New Hobby

I guess I have a new hobby:  taking my mother to the doctor.

Atria did a mini mental assessment of her a couple of weeks ago, which I sent to her doctor, who called and said she wanted to see her.  Today I went to pick her up and found her hunched over on the bench in the hall on the way to her apartment.  I asked what was wrong and she said her back was killing her.  She was also coughing and had a red nose, indicating that it was runny.

I told her I had come to take her to the doctor and said I would go and get her coat and purse so she didn't have to walk to her apartment.  On the way to the car, when she leaned on my arm to help her with her back pain, i told her we would talk with the doctor about her pain.  She said that was the kind of thing that when you have it you don't want your doctor to know about it.  Sigh.

When we were waiting to be called for her appointment, I said we would also talk with the doctor about her cough and she said "what cough?  I don't have a cough."  Fortunately she was coughing so badly that they gave her a face mask to wear.

I also pointed out that her clothes were filthy and pointed out food stains on her pants and her blouse, which she has steadfastly refused to let me wash.  The last thing I told her when I dropped her off was to be sure and put her clothes in the hamper so I could wash them.  Let's see if she does it.

The first thing the doctor pointed out was that she was due for a retinopathy screening and so made an appointment with the eye doctor for Friday (couldn't go tomorrow since I work at Logos tomorrow).

Then she asked about her cold.  My mother said she had no cold.  Fortunately her lungs are clear, but she has a bad dry cough, which she could not deny because she coughed through the appointment.  She also wiped her nose on her sleeve, her blouse, and the gown they gave her in the exam room.

The doctor prescribed a cold medication (Benzonatate) which, I discovered when I checked the prescription, she is supposed to take 3x/day.  I'm note sure how I'm going to manage that.  I figured out I'd put the pill in with her regular pills, which she does take (almost) every day, but I didn't relish going to Atria twice a day to make sure she took 2 more pills.  But I figured I could fill a second pill dispenser with just the Benzonatate and then call her toward the end of the day and remind her to take the second pill.  That'll have to do except for days when I go there to visit anyway, when I can make sure she takes the third.

Next I brought up the back pain.  My mother --- I absolutely do not believe this --- said, "what back pain?  I don't have any back pain"  This was the woman who could not MOVE because she was in so much pain just two hours before, who complains every. single. day. about her back pain.  The doctor recommended Tylenol arthritis and also physical therapy.  Well, lots o' luck with that.  She might make it to one session, but I guarantee she would refuse to go again.

So then we went to the memory issue.  She didn't do any testing because the woman at Atria had done it, but had some suggestions, which include an MRI next week in Sacramento, the day after I go to Kaiser in Sacramento to the optometrist to get a prescription for my new glasses. 

Then there is the "memory class" she wants her to attend to assess possible treatment.  I somehow think that is a lost cause, based on her reaction to the "memory class" at Atria, but we'll give it a try.

It looks like 2016 is going to be filled with medical type appointments for my mother, as well as a lot of fighting to get her where she should be going for help.

The Heck with the Creed

The post office has no "official" motto, but for decades it is generally accepted that this is it:

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Well not so much around here lately.  We used to have wonderful mail service.  During the years when we were hosting foreign students, one of them, after returning home, sent me a letter addressed to "Mrs. Beverly, Davis, CA."  It got delivered to me.

Around that same time we had put a hold on our mail while we were on vacation and when I went in to pick it up, the clerk at the desk (all the positions were filled then) turned to the clerk to whom I was speaking and gave him my address before I could give it myself.  He had been our mailman for several years before changing to work in the post office itself.

These were the wonderful things about living in a small town.,

I suppose the first indication that things were changing was when I wrote a letter to one of the big name stores (probably Longs, where I did a lot of shopping) in the mall just a few blocks from our house.  I addressed it to "Longs, Sycamore Dr. and Covell Blvd, Davis, CA" and it was returned for a bad address.  Who knew mall shops had individual addresses?

