HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Ethel!

the memorial box I made for my mother at an art workshop in Oaxaca in 2017
and the birthday cake that was a craft project at one of my daughter's birthday parties....ages ago

The doors to the memorial box are usually closed as it sits on its shelf in my living room, but in recognition of my mom's birthday week, I opened them a couple of days ago.

Yesterday began with the faint scent of cigarette smoke in the air. This is not a smoke-free building, but I've never smelled cigarettes before... still, there it was, wafting in from somewhere. My mom is such a talented and persistent ghost. Then a phone call came in that resulted in a small financial windfall--much appreciated, given all the moving expenses that will take months to recover from.

Later in the evening there were tickets to a play that I'd made plans for last week not quite realizing that the performance was on my mother's birthday. The action of the play opens just as all the characters have died in a tragic accident so....welcome to the afterlife and the struggles and the dramas that ensue there.

One of my daughters had reminded me in the morning that she celebrates her grandmother's birthday by buying a lottery ticket and having a martini. Schedules did not allow us to get together for drinks, so I had my martini before the theatre.

In my theatre seat, checking my email one last time before I turning off my phone, I received a thumbs up from the literary magazine that was considering  an essay of mine...that is in large part about death, the afterlife, and my mother.

Some days are surprisingly seamless. Thanks, Mom. 

Welcome Back, Ethel.

Ethel, Sept. 2013

My mother's ashes were returned to my brother's house in our hometown in Iowa last week. Her body spent well over a year at the University of Iowa Medical School, and this past several months I was longing for the end of it all--the end of the end, when we'll put her ashes into the ground next to my father. 

When the mail carrier brought the box to the door, she told my sister-in-law that she'd been traveling around all day "with this nice lady." I think my mom would have enjoyed a day riding around with the mail carrier a lot. She loved to just take things in. She could look out the window or sit on the patio for hours. She might report on the hummingbirds, which boats had been cleaned, and even opine on why a neighbor might have had to sleep on his boat the previous night.

My mom and I, watching the pelicans dive between the sea lions, Feb., 2013

I'm glad she's back where she wanted to be. Of course, really, she'd probably prefer being here among the living, sipping a martini.

Last Call

The final batch

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I ration my mom's martini intake. I mix up a batch, then pour a single martini into each jam jar and lock them away. For this batch I carefully counted out the jars we'll need to get us to our departure date. Who needs x-es on calendar squares? We have mixed drinks.

Just a bit ago, I got the automated call from the sheriff's office regarding the tsunami. We are not being asked to evacuate. Which is good. Very good. I gasped though as the message unfurled. 8.3 magnitude earthquake in Chile. Tsunami forming. Holy crap. I stopped breathing for a minute as I imagined waking my mom and getting her into the car and remembering to put the wheel chair in the car, in case the traffic jammed in a mass exodus and we had to run for it.

There's still quite a bit of martini mixed up in that gin bottle. Note to self: if you do have to evacuate, take the bottle!

My mom continues to talk about going home. I think she will get lots of visitors. Tonight at dinner she reviewed her burial plans: she wants to be cremated and then have the ashes buried in my father's grave. She has a plot next to his that I guess was purchased for her at the same time his was, but she's very clear that she does not want to be buried there. I assured her that I understood. That other grave though--she's obsessed with it. It shouldn't go to waste, she says. We own it. I should be buried there, she says. Or my brother should be buried there--it drives her crazy that good money was spent on it and no one has plans to rest eternally there.

What are you going to do with your body? she asked. I told her that I was going to be cremated and leave instructions for my children to deposit the ashes in the Mississippi, the Seine and the Aegean. I hope they'll take those trips together. Then again, who knows, maybe I'll change my mind about all of that. It would be nice if I had a good 20 or so years to think about that.

Report from the Gin Mill and Other Destructions

It was martini day here in Pillville. I put 18 2-oz martinis in jam jars and tucked them away here:

You don't see them, do you? Good. I also lock the door to my closet and to my room whenever I'm not at home. Yes, I am pretty much a raving nut case. If you'd like to read about my mental decline and how martini rationing was instituted here in Margaritaville, go here.

Meanwhile, millions more dead velella vellela have washed up on our shores.

The old crop from a couple of weeks ago are now higher up on the sand, reduced to their sails, their shiny blue bodies decayed and gone. Today on NPR, I heard that 13 million California trees have already died in the drought. We should probably ration all kinds of things here on planet Earth--especially in California.

