Wednesday, April 30, 2014

TWO MORE NIGHTS HERE

I heard nothing this morning, no sound from below. You wonder. You wonder if this is it, did it finally happen, peacefully, overnight. Every morning this is my first thought upon waking. Part of you hopes, the other part is scared. 

If I tiptoe halfway down the stairs I can peer into the den to see if Daddy is ensconced on his stained velvet chair in front of the TV. No sign this morning. So I tippy-toed further, in my nightshirt, and unlocked the front door for Bob, turned up the furnace in the den, scampered on into the kitchen to turn up the heat in here and was going to continue round through the dining room, a circle, and go back upstairs that way but at the last minute went back via the bar---and came very close to stepping in a pile of dog shit. Which had been deposited within the last thirty seconds. Whereupon Odd appeared around the corner with his walker, lickety split, for once, heading right for this pile. 

Had I not chosen to retrace my steps to the den, had I gone the other way, I would not have seen the pile, Daddy would not have seen the pile, would have plowed straight through it with his walker with the tennis balls on the two front legs--and, gosh, wouldn't that have been pretty. So, really, I was lucky, when you think of it, because I only had a pile of dog shit to pick up, not skid marks throughout the house. This is of course before I noticed Odd was wearing different trousers than the ones I'd helped him into the night before, which  meant only one thing. And, sure enough, there it was, right there in Odd's room, reeking. His brown sweatpants in a ball on the table, thank you, entwined around a filthy Depends.
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STAFF ON CALL:

Outside Bob, who cleaned the bathroom for me after Odd's second miss in 12 hours, which is above and beyond the call of duty. I hugged him. Tears in my eyes. He also re-printed the 75 contact sheet images from Peg's show that Annie and I threw out, never dreaming that Peg was going to make it out of the ICU or that she would mention "needing" these images every single day since first being carted off to the ER. 

Dominick, who visited Peg at the nursing home for two hours then scurried over the mountain to take over from Bob so I could go see Peg and have a pedicure at Lucky Nails in Lee. Am now torn between marrying Outside Bob or the Vietnamese guy who gave me a foot massage.
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ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

- Made asparagus soup and took to Peg, fresh from rehab/physio:

"Christ. You should see them in there--two frail old women who looked dead already being told to raise their arms, find a piece of puzzle--I mean--why do they bother!"

- Made a big chicken and leek and mushroom pie for the freezer for when Peg's fan Gary and family come from Oklahoma the end of May so she doesn't have to cook. She will anyway, so the pie is a waste, she will make Nine Hour Pot Roast (not nine hours to cook, nine hours to cut the onions for it, another nine to cut the carrots, and so on--she'll start it a week or so ahead).

- Scanned fifty pages of Peg crap I need to keep before she gets home and it all disappears again under socks and National Geographics and Mayo Clinic Health magazines about How To Spot Diabetes or Coping With Nasal Polyps.

- Wrote three more two minute Mother-Daughter dialogues for her website, which I'll record over at the nursing home with her tomorrow. In theory. If she stops obsessing about "getting her bottom up in the air". We--meaning me, the nurses, the doctor--want her bottom to "get air" so the bed sores will heal, and meaning she should lie on her side occasionally, not just on her back, but Peg has interpreted this to mean she needs to get her bottom higher than her head and is suggesting some sort of pulley system with weights, which is about the point where I stand up and say I have to getting back now, the 4:15 Amtrak to Boston is due past and I need to go throw myself in front of it.

- Dennis from Empire Estate Auction House in Albany arrived with a van and while Odd slept, took away twelve things from upstairs--chairs, settee, mirrors, a Maxfield Parrish, and a milk glass dish belonging to my Great Aunt Helen that features in its center a beaver (we think) coming out of the water and which will bring about seventy five cents at auction. Still. I love seeing stuff leave this place. Including me.

- Packed two out of three bags.  Looked up to see Spurn Me Not Angel Honeybear aka The Collie, standing in my living quarters, which is out of bounds. "Get downstairs, you!" I clapped my hands and it ran out and off down the stairs.  I then happened to pass by what we call the Tulip Bedroom at the other end of the hall and see a large wet circle of dog urine on the white carpet. What's annoying is that I have gone out of my way to treat this dog extremely well--walks, decent food, food on time, cuddles, pats, a Beggin' Strip before bed--and it craps in the den and then pees upstairs. I am a dog lover, anyone will tell you, but all I want to do is shoot the fucker.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

UNPLEASANT DAY

GENERAL FEELING:
I want to go home. I don't want to do this anymore. 
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I don't know how many of you have cleaned up your father's shit, literally, but I've just spent over an hour in the bathroom by the front door where Odd let loose without coming anywhere near the toilet. Walls, pictures, handles, toilet brush holder, plunger, everywhere, everything covered. I stopped him, naked from the waist down, from sitting down  on his clean sheets, just in time. Found a Depends, dragged it (them?) on, trying not to breathe or let him touch me. I know he hasn't washed his hands. He never does. Got him settled. Thought he was down for the night. Came in here and soaked my hands in Lysol and poured myself an iced tea pitcher full of wine. Ten minutes later---voila. He's up! He's up! 

Christ. You can't fucking win here.

We brought Peg home for a visit, via the Urologist in Pittsfield for her catheter change. Sue, the catheter-changer, the only one Peg will allow to do this, was appalled by Peg's two bed sores, which either the nursing home people have been negligent about or Peg won't let them near her. I know which one my money'd be on. Today when Bonnie and I arrived to collect her she had three aides clustered around her all trying to persuade her to take her pills. These are pills she's been taking for years, nothing new, suddenly she's acting like she's never seen them before and we're all trying to disguise strychnine in chocolate pudding. Then I find out she hasn't been showered which pissed me off since I'd sorted it all out with them the day before. Turns out she refused when they came to get her this morning. Too cold. Too early. Wrong robe. Continental Drift. An "R" in the month. So off she goes to the urologist, unshowered for two weeks and me quietly apologizing to Sue behind Peg's back with hand gestures. 

Then we head back to Laurel Lake to get MY car, Bonnie and Peg head off to Friendly's to pick up the Lunch For Five order I'd phoned in, Peg's favorite (hot dog and chocolate milk shake...the big treat) while I race off to Lee Outlets to find Peg regular cotton underpants at Hanes because she should NOT be wearing Depends it turns out, especially not with bed sores, they won't get any air and so on.

Once home, the dog, who Peg can't wait to see and has been dreaming about, pays zero attention to her, in fact runs out to the pen as soon as it sees her and refuses to come in, even when tempted by pieces of Friendly hot dog. All Peg wanted to talk about, besides this lunatic dog, was who said what when about showers over at Laurel Lake and managed to ignore my what I thought exciting news that Sirius XM Radio was going to start playing her shows on May 11th, Mother's Day.

"Did you hear me?"
"Yes."
"Well--isn't that great, Mother? Aren't you pleased?"  
"Gina. Her name was Gina. I made her write it on the board and then she never showed up! They're crazy over there, they really are."

