![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
WildSteed of flourish
Sep. 10th, 2018 09:14 pmI was going to post yesterday. I took my computer with me. But among its other deficiencies, the motel where we were staying didn't have any wifi. In this day and age!! They said it was "broken." How do you "break" the wifi? Don't tell me--I'd rather not know.
It was a very exhausting two days and I am exhausted. We went to see my mother yesterday and stayed so I could be at her place first thing tomorrow to take her to an appointment to consult about some optional surgery. Also, I thought it would be good to actually spend some time with her, outside the doctor's office. We ate lunch with her in the dining room, and then started looking through her photo album, but she kept nodding off, so I coaxed her to take a nap with her feet up. After that, we went to work again choosing some photos to copy and put in a frame she has. The Sparrowhawk scanned them and re-sized them, and then printed the copies out. I trimmed them and put them in the frame. We only had time to do six before she had to go to dinner, but she was pleased with the results.
We let her eat dinner on her own while we checked into our suboptimal lodgings and then drove to the next town for a lovely visit with Deb and the Prussian. She gave us frittata, beautiful tomatoes, salad, and fruit--a colorful and reviving supper. The only problem was that I was literally reeling with exhaustion and have no idea what I was talking about most of the time. The good thing about old friends is that they forgive you when you're goofy from an overdose of filial piety.
Didn't sleep well, ate suboptimal hotel breakfast, no coffee, hurried to my mother's place but still didn't succeed in getting all packed up early. I have to transport an unbelievable amount of stuff when I take her someplace. There's her, the walker, with an attached bag that's stuffed with things, her purse, likewise stuffed, and the special bag my sister put together with an extra fleece, hand warmers, snacks, a bottle of water, extra "paper bloomers" as my mother calls them, and wipes. When I try to fold the walker up to heave it into the car, the bag always spills random items--in this case, a banana, a spoon, a little jar that used to hold Benefiber, a laminated notice of some kind, and a rosary in a battered case. And a very old stick of gum and a couple of Lactaid tablets. Aieeee.
There's a phrase my father used to use when confronted with life's inconveniences. When I would call him to see how he was doing, he would tell me, "It was a nightmare!!" So many things qualified as "a nightmare" in his later years. I used to laugh at him, but today I had one of those days. We encountered a giant traffic jam on a main street--some kind of mammoth truck hauling what looked like a steel beam, surrounded by two or three police cars, almost entirely blocking the street. We were detoured and dumped out in a part of town that is a maze of one-way streets. I haven't lived in this place for some time, so I was baffled and drove around and around downtown a couple of times before I finally found my way back to the route. And then I was so flustered that I drove past my turn and had to turn around. But we finally found the clinic, and the doctor was so late getting to us that it didn't matter that we were a few minutes late.
Alas, after all this trouble, the results were very disappointing. My mother so wanted to have this surgery, but the surgeon kindly told her that at her age, it was very risky and could destroy her quality of life. The surgeon said she could shop around and probably find another doctor who would do it, but she wouldn't recommend it. My mother was so disappointed. It was sad. So when she said she wanted to stop at Panera and get take-out, I wasn't going to turn her down. Another round of hauling the walker in and out, shepherding Mother across the parking lot, worrying she was getting too tired, plus all the details of how to use her credit card, how to order . . . ai yi yi. Finally we got all of our items back in the car and headed for home.
I highly recommend Panera if you want a sandwich that will last for all eternity. That was the sandwich my mother bought. It took her a solid hour and a half to munch her way through a cup of soup and a half-sandwich. Several friends came by and she tried to palm the food off on them, while the sandwich drooped unregarded in her hand, because she has no interest in eating as long as there is some random person on whom her interest can dwell. It's quite a process eating lunch with her, but she enjoyed it and that was the main thing! I always hate to leave her. But on the other hand, I'm always DYING to just go home. Traffic was horrible and I lost my patience and said some very mean things about the people who cut me off or tried to drive in my lane for the gazillionth time.
As soon as I got home, I had a conversation with the Diva. She lives in the exact spot that all the arrows showing the course of Hurricane Florence are currently pointing to. They want to get out of Dodge, so they are probably going to drive up and take refuge with us--two grownups, two teenage boys, and two dogs. Yay! I am very happy to think we will see them, but I'm so tired I can't even think about it tonight. Tomorrow preparations will commence. And I hope they'll have a safe and easy drive.
