Maj Jongg Madness

My wife and I joined a Maj game organized by a couple, Peg and April, we have known for twenty years through a lesbian parenting group.  Our kids have all gone off to college, and in our newly found free time we have embraced Bams, Cracks, Dots, Dragons, Winds, and Flowers.  I see these colorful smooth tiles with their specific suits and designs as odd metaphors. Or maybe it’s the whole game.

Deciphering the correct patterns to construct, passing ivory tiles to the right and across, building and picking from walls, certainly wakes up our brains; we struggle humbly to find our hands, learning the complex rules and rituals of play from our coaches Peg and April.

This isn’t my first exposure to this ancient Chinese game, popularized in America in the 1920’s and embraced by Jewish women, who as I’d expect from Jewish women, felt compelled to make up their own rules and form an official organization, the National Maj Jongg League.  My mom played Maj and I can remember the sound of the tiles clicking and clacking on the card table on nights when the ladies played at our house.

I never learned to play Maj from my mother, who has lost her ability to play the game. This was one of the first signs of her dementia.  She couldn’t make a Maj hand, and unfortunately the group of women she played with weekly in Scottsdale treated her with more cruelty than kindness, chiding her for not keeping up.  My mom, never a gracious loser, gave up and stopped ordering her yearly Maj card from the League.

“Flowers are the easiest to get,” my Maj Coach Peg, who wears a pair of socks decorated with Maj tiles, whispers as I identify a hand that I want to play that includes a set of Flowers.  And a few minutes later, my 84-year old Aunt Sydell, who on her annual visit to see her sister, my mom, is sitting in on our game, says increduously, “Why are there so many fucking flowers?”

Expert player that she is, she’s spotted an irregularity.  Instead of 8 flower tiles, we are playing with 16; my Aunt explains that although 16 Flower tiles come with the Maj Jong set, the rules require that you take half away and play with just 8.  8 fucking Flowers.

Our skeptical friends/coaches Google this rule and discover that she is correct; over time, the number of Flowers used has in fact decreased. This complicated game is in flux from year to year, as dictated by the all powerful National Maj Jong League; the card with the published patterns for winning hands changes to keep things interesting.

“The League is coming for you,” I warn our patient friends/coaches, who have learned the game from Peg’s New York based mother, who by the way is neither Jewish nor Chinese. But she is a New Yorker who has infected her daughter with the Maj bug.  They take out the extra tiles somewhat reluctantly.

Later we get into a friendly discussion about concealed hands.  Our friends disregard the “C” that appears at the end of certain hands on the card; in play this translates to drawing all tiles from the Wall, with the exception of the 14^th tile.  You can’t call or take tiles that are discarded from other players when you are going for Maj Jongg with a concealed hand.  

“We aren’t ready for this, yet,” April explains to Aunt Sydell. “We’re still learning.  Come back maybe in twenty years we’ll be farther along. In another few years we might even start playing for money.” Aunt Sydell laughs and promises not to turn us in to the League. She’ll be back to monitor our progress.

I am impressed by the complexities of this game; Aunt Sydell has been playing for over fifty years and it shows.   She knows the NML 2017 card by heart; she is aware of which tiles have been played and can even accurately predict what hand everyone at the table is going for as the game progresses. Her memory at 84 blows us all away.   My mother on the other hand, doesn’t remember that her sister even came to visit the day after my Aunt flies back to Scottsdale.  Bam, Crack, goes my heart.

“We can have the next game at our house,” announces my wife, as we conclude our recent game. Then she frets that we don’t have snack tables.  There is no room on the main table to keep noshes and drinks, thus the need for snack tables.  I expect I’ll see some oversized packages arriving in the next few days from Amazon.  Play on.

My Mad Pharmacy

As my mother’s dementia worsens, she is increasingly anxious and restless, unsure of what to do with herself. In her Memory Care unit throughout the day, residents participate in activities including balloon volleyball, masterpiece coloring, bingo, and sing alongs. They watch old movies and interact with therapy dogs.  

Getting my mother to participate at her program is hit and miss – but mostly miss.  Never much of a social person, my mom spent little time in small groups; she preferred reading novels and playing bridge, solitaire, or maj jong on her computer for hours, but she has lost the cognitive ability to do these things. She went along for a whirlwind of social engagements with my hyper-extroverted father when he was alive, but often spent her free time alone.

