Thursday, January 15, 2015

Becoming My Mother

There are times when I swear my mother's condition is contagious, and I have caught it.  Yesterday was one of those days.  She is forever telling me that she feels like things are wrong, that she should be doing something, but she can't remember what.  I felt that way yesterday.  It's impossible to describe exactly what it felt like, but all I know is that I understood for the first time what my mother must be feeling.

Physically, I was still feeling a bit rocky and didn't feel like eating, so had very little to eat throughout the day.
But my brain just didn't kick into gear most of the day.  First I had to solve a banking problem.  I got my Visa bill and it showed that I had not paid last month's bill.  That seemed impossible.  I always pay the bill in full.  How could I have not?  I knew I had paid the bill because when I deposited a check a couple of days before, I only had about $300 in my account, which is what I should have had at the end of the month before my Social Security check is deposited.  If I had not paid my bill, I should have had a lot more.

I started trying to figure it out.  This is the kind of thing that I am not very good at, but as I started checking my bank statement on line, I realized that there is no way I could have paid the bill because I am now using the laptop and didn't have the passwords to get into the account and had to talk with someone at the bank to get my log-in information.  If I had paid the bill last month, I would have already set all of this up.
OK.  so I didn't pay the bill...but where was the money I should have had?  

It took a long time, but I finally figured it out.  I had deposited a check into my checking account at the end of the year and then took a portion of that check and transferred it into my savings account.  The transfer showed, but the deposit did not.  What happened to the money?  After a long, frustrating time, I finally checked my savings account and it turned out I had deposited it into that account...and then transferred money from my checking account into my savings account, leaving very little in the checking account.

I was relieved to have solved the mystery, not happy that for the first time I have a fee on my Visa bill, but as soon as my Social Security check arrives, I can pay the double bill and be back on track.

In the afternoon, I went to the store to do some shopping.  "Just a couple of things."  First I had a check to deposit and in using the ATM machine managed to indicate that I wanted the transaction to be conducted in Spanish. 

I got my "couple" of things and checked out.  When Walt and I were first married, I remember I had $20 a week for household expenses.  I could fill up four bags of groceries for that amount.  Today, 4 bags of groceries came to over $150.  Good thing I wasn't doing a "big" shopping.

But as I shopped, I was feeling less and less well.  I was having pains in my stomach, and my back was killing me, so when I got home I put all the refrigerated or frozen stuff in the fridge and then climbed into the recliner and went to sleep for an hour or so.

Several years ago, I wrote an entry called "Pancakes," which is probably my classic TMI entry, but it detailed a sticky situation and how my traditional remedy for constipation was pancakes with lots of butter and syrup.  Works every time.

So for dinner, I had waffles with lots of butter and syrup and a couple of hours later I felt a bit better.
It was just a strange day all around. I think my brain finally cleared by the end of the day, but I'm not sure.

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