Notes from the Home - September 6, 2016

The quiet monotony of Tuesday afternoon was disturbed when Leila, my next-door neighbor, yelled, "Lady". Then she yelled it again and again. "She probably means Gidget," I thought. Gidget is Leila's dog, a little, white cutie that must be at least part poodle. Leila is having great difficulty keeping things straight anymore, and I figured "Lady" was a long forgotten dog that had popped into her memory.

I went into the hallway expecting so see Gidget in full-frisky mode, an excited little pooch sniffing under a door, then hurrying across the hall to another. But, except for Leila standing in her doorway, the hall was empty.

"Lady," Leila shouted again."

"What's the matter, Leila?"

"I need help."

"Is there something I can do to help?" I asked as I approached her. Then I stopped. She didn't have pants on and her underwear was down around her ankles. "I'm going to call and ask them to send someone to help you."

"She said she'd be right back,"

"Who said she'd be right back?"

"The lady. She said she'd be right back, but she didn't come back. . . . Oh, there she is."

One of the nurse's assistants from home health was hurrying down the hall. "I forgot to grab some gloves when I came down," she said as she went by me. "Come on, Leila, let's get you in the bathroom."

That was last week. Yesterday, shortly after lunch, Leila, her son, and granddaughter headed to the Magnolia Manor nursing home in  Buena Vista, Georgia, where Leila will receive more care than is available at Covenant Woods. Both David - her son - and Jody - her granddaughter - live near Buena Vista, which will make it easier for them to make daily visits. Although Gidget won't be allowed to live with Leila, she will be allowed to visit during the day. That is important: Leila has said many, many times, "I don't know what I'd do without my Gidget."

David stayed a week with Leila a month or so ago, when she first became disoriented. That week, they discovered that part of Leila's problem was the result of some medication she was taking. The doctor changed her prescription, and Leila became a little more aware. However, David's opinion of Covenant Woods took a turn for the worse.

"You know what they wanted to do?" he asked me. "They wanted to charge me for the six nights I stayed with Mother. Well, I told them what I thought about that. I should be more careful. My mouth landed me in jail once and in more than a few fights."

*          *          *

Leila's departure is another one of those things that make life at Covenant Woods seem like I'm living at a transient center. Sure, people are always coming into and then out of our lives - friends move, co-workers get new jobs, folks die - but all the coming and going happens so fast here.

Every now and again I look over at that table for four in a corner of the dining room. The table at which Isabelle, Ralph, Al and I ate dinner every night. It was a comfortable, convivial gathering; we complained some, talked seriously some, and laughed a lot. Then Ralph died. A year later, Isabelle died, and Al died last February.

It is the same with casual acquaintances, the people you see nearly every day and have a short conversation with once in a while. Then one day, somebody says, "Did you hear Tony passed?"

Over a lifetime, many people enter and leave our lives as if through a revolving door. But here it sometimes seems to be the revolving door on one of those long since gone downtown department stores at the height of the Christmas rush.

Notes from the Home - August 29, 2016

A portion of a recent dinner conversation:
Judy: "Elsie, did you tell me you were raised on a farm?"
Elsie: "No, I didn't grow up on a farm."
Judy: "I thought you said you had. I have a farming question I wanted to ask you."
Elsie: "I wasn't raised on a farm, but some of my relatives were farmers. Sometimes I worked on their farms, so I know a little. Maybe I can help you."
Judy: "Great. [sudden stunned and confused look] Now I can't remember what I wanted to ask."

*          *          *

Leila, my next-door neighbor, hasn't been well. One night as I got into bed, I heard Leila yelling for help. I called the desk, and Warren, the night security guy, came down to check on her. Five hours later, at three-thirty in the morning, Leila was yelling again.

She is often very, very confused. Wednesday evening, wearing only a night gown, she wondered into the hall and knocked on several doors. "When are they coming to get me?" she'd ask. When asked, who was coming to get her, Leila said, "I don't know." And she gave the same answer when asked why were they coming to get her. "Call and find out what's going on," she'd say. But she didn't know who needed to be called.

Her son David lives about forty miles from here, and he has spent more than a few nights with Leila recently. David is reluctant to move his mom to the Personal Care wing here at Covenant Woods, were there would be someone to keep an eye on her 24/7, because Leila wouldn't be able to take Gidget, her little dog, with her. In which case, he worries that the cure might be worse than the disease. He is hoping to move Leila to Magnolia Manor near where he lives, so he and his daughter can spend more time with her.

