Life in progress

Tag Archives: life


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Now, Where Were We?

It must be incredibly frustrating to lose one’s memory. We’ve all been there. It’s like when you’re having a pleasant conversation with a friend and something happens to distract you, and when you turn back to continue talking, you can’t remember what you were discussing.

For my mother, at almost 84 years of age, it’s gone far beyond. It started with the memory, then progressed to logic. For instance, last weekend I came down the stairs to find her trying to drag Alex into the next room by the hand. When I asked her what she was doing, she said he’d been bugging the hell out of her, screaming in her ear but now she was trying to get him into the next room to hook him up to his feeding pump.

“It doesn’t matter what I do,” she said. “I try ignoring him, but whenever I walk away he follows me.”

“So, why are you trying to drag him?” I asked.

“Because when I ask him, he won’t come with me,” she answered. “He won’t do anything I ask him.”

“So just walk away… he’ll follow you…”

I waited for her to get it, but she didn’t–not even when she walked into the room where his feeding pump was, and he followed her.

Most of the time, all I can do is roll my eyes.

Now, however, she’s in the hospital with pneumonia. They’re talking about letting her out on Wednesday, but her memory has begun to get so bad that she can’t remember what day it is. Not a good combination when she has meds to take.

I’m going to have to seriously start looking into retirement homes, before I end up in the hospital, sick with stress. That I’m going to have to figure out a way to look after her is precisely why I wanted to have more than one child: I didn’t expect two of them would probably never be independent, let alone unable to help with my care when I get to my mother’s age. Government and community run home care is going to be an even worse state than it is now; I’m at the tail end of the baby boom, and resources and funds will surely be depleted.

Now, where was I? Oh yes. Memory. If I leave my mother on her own I’m afraid she’ll under- or over-medicate herself. Just last weekend, she forgot it was still Saturday and she took Sunday’s pills as well. She needs supervision. There’s no way Alex would let her get a moment’s rest here – so what do I do? I’m only one person. I can ask my friend, John, to help out, but he has a life and a job. I need a babysitter for my mother.

The sandwich generation strikes again.


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For the Love of Photography

I love photography. Good photography. I wish I had the talent I see in so many others.

But I’ve been told by one of the best I know that it’s okay to post my amateur attempts, so here is mine for today.

dusk

Alex and I were out shoveling at dusk tonight when I took this picture of my house. There’s just something about the quiet of this particular time of day, when it’s snowing softly as it was. There was very little wind and the air, though cold, was pleasant. Snow insulates: noise is muffled, and the blue of the sky reflects off the snow and creates a feeling of enclosure, as though the sky is resting upon the shoulders of the world.


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JusJoJan 26 – Asking for Help

I’m my own worst enemy in a few different ways, but none more than the fact that I have a hard time asking for help. Actually, let me be a little more specific: I’m okay asking for small favours, but if I think I might put anyone else out of their way, I usually do whatever it is that needs to be done myself.

I think this is a common problem with many people. For some it’s because they wish to be independent, and there’s nothing wrong with that – unless it gets to the point where they are stretching themselves too thin. Then there are the jobs to be done that are so complicated that it takes longer to explain how to do them than to do it ourselves. That, too, is an understandable reason not to ask for help.

Then there are people who are already stretched too thin, like me. When I think about asking someone else to help me, I tend to put myself in their shoes, which makes me ask myself, what if they were asking me to do this task? Being over-worked and overwhelmed already, I might think it a burden to be asked to do more. Consequently, many times I don’t ask for help.

I’m learning though. Since the father of my kids moved away, I’ve had an average of only one weekend out of every three without the kids. I do, however, have a very good friend who constantly offers to help me out, and most of the time I say yes. Although he says he doesn’t feel taken for granted, I still feel bad for not doing more for him in return. Again, there’s the ‘stretched-too-thin’ thing pulling me mentally if not physically in every direction.

I’d like to say a very public ‘thank you’ here to him, for all that he does for me. Thank you, John. I truly don’t know what I’d do without you. I know you say I should feel free to ask when I need help … know that I’m doing my best. And next time I stomp down the stairs in a very bitchy mood, know it’s only my own shortcomings – it’s not you, it’s me.

Back to addressing the rest of the people reading this.

I’m sure there are other people out there with problems asking for help. Do you try to overcome it? Have you succeeded? If so, how? I’d love some feedback on this.

Thanks.

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Musical Memories

Music.

Have you ever heard a song on the radio that you haven’t heard in years, but that you once knew so well you could sing in your sleep? It’s fascinating to me the process in which a song like that comes back to me, note by note, lyric by lyric. I find myself singing along and remembering AS I SING. Whenever that happens, I can’t help but smile to myself at the sensation of knowing as I go.

The songs I remember from my childhood are the ones my parents listened to. I, at the time, was too young to discover anything for myself. This was before I had even been to a Disney movie, and it was long before home videos.

My mother and her best friend used to listen to Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck (who I’ve actually seen in concert as an adult and discovered he has an absolutely amazing voice, much to my surprise), and my dad listened to Chet Atkins. He loved the guitar.

What are your earliest memories of music? Are they memories of your own favorites, or someone else’s?


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JusJoJan 23 – Dream

Okay, so I had this dream just before I woke up this morning. It was dark outside (in my dream) and I was looking out my front door (which didn’t look at all like the scenery outside my real front door). Leaning up against a post about six feet beyond the door, was a dead, flattened squirrel. Two black cats came along and started fighting over it. They dragged it away. They were trying to eat it.

