Getting down and dirty: Reader discretion advised

The sewer construction recommenced at 7:00 a.m. this morning, ten yards outside my back door. A cacophony of gerunds ensued: banging, grumbling, pounding, grinding, beeping. My cat spent last week under the couch. Today he seemed resigned. We ate breakfast and stoically ignored the noise. At 10:30, I tiptoed past the roaring backhoe to do my weekly grocery run. Burly workers in neon vests and hard hats were trying with hand signals to direct my neighbor as she tentatively backed her Prius out of her driveway past the gaping twenty-foot long, six-foot deep trench holding the pipe that would soon hook her house up to the city sewer system. I took a couple photos to show my mother.

I drove away feeling somewhat superior that I had remembered to park my car on the street last night instead of in my usual parking spot now occupied by said backhoe.

I did my errands, came home, and parked my car on the street. I think I could have parked in my usual spot. As I lugged three grocery bags of food toward my back door, I saw the workers had finished laying the concrete tubes, filled in the trench, and parked their equipment at the bottom of the hill. In fact, they were nowhere to be seen. Only their little neon flags and the big Local Traffic Only sign remained. I admired the level gravel parking area. I put my groceries away, reveling in the silence. Then the cat and I took a nap. At 6:00 p.m., it was time to visit Mom. Three of my neighbors' cars now occupied all the parking spaces.

When I got to the care facility, Mom had just returned from dinner.

“I have some gluten-free macaroni to give the cook,” I said. “I'll be right back.” The kitchen is twenty steps down the hall. I put the boxes of pasta on the stainless steel table. Thirty seconds later, I returned to see Mom just settling down on the couch.

“Hey, Slacker, let's change the batteries in your hearing aids.”

She levered herself back up to a sitting position, an astounding feat considering the couch is actually a pastel flower-covered black hole. Every Monday night I remove her hearing aids, open the little trap doors, and switch out the tiny batteries. I have to take off my glasses so I can see to peel off the little coverings that keep the batteries fresh. I have a routine so I don't mix up the old and new batteries. Sometimes I have to use a little gizmo to replace a tiny tube that gets clogged with ear wax. I used to find it a little gross to mess around with my mother's ear wax. Now I don't care.

I got the hearing aids situated. “Testing, testing.”

“Uh-oh. Something feels like it needs to come out,” Mom said, standing up. It took me a scant moment to realize what she was talking about.

“Okay, do your thing.”

She grabbed her walker and shuffled around the divider wall to the bathroom. I turned on the television. Sadly, TV Land stopped running M.A.S.H. reruns last week. Now we are stuck with HGTV. I sat on the couch, tempted to crank up the volume on Love it or List it, praying I would soon hear the toilet flush. No such luck. Considering the sewer-related theme of the day, it was no big surprise that Mom went into the bathroom and got stuck there as her brain tried to figure out what to do with the poop in her pull-ups.

She called my name. I leaped into action.

It never occurred to me that I might someday be helping my mother navigate her toileting challenges. When my parents wrote their wills, I was the last of the four children to be named executor of the estate. I'm sure they figured it was the end of the road if my three siblings had somehow expired before me and my parents' care was left in my hands. I don't blame them. I was not a reliable or trustworthy daughter. Certainly I didn't seem to be caregiver material. Fast forward four decades and look at me now. I'm an expert at tearing the side seams of poop-filled pull-ups.

I removed her Merrells and pulled off her elastic waist blue jeans. I tore off the pull-ups. “Are you done pooping?”

“I don't know. I think so.” She reached for the toilet paper roll.

My mother has developed a . . . how shall I put this? A specific cleansing routine involving two carefully counted and folded sheets of toilet paper. I'm sure somewhere in her crumbling neurons are intense memories of the clog-prone toilets at our old house, which no doubt accounts for her stingy use of TP. She does not have to pay for it at the care facility but telling her that does no good. She slowly folds the two sheets in half and goes in from the front, if you know what I mean. She leans so far forward as she's trying to clean up the damage, I'm afraid she'll do a face plant, but always she bobs back up, like a Bobo doll. Then she drags out the soiled tissue from between her thighs to examine the results, which inevitably ends up on her fingers.

At this point, she's caught in a loop. She cannot resolve her dilemma. I've seen this routine a few times now and wondered to what extent I should try to intervene. Today I thought, what the hell.

“Hey, let's try this.” I reeled off a fine handful of toilet paper and handed it to her. “Scoot forward a little and go in from the back.”

She's a trooper when it comes to taking direction. She doesn't question. If she had any brain cells left, she might have said, “What, are you crazy? Hokay, here goes nothing, Einstein.”

She leaned forward, reached around with the wad of TP, and rummaged around back there for a good long while. Finally she sat up and we both examined the results. I reeled off another wad of TP and handed it to her. “One more time,” I suggested. She repeated the routine. Eventually we were both satisfied.

“Okay, great. Now stand up, and give it a good wipe with this.” I handed her a big wad of wet wipes, which are stacked in packages on the back of the toilet.

“Wipe what?”

“Your butt.” She did as directed. We checked the results. “That goes in the trash,” I said. She complied.

“Alright. Sit back down.” I got her toes into a fresh pair of pull-ups. She waggled her feet into her jeans. I could tell she has done this before. I positioned her shoes.

“Now you can stand up and hike up your drawers.”

She stood up with some help and yanked everything into place.

“Now flush.” She flushed, watching the action. I'm pretty sure she fears clogging the toilet. She closed the lid and turned back toward me.

“Let's wash our hands,” I suggested, thinking of all the surfaces she touched with dirty fingers. While she washed at the sink, I grabbed another wipe and wiped down the door handle and the toilet handle. 

We watched the end of Love it or List it. I turned the channel. M.A.S.H. was on MeTV at 7:00 p.m. She decided she wanted to walk me to the end of the hallway. We sang I've Been Working on the Railroad. Partway along the hall, she said, “Jane died.”

“Jane, your smoking buddy?”

“No, no, the one who sits at the end of my table.”

“Oh, you mean Alice.” I couldn't believe it. I saw Alice just last week, looking as hale as anyone on oxygen and in a wheelchair can look.

“Right. Alice.”

We walked in silence to the back door.

“I guess that is why people come to a place like this,” I said.

“My turn will come,” she said.

I kissed her forehead. We exchanged peace signs with our (hopefully clean) fingers. I walked out to my car. She waved as I drove away.

The chronic malcontent calls in sick

On Monday night I caught a cold. I don't remember the last time I had a cold. I had forgotten the misery generated by the drip, the scratch, the snot, the clog, the ache. I guess I thought I was a cold-germ superhero. On the upside, a cold probably won't kill me; the downside: at 3:00 in the morning, when I'm snuffling, coughing, and breathing through my mouth, it might make me wish I were dead.

I haven't been sick in years. All the witty words I had planned to write have been flattened under a pounding sinus headache. I wanted to tell you in excruciating detail (but funny, of course) about how wretched I feel. Then I realize, you've had colds before. You know what it feels like. Having a cold does not mean the universe revolves around you; it just makes you feel as if it should.

In accordance with the advice from multiple websites, I'm laying low today, resting and drinking lots of water. I called in sick to the care facility. I hope the nurse actually writes the note and puts it on Mom's coffee table. Although Mom might not even notice I didn't show up, the way things are going lately. She's been dozing on the couch every night for the past week. Yesterday I shuffled out to my car and drove in rush hour traffic to see if she might be more alert before dinner. She woke up when I came in but did not sit up. I sat in the visitor's chair on the other side of the coffee table and didn't touch anything.

“Do you want to go outside and plant seeds in your pots?” I asked her. My spirit was willing but I hoped she would say no. My flesh was definitely weak.

“Do you want to go outside?” Was she reading my body language? My mother is a master at the codependent redirect—I don't know, what do you want to do?

“It's up to you.”

“I don't think it is the right thing to do.” She was rubbing her stomach under the blue plaid blanket.

“Are you in pain?”

“Yes.”

“Is it your stomach?”

“I don't know what I need,” she said in frustration. Her eyes started to close. “I just want to sleep.”

I didn't kiss her forehead like I usually do because I didn't want to contaminate her with my germs. Although a tiny voice inside me said, hey, pneumonia, the old person's best friend. I told her I loved her and quickly left. I should not have come, but I felt compelled to see her. I only sneezed twice on my way out the back door. Into my elbow, of course. I drove slowly home, too slowly, apparently, because some guy in an old American car sped by me and flipped me off. I didn't have the energy to feel righteous anger. Besides, I drive slowly everywhere. I used to be a school bus driver. That is another story.

The weather is lovely this week. Unfortunately, higher temperatures means low humidity, which means not only am I parched but so are the forests. Two weeks of spring and now apparently it's summer. That was fast. The roses aren't even blooming yet. Now there's a fire warning for tomorrow night. Wind, low humidity, and high temperatures create the perfect conditions for wildfires. Sometimes when I walk in the park, I imagine what one carelessly thrown cigarette could do. In the city, with houses so close together, it wouldn't take much to generate a conflagration. On the upside, if the air filled with smoke right now, I would not be able to smell it.

