Trump is Coming

I live in a mostly rural state that is largely ignored during presidential election season. Around here, we joke about being outnumbered by the livestock. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed electoral neglect until this season when Trump announced he'd be paying us a visit.

If you can't tell, he's yelling FUCK! Just like I want to.

I am dumbfounded how this blowhard actually made it this far. Like many others, I never really took him seriously until it was too late. There were so many Republican douche nozzles to choose from, it seemed ridiculous to believe that this particular one would end up last douche nozzle standing.

It's a mystery. 

A mere year ago, a friend and I would joke about Trump. We'd laugh and comment about what an asshat he was. We even dropped silly memes on each other's Facebook page with the tag line, "You've been Trumped!" It all seemed to ludicrous to even entertain the idea that he could somehow actually garner enough support to be taken seriously. Yet, here we are.

A Trump pun? Glorious! Except it is becoming all too real a possibility.

Can I just shout a big, "What the fuck" of frustration? How did we get here? Why are any members of the GOP giving him support? I am not a Bush I nor Bush II fan mind you, but I applaud their collective refusal to endorse Trump the Dumbass. All Republicans should renounce him and his fuckery. The Republicans have to have some archaic rule or motion up their sleeves so that they can nominate someone from the floor of the convention. Please. Someone tell me there's a weird loophole somewhere to save us all from confirming him as a valid candidate for president. I am a liberal hippie tree hugging progressive, so there's no way I'd ever vote for one of the elephants, but I also don't want to continue witnessing their surreal demise at the hands of a loudmouthed ignoramus who does nothing but embarrass their party and make America anything but great.

Not even trying anymore. 

I really hope there are people in the world who realize not all Americans believe in Trump or his misguided, inflammatory bigotry. I am ashamed to see this dickwad being taken seriously and given a microphone to the world. I don't want him to try and rally support from the people in my state. I want the people of my state to reject him and his hatred and his cult of personality that celebrates ignorance. Alas! There's little I can do. Or is there...

 The answer was in my newsfeed.

However, I did find a little subversive activity this morning. I reserved two tickets to the rally with absolutely no intention of attending. I wish you could reserve more, but two per mobile number is all that is allowed. I went to Trump's page, went to the schedule tab, and selected the Billings rally. I submitted my information and made sure to uncheck the box asking to receive his newsletter. There are now two seats that will remain empty at that rally because of this. I posted to Facebook about it and got some of my fellow Montanans to participate in my slacktivism. This is how we are choosing to protest his presence in our state: passive aggressive activism baby! My husband has a mobile number, too, so with his permission I am going to reserve another two tickets that will remain empty. I really just want to shout this out to everyone I possibly can: Please, reserve seats at his rally and then don't show up. I want that fucktard with a bad combover to look out from his podium and see a vast sea of empty chairs. I want him to know that he doesn't speak for America because America is greater without him and his brash intolerance of humanity's highest self. I may have been laughing a year ago, but I'm not laughing now. Trump is coming. I can't stop it. I will however reserve tickets that will remain at the ticket booth as protest of his dickory. To Trump and anyone who supports him, I say:

Migraines Must Die

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to attend a belly dance festival in a small town not far from the Canadian border. It’s a rural community where you would not think to look for a thriving belly dance scene, and yet--there it is. I attended last year as well, but something interfered: a migraine of epic proportions. I vowed that a migraine would not interfere with me participating this year, but apparently the migraine saw that as a challenge...and accepted. I had a migraine for five whole days, three of which were at this festival. Being the stubborn person I am, I stood toe to toe with my migraine and we engaged in a battle of wills. Here are the highlights of that event.

This would have been simpler.

Multiple doses of medication

I went through an entire prescription refill of my medicine. I take Maxalt MLT 10 mg for when I actually have a migraine, which is blissfully less often now that I take a low dose of amlodipine daily. Usually, a dose of Maxalt takes the edge out of the migraine so I can function. I always seem to need a second dose to completely eradicate the pain, but this time around I almost violated the dosing by needing a fourth dose before 24 hours had passed. I didn’t take it mind you; I resorted to time on the sofa with an ice pack at the back of my head. Clearly, the migraine heard my challenge and was hellbent on winning our bout. I actually wound up consuming 2-3 doses a day for five days because the migraine was relentless.

