MINNESOTA HERE WE COME

This is her latest desire. Something she has now rung me five times already today to discuss, starting at 3:15 AM her time. 

"I want you to take me home," she said, "to Minnesota--" then dissolved in tears and hung up. I was thinking she wanted her ashes taken there, to the cemetery where her parents are but, no, seems nothing as easy as that. She rings back right away.

"Sorry. I just want to go see my friend Peg Harold, she's a hundred this year, I just spoke to her daughter and to Elsa's daughter Sallie and they say Peg still lives in the same apartment across from those two empty ones. I want to go see her, will you take me?"

I've never heard of this Peg Harold but I say yes because, well. Because it gives my Peg something to look forward to. Mama has always said that as soon as you stop having something to look forward to, you might as well die. Besides seeing this friend who's a hundred and whose husband by the way or father helped discover penicillin she said and shared the Nobel prize with Fleming (I can find nothing to document this on the net however, no Harold or Herold or Herrold anyone having zip to do with penicillin, so wires are, yet again, crossed somewhere) --my mother also wants to see her old house where she grew up in Kasson and go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester where she once worked (and where I may well leave her).

"Okay, Mama. If that's what you want, I'll try and make it work. I'm not sure January would be the ideal time to go to Minnesota though."

"Oh no no no--certainly not! We'll go in the spring."

So. Right. Spring it is. About the time the builders start on the Peg Hutte in the garden and I will need to be here or Denis will answer Builders' Questions incorrectly and I'll come home to say "Honey, why's there a door opening onto the hedge?"

Anyhow, by Phone Call Number 4 Peg  has had this "marvellous idea": Alex and Denis should come with us to Minnesota! Because "it will be a lot of fun" and "be the making" of Alex.  

I nixed this idea right off. 

Though admitted I would indeed need help, that it's difficult enough on my own negotiating Peg into Price Chopper let alone the Mid-west. Her thinking, incidentally, is to go by train to Chicago, from I suppose Penn Station in NY, and in Chicago we change trains (already wishing you were coming too?) and then rent a car in Minneapolis. Having schelpped her walker(s) and nine million bags in and out of taxis and trains for two days. The other possibility is of course to fly, mostly because airport security is fun to wheel old people through. Or we could rent a semi and drive there, stopping en route to visit "fans" and use their bathrooms.

By the fifth call she's asking my permission to ask her friend Steve to come along. I said sure. Having looked after his own mother for ten years he's a whiz with catheter bags. What I'm hoping is that by 2015, which is in about ten hours, we will have invited enough Minnesota enthusiasts along to fill a Greyhound and we can all sing "The Wheels On The Bus" and Simon & Garfunkle's "Homeward Bound" the whole way.
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Seems she dismissed Dominick and in fact all the staff yesterday. "I've had it!" she said. "I run this place!" She stayed alone all night. And survived to tell the tale of Old Peg Harrold and Her Penicillin Connection.

More worrying, is she keeps referring to my father as if he were still there--which of course he is, in ash form, 80% of him in the garden where I scattered him last August and the other 20% still in the brown plastic box from the funeral home, something I hear is currently being used on the dining room table to prop up the centrepiece, a model of the house I grew up in in Fairfield, hope this didn't put too many dinner guests off their Xmas pudding.

"You know what Daddy said to me last night," she asks,  "when he got up to go to the bathroom?"

"Er…no. What, Mama?"

"Well, when I said 'What am I going to do without you!" he said, laughing a bit, "Well, I suppose you should get married again!' Wasn't that cute?"

WISH ME LUCK OVER THERE NEXT MONTH.

WONDERING IF ITS ALL WORTH IT

Peg's had her gay fan Steve from Florida visiting for five days so I haven't heard from her, not counting her ringing me by mistake at midnight yet again. I get the full report however, from Bonnie. And I hope everyone will be as pleased as I was to learn that Peg is once more out of printer ink and has put in an order at Staples for another $300 worth. Partially my fault, as I didn't get to Steve in time to warn him to stay clear of any invitations to help make Blue Books. Bonnie thought he was napping upstairs but turns out he was out in Peg's office using up ink. Peg had him doing 200 copies of things, full colour glossies mostly, so the good news is we now have enough color prints of fishers and of Peg's old New York apartment building to send to everyone in the entire country and possibly Mexico.

And then she ordered a prime rib from the butchers, which Steve cooked. Peg does not like roast beef, cannot chew it. Never buys it, never orders it. She then bought another one for Christmas dinner tomorrow which Dominick will be cooking. He is working free of charge, it being Christmas, as he and his partner Jeffrey will be dining with Peg, as will Trevor and Bob and maybe their young bit of stuff Ali from Turkey I think, as will Laurie, the artist, miniaturist to be exact, from Cincinnati, who I think Peg would like for a daughter and who arrives in an hour and will hopefully stay  a week or more, thus giving Terri a break from over-night duty.