That was when I discovered that sorting of the mail was now being done in Sacramento and since there were two Longs in town, one at each end of Covell Blvd, the Sacramento post office didn't have a clue where Sycamore Dr. was.

But once I learned that, things went on pretty much as they always had.  Our mail was delivered around 10 a.m. every day.  Then the mail started coming in the middle of the afternoon, which it has done for several years now.

Recently it was 6 p.m. and our mail had not come.  Never in our 43 years in this town have we not had a mail delivery, even if it's only junk mail.  In fact, there is a junk mailer that is delivered every single day.  The same type of mailer.  I don't really know what's in it because I throw it out without looking at it.  But on this day, we didn't even get the junk mailer.

Finally around 9 p.m the mail arrived.  The postal carrier had to use a flashlight to find the houses.

We figured it was a special circumstance, it being December and maybe the post office was overwhelmed.  But it was very late the next night and the night after that and now we regular get our mail around 6 p.m.

We belong to Next Door, an on-line group that allows members of various neighborhoods to communicate with each other.  I decided to toss out the question of whether others have been having the same postal problems that we have been.

I got a flood of responses, everything from "yes, the dirty bums, why can't they deliver our mail on time" kinds of answers to "they are overworked, be patient with them" kinds of responses.  Someone said that, right before the Christmas rush, they had laid off employees, so at the busiest time of year they were short staffed.

Today there is another round on Nextdoor called "Lousy Mail Service continues." with  11 neighbors comparing stories about undelivered mail, mis-delivered

Our delivery service is sporadic--and I am not referring simply to time of delivery. Our mail has been arriving at the home of our next door neighbor, we've been getting mail for neighbors on adjacent streets, etc. We have several different delivery persons. I have no idea what is going on.

Thankfully our nice neighbor on A street brought our misdelivered package over this morning. Unfortunately, since it was delivered to their house so late last night it sat in the rain overnight. This isn't the first time we have had this happen.

The best comment, though, came from a guy who decided to contact the postmaster. The guy tried mailing the letter, but it was returned for a bad address.  So he decided to hand deliver it and drove to the post office, handed it to a clerk who promised she would put it on the postmaster's desk. Two weeks later it was returned to him marked "insufficient address."  He said he thought "Davis Postmaster" would have been sufficient when he had hand delivered it to the correct address!!!

The post office is no longer fully staffed any more. You're lucky if two clerks are working and I have seen one of them go on break with the line of customers going out the door.  Nobody cares, it seems.

Very sad to see this happen to the noble institution for which my father worked for his entire career.

Upton, Downton

Everybody's favorite British soap opera has returned for its final season.  Julian Fellowes, creator and sole writer of the series promises that this sixth season is going to tie everything up neatly, all those threads we have been following for so long.

While we will all shed tears when the show finally rides off into the sunset, they are being so smart, leaving while the popularity is still high and before everyone talks about how the quality seems to have slipped.  It's also nice to quit while the babies who have been born at Downton are still cute little kids

The end of Season 5 finally saw the culmination of the world's slowest moving romance when butler Carson proposed to housekeeper Mrs.  Hughes.  We had watched these two as good friends for four seasons, and then, uncharacteristically, we saw Carson let down a bit as he and Hughes held hands and paddled on the beach on a servant's holiday toward the end of Season 4.

But Carson finally popped the question and one thing we will all be looking forward to is their inevitable nuptials.

Interestingly, in Episode one of the current season there is a conversation between Mrs. Hughes and house cook, Mrs. Patmore, about the physical side of marriage, each confessing she had no personal knowledge of the subject.

I found that rather odd, since both women are called "Mrs." and I assumed both were widows, so I went to my source of information and asked about it on Facebook.  My friend diane, who lives in England, sent me to a fascinating article called "Mistresses and Marriage: or, a short history of the Mrs." which explains that Mrs. used to simply mean an adult female, whether she had been married or not.

My friend Sian, who lives in Orkney says "In Orkney, locals never use the term woman, it's either 'lass' or 'wife/wifey' Once you are over a certain age you are a 'wife' whatever your marital status!"

