Mom & Me Two Archive

...much to my surprise. It went very well, as usual. I continue to experience surprise and delight that she shows marked improvement every single time we have a session. I wasn't expecting much today because we'd had a session yesterday and she walkered a lot at Costco today. But she went to work. We talked more about body philosophy today. I explained the change in my approach from the time we began doing her exercises when she first arrived home from the SNF through now. I reported all this on both the sheet I fill out as she exercises and on the site. Check it out; I think you'll find it interesting.
    Things are going well. It's a quiet evening. I have one more post to make in the food journal and then I'll be done reporting for the night. I'm not sure how much posting I'll get in tomorrow nor how many stats I'll take. It's a travel day. On travel days I feel safer not knowing.

...over at =>Moving =>Mom regarding Mom's walkering today. The link will take you right to it. The best part of today's walkering is that Mom does not consider the trip spectacular but for a couple of reasons it was. If you're curious, click the link.
    Not much to report, at the moment. It's been a good day, started early, Mom's napping now and I'm getting things together for our trip to Mesa tomorrow. It's supposed to rain both here and there so it should be a good trip. This is our second packing out trip and it's going to be a long one. Tomorrow I continue to pack out even if we run out of car space. We can make transport loads later.
    It continues to feel as though time is stretching out for me. I don't feel pressured even though the home will no longer be ours in less than 2 weeks. Everything is falling into place, everything is being accomplished on a flexible on-time schedule, I'm feeling more and more relaxed and relieved as the time draws near for us to bid that home farewell. Mom is no longer grieving the loss of the home in Mesa. Her brow crinkles a bit when she talks about it but she's not looking frantic around the edges anymore. I'm sure many times in the next several months I'll need to remind her that we no longer own a home there. I'm just as sure that each time I remind her she will buy yet another ticket on The Little Engine that Could and go with the flow. I know that the relief I'm feeling is having a positive effect on her. That, in itself, helps her work out the loss without losing anything.
    Her homes have always been chosen by someone else. Once in awhile if selection involved a buy she's had input into a decision but overall where she's lived has been out of her hands. In a sense, this is happening again, now, as she would prefer to keep both homes. This time, though, the home and the community we are retaining are her selection and bought against my better judgment and counsel. Even though it's hard for me to forget her complaining months ago that she's never lived in the home of her dreams (which is still true), this time she's living exclusively in a home she chose by herself. I think this makes a difference.
    I'll probably report stats once more today. Not sure if I'll do any more reporting. We'll probably just hang out and have a great evening together...maybe, if I can talk her into it, even do her exercises. Then again...
    ...later.

    You can get to it from here or click into it over there to the right, the latest and last entry under Essaying the Situation.
    She's sleeping in this afternoon. That's what usually happens after a good buzz. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, read the essay and today's exercise session to which it refers, linked in the immediate previous post.

...MFS always laughs devilishly and says, "Scary, isn't it?!?" Yes, sometimes, it is scary to contemplate that I might just keep the old woman going into my Ancient years. Mom and I have a running joke about that: Sometimes in the evenings of a hectic day I'll laboriously rise from the floor, leaning on the arm of her rocking chair for support, and say, "Mom, I'm gettin' old."
    "You sure are, Gail. I feel sorry for you."
    "What's gonna happen when I'm older than you?"
    "We'll sure be in trouble then, won't we?"
    We both laugh.
    I think, though, my saving grace (and, perhaps, my mother's too) is that I never think, too long and too hard about how long I'll be with her (or, to be more accurate, how long she'll be with me and with the world) and what I'll do "after". I already know that taking it day by day and comparing the present only with pasts, not futures, is the way to greet everything that happens with a freshness equal to the event. This is what works when caring for an Ancient One. Being here. Now. Even if your Ancient One is someplace else at the moment. If you're here, not wandering in fearful futures or open-to-interpretation pasts, then each day works.
    Anyway, the point of all this is to announce, another interesting exercise session today with interesting results...take a look if you're curious about following my mother's development.
    Probably...later.

...hint, hint, hint, something someone in the family who enjoys stretching their computer savvy might consider doing. I know that between maternal relatives there are lots of people who have lots of memorabilia regarding Latchstring Inn while my grandparents owned and ran it. That stuff could be collected to "your" central area, scanned in, and a website (non-profit) could be set up documenting the history of Latchstring Inn while my grandparents owned and ran it and it was considered a landmark. Remember "The Chapel by the Side of the Road"? Remember the foot pump organ? The Sunday tour busses? Grandpa's stories about the same characters mentioned in the link in the immediately previous post, and others less well nationally known but certainly locally known.
    I'm sure, actually, that when we retrieve material from the shed there will be stuff in there that can help trace a history.