And then she called the dog lady, the collie-breeder, and told her she wants two puppies in January, so the breeder emailed me in a panic, I told her to disregard Peg's demand, and reiterated that we would like the proceeds from a puppy (about $1000) and not the puppy. Though they are indeed cute. If you like needle-nose peabrain collies.

Last year at this time I was preparing a little Norwegian Julen celebration for my parents, very little of which was actually eaten by said parents, though I'm sure appreciated, in their own "Really? It's Christmas Eve?" sort of way. After which they both choked into their plates on the liquer chocolates from Heathrow I'd brought and I had to swab the table.

This year I prepared a little Norwegian Julen for son and husband, both of whom were about as much help as Peg and Odd were, possibly less, and I am thinking that I am not doing this ever again ever. I wanted to make a special effort for them since I was away last year and I've ended up having to practically turn their heads towards oh, the Xmas decor on the piano, by the front door, the gingerbread personalized hearts--before any of it gets noticed. Plus questions like "Why are you cooking a ham?" or "Who are the cookies for?" are starting to get up my nose, big time, and I seem to be saying "Because it's fucking Christmas, okay!" a lot.

Next year I want to spend Xmas in Norway. They celebrate for about 10 days, nothing but food and cakes and cookies and waffles and so on for ten days. I could get into that.

Now we're all off to the Anchor, the local, for dinner and a Christmas sing-a-long with DK at the keyboard at 9:00 PM with Alex behid the bar and about ready to slit his wrists because DK and will do our party piece, a duet, Baby It's Cold Outside, something Alex thinks is possibly the most embarrassing thing any parents could do. Little dreaming he has a lot to learn in this department (wait till he sees his Dad in his green mankini with the holly sprig sticking out of his arse).

POST BOX AND OTHER FIXATIONS

POST OFFICE BOX
Peg is particularly incensed that I seem unenthusiastic about her renting a post box address at the local P.O.

"But Mother, you already have an address, why would you have need of a post box?" 

"So people can write to me!" Peg says, sounding fed up with having to explain something so obvious."

"People. What people?"

"Fans! Friends! Christ! I owe over a thousand letters!"

"You talking about everyone who sent you birthday cards?"

"Yes! And everyone else."

"But--if they sent you cards,  they already have your address! What's the big secret??"

I explained that last November I'd posted on her Facebook page that anyone--fans, friends--who wished to send her a card could message me privately and I would give them her address. I also told her that none of these birthday well- wishers had to be answered individually, that I could post a general thank you on Facebook. Peg told me to stay out of her correspondence and that she would handle it her way. 

I believe--yes--no, am pretty sure I did mention, round about here, that, judging from the way she procrastinates, it was highly unlikely she would ever get round to answering any letters whatsoever ever again and by the way did she ever write to Brook Hart, her old producer's son, now an eminent lawyer in Hawaii, as I promised Brook she would, last April, a letter she in fact started five times, then misplaced in the chaos known as her room, and now I look bad because I promised him she'd write.

"Mother? Can you understand?"

"Why does everyone question what I want to do all the time! I'm sick of it! You have NO idea--NO IDEA!" 

Peg said the money she's saved by cancelling her subscriptions to the New Yorker and other magazines that she loves (so much she's not looked at them in three years) can go towards the post box rental goddammit! 

Time for New Subject. My turn. Getting almost as good as she is at it. 

CHECKING ACCOUNT
It's time to re-order checks, I was told by Bonnie. The idea is we lose my father's name and replace it with mine. All set. All agreed. Then Bonnie says Peg wants to change her name, lose her married one--which would be dumb, because it's linked to all billing and local services plus her Social Security and so on--and replace it with her professional one, which would result in total confusion not to mention be a complete pain. Plus she does NOT want MY name on it at all, despite the fact that I am on the account and have been for at least three years. Bonnie said it was a HUGE issue with Peg and she went on and on about it to the point where Bonnie almost went home. But then, when I raised the subject with Peg, during outphoje conversation, all she said was: "Good idea, honey. Whatever you think." And then she changed the subject.

COLLIE DOG PUPPIES - TO HAVE OR HAVE NOT
I said I thought it was probably better if we didn't discuss it right now. Peg agreed. I nearly dropped the phone.

MY HEALTH
Peg always asks. I told her I had in fact just got back from a local dentist where I'd gone for some X-rays to see what in hell was going on with my sinuses or teeth or jaw or ear--all of which have been plagueing me for two months and lo and behold, no tooth rot, no gum disease, no sick sinuses, nothing, Bruno The Dentist immediately diagnosed Temporomandibular Joint Dysfuntion, meaning jaw slightly out of line and, because it's like Piccadilly Circus right there for nerves, it can cause referred ear, sinus, tooth, you-name-it discomfort. (When I asked what caused it, Bruno asked if I'd been under stress at all lately, anything causing me to clench my jaw unduly? I said hm, let me think. Nope. Can't come up with a blessed thing.) 

"My voice sounds better, don't you think?" Peg says, when I give her the good news I've not got lockjaw or ear cancer or nine million pounds worth of dental implants to look forward to (at least not yet).

