Now my brain hurts.

I walked with Leslie Sansone again this morning. Mother shuffled a few steps, did a couple of sidesteps, and then sat down. I told her that was better than she did a couple of days ago, and that she’d build up to doing more if she kept at it. She seemed doubtful.

At dinner, I brought the Dietert Center schedule to the dining table for us to choose what day we wanted to go to lunch. She couldn’t decide which one sounded most appealing, so I chose Tuesday’s “Crabby Cakes” for our lunch out.

I talked to her a little bit about the Take Five Club, which is actually a caregivers’ respite program. It runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and includes lunch brought into the activity room because some of the people are less ambulatory than others. It also costs $35 per day attended, which Mother would NEVER agree to, but they could send the monthly statement to my work. I am thinking this might be the best way to introduce her to the center, as she seems absolutely uninterested in attending any of the activities.

“Mom, when I picked up the menu last week, I talked to one of the ladies about the Playing with Paint class. She said it’s watercolor and pretty fun.”

“OK.”

“Is that something you’d be interested in trying?”

“I’m not interested in any of that stuff.”

“But Mom, I’m concerned about you just sitting at home all day and not doing anything but watching TV.”

“Well, when you’re 80 years old, you’re not interested in doing that much.”

“You’re not 80, you’re only 78, and Papaw walked until he was 92. And you had friends in Wills Point, and now you don’t talk to anybody except me all day, and when I can’t come home for lunch, then you’re here the whole day alone.”

“That’s OK.”

“No, Mom, it’s not OK.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

“And I can call people on the phone.”

“Who do you call?”

(Thinks a minute.) “Whoever.”

“Whoever is not a person. Give me a name.”

“I don’t know.”

“I know you’ve called Charlie. Anyone else?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’d really like you to try this Take Five Club. It’s more of a social group than an activity group. They talk and have coffee and have lunch. I can go with you the first couple of times.”

No answer.

“Anyway, Mom, we’ll go to the center for lunch on Tuesday.”

“Ok.”

*sigh*

I dunno. Maybe I’m rushing things. Maybe I’m not pushing her enough. I have no idea how to treat an adult who is functioning on various levels, all of them below where she was even one year ago. Especially when that adult also happens to be my mother.

Mixed Success

I just walked a mile in my living room in 18 minutes!

Mother walked about 2 minutes, then said she was tired and sat back down.

*sigh*

Renewed Hope for the Dietert Center

Every morning, as we sit having coffee and reading the morning paper, Mother will say, “You have your regular schedule today? You’ll be home at regular time? And you’ll come home at lunchtime?”

I used to say, “Yes.” Now, because my duties at work are evolving, I say, “I hope so.”

Yesterday, shortly after this exchange, I said, “I think you ought to try going to the senior center and meet some people. I bet you could find a nice friend there.” And, instead of the automatic “No, no, I don’t want to” that I expected, she said “Do you think so?”

“Yes! I do!” I was suddenly filled with some hopes of her actually trying to do something besides sit on the couch and watch TV all day, with me her only source of social contact. I was able to come home for lunch, have a ‘delicious sandwich’, as we do every day, and then, on the back to work, I took the long way around to stop by the Dietert Center and pick up their monthly menu and activity schedule.

I stopped in to talk with my friend, Dawn, who told me that in addition to the regular activities, staff was working on having a “coffee social” time in the morning, but they weren’t sure when that would happen.

I don’t know if Mother’s total disinterest in any of the activities has been due to some level of depression from my sister’s passing and the move from east Texas, or if she is concerned about trying something new that will shed unwanted attention on growing cognitive deficits. I am now hoping that it was more the former. While I doubt that she will ever sign up for Table Tennis or Western Philosophy, perhaps Playing with Paint or Quilter’s Co-op will strike her fancy. I really believe that if she will just go there enough times to meet a couple of people, I’ll be taking her on a regular basis.

And, this morning, since I woke up at 5:30 and have what I hope to be PLENTY of time, I’m going to see if I can get her to agree to “Walking with Leslie Sansone” (which my niece, Vickie, highly recommended and I bought several months ago, but haven’t been motivated enough to try) before the television is tuned to the morning news. (I know you were wondering when I would get to why in the world that picture was there, especially on MY blog - hahahaha!)

Post-Holiday Mish-Mash

All the holiday excitement and stress are over, and it's back to normal. I still have many post-holiday chores to do. I have put away most of the nativity sets, but the tree is still up and decorated, something I will attend to today.