This makes it look way sexier than it was.

Waking up at night

Oh yes. The true fun came with disruptions in my sleep. Sleeping is vital to my overall wellness plan. The insidious migraine knew this and invaded my nocturnal breaks with its crushing power. Therefore, not only was I combating the pain, but I was doing so with limited power reserves. That freaking migraine was really pissing me off, but I refused to let it keep me on the ropes. I did deploy uber shots of caffeine to counter it. The artificial energy kept me running and fighting, but the migraine sensed my weakness and tried to take advantage. I kept hoping to wake up without a migraine, but that didn’t happen until today.

Me day 3 of the migraine. 

Shut your maw

Did you know that excessive yawning is a symptom of migraines? It’s super helpful in social situations to be showing your molars off every few minutes. I do hope the instructors did not take it personally as it was totally not a reflection of my interest or their teaching methods. I yawned so much that  my jaw was sore. Thanks migraine for one of the more overtly obvious and embarrassing symptoms made doubly bad by the lack of sleep you ensured happened.

When a sloth does it, it's cute. When I do it repeatedly, it gets problematic.

Imbalance

This migraine threw everything it could at me including the loss of balance and coordination. The medication leaves me a little floaty for a half hour or so, but the migraine itself gives me periods of time where I lose balance and have to grab something for stability. The medication does not decrease this feeling. Sometimes, it feels like I am about to fall. Other times, it feels like that movie special effect where something in the distance is suddenly on a moving track that zooms toward the screen at warp speed. Just try and belly dance with that going on. It’s glorious fun.

Not exactly like it, but it's just as disorienting.

The light, it burns

Ok, not burns so much as makes the pain worse. It makes me squinty, which is not an attractive look for a dancer. The weather Saturday had cleared and the gorgeous May sunlight streamed in the windows of the senior center where our classes were held. Everywhere I looked, sunlight glared off of linoleum or glinted against stainless steel making me turn my head or even hide strategically behind other people to block the luminosity. I even had to put my phone screen on its lowest setting for brightness because it was too much. This is one of my more consistent migraine symptoms, so I was prepared to defend myself against it.

Enough already!

Here spot, there spot

Oh yes, the colored dots of ominous delight spattered my field of vision at times. I get indigo colored spots fairly regularly, which is usually just annoying, but sometimes it is the harbinger of pain to come. This time, it was just messing with my ability to see. Big purple and blue blotches in my right eye’s field of vision. The occasional white flash like an old fashioned photograph be taken. Sometimes though, it was just a bunch of sparkly twinkles in yellow, orange, and white. Rather like watching small snowflakes in the sunlight only with the dark cloud of excruciating pain looming overhead. When I kept getting the spots, I knew the Maxalt didn’t fully kick the migraine’s ass.

Feature this popping up randomly in your field of vision. In purple. Without the cool car.

Flurry of blurry

It’s a good thing that dancing does not require a lot of reading because the migraine decided my eyes needed to get with the fuzzy. No reading on the phone. No reading the handouts from the instructors. Just don’t even try. It was like a contest--look at the page in my novel and try to get a line in before the eyes blurred things out. I also get blank spots in my vision, which means words disappear occasionally. This one is vexing at work, but at the festival it wasn’t the worst problem. If I was an American Tribal (ATS) dancer instead of American Cabaret, it might be an issue. ATS dancers are in groups and must watch each other for signals of what to do next. Am Cabs from my troupe though are soloists, which means I can improv my way around the migraine’s strategy.

Oh! I'm sorry. Did you want to read that? NO!~Migraine

Unscented everything, please

It’s spring, which means flowers. A lot of women are gathered in a small space, which means fragrances abound. It’s a senior center, which means Renuzits. It’s a death trap of strong smells, which migraine loves. Strong smells actually trigger migraines for me, and this Big Nasty just fed on the awful scents wafting from the outdoors, the bodies, and the outlets. Each whiff sent waves of pain from my right eye through to the back of my skull. Mouth breathing is not attractive, but what else was I to do? I had to try and survive, and a dry mouth was the only way to counteract the scented plugins.

