This Present Chaos

view from the living room window in St. Paul

Once upon a time I was married, and one Sunday afternoon the man I was married to told me the marriage was over and that he would be marrying someone else. Oh, and he and his new wife wanted the house so they could raise their new family there in the house where my husband and I had raised our daughters.

This blog was born out of the chaos that ensued, and in that time this blog had another name, which by a court order, I was required to change. I had another name then too. But my old self had plans in that time of chaos. I would leave California and live in a new place with my new name, and so I bought a condo in St. Paul, Minnesota not too terribly far from the little town in Iowa where I grew up.

Plans. Plans are good. But I fell in love with a man in Los Angeles. Love is better than plans. So I stayed in California, and first one daughter and then the other--and for a brief while both of the daughters and both their partners lived in the condo in St. Paul. Years have passed. The man I fell in love with after a first date on post-card blue sky day in Griffith Park got lung cancer and died four years ago. My mother died nine months later. Sometime in the next year I will leave the house I shared with my mother and where the man who loved me took his final breaths. My budget must shrink to fit my shrinking alimony.

Last week the daughters and their partners  moved into a house of their own. I'm not in my 50s anymore, and I do not want to live in the lovely condo on the 3rd floor of a historic building with no elevator. I am too historic to cross the icy alleyway to garage without falling down. Too historic to trudge up all those stairs with bags of groceries.

In this new chaos there will be painting, and floor sanding, and odd little fix-it tasks, and way too much cleaning. There will be too many books, and what do I keep and what do I sell, and what do I give away conversations inside my head that must eventually translate into some kind of action.

In some months, I'll start a new life somewhere else. I'm envisioning a tall building with an elevator and a view of the Mississippi River.

this present chaos

You might as well let go and enjoy the ride.

My younger brothers and me

In this picture I'm not the one looking resigned to being hurled down the slide, but I felt like I was at the top of a steep and rather slippery slope when this:

arrived in the mail a couple of days ago. In a couple of months I can put it to use. Hope I get a chance to wear it out. And I hope we have Medicare for all before I leave this planet. The ups and downs of my health insurance post-divorce were just plain stupid. Why do we still have our health insurance tied to our jobs? 

In other news it rained here again last night. And it's still humid. I've used my air conditioner three times in three days--before then it didn't get used at all. It was just a place to set stuff. 

“Friendship is not half of the holy life, but all of it” the Buddha

No bird is an island

The quote above was the teaser in my daily email from Tricycle Magazine this morning. Wow. The idea sounded fantastic to me and sent my brain on a tangent about relationships and what it means to be a good friend.

When I finally got around to reading the article, I found that the quote did not mean quite what I thought it did. "...the Buddha’s statement refers to him, the Enlightened One, as the true spiritual friend because he guides us on the path to liberation." But the article went on to detail a spiritual friendship between two women monks, and deepened my thoughts about friendship and community (whatever community means to you--seems like the term gets tossed around a lot these days.)

"Community life does not just entail living with other people, but being a community. Living in the same place is very different from being a community. When you are in a community, your awareness goes out to the other people you live with—you see who needs encouragement, who needs guidance, and who needs a laugh."

There's been a lot in the news lately about loneliness and aging. Loneliness Can be Deadly for Elders;Friends are the Antidote is the title of an article by Paula Span published on the eve of the new year. There were similar pieces in the NYTimes in April, September, and December. The message in all of this writing kind of  validates my misinterpretation of the Buddha's quote, or at least gives weight to what I thought I read over my coffee.

I've had the good fortune to spend time with friends quite a bit this holiday season. I've enjoyed every minute. Thank you.

The Mall Report

I think my current glasses are just like the ones I had in 7th or 8th grade.

I went to the mall today. Something I almost never do. Remember when there were Hari Krishna or maybe they were fake Hari Krishna (I forget which) soliciting at the airports? The mall is like that now. Hawkers stand in the middle of the walkways aggressively passing out samples for perfume or age-defying potions. Shoppers walk as close to the stores as possible, ignoring the shouts  and outstretched hands. Madame, you need this cream. Very special. You will like. Bla-bla-bla.

