Mom & Me Four Archive

As of May 1, 2010...

2010-04-29T22:42:00.002-07:00

...Blogger will no longer allow FTP publishing. Updates to this blog, which will probably be few to none, since this section of The Mom & Me Journals dot Net is, essentially, closed by time, can be found at http://momandmefourarchive.blogspot.com. This section of the journal will also remain at in it's domain directory, so accessing links should not present a problem.

So, this is what "vacation" means, for me, in case you're unclear:

2006-12-31T16:40:00.001-07:00

    I let Mom sleep in. She coughed at 1430. Although she was slow getting around, I was cruising. We meshed well. I could tell she was slow, no wonder, I haven't been dashing her about, here, lately; in good spirits, though.
    She finished off breakfast about 1530 and lolled at the dining table with her magazines and her Detox tea. Her thirst appeared to have kicked in and she was regulating her fluids well by herself this morning, so I didn't have to mention, at all, anything about drinking this or that.
    At 1615 I announced to Mom that I finished all the chores while she lounged over tea and tabloids. "I've even finished your bed!" I announced, to highlight how spectacular this change in chore business was.
    "Well," she said, giving me a sly look, "I guess I'll have to go try it out." I could see she was bracing herself for an negative onslaught.
    "Well, let me go turn on the oxygen. Stay here for a minute, I'll help you up, or, if you're faster than me, I'll meet you in the bathroom."
    I think I caught her steadying herself from falling off the chair. "Don't you think it's too early?"
    I met her head on. "Do you?"
    She looked around as though expecting someone to coach her. "Well, no..."
    "There's your answer."
    I believe she almost tripped over herself, heading for the bathroom before I changed my mind. While we were in the bathroom she said, twice, as I supervised the change in undergarments, "I'll be taking a nap in these, you know."
    "I know," I assured her.
    "I guess I'd better not dally about taking advantage of this chance!"
    I grinned at her. "You'd better not. You never know, with all this sun, when I might harness you and throw the plow behind you!"
    So, she's back in bed. Probably napping hard and fast before I change my mind and haul her out of bed.

    We had an interesting discussion over breakfast this morning. We were talking about tomorrow being the beginning of a new year, 2007. We mulled this over as we picked at our food.
    Mom looked up at me and said, "That makes me 90, doesn't it?!?"
    Wow. She can always remember what year she was born, but doesn't relate it to much, anymore. "Yeah, it does."
    We thought about this.
    "So, Mom," I ventured, "did you imagine, when you were much younger, a kid, maybe a young adult, that you'd live to be 90?"
    No hesitation. "Oh, goodness yes. At least."
    Well, she was right about that. I was curious. "Did you assume you'd see 100?"
    She hemmed and hawed about this. "Yes, I think so."
    Do you think you're going to make 100 now? That's 10 years away," I reminded her.
    Her face immobilized into placidity. Her eyes focused somewhere just above and beyond my head. Although they remained open, they appeared to be running an internal scan, perhaps of body parts, perhaps of will, spirit. She didn't look at me for a moment when she stated, "Yes." I think she was looking at the year.
    Do I think my mother will live to be 100? No. But, then, when she was 75 I didn't think she'd see 85. Do I want my mother to live to be 100? No. Although I might be wrong, from what I know of her health and her personal trajectory, if she lived for another 10 years I foresee that lots of those years would be spent in some sort of institutional confinement, for one reason or another. She does not mind confining herself to her home and at least one loved one, but she does not like being confined by formal institutions. It is a peculiar gift of mine that I have not bothered, day by month by year, to project into the future in regard to this journey I'm on with my mother. Others, though, might not consider this a gift. But, then, others are not making a home with her.
    Selfishly, I do not want to be doing this when I am 65. I can barely imagine being alive at 65, but, then, when I was in my 20's I imagined 40 but assumed I'd be dead by 50, so, I don't know, I hear it's surprising up there. This certainly is. I can only imagine the surprises my mother has already negotiated and might continue to negotiate. I imagine I have been privy to only half of them. Those have been pretty amazing.
    At any rate, she fell into reality earlier today, but was securely in another reality when she headed for her bedroom: She was asking if "[Dead Brother's Name] and Dad [my dad, apparently] had made it back in time for dinner." Since I wasn't sure, I said I didn't know. That seemed to satisfy her.
    So, I'm thinking I'll watch a movie. I picked up a second hand copy of Magnolia today and am anxious to see if I respond the same to Tom Cruise's character now that my hormones have settled waaaaay down. I didn't dislike him, before, I was surprised by Cruise's facility with the character. But, I'm seeing things from a markedly different perspective, now, and I'm wondering how that will affect a viewing of this movie.
    Later.

I think I'm observing a vacation...

2006-12-31T13:49:00.002-07:00

...arguably well deserved. I'm surprised, though, because I hadn't noticed, really. Except that I've "allowed" Mom to get away with more sleep then usual, although she's been making it (awake time, that is) up here and there. Yesterday she didn't retire until 0315. Then, last night, her light was out either just before or a little after 2300. I was in bed before midnight. That was a surprise.
    I'm feeling a subterranean renewal, and I'm relieved. I thought I might be stuck and had no idea how to jar myself out.
    I spontaneously invited some company. I don't know if they'll take me up on the offer, but, amazingly, I hope so.
    Just as quickly as I noticed the holidays and worried that I'd noticed them too late, "I'm well shot of" [Thank you Love, Actually] them. I feel as though I'm taking an after holiday vacation in the tropics and, fuck, I'm enjoying it!
    I thought I'd rouse Mom at 1400 today, if she's not already up. I hear noises coming from her room which tell me she may have one bleary eye on the clock, as well, and be ready to greet me at 1400. I thought we'd have salmon tonight with broccoli, Hollandaise and an interesting looking dessert for just before midnight that I picked up today while looking at baked goods. Tomorrow we'll have the ribs and probably potato salad, because I don't have to go out for that. It's been a long time since we've had potato salad.
    We don't watch football, so if there are any games broadcast tomorrow, we'll be oblivious to them. We'll probably watch the rentals I've got, both of which look good.
    I'm contemplating doing some reading. That's how relaxed I feel. That's a lot of relaxation. Serious reading, as well.
    The labeling over at The Dailies is going slowly, even though my labeling technique is much less sloppy this time around. It's the publishing process that seems to take so much time. It reminds me that one eats an elephant one bite at a time.
    Well, guess I'd better rev myself up for Mom.
    Later.

Oh, wanted to mention...

2006-12-30T13:01:00.001-07:00

...this month marks a three year anniversary of the beginning of this portion of the journals. As of May of 2007, I will have been journaling continually, here, for four years. As of August, 2007, I will have been informally and formally journaling for, hmmm, I think six years. Wow. I'm especially astonished, realizing this right now, while I am labeling The Dailies, which include such meticulous detail. God, how have I been doing this?
    I believe this effort is a bit touched. Angelically, I hope, but I fear otherwise.
    So, happy birthday to me, and me, and, later, me...
    ...later.

I guess I've been experiencing some kind of viral attack...

2006-12-30T12:36:00.000-07:00

...as usual, on the heels of a visit to the Valley, so, frankly, I'm not sure if it's viral, or a reaction to "the air [down] there"...and, of course, the smoking. I tend toward a combination of the first two, as Mom is having no problems, isn't coldish at all. Just me. And, it seems to have settled in my lungs, although not bad.
    Actually, it's felt pretty good. I've been drifting in and out of naps for the last two days, and probably will for two more. I set Mom up with holiday or animal (or both) fare in front of the TV, stretch out on the couch, the kitties find me and settle in with me, maybe I'll watch the program, maybe I'll doze...I suspect that I've had a fever off and on but I've also been taking ibuprofen, for comfort. Chores and entertainments socializing have proceeded as usual.
    Very low key weekend.
    She's been moving around a normal amount, although last night I fell asleep for about three hours and discovered that she was pretty much glued to her chair. We got her to the bathroom just in time.
    I apologized to her for the lack of excitement.
    "Oh, no problem. I'm plenty excited." Such a wry woman.
    Last night all this relaxation caught up with both of us. She remained up until 0245 this morning, read until 0315. I last remember looking at the clock in my bedroom, on my way between the down, and noticing it was "05:09".
    Very satisfying evening, though. I love those serendipitous late ones.
    Odd, I feel as though I've already been through 2007 and it's time for 2008. Doubly odd because I prefer inhabiting odd numbered years, in age and calendar designations.
    I expect we'll toast in the New Year. I have a bottle of carbonated raspberry...hmmm...and something else cider, non-alcoholic, cooling in the refrigerator for the event. We're not ball watchers. But, we'll probably find some good movies, or, you know, something.
    Although I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with certain social aspects of caregiving, I seem to be enjoying my mother's company more than ever. This is good. It allows the bugs up my ass to be a bit more tolerable.
    I was awake at 1015 this morning. I know I died soon after I looked at the clock, so I was surprised that I was up so early. I was also in a sweat, so I must have had a fever. I vaguely remember thinking about taking ibuprofen and then deciding against it last night.
    I'm pretty much going to let Mom determine when she will arise today. We've got a commercial pot pie, which requires thawing before baking, for this evening. That baking, alone, will keep her up and alert.
    I've lately been experiencing spasms of, oh, I don't know, emotional overload. I'll be in the middle of a fairly mundane portion of a day and suddenly, "out of nowhere", I'll be beset with a need to weep...not out of despair, but from being touched so deeply. So, I let some tears drop and go on about my, or our, business. I was so seized while I was rubbing my mother's legs down last night, er, make that early this morning.
    My mother noticed. She threw me a "oh brother" look and didn't say anything.
    I, however, was feeling soft and couldn't let the look go by. "It's nothing bad," I assured her.
    She waved away my explanation as if to say, "I don't care. I can't relate, right now."
    It's funny, the older I become, the more I appreciate my father's extreme sentimentality/emotionality. It was much harder for him to express than me. But, I understand more about where he was coming from than I used to. I also understand why my mother dismissed this in him as she dismisses it in me; with the exception that she pays a little more attention to my expressions of these.
    The lady isn't sentimental.
    I think we're cocooned in her for the weekend, through Monday, I guess, isn't that right? You'd think holidays wouldn't affect those such as us, but they do.
    Still no real snow. No In A Christmas Card experience. I'm becoming suspicious of those long range forecasts.
    Later.

Our snow day and a half was disappointing.

2006-12-29T08:52:00.001-07:00

    Yesterday, which was supposed to be the big day, although most of the day was cloudy except for a few annoying rays in the early afternoon, right in my eyes, it didn't "snow" until afternoon, just before sunset. It stuck, although it froze. It's pretty outside, today, dusted white, bt it's not really snow, it's a web of heavy frost.
    It's supposed to remain cloudy until this afternoon. Maybe some rain and sleet, here. Probably not, considering the last few days. Oh well.

    Did anyone notice this? I've been forgetting to mention it. It's one of those "little things" that everyone seems to be ignoring and, yet, it seems important for my generation, at least. I read about the possible connection between marijuana use and the lack of development of Alzheimer's, and general dementia, too, as I recall, around the time this probably came out. Read it in Mom's daily newspaper, buried in "Section A". Then, again, heard it on a national news program; probably the evening before seeing it in the newspaper. I remember, as well, a few days later, seeing a very small headline tag running across the default news service on my dial-up ISP home page.
    Then, the story was buried. I wonder why. I'd think there would be lots of other questions worth asking, for my generation, anyway. Questions to which I'd like to know the answers. Like (in no particular order):

What does this mean for people who interspersed regular marijuana use throughout their lives, probably beginning in their teenage years, with periods of abstinence?
Is this effect lasting? At what dosages?
If not lasting, what are the "recommended" dosages at this time?
Are there any studies beginning or in the works which study reported past use of marijuana against mental acuity in later years?
What about steady recreational use?
What about past and/or present use of other "soft" drugs such as acid, mushrooms? Is anyone curious about whether use, either occasional or habitual, for periods or continual, of these drugs affects later rates of senile dementia?
Is is possible that our generation will either be less suseptible, overall to dementia, or prone to "other types" of dementia, or a combination of both.

    Just thought I'd mention this. I know loads of people in my age group who have used marijuana, recreationally and as a type of self-inflicted psycho-pharmaceutical treatment (sometimes successful). I've even known a few who use it for medicinal purposes. Really. I know there's this scare, right now, about early onset Alzheimer's which is happening to my generation. I know the word "epidemic" is being freely used. Yet, I cannot forget the book on the history of old age. I am bound, now, to put all this in perspective. Perhaps what is happening to our parents will not happen to us, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps this is our opportunity, now, to Seize the Lessons of the Day [lucky us that it happens to be a major lesson in compassion] about caregiving to parents because our care will be completely different, probably much less obvious, perhaps well adapted to our curiously dependent, yet distant, society. Maybe chances to learn these lessons don't come around all that often and we need to take advantage of this.
    Just a thought.
    I'm continuing to label over at The Dailies. It's going to be a long haul. I'll probably begin skipping around, doing other types of maintenance. I remain interested in reading what I wrote so off the cuff on a disciplined daily basis. Very interesting, spontaneous, stream of consciousness observations. Minimum of agony. Maximum of detail. Can be successfully accessed in bits and bytes.
    Later.

Wanted to mention...

2006-12-28T00:11:00.000-07:00

...I haven't been making my regular reading rounds over the last few days...I just haven't found the time but I'm not in a purposeful avoidance. I'll be back around soon.

Well, I'm impressed with my work, I have to say.

2006-12-28T00:00:00.001-07:00

    That site over there, the Daily Tests and Meds site? That is the meat and potatoes of caregiving, or, for the vegetarians among you, the soy and vegetables. For me, reading it is full of mystery; rather, rereading a mystery to which you remember the end (like something by Frederick Neumann) but not how the story got there. I'm working through the lead-up to Mom's low sodium episode. I can see it now. And, I can see why I didn't see it then. Occasionally there are moody, "self-referential" segments in the posts but mostly it's narrative exposition. Numbers. Concrete descriptions. Simple observations. It contains stark time tables, purposely and inadvertently. It is incredibly easy to label, the labels mean something upon which a community would agree and there are many posts, rather than few or mostly one, in most of the categories.
    The snow is supposed to begin tonight and last through tomorrow. Rain is predicted in the afternoon, tomorrow, for Prescott proper, but I'm sure we'll get snow up here. I can feel it. I checked the "local on the 8's" just a few minutes ago and the humidity is 98%. Yes! I knew I was feeling better...although, this time, a little under the weather because of this cold I've got. Not bad, though. Just annoying and making me awfully tired. Thus the odd hours.
    I think I will be insisting on going out in the snow tomorrow morning, if we're not yet snowed in. We could use a few things from the grocery.
    It remains relatively warm. I went out to deliver more garbage to our bins, out on the street, which weren't emptied today. Although I wore shoes, I was in cotton pants and shirt sleeves. It seemed "warm", meaning winter warm, to me.
    I'm excited.
    Later.

The sky is a cold smolder.

2006-12-27T14:34:00.001-07:00

    We've had some sleet...the wind has picked up...there were a few minutes of sunshine around noon. I'm nestled in, although I don't feel like tights today. We've already had a few tights/huge flannel shirts days, but today isn't yet one of them. Maybe later today.
    Mom awoke around noon. Her bed was dry. When in peaked in on her I knew...
    "I'm goin' back to bed."
    "Well, let's change out your underwear."
    Her nose was bleeding; from a scratch, I could tell, the evidence was all over her right index finger and an alum stick staunched the flow a little. So, no oxygen on the way back. The atmospheric pressure is dropping rapidly. I can see from the way she's walking that she feels it. I told her I'd awaken her at 1400. It's 1438, now. I'm letting her sleep in.
    Looks like we're in the middle of precipitous skies but little precipitation. Ahhh...more this evening. And tonight. let's check on the percentages, which will be p momentarily. 50% chance of mix of rain and snow. 60% tomorrow. At this altitude, chances are any precipitation with be snow, maybe hail and sleet.
    I'm not letting Mom sleep out of concern for continued Christmas trip recovery. I'm being selfish. I'm having a good time labeling The Dailies. It's much, much easier. There is much less a temptation to label solipsistically. I'm starting at the beginning and going forward, except for a few front posts over the last few days. I'm surprised at the wealth of information over there early in the journal. I imagine, although I'm not doing a comparison reading, that much of what I wrote here during that time was thoroughly explained over there, day by day.
    I'm honestly not sure how late I'll let her sleep in. Just depends. She was restless all night and morning. Two bathroom breaks. These, though, are just rationalizations. I seem to need a little more time alone today.
    Later.

It's like I was hit in the head...

2006-12-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

...a day or so after my birthday and just reeled to. I'm suddenly aware of and enjoying the holidays, and am excrutiatingly aware of their fleet retreat. Living with the demented will do that to you every time, I guess. Wow. That was a blow.
    Looks like I might be getting some of my beloved inclement weather. It's to gather, today, and I can see that it is. The sun is completely blocked. It's warm enough, though, for me (who is now used to splashes of cold, cold weather barefoot and in shirt sleeves) to walk out in no more than summer clothing to pick up the paper or the mail. Or take out the garbage, last night, although I wore sandals to avoid stickers.
    Last night rain and snow were forecast, starting today. I'm ready. Bring it on. Here's the "local on the 8's": Currently 53°. That's 43° or less in our area. Ahh, yes, I see the precip coming in on raidar. It just isn't hitting the ground, yet, here. We're a little p and away. "Few Showers" by 1400. growing in intensity through midnight. "Snow showers. Tonight." 30% precip today to 60% tonight. Definitely snow overnight. Low only 28°. That's only 18° here. That's actually high for a night low. Ooohhh...."slow flurries Thursday". Cool. Friday, mostly sunny, about 40 here. I'm looking forward to the snow but am mainly focused on the snow. Maybe it'll collect. Looks like some serious homing will be happening. Good. We've got ribs to stew...mmmm...plenty of everything for hibernating, including cocoa, and lots of glipizide.
    I'm wondering if today is going to be another recovery day for her. I think, as of this morning, I'm recovered. Even did something terribly productive, this morning; I found my "old and expired" card holder, which was buried in the bottom of a bottom box in my bedroom, which has become a storage space.
    I found one of Mr. Man's mice for him. I am sure there are several scattered throughout the boxes of papers in the back of my room. I found one, covered with the must of a season about a year ago. He went wild. Literally. I finally had to throw it out of the room to continue my survey.
    Last tax payment due. I should be up to date on the tax paperwork sometime into the first week of January. Ready to send as soon as the last government document comes through.
    I think I am more aware of my mother's age and her frailty, this year than last, especially, perhaps, because her determination keeps her from being aware of either. These are easily slowing years for her, now. Incrementally more demanding for me. Not necessarily in a bad way, just upping the ante at a table where I intend to remain. I did not think that she would be more dear to me this year than last, as last year she had become heartbreakingly dear to me, but, hmmm...oh dear, she is even more so this year. I see, now, that her death will be neither a curse nor a blessing to me. It will simply be the profound transition of a profoundly intimate relationship. I carry an image of her, now, as dust in my arms. Precious, fine, volatile dust. Her spirit, though, I note, remains firmly planted, here. So, it seems, I am yet holding most of the dust in my arms.
    I note, looking out, that, this year, we've had enough storm activity (although not enough storm precipitation) to remove all the deciduous leaves from the trees. Didn't happen, last year. I'm hoping that's an optimistically precipitous sign. We haven't yet had the Christmas Card Snow Storm. I hope that's what's lurking out there for tomorrow.
    This would not be good country for a sleigh, though.
    Later.

Final, detailed update...

2006-12-27T02:02:00.001-07:00

...for the traveling Christmas here at The Dailies. The link will take you right to it.
    Today has, clearly, been a recovery day for me, too, but, I think, primarily from the cold pill. Some, maybe, from a much more relaxing holiday than I was expecting, and I was expecting a pretty relaxing one.
    Mom continues to talk about the unusually well behaved pet situation this time. Not that it hasn't ever been like that before. They, however, host five dogs, or is it six, three cats, an extremely attentive ferret that enchanted me, a frill necked lizard, two bull frogs, a very large turtle and a salt water aquarium. It was, however, the dogs' behavior to which she was referring. She was particularly taken with their new toy spotted Dachsund. And, Mom was right, Penelope is small enough for us to rifle away in my purse.
    "Our plan is flawless," I teased MCF. "You'll never realize she's gone."
    Mom made over the dog so enthusiastically that I took MCF aside and warned her that I would not take to a surprise dog gift the way we took to the surprise of her finding The Little Girl for us. At that time, we were looking for a cat and prepared, I reminded her. I am not prepared for, nor looking to take care of, a dog.
    She snickered, but she listened.
    I'm still feeling good, particularly since I awoke, a little after 2300, from a three hour (I think, or, was it longer) nap. I had the energy, a little earlier, to rev up for taxes. I spoke with our accountant about a week or so ago. He was, indeed, astounded that I was almost prepared, except for the necessary mailed documents, the last of which always arrives on January 31.
    Oh, my! It's after 0200! I'm tired, again, but not exhausted. I think I'll sleep well. Not that I haven't been, when I've been sleeping...
    Later.

Or, you know...

2006-12-26T17:13:00.000-07:00

...maybe it wasn't my bravery I lost, but my energy. It's easy to be anxious, downright scared and cowardly, when you're running on empty.
    Somehow, without seeming to and with unplumbed reason, yesterday's visit replenished some of something, and I think it was energy level.
    Just speculation.
    Later.

I'm continuing a detailed description of...

2006-12-26T17:07:00.001-07:00

...After Travel, After Christmas, After Event days over at The Dailies. The immediately previous link will take you to today's continuing serial. I will probably be updating that one later this evening.
For those of you who are interested.
Later.

For those interested,

2006-12-26T06:09:00.001-07:00

there's a detailed description of my mother's day, yesterday, over at The Dailies, including medication information. I have more to write on aspects more appropriate to this journal; maybe I'll take a moment to do a little more, here, now.
    So, let's see. Christmas [and the Beads of Sweat -- thank you Laura Nyro]. No, it wasn't bad, although I did sweat through the morning routine. She was, as is usual for such an outing as yesterday's, very easy to rouse, once I stage whispered the highlights of our coming day. Her ability to come to on special days never fails to surprise me. She even looked bright eyed and bushy tailed. Her right eye was still a little wide from below, but not above. Her right knee seemed to function just fine, although she always wears some sort of mild knee brace, now, when she's up and around; never to bed or when she sprawls on the couch for a nap.

    She had to be reminded more than a few times, "Who these people are." After maybe four repetitions, two in the bathroom during our short bath (she hadn't leaked through although, to her credit, she had awakened for a bathroom call at 0445), I told her, "You'll recognize them when you see them." I was right about this.
    Whenever we visit, relatives or friends who seem like relatives, or anyone else, for that matter, she always takes on a "I'm a WAVE, I'm so cool, it's the 1940's and a cool time to be a live and a woman" attitude, especially if there are cigarettes. The more pleasurable the experience for her, the more exaggerated this personality. It's a delight to see her this way. You'd swear she was visiting while on leave from her squadron.
    Lot's of times I play the straight buffoon to her generous employer role: She doesn't need me, but aren't I handy, although a little over solicitious; she's keeping me off the streets, see...not for my protection, but the protection of others. Yesterday, for some reason, this perspective didn't come up, but once: While I was cleaning up the bathroom after one of her changing-underwear foray's, I heard her say to MCF, off hand and with decided irony, something along these lines of: "Isn't that sweet, what she does for me." Translation: "I can't seem to get rid of her, so I put her to work."
    I laughed out loud in the bathroom. With absolutely no irony.
    MCF's house has a high dining table with bar stool sized chairs. Although they give Mom's knees a workout, she loves these chairs. She loves being elevated into and slightly above the crowd. They also work well with the peculiar hip cocking that goes along with her WAVE personality. And, astonishingly, she cannot only slide easily and securely off the chairs, but onto them, as well. She gets irritated, in fact, if someone tries to help along her slow but sure process of adjustment.
    The ride down was not hard on her. The ride up was. I'm pleased to report, though, that the car seats in this particular car we rented, a Dodge Stratus, were completely comfortable. She didn't complain of hip pain either way, nor leg nor back pain. She did have some residual "back twinges" after working so hard to get into the house, but those disappeared as she relaxed. Her extremely casual positioning in her rocker, almost laying out, reminded me of a recent article I read, I think in the New York Times, that seems to be the only news I read even slightly these days, that a study by orthopedists (can't remember any of the citing details) that for people with back problems, particularly those related to the spine, "they" have found that this position actually stretches and eases the spine, sometimes irritating the tail bone, sometimes not. Since Mom no longer has a tail bone, I reflected that I now understand why this position is so comfortable and why, if her back is going to "give" her "fits", it's usually because I've directed her into sitting butt out, back held high. Ridiculous, I realize. She can't really hold up her back well, anymore, without much effort. I also realized that this is the cause of some of her breathing "problem" in the more formal position; because she hunches, upright, her lungs are compressed.
    We were gifted with a major display of rich lotions, probably enough to last at least half a year. I actually, now, depend on Christmas to restock us with lotions. Mom has become refascinated with candles, too. I mentioned this recently to them. Turns out the daughter makes candles, very elegant, handsome, fragrant ones. We came home with a nice collection of those.
    Although raconteur-ish, yesterday, Mom was also visibly tired all day, although she faked it well. I think her impromtu, long nap on the sofa in front of the TV surprised her, but this is an optimal napping environment for her, molded during long years of taking an hour's nap in the afternoon while we, her children, were arriving home from school and livening up the house. She would turn the TV on because she knew one of us would turn it off and she'd awaken. Yesterday, the rest of us ignored the TV, so it remained on. Once she awakened, though, and rejoined the noisy, cozy social life at the table, including overseeing a Canasta card game, she slipped back into her 40's costume.
    I had unusually high hopes for this visit, I discovered about 12 hours prior to the trip. It seems I was counting on it to wash away some of my caregiver angst. Actually, I was expecting it to wash away all of it. This didn't happen. But I was able to relax in a way I'd forgotten I could and that, I'm finding, has worked wonders, particular in revival of spirit. Beneath my high hopes, as well, lurked a dread that I would be disappointed. How much, after all, spiritual or not, can be accomplished in a 6.5 hour visit?
    I was, though pleasantly surprised, and remain so. My energy is surprisingly high. The surprise is, I didn't realize it had dropped so low. Thus, I found myself sketching plans for at least one spring visit, perhaps another later spring visit of them to our property to plant bulbs. My suggestions were met with enthusiasm...no set plans, though.
    We discovered, as we approached our driveway from the street, that I had inadvertently left our small, fiber optic tree on all day. It was dark when we saw it, clearly, twinkling through the window. We were delighted.
    I wonder when I absolutely have to have the car in. I've got a few in-town errands to run and using that car would be very nice. I'll call at 0800. It still has plenty of gas.
    I want to:

Pick up cranberry scones;
stop by office supply, get appropriate envelope for the history of my mother's private stock, mail that to MCS;
OJ pick-up not necessary;
staples pick-ups not necessary;
no Rx's due for refill;
plenty, with variety, to eat;
oh, yeah, make some Ranch dip for the veggies;
sausage this morning, again? no, bacon;
let Mom sleep until, oh, maybe start checking on her every half hour from noon on;
anticipate slooooow arousal but be prepared for small surprises.

    I'm beginning to rethink my label strategy. I had a much more sensical strategy laid out in MySQL with many fewer labels. I'll have to check back into that before I go back and relabel these posts. You may have noticed over the last few posts that I''ve been paying little attention to labels. For those of you who receive me through feeds, you might get some duplicate alerts over the next few days.
    Hmmm. Well, I guess...
    ...oh, yeah, a Merry Christmas was had by all. And, Mom didn't ask after [long time live in friend of family], "And, now, who was that nice young girl that left before dinner?" Nor did she questions MCF's and MCFS[ister]'s relationship, as she usually does. Of course, she been on increased iron since the last time we saw them. It seems to have reduced her dementia by about a third. Amazing what effect appropriate physical attention can have on the brain.
    So, anyway, yeah...
    ...later.

James Brown died today. Did you hear?

2006-12-25T22:46:00.000-07:00

    A moment of silence for "I Feel Good"...horn section and arrangement included.
    I thought he was older than 73 by maybe a decade. CHF by way of pneumonia. Wow. He's another one. Thank you, Mr. James Brown. His death provoked me to rexamine Steve Irwin's life. Or, maybe, examine afresh. He was controversial, no doubt. So was James Brown. In more than music. Something niggled at me to remember that Irwin has/had often been considered ADHD, or whatever it is. It occurred to me, today, that he wouldn't have done what he did without his disease.
    Today is the first day I can remember that I've considered that, for some people, 73 is Ancient. From what I read about his complicating conditions, 73 was Ancient for James Brown. Disease, dysfunction, god, sometimes I think we have no idea what we're talking about, although I have to agree that we've scratched the (under) surface of where we're attempting to go and what we'd like to do.
    At 73 my mother wasn't Ancient. Elderly, hmmm...let me think. When was that? 1990. That was the year I moved to Seattle. She was independent, busy, but not so busy that she couldn't fit in a curiosity excursion to Seattle to get an idea of where I'd be living and why I loved it, if I was destined to love it (I was).
    She lived alone in the manufactured home [community] in which she was more than comfortable, she was peripherally involved. It was during this absence of mine that she blankly instituted the 1700 Saturday phone calls. It was my agreement to become her companion that ended my stay in Seattle. When I returned to the Phoenix Metroplex (the Mesa part), she and I continued to live independent lives out of one home, signed off with each other in the morning, reunited in the evening, sometimes went to an event or a movie or ate out. I don't think she'd suffered her mini-stroke, yet, but I think that was only two years down the road.
    And, now, here she is, 89. Running quickly through what I can remember of the last several years, I think she began to phase into Ancienthood and what is was going to mean for her around the age of 79. That was the year I stopped working outside the home. We began to travel, though, extensively, only about half the travels to visit relatives. We hosted her cousin-in-law and her cousin-in-law hosted her. Although I was her very casual full-time companion, she retained her ability to travel and was socially savvy. She'd enjoy two years of really good health until things began to, well, sag, give way, get tired, lean toward Ancienthood.

    We did, by the way, have a jolly, well enjoyed Christmas. We arrived back home about three hours earlier than I anticipated, but we were satisfied with the visit and eager to be home.
    It was a work-out for Mom. She was a trooper. She, literally, physically, wore out on the trip back up, but I could see this creeping up on her this afternoon at MCFs and had the sense to steer her toward the car while I knew she was still mobile. She was only barely mobile coming up the steps into our home. No collapsing, though. We took it very slow and with much intent.
    She took a regular-sized nap at MCF's, falling asleep soon after the beginning of a movie they wanted us to see. It took her a long time to awaken after a healthy lunch. She wasn't hungry for dinner then, but was ready by the time we arrived home. After dinner and some coffee she had to go to the bathroom, assumed she would have the full cooperation of her legs, as did I, but they were a little wobbly. She used me as a walker going into the bathroom, but that was the last time she did.
    I asked her, somewhere in the middle of her dinner, in a friendly way, if maybe she'd be interested in me pushing her to move a little, just around the house, some of those walker laps in the hall, so that she'd be a little prepared for our next planned visit to the valley sometime in March for an as yet unscheduled doctor's appointment.
    She looked up at me, guileless, and said, "No." She shook her head. The matter was closed.
    Actually, we'll probably, in the next few days, have spontaneous spurts of energy and movement and day dreaming about getting out which may lead to something.
    I tried to push an adult buffered aspirin on her, but she repeatedly told me that she "doesn't hurt", she was "just stiff". I'd think, Oh, yeah, 89, going on 90. Of course. And I'd trust her sense that sleep would do the trick.
    At 2230, when I kissed her good night, she said, "Let me sleep in tomorrow."
    "Well, how about, no later than 1400?"
    She glared at me, astonished. "Why!" she demanded.
    Hmmmm, I thought. We'll take it as it comes. That's how we left it.
    She did smoke, but very little, after a brief period of initial chain smoking. I saw to it that she was moved away from the triggers and put back on oxygen 2/lpm continuous several times. Her nap allowed for a good oxygen bath. Afterward, although evidence of smoking was littered throughout the house, she smoked no more and asked for no more cigarettes. Not even tonight here at home.
    She read for 15 minutes. Her light went out at 2245.
    We had a very good, interesting day, today.
    And James Brown died. Wow.
    More...
    ...I'm sure...
    ...later.

"I know you're tired, Mom. I think you've experienced some kind of 'event'...

