Our 20yo daughter is seeing Built To Spill in Boston tonight and I’m so jealous! That’s a show I should’ve bothered to get a caregiver and make the 2+ hour drive down for. But since I can’t be there, I’m glad she is.🥰

Mom’s been on #hospice at home for 4+ months. We’re settled into a good routine, with her more challenging vascular #dementia behaviors better-controlled with medication (including her 1:1 THC:CBD vape carts!!), a hospice RN visiting once a week, and paid #caregivers now & then so I can get out. 🩷

Hormone replacement therapy for all who need it! HRT is basic healthcare. I’m a post-menopausal cis woman. All my hormone levels are low, so my doc prescribed estrogen, progesterone & testosterone. But T is “off label” so insurance won’t cover it. Why not? My body made it before & needs it now.

I spend a lot of time with people much older than myself (55). Whether it’s dementia & caregiving support groups via Zoom, online art classes, tai chi, yoga, or local political groups, I’m often the youngest. These seniors are as vocal about hating A.I. as my 18 & 20yr olds’ cohort. Refreshing. 

RIP to this man. This is a really powerful 62 seconds of video.

Salty@wtalty.bsky.social · 3d ago

Omg no, he was so young. Damn. He was such a talented voice actor. It’s on the mind because I literally just watched it yesterday, but he got asked to do the taken monologue as porky pig and its a masterpiece

I appreciate other people’s Halloween decorations, mostly, except bodies hanging from trees. A few years ago, a neighbor hung a lighted lawn reindeer from a tree with a string of red lights trailing from its mouth, as if it were blood draining from a fresh kill. Creative, but I still hated it.

My spouse is traveling for the 3rd time this month. This time it’s personal: he’s going to see Rush in DC with his cousin. At his urging, I hired another caregiver for today (4h x $40) so I can take a 2 hour restorative yoga class here in town. It’s not travel, but I’ll take what I can get. 🤠

Most people my age have IRAs and 401ks to pay for their retirement. I have number 149 of the original pressing of Guided by Voices' Propeller, with a handmade stenciled cover.

Got a paid #caregiver for 8 hours so I could go to tai chi and then “You Can See Everything” which was a very easy 3 hours in the theater. I went in knowing Nathan (big fan) but not Elizabeth Holmes, other than what I’d read about her. Was she always like that?

Has anyone used an iPhone as a baby monitor? I see there are a few ways with 2. I only want audio. I have an alarm on Mom‘s bedroom door so I come if she gets up, but mostly she stays in bed and yells for me. If I’m out of earshot, I must run in to check every 15 minutes... #dementia #caregiving 

You’re gonna think you might know where this is going and then about halfway through you’ll learn you were Wrong

max power 🌌@sneptech.bsky.social · 6d ago

There’s not a lot of fun things about #dementia, but experiencing things “for the first time” again might be one. I just gave my Mom apple slices spread with Nutella and she is digging into this “new” treat with all the joy I remember feeling the first time I tried Nutella. 🤣

Kilham Bear Center near Lyme, NH is a rehab & release program for orphaned or abandoned black bear cubs & once a year, their FB feed becomes a joyous cele-bear-ation of the APPLE PILE, a combination of ball pit & all-you-can-eat buffet for young bears to gorge & fatten on. (📷: kilhambearcenter.org)

A pro-life white woman ruling that a law officer was justified in killing a Black baby seated in his mother’s lap, shooting her as well because of suspicion of stealing diapers is as accurate of a summation of how the US has historically wielded its institutions against Blackfolk as I can think of.

Ashton Pittman@ashtonpittman.bsky.social · last wk.

JUST IN: The police shooting that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley as he sat in his mother’s lap in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, Miss., in June “was justified,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office said on Monday. Her office will not charge the white officer who shot the child.

I got really mad at Mom this morning for something she didn’t remember doing. 😔I feel awful. It’s been a couple of hours so she may have forgotten how I yelled, but I haven’t. I hate this disease. I hate what it has done to my mother, and in turn, what that does to me. #dementia #caregiving

Went to Worcester yesterday for parents’ wknd to see our freshman in her 1st band concert. 🎺 Our elder student joined us from Boston to get in on the supply trip to Wal-Mart & dinner out. We’re loving Worcester dining! This time, we tried Mint: some of the best Vietnamese food we’ve ever had. 😍

My brother was supposed to catch that redeye again last night to come back and visit our Mom. This time, he texted me 3 hours *before* his scheduled flight to say he’s delaying his trip by a few days. Baby steps! Maybe you *can* teach an old techbro new tricks? 🤔

Heliotropist@heliotropist.bsky.social · 3mo ago

You’ve got an 11pm redeye flight from CA, landing Boston 8:30am. You’ll take a bus 2h up to your sister‘s place. You miss your flight. Do you text your sister right away? Or do you wait till the time you would’ve been landing, when she would expect a text from you, to say, “I’m still in CA?” 🙃

Look at the beautiful “British Soldiers” lichen on our pine tree stump! 😍

This thread got into some fascinating arcana that I had never had to think through before, but here's a much more important message: Casually threatening to a political enemy's citizenship IS NOT NORMAL and should be rightfully condemned as the vile Nazi shit that it is. Say it loud.

🦇 Cameron@mattcameron.bsky.social · 2w ago

Can everyone please stop talking about this like it is a thing that can or will actually happen? Canceling a natz certificate is not denaturalization, and--and I can't emphasize this enough--there are *absolutely no grounds for denaturalization or deportation here even if it's all true*

This is not beautiful to see. This is the most racist democracy on planet earth, and people just expect Black people to sing negro spirituals and "overcome." It's not working. This still happens for one reason and one reason only: white US folk don't hold each other accountable for this racism.

BeshearStan@beshearstan.bsky.social · 2w ago

This is just beautiful to see

Yesterday I got into my Gmail settings trying to get Gemini out of my way, and just now I received an email from Google Gemini saying “you’re now using Gemini on web.” 😑 

Mom hasn’t been able to dip food for a while but she loooves shrimp cocktail, so I just set it up for her with a little cocktail sauce on each one and squeeze lemon all over. #caregiving #disability

Tendrils of a headache beginning to tickle at my temples. Noticing the sensations with curiosity, idly wondering what kind of a headache this will be so I can try and treat it.  I have to run an in-person meeting tonight, so please let it be mild. How about weather-related? It’s raining…

I would very much like to get some baking dishes and maybe a skillet if anyone is willing to help with that

D is tired@grrlintersect.bsky.social · 3w ago

If you would like to help with the less than zero dollars part of this equation, I will need to buy things like pots and pans and furniture and towels so: cash.app/$grrlintersect venmo.com/u/grrlinters... www.paypal.me/dgrrl39

Hi, I’m a sighted alt text user! Here are some reasons I use it: - Slow Internet on an airplane - I’m over 40, I have no idea who that celebrity is - Bluesky broke images again - My vision sucks and that text is too small to read otherwise - Conveys further context and authorial intent

The German method of forming abbreviations is to use the first syllables of words. Because we keep calling them the GeStaPo instead of Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police) people don’t fear the term secret police the same way they fear “the gestapo.”

Maggie McNeill@maggiemcneill.bsky.social · 3w ago

The term everyone is dancing around is "secret police", a hallmark of totalitarian regimes.

Mom‘s door alarm went off at 5am so I ran downstairs and met her in the bathroom to give her a hand. She was excited to see me, and I was cheerful too. (I’d been in the middle of a dream, but not a bad one.) I got her some cheese & a granola bar, helped her back into bed. 💞 #Caregiving #Dementia