It Happened -- Hawaii 2022

Travel was unexpectedly uneventful. Our Lyft was cushy. Three years of miles accrual meant that we went first class, which was fine. I got to watch Everything Everywhere all at Once, which was super weird and neat. We went to La Mariana for lunch and had our first taste of the 2022 holidays:

Our local market has what we need, so we just ate out of the refrigerator case, bought some bottled mai tais and sat on the lanai. Mrguy, recovering from a migraine, had some hypervigilent moments. They only bother him.

On my birthday we went to Sea Bear Beach (what we call it), which you get to by snaking through the parking lot. The area where you can swim is a little smaller than before, but you have a shaded beach with very few people on it. I have felt sooo unlaxed since I got here. It's amazing to realize that dealing with my mom has a physical component. I felt my stomach drop in a good way immediately.

Then off to the museum, which had some of the best traveling exhibitions I've seen there in years. The theme was flowers, and there were paintings from their own collection, like this Paul Wonner:

Also I'm totally in love with the butt grain parquet in the gallery and had to take a photo:

We saw a really cool show by Noah Harders.

And a fantastic piece: Soundsuit 8:46 by Nick Cave:

and then we stepped into Rebecca Louise Law's Awakening, an immersive exhibit that was filled with local and non-local dried vegetation strung on wire and crafted into ;aths within space. The interplay of the objects, shapes and depth of field was tremendous.

I have no idea whether I can load this video into the blog, but this is what it was like to experience the piece:

After touring the galleries, we had lunch at the cafe, and then took in the Sundance Indigenous Short Film Program.

It all went to plan.

While I was rolling around in my bed with Covid I planned out some things for my birthday, including finding a restaurant, Senia, where we could have a great meal. We usually don't do this (eat a fancy dinner) but this sounded really special. And while I was too sick to get out of bed, I'd think "Maybe tomorrow I could get up the stairs by myself so I can grab my credit card and make reservations". Eventually my wish came true.

Dinner was delicious. We had an appetizer that came under a smoke-filled dome. We ate the world's richest risotto. We had scallops that were so good that mrguy decided that he might even *enjoy* scallops.

It was just a great great day, and a good way to usher in a new decade of life (depending on how you count it).

Sorry if the video doesn't load. This has been an experiment. 

Big Finish!

Wooo!! It's Christmas!!!

I am draining the hourglass, so to speak, on my holiday duties. The big finish was Christmas.

In the perspective of a person with Alzheimer's there is only the now. It doesn't matter that I spent the previous two days helping my mom see her loved ones. There was only the fact that it is Christmas and we were not doing anything fun. And she hadn't slept much the night before, so I arrived to find her grumpy and disoriented.

It was not a good day for anyone. I counted the hours. She spoke gibberish and was angry for a bunch of the day. I learned what a lot of her distressing behaviors look like in person and most do not scare me.

But there were things I'd never seen: trying to use a napkin as a spoon; trying to eat a napkin; spitting a cough drop into a tissue box...

Then there was the over the top stuff. She refused to let anyone change her underwear for the whole day. I kept watching the bulge in her pants grow, and along with it my concern. She has significant discomfort from rashes which are worsened by her sitting in wet pants. She insisted that she was fine and could use the restroom herself, but can't actually stand without assistance. So how is the going to the bathroom going to work? Or getting into bed from the wheelchair? Or getting into a car?

Mom registered her displeasure in a number of ways. She refused her meals. She cried "How can you do this to me" a bunch of times. She tried to break her own finger (ok THAT really freaked me out). She tried to eat a figurine. And she basically *seethed* all day. At one point I just aimed her wheelchair to a place where she could look out the window and not see me. I set the brake so she couldn't move. Then I passed the time by sweeping the floor, dusting, and polishing her furniture with diaper rash ointment. 

We talked to my siblings on the computer. At least that was kinda nice. Mom didn't care, and there was a lot of gibberish that I couldn't translate, but it made the moments pass uneventfully. Eventually I brought out...the balls.

Mom's been aggressive lately, so I bought some soft Nerf-type balls that I thought we could make a game with. I brought them to her apartment with a hat box, figuring that we could use it as a basket and get out some of that aggressive energy and convert it to fun. I pointed her into the hallway in her apartment and tossed her some balls to toss into the hatbox. She thought I was crazy. Eventually she started threatening to hit me with the soft balls and I asked her to go ahead. She said that she wanted me to hurt the way that she hurts. 

"How can you do this to me?" 

"You've turned into something horrible" 

"You are a sexpot"

"If you were in the bed with me I'd kill you" 

and my personal favorite:

"You just want me dead so that you can go in the fields and fuck boys". She seemed additionally hurt that I wasn't hurt by the awful stuff she was saying to me. As if the fact that she couldn't hurt me meant I did not love her. At one point I wanted to say "I'm on drugs, and they pretty much prevent me from crying, so do your best". And when she said that she was never going to see me again I said "Great!" She was not really selling the idea of why I'd want to see her again, but you can't convince a person with dementia of anything.

But then there were the shrieks. I have rarely heard the kinds of shrieks she emitted when the helpers in Memory Care finally got her dirty Depends off of her. But when another helper and I got her into bed? Those shrieks were even worse. You would have thought that the Devil himself had slid a hot poker up her butt. After we got her in bed, however, it wasn't long before the Beast slept for a bit. And then my sweet mom returned for a few moments. And not long after that I ran away to eat dinner with mrguy.