The aisle of evil.

Speak the speech, or not

Yeah, so this migraine made some of my speaking moments a little bit garbled. That happens sometimes with the really Big Nasties. Good thing dancing does not require speaking. However, I was also vending merchandise for my troupe’s costumer, so I needed to have some faculties of speech. Unfortunately, I had to limit some of my talking (I’m an introvert anyway, so people probably didn’t notice) to others lest I sound like I was drunk or just stupid. Fortunately, I also have a gregarious husband who more than makes up for my reserved verbal interaction.

I hear ya, Goat. 

Stick it in your ear

At one point, the sounds were awful; any slightly loud noise made me grimace. At work, they replaced the usual bell ring with this utterly obnoxious buzzer that apparently can’t be turned down. Every time the buzzer went off Friday, I winced. At the actual workshop, the music with the zurna (think oboe but far more obnoxious in sound) pierced my ear and made me want to scream. Luckily, I also have binaural beats on my phone. I plugged in and tuned out the noise that set my teeth on edge. Take that migraine! You want sound sensitivity, how about some meditative droning noise to counter your wily efforts? I didn’t get to practice a lot for my own performance, but at least I didn’t have to suffer at the sounds of everyone else’s music. By the time I took the zills (finger cymbals) class Sunday morning, my migraine was managed well enough by Maxalt that I could do the zill patterns without agony.

When the sound is just too much to take.

That was my weekend of battling the nemesis of migraine. I refused to concede defeat like I did last year. I have a medication that usually works far more effectively than it did over the five longest days of May I’ve ever endured. However, the Maxalt did let me participate far more than I would have without it. When you have migraines, finding ways to manage the condition and not let it control your life is a never ending struggle. I just found Maxalt MLT last year about this time. I don’t want it to already  be losing its effectiveness. For now, I’ve won. I just hope I can keep the combatant at bay.

For Mary

Today someone is missing. We went to brunch at my sister's. We had French toast casserole that my niece made. We exchanged cards, stories, and gifts with each other, but someone was missing.

I've not written much previously about my mother in law as it wasn't really my grief to share. At least, I didn't feel I should write about it as I was just a bystander who watched, fumbled while trying to help, and often just had to step out of the way as others tried their best to provide all that was needed. However today, I've spent an awful lot of time thinking about her. So today I am going to share some of what I learned from my mother in law.

She loved roses. There was a bush with roses close to this color outside her front door.

Strength

Oh my gods. Her strength was something I always admired. She somehow managed to raise four children largely on her own. Three boys and a girl all on her own. She had friends here who supported her of course, but she provided for them. Not only that, but in her last few months of life, her strength in the face of her impending death was humbling. I don't know how you manage to go day to day just waiting for the hammer to fall. Yet she did.

This is me sometimes, and I don't have four kids to raise. How she managed is beyond baffling to me.

Work Ethic

Along with that strength, she also worked ceaselessly. I swear, she always seemed to have at least four or five different jobs going. I suppose though, as a Headstart teacher who needed income all year long, you would have to especially with four mouths to feed. I honestly don't know how she did it, but again, she did. She also passed on an awareness of the working class that I don't think a lot of people see or care to see. A whole class of people who work endless hours and have so little to show for it by the end. It's not due to carelessness or vices, just that jobs are sometimes few and far between and without enough reward to support a family. So you work every day of the week for more than the standard 8 hours just to get by.

She taught us how to treat the wait staff right. We now make sure we carry cash for tips to they get all if it not part of it like they would from tips on the card receipts.

Rabbits

I never considered ever having a rabbit until I met her brood. She always had some in the backyard hutches that we'd care for whenever she went out of town. They were goofy little creatures. We adopted a few of them over the years. Bunnies are mischievous and they can be cuddly. They also offer magnificent fertilizer for your garden. Bunny poo is much less stinky than manure you buy a the gardening supply. I miss HodgePodge, Humphrey, Rupert, and Ansel, and I am thankful Mary brought bunnies into my life.

These aren't two of ours, but they look like Humphrey and Ansel.