I finally got the last of the antique frozen food out of the chest freezer we moved from east Texas in July. There was no easy way to dispose of it beforehand, so we just moved the half-full freezer as it was. The meat that was in it was already so old as to be scary, not to mention the frozen bread, margarine, and unidentifiable objects. The trip down here in the back of the moving van didn't help it. I bagged up three trash bags of mostly meat, and threw several packages of bread products and a half-bag of broccoli out behind the house for the critters. The gallon of water frozen in a milk jug - I'm not quite sure why that was in there - is thawing in the garage.

My first inkling of Mother's cognitive state came when we were looking through that freezer back in June and I observed aloud that she had several packages of frozen hush puppies. She asked me what was a hush puppy. *sigh*

Anyway, we all had a nice time at Christmas. I bought Mother a sweater and matching pants, Vickie gave her a nice casual top, and Steve gave her a casual set of pants, top, and hoodie. Since she won't buy clothing for herself, this evidently seemed the best idea to all of us.

Janette and Eva flew in on December 26th and stayed through the 29th. I think they had a nice visit. Eva is VERY busy. And she has started saying several words and is willing to try to say all kinds of new words. I believe that in another three or four months, she will be talking up a storm, telling strangers all of Janette's secrets in a clear, loud voice. Eva enjoyed the dogs at Vickie's house, and surprised everyone one by hitting it off with Willow, the extremely stand-offish kitty whose behavior with Eva we were most worried about. Not only was Eva enamored of Willow, but Willow seemed equally taken with Eva, allowing Eva to "pat" her and on occasion "hug" her by practically lying down atop her. Willow didn't even rowr or hiss, something she has done to all the adults in the house.

We all drove to Marble Falls (in Vickie's Brand New Van!!) to see the Christmas lights on the river. They were beautiful, but it was very cold. We were all glad to see them, and also all glad that since it was after Christmas there were hardly any people there so we were able to park very close to the entrance, instead of walking from a couple of blocks away, as Vickie said they had done a couple of years ago.

On Saturday morning, before Janette flew home, we had brunch at IHOP. All the straps/buckles on all the booster seats and all the high chairs were missing or broken. We tried to just have her sit with us on the seat, but once the food arrived it just didn't seem to work out. (Did I mention that Eva is VERY busy?) One of the waitstaff offered that they could secure her in the high chair with a folded-over apron, which turned out to work quite well. She entertained all of us, including our waiter.

Steve was able to visit for almost two weeks. It was very nice having him here. My Christmas present from him was a beautiful necklace and earrings set of sterling silver (my precious metal of choice), small ropes of silver knotted into square knots for the earrings and a figure-eight knot for the necklace. The image above does not do them justice, as they are amazingly bright-and-shiny.

He said that although he understood and believed me when I talked about how loud the TV was, and how it permeated the house, he hadn't fully grasped the reality of it until he was actually here. Now he understands. It's really loud. From 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Except that now that Mother understands that it wakes me up, she keeps the volume down on weekends until I get up, so I am actually able to sleep in now. That does help.

Steve also brought his camera and took many, many pictures of all of us - except himself, because I never remembered to get the camera from him. Thank you, Steve, for all the wonderful pictures of our holidays. And my necklace and earrings. And your visit. And my sanity.

Preparing for Christmas

I haven't had a cigarette in almost two weeks. The only time I want one is when I go grocery shopping with Mother. And yesterday was the big, buy-everything-for-Christmas-dinner shopping trip. I really wanted a cigarette. But I maintained.

Today, I am doing early prep - making the pound cake, fudge, cranberry relish, and cornbread for use later in making the dressing. I cannot rely on Mother's memory for any of the recipes. She forgot that it took three sticks of butter or that mace was one of the 7 ingredients in the pound cake she has made every year since I can remember. She looked it up on her copy of the recipe, since I was working off one I had copied from hers. She reminded me to grease and flour the cake pan. I told her I had made cakes before. She said, sarcastically but not being mean, just responding to the irritation in my voice, "Really?! I didn't know!" And then called me a smart aleck. I am aggravated by the fact that she doesn't want to do any cooking, baking, anything, but she wants to supervise my doing of these things.

