How I Got Here

bingo

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:48:39 GMT

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.

Anyhoo . . . will spend today with my daughter and her family. Then back to work on Monday--it always takes me a day or two to remember that stuff there is important. Nothing much gets done until I read all the e-mails that have accumulated in my absence and find that I have several suspense items that are late. Ugghh.

by Lee Teter

Sat, 24 May 2008 17:28:50 GMT

Leonardo DiCaprio

Tue, 20 May 2008 02:10:10 GMT

My daughter is talking to me again. We're fine. As long as we're fine I don't care about anything else.

I watched "The Departed" yesterday, not for the first time. It's one of those movies you can watch a dozen times and get something more out of it each time.

I'm afraid I'm in love with Leonardo now. Matt Damon's no slouch himself, and to me it just shows how excellent Leonardo is that at the end of it all, he's the one who made the biggest impression.

dreams of Tucson

Sun, 18 May 2008 15:21:41 GMT

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.

I'm going to detail my car today. And vacuum and do laundry and grocery shopping, until I'm too tired to chase that wagon.

Sister Mary Katherine enters the Monestary of Silence

Fri, 09 May 2008 01:15:13 GMT

The Priest said, 'Sister, this is a silent monastery. You are welcome here as long as you like, but you may not speak until directed to do so.

Sister Mary Katherine lived in the monastery for 5 years before the Priest said to her, 'Sister Mary Katherine, you have been here for 5 years. You may speak two words.'

Sister Mary Katherine said,'Hard bed.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' the Priest said, 'We will get you a better bed.'

After another 5 years, Sister Mary Katherine was summoned by the Priest. 'You may say another two words, Sister Mary Katherine.'

'Cold food,' said Sister Mary Katherine, and the Priest assured her that the food would be better in the future.

On her 15th anniversary at the monastery, the Priest again called Sister Mary Katherine into his office. 'You may say two words today.'

'I quit,' said Sister Mary Katherine.

'It's probably best,' said the Priest,'You've done nothing but bitch since you got here.'

Six Unspectacular Things about me

Sun, 04 May 2008 16:36:16 GMT

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.

they're charging for air now

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:36:54 GMT

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.

the drip

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:34:12 GMT

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.

I'm happily anticipating finally getting to remove that carpet though. Fun. Really.

lessons

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:06:12 GMT

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.

Or I would except that I have to go to the grocery store with a list that reads "everything". And a to-do list at home that should also read that way. In comparison, this sounds like a fun day.

what's happening now

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:22:05 GMT

Unlike my sisters and other people who phone me, I will say right at the beginning--my mother is okay. They don't get around to saying that until I have listened to them ummmmm and ahhhhhh for an eternity waiting for them to get to the point.

On or about January 25, the security system fixer guy FINALLY actually showed up at my mother's house to fix the damn thing, which kept giving false smoke detector signals, resulting in the security company phoning my sister to tell her that, which necessitated her calling me, which then sometimes required me (well, only once actually) to drive the 60 miles out there to see is the house really burning or is it just the fault doing it's thing. The repairman seems to have fixed it good.

Then on about February 4, sister #1 arrived at the house to find a small window facing the street had been broken, there was broken garden pottery all over the parking area, and a 6’ dwarf plum tree was uprooted, and now laying all over the steps that lead down to the front door. There was a note from the State Patrol stating there had been a hit and run incident--the driver was caught and being investigated. Luckily my son-in-law and daughter arrived soon after my sister (they were there to continue trying to declutter the house a bit before my mom moved back in)—so they added the yard clean-up to their chores that day--had to be done before they could even enter the house. I couldn't go that day because I was home with the worst cold ever trying to get rid of it before the next weekend when I would be on mother-duty for the first time after bringing her home. A couple of days later, the local PUD phoned the house with the name and number of an insurance company to which we should submit repair estimates for the landscaping and broken window (it's more than broken glass--the entire frame of the window is bent and broken in places). So now, the security of the place isn't so good--I can only hope it doesn't occur to a potential thief to pry the plywood off the window and enter that way. It'll be at least two more weeks before a repairman can get the window (a nonstandard size) made and installed.

