The Class of 2013

Well, this may have been a frivolous trip, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Bri was out with her other grandmother when we arrived at the house, but she arrived home skipping and saying "I'm graduating from pre school today" over and over again.  She was so excited and someone had given her a big bouquet of balloons, which she attached to herself as she walked around the house.

Lacie and her babysitter came out into the living room, Lacie all dressed for the upcoming picnic.  Brianna went back into her room to get dressed and make an appearance.  She looked so pretty and was so excited to be all dressed up in a new dress.

 

There was a little confusion with the shoes, though..

.

 

Mostly Bri and Lacie get along remarkably well, but this was such a funny picture, I couldn't resist posting it.

 

The graduation picnic was held in an outdoor area which was just great.  Lots of room for the kids to run around.

 

That guy I saw at the dance show was there again, taking pictures of his kid.

 

I had to kind of elbow him out of the way to get some wine, so I've now rubbed elbows with the Lost cast.

Both Bri's babysitter and Lacie's babysitter came too.

(Andie on the left was Bri's babysitter, but had her own baby
before Lacie was born, so Stephanie has been Lacie's primary babysitter.

 

Bri and her friend Liam snuggled together with her new graduation fox.

 

When time came for the more official ceremony, the "graduates" sat down on the lawn and those who are still going to be in the preschool next year sang to them, then they called the graduates up, one by one to get their diplomas.

 

Once Bri had her diploma, she could care less about the rest of the ceremony, so she and Liam (and a bunch of others) chased each other around the park for...oh... hours.

Everyone left and, as usual, we were just about the last ones out of the park.

 

Everyone else may have enjoyed Hour Baur, but my knees had given out and I was being eaten alive by mosquitos, so I was very happy to leave, finally.

But despite bad knees and mosquitos, I'm so glad we were here to share all this with Brianna.

Frivolous Things

I went and had breakfast with my mother this morning since we were leaving this afternoon for Santa Barbara [robbers beware -- there is an attack Chihuahua, at least two other dogs, and a vicious Ashley on guard.  Enter at your peril!].  We are here for Bri's pre-school graduation.

At breakfast, my mother and I sat with Ann, who is far younger than most of the residents of Covell Gardens, possibly younger than I am.  But she appears to have had a stroke, as her speech is slowed, and her right side is affected.  However she was quite pleasant, as we shared information.

My mother rolled her eyes as I mentioned that we were going to Santa Barbara for the graduation.  "Have you ever heard of anything so silly.  Going all that way for a pre-school graduation," she scoffed in a derisive tone.

She has mentioned that several times since I started preparing her for my being gone for a few days.  How silly it is to drive 400 miles for something as inconsequential as a pre-school graduation.

It makes me sad...and angry...whenever she says that because it reminds me of all the things she didn't think were important enough to give up an activity with Fred's family in order to attend.  She missed every single one of our kids' stage shows, and I remember almost crying, begging her to come to You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, of which I was so incredibly proud.  But no, there was a Rynders family "thing" or something that prevented her from coming. 

"I'll make the next one," she would laugh.  But she missed every single one.  She did make some Lawsuit concerts, but I was hurt over and over and over again that she never thought the things I was asking her to share with our kids were that important. 

Walt's mother and his siblings came to almost everything. My mother never would have driven 400 miles for a preschool graduation.

But I feel...and have always felt, ever since Laurel got pregnant...that even though we live far enough away that we can't be in the girls' lives on a regular basis, we can be here for events. I know we can't be here for everything, but by god, those girls are going to know that we are interested in their activities and proud of what they are doing, no matter how frivolous my mother thinks they are.

We had an uneventful drive down.  We stopped around 2 p.m. at McDonald's (we left too late to drive all the way to the Burger Queen) for lunch.  I got the giggles, looking at the impatient faces of the kids waiting for us to decide on our order.  We stood there hemming and hawing looking at the choices and I could only think we must have looked like Ruth Buzzi and Arte Johnson from the old Laugh-In days.

I had chosen a Ken Follet book to listen to, "Dangerous Fortune."  Follet is the man who brought us such thrillers as "Eye of the Needle" and "Day of the Jackel."  I was expecting another thriller, but this is a period piece about upper crust London and a scandal which will eventually (if reviews are to be believed) bring a country to the brink of extinction...but we have to get through an awful lot of bodice ripping and Victorian angst first!

