Well, I should let you all know that I survived my trip. Almost in normal condition. The back-intestinal thing sort of hovered in the background but never developed fully.

Entertainment is rare in this little Kansas town I go to, to visit my son and his family. Since I have no idea about what constitutes fun anymore, I went to Bingo one night with daughter-in-law and her friend and sister. I believe we played 10,000 games of Bingo that night, all different designs of such. Incredibly none of us won anything. It WAS fun, and I suppose that says quite a bit about how exciting my life is in its normal state. It helps that all three of those women are crazy X3 when they are together.

While we were there, it began to rain. In buckets. We were in a community hall, and it sounded like we were in a tin can, which we were sort of. Although it rains all the time up here in the NW, it rains a year's worth in 30 minutes down there. Although last year, right after I left the area, half the town flooded (and daughter-in-law's sister's family actually lost their home from that, and lived with my son for six weeks until FEMA got them into a different house), this time there was no flooding.

Another night, when I went outside for my last cigarette, there was sheet lightening on the horizon which was CONTINUAL--so far away that you couldn't hear the thunder. The horrible midwest flooding going on right now is at least a state away from them at this time.

I had a good time. I spent a ton of money, we ate out every night (I hope I can still get into my go-to-work clothes on Monday). There were no fights. I love them. My granddaughters (7 and 6) are geniuses. The younger one, when we made our daily trip to Walmart, grabs a book when we pass that area, flops on her stomach in the middle of the concrete aisle, and reads out loud to herself completely unaware of surroundings and lurking pedophiles--we really have to keep a watch on her.

Anyway, it was good. I came back to lots of scarey mail (such as Social Security and Medicare statements and questions about my mother) which by now I have plowed through and taken care of what needed doing. Got hooked on "Brothers & Sisters" first season (available on DVD from Blockbuster). That's my daughter-in-law's fault--she insisted I watch the first one. Here's the funny thing about that series--it's absolutely accurate about how a family cannot keep secrets from each other. You tell one sister something, being mad at the other sister at the time. Then while with the first sister that you're mad at, all of a sudden you have a moment of closeness, and it seems perfectly reasonable to share that secret with her, and chaos results as reactions occur that you should have foreseen but didn't.

Okay, how many people, upon seeing Jamie Lee Curtis on the cover of "Modern Maturity," went to their hairdresser and said something like "I was thinking of going even shorter . . . " and hairdresser said "Yayyyyy!" and picked up the clippers and made a track on the back of your head before you could say the words ". . . next time."

Well, I did that unfortunate thing.

Actually though, I love it.

But when I put on girl clothes to go back to work, it doesn't quite work, although it looks very cute with jeans and t-shirt.

First sister, her daughter and I did a huge Mother's Day thing. Well, her daughter did everything that had to be done--I just went as a guest. It went great--lots of my mother's grandkids there, and their kids. First sister's daughter is an animal freak, and is now raising Peruvian alpacas. They are so CUTE. Half the size of llamas. When we went to see them, they came up to us, and just stood there inspecting us. And once they relax a bit around you, they hum. They wouldn't let us touch them, though.

I bought her a pair of gold hoop earrings, because everytime I take her to her house, she spends the time in her closet looking through every container there looking for a pair she used to have. I will be (maybe silently) accused of sucking up, I'm sure. The thing is I have an abundance of money right now because I have no time to spend it, really. So it is building up. I keep checking the checkbook looking for some error in addition/subtraction, but it seems to be correct.

When we think of cleaning out my mother's house after she goes, the temptation is there to throw a lot of it away without inspection. That will be a mistake cause when I'm there she'll pull out some little drawstring bag out of any of a thousand bureau drawers (she has a few thousand antique dressers), for instance, and say "Oh, that's my little men," and out spill five or six tiny men, one is an African warrior, carved from something that looks like ivory, from expensive-looking things like that to a cheap and rusty child's toy soldier. I have a weakness for all tiny things and have to be very careful about exposing myself to places where tiny things are. I did come home with a teeny Mexican man on a burro. I'm sure it'll get eaten by a spider, or vacuumed up if I'm not careful.

I have reluctantly scheduled my annual trip to my son's place in Kansas. I love him and my darling granddaughters. But I'm afraid I'll get sick again, as I did last year, with that unknown PAIN that took over my back and abdomen last year and left me with numbness and nerve damage in my left leg still.

