10/29/09

Over the Rainbow Bridge


I'd been thinking about Mookie a lot the past few days, so last night I wrote to Kay (the vet) to check in on him.

She replied that he had developed rapid onset dementia like symptoms and started having seizures, which seemed to indicate a brain tumor. Because she was not able to fully control the seizures and because of his advanced age (almost 12, just about the average life expectancy for a Boston), she had made the hard decision to put him down.
Not exactly sure when this happened, because she wanted to spare us the grief and pain and didn't tell us.


R.I.P. Mookie 1/1998 - 10/2009

10/26/09

Oriental Tailor

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Big day today. After lunch we're taking 5 pair of trousers to the tailor to be hemmed. Bye bye too long pants!

Driving down Fordham Blvd., we point out particularly spectacular trees to each other. (Yep, DL, the color's here now!)
Mom says " They just hold it and then yippee!" That was laugh out loud charming. Ain't it the truth?!

She gets a grilled chicken salad, which I need to cut up for her, her small motor skills are slipping. At one point she tells a piece of chicken to "get its ass out of there!" (and onto her fork). She cracks me up.
Then we're off to Oriental Tailor (yes, that is the actual name of the tailor).

'H boy. I was hoping she could do one pair and they'd figure it out from there, but no, she has to try on every pair.
She hands me back pants that she was wearing when she came in, or tries to put pants on wearing her shoes or keeps the pants on that were just pinned while trying to put on the new pair.
She didn't understand what the woman was saying (in her defense, several times neither did I ), when she told Mom to face the mirror, she'd spin all the way around. Took about 45 minutes.
She called me a little bitch (least I was little!) and an asshole - laughing all the time. I told her she was on name calling restriction. She doesn't remember five minutes later that she said anything.

The staff at Wynwood seem to like her and she them. They hug her and call her sexy and tell her she looks cute. One woman said she likes to assist other people (that's my old mom!), so much so that sometimes they have to stop her because she'll interrupt her own sleep to go help them.

Now Where Did I Put That?

Friday, October 23, 2009

Still sick with the crud. Stayed home Wednesday since I had a fever and chills Tuesday night and should have stayed home Thursday as well, because the scratchy throat came back Thursday afternoon. Went to work part of the morning on Friday, then left when the chimney cleaner came.

Went to Kohl's later to get some pants for Mom, took them over for her to try on. She had moved two pair of pants - again! They were folded up under a pair of shoes on the floor.
This part of the disease is so weird. What is happening in her brain that moving stuff makes sense?

She tells me I just want everything to be perfect - this is coming from a woman who sliced each pecan for cookies into the same sized sliver. Not chopped - no, each one individually cut. (she also wanted to match or beat the number of dozen each recipe claimed to make).

I don't want things perfect, I just want her to be able to find her pants and searching for things is beyond her now.

The shampoo and body wash were in her bathroom closet, not the shower. No wonder her hair is dirty most of the time. I fear we may need to start paying for more help in the personal cleanliness area.

Another thing that's new, is her forgetting how to work her remote control. She had it on FitTV, which was weird, and the sound was off. She said someone (that sneaky "someone"!) had changed it and she couldn't get it to work. I found her favourite USA channel and turned the volume back on.

10/23/09

The Dog Who Thinks He's A Goat

October 10, 2009

My dear friend DebraLee is visiting from California and coming to lunch with us today. Going to experience southern food at its finest (not) at the cafeteria. (sorry we didn't get to the fried green tomato BLT at A Southern Season - next time!)
Debra is love with sweet tea though and the K&W does that just fine, she said the crab cakes were good too.

Mom has a key now and has to lock her door because someone's been coming in and eating her stuff. I'm pretty sure SHE'S been eating her food and not remembering. She moves stuff around all the time. Reminds me of Mookie when he had a new bone. He would almost frantically move it around from place to place and if he saw you watching where he put it, he'd have to move it again.

