Wrote the following in an email to a friend:
I just woke up a few minutes ago (bad night with my shoulders, don’t let anyone tell you torn rotator cuffs are minor injuries). I came downstairs to mother coming in off the back porch - a scowl on her 91 year old face — saying she’s felt “this way for too long and…” she’s “sick of it”. Turns out she’s constipated — which is the equivalent of apartheid or genocide, terrorist attack on NYC, or global warming to the elderly. And she wanted Pepto Bismol or Milk of Magnesia, which is a contradiction of terms and use of those words tells me she’s been attempting to medicate herself into regularity and
it’s a disaster here.
I think I’ll just spend the day baking muffins or watering my garden.
Mother is afraid she’ll die on the toilet… with a book of Circle-A-Word puzzles in her hand.