Yes, after all that, I forgot the damn power supply for the laptop. But not to worry, David says via text message that he’s sending a power supply next day air. And within 5 minutes, I got a delivery tracking number on my cell phone. We are SUCH GEEKS.
I had hoped to watch a downloaded episode of some show or other via laptop – I did not watch the Amazing Race finale last night and don’t know who won yet. If I get spoiled, so be it – I had a lot of other stuff to do last night. Most of the other stuff did get packed as listed and yes, it’s a lot to lug around. But I’ll be leaving a book or two behind, and there’s also a pair of antique-looking reproduction Tiffany lamps shaped like blue flowers that I thought Mom would like. I salvaged them from Steve’s house.
Which has been demolished by now, and is just a hole in the ground. Change is sometimes good.
I noticed an older lady traveler with a cane at the Starbucks just now – she was peering doubtfully at the labels in the pastry case Mindful as I am currently of vision issues and cute vintage ladies, I asked her if she needed help reading the labels. We had a nice chat – she declared proudly that she was in her 80’s, had had cataract surgery, and scar tissue lasered off, and more besides. Whoa, I just wondered if she wanted me to point out the blueberry scones. But she was also telling me via back channel that
although she couldn’t see that well, she was coping pretty well. I told her a little about mom and mentioned that today was my first full day wearing the new specs with the STEALTH TRIFOCAL lenses (grrr age grr). She laughed sympathetically and remarked that it comes to us all. Yes, I agreed, if we’re lucky enough to become old. It was a pleasant exchange. More later after arrival. My flight is delayed a little due to all the flight delays with yesterday’s weather – at work we were watching the very angry pendulous
black clouds with a little trepidation, while the lines lit up with delayed travelers and their woes. I’ll get in in time for a late lunch and hopefully an errand or jaunt of some kind.
The Rest Of The Weekend
While all the boring detail? So I can remember it – so there.
It’s the end of the trip – my time on the computer for writing was somewhat limited, because the only good time was later in the evening, and frankly I wanted to get to bed earlier most of the time. My arrival went smoothly – rental car pickup, getting to Mom’s and all that. She was very happy and surprised at how quickly I got to the house after I called from the airport to say I was in. She always thinks the traffic and the freeways here are much worse than they are, but that’s partly because she avoided them
when she was driving, and partly because there were so many changes and a lot of ongoing construction.
The first half-day we yakked for hours and tried to figure out what we needed to get done with the car while we had it. On the agenda: a big family birthday party with a ton of people from the other side of the family (people who were kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids of Mom’s brother Charlie). I hadn’t seen some of them in nearly 20 years, what with one thing and another (mostly, being too busy with family doings on our side on our quick trips to Salt Lake). That was a fixed-time goal – we knew we had that
to get to. And it was nice because it was a total fluke that I happened to pick this weekend for a flying visit.
Mom couldn’t get any doctor’s appointments or other jaunts set up, so we decided that Friday morning would be weeding a particular flowerbed right under her window in the morning, and a shopping excursion to all the big-box stores on the west side of town in the afternoon, followed by lunch and relaxing before going up to my sister Tudy’s for further relaxation. It was kind of a big day of stuff on Friday – next time, fewer stops, and more regular R&R are in order. Also, breakfast and lunch on a regular schedule
worked better on Saturday, because I overextended things a little on Friday, and Saturday morning.
My first night in my old room was oddly comforting and uncomfortable – the house is so much the same that it both soothes and bothers me. But Mom is comfy and has her routine, and if that routine is disturbed she gets tuckered more easily. Again, I’ll use the phrase “what with one thing or another” rather than go into detail about why it’s best to keep Mom on an even keel. That was another reason for this trip – I just needed to observe what works best and what could be improved for her.
We got into our jammies much, much earlier than I usually do, but we talked and discussed the news and debated a few issues, and in the end I took 2 melatonin and slept like a log the whole night – something I haven’t done in months and months. The morning included Mom making instant coffee and me being a coffee snob, but I drank it in order to get the caffeine drip going.
After some computer dinking, I went over to the neighborhood Starbuck’s just to go for a walk, got a big latte, and pronounced myself ready to take on the weeds. Did that until the morning sun came over the house and made it too warm to work, but up to that point I made a dashing figure with shorts, tank top, an incredibly battered and torn-up straw gardening hat, and an orange and black silk scarf as a sweatband. It was a lot warmer than it’s been in Chicago…a LOT warmer.
