SHEILA HANCOCK NAILS IT

BOWELS OF BECKET

The mistake of course is thinking I have turned my phone off at night. Sometimes I only THINK I have but then it beeps and I shoot out of bed--with DK, also suddenly awakened, saying "Christ! What was that?! What was that?!" even though it's a noise he has heard my phone make for years and which means incoming mail, which I mention. So. I see a mail from Bonnie, who has just heard from Terri, that Peg is constipated and in some pain. I then turn off my phone and go back to sleep. 

My phone beeps an hour later. The latest is there is Miralax on hand from Berkshire Place in the downstairs medicine cabinet but it says administer 17 grams, which they have to look up, because no one knows from grams, and they finally figure is about a heaping tablespoon, which you then mix with 4 - 5 ounces of a liquid. But which neither Bonnie nor Terri reckon will be good enough so Bonnie is going to ring Dominick, due the next morning. I turn my phone off AGAIN--switching it back and forth a few times to make sure--and go back to sleep. 

Again in comes an email. Good news. Dominick has been reached and he will stop by Rite Aid in the morning on his way to Becket and pick up Milk of Magnesia and about twelve million suppositories. 

I went downstairs and left my phone in the livingroom for the night, or what was left of it.

You will be pleased to know that Peg is no longer constipated.

Earlier that day she had houseguests, who'd arrived the night before. Paul and his wife Kim. Paul is the son of someone Peg grew up with in Minnesota, I think. Not sure. And not sure if Peg has met him before or if they only spoke on the phone, but, as with everyone she meets or speaks to or once sat next to for ten seconds on a bus to New York, she invited him to visit one day. And, he did. 

They are reportedly very nice. They were served curried chicken salad for lunch, pot roast for dinner, and coffee cake and scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. I asked Terri how the visit had gone. Wonderful, she said, Peg had a lovely time, and she is sure they did too...only..well, it was a little strange, she says. Seems the wife had a brain aneurysm, Terri says.

"What! In the night?!"

"No, no," Terri says, years ago. Seems the doctor had told Kim that she was very lucky to be alive, and ever since then Kim has been terrified not only of dying, but of dying alone.

"So she has these--dolls," Terri tells me. Two dolls, big ones, about three feet long, that go everywhere with her, and sleep between Paul and Kim at night. She doesn't let them out of her sight. "They even sat on the butcher block while we're having breakfast," Terri says, "which was kinda weird, you know? Even your mom thought so." (No wonder she was constipated.)

I am very lucky, myself, it seems to me, to be sitting here in Suffolk only hearing about this, because I can't imagine I would have managed to be even vaguely polite about two giant fucking dolls in my face at every turn, like living in some ghastly Avenue Q onstage hell--incidentally a show I walked out of at the interval. 

THE SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX

A warning email from Bonnie saying Peg was making noises about wanting to get into the safety deposit box again, wanting to know where the key was, wanting to bring everything home again "to see what's in it" even though all she has to do is look at the list I update on the computer anytime something is removed or added. And sure, enough, a phone call followed about ten minutes later, Bonnie urging me to talk to Peg and to please please leave her, Bonnie, out of it, that she didn't want to get in the middle as had happened once before, when Peg refused to give me the Tiffany Lamp money she'd promised me and made Bonnie, who'd just started working there, take her to the bank to open a new private account with just Peg's name on it, plus cart the contents of the safety deposit box home to scatter around the property.

PEG:  "Where is the key to the box?! I need to get into it!"

ME:   "No, you don't, Mama. Last time you did, you didn't put stuff back, bonds and jewellery got lost all over the house--"

PEG:  "YOU TELL ME WHERE THAT KEY IS!"

