Three Story Life - Toilet Paper Follies

My little brother uses excessive wads of toilet paper. He has started using toilet paper when he pees, too. I called a plumber 3 times in 6 weeks. Twice I was able to have the nice guys come over. Cheery as well as efficient. The 3rd time I got the crank.

A Lecture Isn't What I Need from a Plumber

You're using too much toilet paper. <duh>
Don't you have an auger? <show auger>
That's not an auger. <why does it say auger on the tag, then, hm?>
You need this size auger. <hefts his auger>
<Ooo that's a big one. Here's your check. Bye.>

1. Hide the Toilet Paper

This worked for the first handful of times. Scott has Alzheimer's disease, but he still can see. He knows where the toilet paper is hidden.

2. Hide the Toilet Paper Higher

Scott is short, so I thought I could put it on the top shelf in the back. Nope. So I hid it better.

3. Hide the 12-Pack

Unable to find the new hiding spot, he opened the new 12-roll package on the floor and used that.

4. Hide the Toilet Paper in Different Places

I figured out that the sound of his belt buckle dragging on the floor means the search for where the toilet paper is hidden is underway. With his drawers dragging, and a bum not in safe travel mode yet.

5. Hide the Toilet Paper in the Same Place. Listen for the Belt Buckle

This only works if I'm paying strict attention from the Artist's Dungeon directly below the bathroom. This method also requires that I remember where I hid the toilet paper the last time.

6. Tell the Carers Where The Toilet Paper Is

If I don't remember to reveal the location, there's a text message to be sent. If I don't remember that, I get a text. Where's the TP?
 

RJ Spangler Trio and Tbone Paxton Mardi Gras Jazz Music 2019

Spring cannot be far behind when listeners find a seat at Salem-South Lyon District Library to enjoy Mardi Gras jazz music with the RJ Spangler Trio and John (Tbone) Paxton. The group opened with Professor Longhair's ode to New Orleans and Mardi Gras. Next up, Art Neville's Mardi Gras Mambo. The link is Charmaine Neville's take. I love the growling baritone sax and the cover art, too. Art Neville just announced his retirement in December 2018.

This concert appearance is always a welcome musical experience that also delivers an education. Before performing Canjun Country, Tbone shared a history of New Orleans and its music. An organic convergence of French Acadians who were expelled from Canada in the 18th century, with West African, Congolese musicology. Congo Square was a gathering place for drumming and music in New Orleans (restricted and banned except on Sundays until the 1920s.)

We know Hank Williams (Cajun Baby, Jambalaya) and I'm going to introduce you to D. L. Menard's The Back Door, too. D.L. said he was asked to write about the Front Door, but he's got trouble with the hinges so he hasn't gotten around to it. Not quite jazz, but Acadiana, and New Orleans flavored for sure.

Hoagie Carmichael's New Orleans was our next treat. Quoting the link comments section here: "This is from the 1956 album "Hoagy Sings Carmichael with The Pacific Jazzmen" (Art Pepper on alto sax, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Don Fagerquist, Jimmy Zito, Irv Cottler, Nick Fatool, Al Hendrickson and Jimmy Rowles), arranged and conducted by Johnny Mandel.

RJ told us that Bix Beiderbecke played with Hoagy Carmichael. Before 1930, Bix was with the Jean Goldkette Orchestra. Goldkette was the music director of the DAC for over 20 years, and also co-owner of the Graystone Ballroom. Beiderbecke was born in Davenport, Iowa, and undoubtedly heard jazz music wafting off the Mississippi River. Goldkette married Lee McQuillen, a newspaperwoman, and I can't find a thing about her. What newspaper? Inquiring minds want to know.

Iko Iko is a story about Mardi Gras Angels, African-American/Native American influencers, performers who used to fight and now dance. TJ mentioned Rumble, a PBS documentary about Native American contributions to music.

And if you want to sing some more, Jock-a-mo-fee-na-ney. Next on the list was Eh La Bas Danny Barker, composer. This is one of our favorite audience participation tunes.

Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? You won't want to miss this video of Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday. If you don't check any of the links before this one, do listen here. Don't know who the blonde is, but looks enough like my Mom to make this song even more bittersweet.

My li'l bro and I listening. I'm missing New Orleans in this photo. We both still miss both our folks, who shared music with us all their lives.

RJ and Tbone speak often about the responsibiliy - and beauty - of sharing their decades of experience with storytelling alongside performing music. We have watched young talented musicians sharing the stage with these venerable musicologists.

Jeff Cuny, bass. Jake Schwandt, guitar. RJ Spangler, percussion. Tbone Paxton, trombone and vocals. And whistling - that man can whistle.