CUTBACKS

Peg has suggested she cancel her subscriptions to the New Yorker and New York Times Review of Books.

"They just pile up and pile up and I never get to them!" she says, like this is news. I've been busily grabbing handfulls to pitch whenever she's out or not looking, for about five years.

"It seems silly to keep on paying for something I don't read!"

"Quite. Good idea, Mama."

"Honey, I need to save money where I can!" 

"You're right."

"But I don't even READ them!" she argues, like I'm trying to put the kibosh on this plan.

"I KNOW, MOTHER! I AGREE WITH YOU! YOU DON'T HAVE TO TALK ME INTO IT!"

So. That'll be about $120 saved.  Which will cover two Terri overnights plus one hour of daytime help, whoopee.

Next on the agenda was TRIMMING STAFF HOURS. My idea, but she grabbed it for hers.

"I don't want anyone here during the day interrupting me! I need to get some work done! Cripes, I'm so behind!"

"Yes. Well. I think, Mother, you need someone there--now and then. At least. Maybe to begin with we try just shaving a few hours off everyone's schedule. How's that?"

"Good. Yes. Good thinking," says Peg. "I'm fine during the day."

So I email Bonnie and we discuss this back and forth and back and forth and finally come up with Bonnie'll leave an hour earlier and Terri will arrive an hour later and Dominick and Bob will cut an hour off their days too. Bob is not happy with this but there is so little for him to do in the winter he couldn't really argue. Next thing is, Peg's on the warpath. She woke up at 4 PM and it was dark and no one was there and she didn't know why or what time it was or what day it was, or anything. And panicked.

"I'm so goddamned mad, they can all just leave, that's all, just LEAVE. They're all FIRED!"

"Mother. Wait--what are you mad at, WHO are you mad at?"

"Why did she act so surprised that I wanted a puppy! Of COURSE I want a puppy!"

"Who? Terri? Who acted surprised? Bonnie?"

"No! On the phone! About what's his name. Honeybear!"

"The dog lady? Carol Ann?" We've jumped. Onto collies now. And Honeybear aka Spurn is female, not male. CLUE: she had puppies!

"And when I said you should have Saturday off I don't need you here all weekend she said she needed the money, John doesn't pay her when she works on Wednesday at his office and I'm all the income she has!" Jumped again. Back to Bonnie.

"I can't come to England until I can walk!" Back to her health. "My voice is better though, don't you think?"

"Much better."

 "I have to drink a glass of water every hour the woman said and not cough or clear my throat so much.  I want my dog back, goddamn it!"

And on it goes. Yesterday she rang to tell me, all excited, that her friend Steve in Florida told her she needs a humidifier, that's why her skin is so dry and her scalp. How he can see this in Florida, I don't know, but What Steve Says, goes. I told her to set pans of water over the heating vents but I can see Bob being sent off to Wall Mart for $200 worth of humidifiers that will be filled once, maybe twice, then forgotten. And left for me to dispose of, eventually. 

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On the Home Front, England side, met with builders today re the New Peg Hut in garden. If we are happy with the quote, work will start the end of April. Meanwhile, I am in Gingerbread Mode and making decorated anchor-shaped ornaments for the Anchor and personalized hearts for everyone this side of the A12 plus one to send to the son's girlfriend in Switzerland. Whose huge box of extra crap she couldn't fit into her suitcase that she mailed off to her address a month ago, came back yesterday because it seems her sister in Zermatt couldn't be arsed to go to the post office to collect it, and so it is now under our piano. Where I guess it will stay since no one's answering me when I ask what the fuck I'm supposed to do with it, so perhaps will drape tinsel around it for Christmas.

SOME $$ SUCCESS

The good news is that Genworth, Long Term Care Insurance Division, has, after two letters from me--FINALLY sent a check for Peg for $38,000. No letter, no "We agree with you and understand how difficult it must be and want to help so please accept this small token.." no nothing, just a check in an envelope, like they can't wait to get rid of me and would like me to please shut up, which is probably true. This $38,000 is for a year's worth of "home care"at the rate of $99 per day, as per the original policy my father took out for them both in 1980. Which was supposed to be exclusively for nursing home only. But seems I have successfully persuaded them otherwise. Finally. I am now breathing slightly more easily. It will buy us time. Peg time, that is, at the house. Also, she has suggested we cut the Staff hours slightly, trimming off an hour here, an hour there. Am all for this. Anything will help. Outside Bob and Dominick will be annoyed but so be it.

Meanwhile during the big snow storm last week a couple of huge branches fell off the pine tree that towers above the house and have landed on the roof, beyond Bob's reach even on a 20' ladder. So the Tree Men have had to be called, and they were there this morning, costing $600. Will find out if covered on home owners policy. Probably not.
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So. THE BAD NEWS

Peg will not shut up about Why doesn't she get the dog back AND a puppy.

To which the answer is a) because the dog HATES being in your house and b) if Peg is moving within the next 6 months, a puppy, or indeed any dog IS OUT OF THE QUESTION.

