I know many of my readers here are older men, and older men are famous for their love of military history, so I’m asking one of you to explain it to me like I’m five: Why would we be investing in a new class of naval battleships, when naval battleships haven’t been relevant to modern warfare since the Second World War? And how many times have we been told the next war will be fought with drones and software? How do battleships play into that?
Seriously, I want to know. This makes no sense to me.
I know I’ve been scarce around here of late, and I will likely be scarce going forward. I’m writing this while watching my kitchen floor dry, and I still have a few things to do before I’m ready for the holiday. So let this be the last one for a while, unless some photos present themselves. I wish every last one of you Merry Christmas or whatever holiday you observe, including Festivus. I do not have a lot of problems with your people, because in fact, you’re the best.
Back later.
Mark P said on December 23, 2025 at 11:03 am
That was exactly my thought — battleships have been obsolete for naval warfare since WW 2. But then what Trump, in his infinite ignorance, is thinking of is not a battleship, but more like a missile cruiser or something, like the pride of Russia’s Black Sea fleet. That’s the one that a country without a navy sank in a land war. I am pretty sure that Navy planners are rolling their eyes right about now. Trump, in his infinitely infinite ignorance, said the ship will be completed in a couple of years.
As Lucy Van Pelt apocryphally says, “Christ. What an asshole.”
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David C said on December 23, 2025 at 11:16 am
Because Trump and Kegseth have the minds of 12 year olds and a not very bright ones at that. They probably saw a WWII movie and thought they looked cool. The Ukraine war has changed everything about how wars are conducted. I’m sure the brass knows it. The civilians, not so much. I work in defense industry building military trucks. I was talking to my supervisor last week and we were talking about seeing all the Russian trucks and tanks that Ukraine has blown up using cheap drones. I kinda feel that trucks on the front lines are obsolete. We need to be asking hard questions and those two knuckleheads aren’t up to the task. I think they look at the way Russia is conducting the war and thinking they need to be doing that because marching soldiers to be slaughtered seems like the tough guy way. It’s just another example of how totally fucked we are. If the country is lucky, it’ll be unfucked before we all die. I doubt we’re going to be lucky.
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scott said on December 23, 2025 at 11:31 am
Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money will probably have a post about this eventually. It’s his expertise. Trump’s current term will be up before this gets off a drawing board. That’s before getting US shipyards out of mothballs. We could always have China build one or 27.
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Sherri said on December 23, 2025 at 11:46 am
Since Trump apparently believes that stealth planes can’t be seen with the naked eye, they should just tell him that that the new Trump class ships are even more amazing stealth technology: even the missiles can’t be seen, and the wake of the ship is hidden as well. The materials themselves are invisible, so you can’t even see it under construction unless you wear special goggles.
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tajalli said on December 23, 2025 at 12:15 pm
The Emperor’s New Battleships.
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Sheryl Prentice said on December 23, 2025 at 12:16 pm
Merry Christmas to Nancy’s family on here. I’ve enjoyed reading all your comments, in contrast to a world where stupidity, crassness, hate and narcissism rule the day. Wishing you a 2026 where sanity and sense return, and we throw the bums out.
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alex said on December 23, 2025 at 12:34 pm
Like Tubby’s ballroom, it’s going to be massive and frivolously gaudy and have his name on it and that’s the only thing that matters, utility be damned.
I have a feeling that “Trump class” is going to be a new branding effort on a whole lot of ridiculous stuff that’s yet to be announced let alone even conceived. It’s a joke that’s going to follow him around long after he has croaked because he doesn’t have any class, just excruciatingly bad taste and even worse judgment, and as mentioned upthread most of this shit will never come to pass while he’s in office and surely not once he’s out of it.
