Get a life and live it

Two old ladies sit side-by-side in the smoking area. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, doesn't it? Last night the air was clear, the temperature was perfect, and if you know where your next meal is coming from, seems to me you have very little to complain about. Well, when you are in your 80s and life revolves around eating, sleeping, and grabbing an occasional cigarette, anything can be fodder for complaints. Most complaints at the assisted living care center involve either the quality of the food or the state of the front garden, specifically the roses under Jane's window.

I know what you are thinking: oh, no, not that story again. I'm sorry to tell you, when life shrinks to the size of a pinhead, there's not much else to talk about. The old ladies are too polite to talk about bowel movements, but food and flowers are fair game. They are also inordinately interested in the behavior and personalities of the people who work at the care center.

Last night Mom and Jane showered praise on a young man named Mario (not his real name). He's a slender man with rugged Latin looks. Mom and Jane described him as honest, caring, and responsive (my interpretation, not their words). This young man has spoken maybe two words to me in the sixteen months I've been visiting. He rarely even looks at me. In his defense, I don't think English is his first language. It could be a cultural thing. It could also be that I'm family of a resident; therefore, I have the power to make his life difficult. He doesn't know I'm one of his biggest fans: I asked the staff if someone could find glider tips to put on the back legs of my mother's walker so she didn't get caught on the rug. The next day, they appeared, and Mom said Mario was the hero who made it happen. I'm glad the ladies like him. It doesn't matter if he likes me as long as he treats my mother well.

The aides at the care center are a diverse crew, with poetic names like Pema, Nema, and Menuka. One wears a hijab and speaks perfect American English. The others have diverse accents. Mom likes them all. I detect no prejudice from Mom or Jane toward any of the staff. In true blue collar style, the old ladies reserve their vitriol for management. Right on.

“Last night someone pounded on my window at three o'clock in the morning,” Jane said. Mom, halfway through her cigarette, looked alarmed and confused. I must have looked skeptical.

“Sometimes one of the aides goes out to smoke and knocks on my window to get back in,” Jane said. If that is true, there are so many problems with that I don't know how to even begin to think about it. I have my doubts; the aides have walkie-talkies to communicate, and the Med-Aide has a key. I can't imagine that any staff member would have the nerve to wake up a resident to be let in. I thought about the other claims Jane has made—the radio that plays in the middle of the night that no one hears but her; the “bowling ball” that fell from the upper story window in the bush outside her room... I gotta wonder if she is a particularly lucid dreamer.

“Not only that, two big trucks came into the parking lot in the middle of the night.”

“Trash trucks?” I wondered.

“They had lights that went round and round.”

“Street sweepers?”

“Yeah, more like that. Lost, probably.”

I could only shake my head and shrug. What should I do about mysterious trucks and intrusive visitors showing up late at night outside the window of a slightly demented old lady with anxiety and paranoid tendencies?

“Don't say anything” Jane said to me, meaning, don't mention these incidents to the managers. “They are already out to get me.”

Mom handed the stub of her cigarette to me to dispose of in the ash bin. When she finishes her cigarette, we know it is time to head for the door.

Tonight when I take the old ladies out for their smoke, I predict the air will be hot and hazy. Smoke has rolled back over the Portland area, filtering the sun with haze from the wildfires. We are surrounded on three sides by burning timber. On the bright side, the old smokers don't mind a little more smoke. I'm the only one who suffers. My eyes are still gritty from the last go-round.

In addition to her other complaints, Jane complained about the roses blocking the view in front of her window. One tall stem has four shabby pink roses. Tonight I will sneak my mother's clippers out with us and whack off that stem. One less thing for her to obsess over.

Doing the limbo

Last week I realized my mother and I are both in a kind of limbo. We are waiting for the same event to occur: her death. She wants an end. I want a beginning. However, she can't do anything to hasten the end—and I won't. I wouldn't. But between you and me, don't think I haven't thought about it. As the basis for a screenplay I hope to write one day, of course. Not for real. Come on, did you really think I would smother my mother?