So on February 6, Sister #1 finally sprung my mom from the rehab center and took her home. I went over on weekends, and sister #1 did Wed-Fri. Hired ladies came in for Sunday night through Wednesday am, at a huge cost. They are not medically trained--they were not allowed to take medications from bottles and give them to my mother--instead we (somehow it turned out to be me, only me) had to sort her meds into separate containers for each day so they could simply give them to her at the correct time each day and evening. There were two pills that we could give her only after we determined that her BP and pulse were not already too low/slow. We had a portable BP machine that gave a digital readout. So we (and the hired ladies) obediently did that. I now realize that if her blood pressure and pulse HAD read low, the ladies wouldn't have known which pills not to give because they were all together in a pile in a seven-day pill box if you get the picture.

Last Monday (a rented lady day), in spite of two BP readings that were near normal, the bottom fell out of my mom's BP and pulse, and her "lady" for that day called 911. I drove over there to the ICU, and as the hours went by she became less and less responsive. Again I thought "Well, that's the end of her intellect,"--she didn't recognize me or even know I was there. Two days later the ICU nurse phoned my sister telling her "Well, you're mother's up, walking, talking and feeling fine. Physical therapy has checked her out and she's ready to go home." I suppose the nurse thought that was good news for us--and it was in a way, but we were not prepared because by then her doc had told us we couldn't take care of her at home anymore because her condition just fluctuated too fast and severely--and the hospital's social services person had not yet contacted us to work out the discharge plan. So we didn't know what to do with her. We were afraid of her as if she might deflate or blow up in front of us and we just don't want that. Obviously our BP machine was inaccurate, and the doc told us basically my mom was over-medicated.

Luckily there was a vacancy at a very beautiful assisted living place right near the hospital--my sisters and I checked it out a few weeks ago before deciding to take care of my mom in her own home. It is so nice, sisters and I would love to live there. The dining room there looks like a costy restaurant, and they order from a menu--no corned beef hash nights there. It costs a little less per month than the hired ladies with no medical training. She has her own studio apartment and lives quite independently except that the nursing staff on site at all times checks her weight daily (to watch for fluid retention around her heart) and her BP and pulse before giving her the meds. And the doc removed the med that he suspects bottomed her out from the list of stuff she takes now. There are daily activities, the residents are taken on shopping trips, doctor appointments, etc., all this is done by employees of the facility.

I blithely reported to people interested in my mom's condition that her doc told us she was over-medicated. Sudden e-mail silence from such people. And 1st sister tells me now, a couple weeks after the incident, there's a rumor in that area among my mother's friends that it's possible we tried to kill her. But we just gave her the meds as prescribed by the doctor. Now if I had been with her that day, I would have probably put her to bed with her feet elevated and I bet she would have woken up the next morning feeling fine. But the rented lady (and I don't blame her) feared she was expiring right then and sent her to the hospital.

Here's what happens when my mom goes to the hospital. She goes in able to speak and reason pretty well. As the hours go by and they medicate her with versed to hook up the external pacemaker (a big lead goes through the chest wall to the heart thus they must sedate to do that very painful insertion). She, who has always been a very cheap drunk--meaning she can't and never could handle liquor and is the same with any kind of sedative, becomes unable to talk and goes practically comatose except she's also halucinating, etc.

But, like I said, all is well at this moment. I can't say she's terribly happy about being there, although she enjoys manicure day and was first in line for that. As she continues to feel okay, she's gotten crabby and wants to know, again, why she can't have control of her money. Here's how that goes--I sweetly as possible remind her that she can't remember things and is all day asking me "What day is it; where are my panties, what day is it, did you give me my medications, what day is it." So we are afraid she might lose her debit card or bank info, and some thief might clean her out financially. Then I give her some cash, and she's somewhat satisfied for awhile.

So we are already off the hook. We thought it was working well until she almost died on us.

I'm going to see her tomorrow for the first time since she's been in this facility. I'm scared, because my sisters helped her move in (giving me last weekend off to attend my granddaughter's birthday celebration 80 miles in the other direction) and they report that she's cranky.

the adventure continues . . .

ouch

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 03:23:14 GMT

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 hope the mark is gone by tomorrow.

the plan

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 02:56:27 GMT

Well, first I have to cry about Heath Ledger. It was Jake I fell in love with during the movie, but Ennis was so real, so heartbreaking--it's that character that sticks in my memory. I've known several men like that; my husband was like that. And I am the female version. It's hard to understand how such a young person could get that role down. What a loss!

I've had several very kind comments about our efforts concerning my mom. No one is more surprised than me that I'm in no way ready to let her go.

