I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: New Year

  • human frailty, mendacity, and George Santos – plus pink boxing gloves

    human frailty, mendacity, and George Santos – plus pink boxing gloves


    “We all want life to be simple and our relationships to be enchanted, and then along comes human frailty. Before we know it, all will be lost,” said postmistress Dorcas Lane to Minnie her maid in one of my favorite BBC productions Lark Rise to Candleford when Minnie asked Dorcas what the phrase Happily Ever After means in affairs of the heart. I submit her answer applies equally today to political affairs including, but not limited to, the most recent admission of human frailty by GOP Rep.-elect George Santos from New York.

    I cannot tell a lie, said Santos, as he admitted to lying about a few things in his campaign for serving in Congress for New York’s third congressional district. Hm. Were they little white lies like he really prefers the fresh taste of McDonald’s coffee to the more lauded Starbucks? Or he’s secretly not going to vote for Kevin McCarthy to be Speaker of the House next week when the new Congress is sworn in even though Kevin McCarthy has been mum on the questions regarding Santos. Well, no. Not exactly little white lies from Santos on the campaign trail. Go big, or go home was more his style.

    He lied about having college degrees from Baruch College and New York University – he had neither. He also admitted he lied about working directly for the financial firms Citigroup and Goldman Sachs – he had an indirect relationship with them through his company but made misleading statements in his bio. And of course, there’s the whole “Jew-ish” comments by Santos that must leave the Jewish community in his district shaking their heads in awful wonder. To give the devil his due, however, Santos did say he was sorry for his “embellishments.”

    “I’m human, I’m flawed, I’m not perfect,” he said in his explanation for his mendacity, but he also said he wasn’t going to step down.

    Of course, why should he? Santos had the perfect political role model in another New York politician who lied his way into the White House in 2016 but now has been exiled to Florida as seemingly the only consequence of two impeachments in addition to findings of the January 6th. House Committee that laid the blame for an attempted coup of the US Government squarely on his slumping shoulders, yellow-ish complexion and orange hair. Where have you gone, Merrick Garland – our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, woo woo woo…you who?

    I’ve tried to check out of politics during the holiday season by binging The Great British Baking Show and Wednesday on Netflix instead of my usual nerdy news programs, but last night I made the mistake of checking in with them just in time to see the Santos Song of Shame as performed by the singer himself on national news. On top of that disgraceful dissonance, the guy is gay. Which made a sad song sadder for me personally.

    Truth telling is a lost art easily manipulated by the words we say and the words we don’t. As the year 2022 makes a loud exit, I commit to continue to honestly call it like I see it in 2023 with a more powerful punch than ever because of my renewed belief in Santa.

    Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus – Pretty’s sister Darlene and her partner Dawne gave me a brand new pair of boxing gloves for Christmas! I was overjoyed!

    Darlene asked me if I thought my mother would have permitted boxing gloves in our home when I originally asked Santa for them as a child if they were pink, and Pretty spoke up for me. I doubt it, she said, but she did always love for Sheila to wear pink.

    Happy New Year from Pretty and me – may all your wishes become possibilities, may peace cover the earth, may all those who wander find safe shelter with food to eat and water to drink, may all those who mourn heavy losses be comforted, may the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Hallelujah. Amen.

    *******************

    Slava Ukraini. For the children.

  • the final new year

    the final new year


     

    She sat in her large recliner covered with worn blankets for extra warmth.  She was shrunken with age and her spine was so curved by scoliosis she slumped down into the bowels of the chair. It seemed to swallow her tiny body.

    She lost weight since she went to this place three months ago.   She didn’t eat. Her meals were pureed in a blender and fed through a large syringe. Open, please. Thank you.

    She wore bright blue flowered pajamas which I knew didn’t belong to her. She was covered by a Christmas blanket and looked like an incongruous mixture of Hawaii with the North Pole.

    Her beautiful white hair was uncombed, and she periodically raised her right hand to carefully brush a few strands from her forehead. There, that’s better.

    Two other women sat in similar recliners in the dark den lit only by the reflected light of a massive television screen which was the focal point of the room.

    The sitcom How I Met Your Mother was playing that afternoon.  No one watched this episode about misadventures on New Year’s Eve. I found the irony in the sitcom’s name since the woman in chair number one was my mother.

    She needed care for the past four years, and I regularly sat with her as her dementia progressed in medical jargon from mild to moderate to severe. Severe was where we were on that first day of 2012.

    I tried to talk to her about visiting my aunt, her sister-in-law, over the weekend.  No response. Mom had adored my Aunt Lucille so I thought she might be able to find her somewhere. Instead, she gazed at her black leather shoes on the floor in front of her. Slowly, very deliberately, she bent over and painstakingly reached for her left shoe. I moved to help her because I was afraid she’d fall out of the chair.

    Do you want to put on your shoes, Mom? She stared vacantly at me and shook her head. Ok, I said and returned to my seat on the large overstuffed sofa next to her chair.

    I made conversation with one of two sisters who cared for my mother and the two other mothers who sat in the recliners.   Mothers and daughters and sisters. We were all connected in the little den with the big tv.

    My mother ignored me as she continued her ritual of laboriously picking up her black shoes one by one, tugging on the tongue to ready it for her foot, fiddling with the shoelaces as if to adjust them and then lowering the shoe to the floor in front of her to the same place it was before. She did that over and over again. Ad infinitum.

    During one of her attempts, she dropped a shoe beyond her reach, and I put it in front of her chair with the other one. Do you need help to put on your shoes?  I asked again. No. I have to keep on this road, she answered.  She was on a mission.

    The mother in chair number two told me she tried to help my mother with her shoes earlier. She told me to get away from them so I did, the woman said with a note of exasperation.

