What the well-dressed 98-year-old is wearing

Margie had two vaccinations yesterday: flu and Covid booster (so did I, coincidentally). She didn't remember that she'd had her shots, but her daughter texted me that she might be unusually tired today because of it. Not a bit. She was in great form. The subject of the day was her mother, who she remembers as the meanest person she ever knew. Mean to Margie's father, who never made enough money to please his demanding wife ("money was the only success my mother recognized"); mean to her elder daughter, who dared to answer back and often got a slap across the face for her troubles. Not so mean to Margie because Margie was the “baby,” and also because Margie knew how to disappear when her mother was in a rage. Time to walk Snubby.

“She was always good to Snubby. I think it was Snubby’s complete innocence and sweetness. Even my mother couldn’t resist him.” Margie gestured to Snubby2, sitting beside her favorite chair. “I love that dog. I mean the one I have now, the one that doesn’t have to be walked and never leaves puddles on the floor. I talk to him all the time. He’s a great listener. Just like the original.” 

Margie looked especially sharp today in her cropped trousers and double-breasted shirt-jacket, so I asked if I could make a full-length picture of her in her apartment before we went out for coffee. She wanted me to make photos of her son’s paintings instead, which I did, but first, she let me make the one I wanted to make. 

The news from Florida (where the governor is a Nazi Trump-loving book-banning trans-hating abortion-refusing queer-bashing climate-change-denier) is dire. No arrangements were made to evacuate people who don't have cars. The most vulnerable people always suffer the most.