Diary of a M.A.D. Caregiver

Beat it.

2012-02-03T00:32:00.004-08:00

I have good news, prelude to the bad news, bad news, and good news.

First the good news: My mother is thriving. She loves where she's living. Loves the attention and care she's getting. Content. Stable. Universally happy. She celebrated her 91st birthday last Monday (note the new pic). Good news.

Next, the bad news. But first, the prelude to the bad news. It seems Dad was sitting in his recliner at the ALF. The thermostat is located on the wall behind the recliner. Now picture Dad resting comfortably in his recliner, reading his Time magazine, or the newspaper. Now picture what happens when Dad, who starts to feel chilly (a common occurrence) reaches baaaaack and uuuuuup to adjust the thermostat. Do you see what happens? Do you?

Okay, let me help. See, when Dad reaches back, and up, the recliner apparently tips backward juuuuust enough so that Dad becomes hyper-reclined. As Dad told the story to my brother, "I WAS LIKE A TURTLE! YEAH, A TURTLE! (Picture Dad flailing his arms and legs around demonstrating his helpless turtle-worthy state.) But the best part of this story is how turtle-Dad was eventually rescued. It was Mom. She wheeled in, saw Dad, pressed her handy-dandy wrist call-button, the attendants came, they unreclined the recliner, and Dad, and everything else returned to normal. End of prelude to the bad news.

And now the bad news. Briefly--Dad contracted pneumonia a little over a week ago, then, a few days later, fell at 3am on his way to the bathroom, and was ultimately admitted to the hospital last Tuesday. Everything you've heard about how pneumonia affects the elderly is true. My brother said Dad could barely walk on his own, could barely say more than, "I'm so weak..." Family phone calls were made, fears were silently shared, current airfares to San Diego were researched, adjustments to the weekly planner were contemplated.

The thing is, my Dad is not like any other 95 year old on the planet. (Does everybody say that about their 90something year old parent?) More than a few people, who know Dad, responded to the news of his hospitalization with generally the same thing, "He'll beat it." Which brings me to the good news.

Look at the photo at the top of the blog. That was Dad this morning--bounced back from pneumonia, and a fall, eating well, and on the road to recovery.

A Two Page Letter to Claude Horan

2012-01-24T18:48:00.000-08:00

My father is an amazing man, not so much because of the great things he has accomplished, but perhaps more so because of the little things, the moments when his undaunted spirit for life comes to the surface, reminding me how unique my dad really is.

Over sixty years ago, Dad spent a considerable amount of time with the great ceramics master, Claude "Duke" Horan. If I recall correctly, Dad studied with Horan both in LA and in Hawaii. (I found a picture of Horan in his studio in Hawaii. It's the picture shown above.) Several pieces by Horan and his of student Harue Oyama dotted the bookshelves and patios of every home our family lived in. When Mom and Dad moved to Carlsbad last year, they took all of the Horan and Oyama pieces with them, except for a blue plate with a fish design on the inside, signed "Harue Oyama, Hawaii." It's the plate shown at the top here.

My brother called today and shared with me that many residents and staff have become enthralled with Dad's stories about his photographs and ceramic pieces. (No surprise.) Apparently my other brother, who lives in Hawaii, recently sent Dad a book about Duke Horan and since then, Dad has been thinking, and talking, and going on and on about the old days, in Hawaii, in LA, on the beach, and in the studio, with Horan.

Dad asked my brother if he knew if Horan is still alive. (He is.)

Dad asked my brother to bring a pad of paper. (He did.)

When my brother came the next morning, Dad handed him a two page handwritten letter--Dad's attempt, at almost 96 years old, to reconnect with an old friend, 94 years old, who Dad hasn't seen in over 60 years, a reminiscing about "the old days," "at the beach," "in the studio."

I find it amazing.....inspiring.......overwhelmingly heartbreaking, that Dad, at 95, has suddenly decided to sit down and hand-write (an activity few of us engage in anymore) a two page letter to basically say hello, remember-when, and hope-you're-well to a man he hasn't seen in at least sixty years. (By the way, the closest Dad has come in recent years to writing a letter of any length, was eight years ago when he started but never finished a letter to my sister. That's it. Dad is not big on letter-writing.)

It's also amazing because writing letters has always been difficult for Dad. My father is a perfectionist. Consequently, his letters are riddled with crossed-out words, scratched-through sentences, and giant arrows pointing from one sentence to another sentence. It used to take him days to compose a letter that he ultimately deemed acceptable enough to mail.

And so, I am without words when I think of Dad, at 95, getting a bee in his bonnet about writing to an old friend, then sitting down with full focus and total commitment, and writing one two-page missive, without arrows, or cross-outs, or cross-throughs.

I would love to be in the room when Claude "Duke" Horan receives, opens, and reads that letter.

Clapping Santa

2011-12-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

The rest of the world has the Travelocity Gnome. I have......drumroll........Clapping Santa (queue photo). Actually.....we have two Clapping Santas, but tomorrow, the one you see pictured above (queue photo) will be packed carefully into a flat rate box, transported to SeaTac, loaded onto a jet, and flown down to Sunrise Senior Living where my father will be a happy, happy man because he can start and end every day from now until New Years with Clapping Santa (queue photo) chiming "HOHOHOOOOO MERRRRRRRY CHRISTMAS!" every time there's a nearby sharp noise (yeeeeah......with my father around, do you know how many times a day THAT happens????).

In case you're not familiar with the Clapping Santa? It's like the Clap-On Light. If you get close enough and clap your hands, the noise-activation sensor sets him off. Dad used to wheel into the kitchen every morning (during holiday season when I had Clapping Santa out with the rest of the decorations) and promptly bang the kitchen counter to get Clapping Santa going. Then every other time Dad wheeled into or out of the kitchen. Then when he fed the dogs he'd bang the spoon on Emily's metal feeding dish repeatedly, which not only activated Clapping Santa, but also riled up Emily and caused her to bark incessantly. Picture the clanging, banging of the spoon on the metal food bowl, "Clang, Clang, Clang, Clang, Clang...." with a very excited English Bulldog barking in the background, "WoofWoof, WoofWoof, Woofwoof, WoofWoof..." and then good ole Clapping Santa repeating over and over and over again, "HOHOHOOOOO MERRRRRRRY CHRISTMAS!!! HOHOHOOOOOO MERRRRRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!"

Not like I miss any of that or anything...........

When Friends Visit

2011-11-16T10:43:00.001-08:00

16 Nov 2011

Thank God for friends!

Oh wait. Not for the reasons you might think.

Though, I do cherish my friends and would be a dismal mess were it not for their unconditional love and support.

But there are many practical benefits that are enjoyed when one has friends.

Like, when they visit.

Before my friends come to visit,

I accomplish great things.

Wonderful

Unexpected Things

Just seem to happen.

I vacuum.

I dust.

I actually put my pajamas away.

I wash the shmutz off the dessert plates I intend on using that night.

I pull out the “fancy” flatware and discover Grandma’s long lost ivory-handled cake server stuck way in the back of the drawer with a set of sterling silver lobster picks I didn’t even know existed.

I wash the dogs’ food bowls.

I clean the eye boogers out of their eyes.

I change the burned-out bulb in the outside light fixture.

I realize for the first time that having just one chair at the dining room table is not very feng shui.

I take down the photo hanging on the wall in the dining room that I never really thought “went” in the dining room.

I put up a photo on the wall in the dining room that I always felt belonged there in the first place.

I decide to cook things like babaganoush, steamed pudding, and caramelized onions.

I set the table.

I use napkin rings and water goblets.

I rethink the fact that there is a bar in the kitchen but no barstools.

I buy bottles of Perrier and Pellegrino.

I decide it is high time I scrub the toilet.

I make sure there are extra rolls of TP in the bathroom.

I suddenly become aware of every single toothpaste spot on the bathroom mirror.

I clean the mirror.

Then the friends arrive.

We chat.

We laugh.

We share.

We eat the babaganoush and drink Perrier from the water goblets.

We discuss.

We are each silently inspired by things that are said.

Then the friends leave.

And I’m alone again.

But not as much.

2011-11-16T10:43:00.000-08:00

When Friends Visit

16 Nov 2011

Thank God for friends!

Oh wait. Not for the reasons you might think.

Though, I do cherish my friends and would be a dismal mess were it not for their unconditional love and support.

But there are many practical benefits that are enjoyed when one has friends.

Like, when they visit.

Before my friends come to visit,

I accomplish great things.

Wonderful

Unexpected

Things just seem to happen.

I vacuum.

I dust.

I actually put my pajamas away.

I wash the schmutz off the dessert plates I intend on using that night.

I pull out the “fancy” flatware and discover Grandma’s long lost silver cake server stuck way in the back of the drawer with a set of sterling silver lobster picks I didn’t even know existed.

I wash the dogs’ food bowls.

I clean the eye boogers out of their eyes.

I change the burned out bulb in the outside light fixture.

I realize for the first time that having just one chair at the dining room table is not very feng shui.

I take down the photo hanging on the wall in the dining room that I never really thought “went” in the dining room.

I put up a photo on the wall in the dining room that I always felt belonged there in the first place.

I decide to make things like babaganoush, steamed pudding, and caramelized onions.

I set the table.

I use napkin rings and water goblets.

I rethink the fact that there is a bar in the kitchen but no barstools.

I buy bottles of Perrier and Pellegrino.

I decide it is high time I scrub the toilet.

I make sure there are extra rolls of TP in the bathroom.

I suddenly become aware of every single toothpaste spot on the bathroom mirror.

I clean the mirror.

Then the friends arrive.

We chat.

We laugh.

We share.

We eat the babaganoush and drink Perrier from the water goblets.

We discuss.

We are each silently inspired by things that are said.

Then the friends leave.

And I’m alone again.

But not as much.

Whale Song

2011-11-16T10:33:00.000-08:00

13 Nov 2011

I donned my lightweight jacket, hat, and gloves,

Positioned my ear buds just so,

Selected Whale Song from my iPod playlists.

Pressed Play.

I left the house for my regular six-mile walk,

Along the same trail, across the same bridge,

Across the same surging river, down the same wood stairs,

Around the same cow pasture, past the same goat house,

And experienced an area I had never seen before.

Whale Song hummed in my ears.

The trees billowed gently in the breeze,

But I imagined they moved with the flow of the ocean.

The leaves danced and circled in the wind,

But I imagined they floated with the benthic push of the sea.

Only Whale Song hummed and moaned in my head.

For two hours.

Nothing but Whale Song.

I thought, “What a peaceful place to exist—where whales live.”

I thought, “Everything around me is colored with the deep resonance of whale song.”

I thought, “The trees and leaves and the river and mountains have a grace I’ve never noticed before.”

For two hours,

I experienced a world I had never seen before.

For two hours, I only saw the world.

For two hours, the world was a backdrop,

To Whale Song.

The gravel driveway back to the house felt crude and indelicate.

Entering through the door in the garage seemed odd and primitive.

The trappings inside the house looked foolish and unnecessary.

I lay down on the living room carpet to stretch my legs.

Whale Song still humming in my ears.

I expelled my last breath.

Whale Song still humming in my ears.

A beautiful solitary sound.

An Almost Perfect Companion

2011-11-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

Uma is eleven years old. In a word, her exuberance for life is unsurpassed. She possesses the notable capacity for embracing every possible opportunity to play or run with undaunted enthusiasm and boundless energy.

Uma is a dog—specifically, a Field Bred English Cocker Spaniel. She has been my constant companion since I first claimed her, in the summer of 2000, from the airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan, delivered obediently by her trusty human escort from Duluth, Minnesota. She (Uma, not the escaort) was no bigger than my two outstretched palms, had the roundest gentlest brown eyes, a lustrous ebony coat save for the dusting of white whiskers at the point of her mouth and nose, and a relentless desire to be loved. Except for her size, she has not changed since that day.

When I made the decision in the summer of 2000 to take on a six week old puppy, it was, in part, to satisfy my desire for a hiking companion, a couch companion, a walking companion, a sleeping companion, a living companion. A companion who would not argue with me, tell me I was too fat, tell me how to dress or not to dress, insult my way of life, or make me choose between my children or him. In short, a companion who would expect nothing more from me other than daily meals, frequent pats and strokes, and a regular routine that included the occasional game of fetch. We have not disappointed each other. It is the longest voluntary relationship I have had with another living creature.

Last night, I stood in my bedroom, looking out at the black night, as I often do, and I contemplated the somewhat depressing reality that if something unforeseen should happen to me at home, it would likely be a while before anybody would find me. In the midst of this inner revelation, I glanced over and noticed Uma, sitting just off to my left, watching me, oblivious to the gravity of my thoughts, waiting only for my next move. Was it time for bed, or was I going to return to the computer room, or perhaps to the kitchen, or maybe the living room? What would it be? Huh? Huh? Huh?

Uma and I stared at each other a good long while—thirty seconds for me; a hardy two minutes for her. I was suddenly reminded of Dad’s famous phrase that so perfectly illustrated his general dislike for people—“People are no damn good..” I recalled how Dad has always repeatedly said how he prefers dogs over people. For the most part, I always agreed with him. That is, until that moment, when a little glitch in Dad’s logic suddenly became glaringly evident.

I got down on the floor to Uma’s level, grabbed her muzzle in my hands, looked her straight in the eyes and said, “How are your CPR skills?”

Sugar Cookie Cocoa Tea

2011-11-03T19:29:00.000-07:00

This post has absolutely nothing to do with my mom or my dad or caregiving. But it has EVERYthing to do with my continuing efforts to discover the little joys in life.

I'll be brief.

I was in the kitchen early this morning, it had just hailed, and the bird bath on the garden table outside was frozen completely solid.

It was cold.

So....there I was in the kitchen, still in my PJs, barely awake, filling up the tea pot for my regular morning tea when I was overcome with the strangest urge to veer from my usual chamomile blend. Something different seemed to be called for on this frosty autumn morning.

I opened the pantry where the non-chamomile options live--orange-mint, Good Earth, Coconut Chai, Santa's Sleigh Spice, Throat Soother, Tummy Mint. I dunno.......nothing sounded like the perfect choice for such a chilly morning. I searched again, pushing boxes and bags aside to see what might be lurking behind the Good Earth. And, there, wayyyyy in the back, sitting all by itself, almost pulsating with the glowing light of soothing tea goodness, was my all-time holiday favorite--Santa's Sugar Cookie Tea (shameless plug for Celestial Seasonings). I scooped up the box and held it tight in my chilly little hands like it was the prodigal tea--newly discovered, never to be forgotten again.

This might have been the answer to everything, except........I wasn't really in the mood for Santa's Sugar Cookie Tea. The sound of it was......just okay, not enough to take the frosty edge off the brisk autumn morning.

So I stood........and I thought........and KABLAMM! like a bolt of culinary inspiration straight to my right cerebrum, it came to me--OVALTINE! I'll add just a wee bit to my Santa's Sugar Cookie tea--a hint of malt and a kiss of cocoa (Remember where you heard that first!)--to give my Santa's Sugar Cookie tea that extra pizazz.

Thus, my new favorite tea, which I have created myself--Sugar Cookie Cocoa Tea. Go on, say it, you know you want to--SugarCookieCocoaTea, SugarCookieCocoaTea. Just brings the holly right out of you doesn't it?

Any now if you'll excuse me, my tea pot is whistling....

Dumpsters

2011-10-26T10:20:00.001-07:00

I have mixed feelings about dumpsters.

On the one hand, thanks to the rented dumpster that sets just outside the barn as I type: hundreds of boxes of "stuff" have been eliminated; the daunting task of sorting through all the "things" that Mom and Dad have carted around for the past fifty years (or more) is complete; my ToDo List is significantly shorter.

On the second hand, I can't help but visualize the local landfill where now, all of the umpteen photos, musty linens, broken picture frames, and ancient memorabilia I tossed into the dumpster are but tiny trivial specks scattered over the sea of who-knows-how-many-other-people's unwanted "stuff."

But back to the first hand.......thanks to the convenience of a dumpster, I imagine pieces of the electric blanket I used when I was five have been shredded by some enterprising sea gull and used for nesting material. That seems fitting.

But back to the second hand......I have a little trouble with the idea of voracious beetles gnawing away at the pages of my mother's fifth grade scrapbook, or the edges of that really old photograph of the unidentifiable-woman-in-the-really-great-hat. Then again, beetles have to eat.

Crazy Or Not So Crazy? That Is The Question.

2011-10-23T17:06:00.000-07:00

Don't bother to remind me about how I used to crave silence. Don't even try to tell me about how I used to complain and gripe about Dad constantly engaging me in conversation. That was then; this is now.

Now.........I talk to my dogs.

A lot.

This afternoon, for example, I practiced a monolog from Titus Andronicus (I know. A bloody Shakespearean tragedy of all things) in front of a captive audience of one--one curiously-enthralled-but-ultimately-indifferent bulldog by the name of Emily.

Emily sat, and watched (Really, she did. She actually watched. See the photo of her at top of the post? That's exACTly how she looked!), and like any polite audience member, she remained sitting as I worked on the monolog, line by line, word by word, trying this inflection and that inflection. Sadly, like too many audience members, she sat expressionless, giving me virtually nothing by which to gauge my effectiveness, or lack thereof.

But back to my original point--the whole conversing with the animals bit.

So yes......I now chat with my dogs. I'm thinking (hoping?) this is normal. I'm thinking (hoping?) this is common. Let me be clear. I am NOT talking about a casual rhetorical comment thrown out to one or both dogs from time to time. Nooooooononono.

I'm talking about........a conversation.

I....have.....CONVERSATIONS........withmydogs.

Granted, they don't answer........in words.

But I HAAAVVVEEEE conversations with them.

I tell them what I'm thinking of doing that afternoon, or the next day.

I share my feelings about the movie I've just watched, or the article I just read.

Apparently they know that I'm addressing them.

They look me right in the eyes!

They cock their heads when I pose a question to them, rhetorical or otherwise. If they're paying attention, is it so wrong to engage them in simple conversation? I mean........we're not discussing world politics here. And it's not like I'm asking their permission to go anywhere or do anything (cuz that WOULD be a little crazy).

No, our conversations run more along the lines of, "Oh look at the carpet girls. It looks a little mufty (my word). Maybe I should vacuum. What do you girls think?"

Okay, okay, so maybe that WAS asking permission...

Or....."OK girls, I'm running out to the store. I'll be back soon. Do you need anything?"

oh shit.

Where's the Floppy Hat Man When I Need Him?

2011-10-20T12:04:00.001-07:00

I watched a documentary the other night about Buddha. I'm not a religious person by any stretch of anybody's imagination, but I've been on a documentary kick lately--like I'm craving reality, facts, historical accounts. Go figure.

Anyway, there was this one part in the Buddha doc that talked about how Buddha spent x-number of years wandering around the jungle, or the forest, or the desert, trying to seek enlightenment, or the secret of enlightenment. What he discovered, and this is the statement that stuck with me, is that "enlightenment is in the moment."

This is not an unfamiliar concept--the idea of "being in the moment," "savoring the moment," "nirvana is now" (okay, I just made that one up, but you get the point.) For some reason, the way the statement was made in the documentary, coupled with the mood I've been in lately....it just had an affect on me. "Enlightenment is in the moment."

Then I reflected. I started reflecting a lot. Like.....about how angry I've been for the past several years. Like how.....I haven't been finding much enlightenment anywhere.

Then, I started having a bonafide "moment" of my own. You know how there are those life-changing moments in your life? This was one of them for me.

I put the documentary on Pause.

I thought to myself, "Okay, I'm tired of waiting for things to get better. I'm tired of waiting for when I'll be happy again."

I said to myself, "I want my 'better' to be right now. I want 'happy' to be right now. I want my enlightenment to be right now."

Then I asked myself, "What is my moment right now?"

I listened. All I could hear in the entire house was the gentle snoring of Emily, the bulldog, and soft breathing of Uma, the cocker. And I thought, "Enlightenment doesn't get much better than this." How perfect is that.

But wait, there's more...........

The next day, I decided to go for my usual 6 mile walk. This time, though, I decided I would walk with my new mantra in my head--Enlightenment in every moment, Enlightenment in every moment, Enlightenment in every moment....

This is big.

See, in the past, my typical walk looked like this--Me with my dark glasses on (so nobody could see my eyes); Me walking at a brisk, destination-oriented-do-NOT-get-in-my-way 4mph; Me with my iPod earbuds in; Me purposely NOT making any connection with anybody on the trail--NOT the annoying Audobon birdwatchers who inevitably ALWAYS blocked the trail but who always cheerfully said hello to me as I quickly power-walked by them in silence without acknowledging their presence (see, I told you I've been angry); NOT the ridiculous elderly gentleman with the floppy hap who regularly walks the trail and who voluntarily and unsolicitously comes up to me from time to time, chirps out a Good Morning, and then asks if I'd like him to join me on my walk even though I always firmly say No and keep moving past him while maintaining my 4mph pace; NOT the perky Eagle Lady who uses the trail to ride her bicycle out to the Eagle Tree to see if the bald eagles are perched at the top of the tree and who never fails to try and engage me in a running dialogue about how she has "ridden her bicycle all the way out to the Eagle Tree to see if any eagles are perched in the tree" and did I know that actual bald eagles perch in "that big tall tree down the trail" and have I seen any eagles today??? (Yah. I ignored her too.)

This was different. On this day, I walked with NO sunglasses and NO earbuds. Just me listening to every moment, and thinking over and over in my head, "Enlightenment in every moment, enlightenment in every moment." The first mile down my street was magnificent. Truly. Asphalt never felt so good.

Then, I made the transition onto the Discovery Trail. I passed several other trail-goers. I smiled (yes I really did). I actually even said, "How are you today?" to a few. It was pretty magnificent. For the first time in a long time, I was walking NOT to escape the world. I was walking.......to be part of the world. Armed with my renewed sense of being part of the the world, all I could think of was, "Bring on the Eagle Lady! Bring on the annoying Audobon Birdwatchers! Bring on the Floppy Hat Man!

Well.....I'm sorry to report that the birdwatchers were not out, the Eagle Lady was obviously doing something else, and the Floppy Hat Man never appeared. BUT.........did I let that deter me???

Oh no, no, no, no! I did manage to have a very pleasant exchange with a slightly muddy but sweet-faced elderly golden retriever. We made plans.

"Outside My Window"

2011-10-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

My mother is not a photographer.

Dad is the photographer. Dad can bend your ear for hours about composition, and focal length, and aperture openings, speak all sorts of photo-ese. Dad has taken some amazing, beautiful photographs. I can't say that I've ever even seen my mother with a camera in her hands.

The other day, the A.L.F. in Pouslbo, where Mom lived this year from January to June, called to tell me that they had a photograph Mom had taken while she was there. Apparently a bunch of residents took photos one day and the A.L.F. entered the photographs into the Kitsap County Fair.

Mom's photograph, they told me, was entitled "Outside My Window."

It won an Honorable Mention ribbon, they said.

Could I come and pick it up, they asked.

Sure, I said.

Today I finally drove over to pick up "Outside My Window."

They handed me a large yellow envelope. I thanked them, took the envelope, gave them a quick update on Mom and Dad (because they asked), then left.

It wasn't until I got into the car, that I actually opened the envelope.

I pulled the photo out. And what my brain initially saw was this blurry, almost impressionistic image of some pink and red rose bushes outside a paned window, an empty flower pot on the lower left corner of the window sill. It looked like a painting. But, as I stared longer, I recognized the view--the rose bushes just outside Mom's window in her room in Poulsbo.

The photo had a weird, haunting effect on me. I sat in the A.L.F. parking lot just staring at it. After several minutes, something in my head decided I needed to frame it. So I drove to WalMart, bought a frame for Mom'a photo, unwrapped the frame in the car, and fit the matted photo into the frame right there in the WalMart parking lot. I still couldn't stop staring at it.

The thing is........I've spent so many years, and so much energy trying to figure out what was going on inside my mother's head. And somehow, this single snapshot, one she took just a few months ago, most probably the last photo she'll ever take, somehow told me so much about her.

I look at the photo and I want to scream so many things straight into my keyboard. I want to take the photo to every person in my family, to every friend of mine who has patiently listened to me vent about how little I was ever able to understand my mother, and point to the photo emphatically and say, "See this? This photograph? THIS.........says so much about Mom!"

I mean....

It's so blurry!

But it's a picture of roses!

One stinkin' photograph.

One stinkin', blurry photograph........of roses.

Of blurry.........beautiful roses.

What Mom saw.......outside her window.

Off-White Laundry Basket

2011-10-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

The off-white laundry basket

lived on top of the off-white dryer

in the laundry room

for seven years.

Dad would pile his freshly-dried clothes

Into the off-white laundry basket.

Clothes in the off-white laundry basket were

Dad's clean, dry clothes waiting for me to fold.

I asked Dad again and again,

"Please Dad, leave the clothes in the dryer.

If you put them in the laundry basket

They cool and get wrinkled.

I'll fold the clothes from the dryer. It's okay."

Dad always put the clothes from the dryer

Into the off-white laundry basket.

Dad's shirts were always wrinkled.

Today I moved the off-white laundry basket.

Now, the off-white laundry basket

Lives in the linen closet in the hall.

The laundry room looks bigger.

