My search for grace and meaning after a former care partnering life with a wife who suffered from Parkinson's disease and dementia giving her a confused and disorienting world.
A good friend of Cheryl’s from church organized another luncheon with her and another mutual friend today.
Back in the bygone days of younger kiddos and the everyday working world, Cheryl was part of the group of women (mostly) who decorated the church for various holy days or other events in the church calendar. Often Cheryl’s job was to clean and press and arrange the alter cloths just so. The group would spend an evening or Saturday decorating the church for the occasion.
These days are gone for her and the decorating committee and St. Ann’s sodality has thinned over the years. Today however Cheryl and Barb are hooking up with Diana, the team leader, who has moved to a retirement community with her husband on the other side of town.
It gave me time to experiment with banana bread and fool around with other things. Maybe even blog a little.
Friday the 13th comes on Friday this month. It is a little joke I have. An old boss of mine during my working career who is also a good friend used to make that comment when it was appropriate. It seemed to him that mystery problems would appear on Friday the 13th. Engineers love and hate mysteries.
A friend of Cheryl’s came to take her to lunch today.
I am waiting to see how it turns out. Barb is aware of Cheryl’s issues but we often only see her at church. Cheryl will have a chance to practice her “showtime” persona.
The lunch was great. Cheryl had a great time with a good friend and she brought home leftovers that she may or may not want to eat. The went to a Asian restaurant called the Blue Gibbon. Typically when we go to a Chinese or Asian restaurant she will order egg rolls. Nothing else for her, she only wants egg rolls which the restaurant people want to bring as an appetizer. No amount of english, american english, spoken to a person whose first language is not English can convey the meaning of “bring as her meal”.
The last time we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant (Uncle Yip’s) I ordered her egg rolls, some spring rolls for me and another dish that I like and I thought she would like. We had tea. The waiter brought the the egg rolls,spring rolls and asked if we needed more tea. Later he brought our shared dish. It worked out just fine. She was not embarrassed to eat ahead of me and she did eat a little of what I had ordered to share. The smart waiter brought us extra plates.
Uncle Yip’s, by the way, is the closest thing to actual Chinese cuisine that I have found so far. I visited China about ten years ago for business. And the owner’s and wait staff’s first language is not English.
We had a wonderful dinner with friends last evening. This gathering had been put off three times for various reasons but yesterday we got together. Gary showed off his wine aerator when he was pouring the wine. He told me he cannot tell the difference. His palate is older than mine and I had gin and tonic. Perhaps he was sold a bill of goods by an aerator salesman.
Everyone contributes when we have these dinners. My job was bread. Yesterday after several false starts I got two loaves of italian (my version of italian) together. They were remarkably good so I should perhaps I will note in my notebook of cooking disasters what went wrong and what I did to recover.
Leftover from the french toast leftover loaf.
Today Cheryl is very tired. She refuses to admit it. I suppose I am tired also. We did not stay out late but we did sit up and watched a PBS show to unwind a bit when we got home.
We had french toast made from the second (leftover) loaf of bread from last night. It was good again. I am very thankful that I do not have celiac disease. One reason to not be grumpy today.
Cheryl spent some time cleaning the kitchen after she had her french toast with blueberries breakfast. All the time I was worried about her. I think I am anxious for her because the last few times she has fallen, it has happened in the kitchen. This time however she moved a lot of things around and wiped counters; swiffered the floor; threw the kitchen tablecloth into the washer along with the clean one she got out to replace it with (both will be clean in soon); and then became tired and uninterested. She took her ten o’clock meds and went to lay down for a bit. When she awakened, she announced, “Today is my birthday!”.
On top of the paper is my handy white note board telling today’s events.
It is not and stupid me pointed out that it is May the fourth. I thought about – may the fourth be with you – but left that unsaid. She responded with, I wish people would stop changing the dates or some other angry anxious comment. I backed off quickly. I apologized to her and pointed out that her birthday was next week on the tenth of May but tonight we should go somewhere and celebrate her birthday.
She became calm and sat down to watch the gabfest on the View. I brought her a coke and set about putting the kitchen back together. I discovered that she had thrown the tablecloth from the table in with the folded one from the drawer into the washer and I did not catch that before tossing a bunch more towels in on top. (Damnation. I became immediately grumpy.)