I will only stay a week. Then, if I haven't died of my mysterious illness, I'll have another week off before I have to go back to work. I was looking at Tucson on the internet and am thinking of booking a fancy hotel there for three days, that comes with a 50-minute massage, and meanwhile looking at the area and seeing if I can afford to live there. One picture showed mountains in the distance. I can live there if I can see mountains. With the housing market in the toilet, I can maybe afford something, assuming I can sell my place. If the hotel people ask me "for one person only, madam???" (which they always do manage to ask, even if only with the lift of an eyebrow, I'll simply say I'm between boyfriends (they don't need to know I've been between them for 10 years now).

I want to run away, because everyone knows where I am. So when nobody comes here, it is continued, low-grade rejection.

My daughter is not speaking to me. She wants to buy my mother's house. She and her husband already have one of those predatory mortgages on the house they live in now and if they can't refi to a traditional 30-year mortgage in a few months, they are up sht-creek. Her normal response to everything like that is "it'll be alright." But I see no way they can offer a realistic amount. and that "it'll be alright" attitude--magical thinking I fear. We all love her, but can't afford to just give them the place . . .

And I think we must sell my mother's house before too long. What I thought was enough money to maintain it almost indefinitely is turning out to be maybe not so much. Unexpected big bills keep coming, and they're never anything that can wait, really.

So, when this is all over, if it ever is all over, when I'm living in Tucson and nobody comes to see me, it'll be because they don't know where I am.

A couple of weeks before Mother's Day, I e-mailed my daughter "it's a lonely business, being the only one who goes to see my mom, and check the empty house, stay there alone some nights, etc." This was my little way of saying HELP ME!!!!!!!! So, although she and her husband had scheduled a weekend in a fancy hotel with an amusement park attached, e-mailed back they would only stay one night instead of two and come down. Then after a day with my mom (the first weekend when she realized she would never leave the assisted facility permanently and cried for three days straight), while at my mom's house thinking they would arrive soon, I get a text saying "it's really cool here--we probably won't be there until about 10 pm." Texting is very handy for passing news nobody wants, isn't it. So I'm there, standing on the shore, that bottle of bourbon crosses my mind, wondering why everyone is at a party but me, and filled with resentment and rage. This is a familiar place, a place I always seem to be, and it never gets less unpleasant.

However, I am weller than I realize. I no longer take a pill or drink stuff "at" somebody else. I've even cut back on my miracle stomach pills, to one a day again, and wierdly it's much more effective at that amount than taking three was.

Amazingly, if people I love are treating me badly, I no longer have to treat myself worse to give "them" a lesson.

So I went to the utility room, got a shovel, and spent a couple of hours shoveling the beach back onto the beach, from the deck steps that it has swallowed in the last two year's of wild storms. I thought I was making great progress until I got a step and surrounding area clear of sand and shells and discovered another step, completely buried and just visible at this point. My energy and rage was gone by then, so I just put the shovel away hoping I could get it done another time.

Then, oh the betrayal!!!!!! When they did arrive, there was a pseudo-granny in attendance, who was there to play with my granddaughter during this hotel stay, during the times her parents were sleeping late or doing grown-up things. A nanny, one might call her.

My granddaughter, who is the most physically beautiful child in the world, I do not exaggerate, can be a tiny bit of a pest I suppose. I love her but fear her a bit, as one does the popular girls at school. As a baby she never wanted to come to me. This was heartbreaking to me. She'd sleep in the arms of strangers, but not mine. Luckily, my boss, a very funny and nice person had the same reaction from his first grandchild at the same time, and while he was telling me about her "terror response" to him, which crushed him, I felt a little less singled out. But I do confess, three minutes into playing Candyland, or serving tea to stuffed animals, sitting in a tiny chair, well, it ain't my cup of tea. I am a rotten granny actually and prefer gossiping with her mother.

Worse than that, even I loved the pseudo-granny. She's a hoot! Although she's about 20 years younger than me, we have a lot of the same ailments, similar allergies and symptoms, near-death allergy experiences, and we talked and talked, with poor granddaughter having a hard time getting a word in. Finally when we were talking about feeling insecure or unhappy about something, my seven year old darling said "well, when I feel like that, I stand in front of the mirror and say [and here she speaks in a very stern pull-yourself-together tone] "you're FINE!!!" I was shocked into silence--how awful that she has had to learn such a technique at such a tiny age, but PROUD that she has it, a toughness. And I said "You DO? You're fabulous!" and grabbed her and loved her up because she is so fabulous.

