The Party Isn't Over

My parents, 1950-something

I have not blogged in nearly 2 weeks--a personal low, I'm sure--offset perhaps by the 3 or 4 posts per day back in the era of post-divorce wreckage.  Those posts were medicinal, and the recent absence was too.

It doesn't feel appropriate to  blog about family get-togethers or vacations with our recluse vs extrovert family dynamic. Suffice it to say that I went somewhere, ate delicious things, and saw weird and interesting stuff.

Not Holland. Not Denmark. Not Santorini. Solvang.

Solvang is foodie paradise. I could go on, but it would take forever to describe the delicious things we ate. This is a hollow ball of chocolate filled with poached pear on peanut butter fluff. I forget what the little balls mixed with the pear are. They were fantastic, whatever they were. 

We went to an ostrich farm. Some of us wanted to eat ostrich. Some of us didn't. Some of us fed the ostriches. Some coveted ostrich feathers, one person got an ostrich souvenir t-shirt, and probably at least one person imagined herself to be an ostrich, running through the countryside, plumes bobbing.

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Why We Should Eat Dessert

Pavlova by candlelight, prepared by my friend Sasha for our Friday night dessert after dinner on the patio.

I ask myself these days what I'm doing right, what I've done wrong. What I can re-do. What I don't know how to do. What I don't know how to do, but must do.

I'm hoping to move my mother into a nursing home in Iowa. Put her in reach of more people who love her. Put her in the care of nurses 24/7. Put myself in airplanes regularly again like when she was in the care of my brother and his girlfriend on the east coast.

This past weekend was as mixed as a weekend can be. A lovely Friday evening dinner with friends, daughter M here for the weekend. Then Sunday devolved into the unblog-able. There were two calls to the hospice nurse this weekend, two new meds in the past week. This afternoon the moaning was so loud that I thought for a moment I literally could not stand it. As per usual, the moaning does not really signify pain, it's an unconscious thing that my mom does not know she's doing. How can she stop it if she doesn't know she's doing it? How can I stand it when she can't stop it?

Every day I write in my little red "mom notebook" what I have to do, what I've done. I try to keep the plan moving along, but the plan might be changing. Plan A, Plan B. Maybe there's a Plan C that I don't even know about yet.

One of my favorite bloggers lost her mother Alice last Wednesday. Andrea's adventures with Alice have been sort of a guiding light for me. Now that light is out. I have plenty of support left, but I ask myself if I'm ready to let go of my mom. To really let go. I think I am. But I also think it will be harder than I imagine.

Tonight I'm remembering this dream I had when Dan was dying. How the dream helped me know what to do. How it changed the plan. How everything fell into place. How I had to let go.

Monday: a Day in Pillville

Leap out of bed when the alarm sounds (new resolution.) Do the morning things. Put away the clean dishes. Tidy things. Walk. Update the caregiver when she arrives.

But I can't flip the switch in yoga. I'm breathing. I'm doing. But I'm not in the room. Or I am, but I'm not processing the instructions. Weird thing: At the end of savasana when the teacher's singing bowl makes it tone, I'm really discombobulated. The sound was coming from inside me. Maybe I fell asleep and was dreaming.

Then the anxiety. Oh my god, I have to get my car washed because I'm driving my mom to Miracle Ear this afternoon and I can barely see out the windows, and she always has to steady herself against the car and it's awful for it to be so grimy, but wait, Oh my god, I know I'm subbing for a fellow T'ai Chi Chih teacher next Sunday and Monday, but wait, she wasn't in yoga class so maybe it's this Monday, and now I probably can't take my mom to Miracle Ear and she is so tired of not hearing jack shit. So I make calls and texts while driving to the car wash. (Thanks, Siri.) And it all turns out swell, I didn't fuck up, but I lose my wallet and my phone in the carwash for a bit. Find them. Hooray! Get my car back. Clean! Hooray.

I go to CVS to use my 10 dollar coupon and buy headbands for my mom. I obsess for an hour. I buy a hot pink sharpie because I'm worried that her POLST form which the new doctor should have put on pink paper, but didn't will not be noticed by the paramedics if they come again. For months I've been keeping the old POLST in the front of the packet for visibility (remember this ) The paramedics are trained to look for pink.  And having two POLSTS confuses everyone. So the pink sharpie is super important. Which one? Which one? And the home care nurse calls me--ah I did fuck that up--I thought she was coming after I got home. Which is okay. The caregiver knows what's up.

