Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Well, Noddy, it wasn't bad. I met a couple of friends, dinner was pretty good, and the dining room where we ate was very quiet.

I'm finding it hard to settle down to the various projects I want to undertake, like recording a book for my cousin. Rereading old Angela Thirkell novels, listening to other familiar fiction on my Walkman while I knit or work a jigsaw puzzle is about my maximum speed.

I would like to get into regular piano practice, start painting again, and so on. I feel my mind stagnating, but the impetus just isn't there. I suppose it will come back in time. Perhaps impetus isn't needed, so much as discipline...

So far the most intellectual pursuit I've been dealing with is reading the Sunday Times Book Review. I have to do that (no penance, I assure you) for our library's Book Selection Committee. Unfortunately I've let several weeks' worth pile up, and am now reaping the result - a stack that looks higher every time I see it. I can only get through one or two at a time - after a while one's selecting faculties get a bit numb.

I understand the strong dislike of silk flowers!

And I'm not a Wiccan.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
I agree with Sozobe and Noddy, with the proviso that they are often marvels of artifice and manual dexterity; my fingers would never have been able to produce them. What I really like are those improbable Dutch and French flower paintings with all kinds of flowers all mixed up together regardless of season or climate.

I am having fun right now watching an amaryllis develop; it was sent to me after Bob's death, and I've been watching it grow; it's reaching toward the ceiling like crazy. The bud is beginning to bulge, and I can't wait for the blossom to emerge.

A few years ago a cousin sent us one for Christmas, and it bloomed THREE separate times! I don't know whether this one will do the same; I understand that twice is not at all unheard of, but that three successive blossoms is highly unusual. We shall see.

Final update.

I pointed out to Mr. Noddy that if he wanted to trade me in, he could undoubtedly find a woman who was just wild--in a positive fashion--about silk flowers.

Mr. Noddy announced that training a new wife would be too exhausting for him.

Happy endings.

Blessed be

We only today noticed that's the first time this year since more than 10 years we are at OUR home all the Christmas days, do all the cooking here and .... have what we want and how I like it to be done.
(So to say: the chef's menu )

But that's only cooking-related. Otherwise ...

Walter--

Head of your Household at last--a bit of triumph during very hard times.

Tomkitten--

I'm not surprised that you also delight in Angela Thirkell. Barchestershire is a very soothing place to visit.

Your get-up-and-go isn't gone, just dormant. Remember, you're grieving in the darkest times of the year. All sorts of bulbs will be blooming for you this spring.

Do you share my feelings that getting woefully behinders in reading bought-and-paid-for magazines is slightly shameful behavior? One of the chores I hope to accomplish before the New Year is vastly reducing my stack of periodical arrears.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Walter - Your own boss, even if for just a while! It's YOUR house and YOUR menu, even if it is also your sister as a guest.

Noddy - the problem with the NYT is that eventually the Fox Hill Library Committee will have another book selection meeting and it's a far far better thing that I do if I keep up to date with the Book Review than that I have 3 or 4 months' worth to cull from in just a week or two. So I have the discipline of time pressure there to nudge me along.

Other magazines - well, we never subscribed to many: The New Yorker (I'm usually up to date on that), and a few nature magazines like the ones put out for members of Mass Audubon, etc. I may not renew the National Geographic, because I can go right downstairs and read the library copy. It's the same with The Smithsonian, although since they reduced the type size I find it less appealing. It's the books that pile up worst. For example:

The Nine - Jeffrey Toobin
My Dearest Friend - letters of John and Abigail Adams (a new collection, ed Margaret Hogan & James Taylor)
American Creation - Joseph Ellis
Shadow of the Silk Road - Colin Thubron (I'm in the middle of this one, at least)
A Woman in Charge - Carl Bernstein (I'd better get going with this before Hillary either is or is not elected)

These are the tip of the iceberg.

Right now I'm enjoying my Thirkell orgy. There is a new resident here who is also a Thirkell fan and we have great fun at dinner every week or two quoting her back and forth. (I wrote my master's thesis at Columbia on Thirkell, BTW). And I've just finished rereading (i.e. listening to tapes) the whole Harry Potter series. As you can see, I'm basically resting my brain with occasional forays into the more serious new stuff.