I spent yesterday with my mom, and took her to the house. She was fine mentally but having breathing problems and her heart was pounding and flipping around--she'd been up most of the night because she couldn't sleep as it's worse lying down. First sister only sees her twice a month or so. Second sister sees her about the same amount, but during the week so she won't have to worry about seeing me. I feel they think I'm being a goody-goody just to make them look bad. But for me, my mother, since she's been sick, is finally the mother I always wanted--thrilled to see me, very loving.

Years ago, I rented the movie "Savannah Smiles," just because it has an adorable little girl in it and some preview or something I'd seen made me want to watch it. It was cute and watchable, and I was enjoying it. Two criminals are involved, having kidnapped this little girl, but they are comedy characters--one is a chubby, cheerful, affectionate guy, and the other is thin, quiet and moody. Of course, they both fall in love with the child and the movie shows their conversion from criminals to grampa-sorts. However, suddenly there is a dream-sequence which shows the background of the skinny, moody guy--as a child he's in standing in a farm field, in overalls, I believe, seeing his family ride off together in a wagon. And he is left behind. And he runs to catch up and remind them that they've forgotten him, and they look down at him, obviously note he's there, but then turn back to their laughter and happy togetherness, and drive on. And he runs on and on, getting further and further behind them, and they don't look back anymore.

Later in the movie, it returns to that scene, and they FINALLY stop the wagon, and attitudes totally changed, pull him up into the wagon with them, engulfing him into the family. But it's too late, for him and for me--by then I'm barely aware of the original story anymore, and I'm a messy puddle having in two or three minutes seen my life story laid out in front of me.

I know I will not go to Tucson--there seem to be only gravel in the yards there. I miss trees when I leave this place. I can't face the "for one, Madam?" questions.

Oh, I NEVER get invited to play these "6 unspectacular things about me" games. I will have a very tough time coming up with anything I haven't already put on here in one form or another. Nothing about me though is unspectacular--usually my quirks are spectacularly inconvenient and life-limiting, but only to me.

1. I never want to read, watch, taste or do anything anyone recommends to me. I don't know why that is, except left over childish rebellion. And I can't tell you how many things I regretted not doing sooner after I finally did try it. More truthfully perhaps though, the recommendation becomes an assignment which then hovers at the back of my mind, which of course has gone completely blank as far as digging up anything charming, humorous, or interesting about myself, and . . . the stress. You can't imagine.

2. This doesn't stop me from begging other people to read, watch, taste or do stuff that I've discovered and like.

3. Or from wanting to FORCE them to read, watch, taste . . . .

4. I also used to be a person whose food could not touch, and I ate all of each thing before I moved on to the next.

5. Now when I cook, it's almost exclusively different soups with everything in there all together. Even yellow foods which I used to be unable to tolerate.

6. Oh good, it's almost over.

I'm exhausted.

Well, crap. I just came to the end of lolcats. Also known as "I can has cheeseburger." I thought I'd found the cure for the blues, and it promised "on and on until infinity . . . " but apparently that was an exaggeration.

It was good while it lasted.

I did learn something new last week. For the past couple weeks my left front tire has been alarmingly low. Oh, at times like this, I do need a man.

I gathered up my nerve and stopped at one of those air things. I read the instructions--75 cents didn't seem unreasonable for a puff of air. But how does one know how much air is in the tire? It says there is a gauge on the tube, but I looked and looked and couldn't see any place on it where there would be a pressure read-out. My fear of appearing stupid overcame my fear of driving on a very low tire. What's $119 now and then--I'll just wait till it's really flat and then buy a new one. But what if I'm in the middle of nowhere when it happens? I really need to get this done. I decide the next time I get gas, I'll just ask a nearby man also pumping gas how to do the air thing. Weeks passed. No friendly looking man happened to be there at the same time I was.

I finally asked a guy at work. He says there's a gauge on the tube. I asked him where is the read-out screen. He said the gauge comes out when you put it on the, uh, doodad where the air goes in on the tire. (Doodad is my word, I can't remember how he said it). He offered to meet me at a nearby station and help, but we don't leave work at the same time so that never happened--besides, small talk would be required.

So a couple more days went by and I finally tried it again. It's true! When you put the hair hose on the tire dealy, a gauge comes out of the end of the other tube attached to the air tube, and you can see how much is in there. It was down to about 18. I put some in, up to about 24 lbs. Tire looks no different though.