Spice Jars

2011-10-16T13:29:00.001-07:00

My thirtysomething year old son who is far wiser than he knows (I think) made the most succinctly enlightened comment to me the other day. He and my nephew were visiting. We were going through all of the generic Stuff that my parents have been toting around for the last 68 years, from house to house, garage to garage. He, my nephew, and I went through at least a hundred boxes of....Stuff, carefully deciding (okay.....sometimes, maybe not so carefully) whether to "Keep It", "Sell It", or "Dumpster It."

I can't remember now what the object was that was in question. Doesn't really matter. But the three of us stood there, in the barn-that-is-now-more-of-a-gigantic-storage-room, and stared at the object while individually formulating an opinion about how to categorize it. I was the first to speak.

"Oh I have to keep that," I said decisively as I reached to take the object.

But my enlightened son stopped me mid-reach and said simply, "Why would you keep that?

Honestly, I had no answer. I didn't know why I wanted to keep it. It wasn't even for sentimental reasons. In fact, it wasn't so much that I wanted to keep it. I just didn't want to throw it out. And it was at that moment that I realized a profound truth: Keeping something simply as an alternative to throwing it out, is not a valid reason for keeping it.

Now...a week later. I'm on fire with the ever-present question that, thanks to my son, is now burned into my brain--Why would I keep that? I've successfully and happily de-cluttered countless drawers (all of those 50+ year old spice jars in the kitchen drawer--are poppy seeds still good after 50 years? I doubt it.), cupboards (Really. How many containers of Adolph's Meat Tenderizer does a person need???), and boxes (Why I had 27 prints made of my first winter in Michigan, I'll never know.) with the singular objective in mind--Why would I keep that?

It's like a little mental miracle.

A Recovering Caregiver

2011-10-14T20:56:00.000-07:00

I'm now a Recovering Caregiver. My therapist (yes, I'm seeing a therapist--decided it was more desirable for a paid professional to hoist me out of my emotional sewer than imposing that awkward task on friends or family) says I'm grieving, that it's normal for caregivers to grieve when the subjects of their caregiving are gone (whether by death or by geographical relocation--in my case, it's the latter).

I'm not big on grieving. I have things to do. Allowing myself time to grieve is not one of those things. But, as my therapist explains, I must allow myself time to grieve.

I'm working on that.

I thought this would be an easier transition. Maybe a few bumps here and there but all in all, quick and easy. I was wrong. From the moment I get up in the morning, until the time I finally go to bed at night, I wage an ongoing battle against the continuous stressors and structure that USED to define my day. That USED to define what I did, how I did it, when I did it. That USED to define.......well, everything. Including me.

It's amazing to me that I am having so much difficulty in sliding into a life without caregiving. A life in which I take care of just.....me. I seem to have forgotten how to do that.

Don't get me wrong. I don't constantly walk around hanging my head, a wad of damp Kleenex in my hand, bloodshot eyes, unable to function. I'm doing as much work as my project manager will send me, I'm playing with my dogs (they still seem to be confused by this....), I cook, I workout regularly. On the surface, I'm the picture of health. But inside my head....that's where the real battle wages. My therapist says I need to allow that battle to happen outside of my head.

A tall order....

Roller Coasters

2011-10-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

I'm up. I'm down. I'm relieved. I'm depressed. I'm motivated. I'm lost. I'm happy. I'm sad. I'm excited. I'm apathetic. I'm energized. I'm lethargic.

It's like a postpartum thrill ride for caregivers. WTH?

Friends and Shit

2011-09-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

I'm not gonna lie.......I'm not in great emotional shape at the moment. And since a blog is value-less unless it's honest, I figure I owe any other parental caregiver out there the courtesy of being perfectly candid about what's going on for me right now. "Now" meaning...........with Mom and Dad both gone, the house up for sale, all of the things my parents have carted along with them from house to house for the last 67 years being boxed up (by me) in preparation for the eventual estate sale, and me trying to figure out where/how I'm going to be living once the house sells. All those articles about how caregivers get really depressed after the people they cared for are gone.........I completely and totally understand that now. The sense of uselessness is overwhelming.

This is sort of Debby-Downer stuff. Sorry.

Earlier today I was standing in the sunroom and the morning sunlight was streaming through the windows, and the view of the Olympics was beautiful, and the sky was a perfect shade of cloudless blue, but all I could think of was that, aside from my slightly overweight English bulldog, Emily, and my significantly neurotic English cocker, Uma, I wasn't really "needed" anymore. It was one of those classic George Bailey moments--"Why am I even here? I'm worth more dead than alive. What a complete loser I am. " (Okay, Jimmy Stewart never said "complete loser" but the sense of total despair was certainly along those lines....)

It was somewhere in the middle of the thought, "What's the point anyway?" when my cell phone rang.

See, I have these two friends. And I don't know how to explain it, but on more than a few occasions over the last few years, when I have been really (I mean, REALLY) low.....one or both of them, for reasons that continue to amaze me, think to pick up their phone and call me.

So there I am, floundering in the sun room, up to my nose in some pretty serious depression, when my cell phone goes off. And it's one of my friends, calling to see how I'm doing, calling to say 'hi', calling to remind me that they love me and are thinking about me, calling to tell me that everything's going to be okay, calling to remind me to stay busy, move forward, or at least just keep moving. How do my friends know this shit?

Anyway..............so I want to say out loud here how indescribably grateful I am when anybody leaves any kind of comment or "heart" or....whatever on this site or on the Facebook site. Thank you. Really and truly. Thank you. I feel shitty and hopeless most of the time right now even though I know, on some intellectual level, that things will, indeed, be okay down the line. It's strange--going through a day feeling equal parts shitty, complacent, and apathetic, with glimmers of optimism sprinkled here and there. So if you feel like commenting with a word or two, please do. I'm not looking for sympathy. But a "hang in there" or a "You'll be fine" could be just the thing that gets me through the next twenty minutes.

Garbage

2011-09-01T20:52:00.000-07:00

As long as I can remember, my parents have had, on the kitchen counter right next to the sink, one of those little rubber-coated-metal-holder gizmos that you fit a quart-sized, clear, plastic bag into. It's for "wet" garbage--bones, peels, apple cores, melon rinds, meat scraps, etc. When it's full they just knot the bag and......and this is one of the things that makes me crazy about it.......toss it into the big plastic trash bag. Plastic in plastic. Makes every carbon-footprint in my bones shudder. As far as I know, the rubber-coated-metal-holder gizmo is the original one Mom got at the store at least twenty years ago.

Those of you who know "where I'm at" currently in terms of what's going on in my.....uh.....life, will understand the next bit.

Ten minutes ago......I walked into the kitchen, stopped, stared at that gawdawful, disgusting, rubber-coated-metal-holder gizmo. Just stared it down. I observed that it was full. I realized......it's always full. I realize on top of that realization.......it's always BEEN full. In fact, I realize yet again.......I don't think I've ever seen it empty for more than 10 seconds. Full. Full. Full. Of garbage. Garbage. Garbage. Detritus. Debris. Shit. Gar-Bage. G.D.M.F.C.S. garbage.

So I walked very calmly over to the sink, picked up the whole works, the G.D.M.F.C.S. rubber-coated-metal-holder gizmo and the Garbage inside it, and I tossed it....dropped it really, for the last time in anybody's life......into the large plastic trash bag.

Eeeeyup. I done tossed the garbage.

Art Imitating Life

2011-08-22T23:08:00.001-07:00

The place that has been my home for the last seven years is slowly being packed up, spackeled, cleaned, painted, rearranged, and transformed for its "New Listing" debut September 1.

My father leaves Thursday with my brother and sister-in-law via U-Haul and car for San Diego.

I drive my mother to SeaTac on September 4 where my brother will meet us, then fly with her down to San Diego, to join my Dad at the Sunrise Assisted Living Facility.

The walls are all bare and ready for paint. The kitchen cabinets have all been scrubbed clean of the grime and dirt I had apparently become all too used to over the past several years.

I'm rehearsing all week for Chekhov's Ivanov--to be performed Saturday in the park in Chimacum.

An actor friend called me the other day and asked how I was dealing with the move and my parents' leaving, etc., "How do you feel? Do you need to cry?" they asked.

I had no answer......at the time. Until we rehearsed Act 3 night before last.

Ivanov, end of Act 3--that's when I finally have time to cry. Every time we rehearse it, and probably for the performance too. Very blurry line right now between my life and my art.

Peaches and Hummus

2011-08-21T23:33:00.000-07:00

Dad and I broke the big news to Mom--that she and Dad are going to move to San Diego, live together in the same facility, right down the road from my brother and his wife, and be closer to my two sons and their families. Her reaction? She kept saying how happy the news made her feel.

"I'm very happy" she kept repeating.

That was four days ago.

Day before yesterday my mother calls me while I'm at Sunny Farms. I answer the phone while perusing the peaches.

"Hello?"

"Dennnnnise......?"

"Hey Mom, how are you?"

"Dennnnnise......I want to commit suicide. I can't take this anymore. They're all witches here. I'm going to commit suicide."

"Well Mom, here's the deal. You can't commit suicide because you're moving to San Diego with Dad. "

"Oh?"

"Yes, remember? Dad and I came and told you?"

"Wellll, they keep telling me that Dad is a resident of San Marcos."

"No Mom. Dad is here in Sequim. Honest."

"Oh."

Suddenly the peaches didn't look so appetizing. I grabbed a container of hummus instead.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes....

2011-08-19T23:37:00.000-07:00

My brain is mush. The whirlpool of change has sucked me in, pulled me under, and I am swimming like a crazy person to keep my head above water. Notice the lapse between now and my last post. There's a reason for that.

Thursday August 25 in my planner is marked--Dad --> San Diego.

Thursday September 1 in my planner is marked--Day 1 House Listed.

Sunday September 4 in my planner is marked--Take Mom to SeaTac--11:20am to San Diego.

Yup. Mom and Dad are relocating to SoCal. A more central location, closer to the bulk of the family, a break for me, less strain on Dad's pension, the opportunity for Mom and Dad to live together--all remarkably sensible and logical reasons.

I have a ToDo list that is longer than I am tall. I'm numb. I don't know how to feel. I wonder when I will.

Dad gives me big hug at least once a day and tells me how much he's going to miss me, and the mountains, and the trees, and the dogs. I tell him he'll be able to get great Mexican food whenever he wants. A feeble attempt to bolster his enthusiasm.

Bleeding Heart

2011-08-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

I swear to all that's holy in the universe. This really happened. Today.

Premise: Dad has to go to the lab in Sequim for a fasting blood panel. He does this every six months. Standard. At around 10am I go into the living room, where he's in his recliner, head-deep in The Seattle Times.

Me: "Hey, let's go, I'm ready."

Dad: "OH! OKAY!" The paper is hastily folded, the halogen lamp turned off, and the recliner un-reclined in a matter of seconds. (Curious how much faster Dad is when he's not on his feet.) He grabs his walker, assumes the standing position, waits for the blood flow to return to his legs, and off he wheels toward the kitchen to put on his L.L. Bean jacket (even though it was 70 degrees today) and head outside to the Jeep.

Me: "I'll go get the Jeep and meet you in the driveway."

Dad: "YUP."

Note: We keep the Jeep in the barn now. After cleaning multiple rat nests from under the hood, we decided it was probably smarter to keep the Cherokee inside rather than outside, as it has been for the last couple of years.

I head to the barn just as Dad coming into the kitchen. The barn is twenty yards away from the garage. By the time I open the barn, get in the Jeep, back it out, and pull up to the garage, Dad will likely just be rolling out of the garage. No, I do not drive like a maniac. Yes, he is that slow.

Except.......when I pull up to the garage, he's not there, not in the driveway, not standing there with his walker, not waiting for me.

I park the Jeep, leave the engine running, get out of the car, thinking Dad is still in the kitchen trying to get his jacket on. I'm heading toward the garage when I spot Dad over by the shrubbery next to the front door, where the beautiful Hellebore and white Bleeding Heart bushes are.

Actually, I heard him before I saw him. He was singing, at the top of his 95 year old lungs, "Bess You Is My Woman" from Porgy and Bess, and as he was singing his heart out--"BESS.......YOU IS.........MAH WOMANNNNN............"--he was...........oh gawd I can't even believe I'm writing this............he was.........well, he was..........peeing..........urinating in the.......no, scratch that.....he was peeing ON the Bleeding Heart. One hand on his.......well, you know........the other hand sawing the air with song.

So there it is--Do you HAVE a mental picture of this? Do you have any idea how monumentally bizarre and equally.........just.......WRONG this picture was???? Do you? Huh?

ewwww.

Salad, Panninis, and Mama Chia

2011-07-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

My brother and sister-in-law and I sat outside the Encinitas Whole Foods eating our salads and panninis and drinking our Mama Chia juices as we simultaneously discussed the current hot topic of conversation--whether or not to move Mom and Dad (and me) down to San Diego.

Reasons for and against moving are chewed concurrently with the chewing of toasted bread. Justifications for staying in or for leaving the PNW are tossed about along with our crisp greens.

The many factors-to-be-considered are bandied about--Will Dad consider moving? Will Dad refuse to move if I decide to move? Would Dad be happy living with Mom in an assisted living facility? Can I afford to live in SoCal? Can Mom and Dad afford to both live in a facility in SoCal?

We explore all of these questions and more. We drink, we eat, we talk. We eat and drink and talk more. We're all sort of thinking that Dad will like the idea of being closer to the rest of the family. That he'll rather like the opportunity to be closer to his great granddaughter, see more of the family on a more regular basis, be able to spend every day with Mom. It all makes good sense. The panninis are delicious and so seems our logic.

Then my cell phone rings.

It's my dad.

I answer it.

He's just calling to see how my visit's going. Am I having a good time? How is everyone? How's my granddaughter? Walking yet? Talking yet?

I fill him in on everything. My brother and sister-in-law munch away as I chat with Dad. We're having a lovely conversation. So lovely, in fact, that it occurs to me, as we talk, that a door of opportunity has suddenly opened and perhaps this would be a good time to possible plant a little seed, test the waters as it were, regarding Dad's feeling about the notion of moving.

I commit.

I dig.

I dip.

Then I begin to gush.

"Dad you should really see your great granddaughter! She's so precious! You know Dad......do you know how wonderful it would be if you could see her all the time? Do you Dad? Do you know how great that would be? To see her growing and changing ALL the time? You know what I mean Dad?"

Then I wait.

My brother and sister-in-law stop chewing their panninis, stop sipping their Mama Chia juice, stop spearing their salads, waiting to read my reaction to whatever Dad is about to say next.

"WELL...........TELL THEM THEY NEED TO COME UP FOR A VISIT SO I CAN SEE MY GREAT GRANDDAUGHTER?!"

This is NOT going to be easy.

HEAT!

2011-07-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

"IF YOU DON'T STOP YOUR YELLING AND BANGING ON THE CAR, I'M GOING TO TURN THIS CAR AROUND AND TAKE YOU HOME!!!"

Sound familiar? You're nodding yes, aren't you? Right? Cuz.........Is there anything more frustrating than trying to be a safe and responsible driver when a temper tantrum is running amuck in the seat next to you?

First, you try to ignore it--maybe it will just stop on its own.

Nope.

Then, you try a direct command, "STOP IT!"

Nope.

Then, you try the fortified command, "STOP IT RIGHT NOW!"

Nope.

Then,.......well just re-read the first sentence here. That's what happens next. Or some variation of that.

I thought I was taking Dad to visit Mom at the new A.L.F. in Sequim. I thought since the place is only a few miles away from the house, we could just zip over, have a pleasant visit, then zip home. I thought Dad would be in a great mood, excited to see Mom in her new digs after whining and moaning the last couple of weeks about how Poulsbo is soooo far away and how much he misses her.

I thought wrong.

In a word, Dad was in a mood. I have no idea why, but he was In A Mood. No sooner had we pulled out of the driveway and he was banging on the dashboard "HEAT! HEAT! WHERE'S THE HEAT?! BRRRRRRRR! IT'S GODDAMN FREEZING IN HERE! HEEEEEAT!" Vigorous running of palms together; exhaling of warm air into cupped hands...more yelling for HEEEEAT!...

It's a small car. There aren't a lot of places for the sound to go, except into my right ear. (Talk about a candidate for hearing loss!)

This is about the time when I tried the direct command. "STOP!"

Which had no effect whatsoever.

He continued--the banging, the yelling, more banging. Mind you......it was a warm sunny day; Dad had his L.L.Bean winter coat on. Sure, maybe he wasn't toasty warm, but it was a far cry from freezing in the car. Banging on the dashboard with both hands was definitely NOT warranted.

So, I refused to turn on the heat. (I can be moody too.) "No. We're almost there Dad! I'm not turning on the heat!"

That's when he got really belligerent about the whole thing. "WELL.....THEN I'LL TURN IT ON MYSELF! WHERE IS IT????"

That's when I tried the fortified command. "STOP IT RIGHT NOW!" Which, as I sort of figured, had absolutely no effect.

And it was at that point that my father's personal treasure hunt for the heater button/switch/lever ensued. Picture big ole' wrinkled withered ninety-five year old hands banging their way all over the dashboard (my side included) in search of HEAT....while I'm driving. He pressed everything. Coupled every press with "IS THIS THE HEAT?" Notice I said, "coupled" not "prefaced." The question is a mere formality. A obligation programmed from childhood that my father has not utilized with any sincerity for years. The banging continued...

The CD player suddenly blasted on.

I turned it off.

The FM blared.

I turned it off.

The CD player ejected.

I closed it.

The little CD storage compartment flopped open.

I shut it.

My GPS was toppled off its dashboard mount.

I re-attached it.

Now re-read the opening sentence again. Because this is where I finally lost my patience and resorted to using it. I pulled the car over to the side of the road, turned off the engine, unbuckled my seat belt, turned to face my father, and yelled in his face, "IF YOU DON'T STOP YOUR YELLING AND BANGING ON THE CAR, I'M GOING TO TURN THIS CAR AROUND AND TAKE YOU HOME!!!"

And the most frustrating part--we were not more than thirty seconds from the A.L.F.! Sooooo close....

So I yelled at him. At my father. In the car. Like he was some out-of-control five year old brat. I wanted to drag him by the ear out of the car, shake my finger in his face, whoop his little arse, take him home and send him to bed without supper.

I didn't wait for a response. Started the car back up, pulled back onto the road, arrived at the A.L.F., when in to see Mom (Dad trailing behind me), hugs to Mom, pulled up a chair for Dad, pulled up a chair for me, started to chat idly away and not ten minutes into the visit.......

Dad is sound asleep.

Mom and I had a lovely visit.

Evil Puppetmaster God

2011-07-04T23:09:00.000-07:00

When my daughter was four or so she wandered into the living room one beautiful sun-filled morning while I was talking on the telephone, giggled as she toddled over to me, began to climb up into my lap, then....as if some evil puppetmaster God decided to flip a switch inside of her little four-year-old tummy, she threw up her entire breakfast right there in front of me. Just like that. One second--happy as can be. Next second--barf on the floor.

What does this have to do with my parents? Everything.

When Dad and I were visiting Mom last Saturday at the A.L.F., it was a beautiful sun-filled afternoon. The sun streamed through her window, we chatted about her upcoming move to the A.L.F. in Sequim (next Friday....stay tuned), she said how excited she was to be moving closer to home, we remarked at how gorgeous the roses were outside her window, then.....as if some evil puppetmaster God decided to flip a switch inside of her 90 year old dementia-filled brain, she busted out into a full-on bawl and screamed, "I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN TAKE IT ANY LONGER!" Just like that. One second--roses and sunshine. Next second--bawling on the floor.

Just shoot me.

Dad's World of Dad About Dad For Dad

2011-06-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

Maybe he's 95 and entitled to be self-centered and inconsiderate.

Doesn't make it any less annoying.

I fix myself a salad, Dad comes into the kitchen, sticks his nose into my salad and yells in my ear, "WHAT'S THAT?!" And before I can answer, he says, "IS THAT A SALAD?" And before I can answer that, he says, "PUT SOME BEETS ON IT!" (I hate beets. He knows this.) And before I can remind him (again) that I don't like beets, he says, "DON'T YOU LIKE BEETS?" Then, before he can dis on my salad anymore, I grab a fork and my beet-less salad and flee to the relative solitude of my office. This, or something very similar, happens more frequently than I can tell you.

I buy two of Amy's Green Tamales and put them in the garage freezer. A couple of days ago, I brought one into the house freezer so I could have it later in the week. This morning, Dad wheels into the kitchen and says, "HEY! I ATE THAT TAMALE LAST NIGHT FOR DINNER..." And before I can explain that that tamale was, in fact, for me, he proclaims, "DON'T GET IT AGAIN! IT WAS TERRIBLE!"

A few weeks ago, I took a stick of butter out of the fridge, unwrapped it, and set it out on a plate, on the counter so I could make cookies later on in the day. Dad wheeled into the kitchen, somehow homed right in on that solitary stick of butter setting on the kitchen counter, wheeled over, picked it up, took a big ole bite out of it and said, "WHAT KIND OF CHEESE IS THIS?!" (eeyup. He seriously did this.) Then he complained, "IS THIS CHEESE? HUH?! TERRIBLE! DON'T GET IT AGAIN! NO FLAVOR!" And then, and this is the most infuriating part, he threw it into the trash.

So, okay, Dad is 95. He's old. He's oblivious to most of what goes on around him because he can't hear or see most of what goes on around him. I love my dad. But chomping on my stick of butter without asking what it is first and then tossing it into the trash because you thought it was flavorless cheese is just plain annoying!

Everything but.....

2011-06-21T11:09:00.001-07:00

Before I forget, and it drifts into the recesses of my cache memory, there is a topic I simply must address.

The contents of the basket of my mother's walker.

I'll be brief.

Because the contents are not.

As background, you should know that my mother is extremely territorial, and this quality has only been amplified by mom's age and her increasing dementia. You should also realize that in an A.L.F., frequent uninvited visitors to one's room is not an uncommon occurrence. And along that same line, the frequent disappearance of personal items is also not uncommon. I guess that's why everything, and I mean every thing, that belongs to a resident is permanently marked with their name. Of course, this doesn't prevent the unintentional pilfering, but it does help the staff to return said items to their proper owner.

Back to my mom's walker.

She has one of those walkers with a storage compartment under the seat. Within the compartment, there are also several pockets, some zippered, some not.

We're not talking about a large storage compartment here. It measures probably 24" in width by 12" in length by 8" in depth. Not huge, right? And yet.......

So here's what's in Mom's walker compartment:

two spare Depends, a hardcover book (currently, Carol Burnett's biography), a bag of Werther's Sugar-Free caramels, a box of plastic dental flossers, a square box of Kleenex, a brush, a few recently sent greetings cards from family members, a one pound box of See's candy (soft centers only), selected family photos, the current Vermont Country Store catalog, six pens, five pencils, Mom's reading glasses case, a can of Pepsi (and ONLY Pepsi), the key to her room (so she can lock herself in at night and keep the pilfering PeeBlossoms out), and five bottles of Afrin nasal spray hidden in the zippered side pockets (but don't tell anybody cuz she's not supposed to have those).

You know how they say you can tell everything about a person by looking at their checkbook?...

Just A Wet Dog

2011-06-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

So....it rained all night.

And the dogs went out this morning for their early pee break.

They got all wet.

ALL wet.

And so Dad wheels into my office about a half hour ago, in his tidywhities, without his hearing aid (this is key), and yells, "UMA'S (one of the dogs) ALL WET. SHE'S IN THE FIRST STAGES OF HYPOTHERMIA!"

And I answer, "No. She's just wet."

And he says, "HUH!?" (because, of course, his hearing aid isn't in and he can't hear a word I'm saying). Then he turns to wheel out, shaking his head in disgust like he always does when he attempts to have a conversation without his hearing aid.....like it's the other person's fault. Geesh. So irritating.

Before he actually leaves the office, he turns back to me, all huffy and puffy and nose out of joint and skivvies in a bunch and yells, "SHE'S IN THE FIRST STAGES OF HYPOTHERMIA! SHE'S ALL WET! HOW'D SHE GET ALL WET ANYWAY???"

My brain goes into overdrive with all of the possible responses. Hello. We live in the PNW. Or, hello. Dad you just woke up, your brain's not working yet, go back to bed. Or, hello. Dogs get wet. Or, hello. Uma grew up in Michigan. In the snow. Hypothermia? I don't think so.

I opt for the simpler, "She's fine. It's raining."

To which he immediately blares angrily at me, "HUH?!" (because he still can't hear me because....well, you remember)

Then he turns, now completely disgusted and frustrated, and begins to wheel out of the office. Except, as he's turning, the other dog (Emily, also wet, but not, apparently suffering the early stages of hypothermia) steps on Dad's foot, and makes a little skin tear which promptly starts bleeding all over the rug (old people = thin skin = frequent skin tears = lots of blood).

Thus, I've spent the last half hour, bottle of Resolve in one hand, paper towel in the other, cleaning up blood spots and bandaging up Dad's foot.

Oh yeah....Uma's fine.

Wet.

But fine.

Dad's First Surfboard

2011-05-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try something new.

