She’s staging a breakout. We’ve just passed the 30 day mark of Jack’s hospitalization and rehabilitation stint, and she is beyond restless.
The rehab center, located in a tony LA neighborhood, is pleasant, clean and its residents and staff are upbeat. To the occasional visitor like me, it feels as institutional as a suburban dental office. We can visit any time, never have to undergo an enhanced pat down.
Saunter in with the hound and it’s perfectly okay. Jack can wear her own clothes, and go to the on premise beauty salon and find someone to trim her dead ends. There’s a center courtyard where on a beautiful, sunny LA afternoon in December, the residents can work on their base tans. No one is drooling.
Unfortunately, we’re in the eye of the Pineapple Express storm. Good for the lawn, not so good for holiday travelers or the inmates.
Jack was never going to be patient or complacent, but with Christmas around the corner and the incessant rain her feral nature is showing through the cracks. When my mother-in-law’s arms and legs basically gave out she was momentarily sidelined from her singular goal of getting the hell out.
Not lost on me is that this is a place for healing. Now she is forced to take her meds, and miraculously her limbs shrunk down to normal size. With the patient guidance of her physical therapist, Jack can now slide from bed to the wheelchair without the need of the human crane. But, she has pronounced that she is coming home the days between Christmas and the New Year. There is no plan in place, mind you. Watch this space.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Waiting Mode
For me and my immediate life, meaning my job, friends and obligations, life stays the same. For Jack, not so much. She powers on in the rehab place. Unfortunately, she had an injury which results in a setback from the physical therapy goals. My sister-in-law-the-nurse is in residence. She, being a nurse is practical in ways we are not. My other sister-in-law, the CHO (chief health officer for a major county) arrives tomorrow. Someone mentioned to someone else so that now Jack thinks it may be true that she may be there from eight to ten weeks. We wait.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
The Messenger
It was "Sayonara, Amber/Carol." But, not before my Veteran’s Day holiday, when she sashayed into the living room, with one hand on her hip, sliding her head side to side Egyptian-style.
“You know,” she started in, “Miss Jack hasn’t been feeling well.”
Dramatic pause.
I knew as much and offered that I also knew that Jack was heading to the doctor that afternoon. “Well, she hasn’t been sleeping in her bed all week!” That I didn’t know, but precisely because Jack doesn’t want me to know. I stammered out something, but it didn’t really suffice for Dr. Amber /Carol’s purposes. “Well,” she continued, “her son should be blah, blah, blah…..”
The best card I could play was that I would let my sister-in-law-the-nurse know about her concerns. I did in fact telephone my husband at work and asked him to call his sister, and as it turned out he had just learned about the nights she spent sleeping in her wheelchair and was in communication with his siblings. When Jack found out that Amber/Carol had tattled (I swear without any prompting from me,) she was angry. I don’t know if that set in motion something bigger, or if what was in the offing would have happened all the same.
A day later, I had to leave town on last minute business. Although he was reluctant to leave his mother, my husband agreed to accompany me once he established that Jack would have some friends and family looking in on her. The rest I have gleaned from various sources.
The first change was the unexpected appearance of the blessed Wanda. Apparently, Wanda had been one of Jack’s hired workers prior to our arrival in LA. Her tenure must have been brief though because I had never even heard her name in passing. When we came back home on Sunday night, the house was tidy and the floor was mopped, and clearly not by the grace of Amber/Carol.
Jack didn’t let on much to my husband, even after the doctor visit, except to say that her arm or hand wasn’t working well, and that Wanda had called out of the blue, and that Amber/Carol had been dismissed upon her insistence that she’d mop the floor, the next week. We were also to discover later that Jack had a party that weekend. I’m glad that she did.
On Monday we thought we were back into our routine and that Jack was being treated for whatever was ailing her. On Tuesday, my husband got a call at work from Jack informing him that she was checking herself into the hospital, and not much more. There was a strange car in the driveway when we got home from work, and no sign of Jack, Wanda, or Jack’s dog.