Hey, now there's one more thing that doesn't scare me anymore.

Okay, you know what? Even I am starting not to believe the continuous problems that keep popping up. I THINK I am at a point where, finally, just out of mental exhaustion, I cannot work up a good emotional breakdown anymore and will just expect the next little bit of bad news and not be surprised by it.

I got a utility bill for my mother's house the other day for $15, showing no electric power was consumed for the month of February. Well, her house burns a ton of energy just sitting there empty, so I knew something was wrong. I dutifully called the PUD to point this out and was told, oh yeah, when the hit and run car knocked the telephone pole down, the wires were torn from the meter, rendering it useless. They had put the meter back in place, and put the cover back on it, and to us (we are women, for heck sake) it all looked fine so we didn't know that had even been damaged. In order to keep from shutting off the power (which was sweet on their part), the electric company bypassed the meter, with the intent of writing me a letter telling me to get an electrician over there to fix that. They forgot to write the letter. Now I have to get it done very quickly. It'll just cost $650 or so. And another day off work for me.

Also, a skylight in the upstairs bathroom which has always leaked slightly (but only after a long, continuous rain), is suddenly leaking a lot. My son-in-law thinks he might be able to stop the leak. I hope so. Luxury to my mom is thick, thick carpet everywhere. Only poor people had uncovered wooden floors when she was young. So I walk in the bathroom and find the carpet squishy and splashy. I used lots and lots of towels to sop up as much as I could, and put down the largest vessel available, a metal salad bowl as large as a pedicurist uses. The "plink" of the drip was deafening. I added a wash cloth and it changed to a slightly less deafening "splat." Even with all that, I slept just fine in the bedroom next to that bathroom. When I left the next day, fearing the huge bowl might overflow before I got back to the house the next weekend, I left my large styrofoam picnic cooler under it. It may be able to handle the amount of water that accumulates, but there won't be anybody sleeping through the "SPLAT" that a drop of water makes when it hits styrofoam.

I'm finding now that if a day goes by without a new problem or disturbing piece of mail, I feel quite bored and like something is missing.

My mother had a motor home. It sat in front of her house for the last two years because she was not well enough, long enough, to escape down south after Christmas, which had long been her habit. It was as stuffed with junk as her house is. It had sat for so long that the battery was long dead. It took up space that we very badly needed for parking, when several of us would be at her house trying to get it in a condition where she could live there.

One day my daughter came down with a girlfriend, and they devoted the entire day to cleaning it out. This resulted in bags and bags of clothes, souvenirs, shoes, (one entire large garbage bags full of hats), being stuffed into my mother's already stuffed closet. Then they started to remove the blankets and stacks of stuff from the bed above the driver's seat. My mother used to travel with her little dog. Everything up there was damp and mouldy. I can go no further with this description because it makes me freak out, except to say that I believe that little dog had vomited up there and she hadn't noticed. Let me just say there were nine more huge garbage bags full of blankets and stuff that were taken to the dump. A week or so later, we brought my mother home for the day--she had arranged to give the motorhome (a 1993 model with 113,000 miles on it) to a friend, who was thrilled to have it. The friend was coming over with a mechanic friend who would look at the battery, run to town and buy a new one, and they would drive it away. My mother wanted to go in the camper before they left though--we were scared that she would be upset to find everything moved out and proceed to ask us about each and every item and it's present location, which would have been difficult to answer. And we didn't want to say how much had been ruined by dampness and thrown away. Well, she made no comment at all and didn't seem to notice or be that impressed with it's new cleanliness.

She did, however, at one point, look at a certain pocket in one of the walls, go directly there, and pick out a perfect, still sealed, bottle of scotch. I found myself deeply concerned about the condition of that scotch, having spent two scorching summers and at least one freezing winter in that pocket. There was no telling how long it had been there. It had cost 13.00 at one time, but there was no dollar sign or peso sign to indicate what kind of money had been used to purchase it; it read "duty free" on the price label. I felt it should be opened immediately and smelled. Possibly sipped.

And then I felt a longing for my old AA meeting. I didn't sip it. Fortunately I was still able to think ahead to the agony of the morning after if I were to do such a thing, and the fascination with the bottle went away.