The drive Dad and I take to visit Mom at the A.L.F. is an hour. A good amount of time to tell a story or two. As some of you may or may not know, Dad was in the group of pioneer surfers in southern California back in the thirties. So I asked him, "What was your first surfing experience?" The link takes you to Internet Archive where I'll be storing all of my Dad Stories. All you have to do is click on the link below, then click on the player that you'll find on the Internet Archive page that comes up. Enjoy!

http://www.archive.org/details/DadsFirstSurfboardrecordedMay212011

Here are a few photos to go along with the audio link. Hope this works...

Default Response

2011-05-21T09:33:00.001-07:00

Keeping up a blog has its challenges. I have days when I have a half dozen events to blog about, but, I dunno, maybe I just get lazy. I tell myself, "Drag your sorry arse into the office and start typing!" 'Myself' just doesn't seem to listen.

Resistance is one decision away from productivity. (I just made that up. Pretty catchy eh?)

So here I am. Back in the saddle again.

My brain keeps tossing around the idea that, for both my mom and dad, the older they get, they seem to rely more and more on certain default responses. Certain phrases or statements, applicable or not, that get tossed into a conversation at random times for no other reason than something fires off in their brain and out comes the words.

Here's an example. Driving with Dad yesterday. He asks about my daughter and how she's doing in New York City, where she has lived for three years now. I tell him she's doing fine, working steadily, happy, busy. And he defaults with:

"SHE NEEDS TO HAVE SOMETHING TO FALL BACK ON."

And kaboinnnng, I'm jarred into a gazillion different reactions, most of which center around my having heard that EXACT phrase soooooo many times when I was growing up, I cannot even begin to tell you!

Or the other day, I was visiting Mom and we're talking about what she had for breakfast and she defaults with:

"I always fold my napkin when I'm done and I never lick my bowl."

That one was a little weird.

Here's what I've noticed. Dad's primary default mode is to be the All-Knowing, All-Powerful Sage for each and every family member, regardless of their age or level of financial stability. This would be great if he really was All-Knowing and All-Powerful. But Dad's warped and drastically out-dated sense of logic make it more like Sorta-Knowing and Not-So-Powerful. Imagine Obi-Wan with senility.

Mom's primary default mode is the ever-obedient, emotionally-needy, albeit somewhat spoiled, little girl. Like a sweet little puppy that just wants to be stroked and loved and kissed and hugged and held. Otherwise, it pees on your favorite shoe.

Anyway, so here's the status report. Dad is getting older. By the month. And if somebody could please find a cure for that....

Mom is struggling with depression and not getting her way at the A.L.F. Maybe it's the other way around--not getting her way, and therefore depressed. Not sure.

Really Dad? (pause) Really?

2011-04-11T11:54:00.000-07:00

So.........something's happening here at the Flying F Ranch in sunny Sequim. Dad is really getting old. No, no, I don't mean "old" in the chronological sense. Or.....maybe I do. I dunno. But..........all I know is that ever since we put Mom in the A.L.F., Dad has become progressively more and more..........oooooold. Like.........functionally oooooold. He blurts out some really, really crazy stuff. Stuff that is either: a. A gross exagerration; b. Something he just said the day before; or c. Is just flat out not true. And as a result, I find myself muttering the same response a lot lately, "Really Dad? (pause) Really?"

Case in point.......day before yesterday, I was in the kitchen trying to make a quick salad. Dad was in there too, which is why I was making a QUICK salad. I purposely try to avoid making myself food of any kind when Dad is in the kitchen. Why, you ask? Well, because he constantly sticks his nose (literally) into whatever it is I'm fixing, pokes his fingers into whatever it is I'm fixing, and repeatedly (and I DO mean repeatedly) begs for a taste of whatever it is I'm fixing. That's not the worst part though. Doesn't matter WHAT I'm fixing, or cooking, or sauteeing, toasting, or mixing, or braising, or stewing, or stirring he'll nag me the entire time about how I SHOULD be fixing, cooking, sauteeing, toasting, mixing, braising, stewing, or stirring whatever it is I'm fixing, cooking, sauteeing, toasting, mixing, braising, stewing, or stirring.

"ADD SOME SALSA TO THAT. HERE I'LL GET IT OUT FOR YOU."

or.....

"YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE GOOD ON THAT, HERE LET ME SHOW YOU...."

or.....

"SAYYYY THAT LOOKS PRETTY GOOD. HERE LET ME ADD SOME [insert name of Dad's condiment of choice] TO THAT."

You get the picture. It reminds me of that old Anacin commercial with the adult daughter and mother--"Mother please! I'd rather do it myself!" Remember that one? Remove the mother; insert my father. That's what I'm talking about.

Anyway......so I'm in the kitchen, making a quick salad. And I look over and notice Dad's kind of slouched over the kitchen trash. I quickly figure out that he's got one of his nose bleeds again. There he is, stuffing a tissue wad up his right nostril. I walk over and look in the trash to see exactly what I expected to see--a contrasting collage of white tissue splotched with bright red blood. Dad gets these nosebleeds about once a month. After his last one, I did a little research on the Internet to make sure this wasn't a warning sign of something more serious. Turns out, nosebleeds are fairly common in the elderly. Something to do with their thinning capillary walls and decreased ability to clot.

"What's goin' on Dad?" I ask rhetorically.

Dad looks up, tissue wad sticking out of his right nostril. "HUH? OH, NOSEBLEED."

He says it rather matter-of-factly. He's used to it. I am too actually. Though the amount of blood that results from one of his nosebleeds is pretty astounding.

I look back into the trash bin, still amazed at the copious amount of blood. "Wow. That's......that's a lot of blood."

I look back at Dad, who merely shrugs, while preparing a fresh tissue wad.

And here's where the "old" thing happens. I stand there looking at Dad's sort-of-plugged-up nostril. And he says, with a really ridiculous sense of bravado, "YEAHHHH..........IT'S FROM MY PRIZEFIGHTING DAYS."

"Really Dad? (pause) Really?"

Here's another one. There's a live eaglecam that streams live video of a bald eagle nest from Decorah, Iowa. Currently, there are three eaglets of about two weeks of age in the nest. I have the eaglecam playing 24/7 on the other computer in my office, so Dad can come in any time during the day or night and check out what's going on with the eaglets. He loves this kind of stuff so it's been a real thrill for him to watch the daily routine of the two eagle parents and their three offspring. The parents take turns. One stays with the eaglets and feeds them, the other hunts for and brings back fresh meat. Seems like about once a day the parents shift roles. If you don't actually see it happen, you'd probably never know the parents have switched. Adult eagles look pretty much identical. Which brings me to Dad's other "old" moment.

So I'm working in the office the other day. Dad wheels in, stands and studies the eaglecam for a few seconds. (One of the parents is sitting on the eaglets, keeping them warm.) "WELLLL LET'S SEE...." He studies the eagle parent briefly (recall Dad's vision issues...) then says, "NOPE, THAT'S THE SAME PARENT."

This immediately gets my attention so I turn around, notice the eaglecam showing the one adult sitting on the nest. I've been watching the eaglecam pretty diligently for a couple of weeks now and I couldn't tell the adults apart if I had to. I stare at the eaglecam, trying to see if there's some distinguishing feature on the adult. There isn't.

Then Dad blurts out again, "WAIT, WAIT......"

I wait.

Dad moves in for a closer look. I just sit and watch him, amazed and curious all at the same time.

"NOPE, NOPE. THAT'S THE SAME PARENT."

"Really Dad? (pause) Really?"

Dad and Petey

2011-03-12T09:24:00.000-08:00

So.........remember all that hub-bub about Dad wanting a puppy? You know, so he could have a pet that was bonded just to him? Over the last six months or so, the puppy/dog issue has quieted, in part because of the two cats that I brought over from my old house in Port Townsend--Peter and Rufus. In a very small nutshell, Peter and Rufus are big, fluffy, vapid felines. Not much personality in either one, nevertheless they are beautiful specimens as far as cats go and Dad has really taken to them. Especially Peter.

The morning ritual Dad used to have with Zeus, (his beloved german shepard who we put down a couple of years ago) in which Dad would lie on his bed just before getting dressed, right next to his canine best friend, and pet his ears while whispering, "Are you a good boy Zeusy? I think you're a good boy Zeusy" over and over again, has been replaced. Now, Peter jumps up on Dad's bed at precisely the same time every morning (9am), meows in his delicate choir-cat falsetto, while Dad strokes him and says over and over again, "meow-meow Petey? Is that the meow-meow Petey?" (yes that is a direct quote)

But the best part happened this morning, just now, when Dad wheeled into my office to say good morning, and I turned around to see this:

Poof.

2011-03-10T12:56:00.000-08:00

So........Mom had an optometrist's appointment yesterday. I'll break down the day in numerical snippets.

1. First stop--optometrist in Port Angeles. Mom's left cataract is getting bigger. New prescription will hopefully be enough to stave off corrective surgery. Doc does that test where he blows a puff of air into the eye. He says, "Okay Patricia, you're going to feel a little air, like a little Poof!" I take a photo of Mom sitting in the chair with that big monstrosity they make you look into. She looks like a geriatric alien in a dress.

2. Next stop--Mom's favorite hairdresser in Sequim for a "real hairdo" (Not the one she gets at the ALF. For some reason, when the hairdresser at the ALF does Mom's hair, it doesn't last long. By the next day, she looks like she just woke up, all day. I think it's all about the hairspray.) I walk into the salon to retrieve Mom and she looks up at me, smiles a big grin and says, "Look, I'm poofy again!"

3. I take Mom to lunch in Sequim, to another one of her favorite places. Like last weeks' lunch excursion in Port Angeles, the waitresses here also recognize her, greet her warmly with embraces and warm smiles. They treat Mom like royalty. She eats it, and her beef barley, up.

4. After lunch, we start to head out of Sequim toward Poulsbo. Mom asks casually about the "kitty cats," the dogs, and Dad (not necessarily in that order). I assess Mom's unusual lucidity and consider that since we have extra time, perhaps this would be a good day to maybe take Mom home for a short visit. I keep assessing as Mom and I continue to chit-chat. She talks about the sunflowers that I planted last year in front of the house in Sequim. Am I going to plant them again, she asks.

I think, man! she seems unusually lucid and clear-headed today.

I think about how Dad keeps asking me, since Mom is doing so well, if I think she can possibly come home some day.

I reflect on my observation that she's really the only resident in the dementia wing at the ALF who can actually carry on a conversation.

I think about that tiny voice in my head that keeps nagging at me, "Mom doesn't belong there! Bring her home!"

I think, she seems to be in a really good place today. Maybe a visit home WOULD be a good idea for her. Today anyway.

I decide to bite the bullet.

I take a breath. Then I say to her, "Hey Mom, wanna stop by the house?"

And she stops. Probably a ten second pause here. The lucidity screeches to a halt.

"What house?"

And just like that, it was gone. Mom was there. And then she wasn't.

Poof.

Japanese Postscript

2011-03-08T11:41:00.000-08:00

Addition to the list of ways Dad practices Japanese:

Along with counting back to the eye doctor when he holds up two or three or four fingers and asks,"How many fingers?"; along with blurting out random Japanese phrases at the dinner table to nobody; along with pronouncing Japanese words and sounds out loud for hours at a time from his recliner; along with these, I caught him this morning filling his weekly pill container and counting out his pills.....in Japanese.

I should be at least semi-fluent by now with the amount of Japanese that's spoken in this house.

Ahso.

Crazy-Good

2011-03-03T20:26:00.000-08:00

So.........I went to see my therapist today.

It was my last appointment with him. Sort of a wrap up of the healing I've been doing for the last month and a half. A sort of final check of my emotional health before being completely released back into the world. I described to him all the positives in my life now and how great it feels to be, well, happy again. How great it feels to feel my brain "working" again. How great it feels to be constantly lit up from the inside by all of the seemingly insignificant everyday things around me.

I feel kinder. Less angry.

Then he asked me, "When you think of the entire time you've spent taking care of your parents, what's the best part?"

Okay. Get ready. Here's where the big OMG moment came for me. I didn't really think of what my answer was going to be. I listened to his question, then I just..........answered it.

"The craziness."

And then.....I wanted to cry. I didn't, but I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. Because the revelation of what my answer meant to me..........well, it kind of blew me away. The words came out of MY mouth, but I couldn't believe I had just said what I heard myself say.

My therapist raised one eyebrow. I guess he was surprised too. "Really? Explain."

So I did. Again, without thinking. I just opened my mouth, and started to talk. "Well, because, as crazy as some days were, when I think of them now, I think, I've experienced a part of my parents' lives that few people are ever able to experience."

And I went on, "Right now, I can't believe how crazy-bad my life had gotten. I mean, the day when I finally hit rock-bottom and became fully aware that I was trying to juggle as many balls as I was, while simultaneously dangling from the few, very frayed emotional threads I had left........it was frightening. I truly thought I was going to die and it scared the crap out of me. That was when I made my first appointment to see you. But now when I think about how crazy-bad it was,.......I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

Every day was full of battles. I woke up every morning thinking about which battles would be fought that day--Mom's meds, Mom's moods, Dad's mood, the bills, the dogs, the cats, my work, doctor appointments, the house, the yard. Then there were the unexpected battles--Mom falls, the dog gets sick, the computer isn't working, a work deadline gets moved up, Mom falls again, Mom has diarrhea, Mom starts wailing.

Crazy-bad.

But because I was at such a low point,.......in such a pit of despair.......it makes the fact that I feel as good as I do right now, a hundred times better."

We both sat in silence with smiles on our faces.

I spoke first, "Life was crazy-bad. And now it's crazy-good."

Tabasco

2011-03-01T17:31:00.000-08:00

I swear to god this story is true.

So.........I picked up Mom today at the ALF to take her to a dentist appointment in Port Angeles. On the way back, we went out to lunch. I took her to the place where she and Dad used to always go (when Dad was still driving and both of them didn't throw a fit if they were away from their own bathroom for more than a half hour). I had forgotten about my last experience there (at the restaurant, not the bathroom) until Mom and I walked in and sat down at our table. Then it all came back to me--that horrific lunch. Dad and his chowder.

This happened at least a few years ago. Mom, Dad, and I decided to stop and have lunch. I don't remember the circumstances. Maybe we were coming back from somebody's doctor appointment. I dunno. I remember feeling a little dicey about going out with them. You never know with Dad. Because of his hearing loss, he talks really loud. Because of his Dad-ness, he says some pretty off the wall stuff. Like the time, at the same restaurant, he asked Mom, out loud, if she was wearing a bra, and if she wasn't she should continue not wearing one because he liked her better "free and liberated." Yeah. That was a fun breakfast.

But that was a different story. This one happened, as I said, at least a few years ago. We were sitting at our table eating. Dad had ordered a bowl of clam chowder. Don't remember what Mom and I ordered. Not important. What is important is that Dad was eating his clam chowder, and we were sort of chatting our way through the meal when I glanced over and saw that Dad had put tabasco sauce in his chowder. But......there was a LOT of tabasco! And......there was no tabasco sauce on the table! I was just lifting my gaze to say something like, "Whoa Dad, have some chowder with your tabasco!" when I noticed he was stuffing pieces of napkin into his nostril.

Yep. It was blood.

The tabasco. It was blood. In his chowder. Bright, red (Tabasco Red?) sprinkled liberally and surprisingly artistically, all over the top of his fresh bowl of hot, steamy chowder.

I have to point out here that, this was one of those experiences where you somehow remain amazingly cool as the experience is taking place.

Then you totally freak out later. At least that's what I did.

So I was very cool when I realized Dad's nose had drained blood all over his bowl of chowder. I remember how I calmly raised my right index finger to signal the waitress. She bounced over to the table, completely unaware of what she was about to witness. I pointed to the "tabasco" chowder and asked quietly, "I think we'll be needing a fresh bowl, and a towel." It took that poor waitress under a millisecond to process the evidence--Dad with napkins stuffed up his nostrils; chowder with bright red "tabasco" sauce sprinkled all over it--to figure out what was really happening. And when she did, boy, she moved like lightning. Towels, ice, fresh chowder--it all came quickly and with incredible efficiency.

Anyway...........that's my story. Dad and his chowder. I've never been able to use tabasco since.

Green Tea

2011-02-27T10:24:00.001-08:00

So........Dad stopped drinking coffee about two months ago (about the time Mom moved into the ALF).

The reason for this sudden switch is up for speculation. Perhaps he felt guilty that I was firing up the coffee pot every morning for just him. Maybe he figured he was better off without the caffeine. Maybe he liked that he could make a cup of tea all by himself--independence and all that. Or maybe he read something in the newspaper or Time magazine about the health benefits of drinking tea. In reality it's probably all of the above.

His tea of choice? Good Earth's Jasmine Green Tea (shameless plug for Good Earth.....like it'll do me any good).

The point of this little anecdote? Well, I thought it was worth sharing what Dad said this morning as he waited patiently for the teapot to boil. You see......underneath all of the frustrating qualities that my Dad possesses--the need to be in control, the chauvinism, the over-protectiveness, the pathological stubbornness, and.....oh yeah, the need to be in control (wait, did I already mention that one? oops)--lies a deep current for all things poetic. For the most part, Dad views the world in poetic terms. It's just that, by the time the poetry crawls its way through the stubbornness, scrapes past the over-protectiveness, detours past the chauvinism, and finally, slogs across the need to be in control, there's generally not much poetry left. Most of the time, especially lately, what does manage to make its way to the surface is stuff like Dad's typical, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" or "WHAT KIND OF ASSHOLE DOES SOMETHING LIKE THAT?" or, my personal favorite, the succinct but always abrasive and utterly jarring, "HEY!....."

But this morning...........this morning Dad wheeled into the kitchen and was standing at the stove waiting for the teapot to boil. I was standing next to him, cooking up a pot of soup for dinner tonight. It was quiet for about half a minute before Dad started talking (in his inside voice for a change).

"You know why I like Jasmine Green Tea?"

His tone was gentle, like a warm smile. I turned toward him, leaned back against the counter, put my hands in my pockets and said only, "What's that Dad?"

He continued, "Well.........when I bring the mug up to my mouth to drink it, I first smell the bouquet of jasmine with my nose, then when I take a sip, I get the soothing flavor of the green tea in my mouth."

Seriously, it could have been a commercial for green tea. Clearly, the poetry had somehow managed to blaze a trail to the surface, completely intact and unscathed. It was really a lovely moment--the quiet of the morning; soup simmering on the stove, wisps of Jasmine Green Tea wafting their way into the kitchen air, and now a bit of poetic reflection from my father. I just stood there, smiling at him and could only reply with a simple, "awesome."

Then Dad carefully placed his tea on the walker, turned away slowly from the stove (so as not to spill the tea), and headed for the living room where his Sunday paper awaited.

Two steps later, the slogging had apparently resumed. "HEY!....."

Annnnnd, he's back.

A Moment...

2011-02-20T23:05:00.000-08:00

So......Dad made up a song a while back--Tell Me Pretty Girl. He sings it all the time, randomly, to whichever dog jumps up into his lap, whichever cat climbs into his chair, or he just sings it in the shower.

But today, he sang it to Myla, his newest granddaughter, who he met for the first time yesterday when my son and his wife arrived from San Diego. Here's the tail end of the song, and the moment when all of us watching simultaneously said, "awwwwwww."

Chinese Stew

2011-02-17T11:34:00.000-08:00

So.........Dad and I went to visit Mom last week.

It was about twenty minutes after what has turned into Mom's very predictable momentary sob about wanting to come home that she suddenly perked up, dried her tears, snapped out of her customary breakdown and suddenly blurted out to Dad, "Hey, remember that Chinese stew you said you used to work with?"

Okay, a few clarifications here. One, even though the politically correct term for stewardess is now flight attendant, both my parents continuously violate this rule on two levels--they continue to refer to flight attendants as stewardesses, and most of the time they further demoralize the title by referring to flight attendants as "stews." Two, Dad is a retired commercial airline captain. Now you're caught up. Going on....

Dad, of course, didn't hear Mom's question, so she turned to me for help.

First I needed more info. "Chinese stew?" I asked her.

"yesss. Dad worked....for this s-s-s-stew from......China....and she.....runs this place."

"Here? As in (I gesture, indicating the entire ALF) HERE?"

"yessss," she nodded with complete clarity.

A couple of red flags went went up in my head at this point. First, Dad retired over thirty years ago, so any.....ahem, "stew" he worked with would today be, well, pretty old. And I didn't remember seeing any really elderly woman, of any Asian persuasion, working in my mom's wing of the ALF. It's a small area, I would've met them by now. Second, how would Mom know who "ran this place" anyway? I've never even met the person who runs the whole facility. I've met the admissions coordinator, the accounting person, the receptionists, the aides, the nurses, the head of laundry, the maintenance guys, and the housecleaners. Not one of them even comes close to resembling a very old Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Phillipino, Thai, Vietnamese, or Tibetan woman. (If I left anyone out, I apologize.)

I've noticed Mom does this a lot lately--puts bits and pieces of facts together to make a whole new reality. A couple of visits ago, she asked me if Dad was taking good care of Suki. Suki was our cocker spaniel. Actually two cocker spaniels. The first one I grew up with as a child. The second one was our family pet while I was in high school. I guess our family liked the name so much that we named both dogs the same thing. But in any case, Suki, both Suki's, have been dead for decades.

Clearly, as I tried to process Mom's question and thought to myself, Mom's brain was piecing together fragments of memories. Dad looked over at me, waiting for me to restate Mom's question to him. But rather than ask him the question which I was sure wasn't going to make any sense to him and only frustrate him, I just said I'd tell him later when we were in the car.

Which I did. Here's what I said to him once we got in the car and were headed home. I said, "Mom said that the Chinese stew you used to work with is the person who runs the assisted living facility." Then I waited as Dad absorbed and processed. I braced for the wrinkled brow. I prepared for the perplexed expression which would most certainly be followed by a shrug of frustration. A sort of "Mom's doing it again" shruf. (For those who remember--Shrug #1.)

But.......except for the shrug, Dad didn't really respond at all. He just listened. I asked him if he heard what I said. He said yes. That's all. We continued home.

Then, a really weird thing happened. About a half hour later, we drove into the driveway. I turned off the engine. I opened my door to get out. I took Dad's walker out of the back and wheeled it over to him. He carefully swung himself out of the Jeep, straightened up, grabbed his walker, and started off toward the house. But as he wheeled away from me he said this. He said, kind of chuckling in amazement, "Yeah that's really somethin' that that Chinese stew runs the place where your mom is."

Okay. Can I just restate here that.........NEITHER MY MOTHER OR MY FATHER OR I HAVE EVER MET THE PERSON WHO RUNS THE PLACE WHERE MY MOM IS LIVING! And also......I HAVE NEVER HEARD EITHER MY MOTHER OR MY FATHER MENTION ANYTHING........A N Y T H I N G........ABOUT A CHINESE STEWARDESS, FLIGHT ATTENDANT, PILOT, CO-PILOT, FLIGHT ENGINEER, OR CAPTAIN, EVER! E V E RRRRRR!

So like..........what is going on? Are my parents somehow connecting in some really strange dementia world of their respective subconscious minds? First my mother makes a completely preposterous nonsensical statement. Then, my father, approximately one hour later, totally corroborates my mother's completely preposterous nonsensical statement! As if he knew and understood exactly what she was talking about. My MOTHER doesn't even know what she's talking about!

I wish I had nice tidy ending for this story.

But I don't.

Chinese stew.

It's a head-shaker.

Blog Block

2011-01-29T22:52:00.001-08:00

So............yeah..........I........uh............have been suffering from a major case of blog block. Not sure why. Not sure how long it'll last. Just thought I'd admit it.

For Whom The Bell Tinkles

2011-01-24T20:59:00.000-08:00

So......there was this little bell see.........

Okay so we all remember The Bell. The Damn Bell. The g.d.m.f.c.s. BELL. Yeah, that The Bell. It's been a couple of months since The Bell was used. Now, with Mom at the ALF, there is, of course, no more ringing of the bell. It has been retired, as it were, and it sets, gathering dust, on the shelf in my office. So yeah, the Bell is silent....sort of. I say, "sort of" because, well, because though there may be nobody ringing The Bell per se, my brain continues to insist on hearing it.

We'll subtitle this post: An Update On My Ongoing Struggle To Exorcize The Aforementioned Bell And It's Nauseating Tinkle From My Psyche.

The thing is..........there are surprisingly many things that share the same frequency and resonance as the tinkle of The Bell. Allow me to share a few:

The next door neighbor's telephone. (It's apparently just the right distance away, with just the right number and type of barriers between wherever their phone is and my ear, to mimic the tinkle of The Bell.)
The exhale portion of my bulldog, Emily's deep-sleep snore. (It's that last little respiratory effort that produces this sort of ringing-whistling sound--a dead-ringer for the tinkle.)
(You're not going to believe this one.) The silver bracelets that Steve Tyler wears on his right wrist. Okay, okay, so I confess, I watch American Idol. But seriously. Every damn time Steven Tyler moves his right wrist (which is a lot, trust me), those stinkin' bracelets tinkle. Drives me crazy. I'd mute the sound except, well, it's American Idol. Kinda need the sound on.
The high-pitched meow of my cat, Peter, when he's at the opposite end of the house crying for no apparent reason (He does this ALL THE TIME--just cries, incessantly, and, might I add, usually in the middle of the night! Stupid, needy fluffball of a cat. By the way, anybody want a stupid, needy fluffball of a cat? Stupid question. No, of course nobody wants a stupid, needy, fluffball of a cat that cries incessantly in the middle of the night for no apparent reason!!!! How do I end up with stupid, needy pets that meow, and snore, and whine, and snort, and take up half the bed, and rub their eye buggers all over my legs, and drag their stinky butts back and forth across the same rug I do my yoga on.......sorry, digression....)