...for today:

Don't let others push you around today...People may talk themselves up quite a bit, but it could be that there is very little behind their words. Be careful that you don't misfire. This is a day to care about yourself and your own needs. Take aggressive steps towards making sure you are getting what you want. Connect with people you have met recently. There is great significance in synchronistic meetings.

    I know. I should stop noticing that stupid horoscope. I have a call to make today that involves advanced negotiation. Previous to the business I had to conduct on behalf of my mother I was not "in to" advanced negotiation business calls. I'm sure I am, now, but this is the first one that involves me as the seeker, rather than the granter. I'm a little nervous. And, the person with whom I'm dealing, well, totally read me on the first call as not too sure of myself, even though I have, and I mentioned this to him, used them twice before. So he didn't really listen to what I said and called me back with a "standard package", which is a dynamite deal if I had a standard package move. I don't. So, I have to call this guy back. He dodges and talks over the speakerphone, and, you know, just generally makes my skin crawl. I am not concerned about whether I'll successfully attain what I seek. I know I will. I'm concerned about the journey.
    Time is still syrupy. I know everything will get done, in fine style. Very nice, indeed.
    Mom was up on elbows and coughing about an hour ago. I peeked in on her and she said she didn't want to get up yet. I'm letting her sleep. She knows what kind of stuff will be going on for the next two weeks, trips, etc. She's up to it. She just wishes she wasn't.
    I guess I mentioned, she is still not quite into relocating when we first arrive at that home. She always says something along the lines of, "I'll sure be glad when we live here again."
    At which point I have to gently remind her that we won't be "living here again".
    So far I have not detected any deep sadness/melancholy within her over this. Certainly no regrets over our use of the mobile home and the life we led between this home and that. No regrets prior, either. It's kind of like me having to remind her that her sister is dead. She has no trouble remembering that her brother-in-law is dead and her brother is dead. But inevitably, once a month or so, she gets the urge to "call MS and see what's going on with them," and I have to remind her that a lot of "them" are dead now, primarily her connection to them, her sister.
    I have memories of visiting my maternal grandparents one summer, I think in 1966, in Spearfish Canyon between their enterprise, Latchstring Inn and their cabin just up the way and around a corner about an eighth of a mile. While we were there it was always old home week among the elders, part of whom to us children were our parents. Thus, there were endless visits upon which us kids sometimes reluctantly stumbled on hot summer afternoons when we couldn't find anything else to do. The conversations were thus (all names are fictional):
    "So, what do you hear from so-and-so?"
    "Died. Last spring. Heart attack, I hear. Dolores will probably have to go into a nursing home."
    Everyone nodded.
    "Did you hear that so-and-so died?"
    "Really. So soon after George. It figures."
    "So, how's so-and-so doing since they amputated his foot?"
    "Not good. They think they're going to have to take the other. He's not expected to make it."
    Us kids would hang out on the fringes on the floor, playing jacks or snatching food from the buffet and roll our eyes and sneer. I think these conversations were, in fact, part the inspiration for our infamous car song composition, "Everybody's Dead in the Cem-e-tar-ee".
    I understand, now, why those conversations were spoken in monotone and were important. So does my mother. I've only recently begun to understand that, being as yet immortal, she probably didn't fully register the import of those conversations, although since she was anxious to catch up with relatives, she participated flawlessly.
    The Roll Call of the Dead.
    Speaking of which, we need to call M(om's) C(ousins) I(n) C(edar) R(apids) and see how they're doing. They are all older than she. I think the youngest just turned 89 and he's not the one who lives alone.
    Looks like I've got stuff to do, although I've already prepared for the day. We didn't do therapy exercises last night so we'd better do them sometime today. I need to make a short supply run involving two stops. I know Mom isn't thrilled with supply runs but they get her out and moving and I don't want her to lose her walkering edge. However, for her, the day as a whole and her part of it for me will probably start somewhat later than now.
    We'll see.
    Later.

