The Water Main Event

With all the bringing-Tulsa's-pipes-into-the-21st-century work combined with redoing part of Lewis Avenue, we've had our yard torn up about 6 times and several water mains breaking or totally bursting in the last year or more. Once, work at the intersection of 41st & Lewis caused our main to break. Now, it looks like a big one burst in the middle of the road in front of our house - it cracked the asphalt in 2 places; they've dug an enormous hole; it's taking 10h+ to fix...hopefully they'll only dig up part of the yard and curb. The kids do like drawing in the wet concrete, though...Tulsa will always have something to remember us by! :-)

When I was in active labor with my third child, although I didn't realize it for hours, they were digging up my yard. I wish I'd gotten a photo of the street sign lying in our yard...it was quirky, seeing it so close. I have a photo of me, holding my 2nd child, right in front of a digger parked on our grassy corner. Six hours later, my 3rd was born.

Sweet Dreams

Daddy: Kids, are you going to have sweet dreams?

Girl: Um, I'm going to have sweet dreams about Barbie dolls.

Boy: Um, I'm going to have sweet dreams about dinosaurs. 'Cuz they're really loud things.

Every Tagline Means Something

I used to laugh whenever I realized I was a stereotype, or statistic. "Sweet 16 and never been kissed." "Southerner." "Child of Divorce." "Loud American." "Advanced Maternal Age." Like, what did it all mean? Who keeps up with this stuff? But now...now, I'm a member of the Sandwich Generation. And from where I stand, there are precious few of us. I'm an "older mom" of 3 young children with a mother suffering from moderate-stage early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. This has been one crazy, confusing ride so far, and I waffle between total confusion, abject misery, painful laughter, and complete isolation, several times a day. So I'll have my Sandwich Generation, and a bag of chips, please.

Tomorrow Is Another Day

I'm a coward. A practical, efficient coward, but still a coward. I postponed Mother's trip to Tulsa. I have no idea what a visit from her should entail at this point. There are no beds in the places I like; which we probably can't afford any way. So I'm going to keep looking for a home for her, revisiting places I saw in June and trying to determine what to do. Because clearly I have no idea. Maybe tomorrow I will make a decision.

Panicking

My cousin just called. She's willing to give up tons of frequent flier miles to fly Mother from Birmingham to Tulsa for the visit that will help me determine where she can live.

But now that I've thought about it, I think the real deal is just...to find a place that's nice that she can afford to die in. Is this an unnecessary expense and effort? But I promised Mother she could come. But I've focused more on getting my family back in order than on finding another nursing home here. So I don't know what the hell to do. If she comes here, does that mean I have to drive her back? With the baby? May as well, I guess? What.the.hell.am.i.doing???!!!

More importantly, they'll leave Birmingham at 7:45 a.m. Through Love Field. Tulsa at 1:15. Then Julia, our cousin, will get back on the 2:10 to Birmingham. Mother - with her one-way ticket - will be in Tulsa. Indefinitely. What's my game plan? What's the purpose? What's my goal?

I can't handle this. I'm scared shitless.

There's no where for her to go but back to Birmingham, at this point. I guess she needs to see what I'm dealing with here. For at least another year, maybe longer, she'll be aware of what she's doing and where she is. I want it to be a nice year for her. I want the facility to be nice and have good programs.

oh, fuck it. just got off a very annoying phone call. no one wants to hear what i have to say right now!!!

1 for 3

Today I was supposed to re-hit the ground running in search of a Tulsa nursing home for Mother. I got a sitter, went to my Ballet Guild board meeting, then toured St. Simeon's before school pickup for the big kids.

St. Simeon's annual half-million-dollar fundraiser is tonight, so needless to say, the marketing person was livid that I just showed up. She was perfectly nice about it, she was gracious, she answered all my questions and showed me everywhere I wanted to see. But she was so boiling mad if she'd swallowed eggs they'd have cooked whole.

Anyway, it's lovely. Open, airy, excellent views over the valley down to the city of Tulsa (if you can call a small dip like that a valley; this is no Ruffner Mountain we're talking about here). It's a spankin' new facility, and has an amazing Wellness exercise center with heated pool. But...it's so incredibly expensive. Why, why, why is Tulsa so much more expensive than Birmingham?