We stopped in Gilroy again at our favorite roadside stand

to get...what else...?

Big, dark, juicy Bing cherries, which we (or more accurately I ) enjoyed on the way down, still leaving a big bag to share with Alice Nan and Joe.

We got here around 7:30 or so and are settling in.  Tomorrow is the big day.  I know NONE of the plans, except that all the parties involved will be at work, so we are on our own until the evening's graduation.

I wouldn't be anywhere else this week!

Sing Along

Today it was a sing-along.  I knew that my mother would have fun because they sing the songs she knows and she always enjoys singing along.  Also, the change of address cards I ordered for her had arrived, so I thought I would go over an hour early and we could get some address cards addressed to send to her friends and then go to the sing along.

Well, best laid plans and all that.

She thought the cards were cute but had zero interest in sending them to anyone.  She said she would look for her address book.  I knew right where it was, but she was still totally uninterested, so we didn't do that.  It's not urgent, but that meant we had an hour to kill.

And nothing to say to each other.

She told me a dozen times that she had to get something to go in the big blank space on her wall, maybe a picture with some flowers on it.  I reminded her a dozen times that Ed is going to bring up the picture of a floral arrangement which belonged to her sister and which she loves.

She got started with all the stuff in her house in Terra Linda and said she needed to go back there one more time.  I asked her what she wanted to go for.  She got angry and said that I didn't understand.  She had lived ther 20 years and she has important things that she needed to go through.  I reminded her,as gently as I could, that when she was there last time she didn't find anything that she needed to bring with her and that she had a return of her dizzy spells, her back pain, and all she could do was hold her head in her hands and say that she should not have come back.

She got angry and said she doesn't remember anything like that, but if I say so she'll have to believe me, but she was very petulant.  The nice thing about dementia, though, I've discovered, is that if you wait long enough, she'll forget about it, which she did.

Yesterday, I found her with a stack of old letters in her lap, complaing about "all this crap" and "why did I save stuff like this?"   Turned out to be letters written by her sister, the writer, all of which are little gems, and they date back to when my mother was still married to my father.  In fact, there were some letters written to my father, which were very funny.  I threatened her with death if she threw them away and told her that if she didn't want the letters, I would take them.

I have the idea that she won't be truly happy in that place until there is no piece of paper anywhere. She says that she doesn't feel at home yet and that she still feels like she's living in a motel.

We eventually went off to check her mail and to go to the sing along, where I managed to distinguish myself.  We got there early and sat at two chairs that were a good design for her back.  They had a table between them.  We each had a glass of water.

Eventually the musicians arrived.  Ida Sue, the pianist, is one of the residents and she is helped by her daughter Carol and our David's former kindergarten teacher, Judy. 

Carol suggested we move our chairs closer to the piano.  When I went to stand up, my hip bone caught and I couldn't stand up right away.  (This happens periodically and rights itself within seconds.)  Carol told me she would take the chair for me and when I went to help her, I spilled my cup of water on the rug.   I got the feeling that she wondered if I, too, was a resident!

The sing along was fun, and all songs that I knew very well.  As I suspected my mother entered into the fun and sang every song along with everyone else.

While we were singing, I saw Kendra, who is the wife of Ned's lifelong friend Greg, at the front desk.  I knew that Kendra's grandmother was moving into Covell this week and I left my mother singing and went to talk with Kendra.   Turns out that her grandmother just moved in and when I mentioned that Ned was going to come and have lunch with his grandmother this weekend, Greg said he would check with him and maybe they could include Greg and Kendra's grandmother (who is just a kid by my mother's standards, in her mid-80s).

When the sing along ended, I stopped to thank Ida Sue for her piano playing and my mother spied a woman she recognized and went to talk to her.  I was thrilled!   They seemed to have a nice chat.

I'm having breakfast with my mother tomorrow morning while Walt puts the finishing touches on getting the house ready for Ashley and her furry friends to move in while we are in Santa Barbara.  My mother is feeling sad that I am "leaving her alone."  ("Fine thing...you move me all the way to Davis and say you'll always be around and here you are leaving me alone right away.")