ME:   "I have it here with me." (not true)

PEG:  "Well I'm calling the bank! And a lawyer! YOU stay out of there, do you hear me! I worked goddamn hard for my money-- "

ME:  "Mama. I am not stealing your money, or anything else.  I am trying to prevent things from getting lost--"

PEG:  "WHEN have I ever lost anything! WHEN?? Just name one time. ONE TIME! I have NEVER lost--"

ME:   "I found the savings bonds in a bag under your pillow. What if there'd been a fire? GONE. And you are totally responsible for those gold coins going missing."

PEG:  "ANDY STOLE THOSE COINS!' (Andy was Outside Bob's predecessor)

ME:  "Maybe. Maybe not. But the fact remains they are GONE. And no one would have had the opportunity to steal them had they not been lying around on your desk for months instead of in the bank where they belong."

Case closed. Except because you're dealing with Peg, this conversation went round and round, me having to mention Andy And The Coins and Sleeping With The Bonds about 12 times before she changed the subject, moving onto Norway money, which there is not much of but she thinks there still is--and then finally to "selling some land". I was on the phone for over an hour. Oddly enough, I was patient with her most of the time (except when she inferred I was stealing from her) and tried to calm her. She was crying, at the end, about the no money situation. Which I felt badly about, though it pleased me on some level because it meant at least she was recognizing the issue and not dismissing it, preferring to talk about when Dominick's coming or the meat loaf she and Terri made.

MEDICAL NEWS:

She goes for an eye op next week in Springfield. Nothing drastic, she's had the other one done before. And she has the follow-up visit to her cardiologist the week after. When she was in the hospital last February with congestive heart failure, the cardiologist told me she had anywhere from three months to a year. It'll be 3 months in May.

Porchlight, the Visiting Nurses Assoc, leaves after 60 days, which is coming up soon. They will take their state of the art digital vitals recording machine with them (it sends her weight, heart rate, oxygen level in the blood, and something else, can't recall, maybe her breakfast order--right to their offices in Lee so we get a heads up if anything's amiss). Although I hear we can rent it from them if we want (no I do not).

Am seeing if she qualifies for Hospice based on her age and what this cardiologist might have to say. If so, it would please me, as we then have regular nurse visits plus home health aide, should she feel like showering at all while she's still alive.

STAFF:

Terri needs a week to ten days off to go her HER mother and move apartments. Peg now says she is perfectly fine staying alone (no she is not). I don't know who's going to cover for her, not me. 

Dominick helped Peg rearrange the furniture in her "dressing area", then after he went home, she made Terri redo it, then dragged Bonnie inot the act until she was forced to write me an email saying she wanted it to go on record she will not shove heavy stuff like shove bureaus and desks around any more. So apparently Peg did it all herself when Bonnie thought she was napping.

WHERE IS ALL HER ENERGY FROM? Christ. 

TREADING WATER

Well, having picked 101 brains re the depressed financial situation in Becket, I have arranged to speak with a bank person when I'm next over. Apparently there is a home equity loan outstanding that my father took out for $50,000 10 years ago to fix the driveway or something, and which we are still paying off the interest on until the end of this month, when we start paying off the principal. There is another $45,000 available on this loan that they never used, and we can perhaps now do so, or, negotiate another equity loan and combine the two. 

For one brief moment there I almost convinced myself that I knew what I was talking about. 

In any event, I need to address whether another loan is better for us than a reverse mortgage. Or tipping Peg down the hill.

I need to address a lot of things. 

The bank in Norway where I'm trying to close my father's old account, just to be tidy, has written yet again for more documentation proving my father is indeed dead and I am who I say I am and not some devious Becket Mafia type trying to launder maybe all of seven kroner through the Cayman Islands. I was feeling very kindly disposed towards Norway until this ridiculous time-consuming bank business. Have already had 9 million documents copied and notarized and stamped and verified for them and sent off special recorded mail by prize-winning carrier pigeon, next they'll be wanting my SAT scores and Virgin Atlantic Frequent Flyer number maybe, and possibly my Southwold Library card. 