We found a Chinese restaurant that was open after 8pm. Let's call it Zorba's Szechuan. The food was great but it was after 8pm and they were slamming all of the dishes around as they cleared the tables, and then they broke a bunch for good measure. Our ears were ringing, but we were fed.

Merry Christmas. Is it over yet?

Two More Days!

I need to hit my marks for two more days and then I am done with Christmas. Woooo!!

Primary Caregivers

Get cash end of the year bonuses for primary caregivers.

Give them an extra $20 bill to show my mom so she thinks that's what she gave them. Reinforce instructions on showing the $20 so mom doesn't freak out about the actual amount we are giving them.

New Caregivers

Meet their boss to deliver payroll, have her sign receipts etc. And give her a card and some sort of present.

Get cards and some sort of present for the new caregivers. Figure out how to let them know their card is in my mom's apartment.

Memory Care Staff

Find cards, presents, etc. for favorite staff in memory care.

Family

Host nephew and his family at my mom's this morning. Find cards and some sort of present for them.

Christmas

Care for mom on Christmas. Wrap presents, bathe her, entertain her, etc. I have a huge amount of fear that she will have an emotional outburst about whatever I'm giving her. The last time I gave her the wrong size belt she cried and cried because I bought her the wrong (larger) size and did I really think she was that size. Last year she complained because I gave her too many presents.

After Christmas I only have one remaining task (that I know of) during the week -- a telehealth conference with mom's nurse practitioner regarding her outbursts. Then there's New Year's Day, when I'm her caregiver from 8-8pm.

Then back to work.

As I have often said, and as every parent knows, Christmas is for other people. Mainly my mom and my sister. Yesterday I hosted our amazing nephew and his family, juggling cards, logistics and stuff. I had to take the day off in order to do it, but I still had work to finish before the winter break. The visit was lovely, but I get so stressed out that I'm going to do something wrong or upset someone while I try to make these many things come together simultaneously. My sister was still texting me with requests and suggestions while I was literally already at the table in a restaurant eating breakfast with our nephew and his family yesterday.

Tonight we are having dinner with friends. And hatching plans for a celebration of our own in mid-January.

UPDATE:

All went well. Found lovely chocolates at the local market. Gave 2020 Target gift cards to the girls with the caveat "Could be $20, could be $100 -- no idea what's on them". They are some of the only people I can do this with. They thought it was hilarious. The new caregivers' boss came to relieve me of $2500 and their cards and chocolate. Yay! Mom was unhappy when I got there and actually said "Poor me..." as I was visiting. She perked up when the kids were visiting, which was awesome.

And now, a new tradition: Christmas Eve dinner with friends. Can't wait.

My Favorite Snowflake

Attentive readers of mrsguy might recall the bodacious birthday present I gave to our oldest grandniece several years ago, which consisted of many fake diamond brooches (from the free table at work).

Here's the old post

I got a great photo from her father yesterday, of him in his outfit for Zoom holiday party doings. He looked so happy and snappy in his Santa hat and natural beard that I completely missed out on what his snowflake sweater was made out of -- all of those brooches. Super clever. 

The brooches live!

Hey Man

I was talking to that nice boy the other day. I think he's officially a nice man now, because he and I have just turned 60, but whatever. He reminded me of this time when he and some co-workers from the winery were driving in the Golan when they saw a frustrated driver yell out his car window "Hey, man! Fuuck you!!" They all thought it was hilarious, and that nice man heard the story repeated at the winery, by otherwise nicely religious guys, in Hebrew, with the punch line in English -- "Hey, man! Fuuck you!!" Eventually, the story became so well known that all anybody had to say was "Hey man!" and everyone knew what the rest of the sentence was. 

I also thought this was hilarious, so I wrote "Hey, man! Fuuck you!!" on a piece of paper near my usual perch on the sofa. Mrguy's hypervigilant, so this caught his eye and he started laughing before I could even tell him the story. Anyhoo...

I had a kinda "Hey man!" day yesterday, trying to get a Covid vaccine. I was 4 days away from getting my bivalent vaccine in October when I got Covid. That meant that I had *some* immunity, and wasn't eligible to get the vaccine until December. Last week was two months past Covid, so I tried to get an appointment for a vaccine at my doctor's office and learned that the nearest option was AN HOUR'S DRIVE FROM MY HOUSE. Shoot.

So I went to the Walgreens website and signed up for an appointment at a local store. I picked a perfect day that wouldn't screw up my work week, since the vaccine lays me out for days. I got to my appointment yesterday, stood in line for 15 minutes or so, and when I got to the front of the line, I see this sign:

This was definitely a Hey Man moment. Turns out that the Walgreens website lets you schedule a vaccine at a location that does not vaccinate. Fine. I go home, grab my laptop, schedule at another site and a few minutes later the location cancels. But I really want a vaccine on the date I've chosen. And I've kinda given this day up for being incapacitated by the vaccine, so I drive down to Costco. They have the vaccine but no appointments. So I try the CVS website. I have scheduled for Monday at a CVS in a Target store nearby. 

We'll see how it goes.