So after picking up the big kids I stayed on the school playground and chatted with some other moms while the kids all played together in an impromptu playdate. Instead of running the kids straight home and then checking out at least one, if not two, other nursing homes, before rushing back to take my daughter to ballet. No, I just vegged out on the playground. My brain felt so numb, I could barely form thoughts about which home I wanted to see next.

Hard to tell if that had more to do with being emotionally overwrought after that first visit - knowing there is amazing care out there but we can't have access to it - or with the fact that all I'd eaten til then was one granola bar. Nothing like nursing homes to squash your appetite.

Symphony Tickets

We have season tickets to the symphony. Very little fills my heart with as much joy as sitting in a darkened theater and listening to the strains of Mendelssohn or Brahms. It's electrifying, makes my heart sing, sends my thoughts spinning in fantastical, creative directions. It's my favorite drug.

My mother is the one who instilled a love of classical music in me. She used to drag us to concerts when we were little and the Alabama Symphony Orchestra still performed at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center. She used to boast that one year she and a friend sold the most season subscriptions in years...some time back in the 70s. I have a clipping from the Birmingham News of her in a swept-up elegant (if one can say that) almost-beehive, above an article about kicking off the ASO's season.

My favorite memory is of seeing Mrs. Major with her head thrown back, sound asleep, while the symphony performed Mozart in that enormous chamber, while my head rested against the incredible silkiness of Mother's mink coat. A gift from her parents, not her husband. I never understood that.

So if we bring Mother to Tulsa, I thought last night, as the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra performed Brahm's Variations on a Theme (Not By) Haydn, that she would just love coming to performances with us. Getting dressed up, going out at night, sitting in a darkened room, hearing graceful strings and tittering winds and booming brass, then standing in a long, long line for the restroom, then re-navigating the dozens of stairs they seem to have in the PAC, then driving home in the dark to be put to bed by me...

Oh, Lord. What a nightmare. So much work! Assuming she didn't trip in the darkened room. Assuming she didn't get confused and ask what was going on in a loud voice. Assuming she didn't get Sundowners and fret about being out after dark.

Sigh. Another reason to consider not bringing her to Tulsa. Or taking her anywhere if I do. Because if I do, there's no way Henry and I could enjoy having coffee after the performance with the musicians, and friends like Kim and Nancy, as we did last night. No, I'd be paying extra in babysitting and paying for her ticket and hoping she enjoyed the concert and wondering if it still meant anything to her.

But you know, I bet it will. When she was single a frenemy and she always got season tickets together. Mother couldn't find other friends to go with who weren't already going with their spouses, or who didn't hate the symphony. Her frenemy's husband was uncouth and didn't like the symphony. Mother really disliked that husband; evidently he behaved inappropriately in a variety of situations and people would complain about him to Mother.

Wow, if anyone figures out this is my blog I'm going to get in a lot of trouble.

Anyway, Mother always had trouble processing that friendship. I think basically the friend got on her nerves. Then, when Mother started exhibiting signs of illness, she became less and less able to deal with anything that set her on edge. I don't remember her being crazy whiny when I was a kid, although she may have just been mature and hid it from us kids. But she certainly became that way in her 40s, not long after her divorce...and if current research is true, possibly within the amount of time her earliest symptoms would have shown up. She was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's at 64, but had real symptoms in her late 50s. She bought long-term care insurance at 59: I wonder did she suspect she was getting it?

So when that friend tragically died of cancer, Mother was left without a friend to go to the Symphony with. I think, if she moves here, I'll take her with me.

25 Good Whizzes

So I'm off to see one more nursing home. Every time I go see one, it costs me $40 in babysitting and about one year off the end of my life. My stomach hurts, my palms sweat, I have to press the bones under my eyes to keep from crying. That last trick only works sometimes. Usually I have to adjourn to the marketing/sales office to make use of their copious boxes of kleenex. Believe me, I'm not the first overwrought crybaby to enter their portals.

