Humor

Mary's sense of humor never ceases to amaze me. She makes plays on words and laughs at lots of things. How is that possible when a sense of humor is supposed to be a sign of intelligence and she is so obviously losing her mental capacities? Well, I guess it's not a sign of a certain level of intelligence.

She seems to be more and more tired and shaky. I try to remember to exercise with her but it's not easy btwn her sleeping and my doing stuff (and I never thought there'd be so much stuff to do).

Teeth

Mary had to get two teeth worked on yesterday. Her lip's still a bit swollen today. Actually, her dentist always calls the day after he works on you and he didn't call today, so I'm a bit concerned. If it's still swollen tomorrow, I'll call him.

I really like her dentist, but I have this deep-seated mistrust of dentists. I mean, if they don't do any work on your teeth, then how are they going to make any money?

Broker Angst

Mary's broker (or is he called a financial advisor or what?) called last week and he's coming by this morning. He left Edward Jones and is now with a company called AG Edwards. He said that Jones didn't charge clients fairly, according to what he thought, and had tried to make him recharge some clients (more), which he refused to do. He also said that he had a lot of overhead--had to pay for his own office rental and other costs, which he doesn't have to do now. Edwards has 700 offices around the world and has been in business since the 1800s, so I think they seem reliable. I looked at their website briefly. They say they're all about what's best for the client. I am going to stay with our broker, but I'm sure Mary will lose money in transferring it. Argh! What a mess. But George has been so nice to me and really taken a personal interest in my situation. I loved the way that he explained everything he was doing and advising Mary to do. He can answer my questions so that I understand what he's talking about. I'm sure it all comes down to the money he's making on Mary, but I feel like I like him as a person and trust his judgement. But I'm praying anyway that I'm not making a mistake.

It's interesting that he's also Mom's broker but he hasn't called her. Of course, she has very little money. But it is a bit rude of him. But, then, I'm sure he's been very busy. O je!

Tom and Ange

Tom and Angie came over today. Ange let me know that Anna had wanted them to come over and have some salmon croquettes that she'd made but that they'd said they'd promised Mary to come today and so they'd go to Anna's tomorrow. I guess Anna still hates me. She's still never called the house.

I'm so glad they came to visit. Mary really loves to have visitors and especially to see her sisters and brother. And I think Angie needed the break from having Tom all to herself. She thinks he's a know-it-all! (Aren't we all?) Plus he never picks up after himself.

He kills me because he loves to tell these jokes he gets from Playboy magazines. How tactless! Or is it just like a brother?

It's quite funny that Angie and Anna seem to refuse to make his coffee for him the way he likes. As if they are convinced that they drink it the right way and he'll come round eventually. He drinks instant like they do, but he prefers it strong and COLD. They insist that he drink it weak (like they do) and HOT. I get the impression he almost likes coming here because I make his coffee the way he likes it.

At least Ange was in a good mood. I think Tom does keep her laughing--as well as gnashing her teeth!

Pause

For the first time since I can remember (somewhere back in my teenage years) I am actually paying attention to the TV schedule and know which shows are on which nights. It's sad, I know. (At least I usually exercise while watching, so it's not a complete waste.) Well, on Friday and Saturday nights and here and there on other nights there is usually nothing that interests me, so I've started checking out videos and DVDs from the library. One of my brothers gave me his DVD player on my birthday (alas, not the remote control, though--not that I'm lazy but it's much easier to understand than the actual machine, oddly enough), so I've been using it a lot. One night Mary and I were watching something and I had to get up for some reason, so I put what we were watching on pause. I think I was in the kitchen when Mary called to me, "I wish you'd come in here and see this." I went in wondering what in the world it could be. "What is it?" I asked. "Look at this. It hasn't moved for five minutes, " she said with a mixtur of concern, consternation and I'm certain a sort of pride that she had caught something special happening. I simply rolled laughing. She'd never heard of being able to pause a video or DVD. She's so cute!

Shower

The other day I was getting Mary ready to hop in the shower and she said, "Why do I have to take a bath and nobody else does?" It was so cute! I told her that I'd had a shower the day before and she hadn't had one for several days and she was starting to stink. She knows I'm joking. The shower is not one of my favorite activities. I hate getting wet. Now that it's colder, I have to make sure it's warm enough for her, so I put the space heater in the bathroom and then move it to the bedroom before she gets out. She's gotten so that she really doesn't remember what she's washed or whether she's washing or rinsing something. And she doens't always make good decisions, so she gets soap in her eyes a lot. I have to watch her like a hawk, not losing myself in thought for a second. There's also the constant fear that she's going to fall. I hate that shower. It's so tiny. The hose got a hole in it, so I had to replace it and this one doesn't fit into the holder properly, although it is longer. So now I can't tilt the head down at all, which she doesn't understand. She always likes the shower once she's in there. The warmth feels good. She also likes me washing her hair. I especially hate the petromleum jelly afterwards. It gets all over her clothes. But it does keep her skin nice.

Time to give her her shot and get her up.

