a visit with betty and other tidbitties
i felt good about my hair today and in fact my whole ensamble. a whole ensamble day has been few and far between these days mostly because of the fact that i can't buy new clothes. buying new clothes has become a difficulty for me mostly due to the fact that i am generally low in cash. minimum funds. not a lot of spending leeway. anyways i digress, the point is i was digging my duds, my hair and the perfect sunglasses to go along with it all. that's all i have to say about that.
speaking of minimum funds yesterday the big boss man handed me an envelope with my name on it and said "merry christmas" and walked away. i thought he was joking. he tends to joke a lot. he's a silly guy. i thought it was some dry letter about something or other having to do with something or other, but NO. i opened it and it was like all my wildest dreams were coming true! it was a letter not about dry this and that, no, it was a letter letting me know that we get bonuses again this year! wooooooooooooooooooooop! it's not like tons of money but you know, like totally, it's like totally a like, bonus? so all the money i get is totally bonus! i'm already dreaming of all the possibilities this bonus can bring me. one thing, is obviously new clothes, but i'm not limited to new clothes. i want to be responsible with it yet i also want to SPEND. spending can be so, i don't know, DELIGHTFUL sometimes. so i have these two dynamics waring over the bonus already. i plan to give each their day in the sun.
yesterday i went and visited gramma b in the hospital. i've visited twice before and they weren't the best visits. there wasn't much talking. she wasn't that present. so this time i said a little prayer. i knew that auntie heather wouldn't be there. i would be on my own with betty. i just wanted a better visit. an actual visit if you know what i'm saying. and it was. it was a visit. at first things looked bleak when she looked at me blankly as i stood in front of her. it seemed like maybe she didn't recognize me. but then recognition snapped in and she said "oh laura!" she was the most 'present' than i've seen her yet. maybe she had a good day. she found her room too dark so she suggested a walk. we went for a walk down the hall. i on my two wide but short and stubby natural high heeled feet in cased in my blue crocs, and her in her wheelchair shuffling it forward with her probably slim mom like feet. (i suppose mom's are betty like. i don't know) at the end of the hall was a big window and a table and chair. we sat there for a while and talked i told her i was starting to think about going back to school but that it seemed like too big of an endeavour. we found a paper bowl with two digestive cookies in it and we ate them without guilt. gramma said she didn't know who they belonged to so she couldn't bring them to them. she showed me where the big red exercise ball went, and a sort of hall between the two halls where you could 'brew a cup of tea', as she said. it was a little lunch room hall thingy. i liked the name on the plaque beside the door: nourishment 632. then we passed another hall like room, (meaning it was long and narrow and stradling the two halls if you get my talk about halls). gramma said she gets a kick out of all the lined up commodes (they were like toilets on wheelchairs) and noted that she didn't notice until a while ago that they had toilet paper rolls attached to them. "very convenient." i commented. we went back to the dining room area where the tv was blaring. gramma hates the tv. the tv is her personal enemy. not only does she have no taste for it herself, but it impedes her ability to visit with people, which is what she really wants to do. otherwise the days are long and boring. she said that today she had the worst luck. she left the room and nurse brought a patient down and planted them in front of the tv and left. i muted it for her. gramma's friend jesse was in the dining room. jesse doesn't really know where she is and keeps saying "well i guess we'll be off and you'll drop me off at my place." to her very patient neice who says time and time again "aunt jesse you're in the hospital." gramma feels sorry for jesse and says "poor jesse, she just can't get it into her head where she is." jesse often doesn't make any sense when she's speaking but gramma talks with her and trys to calm her down and help her. when supper comes, gramma is sitting at the table with jesse and helen (helen used to be a nurse in germany after the war and has exceedingly long fingers that she used to play the piano with. helen has just had her hair done and is listening to the five oclock news on her walkman). the ladies are served mashed potatoes diced squash and chicken. i told gramma that it looks like what she had the last time i was there and she snorted. she gets vanilla pudding again. she doesn't really care for vanilla pudding but seems to get it all the time. her menu said chocolate cake. she doesn't eat much of the squash and says that she doesn't worry about eating her