No voice on the line.

A loved one calls about your dearest elderly relative a thousand miles away. The rebound was temporary, shorter than expected; everything has fallen apart, gone to hell all of a sudden. All these years of work and worry have come down to this.

She can't speak. She can't communicate, but she can hear. I'll hold up the phone so you can talk.

What do you say?

Swallow, hard. Marshall thoughts. Come on, words, you goddamn stupid words, you've been my soldiers all my life, now get in formation one goddamn time when I really need you.

Hello?

I'm so sorry you're so... sick. 

I wish I could be there right now.

I hope we'll talk when... when you're better.

I love you.

We're all praying for you.

God bless.

I'll see you again. 

Good-bye. 

No voice on the line.

The message comes in the night -- she's gone. It's over. Whatever was to be done, it is done.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, goddamn worthless words.

Person of Walmart.

Yes, I went to Walmart, which is always a thought-provoking experience in its way. I was glad to see that the potatoes had not been peed on, and in general the store appeared to be in order. 

I did take out my phone for some pictures, so you could join me in my ruminations. I did not take pictures of my fellow People of Walmart; I leave that stuff to the professionals. 

To quote my late father-in-law: It's August! Summer is over! 

Brach's, purveyors since 1904 of so-so candies that no one can resist, has already dived in with this huge skid of sugar. That's a lot of candy corn, considering that 99 out of 100 people will tell you that they hate candy corn (the 100th person is a major candy-corn devotee, though). What's in the Autumn Mix? Candy corn, pumpkins that taste like candy corn, and "Harvest Corn" (candy corn).

Autumn won't start for another seven weeks, though. But even here, where school doesn't open until after Labor Day, pool supplies and water pistols have been shoved aside for pencils and notebooks.

Sad!

But don't panic, kids! There's still time to shove in a few s'mores. In fact, though amazing marshmallow technology, you can get marshmallows with the chocolate injected in the middle! This way you can just stuff them inside two graham crackers and go nuts.

I would think putting the marshmallows on a stick would be a problem, though; chocolate melts quickly, even cheap chocolate, and I'd think you would be asking for the thing to turn into goo before you could put it in the graham crackers. Was not curious enough to buy a bag and check, though.

Speaking of back-to-school:

I have a friend whose college career was spent in what he and his pals called the Iced Tea Club -- if they could get no more than four C's in a semester, they could stay afloat. I think that gag doesn't work outside the New York area; 4C is based in Brooklyn, and I think it's just a New York area brand, isn't it?

I'm always curious to see brand names with a high-falutin' rep show up in places like Walmart. Godiva was the chocolate of the affluent back in the 1970s, generally sold in its own stores, and in other places where moneyed people shopped. Now? Walmart.

This is a baking mix. Yep, Godiva's down among the Betty Crockers and Pillsbury Doughboys. Smart marketing or total comedown? You decide.

Right here, though, for dessert, we have a pretty standard Walmart item:

It's a "treat." What kind of treat? Well, pretty much a Rice Krispie treat, but flat and tough. It cost a buck and was cheap at half the price.

Actually, as these things go it was pretty good. Yeah, that one I was curious enough to purchase. All this walking around made me hungry.

And so ended my sojourn at Mart du Wal; a pee-free experience and a successful shopping trip. Where else can you get your weekly groceries, a door mat, action figures, weed killer, and tropical fish? Not that I got any of the latter things -- but I could have!

----

UPDATE: How sad that on the very day I posted this, some dumb son of a bitch in a Walmart in El Paso killed at least 15 people. God have mercy on their souls; God please stop the next son of a bitch who wants to spread the misery of his bad life choices onto others with violence.

Tooth salon.

Had to find a new dentist, which is always scary. Just when you get used to the old one, something happens and you have to switch. And I'd only been going to the old one for twenty years. I was finally getting him broken in!

So I did what every idiot does; I went on social media to ask people in my geographic area for a recommendation. Then I took those names and checked them against rating sites. And all of this is stone-cold useless.

It's not that I got bad treatment. Actually, the hygienist was fine, and I think I got a good preliminary exam and a fine cleaning. And I didn't have to wait long for anything. But there were a couple of things I objected to:

1) The salon style. Seriously, this place had a row of stalls with dental chairs. It was like I had just popped in for a shave and a toothcut. Maybe this is the picture of modern dental care, but it was new to me.