She then said she's never been so unhappy and has never felt like killing herself until now. I told her I was sorry. And asked if there were anything I could do to help her. Like a good daughter.

GIVING UP

Peg just rang in tears. Saying she can't stop crying, at all, because she can't stop thinking of Daddy "being embalmed" (which he wasn't) and in a "big black box" (which he isn't) and I'm not there and she just talked to the collie puppie woman saying she doesn't "understand what's supposed to be happening" (she does NOT get a puppy, we get the PROCEEDS from a puppy) even though we've discussed this nine million times, she is also crying because "this" is how her life has turned out after "working her tail off all these years" (she retired by choice at 55) and poor me poor me etc etc. and "no one feels sorry" for her.

So. It's Thanksgiving. I was doing fondue but can't find fucking Sterno anywhere in this stupid country except online for delivery in 3 days which does me no good so now I guess we have no dinner and I am now on antibiotics but still don't feel human and my ear and teeth and sinuses are still throbbing and I have been doing my ever-loving BEST to make life a little nicer for my mother and am up to here with getting her PR and relaunching her shows in the UK and getting her scripts published and loading more website content which I think I'll be doing util the day I die which ain't too far away let me tell you and launching DK's book and 2 more CDs of his published and trying to finish that novel or three and get the Peg House built in the garden here that she doesn't want to live in and have the Becket house ahead of me to empty and sell and….

Moan moan moan. It will all get done. But for today and maybe this week and maybe next too, who knows, I am giving up even moaning.

HAPPY 98TH BIRTHDAY

Peg's, not mine. Although I feel 98. No, make that 108.

The plan is, so I hear, to hit Tina's the Hairdresser's at 9:00, then off to Home Depot for bird feeders, then Price Chopper for you name it, then to Salmon Run in Lee where The Staff are taking Peg out to lunch. Then home, to accept a Facetime call from Kings in England singing a jolly Happy Birthday around the piano, during which I hope not to cough too much. After which either Bonnie or Terri or Bob will lead Peg onto her Facebook page, where she can see the many birthday wishes from friends and fans, and then view major fan James Lilek's birthday video he made for her for his newspaper in Minneapolis.

As 98th birthdays go, it will be fine. 

Jennifer (sort of adopted sister) arrived last Saturday for the night bringing birthday cake and a sweater that's too tight in the sleeves but Peg loves it so will wear it. 

On Thanksgiving, in two days time, four gay guys arrive with the full Monty dinner. 

I am sorry not to be there, but only sort of. Mostly because I still feel crap and will be starting antibiotics tomorrow and the thought of a plane journey and going deaf with the cabin pressure and then trying to be fun in Becket doesn't do it for me. Still. She's Mama. She rang this morning and I burst into tears.

The big news from this end is that today we got official planning permission to build the Peg house at the bottom of the garden.

The big news for the Becket end is that according to Bonnie, Peg has gone off the idea of moving to England. In fact not just gone off, doesn't want to come, ever. Period. 

I guess her plan is to stay there then until she runs out of money for oh, you know, staff, electric bills, food, printer ink and so on and just one day curl up under the duvet and die, by herself, with no one there to even ring and tell me the news. 

And I tell you, at the rate the money's flowing out, we're talking April.

I am not sleeping well these days. 

And if my son leaves any more sneakers in the front hall, he's out of here.

BLOODY BLUE BOOK - ITIS

She's back on the case. Blue Book alert, danger danger, Dive! Dive! This you may or may not recall, is a project my mother invented roughly three years ago, the idea being to make up 8 x 10 (blue, as it happens) plastic scrapbooks/photo albums based on her life and career to send to about nine million lucky recipients. The project for which she tore apart her carefully compiled and preserved old radio and TV scrapbooks and thereby fucking them up totally. The project where she spent fortunes on photo paper, cartridge ink, photo sleeves, printers, you name it, singlehandedly keeping the Dalton, MA. Staples store in business. The project which covered every surface the house with piles upon piles of photocopies of Peculiar Items To Include In A Scrapbook About One's Life, such as a grainy photo of a fisher (like a mink) and the wedding photo of some guy in Japan who uses Peg's scripts to teach English, and Kate Smith doing the Charleston as a young fat 16 year old. The project which drove everyone crazy because Peg was acting like "getting these Blue Books out to everyone who wants one!" was more important than, say, getting her website up, my father to the dentist, or even dinner, but mostly drove everyone crazy because IT NEVER GOT FINISHED. Because Peg cannot organize and because Peg procrastinates. The Blue Book Project which went on hold when Peg was rushed to the ER last April and nearly died, the Blue Book Project which, as a gesture to "Peg's last wishes", friends Annie and Wendy and I kindly rolled up our sleeves and knocked ourselves out to FINISH, in two days, AND get a dozen of these precious books mailed off to the 12 most deserving recipients (two of whom have since died and am now trying to decide if its tacky to ask for these books back, because, you know, seems like a waste when we could simply change the dedication and post on to Numbers 13 nd 14, say--bummer, wasting pics of fishers when you don't have to).

