Tag Archives: Family

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Cats: Not to be Trusted

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Please note: No cats were hurt in the writing of this blog post.

My daughter’s dog has a cat. He loves his cat. Yes, that’s his picture above. He’s grooming his cat. He enjoys it. The cat appears to enjoy it too.

There are many things I love about sharing a house with my daughter. I love how she accentuates the positive. I love how she tells my inner mean girl to shut up. I love that she pay attention to what I have to say. I even love her dogs.

I just hate her dog’s cat.

Cat

Cat (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

It’s bad enough that cats cause depression, use litter boxes, and indiscriminately kill birds and rodents, but her cat sneaks into my office late at night when I’m asleep and messes with my stuff.

At first I blamed the dogs (cats are expert at shifting blame), until I realized if one of the big dogs leapt onto my desk it would collapse and the mini beagle can’t jump that high. No way dogs were dancing on my desk at night and leaving my papers in a disarray. My suspicions were confirmed the morning I opened my office door to find the cat guiltily looking up from a pile of papers. He fled through a secret entrance back into his bedroom before I could react. After I picked up the papers and straightened out my desk,  I found the cat pee.

Luckily he missed the laptop, kindle and ipad. His watery destructiveness was limited to the desktop calendar, my favorite Grammar Girl book, and a few pages of miscellaneous  notes. Enough to tick me off, but not enough to ruin my day.

Kattenbak

Kattenbak (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And it certainly didn’t ruin the cat’s day, mainly because cat’s are hard to discipline.

A dog will drop into a submissive pose and look guilty even if he isn’t. A cat won’t.

A dog will understand he’s done something wrong and attempt to worm his way back into your good graces. A cat doesn’t.

Cats are resistant to having their nose rubbed in something, their snouts lightly tapped, or hearing the words “bad cat.” Almost like their egos are so large they can’t conceive of doing wrong. Cats are very egocentric, possibly sociopathic.

Which is why, in spite of the cat’s bad behavior, I’ll take no further action than to block his secret tunnel. As the bad boys of domesticated animals, I can’t spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder and wondering how he plans to take his revenge. You know, like entwining himself in my feet as I descend the stairs or pinning me under the blankets and smothering me. And that’s only the cat tricks I know about. Imagine how many devious little feline machinations remain secret.

On second thought, don’t imagine that. If you do and there’s a cat in your house, you’ll never sleep well again. And if there is a cat in the house, sleep with one eye open. Cats aren’t to be trusted.

(Evil) cat

(Evil) cat (Photo credit: zven-ug)

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Can You Hear Me Now?

Vaseline Glass Bowl-Hat

Vaseline Glass Bowl-Hat (Photo credit: Paul Garland)

When I was younger, I thought wearing glasses was the biggest humiliation I would have to suffer. Without glasses I can’t see the computer screen I’m sitting in front of, but glasses have a downside. In cold New England a walk from the chilly outside to toasty inside results in a thick layer of condensation that renders glasses wearers temporarily blind. In the summer, going from air conditioning to humidity does the same thing. Aquatic endeavors require a decision to either see what’s going on (my preference in a lake) or swim blind (my preference in the ocean. I believe if I don’t see the shark, it won’t see me).

PhotonQ-Under the Shark

PhotonQ-Under the Shark (Photo credit: PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE)

I’ve made my peace with wearing glasses, but now I’m confronted by a problem many of my fellow baby boomers are also facing,  hearing loss. Yes, we didn’t wear helmets when we biked/skied/played sports and we didn’t wear hearing protection when we shot guns, listened to our Walkmans at full blast, or spent time in noisy environments. Our youthful ignorance of the damage caused by loud noises has led to an explosion in the number of baby boomers with hearing loss.

The National Institute for Health reports that 18% of adults in the 45-64 year old category, have hearing loss. The percentage of Americans with hearing loss increases in the 65-74 year old group to 30%, and for adults over 75, a whopping 47% of them are struggling to hear.

How many of those hearing impaired people are wearing hearing aids? Less than 15 percent. There’s a lot of people out there who have no idea what you’re saying.

Seems like a minor problem until you read the early studies that indicate adults with hearing loss are 3 to 5 times more likely to develop dementia than those with normal hearing.

Scary.

