Fair and Balanced

I unload a lot on this blog about the frustrations of having my mother living with me and all her health issues that the last, oh, eight years have seen landing on our collective doorstep. It's only fair that I also include those things that go amazingly right because, let's face it, it doesn't happen often and it's good to be reminded that, as Tolkein put it, the darkness is only a small and passing thing. There is light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.

My mother has had a medical aid here in our apartment since she was discharged from the rehabilitation center in late 2008. This is one of several benefits she receives under her Medical Medicaid qualification and it is priceless, truly. Isabelle, Mom's aid for the last two years, has been a real blessing in many ways but, as in all personal interactions, everything wasn't perfect. Among other things, her lack of conversational English was greatly prohibitive to any significant collaboration between her and my mother. She was very, very good to my Mom and they share a real and genuine affection, but there were bumps.

Isabelle went on vacation in early August and we had Mara for a week, and she was terrific but scheduling issues prevented her from staying more than a week. This was right at the time when I was going on vacation. Thankfully, Velka came to work with Mom and she couldn't be more perfect. With a little scheduling creativity, we were able to retain Veilka permanently. Unfortunately, the agency handled the situation with Isabelle poorly and there were some hurt feelings in the end. I volunteered to be the bad guy and the agency – and my mom – leaped at the option. Fine by me.

Velka is a dream. She is outgoing and positive. She chats with my mom and is a real companion to her. She monitors her medication and her new, multiple treatments for hands, feet, and lungs that Mom has to go do each day, and – Lord be praised – she proactively insists on and monitors Mom's exercises to the point of counting the reps and keeping her focused. The difference in Mom is atomic. This is best catalogued by the fact that her text messages to me have decreased from 15+ some days (and that's not an exaggeration) to 2 – maybe. Last week, while I was chauffeuring my grandfather to the VA clinic in center city Philadelphia , Velka's fan belt broke and she wasn't able to make it to the apartment. Throughout the day, she sent repeated text messages to Mom to check on her and make sure she'd taken her meds and eaten when she should showing an above and beyond commitment to her charge. Frankly, she checked in with my mom more than I did that day.

Now when I get home at night, Mom isn't climbing the walls, desperate to talk to someone (me) when all I want is the telly, the kitties, and some peace and quiet after a day editing pharma. And things get done! My sister's Christmas gifts are now packed and ready to be shipped – just in time for this Christmas. Mom's bedroom is transformed into organization – well, maybe organization is pushing it, but I can walk in and not trip over a thousand things and that's genius. And Mom herself has improved dramatically.

It's amazing how something so simple as having the right person in place at the right time can make such a huge difference.

See, I can manage fair and balanced. Some of the time.

A Dramatic Life

I'm a big fan of drama; my shelves are stuffed with films and books with it. Once I even dreamed of making a career of it. But I never get accustomed to the excess of drama in my day to day life. Everyone has drama in their lives. Mine just sometimes has more of a David Lynch aspect to it. Observe:

Last week I was reading a really good book by Eloisa James called – I dunno, one of the Duchess books. All of her books are really good and several of them are Duchess oriented. I particularly liked DUCHESS BY NIGHT if anyone's looking for a recommendation. And the one I read last week – OK, I'm looking it up, it's WHEN THE DUKE RETURNS. Also, I was wrong. While I thoroughly enjoyed DUCHESS BY NIGHT, I skipped ahead to the woman-in-man's-clothing reveal because it was inevitable and I wasn't up to the ring-around-the-shenanigans to get there. I did love A DUKE OF HER OWN (also known as Villiers' book). It absolutely paid off all the hype I've heard about it. Plus, Eloisa writes a kicking book, and she's a Shakespeare scholar, so major points there. Go pick it up.

Back to last week. I was reading WHEN THE DUKE RETURNS (it's fantastic) and I was totally involved with it to the point that I didn't want to stop reading just because I was leaving the office. Oh, didn't I mention that? Sorry. We were on the slow slide towards the end of the day that day so I'd begun reading while at work. Caught up? Good.

I should say here that I am notorious for being unable to put down a book. I power read – once I've begun, I usually don't want to stop until I've completed the story. If it's a really good book, I just want to consume it in one sitting. If it's bad, I just want out, but this doesn't mean I stop reading. I cannot seem to grasp the concept that the book will still be there in the morning, which explains my long history of staying up late reading, often by flashlight to offset parental interruptions and/or scolding.

