Mom & Me Journals Histories: 1999 - 2001

As of May 1, 2010...

2010-04-29T21:28:00.002-07:00

...Blogger will no longer allow FTP publishing. Updates to this blog, which will probably be few to none, since this section of The Mom & Me Journals dot Net is, essentially, closed by time, can be found at http://momandmehistories.blogspot.com. This section of the journal will also remain at in it's domain directory, so accessing links should not present a problem.

Selective Christmas Celebrating - To MLDL

2001-12-24T17:13:00.002-07:00

When I took my mother to the hair salon this morning I walked in and announced I was the Grinch and I was in the process of stealing Christmas. I had some errands to run while my mother got her hair done. When I returned everyone pummeled me with much good humor and affection. It felt good. I don't take the holidays well, even at my best, you should know that about me. This year I've having a pretty bad year so that doesn't help. Not my worst, but I've seen much, much better. I do like the light displays, though. I'm a sucker for the glitter of Christmas. Even and especially the garish glitter, like ZooLights and Fantasyland light displays. So is my mother so we'll be hitting all the spectacular sites this year.

Clean Slate - To MLDL

2001-12-21T22:18:00.002-07:00

    This evening I am cleaning my mother's shit out of the carpet, spot by spot, in long a trail from one bathroom to another. She had her first old age fecal accident today and it scared her, causing her to trot from one bathroom to the other trying to control it. There go holiday preparations for another day. I always wondered when this would happen. I'm not surprised that I'm undaunted by it but I am completely surprised by, and grateful for my mother's aplomb. When I was cleaning her up, top to bottom, so to speak, I told her that I wanted her to know that doing this doesn't bother me, that I am glad I'm here for this, in fact, because I am "in a position" (and I intended the pun as I talked to her) to be able to clean her and the shit up better than she could. I also tried very hard to convey to her that I have a very philosophical attitude toward shitting accidents. I consider the human body a machine that occasionally needs such maintenance so I don't want her to be "afraid" of having them or so worried about them that when one occurred she didn't tell me about it until an even greater mess was made.
    I guess I needn't have worried. Her response was, "I know. I cleaned up after four little machines for several years."
    The gods bless my mother.

Maybe this Much Sleep Isn't Normal - To MLDL

2001-12-21T00:33:00.001-07:00

My mother's doctor's appointment generated some concern. Not mortal concern, but, thank god, they took her excessive sleeping seriously and are setting her up for a daunting series of tests throughout the holidays (of course, why not add to the holiday fun) which begins tomorrow, as early as I can get her up for a fasting blood sugar.

More Managing - To MLDL

2001-12-19T20:50:00.002-07:00

I'd better get to bed. I also have other stuff to do including finding a new phone and delivering boxes of Christmas goodies on behalf of my mother, who is no longer able to bake. She can look at a recipe for a good half hour and still not remember or understand how to do it.

Nitty Gritty Management - To MLDL

2001-12-17T01:36:00.000-07:00

I don't watch much TV. I wasn't raised on it so I never got into the habit of watching it, although I occasionally have sessions where I am glued to the thing for a couple of days to see what the medium is producing, then it disappoints me and I stop. My mother however, oddly, loves TV, especially having it going on in the background. She also has certain shows that she watches religiously. So do I but I only have a few and it doesn't bother me to miss them. My mother plans her life around her shows and she's got at least a couple for every day of the week. I am my mother's TV show reminder. She gets pissed at me if I forget one of her shows.

Why Sleep? Here's Why... - To MLDL

2001-12-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

So, you know I'm back now (no tree, I guess that'll happen tomorrow) and I'm planning dinner, getting my mother up. She sleeps a lot, at least it seems so to me. It worries me sometimes but her doctor isn't worried and her health is not only not suffering, it continues to rally some, depending on whatever else she does or does not do...I guess at 84 she needs to catch up on all the sleep she lost when she was teaching and raising a family.

Mom's Favorite Holiday - To MFS

2001-12-09T08:24:00.000-07:00

So, how are you? I figured I'd give you a call this week, check in, see how Christmas is going. Mom, as you know, always remembers that it's Christmas, so I have to be a Christmas elf but that's okay, elves are known for being a little on the disgusting side and that suits me...

...briefly considered. - To MLDL

2001-12-02T09:07:00.000-07:00

I do not have the impression that I would have to give up some aspects of my life that I value, as you suggest, including my relationship with my mother. I think I covered this. There is the distinct possibility, which I have thought for some time, that my mother could use a change. In fact, for awhile last year when I was in the thick of trying to deal with a corrupt insurance company and not quite maintaining my grip I was almost compelled to admit that I might not even be best for her in some critical business ways. There is a way, MLDL, I believe there is a way, and it will come from further inspired thought as these fetal thoughts develop.

Brief consideration... - To MLDL

2001-12-01T20:15:00.001-07:00

How would you feel if I was your geisha, if I gave myself a year to figure out a way to ply my talents and make money to be with you where you are, to set up another situation with my mother (which can be arranged, there is another daughter who tells me she would gladly take her in; it's just that it would mean moving my mother's home to Florida, probably, which would be a significant change for my mother). I have the same concerns about my mother that you do. A change might do all of us some good, especially if I was able to make the change come to fruition through my own directed efforts. I would not suddenly stop my business enterprises and writing, etc., so I would not only be able to pretty much keep myself...I would be able to travel and spend significant amounts of time with my mother, perhaps even enhance her financial situation, and be your geisha, always, your geisha, MLDL...well, think about it.

Considerations - To MLDL

2001-11-22T06:17:00.001-07:00

    Again, voice mail applies to this phone so you will never get a busy signal. The reason I finally capitulated to getting voice mail about six months ago is that I discovered that my mother was forgetting how to operate our answering machines and accidentally erasing messages before I got to them. She doesn't understand voice mail so there is no chance of her fiddling with it. I'm not even sure she realizes we have it. Speaking of which, if you are trying to reach me and get my mother when I'm not home, be assured that if you leave a message with her, even as simple as "tell her I called" I will either not get the message or she will tell me someone called who didn't, or she will say, "Someone called you, I think it was a [choose one] man/woman (which isn't always correct, either) and they wanted you to call back. I figured you'd know who it was."
    Since I know her hearing continues to fade, which not only doesn't bother her but in some ways she prefers it, I notice as her impairment increases so does my gratitude for this impairment. Most of the time now she doesn't hear the phone. As that continues, my job of managing the business of her life eases.
    Luckily, she gets a kick out of me 'being' her business self. "I've never had such an interesting reputation," she tells me regularly as I negotiate her life for her. Which is true. She has never been much for wrangling with people even when it's necessary, although, being a natural trader, she can put up a good show even though, when it comes to something other than getting a good price in an open market, she backs down. As well, she has no more of a gift for words than average, so, by default, I've boosted (and colorized, quite a bit) her reputation in the world.

Getting Together; or Not - To MLDL

2001-11-17T09:51:00.001-07:00

Even though I know this isn't going to happen for some time, this paragraph is about the reality of when we will be able to be together. For me it would not be until this summer, at the earliest. Because I am so involved in my mother's life as she ages and needs me to "be" her life, as well as be with her more and more, over the last year I have changed my way of visiting with people I know. When I have no one to adequately, lovingly "cover" my mother I do not visit with people nor do I have them visit me if they do not have a relationship with my mother. This is because when I leave her alone a not insignificant part of me remains with her. Even going to pick up a car at the shop, going to the store, etc., she is on my mind, she is in my conversation, I wonder all kinds of details about her: Is she awake, is she taking another nap, is she getting confused about something, thus not doing something she needs to do because I'm not there to read her confusion and offer her my clarity...these are only three of a million item check-list/wonder-list, that my mind constantly considers at this stage of my caretaking of my mother. From an experience a little over a year ago I learned the hard way that it is impossible for me to entertain an out-of-town visitor specific to me and to free myself from my mother for that time so I can really be with my visitors. Because of my sisters' lives with their husbands and children I do not have the possibility of relief for myself until sometime this summer.

The Importance of Being Hair Dressed - To MLDL

2001-11-07T06:31:00.002-07:00

Today is my mother's hairdressing appointment. It is understood between us that this also involves her feeling, within an hour or so of having her hair done, tremendously good in several ways and wanting to do some protracted people watching. She'll want to go out for lunch and try to get me to look at perfect strangers behind me because there is something about them she wants me to see. She is a subtle, shameless, delightful gossip. She also once told me, which continues to amaze me when I think of it, that she was incredibly vain as a young woman, up to her early 30's; she was, also, I know, I remember, quite beautiful, in a classic sense. The art department of the college from which she graduated would often borrow her as a face model. Maybe we'll sit in the park if it is warm this afternoon. If I have places to go she may go with me and enjoy herself.

Loneliness and Me - To MLDL

2001-11-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

My experience of my commitment is, well, it's not lonely, in fact, sometimes it is much too packed with people. There are times, though, when I feel as though I have had to put aside the essence of me (even as I do those things which are natural to me, aside from my mother's life, which I discovered and practiced before and continue to discover and practice, now) because I am always focused on my mother. Even when I visit friends or they visit me. Even when I engage with a lover and he with me, my mother is there; not as a cautionary, not as a ruler, but as my charge. It colors everything I do, all of my relationships.

Juggling Relationships - To MLDL

2001-11-02T13:19:00.000-07:00

Having already told you that I have this fantasy, as well, with you, I must also tell you that this fantasy is unlikely to play itself out in reality because of the commitment I have made to be my mother's companion up to her death. I do not consider this commitment a substitute for childbearing and rearing. It is completely different than these and, as it turns out right now in this society, much rarer than that. It is, though, something to which I have committed myself, voluntarily and gladly, and any other commitments I chose to make will, necessarily, submit to this one until this one is done.

The Unexpected - To MLDL

2001-11-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

I find, for instance, that I have fallen in love with, and continue to fall deeper in love with my mother, as I come to know her in this part of her life.

Juggling Attention - To MLDL

2001-11-02T08:11:00.001-07:00

One last (jarring, I'm afraid, but not bad) reason I have had to neglect my favorite very early morning time, lately, to sleep is because as we prepare this house for its winter rest and gather our (my mother's) "stuff" for transfer she is an evening and late night person. "I've always hated to go to bed," she tells me, almost every night, and, I know, since she was a child, she has. Our seasonal gathering and transfer of "stuff" is something in which she wants to be involved (it is primarily her stuff, after all) and as long as she wants to, as long as she remembers to, I want her to so I make it happen. During the days of The Move I observe a sort of Mother Saving Time and switch my clock to hers. I believe this is part of what keeps her going and keeps her wondering enough about life to continue looking forward, wanting to see what lies ahead, even unto her death, which is an adventure in itself. My observance of her version of this Ancient Journey is something I would not give up for anything, not anything...

After Birthday Mother's Day - To MLDL

2001-11-01T07:21:00.000-07:00

AND, since I made sure, in my careful way, that yesterday, my birthday, in this household, in my community, where I live, was all about me (I do, and yesterday did, this on purpose, so I don't get lost in my mother's life, which would be very bad for both her and me), today is all about my mother. I'm sure, I say with a knowing, loving smile "about" her, that this is the reason she began to "crank"; yesterday. Every phone call was for me, every knock at the door, every time I turned around I was singing "Happy Birthday" to myself at the top of my lungs, everything thing I did, yesterday, except for the necessities, was for me, including the exhilarating amount of time I spent with you. And, I can hear my mother rousing, so, her day is about to begin, and mine as it surrounds hers.

No Regrets - To MLDL

2001-10-28T06:28:00.002-07:00

You are absolutely right in guessing why I used the word "pornography". My erotica is not pornography to me, it's too genteel for that word, I think, but it is to my mother, and I was writing to you about my mother's concept (and expression) of what I do. Sometimes, I think the reason she prefers the word "pornography" to describe all sexual material is because, having been raised in a staid and stony household (very much unlike the household she and my father created, into which they bore their children and through which they raised their children), I think the word "pornography" captures a bit of the excitement she feels about having a daughter who does what, to her, is a very foreign activity, combined with her inability to even imagine what sexual writing must be like. Considering it to be "pornography" allows her to share in my excitement about it at her own level without actually having to read the stuff. She's a funny woman. Sometimes, I can tell, when she is looking at me, considering me, she is thinking, "I created her?!? She came from me?!? I didn't know I had it in me..."
Good word to describe her and her life, "complex". She is, indeed, complex, and, as such, is going past that "point of no return" in her life in unusual and eye-opening ways, with much bravery, although she wouldn't consider it bravery, she'd consider it "just living". Which is exactly why I want to make it possible for her to continue as she has. And, you are right that I have a "beautiful relationship" with her. Sometimes it is so rich that I feel sad for my sisters that their lives are beyond having her in their lives so closely except through me.

Explaining My Life to Someone New - To MLDL

2001-10-27T23:20:00.002-07:00

    This is what I do right now and, as it turns out, how I survive. In December, 1993, I moved back to Arizona from Seattle because my mother, who is now 84, asked me if I would consider living with her because she didn't feel secure living alone anymore (my father died when they were both 68). I was shocked that she asked me. Considering the serendipitous life I've lived (and, as it turns out, still live) and the fact that my life certainly wouldn't be used as the poster child for stability or anything else people are supposed to have accomplished by the time they are in their early 40s, I couldn't believe that she would prefer me to live with her to her moving in with one of my sisters and their families, since they all have much more stable, conservative lives, husbands, kids, etc. But I was honored that she asked me and accepted because my mother is an amazing person and the one circumstance all her daughters wants to prevent is for her to be alienated from family or have to leave her own carefully sculpted circumstances. So I accepted. With great humility.
    For the first two years I continued to work full time outside the home. Then I began noticing that when I was at work she would sleep. She was sleeping at night then sleeping away the day instead of living the business and pleasures of her life. It occurred to me that it was time for me not only to "be there", but to become her companion. This occurred to her as well. For awhile I worked part time outside the home and I owned and ran my own brochure business from our home. As it became necessary I stopped being an employee so I could be with her and accompany her through her life so she wouldn't sleep through it. My mother is now quite dependent on me although I am still able to leave her alone for sometimes hours at a time without concern. Her memory is becoming quite creative. She is not suffering from Alzheimer's but the dementia that sometimes accompanies old age. She is no longer capable, for instance, of paying her bills, keeping up with her stocks, remembering to take medication as she needs it (most of the time she doesn't). She often forgets to eat, forgets to brush her teeth, etc. Essentially I run her entire life now, and a complicated life it is. It has been an adventure for me because her life business is complicated compared to what I've been used to. I have always, on purpose, kept my life business extraordinarily simple.
        The payoff of what I am doing is that my mother remains comfortable in excellent spirits and health, bright, although as I mentioned, mentally creative and becoming more creative every day, and she remains herself with her will and her character intact and aging gracefully. Although I had no idea what I was getting into when I told her I would do this, this is without a doubt the most amazing (and difficult) thing I've ever done. Old age is a grand and astonishing journey and I consider myself privileged to be able to study it intensely in a way mostother people don't.
    As well, of course I am surviving through her, I keep my hand in the business world on my own behalf by doing freelance editing, fixing people's computers, tutoring in computer related subjects. The money is negligible although it doesn't hurt but I do it primarily to keep my hand in the community. I have a large and growing, changing network of personal community in both our summer and winter home areas and often go back and forth on my own to keep up and honor those contacts. Essentially, I usher my mother through her life as well as live my own. Sometimes these cannot be done simultaneously. However, I am stubborn enough about my own existence so that I insist on it. At this stage my mother doesn't need sitters when I'm gone. She may at some point. But making arrangements for long term relief is a tricky business and has to be planned ahead. There may come a time when she will need to be cared for in a senior facility of some sort simply because her care may, as the care of some elderly people does, require a much more professional level of care than I will be capable of providing. But my mother, because of the peculiarities of her character and her life, is not a good candidate for the intermediate levels of professional care (i.e., assisted living facilities) of which many people in her stage of life take advantage. It is better for her and for her life that she be allowed to remain in her own homes among family for as long as possible. I'm the person in our family who is allowing that to happen.
    One of my other sisters is prepared to take her into her home in the event that my life requires more freedom but, at this point, my freedom and "my" life are not being infringed upon in any way, any more than survival infringed upon my life when I was wandering the world on my own. My love life, which, as you know, is important to me, has not suffered. I've gained and lost friends along the way but none of this has to do with my mother. I have continued to pursue my interests. In fact in this situation, now that I'm not someone else's employee, I have more time to pursue some of them. That is an unexpected perk. I didn't think about this when I accepted this role. And, yes, my mother knows of all my interests, including that I write pornography and have a pornographic web site. Although she refuses to read it isn't even interested, she brags about it among family and friends. She and I have always had (I don't know why, actually) an extremely frank and above board relationship. Although she is close with all her daughters and doesn't prefer any over any others I am the only daughter who has never been afraid to blurt anything out to her, to discuss anything with her, to approach her about anything at all. Somehow I think this may be why she instinctively thought of me when she decided she needed company. I am also the only person in my born-into family who got to know and form strong, unambiguous and unambivalent relationships with everyone else including my father, who was an amazing man in his own right and a difficult man to whom to relate. I have no idea how or why I was able to do this, especially since I've spent so much of my life as what would probably be called a vagabond. But, I was. So I am the right person to be doing this for her and with her.
    If you're wondering, I have no idea what I will do when she dies but I don't worry about that. I have, as I mentioned before, never worried about the future. It is beyond me to prepare for the future. When she dies I will continue on down the road as I have. That quality in me, too, is probably one of the reasons why this works so well for both of us. I am not chafing against any life I lost in doing this. I didn't lose any of my life or leave anything behind. I just continued on. She, as well, is not chafing against any life she lost by having to move in with one of her other daughters. She is able to keep her own life and so am I. It is an unusual "elder care" situation; unusual for both the elder and the caregiver. I can tell you though, the level of intensity of this situation is not something I'd repeat. I would not, for instance, when she dies, parlay all this experience into professional elder caretaking; not because I don't like what I'm doing but because, at this level, it bears no relation at all to any profession in the field of elder care. There is no way that it could. It is a unique situation.
    So when my life seems oddly unscheduled and sometimes overwhelming to you this is why. It is unscheduled and sometimes overwhelming. Being my mother's companion and manager, if you will, is not the only part that is unscheduled and overwhelming. I manage, without much effort, to keep my own life just as unscheduled and sometimes overwhelming as I did before I came to do this.
    Previous to doing this my life was a manageable (for me) amalgam of plying so many different skills to stay alive that, as you and I continue on our own journey don't be surprised if, on one day I say, "when I was a teacher", and then the next, "when I was an administrative assistant", and then the next, "when I was a musician", and then the next, "when I was a journalist", and then the next, "when I owned my own business", and then the next, "when I was an office manager", and then the next, well, you get the idea. It hasn't been that I've been trying to find the right career. It has been that my life is the right career and I have always pursued it in this way.

