Report from Camp Margaritaville

This is what my kitchen looks like every morning as I make lunches for the grandchildren. They help too, but we start the morning with them on one side of the island eating breakfast and me on the other constructing lunches. Pleaseohplease let me have a few years where I make lunch for no one, I wrote to a friend the other day. But really, this week has been fun. Camp has been from 9-4 so I've had time to think. Uh. Maybe not. I think I've mostly been buying more food. Added to my mom's mainstays of white sugar, butter, yogurt, jam, coffee, half and half, and vanilla ice cream, we now cannot run out of bread, cheese, milk, ham, or grapes. I have made ridiculously simple dinners. Bacon and eggs, quesadillas, pasta, pizza. I would now like to live in a box of mixed greens with homemade vinaigrette. Or maybe I'd like to marry a French chef and get fat. One or the other. I can't decide.

Family is arriving for this holiday. All my children will be here. People will be sleeping in the living room and in the garage which serves a a guest room since there's plenty of room out there.

We have pretty angst-free relationships with one another. Lovelovelove is pretty much the way things go. People are considerate and kind. There will be kayaking, and board games, walks and naps, and getting caught up. One of us is looking for a new apartment, one is falling in love, three have relatively new jobs, one has just graduated and is looking for a job, and the grandkids are always surprising us with something.

Hello from Camp Margaritaville. Population:11 Age range: 9-90.

The Hostage Exchange

The grandchildren are here.

All 3 are enrolled in watersports camp (sailing, kayaking, paddle boarding) from 9-3:30 this week. With care for my mom only in the mornings, this seemed like a good arrangement and so far it's worked fine. We won't be taking leisurely walks, running out for fro-yo whenever we feel like it, or using the yacht club pool. But they're here.

Of the many difficult things that go with caring for a frail elderly person, one is that I can't travel to see them. (Tried it once...nope.) Hooray for M. and hooray for their mom who met half-way (200 + mile drive for each of them)  and performed what M called the hostage exchange. Some motherly free time for their mom in exchange for 3 children for us.

Anyone like to make a different sort of  hostage exchange here in Pillville?

So. A Seahorse Walks into a Bar...

Beach goer art 

When I walked by this piece of driftwood stuck into the sand today, I re-called one of the spontaneous games that popped up with the grandchildren this past weekend. I suppose not every grandma would begin a game with young grandchildren that begins with someone or something walking into a bar, but the game was essentially word play which all three of my grandchildren enjoy.

So, a crab walks into a bar, and the bartender says, "Sorry. We don't serve crabs here." So the crab says, "Aw, c'mon, I won't be shellfish."

So, a fish walks into a bar, and the bartender says, "Sorry. We don't serve fish here." So the fish says, "What's the catch?"

So, a whale walks into a bar, and the bartender says, "Sorry. We don't serve whales here. So the whale says, "Hey, it's not a fluke that I'm here. I'm here on porpoise!"

So, a seahorse walks into a bar.....go ahead you finish it.

Yeah, grandchildren. We had "tea by the sea," which is the best excuse ever for eating lots of sweets with lunch.

We took a whale watching boat ride, but did not, unfortunately, find any whales. There were, however, bottle nose dolphins. The ocean was mindbogglingly blue.

Today there were clouds that looked like dollops of whipped cream. Beauty. Whether it's art or nature or grandchildren, I'm always amazed.

Just Hanging with the 10-Year-Old and the 90-Year-Old

"Sometimes adults think they can bribe us with sweets," said the 10-year-old as she devoured a cup of cookies and cream ice cream.
Not that I was trying to bribe her. If I wanted to bribe her, I'd bribe her with the promise of playing a board game.
"Oh," I said, "I guess I'll bribe you with green beans then."
"That would never work," she said.
"I was joking," I said. She can be serious, this girl. And she seriously doesn't care for vegetables. But I'm not pushing it. Tonight's dinner was fish, baked potatoes, bok choy, sliced tomatoes, watermelon, and cantaloupe. The girl found out she likes baked potatoes. She was so exited she called her mom. Adorable, right? Then the girl and the 90-year-old debated which was better, sweet potatoes or regular potatoes. They didn't agree.

Last night over dinner, the girl told us that she'd heard being an adult sucked. "Not at all," I said. The 90-year-old agreed.
"You get to be your own boss," my mom told her. And somehow that segued into how she and her twin sister went off to live on their own in Baltimore when they were only 17. Which segued into how they eventually rented a very stylish apartment from a retiring prostitute they knew. Only she couldn't think of the word. "Sex. Girl. Worker," she said.
"Prostitute," I said. The girl took this all in and then we circled back to growing up and going to college and working. Welcome to my dinner table where we have multi-generational discussions about potatoes and prostitutes.