Tomkitten: my sister is fortunately staying at her MIL!!!

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Mother slept this afternonn again - she's been "quite busy" at night, nurses told me.
My aunt gets a bit aggressiv - she can't eat and drink, she thinks.

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My sister is the greatest aššhole I know.
She just phoned me. (They had been at the hospital early evening - I noticed that when I returned from aunt's hospital.)

- I asked her, if she wouldn't like to pack tomorrow some clothes for mother. She doesn't, because she hasn't stayed here/there the last 40 years and thus doesn't know anything about mother's clothes, because we claim we would do mother's washing etc and thus should know better.

- then she asked me about the costs for the home, how that should be paid. I should cut down electricity, water, phone etc at mother's because she didn't want to pay anything but mother should get the best what is possible on earth.
I easily could point out that mother can pay that easily (and mentioned that there's still the house etc what could be sold).

So she saw no need anymore for a meeting - bedides that we met by accident tomorrow afternoon in the seniors home: we wouldn't dare only to move mother there but of course come again later again.



I get the impression that my sister and I will have the very same contact in future as we had some time ago: once or twice per year ... if I can't avoid those situations.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Oh dear oh dear, Walter. what a mess. Your sister isn't showing a whole bunch of Christmas spirit, is she!

Are you finally your mother's guardian? I mean, if push comes to shove would you have the legal authority to make decisions regardless of your sister?

Hey Noddy,

I have an idea for your hubby that will make you both happy.



Introduce him to your favorite live house plants. Be sure to tell him how long lasting they are and how practical they can be since many can be propigated to produce even more plants that he can root and give to others too. Point to some African Violets that are in bloom and tell him you'd love to receive a gift of something like that from him.

When they arrive, tell him the plants need lots of indirect sunshine and the best place for them to thrive is on the kitchen table, so would he kindly clear a spot for them since you don't want him to waste his precious money on a dead plant.

In the meantime, Happy Solstice!.


If he gets that right, soon you can upgrade him to the Pothos for his bedroom dresser and on up to planter boxes!

Re: Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved


I suppose that the procedure won't be final until mid-January.

It isn't such a huge problem, this time, however: if mother really gets again the idea that she wants to leave - I'll (or the home) will ask for an involuntary commitment.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Butrflynet - I think I'll get me some African violets! Thanks for putting the idea in my head.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Walter - one of the worst emotional events in my entire life was when I realized that Bob's first hospitalization this fall wasn't plain ordinary admission, but involuntary commitment. That was a horrible moment and I still break down when I think of it.

I'm not sure he realized just what was going on though; I truly hope not.

Buttrflynet--

Mr. Noddy is not allowed to touch any of the house plants. Absolutely Not Allowed.

His track record with garden flowers and vegetable plants is also exceedingly poor.

Black thumb. Two black thumbs.

Walter--

When people ask your sister about her Christmas Holidays she's going to tell them all about her woes (probably including you).

You're much closer to sainthood than she is--and not because you're standing on her shoulders.

Tomkitten--

All the world is dormant until early February. Go with the flow--except for the library recommendations. If you miss a few must-read books this year, they'll be waiting for you in heaven.

Maybe that is why he has switched to the plastic and silk ones. He knows you like flowers and knows he is incapable of helping to keep them alive.

I was thinking you could take him to a nursery department and point to the houseplants you'd love to have in your home and allow him to gift them to you. You also might get him to clear off his surfaces so you can share their visual beauty with him. The point being that he gets to learn about what type of plant gifts you would like while you get to clear off some of the surfaces that irk you to make room for them.

He can look but not touch. :wink:

Butrflynet--

Believe me, botanical therapy is not likely to do either me or Mr. Noddy one bitty-bit of good.

He wasn't a gardner in his prime and his world is contracting, not expanding.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Noddy and Walter, this time. for the two of you, is almost inconceivably difficult. I'm not religious, but I do pray for you both, in my own way.

Diane--

Thank you.

Thanks, Diane!