But I have made arrangements for a friend of mine to come and visit her while we're away, and Ned will be there too.  And I will call her every day, to make sure everything is all right.  She's scared that if something happens to her she won't know who to call.

I found out later that she told Jeri I had only been to see her twice since she was in the place.  But I guess that's OK because she thinks that she has only been there three days, not a week-plus.  I won't remind her that I have been there every day since she moved in!

We may be heading into the "difficult" part of settling in.

Ice Cream Social

There was an ice cream social at Covell Gardens this week.   Judging by how few people came, I assume these are regular gatherings, nothing special.  But I made sure my mother went, so she got into the idea of joining activities.

She apparently had gone out to the front lobby before I got there, thinking maybe something was happening, but saw nothing.  The social was at the other end of the hall, in the area where there is an afternoon tea each day (cookies on a platter, coffee pot set up) ...all near the soda fountain (which I have yet to see open) and the popcorn machine where you can get a movie theater box of popcorn, fresh from the popper, in the afternoon.  

Food is very big at Covell Gardens.

There was a cart with two employees serving ice cream cones in big waffle cones that took four scoops to fill.  I had butter pecan, my mother had vanilla (which surprised me because her favorite ice cream is mint chocolate and they had a big tub of it).  There were no vacant seats near other people, so we sat in two chairs that were together and engaged in people watching, four people in a group, two kids (obviously grand or great-grandchildren), a couple of employees, and some folks sitting on the other side of the hall on couches.

 

One rather large guy in a motorized cart was laughing with his group that he was finishing his second cone and if he asked for a third, people would get angry with him.  As his cart rolled by, I joked with him and asked if he was allowed to drive that cart while under the influence of ice cream.  He said he had driven it under the influence of a lot more dangerous substances than ice cream.

We didn't exactly do much socializing, but the ice cream was good and it was nice to take a walk in the building and stop to check mail en route, and show my mother that there are activities going on every day.

Ice cream was always a big part of my growing up, especially after Earl Swensen opened his first creamery two blocks from our house. The big deal was that there was a big plate glass window in front and they made the ice cream right there, where everyone could watch.

My father joked many times that their window says "see us freeze" and that he had been looking all those years and never did see them.

The shop is on the cable car line so you could get off the cable car and walk right into the shop and get a cone. Across the street was the Searchlight Market, where the owner gave me my first kitten, when he learned I was home with the measles (the cat grew up and ran away first chance he got).

I loved going to Swensen's for ice cream.  I waited for summer each year so I could have some peach ice cream, one of my favorites.  I also remember when they first got waffle cones in and how good the ice cream tasted in a waffle cone vs those bland regular cones.  If I could afford it, I ordered mine "dipped," the ice cream dipped in a warm chocolate sauce that hardened to a nice brittle covering in seconds.

Every Halloween, if we went into the store, we got a free ice cream cone, our choice of pumpkin or licorice.

Earl always had a photograher there to take pictures of the groups and then the next week your parents could go and buy a copy.  That's me circled in white and my sister Karen circled in red.  My friend Gayle is the pirate girl on my right and our friend Georgette is the girl behind me on the left with the white rim of her hat showing.

When I first got pregnant, the thing my father was most looking forward to was the baby being old enough that he could take him/her with him to get an ice cream cone at Swensen's. It had been my plan to end this entry with the photo I took of Jeri and her grandfather standing on the hill in front of our house, on their way to get ice cream cones, but my photo albums of that period have become so inaccessible, that you'll just have to use your imagination.

Suffice to say, it was on of my father's favorite moments, taking his granddaughter to Swensens for an ice cream cone.

The Star System

When I started writing theater reviews back in 2000, not only did I have to write a review, but I also had to give the production one to five stars.   Lots of papers do that.  I think the Sacramento Bee still does.   The San Francisco Chronicle doesn't use stars, but they have their little man in a chair, reacting.

     

I always hated the star system.  It was fine to write my reactions to the play and review specific performances, but I hated that people might be going (or not going) to a performance based on just looking at stars.  If I really liked a show, but thought two people in it weren't very good, did I give it 5 stars, or 4 stars?  I went through the tortures of the damned with each review, trying to get the stars right.

I was delighted when they decided not to use stars any more.   

