Happenings

I finally got a whole two days off work.  New girl is all trained up and on her own so I got a weekend.  First one since April.  I'd like to give thanks to the god of all things good and pure because it was awesome.  I did nothing and it was awesome.

Sunday Mom and I took a ride to Fat Dad's and got a rainbow Diet Coke.  It is so good.  If you're ever in my neck of the woods you absolutely have to go to Fat Dad's.  Totally worth it.

Not much to look at, but their drinks are amazing!

If you ever wanted to know what Illinois looks like---this is it:\

Wind blown hair and Fat Dad's deliciousness

Baby Frank, God bless him, made me two super useful travel combs from the one useless full sized comb I had.  I loved that comb.  It's wood and hands down the best comb I've ever had.  Now it's broken and I'm sad.

Someone at work got a new truck.  I looked up on the monitor and it appeared that there were about half a dozen officers rubbing their wieners on it.  Men are ridiculous. 

Gardens

My mom visits my grandma at the Gardens every day, sometimes twice.  Lately, there seems to have been a shift in behaviors or cognition.  It seems as if Grandma isn't really happy to see my mom anymore.  She's happy to see her, but it fades quickly. 

A day or two ago Mom went to see her and she was in the family room watching The Little Mermaid with some of the other residents.  Grandma was glad to see her, but she didn't want to leave the room.  She didn't want to go for a walk.  She didn't want to go outside and sit at the table.  She said the movie just started and she wanted to watch it, so Mom just left her to The Little Mermaid. 

Is this a good thing?  I think it's a good thing.  Maybe.  The nursing home has become her home.  The other residents and staff are her family now.  It's sad, and heart breaking for my mom, but in a way it's almost a relief.  They are good to my grandma and she's happy there, for the most part.  (She does NOT like bath day.)  They do arts and crafts and some afternoons they bake cookies.  Sometimes they blow up balloons the residents bat them around, trying to keep them in the air.  She loves that one. 

She's all but forgotton my mom, her sons, grandchildren.  It's a good sad, if that is an actual feeling.  My mom is sad that she's been replaced by the other residents and staff, but relieved, I think, that she's taken care of, to the point that Mom is no longer needed.

In a way, my grandma died the day she was put in the nursing home.  That was the end of her life as she knew it, as we knew it.  It was a death.  She is still alive, of course, but it is different.  She acts different.  She doesn't even look like my grandma any more.  I live three houses down from the nursing home and my mom walks grandma over a lot to see me and my cats (and to get out of the sun.  Mom tries to tell me it's to see me, but I know better.)  When they are walking past, I wouldn't even recognize Grandma if it weren't for Mom. 

The grandma I knew growing up is gone.  I loved going to her house when I was little because she had Count Chocula cereal.  We weren't allowed to eat that stuff at home but we could have it at Grandma's.  I couldn't wait to eat my cereal, which is weird, because I hated Count Chocula.  It gets all soggy and gross and the marshmallows dissolve.  It was more of what the cereal represented than my actual fondness.  Yuck.  And Grandma had the BEST jewelry.  Tons of blingy, crappy jewelry.  I could play with her jewelry box for hours.  That grandma is gone.  The lady sitting in a diaper is not my grandma.  Looks kind of like her, though. 

It's difficult trying to come to terms with how you feel about an elderly parent or grandparent.  I still love her, of course, but admittedly not like I used to and that creates a lot of guilt.  IT would be so easy to just pretend like she's not there and move on.  I used to judge people who did that, but now I understand.  I can't imagine, cannot imagine, what it would be like if my own mother was in that situation.  It's incomprehensible. 

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, Mom and I loaded Grandma up in the wheelchair and pushed her to Grandma's Kitchen, her favorite pre-nursing home restaurant.  It's the hang out in town for the over-70 crowd.  Happenin' place, let me tell you.  She did really well and seemed to enjoy herself.  Mom was a little disappointed that none of Grandma's old friends were there.  She's been in the nursing home going on a year now and when you're in your nineties you lose a lot of peeps in that time.

