman getting married in a lovely gown and -- Depends. I think this scares me even more than becoming one of the corpses because if someone kills you, you're dead. It's over. But Depends is forever.

How do you say "Milli Vanilli" in Chinese?

China dazzled the world with its $100-million Olympics opening ceremony which sought to present the image of a Utopian China replete with the perfect baby teeth of a little girl who sang a powerful ode to her country. Except the exquisite voice was not hers. It was the recorded voice of another little girl deemed less pretty than the one lip-synching on center stage.

The charming image of Lin Miaoke, nine-years old, "singing" her heart out in a red dress, appeared around the world while the unseen real singer, seven-year old Yang Peiyi, was replaced at the last minute because a senior Communist Party official thought it more important to feature a prettier child.

"The national interest requires that the girl should have good looks and a good grasp of the song and look good on screen," he said. "Lin Miaoke was the best in this. And Yang Peiyi's voice was the most outstanding."

You would think the Olympics would be about authenticity, competitors from every country doing their personal best. How is it possible, then, to justify choosing a "prettier" child over a genuinely talented one to represent her country?

In 1964, when Warner Brothers made a film of the Broadway hit show, "My Fair Lady," Julie Andrews, who had originated the role and garnered multiple awards in the US and Europe, was not cast as Eliza Doolittle because studio executives didn't consider her gorgeous enough. The role went to Audrey Hepburn, whose immense charm and beauty could never be disputed, but she was also tone-deaf. Her musical numbers were sung by Marni Nixon, for decades the movie voice of every actress who couldn't sing.

I had hoped we were past such superficial lunacy, but extreme reverence for physical perfection seems to be a worldwide phenomenon which won't quit. It is particularly disheartening when it trumps ability and sends young people the unhealthy message that no matter how hard they work to develop their talents, they will never be as good as those who were accidentally born beautiful.

In the words of Confucius, that other Chinese dude, "Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."

Death is your body's way of telling you to slow down

My cold hit with hurricane force: Sore throat, fever, sneezing, coughing, runny nose, runny eyes and a general malaise. If I were in a Victorian novel, I would be suffering from ague. I am not a well girl today.

I have commissioned Flip to drive me to the store for Kleenex and chewable vitamin C.

The roads are littered with hapless tourists who take seriously the fable that in California, pedestrians have the right of way. Stupid people. That is a myth, a cautionary tale, a caveat. A warning. Damn uppity tourists. In their deluded minds, they think it is all right to stroll slowwwwwwly across streets, jaywalking with impunity.

I think they shouldn't push their luck today. Luckily, I am not driving. Flip misses all of them.

I feel unproductive. I am bored. I whine.

Flip offers to sing me a lullaby.

"As long as it's not a funeral dirge," I tell him.

"Bubbaly, bubbaly," he chants.

"What in the hell is that?"

"It's 'lullaby' backwards."

"Oh, Jesus."

He sings it again.

I'm a tough crowd. "I want my money back."

I fix myself a cup of tea, which I can't taste. This would be a good time to load up on everything I don't like that is good for me.

A lot of trees have died for this cold. I have my personal 280-count box of Kleenex on my lap which tells me in French and English that it softens the blows.

"Donnez lui de la douceur!"

I have always wanted to know how to say "dab, wipe, blot and rub" en Francais. I spend a few minutes reading the English blurb along with its French translation. I feel so much smarter now.

I do not understand people who enjoy poor health. I just want to go to sleep and wake up in another universe.

Flip sits beside me and places a sympathetic arm on top of my comforter. "I can't believe you're trying to feel up a deathbed person," I hiss.

There should probably be a "caveat emptor" sign on me. Let the buyer beware.

In Memory

Today we lost our cat, Truffle, in a room with a mural of a doggie and kitty floating on clouds in an impossibly blue sky and several teddy bears with wings propped in corners. Our home is empty of its brightest spirit.

It may take a day or two but I know she'll be back, nesting in my hair as I sleep.

