My Audition

This morning I had a brief exchange on Facebook with Mary, a woman I knew years and years ago when we first moved to Davis.  The exchange happened because I posted a link to a review of the upcoming Lamplighters production of Iolanthe, my favorite Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. I made a remark about how it was Iolanthe that made me fall in love with Gilbert and Sullivan.

Mary remembered that a Lamplighters production of Iolanthe was the first Gilbert & Sullivan she had ever seen with her friend, Vicki.

That opened the floodgates, remembering the days of the Davis Comic Opera Company and our 25+ years involvement with that company. 

When we knew that Walt's office was being transferred to Davis, a town we had never visited before, we started subscribing to The Davis Enterprise about six months before the move, and that was how we learned that a new group, the Davis Comic Opera Company was about to form. 

We had, by that time, become loyal followers of The Lamplighters and the thought that there was a G&S company that was at its very beginning in the town where we were going to move was very exciting.  We missed their first production, but were there when they announced their second production H.M.S. Pinafore.

I thought it would be fun to maybe help with publicity.  I called the contact number for the show.  It turned out to be the phone number of the director, Bob Cello, a veterinarian, who did G&S on the side.  (Parenthetically, Bob did the. very. best. Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof that I have ever seen, including big names in that role.) I spoke with his wife and told her I was interested in helping with publicity.  She told me I should speak to Bob at the auditions.

So I went off to the high school auditorium and sat there while people began to audition.  When I walked in, I was given papers to fill out, which I did.  I saw with a lovely woman who was auditioning and we whispered together.   I told her I was just there to see about helping with publicity.

I watched these marvelous actors get up and perform their numbers, including Mary, who became DCOC's leading contralto over the coming years.  They all gave their sheet music to Bob at the piano and told him which key they wanted to sing in.

Then the unbelievable happened.  He called me to the piano to audition.  I decided that maybe everyone involved in the company had to sing.  I was too embarrassed to do much but get up and choose a song. I had always sung choruses in public (that's mad enough, I think), and I knew I didn't have a particularly good voice, but I was fairly sure I could stumble through Buttercup's song and sang it, without preparation, terrified, in a wobbling voice.  Mercifully, nobody laughed, but I can just imagine what all of those real singers were thinking.

I never did get the chance to talk with Bob that night and went home deciding it had all been a bad idea.

A week later, Bob called me and in a very gentle voice he told me that I had not made it into the cast.  Well, I already knew that!  I laughed and told him that I never had any desire to be in the cast at all, and that I just wanted to help with publicity.  I instantly became the DCOC publicist, a role I played for most of the 30 year history of that group.

Walt eventually joined the tech crew and worked on that crew for the rest of the life of the Davis Comic Opera Company.

 
The DCOC people became our "group" in town and to this day, though DCOC ceased to exist many years ago, our closest friends in town were all connected with the company.  And it all began with my ill-fated audition.

Sour Grapes

Last week, Jeopardy was having Kids' Week, where all the contestants are grammar school kids.  In most of the other special weeks, the winners go on to play with other winners for the ultimate grand prize, but in Kids' Week, they just play once.  The winner is guaranteed $10,000 (or more, if s/he earns it) and the other kids get $2,000 and $1,000 for 2nd and 3rd place.

There was a landmark game this time around where the winner came close to earning the highest amount of money for a one-day win ever by any age group, something like $66,000.  His performance was amazing.  It would be fun to see him pitted against Ken Jennings.

But controversy has swirled around the kid who came in second place.

The answer to the question was "the Emancipation Proclamation" and this kid stuck in an extra "t" and was ruled wrong because of spelling.  He lost $3,000, bringing his day's winnings to $6,000, which still put him in second place, which gave him $2,000 to take home.  Had he gotten the spelling right, he would have won $12,000, still a far cry from the winning amount, and still netting him $2,000 take-home winnings.

When the show was over and all the contestants and their parents stand around Alec Trebec, this kid stood off to the side, glowering.

Oh how I recognized that face!  

That was Paul as we saw him over and over again.  I remember specifically how angry he got when he missed a crucial note as Charlie Brown in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, not in one performance but in two performances.  He was so angry the second night that he locked himself in the theater bathroom. 

The look on the Jeopardy kid's face was Paul, over and over again, embarrassed about something he'd done, or angry at something and withdrawing from everything around him.

