Freida’s original walker, you may recall, was a Memorial Day gift about four years ago after she’s had three falls at the house in Eugene. She kept the walker next to her recliner in the living room but never used it, tottering about on the hardwood floors and area rugs while the rest of us held our breath. When she moved to assisted living, she told every one that Stan had bought her the walker “long before” she needed it, and she was so grateful. She’s used it religiously since the move two and a half years ago; most everyone where she lives uses a walker, so she doesn’t stand out as particularly frail or needy.

But two and half years of constant use can cause wear and tear on delicate parts like brake cables. We wanted to replace Hugo, Freida’s walker, probably nine months ago after one of the brake cables broke. Stan tried to fix it but couldn’t and we couldn’t find an economical substitute for Hugo at the time. A couple of weeks ago, Costco had new models in the store again. After Freida’s most recent fall, related to a wheelchair rather than the walker, Stan decided it was time to buy.

Times and walkers have changed, even since we got Irene for Mom after her heart surgery in ‘08. Freida’s new walker is wider, reflecting the expanding girth of the average American (though not Freida), and it has a drink holder on the right side of the handlebar. What could be more 21st century American than that? It lacked the cargo bag and the nice seat, though, so Stan swapped those from Hugo to the new walker, working up a sweat in Freida’s apartment this afternoon while I balanced her checkbook.

Freida, meanwhile, sat in the chair in the lobby where she spends a lot of her time. When the project was finished, Stan lead Radler down the hall while I wheeled the new walker with my purse on the seat — just like Mom and Freida do. “Can you see the future?” Stan asked. If I’d had a free hand, I would have grabbed said purse and whacked him up side the head, dear man.

Frankenstein’s version of Hugo remains in our garage. Stan mused briefly this afternoon that maybe he could start a second career as a walker repairman — or not. It could be the next growth industry.

Tweet This Post 

My phone rang a few times — two calls from the D-H, one from a guy who wanted to find out how to get a marriage license,  and one from a cousin of John McCain who was worried about some probably bogus posting on the internet about a supposed bill before Congress. Email from two City employees with questions about the settlement. Then nothing…

Until about 2:45 when I got two emails.  One was from our I/T staff, letting everyone know that we had been unable to send or receive external email since 9 a.m. due to a spam filter gone wild. That issue wasn’t resolved until nearly 9 p.m. and when I got back from a late lunch today, I had a new message about the same thing happening again.

The second message yesterday afternoon came through simultaneously to the I/T one yesterday caught my attention and not because it was the only fresh thing I’d seen in my queue for hours, but because of who sent it. The screen name was “GodsBicyclist.” Turns out it was from someone wanting information about the Fire Department’s annual Pump and Run event but still. This guy has an in.

Take that, spam filter, and amen.

Tweet This Post 

Our January selection was a novel written as a series of letters among an assortment of people; some group members found that contrived or just difficult to follow.

For February, we selected a Pulitzer Prize winner that would have been easier to digest by doctoral candidates in American history.  At our month-end review, I reported that I believed I had read every sentence at least three times, trying to glean meaning from their polysyllabic complexities.

This month, our selection is essentially a romance novel written in 1923 by a native of Shropshire, England, a county on the Welsh border. It’s a period piece set in the 1810s (the Battle of Waterloo is mentioned as a current event) and written in the regional dialect and slang of the time. I read most of it twice as well.

I’ve moved on to more or less plain modern English by a noted author who has immense wit and skill with words.  His books and short stories often read like musical scores. He’s also a wonderful storyteller, so the book is great entertainment, though I find myself, again, reading some sentences or paragraphs twice.

After the last two weeks, though, I realize that it’s not what I’ve been reading that is such hard work. It’s the other things in life that require my attention at the moment. I haven’t been able to concentrate on the printed page.

Stan’s mom’s mental health is deteriorating rapidly and with it, her physical strength. We stopped by for a visit on Saturday and found a wheelchair folded up at the ready outside her apartment and a gate belt on the counter inside. The gate belt is a big thick strap of webbing often used to help aides or family members move a person whose legs aren’t working as they should.  We didn’t know this was happening — it hadn’t been when we were there three days earlier — but we know it now. Between a consultation with the medical staff and scheduling an appointment with our GP for tomorrow, my mother-in-law fell again today.

I’ll be taking Mom for her “encounter” with her cardiologist tomorrow at the same time as Stan takes his mom to our doc. And then there’s my day job.

If a lot of time passes between posts here, I can hand out more than one excuse.  It’s a little like being the fellow who mounts the horse, then rides off in all directions.