    I’m sorry, I said.  That wasn’t really who she was. But I was wrong. That was who she was now.

    I talked and tried to avoid watching my mother and her little black shoes for an eternity that was only an hour. Mom, I have to go, I said.  She looked at me with some level of recognition and said Don’t leave me.

    I’ll be back in a day or two, I said, hugged her and kissed her on the cheek and told her I loved her.

    I love you too, she said.  I really do.

    *********************

    I didn’t know on New Year’s Day in 2012 that my mother would be gone in April after years of waging war against an unknown enemy who robbed her not only of her body but also her mind, her memories. It was a losing battle, but I expected the loss.

    Estimates place 1.6 million homes around the world in 2020 hadn’t known its mothers, sisters, wives, daughters as well as its fathers, brothers, husbands and sons wouldn’t live to see the first day of 2021. Shocked, dazed, saddened by the unexpected deaths of family members and friends, the fight against another unknown enemy called Covid-19 was briefer than my mother’s war but just as deadly.

    Vaccines discovered at “warp speed” offered hope of victory over the Covid-19 devil in 2020 although the roll out at the end of the year has been poorly managed in the US in keeping with the tradition of pandemic mismanagement established at the federal level in previous months. Agent Orange is so busy trying to keep the presidency through wacky shenanigans since the November election that he has no time to participate in governing. The president is AWOL, and time has stood still during the political transition while members of the current administration remain persistently unconcerned about preserving either our national security, our democracy or our sense of compassion for the people whose lives will be forever changed by the events of 2020.

    Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted, according to the gospel of Matthew. Garth Brooks sang of “taking any comfort that I can.” I’m hoping 2021 will be known as the year of comfort for mourners everywhere.

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

  • pretty in fine form for new year’s day


    ‘Twas the week after Christmas, and all through the house two creatures are stirring, and neither’s a mouse. Only Spike and I are up so far, and in all fairness we’re probably not even stirring – more staring than stirring. Me at my computer – Spike at the front yard from his panoramic view in the living room.

    Spike, our rescued shepherd mix, is the early riser in our family, but his main goal of being the first one up is to serve as an alarm clock for Pretty, Charly, and me. Pretty has perfected the pretense of ignoring him, I  get up when I hear Spike’s nails clicking on the hardwood floors in our bedroom and Charly makes a great show of jumping out of bed with me as the three of us walk together to open the doggie door in the sun room for the day.

    I usually walk outside with Spike to greet the colors of the sunrise and to see the squirrels he will bark at while he chases them around for a few minutes until they scamper up the huge oak tree to safety. Charly, on the other hand, may or may not come with us, her decision resting on whether she determines breakfast will be served early or later. At the signs of no early breakfast, she turns and runs to go back to get in bed with Pretty whose philosophy is she’s never met a sunrise she liked.

    Today is the first day of a new year, a new decade, I said to Spike this morning when we walked outside. He stood still for a second while I talked to him but then spotted two squirrels that were taunting him with their bushy tails in the yard near the old oak tree. He was off and running, but they weren’t frightened by either his loud barking or thundering toward them. I swear I saw one of them wink at the other one as they chased each other up the tree. Spike’s best efforts were thwarted once again. He turned away and walked back to me. His work was done until the pesky little varmints ventured into the yard again.

    ***********

    Happy New Year, I said to Pretty an hour later when I heard her in the kitchen popping the top on her first can of Diet Coke for the day.

    Happy New Year, Pretty responded and then continued, the first day of 2020 and the first day of a new decade.

    I know, I said. When I was a teenager in Texas in the 1960s, I never thought I would live to be thirty years old. When I had my 30th birthday in 1976, I said well, I will never live to see the turn of the century and now here I still am on the verge of a third decade in the 21st century. What do you think about that, Pretty?

    Pretty looked directly at me and said, I think you must be a drama queen.

    *********

    “We trust that time is linear. That it proceeds eternally, uniformly. Into infinity. But the distinction between past, present and future is nothing but an illusion. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are not consecutive, they are connected in a never-ending circle. Everything is connected.” (Dark, Season 1)

    Lordy, Lordy. Whenever I do pass, I hope I somehow stay connected to Pretty.

    Happy New Year!

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

  • What’s Done is Done


    In a few days the year 2014 will be in the history books, and the glass will be half empty or half full depending on which glass you pick up for 2015.  So many glasses to choose from in a New Year.

    Time to shed the skins of what ifs and buts and the Three Stooges of couldas, wouldas and shouldas.  What’s done is done.  We can’t change 2014, but we will have a new opportunity in 2015 to make amends for our transgressions and forgive ourselves as we forgive others, to celebrate our achievements and victories won in the past year as we remain committed to each other and to the causes we support.

    In this world of too much information bombarded relentlessly in cyberspace every day, can we somehow manage to maintain an up close and personal connection to the people who matter in our lives; and can we be warriors for kindness in 2015 and set good examples in our homes first and then our communities and then our nation so that the news is better for everyone.

    In a nation of plenty may we find food for the hungry, walls for the wind and roofs for the rain for the homeless, laughter and joy for the chronically ill; comfort for those who grieve, and hope for those who struggle with the demons of doubt and depression.  These are our opportunities for the New Year and Resolutions that will transform our lives and the lives of others.

    No need to wait for 2015 – the glass is half full already.

    We can start today.  Be kind to one another.

    Thank you so much for stopping by to spend time with me here in the past years.  I appreciate your comments and visits and Teresa and I wish you all a Happy Holiday Season and a New Year of promise with whatever glass you choose.

     

    pasta fresca 2

     

     

     

     

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