Another Week: Number 49
Because hyperglycemia is a possible side effect of Piqray, Amy also needs to start monitoring her blood glucose via finger-stick testing. She’s got a OneTouch Verio Flex® meter and an app on her phone. We cock the tiny needle inside a small lancing device and hold the end of it against her fingertip, then press its button to stab her and hopefully produce a small droplet of blood.
Then we carefully absorb that blood onto a disposable metallic test strip inserted in the end of her meter. If we’re lucky, the meter counts down five seconds and displays a numeric blood glucose reading and relays it to her phone via Bluetooth.
It’s all very ingenious — except that getting blood out of Amy is rarely easy after years of chemo and Raynaud syndrome. The poor girl has to stick herself three or four times before she gets a drop sufficient for testing.
Other than that, she has been somewhat weak but eating small portions of solid food more regularly.
The majority of our life together is now spent in the living room in front of the TV, with Amy sitting in one corner in the power lift recliner we purchased during her knee replacement, and me working in the other recliner across the room or slouching on the sofa we purchased when we moved here 18 years ago. That sofa is too low for Amy to get up from, and not deep enough for two people to lie on together.
So we’re near each other — but not near enough to touch. This is one of many things tearing me up.
On Friday at dawn, our kitchen sink drain suddenly and utterly quit draining. Hoping to save money, I tried a heavy dose of Great Value drain cleaner and waited. And waited.
I should have called the plumber right away because there was an added $200 emergency charge on Saturday morning when he did come and quickly clear our pipe.
Later on Saturday, I pulled the trigger on the convertible daybed/couch I have been eyeing for a couple of months now. Amy’s physical therapist recommended getting it in red, and I agree.
It’s expected to arrive the week of the 18th.
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Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)
Now that we have Paramount+ with Showtime, we were finally able to watch Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, the partially animated dramedy voiced and co-written by Jenny Slate, whom Amy adores, and Dean Fleischer Camp, Slate’s ex-husband, who also directed. The movie expands on their previous series of shorts.
As a concept, it’s achingly cute. As a 90-minute feature-length film, it wanders into the weeds now and then, but also has some breathtaking moments. Watching it with Amy, there was a scene with a ladybug and Amy’s reaction to it that will stay with me forever.
One huge highlight of Marcel the Shell is the voice of Isabella Rossellini as Marcel’s Nana Connie. Her inflection and gentle touch on the script’s key lines are perfection.
The ABC’s of Book Banning
Another film we watched on Paramount+ was The ABC’s of Book Banning.
I heard about it via Scott Simon’s interview with Sheila Nevens on NPR’s Weekend Edition. The film is her directorial debut — even though she’s in her 80s and was in charge of documentary programming at HBO for almost 40 years.
The film focuses on the current mania over banning books which has been particularly acute in Florida but quickly spread nationwide. As a unique angle, it includes a lot of input from school-age readers.
At just 27 minutes, the film is an easy and worthwhile watch, but this outrage is one of so many outrages these days that you’re tempted to just shake your head and move on — which is surely an effect intended by those flooding us with outrages.
I was reminded of this later when Amy was watching An Evening With Heather Cox Richardson from this past October on YouTube.
At the end of the discussion, Richardson talked about the importance of making your voice heard:
And when people say, “Well I’m only one person, what am I gonna do,” I always say, “Find someone else — and then there are two of you.”
And you know one of the things that always jumps out to me is when we talk about book banning, the majority of the challenges to books that have gone into libraries and into schools are by handfuls of people.
In one state, there’s two people. Two. Not two hundred. Not two thousand. Not twenty thousand. Not two hundred thousand.
Two.
Look at how many people we have in this auditorium. The trick is to recognize that we’re a majority and that we’re not gonna agree about a lot of stuff, but we do agree about democracy.
Trump calls for government crackdown on the free press
Speaking of becoming desensitized to outrages, on Tuesday Donald Trump posted a call for the government to “come down hard” on MSNBC and “make them pay” for their unfavorable coverage of him.
As MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell then pointed out, there was virtually no response at all in the media to Trump’s call for a fascist crackdown on America’s free press.
Imagine former president Barack Obama calling on the government to “come down hard” on Fox News. That would create a tidal wave of headlines.
This didn’t get a ripple.
Kyle Kinane: Shocks and Struts
On Saturday, browsing a Vulture list of “The Best Comedy Specials of 2023,” I saw an entry for a special on YouTube by Kyle Kinane, whom I had never previously heard of.
So we watched Shocks and Struts and we laughed quite a bit.
Now I want to go back and listen to Kinane’s appearance on WTF with Marc Maron this past June.
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