I was messaging with my brother this morning. In the wee hours of the morning, someone got stuck on the road in front of their place, and it took two tow trucks to get them out. Then the tow trucks came back into the parking lot, for someone else!
The plows were out, though, so the roads should be clear again. The highways, at least.
I was questioning whether my brother was going to come out to my mother’s place today. They were already recommending I stay home, but my brother is going to make the trip! This must be the only day he has available for it.
I headed out to do that cats stuff and, at first, things looked pretty good. The bright sunny morning, and being sheltered from the wind, was deceptive. The sun room’s thermometer was reading 0C/32F, which was encouraging.
A few minutes outside, though, and I was starting to really feel the cold, even as bundled up as I was!
In the end, the choice was made for me. There isn’t a lot of drifting, but enough that I’d want to dig through them, before trying to drive anywhere – and there was no way I would be outside shoveling today!
After today, things will warm up a little bit, and then we’re supposed to drop down to highs of -30C/-22F, as another Polar Vortex sweeps through. Wednesday coming up looks to be the warmest day over the next little while, which is good, because that’s when we’re supposed to bring 3 yard cats in to the vet for spay/neuter.
Today, however, is a day to stay indoors as much as possible!
I had a strangely rough night last night. I wasn’t able to sleep, so when I heard my older daughter taking a break from work at about 3am, and we grabbed something to eat. Just as I settled down, I started to sneeze.
And sneeze.
And sneeze.
For the next hour, at least, I was either sneezing or fighting off sneezes. I have no idea what I was reacting to! Yes, I took antihistamines, but they made no difference.
I did finally get an hour of two of sleep, waking up as it started to get light out. I messaged with my brother and SIL a bit about tomorrow – though that may change – and meeting up at my mother’s apartment, then headed outside to do the morning routine.
The wind was brutal. We’d had a bit of snow during the night, which was actually appreciated, as the paths I wasn’t able to spread ashes over, plus the driveway were not as slippery. On the down side, the paths were also starting to fill in and drifts starting to form. Nothing to complain about, really. As the storm moved across the prairies, highways were being closed all over the place. The local highways group had people posting about poor visibility and road conditions, but they were still passable.
Once I was done, though, I had enough energy to grab some instant oatmeal for breakfast and then crashed for several hours, completely embedded by cats. I think they were cold!
We had a couple of packages we ordered that had reached the city, and my husband got a notification that one of them had arrived at our local post office. I decided to wait until the post office closed then reopened at 2pm, though, and sure enough the second package arrived from the city, too. So I headed out after the post office reopened.
Straight into a brutal wind. Conditions had definitely worsened. A drift was starting to form in front of the garage door that I had to shovel out before I could leave. The wonderful plow job on our gravel roads was being drifted over, and visibility was poor.
Thankfully, I only had to go a few miles.
One of the packages was a new office chair for my husband, to replace his broken one. He’s been using a small armchair for the past while, and it’s brutal on his back injury. Picking up the chair was not something that was going to wait!
As I write this, we are still at -15C/5F. When I got home, the wind chill was -35C/31F, but it has since dropped to -37C/-35F.
Tomorrow is supposed to be colder, and almost as windy.
Hopefully, my brother’s schedule will allow him to postpone going to my mother’s for a day!
As soon as we got the box inside, my daughter immediately started to assemble the chair for her father. While she worked on that, my husband got to check out the new “toy” he picked up, as something to keep in the truck.
Or for me to keep handy while working outside after the snow is gone.
Yeah. It’s a hammer, axe, multi-tool, with holster.
The second picture shows it opened up.
We were pleasantly surprised by the quality, to be honest. That axe is sharp! The knife is really good, too, and the screwdriver/file/bottle opener is also solid. The pliers don’t seem to be as strong, but it’s not going to be seeing heavy duty work. The hammer has surprising heft to it, and is actually useable.
I didn’t spot where they opened as I quickly looked at it, but there are several screwdriver tips in the handle that fit into the top of the axe/hammer head. There’s also a magnesium rod tucked in there somewhere, with a built in whistle.
I’m going to have to grab it from my husband and look it over again!
The “snowflake” that came with it is also surprisingly strong. Each tip is a different screwdriver tip or hex key and each space is a different size wrench, plus a bottle opener. One of the tips doubles as a box cutter. There’s a hole for the key ring, but the ring is flimsy. My husband will probably add a cord to it, instead. That’s something he will probably keep handy and find more useful.
The whole thing is absolutely hilarious, adorable – and may actually be useful! A lot of these multi-tool gadgets look great, but once you try to use them, their designs are not practical at all. I look forward to trying this thing out.
Meanwhile, it looks like the worst of the weather system has passed by. Wind will still be an issue, and any new snow expected isn’t supposed to show up until night time.
We’ll see how things are for my brother. His schedule is far less flexible, so I will adjust to what works for him.
Did quite a bit of running around today, which I’ll cover in another post. Since I was in town anyhow, I did a small grocery shopping trip that turned out to be bigger than originally planned. I was only there for bread, milk and cheese! 😄
This is what $121.25 looks like, but I got $20 off from my loyalty points.
Yeah, most of it fit into the one hard sided bag I brought.
One of my daughters mentioned we were running low on glass top stove cleaner, so I picked up a bottle of that. I also got a 12 pack each of Coke Zero and Fresca for the four of us, which were on sale.
There was actually ginger snap cookies in stock, so I got a box for my husband, along with two jugs of distilled water for his CPAP humidifier. I also got him some frozen tater tots as an each snack that he can prepare himself.
Then I got two packs of marble, two packs of white Old Cheddar, lactose free cheese, which were on sale. They didn’t have any 2L 3% milk in stock, so I got 2%.
I spotted hoagie sausages on sale, so I got two packages. The sale price is what used to be their regular price. The girls really like those. I also picked up a ring of garlic sausage, made by a local company.
Then, finally, I got the bread I was there for. Four loaves of regular white and whole wheat bread. The rye bread I normally get was on sale, and completely out of stock, so this was the substitute.
And that’s it. All that, with sale prices and discounts, came out to over $100.
*sigh*
On another note, our pantry just got a boost for canned soups and a few more cans of beans. With my mother still in the hospital and not going back to her apartment, I’m going to start clearing some things out, little by little. My brother and SIL had picked up a lot of canned soup and such for her, as it was a lot easier for her and something the home care staff could prepare for her. After talking to them about it, they told me to take them, since we have “more mouths to feed”. 😄 I certainly won’t say no to things to add to our pantry!
While shopping today, I saw the canned beans we used to get regularly were on sale as 2/$3 A sale price of $1.50 per can, that used to cost 97¢ a can, regular price, not that long ago.
What isn’t pictured is my stop at the pharmacy. I got ibuprofen for the girls. Two smaller bottles that were on sale, making them cheaper than getting one larger bottle. I got acetaminophen for myself, which is safe to take with my anti-inflammatories. I still have some prescription painkillers left, but I don’t want to be using those if I don’t have to. I also got a tube of Voltaren for myself, that was on sale, and lactaid for my husband, which was not on sale. That all came out to something like $98.