I sat down to write this little story and laugh at myself. I do not want to be grumpy today.
She actually slept pretty well and later today we will probably get out and take a walk in the park. And celebrate her birthday. There is nothing to be grumpy about. We had dinner with friends last evening. It was good company and good conversation.
She wants to do it herself. We had a tough for me conversation this morning about issues we trip over as travel the annoying twisty road of Parkinson. It started out as, you know I can still do stuff.
This was a response to me speculating about learning to make my own piecrust instead of buying a commercial piecrust. I will take the path of least resistance every time I can. There are enough things to staff, organize and worry about. If someone has already made the piecrust, I am good with that.
I buy salad in a bag too. Dump and go. Chop a tomato and it is salad. Dressing is in the fridge.
She remarked that she could make a pie and that she knew how to make piecrust. Naturally I forgot about what I have been attempting to practice on a daily basis. I started to enumerate the negatives. I caught myself before I got too far into the ditch along side this partially paved macadam thoroughfare.
It is Lenten season. Instead of chasing some carryout fish fry from our parish we had the makings of tuna casserole. An old time favorite from the Dinner for Two Cookbook by Betty Crocker (You can still find one if you poke around.) Remember Betty Crocker? She is my go to for a lot of things. That seemed like an easy thing and she likes it. I said why don’t you make the tuna casserole and we can have the leftover pie for dessert.
She agreed.
We attended a discussion in the afternoon about newer drugs used to treat Parkinson’s disease and when they are used and how they worked. When we returned I attended to the laundry and then busied myself with work for my job at our local community college where I teach part time.
She announced she was going to start on the tuna casserole. It was three pm. I spent the next hour listening and worrying and occasionally sneaking a peek into the kitchen twenty feet away. After a few misfires on her part she got started with minor aid from me. She put all the ingredients into a Corning ware bowl and mixed it. She used to know how to start the oven but that knowledge and skill has been lost to Parkinson. I told her which buttons to push and it clicked on.
I went back to work on my project but gave it up for a bit when the oven played its happy tune to announce it was up to temperature and waiting. I went in for the oven placement of the casserole. She put it in but I worried while watching. (Maybe I am a worry wart.)
Scary activity for someone not steady on her feet.
I suppose there is a good mechanical engineering reason for oven doors to open as they do. I have not seen one built so that door opens any other way but down. A standard range winds up with the door about a foot off the floor so that the person reaches down into the oven from three feet away. It looks to me like a disaster waiting to occur. I hovered nearby as she put the casserole into the oven and then put on oven mits to get something from the fridge.
We ate about an hour ahead of when we usually eat but time and calendar and sunrise and sunset seem to have less meaning for her. It is time for us to start eating dinner at four pm like the rest of the old folks.
Some days things just seem to go better with pie. If you want to lift your spirits a bit, make a pie. Whatever kind of pie you want, just make one. You can buy a pie of course, and that will settle the need for a sugary delight, but if you want to ignore the world around you for a while, make your own pie. It might turn out ugly but it is yours and it will taste scrumptious.
I have been down on myself for a few days. I think I worry for the folks in Ukraine. I do not know anyone in Ukraine but it is kind of stinky that a short guy with big army and navy can just drive over the fence and poop on the short guy without a big army and a navy with only one boat. That situation just sucks.
This is an ongoing conversation in our house. Cheryl struggles enough with day to day things. She fears for those mothers and children showing up at the Polish border behind the reporters that flew there in order to record the history of the short guy beating up the other short guy. From the news reports it looks as though the partisans are taking root in Ukraine and in Russia they are taking a nap. The world markets are yinging and yanging around and today I paid $4.999 a gallon for 12 or so gallons of gas to fill up my car. It was the first time I have spent more than $50 to fill up a car. That situation just sucks.
Time to make pie and eat it.
an old favorite recipe modified
This particular recipe guidance is a favorite one. As you can see specific types of apples and the resulting pie has been noted by Cheryl. When she drug me down the cooking road a couple years ago I picked up what we call the “Big Green Cookbook”, so called because it is about two inches thick and has a green cover, to learn how to do pies. This book reads much like my grandmother’s cookbook that is a collection of church ladies’ recipes entitled “Culinary Cullings” from a farming community in Rich Hill, Missouri.