So I ended up showering her in the laundry room, thank you Gina, which was all warmed up from the Hospice Home Health Aide showering Odd twenty minutes earlier. 

Bonnie drove Peg home about 4:00 PM, just after Odd had his first Unable To Breathe attack, during which Peg offered him asparagus soup. About ten minutes after they'd left I had to tell him again where "Peggy" was. I could probably say "Paris, Daddy. The Sorbonne. But she'll be back tomorrow!" and be fine. At least it might have nicer connotations for him than, say, "LAUREL LAKE NURSING HOME FOR FUCK'S SAKE I JUST TOLD YOU TWENTY SECONDS AGO JESUS CHRIST!" 

I am very very close to snapping in half.
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It's now 9:30 PM and Odd is once again in distress. Panting for breath. Gasping. Moaning. Grimacing. Coughing. Panicking. Have called Hospice twice. They can do no more except what I'm doing--nebulizer, Maalox, Ativan--except possibly morphine under the tongue and quite frankly I am loathe to make the nurse trek way the hell out here, weather is disgusting, plus I keep thinking Odd is going to be fine any minute, the way he normally bounces back. What makes tonight's episode slightly different from your normal everyday breathing attacks is that tonight he decided, mid nebulizer (it's this plastic pipe you breathe from connected to a machine with some capsule of something I can't remember emptied into it), that he needed to go to the bathroom. And, well, I guess I just figured he meant "toilet", not the room itself. Wine, I need more wine.
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STAFF ON CALL:
Bonnie:  10 - 6
Bob:  8 - 2. He fixed the kitchen floor swell with plywood and put the cheap rug Peg had over it. Looks fine. Actually it doesn't but I don't care, it'll do for the moment. It's a floor.

I just rang Tory. She was at work. Berkshire something.  Place for patients who are never going to leave (unlike me). There's a name for them but can't remember. People on ventilators and machines, general no-hopers. Many of them children. Tory's a nurse. She cleans tubes and changes diapers and administers meds. I burst into tears when she rang me back. Thank God for friends. And latex gloves. 

Now I'm crying because I feel guilty for being pissed off at my parents, both of whose bottoms I have seen naked today.

I am not a saint. And I am sure the fuck not going to heaven unless there's Staff On Call and ensuite loos and a private balcony and a fully stocked mini-bar. In fact make it a maxi one.


Monday, April 28, 2014

LONG DAY (as opposed to?)

Well I don't know where my father is. How could he still be napping at 9:30 PM?. God forbid I go look. He lay down at 2:00. He's made three appearances out here since. I hear the clunk of the walker, a glass of juice being poured in the bar area, I call "Daddy, are you OK?" he says fine fine fine and clunks off again. I thought he was watching TV in the den in his chair. Three times I've been about to down tools and go see to his dinner. Now I guess I forget it. I bet he wanders out just as I'm closing up things for bed and suddenly I'm doing omelets and asparagus soup at midnight. Then have to keep him upright for an hour because of acid reflux. And of course him not being awake means I have not done his second nebulizer treatment. Not that this would kill him (she hopes) but I like to appear on top of things here for the Staff's sake, if nothing else. They have this great image of me being Miss Omnipresent Top Dog In Charge of The Works Who Can Do No Wrong. Hate to have to say Oops. Sorry. Forgot his pills again today, silly me--too often. Oh, and no dinner and forgot to empty his urinal, true, and yes, that's definitely his shoe under the counter, he must have lost it at dinner last night and no, I hadn't noticed, yes, am glad he didn't slip on the floor today too.

Odd has no track of time, is the thing, neither of them do. Peg called me at a quarter to seven this morning from the nursing home in a panic because no one had come to shower her yet "And Tina's coming at seven!"

"Tina's coming at nine Mother. Nine. Not seven."
"I thought she was coming at seven!"
"No. Nine. Tina is coming at nine. She was always coming at nine."

By the time I got over to Laurel Lake at 8:58, Tina was sitting by the bed and Peg was eating the homemade Italian chocolates Tina's husband Dante, a master baker, had made. Tina is Peg's hairdresser. 

I got someone to open the beauty salon, got Peg down the hall there via her walker, me daintily carrying her catheter bag over my arm like my purse. Tina washed and blow dried Peg's hair, I did eyebrows and lipstick and got rid of about nineteen disgusting old lady hairs around her mouth, got her into a great outfit, chose necklace and earrings and---didn't have the heart to tell her that even though this was Skype, they were only recording the audio part for the interview. Anyhow she looked marvelous.  And she stayed mostly on track, with the questions about her career, and when she didn't, at least she knew it and turned to me to say "What were we talking about?" or "That wasn't the story I wanted to tell, remind me." 

I felt badly leaving her but had to get to Price Chopper to do The Weekly Shop and then home before Outside Bob left at 2:00 sharp. Off came the good stuff and back went the stretched-out stained turtleneck, off went the earrings and necklace. Like some prisoner I'd made up to look spiffy for the video telling the world how happy and well-treated the inmates are here then as soon as the red light's off it's back to the bamboo shoots under the fingernails and pajamas made of nettles. And she's so tiny now. Felt like I was undressing one of my dolls. 
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STAFF ON CALL:

Bob, who did a magnificent job installing the new dishwasher. 

It is with deep regret that I must inform you that the 4 x 6 horse pad made out of crushed tires that weighs a ton but I thought was going to be perfect to replace where the old dishwasher screwed up the parquet--will be delivered to Scott and Cindy in Middlefield to use under one of their horses, primarily because the thing reeks of old crushed tires and I wouldn't be able to enter the kitchen without heaving.
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HIGHLIGHTS:

- Washing and hoovering out the borrowed Saab which will be returned to its rightful owner on Thursday. I think the last time I washed a car I was in my teens. Didn't much care for it even then as I recall. And I should have been wearing rubber boots, not cowboy.

- Finished the final Peg Lynch Album, this makes Number 6, full of all the original stuff she destroyed Albums 3, 4 and 5 in order to xerox for her Blue Book Project, a pastime I believe I may have touched on in earlier posts. 

- Phoned two more cousins who didn't know who I was, to confirm addresses before giving them great cause for rejoice by revealing that they would soon be a lucky recipient of a Blue Book. 

- Found Script #42 ("Two Times Nothing") from the Ethel and Albert sketches from The Kate Smith Show, 1952, missing since January. It was hiding in "Old Time Radio Convention" scripts under catheter attachments and some dead light bulbs and in a folder marked "Buster The Neighbourhood Dog Thief". You have to stay on your toes around this place, let me tell you.  I was so excited I came running in to show Bob. He was excited too. That's life in Becket for you. It'll probably be in The Berkshire Eagle tomorrow. 
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Still no sign of Odd and now scared to check. Will leave a banana on the bar and two cookies and go to bed. District Nurse Hargreaves, at your service. Actually, I had my heart set on becoming a doctor when I was little. My Great Aunt Elise--OB-GYN, who by the way delivered me, if you were thinking of blaming anyone--was Chief Resident at Women's Hospital in New York and I got to follow her on her rounds a few times. She looked spectacular with her blonde hair in her white coat and black high heels and I thought, yep, this is for me. It was only the maths, chemistry and physics part that put me off. Not to mention those latex models of fetuses and birth canals that lined her stairwell in Bronxville.