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Suzanne said on December 23, 2025 at 12:44 pm
So Ben Sasse, former US GOP Senator who went on to lead the U of Florida (poorly, I believe) has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He did vote to impeach Trump after Jan 6 but as I recall, was all in on the GOP far right agenda for the most part.
https://www.twincities.com/2025/12/23/ben-sasse-pancreatic-cancer-diagnosis/
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ROGirl said on December 23, 2025 at 12:50 pm
I keep thinking about that scene in the movie “Being John Malkovich,” when John Malkovich enters into himself and everyone looks like him and says only “Malkovich.” Just replace John Malkovich with you know who.
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Jeff Borden said on December 23, 2025 at 1:00 pm
The last ship-to-ship battle was 1944 in the Leyte Gulf. Aircraft carriers destroyed the very concept of the battleship. Ronald Reagan –of course– spent hundreds of millions of dollars to refit the U.S.S. Missouri. This is all about small, insecure and unintelligent gobs looking to launch a floating penis to overcome their insecurities. Where the fuck is Congress!
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Dexter Friend said on December 23, 2025 at 1:04 pm
Dad was a WWII Navy man…me, US Army.
This morning I researched this topic. Trump was bragging his Trump fleet, each @$5B, would have ships that will dwarf any battleship or aircraft carrier in world history. Fact: half the size of the largest Iowa-class ships of WWII to the Viet Nam era. A third the length of say The Enterprise, retired at San Diego…I saw that monster, and was overwhelmed at the size. That ship is an aircraft carrier.
This means the displacement of sea water will be a third of what the Enterprise displaces.
In a world in which we hear of drone wars replacing troops with weapons in-hand, with tanks becoming only a specialized component of battle , we hear that Russia has now lost well over one million soldiers as the war there proceeds into year 4. So we ain’t there yet, into a world of diminished casualties.
Still, all sensibilities point to a fact: Trump fleet, the $5,000,000,000 per ship plan, is just a self-tribute to a narcissist…an ego-inflated baboon who is still in The White House.
For years I said Reagan was the worst President in history. Remember Grenada? The mess in Panama? The Iran-Contra disaster which Reagan said under oath he could not remember a fucking thing? OK..Trump has now surpassed Reagan in the race to the bottom. MotherFUCKER !!
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Deborah said on December 23, 2025 at 1:10 pm
The Trump regime now says that wind turbines are a national security problem because they scramble radar or something, it’s all ridiculous of course and not worth thinking about, they’ll lose in court eventually. I don’t want to look it up again because I don’t want to give them the click but it might be only off-shore turbines they’re referring to. As we know Trump hates those particularly because he doesn’t want them to end up in his view from Mar-A-Lago as they do from his golf club in Scotland.They’ll say and do anything to keep the fossil fuel folks happy.
Trump’s go to is “National Security”, anything he doesn’t like is a national security issue now and his minions bend over background so he gets his way.
Three more years of this is excruciating to contemplate. I hope they can impeach and convict him after the midterms, but probably won’t happen unfortunately.
I also read that MAGAts in Colorado are going to break Tina Peters out of prison soon.
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FDChief said on December 23, 2025 at 2:02 pm
As several commentators have already noted, 1) Felony Fats has the intellectual grasp of a 12-year old and not a bright one, and 2) he only “knows” the oddball things he picked up through his father’s weirdness or that got stuck in the magpie nest inside his head.
So…1) “big warship” = “battleship” despite these kludgy things being closer to a Moskva-type missile cruiser.
2) Like any 12-year old Fats has pasted every “cool!” thing onto this platform regardless of it’s military value: cruise missiles! Nukes! Lasers! AI!
I don’t see any real mission for this goofy thing. Or, rather, it’s armed and organized for half a dozen missions, all of which already have specialized hulls that do them better. There’s a reason the USN didn’t put out a bid for this design; they don’t need or want it.
But just like the original Nazis, the flunkies have learned how it’s safer and easier to appease the Fuhrer than try and rebut his lunatic ideas.
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Heather said on December 23, 2025 at 3:24 pm
Welp. Woke up with a cough and a runny nose yesterday. Thought it was just a cold. Didn’t feel any better today and…yes, it’s Covid. There goes my Novid run.
