Mortality Bites

I have been away from here, and will be for some time, as I help my mother through a patch of sudden bad health. It's been a challenge to put myself in the role of caregiver, to try to deal with my frustrations about having to put my own feelings (and plans) aside while not stifling them to the point where I become a total bitch. I wasn't prepared for how unsettling it can be to see someone who's spent so much of my life being the one in control, suddenly dependent on me. It's a role reversal I knew I would probably have to deal with at some point, and I hope I have the grace to accomplish it.

My mother will probably be well again this time, but one of these days she won't get well again and while it may seem morbid to reflect on it, I have gotten the slightest taste of what that might be like and I suppose that's a good thing. But I know I'm not ready. I'm not ready to be an orphan. I'm not ready to be next.

There's so much going on but it's all being put on the left back burner for now. I suppose I'll have to do a massive brain dump at some point. Stay well, my friends...I'll post when I can.

Transcendental Blues: Beaches, Bullets & the Return to So-Called Normal

Well, not really. But read on.

I am back in Florida. Nothing transcendent about here; just condos and concrete. And WalMart.

But no...there is always the beach:














Yes Virginia, there are actual beaches left in Florida. After the last slow-moving hurricane that tore at the coast for what seemed like weeks, a sliver of sand remains. In many places it slopes downward at such an extreme angle that just walking along the water without tipping over is a real trick.

And then there's this: driving along the Gulf coast of the Florida panhandle, we saw piles and piles of what used to be houses still waiting to be carted off after last year's storms. Maybe 20 yds. of ground left between where they used to stand and the water's edge. Maybe less. And right next to said pile of house was a brand-new house, going up in the same place. I mean we saw this over and over again.

Unfrickinbelievable. But I digress....

Tourists to Florida Get a Warning As Greeting

A national gun-control group is riling Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida's mighty tourism industry by warning visitors that arguing with locals here could get them shot.

Welcome home.