Wanda knocked on the front door late that evening. Once she caught her breath from running from the bus stop, she introduced herself and filled us in on the odyssey from which she had just returned. She had been given an hour’s notice that she was going to be accompanying Jack to the hospital. But, before they hitched a ride in that ambulance, she needed to help Jack take her sickly dog back to the (non-kill) shelter from whence he came.
It’s so easy trust Wanda, and to take in what she shares in her lovely, lilting voice. She’s sensible, and calm and insightful. She told us more than Jack would have wanted us to know about how she had endured the days before the hospitalization. But, she also unfolded her wisdom about how she has a gift when it comes to persuading Jack do what is in Jack’s best interest, and that to her mind, family cannot be good caretakers. She has seen many stubborn folks like my mother-in-law she said, and there’s no convincing them to do the right thing if you’re related.
So, Jack has been discharged into residential rehab where my husband visits daily. She frets about her raggedy cat, who I promise is doing well under our watch. We wait, we breathe and thank our lucky stars for Wanda.
“You know,” she started in, “Miss Jack hasn’t been feeling well.”
Dramatic pause.
I knew as much and offered that I also knew that Jack was heading to the doctor that afternoon. “Well, she hasn’t been sleeping in her bed all week!” That I didn’t know, but precisely because Jack doesn’t want me to know. I stammered out something, but it didn’t really suffice for Dr. Amber /Carol’s purposes. “Well,” she continued, “her son should be blah, blah, blah…..”
The best card I could play was that I would let my sister-in-law-the-nurse know about her concerns. I did in fact telephone my husband at work and asked him to call his sister, and as it turned out he had just learned about the nights she spent sleeping in her wheelchair and was in communication with his siblings. When Jack found out that Amber/Carol had tattled (I swear without any prompting from me,) she was angry. I don’t know if that set in motion something bigger, or if what was in the offing would have happened all the same.
A day later, I had to leave town on last minute business. Although he was reluctant to leave his mother, my husband agreed to accompany me once he established that Jack would have some friends and family looking in on her. The rest I have gleaned from various sources.
The first change was the unexpected appearance of the blessed Wanda. Apparently, Wanda had been one of Jack’s hired workers prior to our arrival in LA. Her tenure must have been brief though because I had never even heard her name in passing. When we came back home on Sunday night, the house was tidy and the floor was mopped, and clearly not by the grace of Amber/Carol.
Jack didn’t let on much to my husband, even after the doctor visit, except to say that her arm or hand wasn’t working well, and that Wanda had called out of the blue, and that Amber/Carol had been dismissed upon her insistence that she’d mop the floor, the next week. We were also to discover later that Jack had a party that weekend. I’m glad that she did.
On Monday we thought we were back into our routine and that Jack was being treated for whatever was ailing her. On Tuesday, my husband got a call at work from Jack informing him that she was checking herself into the hospital, and not much more. There was a strange car in the driveway when we got home from work, and no sign of Jack, Wanda, or Jack’s dog.
Wanda knocked on the front door late that evening. Once she caught her breath from running from the bus stop, she introduced herself and filled us in on the odyssey from which she had just returned. She had been given an hour’s notice that she was going to be accompanying Jack to the hospital. But, before they hitched a ride in that ambulance, she needed to help Jack take her sickly dog back to the (non-kill) shelter from whence he came.
It’s so easy trust Wanda, and to take in what she shares in her lovely, lilting voice. She’s sensible, and calm and insightful. She told us more than Jack would have wanted us to know about how she had endured the days before the hospitalization. But, she also unfolded her wisdom about how she has a gift when it comes to persuading Jack do what is in Jack’s best interest, and that to her mind, family cannot be good caretakers. She has seen many stubborn folks like my mother-in-law she said, and there’s no convincing them to do the right thing if you’re related.
So, Jack has been discharged into residential rehab where my husband visits daily. She frets about her raggedy cat, who I promise is doing well under our watch. We wait, we breathe and thank our lucky stars for Wanda.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
U Can't Touch This
For the record, I have never dallied in the stock market. Still, like a preteen waiting for the prom, I collect good advice about the market and store it away for the big day when I can. As for stocks, I have been advised to buy what I buy. For some people that means Home Depot, and for others that means stints.
