All my ducks on a row

 So this is absolutely the best picture of the ducks near my mom's house I will ever take. I turned and clicked in their general direction as they landed on the river and then I said , "Well that won't turn out."  I kept taking pictures and I never even looked at this dirst shot until I put them on the computer. There is a lesson ther but it is way too abovious.
  It was beautiful weather and since my college girl had her rental we had her stay at the river a few extra days so Grandma could have more time in her own home. The cats were happy about it anyway. We left them with leftovers. Chinese fried rice. An hour after we got home I had to tell the granddaughter to call 911 after she gave the phone to Grandma who could barely talk and wasn't sure where anyone was but the itching was bad. The EMT guys called me and after some discussion of all her vitals being good etc decided they probably wouldn't take her in -they gave her more Benadryl. Next thing my girl is asking me what to take to the ER (which the paramedics had described to her as a "quick visit") -apparently in the 5 minutes after talking to me Grandma started to get worse. They made it back home by 3am. Pretty sure it was the Chinese fried rice. Somehow I'd never pictured old people developing strange allergies. Hives seems like a young person thing don't you think? Then it rained the next day when they drove back here.
  So my mom didn't get much of a treat at home. We didn't get much of a rest what with the phone calls and long distance crises and let's not even think about what kind of spring break this is for a college student. Oh and it's a rental because last week the other guy at the intersection in the sleety rain failed to yield but his insurance company has been pretty decent. The car was totaled but they will let her keep the rental over the entire spring break - and then we can try to get her another car with what a 1997 Saturn is worth!
  So the ducks are in a row but they aren't actually exactly mine.

One tough old cat

Well, I'm down to entries every 2 months -and this one only because I needed something to do while waiting for the cat to die. The other day my mother heard me tell someone it was time (for the cat) since all he does now is lie in the corner, get up to hobble a few feet, pee on the carpet and go back to lie in the corner. This naturally led to comparisons. I told her we were not going there. But I lied.

 When I took the cat to the vet 2 weeks ago he (the vet) assured me he (the cat) was not suffering (yet) and he (the vet) could support a decision to end it all then or take him (the cat) home. The prognosis was only for another 48 hours to 2 weeks. Then he (the vet again) tried to talk to me about his belief in "quality of life" for "people and animals." I looked him in the eye and said we were not going there.
  Three weeks ago (not that I'm counting) my mom was able to leave the rehab facility she had gone into for her broken pelvis 5 weeks earlier and come back to our house. Thankfully this meant no more constant guilt over not visiting enough, no more trying to time those visits to see the right person at the right time to get the right story -since her stories were not always right. Between her aging brain, pain meds and who knows what else the short term memory is definitely going. She often doesn't remember why she was at the rehab facilty - in fact one day she asked if it was because she'd peed on the floor here. So you can see the cat connection. 
 Meanwhile there's the 7 year old and the first born with the multiple handicaps further complicating the whole thing . By complicating I mean helping. Really. The former entertains Grandma and the latter helps out when I work (for money that is, in case you think I'm not working the rest of the time). The other 2 offspring mostly call in to check on the cat.
Also there's the husband who actually shoulders all of the coffee making and pill distributing and also the weight of the world when all I want him to do is rub my feet. This leads to yelling sometimes but for no apparent purpose on either side.
  On the other hand they do all need care and feeding too and if you haven't noticed I am only barely hanging on. Let's not forget I took on additional teaching responsibilities being a) flattered to be asked and b) greedy. Also quite possibly c) insane. Can you see this brain explaining discrete distributions? Not really. That will start this week and meanwhile I can't remember why I'm in this rehab facility either. (That was a joke, I am at home. Watching the cat breath.)