But what if everything in life that you encountered had to be rated with stars?  Imagine going through your daily life and deciding how many stars to give the items that you're using.

I just put a new roll of toilet paper, for example, in the downstairs bathroom.  It's a soft, 2 ply, "kind to your butt" brand, which might rate it 5 stars, but its an oversized roll and until I've used about 1/4 of it, it hangs up in the holder and you have to extract tissue two sheets at a time.  That might knock it down to 4 stars (no half stars allowed).

Our new car?  Now that I've been driving it for a couple of weeks, definitely five stars.  It's all relative.  We now have my mother's car too, a nice Lexus which she is giving to Jeri, which is living at our house until Jeri can come and drive it home.  A month ago, the Lexus would probably have rated 5 stars for all of its luxury, but compared to our new Honda, I'm sorry, Lexus, but you've been downgraded to 4 stars.

I was feeding the dogs this morning.  They get kibble mixed with cottage cheese.  The current carton is a 4 star brand.  I always get non-fat and this has a nice blend of "creamy-ness" and curd individuality. Another non-fat brand, which is 5 stars for me, is more creamy than curdy and when I decide to share the dogs' food (minus the kibble), I enjoy it.  The stuff from Trader Joe's gets only 3 stars for lack of creamy-ness and emphasis on chewy curds.  To each his or her own.

Being a connoisseur of candy, milk chocolate gets 5 stars and dark gets 3 just because I don't really like dark chocolate, but within the milk chocolate category, Lindt truffles get 5 stars, Hershey bars get 4 and Ghirardelli gets 3.  I grew up in San Francisco where Ghirardelli was made and I never really liked its taste all that much.

I know there are Miracle Whip people, but I am not one of them.   Miracle whip gets 1 star, while Best Foods mayonnaise (or Hellman's east of the Rockies) gets 5 stars.  I have not had much experience with other brands, but they would definitely fall below five stars.  Mustard, now, there's also an interesting category.  I give 5 stars to Mendocino mustard, with its distinctive sweet flavor, and would rank your regular yellow mustard for ballpark hot dogs at 4, though my mother's favorite is Colman's mustard, which I can only find at Safeway and I have to admit that for a non-sweet mustard, it's pretty tasty.  5 stars.

Fluffy socks in wild colors always get 5 stars.  I love wearing them around here like light-weight slippers.  Any socks with loose tops that don't cut into my fat calves get 5 stars and those that are hard to pull on and fit tightly rank 3 or 4 stars, 4 if they have a nice pattern.  I remember as a kid trying to pull on white anklets that went with my uniform shoes and having crying fits when they wouldn't fit over my heel and if they did fit over my heel, they were so stretched out that they looked floppy and I hated the way they felt.  I was very particular about socks as a kid.

It's more difficult to award stars to TV talking heads.  There are so many of them!  Rachel Maddow always gets 5 stars, with Chris Hays just a shade behind her.  But Chris Matthews, who once might have been a 4 is now a 1.  He has the chops, he knows his stuff, but his overbearing insistence that everyone agree with him or just shut up (he won't give them a chance to speak) knocked him down several pegs (and every time he sneers "Cheenie...that's the way it's pronounced" for Dick Cheney, he drops off the radar).  Jim Lehrer gets 2 stars just because I can't stand his voice and all the arguing he does. Washington Week's Charles Krauthammer rates 2 stars just for general snarkiness.  As for the more obnoxious FOX talking heads, I'd like to give them minus stars.  No way am I going to give a star to Ann Coulter.

Of course, Jon Stewart gets five stars.  Every time.

Walking around the house today, with stars in mind, I realize how fortunate we are that we don't have to rate ordinary things in our daily life with stars.   It was bad enough having to do it to stage shows, and I'm just as glad that I don't have to rate stage shows or brands of cottage cheese!

Sunday Stealing

1. What’s something you hide about your personality?
If I told you, I'd have to kill you...and it wouldn't be hidden any more.

2. How do you deal with criticism?
Very badly.  I am very sensitive when it comes to criticism. 

3. What’s something sweet you’d like someone to do for you?
Arrange a reunion with me and all of the "special" foreigners who stayed with us over the years.  I got the idea from watching the movie, The Blue Veil, where at the end of her life, the heroine, who worked as a nanny all her life, has a reunion with all of the children she helped raise. I suspect it was a really bad movie, but you can't find a copy of it anywhere today.

