Say What?
Last night I went to see a friend in the hospital. Her name is Mojo, she’s 85 years old, and was in the hospital because she fainted. Mojo cast her first vote for Franklin Roosevelt and has voted straight Democratic since then.
She was not a happy woman because the doctors put her on a heart-healthy diet, which means she couldn’t have salt on her eggs. She’s 85 years old and has eaten salt on her eggs her entire life and this is her first trip to the hospital since she had a baby. Give the woman some damn salt. Whatever she is doing must be working. I want my obituary to read, “She died at age 85, after not having been sick a day in her life and living in her own home, of … you guessed it, salt.”
I took her cupcakes. Screw ‘um.
Anyway, leaving the hospital, which is St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital (keep that name in mind), at about 7:30, there were protestors. Three woman in the dark on the street corner outside of St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital.
Good grief.
I mean, holy cow.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
I did not give them a cupcake.
Hmmm. What do you want to bet that if you are pregnant and called the number on that sign – that the only “help” you would get is someone would tell you how you would go to hell if you got an abortion?
1They should choose life, as in, to have one.
2I’m 79 years old, female and a great grandmother. My doctor kept saying “do this, don’t do that” and I finally told her that I was not going to give up my pleasures so that I could live 15 minutes longer. The rest of my life belongs to ME.
3Don’t they have jobs?
4Hey, gang! This is the same bunch that trotted around with protest signs about flouride in the drinking water many years ago. No, I’m not saying they are zombies! They are of the same small teeny tiny mindset, thats all. But hey! We got the flouride in the water anyway. And yes, if you ask them I would bet they would agree that rain makes applesauce.
5It’s such a joy to see another of our Constitutional rights in action… standing in the cold with a sign. Of course they don’t recognize another of our Constitutional rights… the right to privacy.
6She doesn’t look malnourished, so was the reason she fainted dehydration? Buy her more cupcakes & give her a hug from all your faithful readers. Hugs cures almost everything! Hugs ~ Moms
7Mojo looks like she has plenty left. I hope she enjoys the cupcake & gets well soon.
I’ll consider giving a crap about anti-choice protester’s opinions when they start carrying signs telling men to control themselves & keep it zipped up. Until then, I hope they catch the flu while hanging around hospitals & upsetting all the sick people there.
8Doctors don’t know everything. Eggs without salt taste nasty!
9Uh, small point. If she is now 85 yrs. old that means she was 16 in 1944 when FDR was elected for his fourth and last term since he died in May of 1945. Since the minimum voting age was 21, the first Presidential election in which she could have voted was the 1952 contest between Eisenhower and Stevenson. That does NOT take away the main point of the story however. Just the old History teacher surfacing.
10Jerry, I’m not going to be the one who tells her. She is blissful in the memory that she voted for Roosevelt.
11Well, on the upside, everything is spelled correctly.
12JFC…take her some cupcakes for me too! Bless Mojo.
13As Madeleine Albright said, “There’s Special place in hell for women who do not help other women.” I don’t think The busy bodies with the signs are not helping anyone. They are invading the patient doctor privilege.
14Hmmm…I sure mangled that post. Should be “I don’t think the busy bodies with the signs are helping anyone.”
15Jerry C., if she only wants to claim 85 years, let her.
16JJ, way to go, girl. Sometimes doctors forget that quality of life can be more important than quantity of life.
My grandmother had her gall bladder out in her late 70s. At some point in her late 80s, they pulled a stone the size of a cherry pit out of one of her bile ducts. She was a great fan of cooking with bacon grease and ate butter with a fork. One of my friends asked if she’d been told to change her diet. I looked at him like he was crazy. At that point, she’d already outlived the family members in her generation (and some relatives in the next). I said, “What? Tell her to give up the things she loves and she’ll live longer?” and started laughing.
Grandma lived alone until 6 weeks before she passed at the ripe old age of 95. I hope I’m half as tough. Come to think of it, her mom lived to be 94, too.
That’s a real pretty cupcake!
17Perhaps her school had a mock election and that is how she cast her first “vote.” Or … this IS the South. And she IS
18… and she IS white. So she could have actually voted in the real election. Just sayin’.
19I notice that you didn’t tell them that they have their signs on backwards.
20I just read a news article about a 16-year old in Texas who sued her parents, saying they were trying to force her to have an abortion. So now they will be compelled to provide her medical care? For a grandchild they didn’t want? And the girl claims she wants to marry her boyfriend/baby daddy. Fine! Let HIM pay for the medical care.
21People who are 85 and have always been healthy should be able to eat, drink, say and do whatever they want.
On the other hand, those three women with signs should mind their own business and do something productive, like take care of babies with mothers who cannot care for them.