David and I got to talking one evening. He said he'd bought a laptop and wondered if I'd help him with it. I told him I would, but that he might be better off asking a ten-year-old. "I tried that," he said. "My granddaughter helped me a few times, but she's stopped coming over. She says I'm untrainable."

*          *          *

Mildred talked about her high school basketball career the other day.

"We played outdoors. The school didn't have a gym, so we played out in a field. It wasn't paved or anything, but they leveled it off and packed it down real good.

"Momma and some of the other mothers made our uniforms. We wore shorts; they came to just above the knee. Daddy said no daughter of his was going to go out in public in those shorts. Daddy came to all our games. I don't know if he was watching us play, or watching to make sure no boy looked at my legs."

*          *          *

I wish I could get my sleep pattern back into some semblance of a pattern. Last week, after three or four consecutive nights of two, three, or maybe four hours of sleep, I slept hardly at all Friday night. 

At two-thirty Saturday morning, I got myself out of bed and into socks, shoes, shirt and pants. The rest of the day was unproductive. I dozed off a couple of times in the morning, once while doing a crossword puzzle. At three that afternoon, I turned to Mr. Coffee, put the prescribed amount of Folgers in the proper place, filled the reservoir with water, pushed the on-off switch, and went over to the sliding glass door to enjoy the beautiful, bright, sunshiny day. 

And a very pleasant afternoon it was from inside, where the air conditioner kept the temperature at seventy-four - twenty degrees lower and considerably less humid than the great outdoors. A bird flitted around the dogwood tree; a lizard crawled on to the porch, stopped, looked around as if lost, got his bearings and went on; a squirrel dashed by; and I dozed off.

Slept soundly is more accurate. I was out until six o'clock. It was too late then to get dinner in the dining room, and the coffee that had been sitting on the burner for three hours had no allure. It was easy to say, "Better not have coffee. If I have a cup now, I won't sleep a wink."

A few hours later, at nine o'clock, I crawled into bed, instantly fell asleep, and remained asleep until seven Sunday morning. Ten uninterrupted hours of sleep, and I felt like hell. Besides the grogginess that comes from a long sleep, my legs were as stiff as they've ever been. Once I'm asleep, I don't move much, if at all, and it takes some time and effort to get the legs into pants, and the feet into shoes. Shirts, unless they're button-down, aren't a problem. I do have a problem getting my arms into a button-down shirt without getting the shirt into a tangled mess in the process. Untangling the shirt without having to take it off and starting over is no easy task.

After I was dressed and the grogginess wore off, I felt good. I didn't accomplish much, but I puttered around a lot, stayed sort of busy, and went to bed at ten last night. Sleep came quickly, and when I awoke, the digital display on the clock-radio read "6:02." That's what I thought, anyway. Once I turned on the light, put my glasses on, sat up, and put a sock on my left foot, I glanced at the clock, which now read "2:12."

Dyslexia had struck again. I opted to lie back down. That part was easy. Getting back to sleep wasn't. I got up again and finished dressing at three o'clock. Now I'm sitting at the computer. Who knows, maybe I'll finish this before I fall asleep at the keyboard.

Notes from the Home - August 4, 2016

Monday evening, as I waited for Jeopardy to begin, someone knocked on the door. The knock wasn't the two or three raps that visitors usually make to let me know they want in. This was a light, rhythmic tapping, almost but not quite "shave and a haircut, two bits." When my friendly "Come in," failed to get a response, I went to the door, opened it, and saw a very confused Leila standing there.

"I can't find my next-door neighbor," she said, as Gidget, her small, recently groomed dog, sniffed at my feet.

"I am your next-door neighbor."

"You are?" Leila asked, her face full of doubt.

"Are you looking for Richie?" Richie is my other next-door neighbor, and he sometimes helps Leila with various things.

"l don't know," Leila said. "Am I?"

"Do you need some help?" I asked, easing my wheelchair into the hall.

"I think so."

"What's wrong?"

"I can't get in my apartment."

"Are you locked out?"

"I don't have my keys. What did I do with them?"

Confident I could handle that problem, I set the brakes on Leila's walker, asked her to sit down on it, called the desk and told Teresa that Leila had locked herself out. Teresa said she would have someone come down to help Leila.

"Who's coming to get me?" Leila asked.

"Nobody is coming to get you. Someone will be here in a few minutes to let you in your apartment."

"But, I'm supposed to be going somewhere."

"Where?"