Ducks

She also kept a collection of feathered kids. Those birds were entertaining and functional. Their poo was great for the lawn and garden. They nibbled the grass so it never needed mowing. They trimmed the raspberry bushes. They kept the bug population at bay for when we ate outside. Then there were the eggs. I was not raised on a farm, so my eggs always came in neat and tidy Styrofoam cartons from the store. Until Mary introduced me to delicious, fresh duck eggs. Best eggs ever.

A winery back East keeps a huge flock of these Indian runners so they don't have to use pesticides on the vines. Ducks do it better.

Garden

Those rabbits and ducks were a wonder of fertilizer for the garden. In that garden, so many delicious foods were grown. Potatoes, squashes, sunflowers, Brussels sprouts, and more. Flowers were around too along with herbs. One of the fun things about summer was going over to check on the garden. It was always huge and thriving. From that plot of land we'd get family meals, and she'd often give Gregg a flower to bring home to me. She definitely had a knack for growing foods that I can only hope to imitate through my garden by neglect philosophy.

This is not my garden.

Kids

She really loved kids and toys and storybooks. I've never been overly maternal and honestly. Kids make me feel largely uncomfortable and awkward. I just don't have the natural instinct to play with kids or communicate with them  on their level all that well. My husband does; he got this from her. She usually would go play with the kids at family gatherings rather than spending time with the adults. She always seemed somewhat amazed and intrigued at everything they did. She'd also always support the lemonade and Koolaid stands in the neighborhood. We were expected to have change in the car so we could stop and support the little entrepreneurs. 

This was my favorite story growing up. We read it a lot over those last few months.

Tea

She collected tea pots. She often had tea on hand to offer especially as she got sicker and the coffee she so loved became too much for her stomach to tolerate. When she went into home hospice, we drank a lot of tea. A lot. It was winter in Montana and it was bitterly cold some days. Tea warmed us all. I have some of the ginger peach she was fond of and whenever I have a cup, I think of the countless cups we had huddled in the living room where she would remain until she died. She and the Brits knew: a good cup of tea is important and soothing.

Earl Grey. Hot. Picard knows his tea.

Food

I didn't always share in the tastes of the family I married into. One dish I probably never would have ever tried is paella. It's got way too much seafood in it for me. I've never liked shellfish other than shrimp and I really like spice to my food and saffron is not all that tasty to me despite it's outrageous price tag. However, paella was tradition. When you join a family, you assimilate a few things like food. She also taught her kids how to cook. I have truly benefited from this as my husband is a fantastic cook. I happily clean if he cooks. One of our favorites though was going out for pizza and beer. There's a local place that makes fabulous cracker style crust and we would go there together. Good beer, good pizza, and we'd always have quarters to play the ridiculous cluck-cluck machine. It was full of plastic eggs with penny prizes inside. 

You can hear this machine throughout the entire restaurant. It's an institution at that pizzeria.

Dirty Jokes

One thing I found very entertaining about her was her penchant for dirty jokes. She was so quiet and understated most of the time, but she definitely had a mind that knew how to navigate the gutter. She also made it a mission to make sure everyone knew about Dr. Seuss' children's book for adults. I suppose it was all about balance. Play with the kids, but don't forget the hilarity in telling a good penis joke.

You should check this out if you haven't before.

Santa Paws

Growing up, our cat and dog always got treats on holidays because none of us ever wanted to eat the gizzards or hearts or livers of the turkey. However, we never really bought presents per se for our pets and never were they called fur children or four legged kids. However, Mary warmly accepted our felines as her grandkitties and she always saw to it that they got treats on Christmas and other holidays. They were just as much part of the family as anyone else though. We still make sure we get gifts from Santa Paws for them or recognize their adoption anniversary.

This is how our children do affection.

There's a lot more I could say, but these are some of the highlights. Some years ago, I felt some sort of rift with her that I never could fully understand. It was unsettling and awkward and I never asked her to explain what happened. It just failed to be important eventually. Even with the discomfort, I still respected her. I still admired how she did the things she did. I still hate cancer for what it took from her and from her children and her family. Today, I miss her. Maybe we'll have pizza and beer tonight.