Sunday, April 27, 2014

ONE WEEK TODAY

...I'll be home in England, and hopefully asleep.  Denis of course has a band call for his new show that night in London so won't be there, but can't be helped. I will have the aptly-named King Size bed to myself and possibly the dog. Bliss. Until the phone rings from Laurel Lake Nursing home in the middle of the night..can't think about that so won't.

Meanwhile,  we see a move into high gear here. The pressure is on to complete projects before departure. Just sorted a million photos into MISC RENNING RELATIVES, PEG BABY, PEG YOUNG, PEG OLDER, ODD, FAIRFIELD, BECKET, ALASKA, DOGS, KINGS, FRIENDS, DEAD FRIENDS, FANS, ASSHOLES WE'LL NEVER SEE AGAIN SO WHY ARE WE SAVING and so on, all into sandwich size ziplocs and labeled. Afterwards I had, no exaggeration, 26 plastic storage bins, empty! Thrilled. Who knew. Doesn't take much, anymore. Am now in spiffing mood, enough to crack open the bottle of Prosecco Bonnie gave me last January when I managed to make Peg and Odd's long term care insurance company cough up for Home Care even though it wasn't in the policy. 

Three hours at the nursing home with Peg but we finished her address book and managed to pitch two thirds of an extra-giant plastic box filled with addresses, fan mail, pictures of fans, pictures of fans' families, cute cards, not-so-cute-cards, magazine subscription renewal notices from 2008, other essential "keepers"--plus write three more Mother-Daughter Dialogues for her website which we'll record sometime this week. Is the plan. 

Tomorrow I have to be there at 8:30 AM, make sure she's been showered, Tina her hairdresser arrives at 9:00 to do her hair, then I do make-up and choose wardrobe and jewelry (and for Peg too) and set her up for a Skype interview with one Liz McCloud at 11:00 AM in the "William Shakespeare" Library. This is for RadioSpirits to use to promote her Couple Next Door comedy shows, the first 24 of which (out of 755)  are coming out on CD end of May and simultaneously going to be run on Sirius XM radio. Not bad for a 97 year old. It would be a good day for me to be nice to her, wouldn't it. Will certainly give it my all.
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STAFF ON DUTY:

Bonnie, who Odd-sat and cleaned the spice shelves and kitchen cupboards and the fridges and the desk area and walked the dog and vacuumed and made out checks and fed Odd lunch and gave him his pills and his nebulizer and was still in a pleasant mood when I arrived home at 4:00.  

Terri, who arrived at Laurel Lake just as I was leaving, intending a brief visit but Peg talked her into watching The Way We Were. Can't figure out if she'll need paying for this. She could have said "no, would love to but need to get to Wal-Mart",  right? I gave her five old voluminous and expensive outfits of Peg's that Peg would get lost in these days. Maybe she can use for her niece's wedding. Why am I worried about What Terri's Going to Wear.  Don't know, but I find I think about it a lot, probably more than she does. 
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HIGHLIGHTS:

Daddy, at dinner just now, during "The Green Mile" on Turner Movie Classics, looking across the butcher block at me, mid-bite, and saying "You're beautiful". For one brief moment, I had without exception the most wonderful, kind, not to mention observant father in the whole world. And I looked over at him eating his creamed corn and then his meatloaf, with a spoon, almost consumed by love for him. He's now eating cashew nuts he found on the shelf and they're going all over the floor. And I will have to throw out those Planter's Cashews now, after he's gone to bed, because he's dug into the can and I have yet to see him wash his hands since I got here in March or kin fact comb his hair without me suggesting it. This is the man who used to shower at least twice a day, wouldn't think of going down the hill to the post office without shaving or putting on a sports jacket, and who used to leave a delicious trail of Burberry or Paco Rabanne wafting along the upstairs hallway. I miss that. It was comforting and I felt safe.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

LONG DAY

Gloom descends at about forty minute intervals throughout the day but then leaves as fast as it arrives, like flash floods. I think am just brain tired. I don't remember sitting still until now except for when driving to the nursing home and back.  Was dropping by the time I got to Laurel Lake and so when Peg was shuffled off to physio on her walker, I lay down on her bed to listen to Barbara Beckett cough her lungs out behind the curtain and would have closed my eyes but worried someone thinking I was "Margaret" would be in taking my blood pressure any second and buzzers would ring and I'd be whisked off to the ER. I'd just done an hour and a half of Going Over Peg's Address Book with Peg and was trying to calm down. Armed with a red pen, it involved crossing off the Known Dead and Those Who Couldn't Possibly Still Be Alive, plus those whose names meant absolutely nothing to Peg. I kept having to tell her who half of them were. I found this unsettling and saddening. And ever so slightly irritating. 

"Gretchen. YOU know, Mama, Cary's daughter. Gretchen.    GRETCHEN? In Alaska?" 
"Gretchen...Oh. Was that the one we liked?"
"YES."
"Her last name is what?"
"Bogard."
"Bogard! Since when?" 
"SINCE ALWAYS!" and on and on and...all complicated by Peg's habit of writing to people's mothers, specifically doctors' mothers. If the doctor has done something marvelous, see, like made Peg's dentures not hurt, or fixed her tear duct, she writes a thank-you to their mother or sends flowers. Nice, but the result is that there are nine million entries that say "Mother" or "Parents" but the doctor who belongs to these people is on some other page or not there to begin with.
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HIGHLIGHTS:

- Odd when I got home asking me who the woman is who comes here and nods her head a lot and falls down. I assured him it was no one I could think of, offhand, but he insisted, even raising his voice: "I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!" I said I'm sure he did. All I can think is he's remembering someone from when he was at Laurel Lake himself last October. He then shouted "DOORBELL!" and "GET THE PHONE!" (Grand Central Station here) and I snapped back "I KNOW! I CAN HEAR THEM!" and he banged his table and said "OH SHIT!" then went to take a nap. He seems better now. Except he just asked me if Peg knew where she was. I said I imagined she had a pretty good idea, and made him some eggs.