And today in the state of Pillville we had a summit meeting. The Minister of Finance met with the Director of Planning and we concluded that my mom's money will run out in a few months. Options for supplemental income include opening a martini bar where the martinis are served in jars and hidden in various locations around the house, procured by a scavenger hunt. Jar Jar's Martini Bar Adventure. (Is this a good place to throw in a Yoda quote? "The fear of loss is a path to the dark side.") Stay tuned. Maybe we can work in some kayaking. Maybe you get a free drink if you dress up like Yoda or JarJar Binks.

In other news, the Director of Recreation in Pillville has suggested that I dance every night. I'd enjoy that. I think I'll leave my mom in charge of Jar-Jar's.

A freshly washed up velella velella from last August.

 And a freshly washed up me (from the early post-divorce years.) I love this photo, taken by my niece in maybe 2008 or 2009.

Signs, Proof, and the Buddha Makes Lemonade

This is proof.

That this happened this weekend.

And this.

But I have no proof of what I saw this evening when I went for a walk around the block. Looking in my patio window, I saw my mother reaching behind my cookbooks where I stash my unfinished bottle of wine. Her martini glass had been drained just minutes before, and I mistakenly thought that her body had forgotten the sea of alcohol that it had been afloat in for so long. Of late she's been congenial about her two-ounce martini. She might have seen me. But maybe not. The bottle of wine was tightly sealed with one of those vacuum corks, and when I returned (just minutes later,) it was still sealed. "That sure was a short walk," she said. "It was," I said.

And this novel I'm reading, "The Debt to Pleasure," by John Lanchester---SPOILER ALERT---overwhelmed me with its darkness this afternoon. I have no proof, but there are signs that our narrator is a psychopath who has murdered his parents and caused the death of  perhaps two household employees. The book is a feast of language and wit and actual recipes. Not to mention a banquet of arcana that regularly sends me on a Google tangent. BUT. Either I've figured out on page 111 where this story is going or my prediction of where it all will end is a sign of my own darkness. 

And I'm not sure what's going on here in my iPhoto as it interfaces with Blogger, but for the second time in recent months, a photo that I have not selected--a photo from months ago--has appeared in this post. It's a photo from Dan's memorial. I'm going to call it a sign. 

My Secret Life

 Some people make gin in their bathtubs. I mix martinis at my bathroom sink.

Then I pour two ounce portions into empty jam jars and hide them in a secret place behind a locked door. Then I hide the key. I can't tell you where. If I told you, I'd have to kill you.

When 5 o'clock comes around, I unlock the hidden stash and bring a jam jar down to the kitchen and pour the two ounces into a martini glass and serve it to my mother. She's living a mere shadow of her former martini-fueled life and she doesn't like it. But I'm rather fond of her not falling over.

Here's the recipe. Just in case you'd like to mix up some secret martinis. You can have more than two ounces if you want. But don't blame me if you fall down.

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.

Both Sides Now

view from the waves looking back at the sand

Sometimes the ocean deposits perfection right at my feet.

Sometimes there is mystery.

What the heck is this? Anyone?

Sometimes the cutest boat in the whole world shows up just across the water.

And sometimes my 90-year-old mother climbs up on the patio wall to hang on the fence and get a better view. After a martini.

Here in Margaritaville, the nights at home are just as beautiful and mysterious as the mornings on the beach, but not quite as relaxing.  Nope. Sometimes not relaxing at all.

Sublingual

This comes from Anne Lamott’s book, Traveling Mercies:

All those years I fell for the great palace lie that grief should be gotten over as quickly as possible and as privately. But what I’ve discovered since is that the lifelong fear of grief keeps us in a barren, isolated place and that only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it.

I am already grieving although the man who loves me is still among us. Today he ate half-dozen bites of watermelon, a strawberry, two or three walnut halves, the tips of fork tines coated with almond butter, and a thimble of latté. Oh, and two bites of chocolate ice cream. He told me a dream, and I tried to hang onto to it, but lost it. Or most of it. He was involved in a project, he said. In the first try at the project he was disconnected from everyone, and then in a different dream (or was it the same dream and just a different project?) everyone was working together......on something. It's hard to focus on words. There's the hum and hiss of the oxygen machine. And the place has its resident screamer. I don't think he hears her. But maybe he does. He and I have other things to talk about. The taste of morphine under the tongue. Sublingual. We talk about his dreams. His drugs. While I hear the  woman screaming down the hall, a woman we don't talk about. But a woman screaming down the hall Is a woman screaming down the hall. I hear the staff interacting with her.They're doing okay. She still screams. My only hope is that she's not in pain.

