Dreams Worth Keeping: Two Suckling Pigs, a Goose, and a Duck

"We need red solo cups, paper plates, napkins, a tablecloth, and a lot of lunch meat for sandwiches," my mom advised me shortly after learning that my sisters and some members of their families would be joining us for a five-day Christmas visit.  Some of them will be sleeping at Mom and Dad's house and some at ours, but Emma and I will be preparing both houses.

"And canned biscuits.  Lisa and her children like canned biscuits," she added, thinking hard.

My dad started telling me about how he wanted me to order hickory nuts and how delicious they are. By the next day he had been shopping for nuts online and discovered Black Walnuts coated in dark chocolate.  He asked me to order them.  His face would light up like a child's every time he mentioned them.  So far that has been two to three times a day.

"They're going to go pretty fast once everybody finds out how good they are,"  he confided to me, grinning happily.  "Make sure you order enough."

Where were my thoughts?

I began dreaming of pig roasted outdoors on a spit with all the menfolk gathered round in the heady smoke, talking and laughing and speculating on the doneness of the meat.

And I dreamed of succulent goose and duck.  I could see them each in a roasting rack in my oven, dripping juicy goodness into the pan.

And I dreamed of moving our dining room table into the living room in front of the fire and placing silver goblets of wine and heavy tankards of ale at each place, and...

I don't actually own any silver goblets or heavy tankards, but I imagined them just the same.

And purple cabbage and collard greens and sweet potatoes and cranberry salad.  And dogs under the table!  Flickering candlelight and ancient Christmas carols playing in the background with all my dear ones gathered round about.

Dear Baby Jesus in his manger at last.

O the giddiness, the tingling, the soaring anticipation of the Feast of Christmas!

I grew restless to begin.

So this morning Emma and I bundled up in sweaters, jackets, hats, and gloves and hurried to the farmer's market to arrange for the procurement of the desired delicacies.

First stop, the duck and goose booth.  We decided on a ten-pound goose and an eight-pound duck.  We put down a deposit and were instructed to return to the market early Christmas Eve morning to pick up the freshly-slaughtered birds.

Next we visited the pig man.  I've bought pork from him many times before but never a whole pig.  I arranged with him to pick up two suckling piggies--a 15 and a 16-pounder--at the market on Christmas Eve morning when I pick up the birds.  He said he would send me a picture of the lil porkers so I would know what to expect.  He promised to put a coin over each of their eyes because he feared I would be disturbed by their missing eyelids, which for some reason are removed during the butchering--surely a most creepy practice.

Maybe crispy-fried pig eyelids are a delicacy somewhere and they sell 'em separately to make more money!  At least they left the pigs' heads on.  I wouldn't want any headless pig.  That would ruin the whole dream for me.

Our business with the pig man completed, Emma and I sampled juicy sweet Satsumas at a booth across the way.  We bought ten, and we also bought a bag of Navel oranges from another vendor.  I plan to put some in everybody's stockings.  Then we found these delightful long and thin sausages that I thought would be great in the stockings too.  So we bought an assortment of those and added them to our bag.  We stopped at several other booths for individual little gifts.  Such great fun!

Unfortunately, we couldn't linger, as we had to hurry home to give Grandma and Grandpa lunch.   While I did that, Emma worked on decorating the rest of the gingerbread cookies she had baked for St. Nicholas Day.  Seeing her handiwork along with all the goodies we had brought home from the farmer's market made me think, "This is good.  This is very, very good."

I am looking forward to lighting the pink candle this Sunday and the fasting of the Ember Days next week.

And contemplating the fullness of time.

Come, thou long-expected Jesus!

You're the Cream in My Coffee

The sacred coffee station at my parents' house

Nothing gets more attention from my mother during her bedtime ritual than making sure that I have prepared the coffee pot for the next morning and set out the cups.  She starts worrying about it in the early afternoon and flips up the lid to the basket where the coffee grounds go in as a warning flag to draw my attention to my serious duty.  It works exceedingly well.  I see the upright lid as a giant exclamation mark and immediately feel the weight of my responsibility to ensure that her next morning will begin properly.  It's kind of like being in charge of making sure the sun comes up.  Nothing predicts a gloomy day and a grumpy grandma more than a sub par coffee ritual.

Recently, a new twist has been added to the defining morning event.  Mom must have cream.  She has drunk her coffee black for at least the past forty years.  But this past June she was hospitalized three different times for a gastrointestinal bleed so serious that each time she had to have blood transfusions.  She has a rare blood type plus lots of antibodies that have to be matched, and so in each case it took a long time to get the blood from the blood bank.  It was rather a harrowing experience watching her hemoglobin count fall steadily while the clock ticked off the minutes and hours with no sign of the replacement.  Oh, and her veins kept collapsing.  There were several times I truly thought she would die.  The doctors never did discover where the bleeding was coming from, but the end result of all this was that we started adding cream to her coffee in the off chance that all the acid she was getting in her morning three cups played a contributing factor in the bleeds.

She discovered that she likes cream in her coffee.  She likes it a lot. Like to the moon and back.  Now, after forty years of imbibing black coffee, SHE MUST HAVE CREAM.  And since she is in a wheelchair, the cream must be easily accessible to her in the refrigerator.  Since she has made it clear how important cream is to the satisfactoriness of the morning ritual, Emma and I have striven to make sure we keep it on hand and in the right place in the refrigerator.

Except sometimes we fail.

I hurried in one morning to cook breakfast for Mom and Dad and was greeted by Mom with the complaint, "This cream doesn't taste right."  Immediately I remembered that I had forgotten to buy cream and that there was none left.  I looked at the coffee station where she sets the cream each morning.  There stood my dad's $50 bottle of liposomal glutathione, which we keep in the door of the refrigerator.  

"No way," I thought.  

Then, a doubt crept in.  Have I mentioned that she has bad eyesight?  I picked up the bottle and showed it to Mom. 

"Is this what you used in your coffee?"

"Yes.  And it doesn't taste right," she repeated.

"That's because it isn't cream.  It's Dad's glutathione," I explained, shaking the bottle to see how much was left.  "And I think you just drank about $25 worth."

"Hmph," she answered.  "Well, I couldn't find my regular cream, so I figured that had to be it."

Immediately I thought of Starbucks and what a lucrative option they could offer to the health conscious:  Glutathione Pumpkin Lattes for $35.  Or maybe they could just sell the glutathione by the shot.

At any rate, I realized that my mom could not conceive that we could let the cream supply fail, and so she looked until she "found" it.  

It could have been much worse.  Thank goodness we don't keep Milk of Magnesia in the refrigerator.

May

This month has been tumultuous for me.  Kind of like paddling my canoe over Niagara Falls.  Lots of roaring and wild descents and outrageous bumps.  That's why I haven't written anything since last month.

I realized yesterday that I totally missed the Ember Week.  :(

And I wonder if life is really supposed to be this hectic, so draining--if I am doing it wrong.  It feels wrong.  That's for sure.  But I can't figure out how to do it differently.  I just keep paddling furiously and reminding myself that most everyone is doing the same.  

