Logos 'n' Stuff

If last week at Logos was slow, this week was positively funereal.  So at the end of this, I will include a brief report about my meeting with the resident services director at Atria, trying to figure out what best to do with my mother.

Sandy was not in the store, as she is on vacation again.  Tosh was working in her stead and showed me the sheet on which we record sales.  During his sting, from 10 to 2, he had a whopping TWO sales.  I guess when the temps soar into the 100s (104 yesterday), the first thing people think of is not "I should go buy a book."

At the end of my 2-6 p.m. shift, I had made FOUR sales.  I don't think we took in as much as $50 for the whole day.

Though my first sale was not until 3 p.m. (one bargain book = $1), there were two couples who came in, neither of whom bought anything.  One was looking for "Catch 22" and the other couple just looked and then left again

After the 3 p.m. sale, the store w as empty until 3:30 when a guy came in, looked around and left.  He was followed by a woman who was looking for "The Joy of Cooking" and "Hoyle's Book of Games," neither of which we had, so she didn't buy anything either.

Then two girls came in carrying drinks and food.  They looked briefly and then left.

A guy came on about a donation from his mother's estate, but since we are not taking donations until Susan and Peter return from vacation next week, he said he would donate his carload of books to Friends of the Public Library.

Artist Sandra Granett, who sells beautiful photo cards in the store, came to check our supply and move the cards we had on display around.

My friend was the second sale and he didn't come until nearly 4:30.  He bought a copy of "Arabian Nights."

He was followed by my third and final sale of the day, a woman who wanted "children's literature" and bought a coy of a book by Roald Dahl.

There was a real rush after my friend left.  Three groups of people, one who searched through the self improvement books, one who was looking for a Thurber book and a short older woman in a grey crew cut wearing black bell bottom pants with a long tunic like top in a lovely pastel print silk.  None of them bought anything.

Oh wait.  There was a fourth sale.  Three young women, one with "AWESOME" writ large on her chest, were in the aisles for a while with armfuls of books that they were sharing with each other.  Ultimately Ms. Awesome bought a thick volume of the "Marquis de Sade" with an x-rated cover.

A swarthy man looking very much like Guillermo Diaz (Huck in Scandal) browsed for a long time, then left, as did a tall buxom woman with long curly black hair and a smiley woman who greeted me with a "HI!" and an enthusiastic wave, but didn't buy anything either.

And that was my day.  Not very exciting.

The day started out, though, with meeting the resident services director and another person whose title I didn't get to discuss the strange things that have been happening with my mother in the past week or so.  Ned came with me to be sure we got all the questions we needed answered answered.

The strange things that have happened, and they seemed to be one day after the other -- first there was the day when she had zero memory.  Could not remember anything or anybody.  Told me "you say you're my daughter and I believe you, but that doesn't mean anything to me"  I stayed with her for a couple of hours that day, but she didn't seem to be improving and just kept sitting in a chair saying "I'm going to have to learn how to live with this."  I left words at the desk that they should check with her later in the afternoon to see how she was.

The next day she seemed fine, but three different times "zoned out" for a few seconds where she was just not there, twice with her eyes closed and once with her eyes opened, staring blankly at a photo I was showing her.  Each time she "came back" with a startle reflex, looking around to see if she could figure out where she was.  I was thinking perhaps she was having TIAs (small strokes).

Then there was the day Ned and Tom went to visit her instead of the whole family and she greeted them at the door wearing only pants and her bra and Ned had to remind her to put a shirt on.  Other than that, the visit seemed to go as normal as it ever does.

The next day Jeri called her.  My mother has set scripts she follows for specific people--mine is "what are you doing exciting tonight?" or "are you going dancing tonight?" along with comments about the leaves on the trees and asking me who had brought her the flowers I bought for her a couple of months ago

With Jeri it's "do you have a boyfriend?  Jeri always reminds her that she has been married for 8 years.  This time, however, she got furious that Jeri, her "favorite grandchild" would not have invited her to the wedding.  The unusual thing about it was how long she kept up her rant about it -- displayed much more "memory" than I would have thought possible.  She told Jeri she was so upset she wasn't sure she wanted to see her again and, for the first time, did not ask her when she would be out here again.  When I tested the waters the next ay and mentioned Jeri's name, she didn't know who that was until I reminded her, but she seemed to have forgotten that she was angry with her.

So we went over all of this with the coordinator.  She agrees that she should be checked by CT scan for TIAs and says that if they are caused by the fall they may go away in awhile anyway, but the only way to know is by CT scan.  So I've sent off a message to her doctor and we'll see what she recommends.

We also went over the options at Atria for assisted living -- turns out there are 6 levels.  We got a print out of what each entails, but the print is about this small and I could not read it, so Ned took it home and will make copies which I can then read with a magnifying glass!!

We didn't solve anything, but we did get one of the balls rolling.

Ned went home and I stayed for lunch with my mother.  One of Atria's more nutritious meals -- pizza, pasta, and bread pudding.  Nothing green in sight, unless you counted the anemic thin slice of green pepper on my mother's pizza (mine was pepperoni and too salty).

Sigh.  The food there used to be good.