UPDATE:

I got my vaccine yesterday at 6pm. I went to bed around 10, and I rolled around in bed (again) like a hot dog at 7-11. I woke up, did my Pilates class and afterward felt like crap. Maybe not a good idea but we're about to go into break, and I need the exercise. In a meeting, a colleague described her vaccine experience as feeling as if for 24 hours someone was pulling her muscles off of her bones. At 25 hours it was over.

My real aches started at 9 or so, after Pilates. I have a project to finish and can't really stop working on it. I took a bath during lunchtime, which didn't really help, and eventually I took some Tylenol (and Tums). I feel much better now, at the 24.5 hour mark, but it might be a rough night. At least I can work from home tomorrow.

Ah Yes. Out Of The Relaxing Pan and Into The Hospital

The ringer on my phone was still off, because my sister was here with mom for the weekend and would be taken care of. Of course that's not how it panned out. Mom got up in the middle of the night and fell, and she was in a lot of pain. It could have happened to anyone, I guess, but my sister didn't have to come out for Thanksgiving at all. It was a choice. When she and other sister caught up with me, there was fun to be had. We decided she had to be taken to the hospital. My sister has some pretty severe anxiety about this because my mom turns into The Beast lately when confronted with authority. But I (who was with her through the situation -- only one person allowed) had a comparatively good time:

• They gave mom fentanyl before moving her onto the gurney, and she was sweet as pie
• I got to ride in an ambulance with her (my first time)
• It was quiet at the ER
• Mom kept telling me that it was such a nice hospital and that she was only the 2nd person to be a patient
• She thanked me for being with her
• She had no additional injuries since her last ER visit a month ago
• We were out of there in three hours. When has that ever happened? 

The paramedics, by the way, were so great with my mom and everybody. They exchanged short hellos with people at my mom's building that they'd met before, and were telling the lady in charge of showing them around stories that she didn't even know about residents -- "Bob was an engineer during World War II..."

Anyhoo, the mom was much better when she got home. We felt more reassured that any pains were going to be not serious, and after buying them some McDonalds (traditional post-medical mom treat), I slipped out, feeling like I could go home without guilt.

Countdown to Vacay

Sunday was mama day. The night before she'd been restless, but in the morning she was up and attem. Until I got there, of course. She was sweetly sleeping again, and could barely keep her eyes open for more than a few seconds. "Lovely to see you," she'd say. And then zzzzzzz. She asked "How's mrguy?" about a dozen times. And at one point she gently cupped my face with both hands, and looked so lovingly into my eyes that I felt like I, myself, could die of love. It's hard to reconcile the fact that the night before those same sweet hands were slapping someone (who she had already bitten twice).

It is countdown to vacay. We leave tomorrow. On Saturday we had mrguy south over for dinner, which was delightful. I miss cooking for friends, so this was great. He's off on an adventure in Japan.

And yesterday I dropped keys and a Christmas cactus off at #1 nephew's house. He's taking care of the babies tomorrow. Then I got gas, and sold some gold. A horrible elephant charm that came with a necklace that I bought last year. The charm brought me $394! 

Made an appointment for a haircut, dropped stuff off at Mom's (gotta make sure she's got paper products for the week!), made clam dip for a certain sumo loving friend -- wooooooo!!!

Now it's starting to look like vacation. Clam dip and I watched some sumo last night. And before that mrguy and I took in a pretty stupendous sunset. See that hump down there? The mama now lives a few blocks away from it.

Boy kitten enjoyed watching the sumo recap when we went to bed.

Tomorrow we fly. We had enough miles for first class round trip flights, so I hope to make the most of it from the moment we board. I *will* turn off my work email. I *will* turn off Slack. I have a friend who is on notice to text me if anything momentous goes down at the factory that I shouldn't miss.

Early Birthday

In 2006, we went to Hawaii. Right before we left, the factory's stock price became unstable. People started talking about Hammerslag and John Deere in the news. I was in paradise, but glued to my computer as the news of our acquisition materialized over the next few days. Every time I think of the state house in Honolulu I remember the sunny day when I sat on the capitol steps, facing out to the Archives, and received the blow-by-blow of the announcement on my Nokia 6310. My colleague at work relayed the whole thing, and my not being there on one of the most important days in the company's history still bugs me.

Over the last few years, our department has been hit hard but has done so well. We had layoffs after Covid hit. Hammerslag made a small number preemptive staff cuts, but one third of them were in our department, which is now really small for the amount of work we do. One of those cuts made my life much better. I was in a years-long slow motion battle with someone who was laid off. I have not cried at work since she left, and I am in love with the team I work in now. They are amazing.

So here I am, going to Hawaii next week. Things are looking up. We've been working so hard, have taken so many special assignments (tributes to fallen co-workers, extra publishing projects, exhibitions), and really done a great job with them. We've gotten a req. for head count and...a Friday afternoon announcement that JD is having targeted layoffs. I am going to do my best to ignore the news while I am away, but SHOOT! I'm feeling nervous, and worried for my factory, and worried for myself.

Here's crossing our fingers that none of the cuts hit terribly close to home. It would be a shame if I had to go, cause I really do love the place. Example: I love reading obituaries and we put up our annual ofrenda for departed employees a few weeks ago, and today on my first day of vacation, I found myself looking up Hammerslag on Legacy.com to see if there are any people I've missed adding to the ofrenda. And it's all that I can do to stop myself from logging in to my work computer and adding to my spreadsheet. I'm such a dork.

