I’m out of here.
9:57 p.m.
I got to my mother’s just before lunch, at the tail end of the visit of the Filipino woman my older brother engaged. She’s a wonderful person, and even though she’s being paid to do this, I think she really does care about my mom.
Anyway, we had lunch, of which my mother ate very little. She’d already been out for a walk in the morning so we went back to her room and I tried not to fall asleep as I repeated information about the family. At one point she suggested a cup of tea, but her electric kettle has disappeared so we went to the coffee room in the lower level.
There’s a woman in the residence who knew my father when they were kids. Her claim to fame is that she had a very famous brother, but she is now widowed and living in a retirement home. I like her. She talks to me when I come to visit my mother, but my mother can’t stand her. She feels excluded from the conversation and that this woman steals her spotlight. It’s too bad.
Anyway, we escaped Rosie and went back to my mother’s room, the plan being to go back down for a Tu B’Shvat programme that was being given by a couple of teachers and students from one of Toronto’s Hebrew schools. My mother was tired and considered taking a nap. I blackmailed her, saying that if she was going to nap, I would leave; but if she would go to the programme with me, I would stay longer. So she acquiesced and we went to the programme.
It was fun. There was singing and jollity and it was nice to see young kids among the gray hair. The pregnant wife of one of the teachers had their small son in her arms, and he was a real hit with the oldsters.
When it was over, my mother turned to me and said, “How did we get here?” I responded, “We took the elevator.” She said, “Before that; did we take a taxi, or a streetcar?” I realized at that point that she was delusional again and it was time for me to leave.
Once again she was convinced that she didn’t live there. Instead of trying to convince her otherwise, I simply told her that she was staying there for now, that her parents knew where she was, that I didn’t know where my father was, and that she didn’t need to worry about money because her meal in the dining room was already taken care of. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
I stopped at the corner doughnut shop for a strawberry danish and a large cup of Earl Gray tea. Then I walked to Little Princess’ where we waited for Buddy Boy to show up. When he got there, we all went out to a Japanese restaurant where a friend of Buddy Boy’s joined us. We ate sushi and teriyaki and udon noodles, drank sake and had several yuks. Then my son went off with his friend and my daughter, her BF and I went back to their place where we relaxed and put on the show first mentioned above.
It’s an early rising tomorrow and a long trip on the bus. Thank goodness for wifi.
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