PEG-SITTING

Noon. On my fourth coffee of the day, one good one from home, three crap ones from the kitchenette here at Berkshire Place. For a nursing home, it's nice. Brand new. No smell of urine-soaked carpets yet or strange stains on things. Wood floors in Peg's room, no nasty lino. Lovely view of Main St. in Pittsfield (well, as lovely as it's possible to be), quiet, and Peg only 1 of 4 patients here on the rehab floor which can hold 14 and which only just opened last month. I got here at 7 AM. My "shift" ends at 3, when Terri comes in. Am trying to save some dosh by taking over as much of the Peg Sitting as possible. I can't tell if Peg is pleased about this. She asks where "whatshisname" is, about three times an hour. She means Dominick, whose name she has never been able to remember. Dominick who is only scheduled to do Wednesdays and Fridays, but who has been coming in every day, I find out, because she's been asking for him and makes them ring him to come in. He's fun and lively and gives her foot rubs, which he used to do for my father, I recall.

 I am not fun and lively and don't do foot rubs.  

We watched a Frederick March movie until 9 about a woman (Florence Eldridge) who had a fatal brain tumor. Then I got Peg washed and dressed. She weighs 109. Her limbs are bones with a bit of flesh hanging off. She ate a cut up half a banana and fresh cantaloupe for breakfast, then the other half of the banana with some half and half. Three sips of Chocolate Ensure. Her pills crushed up in Lactaid vanilla ice cream. Then I got her to the toilet. Helped wipe her bum.

She's now in a chair, hair combed, earrings and lipstick on, kipping. After talking non stop for two hours, all stories I'd heard, stuff I knew. I behaved well. I nodded and laughed and tutted at appropriate moments. Aunt Frank falling into the furnace (it wasn't on). Peg being sent to Aunt Aggie's funeral to represent the family, aged 8.  Peg rushing next door to Mrs. Greenslit's, aged 10, to discover the chief of police lying on the bed with his throat cut. Macabre Anecdotes Inc.

All I really wanted was to go curl up on a bed in a vacant room. 

Managed to get out for dinner last night and was home in bed by 9:30. But couldn't sleep. 

Bonnie's big news is the owl is back. Terri's news is she's moving apartments to somewhere cheaper and Peg upset because Terri not moving into the Becket house. 

That's about it for Staff News.

Ah. She's awake. Lunch has arrived. Meat loaf and gravy and carrots. Her favorite. Lemon pudding and whipped cream.

Will now return to being sociable. Sort of. 

Am trying not to be annoyed with her. When I was shoveling out her office yesterday afternoon I came across the 32 DVDs Alex and I had spent a month transferring from VHS cassettes--all Peg's old TV shows. They had been stored, carefully, in the cupboards in the den along with all the other archive material for Oregon. Peg, having been told not to touch anything in there, that it was all in order and catalogued, had gotten into them. The DVDs were strewn all over her table by her bed, some out of their protective covers, all buried under the usual mountain of magazine subscription reminders, socks, catheter bag ties, earrings, emory boards and so on.