So why don’t we embrace hearing aids in an attempt to increase our thinking skills and ward off dementia (as well as not blowing out the volume controls on the TV)?

Hearing aid

Hearing aid (Photo credit: Soitiki)

Maybe it’s because hearing aids are equated with old people and we’re a nation dedicated to never growing old.  Not all of us can afford facelifts, botox, or tummy tucks, but we can dye our hair, buy anti-wrinkle cream, and pretend we can still hear.

And most people don’t know how much sound they’re missing. When I trialed hearing aids, I couldn’t believe what a noisy house I lived in. The refrigerator cycled on and off, the dryer had a strange squeak, and with the windows open I could hear my neighbor’s children playing outside. All sounds that hadn’t existed for me before the hearing aids.

I wanted to turn the volume down.

But without hearing aids I struggle to carry on a conversation in certain decibel ranges. I lean in closer and keep a semi smile on my face because I’m not sure if the correct response is to laugh or to  cry. Most of the time I can piece together what’s being said through context, but once in a while I can’t. It’s embarrassing when someone asks me a question and I don’t understand enough words to even guess what they’re saying. It’s like suddenly I’m hearing a foreign language and my ears can’t process it.

As easy as it is to downplay hearing loss or make a joke about it, the sad truth is that it has a profound effect on quality of life and, it seems, the risk of dementia. Maybe instead of being fixated with the idea that wearing hearing aids makes us old, we should think about all of the sounds we miss without them. If it’s a choice between hearing my daughter whisper “I love you” as she leaves the house or looking and feeling old, I think I’m going to choose to hear.

There’s only a finite number of “I love you’s” we’re privileged to hear and I’d like to hear every single one of them.

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The Secret Ingredient is (Always) Love

cat eating leftovers

cat eating leftovers (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Not at my house!

 

 

 

 

I’ve always loved to cook.  As a child, volunteering  to cook on weekends meant I didn’t have to go out and help drag brush into burn piles or do other unpleasant, outside chores. It also meant not having to suffer through my mother’s cooking which, back in the day, consisted of undercooked casseroles or spaghetti and burnt cookies.

 

 

 

overcooked cookies

 

 

 

 

 

 

As an adult, able to purchase my own ingredients and cook in my own kitchen, I grew to love cooking even more. Home made caramels and chocolates, crab rangoons, cheesecakes of every descriptions, there was no holiday or family event that didn’t involve hours of poring over recipes and experimenting with new dishes. Preparing my favorite meal, Christmas Eve dinner, involved days of preparation and culminated in tables and counters overflowing with food.

 

smörgåsbord), Swedish buffet

smörgåsbord), Swedish buffet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

At my house, there are always leftovers.

 

 

 

The last few years, though, I’ve noticed my cooking has been lacking something. My dishes are good, just not great. The menu is varied, but not spectacular. The leftovers fly out the door as quickly as ever, but what remains sits in my refrigerator uneaten. There’s something missing.

 

 

 

At first I thought it might be a change in my taste buds, but no one complained about the seasoning or flavor combinations. Perhaps it was a reflection of my hurried life. Rushing through meal preparations might result in inaccurate measurements or missing ingredients, but even when I slowed down, the results remained the same. In desperation, I started to farm out my cooking to other relatives. My recipes, my ingredients, my directions, my kitchen, not my cooking. Sort of like I was the executive chef and my daughter and nieces functioned as my sous and pastry chefs. It filled the table, but didn’t feel fulfilling.

 

cook helpers

 

 

 

Then this week, beset by an awful cold, I made my famous, never fail, totally delicious homemade chicken soup. And it sucked. Oh, it was good-looking enough, and it was hot, and it had the correct ingredients, but it didn’t taste right and it didn’t make me feel any better. It sort of made me feel worse. A feeling I’d never experienced with my chicken soup in the past. Why?

 

 

 

As I dumped it down the sink and ran the garbage disposal, it hit me. It was missing the most crucial ingredient of all – love. My food isn’t meant to just nourish people’s bodies, it’s meant to nourish their souls. Cooking isn’t the combination of ingredients and heat or cold and time equaling taste, it’s the way I say “I love you.” And the last few years, I’ve been a little down on myself. I feel overstressed, overworked, pulled in too many different directions, and plain tired.  Cooking has become another chore in the my never-ending chore list and I approach it with the same attitude I clean up dog poop with – resignation. It’s no longer a way to say “I love you.” Instead it’s become a way to say, “Eh, eat.”