After lunch we took a ride out Dairyland Road, past Maple View Farms (ice cream, ummmmm!), to see if there was some fall color out there (there wasn't).
Since we were out that way, we stop at Woodcrest Farm where I get my chicken, eggs, the BEST hot dogs ever (more like polish sausages in size), and grass fed beef. (The chicken and eggs are Nancy's from Fern Hill Farm) Chris and Alan are very nice people.

Sandy and I took a canning class out there several summers ago with Chris, made bread and butter pickles and some tomato sauce. They raise border collies, so there are always three or four very sweet dogs around. Some of their former puppies come back every year for doggie "summer camp". They also have a bunch of foster children.

They have a few watermelon left and Mom wants one. Alan won't let us pay for them, said the quality couldn't be relied on since they were end of season. But he takes one in the house, cuts it for Mom and puts it in a plastic bag for her.

Meanwhile, Debra goes down to the barn to look at the animals and Mom follows her. When she gets down there, she gives Debra a fist bump. Cracks me up. Where the heck did she learn that?

Their Great Pyrenees dog is laying with the goats. They're used as [flock] guardian dogs. The dogs bond with whatever they're raised with and will bark very loudly and vigorously if disturbed. Nancy has two GP's who think they're chickens. Obviously he doesn't think Debra or Mom were a threat since there's not a peep out of him. I haven't seen him since February, he was about 4 months old then and already twice the size of the border collie pup who was a month older.

When we drop Mom off she gave Debra a hug and says she'd "like to have her again".
She even blows me kisses.

Waiter - There's A Spoon in My Salad

Saturday, October 17, 2009
Happy Birthday to me (yesterday) - here's a scratchy throat. I probably shouldn't even be taking her out today, but it's her one time a week to get out of there.
Her hair is dirty again. It also needs coloring, it looks like a faded peppermint stick - red and white striped. Oh god.

We have to search for her purse, because it's not in the usual place (it's partially under her bed). The room's not that big, so it doesn't take that long, but this moving around thing appears to be getting worse.

After her usual comments on my car's cleanliness (mostly not clean), we get in and I notice her pants are dirty. She says it's the only pair she has. HUH? That will need to get sorted when we get back.
I ask if we can go to Rick's Diner instead of the cafeteria because I'm feeling like breakfast, she says she was thinking about that. She loves their chicken salad (it's really good).

She gets a mound of chicken salad on a green salad, ranch on the side. The dressing is in a small bowl. She holds it over the salad, unclear how to get the dressing on the salad. This is new.

I suggest using her spoon to drizzle dressing over the salad. She does that, but then starts eating the salad with the spoon. She gets a little huffy when I suggest using a fork to eat the salad, makes a comment about me thinking she's stupid. She doesn't know what to do with the spoon now.

How does one make it seem like it's her idea and try NOT to make her feel like she's stupid? It's like being a parent again, and I wasn't very good at that the first go round.

We get back to her place and start the pant search. I find several pair folded up under some other clothes in the closet. White pair - no, no - can't wear those now!
Isn't it weird how the brain works? She still remembers no white after Labor Day, but not how to eat a salad.

We find the pant hangers, with two nice pair of slacks - they're too long she says. (she has a tendency to like her pants to come to the ankle, which is a bit too short in my book). I tell her that with a slight heel they'll be just fine. I find 4 pair of pants (not counting shorts and the white pair). There are some others, but they're too small (sizes 4/6/8) now. There's another pair she tried to hem - one leg is cut 6" shorter than the other. Wow. The former award winning seamstress.
It's all so unbelievably sad. I say this a lot don't I?

I move the pants to the front of the closet next to her coats, since there's less of them, maybe she'll be able to find them. Chances are, she'll move them back and not be able to find them again. I found her key in a drawer (last week she HAD to lock her door) and almost two full cartons of cigarettes.
Maybe she is forgetting to smoke!