Case in point. This morning, right before I woke up, I was having this weird dream that I was in the kitchen doing......something.......and Mom started ringing the bell from her room and I yelled, "I'll be right there Mom!" Then, in my dream, I started thinking, "Wait a minute, I thought Mom wasn't here...." And then the bell rang again, and just as I started to yell again, I woke up. And immediately, some tiny part of my consciousness realized it was really Peter meowing (cuz I remember thinking to myself, "Oh it's just the stupid cat meowing!), but because I was still mostly in dream-mode, most of my consciousness was convinced it was really Mom ringing The Bell. So before my consciousness was awake and aware enough to know better, I was already out of bed and walking toward my bedroom door before my brain finally "came to" and I suddenly stopped and realized there was no bell, no Mom.....just a stupid, needy, fluffball of a cat and a really eerie dream.

So yeah.......The Bell may be on the shelf, but my brain keeps hearing it ring, or tinkle, or snore, or meow...

Sushi

2011-01-23T21:23:00.000-08:00

The newest key to my dad's heart is apparently sushi. Exhibit A: Today's trip to Central Market where we purchased sushi for tonight's dinner.

Dad went to bed over an hour ago. But I'm guessing he just couldn't settle into the sheets without wheeling back into my room (at the other end of the house mind you) to tell me, "The next time we go to Central Market, let's get mackerel and tuna sushi."

"Okay Dad."

[Pause while Dad just stands there with a big ole grin on his face.] "Okay!" [Another pause. More grinning.] "And, let's go back soon!"

"Okay Dad" as I note my father's enthusiasm to return to Poulsbo NOT to see Mom, but........to get sushi.

[He turns and goes back to his room. Still grinning.] "Okay! Good night!"

Sushi. I have to admit, I'm not sure how I feel about my father's inner priority list...

converse

2011-01-23T16:38:00.001-08:00

Today's theme is the word converse. That's all I'm tellin' ya.

So..........the dining room at Mom's ALF. First of all, let me just say that, I love this place. It's relaxing. It's bright. The staff smiles. The residents smile. My mom smiles. A lot. And, in turn, I smile. A lot. Big difference from Mom's previous experiences in nursing home/rehab facilities. No tears here. No wailing here. No irrational demands for hatchets. Oh yeah, good times.

Dad and I visited today. His first visit since a week and a half ago when Dad was Mr. Grumpy Gills the whole drive out, the whole visit there, and the whole drive home. But today.........today, I'm happy to report, was drastically different. Mom smiled the whole time we were there. She and Dad ate lunch together............well, Dad ended up eating most of Mom's lunch but nevertheless, they sat at the same table while Dad ate virtually everything that was placed in front of him. Dad insisted I taste the dessert--some graham cracker/vanilla pudding/blueberry pie filling concoction. He thought was delicious. Mom thought it was delicious. It was the only lunch item she scarfed down. They called it blueberry pudding pie. Whatever. Mom clearly loved it. How great to see her enjoying food.

Recliner Row. That's what I call the lineup of six, count 'em, SIX recliners all backed up against the back wall of the dining room, directly facing the windows. It's apparently a favorite hangout amongst the dementia-ed, and it ended up being where Mom, Dad, and I spent most of today's visit--Mom and Dad, side by side, in recliners, me in a little chair off to the side. (The other recliners were all taken. damn.) The highlight today in Recliner Row, for me anyway, was Pauline, a slight little woman with a raspy, deep voice who clearly sees and hears in only her own private world and who never hesitated the entire time we were there, sharing that world, out loud, with everybody else. Pauline ranted about needing to go the drugstore to buy gum, about wanting to get flowers for the cemetery, and about how somebody, SOMEBODY!, had to dance with her NOW!, which she did at one point, with one of the aides. But my favorite part about Pauline were the velcro Converse shoes she wore. Like the Converse shoes my kids wore as kids and still wear today. In a room of Rockports, slippers, and other therapeutic shoewear, Pauline's hunter green Converse stuck out like non-arthritic thumbs. They made a statement, a different beat of a different drum, kinda like Pauline.

On the drive over to the ALF, Dad complained several times about having to leave the dogs alone for the afternoon. "It's not right" he said at least three times, each one more forceful than the one before it. Personally, I found his excessive display of concern for the dogs somewhat unnerving. Especially since, not once, did he say anything about looking forward to seeing Mom. I dunno.......it just struck me as pretty strange.......though NOT really strange for my dad........pretty typical for him actually.......(I'm thinking out loud here, can you tell?)

Anyway...............on the drive home, I took Dad to Central Market in Poulsbo. He's never been. Last visit, Dad had no desire to see Central Market. Remember that drive home? That was when a bird was nonchalantly walking across the road--I saw a beautiful pheasant; Mr. Pouty Puss saw a scruffy old roadrunner holding up traffic. This time however, Dad was pretty eager to see Central Market. Inside, he was like a kid in a candy store. We bought sushi, and cookies, and chili rellenos, and petit fours. He was exhausted but invigorated, and yapped the whole way home about how he was going to feast on sushi for dinner.

The crowning glory to today's visit: when we pulled into the driveway and Dad said, "You know................I think I'm missing Mom more than she's missing me."

This is how my Monday began....

2011-01-17T11:53:00.001-08:00

So......I'm sitting in my office working.

And Dad comes rolling in, clearly in a chipper mood.

And he begins......

(I don't know why Blogger flipped the rotation. It's vertical on my desktop and in iTunes. Sorry.)

Wonky-Wonks

2011-01-14T12:22:00.000-08:00

So......I'm visiting with Mom at the ALF....

And I comment to her casually during the visit, "Everyone's so nice here Mom. Have you noticed how nice everyone is?"

And she says to me, "Yeeeees. But the people who run this place are a bunch of wonky-wonks."

And I think to myself, "Wonky-wonks? Wonky-wonks!? What the hell is a wonky-wonk? And more importantly, from where in my mother's plaqued and tangled brain did she retrieve a term like wonky-wonks? Does that term even exist?" (It doesn't. At least, not per se. I looked it up. "Wonky," yes. "wonky-wonks," no.)

Anyway........I'm putting "wonky-wonks" right up there with "shenanigans" and "red hot poker", on list entitled "Bizarre Words and Terms My Mom Says Randomly and For No Apparent Reason."

Wonky-wonk, wonky-wonk, wonky-wonk, wonky-wonk. Say it enough times, it makes you smile.

And now, for your listening pleasure, ....

2011-01-12T16:25:00.001-08:00

.....the classical stylings of........my father.

One Man's Pheasant Is Another Man's Roadrunner

2011-01-11T17:16:00.000-08:00

So.....we're driving home from the ALF (assisted living facility) after our visit with Mom (Dad's first since last month.)

We're coming up and over the first hill once you get off the Hood Canal Bridge toward Sequim. I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that Dad's been surprisingly and almost alarmingly quiet the whole way home so far. This strikes me as odd because all of us were pretty much convinced that Dad would be all atwitter when he saw Mom's new digs--located right on the bay, beautiful views, baby grand piano in the lobby, friendly staff--we even entertained the thought that Dad might want to move in with her. We had visions of him hobbling through the place, up and down the halls, poking his nose into all of the sitting rooms, checking the menu in the dining room, looking for handouts, flirting shamelessly with the staff, etc.

None of that happened.

No atwittering at all.

And not because Mom was morose or depressed. She was (thank goodness!) alert, smiling, and, as the staff has told me repeatedly on the phone when I've called, "quite pleasant." They were exactly right. Mom was really quite, quite pleasant! She and I had a lovely, animated visit. I even made her laugh when I challenged her to play Chopsticks with me on the piano.

But Dad was quiet, withdrawn even. Until about ten minutes to three when he suddenly stood up and announced that we needed to leave to "beat the snow" that was forecast this evening.

We said our goodbyes, exchanged hugs, all without any tears or displays of panic. Dad and I got back into the Jeep and buckled ourselves up. Dad said to me, "SHE WAS SEDATED."

"What? No. No she wasn't Dad. Mom wasn't sedated" I told him immediately because his remark really took me by surprise. Mom was more alert than I've seen her in months, animated, spry even.

"SHE WAS TOO QUIET" he said.

In other words, he couldn't hear her. Which...........emphasizes to me the fact that Dad's hearing is getting worse (which we've noticed), but of course, Dad automatically thinks he couldn't hear Mom because she was talking too softly, and she was talking too softly because she was sedated. (Damn. Old people's logic is exhausting!)

I tried again to let Dad know how well I thought Mom was doing. "Mom started laughing when I told her we should play the piano together, did you see that Dad?"

Nothing. I got maybe a grunt. That was all.

So I kind of figured maybe Dad was having a geriatric reality check and just needed to be left to his own thoughts. We drove in silence.....until we got across the Hood Canal Bridge, and over the first hill. It was then that I saw this.........bird....thing.....walking across the road. Walking. A bird. Across the road. (Yes, to get to the other side.) But walking. Not flying. The bird was big, the size of a large rooster, but thinner. All the cars slowed down for it to cross. And as I got closer I saw.......it was a male pheasant, a beautiful, spectacular male pheasant, taking its own sweet time, sauntering across Highway 104, stopping traffic without so much as a howdoyoudo.

I reached across the seat and whacked Dad in the arm, "HEY! Look! It's a pheasant!"

He looked. "WHAT?" He looked again. "LOOKS LIKE A DIRTY OLE ROADRUNNER."

And I thought for a moment, and reflected, and assessed, and paused while watching that magnificent animal make its way across the asphalt. Then I simply said, "No Dad. That is definitely a pheasant."

Call of the Wild

2011-01-09T13:22:00.000-08:00

Let's review.

Dad is 94 years old. He uses a walker. He can barely see out of his one "good" eye, and he can barely hear out of his one "good" ear. His bones are as brittle as glass, and yet, in spite of all his obvious handicaps, my father still (maybe moreso?) acts as if he's a combination of John Wayne, Jack Kerouac, and Jack London. You know....fearless, rugged, unstoppable, immortal. Oh yeah, and Dad wants to adopt every homeless dog on the planet. Remember all of that?

Okay. So.........it snowed today in Sunny Sequim. We got a good four inches of really slushy slippery stuff. Good day for stew, or soup, or chowder, or tea and a good book, or in my case, tea and writing a blog.

I'm in the sun room. Dad's in the living room. The dogs are outside. The dogs start barking. Probably at the neighbor's dog, since that's the only dog close enough to matter to another dog. The dogs are barking, so I get up to go let them back into the house. But Dad shouts out to me, kind of almost frantically, "THERE'S A DOG OUT THERE! DO YOU SEE IT? THERE'S A DOG!"

There was no dog anywhere. My guess is, the neighbors momentarily let their dog out, then brought him inside again. But none of that mattered to Dad. He was undaunted. He was on a mission. And he was already out of his recliner and heading over to the door.

"There's no dog out there Dad," I told him, closing the door.

And what my father said next.......well...... it, along with a few other little incidents here and there since Mom has been out of the house, make both me and my brother (who was just here for a visit) wonder if Dad is venturing into a new chapter of his geriatric-ness. Here's what happened...

Dad comes over to the door, with pinpoint focus mind you, reaches for the handle and says to me, "I'm going to go rescue that dog."

.........uhhhh...........WHAT?! (Here's where I do one of those Daffy Duck Double-Takes. I have no idea how to write it descriptively. You'll just have to imagine it--Daffy Duck violently shaking his beaked head back and forth in disbelief over something.)

And Dad says again, now a little closer to the door, "I'm going to go out and rescue that dog. "

Did I mention the snow? The slippery, slushy snow? The brittle bones? The walker? The snow?

I put my hand on the door, preventing Dad from going anywhere. "DAD! There's no dog out there, and besides that....." I start to explain ALLLLLLL of the reasons why it's completely ludicrous and insane for him to............oh geez I can't even say it. You get my drift.

Anyway. He doesn't go out. I leave the room, but he stands there for a couple of minutes, studying the outside for the supposedly poor old lost dog--Buck, or Nanook, or Lassie, or Old Yeller--that he was going to risk life and limb for (literally) traipsing through the snow (with his walker) to rescue. He wheels over to the alcove window and stares out some more, still searching. He finally gives up and goes back to his chair, picks up the Sunday paper and resumes his daily read.

And, as you can see, I'm back with my tea.

The Absence of Crazy

2011-01-09T10:05:00.000-08:00

Clearly, I'm still in transition.

A blog or two ago I said, "you don't know how crazy your life is, until it isn't crazy anymore." It's true. Sort of.

I'm still getting used to the absence of crazy.

Like......

Every morning I open the pantry in the kitchen and fight the urge to reach up and grab the Grape-Nuts box to make cereal for Mom.

Like....

Every time I walk past Mom's bathroom, with all of her medications lined up in their color-coded rows, I think, "I should check to see which ones need to be refilled."

Like....

Two o'clock comes and for just a moment, I think I need to give Mom her oxycodones.

Like.....

Every time I sit down to relax, I keep expecting, assuming even, that something will happen to prevent me from doing anything BUT relax.

Like.....

I can't get over the fact that I haven't been to a grocery store in.......well, that's just it......I honestly don't remember the last time. No more early morning/late night runs to QFC or Safeway for cottage cheese with chives, or Mocha Mix, or fruit cocktail, or Campbell's chicken noodle soup, or........wait for it.........BANANYAS!!

Like......

I caught a "bug" two days ago. Now, this is really unusual because the last time I caught a bug like this one, was about thirteen years ago after I had had fried razor clams at Camp 99 outside of Portland, Oregon. I knew I had caught a "bug" because around 1am, my body became suddenly decided it had a mission--to expel, by any means possible, any (A N Y), digested or undigested, filtered or unfiltered, absorbed or unabsorbed matter that happened to be residing anywhere (A N Y W H E R E) between my face and my......well, the other end. In short, my gastrointestinal tract spent a good six to seven hours evacuating its contents.

(I'm sorry. Was that too much detail?)

Anyway..........I caught this bug, see, and............well, the really glorious thing was that.......the next day.......I just did nothing. NOTHING. I barely spoke. I didn't get dressed. Criminy, I didn't even make my bed! In fact, (you won't believe this)......I took.........are you ready for it?...........a NAP. Yessirree, I did. I. Took. A. Nap. Right smack dab in the middle of the afternoon. Recovered from "the bug" in a day and a half, thank you very much.

Like.....

That constant feeling that some type of crisis is always lurking behind the next minute......is gone.

Like.....

Right now, I'm sitting in the living room typing this, and it's almost eleven in the morning, and it's really, really quiet and really, really still in the house and.........and.......and.....I think to myself, I could like.....sit here for as long as I want to and type, or read, or watch the snow (yes it's snowing in Sequim this morning), or do nothing, yesssirree I could just that, I could do nothing if I wanted! Hahahah! Nothing!!

Sorry.......getting a little crazy......

Pancakes, Tea and Lightness

2010-12-31T20:20:00.000-08:00

Three conversations. One unanimous decision. That was yesterday.

Today.

I swear I woke up this morning feeling lighter.

Physically. Tangibly. Lighter.

I made pancakes.

I rearranged the tea cupboard.

I laughed without trying.

My head was......open. Like it had space in it.

Like it was........clear. Yes, that's it. My head felt clearer.

I'm not trying to be poetic here, or symbolic, or abstract. My head literally felt clearer. Like I'd had a stuffy, plugged up brain for a really long time and now.........it was gone.

I guess you don't know how bad things are, until they aren't bad anymore.

Right now.......It feels really good NOT to feel "bad", or heavy, or plugged up.

Let me be clear. I am not speaking of celebration here. There is no celebration in not being able to care for one's aging parent. But there is a certain relief in finally admitting one's own limitations......before it's too late.

Stopped in the Roundabout

2010-12-30T17:39:00.000-08:00

I got stuck in a roundabout today.

Driving to CostCo.

In Sequim.

Stopped dead.

In a ROOOOOUNNNNNDDD-a-bout!

Who STOPS in a roundabout? Isn't that oxymoronic?

Then again....... it seemed oddly apt.

It occurred to me, whilst being stopped in the roundabout, that I've been stuck in sort of a crazy roundabout for the last two weeks. No, wait. The last month. For those of you just tuning in, it went something like this:

1. Mom plummets into a downward spiral of anxiety and paranoia.

2. Mom does not sleep for days at a time.

3. Mom falls repeatedly.

4. Denise does not sleep for days at a time.

5. Denise loses most of her patience around the third sleepless night.

6. Dad loses all of his patience after the first sleepless night.

7. Much cussing is exchanged at random times throughout the day over ridiculous things.

8. Mom is evaluated for assisted living facility, which refuses to take her because of her medication/anxiety issues. Assisted living facility recommends Geriatric/Psychiatry unit in Tukwila.

9. Mom goes to G/P unit in Tukwila.

So the last two weeks has been a strange mix of introspective-thought-talk. "WHEN will Mom come home?" "WILL Mom come home?" "SHOULD Mom come home?" "Would Mom KNOW if she was home even if she DID come home?" and sprinkled in between all of those questions was the persistent, guilt-smothered, nagging of "Do I WANT Mom to come home?"

I've been thinking a lot about the week before Mom went to Tukwila, and how my body was in some sort of weird auto-pilot mode--give Mom her pills, change the Depends, check the bandages, empty the commode, feed Mom, clean up Mom, check the Depends again, check Mom again, give Mom her pills, and on, and on, and on. It's like that last week of school before summer vacation, when all you do is study, review, study, review, study, review, and maybe you eat, but you don't really do it consciously, it just sort of magically happens because you're completely immersed in study, review, study, review, study, review.....

That's how it was for me the week before Mom went to Tukwila. And when I came home afterwards, the house was eerily quiet. It wasn't a quiet house. It wasn't a relaxing house. It was the same house. It was just the house without Mom.

It hasn't changed much in the last two weeks. Her absence is palpable. She's here, but she isn't. It's a relief, but it isn't. I should have more free time, but I don't. I should be able to relax, but I can't.

I keep thinking, "I should prepare for when she comes home." I ask myself, "Will it be harder? Should I hire more help? Will I be able to work my regular job when she comes back? Will she be able to walk? Will I still have to feed her?"

I think through all the different scenarios in my sleep. I'm haunted by the sounds of phantom bells, and distant wails that aren't there. I dream one night, that Mom is standing in the garage holding a carpetbag and rocking back and forth, back and forth, and then her arms outstretch in front of her and I go to grab her so she doesn't fall and my hands move right through her ghostly flesh. Like I said, she's here, but she isn't.

Then today, a conference call with the doc and case worker from Tukwila. Mom is stable, they say. She's off two of her meds, they say. She scoots around in a wheelchair, they tell me. She sleeps six to seven hours most nights, they add. They strongly suggest, without actually strongly suggesting, that she requires more care than I alone can give her. They ask if they should discharge her to an assisted living facility. I want to say "yes. " I want to say "no." I want to say something that means both, like......"nyes" or "yeno." I ask for some time to talk with the family. They say, "No problem."

The family consensus is to discharge Mom to assisted living.....at least for now, so she can get the care she needs. The family consensus appears to be that.......it's time. Time for the house to be just a house. Not a house without Mom.

The consensus comes after a few hours of conversation with Dad and one phone conversation with my brother. It's kind of an Occam's Razor moment--the simplest solution (discharge Mom to assisted living) ending up being the best one.

The consensus comes and goes and I find myself walking, then sitting, then getting up, and then going to another room for no particular reason, and then repeating it all again. Something strange is sinking into the zone of reality in my brain and I'm having some serious trouble processing it.

My brain says to me, "Wait......that means..........you won't have to check the Depends, feed the yogurt, empty the commode, get up during the night..."

I ask my brain, "Wait.......what.......does........that.......mean????"

I'm stopped in the roundabout.

Mountain

2010-12-19T22:01:00.000-08:00

The day I drove my mother to the geriatric-psychiatry unit in Tukwila......

Dad and I help Mom nestle into the sheepskin seatcover on the passenger seat of my car, and I notice later, with her sitting right next to me, how small she's gotten. In fact, there were many moments during that drive over, when I glanced over and thought about how my mom has changed--her withered body, contorted by the rigors of age, her thinning white hair barely covering her scalp, her mouth hanging open as she napped.

The day seemed ripped from a "Wish you were here" postcard--the sun blazing across the blue sky, the snow-capped mountains looming in the distance, Mom's scrunched up body sitting so low in the seat that the sun shone right onto her face as she slept. Even with the visor down, her face was still covered in sunlight, so I spent much of the drive with my right arm stretched out in mid-air, in front of her face, shielding it from the brightness. I had a full-circle moment remembering her doing the same for me when I was little.

One hour into the drive, Mount Rainier suddenly appears in front of us in the distance. It's like a huge, snow-covered rocky beacon, guiding us along as we drive east through Silverdale toward Tacoma. Mt. Rainier looks bigger on a clear day like today, and that seems apt.

At the Tacoma Bridge Mom wakes up for a moment, confused, and asks why it's taking so long. I tell her we're almost there, about a half hour to go. She goes back to sleep. I've told her we're going to see a specialist about her "medication issues." She doesn't know she's staying for two weeks. Because of her history with anxiety/panic attacks, the consensus was not to disclose the extended stay portion of her visit.

We arrive. It takes almost two hours to get Mom admitted. I'm at the end of the last form when I can hear my mother starting to wail from her wheelchair in the hallway. I think, "Uh oh, the lorazepam is wearing off." I hear one of the nurses talking to Mom, consoling her, and suggesting they take a ride back to her room. I hand in the completed forms to the charge nurse who seems to instantly sense my thoughts.

"She'll be okay. You've done the right thing."

I want to jump over the counter and hug the charge nurse. I want to collapse on the floor and cry myself into the linoleum because I've been holding all of my emotions in check for so long that I'm not sure what I'm feeling anymore and it would just feel so good, I think, to let everything out. But I don't.

"Really?" I ask instead.

"She'll be fine" she says again.

Then I sort of lean in, though I'm not sure why, to ask quietly, "You know....Mom gets a little wild when she has an anxiety attack.....Do you.....I mean, is that.....?"

And the nurse sends me a smile that wraps itself around every stressed-out, exhausted nerve in my entire body and says, "That's what we do. She'll be fine."

I didn't know what else to say except, "Thank you."

And then I leave. Back into the elevator, down to the first floor, back into my car. Back toward home. I pull out of the hospital parking lot. I glance in the rearview mirror--Mt. Rainier is behind me.

Walnuts

2010-12-16T18:22:00.001-08:00

It was somewhere around the fifth or sixth spoonful of Grape-Nuts I was feeding into my mother's mouth that it hit me.

I can't do this anymore. And it's ok.

And during each spoonful after that one (the fifth or sixth), I pieced through the journey. I guess you could say I sort of stepped back and looked at the chain of events that had led me to that moment--sitting next to my mom, in what used to be HER chair, feeding her spoonfuls of soggy Grape-Nuts as she sat in her walker (because, as of yesterday, she no longer can maneuver from her walker into the chair). I remembered the falls, the surgeries, the trips to the ER, the sleepless nights, the changes in her medication schedule, the setbacks, the injuries, the progression of her dementia to where it is now.

"And here we are now", I thought to myself. That next step was suddenly so clear, so logical to me.

You know those key moments in your life when the significance of a single decision hits you like a sledgehammer? This was one of those.

I kept the spoonfuls of Grape-Nuts coming. We sat in silence for many minutes--me cogitating; Mom......well, I'm not really sure what she was doing. But at least she was quiet. (A welcomed relief from the last ten hours during which she wailed incessantly for "MARION!" and then "GRANDMA!" from around 10pm last night until around 6am this morning when she finally, FINALLY, dozed off for a couple of hours.) Yeah. At least it was finally quiet in the house.

During a couple of spoonfuls, I wondered if I really WAS doing the right thing--admitting I cannot continue to take care of Mom and making the decision to place her in a facility. Maybe she's not as bad as I thought, I thought. Maybe it was just a bad night, I thought. Maybe she'll die soon, I thought. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I was scraping up the last few mouthfuls of cereal and Mocha Mix with the spoon as I continued to examine all the options I thought I had. I remembered the caregiver suggesting months ago that Mom (and I?) might be better off where she could get round the clock care. Then the doctor suggested it. Then the cleaning lady suggested it. Then the bath-aid, then friends....

The many minutes of silence were abruptly broken by Mom's singular question. Asked oh-so innocently, and with perfect clarity, and using every functioning neural fiber left in her over-medicated brain.

"Do you like walnuts?"

Sometimes, validation comes from very strange places.

Slender Thread

2010-12-16T00:43:00.000-08:00

When the going gets tough, the tough do pushups. I mean.......what the hell else am I supposed to do when I've given Mom the maximum dose of every anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, muscle relaxant pill prescribed to her and she's STILL (emphasis on the STILL) awake, and wailing, and delirious, and trying to get out of bed, and, oh, did I mention WAILING?!