Anyway, we are in limbo. Every day is Groundhog Day. Tonight I visited her as usual after dinner. When I came into her room, she was sacked out on her hideously patterned, beige pastel flowered 1970s sagging couch. One foot was on the couch, one was on the floor. The shade was drawn to block out the hazy evening light. The television was silent. Rarely is the TV not blaring HGTV.

“Howdy, howdy,” I said. “Wake up, slacker.” That is my usual greeting. Every time I see her napping on the couch, it crosses my mind that this might be the moment when she doesn't respond and I get my first glimpse of an actual dead person.

Not this time. She reared up to a sitting position.

“Howdy, yourself,” she said, springing immediately to full alert. She's more and more like my cat. Zen master of the moment. Waking from zero to sixty in one ear twitch.

I sat next to her on the sagging cushions. She grinned at me. I grinned back. It was a moment.

“How is your ankle today?” I asked.

She looked at me blankly. “Wha...?” she said. She looked down at her white socks and little black Merrell shoes. She knows where her ankles are. That's a good sign, I thought.

“Last night you told me your ankle hurt.”

“I don't remember,” she said, frowning.

“Does it hurt now?” I touched her right ankle. I couldn't see or feel any swelling, not that I'm an ankle expert. I know that since I've turned sixty, on hot days my ankles have started swelling, so I'm not totally ignorant. I don't want to talk about that.

She bent down and felt her ankle. “It hurts right here.” She pointed to a spot.

“Does it hurt to walk on it?”

“No.”

“How about your hip, how is that doing?” Last week we visited the doctor to get some feedback on her sore hip. Diagnosis: hip flexor strain. How did she strain her hip flexor, I wondered to myself. Is she doing aerobics when no one is watching? I suspect the black hole on the couch where she sits all day is the culprit.

“My hip?” she echoed.

“Yeah, you know... your strained hip?”

“Oh, yeah. You know, maybe it is better,” she said in wonder. I was like, hallelujah. Maybe that piece of particle board I brought last week and stuffed under the cushion made a difference. Who knows? I was just glad to hear she wasn't in pain.

“Ready to go outside?” She grabbed her gear and off we went to pick up Jane, her smoking partner.

Jane was sitting by the door, ready to go. We pushed the big button by the front door and marched through as it opened in front of us. As we walked by the rose bush in front of Jane's window, I pulled out Mom's beat up garden clippers and snipped off one more stem. It took a mere second. I cut the stem into pieces. Mom suggested I hide the evidence in the dumpster, so I did. Voila. Another stem gone, one less thing for the old ladies to complain about. Any day now I'm sure I'll be busted by the rose bush police. Oh well. It's for a good cause.

Tonight is the peak of the Perseids. We have smoky, cloudy skies over Portland. No comets for me. But maybe tomorrow I can see some shooting stars. While I'm waiting.

The chronic malcontent does a little clandestine gardening

Today I went for a walk around the reservoir before the heat ramped up and the smoky air moved in. The air was warm, the sky was still blue. I drank in the heat, although I admit I was flagging somewhat toward the end. In a fit of public service, I had brought an empty plastic bag with me in case I found some trash to pick up along my route. Not surprising, I found some trash.

I picked up a large aluminum ice-tea can, two big brown glass IPA bottles, a fast-food container I did not open, a small empty cardboard box, a piece of yellow do-not-cross plastic tape, and a square of black plastic whose purpose I could not identify. I was also packing my digital camera, my phone, and a half-bottle of water. I was dripping with self-righteousness when I finally made it up the hill to the recycling bins by the ranger station.

Having done my civic duty, I sauntered home and found to my relief it was still cooler in the Love Shack than it was outside. I hunkered down for the afternoon, catching up on my recordkeeping, bemoaning my lack of income, and waiting for my phone to alert me that it was time to head out in the heat to visit Mom and take the old ladies out for their evening smoke.

