"We get up, and we go, and we eat, and we go, and we eat, and we go, and we eat, and... then we go to work," my mother told me. Yeah, that sounds about right. My parents drive around a lot, due partly to my dad's inability to stay still and my mother's need to wander. The past couple of times I came to visit she got bored and put her coat on, and so I grabbed my car keys and drove her around for about 15 minutes. She likes that, but last time got increasingly more agitated that my dad was not in the back seat.

But that was about the extent of her agitation. She was in a pretty good mood. "Uppity," my dad would say. We have been trying to tell him for decades that that is not a nice thing to call someone, but he can't seem to grasp that and continues to use "uppity" however the hell he wants. Shit, he's almost 81 years old, if he wants to call people in good moods a word meaning racist arrogant snob, rock on, Old Man.

"See that?" my mother asked me, pointing out the glass sliding door to their backyard with her gnarled, arthritic finger, "1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6..." She counts 6 of something out there constantly. I can't tell what because so much of what she says is gibberish now. Not that long ago she at least understood the cadence of conversation. You could say something like "I fell down some stairs and broke my arm," and she would smile and say "Isn't that wonderful?" But the meter of conversation now is all cockascrew and she interrupts and talks when you talk.

Cockascrew. That was an expression she liked to use. Shitmunkledunk - that's a color of displeasing, drab brown. Lord love a duck - that's something you say when you are mildly surprised, but not too freaked out. Holy catfish. I'll be go to hell. Fuck a duck. That one is different from Lord love a duck. Fuck a duck was used when say, she burned something she was cooking. I'll be go to hell was used when new interesting information was presented to her. For instance "Mom. Did you know scientist have decided Pluto no longer qualifies to be a planet?" "No!" "Yes." "Huh. I'll be go to hell."

My mother loved new information that challenged the norm. She said to me years ago, "Did you know there was a woman with Adam before Eve and her name was Lilith? Yeah, I guess Adam tried to tell her what to do too much and she was like FUCK THIS and she took off. I don't know where she went, but there is going to be big music festival named after her. You should go. All women artists." When The Lilith Fair came to our state, a pack of our friends and my boyfriend and I swung by my parents' house and we picked them up and we all went together. We had a wonderful time. My parents were always very comfortable with our friends, and when one of the more adventurous women pulled up her tank top to show everyone her new piercings, swollen and crusted with blood, my mother said nothing in judgement. She just asked for a drink off the bottle of vodka we were passing around. My boyfriend asked me to be his wife at the Lilith Fair. My mother liked that.

Holy catfish. That was a good day.