I am enormously grateful for my paddle.  I grip it tightly, knowing that despite my trials I am supremely blessed.

A young 20-something friend told me, "At least your life is defined."  Ostensibly, because I am married and have children and know what my duties are, I am in a far better place than he, who is still single and living at home, not knowing if he will find someone to marry, etc.  This is a common concern among my young traditional Catholic men friends.  Much worry is devoted to it and rightly so.  However,  after much pondering, I have to say that although those particular questions have been answered for me, they only bring a new set of questions: Whom will my children marry?  Where will they live?  Will I be able to have regular, in-person, interaction with my children and grandchildren?  Or will they live far from me?  Will there be anyone nearby to take care of me in my old age?  Will I die with the sacraments?

And yet, I know that we should not be solicitous for tomorrow.  Behold the birds of the air...the lilies of the field...

We have the Blessed Mother, too, and her assurance, "Am I not here, who am your Mother?"

Furthermore, we know that God chose for us to be born into this time, this horrible post-Christendom time.  Knowing this I feel a grave responsibility.  Am I doing God's will?  I think He has put a lot of confidence in me to bring me into this world in the dread year 1960.

All of these uncertainties--my young friends' and mine--are symptomatic of the destruction of Catholic culture.  So I think every day about what I can do to restore it.  Is not Christ telling us, as he told St. Francis, "Restore my Church?"

Speaking of the destruction of the Church, I was astounded to learn that "Catholic" Match allows you to choose which of the Church's teachings you believe.  I guess calling the service Heretic Match wouldn't be as lucrative.

Modern Life Is So Disjointed  

I spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to navigate Western medicine for my little family.  I think that is why May has finished me off.   My little engine was already running on fumes.

My dad was hospitalized again this month, this time for a week, and his discharge paperwork included a list of about 20 doctors who saw him during that time, several of whom I am supposed to make appointments with for followup visits.  For the life of me I can't understand why nephrology and urology are two separate specialties!  How dumb is that?  For that matter, why is gastroenterology its own thing?  Why not put those three together into something halfway sensible like an "output" specialist?

After Dad was discharged I canceled two pre-existing appointments with specialists because he needed time to recover from being in the hospital.  He was so weak and disoriented from being there that he fell two times within 24 hours of coming home.  Unbeknownst to us, he spent an entire night on the bedroom floor, freezing under the ceiling fan.  After that he was really confused and thought he was on a boat.  Plus, the hospital managed to let him get another bedsore on his heel, so I needed to get him to the podiatrist to have the dead flesh cut out.

When he was in the hospital, I was making daily hour-and-a-half roundtrips to visit him while trying to keep everything going at home, including taking care of my mother and preparing for Emma's senior recital reception and graduation after-party, and the arrival of relatives for those events.  Thank goodness my sister Beverly came in from Birmingham and took over with Mom.

We got through all that only for our dog to begin a serious decline.  Poor old Cowboy!  His hips refused to keep doing their job, and almost every morning I would find him lying against the back door in his own waste because he had been unable to get up to go to the bathroom in the yard.  Eerily, it was kind of like the night my Dad spent on the bedroom floor.  When I helped Cowboy up, he could walk, but his rear legs would splay out, making him stagger like a drunk.

Finally, my husband Herb dug a hole behind the barn and took Cowboy on his last walk after we each took time to say goodbye.  I watched the old Black Lab's agonizing progress down the sidewalk and beside the barn until he turned behind it to dutifully follow Herb.  Such a sad, sad day!   It was really the end of an era.

We bought Cowboy's mom, Cocoa, and aunt, Genevieve, as newly-weaned pups for Nathaniel and Emma in 1998.  We kept one puppy from each mom:  Cowboy and Spats.  We had to put Spats down last year.  I made the mistake of trying to hold out with him and let him die naturally at home.  Emma and I ended up having to heave him into the back of the car and haul him to the vet to be put to sleep.  I have to say that dying at home at gunpoint on your own grass is the more merciful experience.

When Herb took Cowboy, Emma and I busied ourselves cooking.  I asked her to choose some music for us to listen to so that we didn't hear the gunshot.  She chose a YouTube playlist.  It was all very upbeat music to distract us from our grief.  Strangely, just as Herb returned from his death duty, Danny Boy came on, and my tears began anew.

Surely June will be better.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Blessed Be the Tie That Binds and Other Awkward Situations

Emma and I on Easter Sunday

Last Sunday in Whole Foods, Emma and I were side by side, shopping for produce.  I was wearing one of my favorite skirts that has a lace overlay.  As I was reaching for a bag of avocados, Emma decided to depart for fruits unknown, and suddenly, I felt a tug and saw the left side of my skirt lift . To our surprise, we discovered that some hardware on her purse had developed an attachment for my lace, and it did not want to let go.  So I stood there smiling at all the customers who passed by as Emma worked carefully to separate us without ruining my skirt.  I was ready to slip her purse strap over my shoulder and close the curtain on our embarrassing scene, when Emma's nimble fingers finally worked the purse free from my hip.

"Thank God almighty, free at last!"

Then on Friday, I took my Dad to a specialty surgical hospital to have his third toe on his right foot straightened.  Over the last few years it has curled up, causing him to have to walk on the tip of it.  This caused an ulcer to form that we were constantly having to have cut open and cleaned out.  Plus, walking on that toe was really painful.

On Thursday, a nurse from the hospital called me to give me pre-surgery instructions--nothing to eat or drink after midnight, etc.  I explained all this to Dad.  One of the things she said was that I needed to wash Dad's leg and foot with anti-bacterial soap the night before and also the morning of the surgery.  She also said that Dad should wear shorts.  That night as I was trying to wash his leg and foot, his dog, Cherokee, came nosing around.  I told Cherokee firmly, "No, go away.  You can't lick his leg now."  My Dad looked at me surprised and said, "Why did you tell him that?  He doesn't have any germs."

Sometimes my Dad just makes me burst out laughing.

Dad hasn't worn shorts in years, but I found a pair in his closet, and he was able to put them on himself the morning of the surgery--mostly.  He said they were falling off and asked me to tie the drawstring that was located inside the waistband.  He has arthritis and can't do such things for himself.   So I tied the drawstring into a knot, because I figured a bow wouldn't hold.  I assumed that once he was lying on the hospital bed, it would be an easy matter to undo the knot to get him into a hospital gown.  Then I spotted his 16 ounce coffee cup in the drink holder of his walker.

"Dad, did you drink coffee this morning?"
"Yes."
"But I told you nothing to eat or drink before surgery."
"I know.  I always drink it anyway."
"How much did you drink?"
"The whole cup."
Then my mom piped in, "That's right.  He always drinks his coffee before surgery."
I sighed.
"Let's go," Dad said.

So we took off for the hospital, which is an hour away.  Dad slept most of the time.  He woke up as we were pulling into the parking lot.  His brow furrowed as he looked at the hospital.  "That seems like an awfully big hospital for such a little operation," he observed.

