03 September 2010

Overwhelmed

 
(Rven and mom. Photo Socotra.)
 
I am on dial-up in the house on the bluff above the Bay, which about sums it up. I am frankly and completely overwhelmed. There is more than a century's worth of crap all around me, some precious, but mostly crap.
 
Five or six years of snacks in sedimentary layers in deep drawer in the island in the kitchen. I have a couple workpeople in the house- Chad and Melissa- replacing a corroded valve in the downstairs toilet that could go at any moment and claiming they will hook up the gas to the new stove.
 
I am frustrated beyond words. The wireless set up went haywire with the installation of the surveillance cameras we thought was a good idea in the spring; I have wasted the morning trying to get back on line. Now I am here, and it is at the prehistoric speed of a 9.3-Kilobit phone line.
 
I spent a couple hours yesterday trying to open windows on the house, some successfully, to see if I could get the smell of urine out of the house. Some of it was undoubtedly from rodents, the presence of which freaked out Anook, and some obviously from Raven.
 
I had completed the drive into town from Milan and was surveying the work that had been done over the summer. It appeared that Anook had decamped in a rush. I did not blame her in the slightest, but the place suddenly seemed shabby and old and wildly disorganized. I started tentatively on some things, but discovered the endless looping process that only weeks will ease. Trying to open a window means finding a missing crank; that entails a trip to the garage and more piles of things in wild disorder.
 
A locked tool case means a hunt for the key; moving more piles of crap, some things of interest surfacing along the way, and why did I come in this room to begin with?
 
It took an hour but I got everything open on the bay side of the place, and a couple windows open in the kitchen to provide some cross ventilation. It was not nearly so oppressive as had been, but Christ, now came the moment of truth. I had to go deal with Jackie and write checks and sign contracts and then see my parents.
 
I drove with dread over to the village, which is on the down-slope from the old Victory Lanes Bowling Alley building that the Odawa Band of Little Traverse Indians had converted into their first prototype casino, before building the big wonderland behind the new WalMart.
 
I parked the Bluesmobile and went into the lobby and asked for Jackie at the desk. I was ushered into her office, and a parade of women came in to help me determine the level of care the folks would be charged for.
 
I had intended to talk with Mom about it as a way of getting her engaged in the process, and thus achieve some buy-in to the new program, but I could see that they were already providing services at risk, with nothing signed and sealed on my part. We ascertained the night-time surveillance of Raven, the light grooming, med notification and incontinence services were already in place, and I signed up for the inevitable at around $42 dollars a day for the package.
 
Jackie said she was pleased by the transition. Someone had found Raven that first night, ambling along the main road, she said. In the middle of the road, clutching the anniversary picture in his hand. The next night they had posted a woman in the hall to watch. She said he peeked out of the apartment five times, furtively looking to see if anyone was there. He had appeared at someone else's door as well, and entered to recline on the couch and fall asleep.
 
She said she was not sure at that point that Raven and Mom could stay, but that had passed once we got the tagging device to attach to him in the night and monitor his covert activities.
Jackie offered to walk me up to the unit so I would not appear like some baleful spirit. I appreciated her kindness.
 
She knocked on the locked door, and I walked into the apartment with her. Dad was seated in the chair, and Mom was laying on the couch next to the glass door to the little balcony.
 
Raven had several days’ stubble on his chin and his hair was wild and bushy. I shaved him, first off, and he seemed to appreciate it. Mom could not master the button to turn it on, and had fully intended to do it in the last few days but things apparently got too busy. She does not like to do it, and I don't blame her. It gives me the creeps.
 
I was amazed at how thin he was. I think he might have lost sixty or seventy pounds. Mom clearly had lost her appetite, and her indifference to food has been passed along to helpless Raven, who before relocating to Potemkin Village must have been subsisting on ice cream and cereal.
 
He had a new shirt on, and actually looked a bit like the young man I vaguely remember, though his face has sagged. I told Mom he needed a haircut and she started off on how we might do that, trying to remember the hair-cuttery at the strip mall and the intricate logistics of getting there, or to that depressing barbershop on the main drag with the traditional pole on the wall outside.
 