- Peg telling me today she's going to live to one hundred and ten. 
"Mother,  you told me years ago you were going to live till 92. What happened?"
"I misinformed you."
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STAFF ON CALL:
Bonnie Bonnie Bonnie with whom I could not possibly do without. 
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BACKGROUND MOVIE TO BLOG BY:

Beauty and The Beast - Jean Marais 1946 (in French)
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Have just attacked the Peg's Piles on the kitchen table I made yesterday. Sorted and filed ODDS LETTERS TO PEG; PEG'S LETTERS TO ODD & TO HER IN-LAWS; LETTERS FROM PEG'S MOTHER FRANCES TO WHO KNOWS WHO BUT HAVE TO KEEP BECAUSE SHE TALKS ABOUT PEG; SAMUEL FRENCH INC RECEIPTS; PEG'S INCOME SINCE 1937; SOCIAL SECURITY INFO; COMPLETE CAST LISTS FOR ETHEL AND ALBERT SHOWS; SCRIPT BREAKDOWN FROM OLD TIME RADIO CONVENTIONS 1990 - 2013; RADIO MONITOR SCRIPT LISTS; CONTRACTS AND LETTERS OF AGREEMENT; FAN MAIL FROM THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR; and MENUS FROM TRIPS (you will be relieved to know that for the Farewell Dinner aboard the SS Cristoforo Columbo on Wednesday March 25, in 1964 en route to Naples we had "Glazed bocconcini of roebuck au Sandeman Sherry" and not the "Roman Spoom" whatever that is). I have mailed a first draft of a speech Odd made at Jacqueline and David's wedding to Jacqueline and David and a letter written in 1943 by Art Chase, a relative, to his widow Joan, pronounced Jo-Anne.  I will presently attack all the original scrapbook stuff she "pulled" for her Blue Books--which, incidentally, I have been profusely thanked for by four recipients so far, out of eight. 
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DINNER: smart food and olives and nokkleost cheese from Norway. My friend Charlotte has told me to eat protein and greens. Am hoping the olives can be the green part.





Friday, April 25, 2014

THE GREAT ESCAPE

Only to dinner, and only to the Dreamaway, a roadhouse about 8 minutes away, but still. Amazing what a vodka and tonic and pasta primavera can do to one's mood. David Jenkins' treat, too. David who was going to drop off the 4x6 rubber-horse-mat-soon-to-be-kitchen-flooring if we can figure how to cut the sucker, seems his friend Scott over in Middelfield broke his circular saw trying to do this once. Anyhow we couldn't unload it from the pick-up, too heavy, and we are not wimps (it is HEAVY), so guess will have to enlist help from Outside Bob on Monday. Am starting to be sorry I bought this horse mat.
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STAFF ON CALL:

Terri, who Odd-sat while I hit the Dreamaway, also did some secretarial work and scanning for me. One thing all this caregiving has taught me is how to delegate. In fact I now excel at delegating. If a staff member were here at this very moment, for example, I would delegate one of them to shoot out the television screen at the butcher block where Odd is presently glued to North To Alaska with John Wayne and Ernie Kovacs, at peak volume. 
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HIGHLIGHTS:

Went to see Peg today. She is fine but wants to see the dog. She wants us to bring the dog to the nursing home for a visit. I said over my dead body; Bonnie, also here today, said "sure". This is a dog that jumps a foot in the air and disappears around the corner in a panic whenever you: a) drop a tissue; b) call "Come!"; c) turn on the kitchen tap; d) hold out a biscuit; e) push back your chair to leave the table. And about twelve hundred other normal actions. I want no part of leading it into an environment full of wheelchairs, walkers, trolleys, beeping oxygen machines and people with Huntington's disease who, the poor buggers, have no control over their arms and legs and flail around like windmills and are in the lobby a lot. We're going to be peeling this dog off the ceiling. Well, Bonnie will be. I will be having a coffee somewhere.

This dog, which I would refer to by name if anyone could decide what to call it. Spurn-Me-Not arrived via a breeder eighteen months ago. Dawn, who used to work here until she and Peg came to blows about To Label or Not To Label plastic containers in the fridge and Bonnie moved up into Numera Una position--found this breeder and helped arrange what I thought sounded like The Perfect Deal, considering that Peg, at 96, was angling for two eight week old collie puppies. Peg who can't bend down or see too well and stumbles a lot.

The deal was that Spurn, of excellent pedigree, would be purchased for $2000 (I know, but wait), then when she came into heat, the breeder would breed her, take her back for the birth and whelping period (or does "whelping"mean "birth"?) Anyhow, after which, Peg would get the proceeds from the sale of one of the pups: $1000. This would happen twice. So Peg would not lose any money, really, and should something happen to Peg, such as Dawn or I killed her, the breeder, CarolAnn, would happily take Spurn back into her home. A GREAT DEAL. 

Except, and here is where it all fell apart--Peg refused to let the dog be bred, in fact refused to let it out of her sight (even though it was mostly a foot in the air around the corner anyway). This all turned into a HUGE transcontinental issue, culminating in Peg saying she knew nothing about any such deal to have the dog bred, that Dawn had "put her hand over that part of the contract" when she "made" Peg sign, which is all utter bollocks but when I say so, which I do, I am accused of "siding with Dawn". End of the day, the dog has never come into heat, which CarolAnn the breeder suspects is the result of being overweight, which everyone but Peg knows is the result of giving the dog taramasalata, ice cream, cinnamon coffee cake, peanut butter and anything else going on the butcher block instead of, say, dinner. 

Adding to the dog's neuroses was Peg's refusal to call it by its name, saying Spurn sounded too much like "sperm", so she decided to call it Piper. Then she decided to call it Angel, then, finally, Honeybear. Bonnie still calls it Angel. I call it Spurn or, if I'm in a particularly charitable mood, the Fucking Four-leg-ged Lunatic That Charges Off Into The Woods Because I Dropped My Phone and It Made A Noise.

The weird thing is, about a week before Peg was carted off to the ER, Spurn, suddenly, and I mean suddenly, became her best friend. Not only slept BY Peg but got ON her bed, plus would lick Peg's arm all night. Peg was thrilled by the unprecedented attention, of course, figuring all the taramasalata bribes were finally paying off but my friend Annie thinks maybe it's one of those "cancer" dogs, animals with a sixth sense that "know" when something's bad with your body chemistry and tries to tell you. Who knows. Hang on a minute--just have to get the dog off my lap and her tongue out of my ear.
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WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO STOP DOING:

- Coming over here to this part of the kitchen carrying something to go in the microwave but opening the door to fridge, not the microwave, and trying to work out what I am doing. 

- Tripping over the phone cord when I set the phone on Odd's hospital table so he can speak to Peg.

- Wishing I were somewhere else.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

WINE DINNER

Plus Snyder's Pretzels, Jarlsberg cheese slice, and 8 lemon and garlic olives from Whole Foods. Odd had boiled potatoes and shrimp and hot smoked salmon and cucumber. I was antisocial and let him eat in the den. Peg called in the middle of it. She keeps saying "See you tomorrow!" to him so all I hear is "Aw, I can't wait, Peggy! Marvelous! I will think about it all night!" and then I have to be the bad guy and say no, you're not going in tomorrow, I don't have the right car. Which of course he can't process, because what is a "right" or "wrong" car. Christ those olives are good, just had to go put them away.