So meanwhile, while I'm here busting my gut pretending I'm a financial whiz kid who's going to get Peg out of the mess she's in--Peg's busy wanting to buy books on Amazon, the latest being something Heather the Occupational Therapist recommended on her last visit there ever, saying Peg HAD to get it (thank you, Heather), so Bonnie emails me for permission to purchase (the NEW RULE) and I look it up on Amazon and they have one copy, that's it, and, I kid you not, want over $2000 for it. So I said "No". Bonnie meanwhile found one on some other site for two hundred and something. I still said "No". This must be one hell of a read. And there's me thinking DK's memoirs going out at $14.99 was too high. I believe the title is Growing Up In Old Age or something similar, I can't be arsed to check. But if anyone happens to have a copy they're done with could they please send it to Peg before she clicks "BUY NOW".

FINANCIAL DISASTER

I got an email from Peg and Odd's stockbroker saying there is less than $40,000 left. This doesn't mean only $40,000 left in stocks--which they have been having to sell every month in order to live--this means IN TOTAL. Maybe a few thousand in bank accounts. That's it. 

I either have to put the house on the market immediately and find an apartment for Peg or see if I can get a reverse mortgage.

I am trying not to be angry at my parents for dumping this all on me. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes not. This morning for instance at 10:01 I was feeling kindly disposed to Peg and this lasted, oh, a good thirty seconds.

So I have to get back on a plane.

But not until I get DK's memoirs out, the launch date is set for tomorrow but it ain't gonna happen. Hopefully the audio version will make the deadline but as this is in someone else's hands I can't be 100% sure. The ebook and paperback will not be ready, I do know that. I should have hired a proof-reader. Now I know. Next time. Meanwhile I have the epub guy annoyed with me, big time.

I feel ill.

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM?

All seems "fine" in Becket. Peg back to her usual routine: get up, sleep, get up, empty catheter bag, sleep, get up, eat and take pills and watch the weather channel, sleep, get up, see what time it is, sleep, get up, eat, watch the Italian channel, sleep, get up, make a mess on the desk, cut up a few important and irreplaceable things, sleep, get up, eat, sleep. The routine punctuated only by the odd foray to Tina the Hairdresser's, the bank, a doctor's appointment--or the arrival of the Porchlight nurse, physio therapist, occupational therapist, Lynette the foot person, or--this last Saturday night for instance, five gay men bringing dinner. 

Peg, with Terri and Bonnie's help, contributed devilled eggs. Which have always struck me as a summer picnic food, but my mother has never let the season, event or even menu interfere with what she feels like eating at the moment or hasn't "had for a while" or "would taste good". Hence, over the years, we have had numerous mother-daughter conversations along these lines:

"I thought I'd do Daddy a nice lamb stew for dinner tomorrow. He loves it."
"I'll help you. Want me to make that lime cheese salad?"
"What! No!"
"What are you going to have with the stew then?"
"Carrots! Leeks! Parsnip puree mashed potatoes! Or,  I don't know, maybe parslied new little red ones or---"
"I feel like the lime salad."
"A nasty cottage cheese and jello salad does not go with lamb stew, Mother, all the gravy and--"
"I haven't had it in ages."

So end of the day I let her make the salad or whatever because I finally realized that my father would eat whatever was put in front of him whether it "went" with anything or not, he'd pile stuff on his fork willy-nilly and afterwards tell me or Peg or indeed any hostess what a marvellous dinner it was. And he meant it. So I stopped worrying about whether he liked Wishbone Italian Dressing running through his pancakes or not. And became, I have to say, a much happier person for it. Although of course it still pisses me off, if I let it. Which I tend to.

