Oatmeal and Dogs Don’t Mix

Or at least they shouldn’t!

I’ve had my hands full this past week going through files getting everything ready to prepare taxes. I should have known better than to try to do anything remotely time consuming while Mom was still up and awake. It just goes to prove that even though you “think” you know all there is to know about the sounds of the house, walker, Mom, and the dog, there is always a sound you don’t hear or one you haven’t heard before.

I was upstairs sitting on the floor in the midst of a pile of paperwork when I heard Mom’s walker rolling along the carpet. No problem. She was heading to the kitchen most likely to get a drink of water. Correct. I heard the water running. Then, I heard her say, “I’ll let you out in a minute.” Heard the door open next and her cussing because she was having a hard time getting the dog hooked to the chain on the porch. Less than a minute later, the dog’s tags on his collar are tingling, the door closes, and he starts barking, so I know he’s back inside. The reason I know this is because her dog only barks when someone comes in the door and he barks at the door after it’s closed. Strange, I know, but he’s done this for as long as I can remember.

Next I heard this strange sound I hadn’t heard through the monitor before. I had no idea what it was so I figured I’d better go check out what was going on.

Mom was in the dining room and headed for the living room by the time I got up off the floor and made it down the steps. I asked her if she needed anything and she said no and was very proud of herself for letting the dog out to do its business.

Two Feather was on his way down to get the mail, so I headed for the bathroom before he had a chance to come back up the hill.

You’re going to love this one.

When I went into the kitchen to let Two Feather in, I noticed a powdery substance in the dog’s dish. I looked closer and realized it was oatmeal. I turned around and saw an empty package of instant oatmeal on the kitchen counter. Once again I was brought to tears from laughing. I realized the sound I’d heard earlier was Mom laying the dog’s dish on the counter and back onto the floor. She hasn’t fed her dog for the past three years so naturally it wasn’t a sound I’d heard in a long while. With Alzheimer’s we can never be certain what is on our loved one’s mind. I’m not sure if she was thinking she was feeding him or giving him a “good boy” treat for going potty, but either way, he got oatmeal. ROFL

Guess I don’t need to tell you what else I hand my hands full with for the next two days. :)

Hint: Don’t give dogs oatmeal for dinner or a treat. It cleans them out as well as it does we humans. LOL

Anyway, in between getting paperwork sorted, and cleaning up dog doo-doo, I’ve been working on getting my “to be read” pile of books down to a more reasonable level. I’ve become so far behind. I send my apologies to the authors. I may be a bit behind, but I am reading in the order received and will complete them and give each book the attention it deserves.

So, anyone who’s not interested in books, you may want to skip the next few posts. Yes, I’m at it again—book reviews!

Whatevers, Whatchamacallits, Dohickies, and What Day Is It?

From the moment Mom woke up this morning I knew she wasn’t going to have a good day. It always throws her off a bit on Saturday morning when she doesn’t go to day care, but this morning she was a bit more off than usual. She couldn’t figure out what clothes were what or how to put them on. This is normal lately, but today she couldn’t pull up the words for pants, shirt, socks, or shoes. They were all “whatevers,” “whatchamacallits, and “dohickies.”

After I got her dressed, I walked with her to her dresser and told her to comb her hair. I went into the kitchen to get her pills, juice, and breakfast together. When I went back into her bedroom, she still hadn’t combed her hair. She was standing in front of the dresser just staring at the things on top of it. I finally got her to comb her hair, and then she had to go to the bathroom. She was wandering around the house as if she was lost—couldn’t find the bathroom, and couldn’t remember how to get from the bathroom back to the kitchen. After breakfast, (she ate very little) I got her settled in her chair in the living room and put her coloring book and crayons on her table in front of her. She just stared at them for a moment, not interested in them, and leaned back in her chair.

Since she was having a particularly bad morning, I gathered all the bills, stamps, envelopes, and checkbooks and took them downstairs to the living room and set them on the table in front of my chair so I could write out checks for bills and keep her company at the same time. Big mistake. I wasn’t able to concentrate on the bills and repeat answers to questions at the same time. If I’m not looking directly at her while I’m talking, she gets angry and thinks I’m not paying attention. This is why I normally do all the paperwork upstairs in my room, but because she was having an off day, I thought I should be close to her. I ended up taking all the paperwork back upstairs to do later after she was in bed and I brought down the book for which I was reading to write a book review. She wasn’t in the mood to color or talk much, so I figured I’d read the book to her. She didn’t look like she had an inkling as to what I was reading, but she smiled as I read to her and asked if it was a book I wrote and wondered if she had a copy. I said, “I wish, Mom, my books haven’t even been submitted yet. But someday I’d do that.”

