Nancy S. Detty; October 23, 1918–May 30, 2005

My mother, Nancy B. Syphrett Detty, passed away on Memorial Day at the age of 86. Her health and mobility had been generally good—she was often described as spry—until she began suffering chest pains in April. This led to valve replacement surgery, after which she remained weak; she never fully recovered.

On May 23, her heart abruptly stopped, and while EMTs were able to resuscitate her almost immediately, she apparently aspirated some stomach contents when she passed out and contracted pneumonia. From that point on, she was on a breathing machine and never woke up. After a week during which her initial improvement was worn away and her condition began to deteriorate slowly, then more quickly, my father and I gradually accepted that it was time to let her go. This was in accord with her wishes as expressed to both of us and affirmed in her advance directives to physicians.

This has been a severe blow to my father, the more so for being unexpected, and compounded by his generally poor health. He was only able to make very short visits to Mom in the hospital once a day; then his strength would fade and I’d have to take him home and put him to bed. He’s much better now, but very lonely. I see him almost daily now. We talk about news or politics or sports; we’ve grown closer. Sometimes we watch baseball or golf on TV; sometimes we run errands connected with Mom’s estate. Today we selected a headstone. The finality of having the date of your mother’s death engraved in stone is a terrible thing.

I’m better, too, but I still have trouble sleeping. Sometimes I lie awake and try to remember her as she was when I was a young child; sometimes I just lie awake.

I wrote about my mom at some length last year, in this post.

Best wishes, Ashley & Philip

Ron's niece Ashley got married tonight, to a very nice guy named Philip.

The wedding took place right down the road, but I wasn't able to go because of events I had no control over. (I don't feel like elaborating just yet.)

Ron says the wedding was just beautiful, and it should have been—aside from the obvious fact that Ashley and Philip deserve no less, it was certainly in a beautiful place. I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures.

I know it's a happy day and all that...

...but what on earth was Camilla wearing on her head? Wheat? Quills?

News: One more thing to be wary of...

Kids, Infants Fall Victim to Identity Theft [ABC News]

W.C. Fields Forever

Slate.com, speculating pointlessly on the identity of the next pope, mentions a Belgian cardinal whose name evokes W.C. Fields rather than J.H. Christ: Godfried Danneels.

Feel like they're fixing to die

Of course it's horrible to anticipate anybody's death, and thus remarkable that immediately after the agony of waiting for Terri Schiavo to die we're doing the same thing with the Pope. Prince Rainier of Monaco, so I've read, is failing too.

I can't actually remember the last time somebody's impending death was news, never mind three in swift succession.

Headlines

CNN.com:Crash-prone aircraft enters final test phase

Gee, you'd think the final test phase would be the one that determined it was crash-prone.

In other news, sources say that another Red Lake Chippewa kid has been arrested in connection with last week's school shootings in Minnesota, and that there may be a wider plot, whatever that means.

Earlier reports have connected the shooter with neo-Nazi web sites. Is there something I don't know about neo-Nazism that makes it attractive to Native Americans?

Rejected Fiona Apple album available just about everywhere

Over the last few years, Wilco, Aimee Mann, and Patty Griffin have all had completed albums rejected by one or another of the major record labels.

Presumably they're not the only ones, but they were the artists who leapt to mind just now when I heard that the same thing had happened to Fiona Apple.

With this kind of report it's almost obligatory to condemn whatever's kept the album from release—corporate stupidity, wrangling between the label and Apple's business managers, whatever. Consider that done.

I haven't heard the tracks yet, but if you're interested, information (and a link to the unreleased tracks) can be found in this story at SFGate.com: Who Will Free Fiona Apple? (via Tim Cain's Crouching Weblog, Hidden Baldwin)

Now promise me that if you do download the tracks, you'll pay for the album if it comes out. Artists have to eat, you know.

Man Sells Device That Blocks Fox News

From
Yahoo! News, via The Raw Story.

