I Done Good

I had good intentions.  My plan had been to visit my mother yesterday.  I didn't go to see her on Thursday because I knew she was having a hair cut and a permanent, so decided I'd put off picking up her dirty laundry for a day.

Only yesterday I discovered that AMC was having a Breaking Bad marathon and figured that if I watched it on television instead of through streaming Netflix, I could watch either in the family room or in my office.  It meant skipping most of Season 2 and reading the plot synopsis, but this way I would have a fighting chance of having finished the series in time for the season finale and thus when everyone starts discussing the dramatic conclusion, it wouldn't be a spoiler for me.

We TV Addicts must plan our viewing patterns very carefully.

So anyway, when mid-afternoon (when I had planned to drive to Atria) came, I was heavily into cooking methamphetamine and fighting the Mexican drug cartel and I couldn't possibly leave.  (Why do I like this show???)

I think I went to sleep somewhere around 10 p.m. and went right to sleep, but that was too early and so my body decided it was just a nap and I was awake at midnight.  I settled in to watch more Breaking Bad (which I had recorded in anticipation of sleep coming early) and watched about 5 minutes of it before I was sound asleep again.   I woke at 2, went back to the couch and slept until 4.

But by 4, I was pretty much slept out so I went back to the Breaking Bad marathon and watched nonstop until about 10 a.m., by which I time I was drugged out had only 2 episodes left in Season 4 and AMC wouldn't be showingSeason 5 until Sunday, at which time they would show all episodes until 9 p.m., when they would air the finale.  Not sure how I am going to factor brunch with my mother, Ned and Marta in there...

ANYWAY, I finally took a break and went to Atria around 10:30 a.m.   I didn't want to be there too close to lunch because she always wants to treat me, but lunch a Atria every day can get spendy for her (she doesn't realize that!)

We had a nice visit and she laughed about my Breaking Bad marathon and how addicted I'd become to the show in literally just a couple of days.   She told me, again, that "they don't have the shows I watch up here."   This is only partly her dementia.  For literally DECADES I've been trying to get it through her head that she watched NBC on Channel 4, but that Channel 3 was the NBC network up here.  She figures now that because her shows used to be on 3, 5, and 7 and that she has no 3, 5 or 7 up here, that she can't watch her shows, but must watch different shows.  It doesn't help that there is no directory screen on her ComCast set up (this is basic, basic, basic cable, which is provided free by Atria, but anything additional will cost).  She also does not get the Davis paper.  I tried bringing it to her,but since she doesn't know anybody in Davis she is not interested in reading anything about the town, so I stopped doing that.  

For TV, I think she just turns it on, flips through channels (many of which are in Spanish) and if she doesn't recognize anything, she turns it off.  

After I got home, I kept thinking about her TV problem and I know she used to watch several favorite programs, so I decided to make her a TV guide.  I drew up a table and arranged it so that I included only the channels she would be interested in.  Also, since she doesn't turn on the TV until 6 p.m., and goes to bed by 11, I only included the 6 to 10 time slots.

Then I just sat here at my laptop (because I can't get a week's schedule on the cable box in my office) and just filled in all the shows for her.  It looked lik this:

It took the better part of a couple of hours, but when I finished, I had the whole week mapped out for her and even designed a cover. 

I stapled it all together and drove back to Atria to give it to her, so she could see which shows were going to be on tonight, in case she wanted to watch TV.

Whenever I give her something, she's always appreciative, but she was positively giddy about this listing.  She thanked me over and over again and looked through it, delighted to find the names of favorite shows there.  "You know, I thought they didn't get the same shows here that I had..."  I was very happy that I had taken the time to put this together for her.  It can pretty much serve as an indefinite TV Guide, though I will check and see if anything major changes from week to week and then run off new pages, as necessary.

I felt really good about myself, so good that I came home and took a 2+ hour nap.