Her Name Is Tiger Brown

Conversation with mrguy:

Him: How did your online writing group meeting go?

Me: Pretty well. But the three prompts this time seemed too close to home (unsaid was the following)

1) Write about the search for beauty (I do this for most of every day)
2) Make a reading list for someone, with an explanation of why you chose what you chose (this prompt was basically what I also do, here, with mrsguy)
3) What is your relationship to struggle? (Uhhh, too soon! I am still feeling the effects of last weekend's meltdown, including a sprained knee from a disagreement with a bag of brussels sprouts that I, in my mania, had thrown to the ground and stomped repeatedly until pulverized)

Me: So I mostly read vintage boxing magazines while everybody wrote. The nicknames are so cool! I found the name for my new car: Tiger Brown.

Him: But your car isn't brown.

Me: Don't wound me with your reason!!

Him: So it is written. So it shall be known.

Him: Is your car male or female?

Me: I think it's a girl. Her name is Tiger Brown.

A Day Off

I had decided to take a weekday off work, yesterday, and it was lovely.

The bad news is that I sprained my knee last week while taking out my frustrations by stomping on a bag of brussels sprouts. But it should be fine. So I had *modified* Pilates with my friend and trainer.

Then I had a lot to say to my new therapist. Then I went down the hill to a chiropractor appointment. The first one. She was super nice, and she unlocked my upper back / neck and that was exactly the thing I was hoping for. Her office is on a street that I never casually walk down, but want to. I stopped in at the pretzel store that I had heard about, and there was no line. OMG!! Pretzel rolls! Suddenly I am magically transported to Lufthansa business class, where I had my first pretzel roll and Yogi Tea's Bright Mood blend. So delish!

I also went into one of the two Nepali clothing stores on that street. Then to the rice triangle restaurant, where I picked up our dinner (two salmon and rice plates). I was home by 11:53. I iced my knee, and took a nap with the boy kitten in the afternoon.

At dinner time we fed the kitties, ate our bowls, and went outside to the upper deck, where the air was cool and delicious and so clear that we could see every bit of Oz, and the lights of the city on the bay.

Then we watched the two saddest episodes of Mythic Quest and a It's Always Sunny. I failed to notice for the last 17 years that this show existed. It was only when we started watching Wrexham that I leaned who Rob McElhenny even was. It's Always Sunny is pretty horrible -- or at least the characters are. And the situations and...yikes.

But it was a lovely day.

Mrguy woke up with a migraine :(

White Elephant, Continued

It is tradition in our department at work to have our holiday celebration in January.

Less competition for resources. One less thing to do prior to winter break. More stuff on the free table to add to our white elephant gifts. 

So many advantages.

I was a bit worried, because I wanted really good things to be in my white elephant gift, or at least to get rid of items that are hanging about the home, and DEFINITELY to bring home as little as possible.

The problem with all of this is that I had been holding on to some choice items from my mom's apartment and mrguy and I had used them during our white elephant with the 'ohana in December. I did have some items that I had acquired in said white elephant, but they didn't offer merriment. The cupboard was kinda bare.

I *did* find some Heinz ketchup-flavored lip balm on the free table but when I went to wrap my gifts, I couldn't find it. Argh. Where is it?

The week of white elephant I picked up a big obnoxious red bow from the free table. And I had a long box that Wayfair used to ship some flat-pack furniture, so I decided to individually pack the items, put them in the big cardboard box and put the ribbon on it.

Meanwhile, I cut up advertisements from a 1971 issue of Ring Magazine (boxing) and used them as part of the wrapping. There was a science kit with a Charles Atlas ad. I put a set of coasters in a wine bag with an ad for something that will make you "be taller". Not *look* taller or anything wishy washy. BE taller.

The blue rectangle has a Charles Atlas cartoon on it. The item itself is kinda funny. It's what I think of as the world's most beautiful $16 soap, which I have bought several times from a company called A24. I love the soap but find it a bit drying, so I'm divesting. It took me years to realize that A24 is a film company. They made Everything, Everywhere All At Once, the series Beef, Past Lives, and they also make beach towels (I own two). How did I not know? The soap was a hit, inspiring a steal. There was some horsetrading for one other item.