So listen to this. Tractor Supply in Dalton. They carry cowboy boots. Who knew? My new favourite store. Spent half an hour trying on 4 different kinds, nearly bought all of them I was so excited. This is after surveying all the various thicknesses of black rubber horse matting they carry, equally exciting, don't get me wrong, and have my eye on a 4 x 6 foot piece of the 3/4 inch deep one for the area between the sink and counter. And which, like my father, does not fit into the borrowed Saab, so David Jenkins will collect it for me tomorrow morning in his truck. I think everyone should know someone who owns a truck. The mat costs $36. Ted, the manager at Tractor Supply, warned me that anyone walking over it could--not necessarily, but could--leave skid marks on the surrounding wood, much like cars in do in auto showrooms (the mat, Ted says, is in fact MADE of crushed tires). None of this has turned me off to the product, mind you, but it's early days yet. Check with me when the kitchen starts looking like Le Mans.
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STAFF ON CALL:

Bonny Bonnie being the best. 
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John Fontaine from Fontaine's Auction House in Pittsfield popped by to value Peg and Odd's silver and see if anything in the house was suitable for flogging at Fontaine's, which is high end. Which Peg and Odd's stuff, for the most part, ain't. He left with a musket made in the Tower of London which has hung over every mantle in our houses since 1951 ($1500 tops), a French brass gilt fire screen ($600?) and two solid silver items, a bowl and a nut dish (25p?). Every other piece of silver turns out to be plate. I gave Bonnie a pair of candlesticks and a platter. Not sure what to do with the rest. Maybe distribute back home to all the gardener-grower types in the village to keep the birds away from their raspberries. Look nicer dangling than those old CDs they use.

Speaking of silver, I am reminded again of a number of pieces, real silver, which have been given as gifts, by a certain lady of a the house, to a certain Old Time Radio fan in Seattle, Tom. Along with about six thousand other things over the past eight years, both valuable and sentimental, at least to me. It seems all you have to do is write her and say you've been a fan since you were fourteen and suddenly she's giving you her father's watch. I like Tom, I do, very much, but I don't like him, say, having the silver Viking Ship from David Andersen's in Oslo which I could sell on eBay for at least $700, which is a good few weeks Staff Salary, and I don't like him having all the Norwegian wood carvings I grew up with and wanted. Apparently one box a week was going out of here to Tom--I'd get the heads up from Staff no longer working here (disagreed with Peg on you name it, such as YET ANOTHER FUCKING BOX TO TOM). 

Look. On one hand, I get it. It's her stuff. She has the right to do with it what she likes. But on the other hand, if it were your stuff, and you had only one child, whom you loved and admired and appreciated, wouldn't you at least ASK HER before you spent almost what it cost to send her to Vassar on postage?

Never mind. Except now, last week, no, before she got sick--she made Bonnie take her to Staples to buy 12 more of everything she has already--paper clips, binders, tape and so on--and while she was there she spotted something she thought I'd like, and bought it. A watch, diamante face and leopard print strap that winds around your wrist three times before snapping shut. I actually like it. Plus it came from Mama, Mama who hasn't bought me anything in over ten years because she hardly goes anywhere and doesn't understand the internet. So. I love this watch. LOVE it. And my eyes fill up when I put it on.

Or did. Until yesterday, when I was under instructions to mail the 2 boxes to Tom which had been sitting in her office under her typewriter for I kid you not, a year and a half--plus a new box, packed only a few weeks ago and still needing taping shut. And in this new one, along with half a dozen unread NY Times Review of Books (which she subscribes to so she can MAIL TO TOM), a National Geographic with Eskimos on the cover, and a navy blue fitted jersey sheet--are two watches, like mine, for DONNA, Bonnie says, Tom's wife, and one for their daughter. 

So. I'm not special after all. So. Now I'm pissed off but hiding it because Bonnie's helping seal the box and then helps lug  them all into my car but I can tell she doesn't trust me--and off I go to the post office in Lee where I open the boot and with my car key slash into the already sealed Boxes 1 and 2 and find it's just more magazines and a book and another sheet and some battery candles. And for one brief moment, there at Lee Post Office, I was very very close to taking those three boxes and depositing them in the large green trash barrel by the front door BUT, I didn't. I mailed the suckers ($46) and then emailed Tom and told him to expect them.

If anyone would like a watch, it's very nice, honest. I know, Staples, but still. You'd like it.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

DUTIFUL DAUGHTER

Defrost chicken tenders for dog, look at Chicken with Red Lentils recipe to see what I need to buy for later, make Peg a sandwich to take to nursing home, find clothes for Odd that don't have food and flaky skin all over them in which to visit Peg, tell Bob where to hang pics in office that we took down to paint the room, get Odd's breakfast, pills crushed, Spiriva and nebulizer treatment done and no coffee so he doesn't pee in his Depends like last time we took him, pack a bag to take with fresh clothes for him and a waterproof cover for Dominick's car seat in case he does--all this is going through my mind as I'm lying in bed thinking you'd better get up, better get up and get at it, Dominick is coming at 9, GO. And I sling back the duvet, collect my watch and chapstick and unplug my phone and stagger off with my props saying "Shit." I say this every morning, I realize, when I'm here.

All went fine, Today's Trip To Laurel Lake, all according to plan, Peg was fine, perky, Daddy was happy to see her I should do it more often but it's such a mission getting him in and out of a car, his arms don't bend the way you want them to to get his jacket on, nor do his legs, you never think they're actually going to fit up and into the car unless you break them, he can't see very well anymore and can't grab the pull handle to hike his butt up higher on the seat unless you place his hand ON it (handle, not butt), he's forever grabbing something for support that won't offer any, like the door lock button or a tassel on Dominick's coat. Anyway. We made it, there and back, with Tory at the helm for the return journey after a lightning stop at the Lee Price Chopper--tiny and not a patch on the Dalton one but close and you don't have to hike seventeen miles of aisles for milk. Or chicken. Or lentils.
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STAFF ON CALL:

Dominick, on chauffeur duty, then stayed to entertain Peg after we left with tales of his sister's terrible cooking, hope she's not reading this.

Outside Bob, who hung pictures and swept more of the drive (it's 1/4 of a mile long) and lugged the pile of brush I'd created the day before clipping the euonymous and pyracantha (firethorn) along the front. I asked him to please show me how to use the long shears correctly, I'd clearly been doing something wrong because I seemed to catch my thumb between the handles with every snip, my thumb being still black and blue from yesterday, and bleeding. Bob said "Those long green cutters?" I said yes. "There's no stopper thing, broke off last summer." So it's not me being klutzy after all. 
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Tory and I finished 4 Blue Books, the last four, we then re-foldered all the remaining xeroxes and photos (well, not all, threw out a few hundred "Fishers"--which incidentally I think are multiplying in there--and "A Young Kate Smith Does the Charleston"), labeled and stacked them in the order of insertion, and put the box back into Peg's room. Done and dusted. Just need to mail them now, if I can figure out where they go and if the recipients are still alive. God forbid any of these suckers gets returned.  And Peg see's I failed to mention "The man in the hat is Sidney Greenstreet" on one of the Gramercy Park pictures and I'll have to deal with her disappointed in me for the rest of my life.
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HIGHLIGHTS:

- It's Barbara Becket of Becket's birthday. I didn't know. She's the woman in bed next to Peg's who asked me to buy her bedroom slippers. Had I known, I would not have accepted her $9.99 for the slippers, they could have been my gift. Now, tomorrow, while I'm out looking for flooring for the sink area here, and I have in mind thick rubber matting like they use for horse stalls--I'll have to buy her something else. Hope she wants something from Tractor Supply in Allendale.