"I don't know?"

"Who's coming to take you?"

"I don't know, but I wish they'd hurry up. Oh, look, somebody's coming."

The somebody was Sherry, a nurse's assistant, who went to Leila's door, turned the knob, and announced, "It wasn't locked."  Sherry helped Leila into her apartment, and I went back to watch Jeopardy. As soon as Sherry left, Leila was back at my door, and before the end of Double Jeopardy, Leila had interrupted Alex and the contestants three times. The first time, she asked, "When are they coming for me?", the next time, she asked, "Where am I supposed to be?", and then "Where am I?"

I called Teresa again and told her what was going on. She said she would call David, Leila's son. An hour later, David arrived. Leila was at dinner last night, but David wasn't with her. I didn't get a chance to talk with her, and I don't know if David is staying with her.

*          *          *

Scrolling through Facebook on Monday, I noticed an item Karen had posted. She waxing ecstatic over the chocolate chip cookies that were waiting for her when she got home from work that afternoon. Russ had spent the afternoon in the kitchen cooking up the surprise.

Russ called Tuesday morning to cancel our shopping date. The weatherman was predicting rain, which makes getting in and out of the car, and going back and forth from the car to the store, damn unpleasant for me and the guy who pushes me around.

"I do have to run to the store for a few things," Russ said. "Do you want me to pick up anything for you?"

"Well, you could get me some bananas. And how about some homemade chocolate chip cookies?" 

"I'll have to ask Karen about the cookies."

An hour later, Russ showed up with a bunch of bananas and four chocolate chip cookies. The cookies were delicious. Next time, he should make a double batch: one for Karen, and one for me.

 Meanwhile, according to a Facebook post from way out west in Idaho, Hayden asked Bethany if they could bake bread. So, I asked Beth if Hayden was permitted to grab and eat bits of dough as it was rising. She said, "Absolutely not," or words to that effect. I was shocked and appalled. Back in the day, when I baked bread every weekend, Beth feasted on dough the whole time it was rising.

She did say, when she makes tuna-noodle, she and Hayden eat a serving or more before the casserole gets into the oven. Again, back in the day, whenever I made tuna-noodle, Beth watched every move I made and ordered me to leave a generous portion of the mixture out of the casserole dish so she could eat it while the rest of it baked.

She also said Hayden is allowed to eat cookie dough before she adds the eggs. Debbie was the cookie baker at our house, so I don't what the cookie rules were. Although, whatever the rules were, I'm pretty sure Beth set them, and I bet she ate the dough with or without eggs.

*          *          * 

I've heard the expression thousands - probably millions - of times. It was used a lot on TV shows in the fifties and sixties, usually by characters who had only recently come to the US from Mexico. And it was almost always used for comedic effect, or so it seemed to me. We Anglos sometimes use the expression, but again more for effect than anything else.

Margarita is from Mexico, and English is definitely her second language. She works in either the food service department or the housecleaning department, depending on where the need is greatest that day. Today, the big need was in housekeeping. At ten-thirty Margarita came to give the apartment its weekly cleaning.

She made the bed, cleaned the bathroom, took out the full garbage bag and replaced it with a new one, dusted, washed the few dirty dishes that were in the sink, and mopped the bathroom and kitchen area. With all that done, she was ready to vacuum. She brought the sweeper in from her cart in and looked for an outlet to plug it in. I tried to direct her to one of the three surge protector strips in the room, but she kept looking for a wall outlet. All the wall outlets in my apartment are inconveniently located behind large pieces of furniture.

"Oh," she said, thinking there had to be an outlet in the kitchen area. One quick glance, however, was all it took for Margarita to realize the outlet in the kitchen is behind the microwave. "Ay caramba," she said. There was no exclamation mark after it. When TV characters said "Ay caramba," there were always three or four exclamation marks. But this "ay caramba" fell from Margarita's lips in the manner of a disgusted "Oh, for Pete's sake." Interesting.

Notes from the Home - July 31, 2016

It has been a great deal more than comfortably warm in Columbus recently. Mae was putting her walker into the trunk of her car when I came by in the wheelchair.

"You're going to get sunstroke," she said.

"No, I'm not."

"You need to get a straw hat. And, where's your water bottle?"

"I don't like wearing hats, I've been drinking water all day, and I'm going around the building just one time. I'll be back in the air-conditioned comfort of my apartment in ten minutes . . . or less."

"It's awfully hot out here; you be careful."