In any event, Peg did not die, and though she seemed pleased at the time when we presented her in her hospital bed with a Completed Blue Book--we'd even done clever printed captions--my suspicion, which has now been proved correct, is that it pissed her off that WE had done HER project.

Anyhow, she's back at it, driving Terri and Bonnie and Outside Bob to distraction. And now me, having just seen online the $396 Staples order that went in yesterday. We cannot afford Blue Book-itis any more. $400 is what only just came in for her French fire screen at auction. $400 is a week's salary for Staff (well, one of them) and Peg's blowing it all on printer ink and manilla folders. Kill. Kill.

I really don't know the answer to this. I want her to have a project--wait. Do I? Maybe not. No, I don't. I take that back. I think what I want is for her to sit quietly and read and nap and get her hair done and do the nice interviews I set up for her and maybe answer the nine thousand letters she owes people if she's feeling up to it. And stop making life difficult for everyone. 

On top of which, Bonnie reports that Peg, who has made a big song and dance about wanting to be "in charge of her own pills goddamit!", hasn't been taking them. Bonnie says she hasn't taken them in fact, for over a week now. This is 15 pills a day she's missing. High blood pressure, cholesterol, gout, bladder cramps, diabetes, psoriasis--you name it. 

Am torn between making a fuss about all this or saying well, what can you do. Nothing. Certainly from 3,000 miles away. Except invent a Blue Book pill to be taken 3 times a day which any one of four people, I guarantee you, would gladly help ram down her throat.

TO BECKET OR NOT TO BECKET

I'm over here getting no sleep and keeping DK awake coughing and sneezing and spluttering and in fact wishing at this very moment that my nose would stop dripping onto the keyboard and my eyes would stop watering long enough to at least type a sentence, and meanwhile fretting about when to book my flight to Boston and will my sinuses be all right flying by next week because God knows I don't want my ears to pop and make me deaf for a week like they did last year--and now Peg is suddenly acting surprised to hear I'm coming over, although we've been discussing this for month. And, as of the last phone call, is absolutely insistent that she's "OK" and that I am not to fly over there "and give everyone your cold". So that's where we are. Plus the two people I need to meet with are going to be away now I hear, the whole time I'll be there, almost to the day. 

So I don't know what to do. Still. Terri (Staff) can be there for her birthday, she assures me, and for Thanksgiving, so Peg won't be alone. Still. Or did I just say that. 

Meanwhile, Outside Bob has successfully managed to install a $6.35 camera from eBay onto the PC there and hook Peg up to Skype. And it works. We checked it yesterday. Ever the set decorator, I had Bob leaping up ladders rearranging the signed wall photos from celebrities behind where Peg sat so the good ones showed more i.e. Basil Rathbone, Helen Hayes, Margaret Hamilton. "Boy, she's still a pain in the ass and she's not even here!" Bob grumbled good naturedly (maybe).

Anyhow I can now give the green light to two Peg SKYPE interviews, one from an online magazine here in the UK for their column "Awesome Old Lady of the Month" (my favourite sample question being "What is your night time beauty routine?", can't wait to hear the answer to that one, hope the word "catheter" doesn't feature) and the other from some radio station. Have just sent digital copies of five of Peg's scripts and a DVD of her performing to the Motion Picture Retirement something in LA, the idea being that old retired film people will perform for camera Peg's comedy shows. Instead of I suppose basket weaving and flower arranging. A publishing company wants to publish her scripts, am trying to hammer out a deal as we speak. Lileks from the Minneapolis Star Tribune is bringing out his piece on her later this month, "as a birthday present for her" he said. And am in the process of getting her shows on the radio here in England.

Plus chased up both the auctioneers who disappeared with quite a bit of her stuff last summer and found out we have about $3000, possibly more, coming in from some silver, a fire screen, and a Tower of London flintlock musket. So money is in place until January, by which time I will need to have drummed up more. From God knows where. The other auctioneer is not answering my emails and has clearly retired to Barbados on proceeds from the Becket house. 

Mike the Boundary Guy, my new best friend, is going to advise me on the sale of the Becket property when its time, and figure our pricing and parceling out land plots to sell separately or keep as bargaining points. 

So not all is looking bleak, by any means. It just seems that way when you don't feel well. And the thought of a still-full 8 bedroom house on 28 acres all needing your attention--looms.
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MEDICAL UPDATE:

Peg has had her first visit to her speech therapist, who has told her to stop clearing her throat and to cough instead. Peg's thrilled. Coughing a lot (join the club) but thrilled.

A COLLIE BY ANY OTHER NAME

Great excitement amongst collie lovers. Spurn-Me-Not Piper Angel Honeybear (aka Stainer of Rugs and Bleacher of Parquet Flooring) has just given birth to eight little Spurn-Me-Not Piper Angel Honeybear juniors. Having just been on the breeder's website [http://wellsmerecollies.com/spurn]
trying to figure out how to see them on the webcam (it's been a slow night here in Walberswick), I was interested to learn that we may have been addressing  the dog by the wrong name. She appears to be named "Van-M Spurn-Me-Not". No wonder she paid no attention when we called her, she was waiting to hear "VAN-M? Oh, VAN-M? What the fuck are you doing squatting on the white carpet in the Tulip Room?"