“6 apples” but no reference to general size. “1/2 to 2/3 cup”is the same as writing some but not too much. It makes me smile to read these measurements. (1 recipe plain pastry — but no hint about where to find that.) I have modified and added to the instructions myself. Since it is unspecified I use dark brown sugar with my teaspoon of cinnamon. I also add a couple tablespoons of tapioca. I got this last one from my mother who learned how to make pie from my grandmother. I think I got my bravery to adjust ingredients and try new spices from Mom. She was pretty damn good cook and liked to have a gin and tonic while doing it. Perhaps I will try a gin and tonic with my next pie.
So today is PIE day. A little early actually because the math enabled folks celebrate 3/14 as pi day. But I digress.
Yummy
For a short time this afternoon I have bumped Cheryl off of her worries and anxiety about world idiots.
After the pie got to the condition shown above I went of to find the big round Tupperware pie saver we have owned since about 1975. Gone. I was worried that Cheryl had put it in a special place so that it would not get messed with by the little girls that live in her head. I put out a text query to the kids and found out I had left it at our son’s house. I probably took a pie there.
The puzzle is completed. Hallelujah! Kill the fatted calf. The Christmas 2017 puzzle is complete. So, now the question is what to do with it? I suggested that she break it into the tiny little pieces she started with and pass them on to her sister Nancy. She is still thinking about it but that is probably what will happen.
Who knows maybe this is a new hobby. It certainly is an occupation once it starts. Cheryl seemed very content while this whole process was happening. Cindy is an enthusiastic cheerleader and champion during the activity. I was not gone for a long time but when I came home they were puzzling away.
I started dinner. I had been out in the rain that we had ahead of the icy wet snowy crap that came today. While out I decided it was a good day for stuff soup.
Stuff soup:
2 small onions chopped
several (5) carrots pealed and chopped
several (4) small potatoes pealed and quartered
several (5) stalks of celery chopped
a head of broccoli chopped – the stems are good in soup the flowers tend to disintegrate like peas.
the end of the bag of frozen corn (maybe ½ C.)
half a cup or so of frozen peas.
½ lb. of mystery beef – bought out of the get rid of it soon shelf at IGA – chopped int ½ in. cubes
some whole wheat pasta for health reasons.
In a dutch oven put about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and dump in the onions. Stir them when they start to sizzle. Rinse the carrots and celery and when you are satisfied with the onions, let them brown a bit, dump in the beef. Brown the beef for awhile and enjoy the aroma. When the kitchen smells like a good diner, dump in the celery and carrots. Stir it up for a bit and put the lid on and give it a few minutes. This is a good time for a little salt and pepper to taste.
When you are ready dump in a box (32 oz.) of whatever broth you like. I used beef broth here. Bring it all to a boil and start the oven set to 300F.
Dump in the frozen peas, corn and chop the broccoli into small pieces. When it starts to boil again, dump in the broccoli and put the lid back on and stick in the oven for 30 minutes or so.
Add the healthy pasta at the end of 30 minutes and set the timer for 10 minutes more. Set the table and find some rye bread to go with everything. Put out the butter, bowls, silverware, etc.
Sit down in the kitchen to eat so that the puzzle can be viewed from afar. It is better to leave the dining table undisturbed. Speak to the small children attempting to mess with the puzzle even if you cannot see them.
Maybe I should look for the special table to build the puzzle on. I kind of liked having dinner at the dining table. We sat closer to the little apparition girls and I could chase them away as necessary while eating. The little girls seem to show up a lot at dinner time.
She went to bed early and did not seem to stir all night long.
Look at this she says to me holding up the obituary page in the paper today. I rarely look at the obituary pages. Cheryl reads them everyday. It is the one of three reasons we still subscribe to the U.S. News and World Report Cincinnati Enquirer. The three reasons are obituaries, comic and puzzle pages, banner page with today’s date. I occasionally look at Daugherty’s sports column. He is a good writer.