2006-12-24T13:43:00.000-07:00

...I'm not sure what kind but probably cerebral. I noticed, this morning, that your right eye is wider than usual and you're having a little more trouble picking up your right foot than usual."
    "I like the way you put that, an 'event'," she said.
    "Well, that's why I had you smile this morning before you bathed." Whenever I ask her to smile, she knows why I'm asking and usually gives me an exaggerated, thin lipped version, which tells me all I need to know. As well, her speech wasn't affected by whatever "happened".
    "Yeah. Don't worry about it. It's happened before. It'll happen again. No reason to go to the doctor about it. They'd just exhaust us in the ER, try to talk us into an observational stay, wrack up lots of medical charges for tests and, finally, tell us, 'nothing seems to have changed, it's probably a TIA.'"
    She laughed. "The old TIA trick," she said.
    I laughed. "Yeah. No reason to bother about this. They wouldn't change your treatment or anything. You've had these before, you'll have them again. I'll probably recommend to your doctor that we up your lisinopril dosage [with which I've been intending to experiment and finally started last night], but you're on plenty of anti-coagulant supplements, so there's no reason to put you on one of those medical ones. It's just one of those things that's happening to you because you're old, Mom."
    "Well, in that case, I won't get any older."
    "Good idea."
    This is why I'm letting Mom sleep in, today, even though she retired, last night, earlier than has been lately usual. I managed to keep her up until close to midnight, but it was a minor struggle past 2230. "I know you're tired Mom," I remember telling her, "your body's reconnoitering because of the 'event'. But, we don't want to add insult to injury, so I need to make sure you're minimally hydrated, which has been hard, today, since you had such a long nap." She did. I didn't worry about that, either. I knew what was going on.
    I noticed, last night, a feeling of peace embracing me after I'd explained all this to Mom, then continued about my late night choring duties. I stopped for a moment to analyze it. I think this is what happens when you've journeyed with An Ancient One for a long time, as I have with Mom, closely observed all her changes, minimal and maximal, seen That Ancient One through everything, including the intimate stuff, like bathing and boweling, that one usually only attends when someone is very young, monitored this and that, achieved a level of involvement in The Ancient One's life that is intense but accepted and comfortable. You don't get crazy, anymore, when you notice an "event". You don't panic and call on the Med Squad, because you know that'll be an unnecessary adventure and they'll come up with nothing that will be helpful to them or you. You change your monitoring a bit, help a little more when Your Ancient One is moving, pull back on keeping them awake in order to give them plenty of room to incorporate the event and its wake...and, as I did last night, you smile; and nod; you realize this is one of the benefits of Advanced, In-Home Caregiving, that you are protecting Your Ancient One from the enforced ignorance of the pros, who would either not have noticed, thus not have tightened their monitoring and possibly have precipitated a fall or applied agitating harassment to keep The Ancient One performing at Institutional Standards, or who would have noticed and gone overboard in their research of The Ancient One's body, thus agitating The Ancient One...
    Days like yesterday are the reason I continue my journey with my mother. People get old. Bodies break down, often easily and incrementally. No reason to get excited. Every reason to relax, enfold Mom a little more tightly, for a day or so, in my literal and figurative arms, enjoy her company, let her enjoy mine, and, as well, sit back and enjoy the ride.
    I expect that, after an easy yesterday and an easy today, she'll be rarin' to go at 0600 tomorrow. I told her that if she feels, for any reason, at any time, that she just isn't up to the trip, we can cancel at a moment's notice.
    "It's Christmas. No chance of that."
    This is her desire and intention. I'll do everything I can to make sure it is also her reality.

In the nine minutes I have before disturbing my mother's sleep...

2006-12-23T12:51:00.001-07:00

...I want to link to an essay I just read by Jonathan Franzen, published in the New Yorker and available online, also linked in Mike's journal Fading From Memory in a comment he left to one of his posts: My Father's Brain [9/30/08: Essay no longer available through The New Yorker except in abstract form].
It is a spectacular, detailed, curiously exhilarating Alzheimer's journal in an essay. If you are here because you are acquainted with dementia, take the time to read it.

I'm commenting on a particularly astute comment, here...

2006-12-23T09:48:00.001-07:00

...on the immediately previous post, because it brought me up short and I want to acknowledge this. For those of you who don't make a habit of noticing or reading comments (I'm a fringe member of this group...I usually read comments only when they already exist as I'm writing a comment, although I do have exceptions to this rule), here's the part of the comment I'll be addressing, left by Mona, author of The Tangled Neuron:

I'm hugely amused by your mom's awareness of your attempts to stimulate her memory, and I'm sure she doesn't mind. But it occurs to me that some people with memory problems resent BrainAge, etc. and people's attempts to "maintain their brains."

    When I read this comment, I had to laugh, with chagrin. She inadvertently pointed out a critical split in my thinking about dementia. On the one hand, I do, indeed, work hard to stimulate my mother's memory, despite the fact that I continue to have mixed success. I'm lucky that Mom's amused, rather than irritated, by what I do (and luckier, still, that some of the stuff I present, like Brain Age, don't register with her as therapy so much as fun; as you may recall, she's the one who decided she wanted to try it when we viewed the news segment about it much earlier this year. If you've read me for any length of time, you know, too, that I'm more fascinated by my mother's dementia than concerned about it. At any rate, when I received Mona's comment, I remembered that I had expressed similar sentiments about brain stimulation and dementia just a few days ago, over at Fading From Memory, Mike Pritchard's journal (link will take you to the comment). Since I left mine, Patty Doherty, webmistress of The Unforgettable Fund has left a similar comment.
    This irritation of mine isn't new. It's one of the reasons why I have never bothered to have my mother's dementia tested. As well, aside from my dim view of question-and-answer dementia tests and memory boosters, my mother takes a highly ironic view of those that have been occasionally tried on her by well-meaning but thoughtless medical professionals, as well.
    At any rate, the point of this post is that living with someone with dementia is a circumstance that fosters confusion over clarity. As a caregiver (and sometimes, as in my mother's case, as A Demented One), one day you hit upon a idea to try that could be labeled "Brain Stimulation". The next, you realize how ridiculous and ultimately maddening it is to have people trying to prod a demented brain into some semblance of normalcy (or, at any rate, what those of us who pat ourselves on the head and refer to ourselves as "not demented" like to think of as normalcy). One observation I've made, of which Mona just reminded me, is that the Demented-Lite (and sometimes those further into dementia) sometimes have a less agitated view of their mental acuity (or lack thereof) than those who tend to them. A lot, of course, depends on the people who surround The Demented One. I'm sure, if I worried about my mother's dementia, she would be more prone to irritation over her creative memory than I.
    Dementia is a complicated phenomenon. It isn't exclusive to aging, as those who labor with conditions like schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder tell us. It comes in so many shapes, sizes and trajectories that many of its displays aren't labeled "dementia"; i.e., the last time you had a severe cold, felt awful all over and found yourself contemplating, in your feverish state, your life as though it was a series of nothing but miserable failures, did you consider yourself demented? Chances are, you were. But, you know, bed rest, fluids, maybe an analgesic and a little sympathy "cured" your "dementia".
    It'll be awhile, I'm sure, before we have a truly effective grasp of dementia. In the meantime, I intend to remember that every time I try to sneak up on my mother's brain in order to "stimulate" it, well, I need to stimulate my own, as well.

I am the Errand Dream Girl!

2006-12-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

    Seven errands, all at different places, in exactly two hours, from the time I walked out the door to the time I walked back in! Amazing! I've been noticing, here and there, on the news, that various pundits have been predicting, based on "early statistics" and curious singular interviews of people stopped at shopping malls who are confirming they are "spending more this year than last", that this holiday season is supposed to be a economic block buster but, gladly, I still don't see it. I'm seeing just the opposite. I had to purchase some odd sized packing boxes at the only other mail facility (a commercial one) in town besides the post office today. I arrived at 0915. The facility opens at 0800. I was the only person there. One of my errands involved a stop at Costco. They have almost completely stowed all their Holiday stuff, including food, toys, special gift items and wrapping paper. I asked about this at the counter. "Oh," said the clerk, "sales this year aren't nearly what they usually are." One of my errand stops was at Walmart, for paper underwear (the cheapest place to buy it). I arrived there at around 1000. Only three check-out stands were open. I went through the one with no waiting. I had one item to pick up at Walgreens. No waiting there. In fact, I think I was the only customer in the store. I stopped at our usual local grocery for some salad stuff. I got right through in no time. Once again, only three check-out stands were open and there was no waiting at the self-check. I noticed that about half of their Christmas stuff had already been taken off the floor.
    Of course, online shopping may be replacing in-store shopping. However, last year when I ordered and sent gifts from online facilities, I placed orders around the first of December and every single gift arrived after Christmas. This year, I waited until last week to place orders and it seems that all gifts have either arrived at their destinations or will arrive before the end of the week. Could be, of course, that the online stores got their act together this year after multiple headaches last year, but, you know, I continue to wonder, and hope. I have a feeling that all those predictive stats and interviews are being manufactured by the Econocrats in an attempt to get people to feed the money machine by trying to get us to think that everyone's spending loads of money on the holiday, this year. It looks, as well, much to my delight, that it might not be working.
    Mom had one of those blips where her BG registered high regardless of what I gave her. It seems to have lasted only a week, ending yesterday evening, although today's stats will tell. I purposely fed her something with rice last night to see if everything has settled down. I remember freaking when this happened just before her last doctor's appointment. This time, I relaxed about it and reminded myself that any sort of blip will pull her HA1c up to where her doctor would like to see it. Speaking of which, I guess you've noticed, I haven't taken her in for blood draws since September of this year. Neither she nor I have been into it. She's doing well, no visible changes. I figure, I'll haul her in (I'm sure it will be reluctantly) in January and we'll get in three monthly blood draws before her March appointment. It's nice to settle back and not worry about this stuff. Sometimes I think I was driving myself crazy with stat immersion. I'm sure periods of compounded stat activity will happen again. No need, I think, to push the envelope when things are going so well.
    Mom is increasingly excited about Christmas. She continues to ask me, daily, if "tomorrow" is the day we head for MCF's. The only disappointment we've had, so far, is that her blood sugar was registering so high all on it's own over our baking days that I froze everything, and severely limited what I baked and restricted her supervisory tasting of ingredients to nuts only. If her BG remains easily managed, though, over today and tomorrow, I think we'll do some of the put-off baking this weekend so we can honor her desire to take a basket full of baked goodies to our Christmas hostess and her family. As well, since Christmas falls on Monday, I'm picking up our car rental in the morning tomorrow on a four day weekend special. She and I have made plans to use it over the weekend to very comfortably make the rounds of the lights at the Courtyard Square, which are always fabulous, and hit some of the streets that are known for their Christmas displays. We also have on our docket the ever amazing Gingerbread House (used loosely, many of the "houses" are actually landscape displays; last year one of the entries was of a tropical beach setting with a "little grass shack") Competition, as well as taking in any other Christmas events we can find. I expect our plans, which are numerous, will be shaved a bit, once the reality of getting ready and foreswearing naps hits, but we'll do as much as she's prepared to do.
    I remain the Holiday Caregiver Grinch, but we're having fun, anyway, and Mom is in full Mrs. Christmas mode. When I hesitantly approached her, yesterday, with my plan to leave our house at 0800 on Christmas so we can spend the entire day partying with MCF's, not leaving until well after dark, which, I carefully mentioned, would mean I'd be getting her up at 0600 on Christmas Day, she responded, "Oh, yes! Don't forget! We want to get down there as early as possible and stay until they throw us out!" Holiday partying definitely becomes her.
    Our snow days were a bust. We had a half hour of snow the first day. Although it stuck, it was a mere dusting. A snow day was predicted for tomorrow, but that has evaporated, as well. I'm disappointed but remain hopeful.
    Oh, last stop. Recovering Christmas memories seems to remain elusive. I hope being at MCF's will stimulate some, but I won't have my computer with me (on purpose), so, if any come to the fore, I'll simply have to remember and write them down. I've sort of given up. Every time I mention the subject, usually by asking one of the questions on the list published below, Mom says, "Still trying that, are you?"

No Christmas Memory luck yet...

2006-12-18T00:11:00.001-07:00

...but she didn't take much of a nap, so her brain may not have had much of a chance to work according to plan. We had a good evening. I found The Santa Clause 2 running on yet another cable channel this evening, which thrilled Mom, as she remembered having seen the first one earlier today. I spent most of the movie making dinner and handling the evening chores, so I didn't see much of it. From what I saw, I think I prefer the first, but Mom made it clear that she prefers the second. So, later this evening I ordered both movies for our collection. Dinner, was a huge success, although it contained a variety of ingredients she claims not to like; rice, for instance, and peas, highly flavored left overs from last night's dinner. I combined those with chunks of last night's roasted chicken and flavored the mixture with the consomme from the roast. Mom exclaimed a couple of times how good it was. "Did you write this down," she asked, "so you can do this again?" Always a good idea to ask this, when I'm the cook, if I serve something you like.
    We also washed and set her hair, which relaxes her into a talkative mood. As well, I rubbed her legs down early because she was complaining about her back "bothering" her, which is unusual. I find that when I have her lean back and stretch out for a leg rub down, her back unkinks.
    It was during the leg rub down that I began to timidly probe the possibility of surfacing Christmas memories. Absolutely nothing. Except, toward the end of my probe, she chuckled and said, "You know, I remember [name of dead sister] and I questioning Mother about her memories. It was so frustrating for us that she couldn't remember anything. I remember thinking that it seemed impossible that she could have forgotten these things and being sure that I never would. And, well," she grinned her tight, ironic grin and shrugged her shoulders, "you can see how well that plan worked!"
    I was struck by how comfortable she is with her forgetfulness. I also pondered how the episode of her remembering the book throw out indicates that the memories haven't been erased, their paths have changed. It's as though her hard drive has placed them in different directories and the trick to accessing them, since I cannot access her hard drive directly, is to find the proper commands, so to speak, that will display her directories and grant access to both of us. It's funny because I can feel the heft of those memories I know remain stored. I have also fallen into the hole of her thoroughly deleted of memories. Different feeling altogether.
    Reminds me that Mona, on her website The Tangled Neuron, just published a series of unusually interesting articles about dementia as a disease vs. dementia as one of many possible conditions of aging. The link will take you to the first in the series. One of the related issues discussed is whether more effort and money should be spent on discovery and care for those already dementing, over research for "cures". It's an interesting question. Two of the aspects of this issue that have bothered me for some time are:

Our preemptive willingness to treat with drugs over person-to-person technique;
Our lather to ensure that Ancient Ones remain independent as long as possible.

    It seems to me that these two aspects are related. I don't believe our desire for independence for our Ancient Ones is pure. I believe it is actually a controverted desire for our independence from our elders. I also believe that this is what keeps us hoping for some sort of medical treatment, the application of which requires no more than a reminder to the recipient to apply the treatment. Person-to-person technique requires time, energy, thought and relatedness, four items of which we believe we are in short supply and which we would prefer to divert to areas of our lives which have nothing to do with our elders. I would, in fact, go so far as to say that we are much too quick to jump on the "independence for elders" band wagon; so quick that our leap seems to display a willingness to dismiss our elders as too far gone and not worth our life energy. I think that we grab for the illusory gold rings of long habitual statements made by our elders that they, too, want independence, when, in fact, these statements are vestiges of what they thought, in their middle years, they would prefer, when they discounted their ignorance about what being old would entail. Although we know that there are some elders who not only want but are capable of independence, for the most part, in one or more ways, our elders function better in webs of interdependence, varyingly tightly and loosely woven depending on the individual elder and that elder's functionality at any one time. This shouldn't surprise us. The truth is, we are all like this. Even those of us who identify ourselves as enthusiastic loners do so against societal webs of community. For some reason, though, we consider our own desires for interdependence legitimate, but not those of elders. We probably do this because our world, for the moment, as Dr. Thomas points out [in What Are Old People For?], is geared toward adult interdependence to such a degree that it remains invisible to us. Thus, interdependence with children is suffering, at the moment, to a certain degree. Interdependence with elders is completely dismissed as something to be altogether avoided or relegated to the activity of viewing our jewels, carefully polished for display by someone else. I think it is this prerogative that is directing not only our medical research, but our behavioral and relationship research, as well. We take it as a given that it is desirable to do whatever we can to increase the independence of elders and, failing that, find professionals to take care of them if they fail to meet our need for their independence.
    Ai, yi, yi. What a world we live in. What surprises await us as our boomer generation inexorably increases the ratio of Ancients to Adults and Children. This, I think, is good enough reason for us to make extraordinary efforts to consolidate ourselves with our own parents, so that we will begin to clear our own fog about what it might be like for us to be old, and begin to prepare our children for the possibilities that await us, and them as what I hope will be our Generationally Interdependent Yet to Be Ancient Ones. We must remember that the boomer generation is only the first of what will probably be many future generations who will look forward to a lifespan normally including Ancienthood. Any sins we commit in this regard will, indeed, be passed on to our descendants for payment.
    Anyway, I'm thinking, if there is success to be had in regard to Mom's Christmas memories, I may have some tomorrow. Although the inclement weather to which I've been looking forward is stalling a bit, it promises to settle in late tomorrow afternoon and continue in intensity through Tuesday. I've deliberately planned these as baking days. All baking with be done under my mother's supervision. This is always a super time for camaraderie, and it will be preceded by a full night sleep both days. I'll have the iBook and microphone set up at the table, which will function as our baking surface, ready to be triggered, just in case. No promises, just hopes.

I just set my mother up, pre-nap...

2006-12-17T16:43:00.003-07:00

...for what I'm hoping will be a Christmas podcast. I noticed, this morning, that the movie, The Santa Clause was showing this afternoon on one of the cable channels. This has been one of my daily duties since the Christmas season officially kicked off around Thanksgiving: Checking the daily TV listings for Christmas movies I know my mother would like (aside from also playing the ones we own). This isn't easy. She isn't a Christmas wimp. Just because a movie's about Christmas doesn't mean it will appeal to her. I was especially pleased about the appearance of this movie, because I rented it a few years ago and she loved it, although, today, she didn't remember ever viewing it and loved it anew.
    After watching the movie, Mom and I worked into a discussion of the "new" Santa Claus traditions and information contained in the movie and how these compare with old Santa data. This is a subject close to my mother's heart, since she is Mrs. Christmas.
    As we talked, I began wondering about what she remembers about Christmases in her past. I held myself back from asking, though, because, I decided, depending on what she could remember, this might make for an interesting (at least to our extended family) podcast. As our conversation dwindled, it occurred to me that, if I want to set the stage for the most memories possible, I should consider purposely trying the technique I accidentally discovered when she and I talked about her grandfather's book of worship, reviewed in this post, second part of the post.
    I hit her with the Christmas podcast idea and explained the technique I was planning on using. "You're about to take a nap, Mom. I'm going to run through a list of Christmas related subjects I'm curious about in regards to your life. I don't want you to respond right now. I don't want you to work at remembering anything. I just want you to listen, then we'll pack you off for you nap. We'll see how much you remember later this evening, after you've slept on it, awakened, and distracted yourself with our evening activities. Once you're relaxed, we'll warm up the microphone and hit the tracks." I mentioned to her, as well, that it took a night sleep for her to remember her and her soon-to-be aunt's attic cleaning adventure, and we're not limited by a schedule, so, if we don't get much tonight, we'll consider tonight a second prep session and revisit the subject tomorrow. Sounded like a good idea to her.
    As I rambled through a seat of the pants list, every time I noticed her brow wrinkling or her mouth opening to say something like, "I just can't remember," I'd stop her and say, "Mom, don't think. Just listen. Don't worry about whether anything's coming forward right now. Just listen to what I'm asking."
    For my reference, and use while we're recording, here is my remembered list of Christmas related subjects, probably including some new ones that I expect will reveal themselves as I type:

What's the first Christmas you can remember?
What's the first Christmas gift you can remember?
What about gifts you bought or made for others? What were some of those? Do you remember reactions to them?
Since your mom was a minister's daughter, did you go to church on Christmas? If so, what were the services like?
What kind of Christmas decorations do you remember? What were some of your favorites?
Did you ever believe in Santa Claus? Did you stop believing in Santa Claus? When? How did it happen that you found out "the truth" about Santa Claus? How did you feel when you found out?
Did you or any of your siblings ever discover your parents being Santa Claus?
When did you open gifts? Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or both?
Since you guys moved around a lot, where were some of the various places you spent Christmas? How were your celebrations affected by where you lived?
How often were relatives involved with Christmas?
What were the traditional Christmas foods?
Do you remember any Christmases that are connected with tragedy? What were those like?
What has been your favorite ever Christmas gift to give? To receive?
When you made your own family and began your own Christmas traditions, how did they contrast with those with which you were raised?
How did you spend Christmas as an adult, before you were married, when you were away from home? How about in the Navy?
Was the stocking tradition something that came from your born-into family?
Do you remember how your siblings felt about Christmas? Your parents?
Did your family ever host a down-and-out person or family for Christmas?
Was your family ever down-and-out over Christmas and, therefore, hosted by another family?
What are your favorite Christmas songs and Christmas stories? Which of these songs and stories were introduced to you by your family?
Do you remember anything about how [my] Dad felt about Christmas? Did he ever talk about Christmases in his youth?
Any particular memories about any specific Christmases involving the family you made?
When did you become aware that you have an unusual affinity for Christmas and Santa Claus?
Have you ever experienced what you would consider a perfect Christmas? If so, what was it like? If not, what is your idea of a perfect Christmas?
If you could meet Santa Claus, what would you say to him?
If you could be Santa Claus, would you change anything about Christmas? If so, what?

    I'm sure I'll think of more before and during our recording session (or sessions, whichever the case may be). I'm not promising results. A lot will depend on Mom's memory. It's possible, too, that it will take more than one recording session to successfully bring forth all my mother's memories, attitudes, opinions and stories, assuming we are successful. We'll see how it goes.
    I may also include New Years material, depending on how successful we are with this project.
    So, anyway, we'll see what comes of all this...
    ...later.

I know what it is, now.

2006-12-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

    I've lost my bravery.
    Now that I know this, I'm feeling better.
    Relieved.
    Later.

We're preparing for snow.

2006-12-16T13:10:00.000-07:00

    I couldn't be happier. I've been experiencing some unusually high anxiety, I'm actually feeling it physically, which doesn't often happen and surprised me this evening, over the last few days, not in regards to caring for my mother, so much, as regarding circumstances surrounding our life, so I'm looking forward, more than usual, to a soothing blanket of white for a few days. Seems it should start, fitfully, I notice, having just checked the forecast, sometime tomorrow evening, make up its mind on Sunday, then settle in on Monday and Tuesday. Ahhh...
    I've been envying Seattle. I lived through one of those knock-down drag out years when I was there. Absolutely exhilarating.
    Maybe this is the beginning of our forecast wet winter. I hope so.
    One more errand run tomorrow morning and we'll be ready to be snowed in. I'm thinking we won't get as much as I'd like, but we'll get something, that's for sure, and, at any rate, I'll be reveling in the blocking of the light that's predicted. Finally.
    Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
    Later.

I forgot the best part...

2006-12-13T18:54:00.002-07:00

...the part our relatives and friends, especially those who have kept up with Mom and have known her for ages, will especially enjoy.
    Our conversation last night, mentioned in the immediately previous post, that took place after the Boston Legal episode, ranged further than the area I covered below. Although I don't remember how we got there, we also touched on the subject of the slow down that commonly accompanies aging; not just intellectual slowing, but physical, social, etc. After discussing objectively what this slow down involves, I asked Mom, "How do you feel about your slow down?"
    "Well," she said, leaning back into her rocker and projecting her thoughts onto the ceiling for further study, "I know it'll come. It does for everyone, eventually. I'm not afraid of it. I'm not looking forward to it, but I'll take it in stride. I'll probably be ready for it, then."
    My mind had to take a powder, here. "Oh," I said, catching up with her. "So, you're saying you haven't slowed down, yet."
    She gave me that sidelong glance that translates: "Don't play stupid with me, girl, I gave birth to you!" "Well, of course not," she fairly snorted. Her eyes narrowed. "Why? Are you slowing down? Are you having trouble keeping up with me?" I noted that she was teasing by only half.
    I laughed. "You know, Mom, maybe I have! Maybe you're going to have to slow down so I can keep up with you!"
    So, people, it's official. Regardless of what you think, regardless of how it appears, regardless of the obvious drivel I publish on these sites, my mother has not yet begun to slow down. So there. Don't listen to me, her daughter; my perceptions can't be trusted. After all, I'm beginning to slow down, you know.
    Later.

I will always want one more moment with you.

2006-12-13T13:00:00.003-07:00

    Lately, Mom and I have been working our way through the second (last year's) season of Boston Legal. Last night we encountered the episode Live Big, which I've previously mentioned in a post (linked to the name of the show) upon which I never elaborated. Although Mom's attention is always riveted when we're viewing any episode of this show, even though we'd already watched a couple of episodes previous to cuing up this one, her focus seemed particularly acute. It features a man who is being tried for murder after helping his wife, who suffered from Alzheimer's in what sounds like an advanced stage, die. Several aspects of this issue were featured, from a variety of angles.
    Admittedly, my mother's dementia does not seem to be taking what we all have agreed to recognize as the typical trajectory of Alzheimer's. In addition, her dementia has been labeled by Medicine as "vascular dementia", the trajectory for which is little addressed in the literature. Neither of us has any idea whether her dementia will ever close more tightly around her, nor, if it does, what will cause this to happen, since we've experienced episodes in which it seems to loosen its grip as other health issues are addressed. Considering the likelihood that, as she moves ever nearer to her death her physical health will decline, she probably will experience, at some point, stronger dementia, although what form it will take remains debatable. My mother's relationship with dementia has been nothing if not surprising. For both of us.
    One of the issues addressed was the horror that engulfs the demented during that stage when they are just beginning the journey of progressive dementia and realize what's happening. The episode made mention of the murder victim's actual horror and the imagined horror that Denny Crane's father probably experienced during this phase. As well, I am more than familiar with my mother's own past anxiety over the possibility of developing dementia as she watched her mother's journey through dementia, which was typical of what we've come to recognize as the Alzheimer's track. When her sister, much later in her life, fell (quite quickly) into dementia, my mother was beginning to experience mental sink holes. I was, by that time, her full time companion, had taken over all her personal business and had begun a light ordering of most of the rest her life and a heavy ordering of her medical experiences. She was in frequent contact with her sister while she lived at home and after she was moved to a nursing home, just as she was with her mother. During her sister's demential journey, though, my mother no longer expressed anxiety about her own demential possibilities.
    My mother's dementia has progressed since then, although still continuing its own meanderings. The Dead Zone has been added to her life. Her short and long term memory is decidedly looser than it was. All her anxiety about her own dementia evaporated a long time ago, though.
    As the Boston Legal episode ended and the credits rolled, I noticed that she remained focused on the screen as though she wanted yet another scene to unfold. "What's on your mind?" I asked.
    She hemmed and hawed, having trouble putting words to what she was feeling.
    I slowly back tracked through the episode and said, "Stop me when we get to the place you need to be."
    She understood what I meant. It was the scene in which Denny Crane describes his father, on the day he was euthanized, as having had a good day, his appetite was good and the word "blissful" could have been used, Denny admitted, to describe him.
    "That's it," my mother exclaimed. She continued, though, to have trouble articulating what she was thinking.
    "Let me take a stab at it, Mom. You tell me if I'm right or wrong." My mother remains astonishingly capable of knowing and expressing whether someone else is interpreting her thoughts correctly, so I didn't have any qualms about using this technique. "My guess," I suggested, "is that your experience with dementia has been a complete surprise to you."
    My mother smiled and nodded vigorously. She opened her mouth to say something but I jumped in. I wish, now, that I hadn't, as I would have liked to have heard her words, but I have this tendency, when I'm on a roll, to turn into somewhat of a verbal bulldozer. Got to watch that.
    "Would it be accurate to say," I continued, "that it's not as bad as you imagined before your mind began to take flight?"
    "Oh, yes," she said. "That's it."
    "Would you go so far as to say that while it would have been nice if your mind had remained predictable for you, the state of your mind, now, hasn't reduced the quality of your life and you have no complaints?"
    "Yes! Yes!" she confirmed, excitedly, I might add.
    "Are you concerned, now, that if your dementia progresses, people will misinterpret your experience and act on your behalf in ways that are more about their fears than your experience?"
    She sat back in her rocker with all the relaxation and gestures of someone who has been well understood. "That's it. What if I look like I'm uncomfortable, but I'm not? What if..." she worked to find the right words.
    "I know," I told her, "that you have a Living Will that precludes extraordinary life extending measures."
    "I do?" She was genuinely surprised, although not agitated about learning this.
    "Yes. It was drawn up twenty-one years ago, when you had no idea what lay in store for you. How do you feel about that, now?"
    "I'm not so sure, anymore," she said. "I don't think I want to be a vegetable, if that should happen, but I'm not sure what a human vegetable is, anymore."
    I've heard variations on this before from others, most recently during a program on PBS, Living Old. The link will take you to the interview with the woman who expressed one variation, which is almost at the bottom, in answer to the question, "Have you had conversations with your kids about a health care proxy?" I've been meaning to talk about this program, here, but haven't yet gotten around to it, chiefly because I'm still working my way through its extraordinary online coverage, which includes lots of extras.
    "Okay," I said. "I won't step in and and keep you from dying if and when I perceive that you want to die, but I'm not looking forward to that time, either. I'm also aware that there may come a time when I won't be very good at knowing what you want and what you don't want in this regard. I can tell you this, though: Mom, I will always, always, always want one more moment with you, one more hour, one more day, no matter what. I know this, now."
    She was listening carefully, nodding vigorously. She interrupted me and said, "That's how I felt about [her sister's name]. That's how I felt about Mother [her mother]."
    I took silent note that she wasn't in The Dead Zone as we talked. Interesting. "I'll err, then, on the side of life."
    "I don't want machines keeping me alive, if that's all I have left," she said.
    "I get that, Mom. I'll be careful, though, to go the distance with you, just in case."
    "Good, good."
    "It may get tricky. There may come a time when it's not as easy for me to interpret what you want as it is now."
    "I know. If you're not sure, don't do anything."
    "Sounds like a plan, Mom."
    We sat silently, for some moments, contemplating the DVD's floating "We're done here, what do you want to do now?" display.
    "I want more time with you, too," she said. "As much as I can get."
    That's when I cried, and she laughed. At me and my sorry, Dad oriented tear ducts.
    Then, I laughed.
    Thank the gods my mother remains capable of being amused by me, especially in my quick sentimentality and my overarching seriousness. This may be part of what keeps her going. Perhaps this curious yardstick will be the tool that will tell me what Time it is. Time for life. And Time for Death.
    Later.

I thought I was pretty well prepared for my mother's death.

2006-12-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

    As it turns out, regarding most aspects, I am. I'm having one huge related problem, though, through which I need to work and I'm not sure how to do it. The thought of having to approach this problem yet again, is making me so crazy I actually cried when I was contemplating it, last night.
    I ran across a great article at Medscape last night, The Last Hours of Living: Practical Advice for Clinicians. The link will take you to the outline of the article. You will need to register for Medscape usage if you want to access the entire article. If you're a caregiver to an Ancient or Infirm one and expect to be with that person for the rest of their life, it would be a good idea of you registered. It is a CME article, which means it is designed to help physicians prepare for regular certification exams, thus, my guess is that you need to register as a physician or other type of clinician. Don't freak. At the time I registered, official proof that you're a certified medical professional wasn't necessary, you just claimed it for yourself. I assume this continues to be true.
    The article contains information about the processes of "normal" death, both the "usual road" and the "difficult road". It lays out detailed descriptions of what the dying one goes through, how it looks to observers, what is happening internally, explains most of the medical terminology used to describe the processes, gives advice on procedures and treatments that will comfort the dying one and counsels medical professionals on how to react to the dying one and the dying one's caregivers, who are expected to be present during the process, as well as what attitudes to expect, negotiate and encourage in onlookers and in oneself as a medical professional. As well, it gives a great deal of miscellaneous information about the definition of "normal death", such as, for instance, that less than 10% of us die "unexpectedly". Most of us experience gradual deterioration leading up to the what the article calls "the active dying phase". It also cautions medical professionals that "there is no second chance to get it right."
    I had no problem with the detailed, illustrated (with videos, tables, graphs and pictures) article. As I read through it, though, I realized that it would, indeed, be a good idea for me to seek a PCP for Mom here in the Prescott area, since this is most likely where she will die. This is what caused my anxiety. It brought forward the overwhelmingly negative, frustrating experiences I've had since I naively realized that I needed to become my mother's medical advocate several years ago and timidly slipped, toes first, into the cold, turbulent waters of caregiver medical management.
    There are times, like last night, when I wish I had never thought to question how Medicine deals with my mother. It would have been so much easier if I'd simply backed off and and said, "Yes, yes, yes," to anything and everything Medicine wanted to believe about my mother and wanted to do to my mother. Of course, she'd probably be dead, now, but I doubt that I'd have any guilt over this, as, ignorance is bliss. As well, if she was still alive, we'd have a physician up here and I'd have copacetic relationships with all medical facilities and people with whom she came into contact. Of course, knowing my mother's attitude toward Medicine, she would have fought many of the treatments, procedures, diagnoses and prognoses like a she-demon, but Medicine and I would have chalked this up to her dementia and, one way or another, either by arguing her into compliance or legally overruling her through health care proxy, Medicine, and I as its accomplice, would be having our way with her. Any anxiety I would have experienced during the process of overruling her would quickly dissipate in the repeated Medical Mantra offered to me at every point along the way, "We know what's best."
    This isn't what happened, though. Now, I am caught naked in the the glare of my harrowing experiences of managing her medical experiences, which include several unsuccessful attempts to secure adequate, gentle, understanding, cooperative medical care for her in Prescott. I can clearly see that I need to reinitiate this process and I am so overwhelmed by the possibility that all I can do, at the moment, is shiver and wail, which I'm allowing to happen, in the hopes that I'll move through this phase with the optimistic fortitude to apply myself assiduously to what now needs to be done.
    As I've mentioned previously in both the journals and the essays compiled in this collection of sites, I never meant to be here. Going into this, my resolve was that I would leave Medicine to Medicine and simply be Mom's medical chauffeur. I didn't know much about Medicine and I didn't want to. Damn, my observant, analytical brain and my sympathetic heart, that I wasn't able to allow this to happen. Now, I see, we're in a hell of a fix, Mom and me, and I'm not sure how to ignore the awful taste Medicine has left at the back of my throat and negotiate a fresh, promising relationship.
    Despite my anxiety, and my discouragement, and my low hopes for the renewal of this process, I am, of course, determined to work my way through this dilemma. I know better, now, though, than to think that one's experience, at least in the Medical arena, mirrors one's expectations. I never, ever expected what we've been through. I never, ever could have. I've even, throughout the last several years of Medicine's increasing encroachment into my mother's life, tried to repeatedly (and unreasonably, considering our numerous, absurd experiences) reestablish guileless trust in Medicine. Almost all my attempts have been betrayed.
    Time to face it all once more.
    Shaking head. Closing eyes. Trying to swallow lump in throat. Sobbing under my breath.
    Time to awaken the Mom. I'll label this post...
    ...later.

