Tag Archive | elderly-people

You Have to Love Pets

Jul24

I had a rodent-filled couple of days thanks to the tuxedo cats. A few nights ago, I heard one of the cats coming into the house through the pet door, making their distinctive very loud meowing that denotes they have prey. I got up and closed my bedroom door and got back into bed. As I was trying to get back to sleep, I heard Frieda fooling around, her nails clicking on the wood floor, and so I got up grabbed the dog, gave her a couple of slaps and threw her into her bed.

Frieda then remained a good dog in her bed until I woke up, giving both dogs permission to leave their beds, and as soon as they did, they started mad hunting behaviours in my room. Being dachshunds, they hate to waste energy on nonsense so when that hunting instinct hits, I know there’s a rodent nearby. I moved a piece of furniture, and a mouse ran out.

I screamed at the dogs, “over here, over here”, but by then the mouse had leapt into the drawer of my night table. I opened it for the dogs, but once again the wily mouse ran out and got into my closet. Frieda then spent the next three hours looking up, so I tried to lift her up high to see if she could get it, and I shook my clothes, thinking maybe it was hiding there, but nothing.

The next day I noticed something pink on my closet floor and peering closely I saw it was a baby mouse. Then I saw two more of them scattered about. I guess that was a pregnant rodent? No further sign of the mother, but I had to deal with the most disgusting hairless miscreants. Barf!

The following morning when we got up the dogs did the barking, scratching, panting at the chest of drawers in the entrance hall, so once again, I thought here we go, another mouse. I moved a corner and suddenly a rat ran out of the other end. I screamed at Louie “Sic Sic Sic!” and at that moment Louie turned, and the rat ran right into him whereby he shook it and bam, dead rat.

I just got back from Osoyoos where it was Frieda’s turn to vomit all over the place. Two weeks ago it was Louie, but this time it was Frieda. She’d spent hours scratching under the peach trees looking for mice so perhaps had found some and ate one that’d gone bad. You know a rogue mouse. First, she threw up in the night on the newly washed bedspread from the puke-out of Louie’s two weeks earlier.

Then all day yesterday she continued to throw up every few hours, and curiously only liked to do it on mom’s Persian area carpets. These aren’t the kind I would buy, you know the $300 jobs made from polyester, but the properly woven variety that cost thousands of dollars. Oopsies.

Have you heard of Folex carpet cleaner? It really works. I spent quite a lot of time with it yesterday and this morning, and can vouch for it being largely successful, though I have to say bile is a killer. Let’s just say we’ll always remember this visit when we look at those carpets.

It’s a good thing mom’s as far gone as she is, as those carpets were her pride and joy. But she’s now largely returning to babyhood, where she eats and naps, eats and naps. She says hilarious things like “I went downstairs to check on the furnace” to which I reply, “No, you didn’t.” She says, “But how do you know that I didn’t?” and I reply, “Because you can’t even stand up to walk from here to the bathroom.”

So between the pets and mom, not to mention Luke, there’s always some form of nerve erosion going on.

Back to the Old Routine

May16

Holidaying in April may seem like a good idea, however if one gardens like a lunatic, it’s not an ideal time to be away. Nonetheless I’ve managed to get myself out into the yard most days, weeding and planting like there’s no tomorrow. It’s a tad on the cold side so I’m leaving the tomatoes and cucumber plants in the greenhouse for now, but I want to get my sainted dahlias into the ground.

Elsa and I went to thrift to hunt for treasures and amazed ourselves with the volume we managed to haul home. I also visited mom in Osoyoos and brought her chocolate from Germany, which she appreciated, given her penchant for it. She’s still getting half a litre of wine and a couple of chocolate bars down a day.

Then there’s the work on my memoir of the fruitcake biz, which I’d hoped to have ready for the public by this month, but alas, it wasn’t to be. I felt discouraged about it all, then out of the blue got a lovely e mail from Sharon Thesen, a published writer for God’s sake, who wrote about my little book Okay, I’ll Bite, “I love the book, what a service you have done to mankind by writing it.  Maybe especially womankind.  It’s so encouraging and witty, and life-loving and smart.”

Can you imagine what that does to a person? Now I have the motivation to return to my memoir and get it polished and ready for a late fall release. Why? Because a friend of mine who’s also a writer pointed out that a book about fruitcake would do well coming out at Christmas. Brilliant, right? Plus, now I can relax about it and enjoy the final editing process, as if that could be possible.

Then there’s the usual baking and cooking that I do both for the purpose of it being eaten, but also for therapy. If nervous, I start to bake. It was Gilles the garden handyman’s birthday, so I made my famous chocolate chunk torte for him, and he loved it. I made crème brulee for Marie and me for our Mother’s Day lunch and gave the leftovers to Calvin and Visini who wolfed it down with cries of joy.

I like to spend Mother’s Day with Marie, as she also experiences a challenging relationship with her daughter, as I do with my younger child, and so we give each other joke gifts. Last year I gave her a mug that said World’s Best Mom and this year she gave me a hilarious T shirt which says Rocking the Mom Thing. We both adore sardonic wit.

In keeping with usual routines, yesterday the Crones and I met at the Eldorado for Happy Hour which was pleasant as it was warm enough to sit outside. Not satisfied with the amount of liquor I’d imbibed there, when I got home, I made myself a nice guava juice and vodka cocktail. After that I thought what a great idea to do some laundry.

I’d already done the wash, and so it just needed to be thrown into the dryer. Sadly, my arm caught the large bottle of liquid Tide, which splashed onto the open dryer door, getting everywhere. For a moment I wondered what it all meant, do you start again and wash? Or ignore it and dry? I went upstairs and decided this was a problem best solved in the morning.

This morning it was solved with a lot of paper and regular towels, and as it turned out the stuff inside the dryer wasn’t soaked in Tide so I was able to just dry it. It all reminded me of growing up and hearing “you’re a bull in a China shop” from my mom, which then of course exacerbated the bullishness.