Now apparently the Jeopardy kid, in an interview with his local newspaper, is accusing the show of cheating him and it seems to be all over the news and the internet this morning.  He obviously knew what the right answer and the misspelling didn't seem egregious. But Jeopardy sticks by its ruling and says "the show makes 'every effort to be fair and consistent' in their treatment of contestants, regardless of their age."  The decision was made by a panel of judges, who sit at the edge of the stage and check all answers. 

But it makes me wonder why the family is letting their kid make such a public spectacle of the incident when even if they had given him the correct answer, despite the misspelling, he would still have come in second.  What does the kid learn from this?  Does he learn "even if you give the wrong answer, they should cut you some slack because it was almost right?" or do his parents give him the opportunity to learn that when you play a game and lose, you do so graciously?  

The whole thing doesn't really take away anything from Jeopardy.   The kid still received the same amount he would have won, coming in second place, and it just makes him (and his parents) look bad for their sour grapes attitude.

Just Like "West Side Story"

Sometimes, the most frustrating thing about the Internet (well, Facebook specifically) is that when you think you are being devastatingly clever in your sarcasm, not everyone gets it.  Jokes fall flat if you have to explain them.

Walt and I have been through about 5 hours of intenses Shakespearean drama this weekend, as we watched first an all-female version of Romeo and Juliet and then a normal version of the same show, all put on by the 30 year old Acme Theater Company, comprised of high school age kids.

This show was set in some sort of dystopian time where the military rules and tries to keep the warring Caputlets and Montagues from disturbing it.  The costumes are white for the Capulets and black for the Montagues, who mostly wear leather, chains, and, in the case of the regular cast, tall mohawk hairdos.

Given the setting and the costuming, it was actually easier to find West Side Story in the action and so I wrote on Facebook:  "Saw a production of Romeo and Juliet tonight.  It reminded me of West Side Story."  I then added a little winking smiley to the end of that.

Well, I got lots of comments:

Michael - Never heard of it.

Tracey - What's this you speak of? Are you in a foreign country again?

Lynn - LOL

Sue -  Um, duh?

Crilly - Obvious rip-off.

Michael - Yeah. Must be a cheap ripoff. You know what they say. By any other name, it still smells the same.

Mary - Imagine!

Neil - "No, sir, but I DO bite my thumb, sir"

Buncha wiseasses, all of 'em.  I love it that there are learned people who appreciate my wit.  But then came this comment:

Of course WEST SIDE STORY is based on ROMEO & JULIET , what else could it be based on?

The writer then added:

And I'm sure when Shakespheare wrote it down, it wasn't a new tale then....

and then explained that she used to work backstage in a professional theater.  

What Facebook needs is a "sarcasm" sign to keep people from thinking you're seriously stupid, though as one of the commentors said "you'd think the winkey would be a clue."

But sarcasm aside, this was a great production.  If I had to choose the better of the two productions, I couldn't do it.  The girls playing the men's parts were totally believable, for the most part, as their male characters. 

Interestingly, though, the director mentioned that she had intended the same direction for both casts, but as they got into rehearsal discovered that the nature of the actors kind of dictated the nature of the direction.  While both productions were excellent, there was definitely more testosterone in the mixed gender production, especially notable in the fight scenes.  While the girl-men held nothing back, they didn't quite have the same intensity that you would see in a group of guys fighting each other.

The thing I loved about the show was seeing age-appropriate actors playing Romeo and Juliet.  It's no secret that Shakespeare is not my thing, but I learn something whenever I prepare for going to see one of his plays.  I guess it never hit me that Juliet is thirteen, or that Romeo has been swooning over the lovely Rosalinde, but totally loses his attraction to her the first time he sets eyes on Juliet...and they are married the next day by the town priest.  Things move quickly in Verona.

Anyway, having teenagers do these roles makes them more believable.   The Juliet in the all female cast was so ephemeral, so flighty, so much a teenager in love while Romeo is just as much so only in a masculine way.  The other Juliet was more the pouty, defiant-teenager Juliet, while Romeo was more of a macho figure.   Their balcony scene didn't move me as much as the first one did, but their death scene was so powerful you could have heard a pin drop in the theater.

So the show got a good review, but I still say it reminds me of West Side Story!