Romance seems to have dominated a lot of characters in this show.  In the last season we learned that the Duchess of Grantham,  the marvelous Maggie Smith (whom I will miss dearly!), had a former tryst with a Russian prince, who turns up in Downton and rekindles old feelings.  Whoda thunk the old girl had such passion left in her.  

I was sucked into watching a Downton Abbey marathon over the weekend, and sadly watched as the Duchess said goodbye to her former lover when his wife turned up.  (There was absolutely no doubt what drove the Prince into the arms of the Duchess!)

The marathon was fun to watch because it brought me up to speed on where Season 6 starts, but my god was it an over-exultation of the show.  You would have thought we were waiting for the Second Coming to watch the hosts of the marathon.  I love the show, but not nearly that much.

Of course the threads to be tied up in this season include whether Lady Mary will ever find true love...

...and whether everyone's favorite downstairs couple, Anne and Bates will be able to be rid of their troubles and find their happily ever after.  (And whether she will ever call him anything but "Mr. Bates.")

So many questions to be answered, so many threads to be neatly tied up, and Fellowes (and others) have promised this will be "the best season ever."  

Boxes and Boxes

Every Wednesday morning, the dogs go crazy and when I open the door to see why, I find a big box from Blue Apron which contains all the foods I will prepare for the following week.  I usually make a Blue Apron meal every other day (since we only get 3 meals a week).  Some of them leave us with leftovers that I serve to Walt the next night.

I am loving these meals for many reasons.  For one thing, we are eating better.  I am not good about fixing something green when I prepare a meal, and each of these Blue Apron meals come with veggies.  They are also each 700 calories or less.  Since my meals tend to go heavy on the starches, this is significantly better than we normally have.

I am also eating things I have never eaten before.  Several meals come with kale, which I swore I hated, but mixed in with the meals I am preparing I don't mind it.  I also cooked faro for the first time the other day.  I had just heard of this grain alternative the week before on the Food Network and generally am not adventurous to try something like that, but it was good in the Italian meatball soup that I prepared.

I have many strong childhood food memories, two of them unpleasant.  The first was one Christmas when I was in bed with some sort of intestinal bug...I don't know if we knew it was intestinal at the time, or if we didn't find out until later.  My mother had made a sort of Waldorf salad for dinner and brought me a bowl of it.  Apples, celery, grapes, walnuts and some sort of binder (mayonnaise?  marshmallow cream?).  I ate it and in short order lost it.  For years, possibly decades after that night, the sight of a similar salad gave me a headache.  I can eat it again now, finally.

But the other unpleasant memory is celeriac, the root of the celery plant. I'm not a big celery eater to begin with (unless it's loaded with peanut butter, which kind of negates the low cal properties of a stalk of celery!)

I remember one family dinner at my grandmother.  She had found some recipe--I think it was for a salad--that featured celeriac and decided to try it.  I hated it so much that it has burned an experience into my memory banks.  I can picture where I was sitting at the table, who was sitting across from me, and what the salad looked like on the plate.  I was probably in high school at the time.

But celeriac seems to be a popular ingredient in Blue Angel boxes.  One of the first meals I made contained a big bulb of celeriac that I boiled and mashed, like potatoes.  The box even came with an information page about celeriac, which says it can be roasted, sauteed, blanched, mashed or pureed.  It says that cooking "brings out celeriac's sweetness" and I found that having it mashed wasn't half bad.

Another recipe had it cut into chunks and cooked into a delicious chutney.  Of course that was the night I forgot to serve the chutney, so I didn't get to taste it the way it was supposed to taste.

Another hated vegetable of my childhood was collard greens, which I remember as being gritty and not nearly as tasty as the spinach they were supposed to resemble, but with the vinegar/maple syrup glaze over roast chicken it was delicious.

