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When we first moved here in December 2013 we had an orange tree and a lime bush, both recently planted. The lime was about knee high, and every once in a while he'd produce a sweet little flower that would disappear into the ether. I began wondering whether the "cloven ones" were eating the flowers. A few years back mrguy put chicken wire around the lime bush and it started thriving. Then mr yuki pruned it and it started looking like a tree. It is now 7 feet high. Last year we had a bumper crop of flowers, but the wind knocked them all off. Except for one. We named him Limey.
It's never good when you're down to one of something and you name it and you go visit it on the weekends to see how it's doing. I would tell myself how much I'm actually enjoying even having lime leaf to add to recipes. That can be good enough if Limey doesn't make it, right? But Limey endured.
Normal people would be embarrassed to admit how many photos of a single, growing lime they have on their phone. But he was like our citrus child. And two weeks ago he grew up and graduated from the tree.
Here he is, at harvest. Notice that he's a little on the yellow side. We believe that he is a Bearrs Lime. That's kinda normal.
Here he is after being released from the only home he has ever known:
Here he is on the inside. Seedless:
And here he is in his fullest expression, in a Hendricks gin and tonic. His skin was so oily and fragrant!
This year there will be more limes, because the tree has finally decided to bear fruit on the regular. Here is some of the upcoming crop:
But there will only be one Limey.
The mama shows no signs of slowing down. Physically, that is. She's at a good stable place and has been hanging out there on a steady plateau for about 8 months. This is good, because it means that my siblings and I aren't at each others' throats about her care. The mama has two great caregivers, one of whom is very beloved, and it's all pretty good.
There are still issues with where she lives, though. We never speak of Alzheimer's. Everybody in charge at her community knows Mom's deal, but we all politely dance around the subject for as long as we can. Sometimes the dance is more like the plot of an elaborate caper movie. Such was the case this past weekend.
We've gotten notice that due to seating considerations, our caregiver isn't allowed to sit with the mama in the dining room. We want to find a way to skirt the rule. In addition, there are new caregiver guidelines and forms to fill out. So our weekend with the mama kicked off with an hour and fifteen minute phone call between we three daughters, and the discussions continued all weekend, while we were taking care of Mom. Bigsis would watch the mama while I answered middlesis' emails and followup emails. I was also turning word docs into pdfs and filling them out for people and sending them to mrguy so he could print. Bigsis and I would recap for hours after the mama was asleep. One of us would be on mama duty during the night, as well, waking up with her when her motion alarm goes off.
When we returned from our trip, mrguy ended up meeting me at Mom's to deliver the prints so that I could hide them for the caregivers to sign. Madness. And not much fun, if this wasn't already clear.
I took some good pictures, though.
Our drive was absolutely gorgeous:
The annual shrimp cocktail at our lunch place is worth the steep price:
And the mama looked spiffy in her birthday socks. These knitted shoes are the ones we finally found that fit her feet and feel nice for her. We did not buy them from the Russian guy (who I swear still tries to call me, but I've blocked his number).
Next year my sis and I think that we'll make what is now a whole weekend activity into a really long drive instead of staying over. This is getting way too hard.
Literally.
This cactus was showing large, promising buds during December but didn't flower until recently.
I am enjoying his sojourn on the front porch.
[a belated Christmas report that I forgot to post!]
All told, THE holiday was great. And a lot of work. ALL of us helped. Bigsis guy brought 99% of the food. The bro helped by being able to be here, as he drives the farthest and is down to just one kind of cancer. He also brought delicious homemade beef jerky that made one of the cats try to break into the kitchen cabinets to get to it. Bro and french bro cooked breakfast on Christmas. Mrguy manned the eggs. He also cleaned the entire house, bought the liquor, wrangled the cats and their complicated schedules / medications while also troubleshooting the many things that come up on the fly during the day. And he cleaned constantly while the rest of us trashed the place.
When it comes to prep, the mama wants to help and that complicates matters. Middlesis guy did the hard work of shepherding the mama during the day, which as host was something I couldn't do. And she made these amazing stuffed potatoes while the mama slept.
I took the night shifts. When mom's asleep we use a motion sensor that helps us know when she's on the move and needs an escort to the restroom. The "ding dong-er", as we call it, is a godsend. However it sits at cat height and the cats loooove her, so when she's here there are many false alarms when the cats are restless and wander into her bedroom to see how she's doing. Eventually I realized that mrguy was not getting any sleep, so I took the speaker with me and slept on the sofa for a few nights, rising to help the mama. I love how she never questions that we're up when she needs to use the restroom in the middle of the night.
I insisted on not getting worked up about the holiday in advance. When Christmas was at the mama's house bigsis and I would go home one day in December before Christmas and do the tree and set the table for her. Now that Christmas is at our house we set the table on Christmas Eve, because three of the cats love to walk on the dining table. Nobody wants to eat at your house if they suspect the cats have sat on their napkins ahead of time.
I was happy to find that I'd segregated the previous year's linen so I knew what had been used, and even made a diagram of our table arrangement, which we then ignored.
We are still pretending it's 1945 on Christmas. You got your crystal champagne glasses of granny's, the wedding silver of mom's, augmented by some of ours, silver epergnes (we used to have bigger ones but they were absurd and we sold them to make room during the mama's move), we use linen napkins (but none of it matches with a group our size) and a must have is the wax angels that everybody but me likes. I put them on display, and stuck cans of pinto beans under the two large ones to weight them down, but I couldn't find something that was as stable for the little gold ones. I used ortega chile cans as their angel support, which only slightly worked. One angel did a stage dive and now I have to do plastic surgery with a hot knife to repair some fingers and a cheekbone. My brother-in-law appreciated the naked can of chiles I left on the credenza.
I was hoping someone would notice. I like to leave a little something to laugh about.
Now Christmas is over, I'm sneezing and pretending it's an allergy (hope springs eternal) and mrguy has the same allergy. This is the time of the year where the mama's schedule confuses her, so she called to complain that she's at her house and not with us. Tomorrow she gets her wish and I pick her up for a New Year's visit to our house.