vegetables anymore. she also said she's pretty sure she'll live into her nineties. she says this like it's her lot in life. jesse finishes supper before everyone else and starts taking off her seatbelt (that's exactly what it is). apparently this is something that jesse is wont to do, and her neice tells her to put it back on. "i don't know if i can" chirps jesse. gramma says "why do you always take that off jesse? there is always such a commotion when you take that off." another time jesse was taking off her belt and betty pushed her back in her seat. auntie heather came at the beginning of the meal and saved the bun that gramma wasn't going to eat for uncle dennis. we took gramma for a real walk on a stand up walker. not the kind of walker you see on the street. this one has a little platform high up for you to rest your arms on and handles for you to grip. heather put a velcro belt around her and supported her by holding on to that. we went down one hall and back and heather asked her where she wanted to go and gramma said "i don't know. you're the slave driver." haha. i think she introduced us that way too, to somebody we met along the way. after the walk i hugged gramma and left. heather stayed to shave the long hairs growing on her chin like a japanese beard. (well that's actually an exaggeration. it wasn't beard like. but her few hairs were really really long.) heather brought uncle dennis' electric razor for the job. i drove to gramma's house and met uncle dennis there. gramma's stuff is mostly packed up and gone. there was one chair and uncle dennis kindly gave it to me. he sat on the blue kitchen chair (one of the set of gramma's that i have. she took back two when she got out of lyon's manor. it was one of the things i was there to collect) we talked about my job and stuff. they had made me supper. roast beef. so heather got home and pointed out the knick-nacks she thought i might want. somethings i took, like a gramma-ish candy bowl but other things i declined, such as a red dish scrubby (a curly kate if you will). she said she thought i might like it because it was red. now that's taking a red and white bedroom (mom told her those were the colours in my room) too far. we chatted during dinner and then i had a low calorie fugsicle and dennis had a cookie. we took the red desk that i'm inheriting out to my car and on returning i saw with my own eyes auntie heather sneaking more knick nacks into my bag of stuff. sneaky pinky. i didn't say anything about it. dennis made sure that everything was hunky dory in my car. fussed about things made sure there was something to soften edges etc. i hugged them both goodbye and drove away singing to karey's kickin' country cd that i've been listening to ALL week. and i mean ALL week. even when that cd is not on, it's playing away in my head if you know what i mean.
lisa bought us all dairyqueen sundaes today. mine was hot fudge and caramel. we all felt guilty and yet excited too. we ate them in the office with the door shut and with muted voices.
i left work early to buy some stuff for us at the kitchen supply store in vacouver. it was fun. my mission was to by the sliding order racks (you stick the orders in and slide them along) but i saw a good pot, and we need a pot and i knew lisa would say "why didn't you buy it???" and i bought a wisk because we need one and some menu holders and took stock of whatelse they had so i could report later. i like to shop.
soon after arriving home i hopped into bed to do some of gramma's word puzzles and leaned against her bed propping up thing (you can also put it under your legs while you sleep which i tried last night) and fell asleep. later i had so much energy but little outlet. i watched point grosse with heather. it was a very random movie with some quirks, but too much swearing and a werid blase attitude about killing that left me feeling like yuck afterwards. echos of the f bomb reverberating in my head. don't like that. well karey's home and she wants to check her email so i'm going to stop now. now. now. ok now.
speaking of minimum funds yesterday the big boss man handed me an envelope with my name on it and said "merry christmas" and walked away. i thought he was joking. he tends to joke a lot. he's a silly guy. i thought it was some dry letter about something or other having to do with something or other, but NO. i opened it and it was like all my wildest dreams were coming true! it was a letter not about dry this and that, no, it was a letter letting me know that we get bonuses again this year! wooooooooooooooooooooop! it's not like tons of money but you know, like totally, it's like totally a like, bonus? so all the money i get is totally bonus! i'm already dreaming of all the possibilities this bonus can bring me. one thing, is obviously new clothes, but i'm not limited to new clothes. i want to be responsible with it yet i also want to SPEND. spending can be so, i don't know, DELIGHTFUL sometimes. so i have these two dynamics waring over the bonus already. i plan to give each their day in the sun.
