Long week
1:40 p.m.
Hubby left for points far west on the Sunday before last, leaving me, as usual, rather at loose ends. I stacked the wood (creating a beautiful bruise on my left arm where I tend to throw it) on Sunday, quitting when I ran out of daylight. My back hurt so much I decided to forgo pilates the next morning, but finished piling the firewood in the shed instead, which probably made it worse. However, it had snowed the night before and I realized there would be more sooner than later, and it was best to get the job finished. It is. Thank the gourd.
However, since I wouldn’t be arriving at my daughter’s until Tuesday night no matter what, I decided to leave on Monday and stay overnight with an internet acquaintance of mine, a young man somewhat between the ages of my own kids, who lives in one of Ontario’s most boring towns (there’s an armed forces base there and not much else) that was sort of on my way. He is at the moment occupying his grandmother’s house as she is now in an extended-care facility.
My bus left Montréal at 5:30 p.m. and was scheduled to arrive at 10:30 p.m. Instead, I fell asleep and awoke to find that we were on some detour from hell before we’d even crossed the Québec border, following a long line of cars, trucks and buses through one of the tiny towns, the signs for which I’ve seen from the highway, but never felt the need to actually investigate. I arrived at my destination an hour and-a-half later than planned and somehow raised a taxi to drive me the 20 minutes’ to my friend’s place. Happily he had left a light on and waited up for me.
The next day we wandered around his town, thinking we might take in the museum (military aircraft, mostly), but then decided not to. Instead I bought him lunch at a well-known hamburger chain which purportedly makes a hamburger a beautiful thing where I was able to get a veggie burger, sang and played House of the Rising Sun for him on a guitar in a music shop where I chatted up the salesguy, and then picked up some pecan butter tarts on the way back. I like my friend, but his town is boooooooring!
Anxious to get on my way, I telephoned the bus company to find out when my bus departed. It turned out that it didn’t. I mean, the particular bus that brought me there would not take me to downtown Toronno, but to the airport. That sucked. It meant I had to buy a new bus ticket for that portion of the trip, and I was advised to mail in the unused portion from the other ticket for a refund. I have yet to do this.
My bus was an hour late in arriving at the pick-up point. To the driver’s credit, it was only a half-hour late reaching its ultimate destination, a good thing as there were passengers who would otherwise have missed their connections. I took the subway to the station where I met my daughter, returning from her department Christmas party, and we took the bus to her place. It was very late.
From there my week turned into an episode out of the Twylite Zone. Every day I spent several hours with my mother and joined her in the dining room for a meal. The first day, Wednesday, I met the Filipino woman my older brother had engaged to visit her (the one my other brother refused to call but said, “Just send me the bills!”). She is very nice and my mom seemed to like her. She can only visit twice a week, but told me she has a friend who could come a couple of times as well. After my observations, I think the more often my mom has one-on-one interaction with another person, the better.
I dined with my mom that day, then left her to meet my daughter and a friend downtown at a pub. The next day I lunched with my mom, spending a fair bit of time both before and afterward. As I had planned to meet Little Princess and her knitting group for dinner, I didn’t stay for supper, but my mother, who had been extremely tractable all day, suddenly became very agitated and adamant in her insistence that she didn’t live at the residence, it was just somewhere she stayed sometimes, and she wanted to go home. She was very angry because she didn’t have any money to buy car fare, so I gave her a $10 bill (which I will never see again) and went to alert the nursing staff that she was in a pique. Mummy came running after me, pissed off that I was “tattling” and complained that no one gives her information. I countered, saying that we give her factual information, nothing is withheld, but she doesn’t believe us. She was convinced that she still lived with her parents, that my father would be missing her, and that the retirement residence is just a sometime thing. I couldn’t take it anymore and told her I would see her the next day and left.
That night at the restaurant where I joined the 20-something knitters, I indulged in a chocolate martini and a greasy meal, both of which were not probably very good for me, but which assuaged my soul. There was a singer-songwriter person on stage, performing his original material. He was pretty bad. The knitters have decided that they’re going to change their location.
On Friday my mom was much more lucid, but with no recollection of her outburst the day before. We spent a very pleasant afternoon together wherein I repeated the same information over and over again (I actually fell asleep doing this), and we were joined by Little Princess for dinner in the dining room. We had a very nice time. After the meal though, when we brought her back to her room, my mother started in on how she doesn’t live there, etc. Little Princess and I said that we were going and she needn’t have any concerns about anything. At least she didn’t get belligerent like the day before.
That night my daughter and I went over to the house of some friends of hers where her boyfriend was already enjoying himself. It was fun, but I was very tired and cut out early before they left for the bar where they had tickets to see a couple of bands. I took the subway and bus home, played on the internet for a while and then went to bed.
On Saturday Little Princess and I went shopping. She wanted to get some shelving materials for her kitchen and we carried home heavy boxes containing a floor unit (chrome wire) and a wall assemblage, as well as a bottle of industrial-strength drain opener and a pasta maker for her BF’s Christmas present. For the first time since she moved in a year and-a-half ago, her bathroom sink does not back up.
My mother was even more improved that afternoon. I am convinced that the more time I spent with her, the better she got. She was able to recall things from the past much more clearly, although her ability to make new memories is compromised. My brother, who visits her one morning a week for breakfast--and she is at her best first thing in the day--has no idea of the severity of her dementia. I spoke with the staff, and they all agree that it is beneficial for her to have visitors, especially in the afternoon. I passed this information on to my older brother, and he will attempt to get our brother to pay for more one-on-one interaction.
Buddy Boy came for dinner that night, and it was a joy to see him, as always. When we left my mom, she did not seem delusional as she had the previous two evenings. This is another sign that she needs more personal attention.
All day Sunday was spent in transit. My bus left Toronno at 11:30 a.m. and arrived one and-a-quarter hours late in Montréal. As we journeyed east, the weather went from rainy to snowy, until we were following snow plows and passing cars that had skidded off the road. I missed my connection and waited in the station until the next bus, about an hour, arriving home at 10:30 p.m. That’s a very long day of sitting. Luckily all the buses I was on had wifi and I was able to chat with my faraway friends (except for when I got motion sick), which was a very welcome distraction (the chatting, not the motion sickness).
Yesterday I did a load of laundry, helped Hubby shovel the driveway, and made a quantity of potato latkes for a Hannukah party in the music department lobby. I sang my dad’s traditional blessing over the candles, latkes were eaten, and an enjoyable time was had by all, Jews and gentiles alike.
Now I have to get my students’ marks in and think about what to get Hubby for Brumalia. I’ve been rather negligent in that matter.
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