I have some magic pills that I take for my IBS. They block an enzyme or something that keeps my intestine twisting and turning long after that action is no longer needed. When I first got them, I simply carried them with me, the pain having become more manageable because of the knowledge that I had something to help me if it got unbearable. I avoided taking them until I had a really awful bout going on. Because I know how I am--they have a warning on the label about causing drowsiness. I love drowsiness. Most importantly than that to me, I didn't want to become immune to their therapeutic effect. The first time I took one was on the first Sunday after 9-11--a day I woke up unable to cope. I wasn't attending church at the time, but wanted to go to a service somewhere because if I didn't, I didn't know how I would get from that moment to the next. However, my intestinal problem that day made even getting dressed impossible. But I got dressed anyway, and took a pill, for the first time since I'd gotten them a couple of months previously.

I had no particular church to go to, so I went to the chapel in the hospital where I work where they hold regular services as well as being available as a quiet refuge for patients and their families. As I was driving there, I suddenly became aware that my abdominal area was for the first time in memory not clenched and painful. I was still heartbroken, frightened, and hopeless. But pain free.

I forgot that this lack of pain was the result of that pill. I became filled with ambitions for the future--I would paint those spots on that wall where I'd removed shelf brackets that I kept forgetting about until company came. I would create a new flower garden in that awkward spot in the yard. I would get a boyfriend--why had I let my life become so isolated? I would travel. I would paint the entire house and experiment with oils on canvas--or left over housepaint on canvas and rocks, for that matter. I would start running again, never mind that my feet and toes cramped and became impossibly painful after an hour at the mall. There was a whole life I needed to experience.

The next day I remembered all that enthusiasm with fondness, but was reminded of the reason why my life is so limited. However, it was good to know that on the impossible days, there was a pill. I only used them occasionally.

I am now taking three a day. They still work, but for shorter and shorter periods.

I take them in advance of the pain because of the fearful anticipation of the pain to come.

This is why people are addicts.

It was not a good day yesterday, to go see my mother. I had encouraged her to start using her cell phone again, and call me occasionally during the week to let me know how she was. Because she was spending her time in her room plotting and planning how to return to her home. If I didn't turn on her television, it wouldn't occur to her to do it. I was filled with bitterness toward my sisters, who had not contacted her since the week before, when one agreed to go see her only if I was going because she didn't want the responsibility of entertaining my mother by herself. I'm bitter because they don't really seem to care. If they're not there, they apparently don't really worry about the whole situation. So that leaves me with all the worrying to do myself. I must worry and feel the bad feelings doubletime because they won't do their share. This is not a choice I make--if I could stop caring, I would. But underneath my concern and care is my still seething resentment against an uncaring mother who's idea of showing me how much she loves me is to repeat the story of how many of her female friends wanted her to give me to them after my birth but when forced to nurse me because of my screaming, she was then unable to give me up.

While I'm driving there, I realize this is not a good day to go. If I could convince myself to keep my mouth shut, that would be a good plan. However, I know from experience I cannot do that, and she's expecting me there, so I go forward with dread.

My mother is mentally well now. She is even developing a short term memory. It used to be impossible to cook at her house. If one needs a utensil, for instance, a whisk. You look up, there it is hanging from a hook on the pot rack. However, there are three or four other little things hanging on the same hook which will fall on the head, or stab you in the heart if you don't remove them first. If your hands are full or if the pan is boiling and needs to be held off the heat while you reach for that utensil, well, too bad. Put everything down. Turn off heat. Carefully remove the other items before finally being able to remove the whisk. However, there is no place to put the other items you removed to get to the whisk. Now what little counterspace there was is full of detritus which is only in your way. Multiply this by every simple task you might find the need to do at her house--there will be this type of an impediment in whatever it is. In the past weeks, my daughters and sisters and I have rearranged things to make it possible to live and function there a little easier. Yesterday my mother looked around and noticed the changes and asked the whereabouts of all the things we'd moved, removed, or fixed.

I realize now it was not a kindness to keep taking her there, where she would spend hours looking at every outfit in the closet. Or out the window, counting the ducks. Or creeping through her teeny, very slanty, sloping garden where even an able bodied young person is challenged to keep their balance. And she would cry a little, from joy at being there, from heartbreak at having to leave there. She wants to live there now until she dies. Alone. With maybe a nurse stopping in once a day. That is impossible. But she is so well at this moment she can't believe she will be sick again. She doesn't remember that right after the stroke, she was taken from the nursing home back to ICU several times because of heart crises. Of course she doesn't remember that, she was out of her mind at those times. I think she starts remembering in mid-January when she finally really started to recover and then she remembers long days of being in the nursing home needlessly, she thinks, until we finally got her out of there. At the nicer. current place, where she at first seemed pleased to be, she is now impatient to be released. She won't allow me to get her a phone installed (the cell phone doesn't work well from inside), or even bring a few dishtowels there--"too permanent!!!" she says.