Friends part only to meet again. You haven't seen the last of me, Truffie.


The Cat and the Moon

The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.

William Butler Yeats

Could I Be Mellowing?

The Chinese bank teller in the peony-colored blouse said, "You got beautiful teeths" at the same moment I said, "What a pretty color that is on you!"

She smiled. "I got many pinks, but afraid wear."

"Why?" I asked.

She leaned forward and cupped her hand around her mouth. "Gay peoples," she whispered.

Oh.

I think she is taking a chance here. How does she know I am not gay? I even wear pink on occasion.

She is waiting for me to respond. It is clear that she will not perform my transaction until I do.

"You're a girl," is what I manage. "It's different."

And I hate myself for a moment.

I find that I carry my soapbox with me less often these days. It isn't up to me to educate others on my convictions because they are prejudices, too. I am prejudiced in favor of certain values like equality for all and deeply believe that I am right, but does that entitle me to inflict my views on others?

In private conversation, yes, I think it does. But on strangers in public places with a line of people behind me, probably not. And it would be pointless as well.

She has her prejudices, too.

Clearly.

I finally understand that I am not responsible for the earth spinning on its axis. For minds and hearts embracing the principles I hold dear. That standing up and being counted does not mean rubbing noses in others' misconceptions, no matter how grievous, like puppies that have peed the carpet.

We all have the right to be stupid in whatever way we choose. But couldn't some of us be a little less flagrant about it?


“Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!”
-George Carlin-

It's a Bird. It's a Plane. Uh oh, It's

Truffle has given up her litter box for a Lenten season that never ends. She displays a distinct preference for peeing and pooping on Persian rugs under furniture, probably because she can no longer get into closets due to a lack of thumbs. All our closets are firmly closed with "No cats allowed" signs at her eye level and Flip's. (I do not need reminding because it was my shoes that had to be thrown out.)

Her um, "thinking" outside the box prompted us to take her to the animal hospital in the first place, setting off a course of treatment involving three different antibiotics for a UTI which a urine culture eventually proved nonexistent, plus a smorgasbord of procedures concocted by six vets in as many visits.

I have discontinued the daily subcutaneous fluid injections which I deem extreme measures, and now believe that we are dealing with simple raging senility.

I just spent several hours scouring the bathroom floor and the litter box and have bleeding raw hands to prove it. I installed fresh litter, removed the privacy lid as it might be difficult for her to climb in and out at her age and discarded the two mats that had developed a tendency to collect rank-smelling liquids.

I then carried Truffle into the bathroom and chirping encouragement, placed her tenderly in the box exactly like a lady-in-waiting setting the Queen on her throne. I didn't have to wait long.

She gazed at me blankly, stepped out of the box and went back to bed. It was clearly a case of "I say it's spinach and I say the hell with it."

Like Superman, she leaped onto the bed in a single bound and immediately fell asleep from her exertions.

Now I'm going to leave for several hours in the hope that Truffle will find Jesus (and make an Immaculate Exception) while I'm gone.

I don't ask much, but it would mean a lot to me.

Woke Up This Morning

Flip is wearing sunglasses to do the dishes.

I said, "Do we have a blind musician thing going on here?" Blues musicians nearly always sport a disability as part of their names, and sometimes a piece of fruit, too: Blind Flip Parker, Lame Melon Parker, Crippled Lemon Parker, Blind Little Crippled Lame Lime Flip Parker...

"No, it's a cool thing," he said. "For someone who lived in Greenwich Village in its heyday, you are not cool."

"Why am I not cool? Because I don't wear sunglasses indoors?"

"You just don't understand," he said. "I understand. And I'm not even from New York. Such a waste."

He poured some more Ivory liquid into the sink.

I resisted the urge to tell him he looked very cool washing dishes. Like the Grand Opening of a 99 Cent Store. Or a Rolls Royce hood ornament hanging over the bed like a statue of Jesus on the cross.

I understand cool, too. I do. It's just a matter of interpretation, and dishpan hands.