Pretty silly. Now, if it's technically possible to create, for instance, a Michael Jackson blocker, I might be persuaded to buy that.

Officer downloads driver's nude photos off phone

Comment, as I keep saying, would be superfluous; but this, from the Houston Chronicle (reg required, of course), is the craziest damn story I've seen in a long time:

It began as the fairly routine arrest of a drunken-driving suspect on a Houston street.

It quickly evolved into a maze of questions as investigators checked out reports that a Houston police officer had found nude photos of the driver stored in her cellular phone, downloaded them and later showed them around the courthouse.

Patrolman Christopher Green has been reassigned to desk duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation. His partner, George Miller, also has been reassigned while the department looks into reports that he called the DWI suspect's home to ask her out.

Let's see, I guess you bite the little top off the cross first, right?

When I saw this sort of thing at Hastings I thought it was merely an isolated outbreak of bad taste.

Little did I know that there's a bunch of them out there.

Which, depressingly, implies that somebody wants this kind of kitsch. Sheez.

More on Schiavo

A fascinating discussion of the Schiavo case, with links to more, on Obsidian Wings:

As I noted earlier, in this case Michael Schiavo is his wife's guardian, and might have decided what she would have wanted. However, he chose instead to ask the court to consider the evidence about what she would have wanted, and to make its own evaluation. It found that she would not have wanted to be kept alive. That is: this is not a case in which anyone is proceeding in the absence of evidence about what she would have wanted, nor is it a case in which Michael Schiavo is acting only on his sense of what his wife would have wanted, without allowing a hearing for anyone else's view.

Assuming this is true, this totally changes my opinion of Michael Schiavo. However, it only amplifies my feeling that Congress has done wrong in the name of doing good, and that ideology has trumped common sense and is now trying to stack the deck.

Congress steps in a big steaming pile of Schiavo

Congress has chosen—actually, rushed headlong—to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case. Fascinating. So much for states' rights and due process. Not to mention the sanctity of marriage.

Does this mean I should just not bother with DNR orders and medical powers of attorney and stuff like that?

And the password is....

From an e-mail about a conference call Ron's been invited to participate in: "Note that the passwords are extremely case-sensitive."

I guess that means that to get in on this call you don't just have to hold the shift key down, you have to do it with the utmost sincerity.

Lame Fox News column—or is that redundant?

You'd think Fox News columnist John Gibson actually doesn't oppose same-sex marriage, considering the weak case he makes against it on foxnews.com:

Gays can't have kids — other than going to the abandoned kids store and getting one or two, or borrowing sperm from someone with more sperm than brains — so by definition they're out of the marriage game.

In theory, so would couples who get married in their eighties. Chances are good that no kids come out of that holy union. But it is at least theoretically possible. Not so with gays.

"The abandoned kids store?" Is that anything like the Goodwill?

Lame. Funny, but lame.

California goes for fairness

Advocate.com quotes San Francisco County superior court judge Richard Kramer's historic decision that California cannot restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples: "The state's protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional."

Fantastic. I hope it holds up on appeal. I hope Californians don't amend their constitution and make the ruling moot.

Busy weekend

We had company this weekend; in-laws and future second-degree in-laws. (Are the in-laws of my in-laws my in-laws?)

We had a good time, although having five house guests is kind of exhausting. So is location scouting for weddings. Remind me, when we get married, to go the justice-of-the-peace, quiet ceremony route.

Budget got the problem with Amex resolved, Ron says.

Your name is your destiny

You know those stickers people put on their cars--or, more likely, minivans or SUVs--that give the name of a high school and below it the first name of their kid? (Like "Hutto Hippos/CRAIG".) Well, today I noticed a Tivy Antler named Faylon.

I sure hope Faylon's doing well in school. But I don't s'pose he is.

One more cat entry

Before I forget, today is my cat Toby's birthday. (His third, to be exact.)

We're celebrating with special cat food and a new fake bird thingy for the kitty-fishing pole.