“I’m not a dictator. It’s just that I have a grumpy face.”

I’m not a dictator. It’s just that I have a grumpy face.
Augusto Pinochet

Where’ve I been?

1. Watching multiple episodes of Season 2 of Dexter on On Demand. (which takes one from homecoming to bedtime)

2. I had such a grumpy day yesterday, I didn’t want it to spill over.

I had started a post on “measures”, and had a list, and I’ll get to that at some point.

But for some reason, Chick and I have started watching Season 2 of Dexter on On Demand. I had watched the first season when and as it came out (not on network!) and while engrossing, it was really bizarre of content and theme. At the end of that season, I was ’satisfied’ I’d seen the story, and couldn’t believe when they came out with a second season. I declined to watch it.

But recently Chick had started watching the (hopefully) cleaned up version of Season 1 on network, and when scheduling issues with Tivo and the video recorder meant she could not record or watch an episode, she assumed she could catch it On Demand, but when she went there, there was only season two lined up.

I was ‘around’, she asked, I ‘reluctantly’ agreed, and now we are totally hooked on this season. It is very interesting to see these types of characters able to evolve (the show deals with serial killers). (!!!) Once we start watching, we tend to watch several episodes in a row… and then one is T.I.R.E.D.

AND THEN, there was yesterday and the flu of grumpiness that I fought ALL day long.

Just at work.

I didn’t want to feel: grump·y (grŭm’pē) adj. grump·i·er, grump·i·est Surly and peevish; cranky.

I didn’t want to get that furrowed brow, that frown.

I wanted to sparkle (I’ve been doing so well!)

But all forces were against me. I walked in and immediately began to be hit with a constant all-day barrage of STUPID, whether it was e-mails, intercom calls, or even buried in years-old documents. All from what my boss calls hammerheads.

I wasn’t the only one feeling it. Sis is working on a major research project of internal records and every few minutes she had to come in and just marvel (not in the good way) over the stupid she found (or couldn’t find = even stupider). “Arthur”, former in-house now out-house compadre still working on some of our deals from afar, emailed with examples of stupid that were making him literally e-scream, “ARRRRRRGH!”

I was not alone.

The good thing was that I felt “I” was also sitting on my own shoulder watching myself go through my personal obstacle course and so “I” could keep tugging on my hair to pull my head back a bit out of fully falling prey to this test of my nerves and good intentions.

It was so hard. I kept saying to myself, to Sis, over and over and over, “I’m feeling grumpy. I don’t want to feel grumpy. I’m trying NOT to feel grumpy. I’m trying NOT to LET them make me feel grumpy.”

I guess it helped a little. I finally had to swallow down some Excedregeneric. I watched the clock willing the day to end so that the stupid buffeting would stop hurling at me. Oh, my. It was a challenging day.

I also tried to keep myself tucked away in my room, er, office, buried in one of the long-term projects I find for myself when other ‘daily’ work slows down. I tried to avoid interacting with those who were testing my resolve. Hard. Difficult. Nigh on impossible. I stayed as radio silent as allowed because for whatever reason the grumps got hold of me, I knew that it was MY challenge, and I didn’t need to roar or growl back out into the universe and domino the grumps thoughout the office.

Can’t say I was 100% successful, but BEING AWARE did help. I could have done so much damage. As it is, I think coming on the heels of all the sparkling the rumbles and grrrs that slipped out were taken more as a, ‘huh?’, than a ‘waaaaaaaaaaaaaa! she so mean to me!‘ I hope so.

Today was better. Not as grumpy, actually not grumpy but occasionally exasperated. Tried to swallow that down, semi-successfully. Can hope that tomorrow is even more improved, but you never know. As I mentioned to Sis today, no matter what our intentions (and she reminded me that she thought our 30-day trial of being super-sweet had to have expired!) or how hard we try, we are always 1 email, 1 intercom call, 1 head stuck in door of office away from being tipped off our tightwalk.

That’s just our life.