Finances

I am mortified--I overdrew on Mary's account! How did I manage to do that? Argh! I'm so irresponsible. I can't handle taking care of myself and someone else to boot! I'm such a bad person! There were my new tires and then my three fillings... plus, her social security check still goes into the other account and I need to go downtown and ask them to switch it over, but they'll want to know why and I'll feel so like a traitor to Angie even though the lawyer and the financial advisor told me to do it and what if they decide they don't want to make me her representative??? I'm so afraid of possible negative outcomes that I never even try. That's the story of my life! Plus, her insurance payment needs to be transferred but I was supposed to send them a copy of the Power of Attorney papers, but when he redid the will, I can't understand where the PoA part is and he took my old PoA pappers. So why didn't I ask him? Scared. And I need to call and get Mary's will redone because of the problems with Chris but I'm not sure who to name as my back-up, so I do nothing even though having Chris is worse than having anyone else (for the most part). Scared. Paralyzed by fears. Look where that gets you--overdrawn. Now I'm embarrassed to go into the bank and transfer money from her Money Market, which I should do every few months anyway. I'm so afraid of using up her money! But I know I won't... Thank goodness I have access to her account online! I've also got papers I need to send back to the financial advisor, but I keep forgetting. I need to photocopy them, but I don't want to leave them lying around, so I'll remember b/c I might forget them anyway. I'm so forgetful. Is that normal? Am I normal? I feel so incompetent. I never get anything done. It takes months to get the simplest tasks accomplished. I have things written everywhere that I need to get done, but they're always getting pushed out of the way by other things. People like Bonnie would just get them done. I'll never be fit to work anywhere for anyone. I'm so incompetent. I'm so inefficient. I walk around with this weight inside me all the time and it keeps me from getting anything done. I feel like I swallowed the albatross and he was made of iron.

I took Mary to Red Lobster to have lunch with Tom and Angie yesterday. When it came time to get up, she suddenly got her pitiful, "I'm going to die soon" voice and said she wouldn't be able to go. How did I get her up? I can't remember. I think I left the room and when I came back I opened some of her blinds and told her she could at least get up and sleep in her chair. Get a cup of hot coffee. That gets her almost every time. She's not drinking her coffee like she used to, though, which worries me. She falls asleep and forgets it. She sleeps far too much. Is it just b/c she so old? Should I do more physical activities with her? Should I entertain her more? Anyway, she got up but when it came time to get dresses, she said she couldn't go and got all sorry for herself again. I told her that she'd have to call Angie and tell her, but she said she didn't have the energy to do that, so we ended up having to go. It helped that she got to wear her new black top, which when I pointed it out to Angie, she denied knowing was new! Why did she do that?! Well, the food was alright. Tried to order something not too fattening. Tom had a problem with his eye and it had puss coming out of it the whole time--he sat across from me--so I didn't have much of an appetite anyway. Angie needs to have her hearing aid adjusted, so she didn't hear a word that anyone said the whole time. After she ate (leaving this pile of potato skins with absolutely no scrap of potato on them--and I thought she cleaned her bones well!), she suddenly started feeling awful, but she wouldn't tell us how--couldn't hear us asking, I guess. I coudnt' believe that Angie paid the check and Tom paid tip. Should I have offered to pay for something? I would have had to pay from my own money. Which is sort of like Mary's money, anyway. Angie said it was time for her to pay. It's true that I've paid for her several times through Mary. One of her grandkids told her a few weeks ago that she was stingy and it really cut her to the quick. (Tom told her that months ago--and I concurred, but that didn't bother her as much for some reason.) Well, I was glad to see her spending a bit of money like that. She is rather tight-fisted, but I have no idea how much she has. Well, they went home and Mary and I went to the mall to find her a new pair of slippers/shoes. (She'd fallen on the stairs getting out to the car b/c these are so slippery. Pretty but treacherous. Luckily, she didn't hurt herself.) I stupidly promised that we'd go over to Angie's afterwards. Aftr several hours of trying on almost every slipper in the joint, we settled on a type that fit and got two pairs. I really wanted something dark that we wouldn't have to wash all the time and I wanted two pairs so that when we did wash them, she wouldn't have to borrow mine. I also wanted something like a bootie b/c the one she has now comes off so easily. I tend to step on her heels b/c she walks so slowly and stops erratically. Luckily, Angie didn't mind us begging off. She understood that Mary was tired (although Mary wasn't as tired as I was). We'll have to call Ange. She still felt sick yesterday evening. Personally, I think it was eating fried fish that did it to her.

Never heard a word from Fred, even though I cooked him all kinds of food, so I ate two pieces of his pumpkin pie. Why am I craving pumpkin pie? Do I need vitamin A? Mary has enjoyed it, too. She didn't remember having had any--even though we've already polished off one other pie! And she had several pieces of it. Or did I eat more than I thought? Well, there are worse things to pig out on.

The bulbs I need to plan are piling up. The ground was so hard the other day. I'm intimidated. Oh, I wanted to stop and get some compost from the city yesterday. They were selling it out by the mall. But we spent too much time shopping. We'll have to go next Saturday. I can use to cover up some of the roses and put an extra layer over the bulbs that I didn't plant deeply enough. I'd hate to spend so much money and then have them flop. Mary's going to enjoy them so much! I cut some roses from Mom's garden and Mary has enjoyed them so much, I think I'll have to slip them and put them out front under my window. Hot pink, hot orange and bright red. It will save us the money of ordering them and I won't have to dig a 2' by 2' hole for each one! Now I just have to find out again how to do that. I couldn't find any info on slipping roses on the internet. There was info about rooting roses, but no one mentioned how many eyes up and how many eyes down and that's always been stressed to me as an important factor.

I've heard Mary sigh a few times. I'll go see if she's up. We're going to have buckwheat pancakes with homemade blackberry jelly on them. That ought to get her in a good mood!