First it was a light workout to "just take the edge off" before bed.

That was around ten-thirty.

Now it's almost one and I'm five sets of twenty pushups into what is appearing to be a futile attempt to burn off steam.

I believe it may be time to re-evaluate my reason for being here.

A Very Very Sarcastic Perspective of a Very Very Crazy Day

2010-12-13T22:27:00.001-08:00

Dearest Most Beloved Diary,

What did I do today Diary? Golly, gee, it was such a goofy, wacky day, I don't even know where to begin! Hmmm, well let's see if I can try...

Okee-Dokee welllll.......First, I got up this morning around seven because my mother was calling for help. Gosh I just love it when she does that! Especially when it turns out she really doesn't need help with anything! Hahahah! She's such a jokster! This time was different though! Can you guess why? Can you? Can you??? RIGHT! She fell in her bedroom. Again! Oh no, I hate when that happens! It's okay though, she wasn't hurt or anything and between the two of us, we were able to get her back into bed without having to call 911. Wowee! I didn't even throw out my back! Yayyyyy us! What a team!

But hold on Diary Buddy, there's more! Second, I had to go to the dentist and have my temporary caps fixed for the second time! Why you ask? Well, because they keep popping off, silly! Why do they keep popping off? Well, because I seem to have been born with Teeth From Hell! Lucky me! But gee, how I do love going to see the dentist and having my teeth sanded and ground withOUT novocaine! Gosh it's fun!

And ya know what Diary? I thought that was a wacky way to start my day, but boy was I wrong! It was just starting! Third, after the dentist, I came home to find one of my two cats lying in the corner throwing up some clear mucous stuff and looking pretty much like he wished he was dead. Can you believe it?! But no problem! I called the vet and made an appointment at 4:15!

Bet you can't wait to hear what happened next, huh Diary? Okay, okay, I'll tell you. Fourth, I sat down to the computer to finally start a work project I was supposed to start last week but couldn't because I had to take Mom to the ER and sit there for four hours while they ran a bunch of tests that turned up nothing. Ooh golly, I sure do remember how much fun that was! But anyways where was I? Oh yeah, so I sat down to work, except I kept getting distracted because my sick cat kept throwing up in the hallway and, well.......somebody had to clean it up. Can you guess who that was, Diary? Right! Lucky me!

Okay Diary, now here comes the best part. Fifth, I took my sick cat to the vet, only to find out that apparently my cat ate something that poked a hole in his stomach and caused stomach acid to leak out and destroy a whole bunch of tissue in his gut. Poor kitty boy! So now......$1300 later, kitty boy has necrotic tissue removed, hole sewn up, tummy stapled together, and a whole lot of pain medication. Whoozy kitty boy! Kinda like Mom! Wow, how about that?! Gee-willikers, who knew I'd be spending $1300 on my cat today!!??? Wow, I love surprises like that!!

And Diary, here's the kicker of the whole entire crazy wacky day! Sixth, I came home from the vet, only to find my mom lying on the dining room floor and Dad sitting in the chair next to her. Ohhh noooo! Can you guess what happened Diary? You're right! Mom fell again! Another unexpected surprise! What a goofy day! Wait! I know, I know.....let's call 911 and get the big burly EMT guys to come over and help Mom up! Good idea! The big burly EMTs came. They put Mom to bed and she fell asleep pretty quickly. Wow, she had a big day didn't she?! Two falls in one day?! Bet she sleeps well tonight!

So Dearest Diary......we all had a pretty insane day here today! Wait, did I just use the word......in-sane???! Hahahahahahahah! That's so funny!

Aaaaaand......I'm back.

2010-12-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

5:34pm conversation from the living room:

[Mom getting up out of her hydraulic chair]

Dad: Where ya goin'!?

Mom: ....Go......get......undressed....

Dad: You're going to get undressed?!

Mom: Yesssss.....

Dad: Want some help!!!???

Mom: Yessss......

Dad: I would love to come and help you get undressed! (Can you hear the lilt in his voice on the word "love"?)

Mom: I....lllllllike......it.........whennnnn....I.....geeeeet......undressed......

Cue audible sigh of relief from me. The funk has officially subsided.

A Silent Tree

2010-12-05T23:01:00.000-08:00

Today, I found out that a close friend of mine from high school was killed in the big San Diego County Cedar Fire of 2003. She's been gone for over seven years but I didn't know. In some tiny part of my memories, she has been existing, until today.

So now, I'm wrestling with having to unexpectedly redefine the existence of a high school friend whose wonderful and poignant memory I had tucked safely away in some part of my brain. Erasing my hope that one day soon we would re-connect and sit down together for a long catch-up session over tea, share photos of our children and grandchildren, compare our weirdly parallel lives, and laugh, and cry.

Instead, I'm only crying, by myself.

Tonight, my mother started whining and whimpering that she wanted to die and all I could think of was that she's 89 years old, with a full rich life behind her, and a grown family, and decades of wonderful memories, and yet she voluntarily wants to chuck it all and leave because, why?, because she feels old and depressed?

My friend was 50 years old when the fire took her life, with more talent in her big toe than I have in my entire being. Up until today, there was a sort of unconscious comfort for me in knowing that somewhere in the world my friend was existing and sharing her gifts with others. I was envious at the great pieces of art I was sure she was creating somewhere for somebody. Occasionally, I would wonder where she might be, what she might be doing with her gifts, was she happy, was she fulfilled, how might I contact her so we could connect? Now, as of today, I can't wonder any of those things anymore.

Instead I have to listen to my mother complain about not having her television on the right channel, not remembering where her jewelry is, not having enough fruit on her Grape-Nuts, not running out of pills.

My mom exists. She has existence. She's still alive. But she's not really emotionally or socially or intellectually present.

My friend stopped existing on October 26, 2003. For me, she stopped existing today. Yet, she still feels completely present.

Part of me wishes I hadn't found out.

That way, in my world anyway, she'd still exist.

Crying Wolf

2010-12-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

The dementiadventure continues.

Dad and I have been exchanging shrugs all week. Correction.....we've been exchanging shrugs by the hour.

Here's the dementia dance that we do at least twenty times a day:

Mom wails from her room for help.

Either Dad or I go in to see what she needs.

Mom can't remember why she called for help.

We leave.

Ten minutes later, it starts all over.

The only things that interrupt this dance are sleep, meals, doctor's appointments, Home Health visits, or lorazepam.

The result? Both Dad and I think twice, or three or four times, about dropping whatever we're doing and running in to see what Mom needs.

Chasing down non-existent wolves is exhausting.

Just another morning...

2010-12-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

Interesting morning.

Started out well. Two hours ago.

But since about 9:30, Mom has spoken in nothing but Dementia-ese, making no sense to either Dad nor I.

Oh.......and when she went to the bathroom just now, there was a Thanksgiving napkin stuck inside her Depends. (Shrug #3)

Oh.....and two minutes ago, Mom weebled into my office because she'd "lost some velcro" and couldn't find it. (Shrug #3 again)

So now I have a call into the doc to find out how often I can give Mom the lorazepam.

Almost a restful, relaxing, great day.

2010-12-01T20:56:00.000-08:00

Imagine you're a parent.

You leave your two kids with a babysitter for the day while you drive into the big city for some rest and relaxation. All is well in the morning when you leave. Everyone's happy and in a good space, cheerful goodbyes are exchanged, the sitter assures you that you needn't worry, "Just go and have a great day", she says optimistically.

So you go. You do have a great day. A relaxing day. A restful day. You drive home thinking, "I really needed to do that."

Then you come home.

You walk in the door to silence. The sitter has left you a note describing how the day went. She says that one of the children was frantic, fretful, and very needy all day. You walk into one of the children's bedrooms only to find half of the knick-knacks on the dresser are either knocked over, on the floor, or askew. And before you can ask what happened, the other child runs in and begins yelling angrily at you because you didn't tell him where you put one the other child's toys. Then before you can try to make sense out of the outburst (and the askewed knick-knacks), the other child comes in and starts whining because she wants to go to the bathroom and nobody will help her, to which the non-whining child responds by yelling at her too.

Now imagine that those are your parents.

Sauvignon Blanc

2010-11-30T17:19:00.000-08:00

I don't even know where to begin.

So I'll begin with Dad pouring me a glass of wine. Remember, I don't drink. But, you know, there are moments when it just seems like the perfect thing to do. So I did.

Then Dad and I toasted each other, "Happy Holidays! Bon Vivre! Lacheim! A votre vivre!" All of those toasts. It had been a long day. Mom, in a downward turn of depression most of the day, had exhausted both of us, the Home Health aide, the housecleaner, AND the pedicurist. I was so verklempt I left to "run errands" and came back with ingredients to make turkey soup with the leftover turkey.

The soup was simmering as Dad and I clinked our glasses of sauvignon blanc. Then we started talking about Christmas and I reminded him that I was going to be gone for Christmas (I'm going to Birmingham December 22-28 to spend Christmas with my son, his wife, my first granddaughter, my nephew and his family, and my daughter. My first Christmas, except for one, away from my parents since I moved here.). Of course, Dad had forgotten that I was going. I expected that. So did he actually. I reminded him again, and he was fine with that.

But.......the trouble started because Mom overheard the conversation from the living room and instantly plummeted into a full-blown anxiety attack as soon as she heard that I was going to be gone for Christmas.

She yelled. She wailed. She whined. She complained. She even threw her glasses on the floor.

Here's the fundamental difference between my mom and my dad. When I reminded Dad that I was going to Birmingham to spend Christmas with family, his immediate response, "GREAT! I think that's wonderful that you're going to spend Christmas with everyone! "

Mom's response? Well, it was along the lines of, "I DON'T THINK THAT'S FAIR! SHE SHOULDN'T BE LEAVING US!"

About that time, still in the kitchen (resisting the urge to go into the living room and face my mother's wrath), I poured my second glass of Sauvignon Blanc. (Funny how it tasted even better the second time.) Dad wheeled into the living room to deal with Mom's tantrum.

Then Dad kind of ripped into Mom telling her, "I think that's very inconsiderate of you Patreesha. Denise deserves to have her own life. You should be happy that she's able to go spend Christmas with everyone." (Picture me toasting Dad, in the air, from the kitchen.)

But the real fun didn't start until Mom wheeled into the kitchen to "give me a piece of her mind." Now remember, I have two glasses of wine in me when she finally decides to come into the kitchen and pour out her wrath in my general direction. And remember.......I don't drink. Also remember, Mom has dementia in a really big way so it takes her.........a looooooong time to say anything. And most of the time, WHAT she is able to say, doesn't even make sense. Here's the gist of what she laid on me: She thought it was downright wrong of me to leave and if she and Dad couldn't go to Birmingham with me (a logistical impossibility--think of the bathroom issue), then I should stay home with them.

Then she tried the guilt trip, "I can't believe you would leave us like that."

Then she tried the super-guilt trip, "I'm going to commit suicide."

Let me just say........I'm not an advocate of "the drink." But it's amazing the assertiveness one gains after two glasses of wine.

So......to the guilt trip ploy I said, "Well Mom, I AM leaving, for five days. And you will be in splendid hands while I'm gone. And I will take lots of pictures of everyone and show you all of them when I get back. "

And......to the super-guilt trip ploy I said, "Really Mom? How exactly areya gonna do that? And even if you did Mom, then you'd miss seeing all the pictures of everyone that I'm going to bring back! Why would you wanna do that?!"

Then........I swear on a stack of bibles...........my mother who, just minutes previously had read me the riot act for having the gall to abandon her over Christmas, looked at me with her sunken eyes and overly-medicated stare and said, "What should Dad and I have for Christmas dinner?"

And I said, "Would you like to plan the Christmas dinner for you and Dad?"

And she said, "Yeeeeees."

And I said, "I think that would be lovely Mom. You can plan the dinner, I'll have it all ready for Dad to warm up, and you can spend a wonderful, romantic Christmas dinner with the man you have spent the last 65 years with. "

"67," she quickly corrected me.

"OK! Sixty-seven years then! Even better!" I said.

"I like that idea," she said.

"Me too," I said.........looking for my glass of wine.

Black Mules

2010-11-29T22:34:00.001-08:00

I'm not a chatty person.

In fact, I've found that in the last year, I've become less and less chatty. It's not that I don't have anything to say. I just prefer to listen. Especially with my parents.

Used to be, whenever I had to drive Dad to an appointment, or to CostCo, I'd make a point of controlling the conversation just to keep him away from the three deadly topics--religion, politics, and money.

But lately, I just get in the car and clam up. If Dad goes off on one of his religious or political rants, I simply listen, and maybe toss out a "yep" or a "right" every now and then. It's either that or end up screaming at him, not out of anger, but because that's the only way he can hear anymore. If I say something once, he'll say, "WHAT?" almost immediately, then I'll say it louder, and he'll say almost immediately again, "WHAT"! and then I just out and out yell whatever I said at him.

Kinda takes away the enjoyment of a good conversation.

Anyway, Dad had an appointment with the hearing aid specialist at CostCo this afternoon. Mom chose to stay home (after changing her mind three times).

Dad and I climbed into the jeep and set off on our way, about a ten minute drive, to CostCo. In keeping with my current trend, there was no conversation except for Dad's intermittent banging on the dashboard--his signal that he wants the heat turned up. Real subtle.

Then we passed by the big field where there is almost always a group of horses, mules, and brown and white cows grazing and roaming.

As we pass, Dad blurts out, "BLACK ANGUS! Look at those beautiful black angus! Those are black angus! Did you see those beautiful black angus??" He whacks me across the right upper arm with his left hand. (He does this all the time when he wants to punctuate a point. He thinks it's funny. And it is. The first time.)

And the thing is, the creatures he thinks are black angus......are mules. And since I'm feeling belligerent, I say, "No, those are mules."

"MULES!?" Dad recoils, appalled, unbelieving. "What do you mean MULES?!"

"Those are mules, Dad, not black angus." I'm calm, matter-of-fact, slightly smart-alecky.

"Why are they so black?" Dad's challenging me now. He does that a lot. Dad loves to press my buttons. He knows I prefer not to talk, so he needles me to make me do exactly what I don't want to do.

"They're BLACK mules." It's the best I can come up with.

Dad is silent.

We continue on, down Hendrickson Road, then I turn up Priest Road, which just happens to have a field on it where three big black angus steers are grazing.

I point them out to Dad, "THOSE are black angus." I'm smug. I'm a smart-ass. But it's been a long week trying to get Mom stable and I'm tired and not feeling very patient. Smart-ass is the best I can do. More importantly, I forget how well my father knows me. He may be 94, and stubborn, and belligerent, but dang if he isn't incredibly quick some times. This was one of those times.

As soon as I proudly point out the three black angus to him, he immediately comes back with, "Nah, those are black mules."

Smart aleck.

She's Back

2010-11-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

The Mom of Monday morning is a welcomed relief from the Mom of last week. Both Dad and I are buoyed at not having to put out any Mom-fires this morning.

Dad has a hearing-aid appointment at 12:30 today. Mom says she wants to come along.

Great!

Mom asks me to come in and help her pick out something to wear.

Great!

I tell her I'll be in as soon as I finish what I'm doing (which, I kid you not, was writing the previous blog).

Great!

I try to wrap up the blog post. No more than two minutes pass. And yet.......it comes. The anxious breathing from the next room. The random whimpers.

Great.

I keeping tapping away ferociously on the keyboard so I can get into Mom's room before the anxiety that seems to be mounting completely takes her over and ruins what is, so far, a really, really good day.

Too late. Two minutes was clearly too much time.

I post the blog.

I turn to get out of my office chair.

And there she is, standing in my doorway, clothed in only a Depends (Large/Moderate Absorbency), her hip brace, her shoes, and her foot brace. Oh yeah, and her walker.

"Did.......yyyyyyyyou..........forget.......meeee?"

Damn those aliens.

Every Morning's Another Day...Or Another Mother

2010-11-29T09:53:00.000-08:00

"When what to my wondering eyes should appear"............(when I came in to Mom's bedroom at 9am to see if she was still asleep).....but my mother, propped comfortably, contentedly even, up in her bed, glasses on, reading the new Julie Andrews book (which has been lying on Mom's bed, unread, untouched, and ignored for months).

I stopped in the doorway. I mean, imagine my surprise. Every morning for the past week, Mom's morning has begun with confusion, anxiety, and incoherence. The woman lying so casually on her bed now, was.....well, it was a little odd to see.

Mom looked up briefly from her book and said casually to me (normally....as if this is how she starts every morning), "Well good morning! How are you?"

So.....my question is.........what devious alien kidnapped my dementia-ridden mother during the night and replaced her with a lucid one?

And.......can I keep this one?

Shrinkage

2010-11-28T14:53:00.001-08:00

And for the record: I noticed this morning, when I was walking behind Mom into the dining room, that she is significantly shorter than she was two weeks ago, before I went to NYC.

Two weeks.

People can shrink in two weeks?

You know what it makes me think of? (And I'm certain this is NOT a new idea. Just new to me.) It makes me think of the fetal position, and how we start out in that position, become more and more upright as we mature, then become more and more "down-right" as we age and sort of revert back to the fetal position.

I love it when life hits you square in the face one of those "full circle" things.

"Foosey!"

2010-11-28T14:49:00.001-08:00

Clearly Mom's on a roll today. She just wheeled into my office and declared clearly and loudly, "I'm a foosey!" (Of course, I knew she meant to say 'floozy', which is why I nearly choked on my T'giving leftovers.).

I asked her why she thought she was a "foosey".

She said, "Because I can't figure out how to make the TV guide work."
So, excuse me now while I go and explain to my mother: 1. The definition of floozy; and 2. How the TV guide works.

Guess I'll finish my leftovers later.

Short Circuit

2010-11-28T12:02:00.000-08:00

Okay so my mother, who has been unable to piece together more than two words in the last week (and that is NOT an exaggeration), weebled herself over to the glass doors just now, gazed out at the early morning sun and snow-covered mountains, and then blurted out "LOOK-AT-THE-BEAUTIFUL-SUNSHINE-ON-THE-MOUNTAINS!!!!"
Scared the crap out of me.

Thanks, Giving, and Tawny Port

2010-11-25T18:01:00.000-08:00

This is going to be strange Thanksgiving. I've decided on a rather warped strategy for getting through today. It will include a play-by-play update. It'll be like you, the reader, are right there with me! "Oh goody!", you're saying right now. Right?! Here we go.

8:58am: Mom is fretting and whimpering. Kind of a pre-anxiety attack. She keeps asking me where everybody is. I told her it's just her, Dad, and me, and Dad's asleep. She wants to climb into bed with him. I convince her that's not such a good idea. They haven't slept together in thirty years. We're already one half of an anti-anxiety pill into the day.
9:01am: The parade is starting. I'm watching from the living room. I can hear Mom whimpering in her room. I think seriously of sipping on a teensy bit of the tawny port. But, in reality, I'll probably wait. At least until ten.
9:44am: Trying to jumpstart Mom back into her normal routine, and hopefully a relatively normal state of mind. Got her into the dining room for her breakfast, while I start tearing up Challah for the stuffing. I pull out the big, blue wooden bowl that is always traditionally the Fleener Stuffing Bowl.
I ask Mom, "Where'd you get this bowl Mom?" And this spawns a whole stream of fragmented comments....."Marshall Field"...."wedding gift"......"spices and herbs" (?!).........."couldn't find it....."........then, as Emily, the bulldog started licking up a dab of cereal Mom had dropped on the floor earlier, Mom yells out, clear as a bell, "Clean it up Emily, it's all you're going to get today!"
10:44am: Dad's up. Bracing myself for his presence--sticking his nose (literally) into anything everything I'm trying to cook. He wheels into the kitchen and starts asking questions about EVERYTHING, and in the midst of my trying to explain to him why I was cutting up onions (for the stuffing), Mom blurts out, "And Pauline was Jewish!" which stops both Dad and I cold.
(Oh, by the way, Pauline was my grandfather's secretary.) (Yeah......like that makes Mom's outburst any more logical....) Okay. The tawny port is out of the liquor cabinet and now setting on the kitchen counter.
10:55am: Dad: (after snooping around the kitchen and discovering the bottle of tawny port) "Hey! What are you gonna do with that bottle of tawny port?"
Me: "I'm gonna drink it!"
And then he made the face that's posted on the side.
12:10pm: Turkey's stuffed and in the oven. Mom's pulling catalogs and blankets and other crap out of the basket next to her chair in the living room. She's looking for something. I ask her what. She says: "For.......something........night.........scare my face.........table......." and then she just gives up and goes back to looking.
What's Dad doing? Reading the paper. (like any other day)
12:44P M.; Dad: (to no one and to everyone, and without looking up from the paper) "Well I'll be damned, another royal wedding! Did you see this Patreesha?"
Mom: (her brain thinking it understands, but doesn't at all) "Oh yes, how about that?"
Thirty seconds goes by.
Mom: "Who's getting married?"
Then Dad explains the whole Prince William thing to ...her. Which doesn't help but hey, it's always worth a try.
About five minutes goes by.
Mom: (to me) "Did you show Dad your locket?"
Me: "What?" (subtext = wtf?)
Because.......I don't own a locket.
Mom: "Tell Dad about that ring that Myrt gave you." (Myrt was my dad's mother.)
So....the tawny port is now opened.......
!:41pm: (note the tawny port-induced typos that have started to pop up) Welllllll...... leave it to dogs and babies, right? The National Dog Show has been on since noon and Mom is now as calm and as content as a kisker's whitten. Oh wait.......well, you know what I mean. That was the port talking.
3:50pm: Turkey comes out in a half hour; the greens are simmering on the stove (mushrooms, kale, leeks, yam medallions, and sherry), Dad's still reading the paper, with Emily at his feet (see photo), and Mom's in her room fretting over how to get Dr. Oz on her television (even though it already is). Oh, Sweet Turkey-Induced-Sleep, where are you?!
4:17pm: The turkey rest-ith. The green/yams simmer-ith. Mom's still trying to find Dr. Oz. (Aren't we all?)
5:51pm: Done. Everything put away. Kitchen cleaned.
Family members will appreciate Dad's big remark at dinner......"Hey, ya know what'd be great?!" (Family members will know what's coming.)
He just keeps talking (because he never waits for acknowledgment anyway), "It'd be great if everyone came here for Thanksgiving next year!! Wouldn't that be GREAT?!" (For non-family members, this is probably the stupidest idea in the universe.)
Then he spends the next five minutes trying to count how many people
"EVERYBODY" would actually come to (Wait.......honestly, it was more like ten
minutes......Dad is soooo NOT good with numbers!).

"Nineteen people! That'd be nineteen people! Wouldn't that be GREAT?!"
Again, no acknowledgment.

And then fifteen minutes later, "It'll never happen." (Which is what family members were all saying when they read the remark in the first place.)
And while Dad was going on about having EVERYBODY getting together and how great that would be, my inner dialogue was out of control! In fact, I had, like, sixteen different inner dialogues talking over and under each other, and then rebutting each other, and then agreeing with each other, and it all got so crazy I had to just get up from the table and go have more pie. There's nothing like pie to quell the inner dialogue. "s."

Preparing to Disembark: Part Trois

2010-11-06T16:45:00.000-07:00

My suitcase is packed and loaded in the car.

Mom, formally referred to as The Woman Who Bore Me, is resting. Her breathing, for the first time today, is inaudible.

I'm minutes from actually, really, leaving.

How do you describe with letters the sound of a heavy exhale? Hahhhhhhhhhhh? Does that work? Picture the exhale that comes from the toes. That's the one that just came out of me.

Thanks to all who offered words of encouragement and support. Thanks especially to the incredible Home Health professionals who turned a seemingly impossible situation into an optimistic one.

C'est tout.......for now.

Preparing to Disembark: Part Deux

2010-11-06T10:10:00.001-07:00

As they say........It's not over til the Fat Lady sings.

And........in my case, I'm not going anywhere til I'm on the airplane.

I'm scheduled to leave for NYC tonight. Scheduled.

In the meantime, The Woman Who Bore Me is in the throes of an anxiety attack because.......well, because this is what she does when I try to go visit anywhere for any substantial length of time.

My father and I were both awakened early this morning when Mom pressed her LifeLine button (the first time). "Take me to the hospital!" she wailed. (Which........is tempting for a few reasons. But since there was nothing physically the matter with Mom........soooo not really an option.)

The second time Mom pressed her LifeLine button was not more than two minutes after Dad had just suggested we remove Mom's LifeLine button and I had reassured him that she wouldn't press it anymore. (Yeah, a lot I know.) That's when Dad looked at me and said, "You should just leave" then turned around and went back to bed.

So.....it's been Mom and me........since 6am.........

And, as I type this, TWWBM is wailing, "Deniiiiiiise, come in here so I can see you!!" And I can't help but wonder, why doesn't she climb in her walker and come into me?"

Oh wait.........wait..........she's wailing again, "I'm coming to you. I'm going away!" And I can hear her getting up........taking off the brakes of her walker.........and now wheeling out of her bedroom........and.......and..........there she goes right past my office where I'm sitting........and into the living room still wailing, "I'm going away Denise! I'm going awayyyyy!"......and now she's turning around.......back down the hallway........past my office.......past Dad's bedroom (Dad is up now).......and back into her own bedroom. Dad's wheels in to see how she's doing.