We got inside, and before I could finish the paperwork the receptionist had handed me, Dad said he had to go to the bathroom.  Of course!  The 16 ounces of coffee had kicked in.

Then I remembered the knot.  "Oh, no," I thought to myself.  "How can I get that knot undone discreetly in a public place!"  But before I could think further about it, Dad said, "Grab my shorts.  They're falling off."

Due to the ravages of age on my Dad's anatomy, the part of him that used to serve as a rear brake for slipping waistbands is in full retreat.  So there we were in a busy waiting room, side by side, heading for the bathroom with Dad pushing his walker and me holding up the back of his shorts.

"I am the way and the suspenders," I mused.

We finally got to the bathroom only to discover that the maid was cleaning it.  Dad asked me to get the knot out of the drawstring.  I told him that since the shorts were coming down in the back, he should be able to pull them down without untying the knot.  He insisted that I try anyway.  Between him not being able to stand up straight, his lack of balance, and the limitations imposed by his big tummy, I made little progress.

I cringed every time somebody walked past us.

Dad grew increasingly frustrated.  I was growing a little frustrated myself, as I still needed to fill out all the forms, and we were only minutes away from his appointment time.

Finally the maid came out, and Dad went in with the knot still in place.  A few minutes later he re-appeared and said that I had to get the knot out.  I tried again, all the while conscious of the stares of passersby.  I was again unsuccessful, and he returned to the bathroom, looking like a rapper from the rear view.  Snoop Dog got nothing on him.

During Dad's lengthy sojourn on the throne, he managed by some miracle to get the knot out himself.  When he exited the bathroom, we re-assumed our strange arrangement of me holding up his britches till we could get him seated in the lobby.  When the nurse came to get him, I explained our situation, and she brought a modesty-preserving wheelchair to get him back to the surgery suite.

I was never so glad to see him go!

The surgery was a great success, and on the way home, Dad requested that I stop and get him chocolate ice cream, as is his wont after all medical appointments.  So I got him his ice cream, and I ducked into Chipotle to pick up lunch for myself, as it was after 1:00.  When I returned I found him contentedly spooning in the ice cream while showing off his fashionable post-surgery boot.

The evil shorts had one last hurrah.  When we got back in the house, there wasn't room for me to walk beside him through the dining room, so just as he greeted my mom, the shorts dropped dramatically to the floor, at which point I had him step out of the wretched things and flung them far from me.

My Vacuum Cleaner Meditation

I lugged my parents' vacuum cleaner out on the front porch yesterday to empty the dirt from the canister and clean out the beater bar, which was full of hair, both my daughter's long hair and umpteen swatches of my mother's gray hair from a recent hair cut.

I have to say that being able to see the vacuum's contents is a good lesson in humility.  That's why, as a Catholic housewife, I recommend this kind of vacuum over one with a bag.  Pondering the contents yesterday on the porch, I wanted to run.  I didn't actually see them, but I knew that somewhere in that depth of dirt, skin flakes, hair, bits of leaves, and food crumbs, lurked my Dad's fingernail trimmings, several of which I noticed while wielding the clippers, were lined with fecal material.  Yes, I had definitely waited too long to trim his nails.

I have come to the conclusion, after much contemplation, that family member's poop really is a defining element of my life, as well as possum poop, dog poop, cat poop, chicken poop, and cow poop.  There's much to be contemplated in this revelation.  I aim to get to it.

Turning my attention to the beater bar, I used a pair of scissors to pry loose the long hair and then pulled it and the gray hair and some dust/dirt balls out.  My stomach turned.  I was watching myself and thought, "What right have you to be disgusted?  Imagine what gruesome grit Christ deals with from your sins."

"Truly," I answered myself,  "the housewife's calling is a continuous calling to die to self."

I remembered also that hair is a symbol of the pride of life.  Ah.  Such lessons I am given in my daily duties!

Assessing my housewifely career so far, as near as I can tell, it doesn't get easier.  Just like the beater bar wrapped round with both my daughter's and my mother's hair, I am called to clean up daily the poop of the circle of life.  And to do it joyfully, whether it's from my parents' accidents or rogue possums.

This I am working on.  As I told Emma after being repulsed by finding possum poop in my bedroom, "I tried to embrace this trial joyfully and imagine myself smiling, but instead the loathsome visage of a hissing possum popped into my head."

No wonder God keeps sending me more poop.

++++++

I always knew that as we age, we return to our infancy, but I never expected that in caring for my parents, I would constantly have these moments where I am catapulted back to my children's infancy and youth--like when I lean into the car to fasten one of my parents' seat belts, I have these jarring, yet pleasant, flashbacks of buckling my children into our blue Dodge van.  Or when I bend over to wash Dad's pee from the front of the toilet and mop up the resulting puddle on the floor, I see vividly my own son as a toddler, butt cheeks squeezed hard together, standing on tiptoe trying valiantly to aim perfectly into the toilet.

In Praise of the Hands-on Foot Doctor and Other Observations on Western Medicine

A huge blister appeared on the back of my dad's left heel the day after I brought him home from his recent hospital stay.

It popped the same day and became a nasty oozing wound that grew bigger overnight.  I took him to an urgent care clinic, and the doctor peered at it from afar and prescribed some antibiotic cream.  He had the nurse dress it and sent us on our way.

The next day, we had an appointment with Dad's primary care doctor as a follow-up to being released from the hospital.

Again, this doctor glanced at the wound from a distance.  He prescribed an oral antibiotic.

Despite these interventions and my regular changing of the dressing, the wound slowly spread.  Dad has extremely poor circulation in his legs, so I was really worried about it becoming a serious infection.

Luckily, the next week Dad had an appointment with his podiatrist to follow up on some toe ulcers.  The doctor's assistant immediately took pictures of the afflicted heel.  Then the doctor pulled up a chair, took my dad's foot in his hands, studied the wound, measured the wound, and started calling out descriptors to his assistant to take note of.  He said it was a pressure wound from lying in the same position too long in the hospital.  The podiatrist expressed his frustration with hospitals not putting protective heel cups on elderly patients.

I realized then that this wound could have been easily prevented.

He then whipped out some clippers/scissors and began aggressively cutting away the dead flesh, maintaining a running commentary for our education and pausing every so often to make eye contact with each of us.  He explained that if the dead flesh were not removed, the bacteria inside it would continue to eat away at the good flesh.

How my heart leapt inside my chest with gratitude and affection for this doctor!  He was everything I imagined a doctor should be, right down to his well-polished cowboy boots.

The next day, the wound was noticeably improved in appearance and had shrunk in size.  I felt terrible that I had not thought to bring Dad to the podiatrist in the first place.  The other two doctor visits were a waste of time and money.

This whole episode was a major surprise to me, because I thought caring for wounds was one of the most basic things a medical doctor should be able to do.  But it also highlighted something that I had been noticing for a while--that many doctors do not lay a hand on their patients anymore.  There is a fascination with remote monitoring also, as if electronic monitoring equals care.  I remember lying isolated in recovery after having a c-section for my son.  I was exhausted, emotionally drained, and alone.  Then an automatic blood pressure monitor clamped down on my arm, and it made me start to cry.  I needed human touch.  Human caring.  A consoling word.  I was not comforted by the thought that a nurse at some remote location was looking at a screen with my blood pressure results.