The best way to endure a cold is to immerse myself in the screen. I caught up on a new CW television show last night. It's free TV, so every five minutes I was treated to a commercial of happy people cleaning their kitchen floors using special gizmos to capture dust and dirt. Clearly, the companies that make floor cleaning products don't know about my kitchen floor. In the distant past, some ambitious soul laid down a checkerboard of black and white linoleum squares. Over the years, these squares have come unglued in many places. Corners have broken, revealing the subfloor. Crumbs and cat hair collect in the crevices. Beige paint speckles the black squares from the many cupboard repaintings. The white squares are speckled too but you can't see it as well. The whole floor should be bulldozed. Swiffering is not a solution.

Speaking of bulldozing, on Monday, heavy equipment moved into the gravel road behind the Love Shack. Three little houses up here are not on the main sewer line. That means we all must endure the beeping and banging while the City digs trenches and lays pipe. On the upside, wiped out by this cold, I went to bed early the past two nights, so I was up when the bulldozing began. Early morning for me is like one of those plants that bloom once a century. I would appreciate dawn more if I could breathe.

Being sick has inspired me to take some chances. Despite my fear of dying from amoebas eating my brain cells, on Tuesday, I dug out my neti pot, figuring I could either suffocate now or maybe die of amoebas at some unknown point in the future. Early this morning, I found some expired Tylenol in my medicine cabinet. Turns out ten-year-old Tylenol still works. What do you know.

All of this is happening while my mother is fading. I am confounded that so many things can happen at the same time. You would think the earth would cease turning out of respect for the loved one who may soon be exiting the earthly plane. You would think cold germs would hold off until a more opportune time. You would think digging a sewer trench could wait until the tears have been shed. But everything happens now.

I think she is leaving but of course I can't be sure. Maybe it's just the humidity.

Coming apart at the seams

Last weekend, four out-of-town friends came to Portland for a reunion. We were a small group, just six in all. Two locals served as drivers; we split the passengers between two cars, one of which was my dinky old Ford Focus, emptied of trash and toothpicks for the occasion. After getting lost, driving in circles, misreading road signs, and driving east when I should have driven west, I am supremely aware of my failings.

On the bright side, the other driver (a man ten years my senior), got lost, drove in circles, almost crashed his car, and upon arrival at what he thought was the correct house, led his two passengers up some steps and through an unlocked door into a stranger's house—clearly not the correct destination. Quick exit, stage right! This week I have prayed the party of three were not caught on security cameras. Just in case, I've planned my defense: We plead early onset dementia, Your Honor! The busy weekend is over. No one was jailed or killed.

After two days of above average temperatures, by Saturday my limited wardrobe was exhausted, forcing me to stuff myself into a pair of old Levis jeans I have been saving should I ever lose ten pounds. Luckily, the groaning seams on my authentic (not knock-off) non-stretchy, faded blue denim jeans did not fail me as I diligently played tour guide, chauffeur, host, and organizer. Added bonus: My jeans made me sit up straighter in my chair and eat somewhat less at the restaurants we seemed to patronize every two hours.

The sun is shining today. I finished editing a paper early (misread the deadline, argh). That means I have some extra time to get some things done: change the sheets, do some laundry, and write a blog post. Spring is finally really here. Baby birds are nesting in a flowerpot at the care center. Brilliant leaves have burst out everywhere, glowing a color of green I spent my childhood desperately trying to mimic with yellow and blue tempera paint.

As a former fashion designer—well, okay, seamstress—I know a bit about seams. When I think of seams, I usually think of clothing and the thousands of seams have I sewn in my lifetime, trying to cajole other people's poorly sketched ideas of style into something real they could display to their envious church friends. Governments have seams too, I think. I don't notice seams much except when things fall apart. Then I realize how some poorly sewn policies leave us naked and undone. For example, we are now seeing the seamier side of healthcare.

I notice that the seams on many of my clothes are failing. When I fold my long-sleeve t-shirts, besides the occasional broken seam, I see stretched necklines, unraveled hemlines, faded colors, and frayed edges. I don't mind. These butter-soft remnants remind me I used to have a job that required me to think about clothing. I am glad that job is gone while these old t-shirts just seem to get better.

As I get older, in every way conceivable, I seem to have less stretch. In obviously visible ways, gravity drags everything south, but in my mind, too, I perceive less flex, less give. My brain seems to be coming apart at the seams. Maybe it's just stress pulling my mojo down with my butt and boobs. A friend told me I would gain 10 IQ points after my mother dies. She spoke from experience. I fear I'm sloughing off brain cells at an increasing rate. Where do they go, I wonder. Into the same void that disappears my socks, I suppose. If I ever find the gravity well that is hoovering my neurons, no doubt I'll find the mates to the socks I now wear in mismatched sets because I refuse to buy new socks. Ponder this: Socks have no seams. Unless I count the ridge across the toe that produces blisters if my shoes are too tight.

I think of my mother's brain and body coming apart at the seams, as if she's a cartoon character exploding from the inside from accidentally eating a bomb. Ooops, it happens. I imagine the core of her personality, the essence of who she is, still glows deep in her center, like a melty pool of maternal magma. I think I see it now and then, when she laughs at Klinger sewing the stylish frocks that never seem to get him kicked out of the army. Almost ninety years of psychic dust, detritus, and clutter obscure the sun at her heart.

The Chronic Malcontent practices mouth breathing

I'm learning Spanish in preparation for moving to the desert. Está nublado y oscuro en mi cabeza hoy. On the dark side: Children deliberately orphaned by the U.S. government, mold spores in my damp kitchen cupboards erasing my neurons, cat barf in the shag rug, the burning of Notre Dame, spring allergies. On the bright side: poacher eaten by lions, a day of 70°F weather, spring flowers. I guess it is true what they say, nothing is ever all good or all bad. We can look for and (usually) find the bright spot in any disaster. Mr. Rogers recommended we look for the helpers. Even when bombs are falling, angels will try to dig you out of the rubble.

Speaking of rubble, the brain of my maternal parental unit continues to disintegrate. I'm resigned to the gradual decline of her capacity as a going human concern. I'm really getting my money's worth on this carnival ride. Unfortunately, like most carnival rides, you can't get off until the car comes to a full stop and the gate designed to keep you from falling to your death unlocks. Then you are free to resume your normal life.

I don't remember what normal is. I've orbited my mother in an increasingly tighter spiral for three years now. First, I helped her shop. Then I shopped for her. Then I took over managing her money and drove her to her appointments. Two years ago, she moved into a care facility. She's stopped playing the piano, reading, and knitting. She no longer turns on the computer to play games. She cannot easily talk on the phone. She can't figure out how to work the remote when somehow the TV power is on but the cable box power is off. The decline from day to day is slight. The decline over two years is obvious. It's like watching a niece grow up. If you only see her at Christmas, it's a shock.

Mom got her toenails trimmed this week. A family friend is a foot care specialist. For a modest amount, she will come out, kneel down in front of your elderly loved one, and clip and grind their toenails into a semblance of submission. I am there to chat and pay the bill. And help Mom to the bathroom when the urge comes on her.

The urge can strike at any moment. One minute she's happily reminiscing and then next moment she's leaping in slow motion from the couch. The urge struck twice during the pedicure. Our friend obligingly moved aside so Mom could shuffle to the bathroom. The first time she navigated the trip there and back successfully. The second time she had a disaster in her pants. When that happens, her brain cells flee to Florida, leaving a paralyzed husk with no capacity for thought. I've seen this episode before so I know what to do.

“You doing okay in there?” I asked, fingers crossed that she got there in time. She never closes the bathroom door: privacy means nothing. Doors are unnecessary obstacles.

“No...” She sat on the toilet, staring at the mess in her pants, at a complete loss.

I quickly shut off all air flow through my nose, rolled up my sleeves, and waded into action. Little globs of poop were on the bathroom floor, on her jeans, and on the trip-hazard rug she insists on putting in front of her toilet.

“Okay. Let's tear these things off.” From observation, I know that the pull-ups tear on the sides. Great idea. The pull-ups can be extricated and dumped without having to take them off over the feet. Brilliant. Holding my breath, I got the offending garment out from between her legs and into the trash can.

I know the drill now. “Shoes off. . . . Okay, jeans off. . . . Okay, stand up.”

I handed her a wad of wet wipes. “Wipe your bum.” She complied. I pointed to the trash can. She dropped the dirty wipes on top of the pull-up. I grabbed two more wipes. “Again,” I commanded.

We repeated the wiping ritual three times before we agreed she was probably clean enough. (I have refused to actually look at my mother's butt for reasons I don't need to explain to you.) I grabbed a new pair of pull-ups and a clean pair of jeans from the closet. “Sit back down there,” I said. She sat on the toilet. I maneuvered the new pull-ups over her feet. I helped her get her legs into a clean pair of jeans. I got her feet back into her shoes. She went back to visit with our friend, who was admiring the photos near the front door. I cleaned up the bathroom, tied off the plastic bag of trash, and put it into another trash can. I folded up the jeans and rug and put them in the laundry basket, briefly wondering if I should somehow rinse them off before discarding the idea as beyond my pay grade.