 I was there for an eye exam. Not an eye cream. I can't read the signs when I'm some place new. I can only read signs if I already know what they say. I began wondering if maybe we're evolving not to read. We listen instead to our smart phones giving us turn by turn directions, and sight is devolving into a secondary sense. Or I need new glasses. Which, it turns out, I do. And I have cataracts. Actually, I have the beginning of cataracts which is worse than full-blown cataracts because there's nothing to be done except wait until you have full-blown cataracts, at which time you can have them operated on.

Here's what having cataracts is like if you'd like to know. There's that shuffle of lenses part in the eye exam when the doctor is asking you when is better---one....or two? Two or three? Now, which of these is better, etc. You can choose the better choice, but it's still not good. The letters are sharper, except only as if seen through a dirty windshield. But I'm getting new glasses. They're fabulous. I'll look great, I just won't see great. But better.

And I have this fantasy that someday we might sit in a big exam chair with a device in front of us, discerning major life choices. Which is better, the doctor will ask us, choice one or choice two?

Happy Mother's Day

Jacaranda Trees in Bloom at Grand Park, Los Angeles

I rode the train into downtown L.A. today.
Time travel.
There I was at the Oxnard train station, walking along the platform where two years ago, I would have met Dan as he stepped off the train, coming to see me for the weekend.  
Time travel.
There I was with a ticket marked "senior fare." As if I'd been asleep and awakened to find myself a senior citizen (by Amtrak standards anyway.)
Time travel.
I swear this park didn't exist the last time I was downtown, its wide swath of trees and fountains leading directly to the Music Center.
Time Travel.
It's Mother's Day. Last year I had a mother to celebrate with. This year I do not.
You go along and you go along, and then all of a sudden you are without the people you can't imagine being without. You yourself are old enough to get the senior discount, and a technicolor park emerges from the gray cityscape of the City of Angels.
There's nothing to be done but weep and celebrate, drink champagne, eat escargot and mussels with  the beautiful young woman who was once a baby in your arms and take the train back home.

In Which I Fall Off a Ladder and Get Laryngitis

This is me.

I fell off a ladder on December 23rd while putting Christmas lights on top of the armoire in my dining room. I didn't do anything ridiculous like standing on the step inscribed with the warning, "This is not a step." The tree was already up, and there were Christmas cookies in the oven, and I had a friend over---and so I was excited to  be finished with the lights, and I simply backed up to admire my handiwork. But I was still two steps off the ground. When I fell, I collided with a dining room chair which tipped over, and I planted my ribcage onto its edge, and the ladder planted itself on top of me.

The treatment for broken ribs is the same as the treatment for bruised ribs unless you can't breathe or are coughing up blood or you have a bone poking out (so says the Internet) so I didn't go to the ER. I did the things Dr. Internet said would help. Rest. OTC painkillers. I did a ton of OTC painkillers.  My ribs got better, but the hip I'd landed on (the left one) still hurt so I took more painkillers. And it was Christmas so I ate five dozen Christmas cookies and special desserts, and I was tired from not sleeping well because of the hip and rib pain so I drank a lot of coffee. A lot of coffee. And a lot of wine. So much wine. And after I did these amusing and entertaining things, I napped (on my right side, which is the side to lie on if you want to be good to your heart, but the left is the side that is good for your stomach.) And I didn't go to yoga and got fat.

All of this led to acid reflux (all the while my stomach felt fine) which irritated my vocal chords and  little growths formed and my voice got huskier and huskier. I couldn't sing. Wait. I could never sing. The only songs I can remember the tune to are Happy Birthday and Jingle Bells.

The irritated voice was irritating. But then my knees swelled to the size of grapefruits and I was as stiffer than I'd ever seen my mom. And my fingers were swollen and stiff too. The knees and fingers are improving, but the confluence of the many symptoms led me to go to the doctor. The swelling and the stiffness is still a mystery in progress, but I am now officially on my first prescription med. And the medication can deplete your body of calcium so now I have to take an OTC med for that. It's probably temporary. But there you have it. Don't fall off a ladder. Because one  thing leads to another.  The next thing you know, you'll be taking drugs and more drugs.

And meanwhile, I've now had a total of three bad dreams about my mom. Two in which I woke up crying for help because 1) she was a zombie trying to drag me off  2) a ghost controlling things in my house 3) spending all my money.