2) Every booth had a TV, and they were all playing Wallykazam! Oh, sure, it was educational. I learned all about the letters S and Z, and why you shouldn't let a Borgelorp eat purple flowers. And the zombie zucchinis? Hilarious. But it was all a little wearing after a while.

The zombie zucchinis could have used a dentist, actually.

Funny, I'm old enough to remember when kids' advocates like the Comics Code Authority prohibited the use of the term zombie. But the times, they have a-changed, I guess. You have to teach the letter Z somehow.

3) The dentist spent about three minutes with me. He had examined the X-rays while I was getting my cleaning, yes. Still, I just didn't feel like he was giving me the quality of care due for a patient, the care that makes one feel like any problems have been detected. On the other hand, he also said I didn't need any work at the moment, which made me want to give him a hug. So there's that.

4) But I also never saw the dentist that had been recommended to me by name, the one I'd mentioned when I made my appointment, since you do not select your dentist at this place; you get whoever comes up in the queue.

I guess as time goes on we'll see more and more healthcare being provided this way, a factory-like atmosphere with loud cartoons. It speeds up service, lowers costs for equipment and malpractice insurance and the processing of the endless, endless paperwork ... but is it best for patients?

This setup is also a good way to hide poor doctors, slipping them onto the Wheel of Medicine. "Around and around she goes.... Oooh, you got Dr. Smerschnock! Well, maybe's he's sober today."

My current family doctor has his own practice and is an excellent physician, but he's also as old as Methuselah, and we expect him to pack it in any day now. Then what? Find a pill mill? Four booths, minimal waiting? The doctor will see you now... don't blink or you won't see him!

Let's fly, let's fly away.

Hope, and Ice Cream, Floats.

Really interesting article on The Atlantic site about the development of the game Candy Land (hat tip to Instapundit for the link). I knew the game was old when I was a child, because it had a kind of old-time look and sensibility. For one thing, very few games in my day were making a direct appeal to the visceral love children have for candy. That might make them want to eat some! They'll rot their teeth and get fat! Meanwhile, candy was a major sponsor of children's TV.

To give you the gist of the story, Candy Land was developed by a teacher who contracted polio in her thirties and was confined to the polio ward with a bunch of children, the most common victims of the disease. She had the brilliant idea to give the kids a pastime that would appeal on many levels, not just with the joy of candy, but also the action of a quest, of color and adventure, of quick movement and flight, of all the lovely things a sterile and scary hospital ward is not full of.

Candy Land was introduced in 1949 and never gone out of print. It was rightly inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame, in 2005. It's been released as a DVD game and in Disney Princess and My Little Pony and Retro editions. I have a Candy Land ornament on my Christmas tree that I picked up somewhere along the way (I think during a stint on a family magazine). Many people remember it as the first board game they ever played.

Not me. I don't remember playing it until I was past the age recommended, for a laugh. We didn't want for games or toys in my childhood home, but we never had that one. Chutes and Ladders, either. Don't know why. My parents liked games. They preferred games that weren't entirely predetermined by the shuffle of the cards, the way Candy Land is -- there's no strategy or choices to make, not even the luck of the spin. I guess if you could ask for a hit, like in Blackjack, they would have been more interested. I didn't miss it, anyway; Peppermint Stick Forest and Gum Drop Mountains would have had limited appeal to me.

If they'd released a game called Beer Land when I was in college, I would have taken notice. Stroll through Ale Alley! Climb the Hops Heights of the Malt Mountains! Avoid the Bed Spinner! There are a number of beer-related games listed on the irreplaceable Board Game Geek site, but none that I saw combined the adventure of a magical journey with getting faced. Oh, well; those days are past anyhow.

But today we're focused on the kids, and we want to salute Eleanor Abbott, the creator of Candy Land. Anyone's who's ever been a bored child, or had to entertain one, can thank her for thinking of them. Being able to think like a little kid, to see what a child in a sad situation could really use, would really enjoy, and might even give them a glimpse of hope, gets a lot of credit in my book.

Migraine, and yours.