So yesterday we had several conversations, minutes of silence between emotional outbursts from me--based mostly on how she's had things exactly her way for 88 years, and I have lived a life of continuous practice at accepting things I wish weren't true and I had to do it without any help or acknowledgement from her or my sisters, so now it seems to me that she could understand that now, she may have to make the best of her situation without complaint (not that I ever mastered that not complaining part). Thus came up the story again of all the people who wanted to adopt me. That's apparently the only example even she can come up with as representative of her love for me.

I realize how despicable it is for me to argue with a helpless, sick person. Even as the words come out of my mouth I realize that. If my stinky sisters would take a weekend once in awhile, I might be able to control my actions.

I must forgive her; I would probably do the same in her situation. Well, of couse, I would be the same way. I do forgive her. It's incredibly painful to have to refuse to give her what she wants (and we all know that the happier she is, the happier we get to be). The sensible thing would be to stop taking her to her house and find other activities while she's still able to do them. And I will do that. But I am out of courage today. I am hiding under the bed today. Figuratively.

Erk, I just injured myself on a Snickers bar.

It was cold and hard, and I had to bite hard and pull to break off the first piece.

Somehow there was a ricochet effect, and the bar with pointy pieces of peanuts sticking out, hit me on the lip, right at the bow part, very hard.

Now it's all red there.

What a betrayal!

I've been thinking. I've been thinking I deserve a new gold bracelet. This thought has been assaulting me way more than necessary. So many people have had horrible winters here and great losses because of it. I should give bracelet money to a charity helping them out. I did already give generously I think to the Combined Federal Campaign. Even so, I should give more.

But I bought a beautiful new gold bracelet. It's lovely. It was costy.

Then I quietly went on with my life, hoping the fates wouldn't notice what I did.

The day after I bought the bracelet, I was getting gas in preparation of driving to see my mother. I notice an egg-sized outpouching on my front tire. I remember making a very bad mistake in my car a couple of weeks ago--it was dark, and an unusually dark area between streetlights. I mistakenly took a right that I thought was a freeway entrance, but it wasn't, and by the time I realized it, I was headed over a concrete curb and it made an awful noise as the bottom of my car scraped and bumped over it. It was merely the entrance to a now-closed street--the real freeway entrance was about 50' still ahead.

So I checked the visible parts of my car, and nothing seemed amiss. At least whatever damage I'd done was invisible, I thought.

Well, now at least I know what was damaged.

I guess it could have been worse--Les Schwab happened to be right across from the service station. Had to buy a new tire, and they put it on within about 30 minutes, for $119.

There's more. I had to go way out of my way to pick up 2nd sister as her car is in the shop. We have a nice weekend visiting my mother and staying in her house overnight. The next day I went way out of my way again to drive 2nd sister to her home. Forty minutes later when I finally get home, my phone is ringing and its 2nd sister, saying she received a phonecall from my mother's security company--they told her a smoke alarm is going off at my mother's house. Sixty miles away. I call the company and ask for clarification--did the system call the fire department? The customer service person said she didn't know and didn't offer any further clarification. I call the Fire Department nearest my mother's house--they have not been summoned by the alarm system, but will go there and check it out. I have no choice but to drive immediately back to my mother's house. During the ride, the Fire Department dispatcher calls me a couple of times to tell me they can't see any smoke inside, they can see the security system panel and it's not flashing or anything, and they finally leave, knowing I'm on my way.

When I get there an hour and a half after getting home, I find there's no fire and no smoke. An hour on the phone with the security system's tech support people, I've fixed the problem--it was never quite right after we changed the batteries in the smoke alarm--although it seemed to work, it always showed a fault in the display window and we couldn't figure out how to fix it. The security company did mail us my mother's password after I sent them a copy of the durable power of attorney. But until this phone call, I didn't think to have them guide me through changing the passcode (the numerical sequence). Since my mother always used just the remote to turn it on and off, she had no memory of the passcode even existing. Changing the code finally cleared the fault.