She has improved so much. We are taking her home on 6 February if things continue as they are. We're very excited about this--one minute I'm happy about it, the next minute I'm scared, wondering if we can handle it. At this time, she's back to normal physically, but will use a walker from now on. Her reduced vision is permanent. Her heart has worsened during these past weeks--if she were younger, they would do surgery, but her age makes that impossible. So, until it gives out, we hope to be able to keep her at home. One of us will be with her at all times; we will have to hire a couple of people to fill in 2nd sister's share. The person working with me to make this happen is, much to my surprise, 1st sister, better known here in the past as Evil Bitch. I must now rename her ex-Evil Bitch, or currently at least, Not Being Evil Person at this particular time.

I'd like to say my sisters and I have brought this about through our maturity and willingness to step up to the plate.

That's not exactly true. .

The tricky thing here is to deal with each other without reverting to childhood patterns (hands around throats, smacking, or falling to the floor while screaming). We haven't done any of that yet, but I fear it may come at some point.

I've always preferred 2nd sister to 1st. In spite of the awful stuff she did to me as a child, I always knew she loved me. Sometimes though, 2nd sister will do something so blatantly nonsensical and/or wrong that it makes me incredulous. When I ask her how/why she could do such a thing—she is capable of leaving that question hanging in the air and just looking back at me with a blameless look on her face, and not saying anything either in defense of or in explanation of whatever stupid or just plain wrong thing she did. She displays no embarrassment, shame, or empathy—it would appear that she has no feelings at all about doing something that would cause a normal person of normal intelligence and EQ to feel embarrassment or shame. And she can do that as long as you can stand there with your astonishment all over your face. But she does not want to be a part of our plan to care for my mom at her home. If she would be a part of the plan, none of us would have to spend more than three nights a week at my mom's house and it would be easy. But she won't, and so we have hired an agency to send a caregiver for at least three overnights a week. I am sure we could guilt and coax 2nd sister to agree to participate, but that does no good with her, she simply wouldn't show up. So, we'll do it without her.

I wouldn't mind having the ability to stand and look unperturbed when accused. All anybody has to do when interrogating me is stop talking and I will grow uncomfortable with the silence and babble out everything concerning the current situation plus whatever other situation that even distantly resembles it and eventually croak out that, yes, it is all probably my fault, whatever it is. I hope I am never arrested or called into court--I cannot give one word answers to anything. Even if I've run out of pertinent info, I helplessly go on talking, unless interrupted or throttled.

This is our last week of freedom. I will try to sleep doubletime

My mother is totally grateful about this. {NOTE: This is the first time in my mother's life she wasn't able to run away from something bad. One morning while my mother was not in the room, her roommate told us she woke up crying, saying her childen had put her there because she'd been so mean to them. Roommate comforted her saying "Now _______________, you've never done anything mean in your life," but 2nd sister and I looked at each other with "whoa" in our eyes}. That was after 1st sister and I'd already started this plan and were talking with the social services staff about getting her discharged. She never once asked us to do this, and she was surprised when we brought up the plan. I have nothing but praise for the nursing home where she's been all this time. The staff there are crazy about her, and she them. But there are many helpless old people there who are beyond the ability to interact with anyone and their needs keep the staff from being as quick as they'd like to be when someone needs to go to the bathroom, for instance. My mother also likes to brush her teeth for several minutes and primp in front of a mirror. She likes to pick out her own clothes. Restraints of any kind are not allowed by law, but there is a handy-dandy little button that is attached to the pillow, and if the patient gets up to take care of the problem herself, it sets off an alarm. She really hates that alarm and gets so offended when it goes off. I wanna get her out of there before she loses that gumption.

But once we get her home, I want her to become docile and obedient.

I may have to take someone else's mother home if I'm really expecting that.

Wish us luck.

karma's a bitch

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 03:32:45 GMT

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.

how it is now

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:14:22 GMT

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.

funny awful things

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 06:31:47 GMT

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.