And speaking of circling,  I told the girl I liked the circles she'd made with all the toy animals. It's called "The Night of the Dances" she said, and informed me that the humans are dancing too. They are.

My mom gasped with delight when she saw the toys when I first set them out for the girl. When all of the kids are here, they play in the "family room"/garage so my mother doesn't get to see what's going on out there--and I guess she doesn't remember the toys from when my own girls played with them. Her delight breaks my heart a little. It makes me think of one of the patients in the nursing home where my aunt resided her last couple of years. This lady often carried a baby doll, cradling it as if it was real. My mom stands over the box of figures and furnishings that haven't been incorporated into the girl's scenes, handling them, whispering to herself.

I think this little scene might be her creation.

My Monkeys, My Circus

What my front hall looked like until just a few minutes ago.
Six people have more that six pairs of shoes.

What a lovely visit it's been. Giraffes have been fed....and we've managed to keep our shirts and our pants.

Wings have been spread.

Goats have been gotten.

There have been castles. There have been bridges.

And speaking of spreading wings and crossing bridges, the little granddaughter is staying a few more days. She's been instructed to take a shower, drink water, eat protein, and be good. And I've got some plans for myself. I think I'll shower, drink water, eat protein, and be good.

Pillville: Population 2 (and an elderly cat)

Today went by in a whirl--the last few hours with my son and his family. It was too windy here to be outside so we went into an arcade and shoved $5 bills into token machines, held out our hands and let the children pluck them at will.

Arcades might be among my least favorite entertainments in the world usually, but I tossed that attitude to the wind.

I feel a little like these places are training kids for Vegas, but what the hell....today I might have even bought them candy if they'd asked...

...just kidding. But the time was sweet. And Zoltar says our futures look sweet, too.

But really, we have no idea. Though I do hold somewhat to the idea that we can choose sweetness.

At lunch, my 10-year-old granddaughter wanted to know where she was during the time my son and I were on a trip to Europe in the 90s. You weren't anywhere, I told her. She asked the question again. I told her she wasn't on the planet Earth yet. That she hadn't yet been born. She furrowed her brow and laughed. I love how kids always have trouble imagining their parents before the beginnings of their own lives. Our pasts are to them as mysterious as the future.

And sometimes my own past is mysterious to me, too.

But here I am right here, right now in Pillville with my mom talking to herself as she crochets in her room. Piper the ancient cat has not ventured out yet from her respite under the laundry room sink. I just had a long talk on the phone with my friend Paula about the mysteries of dating. I have to decide if I'm serving leftover spaghetti for dinner again. What does the future hold? And why did the past roll out the way it did? How much control do we have over any of it?

Waving, Not Drowning

We all managed to stay afloat during this weird New Year's visit that involved keeping the child recuping from the chicken-pox away from her great-grandmother--and the other children as well just in case they were incubating it. It involved a lot of waving and smiling through patio windows, evening get-aways with glasses of wine in hotel rooms, children sequestered briefly in my garage, and on my boat dock (thanks to C) and explaining and re-explaining about chicken-pox and shingles to my mother. Having had shingles once before, her eyes grew huge every time we talked about it. Absolutely not--she didn't want to go through that again. It was inconvenient and wonderful, this visit. Four generations got together--sort of--for some of the time with some of us actually in the same room. C traveled from Minnesota by plane and bus and train to get here. My son drove his mini-van stuffed full of family from Arizona. M worked us into to her impossibly busy schedule, coming and going. We laughed and talked. Planned and reminisced. And if I were quizzed, I could not tell you how much time all of us actually spent together. My son and his family were the last to leave, and when five people pull out of your driveway your house is instantly very empty.

But I did what I had resolved to do: I began. I ordered the fall detector button for my mom. Of course a fall preventer button would be better. I imagine it would work something like THIS. I called the Ventura County Area Agency on Aging and had a 47-minute conversation about everything with a wonderful woman who took her time answering all of my questions. Tomorrow my mom and I will go to see two adult day care places whose emphasis is more social than medical. I have familiarized myself with the spend-down rules for Medi-Cal. I have a list of resources for home care and caregiver support. I called a friend of a friend who has been taking care of her father, who has Alzheimers, for 7 years without much of a break. I have no idea how one does that. The four of us plan to get together. 

My mother did not seem enthusiastic when I first broached the idea of day care and in-home care, but she's on board now. I actually think she's looking forward to it. Honestly, I would look forward to getting out of the house away from me because I am introverted and boring. I like to read, write, and putter around with various home improvement/organizing/cleaning projects. Today's projects included moving all of my sewing stuff from the garage to the upstairs and all of the single bed linens from the upstairs (where there are no single beds) to the garage (which is where the grandchildren camp out on air-beds during a normal non-chicken-pox visit.) I also cleaned and organized the cabinet under my kitchen sink. That's how interesting I am.

