I’ve missed writing about Challenge, Best Place, Album of the Year, New Food, Change to Place I Live, Rush, Best Packaging, Tea of the Year, Word or Phrase, and Shop. Why so many?
We were on a cruise to the Mexican Riviera, all going well, when we got an email from my sister saying “sad news,” and then in the body that my uncle had died. He’s my dad’s only surviving sibling – but my dad is 91 so what can you say? But then came an email saying “critical, not dead.” My mom, whose short-term memory is gone, mixed up the message and told my dad his brother was dead. Then another the next day – my mom had broken her elbow and wrist after slipping in the rain. She’s 86.
All in a matter of a few days – and dealing with my mom and the fall, my sister and I realized irrevocably that the next step in my parents care had arrived. We needed someone in the home with them at least four hours a day, at least five days a week.
All I’ll say about that is how do you get someone when your parents keep forgetting they’ve agreed to it? Is it possible to preserve their dignity? All I know is that my sister and I need relief or we’re going to crack. So that’s what’s kept me from doing the Best of Blog, and I’ve missed writing. Today, the 18th, is the first time I’ve been able to sit down and think.
Challenge I’m in the midst of the challenge of the year right now, dealing with aging parents. Stubborn, aging parents. I hope I remember that I’m conditioning myself to be fine with help, fine with anything. I’ve told my kids I want them to visit me regularly when I’m old but please, don’t get involved with my day-to-day care, errands, cooking, shopping, etc. Get someone to do this. Have me live in a place that takes care of things. The burden my parents have placed on us kids by not even considering they would get old is just about too much. I’m trying to face the challenge with grace and patience, but it isn’t easy. My son-in-law’s grandma was hospitalized in this same time period with congestive heart failure, is home now, and on seven meds. Her daughter, my husband’s mom, says when it’s her turn, just push her out the second story window. I must tell her that it’ll have to be higher than the second story! This challenge will be ongoing.
For a sampling of what this is like – before it got as bad as it is now – I have a story posted about my parents which is also recorded for our local public radio station.
Best Place Am I allowed to say my bed, with my wonderful latex mattress, my own pillows and my Chinese silk comforter? That’s about my best place, besides my bathtub with bubbles. We didn’t travel much this year so I have no new best places. It seems like comfort is high on the list, though. So I’m going to list two things besides my bed and my bathtub. One is our cabin in Alta Sierra. I go as much as I can, often alone, and work up there on my art. I write, sit, watch the blue jays, walk, let my mind go. I enjoy the silence. I never even put my iPod on the iHome because I don’t want to break the silence. My other best place is my studio at home. We converted the grandkid’s playroom to a studio and I love to be in there working. My best places are all close to home.
Album of the Year No brainer. For Your Entertainment by Adam Lambert. It would be my best album of the year even if it wasn’t any good because I am a glambert, or grambert, through and through. But it IS good; in fact, it’s fantastic. Adam’s voice is the most amazing instrument with such a preternatural range. I love listening to him. The album itself has so many types of songs on it that it can’t be confined to type. Just buy it, listen, you will be amazed AND you will be entertained.
New Food This really isn’t a new food, but I’m in the midst of a duck craze. One of our local restaurants, Valentiens, cooks duck to die for. I’ll go soon again. When will I be out of my duck rut? Who knows. I love it.
Change to the Place I Live This is so easy! We have an entire room in our house that we use as a playroom for the grandkids. They’re getting older now, and the young ones live in Colorado. I’ve been itching for a studio – so we made the room a studio! Wow. An easel, paints, photos, a paper cutter, all my stuff, everything I need. It’s a new life.
Best Packaging and Tea of the Year I have no idea.
Best Rush I think it is yet to come. Monday afternoon I’m going to the Leno show and Adam Lambert is the guest! I may actually faint for the first time in my life. I feel positively giddy at the thought of being so close to him. Sigh. My kids read this and they will think their mom has gone bonkers. But I took my two oldest grandkids shopping today (15 and 14) and someone thought I was their mother, not grandma! So maybe I can get by with semi-bonkers.
Word or Phrase I’m more interesting in banishing words and phrases than adding them because so many redundancies emerge. But I will say this – I love the vocabulary that is Twitter – tweets, tweeps, tweet-ups – perhaps because I love Twitter! I hear that 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of tweets. Can that be so?
Shop I’d love to be clever about this and tell about my wonderful discovery, but I can’t because the best shop is and will always be Trader Joes. Trader Joes fans out there? Here’s a story. A couple of years ago, my husband, a friend and I were sitting in a church in Rome waiting for an opera concert to begin. Yes, in Italy. We were talking and one of us mentioned Trader Joes. The woman in front of us turned and said, “Did you say Trader Joes? I love Trader Joes!” We then discussed our love of Costco, I would add Target and Cost Plus World Market. That does it for me.
I don’t think I’m interested in being a ground-breaker right now in terms of discovering new things. I’d like to stabilize my life first is all. Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to happen, so that brings me right back to the first topic – Challenge. The challenge is to meet the daily changes that keep coming and coming at me (at us all) with grace and patience. The challenge is to find the good and the fun and make the most of everything. After all, the fact that so many things are hitting me at once right now – not-so-good things, must in itself be good. Because if I didn’t have a large, loving family and people I cared about, I also wouldn’t have the challenges. I’d be sitting in a sterile, controlled vacuum and it would be boring.
Life is anything but boring. I’m not knocking boring. I’d love to experience it for a day or two or maybe even three. But not for long.
Tags: #best09, Adam Lambert, aging, album of the year, best of blog, best place, challenge, food, for your entertainment, gwen bell, illness, parents, rush, shop