Stay tuned.

Tweet This Post 

“That’s midnight yesterday, ” I said.

“It says it was mailed on February 18, 2010,” she added.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Read me the letter.”

The letter was from Mom’s cardiologist, the text a series of multiple-choice statements that, added together, said she is due for an echocardiogram. At least, that’s what I deduced from the phone call. When we stopped by her apartment this afternoon to deliver a batch of prescription refills, she had the letter and the postmarked envelope waiting for me to inspect it.

Sure enough; it said what I thought it said, but at the top, just under the letterhead, it had fields for the patient’s name, address, date of birth, account number, phone number and “Encounter Date,” with the date and impossible time that Mom had read to me. The template should probably be changed to just “Date.”

Months ago, I noticed on statements we received from our family doctor and Frank’s many specialists that what we used to call doctor’s appointments were now listed as “encounters.” What the? “Why do they have to call it that?” Mom said. “I feel like I should go prepared to do battle.” With that, she adopted a kung-fu-type pose and bared her teeth. “It sounds French,” she added.

It’s Middle English, actually, according our friend Webster, and it’s got a host of 18th Century dandy, nonmedical, definitions:

• to meet as an adversary or enemy
• to engage in conflict with
• to come upon face to face
• to come upon, especially unexpectedly
• to meet, especially by chance

and from the 14th century:

• a meeting especially between hostile factions or persons
• a sudden often violent clash: combat
• a chance meeting
• a direct often momentary meeting
• a coming into the vicinity of a celestial body

Oh, this is rich stuff. An encounter with a physician is by chance or unexpected only if it’s in the produce section of the grocery store, at a charity fund-raiser or in the emergency room.  It’s momentary depending upon how long you had to sit in the waiting room.  That hostile/enemy/adversary/conflict stuff might apply if you are “fighting” cancer or some other ugly condition. But your doctor is supposed to be on your side and s/he wants to see you at an appointed time.

What’s wrong with “appointment?” The third definition in Webster , after the political ones, is “an arrangement for a meeting.” Simple. Straightforward. And, now that I look at the letter from Mom’s cardiologist again, what does it say at the very top, centered on the page, above the letterhead? “Appt Note.” Hmm.

Just to be sure, I blew the dust off my French and English dictionary. “Encounter” translates to “rencontre,” defined as meeting, encounter, clash, or collision. Like Mom said.

I’m inclined to suspect a software engineer who thought “encounter” sounded less threatening or more exotic than “appointment” and physicians all over Creation have accepted it as part of their record-keeping software and probably haven’t given it a second thought. Patients do actually read billing statements and Appt Notes, and those of us who try to express ourselves by choosing the right words have one to recommend.

Tweet This Post 

Jennifer Moody’s story yesterday about my friend Rebecca Grizzle’s upcoming book reminded me of this forbidden topic. I envy Rebecca her inspiration. I’ve been waiting for it for most of my life.

I’ve always been a writer of sorts, starting with a diary and short stories when I was 12. More than 23 years in a newsroom, writing stories about other people. I was good at that — stringing facts together to tell other people’s true stories. But a book? Think of the research, fact-checking, dialogue that sounds authentic, building believable characters, plot lines.

I read 35-40 books a year, books that other people write, plus a lot of good reporting and short stories. The more I read, the less I trust my own ability to come up with anything like what other people do.

Stan gave me a great idea for a story for “my” book years ago. It’s a true story, a family story, but I haven’t been able to do it.

Yet.

Tweet This Post 

Call No. 1 came after 10 p.m. on a Saturday — Stan’s mom had fallen getting out of bed. She wasn’t hurt and was in good spirits about it.

Call No. 2 was less than a week later, when his mom was too weak to stand or hold a cup of coffee and told the staff she wanted to see Stan because she was going to die that day. Her vital signs indicated that she had quite a bit more time left,  but Stan went right over to check on her. She was dehydrated. Aides brought her juice and broth and he got her a glass of water with a straw. By dinner time, she was back in the dining room at her appointed table. The next day, she was fine, and she was thrilled when we brought her a big insulated cup with a lid and its own straw to encourage more frequent intake.

I’ve since learned that dehydration is common in the elderly and can mimic dementia (or simply make it worse), along with doing all sorts of other basic and awful things to the body and mind. It’s easy for older people to get dehydrated, too. They don’t get thirsty the way younger people do.