...for the mobile home. I'm so ecstatic I've decided to celebrate in a post. I didn't have to go through all our boxes of old files, although I hauled all of them onto the livingroom floor. They were in the 3rd box and would have been in the second if I'd followed my hunch; in an old investment file of my mother's. In yet another investment file I found the title to one of our vehicles. The title to the other car was in the original "Title to Lancer Mobile Home" folder in which I discovered only copies of the current, transferable titles to the Mesa home.
    Remembering my mother's misfilings that I discovered in 2000, the year that one of my father's investments he originated in 1968 matured and I had to go through the files looking for stuff that would tell our tax man what the final capital gains were on that investment, was what made the job easier. Whew. That was amazing. That's when I learned what obsessive and detailed record keepers both my parents had been (my mother still is, although creatively, now) and, as well, got a peak into my mother's financial acumen, which matured soon after my father died. Interesting because he was the one who was always buying financial books, looking at financial programs, and he absorbed some, but not as much as my mother. She was very savvy when it came to investments, although she, along with a lot of other savvy investors, including a friend of mine who was writing a book on investing at the time of the crash when she lost all her money, got caught in the crash of 2000 (thereabouts...I don't recall that it really hit her until 2001). I tend to think of myself as a meticulous record keeper and financially aware. I am nothing in either department compared to my mother. She fucking went to work, after my Dad died, on their assets, and polished her position nicely.
    That was an accomplishment and a relief. I had very little to configure into my decision as to where to begin looking for the titles. I even had day-mares in which I discovered that she has filed them away in boxes in the shed connected to the Mesa home, the very ones I found so rain soaked that their dilapidated contents, all saved papers, were melting into one another. I expected to have to go through those and expected to discover that I would have to, within a half month, reapply for tranferrable certificates of title for the mobile home.
    For some reason yesterday evening, although we certainly had a productive day, I was feeling melancholy. I finally traced it to seeing my mother's small, domestic hopes and dreams sliding by my eyes as I packed out her room. Projects whose practice I know my mother has coveted for years: A ginger bread house kit, candy making kits (she really pursued candy making, one year, and it was good, too, if you like candy); half finished afghans, one in particular begun for the son of some close cousins the year they adopted him; her interest in what is, for lack of a better term, paranormal religion (a lot of Jane Roberts' books, some by Ruth Montgomery and Edgar Cayce; Emmet Fox and C.S. Lewis, as well, to show you how deeply thought she is philosophically and spiritually); all her genealogy stuff which she has, essentially, passed on to MCS...
...I remembered, finally, who J. L. was (may still be, who knows). She was a friend my mother made when she and Dad lived in El Paso. They remained friends through both of their husbands' deaths and took vacations together, some pretty spectacular ones. They were planning, when they lost touch, on going to Australia together, highlighting New Zealand. My mother dreamt of J. L. about a week and a half ago. It took me a couple of days and some miscellaneous memorabilia to remember her. I met her once when I was living in the Phoenix metroplex the same time as my mother. Delightful woman, rather like an Ancient Diana Rigg, devoted to the cocktail hour, and only to the cocktail hour...
...a bunch of traveler's pamphlets regarding Australia and New Zealand. I even found gifts she had bought for people and forgotten where she placed them. Some will be passed on to those for whom they are intended because they were perfect gifts in their time. The recipients will appreciate knowing my mother's unfailingly insinuating ability to pick the perfect gift for anyone whether one has mentioned it or not.
    Incredible sadness welled up in me for the activities and ideas for which my mother had desire but on which she didn't, for one reason or another, at the behest of life, follow through. I started to weep.
    My mother's annoyed, amused, mystified response to this was, "What is it now?!?"
    I told her, haltingly through tears and sudden sobs. I knew, even as I was telling her, how I would look back on all the desires I haven't followed in my life, shrug and think, "but look what I have done, what I am doing"...and this would be exactly my mother's position.
    It was. At one point she even said, "Those were just things to keep me busy until you got here."
    Which threw me into an even more ridiculous spasm of grateful sobs.
    Which sent my mother into hysterics.
    "You're just like Dad, your dad, not my dad," she always says. She said it yesterday.
    My father, if you can imagine, was even more sentimental than me. Oh my. Especially when he was drunk.

    There won't be any lunch stats today because she's been eating pretty steadily since breakfast. I managed to get her dose of cinnamon and her iron pills in, which I'll report, but didn't take any stats.
    She's pretty slow today. The new oxygen company rep arrived and she was very alert, very "here", signed the paperwork. He spoke to both of us when he talked. She even teased him. It's going to be a very efficient arrangement. We are not going to be overwhelmed with tanks and supplies are just a couple miles away. Emergency service is provided directly by the local employees. We received a much nicer carrier and discovered there are "fanny pack" size tanks: M-4's (sounds like ammo, doesn't it) that I think even my mother could handle if an appropriate fanny pack is available so the rep is going to look for one.
    I may check in later, I may not. I may take advantage of the situation and express my relief in so quickly locating the transferable titles by taking a nap.