Another thing about Peg's eating habits, while we're on the subject, is I've noticed the older she gets, the more her table manners have deteriorated. Not that they were ever faultless to begin with. Though she brought me up to have excellent ones and in fact frequently encouraged me to dip into Emily Post and Tiffany's Table Manners For Teenagers. I notice however that she's never waited to start eating until everyone else has his plate or is seated: no, if her food's there, she's digging right in. Plus she smells every bite before it goes in. Surreptitously, of course, but you can see it if you're looking for it. And she pushes her food around her plate as if it were some artist's palette and she's trying to mix the right shade --cutting and mashing stuff and adding more butter here, salt there, moving bits into little piles, all so that she "comes out even", meaning she has to have one little bite of meat left to go with the last little bite of potatoes, the last little bite of corn, the last little bite of cranberry sauce…it's a good thing she's such a genius in the writing and acting department because I tell you. It's difficult to watch. And remain silent.

And of course, having made deviled eggs last Saturday to go with Chicken fricassee or some Italian recipe one of the guy's was making for their main course, the BIG QUESTION worth two frantic phone calls was: WHERE IS HER DEVILLED EGG SERVING DISH, the brown ceramic one that has little egg-shaped indentations around it? The answer, which I could indeed provide, being "fuck knows", because I unloaded it with a lot of other ugly crap either at the tag sale last summer, or Goodwill, but who's whereabouts I had to act equally puzzled over, suggesting search areas like the top shelf in the bar?  Bottom drawer of the sideboard that sticks? And finally said if it isn't on top of the freezer in the laundry room where I last saw it then gee I don't know where it is. Sadly.

It's all the games I now have to play that are so exhausting.

And guess what, Peg has a brand new $59.00 mattress topper with waterproof covering, which she just loves. Seems the Easter Bunny, aka the UPS man had dumped it outside the front door and left, Bonnie found it waiting when she arrived.

TROUBLE A' TMILL

First, I see the purchase of a mattress on Amazon for $59, which I query. This is a house that has eleven beds, most of them single. I couldn't think why a mattress was needed. 

Seems the visiting nurse from Porchlight asked Peg how she'd slept, Peg said not very well, it was always "so lumpy". The nurse suggested to Outside Bob--his day inside at the helm--that he might want to consider buying a mattress topper, and one which was also waterproof. He mentioned this to Bonnie the next morning and they ordered one from Amazon. Neither thought to check with me. Had they done so, I would have said there is a nearly new mattress topper on the bed up in Odd's old office and that a waterproof cover could be had from TJ's say, for $5.99. On top of which, speaking of toppers, Peg not only sleeps in her clothes including at least 2 sweaters and a heavy fleece jacket--even if the thermostat's at 78--and by morning it's all bunched up underneath her. She also sleeps on a leopard fleece blanket which is not tucked in and forms itself into a ball all night long. My point being: the existing mattress is fine, plus already has a waterproof "nappie" on it. 

I told them to cancel the order.

Nine thousand emails later, with everyone explaining WHY they did what they did or FEEL the way they do about mattress toppers, newly-purchased or otherwise, the long and short of it is the mattress topper with waterproof cover are due to arrive today and Bonnie will either meet UPS at the door and refuse to accept it--or she won't.

Nothing is easy, is it. 

We then had a staff issue--well, they did, I didn't--about WHO was allowed to be the one in charge who could say when Peg's leg looked swollen enough to warrent a Lasix pill. I then wrote an email back stating that it didn't MATTER who saw it first, whoever did do so was to: a) ring Porchlight nurse ; or B) the doctor; or C) if critical, an ambulance. Jesus H. 

This was followed by noses out of joint because Terri got breakfast bacon and eggs for Peg instead of Bonnie doing it, and then sat with Peg while she ate it. Terri always remains in the morning a few extra hours on her own time, and also arrives two hours early, not charging then either--because she cares about Peg. But Bonnie cares about Peg, too. So. Another email goes off to all four staff saying I don't care who fixes Peg's breakfast, just as long as she gets fed and takes her pills. Suddenly it's like being school monitor on a field trip. Thin skins, petty jealousies, and egos abound.

Meanwhile, Oslo the Owl observes it all silently from her perch on the bird feeder but does fuck all to help me besides eat the occasional squirrel.