...of Christmas Past

Every year we have a Christmas carol sing along party. Here's a snap from 2 years ago. You can see Grandma holding on, and you can see that my better half is a truly talented musician because not only is he accomodating the would be band member but he does so while being used as a jungle gym. Obviously that was not how he'd planned to play.
 Nothing about this year's carol party (tonight) was as I'd planned when I planned it last month. Grandma isn't home, the gymnast now wants to be a piano soloist and I had a house full of people I didn't expect and most everyone I'd expected was missing. There were some loud boys, and small children and jelly filled cookies were carried where they don't belong (punctuation optional).
 But this is a Christmas story so you will not be surprised to hear that I went from dissappointed to resigned toleration (with a just little sainted martyrdom thrown in) to being the recipient (not the giver) of the first real Christmas cheer I'd felt this year bathed in those sweet young voices singing about that nativity. Then they went and sang more to my mother in her rehab room bringing her to thankful tears. You will not be surprised to hear this because at this time of year you can just see the happy ending coming -if it's the Hallmark channel, or a blog at least. But I didn't see it coming and it made me feel kinda giddy. And one of the girls, a younger one, suggested we all pray together and we did and by that time I was definitely 20 something again. Just as silly, just as hopeful, just as ready to go on and on about how good God is and all that.   One of the girls who sang to the end thanked me for opening my home to them and focusing on the "real" Christmas -and I forgot to tell them I hadn't. OK, definitely the best caroling party EH-VER.


Blog from the end of the world

A week ago I woke to hear my husband say my mom had fallen in the ealry morning and the middle son had carried her back to bed. That would be the one with the newly repaired ACL. So I maturely went shopping all day looking for something festive to go with my new red shoes.  We did check in by phone via the eldest son on Grandma but forgot to ask when told she was fine if she could move. She kept telling him she was fine but ... So stuff, calls, ERs, etc. xrays. End of story (world, whatever) she had broken her pelvis on one side and her sacrum and none of it is treatable and lots more stuff and here she was the next day with her straw in the side of the cup invention so she didn't have to tilt it and raise her arm too high. Since I had shopped and then ERed all day I had only heard Christmas songs on the radio and she starts too ramble about terrible shootings and children and I knew, we knew, she was losing it. Lying there in pain all day she had confused some tv movie and the mall shooting and was muddled from the pain and fatigue. I pretty much told her so. And then she said "I'll bet you a nickel," and I wasn't so sure. She never bets unless she's right.

   Still the medical types asked her who the president was at every opportunity, and, as seen in the picture, even on morphine she was clever. At least until no one checked her oxygen sats -or just didn't follow up on the low ones Sunday and the percoset made her loopy and she went from telling us what was going on in the world to no memory of where she was or why these terrible "harpies" (her vocabulary has yet to fail her) were torturing her. Then I got the flu. This is all so minor. But my clever, funny, loving mother angry and fearful and lost and confused, whispering the pain is "a ten, ten" might as well be the end of the world. Just a little world I know, and only mine, and near the end in any case. Just spinning a bit out of control. Or maybe it's the flu... 

 

 So now things are a bit more stable and she is less loopy and I am more and the world didn't end today (yet). 

Uniquely not Special (or special but not unique?)

I took this picture just 2 days ago. I'm very proud of it but then I realized it looks like every other butterfly picture you can Google.

Grandma is having alot of bad days (see previous blog, or don't) and then she tries hard to say nice things to cover it up. So she tells me how very wonderful the be-crutched grandson is, and how she's sorry she insisted he fetch us even though he assured her he would stay with her during a heart-racing episode (a.fib.). I assured her he understood and then she adds, "Well he went to get you -but you know how fast he is." Ha ha. It is always difficult politics when one vulnerable group is being insensitive to another vulnerable group. Make it my mother and my son and I am feeling that none of my vulnerabilities  have been spared.
 Apparently there were some spared (past tense). Yesterday provided further evidence that the University I work for is moving further away from using adjuncts. What had seemed, a few years ago, like an indefinite gig, has become spotty and may now be moving to ... spotless? I'm still teaching an undergraduate class in the spring. It hasn't been ruled out that I could still be the choice of last resort in the fall and might be used again next spring. The former would require a perfect storm of unavailabilities and the latter that I keep a rather fussy course director happy and confident in his mentoring skills and the undergrads entertained enough to give the class high marks. I could now launch into a tirade against educational systems and standards. I really could but clearly that would not be unique or special.
 But here's the thing. If they do stop hiring me at this unnamed institute of higher learning I don't have any equivalent teaching/job opportunities. And when I say "equivalent" I mean ones that will sound as impressive. If I mention I teach and am asked what grade? people are at least mildly impressed I teach at a college level (only if pressed did I reluctantly admit graduate school) and if  asked   is it at the local community college?,  then I say (looking humble) I'm at . Yes, that's me. Dr Somebody at Impressive School, teacher of future Dr. Somebodies (or at least somebodies with extra letters behind names), definitely not tired-mom-of-weird-bearded-guy-on-crutches or (really it's and) harassed-daughter-of-toothless-old-woman-with-colostomy. My supportive husband suggests this last would be a good country song but really I'm thinking -not so much.