Anyhoo, I got a beautiful early birthday present for myself this week -- I bought an Akebono tegata on ebay. Can't wait to frame it and put it in the half bath. What you really don't get from looking at photos of them online is the depth of the pigment. I always thought that the handprints were inky, but on this one it seems more like tempera paint -- and it's a little messy. I like that lack of perfection. I showed it to mrguy and of course he had to see if his hand was bigger. Surprising that a guy who is 6'7" doesn't have a bigger hand.

No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Friday was great. Thursday kicked my butt, and it was really great to be able to work from home. Plus we got beauty mail -- some Bautz'ner senf (mittelscharf).

My office mate was such a good boy in the afternoon, sleeping sweetly on a favorite pillow.

Yesterday was a banner day. I was allowed to visit my mom in her apartment for the first time since she gave us both Covid. It was pretty nice, all in all. No biting or throwing or cursing or wanting people dead.

She was on Norco for pain, because of her fractured pelvis (but she is apparently walking a bit). I could barely get her to raise her head, but she was really cozy because I was there. I mostly just held her hand. Her caregiver that day was super nice, and when her back was turned my mom woke up enough to stick out her tongue to diss her. Oy, mama!! Also she woke up just enough to hate on Novak Djokovic, the tennis player she dislikes. I swear that the only full sentence she uttered was "He's been better recently". Other than that I could just interpret. When she rubbed the ring on my right hand, I knew that that was her way of saying that the rubies in it were from my grandmother, for example. Her caregiver brought her lunch, and I slipped away.

I was super happy to see free candy by the front door!! I missed Tootsie Rolls this Halloween, so I selected one and walked toward the parking lot. I looked down to see that it had been stickered with a Bible verse -- payment for my sin of eating sugar.

I am used to verses on my paper placemat on Alaska Airlines lunches, and on stuff you get at In and Out (which I've only been to once, that I can recall). This was a first.

Mulch'oween 2022

Our neighbors down the street are celebrating their 3 year mulch-aversary. The mound was dropped off in their driveway years ago, and they've never done anything with it. After the first year a local realtor asked them to at least clear the sidewalk. It's insane. Over time they've added to it, topping it with old strollers and broken office furniture. It is an eyesore.

Anyhoo, I drove past their house the other day and saw that they'd decorated it for Halloween, even adding a shovel. I want to say "PICK UP THE SHOVEL AND DISTRIBUTE THE MULCH ON YOUR PROPERTY!!"

But I don't.

Happy Belated Halloween. Or make that Mulch'oween.

Fernandez Kun

I have had a breakthrough in the mystery of Fernandez-kun.

Many years ago I brought together some archival items in order to give some interviews about them to visiting members of the Japanese press. The PR team had me all dolled up, and it was all cool, but right before things all started they dropped the news that some of the interviews would be on camera. Oh! I had things all set up in a conference room, but if this was going to be on camera I would want to move the 12 chairs around the conference table into another room.

Just as things kicked off I realized that I had worked up a deep sweat. After simply rolling a few chairs into the next room! By the time the tv guy showed up I was in trouble. 

To set the scene, one of our Japanese press guests arrives with a translator. With one hand he is balancing the video camera on his shoulder, and the other hand is deep inside a big pink puppet, who is apparently his on camera talent. I am going to be interviewed by a puppet.

This may have been my first ever on camera interview, and at least *one* of the first, and I had questions. Should I interact with the man, the translator or the puppet? Is the show for adults or children? Puppet man was unsmiling and stiff and did not want to answer my questions. Not what I expected when I rolled into work that day, or even when I eyed his cute pink puppet. I had to just do my best.

The sweat reappeared and to my horror continued to roll down my face. I mouthed to the young woman who was managing the shoot "Help! I'm sweating!" She patted my face with some tissues. All I had done was move some chairs into the next room and try to survive a puppet interview.

It was at that moment that I realized "Ohhhhhh. This is menopause. It's here."

Puppet man left me a mini version of the puppet, whose name I thought was Fernandez kun. For years I'd quiz my friends about the character because I really wanted to know what his deal was. There's a tag on the little guy I have, but whatever it says is in a crazy font that isn't helpful.

Yesterday I got a wild hair again to figure out Fernandez kun. I did image searches for Fernandez-kun pink Japanese puppet and such. Nothing good (or at least nothing appropriate). And then I looked up Fernandez kun in google translate and put the japanese in the google search box. Hadn't I tried this before?

フェルナンデスくん is his name in Japanese.

This is the show he's from:

https://www.ntv.co.jp/hirunan/

https://www.instagram.com/hirunandesu_ntv_official/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=791194bb-3abc-4e0b-9239-71703cf26478

And there you have it. The mystery of Fernandez-kun is now solved.

Old Lady Faceoff

I haven't talked to my mom for three weeks, which is probably the longest I've gone in *years*. My sisters are taking the brunt of the mom business, along with our new crew of ladies from Tonga. They are decidedly less distressed by her behavior than our #1 caregiver. This probably stems from her having known and loved the person that my mom was for much of their time together. Now we have the angry bitey, slapping, name-calling lady. Without spending time over there it's hard for me to know when's a good time or whether there ever is one. Should I call? Today I did, but nobody answered.

