Kick 'Em When They're Down

I crushed her and I'm not even sorry about it!

My mother is extremely competitive. She was never the one to hold back to let a little kid win a game. She raised us to be competitive too. She also gets frustrated when she's not winning. She has been known to throw a deck of cards at my cousin when she's losing (more than once). It's all good natured and we laugh about it a lot.

Yesterday, since there were only two of us, she challenged me to a game of canasta. Canasta is "her" game. It's almost impossible to beat her in canasta. She's both lucky and talented. She gets good cards and she knows how to use them.

When Peach and her husband were here a week or so ago, she not only took all of Bob's money playing "65" but she also crushed Peach in Canasta.

With fear and trepidation, I agreed to play Canasta. I sent a text message to Peach after the first hand. "We're playing Canasta. Bad idea." This after she had trounced me on the first hand and an easy win for her (again) seemed inevitable.

But something happened. I got good cards the second time around. And then I got even better cards. By the last hand she was still ahead, but not by that much. And I got great cards. I actually beat her.

Thrilled, I sent a text message to Peach (who is on a camping trip): "I BEAT HER!!!" She responded "Hooray."

My mother demanded a rematch. I don't remember if it was the first or second hand of the rematch that I was able to go out leaving her with her entire hand...not a single card laid down. She said there was no point in continuing the game, that I had won. I was not very gracious about it either!

I sent another text message "I BEAT HER AGAIN." Peach responded "On my god!" Only a few people could truly appreciate the enormity of "crushing" my mother at Canasta.

Otherwise we passed a quiet afternoon. My mother's stepson, Ed, stopped by for a visit and later, after he'd left, my second cousin Denise stopped by to chat.

In the evening we watched the repeat of the ER finale (which I'd missed the first time around) and I pretty much passed out around 10, since I'd been up since about 3 a.m.

On Sunday morning I woke up with a start a 4 a.m., worried about the interviews I'd done last week. I had tried to listen to them the day before and there was so much background noise I could barely make out anything. I was wondering how I was going to get the article written. I had done the interviews in an office with a rehearsal going on nearby but I thought that my recorder would be able to handle it and was very upset that it had apparently failed me this time, especially since I had interviewed about 10 different people!

I got up to listen again. Maybe I had missed something. I fast-forwarded the recording and realized that I was not listening to the interviews at all, but something my recorder had apparently recorded in my purse when I had accidentally turned it on.

I went looking again and sure enough--there were the interviews. Not only were they clear, but even the woman who whispered so as not to bother the rehearsal had come through clearly. Crisis averted.

My mother got up around 6 a.m. so she could watch Mass on TV, since she couldn't get to church. I sat here transcribing and she was "going to Mass." I was sorry they ended before they gave out communion because I had planned to bring her an Oreo cookie when the time came.

We're calling her vacuum pump "Dracula" because it attaches to her flesh and sucks the blood out. If you look down her right leg you can see the tubing which comes out of the boot and attaches to the pack that she takes with her everywhere. There is an almost constant gurgling sound which you hear when the vacuum is sucking and transporting blood from the wound to the canister in the top of the machine.

The problem with Dracula is that she takes the canister off of her shoulder when she sits down and hangs it over the back of a chair or rests it on the floor...and then forget it's attached to her when she gets up. One of these days it's going to pull her over backwards if she tries to move too quickly!

I determined she was safe to be left alone for a few hours and I came home Sunday afternoon because I had to review a production of Harvey at the Winters Community Theatre. The show actually opened Friday, but obviously I wasn't able to review it at that time. So I passed through the house briefly, long enough to note that the puppies are actually looking brown now, instead of pink, to pick up e-mail that I wasn't able to get on the weak internet signal, to take a shower and change clothes and then we went to Winters to see the show.

The puppies also needed a little bit of cuddle time (though I'm sure Walt has been doing a lot of that while I've been gone). Princess, in particular needed to snuggle under my chin and sigh a lot. Naturally, Lester didn't want to feel left out, so she joined in as well.

We have just returned from Winters, I'm finishing off this entry, feeding the puppies, and then will be back on the road once again headed for San Rafael. This time Walt is going with me so he can bring the car back with him for the week, while I drive my mother's.