Daytime, as it turns out, is the wrong time for me to try and write.
I’ve been sleeping a little longer in the mornings and trying to write at various times during the day. My desk is a comfortable place to do it, but it makes me too accessible and I find it difficult to keep my concentration. Here, in the porcelain palace, Einie settles right in on his bed. Out there, he fusses to go outside. Mom can’t stay at her table for very long, and comes into the office every few minutes to say hi, or ask “What’s going on?” Every time she does, my train of thought jumps the tracks and flies out the fracking window. On Wednesday, Moms’ case worker came out to reevaluate her needs. I should hear next week how this will affect her daily rate. I’m hoping that we can get it high enough to make finding a nice place easier. Mom, of course, doesn’t remember our breakthrough conversation of a few days ago, when we worked through this together. Except that she does seem to have retained some vestige of memory, tucked away in her subconscious brain. She doesn’t seem surprised when I talk about it matter of factly every day. She does tune it out, though. She has gone back to shoving the pets off of the furniture-whenever I’m not close enough to stop her. She even came into the office and shoved my cat off of my desk, saying, “Cats don’t belong on the table.” The fact that it’s a desk, not a table, has no bearing on the matter. She’s seen me eat there, so it’s a table.
I’m hoping for a nice, quiet weekend, to regroup and prepare for the week ahead. I know that just saying that is an invitation for Murphy’s Law to kick in…but hope is a good thing to have, when all else is stripped away. Next week is a busy one, on Monday I see the plastic surgeon for the last (I hope) time. Tuesday is Moms’ eye surgery, Wednesday is her follow-up, Thursday is acupuncture for me, and Friday Mom goes back to the foot doctor. The house is starting to look pretty good, less like a hoarder lives here and more like a collector. I’m beginning to look forward to the reunion later this summer. It’s wonderful to have a couch again, and the whole family loves to gather on it. Last night there was my husband and me, our two dogs, and one of the cats filling up the sofa. I leaned towards my husband and murmured, “A king size bed and a longer sofa.” He gave me a tired but indulgent smile. Theo the cat has been joining us at night lately, bringing the bed count up to five. The cats have been changing behaviors lately. Nicci, our wild-eyed barn kitty, has finally decided that being held or on someone’s lap is not only okay, it can be downright pleasant. It took five years for her to get to this point. Theo has just about given up on being afraid of new people, there have been so many caretakers here that he’s getting used to having strange people around. Since I’ve been letting him go outside, he has declared a truce on the urine wars. (knock on wood)
He even got into the dog bed with Einstein this morning. It is getting pretty ridiculous at night with everyone sleeping in a pile. Kevin and I are forced to opposite edges of the bed, while the pets stretch out and steal the covers. Maybe, when we get the kennels, we should just crawl in there ourselves for a little peace from the furry horde. There are still a few patches of long grass out in the yard and as it happens, that’s a good thing. It seems that Newton can’t poop unless it’s in long grass, and he’s quickly filling up his designated patch. I’m not sure what he’ll do once it’s all been mowed. Maybe I can get him to retreat to the forest to do his business.
Mom got up kind of grumpy today. As I was making her breakfast, she went into the living room to un-dog the couch. I came in behind her and told her if she kept that up, she could fix her own food. We got through breakfast without further comment, but she’s gone into the bathroom and come out dressed. I wonder where she thinks we’re going? I’ll ask. Ah-I am informed that she is going to ‘some kind’ of meeting today, and ‘someone’ will be picking her up. This could just be the kind of day its best to sleep through. The weather is quite a bit cooler than it has been, and it looks like rain showers for the day. That’s not as nice as sleeping with a good heavy rain thundering softly on the roof, but it’ll do in a pinch. I think a test of that theory is in order…
Della's Days 