No Joy in Mudville

Spoiler alert:  The 49ers did not win the SuperBowl.   But at least while at half time it looked like it was going to be a total crushing defeat by the ravens, the second half was very exciting.  There were a lot of "if only...s"  If only that last pass had been caught, they would have won.   But still, considering the score at half time a 34-31 loss was a relatively decent showing.

I predicted all along that Coach Harbaugh's team would win...and I was right!

So how did the "Super Bowl party" go?  Well, OK, I guess.  I called my mother in the morning to let her know we would probably leave home at noon and she did not remember that I had ever told her we were coming for the Super Bowl.  But at least she had not accepted any other invitation anywhere.

She wasn't feeling well and had been dizzy when she woke up, so had not gone to Mass and this was a "bad back" day for her, so she really didn't want to move much, though having us there drove her nuts because even though I made certain there was absolutely nothing she needed to do, she was very antsy just sitting there and letting us fix things.

When she is not feeling well, her memory problems intensify.   I've noticed this over the last couple of years, and today was very bad.  She and Walt looked through the book a photos from our cruise that I had brought down, with Walt explaining what each photo was, and she asked Walt when we were going on our next cruise.  He told her August and that we were going to the Ukraine.  She commented on how that would be interesting.  Then when I sat down she asked me when we were going on our next trip and I told her the same thing and then five minutes later she asked us both when we were going on a trip again, and then she thought we were going to Ukraine to see the grandchildren.  Sigh.

She might not remember what I told her five minutes before, or the names of her great grandchildren, or that we were coming to watch the game with her today, but she had absolutely NO difficulty recognizing this jacket that Tom is wearing.

Tom and I, and later Laurel and I, kept up a busy texting conversation throughout the afternooin, which started before we left home, when Tom asked me to FaceTime him.  (For those who don't know, FaceTime is an app that lets you chat with your iPads and you can both see each other...I had never done it before.)   Unfortunately, with no wifi at my mother's, FaceTime was not going to be possible during the game, but Tom took me on a tour of his own SuperBowl party and all the stuff he and Laurel had been fixing for it. (Laurel made red and gold cupcakes, for example, with Bri's assistance)

He also said that he was going to "break out Fred's jacket and wear it." He said he would send a picture later in the day.  This jacket belonged to my mother's husband, who died in about 1995 and when he died, my mother gave the jacket to Tom.  I think this may be the first time he's worn it.  But when I showed her the picture, she knew instantly that it was Fred's jacket and it tickled her that Tom was wearing it because Fred had been very proud of that jacket.

I set the table up for our tiny SuperBowl party.

There was chili in the crock pot (which I got up at 5 a.m. to make), wings on a football platter with Ranch dressing, home made Chex Mix (which I like better than store bought) and tortilla chips with both guacamole (home made) and Salsa con Queso (store bought).  Earlier that day, Laurel had posted a combination video/slide show called "Born to be a Fan" with pictures of the girls in various 49er outfits, going all the way back to bald baby Brianna in her 49er onesie.  I figured out how to download it to my iPad and brought it along so my mother could see it...and I thought it made a nice addition to the food on the table.

Throughout the game, there were two things she fixated on and told us over and over and over again.  One had to do with the ethnicity of the players and the other was the cost of the commercials.  Every time she felt she had to say something it was about one or the other of those topics.  I hate it when she gets into ethnicity, but she is a person of her time and she grew up and has lived all of her life in a mostly white environment and she simply cannot NOT make a comment about a person of color.  But I don't say anything, I just grit my teeth and don't contribute to the conversation.

As for the commercials, she saw something recently where she learned that the cost of one simple commercial was anywhere from $5,000 to $1 million (the amount varied each time she told us).  I finally Googled it and found out it was $3.8 million on average, but I didn't tell her that because she wouldn't remember anyway.

At the half time, mid-way through Beyonce's show, my mother asked what program we were watching because she hadn't seen it before.  I explained it was the SuperBowl half time show.  She obviously didn't like it and asked me to turn down the sound.

Walt fixed vodka tonics for himself and for me and my mother watched him like a hawk and whenever he opened a cupboard to look for something she would call out "what are you looking for, Walt?" and he would have to reassure her that he knew what he wanted and how to find it so she wouldn't get up because her back was bothering her so much.

As it got later in the afternoon, she was becoming restless and asked if I wanted her to set the table for dinner.  Somehow it was very difficult for her to grasp that the chili was in the crock pot for anybody to eat when they felt hungry and that I hadn't intended that we actually sit at the table  to eat it.   But it took about 3 or 4 repetitions of that before she finally went and got herself a tiny bowl of chili.

As the game was ending, in the tensest part of the game, when it was actually possible the 9ers might pull off an upset victory, my mother was cleaning up the kitchen and packing up the leftovers so that we didn't dare leave a crumb behind.

I don't know if this was a good afternoon or not.  I think she might have been happier to be alone, without feeling the need to get up and be a hostess, though I had done everything I possibly could to make it unnecessary for her to do anything.   She still managed to find things that she thought she should do and then she would hobble back to her chair and wince as she sat down again, because the back was bothering her so much.

But that need to hostess is hard-wired into her DNA and there's apparently nothing I can do to circumvent that.  She's going to be a hostess or die trying.

I'm glad that we went, and she thanked us for coming and said she was glad she didn't have to watch the game alone, but I still left feeling that bringing her a party was adding a burden that she didn't feel she could handle today.

It would have been better if we could have rejoiced in the 49er victory, which might have made her feel happier about watching the game with us.