The big ass pumpkin butter-scented candle with a wooden wick (a $30-$50 item), also from the 'ohana, was a hit at its final destination. It went from me to my workmate, and from her to a friend who was holding the final white elephant of the season. There, they ate deviled eggs served up on her deviled egg platter (received in our work exchange) by the the light of the crackling wood wick candle.

So ends the holidays. Officially, since it's past my mom's birthday, as well.

The Bed

Mom has a fancy bed. We got a fancy warrantee, and we're using it.

Didn't I already describe this? In December I learned that the bed remote wasn't working. I went over to diagnose the problem. Sure enough. Not working. So I crawled under my mom's bed, which is one of the filthiest places known to man, and shimmied on my back over dust bunnies and dried spills to see what the parts looked like. Is there a reset button? No, but there were the dangling contacts of two 9-volt batteries hanging lifeless. Maybe that was the problem.

I went over to the Walgreens nearby to buy batteries. If you want to see random behavior, go to any drug store these days. Guy in line picking a fight with an unhoused person who is dripping? That's Walgreens. Every Walgreens. Also CVS.

9-volt batteries did not do the trick. I found the warrantee (thank you, middle sister, for saving that!) and called the number. They wanted a bunch of codes that were on various parts of the bed, cord, remote. None of our numbers (many texts with the caregivers for this) gave the folks on the phone the information they needed. After a few calls they allowed a service call.

Service call required me to be up and at 'em on last Monday's holiday (window: 8-noon). I get to mom's and wait. At 9:30 the guy calls to say that he's gotten halfway to my mom's but is sick and needs to go home. I explain to the scheduler that my mom is 96 and is in pain because of the bed situation. We reschedule for today, Monday from 10-2.

The weekend, as I have explained, was pretty awful. And mrguy got another migraine yesterday. Is that his 13th in two months and his third this week? Not sure. This morning we were able to have some coffee together and then the phone rings. It's repairman. It's 8:20. He says he'll be there in 20 minutes. I text the caregiver, who is expecting him between 10-2. She doesn't get the text and is surprised, but whatever.

I jumped in my clothes and went over to mom's, finding the repair guy kneeling by the side of the bed and mom gently kicking at him from under the blankets, telling him to go away.

He says that the control box needs to be replaced. He’ll send it to Mom’s address and when we have it we can make an appointment for the install.

He left, and the woman who was moments ago slapping the repairman’s bald head (according to our caregiver) smiles at me and says “How are you, my sweetness?” 

Uh…

I asked her how she was doing and she said “Perfect”

I told her I was just passing by on my way to work. And then I left.

The end.

It is 10am.

Losing My Shit

Friday was a wash. I feel guilty that my family stuff took up so much of the day when I wished I were working. Admittedly, I started the day with my first session with a new therapist. I really liked her. 

Then a few hours of work.

Then a lunch with my mom in her community's dining room. My sister is here to celebrate mom's birthday. Mom is now 96. Fucker. She wouldn't make eye contact with me. No speaking. Just my sister telling me that she is seeing behaviors in mom that she hasn't in the past. She wants to talk about it in advance of my upcoming appointment with my mom's doctor on Monday. I really don't care. I don't want to micromanage mom's wakefulness when what we all want is for her to be peacefully drowsy all day.

Back to work. I have spent time leading up to Friday's lunch worrying about bringing dessert and candles and taking time off during the work day, and before that -- SO much time negotiating with my sister about when she's coming to visit, etc. The dining room staff dims the lights because they are closing the dining room. That pisses mom off because she is more wakeful now and doesn't like to be rushed. I realize that dessert will have to be consumed in mom's apartment so I am off like a shot, resisting the lure of more time with mom. My sister says she's sorry for mom's behavior. This is why I no longer do things for her. I can't get that time back, and my mom is awful. I try not to let it get to me but it does.

I get in the car and my phone is ringing -- the doctor's office reminding me of our remote appointment on Monday.

