Why is there NEVER anyone around when you need to babble!??
My husband just called. He said, “I’m going to be late.” I asked why, thinking it was too warm for him to be sitting with heaters to set the mortar on newly laid masonry. He said, “I’ve had an accident, and I need to stick around to talk to the police.”
Getting information out of the man is like pulling teeth!
“HONEY…..ARE YOU ALL RIGHT??!!”
“I’m fine.”
(calming down just a little) “What about the people in the other car?”
“They’re fine.”
“What happened?”
There followed some kind of explanation about the weight of his truck when loaded, and not being able to stop on a dime, and something about somebody zipping through an intersection.
I’m not clear on what happened, but I seriously doubt it is Dear Husband’s fault, and I’m really relieved that he says he’s okay. Of course, he’ll have to prove that when he gets home!
What a day………..
Daily Archives: January 4, 2007
Elegante Mother
I don’t think I’ve blogged about this. Things have been a little crazy here lately, so I might have. Forgive me if I’ve already shared this with you.
Nine days ago, I was in the kitchen, and Elegante Mother walked up to me and started speaking. I know she wanted to tell me that she had finished using the washer, but what came out of her mouth was a group of completely unrelated syllables.
I was watching her intently, wondering if something happened to my hearing. I thought at first that something was wrong with me, but I realized as I watched her, that she knew she wasn’t saying words, let alone the right words.
Her eyes got big. I suspect that mine got big in return. The entire episode couldn’t have lasted longer than 15 seconds. A second episode of about 6 seconds or so followed. On the advice of my-sister-the-nurse, I gave her the stroke test. I asked her to speak a simple sentence. I asked her to smile. I asked her to raise both arms. For comic relief, I asked her to stick out her tongue. She was fine.
There’s been no more “speaking in tongues,” but we have seen the doctor. He’s fairly sure that EM had an itty bitty stroke in her speech center. To be sure, she will undergo a battery of tests tomorrow at our hospital, to rule out other possibilities.
My mother is ninety. You’d think I would be preparing myself for the time when she won’t be here. I don’t think that’s possible.
My-sister-the-nurse pointed out to me that I’ve been providing EM with assisted living for some time. I actually hadn’t thought much about it. Yes, I help her remember names of people and things, and on bad days, I help with memories that are dear to her. I am her chauffeur, and I am the nag that tells her she needs to eat more. I am the person who takes her shopping, and helps when she needs assistance going up stairs. She is still in charge of her life, but she’s frail, and I can measure the change these days.
I hope, for both of us, that when it’s our time, we go swiftly, in our sleep.
And I hope that time for her is a long way off, yet.
About the bulbs
Bogie responded to my comment about trying to get some bulbs planted last minute. I’ve had this terrible cold for a week or more now, but yesterday it was FIFTY DEGREES here! Normally by now our ground would be frozen hard, and I’d have to save the bulbs by planting them in containers, but I could hear the garden calling to me.
There’s just something about early bulbs blooming in Spring that is so comforting, and I HATE to waste things. Those bulbs had been talking to me for the past two or three months, asking when I was going to make time for them. So, despite my cold, I bundled up, and headed out.
First, I fed the birds. Then, I collected the wheelbarrow, a shovel, my tool bucket and the new trowels the kids gave me for Christmas.
I have a narrow spot, the width of the garden, between two pods of iris that was perfect for these bulbs. I started shoveling the soil into the wheelbarrow. Then I heard this sound. The shovel was hitting something. NO…..it couldn’t be!
A number of years ago, too many exactly for me to remember, I decided I would outwit the chipmunks, and planted tulips in a wire cage. Unfortunately, the tulips were short-lived, but the wire cage was still there, in great shape.
What should have been a twenty minute chore, ended up being more like 75 minutes. I couldn’t dig the cage out, because part of it was sitting under iris that need to be relocated. The iris are more important to me than the bulbs.
So, I decided to cut the top off the cage, plant the new bulbs there for this winter, and then dig everything up next summer after the iris have bloomed. I went inside for the wire cutters and wire by wire clipped open about two thirds of the lid. I’ve promised myself that I will go back and dig the cage out next summer, so that no one will get hurt on the remains of the cage.
I got most of the bulbs planted. I even replanted some crocus that I inadvertently dug up. I think I killed off a tulip or two that was planted just past the end of the wire cage. I’m going to have to pull together Spring pictures into an album, so that I can remember what I’ve planted, where.
One of my favorite signs in Elegante Mother’s collection of garden decorations, is a little medallion that says, “I don’t remember planting that there!”
It was good to get out, despite the fact that it took longer than I had hoped. It was good to get the bulbs in. I still have my cold, but it doesn’t seem to be any worse than it was yesterday, so the exercise and the chance to play in the garden may have helped. YEA!! Now I can stop feeling guilty about the bulbs!