Lately...

2006-12-11T01:55:00.000-07:00

...hmmm. How do I explain this? I've been having this, well, experience. It's only happened four times over the last two weeks; once in a store, once while watching a crowd scene in an old movie, once while talking to Mom and once while idly surfing the net, watching South African music videos. Without warning, something, a filter or something, I guess, falls away and I find myself looking at my surroundings, people, surfaces and objects, even the air, as though everything was made of Swarovski crystal. Although it is clearly an optical experience, it is also intellectual and emotional. When I was looking at my mother, for instance, it was as though I saw her as all her transitions, up to now, in a fullness I'd not previously experienced. With objects, surfaces and the air, it is as though I become acutely aware of their structure and the process through which they were made. It is an overwhelming experience, as well, and after the effect has left, as it does within minutes, although imperceptibly, I don't become aware that it's fading until it's gone, I find myself in tears.
    It's not at all scary. It feels quite comfortable. I'm equally comfortable when the perspective is gone. Although the reality around me seems heightened during these experiences, I don't. I'm not left with any perceptions, extraordinary or not, just this feeling that, for some moments I was, somehow, more present than usual, more aware than normal. I continue to operate normally while the state unfolds. The tears at the end are a quick gush and easy to disguise. My mother didn't even notice that I had teared up, and she's usually quick to point out my teary interludes because she finds them amusing. It hasn't changed my askew moods, either, nor rendered life easier, nor harder, nor caused me to be less or more susceptible to irritation or acceptance. The first experience surprised me and I wondered if it was an aberration caused by my concentration on the movie. The second told me that, no, it wasn't dependent on circumstance. The third and the fourth episodes made me realize that I will probably have more, although there appears to be nothing I can do to cause them, nor do I have any desire to do anything to retain the state while it is happening. On the one hand, I hesitate to consider them spiritual experiences because I'm noticing no change in my approach toward life. On the other, it's hard to classify them as anything, even hallucinations (and, believe me, I'm familiar with hallucinatory experiences). When they are taking place I feel the opposite of "removed"; actually, I feel more as though I've been "moved in". I do not, however, feel "removed" when the experience has receded.
    Anyway, it's a curious thing. I wanted to record the experiences somewhere, in case I've experienced the last of them, so that I'll remember, wonder about them later and, maybe, discover their generation. This seems as good a place to do it as any. And, at any rate, they seem somehow connected to the life I am, at the moment, leading, which is directly related to being my mother's companion.

    On a different track, I have a prediction. I predict that, when the holidays are over, the United States Economic Engine will find that people have spent substantially less, this year, during the holidays and many businesses will be surprised to find themselves scuffling on the other side of a black ledger. I've been astonished to notice, when running errands, lately, that, even though Prescott is never crowded with hoards of shoppers, even during the holidays, there is no discernible difference between the amount of shopping going on this year during the holidays and a normal day during any other time of year. I believe that this will be explained by the experts as "consumers" having a lowered level of "confidence" in "the economy", due to the real estate market, the political conflicts because of the war, etc., but I think something else is going on. I think, in a current deep, deep, deep beneath the surface, a sea change is taking place. I'm not sure what this bodes for future economic stability. I suspect, though, that, at least for awhile, perhaps some years, things will turn bleak and seem to get bleaker. I also think that a solution that has never been tried will have to be invented and engineered in order for, well, to put it conservatively, "confidence to return to the marketplace", although I think a radically modified marketplace will be the most insignificant of all the modifications about to be initiated. I'm excited about this, even though I suspect that we are about to enter some years of great fear, instability, even turmoil. I can't put my finger on why, but something is indicating to me that the United States and some other countries, as well, eventually all countries, are about to receive a startling, critical mass kick in the ass. I, further, think that social arrangements, including caregiving of all types, are going to change radically over the next decade or so, as a result. I think our current economic system is going to be blown apart. I'm pleased about this. I have been concerned that I was going to have to challenge the economic system all by myself but I think the trumpet has already sounded. What a relief!
    I can't wait to see whether I'm right and what kind of a world will come of it.
    Later.
    In recognition of a post I read and admired some hours ago at Fading From Memory, I hereby label this post:

My mother reads in bed before turning out her light.

2006-12-08T00:24:00.001-07:00

    Last night she finally finished one of the "Cat" mysteries that MCS sent her some time ago. I think this was probably her second or third reading of this particular mystery. She keeps going back to it, I think, because the cover is red. Anyway, to spice up her night reading and keep her from starting the same mystery yet again, I pointed out to her that she'd finished the mystery, which sat on the top tier of her bedstand, and pulled out books she's been collecting on the bottom tier for future reading. The last book was a history of Christmas I bought for her last year. I noticed that the jacket marked a point about a third of the way through the book where she had apparently stopped reading in favor of something else.
    "Oh, look," I said, knowing that, in her role of Mrs. Christmas and in her acute awareness, this year, of the Christmas season, she'd probably be interested in the book, "here's that book on the history of Christmas. This might be a good time to read that."
    "Oh, yes," she agreed, and reached for the book.
    She opened the book where the jacket divided the pages, at the beginning of a chapter.
    "You might not want to pay attention to that, Mom. It's been a year since you read the book. You might want to restart it."
    She looked at me as though I was crazy. "Why," she asked, just this side of indignance, "would I want to read something I've already read?!?"
    There are many answers to this question, of course, one of which my mother implied in the way she asked it, so I didn't bother to elaborate.
    She called me into her bedroom twice during the half hour she spent "reading herself to sleep" to read portions of the chapter to me: One of which discussed the pre-Christian winter solstice feasts, celebrated as an act of faith that the following planting season would yield a plentiful harvest; another that talked about the growing European awareness, notably promulgated by Charlemagne, that warfare was always to be avoided on Christmas. After she read me the second section, she wondered aloud with whom this tradition began.
    I couldn't stop myself. "It's probably in an earlier section, Mom. You might consider going back and starting at the beginning," I gently suggested.
    "No," she said, "if it was there I would have remembered it."
    You and I know "better", the lamppost probably knows "better", but my mother knows herself. Best, I decided to leave her to her remembrance of her memory. It may not be "better" than mine, but it is certainly more astonishing than mine, and much more interesting. And, you know, who knows what she might actually be remembering.

    Which reminds me, speaking of her astonishing memory, here's a tidbit I've been meaning to post for ages but continually forget.
    Some months ago when I read through Anne Robertson's journal, I came across a post in which Anne talked about a room blessing ceremony, performed on the day her mother moved into The Birches, an assisted living facility for those with Alzheimer's, and blanketing her mother's room with prayer. I was enchanted. I wrote Anne about my reaction, and told her of my intention to talk to my mother about this, since Mom is the daughter of a daughter of a Methodist minister, there are other followers of professional religiosity in her ancestry, as well, and I was curious to see if she remembered such ceremonies. Before I got a chance to talk to my mother, Anne wrote back telling me that Methodist liturgy has many such ceremonies, all contained in The Book of Worship.
    This spurred me toward reading that post to my mother and asking her about her knowledge of such ceremonies. I was curious, knowing the extremely conservative bent of her grandfather's services that she often attended, especially when she lived with him during her college years, if she remembered him or any of her other pastoralized relatives performing such ceremonies.
    She didn't and said she doubted such ceremonies were recognized "at that time."
    "Well," I said, "wouldn't it be interesting if we could get ahold of your grandfather's Book of Worship and see if these ceremonies were recognized, at least in theory? Then, we'd know whether their use was simply out of fashion at that time and ignored, or whether they became a part of Methodism later? Do you know who might have inherited your grandfather's books?"
    She thought about this for awhile but came up with nothing and mentioned that she doubted she'd remember. We talked, briefly, about contacting people who were still alive and had been closely connected with her grandfather and his children to see if anyone had kept those books.
    The next morning, when she awoke, she announced, without being prompted, "I remember, now, what happened to Grandpa's books."
    "Really," I said. "So, who do we write?"
    She chuckled. "Well, that's the question. Sometime after I graduated from college, before I went into the Navy, Grandpa retired. Manette (her favorite uncle's wife, now dead) and I were there visiting and Grandpa asked us to clean out the attic for him. All his books were up there."
    "Oh, excellent," I said, anticipating that she was about to tell me that Harold and Manette's surviving daughter probably now had possession of the books.
    "Well, no," she said. "I remember that we tossed the books out the window. All of them."
    "What?!?"
    "Yes. He said to get rid of them, so we tossed them out the window."
    "But, why? I mean, I guess I can understand getting rid of them, the gods know, I've gotten rid of books, too, but I take them to secondhand book stores. I don't understand tossing them out the window!"
    "In those days, when you were getting rid of stuff like that, you threw them out on the lawn and someone would come by and pick them up."
    "You mean, just anyone? Or, second hand book dealers or something?"
    "No, no, garbage men."
    "Oh, my god! All those books were thrown away?!?"
    Mom laughed ruefully. "Yes, I'm afraid so. And notebooks with his sermons. And prayers."
    I gasped and shuddered. "Was that okay with Grandpa?"
    "Oh, yes, I remember him telling us to."
    "No one wanted to keep them?"
    "Well, we didn't ask. Manette and I certainly didn't want them. Now that I'm remembering, I'm sorry we did that."
    We observed some moments of mournful silence.
    "Well," I said, working hard to assuage my disappointment, "I'm devasted about the sermons, but I suppose we could find a copy of the same Book of Worship Grandpa used someplace, a library, or maybe from the Methodist church."
    "You know, isn't it funny that I remember that so clearly," she said. "Like it was yesterday. It was spring, I remember. Manette and I felt so good opening up the attic windows and tossing all that stuff out. I remember stirring up clouds of dust and watching them float through the windows. I remember how good the attic smelled after we finished. I wonder why I couldn't remember that last night."
    "Well, Mom, maybe you just needed to sleep on it. Your memory always works better when you're in a prone position," I joked.
    But, the thing is, that isn't a joke. I've noticed this before. This was just one of the more dramatic episodes. I remember thinking a lot about this, that night. My mind also works wonders in sleep. It not only remembers incidents I thought had been erased, but sleep is such a reliable way for me to solve problems of all kinds that I often set myself up for solving a specific problem before I go to sleep. I know this is a fairly common phenomenon, no doubt the generation of the phrase, "Sleep on it." I just never imagined that this facility would continue to work within the context of a demented brain.
    My mother's brain is not nearly as severely demented as that of many Ancients, but it is squirrelly enough so that I often wonder (and have often written) about the possibility that her episodes of demented phasing, happening so often, as they do, immediately after she awakens, are actually memories so startlingly presented in sleep that she is convinced that the events just occurred...not to mention my theory that when she connects with her Dead Zone Community, it's entirely possible that she actually did, and I'm the one in the household who's hopelessly out of touch.
    Brains are such an amazing organ. I hope we don't abolish dementia before we are able to explore and appreciate the wonders of its multiple realities.
    Later.

I'm enmeshed in a labeling frenzy...

2006-12-06T13:49:00.001-07:00

...and I don't expect to untangle myself for awhile. If you've checked any of the "Label Index" pages (up for this journal, the Archive and the essay section), you've probably noticed I'm surrendering to extreme wordiness and exactitude. Thus, I noticed, with pleasure, after I finished the Archive and examined that Label Index for errors, my label indexes read like a caregiver's journal in idiosyncratic shorthand.
    I know it's not a standard way to label. It also puts a bit of a strain on Beta Blogger, as I'm continuing to receive warnings that I've included more than 200 characters in the "Labels for this post:" dialogue box attached to the post editing facility and find myself having to attach many of my labels through the list of post for edit, rather than within the posts. However, the extremely long names for each label page are going through easily.
    I just scanned the essay section label index and noticed that the longer the labels, the harder they are to read and the more likely, I imagine, that people will click in, say, "Oh, brother, not worth it," and click out. In case you're wondering why I'm insisting on long, meticulous labels, they are signals to me of types of posts for which I tend to look when self-referentiating (thanks for that, Mike).
    Three minutes to Mom-awakening. Better git.
    As I feel like it...
    ...later.

"Bring tender towards your world...

2006-12-06T12:15:00.001-07:00

...allows you to keep your heart open." --quotation on a mug containing an illustration by Debbie Hron (illustration copyrighted 2004)
    Yesterday I made an errand run to our local grocery. One of the items I needed was a bottle of dill pickle relish. In order to get to the section with this product, I had to traverse the Christmas section. Normally, I don't pay any more than peripheral attention to items in the holiday section and that attention is reserved for particularly bright or odd items. I noticed yesterday, though, that ceramic coffee mugs were on display, one of which was not only exactly the right size for my one cupper drip coffee attachment, they were on sale ten for a dollar. In addition, they were marked "Lead Free Ceramics" and "Microwave and Dishwasher Safe". I'm always looking for appropriate coffee mugs, as, the longer I have them, the more likely they are to crack or break. I was astonished at the price, so I examined the mugs carefully, assuming they must be particularly fragile (which usually means the handle is rickety or the ceramics were chipped in transit). Nothing appeared to be wrong with them. I was satisfied that, for ten cents, the mugs would be worth trying. I bought one.
    I placed it in the dishwasher last night. This morning I took the cup for a trial run. Curiously, I paid no attention to the decoration on the cup until this morning while I was waiting for water to boil for my coffee. It consists of a Christmas tree resplendent with ornaments: Mostly a variety of birds, but there are also some hearts, snowmen, a vaguely Slavic European Santa (my mother collects Santas, so I'm familiar with Santa genre), a cat, a cow, a sheep, hearts, stars and a garland that looks like it was made from cranberries. Each item is distinct within its sort. Then, I noticed the quotation. Intriguing.
    It gave me a strong clue as to why the mug has been so drastically discounted. Someone must have noticed the mangled English, brought it to the attention of the store staff and derided it, I decided. I love stuff like this, though, so much that I'll probably pick up another of these cups before they disappear, strictly for display purposes; maybe as a tree ornament.
    Then, I looked up the definition of "tender" (although you'd think it would be pretty obvious, wouldn't you; I like to be exact, though). When used as a noun, the word has the following definitions (Oxford American Dictionaries):

an offer to carry out work, supply goods or buy land, shares, or another asset at a stated fixed price;
a person who looks after someone else or a machine or place;
a boat used to ferry people and supplies to and from a ship;
a railcar coupled to a steam locomotive to carry fuel and water.

    Since "tender", when used as an adjective, also has a variety of meanings including "vulnerable", "delicate", "gentle", "kind", "raw" "painful", and "naive", I found the import of this word, in the context of this quote, evocative.
    Not being familiar with the artist, my assumption was that the quote originated with her and she must not be a native speaker of English. Wondering what the native language was out of which she translated (or, maybe even originated) the quote for and English speaking audience, I first searched her last name for geographic origins (noted here), then definitions, the only one of which I could find on the web here. Then, I searched the artist and found a brief biography (a link to which no longer exists: 9/30/08). Obviously well enough familiar with English, I realized, for the quote not to have originated with her, at least not this version.
    I hunted for products with her name attached. It appears that she is strictly a graphic artist (although my search was not definitive) and if she illustrates words, the words are most likely not hers. I had begun to form an imaginary play of someone in China, where the cup was made, poring over a Chinese translation of one of her sayings, rendering it back into English, thus making it a third generation translation, the contemplation of which I found delightful. Probably not what happened, I realized. This quotation may very well be a Chinese standard rendered into English for publication on this cup.
    At any rate, I find the translation provocative precisely because of the way it was translated. I'm surprised that I picked up an item with a quote so obviously geared toward caregiving. As well, awkward translations are my favorite, having been, myself, in years past, author of many awkward translations. For me, they offer a more exact flavor of the mind, specifically the cultural thought patterns, out of which the translation arose and invite me to rearrange and expand my own mind. This quote produced an image of someone prying open his or her heart with his or her hands, possibly exposing him or herself to pain, gently fastening fingers around a thoughtfully chosen piece of his or her heart, cradling the piece in his or her hands and delicately, vulnerably offering it to someone in need of heart-care.
    This, folks, is the essence of caregiving. Ultimate Caregiving is not hands offering assistance or items to someone, it's hands offering a portion of one's heart. It's a tricky business and sometimes it smarts enough to bring tears to one's eyes. But, you know, even if the piece of heart is handled roughly by the recipient, or, perhaps, not even noticed, in the end the freshened, unobstructed heart that results is worth the trouble.

The first lesson we learn after birth is how to take.

2006-12-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

    The reason it's the first lesson is because it is the most important. If we don't receive at the moment of birth, we won't survive. This, I think, is why giving is so hard for us to understand.
    I was reminded of this while watching a segment of Cheap in America about how "good" giving is for one's physical health, precisely because, the show asserted, it is good for one's mental health. The segment used words and phrases like "high", "feel good chemicals like dopamine", "reward", "energized", "spiritual buzz". Giving apparently enhances all areas of one's life: School performance, work performance, social performance and internal sense of peace.
    I can't argue with this. I've felt it. I know it's true. Being a full time caregiver, I also focused on a tiny quote by Steven Post in the show that probably only caregivers of all stripes noticed: "...at the right dose, science says it's very good for you." Italics are mine.
    The right dose. How do we know when we've overdosed? Full time caregivers know. It's when you can't contemplate giving without becoming aware of the certainty of pain and exhaustion, both emotional and physical. At that point, you can't give, anymore, until you've received. Additionally, random receiving doesn't work. Somehow, some way, you need to receive something in particular, not something in general.
    My Christmas change of heart, I think, is a good example of this. If you've been following along over the last month or so in this journal, it can't have escaped your notice that I've overdosed on giving. I've written about it so acutely that I imagine it seems I am obsessed with this. It's also been obvious that I have assumed that I was beyond cure, since I am clearly, at the moment, beyond giving, cheerful giving, anyway. Anything. To anyone. Except the habitual giving I perform minute by minute with my mother, which, while so habitual that I don't notice pain or exhaustion and I believe it doesn't affect me, clearly affects my ability to give to others.
    Then, I was offered two gifts, so similar in quantity as to be indistinguishable but so radically different in quality that the choice of which to choose (I couldn't choose both) was, as the above mentioned segment also states, a "no brainer": The gift of Mom and I being hosted during Christmas. The first offering, while well intentioned, presented me with the gift of giving even more than I already have: Giving Mom as the treasured family jewel to be passed about and admired without the jewel having to be tended, as the jewel's janitor would, of course, be present. The second offering presented me with the opportunity to pass around some of my janitorial caregiver concerns, allow my mother to be treated as a treasured individual, instead of a jewel, and promised relaxation and merriment for both of us.
    I was so low in resources that I chose to receive, this year, instead of give. Amazing what happened. My spirit revived before the phone call extending the second invitation was finished. I was so filled with relief that I found myself offering, yet again: To provide part of the holiday feast. Previous to the phone call I had decided that I wasn't going to worry about traditional Christmas giving, this year. The process of thinking about what would delight my people, relatives and friends, seemed so overwhelming that I simply couldn't contemplate it. This is especially painful for me because I'm an especially meticulous gift chooser. It's something in which I take pride and it is especially painful when I not only don't feel like giving but am bereft of internal resources to the point of contemplating giving as painful. Immediately after the phone call, though, I was suddenly inspired with an idea of what to give, as Christmas gifts, to our three hosts. I became so excited about the the pleasure the items would solicit that I dashed out and purchased them the following day. Granted, I still can't think about Christmas shopping for anyone else, and may not find this aspect of Christmas giving revived before it's too late but, you know, it's a start.
    So, yes, I've found, in these 13 years of advanced giving, that giving is rewarded. I've received some extraordinary benefits, including those intangibles much hyped by the above show. I've also found that I am not yet so spiritually advanced that I cannot overdose on giving. I occasionally contemplate that being this advanced would be wonderful because it would certainly render being my mother's companion and caregiver much easier and much more joyful, but I haven't figured out a way to get there, yet, and am not scourging myself over this lack of ability. After all, Mother Theresa's nomination for sainthood wasn't proposed because she was she was the ultimate caregiver, although her profession including bouts of caregiving. Her special gift was more along the lines of an inspired CEO, especially talented in talking others into giving resources to her project; thus, she could be said to be the ultimate receiver. The sisters she eventually employed to do the bulk of the caregiving weren't nominated for sainthood.
    All of you who know intense needs caregivers, think twice, this year, before you give the gift of an invitation to a holiday get-together to a caregiver and her charge. Turn the tables on yourself. Think about what you're asking them to give as you extend your invitation and what you're expecting to receive. Be aware that The Season of Giving is hard on those who have chosen to give intense needs care. Think about how you can balance the giving/receiving scales for your caregiver. Consider that asking your caregiver to Display the Ancient One During the Holidays is asking them to give, yet again, not receive. Step back and consider what you can give, not only during the holidays, but throughout the year, that will allow the caregiver you know to relax, revive and be able to face the new year with a renewed spirit of giving.
    Giving may be good for people, but so is receiving. Intense needs caregivers know this better than anyone, precisely because they rarely receive much of anything and are always giving almost everything. Give yourself the gift, this year, of watching your caregiver flower in the joy of receiving a truly thoughtful gift from you.

Christmas. Ah, yes.

2006-12-04T03:00:00.003-07:00

    I've changed our plans.
    Late last week MCF called. I've noticed, over the last couple of months, that she's been calling but I've been, well, out of touch with everyone, not answering the phone, a bit dour in public so that no one will approach me, etc. Sometime last week I triggered the ring on the phone, again, feeling somewhat more social, and she called again.
    She's used to my silences but she was beginning to worry. "It's a good thing you answered," she said. "If you hadn't, [her sister] and I were going to drive up there next Tuesday and check on you!"
    She's the one who keeps an eye on me and grabs me back when I begin to get in too deep, as mentioned here. She is also one of the few people I know whose family took in her dad during the last years of his life.
    I confirmed that I've been experiencing a period of self-enforced isolation but that I seem to be inching out of it, off and on, lately, which is why I answered the phone when she called. We chatted, caught each other up, then she asked what Mom and I are doing for Christmas, adding that we were, of course, invited to her house.
    I mentioned that I'd accepted an invitation from MPS's family, telling her that I figured I'd better go, since I refused their Thanksgiving invitation; then I began to sob uncontrollably. "I don't want to go," I said. "I'm sure Mom wants to, but I just am not looking forward to all the work it takes just to be there and I still haven't come to terms with all this anger I feel toward my family. It's just exhausting to contemplate. And, anyway, I can't get excited about Christmas, this year, not for anything. I'm seriously considering displaying very bad manners and calling MPS and telling her I just don't have it in me again this year."
    "Don't go, then," she suggested. "Come here. It'll just be the three of us (she, her daughter and one of her sisters)."
    I didn't hesitate. I knew this was what I wanted to do. I knew Mom would enjoy this, too. I immediately began to perk up.
    Why would this alternate invitation be preferable to me? We'd still be traveling. There would still be the extra preparation, etc. Well, let me tell you why. These people know how to be around my mother. They know how to be around me when I am with my mother. They are so good at it that when my mother and I are with anyone in their family, my burden of vigilance, and often many of the chores involved in being with my mother, are lightened because they automatically do what I do with her. They are capable of this because they did it with their dad/grandfather for several years. When Mom and I are at their home on Christmas, there will be four caregiver companions who delight in Mom, know how to be around her, and each of us will be shouldering part the load; thus, all of us will be able to relax; it will seem as though being with my mother is no load at all.
    Bad social manners, I know, to accept an invitation then cancel for another, but I suffered no recrimination over the possibility. Nor did I have a problem calling my sister, uninviting us and explaining why I chose for Mom and me to spend the holiday elsewhere.
    I was honest with her. I explained everything above. I continued that the difference was circumstantial: MCF's family had the experience that allows our visits to be relaxing for me; MPS's family does not. I'm opting for the relaxing holiday.
    MPS told me she understood. She certainly sounded like she did. She expressed that she wanted me to have a good holiday. She mentioned that she didn't want me to apologize. Actually, I hadn't and I didn't...she may not have noticed this. Before I made the phone call I decided not to apologize. Why, I considered, should I apologize for making things easier on myself and guaranteeing a felicitous holiday that I knew I would enjoy, and so would Mom, instead of a holiday I was dreading and knew would be a trial for me?
    I did mention that I probably knew enough about how I was feeling that I shouldn't have accepted when she invited us but, I admitted, I also thought I would be up to what would be required; the plans were a month away when they were made. Seems I miscalculated. I also mentioned to her that it is much, much easier on me when Mom and I are with people who are adept at being with Mom. "You guys aren't very good at being around Mom," I told her.
    She didn't say anything.
    The upshot is that I am feeling quite a bit better than I was at this time last week. I've been triggering the cable to play Christmas music, along with which Mom and I are singing. We've been excitedly discussing the trip and I'm not faking my excitement. We're contributing to the feast, as well, which I hadn't considered in regard to the first invitation; I wasn't up to it. Tonight I set up our fiber optic Christmas tree. We haven't decorated it, yet. The Eukanuba National Dog Show one of Mom's "must see" programs, intervened, and, anyway, this is Mr. Man's first Christmas tree so decorating is going to be interesting and deserves to be done without distraction...probably tomorrow evening. In the mean time, Mom's annual Christmas spirit is thriving, I'm enjoying her, I'm enjoying Christmas possibilities, this year...and, well, my energy is returning and my attitude is reflecting our neighbor's-to-the-east Christmas light display.
    In case you're wondering, I did, indeed, discuss this with Mom, with the same detail and directness I displayed with MPS. She had no problem with my decision. A party is a party, Christmas is Christmas and as long as we're with people we love who love us, she's fine.

    Extended families of primary caregivers to Ancient Ones, take note: It's important for you to step up to the plate, too, if you want to enjoy your relatives during those holiday visits and care whether those relatives will be able to enjoy you. No excuses. If don't keep up with how to be with your Ancient One, even if your intent is to be with that Ancient One only occasionally and only during holiday family gatherings, I assure you that the member of your family who is the caregiver will eventually find visits so torturous that she will avoid them.
    You have responsibilities, too, assuming that you want to keep in realistic touch with your Ancient One and the relative caring for your Ancient One. If you don't acknowledge these responsibilities and find some way to dispatch them you will eventually find yourself in the position of not being able to acknowledge your caregiver-relative or your Ancient One.

Just occurred to me...

2006-12-01T00:54:00.000-07:00

...as I was preparing the house, and myself, for bed: Maybe this is the miracle. Maybe I'm living the miracle for which I've been asking. Considering my nature, it is, for instance, miraculous that I am here, doing this. Considering the history of my relationships with my sisters, it is even more miraculous that I am estranged from them. It is miraculous that I am no longer fighting this estrangement, nor am I undone by it. It is miraculous that I am, rather, acting in accord with it. It is miraculous that I have no fear in this regard. It is miraculous that, despite the circumstances, despite what they appear to bode for my "future", despite being told, over and over, in many different ways and through many different sources, that what I am doing here is unwise at best and personally disastrous at worst, I remain. Here. Now. Doing this. It is miraculous that even in my worst moments I am the best "thing" for my mother "since sliced bread."
    Miracles, I'm realizing, are not meant to be benign. They are meant to be enigmatic, awe-full. These words surely apply to my life at this time.
    This, here, this is my miracle.
    I thank the gods for small, and big, miracles.

I know I haven't been visiting, lately, or writing...

2006-11-29T02:24:00.000-07:00

...those of you whose journals I usually visit on a daily basis and often write in response to comments, etc. I don't know what to tell you except that I seem to be continuing to wrap myself more tightly around myself. It feels good, it feels like I need to do this for awhile. It's "A Giving Thing", or, rather, an aberration of "A Giving Thing" called, "I Don't Have Anything Left to Give, Right Now, Not Even Attention." I ask that you not take it personally. Bear with me, please, while I replenish myself a little. I'll be back. I'm just not sure when.

So, here's what I decided.

2006-11-29T01:18:00.001-07:00

    For this journal and the The Mom & Me One Archive, I set up separate Labels Index pages, linked just below the Archive section. It seems that over at the Archive, the template was becoming so big with the index that publishing it in order to update the index every time I added a new label was becoming close to impossible. The server just wasn't interested, most of the time. I expect the label index on this site will probably experience the same problem, once I start labeling previous posts. The movie site label index doesn't seem to be large enough to present a problem. I rather expect other of the journals won't be a problem, either, but we'll see. Anyway, just wanted to mention that.
    I continue to be distracting myself with reading and labeling the posts over at the archive. No miracles yet, at least not as far as I can tell. I'm not one of those who hunts for oblique signs, though. If the gods don't want to lay it out in front of me, plain as day, well, fuck 'em, I say. When it comes to spirituality, it's got to be easy and either make sense or be interesting enough to attract my desire to be delighted, or it's not worth my time.
    Later.

I sometimes wonder, as I am wondering right now...

2006-11-26T12:49:00.001-07:00

...if there will come a time in my life when I will "get it" at a higher level, understand something I am now incapable of understanding, everything will become clear and I will smile, beatifically, even laugh, perhaps shed tears of joy, and:

Not feel the pressure to forgive my sisters because I will consider that they have done nothing needing forgiveness;
Come together, excitedly, with my sisters and nod in relieved agreement with and gratitude toward them as they tell me, after I apologize for my years of bad behavior toward them as I've been Mom's companion, that they understand and feel there is nothing they need to forgive.
Dismiss any lingering guilt they have over their distance and lack of help and support as I care for our Mom and be able to tell them, and have this be true for me, that they have no reason to feel guilty, they did what they could, just as I did.

    These are my aspirations, toward my sisters and toward everyone with whom I come into contact these days: Nonjudgmental acceptance and precisely targeted compassion.
    When I write posts that express anger, disappointment and a sense of having been betrayed such as this one, and, even, subtly, this one, I not only want to imagine myself as capable of the above desired of compassion and love, I want to realize it. I'm not there yet. I am painfully aware that I am far, far from it. I believe, though, in order to attain one's visualization of one's future self, in order, in fact, to achieve the amazing surprise of besting one's highest visualizations of one's future self, one must acknowledge, without flinching, with all the detail, where one is.
    So, here I am, ensconced, for the moment, in my pettiness, my anger, my fear and my despair. And, yes, I can't deny, it feels safe here, even as I sense the walls closing in on me. There, though, is where I want to be. This visualization is the light I am throwing around my current position in the hopes of spotting the trailhead to where I want, and intend to go.

A couple of posts...