I've eaten jicama, which I did not think I liked, and a variety of mushrooms--and I'm a rather timid persons when it comes to unusual mushrooms (never ate oyster mushrooms before)

We've also had a plethora of oddly named spices, all of which are told to "add as much of the spice mix as you'd like, depending on how spicy you want it."  I generally add half.  Once I added the whole packet to a soup mix and it was even too spicy for Walt, who loves spicy food.  Blue Angel chefs tend to like their food spicy, I've learned.

The spices that we have had delivered to us include Gochugaru (Korean chile flakes), "meatball soup spice blend," "Mexican soup spice blend" (10 spices, including ground coffee--this one was the killer), "Pork Chop spice blend" (0nly 4 spices, but two of them were chiles), Sambal Oelek, Ponzu Sauce, Togarashi spice blend (only 4 spices, but one was togarashi and that must translate into "very spicy"), Golden Mountain Sauce, tamarind concentrate, harissa paste and a few milder spices that contain nothing hot.

They come in the cutest little containers or bottles that you've ever seen--looks like something from a doll's kitchen.  I wish I could think of a use for them because I have this compulsion to save them, but have managed to subdue that compulsion. The only thing Blue Apron does not supply is olive oil--and I have gone through a small bottle of it since we started this adventure.

So I'm having fun with Blue Apron and am broadening my nutritional horizons.  I am even learning to cook better.  I cooked lamb chops yesterday (not Blue Apron) and it was the first chop that I cooked which satisfied me in...well, maybe forever.  I have learned exactly HOW to cook the perfect chop.

But the boxes do pile up.  Walt finally had to make a special trip to the dump yesterday because he was running out of places to store them.  They'd make great boxes to pack books in but when the time comes to pack up books we will be able to get all the boxes we want!

Best Day of the Year

It's only the 3rd of January and already I've had the best day of the year.

I felt kind of guilty not going to see my mother on the 1st, to wish her a happy new year.  I knew she wouldn't know it was the new year, but still, I enjoyed sitting at home and vegetating.  I made cookies and so had a big batch and was able to share them with Ashley when she came to check on Polly, who seemed to be sick all day yesterday, but who was fine this morning.  Amazing what rubbing Karo syrup on her gums to boost her blood sugar level can do!

But when the 2nd came around, I knew I had to go to Atria.  She would not have any idea how long it had been since I'd seen her, but I did.  She wouldn't be needing meds yet and she could go a few more days on dirty laundry, so this was just to be a visit.

And it started like all visits.  She didn't realize it was January.  Is it cold outside?  The trees are bare.  She's old.  She can't remember how old she is but it must be nearly 100.  She hasn't done anything exciting.  She can't remember if she ate lunch or not.  What am I doing tonight that's exciting? (asked several times) This is pretty much the extent of our conversation, over and over again, every time I visit her.

The last time I saw her, the day before New Year's Eve, she told me that she didn't know why, but she had been dreaming a lot about her mother.  She went through a period several months ago where she dreamed about her and would wake up and see her, until she got fully awake, and then missed her when she was gone.  I wondered, then, if my grandmother was coming to take her last daughter home with her.

I asked her if she had been dreaming about her mother again and she said no, she had not.  She mused again that she didn't know how her mother did it, raising 10 children.

Then I asked her a magic question.  It was like I'd found the key to open a firmly locked box.  I asked her what her mother did to discipline all those kids.

She started talking.  She told me that her mother never spanked her children, but would find a way to let them know how displeased she was.  She'd take away something they wanted to do or something like that.

She went on to talk about her siblings, how she herself never got punished much because she was pretty well behaved but her her next oldest sister, Marge (Peach's mother) was always the one who got into trouble.  She said she thought Marge went out of her way to find bad things to do just to get attention.

She talked about her youngest sister, Barb (who died of Alzheimers several years ago) and how she was everyone's pet because she was the youngest.

She told me again how when her father was asked why they had such a large family he always replied "because I loved your mother so much I couldn't keep my hands off of her."

She talked about her older sisters, who were grown and out of the house by the time she was born (she was #8 in a family of 10).  Her sister Mel was actually pregnant at the same time that my grandmother was pregnant with my mother and her son (who was killed in an auto accident at age 5) was born a few months before my mother.

