Schedule and Diversions

Still no calls from Angie or Anna. That makes me so sad. Not that Mary notices too much, but I think she does notice. She says she doesn’t care, and I hope she means it. I’ll be glad when Mom gets home from Gina’s. It’s a real Godsend that my sister-in-law Jan could come and stay with Gina for a while. I know taking care of Gina has been hard on Mom. Too bad she can’t take care of Mary and let me go take care of Gina. Ha, ha. If it hadn’t been for Gus stopping in on Dad, Mom wouldn’t have been able to go to Gina.

The guy came to look at the basement today—the corner that’s been leaking. Sure enough, you could see the crack on the outside. And sure enough, it’s right behind the bar down there. As he put it, most of the basement hasn’t been finished and the crack is right behind the part that has been finished. So I’ll have to have someone move the bar, or at least part of it, if that’s possible, and then either leave it out permanently or have it put back, depending on the cost. Just to get the crack fixed (which they do quite thoroughly and with a life-time (of the house) warranty) will be $500. Mary wants a second opinion, but Anna recommended these people and I feel confident in them. Or am I just lazy? Or both? It certainly does hurt to spend over $1000 on the house considering the events of the last month or so. But I can’t continue to keep changing the towels down in the corner. I can’t just not fix this. But I am not going to recaulk the bathroom, that’s for sure. I’ve been fixing meals for Freddy and I hope he’ll put a railing on the back stairs so that Mary can get out to the backyard and swing easier. Not that I’m making him the food to bribe him. I’m sure he’d rather just pay me for the food. When Mary moved into this house, she had Fred paint it and he gave her a lower price than usual but then she tried to get him to come down even more and he was so incensed about it that he’s never wanted to do anything else for her. So he won’t even do things that would be simple for him. Mitch and Chris have both done things around the house for Mary. Fred is a frustrating enigma. Better get on to another topic before my blood pressure starts rising.

I was thinking that maybe you’re curious about my daily schedule. As Gina asked once, what do you do all day? Everybody thinks I’ve got lots of free time but I don’t. Maybe that’s my fault. I probably take longer doing things than I should. Every day is different but maybe I can sketch out a general sort of day. I try to get up sometime between 6:30 and 9:00. Usually I get up at 7:00. I’m having difficulty adjusting to the time change. I hope I get over that soon. The cat has not adjusted. She still wakes me up at daybreak. Now she sits on the nightstand next to my bed and tries to look out the blinds at the birds building a nest in the shutters of my window. This noise usually wakes me up. If I get up before Mary, I’ll write in my journal (the one I keep in German, very stream of conscious) or read the paper, have some coffee or tea, maybe take a shower. I get Mary up between 8:00 – 9:00. That partly depends on when I gave her her Synthroid pill. She can’t eat or drink anything for an hour after taking it. She often has to use the potty when I wake her up to take her pill. Otherwise, she uses the potty when she gets up. If she doesn’t use the potty, she still wants to go into the bathroom to wash her hands. I understand and respect that, but it’s rather annoying because I have to maneuver her walker so that it’s on the right side again after she takes it in the bathroom and leaves it on her left. It’s a tight fit and just not the highlight of my day. As I’ve said before, she has to dry every single finger before leaving the bathroom, by which time she is usually worn out and needs to sit down and have a rest so I have to pull the chair out for her to sit down. Oh, I have to make sure that her wheelchair is out in the kitchen before she gets there or she’ll have to have a seat and wait while I run back to get it. I don’t like to leave her unattended like that (in a position where she could easily get up, with her walker right there in front of her), so I try to get the wheelchair in there first. Sometimes I push it along behind her, but I’m not too crazy about doing that because there’s a dangerous moment when she goes round the corner from the hallway into the dining room when I’m not right behind her and she could easily fall since she’s turning and I wouldn’t be able to get to her. Oh, from the moment Mary gets up to the time she goes to bed I keep her gait belt on her so that I can grab her or help her at any moment. She’s a real sport and has gotten used to it. The therapist who ordered it for her got the largest they make for some reason, so I have to double it over and it doesn’t really fit right. It slips when you pull on it, which it’s not supposed to do. I’ve contemplated buying a smaller one. Also, I’ve seen ones with a plastic clasp that would be easier to close and would stay closed, and also not be so heavy. Sometimes it swings, since it’s metal and heavy, and hits Mary or me in the leg. It also sounds God-awful in the dryer, clanking around. I hate to get a new one when this one isn’t broke, though. Hm. I still have to think about it. I finally came up with the bright idea to draw a line with a permanent marker where the end should go when the belt gets doubled over. For a long time I’d have to guess and that was really annoying because it’s gets moved easily. I just have an elastic hair band around it. When Mary gets back into bed, say during the night, I usually tell her to get her belt off while I get her house slippers off. She inevitably (much to her chagrin, God love her) pulls it out to its full length, so I have to adjust it again. Now I can truthfully tell her that it really doesn’t matter since I have it marked. Oh, when she gets up at night I always put her slippers on her because they have a skid-resistant rubber sole. She tells me I don’t have to put them on and each time I have to repeat why I’m putting them on. Argh!

