I Can't Win -- Ed Ho

Mrguy used to work with a guy named Ed Ho, who often said "I can't win",  apropos of actual winning (gambling), computer systems tech support, and other stuff. In the intervening years his name has become synonymous with things that can't be fixed. Witness the following:

I was thinking with my mouth open just now, explaining to mrguy how I want to duct tape the controls on the passenger side of my car because my mom fiddles with the window controls every few minutes while we're driving together. She also fiddles with the door mechanism and whines when she's not getting what she wants or is uncomfortable. I'm sure that in previous stories I've mentioned the patented guy family narrow threshold of coziness? Yeah. It could lead to death some day.

Imagine this: I'm on the freeway with mom and her caregiver. Both of them are talking to me. As is the voice of Google Maps. Mom wants some air, so she starts pushing the buttons that unlock the door. I engage the child lock or un-engage the child lock, usually the opposite of what needs to happen. If mom doesn't get what she wants, she starts complaining. In about two minutes she wants me to undo whatever I just did. I'm never quite sure that the child lock is on, so I have many quiet heart attacks in the driver's seat while the fiddler does her important fiddling work. 

I want it to stop. I want to duct tape the controls. Hearing my plight, mrguy wants me to always have the child lock on. But he's not stuck in the car with my whiny mom.

Did I mention that there were too many trees and not enough land during our drive yesterday? I can't tell if she was trying to be funny on purpose.

Ed Ho.

The Healing Power of Turkey

Today's outing with mom was better than last week's Easter festivities. Not only that, according to her favorite caregiver, mom had had four very good ("beautiful") days this week. That was good to hear. I brought our usual turkey sandwiches from mister pickles, and drove us up to the hills, where we could see most of the city, all the way down to the airport and the water.

Although I was so happy to be with her and her caregiver on this beautiful sunny day, I am still a little sore from last week's intense grousing. So I was happy to have her caregiver's company and hear her stories. Sometimes the chatter on both sides was simultaneous, with mom telling me that I eat too fast, I chew too quickly and my bites are too big, while from the back seat the caregiver is telling me in excruciating detail how an unaddressed package arrived at her daughter's house and she called the police to remove it. In another story, she scrutinized the activities of a set of Amazon drivers who were acting suspicious. On one hand our caregiver is the mayor of any street she's on and nothing gets past her, and on the other almost every story includes the race of the people in the story ("a black man" "a chinese lady").

Mom wanted to drive down to the water, which would take forever. I started to head that way but instead purposefully meandered into a neighborhood that we hadn't been in recently all the while my mom asking me if I was still enjoying driving her car. Readers of mrsguy will remember that this is my car I've convinced is her old car. The streets were rough "Please leave me some tires so that you can drive me around again," she complained.

As we headed toward the freeway, our caregiver saw a car that reminded her of one she'd owned, reminding her of one last story. She bought the car at a used car dealership. It was really beautiful but after a few days of driving it she felt uneasy and could swear that it smelled like blood -- as if someone had died in it. She returned the car to the dealership and she had been right. The car had been in a crash where the driver died, and they'd fixed the car for resale. Whoa. I rented a car once that smelled like someone had tipped over their bong in it, but nothing like that.

Today was short but sweet. 4 days until I take her to the neurologist and 5 days until I have a fine needle aspiration on my thyroid. It'll be fine.

A New Take On Easter

I was mom's caregiver on Easter because that is one of the ladies' paid holidays. That part, at least, gives me joy. I picked her up in the morning and brought her to our house. She dozed off during the baseball game. Big sis and her husband came over for breakfast, which was fabulous because I haven't seen my brother-in-law in two years and he just turned 88. Mrguy made breakfast. And then mom was soon agitating to go home.

I made soup the day before, and we were going to have soup and grilled cheese sandwiches at her apartment, where I would take care of her for the rest of the evening. Or so I thought. 

She'd had a hard week. The caregivers asked us for help on several occasions when mom was crying, angry, throwing things, out of control. There was little we could do to help, because she's missing a hearing aid. She both can't hear and can't listen, and having us on the other end of the phone isn't very satisfying.

I knew that Easter was going to be sad, but I didn't know that my mom would act out all afternoon. She insisted that we were lost, needed food and needed help. She prowled the hallway both as we returned to her apartment and after we returned to her apartment to look for that help. 