He asks, "Are you doing better now?"

Mom says, "Why did you agree to this?"

Dad doesn't hear her (like it would matter anyway) but he sees the cat perched on top of Mom's dresser and says, "I think it's wonderful how the cat jumps right up onto the dresser like that. Isn't that wonderful Patricia?"

Then he wheels back into his own room to brush his teeth.

And now........here comes Mom again.....this time she wheels into my office (seriously.....I am typing this as it is happening!) and says to me, "I'm going to fall! I'm coming into tell you to tell you I'm going to fall!"

And I keep typing and say, "You're not going to fall unless you want to."

Then she turns around and wheels out and back into her bedroom saying, "I don't want to fall, I don't want to fall...."

But wait there's more.......

Now she's on her bed wailing to me, "Deniiiiise, come heeere! I've got something for you!"

Hang on.........let's go see what it is, shall we??? Hang on........

Okay, back. She wanted to give me her wedding ring.

oy vay.

Preparing to Disembark

2010-11-04T12:03:00.000-07:00

I love the ferry.

And what's not to love? The smell of saltwater, the sounds of Puget Sound crashing against the boat, the Seattle cityscape in the approaching distance.

I was riding a ferry once......I'm not sure where, although I know it wasn't the Seattle ferry.......and as the boat neared its destination, an announcement came over the speaker system, "Please prepare to disembark."

For some reason, I always found this humorous. It was so formal. It suggested that many, many complicated details had to be addressed before leaving the boat when all most people did was turn the key in their car and drive off.

So even though the Seattle ferry does not make the "Prepare to disembark" announcement as we reach our destination, I always still hear it in my head.

On Saturday, I leave for NYC to spend two weeks with my daughter, who is graduating from her theatre conservatory. As I've learned from taking short trips to visit family, Mom doesn't deal very well with my leaving to go anywhere for longer than a few hours. Because of this, Dad and I both agreed not to tell her about my upcoming two week trip until we absolutely had to.

Today was the "absolutely had to" day.

The caregiver came over this morning to get checked out on the morning and evening routine. She has covered for me before. Mom and Dad both are very fond of her and I know that they're in excellent hands. Nevertheless, because the caregiver was here this morning, Mom asked the obvious question, "Are you going somewhere?"

To which I answered, "Yes Mom, I'm going to NYC."

To which she asked (after a rather lengthy pause), "When are you leaving?"

To which I answered (after throwing a glance to the caregiver), "Saturday night."

Then, like any well-trained Pavlovian dog, my mother squeezed her eyes shut, pressed her face together, and sobbed.

That was four hours ago. Since then, I have had to: search for the tv remote four times; search for Mom's Afrin twice; and answer three wails for apparently no reason at all.

As of today, I am preparing to disembark.

Hellooooo Miiiiindy...

2010-10-28T17:21:00.000-07:00

It's election time.

Forgive my cynicism but when election time rolls around I think about one thing and one thing only--the inevitable bombardment of political phone calls.

I don't know about you, but at our house, it seems like in the span of about two weeks, the number of politically-driven phone calls per day goes from "maybe one" to at least a half dozen....and most of those come between 4pm and 8pm.

Because I'm the one who generally answers the house phone (i.e. the landline phone), I'm the one who has to contend with all of the election-focused phone calls (taped and real-person).

Here's how these calls usually go:

1. The phone rings.

2. I think about whether or not I'll answer it. (Actually, this is how I deal with most phone calls. I'm not a big fan of the phone.)

3. If I answer it, I pick up the receiver and say, "Hello."

4. I wait for who, or whatever, is on the other end to respond.

5. If what I hear next is an obviously taped message, I hang up. If what I hear next is the voice of an actual, living, breathing human being who starts talking about anything political..... I hang up. (As I said, I'm not a fan.)

Yesterday afternoon, as I walked through the living room, past my dad who was engrossed (I thought) in his daily habit of absorbing The Seattle times, Dad stopped reading, waved me down and said, "Hey! Somebody called earlier, but it was a political somethingorother."

"Yeah, I know. It's election time. "

Dad threw up his hands and sort of barked, "I just hung up on them. " (Said the "mighty apple tree" to the "little apple.")

We exchanged a little chuckle and I kept walking.

Now cut to around 8pm that night. I was in my bedroom (far away, thankfully from the house phone).

The phone rang.

True to my custom, I thought about whether or not to go in and answer it.

But before I could make a decision, Dad picked it up! (I should mention........Dad got a new hearing aid last week and, since he can now hear a bit better than before, he has been choosing to answer the phone from time to time. (Apparently he was feeling a little frisky.)

Dad: HELLO!

Phone Person: Good evening sir, I'm calling from the Washington State of ........... (I have no idea who this person.....it was a woman......was representing.....couldn't really hear and it doesn't really matter because Dad totally cut the woman off mid-sentence.)

Dad: WAIT! WAIT! Who is this?

Phone Person: (She repeats her little speech again.....Dad cuts her off again.)

Dad: WAIT! Slow down! You're talking too fast!

Phone Person starts again, slower. Dad interrupts again.

Dad: WAIT! Who is this? What's your name?

Phone Person: Excuse me sir?

Dad: I SAID, What's. Your. Name?

Phone Person: My name is Mindy, sir.

Then there's a pause of about five seconds until Dad speaks again. But this time, he's strangely calm and weirdly flirtatious.

Dad: Well, hellooooo Miiiindy.

Phone Person: (click)

Heh, heh, heh. Election time just got a little easier.

It's a Privilege to Pee

2010-10-24T17:45:00.000-07:00

There is definitely going to be a......ahem......running theme here.

The good news is, it doesn't involve poop.

I took a "ME" afternoon today (woohoo me!). Went to a movement workshop in Port Townsend. But before I left, I spent a couple of hours working on my audition monologues and songs. One of those songs is a little diddy from a musical called Urinetown. Some of you may be familiar, most may not. That's okay. Suffice to say, the title of the song is "It's a Privilege to Pee."

In a word, I spent the first part of my morning singing about.......well, singing about pee (which, I might add, is a far cry better than what I've been cleaning up the last few mornings.....but that's another story....or not).

Anyway..........I go to the workshop and, lo and behold, one of the exercises is to write one's name with one's clenched buttocks. I think the exact instructions were "pretend you have to pee really badly and write your name with a hypothetical pen that is sticking out of your butt."

Oh, did I mention the instructor is Italian? And speaks through a translator?

(And for the record? "Write your name with a pen sticking out of your butt" sounds wayyyyyyy more poetic in Italian than it does in English.)

Anyway, the workshop was a much-needed diversion, and I can't wait to go back tomorrow night for the next installment. But as I was walking to my car to come home, I couldn't help but think, "I should use the bathroom before I go, otherwise I'm going to really have to go bad by the time I get home."

But, of course, my next thought was, "Nah! I'm fine. Just get into the car and go!"

So I did.

Cut to home.

I arrive. I get out of the car with one thought, and one thought only--get thee to a bathroom first thing.

I open the door.

My father is standing in the kitchen. He turns. He gives me Shrug #2. (For those of you who missed the Shrug blog--Shrug #2 is the one Dad and I exchange that is code for "Mom is acting realllllllly weird and I have no idea what to do about it.") Then I hear Mom wailing from the hallway, "Is that Denise???!!!!"

Buttocks clenched. "What's up Mom?"

"I neeeeed.......yourrrr......hhhhhhelllllllp."

I look at Dad. He gives me Shrug #2 again. I tell him with my raised palm, "I got it" and I follow Mom back to her bedroom.

Now you're probably wondering what the "crisis" was?

It was..........

The TV Guide.....s.

Plural.

See..........Mom pulls out the TV Guide insert from the newspaper every Sunday so she can pick and choose what she watches (Even though the only channels she watches are CNN and the Western channel! But of course I always just let that go.......it's her TV afterall.).

The trouble is (at least the trouble for Mom today was).......we get two newspapers, each with its own TV Guide. So Mom has pulled out both guides (and they're both printed in that microscopically small font) and now they're both setting on her bed. Separately. One setting "over there"; the other setting "over here." But for some reason, she's clearly terribly confused at having two TV Guides and not knowing which one is the "right" one, or the "old" one, or the "new" one, or the......whatever.

Remember--I have to pee! So my patience is running very, very, VERY thin (that's patience with a capital P.....as in PEEEEEE!)

So I ask her, "Okay Mom, which guide would you rather use?"

She points to one.

I take the other one, "Okay, then you don't need this one" and I turn to take it to the recycle bin. Except..........my mother now has this aghast expression on her face like I just dismembered her favorite puppy.

So I stop. "Okay Mom, let's do this. You use the one that's on your bed. And I'll set this other one down on this chair over here. And if you think you need it, you can just go over to the chair and get it. Okay?"

A compliant, "yesssssss."

Then she says to me, "Do you have to go to the ladies' room?"

"What?"

And she says, "Well you're squirming around like you have to use the ladies' room."

And I chuckle and say, "As a matter of fact Mom, yes. Yes I DO have to pee. Really, really, really badly."

"Well then you should go," she says oh-so logically.

(Notice she had no trouble getting those words out. Weird how that works.)

Note to self: Go before you go.

Flu Shot

2010-10-22T08:44:00.001-07:00

Remember those hypnotists that used to be on TV all the time? They'd pop up on The Ed Sullivan Show or The Tonight Show; they'd have volunteers from the audience thinking they were dogs, or cats, or dogs AND cats.

I never understood it. Never really "got" how people could allow themselves to do such crazy things. In public no less.

Several years later (well, realistically?, it was probably more like a decade or two later) I remember reading a book about hypnotism and the suggestive personality, and the whole "barking like a dog" and "meowing like a cat" under hypnosis thing suddenly made sense--Aha! The subject has to be OPEN to being hypnotized! Like........some little part of the subject's mind had to sort of "want" to do whatever the hypnotist asked them to do.

It not only made sense to me, it reassured me that NO hypnotist would ever be makin' ME get down on the floor in public and bark like a freakin' dog. No way I would EVER let that happen to me.

My father calls that being stubborn.

I call it being in control of what I do in public!

My mother.........well, she'd be the one on the floor barking like a dog.

So I was at Safeway the other day with Mom to pick up a couple of jugs of prune juice (the current anti-constipation choice at the Fleener Home For The Feeble). Mom waited in the car while I dashed inside.

Safeway had a big sandwich-board sign out front that said Flu Shots Today.

Mom saw it.

When I got back to the car, the first thing out of Mom's mouth was, "I need.........to get.......a...a...aaa......fl........fl........"

"Flu shot?" I said.

"yessssss." She answered.

"Okay, I'll check the schedule at CostCo and we'll all go in and get them."

Then I turned on the car and started to pull out of the parking space.

Mom again. "Where are you going?!" (Funny how she never has any problem talking when she's agitated....)

"I'm going home!" I told her, a little agitated because it was a heavy work day for me and I really needed to get home.

"What about the flu shot?!" she wailed.

The thing is.......my mother is one of the most suggestible people I have ever known. One little headline in the Peninsula Daily News about a robbery and she frets the entire day because she's convinced some criminal is going to break into our house THAT DAY and maul her to death. Seriously. I am NOT exaggerating.

So, guess what happened when Mom saw the Flu Shot sign? Right. She instantly became fearful that she was going to get the flu THAT DAY and she had better darn well get her flu shot immediately if not sooner.

I told Mom, "No, no, no, we're not going to get it today Mom. I'll check the schedule at CostCo and we'll get them there."

"ok" she said, her wheels still turning.

We came home. I went back to work. The afternoon passed. The evening came and went. Mom was getting into bed and I was still working in the office (which is next to her bedroom). I could hear her sort of whimpering and working herself up into a state. I went in to see what the problem was.

"What's up Mom?" I asked her.

And between whimpers she said, "I'm afraid.........to go...........to.........sleep.........because........I'm.......afraid.........I'll get......the......fl....fl......fl.......flu.......and die........and....and.....not.....wake....up."

Damn that sandwich-board. Damn Safeway. Damn having to go get prune juice. Damn constipation. Damn having a mother who could've been one of those barking people-dogs on The Tonight Show.

But you know what? Two can play at this game.

So I say, "Oh Mom, you don't need the shot until November. The doctor told you last year that getting the shot before then was pointless. So we'll get it the first week of November. Okay?"

And she stopped whimpering, and stopped fretting and looked up at me and said, "Okay." And suddenly she was feeling okay about going to sleep.

"Now Mom, could you get down on the floor and bark like a dog?"

Kidding! I'm kidding! I didn't really say that.

Oh yes, we have NO bananyas!

2010-10-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

The blue and white porcelain fruit bowl is empty.

Empty.

Did you get that? It's E-M-P-T-Y!

Wait.....maybe you didn't quite understand me. THE FRUIT BOWL IS EMMMPPPTTTTYYYY!

The AlwaysFullOfBanayas, SeeminglyBottomlessBananyaBowl, MustAlwaysBeFullOfBanayasBowl is E.M.P.T.Y.

And more importantly? It's going to STAY empty!

Why?

Well, because.....Are you ready for this? Are you sitting down? Because, you probably should.

It's going to stay empty because.......I have declared a Banana Ban!

That's right! Hoist the flags! Free the prisoners! Bang the drums! Storm the Bastille! (sorry....getting carried away here)

Now I'm sure you're dying to know what prompted the banana revolt. I'm certain that you are sitting on the edge of your ergonomic office chair right now, waiting for me to fill you in on all the gory details surrounding this unforeseen rebellion against what has been such a stalwart mainstay in the Fleener kitchen.

Well I'm gonna tell ya.......

Poop.

That's right girls and boys--poop. Plain and simple, it was poop, or actually, the lack of poop, that led me to officially declare war on the almighty bananya. And trust me, you would've done the same had you been in my shoes this week.

In reality, it was really constipation that brought all of this on. Mom's constipation. And lemme jus' say........ya haven't lived until you've experienced an 89 year-old woman wailing and moaning her way through half a day's worth of really, really bad constipation. Suffice to say, I laid down the law--

No More Bananas and No More EatingAnEntireCartonOfCottageCheeseEveryDay (okay, okay, it was probably the cottage cheese that was really to blame for the constipation but, come on!, you gotta capitalize on your opportunities!).

So forgive me now. I'm overwhelmed with a sudden urge (no.....not what you're thinking!)

I think I'll go do something totally wacky and completely crazy and.........

PUT AN APPLE IN THE FRUIT BOWL!

Wish me luck.

Leakage

2010-09-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

Scene: Waiting room at the local ophthalmologist's office. Dad's hour-long appointment. I had dropped Dad off earlier, then gone home briefly to check on Mom, then returned to pick him up. Four other people in the waiting room, along with three receptionists behind the front desk. All is quiet and calm, save for the soft sounds of the Sequim radio station purring some old Sinatra tune into the background. Then.......

Dad: (at full volume...as always) I THINK I'M ON THE VERGE OF INCONTINENCE.

I look around to see if anyone in the waiting room, or behind the reception desk reacts. They don't. All heads are down, engrossed in magazines or work.

Me: Really?

Dad: WHAT?!

Me: I said,.... Really? (Checking the downcast heads in my periphery. They're either just being polite, or they're all completely absorbed in their respective magazines. I think, what are the chances of the latter being true? I decide it's gotta be the former.)

Dad: Well, YEAH!

Me: That's uh......(searching for something to say just so Dad won't say anything else...)...well......that's uh.....

Dad: I'VE GOT LEAKAGE!

Up come the heads. Great.

I make some kind of semi-panicked epiglottal vocalization.

Dad: WHAT?! (He thinks I said something to him.)

Me: Nothing I.....

Dad: LEAKAGE!!

And now we have eye contact. From every person in the waiting room. And I just sit there, shaking my head in here-we-go-again disbelief. And, of course, Dad doesn't stop. He continues with....

Dad: THOSE PILLS THE DOC GAVE ME AREN'T HELPING. AND THEY'RE GIVING ME CONSTIPATION TOO!

And here's the really good part....

Me: (I lean into his good ear cuz I don't want to have to repeat this.) That's great Dad. And it's really nice of you to share all of that with everyone here in the waiting room.

Cue nervous laughter from the waiting room and receptionists.

Dad: (Who momentarily cracks up.) WELL WHAT THE HELL! IT'S A DOCTOR'S OFFICE!

Cue legitimate laughter from waiting room and receptionists.

Cue eye-roll from me.

BlogClogSkinMowCockaNuts

2010-09-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

You're probably wondering about the title. Don't worry. It'll all make sense. Trust me.

OK. I'm just going to come right out say it. I'm having trouble writing the blogs.

It's not writer's block.

It's not apathy.

It's not a matter of having the time to do it.

And it's certainly not a matter of having enough material.

I can't tell you how many times I've found myself driving in the car and saying to myself (out loud.....I talk to myself a lot when I'm driving), "That thing that Dad did this morning.....I should write about that!" Or, "That conversation Mom and Dad had yesterday....I should write about that!"

Then I get home. And it never happens. It's not that I forget what I was going to write about. It's more about the motivation. I WANT to write. I just don't do it. I start to sort of dread the energy it takes to sit down and actually hammer out something on the keyboard. It reminds me of that lazy lumpy feeling I sometimes get before I workout. Like whining little kid who moans and groans because they have to take the trash out....I really don't want to do it, but I know I need to.

And the thing is......I always feel so much better after I've written a new post (again.....much like the workout). There's a certain exhilaration to it. I think, "Great! Another little chunk of this adventure recorded for posterity!" I even recognize, on some level, the multiple reasons I have for writing (again....like the workout). But for the last three weeks.........I have voluntarily avoided, purposely self-distracted, consciously re-directed myself from doing exactly that--from doing, in fact, what I am doing right now.

So.....woohoo. Yay me!..... I guess. But now that I'm here, rather than churn out all of those "great" ideas by writing one blog after the other, I think I'll present a nutshell version of each one. You'll get the idea, right?

There was the idea I had to write a piece called "Skin" that would somehow connect my recent observations of Dad's 94 year old skin (that I decided looks like a wadded up, flesh-colored sheet of ancient plastic wrap that was discovered in a tomb somewhere, unearthed, spread out, and then wrapped around my father's body) with the near-virgin skin of my 4 1/2 month old granddaughter (that feels like finely polished glass, if glass were soft and billowy, and smelled like.......well, like babies).

There was the one I was going to call "To Mow..." which would have described how Dad suddenly decided one day that he felt good enough to mow again (He had announced to me about two months ago that he was officially handing over the task of mowing to me, since he was feeling too much pain in his back and hips.), and how I watched him from my office, carving tracks out of the grass, back and forth, around and around, and then suddenly stopping in the middle of the 1/2 acre and just sitting there motionless, which caused me to jump up (fearing he was feeling dizzy or faint or worse, having a heart attack) and go out to see what was wrong, and walking up to Dad-On-Stopped-Tractor and asking, "Everything ok?" he replying with only, "Oh yeah! I'm just sitting here enjoying the beautiful day."

And finally, there's the one I was going to write called "CockaNuts" about Dad's recent craving for donuts which coincidentally started when my brother and I discovered a new local donut shop, CockaDoodleDonuts, and brought home a sampling. Let me be clear. Nobody, I repeat, NObody, knows the nutritionally vapid nature of donuts more than I. But Dad's philosophy is, "I'm 94. I've lived a great life. Now I'm going to do whatever I want." So now, he's decided he wants donuts. A lot of donuts. Fritters. Apple fritters. Regularly. It's crazy. I set out a plate of fresh donuts in the morning. And by the next morning, there is only one gnawed off half of a donut left.

Get the title now?

A Bird Better Than Vicodin

2010-09-05T14:13:00.000-07:00

So...........Dad sprained his ankle last week and has been complaining of the pain every day since. He moans at almost every step. Groans whenever he puts weight on it. Winces at every turn. Retires earlier than normal so he can simply go to sleep rather than think about the pain. All of that being the everyday SOP (standard operating procedure) for nearly a week now.........until today. Specifically, until this afternoon.

Some people take pain killers. Some people drink. Some people use drugs. Some people eat chocolate. My father watches the Seattle Storm play (and defeat) Phoenix in the WNBA playoff game and magically, he is pain-free. Infused with the narcotic of professional women's sports, he lies on his bed, Sennheiser earphones firmly in place over his left hearing-aided-ear and right non-functional ear, LCD TV displaying in glorious flat-panel color, Dad focused intently (and ONLY) on the thrill of watching competitive women's basketball. From the living room we can hear Dad cheer Sue Bird and her teammates on after each Seattle score. We stroll down the hall to his bedroom to sneak a peak at him from time to time. Like a schoolboy screaming enthusiastically at his favorite team, Dad pumps his fists (yes, BOTH fists) every time the Storm takes the lead.

"SHOOT!" he shouts.

"Three points! Shoot it! Shoot it!!" he shouts louder.

The real "high" comes when the Storm finally proves victorious "with 23 seconds to go!" Dad is on his feet and not (I repeat, NOT, holding on to his walker at all) and filling the entire house with the euphoric pride of a devoted fan.

"Did you see that Sue Bird?! What a player!!" Then a short pause, and then......."Terr-IF-ic!" Grinning from ear to ear. The biggest smile I've seen on Dad's face in......well, in at least a week.

For those of you who have kept track, I have, from time to time, thanked several seemingly obscure entities for unknowingly contributing to my parents' ongoing welfare and sanity--Horsey's political cartoons in the Seattle PI; Maureen Dowd's editorial in the Seattle Times; Julia Roberts and her....well, whatever; cottage cheese with chives; CostCo; MochaMix. (A while back, I made a point of thanking the Chilean blueberry farmers so that Mom can enjoy blueberries on her Grape-Nuts even in the dead of the PNW winter.)

And now I can add one more simple pleasure to that list.

Today, Sue Bird and her team made an ailing 94 year old man very, VERY, happy. Thank you Sue Bird. Looking forward to the next game.

Wanted: Fresh Set of Patience

2010-08-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

The giant reservoir that holds my patience, empathy, sympathy, and boundless understanding is constantly fluctuating. I know my "levels" are waning when certain signs and symptoms start to bubble their ugly little heads up to the surface of that reservoir.

For example, I know I need a break when Dad holds up one of two dozen fresh figs, newly-purchased from CostCo, and says, "Here eat this! It's delicious!" and all I can say is, "No, and stop telling me what to do!"

Or when Mom toddles into my room, whimpering and whining, and says, in a panic, "Where are all of my clothes!? Somebody took all of my clothes!" and all I can say is, "Wh...wh.....WHAT?! (because, of course, all of her clothes are in her closet where they've always been, and what's really happening is that Mom is having.....uh......one of her moments.....again.).

Or when Dad asks me, like he did this morning, if I've seen that "great new movie that just came out. That one with..." And I cut him off mid-sentence with an emphatic "NO!" because I KNOW he's about to ask me about Julia Roberts' new yet-another-Hollywoodized-book-to-screen-superstar-vehicle flick, "Eat, Pray, Love." (Dad idolizes Julia Roberts. He wastes no time at all in telling me, whenever the opportunity arises, like this morning, how much "CH-arisma" she has (and yes, he ALLways pronounces the "CH" like......like in....."CHAINSAW." He knows it presses my buttons. And, while I greatly admire Ms. Roberts as a person, the mere thought of having to see that enormous mouth of hers on any screen one more time, and/or hear that spine-jarring guffaw-like laugh of hers one more time, makes me want to eat my own eyeballs.)

These are examples of signs that I need a break. That my reservoir of patience is nearly empty. That my threshold for unconditional understanding has been passed.

But never fear. My brothers are both scheduled for rescue visits within days of this post. AND.......I just scheduled an all day whale-viewing boat excursion out of Friday Harbor for next Monday.

Thank god my eyeballs are safe....for a while.

Cake.

2010-08-20T10:49:00.001-07:00

There was a time when those who knew me reallllly well could gauge how stressed out I was based on how clean my kitchen was. Something about wiping down counters........I dunno.......it's just very Zen........back and forth........back and forth.

I still do the counter thing. But...........in the last couple of years I seem to have added a new means of staying sane in the face of stress. A not-so-Zen mechanism.

Baking.

Yes. I bake. When Mom is on her second and third streak through the living room; when I've emptied the commode more times than I care to count; when Dad has stuck his finger in my yogurt one too many times because he wants to see what it tastes like (god forbid he asks); when Dad tries one more time to sing the aria from Pagliacci and is STILL three half-steps away from being on pitch........I bake. I bake like there's no tomorrow. Last week for example, I whipped up a luscious Hummingbird Layer Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (the Magnolia Bakery recipe). The week before, I baked four dozen of my Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies. The week before, it was a sheet of Toffee Bars.

Thankfully, Dad eats whatever I bake. Thankfully, I don't. (Thank god there are some benefits to being depressed.)

I'd go into more detail but........I have a Banana Layer Cake that needs to be frosted.

Loopier than........

2010-08-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

a crocheted potholder.

Shrug #3

2010-08-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

The shoulder shrug. Such a simple expression of unspoken emotion. Depending on its delivery, it can communicate friendly indifference, or escalating apathy, or complete and utter frustration. I love the shrug. And now I will tell you why.