This love of remote monitoring is being translated into the consumer market for senior care with the development of "medical pods" that you can put in your backyard for your elderly relatives.  I applaud those people who are looking for an alternative to nursing homes, but it seems this alternative exchanges one kind of neglect for another.  Certainly it depends on how the individual family makes use of it; I'm sure some families who use them provide lots of hands-on attention and loving interaction to the resident family member.  But some of the marketing is clearly geared to those who think that providing a safe space with video monitoring and built-in pill dispensers, separate from the rest of the family, is the ideal, as if regular human interaction is not important.  I read about this one family that spent $125,000 installing a pod on their property.  I thought to myself, "Gee, you could have added on a mother-in-law suite to your house for less than that!"  The article had a picture of an adult granddaughter sitting down at a monitor in the main house, watching her grandma in her backyard pod.  It gave me the creeps!

Having granny as a part of everyday life in her rocking chair by the family hearth is the stuff of fairy tales, I guess.

Your Diagnosis, Please (Part 3, Final)

Continued from Part 2

I arrived at the hospital to find my dad in an ER room, pulling himself up repeatedly by gripping the side rails of the bed, only to drop back breathlessly on the pillow, accomplishing nothing.  His eyes searched the ceiling for curiosities only he could see.  When he did take a break from pulling himself up, it was to reach longingly for these things and to beg me to help him get them.  Then it was back to the heartbreaking pull-ups.  I watched helplessly each time as his abdominal muscles clenched down with the effort.  I drew close to his head and called to him.  He turned his head and focused his eyes on me.  I asked him what he was trying to do by pulling himself up over and over again.

"I don't know," he said, then turned his eyes back to the ceiling, gripped the handrails, and struggled up again.  I asked him to please stop because he was pushing himself gradually off the end of the bed, which had no footboard.  Again, he looked at me when I talked to him and seemed to understand, but as soon as I was finished talking, he resumed the pull-ups and ceiling searching.

Finally a nurse came and collected a urine sample to be sent to the lab.  The results were announced enthusiastically by the ER doctor, "Your dad has a RAGING urinary tract infection!"

I immediately thought of my friendly redheaded EMT.

"And he has pneumonia in two lobes of his lungs," the doctor finished.

After more waiting, Dad was admitted and transferred to a hospital room where they finally began the IV antibiotics he so desperately needed.

I spent the night in the bed next to him, as this tiny country hospital had no aides to help the nurses.  Wearily I climbed into bed about 11:15, only to be asked questions by the nurse until midnight about Dad's medical history but also personal information like his tv watching habits.  "Maybe I am dreaming," I thought to myself.  "No, welcome to the world of government medical care," my rebel self replied.  Finally she finished her questioning, and I fell asleep.  I awoke several times during the night when the nurse came in and talked to Dad.  I could already hear the difference in him.  He could answer questions coherently.  Relieved, I would drift back to sleep.

Dad happily enjoying a cup of coffee before breakfast.

By the following morning, he seemed his old self.  I went home for a while and returned that afternoon.  I had noticed in the ER that one of Dad's sandals was missing.  Now I saw that it had been returned.  I suspected the ambulance crew had found it.  I decided to go look in the ER driveway and see if the redhead was there with the ambulances.  I busily formulated in my mind how I would instruct her--with all charity, of course--in the fact that she was an idiot and a danger to society.  I got as far as the glass door at the exit.  I stood there and watched as the redhead in her manly navy blue uniform repeatedly drew deeply on an e-cig and blasted giant clouds of vapor into the air around her co-workers.  I thought again about what I could say to her, and this time I tried to think along the lines of something that Christ would want me to say.  Confronted overwhelmingly instead with my own weaknesses and failings, I turned and walked back to my Dad's room, determined to pray for her.

I pondered the situation.  Maybe she had returned the shoe herself.  Maybe she had asked the nurse for his diagnosis and discovered how wrong she had been and repented.  I don't know.  I just knew that I was not yet the person who could tell her.  We had had a happy outcome.  I counted my blessings and brought Dad home the next afternoon.

Your Diagnosis, Please (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1

I told the dispatcher the pertinent details about my dad, then told her about our electric gate at the entrance to our driveway and asked if I should go down to the road to open it for the ambulance.  She said, "No, give me the code."  I gave her the code and told her that the EMT's would have to get out and re-enter the code to close the gate as soon as they came in, because we have a milk cow who does not generally miss an opportunity to escape.  She assured me this was not a problem and would be communicated to the ambulance personnel.

With great difficulty, I managed to get Dad across the house and back in his recliner.  Emma arrived, which was a great comfort to me.

The ambulance pulled in, plus one EMT in his own Dodge diesel truck.  Soon the EMT's crowded into the family room where Dad was sitting.  I think there were three guys and one lady.  The lady, a redhead, began firing questions at me.

"What's his diagnosis?" she demanded.  I struggled mightily to figure out how to answer that question.  My dad has numerous health issues.  But she seemed to want one diagnosis that summed him up completely--one neat little label that would de-humanize him but efficiently generate a code and a treatment plan.  At least that is what ran through my mind.

I was at a loss.  Her stressful tactics were making it difficult for me to organize my thoughts.  "I can tell you what medications he is on," I volunteered weakly.  I started enumerating them, and one of the guys interrupted.  "He's also taking these," indicating several prescription bottles that he had rounded up from a basket in the breakfast room.

I went over, read the labels, and told him that Dad was no longer taking those medicines.  But the stress of the questions from the lady EMT, the effort of thinking about the prescriptions, and the sinking feeling I got from realizing that he had gone un-invited into another room and rifled through my parents' things just seemed to suck the life out of me.

Then the redhead asked me more questions and asked for Dad's ID and insurance cards.  I got them.

I began to wonder if the dispatcher had sent a SWAT team by mistake.  Maybe this was a drug raid, not medical assistance.

One of the guys asked my dad what year it was.

"1972," Dad answered.  I remembered that was the year Dad bought my mom a Volvo station wagon.  He gave me lots of talks back then about the built-in obsolescence he was seeing in American cars.  That's why he bought the Volvo.

"Who's the president?" the guy continued.

"Oh, I know," Dad said confidently.  "That colored fella."  I stifled a giggle.  He grew up in Alabama during the Depression.  He never has gotten the hang of calling negroes "black."

I tried to tell the redhead that I thought Dad might have a UTI and that his temperature had been slowly creeping up.  She was dismissive of my suggestion about a UTI and told me that they would now take Dad into the ambulance to evaluate him.

Suddenly, I remembered the gate and asked Emma to go check and make sure that they had closed it. They had not.  Luckily, Fiona had not seen it.

The redhead came back in to give me her report on Dad's evaluation.  "Everything checks out fine," she asserted.  "He is not a diabetic; his lungs are clear; his temp is 98.7.  The only thing wrong is his blood pressure is very high.  Of course, we can't do labs in the ambulance, so we'll go ahead and take him to the ER."