The therapist from my bereavement group says I'm going through a kind of post-caregiving collapse. But I'm really okay as long as I'm not having a nightmare, and I'm doing more yoga (with a billion modifications) and following the lifestyle changes for acid reflux as best I can. Don't Google all the yummy things you're not supposed to eat or drink. The thought of giving them up will give you nightmares.

Read this quote by Rumi instead: This day of sunshine will not walk to you; you must go to it. And that's my rough paraphrase because I couldn't find it on the Internet. But the yoga teacher read it to us today at the end of class.

Home

I'm home and it looks like this:

I live in a beautiful place. I am now free to enjoy the sunsets on the sand as well as the morning. My mother continues to do well in the nursing home. I've purchased tickets for a November visit. My brain is re-booting itself as it shuts down the hyper-vigilant caregiver mode. What's next? I ask myself and then remember that I have not yet succeeded at getting my mom onto Medicaid. We're close. I hope. Meanwhile, I've sent a boatload of money off to Iowa to pay the first bill. I'm still in charge of her finances--paying her insurance premiums, her credit card, handling end-of-life arrangements, thinking ahead while looking behind and all the while blessing every present moment whether my feet are in the sand or under my desk.

Wednesday Morning Beach Report (Delivered on Saturday) And the Report from Pillville

Some days you're the pelican. Some days you're the fish.

Somedays I'm just me in couch limbo. From my couch, I can see the patio where my mom likes to sit. And I can see the front door if we're waiting for some one to arrive like the hospice nurse or the handyman or the music therapist.

Yesterday the music therapist (beautiful wonderful talented amazing person) was here. She encouraged my mom to strum away on her harp.

We had friends over for dinner last night so they could see my mom before she leaves for Iowa. I forgot to take pictures, but it was lovely. The best I can offer is the grocery list. Can you guess what I made? My friend Carol brought watermelon, blackberries and raspberries that we threw together with some fresh mint and it made the most delicious fruit salad. Prune juice was not served. The milk and bananas were for breakfast. That's enough clues. Oh-- and there was champagne, flourless chocolate cake and caramel bars for dessert. And espresso. And love.

Today, I feel like my mom and I are both hummingbirds. But not the way you usually think of hummingbirds. We've buzzed around and indulged in plenty of nectar. Now we're resting. Delicately. On a strand of a palm frond, balancing.

Belated Wednesday Beach Report, News from Pillville, and a Brief Note from the Love Shack

Today, 10 a.m.

There was a little bit of everything at the beach today. A few surfers riding medium waves, almost visible islands, a modest variety of birds, a little drama. 

The drama: As I walked in the surf I saw a small child (I'd guess 4) trekking across the sand far ahead of his mother. The mother trudged about as slowly as a person can trudge, carrying a large beach bag and a beach chair while the kid headed straight for the water. Hi, I said. Hi, he or she said. It's pretty here, isn't it, I said, stepping between the kid and the water. I'd already gotten wet to the waist accidentally, having misjudged the waves twice. The mother was still only about half-way across the sand and the kid looked fearless, inching into the water. Aren't you going to go help your mom, I asked. The kid climbed up the sandy slope and headed her direction as she was closing the gap. I went on, looking back to keep an eye on the situation. On my return the mother was halfway back across the sand again. This time she was going away from the water towards an even smaller child who was now making the trek. The older kid splashed at the edge of the waves, the mom's back to him. Other beachgoers and a fisher woman seemed ill at ease with the situation too. We all hovered at the periphery, underneath it all a low menacing roar of some invisible something. Military aircraft, a dredger in the harbor, construction equipment, something. I couldn't see what.

Life in Pillville is mostly un-bloggable these days. My mom trudges through her days. Eats. Sleeps. Sits on the patio. Chats a bit--often with difficulty. Her body is failing, yet she does not seem to understand the significance of it. There are new physical ailments. Enough said.

