Iowa to See My Mother

Yeah, the rural midwest celebrates and brags about shit beer (see below picture) in a diner in Illinois while on our way to Iowa from Boone, North Carolina to see my mom.  Ugh.  They had wine though and it wasn't all that ugly on the tongue as most dive bar/diners in the midwest offer if they offer wine at all. 

Harry Potter has turned vintage telephone booths into a fun thing. This one was in a restaurant in Burlington, Iowa, right off the butt-ugly M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I. 

Fun mural.

Me and my mom and the doll she has as doll therapy for her dementia.

I miss my mom as she used to be, the phone calls the letters.  I called her nearly everyday the last few years until she was "committed" to a nursing home due to continued falls and a family member finding her on the floor in her house and other indications she could no longer care for herself in a way symbolizing healthy behavior. I use the word symbolizing because many Americans, even with means, don't live in a way that is healthy, what with the Capitalist-fed diets we eat of processed foods and consumption of tons of byproducts (buyproducts) of carcinogenics used to make us comfy and elite. 

But even with my mother's dementia I am still getting to know her in ways I never would have otherwise.  Not that I'd have wished dementia on her or anyone.  But I am making lemonade here.  And I am grateful that my mother is not in pain on a daily basis, not lonely, not angry and she knows she is loved and is still loving and doing what she's done all her life - caring for others (the doll therapy).  We women are amazing, wouldn't you say?