The Tide Is High - To MFS

2001-10-23T15:19:00.001-07:00

Mom's into another book, Dearest Friend - A Life of Abigail Adams and she's hooked, again. I'm pleased. The book club is reading both of the current biographies of John and Abigail Adams. Mom expressed an interest in them. Now I can't pry them from her hands. I told her she should consider going to the book club meetings with me on those books (actually, I hadn't planned on going, because I'd be 'down there' when they happened; but, I wanted to read the books, anyway, and Costco had them really cheap), and, you know what, she just might! I guess Mom is just beginning her ninth life (or, who, knows, it might be her fifth and she might have four more to go; I hope I have four more in me to match hers).

Getting Ready - To MFS

2001-10-21T22:09:00.001-07:00

    I have to tell you this. Tonight when Mom went to bed, she said, "Good-bye", instead of "Good-night."
    It startled me so I said, "Are you planning on dying tonight?"
    She laughed and said, "No, not tonight. I still have some things I've got to do."
    So, I said, "I know what those 'things' are. You've got to rest up for heaven. The sleeping time, there, might be limited."
    "That's right!" she said.
    Always be prepared, MFS, for anything, especially if it might not include a nap time.

...and you see me... - To LTF

2001-10-10T16:23:00.001-07:00

    A few nights ago my mother decided she wanted to watch a three part series called Hyperspace on TLC, broadcast in its entirety that night. The stuff it covered was at an elementary, although interestingly (but not always adequately) presented level, but she and I both pricked up our ears when the scientist who is credited with developing ion drive admitted he got the idea from a Star Trek episode. My mother turned to me and said, "Isn't that interesting! You might be right about your idea (doesn't matter which idea it was...this was an Ah-Hah conversation that, ultimately, had nothing to do with the idea to which Mom and I were referring)."
    "That's what I was thinking."
    A little later, when the program discussed how science fiction/fantasy writers function as advance troops for the scientific community (that isn't the way it was expressed, but that's the gist of it), my mother said, "You should write a novel about that idea of yours instead (of what I was planning and am doing with it)."
    I said, "I am, Mom, but, you know my history. The novel will go nowhere. I almost feel as though I should send out my material, from now on, addressed directly to the slush pile."
    Her gaze turned sharply critical as though she was looking right through me then softened and she said, "I believe you're right. There is something about you that causes people to ignore everything you say. I've never understood that." She sounded wistful, as though she wished it were different. She went on to acknowledge that people do like me, seek me out, ask me what I think, listen to me, then dismiss me, and only act on my ideas when they appear to have come from somewhere else, usually themselves. "Remember when your father did that?" She was referring to a couple of events, none of which I'll cover here.
    "You do it, too, Mom," I said.
    "I know," she said. "I've never understood that." Then, she returned to her advanced-age fog.

Changing Lanes - To LTF

2001-10-08T15:39:00.001-07:00

I think my mother has just about had it with the "going to the movies" experience (thank god for home videos). She wanted to see Hearts in Atlantis, so we went. I'm not sure what it is about the theater experience that bothers her but she was clearly uncomfortable throughout. I asked her afterwards if she'd had a problem with either hearing or seeing the movie. No, she didn't but she said, "We don't need to see movies in theaters, anymore, do we? I didn't get anything out of that movie." So I guess I'll get to practice again one of my favorite activities, going to see movies alone. I told her that's what I would probably do because there are certain aspects of the theater experience I prefer to video on a television. Actually, I've always preferred to go to theaters alone. When I go with people I know I have a hard time disconnecting from my companion(s) and devoting my entire attention to the movie (not to mention that, many times, companions are moved to "react" to the movie for the edification of their companion which just annoys the shit out of me). I promised her I would do it only in the afternoons when she was napping. "Be my guest," she said. I felt like I got a little piece of my life back.
In case you hadn't already guessed this, someone outbid us on my mother's dream house. She has already mentioned, once, to MFS, yesterday, that "we lost my house". I think we're on the downhill side of that problem, now. Yes!

I See You - To LTF

2001-10-03T11:01:00.002-07:00

Different subject. My mother and I were doing errands yesterday [I got her out! Maybe it's easier for "mothers" to get mothers out than it is for daughters to get mothers out.], talking a lot, generally having a good time, and something happened that triggered a realization for me. She has a life-long habit of checking herself in the passenger side mirror off and on throughout any trip. She was amusingly vain when she was much younger, before I got to know the aspects of her that weren't my mother which, I think, happened when I was pretty young because she worked and since she was a teacher I often saw her at work. One of her perpetual comments when she looks in the passenger mirror is "Look at all the wrinkles I'm getting!" She isn't getting any more, nor, I think, are the ones she has getting any deeper. But hearing her say this today set me to thinking about how we all imagine ourselves. I was wandering the topic of self-image, specifically what might happen to one's self-image as one becomes much, much older, and why, and I stumbled across this: I think it might be a boon to many people of advanced age to have caretakers or close, attentive relatives who remember what they were like at several different stages of their life. We all imagine ourselves differently than others image (purposeful change in word form) us. But when there are people in our lives whose image of us includes large stretches of time and many changes our sense of who we are remains much more elastic and encompassing than if we are surrounded by people who only know us as "old". I realize that in some cases these long term relationships, emotionally volatile as they are, can also be restricting and that the people who are involved in them can inadvertently refuse to recognize who we are now to our detriment. But when long term relationships like this work for the old, I think it may be because there is a fullness to the unspoken images surrounding us that allows us more movement in any direction. Not that "new" relationships aren't good for the old. They have extraordinary value in that I think they allow wider present movement. I see this, often, when my mother is relating to her hairdressers, to people she's only known as an older adult, to strangers in the supermarket, etc. I think, though, there is immense value in being surrounded often by benevolent people who project onto one a range of years of identity fluctuation.

Today I am... - To LTF

2001-10-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

Back to the less rarefied air. Speaking of identity, I am Gail this morning. I'm still slightly off kilter from having been my mother's mother last night but this could be because I'm sleep deprived from having stayed up to see if my identity was the only aspect of reality my mother was hallucinating. I guess being a mother's mother is something I'll be "growing" into.

Mother Mine, or Me - To LTF

2001-10-02T00:55:00.002-07:00

    My mother just went to bed. Part of her bedtime ritual involves The Little Girl discovering she's in bed, heading into the bedroom, spending a few minutes roaming the room then jumping up on the bed, having a good night conversation with my mother, going to the bottom of the bed and settling down on the fleece blanket. My mother always calls me in at some point in this ritual because The Little Girl's bedtime routine thrills her so and she likes to share the thrill. So when Mom goes to bed I keep my ear cocked for her call of, "Gail...Gail," and head in. Tonight, she called, "Mother...Mother..."
    I was startled. I went in, not sure who I was going to be. As it turned out, by the time I appeared in her room I was Gail again. I thought about whether to even mention her call for her mother to her then decided, yeah, why not, maybe making her aware of these things as she does them helps her in some way; not to revert back to what I think of as reality but helps her keep in touch with the fact that she's still here dealing with people in a reality somewhat different from hers. Maybe doing this even allows her to accept it, appreciate it and go with the flow. My mother has always liked the objective perspective.
    So I asked her if she realized she'd just called me "mother".
    "I did?" she said, her brow wrinkling in confusion.
    "Yeah, Mom, you did." I laughed, making sure it was an easy laugh.
    I remembered mentioning to you that I was glad I hadn't become her mother because her relationship with her mother was distant. So I said, "Well, if I'm going to be your mother I hope our relationship is better than yours was with your mother."
    She took this in stride. "It's already better than my relationship with my mother was."
    I can't tell you how gratifying it was for me to hear this.
    "O.K. So, I guess I'm your mother now," I said.
    "And I'm yours."
    "I wonder what the geneticists would make of that."
    My mother laughed. "They'd say, 'It figures, those Hudson women, way out there alone, no men around, you just never know.'" This was a reference to a quote from her mother, who, as she was slipping into senility, remarked anxiously to my Aunt Jean about my mother's living circumstances, "It's just not right, women way out there [in Mesa], alone, without any men."
    I laughed.
    My mother turned out her light.
    I'm her mother, now. God, LTF, I didn't think this would happen yet.

Just in Time - To MFS

2001-10-01T08:42:00.003-07:00

    Yeah, I did stay up a little late. I started another period [I don't think of them as "my" periods, anymore, because I never know when I'm going to have one.] yesterday, although I've known for a couple of weeks it was coming. Everyday for a couple of weeks I've thought that "today" was going to be the day. Well, yesterday was it and it felt like my body's been working up to it for a couple of weeks and threw a blowout celebration, yesterday, to commemorate it's ability to produce one more period. I'll be glad when my body forgets it's supposed to have these things. Anyway, I finally started feeling halfway decent last night.
    Mom stayed up late last night and read a book I had bought and read for the bookclub a couple of months ago, The Bonesetter's Daughter. I really liked it. Mom likes it so much she can't put it down. I think you'll like it, too. I'll send it to you but not today. Mom's still reading it so I'd have to send Mom, too, and you know how she feels about traveling now.
    Nothing extraordinary is happening here although last night we got a call from a man named Paul Edwards. Apparently sometime this afternoon Mom decided to call MPS and forgot to use the area code (I think, lately, she's been thinking she is in Mesa). Anyway she tried three times and all three times she got this guy. Since I wasn't in the dining room when she did it I don't know how her side of the conversations went. Apparently she asked for MPS a couple of times. When Paul and I finally sorted out what happened I promised him I would make sure she didn't call his cell phone again. So, I asked Mom if, from now on, when I'm here, if she decides to make a call that she have me dial it.
    You know, it's funny but it actually is a lot easier on me that I was here before all of this began and it's happening "only" bit by bit. This way I'm not thrown quite so badly by the successive taking over of the small chores needed to maintain her life that we "forget" to do as we move beyond this life.

Dream House Immortalization - To LTF

2001-09-29T17:08:00.003-07:00

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.

"When I get older..." - To MFS

2001-09-28T08:15:00.001-07:00

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.

Home Is...Where? - To LTF

2001-09-26T21:20:00.001-07:00

    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.

This Will Not Always Be My Life - To LTF

2001-09-23T10:43:00.001-07:00

    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.

Strange Revelations - To LTF

2001-09-22T15:32:00.001-07:00

I had a miscellaneous dream about a week ago. A car in which my mother and I were being driven (by Nicolas Cage; I have no idea why he appeared in the dream; I haven't seen a movie with him in it for a long time; oh, but there were the previews, a few months ago, of Captain Corelli's Mandolin on TV; that must be the source) down an unidentified mountain pass went over a cliff and fell through a steep, deep ravine. The car turned upside down in flight. Both my mother (who was in the back, I was in the front passenger's seat) and I lost our bearings and were falling standing upside down. Nicolas Cage was strapped into his seat. It was not disturbing. I said, "Well, it looks like we're not going to get out of this one." The car crashed at the bottom. All of us not only survived the crash but landed on the ground next to the crash site standing (right side up) unharmed. The ravine, by the way, was one of those refreshingly wooded and watered ravines that "comes up" out of nowhere; the kind that makes you wish you were a bear and lived there. I was contemplating in my sleep how amazing this was when the telephone rang and awoke me. Although I wish the dream hadn't been interrupted I'm glad I remembered it. I use the memory of the dream crash, now, as a protective fetish.

And Around It Goes - To LTF

2001-09-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

This morning it occurred to me, as I was once again wrestling internally with my inability to keep my mother awake after breakfast, that it seems appropriate that she brought me in while I slept and I am taking her out while she sleeps. Later, as I was thinking about the process of meditation (which, incidentally, is something I don't practice and don't think I should be practicing even as I think it is certainly valuable to those who do practice it) I considered that I am augmenting, through her, now, my understanding of no-thing; doing no-thing, becoming no-thing, being no-thing.
I also like the idea of accompanying her at least until she has fulfilled her lesson plan here.

Sleeping with Perfect Sleepers - To LTF

2001-09-15T12:36:00.001-07:00

After sending off that other e I noticed The Little Girl was in the meatloaf position outside my mother's bedroom where my mother has been pursuing her morning nap for about an hour. The Little Girl's favorite sleeping place is a fleece throw at the bottom of my mother's bed (I think I may have mentioned that to you); her favorite sleeping time is when my mother is on the bed. She's gotten into the habit of expecting me to pet her into sleep on it during the day, so I picked her up, took her in and started petting her. As usual, although she's not, by nature, a purrer, she began purring audibly and musically, which she always does when being petted on the fleece, on the bed. Within less than a minute, I noticed my mother had begun, in somatic sympathy, to really purr; by this I mean, her bronchials relaxed and her breathing became so deep that, on the outtake, her throat tissues vibrated and sounded exactly like a sonorous, lionic purr! I've referred to her "purring" before, but this is the first time I've heard her really purr, versus snoring or humming, which she does occasionally, as well. Jesus! She is half cat! No wonder she's still around. She probably has at least a few more of her nine lives left!

Fuck the Details - To LTF

2001-09-14T08:26:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning realizing that arranging a time when a visit would work for everyone and everything whom and that would be involved has already become too fucking complicated. In the end it wasn't even my ability (or lack of such) to negotiate some time that got to me this time. I've been lobbying for this for awhile (not your visit, specifically, but some help and some relief), and it wasn't until I was quite sure that everything (I mean everything, not just needing relief) was completely beyond my control and ability and the psychic extension of that despair pricked someone else that I was granted the promise of this much relief. I realized that if I hadn't given up I wouldn't even have gotten the time in February. So you know what, LTF, sorry about the lack of heat, but, the last two weeks in February is it (unless further unforeseen circumstances intervene). I've got too many other foreseen circumstances coming up between now and then to even care about getting this one any righter than it already is. If you want to visit at that time, fine, I'd like that. If not, fine, the lack of a visit is not going to change yours and my friendship. I just need enough advance notice so that the final details of MFS's life can be arranged to accommodate me (or in the case of no visit, so she won't be left hanging), so let me know one way or another. Whatever.

Too Many Details? - To LTF

2001-09-13T23:13:00.001-07:00

    I know it is more advance planning than you're used to. It's not really my choice, either. Let's see, when was the last time I advance planned anything in my life when I was responsible for only my own care? Never, I think. Being an involved caretaker requires much advance planning, though. I would not trust my mother to a stranger. No one else in my family would trust my mother to a stranger. I have to work around the lives of those in my family who might be able to pinch hit for me. It's very weird. Believe me, there are lots of reasons why this gig does not compliment my overall psychological make-up, which is fairly vulnerable to despair under the best of circumstances. But, whatever. Maybe, one of these days my psychological make-up will give up and start complimenting this gig.
    Yes, it can be cold then in Prescott. The nights always are. Unless there is a storm though, it's quite sunny. It can also be warm, relatively speaking, during the day; in the 60's here if it's in the 80's in Mesa, which is not unusual for that time of year. I know what you mentioned about you and the heat. It has been in the back of my (conscious) mind. Let me think on this awhile. The problem is twofold: First, although I'm not sure of this, I don't think I'm going to be able to get relief from anyone but MFS and she won't be available March through August. I'll see what I can come up with; second, for it to be as hot as you'd like, that would be when my mother and I are already up here. If you visited while I'm fully engrossed in being my mother's caretaker I can guarantee I would not enjoy your visit. You would become another guest I would have to negotiate while seeing to my mother's pills, pads, sleeping, creative memories (both short and long term), hazy grasp on moment-to-moment reality and need for company. You would be saying, as MCF said to me on Tuesday when she left, "You're a lot different around your mother. I prefer seeing you when you're not around her."
    There's a possibility that I might be able to transfer her back down to Mesa and maybe get MPS to take her in for a couple of days, I'm not sure. Let me look into this. It hadn't occurred to me, despite what I wrote in the last e, that I might have to figure out alternate arrangements nor how difficult that might be. I figured, if a war interfered well everything would be different and maybe I could come up with something. But chances are it would be even more difficult with a war than without one. Again, let me think on this, for awhile. I'm pretty inventive. I have thought about the possibility of sending Mom to MFS for a visit. Although MFS has repeatedly assured me that their family is available to take over Mom's care, I haven't tested the waters about short visits and I'm unclear about how careful the airlines would be with my mother coming and going. She never knows where she, or anyone else is (today she was in Mesa, and MPBIL was on a carrier off the coast of New York). Trips to Jacksonville always involve stopovers and plane changes. Maybe, though, we could arrange something where I accompany her out to Jacksonville and MFS accompanies her back. I don't know.