"Yes, ma'am. But if it's so terribly hot, why are you wearing a sweater?"

"There are holes in it," she said, holding out her arm so I could take a closer look.

The long-sleeve sweater was loosely knit. "There are holes," I said, "but it still looks like something to wear on a cold December morning, not on a warm July evening."

"Look, when you get to be a certain age you want to cover up everything. And I'm at that point," Mae said.

*          *          *

When I go check my mail, usually around noon, I go out the back door, ride halfway around the building, and go back in through the main entrance. It's nice to get out of the building for a few minutes and get some fresh air in my lungs.

Being neither a mad dog nor an Englishman, those sojourns in the noonday sun are short. They aren't short enough for Johnny, the maintenance supervisor, however. Twice last week, Johnny stopped his SUV - he was on his way to McDonald's or some such place for lunch - and asked me if I had a bottle of water with me. Both times I admitted I did not, and both times he told me to be careful, to stay out of the sun, "and get yourself a hat. You're going to get sunstroke."

*          *          *

Virginia and I talked for a few minutes one evening when she was walking her little dog, BooBoo. The heat and her sweater were the main topics of conversation.

"I should have taken this stupid sweater off before I came out," she said.

"Why do you have it on?"

"It got real warm in my apartment this afternoon, and I played with the air conditioning. Then I got cold and put on this sweater. I guess I set the thermostat too low. I'll have to reset it when BooBoo is done out here."

*          *          *

A full night's sleep has become a rarity. Monday, with help from an Advil, I slept for nine hours - nine-thirty Monday night until six-thirty Tuesday morning. The small print on the Advil bottle includes this: "Ask your doctor before use if you are pregnant, under a doctor's care for a serious condition, age 60 or over, taking any other drug or have stomach problems." Although  three of the five reasons for asking the doctor apply to me, I haven't asked him about Advil. I am not totally irresponsible in such matters and only occasionally resort to Advil. Having gone over a week on three or four hours of sleep a night, the Advil seemed worth the risk. In the interest of full-disclosure: I have taken Advil on consecutive nights once or twice, but it doesn't do much good sleepwise the second night, nor even when I've tried taking it every other night.

After those nine hours in dreamland, my legs were stronger and worked a little better. It wasn't a miraculous difference, just the improvement that comes from being well rested. Standing up was easier; pulling my pants up was still a struggle, but not quite the struggle it usually is.

Staying awake Tuesday, however, was as problematic as ever. At nine o'clock, I made my daily inspection of the Covenant Woods' parking lots. When I came back inside, I hung around the activity room until Byron brought in a tray of fresh-basked muffins. I politely grabbed one and chatted with Marie for a few minutes. Then I went  back to the apartment, did a quick check for emails, and glanced at Facebook, before reclining in the new wheelchair and sleeping til noon. Even that wasn't enough. At two-thirty I fell asleep while I was sitting at the computer.

I didn't get much sleep Tuesday night, and when I got up at four o'clock Wednesday morning, I took an Adderall. It's good stuff. The Adderall somehow settles my mind and helps me concentrate. I think it also makes me a little more sociable.

But Adderall also keeps me awake well into the night and the following morning. So, I seldom take it. How seldom? The one I took Wednesday was the last of a prescription for thirty pills. According to the information on the bottle, the prescription was filled May 15, 2015, and I was to have disposed of any unused pills on May 14, 2016. Oh well, I was only a couple months late getting rid of the stuff.

Notes from the Home - July 15, 2016

Mary was walking her dogs – two rat terriers – Monday, and I was “strolling” through the Covenant Woods’ parking lots. Mary said she needed to be careful; she’d recently fallen a few times. Nothing serious. The falls had been in her apartment, and she was able to get up without assistance each time.

“I have to be very careful out here,” Mary said. “These dogs get so excited when they see something. They’re anxious to see what’s going on, they pull on their leashes, and I have a hard time keeping my balance. And there are people who don’t clean up after their dogs. The other day, the dogs saw a squirrel and started after it. They pulled me around, and I saw a pile on the ground. I almost fell trying to avoid it. I always clean up after my dogs. I wish others would pick up their dogs’ messes, too.”

Wednesday morning, Ethel and Tony were standing near the elevator. “We’re waiting to see why the EMTs are here,” Ethel told me. A few minutes later, the EMTs came by pushing a gurney with Mary on it.

“Are you OK?” Ethel asked.

“Oh, I just fell.”

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“No. Heck, I’ll be back here in fifteen minutes.”