This week's activities have included last minute shopping for butt cream, heading out to the storage space for more towels because my mom is being bathed in bed and there's a lot of water involved, getting medication for her and rushing it to her (with specific instructions from my sister), finding more bed pads and this and that. I'm not allowed into mom's building because I tested positive for Covid less than 10 days ago. It's a thing.

Speaking of which, Covid is no joke (still). I find myself exhausted after doing just a few tasks in the morning. Today we did a group project, rehousing a few dozen pastel paintings that were handed off by a friend who was retiring. That felt satisfying and chunky, bringing a definable project to a good stopping point. Then I went into the warehouse again to go through the remains of my friend's office belongings and help the Facilities folks make heads and tails of it. His lawyer needs an inventory of his stuff in order to share it with his heir. It's so sad. 

I had already said I was going to work from home for the rest of the day but powered through my warehouse duties, using a two-drawer pedestal file as a seat and using his pens and paper to leave notes for others, indicating what I thought should be done with his flat files, art supplies, drafting table. A lot of the artists I know have a bit of a piggly way about them, but this guy pretty much tied everything up in a bow before he went. Pancreatic cancer gave him some lead time, and over the last few years he gradually divested of his DVDs, CDs and finally his historical photographs, which he organized and put in cloud storage for us. His memorial was last weekend. I miss him.

By the time I got home I was spent. It feels silly to be three weeks out from Covid and be tired, drippy and to feel the need to clear my throat a hundred times a day. That's what I thought until I started talking to people. A person in my caregiver support group had exactly the same throat clearing thing I have. She sounded just like me! And people have opened up to me about their fatigue when I've shared my embarrassment about my own.

In the meantime, I've been listening to Suleika Jaouad's memoir and thinking about her journey with illness. It's given me a lot to think about -- about people's lack of agency in their illnesses. My mom continues to feel it. She tells people she wants to die, but she also wants to see what's outside of her door. She has the people in her neighborhood that she likes or dislikes (never too old to hate, apparently!) and she wants to watch movies with the group.

One last thing. Yesterday when I was dropping off supplies, I saw a favorite old krone in the lobby. We'll call her V. She always sits by the door, and was using a wheelchair yesterday. She's feisty. There was another white haired old lady in a wheelchair, also in the lobby. All of a sudden they had a faceoff, which I've seen happen in memory care. Two old people lock eyes and then they start calling each other out. I can't recall what they were shouting at each other but it was something like "Shut up!" and the other person would yell back "Shut up!" and there were a few back and forths and they had to be given a talking to by the concierge. It was awesome. Absolutely made my day.

Jurojin

As readers of mrsguy know, I grew up in a house that contained lots and lots of Asian antiques. The reason for this is that Grandmother's final design phase was her Asian art phase. Thank god she didn't die during her French Provincial period. After granny died mom consigned some of her stuff (I wish she hadn't gotten rid of the gunbai that I see in some old photos!) but kept a lot of it. In later years she said that she felt the duty to this stuff and regretted that she had all of it. But she could have divested...and she didn't. Now she's passing along the duty to keep it to all of us.

When she moved to memory care she got very wrapped up in giving things away, because she decided she was going to move to Los Angeles. It was super tedious. But I gave in and took her much beloved bronze of Jurojin, because that seemed to setttle her down. When she dies, I can give it to someone else. But I have to keep it because she asks for stuff back. 

Anyway, before she got Covid and broke her pelvis and lost her effing mind, she liked to think that she'd given the statue to mrguy. What mrguy really does with it is use it to hold up our bills and other incoming mail on the dining room table. I love it : ) He does not think it's funny at all.

While he had a migraine last night (and who wouldn't, as the husband of a woman who's been in bed with Covid for 10 days who also has a mom with all of the previous issues?) he had a horrible dream. Perhaps this is payback for the many times he has tortured me with his imitation of Karen Black as a devil doll in Twilight Zone, but last night he dreamed that Jurojin came to life. His head was able to move side to side and everything.

If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will!

Unbelievable

Just when you think it can't get worse...

Nobody knows how to handle my mom. She was pretty good when she got home yesterday, but now she's violent. Scratched and hit her caregiver. Won't take her meds. Is throwing things and breaking things. Threatening to kill people.

The Hammer is maxed. The nurse has called to tell us what's happening. The Hammer called me to say that we're having a shift change and mom will be with a new caregiver (a stranger) and she's fearful of what mom will do. I told her that we couldn't really call the cops on her because she's not a real danger to anyone or herself. What's the worst thing that could happen? She could gouge her eyes out, apparently. My opinion is that if she did, then we'd have something to go on. You can't call the cops when all that's happening is that a bedridden person is violently angry from their bed. After I said this I heard unhappy sounds on the other end of the phone.

I ended my conversation by suggesting that my sister call the new caregiving folks and asking how *they'd* handle it. She did, but after that we had another conversation in which she suggested there was an impending lawsuit. I was clutching my pearls over that one, assuming it would be against us. But actually it would be us suing the facility over their decision not to give my mom a drug that she was prescribed because our insurance doesn't cover it. They didn't inform us, and that is a problem. Of course she spits out all of her meds, so I'm not sure how we're going to get that drug into her even if it is available to us. Perhaps blow dart, like they use on elephants in the wild. My older sister is on the case re: meds this morning, so hopefully we'll at least have the drug to offer.