I also see that not only has the breeder put 3 "N's in Peg and Odd's last name, she has put a photo of Peg on the website, Peg asleep, cuddling Van-M, possibly the one and only time Van-M got onto Peg's bed in the year and a half she was in residence, in fact was probably deposited there by Outside Bob at Peg's request and escaped as the shutter clicked. 


Peg is already making plans to visit the puppies, an hour and a half away, with Dawn, whom she fired last year for labeling and dating the Tupperware containers in the fridge and who set the Great Borrowed Collie Plan in motion to begin with, thinking it was a great idea, which it was--to recap, briefly: Peg gets VAN-M for $2000 until Van-M comes into heat, then gets bred, then has pups, and Peg gets proceeds of one pup ($1000) and this was to happens twice. Or was until my mother, despite signing the contract, said she knew nothing of any such arrangement, "Honeybear" was NOT leaving the house to be bred or for any reason, ever ever ever, and Dawn was a terrible person "and--and--and in fact put her hand over the part of the agreement that stated all that!" so Peg "couldn't see it!" And so it went. Until I pried the dog loose, the dog that couldn't wait to leave anyway, and now, well! Presto! Eight Little Van-Ms. N, O, P Q, R, S, T and U. 

And guess who is now insisting on a puppy--no, make that two puppies. Despite me saying we need the $1000--which we do--not crap all over the floor for Peg to roll her walker through. 

So I feel pretty much like an ogre. One who incidentally has the flu and whose tooth (LL5, in dentist talk) fell out last night while I was eating ice cream. And which today a very nice lady dentist in Southwold glued back in for me for £33. Which is equal to about one ear of a collie, in dog talk.

PROGRESS

We have finally received Planning Permission from the Parish Council for the "Little Peg House" we are hoping to build at the bottom of the garden but still waiting for the fingers crossed "big YES" from the District. After which I can line up builders and a start date and make girlie decisions like what kind of boiler and heating system I want (no idea besides the kind that gives you heat and hot water when you want it), how the drains should be configured (um, in a pretty figure eight?) and what sort of flooring. All I know here is that I don't want tile, stone or cement, it's too hard on the back and feet. 

On top of which Peg won't like it. All she ever wants is carpet. Carpet carpet carpet rugs rugs runners and more runners. She and my father spent fortunes on a parquet floor in the dining room and kitchen, covered it with rugs and more rugs, especially when it started buckling, eventually had it torn up and replaced with engineered pine boards which Peg also covered with rugs and filled in any gaps with stick-on runners you cut off a roll, including a little 4 inch wide strip over the door jamb into the laundry room (also carpeted) because "the dogs don't like wood floors". All of which makes you wonder why, if no one there's liking wood floors, they had any installed to begin with. But now you can at least see them again because, as you may or not recall, I had to pitch the four rugs and various runners she had in there when they became saturated with collie urine.

So I guess what I should do is stop worrying about floors for the Peg House, put down what I want (wood), then wall-to-wall over it all for Peg and rip it up when she has moved on to heaven (which I hope to fuck better be carpeted).
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The Motion Picture Retirement Fund runs a home in LA, and they want Peg scripts to perform and film. So today, while I am feeling distinctly fluey--certainly enough to give Keep Fit and a ladies lunch a miss but not enough sadly to lose my appetite--I am listening to Peg's comedy shows and choosing  appropriate-for-elderly-actors-to-perform ones. Am also sending DVDs of her Old Time Radio convention performances so these retired film types can see how these shows should be played, for timing and delivery. I then find the script to the episode, scan it if not already scanned, or ask Terri to go into the files in Becket and scan it. That was the easy part. The hard part has been explaining Dropbox to Terri and the fact that I have 3 Dropbox accounts and only, it seems, the right passwords for two. And both of these are full so I need access to the third. Four hours and 1,200 emails and phoned calls and security questions later, I am happy to report we are getting closer. Closer that is to posting in the bleeding mail and forgetting Dropbox.

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DK, meanwhile, when not busy opening dodgy emails thinking they were from a neighbor, which consequently entailed my spending a few hours on the phone getting DK's security question changed via a dim AOL Customer Services rep named Amy who had to have the DK's "favorite film" spelled for her about eleven hundred times using "Brava" and "echo" and all those others I can never remember--has completed the orchestral score of Black Beauty, and all the parts, with a view to renting it out, as we keep getting requests from orchestras. Today he is off getting it copied onto A3 paper. As opposed to sending the original out, as he did, once, and never getting it returned. Or he wouldn't have had to re-score the sucker. He is also about to launch into a heavy PR campaign to publicize the launch of a newly-mastered cast album of a musical of his from 30 years ago, Worzel Gummidge. Stage Door Records, the company behind all this, has organized more radio and TV interviews for him in three days than his agent has done in the past three years. We're thinking of asking StageDoor to handle the PR now for DK's memoirs, launching early 2015. 