2006-11-26T01:16:00.001-07:00

...before I check my email (I notice I have two comments on the last post, which means I have at least two messages waiting for me...no, I haven't yet read the comments, I want to get these posts out first), do some more labeling over at the Mom & Me One Archive and head for bed, somewhat later.
    For the last two evenings, both times after Mom has arisen from her nap, we've had "Who were those two men?" incidents. Although the seemingly ambiguous identities of the men is the least important aspect of the incidents, I am labeling them as such because when my mother asked me this question, last night and tonight, I immediately thought of all the similar reports I've read and heard from caregivers to demented Ancient Ones, particularly those diagnosed with Alzheimer's, about them hallucinating people.
    Both incidents began innocently. My mother, during her Dead Zone forays over the last few days, has been fixated on "Dad [my dad] and [her dead brother]". This is an unusual combination. Most often, if she's been Dead Zone communing with more than one person at a time, they are in the same family. Anyway, apparently these two spent the day before Thanksgiving with us but were unable to stay for the holiday. I learned this when she briefly wondered, Thanksgiving night, why "Dad and [her dead brother]" hadn't been with us for dinner, then immediately corrected herself, "remembering" that they had said they were "visiting Dad's family" for Thanksgiving. Why her brother would be interested in my father's family is beyond me, he never met them, but, of course, in the Dead Zone, everyone is familiar with everyone else.
    Tonight's episode was similar, although it began with Mom wondering if "Dad and [her dead brother]" had mentioned anything to me about whether "they'd be able to make it for Christmas" and whether they knew that "we are going to [MPS's], this year."
    The problem occurred, both nights, when my mother asked me about something that one of the two had mentioned during the visit. She was not clear enough on this piece of information to even be able to align it to subject, so, thinking that it was nonetheless important to establish for both of us what this piece of information was, regardless of its origin, I began to question her around the information, both nights. What followed was pretty much the same both nights.
    She became annoyed that I couldn't remember even as much as she and said, "Well, you were there, your memory is better than mine, you should be able to remember the conversation!"
    At this point I chuckled. Time to dignify both her and me by explaining the difference between our realities. My explanation went something like this: "Mom, the thing is, both of them are dead. They've been dead for a long time. Now, you are in a period in your life when you are able to visit with the dead, continue your relationships with them, gather information from them, but, unfortunately I am not. I don't doubt that Dad and [her dead brother] were here and you had a fine visit with them. I don't doubt that I was sitting in the same area. But, I am unable to have the same experience with the dead that you are. So, I didn't hear the conversation and can't help you."
    As I traversed the above with her, I, as usual, watched her face transform from shock at learning they were dead, to concentration as I explained her special relationship to the dead, to astonishment as I confessed that I am not yet privy to this relationship and, thus, not "there" when events are taking place in The Dead Zone, even if it appears as though I am.
    "But," my mother asked, "will they be here for Christmas? Do they know we're going to MPS's?"
    I assured her that I was sure they would be, in some form, even if I would not be able to confirm their presence. That wouldn't matter, I said, because she would notice them and have yet another good visit with them. I was also careful, both nights, to explain, over and over, that no doubt "Dad and [her dead brother]" had been here, for her anyway, but not for me.
    Despite this, she began to question her own memory and asked me The Question. Who were those men? The first night, they were the men in the car when we were driving someplace. Tonight, they were the men who'd been at dinner with us.
    "Mom," I responded, "if you remember them as Dad and [your dead brother], then I am confident that's who they were. I can't tell you I spoke with them, because I didn't. I can't tell you that I remember them being here, because I didn't experience them being here. But, I believe you experienced them, and I believe you correctly recognized them."
    Last night I expected an argument. I was surprised when none materialized. She readily accepted that she and I share a reality but, within that reality, we also have separate realities that we seem not to be able to share with one another. It's a shame, but, you know, shit happens.
    Tonight, curiously, when I performed my "Your Memory Is Accurate, So Is Mine" song and dance routine, her eyes lit and she said, "Oh, that's right. You told me that last night!"
    Since then, I've been wondering if some of the horror, for the demented, of hallucinatory experiences has to do with how the onlookers react to them, and, if asked, by the demented, to help explain these experiences, how they are explained. I'm sure not all of it is in the reaction of the observers. I've heard and read of people hallucinating menacing strangers and can fairly accurately imagine the distress this might cause. I've also, though, read afterthought explanations by some observers who connect the hallucinated presence to an actual presence experienced by The Demented One previous to the hallucinatory encounter. Thus, one way or another, although the hallucinations may be generated in the knots of a tangled brain, there appear to be real connections, often to real people and real recent experiences.
    My mother, though, experiences Dead Zone hallucinations, it seems, the connections for which exist in the distant past, sometimes a past so distant that it is past me. As well, I cannot argue that she is not "really" meeting with these people. For all I know, she is, and I'm the dolt.
    What struck me tonight, though, is that, for all the Hallucinating People experiences that she has, tells me about and I confirm for her, she has never experienced agitation or anxiety over the actual hallucinations. Neither do I. Instead, I enter into them, as much as I can, and confirm them for her, either by taking her recounting of them at face value, commenting and asking for information as though "you and I" were having a conversation about an event in "your" life, or by the method above. I am so comfortable with living in a home that regularly hosts The Dead and experiences that I am not able to perceive even though I am present during those experiences that, maybe, Mom feels extremely comfortable in such a home, as well. Her experience of our home is that it is benign, safe and immune to anxiety and agitation. It is so because she is not left alone for any length of time of which she is aware; her companion is someone she implicitly trusts, who accepts and trusts her version of her life and so easily and silently orders her life that she is unaware that anyone is ordering it but her. Nothing scary could happen here. And, nothing does.
    I think, further, that The Demented who continue to be able to relate to others (this covers several stages and types of dementia) know, at some level, that they cannot completely trust their version of life, anymore, not even for a minute, and need a filter, at best a familiar filter, in order to feel safe and confident, sometimes in circumstances that are wondrous and peculiar, like hallucinations. This is, perhaps, something that lots of caregivers, particularly professional caregivers, forget. You have to know and acknowledge a person for who they are and what's happening to them, moment to moment, if you want to give good care. You cannot arbitrarily decide that they are "lost" and expect to proceed to give care with any degree of adequacy.
    I think, when we decide we are "losing" an Ancient, Demented loved one, we are the one's defining and directing the loss, not they. When was the last time you heard someone bemoan the fact that the past seven year old who generated the present twenty-one year old is "lost"? If we stop our egos and our needs in their tracks and peer into the eyes of our Ancient Ones, even our Demented Ancient, we will see, I believe, the present person generated from all the people implicit in the history of that person. We will see them for who they are now. And, I believe, this allows us to be better to able respond to them as their needs and their reality dictate. When we can do this, we will, I think, realize, that we never "lose" our loved ones to dementia, we lose them to our inability to see them here, before us, now.
    To paraphrase a famous line of poetry: And this, I believe, can make all the difference.
    Ah, well, I'll definitely read my email, but I think the second post is going to have to wait until I arise, tomorrow, as will continued labeling.
    Later.

What do you do about Christmas...

2006-11-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

...when you are so drained you have trouble finding something left to give and can barely, only barely, act on your own behalf? I awoke with this question badgering my mind, this morning; and a few others.
    What do you do in "The Season of Giving" when you are so depleted you are floundering in your attempts to give on any scale, let alone the grand scale required by your care recipient? What do you do if you are not Buddha, thus, every word out of your mouth directed at anyone, let alone your care recipient, every act of assistance, every thought of compassionate cooperation and mutual appreciation feels as though you are slicing and offering a bit of finger, here, a bit of cortex, there, bit of heart someplace else?
    Give until you are nowhere to be found?
    Or, sit back and receive? What if you know, from past experience, that everything you receive will fall woefully short of what you and your care recipient need and will, somehow, put you in a position where you have to give some more...and you have so little left that, if you have to respond with one more "Your Welcome" to one more "Thank You" hurled your way from someplace too distant for you to actually feel its effects, you will surely sizzle, to a crisp, the vestiges of a major organ in order to appear even dimly belit by the Season?
    I guess you suck it up and hope that enlightenment finds you before you disappear, before the electric company rakes in its last decorative dollar, despite the fact that you haven't the wherewithal to meditate under the bodhi tree.
    That's probably what I'll be doing, this year.

No, we won't be hitting the stores, tomorrow...

2006-11-24T01:00:00.001-07:00

...rather, today, I guess. If we were so inclined, though, Prescott would be the place to do it. The latest tally of Prescott's population advertises "90,000". I think this is fudged, including lots of people living outside the city in unincorporated areas and maybe even stealing a few residents who the post office considers part of one of the other two "cities" (as they optimistically call themselves) around here. At any rate, holiday shopping is never a swarm, as it is in other areas, not even on Black Friday. Too, many people still don't think there are enough material goods here among which to chose and migrate to Phoenix or Tucson for the heavy shopping days. It'll be a little more hectic than a "normal shopping day" but nothing like the holiday hullabaloo the world-class cities in this state will endure.
    Chances are, it'll be a low key day for us. I'm going to try, again, to entice Mom into some moving, although I'm not going to berate myself if I fail. Maybe I'll do a little final before winter yard work. Most everything is done, but I imagine the eaves could use a good deleafing, since most of our trees are now bare, and, well, maybe I'll convince myself that tomorrow is the day to finally top off the pyracantha. I just hate wrestling with those damned spikes, especially when they're above me, rather than level with me. I can't tell you how many times I've had a falling cutting gouge my scalp or arms, even when I'm on a ladder that brings me eye to eye with the roof. Although she didn't used to, my mother gets nervous, now, when I do ladder work, inside or outside. I understand her concern. What would happen to us if I fell off a ladder? Although I am unreasonably certain that this will not happen as long as she's alive, that I will not, in fact, suffer any physically devastating circumstances throughout the rest of her life, she, of course, remains unconvinced. Thus, I try to keep work that appears to her to be dangerous infrequent and to a minimum. I haven't yet, though, found anyone to replace our Miracle Yard Man who was "called by the Lord" to preach in Winslow, and this is not a good season to find such people up here in the mountains. I enjoy doing this work, too (well, except for topping off the pyracantha, but this must be done before we get a snow that bends and freezes the branches to the driveway).
    We've almost re-viewed our entire, measely collection of Christmas movies. We have one left, which we'll probably watch tomorrow. Mom is really enjoying herself with these movies. We animatedly discussed, yesterday, whether or not It's a Wonderful Life is a "real" Christmas movie.
    I seem to have calmed down quite a bit since I got that Wouldn't it be funny if... post out of my system. I've got a couple more similar posts to disgorge. Maybe this weekend. I think I'm beginning to feel enough remove do them justice.
    The pot roast, by the way, was the best I've had in my life. My mother was so pleased with it she suggested, several times, that I should "be sure to write down that recipe." The simmering liquid made a delectable sauce, whisked with a little roux, and the vegetables were perfect.
    Ahhh, I'm yawning. Good sign.
    Later.

This year's Thanksgiving Dinner preparation...

2006-11-23T17:43:00.001-07:00

...has led me back to Caring. About Food. [The link will take you to the second of two posts I've published over there in the last 24 hours.] I'm surprised, but pleased. Mom loves days when I spend a lot of time in the kitchen preparing meals and inciting food aroma. I've been inviting her into preparation much more than I used to, since reading What Are Old People For?. Sometimes she'll help, sometimes not, and, of course, it's debatable how much help she really is. I'm careful, as well, about what chores I give her and especially careful when she decides she wants to chop food, although I continue to allow her to do this. Today, though, she wasn't interested in helping, just smelling and commenting.
Just wanted to mention the two latest posts over there, in case you're interested.
Later.

Nightmare

2006-11-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

    I retired at sometime between 0230 and 0300, Mom having retired late, as well. We'd had a good day: I'd finished shopping for ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner and had successfully lit Mom's excitement about it. She and I retired feeling great.
    The dregs of the dream awoke me at 0356 (I looked at the clock).
    The dream took place in what I take to be a suburban housing development. Mom and I were living in a ranch style house with an expansive, grassy front lawn; I'm not sure which state we were in, but the weather was summery; not hot summery like the Phoenix metroplex, though. One of my sisters (I don't think it matters which one) had arrived to stay with my mother for some hours while I was performing some sort of out-of-home errand. I remember spending a large part of the dream instructing her on the kind of attention that needed to be paid to Mom.
    I arrived home to find that my sister had passed the care of my mother off to someone else in the neighborhood and taken her to that home. I was shocked and upset but spent little time expressing this. My sister and I immediately went to the house in question to retrieve Mom.
    Mom wasn't there. The woman (unidentified in the dream) who'd volunteered to watch Mom explained that Mom had wandered off. She'd assumed that Mom had "gone home".
    I was thrown into a panic. I assigned my sister to stay at the house, in case Mom managed to find her way back home by default. I headed out searching for Mom; checking back periodically to see if she had arrived home. On the third check, while I was dumping on my sister about her carelessness with and lack of attention to Mom (I remember asking her in the dream why she had volunteered to be with Mom when she had no intention of performing the watch herself), the doorbell rang.
    There was Mom, at the door, dressed in an outfit that she used to own, in reality, and in which we have a picture, somewhere, of her mowing the the front lawn at the farm she and my father owned in Wichita Falls: A red 1980's type polyester outfit with bright red pants and a red and white jacquard, short sleeved, front button-down blouse. Her hair, as well, was styled the same as she wore it, in reality, at that time, and had not yet grayed. She stood at the door with a stricken look on her face, her arms folded tightly across her chest, just below her breasts.
    I approached her to lead her into the house, with much expressed relief. She backed away, arms remaining in the same position, turned and headed across the lawn parallel to the house. I went after her, caught up to her, took hold of one of her hands to lead her back to the house and her arm detached, mid-upper arm, from her body. I was horrified. I rounded her, stopped her in flight and discovered that her other arm had been similarly detached. It was as though her arms had been pulled, to drastically thin the upper arm, then cut, the incisions lasered closed (they were neatly done and completely healed), and her arms stuffed back into the sleeves of her shirt. I immediately "saw", in my mind, in the dream, the culprit who had done this to her; a bald man, tall, hefty, muscular; no one I would recognize in real life, but, in the dream I knew who he was; the husband of the neighbor with whom my sister had left Mom.
    Mom and I were beside ourselves with horror and shock and grief. I replaced her arms into her sleeves, recrossed them over her chest and pulled her into a close embrace, during which we both wailed and sobbed while my sister looked on, detached, from the porch of the house.
    This is when I awoke. I hadn't been dreaming long enough to begin sobbing in reality while I was dreaming, but immediately upon awakening I started to sob.
    The dream so astonished me that I immediately reviewed all I could remember and made careful mental notes to record later. It took me awhile to settle myself down and return to sleep.
    I have no idea what the dream "means". I imagine I'll speculate on this, although I'll let the meaning creep casually up from just-outside-of-conscious-attention. I assume the elements will organize themselves, attach to ingredients in my sub-un-conscious soup and create some Aha! moments over the next few days. Or, maybe not. Sometimes dreams, for me, go only as far as REM and no further. We'll see what happens.
    Terrifying, startling dream, though, especially in the context of the last few days, which have been laid back and easy going on all the levels of which I can think, at the moment.
    Time to awaken the Mom.
    Later.

Wouldn't it be funny if...

2006-11-22T00:23:00.001-07:00

..."we" discovered that the ingenuity, mental acuity, emotional flexibility, social assertiveness, fortitude and spiritual expansion acquired through taking intense, hands-on, moment-to-moment care of our Ancient Ones was exactly the type of neurological "exercise" needed to protect us from Alzheimer's and other types of systemic dementia?
    Suppose it turns out that the drastic reordering of mid-life priorities and assumptions about what it means to be human required of the full time caregiver are responsible for a psycho-somatic chemical/electrical reaction that intervenes in the physical processes that lead to dementia? What if "Brain Age", crossword puzzles, learning a new language and physical activity were only the insignificant tip of a profound protective iceberg?
    Further, what if it didn't matter whether the caregiver fought to "stay cheerful" and "find time for oneself"? What if what mattered was the depth of the bond created between caregiver and intense needs care recipient and the ability and willingness to recognize, use and best, with one's native faculties, the inevitable discouragement, depression, rage, helplessness, hopelessness and sense of loss with which the intense needs caregiver must deal; and that the more involved one becomes in the care recipient's life, thus the more rigorous and sustained the neurological workout, the more protection one achieves?
    Can you imagine everyone's (including intense needs caregivers') surprise when the results are tallied and it turns out that the only current study of caregivers, the lone one that suggests that caregivers are better off than their peers when caregiving ends, is the only study with even slightly accurate results? How much of a flurry will it cause, once we baby boomers have, as we usually do, submitted ourselves to rigorous study, when we realize that all the "negative", "regrettable" circumstances surrounding caregiving, if surrendered to, are exactly the circumstances that catalyze the organism to guard against what seem, at present, like the inevitable infirmities of old age?
    What if "we" learn that those who have decided to take on the world and what we now call "the burden" of caregiving for the Ancient and the Infirm have, in fact, done exactly what one needs to do to prevent the systemic development of senile dementia: Taken on and adjusted to the twin yokes of exceptional compassion and empathy for one human being for several years?
    Wouldn't it be funny if, out of pure self-interest, people were, then, motivated, globally, to become acutely other-interested in the most vulnerable segments of our population?
    Wouldn't that be a hoot?

It'll be pot roast for Thanksgiving, this year...

2006-11-20T01:30:00.001-07:00

...not ham, even though that is, of course, Mom's first choice. I mentioned to her, though, today, as we were making a shopping list for Thanksgiving dinner, that we'd had ham so many times this year and, too, had so much left-over ham in the freezer from all hams past, that I wasn't looking forward to fixing yet another ham.
    "That's all right," she said. "I imagine MPS's will have ham for Christmas."
    Maybe. They're pretty good at varying holiday dinners, though, which is something to which I look forward.
    Yes, the call has been made, I've uninvited us, MPS is in good humor over it, we laughed and joked throughout the phone call, particularly about Christmas. It seems she remembered (so did I) about my much earlier post, when Mom was traversing an activity hill and I was feeling optimistic about the holidays, that I considered inviting everyone here for Christmas and taking everyone out. She ribbed me mercilessly about this and we laughed until we cried.
    I am going to try to see to it that we make it down there for Christmas, regardless of how hard it is. I'm hoping the my personal ambiance will cooperate. Perhaps that earlier mentioned miracle in-spira-tion will have flown over and shat upon me by that time. I'm expecting it to not only bring me to some sort of internal anger resolution but to work a little magic with some of the fringe "benefits" of this anger.
    I continue to label posts over at the archives. Reading those old posts yet again, by the light of this anger, is a searing experience. I've come quite a long way since those posts were written. Most of the distance, it seems, was covered in the last nine months and that distance throws those posts into a surprising perspective. It is as though I was wise, then, and am now innocent. I guess rage does that...wipes the slate, bangs the erasers, prepares the board for a new lesson. That's good. I'm always up for learning something new.
    Later.

Well! What do you know!

2006-11-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

    Pending one operator (me being the operator) error, which I quickly fixed, the new Label Index is working fine! As usual, I am continuing to get "Server Error" notices when I publish my template, but publishing posts is happening "successfully" and in short order. I'm satisfied.
    Mom bedded down quite late, last night, rather, this morning; 0215, I think. I roused her at the 12-hour-sleep mark and she asked for another half hour. She leaked quite a bit, last night, probably from the dregs of the furosemide, so I'm giving her that requested half hour. It'll probably be a lazy day around here, although I might try to get in some walkering with her, since she's perking up a little since the furosemide pulled fluids off her. I'm not sure I'll be able to get her outside. That would be nice, but, if not, I'll trot her back and forth in here, just to give her a little exercise. Time for me to prepare for the Mom.
    Later.

Well, folks, this is my first post here since I transferred to Blogger Beta this morning.

2006-11-19T13:50:00.001-07:00

    All my journals are transferred, now. I took the complete plunge because, as Blogger updates its servers to Beta, I've been having trouble making global changes to my templates. As well, my experience with using Beta isn't any more frustrating than using the original Blogger has been and, in some cases, notably template publishing, it's much, much more reliable. There is one change I made to this template about a month ago and I haven't been able to get it to register on back archive pages until this morning when I republished my template through Beta. Hallelujah!
    It will be quite awhile, I imagine, before I begin labeling the posts on this and all other sites except the Mom & Me One Archive site.
    My guess is that quite a few of my problems result from two circumstances:

I'm ftping all my journals to remote servers, which do not have the Blogger Beta software embedded. Blogger Beta has given no indication whether they will release their Beta software, a la such sites as WordPress, to be copied onto remote servers. It's anybody's guess. Frankly, I'm fine, for the time being, with their software not being available for remote servers. This gives me a chance to breathe a bit more before I start trying to figure out how to recreate my templates in the skin/variable/widget style.
My templates are full of "fat" that could use trimming. I expect that this fat is probably responsible for at least some of the false error messages I receive, and for the slowness of publication of both posts and templates.

    Template publishing proceeds much more quickly on my larger journals than previously. Post publishing is just a bit slower, but not annoying. I'm finding that the only error messages I have to pay attention to are the "Publishing is taking longer than we expected..." messages.
    One more glitch I want to mention about labeling. While labeling one of my posts over at the archive site yesterday, I ran into a unique problem. I attached several long labels to the post and when I attempted to publish I got a message indicating "Must contain no more than 200 characters". I wasn't sure whether this applied to the label box or to the actual length of the labels. I did notice, though, that none of my labels were 200 characters. I scoured them for disallowed characters, none of which they contained. I tried deleting some of the longer labels, which didn't work, either. I also compared numbers and size of labels with other posts and noticed I had one post that rivaled, if not exceeded, the labels on the post in question. Finally, I decided to add and create (when necessary) labels through the "Edit Posts" facility. Although this was time consuming because you can only attach one label at a time, it worked.
    After fooling around with Mozilla, Safari and Firefox, I am using Firefox exclusively on both my computers when I want to publish anything. It's speed and number of error messages is about equal to using Firefox but Firefox allows me access to all the "Create Post" buttons. Safari does not.
    This post will also contain my first label on this site. Immediately after publication, I'll attempt to set up a Label Index over on the right side of my template. We'll see how that works.
    Later.

I've been further distracting myself...

2006-11-18T01:18:00.001-07:00

...over at the Mom & Me One Archive. I transferred that journal over to Blogger Beta and have discovered that its template, which is a completely different amendation than the other previously transferred journals of a long defunct Blogger template, works much better in Blogger Beta than the previous templates for the sites I've switched. I continue to have minor publishing hitches, especially when adding labels to the Labels index directly on the template, but nothing like the others. And, a bit later tonight, I'll try attaching labels to posts in Safari, as per Granny J's suggestion.
    It's a good thing I have something with which to distract myself, as, over the last week or so, I've realized that my "sadness" and "quiet" have a much deeper, sharper cause: Anger. I am so angry at my extended family that I cannot remember being this angry since I was in the fourth grade and became murderously angry at my father for his drinking. I use the word "murderously" because the way I worked through it was to sketch, on paper, scenarios in which I devised ways to lure him into some sort of murderous trap out of which there would be no escape.
    I am not quite that angry at my extended family. I am not having fantasies in which they disappear, either literally or figuratively, so that I no longer have to deal with them as realities, thus do not have to deal with my present choking on a sense of Mom and me having been betrayed by them.
    It took me awhile to realize that my profound disappointment and frustration over not being able to rely on them had morphed into rage at them. I don't think I was completely aware of it when I mentioned my "sadness" and "quiet". I am now.
    I am not one who is generally afraid of anger or rage. I am, though, prone to put off recognizing it and dealing with it for a little (always only a little) while because, of course, fully acknowledged, it gets in the way of my productivity. While I've been "sad" and "quiet", though, I've found it impossible to post on several topics that I've been meaning to address. It was this problem that cased me to notice that it is anger that has been continually distracting me from getting those posts "right". Now that I've acknowledged it, welcomed it, as, what else can I do at the beginning but welcome it, it is simmering through everything. I seem not to be able to deal with other concerns regarding those posts in a civilized manner. About all I'm capable of doing, while swaying to the song of this anger, is busy work, technical stuff, habitual, fairly mindless tasks that create a moated island where I can rest while the bulk of my mind works with this anger, and only this anger. Anything else, though, is fair game for the enormous energy created by this anger.
    Although I do not remember exactly how, or exactly how long it took, I managed to work through my anger with my father long, long, long before I left home. I know it took diligence. I know it took the courage to walk through the hell of, for instance, imagining causing my father's death and considering, with horror, the relationship between thoughts and reality. I know it took time. I know that a fair amount of the process took place just below my awareness, aided by the strategies I used to slog through the part of my anger of which I was fully aware. I know, too, that I finally made it through and discovered a much deeper understanding of and love for my father than I was, most of the time while struggling with the anger, able to imagine was possible. So, I know, I'll make it through this. I'm at the point, now, though, where I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to do it. Over the last thirteen years I've taken the paths of understanding, realization, acceptance, ready forgiveness, faith in everyone's fundamental good intentions, tried making it all easier on each of them by being the willow...finally, less than a year ago, when my disappointment and frustration began to develop, I voiced these, too, thinking, well, they're there, mustn't shy away from them, and, one by one, little by little, all of these paths, the high and the low, have lead me here, to this incendiary anger. It's supposed to go the other way. All of my efforts, including the last, most frustrating, least controlled efforts, have been sincere and have preceded the anger. I'm satisified that I became aware of the anger as it began to develop; and have acknowledged it when other members of my family have mentioned their fear that I "might get angry." It has not been a subterranean taint in my dealings with my extended family. It is, rather, the fruit of these endeavors. What do you do with anger when it develops after, rather than before, generosity of spirit, and you are not Jesus? Throwing the money changers out of the temple seems, in this case, inappropriate.
    So, it shouldn't be hard to understand that I am flummoxed, here, now, by this anger. This is different. It's coming after the dealing strategies, rather than leading to them. A good example is the reaction to a much appreciated comment I received on the immediately previous post about the parameters of my decision to decline the Thanksgiving invitation from relatives. A couple of years ago I would have nodded in benign, amused, expansive agreement at the commenter's pronouncement that, in a similar circumstance in their family, the commenter believed that the "distant siblings" "meant well". When I read the comment today, though, I found myself unable to agree that my siblings "mean well". Ignorance, when the information exists and is easy to access, is never well meant, I found myself thinking. This is why, my mind continued, that, before the law, ignorance is rarely an effective defense.
    That's anger talking, folks.
    I don't know what to do with this type of anger. I'm working on it. I expect it will give way to something. I expect I will somehow become more refined by being tempered in its forge and hammered against its anvil. In the meantime, though, I'm discombobulated.
    You'll notice that I have disallowed comments to this post. This is a strictly personal post. I am posting it as a form of prayer, I guess, the only form I recognize, the type of "prayer" that an injured limb screeches into the awareness of the person owning the limb. I'm not interested in sympathy. I'm not interested in recognition. I'm not interested in "support". I believe I need a miracle, I need in-spira-tion, which is especially tricky, since I don't believe in the kinds of entities whom people normally approach for miracles. So, I'm throwing the request out "there", into the void, counting on the supposition that we are mostly void, we are created out of the void and, thus, the void must be responsive to us.

No Thanksgiving trip this year.

2006-11-16T11:54:00.001-07:00

    I've been doing some background-brooding about this for several days. I finally talked to Mom about it last night. I asked her if she would be "terribly disappointed" if we didn't trip down to Chandler for a family Thanksgiving.
    Mom: "I wouldn't be disappointed, but I wonder if they [MPS and family] would be disappointed, since they asked us."
    Me: "Well, that's possible. Do you want to know why I don't want to do this?"
    Mom: "That would help."
    I explained all the preparation detail:

The hour or so Thanksgiving Eve getting the car, gathering everything for the trip and packing the car; laying out everything we'd need for morning;
Me getting to bed no earlier than midnight (since it is likely that I wouldn't be able to get Mom in bed before midnight);
Me getting up at 0400 the following morning in order to shower early enough so the hot water would replenish itself for Mom's bath (although I could shower the night before, I find I need the stimulation of a wake-up shower especially on travel days);
Drinking lots of coffee and getting a little alone time so that I'm not completely monstrous throughout the day;
Awakening Mom no earlier and no later than 0600, so that we'd have plenty of time to spiff her up holiday style;
Feeding both of us a hearty breakfast, since it will be awhile before she encounters food, again;
Putting last minute stuff in the car;
Securing the cats for the day (making sure they have enough to eat and drink and that all windows through which they could possibly leave are secured);
Me taking a "cold pill" so that I do not become so tired that I'm a hazardous driver on the way back [which, I've noticed, also involves one night of easily distracted sleep, gritting my teeth, as well, while the pill wears off, which is the down-side of taking a cold pill for alertness and is why I take them rarely, even though I appreciate their facility];
Getting in the car and heading down for a 2.5 hour drive;
Arriving at around 1000;
Everyone else visits;
I visit, too, but through the entire visit I am distracted by keeping a close eye on Mom, since she's in a "new" environment and, although my relatives will be "seeing" her, they won't be aware of things like:
- Making sure she gets to the bathroom on time and negotiating a bowel movement, if one should occur;
- Keeping an eye on her when she moves around so she doesn't fall;
- Keeping an eye on her around the dog;
- Special vigilance if she decides to venture into their back yard, which is likely, since the weather there will be what Mom considers glorious;
- Enduring Mom's constant ironic awareness and public acknowledgement of my vigilance, including her jokes at my expense, and everyone's laughter and agreement with her, including mine, just to keep the peace;
- Making sure pills are taken on an effective schedule so that they work as they should, with and without food;
- If the restaurant is the waiter-at-table version I'll need to mediate briefly between Mom's slow choosing and everyone else's readiness to order;
- If it is buffet driven I'll need to take her through the buffet separately from me, it will be a slow process, she'll be the last to the table, then, I'll gather my food, which means I'll arrive at the table ready to eat about halfway through everyone else's dinner;
- Keeping my eye on her during dinner so that she doesn't become so distracted that she doesn't recognize which food is hers and doesn't eat (this actually happened during a family restaurant celebration some years ago and is even more likely to happen, now);
- Doing a repeat of the visiting scenario after dinner back at MPS's house.
Finally, in the evening sometime, packing Mom and our stuff up and driving 2.5 hours back up the mountain;
Arriving home fairly late, possibly even as late at 2300
Spending yet another hour unpacking the car and putting everything away while keeping an eye on Mom;
Getting her to bed at her leisure;
Winding myself down for about a half hour;
Putting myself to bed and awakening up the following day a bit disoriented.

    This is not to say, I told her, that I wouldn't have a good time here and there. It is to say that when we travel for the purpose of visiting relatives and friends, I work double time and I'm not up for that, this year. Finally, I said, "If your desire to go is so high that you would be very disappointed if we didn't, Mom, I can work myself up for the trip. I mean, I know it's been awhile since you've seen any family except me."
    "It hasn't been that long," she said. "I'm not missing anyone."
    "Well, Mom, even though your memory is pulling out visits as though they're fresh, it has been awhile, and, certainly, it's been well over a year since we've done a family visit on a holiday."
    "I think you're mistaken about that."
    Hmmm...well, I suppose I could say that this is in my favor, anyway. "Okay. Well, what do you want to do?" At this point I'm thinking, you know, I probably shouldn't leave it up to her, I should probably have just made my decision and lived with whatever flack it caused.
    "Traveling is hard on me, too, you know," Mom said.
    I was surprised. This is the first time she's acknowledged that travel is hard on her, even though I know it is. Usually, I consider that she gets caught up in the excitement and any difficulties she may have disappear in the change of scenery, the visiting and her dementia. "I didn't know that," I said.
    "I don't think it's necessary, this time. Maybe we can go out to eat, or have a dinner here at home."
    "Which would you prefer?" I asked.
    "You know, I always prefer ham," she said.
    "Well, I can't get ahold of anyone there until the weekend, so you've got a few days to change your mind (so do I, I noted). But, I definitely need to call them on the weekend, so they can change the reservations. I'll remind you a couple of times before then, so we can revisit the decision."
    "No need to do that."
    I will, anyway. Frankly, I'm surprised. I think I may have been counting on Mom's disappointment to jump start me into some sort of Holiday Trip Hurrah. Didn't happen. I'm also not feeling guilty, I notice, which is different from years past; relieved is more like it.
    Maybe this year will be a reverse of last year, which was: Thanksgiving trip but no Christmas trip. Then, again, maybe our closest family has other plans for Christmas. The one aspect of all this of which I'm sure is that, despite MPS's decision a few years ago to handle the holidays, thinking (and, I thought this, too) that this would be a relief for me, it isn't. In fact, the holidays, toward which I have a natural aversion, have become even more detestable for me because of these frantic trip days.

A watched Blogger Beta never boils...

