If you don't have something nice to say, come sit by me...

Yesterday afternoon I got busy cleaning the entertainment center/bookcase. I took everything out and cleaned the pictures, books, and glass shelving. I dusted and cleaned glass and threw junk out of the cabinets in the bottom. I was feeling pretty motivated. Molly's birth announcement has been leaning up against a picture frame on one of the shelves for 15 or 16 months now, so I decided it could go into my desk with other mementos.
Mother Dear got up from her nap while I was working on this project and the absolute first thing she said when she came into the room was "where is Molly's birth announcement?" I explained to her that I put in in my desk, and she informed me that I could just go get it and put it right back where it was. She "likes to have it there to remind her when Molly's birthday is." I told her that there was a framed picture of Molly right where the birth announcement has been. What? that little round silver framed picture? that's just dinky (compared to all the gillions of pictures of Sloan and Tyler).
From my perspective, this is my home and they are my grandchildren, so naturally I'm going to have pictures of them. Molly on the other hand is my great niece and her grandfather can keep pictures of her all over his apartment!
I put the birth announcement back. Maybe we'll replace it when her high school graduation announcement comes.
This morning I had an appointment with the dermatologist. I'm having my sun damage lasered. Call me vain, call me a spendthrift, but I decided to do this one little thing because I don't like these brown spots on my cheeks. I don't get my nails done, I clean my own house. I'm driving a nine year old car. I have the money to pay for it. But, when I came home and Mother asked what I had done..."I knew you'd be down there having a face lift." Attitude!
I walked away. She's in one of those moods which come on more frequently these days. She gets really snippy (don't ask me to define it). You either know snippy or you don't. I envy you if you don't. All I know is that when she gets this way, 2400 square feet isn't enough room for the both of us.
Last night she called my brother to come and take her car to the gas station and air up the tires. She told him that one was practically flat;  it wasn't, but he came and took it at 8:30 last night. She doesn't drive anymore, but I think that she needed for me to see that her good son would come and do her bidding.
I took Mother for a drive and Starbuck's on Sunday. B and Tyler skyped with her yesterday. Jeffrey aired up her tires. She's been making doctor's appointments that I am faithfully putting on the calendar and committing to take her to. I fix her meals and her plate and serve her. She has a live in maid and chauffeur.
But she doesn't feel well and she's lost control of many aspects of her life, so I guess I can understand her anxiety and frustration.
There! I've vented. I told you, if you don't have anything nice to say....

The Preposterous Perry

You knew that this was coming...Rick Perry says that Texas will not implement the Medicaid provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act. He'll show the federal government a thing or two, by cutting off the noses of several million Texans to spite somebody. He doesn't seem to have a clue that it's his constituents he's hurting the most.
Do you think that his reader didn't tell him the part about the years that the feds will pick up the entire bill? Did he not get the part about the state cap of ten percent? Who does he think contributes those federal dollars that he's going to allow to go to other states, which  will continue to rank ahead of Texas in providing a high standard of health care for their citizens.
The state that boasts one of the nation's top health care facilities, ranks last in providing health care for its citizens, not just its poorest citizens. All of us. Under Governor Good Hair's guidance we will continue to send our uninsured to the ER for treatment and the cost will be passed along to those of us who have private insurance. That means that whatever pay raises we might have hoped for will only go to cover the rising cost of our private health insurance benefit.
Someone from the insurance lobby needs to tell Rick that the insurance companies want Obamacare; it will bring them lots of new customers. Maybe he's not getting big enough campaign contributions from the insurance companies, or maybe he isn't thinking about running again. Now that the Governor's Mansion is rebuilt, he and Anita probably aren't going to want to move back into government housing.