Yesterday the streets were very slick. The freeway was completely blocked and almost at a standstill. I took an exit that I thought would allow me to enter my military post from another direction. Well, I was mistaken, and had entered a neighboring Air Force base that didn't seem to connect with my Army base in anyway (it does actually but I sure couldn't find the connecting road), and it took me forever to find my way out of there, and back onto the freeway where I then humbly sat in traffic waiting my turn to move ahead two feet at a time. One hour late for work. One nearly broken bladder.

I hope I've finished paying the karma record-keepers for that darned bracelet. It's not nearly as pretty as it seemed when I bought it.

Well, at last, I will try to put down a little status report on current events here. We sort of ignored Thanksgiving and Christmas--they seemed obscene in the face of this and my Christmas shopping consisted of going late one night to a huge store and buying gift cards for everyone. For about eight days now, my mother has continued in a state of relative good health and strength. Before that, and since November 8, she would spend about three days in the rehab center (oh, alright!! it's a nursing home!! but I just can't stand that!! And they DO do rehab there). Then some crisis would occur--erratic heartbeat too slow or too fast, once she turned yellow, swollen feet although she was flat on her back most of the time (and then fluid also built up around her heart and lungs); breathing difficulty; fever of unknown origin). Anyway it worked out about three days in rehab ctr, three or four days in ICU, back to rehab ctr, back to ICU, and on and on). After the stay where they removed all the fluid, she had a several day period of absolute, bed-ridden weakness, and I really thought she could not recover, but she did revive, to her current state. She later told us her doctor asked her, "Mrs. C., do you think you're going to die." And she said "Well, yes." And he said, "Well, I don't think you are just yet." Now we don't know if he really said that or if that is something she dreamed, but whatever, it did something.

So recently, when I arrive there, my mother has been quite well. She has strength but not much balance. She and I misbehave in that when she has to use the bathroom, I walk with her, providing the balance part, and take her when she wants to go, instead of her having to wait until the staff has time to take her. I long to walk the halls with her, with a walker, and build her strength even more, but she is naughty with the walker as well in that she wants no part of it--it's not stylish enough for her, and she prefers to wave to others and signal left and right while she's using it, rather than keep her hands on the proper handholds like she should. So they keep telling me we can't use one of the walkers. I bought her several large-print crossword puzzle books in hopes she would enjoy trying to read again. However, she just doesn't, but prefers to play around in her very active imagination that tells her that when it's time to go to sleep at night, for some reason, "they" take her to places unfamiliar and leave her there (along with several other unfortunate patients), and they just get so tired, and wonder why they can't just go to bed. She has been, in her mind, on several outings, once on a boat trip down her beloved Sound, which would have been enjoyable except for the fact that she couldn't get anyone to take her home again after she was so tired, and really, she needs me to give her some cash so she can pay someone to take her home at times like that. Although the building is a one-story affair, she is convinced that she is taken upstairs and downstairs to different activities, and is still sometimes surprised to look around her room and see that the bathroom she uses is right across the room--she becomes disoriented and forgets that it is attached there. And we won't even talk about the scandalous parties that go on there among the staff, at least according to my mother. I remain of the opinion that once the patients are in bed at night, all the staff wants to do is sit down, much like mothers of young children. But my mother disputes this.

It is interesting and wierd about which parts of her personality remain quite unchanged. Her unfailing politeness and propriety in front of strangers--even at the worst of times she maintains that. Her sense of play, which leads her to dance with the attendant who is walking her from one place to another, and so they foxtrot or waltz to whatever destination. She can still be very funny; when we explained that we just didn't see how she could live alone at her house because of her tippiness, she said "I've never once fallen down those stairs. I've fallen up them, but never down." We have lovely family pictures of her laughing with one of us--to look at the pictures taken during our visits to her hospital-bed, you would never think she is sick. However, she suffers from delusions, and there have been times when she could not hear us over the voices and visions of people and things that were not there. Although it has been at least a couple of weeks since that happened.

Yesterday, she was calm and wanted, for the first time, to sit by her window and look outside, at a meager view of parking lot and trees, and snowy yards a few blocks away. Until now, I had the feeling she wasn't seeing anything outside a distance of a few feet. As she sat there looking out, I ached with sympathy that she couldn't be looking out of her own windows, where she is familiar with every bird that visits.

First sister has reverted to evil bitch and is seldom seen but at least there was no verbal explosion leading up to this; she simply doesn't come there much. Second sister and I are there as much as we can be, considering the capricious weather that seems to dump snow and ice just there, in the vicinity of this rehab center and my mother's home. She has many friends there, who stop by almost daily, at least for a few minutes.

