Ellicit Groans

I'm not sure how this starts. Is it worth noting that the quadrophonic sound being parked below my bedroom window is making sure Lil Wayne knows that I know that karma is a bitch, and that I should make sure that bitch is beautiful? (I know Lil Wayne, I know. Bitch is beautiful, no doubt.) A crossword puzzle, which I am doing partly because my Papa Lars did them daily until he died, kept folded in his shirt pocket with leaky pens and cheap cigars and partly because I can see my beloved maternal Nana and my beloved paternal Grandpa Julian--what-- climbing a ladder to? Sliding down into? Dementia. Oh Dementia. I see you getting comfortable in lives that are not yours. I see your tacky mask, blocking out memories and brightness and sharp wits. I do not want your tacky mask over my life, and so I will do this crossword puzzle, and solve that clue for a three-lettered-word elliciting groans (PUN). I have been elliciting groans all day. Some of my three-lettered-words are worth a mere chuckle (LOL). But the most hilarious thing I have done all day is buy a plane ticket.

I had planned to do a tour de grandparents. Visit the paternals in the mountains, visit the maternal in Texas, fly back to Big Apple, skipping my hometown (beach, beach, beach) for the sake of valuable time with valuable folks. One week. So I called the paternals. I said, "Hey Grandma! Comin' to visit!" And the paternals said, "Oh, we'd love to see you. My, that'd be fine, but it's been such a rapid decline. Lately. Why don't you hold off a bit?" So I changed my plans. Texas, hometown (beach, beach, beach), and then back to New York. It seemed this plan could stick. Affordable enough to leave some meat on my bones. And so I gave the airline my credit card information, and I received my flight confirmation. And then, we get to the punchline, because the news is no rapid decline.

It is a tear, it is broken, it is a neck, and of course it is still strong and breathing, and of course we will operate, but of course it is risk, and of course now we all hang in this strange appreciation of mercy and I don't know what you're supposed to feel when the news is hospitalized, but not gone. Gone to a better place? Gone, gone? A fish? Not a fish? Not here. Not there. Not a clue for this puzzle.