Debate Last Night

I'm an Obama supporter and watched the first debate between Obama and McCain last night.  This morning I looked for a newspaper article that said what I was thinking and this one filled the bill.  Click the title of this blog post, Debate Last Night, and it will take you to the article from the New York Times.  I was proud of my guy, but my husband, who is a McCain Republican didn't like him at all.  I think this article is not too biased.  I have to be careful in my household to be open-minded and try to see the other guy's point of view.  It keeps my on my toes!

Much more mellow color now--perhaps purple

Alison and Zuzu in Grandma Whitney's Cool Porch Swing

The Blues are gone.  They have been replaced by the beautiful visages of my grandchildren, who are in Kitsap County this week, visiting with their Mama.  Mama's parents live in Kingston on a terrific piece of property that is just right for grandkids.  I spent the whole day there on Friday and will spend more time there, in addition to a Penney's photoshoot tomorrow and an all day visit at our house on Friday.  We have a nice piece of property, too, but it doesn't include a swing and toys with wheels and a little kid picnic table.  However, we have thousands of river rocks and lots of sidewalk and a great big concrete driveway that will appeal to the 3 year old, Alison.  She can fill buckets with rocks and ride her wheeled vehicle around and around the house and she can pull weeds with me if she feels like it.  We'll have a great time.  I think we might make chocolate chip cookies, too.  I'd like to make and eat some and I bet Alison will, too.  Zuzu, on the other hand, being only nine months old will probably crawl around on the wooden floors and dust them for me.  Mama is not so sure she will take an afternoon nap, but she is such a happy little one that it won't matter much as long as the source of her milk supply is at hand.

I believe the last post was written shortly before last Friday and I was not feeling so good about life that day.  But Friday changed all that.  It is incredible to me that 6 hours spent with two grandchildren can be so relaxing, enervating, better than a massage, better than 3 glasses of wine, better than a week's vacation.  I'd like to know how that works, because I could make a fortune bottling whatever it is that those kids have that can make somebody who is blue turn color so completely!  I was so changed by that day that I slept straight through the night for two nights in a row, unheard of lately with my old mind worrying the situation with my Mom and brother.

What did we do in those 6 hours?  We built a town with a Mama Elephant and a Baby Elephant and Eeyore and a ball that was actually a tower from which the Baby Elephant could see his/her Mama.  Alison decided that a piece of cloth needed to be placed on the ball so that Baby didn't fall off.  We discussed the Pretty Rock Soup that Ali made for me many, many times when I was visiting her in Wisconsin in December.  She explained to me that the Pretty Rocks have to be upstairs now because they are too little and if Zuzu got them she would might put them in her mouth, which would not be good.  We had lunch--pb and js all around and banana bread with pineapple in it make by Grandma Whitney and some blueberries that Ali helped her other Grandma pick.  We sat on the early morning sunlight on the front porch while Ali helped her Grandpa Whitney wash his truck and move his motorhome and some other Grandpa duties.  Mama and I took pictures of Ali and Zuzu in the way cool single person porch swing--single adult person but not too small for two granddaughters.  We helped Zuzu stay away from the magazines she likes to chew on and watched her crawl and destroy Ali's town.  We toured the yard and looked at all the pretty late summer flowers blooming.  We listened to Ali try to take a nap while both grandmas and Mama and Zuzu were still in the living room (impossible!).

That's what we did.  Now how in the world can that change an outlook?  I don't know, but it did, and it's lasted--Paxil doesn't even work that well!  I haven't seen the kids since Friday but I've talked to Mama and all is well.  Ali finally took a nap that day, after I left.  They've been to Poulsbo and had the smiley face cookies and some donuts at Sluy's or the other bakery, threw some rocks in the bay and today another grandpa is coming to visit.  Tomorrow are the pictures,  and Friday I get to see them again,  a refill of the amazing grandchild elixir!

  

The Blues

I had a brother who liked to say, when he was feeling down, that he was "blue". I guess I still have that brother, but most of his ashes are in the Elwah River and the rest of them are in the soil around a hydrangia bush that I brought home from his memorial service 6 years ago. He was probably an undiagnosed bi-polar person, what we used to call manic-depressive, and like an Irish poet, he loved his highs and lows. During high times he was charming, funny, wonderful to be around, his smile was radiant, and during his lows, his blue times, he cried and bellowed and carried on something awful--anyone in his radius was affected. He and I both loved the blues music, too, and today it's really all I want to listen to.

I am blue today. Though I am done crying and bellowing today, yesterday I reminded myself of my brother. Unlike my brother, I had something tangible to cry and bellow about. Maybe he did, too, but you never could tell for sure. What's making me blue is that our Angel Alyssa is no longer working for us. Yesterday around noon she came to my mother's house for her 4 hours shift. She began her duties, she was making pot roast for dinner and planning to give Mom a bath. She came into the living room where my brother presides over the couch and the coffee table, strewn with Rolling Stone magazines, cash, prescription medications for his various mental and physical ailments, glasses, coffee mugs, matches, catnip for his cat, and dust 2 years thick, and found him lighting up his pot pipe. I suppose he thought (???) she was such a dear young lady that she would be "cool' with it. He supposed wrong. She is an employee of a reputable agency with rules and regulations and as a respected employee with ethics she called her boss and reported that an illegal substance was being smoked in her presence.

