Mom & Me Journals Histories: 1999 - 2001

    Oh, yeah! I forgot to tell you. Do you remember me mentioning a particular house that my mother believes (when she remembers) is the house in which she would be happy here in Prescott? Well, it's on the auction block, a "no base bid" auction. My mother pointed it out in the paper to me this morning. It's a historical house so there was an article on it with an attractive color photograph. She wants to make a bid. I explained to her (I didn't use the centrifugal force technique this time) that we actually don't have the financial wherewithal at the moment to be doing that. But, I suggested, since it's a "no base bid" auction there is nothing stopping us from making a ridiculously low bid on it like a buck, I suggested. My mother boosted it to $20. she said somebody else would try to get it for a buck, but probably no one will try to get it for $20. I assume it's a sealed bid auction but that wasn't made clear in the article. I'm going to call Monday to find out. The house has been on and off the market forever, I told her. Somebody's desperate. It might have even gone into foreclosure and the bank is trying to wipe its hands of it. Why not make a $20 sealed bid on it? It might be the only bid. Who knows? So, now she's very excited. I think, once we've "lost" the house it will no longer be "the house I want to live in" to my mother, it will be "the house we lost at auction". In a way, that house will, from then on, belong to her.

    Anyway, when you guys all get old and I'm cooking for you and keeping your finances straight and playing with all your kitties (and keeping them straight), whose going to tell me to take pills, change pads and brush teeth? Who's going to instruct me through each bath? We'll have to hire someone.

    Speaking of my mother, after her appointment I took her to view the turning of the leaves, highlighted by the sugar maple which was spectacular and which she appreciated so much we drove by several times. I think she may have thought it was a series of sugar maples rather than one stand. Fall is moving very quickly across the foliage, now, just within the last 24 hours. Although, The Big Girl is still shedding. A lot. And it is still unseasonably warm. Anyway, although I've taken my mother down and off Copper Basin before, which has a spectacular fall display, she doesn't remember it so always marvels at it. For some reason, though, something set her off as we were coming out of one particularly well forested residential area. She started carping about "Mother's" (her mother's) propaganda campaigns about Prescott. One minute she was raving about the countryside, the next she was snidely complaining about her mother and working herself into a fit of, "Why do we live up here?". I stopped her and pointed out what was happening. She was working herself into a snit over a view that she initially enjoyed. She stopped. Without resentment. Then, on the way home after we'd turned onto our street, she remarked how beautiful "this drive" was, and how it had been awhile since she'd been on it. We were a bit less than half a mile up the heavily wooded, rural residential road that leads to our house. I realized she'd forgotten where she was. I decided not to remind her, to see how she reacted when we turned the next bend and slid onto our driveway. When we pulled in, she said, "Where are we?"
    "We're home, Mom."
    "We live here?"
    "Yes."
    "Well! This is nice!" She was very enthusiastic.
    So, it looks like we'll keep this place. This is nice.