I get home and there is another message saying that the company that does admin for the doctor doesn't have the doctor listed as my mom's primary in their database. To be clear, none of these entities seem to be connected:

1. Doctor

2. Admin group

3. Medical network

4. Medicare provider

1 knows about 2-4

3 and 4 know about 1

According to the front desk at 1, 2 routinely botches things on January 1st and "randomly reassigns" primary caregivers to patients for no reason. Without notifying 2 about 1 and back-dating the information in 2's database to prior to our Monday appointment, the appointment can't happen.

Mom has been seeing 1 since 2021 when, in the middle of the pandemic, mom's primary's secretary called to say that he was retiring in a month and was offering no referrals. Our current 1 is fantastic, and that whole situation was a complicated blessing in disguise.

OK! It is now 4:14pm on a Friday and the appointment is scheduled for Monday afternoon. I gotta holoholo. So I call 2, and continue working while I'm on hold. Then I give them mom's details and explain the situation and they tell me that I am not listed as POA for Healthcare in their system. Because of the tight deadline they will do me a favor and give me a HIPAA form by email and I need to send it to the Privacy Officer at 2.

We run around the house and look for the POA. I eventually find what I think it is, but it is for Legal and Financial. Luckily I am at home, because the digital docs I need are on my home computer but the email from 2 is on my work computer, and I can't turn the HIPAA form into a form I can fill in on the version of Acrobat I have on my home computer but can do that on my work computer. I spend time on that, and then I find the other POA. I'm trying to beat the clock here, and slightly after 5 I get the email sent to the lady at 2. I know that it said to send it to the Privacy Officer, but I'm hoping the lady will do me a solid and forward it on. There isn't a place on the form where I can say things like "I don't know what address you want because we don't send mail to mom's. She wants to see every piece of mail and is enraged if it is kept from her. And she keeps the caregivers so busy that they forget to tell us when important documents somehow arrive at mom's". So we used one of our addresses but none of my sisters know which one.

Because I know that this problem is not going to be solved prior to Monday's scheduled meeting, I call 1 and leave a message canceling the appointment.

The next day, yesterday, I spent an hour and a half on the phone with the Vortex Of Power (my sisters) to discuss my visiting sister's thoughts about what we should advocate for during the doctor visit (whenever it gets rescheduled). After long discussion we decide to make no changes and let it ride. Same with the caregiver situation.

Are you still reading? I'm so sorry. This is long and annoying, I'm certain.

During the VOP call, my middle sister reiterates that she spends a lot of time worrying about the effects of all of this (caregiving, etc.) on me, and how I somehow seem not to worry about stuff.  While my inner self was saying "You stupid fuck -- the time for you to have worried about me is long before now, when you were shaming me for my approach to this situation and making decisions that worked for *you" my external self said "I appreciate that you are worrying for me, and that's very nice, but what good is it doing you? Because it doesn't help me." She stuttered, and I believe she was astonished. I mean really. If I worry about you but don't do anything to help, who's it for? This is the person who GUILTED me because I didn't want to buy a house for mom that she could live in with caregivers. Yes, sports fans, she wanted me to run an entire second domicile and thought I was mean for scoffing at the idea. So back to yesterday. Her response? "Thanks, that actually helps me." Whatever.

Oh my gosh. This is going to take many more words and I am sorry.

After the phone call I take a hard copy of the documents to FedEx (along with a cover letter to explains the discrepancies). It costs twenty dollars (highway robbery!) and the fax takes ten minutes to send. At work this would have been free and immediate, but I'm in a bind. And I guess I'm getting worked up as this is happening.

Back at home, a box of food arrives. It's the food box from some healthy food company I signed up for and then realized was awful. I couldn't cancel my subscription fully because I had until the next day at 7 to do it and today was Sunday and the next day was a holiday. So all of this bizarre food arrived in terrible packaging and just shouted MISTAKE! YOU MADE AN EFFING MISTAKE! all over it. Mrguy was in a bad state at the instant I was decanting this box of crap, and watching me but also (I did not know) that he was having a full-blown panic attack, and here I was trying to make the most of a bad situation, telling him that I made a mistake but starting to meal plan and natter on. He snapped at me and collapsed into a chair. After he sat down, I realized what was happening, but the effect of the reprimand couldn't be undone.