The best thing, though, is no matter how rough, tough, and tumbling a day it is at work, at the end of it all I jump in the little blue car and let the dust blow off as I roll home, and when I walk in the door at home, I’m HOME. I’m with my family and my kitties and the dog, and they welcome me back and love me and I’m not “HER” who sends ripples of sparkles or darkles out over the watchers. I’m ME, mother, daughter, animal servant, blogger, friend.

What a wonderful feeling to come home.

(even to raptly watch serial killer dramedy )

Familiar things

With Alzheimer’s, as with many things in life, the comfort of the routine, the familiar are so important.

Chick is amazing with keeping a routine within which Snowy can be herself as she is “now” or at any particular time on any day. We’ve been rolling between several stages lately, all interesting, different, and grounded from different times in Snowy’s life.

We can’t exactly pinpoint the ‘year’ but can kind of figure out the ‘era’ based on who and what Snowy uses as a reference to how she is looking at her day. Sometimes she is starting from further back than even when I was yet born.

Usually shifts in stage come after months, but lately we’ve had some bouncing around over a period of days. It is interesting, puzzling, sometimes disconcerting, informative, and just more evidence of the mysteriousness of this disease.

Today Chick fixed Snowy’s ‘famous’ squash casserole recipe. Oh. my. goodness. It is so good you want to just swim around in it with your mouth open. And I’m not a big squash lover. It is just GOOD. Any time Snowy was to bring a dish to a gathering or have people to dinner, this one was invariably one that was requested.

Chick bought the fixings the other day so they would be on hand this weekend when her energy level matched the preparation requirements. This morning as Snowy and I were both dozing over Sunday Morning, I heard “chop chop chop chop chop” and soon the aroma of the precooking of the squash was wafting around. More chopping and the onions were ready, as was the cheese, and the cracker crumbs, etc. Eventually into the oven went a goodly sized casserole dish and then the air was TRULY filled with an intoxicating smell.

When served up with some Southern biscuits, this made such a great Sunday brunch, and Chick and I steadily, almost breathlessly cleaned our plates.

Snowy did not. She poked at the serving of squash, the recipe she had made 1,000s of times made no sense to her. She turned her small plate and looked at the biscuit that had been split, buttered and jellied. She looked back at the squash. She rested it back on her chest and looked away.

Chick immediately jumped up and tried to talk through what the squash serving was, pulling aside the onions (cut large as Snowy always did for just that purpose). Snowy doesn’t eat onions but did cook with them. To no avail. Snowy looked then looked away.

Falling back on the routine of now, Chick offered up a slice of key lime pie and Boost, which Snowy reached for and began to tuck into. If she were in one of the earlier-rooted stages, would she have eaten up the squash casserole as being something that was “now” and not just a memory no longer accessible on this train track?

A little while ago the phone rang and it was a call from Johnny, Snowy’s former hairdresser for many years in the crimson nation. He talked first with me, wanting to know how she was doing as she had been on his mind. I asked if he wanted to talk to her and he was afraid that would upset her.

I do not buffer Snowy from those few of her many friends who actually do make the effort to call her – I handed her the phone (putting it on speaker at Chick’s suggestion since then I could help her with the conversation by repeating to her what was said when she ‘missed’ the words or the meaning).

She had a lovely chat, her face all lit up as she found a connection to Johnny still in her head. She asked him every other sentence, “How are you and everyone?” The other sentence she alternated with was, “When are you going to come to see me?” Johnny is a good sport who so long has cared for Snowy, and he played right along not acting put off by the repetition of the questions but just answering them over and over.

After he said “byee” to Snowy, he asked to speak with me again. He said he had been so worried he would upset her, but was so glad to speak with her.

Once he hung up, Chick gestured me back to Snowy’s chair where she sat weeping, a tear trickling down her face. “I miss him,” Snowy wept. She truly wasn’t really sure who “he” was, that had already drifted away. But she did miss something, someone, the idea of being connected to someone who would call.