"You have to buckle up," my mother said to me tonight as I sat on the couch weeping. Buck up, I suppose, is the phrase she was after. A swing and a miss. Like so much of my communication with her these days. I was speaking to the man's sister on the phone. Is there anything I want from his apartment? Everything. Nothing. Him. Us. My mother told me and the man's daughter, who was sitting beside me on the couch, how her husband (my father) died standing up. Just like that he was dead. He only fell to the floor when she tried to move him. It was terrible, she said. It was.

"Are you going to the nursing home tonight?" she asked as she shook the last drops of martini into her glass. A swing and a miss. "Sure," the spiteful horrible grieving me wanted to say, "I'll leave you here stumbling and shuffling and go lie next to him." But I left those words under my tongue where they belong. Sublingual.

Devices, Dessert, and Other Good Things

There are three main indicators that my mom is feeling well: 1) She heads for the coffee pot immediately upon waking. 2) She has a martini at 5:30. 3) She spends a lot of time at the kitchen island reading the newspapers on the iPad. Her iPad (well, mine actually) is behind the Kleenex box in this photo of the goings on after dinner last night. If you look past the ice cream and the cake, you'll see her not-quite-finished martini, but she did indeed drain it sometime after dessert.

It was a pretty fine weekend here in Margaritaville. We didn't just stare at our respective screens all weekend.

There was beach walking.

And coffee-talking at  a quaint place with crocheted table legs.

On Friday I installed some of the crochet-work of my mom's that we brought back from the East Coast.

my bathroom window

the bedspread

All in all, it was a more than fine weekend with the many good and sweet and amazing things over -shadowing the alimony mediation that swallowed a portion of Saturday. My mom is recovering. M was here all weekend. And the man who loves me managed some extra hours in Margaritaville too.

The Ensure Cocktail: Happy hour for skinny senior citizens

"You have to start feeding me more calories!" my mother said. We were in the podiatrist's office talking about her aching feet and how, due to age, the fat pads on her feet have disappeared. The doctor shot me a look that, for a moment, I construed as an admonishment--but then she smiled.

I doubt that anything I feed my mom could put a layer of fat between her shoes and her bone spurs, and no doubt the doctor realizes that. Hopefully the new orthotics will help. Mother Nature is weirdly cruel sometimes. Creaky joints, failing ears and eyes not enough to slow you down? Okay, how about we dissolve the fat in your feet so your bones are practically poking through your skin?

I confess I did go on a bit of a tear though. Tonic water has more calories than plain water, I told my mom. Drink that! I bought her a six-pack of Ensure. Drink one every day! I told her. I bought brandy and creme de cacao and extra ice cream in an attempt change up her cocktail. Her mom liked Brandy Alexanders on those rare occasions when she drank. Give up the martini and drink those! Last night before dinner I garnished her new drink with fresh ground nutmeg. "It was good," she said. And then she went on to tell me she wouldn't really want to drink one every day.

Tonight as she sipped her martini, I googled "Ensure Cocktail" and found THIS. Ha! Anyone care to stop by for a "Sure Thing?"--which is what I plan to call my fabulous concoction:

1 single-serving bottle of Ensure (chocolate or vanilla)

1 small scoop ice cream

1 shot creme de cacao

1 shot Kahlua 

Blend and pour into fancy glass. Dust with cocoa powder if desired.

I'm not sure I can lure her away from her beloved martini, but at least I persuaded her to have a little ice cream tonight before bed. 

What I need is a high calorie drink made with gin. She loves the taste of gin. Suggestions?

photo credit: the purloinedletter.blogspot.com

Father, Son, and Holy Toast

My mother was searching for a word, but it refused to be found. At last night's dinner table she told M and me how she often fainted at Mass as a girl. The word she couldn't quite muster was "Communion," or perhaps "host." Her eyes flutter at these moments, as if the blinking might cause the word to materialize, writ in front of her. But, no. This word, like others, had somehow sifted itself into the dustbin of her 88-year-old brain. "You know," she said, "when they put the toast in your mouth." We knew exactly what she meant--and she went on to tell us that she fainted every Sunday at Communion time. Too many people milling around, she theorized. Too much heat.

It seems, sometimes, that my mother has reached a point where her first and only language is becoming, by small increments, foreign to her. After her pre-dinner martini, she often speaks English the way I speak French. Creatively. Through a roundabout back door, where you are forced to explain the more sophisticated concepts or ideas with words that you know compensating for the words you don't know.

I also wonder if these teen-age fainting spells prefigured her mid-life diagnosis of narcolepsy and sleep apnea. These days if the conversation lulls at dinner, her eyes close, and she sometimes lists to one side.  "Mom," I say, "You're falling asleep." Or, "Mom, don't fall off your chair." Her eyes might flutter open then, or she might speak to me with them still closed.