Then we went to the big box stores and I did the running around – the battery on Mom’s cordless phone crapped out and I thought a replacement battery would fix it (it didn’t). We also stopped at Home Depot to get some odds and ends of things to finish getting Mom’s deck set up for the summer – she needed yellowjacket bait and that kind of thing. I stupidly bought hummingbird food, pooh-poohing her insistence that ordinary table sugar was good hummingbird food. Yep, the ingredients on the expensive little box
of superfine “hummer food” said “100% Sucrose.” Well, duh-mit to Heck.
A stop at Costco was omitted, because it was clear that lunch was needed as soon as possible, Naturally, I made a wrong turn trying to get on the expressway, so we took a scenic tour of Salt Lake’s West Side and drove back via surface streets. Oh, well, at least we thought the new baseball stadium looked nice. We ended up at a very cute little Norwegian cafe near Mom’s house that she likes a lot. Excellent food – huge portions. Next time, plan to SHARE a half sandwich! We chatted and looked at Scandinavian knick-knacks,
and I thought about how I needed to be more attuned to the new rhythms of Mom’s life.
After some relax time, we packed up stuff to go up to Tudy’s house to hit the hot tub and have a bite afterwards. We had an appointment at Mom’s favorite hair salon the next morning so she’d look sharp for the big party, and I’d decided to get my hair trimmed. So Friday was our only chance at hot-tubbing, we thought.
Tudy has a wonderful, wonderful back yard, full of vegetables growing in raised bins and bird feeders and chairs and tables. There’s no lawn, just a really nice red pavement. It’s lovely. She has a terrific hot tub, too. That part (soaking) was wonderful, but it was a little hot and we stayed in too long. Next time, a time limit and a lower temperature would be better if I’m in there with Mom – it’s too easy to get yakking and lose track. It was really not that good an idea to parboil our mother.
After we got her out and she rested and cooled off, she was better, but it was another lesson learned. Both Tudy and I wanted to make sure she got the full enjoyment of the jets and massage features, but the length of time was more than she could comfortably handle.
Dinner was very simple and light, and we went home and got in our jammies again and yakked for a bit before turning in early, as it had been a long day. Again, I was surprised that I slept so well. I suspect that it’s drinking too much caffeine, especially in the copious mugfuls that I drink at work.
Saturday morning was supposed to be our “big day out,” and I didn’t want to get Mom overextended on energy too early in the day, so we got going BUT she didn’t eat anything before we set out, and I didn’t make sure she’d eaten. I don’t often eat breakfast (especially on a work day) so she didn’t, either. I’m not really sure why. She seemed to be taking my lead on that kind of thing, rather than sticking to her normal routine. We got out to the beauty parlor so she could get “fluffed and puffed,” which means an
old -fashioned shampoo and set. We went to this place she’s been going to for some years, because they do this kind of thing (and have a large and loyal clientele of older ladies), unlike a lot of trendier places closer to her house.
Mom was greeted, as always wherever we went, with great enthusiasm. They were VERY happy to see her there, and they knew all the details of my visit and my sisters’ doings, and happily caught up with her as she waited for her appointment. I ended up getting a trim from a very nice guy named Bryce, as Mom’s shampoo-set hairstyle required a little dryer and styling done. Then as as was paying, I saw they did eyebrow waxes for ten bucks and thought “Huh, I’ve never had my eyebrows waxed, although I’ve had
them professionally tweezed a couple of times.” So I had that done on a whim, just to see if it was that much faster – and it was, and I’m pretty happy with the result. I’m not a girly girl, but it was nice to splurge mildly on a little grooming.
After that, we looked around for some special glasses she thought a nearby craft store carried, and then instead of grocery shopping it was clear that she needed to eat. This was the morning when she didn’t eat because I didn’t eat… and she hit the wall at about 11am. So we went home and fixed a simple snack and took it easy. Mom then told me what she really needed from the nearby little gas-station grocery store, and I drove up there to get a few odds and ends of foodstuffs (it’s walkable, but it was
hot and I didn’t want to take a lot of time). When I got there, the owner guy had set up an outdoor kitchen and was cooking a selection of Thai foods – pad Thai, chicken Satay, and Panang curry. It smelled delcious. I grabbed the groceries and on a whim got pad Thai to go so Mom and I could share a taste.