    I covered all that at the following addresses, in case you're interested:

• Today's Breakfast Stats
• Today's No Stat Lunch
• Today's Dinner Stats

    There were a few disappointments yesterday regarding the sale but nothing I can't handle. My biggest challenge is going to be the actual move, I think. I hope.
    Mom handled yesterday's quick trip well. She was a little stiff but refused acetaminophen before bed.
    Today the new oxygen company arrives to check us out on their brand of equipment and deliver oxygen to us. I'm relieved that we are finally getting local service on this.
    I'm expecting a good day today. Most of it will probably be dedicated to finding the titles to the mobile home, not just the copies. Mom will help with this, I'm sure, as she retains an intense interest in her paperwork even though she doesn't any longer recognize much of it. I can't think of any errands we need to run, thank god. I stopped by the shed on our way home last night and deposited the boxes we'd packed yesterday. The car is cleaned out. I expect we'll make another trip over the weekend. I have some serious thinking to do, some of which is about the possibility of finding alternative, relatively inexpensive help for the move. On the one hand, I'm surprised at how much "little stuff" we have there that Mom and I can box and transport ourselves. On the other hand, the relatively large items are overwhelming and involve a higher level of complexity than ordinary moving. There's the necessary trip to a dump, too, unless I can talk the management into hauling off the bed and a few other things on their own. I don't know. Six of one.
    I'm feeling pretty relaxed about everything. Time is still slow and sticky. Roday is only Thursday. Good.
    I'm sure I'll write more...
    ...later.

...so I don't know how much further I'll get than reminders to myself. But, here goes. A very early start to a very busy day. Interesting stats this morning, considering that I forgot to administer Mom's medication last night. Even more interesting this evening, after a hearty and curious choice of meal in a restaurant. I'll probably write about that under the food part of this or the daily tests and meds.
    As far as the rest of the day is concerned, probably an excerpt from an e I just sent to a friend would suffice until I can explain further. An unexpected day, to say the least.

sent today at 2136
    Anyway, I thought you might want to know that the sale is proceeding more or less as planned. No real hitches. I haven't yet located the titles and, stupid me, I thought the copies were the titles. The moving out of the stuff is weird, incredibly dirty work. I've found a mover for the really heavy stuff and a few bizarre tasks involving a county dump, I don't care which county, and I think I drove a good bargain. It's two guys, a truck and 8 hours, anything goes. By the day they kick in I will have done decades of hours of work and load transfer on my own.
    Mom continues to go in and out of sale mode. She usually goes out of sale mode in front of someone else, which is unfortunate because we've been surrounded by the buyers since they proposed and we accepted the offer. Thank the gods everyone knows I have DPOA, so everything will eventually be fine. It's like, Mom'll 'wake up', find herself in the middle of the sale of the home and get this "What the fuck?!?" look on her face. Everyone rolls their eyes and it gets a little weird but not so weird that she doesn't somehow phase back in at the right time for her dignity to be preserved. Gotta love that in a person.
    We spent the day in Mesa and got a lot less done and learned some minor discouraging stuff today but went up the mountain with a truck load of boxes. I shudder to think what might be going on in those boxes in the shed as we speak.

    I'm very, very tired, so I think I'll report no more until...
    ...later.

...just like the "prophets" said. Weird. Once again, that damned horoscope caught my eye this morning as I was awakening into the day:

The fast paced frenzy of the day is just what you need to jump-start your brain and get it moving in the right direction. Take control of the fire within and do what you can to keep it going strong throughout the day. You will find that there is a more personal aspect to your thoughts, and that you can think more rationally about your emotions. Your heart and your head are able to work well together.

    This is exactly how my day has been. It's been my first official Get It All Together and Make It Happen day since the sale process began. Now, long before the day is over, everything is set in motion, very reasonably, only a few more appointments and schedulings need to happen, most of which can be done by phone. Wow.
    The "move" (which is to say, "the end of an era") is now a reality to Mom most of the time. She awoke this morning wrinkled with concern and began firing questions at me before she was on her elbows about "the sale of the house in Mesa". She knows what's going on, now, somewhere in there, even though later today she claimed that I'd never told her of it.
    She's doing a little of the "tough it out" routine. What was the angle she stated today? Oh, yeah: "Time to make new memories in a new place."
    I gently reminded her that we have many old memories in this place in Prescott and we aren't abandoning Mesa, just the two home lifestyle. Consolidate. She likes this word so I use it a lot. Consolidating resources. That's what we're doing, I remind her.
    I have much more confidence handling her business now than I did a few years ago. Stumbling around in the ring with doctors on behalf of someone's life will do that to you. I'm not ducking or weaving over this matter and I'm not getting queasy about this being a real estate (so to speak) deal. Knowing one has Durable Power of Attorney will do that to you.
    Now that this consolidation is truly simplifying her business I'm looking forward to getting a handle on all her business. Man, it's amazing to me how internally widespread is the relief I'm feeling over this sale. It doesn't even seem rushed. As far as I'm concerned everything is still moving in syrup time. This must be what is meant by "...the land of milk and honey...". It isn't, maybe, a place, it is a state of being in a place. Hmmm.
    I'm not sure if I'll post much more tonight, although I'll probably keep stats up. Oh, and I posted a small thing on =>Moving =>Mom about the walkering she did today, since that journal isn't just about therapy exercises, its about, well, moving Mom.
    So, anyway, much is happening and I have much to do and I am energized and encouraged.
    Later.