She talked about how all the kids loved Mel and how exciting it was for her to come home and visit because she always brought goodies for all the kids.

She also talked about how everybody was afraid of Marie, Mel's next youngest sister.  I told her that I remembered the very first family reunion umpteen years ago when my mother told Marie she had always been afraid of her, which surprised Marie.

We talked about her oldest brother Jim and how everybody adored him and I recalled being so excited to get a wedding gift from him because I loved him so much and it was going to be something very special to me, but when I opened it it was a banged up silver bowl that his alcoholic wife had bought at a second hand store.

I don't know how long we chatted about her childhood and her siblings but it was like old times and then, suddenly, as if a switch had been turned off, she gazed out the window and sighed and said "I'm old, Bev..." and we were back into bare trees and what am I doing exciting tonight.

But for one brief shining moment, she was back.  It was the best day of 2016.  It is wonderful that this terrible disease has not yet robbed her of her memories of childhood.  They are as fresh and shining as if she is reliving them.

The Day at Logos

A belated "Today at Logos," now that the world has reverted to normal. (I can tell the holiday is finally over because Golden Girls and Frasier are back on Hallmark thru the night again...my favorite soporifics!)

Anyway, New Year's Eve at Logos was not quite as busy as Christmas Eve, but busier than I would expect on a traditional "party day," though the fact that from 4 to 5 it was dead tells me that people eventually went hom to prepare to party.

Sandy was working with granddaughter Sarah when I arrived.  Sarah is 8 and often accompanies Sandy to the store on non-school days.  She reads, plays games, dusts the shelves and helps Sandy with sales.  In fact, she has become so adept at the cash register that she actually made a sale of a bargain book while Sandy was in the bathroom.

There was a bald guy standing outside for a very long time, reading all the signs and checking the display window, but he never entered.

Another guy marched in and right to the section where we have books on music, where he looked for quite awhile and then left.

A middle aged woman checked out Sci Fi and then told me she was looking for books by Jules Verne.  I directed her to the Literature section, where she bought all four books that we had.  She told me that Verne was the father of science fiction.

Two women spent a very long time searching throughout the store, including one of them sitting at the front table engrossed in a book.  But ultimately they left without buying anything.

A woman bought a gift certificate, which is, I think, only the second one I have sold in all my time volunteering at Logos.

A guy who, at first, looked like Michael, the guy who runs the brain gymnasium at Atria,came in, wearing jeans, a denim shirt and a grey vest.  He bought a bargain book by Catherine Coulter which had a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on the cover, and made me want to check out Coulter books.

Another balding guy who had no comb over, but a long pony tail in back bought a book on the history of coins and the Morgan car.

The next guy bought "Silas Marner" and "All Fishermen are Liars," a mother and her daughter bought a copy of "Titus Andronicus,"   and a guy bought a book by Virginia Wolf and a bargain book.

A woman wearing jeans and a black leather jacket carrying a bag made out of jeans material bought a bargai book, book on Kosher Chinese cooking and a book of Norwegian folk tales.  She told me she is an artist and would be "making something" out of the books.

A woman brought in two books to donate -- a book on the history of drinking in America by Susan Cheever and "97 Orchard, an edible history of 5 immigrant families in one New York tenement."  Looked like a different sort of memoir.

A guy was looking, unsuccessfully, for Ian Fleming books.

An older woman bought 2 contemporary fiction books and one on Native American myths.

A sturdy guy wearing a martial arts t-shirt and shorts! in this cold weather (obviously a tough guy) bought 3 bargain books.

Peter has a friend who is also a retired math professor.  He comes in regularly, often with books to donate.  Today he was looking and headed straight to the math section, but didn't find anything that looked good to him.  He said "I'm off for my coffee" and wished me a happy new year.