"I'm awake," she'll say. "Awake, but far away." She never says where she's been exactly. But maybe she's in church, fainting--there in the company of her long-dead mother. There with her sisters, smelling the incense, feeling the heat, and falling to the ground.

Living Inside an E. E. Cummings Poem

"Yes," my mother said when I asked her if I should flip the switch on her coffee pot. I was already paying homage to my little single cup machine when she scuffed around the corner in her flowered pajamas. "Wheeeeeee," she said as I lifted the silver toggle on her coffee maker.

That enthusiastic exclamation made me think of E. E. Cummings.

Here are two of his poems  for your reading enjoyment:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

[in Just-]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

in Just-

spring          when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far          and             wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

         the

                  goat-footed

balloonMan          whistles

far

and

wee

The olives from the previous evening's martini are another thing to look forward to in the morning. Wheeeeeeee.

Searching for a rare book--Do you have it?

The New Year is always piled high with resolutions and good intentions, right?

My mother decided that she would mend her pack-rat ways and neaten up her room. Somehow while going through her piles of papers, she zigged when she should have zagged and threw out her beloved crochet book, 101 Snowflakes. "Well, let's just order you another one," I said when she called to tell me what she'd done. I logged onto Amazon and gasped. Two copies were available--both used--one for $109.00 and the other for $145.00. Later that day I checked the used book stores in my neighborhood. No luck. Meanwhile, I've purchased a couple of pamphlets from Ravelry.com with a dozen snowflake patterns and mailed them off to her. But what I'd really like is to replace her lost book for her at a reasonable price. It's a crochet book, after all, not a Gutenberg Bible.

My mother spends a lot of time crocheting snowflakes. I received a huge new one from her this year. She crocheted a bunch for my son and his family to get their collection started. Several other friends and other family members got some, too. She works on them off and on throughout the year, taking breaks to read. Her favorite books are the Maisie Dobbs mysteries and anything by Elmore Leonard. I think both the reading and the crocheting are good for her brain. I sometimes wonder if I would have the patience to  work my way through the intricacies  of a snowflake pattern. Probably not.

So in the interest of my mom's brain health, is there anyone out there with a bunch of craft books languishing in a dusty stack than might hold a thin magazine-like book called, 101 Snowflakes? The cover looks like the photo above. If so, please contact me. You can leave a comment here or send me an email. I'm sure my mom will crochet you some snowflakes in thanks. And if you ever meet her, she'll make you a martini, too.

Here are some of my snowflakes. Most people hang them on their Christmas tree. I like to hang mine in my windows.

Love, Money, and Mink

I recently took my mother back to the apartment where she used to live with her sister until health problems forced them both to move a couple of years ago. Because the place is in the basement of my cousin's house a lot of their things are still there, time-capsuled as if they might someday return and resume where they left off.

"Do you suppose this gin is still good?" my aunt might ask as she leans down from her wheelchair and peers into the cabinet.

"Of course it's good," my mother would respond, opening the fridge. "But I don't know about these olives." They'd discuss the pros and cons of a martini without olives then, but they'd make the drinks anyway and sit at their table, a cumulous cloud of smoke forming under the low ceiling. They'd sip. And talk about how good it was to be back. 

Could happen. But probably not. My aunt lives in a nursing home now, both legs lost and her memory chasing after them.

What did happen was that my mother opened every drawer and each of her  little wooden boxes (many of which most likely came from thrift store or trash picking treasure hunts.) She looked through her closet and her jewelry box and stood in front of her bookshelves . "Take this," she'd say when I exclaimed over something. "It needs fixing, but..." We found earrings that have been in her jewelry box ever since I can remember. She still had the little golden expandable chignon-style hair clasps that I used to set on top of my head as crowns when I played dress up, her father's watch chain, and the crystal rosary in the pouch personalized with her name in gold across the white leather that her mother presented to her as a wedding gift.

I thought I was familiar with each and every one of my mother's treasures, but there was a surprise. "Is that mink?" I asked. The fur was soft as a kitten's, not marred at all by time, although the satin rose was maybe a bit faded with a hint of fray.

"Your father gave that to me for Christmas the year I asked for a mink coat," she said.  

My parents never had any money. The way I remember it, the only thing they ever fought about was money, and that was because there wasn't  any. I was touched by the story because my father heard what his young, poor-all-her-life wife wanted, and with, I imagine, a rather stylish sense of humor, he delivered mink.

And now the mink and satin rose is with my mother at my brother's house where she lives with him and his girlfriend.  My father has been dead for almost thirty years, and my mother looks back almost as much as she looks forward. Tucked-away treasures bring the past and the present together. I like that.