Of late, I've found the situation harder than I ever imagined I would. The hospice is giving me a  caregiver respite. My mom will go to a skilled nursing facility. I will go to Indiana to go see the man who, last month, came to see me. I'll meet his family and some friends, spend time, and after a couple days, turn around and get back on a plane, ride the airport shuttle, get a ride to my house from the shuttle stop, and then get in my car to go pick up my mom. It all seems like a love shack fantasy right now, but the washer is spinning, and my suitcase is mostly packed. Tomorrow must go like clockwork if I'm going to catch my plane, but it feels possible. Easy even. Easier than any recent day in Pillville. I'll get up early. Do what I have to do, and ignore the low menacing roar that hums  beneath every day for my mom and me.

My kitchen island lined with documentation for my mom's medicaid application.

Living with My Mother at 37,000 Feet

Here's picture of a dove. Whatever.

There were 20 people cued up for wheelchairs at the Southwest terminal at LAX. There was a roped off seating area and a maitre d' at a podium, taking names. This is the beginning of the future as the baby boomers age. Most of the wheelies were 2 or 3 decades younger than my mother. I am so grateful for my healthy body.

At the gate, there was a culling of the herd. "Who can walk onto the plane?" a chipper young woman asked, scanning the 10 or so wheelchairs at the gate. Her eyes brushed over the top of my mother's white head. When we got to the aircraft door, the young woman who'd wheeled the chair down the jetway didn't ask. She commanded, "Take my hand," she said at the doorway of the aircraft as she handed my mom off to the waiting flight attendant. Bless all these people. They make me want to skip and sing while tossing 20 dollar bills in the air.

We're fairly good at this now, my mom and I, on our third trip east, but once again my mother has said that she's never flying again. It's hard. I could rant about the specifics of that, but I won't.

Already, in the midst of this small torture, we're planning a trip to Iowa for my sister's 40th wedding anniversary. "Should I drive her there by myself?" I asked the charming and kind M as she drove us to LAX  this morning?  M explained to me how NFL teams choose their rosters. "They look for the best of the best overall players," she said. "Or they go for a specific skill set." You need a partner with a specific skill set." She said I should find him and get that road trip in motion.

Okay.

Here I am. A 62-year-old version of gorgeous. I need lots of time to myself to write and think. I do yoga. I do T'ai Chi Chih. I love to walk on the beach. I'm a lazy and healthy cook. I'm a reader. I like poetry. I'm learning to ballroom dance. I'm not getting married unless you're a billionaire. You can like what you like. I don't have to love it. We just have to like each other. And there's that road trip. There'll be a lot of bathroom stops and we'll be off the road every evening in time for a cocktail. We won't get started again until after breakfast. 400 miles per day absolute fucking maximum. Go ahead, tell me your interested. I dare you.

Pillville: Population 4

My brother and my aunt (my mom's baby sister) have been visiting Pillville.) They arrived on Thursday afternoon from Iowa and are leaving tomorrow morning to return there.

It has changed the basic equation of everything here in Pillville to have doubled the population. It's made me realize the enormity of my job in Pillville as the sole resident child, the sole blood relative, the sole responsible financial planner, the sole cook and medication dispenser, microwave hot pack heater, chauffeur, and cheerleader.

I'm not really into second-guessing myself. Not into regretting. But my life as my mom's caregiver would be substantially different if I were doing it in Iowa. I left my hometown when I was 17 and never went back except for the summer after my freshman year of college. I tried going back after I'd quit college and had just returned from a year in Europe. I began working full-time at the factory job I'd had part-time my senior year of high school. It wasn't good. The way I remember it is that I left my mom a note after packing my bags on impulse one afternoon after I'd gotten off work: Call them and tell them I quit. I'm on the bus back to Minnesota. (Where I went back to college.)  So that was that. And now my mom lives with me in California thousands of miles from the rest of her relatives. Sometimes I think she'd like to leave me a note.

She says she wants to die in Iowa.  Let me know when, I say, so I can buy the plane tickets. Planning is good. But sometimes you just have to pick up and go.

Other residents of Pillville of late include this pair of ring-necked doves. Last week we spotted one. But now there are two. I'm happy they have each other.

And here's my mom and her baby sister, the last two surviving siblings in a family of seven kids. I'm glad they have each other.

The Miraculous

We had a little dinner party last night. Old friends who moved away to Virginia are back for a visit. Also here was another set of friends from L.A. who came out on a Monday despite their demanding jobs. And my oldest L.A. friends who are now traveling around the country in their travel trailer in between his chemotherapy. And a friend from Ojai drove here directly from visiting her parents in Las Vegas. 

