Life of Wry

Flew back to LA.

My bag’s not the first one down. Nope.

LAX’s Theme Building… always thrills me.  I just can’t believe the world looked like this when I was a growing up. I think it’s extremely cool to be from the 60s.

The Theme Building is an iconic landmark structure at the Los Angeles International Airport. It opened in 1961, and it is an example of the Mid-Century modern influenced design school known as “Googie” or “Populuxe.”

The distinctive white building resembles a flying saucer that has landed on its four legs.

So, yeah.. LA.  This time, I’m planning for a longer stay.

This photo is a bit of false advertising:

It’s Sherry dancing up a storm wearing a shirt from the 40th reunion…even though we were celebrating Piedmont High School’s 45th. Everybody could do the math.

Otherwise, it was a fun night at a ranch in the Oakland hills with lots of food, drink and dancing. Their class is lucky to have a phenomenal band–of course everyone thinks that of their high school band–that rocked the house (the core band members were also kindergarten classmates). At times, there were more musicians on stage than dancers on the dance floor .. that was pretty funny. Missed a photo of that.. but here’s this one:

I don’t know anyone in the photo. And I have to say, I really like going to parties where I’m not expected to know anyone. Talk about no stress.  I just wore a name tag that said, “Jim Frame’s wife,” and felt totally fine sitting by myself (only at times) on a hay bale watching everyone acting silly (as you do at a reunion with your favorite high school band, reliving your silly high school past).  Great fun.

Here’s Jim and Dee Dee:

I am actually getting to know some of Jim’s classmates (thanks to Facebook and these reunions). A pretty nice bunch.

Had such a great Friday in Davis… took care of a ton of business, then had a perfect night out with Jim.

The usual… walked downtown, saw a movie at the Varsity (Come Hell or High Water with Jeff Bridges and that Chris Pine fellow).

It was a warm evening and even though the students aren’t officially back, the streets were packed with folks and all lit up by twinkly lights.

Ahhhhh….

Nice to be home.

Here’s a reminder that it’s the little things in life that are the sweetest.

Like, walking down the hall, peering in, and seeing this guy snoozing away in his self-designed and decorated black and white bedroom.

I’m sitting here thinking about that walk down the long hall in our house. And the number of times I’ve peered into Peter’s room.  It’s a walk I’ve taken a gazillion billion times since Peter inhabited this room eighteen years ago, and never, ever do I make the trip and not look in. I love his room. I love him in it. I love how his room has changed over the years. It’s all him.

In a couple of weeks, he won’t be under those covers. Holy cow. I can hardly bear the thought.

Melodramatics aside, I really am going to miss his messy little Jeremy-like self.

~~

Odd but true: Peter, on his dorm form–the questionnaire all new dorm residents fill out so that the housing people can pair roommates most compatibly–gave neatness a high priority.

With mom out of the hospital and settled in to a new routine (well, maybe not settled at all–her recovery is going to take a long time and this 24/7 care thing is quite an adjustment), I decided to go back home. In the last nearly four weeks, I’d only been home three nights. I was needing some Davis time and time with my guys.

So.. back on the road.

The first hour and a half was spent stuck in LA traffic. Seriously, it took me 90 minutes to go 30 miles. I listened to most of a program on KPCC all about the upcoming Prop 64–marijuana legalization. I was gratefully preoccupied, so not too, too bothered by the frustrating traffic.

The show ended as I entered the San Fernando Valley and at the same time, finally, traffic began to unsnarl. Time for some music. I turned off the radio and switched over to iTunes shuffle. First up: a heart rending Simon and Garfunkel ballad. Then a weird thing happened..

It was like all the emotions of the last couple of weeks, maybe the last few months, just burst their hard-sewn seams. For the next hour, I was crying so hard, it was all I could do to drive a straight line. I’m not sure I’ve ever cried that hard. Most of the time I was crying about my mom, but at moments it would switch over to Peter (and our impending empty nest) especially if a song came on that was something Peter liked (Pink Floyd, for example).

I was content to just let it come, aware that it was a rare release…the sobs were racking, clearly coming from some deep place, and seemed like something I shouldn’t try to hold back. The whole thing was agonizing, and the crying was very.. indelicate. I had to wonder if people noticed, even many cars aways. But I didn’t really care.

I pulled over just past the Grapevine and called Jim. One thing I realized was that I needed to go back south, not right then, but soon. I felt like this was not the time to leave my mom alone with strangers. Jim and I decided I’d come home for four days and return to PV on Sunday.