Our moms routinely ask about each other through us; they live in the same wing of the building on different floors and sit maybe 15 feet apart in the dining room. But they grew up in the I-Don’t-Want-to-Say-Anything Generation, where it’s acceptable to ask other people about each other rather than talking to the other person directly. Same thing as complaining to us about some aspect of daily life rather than talking to the people who can actually solve the problem — lower the thermostat, hang the picture, figure out why the TV keeps showing the blue screen that says No Signal!

Saturday morning, I’ve got half a mile left to go on the treadmill and Stan answers Call No. 3. This one was about Mom. Mom? I expect these calls about Stan’s mom, not mine — the woman who continues to declare that she’s too young to live where she’s living and that no one there is interested in the same things she is (books, movies, TV.)

Mom had had an accident but she was OK, the aide told me. Her 4-by-6-foot cabinet that is chock-full of store-bought and home-recorded VHS tapes and DVDs had fallen on her and she couldn’t get out from under it. She’s pushed the button on her emergency alert wristband,  which was just what she should have done. She’d been extricated and is waiting now for the cabinet to be screwed to the wall so this won’t happen again. And we are profoundly relieved that this didn’t happen while she was still living alone in her house. Though she had an emergency alert system there as well, the cabinet was in a back room that she didn’t heat and finding her would have taken much longer.

Mom’s sore today but getting around pretty well. I brought her a new pair of shoes this afternoon (heckuva deal at Footwise in Corvallis, last day of their January clearance sale, 20% off the last markdown price) and insisted she take them on a test walk around the hallways, then out to my car. She insisted she wasn’t feeling well, but the new shoes felt good (this is a miracle because they are not the brand she usually wears), it was sunny and warm outside, and as I drove away, she and Irene were rolling along the sidewalk on a genuine constitutional.

What I saw as I drove away was my Mom, yes, but a stiff -limbed elderly woman, making her way slowly along a level surface with her mechanical helper. The Video Cabinet Incident was the first call. It won’t be the last.

Tweet This Post 

I’ve looked throughout the mountain cabin, everywhere that we have books, and that’s every room but the bath and a half. Stan remembers buying the hardback with the red and gold dustcover that’s been showing up on the evening news most of this week since J.D. Salinger died. The hard cover of the book was black. The book is proving to be as elusive as its brilliant author was reclusive. Now, both are gone.

I had a paperback at one time, maroon with gold lettering. Can’t recall if I read it in high school or in Twentieth Century Literature or Major American Writers when I was as Oregon. I do still have Salinger’s three other masterworks in paperback, and under my name in each is the year 1975. Must have been the latter class.

Every year or so, I cull our astounding home library to make room for new books but my Salinger collection always gets to stay. “Franny and Zooey,” “Nine Stories,” and “Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters!” are among my life’s treasured possessions. Checking for them tonight, I noted that I paid 75 cents for one, $1.50 for each of the other two.

Why have I kept these tiny slim paperbacks all these years, treating them with such reverence? They are perfect. Their characters — the Glass family, whose children, burdened with genius, were stars of the fictional mid-20th century radio show “It’s a Wise Child” — are unforgettable. I still mourn for sensitive, loving and broken Seymour Glass. Can anyone who has ever read “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” ever forget the story, or Seymour?

Everyone interested in American letters knows that Salinger was a recluse for most of his life and that he was reportedly still writing during those years. What he published during the few years before he closed the door to the world enlightens, enlivens, and haunts us still.

Tweet This Post 

Fish don’t have feelings like humans or big game, sportspersons will tell you. Some will even go into the biology of the species and natter on about nerves and ganglia and such. I eat fish; I just don’t want to know much about how they get from life to the meat cooler at Costco, OK?  But you’ll never convince me that they don’t feel anything; I’ve felt this way for years, but now I know Scott.

Scott is a four or five-year-old deep orange and white goldfish who lives in a big bowl of clean water and pearly rocks on top of a file cabinet in the staff offices of Albany Municipal Court in City Hall. He’s named for his official owner, Judge Bob Scott, but the court staff are primarily responsible for his care.

Scott is lively and friendly and does tricks. He swims upside down and backward. He takes food from your hand. He fears no strangers. Just watching him can make me laugh or drop a bundle of work-day stress. His caretakers feel the same way.

And Scott has confirmed what I’ve been saying for years about fish and feelings.  Like the judge with his private law practice, Scott used to share his bowl with another fish. The judge’s former partner sometimes serves as Municipal Judge pro-tem. Scott’s paid the Ultimate Fine a few years ago.