I did stop at the hardware store before going to visit my mother, trying to find some Roof Melt. Turns out, they don’t even carry it, though the website made it look like they did. The city stores carry it, not the small towns. The first staff I asked about it didn’t even know what it was. I ended up talking to a manager? I think? who has helped me before. They tried really hard to find something for me. One of the other staff came by and heard what I was asking for, and got all excited, because it’s a product she would be getting, too! In the end, the manager said he was going to try and order something in, but he wasn’t sure if it would work.
He did mention that you can get beet juice granules. Somewhere. He didn’t know. This would be sprinkled on the roof and in the eavestroughs in the fall, where they would keep things clear all winter, and are completely safe for the grass and water table the melt water would drain to.
While doing the morning rounds, I could not believe just how slippery everything was! I don’t think we’ve had anything like this, since we moved out here. Today was even more dangerous than after it was actually raining.
The camera on my phone seems to compensate a bit for the brightness. I couldn’t actually look at where I was taking the pictures, the sun’s glare on the ice was so blinding. I had to be super careful walking the paths to set out food and water for the yard cats. I was really appreciating the handles I’d put on the isolation shelter, as they gave me something to grip as I went from one sliding window to the other. I’d cleared the patio blocks below, but they are now covered with a thick layer of sheer ice.
Tomorrow, we’re supposed to get above freezing, so things should soften up and, in some areas, melt clear. Hopefully, that means the highway will be dry by the afternoon, as I plan to go to my mother’s apartment to check on things, then hit the hardware store to get some Roof Melt to get rid of the ice dam that has formed on the sun room roof.
Speaking of my mother…
I called the hospital last night. I timed it badly, as they were doing shift change, and I was asked to call back later. That meant I was talking to a new shift nurse, who had just barely been debriefed.
My mother, it turns out, had a rather “bad” day… and by “bad”, it was about her behaviour.
She had called me early in the morning, before they came to do her vitals, and over an hour before they were scheduled to do her morning meds. After I called the nurses’ desk back to explain the call to my mother, they checked on her, then I got a call back with an update.
Some time after that, it turns out my mother went into the hall and started yelling and swearing at the staff, calling them stupid. The nurse I was talking to had been updated during their shift change meeting, but hadn’t completely finished reading the written report yet, but she was able to tell me that the previous nurse managed to get her back into her room. The nurse then addressed her behaviour, in private.
I was both surprised and not surprised at the same time. I think it was the swearing that actually surprised me the most, because I didn’t think she knew any swear words in English. I’m probably wrong on that. If she had been swearing in Polish, it’s unlikely they wouldn’t have known if something was a swear, other than by tone.
I apologized for my mother’s behaviour, of course, but the nurse just laughed it off. She told me, the get this quite a bit, and never take it personally.
At the end of the call, I made sure to pass on my gratitude for how well they are taking care of my mother. She does not make it easy.
Some changes in her schedule were made, though. My mother complained that they weren’t doing anything for her, regarding her pain in particular. The only things they do for that is give her her Tylenol and rub affected areas with Voltaren, both of which help her a lot. These, however, were “as needed”, and if she didn’t specifically ask for them, she wouldn’t get them. It seems she wasn’t asking for them as often as she should have been. So now, both are scheduled. She will get both, twice a day, without her having to ask for them first.
There really isn’t anything else they can do for her. Most of her maladies are not things that can be fixed. At 94 years old, her body is simply giving out in places – and she really is doing remarkably well for her age! She doesn’t think so, of course.
Hopefully, they will find a care place for her soon, whether its assisted living, or a nursing home, like she wants. These places tend to have activities to help with cognitive decline, or simply for socializing. There is nothing like that available in the hospital, so she’s basically stuck alone for much of the day, stewing in her own mind, without the distractions she had become used to.
At the end of my call with the nurse, who was about to do the evening meds, she promised to call me back, if there was anything of concern. She did not call, so no news is good news.
After checking my mother’s apartment tomorrow, depending on the road conditions, I will drive to the hospital and visit her, too.
For a while, there, my mother had been doing so well. She really was happier than I’d seen her in years. Now, she seems to be reverting to her usual self again. Which makes the idea of visiting her or calling her on the phone a lot more stressful than it should be.
The hospital staff are saints. My mother is not the only difficult patient they have to deal with! At least, with her, she is an “easy” patient, in that she doesn’t need a lot of physical care, for someone that is hospitalized.
While we haven’t had anything official yet, we at least have been told she is not going to be discharged back to her apartment. They just don’t know when or where she will be discharged to, yet.
Which puts the rest of us in limbo.
I suppose we should start packing her apartment, though. I just don’t know where to start!
One of the things we found when we were cleaning the house out, before the movers brought our stuff, was an old rotary dial phone.
That phone is now set up beside my bedside, as it will continue working, even during power failures, unlike the modern cordless phones. There is one down side, though.
The ring is LOUD!
That’s what I woke up to.
That wasn’t the most jarring thing, though.
I actually got out of bed to grab the cordless phone, so I could check the call display, first. It was from the hospital. Sort of.
It was my mother, calling from her own phone in the hospital.
The first thing she started asking me was if I knew where the pendant for her Lifeline was. I told her, it was with the base in her apartment now. She wanted me to use it. I told her, I would have to drive to her town to do that (a half hour drive, if road conditions are good. They are not good.). But I have their number, right? Yes…
She wanted me to call her Lifeline to get advice on what to do.
…
She’s in the hospital, and she wants me to call the Lifeline for… health advice?
As you can imagine, this was very confusing even when not bleary from being half asleep!
From what I can figure out, if she had still had the pendant with her, she would have tired to use it, expecting to get a response from Lifeline, even though 1) the base is in her apartment and 2) her account is currently suspended until we know where she is going next.
She also thought the number I had was to whoever would have been monitoring her Lifeline, had it been active. The number I have is for their customer service. I didn’t even think about that at first, because I had no clue what she was getting at.
I told her, she’s in the hospital. If she needs help, use the call button.
What followed as a whole lot of jumbled stuff that I struggled to make sense of. Partly because she was talking in Polish, and didn’t have her teeth in. At the end of it, I did ask why she had switched to Polish and got only a vague answer that I think was her saying she didn’t want anyone to overhear what she was saying.
Somehow, in what was probably not that long of a call at all (though it felt much longer), she managed to…
Tell me the hospital isn’t doing anything for her. They just want her to sit quietly in the corner and die.
She’s been there for a long time (she even figured back to the date she went to the ER), and has still never been seen by a doctor.
They give her lots of pills. Eleven of them this morning (she hadn’t had her morning pills yet, I later confirmed, so… this would be the same morning she’s been talking to me about for over a week).
She is in pain, they come in to rub on the Voltaren, and that’s it, they don’t do anything else.
She wanted me to take her to a different hospital. Maybe they will help her.
Oh, and she squeezed in another complaint about paying for the Lifeline service, but they don’t help her. I reminded her, the service is suspended right now, but she was complaining about that before, anyhow.
When I tried to explain that you can’t just go hospital hopping, while trying to figure out just WHAT she wanted treatment for, I was told I was “on their side” and just wanted her to die.