I wanted to tell her, "Why, thank you very much!  The only reason I called you was for you to take him to the ER!"  But I bit my tongue.  I told her that his normal temperature was around 97.4 and that 98.7 was not normal for him.  I mentioned again that I feared he had a UTI.

"Has he had a foul smell to his urine?" she asked.

As Dad has some trouble with incontinence, and I wash all his clothes and clean his bathroom, I knew the answer to that.

"No," I said.

"Any burning while urinating?"

"I don't know for sure, but he has not complained."

 "You know, he's 82.  At some point you're going to have to consider that he has Alzheimer's or dementia," she pronounced authoritatively.

Disgusted, I thought to myself, "Ah, she finally provided the single diagnosis that she was looking for,"

Aloud, I said, "But this is a night and day difference with my Dad.  He wasn't like this yesterday.  And one of the new medications he is on can cause UTI's."

She didn't roll her eyes, but she managed to convey the same idea with one condescending glance.  I felt sick, humiliated, and angry all at the same time.  She turned and left.  Feeling slightly disoriented, I walked to the kitchen window to watch them leave, only to find that they had backed the ambulance across our large gravel parking area and into the soft ground of the pasture.  They were stuck.  Big time.  I walked away, shaking my head.  This was a nightmare.

Later Emma told me that she saw the redhead get out and point to our hangar, directing one of the guys to go in there and get a board to put under the driver's side rear wheel.  He did as he was told, but he did not get the ambulance unstuck.  Eventually the EMT with the Dodge truck, who had left earlier, was called to come back and pull the ambulance out.

The ambulance finally left, and I talked with the guy who had pulled it out while he put away his chains.  Emma jumped on her bicycle to go check the gate.  It was open.  She grabbed Fiona on her way back.  As the guy with the truck was leaving, he met Emma returning, and they exchanged a few words.  She was leading Fiona by the haltar.

I went back in the house to collect my thoughts and the things I would need for my sojourn in the ER.  This took about 20 minutes.  As I drove down our driveway, I saw that once again, the gate had been left open.  The EMT in the truck exited the gate without closing it.  I called Emma and told her.  She couldn't see Fiona anywhere on our property, so as I left for the emergency room, she left in her car to look for Fiona.  What a day.

And it wasn't over yet.

To be continued.

Your Diagnosis, Please

Last Sunday was one firecracker of a day.

At breakfast my dad was extremely agitated--complaining about severe pain in his left shoulder and weakness in his legs.  He was shaking all over.  I took his blood pressure, and it was 210/104.

I was afraid he was having a heart attack.   I asked him if the pain in his shoulder was the usual pain from his arthritis or if it was different.  He said that it was different.  I told him that I was going to call an ambulance.  By his reaction, you would think that I had told him I had made an appointment for him to be castrated.   He got so upset, it scared me.

I asked him if he had already taken his blood pressure medication.  He checked his pill organizer and said, "Yes.  Looks like I took all my morning meds and all my evening meds too."

"Oh. My. Gosh," I thought, as my mind raced.  "What the heck is going on here?" I asked myself.  I mentally reviewed the medications that he takes in the evening and decided he would be ok.  It was just disturbing that he had done that.  He is usually careful about his prescriptions.

I was removing the blood pressure cuff when, before I realized what he was doing, he took a hydrocodone (pain killer and narcotic) and a Clonozapam (anxiety).

Because the idea of me calling an ambulance made him so much more upset, I decided to wait a little on calling 911 and focused on getting him calmed down and comfortable.  I put a Lidocaine pain patch on his shoulder and helped him get to his recliner.  With a little coaching on deep breathing and meditation, he soon relaxed.  I was happily surprised and encouraged by how receptive he was to this.  I'm sure the meds were beginning to kick in too.  He asked me to take his blood pressure again.  It came down about 40 points in ten minutes.  He was quite pleased.  He smiled at me and said he felt fine.

Much relieved, I sat down on the couch near him to observe and wait.  He was watching tv, like he normally does.  After about 30 minutes, he asked me to turn on some lights.  The only problem was, he was pointing at an area where there are no lights.  I explained this to him and offered to turn on the ones that were actually there.  Then he asked me, "Do you see those three columns over there?"  He pointed his index finger at the east wall.  I said, "No, Dad, I don't see any columns, just the two windows."

He began carefully describing the three columns to me, and I repeated what I saw: just the two windows.  I began to wonder if the combination of the evening meds, the hydrocodone, and Clonazapam were making him delusional.  They certainly made him cheerful.  And he assured me that he was feeling no pain.  I sat back down.

Emma, on her way to church, texted me to see how Grandpa was doing.  I told her the latest developments.

A little while later Dad asked me if I saw the numbers on the wall and the ribbon that was woven in between them.  I told him that I did not.  I noticed then that although he had the tv on, his headphones that allow him to actually hear it were in his lap.

"Dad," I said.  "Do you know what year it is?"

"2065?" he asked.

"Oh, dear.  That makes you very, very old," I replied.  Because you were born in 1933."

He smiled.  "I think you need to keep asking me questions like that," he told me pleasantly.

At that point I decided I could probably rule out a heart attack.

Emma called me and said that she had spoken with her friend, Angela, who is a nurse in a geriatric psychiatric ward.  Angela said it sounded like a urinary tract infection (UTI).

"Of course!" I thought, remembering a similar reaction by my mom several years ago when she was hospitalized for a stroke.  But I still wasn't sure.  Dad didn't have a history of UTI's and there was still the question of a possible drug reaction.

I told Emma that as soon as she got home to stay with Grandma, I would take Grandpa to the Urgent Care clinic we frequent.  He is much more amenable to going to Urgent Care than to the hospital emergency room.  I can't blame him.  The emergency room is a nightmare for the elderly.

Soon after Dad got up and walked to the bathroom, using his walker as he normally does.  He was in there a long while.  I went to the door several times to inquire if he was ok.  He assured me he was.

When he finally came out, I saw immediately that he was not ok.  He could barely walk, and he was panting heavily.  I told him to sit down on the seat of his walker.  He did.  Whereas he usually picks up his feet when I push him in his walker, this time he let them drag.

I knew my window of opportunity for getting him into the car had slammed shut.  I called 911.

To be continued...

From the Vape Shop to The Mystical City of God

No, I haven't taken up vaping.  My mom has.  Weird, I know.  But she had been using these funny little metal cigarette-shaped e-cigarettes (sorry if I don't use the correct terminology) that had to be constantly recharged and were always having issues because they were such poor quality.  "Smoking" these things helps Mom with her anxiety, so she would get frantic when she didn't have one ready to go.  I would spend ten to fifteen minutes a day checking on e-cigs, trying to get them to charge or making sure they were charged.  It was nuts.  So my son suggested that I get her set up with a nice one that has a tank that you fill up with "juice".  Desperate to be done with the irritating e-cigs, I purchased an Aspire Nautilus tank and a hot pink Eleaf iStick battery last June, and she has been one happy vaper ever since.   She affectionately calls this rig "my puffer."  I call it her peace pipe.  I generally refill the tank every other week, and I charge it every night.  Super easy.