So we get out to the kitchen and I get Mary a cup of coffee (instant) and me usually a cup of tea. I try to vary breakfast. Hang on; she’s coughing. I have to go give her some water. I’m back. You have to guide the straw to make sure she can get it. I try to let her hold the cup/glass. She feels more in-control that way. She’ll drink a little but always tells me that she doesn’t want to drink too much because then she’ll have to get up and use the potty. O je. As if she doesn’t do that several times a night anyway! She refuses to believe that. Maybe she has another UTI. Maybe I should make a doctor’s appointment.

Ok, we have breakfast. Either cold cereal, toast (she likes some toast with her honey), oatmeal (with brown sugar and raisins), bacon and eggs (poached or scrambled, usually on Saturdays), waffles on Sunday, kuchen (pastry), or cinnamon rolls (her number one all-time favorite which she’d like to have every day). I also try to give her a few reconstituted prunes. She loves those. Or we’ll split a banana. She loves a big mug of black coffee. Sometimes she’ll have two cups. She used to always have two cups. If she thinks she can put off getting dressed or, especially, taking a shower, she’s sure to take a second cup. If I’m having coffee, I’ll make the real stuff, but Mary can’t really tell the difference. Instant coffee makes me ill, personally.

It’s 11:30 so I’ll continue this another day. I spent the day digging in the garden. I got some Asiatic lilies to plant and decided to put them in a corner of the yard that has always been wild and over-grown. I had to dig up two small tree-like roots and it was a lot of work. I dug up the lilacs that were growing wild around there and put them in another corner where I planted daffodils the first year I was here. They’re coming along quite nicely. I think the lilacs should bloom after the daffs are gone. At any rate, they’ll keep that corner green. It’s partially shaded due to the neighbor’s garage, so I’m not sure if the lilacs will grow. I’m thinking about taking the tulips from out front and putting them there, too. Is that too much? But I was stupid to plant them out front because Mary never gets to see them. Not that she can see much over in that corner; it’s so far away. Aw, I’ll probably leave them. I planted the azalea from cousin Jackie back there and it looks like it will survive, but it won’t be worth seeing for probably a few more years. Oh, I also dug out a honeysuckle tree root from back there. Gina had told me to nip it in the bud when it was young, but Angie told me to wait and see what it did. She’s always so curious to see what things do. One time while she was visiting Preacher’s grave at the cemetery, she found something on the ground and picked it up and tasted it. Her tongue got really sore and I think around her mouth broke out. It’s things like that that make you love Ange. Oh, Chris said something interesting the other night—that Angie always did have a gorilla inside her. This is just so perfect! I’ve always thought, affectionately, that Angie looks so much like a chimpanzee.