I remember watching Margaret Cho's first comedy act, laughing at her depictions of her mother. And as it went on, thinking, hmmmmm, that's funny but she's really abnormally obsessed with her mother. And although I now occasionally hear her name, I haven't seen any more of her really, talking about things other than her mother. Oh wait, I do remember vaguely, seeing her dressed in leather--oh, it's coming back now. She was talking about dating, and her dating life sounded alarmingly like mine when I did that, which I don't anymore. Then that particular schtick was picked up and done better by Kathy Griffin (whom I love unreservedly and feel she should be on 24/7). It all boiled down to Margaret (or Kathy?) enduring a first date dinner and the awkward chore of creating getting-acquainted chat, sensing the male half is only focused on his hoped-for end result of the night with this female person who he is not all that into, and she finally screeches "JUST STICK IT IN!"

Oh, I've become lost in the garbage in my mind again.

Nggggaaaahhhhh. Brain scrub. Scrub, scrub, scrub.

Continue.

My point is, poor Margaret. I'm not sure she had a life outside of the one between her and her mother. Or, at least, the influence and presence of her mother far outweighed anything else trying to become a part of her life.

What if I give up my job (who, face it, is the family I created when my own family didn't have time for me), and live with her at her home. No one (even two of her friends who did just that with their mothers) has asked any of us daughters about that. Even at her sickest moments, she has not asked that herself. She does make it clear she wants to return to her home. For about the same cost of an assisted living place, we could hire round-the-clock companionship, but she is isolated out there and it's hard to trust strangers that much. Even she feels uneasy about that.

Much is unsettled and still frightening. As I write about it, all I want to do is lay down on the couch and watch something totally engrossing (Dexter on Showtime is doing nicely).

It keeps me from screaming.

My sisters and I are trying in a most unusual way for us to come together and work together as we care for our mother.

Our mother is in a rehab center trying to "rehab" to a point where she can be released to assisted living.

Meanwhile, since each of us lives about 60 miles away from her, each in different directions, we have made her home our operations center, since it is also close to the rehab center. 2nd sister and I spent an entire week there, going to see her each day. I generally wake up there at ungodly hours dying for a cigarette, worrying about the huge tasks in front of us, and tossing and turning. One morning my room seemed quite light when I woke up, so I stumbled quietly downstairs thinking I would start the coffee, put my clothes on, and stand on the deck with a cigarette. I always load the coffee pot at night because pushing the start button on the pot is about the only thing I'm really capable of until I've had several cups of said coffee. lmagine my surprise when I discover it was not dawn, but merely the light emanating from an unusually bright moon, and it was actually about 2:15 a.m. The coffee was done, but I went back to bed instead of having any, and when we got up for real, we had to heat each cup in the microwave (coffee pot shuts off automatically after about an hour--a feature I have a whole new appreciation for).

On Thursday, we woke up to very little water pressure. I know that my mother and about 10 other houses are on a private water system, and therefore had no idea of who to call. I found a list of the members on that water system, but it was 10 years old, and nobody on the list except my mother lives there year-round. Sister and I got dressed and decided to walk down the street hoping one of the other houses had occupants. Third house DID, and a guy met us at the door saying "Got no water?" Luckily he was one of the members of that water company and knew who to call and was about to "walk up the line" to see if he could find a break. This was great--a man was in the vicinity, taking care of things.

Guess what you miss most when the water goes out. It's not a nice drink of cold water; it is the power to flush. This is another circumstance of life situation that will instantly cure bashful bowel syndrome. Luckily, 20' or so away from my mother's deck there is a fresh water stream that tumbles down the hill, onto the beach and into the salt water sound. Also lucky, I had a big bucket in my car that I'd used to hold the bouquet I'd taken to my mom the day before. And we found another smaller bucket in my mother's laundry room. Also lucky, the tide was out so we could get to the stream. Unluckily, to earn a trip to the bathroom, one had first to fetch the bucket of water. At times like this, one thanks the universe for any small favors, and our bucket brigade worked well, and the tide was always out when we needed it to be. After a trip to the local Walmart where we stocked up on bottled water, my daughter and grandchildren arrived that evening, and we all spent the night and had a great time actually. And we all returned to our homes late Sunday after visiting with my mother (make-up-less and stinky because of no showers).

It's not easy to get repair people out in that area, so the water system was not fixed until this last Saturday morning, 9 days after it went down. We stayed there again this last Saturday and Sunday so we could visit my mom both days.