And when I get home, the caregiver looks worried. "Your mom broke a piece off her dentures, and it's stuck in the drain." I should call the plumber--but no--who cares about the piece of pink plastic in the drain if it can't be glued back on? So I call the dentist. Email them a photo. Fixable? I wait to hear back. Still waiting.

Meanwhile I call the pharmacy about a prescription we're having trouble getting renewed. The doctor isn't responding to the faxes for a new prescription. Then I see that the name on the bottle is her old doctor. How can that be? It's been renewed soooooo many times since we changed doctors. Has the old doctor been signing off on it? Did the pharmacy enter the old info on a new label? I call the  cardiologist because it's a cardiac med. She  should be the one prescribing it anyhow. But they turn off their phones for 2 hours at lunch. And now I have to remember to call later.  Oh, and note to self, call the primary doctor for the post-hospital follow-up. But they're probably at lunch too. Note to self: follow up with dentist. Call the plumber if need be. Call the cardiologist and the primary doc after lunch.

Note to self: Your oldest California friends are coming to dinner. They're bringing a meatloaf. You've made a strawberry ice cream cake. It's going to wonderful. It's going to be fine.

The border of the POLST is now pink. That's wonderful. It's going to be fine.

Oh, and I found out recently that a rather long essay of mine is going to be published in what I think will be a very good anthology. It's going to be wonderful. It's going to be fine.


This is what's going on this Monday in Pillville. What's happening where you live?

Happy Christmas to Everyone

Oh--and beware of the mutant zombie gingerbread people.

The spice cake turned out much prettier.

And the bourbon sweet whipped cream was a hit--sort of.

Mother:  This whipped cream is tasteless. Give me some ice cream.

Man Who Loves Me:  Mmmm. You put in more bourbon, didn't you.

Apparently some taste buds only detect gin.

I thought the spice cake and the spiked whipped cream made a nice combo.

Bacon to the Rescue

"This is horrible. Tasteless," my mother said. At 88 she's effusive with her praise--and her criticism (which is thankfully quite rare.) She was right. The bean soup from one of my favorite vegetarian cookbooks was super boring. After quizzing my houseguest, J, my daughter, and her husband, bacon was the winning remedy. I also added just a few hot pepper flakes. Tonight's re-imagined bean soup was good. Rounding out the meal were a goat cheese, leek, and chard quiche. And an apple crisp.

Desserts are pretty important here in Margaritaville. We finished the lemon bars last night--I served them with a dollop of vanilla ice cream, and due to a pomegranate "emergency," we also sprinkled pomegranate seeds on top. Tart + Sweet+Tart= Delicious.

Kuri Squash Tart

I'm something of a squash fanatic. One year I grew so much summer squash, my kids refused to eat it for years.

This fall there's been quite a bit of winter squash in my weekly CSA box. Squash is one of my mom's favorite veggies, and I don't think she's going to get tired of it. The varieties we've devoured so far include Delicata, Butternut, Acorn, Kabocha, Carnival, Kuri, and Spaghetti. The Kuri alone failed to live up to our expectations.

Last week there was another Kuri in my box of veggies, and on Saturday night I turned it into a tart.

I wanted it to be a little different from a pumpkin pie since Thanksgiving is right around the corner, so I made the crust out of ground almonds. I dumped two cups of roasted almonds into the food processor, pulsed them until they were coarsely ground, and then added 1/3 cup of sugar and 1/3 cup of butter. I pulsed it some more and then pressed it into the tart pan (9 ") and baked it for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

The Kuri squash was baked in the oven until very tender, cooled, and the innards scooped out and put into the food processor with 1/8 C brown sugar, 1/4 C white sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon,1/4 tsp ginger, 1/8 tsp allspice, and 1/8 tsp cloves. Once that was mixed, I added an egg that had been beaten into a cup of soy milk, pulsed until well blended, and poured the mixture into the crust. I think I baked it for about 30 minutes. Things were getting busy in the kitchen at that point, and the man who loves me and I were probably into our second glass of wine by then.

The tart was a delicious dessert. We topped it with vanilla ice cream. It made a fabulous breakfast, too.

Gluten free & dairy free--without the vanilla ice cream, that is.

Let's not talk about pills, and doctors, and tests....

Let's talk about dessert.

mini cantaloupe with vanilla ice cream, topped with a raspberry and chocolate shavings

And tomorrow, perhaps, we'll discuss squash.