I washed my hands, still breathing through my mouth. Mom and our friend were chatting. I wrote a check and got Mom situated on the couch.

“I'll see you tonight,” I said and walked our friend out to her car.

“I told my folks you visit your Mom every day,” she said, putting her gear into the trunk. “Everyone thinks you are amazing.”

I wanted to cry but I did that oh, it's nothing, really eye roll and pretended la, la, la, it's all part of the service, as if I wasn't ready to collapse.

Parents clean up their kids' dirty diapers, multiple times a day, for years. My mother did that for me, second in a line of four children. I'm sure she was grossed out from time to time. That was before Pampers, before home diaper cleaning services. I remember seeing her on her knees rinsing my little brother's cloth diapers in the toilet. No wonder childhood was hell. Jeez. Who wouldn't be cranky all the time having to do that thankless chore?

I never wanted children. I never imagined I would be a caregiver, even to the minor extent that I am now called to be. The only training I've had in cleaning up haz mat disasters is scooping cat poop and sponging up barf. I don't know why this is my job, but it is. I do what is in front of me. Just for today, I'm showing up for poop duty. Maybe someday I'll retire to the desert and be able to say siempre hace sol aquí as I sip my iced tea and relax in the shade. Until it's time for someone else to come along behind me and scoop up my poop.

Don't think too much

I visit Mom every evening. Before I go out the door, I do what I can to ensure the place will be standing when I return. Is the heater off? check. Stove off? check. Cat dish not empty? check. I look in the mirror by the door to make sure I'm wearing my driving glasses and my outdoor cap. I look down at my legs to make sure I am wearing outdoor pants. I check my feet to make sure I'm not wearing slippers. You can't be too careful. This is how the mind-crumble begins: wearing computer glasses to drive the car . . . wearing pajamas and slippers to the grocery store. Not good.

Last night Mom was peppy. We watched the millionaires choosing their houses on HGTV. We merrily criticized the host's garish fur coats, admired his dimples, and guessed which house the lucky winners would buy (I always guess wrong). At seven, Mom walked me down the long hall to the back door of her care facility, singing lustily all the way. We are great entertainment: I can't carry a tune and she can't remember the words.

As we neared the back door, we heard the lady in the last room hollering “Help me!”

We've heard this lady before. She's lived there a few weeks. The first time I heard her yelling, I thought it was a man. Back then, I was shocked and confused. I continued  out the door, sticking to the routine, pretending I didn't hear anything. I figured anyone who could yell like that wasn't in imminent danger of dying. When Mom didn't come to the window to give me the peace sign, I went back to the door. I watched through the window and saw Mom talking to Debra the Med-Aide, pointing over her shoulder toward the resident's room. I punched in the door code, wondering if I should get involved. I hovered in the foyer. Mom did not see me. Duty done, she headed down the hall back toward her room, forgetting our peace sign ritual. I thought, this is what she looks like after I drive away.

Debra rolled her eyes as she hustled into the resident's room. As I went out the door, I heard Debra say “We have a lot to do after dinner . . . we get to you as soon as we can.”

Last night we heard the same cry: “Help me!”

We broke off our song. “Where is that coming from?” Mom asked.

“The new lady, at the end of the hall,” I said.

“Help me!”

Mom, ever the helper, started to veer toward the lady's room. I grabbed the back of her embroidered sweatshirt (this one says Hugs are one size fits all across the chest).

“No, better not,” I said. “Insurance and all.”

We looked back down the long hall. No Debra in sight.

“Use your call button,” I called into the open doorway. I did not look into the room. No way was I going to make eye contact. I know what the lady looks like now: enormous, gray-haired, and scowling. I've seen her being wheeled back from dinner. I used to work in a nursing home. I know how hard it is to push a very large angry person in a wheelchair. As I often do at the care facility, I thanked my lucky stars that I didn't have that job anymore.

“Help me!” The tone of the lady's voice reminded me of the tone my cat uses early in the morning when something needs to be addressed, pronto. Empty food dish, pile of barf . . . emergencies only to him. It's the kind of mrowl that makes me want to throw pillows.

“Use your call button!” Mom yelled back. We were at the back door. We looked at each other and shrugged. Oh well. I could see it in her eyes: things aren't great but they could be worse.

Earlier this week, I seriously contemplated renting an apartment and moving my mother in with me. After a few days, I regained my senses. Today I'm back to normal. I wasn't built to be my mother's caregiver. When she runs out of money, if she lives that long, Mom will have to take her chances with Medicaid, just like all the rest of us.

Tonight Mom did not walk me to the back door. She didn't feel like getting up. I understood. I feel that way most of the time.

Taking it as it comes

My mother's insurance company sends a nurse to visit Mom annually. I've sat in on several of these house calls. Yesterday Sherrie arrived around 10:30 am, lugging two big gym bags of gear for a comprehensive medical exam. Mom was sacked out on her flowered couch, mouth open, snoring loudly, but she quickly roused and sat up to greet the visitor. Within thirty seconds, she had grabbed her walker, aiming for the bathroom. As Mom went by, Sherrie handed her a plastic cup and started giving instructions on peeing in the cup. Mom paused, took the cup.

“What do I do with this?” she asked.

“Just put it on the back of the toilet when you are done,” Sherrie said briskly. Mom went into her little bathroom, leaving the door open but the light off. Sherrie turned her back to give Mom privacy. We chatted while Mom did her thing. After a while, Mom did not emerge from the bathroom. I called to her to see how she was doing.

“I don't know what to do now,” Mom said. Sherrie leaped up to help. I thought about letting her do the work, but she hung back when she saw the poop in Mom's pull-ups. Mom was tearing one side of the pull-up. I tore the other side. I stuffed the offending undergarment into the trash can and brought a clean pair. I know the drill now. One step at a time: Shoes off, jeans off, underpants on, stand up, pull up . . . meanwhile Sherrie had spread her gear all over the apartment, blocking the path to the couch. Mom sat on the bed. I clumsily helped her get pants back on. She sat there quietly, feet dangling, waiting for the next cue while Sherrie babbled on about this and that, getting her forms ready, telling me about her own mother (aged 83, also demented, living day-to-day in a care home). Eventually Mom got bored and toppled over sideways on the bed.

Sherrie checked Mom's blood pressure. Next, she checked Mom's feet. She had trouble getting Mom's slip-on Merrells back on. I sat on the couch, changing the batteries in my mother's hearing aids, and pretended not to notice as Mom expressed her discomfort by shouting “Ow!” when Sherrie forced Mom's foot into her shoe. I know that feeling, the desire to appear efficient and helpful that backfires—it's one of my well trod paths to humility.

“Well, now that I'm done abusing your mother . . . ” Sherrie joked. “Here are some things you might want to watch for.”

Sherrie told me dementia is a slow-moving disease. Apparently, dementia patients are more likely to die from falls, pneumonia, or infections. “Your mom could last five more years.” Sherrie was entering data into her notebook, so she almost missed the look of horror on my face. 

“What is going on with you?” she asked. I went over to the bed and put Mom's hearing aids back in place. Red goes in the right ear, blue in the left. Images of future wreckage flitted through my mind.

“Let's talk about this later,” I said. “Testing, testing.”

“Loud and clear,” Mom said, smiling up at me.

By the time the visit was over, Mom and I were both exhausted. Mom sank into the couch to catch a few winks before lunch. I left to run my errands, after which I went home for my own nap. I woke up bleary-eyed and ham-fisted, like a kid who just woke up from a nap but is pretending she has perfect control over all her faculties. I dropped a few things as I prepared my lunch, nothing breakable.

I went back to visit Mom as usual in the evening. She was upright on the couch, watching TV, but not for long. Shortly after I arrived, she drooped and her eyes rolled back in her head. I suggested she might want to rest. She agreed. I helped her get her feet up on the couch and spread her old wool blanket over her legs. She pulled it up to her chest.

“I'm not walking you down” she said sadly. I kissed her forehead, told her I loved her, and walked to the back door alone. Three nights in a row now, she has opted for the couch. I don't know if that means anything except it's hell getting old. As if we didn't already know.

The Chronic Malcontent makes end-of-life plans

Howdy, Blogbots. How's it going? How are you doing on your end-of-life plans? Oh, you don't have any? Good for you, you eternal optimist, you. I'm sad when young people end their lives, whether or not it is on purpose, but as an older person who has lived a relatively long life, I respect our right to exit on our own terms, if we happen to be so lucky. I think a lot about how I would like the end of my life to be, especially after I visit my mother at the assisted living facility.

Last night, as usual, we sat on the couch watching reruns of M.A.S.H. I heard loud moaning coming from the hall. It sounded like what I imagine a cow being slaughtered might sound like. I ignored the din until a commercial break.

“What is that noise?” I asked.

“Oh, that's Rosy,” Mom said. “She does that.”

“What is wrong with her?”

“She's getting ready to croak.”