Two in attendance have lung cancer. One had her hand in a brace from some sort of injury. One forgot to take his diabetes meds. Two of us are grieving the loss of the men we loved (not even counting my mom in this--at 90; she's grieving practically everyone.) Everything was glorious. No one turned the water into wine. No one jumped off the boat dock and walked on water. Yet I had this feeling all night that I was in the presence of the miraculous. At the end of the evening as I escorted people out the door, my rose bushes gleamed under the street lights, and every single one of us seemed filled with the same white light. 

An hour or so later my friends from Virginia and I sat on the couch in my living room talking and looking out at the night. "Oh, oh," my friend Sandy said, "I just saw a shooting star." I wanted to tell her to wish on it. To wish for this very same night a year from now. But I said nothing. If I opened my mouth I knew I'd burst into tears or laughter or maybe even hot white flames. I held all those feelings in, hoping.

Enchilada pie, broccoli salad, green salad with garlic sautéed shitake mushrooms, assorted fruit

Flan!!!!! There were actually two kinds of flan. One made with brown sugar, one with maple syrup.

Monday Morning Beach Report

Post-holiday Emptiness

It was quite a bit busier in Pillville. We had a meeting with the case manager. I was barraged with phone calls from the medical equipment place. Due to the ins and outs of who pays for what, we must get rid of my mom's current hard won hospital bed and get a different one. We have to change out the oxygen concentrator too. It all has to do with who will pay for what, and hospice has its own pipeline. I really have no beef with that basic concept (well, I do, really, but never mind) but I did draw a line in the sand when I got the call that said the bed was about to be delivered, and I was having my time off, and the caregiver told me my mom was napping in her current bed. The medical supply office called me twice. When would I be home? The driver called me once. Why wasn't I home? And why wouldn't my mom's caregiver let him in?  I called the hospice case manager and asked for her help. She jumped in and sent the guy with the truck idling in my driveway AWAY. It's all funny, really. First we couldn't get the fucking hospital bed a year ago, and now they're beating down the door to give us another one.

Here's the best Pillville news today. My mom looks radiant. Most of her pain is gone. She feels good. She's a bit dreamy. While I was fixing dinner, she asked me if I remembered the time we stopped at the baseball diamond. She was sitting at the table with her martini, halfway between real life and dream life. For some crazy reason, she dreams a lot about baseball. I have absolutely nothing to say that can explain that.

Easter in Pillville

My dad always bought my mom an Easter lily, so I bought us one. By mutual agreement, we decided to forgo the yucky candy. 

We didn't make a big deal out of Easter here in Pillville. I was scheduled to teach T'ai Chi Chih in the park this morning at 11:00, but got another teacher to sub for me at the last minute because at 10:15  my mom still hadn't gotten out of bed. She's usually up between 8:00 and 8:30, and given the extra meds, I was uneasy with our situation. Everything turned out okay with my mom. She had kind of a low key sleepy day, but by this evening, she was totally herself.

And all this made me rise up (ahem) out of my denial. I cannot really commit to anything--not even an hour's worth of something one mile from my house without pre-planning for a caregiver. This is how it is now. I'm okay with it. But it's like a new pair of uncomfortable shoes. I'm just gonna wear the damn things and break them in. I spent a couple of hours staring at my calendar this morning deciding what to keep, what to jettison. I have a plan. And the plan will change. I'm okay with that too, though I worry sometimes that out and out fatigue is what makes me so complacent.

All in all, it's been a lovely weekend. I've reconnected with two old friends. I've counted my blessings--and I've probably been able to do that more easily because of those conversations with friends.

Tonight at dinner my mom told me about a very vivid dream she had of her deceased twin sister. She told me about how, in real life at age 13, they were grown-ups, sent out to work waitress jobs. How people didn't tip back then, and that the one customer who did tip would cause a stampede among the waitresses when they saw him coming down the sidewalk toward the door. How, in that restaurant, she lost the beautiful rings that her mother gave her. She took them off in the locker room to put on her nylon stockings and her uniform. They were gone just like that, and nobody would admit to taking them.