She gave me a hard time for not wanting to go to the front desk and ask them for help. I kept telling her that we had food, and that I knew where we were, so we were all good. She sat down to write this note:

As we approached her apartment she pawed through people's mail. She passed by her neighbor's door (which was open) and said "SHE OWES ME TWO SLICES OF BREAD!!) which she probably does. 

Once inside, the agitation continued for hours. She couldn't articulate what kind of help she needed (physical, mental health) but insisted that she was sad because she was asking for help and no one was helping her. "I can toss this recycling out in the hall and then someone will check on me" Obviously I was no use. I went off to make our dinner, pausing to stop her from doing weird stuff. At one point she pulled open the tool drawer and I seriously considered whether she was looking for something to harm me with. Then she went into another drawer, pulled out cards (one of grandmother's bridge sets with standard poodles, white and black) and started flipping them one by one into the hallway and on the floor.

Occasionally she'd make a break for it and walk down the hall without her mask, causing me to trot down the hall after her with her mask. Needless to say I burned dinner while trying to contain chaos. "Does *your* sandwich have any cheese in it?" she asked, while wagging her sandwich at me. Fuuuuuuuck.

Eventually we made it to her bed, where she spent a full hour telling me all of the ways in which I made her sad. I can understand how having a seemingly normal conversation with the power dynamic reinstated in her favor would make her feel calmer. In this cocoon within her apartment she could revert to talking about the size of my breasts and can recount the times I have disappointed her and can indicate that my father was a less-than-stellar person "I knew him better than you" she said, while also tearing up a picture of him.

In the night I heard a sound and got up to check, slightly before the motion sensor went off in her room. "Did you see your father? He was right here. I don't know why a grown man would walk through a bed like that". 

And then it was morning and I went home to work for a few hours before curling up like a ball. I made an appointment with her neurologist for next week.

Plant Based Eggs. Think About It.

OK. I love this commercial. Wayne has a hangover and needs something to keep the bile down. He puts some plant-based eggs in the toaster (yes. toaster), makes an egg muffin and "helps to save the planet."

Although the commercial gives me joy and helps the planet in that way, my BS meter goes into the red when a vegetarian option I see on television says it's going to save the planet.

In case you were wondering, Just Eggs does not save the planet. And the interior packaging is plastic, which made me feel guilty. But their little puck was on its way to being tasty. I might buy it again, just for the fun of it (while using the plastic puck holders as seed starting containers for the cats' wheat grass farm.

Like me, the ad community likes Wayne, and Kelly, and J.B. Smoove, who does the voiceover. 

However the vote is still out on Just Eggs.

Just for the record, I did not pay full price for Just Eggs. I bought them at the canned food warehouse.

And also, for lunch I made some eggs. So much better!

Cat Training

Today begins Week 3 of cat training. Beginning two Saturdays ago we have been closing off parts of the house where cats can hide, arming ourselves with squirt bottles and "sight blockers" and letting boy kitten roam free. Mrguy and I each guard one of the older cats, and we intervene when things go haywire.

I can happily report that things are progressing in a positive direction and we're taking it slowly. We humans are doing better, as well. Now that we can see that the older cats are (mostly) defending themselves when necessary and just "shaking it off" after a dustup, it's easier for us to let things happen.

Here are a few photos from the first week. Two cats in one room!

And two cats on one chaise! Things were looking good here, until boy kitten jumped on his sister and he chased her under the bed. But then she fended him off after much staring and hissing. In the grand scheme of things, this is great. Last year when they were face to face he choked her, so this is a huuuuuge improvement.

Yesterday ended week two. I let our big boy cat, known in these circumstances as "big no-fun guy", get some licks in. Boy kitten gently nestled big no-fun guy's larynx between his teeth (!), and big no-fun guy gave him some major growls and hisses. Boy kitten backed off and cried. Then he wandered around the house and cried. I think he just wants to play, and the big kids are *not* having it. Boy kitten cries in frustration when he doesn't get what he wants.

Anyway, you can tell that the big kids are a bit friskier (especially the little girl) and maybe like this just a bit. And the boy kitten is definitely liking his supervised house freedom and cat interactions. He's been sleeping really well in the evenings.

It's slow and incremental, but we're feeling super positive. And if you wonder what we're doing with our time these days, this is it. Cats aren't the only ones who are a bit sleepy!

Orchids

Hats off to the previous owner of this house. 

The front yard orchids make me happy.