Then she told me to talk to my brother, because he’s smart, he’ll know what to do.
…
She was clearly having a bit of a freak out, but I could not pin down what was going on. She talked about pain and they just rub on the Voltaren. Does it help? Yes. So what else does she expect them to do? She brought up her dry mouth again. They have given her a spray for that, and she doesn’t even keep it in reach. She wants them to “cure” it somehow, but it’s because she’s sleeping with her mouth open. She didn’t even bring up the pain in her chest that she used the Pepto for, but I couldn’t get the straight of whether there was anything else happening. When she started accusing me of being “on their side”, I told her, I’m trying to understand, but I need words! I need information!
I never got it.
She also went on about how they have five doctors, and no doctor has seen her. I told her, they don’t have five doctors at the same time. They have one. That’s it.
Oh, you’re on their side…
In the end, I promised her that I would pass things on to my brother, because he was wanting to book an appointment with the doctor to talk about next steps, anyhow. I told her, he was probably already at work, so I would message him. She actually ended the call so I could do that, which is unusual.
The first thing I did, though, was call the hospital to talk to whoever was at the nurses’ desk. I explained that I just got a call from my mother and the things she was saying to me. The receptionist didn’t know who my mother’s nurse was on that shift but, after being filled in, she told me she would pass all this on to her nurse, but would also check on my mother herself. She then offered to call back and update me, which I gladly accepted.
Then I got on my computer and started updating my brother. Part way through, I got the call back.
When she checked on my mother, the nurse was there, taking her vitals, and my mother was saying to her some of the things she’d already said to me on the phone.
My mother is apparently just fine. Her vitals are always really great. Her swelling is not an issue anymore. Her pain is being dealt with in various ways, as needed.
So what is it she is wanting to be treated for, to the point of wanting to go to a different hospital?
We don’t know.
My mother’s file was checked, and the last note from the doctor, about the Pepto my mother wanted, was written on the 5th. Today is the 13th. So he has been seeing her, even though he hasn’t needed to add notes each time.
So what is going on?
The doctor is seeing her, but she either doesn’t remember, or she doesn’t believe he’s a doctor. She had complained about how the nurses and doctors should be in uniforms, because she can’t tell them apart from a janitor. This doctor, however, is very distinctive. He’s probably the only black person in the hospital right now, probably the tallest person in the hospital, too, and he’s the same doctor that tended to her when she was hospitalized before. So it could be that she doesn’t think he’s a “real” doctor, because he’s black, and not doing whatever it is she wants done to her. This is a pattern with her, and not just based on colour. For as long as I can remember, she would go to doctors, therapists, psychiatrists, even priests, and any time they started saying things she didn’t want to hear, she would stop seeing them and claim they were somehow uneducated, unqualified, or otherwise not “real” in their title. If they did say something she liked to hear, she will drag that out, over and over, even if it is completely at odds with everything else.
We had a good talk about it. At one point, I read out a response from my brother, saying that my mother doesn’t understand that she’s in a holding pattern right now, while they try to figure out getting her into care, wherever that is. I explained that my mother WANTS to be in a particular nursing home, and that we’ve been trying to help her do that for two years now, with no success.
I think part of the problem (and the person I was talking to agreed) is that my mother is likely lonely and bored. With her eyes failing, she can’t read or write like she used to. She has her radio, but it’s set to a talk radio station in the city, because we couldn’t get the Polish radio station she usually listened to, so she’s probably not bothering. That talk radio station used to be a good one, and I remember we had it on a lot when I was growing up. It has changed significantly, over the years, and would probably not interest her anymore. She has the TV, but there’s only two channels, and she doesn’t approve of either of them. It’s just sports and stuff, and the same thing over and over, she says – and the news is just bad stuff, never good stuff, and the government should take them over and tell them to show only good stuff. Being in a hospital, there aren’t any activities that she can take part in, like there were in her apartment building, either.
So… yeah. She’s probably bored out of her tree, with only her own thoughts to mull on.
Which, considering the things she come up with, must be unpleasant. As my brother has said, it must be really scary to be in my mother’s brain right now. I mentioned that to the person I was talking to, and she agreed. We’re looking at increasing dementia, and she must be getting very frustrated and confused. This would be part of why she would get so upset with me when I can’t figure out what she is trying to tell me, or what she wants me to do. She doesn’t have the words. Even if there was some new thing wrong with her, she doesn’t have the words to tell us.
I updated my brother the rest of the way, but there really isn’t anything much he can do, either. We need to have that meeting with the doctor to get things straight and make decisions – and we’re already in the middle of January! My mother went into the hospital before Christmas.
She’s in the best place she could be right now, until some sort of long term care, assisted living or supportive living accommodations can be found for her, and we do know that she is being paneled for that while she’s there.
But she wants to be treated for something. Anything. All her many complaints, most of which can’t be fixed. Something. But aside from the swelling that got her into the hospital in the first place – which was blamed on a heart condition she doesn’t have – she is not sick. She is feeble, has already had a fall while there, and can no longer live independently. If it weren’t for our making a big deal about that, she probably would have been discharged home weeks ago, and she’s be in even worse shape. She would have been in real trouble if she’d had that fall in her apartment!
So… that was how my day started.
By the time all that was done, it was time for me to head outside for my morning routine, so that got taken care of.
I counted NINE cats and kittens in the isolation shelter, while doing the food and water in there!
The thermometer against the back wall is reading 5C/41F. Of course, it would be much warmer under the heat lamp, where Bug is hanging out.
After getting the morning stuff done, I was falling asleep on my feet, so I set a timer and went down for a short nap. It helped.
I was considering heading out to town today. My SIL had mentioned a product to me to help with the roof dams. I hadn’t even mentioned that we had one to them! They know how much of a problem that one spot it. Anyhow, these are pucks of calcium chloride and, depending on the brand, other chemicals. You just toss them up onto the roof, they melt their way down and then continue to melt away snow and ice for a long time. I called up the local hardware store to see if they had any in stock, but they did not. My mother’s town, so the south of us, has a hardware that apparently has the same brand of product in stock, but I wasn’t going to do highway driving, if I could avoid it.
We did actually reach our high of 3C/37F today, but it was at 4am. By the time I was outside doing my morning routine, it was getting cold, and we were having high winds. Anything that melted while it was warmer overnight was already frozen. As I write this, we are at -16C/3F, with a wind chill of -35C/-31F.
Tomorrow, we’re supposed to reach 1C/34F in the afternoon, through to the early evening, with continued high winds. It’s going to be our last warm day for a while. After that, we’re going to start getting highs below -20C/-4F. So if I’m going to run any errands, tomorrow is the day to do it.
It’s supposed to warm up slightly in the middle of next week, though, which is a good thing. I now have three appointments with the vet for spays or neuters. We’ll just be grabbing whoever we can that is for sure big enough to be done. Priority on the females, of course, but males if we can’t catch any. We’ll have to catch them the night before and keep them in the isolation shelter for the overnight fast. What we like to do is try to bring them in early enough to treat them with wet cat food, then take the food bowls out once their fast is supposed to start.