It was a horrible day for Scott and for the staff. Scott’s partner became sluggish, struggling for breath, and began his final float on top of the water. Scott swam underneath, trying to hold up his friend. Staff called the Fire Department, and a medic responded, removing the stricken swimmer from the water. Scott became frantic, swimming and gawping back and forth and back and forth.

For days, he looked for his friend. He mourned. That, folks, takes feelings.

Scott has had the bowl to himself for awhile, and he seems happy. His keepers dote on him and, just today, were reminding each other to restock the fish food.

When City Hall is closed for a holiday weekend, one of them comes in to make sure Scott gets fed and knows he’s not forgotten. I’m sure he feels their love.

Tweet This Post 

We were up early to do shopping and I checked three or four items off a really long weekend to-do list. Sat down with the latest Sunset and TIME after feeding the animals the next item on the list looked like a waste of a sunny day. “Do you want to take the scooters out?” I, who seldom suggest something fun, asked Stan. “Sure,” he replied. Only I would know that his Happymeter had pegged out with that one little word.

He got the covers off both scooters and rolled mine out of the garage. We suited up in our scooter jackets, boots, helmets, and gloves. Lesson No.1 followed: learning to rock the Vespa off its center stand, then get it back onto it. This is one of those little things about learning to ride that keeps me awake at night: the scooter weighs 350 pounds. The front end wiggles. But I did it, maybe three times, before it was time to ride.

I did a whole lot of frightening things today, starting with riding out of our driveway over our rolled curb. At the end of the street, a nice lady walking her dog let me cross and turn before she crossed. Smart move on her part. I pulled on the accelerator too much and was immediately up another rolled curb onto the sidewalk on the opposite side of the cross street. Stan, riding ahead, turned around and came back. “How do I get off of this?” I asked. “Just ride over it,” he said, and showed me, and I followed.

Over the next hour, I:

• Rode across two sets of railroad tracks, one of them while making a right-hand turn.
• Used my turn signals and almost always remembered to cancel them.
• Rode the speed of traffic, most of the time.
• Learned that even if you waive at other motorcycle riders, they don’t always wave at you if you are on a mere scooter. Does it make a difference if it feels to you like you’re on a motorcycle? No,  but several people did give me the low pointing-at-the-ground wave.
• Turned from Kennel Road onto Highway 20, then onto Scravel Hill Road with traffic coming every which way.
• Turned onto Knox Butte Road from Century Drive under similar conditions.
• Learned how to fill the gas tank after the fuel light came on as we turned from Kizer Avenue to Century Drive. Cost: $5.03 for 1.8 gallons.
• Spent some quality time leaning against the Vespa in full view of three lanes of Saturday afternoon Pacific Boulevard traffic when I failed to get it started after the fill-up. I did, once again, get in onto the center stand by myself, though. Eventually, Stan came back to the gas station. Hold the brake when you press the starter. Duh.
• Rode all the way home from the gas station by myself because I couldn’t imagine trying to rendezvous with Stan in the Ping’s parking lot whole recovering from pulling onto Ninth from Sherman without getting killed.
• Rode up over the same rolled curb into the driveway, cut the engine and rocked the bike up onto the center stand just before Stan rode in behind me.
• Had a lot of fun.

The engine’s cool now. Time to learn how to rig up the battery charger and put the cover on.

Tweet This Post 

The question to us was, did we want to play? Our response: no. The name-drawing happened on Sunday. We have since been told how to spend money we would have spent on Christmas gifts in this particular family quarter. Au contraire.

Said Family Member tried a similar ploy a few years ago. Then it was a $5 limit on each gift. We didn’t buy (pun) that one, either.

But back to name-drawing: we did this with my dad’s family when I was really little and still had lots and lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins close by. We’d choose a name and puzzle for a few weeks about what Uncle Shorty or Aunt Hallie might like. It’s an interesting exercise when it involves generational or cultural disparity, and it can be a real money-saver if you are no longer expected to get a little something for everyone in the pack.

But I don’t know what Family Member has in mind this time. If, say, Niece draws Gramma’s name, does she get Gramma one gift? Or is she expected to shop all year long? And are the grandchildren, who already get so many gifts at Christmas that they have to take a nap halfway through opening everything, exempt? Do the adults exchange one gift each but still pile up booty for the little ones? Is the idea to cut back on spending? Teach impressionable minds about generosity or restraint or what’s really important about holidays?

I really don’t want to know. I’ve drawn something else: a line. Neither one of us likes being expected to be some form of generous on specific dates and times and under specific terms. If we want to give someone a gift, we do it. In my view, it’s the spontaneity that makes it truly a gift.

Tweet This Post