Snowy doesn’t get many calls, even though through her life she had been a wonderful, wonderful friend to countless people. It’s as if she had already ‘gone on’ and people didn’t want to think about how she is still on the long journey away from them. It probably doesn’t matter as when those who do call, call, she doesn’t really remember that they did once the call ends. Yet, something changes for her, even if she weeps at missing someone, something after. She has a little connection, something that warms under the surface that recognizes not being forgotten.

She is ‘like’ Chick’s and my little girl, and we care for her and love her and do our best to make the world, the day, the era she is in a really good one, and don’t let her slip away under the waters of BEING forgotten.

Ah, one more familiar thing has just occurred: Charlie has found a lizard who was at last drawn out into the sun and onto the window he has stared out of through all daylight hours for the last year and a half for the express purpose of spotting lizards. He is sitting on the back of the big chair in the window in a pool of sunlight deliciously on guard for more lizard memories.

Soft day

It’s been a quiet, low-key day. Chick got me up 8-ish to come out and wait for Snowy in the den, to tend and care for her while Chick helped out our stylist in her new endeavors for awhile.

I know the day/morning was much harder on her than on me as she had to spend Saturday ‘dressed nicely and in real shoes’, dealing with people, hair sweepings, busted washer hoses, towel laundering, sorting out software, and womaning the phones.

I, on the other hand, sat with and entertained Snowy, made sure she had her nourishment (after giving her the remaining sip of coffee they  had left from yesterday, heated up to bubbling point), walked her to the bathroom and back various times, played the cool “Inside” TV show that Chick had recorded for us on an air show in Oshkosh (who knew what all went in to that), kept and eye on Charlie, conversed with Chick’s kitty (having left my crew dozing in our cave), and napped a little with Snowy while we held our breath and waited for Chick’s return.

The afternoon, once Chick had come back with swollen and blistered feet and an armful of groceries, we ate BLTs (yum yum yum) and watched that sweet John Cusack movie, “Martian Child”. How interesting that it was based on a true story of a science fiction writer and that in the ’special features’ he and his adopted “Martian child” were there to meet. A few more shows, a few more conversations, I dozed off and Chick danced Snowy to bed after a bite of supper.

Chick is busy connecting with folks at the moment. She has been selected to be in a study in the SW which will include an ivf. We are hugely excited that this opportunity has presented itself, but now must figure out how to afford the attached expenses and figure out her time away and how we will handle that. “Depending” on logistics I may have to take vacation time as don’t know if I can pull the work-from-home as I did the 2 previous aways, but if I’m lucky my boss will be understanding and helpful once again. I don’t tell what Chick is away for, as that is her info to tell. They could possibly accommodate me again, but maybe we won’t have to deal with as long times as before. It may work out better to have her fly out and back several times, with shorter times away. We’ll just have to see how everything works out in the planning. I want to do everything I can to help her make this happen.

So, that is going to be on my mind a lot for awhile.

It’s pretty darned exciting. Can you tell what a hard time I am having typing with all my fingers (and toes, tho’ they don’t affect the keyboard) crossed? I love my girl so much and want her to realize this passionate dream. Knowing how she is with Snowy (and with me), I don’t think a kid could have a more wonderful mother. I think I’d be okay as a granny, eh?

Thus we are simmering quietly on the surface today, but with little bubbles dancing up from the hot bottomed pot of possibility. My mind is bouncing around so much without focusing that I can hardly settle to anything. I just spent a few fairly worthless hours of tapping away in the Pogo game rooms (can’t focus enough on a badge) and finding that I was quickly bored with my favorite games but trying to use them to slow my brain down. Just gave up finally after popping a few thousand balloons in Poppit.

Pretty silly, eh? Maybe a few more trips around the world in World Class Solitaire and I’ll be ready for Saturday Night Sofa Sleeping so I’ll be ready to shepherd Snowy when she gets up in the morning. Think I may even miss the kitty cats tonight, but they may find me too restless from the excitement we are about to venture into.