The Important Details - To LTF

2001-09-13T13:06:00.001-07:00

    I have nothing to say today about what is and isn't in the news. We do not have the news on. Mom is back to her regular sleep schedule. I am relieved. This just seems very weird and I need some time to ponder it.
    This is a business letter. I just spoke with MFS. The best time for her to relieve me in 2002 so I can visit with you unencumbered is "between February 14th and March 1st." There is another window for her in mid-January, but that is bad for my mother and I. This is assuming, of course, that you still want to visit Prescott and me. Her time within those two weeks at this point (see starred section) is flexible as far as both dates and duration are concerned. She needed to make sure that her husband would be at their home to take care of the kids. So it looks like that is my optimum time for visiting. The reason she called me about this today (other than the fact that she is good at organization) is that she's beginning to scout for air fares and found a deal on Southwest where the tickets must be purchased before September 17th. I need to tell you we are not concerned about air fares. You need not even decide by September 17th whether you are planning on visiting next year. Despite her intransigence to my mother's and my offer, we will be paying her airfare and any other travel expenses and we aren't worried about possible costs of air fare. My feeling is that it's not necessary for you to firm up any dates or even make a decision about whether you really want to visit at this point. But I thought you might want to know that I know between what dates I am certain I can get relief, so you can plan accordingly if you wish to plan.
    If you decide to visit I'll want a day to prepare the house for a non-smoking guest as much as is possible, warm it up (it takes about a day to get it to living warmth in the winter even though the winters are very mild here), make sure we have enough firewood, etc. You are free to "stay" here or at a motel/hotel. Knowing your need for privacy, I would be surprised if you decided to stay in this house [of course, you are more than welcome to stay here, I just want you to know that I will not be offended if you opt to have a smoke-residue-free/privacy insuring haven handy]. If you are thinking in terms of a hotel/motel room you will have absolutely no trouble procuring one in Prescott during the last two weeks of February, regardless of when you decide to make reservations. This is not a tourist mecca during the winter months. I'll also want to make sure I am with MFS for at least one day before your visit to check her out on everything she needs to know before taking on Mom and a day after your visit to debrief her and rebrief myself.
    Of course, all of this could be for naught mainly because of the developments of the last few days since MFS's family is an active Navy family.

Out of the Mouths of Ancient Ones - To LTF

2001-09-12T17:29:00.003-07:00

The most interesting snippet of language I've heard so far regarding the 9/11 affair belongs to my mother. About an hour ago she switched from CNN to a cable channel showing Murder She Wrote. "I've had enough of this," she said as she switched the channel (with some help; she becomes more and more creative on the remotes by the day). Then:

    I was on the living room floor brushing The Big Girl. Mom moved from the sofa to the dinette, I think as a mimed version of her spoken statement. After she'd focused on the television long enough to satisfy herself that it wasn't news she said, "You know, there's something about this whole thing that's been bothering me terribly."
    I went into the dinette to give her my full attention. "About what, Mom?"
    "This 'act of terrorism'." She rolled her hands around one another indicating that she was not using the term she considered appropriate. "I have this terrible feeling that someone cooked this whole thing up to some other purpose. I'm not talking about someone overseas ["overseas" to my mother is anyplace she's not; on Guam, the U.S. was "overseas"]. I'm talking about here." She stabbed at the table with her right index finger. "It just seems to me that this went off too well. And no one seems confused, just angry. Like it was planned from within," she taps the table with her finger again, "this country. Not by foreigners," she qualifies, "by us. Someone's sitting back," she settles into her chair, belly forward, her hands clasped across her chest, delighted Cheshire smile planted on her face, "saying, 'Uh huh. This is going just as I'd planned.' And it's not that Osama man."
    I was blown away. Not that this hadn't crossed my mind, just as it has been crossing your mind that our government is going to latch onto this as just the ticket they need (which is allowing splendid access, isn't it). I had gotten the impression, though, that she was totally involved in the "galvanize the nation" similarity to WWII. She was. She's also recognizing, having gone through the WWII galvanization (which was premised upon an attack that, it has been more than speculated, could have been prevented, although I'm not sure she's aware of that), that something seems, well, her phrase is "wrong about this". She doesn't think there's something wrong just with the reaction. She thinks there's something wrong with the actual event or, at least, what we're presuming and being told about the actual event.
    Her last pronouncement was, "We'd better not treat the Arab Americans as badly as we treated the Japanese Americans, but it looks like someone's just been itching to do that. Now, I'm afraid, they may think they have their chance. I just think this whole thing is something completely different than we're being led to believe."

I thought you'd find her final assessment (at this point, anyway) interesting.
In curious point to her fears, at the beauty salon today one woman worried about the fact that her son called her last night to tell her, "If war is declared, I'm volunteering." Another much older woman started spouting scripture from Revelations. All I can say is, it's obvious something is definitely working, awfully (and I mean that word) well and I'm wondering about it all, too.

Startling Awareness - To LTF

2001-09-12T07:56:00.000-07:00

My mother is up early; almost an hour. The TV has been on since then. She's scoured both papers. It's almost as though she's been revived by a jog into her past. What this country has become since yesterday reverberates within her experience.

9/11 Knows No Age - To LTF

2001-09-11T20:26:00.001-07:00

My mother was even tuning in on the news. Shortly after I e'd you last, she glued herself to the TV. I had suspected, out back, hearing it all 2nd person from what MCF was gleaning off the TV, she may not have understood what had happened. Sometime around 1600 she apparently noticed the call for blood and said she wanted to donate so we went to Yavapai Regional Medical Center and were directed to an "off campus" clinic. When we returned my mother spent some time on the phone calling all her daughters to see if their husbands had been "called in". I'm thinking, wow, I wonder if she's connecting this with her experience of blood drives in WWII.

Fragmented Comment - To LTF

2001-09-08T02:30:00.000-07:00

The idea of being alive and purposely detached (versus the detachment my mother is going through, which is autonomic)...

If at First You Don't Succeed - To LTF

2001-09-06T14:13:00.001-07:00

    My mother just awoke from her "morning" nap. She spent an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom (I believe that is her 'wake-up chamber'), so much that I stopped by the door and asked her, "Is everything all right?" She was fine.
    She emerged to tell me that she had just been thinking of "...this old friend of mine, Doris, well, it's Lassegaard, now. I just got a letter from her. In it she talked about her mother's boyfriend. Now, Doris is my age; can you imagine how old her mother is? And, she has a boyfriend?"
    Sometimes I go with it. Today is one of those days when I'm too focused to go with it. Just for fun I say, "Well, you're right, that would have to be one of the oldest women in the world. I think you're probably talking about a letter you received many years ago [in fact I vaguely remember when she got the letter because she told me about it; I was living at 48th and Roosevelt, so it had to be in the late 70s].
    "No, I just got this letter a few days ago. I'll go get it."
    She disappeared into the dinette. I heard her shuffle through papers. In a few minutes she returned to the living room and sat in her rocking chair. She started leafing through her tabloids. I know she'd forgotten about Doris, the letter, the curiosity. I am relieved because I know I would have argued with her about whether Doris is still alive, let alone her mother or her mother's boyfriend.
    A few minutes later she turns back to me (I'm on the computer) and says, "I was just thinking about this old friend of mine, Doris, Lassegaard, I believe, and her mother. Her mother has to be at least 20 years older than me, and she's got a boyfriend."
    I have another chance to decide how I really want to play this out. Old age doesn't just forgive the old. It forgives everyone.

Seeing Stories in Faces - To LTF

2001-09-05T22:52:00.000-07:00

    This afternoon after my mother's hair appointment, we went to lunch.
    She is chomping her way through a burger that looks like something else, I'm drinking coffee and watching her gaze around the restaurant and out the window. This is going to be a long luncheon. One benefit to being a little to the side now, though, is that I experience long fits of indifference which would have normally bothered me but now seem like standing under a waterfall of a temperature somewhat chillier than this late, hot summer day. I'm watching her eat, watching her gaze, listening to her comments, all of which begin, "Have you ever noticed..." In my background I hear my father's accusatory voice tell her she is "like a cow". At the time I originally overheard this I imagined that it hurt her, I remember hurting for her. Now, though, I'm seeing that she is very cow-like, very placid. I've known her to be excited and/or excitable only a few times in either of our lives. I also see why this irritated my father, why he considered it a fault. I then remember overhearing him accusing her of not enjoying "giving [him] head" and calling her a "damn prude". This was many years into their marriage after they'd relocated stateside and bought the farm in Texas. I was visiting over a holiday. I remember thinking at the time, every time I've accidentally spied them having sex or arguing about sex it has always been over a holiday or vacation. Examining her at the table this afternoon, I see that she probably is prudish, not much given to sexual expression and how this must have driven my father crazy. He was a sensually expressive man. I think he was also faithful because he was loyal and a person of honor but I'm quite sure it just about killed him. I also know he was smitten with her when he met her. He ordered his squadron, all of whom were assigned to her sighting classes, that she was hands-off, he was going to marry her. He did. She has also told me she was a snob and hung out with snobs. She has a log-like memory of their courtship. He supplied all the emotional detail. I don't think, upon whatever levels of insight each of them were capable, that either regretted their marriage but I think it was certainly much different for both than they imagined it would be, in part, I realized this afternoon, because my mother is, indeed, a cow, and a prude as well, and my father, well, she never provided me with adjectives for him. She is much too genteel, much too placid for that.
    He drank himself into a grave at 68. She is still alive and still interested in being alive.

Convalescence - To LTF

2001-09-04T00:04:00.001-07:00

    Why did I think a holiday would actually be a holiday? I got nothing done today, every place was closed and I watched a bad movie, besides.
    I've noticed I feel as though I am living one long, long day. I'm also forgetting to feed the cats, although if I'm in one long, long day then it's not time to feed them, yet. Typically they are free-fed but yesterday Mom finally noticed their plate was completely clean and their water needed changing. She did both. They seem to be staying close by. Everyone is concerned that I'm not petting them enough.
    As well, I've been eating ginger this and ginger that. I've even got some mango/ginger tea in which I've been soaking gingersnaps. Ginger coffee should be good. I might try that in the morning. I'm not sure what the ginger is all about.

So, I had a good weekend... - To MFS

2001-09-03T09:44:00.002-07:00

...even though Mom chose not to go anywhere with me (it's those kitties; they keep telling her "stories" about what I do when I'm "gone", like petting dogs, and such). Let's see if we can't get something out this week to all interested parties (and those parties that haven't invited us).

Spreading the Gospel - To LTF

2001-08-30T22:10:00.001-07:00

MFS is being extraordinarily organizational. I'm still unable to think quickly; but I am thinking. Nothing has been said. I don't think she thinks there is anything to be said except that she has perceived that I need direct help in several different areas because it sounds as though I am "drowning" and knowledge of my situation should be disseminated so that stepping in, if necessary, will be relatively seamless. She also seems to understand that personal relief, which probably will involve nothing more than winter and/or spring jaunts to the Prescott house while someone tends to our mother in the Mesa house, should be mandatory. I am pleased about this.

Continuing Saga of What It Will Take - To MFS

2001-08-30T21:20:00.002-07:00

    Re: your working vacation doing the files; that might be done by then. It just so happens that we are going to get started at that this week. However, I'd love to show you around. As far as a get away vacation is concerned, the week in late winter or early spring would be good. MFASRF wants to visit and I want to show him around unencumbered. If you want to go through the files together and relieve me in late winter or early spring (my date to be firmed up later but it will fit into your dates) that would be fine; but I'd rather save my time off for the friend visit. Did anyone hear me?
    Okay, on the bills. I need to decide which can be safely rerouted. Some can't. Also, this would mean very close coordination between you and me so that I always know what's in the checking account. This is going to pique your interest: Currently, because we write so many checks, I am managing Mom's checkbook the way she did except with a present mind. On any particular day I would be hard pressed to give you an exact amount but I know whether we have enough money to, for instance, pay bills on one particular day or the next. So, I need to set up a modifiable schedule of bills.

    Okay. So, because I want to crow and give you a further in depth idea of what "Mom's finances" consist. I finally talked to MA today regarding my decision to forego paying the Feds this third quarter income tax estimated payment. Remember that I told you I figured that MA, being the conservative accountant that he is, would say "no, penalties blah blah blah", and I would have to read his approval between the lines, which I was prepared to do. Well, I surprised him and he surprised me. This is, approximately, how the phone conversation went:

Me: MA, I want you to know that I'm not calling to ask you to make a decision. I already did. I'm calling to inform you of the decision and run my strategy by you for comments. [I outlined for him our situation with the margin, the insurances that are due, Mom's stock portfolio, our need for cash in the checking account, and our finances against the backdrop of 1999's tax return.]
MA: Well, I must tell you that there will be penalties if you're wrong but the penalties will be minor, no more than 1.5% per month from September to the end of the 4th quarter. However, you are right that the interest on the margin will more than cover that.
Me: I also took into consideration that September is always a bad month market wise and traditionally the market looks up in October. I don't think we'll have to pay those taxes. But if we have to pay anything it won'tbe much.
MA: I'm sure you're right. In fact, although as an accountant I would not advise my clients to forego an estimated tax payment, I must tell you that if I was in your situation I would do exactly what you are doing.
Me: Please stand for a moment of silence while the brass band plays the victory march and the red carpet is unfurled down the center aisle.

So, I am finishing off this episode just to make sure you understand all the implications, my sweet. I will, of course, go over with everyone similar (or, maybe the same, since it is so damn good and shows me in such an attractive light) scenarios so that everyone understands that Mom's finances are such that always doing what the Feds say may not only be incorrect but bad business strategy, as well.

Review and Refresh - To MFS

2001-08-29T20:35:00.002-07:00

    I didn't scare you off with that last email of mine describing a "typical" financial transaction that, as it happens, involved not only her actual checking account and bills paid on a monthly, semi-annual and occasional basis, a quick appraisal of her portfolio, a quick appraisal of her income tax for 2000 and 1999 and a quick sizing up of MFA, MA and their comments, did I?
    Mesa went well. It was fucking hot. No more boxes of files, although there are a lot of boxes with old stuff in them in the shed. We've got enough space now that, with some cheap closet shelving and drawers, I think we can unpack at both places, maybe take down that godawful shed in the back or have it rebuilt or something. I don't know. I can't wait to see whether we have termites. Wrong time for all this stuff to be happening.
    Well, anyway, I got back about 1707; went directly to Kentucky Fried Chicken, then Baskin Robbins for a Chocolate Malted treat for Mom which turned out to be too strong but appreciated. It was good to get away and good to get back. Mom and the cats slept the whole day. I'm sure of it. Nothing has been disturbed. Mom had closed and locked all doors including screen doors and I had to lean on the buzzer and hope it awakened her. It did.

Just An Example - To MFS

2001-08-28T11:48:00.002-07:00

What I did today is a good example of what goes on as far as Mom's "assets" are concerned so I'm going to compile it into an instructive review for you and anyone else who's interested:

    Mom's 3rd quarter estimated tax payment is coming up. She also needs to pay her semiannual supplemental medical insurance premium. Because we've been playing it so close to the bone this year, I need to take all this out on margin. This money is always taken out on margin because it's to her advantage. However, after checking with MFA about how low her margin was getting because of the stock market, MFA suggested that perhaps we didn't need to make the estimated tax payment.
    In fact, by law, this payment is voluntary. The only way you can get into trouble is if you skip a payment and come out too low when tax time comes up. So I discussed this with MFA and spent about an hour going over Mom's income taxes from last year with a fine tooth comb, reminding myself of what went on last year and the year before from the tax point of view. I finally decided, based on the difference between her tax exposure for 2000 and for 1999 and that there have been no sales (which increase capital gains exposure) and "everything has been losing money, and will continue to for at least another month" according to MFA, I am very safe in putting off this quarterly estimated tax payment dipping into the margin to cover her insurance. For the rest of the year nothing will be put on margin because sometime in October she will receive her yearly bonus from [her private holdings]. That means watching our pennies on Christmas, etc., but that's definitely doable. However, before doing this I am in the process of waiting for a call from MA to run this by him. Being typically conservative as most accountants are, he will immediately say no and caution me about penalties, etc. However, by reading his between-the-lines reaction to how I figured out that this is a low risk safe plan I will not only be able to determine whether this is a good idea (which I'm almost positive it is) but I will also be informing him of what we are planning on doing so none of this will be a surprise to him.
    I must tell you that this is the second time I have taken a calculated gamble based on reviewing Mom's portfolio with MFA on not paying what the government "estimated" we need to pay. The first time we came out on top. I expect to come out on top this time. Even with limited capital gains there is almost no chance that Mom's tax exposure will be as much as it was in 1999 and it certainly won't be what it was in 2000. Although it seems "safe" to pay the Feds because of their threats and their heavy-handedness, the risk is worse on the stock side right now because the market is still expected to slip before it gets better. One thing you don't want to do with stocks is increase risk when dividends are down.