Last night ended with the new caregiving team doing great and my poor sister, whose shoulders this is all falling on, being able to rest. Right now the philosophical difference between her and I is that she believes that mom has another calm spell in her that is worth her having and that I believe that this could be the end of the calm times. My sister has been right many times, so we'll see. 

I feel like when things are this stressful you have to take a step back and pretend she's someone else's mom. If this weren't happening to you, how would you handle it?

Meanwhile I'm still in bed with boy kitten. Cough, headache, fatigue. I will work tomorrow.

I am no help : (

Feisty Mom

My older sister told me a story I hadn't heard. It was pretty fantastic and shows what we've been up against for the past few months...

Middle sister came for a visit this last week, and she brought an animatronic dog for mom. She thought that maybe it could keep her company while she didn't have caregiving at night. But when she got here she learned about mom's Covid, and need to quarantine. This meant that my sister came out here but couldn't visit mom. She decides to leave the animatronic dog at the front desk and to ask our caregiver to say it's a present from all of us kids.

The caregiver gives mom the dog. She's so pissed that my sister is here but not coming to see her that she hurls it to the floor. The caregiver brings the pieces of the dog back up to the bed where mom's sitting and my mom wrings its neck.

That's my mom. Or at least the mom I had recently. Sassy sassy mom. It's so weird to think that I will miss her slings and barbs some day, but I will. That is her personality.

That was yesterday. 

The Hammer did her thing and got the world to bend to her command. Mom is going home to her apartment today. And The Hammer put pt/ot in place and hired additional caregivers and got mom's community to take her back. And when last heard from my mom was verbally abusing the person who was bedside, trying to get her to eat. She is to return home this afternoon.

One thing that is happening due to all of this is that my mom will now have 24/7 caregiving. That is fantastic, and makes it possible for me not to be that caregiver. That's positive, especially since all reports are that she is lots more hateful than before. I don't want her to be awful to other people, but I need to have some options to see or not see her. 

All will be revealed.

Taking A More Somber Tone

OK, so I just finished saying that my mom was like Chucky. Well maybe she's not. She's been a complainer, a threatener and an insult comic in the recent past, but she may actually be winding down.

She's still in the hospital with Covid and some pelvic fractures. She doesn't have her hearing aids with her. We can't see her without risking Covid or agitating her further. Skilled nursing beds for Covid patients have not panned out. And she keeps refusing food. It's just awful.

Our plan b has been getting her back to her apartment in the locked down memory care ward, but their requirements for even considering this are:

1. Mandatory physical therapy
2. Mandatory 24/7 caregiving from here on out

So in order to get mom out of the hospital so we can maybe save her life through nutrition, we have to do those two things. The Hammer got them done. This morning she was super fired up and said she didn't know what she was going to say to whom today, but things would be said. So we think my mom will be released to our care tomorrow. "Our" means our caregivers who will be working in mom's locked down memory care ward.

There is very little I can do. I can imagine the caregivers needing me to bring them things and my not being able to because I'm still symptomatic (I'll do a rapid test again tomorrow). Guess I'll have to rally the troops, or as the Hammer thinks of them, those assholes who don't do anything for the family. She doesn't know that they actually *do* things for the family. 

It's frustrating to be accustomed to being able to help and not to be allowed to. I checked to see if there is any possibility of my visiting my mom at the hospital at this point, but I'm too symptomatic. The fever has gone away but I'm still left with a reduced sense of smell, body aches, exhaustion, runny nose and a cough.

So now we wait. The initial reports talked about recovery, but I don't know what that even means. I guess we'll see.

But Wait! There's More!

OK, so I'm in bed with Covid and my mom has it asymtomatically and is in the hospital with pelvic fractures.

They want to discharge her from the hospital but there is nowhere for her to go. 

There's a full outbreak in her memory care neighborhood so she can't go back there. Nobody can go in or out. Thanks, Old People. I got it from you.

The OT and PT have ranked her as needing the maximum support (plus she has Covid). She can barely lift herself, is in a lot of pain and won't take her meds (including pain meds). Skilled nursing is the only and best place for her. Hah! There are no beds in the area that have that level of care who will *also* take a Covid positive patient. Even if she gets to skilled nursing, I'm not sure how we'll get her 24/7 care. She needs it because she'll try to get out of bed, she'll fall, and will only become more severely injured and not die.

She will not die. My mom is like Chucky.

Meanwhile, back at the hospital she is being horrible to everyone, not taking her meds and not eating. She could end up just running out the clock on this by causing herself to die, but I doubt it. None of us can talk to her because she doesn't have her hearing aids. Nobody can see her because...Covid.

Wow.

I am grateful that I am stuck in my bed for this one. Sisters are on the case and working together peacefully. I feel like crap and I have filled a paper shopping bag with used kleenex, and thank god for The Crown, because I need something consistent to keep me company while I doze.

Malaise: I'll Take It!

Yep.  Day 2 was worse than Day 1! Body aches all over. Shooting pains. Lungs full of goo. Good times! I slept to The Crown most of the day and night.

The scene with my mom is interesting. She has asymptomatic covid and she's in the hospital with small pelvis fractures. The nurse says she's agitated, and my sisters could visit her if they were willing to put themselves at risk. I told middle sister that she should save herself and let mom rage at strangers. Otherwise they'll beg my sister to take her home. That would be bad, because we don't know where she's going. My older sister is in charge of the next steps. 