I am also hoping that he returns from Halesworth with more aspirin for me. 

ME to PEG: I'm toying with the idea, Mama, of coming over for Thanksgiving. What do you think?

PEG: Are you worried you're not going to see me before I die?

ME: Well--no.  I know you won't die before Christmas, you have Steve Hiss [a fan] coming, and Laurie [another one].

PEG: I really only called to tell you how pretty you looked last night on the phone. I don't know why you want to get your face done--!

ME: [RESIGNED BUT KINDA PLEASED] Oh--Mama. Am sure it was a trick of the light. But thank you.

PEG:  MY eyes are driving me wild! They water so much I can't see a damned thing anymore, it's like looking out through Niagara Falls.
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PROCRASTINATION

…is something that Peg is especially good at, of course, but not I. Yet here I am dithering, big time, about whether to hop a plane in a week or two so my mother will not be alone on her birthday or Thanksgiving. Alone, that is, meaning without me. The Staff and Local Gays will see to it that she is wined and dined and showered with gifts. What's stopping me is  the thought of having to do that god-awful journey again, twice. So it's totally selfish. And the dithering is whether or not I can live with myself or not for being selfish. 

[PHONE. PEG CALLING ON FACETIME, ALL BY HERSELF.]

Funny. It's almost as of all I have to is type her name and the phone rings. Today I got to see her new black and white polka dot suspenders that Bonnie bought her. Apparently when she was at lunch last week at Bob and Trevor's, she stood up to leave and her pants fell down. Dominick (who she just called Domino) kindly yanked them back up and suggested suspenders. She's lost more weight, is the thing and all her waistbands are too big. 

OTHER BIG BECKET NEWS:

- Peg has had to retrieve her glasses four times in three days  from the toilet. When she looks down to "inspect", after, as you do, her glasses, all of which need tightening she says, shoot off. 

- Spurn Me Not Angel Honeybear is due to give birth to at least 5 collie pups today or tomorrow. The breeder is keeping Peg informed. Peg wants two of the puppies. (She is not having them).

[PHONE. PEG CALLING AGAIN ON FACETIME. "JUST PRACTICING"]

- Teri has finished scanning 4 scripts I have to send out to the Motion Pictures Retirement Home who want to film residents performing her comedy shows. Am also sending a DVD of Peg and Bob Hastings performing them, so they know what to aim for.

- Health-wise, all Peg's vitals are swell but her legs "still like jelly". 

- She told me my hair looked nice. Never fails. It's 3 days unwashed and am long overdue for cut and colour, scheduled for tomorrow. She said that years ago when she was little, her mother came to collect her from school one day with a new hair style (shingled) and Peg didn't recognize her and howled. She was further confused by her mother having just had her name chiselled onto her father's headstone (cheaper to do all at once apparently)  i.e. "Here lie Hugh Franklin Lynch and Clara Frances Lynch" and decided her real mother had died and this stranger with the shingled hair had taken her place. 
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It's lashing down outside and the dog needs a walk but I need  a nap. So will continue to mull over my possible selfishness, lying down.

NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS

"How's your mother doing?" asks everyone, whomever I run into or speak to. Or perhaps "How are things the other side of the pond?"

"Same." 

My favourite answer. I could go into Peg's latest medical report from her GP (fine), latest health obsession (watery eyes and jelly legs), latest opinion on sleeping alone in the house (wants the Staff to bugger off one day, grateful for them the next), latest worry about what I've "done with her stuff" (a not very interesting print of a circular bridge somewhere in Minnesota that used to be in my grandmother's bedroom and which Peg said I could have about 20 years ago and which is now framed and hanging in my upstairs hallway, not sure why because I don't much care for it, but don't hate it enough to schlep it back across the Atlantic so Peg can say "That's nice, what is it?" 

I could talk about the latest collie news. That Spurn Me Not alias Piper Angel Honeybear who cost Peg $2000 and was returned to the breeders last May because she was peeing all over the house not to mention was a waste of space as a canine companion since you couldn't get near her--is pregnant. The original Dog Deal, which Peg says she was "forced" to sign and that Dawn, who used to work for Peg, "put her hand over" the part that said Spurn was to be returned to the breeder if and when she came into heat and that Peg would get the proceeds from one of the puppies, and that this was to happen twice, after which Peg would have  the dog for keeps--still stands. Meaning, if the pups are alive and well, Peg get about $1000 from the sale of one. Peg, you can be sure, is already thinking she gets a puppy, not the money from the sale of one. I can see this turning into, shall we say, an issue.