After she mentioned that she didn't remember the pound cake having mace in it, I double-checked the fudge recipe on the internet. Her handwritten recipe calls for three packages of chocolate chips, but it doesn't specify what size package. She told me it was three small packages. But the recipe on the net closest to the one I have calls for three 12 oz. packages, whereas the small ones are 6 oz. each. I decided I would get more chocolate chips because if that is an error, then it will be an error on the side of more chocolate rather than less, so it won't be too bad a thing.

I am typing this while waiting for Steve to return from the grocery, as I was in the middle of making the pound cake to realize I have no flour. And so I decided to start on the fudge while he was gone, only to decide that I also did not have enough chocolate chips. *sigh*

And in the background there is the unceasing sound of back-to-back old western shows - first Bonanza and currently Gunsmoke. I really miss being in a quiet house.

$5 Fair Admission

Mother and I went to the grocery store on Thursday evening, since I had been out of town all weekend and into the middle of the week. We say the sign for the Kerr County Fair, and Mother said, "The Fair is this weekend, but I won't be going."

I asked if she would like to go. She asked if I would like to go. I said I would. She asked the cost of admission - $5. She said she'd go if I wanted to go. And so it goes.

The Kerr County Fair ran this weekend from Friday through Sunday, but the best time for us seemed to be Saturday afternoon, after I got home from my weekend job at the local youth shelter. It was at the Kerr Co. Ag Barn, on Hwy. 27, and though I wasn't sure just where it was, I figured we would know it when we saw it. And so we did. We pulled into the entry gate, drove past the mini-ferris wheel and tilt-a-whirl, into a large field partitioned off for parking. We found a place not too far from the entrance booth (after we realized all the most readily available parking spots were designated for handicapped drivers), and Mom paid the $10 for both of us to get in.

There were a few vendors outside the main tent area, but we saw the sign that said "Petting Zoo" and proceeded inside. We found the requisite baby sheep and baby goats milling around with their dams, trying to avoid the cups of farm animal kibble being forced upon them by small children, and decided not to actually venture into the fray. After a minute or two of standing near the 5-ft fence, I notice there was a smaller enclosure within the main one, containing a lop-eared rabbit, a pot-bellied pig, and what appeared to be a miniature kangaroo. Something in the back of my mind whispered wallaby, and I told Mother that's what I thought it was, but that voice is not always reliable, so I asked the woman selling kibble cups. She confirmed that it was, indeed, a wallaby! (I felt so smart!)

We also noticed that there was a camel! How could we have missed a camel, you ask? He was sitting down! At that point, the back of my mind whispered dromedary?, but I didn't feel like encouraging it anymore, so we're not sure on that one. We walked to the other end of the pen to get a better view, and also noticed a fawn, still with it's spots, although it seemed a little large to still have spots, and I suspect that there may have been a little milkpaint involved, although I have absolutely no proof. There was also some kind of game animal, but the little voice could only give me some kind of antelope, I think. It was becoming less and less reliable, so I decided to dismiss it for the rest of the afternoon.

We wandered into the main tent where the vendors and the performance stage were set up. There might have been 30 vendors altogether, but perhaps not quite that many. I picked up a packet from the local Democratic party that included a few pieces of candy. I asked if they had any voter's registration forms, but they said I would have to go to the second story of the county courthouse, fill one out there, and allow the county to mail it to Austin. I thought that was a little strange, but then everything here seems to be a little strange.

We passed by most of the booths, but near the stage happened upon one that was selling bright-and-shiny objects of sterling silver. I stopped to peruse them, and Mother sat in a folding chair to the side of the bleachers facing the stage. I picked out a garnet ring, an ear cuff, and a pair of dangly earrings for my daughter's belated birthday present (shhhh - don't tell her). As I was looking at the garnet rings, I realized someone was standing VERY close to me, well inside the limits of my personal-space bubble, and looked down to find my co-worker, Helen. She liked the rings I was looking at, and when I pointed out that Mother was sitting nearby, Helen joined her for a short chat while I finished my transaction. Helen told us about her daughter's prize-winning quilt in the crafts tent, and as I had been looking for something more than the vendor area, I was quite happy for us to follow her next door.

The craft area was meager, but perhaps I am jaded by all those years of having had the opportunity to attend the great State Fair of Texas. In any case, we looked over all the submissions in painting, photography, woodworking, mixed media, baking, canning, and some other items whose categories were difficult to discern. This took approximately 10 minutes. We did find Helen's daughter's quilt, which was sporting a Best of Show ribbon for the youth category. It was very nicely done, and I will have to be sure to tell her on Monday that we saw it.