2006-11-14T02:48:00.001-07:00

...especially when on an ftp burner.
So, I'm done over at the movie site. I like the labels facility. Each of the movies now has it's own post. I've set up a nice little Label Index. Some of the labels are specific to Mom & Me: "Dream", for instance, "mom-favorite", "me-favorite", "dad-favorite" (only one, there, but it's worth its own label). Some of the labels appear to be understandable but are idiosyncratic: "Haunting", for instance, which isn't applied typically.
I've become aware that my CSS templates could use some tweaking in order to allow Blogger Beta to work more smoothly. I've known they could use some tweaking for some time, but Old Blogger has been so forgiving I haven't bothered. Now, it might be advantageous to cut out some of the miscellaneous fat. I'm not sure how smooth the process will become, though. Publishing continues to take forever (especially, it seems, if I'm sitting right at the computer). I've discovered some work arounds that are handy to know if you're using an "old" template that you've modified:

I finally wandered over to the Firefox site to see if they'd upgraded the Mac OSX version. They had, so I downloaded it, and it works much, much better than the old version; just as well as the PC version. So, I've been using that on my Mac.
If you get the message "...published with errors", view your blog to see if what you were trying to publish made it. If it did, 99 out of 100 times you can ignore the message, as, the next time you publish the errors will correct themselves.
The same technique works when you get the "...taking longer to publish than expected..." message. Because Blogger Beta republishes the entire template every time, whatever it missed the one time it'll usually catch the next.
Clearing your cache and history seems to help speed things up and redirect Blogger Beta, as well, but it's not a reliable technique.
Deleting Blogger and Google cookies, a technique Blogger suggests, works only under very limited circumstances.
If the problem involves getting the previously mentioned "image-ined letters" message, then you can be sure that the post or direction you just published is corrupted. The corruption may not be obvious, even upon looking at the post on your ISP server or editing the post. The only work around for this is, copy all the text in the post, including timing and dating, if retiming and redating the post is going to make a difference you don't want made, delete the post within Blogger Beta, then ftp your server to make sure the post has disappeared from there. If it hasn't, delete it there. Then, recreate the post.
Blogger Beta continues to have a character limit on titles. It's more inclusive than Old Blogger, but I ran up against it once.

    Tweaking my old templates will be easy. I'll probably tweak the rest before I switch. I still haven't addressed the corrupted archive listing problem. These two fixes, though, will give me some slack on figuring out how to recreate my templates (which I don't want to change) in the skin/variable/widget format. Apparently, as well, widgets aren't all that hard to invent, since there's actually a little area in Blogger that invites users to create and share new widgets, and a limited overview of how they work. There are also lots of people, out there, who are blogging every day about the new templates and how to hack them. Some of the posts and articles are extensive and detailed. Some are even divided up into lessons. Typing "'Blogger Beta' template" into your search engine will bring up loads of stuff. I even ran across a few sites that are inviting people to download templates they've constructed and are using.
    Well, shit, it's late/early. I'm going to bed. Want to remind myself, though, of a curious conversation Mom and I had tonight while watching Heroes on TV. And, I guess, I've got some other stuff to "make up", as well. And, some visiting to do...and other things...all of which will happen...as soon as I figure out how to stretch days from 24 to 36 hours...
    ...later...

Well, no, I guess the post below isn't a test post...

2006-11-12T04:13:00.001-07:00

...meant to be deleted. I want to keep it as a record of the successes and problems I'm having with Blogger Beta.
    Initially I had such surprising success with transferring the =>Moving =>Mom and the Movies, Mom & Me journals that I decided to transfer The Dailies.
    Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, "Moonlight", Opus 27, 3rd Movement, Artur Rubenstein playing...I'm leaning against my living room picture window in Seattle, listening to Barenboim play it while I follow along in the sheet music (illuminated by the angle of the lone back light at the rear of the apartment complex, since I'm in the dark in my living room) during certain passages to increase the thrill (I've got my CD player set to repeat), then looking out my window to watch the Christmas boat parade traversing "my" section of Lake Washington...
    That's when I noticed problems. I encountered the first when I attempted to access my archives at The Dailies. I got "Not on this server" error messages. So, thinking Blogger Beta must have dumped them during the transition, I ftped and realized, Yes, they are, goddamnit! I started prowling through Blogger's settings and realized that during the transfer Blogger deletes the archive path. I filled that in, sighed and assumed everything was fine. I ran a few test posts on all three journals. No problem, except the post publishing process seemed to be a little slow; it is almost instantaneous on the old version. I tested my domain ISP server, tested my cable connection, everything seemed fine, so, I figured, okay, well, it's just going to be slow. Then, I modified a template on the shortest of the journals and realized that the entire publication process for ftped blogs is quite slow. I scavenged Blogger and some blogger hack blogs for help or mention about this. Not much, not anything helpful, anyway. Considering their suggestion that Firefox browser was best to use, I switched from my Mac to my PC, which gets excellent response with Firefox. If anything, the publishing process was slower, because I couldn't stop it mid-stream, as I could on my Mac, and be sure that I wasn't publishing corrupted files.
    Also, over at that site I use a personalized post template for the stats. It initially confused Blogger Beta, which, for a couple of publishings, deleted the necessary break tags. It stopped that, though. I'm not sure why, and I'm not going to try to figure it out unless it happens again.
    "Upstairs by a Chinese Lamp" by Laura Nyro, off the "Christmas and the Beads of Sweat" album is playing. Whoa. They've got the wrong album listed. I'm at the barre in my bedroom-behind-the-garage on Guam, practicing leg stretches, bourees, plies, I'm thinking from inside my body, taking direction from the music, so loud that, my eyes closed, it has become my room...
    Oh well, I decided, I can't go back, so I'll make the best of it and explore. I am pleased to report that Blogger Beta left my "old style" templates unharmed. It even works when I modify the templates and republish them. Thank the gods for that. This was the main reason I hadn't switched. Although I've been familiarizing myself with the skin, variable and widget concepts and they aren't that difficult to understand, I'd been putting off designing a template using the new rules; and I can't stand their standard templates (one of which I use at The Dailies). They haven't changed them, just modified the most innocuous and deleted several. There aren't yet any promising hacked templates out there that I would consider trying, either. And, anyway, I like my own.
    The main reason I switched was that I discovered that even those people who ftp their journals to remote servers, thus, will not be able to use the widget templating concept (thank the gods for that, too, frankly), will be able to attach labels. I was delirious! This, I decided, would be the answer to my continued messy attempts to create a dynamic Table of Contents. Of course, none of the literature bothered to mention that the generating of a Label Index is dependent on widget technology and would be unavailable to those who couldn't avail themselves of this. So, I spent yesterday figuring out how to generate a Label Index on my templates, experimenting over at Movies, Mom & Me. It's a manual solution that involves noticing the naming of the label pages on the server and building the index within the template, but it's pretty easy. Once a label's in the index, it's there for the duration; and, since it's dynamic-page centered, each category will continually update as more posts are labeled. I suppose there's a piece of dynamic code I could place to do this. I just haven't gotten that far, yet. I've been having to go back, break apart my multiple movie posts and republish each movie as a separate post in order to label it, but the only part of the exercise that's laborious is waiting for each post to publish. Otherwise, the process is progressing nicely. Click over there and take a peak. I posted a "new" movie, The Man Who Would Be King, today, of which I've been wanting a copy for years; the first one up when you hit the site. Try out the labels on it, then check out the Labels Index to the left below the archives...which reminds me...
    Dr John, "It's Such a Night", off the "Essentials" collection...I'm driving home from a friend's in North Scottsdale who just listened to me until I'd exhausted my anxiety about tough times managing my ill mother and her affairs, he pierced my ears for the 13th and 14th times, I've got the windows open, I'm feeling cool, sauntering, jaunty, I can do this, I'm thinking, with style, I can do this with my ears gleaming and my hips sashaying, I can do this...
    ...that's another thing. When an ftped blog is transferred, the archives are screwed up. The weekly archive, for instance, which used to be labeled "1/23/05 - 1/29/05" is now "1/23/05 - 1/30/05" and contains posts for 1/30/05 - 2/5/05. Go figure. There is a piece of dynamic code specific to archives that was inserted into my templates during the transfer, I notice. I guess I'll have to figure out how to fool around with that code. Bizarre. And, I suppose, notify Blogger Beta, as well.
    So, needless to say, it's going to be awhile before I transfer this journal over; not until I absolutely have to. I can just guess how long it would take to publish these posts. I shudder at the template publishing possibilities. At the moment, as well, my template here is only half published because Blogger's regular service is screwing up, which continues to be an "unresolved issue" and will, hopefully, be solved Monday during a planned outtage.
    Finally, I discovered that it's very easy to accidentally publish corrupted files on this version. I did it by accidentally dating a post "2015" rather than "2005". It was just luck that I noticed this, yet again ftping the server to see what was going on, when I was trying to publish a post and repeatedly received an "Error: Please type letters as they appear in image" message, but there was no image of letters and no field in which to type the image-ined letters.
    Mmmm...I'm listening to "Living it Up" by Ricki Lee Jones off the "Pirates" album...I'm driving my yellow Super Beetle through an underpass tunnel in Sacramento, CA, headed out of town, north for Redding to look at a dead cow (I was an insurance adjuster there, among other jobs). I'm unconcerned about that, though; the humidity, the rain, the sleek, shimmery tunnel, the tape in my cassette player...I'm in a very good mood, I'm driving at a speed that's synchronized to my metabolism...ahhh...and I'm meeting Gary "for lunch" up there...I'm cruising, literally and figuratively, today, dead cow and all...
    Why am I talking about all this technical journaling stuff here, with no mention of my mother? What does this have to do with taking care of my mother? I'll write about that tomorrow. In the meantime, Arlo Guthrie's "City of New Orleans" is rocking me like a Morpheus made of melody...time for sleeping, time for dreaming...
    Later.

Over the last few days Mom's established a pattern...

2006-11-09T10:37:00.001-07:00

...of early to bed, arising not quite an hour later to go to the bathroom, then remaining up until I decide to retire. The first night this happened she read in her room, in bed. Tuesday night she joined me in the living room, asking, "So, what are you doing for fun?"
    I hadn't been doing anything that she would have considered fun, but it occurred to me that it might be a good time to watch the The Dog Whisperer video that MFS sent. It led us into some interesting conversations. One was about our standard Dachshund on Guam, Fritz, who became so territorial in his last years that he finally wouldn't tolerate anyone but the females in our family. We talked about how we could have modified his behavior if we'd only known. This led to a discussion about Willy, the Dachshund Mom & Dad hosted when they owned the farm in Wichita Falls, TX, and how Dad modified his behavior from perpetually scared of everything to so courageous that he eventually was run over by a truck he was, in his mind, chasing off the property, which broke Dad's heart. A discussion about the differences between parenting children and becoming a leader-of-the-pack to one's dog elicited a conversation about attitudes toward children contrasted with attitudes toward pets.
    Last night, Mom rearose as I was about 10 minutes into watching Japanese Story. This is one of those movies I rented, when it first came out on DVD, strictly on the strength of Toni Collette being in the cast. I fell so in love with the movie that I have continued to think of it since. Mom didn't watch it at that time. When I ran across a barely used (probably only watched once), cheap copy of it some days ago when turning in movies for credit at my favorite get-rid-of-DVDs-you-don't-want place, I snatched it using some of my accumulated credit. When Mom joined me last night, I told her what I was doing and restarted the movie. Although she expressed interest, I expected that at a point after about 15 minutes of watching the movie she'd become bored and I'd stop it for viewing at another alone-time. I was wrong. She was riveted, too. When the movie ended, she surprised me by saying, as the credits rolled, "I really enjoyed that! Let's buy that movie. I'd like to see it again."
    We discussed it, mostly the landscape, about which Mom commented, more than a few times during the movie, "Where is this? Australia? We should move to Australia," despite me reminding her that we probably couldn't live in the environments shown in the movie with which she particularly fell in love [You can take the woman out of the desert, I guess, but you can't take the desert out of the woman]; and about the subtle appreciation that grew between the main characters (the wife of the businessman included, even though she appears only in the last quarter of the movie), despite their extreme cultural differences.
    At one point I mentioned something about my reaction when I first saw the movie.
    "You've seen this movie? Why don't I remember seeing it?"
    "You didn't see it the first time, Mom. I wasn't sure you'd like it."
    "Well, from now on, check with me before you decide what you think I'd like."
    Yes m'am!
    I have, lately, turned quiet, quiet, quiet. It's a good feeling, peaceful, a touch of sadness involved but only around the edges, not a problem and for what reason I'm not sure...maybe I always feel it at this time of year. I should probably check. But I probably won't. Don't want to disturb the quiet. I am, though, I noticed, wavering on Thanksgiving. I haven't reserved a rental car, yet. We will probably go, Mom will definitely have a good time if we do, I will probably have a good time, but, then again...I suppose I should reserve a car, though, just in case.
    Later.

Normally, I know, I don't post on election results here...

2006-11-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

...as local results are usually reactionary, but, I have to say, I'm surprised and pleased that Arizona rejected the attempt to codify a rejection of gay marriage by making it illegal to consider participants in any kind of social relationship other than "one man/one woman legally sanctioned marriage" eligible for any kind of dependent benefits. The state continues to refuse to recognize marriages of anyone but one man/one woman; but will continue to recognize alternate partnerships and dependents involved in those partnerships. There are some who consider that the defeat of this measure by a mere 2% of voters bodes ill for future similar attempts, but I say, 2% in Arizona on such a measure is like 20% in many other states. Arizona may be slow to move forward but, in my experience in this state, when Arizona finally moves forward it doesn't move back, much to the surprise of many ultra-conservatives who consider Arizona easy pickins.
    I am discouraged by the results for the propositions directly and indirectly involved in making life harder for immigrants. I also, though, consider that many of these propositions will lose even as they have been approved. English as our official language, for instance, is too late; all you have to do to realize this is drive through any city or major city-town in the state. There is no realistically durable way to enforce this, thank the gods. Mitchell's win over Hayworth (Hayworth, as far as I can tell, continues to refuse to concede) is yet another indication that all those immigrant propositions will have very loose teeth.
    I am annoyed that we are sending both John Kyl and Rick Renzi back to Washington, but, overall, thanks to the rest of the nation, enough of their power has been sucked out from beneath them so that I'm not downhearted. I am ecstatic that Napolitano was re-elected by a landslide that was called within minutes after the polls closed. Hope does, indeed, float.
    Although I voted, my mother did not. This was at my discretion and it is a discretion that my mother questioned beginning day before yesterday. I took off to deposit my early ballot in the 24-hour ballot repository on Monday night, telling Mom where I was going and that I'd be back in 15 minutes (I made it in 14; the repository is only about two miles from our house). She'd been bombarded for a week with the last minute ramping up of the extraordinarily intrusive election rhetoric on TV and in the newspapers and hadn't mentioned anything about being interested in voting. When I returned from posting my ballot, though, she asked when she would be voting. Uh-oh.
    "You know, Mom," I said, "I didn't sense that you were interested in voting this year. The last time you were eligible to vote, you decided against it (that was in 2000; I did ask her, then, thinking that, at the very least, she would have an opinion regarding who should be the U.S.'s next president). So, this time, I didn't even mention it. Your registration has expired because you didn't vote in 2000 and 2004. I didn't think to consider renewing it. It's too late, now, to register for this election. Did you want to vote?"
    "Well, I thought it would be a good idea."
    "My fault. I'm sorry."
    I reviewed some of the issues and races up for grabs this year and asked her opinions. Of course, she was completely unable to bring pertinent data to the fore, and said so, but, you know, she held her own when confronted about issues rather than people, even though "her own" was a little cock-eyed.
    As we talked, I thought about the national mention (small, but noticeable mention) during the last two elections regarding the advisability of allowing the elderly demented to vote (nothing was discussed about whether the demented of other ages should be allowed to vote). Although much of the discussion was centered on the possibility of people "stealing" the votes of the elderly demented, it was slanted in Arizona because people continued to remember an elderly, demented juror in a high profile trial here who was finally dismissed from the jury mid-trial because of her dementia. The more I thought about it, though, the more I considered the large number of "undemented" voters who were probably badly informed and liable to be swayed by purposely confusing proposition language and deceptive campaign rhetoric, the more I realized that Mom voting was probably not any more or less risky to democracy than anyone else voting.
    "Do you want to vote in the next major election, Mom, the presidential election in 2008?"
    "I think so," she said, very carefully.
    "Okay. In that case, we'll get you registered."
    And, we will. If she's alive and in approximately the same mental state as she is now, which is entirely likely, I'll see to it that both she and I receive early ballots. She'll probably need reminder help regarding candidates and issues but, all things being approximately equal to her current mental state, I will not need to "tell" her how to vote on anything. She'll make up her own mind and, I expect, in comparison with any other voters, the man-on-the-street will be hard pressed to consider her reasoning any more or less demented than that of any other voters.

I've idiosyncratically updated...

2006-11-07T12:10:00.001-07:00

...The Dailies in a post that covers the last several days, from November 2 - yesterday. Toward the end there's a note about my feelings about constant statting at this stage of my mother's life.
    I also wanted to bring more attention to javelina. In case some of my reader's didn't notice, in a comment to my last post on javelina, Granny J provided yet another site with several spectacular pictures of foraging javelina. Super pictures, really! The herd portrayed in these pictures, by the way, is about average size for such a group.
    A sobering note about javelina as prey: Maybe about three weeks ago, mid-evening, after dark, the cats and I heard some scuffling outside in our back yard, a high pitched squeal...some more scuffling...thinking that yet another javelina had managed to get stuck while trying to dig underneath our neighbor's-to-the-west fences, I decided to investigate. I exited our front door so the sound of the back arcadia door sliding wouldn't cause the javelina to struggle more...although I knew it would probably struggle when I approached it mid-predicament. As I headed toward the back I heard a loud rush of scuffling, what sounded life a loud huff, then silence. I shone a flashlight all around the back yard and saw nothing. Then, a faint rustle escaped from our oldest elm just behind our carport. I directed the flashlight up the trunk. In the tree I spotted two pairs of eyes glaring at me and below the eyes the black shape of what appeared to be an adult javelina carcass hanging lifelessly from the seat of two conjoining branches. Mountain lions, probably, cooperating in a felicitous fall dinner. Although I know we have mountain lions here, I've talked to more than a few neighbors who've spotted them, including the aforementioned next-door neighbor, their reality hadn't struck me until that night.
    I turned and left them to their dinner; and, not incidentally, vowed to be even more cautious about seeing to it that our cats not escape our house.

I've been happily swimming in no-thing in particular...

2006-11-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

...for the last few days, and I expect to continue for a short while; maybe longer. I think about posting, but as soon as I think of it, I find myself wandering elsewhere...
    I've been running Non-Stat Days here, for, hmmm...I think yesterday was the third in a row but I'll have to check on that as I update the Dailies in a few minutes.
    We're having what Mom considers a glorious relief from fall; warm, sunny, she even decided she wanted to survey the backyard yesterday and talked about how she was glad summer was almost upon us, so we could spend more time in the back yard. I didn't bother to correct her about the season, nor about how difficult it was to get her into the back yard last summer.
    My mind is floating...it knocks into a subject, maneuvers around it and moves on to knock into another. I like this.
    We've been invited to MPS's for Thanksgiving, talked it over and we're planning on going. Oh, which reminds me, I need to reserve a car for the trip. Their plan is that we meet at their house, then travel on to a restaurant for a chore-free dinner.
    When MPS called, she carefully mentioned that if it didn't seem like Mom would be up for a restaurant excursion, Thanksgiving could happen "at home". When I related this to Mom, he laughed (as did I when MPS mentioned it). "Doesn't that girl know, I'm always up for going out to eat?"
    My feeling is that Mom will be restaurant capable up to the day she dies. Her preferred death scenario is probably as follows: Dropping dead in a fragrant, busy restaurant while she's contentedly digesting a sumptuous meal comprised of all her favorites, including ham and dessert, dessert, dessert, no sign of vegetable material, and people watching-gossiping, surrounded by convivial family.
    Later.

I had a great conversation, today...

2006-11-05T18:58:00.000-07:00

...with one of M(y)C(olorado)N(ie)C(e)s that reminded me of a very recent conversation with my mother; one I will treasure.
    As we talked about her grandmother was doing, MCNC mentioned that she didn't know whether Grandma would even remember her.
    "Oh," I assured her, "Grandma remembers you, MCNC. She has a little problem with her great grandchildren, but she remembers her grandchildren. She may think you're still in Russia (many years ago this niece was in Russia and my mother has never forgotten this), but she remembers you. Believe me, MCNC, Mom even forgets a lot about the people she sees a lot, including me. Just the other day..."
Here's where the conversation begins, a much fuller and more accurate-in-detail version (although not more accurate in sense) than the version MCNC received:
Mom, speaking to me as we're sitting in the living room together, working on separate things: "So, what are your plans for next year?"
Me: "What do you mean?"
Mom: "Are you planning on teaching next year?"
Me (not bothering to mention that I'm not a teacher): "No, I don't think so."
Mom (suddenly turning to sharply study me): "Well, then, what are you going to do?"
Me: "I thought I'd stay here and continue taking care of you. Why? Are you planning on teaching next year?"
Mom: "No, I don't think I'll teach next year."
Me: "Well, if you were going to teach, I'd go out and get a job. But, since you're not, I'll stay here and take care of you."
Mom: "That sounds like a good idea."

    We occasionally have variants on this conversation. Sometimes Mom works herself into a fit of agitation over me not working outside the home "next year". When this happens, the conversation usually goes like this:
    "Mom, do you want me to work outide the home?"
    "Well, it seems like you should."
    "Okay. In that case, this is what is going to need to happen. Either I'll need to put you in day care outside the home all day long, or hire professionals to be here with you, or, maybe you'd prefer an assisted living facility."
    "Oh, I can take care of myself while you're gone."
    "Well, no, we tried that, some years ago, and all you did was sleep. That's not taking care of yourself, Mom, that's waiting for me."
    "Oh. Well, I suppose you're right."
    "Anyway, Mom, this is my job, taking care of you. I like this job. Do you not like how I'm doing it?"
    "Well, no, I'm very pleased with you. It just seems that you should be doing something else with your time."
    "Mom, I have nothing better to do with my time than be with you."
    "Oh, good, because I want you here with me."

    Although the words often vary, the sentiments are accurate. I think, everytime she works herself into a snit over me being employed at my "career", whatever she happens to think that is at the time, or, at the very least not "wasting" my time taking care of her, I sense it is because she is so comfortable and relaxed in her life as she lives it and I provide for it to be lived that it is easy for her to feel as though life should be continuing the way she's always known...everyone working, going to school, coming home at the end of the day to recuperate and refresh themselves in the bosom of family, everyone pitching in to keep house, anyone who isn't employed outside the home keeping the home fires burning for everyone else...
    And, you know, it is a peculiar pleasure for me that she continues to feel this way. Whenever we have one of these conversations, I always reflect that I must be doing something right.
    The Mom is up from her nap. Time to plan dinner...and light a home fire.
    Later.

Granny J and the Javelina

2006-11-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

In case you want to know what javelina look like and why they are interested in domesticated yards, this Walking Prescott post has a good picture, toward the end, of a javelina family. The post focuses on javelina supremacy in the Prescott stand-off between domestic gardeners and domestic-garden-loving javelina. In my area, javelina have been known to ascend balcony stairs to go after my neighbor's to the east herb garden and dig underneath chain-link fencing to eat the new tomato and pepper plants lovingly set by my neighbor to the west. The reason I know about both these incidents is that I heard the squealing of the stuck javelinas in both cases and came out to investigate. In our yard, the javelina provided a long running lesson on how to secure a compost bin from being knocked over and plowed through every night. Since our yard is fairly wild, as well, during the lean times they often snuffle around at night in our open front yard, looking for treats. Our cats and I heard the first seasonal javelina tour group outside our eastern Arcadia door yesterday evening, in fact. No, nowhere near to the newly planted bulbs, luckily.

Got a much appreciated comment, today...

2006-11-03T16:49:00.000-07:00

...on the immediately previous post with some much needed cautions on bulb plants. Since the comment focused on our problems with javelina, my curiosity caused me to search her web moniker. Sure enough, up came a couple of sites, one, in particular, that might be of interested to my readers: Walking Prescott. I'm smiling as I recall my scan through it. It's a delightful, idiosyncratic tour of "Everyone's Hometown," "Christmas City, Arizona", "First Capital of Arizona", the official name of the Christmas card in which Mom and I live: Prescott, Arizona. I haven't read through the entire site, yet, although I will. I've gone through the pictures, though, and they are eccentric and delightful, very representative of what it's like to live here, geared to a resident's walker's eye view of Prescott, the walker being Granny J. Prescott is a mountain city-town full of walkers, so her journal presents a more appropriate view of Prescott than professional PR sites. As well, in her response to an e I sent to her earlier today (which contained even more valuable tips for bulb success, thank you again, Granny J), she mentioned that she has a Mom, too, 103, the "wonder woman" of the assisted living facility in which she now resides here in Prescott, whom she tells me she mentions in her blog, which further whets my appetite.
    I'm going to link this to my Special Posts section, too.
    Anyway, got a pharmacy run to make during Mom's upcoming nap. Better snap to.
    Later.

Mom asked for yet another half hour...

2006-11-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

...so we're pushing arousal to 1400. I'll be stern, this time. I wonder if that small slice of banana pie elevated her blood sugar into the "sticky eye" area.
    Forgot to mention, though (I was reminded of this when bending over my mother's bed to prod her into wakefulness), she did, indeed, remember that yesterday was my birthday. Immediately upon arousal she burst into, "Happy Birthday to you...", through which I accompanied her, of course. The song came up a couple other times during the day, as well, during odd, funny moments. Finally, last night, as we were in the bathroom preparing her for bed, she said, "Well, today was a good birthday, wasn't it."
    Just for fun, I heckled, "Yes, it was. I'm wondering, though, whose birthday it was!"
    "Doesn't matter," she said, "as long as the birthday person lives in this house."
    Good point.

Birthday Success

2006-11-01T12:26:00.001-07:00

    Birthday wishes from unexpected places, including an hilarious "pumpkin butt" card from MCS (in sly reference, I imagine, to the fact that I did come in on a load of pumpkins, something most people prefer not to admit); a birthday call from the sister who sent the card; a strange little Halloween birthday puzzle emailed to me by a friend, which it took me a half hour to master, in part because I didn't think I needed to do anything, at first; birthday calls from a nephew and niece with whom I am particularly close; a beautiful purple/magenta/yellow flower arrangement from MFS which arrived on my birthday, as well as a DVD gift from her (arrived today) which delighted me into outloud laughter (for many reasons) when I opened it: A disc of three key episodes from The Dog Whisperer! This is one of those programs to which I've occasionally tried to steer my mother, considering how much she'd love to have us host a dog, but there is always something else she'd rather watch. No excuses now! I even maneuvered a hapless election telephone poll researcher into wishing me a "Happy Halloween Birthday" yesterday while he questioned me on upcoming election issues and collected my "stats", including birthdate.
    The dinner was perfect. The banana cream pie was a surprise. After discovering that I needed only half the bananas I'd bought, Mom and I discussed the ingredients and decided to "start small", since both of us are wary of pies containing bananas and/or "cream": Fresh sliced bananas and pecans only for this run, no ginger (might not work), no dates (might make it waaaay too sweet). We had to wait a couple of hours after dinner to approach the idea of tasting the pie, which we finally did, just prior to her retirement (at around 0100 this morning); very thin slices. Considering how much fresh banana I used and that I was insistent on finding (at a natural foods market) banana flavoring that isn't artificial, the flavor was, truly, that of banana. The pecans were an inspiration in this pie. They (which I cooked within the pudding) turned the pudding in to a sort of sienna beige, pretty color, and added a subtle nutty flavor to the pie. The pudding set up very well.
    Later, I decided to something I haven't done a few years, visit my favorite astrological charting site and run a solar return on myself for this year. [For a quick reveiw about my involvement with and attitudes toward astrology, see here.] Yeow! Hard to miss that indomintable Saturn (ruling, in the Solar Return, my third house of siblings and overt communication) conjuncting my midheaven this year, throwing strong squares my first house planets planets and forming the axle of a T-Square, which deposits into my 7th house of partnership and open enemies, through an opposition to Neptune! Discipline (Saturn) in the face of illusion (Neptune), ameliorated by companionship (of my mother, I assume) and openly acknowledging conflict (both 7th house issues), with the help of self-concept (Jupiter ruler of solar Second House), ancestors (Mercury, ruler of solar Eigth House) and friends, hopes, wishes and dreams (Mercury also ruler of solar Eleventh House) at the apex of the T-Square, which resides in the Solar First House! Wow! Well, that year has already started, that's for sure! I find it interesting that I've used the word "discipline" very recently, not only in this journal, when talking about myself and what I'm doing with my mother. I also find it interesting that I have lately been very focused, both in particular and in general, on relationships between caregivers and other relatives. Out of curiosity, after sleeping on that Solar Return, I decided to run a Solar Return for last year. It is dominated by a rigid Grand Cross in the Third, Sixth, Ninth and Twelfth Houses, riveted by Saturn (ruling, this time, the 5th house of creativity of all kinds, including procreation, play, artfully creative activities, etc.) in the Twelfth. Lots of frustration. This year's has a point of discharge, though, which is somewhat more optimistic.
    When I first compared the two Solar charts I was struck with the feeling that, looking back, I don't consider that I was unusually frustrated. In the course of last year, though, I exploded due to frustrations over my circle of familial relationships and its implications for my companionship with my mother. I find it interesting to consider that the explosion accomplished only my eventual acceptance of the situation. Perhaps, this year, that acceptance will not be an "only" factor; it will be the key to a recharging of my life as my mother's caregiver/companion within the circle of my family.
    Having said all this, above, I will be filing the charts away and forgetting them until my birthday next year prods me into my usual concentrated birthday fascination with myself.
    I checked on my mother at 1300. She asked for another half hour, despite the temptation of video delights awaiting us today (The Dog Whisperer and a rental copy of Sunday in the Park with George).
    We also received, yesterday, the collection of unusual iris bulbs I ordered a while back. I'll probably plant them this afternoon or tomorrow morning...most likely tomorrow morning. When they arrived yesterday, Mom was excited and up for supervising their planting today. I have a feeling, though, just from her reaction to my wake-up call at 1300, and the overcast weather we're having, today, that I'm not going to be able to get her out. They need to be planted quickly, now, so I'm sure I'll be digging around early tomorrow morning. Our yard is, finally, next spring and early summer, going to be a riot of irises, daffodils, tulips and a miscellaneous mixture of flowering bulb plants...assuming of course, that the javelina don't eat most of the shoots, as they did this year. I'm guessing they won't, since we've had a wet spring and summer, a wet winter is promised, so they will, as usual except for last year, have plenty of munchies outside the perimeter of our property. Here's hoping...

My mother and father both turned 55 in 1973.