"Why don't we try the beauty shop thirty-five feet down the hall?" I suggested brightly. I had passed it on the way down the passage with Jackie. I wanted her with me when I went into the apartment, not knowing what to expect.
 
Two beauticians were laboring there on some blue-haired women, and it seemed to be too good to be true.
 
It was oppressive sitting there on the couch, and I welcomed the chance to flee. I went out of the apartment and down the hall and stuck my head in the door of the salon. Sure enough, it said "Beauty parlor and Barbershop," so it was indeed uni-sex. I introduced myself to Sherry, and asked if there might be an appointment available, and she said she was doing her last comb-out of the day and would be happy to accommodate Raven.
 
She was a fox, by the way. This being one of the few growth industries in the Great White North, the care and grooming of our elderly, the Village is filled with females old and young. The men who reside here all appear somewhat addled, and I felt myself falling into that category. I went back and collected Raven and walked him down the hall. I introduced him to Sherry, and between us we got docile Raven in the chair and she set to work.
 
She talked to him, engaging him, asking about the particulars of his fashion sense and marveling that he had once been mayor of the little city. I answered for him from across the room. It occurred to me that one of the things I had intended to do here in the little city by the bay was get my own hair cut. There had not been time back in Washington in the haste to get out of town, and watching Sherry's attentive shearing I decided to take the plunge and get in the chair once I had Raven anchored back in the apartment.
 
I was just in the seat and starting my tale of woe when a bottle-blonde woman in a floral print dress came in and started talking to Sherry about hair-care products, and I realized she was an independent contractor.
 
I had to listen to her sales pitch, trapped in the chair, until Sherry agreed to buy twelve of some product and a half dozen of another. The cut was great, and she washed my hair when it was done. I thought there was something to this assisted living thing. I thanked her, paid for both cuts and added a thirty-percent tip, hoping the goodwill would linger to Raven’s next session.
 
I went down to the parking lot to smoke a cigarette and while I was there got a text from Jackie, who said the mailbox was full and I could stop by and pick it up that afternoon. I appeared in her office a few minutes later and collected four days worth of it.
 
Mom was surprised when I walked in with all the newspapers. Then the appointed minute for dinner arrived. There is supposed to be some notification service, but if there was, it did not happen. We collected Raven and took the elevator down to the second floor. There is a bustling formal dining room similar to the one that Mac enjoys at The Madison back home, and Raven headed for it directly. I had to collar him and walk down the corridor with Mom to the "B" dining area where the more severely ravaged residents eat.
 
Their menus were pre-determined. A skip of paper next to my plate asked for my preference. I picked some fish and no starch, and a mixed salad. I had brought my own drink.
 
Mom and Raven had the stew, a biscuit, steamed carrots and a half twice-baked potato with a nice salad. Raven began to shovel his down, moving slowly but inexorably through the meal. I got up and moved the plates around, since he was having difficulty getting plates and utensils properly arrayed before him. Dessert arrived when he completed his stew and the biscuit and the vegetables. Then he consumed the ice cream and then the salad and then Mom’s potato. She only picked at her dinner. The sequencing of the courses did not appear to concern him.
 
I walked them back to their apartment, eager to be gone and pour vodka over the end of the afternoon.
Mom asked about her car. She called it 'her magic carpet" after. Perhaps it was, but it will not be again. I remember hearing that Dad taught her to drive, long ago, but it was a fairly recent development in their lives, after they were together and she was a grown woman.
 
It is central to her life and understanding of herself, and her concept of how the universe should work.
She wants the car back and she cannot have it. I am going to be the bad guy today, and I am looking forward to it with a twist in my gut.
 
Jeff from Brown Motors called this morning to ask if we had figured out what to do with the car. I told him I had not had the discussion with Mom yet, and if it was all right, could he hang on to it until Tuesday. I figure I can thus have the conversation with her another four times.

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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