For me that would be paper towels. There is a great future in paper towels. I am betting that seniors across the globe are trading useful tips about paper towels. In large part, Jack has lost the ability to use her hands. A paper towel serves so many needs. With those gnarled fingers plastic wrap is too difficult to negotiate out of the box, so when the leftovers need covering, a paper towel does the trick. Out of dessert plates? Grab a paper towel. The dog made a mess, you’ve dropped the coffee cup, your bagel and cream cheese needs a cozy? I have seen it all remedied with great lengths of paper towel.
I haven’t witnessed this first hand, but my husband tells me that Jack opens her bottles of seltzer with a nutcracker. Ingenuity? Forgive me for being so presumptuous, but I am thinking this is really about fierce independence. Nothing pains Jack more than to ask me to do something for her. She’d rather crawl to the computer, and find and hire someone from Craigslist before she’d allow me to sweep up something she has spilled on the floor.
We all have boundaries. I get it and try to respect them. Sometimes it is just too absurd. Last week my husband and I left at dawn to escape into our version of normal. Breakfast at a dive diner, a great dog walk, furniture shopping. We stopped back at the house in the late afternoon hoping to drop off the dog and carry on with the chores. My husband parked and waited in the driveway and I walked in through the back gate and walked into Helter Skelter . Her empty wheelchair was wedged just inside and just outside the sliding glass door. The down jacket that she wears even in hot weather was crumpled on the porch floor, and the watering hose was wrapped elaborately through the spokes of the wheel chair wheels. I am numb to fear and simply followed the hose through the hallway and halfway to the living room.
I heard her craggily voice. She had, I imagine over several hours, managed to inch out of the wheelchair, over the hose and dragged her body the six feet to her bedroom, and had dressed herself into some crazy-ass, hippy skirt and was talking on her cell phone to her daughter. I looked in and she furiously waved me back. “I’ll fix that LATER,” she growled.
Enough said.
For me that would be paper towels. There is a great future in paper towels. I am betting that seniors across the globe are trading useful tips about paper towels. In large part, Jack has lost the ability to use her hands. A paper towel serves so many needs. With those gnarled fingers plastic wrap is too difficult to negotiate out of the box, so when the leftovers need covering, a paper towel does the trick. Out of dessert plates? Grab a paper towel. The dog made a mess, you’ve dropped the coffee cup, your bagel and cream cheese needs a cozy? I have seen it all remedied with great lengths of paper towel.
I haven’t witnessed this first hand, but my husband tells me that Jack opens her bottles of seltzer with a nutcracker. Ingenuity? Forgive me for being so presumptuous, but I am thinking this is really about fierce independence. Nothing pains Jack more than to ask me to do something for her. She’d rather crawl to the computer, and find and hire someone from Craigslist before she’d allow me to sweep up something she has spilled on the floor.
We all have boundaries. I get it and try to respect them. Sometimes it is just too absurd. Last week my husband and I left at dawn to escape into our version of normal. Breakfast at a dive diner, a great dog walk, furniture shopping. We stopped back at the house in the late afternoon hoping to drop off the dog and carry on with the chores. My husband parked and waited in the driveway and I walked in through the back gate and walked into Helter Skelter . Her empty wheelchair was wedged just inside and just outside the sliding glass door. The down jacket that she wears even in hot weather was crumpled on the porch floor, and the watering hose was wrapped elaborately through the spokes of the wheel chair wheels. I am numb to fear and simply followed the hose through the hallway and halfway to the living room.
I heard her craggily voice. She had, I imagine over several hours, managed to inch out of the wheelchair, over the hose and dragged her body the six feet to her bedroom, and had dressed herself into some crazy-ass, hippy skirt and was talking on her cell phone to her daughter. I looked in and she furiously waved me back. “I’ll fix that LATER,” she growled.
