I’ve been without mom for almost a week. It is surreal and strange and I’ve been in tears and turned myself around and then been in tears again. Feelings are so stupid. I have so much to do and life keeps dropping more in my lap. But, there are good things. So, I will start with those.
I can see (I, for better or worse, am wearing my new glasses). The world is stunning in golds and blues and beauty. I’ve seen and talked to my sister more in the last days than I have in the last four years. My aunt and cousin stayed a night with me. I think I am losing weight. I baked a coffee cake (it is almost gone). I’ve been watching ‘Dr. Who’ finally (I’ve wanted to watch it for YEARS and now I have the chance). I’ve gotten some amazing encouraging messages in a myriad of ways from people around the world and here at home. One of mom’s credit card peoples managed to knock the bill in half and they said it wouldn’t gain any more interest even if I don’t pay it right away. I splurged and bought Thai food from the food truck out here before the closed for the season (spring rolls, I couldn’t afford more). I found some grand bits of jewelry in mom’s stuff. (much more fun to sort than totes of fabric and clothes!) After I learned about the sewage problem (see below), I found the 100 dollar bill in dad’s wallet, I was glad mom hadn’t moved it. (I’ll use it for groceries) Transferring the house insurance to my name was easy peasy and I’m now a member of AARP (they take members as young as 49 and a half!), so the 1,500 I sent last week wasn’t lost! I booked a ticket to Oregon in the early part of November and it was cheaper than the ticket I had to cancel last winter, the one I had been given credit for.
Some of the not so good things are more frustrating (which is why they aren’t good!). I thought I had planned and discovered I should have done it better. It appears that when you attach everything to an account and the person who owns the account dies, that account no longer has funds to pay for bills or anything else. (I should have been putting money in the savings account every month, instead of once in a while.) The car needs filled and that is rather spendy. I need to send mom’s life alert back so they can cancel it (they won’t cancel til it arrives in their facility). Mom’s obituary has some bobbles and it needs fixed (it will finally go online by Tuesday, newspaper by the next Sunday). Over the week, the laundry drain flooded a couple of times. Friday, I learned the septic has a blockage about 4 feet from the outlet near the house. After the guy’s cleaned it out a bit, they sent a camera down. They saw something shiny, so the object could be metallic or probably plastic. They tried budging it with two kinds of ends on their snake. It was stuck solid. (The company was sold, but the main friend person was with the new owner introducing him to the customers. Trav believes the ground this house is on was cursed generations ago.) I called two people for help. One company hasn’t returned my call. The second man was cute. He said he was 64, retired, and didn’t do as much as he used to. But, he’d dig the hole for me for a small fee, loan me a sawzall, and talk me thru cutting the pipe apart and repairing it again. (it was lovely on Saturday, so I should have had it done it then. Just cuz I didn’t want to isn’t a reason to leave a job undone.) Since the house is now in my name, these problems are absolutely mine to manage. The guys didn’t see any bucks on this first day of the season (Little Bear saw several about a week ago). Strider is not coming up, the other two might. Obi barked a lot early Saturday morning and later I discovered there was some sort of moose altercation in the yard from the evidence of footprints and my skewed bench. (I haven’t taken him to his new home because, during the day, he’s still a tie to mom. When he barks at night, I’d gladly pass him on!) When the nurse came to pick up the bad drugs, she forgot the morphine. My ipad updated and now it sucks the battery really fast and added some apps I turned off, I’m thankful it wasn’t like that at the hospital! I had my sister clean out the fridge and freezer and she took or removed pretty much everything (In the fridge, there are yogurts, which I cannot eat, eggs, and my mozzarella light cheese sticks with a few condiments. I was impressed, but am glad I’m only eating twice a day!).
Jake did bring me a dinner and it was enough to last for two meals. I brought the nasturtiums in so they wouldn’t freeze and their bright flowers are cheering (Obi ate the stems I had to cut off). I finally got out in the kayak on Saturday for a little while. I’m adding (what will be a collage of photos on my end of WP), so you can match them up to the explanations above! Have fun and thank you so much to each one of you. Even when you don’t know you are teaching and/or encouraging, you are (cribbed that from Amanda). Jack posted a song recently, one of the lyrics was ‘if you are walking thru hell, keep going’. I’m not in hell, I think I’m in a sort of dubious outer alleyway a few exits away. I’m going to keep going anyway!