    The reason I'm telling you this is that I want you and everyone else to be aware of exactly what is involved in "managing Mom's money". Although I am ambivalent about it, I do it fairly well, although I have slipped here and there. By putting off the insurance fight, for instance, I am allowing them to sit on money that we could have been using.
    I also need help in approaching MFA, reviewing her portfolio, etc., but whoever does this must be aware of at least the minimum of which I'm aware: Sales and maturity always spell higher taxes; sales in order to buy something else always mean higher taxes. The taxes come out of Mom's margin which, tax-wise, can be a benefit, but in very bad years becomes a stock liability.
    So, as I'm doing all this today I'm thinking maybe our goals need to be revised a bit. I do need help but much of the help I need is informed advisement (i.e., getting the house in Mesa in shape and reviewing her investment portfolio). I also need everyone to be informed. In this case, four heads are better than one. The bills, well, that can be sorted out. I also need some help on reviewing those bills, deciding where money can be saved or shaved.
    I definitely need help in the relief department. That would probably make one of the biggest differences (the other being in house maintenance management). I think the biggest differences will be made in relief for me and in everyone knowing about and contributing ideas to her financial profile. It would also help a great deal if I had realistic shoulders to cry on and people who were willing to, for instance, make business-nature decisions that I can carry out when I am feeling quesy and totally unsure of myself.
    It's not going to be easy to decide exactly what, when, where and how; especially since, as I am reminding you, my analysis of Mom's various financial situations are sometimes so on target it's scary. So, this is going to have to be a concerted effort and when I need on site help, I need it.
    My main problem this year which has adversely affected everything else is that I am, emotionally, at the end of my rope. Some of this is due to living with someone who is completely unsympathetic, unresponsive and deep into her journey through old-old age. Some of this is due to my own emotional problems with business. Some of both of these 'exposures', however, is feeling as though I am completely alone in this, thus feeling as though I have no resources to count on with any assurance but that when it's all over I'll be held completely and exclusively accountable for any mistakes. I need attitudes to change, I think, most of all. I expect to handle the bulk of Mom's affairs and the bulk of Mom (pun intended). I expect to, for instance, as I just did, spend 25 minutes convincing Mom to bathe then forcing her to bathe and living with the personal recrimination that for three days in a row I have been unable to convince her to bathe. I expect to live with the stress of trying to get her to just go to Costco and Home Depot (we need a new fan) today: First having her say yes, then having her say no, and now, not I'm not sure but figuring unless I physically put in her the car she'll probably spend the day in bed, again. I expect to have to be confronted, everyday, with her asking "Why?" she has to bathe, "Why?" it's good for her to get out (her doctors, unfortunately, because she is doing so well, healthwise, are no help in this regard) and having her doubt every word I say. I need these emotional burdens to at least be understood and maybe even commented on with suggestions. This is going to be hard. Just try getting Mom to consider senior citizen day care, for instance. I need suggestions that are based on current knowledge of her, not unconsidered "from the literature" suggestions. Everyone except MCS now has first hand knowledge of the fact that even family visitors, who delight Mom, can't keep her out of bed. Everyone also knows that this is not yet endangering her health and longevity. Everyone now needs to know that living with someone like this sometimes drives me, literally, crazy, and I feel desperate and unable to negotiate what seem to be the simplest and most objective of life's tasks.
    MFS, I know that my rambling vs. your clear sighted problem solving may seem ridiculous and beside the point. Is is, in fact, because you have taken the initiative to approach this from a clear-headed point of view that I feel as though there is now some hope. As well, it is my emotional stake in this that makes me realize that it isn't just "business" that everyone needs to be aware of and help with. It is the emotional aspect, too. That needs to be clearly understood by everyone. No more, "Well, it's obvious you need to be relieved but I don't know how we're going to do that." Do you know what my guilt ridden response to that was? "Well, MPS, don't worry about it. Look at all you guys have to deal with. That's just the way it is. I consider this my contribution to the family....blah, blah, blah...." You know what? I have to stop saying, and believing stuff like this. I have to have the emotional support to do this. It's weird, taking care of Mom. The weirdness is too much for one person to handle. It's time that it be passed around. Thank you for agreeing with me on this, MFS. We're getting somewhere. I can feel it.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder - To MFS

2001-08-27T14:26:00.001-07:00

I think I may be going down to Mesa on Wednesday. I want to see if there are any more boxes of files down there in the shed and if there is anything else of importance. I'm thinking I'll also stop by and see some friends of mine in Chandler who have a live-in elderly dad who had a heart attack not too long ago. I'm going to ask Mom if she wants to go but I'm sure she won't. I don't worry too much about leaving her alone during the day yet because, oddly, she seems to appreciate time away from me as much as I appreciate time away from her right now. Nights, though, I don't like to leave her alone. There is something about being alone at night that mildly freaks her out. I'll probably be gone the bulk of the day. From previous recent experience I know that when I'm gone during the day she actually stays up more. Weird, isn't it!

Relieving Communications - To MFS

2001-08-27T14:20:00.002-07:00

First of all, I should tell you that I just passed up the perfect opportunity to approach MCS about our plan to gather the family on behalf of Mom. She called (apparently Mom had left a message yesterday when they were out) and although we talked a lot, and I did find the courage to say (in a humorous way) that I am overwhelmed (I used that word), I don't know, otherwise my courage failed me. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to be able to come forward and do this. MCS talked about how well her household was running with two families and such. At one point when I talked about Mom's stocks and how I am completely beside myself handling them she admitted that, she, too, "didn't know anything about stocks". She seemed ready to hear amusing anecdotes about Mom, so that's what I fed her.
Anyway, on to other things. I'm going to answer your points specifically; they are all important and well thought out.

I agree that Mom's stocks are not so sacred that they can't be sold, if necessary. I'm not exactly sure what assets should be liquidated first or, you know, how this should be decided. That's something I need to talk to MFA about. Those not publicly traded, maybe. I'm reluctant to touch the stocks under MFA's control because those are the ones being affected by the market and they are also the ones upon which Mom's margin is based. I'm going to have to talk to MFA about this and see what he thinks. MCS is not the one to ask about stocks. Maybe her husband. Even if he doesn't know that much, he might be interested in learning, and, certainly, I have no qualms about him dealing with MFA. Since Mom lost the ability to manage her portfolio, although I doubt MFA has consciously taken advantage of the situation, he also hasn't been bombarded with questions and asked about alternative management proposals.
As far as having someone check out the homes, the first one who should do this is MCS's husband. He has not only done much remodeling on his own, he also has hired legions of remodelers and contractors. I know he's very occasionally been "taken" but that happens to the best of us. I still would like him look over the house situation before anyone else does. He is uniquely qualified for this. He might even have some good ideas about whether it would be worth it for Mom to keep either house and which one.
I am seriously considering getting rid of that house down in Mesa. The only problem is, I like her doctors. I'd like to explore the possibility of keeping it and keeping it completely closed up unless we need to be down there for doctor visits, hospitalization, etc. Plus, I know how much Mom likes it down there in the winter. I'm going to have to do some serious thinking about this. A lot of this will depend on restructuring her portfolio so that the upkeep and bills of two houses can be handled seamlessly. I hope this is a possibility.
I agree that Mom's money shouldn't be spent frivolously. I think that's going to be an easy guideline to meet. I certainly am not in the habit of doing that, neither is Mom. I don't think anyone else will be, either. This is why four heads are going to be much better than one. I worry about getting taken to the cleaners by contractors, lawyers, etc., and not realizing it until after the fact. My main worry is that I know Mom's portfolio needs to be restructured before the bulk of this stuff takes place. MFA needs to be in on all of that.

MFS, I cannot shake the feeling that I'm being a fucking big baby about this and if I "knuckled down and applied myself" I could handle everything. I mean, I look at everyone else's lives and I think, Jesus, Gail, what the hell is your problem?
Anyway, we're just at the beginning, here. You're doing a much better job of looking at these things objectively than I am. Thank you for that. I think I am, slowly, beginning to regain a little bit of my sanity about this. I mean, just what the fuck HAVE I been doing here, anyway?

Communicating Relief - To MFS

2001-08-26T21:22:00.001-07:00

    First of all, let me embarrass you by telling you how much talking to you meant to me, today. I feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Before we talked I really didn't see any way out. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being, hmmm, let's see, for being, how about...you!
    I know that MPS's and MCS's families are going to be a bit surprised so I agree that it is important to have a list. This, below, is just a beginning. The truth is, I'm a little muddle headed, right now. I'm still sort of reeling in the emotional bath I took on the phone with you this afternoon. But thought is nothing without action (actually, I don't believe this all the time but it sounds good and it certainly applies in this instance).
    Immediately, of course, I need everyone to know exactly what I'm dealing with, here. I need everyone to understand in their bones and agree that allowing Mom to remain in her own home with a family member as long as possible is very important and is probably what is keeping her alive, even if quite a bit of that life is spent in Dream Land. So what I need to do is compose a part of the "advance directive" prior to the tele-conference to get this across. I know everyone gives lip service to this but I don't think anyone has given it much thought. In order for me to do a good job I need to know that everyone understands why they agree (or disagree) that I am at the right place at the right time.
    Second, I need everyone to know how difficult it is for me to call on them for help and that they need to be checking on us, too. I mean really checking on me, not just calling to say "Hello" and get a Christmas newsletter version of what's going on. I need everyone to realize that when they don't hear from me for awhile it might be a good idea to find out why.
    Third, it's important that everyone know that I am already under water. This isn't a case of "when Gail loses control", this is a case of "Gail has lost control".
    Right off the bat I can absolutely see that some of Mom's business needs to be delegated such as:

Working with MFA to keep track of Mom's stocks and making sure that what is being done is in her best interests. We're living on that money now, along with her pension. Someone needs to keep on top of that.
When extraordinary circumstances come up as far as her taxes are concerned someone needs to be available to work with MA. Someone who isn't resistant to understanding her tax profile needs to keep themselves up-to-date with that.
I need to work with someone in the family to get her files in order, see what she has, see what needs to be kept and what needs to be thrown away. Actually, I know that there are lots of things regarding her stocks that absolutely cannot ever be thrown away. I found that out this year when I had to retrieve a cancelled check from 1968. So all the cancelled checks she's kept for all these years need to be gone through and a system needs to be set up to deal with all this stuff. It is probably best that this stuff be kept in one of her residences. I think it is also important that I not be the only one aware of this stuff.
Although this needs to be communicated in a much more diplomatic way than I am about to communicate it, family members are going to have to grit their teeth, face down their fears and their demons and keep in physical touch despite her smoking. I can sympathize with everyone's personal health and aesthetic reasons and I'm not exactly sure how to address this so no one is hurt by her smoking. I want to see this happen because if the family can't get over this I get left by the wayside and start slipping and, for that matter, so does Mom. I know that it would be so easy to just say, "Hey, get a nurse to take care of her if you need some time off, Gail." But, you know what, the truth is, unless she needs medical care, that option is unacceptable to her, to me, and it should be to the rest of the family. When I need time off I'm sure what I'd do is just get away for a couple of days in the winter in Prescott. I'm sure it won't happen often. There may be a time when Mom will need a babysitter of sorts when I go out to the store or run errands. That is something that can probably be taken care of with outside help. But I won't leave Mom for any length of time with a stranger. That should be unacceptable with everyone else, too.
I think, as time goes on, the bill paying can pretty much stay here. However, there are some bills I may need to redirect to you for awhile until Mom stops insisting on "seeing the bills" and "seeing the mail".
I think I can handle getting her to a lawyer and updating her trust. I'll need someone else in the family to be very aware of the results and review it once every year or so just to make sure nothing is slipping through the cracks. That will mean, of course, checking with MFA and with me to see what's been purchased that might need to go in the trust, what's been sold, whether everything is still up to date, etc.
Everyone needs to be aware of her financial situation, in detail. It's not that great right now because of stocks, which is not unusual. But the idea that she's a millionaire and can buy anything she wants anytime and that we can throw money at problems has to be demolished as well. We're tightening our belts just like everyone else. In fact, we're breathing pretty shallow. Somehow the impression exists that I am living in the lap of luxury here because Mom "doesn't have to worry". Well, that's not true. It has never been true. I had to learn this when I first came to live with her. I know it now. Everyone else needs to know this.
There needs to be an agreement that when something comes up like, for instance, this insurance debacle thing, and I need help, that means I need direct help, now.
I do occasionally need to be relieved. Not much, but just enough to catch my breath. I think, as well, it is important for everyone to understand exactly what it's like to lose oneself in someone who is losing herself (and control of her bladder). Spending a few days taking care of Mom a year is an excellent way for everyone to get an idea of what that's like.
The houses both need to be gone through and checked out really well for repairs and this has to be continued on a regular basis first by someone in the family who is knowlegeable about these things, not first by a contractor. Once repairs are decided on and a clear idea of what, each year, is available to be spent on repairs and which are best to be taken care of at what time, I need someone to stand by me as I start interviewing contractors and determining who's the best to hire, until I get the hang of it, or, maybe, each time hiring a contractor is necessary.
In fact, when any type of major financial thing comes up (like, for instance, the one that is up, now, but will not be able to be taken care of for awhile because of the stock situation: consolidating two cars into one) I need help on it.
Probably most important of all, MFS, you can't take on stuff all by yourself. You need to be one of three. That's very important. My feeling is that the most valuable thing to come out of this conferencing will be for people to realize that this isn't a news conference about how Mom and Gail are doing, nor is it a critique on how Gail is failing and what Gail needs to do in order to remedy the situation, but the beginning of a concerted, four way effort to see to it that Mom's life stays on track.

    The more I think about the possibility of being able to rely on a few other people to make sure her business is going okay, the better I feel and the more I feel I am willing to tackle. But, you know, I can't be left alone with all this stuff for too much longer without completely losing my mind. It's one thing to be a comfortable companion to someone who is taking their final journey. I seem to be peculiarly suited to that. It's quite another to, as well, handle the complexities of that person's business. I am not peculiarly suited to that. We have lots of people in this family with a variety of talents. There is also no one in this family who does not have some empathy for the situation and for realizing that, while it may seem convenient to have Mom handled by "hire outs" when I need to get away or when her business overwhelms me, considering the resources in our family it is not only unnecessary, it would be a travesty for this to happen. I can't see that any of this won't enrich everyone's lives, as well as Mom's.
    So, MFS, I know this is just the beginning. I know there are many more things than I can think of right now that belong on the list. Feel free to add, subtract, whatever. We should be able to start setting up our first tele-conference within a month or so; maybe get out an advance directive within a couple of weeks.
    Damn, I feel better. I am very lucky, MFS, that you and I are sisters.

Yes to Hats, No to Jigsaws - To LTF

2001-08-24T12:17:00.001-07:00

The hat is, today, again, a hairpiece. The jigsaw puzzle, however, is still a trick, a nasty one. Maybe my mother has moved beyond jigsaws.

Jigsaw Hats - To LTF

2001-08-23T22:50:00.003-07:00

Two Amusing Mom Episodes:

A week or so ago my mother decided she'd like to get back into the habit of doing jigsaw puzzles when watching television. It's not a perennial interest, like crossword puzzling, but every once in awhile she gets into jigsaws. At Walmart she picked out a 3-in-one box edition from very small (100 pieces) to medium small (750 pieces). She spread the very small one out this afternoon, contemplated it, picked up this piece, picked up that one and finally, after about a half hour, announced to me, "They made this puzzle without any pieces that fit." I ambled over, started picking out sides and constructing the frame.
    "How did you do that?" she asked.
    "Well, Mom," I said, thinking she was referring to the technique which she apparently left somewhere back in her past, "I looked for the pieces with straight sides."
    "No," she corrected me, "I mean, how did you get them to fit?"
    "They're made that way," I reminded her.
    She shot me a facial "shrug" and started trying to fit side pieces together. I stopped, returned to the floor and my reading. About fifteen minutes later she said, "I don't know what you did to make these pieces fit, but I think it's a trick. You can put these things together. I'm done with them."
Today my mother also got a pastiche hairpiece at the suggestion of her hairdresser. It fills out her hair on top and allows a hairdresser to use the rest of her hair to create a decent French Twist (my mother's preferred hairstyle). It matches quite well except for the nicotine tinge of her own hair. Her hairdresser was concerned about this until I assured her that by next week's appointment the hairpiece will perfectly match her own hair. Her hairdresser laughed and agreed.
    A little while ago my mother came into my room where I was laying on the floor reading (by this time the TV volume was at a level that made it impossible for me to concentrate), nudged my foot and asked, "Will you please help me get this hat off? I can't find the hairpin."
    "It's not a hat, Mom, it's a hairpiece. You want to take it off? Okay, but I can't promise I'll be able to recreate the same look, tomorrow."

