As American society creeps closer and closer to feudalism, we've just had a very narrow escape, I continue to retreat into the works of Mark Twain for solace. I'm currently converting my recordings from reading The Innocents Abroad into mp3s to be compiled into audiobooks. A recurrent theme throughout The Innocents Abroad is Twain's criticism of "The Old Masters". The works of these fellows are a significant part of what we today recognize from feudal societies. They portray the "1%ers" from those times. What we rarely see are the lives of the rest of the populations.

In case anyone might have noticed, I've updated or upgraded my site. I don't know which to call it. I'm still using Drupal 7 but I've switched to using panels for styling, along with delta. I'd been meaning to do this for some time and actually had a working version on a development site. Something went wrong with this live site so I backed it out. Well, I couldn't sleep this morning so I go up and tried it again. There had been some updates to some modules so perhaps that made a difference. Anyway, I think it looks better.

Possibly the most difficult aspect of dementia is how it sneaks up on you in plain sight. We all know it is happening but in the earlier stages there is no clue as to how insidious it is. The doctors, although they recognize its onset, say nothing about how it progresses. I don't like that term when dealing with dementia. I can see nothing of progress here. 

My mother died this morning, 1am, according to the hospice nurse. We, only just yesterday, began 24 hour nurse attendance for her. She lasted 14 of those hours. For me, she was a wonderful mother, allowing me opportunities but never pushing me. Perhaps I needed pushing, but we won't go into that just now. For several years now her dementia became more and more a controlling characteristic of her life. For the first few years it was merely humorous short-term memory loss. Just a few years ago it had developed to the point where she got lost driving to and from the grocery store.