Until today. Today, I toured a mid-range assisted living facility named Ambassador Manor here in Tulsa. Today, I met a 101 year-old man named George who liked to growl at the top of his voice. And cross his arms and rock somewhat violently back and forth. And fuss over his non-eaten chocolate chip cookie while his table mate complained that the wait staff hadn't removed his finished meal fast enough, even though "he'd been sitting there half an hour." But George. That rascal. When he caught sight of the Marketing Director he really gave him a piece of his mind.

"25. 25 good ones."

"Hey, George, how are you doing today?"

"I've had 25 good ones today."

"25 is a lot, George, that's just great," I piped in. I like to make connections with 101 year-olds. Actually, I'm not sure I've ever met a 101 year-old before.

"That's great, George. Congratulations."

"Yep. I've had 25 good whizzes today."

The Marketing Director and I looked at each other in stunned disbelief and promptly burst into laughter. I had to turn away. But George wasn't finished. With a rascally gleam in his eye, because he'd FINALLY gotten back at his nemesis-of-the-moment, he delivered his final threat:

"25 good whizzes, and they're all going to be on you."

A Stunner

Well. In mid-May I received terrible financial news. I learned that Mother's investments were set up in such a way that the economic downturn hit her quite hard. I learned that the "backup plan" one of her advisers had created was ... for my husband to write any manner of check necessary to sustain her standard of living if, when?, she runs out of money.

Now my husband is an amazing person, who supports me in every way and would "do the right thing," as the adviser said. But no one should EXPECT that from someone else's husband. Someone unrelated to the sick person being discussed. But I still have to pinch myself when I think of the scenario that unfolded in the glass-walled offices of this successful firm. I sat across from a trusted adviser, who for years had reassured me as to Mother's financial situation. "She has plenty of money," he'd always say, hunching his shoulders and spreading his hands wide, which might sound charmingly Italian if he weren't totally vanilla. "Don't worry about a thing."

So I didn't. I'd check in every few months, ask how things were going. "She did great in the stock market last year. I sold some things, now, so she'll have to pay a pretty sizeable tax bill this year." "Really? Does she have enough cash to cover that?" "Don't worry, she made a killing on a bank merger." "OH! Well, that's great." "Yes, yes it is."

It did not occur to me to wonder why an over-65 year-old divorced church-working woman who'd suffered 5 years already with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease should be invested in stocks. No, it did not.

And in the financial adviser's defense, he probably invested in all the same things, too.

So in May, realizing Mother's drug trial is not making her better, that she's getting worse and worse, I sit the adviser down for a come-to-Jesus meeting. I needed answers, dammit. Facts. I needed to know what we could actually count on. "Plenty of money" wasn't going to cut it, any more.

"I'm worried about Mother's financial situation. You've always mentioned 'she has plenty of money' and 'don't worry, everything will work out just fine.' So now it's crunch time and I need to know what you mean. What is the backup plan if her money runs out? I understand the nursing home has a 'life care' fund that might cover her expenses when she runs out of money?"

"Well, the life care fund will cover a portion, if the nursing home feels the family is contributing...what it should."

"My sisters and I don't have a lot of money ourselves and paying thousands a month for a nursing home and medications...well, that might be more than our take-home pay altogether!"

"You married a generous person."

"What do you mean?"

"Your husband is the kind of man who always does the right thing."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your husband will take care of what he needs to take care of."

"What does he have to do with anything? What does he need to take care of?"

"He'll take care of the family. He always does the right thing."

"Wait, let me get this right: Are you saying that you think that my husband will write a check for my mother? That if she runs out of money and if my sisters and I can't pay that he will cover the difference?"

"He has a great income and will be able to help pay for your mother."

"My husband is wonderful. And generous. But, how can you assume we don't have a mountain of other debts? From those 16 years of higher education we have between us? Plus our house? And I don't work? That we're not worried about paying our mortgage and for our kids' college tuition?"

"He has plenty of money."

"But, you never know what will happen so we try to be prudent."

"Don't worry, everything will work out just fine."

What I've Always Wanted

This is like a dream. Blogging is cracking me up because I have an insatiable desire to share everything going on in my life with everyone I know. Yet frankly, no one I know actually wants to know all of these things. Ahhhhhh. So now I can create all this content for myself, yet feel like I'm opening my heart. I can expose my thoughts anonymously...until that great book deal comes! Rockin'!