Mom & Me Four Archive

    Deb, the author of The Yellow Wallpaper just reminded me, and, what of the tiara? I worked and worked Thursday night trying to get the tiara to stay in; even broke down her hair style and added more teasing; tried to use the two pastiches instead of one but her fine, very thin hair can't hold two. Bottom line, I couldn't remember how I got the tiara to fit in the previous hair style (which I thought I was recreating), discreetly nestled in all her teased, augmented, becurled, cemented hair without showing the combs in the back. At one point I said, exasperated, "Mom, it's like the rim of this thing has stretched. I don't think that's possible. It's pretty sturdy metal." I didn't further elaborate that it was, though, very cheap.
    "Maybe they make them for children and adults and we need to get a child's one."
    Out of the mouths of babes and the demented; and, those who have quickly developed an emotional attachment to a particular type of body decoration.
    This means I'll be looking for a children's size tiara.

Backstory:
    My mother used to frequent the hair parlor twice a week, once for a wash, set and style and once for a restyle. She's been doing this since I can remember. She assures me that she started the habit when she started working, which would have been as an older teen. It is a habit she has continued in the face of my father, at times, when he had nothing better to do, pettily harassing her about the money angle, although this was not financially necessary.
    Even after I would no longer let her drive and had taken over the managing of all her life business we remained faithful to her twice weekly "Hair Days", so named because we inevitably made the most of her hair style and ate lunch or dinner out, maybe even shopped at a gourmet market or a discount store we'd never visited. The only interruptions to her hair routine were health crises and her recoveries; until she fell and sprained her back in October of 2003. She has, pretty much, recovered. The only problem is that certain types of chairs and sitting procedures can cause spasms and days in bed. Unfortunately, the beauty salon chair and its backward hair-washing tilt are both hazardous.
    Before my mother's back injury, once I was no longer working outside the home, I was with her everywhere she wanted to go and everywhere I wanted (or could cajole) her to go. I am the type of person who immediately tries to make sense of and learn about any environment in which I find myself. Thus, in a beauty shop I became intrigued with the procedures used on my mother's hair. When it became necessary for me to take over the production of Hair Days, I discovered I was able to "do" her hair surprisingly well. Practice has made better. I have to tell you, the Queen Elizabeth I hairdos, I just took a wild stab at those. I figured, why not? I astonished myself on the first two. I can set and comb and back comb and shape and spray with the best of them. As well, the advantage to me doing this for her is that I know she loves, loves, loves having her head and hair "played with" and, since my income doesn't depend on it, I see to it that the sensuality quotient is at its highest.
    The thing is, I'm not a hairdresser. So I come up with things, execute them, then, I'm afraid, stumble through my memory of it a couple of times, which stumbling may or may not brand me with the necessary routine. Included, too, is attention to her scalp. Aside from it having increased in sensitivity as she's aged, most hair products cause her head to itch and scale, so I try to get them on and off every couple of days. As well, I allow her scalp periods (two to three days), when it rests, gets washed every day and I apply one of two psoriasis OTC salves every day.
    Information wise: Yes, I wash her hair free-sink-style, using Aloe Vesta Cleansing Foam #1. It's not as labor intensive as it sounds. In fact, I believe her hair is actually cleaner, now, than it was when she trusted the beauty shop to do it. She gets it washed at least twice a week.

    I've been surprised at my hair styling facility, acquired strictly from watching, asking the hair stylists (my mother had her favorites in Mesa and Prescott) what they were doing and how they were doing it, for no other reason than to pass the time. When one of the hair stylists (the hair sculptor) talked my mother into a hair piece, I learned how to work with that. Believe me, doing hair has never been a looked-forward-to career choice for me. But, I've always been interested in acquiring new skills, so technical caregiving is right up my alley, for a relative, anyway, one time only, probably.
    It is truly set-back surprising, when a caregiver stops to think about it, how many skills and specialized understandings of civilized knowledge (legal preparations, for one thing) one develops out of necessity as a caregiver. It is a little like interning. And sometimes, too, seeing certain types of activities in their context takes the monster out of them. At least, that's been my experience. I am reminded of a journal whose author just contacted me, Mona of The Tangeled Neuron, which is a chronicle of her search-and-destroy mission against Alzheimer's and other dementias in memory of her father. Not only does she debate, from a caregiver's point of view, with anecdotal information, the various diagnoses and test results thrown her way as a result of her father's medical profile; she also is generous with sources and her technical understanding is presented in an impeccable lay style. My first experience with her journal, in fact, happened for me in April before Mom's last appointment, when I was researching on behalf of her dropping hemoglobin. It was very helpful. It will be shortly added under the Honorable Caregiving Blogs section.
    I hear some reconnaisance coughing. Time to check in, again, on the Mom.
    So, long story short, no tiara. I'm betting her wig seller has something in a reasonably adjustable tiara...
    ...later.