 

human food

human food (Photo credit: xtopalopaquetl)

 

So how do I pull myself out of this cooking death spiral and put the love back in my cooking? I’m not really sure, but I have to try because I miss the looks on the faces of my loved ones when they bite into their favorite dish. I miss the appreciative “mmm’s” as they chew. I long for the happy smile when they ask for seconds. I miss all of it and I want it back.

So this weekend I’m going to pick out one dish and cook it with intention, honesty, and love. No looking at the clock. No stressing about bills that need to be paid or laundry that needs to be washed. No regard for how many dishes or ingredients it takes. All I’m going to do is make one meal with love. Then, hopefully, I can recreate that feeling and make another. I’m going to keep going, one recipe at a time, until I  return to the days when my food whispered “I love you” with every bite.

A turducken that is chock full of love.

A turducken that is chock full of love.

 

 

 

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Not Dealing with Dementia

 

June and Ward Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley and...

June and Ward Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Television moms and dads are kind, generous, clean, independent, and a source of wisdom. Real life moms and dads can be mean, self-centered, critical, and looking for a handout.  Such is the cards some children are dealt.

 

Dementia

Dementia (Photo credit: Fulla T)

These abusive moms and dads don’t miraculously turn into saints as they age, either. Most of the time the dysfunctional behavior they’ve exhibited worsens, rather than improves, as they age. If they’ve abused drugs, alcohol, or neglected their health, they may get much worse.

 

What to do when bad mom or bad dad (or both) are no longer functioning well at home alone? I don’t mean the not able to shovel out their driveway or lift the air conditioner out of the window type problems. I mean when they think strangers are coming in through the drainpipes and they think one of the intruders stole their gun. That scary not functioning well may be dementia.

 

Dementia is a broad term used to describe difficulties in the areas of language, judgment, behavior, thinking, and memory. Some causes of dementia, such as metabolic disorders and tumors, can be reversed. Other causes of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease, can only be slowed down, not cured. Repeat, not cured.  Pay careful attention to the part of the happy pharmaceutical commercials that caution,  “All patients will get worse over time, even if they take wondrous dementia drug.”

 

If you’ve had a great relationship with your parents, filled with mutual respect and assistance, it’s easy to say you’ll do whatever it takes to keep mom and dad safe. Even if it means moving them out of the home they’ve lived in for the last thirty years. Even if it means hiring someone to stay with them so they don’t burn the house down. Even if it means hiding the car or car keys to prevent them from driving to their favorite store that went out of business twenty years ago. Even if it means taking time off from work to accompany them to doctor’s appointments or leaving work early to rush home to deal with emergencies.

 

But if you haven’t had a great relationship with your parent, maybe haven’t even talked to them in five, ten, fifteen, or twenty plus years, what’s your responsibility when the neighbors start calling with their concerns? Do you forget the past and hope they’ll become nice? Put on your martyr uniform and hope for the best? Make an anonymous call to Elder Services and wash your hands of it?

 

There is no easy answer to these questions. Letting your conscience be your guide doesn’t mitigate the guilt that comes with the decision to keep your distance from a demented parent. If you decide to re-engage with the parent, there will still be the resentment that comes with putting your own life on hold to care for a parent who never cared for you. It’s an intensely personal decision that each adult child must wrestle with and decide based on all of the myriad considerations and individual details of their life. If you do decide to ride to the rescue, don’t expect the parent to be grateful for your efforts. Age doesn’t make people any less dick-ish, nor does dementia.

 

As someone who has wrestled with this issue, rest assured I don’t take my abandonment of my parent lightly. There’s a better than average chance that I am the best suited of my siblings for understanding and navigating the complexities of having someone declared incapable of making decisions to pave the way for admission to a nursing home. Not just because I’m a nurse, but also because I’m the oldest. Unfortunately I can’t forget or forgive the toxic parent-child relationship that ultimately ended with my decision to stop speaking to my parent over twenty years ago. I can’t let that go, even though part of me says it’s my duty and part of me feels incredibly guilty that I can’t caretake this person who can no longer caretake themselves.