This crisis caught us all with hair at the point of really needing professional help. You know that bad hair trumps every other problem in the world. For instance, 2nd sister phoned me to remind me to do something, and I said "I can't add another note to myself to my giant briefcase because if I do, it WILL be wet here and not just with water!" [I don't exactly know what I mean by this--I just feel if I am asked to remember one more thing I will explode, and considering our recent water problem, it seemed to fit]. "I'm going to get a haircut if I have to chop off my head and send it to the hairdresser separately!" So this Saturday I drove out of my way a bit to get gas at the grocery where I get a ten cent discount on every gallon before I go to my hair appointment. I just got out of my car to pump when the clerk spoke over the loudspeaker that they weren't available at that moment because a huge truck was a couple of pumps over filling the station's tanks. So I had to go to a strange station where not only did I not get a discount, they charged me extra to use my debit card. Then when I tried to get the receipt, the little kiosk computer told me to use a different unit. I'm boiling now, so I stomp to another one where a guy is already trying to get his receipt. He apparently finishes, and I step up and get my receipt. He asked me how I did it, and I explained how you punch your pump number, and then "receipt." I said "just read the screen and it tells you what to do." He said "Easy for YOU to say; I can't see on these things." And I notice that although I had been thinking he was an old codger, he was actually quite cute. But I laughed and said, I know, I can't hardly see them either. And drove away, probably, from the man destined to be the current love of my life and I just had no time for it now.

My hair appointment was at 10 a.m., for a cut, and I raced to the little town where my hairdresser's shop is, feeling guilty every moment I wasn't on the road toward my mom. Well, just at the point where I should drive into the small town, it appears that every person who lives there is in the street, blocking the way for a Santa parade that was about to begin. By this time, I'm used to nothing going right, so I just asked the guy directing traffic how to get to the beauty shop. He made the whole detour route sound very easy. It was not. I can find my way around any city, but the countryside is out of the question. I phoned my hairdresser and she talked me down, and together with me telling her what I was seeing, I eventually got to her shop, 2 minutes early! She was delighted--there was no perm left and she joyfully went about giving me "a cute haircut." It IS cute; I love it. She declined my invitation to come live with me though and do it for me every morning. It will be interesting to see what it does when I "do" it, what with a cowlick on the back that usually looks, I just realized, as if someone struck me with a tomahawk and left a big scar that no hair will grow on.

I was out of there in 30 minutes, and drove on to the Reservation where I buy cigarettes. There was a long waiting line (that has never happened before). So, anxiety building, I waited and made my purchase. Then I sailed out of there with nothing on my mind but getting to the rehab center. Five minutes later I'm pulled over to the side of the road, waiting for a cop to come up to my window after he caught me doing 61 in a 35. There is no reason for that country road to be 35 MPH but there it is. $113. I'm not even mad. It brought me to my senses. I ain't happy but I'm aware $113 is not too big a price to pay to stop freaking out and actually read the road signs instead of searching in my briefcase for an apple.

There was snow in the forecast, and it started just as I arrived at the rehab center. My daughter and her husband arrived later with granddaughter in tow, as we planned to remove some of the more burglar-attracting items from my mom's house. We had a nice visit with my mom and afterward drove the country roads to her house, which were covered with slippery, bumpy, rutted snow. When we enter the house, and shut off the security system, it speaks an extra few words to us--battery low, check system. Oh great. We remove the batteries from the smoke detectors with plans to purchase new ones at the nearby 7-11 type store where they will probably cost a million bucks a piece. We drive again through the treacherous snowy roads to the store and in fact they had none of the right sizes. When we get back the alarm is making a funny sound and the security company calls us on the phone and we have a very long conversation explaining that we are not burglars and luckily I am able to tell them my mother's last 4 of the SSN, and they tell us what to do. My mother can't hear on the phone and it is doubtful anyway that she would remember her password and code, so the company agrees to mail us the batteries and her code info for the system in five days. We reinstalled the old batteries to get it to stop alarming, and it did allow us to set the alarm when we left the place today.

The roads remained awful, and we drove back to the rehab center at about 15 MPH passing several cars that had gone into the ditch. I had to drive on, afraid I wouldn't be able to get started again if I stopped, and even if I did stop, there was nothing I could have done for them. My son-in-law DID stop and help people, with his giant diesel pick-up, as did another guy in a pick-up behind me. And we visited for a couple hours only with my mom. Two miles out of that town, the roads were clear, and it was raining. I needed gas again, so went to my discount place and it was working today, but it wouldn't take my debit card so I had to go to the clerk in the window to complete the action. I wanted to go in and get ice cream because I feel I certainly deserved it, but honestly I could not face one more opportunity for frustration so I just came home.

Now we are expecting tons of rain. Second sister will spend this week at my mom's house, while I have to go back to work.

This is the longest period in my life that I have not been bored. Far from it. Boredom is another thing that I will never complain about again. If I ever get it back again.

the other shoe dropped

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 06:07:54 GMT

Well, I don’t mean to go all spooky seeing into the future on you guys, but one hour after I posted the last message about my mother she phoned me from the ER in her home town about 60 miles away. She had been at Walmart and suddenly felt something she can’t describe except as just awful, and went blind in her left eye. She did not fall. But she asked someone in the store to phone 911, and she was then taken to the local community hospital. When she phoned me, about 9:30 p.m., they were about to take her to a room in the ICU. I grabbed everything, called my 2^nd sister and told her I was picking her up on the way, and we were going to the hospital. It was midnight by the time we got there.