- My mother's Royal Danish Sterling she told me to take back to England--actually, now I'm wondering if it was my idea, not hers--anyhow, it's service for 20, "plate" setting size, which is marginally smaller than "dinner". Tory and I checked it out on silver sites on the net. Guess how much a set of 60 pieces is selling for thesedays (and mine's--ok, Peg's--is 80 piece)? $12, 850. Sort of stopped me in my tracks, because hey, that could be a car, which I'll need here very soon, certainly this summer. Of course, that is what they sell it at, it turns out they buy it at $100 a 4 piece place setting. So. For one very brief moment here this afternoon I had a secondhand Toyota Rav4 and happily eating with plastic picnic cutlery or those wooden theatre-interval ice cream shovels. But then we went back to wrapping them in Baggies with elastics and I will bury them in my luggage amongst socks and parkas and the two large throw pillows with red crabs on them I got at Marshalls which I now regard with some puzzlement but delighted me in March.

Not a bad day, all in all. And painted my nails. All three of them.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

GOOSECHASES

One of those days that just plain doesn't work, on many levels, and would be good to call "Cut!", scrap the footage, re-write, re-cast, and shoot again tomorrow with a different prop girl. Or perhaps shoot THE prop girl. I get all the way in to Rite-Aid in Allendale, this is a pharmacy, to collect Odd's "Ativan"(tranquilizer) prescription which Hospice phoned in a week ago and which I've been putting off because he's not out of it and because it's not on my way anymore to anywhere--and find they have no record of it. I am directed to the Rite-Aid on Elm Street, across town. 

En route, I swing into UPS to find out how much the Encyclopedia of World Art, 15 volumes, would be to ship, in the unlikely event someone on eBay can't live without them even though some of the pages don't work and there's Velasquezes stuck to Vermeers and so on--and find out about $22 per volume. Forget it. Lugged in the big wooden casket of Royal Copenhagen silver service for twenty Peg wants me to take back to England, to see what it would cost to ship since you know Virgin's not going to let me on with knives and forks in my hand luggage--about $150 they said, and that's just the box, no silver. Forget it. 

The Rite-Aid on Elm has no record of my father's Ativan prescription, which is too bad, because I was looking forward to chewing on a handful and maybe stuffing a few up my nose. 

I swung into a flooring place to look for something appealing for the kitchen, being so far unable to reconcile myself to the idea of Stick-On lino tiles from Home Depot, as recommended by staff, but left without buying because I had to get to Peg in Lee at the nursing home by noon sharp, when they serve lunch, because as a surprise I was bringing her favorite sandwich, peanut butter (smooth) on white bread with iceberg (chopped) and Miracle Whip and didn't want her filling up on meat loaf and gravy.

I made it, even though at the intersection of Holmes Road and Rte 7, the gearshift knob on the borrowed Saab came off in my hand and somehow shot into the backseat. [NOTE TO OWNER: Tory, this is not a complaint, I love the car, but it has given a whole new meaning to the term "stick shift"]
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STAFF ON CALL:

Bonnie, who did Amazing Bonnie stuff

Outside Bob, who did Amazing Bob stuff, particularly getting the 30 year old dishwasher pulled out to find a torn drainage hose, which explains the flood which ruined the floor which necessitated a trip to the linoleum store. He had to turn off the water for this operation, tried at three different points, all the valves leaked, so ended up having to turn if off at the well, then had to race into L.P. Adams in Dalton to get couplings or hoses or whatever--and get the water back on before Erica the Hospice Home Health Aide arrived at 1:15 to shower and shave Daddy.
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MOOD:

Low cloud cover that still hasn't lifted. Fuzzy head. Sneezing. Allergy? What's going on. Am also trying to figure out why my father laughs at stuff that isn't funny, and why it grates on me so, why I can't just accept it. Examples:

"Daddy? I'm going to do mushroom omelets for dinner, is that ok?
[LAUGHING] "Omelets! Oh, you're so clever."

[PHONE RINGS. I ANSWER. IT'S DOMINICK, ASKING WHAT TIME TOMORROW]
"Who was on the phone?"
"Dominick, Daddy."
"Dominick! [VASTLY AMUSED]

"What's the plan for today then?" 
"Not a lot, Daddy. I'm heading to the post office in a minute."
[CHUCKLES] "The post office!"

I'm not totally sure it's an age thing or a dementia-related thing, I think he might have done this for awhile and it's just gotten worse is all. Maybe he doesn't know how to react and figures laughing is better than, say, asking "Who's Dominick again?" (and have me jump down his throat). Maybe it's simply a nervous reaction to English being his second language. Maybe I'm a complete cow for even mentioning it because he means so well and is trying so hard. [NOT HARD ENOUGH, BUDDY, SHE SAYS, LAUGHING]

The other thing that annoys me is you know that ad that runs down the right hand side of your email on AOL and is intensely irritating and distracting whatever it's advertising? The last few days it's been for Depends, adult diapers. AOL has scanned my mail (they do this, honest), saw that I've mentioned Depends and now think I want to buy myself a few hundred pairs.

Well NOT YET, AOL, not yet. Soon though.

Monday, April 21, 2014

SUNSHINE

We've had sunshine before in Becket but when I don't get to go out in it I don't count it. Come summer, you won't be able to see it from the house anyway, there are so many trees here. There are so many trees they obliterate the sky and yet Andrew, the six foot nine guy from Hilltown Timber who it's hard to talk to unless you're sitting down because you've got your head tipped so far back--has only offered me $8,000 to log these twenty five acres. I'm tempted to try and sell actress Nancy Kulp's rolex she left to my mother instead, had it valued for almost that and there won't be the mess of branches afterwards.
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HIGHLIGHTS:

- Mrs. Barbara Becket from Becket but currently in the bed next to Peg LOVES HER BEDROOM SLIPPERS. She wasn't in the room when I got there today so I left them on her bed. I'd stopped at the Lee Outlets on the way to the nursing home this morning--absolutely jammed--it being Patriot's Day here in Massachusetts (put flags on Odd's walker and bunting on his urinal), and nipped into Haynes Socks or whatever it's called and the only Medium (size 7-8) they had was pink so got 'em. $9.99. Fully convinced she was going to hate them or too big but seems NO. I am now The Golden Girl of Room 105, beds 1 and 2, and can do no wrong. 