2006-10-31T11:25:00.000-07:00

    On the day of my father's birthday he was looking forward to early retirement from his Civil Service job in June of that year, when all our family that remained home moved to the U.S. proper from Guam. Although my parents had planned extensive travel for their retirement years, my father was soon to declare that he was going to sit in his rocking chair and drink himself to death. It took him 13 years to accomplish this.
    On the day of my mother's birthday, our family had returned to the states and was living temporarily in Prescott, AZ. One of my sisters was preparing for her hastily chosen wedding in August, less than a half month away. My parents' restless sojourn back and forth (and back and forth) between Texas and Arizona had yet to begin.
    At 55, my father was almost burnt out...glimmers of hope flashed here and there but, mostly, he was tired of life and scared of the emptiness he was sure he faced.
    At 55, my mother was harried but hopeful. She was stressed over the surprise wedding which everyone thought was unwise, but, realizing she could not stop it, fully caught up in the preparations. She was, as well, extremely optimistic about her and my father's "retirement".
    On this, the day after the last day of my 55th year (although I will, officially, be "55", I will begin telling people I am in my 56th year, which is true...an old habit, started when I was much younger and wanted to be much older), I think I can confidently say that I feel quite a bit different about this age than my parents felt about reaching 55. This is not and probably will not be a watershed year for me, as it was for my parents. There is nothing happening that is marking any kind of passage. At 55, I think my father felt "old". At 55, I think my mother felt, "What?!? 55? Well, all right, but I don't 'feel' 55." Me? I'm cruising. I have no problem admitting how long I've been around. I'm just pleasantly surprised that this is what 55 is like for me. I don't feel essentially different than I did when I was nine. In fact, since I'm on the other end of menopause, I probably feel more like I did when I was nine than I have for 46 years.
    On my 9th birthday in 1960, as I was riding the bus to school, I remember looking out through the window and the passing boonies, planning bike trips to the mysteries hidden in dense overgrowth along the route, thinking about how I felt that day: Energetic, hopeful, excited, much too savvy and wise to be "only nine"... I made a decision. I decided that every year on my birthday I would remember that bus trip, how I felt at that time and compare it with how I felt on my birthday every succeeding year. I've done this faithfully.
    I remember much of that day. The day at school even had an auspiciously exciting start: Someone threw a used menstrual napkin into the middle of the playground, around which all of us kids gathered, oohing and ahhing. A presentation about menstruation was planned at school for the 5th grade girls that day. Fourth grade girls, of which I was one, were allowed with parental permission and presence. I was the only 4th grade girl who attended (with my mother). I was pleased because I was hoping the presentation was going to include a Disney cartoon movie about menstruation that I'd seen a few years previous when I'd accompanied my older sister to a similar presentation in California, where we were living at the time. The movie had enchanted me, although I hadn't understood any of it. I loved it, especially a scene wherein a developing girl takes a shower and ice cubes come out of the spigot. This time around, in the 4th grade, when, much to my delight, the movie was shown, I absorbed the mechanics of the process but still didn't relate it to myself.
    I had a family party rather than a neighborhood party. I don't remember why, but it was my choice. Our parents left those decisions to us, past "a certain age", probably school age. My mother had informed me, as well, some months previous to my birthday, that this was the last year I could receive a doll as a present. If I wanted one, I was to pick out exactly the kind I wanted. The only doll I'd ever wanted was a "Muffy" doll, when I was in the 1st grade. The only reason I wanted it was because my oldest sister had one and I idolized my oldest sister. By the time I decided I needed this doll, though, they were no longer being made. The only dolls with which I ever "played" were errant, naked Barbie and Ken dolls belonging to my younger sisters. I used them to instruct my younger sisters regarding the positions of sexual intercourse, including an explanation of what their genitalia would look like and what those organs would be doing in various positions, "...if they had them." I preferred tiny glass and ceramic animals and chess pieces as the animated elements in my fantasies, if I wasn't busy imagining that I was a horse. However, this impending doll hallmark seemed unusually important to me. I figured, well, I'd better pick one out. I did.
    We were also allowed to plan our favorite dinner. I asked for hamburger patties with cheese and pickled beets (canned beets pickled while cooking with vinegar and spices; no sugar). I'm sure I had a cake of some kind, but I don't remember it. Remembering my preferences of the time, though, I probably asked for chocolate without frosting. I was probably told that it would have frosting, anyway, since the rest of the family liked frosting. I probably also asked for ice cream, most likely Rocky Road. If I had made it to the part of the dinner that included dessert (which I didn't), I would have demanded a piece of cake from the center, which would have the least amount of icing, then would have scraped my icing onto someone else's plate.
    During dinner someone made the mistake of asking what happened to us at school that day. When my turn came, I related the playground incident, then went on to extoll the virtues of the Disney menstrual movie, proceeding to explain, in detail, the journey of an egg through female fertility plumbing. My oldest sister turned scarlet with embarrassment. My father, as my presentation progressed, tried, several times, to stop me, until, annoyed and argumentative, I gave up, disgusted, having the last word with, "It's just about a little egg!"
    Dinner devolved from there. My feelings were hurt and I began to cry. I tried to cut my hamburger while I was blubbering, the knife slipped and launched the burger across the table and onto the floor. I left the table of my own miserable accord to cry and pout in my room.
    The doll? I never named it. Feeling an immense responsibility toward it, I taught myself to sew by hand by making her a wardrobe. I asked my father to make her a bed, which he did. Every morning for about a month I'd dress the doll, make her bed, sit her up on it. Every night before I retired I'd put her in pajamas and tuck her back into bed. I didn't play with her, other than that. She was quickly forgotten and discarded sometime before I became a teenager.
    I will, tonight, on this birthday, fix a dinner of food I like, want and haven't had for quite awhile: Marinated, grilled rib eye steak. We'll have small baked potatoes with butter, sour cream and chives. I'll dig all the white stuff out of mine, ask Mom if she wants it, she'll say, "No," I'll discard it and eat the remaining skin. We'll have steamed brocolli with a home made Asian dressing, loaded with ginger, rice vinegar and hot curry powder, a dash of soy, a peanut oil base.
    I was going to forego dessert but suddenly, an hour or so ago, I realized I wanted banana cream pie. This is bizarre. I like bananas but have never relished the idea of banana cream pie, and my mother doesn't like it, either, although she, too, likes bananas. I may have tasted one at some time, I don't remember. If I did, it was probably while at dinner at someone's house and strictly to be polite. Whatever, I decided, I seem to want this, so I'll have it. I considered buying one but figured it probably wouldn't have many bananas in it. I went to the store, even though I made sure all errands were up-to-date so I wouldn't need to go out today, bought bananas, banana flavoring, milk and a ready made graham cracker crust (I don't feel like messing with an original today). When I make my banana cream pie it will be more bananas than cream. I'll include chopped pecans. It occurred to me, on the way home, that I might even add chopped dates and a teaspoon of ginger, out of curiosity. Should be interesting.
    I'll probably let Mom sleep in, at least until I get nervous, which will probably be around 1400. She didn't retire until 0130 this morning, though, so I think she'll be fine. I probably won't encourage a walkering session today.
    She may or may not remember it's my birthday. I think it'll depend on whether she is reminded that it is Halloween.
    Although it's not a doll birthday this year, I am my mother's companion and feel an immense responsibility toward her, which is displayed in a variety of ways, none of which involves making clothes for her. Fortunately, I also have much more interest in her than I did in a doll. I don't expect we'll be watching any menstrual movies, but, this year, for the first year since I turned 9, I feel like I'm again riding that fateful bus. I feel much the same as I did then; I'm even expecting to catch a glimpse of sparkling mysteries, to which I will plan trips.
    Later.

No reading material, either...

2006-10-29T22:54:00.001-07:00

...in regard to the immediately previous post, I mean. Nothing, nothing, that needs to be read. I don't want anything around me that will get in the way of delingualizing my brain.
Later.

Hear Here Now

2006-10-28T23:28:00.001-07:00

    I noticed it, definitively, when we watched Akeelah and the Bee a week ago last Thursday. During the movie I prepared and launched dinner. As preparation ended, as is usual, I knelt beside my mother, who was sitting in her rocker, directed her silently to extend her hand toward me and took her blood glucose. As is also usual, as the meter analyzed her blood drop I placed it on the floor in front of me, next to her left foot. All the while Mom was watching the movie, paying no more attention to the process than usual. The meter beeped that it was finished. Mom turned her head toward me and said, "What's my blood sugar tonight?"
    "Did you hear the meter, Mom?"
    "Well, yes. I always hear it."
    Here I have to explain that:

This new meter has a softer beep by about half as our old meter. We've had the new meter since March of this year.
She rarely heard the old meter.
I've known, for some months, that she can hear this new meter in her bathroom, which is well constructed for the production of sound. She has also, but only a couple of times, indicated that she's heard the meter in the morning when it's on her bed very close to her ear.
I did not know that she's been able to hear the meter anywhere else.
I have noticed, though, since April, that her hearing has "gotten better", as she tells it; thus, she's noticed it, too. I think this improvement has everything to do with the fact that she is more alert, now that her anemia is under excellent control. Even when she's feeling a little low physically, her level of alertness remains practically steady; thus, she is almost always paying attention to her environment. Consequently, in the last several months I've been able to lower the volume of the TV (thank the gods) when she's watching it.

    As the movie continued and I served her dinner, I began to consider these changes in her hearing. I realized that maybe it is no longer necessary for me to speak in an unusually loud voice when talking to her, except when I am competing with the TV, the faucet in the bathroom, the direction of a fan or talking to her when my mouth is not speaking along a direct path to any part of her face. This would be a huge relief. Although my natural voice is unusually resonant and it does not take much effort for me to turn it up, I rattle from the inside out most of the time my mother is up from talking to her at bone shaking levels. Although I'd not given this much thought, the prospect of daily experiencing only my normal resonance struck me as similar to being granted freedom from a form of slavery.
    I decided to conduct some experiments after the movie. As we continued our evening, which included much discussion of the movie and the subject of spelling, I deliberately dropped the decibel level of my voice to normal. No matter where I stood or sat as we talked, the only time she had difficulty hearing and understanding me was when I was walking away from her and throwing my voice over my shoulder.
    I lifted an internal chorus of Hallelujah! to the skies.
    Just in the last week-plus-some, it's made a welcome difference in my physical comfort level around here. Except. Except.
    Within the last few-days-less-than-a-week I've been forced to take acute notice that some of my mother's "hearing problem" has been a listening problem. A fair amount of time when she doesn't "hear" me, she isn't listening. This isn't news to me, but it's become much more apparent, now that I've lowered the level of my voice.
    This is a decades old problem. I've had it with not only her but other members of my family. It's directly related to the fact that I am what is labeled a "know it all". Not that I do know it all, or ever have, or ever thought I have, or ever let on that I do. It's just that I have always been fascinated with information and will spontaneously spout bits of it when those bits seem appropriate to the conversation at hand. Sometimes these are gathered bits. Sometimes they are self-generated bits, fashioned from thinking about and playing match games with all the bits already in my head. I usually distinguish one type from another; sometimes, though, I have to be prodded to do this by someone asking, "How do you know thus and so?" Rarely, as a broad joke, I'll throw out mangled information. As an adult among adults, this is usually acknowledged for what it is. I used to do it as a child, though, too, among other children, primarily my younger sisters. Sometimes, these younger children took the joke as fact. One such "fact" has never been forgotten by one of my sisters. Another "fact", which I learned from someone else, believed for years and turned out not to be true also held a sister captive for about the same length of time it held me captive. As well, I have always been repetitive; probably because I have memories of realizing, from a very young age, that no one was listening to me most of the time, which I always thought was odd, since I spent so much time alone or in solitary pursuits when forced with accompaniment that I didn't think I talked that much.
    So, anyway, the family habit of not listening to me has a long history; particularly long in my mother's case. In some cases it is justified; when I am repetitive, for instance, or when I am slyly playing with my bits and in full view of a public, mixed audience. In some cases, well, it's sad that it happens, but it hasn't been justified.
    So, with all this in mind, since I seemed to have solved the voice volume problem to my mother's and my satisfaction, I recently set about considering the listening problem. I realized that some of what she doesn't listen to are daily, incessant repetitions:

"Drink more coffee/tea/OJ/water/V-8 juice. Now."
"Blow your nose."
"Time to go to the bathroom."
"Lift your leg from the thigh. No. From the thigh."
"Watch your OJ, don't cover it with the paper, you're about to knock it off the table."
"Eat over your plate, not over your lap, please."
"Lead [when negotiating our steps] with your left leg; it's your strongest."
Many parts of our entire Song of the Washer-ing Women (which I try hard to vary every day, making up little songs on the spot, changing the order of the washing directions, joking gently about all sorts of things connected with requiring help bathing, etc.).

    Some of these commands and reminders can be further varied in order to present a surprise to her ear to which she will listen. Some of them, well, how many ways are there to say, "Blow your nose"?
    When I'm just talking to her, though, when we're carrying on a conversation, it is not uncommon for me to open my mouth and before I've made a sound her eyes are scrinched, she's straining toward me and saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't understand you." Thus, I find myself turning up my voice until there is no way she can't "understand" me.
    Ironically, I was the one who taught her how to say this to people when her hearing (and her alertness, I now realize) were much worse. She used to pretend she heard people, smile, nod and often miss out on important or interesting information or the pleasure of a shared connection. Now, the lesson is coming back to bite me in the ass.
    Early Friday morning I decided that the best way to deal with this was head on. During breakfast, after she'd read through the paper to her satisfaction, I kept her at the table and initiated The Listening Conversation. I hit her head on with the fact that she is in the habit of not listening to me and I know it's not because of her hearing. I approached this by explaining what I'd been doing with volume levels over the past week. The timing and area of the conversation were both attempts to sneak up on her. It worked. She listened.
    She tilted her face coyly away from me and flashed me a thin-lipped grin. "Most of what you say I hear over and over every day."
    "I know," I said. "I know that's a problem. Some of those reminders I can vary. Some I can't, and I can live with you tuning those out. I am not, however, interested in doing any more talking during a particular day than I have to do. So, I want you to know ahead of time that when we are just conversing about things, you are in a physical position to hear everything I say and there are no cross currents of sound or air distorting my voice, if you don't hear something I say the first time, I'm not going to repeat it. I'm tired of repeating myself. I'm tired of ramping up my voice just because you're not listening. I'm tired of rumbling myself from the inside out because you're not listening. You have the ability to listen. You are very good about letting people know when you don't understand something, so that's not a problem. I'm not expecting you to remember stuff, I'm not blaming you for your dementia. But, I'm not going to take responsibility, any longer, for any lazy listening on your part, and, believe me, I can tell the difference in you between lazy listening and a failure of brain power."
    So, it's been almost 48 hours since that conversation. There have been several times through yesterday and today when we've been in conversation, face to face, without sound distortions, and she's fallen into her lazy listening habit; thus, there have been several times when I haven't repeated things I've said. These incidents are decreasing, but yesterday she went to bed thoroughly grim, feeling, I'm sure, that I'd spent much of the day shutting her out. Today, though, she listened more carefully and heard about half again more of what I said; thus, the day was much easier for her and she retired in her usual good humor.
    Interestingly, as she was sitting on her bed blowing her nose in preparation for the oxygen cannula, she referred to a conversation we'd had earlier catalyzed by watching the movie Shakespeare in Love.
    "I'm still wondering about the end of the movie," she said, "where the girl is walking across the beach."
    "I explained that to you at the time; where that came from, what play it's referring to."
    "Oh, yes, I remember. I guess I wasn't listening."
    I almost fell over from the weight of her words. "See, Mom," I taunted her, "you admit it. You weren't listening."
    She turned that thin-lipped I've-been-caught grin on me again. "I know. What about the girl on the beach?"
    "I'll tell you what. The next time we watch that movie and you ask me that question, I'll answer it again. When I do, you'd better be listening."
    "I guess I'd better," she said. "How about if we watch it tomorrow?"
    How about that!

    Today, too, while doing chores, doing an errand, I've been reflecting on how peaceful it feels to not be continually vibrating raucously from the sound of my voice. It took only a day for this to have a felicitous effect. I've often considered that one of the things I might do immediately after my mother dies is set up a situation where I can go into enforced seclusion for a few months, maybe six, maybe more, in which I "take a vow of silence", as the monks would say. I remember explaining this desire a couple of years ago to one of my sisters as a period in which I could, "make sense of the totality of what I will have been doing here."
    When I think back on my announcement, I find it amusingly absurd that it was the sister who is the most relentlessly social to whom I spoke of this; she was confused, horrified and, which came as the ultimate surprise to me, a little chastened. I think she took my announcement as a personal rejection. Not that she needed to; I think it was simply that it is not her nature to consider seclusion as socially useful; thus, her immediate response to my announcement was that I was somehow rejecting her and my other sisters. I was so surprised by her reaction, though, that I didn't think to respond reassuringly; I left her to contemplate it on her own. I have no idea what the upshot of that contemplation might be.
    At any rate, at the time of my announcement, I was sure of my motives. Now, I think, I think I've achieved a bit more clarity about why I consider this kind of a retreat immediately after my mother dies.. These years of being my mother's companion have, of necessity, turned me into a much, much more talkative person than I've ever been, simply because there is someone around with whom I must talk. Previously, although I'm neither shy nor socially withdrawn, thus, when in public I am more apt to talk than not, I purposely spent lots of time alone, primarily because I have, all my adult life, insisted on living alone; thus, I was able to get away with scraping together enough silence to keep me happy. Not so, as my mother's companion.
    Although I expect my new efforts at lowering decibel levels will continue to provide great relief, I also expect my desire for intense silence, especially my own, will probably remain with me, so, depending on how circumstances fall into place after my mother's death, I might, indeed, enter into silence for awhile. As I contemplated this yesterday, I realized that I think I may want to enter into a state of not just vocal silence, but communicative silence, as well; primarily, I don't want to write anything down. This would be an extraordinary challenge for me, since it is automatic for my brain to explain things to me lingually, because I'm always considering the possibility of writing down what I'm thinking. As I considered what excluding the tool of writing from me would do I further realized that in order to head off any possibility of me storing lingualized bits in my brain which I would rush to write once I'd finished my enforced silence, I would also have to take a vow that I would not write about my experience of silence. Ever. This would free my brain from the necessity of attempting to lingualize everything it thought. Wow, I thought. If I could set myself to this discipline, I might discover, for myself, a whole new way of thinking! I might even be able to free myself from some strictures of thought that seem inherent but are merely habitual! This must be what very deep meditation is!
    So, while I must, I'll surrender to internal sound. Now that I've figured out that I can modify the volume, it's no longer threatening to approach the level of self-torture. I've noticed, in fact, that I am hearing indigenous environmental sound better than I did prior to Friday, and, you know, my hearing is important to me. It's so important to me that if someone told me that I must sacrifice either sight or sound, my choice, but I couldn't have both, I'd gladly hand over my eyes.
    When I can, though, I'll, one way or another, pursue silence. Now that I feel this is certain, my external and internal ears are so savoring the possibility of a future period of silence that it feels as though they are shivering with the desire to lap up every possible sound I can create between now and the moment I am free to step over the threshhold into A Grand Silence.
    Seems so appropriate: This noisy, companionship (including the internal noise of reporting on the companionship) discipline...followed by the discipline of pursuing deep internal silence.
    Music to my ears.
    Later.

I received a delightful, as usual, visit from my FedEx lady, yesterday.

2006-10-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

    I'm sure it will be the first of a few more than a few that will be packed into the period between now and the end of January. This, I realized yesterday, is one of the pleasures of the holiday season, for me.
    She commented on the striking fragrance of the package she delivered to me. "It perfumed my whole van," she said.
    "Bet you were glad to finally deliver it," I said, chuckling.
    "Oh, no, it was wonderful! Especially this time of year when everything is so colorful around here."
    I explained to her that it was a box of soaps. "I use heavily fragrant soaps in my mother's bathroom; it stimulates her nose, always causes her to comment when she's in there, and, you know, with bathing her, we spend a lot of time in there. It also helps mask the odor of her used paper underwear until I can empty the trash can."
    "I should try that," she said.
    With this we were off and running, catching up on each other's caregiving careers. She is the woman I've mentioned, here, who, with her husband, takes care of her mom (87) and dad (89) in home and has been for some years, while she and her husband continue working toward their separate retirements. Her Mom's profile is much like my mother's: Dementia-Lite, "old age" diabetes, slowly increasing physical instability, a few other miscellaneous conditions, one of which is high blood pressure. Her father, other than an osteoporotic upper back, "is fine", although, he too, is noticeably "slowing down". The couple lives in an added on "apartment" which is completely open to the rest of the house, but includes "separate" amenities like a small kitchen, bedroom, a living/entertainment room, even a utility room so they can do their own wash.
    Since our last visit, sometime in April of last year, I think, much has happened in their family. Her mother has "gone downhill" rather quickly in the intervening months: She is no longer able to sew, which was one of her favorite activities. She becomes confused with the machine and, within minutes of starting a sewing project, manages to jam the machine, which frustrates her even more. The FedEx lady told me that she "finally" felt it was time to remove the machine from her mother's line of sight so as to preserve her mother's "sanity". "As soon as the machine was put away," she said, "it's the funniest thing. My mother stopped thinking about sewing."
    "Wow," I said. "Maybe she was ready to go onto something else, but, you know, old habits die hard."
    The FedEx lady nodded. "I worry, though, that Mom doesn't have enough to do," she said.
    I related how, within the last year and a half, I've been learning the hard lesson that being Ancient is more about "being than doing". We sympathized with one another about how hard this is to acknowledge. Curiously, though, neither of us referred to the "sadness" of this, the "loss" of that. This is why I love talking with her. She shares my attitude that these devolvements are just life, you know, when one door closes, another one opens. I find that this attitude is common only among those who have embraced not just the actuality of their Ancient Ones, but their presence, full time, in their lives. Not all in-home caregivers operate from these attitudes but, so far, all caregivers I've encountered with these bedrock perspectives are taking care of their Ancient Ones in home.
    Since we last talked, her parents celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary. "We were going to keep it low key," she said, "just immediate family," which includes family in Phoenix and Tucson. Somehow, though, word got around. Pretty soon relatives were calling from all over the U.S. and Mexico (their family is scattered from Seattle to Florida and Michigan to Mexico, literally), asking about the party, inviting themselves, suggesting things they could do to make it better...the event turned into a boisterous soirée with 90 people and a D.J. for back yard dancing. "I took a month off just to prepare, even though we decided to cater it," the FedEx lady said.
    As the event expanded to practically every last dribble of living relatives, the FedEx lady got an idea. "I told everyone to write up one of their memories of Mom and Dad, attach a souvenir and bring it as their gift to them. We copied all the memories and took pictures of the souvenirs. I'm not sure how it happened, but there were well over 100 memories." They presented their matriarch and patriach with the originals at the party and laid out the copies on a table so people browse and read them. When people began to leave, someone came up with the idea of "exchanging memories"; as each person left, they scanned through the copied memories and took one of someone else's home with them. "Even the young ones," she said. "They were first at the table. I guess they wanted to make sure they got their favorites."
    Everyone, of course, had a wonderful time. "My mother was so surprised," the FedEx lady told me. "After the party she kept saying, 'there were no fights!' Whenever we get together, it seems like there's always someone who is upset with someone else and it spills over into the party."
    "I wonder," I said, "if it's because your parents were the focus. I mean, you know, during holiday celebrations, everyone is supposed to have the spotlight for a little while, but someone always gets left out, knows, ahead of time, they're going to get left out, someone else can't distinguish between appetizer chips and chips on shoulders, everybody's strung out from the holiday rush, all the 'shoulds' that run rampant during that season..."
    The FedEx Lady nodded vigorously. "We've got a lot of that going on in our family."
    Just about every family does, I guess, no matter what form it takes.
    She mentioned to me, too, that her son has come back to live with them in order to help take care of her parents, especially his Grandma. Although, for the past few years they've employed a housekeeper who comes in during the weekdays, does housework, cooking, and is supposed to provide company and transportation for her Mom and Dad, as her mother's dementia has increased, her lack of affinity for the housekeeper has also increased. She resents the housekeeper's presence, doesn't like her personality, doesn't like the food she cooks, thus, she doesn't eat, during the day, and would prefer to ignore rather than engage the housekeeper.
    "Finally," she said, "I realized that what Mom and Dad need, now, is family. I called my son in Seattle and asked him if he'd consider finishing his school out here in the evening and being with Grandma and Grandpa during the day."
    He accepted. Enthusiastically. "He knows that if he wants to add to his memories of them, he'd better start, now."
    I briefly wondered if this is a realization that comes naturally to families formed out of one of the subcultural concepts of extended family. This family is one of those.
    Both her Mom and Dad have "perked up" considerably since their grandson moved back home. "It's not so much what he does or doesn't do," The FedEx Lady said, "it's that they goof around together. He knows what kind of food Mom and Dad like, that's what he fixes and Mom eats it. They don't just go on business trips, they take little pleasure trips with him. They talk about common experiences. They are all very interested in what happened in each other's lives yesterday, the day before, when they weren't together, and what is going to happen today."
    Wow, I thought. I couldn't have put the importance of family involvement in the lives of its Ancient Ones better.
    "I'm not worried about making it to retirement anymore," she said. She held up two fingers. "Only two more years. My son will finish with his schooling, then, and I'll be able to be at home with Mom and Dad." There was much relief in her voice. The possibility of having to quit work before retiring on behalf of taking care of her parents has been haunting her. "By that time," she added, "[her son] will be so involved with his grandparents that I know he'll continue visiting a lot, no matter where he moves."
    I asked to whom her Mom and Dad were going to travel this year for the holidays, as is the family custom.
    The FedEx Lady shook her head. "Not this year," she said.
    I recalled her mentioning, last year, that the two trips they took were so hard on them she was anticipating that traveling to relatives wasn't going to last too much longer.
    "It's too hard on Mom and Dad gets confused," she confirmed. "Someone would have to travel with them, then return, then go get them. It takes them awhile to recover from the trips, too...they had a good time, last year, but were so tired they both said they wished family had come to them."
    I nodded. Sounds familiar. "So, holidays here, this year?" I asked.
    She nodded and began an excited exposition about visits already planned and parties-in-the-works.
    I chuckled. "More time off during the holidays," I said.
    "Not for me! It's my husband's turn. I've taken just about all the time I can. He's insisting on it. I think he's looking forward to it." She mimed exhaustion, back slumping, arms dangling, head spinning in clock circles. "If I had to take all that on every time a celebration comes up, we wouldn't have holidays!"
    Whoa, I thought. So, maybe I can be forgiven for what has become my dismissal of holidays over the last few years. I'm not just imagining my frustration, nor am I inventing it in anticipation, nor am I being selfishly petty about refusing celebratory delights in favor of avoiding exasperation and exhaustion. It happens even for those who have significant family back-up. "I guess that means we'll be able to keep up with each other over the holidays, this year. That'll be great," I said.
    "I know," she said. "I always feel better when we talk like this. I think about you and your Mom a lot. I don't know many people who take care of their parents."
    "Same here," I said.
    So, for me, for the FedEx Lady...
    ...later.

It seems I'm not as "Care Free" as I thought.

2006-10-26T23:27:00.003-07:00

    Before my mother awoke, yesterday, I received a call from one of my sisters, the one with whom I communicate the most. We always fall into an easy chatter, although not necessarily about easy subjects.
    One of the subjects we traversed was the younger members of our extended family; the nieces and nephews and grand-this-and-that's. She has, for some years, been closely tending one of the youngest of these relatives. There is a possibility that this relationship will be overshadowed by the intrusion of professional care for the child, next year...for no other reason than that the parents seem to be unaware of the extraordinary, dynamic and valuable (to both parties) relationship my sister has forged with The Young One in question. My sister and I spent some time mourning the fact that the relationship isn't evident to The Young One's parents, talked about ways to bring it to their awareness and lobby for that relationship as at least as valuable to The Young One's development as a professional day care center could be. To lighten the flow of the conversation, I joked that if my sister had a hard time approaching the parents about this, "Have 'em call me, I'll tell them!"
    We both laughed.
    "No, don't," I continued, attempting to stoke another laugh. "Considering all the stuff I've said and written since April, trying to change the way everyone relates to Mom and me, the last thing I need is to distance yet another part of the family!"
    "Oh, I don't pay any attention to that!" the sister with whom I was talking said.
    I was momentarily startled. I immediately thought of the Care Free post and the post about relationships and wondered In other words, if you're beset with a howling dog, hang back until the dog is asleep, then, let that sleeping dog lie. The conversation continued to swirl fast around me, though, so I tabled my initial consideration and immediately entitled the fast receding comment, "An Offering Meant to Assure Me that I Had Not Managed to Distance Her."
    Our conversation continued bubbling downstream, then Mom awoke and I was on my way for the day.
    A couple of hours into our day, though, I noticed I was increasingly silent and preoccupied. I wasn't in a bad mood; just stony with thought. I replayed my sister's startling comment so many times and scrutinized each of my reactions to it, small and large, that I cannot now be sure if she said "don't pay any attention to" or "ignore". I think it's the former...but it feels like the latter.
    Considering that this is probably how all my sisters would like to react to my occasionally ornery annoyance with all of them as extremely distant relatives during this time of Taking Care of Our Ancient One Mother kept me noticeably removed from my mother all day. I know this because, although my mother did not take offense at my preoccupation, nor did she try to break into it, she thanked me obsessively for every move I made on her behalf. She only does this when I am not fully engaged with her, whatever the reason.
    I can't say that I've come to any conclusions about the struggles I encounter as my mother's companion being simultaneously distanced and dismissed by my sisters. I have, once again, discovered, over the last 36 hours, that it is a relief to, you know, "have it in writing". Keeps me from agonizing over suspicions, which is a mostly foreign and distressing reaction for me, anyway.
    I suppose I should be busily trying to figure out a way to extend myself as more approachable, less likely to flare; come up with suggestions for relationship renewal; shuttle my mental and physical asses around finding materials to "make it easy on everyone"; see to it that Mom and I again become "the flexible ones"; allay everyone's feelings of guilt, whether or not each is aware of them.
    Instead, I imagined a post-Mom's-death scenario in which everyone, except me, heaves a sigh of relief that "it's over" and now we can all go back to being sisters, again. I was struck with the similarily of this possibility to the possibility that the parents of The Young One may be ignoring the not-to-be-found-anywhere-else value of the relationship my sister has forged with The Young One while doing what her parents only acknowledge as "babysitting", out of a sense of guilt toward what they imagine to be the "burden" of child care they have "foisted" upon my sister. They don't want to realize that it is much more than "babysitting", maybe because they feel guilty that, in this society with its capitalistic view of survival and its attendant prerogatives, they cannot make themselves available to provide what my sister is providing. Never mind that they are not of the age or relationship to The Young One to duplicate my sister's relationship with The Young One.
    I thought about how the caregiving capacity of elders (pre-Ancient elders) is devalued and, finally, taken from them, through this overwhelming, unspoken guilt. I thought about how this further isolates everyone within an extended family. I thought about how this universal, simultaneous devaluation of caregiving and guilt over care that should be available through the family system but is almost impossible to provide through it continues to ensure that in all matters relating to love and nurturing, our economic system continues to hold sway. I thought about all the new experiments being launched in the hopes of somehow straddling economic and emotional imperatives: Green House Assisted Living Facilities; Chosen Famililes; Eden Alternative Reorganization of Nursing Homes and their Professionals; Credit Given for Helping the Elderly When One is Younger From Which One Can Draw When One Is Older; An Obsessive Concern with Encouraging the "Independence" in the Elderly as Long as Possible. Not one of these attempts involves raising the relationship consciousness of our families; they all, in fact, reward, and are rewarded by, distance. No one is talking about how families need to confront difficult relationships and work through them so that families will want to encourage and support the kind of relationships my sister has with her Young One and I have with My Mother, and will face off with our current economic system and insist on the respect and the room to do this.
    We are giving up on family, dismissing the value of hard won family relationships that take time and energy and concern and commitment because we're scared we'll be out of a job (and, not coincidentally, out of the chance for "personal fulfillment") if we don't. Then, how will we survive?!?
    Maybe this is inevitable: A world without family. Maybe it's just another step in evolution and, one way or another, we'll adjust, and the world won't be so bad. Humans are nothing if not adaptable.
    But, you know, here I am with my mother, her only immediate family, now, daily astonished at how this detailed, complicated relationship we've forged continues to mold and enrich both of our lives, and I'm thinking, I care about this. Without apology, without embarassment, I care about this. I wish I lived in a world in which it was easier for others to care about this, too.
    Later.

I've decided that today...

2006-10-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

...will not be our "outing" day. Considering the combination of allowing myself to sleep in after last night lasting through almost 0300 this morning, Mom staying up almost as long as I did and the very cool, very windy weather today, with occasional dark clouds on the horizon, I don't think she'll be upset with my decision. Although she may not remember her plan, I'll remind her, just to keep it uppermost in her mind so that when the right day arrives she'll be up for it. And, I'll apologize for trumping her desire. I don't think she'll mind, though. I think the apparent "weather", and the chance to sleep in (I don't know how long, yet today, I'll extend this) will allow her to accept my decision with equanimity.
    I've been a little "off" this morning (shouldn't surprise me), so I've been busily attending to end-of-month business, placing some orders for supplies we use that are significantly cheaper to buy online and was so overcome by "the business me" that I'm getting a jump start on Mom's end-of-the-year tax business. This may so astonish her CPA that he'll have another heart attack!
    I expect today to be low-key. We didn't walker yesterday, though, so I may try to engineer an in-house session. Then again...
    Mom mentioned, though, yesterday, probably provoked by the rain, "Isn't it about time for us to start baking?" She's referring, of course, to seasonal baking: very gingery date bread; dried cherry, toasted almond egg nog bread; muffins for freezing; fruitcakes and holiday cookies a little later; meat pot pies for freezing; time to start using our bread machine to supply us with daily bread, rather than buying it...
    ...must be, I guess.
    Later.

My mother and I agreed, Saw was a bust.