This is where she blew my mind. She asked me to stop reading the book I was reading and asked me to get one of my books and read it to her. She was never a horror fan, so those weren’t appropriate. Three of my six novels are horror, so they were out. Two of the six weren’t appropriate because of subject matter and that left me with only two other choices: read the romance novel that I co-authored with my friend, or read the humorous short stories I wrote about living on the farm with her and dad. I chose the short stories.

It’s been years since I wrote those stories and quite frankly I’d forgotten what I’d written. She didn’t associate that the stories were written about Dad, her, and me. She didn’t realize that those stories were true. They didn’t bring back one single memory for her. They were just stories about some little girl who helped her father and mother on the farm. As I read, she did laugh at all the right places, though. That made up for her not really knowing they were true stories about us. I’d written them as children’s stories for a series of children’s books. The way I see it, Alzheimer’s takes our loved ones back to being childlike. Since she found humor where the humor was meant, then I’d say I might have a pretty darn good chance of getting these little stories published as children’s books one day. There’s a bit of food for thought. I think, when the mood strikes, I’ll start sketching the illustrations for them as well. Maybe I’ll put that on my list of things to do for 2008. While I’m at it, I may as well work on my final edit of my novels, and try to put together a book proposal for each one.

But first…I’ll finish my book reviews. A few will be posted shortly.

By the way, Betsy, I haven’t missed an evening writing in my journal. (I do have a running journal of the three years I’ve been here with Mom.) This one, though, is just for me. ;)

The rest of the day and early evening wasn’t much better than the morning. Mom was confused all day. She ate very little lunch and dinner and couldn’t wait to go to bed to get up in the morning to go to club. I felt so bad for her that she couldn’t remember that today is Saturday. She probably asked me more than 40 times today “is tomorrow Monday?” or “what day is it?” and each time she was disappointed when I showed her the calendar and told her tomorrow is Sunday. Even marking the days off on the calendar doesn’t help anymore.

It was a strange day all the way around. She kept telling me she felt warm. Mom never “feels” warm! She always says she’s cold and when I touch her she feels warm to me. She used to always ask everyone if they were cold, too. When my dad would hear her say she was cold, he’d always say to me, “Joanne, go get your sweater on, your mother’s cold.” It was a standing joke in the house.

Tonight, when I kissed her before I turned her light out, her cheeks and forehead felt cool, yet she was still telling me how toasty warm she felt. Odd. Just odd.

Well, tomorrow is Sunday and I’m prepared to answer the same questions over and over. Good thing is…tomorrow I can tell her tomorrow is Monday. :D

BOOK REVIEW: Autumn Shadows in August by Robert W. Norris

Autumn Shadows in August
By Robert W. Norris
Lulu Press
January 2006
201 pp.Paperback
Fiction
ISBN: 1411672976
Amazon Price: $13.92

Review by Joanne D. Kiggins

Robert W. Norris takes readers on an hallucinogenic trip with his novel Autumn Shadows in August. Norris claims his novel is part homage to authors’ Malcolm Lowry and Hermann Hesse, who he says influenced his writing, and part mid-life crisis/adventure.

We meet main character David Thompson and his wife Kaori in an astounding and griping prologue that forces the reader to turn the page to see what happens to the couple.

Throughout the novel, Norris kept the same quick pace and gripping scenes, which plunged into an adventure of telling Thompson’s hopes of rediscovering himself by use of hallucinogens.

Thompson is a conscientious objector and an expatriate American teaching English at a Japanese university. He’s suffering from hepatitis C and Kaori is recovering from cancer surgery.

Both feeling the need to be revitalized, they decide to leave Japan and journey to Europe. In an attempt to find themselves, Thompson retraces his youth and a journey he took 26 years ago to share his past with his wife while both search for the significance of what they’ve done with their lives.

In their travels, Thompson tries to find his German friend Thomas Knorr while Kaori enriches her knowledge and love of the arts. At the beginning of their journey in Amsterdam, Thompson meet Pablo, the mysterious head shop owner, who gives him a small box containing a small chessboard, figurines, and four mushrooms. He recalls Pablo’s advice on life.

