A cupcake won't make it better

It is another Saturday night and I am watching TV and wondering who thought up this stuff? Does any of it have anything to do with my life? First Iron Chef America. The secret ingredient was spinach. I love spinach in just about any shape or form including canned. I saw ten different ways of cooking spinach using foam and food processors but only one that I might ever do, spinach mac and cheese. Then another show, so real, so timely, and so ridiculous... It was Cupcake Wars! What kills me about these shows is the judging. It is serious to the contestants, but not to me, and I have a hard time relating to any of it. But then again, maybe it is just what I need.

I took my mom out this afternoon. She is suffering as my dad is sleeping the rest of his life away. She says the hospice people are so good to him, they are treating him as gently as a baby. but they only come three times a week. The weekends are so long. One week ago, I was able to take him out to the park in a wheelchair. Today, he was sleeping, so skinny, not moving, in the same place in bed when we came back as when we went out. He is so vulnerable it breaks my heart.

We went to a deli and the food seemed not to have any taste, but I really think it was us. Then we went for a long ride around the lakes. My mother seemed to enjoy it. She kept saying how grateful she was to be out of the house. She doesn't know how long she can take it. I told her that she had to make some decisions, was she going to get a new, freer, lease on life, or was she going to follow the old man? She said she wants to live, so is going to be strong.

I wish the most important thing in my life was a culinary contest. I wish I could ease the suffering of this poor old lady who is spending her waking and sleeping hours worrying about my father. I wish I could make his last days happy. My God, he is so pathetic looking, sort of sleeping, getting weaker and weaker. We all want it over, but it is not up to us.

The title of this posting is "A cupcake won't make it better." When my oldest was four years old she hurt her knee and was crying. I asked her if a cupcake would make it better. She nodded, and I got a cupcake from the kitchen. I brought it in to where she was sitting and rubbed it on her knee. Laughter really is the best medicine.