...it was such a good surprise that I feel like promoting it with a link to it.
    She clearly was not interested when I announced the session. She thought I was "just suggesting" it. Nope. It was the real deal. Fuck, I'd been feeling shot anyway and had been doing a whole bunch of stuff, including taking a morning nap to settle yet another fever, so I wasn't about to take no for an answer. I'm glad I didn't. She's beginning to get it! Don't ever underestimate the effect that a resilient spirit has an on Ancient body.
    Whenever her lethargy argues that she'll be all right if she doesn't move and sleeps a lot, I remind her that she hasn't been all right, remind her of her hospital and skill nursing facility stays which, while beneficial, weren't her idea of fun.
    She comes to and mutters the best I'll ever get out of her, "I suppose you're right."
    Otherwise, things are happening as if through syrup and I don't mind. I'm sure that when I need items or ideas on behalf of this final consolidation they'll arrive.

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred...unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.--Goethe

    I'm a little surprised at this cold. I can't believe it's hanging on and continuing to do damage. It's very weird. Maybe I need to stop drinking coffee all day long. Maybe that'll help. I'll sleep even more than I have been, though. Who knows what mischief my mother might invent when I'm sleeping, who knows how many bottles of mustard or pieces of toast with butter and raspberry preserves she'll eat?!?
    She makes fun of my vigilance but it allows her to feel safe enough to make fun of me. I am honored that I can do this for her.
    So, anyway, I've got a few more papers to go through, a few more calls to make, mostly to pay bills over the phone. My mother will soon be up for dinner. I've got a full evening ahead.
    Later.

...section of this web effort on behalf of my mother and me: Caring. About Food.. I've been threatening to do this: Pull caring for my mother through the food I prepare and we eat into an extention of Playing with Food. Last night, or, I guess, early this morning was when I published the first post.
    I'm pleased that I'm able to work writing about food back into my schedule. I stopped because my duties with my mother accelerated and I had no time to write much of anything except letters. It isn't that my duties have slaked but that I'm handling more them smoothly, at least until the next sharp transition.
    I'm tentatively scheduling Wednesday as our day in the Valley. I've got some stuff lined up that should be done within the next few days from up here. I need to get Mom moving again, as well. That's a priority. Some of her lethargy may be because I've been stealing a lot of time for myself this long weekend which, for us, included Friday. Regardless of the cause, I'm expecting her to snap back like a willow.
    Today is pulling me into it without mercy.
    Later.

...we've bathed her, she's having a bowel movement, hallelujah, she's a little stiff from the inactivity over the last few days but she's doing good, in good humor, refusing liquids along with the best of them.
    I published a new extemporaneous essay just awhile ago, "Just because you're old...". It's been entered in the Links area to your right in case you're interested.
    Morning's not over, yet, breakfast preparations are underway, I've done one thorough after-bowel-movement cleaning so far this morning and another one's due, shortly.
    I'm sure we'll get therapy exercises in.
    Later.

    Still a bit wasted, but better. I don't think my temperature will be zipping about today. I don't feel as though I can't sit up without expending effort. I'm still a little hazy about what's happened over the last few days. I remember The Ten Commandments...seems like we watched that all weekend. And Mom's food tyranny, which didn't hurt her and didn't bother me. I slept 8 hours, I'm sure. I went to bed soon after last night's post. The Girls didn't sleep with me, though, so that means I had a restless night. Or, maybe, I just looked as though I might have restless periods during the night. They are loving but self-protectively cautious.
    The first thing I smelled when I entered the kitchen this morning was banana. Even with all the windows and doors open. If I don't make banana bread today I'd better dump the bananas.
    I think I'll mosey on over and see what's going on with the other sites before Mom starts moving.