I was slightly taken aback at her word choice, but then I realized my mother has no illusions about what is happening there. People don't go to assisted living to recuperate, rehab, and return to their homes to live blissfully independent lives. It's a rare broken hip or leg who escapes from the nursing home. Everyone knows that these warehouses have one purpose: to make money by taking care of old people until they die.

Old people used to die at home, cared for by family members. Generations lived together under one roof. What changed? Women got jobs. Kids went to daycare. Seniors went to adult daycare. Very old seniors went into care facilities—what do we call them? Retirement homes, nursing homes, assisted living . .  euphemisms for warehouses designed to house nonproductive humans.

Mom isn't into bingo or crafts. She naps on her pastel-flowered couch between meals. The activities people, the chefs, the entertainers, the managers . . . everyone disappears by six o'clock, right after supper. The Med Aide turns the hall lights low. The staff start putting the residents to bed. By the time Mom walks me down the hall at seven, the place is a ghost town. I hear a few televisions blaring from behind closed doors. I see an occasional aide exiting a room carrying a plastic trash bag. I think I know what is in those trash bags: dirty adult diapers.

For the past week, the old woman in the last room down the hall has been having some incontinence issues. The stench emanating from her room is nauseating. My mother doesn't seem to notice. She sings our current favorite song, She'll be coming round the mountain, right to the back door. I must stop singing because I have to breathe through my mouth. It's either that or barf. This is what we have to look forward to if we are lucky enough to live long lives. Whether we age at home or in a warehouse, eventually the systems give out. Growing old is not for wimps.

I'm formulating my end-of-life plan. If I'm fortunate enough to have the mental and physical capacity to choose my end, I have some preferences. I won't share them with you; you might think I'm depressed or something. I'm not depressed. I try to live each day as it comes, stay productive, focus on being useful . . . but I have no illusions either. Like Mom, I know I will die someday. I hope it's not soon. I hope I can enjoy some warm desert air before I go. If I can, I'd like to choose the nature and timing of my demise. But nobody knows where, when, or how,  not for certain. The question, as always, is how do we want to spend our time until our time is over. Living is not for wimps, either.

Spring is a-maundering near the Love Shack

It's finally spring here in Portland, which means the east wind howls through bare branches, clouds roll over unexpectedly, and the temperature varies twenty degrees depending on what side of the apartment I am on. It could hail at any moment. Or not. I don't know whether I should open a window or crank up the heat.

I went for a walk in Mt. Tabor Park yesterday to stroll around the big reservoir. I shivered going up the east side of the hill in the shade and sweltered on the west side in the sun. I would have gladly stayed on the west side forever, under blue sky and balmy breezes but my feet started to hurt.

I usually bandage a toe on my left foot before I go walking. However, I haven't walked since last fall. On my third circuit around the reservoir, toes on both feet began to hurt. I expected some pain, but both feet? As I limped along, I tried to recall . . . did I bandage the wrong foot? I made a pit stop to sit on a step and pull off my right shoe and sock. Sure enough, I had bandaged the toe on my right foot and not the toe on the left foot. Looks like I lost a few more brain cells over the long winter.

My cuticles are shredded, a sure sign that I am stressed. Among my many fears, I am sure I have early dementia. I fear I'm going blind. I fear I'm a walking heart attack. I fear my mother will live forever. I fear she will run out of money and have to move in with me.

To stop thinking, I took the plastic sheeting off the kitchen windows. I hope I don't regret my quest for more light and fresh air. The sky is clouding over. Rain is on the way. It gets cold when the east wind blows in.

I figured out that my experience of life is the result of five factors: circumstance, luck, persistence, talent, and insanity, pretty much in that order. I have no control over the first two. I can't do much about the last two. It seems to me that persistence is where I can leverage my capacity as a going human concern. To that end, I'm trying to do the things on my list, no matter how trivial, and avoid thinking too much.

That is why I'm blogging right now. It's on my list. I usually blog after something noteworthy happens. The only memorable thing that has happened so far today is that my cat ate food and then upchucked on the rug. Hey, barf happens.

The trick is to put tasks on my list that matter, not trivial things that I would do anyway just so I have something to check off. Sometimes I need to do that, though, I confess. Demoralization sets in when I don't do at least one important thing per day. Sometimes taking out the compost bin is an accomplishment; however, usually, taking out the compost, trash, and recycling does not merit a place on my to-do list. I used to think I deserved a medal if I got up before nine o'clock. Now I don't care. My idea of what is important has evolved as I've aged.

Speaking of aging, my relationship with gravity continues to evolve. As I drive, I feel my muscles melting into goo. I would like to say I keep a smile on my face when I am in public, but that would be a lie. My face sags when I'm not paying attention. My expression morphs from grimacing, to pursing my lips, to squinting, to scowling. I'm sure I often look insane.

Did I mention I try not to think too much?

Let's think about something else. How is everyone doing? Thanks for asking. My sister is living an academic life in Rennes. That is to say, she pursues her research like a terrier with a bone. It is not easy. I vacation in France through her photos and emails. My friend Bravadita is almost done earning a teaching credential. I fear for her safety as a public school teacher but I don't tell her that. She's got enough on her plate writing meaningless essays about classroom management and learning theory. I hope I live long enough to read her memoir. It is going to be magnificent.

My mother exists in a strange world outside of time, going through the daily motions as if she's caught in a time loop. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, nap, visit from daughter, repeat. If she didn't have dementia I think she would be a lot more frustrated. The thought occurs to her—is that all there is? I can see it flit across her face, but then it's gone. M.A.S.H. is on: time to discuss the merits of Klinger's latest frock.

The chronic malcontent cleans house

In summer 1977, I was an immature twenty-year-old, recently flown the nest in favor of sunny Los Angeles to find my fortune among the stars and palm trees. I was unaware that in 1977, NASA launched two school bus-sized spacecraft, Voyager 1 in September and Voyager 2 in August, aimed for Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, and beyond. The most concrete memory I have of the word Voyager is the ridiculous revelation in the 1979 Star Trek movie that the enemy V'Ger is actually Earth's Voyager 6. That sounds less ridiculous to me today, given, well, you know, everything.

PBS showed an update a couple weeks ago of the Voyager mission. I was surprisingly moved by the journeys of the intrepid spacecraft, chugging along toward deep space with their primitive computer brains. Any number of times, they could have been lost, but they both successfully matriculated—they have crossed the boundary between the solar system and interstellar space. Off they go, like kids to college. We will never see them again, obviously, and they are having a harder and harder time phoning home. Eventually the signals will be too faint to hear.

Both Voyager spacecraft carry copies of a twelve-inch disc known as the Golden Record, crammed with as much data as NASA engineers could fit on a round gold-plated piece of copper. The Golden Record contains images and music, math and science—humankind's achievements (as of 1977, that is).

The Golden Records are a message to the universe that we existed, we were here. The discs should last at least a billion years, long after the human species has destroyed its habitat and gone extinct. I get a little weepy when I imagine some far away alien child finding a gold record buried in its backyard, figuring out how to play the disc, and discovering Chuck Berry, many light years from Earth. Oh, Carol, don't let him steal your heart away!

I'm back in the present. Today rain and sun have battled for supremacy. That is how we know it is almost spring here in the Pacific Northwest. Despite the 45°F temperature, I tore down some of the plastic sheeting that protected us from the worst of the east wind. I opened multiple windows.

When I can't figure out what to do next, I embark on a cleaning binge. I started with the bathroom, on the assumption that my effort will be most obvious in the smallest room. It's good I did. Under the cat's cozy fleece window seat in the bathroom were layers of moldy wet towels. Gross. No wonder my sinuses are constantly clogged.

After throwing all the moldy towels in the washer ($2.00 to wash, $2.00 to dry), I tackled the bedroom rug with my old Tidy Maid, something I do a few times a year. However, I soon noticed I wasn't having much success—the machine was not hoovering! Argh. I diagnosed the problem with a flashlight: The vacuum cleaner was gagging on a gargantuan hairball stuck in its craw, I mean, its hose, halfway between the entry and exit.

Oh, yippee, a rare chance to use my human ingenuity to solve a domestic problem! Rare because I so rarely do anything domestic besides cooking and eating food. Time to exercise the calcifying brain cells. I got busy strategizing my approach. Yes, in case you are wondering, I remembered to unplug the vacuum cleaner before I started poking around with metal tools.

First, I tried the cat's wooden-dowel play stick (good for making mysterious under-the-rug creatures that are super fun to pounce on . . . so it seems, I mean, not that I would know). The stick was too short. Next, I tried an untwisted and unbent hanger, repurposed to catch and pull out the hair clog. No luck. Both the stick and the hanger were too weak and too short. Hmmm. I know that feeling. I debated doing a Cesarean on the plastic hose, but wasn't sure I could duct-tape the thing back up successfully. Thinking, thinking . . . a-ha! The broom! The broom handle turned out to be the right length, weight, and thickness to shove that clog down the tube and into the belly of the machine. Because I had removed the dust bag, leaving only the gaping exit hole, I witnessed the birth. I even helped, although sadly, the clog came apart in chunks. Eeeww. I thought maybe I had sucked up a cat toy. Nope. The clog was just a solid mass of cat hair, dust, and detritus. After the hairball was ejected, the vacuum cleaner sucked like a dream. Back to work.