Seriously, this was really, really good Pad Thai – and this guy sets up and does something different every Saturday at the Shop and Go near Wasatch Presbyterian. If you live in the Wasatch Hollow neighborhood, get over there if you can some Saturday, you never know what he’ll be cooking. Next weekend, he thinks he might do Indian food. If he cooks that anything like I had, it’ll be yummy and spicy and full of flavor.
Unfortunately for Mom, the battery I bought for her old phone wasn’t taking a charge, either, so it was clear that a return trip to Best Buy was probably in the cards, but when?
Tudy arrived with her friend Lou to pick us up for the party and we headed out via the freeway, right past Best Buy. She agreed to stop on the way back if we left early enough. We laughed and visited with Lou, who lives simply in Southern Utah and enjoys his visits north to his adopted family (short version: he’s a former patient of Tudy’s).
We arrived at the party and again Mom was greeted with great enthusiasm, and for me it was a topsy-turvy experience of seeing family members for the first time in 25 years or more. They all mostly live in Salt Lake, but divorce and busy schedules had intervened and often it was just too hard to keep up with all of my close family during visits, let alone extended (and extremely tenously extended) relatives.
It was just… great seeing everyone. It was a simple party with beer and sodas in a wading pool and food catered from the local grocery’ s deli department, but it was a fun time, especially when the smoke alarm went off when they lit the birthday cake for my younger cousin Tiffany (her mother Kim was celebrating a big birthday, too). Other young cousins that I had spent a lot of time playing with as a kid were there, and it was just so nice to feel that sense of kinship and shared memories with so many people.
After a suitable stay, we got going, as Tudy planned a much more elaborate grilled chicken dinner back at her house. We did end up stopping for a new cordless phone, pretty much over Mom’s objections, but she admitted that she did need a working cordless because she’d become used to toting it around with her. I ran in, called my husband David for advice while standing in the cordless aisle, and ran out 10 minutes later. We went home to relax for a bit and so I could get the phone starting to charge before going
up to Tudy’s for dinner.
We drove up past the place where the guy had been cooking earlier, and Mom was interested to see where it was. She was pretty intrigued with the whole idea, and so had our neighbor who had dropped by the deck to chat while she picked up her laundry from our clothesline (it was like that all weekend – neighborly chats and such).
When we arrived, Tudy had dinner ready to go on the grill whenever we were ready. She set a lovely table outside with all the nice picnic silverware and serving dishes and even had the screened thing that goes over the salad bowl to keep the bugs off. She’d made some smothered chicken that had been marinating overnight – and some corn cobs with slices of bread ready-buttered (in the family tradition) so that the hot corn could be rolled and buttered on the bread…mmmmmm.
We enjoyed the evening and the birdsong and the delicious chicken and the four of us (Tudy, Lou, me, and Mom) talked and talked about all kinds of things.
Mom let me know it was time to go, and we took off for “jammies time.” I puttered around while she sat in her recliner and watched the news… and then I heard something I hadn’t heard in a while…. the Red Green show was on! I had to watch that show, especially with Mom! So we watched that and laughed, and she decided to go up and stretch out and watch it upstairs. And I watched it downstairs and got thoroughly nostalgic, because it was a favorite when I lived in Seattle, and then Red Dwarf came on, another
Seattle-era favorite, and finally I watched part of a Monty Python episode (the one with the blancmanges from outer space). All this strongly reminded me of more than 30 years ago, sitting up watching Monty Python and other British shows with Mom on Saturday nights.
Strange, but true – British and Canadian sitcoms were a staple of my young adulthood and here I was, watching them again at Mom’s house. The next morning, the sense of being in a time warp was even stronger.
I woke up a little later than I had the other mornings and finally got awake enough to get up and go out to the stairway. The scent of maple-cured bacon floated up and knocked me into my childhood for a second – bacon cooking, and the smell of coffee, took me right back to 9 years old for a second, and all that was missing was the sound of Pop’s voice, kidding Mom about something.
I got downstairs and Mom was working on some eggs for scrambling and coffee, and I got the juice. She got the bacon on plates and I cooked the eggs in a cute little nonstick skillet that looked new, in plenty of bubbling hot butter. Mom got a tray out and we went out to the deck for the last breakfast of the visit.
And then after a little while of visiting, and more discussions, it was time to leave.
So now I’m home, back with my hubby and my kitty, who missed me. And I’m really glad to be home, but I wish I could spend more time with Mom, and run more little errands and sit around and gab on the deck. I hope to make more short visits – not sure when, but I hope I can work it out. Because I’ve really missed being around family, and I’ve especially missed spending as much time as possible with Mom.