I asked, “Is there anyone you know?” But she does not recognize any of the names. She goes through the list several times. The first go does not register every name. She has had two and a half doughnuts and she brings a clementine orange as well as some orange juice with her to her chair as we settle to watch the TV. Lately I have been purchasing Minute Maid orange juice concentrate from the store. It is about $1 more that the store brand orange juice. I do not drink orange juice with breakfast. It is the only thing Cheryl drinks and has been for some time.
She tells me that the Enquirer publishes a list like this a couple days a week and it is much longer on Sunday. I relax as I listen to her talk about dead people. Death is a part of life I remarked. Yes it is she replied without looking up from the list as she read it one more time.
She reads the list carefully as we watch Sunday Morning on CBS. There is a story about Liza Minnelli. Cheryl catches the reference to Judy Garland at the end and remarks that she is dead too. She is thinking Liza is dead, I suddenly realized. There is no point in correcting her thought so I do not.
It is Donut Sunday and she is sitting with me watching what I think of as our Sunday show. We used to watch this show on the VCR after Sunday mass. We often stopped at the Pleasant Ridge Donut Shop on the way home. We always walked to church.
Last evening after church we went to a local pizza haunt to enjoy the quiet and have something to eat. The Cincinnati Bengals playoff game had sucked the life out of the late afternoon pizza scene. The NFL had assigned them the 4:30 PM slot on Saturday. Few people attended church that evening. Some of the lack of attendance may have been due to the latest covid wave or the play-off game.
After we entered the empty restaurant and settled at our table conveniently located with a clear view of the sixty-inch flat-screen TV, another crowd of six appeared and was seated at a nearby round six top. After our dinner – a small pizza for me, a favorite appetizer for her – I suggested that we drive over to a local bakery for some doughnuts or a coffee cake for our breakfast tomorrow.
We did that and as luck would have it, the doughnuts were a special price to move them out of the store. I will have to remember this for future reference and future Donut Sundays.
Today is a good one. I am pretty sure that she slept well last night.
It is now a third of the way through January. Cheryl and I went out to a small diner on the other side of town to visit with one of her life long friends.
They call themselves the “Clementines”. They attended grade school together and many attended the same high school. They number about a dozen and they used to meet every other month at a local pizza place to chat and reminisce and catch up.
Cheryl was the the original organizer of this group and convinced the others to come and chat. She teased many of them into it at first. She kept the friendships alive. And then Parkinson’s hit and took away her organization and her cognition.
At first she hid it well. It drove her crazy that she might forget something or someone. The computer, something that she had used throughout her working career as a database analyst, something she wrote code for to extract information, became a confusion. I (behind her back) asked one of her friends t take over the organizational task. Kathy stepped up and did it.
Covid struck and they moved to Zoom. I set up the zoomeetings for a bit because I had a corporate account with the community college that I work at part time. Kathy got her own license because she was using Zoom to visit with family.
Today we went to lunch with Marilyn who was unable to zoom a few nights ago. It was a wonderful lunch. Cheryl was able to talk to someone other that me in person.
Tonight for dinner I made oven fried chicken and roasted brussels sprouts with carrots. But for dessert I made Apple Oatmeal delight which is a recipe from BookBakeBlog’s site pages. It was pronounced good! Write that one down!
Apple Delight (not BookBakeBlog’s name)
Life is a journey. Enjoy the apples (and other fruit) were you find them. Carpe Diem!
Many gather at this time of year. The plan B gathering area for Cheryl’s family is at our house. It was supposed to happen at her brother Ken’s house. Ken’s wife is ill but she is on the mend. The dinner count is down by two. Cheryl’s sister Debbie also cannot attend. Sometimes grand kids sports get in the way as families grow. But all is well. Our table sits eight comfortably and we now only have five. Hopefully there will be leftover cherry pie.
Children visit their parents’ home. Grandparents visit their children’s homes and when they leave the mess stays there. In this grandparents’ home the gifts are all wrapped, sorted and ready for transport. Santa is unsure of the number of stops required this year. He is awaiting further instruction from the other Clauses.
Traditions abound and new traditions are made. Sometimes big brothers help little brothers. Zachary is the smallest one in our bunch. He has only had four orbits around the Sun so far. It looks like he is being mentored on decoration hanging.
Even some as sickness creeps in and some cannot visit. Zoom and Face-time is meant just for this situation. What a wonderful technological world we live in for a short time.
Adjunct_Wizard 