Anyways. Last week. I knew that if I went home, I was unlikely to be given the space and peace to finish my book (see above: parental interruptions – some things never change). Cannily (I thought), I decided to stop at my local Starbucks, treat myself to a hot caramel apple cider (oh so yummy!) and settle into a chair to finish my novel. This I did, cell phone lying on the table before me set on vibrate, 40s torch songs blessedly playing over the store's speakers. I even had a patron vacate a leather chair just as I was picking up my drink. Pretty dang close to a good night.

So, naturally, I had to pay for that.

I came to the end of the novel and consequently up for air around 8:30 pm. Automatically, I checked my cell phone; there were four messages. The first was an hour old message from my mother (no surprise there) apparently stuck at the physical therapist office with no ride home. The second was from the Life Alert people (we have their system in our apartment in the event my mother should fall or have a medical issue while alone). The alarm in my living room had gone off and they were unable to reach her. I was very interested to hear this as, as far as I knew, my mother was still at the PT office. The third message was from the Waldwick Police Department, telling me that they'd been called by Life Alert because my mother's alarm went off and they, the Life Alert people, were unable to reach her or me as it turned out. At this point, I was beginning to wonder if my mom was really in danger, or if she thought somehow that pushing her emergency button would get her a ride home from PT. Really not out of the realm of possibility for her.

The fourth message was the imaging people at my doctor's office reminding me of my mammogram appointment the next day. Cause anticipating that was going to make things better.

In case you don't know, this is how the Life Alert is designed to work: If it goes off, first they check with my mom at the house. When they can't get her, they call my cell phone. Normally, this is where it stops and has stopped in the past when the alarm has gone off, because I've been able to say, I'll look into it, and there ends Life Alert's responsibility. If they can't get me on the cell, they call my office. If I don't respond to those two calls and no one is responding at the house, then the company contacts the police to go out and check.

An aggrieved call to my mother found her safe and well and at home, but very upset. With her relative well-being confirmed, I let loose my fury, selfishly consumed with the thought that I couldn't go off the radar for two and a half hours. And that was before I checked in with the police and found out that they'd gone into my apartment to search for my mother. Now I was desperately praying that they hadn't kicked the door in as not only have I forgotten the combination to the lock box I put on my doorknob for just these situations, I also neglected to register the combination with Life Alert. Yep, I was batting a thousand on the home care there.

Once home I found my mother visibly shaken, as in literally shaking, the scotch and ginger ale not making any dent in her reaction. Why? Because when my mom got home from PT, transport issue resolved, my landlord S greeted her at the door in hysterics. Apparently not one, not two, but THREE local police stations sent men to my house along with an ICU mobile unit from the hospital. S let them all into the apartment relieving my door-kicked-in fears, and they thoroughly searched it, and then they searched the backyard with flashlights, and then they searched the front driveway with flashlights and then – they all went home.

And why you may ask? Why did all these fine public servants arrive at my house? Why had the Life Alert gone off when not only was no one in the house, but the lanyard emergency button was with my mother, out of range, nearly two towns away?

Cats. The company told my mother the cats must have set it off. Riiiggghhhtt.

While it's not nearly the point, I'm compelled to defend my cats by saying that the device is in the living room, which is blocked by a child gate whenever no one is in the room to preserve my furniture from territory marking kitties. No, they can't jump the gate; two are too fat and the other is too scared. It wasn't the cats. The bloody box malfunctioned.

Speaking of my cats, it's about 20 minutes after I got home that I said to my mother "have you seen the cats?" I mean, the cops were all over the place, but did they close the door behind them? Thankfully, all three almost immediately came out of hiding, so it was a nonissue – but clearly I am a bad kitty mother because this concern barely fazed me.

All this – ALL THIS – because I went off the grid for a mere two and a half hours. And yes, yes, I lied to my mother and told her my phone had turned itself off (which it does) when I just hadn't been paying attention to it. I know, I know, I'm going to hell for that one, or at least it'll be one of what's sure to be many things to tick off at the judgment seat. Got it. Don't forget to add a fondness for vodka. Thanks.

But I learned one crucial thing from this experience. Figure out the lockbox code? Yeah, that's a priority right now, but not what I meant. Get a new alarm box? Boy. Howdy. But not that it either. Find the peace within to care for an ailing parent without regressing to the point that I need to hide away in a Starbucks to read a damn ass novel uninterrupted? Pshaw. Like that's gonna happen.