Then, on the front lawn, I saw two moose (mooses? meese?) chasing a dog. The dog stopped and looked at me only to be caught by a horse – the horse grabbed the dog (it was a collie with a collar) by the scruff of the neck. Somehow the dog got away but the horse and the moose (mooses? meese?) were chasing it so they could eat it.

Then I woke up.

Analysis anyone?

P.S. I had fish for dinner last night – not dog, and not roadkill.

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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!

1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!


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JusJoJan 22 – Take Time

rose sky

Today, I’m a half a century old
Through the years, it’s true, I’ve been told
To take time with my nose
To oft’ sniff a rose
On this adage I’m most definitely sold.

Not quite a limerick, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

I think in the next half-century, (because that is surely how long I have left), I’m going to attempt not to fuss over things as much. Who needs perfectionism anyway? It is more important, after all, to take the time to appreciate the beauty that can be found in life’s imperfections. They are what makes things real and not manufactured.

Cheers to life, my friends. Live it to the fullest.

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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!

1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!

P.S. If you missed my JusJoJan 21 installment, you can find it here on my fiction blog.


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JusJoJan 20 – Whoa!

I have love/hate relationship with those moments when I just stand back and go, “Whoa!” at something I’ve figured out after years of doing it wrong.

Today my “Whoa!” moment came to me concerning the operation of a car, which is something I’ve been doing for (I’m dating myself here) about 34 years. I was talking to the lady who manages the dry cleaner down the street, and during our conversation, we were discussing the inclement weather yesterday. She said she had been in a store for only a few minutes during the blizzard, and when she came out her windshield was already frozen so much that she had to scrape it off. That’s when I realized it.

I too, went into a store yesterday for a few minutes during the same snow storm, and when I came out, for the first time in all my years of winter driving, didn’t need to scrape the windshield. Why? Because for the first time in my life I drove to the store with the warm air blowing out at my feet and through the front-facing vents instead of the defrost, which warms up the windshield causing ice to form before I get back in. If the windshield is relatively cold all along, the snow doesn’t melt.

I’m wondering why in the name of all laziness have I believed since I was a novice driver, that if it’s cold out do I need to warm up the windshield? But that’s it! If I’m too lazy to brush the snow off when I first go out, instead of letting the warmth of the car do it, then I’ll have to either keep doing it, or waste gas letting the engine do it!

Whoa!

How I love that feeling: and how I hate having not thought of it before.

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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!

1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!


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JusJoJan 19 – All That Warm Technology

In the warmth of my living room, watching through the window as the snow flakes drift into fifties-style wannabe hairdos and watching my son play Wii Fit in his underwear, I realize how good I actually have it. Modern conveniences have given us such luxury. I mean, what if I was sitting, on a rock, in a cave right now (on my laptop of course, with full internet capabilities) worrying about whether or not I could scrounge up enough wood for the fire, wondering how far I’d have to walk because I’ve depleted the local fauna. I’d really be bitching to you over the web, wouldn’t I?

But no. I’m sitting in a warm living room, on a couch, with a kid giggling his head off every time his character jumps off the side of a floating platform to its flailing demise. Nothing bothers this kid of mine. He’ll play happily, as active as ever, while a machine pumps formula directly into his stomach as though this were the most natural thing in the world. I wonder if he’d still think so if we were sitting in a cave, watching the snow fall. Of course the machine would still be around. If I can have internet, he can have his feeding pump, right? And the manufactured formula that keeps him alive with all its non-yummy nutrients that don’t bother him in the slightest because he never tastes them.

All we’d be missing is the warmth. And the Wii.

Modern technology, I tell you. We could live without it.

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 Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!

1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!


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There Are Days

stroll

There are days when I wish I could just run away – escape even for an hour. To drink a cup of coffee without being interrupted, or to close my eyes and hear nothing but the snow falling.


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JusJoJan 18 – Dodged a Bullet

It’s both a blessing and a curse having a child who enjoys going to the hospital. Obviously it’s nice not to have to fight with Alex every time he gets sick – he gets sick a lot. He enjoys the attention he gets there; he loves to charm nurses and doctors alike, and to him, it’s an adventure. The downside is, he’ll pretend to be sicker than he is and then beg me to take him to see a doctor. And what better way, at this time of year, to actually catch something nasty, than sitting for hours in an emergency waiting room?

Last night he almost managed to convince me that he’d aspirated food into his lungs again. He complained of pain in his chest, that he was feverish, (he wasn’t) and he was just plain miserable, the same as he was on Christmas Eve. I suspected he might have been exhibiting symptoms from the flu shot he received the day before yesterday, so I decided to call Telehealth Ontario, a service we have here so that we can talk to a nurse, so see if our symptoms are worth taking to the emergency room.

The nurse asked me all the protocol questions before she would talk to me about Alex – is he responsive, is he in pain etc etc. I answered as honestly as I could. Yes, he was complaining of chest pain, yes he was turning blue around his lips (I explained he always does whenever he’s upset – it’s due to his heart condition) but no, he doesn’t have a fever. Finally she asked me a question that was relevant. When did he last eat? It was three hours ago. She told me that if he’d aspirated, the symptoms of that would have shown up earlier.

So while I was relieved, she was telling me to call 911 and have an ambulance take him to the hospital because of his blueness and his chest pain.

Why didn’t I? It was the sparkle in his eye that told me all he really wanted to do was visit his beloved nurses. Today there’s not a thing wrong with him.