Boy, I am tired of going over there. I suck.
It might be because it's like going into a prison (well, I can only imagine).
Ringing buzzers to get in or out, locked doors, then realizing I forgot her room key in the car, necessitating either finding an aide to start another round of buzzing out and back in OR unlocking her door- errgghh. (Either way a pain in the arse for everyone.).
Anyway, I went.
Mom was sitting in the living room watching Wayne Brady host "Let's Make a Deal!". Another woman - let's call her Sally - came up and showed us a picture of a lovely family: Mom, Dad, girl and boy. First she said it was her and the small children were hers.
After a stroll, Sally came back to sit beside us after asking if she could. Now the photo was her children and grandchildren. Mom was bored and let Sally know we had "been there, done that."
A few minutes later Sally's Birds & Blooms magazine was delivered and she made the mistake of letting Mom look at it (still in its cellophane packaging). I almost had to arm wrestle Mom to get her to give it back.
A bit later Sally told someone else that her daughter and son in law had been given money to buy two children and those were the two they got.
Mom said, "Come on, let's get going somewhere." Off we went to her room which was locked, then we had to find someone to let us in (because I left the key in the car). We changed shirts (she wanted to), got her coat and then went out to wait for someone to buzz us out. Gah.
We decided on Chinese for something different.
"Wow. Pretty hot," she deemed the silverware (heavy?).
"I could've had a whole watch [straw]."
Mom even ate two of the steamed dumplings (starting by poking it with her straw) and "thought she might like them."
She ordered pork fried rice. There was enough fried rice to feed an table of six.
She mounded it up, smoothed the sides, and played with it like the mashed potato scene from "Close Encounters of The Third Kind." I don't think we even ate one quarter of it.
We headed back and went to her room to hang out and watch a little TV (I live vicariously through her cable since I have none.). Someone - guessing it was her - had made all the channels disappear, but after a channel search we were back in business.
Came across SNL's "The Best of Will Ferrell" which I will watch no matter how many times I've already seen it.
When I went to find someone to let me out, three or four people shuffled up to me. It feels a bit like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". One woman quietly said several things I didn't catch, then a soft "They're great." Mom said "With no clothes on?!"
And with that I made my escape.
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On a totally different makes-me-so-proud-to-be-from-Florida note, read this news story.
That was quite a visit and I have been in enough of those places to know exactly what you mean and feel your pain. That story was really something, seems if she was telling the truth she did what she could in the situation.
ReplyDeleteI live vicariously through my mother's cable TV too. It's amazing to me. If I had it at my own house, changing channels would be all I'd do from morning to night. It's like gambling--maybe the next channel,no; maybe the next one, no; well, how about this next one? No. And on and on it goes.
ReplyDeleteYou're such a good observer. Thank you for the report. I'm sure needing a key slows things way down and is so frustrating. But you always sound calm.