HumusDecay of Leave
Oct. 8th, 2025 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ismoYesterday worked out all right, though I was seriously exhausted by the end of the day. The New Zealander turned out to be super nice and easy to talk to, plus the charming Kiwi accent. We had planned to go to the Land of the Long White Cloud for WorldCon, long ago before the pandemic. Lockdown foiled us. I don't know if we'll ever muster the daring to go there at this point in our lives, but if we do, we'll have an in-country guide to give us good advice. We took him out for lunch and coffee, and then turned him over to the next friend.
I haven't been having good nights lately, and last night was no exception, but I felt good enough to go and visit Madame. I didn't know if I would take her out or not, and decided to survey the circumstances and be spontaneous. After the big rain, the temperature is back in the 60s, so I advised her to put on a jacket. I got good parking spots, and she managed her walker all right. At the cafe now, she gets me to order for her--within limits. She'll tell me what she DOESN'T want. It's sort of a 20 questions situation. She said she wanted a flavor in her coffee, so I dared to order her a pumpkin spice latte, and she actually liked it! She is disturbed about many things, but the three main topics were: her car (I thought she'd left that one behind, but no, it is back); her phone; and her house. She is angry and upset that she doesn't have control over any of these things. I can certainly understand that. Unfortunately, she's not compos mentis enough to understand WHY she no longer has control, so she blames her loved ones for not letting her have it, and ascribes this to malevolence on their parts, which is quite the opposite of the truth. It's probably good for her to have me to discuss this with, so it doesn't just stew inside her.
Because there's at least one friend here who has encountered a similar problem, I will describe what's going on with her phone, according to Mademoiselle. Madame never added her daughter as an authorized person for her account, so Mademoiselle cannot cancel the line or start a new one, nor can she unlock the account at all. She doesn't know Madame's user ID or password, and I'm sure Madame doesn't either. So it's frustration all around. My mother bricked her iPhone at one point, because she entered an erroneous password too many times. My brother had similar frustrations with trying to fix that. I think that it doesn't matter very much, because Madame is no longer really able to use the phone anyway. If she ever succeeds in calling a number, she can't hear the response when she gets it. She has forgotten how to use FaceTime, which helped her with hearing people. But it's the idea of the phone she wants, and she's mad that she doesn't have it.
She asked me to drive her past her old house. I had time and thought there was no harm in it, so I did. She enjoyed riding through her old neighborhood. Her kids have been renovating the house--something else she is not happy about. I thought the new paint job looked fresh and nice, but Madame does not like the color they chose. Because of course she doesn't, darling. I agreed with her. The dark green is too dark. Kids--amirite? Whaddya gonna do. . . .
I haven't been having good nights lately, and last night was no exception, but I felt good enough to go and visit Madame. I didn't know if I would take her out or not, and decided to survey the circumstances and be spontaneous. After the big rain, the temperature is back in the 60s, so I advised her to put on a jacket. I got good parking spots, and she managed her walker all right. At the cafe now, she gets me to order for her--within limits. She'll tell me what she DOESN'T want. It's sort of a 20 questions situation. She said she wanted a flavor in her coffee, so I dared to order her a pumpkin spice latte, and she actually liked it! She is disturbed about many things, but the three main topics were: her car (I thought she'd left that one behind, but no, it is back); her phone; and her house. She is angry and upset that she doesn't have control over any of these things. I can certainly understand that. Unfortunately, she's not compos mentis enough to understand WHY she no longer has control, so she blames her loved ones for not letting her have it, and ascribes this to malevolence on their parts, which is quite the opposite of the truth. It's probably good for her to have me to discuss this with, so it doesn't just stew inside her.
Because there's at least one friend here who has encountered a similar problem, I will describe what's going on with her phone, according to Mademoiselle. Madame never added her daughter as an authorized person for her account, so Mademoiselle cannot cancel the line or start a new one, nor can she unlock the account at all. She doesn't know Madame's user ID or password, and I'm sure Madame doesn't either. So it's frustration all around. My mother bricked her iPhone at one point, because she entered an erroneous password too many times. My brother had similar frustrations with trying to fix that. I think that it doesn't matter very much, because Madame is no longer really able to use the phone anyway. If she ever succeeds in calling a number, she can't hear the response when she gets it. She has forgotten how to use FaceTime, which helped her with hearing people. But it's the idea of the phone she wants, and she's mad that she doesn't have it.
She asked me to drive her past her old house. I had time and thought there was no harm in it, so I did. She enjoyed riding through her old neighborhood. Her kids have been renovating the house--something else she is not happy about. I thought the new paint job looked fresh and nice, but Madame does not like the color they chose. Because of course she doesn't, darling. I agreed with her. The dark green is too dark. Kids--amirite? Whaddya gonna do. . . .