I also snapped (inside). He slithered off to take a nap, and I started slamming shit around and spiraling into self loathing. I took all of the stuff that had been in that box and stomped it, punched it, obliterated it, put it in the trash and, when I returned home from an errand an hour later, I scooped up that big pile of dog shit I've been meaning to get rid of, and I put that on top of the mess in the trash.

I will not even verbalize the dark place I was in, because it scares me. Was it guy snapping? Was it me telling the VOP earlier "Mom has stolen my life"? It's everything, and I am 100% ok until I'm not.

Please please please let me outlive my mom. By a very long stretch of quality time. 

Oy. The end.

Things I Did Not Buy: Wax Jack

This week I've been eying a thing at a local auction. The drag of the rope of wax is so beautiful and, of course, the color. In my imagination, this item is about 10" high and sitting in the middle of my dining room table. So I keep going back to the auction to see it.

Then I looked at its dimensions. So small and ineffectual. I suffered a sudden de-acceleration of desire, if you follow me. I backed up.

What exactly is a wax jack, anyway? It's for sealing wax, not illumination. This item would sit on a desk and melt your sealing wax so you could drip it on your letter to close it and mark it with your crest (or whatever). This was in the days before minty / moldy-tasting pre-glued envelopes (or email).

Not for illumination. Not for looking pretty on your dining table as an object of interest.

Not sexy.

Wax jack.

Last Sunday

Weekends are a challenge for my mom, and therefore us. We have a Saturday caregiver who can tolerate her. And we've lucked out with our current agency caregiver who works on Sundays, but even she has a hard time with mom, who is horrible to her. And unfortunately we need to replace the Saturday cg, who is a pain in the ass. We will replace her with an agency caregiver, and so far the agency caregivers have mainly not worked out. With that in mind, none of what happened last Sunday bodes well.

Saturday night: Sunday's caregiver calls in sick. I hear this from the agency, which is on the lookout for a substitute. This means that I go to bed knowing I have to go deal with mom and caregivers in the morning because I will either BE the caregiver for the day or have to train someone.

I report to mom's before 8. A substitute will arrive at 9. Yay!

I hang out with mom and mom's helper from memory care brings breakfast. It's not the usual, incredibly capable and nice person. Mom and I have "cozy bacon time" in which she eats breakfast and feeds me bacon.

There's a knock at the door and the substitute caregiver arrives. Mom immediately starts to act out, yelling and interrupting and throwing things as I try to explain what the cg needs to know.

Mom makes squinty eyes and buck teeth faces at the caregiver. Flips the bird and makes some other gestures that could mean something, or not. "No no no. I don't know her. Go away!"

The caregiver goes to see when my mom is going to get her medication that makes her slightly less of an asshole. While she's out of the room mom repeats the unpleasant mantra about the person she's with "I don't know her!! I don't want her!!" She starts spilling her water on the floor on purpose. I clean it up while she continues to say unpleasant things. I never do this, but I've had it with my mom. Like forEVER, so I say "Fuck you, Mom!! You are a TERRible person" 

It doesn't make me feel one way or the other, I tell my current therapist in our last session ever.

I leave. Since the day is already made poopy by my mom I compound the whole thing by having a long-scheduled discussion on the phone with my sister about replacing our flaky Saturday caregiver. This means that I will have to train and retrain caregivers until we find one who my mom doesn't hate. 

By the time I get home I have the song Evil Woman, by ELO, stuck in my head. I take a three hour nap with boy kitten. 

I wake up. One of our beloved regular caregivers texts me to say that she needs a right-now loan of $2,000. I got you, beloved caregiver.

Sunday suuuuucks.

Where Are The "Three Dot" Journalists When You Need Them?

In other news my almost 90-year-old brother-in-law is considering asking for back child support from the descendants of his biological father...

Holidays 2023

The holidays felt brief, but good. It was the first time that I had a Christmas without my mom ever. And after last year I was going to keep it that way! Mom had caregivers that day, but unfortunately mrguy got a migraine, and then another one. And one yesterday. So it was kinda solitary. But I'll take it.