I hung around Leval Road for about an hour–talking to Jim, calling my mom, checking in with Betsy, and by the time I hit the road again, I’d gathered myself a little. The plan felt right. The crying continued for most of the way home, but was more intermittent and a little less exhausting.

The whole drive was a bit of a revelation. I was glad for the depth of feeling–I’d wondered where it was, and when, if, how I’d experience it. For the last couple weeks, I’d handled conversations about my mom’s condition and her prognosis with control, because you have to. We’d talked about her advance directive, issues relating to life support (when/if), hospice (when/how), and all kinds of other end of life matters. All the while observing her in her most powerless state ever. By orders of magnitude. She wasn’t my usual mom.

In hospitals, everything seems unreal. The space is so institutional and prescribed, it’s hard to get your bearings, certainly your emotional bearings. Time is weird. It’s all disorienting and surreal anyway. You don a game face, and a game attitude–you have to for the people who are so vulnerable around you. You just wrap your own emotions up and they get buried somewhere. I didn’t know where they were.. I wondered if I had any.

And then, on the drive, I found I did.

~~

(Somewhere near Gustine.)

I guess you could call this the first day of 24/7 home care for my mom. This is a milestone that my mom has been fighting gallantly (and stubbornly) for years. At more vulnerable times, she might admit it was something she might need in the future, but her company line, repeated over and over (and over and over) was, “The house is too small, there is no room for another person. I am a very private person.”

One of those things is true. She is fiercely private–to the point of being a loner–and prefers her own company over nearly all others.

She was also adamant that she could still do everything around the house by herself (household management, cooking, all personal day-to-day stuff), and up until now, she’s mostly been doing it all, with one huge exception: driving.

She hasn’t been able to drive since she had heart valve surgery (December 2009), so very (very) begrudgingly, she acquiesced to hiring someone for a few hours a day so she could get around.

The truth is, she has needed people around for a lot more than just driving, especially after hospital stays.  But, until now, she has avoided the 24/7 live-in.

We have a pretty good arrangement: two sisters are tag teaming to cover the week–one works five days, the other two. Including sleeping over. They’ve both been doing this work for decades, and in this area, so know the lay of the land. This should be pretty close to perfect.

This is Dorie:

It will be a much better situation once my mom accepts it. She certainly knows that having live-in care is the key to staying in her home. She just needs to get over the invasiveness of having a stranger sharing her space.

Aging is a lot about diminishing options and the grace to accept what are often imperfect solutions.

I just wish for my mom a sense of peace. I’d love for her to revel in the positive aspects of her life and enjoy like hell the things she loves the most: her kids; our family and especially its newest members; the breeze coming off the ocean and smell of the beach; tennis on TV; the LA Times; raging about current events; her bottomless stack of books; good movies; good food; strong coffee; the occasional Grey Goose; the view out the family room, kitchen and dining room windows; her bedroom with its high bed and mountains of down.

As frustrating as it may be having to depend on relative strangers for help, they are not standing in the way of any of the things she most treasures. I hope she can focus on those sweet joys.

After two full weeks (mom’s longest hospital stay ever–half of which was in ICU), it was finally go home day.

Daylight, fresh air, sunshine, a pleasant breeze… oh my!

Chris helps mom into Matty’s car…

A wonderful development!

Releasing folks from the hospital is a tricky business. Their goal is to make sure you don’t come back, at least not with the same thing you originally went in with–reflects poorly on their care and ultimately on their professional reputation and business ratings.

A person must jump through a lot of hoops in order to get released. In my mom’s case, this meant: being clear of the original infection (staph in her lungs); being clear of the infection she developed while there (UTI); proving she could eat regular food without aspirating; walking around on her own; and, generally, functioning normally (for her) and having acceptable vitals.

She was darn close today; they were ready to give her the boot, and we mighta fled the scene, but for the fact Matt, Chris and I needed just one more day to settle on her at-home care people. She used the extra day to fortify and get some good exercise!

Note: you’ll never see her use a walker outside the hospital. Ever.

~~

And, just so I can remember good places to eat for future reference, here’s where Betsy and I dined tonight… they’re open late (mostly because it’s a bar) and offer very adequate dinner-like fare.

We split an open-face salmon sandwich and a really good wedge salad with bleu cheese and a thick slab of bacon across the top. And vino. No pics.

Spending a lot of time going back and forth between presidential election coverage on CNN (oddly addicting) and the Olympics. This week, it’s been all swimming and gymnastics:

Remarkable perspective on Simon’s and Michael’s relative sizes (and he’s not the tallest swimmer, either).