Tag Archive | old-people

Eventful Two Weeks

Jul10

I had the great pleasure of making dinner for three Ya Ya’s and their husbands at the end of June. It was funny because when I told Mom I’d invited Phyllis and Gord, Penny and Jim, and Maryjoy she went into a total snit about it. She said she didn’t want the dinner at her house, and she didn’t want to be involved and would go straight to bed when the guests came. I said that was excellent, given there’d be six of us, and if she stayed it’d be an awkward number.

She kept bitching and bitching about it, saying she would’ve appreciated more notice of such an event. I said to her I think two weeks notice is plenty, especially given she wouldn’t be in attendance, so why did she care? I think she just wanted to ensure my nerves would be totally eroded by the time the dinner rolled around.

I told Penny and Jim to come early as I said mom wants to talk about death and dying with Penny. They came around 4:00 and so Penny just asked mom some questions about her views on living and dying and so on, and basically it was established even though Mom’s signed up for MAID, she’s too scared to die so isn’t going to go for that and instead will wait it out and die naturally.

By then it was 5:00 so the others arrived, and I’d made crab and cream cheese stuffed mushroom caps for appies, and mom happily scarfed a few of those. Then it was time to sit down for dinner, and I had set the table for six. Mom announced she’d changed her mind and would join us for dinner after all, so in a muttering fit I got out another place setting and grabbed an extra chair.

I’d made chicken Marbella with rice, a green bean salad and a cucumber salad, and Phyllis kindly made an angel food cake containing 11 egg whites for dessert as it was Jim’s birthday in a few days. Everyone seemed happy with the event and the food, especially Mom.

Because of the precarious nature of Denis’ health, Nick flew in for a visit and brought his little five-year-old son Justin. They stayed here in Kelowna for a night upon arrival, then went to Midway to check out old Denis. They visited gramma and me in Osoyoos and camped down at the beach.

At the end of their visit, I’d invited the Taylors to come for dinner which was another successful event. I’d made coconut curried beef stew, rice, and a couple of salads, and also a cake and some brownies for dessert. James and Ashley’s little girl and Justin played like mad hyenas and had a lot of fun.

Then it was time for Nick and Justin to head off, and I said honestly, one visit a year with a five-year-old is probably all old gramma’s nerves are able to take. The kid’s wonderful, smart and really cute, but still a menace in a home unused to children. The dogs and cats were completely traumatized.

I know the child’s mother reads my blog and will think what the hell? But it’s nothing personal, it’s just any pint-sized torpedo moving at a top rate of speed in a home accustomed to solitude could cause a raised eyebrow on the part of the old grand mere, non?

As a follow-up to old Denis’ situation, Luke, Jan and I visited him yesterday and he seems to be very frail after his health incident. He’s not at all able to follow the diabetic menu suggestions and I think not eating properly is a big problem for an insulin-dependent diabetic, but what do I know?

You’ll Probably Find This Hard To Believe

Feb28

As you know, I’m the Laziest Human on Earth, so to think I’m at 21,000 words on my memoir is quite astounding. But when you’ve written a blog since 2009 it’s not all that difficult to go back in time. I force myself to write 1000 words a day as that’s very manageable. Then I’m allowed to waste the rest of my time on YouTube videos.

Re-reading those blogs I see pets, food prep, adult children who won’t move away, and gardening projects were huge topics. Another subtopic was the fruitcake business, which was the point of the blog, and then to a minor degree every few blogs saying yep, for sure, I’m ready to write a book, though it never happened. Now that I’m doing it, I find it astonishing, but I guess it’s true, for everything there is a season. Or decade.

And speaking of many decades, mom turned 99 on Sunday, so now she’s in her 100th year, hence the party this summer to celebrate that. As I said to her, if dead, we’ll use the party as a memorial. If alive, more fun for mom, plus she’ll have seen all the people who will be invited to her eventual memorial. Mom’ll appreciate that given she wants to know everything about everyone all the time.

I made mom’s favourite Bacardi rum cake for her birthday dinner with Luke and me. I’m able to get an entire 26-ounce bottle of rum into a Bundt cake, and it’s so moist, pungent and delicious mom will wolf the entire thing in a few days. In her younger years she could eat an entire cake, but now maybe one quarter per day is her limit.

Nick and family came to visit at mom’s to say goodbye as they’re shoving off to start a new life in Japan. I’m so proud of him for having such an adventurous spirit but I think he comes by it honestly given my dad left Germany at age 23 to start a new life in Canada. It seems to be what the family does, move all over the world, embracing new cultures. Maybe we’re part Viking or something, though they beat up cultures, so who knows.

I used to be all snooty about the Kelowna Actors Studio, then I went to New York, and now I like the Actors Studio. Forty years ago, shows on Broadway were huge complete with an orchestra, but now there’s not all that and the tickets are around two or three hundred dollars. Here I paid $65 to see an excellent production of Tootsie and loved it.

As you may know we’ve had two huge fires, one in 2003 and the other last year, destroying hundreds of homes. I have a lot of ponderosa pine trees and so a lot of needles and I wondered what the best way is to get rid of them. In the past I always had them hauled away, but then people said you can compose them so I wondered if I should do that.

I contacted the City and a person from the landfill replied, “I don’t know. Ask a consulting company.” I thought wow, I pay $350 a month and though I do have garbage collection, and I suppose the police, fire or ambulance might come if I call them, but other than that, I’m unsure what else I get other than rabid high-rise development. The City of Kelowna is a curious place.

I should’ve done this right from the beginning, as I know if I have a question, I can go to the Hall Road Neighbourhood Facebook page, and I’ll get all the free advice I need. The consensus was to remove the needles, and this makes sense given to compost takes a lot of water and time, and I have neither as we’ve been told a summer of drought lies ahead.