While I vacuumed (multitasking!), I washed a load of bed linens and miscellaneous t-shirts and socks (another $4.00). Only items made from synthetics ever truly get dry in this dryer. I often must festoon my apartment with slightly damp clothing and towels. Today when I pulled the mass of laundry from the dryer, I could tell right away that it was nowhere near dry. What gives? I discovered that every single item—fitted sheet, pillowcases, socks, towels, underwear, t-shirts—had all somehow magically been sucked inside the duvet cover. Not a single thing remained. Everything was neatly bundled in a sodden heap inside the giant pillowcase. I couldn't have done it better myself.

Doing laundry opens a window into parallel universe, whose inhabitants apparently sometimes need just one beige sock. I wish they would at least ask. I don't mind loaning a sock once in awhile. But they just take it. Sometimes they return it, sometimes they don't. Today they didn't appear to take anything . . . they just wanted to have some fun, I guess. Ha ha. Now the Love Shack looks like a cheap clothing store after a hurricane.

All these daily challenges that sometimes seem so overwhelming (I want my darn sock back!) pale in comparison to the challenge humans are currently facing. I can't do much to save the world. I can't call out to outerspace . . . save us, superior beings, wherever you are! My song is not on that Golden Record. In fifty years, heck, in twenty years, no one will remember me or my tirade about recalcitrant laundry and missing socks. Sometimes I'm sad about that. The stories I write will disappear into the past along with my bones. Maybe in some cosmic scrapbook, all our stories shine forever, who knows. 

I'm not twenty anymore. I don't have a lot of time left. Humans have such a short blip of time to make our mark. Not everyone makes it into the history books. I'm okay with anonymity. Just another bozo on the bus.

Traveling light

After a day of snow flurries and House Oversight Committee testimony, I'm ready for spring. Mom and I agree, it's time for winter to move on. My little space heater chugs nonstop all day, grinding out tepid warmth. It never really gets warm at the Love Shack. I thaw my toes with microwaved rice-filled socks and take hot baths before bed so I can sleep. My kitchen windows are covered with plastic and still the east wind blows in. It's not really all that cold outside, compared to someplace like Michigan or Minnesota or Spokane. Still, it's not great. Portland gets a special kind of damp cold that chills you to the bone but leaves you ashamed to complain because it's not forty below.

I'm glad the old smoking buddies (Mom and Jane) don't go outside to smoke anymore. They both have the Patch. But they would be outside in a heartbeat if they could coerce me into taking them out. Weather does not stop these old addicts. If they could get outside on their own, they would. The only thing stopping them is the knowledge they wouldn't be able to get back in.

It's a smoker's COPD dilemma: What do you do when the thing you love more than anything else in the world will kill you if you do it? If Mom could put a sentence together, she would say that she's going to die anyway so she might as well enjoy the time she has left. I can't fault the logic. I understand addiction. I don't want to be her enabler but neither do I want to deprive her of one of her few remaining pleasures. If Make-a-Wish called me to tell me my mother's last wish is to smoke a pack on her deathbed, I guess I would comply. My only excuse is she's not in her right mind. Actually, if she were in her right mind, whatever that is, she would say, get out of my way, let me die my way.

Tonight we walked over to Jane's room to say hello.

These days she leaves her door open to help her cope with claustrophobia and anxiety. Mom and I stood in the doorway. “Hi, how are you doing?” I asked. Jane came over, looking thinner than ever in her cutoff gray sweatpants and tiny velour jacket. Her hair was in pin curls. I noticed she had on footwear I hadn't seen before: fuzzy lavender ballet slippers with bows on top. She said she was doing much better. No more oxygen tank burbling in the corner.

“I sure miss going outside,” she said. “I can hardly stand it. I'm going to do something about it.”

“You know smoking again could kill you,” I said.

“I've about had it. I talked to all my doctors,” she said. “Two or three puffs, they said would be okay.”

I noticed my mother looking interested. I turned to her. “You had one cigarette and it almost killed you,” I said.

“Really?” She sounded skeptical. She didn't remember gasping on the couch. I shrugged. I know when a battle can't be won.

“Would you like to walk down to check your mailbox?” I asked Jane.

“Yeah, let's do that,” Mom said. Jane found her mailbox key.

“Should I close my door?” she frowned, hovering in the hallway. She worries that people (staff) go inside when she's not there and look through her stuff. Mom was already shuffling down the hall with her walker. Jane decided to leave the door open. We strolled past the front door, down the hall, past Mom's room to the mailboxes. “Here we are!”

Jane opened her box: two letters from Kaiser. I opened Mom's box: empty.

We walked Jane back to her room. Mom decided it was time to walk me down the long hall to the back door to see me off. We passed her room, where M.A.S.H. was blaring. We sang When the Saints go Marching In as we walked, a pleasant alternative to our usual She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain. By the back door, I kissed her forehead. We exchanged peace signs. I told her I loved her. She smiled. I went outside in the frigid air and got into my car. She waved the peace sign at me through the window. I turned on the overhead courtesy light so she could see me return the peace sign. I started the car, pulled forward, and waved my hand out the window. She waved back. Over her shoulder I could see a fuzzy moving image on the big screen TV that the old folks use to play wii bowling. I waved back and drove away down the hill.

I begin to see that memory occurs on a continuum, and people's capacity and willingness to remember varies. Just because she can't answer when I ask her what she had for dinner doesn't mean she doesn't remember. If I prompt her by saying, “Remember when you had potato chips for dinner?” she'll say yes with some certainty. Potato chips for dinner is a memorable meal.

Who cares whether we remember what we had for dinner? I can remember what I had for dinner because I have the same damn dinner everyday. Mom's menu varies and she's fed frequently in large amounts. Who could possibly keep track? And why should it matter?

Dementia strips out the nonessentials. Everything we don't need sloughs off like dead skin, leaving us with just the core, the white hot essence, burning bright. Memories of events, people, places, meals . . . it's all just mental clutter. It's not that there is no longer room for those memories. It's more like we don't need them anymore and the goal for the next adventure is to travel light, as light as we can, as light as light.

The end of a life is not like the movies

We all know how the story ends. In the movies, the hero's loved one declares faith in the hero's capacity to overcome obstacles and then quietly dies. People die quickly in the movies. If you blink, you'll miss it, it happens that fast. The spirit eases out the window in a flurry of fireflies, ascending to heaven where all good characters go (I'm thinking of Gena Rowland's character in Hope Floats). One moment ago she was here, gazing with love at her daughter, and the next, she's dropped her teacup.

First, when it comes to witnessing the end of a life, there are no heroes. Either that or we are all heroes, flailing valiantly to cope with life on life's terms. Just because sorrow is imminent and overwhelming doesn't make us special. Everyone has sorrow. We're either all heroes or none of us heroes. Movies have to have a hero or we won't watch. Preferably one who isn't dead when the credits roll. I can't stand Nicholas Sparks movies.

Second, I suspect in real life the end of a life usually happens in slow motion . . . really drawn out, excruciatingly tedious slooooooow motion. What they don't show us in the movies are the grinding weeks and months leading up to that transcendent moment when the hero's mother dies. They can't make an entire movie about that process—who could stand it? It would be like My Dinner with Andre. Yeesh. Still, some verisimilitude might be welcome for those of us who could use a dose of reality to stay grounded.

I don't know what I expected this process to be like. Did I think she would be herself up to the very end? Did I imagine she would keel over in the middle of a sentence or cease to be while snoozing on the couch? Somehow I didn't think it would (a) be so excruciating (for me) or (b) take so long.

Once again I show my uncanny ability to take my mother's life and death and make it mine. I'm not the one who is coming to the end of the runway, but it feels like it. Hey, maybe I am, who knows? The big one could hit tomorrow and pancake me into the basement. We all know how our stories will end. We just don't when, where, and how.

Snowmageddon or something not really that spectacular

Winter finally arrived, only a month late. Snow is on the way! Yesterday, in anticipation of Snowmageddon, Portlanders swarmed the grocery stores to stock up. I am proud to say I was among them. That means I can write with firsthand knowledge about how it feels when you are twentieth in a line of overflowing shopping baskets, gazing at the faraway checkout stand from the meat department at the back of the store. In some parts of town, I heard there was a run on kale. Not in my part of town. As far as I could tell, people were stockpiling beer and ice cream. I bought next week's fresh veggies, fruit, eggs, and yogurt a few days early, hoping I won't have to go Donner party on my cat before the Snowpocalypse melts.

I woke to two inches of snow today feeling optimistic about the state of my pantry and relieved that braving the crowds at the grocery store wasn't a total waste of time.

Today I had occasion to attend a workshop at a nearby church. My car was buried under a couple inches of snow and more snow was on the way, so I decided to walk. I have snow boots, how bad could it be? I put on tights, sweatpants, and rain pants, two pair of socks, two t-shirts, a fleece pullover, and a fleece cardigan. Over that I wore my fleece hooded jacket, topped by a lightweight windbreaker. I had a hat, a scarf, fingerless mittens, and gloves. I loaded my backpack with my gear and left the Love Shack for my half-mile hike.