A CT scan was done right away--showed nothing; however, the results of a stroke usually show up by CT scan about three days after the event. Her congestive heart failure has worsened into atrial fibrillation, so she has (and has had for some time) a very irregular heart beat. When one develops that, one’s heart tends to “throw clots,” and that’s what the doc thinks happened.

My mother was totally lucid, and determinedly holding on to the diagnosis of “no stroke.” Fear of a stroke has always been a fear of hers (and everyone‘s, of course).

As the days have passed, another CT was done, and the diagnosis became clear, showing she did have a stroke. She is weak all over, but not paralyzed. The main thing it did is destroy the vision in her left eye--this will not return as it is the part of the brain that interprets the vision that is injured forever, not the eye itself.

Her deafness profoundly affected their ability to evaluate her, but once they realized she was deaf, they worked with that. She can hear you if you get right next to her face on the right side, and speak into her ear. However, there is the risk that you will be smooched when you do that, so it can be awkward.

The vision loss is very strange--if one is standing in front of her just slightly left of center, she simply does not know you are there. While brushing her teeth at the sink in her room, she complained there was no hot water there and really cold water hurts her teeth. Well, of course there IS hot water there, but the left handle is not within the field of vision that remains. She has had to learn to look left. She is doing better with that now.

Of course, the day after this happened, her own doctor had to go on a business trip, so the physician covering for him dealt with us. He was an adorably cute Asian man. Her own doctor is a nice man but so wishy-washy with his info that after he finishes talking to us we realize we still don’t know what’s going on. Dr. Asian was very matter of fact--that vision is gone; of course she cannot drive; this condition is not necessarily life threatening, but definitely life changing. We asked him to tell our mother about the driving thing--he smiled cutely and said “No, that’s YOU’RE job; I’m leaving the room now.” However, before he could leave, my mother (who was sitting there in her bed trying as always to hear), asked him what had happened and he told her and said as kindly as he could that she could not drive anymore. My sisters and I were there, and most of the local grandchildren. My mother cried and it was heartbreaking--although we know she should have stopped driving years ago, but the loss of her freedom--we could not help but know how that will feel when it happens to us. For the next few days whenever she was alone with one of us, she would say something like “Do you REALLY think I can’t see well enough to drive?” Once she said, “You know, you’d think I’d notice that, but it seems to me I can see fine.”

She has stopped asking that. Her remaining vision seemed very poor--she could not read her get well cards at first (couldn’t read anything, although she pored over whatever it was for long minutes at a time before setting it down). Tonight she was able to read a few words on a card. I pray she will still be able to recover her reading abilities.

She was in ICU three days where the care was wonderful; then one day in a step-down room; out the next day to a rehab center. One day this week she was terribly disoriented, but since then she’s been mentally very good--when one remembers loss of short-term memory is common after a stroke, she’s doing well.

Second sister spent the first week at my mother’s house which is near the hospital, and spent each day at the hospital with her; I’m doing this week. I have to go back to work at least for a few days next week.

I have a new respect for people who work in nursing homes (which is what a rehab center has turned out to be). I have a new fondness for old people who in beds or in wheelchairs tell about their lives in great detail, speaking about long dead husbands, and long since grown up children as if it’s all happening now. I’ve begun to care about a crippled old feller who wears a helmet and walks with his walker all day, and is obviously brain-damaged, but can throw his head back and sing in perfect tune with the church groups who come sing here on Sundays. I love the church groups who come here. I love that there is a huge great dane “puppy” who weighs 140 lbs who accompanies the administrator to work everyday and visits with the residents. And that first sister was allowed to bring her small yappy dog in with her and he gave my mother a moment of total joy while he lay there with her.

I have felt more brain-damaged than anyone as we were going through this. I’m so afraid of misplacing my mother’s house keys, locking myself out of her house with my car keys and cell phone inside--something like that--that I’ve been carrying a huge briefcase all over with me--my life is in there (the cell phone has been crucial); I’m trying to do her financial things (both my sisters surprisingly admit they are financially inept--yeah, it’s like when 2^nd sister would say things like “but you make the coffee so GOOD,” so you get up and do it. I still fall for that).