    "A hairpiece?!?" She exclaimed. "Where did it come from?"
    "You bought it today from [her hairdresser]," I reminded her.
    "No," she reminded me, "I bought a hat. I certainly am not going to bed tonight wearing a hat!"
    I helped her take the hairpiece off. Once it was on the table she picked it up, examined it and said, "This hat looks like a hairpiece!"
    "It is, Mom."
    Good, I thought. We'll be able to get this straightened out. I reviewed for herthis morning's activities.
    She interrupted me. "This is certainly a funny looking hat. I don't think I'll be wearing it very often."

Today, obviously, was one of her more creative days. Usually it's the weather that affects her. I'm not sure what it was today. Tomorrow, I'll bet, the hat will be a hairpiece again and I'll be able to practice my observations regarding fixing it into her hair while she is successfully putting together a jigsaw puzzle. With luck it'll be a hairpiece for enough days so that its hat-like properties will slip down another memory sink.
Enough creativity for one day. I'm going to bed.

More Cousins Come and Go - To LTF

2001-08-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

My mother's college roomate cousin and her husband left this morning for Northern California to see another cousin and his wife who are older than they, who are older than my mother. Although I didn't spend nearly as much time with them as my mother did (every time they took off with my mother I took advantage of the time alone to be distraught) I guess they saw me enough to be aware of my "mood", although they didn't know the circumstances. Not even my mother knows the circumstances and I doubt she was aware of my mood. As they left, my mother's cousin hugged and kissed me and said, "You need to toughen up, Gail." Then, her husband did the same and said, "No, you don't, Gail." Of the two, the cousin is the tough one. Her husband is the, hmmm, I would say "pussycat", but I know how tough cats are. I guess it would be accurate to say he's the one without calluses, the one without strategy.
Although I knew I had a choice, knew I'd made it, I thought the best choice was to be tough, the one I rejected. I guess neither of the two is the banner choice. That's nice to know.

More and More Movies - To LTF

2001-08-06T21:34:00.002-07:00

I also took my mother to see the refilming of Planet of the Apes today. I am pleased to report that she hated it. She is a fan of the entire series of original Planet of the Apes movies; she used to be able to quote dialog from them. She didn't even find the make-up, set design or more rigorous "ape-like" behavior in this "new" one impressive. She also didn't like the fact that there "wasn't much talking". Although I wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't mentioned it she's absolutely right about that. When I asked her what she thought of the story, she said, "What story?" She also asked me, "What was the point of that girl with the messy hair?" Good question. I said, "I think she was there to sell tickets." "Well," she responded, "they should have put her out in front of the theater in a thong bikini [I didn't even know she knew what a thong was although, when you read all the tabloids, you eventually end up knowing just about everything] and done something with all that hair. She wasn't doing very well on the screen." She wasn't. The theater had maybe 30 people in it and school hasn't started here, yet.

Terminal Self-Centeredness - To LTF

2001-08-05T22:08:00.003-07:00

    I had a similar occurrence, well, not really, just sort of, a few nights ago; but I was the Terminally Self-Centered. My mother and I were sitting on the floor folding clothes, two loads. When we finished I leaned back against the couch and put my feet up on one of our cat 'teepees'. Mom teasingly drew her fingers lightly up and down and around the soles of my feet. She always forgets that I'm not ticklish on the bottoms of my feet. I am, though, pretty sensitive there and if someone runs a finger around the bottoms of my feet like they are trying to tickle me it feels really, really good to me, like getting a back rub. I experience those pleasure shivers over and over and over and over and over...anyway, I reminded her that I'm not ticklish there but told her that what she was doing felt great and asked her to please continue. She did, for about 30 seconds, with a devilish grin on her face, then stopped.
    "C'mon, Mom," I said, "don't stop. That feels good."
    She laughed, threw up her hands, and turned away from me.
    I guess I really needed it because I didn't give up. After a few more tries, one of which was, "Seriously, Mom, do it seriously," (can you believe that?!?) I was reduced to, "Mom (elongated "ah" sound); please (even more elongated), just for a little while?"
    With each plea, including the last desperate one, she glanced back at me and offered a generic smile, then turned back to the television.
    I suppose it could seem like she was the terminally self-centered but she is beyond being either self or other centered anymore. I know this (although I don't think she does, she's beyond even that) so I was the one wearing the crown (of thorns, I guess).
    The major difference from your set-up is that it did make a difference to me. I was momentarily hurt. I mean, I massage the woman at least once a day, I thought, sometimes twice, depending; is it such a big deal for her to stimulate my feet (thus, the rest of me) for awhile? Even The Girls pet me with their tails when I'm petting them and if I concentrate just a little I can activate the same pleasure-shiver mechanism from their tail-pets. If the cats can do it, I reasoned in my self-centered delirium, she can. Then I realized that there were countless times during her mothering of me many years ago when she stimulated me without considering the possibility of getting it back from me. When she used to read to us, for instance, I'd get those same pleasure shivers listening to her voice, from the head down instead of the feet up, and ask her to read "one more chapter", which she always did. When I was learning to read she'd sit with me and listen to me read while I purposely made all kinds of mistakes (I had an uncanny grasp of reading and picked it up quickly and, I think, on my own; it was almost like I was born knowing phonics; she knew this; it's hard to hide this stuff when you're three and four) just because listening to the words when she was correcting me or telling me to "sound it out" caused exactly the same pleasure shivers. So, although I know she isn't thinking of her refusal this way, I have the choice of considering it part of The Ultimate Reciprocity (which isn't really reciprocity, at all), as, when I was very young, I was also incapable of being "adequately" self or other centered. I was a neophyte negotiating the beginning of life with fierce determination, just as she is a neophyte negotiating the end of life with equally fierce determination.
    It was a potent reminder that the Golden Rule, one version of which is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," does not also append, "and it will be done back to you." The Golden Rule isn't meant to be a two way street. It's meant to encourage empathy, which is not a place of "ways": Which means it is also not a karmic rule.
    So, I must tell you, and, I hope I can keep it short, that your centrifugal force method of bringing people around to your direction has worked for me once again regarding Christmas in Prescott. I've been contemplating what this will involve and although the graphic of "Our Family and Extended Family at the Base of Thumb Butte On Christmas Cozy in a House in the Forest Surrounded by Snow in Front of a Fire in High Spirits and Full of Holiday Food" would make a decent season's greetings card it hit me exactly how much work this would be and who would be doing the work. That didn't deter me until I realized that in order to pull this off we'd actually have to move up here for the month of December after settling down in the Valley for the winter and starting all the projects waiting for us there. I don't consider this production beyond my energy but I do consider it beyond our sane scope with everything else waiting for us (like replacing and shoring up the side of the Mesa house, hopefully replacing the flooring depending on whether the stock market rallies, putting that house in some much needed living order, etc.). So I sat with my mother the night before last and said, "Okay, this is what we're going to have to do to pull this off, Mom."
    "I don't want to live in Prescott in December."
    "Well it's the only logical way to pull this off. It'll be beautiful, Mom! We can have fires every night, it'll probably snow (I surreptitiously noticed her shuddering), we'll bring up all the decorations (my motherowns about 16 semis-full of Christmas decorations and insists on getting more every year); our tree will last longer up here, we could even have a live tree, it'll be so warm and cozy doing all that baking we're planning, the cats will love it (and probably ravish the tree), it'll be like those old Christmas cards with pictures of Christmas of yore. The stockings on the hearth, people sleeping all over the place, people eating all over the place..."
    "Maybe I should have thought more about this before I invited [MPS's] family up for Christmas."
    That's how this whole thing started. She has this old midwest cultural habit of inviting everyone "over here" for everything. Now, though, she does it without thinking ahead. When MPS and MPNC and MPNP were here she invited their family, including in-laws, up for Christmas, as she does every year. This year it backfired -- they accepted within a week. "Now that I'm thinking about it I'd better call [MPS] and tell them it's not a good idea." She (I told her she'd be doing it, with my supervision) will be making the call tomorrow night.
    Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you, LTF! Thank you! Thank you!

More Ancient Secrets - To LTF

2001-08-03T00:42:00.003-07:00

    I know, now, how I'll survive after my mother dies......I will be writing the following two books, non-fiction, which I'm sure will be instant best sellers:
Sleeping Your Way to Health and Longevity
and
Vegetables and Health: The Myth Exploded

    LTF, I'm going to have to stop taking my mother in for her regular check-ups. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that one of the continuing sources of anxiety for me is my mother's increasing desire to sleep and her refusal to eat anything that nutritionists say she should. When she walked into the doctor's office yesterday her regular nurse said: "Mrs. Hudson! You look better than you've ever looked! Good for you! Good work, Gail!"
    I didn't say anything. I didn't even say "Thank you," I was so shocked. A few other members of the office staff who regularly see her agreed. One of them said she looked like she'd lost a little weight. She hadn't, in fact she'd gained two pounds, so Debbie said, "You must be exercising. Muscle weighs more than fat."
    Since our regular PCP and our NP are out of town we got the new guy. He's younger than his partner and he's just as good; this clinic really knows what they're doing when they hire people. He had already reviewed my mother's history (such as it is) and was fully prepared. And, he does not believe anyone's health, elderly or not, should be micro-managed to the point of stress unless, as he said, "...medicine (not drugs, but the field of medicine) is the only thing that's keeping them alive." Her blood pressure was a little high for her (she runs low) but switching altitudes, either up or down, always does that to her. Everything else looked and sounded, "better and better". He's satisfied with her blood sugar, which ranges anywhere from 130 to 220 (depending on what she's had the night before). They took blood and will either call with the results (if there is an area of concern) or send them (if there's not). Her medication remains the same, "...keep doing what you're doing". Her bladder leakage is controlled about as much as it will ever be, her heart is good, her lungs are good. Her blood oxygen is still in what is considered to be in the high/low range but, as the doctor said, she's not showing any symptoms of COPD other than that so at this point there is no reason to treat it. Unless the tests "show something else", which no one is expecting, she's cleared for take-off.
    All I have to say, LTF, is, consider yourself lucky you're a Leo. Let me tell you what little tidbits of Leo lore have bombarded me yesterday (my mother's birthday), totally unexpected.

My mother pointed out to me a segment on a morning news show celebrating the oldest person in the U.S., a woman who is 113 years old and whose birthday was yesterday. She will be celebrating with her usual daily regimen, shots of Crown Royal Whiskey.
The phone was ringing when we arrived home from the flatlands this afternoon. MFS called to make sure Mom got the flowers, which were sitting on our doorstep when we pulled up, and mentioned during the conversation that "The Queen Mum" (England) will be turning 101 in a few days.
This evening about an hour ago I leafed through the Prescott paper and there was a huge write up on the oldest person in Prescott, a woman who celebrated her 100th birthday yesterday.

Mind you, this is not one of the "coincidences" to which I referred some time ago that causes me to continue to flirt with astrology. Generally, Sun Sign astrology is completely unreliable. But in this case, well, I'm beginning to wonder...so, I've decided, the third book in the series will be:
Long Live Leos: Plan Your Child's Birth For Maximum Longevity.
I am, of course, as usual, as always, relieved about this part of her life and what all this means about 'managing' her health. She is a true Wonder Woman. This doesn't help me with the business aspect of her life but I refuse to worry anymore about her sleeping all the time. Apparently, the more she sleeps the healthier she gets. It isn't quite as fast as working out but I guess it's just as reliable.

Peaches and gingerbread...

2001-07-27T22:58:00.003-07:00

...doesn't that sound good? An old, old gingerbread recipe so spice rich it looks like chocolate cake, baked with loads of fresh, ripe, sweet peach slices buried in the batter mmmmm, topped with lightly sweetened freshly whipped cream, flavored with rum...I tell you, LTF, we barely ate supper knowing we'd be eating what sounded like Ambrosia Cake, later.
    The whipped cream was delicious. I'm glad I thought of flavoring it. The peach/gingerbread, well, thing, was not. The cake stuff itself, I'm not sure what I did wrong but I didn't get it sweet enough, which figures. That's why I don't usually do desserts; I have a continual argument going with sugar. It baked up well; good consistency, wonderful smell; but it tasted flat; sort of like a sorghum cake, which I've only had once and will never eat again. The peaches were so sweet all by themselves I was sure I wouldn't need added sweetening especially with the cup of molasses in the cake batter. Once again, I forgot that formula everyone learns at their first birthday party when someone's mother serves lemonade or Kool-aid with frosted cake; Fructose + Sucrose = Fucking Sour. I guess I should have syruped them up, a bit.
    I still think peaches-and-gingerbread sounds wonderful and I may do something with dried peaches or cooked peaches and gingerbread, I don't know, maybe a rich glaze or something. But I won't try baking fresh peach slices into gingerbread, again. That was stupid.
    We will be able to rescue it with an old trick my grandmother used of which Mom's cousin and Mom reminded me: make bread pudding. When a cake or cookie or bread based dessert turns bad any kind of bad, believe me, I've done it successfully with the worst, break it up into large crouton sized pieces, mix it with milk and eggs (and honey or maple syrup, if necessary; in this case it will probably be necessary) in a baking pan large enough to hold it all and bake it in a moderate oven until an inserted butter knife comes out clean; can be up to an hour. You can add spices, fruit, nuts and luckily my mistake contains all these so it'll be interesting to see what we eat for dessert tomorrow night.
    At least we have four delicious peaches left.

House Luck - To LTF

2001-07-27T05:30:00.002-07:00

It is amazing, everyone who comes here to visit loves it, specifically here, the very place where we live and the surrounding area, as though our plot of land and our house are the center of the universe. As my mother once said, "Once someone visits up here, we almost can't keep them away." It's as though this very house, its very positioning, this very piece of land sits on a gurgling convergence of geographical and atmospheric pulse points and people can't get enough of it. Even my mother reluctantly feels it, sitting at the table, projecting into our panoramic view and teasing me, "I know you'll make me regret saying this, but we're awfully lucky to have this house."
She's right. On both counts.

More Visitors - To LTF

2001-07-26T11:47:00.003-07:00

I'd better get Mom up. Last night I reminded her that another of her cousins will be here tomorrow, and I think it threw her into a pre-visit rest-up frenzy.

The Peculiar Light of Inspiration - To LTF

2001-07-25T14:19:00.002-07:00

    The peculiar Mom episode...I almost forgot. I mentioned it was sort of complicated, but the retelling of the actual incident is not.
    So, MPNC and I were stretched out together on the futon couch watching some movie, I can't remember what, oh yeah, I remember, Cast Away (the best thing about the movie, I thought, was the crash and splitting the title into two words). Mom was sitting at the table in the dining room to our left. I wasn't sure where MPS and MPNP were; outside somewhere.
    MPNC said to me, "Do you smell something burning?"
    I looked around. I called out to the dining room, "Mom, did you light the filter end of a cigarette?"
    "No."
    The burning smell strengthened. "Did something ignite in your ash tray?"
    "No."
    "Are you heating something up on the stove?"
    "No."
    I finally stood up and looked up into the dining room (the living room is sunken). Mom had a roll of toilet paper to her left. She was tearing off pieces of toilet paper, rolling them into tight little sticks, lighting them with a lighter and watching them burn out in the ashtray. Some of the toilet paper sticks, I noted, must have been longer than the ashtray because there were black ashes trailing away from the ashtray on either side. I also noted that a cigarette was burning in one of the holders in the ashtray.
    I didn't even wait to digest this. I lunged forward, grabbed all the materials I could, whipped them out of her reach and scolded her for playing with fire. I ended with, "Mom, if this happens too many more times I'm going to have to take control of all the lighters in the house and you'll have to come to me every time you want a light." [Of course on later comtemplation I realize this would actually be playing into Mom's rapidly dementing "hands" and I don't want to become a Human Lighter, so maybe she won't remember that pronouncement.]
    The complication in this episode, as I see it, is that she had been under what to her would be considered stress in that MPNC had been asking her repeatedly to either smoke outside, move, or not smoke at all. I did not intervene in this. I knew that making any requests of Mom regarding her smoking or not smoking was a lost cause. I also remember all of us siblings making repeated requests of the same type, some even stronger, of my mother and father throughout our entire lives at home, most of which went unheeded. So I stay out of these types of confrontations. However, Mom had absorbed enough of MPNC's requests that she had become irritated and tense whenever she lit a cigarette and had lit several filter ends throughout the visit.
    Observing all this, it occurs to me that Mom's firebugging was a direct result of the tension she was feeling surrounding smoking during the visit. No one else, no one, said anything to her about smoking. MPS smoked outside. I had a couple of cigarettes with MPS. MPNP never said anything to Mom. MPS never said anything to Mom. I never said anything to Mom. Only MPNC did. And, I think that pushed Mom over the top and she started playing with fire.
    So, I guess when she starts playing with fire again I need to look for causes of stress. That, at least, is good to know. I wasn't sure before why she was occasionally doing these apparently alien, definitely dangerous things. However I think I am going to start an informal monitoring of lighters around here.

