Pillville Residents Go to the Mall

You didn't want to see a photo of the mall, did you? So here's a picture of the tomatoes purchased at the farmer's market on Sunday.

Miracle Ear! Sears! Trying out the new wheelchair!

Are you excited yet? If not, I'm guessing you do more interesting things with your day, but here in Pillville an outing that includes all three of us (my mother, the man who loves me, and myself) is a rare occurrence.

I'm happy to report that my mom's hearing aids seem to be working a bit better. The new Miracle Ear technician is very handsome, and I suspect that, if through some miracle of shape shifting, I could become him, my mom might hear me a bit better. The new batteries and the cleaning will help too, no doubt.

During the visit from the in-home nurse this morning, we were advised to wheel my mom at least part of the trek to Miracle Ear due to her sudden blood pressure fluctuations, and that went well, too. The chair is just light enough for me to get it in and out of the hatch without a great effort.

I didn't do any shopping at the mall--which is just how I like it. Sometime in 2014, I hope to buy:
1) some new lingerie
2) a cardigan sweater
3) a couple of t-shirts that look nice with the cardigan sweater.
4) one of those fizzy water machines
5) a deck of yoga flash cards and a yoga book (on-line, probably, so I'm not sure this counts)
6) a tube of lipstick

I still have ten months to accomplish this. But I absolutely hate to shop with anyone, and I hate to just browse (unless it's a thrift store or a garage sale.) I prefer the get in and get out method of shopping.

The man who loves me researched new jeans at Sears. I tell him that he reminds me of Gandhi since the weight loss after his surgery--and if he doesn't get new jeans soon, he may look even more like him once his pants fall off. This smaller version of him makes me feel quite zaftig. 

I had a dream not too many months ago where we went to a Halloween costume party as John and Yoko. He was Yoko and I was John.

If we were to go to a Halloween party this year, we could give this a try:

Looks to me like she's a bit heavier than he is.

Report from Pillville: The hospital bed, the wheel chair, the companion

photo of my mom after her birthday trip to Maryland last September

On my second day of trying, I believe that a hospital bed is working its way through the bureaucracy to my mother. It may or may not be accompanied by a hospital bedside tray table. The transfer (or is is transport or transit?) wheel chair is another story. Medicare does not seem to provide those--or maybe they do, and the agency in my area that "won the bid" is just too dysfunctional to provide one. Anyhow-- I bought the damn chair so I can get my mother to Miracle Ear (oh, if only their hearing aids were actually miraculous) on Wednesday. The trek through Sears to its remotest corner where Miracle Ear is housed is another of the inexplicable inconveniences of old age--and will be impossible if she's having a bad day.

I have a phone call in to an agency that provides a free 1-hour consultation with a lawyer to help me figure out the ins and outs of paying a companion for my mother since the IRS information sheet on paying a domestic employee is devoid of plot and character and poetry, and therefore cannot be read by me. I have an email into the CPA that does my taxes regarding the same issues, and meanwhile I'm concocting a story whereby we just pay this wonderful woman under the table in cash, and I cook the books here in Margaritaville to "prove" that we've been ordering expensive take out every night on my mom's dime. If she has to eventually go into a nursing home,  food would be a permissible spend down of her savings, and making it look like we eat caviar and lobster (so easy to chew!) every night seems preferable to actually figuring out withholding and Social Security and how to file Schedule H with her taxes when her income is so minuscule that she hasn't filed taxes in years.

Oh, and I have to check something about accidents and domestic employees on my homeowner's insurance policy, but it's too late to do this this evening, so I think I'll just get drunk. My sciatica which was kicked up a week or so ago by lifting a regular wheel chair in and out of my hatch 3 times is killing me. So yeah, I'm calling out for some caviar right now. If you want to come over and join us, give a call so I get enough for all of us. Oh and yeah, there'll be martinis, too. We're switching to the expensive gin.