4. Which fictional character would you most like to have lunch with and why?
Kay Scarpetta, because she's cool, she's a great cook, and I'd like to find out why she has let Patricia Cornwell write so many really bad books about her (fortunately, the later ones have been OK).

5. Who would you say is your “anti” role model? Someone who serves as a warning rather than an inspiration?
Peggy Morrison.

6. What’s the most infuriating thing your parents do?
Well, it's only my mother and of course the most infuriating thing she does isn't her fault...it's the fault of her short term memory loss.  But I don't blame her for it.

7. Which movie character do you most identify with and why?
Sancho Panza, because I'm round and klutzy and make a good sidekick.

8. You’re an Action Movie Hero. What’s your weapon of choice and the line you scream when defeating your arch enemy?
I'd make a rotten movie hero.  I hate violence, couldn't use a weapon if my life defended on it, and my scream would be a pathetic, "Please, you, do not hurt me..."

9. What’s the oddest term of endearment you’ve ever used or that someone’s used for you?
Beaver Lake

10. What was something you used to enjoy, but was ruined for you? What’s the story behind that?
There were many kinds of music that I learned to like when Peggy and I were friends (John Denver, Celine Dion, Shanaya Twain, etc.) that are all painful to listen to today.

11. Which mythological creature are you most like? Why? And if you could be any mythological creature, which would you want to be? Why?
A tribble.  Again, I'm round, soft, fluffy, and in my time have reproduced like crazy.  I also like wheat products.

12. Describe your dream library.
Like this, but with a big bay window looking out over some body of water (lake, pond, ocean, creek...I'm not particular!).

13. If you could design an amusement park ride, what would it be like?
Slow, interesting rides with no hills or valleys, but a side car that has drinks and snacks.

14. Do you have any “rules” about food?
I'm on the "see food" diet.  See it, eat it. 

15. What’s your opinion on age differences in relationships?
Who cares?

16. What’s something you want to do that you’d be embarrassed to tell other people about?
Well, good grief, if I'd be embarrassed to tell other people about it, why would I publish it in a public journal?

17. Describe a time/event in your life that you’re nostalgic for.
The Lawsuit years.  Meeting our kids in smoky bars, watching Paul cavorting on stage and David cavorting with Tom on the dance floor, the Horns of Adequacy, that great percussion break in Bottles of Chance and everybody dancing around the stage to Thank God,You're doing Fine.

Those were the days, my friend!

It's DONE!

Can to be that my mother has taken her last trip to the house in Terra Linda?  I do believe so!

I went to breakfast with her this morning, noting with pleasure that she seems to have the breakfast routine down just fine, with remembering to take her key, locking the door, and going to the dining room.  She also told me that she woke up at 5 and went down to the lobby to get coffee to bring back to her apartment.  YES!

We had breakfast and then got in the car to drive to Terra Linda.   On the way down, I told her that I have noticed two positive things about her since she moved to Covell Gardens one week ago.  I have not heard her complain about her back.  I know it still hurts, but I have not heard the usual expletives and racing for her chair to relieve the pressure on her coccyx.  She's not doing much, so her back doesn't hurt.

I also notice that she is sleeping much better.  When she wakes up early, she goes back to bed...and back to sleep.  I think this has greatly improved her attitude, if not exactly her memory.

We got to Terra Linda around 10:30 and literally within seconds, she was sitting in the remaining chair hunched over, groaning "Oh God...look at all this stuff" and holding her head in her hands.

I tried to get her to focus on just getting things that we had forgotten, and that she needed in her new apartment.  That was 50-50 successful.   She wandered from room to room, wringing her hands about how much work there was to be done, opening a drawer or picking up an item, then putting it down, and then would head back for the chair because she was feeling dizzy.

At one point she looked at me and actually said "I probably should not have come back here, should I?"  I agreed with her and said that we would take all the things we were packing today back to Davis and then not bring her back again until we had removed all the "stuff" from the house and had it ready to sell.  She actually agreed.