2006-10-25T02:45:00.001-07:00

    That's right. Mom came out from her darkened bedroom at 0030, first to go to the bathroom, then to check if my excitement about the movie was being satisfied. She also invited me to sleep with her in her bedroom if I "[got] too scared, but you must bring your own pillow," she warned.
    Although there had been a promising bit about a woman locked in a jaw breaker who'd managed to survive and a bit about an obsessed detective also held possibilities, neither was well used in the context of the movie. By the time my mother appeared, hanging over the banister, I was suspicious that nothing was ever going to really happen in this movie: The story lagged from about 10 minutes into it; the situations had become so familiar as to border on boring; the "surprises" were bereft of horror-shock value. Although I was determined enough to see the movie through to the end, I wasn't so involved that I couldn't also attend to my mother in the bathroom. I knew I wouldn't miss anything important.
    As I was complaining to my mother about the movie, she decided to stay up and watch the rest of it. At the end, even though (or maybe because) all the mysteries were solved, the psychopath remained loose (often key to evoking a lingering sense of horror) and the "last" victim remained unrescued with no hope, as the credits begin to roll in the wake of the victim's last scream, "Noooo, Nooooo," I was disappointedly shaking my head. I noticed, peripherally, my mother was, too.
    "I guess I didn't get in on enough of it to get scared," she said.
    "Trust me, Mom, none of it was enough."
    "What was that other movie you mentioned?"
    I confirmed that she was referring to SE7EN, which I'd discussed when telling her what I knew about Saw.
    "Maybe we could watch that one."
    Not a bad idea. As I queued it on our rental facility, I got to thinking. "You know what, Mom, I'm wondering if there is an 'age' when people are most likely to enjoy horror and, once you're past that age, you're immune."
    "I couldn't tell you. I've never been scared by any of those movies."
    Neither have I, not truly, not even as a child. There are times, though, when the elements of horror grip me. They don't necessarily have to be a contained in a movie or story in the horror genre. Scarface, for instance, has that effect on me. The imbedded biographic tale about Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects has that effect on me, although the rest of the movie does not; not even the end. Unbreakable has some classic subtle horror moments for me, although they don't include the crime sequence toward the end of the film. Hell, the witch, Maleficent in Disney's Sleeping Beauty had that effect on me, I loved her, although I dismissed the rest of the movie.
    "Well," I said, "maybe I need to see if I'm beyond that stuff. Would you mind if I watch movies, over the next week or so, that I remember having a horrific effect on me?"
    "Not at all," she said. "I think I'd like to see that seven movie."
    I was about to say, "Good", when I recalled the scene in which a john is clad in a particularly viscious penile apparatus and forced to fuck a prostitute to death. "Well, I should tell you, one of the scenes is unusually upsetting, and it involves sex," I warned her.
    She leaned over the arm of her rocker toward me in the mock confidence, "You know," she said, "I know about sex."
    I laughed. "I'm sure you do, Mom, but I don't think you know about the kind of sex featured in the film."
    "If I don't like it, I'll just close my eyes."
    So, I guess I'm about to find out if memories of proper provocational horror would match me, now. It'll be interesting to view Mom's reactions, too.
    Anyway, to bed. As I've been writing this post, Mom's been up twice more. If I stay up any longer, there's a possibility that neither of us will make it to bed tonight.
    Later.

We were ramping ourselves up...

2006-10-24T23:25:00.000-07:00

...for watching Saw. Although I've pretty much ignored the movie since it hit the theaters some years ago, I guess, I didn't even know it was a horror movie, my mother's recent interest in horror movies has had me doing research, looking for suitable possibilities for her, in part for rental and in part so that I would recognize appropriate names on the cable channels. This is how I recently learned about Saw, and learned it's been compared to SE7EN, which I really enjoyed. That's my kind of horror movie. I don't want undead monsters, I don't want mutant monsters, I want psychological monsters bent on psychological and physical torture of their victims and/or their antagonists, before death, if death occurs. I haven't yet been satisfied. I haven't discovered my ultimate example of the genre. I continue to look, though, well, except in book form: Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite is completely satisfying for me, as far as written horror fiction is concerned.
    Mom sounded game. Right up until 2230. Then, the rainy day, her unusually short nap (probably because of the excitement I'd generated over the horror movie), doing her hair, writing on her back (I think I've created a write-on-my-back monster) all combined to create a "time for bed" mood, much earlier than usual. I considered gently pushing her to stay up a little longer, but I decided, nah, she's feeling good, everything's fine, I'll let her head in early. Maybe that will mean an earlier rising, and a fairly early excursion tomorrow.
    She's still looking forward to an outing, tomorrow. It still looks like the weather will cooperate. And, I still get to see the movie, Mom or not. So, you know, something about little blessings, small favors, I don't know.
    Almost movie time.
    Later.

Today's been a little hard to control...

2006-10-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

...for both my mother and me, but it lead to an interesting conversation along the way.
    My errand for today was to have the car reshod. I'd ordered the tires last week, was contacted yesterday that they were in, the sale price applied to the specific make and model I wanted...so I took the car in this morning, making sure I was there when they opened, so I could get back long before Mom arose. So was everyone else in town, and their dogs. That's a small town for you.
    Three hours later my car was ready to roll. In the meantime, though, although I'd wandered over to a companion store and bought a book to read during my wait, a woman sitting to my left and I struck up a conversation. I was sitting on the floor, much more comfortable for me than the benches provided which are made for tall people with very long legs. The woman commented to me that I was lucky I could "do that"; sit, relaxed, in a half lotus on the floor.
    I laughed. "Believe me," I said, "it's strictly inherited. It has nothing to do with any health regimens I should probably doggedly be following, but don't. I'm my mother's companion; she's 89 and has Dementia-Lite. It's not uncommon for her to sit on the floor, forgetting that she isn't going to be able to get herself up. I guess I got the flexibility from her."
    The woman told me she was a nurse who specialized in people with Alzheimer's. "Your mother's on Aricept?" she asked.
    "No," I explained, "she has Chronic Renal Failure and Anemia..."
    "Oh, no, then, you don't want her on that."
    I was pleased for the added confirmation. She solicited a brief description of my mother's dementia and reconfirmed that it is, mostly likely, vascular dementia.
    Turns out, the woman and her husband have also embraced her mother-in-law, who is 94 and "fine", mentally and physically, into their home. She's been with them for several years. I asked how she came to be with them. She related some interesting tidbits.
    Her mother-in-law had previously homed out of Arizona, in the same state all her life. Just previous to merging her life with that of her son's and daughter-in-law's, she began experiencing a variety of internal health problems, none of which were being handled with any adequacy by the medical professionals in her life. As a result, her life took a swift downhill turn. She was staying in bed most of the time from pain. She was unable to eat much without suffering severe indigestion. The two problems, combined, caused her to not go to the trouble of eating. She began to languish. Her daughter-in-law flew to her rescue. She intervened with the doctor. "Advocating is so important," she said.
    Yes!, I thought, my internal fist raised in salute. Nothing like having an experienced nurse confirm this.
    With some common surgeries, all the mother-in-law's ailments were cured. Medicine suggested putting the mother-in-law into temporary, live-in rehab therapy.
    The daughter-in-law shook her head. "I'm a nursing home administrator. I know where that would lead."
    Interesting, I thought, that even those who are employed by nursing homes don't feel in control of the environments.
    "So, I told her," she continued, "Mother, I can get you all set up here [indicating, as I understood, into an assisted living situation] or you can come home with us."
    "'Let's pack my bags,'" the mother-in-law said.
    We talked, some, too, about the relief of taking care of a beloved elder at home. Her mother-in-law requires less intense care than my mother. The woman mentioned that, today, her mother-in-law was home "doing the laundry. She likes to do it."
    "My mother still likes to feel a part of chores, too," I said. "I include her as much as possible, even though most of it, now, is in a strictly supervisory position."
    We grinned at one another.
    The woman and her family haven't always lived in this area. When their mother-in-law joined them, they lived in southern Arizona. Up to the time of this move, the daughter-in-law pursued her profession. When they moved she decided, for a variety of reasons, including being outrageously over qualified for any positions in this area, she would be more valuable at home.
    When it became apparent that my car was ready, I lingered for some minutes because the woman and I had begun to compare notes about the peculiar ease and relief of having one's beloved Ancient Ones at home. Neither of us said anything earth shattering. I remember, though, that we talked about how each of us was "chosen" for this. She related how her mother-in-law had, at one time, stated that she would never want any of her daughters to "take care of" her. The woman said, this was fine with her. She'd always been peculiarly close to her mother-in-law, "for 39 years," she added.
    I mentioned that, of all Mom's daughters, I was shocked when she asked me to be her final companion. "All my sisters had husbands and families and worked; very involved family lives. I was the one who never wanted marriage, never wanted kids," wasn't at all interested in setting up a classically domestic situation for myself, "and, yet, my mother knew, somehow, that I was the right one. She and I had the relationship that would serve her well in her old age. Funny how that happens," I added.
    The woman nodded her vigorous agreement.
    We talked, too, about the risks involved in doing this. It seems, at this time, they are the same for a family as they are for an individual. "I think about it, sometimes," I said, "What I'll have to do when 'it's all over'."
    The woman nodded again. "Knowing you can't just 'go back', I know," she said. "But I think about my life with my mother-in-law and..."
    I know.

    When I arrived home, Mom was up, in the dinette at the table, reading her newspaper. She had leaked, vigorously, last night, but was unaware of this, hadn't, of course, changed out her underwear, but had dressed herself in a skirt (really unusual) and sweater (which were reeking of urine).
    "Gail, is that you?" she called as I entered the house.
    I scurried into the dinette. "I'm so sorry, Mom. It took three hours to get the car shod. I had planned to be back before you awoke. How long have you been up?"
    "Oh, just a few minutes," she said, dismissing my absence at her arousal with typical aplomb; almost, I considered, glee.
    It was obvious that she'd been up much longer than this, but I didn't argue. "Well, I'm glad you're all set up, here. I prefer to be here when you wake up, you know. I was sure I would be."
    "I knew you'd show up sooner or later."
    "Did you remember what I was doing this morning?" I'd briefed her several times yesterday and last night, just in case the morning unfolded exactly as it did.
    "No, but you're never gone long." She leaned across the table and patted my forearm. "I can take care of myself, you know." She said this as though the most absurd joke she can think of is that I'm here taking care of her.
    I laughed. "I know you can, Mom. It's better to do it together though, don't you think?"
    "Oh, definitely, child. I've had enough of living alone. I'm glad you're here." She patted my forearm, again.
    "I've had enough of living alone." This is exactly what she said to me when she asked me to live with her for the rest of her life. Although, unlike my mother, I don't suppose I'll ever get enough of living alone, I will never get enough of my mother, either. Being alone will happen, again, for me. My mother, however, is happening now. This is exactly why I'm here.

    She just awoke from her nap. "What do we have planned for tomorrow?" she asked, still on the toilet.
    "Nothing in particular. Want to plan something?"
    "I think so," she said. "I've been sitting around long enough."
    Aaah-lay-lu-yah! "Anything in mind?"
    "Maybe we could pick up [her dead sister] and go window shopping, have lunch out..."
    These are two of her favorite out-of-home activities. I didn't bother to remind her that getting her sister a pass to cross back over the river Styx for the afternoon might be difficult. "Great idea! I'm sure the mall has their Christmas displays up, there are loads of little restaurants there, we can wander and people watch and eat...remember that store with all those unusual glass ornaments?"
    "Oh yes. We must go there."
    We checked the weather. No more rain tomorrow (today has been one of my beloved rain-rain-rainy days). Temperature up about 10 degrees from yesterday.
    "It's a date, then, Mom. We'll style your hair tonight."
    "Good."
    Will it happen? Maybe. Maybe not. We'll see. If it doesn't happen tomorrow, though, she won't forget being fed up with "sitting around". It'll happen soon.
    Later.

Wanted to record a few things about today...

2006-10-23T00:10:00.000-07:00

...which, I notice, is now yesterday; just as a memory of a very full, interesting day.
    Mom's first words today, immediately upon being roused, were, "I was just carrying a tray of brownies..." she mimed picking up a tray and steadying it for carrying...
    I laughed. "This time, you're dreaming, girl! So, where were you taking the brownies?"
    "Oh, you know. No where."
    "Hmmm. Well, it seems to me that when you're carrying a tray of brownies, you're headed somewhere with them."
    "Oh, you know, to the table."
    "To whom?"
    "No one," she said, with a start. "I was going to eat them."
    "Eat them all, you didn't make them for anyone?"
    "Well, yes! For me."
    "I suppose this means you want brownies, today."
    Her eyes gleamed. "How did you ever guess that?!?"
    "I guess I could make some of those Honey Bear brownies."
    She smacked her lips, to keep the saliva from drooling out the sides of her mouth.
    "Or, you know, we've got some of those Costco brownies, the ones with caramel and pecans, in the freezer." Loads of them. She only ate two and I shaved a little off the cut-into circle to try but they were waaay to sweet and chocolately for me.
    "Mmmm...sounds even better!"
    "Not for breakfast, though. How about, if you don't eat any lunch, we have an early, light dinner, I was thinking of that spaghetti sauce over noodles for tonight, maybe we'll just sample it, then, an hour or so later, I'll give you your pills with a brownie. How's that?"
    "Do we have ice cream?"
    "I've got whipping cream."
    "Oh...you know how I love whipped cream!"
    So, that seemed settled. Until I took her blood glucose. I noticed her intense interest in the meter.
    When it beeped and I looked at it, she surprised me by asking, "What's my blood sugar?"
    Occasionally she'll ask me about this. I always tell her, when she asks, even though she has no referent for the numbers. "It's 143."
    "Is that good?"
    I was even more surprised "Well, it's not bad. The doctor said he'd prefer to see you between 100 and 134 in the morning, but he'd be fine with this, considering the potato chips you had last night. He wants to see your hemoglobin A1c higher, anyway, and this'll help." Probably too much information, I figured, but she prefers to be talked to as though she'll understand anything she hears and she'll ask questions if she's truly interested and doesn't understand. "Those things always raise a person's blood sugar, and you had bread, too. I'd consider it a good reading. Why?"
    She grinned. "Just wanted to make sure I have room for brownies."
    "Mrs. Hudson, I think the official word is that you always have room for brownies."
    Her grin was broader than a cat's, now. "Good to hear it!"
    Curiously, when "early dinner time" arrived, even though she hadn't had any lunch except coffee, she wasn't hungry.
    I reminded her of our plan.
    "Oh, yes, I remember that," she said. "How about a full dinner later tonight, and nothing but brownies for dinner tomorrow night? Then I can have two."
    "Sounds like a plan, Mom."
    "Now, I'm depending on you not to forget."
    "I'm your right brownie hand woman, Mom."

    Although the walkering session was nothing spectacular, she was a little stiff. About a half hour after it ended, I noticed her adjusting her spine repeatedly against the rocker back.
    "Got a hitch in your giddy-up, Mom?" I asked.
    "Oh, just a little kink."
    "Does it hurt?"
    "No, not really, it's just annoying."
    "Want an adult aspirin?"
    "Noooo, it's not that bad."
    I watched her squirm for a few more minutes, then I got an idea. "Mom, here. I'm going to put your TV table in front of you. I want you to lean over it and relax your head on your arms. I'm going to pull your shirt up and unlatch your bra."
    She immediately complied, with an almost secret smile, thinking she was going to get a back massage.
    I had in mind something similar, but better, I was thinking, to begin, which I'd end with a light massage. I wrote the letter "M" on her back. "What did I just draw?" I asked.
    "Do it again...'M'."
    First I spelled "Mom", just to get her used to it and see what her facility would be. It was pretty good. She had a little trouble with the "o", but, as we continued, she sensitized herself. I wrote with increasing difficulty for a good twenty minutes or so: I started with words, then, introduced multi-word phrases by first writing "The Little Girl" and "Mr. Man" (the names of our cats, she got the period with no problem, although I screwed it in to make the point).
    "Mmmm...that feels better than a massage."
    I know. It's an activity Mom started on us early and our whole family performed on each other for many years during our childhoods. I'm not sure why it works better than a straight massage; I do know, though, that it sets up waves of pleasure shivers throughout one's body that massaging doesn't always provoke, even when the massage completely relaxes they body. Something about those shiver waves seems to peform a pleasurable toning that straight massage misses; maybe because the waves stimulate surface nerves that are ignored by the deep touch of muscular massage. When I finished off with a traditional back massage, although Mom appreciated this, she, too, noticed the difference and reported that she was glad I did the back writing, too.
    It occurred to me that this is probably a wonderful way to encourage sense stimulation in the Ancient, even the demented (not to mention the rest of us). If the person is too demented to identify drawn shapes (which is, undoubtedly, an extremely pleasurable way to stimulate brain activity), no problem. Just draw without this purpose. The gods know, none of us ever gets touched enough, once we're past the toddler stage. The Ancient, in particular, suffer this lack.
    I also noticed, much to my chagrin, that, when Mom announced that she was ready to retire, the combination of a very full day and the back drawing/massage seemed to have drained me. Every evening before she retires I make it a point to rub down her legs with lotion. I moved to do this and realized that I wasn't up to it. I'd simply had too much taken out of me and had no more to offer. I explained this to her and apologized. She took it in stride without even a hint of complaint, voiced or silent, but, you know, I was surprised. It's always disconcerting to be confronted by limits to my ability to give. They come up suddenly out of the shadows and I find myself slamming into them without warning.
    Later.

Yesterday was Eggnog Day!

2006-10-22T10:21:00.003-07:00

    I found it by surprise when, in the morning, I headed out to look for some acceptably sweet tomatoes, as my mother has not forgotten her disappointment over the the cardboard flavor and consistency of the tomato we used a few days ago in a BLT dinner and has been suggesting a more suitable repeat since then. The weekend farmer's market, here, had nothing. The closest natural foods market was featuring tomatoes that were hard and lacked fragrance. Although I expected no success at our usual grocery, I had to replenish my supply of half and half, anyway, so stopped there on my way home. I picked up a container of what I knew would be reliably sweet (because of the brand) grape tomatoes, wandered over to the dairy section and there they were, shelves of my thick, eggy, generic eggnog. My favorite seasons have begun. Too bad I'm not also in my favorite state, but there are easily found pleasures for me where we are and if the extended weather casts are correct in predicting a cool, precipitous El Niño winter, soon we'll be living in a Christmas Card, again, of which neither of us ever tires.
    Although Mom's been alternately revved and relaxed over the last week or so, we've been having good days, full of small, delightful surprises. I've gotten her formally walkering a couple of times. The weather is bright, so Mom has been able to sun bathe in our living room to her heart's content. The wind has settled. We've been receiving, through our mail video service, a raft of videos that have perked Mom's interest in the last couple of weeks, to the point where, after breakfast, it is habitual for her to ask, "So, what are we going to watch, today?" I've always had a fair facility at picking videos for her, but I've become better at it, and, as well, her ability to be captured by a wider range of subject matter has flexed itself since April. I've become less inhibited about ordering videos that I formerly thought would be of interest only to me because, well, now, I just never know. Today I'm going to try her on Annie Hall. Lately I've had a yen to watch this movie again. It's been years since I've seen it. I read the description to Mom off the sleeve, yesterday, she said, "Let's give it a try. Sounds fun."
    The most successful videos, so far, though, have been a series I decided to try on a hunch, the Sister Wendy series about the history of painting. They enrapture my mother. The color and quick flow of the programs are perfect for her attention span. The background information on the artists and the ages elicit frequent video pauses for conversation between Mom and me. The design and color of the filming rivet her. Last night she expressed disappointment that the works weren't on screen long enough to really look at. The videos include the ability to move, during the program, to a section where each work can be contemplated for as long as the viewer likes before returning to the program. I hadn't thought to trigger this because it didn't occur to me that Mom would be interested. Turns out, this is one of her favorite aspects of the series. I believe, too, that she has fallen in love with Sister Wendy, in equal parts, I think, because of Sister Wendy's unprepossessing charisma, her age and her "just between you and me" delivery. We watched the entire series beginning with The Golden Ages up through Andy Warhol last night, while doing dinner and washing my mother's hair. At the end of the last segment, when I pushed the open/close button on the DVD, my mother said, "Is that all?!?"
    "We've seen all the segments, Mom, but, if you want, we can start them over."
    "Oh, yes," she gushed. "You know, I like that woman."
    Not insignificantly, the show's theme casts a spell on my mother; thus, if I have a chore to do outside of the living room here or there during the playing of the series, I can rest the video on the menu between segments, attend to the necessities and return to find my mother gently, beatifically conducting the theme with her right hand. As well, the theme is attractive and evocative enough so that multiple repetitions don't drive me out of my mind, as do the themes for, for instance, Murder, She Wrote and M*A*S*H, which are also repeated almost daily in our household.
    I've other things to report but, you know...
    ...later.

The Value of The Other

2006-10-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

    Minutes before my mother awoke on the day described immediately below, I realized that, in her peculiar personality, I had an avenue for dissipating my treacherous mood. I decided, as she shuffles through time immediately upon awakening, while I sit on her floor, play with the cats and banter her into her day, if I related my absurd expectations of eggnog and my equally absurd reactions regarding no eggnog to her, she would find the entire scenario hilarious; and I could depend on her gentle belittlement to set my mood to rights.
    It worked. Not only that, but she found it entertaining to kid me about eggnog all day long...so that we both ended up in excellent, top-the-other humor when she retired.
    Our days have continued in discombobulated mode. Some interests of mine allowed me to let her sleep in yesterday; thus extending her recently late retirements even later. This has been a little hard on me, as I require a good hour of cool down after she retires. When I'm exhausted, the need for that time remains. But, all is well today. I slept "enough" last "night", finally, by trashing the idea of putting off a few middle of the month chores. Mom awoke about a half hour ago, asked after those she thought were staying with us (this is frequent, now), whom I assured her had "returned to their homes", came out into the living room, looked at the clock, announced she was too tired to stay up and headed back to bed, after an underwear change, into what, luckily, was a dry bed that required no change. I told her I'd call her in an hour.
    "Good idea," she said. "I'll reconsider getting up then. When did I go to bed?"
    "Your light went out at 0300, Mom."
    "Try me at 1430, then."
    I was startled that this means that she pretty much consciously appropriates herself about the same amount of sleep-time that I appropriate for her from experience. I thought she was unaware of this.
    I got her moving again, yesterday, in the house, over protest, of course. She went in for a nap soon after complaining of stiffness. I thought, oh, shit, wrong timing; I'm going to have trouble keeping her up for the rest of her "day". She emerged from her nap, though, ready and willing. We had a good evening: Some Sorry (she won), some Scrabble (I won, although not by much...her dementia has caused her to become The Mistress of Two-Letter Word Trumps...I actually challenged some of her creations with the dictionary...they were all legitimate; her response: "Don't you know that almost any combination of two letters can be found in the dictionary?!?").
    We topped off the evening with a viewing of the rental, Akeelah and the Bee. I knew she'd like this one...she likes all movies about education. My unexpected pleasure was in watching her watch it. If available, I always cue subtitles for her. I was fascinated to note that she was silently mouthing the letters for all the words spelled in the movie. Later, I noticed that she was trying to beat the appearance of subtitle spelling, obviously testing her spelling memory. After the movie she asked if there was "more", referring to the possibility of "special features". Although she found those boring and we aborted "special features" viewing halfway through the second one, she remained fascinated with the issue of spelling. We talked about the training techniques of champion spellers as reviewed in the movie.
    "You know," she mentioned, "I wish I'd thought of those before. I'll have to use some of them next year. Remind me of that."
    "Good idea," I agreed.
    Then, at her nudging, we reviewed the spelling profiles of the members of our born-into family (two daughters who spell well, two who spell poorly, both parents good spellers) and thoughts on what accounts for this: Presence or absence of phonics training, which seems obvious, and the less obvious ability of being able to retain the graphic image of words in one's brain and "read them" off one's gray matter, rather than actually remembering letter sequence. I recounted to her what one of my college professors had said about spelling, that it is, essentially, a congenital skill.
    "Well, I don't know about that," she countered. "I taught myself how to spell correctly in college."
    I was fascinated. "Really," I said, "How did you do that?" I'm one of those "naturally decent spellers", so I was very interested in this.
    She responded with one of her you-would-ask-that psuedo grins. "Goodness, child, that was years ago. I can't remember."
    Sometimes, I wonder how much she "can't remember" and how much she considers silly to dredge up.
    Just before she retired she said, "Well! I certainly have a lot to think about before next year!"
    I wonder, now, if her unusually palpable sleep-dream-time includes classroom teaching. She's never mentioned it, but, then, maybe she wouldn't. Maybe the reason she mentions her Dead Zone visits is because, in her dream-mind, they take place here with me present. Teaching, though, would take place elsewhere and I probably wouldn't be present for those episodes...why discuss them with me?
    It's sunny, although a bit cool, today. I suggested, before she returned to bed that maybe a walkering around the yard this afternoon to take note of any remaining fall prep chores might be in order.
    She flashed me her comic look of consternation. "You're dreaming, girl!"
    No, Mom, you're dreaming...amazing dreams. Wish I was there.
    Later.

Bad Moods, Petty Disappointments

2006-10-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

    I can tell I'm working myself, with unusual gusto, up to a bad day. Not quite sure why, but it seems like a good enough day for a bad day.
    It started promisingly enough. I made up for lost sleep, arose fairly early (never early enough for my tastes, anymore, I observed, which should have been my first clue), noticed, with pleasure, that it was cloudy and raining, revved myself up in the shower for a water-soaked day...did my usual first-thing chores, considered Costco but decided to put that one off until tomorrow since I also had a grocery run on the schedule which is a bit more urgent, blah, blah, blah...checked the weather for confirmation that today would be mostly rainy (it will, with adjustments), salivated over making my coffee, which I particularly enjoy on what I consider "Seattle Days", and continued, without self-restraint, setting myself up for an annoying day. I remembered that last year, much to my delight, eggnog hit the groceries at least a week before my birthday. This is what I love about the holiday season: For two plus months I drink my coffee with the substitution of eggnog for half-and-half, sprinkled with freshly ground nutmeg. This is how I decorate the holidays according to my preference; this not only renders them endurable for me, but allows me to look forward to them and savor every day, despite all the other stuff about holidays which I absolutely hate.
    "Hmmm..." I thought. "Last year the groceries began stocking eggnog a week or two before my birthday...Hey! Cool! Maybe [our usual grocery, which stocks the brand of eggnog I prefer] will have it on the shelves today! I'll bet they will! I can just feel it! I'll make this one a short cup so I can really enjoy my second eggnog laced cup later!"
    Whoops. Not today. This is, actually, a normal pre-birthday scenario for me...I always try to mentally "push" the grocery to stock eggnog before my birthday. Usually, they manage to get it out a day or two before my birthday. Sometimes, it's the day after. Last year was exceptional. Normally, this is a minor consideration for me. I mean, big deal, what's a day or two. The gods forgive me, today I had so anticipated (and, apparently, so needed) eggnog in my coffee that when I realized I was way ahead of their schedule, I astonished myself by having to fight back tears! I felt personally maligned and patently ridiculous.
    At home, I settled at my computer to perform my daily of deleting spam off some of my "other" email addresses. Today, as the clouds, much to my dismay, dissipated, the sun's rays through our living room windows had finally reached the winter position where I had to push myself and my computer back a ways in order to read the screen. I think I heard myself growl. There is much to appreciate about the startling amount of sun this house affords in the winter, not the least of which that my mother, who is the sun's most dedicated disciple, bathes in it all winter long. It also keeps our winter heat bill down and sun warmth is much preferable to me over artificially created heat, except for that of a fireplace. But, during the winter it is a daily reminder of how annoying I find the sun. At its peak, I find myself having to wear sun shades in the living room in order to tolerate it.
    This also meant that I was going to have to wait until late afternoon or evening, if that, for more rain. I noticed my level of agitation rising. I realized how unreasonable I was being, but, screw it, today seems made, I decided, for unreasonable behavior.
    Then, I received a call from my computer challenged friend, letting me know that everything we'd done yesterday worked and she was, again, in command of her system. "You sound a little peeved," she said.
    "Yeah," I groused, knowing I was being petty but insisting on it, anyway, "I don't know why, but I worked myself up for the beginning of eggnog season today before going to the grocery and they haven't started stocking."
    "Just as well," she said, "that stuff'll kill you."
    "Well, fuck death," I screeched, "has a law been passed that I no longer own the devices to cause my own death!?!"
    She laughed nervously. "Oh my," she said, "did someone forget her Black Cohosh today?"
    Luckily, I grabbed myself by the scruff of the neck just in time and laughed, too. It wasn't the most delectable laugh, but it worked.
    So, you know, I'll be awakening my mother in five minutes. It'll be interesting to see how I affect her day and, especially, how she affects mine, since I seem bound to allow my worst judgment to lead me around by the nose, today. I'm sure she'll be in a good mood, which helps. She is fairly immune to my emotional flamboyance, anyway, and I noticed when I checked on her a half hour ago that her right leg is already dangling off the bed...which is an excellent sign for an excellent day, for her.
    Here I go, ready or not; or, maybe, ready regardless.
    Later.

Today's been one of our odder days...

2006-10-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

...completely out of whack. I have some moments while Mom indulges in a late nap so I thought I'd record the details.
    First, I was awakened much earlier than I would have liked, this morning, considering when I've been getting to bed the last few nights (between 0300 and 0400) by one of my Prescott friends who calls me when she's in dire computer straits. We exchanged phone calls back and forth, in and out, around and through, all morning long, while I was doing the usual chores, catching up on computer blogs, editing the last couple previously published posts (which I hadn't edited the first time around), rushing to get our big trash out to the curb for Residential-Wednesday-Trash-Pick-Up "Yard Trash Week", etc. Luckily, our house wasn't hit today and I got everything out; well, at least everything that was ready. I've still got to finish trimming the tops of those damned pyracantha bushes.
    Around 1230 everything had calmed down, my plans to make a staples run to Costco had been waylaid, since Mom's 12-hour-sleep mark would arrive at 1300, all the windows were open, inviting a light, cool breeze through the house, the sun's angle was just right through our pseudo-cathedral living room windows (which are perfectly placed to take advantage of winter sun and keep out summer sun), stirring up a mid-range fleece-warm cross current, our beloved cats were settling onto the couch for their first Sacred Nap of the day, I was so tired I was no longer making any sense to myself and decided, hmmm...I think I'll stretch out on the couch, cover myself with the down throw, which will guarantee that the cats will tuck themselves around me and catch a quick snooze before 1300. No need for an alarm, I'm not a nap person. I'll be up-'n-at-'em by 1300 or soon after.
    At 1600 I bolted out of a sleep so deep I'd been drooling, to the sound of Mom opening the bathroom door. Holy Shit! Not only had I overslept, I had allowed both of us to find out just how long Mom will sleep if she isn't interrupted at her 12-hour-sleep-mark or just a bit beyond!
    As seems to be usual after she steals extra sleep, she was perky, almost full of it, really. And, as well, since she'd been up and at least three times in the night going to the bathroom, her bedding was dry for the second "morning" in a row, which means a little less choring for me after she awakens. It also means a "short bath", which involves soap washing only her torso and simply water-wiping her extremities and face.
    She's been fine, today, alert and feisty. Earlier I mentioned that we need to get to the lab for her monthly blood draw...we're a couple days behind.
    "I don't think that's necessary this month," she argued.
    "You know what," I said, taking my cue from the fact that, if she's feeling good enough to refuse it, it probably isn't necessary, "I think you're right. How about if we put it off until after my birthday?"
    She was taken aback. "I don't like that idea, since you're birthday's tomorrow."
    I laughed. "Well, you have a point, considering that this is my birthday month, so, yes, we should be celebrating all month, but it's still two weeks away, Mom."
    "Well, Halloween's tomorrow, I know you're the one who was born on Halloween!"
    I know where she got this. Last night, out of the blue, she decided she wanted to spend the evening watching horror movies. As it happened, there was a channel doing a George Romero horror fest, with a few oddities thrown in. Between movies, the channel broadcast Halloween themed advertisements for further horror fests through the last day of this month. I'm sure she decided, sometime yesterday evening, that today must be Halloween. I reminded her of this and said, "We've got two weeks to go before my birthday, Mom, So, that's two weeks before you have to have you're blood drawn, again."
    "Well, that sounds better."
    So, that's settled. I'm truly amazed that she's remembering my birthday this year, which means that she's vaguely aware of seasons and months. It's not like I've been reminding her of any of these markers, either. I think she's noticing months from the paper in the morning, which she assiduously continues to read. That Niferex-150 is a minor miracle.
    Anyway, the day has so distracted me that I forgot to take her stats this morning for a second day in a row. I was especially curious because of her insistence on having nothing but popcorn for dinner last night (goes well with horror movies) and managing to down two 3.5 ounce bags, by herself (I'm rarely in a popcorn mood), of microwave popcorn before she retired. But, you know, whatever. She's doing fine.
    I was surprised that, despite her looong night sleep, she felt the need to take a nap this evening, but, old habits die hard, I guess. At any rate, dinner won't be happening until around 2300, because of her late arising. I was also surprised that she specified that this was going to be "just a nap". She has a "clock-habit" brain, which is to say, her brain remembers decades old schedules and, at least once a day, I have to gently remind her that, "Mom, it's okay, we're not on school schedule anymore, [name of a particular activity] is perfectly appropriate for this time of day on our current schedule." Sometimes, her brain simply can't grasp such things as taking a "midday nap" at 2030. She had no problem with the concept this evening, though. No reminder that it's "nap-nap time", not "night-night time" was necessary.
    The gods only know how late she'll be up, tonight. I'm not going to push it. So she got a little extra sleep. What the hell. If she decides retirement is in order after only an eight to ten hour day, that'll be fine with me. I'm ready for a good night's sleep. I don't think the extra sleep will hurt her. After all, "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger." This aphorism seems to be eccentrically appropriate to Ancient, lightly demented, astonishingly determined women who are pushing (hard on) 90.
    Later.

What Relationships?!?

2006-10-15T23:30:00.000-07:00

    Today, Karma left a post on her JuBuQuest journal asking the following question: "How has caretaking affected your relationships with others (other than the person you're taking care of)?"
    The question intrigues me, especially since I've, very recently, been allowing all my relationships to lag. I'll try [that's "try", not "successfully accomplish"] to keep it short, since I've already written a lot, both directly and indirectly, about my relationships and how being my mother's companion has affected them.