I headed back to the first large tent and Mother asked if we were leaving. I told her that I wanted to be sure that we got our $5 worth. She commented drily that we could walk around the entire evening and still not get our $5 worth. I could only laugh, because it was oh, so true, and yet I had enjoyed myself so far. As we entered the main tent, my ears were rudely assaulted and I realized the stage was once again being used for karaoke. We wended our way to the front of the tent, past the food vendors and headed for the parking lot. Mother declined my suggestions for caramel apples, cotton candy, and kettle corn.

Much to my amazement and delight, we passed a vendor selling chocolate-dipped frozen bananas on a stick! I love these! At one point in time, you could walk into almost any Dairy Queen in North Texas and acquire one for as little as 50 cents. Alas, no longer. As best I understand it, almost every DQ in North Texas (perhaps in the entire state) has been purchased by an evil consortium that sanctions the sale of only those frozen treat items trademarked by the Dairy Queen franchise. Since they cannot really trademark a frozen chocolate-dipped banana on a stick, it is no longer allowed. *sigh* BUT - there he was! The frozen chocolate-dipped banana vendor! The photo on the side of the booth showed the banana dipped in chocolate and rolled in chopped nuts, but I am a minimalist when it comes to my frozen chocolate-dipped bananas. As the bananas were only dipped in chocolate once requested, I was able to acquire mine as desired. I chatted up the vendor in the hopes he might be able to direct me to a more reliable source, but he said he didn't know of one, although I could find him at other local county fairs. *SIGH*

My future prospects of acquiring frozen chocolate-dipped bananas did not look good, but at least I did have the one in hand. Mother did not care for one(!!??), so after I got mine, we continued towards the parking field and the car. My frozen chocolate-dipped banana was gone before we got home, but it was very nice while it lasted. And so was the Kerr County Fair.

Interlude

I returned last night from spending six days away from home. I flew to Detroit, Michigan for the 75th anniversary celebration of Lawrence Technical University (www.ltu.edu/ - originally Lawrence Institute of Technology), in conjunction with the 75th anniversary of the LTU chapter of Phi Kappa Upsilon fraternity (www.phikapp.com/). No, I didn't go to school there, nor was I ever in a fraternity. I was just along for the ride. During my time there, we visited many tourist spots in addition to the college and frat activities.

Thursday night, Steve and I arrived at the Detroit Airport separately (his plane arrived first, so he was there to greet me), rented a car, and made our way to the Westin in Southfield. It was a nice room, but the wetbar was locked so we couldn't put anything in it (they just want you to take stuff out of it, I guess, and they want to know when you are doing so), and the bottled water on the dresser had tags to let you know that they were $4 if you drank them. The coffee maker and coffee were gratis, but I can't drink coffee without cream and I couldn't buy cream because the fridge was locked. Oh, well. There was a Starbucks in the lobby of the hotel, so that all worked out.

On Friday, we tried to go to the Motown Museum (www.motownmuseum.com/), but it was closed for a private event. It seems the city was unveiling the street signs for having named the small part of Grand Ave. in front of the museum "Berry Gordy Ave." I didn't really recognize anyone, but I'm pretty sure a couple of famous people were there.

The Polish Art Center in Hamtramck (polartcenter.com/) was another stop, made at my request. I dabble with pysanky every spring, and when I moved last year, I had to pour out all my jars of egg dye. I am once again collecting quart Ball jars in anticipation of my Lenten psyanky-fest, and the Polish Art Center is where I usually purchase my pysanky supplies via mail order. It was a wonderful treat to be able to go there in person to choose the individual dye packets, look over the colorful instruction books and see all the other craft tools available. To my great delight, I found that the Polish Art Center also carries an impressive amount of baltic amber set in sterling silver. My self-control was intact, barely, and I did manage to retain enough money in my checking account to make the car payment. Barely.

Then we went to a fraternity brother's house for an informal get-together that evening. They had a beautiful house and all the people were quite nice, and they played a film of a Little Caeser's commercial that was made in the frat house in 1984. Someone else had filmed the making of the commercial and they were all surprised and excited to realize that one of the unknown actors who was brought in for the commercial (and didn't make the final cut of either of the two ads) was Tim Allen!