Except for the rare problem: Last Thursday I couldn't get the tank open to refill it.  I actually rubbed the skin on my hand raw trying to twist the thing loose.  With the prospect of no vaping, Mom started to panic.  She dug out this box of mini cigars that she had tucked away, and I quickly lit one up for her.   Then I busied myself with trying to charge one of the old e-cigs.  I  realized I needed to make an emergency run to the vape shop.

The vape shop I patronize is a friendly place with a team of ever so helpful young men at the ready to answer my latest question and/or mix up my juice order.   One of the guys leapt to my assistance as soon as I walked in.  I described the problem, and he immediately wrapped the tank with a piece of rubbery stuff and used some pliers to turn and open it   I was so excited!  And enormously relieved.  Then I went and sat at the juice bar to await my order being filled.  I asked for a recommendation on a pre-mixed juice for an 82-year-old grandma who doesnn't like fruit flavors.

The answer was "Cowboy."

"Fine," I said.  "I'll take three bottles."

They were busy, so I had to wait a while.  This is when my discomfort began, because not less than three people shared a story, amid uproarious laughter, of giving a child an energy drink as a form of lighthearted "revenge" on the parent.  I was keenly aware of being from a different culture from these poor people.  I looked hard at each storyteller and tried to see what had happened to them in their life to cause such thoughtlessness.   I began to feel sad and disheartened.  Finally I got my three bottles of Cowboy and checked out.

Once home, I discovered that my order of the new English edition of The Mystical City of God by Ven. Mary of Agreda had arrived.  I sat down and began reading Volume 1.

Immediately I was immersed in a world where the love of God was the highest priority.  It was almost a shock after the vape shop.   I soon noticed that tiny moisture droplets were stealthily creeping down my cheeks.  This seems to happen to me whenever I experience a deep moment of connection with the Faith.  It's tears without crying.  I actually think it's more like a signal to me to pay closer attention, kind of like how a hunting dog points when it spots a bird.

When I read that Ven. Mary died on Pentecost,  at the hour the Holy Ghost descends, and that several people heard her last words to be, "Come, come, come," I just wanted to suck the whole contents of the book inside myself in one great draught--my version of vaping, I guess.  What a balm for my troubled soul!   I thought of my friends at the vape shop and how different they would most likely be if they had been born into Christendom like Ven. Mary.  And I deeply regretted not making an attempt to charitably propose an alternative viewpoint to their acceptance of doing harm to a child for their own entertainment.

Photo Credit:  Tradition in Action

Yesterday, I wanted to read again about Mary's dying on Pentecost, but I couldn't find it in the book.  So I decided to google it.  I saw several results concerning her 500 bi-locations to America to convert some of the Indians of the Southwest, including Texas.  I read a 3-part series of articles on Tradition in Action about this, her work as "The Lady in Blue".  And I thought, "Dear Mary of Agreda, we have a whole new tribe of Indians in need of conversion in Texas!"  I was particularly thinking of my dear "Indians" at the vape shop.  I was a little startled at that point, remembering how I refer to my mother's "puffer" as her peace pipe and that the juice that was recommended to me is called "Cowboy".

God really does have a sense of humor.

I Know What I'm Doin'

One of the best things about taking care of my parents is getting to hear bits about their lives that I would probably have missed otherwise.

Like tonight, out of the blue, my mom told me that her Grandma Thomley cooked fantastic meals on her wood stove and that she always had sweet potatoes baking in there.  She also said that Grandma Thomley picked cotton up until the year before she died at 92 or 93 and that she was a "go-getter."

"She cooked until she died," Mom said.  This gave me pause.  I wondered if I would even want to cook until I died.  Already at age 55, some days I am pretty tired of cooking.

Then Mom remembered that she and Dad stopped to visit Grandma Thomley early in their marriage, and she was cooking cornbread and talking with them.  My dad said, "You better pay attention to that cornbread," and Grandma Thomley said, "I know what I'm doin'," not snarky, just as a statement of fact, according to my mom.  She was in her 80s at the time.

Previously the only thing my mom told me about Grandma Thomley was that she lived in a dogtrot cabin and that when she spied my mama and her twin sister coming down the road to her house, she would start in making chocolate tarts for them, and they were the best chocolate tarts ever.  As background my mom had told me that the extended family always did their hog killing at the Thomley grandparents' home and that when my grandmother experimented with the new-fangled margarine that came out during the Great Depression, the kind you had to add artificial coloring to, my mother would resolutley walk to her grandparents' house to get real butter, because the margarine was nasty.  Some things never change!

And God Laughed at My Plan

As a follow-up to Yes, Dad, I am Guilty, I thought you might enjoy this post I contributed to another blog a year ago, before I started taking care of  my parents full time.


I started off Monday with a great and holy plan.

I would give myself a one-day silent retreat using the book, The School of Jesus Crucified.   Well, at least until it was time to take my dad to his cardiologist appointment at 5 pm.   It had been a busy and emotionally draining couple of weeks with family and other out-of-town guests visiting, and I thought this little retreat was just what I needed to restore my peace of heart.   I said my morning prayers then launched right in on the book.   It was fabulous, and I got pretty excited about the spiritual progress I was sure to make.

I had read and meditated for about a half an hour when the phone rang.  It was my mom letting me know that her home health aide did not come to work.  My mom has been confined to a wheel chair ever since she had a stroke two years ago.  I called the aide, but she didn't answer.  I left a message.   Then I cooked bacon and eggs for Mom and took it down to her house.  Dad had eaten cereal.   I greeted him on the front porch.

I *think* he greeted me as well, but frankly, I can't remember for sure because the next words out of his mouth changed the whole focus of my day.

"Wendy, I'm out of cigarettes, and I've been out since yesterday at noon," he said, getting directly to the point as he handed me an empty L&M 100s package.  I figured the information about how long he had been out was to help me understand the urgency of the situation.  "And look at this," he added with deep concern, holding up his beloved little dog to me.  "Cherokee's got a giant tick on his leg.  He needs to go to the vet."

I looked at the tick.

"Dad,"  I said,  "That is not a tick.  It's some kind of tumor."

"It is so a tick!  Look.  Feel it."

I pressed the soft, black sphere and looked at how it was attached.  "It's not a tick, Dad," I contradicted.  "A tick's body gets big, but only its head burrows in.  This thing is connected to the skin all the way around."

"Will you make him an appointment and take him to the vet?" my dad persisted.  "Today?" he added.  Dad can still drive, but if he does he is not eligible for home health services, which he needs.  So no more driving.

"Yes," I sighed as I felt a dark cloud gather over my head.  I imagined the Vet's office with the walls papered in annoying posters about vaccinations and neutering.  Big Pharma rules there too.  Ugh!    Clearly, God had a different plan for my day!

I went inside and gave Mom her breakfast, got her dressed, washed the dishes, and started a load of laundry.