I must have been on cruise control... - To LTF

2001-07-20T14:54:00.003-07:00

...LTF, that's my explanation. No sooner had I isolated "Why am I such a different person with my family than I am at other times?", or, more to the point, "Why am I someone I don't like?" from your last e and (in part) answered it with a breezy, "I've never experienced this..." than I began having episodes wherein I did, indeed, notice myself become someone I don't like, twice, so far, during this round of visits, and began remembering lots of other episodes. In fact, whether I ever mentioned it to you or not, I have spent a lot of time this last year being someone I don't like as I've been handling my mother's business, especially but not exclusively the disaster end. Jesus! Anyway, while I have a break (everyone else is out shopping including Mom, she said gleefully) I wanted to alert you that I did misrepresent myself in that answer [I can't imagine why I wrote that; in fact, I can even remember long periods of time when I've endured being someone I don't like; primarily in business (which is why I can't stand "doing business" as an employee, and, often, in other roles), but often in other scenarios.].
A peculiar "Mom Episode" happened last night which really brought the message home. The whole thing is sort of complicated, so I'll e you about it later. At the moment I want to take advantage of the quiet in the house and do laundry, dishes, straighten up and pay some much needed attention to the cats (The Big Girl is heavy breathing next to me on the cedar chest and The Little Girl is stretched out in front of the computer screen; they both assumed these positions as soon as the car pulled out). Except for paying attention to the cats, I don't want to do any of the other things, I'd rather consider the episode as I frame it for you. But we need clean dishes before supper, clean clothes for outings, and I'm too schized when everyone's here from all the babbling going on to do much else but respond to people, so I'd better do the chores now.

Remembering Reality - To LTF

2001-07-18T00:12:00.004-07:00

     My mother announced yesterday morning that I am older than her. This is how it happened. I was clearing books off the floor and she asked me what "that big book" was.
     Me: "It's The Noonday Demon. It's about depression."
     Her: "How much do you remember about The Depression?"
     Although I realized she had misunderstood I decided not to correct her. Instead I said: "Nothing, Mom. I wasn't born, yet."
     She looked at me as though I'd attempted to play a rude trick on her and said: "Of course you were! You're older than me!"
     I laughed. "Mom," I said, "I was born in 1951 and you were born in 1917. I think that makes you older than me."
     She looked out the window and said, "You could be right."
     By now you know what that means: "You are most certainly wrong, Gail, but I know how sensitive you are, so I won't mention it."
     The funny thing is, in attitude, she is, in a way, right. Moodiness, despair, those things don't exist anywhere in my mother's gene pool as far as I know. I also know from experience that these qualities are associated with "old age" in her family, even though people in her family live forever without every experiencing moodiness or despair. People in her family also never consider themselves or each other "old". It's all those other people out there who get old and mordant. I can still remember my Grandmother in her 80's coming home from cooking for "Meals on Wheels" and talking about "all those poor old people" at the Center, most of whom were in their 60s and 70s.
     So it seems appropriate that my mother would consider me older than her. I'm not concerned about what that means about who I am to her now. Although I am usually still Gail, I don't think I've been her daughter for a long time. It's funny, because I tend to consider myself, privately, barely (and not much more competent than) 11; but to my mother I'm pushing 110. Or maybe I'm 49 and she's 9. I'm not sure. It reminds me of that rhetorical question, "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?" To my mother, I guess, the question is, "Since I can't remember how old someone is, how old do they seem to be?" Maybe the answer to that question is more informative than knowing how many years a person has been hanging around.
     You know, LTF, I'm convinced that the best way to respond to the type of memory failure my mother exhibits is not to consider it a failure but to consider the reality she perceives in the absence of her memory. Sometimes, I think, it's a good idea for me to correct her. But many times what she "remembers" tells me much more about her and her world (and mine) than the facts behind her garble.

Beginning of Another End - To MFS

2001-07-12T18:35:00.003-07:00

MPNC, Mom and I saw Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within today. MPNC loved it. Mom slept through it (she even snored; then, on the way out of the theater, complained that the movie was too loud).

Nap Wisdom - To LTF

2001-07-09T20:40:00.001-07:00

My mother's last word on naps (I mentioned naps to her when I told her you had been on the phone; she said to "Oh! Be sure and tell [you] 'Hi!'") was, "They are why I get up in the morning." The funny thing about this is, when she sleeps through the entire morning and stays up through the afternoon and evening I can count on her saying, through a yawn, at some point before the News, "I know why I'm so tired, I didn't get a nap today."

Cause for Celebration - To LTF

2001-07-05T10:45:00.002-07:00

Although there was no family get together this year (thank god, I needed a break from visits), July 4th was pretty quiet, I got a lot of reading done, the fireworks were a success and helped me out, in a way. While we were at the fireworks display I ran into some people I know and see on a regular basis here in Prescott. Although few of them have met my mother they all know about her and greeted her as though she was an old friend. My mother was overwhelmed. On our way home she said, "I didn't realize how many people you know up here," and later, "I may have to start going along with you when you go to your meetings and such." I don't actually expect her to become Mrs. Senior Prescott. I'll be surprised, in fact, if she goes anyplace I usually go on my own. But I got the feeling that she is beginning to understand how it is that I can consider Prescott one of our homes. Maybe she will, too. Although she rarely sees any of the people she knows in Mesa they are a community of which she considers herself a part. I'm hoping that last night was the beginning of her accepting the community I have built up here as her own.

Nobody Likes to Be Ordered Around - To LTF

2001-06-29T14:04:00.005-07:00

     I am spending most of today steering my mother in the direction of her appointments and lunch "out". So, it was with great relief that I received your e saying that you feel I am doing more good than harm. Thank you for saying this. I can remember what it was like to feel this way about my time with her. I can even remember what it felt like to write you about her from that attitude. So maybe this assurance is not so far away that I can't recover it. MPS, quite to my surprise, also called to confirm this for me last night. I guess she had talked to MCF who told her that she thought I was "finally going crazy" (as though bets are being taken on how long I can stay sane in this environment). There is still something I'm wrestling with in regards to this issue, otherwise, of course, I'd believe as you and MPS do.

     As I know I've mentioned to you, my mother does the same thing your father does: Refuses my good advice on diet and then, later, when it's not my advice, follows it. However, as she is forgetting to eat (which reminds me of something that occurred to me, earlier this morning, specifically when I was fixing her breakfast and thinking about my mother and food, I'll cover it at the *'d Place) she pretty much eats whatever is handy when she is reminded. She is refusing fewer varieties of food lately, although she gets sick of anything with tomatoes in any condition very quickly. I made a great little vegetable rice dish the other night out of which she meticulously picked the vegetables. Then she smothered what was left with ketchup (ketchup, I guess, isn't tomatoes to her).

*'d Place:  I was thinking about how the hunger pangs of starvation in vital people are very distinct, overwhelming, and extremely painful. People, when vital, do not easily die of starvation. However, apparently when a body becomes very old, it changes its reaction to starvation. My mother could probably survive without being malnourished on her supplements alone. But it seems to me that I recall reading about starvation in Final Exit and, although I remember nothing specific, I do remember getting the surprising impression that starvation, when one's body is on it's way out, is not rigorous and is usually also combined voluntarily in its final stages with dehydration from the refusal to take liquids. Not being interested in eating anymore maybe goes hand in hand with one's body not really being interested in getting up again.

To Be or Not to Be - To LTF

2001-06-28T17:48:00.003-07:00

    While yesterday began pleasantly enough it ended excruciatingly, not because of anything in particular; because of me. When I returned home I did not trust myself to talk so I fed my mother, petted The Girls, let them sniff me for dog and went to bed. Revived, I headed out this morning and before 1400 I was home realizing I needed to sit back and breathe deep for awhile. So I've been spending the afternoon isolated in the back marking areas for path clearing and thinking about one thing in particular: Trying to determine how much harm I'm doing my mother from both a personal and a business standpoint and balancing this against the good I'm doing her.
    Over the last few days I've taken a different course of action with her. I'm not badgering her anymore about going here or there with me or even going someplace she might enjoy. I ask her once, accept her "no" and go on about the day. This is very, very, very hard for me to do. It is especially hard when she is awake to keep myself from slipping into 'entertainment' mode. When we had our I'm Going to Force the Issue talk I asked her how she visualized our life together when she decided to ask me to live with her. She said she imagined us "doing things together." She elaborated on this by mentioning all the things we did do together for several years. Then she started listing all the things I've been trying to get her to do for the last year or so that she simply has refused to do. I didn't have the heart to respond that she is refusing "on the spot" to do all the things she thinks she wants us to do together "in the future".
    It is just as hard to macro-manage my mother as it was to micro-manage her.
    It has occurred to me that determination isn't what's needed here, decision is, the decision to do one thing or another and that's that rather than wondering which would be 'best'. But I haven't found myself comfortable with this strategy yet. I keep thinking that some episode or event will occur that will illuminate one or the other action beyond a doubt.
    I don't know, LTF. All I really want to figure out is whether she and all aspects of her life would be better off with or without me. I'm not afraid of coming to the conclusion that she is better off without me. I'm not afraid of realizing that she is better off with me. I'm afraid, really, of my continued stumbling around in this oblivion of confusion. I'm afraid of what it's doing to my mother and to me.

Going to the Movies Again - To LTF

2001-06-28T08:14:00.004-07:00

Time is going so slow that I thought today was going to be yesterday, and now I owe a late fee on Unbreakable. Mom was not interested in watching it again. She hasn't liked any of Shyamalan's movies so far and I understand why.
She surprised me by liking My Dinner with Andre so much that we watched it twice. That was a treat. She hated A Woman Under the Influence.

One last non-lesson... - To LTF

2001-06-26T09:11:00.003-07:00

...absolutely no advice on your reservations about the possibility of becoming your father's caretaker someday and the clash of your natures. Just empathy. I know what you mean. Damn.
The awful thing for me is that I'm ambivalent about the concept of "working" on relationships, hard or otherwise. It's not that I don't or don't want to. It's that I think it's very easy to place too much emphasis on working (used as a verb, not an adjective) relationships and work one to death. I do not, however, feel that way in regards to my relationship with my mother. But I don't find the work hard, although I do find it unsettlingly consuming. This, however, may be due to an aspect (or two, or eighteen) of my character and not the requirements of the job itself. I'm not sorry I accepted this "job". I'm just sorry that I don't always handle it well.
Hmm, I just happened to think, there is a way I intuitively nurture MCF's father that I started using as a logically chosen 'technique' with no idea whether it would work or not. I picked it up from my experience with my mother. Whenever I see him now I moisturize the skin on his legs and arms and feet and hands with hot towels and massage lotion into them. The only reason I even thought to do this is that after a while of knowing him when he became comfortable with me he also started pushing my buttons. I watch him do this with his daughter all the time and it infuriates me. Anyway, when confronting him directly didn't work (he's a pistol of a man and looks forward to any opportunity to shoot) I decided that touching him might. It does. When I first suggested this he resisted, claiming he didn't want to be sissied and he hated the feel of lotion. His skin, however, was so dry and neglected it was leaving pits where large flakes of skin brushed off. His feet were close to disgusting. So, knowing this would work, I shamed him into "letting" me "treat his skin". When I first started doing it, while I did it I talked about how good this would be for his skin, commented on how hypersensitive and how stiff his feet were, talked about all the acupressure points on the soles of feet that can rejuvenate the whole body if they are stimulated, etc. Anyway, now MCF's father is much less combative with not only me but everyone who is there when I'm visiting. MCF and her husband [He is a big proponent of massage and does it very well but never thought to apply this to getting along with his father-in-law; he, however, was the one who suggested I do this with my mother and I shall be forever grateful to him for the instruction.] have both mentioned it. I've also realized how pleasurable it is for me to gain information about people in this way. I'm presenting this anecdote to illustrate that you, personally, needn't be afraid of conscious 'applied' intuitive nurturing. Sometimes initiating a random activity that will bring you closer to someone opens up an automatic avenue for intuitive nurturing. I'm thinking of this in connection with your dad. If you are ever in a similar situation with him as I am with my mother, consider avoiding the actual issue that is causing a deadlock and just connecting on a completely non-related level. Touching is a really effective tactic (pun intended).

Taking on Another's Life - To LTF

2001-06-25T02:22:00.003-07:00

    I don't like to think that I'm so fucking grateful to be alive that I'm willing to subsume my life in the life of the person by whose means I am surviving right now. I don't think this is true. But, per your conjecture that there is no boundary between my mother's life and mine, I've always had a talent for extreme introjection. It is the reason, I'm sure, that living alone is so comforting for me. This talent might be unfortunate for me in cases like my being my mother's caretaker (although fortunate for her). You know what I did about 5 days ago? Just out of curiosity, to remember what I was doing to music as I stopped listening to it, I dug out the antenna to the stereo radio and tuned, at random, to some stations to listen to music. It was amazing. I heard the violins (and other instruments and voices) the way I imagine my mother hears them without any work on my part. It was like I was wearing her ears. It scared the shit out of me to realize how powerful one's mind can be. I know my hearing is fine. I know my mind is, well, promiscuous, to say the least. I have to guard against that with most people. Occasionally I find someone who doesn't have that effect on me and that is always a pleasure but it doesn't happen often.
    I'm not going to go into detail, but I do "have a life" of my own, dictated by circumstances other than handling my mother's life and being with her, such that I have to remind my mother of it a couple of times a day and it always surprises her. Her constant surprise and need for reminders from me, well, sometimes it's trying. And, that life, of course, has it's unique ups and spectacular downs, as well. My life is about the usual: discovery, relationships, achievement. I'm too self-possessed for that to have changed.
    See, part of the problem is, people assume that "introjection" is self-sacrificing/self-denigrating behavior. It isn't (or, at least, it doesn't have to be). It's an information gathering technique and some few of us consciously use it for this reason as well as for the pleasure. It's difficult to explain but highly introjective people are not necessarily suffering from a lack of self-esteem. In fact, for those of us who use this technique excessively, it takes a very high degree of self-possession to keep from losing track of oneself. In order to be self-possessed one must enjoy oneself. I have to admit, my introjective abilities have been tested lately. But it's not the introjection I'm fighting. It's that, not being good at the kind of survival skills with which my mother built her life, I am doubting my ability to actually keep her on her feet. And that is the job to which I agreed.

The Aging of Time - To LTF

2001-06-05T12:57:00.001-07:00

About 15 minutes ago I took some mail out to our box and saw the collapsed shed out in front and thought, "That's still HERE!?!" I realized it has been less than 48 hours since the shed was tackled, let alone laid out in front weighted down with adobe bricks (the wind has been vigorous, here, the last few days). Then, I realized something else: It seems as though everything that has happened in the recent past (like, from a minute ago to a couple of months ago) happened years, even decades ago. I have been, it seems, feeling that way for awhile. It seems as though MFS visited last year and my mother's cousin, well, maybe over the fall holidays. It seems as though the last time I gave my mother pills was three or four days ago, not this morning.
I wonder what that means, when time stretches to the point that one's life is telescoped almost beyond recognition. I wonder when I'm going to start feeling as though I'm not living my life, anymore, just watching someone who looks strikingly like me negotiate a seemingly unrelated series of events to which, for some reason, I seem to be tuned.

A Trick of Sound - To LTF

2001-06-04T19:09:00.003-07:00

     I spoke with a woman today who cleared up the mystery for me about why music has been successively irritating me.
     "Your mother's hard of hearing, isn't she?" she asked me.
     "Yes, but, she has always liked music."
     "Is she hard of hearing from age or from an injury?"
     From multiple injuries, although age has accentuated the loss. When she was very young she suffered from horrible ear infections. Throughout those years she had both eardrums lanced, one twice.
     "That's the problem," said this woman. It seems that finding sound irritating is very common among the elderly as they lose their hearing but especially so (and especially progressive) when someone has suffered direct injury to the ear drum, which, essentially, is what lancing is. "You're stepping in to help control your mother's environment on her behalf so whatever irritates her is going to irritate you."
     The interesting thing is that my mother has always been irritated by all music produced by stringed instruments stroked by bows. She also has a problem with music produced by reeded instruments. When I decided to teach myself how to play the oboe, after one practice session, even though I did quite well, I was banished to the butler building (which functioned as a community hall) down the street to practice. The saxophone, overall, didn't bother her but when I was playing with a dry or a crumbing reed it did.
     I am remembering that sound of all kinds has always been a minefield for my mother. She was very pleased that two of us took up music to varying degrees (there are professional musicians on her side of the family), but she never attended any of my performances (I'm the only one who ever performed in public) and practicing away from home was very common for me. It seems as though we always had some sort of music playing from records and tapes at home but, now, as I recall, I was the one who was playing it and I rigged up, very early, a set of headphones with auxiliary cords connected to it so I could travel out into the garage and paint "to music".
     I also now notice that I am constantly regulating the sound on the television for her because she likes to watch television but there is much of it that simply can't negotiate her ears or that she finds irritating and she can't get the hang of using a remote. I've become her remote. I can tell from the way she moves her head or readjusts herself in the chair whether the sound needs to go up or down. Sometimes it's so automatic that I can control whole programs without her ever complaining about the sound. It occurred to me, happily, that maybe she will eventually find television too irritating to watch.
     Anyway, this woman and I talked about this. She is, I suppose I should tell you, a therapist (Ph.D in Psychology). We met to another purpose but having an interest in the caretaking of the elderly because some of her clients are elder caretakers and having heard about my situation through mutual friends, she and I got into this discussion about the effect taking care of my mother has had on my life. This hearing quirk came up under the category of "odd circumstances".
     I think she's right. Even more interesting, APF was eavesdropping (this Prescott Friend has the ability to eavesdrop on everyone, everywhere, all the time) and being, also, the type of person for whom everything is a problem in need of a solution, she piped up, "So, what are you going to do about it?" What is interesting is that both the psychologist and I responded simultaneously, "Nothing."
     Really, now that I understand why this is happening (I can't believe it was this simple) I don't feel the need to do anything. I can think about the condition now without pain and am even adding some history to it. The psychologist suggested that I try reintroducing music in the car when I'm driving alone, but the music on NPR, what little of it there is, sometimes gets to me and I am in the car alone more often than not, now. When my mother is in the car the radio is always off unless I must listen to the traffic reports, through which she complains. The radio irritates her right to the outer reaches of her sanity.
    I don't think it's to my detriment to be sensing for someone else for part of my life. I am relieved to know that these sensitivities fall away when they are no longer necessary; at least that's what the psychologist reports. Since talking with her I've been thinking of parents who have trouble dropping nurturant behaviors that are no longer necessary. I guess, really, the advantage I will have is that when I stop nurturing my mother it will be because she is dead and it won't occur to me to continue trying to nurture her.