I’m still hoping we can get Frank in. She has allowed me to pet her a couple of times, but is extremely nervous about it. Adam has been around, but I haven’t been able to get close to her, and Slick may as well be as feral as Sprout, the way she’s been behaving lately. Then there’s that white and grey that has apparently moved into the cat house for the winter. Can’t get anywhere near her at all.
When doing the evening cat feeding, I was actually able to pick up and snuggle Blot, but she is probable too small. There are a couple of large kittens that I know are female – the calico, Sprig (daughter of Sprout), of course, but also the still unnamed fluffy black and white. There are fluffy tabbies that we just can’t tell, one way or the other. Too much fur, and we can’t get close to any of them.
We’ll bring in three, and that’s all we can be sure of!
So that’s good news.
Meanwhile, I am thinking I should probably call the hospital again and see how my mother is doing.
Honestly, I really don’t want to. You never know, though. She might have completely flipped between this morning and now, and be a different person again. There’s just no way to know, unless I call.
Today, I was able to get to my mother’s apartment, then to visit her in the hospital.
I wasn’t sure how that was going to work out, after learning how things went with my brother, last night.
My brother, SIL and their grandson went to visit my mother after my brother had put in a long day at work, driving out in what turned out to be a snow storm. We got a fair bit of snow here, but the closer you get to the lake, the more humidity and the heavier the snow. When they got there, they tried the regular doors to get into the hospital, but they were locked. I don’t even try the regular doors and go through the emergency room doors, but my brother forgets to do that. In the end, they decided he and their grandson would go in, while my SIL stayed with the car. That way, when they were ready to leave, she would drive around to the emergency room doors to pick them up, so they wouldn’t have to walk around the hospital in the storm.
Well, my mother was in “fine” form when they got there. At first, she didn’t really recognize them – I’m sure they were pretty bundled up in winter wear, plus, she wasn’t expecting them. For some reason, she was expecting me, but my brother told her I was coming tomorrow (meaning, today).
Then she started complaining about how late it was (it was still early evening).
When they told her about the poor driving conditions, and that my SIL was waiting in the car, my mother took it as a personal insult, and that my SIL didn’t want to “see her face”. Which is weird, because my mother hates my SIL (while saying she loves her) and has been trying to break up their marriage for years.
Anyhow, when my brother commented on how she went straight to the negative, she doubled down and got worse, so they left.
It was white knuckled driving, all the way home.
Needless to say, I wasn’t really looking forward to my visit today.
Road conditions were… passable, but not very good. It wasn’t snowing anymore, but there was plenty of packed snow on the roads, and blowing snow was starting to create drifts. Still, I’ve driven in far worse.
I got to my mother’s apartment, where I found her mail pushed under her door – a neighbour has been bringing her mail to her door for years. My brother will be getting that redirected to his place, once we know what’s going on with my mother after she leaves the hospital. I made sure to leave the Lifeline pendant with the base, checked her answering machine, etc. There were a few items she asked me to bring, one of which I couldn’t find. Which I was actually okay with, since it was something she meant to use to “educate” the hospital staff about the “history of Canada” that she’d written down. She would be wildly inappropriate about it.
I also grabbed her one live plant to take home, as she asked me to do, then headed over to the hospital. Blowing snow was even worse on that part of the drive.
Once at the hospital, I was able to park at my usual parking lot not far from the emergency room entrance. A few spots down, I noticed and SUV that looked kinda like our vandal’s, but didn’t think too much of it. It’s not an uncommon vehicle or colour.
Once inside, I made a quick dash to use the washroom near the emergency room waiting area (the emergency room was closed) before going to my mother’s. As I was leaving, I saw someone in one of the waiting room chairs, looking away from me, slowly getting up and starting to walk down the hall towards the nursing station.
It was our vandal. He wife was a few feet ahead of him, down the hall.
Our vandal didn’t see me as I passed him, and it’s possible he would not have recognized me from behind, while bundled up in winter wear, but his wife turned and saw me as I passed her. She looked really angry, before she even saw me. I said hello, but she just asked if I was going to see my mother. I said yes, and kept on going. I heard her start talking to our vandal, but didn’t pay too much attention. I knew they wouldn’t go to see my mother while I was there.
My mother seemed surprised to see me, even though my brother had told her I would be coming today. I brought out the things she asked me to bring, then brought out the gift I’d made for her.
She had mentioned using the sleep hat I made for her, using Blanket Yarn, to warm her hands, so I got more Blanket Yarn to make her a double thick muff for her hands in solid grey, then used leftover yarn from her hat to do the edging.
When she saw it, she immediately start making snarky comments about how we keep bringing things for her. I told her, this was so she could keep her hands and her head warm at the same time. She did not approve, though she did make a comment about how, in her younger days, these were very popular, and she had one that was all furry.
She then commented on how this was the same yarn I used to make a “scarf”. I’ve never used this yarn to make a scarf, but it turned out she meant the wheelchair shawl I’d crocheted for her late sister. I told her that no, I used Bamboo Silk to make that shawl, but my mother insisted it was the same yarn.
Then she started happily talking about how, after her sister passed away and my cousin gave the shawl to my mother, my mother had washed it, then “drrrrrrrr drrrrrrr drrrrrrr”, she said, as she mimed undoing the crochet. She said she had such fun doing that! Then she told me she balled the yarn up and gave it to me, then told me again that she made sure to wash it, first, so it was clean. Like somehow that was the most important thing? Or, she thought her sister was really dirty while wearing it?
My tongue was practically bleeding from my trying not to say anything. My mother still can’t understand the problem with her destroying something I’d made as a gift for her sister. No more than she can understand how much she hurt my daughter when we discovered she’d done the same thing with a shawl my then-early-teenaged daughter had made for her, after carefully selecting the yarn and colour, paid for out of her own allowance, and lovingly spending weeks crocheting it.
She mentioned my brother had come to visit, and I said I knew about it. Oh, you talked to him? Yes. Yes I did. She brought up how my SIL stayed in the car rather than come in to see her. I told her, they drove out in a storm, after my brother finished work, and reminded her of why my SIL stayed in the car, and how is it that she couldn’t appreciate that they were able to visit at all? She never even mentioned her great grandson. He may as well not have been there. She brought up how it “wasn’t the first time” my SIL stayed in the car rather than visit my mother. I was biting my tongue on that one, too. When I defended my brother and SIL, she just started crossing herself and changed the subject.
I did mentioned to her about seeing our vandal and his wife on the way over, and that they were unlikely to come visit while I was there, but might come later. I also added that I wasn’t going to stay long, because the roads were bad, plus I had her plant in the truck. She scoffed and said “of course” when I said I couldn’t stay long because of road conditions. Then started talking about how “every time” we say we can’t stay long, she forgets all the things she meant to talk about while we were there. One of the things she asked me to bring was her notebook and writing implements, so I told her that she can now write these things down as she thinks of them, so she won’t forget next time.
