IN A DAZE

Feeling a tad shell-shocked, been going going going since 8:00 AM and only just home: 9:30 PM, not counting a flash visit back here at 3:00 to sign employee checks.  

And, I have just sneezed twenty-eight times in a row. Eyes watery, nose dripping onto keyboard. Not a cold, this has been going on for about a year, maybe just under. Allergic to something methinks, but what? Dust? Dogs? Depends? Anyone over 90? Will look into this when I get back to Suffolk. Meanwhile going through a box of tissues per hour, singlehandedly keeping Kimberly-Clark afloat. 

Feeling tired and dull and "full of catarrh" as my husband would say.
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STAFF ON CALL:

Bonnie 8:00 - 5:00 PM.
Terri:  5:00 PM to 9:30 PM.
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Ellen the Hospice nurse paid a visit while I was home signing checks. She was checking on Odd in general, as she does every week, but especially his left leg: is it more swollen or less swollen since he started the double dose of Lasix? I  nodded and tutted and made the right noises as Ellen spoke, but it dawned on me today that I don't care about my father's left leg. I know that's terrible to say, but I don't. Sure, if it suddenly looked like a tree trunk and had stuff growing on it or was hanging by a thread, well, maybe. But no, in general, I have to say, the leg does not concern me in the slightest. I think this is because so many other people are concerned about it, people who are far better equipped to be concerned about it. So my reasoning is to let them get on with it, and I will get in with what I do well (dinner, Blue Books, boiling chicken tenders for the dog and so on)

A Hospice Nurse Practitioner arrived after I'd gone to assess Odd, to make sure he still qualifies for Hospice. Medicare insists on an evaluation, I think every three months. I was nervous about this. I think Daddy must have passed muster or I would have heard about it, but might spend some time in bed fretting about it anyway.
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Four hours in the Northampton area with Cousin Tim, Peg's website designer, who, against his better judgement, was looking after his wife's friend's Papillon, "Leafy", for the day, a dog the size of an L L Bean snow sneaker. I took Leafy for a walk while Tim downloaded something (also because Tim refused to be seen in public with it) and it was like pulling a handkerchief along, a handkerchief with a rose tucked onto it's collar and wearing a pink marabou jacket. I was fascinated by the size of this dog's rectal emissions--found myself comparing the two or three rabbit pellets to the COLLIE SIZE VARIETY, seen recently on the den rug doing an Everest impersonation, and will now be pushing for Papillons if this deranged collie of Peg's, for any reason, bites the dust.
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The Borrowed Saab, cleaned and full of petrol, has been returned to Tory in West Stockbridge, it's one key intact (whew). Tory, with whom Jenkins and I partook of a delicious pizza and salad at Baba Louie's, in Pittsfield, with her charming friend James. I remember when I used to go to the Ivy, and Sardis.
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I said goodbye to Peg today at the nursing home. Felt a bit more upset than I'd imagined I'd be. We managed to record a couple more Mother-Daughter dialogues for her website (she is SO professional, and good, STILL, at 97) and afterwards I wheeled her back to her room. She insisted I leave, that I was tired, said that she loved me more than anything and that have always been the most important thing in her life. Today I chose to believe this. I kissed her head a few times, gave her a hug, and off I went  How many years have I been playing this scene! Have lost count. Every time I leave, I imagine what it will feel like to never see her again, and that's it, my eyes start. But as I said, could be this weird allergy I mentioned.

And now, because I can no longer focus and want to disappear upstairs before my father wakes at midnight saying "What are you doing up so early, Cutie Pie?" and I try not to sound irritated when I say  "IT'S NOT MORNING DADDY, IT'S STILL NIGHT  FOR FUCK'S SAKE!"---I am turning out the lights and turning down the heat to 60 and collapsing onto my bed after putting on my $24 eye cream. And then   dreaming of England and my husband and my son and my dog, though not necessarily in that order.