Enough said.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Pass the Sodium, Please
Tonight I enjoyed my first M.O.W. Meals on Wheels packages arrive here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Delivered by some really sincere and/or criminal person. I have inside information about M.O.W, because my BFB from my last city was the supervisor for M.O.W. I know that they routinely hire sincere criminal persons because she told me so. I also introduced her to her best delivery man (whom by the way, is the least criminal person you’d ever meet.) If you are hyperventilating at this point, please note that they don’t actually ever step beyond your doorstep.
Here at home in LA, I see the M.O.W detritus pile up every week in the too small space in the ancient fridge while Jack wheels home oversized, greasy bags of NORM’S meals that we don’t want to eat. Admittedly, I’m not a saint. But, I hate seeing food wasted. Week after week I have watched from the hard shoulder as Jack has presided over the fridge and instructed her home care worker to toss out the oldest, untouched servings of sodium-free tray-lets of green beans, muffins and fish sticks. I don’t actually blame her. I am a picky eater from on high. The concept of free radicals permits me to eschew anything that wasn’t just garden picked or newly born.
Food, food waste. I have made some coin as a wine and food writer for publications you might have actually skimmed, so give me the license to talk about our meals. I love food. I don’t have the ancillary trait of loving to prepare it, yet I pour over cookbooks, recipes, restaurant reviews , anything written by M.F.K Fisher and Amanda Hesser and take in all that the Food Channel and Top Chef programs offer.
My house (where my tenant resides) is glorious foodie living. Granite and all stainless steel appliances, counter space for miles. I digress, yes, I digress. The house where we live with Jack doesn’t have that. You might note, if you were paying attention that I have glossed over the past several weeks because it hasn’t been ....fun.
Yet, tonight I felt we had a nexus. I, on occasions have suggested a potluck as an alternative to NORM’S. Hey, how about using what we have in the fridge? Tonight, for the first time Jack suggested that we compose dinner from what we had stored and frozen, thrown in with the M.O.W. I was tired, but I gave the green light. Husband,would you hand me the truffle oil so I can drizzle it over my low sodium potatoes?
Here at home in LA, I see the M.O.W detritus pile up every week in the too small space in the ancient fridge while Jack wheels home oversized, greasy bags of NORM’S meals that we don’t want to eat. Admittedly, I’m not a saint. But, I hate seeing food wasted. Week after week I have watched from the hard shoulder as Jack has presided over the fridge and instructed her home care worker to toss out the oldest, untouched servings of sodium-free tray-lets of green beans, muffins and fish sticks. I don’t actually blame her. I am a picky eater from on high. The concept of free radicals permits me to eschew anything that wasn’t just garden picked or newly born.
Food, food waste. I have made some coin as a wine and food writer for publications you might have actually skimmed, so give me the license to talk about our meals. I love food. I don’t have the ancillary trait of loving to prepare it, yet I pour over cookbooks, recipes, restaurant reviews , anything written by M.F.K Fisher and Amanda Hesser and take in all that the Food Channel and Top Chef programs offer.
My house (where my tenant resides) is glorious foodie living. Granite and all stainless steel appliances, counter space for miles. I digress, yes, I digress. The house where we live with Jack doesn’t have that. You might note, if you were paying attention that I have glossed over the past several weeks because it hasn’t been ....fun.
Yet, tonight I felt we had a nexus. I, on occasions have suggested a potluck as an alternative to NORM’S. Hey, how about using what we have in the fridge? Tonight, for the first time Jack suggested that we compose dinner from what we had stored and frozen, thrown in with the M.O.W. I was tired, but I gave the green light. Husband,would you hand me the truffle oil so I can drizzle it over my low sodium potatoes?
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Riedel Me This, Batman
Last night I needed a drink. We happened to have a couple of nice crystal pinot glasses and I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I placed them up in bubble wrap and brought them with us to LA along with a couple of necessities like a food scale, coffee pot and my favorite wooden salad bowl.
We hadn’t actually quaffed any pinot out of them yet, mostly because I have been dieting and the plastic picnic wine glasses we had been using since we arrived five weeks ago were doing the job with the swill that we got as “every day wine.”