So what's the come-to-Jesus epiphany I've had from my latest you-just-can't-make-this-crap-up experience?

This, right here, this exact sort of thing, this is why I make my bed every morning.

Oh, How I Love Tuesdays

I love Tuesdays. Normal Tuesdays. Tuesdays during a work week. Not a summer Tuesday. Then it's just another delay to a summer weekend. Not a vacation Tuesday. Then it's just another amorphous day that will bleed into the next much like the one before until you finally come up for air and say, "Do I need a bra for this?"

But a normal Tuesday, a work week Tuesday, can be just lovely.

Tuesday mornings, you see, my mother has bible study.

In its nascent stage, Tuesday morning is actually more difficult. I may leave the house slightly later than usual as I drop her off at church on my way to work (exponentially easier since our departure from the less-than-fair climes of Weehawken), but I have another person to account for in my morning routine. This routine now includes coffee and danish or eggs or French toast if I slept really well or it's the weekend, which are usually the same thing (these are for Mom; I eat when I get to the office). It means making sure I get out of the bathroom soon enough to be out of her way like it's 1986 again, sometimes helping with dressing and finding the misplaced book or pair of glasses, and occasionally checking that the thunk I just heard wasn't my mother falling or struggling to walk but rather the cat being ignobly dislodged from the normally serenely sleeping mother's lap.

But once said mother is deposited at church, oh bliss divine.

To give an idea as to my growing love affair with Tuesday, here's an illustration of this week's Monday.

11:10 am: Phone call at work
Mom: Kierst, where is the jam?
K: We don't have any jam.
M: You just went to the store.
K: Yes, I did.
M: No jam?
K: No jam.
M: Please, could you get some after work?
K: You bet.

11:43 am: Phone call at work
Mom: Do you remember that board of danishes you used to get me?
K: You mean Entenmann's?
M: No, not the Entenmann's. Don't get me Entenmann's.
K: Okay. You want blueberry muffins?
M: No, don't get me blueberry muffins either. This was something, I think you used to get them at the Weehawken Shop Rite.
K: Y0u mean the cinnamon swirls?
M: No, not the cinnamon swirls. It was like a long board with about 10 danishes.
K: Okay. I dunno. The only long board of danishes I can think of is at Cosco or BJs.
M: No, I don't want BJs. Could you look for it when you go to the store tonight?
K: Okay.

1 :15 pm: Cell phone call while I'm driving to doctor's office
Mom: I was wondering if you were out running errands.
K: I'm going to get lab work done.
M: Oh, okay. Listen, I forgot to get a card for (my cousin's daughter) Sarah's birthday.
K: Okay.
M: If I don't get it in the mail tomorrow, she won't get it on time. Can you stop and pick one up for me?
K: Okay.
M: Thanks a lot.
K: Uh huh.

2:30 pm: Voice mail message on my work phone
Mom: Yeah Kierst, it's Mom. I guess you're at lunch. I'll try your cell phone.

4:12 pm: Phone call at work.
Mom: Are you totally worn out or can we go to Philadelphia on Sunday and see your grandmother?
K: I told you. Dad's going on Saturday.
M: Her birthday's on Sunday. I mean, that's her actual birthday.
K: Yes, I know.
M: Your dad's going on Saturday?
K: Yeah.
M: So we could go Sunday.
K: No! She can't handle two days in a row. She gets too worn out. Besides, Nana prefers that we spread them out and not all visit on the same weekend. That way she's feels she gets out more. And we were just there on Friday!
M: (disappointingly) Yeah, okay.

6:15 pm: Cell phone voice mail message alert beeps while in self check out line at Shop Rite.
Mom: Kierst, it's nearly 6:30. Just wondering where you are. Give me a call.

6:17 pm: Voice mail message at work
Mom: Kierst, just wondering where you are as it's nearly 6:30. Give me a call, please.

This morning, this blessed Tuesday morning, as I sat at my desk reading a few jobs and sifting through e-mails and posts from the holiday week, there was barely a peep from either my cell or work phone. Oh bliss, oh rapture unforeseen. Mom's study goes from 9:30 to 11:30 in the morning and then today she had a lunch planned, so there was no contact from the motherland until, inevitably, like clockwork...

3:30 pm: Phone call at work
Mom: Hi Kierst.
K: Hi Mom.


I bloody love Tuesdays