- Odd spilled quite a bit of crab cakes onto the floor during dinner--he doesn't sit close enough to the table so there's this fairly mesmerizing fork-balancing act going on from plate to mouth. Plus ginger cake, plus half the bowl of taco chips which were intended as cocktail nibbles but which he went for as a sort of savoury apres dessert course and when he got up from the table to head into bed he crunched for a good four feet. I've been sitting over here thinking right, will go deal with that any second now but lo and behold, the Neurotic Collie has just entered the room and beautifully hoovered up every crumb. 

- The area between the sink and the counter has always had floor issues but is now out of hand, the tongue and groove laminate buckling like frost heaves. My suspicion is the dishwasher is leaking so guess this has to be replaced, plus will have to rip up the flooring and replace with something, what, lino? Amtico? Cork tile? I love putting money into a house I don't like and will be selling one day...though clearly not any too soon since my parents are clearly going to outlive me.

- Clipping the euonymous and firethorn bushes at the front of the house which have been out of control for at least five years maybe ten. An extremely satisfying couple of hours. Now have three blood blisters and a huge pile of the prickly stuff to dispose of (must find some gloves) but loved the physical activity and the crunch of shears snapping though wood.
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STAFF ON CALL:

Outside Bob, who swept nine million tons of salty grit from the snow plows off the drive, leaving mountains of the stuff everywhere, the size of slag heaps in Wales, because the wheel barrow has a flat tire and needs to be pumped up. I had no idea wheel barrows got flat tires. I had no idea we had a wheel barrow.
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David Jenkins kindly stopped by to deliver some Norwegian Fish Oil (enteric coated) he picked up for me from Whole Foods in Northampton, and stayed for dinner. I get so excited when someone comes, excited to see another face, another body here. Would wag it if I had a tail. Am expecting a delivery from a trashy clothing catalogue called Venus tomorrow (thongs for Odd, silver lame off the shoulder slit-up-to-here jumpsuits for Peg, oh and a sweatshirt for me) and am more looking forward to seeing the UPS man than my order.
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I only managed 2 Nebulizer treatments on Odd today. He's supposed to have 4. Bonnie is good at it, diligent, precise, has the hours marked down when it's due, ticks it off when it's been done--so does Bob, and Dominick and Terri. Why can't I remember? He's MY father, not theirs. He choked again during dinner. Hoping this doesn't presage a breathing attack in the middle of the night. Hope I hear it, if it does. Hope I don't spend the rest of my life beating myself up for taking a pill and turning on the noise machine while my father dies a panicky agonizing death on the floor next to his bed with the collie licking taco crumbs off his shirt. I think of this terrible scenario every single night. (But take the pill.)

Sunday, April 20, 2014

IN MY EASTER BONNET

Daddy on phone to Peg: "What day is it? It's Saturday."
Me yelling in from kitchen: "It's not Saturday, it's Sunday."
Daddy to Peg: "She says it's Sunday."
Daddy calling to me: "What holiday is it again?"
Me: "Easter!"
Daddy to Peg: "It's Easter."  
Daddy to me: "Peggy says it's Easter." 
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HIGHLIGHTS:

- Peg saying it's unfair I'm doing the Blue Books without her (3 more done today, yippee!) so will leave some for her to "augment", I'll do the basic filling. I guarantee you that within two days of her return she'll have this place awash in photocopies and duplicates again. Fortunately I won't be here to be annoyed. Though I will of course manage a soupçon of ill-disguised long distant pique, something I excel in. Funny, isn't it, how a week ago I thought I had lost my amazing Ma and would look at her little black shoe and cry, and in no time at all, here I am, back being able to be irritated by her. Talk about Easter Miracles.

- Finding and catching the dog, which has no collar, no license, no sense of how to behave, and a long empty needle-nosed space where a brain should be--before it went any further into the 28 acres of Ronning woods towards the Kushi Center for Macrobiotic Cookery on Leland Road. This is a dog which, like all the other collies which have had the misfortune to be owned and fattened by Peg, is "not allowed out without a leash" but which for the past year has been trotting quite happily (vaguely) near me when I head out the drive to get the mail. My mistake was possibly in letting it come out into the back yard with me, an area it had never seen, but I needed air before I was again overcome by claustrophobia and started breaking glass to get out. And thought the dog might enjoy the outing. Closed my eyes for a moment in a plastic garden chair and when I opened them: no dog. 
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STAFF ON CALL:

Easter Bunny (me in disguise; don't tell Odd)
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I feel flu-ey today. Chills. Aches. Sneezes. Nauseous. I keep taking aspirin then feel better for a bit and think I'm over it but--no. I don't know if it's real or simply a reaction to this past week coupled with being called "Peggy" all the time and, just now, when I called Odd to dinner (spare ribs and parslied potatoes), "Thank, you Mama!" Mama?? Do any of them ever grow up, I ask you.
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SPECIAL MENTION:

Today is Amy Price's wedding day. I am pleased for her, even though I hear she's marrying an actor, but then again, she was never the brightest spark, even though she sings nicely. DK can fill you in if you need more info, it would bore me to death to get into this right now.
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Saturday, April 19, 2014

NAUSEOUS

...and don't know why. I've eaten, and good stuff too. Made Odd crab cakes for dinner. He is still at the butcher block here, now watching "Laura" with Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb. It was a real effort tonight. I feel like such a washout daughter to him. He must be so lonely and it's all I can do not to sling a frozen waffle in front of him at his hospital table in the den, disappear and let him watch CNN on "mute" in peace. The thought of the next two weeks with us alone here is daunting. Not looking forward to it and I could get a sitter one night I suppose, make Terri come late and stay late, get Jenkins to take me out to The Dreamaway or Alta. I'll do that. Meanwhile have Easter to look forward to tomorrow. Am planning an egg hunt for Odd. Slightly different this year, going to do fried eggs, and if he finds one it can be breakfast.
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Wendy has gone back to Vermont and I am bereft. She gave me four days out of her life and I will be forever beholden. Sadly, after she left I found three more piles in Peg's office--Blue Book fillers in plastic sleeves (fishers, Alex playing the drums at the Albert Hall age 10, Peg in a hat, others), and have been madly stuffing and adding to books I'd thought were done--and am missing Wendy madly, and Annie. The BB Team.

Peg asked me today to ring relatives to let them know the state of play. These are relatives whose names are familiar, vaguely, but I wouldn't know if I tripped over them. Was happy to do this until confronted by Peg's address book, which has about 30 entries for every name, all different, all on different pages, in pen, ink, typed, taped in--the idea of alphabetizing clearly long ago dispensed with---and unfortunately the most recent or current address or number has not been ticked or circled or delineated in any way helpful. I can't tell you the number of people I've talked to today all over the States who have never heard of me or Peg, though are very sorry to hear she's been in the ICU and now the nursing home.