We talked a bit about what to do with her things in her apartment. When I told her I couldn’t find her notes and didn’t want to dig through her papers (she has bins and boxes of papers everywhere, most of it junk) to look for it, she was perplexed. Apparently, it should have been in the open and easy to find. That got her to saying how my sister is to take all her papers and pictures, and her clothes. I suggested she could give my sister her key, so she could do that when she’s able, and we don’t have to try coordinating with each other’s schedules. Not until we know officially know what’s going to happen with my mother next, though. She did make a big deal – again – about how we shouldn’t throw anything away, and not to leave things in the common room because the staff throws it out. She is really fixated on that, even though we’ve told her, many times now, that we won’t be leaving anything of hers in the common room for her neighbours.
Then there was a knock at the door and a nurse came in to take her lunch tray. It was the male nurse again. My mother did thank him for taking her tray, but you could tell, she was not happy to see him. After he left, she snarked about “red pants”. My reaction was along the lines of “so??” “On a man!” was her response. Yes, Mom. Men are allowed to wear colours.
She started crossing herself again.
*sigh*
So the entire visit was… okay, but not really a good visit. We quickly ran out of things to talk about – it hasn’t been that long since I’ve visited her last. Then, for someone who complained because I said I couldn’t stay long, she basically said, okay, we’re done. You can leave now.
🙄
Which was fine by me.
My mother is very good at driving people away from her, and making them not want to be around her. She is also oblivious to the fact that her actions are having this effect. The irony of this is, as negative as she gets with my brother and I, if our vandal have visited, I know she would be fawning over him. It’s like, the more abusive she is, the more she tries to cater to him, while being absolutely horrible to my brother, the person who has been helping her the most and has never been anything but kind to her for decades.
*sigh*
As I was leaving, there was no signs of our vandal and his wife, and the vehicle I’m now sure was his was gone, so it looks like they headed home after seeing that I was going to visit my mother. If this was something they were meaning to do after a chemo session, then that makes sense.
So it looks like I sabotaged a visit from them.
Which, under the circumstances, is a good thing.
Before I left, I did remind my mother that, if they came in together, our vandal would probably behave while his wife is around, but if he came in alone, I told her that she can use the help button to call someone, so that she’s not alone with him. We just can’t know, from one day to the next, what he will do.
Unfortunately, I trust my mother about as much as I trust our vandal. Especially after she manipulated my sister and they both lied about it, in regards to our vandal.
*sigh*
Anyhow.
After visiting my mother, I swung by the grocery store to get some hot dog fixings to do a cookout. There were some really good sales on, though, so I ended up getting more. I even got some beef stew meat – something that we can rarely afford to buy, these days. That done, I picked up a bit of gas and headed home. Between the groceries and the plant from my mother’s place, I drove up to the house to unload.
Once I was parked in the garage, I had something to eat, changed, then headed back outside to break out Spewie to clear the driveway. We got just enough snow to make it harder to drive around the yard, and I almost got stuck at the end of the driveway by the road.
In the end, I was physically able to only clear the area in front of the garage and a bit towards the people gate in the chain link fence. Not quite all the way, as I was using only one 100′ extension cord and didn’t want to add another. It was getting too painful after a while, so I had to call it a day before I was done. Tomorrow, I’ll have to head back out and start adding extension cords and doing the rest of the driveway to the road.
Before I went into the house, though, I did shovel the sidewalk and the cat paths, at least, before feeding the outside cats for the evening. The current forecast is now saying highs of -2C/28F over the next two days, then a high of +2C/36F on Tuesday. I want to clear as much as I can over the next couple of days, so that the paths and driveway have a chance to melt at least somewhat clear.
Somewhere in there, we should be able to get the fire pit going again and have ourselves a wiener roast! I’m quite looking forward to that.
As for today, I think the one thing that I would consider my top accomplishment was the inadvertent sabotaging of our vandal visiting my other. It still irritates me that she got him involved again, when we’ve been trying so hard to protect her from him. In her case, there’s a lot of self sabotage. She is often her own worst enemy, and I just don’t know what we can do about it.
I really should know better, but gosh, I had so much fun yesterday.
Yes, I really do enjoy shoveling snow that much.
I’m paying for it today.
Yes, I took my painkillers and anti-inflammatories before bed.
Then I forgot to go to bed.
I started making a muff for my mother’s hands and before I knew it, it was 1am. I finished it, though, and I think she will be very happy with it. It’s made with Blanket yarn and double thick, so it’s soft and squishy and cozy. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get it to her – definitely not today! – but it should be soon.
I was a bit late when I headed out to feed the outside cats, but they didn’t mind too much. It’s been warm enough that the oodles of frozen kibble out there has started to thaw, and I’m seeing them eating it more, too.
I did notice a big throw up in the snow, full of worms. We still have no idea which cat has them, but from the size of the what I saw, I can at least be sure that it’s an adult cat.
I did their food and water, refilled the kibble bin, and that was it. I was done. The only reason I didn’t go to bed again right away was that I had to eat something. All I had energy for was instant oats with chia seeds.
Today is laundry day, including the cat blankets and mats, and the girls took that over completely. The washing machine no longer makes sounds, so we have to monitor it regularly to know when it’s done, and make sure the drainage hose out the window doesn’t have a chance to freeze in between loads.
Me, I took a painkiller, went to bed and crashed for several hours.
Potato Beetle very politely let me know it was time to get up. He was even polite enough to NOT step on my bladder. 😄
Thankfully, my phone was nearby and, aside from taking a picture, I was able to message the girls and ask for help getting up. My older daughter removed Potato Beetle (he did NOT want to get off of me!) gave me a hand, then stayed nearby in case I needed help moving around. My balance is totally off for the first while, but it does get better after walking around for a bit.
I was tempted to go back to bed, but it’s too painful getting in and out, so I’m in my office chair, typing this, instead. My daughter was a sweetheart and made a couple of sandwiches for my lunch, and I pain killered up again.
The crazy thing?
It’s so gorgeous out there right now, that I’m fighting the urge to get back outside and continue working on the fire pit and getting things ready to do that pork roast in the cast iron Dutch oven I was planning to do tomorrow.
Instead, I need to use today as a recovery day, or I’ll be just as immobile tomorrow, too.
I got this picture of Colby as I was going back inside for the day. I so want to snuggle this fluffball! We’ve had no progress in socialization. *sigh*
Today, I needed to go into town to pick up a prescription so, of course, I did as many other things as I could think of while I was there.
The first thing to do was visit my mother in the hospital.
It was a short visit. She started to go off on things again, and I called her out on it. Her response, as usual, it to verbally attack me for being such a terrible person, projecting invented motivations for while I don’t agree with her. She did change tactics when I simply got up and started to leave, though, and I did stay a bit longer.
It was a very productive visit, though. I remembered to grab the pendant for her Lifeline. I explained to her that her account is on hold right now, which means she’s being charged at a 60% discount. She was already upset that she was paying anything for the service in the first place, when she “wasn’t using it” (she was, but that’s another issue), so of course, she didn’t like that. I told her that once the account is closed, they will have to come over to get their machine and the pendant – and she had the pendant with her!
Not anymore. I’ll take it to her place as soon as I have a chance to check on her apartment again.