We talked about how people want mementos of their dead loved ones. Rings, and pictures, and other things. It made me think about my dad. I wish I had his vintage silk ties and the neon sign from his business.

It's funny though--all this He Has Risen religiosity. Spring and fertility. Eggs and pretty colored candy. Exactly one year ago, I was at Dan's place cleaning out his refrigerator. I was on a mission. Chemo, radiation, suppressed immune system, spoiled food. He was in terrible shape. And here I am again this spring, in yet another season of decline.

But hey everyone! I have that number I can call!

Hope your Easter was sweet.

Of Tributes and Trees

This magically appeared in my Dropbox yesterday. After the tree planting ceremony a couple of weeks ago various friends asked me what kind of a tree had been planted in Dan's honor. I was at the ceremony, saw the tree, took a picture of it--but I had no idea, really. Some kind of evergreen, I said.

So it's a deodar. One of my favorite trees, though I've never seen a young one, which I guess is why I couldn't put a name to it. In adulthood, deodars are massive beings with spreading branches that seem like arms, ready to envelop everything. I fell in love with them decades ago when my children began attending a school whose campus was graced with nearly century old deodars. And the only Christmas attraction that I truly love is Christmas tree lane in Altadena. I've even blogged about it. Really, click on that Altadena link and look at the photo. At Christmastime the trees are hung with colored lights, and people walk silently in the dark or drive two miles an hour with their headlights off under the spell of those trees. The street is as  hushed and holy as any church.

When Dan and I took walks together, he always seemed impressed because I knew the names of trees and flowers. When I moved from the San Gabriel Valley to the beach, I took on i.d.-ing birds, and he would always listen while I explained how to tell a long-billed curlew from a whimbrel or a marbled godwit. How did I know these things, he'd ask as if I were some sort of naturalist genius. I've always thought that because I'm a writer, it's just my job to know.

Anyhow. A deodar.
And two Christmases ago, there he was.
My mom looks about a million years older now.
Well, so do I.

Birds, Bullshit, Sunshine, and Santa

It's a beautiful day full of birds and sunshine here in Pillville. The buffleheads are buffle-ing. the hummingbirds are hummering. My mother's bruises are transforming from purple to green. She's busily pinning out her snowflakes and starching them.

Bufflehead ducks wintering here from the far north

Hummingbird at our kitchen window

The one-armed snowflake maker at work

I see the same look of concentration here in Vermeer's famous painting The Lacemaker

And me? In just a bit the nurse who does the intake for the caregiving agency will arrive. Better than Santa and his eight tiny reindeer, if you ask me. I spent all morning trying to log into my mom's credit union accounts--let's just shorten that story and let me say that experience made big banks look really, really good. It took weeks for one of credit unions to really fess up that the problem was on their end. They had to add my i.p. address so I could log on. Whaaaat? And the other lost the Power of Attorney paperwork and would not speak to me since my mom could not understand the person on the phone who was hell-bent on verifying her identity. Oops. I didn't make the story short, did I? But I feel better now. Thanks.

And I'd like to feel even better, so let me just remind the great Interwebs and everyone out there that here under the GREATEST HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD (cough, cough)  Medicare does not cover dental work, eye glasses, hearing aids, or custodial care. I feel fabulous now. Thanks.

My antidote to that bullshit is going to be Christmas lights. Everywhere.

Report from Pillville: How to operate a Lazy-Boy recliner with your feet/ how to stay on your feet

"You're one tough cookie," the ER doctor told my mother on Friday evening. She was flattered, I think. So when you're tough, you try to wheel your wheel chair with a broken hand. You don't let anyone help you screw the cap back on your bottle of Ensure even if it's incredibly awkward doing it left-handed. And when you're in your recliner in the sanctuary of your room, and it's pointed out to you that the control lever is on the right-hand side and that you shouldn't try to manipulate it because your hand might be further injured since it's not yet in a cast, you don't call for your daughter or your granddaughter to help you when you want to get up. No. You're a tough cookie so you somehow fling your ninety-year-old leg over the arm of the chair, and with your ninety-year-old foot you get that damn lever to put your foot rest down. Yeah. Fuck yeah.

that's my mom's room there to the right--and a glimpse of the foot-operated recliner

God help me. This is the second night of the two-ounce martini. The second night that she's home. The second night that I will be sleeping in this nifty little bed right outside her bedroom door. And it's okay, really. I suspect that in a few days after some physical therapy, she'll be strong enough to get herself out of bed.