I also finished cleaning out my closet (see previous post) which involved going through a bin of stuff that included a notebook titled "NYC Summer 1984." That was the summer I left my husband behind in L.A. (by mutual agreement) and moved to New York and took classes at HB Studios because it was something I had wanted to do for quite a while. In addition to a wonderful acting class with Bill Hickey, I took a play analysis class with a man named David Fittleson, and the notebook, which I at first  thought was empty and had retitled "Mom" still had notes in it on a bunch of plays including Chekov's "The Cherry Orchard" which is a play that seems to keep popping up with an uncanny amount of relevance for me. This is how my notes on that play begin:

Inaction??!! Bah.

48 hours--and then some

The make-up room in my college theatre department. 

I spent a lot of time with hairspray, pancake, and incredibly good friends there 40 years ago.

My weekend away:

A two hour shuttle ride.
A three and one-half hour plane trip.
An airport pick-up.
A pizza and a conversation with C and her husband.
Five and one-half hours of sleep.
A two-hour drive.
A walk and talk with an old friend
A day of reunion with friends from a semester abroad in France 40 years ago.
Drinks.
Dinner.
More conversation.
Five hours of sleep.
A two hour shuttle ride.
A three and one-half hour plane trip.
An hour and a quarter shuttle ride.
Home.
Out with old friends.

How to get rid of the negative bullshit in your head.

My week thus far:

Seeing my mom change out her walker for a cane.
Reading info from physical therapist.
Follow-up visit to doctor.
Phone calls with two other doctors and physical therapist.
No yoga.
No gym.
No t'ai chi chih.
No beach walks.
Run futile errand search for box of dusting powder. Has anyone bought a box of dusting powder in the last decade?
Ridiculously embarrassing road rage event.
Wallow stupidly in moody bender as worst self.
Shopping for arrival of house guests.
Finding stuffed refrigerator non-funtional next morning.
Refrigerator madness.
Refrigerator repair minutes before guests arrive.
Guests arrive!Eat.
Drink.
Enjoy family.
Write.
Breathe.
Walk around the corner to watch fireworks.Imagine life falling into its normal rythym. Whatever that ever changing rhythm may be.

In Which Three Generations, Two Hearing Aids, and an Oxygen Machine Go on a Roadtrip

Deja vu, right? Yes, except that this time we were driving east and the trip was a mere 400 hundred and some miles.

We attended a ballet recital.

And a birthday party.

Sat around the dining room table and talked and talked and talked, marveling at luck and love.
Lost a hearing aid. Found a hearing aid.
Almost had, not one, but two car crashes.

Tilted at windmills.
Saw a rainbow.

Dropped M at the airport.

Drove the PCH for the last leg of the trip.

Home.

photo credit for PCH photo: jhandleman.blogspot.com. 

Desert Sunday

Driving into the dessert, the heat rising, rocks bleached white as bones, wind farm propellers churning, the ocotillo, sinuous as though it's been tossed by waves, yet now standing forsaken without its sea. I'm intrigued by the landscape, but normally would not chose to visit it in July.
Worth it though if you get to bring back a granddaughter. I remember what a revelation it was when my kids were young, to get one of them alone for a time. This girl, I've never known without the context of her family. It's going to be a fascinating week. We talked about school for a lot of the drive. She had two autistic kids and an ADHD kid in her 4th grade class. She's fascinated by their abilities and disabilities. She's interested in psychology and what makes people do what they do. She says a friend's sister might be schizophrenic. When I was 10, I liked horses and still played with baby dolls.
It's going to be a fascinating week.

Eight Prius loads of stuff, and there's still more...

While it's true that I have moved several boxes of stuff for my daughters, and the largest roller bag in the world and a couple more boxes for my mom, I would have thought that eight carloads might have done it. I'm predicting that unless I really give away most of what's in my garage, there are a half dozen more trips I must make if I truly want to leave only the furniture for the movers.

On a more positive note, I'm feeling rather comfortable in my new place.

Quite like a queen despite the paired down shoe collection. With such a nice closet, who needs shoes? Though as you can see, I still have quite a few pairs.

The rest of the place will no doubt be cozier once it's fully furnished......

And I'm not rattling around there all by myself.

I'm not exactly sure what the prince and princess are up to in this picture. My grandchildren set up these little scenes when they were visiting. It might be that the princess is throwing the prince from the parapet. Or maybe they're dancing in the moonlight. I hope to be dancing at my new place with the moon reflecting off the water later this summer.