Sunday Stealing

Massive Alphabet Meme, part two

The Letter N
Do you have a nickname? 
Other than "Mom," no.
What is your favorite number? 
7.  I don't have a clue why
Do you prefer night or day? 
Night.

The Letter O
What is your one wish? 
Happiness for my mother
Are you an only child? 
I have been since 1972, when my sister died
Do you wish this year was over? 
Nah.  I take it one day at a time.

The Letter P
What is one fear that you are most paranoid about? 
I have been terrified of having an accident with a big rig on the freeway.  It's an irrational fear that just happened in 1986 and I haven't been able to shake.
What personality trait would you look for in someone you wanted to date?
A sense of humor, an ability to communicate.

The Letter Q
Are you quick to judge people?
I like to think no, but in reality, probably yes.

The Letter R
Do you think you are always right?
Heck no.  In fact, I'm usually wrong and there are lots of people who will let me know that.
Do you watch reality T.V.?
Some, but definitely not the mating-and-dating type.
What is a good reason to cry?
The death of a child, the betrayal of a friend, Hallmark card commercials.

The Letter S
Do you prefer sun or rain?
rain - rain -rain
Do you like snow?
To look at.
What is your favorite season?
Autumn, becaust it's followed by winter, so that gives me two favorite season for the price of one.

The Letter T
What time is it?
4 p.m.
What time did you wake up?
5 a.m.
When was the last time you slept in a tent?
It's been decades.

The Letter U
Are you wearing underwear?
Yes
Do you open your eyes when under water?
Sometimes.

The Letter V
What is the worst veggie?
Beets
Where do you want to go on vacation?
The Ukraine
What was your last family vacation together?
In about 1988, when the whole family went to England and Ireland together.  No chance of a "family vacation" now, since two of the family are gone.

The Letter W
What is your worst habit?
Overeating
Where do you live?
In a house in Davis, CA

The Letter X
Have you ever had an X-ray?
Yes
Have you ever seen the X-Games?
no
Do you own or have you ever played a xylophone?
Only the kiddie kind.

The Letter Y
Do you like the color yellow?
love it!
What year were you born in?
1943
What do you yearn for most?
A working congress

The Letter Z
What is your Zodiac Sign?
Aquarius
Do you believe in the Zodiac?
No.  Well, except for Aquarius and Virgo
What is your favorite zoo animal?
Elephant, though I would prefer to see NO elephants in zoos because they belong in famlies with free range and not having to be on display or perform for humans.  When I see an elephant in a zoo, I feel the need to apologize to her.

An unbelievable story

This story appeared on a blog that I was reading.  It is so upsetting that I wanted to reprint it here to show the extent of homphobia in our own country and, again, make everyone aware of the bad things that happen because of some people's irrational hatred of gay people...and the unwillingness of others to get involved.

This is Dexter. He is 2 years old. He loves to be Batman and Superman and Spiderman. He's a real boys' boy. He pretends he is flying, and he captures the baddies who threaten us.

He is the sweetest little troublemaker you'll ever meet.

Some other things you might like to know about Dexter:

He is a fabulous big brother. He was a later bloomer vocabulary-wise. He used to be terribly shy but has recently begun to come out of his shell. He loves new people and enjoys greeting them with a big "HI!" when he meets them.

His favorite color is pink. He loves Dora the Explorer. He has been known to wear my skirt as a dress, and he delights in cuddling with his mama.

Last night, I took my two boys out to pick up a couple of things from Walmart. Mark had to catch up on some work, so I ventured out on my own, which is something I don't do very often. It takes a lot of work to get the kids ready, get them in and out of the car, find a shopping cart, keep them happy while I shop and get them home in one piece. You parents will understand this.

After struggling to get him dressed and get his shoes on, I had to pry an overlarge teddy bear out of Dexter's arms, as he was set on taking him with us. This brought on tears and tantrums, which I somehow managed to calm very quickly. But when I attempted to remove my discarded lace flower headband from his head (which he'd been wearing all day), I saw him getting ready to fight, so I left him to it. Who was he hurting?
We got to the store, and amazingly I managed to get him to sit in the shopping cart with no issues. The fact that he was wearing a cute girly headband made him feel good, and he was charming all the old ladies by waving like a little pageant prince. I snapped his photo after two old birds came up to tell me just how adorable he was.

He rocked that headband.