22My neighbor kept her trim figure, dressed much younger & was a lot of fun – so much so that she fooled everyone into believing she was 75 right up to when she died of vascular dementia at age 88. My grandmother was still beating her kids at bridge when she died at 98 & her daughter has lived to be almost 100. I’m following Grandma’s advice to do everything in moderation & take naps to live a quality life.
23Guess I should’ve written: “My grandmother was still winning at bridge”
24I think the cupcakes put Mojo back in the pink! Big hugs all around, and I hope to see Bitchin’ Betty and the Sequined Backhoes next month when I roll briefly into town. As for the twerps on the street, I know you are grateful they aren’t holding the abortion porn signs we saw in Charlotte.
25There was a story on the 5pm news tonite that said if you make it to 75, your diet doesn’t really matter. Guess the trick is making it to 75. I’ve had relatives on both sides of my gene pool who made it into their 80’s and 90’s, eating bacon and eggs, salty ham sandwiches, and lots of beef at meals when they weren’t eating salty pork…. (salt pork in the veggies, too)…. In my opinion, the paternal branch of the tree enjoyed their later years a whole lot more than the maternal side… because Mother’s kin were serious tee-totalers…. and Daddy’s side loved their bourbon, eggnog during the holidays, and a cold beer after crawling down from their John Deere at sunset. In my humble opinion, the only way to cope with those jackasses wearing the signs outside the hospital is with a cerveza fria con limon, por favor…… then throw the beer can at them. Self-righteous twits who aren’t happy unless they have their noses in everyone’s business. The maternal side of my tree had bumperstickers on their cars that said VOTE… the T was a Cross. Throw a damned beercan at them! Those folks are already talking poorly about you, so throw a can at them! You’ll laugh all the way home.
26Good news – Mojo came home tonight. She says that they could find nothing wrong with her except that she’s a little dehydradate. And needs more cupcakes. I think she’s lying about the cupcake part, but if she wants to claim she has a cupcake deficiency, that’s dandy with me.
27Good point SusanF (and also JJ) I concede the floor. Also, I have to admit that at 78 I sometimes “remember” things that well, didn’t really happen quite “that way.”
28Hey, at 85, I’ll do what I damn well please. Come to think of it, that won’t be any different than what I do now. No salt on her eggs? I’ll bet that doctor calls her Hon and treats her like she’s senile. Some of those guys have a lot of learnin’ to do.
29JJ, my mother (93 and living alone, with some help) went to the hospital several times and was told each time that she was dehydrated and not eating enough. I don’t live nearby but every time I visit I take 6-packs of bottled lemon- or orange-flavored water that she likes, and some Ensure or similar. I tell her that she needs to drink a bottle of water every day and if she doesn’t feel like eating she should at least drink a can of Ensure. She hasn’t been to the hospital in months and says she feels pretty good, so I hope it’s helping. She prefers strawberry rhubarb pie to cupcakes, though.
30I think Mojo, and anyone else living to the age of 80 and more, has earned the right to eat what they damn well please. As a dear sweet 88-year-old lady said when asked about ignoring supposed threats to her health… “Well, I won’t be cheated out of many years.”
As for the three… um… Puritans… lack of birth control and safe abortions hurts women. When they become as vociferous in their advocacy for prenatal care, post-natal care, early childhood nutrition programs, early childhood education, etc. etc. as they do about abortion I will NOT consider them “pro” life. Until then I think the more accurate appellation, to borrow from a posting elsewhere on the interwebs, is “forced birthers.”
31I find it interesting that the protesters put the signs on their backs. Perhaps they did not wish to show their faces? They certainly should be ashamed; they are choosing to blindly follow a party line rather than choosing to support good healthcare, including contraceptives for women of childbearing age.
32My dear mother lived to be 90. She liked her Manhattan every night. If she went out for dinner, she’d have 2 or 3. After the 2nd one, she’d get really silly, but what the hey. She had lots of friends & people just liked to be around her.
33I’m gonna call that number and tell them that jeebus told me to call. I need to let them know that my girlfriend needs an abortion. I promise to not tell them I’m 73 years young. Those 3 signholders need to take up crocheting or knitting, or something other than irritating other people. There are just too many people these days with way too much time on their little minds. They probably think they are important too.
34Oh dear, I was tired when I wrote that last commentary. I meant *until* they are pro all those things about women and children I will consider them forced birthers. They are rank hypocrites of the highest, or more accurately, lowest order.
35So glad Mojo’s Home, I want you to know, the 81st Birthday party I have planned for my own self, to include all the things I have given up to get through this mid-section of life, would make your toenails curl! Sometimes planning that party is the only thing that get’s me through. And Jerry C., my mama raised me to never question the age of a lady from the south, which my mind has always translated into – add at least 2 years…. just sayin
36