A Lovely Mother's Day

The only way Mothers Day could have been better would have been for Paul and Dave to have been with us, for the Boston and Santa Barbara families to have been in No. California, and for Walt's mother to have come too.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, it was perfect.

We left to rent a car right after Walt got home from Mass.  We don't trust our car to drive distances any more (we have an appointment to look at new/used cars tomorrow), so we rent cars rather than having the expense of a second car on those rare occasions when one car isn't enough.

We left for my mother's later than I would have liked, but we couldn't have gone any sooner, given that the car rental place didn't open until 10 and there was already a line of customers when we got there.

Traffic was sluggish in spots and we didn't get to Terra Linda until 12:30, but Ned was still cooking French toast when we arrived.  My cousin Donna and her husband were there visiting, but not staying for brunch.  My mother gave her one of her violet plants.  She may have memory problems, but she still can make a dead stick bloom, I swear.  Her two violet plants are positively luxurious.

After Donna and Fred left, we sat down to brunch.  Ned had made a great spread for the five of us, which we had with mimosas.

We talked a lot about moving, and about hiring professional movers vs. carrying things ourselves (fortunately, my mother laid down the law:  we will hire movers.  She doesn't want anybody carrying stuff for her.  Yay!)

After brunch, my mother told Ned to just leave the dishes and she would do them later.  He knows how to work her so well.  He said that yes, of course, he would leave them for her to do, all the while he was washing them and putting them away.   By the time we left there were NO dishes to wash and only five mimosa glasses to put away.  I think my mother was grateful, but of course she wouldn't admit it!

Ned said he would take all of her electronic gear, which included a cassette player, a turntable, and speakers and maybe some other stuff.  Everything was in her big entertainment center, which sits caty-corner on two walls, and which is huge.  All the cords to all the stuff Ned was taking were plugged in behind the entertainment center and so, being Ned, he did the logical thing.

He climbed over the top and got everything unplugged.

I took advantage of his needing space on top of the center to remove all of the framed photos that were there and packed them up in a bag. (Those are some of the "all that crap" things that she has been worrying about.) Tomorrow I'll run over to Covell Gardens and set them up on her built-in bookcase, and also put up the rest of the magnets on her fridge.

By the time Ned and Marta left, and I had packed up things to take with me, the house was starting to have the look of a place that was being dismantled.   A little.

Walt went around the house and measured everything that we are moving and has a list with dimensions all recorded.  That will help as we go to the apartment and see if things are going to fit.

Then we sent Walt out to get tonic, because my mother was out of tonic.  We weren't going to be having a vodka tonic, but she would have one if there was tonic.  While we waited for him to return, my mother glanced at her knick nack shelf and, for a bazillionth time said "Look at all that stuff.   Who is going to take that?"  It was a straw that broke the camel's back moment for me.  I didn't get angry, but I got up and packed up every single geegaw and put it in a bag and brought it home with me.  Actually, "all that stuff" is now on my etageres and I don't know who is going to take it all when I get to be 93, but I have 23 years to worry about it.

We heard again about the $500 solid oak table and who we can find to take it (because it cost $500, you know, and it's solid oak! remember!), and she asked many times who was going to take the dishes and I kept telling her that Tom and Laurel were taking them.  She won't remember by now, I know, but if she happens to glance at the door to the dish cabinet she will see it is labeled with Tom's name.   She said Tom had better get his butt up here and take all the stuff because it would be easier to take now than when all the confusion started.  I just ignored that.

Now she has decided that she doesn't really have to worry about "all this stuff" now because after she moves, she can drive down every day to sort it out.  I didn't tell her that she won't have a car and that even if she had a car, there is no way I will let her drive 140 miles in a day on the freeway!   We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Her memory right now is so bad that I'm hoping that once she gets in a nice, new, uncluttered apartment, she will forget all about "all that stuff" that she left behind and we can just run it over to the Hospice of Marin thrift store, where she worked for so many years, and give it all to them.

By the end of Mother's Day weekend, I had spent this lovely day with Ned and Marta and my mother, and had spoken to both Tom and Jeri on the phone.  Walt and I had vodka tonics here at home and watched the Survivor finale (if you are a Survivor fan, I highly recommend that you check Wikipedia for Caramoan Islands and scroll down to the section of Survivor.  Quite an eye-opener!), I cooked dinner and then cleaned the kitchen.  I am now writing this and will post it and then watch some of the other programs that were recorded earlier this evening.

As I said, it was really a lovely, low key Mother's Day.