Shed Razing - To LTF

2001-06-04T02:39:00.002-07:00

The backyard is open, now. It only took a couple of hours to pull down the shed. The weather was perfect. I don't think it got above 80º F. All afternoon a gusty wind sung in our several stands of adolescent elms which are going to be barbered back, soon. This type of elm, colloquially called "piss elm", is a nuisance on the order of thistle weeds. The sky was the same Earl Scheib blue as one of MCF's T-shirts. Everyone was in a good mood. We (including my mother, who said, several times throughout the day, "Now, where did the shed go?" and "Now, just what is it you folks are doing?") wandered all over the property, redesigning the landscaping out loud.

Overall, it went well... - To LTF

2001-06-01T16:25:00.003-07:00

...really. If it had gone extremely well, though, I wouldn't be taking out a moment from facing down an impossibly busy 36 hours to relate (probably, the word "confess" would be better, even though you aren't a priest) The One Hard Moment to you.
    The Cast: Eight of us, including MPBIL's dad and stepmother, MPNP of course, it was his celebration, MPNC, MPS, Mom and me. I feel as though I should capitalize "me".
    We were at an Italian restaurant for MPNP's celebratory graduation meal seated "family style", Me second to the last on the booth side, Mom catty corner from me on the other side. We all know each other very well and often pick seats at such dinners according to spur of the moment conversation. As it happened, MPNC and Mom had been having a lively conversation. I was feeling excellent and having a lively, fairly loud time, myself. Everyone was feeling so good the entire table forgot to say grace. This is a long way of saying I became totally and happily caught up in the event. The dinner lasted exactly two hours. First bread was served with salad, then dinners were passed around. My mother ordered a lasagna/spaghetti plate.
    I became aware of her somewhere deep into the eating-dinner portion of the soiree, maybe a half hour before we left. From her position at the other end of the table she had become cut off from conversation. She had what looked like a long empty salad plate in front of her, a large, rapidly cooling plate of lasagna/spaghetti to her right and was completely absorbed in what I later understood was the Puzzle of the Plates. We were all zestfully polishing off our entrees but she hadn't begun hers. I flushed in horror that I had lost track of her for so long that, well, that this had happened. I understood the scenario, immediately: She hadn't voluntarily pushed her salad plate away and since she had forgotten, almost before she uttered it, what she'd ordered because she was caught up in the merriment when her entree was served she didn't recognize it. She thought it was someone else's. Luckily, she had helped herself, MPBIL's dad (he had been noticing her out of the corner of his eye) assured me, over and over to salad (she likes Antipasto salad except for the black olives, which she normally and without a word passes onto my plate) and pretty much chowed down on the Renewing Breadbasket. I was somewhat relieved to hear this but I was, and still am, very, I hate to use this word but I'm in such a hurry that I don't have time to think of another, "conflicted" about what happened. On the one hand I certainly don't regret the good time I had. Frankly, if I'd been sitting next to her I would have just as good a time. And being aware of her behavior and short term memory in restaurants (it always happens that she doesn't remember what she orders) I would have been alert to reminding her, "Mom, you have lasagna and spaghetti here to eat." Ironically, I was the one who semi-arranged our seating by noticing that the chairs sat higher to the table than did the booth and, knowing she would sink table-to-chin on the booth side, I nonchalantly directed her to the chair side and didn't notice where she sat. I feel more angst-ridden than guilty. My mother, most of the time, is alert enough to eat when she is very hungry. Welllll..., almost most of the time. She is getting to the place where she needs to be reminded to eat. I'm not planning on reducing my fun or what should more accurately be called my sense of fun; it enlivens my mother's life. I guess I just have to keep better track of her. I don't think my dropping of attention was a Freudian slip. I know that "Grandma" and MPNC headed over to the corner because it was the least noisy and they were conversing. I also know I ended up at the other end because I was one of the celebrators making noise. But my heart aches that I allowed this to happen and that it could happen again. Luckily, none of the incident caused Mom to feel bad or to under eat. But I know she was lost in her own little world for about an hour, give or take, and could have been partaking of the revelry. Damn. I'm going to try to be more observant.

Dueling Dispositions - To LTF

2001-05-30T14:27:00.004-07:00

    My mother's cousin is gone. It was a good visit. My mother was more active than usual. Her cousin eats exactly the same foods as my mother with one exception. She is a "meat, potatoes and mixtures" (mixtures without discernable vegetables, that is) person. The potatoes are the exception. My mother is a bread person instead of a potatoes person. What is it about my mother's generation of farm belt natives that they lead long, sturdy lives without the aid of vegetables???
    Her cousin also announced when she arrived that she "needs a nap or two during the day." It was like having four cats in the house and not just because of the sleeping! I established a routine with my mother when I first arrived to live with her to make sure she gets touched and stimulated enough her skin doesn't dry out and she purrs at least once a day: After she bathes I massage lotion into every part of her that isn't covered by underwear. When I did this on Sunday Mom's cousin mentioned that it looks relaxing. My mother assured her it is. From that day through this morning I included Mom's cousin in the routine. When I do this with my mother the cats array themselves close around waiting for their turn at what I've come to call a "full body pet" (sans lotion for The Girls). One of the many satisfactions of the visit for me was the hour or so when I had four beings hanging out in the living room in various stages of undress waiting to be petted into a late morning nap.
    She also loved the hot chocolate (no orange extract, thank you), and insisted we have it every evening much to my mother's delight. My mother's blood sugar rose a bit but I'm not worried; her spirits followed.
    In the meantime, MCS called back. She and her husband have decided to drive out sometime before June 22nd, which is when her daughter and family arrive, and stay at a motel. She seemed relieved and excited about the visit. I assured her there would be no problem with spending the days they were here outside.
    My mother's cousin loves television and introduced my mother to several shows that I shudder to think will now be a permanent feature of the background noise here in the evening. She follows all the "reality" shows which, luckily, do not interest my mother. Doubly luck, none of them (of which Mom's cousin knew) were being televised while she was here but baseball was and she's a fanatic. She watched all the games she was in the house to catch.
    At one point we saw a commercial for a new reality show. I watched the commercial trying to figure what is so attractive about these shows. As the commercial reviewed the set-up I was struck by the fact that it described the outcasting, week-by-week, of one of the "contestants" with as much glee as it described the coming together of 12 (I think that was the number) into a close knit, interdependent community. Suddenly I thought, shit! That's it! People are enthralled by these little dramas because we are overcrowding ourselves and starting to practice for what will become, again, of our sense of the human community (since human overcrowding on a limited scale has been going on forever and is what has encouraged frontiersmanship, which is impossible in regards to land, anymore) until we thin ourselves out enough to be relatively comfortable again. I don't think this is inevitable. We do have the ability to think beyond aggression and, as we have occasionally shown, to act beyond aggression. Whether and when we will this time is another question. But I'm still glad my mother has no interest in these shows.
    Mom's cousin's visit involved only one "bad" day: Monday. I woke up in a pit and had trouble climbing out. I tried to hide my distress with a "bearish", according to Mom's cousin, silence. Then I started sobbing over a skillet of bacon. About halfway through a very trying day (for me, not for my mother and her cousin; they are both unaffected by others' bad moods) I realized that it was the day after the last day of my period. I learned a long time ago that this is always a horrible day for me but it always takes me by surprise. It is especially surprising for me now because my periods, while no fewer (in fact, I'm having a few more a year than I was when I wasn't menopausal), no longer follow a schedule. In the last year I've had everything from a 7 day cycle with a 2 day flow similar to an artery being sliced to a 73 day cycle (the one I just completed) with a 12 day flow that was so light I wasn't ever sure until the day-after day if I was still flowing. Anyway, when I realized this and explained myself Mom's cousin suggested that it was probably menopausal and I should "go to a doctor and get it over with". I tried explaining to her that if I was being affected by the hormone fluctuations of menopause I couldn't tell it and saw no reason to dispel them because I've always considered my mood fluctuations phenomenal, interesting and have nurtured rather than controlled them. I also explained that the only menopausal symptom I believe I'm experiencing is outrageous cycles, which I can live with, so I don't see any reason to treat myself.
    Actually, I've been taking soy isoflavone pills for several months hoping they might even out the cycles, but they're having absolutely no effect. Now I'm taking them because soy isoflavones are supposed to be good for your memory, according to my mother, who takes by choice 9 different supplements every morning. She's been a vitamin addict ever since I can remember. When I was very young she'd pass out these horrible tasting, round, orange vitamins that I would hold in my mouth until she turned her back. Then I'd place them under the leg of a chair which, of course, rendered our dining room chairs somewhat less mobile than normal.
    My mother's cousin didn't get it but my mother leaned into her and confided, much to my surprise, "She's always been like that. If you just wait her out she'll be fine in a day or so. It makes life interesting." What a statement for my mother to make! I immediately laughed and dropped the guilt I've been feeling for being so unlike my mother, emotionally. Apparently it doesn't bother her that I'm not perpetually sunny.
    Time for me to pay bills, do some surface cleaning in preparation for the Pull-Apart-The-Shed Party, which will happen this Sunday and prepare for our trip to Mesa tomorrow.
    As a footnote, I am falling behind again but at least I am not unplugging the phone.

Visit Vexation - To LTF

2001-05-26T19:14:00.004-07:00

     MCS called this afternoon to cancel her trip. My understanding is that canceling plane reservations this late usually means forfeiting the fare. I guess cash occasionally bows to other "c" words, like cancer.
     When MFS was here she and MPS and Mom and I called MCS to say hello and check on her plans. MFS mentioned to me that even though this house in Prescott isn't nearly as inundated with cigarette smoke as the one in Mesa and is open she can still smell it in everything. So can I. MFS said she wanted to mention that to MCS and I told her to go ahead. She should know how this home affects someone who is used to living in a non-smoking home.
     And, you know, I, too, tried to make sure MCS was aware of this before she had made up her mind to visit. I suspect that MCS is wondering if she will ever "be able" to visit her mother again or if she will want to. I know Mom would love to see MCS again and I don't think that'll happen if it depends on us visiting MCS. I think Mom is pretty much beyond long distance travel.
     It's very weird, living with someone for whom a habit that was considered benign, at least society thought it was benign at the time she took it up, is now considered just a bit less terrible than Armageddon. There's little chance that she'll quit or even agree that it's a dangerous habit. It's especially weird for me trying to negotiate her habits (her eating habits are constantly under scrutiny by her other daughters, as well; when they visit we always end up with a kitchen full of food, half of which I throw out because I'm the only one who eats it and the rest spoils) with those of her other daughters and feeling as though, when my mother gets together with her other daughters, there is a screen hanging between them and her; a screen erected by my sisters in order to protect themselves from her life. MCS has expressed concern that my life with our mother may be unhealthy for me and wondered if I worried about this. No. I don't. I'm not concerned about whether taking care of my mother for the rest of her life is somehow endangering my life. As I see it, there's from which nothing I need to protect myself.
     I hope, now, that my mother lives long enough so that MCS feels comfortable visiting with her before either of them dies.
     Time for a last house check before Mom's cousin arrives. My mother's been trying to get me to "try out" the hot chocolate recipe before her cousin gets here, just in case it "needs work". I'm not buying that tonight. She's in a good mood. I think this visit with her cousin will alleviate the disappointment she feels over MCS's decision to "wait until sometime later". In fact, if the two visits had been allowed to happen there's some question in my mind which of the two my mother would have appreciated more. It seems, as she gets older, it's not her children she misses, it's her peers. More about that, later.

"You know, I miss you around here" - To MFS

2001-05-23T23:46:00.002-07:00

So you have to come back!

My mother's disposition... - to LTF

2001-05-23T05:54:00.004-07:00

...throughout The Visit: decidedly horizontal. LTF, she slept away a good two thirds of an extremely active double visit. Most of the time she slept on the futon couch in the living room as activity swirled around her. Nothing bothered her. She ate and drank an adequate amount and her blood sugar remained steady, but she slept more than I've seen her sleep in a long time. While it is true that it takes her a good couple of weeks to acclimate to the elevation while it takes me one morning walk, it seemed to me that her sleeping was excessive, although there was also something beatific about her sleeping amidst the vital family for whose existence she is responsible.
    At first I was embarrassed. Everyone else, though, seems to take her sleeping much more easily than I do. I ran that thought I had when I was e-ing you, a while back, by MFS and MPS: That not being successful at getting her up might be elder abuse. At the same time I expressed the opposing thought that as long as her will is independent and she has a sense of herself she should be allowed under mild duress (sometimes I am able to convince her to stay up and do something rather than take another nap) to do what she wants as long as she does not appear to be in immediate danger; danger, of course, being of shady definition. Added to that, I admitted that I sometimes feel guiltily responsible for her prolonged sleep cycles (they aren't constant but seem to be constantly progressive) because the time alone it allows me to write, read, edit, think, garden, rearrange, quite suits my character. Thus, I may not notice if such a behavior was damaging to her. Both MPS and MFS were unconcerned that I might be doing her harm. MFS was very clear, citing me exhibiting both strategies (letting her sleep and harassing her into awareness and activity), that in her opinion the harassment was the elder abuse at this stage of the game.
    Both of them, much more social than I, expressed concern that I was too "isolated" but did not flinch, in fact understood without explanation, when I laughed and reminded them that isolation is not a problem for me, it is a gift. I wondered aloud if either of them thought my "gift" might not be so to our mother. Neither of them is concerned about that either. They both thought the overall impression of the weekend/week (Mom sleeping in and through the middle of everything, usually fully clothed after having been coaxed through a bath, being jostled awake occasionally, checking to notice at what point she'd merged into the activity, approving, commenting, then returning "offline") was perfectly natural, appropriate and reassuring.
    When we returned home from the airport yesterday morning Mom asked me when I would "be going back". I assumed she meant Seattle. I told her I wouldn't. "Good," she said. "You can stay with me."

When They Go - To MFS

2001-05-23T05:22:00.003-07:00

    Are you back in Jax yet?!?
    I mean mentally, of course.
    The Big Girl looked for you yesterday. When I told her you had gone back home she said, "But, I was just beginning to like her! I decided I wanted to play with her! How could she leave after I was beginning to think that she should stay?!?"
    I told her I'd run that question by you.
    Mom says the house is too empty without you. She's right. It is. While I slept all afternoon (I went back to bed after you called) Mom stayed up. She never fails to amaze me. I'm going to give her a day of rest today then get her out walking at the square tomorrow. On the weekend we'll go back down and close up the house. Neither of us has the energy to do what needs to be done in the heat in Mesa, which is just as well. It's going to be hovering around 110¡ down there, today. See what happens when you leave? Everything goes to hell!

Delightful Dinner Disaster - To LTF

2001-05-14T04:03:00.003-07:00

Dinner last night was horrible and perfect. Weird. We made reservations for the patio on which three other families celebrating Ancient Mothers were seated at approximately the same time. Almost immediately the restaurant wait staff began a series of apologies for shortage after shortage; food, silverware, plates, napkins, even wait staff. It was amazing! The four of us families passed overages from table to table, complained a little (mostly the kids) but ended up having this wonderful community picnic in which everyone shouldered the "burden" so no one was actually burdened. The management was very solicitous. We all got huge discounts, free drinks, appetizers and gift certificates for dinners. Everyone agreed that this was one of the few memorable Mothers' Days in their lives. There was even a crochety 87 year old patriarch who roared his displeasure on his wife's behalf several times as his wife reminded him that "This isn't Fathers' Day. You'll get your turn next month." In the meantime all the Old Ones told stories about similar experiences in their lives. It was especially gratifying that my mother and a few members of her generation got to participate in an event so obviously mismanaged as this one. Doing the best with what one's got is something her generation turned into an art. I think it delighted her and her peers at the Porterhouse, last night, to be asked one more time for the good of the citizenry to make lemonade out of lemons.