Then I went home and got my purse and headed to the Tobacco Shack.  I had really been primed for silence and prayer.  I felt the resentment monster crashing through my soul.  A knot tightened in my chest.   And then the guilt.  I pulled into the drive-through of the cigarette place and saw a sign that said that it didn't open until 9.  I had ten minutes to wait.  I decided to fill up the car with gas.

I left the driver's door open as I pumped the gas.  When I finished and went to get in the car, I noticed a bright green praying mantis on the roof.  I thought bitterly, "Oh, funny.  I wanted to pray and now here's this praying mantis.  Too weird."  I shooed him back so he wouldn't get squished when I closed the door.  I drove into the grocery store parking lot and parked, waiting for 9:00.  As I glanced out the driver's door window, the praying mantis leaped onto the driver's side mirror.  He turned his queer triangular head and peered at me.  I studied him and marveled at his construction--all the joints in his legs and the searching way he turned his head when he looked at me.  I recalled something that I had read that morning about how God gave us creation so we would know how much he loved us.  As I pondered this thought and gazed at him, time stood still.  Then the mantis raised up on his hindmost legs and then plunged forward, galloping along the top of the mirror.  The sheer beauty of it caused me to gasp, and tears trickled down my cheeks.

"Thank you, God, for the attitude adjustment," I whispered.

Back home with the precious cigarettes, I  called the vet to make an appointment.  I felt relieved when they said they couldn't take him until the next day.  Later, when I went back to my parents' to cook their midday meal, my mom said, "I gave your dad the tweezers to pull out that tick."

"What?" I asked in disbelief.

"But he couldn't get it," she finished.

"Mom!  No!  It's not a tick!" I had a mental image of me doing a face palm and thought, "Watch it, Wendy.  Remember your attitude adjustment.  But I could feel the frustration coming back.

Later, zooming down the highway to my dad's cardiologist appointment, he confided that he had painted the "tick" with fingernail polish.

"Okay, Dad," I sighed, totally defeated.  

And I reviewed my day and the retreat that God had planned for me and what a failure I was.

The next morning my parents' home health aide called and said, "You can cancel that appointment with the vet.  They already looked at that lump when Cherokee had his shots.  They said it was a fat deposit and not to worry about it."

That night, after I had put my mom to bed, my dad called me into his office where he was playing his millionth game of Solitaire on the computer.  He said, "Wendy, you were right about the tick.  I was wrong.  I'm sorry."

My heart melted, and I hugged him tight.

"I love you, Daddy.  It's ok."

Yes, Dad, I am Guilty

A series of emotional bombs exploded in my parents' kitchen the other night when my Dad discovered that I had not been giving his beloved Yorkshire Terrier his Trifexis heart worm/flea/parasite pill.  For six months.

Cherokee, Dad's little bundle of joy

It's a simple problem about which the dog, Cherokee, and I had reached an understanding.  He did not  like taking the pills, and I did not like trying to make him take them.  The only problem with our agreement was that we did not consult an interested third party, my dad.

Ignorance is bliss, right?  Apparently, not.

I mean, it's not like I didn't try.  I wrapped those Trifexis bricks in cheese.  Stuffed them in ground chicken.  Hid them in supposedly irresistibly tasty, special-for-the-purpose pill covers.  I had my son hold Cherokee while I pried his jaws of iron apart and tried to plunge the poison down his gnarly-growly throat.  Not only was I unsuccessful, he bit me.  Yeah, I call that technique the Pry, Try, & Cry.

No lie.

So as I stood guiltily facing my accuser, Dad's face turned white and seemed to expand eerily.  He threw his head back like I had delivered him a fierce blow under his chin.

"YOU JUST WANT MY DOG TO DIE!" he gasped.

The heavy scent of Eau de Drama threatened to choke me.  I briefly considered fainting.

At this point my mother, in her infinite wisdom, decided to resurrect Pee Wee, Dad's dog from his teenage years in the late 1940s.  "You didn't give Pee Wee heart worm pills, did you?" she asked, smiling smugly with her own cleverness.

Dad wasn't falling for that one, though.  He simply answered, "No," and returned his attention to me..."poor, poor pitiful me.  Lord have mercy on me."  (Just a little Linda Ronstadt moment.  It was so perfect, I couldn't pass it up.)

"I can't believe you didn't tell me!" Dad snapped.

At this point, neither could I.  It seemed like a good idea at the time?  I was beginning to feel like a teenager again but not in the good way that we 50-somethings dream about.

At last Dad excused himself to his computer to blow off the rest of his steam on a game of Solitaire.  He didn't talk to me again that night.  I think it was a good thing.  Don't you?

The next day I took Cherokee back to the vet and got him some topically-applied heart worm/flea medicine.  And today I took him and got him groomed.  So I am back in Dad's good graces.

Until my next major goof-up, anyway.

Cherokee, for his part in the trouble, got extra cuddling and a dish of ice cream.

Crazy American Fake Beauty

The other day my mom broke two teeth, prompting me to delve into the mysterious world of cosmetic/restorative dentistry in search of solutions.

I was taken aback to see beauty pageant queens on a couple of the websites, lavishing praise on the particular dentist who had made their smile perfect with the addition of veneers, etc.  I suppose they got a discount on their bill for this creepy advertisement.

Immediately I considered checking plastic surgeons' sites for more endorsements from beauty queens, but my guardian angel nixed that idea, and I was saved from indulging my wicked curiosity.  Whew!

Anyway, I am no big endorser of beauty pageants, but my goodness, I thought the contestants had real parts!  Silly me.  This is America after all, where we spend thousands on making our teeth so white that they glow in the dark but buy the cheapest, most de-natured food in the world to put inside our mouths.

Four Angels Round My Bed

Crib of the Infant Jesus, 15th Century.  Metropolitan Museum of Art

Every night when I put my mom to bed, I say this prayer:

God bless this house from roof to floor
The twelve apostles guard the door.

Four great angels round my bed
Two my feet and two my head.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
Bless the bed that I lie on.

Sometimes I am really tired and say the meal blessing without realizing it, which prompts my mother to giggle, which makes me laugh, which makes it harder to remember the prayer I am supposed to be saying.  Usually she'll prompt me after I make a few false starts.

Anyway, in trying to learn more about the prayer, I discovered that the most common version goes like this:

Four corners to my bed,

Four angels round my head;

One to watch and one to pray

And two to bear my soul away.

Apparently the one I am saying is an amalgamation of several different prayers, but we like it that way, so I am okay with that.  The way I learned it from a children's prayer book includes this ending:

Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray the Lord my soul to keep, 

If any danger come to me, 

Sweet Jesus Christ deliver me.

And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

The Crib of the Infant Jesus photo above reminded me of the prayer.  I saw it in the Met's twitter feed and was immediately enchanted.  Here's the description of the crib from the museum's web site:

Miniature cradles for the Christ Child were popular devotional objects in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and were venerated, especially in convents, where they were often presented to women taking their vows. This splendid cradle comes from the Grand Béguinage of Louvain, Belgium, established for lay women in the twelfth century. It is decorated with carved representations of the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi on either end. The biblical family tree of Christ is illustrated on the embroidered coverlet.