One of them, Joan, pronounced Jo-Ann, who I finally found in Missouri, and Peg's first cousin, is profoundly deaf. I was shouting so loudly into the phone, first trying to get her to understand who I was, then with Peg's phone number, that Odd clumped out with his walker in a panic thinking something awful had happened.
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STAFF ON CALL:

BONNIE, who vacuumed, did laundry, did 101 other things that needed doing (she is better than I am at multi-tasking, or Annie, and that's saying something), Bonnie who did all this while Wendy and I got Odd in Wendy's SUV over to Lee to see Peg in Laurel Lake, David Jenkins following us in his pickup with a tank of gas because we drove back to Becket yesterday on "EMPTY" with lights flashing and dinging the whole way over October Mt. And there are no gas stations in Becket and Jenkins, bless him, was our fail safe so we weren't sitting on the mountain with Odd for the rest of the morning singing Norwegian songs until Triple A arrived.
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Peg and Odd, both in wheelchairs, enjoyed an hour together, not counting an embarrassing ten minutes when Peg wouldn't take her pills for the nurse and demanded a whole chocolate pudding, not just a pill-cup full. The nurse ground them up at my suggestion, like we do for Odd, because Peg has this thing about pills. She says her throat is smaller than everyone else's. It's not. I've measured. 

Odd wet his Depends and the chair in the den. Hope to Christ Wendy's car is OK.
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HIGHLIGHTS:

Mrs. Barbara Beckett from Becket who shares Peg's room, asking if I would buy her some bedroom slippers next time I'm out shopping. "Like these," she says, waggling her fuzzy feet. "Size 7." So Monday I will go buy bedroom slippers for Mrs. Beckett. Because I have nothing else to do. She'll pay, she says.

Giving Bonnie Odd's old maroon naugahyde easy chair and footstool that's been on the porch here for two years and that he can't get out of anymore, for her son, Jake--without Odd seeing. Although he caught us sneaking the bookcase down from my room that held The Great Books of the Western World. Sound asleep he was, we were tiptoeing. It's a second sense, clearly. Like when he materialized in the driveway years ago, out of nowhere, to retrieve the broken African Violet grow lamp from the pile for the dump (and is still in the attic).
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PLANS:

So I now fly home Saturday May 3 because having cancelled my Apr 23 one ($120 cancellation fee), it seems there is nothing available until then, short of a 7AM Newark one the day before and I don't do day flights when you have to get up at 3 AM to get to the stupid airport.

The IDEA--now, see how this strikes you--is the day I leave here, Carol Ann from Wellsmere Collies comes to collect my mother's (and Carol Ann's) dog Honeybear-Angel-Spurn-Me -Not or whatever in hell she's going by these days, and Odd--this is the brainwave part of the plan--goes into Laurel Lake Nursing Home in a "respite care" category, and stays there, seeing Peg every day all day, until she is deemed fighting fit to come home. 

And then they will come home together. But not before May 20, which is the date that Terri (staff) is done with her nieces's wedding in New Jersey and packed her son off to Alabama and is free to move in here with her dog. And here she will stay ($50 per night 8 PM to 8 AM) until Alex, the grandson, arrives in June. In theory. 

Odd can have 5 days "respite care" gratis at Laurel Lake courtesy of Hospice, and they will organize his installation, as it were, and after that I will pay per day. They've cut me a deal, less than half price. Full price is $500 per day. I'll be paying $210. Not sure if this is normal or because the Ronnings are such good customers there. Am thinking of booking in myself.

So. Then I fly home. And. Well. SEE WHAT HAPPENS. And also on the day now that Denis has band call in London for this new musical of his and Richard Harris', and which is already driving DK mad because there are four non singers in the cast, meaning they can't sing if they tried (so why were they hired??) and one is so bad Denis has had to take his lines away and wants him to mouth the lyrics.
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I felt like shit when I sat down here but now better. Writing this is like someone sucking the poison out.

Friday, April 18, 2014

GLIMMER OF HOPE

HIGHLIGHTS:

- Lunchtime cheese veggie burrito at Baja's in Lee with Tory and Wendy (and leftovers for supper).

- Learning that the woman in the bed next to Peg's is a Mrs. Becket, who lives in Becket. 

- Finishing 2 more Blue Books

- Only having to tell Odd that Peg is at Laurel Lake Nursing Home seventeen times instead of thirty.
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STAFF ON CALL:

Terri, who looked after Odd so I could go eat burritos and hit the post office with twelve tons of Great Books of the Western World, plus Volume IV of "Hütte: Des Ingeniuers Taschenbuch", am sure you're familiar with it. Berlin: Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, 1935-36? The 26th edition of a German engineering handbook belonging to my father, Odd Knut Ronning, which sold, somewhat miraculously I thought, on eBay last week, but which I for some reason neglected to include in my carefully wrapped package consisting of Volumes I, IV and the Index, so have taken a hit, yet again, on postage. 

Terri reported that when Daddy got up from his nap and asked where I was and she said at the nursing home seeing Peg he yelled "Shit!" and banged his walker, then apologized and she gave him 2 Pecan Sandies and some orange juice and he was fine.

Dominick, entertaining Peg for 4 hours at the nursing home.
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Mama was sitting up today for the first time since The Episode, and in a wheel chair. Bright and chatty. Said when she'd passed out in ER and thought she was dying she saw St. Peter at the Gates and bawled him out--"All these people you've got waiting here? They're just sitting here! Nothing to eat, nothing to do, no magazines--what's all the rush to get here if we're only just going to sit around?"

When Mrs. Becket groaned in the next bed, Peg--in her wheelchair, not yet able to walk, hooked up to oxygen--says "Can I get you anything?"
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LATE-ONSET BLUE BOOK PANIC:

Mama has asked me to bring in a box of stills from her TV show--little 2 inch square black and white contact sheet pics, about fifty pages of badly xeroxed blurry images on typewriter paper--so she can go through them and "mark them". She told me exactly where to find it, very specific directions to a particular bookcase in her room, next to so and so, under a pile of this, balanced on that--and I am now convinced she has CCTV installed in there, like parents have in baby's rooms now so you can see what your kid is up to when you're busy having a martini downstairs, because of all the piles of Blue Book crap in that room that we lugged out here to organize and "load", that is the one box I took one look at, said "Well! She'll never miss THESE things!" and pitched, immediately.
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Woke at 2 AM last night fretting and at 3:30 rang husband in England, just getting out of the shower. Called to whine and whinge and hear his reassuring Voice of Calm and Reason and ended up chewing him out for always asking questions about stuff here he should know, am always repeating myself nine hundred times and finally I said "It's in the blog! Do you not read it???" and turns out no, he doesn't. "I don't know where the link is," he says. So ended up having my feelings hurt as well as fretting and not being able to sleep but hey, am over it, besides which I got a lovely long email from him later. Which actually I only glanced at since I was rushing out to get to the burrito place--so had maybe better go read it properly, but it looked lovely at least from a distance.
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I have come up with a plan for Odd-Care that allows me to return to England. Will hold off talking about it so I don't jinx it.