Older sister is alternating between sending texts asking for info that sound kinda desperate and taking her role as #1 on the decision list for my mom's care seriously. At this point I just have to let them figure it out and not interfere because I'm a drooling puddle of protoplasm.

On the upside, I slept some. And I felt well enough to get my own popsicle out of the freezer. Popsicle was part of an immense care package provided by my nephew and his family. Such a lifeline. He asked what I needed and I said I'd appreciate some more kleenex and popsicles. What arrived was two boxes of popsicles, four boxes of kleenex, mucinex, some hydration supplies, cough drops -- all in a unicorn bag. Wow that all helped. 

Yes! But it's not like now that the crisis phase has ended that i'm dancing the tarantella or anything. I'm a sick pup. As i just told a friend, Covid doesn't really have phases but i feel like I feel different this morning. Less stabbing, more malaise. 

I'll Take It!

More Laughs (Cough Cough) From The Fun Factory

Good lord, it's been a rich week.

Still dealing with what's left of my phone (replacement est. 2 weeks). It has no camera / it won't hold a charge.

Still wearing my Covid mask "because I'm protecting my mom"

and then...

I have a horrible night of body aches after a flu shot and just out of caution I...test positive. Damnit! I go out at 10am for a PCR test, confirming it.

Then I get a Slack from a workmate that there was a 4-alarm fire at the place where my mom just moved from. It started in the apartment next door. Thanks, Cathy. I hope they escort you to Sunrise. Had my mom lived there it would have been so bad. But we're doing pretty well on our own.

In the afternoon I get a call that Mom has Covid. Oh yeah, she that cough on Tuesday (but she always has a cough). I got it from HER! Irony. She has to quarantine in her apartment for 10 days.

In the meantime, my middle sister was en route. She was coming to town for a visit when this all went down. Now she can't visit. But wait, the fun is just beginning.

While I'm shivering in my bed for night two of fun, I let the battery on my partial phone run down. I missed the call at 3:30am that my mom fell and is in the hospital. She would benefit from occupational and physical therapy. But she can go home if she wants, and of course she has Covid. It is double fucked. My sisters have questions. I can't make decisions. I have just enough energy to say "yes, I do need some popsicles and more kleenex" and that's about it.

Covid. It's not fun.

Covid Snark

My therapist said that you should pause before saying something and think "Is it true, kind, necessary or helpful?"

Which is why I turned to mrsguy when my friend won the lottery of season ticket holders to do something special at a Mariners' post-season game. I looked at fb after the mystery honor and saw a closeup of him and lots of other people on the field, holding up part of a gigantic American flag and wanted to comment "They made you TOUCH that thing?"

mrsguy owwwwwwwt!

Angela Lansbury

I have never been the biggest Angela Lansbury fan, but she had a great run. I wish there had been autotune when she did her vocals for Beauty and the Beast. But her performance as Mrs. Johnny Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate was effing amazing. And I once had a revelation while speaking with a friend on the phone with the tv on mute that they used completely different lenses on Angela Lansbury when shooting Murder She Wrote than they used on all of the other actors. Her shots were foggy and sweet and everyone else's were crisp. Anyhoo...

Ten years ago, while working in Mantova, I noticed that the local tv station played multiple episodes of Murder She Wrote in the middle of the day. After work one night I asked two young Mantovani girls what the deal was with this show. When they finally understood what I was referring to, they in unison spoke-sang "OH! YESSSSica!" and then went off to chat. Clearly there was some childhood association there but I never learned what it was.

Good run, Yessica! In other news, I visited my mom after work yesterday, and she was so cozy that she immediately fell asleep. On one hand I am happy that she's happy in that moment, but on the other hand I sometimes wonder why I go? Of course last night I missed a call telling me that she was really hard to get to sleep, and that she wanted them to call the police.

And my sister found this note on Sunday. The blanks are where she wrote her name. I wish there were something I could do but then I'd have to do it. I can't live my life parallel to hers so that we both suffer. At this past week's Alz caregiver support group the facilitator asked how I was doing now that we were transitioning to the memory care folks taking care of her rather than us. I said "Yeahno. That's not really how we do it in my family. I'm there four days a week." On the upside, when I told my middle sister about how I'd missed a call from memory care about mom's behavior, she said that she took it as a good sign that the situation resolved without my needing to deal with it. I almost couldn't believe that level of support in a text from her. Wow.

Anyway when I visit mom and she's sleepy I've gotten into this habit of watching Shark Tank on demand while she sleeps. In that moment, as I listen to her gentle snoring, we're *both* cozy.

Michael's

It’s a good thing that I’ve blogged so much this year, because the only photos I may have are those I’ve either downloaded or those that I’ve sent to others. Good times!

Spent the day with my mom. She needed a drive, so I took her across the bridge and drove past my dead colleague's house. I miss him. I knew she'd like the neighborhood. We drove way into the hills until my mom got scared of the road and wanted to go home. I took her back to memory care, and then she joked that (after spending 5 hours with her) I was "dumping" her off. I left anyway. Exhausted, I decided to do something for myself and check in with Michaels on the status of my framing order

They’d called me a week ago -- the same day as I put my order in -- saying that one of my frames was complete. This wasn’t surprising, as I’d only asked them to float the piece in the middle of an existing mat and frame. But I waited until more of the order was done.

I call them and they say that my three pieces were ready. I puzzled. That wasn’t the number, but whatever.