Mothering from a Daughter's Perspective - To LTF

2001-05-13T16:13:00.003-07:00

While I am waiting for my mother to contemplate bathing, do the bathing then get ready to go to a steakhouse (I'm actually in the mood for steak, tonight) for her Mother's Day Dinner, I am thinking about what you said about how mothers should be celebrated on their children's birthdays and my response. I am also thinking about my own mother's style of mothering, which did not involve micro-management. Her style of mothering was very much like my father's initial driving instruction to those of us he taught to drive, "Correct it, don't drive it." She was a very low key mother just as she is now a very low key mother-in-law, grandmother and great grandmother. I think she views mothering as something you just do, like waking up, going to the bathroom, eating and sleeping; and, a label you wear. After all, it seems that the species is bound to continue, for awhile at least. So, one of the things you do as you are alive is you make other people and get them started; rear them, I love that word. It has never seemed to bother her that one of her daughters didn't do that. It isn't a particular pleasure either that three of her daughters did. I have heard people say that this casual, just-do-it style of mothering is what was wrong with the way their mothers or other mothers parented. I think, though, that it worked; a sort of mundane, get-the-kid-raised attitude. I think that when parents get too involved with parenting kids get too involved with being parented. I don't have any theories about to what this leads. Probably nothing specific, as usual. I suppose if I had been raised having play dates scheduled, overloaded with extracurricular activities and having my parent go to bat for me at school instead of having to go to bat for myself, micro-parent-managing would probably be a great way to be parented. I imagine it is helpful, at the very least, to have someone keep track of your schedule. I have nieces and nephews who are products of that type of parenting, they of the hypersocial future, where "private thoughts" is an oxymoron. I like that idea. When I was very young I expressed it as a drive to live "inside out", which I continue to do. I guess I'm surprised to find that one does not have to be an isolationist to do this.
The bath water is draining so I'm off to put lotion on my mother then take her to dinner where we will probably discuss all the stuff above and more. My mother enjoys hearing about the parenting part of her life from her "victims'", as she says, point of view. That's one thing I like about being with her at this time in her life. I love watching her look back on her life and analyze it. It's surprising what matters to an 83 year old. It's also surprising what doesn't.

Not wanting to sleep... - to LTF

2001-05-12T23:45:00.004-07:00

...has translated into Not Being Able to Sleep, an unusual phenomenon for me. I'm having those bizarre stuck-dream episodes where I'm half in contact with reality, enough to know I have no control and can't move away from where ever the hell the other part of me is. "Night terrors", I think they're called. I usually get an hour to an hour and a half of sleep before one of these dream spasms throws me up against a wall and my struggle finally wakes me up. It doesn't seem to matter when I try to sleep. Because I'm getting so little sleep I'm trying to catch some during the afternoon. It's peaceful enough with everyone else asleep and the whole outside wafting through the house from every direction. I stopped drinking coffee a little over 24 hours ago thinking it might be that but it wasn't.
Conversely, sleeping is all my mother seems to be able to do right now. It always takes her a week or so to adjust. I hope she opts for not accompanying me down to the Valley on Monday and Wednesday when I pick up MFS. I think even if she sleeps her ass off all day up here she'll be better off than if she goes back and forth. Sometimes I wonder if letting her sleep is a form of elder abuse.
A baby wolf spider (which is about as big as a typical adult house spider and hairy) just sauntered down the wall and away down the hall. I'm the only one in the household who likes spiders. I am constantly protecting them from the cats and the mother. I think the spiders know this because I only see them at night anymore.

A Continuing Pleasure - To LTF

2001-05-11T11:51:00.002-07:00

I'm sure there're many things I should be doing outside the home today. But there's lots to do here, putting stuff away (my mother has too much stuff and she is a stuff person so getting rid of it will have to wait until she no longer recognizes it which may never happen), cleaning out the bathrooms, wiping the floors down, discussing the ins and outs of this area with the cats: They've already spit at a variety of passing creatures through the back arcadia screen door.

Always a Pleasure - To MFS

2001-05-11T11:33:00.003-07:00

Well, it's just so damn beautiful and refreshing up here I think we're just going to hang out today and enjoy the view, both inside and out. I've been putting things away all morning. I was so excited about waking up in Prescott that I woke up at 0230! The kitties were excited, too. I went back to bed about 0500 and reawoke at 1000. Mom is sweeping [To the reader: Family vernacular for "sleeping"; long history; don't ask]. She was up earlier when it was so exciting. We had the house open last night. It was wonderful!
So on Monday we go down and close out the other house. Then we come back up. On Wednesday one or both of us goes to pick you up in Phoenix. Then, The Best Day Of My Or Anyone Elses' Whole Damn Life commences. I hope you're ready for this. I mean it!

Working Around Dementia - To MFS

2001-05-11T03:10:00.002-07:00

I finally decided, fuck it, and got rid of the idea of us having answering machines. I got rid of our "speed dialing" feature and we now have Voice Messaging. I'm going to set it up on both phones in a minute but I just wanted you to know: When we're not here the Bell System of Companies will be. Mom will not be able to operate Voice Mail so the messages will be safe.
I'll see you soon! So will Mom. She'll be so surprised that I'm in from Seattle and you're in from Florida at the same time! Fun, fun, fun!

Moving Up Day - To LTF

2001-05-10T20:37:00.003-07:00

    We made it.
    I came up, went down and came back up, arriving at about 1730 before the bad part of sunset. We still have a lot to do on Monday to close down the house but we'll [Or I'll; as of now Mom says she's going. We'll see.] get it done.
    It is gorgeous up here. On the one hand, I don't want to go to bed tonight. On the other, I can't wait to wake up in the morning.
    I'm doing okay. I am still breathing in the shallow range (emotionally, that is; physically it's just the opposite) mainly because deep breathing hurts. I feel like I've been dropped into a foreign country. A really foreign country.
    What a beautiful night. Mom went to bed early, The Girls are still prowling the house, the house is open and cooling down and I think I'm going to make myself some coffee. With Orange Extract. Mmmm.

Visit Detail - To LTF

2001-05-10T04:19:00.003-07:00

     Today I take the cats (all three, including Mom) up to Prescott then turn around, come down, pick a bale o' computer and go back up. I expect to have all that done soon after sundown. I decided The Girls would be less likely to freak and run and hide if we not pack the car before putting them in. I'm also going to feed them each a quarter tablet of Bonine, which is a motion-sickness preventative, the type that induces drowsiness. That should keep them, at least, calm enough to catch and transport to the car. They are very quick to notice infinitesimal changes in routine that might mean a trip. I'm hoping that if The Big Girl has at least one pleasant trip she may not be much of a problem anymore. Probably a pipe dream.
     Mom is still surprised about going up to Prescott. We'll be back down Monday to close up this house so Mom is thinking that we're just going up for the weekend. I know though, once we get up there, she won't want to leave for awhile. It was beautiful on Tuesday. It will be beautiful today and the irises will have bloomed, several whites and I think at least one purple.
     MFS will be here from the 16th to the 22nd. I have reminded her that we know how to operate all our home's machinery. She reset all our appliances when she was here before. I'm not sure when MCS is coming out.

The Real Importance of Visits - To MFS

2001-05-06T16:29:00.004-07:00

I don't know if Mom will find your most recent movie suggestions interesting or not. I certainly never thought she'd like Gladiator enough to watch it two times in a row. Nor did I think she'd like The Patriot. Who knows. Mom will get a kick out of sitting in her rocking chair and eating pop corn, may having an occasional root beer, and watching more than one of her daughters watch movies together. She really likes stuff like that. Are you crying, yet?

Just Get Here - To MFS

2001-05-05T07:47:00.003-07:00

By the way, I talked to MPS too and told her on Thursday you were coming out. She told me that Mom called her Wednesday evening (I was out someplace, I guess, probably getting us a fast food dinner) and told her the happy news that I will be moving from Seattle soon to come live with her. I'll be so pleased when I finally get here! I hope I make it before you arrive!

Where. Ever. - To LTF

2001-05-04T19:13:00.002-07:00

So on the way back from where ever I was I realized that the reason my mother has episodes of believing that I am still coming here from Seattle may be that some of me is still there. I don't think that part, though, will be coming here, even if this part of me never gets back there. I considered feeling sad about that, on behalf of my mother, and decided I didn't have it in me. I don't think it's difficult for her; just a fact of life.

Who Where - To LTF

2001-05-03T21:27:00.003-07:00

    I called MPS this afternoon to let her know MFS was coming to visit soon. MPS told me that last night (I was gone for about 4 hours) my mother called her just to talk. [I know my mother often calls 'around', relatives and such, when I'm gone. I always ask her, whenever I return home, if anyone's called or if she's called anyone but I almost always find out about these calls days later from the other participant because plans have been made and my mother sounded so rational, aware and alert that the participant thought nothing of making plans with her, 'knowing' they would get back to me. For that reason I have censored our phone list down to a necessary minimum.] While they were catching up my mother announced the good news that I was moving back here from Seattle and coming to live with her. MPS said Mom was very excited. I told her, good, then, things would go well when I get here.
    I guess I'm still Gwyneth Gillette. I have no complaints but, still, I look forward to the time when I will be me, here, or where ever I am, again. I was, for awhile last night but my mother is still entwined with me where ever I go. It's not unpleasant. It leaves me thoughtful. Sometimes at the wrong time.
    A day of confronting identity.

Where Is She Now? - to LTF

2001-05-01T01:53:00.001-07:00

Response to following passages quoted from Death Comes for the Archbishop" by Willa Cather:

"He was soon to have done with calendared time, and it had already ceased to count for him. He sat in the middle of his own consciousness; none of his former states of mind were lost or outgrown. They were all within reach of his hand, and all comprehensible.
...
"Sometimes, when Magdalena or Bernard came in and asked him a question, it took him several seconds to bring himself back to the present. He could see that they thought his mind was failing, but it was only extraordinarily active in some other part of the great picture of his life - some part of which they knew nothing.
...
"When the occasion warranted he could return to the present, but there was not much present left; Father Joseph dead, the Olivares both dead, Kit Carson dead, only the minor players of his life remained in the present time."

     Thanks for reminding me of these. Every word you quoted reminded me of my mother's Now. "...and all comprehensible." Completely. More, I think, than her states of mind ever have been. I think that's why she's so flexible now. States of mind are no longer ladder rungs to other states of mind anymore. There's no such thing as higher and lower to her. They are what they are and connected because they all exist in her, not because they lead/led to anything.
     I wonder if it is a "turning" or if it is a final, prolonged "fare well" before the "next great phase" which, I'm beginning to think, is not a mind phase but something else. If there is anything else I hope it's more extensive and exhilarating than 'minding'. Not that I'm disappointed. I can barely contain myself, now. I don't want to be able to contain myself, at all. That would be the ultimate in exhilaration; what Hindus imagine as the ex/implosion at the end of a series of kulpas. The dis-solution.
     I hope cats internalize aging much the way my mother is. Kona, the Ancient Cat living with MPS and her family, seemed so pitiful to us, but she also seemed completely unaware of any of the misery we projected onto her.

From a Who in Whoville - To LTF

2001-04-28T14:50:00.002-07:00

    About a half hour ago my mother came on up out of (I did it! 4 prepositions in a row!) a nap, sat in her rocking chair and said to me, "Do you remember that girl's name who lived down the hall from us in Mechanicsville?"
    I was startled but I'm getting very good at taking these things in stride so I said, "You mean when you were in college?" That would be Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.
    "Yes. You know who I'm talking about. That girl who coached high school basketball with me."
    I knew who it was. I'm familiar with the names of many of my mother's long time friends and relatives from stories. I confirmed this for her then said, "Mom, I wasn't at Cornell with you. I wasn't even a gleam in your eye."
    She looked at me with a glint of confusion and then said, "You could be right." She has, all her life, been very sly about not agreeing with people when she knows she's right.
    The thing is, I immediately realized that half of me was there as an egg. I plan on contemplating that later.
    I was equally struck that we're at the stage now where I will probably be a variety of people from my mother's life. I'm pleased that, in this case, I was her roommate when she was a senior. Previously she had roomed with her cousin who is a year older than her. I wouldn't mind being that cousin either. She's still alive and she's still a firebrand. When she and my mother talk on the phone I can hear her through the receiver from across the living room and the dining room. Mom and her other roommate were fast friends. The assistant coach was/is a graphic artist and sketched an excellent likeness of my mother when they were in college, which we still run across when we're sorting through boxes. If I run across it I'll scan it in next to this post. They went into the military together, became gunnery instructors together. They had many adventures all over the U.S. which my mother recalls at least once a month. Both married military men at about the same time. They kept in touch for many years. I think it's only been in the last 5 years or so that they've lost touch.
    I don't know if senile memory/reality confusion is selective but, in this case, I prefer to think it is. I'd much rather be thought of as my mother's treasured, adventurous friend than as her mother. Her relationship with her mother always bordered formality. Maybe, though, if I become her mother my informality will cause her relationship with her mother to 'change', become closer the way she may have wished it.
    Senile dementia is a most interesting carriage through life. I think that instead of fighting it or feeling isolated because of it and shutting themselves off from the demented, those who know the demented should consider, well, not really hopping into the driver's seat. As it turns out I didn't have to pretend to be my mother's assistant coach, I was her. Maybe just following along to see where it leads. In my mother's case it is never a fretful journey and often enlightening and amusing.

Almost But Not Quite - To LTF

2001-04-12T23:12:00.002-07:00

I was real quiet about it, not even thinking about it, hoping that would still the air, but it didn't work. MPS reminded my mother that Easter is coming up on Sunday. She called just as we walked in the door from Prescott. I think my mother thought Easter was already over because of that Easter candy she bought about a month ago. They rolled it out ridiculously early this year and it started neck and neck with one of her sugar seizures. She got over that quick, so I guess she thought Easter was over.

The [absolute] Last of the Mohicans -

2001-04-12T06:03:00.001-07:00

    My mother is now into watching all the movie information programs (there are lots of them, it turns out, especially on Bravo) and makes her lists of movies to watch from those. I'm surprised we haven't subscribed to any movie channels yet. So far, though, she hasn't mentioned it so neither have I. Maybe she doesn't know movie channels are available.
    Re: Daniel Day-Lewis. I know he was supposed to be dynamite in My Left Foot and in that movie about an Irish father and son (didn't it have something to do with boxing...maybe it was called The Boxer), neither of which I saw. [Although I may, before my mother dies, see every movie ever filmed, or the first few minutes, at least, at the rate we're going.] He looks as though he's made of wax, make-up and rebar rather than flesh and blood and bone; neither very warm nor very sturdy, to me, and I certainly wouldn't call what he did in The Last of the Mohicans acting. My mother, though, may have the hots for him. Except for my father I have no idea what characteristics she finds attractive although I have been wondering about that, lately.
    Up to Prescott, today, so no movies (although my mother suggested taking a few up there; I suggested that we wouldn't be up there long enough to have the time to watch a full movie; that worked). Should be a good day.

Not Quite The Last of the Mohicans - To LTF

2001-04-11T15:02:00.002-07:00

I still can't figure out why my mother liked it. It's a complete mystery to me.
I have observed a relationship between what many people consider inappropriate and unexpected violence perpetrated by those suffering from certain levels of dementia and circumstances in the perpetrator's life. In my two experiences with demented relatives who resorted to "inappropriate and unexpected" physical violence:

With my aunt I saw (although I was the only one) how she was pretty much acting on what I considered stored up anger toward her husband, my DU. All of her physical aggression was directed toward him;
An aunt on my dad's side wandered down the road of menopausal hysteria one summer while our family was visiting in North Carolina. When my uncle called Dad to tell him he "needed help with [my aunt]," I tagged along. Exactly as her husband described, my aunt had locked herself in the bathroom, was reportedly naked in the bathtub which was running over with water seeping out from underneath the door and yelling that my uncle had made her feel like a whore from the time he married her. At this point in their shared lives they were probably in their late fifties. I saw it, I heard it, I watched as my aunt was forcibly dressed and dragged, screaming and lashing out at her husband, into a county van and transported to the State Mental Hospital. A couple of weeks later I went along when the family picked her up. She said, "[My husband] cain't help who is is, and after I saw all those other people in there, heard their problems, I figured I could put up with him. They were lots worse off than I was." I'm sure my aunt's physical aggression, while shocking, was not totally out of character for their relationship. She obviously harbored some ill will toward him before she ever got naked in the bathtub and screamed at him. As far as she was concerned, demented or not, her problem wasn't herself, it was him.

It has occurred to me that, in her milder state, my mother's attraction to dementedly gory movies that make a mockery of history, fiction and people and relationships might be some sort of a release. I don't know. Maybe she liked what she thought of as the love stories. It has occurred to me since I've been living with her that my mother may have had (may still have) a taste for adventurous romance and magnetic, destined attractions, and may have been disappointed with her marriage in these respects, although I think in the beginning she thought it was going to be much more exciting and much more personally comforting than it was.

Mom Is Movied Out - To LTF

2001-04-11T00:53:00.003-07:00

Her good ear is plugged, thank the gods. I've been wondering, since I last e'd you, if maybe her neo-interest in action/adventure movies and her willingness to look at movies that have sexual references in them (versus previously leaving the area of such movies) or are thoughtful rather than driven is because she is finally, at 83, realizing that she doesn't have to curtail her curiosity because children are around. It has always seemed odd to me that a woman who was looking for advanced adventure in the 1930s and the 1940s would only like animated Disney movies and Christian Biblical Epics from the 1950s on. Except when you factor in that all her children were born in the 1950s.