Bubbles don't last

Can you see the bubbles? They were beautiful bubbles. That was just 4 days ago but it always seems like another life when we are at Grandma's house. She was happy at this particular moment but the day before she was regretting being there, having the house, pretty much being alive.  And the coffee is never weak enough or hot enough or strong enough or sweet enough.  My eldest is too slow and the youngest too loud and the other two too away. I know her pain is bad.  And it has to be hard to be so dependent when you prided yourself on your independence etc etc etc. I just can't "go there" any more. I can't try to feel like I'm 94 too. I remember the day I realized I couldn't live my life in constant empathy with my first born. Or rather I couldn't live always feeling guilty for not being able to empathise, for enjoying a working body. I shouldn't mention this in all probability but it improved relations with my husband enormously. That is as in relations  because in retrospect I realized that nothing* quite kills the mood like saying, "honey do you think those new orthotics are really going to help the baby walk?"  

 

But that mood was beside the point. That day I knew, in fact the heavens seemed to pretty much open up and shout it at me,  that being miserable for my child would do him absolutely no good. And God wasn't offering me a trade. I don't have CP or a shunt, or seizures and if I did he'd still have his. It was clear and it freed me up alot.

 It just doesn't seem so clear with my mom because I'm not always sure it is so clear to her. I'm not sure she's not mad sometimes because I'm "still young" and because when we're in pain we don't make alot of sense. I'm going to write myself a note and give it to my children in 20 or 30 years. "Hey guys, don't feel bad about being able to get around easily. I had my turn." Oh, except I won't give the note to my eldest. He still hasn't had his turn.

* except discussion of one's mother's colostomy - that'll bury a mood pretty good.

weeding would be nice

Yes, somewhere under there is a garden. meanwhile Grandma is crying because she "can't figure out a way out of this mess our country is in." I thought pointing out that if she did no one would listen.  I figure these things out all the time and no one listens. Certainly not the new associate pastor (remember this is an anonymous blog so I'll deny it if you quote me) or the church ladies that make me crazy. Fortunately there are the church ladies who keep me sane - that's what church is for -it brings balance to my life. 
  Besides I can move on to complaining about the 2nd grade teacher who may be the first woman I've seen with a Napoleon complex. Not that she's trying to over subjugate all of Europe -unless you substitute all of Europe with "7 year old boys". She is attempting to bring them to heel.
 Meanwhile the eldest is settling into his basement digs nicely and Grandma duties and I when he was late getting her lunch and she tried to be funny (or was it encouraging) by saying, "Well at least you can walk.." and something else but I missed that because I was busy walking away so I wouldn't point out that what he does is barely walking.
 The other two offspring are away in their various educational pursuits so I only worry about them when they call. Or when they don't. I imagine that if they would just find some lovely Christian spouses and settle down and provide grandchildren all my worries would be over (at least regarding these two). I never said I wasn't delusional.
Also there's funny goings on in academia and I am sure I did a good job with that undergraduate class but 3 of the 8 who turned in evaluation didn't so my "bottom line" score is "of concern" and now I am forced into using run on sentences just to get over it. In my defense let me point out one complained I went too slow, one that I said too much and one that I didn't post my notes. That one even used the word "punitive" to describe this despicable insistence on note-taking. I was impressed.
 But the garden gets weedier everyday and I am beginning to despair of recovering it before the winter. There was no real point to this point except I hadn't posted in a few weeks. No insights. No funny story. Just weeds.