yesterday i went and visited gramma b in the hospital. i've visited twice before and they weren't the best visits. there wasn't much talking. she wasn't that present. so this time i said a little prayer. i knew that auntie heather wouldn't be there. i would be on my own with betty. i just wanted a better visit. an actual visit if you know what i'm saying. and it was. it was a visit. at first things looked bleak when she looked at me blankly as i stood in front of her. it seemed like maybe she didn't recognize me. but then recognition snapped in and she said "oh laura!" she was the most 'present' than i've seen her yet. maybe she had a good day. she found her room too dark so she suggested a walk. we went for a walk down the hall. i on my two wide but short and stubby natural high heeled feet in cased in my blue crocs, and her in her wheelchair shuffling it forward with her probably slim mom like feet. (i suppose mom's are betty like. i don't know) at the end of the hall was a big window and a table and chair. we sat there for a while and talked i told her i was starting to think about going back to school but that it seemed like too big of an endeavour. we found a paper bowl with two digestive cookies in it and we ate them without guilt. gramma said she didn't know who they belonged to so she couldn't bring them to them. she showed me where the big red exercise ball went, and a sort of hall between the two halls where you could 'brew a cup of tea', as she said. it was a little lunch room hall thingy. i liked the name on the plaque beside the door: nourishment 632. then we passed another hall like room, (meaning it was long and narrow and stradling the two halls if you get my talk about halls). gramma said she gets a kick out of all the lined up commodes (they were like toilets on wheelchairs) and noted that she didn't notice until a while ago that they had toilet paper rolls attached to them. "very convenient." i commented. we went back to the dining room area where the tv was blaring. gramma hates the tv. the tv is her personal enemy. not only does she have no taste for it herself, but it impedes her ability to visit with people, which is what she really wants to do. otherwise the days are long and boring. she said that today she had the worst luck. she left the room and nurse brought a patient down and planted them in front of the tv and left. i muted it for her. gramma's friend jesse was in the dining room. jesse doesn't really know where she is and keeps saying "well i guess we'll be off and you'll drop me off at my place." to her very patient neice who says time and time again "aunt jesse you're in the hospital." gramma feels sorry for jesse and says "poor jesse, she just can't get it into her head where she is." jesse often doesn't make any sense when she's speaking but gramma talks with her and trys to calm her down and help her. when supper comes, gramma is sitting at the table with jesse and helen (helen used to be a nurse in germany after the war and has exceedingly long fingers that she used to play the piano with. helen has just had her hair done and is listening to the five oclock news on her walkman). the ladies are served mashed potatoes diced squash and chicken. i told gramma that it looks like what she had the last time i was there and she snorted. she gets vanilla pudding again. she doesn't really care for vanilla pudding but seems to get it all the time. her menu said chocolate cake. she doesn't eat much of the squash and says that she doesn't worry about eating her vegetables anymore. she also said she's pretty sure she'll live into her nineties. she says this like it's her lot in life. jesse finishes supper before everyone else and starts taking off her seatbelt (that's exactly what it is). apparently this is something that jesse is wont to do, and her neice tells her to put it back on. "i don't know if i can" chirps jesse. gramma says "why do you always take that off jesse? there is always such a commotion when you take that off." another time jesse was taking off her belt and betty pushed her back in her seat. auntie heather came at the beginning of the meal and saved the bun that gramma wasn't going to eat for uncle dennis. we took gramma for a real walk on a stand up walker. not the kind of walker you see on the street. this one has a little platform high up for you to rest your arms on and handles for you to grip. heather put a velcro belt around her and supported her by holding on to that. we went down one hall and back and heather asked her where she wanted to go and gramma said "i don't know. you're the slave driver." haha. i think she introduced us that way too, to somebody we met along the way. after the walk i hugged gramma and left. heather stayed to shave the long hairs growing on her chin like a japanese beard. (well that's actually an exaggeration. it wasn't beard like. but her few hairs were really really long.) heather brought uncle dennis' electric razor for the job. i drove to gramma's house and met uncle dennis there. gramma's stuff is mostly packed up and gone. there was one chair and uncle dennis kindly gave it to me. he sat on the blue kitchen chair (one of the set of gramma's that i have. she took back two when she got out of lyon's manor. it was one of the things i was there to collect) we talked about my job and stuff. they had made me supper. roast beef. so heather got home and pointed out the knick-nacks she thought i might want. somethings i took, like a gramma-ish candy bowl but other things i declined, such as a red dish scrubby (a curly kate if you will). she said she thought i might like it because it was red. now that's taking a red and white bedroom (mom told her those were the colours in my room) too far. we chatted during dinner and then i had a low calorie fugsicle and dennis had a cookie. we took the red desk that i'm inheriting out to my car and on returning i saw with my own eyes auntie heather sneaking more knick nacks into my bag of stuff. sneaky pinky. i didn't say anything about it. dennis made sure that everything was hunky dory in my car. fussed about things made sure there was something to soften edges etc. i hugged them both goodbye and drove away singing to karey's kickin' country cd that i've been listening to ALL week. and i mean ALL week. even when that cd is not on, it's playing away in my head if you know what i mean.
lisa bought us all dairyqueen sundaes today. mine was hot fudge and caramel. we all felt guilty and yet excited too. we ate them in the office with the door shut and with muted voices.
i left work early to buy some stuff for us at the kitchen supply store in vacouver. it was fun. my mission was to by the sliding order racks (you stick the orders in and slide them along) but i saw a good pot, and we need a pot and i knew lisa would say "why didn't you buy it???" and i bought a wisk because we need one and some menu holders and took stock of whatelse they had so i could report later. i like to shop.
soon after arriving home i hopped into bed to do some of gramma's word puzzles and leaned against her bed propping up thing (you can also put it under your legs while you sleep which i tried last night) and fell asleep. later i had so much energy but little outlet. i watched point grosse with heather. it was a very random movie with some quirks, but too much swearing and a werid blase attitude about killing that left me feeling like yuck afterwards. echos of the f bomb reverberating in my head. don't like that. well karey's home and she wants to check her email so i'm going to stop now. now. now. ok now.
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