My mother’s nearly perfect will which includes durable power of attorney for all three of us has made everything quite easy once we thought of doing it--banking issues, paying bills (although most of her bills are on autopay which is also a godsend). And although she is still far from dead, since it became effective when it was signed a few years ago, it is working perfectly now. I’m calling her attorney and having him make me up one just like it.

It does not appear possible that she can ever return to independent life, although her intellect remains--the physical instability has not changed. So there is much more to be done. It is only the beginning of this journey.

it's all just too exciting . . . NOT

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:40:36 GMT

I had a weekend awhile back that surpassed all others in my experience, for laziness and boredom.

I spent quite a bit of time in front of the computer, just staring at the home page, but feeling as if I had come to the end of the internet as claimed in a commercial I saw quite a while ago. I couldn’t think of a single thing I wanted to look at.

I looked out the windows a lot, noting how much my lawn needed a good raking and one last mowing. The sun was even out—it was a perfect leaf-raking day. Makes a difference you can see when you’re done, and it’s not too hard—a perfect job. Didn’t do it though—I will gamble on waiting till next weekend in hopes those remaining leaves will fall, and rake it then.

So then I moved my butt to the couch, and looked through the millions of channels for anything interesting. Just a week or so ago, I signed myself up to add Showtime to my cable account.; now that the Sopranos are done, there’s no reason to have HBO anymore, but I’m hanging on to that also, just in case they come up with something I like at some point.

My telephone rang early Sunday evening, but only rang once, so I didn’t answer it. (I don’t like to talk on the phone when I’m not being paid). A familiar name showed up on the caller ID and I thought to myself "that wrong number has the same last name as some shirttail cousins I have in Oregon. But they’d never call here so it’s a wrong number." I hadn’t seen any of these people in many, many years.

Then, as I read my e-mail the next morning, I noted that I had a voicemail message waiting for me. Oh crud—it was a phonecall from those shirttail relatives. One of their wives, anyway. Asking me to call back to confirm that I am actually the person they intended to call about a sister-in-law of my mother. Oh Crap! Nobody ever calls me to announce or invite me to anything fun but they can find my unlisted phone number after 25 years of no contact, when it’s time to let my mother know that somebody died. This lady was married to my mother’s brother, who passed away several years ago.

So, with great dread I phoned the lady back this morning. It was a nice surprise though; they were actually just updating the 94-year-old SIL’s phone book and were tactfully trying to find out if my mom was still alive. I got all gushy with relief at not having to break bad news to my mom, and my comment "I’m so glad 'SIL' is doing so well," had more to do with that than relief about her good condition.

My mom is well at this moment. She’s pushing 90.

I think I’ve said before here, that she either feels 20, or 120. She lives with congestive heart failure and I think she is physically as unstable as hydrogen. A mild cold can put her at death’s door, within minutes. Well, that’s not quite true, because she never has MILD anything—she’s either up running the world, or she’s flat on her back. She had an episode a couple of weeks ago, and called her travel guide to say she couldn’t make it on the outing the next day because she wasn’t feeling well. Her travel guide made her to promise to call one of her daughters. Once in awhile she'll have the symptoms of being unable to breathe well except in certain positions, and feeling heaviness in her chest. And after she felt better the next day, she said she's always thinking like Red Fox used to say "Lucille, I'm coming!"

When she called me, I was cooking spaghetti sauce, so I gathered it up, with some noodles, and went over there (we’re about 80 miles away from each other) to spend the night. She spent that day in bed. However, the next day she was up and feeling wonderful and there was no stopping her--she fixed breakfast, and showed me everything in her closet (the amount of STUFF she has--scarey). Not for the first time, she reminded me of where important papers are, where her good jewelry is, etc. She is upfront about this, and has made every effort to keep my sisters and me knowledgeable about where the will is. The thing she seems to be most worried about is what will happen to her beloved collections (horse figurines, mermaid figurines, Betty Boop figurines, blue bottles of all shapes and sizes, pictures that she and her friends painted for a few years after their kids left home, and a billion or so books). Finally, much against my will, just so she'd feel better, I agreed to take one of the collections (the horses), promising to give them shelves and not just hide them in a box. Once a little girl visiting her house for the first time looked around in wonder and said "Every where you look, there's SOMETHING."

There goes my goal of someday having Asian simplicity in my home decor.