That got us to talking about what she wanted us to do with her stuff, should she be placed… somewhere. I suspect, not a nursing home, but more likely assisted living or supportive living. She wants my sister to take some things, which I think they’ve already talked about. My mother was a bit upset that my sister wanted to keep a print of Mona Lisa that my mother was thinking of donating to a local museum.
I don’t think a museum would want it. It has zero historical value. My mother just really likes it. I got a different story about how we got it, though. Previously, I was told it, and another framed print, were found in the attic of this house when my parents bought it, back in 1964 or so. Recently, though, my mother told me she’d bought the print herself and had someone local frame it. If the first story were true, then the print and frame would very well be almost 100 years old. If the second story is true, it’s about 50-60 years old.
The reason she isn’t sure she wants my sister to take it is, she has no children, and what’s going to happen to it when she gets to be my mother’s age and needs to pass it on?
Yup. My mother wants to control what happens to it for multiple generations.
I asked her, why is she so worried about material things like that? If my sister wants it, let her have it! These are her treasures, she told me. I reminded her that the Bible says our treasures are in heaven. She choked on that a bit, then told me how glad she was that I know the Bible so well, but there’s just one problem. I need to go to church!
*sigh*
The thing is, even when we were going to church regularly, before moving out here, it wasn’t good enough, anyhow. It wasn’t the “right kind” of church. In the end, it isn’t about going to church at all, but about control, and I’m not the marshmallow I used to be. She doesn’t like that.
Still, we did manage to have an okay visit, before I headed to the pharmacy. After that, I decided to go to the dollar store (we have just the one) to look for blanket yarn. My mother is happy with the sleep hat I made for her, then mentioned she sometimes uses it to keep her hands warm, so I will make her a muff for her hands. I couldn’t find the same variegated yarn I used for her hat, but I did find a solid grey that is the same as one of the greys in her hat. I have just a bit of the variegated yarn left that I should be able to use as an accent.
From there, I made a quick stop at the grocery store for something my husband requested. They didn’t have it, so I found a substitute, then got a couple more things, just to add to our supple. We’re still planning to do a cookout soon, and the only thing we’re running low on that I want to use for that is potatoes.
After that, there was one last stop for gas. *sigh* The prices just jumped from $1.109/L to $1.229/L
Once at home, I updated my brother on how things went with my mother, had some lunch, then headed back outside.
The first thing I wanted to work on was the fire pit. I had a cover on it, piled with snow, but more snow managed to get under it, too. I made sure to clean up the paths to the food pile and the branch pile, first, then did as much as I could with the fire pit. We’ve been putting small branches, pieces of bark and such, into it during the summer, expecting to be able to burn them in a cookout, but we never got to use it all summer. Even after the fire bans ended, it was usually too windy to even consider it.
After getting a pork roast out of the freezer, I was thinking of cooking in the fire pit tomorrow, but after talking about it with my daughters, we decided to wait another day. Which turned out to be a good thing. After clearing the snow and bits of wood out of the fire pit, I found it too frozen to clear ashes away from the fire bricks I have on one side. They are there to put the Dutch oven on, so the legs don’t sink into the ground or ashes below. So I cleared as much as I could, then left it uncovered. Tomorrow is supposed to be another mild day, and the dark snow/ashes will melt faster in the sun that way. I should be able to clear the fire bricks by late afternoon.
I did swing the grill back over the fire pit after taking the picture, though. The stacks in the background of the picture are what I cleared out of the pit.
That done, it was late enough to pause and feed the outside cats, but early enough to do more shoveling. You can see the final result in the next two pictures of the above slide snow.
Yes, I was able to clear a path all the way to the sign cam! I really thought it would have to be split between a couple of days, but the snow turned out to be less packed than I expected.
I really do enjoy shoveling snow! I’ll probably pay for it tomorrow, but gosh, it felt good.
Getting the path cleared meant I could finally switch out the trail cam memory card. It should be interesting to see how many files are on the card. The solar panel on the camera was covered in snow when I got to it, but the batteries were at 91%. I do expect there to be gaps over the days when we got that deep freeze, as the batteries would have gotten too cold to power anything. Still, it’s been over a month. I’m almost dreading to see how many files there are! It’s going to take a while to go through them.
Meanwhile, my awesome daughter has been diligently working on hemming the overalls she got for me, and finished soon after I was back inside. Of course, I had to try them on right away, and they are exactly the length I wanted – a touch on the long side, since they’ll be worn over boots. They’re so comfortable, I kept them on. The fabric is pretty stiff, so the more they are worn, the faster it will soften. They will be prefect for when I head back outside tomorrow to finish clearing the fire pit.
Oh, I do wish I had a way to record things easily while I was shoveling. The yard cats are really loving the warmer weather and running around like kittens. They were also loving the paths I was clearing, and the new one I dug out, running and jumping, following me around, chasing each other, and just having a grand old time! We’re still expected to have mild weather for the next week to 10 days, if not the above freezing high they were predicting for this coming Monday. That has been pushed back another week, and then the high of the day is supposed to drop by over 20° and stay frigid for about a week! Considering how much the predictions have been fluctuating, though, who knows what will actually happen. For now, though, the cats are greatly appreciating the warmer temperatures – and so am I!
What I need to figure out, though, is what I will be doing for starting seeds this year. I should be starting bulb onions right now. We still need to move the aquarium greenhouses to be basement, but have no idea how we can get the big one down the stairs and around the corner at the bottom, without breaking anything. Getting the aquariums and the shelf the big one rests on is becoming more important, since we will likely be bringing my mother’s couch in. Actually, we still have the couch. She took the matching love seat to her apartment when she moved off the farm. It’s small enough that it should fit right where the big aquarium is set up right now.
Starting the onion seeds, though, probably shouldn’t wait until we figure all that out. This year, I’m thinking to try doing them in a “snail” roll, to make it easier to separate them when it’s time to transplant in the spring. That should be small enough that they can be set up in the living room to germinate.
Ghosty, using her adopted brother, Shadow, as a bed. 😁
Today was a wonderfully mild day. Our high this afternoon was supposed to be -8C/18F, but it sure felt warmer! We had more fog last night, which meant more frost on the trees, on top of the frost from yesterday morning, so it was looking pretty gorgeous, too.
I had two places I needed to get to today; a dump run, and then on to the feed store in the town north of us, to pick up 40 pound bags of kibble for the outside cats. This feed store has a section for work wear, too, ranging from socks and boots to all sorts of outerwear. This is where my younger daughter found the high quality gloves and Tough Duck bib overalls she loves so much, so I asked her if she wanted to come along. Which she did.
I did not realize she had a secret purpose to come along!
The dump run was a bit different, in that we had a bin of stuff we weren’t sure were recyclable, or if they needed to go into the pit. I’d mentioned in an earlier post about a new RM council that was so bad it was disbanded and the province had to take over until another election could be held. Along with messing up when it came to getting the roads plowed and not going with the company that had been doing such a great job for years, they also messed up with the landfill caretaker. They fired the guy that had been going the job for years. For a while, I think it was contracted out to a company, because instead of one caretaker, with occasional help brought in, we were seeing a team of four people or more doing all sorts of stuff. Then, they were gone, and the caretaker was an older woman with mobility issues. She did the best she could, but she physically could not do a lot of things, like operate the front end loader, and the state of things got really bad. Someone would be brought in to clear the area in front of the pit, but whoever it was didn’t do a particularly good job. That was when I found myself with a flat tire after a dump run, and we got into the habit of my daughter walking in front of the truck into the pit area, to clear away any broken glass, nails, or other sharp objects scattered about.