Soon enough, we were done with our shop and were making our way toward the front. As we passed through the produce section, two teenage girls began giggling and one of them asked, "Is that a boy or a girl?" I smiled and said, "He's a boy." I looked on at him adoringly as they continued to giggle.

Out of nowhere a big booming voice rang out. "THAT'S a BOY?!" The man was overly large with a bushy beard and a camouflage shirt with the arms cut off. He had tattered shorts and lace-up work boots with no laces. I could smell the fug of cigarette smoke surrounding him, and there was a definite pong of beer on him.
"Yes," I said simply, still smiling.

With no notice, the man stepped forward, grabbed the headband off of Dexter's head and threw it to the bottom of our shopping cart. He then cuffed Dexter around the side of his head (not hard, but that is not the point) and said with a big laugh, "You'll thank me later, little man!"

At the same time as I stepped forward, Dexter grabbed his head where the man had smacked him and threw his other hand forward, stomping his foot and shouting, "NO!" I got between my son and this man and said very firmly, "If you touch my son again, I will cut your damn hands off."

The guy snarled at me, looked at Dexter with disgust and said, "Your son is a f*cking fa***t." He then started sauntering out, but not before he threw over his shoulder, "He'll get shot for it one day."  [italics mine]

I stood there, shaking, fists clenched, waiting for the man to disappear out the door, and then I fell apart. I was shaking so hard, holding back tears and comforting Dexter.

Not a single person said or did anything. There were several people who had witnessed the encounter, but not one of them came over to offer support or console me or my son.

Let me repeat to you: Dexter is 2 YEARS OLD.

I was there with a 2-year-old and a 5-month-old baby, and my kid had been verbally and physically assaulted by a man. And no one did a thing.

I made my way to the front, still in shock, and I paid for my items and left. I did not report it to the management nor to the authorities, though I am considering doing both. But as I live in a tourist area, I doubt there is anything I can do to find the man -- he could be anyone from anywhere.

It's been almost 24 hours, and I've vented on Facebook and had many supportive comments. I have calmed down. I am able to look at the situation with as much objectivity as I am capable of.

There is so much wrong with what happened that I don't even know where to begin.

This man removed an article of clothing that my son was wearing. It doesn't matter that it was a headband. It is never OK.

This man forcefully touched my child without permission. He thought he was being funny. I did NOT think he was.

He called my son an extremely derogatory word AND suggested that he deserved to die.

How is ANY of this okay?!

THIS is what bigotry looks like.

A grown man who should know better decided it was OK to step in and "teach" my child what it is to be manly. He thought it was OK to judge my child because he was not adhering to HIS idea of what a little boy should be. Clearly, the man was a homophobe, which is bad enough -- but to attribute gay tendencies to a 2-year-old is as RIDICULOUS as attributing STRAIGHT tendencies to a 2-year-old. It just doesn't compute!

A 2-year-old HAS no sexuality.

To think you can "teach" a child to be a certain way is unbelievable. Even if being gay is a lifestyle choice (which I don't believe for a second), it is not a choice that a toddler can ever make. And much like little girls can play baseball or enjoy monster trucks, little boys can and do play dress up with mommy's clothes, accessories, makeup, etc. Everything is new and exciting to a kid, and they learn by trying new things.

Mark and I are both completely supportive of love in all forms. Be you gay, straight, bisexual, transsexual or polygamous, it is YOUR business. I don't judge, and I don't try and change you.

And if one or both of my kids grow up to realize they are any of these things, it will not change a thing about how I feel toward them.

But right now, the fact that homophobia is so rampant, that gay marriage is still seen as dirty because homosexuals are "lesser" somehow and don't deserve to have the same rights as straight folk, that people like that man in Walmart even EXIST makes me fear for my kids and their futures.

While we may accept and support whoever our kids turn out to be, I am scared beyond words at what it would mean for them if they ARE gay. Why should anyone have to live in fear because they fall in love with someone that you or someone else doesn't agree with? Why should mothers and fathers of gay kids have to have an extra layer of terror at night because they know that the world at large is against their child?

Why does it matter? Do you really think your God or your Jesus or your deity of choice would be as judgemental as you seem to be? Even the POPE has come out and said it's OK to be gay.

But all of this aside, whatever stance you take on the debate, it is a complete farce to ever allow your fear or disgust with an ADULT lifestyle color your view of a child!