Friday, Mary was out walking her dogs again. “It’s my ankle,” she said. “The doctors wrapped it to help keep it straight. I just have to be careful. But now my daughter wants me to move closer to her, so when something like this happens again I can call her, and she can come help. I don’t know if I want to do that.”

Frances had a more difficult time. While visiting her sister, who lives in the Atlanta area, she fell and broke her hip. Frances had surgery the next day, and word is she is doing well.

*     *     *

To sleep, perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub. Falling asleep is seldom a problem. Remaining asleep for the recommended seven to eight hours is. I am in bed by ten, asleep by ten-thirty, and very often awake at two in the morning. Some mornings my bladder rouses me in the wee hours to let me know I’d best go wee-wee. Other days, I wake-up at one-thirty or two just because I do.

Getting to sleep the second time around is never easy, and usually impossible. As I lie in bed, my mind starts wander, picking up speed as it goes, and not infrequently visiting places I’d rather it not visit.

I can’t do much tossing and turning – my muscles. smart-ass teenagers that they are, won’t do as they’re told – and my back gets to aching, and the legs get spastic. By three o’clock I’ve had enough and get up, get dressed, and start the day.

I enjoy being up in the early, early morning. Sliding the porch door open, I can listen to the host of nocturnal creatures buzzing and chirping, accompanied by the rustling of leaves, and sometimes the sound of the falling rain. Once I’m up, my mind settles down, and I can do a crossword puzzle or two, read, write a little, and pour some cereal into a bowl, or scramble a couple eggs.

Then, I’m shot for the rest of the day. I was up, had put on my shoes, socks, and a pair of shorts, and taken care of the bladder’s needs by three o’clock this morning. I did my usual morning things, and at eight, after finishing a bowl of Great Grains and blueberries, along with a banana, I went out and wandered around the Covenant Woods’ grounds for nearly an hour. When I got back to the apartment, I was at least half asleep, and once I got my legs elevated, I was fast asleep for two hours.

The afternoon hasn’t been completely unproductive, nor has it been as productive as it could be. A few times – like eight or ten times – I’ve nodded off while putting these words together. Each time my mind shut down, I had my fingers on the keyboard. Then, when my mind suddenly realized what I was supposed to be doing, I opened my eyes to see row after row, a half page or more of lllllllllllllllllll or ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, or ppppppppppppppppppp on the screen. After some extensive backspacing, I was left with the problem of figuring out where I was and where I was headed when the brain deserted me.

*     *     *

The contractors have been busy for three months or more renovating Covenant Woods inside and out. The carpet in the second-floor hallway has been pulled up, leaving tiny balls of the adhesive that held it down scattered on the exposed plywood.

I was up there Monday doing my laundry, when Betty, who lives on the second floor, wandered by. “I wish they’d get moving on the floor,” she said. “They could at least give it a good, thorough sweeping. My cat goes out in the hall some times. She doesn’t go anywhere; she just looks around a little and comes back in. But now, when she comes back in, she brings those tiny balls of whatever that stuff is in with her, and I have to try to get it all out of her fur.”

The laundry-room floor hadn’t been touched, but the walls had been stripped. Besides the wallpaper, a sign that said a resident should use no more than two washers came down. The sign also directed those doing their laundry to “report any problems to the condo association.” I don’t know when what is now Covenant Woods ceased to be a condominium, but in talking to folks who have been around here for a while, I get the impression it was sometime in the 1990s.

Looking at the spot where the sign was, it appears the person who years ago applied the glue to the sign was from Michigan.

*     *     *

One of the niftiest features of my new wheelchair is that it reclines. As the excited baseball play-by-play guy might say, it goes “way, way, way back,” and the footplate extends outward until my legs are nearly straight. Once I’m reclined, stretched out, and all the blood is rushing to my brain, I must be at something close to a forty-five-degree angle. As a result, things might not be looking up, but I am.

National Clerihew Day

Today, July 10, is National Clerihew Day. To get into the spirit of things, I have penned - more accurately, typed in - three new clerihews, The forth one is from several years ago.

Ah, poor Tom Harris,

Whom it would embarrass

To write clerihews

About Clara Hughes.

No wonder Mr. Donald Trump

Is really such a grousing grump.

People claim that he’s corrupt

Just because he’s so often gone bankrupt.

How did Hillary Clinton

Think that it was fittin’

To somehow contrive it

To get email via a server private.

When Tom Harris

Went to Paris,

He just said no

To escargot.