It’s difficult taking care of someone who’s 100 and a half, and who’s basically crazy as a result of it. The other day mom phoned at 5:30 PM and said “Get me a doctor, I need help. Call anyone.” I said “Do you want me to call the ambulance?” and she said, “Yes, call anyone, I need help.” So I quickly called Luke and got him and Jan to head right over and told them to let me know what happened.
Half an hour later I got an e mail from Jan saying “Gramma was mad. She was out of wine, so Luke had to go to town to get it.” Those are the typical kinds of emergencies I have to deal with. Often she calls saying “My phone isn’t working”, to which I explain it likely is, given she’s speaking to me on it.
Mom’s got macular degeneration and is almost blind as a result, so when I say I would prefer to clean a public toilet outside of a market in Thailand to hers, you get the idea. But one thing she can see no problem is food, and she has a voracious appetite. The other night she had two helpings of lasagne followed by a large bowl of peach clafoutis for dessert.
Often by 10:00 AM she’s nibbling on chocolate and drinking wine with it. I guess when you’re that age it’s pointless to pay attention to the time of day. In fact, mom will call and ask what time it is, and when I say 9:00, she says, “In the morning??” to which I calmly reply, “uh huh.”
Next week I’m going to start recording my book, Nuttier than a Fruitcake, so that I’m ready for all versions to go onto Amazon by mid September. I’m going to enter a reader’s choice contest which has a deadline for the end of that month, so I’m cutting it kind of close, but I’ll get it done because I have a good feeling about that contest.
We’re in the midst of another heat wave so I’m watering like mad, and I can see the results of it on my electricity bill. My well is powered by electricity, and with the irrigation system running three times a week all night long that takes a lot of juice. First you pay for the well, then you pay for the power to run it so the water’s not exactly free. But I still love having my own water source.
Hence for the next seven days I believe this is all I can do: water and work toward my book’s completion. Trevor, my illustrator’s coming on Monday with the recording equipment, so I have to get serious and stop fooling around.
Elsa’s going to be in Vancouver so that should cut down on thrift store shopping, and as I don’t usually go on my own, that’ll free up some of my time. I often marvel at how I worked, had a husband and kids, a yard and garden, and now I can barely do the few things I have on my list in a day.
I also won’t be returning to Osoyoos for a couple of weeks, which will help as I find my nerves are pretty much shot while I’m there, and then it takes a day to recuperate from it when I get home. Mom’s conversations are often puzzles. She says “Jan comes in and washes the dishes, then sits down and talks to me and I can’t understand a word she says. I wish she would talk first, then do the dishes.”
I reply, “But what difference does it make if she does the dishes first and talks second when you can’t understand her anyway?” To which she replies emphatically, “Exactly, it makes no difference.”
Moni Schiller 