Pretty Things

And Now We Wait

On Saturdays I see my mom. Every other week we alternate between indoor and outdoor activities: I either have her and her caregiver over for lunch, or we go to the park or for a ride. It's in the 50's around here, so the other day my mom and I went for a ride. A car ride is almost the perfect activity. It's something she rarely complains about, and sometimes even sleeps through. Another pretty sure bet is an avocado and turkey sandwich.

I'm realizing that our current scenario of the mama's dementia and living situation is coming up on seven years. The seven years ago me would have shopped for and made that sandwich personally. That is the guy family way. The one year ago me would put on a mask and stood at the deli while the very nice and shy man who had a black eye for the longest time would make my mama's sandwich. 2022 me says it's seven years into our scenario, and Omicron, baby. We have the internet and mister pickles would be happy to make my sandwich. I ordered in advance online.

When I got to my mom's her caregiver told me that she had a cough. But canceling our visit would mean that we would *all* suffer, so off we went. I like to take her up to the hills, where we went to the memory care unit once. The view up there is stupendous, and you can see for miles. There's even a little airport off in the distance. Mom had many questions about what pieces of land were what, and where we were relative to her apartment and my house. Crinkled up into the interior doors of my car are, GASP, paper maps. Oh remember paper maps? So much easier for old ladies like mom (and me) to look at. I was able to show her everything she was asking about.

From there we took the windy six-mile drive through the trees, and that poops you out into suburbia, where you catch the freeway and breeze home to the mama's apartment. I handed her off to the caregiver and looked toward this weekend which would presumably be a lunch at my house.

Then the call came this morning. That cough? Covid. And I was in a car with her for two hours and she wasn't exactly wearing her mask the whole time (although I was). Argh. Her primary  caregiver, who is both saintly and fun, has agreed to quarantine with my mom. She has her own worries, as she has relatives and a house in Tonga, so I can't believe that she's doing this. We are so lucky.

So this was me today. Waiting for my rapid response. So far, negative, which is good because we not only have mrguy and I in the house, but also our construction folks. I would be so mad if I got any of them sick. We wear masks in the common areas when they are working, but still.

I'll take another test in a few days.

Hallo På Do, Din Gamle Sko

Bathroom remodel chugs along. The tile is 2/3 complete. We have chosen a wall color. The vanity cabinets have arrived and been installed, and CHECK OUT the super pimpy figuring on the walnut. This is not what I expected, but also super fly. I am not a big fan of the finish color, which turned out a little on the pink side. It might look very different when the counter top is in (it is an extremely dark navy blue.

Important decision to make: what to hang over the toilet. Why do I care? Because we went so bold, colorwise, and none of it "matches." I needed something to pull it all together. I spent hours looking at auctions, falling in love with an original 1950's poster of Sputnik, and trying to find a large poster of an advertisement for Ideal Flatbread. Then I just decided -- we're going with our parrot painting. It has recently moved from the living room to my home office, but it will have to be sacrificed to the bathroom.

It looks fantastic. Really gathers the elements of the various rooms together. The cheerful blue wall color we decided on for the whole bathroom, the black of the floor, the red tile in the shower -- it's all there. After we painted the bathroom I looked at my can of Klutch that sits on the desk in the office -- it is pretty much the color of the walls. Funny.

Along the way to the parrot painting decision I looked at Etsy and found a piece of wall art that said "Hallo på do, din gamle sko", which they translated as "Hello On Toilet You Old Shoe".

Humorous for two seconds. No.

I Guess It's Just Like Wartime

You just gotta laugh. It's so hard when you're with mom but some of the stuff she says is so funny. She expresses herself in funny ways. My sister took care of her on New Years and has been sending me texts (cause this is how you get through the day) and here were some of the highlights:

Mom: Why can't we go to lunch in the dining room? When I explained she added: "it doesn't matter. They just want to get their pictures in the paper. As far as I'm concerned, they can just go 'splat' against the windows.

Mom: "Did you know that the guy who sells us insurance [she means our family attorney] has moved to Carmel? He used our money to do that, you know. I think you ought to be our attorney. Do you have any more questions for me?"

Mom: "I guess this is just like wartime; you can't count on anybody to rescue you, you just have to take care of yourself."

Mom:  "And, I should be across the bay, having a party, but you kids wouldn't take me there."

All of these comments are shorthand for things that we've come to know. Her friends lived across the bay. Mom didn't go to the dining for a party last month, and they put a slideshow of photos of those who did go on the monitor in the hallway and she lost her shit about it. She doesn't want my sister to go home, so that's the reason for the wartime comment.

This week I re-read "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" by Roz Chast. Wanted to see where I was on the Chast scale. I relate to so much more of that book than I did when I read it before. It's a thing, for sure.