Wanted: Fresh Set of Patience

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.

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........

a crocheted potholder.

Shrug #3

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?

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.