And it is NEVER EVER OK to touch a kid who isn't yours without permission. ALL people, even children, deserve respect.

UPDATE:  I have heard from some people that this blogger tends to over-dramatize and that this story may be an attempt to get attention.  I have no way of knowing which is true, though the person who directed me to this blog entry says she knows the writer.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

I found this quote in the first book I picked up to look through today at Logos:

What a wonderful life I've had
I only wish I realized it sooner.
-- Colette

It kind of dovetailed into a comment I heard recently, that someone here in town had referred to the "Sykes Dynasty."  My heavens.  I had no idea!

But I started to think of all the things I have lived through in my 70 years, some good, some bad, some historical.  As I was walking back to the desk, I spied this book.

It's filled with photos that Life magazine thinks are the best from its history to that point.  It got my brain working, looking at how many people and events and gadgets I remember.

Take the telephone, for example.   When I was in grammar school, we had a heavy black phone with a receiver that sat on a cradle (my grandmother had the candlestick kind where the earpiece hung from the side of the phone).  We had a party line in the early days and I liked to eavesdrop on whoever was on the party line.  San Francisco also had telephone numbers that started with words, like Juno, Prospect, Tuxedo, Luxor.  The first two letters started your phone number and five numbers followed it.  We eventually got a single party line and I don't remember how long it was before I had a push button phone...that may not have come along until after Walt and I were married.  When cell phones came along, our first one looked like something out of Get Smart, like holding a shoe to your ear,  Eventually we got flip phones, like Star Trek communicators and now we both have the Android phones, which look like faux iPhones.  

We used to have to be careful of long distances charges, which I could (and did) rack up with regularity.  Now we can call just about anywhere at no extra charge with our cell phones.

My very first typewriter was a portable that fit inside a little suitcase so I could take it anywhere.  Then I got a big office-sized typewriter, then an electric typewriter, then an electric typewriter with interchangeable keys.  Now I have a computer and can even write messages on my cell phone. 

My first computer had no disc drive.  My first "real" computer had a whopping 60 mg of storage.  Now I have 250 gigs plus TWO external hard drives, one of which is a terrabyte.  I had my first modem before there was an internet that could be easily accessed.  I remember when Jon Lee first installed Mosaic on my computer and I saw my first web page.  I remember learning HTML because there was no WYSIWYG program available.

I remember the McCarthy hearings (not well, but I was aware of them), the gay witchhunts in San Francisco (not too far where gay weddings are now performed).   I photographed the Free Speech demonstrations, knew Mario Savio, and remember when the windows on Telegraph Avenue were boarded up for fear of broken windows.

I remember the horror of November 11, 1963 and that surreal week end, remembering at the time that I had just seen President Kennedy live in a car passing by Newman Hall about a month before. That car was a covertible too. Presidents don't ride in convertibles any more.

I remember how frightened I was when Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were killed...and nobody who lived through that time has not stopped to wonder at least once what life in this country would be like today if the two Kennedys and Dr. King had not died.

I remember how hard I campaigned for LBJ, working with Scientists and Engineers for Johnson, a group which was determined to keep Goldwater out of office.   In retrospect, I wonder if we were right...  But I cast my very first vote for Johnson and was thrilled when he won.

I remember the violence at Kent State and how shocked we were that national guardsmen would fire on unarmed students.  And I remember demonstrators putting little pink carnations in the barrels of rifles aimed at them.

I will never forget that we landed a man on the moon in 1969 because I took a picture of each of the then-3 kids with the newspaper headline, and Paul is a baby in a baby seat.  He was born in 1969.

Our first TV set was a black and white Muntz that my father bought in the early 1950s.  The first program I ever watched was Life with Luigi.   My mother never missed Bishop Fulton Sheen or The Loretta Young Show.   My father always watched boxing, loving particularly the heavy weight matches. I remember that the TV day ended at midnight with a recording of the Star Spangled Banner while a flag waved and then it went to a test pattern until the morning.

We didn't have a color set until Walt and I had kids.  I remember Ozzie and Harriet, Howdy Doody, Laugh-In, Star Trek (the original series), Ed Sullivan, and the last episode of M*A*S*H.

I used to make all of our bread by hand, kneading it on the bread board and scaring the dog when I slammed it down to work the gluten better ... and I now have a bread machine.