I told her we should start in the bedroom and concentrate on taking the rest of the clothes she wanted.  She opened a drawer and found a bunch of purses.   I told her to pick one or two she wanted to take, but she had to go through every. single. purse. and remove every. single. tissue and throw it away.  It took forever.   But she was doing something, so I just let her, and encouraged her.

She eventually got clothes chosen, leaving half of them behind, and packed more shoes, as many as would fit in a bag.  

Ed had arrived by that time and was doing his own thing with her financial records, and his daughter Denise came to say goodbye to Grandma. I went out and got us sandwiches and by the time we had finished those, it was time to take her for her hair appointment, what will probably be her last with her hairdresser.

While she was getting her hair done, I delivered the equipment for her LifeLine to Marin General Hospital.  What with distance and traffic, that little jaunt took an hour and she was just getting her hair finished when I arrived.  Her hairdresser is German and my mother is stoic and rarely displays sentimentality, so there was no tearful goodbye...and the hair looked pretty good.  She's so convinced nobody can do her hair like Hannah can that I took before, during, and after pictures to show the hairdresser at Covell Gardens (and hope for the best).

 

The woman who has done my mother's hair

every week for the past 30 years.

When we got back, there really was nothing to do but pack up the car and come home.  Ed's wife Jenny came to say goodbye and help carry things to the car.

All things considered, my mother really did very little today, other than choose the last of her clothes to bring, I was so glad I had thought to make the hair appointment during the middle of the day.

As we were getting ready to leave, she said "I know I'm forgetting something important.  I'll have to make a list for next time we come back."  I reminded her that she wasn't coming back again and she started to protest.  Of COURSE she needed to come back.  There were IMPORTANT THINGS that she needed to bring. 

Actually, it was a short-lived protest and by the time we returned to the car it had spent itself out and she was agreeing that this would be her last trip.   I had made a playlist of music of the 40s to play on the way home, hoping it would make her sleepy.  I had played the same list a year or so ago when we drove with Peach to visit the ranch where she grew up.  These are songs I grew up singing with her, her favorite artists (Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Nat King Cole, etc.) That time she had sung along with the songs and really enjoyed the list.  Today, she said "I remember hearing some of those songs.  This is something your father would have enjoyed."  Eventually I turned the music off, since it was obvious that she was not enjoying it.

The ride home was abominable.  Traffic was so slow that Hwy 37, which usually takes 30 minutes to drive, from Highway 101 to Highway 80, took nearly an hour.  Top speed through most of it was 5 mph.  But the worst part was my mother. I really was ready to kill her. The one thing I HATE is when I am trying to merge with a line of cars and someone sees I have signaled to move into their lane, they speed up so I can't get in, and so do all the cars behind that car.  So today whenever I saw a car trying to get into my lane, I slowed down and let a gap open up so they could.   Every time I did, my mother would loudly express exasperation that someone would dare to try and cut in, even when I told her I was deliberately letting them in.  I think in the grand scope of things, my politeness may have cost us 3 minutes in drive time!

It was a long, long drive and we arrived at Covell Gardens about 15 minutes before they stopped serving in the dining room, so we went directly there to order dinner (Walt had joined us by this time, to help carry boxes from the car to the apartment).

Dinner was not very good.  I suspect you do NOT want to arrive at the end of the dinner hour in a place like Covell Gardens.  My chicken cacciatore was not very good and the pasta was hard and cool. Tiramisu was on the dessert menu, but they had only one teeny piece left, which Walt and I shared. 

I sent Walt out to get a telephone cord so we could check to see if her phone is working now (it is!!!) and while he was out, I decided that we should NOT unload boxes tonight, because if we do, she will unpack them all tonight and she looked so exhausted, she really needed to go to sleep.  Besides, I didn't want to schlep boxes any more than she did!

So we have brought all the stuff home and I'll take it to her apartment tomorrow.  I'm turning her loose to have breakfast alone tomorrow morning.   If things go well, I may take her to see The Great Gatsby tomorrow afternoon, but we're playing that by ear and see how we both feel.  Walt will be helping to run the Citizens Who Care Beer Fest, so he's not available to schlep.

But, dear God, it's OVER.  She is a Davis resident and she has said goodbye to her Terra Linda house and turned the disposition of it and all the "crap" in it to Ed and me. When we got off the freeway in Davis she said "This looks like home."

Halleluja!!!