So far it’s very mild, just a cough and a runny nose, and a headache might be starting. I do have asthma (well controlled), so I left a message with my doctor about Paxlovid. Just put in a grocery order for some fancy food so at least I can eat well on Christmas.
I’ve been doing a lot of fun stuff (probably how I got it) and I saw my extended family on Saturday, so I don’t feel entirely deprived, but I was look forward to some small gatherings Christmas Eve and on Christmas. Oh well.
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Deborah said on December 24, 2025 at 9:22 am
Merry Christmas Eve everyone!
Heather, sorry you got the crud, but you managed to stay Covid free for a long time. Take it easy.
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alex said on December 24, 2025 at 10:58 am
Sorry to hear you got hit with the bug, Heather.
We’re getting ready to host dinner for my family this evening and attend my hubby’s family gathering tomorrow. I’ll make one last attempt to find chives at a grocery store for one of my dishes after striking out at three places yesterday. I did manage to find anchovies and tarragon at my third stop at Kroger. Seems I can always count on Meijer to be out of crucial ingredients when it matters most.
Happy merry to all of you!
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basset said on December 24, 2025 at 11:07 am
I couldn’t get anyone to sell me any beef fat. Seems there’s no SKU number assigned to it so they can’t sell it and into the trash it goes.
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Julie Robinson said on December 24, 2025 at 11:09 am
Alex, too late for today, but I always found the Three Rivers Co-op the best place for spices. Cheapest too.
Heather, I’m sorry, and I hope you have Paxlovid by now. You had the right idea by ordering yourself fancy foods. Hoping it’s a light case.
Not to be a Grinch, but Ben Sasse almost destroyed the University of Florida with academic cuts. At the same time he spent tens of millions hiring cronies for remote work. Often the university paid for them to fly in and stay at fancy hotels too. Faculty morale must have been shot. I am sorry for his wife and children.
We don’t do big Christmas dinners because we’re all tired from all the church doings. Tomorrow we’re going to the local relatives for a casual buffet, taking crockpot meatballs, veggie tray, grapes, and any leftover cookies. Minimal effort and we can enjoy visiting without adding more exhaustion.
Happy celebrations to everyone.
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Jeff Gill said on December 24, 2025 at 11:30 am
How is the Moskva doing for the Russian Navy, anyhow?
Merry Christmas and joys of the season to one & all. Off to do a couple of candlelight services! I even got to sing “Silent Night” auf Deutsche last weekend. Brought back memories of days gone by in Valparaiso…
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Heather said on December 24, 2025 at 12:26 pm
I talked to an NP at my doc’s office and she said I could really go either way with the Paxlovid. We decided to order it anyway and I could decide if my symptoms get worse. (So far they’re about the same, maybe a little better today.) BUT–my Walgreens is out of it and the pharmacists says no one is answering the phone at the other locations that say they have it. She says they’re running low on Tamiflu too, and that “the deliveries got screwed up” because of the holidays. I told her to send it up the chain that this was unacceptable. Is it a big surprise that there’s more flu and Covid at the holidays after all these years? (Walgreens has been a tire fire all year; I’d switch but BCBS makes me use it.) Meanwhile I’m going to have the privilege of spending $1100 a month for this type of care next year. It’s insane.
Anyway, happy Christmas Eve. My groceries were delivered and I felt good about giving the worker a good tip.
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Sherri said on December 24, 2025 at 1:56 pm
Sorry you’ve got Covid, Heather. My advice is rest, rest, rest. Even if your symptoms are mild, get plenty of rest.
We’re having a low key Christmas. The family we usually do Christmas with is on vacation in New Zealand, so it’s just the three of us. Our introverted family is quite okay with that.
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Mark P said on December 24, 2025 at 2:56 pm
It’s going to be a quiet Christmas here, too, just me and my wife. We considered going to IHOP for dinner; they’re open on Christmas. But we got a turkey breast and will see how it turns out.