I'll be arranging for a caregiver so I can carry on caring for myself and the needs of our household. While I wouldn't describe myself as a tough cookie, I'd say I'm good at talking and thinking things through, and that I'm resolute.

It also helps that my fridge looks like this.

That's homemade sangria and homemade chutney made by friends. And there's still leftover pie. It also helps that daughter C researched and found a home security camera/baby monitor that will come in handy when I move back upstairs to my own bedroom. It helps that daughter M may be able to work from home (meaning here) one day a week. It helps that I have just ordered a bottle of non-alcoholic gin which may enable me to dilute the teeny martini. Yeah, so we might just all stay on our feet.

So let's celebrate that. And please visit my other blog, and let's celebrate the end of National Adoption Month too.

It's All in the Timing

Why does anyone ever get sent home from the hospital on a Saturday or a Sunday?
Why does my mother seem particularly prone to being hospitalized around holidays and birthdays? (not her own birthday though)
How could it have possibly taken me a full hour tonight to put the detergent in the dishwasher and push the button to start it, each a step toward it interrupted by something my mother needed?
How is it that she could have fallen yesterday morning when that seems like several days ago?
And how is it that she could have fallen just minutes before I walked in the door yesterday morning (her version of the story) when her bedding was spotted with blood and pool of long dried blood was not that long after found on her floor?
How is it that a person who's been on this earth for 90 years has not learned to ask for help?
How much harder would this have all been without both my daughters visiting? (I don't think I really want to know the answer to that.)

I'm just full of questions tonight, aren't I?

In any event, she's home.

The foam topper on her hospital bed is now belted to the standard issue hospital bed mattress with yoga straps. (The askew foam topper is not why she fell, but was something that needed addressing.) Yet another reason to be grateful for my yoga practice and my yoga friends.

In other news: The two ounce martini was received politely. (The martini consumption can be, I believe, correlated to the fall.)

Two ounces per night (or perhaps less) will now be doled out by me. As opposed to the abundant pre-mixed supply as portrayed in the photo below.

And all other booze is now hidden. Come over. We'll party. The secret location here on the premises will be disclosed discreetly.

The coming days will hold a visit to the cardiologist (what is up with the low blood pressure?--hers--sure as hell not mine,) a visit to the primary care doctor, a visit to the orthopedist, home health visits from a nurse, a physical therapist, and, I feel reasonably certain, visits from my friends.

Report from Pillville

The latest from Pillville is coming soon. But meanwhile, read THIS if you need a Pillville update. Not much has changed. And yes, the expansion deck is almost ready. Sample cards include:

You've missed three days of your morning medications. Do not pass go. Go directly to bed.

It's 3:30 and you've already had a martini. Do not pass go. Go directly to bed. 

Your caregiver is worrying needlessly about having mixed up you meds. All is well. Celebrate. Have a martini. Send your caregiver directly to bed.

But seriously folks, we're okay.
However, my brain is about ready to explode from all of this celebrating.

What I Know

You know that feeling when you're nine months pregnant and you're all excited about having that new baby, that precious person in your life that you already love with your whole being, but you really aren't thrilled about how it's going to exit your body? Well some of you do and some of you don't. But yeah, trust me, childbirth is not really something anyone wants to do. Hours and hours of feeling like you might split in two and all that. But yeah, in the end you have a baby.

I'm really looking forward to seeing my mom again. Having her back here and living with me. Cooking dinner for her every night and taking her out for fro-yo after every doctor's appointment. Hearing her stories.

But.

I'm feeling the weight of it a little, I think. Already. Last night while opening her mail, I found an invoice from a hospital stay in Maryland. News to me. She's fine now, my brother's girlfriend messaged me on Facebook after I inquired.

This morning I awoke with muscle spasms in my hip and leg. Skipped yoga. Iced and took Advil. Felt weird all day.

I suppose the hospital invoice was a reality check. I know there will be ER visits. The hospital. Yeah. Like before. I know it. But I'm not ready for it. Because you know what? A person is just never ready for all that.