Social Work! Plus Dementia!

In an overabundance of communal zeal, I volunteered for the last garden fundraiser of the year yesterday. It involved peeling 50 pounds of apples:



I like gardening as an activity and the collective garden as a Force For Good in the Community, but except for Claude, I don’t particularly like any of the other gardeners.

I don’t dislike them or anything! They just bore the shit out of me.

Yesterday I peeled across from Alan & Judy who were the two people a couple of years back who went on a rampage that homeless people were stealing their tomatoes!!!

I mean, even if it’s possible that all homeless people are innately gifted with the power to materialize and dematerialize through cyclone fences (kinda like the way all Black people can dance), it was like three tomatoes. Who fuckin’ cares?

At some point yesterday, Alan mumbled something about his pre-retirement occupation.

“Oh,” I said. “What did you do?”

“I was a social worker.”

A social worker!

Of course, you were.

And we wonder why the world hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain…

###

I tromped and then spent the rest of the day ostensibly analyzing state-specific variables responsible for the enormous range of nurse practitioner salaries across the U.S. but really fulminating over a photograph RTT had texted me the evening before:



It’s Annie.

Congratulations, Alicia, I thought when I first lay eyes on this photograph. You’ve finally succeeded in turning your mother into a barnyard animal. Which is something you’ve been trying to do since you were born. You creepy bitch.

###

I’m not sure why my reaction to this photo was so strong.

I haven’t been keeping up with the Annie news because the Annie news is frankly unbearable to me.

Ichabod stays in more regular contact with Stew.

So, when I texted Ichabod the photo, he remarked mildly, Well, she IS pretty far out there, you know. She doesn’t look unhappy.

My second reaction to the photo had been, I am never going to speak to RTT or Ichabod again. I am going to block their numbers on my phone. If they show up on my doorstep, I’m going to slam the door in their face. I am going to reinvent myself in the time I have left: Children? I’ll say. No, I never wanted children. Why would anyone with half a brain? All children do is fuckin’ drain you and humiliate you.

My first reaction had been, Hmmm… I wonder if Hamas does contract hits? And takes credit cards? Because I’d like to arrange to have Alicia and Hailey taken out as publicly and humiliatingly as possible.

###

I suppose I felt this photograph was a horrible invasion of Annie-as-I-remember-her’s privacy. And dignity.

Annie-as-I-remember-her was very big on privacy. And dignity.

Though, of course, I loathe Alicia. And look for every excuse to loathe her even more. So, that was doubtless part of my reaction.

Plus, Ichabod has been on my case about that long-term care insurance thing. And looking at that photo, all I could think was, What is the point of living long enough to need long-term care insurance? Who wants to end up like that? Wouldn’t it be better to take advantage of Vermont’s liberal assisted suicide laws?

###

This is how I prefer to think of Annie:



Though I suppose if Annie isn’t around mentally to advocate for herself, it doesn’t matter how one thinks about her.