Check the schedule on the RJ Spangler website to find where you can hear more jazz music, blues, Planet D Nonet.

Appreciation, as always, to Salem-South Lyon District Library for bringing music, art, knowledge to our fortunate community. Watch the SSLDL events calendar for more of this bounty.

10th Moose Productions

The Amazing and Talented Artist Carol Ludwig and I were talking about our art. Carol will be exhibiting in Dexter, MI come April for 2 months. Her collages are deep and evocative and beautiful. After a burst of creativity, then a lull spell, she's back in the flow. Brava!

We were talking about Louise Penny's book that I was rereading - the characters wondered throughout why there was no Muse who shepherded art. 9 Muses. Not one has art in her realm. Wacky Greeks. So we agreed with Penny we need a 10th Muse. As Carol and I were signing off, I wished her a visit from the 10th moose.

Misspoke inspiration.

Then I hunted my drawing of a moose, and posted it on facebook. Because it's funny. I like funny. And I like my drawings.

This moose came to life because of a white water trip. Don't remember which river, but it was wild. I wasn't following instructions well because I was terrified. And my moves were not yet automatic enough to get it right. Don't get it right in white water, and everybody in the boat swims. Through rocks and floater logs and sneers from Neptune. When we emerged untipped on the far far side of the wave chain, the stern paddler launched into instruction mode. Show me a brace. Rudder river left. Where are your feet? I don't know, I said.

Which put me into storytelling The Girl Who Didn't Know Where Her Feet Were. So tall, that... and this moose was born. And a pink flamingo, and I forget what else.

Art is often happy accident. The one painting I won a prize for - and sold on the same night - started out as a piece of paper thrown across the room. My watercolor sky sucked. Walking back in my workshop much later, I saw the paper on the cement floor. Upside down. Ah! As a sky it stunk. As a heaving ocean, it rocked.

I just missed a deadline for the show I've entered for 9 years and won multiple poetry awards in, and one art prize. It's a show about ekphrasis - an ancient Greek (and here are those wacky guys again) argument about which is more aesthetically pleasing: the art or the words in celebration of the art. Entrants submit an original artwork, and an original poem related to the art. For 9 years I entered the limit of 3. 3 paintings. 3 poems. That's 54 pieces of art. I experiment all year on the 6 results that will be entered.

I missed the deadline fully aware that was probably going to be the case. I'm not grieving, so I need to reflect on what's going on in my creative realm. 9 years, hmmm. Time for the 10th moose to step up.

Linda Robinson Art Vitae

I have created art all my aware life. My first art prize was in 3rd grade for a pastel of a camel. I suspect it was supposed to be a horse, and when that didn't work out too well, I added a pyramid and a palm tree. I won a Michigan art prize for that horse/camel, but because Captain Jolly was presenting the prizes, I skipped it by getting pneumonia. Captain Jolly scared me.

In recent decades I did textbook illustration, which put bread on table. Tiny loaf. When I could get the assignment, I made book art. My best friend and I made a team - she laid out books, and I did the art.  One of our team results was my novel, Chantepleure.

I made all the art on this blog. 708 posts, banner, thumbnails.

My artistic emphasis today is supporting other women entrepreneurs with art. Creating is a joy, and if I have enough to eat and keep a roof over my head, I choose the projects I want to play in. My friend Barb Barton is a gatherer/forager, and I made all her labels for wild foods, in exchange for honey, syrup, wild rice, vinegar. Because I believe in the amazing creative work she does.

My friend Patricia Fero is a psychologist/author and retreat auteur. I am creating her 10th anniversary release of her 2008 book What Happens When Women Wake Up? I create women symbol medallions for her retreat participants. Because I believe in the amazing creative work she does.

Today I still create book art. I am enjoying lessons in watercolor, metalwork and am teaching myself to create in paper clay. Because I believe in the amazing creative work I do.

I do create for money, if the project appeals, and I can manifest the author's vision.

Not The Favourite

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Three:Two Story Life

Back the way it was. We're early in the 2nd year without Dad, and Scott still has this verbal tic. My response changes. I know, honey. It is the way it is. I do too. No response, depending on how the day's rolling. Scott is taking prozac now - I imagine he's depressed. The doctor agreed although I am the only reporting individual. She takes my word for it and writes a script. The carers report that he is more responsive (although I still don't know what to do with the one who coaches him to say praise Jesus!) I notice that Scott has stepped into life a bit more. (The fact that he can repeat praise Jesus! is one example.) This return to life shows up in making choices about his environment. He's picking up his dish from the table more often. He makes his bed. Moved his record albums into the living room from his bedroom. Decides when he's going to put on underwear instead of a diaper.