Well, things have changed again. Lately, I’ve been seeing a young guy there, and I do hope he is a permanent employee, because he is really awesome! Aside from being diligent in doing the checks when we come in, he clearly knows how to use that front end loader.
Today, as we came in, we had the usual checks. We have a card with a number on it to prove we live in the RM. Other RMs charge a fee, while ours doesn’t, so people were going to the dump in our RM to avoid having to pay at their own, and these cards were the solution to that. We also get asked what we’re bringing which, in our case, is almost always just household garbage, which goes into the pit, and recycling, which goes into various bins around the caretaker’s shed.
This time around, we had some things we weren’t sure about. Mostly electronics. The woman that had been the caretaker before had told us to toss things like power cords into the pit, but this time we had some odds and ends. So when we stopped at the caretaker, I told him we had stuff we weren’t sure of. Then I pulled up to the nearby recycling bins and I started dumping the recycling while he and my daughter went through the bin we’d brought.
Some things, I knew they had special places for, like batteries and aerosol cans, but those have been moved.
The cordless glass kettles that started leaking or got chipped, we found out, cannot be recycled and had to go into the pit. Their bases, however, went into the electronics area – and he even took some of the stuff over for us, while do took items to other areas, so save us some walking! He was so sweet about it, too.
That done, we went into the pit area. Along the way, we could hear the front end loader was running, warming up to be used to clean things up. It wasn’t even that bad, yet, but he was getting ready to do it again!
I have to remember to find somewhere to pass on how great a job he’s doing.
…
Done.
I didn’t want to take a chance of forgetting by waiting until I finished this post!
Anyhow.
That done, we continued on to the feed store. I paid for 4 bags of kibble, then moved the truck around to have it loaded, while my daughter was inside looking around. I later joined her in the outerwear section and started chatting, asking what she was looking for this time. She was looking at some coats, then brought me over to where she’d found her overalls. I joked that I want a pair, too, but I would make sure that they were a different colour, so we wouldn’t get them mixed up. Not that that would be possible, as I would want a larger size. I did try hers on when she bought them and they fit me, but I like more room for layers.
The next thing I knew, when someone came around to ask if we needed help, she asked if they had the size I wanted, in black.
!!!
The lady had to go check their inventory, as they don’t have enough space to have all the sizes on display, and it turned out they did.
My daughter bought me these (not an affiliate link), though the price at the store was better than the price on the website. What an awesome surprise! Hers are tan, and she had to take 7″ off the legs for them to fit, and she’s thrilled with them.
Once we got home, I tried them on and she adjusted the shoulder straps to where I need them. Then she turned them inside out and got me to put them on again, so she could fold the bottoms and measure how much to remove. As I write this, she’s in the process of removing 6 1/2″ from the legs and hemming them, by hand. After that is done, I’ll try them on again and we’ll see if we need to add elastic anywhere, but I suspect it won’t be necessary. They’re oversize, but not in any inconvenient places.
These are going to be so very handy!
She also got herself a vest. No modifications needed!
My daughter tells me that she has decided to use her very modest disability income to get us all high quality, weather appropriate clothing, starting with me, since I’m the one that’s doing most of the outside work.
She is so sweet!
Aside from that, it’s been pretty uneventful. When it was time to do the outside cat feeding, I decided to clear the clumps of snow I’d knocked off the truck’s mud flaps. Then, since I had the shovel out anyway, I decided to clear the light snow out of the cats paths. It was so warm out, I had my jacket wide open, so I wouldn’t overheat while shoveling.
Before I knew it, an hour had gone by, and I’d cleared fresh snow from the entire turnaround area for the truck, plus the paths to the compost pile and litter compost, then started a new path towards the main garden area. Then I had to stop after only about 15 feet, because it was getting too dark. I haven’t been able to get to the sign cam in over a month. We’ve got some very mild weather expected over the next week, so I figured this would be a good time to dig out a path!
Oh, my goodness. I just checked the weather app on my desktop again. The last I looked, we were expecting things to warm up to a high of 0C/32F on Monday, but now it’s saying to expect a high of 2C/36F TOMORROW!!! Monday is now expected to hit 1C/34F, with highs just below freezing, in between.
This would be a good time to find an excuse to get the fire pit going!
[edit: I just had to add this. I looked at the weather forecast for tomorrow again, a few hours after writing this. It now says tomorrow is expected to reach a high of -6C/21F instead of 2C/36F. Good grief. How are we supposed to trust any of these forecasts when they constantly change, and by so much!]
Not tomorrow, though. Tomorrow, I need to go into town to pick up another prescription refill for my husband. It’s his “controlled substance” painkillers, so we weren’t allowed to get it refilled when I was there yesterday. While I’m in town, I’ll swing by the hospital to visit my mother, too.
After that, I think I’ll get the fire pit uncovered and prepped. We might just enjoy a fire, but I’m thinking we may as well break out the Dutch oven and cook supper, too.
Well, I hope you all had a wonderful time bringing in the New Year! Or, at least, a calm and peaceful one. 😁
I didn’t make it to midnight. 😄
It actually turned out to be a very strange day for me. I’d gone to bed early, so I was up pretty early. I did the outside cats stuff and my short, winter version of my morning rounds, then tried to go back to bed. After numerous interruptions, I did actually get some sleep. So, you’d think I would have been good to stay up until midnight. After all, I rarely get to be before midnight on a normal day. Instead, I could have easily gone back to bed by 5 or 6.
The other odd thing was my body was basically falling apart, all day. Just with normal walking around the house, I’d have a knee start to give out, or a hip start to dislocate. Even just reaching to flush the toilet had my shoulder socket trying to dislocate. Then there were my hands! At one point, I’d made myself a hot drink in one of my giant mugs, which are basically twice the size of a typical coffee mug. When I tried to pick it up by the handle, I found I didn’t have enough grip strength to clasp the handle enough to keep it from sliding through my fingers. I ended up having to ask a daughter to pick it up for me, so that I could grasp it with both hands. It wasn’t until the cup was half empty that I could grip the handle with one hand and not be at risk of dropping it. It was so bizarre!
That was yesterday, but when I woke up today, it was pretty much back to normal. I have no idea why I had such issues yesterday, that would go away overnight like that.
This morning I was feeling good enough that, after doing my rounds, I scraped and cleared the sidewalks and main doorway steps, tidy up the paths that were already dug, and even started to extend more paths. Little by little, I want to dig our way to the fire pit again, but I was going to head back out to open up the turn around space in the inner yard. We will be doing our Costco stock up trip soon, and I want to be able to back up to the house with more room to turn the truck around in the yard.
Well, that’s going to be my focus for tomorrow, instead.