Chess is like the game of life. And the pieces of each person’s game are made up of many broken parts, the many selves, of his or her personality. (Pg.13)

Thompson’s psychedelic journey began before receiving the box, but after consuming the first mushroom, his trip turns into a full blow adventure of the mind. The “mushroom examination of everything” sends Thompson on mind boggling trips through his past where he defines the stages of his life.

Each mushroom catapults him into a segment of his life and each trip to another region of the world where he examines his surroundings, realizes his innermost purpose, and questions reality. And it’s no wonder. Thompson’s reality was the use of drugs, alcohol, and mushrooms, which made him think he could better focus on his life. Where, in fact, they played tricks with his mind and led him to his next destination.

Pablo’s trick?
My focus fixed on the Picasso clown and his checkered outfit, which I now realized was a chessboard on which several pieces were moving about. (pg. 46)

Norris relied on flashbacks and imagery to tell his story.
Throughout their journey, Thompson meets all the demons of his past and defines and describes his mushroom episodes in great detail in some of the longest run-on-sentences this reader has ever read.

A hundred more vignettes marched across the stage of my mushroom mind, a phantasmagoria of my entire life from Little League baseball and high school basketball glory and family relationships in the early days, on to prison dramas, the journeys far and wide, all the characters of those multiple episodes, and all the intellectual explorations of why, why, why, what is the meaning of all this, the mind twisting left and right down philosophical and religious avenues, and then finally reaching the stage where I wasn’t questioning anymore….(pg.77)

Thompson realizes, with or without drugs, the path he and his wife followed during their years together was the purpose of their lives. All they had been through shouldn’t be questioned and all the soul-searching they’d done brought them right back to where they were supposed to be in life.

Norris’ writing flows from one long episode to the next and one page to the next. Reading the explicit descriptions of his trip is mind-boggling and an eye-opener; it is like watching him during an episode and knowing he was lost in his own mind only to come out and find he wasn’t lost at all.

The love between Thompson and his wife was evident throughout the journey and their sense of self worth intensified as the trip continued.

Though Norris’ writing is descriptive and fluid, this is not a book I would recommend to a casual reader. However, those who have a taste for books with deep, intense, emotional, and soul-searching plots will find Autumn Shadows in August a great read and may find their own realizations without the use of hallucinogens.

CLICK HERE to purchase Autumn Shadows in August.

Now You See It—Now You Don’t

Two Feather’s first project today was to cut up the dead tree that fell in the garden area at Mom’s house. I believe I showed the picture of it before and said that would be one of his next jobs. Well today was the day.

It didn’t take him long once he started. While he cut, I picked up the pieces and loaded the back of the mule with the wood. It wasn’t a very big tree but it did fill up the back of the mule by the time he was finished.

We took that load up to our house, I made us something to eat, and we went back down Mom’s to get a few more pieces of the oak tree.

I wasn’t exaggerating when I said the pieces of wood from the oak tree were nearly three foot in diameter. Here are just a few of the cuts from the center of the tree.

Here’s a shot of him splitting one of the larger pieces above with the maul and wedge. He might be tall and skinny, but he's strong. Two Feather split both of these pieces today. They filled the mule bed, and between the oak and the other tree he cut up, they filled his splitting area at our house.

After all the splitting and hauling, we walked through the woods looking for more downed trees on the property. We counted at least six more that we hadn't seen before. This one will probably wait until spring. He has at least a dozen trees to cut, split, and move out of his way before he can get to this one.

This big tree fell during that last storm we had and it covered both his paths through our large garden area at the lower end of our property.

We’re always watching for feathers as we walk. Found a few today. This was interesting to see on the path as we walked home.

It’s a deer print…It measures 4 ½” long. This buck is huge! We know it’s a buck because we’ve seen him around here for a few years, but I’ve never been able to get a picture of him before he runs off. His rack is huge, too! Last year we counted at least 10 points. He was in the yard just before dark tonight, but he was chasing two doe and I couldn’t get a shot of his rack. Last year, Mom saw him standing in front of the barn and thought he was a horse. He is enormous. I’ll get a picture of him yet!

Mom was exhausted as she always is when she got home from day care. She ate a little more for dinner than she did last night and stayed awake until after she finished. I found a few really cute craft projects at the store the other day. This weekend we’ll probably work on them. She loves doing craft projects, so that should help keep her busy for the weekend. She gets bored if I don’t keep her occupied the entire time she’s awake.

Maybe while Mom's working on those crafts I'll find some time to finish writing the book reveiws for the books I've finally finished reading. I've managed to read four books in the last two weeks. My "to read" stack is getting smaller. Only five more to go!

See you all soon. Happy November!