A woman was looking for "Watership Down."  Neither of us could remember the name of the author and my phone was dead, so I couldn't check with Amazon.  I sent her off to check the fiction section, but I finally remembered we are a book store and have a section on reference books, so I found a guide to literature and told the customer it was Richard Adams (she would never have found it, since she had started at the Zs and was working backwards!)  But we didn't have it.

Two men came in, one a round-faced Asian man with round black-rimmed glasses, who didn't say much, if anything.  The other guy seemed to be a mentor and I wondered if this was a foreign student hosting situation.  The young man bought a history of the Middle Ages and the older man paid.

A guy came in from outside with very thick book, "The Power Broker" from the bargain books and was thrilled to find out it was only $1.  He told me it was a classic, and left the store a very happy customer.

A couple came in looking for a book called "something like 'Dear God this is Ann'" but didn't know the genre or the author, and because of my dead phone I couldn't check Amazon.  (I checked after I got home and could not find anything like that book).  I wondered if they were looking for the Judy Blum book, but they said this was for adults and something like a self improvement book.  They didn't find what they were looking for but said they would check on the title and author and return another day.

It was really dead until a guy poked his head through the door to tell me that there was an alarm going off.  I didn't hear one and opened the back door and didn't hear one there either, so there wasn't anything I could do about it.

Susan and Peter arrived at 5:30, relieving me half an hour early, which left me sitting out in the cold for half an hour, since Walt didn't go to the pub because we were going to a party later and, again because my phone was dead, I couldn't call him to tell him to come early. I felt like a homeless person, huddled under my jacket (thank goodness I had brought one!), shivering in the cold.

The New Year, Old and New

It's Thursday, and yes, I worked at Logos, but I'll save "Today at Logos" until tomorrow to make this a more New Years-y kind of entry.  I will say, though, that Peter and Susan decided to close the store early, so came to relieve me at 5:30.  I walked down to the pub to meet Walt, but he wasn't there and by the time I returned to Logos, the shop was already closed and locked, so I sat outside, on a cold brick bench in 40 degree weather waiting for Walt to show up (my phone was dead, so I couldn't call him).  Thank God I brought a jacket...I almost didn't!

This morning I was looking for a "Throw Back Thursday" photo appropriate to post on Facebook for New Year's Eve and found this one:

This was our third New Year's Day Pinata Group party, 1967, when Father Joe Quinn came and we forced him to sit under a pile of babies.  He was responsible for most of them, after all.  Quinn was the pastor of the Newman Center at UC Berkeley during the years we were all dating and mating and marrying...and he married many of us.  He had left by the time Walt and I got married, but he did do an engagement solemnization for us a year before.  We were married by a guy who had been at Newman while Quinn was there and had just been ordained a couple of days before our wedding.  

Quinn also baptized a lot of these babies.  Jeri is the one rubbing her eye next to him and Ned is the one in his left arm, grabbing at his chin.  Paul would not be born for another year yet.  These parties continued...forever.  In fact, we will have yet another one this year, when all the babies who were born in 1966 (5 of them) turn 50.

Tonight, however, there were no Pinata People, we went to the annual New Year's Eve party of The Psychiatrist (remember him?) and his wife, who have been hosting this party for 42 years (skipping the year of their 50th anniversary, when they went to Hawaii instead).  This is a wonderful party, full of food, conversation and lots of music.

(The Psychiatrist is a member of the Putah Creek Crawdads)
Photo by County Supervisor Don Saylor

Some of my favorite people in Davis (and one from Ireland) attend this party--the kids' nursery school teacher, their high school principal, a couple of former mayors, Davis Comic Opera Company members, former head of the School Board, doctors I know, people I knew from PTA and other groups. I got to talk with most of those I wanted to talk to...and probably won't see most of them again until next year.  We are all getting older. Two wheel chairs this year and lots of canes. The invitation always says that the party will go until the last voice gives out, but the musicians tired early and didn't play again, some of them heading home.  There weren't all that many people left when we finally came home at 11:30.  We saw the new year in with the dogs, which isn't a bad way to see it in.

Now to go to sleep with an NCIS marathon, which goes until 6 a.m.  2016 is starting out well.