The first thing I noticed was the wind. The temperature was above freezing but it felt colder. As I clomped past my buried car, it began to snow. Just little spit balls blowing in all directions, nothing like the big fat flakes that came down overnight. I thought, how bad could it get in half a mile? The bus was still running. . . I could always hop on the bus if I got too cold.

The sidewalks were an unpredictable mix of uncleared, shoveled, trampled, and salted pavement. I had to watch my feet, which was sort of fun because they looked so big and wide. I never wear snow boots. I got these mid-calf high, lace-up boots after the last huge snowstorm took us all (well, me) by surprise. After shoveling snow in my soggy Merrels, I swore I would get some serious snow boots, and I did. They have cluttered my closet for eleven years, until today. 

Feeling like Bigfoot, I arrived at the church, clomped up some steps, then down some steps, and found the workshop room. There was no one there. I peeled off a few layers and replaced the snow boots with some indoor shoes. I optimistically arranged a few chairs in a circle and sat down to wait. Pretty soon another person arrived. Yay, I thought. A kindred spirit. We can commiserate about the weather.

“I'm from New York,” she declared. “This is nothing.”

I pretended like the pile of outerwear in the corner belonged to someone else. We exchanged a few stilted statements, mostly about how crappy Portland is and how great New York is. I drew bug-eyed yeti in my notebook, thinking, well, if New York is so great . . .  and prayed for more attendees to rescue me. Pretty soon the woman gathered her things and stood up.

“I'm going to look for some coffee,” she said. “See you later.” She did not return.

After a while a friend arrived.

“The buses can't go faster than 25 mph when they are chained,” she explained as she peeled off her layers. Outside the sky had cleared and a brittle sun illuminated the snow in the churchyard.

We talked about footwear and bus travel as we waited for more attendees. And waited. And waited. Finally after an hour we decided nobody was coming. Snowmageddon had apparently frightened everyone off. Or they simply weren't interested in the topic. Who knows. My friend and I donned our outwear and parted ways on the street, she heading downhill and me pointing uphill into the east wind. It took almost thirty minutes but I made it to the Love Shack intact. As my glasses steamed up, I congratulated myself on my intrepidness: only one blister. Time to eat lunch and blog!

The evening stretches before me, a rare luxury of time and no deadlines. I don't have to be anywhere but here. The temperature is expected to plummet to 20°F at sunset, which means all the roads and sidewalks will become ice rinks. Bones are brittle, and cars are hard to stop on ice. I'm staying home. Tonight will be my first night off from daughter duty. I'm not sure if I feel relieved or anxious.

Last May I began to visit my mother nightly in anticipation of her looming demise. As you know, she didn't die. I kept visiting daily, thinking this could be the last time I see her alive, and she kept on living. Just goes to show, you never know. You could claim that my visits are keeping her alive. It's like feeding a feral cat. Once you start, you can't really stop. On the other hand, you could claim that visiting her daily gives me a purpose. Both claims could be true.

It's almost six o'clock. In three minutes, the alarm on my phone is going to go off, notifying me it is time to put on my shoes and head out the door. But I'm not going. I am suddenly feeling sick, like I'm failing. I should be there. I know it's not safe to drive but I feel terribly sad to miss our evening visit, even if all we do these days is watch M.A.S.H. reruns. What if she dies tonight? Argh.

She won't. She too is intrepid. Like the Energizer Bunny, she carries on. She probably won't even notice I'm not there.

I'll be glad when it's over but I'll miss it when it's gone

I sit at my worktable with my stockinged feet ensconced in a polyester fleece pillowcase containing two socks filled with cheap rice that I heated for two minutes in the microwave. This is the poor man's foot warmer. After ten years, the device I sewed myself sprung a leak and dribbled a trail of rice between the kitchen and my desk before I finally caught on. Tied off socks work pretty well, although as the rice is gradually pulverized by my feet, tiny bits of rice filter through the socks. Even doubling up the socks has not stopped the rice dust from coating the inside of my microwave (and probably my entire apartment).

It's winter at the Love Shack. A strangely warm winter so far, above average temperatures, so why am I so cold? There is something about the damp winter air in the Northwest that makes me want to hibernate. Moisture has clogged the holes in my salt shaker. The cupboard doors no longer close. The cutting board is swollen and jammed in the slot. Anything made of wood has swelled like a ten-day corpse. Moss and lichen grow on my car. I suspect I have mold growing in my personal crevices, although my sinuses are too congested for me to smell it.

Did you catch the super blood wolf moon? I saw the full moon through a hazy fog as I entered the back door of Mom's retirement facility. I hoped to show the old smokers the amazing sight of a lunar eclipse. Unfortunately, the full moon was below the roof line of the building. The old ladies were not impressed by my description of the glorious super blood wolf moon taking place shortly.

The moon had disappeared behind clouds by the time I got home. I watched the eclipse livestreamed by the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. Thousands of viewers from around the world were watching. As the Observatory played classical music, viewers commented on the event:

• Where is the red?
• Can it go any faster?
• In Belgium, she is red.
• Gah, it is so exciting!
• Super cloudy in Los Angeles
• The Death Star is fully functional and will be able to fire within five minutes.
• Does this mean we are all Lunatics?
• Everyone is so nice, this is so fun.

Totality came at 8:39 pm Pacific time. The comments continued:

• Can't see anything here in TN.
• Definitely red
• Thank God I am alive to view this.
• It's cold.
• Why am I hungry for cheese?

I listened to the classical music, which was interrupted occasionally by the voices of the scientists explaining how they were recalibrating the telescope to get a better view of the lunar surface and noting the purple crescent of light at the top, the red color or lack of red color as the eclipse progressed. Over twenty thousand people were on the live stream. The comments continued:

• Mike, can you get your flat earth nonsense out of here.
• This is not science.
• This is God.
• 14°F in NYC.
• Grandpa, are you still on?
• No red here in TN.
• Save our beautiful earth!
• No one cares about your stupid president! Look at the moon!!

This week has been hard. Mom's smoking buddy, Jane, got sick first. The next day Mom was coughing, wheezing, and running a temperature. The nurse at the facility called me to take Mom to urgent care. I did. Mom soldiered like a trooper from the parking space toward the front door of the clinic. Mental note to self: Use the valet parking service next time.

As we approached the door, Mom stopped and hunched over. It was happening.

“We'll head straight for the bathroom,” I said.

We did. I won't regale you with the details. Now I understand why parents of toddlers carry giant bags of gear. Note to self: Pack a bag of gear, keep it in the car.

Some minutes later, we emerged from the restroom. Mom seemed okay with going commando while we settled in for the hour-long wait. Fortunately, the line ahead of us moved quickly. Soon Mom was being checked in by a kindly nurse who confessed to me that she was childless and therefore had no clue how to get an old person's arm out of a sleeve. We had a rueful laugh over that. I wasn't laughing later when we had to get Mom's two t-shirts off over her head. Note to self: find her some tops that open in front.

Two hours later, I took Mom back to the facility. I parked, got her walker out of the trunk, and pointed her toward the door. She sideswiped the curb and a couple potted plants with her walker, head down, not seeing hazards in the dark. I steered her as best I could, appalled at her inability to navigate. She was running on fumes, I think. I got her settled onto her couch and covered her with a blanket. Diagnosis: Bronchitis, same as last winter. No treatment, just Tylenol, fluids, and rest. And quarantine.

Three days later, no improvement. The nurse called: antibiotics and a steroid to help her breathe. Note to self: Is this the end? The next day, yesterday, Mom was much improved, eating meals in her room and complaining about the food.  We made a get well card for Jane and delivered it to her door. We didn't knock. Mom was exhausted when we got back to her room. She hasn't had a cigarette in a week.

It's lonely making the trek down the long hall to the back door, getting into my car without seeing her hunched figure in the window, giving me the peace sign as I drive away. Note to self: Enjoy her as long as you can. You'll be glad when it's over but you will miss it when it's gone.

The Chronic Malcontent bakes a cherry pie . . . sort of

Balmy temps (50°F) have inspired me to open a window to air out the accumulated housitosis consisting of body odor, burnt onions, unvacuumed rugs, and the lingering stench of cheap perfume from the vet's attempt to clean out my cat's wax-filled ears. You would think ear cleaner manufacturers would go easy on perfume in a product meant for the delicate insides of a cat's ears. Like many cat products, the cleaning solution seems to be aimed to please human owners rather than the cats. In this case, massive fail. I'm allergic. It's been a minor hell of eye burning and throat irritation, and the cat hasn't been too happy about it either. Insult to injury, yesterday I reluctantly instigated a cat diet at the recommendation of the young, slender, perky, blonde newly minted veterinarian Dr. Danielle (daughter of the retired Dr. Brian).

“Ideally, an adult cat should be no more than twelve pounds,” she said regretfully eyeing my cat's substantial sixteen-pound girth (and pointedly not looking at my own).

I've been working on my girth. I'm happy to say, despite my conflicting relationship with food, I've lost enough girth to fit into my old out-of-style Levis. Maybe there is a god. For sure it takes divine intervention to help me follow my food plan. My food plan is simple: vegetables, fruit, eggs, yogurt. And lots of coffee.