When I arrived home last night after a long weekend out of town I saw a Riedel drying upside down on the kitchen counter. It seems that over the weekend Jack had her BFF over for dinner. I can only speculate that one of her girlfriends rebelled against drinking her wine out of a coffee mug, and reached up to the high shelf for the elegant glass. Which is perfectly cool with me.
Anyway, so there I was in the backyard, sipping swill out of a plastic tumbler trying to decide how I was going to break the news to Jack that I recently discovered that someone had stolen my really good pieces of jewelry out of my jewelry box that I usually keep in a drawer in my dresser in our bedroom here. This thief had particularly good taste and selected the magnificent heavy gold necklace that husband and I bought together on in the Ponte Vecchio on our first wedding anniversary and its adorable matching bracelet; the exquisite and expensive gold bracelet that my BFF gave me, a diamond pendant; gold earrings and another gold bracelet, all gifts from my husband-- and my wedding ring.
The wedding ring that my husband engraved with the loving, but misspelled words “TE AMO”--forever. In full disclosure, I misspelled TE AMO in his wedding band too. He still wears that wedding ring today because I followed the advice in Cosmopolitan magazine and got him a ring a size too small and it has never left his ring finger.
Mine is a really lovely wedding band with sixteen sapphires and diamonds and it goes really well with my sapphire engagement ring. But, a couple of years ago I persuaded my husband to get me a modest wedding band, an “every day ring” and I saved the one with big rocks for the special occasions.
Well, I discovered that the wedding band was missing a few days ago when we were leaving for San Francisco for a wedding. I didn’t panic because the cats knock things over all the time, and I planned to look for it when I returned. But, just as a precaution I took my little jewelry box with me in my suitcase.
If I can backtrack a bit, the first day I arrived in LA I had an immediate request. I wanted a new heavy door and asked to put a keyed lock on the bedroom and closet doors. Husband understood that it was less of a desire for privacy and every bit about keeping my jewelry safe under the conditions. I understood long before I moved here that there is no way to secure this house. Jack has found that keeping the sliding door open all day gives her greater mobility in her wheelchair, and also gives regular access into the house by her personal home care worker, dog walker, her handyman and her myriad friends. There are lots of unannounced visits too, and in the last five weeks we’ve been joined by termite inspectors, a plumber and repairmen galore. Before now I guess it hadn’t been a problem because there really isn’t anything of material value here.
How I convinced myself, a former prosecutor who has seen every crime imaginable, that I could cope under the circumstances is a story for another day. But the door was the first order of business and we discovered that you really can’t buy a door all that readily. It requires knowing the correct size. Who knew? And then you have to put on your own hinges and doorknobs and it really was much more of a task than we had the wherewithal for. So, I settled for just a keyed lock on the old bedroom door.
I was pretty good about locking the door each time we went out, but I do recall now that there was one random day when I forgot to lock it.
Jack isn’t terribly observant and it was several weeks before she realized that we had placed a lock on that door. But when she noticed she became very upset. Now life moves pretty quickly here and I had every intention of telling her that we locked the door, not because we didn’t trust her with the kitties, which I knew she believed, but to protect my expensive jewelry which I was pretty sure she had no idea I possessed. Anyway, hard discussions like that are easily deferred, and I rationalized that I would wait until she got new headphones for her listening device. Meanwhile we went to that wedding in San Francisco.
When I was dolled up in my wedding outfit I opened the jewelry box and reached for the Italian necklace and came up empty handed. When we got home I discovered all the other stuff was gone too. I cannot, though I have agonized, remember the last time I wore those pieces, or figure out how in the world someone got into that room at a rare time that it happened to be unlocked. After a few really sleepless nights I made the decision to call the cops. Not that I expect the LAPD to solve this caper, but so they can check my missing stuff against the daily list they get from pawnshops.
So, I was in the backyard aglow from the alcohol and fading sunlight. I felt good about the decision and was going to try to find a clever way to learn the last names of all the people who work for Jack, so I asked husband if he’d seen her. He had, a few minutes before sweeping up the shards of Riedel from the floor.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)