That is when the shit hit the fan. Betty, from Abiding Care, called me first and reported that there was "trouble" and reported what the trouble was. She asked me to call my brother and tell him to put his pot away, which I did immediately. 30 minutes later she called to say that Alyssa wanted to complete her 4 hours, but that after that "service would be terminated". She apologized and I apologized to her for my brother's incredible stupidity. She replied that it was "because of his illness". I was already in tears. After I hung up the phone I screamed and shook for a half hour. I screamed all the things i wanted to scream at my brother. I didn't dare go to my mother's house--I was truly afraid that if I saw Stanley I would fling myself on him with a sharp instrument and end up in jail. He deserved it. Betty called him--I asked her to-- and told him Alyssa wouldn't be coming anymore. He called me shortly after and I hung up on him after he said, "Hello, Chris" in a serious tone, about to tell me what he had wrought. I already knew what he had done.

The rest of the day, which had started with blueberry muffin baking and enjoying the incredible Fall sunshine, I spent trying to figure out what to do. What my heart wanted to do was to never set foot in my mother's house again--to never speak to my brother ever again--to turn my back on the entire mess. My heart won over my brain all the rest of the day. I wanted to hand it all over to Stanley--let him take care of everything from now on. Let him do the grocery shopping, let him take Mom to the doctor, let him give Mom baths, do the laundry, comb her hair, clean her nails, adjust her braces. All day. But then toward evening my brain began to take over and I knew it would never work. I knew I couldn't leave my mother at his mercy--because he has no mercy. It is all about him. If I let him shop for the groceries with Mom's money he would abuse the situation. If I left it to him to give her a bath, do her laundry, comb her hair, clean her nails, fix her braces, none of it would happen. I would visit one day and she would smell bad and he would have used up all her money and would be asking for more.

My brain and I had a long talk, with the help of my husband, and I finally decided that I would continue to buy the groceries and to take Mom to the doctor and to do the things that are in service to her that I know my brother won't do. But I won't clean anymore, or get my brother what he wants to eat. The house will go back to the way it was before Alyssa and I cleaned it, the way both my Mom and my brother are used to having it, coffee grounds and fruit peels and stale bread all over the kitchen counter, fruit flies everywhere (though I bought some bug spray today), cat hair on all the upholstery, clothes strewn all over the house. I won't put my agenda anywhere near theirs--there is no percentage in that. There is nothing for it but to ignore what I can't stand, close my eyes, and go on. An old Irish prayer fits well: If God sends you down a stony path, may he give you strong shoes.

So today I am blue, like my brother, Dan, used to be sometimes. And I wish he was here, though I would have had to deal with his anger, too, and mine is big enough.

Angels

I would tend to believe more in extra-terrestrials than in supernatural beings, but this week I met an Angel. She came in the form of a 22-year-old young lady named Alyssa, working for Abiding Care, a home healthcare agency. She is tall, blond, competant, smart and going to college to become a medical technician. She will be coming to my Mom's house twice a week until we feel we don't need her services anymore, which may be NEVER, if we have our druthers!

After Alyssa's first day, when she took everything off the kitchen counter and cleaned like that old White Tornado of fifties TV commercials, and then cleaned the toaster until it was like new, and made coffee, and waited on my Mom, and had an intelligent conversation with me about religion, and then made dinner for both Mom and Stanley, (the best burgers I've ever had, exclaimed my brother), I am not sure we ever want to give her up. She is a combination of personal maid, housekeeper, cook, companion, all rolled into one $20 per hour package of energy and good will. She has the ability to be objective about the not so clean house, my scraggly-haired, pill-taking, pot smoking brother--all of it. She is allowing me to step back and not worry so much about my Mom and the care she might not be getting from my brother. Two days a week I can breath easier. Two days a week I can know that for 4 hours at least, everything is being taken care of. She is going to make pot roast next week, she was cleaning out the refrigerator when I left her yesterday( a tremendous task), she had cleaned the bathroom, she had made coffee again and she planned on making dinner and bathing Mom before she left at 4:00.

Mom, Stanley and I have bonded with this marvelous girl--my brother may be falling in love with her for all I know. If I had to compare her looks to a current personality it would be to Scarlet Johansen. She isn't as classically beautiful, but she has those strong Scandinavian features, and a body and character equally strong, as though she has endured many hardships in her short life. Perhaps she has seen a lot in her time with Abiding Care. Perhaps she was born this way, or raised this way, but whatever has made her the lovely young person that she is, it's something my little family is reaping the benefits of. She has made all of us stronger and more confident. She is giving relief to both my brother and me, and she is doing much-needed cleaning that I was trying to do, but didn't have the energy for. Cleaning the frig was on my list of to-do things and cleaning the bathroom, too, but I hadn't gotten there yet. Now I don't have to do them and I can concentrate on the doctor's appointments and later the physical therapy appointments and getting the prescriptions filled and the other little things that Alyssa can't do.

Because of Alyssa I feel much, much better this week. I can see light instead of being mired in anger, sadness and dread. I can regroup and make lists and enjoy my husband and my garden and clean my own house and bake muffins. Friday I will be able to go out to lunch with friends because Alyssa will be with my Mom. This week I have taken two days just for myself, not doing anything in service to my Mom. Yesterday when I left her, Mom was reading one of her favorite types of books--a biography of Joan Crawford--it's the first time I've seen her reading since her fall. We are figuring out how to care for her, she is feeling less pain and the physician's assistant who she has been seeing says she is healing well and in two weeks should be able to start physical therapy. With the help of our angel, we should all be okay.