10/25/24

 Friday, October 25, 2024

1954 US President Dwight D. Eisenhower offered aid to the Prime Minister of South Vietnam Ngô Đình Diệm

1962 US Ambassador to the UN Adlai Stevenson demanded that the USSR UN representative answer regarding Cuban missile bases, saying, "I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over"

1963 Anti-Kennedy "WANTED FOR TREASON" pamphlets were scattered in Dallas

2020 Pope Francis announced the appointment of 13 new cardinals including 1st African American Wilton Daniel Gregory

2021 Elon Musk made $25 billion in one day pushing his estimated worth to $255.2 billion, likely making him the richest person ever according to Forbes

In bed by 9, awake around 3;30 and lay in bed half-awake until 4:40 when I crawled out of bed.  I cleaned up the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher while I listened with my earpods to Brahms's German Requiem, a magnificent, lush work of choral and orchestral music, even while tending to the dishes.   It is one of my favorite pieces of music and it pleases me to know that it was occasioned by the death of Brahm's mother.  Brahms was a religious skeptic and drafted the libretto with no references to Jesus. ,,, Lilly didn't show up until 8:15.    

Prednisone, day 164, 5 mg., day 15/28.  Prednisone at 5:00.  Cinnamon swirl cake at 5:30.  Morning meds near 6:00.  Trulicity injection at 9:45.

Looking back. Today marks 11 months since Andy drove me to the VA emergency department with severe pain, a "flare" of my interstitial cystitis/lesions in my bladder.  It's also 11 months since my last cup of coffee, bottle or can of any soft drink, and my last glass of wine or of any alcohol.  Andy was my 'guardian angel' because Geri was down with covid. One year ago today, I called and spoke with Ed Felsenthal and his eldest daughter Mary Fran sent me, for the second time, this photo of Ed and me at Lyn's wake.  I was smiling foolishly because one of Ed's other 4 daughters had just said something funny.  Considering the occasion, it wasn't to be expected that Ed would be smiling though Lyn's death after so much suffering must have occasioned mixed emotions in Ed.  Two years ago today I was thinking about the 2022 elections and the Senate.  I wrote in this journal:

Dead Heats:  The U. S. Senate races in Ohio (J.D. Vance v. Tim Ryan), Pennsylvania (Mehmet Oz v. John Fetterman), Nevada (Catherine Cortez Masto and Adam Laxalt), and Wisconsin (Ron Johnson v. Mandela Barnes) are in a dead heat 2 weeks before the election. The races in New Hampshire and North Carolina are also very close and could go either way.  The pessimist in me, or the realist, sees most of these races breaking for the Republicans down the stretch and the Republicans regaining control of the Senate and the House next January.  Crime (a dog whistle for race), inflation (especially gas and food, and housing prices) will trump (pun intended) abortion, strong employment, and legislative accomplishments.  I can't help thinking that we have crossed the tipping point and the country has moved from a center-right/center-left polity towards right-wing authoritarianism a/k/a some variant of fascism.  As I said 100 times to Kitty, I hope I'm wrong.

I was wrong about the Republicans regaining control of the Senate because both Fetterman and Masto won their contests, but I still think and fear that the country is moving to some variant of fascism.  We'll know sometime after November 5.  The pessimist/cynic in me still thinks Trump will defeat Harris and that it won't be all that close.  Again, I hope I'm wrong.  Trump has taken to calling the United States a "garbage can", making immigrants and asylum seekers "garbage."  I assume he would say the same of my Irish immigrant maternal grandparents.

Catherine O'Shea Healy, an immigrant

Mary Healy Clausen, daughter of the immigrant and first-generation American

Captain Charles D. Clausen, USMC, grandson of the immigrant and second-generation American

I missed my VA appointment with Deena, my lymphedema specialist, this morning.  It's the second time I have missed an appointment with her.  I'm disgusted with myself.  Absent-minded, scatterbrained.  I'm living too long, remembering my Aunt Mary, Uncle Bod's wife, asking God, 'What are you waiting for, I'm ready.'  By that time she was in the nursing home, Kitty fearing she would burn the house down with her Alzheimer's.  I think of Ray Aiken after he had retired and was beset with Alzheimer's introducing himself to me - twice - at some law school function. 

The Oven Bird

BY ROBERT FROST

There is a singer everyone has heard,

Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,

Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.

He says that leaves are old and that for flowers

Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.

He says the early petal-fall is past

When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers

On sunny days a moment overcast;

And comes that other fall we name the fall.

He says the highway dust is over all.

The bird would cease and be as other birds

But that he knows in singing not to sing.

The question that he frames in all but words

Is what to make of a diminished thing.

The Widow's Lament in Springtime

William Carlos Williams

Sorrow is my own yard / where the new grass / flames as it has flamed / often before but not  / with the cold fire  //that closes round me this year.  / Thirtyfive years / I lived with my husband.  / The plumtree is white today  / with masses of flowers.  /Masses of flowers  / load the cherry branches / and color some bushes  /yellow and some red  / but the grief in my heart / is stronger than they  / for though they were my joy  /formerly, today I notice them  /and turn away forgetting.  / Today my son told me  / that in the meadows,  / at the edge of the heavy woods  / in the distance, he saw  / trees of white flowers.  / I feel that I would like  / to go there  / and fall into those flowers  / and sink into the marsh near them.

Crabbed Age and Youth

William Shakespeare

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together: 

Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care; 

Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather; 

Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare. 

Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short; 

Youth is nimble, age is lame; 

Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; 

Youth is wild, and age is tame. 

Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee; 

O, my love, my love is young! 

Age, I do defy thee: O, sweet shepherd, hie thee, 

For methinks thou stay'st too long.