All was well until we left.  Poor, poor Grandma has this dumping syndrome thingie.  She has to poop right after she eats.  And I mean right....after.  We leave the restaurant and immediately she starts in complaining that she has to go to the bathroom.  Mom and I are pushing like hell trying to get back to the nursing home.  "I have to go to the bathroom."  Me--"I know.  I'm hurrying."  Grandma--"Well you're not hurrying fast enough!"  Every business, every house we pass she wonders if she could use their bathroom.  NO.  Mom tried to distract her with "Are you still comfortable in the wheelchair?  I worried it would hurt your legs a little."  Grandma--"Well, it's stopping  up my butt."  And then Mom--"Are you full?  Did you get enough to eat?"  Grandma--"I'll be a lot less full when you stop this wheelchair."  And on and on until we get back to the nursing home.

She was correct.  The wheelchair was stopping up her butt.  The second we lifted her up....you can imagine.  I won't go into detail, but when we left showers were taken and clothes, including shoes, were thrown in the washer.  Mom just threw away the washrags she used to clean her up.  No amount of bleach was going to get those sumbitches clean. 

We are not a gift giving family.  We exchange gifts at Christmas, but that's pretty much it.  We believe that a person can't be an absolute turd 364 days a year and think buying a present will atone for it.  We try to show our love year round by actions, say, wiping poop off a bathroom floor.  Anywho, I got tired of the looks when someone asked what I was getting Mom for Mother's Day and I'd reply "big, fat nothing".  I felt guilty so, instead of a present or flowers, I bought season two of Broadchurch on Amazon.  It's the best show I've ever seen.  Mom says so, too.  So I bought that and we watched the first episode last night.  It was so good.  Luckily, we had a bad storm last night that knocked out the power or I probably would have watched ahead. 

Fat and Frank were excited.  They each had a lap to themselves.

Clover

And a five leaf clover--

Talent

My mom has a hidden talent. She can find four leaf clovers. She finds them all the time. She says, to her, they light up like a neon sign. We were just talking about it at her house and by the time I made it home, maybe a mile away, she sent me this:

Grandma

My mom fluffed and buffed my Grandma the other day. Doesn't she look pretty?

Derp

So Mom and I are on the way to the Blues game and she said her hands were dry so she digs out some lotion from her purse.  It's Jergen's gradual tan stuff, a little tube of it.

Me:: Why are you using gradual tanner on your hands?
Mom:: I'm not.
Me::   Yes, you are.
Mom:: (looks at tube)  Oh.  That's why my hands look funny.

Drag Racing

One fine spring day, when I still lived at home, I decided I needed to go to the store.  As I was driving north on a country road, I met my mom driving south.  She motioned for me to stop, as if she needed to speak with me.  So I turned around at the next intersection and she backed up to meet me.  So on this road we were both facing the same direction, just to give you a visual.

I talked to Mom for a minute, and then she gets this devilish gleam in her eye.  She gives me a sideways glance and says "You want to race?"  I'm surprised, yet intrigued.  "Of course", I says.  "Okay.  On the count of three we're going to race".  " You got it."  She counts to three and we both floor it.  And I mean, we FLOORED it.  Trouble was, her car was still in reverse.

I shot forward.  She shot backward.  I will never, if I live to be a hundred, forget the look on her face.  Her eyes were HUGE.  To this day I can't believe they didn't pop out of her head.  Her mouth made this tiny little "o" like she just sucked on a lemon.  She had the most surprised-est look I have ever seen on anybody.  Ever.  The time from start to finish could not have been more than two seconds, tops.  But it was the funniest two seconds of my life.  I really doubt that I will ever see anything funnier.

We weren't actually going to drag race home.  Just for a few seconds.  ( I was in a Pontiac Grand Am and she in a Jeep Liberty, so it wouldn't have been much of a race, anyway)  But when the race started, it was legit.  She wasn't doing it for a laugh, either.  She had completely forgotten that her car was in reverse.  We both goosed it, and she threw gravel.  Just headed the wrong direction, is all.