Last week I baked a pie. If you know anything about me, that statement should get your attention. I barely cook (if you call roasting vegetables cooking), let alone bake. I eat cooked things—everyday I inadvertently overcook my vegetables until they are gummy mush—but I don't eat baked things. I would if someone baked them for me. But baking is a fine art, as anyone who bakes will tell you. It's not one of those skills you pick up in the aisle at Walmart. Allegedly . . . I do not shop at Walmart so it could be that baking skills are one of many wonderful things you could pick up in a Walmart aisle. 

Back to the pie. My mother loves cherry pie. Because I love my mother and feel it is my daughterly obligation and privilege to do things to make her happy and recognizing it has been almost two years since she's had a bite of cherry pie, I thought I would bake her a little cherry pie. How hard could it be?

Before I embarked on this foolhardy endeavor, I thought I had a pretty good chance of making something edible. I mean, I wasn't planning on making the filling from scratch. I'm not a total fool, after all. The stuff in the can would do just fine for her . . . all those chemicals, sugar, and red dyes, why, her system was built on that stuff. The main challenge, as I saw it, was the requirement to use gluten-free flour to make the crust.

When they say gluten-free, what they really mean is wheat-free. If you bake, you know that wheat is a common ingredient in baking. Flour substitutes involve grains like rice, corn, oats, millet . . . all great stuff, but maybe not that great for a pie crust? Ignorance is (sometimes) bliss: I was not to be deterred.

First, I went online and read everything I could find on making pie crust with non-wheat flour. There was some but not much agreement. Everyone had an opinion. I think it is a trait of bakers. In particular, I wanted to view videos of real people getting their hands dirty in dough. I could only find videos of bakers using wheat flour. Nevertheless, I studied their process and took copious notes.

Later that afternoon, I realized I was procrastinating. Fear does not bake pies. In accordance with my new year's philosophy regarding getting things done, I rolled up my sleeves, washed my hands, and got to work. Recipe for a nine-inch pie in hand, I cut the amounts in half to make a pie to fit into one of those dinky crinky aluminum pie tins that you can find at the store, comes in a stack of six tins with plastic covers, you know what I mean if you make pot pies to take to potlucks, which I never do, in case you wondered. Having little luck with food, I avoid pot lucks.

Pie dough consists of four ingredients: flour, salt, fat, water. Some people add a fifth, sugar. The fat can be butter, shortening, lard, or some type of oil. Mom can't have butter, and I don't stock shortening or lard in my kitchen, so olive oil was my only option. None of my online video sources told me how to handle non-wheat flour so I tried to emulate their advice for wheat flour pie crust as closely as I could. The trick to making flaky wheat pie dough is to mix the ingredients until the flour is in pea-sized nuggets but not tire it out with too much handling.

One thing I learned is that it takes a lot of water to moisten non-wheat flour to create a substance that you can flatten and form into something that resembles pie dough that can be pushed into a pie tin. In case you want to try gluten-free flour pie crust yourself, that is my observation based on my experience. Once the dough was moist enough, I was able to roll it out with my rarely used wooden rolling pin. However, looking back, I realize I didn't roll the dough thin enough. Do your best to roll it quite thin.

Second, after I poured the bright red gleaming cherry pie filling into the pie crust, I thought it probably would have been good to prebake the pie crust. Some wheat flour recipes called for prebaking the crust, some did not. In my eagerness to complete the task and check it off my list, I did not prebake the empty pie crust. I covered the pie filling with a top layer of pie crust (also not rolled thin enough). I haphazardly crimped what edges I could and trimmed the rest, took a photo, and shoved the tin into the oven.

I must say, it looked like a pie going into the oven, and after I took off the aluminum foil tent, it browned up pretty nicely. As I pulled it out of the oven, I was astounded and slightly unnerved at how heavy it was. The pie tin slid across the baking sheet, heading for the open oven. In the nick of time, my sharply honed reflexes managed to keep the sheet horizontal (pure luck). The pie did not fall into the oven or on the floor. Sometimes we mark victory by what didn't happen, right? After letting it cool for a bit, I placed the heavy little pie into a box, covered it with foil, and took it over to Mom's.

I wanted to show her the pie before we went out for a smoke, because I knew half her brain would be missing when we came back inside. I modestly explained what I had done and pulled the pie out of the box. I took off the foil cover with a flourish. Voila! She seemed mildly impressed. I could tell she was itching to get outside.

After we came in, she milled around in confusion as usual. I took one of her kitchen knives (not the sharpest knife, I feel I must say to preface my tale of what came next). My intention was to cut a small piece of pie and place it in a dish. However, the knife would not cut the pie crust. Sticking to my principle of modesty, I did not immediately blame the knife. Failure not being an option, I continued to saw into the pie crust. Eventually I broke through. The red filling came into view. I aimed the knife at the bottom crust. After considerable effort, I managed to poke, jam, saw, slice, and otherwise attack the bottom crust until at last, at last, I could free a little slice of pie for my mother.

I placed the wedge of pie in the dish. The crust stood valiantly upright as the filling dripped away and ran into the dish. Soon the crust stood alone in a sea of neon red cherry pie filling.

“Here you go!” I said proudly, handing my mother the dish and a fork.

She poked at the crust once or twice, gave up, and scooped some of the filling into her mouth. Finally, she picked the crust up with her fingers and used it like a cracker to scoop up filling, like how she might scoop up salsa with a tortilla chip if she didn't hate Mexican food so much.

The next day, Mom reported having a massive diarrhea blowout. There is no way to know if the little bit of pie she consumed was to blame, but she wasn't willing to try any more of it. Three days later, I took the pie home and dumped it in my compost bin.

Feet don't fail me now

The cat materializes out of nowhere as soon as I sit down to blog. I assume he has some ideas about what I should write. Or else there is a blob of barf that needs my immediate attention. On this rainy cold January morning—well, it's afternoon now, but it's Sunday so cut me some slack—it's hard to motivate. My eyes are bleary with winter. My vertigo comes and goes with air pressure and gravity. My sinuses are often clogged, granting me intermittent relief from the fetid smells that have accumulated in the Love Shack. Sometimes I smell old socks, overcooked eggs, and mildew, but by the time I get the energy to do something about it, my sinuses swell up and shut down the olfactory factory.

Last night I dreamed I was about to undergo a lengthy dental procedure. I asked to use the restroom first; they gave me the door code but I promptly got lost in a mall, searching through smeared glasses for clean toilets. Then I lost my car. I wrote the dreams down in my journal while I waited for my eggs to overcook. Then I practiced my Spanish (me gusta dibujar y pintar). When I tried to salt my eggs, the salt was clogged by moisture from coming out the little holes. I poked them open with a toothpick. I do this every morning in winter. The cupboard doors don't close, and the cutting board balks at being pushed in and pulled out. Anxiety and moisture rule at the Love Shack.

We had a windstorm last night but it didn't keep me from sleeping. This morning while I wrote, the only sound was the intermittent whooshing of the space heater that heats my main room. Sunday mornings are usually pretty quiet around the Love Shack. I hope someday to move to a place that is quiet most of the time, not just on Sunday mornings. I would like to live a few blocks off the bus line. As long as I'm envisioning my perfect habitat, it would be great not to have to hear people snoring, peeing, or having sex on the other side of thin apartment walls.

I dread what is coming, and yet I know it is the price of admission to freedom. I don't feel brave enough to witness the daily dissolution of my mother's once competent life, yet I show up and witness it every evening at six fifteen. I restock the gluten-free bread and cookies, the rice milk and gluten-free Cheerios, the cigarettes. I write the checks for her pull-ups, wipes, and medications. I watch her bank account slowly dwindling. Her dissolution scrapes at me, too, even though I'm not the one nearing the end of life (as far as I know today).

A couple days ago I visited my mother during the day to be present for her appointment with a foot care nurse. Mom was sacked out on her couch when I arrived. She popped right up when I came in. We sat and watched day time TV while we waited.

In a few minutes, Sandy arrived. Sandy (not her real name) happens to be a family friend; in fact, she used to live three doors down the street. She was one of the gang I grew up with. Her cousin Kim lived next door; Kim was my best friend. Sandy was one year older, one of five girls. Sandy became a nurse, and then transitioned into providing foot care for seniors. She lugged a big box and a bag of gear into my mother's apartment. I moved the coffee table out of the way so Sandy could kneel on the floor in front of my mother.

She peeled down one white tube sock, exposing my mother's purple foot.

“You have very straight toes!” she said, smiling up at my mother. “You know this is fungus, right?” I looked at my mother's bulging big toenail in squeamish horror. Was I supposed to be checking her toes?

“Don't they check her feet here?” I wailed.

“Most places don't do a good job of checking residents' feet,” Sandy replied. I wondered, is that supposed to make me feel better?

While she trimmed my mother's toenails and filed down her two hideously enlarged big toe toenails with a Dremel, spraying toenail dust into the air, we chatted about our families. She asked about my sister (in France) and my brothers (working full-time). (“It's all on you then,” she noted, to which I nodded gratefully). I asked about her parents. 