Saturday we went downstairs for Starbucks. It was not open on Saturday or Sunday. Hmph. We found an alternate coffee fix, returned to the Motown Museum and had a WONDERFUL tour. The docent was lively and entertaining and knew and loved his subject matter to the extent that he really made the visit worthwhile. What was normally a 45-minute tour, he stretched into over two hours, and we only left then because we had to be back over at the frat house for a tour of the new alumni lounge.

The rest of Saturday was filled with fraternity and college activities. We toured the frat house where Steve lived all the time he was in college. The alumni group has just redone the garage into a VERY nice alum lounge with a sauna, shower, wet bar, leather couches, wooden lockers, and a big screen TV. They had a formal ribbon cutting, christening the outside wall with a bottle of champagne. Then, everyone caravanned to the college for several large group photos, and then on to the Skyline Club for the formal dinner and dance. Godiva chocolates as table favors and bottles of champagne as parting gifts for each couple. Indeed, a good time was had by all.

Sunday found us at the Franklin Cider Mill (www.franklincidermill.com/), where we saw chopped apples being smashed in stacked layers under a VERY large press to extract fresh cider. It smelled wonderful. And the cider and fresh cake doughnuts tasted wonderful. The mill is powered by a water wheel in a stream that runs underneath/beside the mill. The ducks that live in the stream outside are very fat and very spoiled. I witnessed many doughnut bites thrown into the water at the ducks. Unless the bits were within easy reach, the ducks did not even bother to scramble. They just looked at the tossers with a mixed air of disdain for poor aim and jaded expectation of the next offering.

The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village (http://www.hfmgv.org/) took all of Monday. Actually, Greenfield Village took most of the day, and then we rushed through the Henry Ford Museum before it closed. We visited the weaving shop, the glassblowers, the print shop, the pottery studio, saw Edison's Menlo Park workshops, walked into the inside of a Georgia plantation's slave cabin, saw the 15,000,000th Model T to come off the Ford assembly line, strolled through the Wright Brothers bicycle shop, and visited the homes of Noah Webster and Robert Frost. We walked a lot.

We talked to the weaver about the loom he was working on and the other looms in the shop, one of which was a Jacquard loom. Two stories high, it was designed to use punchcards as programs for the weaving design. Turns out Jacquard licensed International Business Machines to utilize this punch card technology in their calculating machines, but he required them to alter the cards so they were not identical to his. So, they had to cut off one corner of each punch card. For those of you who remember punch cards, now you know why the corner was cut off....

In the Henry Ford Museum, we got to sit in the actual seat, in the actual bus, that Rosa Parks was too tired to get up from, that started the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. It was actually quite moving and awe-inspiring. We saw a bunch of cars and a bunch of planes and a bunch of trains, but it was about 4:30 by then, and I was worried about whether or not we would get to the gift shop in time to adequately look around, so I think Steve got more out of the museum part of the visit than I did.

We left the museum and drove across town to Grosse Point (yes, just like the movie) to Bob and Joni's house, and proceeded from there to dinner at an Italian bistro that I can't quite remember the name of. It was quite yummy, and the creme brulee was served in a soup bowl, and topped with many strawberry slices and much whipped cream. We were a little concerned when our waiter dropped the torch as he was assembling it before caramelizing the top, but he didn't catch any of us on fire, and it was quite impressive overall. Joni pointed out to Steve more than once during the evening how nice Kerrville, Texas is, and how he should really consider moving there. I could only smile, as I have said that a few times, myself.

Tuesday morning was spent packing, and after we checked out of the hotel, we made one last scheduled stop, at the Lawrence Tech bookstore for the final round of souvenir purchases. Then lunch at T.G.I. Fridays (don't try their mini-desserts - nasty), and off the the airport. We hadn't realized until the night before that the first leg of our outbound journies coincided, and so we were quite delighted to find that we did not have to actually say goodbye until we both changed planes at the Nashville airport, and then we were so rushed to get me to my connecting flight that there wasn't much time for anything more than a quick kiss and hug. *sigh*

I finally got in to the San Antonio airport around 9 p.m., got out of the the terminal and to my car by 9:30, and then made it back to Kerrville just before 11 p.m. I had called Mother from the airport to let her know my plan had arrived safely and to give her an ETA, and she waited up for me. She said she missed me and I couldn't be away that long again.

It's nice to be missed, and it's nice to be home, but it was a very nice time away.