    I've learned a lot about people and their lapses, within the last couple of years. I've been moved to consider lapses from a variety of angles not usually noticed, much less studied, by living with my mother. Her lapses now, for the most part, aren't chosen or manufactured by her. They are beyond her control and they aren't defensive, at least not in the classic sense. There are a few she still chooses: Her sleeping, for instance, is a fundamental chosen one. Her equipment for sensing and repairing lapses within herself is faltering, though.
    I think, unlike my mother, most people don't know they have built in lapse detecting/repairing equipment. The equipment tries to work anyway but, without cooperation, its mission is usually accomplished with much fault.
    My mother likes being apprised of her lapses, both the type due to defect and the chosen type. She likes trying to overcome them although, considering the state of her equipment, she usually, when working on overcoming a lapse, gets thrown into a nest of lapses. Sometimes, though, she is successful.
    I brought one of her chosen lapses to her attention a little less than a year ago because I was its victim and I decided, on the spot, that she had no legitimate excuse for continuing to hurt people the way she hurt me. And, yes, I am familiar with the current politically correct argument (in all of its guises, from spiritual to psychological to sociological to economic) that one chooses to be hurt, one doesn't have to be hurt by other people's behavior. What a bucket of fuck. [I was reminded of this delightfully, disgustingly ambivalent phrase (is a bucket of fuck good or bad, for instance) not too long ago and have been looking for an excuse to use it.] The one I brought to her attention was this: She has had, for years, a habit of dismissing people's thoughts without thinking when her mind is full of other things or she is impatient because, intellectually, she has to work to get to where they are and thus assumes they are being frivolous without thinking her way through this judgment. Her dismissal takes the form of her launching the following phrase, a surprise attack, in the middle of a conversation with which she's become impatient: "Oh, [you, they, he, she] doesn't know what [you're, they're, he's, she's] talking about." I'll tell you, LTF, this is a blunt little conversation stopper which always works whether it's true or not. Anyway, she leveled that at me one day a while ago when I was explaining some detail about the insurance transactions to MPS. Both MPS and I were stunned silent.
    I recovered quickly and made an instantaneous decision that she needed to know, through me, what her behavior did to people. What she said had stung. I cried. It hurt. I told her so. It was wrong. I explained, impassioned, why it was wrong. I even told her that the quality of her mind was such that she has no excuse for doing this. I further suggested that maybe a hearing aid might help alleviate her impatience with conversations (as far as I'm concerned, the woman has always needed a hearing aid).
    She was so startled that she had no choice but to listen to me and consider what I had to say. She agreed. She did not strike a pose for Emotional Catharsis posters. She simply realized what she was doing, considered why she might be doing it, realized that her behavior was at a level of thoughtlessness she ordinarily would not tolerate in anyone else, let alone herself and decided to pay more attention next time. The upshot is, even with the added difficulty of her further failing memory, she is more aware. She has not dismissed anyone in ages (she is aging quickly, now).

    Anyway, I also want to relate the following to you, a mother incident fashioned from two mother incidents. More than a couple of days ago I got her out to go to Costco (I lured her with tales of their increasing stock of Christmas related items). I noticed that she had a slight "hitch in her giddy-up". Several times we stopped while I adjusted her shoes, etc. We also had to stop at the local grocery and pick up some things. She had been enthusiastic about doing this. After the trip through Costco, though, she opted to sit on a bench just inside the entry to the grocery while I picked up the things we needed. An older woman watched our negotiation, listened to our conversation and pulled me aside as I turned into the grocery arena.
    "It hurts to get old," she said.
    "I know," I told her, "I see it in my mother every day."
    "And," she continued, "being old means being tired." Mind you, she told me she was 88; four years older than my mother and much more spry.
    She didn't deliver this in a shroud of despond. She was just explaining my mother to me.
    She took off one way and I took off another. Before I was half way through produce I was sobbing.

    Yet one more item to relate: On Wednesday when I was in Mesa/Chandler, I put lotion on MCF's father, wrapping his extremities in hot, wet towels, as I always do. This time, while I was loosening up one of his feet, MCF said, "You know, that's something you could do after your mom dies. You'll have lots of experience. You'd be good at it. You could even be a private companion."
    I was immediately overcome with the thought of tending to people obviously on their way out. Individually or in a nursing home setting, I realized that I would not be able to do this again. Whatever it takes to survive via this set of skills, this type of involvement, I don't have it, or at least I will no longer have it when my mother dies. It was a sobering realization. Not that I'd considered doing this for a living other than doing it now for my mother and surviving as a fringe benefit. I have deliberately avoided thinking of this as an apprenticeship or a stepping stone to job opportunities. But it was weird to realize that I had already chosen to close that door. Not bad weird. Just weird.
    So, my mother has decided not to go to the fair, today. Funny, she mentioned the ornamental pigeons. There was an article in today's local paper about the rabbit exhibit. That's not a favorite of mine. I don't like thinking of rabbits as domestic. They are about as domestic as iguanas. Or guinea pigs. Or turtles. Or fish. It seems undignified to "pet" them.