“I do my mother and father's feet once a month,” Sandy said. “Dad is ninety-seven.” I pictured her on her knees attending to the feet of her mother, the 4-H leader who taught Kim and me how to sew and thus gave me the skills that enabled me to spend ten years doing something I despised. I had several thoughts: Wow, I thought my parental payback scenario was gnarly, and Oh lord, what if my mother lives that long? 

“You heard Nellie's husband died?” Nellie was one of Sandy's older sisters. I didn't know most of her sisters well. Her oldest sister tried to teach me piano for a while, without much luck. When I was ten, Sandy's next older sister, Layla, explained the rudiments of sex to me as she pedaled her bicycle with me on the back fender. (I didn't believe her; did I mention I was ten?)

“I'm sorry to hear that,” I said, watching Sandy scoop detritus out from under my mother's toenails. “Would you be able to trim her fingernails as well?”

Eventually the mani-pedi session drew to a close. I wrote a check from Mom's funds. Mom walked us both to the front door. I told Mom I would see her later. I helped Sandy load her gear into the trunk of her car. We exchanged an awkward hug. I wanted to bask in the remnants of our safe childhood a little longer. But we've both changed. And childhood was never all that safe.

Sandy turned left. I turned right. Mom waved from the window as I drove away.

Happy 2019 from the Chronic Malcontent

Howdy, Blogbots. Happy new year to all ten of you. Here's hoping 2019 is even better than 2018. More drama, more chaos, more angst, more despair. . . or as I like to call it, more blog fodder. What would I write (complain) about if everything were just dandy? If there was enough money in the bank? If the sun always shined? If my cat never left hairballs for me to find when I stagger to the bathroom in the dark of night? Life is so rich and full. Rich in perplexities, full of frustration and uncertainty. 

I woke up to a New Year's miracle today: The truck that was parked in front of my house for more than a week was gone this morning. I don't know if the owner returned with a new battery or if the City towed it away to join the massive numbers of cars, trucks, and RVs rusting in the overflowing abandoned vehicle lots around town. I was resigned to living with that truck blocking my panoramic view of the street for an indefinite and extended time, given the backlog of abandoned vehicles. That is why I say it was a miracle. I'm not sure why I cared. So now I can see six feet further than I could before. There's nothing to see except pavement.

Speaking of caring, someone posted a hand-lettered sign at SE 76th and Stark: in capital letters, I forgive you. A couple days later, it was joined by another handmade sign: No guns for men. Not sure what prompted either sign, but I have my guesses.

A few nights ago, the temperature spiked to 52°F for one day as a minor rainy windstorm . . . a little windy rainstorm moved over the region. When I went over to Mom's, the rain was pelting. Water gathered in gutters and intersections. The former rain shelter had not been replaced. Last week, the smoking shelter was dismantled. It was coming unbolted from the concrete, backed into one too many times by oblivious delivery truck drivers. We eagerly anticipate some sort of new shelter, but in the meantime, the three chairs are unprotected, open to the sky. Have I mentioned rain does not deter smokers?

Outside the retirement facility's front door sits a large, heavy black umbrella in a metal milk canister, available for anyone to use. I grabbed it, aimed it at a rose bush, and pressed the button. It shot open with a thwang, taking up most of the porch area. I caught up to the old ladies and tried to hold it over their heads as we stumbled in the dark to the erstwhile smoking area. I pulled two chairs side by side for the ladies, and pulled my chair close in front. I rested the haft of the umbrella on the arm of a chair and anchored it with both hands, wishing I had thought to bring plastic bags for us all to sit on. I was almost knee to knee with my mother, with only her walker between us. The wind whisked her cigarette smoke away before I could suffocate. I fought the wind gusts, marveling at the mild temperature, thinking, can this really be December? and am I going to fly into space?

Last night was New Year's Eve. The clouds cleared, the temperature plummeted, and the ladies admired the stars in the sky. Lately, Mom has begun smoking in workmanlike fashion. She doesn't rest between drags or chat. She smokes diligently, listens to Jane complain about how management is trying to kill her, grunts once in a while, and monitors the progress of Jane's cigarette compared to her own.

I told them a rocket was outward bound a billion miles past Pluto, heading into outer space, taking photos as it went by interesting things. They weren't impressed. Later, as neighbors set off firecrackers and homemade bombs, I watched the countdown to the flyby with Ultima Thule and wondered at the distances between objects in the solar system.

This morning I calculated roughly how long my mother's money will hold out if we maintain the current rate of spending. Longer than my money will hold out but not by a lot. I know, I know, wreckage of the future. I have many contingency plans, devised to cope with an uncertain future. However, I find it difficult to detach from my desire to control outcomes and thereby manage my fear. I think I can safely predict that 2019 will be just like 2018, equally as rich in uncertainty and just as full of surprise.

The end of a year, the end of the world

Multiple times a day I suddenly enter my body and imagine how I would react if the retirement facility called to tell me she's gone. First, it hasn't happened, so . . . wreckage of the future! Second, nobody knows how they will react when they get news about the demise of a loved one. So much depends on circumstances. Third, suddenly enter my body implies I am out of my body a lot. Hmmm. No big surprise, but what's up with that?

As the year stutters to a close, I slog through the rudiments of keeping my life together. I wash my frayed underwear and try not to notice the necklines of my fifteen-year old long-sleeved t-shirts stretch as wide as my shoulders. Everything I wear is stained, torn, frayed, or otherwise suitable only for the rag basket. I'm waiting. Will my rags last until it is time to move to a new climate? Or will I eventually be rotating among three t-shirts, two pairs of underpants, and a half dozen mismatched socks? On the bright side, I can (almost) fit into my ancient blue jeans.

I often stand in line at the bank. As I wait and mill from foot to foot, ignoring the musak, I think about getting the call. Will I bolt out of the bank? Will I sigh and say, okay thanks for letting me know, I'll be there in twenty minutes? Will I finish my business and go home to take a long nap? What is the protocol?

I think about freedom a lot. Not freedom in a truth-love-justice-for-all kind of way. I mean, my freedom. To gain my freedom means losing my mother. This thought is an example of the cognitive dissonance I frequently experience. . . probably a major cause of my out-of-body tendencies. When I have this thought, my brain just sticks there, like a phonograph needle stuck in the groove of an old Monkees album. I can't get past it without slapping myself (figuratively speaking) in the face and reminding myself that I volunteered.

A few nights ago, Mom said she was ready for this to end. I assumed she meant life, not my visit.

“This is so boring,” she complained without much energy. I can only imagine how boring waiting for death might be, although I supposed that is what we all are doing from the moment we are born. I never used to be aware of it. As I have aged, I think about death in general a lot more, and my death in particular.

The waiting is especially excruciating for someone who can no longer process information. It must be disconcerting to be alive but trapped in a cage created by dementia. She can't knit, she can barely read. She can't follow M.A.S.H. reruns, except for the most slapstick of jokes. Words spoken by television actors no longer make sense. I focus on simple sentences, carefully constructed, familiar topics—my cat, mainly. My sister. The food. The weather.

Two nights ago, we sat together on the couch before going outside for the cigarette that would cause her brain to shut down for a while.

“I wonder if I would do better in a smaller care home,” she said.

I felt my heart skip. My stomach knotted.

“What do you think you would have at a care home that you don't have here?” I asked.

“I don't know.”

“A care home is smaller, more like a real home,” I said. “A care home will probably be less expensive. You might get better food.”

“Yes.”

“On the other hand, you might not be able to keep all your furniture. Not all care homes will let you smoke. And you'll be stuck with whoever the other residents are . . . whether they can talk at all. Plus, I'm not sure the care home could manage your medications for you.” I pictured a bleak future consisting of many trips to the pharmacy for mirtazapine, atenolol, and oxycondone.

“Hm.”

“Why did this come up?” I wondered.

“I was thinking of Sunny's care home.” Sunny is Mom's friend who lives in a care home in southeast Portland.

“It would be great if you two could be together,” I said. “When I called them, they said they do not take smokers.”

She grimaced.

“We could get you the Patch.”

“It's time to go outside, isn't it?”

We went out for her evening cigarette. When we returned, her brain was an empty boat. She tugged off her red fleece smoking jacket and put it on the wing of her visitor's chair. I prompted her to take a swig of water. I checked her little fridge to see if it was time to replenish her gluten-free bread. I filled up her dish of snacks (tiny gluten-free peanutbutter crackers, one chocolate chip cookie). We sat together on the couch and watched the end of M.A.S.H. While we watched, I was aware of her shallow breathing.

She walked me to the back door at 7:02 pm. We sang “She'll be coming round the mountain” as we walked. I kissed her forehead at the back door and went outside to my car. She came to the window to see me off. This is our evening ritual. I turn my car around, and before I head down the hill, I lean out the window and look back. She gives me a peace sign, holding up two fingers and smiling. Even though I don't think she can see my arm hanging out the window, I return the peace sign and keep waving, driving away with one hand, until I'm around the bend, out of sight.