I had called my mother last night to with her a Happy New Year, and she gave me a bit of a list of things she wanted from her place. One of those things was her short wave radio that my brother got for her, so she could listen to her Polish station, with Mass and praying of the rosary.
I passed on to my brother bout the radio, and this morning they told me they were going to her place to get it, and did I want to meet them at the hospital to visit Mom?
I suggested I meet them at her apartment, so I could back some things for her, then they could grab the radio, then we’d go to the hospital together.
So that was the new plan for the day. I was able to leave soon after, which was really early, but I wasn’t sure if I needed to do any shoveling at the end of the driveway. It turned out I didn’t, and there was no need for the plows to go by again. That had me at my mother’s place before they even left home. Which was just fine.
I checked her answering machine, then packed a few things in a bag for my mother, spotting some things I figured she would like to have, even though she hadn’t asked for them directly. I also made sure to water her rosemary plant. That will be coming here to the farm eventually, but I didn’t want to grab it only to have it sitting in a cold truck until I could get home.
I was even able to get the radio partially ready. I just couldn’t get the special antennae down from where it was taped to the window. I’m too short. So when my brother got there, that was all he had to deal with, so he was done and we were heading out in less than 5 minutes.
They have one of their grandsons with them for a while, and the long drives were great for him to get a solid nap in!
Once there, my brother immediately started trying to set up the radio and antennae. In the end, there was just no way to get a strong enough signal for her FM radio station. He was able to find it, but it was really hard to hear, and there was no place he could set up the antennae and get a better signal.
My mother could not grasp why this was an issue. She was instead convinced my brother had bought her a “junk” radio (it is a very high end shortwave radio), because she never had problems before. Meaning, also back here at the farm. My brother told her that we were getting AM radio, but what she was listening to was FM radio. I well remember how hard it was to get an FM signal here, having had to set up antennae wires from my radio when I was a kid. In the end, my brother was able to find an AM station that she used to listen to. No Polish radio, no Christian station, but one where she could at least listen to the news. All she has to do it push the red button to turn it off and on. We tried to stress for her to not touch any dials. Hopefully, she will remember that!
Meanwhile, I unpacked the items I brought for my mother, making sure where I was putting them for her. She was quite happy when she saw some of the extras I’d bought, as they were things she wanted, but had forgotten to ask for.
We then had ourselves a decently long visit. She did seem really tired, and had almost no patience. For example, when my brother started to set up her radio beside her, the folding hospital walker was in the way. He moved it aside and I was going to get it out of the way, but I first had to move the wheelchair aside. My mother started demanding I move the walker to a certain spot, which was basically where the wheelchair was sitting, but when I didn’t immediately do it – because I was moving the wheelchair – she suddenly became enraged and actually started to kick at the walker from where she was sitting, in such a way that could easily have resulted in a fall. When we managed to get her calmed down and I could finally move the walker, she basically just slumped into her chair and started saying how, she’s used to doing things herself, but now has to depend on us, as an explanation for her behaviour. I told her, even she couldn’t do two things, like moving a walker and a wheelchair, at the same time! Which she did acknowledge. Sort of.
It was a good visit, though at times a distracting one, with a very energetic great grandson around. My brother got some recordings of my mother telling stories and singing. I’m glad he thinks to do that. I hardly ever remember to even take photos when I visit!
Once we were done with the visit, we wanted to go somewhere to chat and catch up on things. Being New Year’s Day, the only place that was open and had seating was a Subway. It wasn’t a busy time of day, so we were able to stay and talk for quite a long time. Again, it was very distracted with their grandson, but none of us minded. Eventually, we were able to cover quite a few things, and I even learned more about things that happened while we were living in other provinces over the years. We’re all quite confused over my sister’s recent actions involving our vandal which, I learned, has been a problem for quite some time. It seems both our vandal and my mother have been able to manipulate her very easily. Which is odd, because she really should know better by now. In all honesty, it seems my sister is showing cognitive issues as well, and is not at all as healthy as she may seem. I see way too many red flags. But, she’s skinny, and we all know that skinny people don’t get sick, right? /sarcasm
In the end, we just have to work with the hand we are dealt with and do the best we can, for each other as well as for our mother.
It was getting pretty late in the afternoon by the time we parted ways. One of the two grocery stores in town was open today, so I made a quick stop to pick up a few things before our Costco stock up trip. I haven’t decided exactly when I’ll be doing that, other than not-tomorrow. We are actually supposed to warm up slowly over the next 7-10 days, with expected highs next week just a few degrees below freezing. A good time to do more snow clearing, very little of which can be done with little Spewie. The parts that can be done with Spewie still need to be broken up with a shovel, first. The snow is deeper than Spewie is tall, and much of it is now hard packed by the wind.
One thing I’ve been able to see through various windows are some pretty large fallen branches, but they will have to wait until spring for clean up.
So what was supposed to be a home day ended up being an out all day, day. The nice thing is that I’ve got the girls able to take over my usual outside routine while I’m gone – plus, I came home to supper waiting for me! 😊
As for my mother, we’re going to have to wait until her attending doctor comes back from holidays before we can have a meeting with him and discuss next steps. Once we have something solid to work on, we’ll be able to make decisions about my mother’s apartment.
*sigh*
I have no idea what we’re going to do with her furniture. It’ll probably have to come here to the farm, but we’ve pretty much run out of storage space for larger stuff. We still have all the stuff we cleared out of the house and packed away, because my mother insisted nothing be thrown out. Fair enough. Most of it is in too good a shape to throw away. She did say we could have a garage sale, but that wouldn’t work out well. Not just because of our relative isolation, but that would be an open invitation for our vandal to cause problems. She’s also adamant that nothing goes to any second hand stores, either. So what are we supposed to do with it all?
Ah, well. We’ll figure it out, in due time.
Until then, here’s some cuteness to share with you.
This is Leyendecker and Susan. Can you believe they are siblings from the same litter – and that Leyendecker started out as the tiniest kitten of the litter? He’s an absolute giant, compared to his sister. He’s not just a fat cat, but a big beast in general. He’s even bigger than Big Rig, who was the largest kitten of the litter. She’s a chonk, too, but not quite as big as he is. Susan is one of our smaller, lighter cats now. Their mom is Beep Beep, who is a pretty normal sized cat. Bigger than Susan, but still dwarfed by two of her last babies, before we were finally able to get her fixed.
Okay, I should have gone back over my old posts, first.
Susan is not from the same litter as Leyendecker. She’s one of Beep Beep’s, but older. Beep Beep’s last litter included Leyendecker, Big Rig and two orange babies, Saffron and Turmeric. She also adopted Butterscotch’s last surviving kitten, Nikko, from that year. The orange babies and Butterscotch’s baby all got adopted out. They were pretty much the first kittens the Cat Lady adopted out for us, before she started her own rescue. My daughters just reminded me that Susan is Cheddar’s sibling. So… she is still the tiny sister of a giant cat. Just not the biggest chonky boy of the household! 😄
It gets hard to keep track, at times! It’s a good think I journal this stuff here, or I’d never remember. 😄
The Re-Farmer 