It was a very exhausting two days and I am exhausted. We went to see my mother yesterday and stayed so I could be at her place first thing tomorrow to take her to an appointment to consult about some optional surgery. Also, I thought it would be good to actually spend some time with her, outside the doctor's office. We ate lunch with her in the dining room, and then started looking through her photo album, but she kept nodding off, so I coaxed her to take a nap with her feet up. After that, we went to work again choosing some photos to copy and put in a frame she has. The Sparrowhawk scanned them and re-sized them, and then printed the copies out. I trimmed them and put them in the frame. We only had time to do six before she had to go to dinner, but she was pleased with the results.
We let her eat dinner on her own while we checked into our suboptimal lodgings and then drove to the next town for a lovely visit with Deb and the Prussian. She gave us frittata, beautiful tomatoes, salad, and fruit--a colorful and reviving supper. The only problem was that I was literally reeling with exhaustion and have no idea what I was talking about most of the time. The good thing about old friends is that they forgive you when you're goofy from an overdose of filial piety.
Didn't sleep well, ate suboptimal hotel breakfast, no coffee, hurried to my mother's place but still didn't succeed in getting all packed up early. I have to transport an unbelievable amount of stuff when I take her someplace. There's her, the walker, with an attached bag that's stuffed with things, her purse, likewise stuffed, and the special bag my sister put together with an extra fleece, hand warmers, snacks, a bottle of water, extra "paper bloomers" as my mother calls them, and wipes. When I try to fold the walker up to heave it into the car, the bag always spills random items--in this case, a banana, a spoon, a little jar that used to hold Benefiber, a laminated notice of some kind, and a rosary in a battered case. And a very old stick of gum and a couple of Lactaid tablets. Aieeee.
There's a phrase my father used to use when confronted with life's inconveniences. When I would call him to see how he was doing, he would tell me, "It was a nightmare!!" So many things qualified as "a nightmare" in his later years. I used to laugh at him, but today I had one of those days. We encountered a giant traffic jam on a main street--some kind of mammoth truck hauling what looked like a steel beam, surrounded by two or three police cars, almost entirely blocking the street. We were detoured and dumped out in a part of town that is a maze of one-way streets. I haven't lived in this place for some time, so I was baffled and drove around and around downtown a couple of times before I finally found my way back to the route. And then I was so flustered that I drove past my turn and had to turn around. But we finally found the clinic, and the doctor was so late getting to us that it didn't matter that we were a few minutes late.
Alas, after all this trouble, the results were very disappointing. My mother so wanted to have this surgery, but the surgeon kindly told her that at her age, it was very risky and could destroy her quality of life. The surgeon said she could shop around and probably find another doctor who would do it, but she wouldn't recommend it. My mother was so disappointed. It was sad. So when she said she wanted to stop at Panera and get take-out, I wasn't going to turn her down. Another round of hauling the walker in and out, shepherding Mother across the parking lot, worrying she was getting too tired, plus all the details of how to use her credit card, how to order . . . ai yi yi. Finally we got all of our items back in the car and headed for home.
I highly recommend Panera if you want a sandwich that will last for all eternity. That was the sandwich my mother bought. It took her a solid hour and a half to munch her way through a cup of soup and a half-sandwich. Several friends came by and she tried to palm the food off on them, while the sandwich drooped unregarded in her hand, because she has no interest in eating as long as there is some random person on whom her interest can dwell. It's quite a process eating lunch with her, but she enjoyed it and that was the main thing! I always hate to leave her. But on the other hand, I'm always DYING to just go home. Traffic was horrible and I lost my patience and said some very mean things about the people who cut me off or tried to drive in my lane for the gazillionth time.
As soon as I got home, I had a conversation with the Diva. She lives in the exact spot that all the arrows showing the course of Hurricane Florence are currently pointing to. They want to get out of Dodge, so they are probably going to drive up and take refuge with us--two grownups, two teenage boys, and two dogs. Yay! I am very happy to think we will see them, but I'm so tired I can't even think about it tonight. Tomorrow preparations will commence. And I hope they'll have a safe and easy drive.