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Dexter Friend said on December 24, 2025 at 3:02 pm
Back to Findlay tomorrow to watch the great-grands open presents. No big blow-out like Saturday was with people in from North Carolina, Las Vegas, Clarksville, Tennessee, Defiance, and Bryan. I had never been around anything like the set-up the pro-fotog had…a machine spitting out photos lickety-split like a photo booth. He must have taken 1,000 shots , some photo-booth goofies, some portraits. He must have charged a mint for all the work and supplies he delivered.
The daughter gave me a hall pass to stay home, but I see the bad weather gets here early Friday, and tomorrow will be smooth sailing, and the Honda hoopdee is purring along like the Durango 95 which Li’l Alex and his Droogs stole for a joy ride in “A Clockwork Orange.” (1971). The ancient F-150 is in the garage for major repairs. Only God in heaven knows when I see it again….
MERRY CHRISTMAS, you hooligans and desperados!
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Deborah said on December 24, 2025 at 3:14 pm
Well, I feel terrible because LB had plans with friends tonight to meet at her place and have a fun get together, but one by one they pooped out, one has to work until 6, one had to do something with an uncle etc etc.
We’re usually in Santa Fe for the Christmas Eve tradition but this year we stayed in Chicago, partly because of my health issues I wanted to be near my Drs and partly because I was in NM from mid October to mid November. We’re going to be there on Jan 3rd, the day after her birthday. Even though Christmas is low key with us I’ve been alone on those days in the past and it sucks. If you’re sick, that’s different, it can’t be helped and I’ve been there too.
I’m so sorry it worked out this way this year but there’s nothing I can do about it now.
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jerry said on December 24, 2025 at 4:06 pm
Just to wish you all a good Christmas from the UK, however you celebrate it. And that 2026 is a better year for each of us and for our poor suffering world.
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Dave said on December 24, 2025 at 4:09 pm
We’ve got a Christmas planned with all the family minus one daughter-in-law. We have a Chilean daughter-in-law and she is in Chile with her family. Our son had planned to be there with her but some obstacles prevented that from happening, primarily, a dog that they love (no children) and had planned to take to Chile but then they started hearing that it might be difficult to get the dog back out of the country to come back to the U. S. Because they had made no boarding plans and because my wife had the surgery discussed in the next paragraph, we couldn’t keep the dog.
My wife had out-patient knee surgery on her left knee for a torn meniscus on December 19 so she’s been using a walker and hasn’t been out. She’s better every day but they told her don’t get overconfident, it’s a six week recovery to get back to full strength.
I got junk mail today from the Orange Menace, I don’t have any idea how I might have gotten on a list like that. I want to write REFUSED on it and put it back in the mail but my dearly beloved is afraid my name might end up on some kind of list. I’m so disgusted.
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susan said on December 24, 2025 at 4:28 pm
The Golden Fleece…er, Fleet
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susan said on December 24, 2025 at 4:29 pm
Trump Class
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susan said on December 24, 2025 at 4:30 pm
part of the Armada
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Sherri said on December 24, 2025 at 8:25 pm
Best thing I read about Bari Weiss spiking the 60 Minutes story: The Dunning-Kruger Effect and the Streisand Effect, when merged, become the Bari Weiss Effect.
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susan said on December 24, 2025 at 9:23 pm
or shortened to the Weissand Effect
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Deborah said on December 24, 2025 at 10:32 pm
That link in Susan’s comment with Trump talking about his battleships is disturbing and not just for what he’s describing, but he’s talking in the most slurry way I’ve ever heard him before. He can’t say S without slushing it. If I didn’t know he supposedly doesn’t drink, I’d say he’s had a few. Strange.
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Chris said on December 25, 2025 at 7:26 am
Merry Christmas to all the Nancy Nall family. Your comments, honesty and humor are keeping me sane in these decidedly dark times.