During December I went on a walk with a friend:

And I saw X for the first time, with a different friend (and did not get Covid). Upside: seeing a friend from the forklift factory who I haven't seen IRL in years. Downside: the rest of the show was a recreation of the Talking Heads' Remain In Light, and it was apparently a singalong. This may be payback for that time in the 1980s when I saw Donovan at a small club. I'm sure everybody hated me. I remember thinking that it was ok because my voice was so pretty and everybody would enjoy it. For real.

Fact? We do these things because we are selfish assholes. Now we know.

Anyhoo, X was great. RIL was well done, but not Talking Heads as I saw them perform it at the Greek.

Also great? Nice talk with my brother, who is going through some problems with his extremities. Or as he put it "If my body lets me live any longer, I don't think my toes will be along for the ride". And he sent me this beautiful mid-70s Kamaka 8-string. Wow.

Somewhere along there we had a white elephant exchange with the 'ohana. All of us together! I had a great gift stashed away -- a horrible plastic rock with cute plastic bluejays and cardinals on it. Touch the rock and piercing electronic bird calls issue forth. The friend who received it gave it to his mom, who really loved it and took it back home with her on the plane. Another friend, who I'd given a history of the Coco Palms hotel to, gave that to *his* mom. I'd bought it from one of the aunties when we were in the big ukulele band and I never read it and our friend is from Kauai. Well his mom LOVED it, and that made me so happy. And she went on Amazon to buy a copy for a friend and it sells for $450!! Wowza. I found it for her in some local libraries on Kauai, but I can't do better than that.

I also saw Cack and Blick, who were in town visiting family. Mrguy was down with one of the migraines, so we went out to dinner and froze to death indoors. But it was great to see them, as always.

And before the migraines, mrguy and I went to a party. We don't think we've done that since 2019. It consisted of a bunch of retired punk rockers comparing notes about their parents with dementia. One of my friends and I were talking about how awful my mom is, and she told me a story about her grandmother. She was visiting her gran, who started saying disparaging things about a local newscaster on tv (Asian). She turned to her and said "Hey, Grandma. I didn't know that you were Hitler's girlfriend." Grandma started to sputter and then just got quiet and said "Well shit."

Love it. Will use it. Probably won't work.

Finally, on New Year's or such, we opened our Christmas presents. Mrguy bought me divorce cheese. I was extremely impressed that it had been in the fridge so long that it was beyond its "best by" date. Mrguy's comment? "Well that's why they call it 'divorce cheese' and not 'trial separation cheese'"

Attaboy. So delish.

And then I went to see Godzilla with Hitler's girlfriend's granddaughter and grandson-in-law.

That's probably more than I did in all of 2022, in terms of socializing.

What was I thinking?

Nothing Changes on January 1!

One of the joys of the season is that as we were leaving for our holiday break nobody said "Thank goodness 2023 is over." I think people have largely gotten over the idea that we are promised a new start just because the pages fly off the calendar. It made me happy, because January 1st is basically December 32nd. Feel free to choose a new start but one is not arriving today.

In keeping with that theme, my mom is strong and passionate. I had a great New Year's Eve, but her caregivers (and my sister) did not. In the words of my sister:

"The caregiver asked me to call because Mom was crying and screaming. 

When I called, Mom took pains to tell me how she was proud that she could scream so well, and for so long!!

We had a 15-min convo and Mom started out by telling me how mean her "maid" was. She was also fixated on how much she owned: everything inside her room, and the building, AND the whole block... Oh! and the birds outside her window. That was a new one."

Contrast this with the sadness of my co-worker's mom's passing, in her 70s. So devoted to her kids, but deeply into her own thing (running and Iron Man). Ranked at the top of her age group and usually outrunning the age group below her, also. Struck down by the lung cancer that sneaks up on non-smokers. I wish I could have given some of my mom's years to her. It's so unfair.

But I guess my mom is deeply into her own athletic event (screaming) and proud to outpace everyone else competing.

She is in a class of her own, to be certain.