 

I won’t deny that seeing my parent in their current state, even from a distance without saying a word or them being aware of my presence, breaks my heart. I wish I could find it within myself to soften, bend, and do what some would insist is the right thing. But I can’t.

 

And as much as I salute those who can, I acknowledge that there are those of us who can’t. Age and infirmity doesn’t turn a toxic parent into a saint, it only turns them into a old, sick toxic parent. Don’t judge me for turning my back.  It’s like they say when you fly, if the oxygen mask drops down, you have to put it on yourself before you can help someone else. Unfortunately my parent has demonstrated that they would suck up all the oxygen in my world if they could. As bad as I feel about their condition, I won’t let them.

Day 3: flight to Yazd - inflight safety card

Day 3: flight to Yazd – inflight safety card (Photo credit: birdfarm)

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Toilet Paper and the Not Quite Empty Nest

English: Toilet paper, orientation "over&...

English: Toilet paper, orientation “over” (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Correct placement of roll.

The Christmas holiday has bestowed the gift of my adult children at home for a week as well as two additional dogs and a cat. Yes, it’s a little chaotic and crazy here.

My mother always says that fish and house guests stink after three days. I’m unsure if it is a cautionary tale meant to keep your house cold or to ensure there’s adequate Febreeze, but so far the stench has been minimal. Other than discovering one of my dogs is allergic to one of my daughter’s dogs and that when everyone in my family is in front of the wood stove for a picture, the wood stove pipe will spontaneously disconnect from the chimney, things have been surprisingly pleasant.

Except for the toilet paper.

English: Toilet paper, orientation "under...

English: Toilet paper, orientation “under” (Photo credit: Wikipedia). So incorrect it hurts me to look at it.

There is a right way to put on the toilet paper roll and a wrong way. You would think these two children that I raised would know this. In our house, the toilet paper roll has always unfurled on the front. Always. Trust me, anytime a visitor or passing toilet user has made the mistake of loading it backwards, I’ve promptly remedied the mistake. My lifelong dedication to this principle is unwavering.

Why then, does my youngest daughter replace the toilet paper backwards? Why would she think that dangling the end of the roll down the back of the holder is acceptable? Has she learned nothing from me all these years?

Of course my mother always told me to never go outside with wet hair or I’d catch a cold, and I do that all the time.  She also cautioned me against putting ice in red wine, but damn it, I like my red wine chilled.  My grandmother told me never to put hot meat on a cold plate or it would be shocked into toughness. I ignore that on a regular basis, too. But all of their recommendations were based on superstition, and the correct way to hang toilet paper is based on common sense and science.

Isn’t it?

And, not only that, but I forgive my children for so many other things. I don’t mind when they don’t squeegee the shower walls after bathing. I clean the hairbrushes without complaint (though wonder which one of them left gray hairs in there). I cringe inside, but shut my mouth, about the half filled beverage glasses left on side tables and the carelessly kicked-off shoes that create a mine field near the front door. I forgive so much, but, toilet paper? I suspect even Jesus would have a problem with that.

In case you’re curious, let me assure you, as a hostess, I am top notch. Their favorite meals (three bean chili, my special turkey stuffing, bread bowls) are consumed with satisfaction. The house is kept tidy and clean, in spite of four dogs and a cat. My television remains tuned to shows I would never watch (Jersey Shore, My Big Fat Gypsy American Wedding, and Catfish to name a few). I provide adequate outlets for their myriad electronic appliances. My car? Please, take it. It’s clean, maintained, and full of gas. All that I provide seems sufficient to ensure a guest would have no problem complying with my one, small request to put the damn toilet paper in the holder correctly!

Let me take one deep breath to center myself.

Okay. In their defense, they have shoveled snow, washed clothes, rinsed dishes, and even fed my allergic dog the 18 pills he must now take daily. The fact that one daughter, in an attempt to entice my dog to chew his fish oil gel cap, bit into the capsule herself and ended up with a face full of fish oil is a Christmas memory I’ll savor. Their thoughtful Christmas gifts (including an Ipod adapter for my car and a hot spot for the houseboat) illustrated how well they know me and my needs. Waking up to them shuffling around the house like zombies as they prepare their morning cups of coffee brings back memories of college breaks and the remembered happiness of having them here, tempered with the relief of knowing they would leave.