I remember beatniks in North Beach in the 50s and hippies in the Haight Ashbury in the 60s.

I remember watching the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and the funeral of Egypt's Nasser and far too many political figures lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC.

I got to shake hands with Judy Garland and Tipper Gore and got a kiss from D'Oyly Carte's leading patterman for many years, John Reed (a favorite of mine). I went to an opening night party at Sardi's, where I met Theodore Bikel and Piper Laurie. 

 

And apparently I am a part of a local Dynasty.  Who knew?

I was also starting to read Tom Brokaw's "Boom," today, which is his look at the 60s.  He describes himself as straddling two generations, the boomers of the 60 and the traditional families of the 50s.  I feel the same way.   I missed being in the "boomer generation" by a few years, so there is not really a demographic for me.

When I think of the big and little changes that have taken place in the world during my lifetime, it boggles my mind to think what my mother has seen in her 93 years.  Good lord, no WONDER she has memory problems!

Snobs

The true definition of a snob
is one who craves for what separates people
rather than for what unites them.

--- John Buchan

I decided today that what is going to do me in with my mother is not her continuing decline in mental sharpness, but her continuing increase in snobbishness.   It's the thing that makes me want to leave her apartment to keep from getting angry with her.

Every now and then I wish my sister were still alive.  I wished she were alive to share with me the angst of our parents' divorce.  I wished she were alive to watch Ned, who reminded me so much like her, grow up.  I wished she were alive through this past year to help me make the decisions about our mother.   But right now I just wish she were alive so I could see what kind of person she grew into.

I have thought that many times over the years.  I remember how racist my father was and how he gave lip service to liking African Americans (a term I'msure he never used), as proven by how many record albums by black pianists he had.  He once tried to prove to a Black Panther that he wasn't racist by inviting him home to listen to his Art Tatum records.  (I'm sure what saved him was how much the Panther must have laughed to listen to my father)

I've also listened to my mother over the years complaining about this or that person who was "very, very [ethnic]" or define families by their ethnicity.  I went on a week camping trip with her and her husband once.  We rode in their mobile home and it only took a day for me to retreat, whenever I could, to the far corner of the vehicle to avoid all the racial epithets--for every race imaginable--that I heard from her husband.  

When I was in school, it was peopled with white Anglo-Saxon Catholics and I never attended school with anybody who wasn't like me until I got to high school.   The school I chose was more ethnically mixed than the school my sister attended, but with 200 students in the school, there were less than a dozen African Americans.   There were more Latinos and a few Asians.  I never really thought about race at all.  We were just all girls going to high school.

I can't remember a time when I ever considered race or ethnicity in judging a new acquaintance.  Which seems very strange to me because it was all around me all of my growing up years.  So I wonder what Karen would have been like as she grew up.  

Atria is mostly old white people too (though I have seen one black woman and one Asian woman), so I don't hear a lot of ethnic comments from my mother these days, but Lord am I sick of hearing how many walkers there are in the place and how lucky she is that she doesn't need a walker, and if she ever gets to the point of needing a walker, could I please shoot her.  I've tried to point out to her that the people using walkers are the people who are going outside and doing things, while she is stuck in her apartment because it hurts her to walk too far.   But that doesn't matter.  She doesn't need a walker and she definitely looks down her nose at those who do.

I have started having lunch with her regularly on the day of the Brain Gym, because I feel that if I eat with her too often, she won't force herself to eat with other people.  It settles the question "do you want to have lunch with me?" because I can say "No, but I'll have lunch with you on Wednesday."   When we go together, she picks a table where we will be alone and then she spends time looking around at the people around her and pointing out any oddity she finds.   She won't eat with this one because she doesn't open her eyes when she eats.   She won't eat with that one because she talks too much.  She won't eat with that one because she talks too little.  Look at the outfit on that one.  It goes on and on and I just want to walk out of the dining room, but I don't, of course.

I actually came home today and looked up the parable of the Pharasee and the Publican on line, wondering if I could find a folksy version that I might give to her to read and think about.  But of course she wouldn't understand, so I just sigh and keep it all inside (or here on my journal!).

I'd like to think this is all part of her dementia, but having watched her do this all of my life, I know that it's just part of her.  I think of her as a wonderful, giving person, but there is this snobbish component of her that I have never liked, and like less now that it is more pronounced.

But I guess that's not very kind of me either, is it...