A few years ago, my mother, in the midst of one of her meltdowns, answered the telephone by "answering" the tv remote. I remember being pretty amazed, at the time, that my own mom was capable of such profound confusion. Of course, I had no way of knowing then, that that was just the beginning.

This past week (and still) Mom has been riding a wild roller coaster of emotional meltdowns. In the past few days, I have observed more neural short circuits, detours and dead ends manifesting themselves in my mother's erratic behavior than I can shake a stick at.

There was the night she tried to change the tv channel by pointing her mechanical pick-up stick straight at the tv screen and squeezing the pick-up claw. Seriously. Have you ever SEEN somebody attempt to, with FULL commitment, change the tv station using a mechanical pick-up stick? The phrase, "What's wrong with this picture?" doesn't even cover it. I'm serious here. Picture it in your head. Visualize the commitment. When I saw my mother doing it......well.......my brain didn't know what to make of it.

Then there was the afternoon she wanted to change her tv to the classical music station. Mom keeps a little post-it right next to her bed, with her three favorite channel numbers written on it. She kept pushing the channel number written on the paper and couldn't understand why the tv was still on CNN. Again.....you really have to picture the sense of commitment.

Then there was the morning I came in, like I always do, to say good morning, see how she was doing, etc. She was in good spirits and all seemed okay, until she looked long and hard at me and asked, "Are you the one who's in charge of all the shenanigans around here?" (And quite honestly, I didn't know how to answer that question. How do you answer any question with the word "shenanigans" in it?)

But there's more.

Just the other afternoon, Mom was "this close" to pressing her Lifeline button (the "Help, I've fallen and can't get up" button she wears around her neck) because she couldn't get her shoes on. She actually wanted the EMTs to come to the house to help her get her shoes on. Epilogue: Dad has confiscated Mom's Lifeline button.

And most recently (just a couple of hours ago in fact) Mom was wailing from the bathroom (specifically, from the toilet) for help. I ran in, asked what the problem was, and she said, "I think I'm having a BM."

And I said, "okay....."

And she just sat there.

So I said, "So.......why did you call for help?"

And she said, "Because I need somebody to come in and do it for me."

And I said, "....do what?" (Because I couldn't imagine she meant she actually wanted somebody to "do" the BM for her.)

And she said, "The BM." (Okay, so I was wrong)

Dad and I have developed a sort of unspoken communication between the two of us that we use to convey what we're "really" thinking when Mom says or does something that's, uh, shall we say, "off the charts." It's nothing elaborate, just a few finely-tuned shoulder shrugs. But it's how we let each other know how we're thinking, without having to say anything out loud. The most casual one, shrug #1, is just a simple shirk of the shoulders that generally means "Whatever Mom just said/did makes no sense, but it seems harmless enough so just ignore it." The next gradation up from that, shrug #2, is a more pronounced shrug, usually coupled with a double-eyebrow-raise--this is the "What the hell did Mom just say/do?!" shrug. Finally, shrug #3, the shrug we reserve for only the most off-the-wall stuff. It actually has a sort of desperate head-roll added to it. This is the "I have no idea what Mom just said/did and.......screw it, I'm going for a walk" shrug.

Like I said, I love the shrug. I walked 36 miles last week.

Figs. Really?

2010-08-05T09:56:00.001-07:00

There's this great moment in the movie, "Love Actually" when Laura Linney is standing at her front door with easily the hottest first date any woman could imagine, and after she timidly asks the gorgeous guy if he'd like to come upstairs for "a little bit" (and he, of course, says yes), she stops and says to him, "Good. Yeah. Could you....just.....give me......a moment?" He says, "Sure", and she calmly excuses herself, hands him the keys to hold, walks carefully through the door, around the corner, and up the first four stairs of her apartment where she then proceeds to silently scream (no that is NOT an oxymoron. I do it all the time, for totally different reasons.....which is the reason for today's blog) as she inaudibly explodes in elation and unbridled joy.

Case in point: The g.d.m.f.c.s. Bell rang for a good twenty seconds straight (STRAIGHT!) this morning at 8:30 and I dutifully walked to the other end of the house, half-naked, teeth unbrushed, brain semi-functional, only to find my mother calmly and happily lying in bed smiling at me from ear to ear.

"Good morning!" she greeted me.

I threw up a hand in a half-hearted, non-spoken hi.

Then a pause.......during which Mom just laid there smiling at me. (I hate it when she does that. She used to do it every time I came home from high school. I'd walk through the door and before I could even get the door closed she'd be there, big smile, "Hel-Lo!!!" and then nothing for what seemed like an eternity before I would finally mutter something like, "hey..." and then go directly to the solitude of my bedroom.)

But back to this morning........so I finally asked her, "So.........what do you need?"

Then another pause.........during which Mom searched her mental Rolodex (cuz by that time she had, of course, forgotten why she rang the bell).

Then she finally said, "Oh nothing. I just wondered if you were up."

Seriously? I mean...........SEERiously?!

So I turned around and went back to my room to wait for my brain to wake up.

That's how the day started. But there's more.

A few hours later, after Mom has had breakfast, I've done all the morning chores and have nestled into my office to work, Dad rolls in as usual and immediately barks at me, "THIS A WORK DAY!?" (That's not a typo. That is exactly how he says it.)

Let me explain something here. There's one of those Six Degrees of Separation things that happens between the way Dad gets himself completely worked up over money matters and almost any other subject.......like whether or not I'm working. Here's how it goes.......If I'm working, that means I'm earning money, which means I'm able to pay my bills, which means he doesn't feel responsible. (Okay......four degrees.....)

All right. I wasn't born yesterday, so what do YOU think I say to him when he asks me, "This a work day?"

Anyone?

RIGHT! I say "yes." Of course I say "yes"!

He's satisfied. He says, "Okay" and then turns around and leaves. It's one of the many little verbal "dances" we do.

Anyway........so we do the whole "this a work day?" exchange. But today he doesn't leave. Instead he launches into a soap box tirade about figs. (Yes, FIGS. And, can I just point out that, I really WAS trying to work.)

"You know, "he says, "............FIGS only ripen on the tree."

okay.

He continues,"They have a Very Short Shelf Life."

right.

"That's why you can't always get them in the store."

yeah.

"So..........we need to go to CostCo and get some more."

See what he did there? Wound his way all around the map JUST to get to the fact that he NEEDS to go to CostCo for.........figs. Today.

"So when can we go to CostCo? WE NEED to go to CostCo!"

for figs.

really Dad?

Let me explain something else. Okay. So..........first off.......I've started my day by being summoned by the Almighty Bell for no-good reason. Now, I'm trying to get in a solid several hours of work because.......it's Thursday.........which means Mom has her 1pm hair appointment and Dad has his 3pm retinologist appointment and I have rehearsal at 6:30 for a show that opens in a week (theatre folks, you know what THAT means). In other words, I have a couple of relatively narrow windows of time during which I need to get a solid several hours of work done, take my morning/afternoon walk, eat two substantial meals, and shower before I have to leave for rehearsal at 5:30. The day's a little tight. And now Dad NEEDS to go to CostCo......for FIGS.......because they have a really short shelf life..........because they only ripen on the tree (which, by the way, is true, cuz I Googled it).

So I say to Dad, "I don't have time to go to CostCo today..."

And before I can complete the sentence, Dad cuts me off, "Well when can we go?! We have to go!"

And I vent back at him, "I don't know! I have rehearsal every night for the next week and I have work to do every morning! I'll stop at Sunny Farms and pick up some figs on my way to rehearsal!"

And he barks back, "Well something's got to give!" (which is one of those button statements that Dad throws out when he thinks he's being assertive but he's actually just being ridiculous)

And he follows up the bark with an equally ridiculous statement, "I'll go by myself if I have to!"

really Dad?

And I just look at him and say, "Be my guest."

So here I sit, in my office, emphatically tapping away at my little keyboard and..........well..........could you.........just...........give me.......a moment?

Cuz I'm feeling a little.........overwhelmed at the moment.

A Warped Stability

2010-07-26T09:28:00.000-07:00

Don'tcha jus' luuuuuv stability?

I'm not talking about the stability found in most homes--the rhythmic perc of the Mr. Coffee machine, the gentle sizzle of eggs in the frying pan, the soothing hum of a quiet nap on the front porch, the pitter-patter of little children. Oh no,no,no, I'm talking about a whole different kind of stability. Like beauty, art, and pizza, it's a relative term to be sure. But I realized yesterday afternoon that finally (FINALLY!), after three weeks post-rehab, my mom, my dad, me, the two dogs, and now, the two cats, had settled into a satisfying, (Although I hesitate to say "peaceful" and it goes without saying that it's anything but "normal") routine.

Ahhhh stability--Dad napping in his recliner, his mouth randomly opening and closing, closing and opening, then suddenly snapping shut, then slowly falling open again; Mom half-asleep in her recliner, eyes fixed on the living room TV where CNNHD pretends to enlighten us with more trivial details than anybody wants to know about the slimy mess in the Gulf; the just-slightly-unsynchronized echo coming from CNNHD playing from the TV in Mom's bedroom; Emily, the bulldog, sprawled out in front of the glass door where the sunshine warms her characteristically-yet-weirdly-porcine-like canine torso, her left lip fluttering with each exhale; Uma, the field-bred spaniel poised in perfect attention outside on the deck, her gaze fixed on the ground below the birdfeeder where, she hopes, some unfortunate pigeon will come to peck up seeds spilled from above; the two cats, Peter and Rufus, curled in typical feline fashion on their newly-claimed favorite spots--the top of the carpeted climbing structure for Peter, the chair next to the window seat for Rufus; and me, reflecting on the serenity that has, at long last, been achieved after three weeks of ups and downs and semi-sleepless nights, and medication changes for Mom.

I glance at the clock. Four hours until Mom gets her 2 oxycodones, which she now takes every six hours, and which she starts asking for at exactly thirty minutes BEFORE she's due to take them. The 10am, 4pm, 10pm schedule appears to be working for her (Of course, that's 2 oxycodones on top of the three other anti-depressants, AND the twice-a-day oxycontin. Is it any wonder that I'm repulsed by addiction and dependency of any kind?).

All living things are stable. It's a little weird, but I'll take it.

The Bell....

2010-07-22T08:42:00.000-07:00

I've attempted to write a new blog entry three times now in the last three weeks. Never got further than the first sentence in any of 'em. That's got to be indicative of something, right? I mean.......right? And if you just agreed with me, will you tell me what it is? Cuz I'm at a loss.

Maybe I'm exhausted.

Maybe my brain is fried.

Maybe I just don't care.

Maybe all of those are true.

All I know is...........for the last two weeks, I've spent more one-on-one tutorial time with my mother and that damned (Now see........that's a bad sign.......swearing right out of the gate like that....) tv remote control than I care to recall. Lemme just say that I HATE DEMENTIA. (Uh oh, see? All caps.........another bad sign.......). But what I despise even more is.........having to conduct these little tv remote tutorials at 1:30 IN THE MORNING..........for the THIRD TIME SINCE MIDNIGHT!!!!! (Arrrrgh! And now, the repeating exclamation points.......this is deteriorating rapidly.)

okay. Deep breath. (Please pause as I take revisit my kriya yoga deep-breathing technique.)

All right. As I was saying...............It's just been very difficult for me to figure what to write about...........and then, HOW to write about it even if I COULD figure out what it was I should write about! (Note the single exclamation point.)

And then there's.....The Bell. The sweet little antique silver bell Mom uses to ring when she needs me to come help her go to the bathroom. At least, that's what the bell is SUPPOSED to be used for. The. Bell. The bell. The bell. ThebellthebellthebellTHEBELLLLLL! The freakin', stinkin', stupid-ass, g.d., m.f., c.s. BELL!!!!!!!! Do you know how many times I get awakened out of completely sound and deliciously deep sleep by that @#$@#% bell???? (Oh f___ the repeating punctuation!!!!!!!!!! Screw the swearing!!!!!) Crawled out of my nice comfortable bed, staggered in my sleepy stupor to the other end of the house to see what "emergency" I was being summoned to address........only to find out that Mom couldn't remember how to change the F----ing channel from CNN to the Western channel........when it's already ON the f______ Western channel??????

"Ringy,ringy,ringy,ringy,ringy!"

Oh.

My.

God.

She's ringing her bell for me RIGHT NOW! While I'm sitting here trying to write (finally) a blog entry!!!!

Ringy, ringy, ringy, ringy, ringy!"

And again........

Does this count as a blog entry?

Spanikopita

2010-07-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

Okay.

So it's yesterday afternoon, Friday. I'm standing in the cereal aisle at Central Market in Poulsbo. Somewhere around the yogurt section I had thought to check my watch and do some quick math. That's when it occurred to me that it wasn't going to make sense for me to drive to Sequim to check in on Mom before having to turn around and leave again at 4pm to make 5pm rehearsal in Port Townsend (...which was my original plan. But that was before I had to sit in Tacoma traffic for an unplanned fifteen minutes that morning on my way to SeaTac to pick up my daughter, and then another half hour on my way back from SeaTac at noon.).

So, like I said, I'm standing in the cereal aisle, staring at the Kashi boxes when I decide I'd better call home to let Dad know I won't be coming home before I go to rehearsal. (Even though the caregiver is scheduled to be there from 4-10, I had thought I would just check in before rehearsal, to make sure everything was okay.)

Yeah. So.....it seemed like a good idea to call home and just let Dad know that my plan had changed. "Seemed" is the operative word here.

Because........Mom answers the phone. And that's where it all unravels. We exchange hello's, and as soon as she knows it's me, Mom's anxiety dam breaks loose and floods into my left ear.

Before I can duck into an empty aisle (in this case, the paper-goods aisle), my mother is in the throes of a full-on panic attack. On the phone. In my ear. I have a moment when I look around at all the shoppers roaming up, down, and past where I'm standing. I'm thinking how not one of these people could possibly imagine the hysteria taking place in my left ear. I mean........Don't you ever wonder, when you see somebody talking on a cell phone, "Gee, I wonder who they're talking to. I wonder what they're talking about." Don't you ever wonder that? Wait. Is that just me? Okay, anyway.....back to Mom on the phone in my ear.........

"COOOMMMEEEE HOOOOOMMMMEEEEE!"

That's all she keeps saying, wailing really, with an "I CAN'T BREATHE" or a "YOU NEED TO GIVE ME SOMETHING TO CALM DOWN" thrown in for flavor.

Between wails, I manage to extract Dad's whereabouts. Apparently he's out on the deck....which is weird.....but, whatever.

Mom keeps on--past the cereal aisle, past the beer aisle, and through the entire bakery section. It's not until I reach the deli section that she finally says, "HERE'S DAAAAAD" and hands the phone off to him.

Okay. Now this is how Dad answers the phone. (And by the way........I happen to be checking out the ethnic food-to-go counter just as Dad gets on the phone.) "What a beautiful day!" he says with triumph and unfettered joy. And then he just kept going, "The air is just warm enough outside! I was out there soaking up some rays! Beautiful! "

Can I just point out how much I love that my 94 year old father says "....soaking up some rays"?

Anyway. So I ask him, "Hey, Dad, it's Denise. How's Mom doing?"

And, I kid you not, he says, "She's great!"

And then I hear Mom, from the background, yelling, "NOOOOO-I'M-NOOOOOT! I CAN'T BREEEEEEEEATHE!"

I notice the Spanikopita looks pretty delish.

Dad is suddenly confused. "Oh. I guess she's not so great."

In a nutshell.......Mom had a pretty serious meltdown yesterday. Well.....actually it started on Thursday and lasted through Friday night (last night). Her first day back from the nursing home was fantastic with no incidents whatsoever. Then, sometime Thursday afternoon, she started to slip and slide, head first, down her personal slimy slope of fear and panic. Essentially, she (and therefore I) didn't sleep for more than three or four hours over a two night period.

I finally got home last night, only to find the caregiver and Dad beside themselves trying to calm Mom down. (Not a very happy home last night.) I finally resorted to giving Mom two of her "as needed" pain pills. By 11pm she was fast asleep. She just now woke up.........twelve hours later........with a big ole' smile on her face to boot! "Oh I feel so much better!" she announced proudly.

"Me too, Mom!" I threw back at her. "Yay for us! We both slept through the night!" And then, like a spontaneous point of punctuation to our mutual moment of glee, I said, "High Five Mom!" and held my palm up in front of her. And, yes, Mom and I high-fived........for the first time, and, I suspect, probably not the last time.

Think I'll break out the Spanikopita for breakfast.

Swans

2010-07-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

Well, the visit home with the Mom and the occupational therapist went splendiferously. Better yet, I was able to drive Mom back to the nursing home without tears or hysterics. So....big "whew" for that.

Now it looks like Mom is finally coming home on Wednesday. I was in her room this morning to tidy up, visualizing the new routine with the commode which is positioned right next to Mom's bed, and see where the new ceiling-to-floor Transfer Pole should go. I noticed the empty birdfeeder hanging outside the window and made a mental note that I need to remember to fill it up before Wednesday. Then I glanced over at the wall to the right of the window, where Mom's framed degree from Northwestern hangs. Next to that, a plaque that the four of us kids made for her on her 60th birthday. Below that, the ceramic vase of blue silk flowers. And to the left of the flowers, a framed document that I suddenly realized I've ever really noticed before. I know it's been there, but I don't ever recall really reading it. So I walked in closer for a better look.

It's a beautiful silver and gold scrolled 11" x 13" frame. The top of the document, printed in what looks like a Lucida font, reads "In poetry and fairy tales, swans are a symbol of enduring love." Then it goes on to talk about how swans are mated for life, how they exhibit an undying commitment and devotion to each other, etc. etc. The bottom says, "Stanley and Patricia Fleener; In commemoration of their 60th Wedding Anniversary, September 16th; 1943-2003."

I'm thinking maybe this was a gift from my sister or one of my brothers. I'm not sure. And I can't believe I've never noticed it before. Funny how and when things happen, because as soon as I read the Swan Document, I thought of a moment that happened at the nursing home yesterday...

Dad, Mom, and I were sitting under the skylight at the nurse's station of the nursing home, soaking in the rare afternoon sunshine, and watching all of the typical post-lunch nursing home comings and goings. Mom was in exemplary spirits yesterday. Seriously. Joking with the nurses, commenting on this and that nurse, and randomly interjecting how excited she was to be coming home on Wednesday. Dad's right hand was resting gently atop Mom's left hand on her wheelchair's armrest.

Then Mom all of sudden blurted out, "Ohhh I'm so excited to come home!"

To which Dad replied, patting her hand, "Well honey, we're excited too!"

There was a short pause before Mom kind of moaned and pouted, "I don't like it when we're apart."

Dad didn't hear that one the first time, so Mom had to repeat it, louder, which got the attention of a couple of the aides and nurses standing behind the big desk at the nurse's station.

And Dad, bless his heart, didn't miss a beat. I'll be darned if that big ole' softy didn't lean over to Mom, take hold of her hand in both of his and say, "But honey, don't you know? We're never apart, because you're always in my heart. "

Tissues!

pre-Homecoming.

2010-06-28T16:59:00.001-07:00

Mom's coming home.

Sort of.

Tomorrow.

For a day visit.

So the occupational therapist can assess Mom's needs when she finally does come home.

I pick Mom up at eleven.

With her old walker.

In my car.

The therapist follows us home.

Mom goes through all of the regular motions of a typical day at home.

The therapist observes.

We discuss.

Then we all go back to the nursing home.

yeah... THAT's the part I'm concerned about.

Stay tuned.

Again......the Poor Ole Horse....

2010-06-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

A while back I wrote (uncharacteristically I might add, considering my acute disdain for poetry) a little poetic diddy about the Poor Ole Horse That Is Really A Cow (that grazes in the pasture in front of the big old yellow house on Old Olympic Highway) that Dad comments on whenever we drive by it.

Well, I have an update. This happened two days ago, on our way home from visiting Mom at the nursing home.

We were just coming up on the POHTIRAC and Dad goose-necked so suddenly I was afraid he was going to wrench his neck out of joint.

"HEY!" he hollered at me, breaking the ten minute silence that had filled the inside of the Jeep since our departure from the nursing home. I assumed the "HEY" meant I was supposed to stop.

I didn't.

You might wonder why.

Well I'll tell you.

Because Dad ALLways makes some kind of "Hey!" comment when we pass the POHTIRAC and usually, it's something along the lines of "Hey! Look at that! They got a new horse! Poor old horse....." or "Hey! When did they put that poor old horse in that pasture? Poor old horse...." You get my drift. Dad's memory is pretty porous. So it wasn't all that noteworthy that he suddenly blurted out a big old HEY! as we were passing the POHTIRAC.

But back to the other day...

So anyway..........

"HEYYY!" Dad hollered at me again. This time it was louder and, frankly, kind of annoying. so I answered back a little impatiently.

"WHAT?!"

I slowed the car down a little, but I did not stop.

"WAIT!" he kept on, kind of frantically now.

I still didn't stop.

"HOLD ON!" he pleaded, now waving the air with his left hand, desperately demonstrating what he wanted me to do (in case I didn't quite understand what "WAIT!" really meant).

I still didn't stop.

This is when he finally pulled out the Captain Fleener card (which, these days, he really only uses for the really critical moments in his life.......like wanting to stop the car so he can get a closer look at a horse.......that's really a cow) as he flat-out commanded me. "PULL OVER!!!"

Since I was born, NOBODY ignores the Captain Fleener card.

I pulled over.

We ended up almost directly in front of the pasture where the you-know-what was happily grazing along the opposite fence.

Now picture a pause of about 25 seconds as Dad turns and cocks his face this way and that, trying to take in all the visual data his macular degenerated eyes would allow. He finally turned back to look me straight in the face. His expression?.....Well, remember when you first found out that Santa Claus was really your parents? Yep. That's the expression. Then he said to me...

And you all know what he said, right?

Right. But I'm gonna tell ya anyway.

He looked me straight in the eyes and said, with a sort of Well-I'll-be-damned tone, "Is that a cow?"

And I nodded. "Yes, Dad," and still nodding, "yes it is."

Then he said, (of course) "Well, I'll be damned."

There was a short pause as he looked back at the cow-that-used-to-be-a-horse.

"I thought it was a horse."

I nodded again, "I know Dad."

And his parting words, as I pulled back onto Old Olympic Highway?

Again, you all know what's coming, but I'm gonna tell ya anyway.

Wait for it.........

"Poor old cow."

Let's Get Sloshed!

2010-06-20T16:37:00.000-07:00

Dad: (around 3:30pm, hungry, sniffing the air, picking up the smell of sauteed mushrooms and peppers wafting its way in from the kitchen, where I'm whipping up a Father's Day meal) When are we eating?

Me: About 5:00. That okay?

Dad: Sure! t Boy, it sure smells good!

Me: Yep.

Then Dad gets up and wheels into the kitchen. He can't resist a good aroma. His eyes are bad, his hearing sucks, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with Dad's sniffer. He pokes his nose into the vegetables. Let's out some exclamation like, "Hmmmm! That smells good!" Then he strolls over to pour himself a glass of wine.

Dad:What time you putting the salmon on the grill?

Me: In about 15 minutes.

Dad's next comment took me a bit by surprise......though not entirely. Considering the week we've had with Mom's escapades into dementia-dom, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at all.

Dad: Let's get sloshed!

Me: Excuse me?

Dad: Come on! (cheering me on) I'll pour you a glass of wine. I've got a really nice Cab. Let's get sloshed. We deserve it.

Okay.........so, short time-out here...........Let me just say that I am in no way condoning the use of alcohol to escape from one's woes. I'm not a drinker. Dad has a glass of wine about every other night. That's it. But.........truth be told, it was an hellacious week for us. The thought of sharing a little alcohol buzz with my dad had a certain.......shall we say.........alluring bouquet.

Me: Okay! Pour me a glass! (I said it with a classic fist pump, which cracked Dad up. Seriously. I don't drink. He's always trying to talk me into having a glass of wine with him. So the fact that I actually said "yes" for once, really tickled his funny bone.)

So.......he poured; I sauteed and grilled. We're about to sit down now to eat.......and drink.

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there. Cheers!

Coming up empty.

2010-06-19T17:08:00.000-07:00

I dunno.........Life really makes ya think about Life some times ya know?

In the past week, Dad has regaled me with some amazing stories. Like.....how he used to frequent The Hawaiian Hut in Los Angeles back in the 40's and play ukelele with Augie Goupil and the-then-undiscovered Carmen Miranda, who he described as a little pip-squeek. Like.......how he used to hang out with Candelas (the famous flamenco guitar maker), at his shop in east LA, eating goat tacos, and playing guitar all afternoon and into the evening. Like........how he always wanted to be able to sing opera when he was in his teens, but it wasn't considered "cool" so he never bothered even taking a voice lesson.

Yep. There's been some major Dad-daughter bonding going on lately. I actually get a kick out of just sitting next to Dad and talking about anything--the birds that consume incredible quantities of bird seed from the two bird feeders I have hanging outside the living room window; the mammoth sunflowers that I planted earlier in the year and which are now quickly living up to their name. It doesn't matter what we start talking about. Somehow it always evolves into some story that Dad pulls out of his cache memory. Remember how I used to dread driving in the car with Dad? I wrote about it a while back. He always brought up money, and in the most stressful way possible. It was exhausting.