We actually had fun--but by the time I left, I had also promised to go on a road trip with her next April to visit some relatives in Arizona. If we do that, I'm sure it'll be fun too, but I spent the next week in a funk of fear, thinking she was going to drop dead any minute. That finally passed as she is continuing to feel well.

So, now one can see why I haven't blogged lately--I got nothin' to blog about actually. But, like always, just trying to hold my place here.

I wasn't done yet

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:29:22 GMT

P.S. I have more observations about cooking. When chopping veggies and fruits for recipes, how is it possible that one ends up with more volume of throw-away peels, seeds and cores than the food contained in its unchopped state (and an equal volume of fruit or veggie to actually go into the pot)? A cantaloupe would be a good example of this phenomenon. When I come home from the grocery store, it would look to an observer that I must eat an awful lot based on the huge bags I carry inside, but it's just that the food I buy is big--carrots, potatoes, apples, oranges, etc. Cabbages come to mind also.

MSN has done it yet AGAIN. It was behaving sluggishly yesterday and some spaces were unavailable. I see now that was probably because the IT people were fiddling with it and changing things. I'm glad I got my trauma with inviting Spaces people to be my friend out of the way a little while ago, because now when I sign into my space, I am told who has invited and who has accepted others as their friend. I don't need to know that--once again there's a party going on out there and I am not involved. But it's not even that, really--I wonder how comfy is "Nancy" now, seeing the world has been told that she invited "Robert" to be her friend. I would have liked to edit my previous entry to insert the above info on food prep but now I can't see how to do that (it wasn't that easy before--I had to delete from Spaces, edit and then repost). Now I can't even see how to delete an entry; what if I've said something really stupid that despite countless reviews I don't notice until I've posted. There must be a way to correct that; otherwise, it's just too much like real life, wouldn't you say?

IT people have always made me wonder--what's wrong with them that makes them unable to leave something as is but instead are always changing the works--and hardly ever for the better. Here's how I've gotten along so far in life: If something new and unfamiliar (and usually unpleasant) is forced upon me and there is no escaping it, I will reluctantly allow (ha) it to happen, complaining all the while, but finally come out at a place where I've accommodated it and have worked out how to live with it. In my life, fortunately, there's usually been a sufficient amount of time between such occasions for me to "deal," (although with a huge inner turmoil going on), with some amount of success and, eventually I can kind of convince myself that I can be adaptable when necessary. Oh, who am I kidding--after such things I've sometimes felt like the square peg that's been hammered and pushed into the round hole that's still too small and various lumps of me are poking out although we all pretend not to notice that. But still, I've dealt with it, haven't I?

Anyway, these Spaces techs--don't they ever take a day off?

things to do when you got nothing to do

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 18:57:43 GMT

Don't you just love toast? I only eat it about twice a year, because my toaster is in an upper cupboard because my kitchen is so tiny that it bothers me to have it on the countertop messing up the look of it all. And then, there's also the requirement to leave my perfect, still warm piece of toast, and go wave a magazine at my smoke detector until it finally stops screeching. It is totally scared of toast--even though there is no smoke, no fire, nothing going on--the only thing I can figure is that it SMELLS the toast and wants some for itself. By the time I've silenced the smoke detector, the toast is no longer perfectly ready to be margarined. The margarine must be applied to the toast at the exact right time, and cover every molecule of the bread, and be approximately 1/8" thick. I don't use real butter (although many people warn me that I might as well eat petroleum oil if I'm going to eat margarine). Butter is either too hard to spread, having to be in the refrigerator all the time, or on my countertop--again ruining the looks of my kitchen. Besides, If I leave it out so it's not hard, I always find kitty tongue prints in it. I had a beautiful Waterford crystal butter dish with lid, but it killed me that the butter actually got ON it. Who could bear to do that to Waterford? So I gave all my Waterford to my daughter to whom I also gave my china cabinet. She doesn't use it either--it's just to look at.

This butter-margarine thing is apparently genetic. We can't leave our children alone with the butter. Many times while clearing the Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner table, we'll discover the littlest there, with what's left of the butter, all slimy and shiny and looking a little shamed and nauseated by the time we find them.

I've been "on vacation" for a week, simply because I had use or lose leave, a week when nothing important was due, and was pretty fed up with the whole job thing after coming through the "end of fiscal year" alive but burnt out. Now as someone who has avoided anything numerical since first grade, I'm as surprised as anyone who knows me that I've ended up with duties that are affected by budget. It's worked out okay, really, considering that it's only required adding, subtracting, division (and here I have to pull out the calculator) and multiplication. Even so, I actually needed at least a week off for mental reasons.