Tonight Mom's smoking buddy Jane seemed more anxious than usual. 

“Julie moved out,” Jane said glumly when we were seated in the smoking area. Julie was her neighbor, a younger woman who escaped the facility after healing from a broken hip. Maybe she even went back home.

“Julie was a nice person,” Mom said consolingly. “Vivian is still there, though,” she said, referring to the woman on Jane's other side.

“Well, I just can't stand it!” Jane said, lighting her cigarette with trembling hands.

“Don't you get along with Vivian?” I asked cautiously. Vivian seemed harmless to me. I've never spoken to her, but she's so tiny and hunched over, I doubt she could actually look me in the face. I could take her, I'm pretty sure, unless she knows kung fu.

“I'm afraid I won't be able to help if something goes wrong,” Jane said.

“But that isn't your job,” I pointed out.

“I guess I could just ring the call button,” Jane muttered.

By this point, my mother was halfway through her cigarette, which means her brain had turned into cotton candy. She alternated between staring at the ash at the end of her cigarette and staring at Jane's cigarette, I assume comparing her ashes to Jane's. Her eyes were big and a little wild.

“I don't think I can stand any more of this,” Jane said. “That rose bush is covering my window. I'm going to call the ombudsman if the manager doesn't get out here and cut it back!”

Now, I may have mentioned before that this rose bush is Jane's nemesis. Jane has only one window, so you can understand that her view is important to her. She likes to sit at her table and monitor who comes to the front door. She's monitored the hell out of me over the past year, until I started parking in the back and punching in a code to get in the back door.

When Mom first moved to the facility, back when she still had free will, Mom heard Jane complaining about the leggy rose bush that was blocking her view and decided to do something about it. She took her clippers and cut the thing back. Radically. Soon thereafter I received a terse email telling me to tell my mother never to cut the rose bush again. In fact, she should keep her clippers off all the plants in front, because that was the manager's territory.

Mom resentfully retired her clippers. However, Jane's complaints have continued relentlessly. All summer we've been discussing whether we should sneak out and cut back the bush. If Mom hadn't lost so many brain cells, she might have surreptitiously trimmed a stem or two. The thought of security cameras kept us from acting. Until tonight.

I walked Mom back to her room. We looked at each other. I'm pretty sure her mind was blank, but I was thinking, if anyone is going to trim that rose bush, it should be me. I dug into the old coffee can where Mom kept her clippers. I held them up.

“Should we do it?”

Mom started to grin and I knew she understood. “Do you think so?”

“Let's do it!” She grabbed her walker and we slowly beelined back down the hall toward the front door. When we got there, she hung back a little. I said, “Don't quit on me now. You gotta let me back in.” It only crossed my mind for a second that she might pretend she didn't know me. I pictured myself ringing the bell to get the med-aide to let me back in. Dead giveaway that we were up to something. No way could I say my mother was the mastermind, considering her mind is on vacation.

Too late to back out now. I was determined. I quickly opened the door and slipped out into the heat. I hustled over to the rose bush, clipped one long stem in one snip, and trotted back to the door. Mom peered through the window with wide eyes. Then she pushed open the door and let me in. We trucked back to her room, me trying to casually hold the thorny stems in one hand and sauntering a little in case we were on camera.

I don't know what Mom was thinking. She was silent. I was quiet too, but I hoped for several miracles: that the security cameras weren't working, that tomorrow the manager would not notice one stem gone, that Mom would immediately forget my dastardly deed, that Jane wouldn't notice the missing stem and turn me in, that nosy Sally (who cruises the halls everyday) would not ask me why I had parts of a rose bush clutched gingerly in one hand. You know, just your basic everyday prayers.

We made it back to her room undisturbed. One thorn scratch later, the evidence was successfully bagged and out of sight. The clippers were retired. Mom walked me to the back door, and I made my getaway. She gave me the peace sign as I drove away into the eerily glowing orange sunset.