I get there and they tell me they made a mistake. There was only one, and she’d read the first three letters on another frame order last name and assumed it was mine.

So I take the piece and grumble to myself and put the piece and my cart back in the car. I was distracted. I’d taken my mom on a long drive and I’d been driving, by now, about three hours.

Get back to my house. Where’s my phone? I use Find My, and I see it’s still in the store. I go to the store, and no phone has been turned in. But the lady in framing says “Hey, but I found your other pieces,” and she starts pulling this piece of cardboard out of a plastic sleeve. I tell her that that’s my piece but it hasn’t been framed yet. WTH! Is this a volunteer outfit?

By now I’m losing it. I’ve already run into a friend in the parking lot while I'm looking for my phone, and I’m frantic. I go home again. I tell mrguy that I need his help. Look at Find My again, and realize that I had completely misunderstood. It wasn’t at the store. It was on the freeway onramp coming back from the store. Again, times are good!

We get there, we park, and mrguy saves the day by finding my phone. It is completely pulverized. Screen completely cracked and gross. It does make a “boop” when it’s plugged in, so there’s hope. But it’s warm. While I write to the neighborhood group to find a recommendation for iPhone repair, mrguy finds a safe place to put a hot phone: our grill in the back yard. That’s where I retrieved it this morning and brought it to a place behind a Brazilian food truck. Guy wasn’t there, and I chatted up one of the others waiting for the iPhone guy, and he  showed me his phone which had taken some hits and kept going. I felt hopeful.

And now I’m sitting in Baskin Robbins Plaza, waiting for a different guy to see if he can put my phone back together. I still have hope.

Update: the patient lives (although the camera died). We are now backing up to the cloud and hoping that that works so we can update to a new phone.

Update to the update: after backing up to the cloud overnight, it still says it has 16 hours to go.

Oh, and I opened the package with that one frame I took home. The work wasn't done. It was packed up exactly as they set it aside for the framer. Michael's is now on my shit list.

Good News, Bad News

So the bad news is mrguy bought us tickets for Bryan Ferry and got a migraine.

The good news is I had taken the day off, and now I am flopped in bed with my toasty boy cat and get to watch sumo with one friend and chat with another. Earlier in the day I also:

1) Picked up my new glasses at the eye dr.

2) Dropped off a dog anchor at my friend's house. The dog anchor was new, and I found it during the coastal cleanup two weeks ago. My friend said that if she wasn't home I could leave it in her car, so I did.

3) Had custom plexi cut for a table, which is now creamy white with a bright red plexi top. 

4) Had two other pieces of plexi cut, one for a table that I bought for five bucks and also had powdercoated white, and another to top a tiny bureau that I got for free. The frosted white plexi didn't quite cover the marks underneath it but...

5) I went to the hardware store and bought white and black paint so I could

6) Repaint the house numbers on the street in front of our house (currently drying, and not as straightforward a process as one would think) and I

7) Successfully painted the marks on the top of the tiny bureau but got lots of overspray on the drawers, so I had to use a lot of acetone to get the paint off. Top looks great now.

And Amazon delivered my other spray paint today and I have spray paint experience now for painting out the dumpster boobs.

Oh wait! And I also printed out documentation for mrguy to use when shipping something to my sister in Minnesota. Granny bought these erotic / "medicine" dolls in either Japan or Hong Kong in the 1950s. They were in glass fronted cabinets in our dining room when I was growing up. My sister really wants them and I have had them in my garage for years because I wasn't sure how to ship old ivory from state to state. Turns out that there isn't a problem because they're over 100 years old and no money is changing hands. But I printed out documentation anyway. And this will be one more thing I don't have to think about. Thanks to mrguy.

Woo! 

Framing Session

A month or so ago I was looking for artwork to spiff up the new new bathroom. I bought a really great poster from Palisades Amusement Park, but it turned out to be a reproduction. I wanted something fancier for the bathroom. Still, Palisades makes a great zoom backdrop, bookended by two velvet paintings we've had for 30 years.

Then I read or listened to a profile about a female acrobat (whose name I can no longer recall) and my research led me to an active auction of circus posters. I fell in love with a few of them, especially the ones that did not feature animals.

My eldest sister offered me a day off on Saturday, and I finally was able to take the posters and a few other items that I've wanted to frame during the pandemic to the art store. Yes, I usually do conservation framing, but honestly what for? It was still a ton of dough.

So here we are! And yesterday, when my mom was napping, I was able to determine the location and date of the Elkton circus performance. Elkton, Maryland, 1941.

In two weeks I should have the posters back.

Breast Reduction

I am so tired of seeing titti grafitti while walking to and from the archives.

Amazon is delivering me some green spray paint today, and I will use it to de-tittify the alley, while a quiet voice inside says "Fuck the patriarchy."

Developing...

Update: now isn't that better? I had the spray paint in my bag and was ready to use it, but I also brought some nail polish remover (i.e. acetone) with me as backup. And when I was getting it out of the trunk where I'd stashed it I found an old mama sock. And then as I got to the dumpster I saw a guy eating lunch on the sidewalk, so I went stealth mode. Acetone, applied with an old lady sock worked like a charm and it only took two shakes of a lamb's tail to remove the breastses from the alley where I have to see it all the time.

Now I kinda want to go back and make it not look so smeary, but I will restrain myself.