She’ll come out of her studio apartment, claiming that she needs help, but cannot articulate what she wants. When the staff suggests that she partake in an activity, she refuses, returning to her room, only to re-emerge ten minutes later with the same non-specific request for help.

I’ve been wracking my brain with how to engage her.  My mother owned and managed her own pharmacy for thirty years, and prior to that she helped out at my father’s pharmacy from the time they were married.  She had a strong work ethic and valued her skills as a small business person.  I started thinking about what “work” we could give my mother as an activity.  Initially, I came up with sorting beads by colors, and spoke to Tanya, the Memory Care director about setting my mom up.

Tanya gave her beads to sort and for a few times she did this, but then lost interest. Tanya brought in a basket of laundry for my mom to fold, but never much of a domestic type, my mom shunned this activity, as well.

And then I had my big idea. She could fill prescriptions.  Everyone in my family counted pills behind the pharmacy counter at one time or another in our lives. I envisioned her sorting and counting pills into vials.

At my neighborhood CVS, I bought candy – white and green Tic Tacs, white speckled Memento mints, gum pellets, and Skittles -- anything that vaguely resembled drugs. Then I stood in the Consultation line at the Pharmacy counter, waiting to ask an employee to sell me some empty pill vials and labels.

I looked at the stressed out woman pharmacist, and a officious, unsmiling pharmacy tech worker, and did not feel confident that they would help me out.  Then I spotted another pharmacy tech, a young man who was busy entering something into a computer. I asked him if he could speak with me for a minute. 

“Hi. I have a slightly unusual request,” I explained.  “I’d like some empty vials and some pharmacy labels.  My mom is 88 and she has dementia.  She used to own a pharmacy, and I was thinking that she might enjoy doing some work, preparing prescriptions.  They’d be fake, of course…”

He immediately nodded and said, “Yes, I get it.  My Uncle was a pharmacist and he had dementia, too.  We used M&Ms.“ 

“I just bought a big bag of Skittles; thanks so much,” I told him as he filled an empty bag with two dozen vials of all sizes, and gave me several pages of empty drug labels.  He didn’t charge me a cent. 

I stopped at The Container Store and bought some baskets to store the supply bottles and empty vials.

At home on the dining room table, I worked on setting up my mad pharmacy. I affixed labels to the vials, making up my own drug names and instructions.  The drugs included: Kindosec, Lovexxx, Funesium, Harmonesta, Sanfroidox, Pacifix,and  Nophonia. I particularly liked Nophonia (500 mg. Take by mouth  many times daily, preferably with snacks), a perfect pill for my mother, since she phones me more than a dozen times a day and I’ve taken to blocking her calls so that I don’t lose my mind.

When I told my wife about my big idea she was skeptical.  She didn’t think my mom would fall for candy pills, but I disagreed.  I talked to the Tanya at Memory Care, and explained what I had in mind for this activity. 

Tanya was game, and I dropped off the Pharmacy supplies.  The next day I received this email message from Tanya:

Hi Sue,

Shirley sorted medications this afternoon for over an hour. I told her how much I appreciated her help, told her we were short on med-techs, and asked if she could help us with this on a daily basis. It was funny because several people thought they were real meds. Maybe we can work up to twice a day if she’s up for it. Thanks for such a brilliant idea! I’m annoyed with myself because I didn’t think of it first!

Have a good weekend,


Tanya

Today, I asked my mom how her day went yesterday.  “What did you do?”

“Not much,” she answered.

“Did you help Tanya out,” I probed.  “She told me that you assisted them preparing medication for the residents.  How was that?”

“Oh yes, I did that,” my mom remembered.  “But they didn’t pay me.”

“Hum…well maybe they will pay you with good will,” I suggested.

She looked at me slightly confused. “It’s great that you helped them out,”I explained.  “I’m sure that they really appreciate your work.”

She smiled. But knowing my mom as I do, I’m certain she is still waiting for her paycheck.

The Big Time

At Dillon Beach all is grey, with ocean and cloud cover differentiated only by white trails of foam left from rolling waves. It's quiet except for the downpour, the wind whipping against the windows, and the sound of my voice reading poetry to the dogs to calm them down.

A muzzle rests on the toe of my aqua sneaker, a warm damp body lies against my hip. We’re holding out for a break in the weather, waiting for the sky to lighten before the sunset.

It's kind of working, this imposed serenity, just sitting when all the world's a swirl of crazy, absorbing a daily deluge of assaults from a malevolent regime, a relentless storm of hate and fear mongering.