Besides, I need to practice to see if I can survive retirement. I need to squeeze out two more years or so to get to exactly where I'd like to be financially before I retire. I'm also at a place where working full time is way harder than it used to be, but the thought of staying home all the time and losing contact with my main source of social life is also terrifying so I'm once again at one of those crossroads where both choices are undesirable. So I thought I would test myself to see if I could stand being unemployed.

I practiced going to the mall more often--all I was looking for was plain, smooth-knit sweaters and cardigans. Unfortunately all that was available were turtlenecks (with extremely LONG necks) and v-necks with extremely LOW v-necks under which you'd have to wear ANOTHER sweater to cover up the cleavage. I need v-necks because in a turtleneck I look (and feel) like I'm being choked. I do layer, because I still have those hot-flash moments when I must tear off upper layers only to have to pull them back on seconds later when I'm freezing again. The only perfect ones I found were cashmere and prices started at $100. So, I came home with two sundresses that can't be worn until next summer, and two pairs of shoes. No wonder I hate shopping. And now I've committed myself to hanging around until next summer.

I also needed a new swimsuit because my current favorite dissolved from the chlorine. Unfortunately I didn't realize this dissolvation until I was soaking it in clear water at home to get the chlorine out and noticed a strange discoloration which when I looked closer turned out to be where the main substance had already dissolved leaving just the webbing of the fabric there. This was conveniently in the butt area and I wonder now how long that had been going on, and how visible things were as I left the pool. Luckily I have two substitutes, because there were none available for sale at this time of year (except at a really expensive store, and combining the cost with my unwillingness to go through the dressing room thing, I left without a new one).

I went to the supermarket to buy food for recipes I wanted to try out. Why, when I'm at the supermarket, am I so certain that I won't want ice cream, cookies, candy bars, or anything bad? Why do I feel that way until after 8:00 p.m., when I'm at home kicking myself for having to resort to a PB&J to kill that desire for sugar, or thinking maybe sprinkling my hand with salt and licking it off would satisfy my desire for potato chips? The PB&J works pretty well to quiet the craving for sugar; I haven't actually tried the salt thing but I may just get that desperate soon. Maybe all this is less damaging to my physique than a Snickers (or four), but the next night I go through the same longing again.

Why does cooking require so much chopping, peeling, and cleaning up? It starts out fun but ends in a nightmare of dishwashing and wiping up that takes twice as long as the food prep.

I have discovered that peeling and slicing apples, and cooking them with a half-cup of raisins or so, plus cinnamon, smells great, tastes great, and makes one feel like one has had a piece of pie without the guilt (the sugar from the raisins seems to be enough sweetening so I don't add sugar). And since I'm way too lazy to make any kind of dough, (and way too virtuous to buy a ready-made frozen one while at the store) I think I'm onto a good invention here.

And I'm thinking I prefer winter gardening to summer gardening--the crawly things are all asleep already, and I don't have to sweat nearly as much. Less nasal allergy reaction too.

Well, back to work on Monday. I hope they've missed me as much as I've missed them.

just take this little pill here . . .

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 03:02:14 GMT

You know when prescription drugs are advertized on TV and the announcer reads the possible side effects in that speedy way of describing car or mortgage loan disclaimers? I heard one about Requip (for restless leg syndrome) yesterday, which struck terror in my heart. One of the comments was "tell your doctor if you experience severe gambling, sexual or other urges." Oh my dear sweet George Harrison, what is going on here? Maybe I should think of it as one of those serendipitous cases where a drug developed to cure one thing (like the one developed for a medical condition but found to grow hair--propecia or something) is found to do something favorable (?) in a completely unconnected condition. Maybe Requip could be used for those suffering from anhedonia, the inability to find pleasure in anything. Thus the anhedoniacs are reintroduced to a life where they will eventually have to discontinue all pleasurable practices to get out of the trouble they're gotten themselves into after succumbing to the side-effects of Requip.

Where's my bourbon!

Photo Album: December 02

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 04:43:22 GMT

December 02

view from my mom's house

the flushing brooke 002

Photo Album: Seattle

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 16:15:04 GMT

Seattle

29AUG07 001

29AUG07 016

29AUG07 019

Photo Album: Haunting Houses

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 01:44:21 GMT

Haunting Houses

in nowhere, Idaho

hawaii

who lived here?

rockhouse

stadium high school

hawaii

waterwheel at left end of house