I have to be faster. He picks up his dish, but turns it upside down in the well I put the clean dishes. Then I need to rewash those. He makes his bed over wet sheets. Then the comforter is wet, too. Scott will toss underwear around until he finds the pair he wants to wear, and then I feel like he should be allowed to wear his choice, until the laundry basket is half full with wet underwear. I've had the plumber in 3 times in 60 days because Scott now wants to use toilet paper when he pees. A roll at a time. If he flushes, we're plugged. He doesn't always, so I have to be alert to what's up in the bathroom. Every time. Ten twenty times a day.

My handler with the State DHHS confirmed there's no way to timestamp this. Constant vigilance. No line item. I don't know why I brought it up with her. Looking for some affirmation that this is hard, unrewarding, depressing so that translates to a spreadsheet in the Capricorn corner of my brain.

My therapist used to instruct me to ignore stuff. Just la di da while stepping over scivvies tossed on the floor, toothpicks embedded in the carpet, twist ties strewn around the house. Back then it made some sense. Back the way it was meant arguing with Dad every week about allowing Scott his own life, his own agency, his own quirks. Now I am pushing back at that agency, a quandary for personal growth and peace.

All this stuff is just stuff. Whinging about the mundane. Because that's what it is. It is what it is.

Dad was a support on this three-legged stool of our stories. Scott spent all of his life with Dad in his story. That's a huge loss for him. Scott is finding his way in this new world order without the brain power and memory to find a way through. I question every hour if there is someone or anything that would be a comfort to him.

Dad was the person I could talk with, share his love of sports, my love of art. He was funny when he wasn't grouchy. Just like me. There are entire days when Scott and I have no direct communication; days when he's roaming the corridors of his inner life, and he does not hear me speak.

I'm mad and sorry most of the time. My freedom is curtailed - if I need to leave the house, I either have to take Scott with, or pay for support. I am not as agile, nimble, or interested as I was a year ago. Feeling isolated, I've isolated myself more. Quit the art commission. Stopped painting. Writing, creating, anything. I don't want to get dressed, shower, or rise from the bed to do neither.

I keep thinking this is the day it turns around. This is the day I reengage with life. This is the day my story will take up where it left off. And on that day I'm wrong again.

I am stuck in a groove of being unable to console myself because so many other people have it much harder than I do.

And I still can't cry.

A Three Story Life Farewell

We're burying Dad this week. He died in November, and the ashes have been at home until I passed the urn along to my big brother. In preparation for selling the house on Drummond Island, most of the offspring are on the island clearing out, tidying up. Since most are there along with Dad's ashes, my sister called the county to prepare the site. Feels rushed. The original plan was to coordinate this for later summer, early autumn.

It's always too soon, isn't it? Plans for this week changed abruptly Sunday when I heard the intent to bury Dad on Thursday, and I decided that I couldn't not be there. I don't want to wake up one morning down the road and feel bad. As if. Meanwhile, I have to prepare for making my brother share this long road to good-bye.

Our mother died in 1998. Scott won't get out of the car when we visit her grave. 20 years down the long road, he is mostly uncommunicative. I sometimes think he knows Dad has joined Mom, but there is no way to be sure. I told him Dad died. Dementia prevents him from keeping this knowledge. Some days he says it's over repeatedly. Some days he says back the way it was.

My closest friends think I'm crazy to make this trip at all, albeit with no other family in the car for 750 miles round. I have to pack mounds of incontinence supplies. Scott may or may not find closure, and even if he does, it's momentary. I protected him from the physicality of our parents leaving their bodies. That may not have been a good idea. I'm questioning everything. I pretend I can evaluate his needs. I cannot. I am wandering away from identifying my own needs.

All part of life's rich pageant. All grist for the writer's mill. In a life wherein I start writing again, this trip will be the closing scene. As it happens, the day Dad moves to his final place is the anniversary of us moving from A Three Story Life to A Two Story Life. May 26. It's also his brother and best friend's birthday. His brother died in 1998 also.

In that light on that stage, I imagine the items that might go in the grave with Dad's urn. Like ancient deceased expected to need stuff to negotiate the afterlife. I can't find my medicine bag (the collected donated items to help me kick cancer) that has the saxophone reed Dad gave me.

What I need to do is envision what I need to consign to earth. Leave whatever does not serve me on the Island when we get on the ferry. Use the mantra my lovely friend Carol taught me. All will be well.

I'm taking the golf ball.

Wish us peace.