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Jeff Gill said on December 25, 2025 at 9:12 am
The best part of the three Christmas Eve services I attended (led one, visited two where wife & son sing & play) was when a toddler kept breaking loose of mom & then dad’s grip, trying to run up the center aisle and get up on the platform where clearly all the fun was. She got further each time, and I hope the parents understand that almost without exception the congregation was rooting for the child. Four, maybe five escape attempts cleared the pew end and got close, before mom finally gathered the child up and departed the sanctuary. If there was a betting pool, it would have heavily favored the child making it to the platform, but alas, not this Christmas. Maybe next year!
May you get where you’re trying to go this Christmas, friends. And a happy new year.
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Deborah said on December 25, 2025 at 9:43 am
Merry Christmas one and all even though as I’ve said our family tradition is that the big day is Christmas Eve. This Christmas Day we’ll be doing laundry because we’ll be the only ones in the laundry room. And the best part of that is the laundry room in our building has the best view ever of the lake.
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Dorothy said on December 25, 2025 at 11:40 am
I’m thinking of all my Nancy Nall site friends this morning and hoping you’re all having a peaceful and happy holiday. We are going to the movies and then cooking up chicken fried rice for an easy dinner. We’ve cooked two big dinners in the last four nights and the fridge is overloaded with lefotvers. And Mike is getting a knee replacement on the 31st, so he needs to keep a low profile so as not to get the flu or Covid. I doubt there will be many people at the movie (Hamnet).
I’m working on a swap quilt this morning and hoping the vision I see in my head comes to fruition at my sewing machine and cutting table. It’s to be no larger than 24″ square, and we swap in person in Raleigh at QuiltCon in mid February. My swap partner did not give me much information about her likes and dislikes, except for saying she’s “surrounded by a lot of orange” in her life. She’s from Illinois, so perhaps she’s an Illini alum?
Jeff I could picture that toddler so well when I saw your post in Threads about it! I wish I’d been there to see it. Kids keep us all grounded and remind us what’s important in life. Our grandkids loved the gifts we gave them yesterday. One toy each and a couple of tee shirts, and an ornament. And then we put $$ in their savings accounts. It was a sweet dinner with them last night at our house. We are thankful for what they bring to our lives.
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Nancy Friedman said on December 25, 2025 at 7:21 pm
As predicted by Scott upthread, Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money has some notes about the “Golden Fleet”:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/12/the-golden-fleet
Among those notes:
“We do not, at the moment, have anything near the shipbuilding capacity to undertake this project… although part of the point seems to be to jumpstart the shipbuilding industry.”
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Deborah said on December 25, 2025 at 9:08 pm
Well I was completely wrong about no one else being in the laundry room today, every machine was in use. I was surprised. I know this is a multicultural city and not everyone celebrates Christmas but it was unexpected to me today. We did get our laundry done and I vacuumed too, so it was a productive day.
I too enjoyed the story of the toddler Jeff G, I could picture the whole scenario. Well told.
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Ann said on December 25, 2025 at 11:48 pm
19 minutes until Christmas is over. A friend I’d invited for dinner hasn’t been able to get her car out of her driveway for three weeks now. Late last night I posted on FB an offer of $75 if anyone could free her car before supper time. I had five people ready to take me up on it pretty much immediately. It took three people with shovels and a snowblower and then a jump start but they did it. She was so happy. The prime rib was fine and I made a corn pudding just because it’s all about the carbs. It was delicious and I have plenty of leftovers.
Since my mother always insisted that Christmas lasted a full twelve days starting on the 25th I’m not to late to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a peaceful and healthy new year.
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Mark P said on December 26, 2025 at 10:16 am
Our cheapo Christmas dinner (turkey breast with a gravy packet, dressing in a box, canned limas, and cranberry sauce) turned out surprisingly well. It wasn’t like my mother used to make, but it bore some resemblance. The only thing missing was family.