But now, I actually look forward to driving in the car with Dad. For one thing, he hears better in the confined space. But also, he totally gets off on seeing the trees, and the horses, and the river. Anything. Whatever detail Dad is able to see, he savors. Yeah, I love hanging out with my dad.

But..........well, part of me feels guilty about that.

I mean, I can't even count how many times I've asked myself, "Why didn't I spend this time with Dad when Mom was at home?"

And then I answer myself with, "Because it wasn't the same with Mom here."

But then I think, "But that shouldn't matter."

To which I always respond, "But it does."

Today at the nursing home, Mom fell. On purpose. She keeps trying to get out of bed on her own, so that she'll fall, so that she'll die. She firmly believes that if she can just make herself fall, she will die and this will all be over. She tells us this when we visit. Over and over and over. But, and this is the really frustrating part, she is always quick to add, "Will you please stay here while I do it so I won't be alone?"

Yeahhhh..........Mom's in a weird place right now.

So I'm sitting here wondering what to call today's entry, and I keep coming up empty.

Hah! And there it is.

Tosca

2010-06-11T21:52:00.000-07:00

Another visit to see Mom today. During our visit, she told me she hoped God would forgive me for what Dad and I were doing to her. Then, almost in the same breath, asked tearfully if she had ever been a burden to us, then told me she wanted booze in her juice, and followed that with a request for a hatchet.

Coming back from the nursing home, I turned into the gravel driveway, made the last swerve to the front of the garage, and took a moment to observe the old log house that has become my home. I thought about how the color on the logs was once new with the blush of fresh paint. I thought about how the carpet in the house, now loose and wrinkled, must have looked when it was new--plush, and tight, and newly installed. I thought about how the walls are all faded and stained with memories, and how the rubber seals around all the doors are stiff and torn and ripped here and there.

Dad started his morning today singing an aria from Tosca. A special program on tv last night on Pavarotti had inspired him. He asked me to find his book on Italian arias so he could brush up. This afternoon he got a new hearing aid that improved his hearing so much that he kept counting to himself in Japanese all afternoon just so he could hear himself hear better.

For the first time today, when we left the nursing home, Dad didn't say goodbye to Mom.

Flower Power

2010-06-10T16:38:00.000-07:00

Mom has a little solar-powered flower that sets on her window at the nursing home. My sister-in-law sent it to her as a gift. I also have one in my office at home. When the sun shines on it, it charges up and the flower wags back and forth. If you haven't seen these things, check 'em out. Google "solar powered toys" to see the plethora of dancing, wiggling, wagging, bouncing gizmos--all powered clean and free by our almighty sun. Seriously. Hours and hours of nonstop entertainment. Kinda (emphasis on the "kinda") like watching an aquarium...

Anyway, Mom loves her solar flower. Dad too. Within 30 seconds of our visit, she always makes some comment about her flower. Either it IS moving, or it ISN'T moving, or it's ABOUT to move, or it was JUST moving a minute ago... she always points it out. If it is moving, Dad always laughs. I'm not sure why. People in their eighties and nineties (like little kids) are easily amused by simple things. The simpler, the better. I guess it's what the saying "the simple pleasures of life" might be referring to. I dunno. Probably part of that whole circle of life thing.

Some days, like today, Mom tells me she wants to sit facing out the window just so she can watch that ridiculous little plastic flower wagging back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...

Mom asked today, "How does it do that?"

I explained that the sun charges a solar cell inside the flower, and that makes the flower move.

"Oh, " she said blankly. I could've said anything. All she cares about is that it moves.

The high point of today's visit was when Dad and I walked into the building, only to discover a special event being set up for residents and visitors--three or four tables in the lobby with baked items and whole line of Italian syrup bottles. Of course............my father thought they were liquor bottles.

"GREAT! Is it happy hour???!!!" he announced out loud. One of the staffers quickly explained that, no, the bottles were not liquor bottles, only different flavored syrups for italian sodas.

"Oh." Supreme disappointment.

Altogether, a better visit today. Let's hope the flower keeps wagging.

Wanted: Sunshine

2010-06-06T15:31:00.000-07:00

Meltdown at the nursing home. And my mom's not doing so well either.

Mom's in a slump. A big slump. And this is the third day of it. Today, the nurse ordered a mental health evaluation.

It's a real lesson in perspective to sit and listen to somebody in the throes of dementia when they're having a really, really bad day. Or three days. Our natural inclination is to want to fix them. Un-break what is broken in their minds. Figure out the magic comment that will suddenly snap them back to reality. But dementia doesn't work that way. Or at least my mother doesn't work that way.

So Dad and I sit, and we listen, and we listen some more. And she tells us how "they" are all plotting against her. How "they" don't care about her. How there's a "faction" that is going to take her away.

I come up with a possible magical comment. "Mom look! There's a goldfinch on the fence!" (Mom loves goldfinches.)

She actually smiles and the paranoia and the fear and the sadness all disappear for a few wonderful minutes as she searches the sky for more goldfinches. We chat about the difference between female and male goldfinches. Mom actually chuckles a little when Dad challenges my "so-called" knowledge about the sexual dimorphism of goldfinches. Then there's a short pause. And then it starts again--the plots, the faction, the They.

About half way through the visit Dad gives up. I can tell because all of a sudden he just lowers his head into his hands and says to himself, "She's lost it." And his head just stays there.

I excuse myself and go out into the hall for a break. I talk to Crazy Alice who, today, doesn't seem so crazy. I even say hi to Eleanore, Mom's former roommate-from-hell who, I observe, still doesn't have a new roommate. Eleanore is just plain mean. Mom is just plain depressed. Hmmm.....weighing the options in my head....mean or depressed?...........depressed or mean?.......I dunno.......that's a tough one.

It's gray outside. And it's pretty gloomy inside too.

Sunday in the Nursing Home with Mom

2010-05-30T17:22:00.000-07:00

I have three sensational kids who have all grown into three sensational adults. When they were little, they were in daycare. I clearly recall my daily exit routine with them--a quick hug, a kiss on the forehead, "Bye, Bye!"and then, "Now stay out of trouble!"

I've heard it, or read it, that Life is Circular. It's true. Weirdly true.

Sunday afternoon at the nursing home.

Mom's roommate wants to nap so we head to the lobby. There we sit. Mom in her wheelchair. I'm on her left. Dad is on my left. We sit, like the three See No Evil/Speak No Evil/Hear No Evil Chimpanzees staring out the lobby windows, except of course, Dad is really the See/Speak/Hear No Evil chimp in this scenario because he has fallen completely asleep. (Although he did magically wake up when Dixie, the black lab, came strolling into the lobby area......How does he do that????)

Mom was in a particularly spry mood today. I asked her how her day was going and she answered with particularly pointed pride, "Oh well, you know it's the same old thing..........I eat, I pee, I sleep, I get my dope."

(This is where one of those cartoon "boiiiiinnnnng!" sounds would be if this had been a cartoon.)

I whipped around, stunned at Mom's uncharacteristically forthright delivery, especially of the word "dope," and just looked at her with my mouth agape.

She stared right back at me, equally agape!

Then, as if on cue, we both cracked up, out loud, right there in the lobby! It wasn't really that funny. I dunno. It was just the tone Mom had. So matter-of-fact. So resolute. And so completely "ok" with it all. More like something Dad would've said, but very funny coming out of Mom's mouth.

Anyway, we ended up sitting in the lobby for a good hour and a half.

There was a group in the dining hall singing patriotic songs (in honor of Memorial Day I suspect).

The wife of the man who brings Dixie was also in the lobby. She barely moves. Dad, at one point, whispered (sort of) to me, "Is she dead?"

One lady, a resident, came wandering through the lobby clutching a little teddy bear and mumbling to herself and pointing at this door, then another door, "I thought it was here......no there.......no here....." and Mom said, rolling her eyes, "She's been lost all morning."

Two women residents were huddled together in a nearby corner chatting enthusiastically about the Dancing With The Stars finale.

It was a rather pleasant hour and half. Certainly entertaining.But then it was time for us to leave.

I woke up Dad, and we wheeled Mom back to her room, where her roommate was sound asleep. I taped a new family photo up on Mom's wall, made up her bed for her, wheeled her into position in front of her television. Dad kissed Mom goodbye and told her he loved her. I gave Mom a hug, kissed her forehead and said, "bye!" And then, "now stay out of trouble. "

What the Silence Says...other Observations...and Birdhouses

2010-05-29T14:50:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks of my life have been, well........interesting. I've found it next to impossible to write. Hard to even THINK about writing for that matter. Mom is still in the nursing home, so Dad and I go over every afternoon and visit her for an hour or so. This is all fine but it tends to tighten up my morning, which is when I workout, work at my "real" job (writing and editing science textbooks), have breakfast, do the morning chores, check email. By the time we get home from visiting Mom (around three), it's time to make "a meal" (as I call it, because the term "dinner" or "lunch" doesn't really fit. For me, it's just "a meal," THE primary meal of the day, and it seems to always end up happening around three or four in the afternoon). The afternoon just seems to disappear.

Anyway........it's been tough to find the time to write, let alone to know what to write about. But.........as we were driving home this afternoon from the nursing home, it suddenly occurred to me that I did have something to write about--the things I've noticed since the Nursing Home chapter has begun. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. I LIKE visiting Mom in the nursing home! Seriously. I genuinely, sincerely look forward to visiting with her. For anybody who knows me, knows my relationship with my mother, this is pretty darned incredible. But I swear to you, it's true--I really enjoy hanging out at the nursing home, listening to what Mom had for breakfast, or lunch, or dinner, what the crazy old lady down the hall did yesterday, which nurse nobody likes, or which of the male aides Mom has a crush on this week. I find it, I dunno, relaxing. I even like the nursing home itself. I can't explain this because the last time Mom was at (the same) nursing home, I resented every time I had to walk into the building--the smell, the people, the staff. It turned my stomach. But this time? I'm like Mary Freakin'Sunshine! I bring in fresh flowers for Mom; I stroll through the front doors and greet whoever is sitting in the lobby (cuz there is ALWAYS at least one resident sitting right there, staring out into foreverland); I even say hello to the crusty old geezers who, honestly, look like sitting corpses, but who always break out into these glorious grins when somebody offers them a simple ,"HI!" Yeah. Go figure. I am lovin' the nursing home.

2. The next thing I've noticed is that on the way to see Mom, Dad always manages to come up with some story I have never heard before. Yesterday, it was about the time when he was working as a lifeguard down in SoCal and he and another lifeguard busted some old guy and his son who ran a bait store. Seems the father-son duo was slitting the gullets of pelicans who kept stealing the bait out of the bait box. Dad was remembering how heartbreaking it was to see the pelicans trying and trying to eat, but couldn't because of the big slits in their gullet. He said he was feeling the same way about the oil-slathered birds and fish that are falling victim to the latest oil spill crisis down in Louisiana.

3. The flip side to the talkity-talkity nature of our drive TO the nursing home is the deafening silence of the trip BACK. Silence. Absolute and total silence. Dad doesn't even comment on the "Poor Ole Horse" in front of the big yellow house. The entire drive home. Nothing. Not just a pregnant pause. This is an entire twenty minutes of profound silence. Pretty unusual for my dad.

Of course, I suppose I could say something but the truth of the matter is, I don't really feel like talking either. What does this silence say? Well.......what the silence tells me is that Dad is processing. In fact, we're both processing. I know that, for me anyway, I spend the drive home problem-solving. Trying to think through the logistics of every possible scenario regarding Mom's return, or failure to return, home. Maybe Dad's doing the same thing. Not sure. I don't ask. If he wants to tell me, he will.

The other thing I've noticed is that my relationship with my father has become amazingly rich and rewarding. I'm more patient with him. I WANT to listen to him more. I WANT to ask him questions about...whatever. And the house is different too. There is a clarity in the air that I can't describe. I'm cooking more. I'm sitting in rooms I rarely used to enter. I hear the birds chirping ALL THE TIME!

It all makes me wonder........maybe the responsibility of caring for Mom was having a bigger effect on me than I thought. (Cue the collective, "Duh!" from the readers.) So......it makes me wonder......Would it make more sense to have Mom stay in the nursing home?........But then, what would the purpose of that be?........To improve MY quality of life? What about Mom's quality of life? Would it be better in a nursing home? Or would the nursing home just prolong her already-very-full life? And how do I harness the positive attitude I have about the house now and somehow nurture and maintain it when/if Mom comes home?

I'll close with Dad's latest project. As you know, it's the growing season. The grass, the flowers, the birds. Every thing's growing and reproducing like crazy. I have to fill the birdfeeders almost daily. So the other day, Dad blurts out in the middle of our drive over to see Mom, "BIRDHOUSES!"

I knew there was more so I simply said, "Okay.....?"

Then he continued, "Let's get some birdhouses for all the birdies (Yes, he really said, birdies.)."

I quickly processed through my mental Rolodex of pros and cons--better than getting a dog, minimum extra work for me, hours and hours of enjoyment for Dad. "OK!" I said.

So we now have two little birdhouses hanging in the maple trees in front of the living room window. Dad watches them like a hawk.

Recap of the last two weeks and........Whistling Dixie

2010-05-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

You know how some tv shows give you a thirty second recap of the last ten or so episodes, to catch viewers up on what they've missed, or forgotten? Well get ready. I haven't written for several weeks. There's a reason why. No, correction. There are reasonS, why. Here goes.

April 29: My first grandchild is born to my son and his wife. They live in San Diego.

April 30: I fly to NYC to see my daughter's semester-end showcase at her school. Short weekend trip. Back on Tuesday, May 4.

May 2: Mom falls while I'm in NYC. Again. Dislocates her hip. Again. This is the fourth time for anybody's who's counting. Paramedics take her to the ER, again. Relocate the hip, again. But this time she injured her foot when she fell and consequently can't walk on it. She's admitted to the hospital.

May 4: My daughter and I fly back to Seattle and to Sequim.

May 4-May 10: Daily visits to the hospital with Dad to see Mom. She's medicated pretty heavily. She keeps asking me why her bedroom looks so different and "Who are all those strange people?" She has one of those I'm-so-happy-but-I-don't-know-why-smiles on her face that doesn't go away.

May 5: Mom is transferred to the rehab place in Sequim. Surprisingly, she seems okay with this....or is she still so heavily medicated she doesn't get it yet....?

May 8: She hadn't gotten it yet. The meds wear off and Mom has a full blown anxiety attack. Rehab staff calls me to come over immediately. Dad and I go over. I can hear Mom screaming as I walk through the double glass doors. Kind of surreal really. We get to her room. I'll spare you the details. It wasn't pretty. I talk with the staff about adjusting her meds. They say it will take at least 24 hours for the calming effect of the new med schedule to take effect.

May 9: Strange Mother's Day......cuz........the woman who is my mother was not inhabiting the body I visit at rehab. Dad and I have a short visit with Mom.

May 10: My daughter flies back to NYC. I fly to San Diego to meet my new grandchild and help out my son and his wife with the new baby. The night before I seriously consider not going. But Dad and the caregiver both reassure me that it's actually a very good time for me to go. So I do.

May 10-15: I bond with my grandbaby; cook for my son and his wife; help them pack boxes for moving into their new house; Dad calls to tell me that Mom is back to her old self. Relief.

May 15: Back to Sequim. The one-parent house is strangely serene. Dad and the dogs are in great spirits.

May 16-today: One of the daily visitors to the rehab place brings along his black lab, Dixie. Dad loves Dixie. Seriously. All Dad talks about on the way over to the rehab place is whether or not Dixie will be there. Dixie was there today. Dad gushed all over her. Told the owner that if he ever needed a home for Dixie that Dad would gladly take her in.

On the way home, Dad told me, "It's a sign."

"Huh?" I asked, "What's a sign?"

"Dixie."

"Huh?" I asked again.

"Dixie and I crossed paths at rehab because we're destined to be together some day." Dad's grinning. He seems pretty content and pleased with his new role as soothsayer.

There's a second reason why Dad loves to visit the rehab place. (It's a sad fact that visiting Mom is actually his third reason. Dogs, Food, Mom. Yup, that's pretty much my dad's priority list of life.)

And another reason--mashed potatoes. I may or may not have mentioned that my dad is a human garbage disposal. He eats anything. ANY. THING. He especially loves mashed potatoes. So if Mom happens to be eating when we visit, and there happens to be mashed potatoes on her tray, rest assured it will be gone within minutes of Dad laying eyes on it. A couple of visits ago he devoured Mom's entire lunch tray, mashed potatoes and all. After lunch, I took Mom out for a "stroll" in her wheelchair. When we came back, Dad was sound asleep on Mom's bed. One of the nurses came running into the room, a look of stark concern on her face, "Do you know this man!?"

I glanced at the bed--Dad sawing off the zzz-s, mouth half open, Filson cap pulled down over his eyes. "Yeah, that's my dad." I smiled.

Apparently the staff thought some old man had wandered into the facility and into my mom's room, Goldilocks-style, ate all the food on her lunch tray, then promptly fell asleep in her bed that was clearly "juuuuust right."

Yeah. So that's been the last two weeks, condensed. Not sure where this new chapter is headed. Stay tuned...

T-Shirt Ghost

2010-04-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

Remember when you used to play ghost by putting on a big t-shirt only part way, so your head was still inside the shirt, and your arms were sort of stuck halfway inside the armholes, elbows suspended upward in mid-air? Then you'd walk around flailing your arms around and wailing, in a weird, ghostly voice, "wooooooooooh, woooooooh" trying to scare your little sister or brother, or the family dog? Remember that? You did that, right?

I wasn't the only one......was I?

Okay. So Mom just called me into her room. She generally retires pretty early, usually around 7pm. She goes to her room, sits in her chair, gets undressed, puts on her calf-length, long-sleeved, L. L. Bean cotton, nightgown, gets into bed, and watches television for a few hours before actually falling asleep.

She called me because she needed help with her shoes. Specifically, the velcro straps of her Rockports. So I dashed in. Ripped open the straps and removed her shoes and her socks (the one with little cows all over them). I noticed that she already had her nightgown on. "Well, looks like you're all set for the night!"

"yeeeees" she moaned. Mom moans her yes-es. It's kind of become her trademark. In fact, when I think about it, she hasn't answered a question with a normal, "Yes" in years. Since about 2005, it's been a long, drawn out, moany, somewhat forlorn--"yeeeeees."

Anyway, shoes and socks successfully removed, I went back to the office. Not two minutes later Mom called again, this time, a little more frantically, "Deniiiiiise!"

I jumped up and was at her door in seconds, expecting to find her trying to get to something just out of reach. Instead, there she was, still sitting in her chair, looking like the t-shirt ghost from my childhood.......except, of course, Mom's version was pink (cuz her nightgown is pink).

I just stood and stared. I couldn't figure out how she did it! Her head was completely hidden. Her arms were twisted up inside the nightgown, over and around her head. Basically, I couldn't see any part of my mother from the waist up. Just a bunch of pink, lobular shapes. It was kind of crazy.

I blurted out, "Whoa! Where'd you go???!" (It was a really, really good t-shirt ghost.)

"I......don't......knowwwww" she moaned back.

Then I remembered that she had her nightgown ON not two minutes before when I was in to take her shoes off. "Wait a minute......Are you taking your nightgown on or off?"

"I......don't.........knowwwww."

I mean, truly, you should've seen the Chinese knot she had her arms in inside that nightgown. It was amazing!

But seriously, I had to get her out of this mess. And that depended on whether I needed to try and pull the nightgown off, or put the nightgown back on. So I asked the obvious question, "Are you trying to put your nightgown on?"

"yeeeeeeeees."

And just for kicks (cuz she just sounded and looked so cute!) I had to ask again, "Do you want me to help you?"

"yeeeeeeees."

Thankfully, it wasn't as complicated as it looked. Somehow she had put her head AND one of her arms through the neck hole of the nightgown. Total mystery. I have no explanation.

Got everything back in order, arms and head where they were supposed to be. "Okay, that's better" I said to her before leaving. "You okay now?"

And, of course she answered, "yeeeeeeees."

Thank you Isaac Stern

2010-04-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

"Isaac Stern!"

Dad burst into my office this morning singing (and doing a little Tevyah jig) "Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match...." then suddenly interjected, with incredible gusto, right arm raised like the Statue of Liberty, "Isaac Stern!" It actually scared me a little.

"Wha.....!?" I started to say as I whirled around in my chair.

"Isaac Stern!" Dad shouted again. "The greatest violinist in the world!"

"Okay...." I said, hesitant to do anything else but agree.

Then Dad went on, "Fiddler on the Roof was on last night. GREAT movie! GREAT 'choragraphy', GREAT score, GREAT lyrics! GREAT movie!" Big ole' grin on his face (look at the new pic of Dad that I posted last night. It's the same grin.)

Then Dad turned around and Tevyah-ed out the door. "Yah-tah-tah-tah, dee-dee-dah-dah...."

So much for shortness of breath. Isaac Stern and Tevyah have apparently given Dad a second wind.

Sakura, Sakura....

2010-04-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a few blogs ago that Dad has been singing a Japanese song, "Sakura." I had no idea what it meant, or even if it was actually a song. But I looked it up just now and found the lyrics. Turns out, "Sakura" means "cherry blossoms" and the song is an old Japanese folk song. I've pasted the lyrics below because when I read them, the simple beauty of the words made me well up inside. My father can be stubborn and gruff and incredibly frustrating at times. But when he sings "Sakurahhh, Sakurahhh..." his voice is so delicate (a word I doubt anybody would use to describe my dad) and full of so much longing and tenderness.

.............anyway..........here are the lyrics.

Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms,

On Meadow-hills and mountains

As far as you can see.

Is it a mist, or clouds?

Fragrant in the morning sun.

Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms,

Flowers in full bloom.

Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms,

Across the Spring sky,

As far as you can see.

Is it a mist, or clouds?

Fragrant in the air.

Come now, come,

Let’s look, at last!

Diary of a M.A.D. Caregiver

Beat it.

A Two Page Letter to Claude Horan

Clapping Santa

When Friends Visit

Whale Song

An Almost Perfect Companion

Sugar Cookie Cocoa Tea

Dumpsters

Crazy Or Not So Crazy? That Is The Question.

Where's the Floppy Hat Man When I Need Him?

"Outside My Window"

Off-White Laundry Basket

Spice Jars

A Recovering Caregiver

Roller Coasters

Friends and Shit

Garbage

Art Imitating Life

Peaches and Hummus

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes....

Bleeding Heart

Salad, Panninis, and Mama Chia

HEAT!

Evil Puppetmaster God

Dad's World of Dad About Dad For Dad

Everything but.....

Just A Wet Dog

Dad's First Surfboard

Default Response

Really Dad? (pause) Really?

Dad and Petey

Poof.

Japanese Postscript

Crazy-Good

Tabasco

Green Tea

A Moment...

Chinese Stew

Blog Block

For Whom The Bell Tinkles

Sushi

converse

This is how my Monday began....

Wonky-Wonks

And now, for your listening pleasure, ....

One Man's Pheasant Is Another Man's Roadrunner

Call of the Wild

The Absence of Crazy

Pancakes, Tea and Lightness

Stopped in the Roundabout

Mountain

Walnuts

Slender Thread

A Very Very Sarcastic Perspective of a Very Very Crazy Day

Aaaaaand......I'm back.

A Silent Tree

Crying Wolf

Just another morning...

Almost a restful, relaxing, great day.

Sauvignon Blanc

Black Mules

She's Back

Every Morning's Another Day...Or Another Mother

Shrinkage

"Foosey!"

Short Circuit

Thanks, Giving, and Tawny Port

This is going to be strange Thanksgiving. I've decided on a rather warped strategy for getting through today. It will include a play-by-play update. It'll be like you, the reader, are right there with me! "Oh goody!", you're saying right now. Right?! Here we go.

9:01am: The parade is starting. I'm watching from the living room. I can hear Mom whimpering in her room. I think seriously of sipping on a teensy bit of the tawny port. But, in reality, I'll probably wait. At least until ten.

(Oh, by the way, Pauline was my grandfather's secretary.) (Yeah......like that makes Mom's outburst any more logical....) Okay. The tawny port is out of the liquor cabinet and now setting on the kitchen counter.

10:55am: Dad: (after snooping around the kitchen and discovering the bottle of tawny port) "Hey! What are you gonna do with that bottle of tawny port?"Me: "I'm gonna drink it!"And then he made the face that's posted on the side.

!:41pm: (note the tawny port-induced typos that have started to pop up) Welllllll...... leave it to dogs and babies, right? The National Dog Show has been on since noon and Mom is now as calm and as content as a kisker's whitten. Oh wait.......well, you know what I mean. That was the port talking.

4:17pm: The turkey rest-ith. The green/yams simmer-ith. Mom's still trying to find Dr. Oz. (Aren't we all?)

Preparing to Disembark: Part Trois

Preparing to Disembark: Part Deux

Preparing to Disembark

Hellooooo Miiiiindy...

It's a Privilege to Pee

Flu Shot

10:55am: Dad: (after snooping around the kitchen and discovering the bottle of tawny port) "Hey! What are you gonna do with that bottle of tawny port?"
Me: "I'm gonna drink it!"
And then he made the face that's posted on the side.