To pledge resistance, yet seek refuge, resting in the safety of our living room, overlooking the sea, still I shudder at the confirmation today of an oilman bent on dismantling all environmental protections.

Such sacrilege, the water and land under siege by a band of white men with their moneyed interests.  Old news, perhaps, on this Pacific coastline, so long ago invaded by Sir Frances Drake, an English pirate who could not see his way through the fog (of greed?).

For 30 centuries, over 600 village tribes of Coastal Miwoks hunted salmon in surf nets. They gathered kelp and seaweed in woven baskets on the beach below, until the Spaniards and Russians decimated the native population by spreading disease, and enslaved them on inland ranchos.

Disbanded and diminished, the Coastal Miwok went unrecognized as a federal American Indian Tribe until the year 2000. Their tribe now numbers under 1000. This is the shameful history of the bluff my house sits upon.

In one of the Miwok creation myths, a silver fox sings of her loneliness in a prayer song and then meets the Coyote. “We will sing the world,” she proposes to this sacred trickster, and they create the world together by dancing and singing.  As they do so, the earth takes shape.

Emma Goldman was once admonished at a New York party that “it does not behoove an agitator to dance.” She explained, “I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy.”

I consider her words carefully and imagine the Miwoks, wearing yellow flicker feather headbands, black and orange feather plumes and skirts, dancing on top of the giant blue and green schist rocks in our backyard. They call their celebrations the “Big Time.”  During the Coyote dance, one dancer, the Coyote, goes around making fun of the other dancers. He tries to make them misstep.

And so I take my solace in the Saturday Night Live sketches and the tripping up commentary of the comics, having a Big Time.  I will seek out laughter while knowing with dead seriousness, that we must do everything in our power to take back our country.

The rescue Sadie stretches and stands up; her front leg, injured when she was homeless on the streets of Oakland, is still healing from surgery. The Cavalier Picasso walks to the door, eager to head out despite the falling rain.

"How will we keep living our lives?" I ask the dogs as I rise up from the sofa.

Tzadikim Alert! 36

According to Jewish teachings, at any given time, Lamedvavniks or Tzadikim, 36 righteous holy people walk among us in the world.  No one knows who they are, and they themselves don't know they are Tzadikim.   

God puts these hidden saints among us, to preserve humanity, even if the rest of the world has degenerated to an intolerable level of cruelty and inhumanity.

And here’s the kicker.  Since no one knows who the Lamedvavniks are, every Jew should act AS IF he or she might be one of them, lead a humble and holy life and pray for the sake of fellow human beings.   

These holy people, also called Nistarim, concealed ones, emerge in times of trouble and from the mystic powers they possess, they avert threatened disasters of a people persecuted by their enemies.  They return to their anonymity once their task is accomplished, concealing themselves, remaining unknown in their community.

One morning as I looked up as I left the walking path and headed towards my car parked lot in front of Mollie Stones market, coming towards me was a striking black woman.  Her hair was piled on top of her head, about two feet high, with a maroon, yellow, pink, and black geometric patterned scarf tied up around her forehead.  More black hair descended straight into the sky.  She wore strings of beads, also maroon, and yellow and black.

I don’t remember anything else from that point down because I was zapped with her warmth and this glow. I looked her in the eyes and greeted her. “Good morning.  You look beautiful.  Where are you going?”  She smiled and said, “Just out for a walk.”   I’m not saying for sure that this woman was one of the 36, but as she vanished into the crisp morning air, the thought crossed my mind.

These Lamedvavniks don’t know one another. If a person claims to be one, it is proof that he or she is definitively not.  One of these 36 could potentially be the Jewish Messiah, if the world is ready for them to reveal themselves. In the meantime, they are exemplars of humility, or anavah.

As I wonder how to respond to the bleakness of these times, I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea of the Tzadikim.  I try not to wake each morning in fear, though I must say that I am still not sleeping easy.  I have started to say a daily prayer, an antidote to the politics unfolding around us.

How do we move forward with fortitude and positivity, how do we act AS IF?

And what exactly does that look like?  I pray to abandon that wait and see attitude. I pray to not let circumstances and situations determine how I feel.  I pray to embrace the power of the possible (not the literal, predictable, or the inevitable).  

By acting AS IF in our lives, we actively create the reality we want. It’s a radical idea.  What if we acted as if we believed we were each lamedvavniks?