And, even though fish and house guests may stink after three days, the emptiness of my children’s leaving will last for many more. For a week, we dance around trying to get this new relationship right. We bicker, and pick at each other, and roll our eyes. We form and reform alliances over movies and music. We hide our resentment and disappointment. Then we hug it out and whisper i love you’s and i miss you’s and i wish you didn’t have to leave so soon. But, that’s what happens when children grow up.

Someday they’ll have families of their own. They’ll create their own holiday traditions and, I hope, I’ll have a place in them. Each holiday reminds me that this will always be their childhood home, but it isn’t the place they call home.  It reminds me that my time for making their rules has ended and now they make their own, and if that includes putting the toilet paper in backwards, there’s nothing I can do about it because I can’t turn back time. I can only turn around the toilet paper.

Empty Nests

Empty Nests (Photo credit: Sterlic)

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Mother Knows Best

Scratching

Scratching (Photo credit: ☺ Lee J Haywood)

 

My mother has always been a blunt, no-holds-barred giver of advice.  Her circle of friends is small, her capacity to remember slights limitless. To say she’s a little on the suspicious side is an understatement. She believes there’s two kinds of friends, friendship and friendshit. Her favorite saying concerning friendshit is,  “If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.”

 

When you grow up with a cop for a mother, there’s not a lot of sympathy for stupidity.

Since I’m not psychic, I can’t tell at the start of a relationship where it will end up. Like courtship,  the beginning phase of a friendship is all about showing off our good sides and covering up our imperfections.  There’s that unquenchable hope that this time someone finally gets me.  The passage of time, though, can wear down the patina of initial niceness.  A cheap person can only buy a round of drinks so many times before they stop offering. A dishonest person can only fulfill their obligations as long as they can stave off their basic impulse to lie. A self-centered person will try to act like it’s not all about them, but in the end, they’ll insist it is.  That’s the point when you realize you’ve been lying with a dog and the itching you feel isn’t your new hand soap or poison ivy, it’s fleas.

 

Most of my life, I’ve followed my mother’s advice and steered clear of unsavory or people liable to get me arrested. Unfortunately those around me have not. One contractor friend of my husband’s has proven to be a persistent little puppy. During the initial phase of the friendship, he installed outside stairs, remodeled our bathroom, roofed our house, and installed replacement windows.  His rates were reasonable. We knew him. My husband counted him a friend. You’d think that would guarantee a job well done. Wrong.

 

Yes, we knew the contractor’s past jobs included  a string of small claims cases and customer complaints.  Yes, I balked at how he always wanted half down to start the job (which basically consisted of his taking the money and parking some equipment at our house) and seemed to be running a Ponzi scheme to pay for supplies and help. Yes, his initial job (a stairway) didn’t meet code and his second job (replacing a roof) started a year-long saga to find the leak we didn’t have until the new roof was in place. And even though he didn’t have a clue as to how to install a corner shower, it didn’t stop him from doing it. No amount of caulk has stopped the leaking in the subsequent two years.

 

Did I mention it takes superhuman strength to close and lock the replacement windows because they don’t quite line up? It doesn’t take skill to do a shoddy job, but it takes a special kind of incompetence to create new problems. Small wonder that when I finally took charge of hiring contractors, his name didn’t make the list.

 

Bad Carpentry!

Bad Carpentry! (Photo credit: Yuba College Public Space)

I still do a slow burn every time I enter the bathroom and realize I’ll eventually need to hire someone to pull out the shower and start again. I get a little hot under the collar when I watch part of the roof lift up and vibrate during windstorms. I curse loudly every time I have to hang on the lower window while pushing the upper window up to try to latch them for the winter. Giving him multiple opportunities to do something right became the punishment that keeps on delivering. If I’d heeded my mother’s warnings, after the first job I would have moved away from him as far and as fast as humanly possible.

Instead, I let myself become lulled by excuses and didn’t take appropriate action when I identified him as friendshit. If I had washed my hands of him early on, I wouldn’t have to walk around my house now and see the equivalent of toilet paper on my shoe everywhere.

But, just like you can’t blame fleas for biting you, you can’t blame shady people for taking advantage. Even if you think they’re friends. Which leads me to another lesson from my mother: Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me.

Ignore my mother’s advice at your peril.