FullaBella's Journal, 16 December 2013

Monday December 16th. Awake at 3am and tried to fall back to sleep cuddling and playing with Mushy until she slid over to the other side of the bed to escape me. I'll remember that when she wants to play fetch this evening. I'll still play, of course, but will refrain from trying to guilt her with an 'oh, sure... now..' She's very sensitive; actually she's just a better manipulator than me.

'Sunday Dinner at Mom's' served up my version of Chicken Carbonara - more vegetables and tomatoes than displayed in the online recipes and images but pretty darn good if I say so myself. I had Bocelli cranking on the speakers and was totally lost cooking and singing along in Italian although I have no idea what I was saying. I felt 'at home' and 'at peace' all at the same time. I also tossed a huge salad with the trimmings including radishes, red onions and olives; I even MADE my own croutons. I did pick up a 3-milk bakery cake - normally that market has one of those 'assorted cheesecake wheels' that I never trusted myself to bring home when it was just Cutty and Me - that was just asking for trouble. But not yesterday, ah well. I made the garlic toast for the bruschetta using twice baked flakey biscuits (limited choices at the corner market).

Everyone chowed down, taking seconds and thirds, except Blondie. She only picked at her plate - including the bakery cake. She claimed 'upset stomach' but then cornered me in the bathroom later with her agenda so I understood why *I* not only ate mindlessly I ate recklessly - including a huge (like, 3 servings of what I would normally take) slice of cake in about 30 seconds.

On reflection I realized I could sense there was something in play during the meal and of course reverted to my old habit of stuffing my mouth to keep it shut instead of speaking up. I feel like that movie line 'just when you thought it was safe to eat in a crowd....' especially as I did so well at Thanksgiving.

So my PollyAnnaBella will look at yesterday's fiasco as 'lucky me, these occasional Sunday dinners at Mom's will just provide more opportunities to practice eating mindfully in the mine field while remembering to feel and deal with my emotions.'

The agenda was the youngest Grandson has a band concert tonight and asked if I was coming. Yesterday. This is the first I'd heard of it. Why? Because he's not bothered to darken my door since Thanksgiving. His band was scheduled to march in the Christmas parade that has been cancelled twice now due to weather but did he bother to call ME when he knew (the parade had been cancelled)? Nope. Like pathetic little morons without lives, Mushy and I sat in the shop waiting for the show.

And, as I confessed to 'not being a hugger' and you all still accepted me anyway, I'll confess something else. My youngest grandson has a tendency to embarrass me in public acting like 'the village idiot'. I know, boo, hiss, bad Nana. I'm not talking about general teenage dopey stuff. I'm talking about climbing on light poles or whacking fences with his tennis racket (the time I tried to go to his match). I could even be supportive of my oldest grandson riding the bench game after game after game at baseball more than watching the youngest draw the type of attention that had onlookers wondering if he'd ridden there in the delinquent's bus.

Before you misinterpret and attack me, I have all the love, support, patience and acceptance for truly challenged children and grownups from all walks of life. I spent many years volunteering in the domestic violence unit at the Salvation Army working with those shell shocked kids trying to survive being victims of a world they neither understood nor requested. And when I worked in long term care, although my profession was in the financial field, I often connected with patient's in ways the licensed therapists could (not).

Story time. Miss Cleo had not spoken for oven ten years. She'd been through exams, speech therapy, the whole gamut. She could hear but would not speak; she communicated her answers through a variety of symbols or just pure aggression by throwing things at the person who failed to understand her after a third attempt. There was nothing physiological to explain the silence.

I'd grown frustrated at the 'activity coordinator' who considered 'lining the patients up in front of the TV and cranking the volume on 'The Price is Right' until you could hear it in the next county as a social event. So I began volunteering my lunch hour to create an activity with which I felt those patients could actually connect.

I borrowed the projector and 'silent movies' from the local library. As most of the patients had diminished hearing there was no need to turn up the volume and disturb the others who were resting. I'd project the movie on the wall and we'd boo and hiss and toss popcorn at the 'screen' during the villain scenes. The room was a flurry that looked like snow falling and sometimes they'd even toss popcorn at each other; I wondered if the popcorn tossing was countable as a relaxed form physical therapy. They recognized many of the actors and it would spark conversations during and afterward. It was great. One finally sparked for Miss Cleo.

"Zasu Pitts!'

It took a minute to actually register that was Ms. Cleo talking. I looked at her and held my breath wondering if she'd continue. She did. She began talking about the actress the way people today would talk about ... ohh.. who's that gal that's always in court... Lohan? Ms. Cleo began chattering like she was the National Enquirer and had all of this information stored for decades. She then moved onto everything else in her life. At one point her family came to me, jokingly of course, and said 'uh, can you break her again? She never shuts up.'

But the largest piece of my heart for the patients will always belong to 'Delores'. She was a 50ish year old woman surviving a lifetime of ... I don't recall if the diagnosis was Down Syndrome, Autism, or a combination of many challenges. When I began working with her she was so terrified of people she would not even let her own family visit her. The staff had the hardest time attending to her needs because of her stressful reactions.

The 'closest' I came to figuring out some of her barriers was maybe her Father had died in the Military because she had a very fond affection for uniforms. She also loved badges, paper, and sharpie markers. And she would stand at attention, her blouse covered with her 'badges', whenever the UPS deliverer came in. She was precious because she always did that backward 'Benny Hill' type salute.

She loved the copier machine and would go thru an entire ream of paper being fascinated by the sound ( much to the dismay of my boss who complained about the expense until I found a way for the Occupational Therapist to justify it for billables). Little by little, she would begin doing little errands (like handing the mail to the postal carrier - another man in uniform) and also became my 'on point' person whenever the fire department walked thru for inspection. She would 'lead the charge' taking them in every room and making little indecipherable notes on her memo pad.

Finally she began leaving the center with me for short trips (after the mandatory pledge of allegiance to the flag in the courtyard) and rather than hiding behind my skirt tails whenever people approached she began proudly extending her hand for shaking. Four years later I watched her happily go home to live with her family. And I confess, I felt mixed emotions with that as I missed my little baby visiting me daily in my office.

And as I fondly compose these stories, I have to wonder why I don't have that patience for the grandson. It probably falls for me in the same line of being able to take care of Cutty when he was truly sick but not having any patience for him when he just 'had a cold.' He's not in the category of those mentioned above. He is in the category of ... well, this was the kid leaving the back door open while he played in the ice last week during the freezing weather power outage. Get it? If you don't .. that's ok. I never claimed to be running for 'Nana of the Year'.

Cutty did give me the 'sorry, can't come, caretaking going on here' card to play to get out of sitting on folding chairs just to end up hiding my face as I exited events. So responding 'I don't think so, buddy' was followed by shoving far too much cake in my pie-hole to drown out saying 'I really don't feel like watching you act out in public.'

So the part of me that doesn't appreciate Blondie's childish manipulation which was just short of 'holding her breath until she got her way' is urging me to say 'Nope, not gonna go.' But, like Zasu Pitts, maybe this Nana appearance at one of his public events will be the one that turns him into a better person. And if it doesn't, well, while I don't have the power to control him, I do have the power to control my fork. Good, bad, or ugly, I will not come home and stuff my face. I'll sit, drink tea, and think of Cleo & Delores.

Thank you for stopping by. Time to get moving on my Monday.

Bella