I could also tell people about how I try and put Everything Becket out of my mind while I'm here dealing with Everything England. Or that I would go crazy. And that I sometimes do anyway. When suddenly my List seems so endless that I am going to run out of pages on the steno pad, when I can't get a simple piece of information through Peg's head, when DK suddenly says I never asked HIM what HE thought about bringing Peg over here to live, that I just went ahead and made plans, when Alex keeps doing fuck all about his future and I try to come to terms with him being a bartender his entire life, when the dog won't stop barking at pigeons in the big pine tree she doesn't have a hope of reaching but tries to climb up to nevertheless, gradually reducing my carefully-tended lace-cap hydrangea to a bunch of broken sticks. The hydrangea I planted because Daddy put one on the tree outside the front door in Becket and I love it and I wanted one so I can look at it and think of him. And that is when, roughly,  I lose it. And rant and rave and let off steam and DK retreats to this office and Alex thinks I'm crying over "some dumb plant" and Mabel--keeps barking at the pigeons. This lasts about ten minutes, after which I am fine again. Until it hits me how scared I am, how out of my depth I feel, having to build a house and sell a house and move a 98 year old and fill out 3 million forms to hopefully get her on the National Health and find a companion here for her and how my heart starts beating faster and faster and--I feel sick most of the time. Seriously nauseous and not hungry. 

I could furthermore mention how pissed off I am that for all this stress on my plate, I don't appear to be losing any weight. And this pisses me off almost as much as Peg, out of the blue, telling me not to have a face lift done in England because that you "can't trust them" here, and that there's a very good "eye man" in Springfield. 

"Mother, no one has mentioned face lifts. I don't want a face lift. Honest!"

"Oh go on! I'll pay for it." 

Fuck me, I think--on top of everything else I need a face lift!

So really, you see, when someone asks me how Peg is, it's really just easier to say "Same." 

GREAT MEDICAL MINDS DEPT.

Peg's Ear, Nose and Throat guy has put her mind at rest in regards to her growing inability to taste or smell her food: she does not have nose cancer. The bad news though, for her, is that neither does she does have polyps. For the past five years at least we have been hearing nothing but "I have GOT to do something about these damned polyps in my nose! They're just driving me crazy! No one wants to operate, they say I'm too old!" Meaning somewhere along the line a doctor either misdiagnosed her or suggested she might have polyps or she decided it for herself after reading some scary article in the Mayo Clinic Health Letter News or whatever it's called that she keeps renewing her subscription to, for reasons I don't understand because it's not like she's going to change her eating habits at 97 or start sprinkling a teaspoon of turmeric onto her cereal or suddenly being jogging to the mailbox. The ENT guy suggested that Peg's lack of taste is most likely due to age and to the fact that she wears dentures, both of which I suggested, years ago, but she didn't want to hear, any more than I liked hearing the other day that I suffer from something called "Senior Rhinitis" (please!) and Peg is now no doubt looking around for another ENT doctor, the kind who can diagnose nasal polyps better.

However, this guy did have other good news: Peg's hoarseness, another on-going complaint, is not due to anything sinister either, she does not have throat cancer. What she has is--and here the guy starts treading on thin ice again--old vocal chords. Vocal chords, as they age, stretch, it seems, and this could indeed explain the hoarseness.  Since Peg is unduly concerned about her voice and sounding okay for interviews, what he suggests, this doctor, is Speech Therapy. Speech therapy. For a woman who hasn't stopped talking in almost 98 years and has never to my knowledge had any trouble making herself understood either in front of a mike or across a crowded supermarket. And in fact might occasionally benefit from Gaffers Tape Across The Mouth Therapy.

Anyhow, she cancelled her first appointment. (Raining.)
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STAFF ON CALL: all four of them, all the time, or so it seems, even doing overnights when Peg has cousins from California visiting overnight. I keep thinking I need to go over, and fast. But then do the math, no small feat, and by the time you add up airfare and getting to and from airports and possibly a car rental, I'm spending MORE in 3 weeks than having Terri and Dominick continue with their overnights. So then I have to figure out, again why am I going? And the answer is to keep Peg company and of course annoy her and "take over" and "throw out" her "life" and other daughterly duties. And I think, well, maybe this can wait. Maybe I can get her here for a visit instead. Maybe I can find accomodation, maybe I can sort out air miles, maybe I can find a way so she doesn't have to fly at night which she hates (London via Vladivostok perhaps), maybe Bonnie would be able to bring her for Thanksgiving after all, maybe she can change her plans. Except now Peg's saying she doesn't want to come--correction, she does want to come but her "legs are like jelly", she can't get up by herself anymore without help, she says to me yesterday.

"Where are you right now, Mother?"

"At the butcher block."

"Where's Dominick?"

"Still asleep upstairs. It's early."

"So--how'd you get up out of bed and into the kitchen?"

"With my walker, why?"

"You just said you couldn't get up anymore by yourself, your legs are like jelly."

[PAUSE] "They are! And--I had to really brace myself against the side of the bed and PUSH, then FINALLY managed to HAUL myself up."

At which point she changed the subject instantly to her new iPad, which she calls "the thing you got", and I then tried long distance to guide her to the ON button and finally decided the thing needed to be charged, which I doubt anyone has thought to do since I left in September. And which in fact turned out to be the case. But now Old Jelly Legs knows how to do that. AND find the ON button. Maybe.