There are eight other photos, including close-ups of the head and foot board carvings.  Take a look.

Reading for Conversion II

I've got a carrot cake in the oven, so I thought I would try to blast out a post, lest I fall off the blogging wagon once more.

I think my dad may be making progress towards conversion. Thursday at breakfast he told me that he had run into the word "sentient" and that it had been a long time since he had seen it. I thought I knew the definition but wasn't sure, so I googled it right then. I had it wrong. This is what the dictionary said:

able to see or feel things through the sensesMan is a sentient being.There was no sign of any sentient life or activity.

I asked him where he read it, and he told me that it was used in the physics book he is reading, The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe.   The book qualifies as a tome:

Definition of tome in English:

noun

chiefly humorous

A book, especially a large, heavy, scholarly one:a weighty tome

The Amazon description pegs its weight at 4 lbs.  And it is definitely scholarly.  My experience of it with Dad has indeed been "chiefly humorous."  When he was doing the prep for a colonoscopy last month--the one where you drink the gallon of nasty stuff, and it gives you death by diarrhea--to save energy he parked himself on the toilet to await the process completion.  As he finished each glass of the Liquid Plumber, he would call me for a refill.  The first time I paused before entering and asked him to please cover himself with something.   He has no discernible sense of modesty.  He said, "Ok.  I'm ready."  I walked in to find him butt naked except for the strategically place Road to Reality.  Then yesterday he had a doctor's appointment.  He can't dress himself because of his arthritis, although he does manage to put on his underwear.  Other than his boxers, his daily attire is his robe.  So when he has to wear real clothes, I dress him.  I entered his room to get him ready and found him waiting for me: sitting on the foot of the bed in his boxers, legs crossed, reading Road to Reality.  He looked so cute!

Boy, did I digress or what?  Back to "sentient."  I read aloud the paragraph with "sentient" in it.  I skimmed through some other parts too, trying to figure out if the book was anti-religion.  I hit upon this one paragraph that included a sentence stating that science without morals was a bad thing.  SCORE!  I was so happy!   I read that sentence aloud, and we discussed it briefly in the light of the book we recently finished, A Song for Nagasaki.  Dad agreed with me.  So now I know that Dad and I have something to build upon.

I mentioned that I missed having a read-aloud book going, and Mom and Dad both agreed that they missed it too.  I asked Dad what he wanted me to read next.  He asked for something about Alaska.  We talked about Jack London and The Call of the Wild and also London's book The Sea Wolf, which we had discussed when I read it in the sixth grade.  Strange to think about us still discussing books 43 years later.  I had been planning on reading With God in Russia to them to continue the Catholic in WWII theme but didn't know if choosing only Catholic books would wear thin with Dad.  That's why I asked him what he would like to read next.  So I guess we'll go to Alaska and maybe then slide over to Russia.  I want to read the companion book to With God in Russia also.  It's called He Leadeth Me.

****

The carrot cake's done, and I need to make the frosting.

A most blessed Feast of Christ the King to you all!

Is There Any Dessert?

Yes, I am using my old iPhone 4s, and it doesn't take great pics.

I've been taking care of my parents full-time since June, and there were certain rituals established by their former caregiver that I've had to keep going, one of which is nightly dessert.

It seems like a simple thing, and my parents really, really, really look forward to it.  But I have failed in this task many times.  Each time I comforted myself by remembering that said former caregiver, a true sweetheart, was not also taking my parents to all their doctors' appointments, doing the grocery shopping, paying their monthly bills, doing all the housework, or managing home maintenance.  That thought worked great until suppertime came, and I would see the crestfallen looks on my parents' faces when my dad would invariably ask, "Is there any dessert?" and I did not produce the longed-for treat.  I don't think he cares if his toilet gets cleaned, but no dessert?  Tragedy!

With those sad mugs in mind, I hit upon the happy mug solution--mug cakes.  They take about 4 minutes to mix up and two minutes each to cook in the microwave.  The first one I tried was a coconut flour one by EverydayMaven.  It was absolutely prepared in a whirlwind of desperation.  After I dumped them out of the coffee mugs, I turned them on their sides, sliced them into thirds, and then popped them in the freezer to cool while I whipped some heavy cream and threw frozen strawberries in a pan on the stove with a little water and honey.  Once the cakes were cooled off, I spread them with some St. Dalfour's strawberry jam, then stacked them with whipped cream and strawberries between each layer.  It made a stupendous tower.  Mom's face lit up when she saw hers, and she dug right in.  Dad was late coming to the table, and all of a sudden his tower leaned, and the top third slid off onto the plate.  I didn't let the strawberries cool enough.  Drat and double drat!  So I stuck it back together the best I could.  He didn't care one bit, but I was disappointed because I didn't think to get a picture until Mom's was half eaten and Dad's was a mess.

Dad's Slippery Slope Strawberry Shortcake

The next night I made EverydayMaven's chocolate mug cake.  While they were cooking, I melted some chocolate chips with butter and stirred in some heavy cream and a handful of chopped up frozen cherries.  I spooned this concoction in between the layers and topped each cake with whipped cream and a whole cherry.  See picture at top.  

Another night I repeated the vanilla (coconut flour) cakes and stirred chocolate chips into the batter, then squirted Ah-laska chocolate syrup on top when they came out of the microwave.  No pic, use your imagination.

Last night I made the chocolate ones again, spread chocolate syrup on the layers and served it with Emma's amazing homemade peppermint chocolate-chip ice cream, which has like a gazillion egg yolks, all heavy cream, and tons of Kerry Gold butter in it.  Yeah, it will satisfy your ice cream craving.

Chocolate mug cake topped with chocolate syrup and served with peppermint chocolate-chip ice cream

So I am officially out of the dessert dog house, but I need to get off this blog and go make a big pan of something, peach cobbler maybe, so I can face suppertime stress-free.

Living on Gecko Time

I don't know if it's the Year of the Gecko or what, but for the last several months, we have been blessed with a gathering of geckos every night--on my kitchen sink window and also on my mother's bathroom window.

We have grown to love them.  Every night, while I perch on the side of the garden tub, waiting for my mom to potty after I get her dressed for bed, we count the geckos on her bathroom window and wonder what they're thinking--why they favor this window and my kitchen sink window, and what they think about.

We worry that with the cooler weather, they will soon disappear.

"Don't go, geckos!" we tell them.

"They're so cute." my mother opines.

I think it's because ours are kind of chubby.  Also, there is something about the way they curl their tails, forming lower case "j's" with legs, that I find attractive--kind of reminds me of paisleys, I suppose.  I love the way they stay in one place, then suddenly all move and pause again.  Maybe it is gecko freeze tag, but I suspect it has something to do with potential prey.

Anyway, we count them eagerly each night.

"Only four!  Is it getting too cold for them?"
"Look, six tonight!"

We savor living on Gecko time, but winter is coming.