Rather than succumb to cynicism and depression, I do believe in something that doesn’t currently exist, and live with a strong faith in things not seen, not proven, and not guaranteed. 

I have signed more than two dozen petitions, placed phone calls to the offices of politicians, donated money to a handful of organizations that I believe will fight the good fight.   Every day I try to do something, even something small.  And each day I will attempt to act AS IF, as if any action, any act of resistance, any act of kindness does makes a difference.

Conversion Perversion

Conversion therapy, here I come.  Using taxpayer’s dollars to fund my rehabilitation is a ducky idea, about as useful as building that wall, or fence, or ditch, or failing all that, digging a small hole with a bent spoon in the desert. 

Speaking of which, perhaps wandering for the next 40 years across a barren wasteland (unaffected by even an iota of climate change) is a viable option for me, since I’m also a “renegade Jew,” with a terrible sense of direction and I don’t think I can possibly alter my genetics, though apparently I can choose to change my lesbian lifestyle.

I may just have to take the word of Trump’s new domestic policy advisor Ken Blackwell who declared, “…And I think you make good choices and bad choices in terms of lifestyle. Our expectation is that one’s genetic makeup might make one more inclined to be an arsonist or might make one more inclined to be a kleptomaniac. Do I think that they can be changed? Yes.” 

Huh, forgive me but I find this all a bit confusing. Do I need to start lighting fires and stealing stuff immediately, taking a lesson from those Black Lives Matter people in Oakland (the nerve of those people holding hands around some lake), or should I just hold off a few months until Steve Bannon, the Goebbels to Trumph’s Hitler, fully implements his prime choice white meat nationalist agenda?  

But I digress. Back to this plan for my conversion therapy.  What’s that going to look like? 

Do I pick an ice-pick lobotomy, or aversive treatment like a good shocker-roo to my lady parts as I look at a photo of Cate Blanchett or Serena Williams (those nasty nasty women)? I could take nausea-inducing drugs, though I have been nauseous since 11/9, and that hasn’t seemed to do much to deter me. 

And how very important all this is in light of such trivial issues as restoring those non-existent manufacturing jobs to the heartless heartland, or stopping the well meaning insurance monopolies from raising rates to cover those pesky out of control healthcare costs.  And let’s not worry our pretty little heads about that dashing Vladimir Putin since he’s such a good buddy of the Fuhrer elect. 

I mean I am such a persistent threat, a soon to be social-security risk, all 5’2” inches of my 61 year old being, living with my lesbian wife of 32 years in our Marin County home, raising a Bernie supporter, who can sing the entire score of Hamilton by heart.  I must be stopped before I harbor 3 million illegal criminals and bad Dreamers in our downstairs apartment. Scary scary scary. 

I am working frantically on how to utter my own brand of unintelligent sentences, speaking directly into the camera sporting an orange patina, and then adding assurances like, “I’m really good at construction,” “It’s it’s where it’s at,” and “really great,” everythings.  Maybe that will save my unchristian perverted soul, or at least distract a few people while I pack my bags and flee to, hum, to and where would that be? I know, Candyland.  Your turn.

The Transition Dream Team

Today, as I busily diverted all traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge to punish liberal San Francisco, I had Chris Anti-Christie fantasies of leading the Transition team, and this REALLY BIG idea occurred to me: let's make all appointees in the new regime Reality TV stars.

First up, the Supreme Court Justice --  Judge Judy.

Next, a team to head the Environment Protection Agency, that will soon after be cancelled.



Secretary of State; David Hasselbeck

Head of Homeland Security: Psy (my friend Maud observed that "he's wearing his RayBans so we can't see which way he's looking -- this keeps the enemy on edge".) Note to self: It's important to dance as the nuclear bombs drop.




Secretary of the Treasury: Honey Boo Boo, because someday she'll grow up to be a white woman...

Secretary of Health and Human Services:  Paula Deen. A fried stick of butter for every pot!




The Rest of the Cabinet: Why not.  Let's be done with it and get on to more important tasks like relocating the White House to a new luxury hotel in Washington D.C.!

Head of the Federal Reserve:  Mark Burnett, the guy who made all this possible and who is richer than God.



Heads of all Military Branches and Our New Police State: The Village People

Attorney General: Bristol Palin.  See, he's not a misogynist, after all, and we can even get a bonus astute mom advisor in the deal.