Tuesday-Wednesday mom blog with interspersed rambles

Gardening calms mom down; it's probably her favorite thing to do. Even in the midst of that conflict-filled weekend four years ago, mom and I got along for the hours we were digging around in the dirt and planting gladioli. Which continue to do very well.

Before mom and dad got in--before it was time to get them at the airport but just after the HVAC guy wrapped up his inspection--I went to get some plants for us to work with, including an eggplant and two red pepper plants. On the way back, I stopped at Whole Foods--dad had requested bread and 'something to go with tea'--and in the bakery section espied a chocolate brownie cream pie that looked absolutely unappetizing to me, but that might appeal to the parents. Although with them, you never know. I took the risk and figured I'd foist it on my friends if my parents didn't go for it. Just after I got home and got everything into the fridge (I'd also made a hummus/olives/baba run, during which I got myself 'something to go with tea,' i.e., halva), dad called to say that they'd landed. I got to them just as they got to me--or, rather, dad called to let me know they were out there just as I got 'out there'--and I pulled up when I saw them and hung up. I was ten feet in front of them, but they were looking around and trying to call me back. Finally, I got out of the car.


Dad: I guess I thought your car was another color.

Mom took my hug and got in the car. But, too my horror, she kept trying to close the car door with her fingers atop it, so that if she did manage to close it, it would slam on her hand. I don't understand why she couldn't just grab the door handle. I don't understand--and I say this as someone who recently stuck her hand in a blender--she doesn't have an intuitive aversion to sticking her hands where they might get hurt. Eventually, she agreed to pull the handle and shut the door. Unfortunately, I don't have power locks, so I had to keep telling her to get her hand off the door latch as I was driving--she kept asking if that was how she would open the window. (The AC was on and working).

Once we got home, it was low drama all around. Eerily low drama. Both parents said kind things about the front yard. Now, this is bizarro world not just from the perspective of my parents' approving; having a decrepit lawn that brought down the neighborhood had sort of become a fact of life. When a friend complimented me on my 'green thumb,' I felt the need to reassure her that my thumb was no such proverbial color. But the yard does look good (though it will probably look like crap again in the winter). Actually, especially with the plants I just added, it's reached the point of no return in terms of plantings: it's getting harder and harder to mow, with the diminishing open green space, so I may as well keep planting (and/or woodchipping and putting down rocks) until there's no lawn left. Part of it is that people have given me a lot of plants over the years--so I had them and couldn't really let them sit while I thought about planting them--and gradually, they came together to form a decent front yard. But I digress.


We came in, had lunch... and they liked the food! They did bring their own mozzarella and smoked salmon, but they also ate the hummus, bread, and corn. And they liked the pie (those of you nearby need not be disappointed--it's huge, so you'll still get some of it, if you want. They liked the cat; mom was nice to her (this has not always been the case). After lunch, we did some gardening, and mom insisted on dealing with my raised bed, which, admittedly, is a mess. At which point I asked dad to figure out the tiki torches (I'd assembled them but one was wobbly), otherwise we'd get eaten alive, and I started planting the plants.

Bizarro world persisted as mom went to shower after the gardening.

Mom: Do you clean your own house?
A.: Uh... yeah?
Mom: Huh.
A.: What?
Mom: I just never manage to achieve this level of cleanliness.

Now, an impressive level of cleanliness is as foreign to me--as pertaining to me--as a green thumb, but, as with the yard, I can actually take some credit for it (and also give credit for circumstances). The first circumstance is that living in the DC area is not like living in Boston; in DC, if you leave anything for the cockroaches, you will get cockroaches. If you don't want cockroaches, there mustn't be a trace of food out. The second is, I don't like carpets (small ones are okay, and I have a few of those), and it's much, much easier to keep the house clean without carpeting. It just attracts dust. Third--well, I guess this is not really a circumstance--I've just come out of a massive decluttering kick, and spaces just look cleaner when there's less clutter (regardless of whether the clutter itself is, say, dustless). Lastly--this is sort of a corollary to the third thing--once you get used to a certain level of cleanliness, such as the one I had a chance to establish over the last few months, even small deviations start to bother you and you feel like dealing with them immediately. I've been in that zone before, but I've let thing get out of control, with the dining room table as the canary, but I'm at the point where if I have even a little time, I'll put things in their place (or toss them). And I have definitely found that having things in order makes me less irritable to external stressors. But I digress, again.

We went for a walk, after gardening and cleaning up, at which point mom's foot started to hurt, but she said it was manageable. I offered her paid meds, but she didn't want any. The pain didn't really go away but she said she was dealing with it. We got back and had dinner. Afterward, mom asked how I could live without a TV.

Mom: How do you watch the news?
A.: I read the news.
Mom: I need to watch the news.

I live-streamed some news for her.

Mom: [Five-minute lecture on how what's happening in Egypt is proof that the Obama administration is an unmitigated disaster and she told me so and I must know she's right because I'm ignoring every word she's saying but wasn't it in Hamlet--do I remember Hamlet--that some guy said that if you're getting angry, you know the other person's right?]

I continued to ignore her and shrug as Al Jazeera in English streamed on the iPad. I kept waiting for my parents to notice that that's what it was, but they didn't.

We went to bed. At 2:45, I was awakened by the hallway light and chatter in the guest room. Mom's foot pain had become very sharp and unbearable. I offered her pain meds; she declined. I offered to take her to the emergency room; she accepted. I dropped them off, parked, and went in just as they had finished checking her in and were about to take her (us) back.

Mom: Didn't you have a different... that's not a great hairstyle for you.
A.: It's not a hairstyle. It's my hair pulled back at 3am.
Mom: Well, it doesn't suit you.
A.: I don't care?
Mom: Don't get defensive. I'm just telling you that it doesn't look good.
A.: I don't need it to look good. I need it out of my face, now.
Mom: Well, now is still a good time to let you know that it doesn't work for you.

They took us back, and I got a glimpse of what a frustrating patient mom is, because provides information to the medical staff the same way she  provides information to me to write a complaint letter: she provides lots of extraneous information and doesn't answer their questions directly. At one point, she said 'no' to "are you on any daily medications" and I had to correct her; she tried to correct me back by saying that her daily medications had nothing to do with her foot. It was pointed out that that wasn't the question.

All they could really do was give her pain meds and tell her to see her podiatrist or orthopedic surgeon when she got back. So it'll be pain meds and not a lot of walking for the rest of the week. As we rode back to the house:

Mom: This medication is making me sleepy.
Dad: That's a good thing.
Mom: It is for now, but I still have work to do on A.'s raised bed.
A.: The raised bed will be fine. If you really want to deal with it, you can have non-drowsy meds during the day.
Mom: No, I do have to deal with it! It's a mess! It's an abomination!
A.: We can discuss it tomorrow... er, later today.

I pulled up to the house, parked. Mom got out of the car, let out a piercing scream.

A.: What happened?

What had happened was that mom had her fingers in the door, and dad tried to close it. This is one of those things that happens to the best of us but it happens to my family more often because mom is always putting her fingers where they may get pinched and dad is always doing things like closing doors without looking.

We got in and iced the fingers. It took mom's mind off the pain in her foot until the meds kicked in.