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Julie Robinson said on December 26, 2025 at 10:26 am
Our Christmas was relaxed with a overlay of anticipatory grief. My aunt has both dementia and hearing loss so our phone conversation was pretty awkward. Mom didn’t feel good enough to visit family, so we went without her, only to find the two olds there also not doing well. One was visiting from Cali and I have to think we won’t see him again.
But we did talk with everyone else on the phone and at one point looped two calls together. (What is this magic that are modern cell phones?) Of course all three had phones on speaker with large groups in the room, so the message was mostly…well, I heard everyone say love you at the end!
Listened to lots of great music. Rewatched The Snowman with the biggest, goofiest smile on my face. Am over sweets. Time to go do Deborah’s chore from yesterday, mountains of laundry.
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Little Bird said on December 26, 2025 at 1:16 pm
So my big day was yesterday. My best friend and her boyfriend came over. I made too much food, as per usual. And we made cookies. Special cookies. Cookies that you definitely don’t need to eat a whole one. I slept very very well last night.
It was a very good day all told!
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alex said on December 26, 2025 at 10:45 pm
Tonight at a restaurant bar we got chatted up by some jerkface who was being rather unkind to his wife. He was telling us that the 60 Minutes CECOT story got pulled because it was full of lies (according to FOX or whatever he listens to). And the counterfactual bullshit didn’t stop there. I shot back everything that I know to be true but I doubt he gave it any consideration. I wouldn’t have even engaged with him except that my partner was the one who got drawn in.
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basset said on December 27, 2025 at 1:22 am
Made our usual Christmas roast and trimmings, the Yorkshire pudding puffed up just right so I have that to feel good about.
Come to think of it, I’ve been to Yorkshire twice now and never seen that particular dish. Black pudding, now, ran across that but I’m not gonna try making it on my own.
Then again, I do have a week left in deer season…
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Jeff Gill said on December 27, 2025 at 8:22 am
basset, there’s few good feelings in cooking quite like a successful Yorkshire pudding, are there? Soufflés without the size or stress.
My sister & I made a date to cut & wash our mother’s hair. To keep it short & low on profanity, we’ve been billed three times for hairdresser services which do not, on our arrival at the memory care facility, appear to be happening. That’s a debate for another day, but yesterday was about getting in, getting the key to the “beauty shop” room, and doing the work. My time in hospitals with hospice have given me skills with hair washing of non-cooperating patients, and my sister is a pretty fair hair cutter when she wants to, as was our mother.
I drove five hours in not-horrible day after Xmas traffic, arrived at 2 pm, the time after lunch & when given the week there was no activity planned. After some confusion over who had the key, I accidentally on purpose flushed the new director out of his office, who turned out (there’s been some major staff changes in the last few months) to hold the only key, and was skeptical of whether he’d relinquish it, but then heard (I was eavesdropping as best I could) “this lady has four family members here, with a bundle of equipment, and they say they’ve done this before.” One of the saddest things about this place is of the 40 some residents, half never have any visitors that I can discern, a quarter highly intermittent. 250 miles away I’m one of the “regulars” from staff pov. Anyhow, Maurice came out, chatted, unlocked, reviewed our understanding of protocols (i.e., never leave the room open without an eagle eye for a resident trying to “wander” in), and left us to it.
The program was a vast success, and my mother looks 82% less deranged in photographs with her hair cut & washed. At one point she turned to her two grandsons & announced, using her family name of pre-1958 vintage, “I’m Rose Walton; I don’t suppose we’ve met?” That was the most complete sentence & relatively coherent statements she made. When Perry Como came on the sound system in our time after in an activity room, she was trying very hard to say something about him, which I’m sure was complimentary (to Perry, that is). As both one of the oldest residents, but also the most physically active, she’s an interesting challenge for all concerned, and we got to talk to some staff we hadn’t seen for a while who were in for the hard-to-fill shifts on Dec. 26th.