Relationships with Sisters
    Me being my mother's companion has been hard on my relationships with sisters. It didn't start out that way. The tension began when companionship transformed to a need for care, then, quickly, to a need for intense care, then I began to need help; not just solace and advice. I've gotten a little help here and there (very little in quantity, although often appropriate and appreciated in quality) but, overall, I've learned, first, not to count on it, and, second, not to ask for it or, at least, do everything I can possibly do to try not to ask for it.
    For a long time I was extremely understanding, accepting and not at all judgmental about this familial affair. Over the years, though, my abilities to understand, magnanimously accept and withhold judgment have eroded. The more they've eroded, the further my sisters have backed off.
    The other caregiving issue that has caused problems has to do with adaptability. For years, Mom and I adapted, both when we visited my sisters' families and when they visited us. I used to continually assure my sisters that "we are the flexible ones"; and I believed this. During visits, either to us or from us, I limboed very, very low for my sisters and their families. Finally, after eight years of doing this, in the course of a particular visit during which my mother was working herself up to her first anemia crisis (unbeknownst to all of us), a sister who was visiting complained that, even though I'd made my mother and myself incredibly tense by trying to make sure she didn't smoke (which was only partially successful), the house still smelled like cigarette smoke, regardless...and I blew. Although she and I talked about it afterward and I thought we'd resolved it, apparently it wasn't resolved to her satisfaction. This was the beginning of her silence. It was then I decided that I was no longer going to insist that Mom and I always be "the adaptable, flexible ones." Two of my sisters (one of them through the other) have admitted that they are afraid to approach us, now, because they're afraid I'll become angry. I have told them, depending on what they say or do, I might. The situations that would anger me are no secret, nor are they unpredictable. My other sister has simply slipped back, pleading a busy life. I believe her, although I suspect that one of the circumstances that keeps her busy is that I have been unfailingly vocal, over the last six months, about my refusal to any longer bend backwards for those who are not willing to do the same for me and that I won't take anything silently, anymore.
    Curiously, my life is easier now that I've accepted that I can rely on no one but me. I feel more competent. I still suffer episodes of caregiver burnout, but, somehow, I get through them more easily knowing that I must handle them myself, without the help of my family. I spent years doing everything I could to make sure that I didn't alienate my sisters, in case I really needed them. When I finally realized that I've never had my sisters at my back through this, anyway, stopped worrying and put Mom and me first when it comes to our interactions with the family, well, our life goes much more smoothly, now, and I am emotionally stable. I'm not worried about what my relationships with my sisters will be like when Mom dies. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, if I want to. There is a distinct possibility that I will not want to.

Relationships with Friends
    I retain one very long time, long distance friend and two long time "local" (both live in the Phoenix metroplex, where we no longer live) friends. I have a few "silent" friends here in Prescott from whom I hear now and then. I have retained no contact with social groups, but, then, I was only involved in one social group, a book club.
    In the first four years of my companionship of my mother, much to my surprise, I discovered that several friends in Mesa (from 1993 - 1997 we lived only there) whom I had retained through many years and many moves did not understand that I was serious about my companionship with my mother, it would be my first priority and they would need to adapt to this. None of these friends was able to adapt and all these relationships dwindled. The problem wasn't that I talked a lot about my mother and our relationship. For part of that time I was working full time and my mother continued to pursue her interests full time. Her health was excellent. We were both busy and involved outside our home. I insisted, though, that we spend evenings and weekends together; after all, my mother asked me to be her companion, not her security company to merely check in to make sure she hadn't "fallen and [couldn't] get up." Besides, my mother and I enjoy each other's company, so this was not only easy but interesting and satisfying for me. I invited my friends to join us often. Each did. A few times. All of them knew and enjoyed my mother, as well. But, I guess, they wanted me to themselves, as well, and as available to them as I'd previously been. As I explained in depth to each one several times, this was no longer possible under this circumstance of being my mother's companion. I changed the territory of the relationships and each one, finally, left that territory. Again, this didn't bother me; still doesn't. Lives change. People change. I've never had trouble with this. I guess the lesson I learned is that, if you're very adaptable and, suddenly, can't be quite as adaptable anymore, expect your friends to be disappointed to the point of turning away from you. At any rate, three of them have stayed with me, even through my silences.

Sexual Relationships
    My sexual relationships while I've been my mother's companion have been affected much more by me going through menopause than by my companionship of my mother; in large part, probably, because I've never looked for a mate, partner, soul mate, call it what you will, and wouldn't know what to do with one if I found one.
    There was a period of time, when my mother's needs became more and more intense and I was carrying on some liaisons here and there, when things became ticklish. Then, when I began going through menopause and my hormones upped their stakes, I had a good year of going out of my mind stealthily looking for sex partners while making sure this didn't take me away from my mother any more than necessary. For the most part, this was unsuccessful. When my hormones finally settled down, so did I. Sexual desire was no longer driven by my body's (and only my body's, believe me) desire to procreate. Now, I consider the possibility of sex partners of any kind, with or without a "relationship", not worth the hassle as long as I remain my mother's companion. This would take necessary attention away from my mother. I would not be able, as well, to put the desired amount of attention toward any kind of a coupling, including so called casual sex. I will not, as well, take the risk of endangering my mother by introducing people who are strange to her and not all that well known to me into our home.

Summary
    I am a peculiar combination: I am an intense loner who is socially comfortable, genial, and always intensely interested in people, when I'm among them. Thus, my problem, even when I appear, from social standards, to have few friends, is that I always have more friends than I can handle and have never, ever, been able to get enough alone time to satisfy myself: By this I mean, alone in my home space, no one in that space nudging at my senses, requiring either direct or peripheral attention, doing what I wish and/or need to do and enjoying my own company and thoughts. As well, I've never been lonely. Far from it. I've never been enough alone.
    When I was not my mother's companion and during the first six years of being my mother's companion, I knew that relationships require attention and was as diligent as I could be (which was pretty damned diligent) about rendering this attention. Being my mother's companion, though, has put me waaay into alone time deficit. The last time I was completely alone, the kind of alone that is my preference, was for about a week when my mother took a trip to Iowa in the late spring of 1996 to attend a high school reunion. Under normal circumstances, when living alone, I manage to balance alone time with relationship time so that everyone is satisfied, I am able to keep friends, enjoy unusual and stimulating friendships and I don't have a lean and hungry "I vant to be alone" look. I am sure, now, that I always have that look; at any rate, I always feel as though I do.
    Alternately, being my mother's full time companion/caregiver and, thus, especially in the last few years, having lots of time to (sort of) do with what I will, I find the fewer outside relationships I have, the better. I am, now, pretty good at tricking myself into feeling as though I'm alone when my mother is sleeping and, as you know if you're a regular reader, her health conditions lure her into prodigious sleep cycles which increase, slowly but predictably, as time continues. However, being alone as my mother's companion/caregiver, is, for me, not really being alone. I am always tuned into her. I am always available to be with her, by her, for her, on her schedule. Once in awhile I have to back off, but when I do this I am still here, still at her beck and call rather than mine. This might seem as though it would be torturous for me. It would be, except for two circumstances:

I am thoroughly involved in being her companion, thoroughly enchanted by her and this experience and am much too aware of the fragility of life to want to waste even a second of the possibility of knowing her as intimately as I do through her final years;
I have had no trouble, because of my nature, with scaling my social life waaaay back so that, when I get a chance, here and there, I can successfully pretend that I am indulging in alone time.

I have a feeling that the peculiarities of my nature are precisely what allows my companionship of my mother to work so well for both her and me and allows me to actually take advantage of, and revel in what other people would consider deleterious relationship circumstances. Thus, I doubt that my experience is "normal" or that it would be helpful to other full time caregivers, most of whom probably find full time caregiving fraught with almost unbearable social deprivation.

Yet another dream...

2006-10-15T11:44:00.001-07:00

    I've been remembering my dreams, immediately out of sleep, a lot lately, though most of them have not been dreams to which I've attached much importance, thus I've allowed them to dwindle back from whence they came. They've been fun, since they've all been, up to the one out of which I awoke this morning, of the vacuum cleaner type; you know...brain sucks up all the duff gathering along the edges, sifts through it in no particular order, thus creating some hilarious patterns while deciding what to stow and what to throw.
    This morning, though, the dream from which I awoke is refusing to dissipate, so I think I'll write it down. It doesn't appear to have anything directly to do with my relationship with my mother, but I can think of a few ways in which it is peripherally significant to this. I don't, as usual, remember all of it, but what I remember is particularly vivid.
    In the dream my two younger sisters and I are together for a reason I cannot remember. Our ages are indeterminate. We talk about going swimming in the ocean, from a shore that now seems to me reminiscent of NCS beach on Guam, a fairly isolated beach just a few miles down the cliff from two of our homes there, to which we often walked, alone and together, for a refreshing mid or late day dip. For some unremarkable reason, which I've now forgotten (perhaps, I'm thinking, I didn't have a reason in the dream, I just made a choice) I decide not to participate. Everyone is fine with this and we agree to meet later.
    The dream switches to a shower stall/toilet area, sleek and sterile, typical of the type provided at community and commercial pools, in a blond-wood paneled building. I am walking down the hall toward the communal (I mention this because it is of minor significance) toilet area. I encounter a hermaphroditic figure dressed in a toe-to shoulder, sleeveless leotard. I know this figure is "not of this world" although I hesitate, in recollection, to call this figure an "angel" as this doesn't seem to fit; maybe better stated: Otherworldly messenger. In the dream I take detailed note of the messenger's appearance; rather boyish but, I also notice, otherwise sexually undistinguished; slightly taller than me; lean; medium blond, hair cut in a style rather like the one I sport at this time: Short and lank, parted from the right, hanging to the left over the left ear, short and graded in back, cut and shaped severely over the right ear; golden skin; arms folded over chest, body turned perpendicular to mine, looking across its shoulder at me. I immediately realize that the messenger is here to tell me that my youngest sister has drowned. We have a wordless exchange which confirms my realization.
    I return to the beach, followed by the messenger. I enter the water. There, I find the shift that was covering my sister's bathing suit floating in the water by an abandoned blue and white plastic raft, wrapped around a three foot, two x four plank. This further confirms her death. My other sister is nowhere to be seen; this, however, seems reasonable. I take peripheral note of this but don't wonder about it and don't look for her. I retrieve the shift and the plank as is, deposit them on the beach and return to the bathing facility, followed by the messenger.
    As we return, the messenger tells me, this time aloud, that it will be with me until my sister, the sister who drowned, arrives, which is to occur within a short period of time while I am at the bath house.
    I repeatedly ask the messenger a question, which I cannot now remember. The messenger refuses to answer but tells me I will receive my answer shortly. The messenger also explains that its presence is merely a marker for my drowned sister's presence; sort of like holding her place in line. As well, I understand that she will return as though she had not died, and will be wearing both her bathing suit and her shift.
    The messenger and I move to the toilet facility to wait. I sit on one of the toilets, although not for the purposes of elimination; merely to sit and await my sister's return. The messenger moves to sit on a companion toilet (the toilets are not separated by stalls). As it does, it transforms into yet another genderless figure: olive skinned; tanned; bright, burning green, almond slits of eyes; loose, shoulder length wavy brunette hair lightly streaked with silver strands, moving without the aid of breeze, as though the hair is alive; magnificently chiseled, high cheeked face; unsettling, wide-lipped smile; nothing childish about this creature; wearing a shimmering kaftan of such a dark/bright amalgam of color that it appears bejeweled, although I take curious note in the dream that this is a trick of light interacting with the quality of the material and the intensity of the color. This time, I am perpendicular to the messenger who is leaning, full-face and intent, toward me, resting its forearms on its thighs. I also understand that, in this transformation, the messenger is no longer a substitute for my sister's presence, but a distinct entity.
    Just as I notice, peripherally, that my drowned/alive sister is entering the area through the door wearing the discarded shift, the messenger answers my question, sotto voce, indicating, which I understand, that this information is for me, alone: "You will find me in everyone you meet." I begin to sob, not because my sister died and is yet alive, but because I am so moved by what this messenger tells me.
    Before I can turn fully to acknowledge and greet my sister, I awaken out of the dream, still sobbing.
    What I am now left with is confused consideration of why my sister died and returned in the dream, where my other sister went and the nature of the messenger whose existence I will find "in everyone [I] meet." As well, I find it curious that the emotional impact of the dream was not centered around my sister's experience and my discovery of it, nor upon the disappearance of the other sister, but on the presence of the messenger in the two guises and the final message I received as an answer to whatever question I asked.
    Some of the elements in the jumble seem obvious: The mutually, silently agreed upon current distance between my sisters and me which I believe my behavior has provoked; the "disappearance" of the one sister, with whom I have had the least and the most mysterious contact over the last couple of years; the message, which, of course, evokes the central theme of spiritual leaders who are transformed into gods by their disciples: That the god is "in everyone [we] meet."
    And yet, and yet, and yet, I remain copacetic with the current distance between myself and my sisters. Sometimes, I am even appreciative of it. As well, I was more than aware, in the dream, that the messenger, while other worldly, was not an incarnation of an idea of "god" and clearly meant, when indicating where I could "find" it, that I was to understand that I could find it as messenger, not as god.
    I spent about a half hour, while I performed my usual first-thing-preparation-for-mom's-and-my-day, composing myself and considering the dream elements separately. I was surprised, for instance, that part of the dream took place a toilet area, yet I had been awakened about two hours previous by the squawking of our backyard community of Gambol's Quail, taking advantage of one of our last relatively warm mornings, and had relieved myself at that time, so I wasn't experiencing the urge to urinate when I awoke in the aftermath of the dream. Thus, I'm not sure why the last of it took place in, specifically, a communal toilet area. The plank in the discarded shift mystifies me. I continue to be amazed at the startling detail with which the messengers were imbued and my insistence on focusing on this detail, both in the dream and in reality. I wish I could remember the question I asked, as I clearly remember that the answer was unexpected from the context of my question, shocked me, yet seemed so perfectly logical, truthful and relieving that it moved me to tears. It occurred to me that the messenger was a representation of my sisters, especially since the first incarnation identified itself as a placeholder for the one drowned-then-revived. This could be significant of a desire that we should and will be reunited and the message was meant to clarify that during my detachment from them I could "find" them "in everyone" but, you know, my sense of the message as I awoke doesn't fit this and, frankly, I'm not angst ridden over our present distance, nor am I missing them, really, nor do I feel a need to establish pseudo-sister relationships, at this time, through relationships with others.
    Could be I'm "in denial". Could also be that since I've begun to experience this Care Free emotional remove when awake, I am confiscating my dreams to the purpose of the emotional involvement and expression in which I normally indulge when conscious. I continue to notice, though, that I am preferring to think of the messenger, especially in its last incarnation, as a distinct entity and am exhilarated at the possibility of "find"-ing this messenger in "everyone [I] meet", thus, getting to know the messenger. I notice I am considering keeping this foremost in my mind and so I will recognize this messenger in the people who flow through my days.
    Dream on.
    Later.

Miracle Play

2006-10-14T02:14:00.001-07:00

Two nights ago I flipped through my mother's Order of the Eastern Star Bible, which was given to her when she held the post of Martha on Guam in 1969. Inside the front cover I discovered notes she'd written that intrigued me, typed, here, verbatim as she wrote them:

John 10:10 [the last part of which she had underlined in the Bible]
Setting the stage for personal miracles ["personal" was written above the previous and a "^" pointed to it as an insertion]

dream big dreams
(vision of the imagination)
Believe it will happen.
Think big thoughts
"As a man thinketh in his heart - so is he."
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
Faith attracts miracles.
You control own thoughts.
Believe with a big faith.
Promises of God.
Put faith into action - work through faith - act as if you could never fail.

Hebrews 11 (faith chapter) [None of this chapter was underlined or highlighted in any way]

    My initial reaction was astonishment; not that she had written the above in this Bible. It has been my mother's habit, since before I can remember noticing (which was sometime when I was a child below the age of 10), to regularly read the Bible, to write discoveries and notes about what she's read on the fly leafs, other empty pages, along the margins, and as well, to underline and highlight passages she considers signficant. What astonished me was, first, that these notes appeared in a Bible that she has not used to this purpose except for what was written above, and, second, the subject about which she wrote.
    I checked to see if the Bible (which is very small; the pages are 3 1/4" by 5 1/4"; the thickness is just 1") contains a mini-concordance, imagining that she might have copied this information from the concordance for further study. It does not.
    I read through the notes, again, imagination fully activated. I drew my mother, at some time probably before we left Guam, deeply disturbed by or deeply yearning for something; so much that she desired a miracle. This, in itself, surprised me, as I've never thought of my mother as the type to pray for miracles; intervention, perhaps; maybe making her wishes known; but never demanding, never asking, specifically, for a miracle.
    I tried to imagine for what sort of miracle she might have prayed. I remembered that not she, nor any of her children, had any health problems at the time. A couple of us kids were, between 1969 and 1973, indulging in some rebellious behavior, mostly at school, some of it at home, but my mother was always
tolerant of our teenage behavior, to her credit and to our benefit. No wonder, actually; as a teenager, she painted her bedroom black, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was to shock her parents. I also remembered that it was between 1969 and 1973 that my father's alcoholism roared away with him. Most (although not all) of his destructive behavior occurred during this time. During the last year, before he retired, being meticulous about never going to work drunk or obviously hung over, her began to come home for lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon home drinking. His seniority, luckily, allowed him this. As well, almost all his colleagues were both alcoholics and soon to retire, so this behavior was a buddy thing. It was during this time, too, that one of my sisters became increasingly incensed and upset with my father's alcoholism. His and her relationship turned volatile. Another one of my sisters absented herself from home almost constantly by becoming a dedicated, vociferant member of the Assemblies of God Church. Although I retained a peculiarly even relationship with my father for the most part, talked to him a lot, learned a lot about his life, it was during this time that I called him an "idiot" in the course of an argument; his response was to slap me, the only time he ever struck me. As well, because of the ugly relationship between one of my other sisters and my Dad, I became increasingly vocal around my mother about how his behavior was affecting the family and once demanded that she divorce him.
    She responded with anger and disgust at my proposal. That ended the discussion.
    Remembering all this, it occurred to me that perhaps the "miracle" for which I imagined my mother prayed was direct intervention in my father's life in order to rid him of his alcoholism and help cleanse, so to speak, the family. As I considered this, my personal portrait of my mother took on an exaggerated poignance. It was almost unbearable for me to imagine the image of the woman I've known all these years brought to her knees in fervent prayer for a miracle of any kind. I was sure it would have been a miracle for someone else, as she is a naturally a modest person and I could not imagine that she would consider that she needed a miracle for herself.
    Finally, I decided, I'd show her the notes and ask her why she'd written them, expecting to lead up to a conversation about The Time She Asked for a Miracle.
    She read the notes, looked up at me with a smile and said, "Well, what do you know! I wonder when I wrote that!"
    Surprise number one. "So," I responded, "you don't remember when you wrote this?"
    She shook her head. "Not at all."
    "The subject," I ventured, "was miracles..."
    "I see that," she interrupted, continuing to review the notes, shake her head and smile.
    "I was wondering," I continued, "if you might have written this because, at some time, you wanted a miracle, maybe decided to pray for one and wrote these notes for coaching purposes, you know..." my voice was thinning, as was the fantasy I'd built around the notes.
    She looked at me, surprise registering in her eyebrows. "No," she said. Not, "I don't think so," or "I can't remember." Just, "No."
    I pressed on, confused about whether I was pleased or disappointed that I hadn't discovered a "new" aspect of her character, "Well, I was thinking," I said carefully, "that maybe, you know, around that time Dad's alcoholism was just raging, maybe you thought about praying [I was afraid, by now to intimate that she actually had prayed] for a miracle on his behalf."
    She snorted, as though the suggestion was unthinkably foolish. "I'm sure not!" she insisted.
    "Oh. Well, then, do you remember ever praying for a miracle?"
    "Hmmm..." she mused, "no, I don't think so."
    Although this is completely in line with what I know of my mother, still, I couldn't let those notes go; I mean, why else would they be there? "Not ever?"
    "I haven't ever needed any miracles," she said. Flat. Straight. No doubt.
    "Oh. Well, I guess these notes are in there for another reason."
    I headed back to the living room (my mother was at the dinette table cheating at her crosswords), back to the drawing board. It was impossible for me to simply drop the object of my curiosity. After some minutes thought, an idea occurred to me. Maybe, I thought, the notes have something to do with an Eastern Star meeting. Back to the table.
    Mom looked up at me, noticed the Bible still in my hand. "Now, what?" She wasn't perturbed, just indicating that I was becoming trying.
    "Well, I was wondering, could these have something to do with you being Martha?"
    She reached for the Bible, looked again at the notes. "Maybe," she said.
    "Do you remember what Martha symbolized?"
    "Oh, goodness, child, of course not! That was years ago! I didn't even want to be Martha! The only reason I got elected was that the order was so small that everyone else had already held an office!"
    Well, that was a surprise! I decided to look up the office of "Martha" on the computer. This is what I found, at this website:

The fourth degree or "Sister's Degree" is based on the story of Martha whose brother Lazarus had died and was brought back to life by Jesus, found in St. John 11:1-45. According to this degree:
    " . . The structure of Freemasonry in its obligations, emblems, and principles is so peculiar, that we, Master Masons, above all other men, are taught to respect undeviating faith [underlining mine] in the hour of trial. The great doctrines of Masonry are all borrowed from the Bible. Our devotion to Masonry is chiefly founded upon this, that we believe the Bible to be the Word of God, and therefore our principles, which are derived from the Bible. were written by the finger of God . . ." (16)
In Morris' Dictionary, Article "Christian Masonry," we read:
    "The Orders of Knight Templar and Knights of Malta together with many of the degrees and orders in Scotch Masonry are intensely Christian in their doctrines, their ceremonies also embody events in the life of Christ. Some of the side and adoptive degrees have the same reference i.e.., the Cross and Crown, etc. This fact of course forfeits the claim of such degrees and orders to be styled Universal Masonry." (17)
    SIGN: "Clasp hands, and kneeling, look upward in an imploring manner. The sign alludes to the appeal of Martha on first meeting Christ after the death of her brother Lazarus.
    A Mason seeing this sign writes his name on one side of a card, and on the other writes, "Believest thou this?" [underlining mine] which is the pass of this degree. He then hands the lady the card.

    Back, yet again, to the table. "Mom. Does the office of Martha have anything to do with faith?"
    "Oh, yes," she said. "I think so. That sounds familiar."
    "So," I said, "let me ask you this. Was it common, in your order, for sermons or talks to be given about the virtues of the offices?"
    Her eyebrows lifted. "What, exactly, do you mean?"
    "Well, you know, like in church, a sermon about the virtues of a Christian life, did anyone ever give talks at the Eastern Star meetings?"
    "Oh, yes."
    "Would it be reasonable to consider that one of the talks would have been about the virtues of Martha?"
    "Absolutely. The Masons were always doing that, talking about our degrees and such. Who was that man with the loud, awful singing voice? He talked a lot in the meetings."
    "Don Mendenhall [who I'm sure is now looong dead, so I have no problem mentioning his name]."
    "That's the one. He probably spouted off about all the offices. He was that type, you know."
    "I'm sure. Would it be fair to say that the reason you wrote these notes was that he was 'spouting off' about Martha and you figured it would be wise to put down what he said, since you were Martha?"
    "I'm sure that's the only reason I would have written that."
    So, it seems, the woman I thought my mother was previous to discovering these notes remains unchanged. I'm relieved. Why? After our conversation, I considered what might have been bound to happen had these notes been discovered by us daughters after she died, without the ability to ask her why they existed. All my sisters and I have a much more, hmmmm...romantic, I suppose, bent than my mother [it's my father's doing]. Although we may have come up with more than one possibility, I am sure all our inventions would have twisted our imaginings of our mother toward her being a, oh, I don't know, secretly long-suffering?...poignant?...sad? person, when she actually is not.
    Sometimes, my mother's personal strength of character is almost unbelievable. Sometimes, even I, after all these years of closeness to her, find myself seduced into reworking her image into one to which it is easier for me, marinating in my myriad foibles, to relate, yet still fantastic to contemplate. This is why, when I begin such a project, I am grateful that she is here and I can check my imaginings directly against the reality. I'm sure, after her death, the memory of her formidability will give all her descendants occasion to weave curious, half-true legends and myths about her, anyway. I am sure, as well, if there is any kind of an afterlife, my mother will double over in delighted laughter at the absurdity of the myths and legends we weave about her being and her life. Because I am here, though, have been here for so long, and will be here to the end of her life, maybe the absurdity factor will have a chance to be outweighed by the reality factor, which I'm sure my mother, in life and in afterlife, would prefer.
    It started raining late last evening. It's been raining all night. I had to stay up well beyond my mother's retirement, open all the windows and doors, turn the lights low and revel in the thick air, the cold breeze and the sound of rainfall. It looks like the rain will continue all day, into early Sunday. Since I've yet to make the pumpkin cranberry pecan bread (it's been too warm in the evenings to contemplate using the oven), maybe mixing the batter and pouring it into muffins tins, warm and fragrant morsels for Mom's breakfast, would be a good idea.
    I'll sleep on it.
    Later.

This is one of those "reminder to myself" posts.

2006-10-13T19:10:00.004-07:00

    Intellectually, I suspect there is a connection between the episode of which I am about to write and my current, continuing Care Free existence, but I haven't determined this to my satisfaction. Thus, for my personal edification and continued consideration, I want to record the following:
    My intention, today, was to awaken my mother at 1400; exactly 12 hours after she retired. I'd been expecting her to rise earlier, actually, because she had such a good day yesterday and was energized right up to the point of retirement, 15 minutes before her light went at at 0200 this morning. I was neither, though, surprised nor disappointed that she took her full 12 hours.
    Right at 1400 I turned off the computer and exited the living room to head down the hall toward her bedroom. I was unexpectedly overwhelmed, though, by an intense wave of what I can only refer to as "longing". I use this word because I've been trying out other words since I experienced the wave and none of them seems to fit quite as well as this one, although this one also isn't an exact fit. "Despair" isn't even in the ballpark. "Angst" is too agonizing and, although the experience was so intense that certain aspects of "agony" might apply and, as well, I remain, for instance, internally tender in its aftermath, I can't really say it was emotionally or physically "painful". As well, I am sure it was not a bout of anxiety. I know what my anxiety profile is. This was nothing like that.
    I was so surprised and overwhelmed by it that I, literally "clutched my chest", clenched my fist and faltered a bit in the hall, although I registered it as much more of an emotional than a physical sensation. I remember, as well, uttering, "Uh!" when it hit me; as though it had taken away my breath. I stood in the hall for some moments, expecting the feeling to pass quickly so I could gather myself and awaken my mother. It was intent, though, on continuing, throbbing away at me, now a series of determined, powerful waves. I realized that my eyes were stinging with tears. I thought, Oh, well, this is not a good time to awaken her. I'll go back to the living room, sit down and wait for this to pass. How long could it take, a few more minutes?
    It was an hour, though, before I felt sufficiently free of it to awaken my mother.
    After about 15 minutes of reeling, shaking, and a bit of weeping, I began to try to figure out what was causing this. Although it could have been a hormone surge, despite the fact that I've pretty much left the worst of those behind, after a few minutes of not completely clearheaded thinking I decided to attach the word "longing" to it, although the sensation was much stronger and definitely different than any experience of longing I can remember, even as a teenager when "strong longing" seems to be the basis of much of one's emotional life. I constructed a catalog of items that I may or may not have a reason for which to long, divided them into small provocations and large provocations, then, summarily crossed them off the list for a variety of reasons. A few of the more potent and impotent possibilities follow:

Small Longings:

Longing for my mother's bowel movements to no longer be of the quality where I need to clean her and need to fish some of them out of the toilet before it's flushed: Although I'm occasionally annoyed by this, it doesn't bother me. Crossed off.
Longing for cold weather, rain and snow: These will be coming up shortly. I know this. Even if I am longing for their return, certainly my longing would not be of this intensity. Crossed off.
Longing for the possibility that my mother may finally say, "Yes. Let's do it. Let's get rid of a lot of this stuff.": This would be nice, especially when we go through boxes and she decides to keep everything, but I can't say that the existence of this stuff bothers me. I'm good at ignoring it and complacent in my notice of it. Crossed off.
Longing for an end to any of the many chores associated with taking care of her, as they occasionally distract me from something else I'm doing "just for me": I'm good at accepting the distraction, I think. Although I have an ever expanding "list" of Things to Do When My Mother Dies, nothing goes on the list that I feel I must do "right now". If I feel that way, I find some way to "do it right now", regardless. Crossed off.

Large Longings:

Longing for my mother to die: No, I'm sure this doesn't apply. I enjoy her life too much. I'm not afraid of the possibility of her death, but I can't remember resenting her life as it affects mine since I've become her companion, either. Crossed off.
Longing for my once and future lived-alone-life: I've come to terms with this, in part because my mother is very familiar with and very accepting of my isolationism. Although I have my moments, I've never been so entrenched in them that I can't pull myself out. Crossed off.
Some sort of spiritual longing, rather like longing for God: Although certainly not set in stone, my spiritual life is neither a problem nor a worry. I think "spiritually" a lot, but spiritual agony ended for me a long, long time ago. Crossed off.
Longing for a child: This, and the next consideration, were both test possibilities that I threw at myself to see if maybe, although they've never applied to me, they now apply. Nope to this one. Crossed off.
Longing for a "soul mate" or partner: This one didn't click either. Aside from the fact that I can't even imagine what a soul mate is, I am decidedly not the partnering type, have been a miserable but expected failure at "sharing lives" with lovers, which I've attempted, and don't miss romantic involvement when I'm not doing it. Crossed off.
Longing for less tension and more contact between my sisters and me: For some reason, although I suppose I "should" be upset about the tension I've caused within the family, I'm not. My love for my sisters, which is deep, has not diminished, but I can't say I miss contact with them, nor am I in any hurry to renew overt bonds, explain myself any more than I have, nor do I feel as though I need to apologize, ask for forgiveness, etc. It would be fine with me if bonds were renewed, but I'm okay with "things the way they are", at the moment, too. I have an abiding faith that our bonds remain, beneath the tension, will not fail us and that, eventually, the tension will work itself out and we will be overtly reunited. Crossed off.
Longing for something more within my relationship with my mother: Nope. Aside from the fact that I am continually awed by the fullness of our relationship, I am always aware of and grateful for its dynamism. Crossed off.
Sexual Longing: I doubt it. I don't go without sex; I just go without social sex. I suppose the reason I don't miss having a sexual partner or indulging in casual sex with others is twofold: Too many complications that simply don't fit in with my relationship with my mother (believe me, I've tried, doesn't work) and the fact that menopause has significantly cooled the desperation of sexual need, thank the gods. It was a problem for me when sexual need was desperately primary but my desire to have a husband and/or kids was not; worrying about the effectiveness of birth control, worrying about the man's wanting a mate versus me wanting, well, a relationship, yes, but not a mate; or, me not wanting even a relationship when the man did; putting up with other women who were constantly trying to "mate" me with others; I'll tell you, I'm glad all that's over. Crossed off.

    As it turned out, during the first part of her day, my mother and I received (we rent videos through a mail service) and watched a movie that is soaked with longing, The Lake House. Neither of us knew what it was about; just who the stars were. I rented it on the recommendation of a friend who saw it when it was in the theaters and mentioned it to me as a rental possibility, when it hit those lists, thinking Mom and I would like it. The movie was involving enough. Mom, though, managed to distract herself. The only aspects of the movie that kept me with it were the chemistry between Bullock and Reeves and the details of their odd relationship in time. I recognized, though, within a half hour, that the story was about longing, so I gave myself over to that aspect to see how well the category (without the distinction of being romantic longing) fit with what I had experienced earlier. It seems, yes, "longing" is a much better fit than any other term I might apply to what I experienced (after effects of which I continue to experience).
    I am feeling very comfortable with this Care Free mode in which I've discovered myself. But, you know, it's very unusual for me. Previous to this, I cannot remember being even slightly removed in my spontaneous reactions to people, circumstances, even objects and arrangements of objects and natural phenomena. Thus, my recent remove is a surprise to me; not at all unpleasant but constantly, well, forgive the repetition, surprising. As well, it feels good. But, beneath my conscious view of myself and my ability to adapt to this, I may be feeling some discomfort, maybe even guilt, which I haven't yet consciously registered. I don't know. Then again, it's entirely possible that this longing applies to something of which I haven't yet considered because it is out my perception of my character.
    One thing is certain; the initial experience was so unexpected, foreign and encompassing that I can still feel its effects in my solar plexus; and my fascination with it continues. I'm prepared for any discoveries it may catalyze, as well as the possibility that it may be an isolated, neurological reaction that will never be explained.
    We'll see. Or, at least, I'll see.
    Later.