For decades I've had these weird, occasional migraine symptoms, without the actual migraine.

I get the shimmering lights that they call the aura. It starts as little spot, then slowly spreads into a backward C, and keeps expanding until it goes beyond the range of vision. I can't drive, can't read; it blocks the center of my vision, then a large part of the field; just before it goes away, when it's only at the edges, it's still very distracting. I used to get a headache at the end of this little light show, but no longer.

The aura is the first sign of an oncoming migraine headache for many sufferers. I'm very grateful that I don't get the actual migraine. I've heard stories of people beating their heads on the wall because that pain was less bad than their migraine, so it felt good.

It happens maybe twice a year. Only once was it so bad that I left work. It happened yesterday when I was up early to finish a project I couldn't complete over the weekend. I started work at five, before the dogs (Thing 1 and Thing 2) were awake, and suddenly had this little twinkling dot in the center of my vision. As it grew and obscured my sight, I knew I'd have no choice but to lie down until it passed. That usually takes about half an hour. Of course I fell asleep, and woke at six.

So what causes this problem? Defective brain? Am I Abby Normal?

Years ago I talked to an eye doctor about this, and he was a bit confused. He said it sounded like the migraine aura (which is well-known, but only about 20% of migraine victims have that symptom). He thought it could be a vascular problem, which I believe at the time (the early 2000s) was thought to be migraine-connected.

The National Headache Foundation now says that "we know that aura is due to transient changes in the activity of specific nerve cells." Thanks! I'll make sure to keep those cells safe from transient changes. Seriously, though, I wonder if what I have does count as a migraine; the NHF also notes that there is no specific test that can confirm a diagnosis. "Your blood contains Factor Z, my man -- migraine!"

The Merck Manual, a very good resource, tells us that "Migraines occur in people whose nervous system is more sensitive than that of other people." Well, that sounds like me. "In these people, nerve cells in the brain are easily stimulated, producing electrical activity." Again, me. Some things are known to trigger the headaches, like lack of sleep and stress. Who dat? Me! But why some people get them and others don't is still a pretty dim area.

It's weird to have any kind of condition that science! doesn't understand. Same thing happened with my idiopathic hearing loss last year. You guys figured out the human genome, but you can't figure out this? 

It doesn't always help when they do understand, though -- they know all about the hundreds of cold viruses, but haven't yet managed to come up with a vaccine to prevent them all. Although, to be fair, they're trying.

Oh, well. I'm still very grateful that these attacks are rare, and that I don't get the crippling migraine headaches. Sinus headaches are another story. And tension headaches. Those I get. Doesn't everybody? Or is it just us people with more sensitive nervous systems?

Bear bites.

I would appreciate it greatly if you would all write to the gentleman across the street and tell him he needs to keep his garbage can inside the garage until the morning of collection day. Thank you very much.

I had to be up early Saturday morning, and thus, so did the dogs. We went out the front door and Holy Toledo! A black bear, had to be 300 pounds, was having a Bear Smorgasbord on the contents of the garbage can that the gentleman mentioned above will not keep in the house.

I understand the issues involved. My garage is connected to the cellar, where any odors are well contained; his garage is right by the kitchen. It's also stuffed to the rafters with toys and luggage and things. But he has two little kids, and if I were him I wouldn't want a big bear hanging around the yard where a kid could become a snack.

For that matter, he probably didn't enjoy being awakened by two insane dogs barking toward his house at 5:15 on a Saturday morning.

I suppose the bears have started their fattening-up rituals and we should expect this kind of thing. My neighbor especially should expect it, because his can and another guy's got nailed last Tuesday on trash day. I believe they both put out the trash on Monday night. I didn't see the bear that time, but his can was knocked over and a bag dragged out halfway across the lawn. Raccoons don't bother doing that.

Anyway, nothing we've said around here seems to have changed his habits, so now I have to resort to asking outsiders to send him a message. Feeding bears by leaving around garbage is bad for the bears and dangerous for everyone else. It can't be helped on garbage day, but it can be helped the other days of the week. He either gets his act together or we have to pitch in to buy him a secure anti-bear disposal unit. But if those are tricky enough to outsmart the bears, they might be too much for him as well.