As I say to anyone who shows any interest let alone concern at all: my mother is happier than she’s been in nearly 60 years. When she registers people, or situations, her tone is happy, welcoming, and affirming. She’s so far down that road she speaks well these days of her mother (trust me, that’s never been true in our knowledge of her, don’t ask), as well as of the fact that she’s coming soon to get her. Given that I did grandma’s funeral myself back in 1982, the first few times Mom said that, it gave us a chill… but she’s been talking about her mother & father as being “on the way to see me” for three years now.
As residents moved or were being moved to the dining room, we left & the four of us went to a Chili’s, which I’d never been to before (Appleby’s meets sports bar, basically?). It’s a good time to be thankful for the memories you still have access to, and the memories you can still make. And with our mother, to realize losing large swaths of memory can also mean letting go of resentments & long-held bitterness to a degree I have had to experience to believe. So truly, it’s not all bad, even though it’s all quite awful. She is, in some very real sense, happy.
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Deborah said on December 27, 2025 at 12:26 pm
Interesting Jeff G, after my mother died when I was 14 I found out that my dad was hilarious, I had never seen him that way before. The first time I saw it he was playing softball at church with the league they participated in, I had never seen him play softball before either, even though he was a big sports nut. He was keeping everyone laughing as he was trying to distract the batter. It wasn’t because of dementia it was a big change in his life I guess to lose his wife, she had been sick for a year and then he was free to be himself. That’s not to say he didn’t love my mother but he must have been squelching a side to himself or something.
It also happened with my former father-in-law, he had been an uptight, domineering, pontificating Lutheran minister and after his wife (my m-i-l of course) died he turned into a loving, caring, humble, person. I wasn’t around then, I had already left but LB noticed it about her grandfather and told me about it.
I know these are totally different circumstances than you described Jeff, but it’s interesting and somewhat baffling to watch someone change like that.
When uncle J had alzheimers I didn’t now him very well before, to me he kept his basic personality as a kind, generous person, my husband, who knew him well, thought so too. He did become afraid of some ordinary things but that’s normal, I think.
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David C said on December 27, 2025 at 1:22 pm
With my mom and her Alzheimer’s, we quickly learned that she had a new reality that had less to do with current reality. Whatever that is. We just learned to go with the flow. Most of us did, anyway. My sister-in-law never let mom talking about dad being off somewhere else talking to the boys without reminding her that dad had died. As if repetition would some day make her remember. My sister and I asked my brother to please tell her to stop, but she never did. Fortunately, mom never seemed upset by the news. She said “Oh, that’s right. I forgot.” With this being the first Christmas without mom, I probably shouldn’t waste my time thinking about things like that and try to focus on more pleasant memories. It’s hard though.
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Suzanne said on December 27, 2025 at 2:18 pm
My dad had dementia and we would have the same conversation over and over every time we visited. My mom never adjusted to that reality. One memorable trip, we drove my mom & dad to an out of town wedding in the van that they had sold to us when dad could no longer drive. The entire 2 hour trip, my dad commented about every 15 minutes that he used to drive a van like this but the one we had was much nicer. My mom would then respond loudly and shrilly that no, this was their old van and that they had sold it to us so it was the same van!! Every 15 minutes or so for almost 2 solid hours. I held my tongue but inwardly, I was screaming for her to shut up and just agree with him. Until the day he passed, she never did grasp that his reality was different than hers and that she just needed to go along with his. It was rough on all of us.
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alex said on December 27, 2025 at 2:52 pm
Comments are closed on the new post. A shame. I remember a funny remark Nancy’s husband Alan made one time about snouts and ears… “Where hot dogs come from.”
Regarding dementia, my dad always wants to have the same conversation with me and I don’t have much patience for it and never did. He bitches and moans about my brother’s divorce as if it was the worst thing that ever happened, and because I don’t agree at all I can’t really go along with it. I just tell him I’m not interested in belaboring it; what’s done is done; it’s none of my business and none of his and I’d prefer to talk about something else. Inevitably he comes back to that subject.
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