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Ready! Aim! Charge! (#848)

The only credit card I ever use is a Kohl’s card. Other than that one, I’m debit all the way, baby.

But Kohl’s lured me a couple Christmases ago when I was about to plunk down a huge chunk of change, by offering an easy 15% discount if I opened an account that day. So I took the bait, knowing I would pay my account off in full every time it has a balance, and also knowing that 15 times per year, Kohl’s would be mailing me—a Very Special And Obviously Loaded Customer—a coupon for 15% off a day’s total purchases.

Two weeks ago, Doug and I made our annual visit to Kohl’s to do some serious holiday shopping. I had my sales circular in hand, plus my 15% off coupon. I addition, there were doing that fabulous thing they do every Christmas—the one where they give you a $10 gift card for every $50 you spend.

We made sure we spent our hard earned credit in multiples of at least $50, because to fall short of that miraculous number would mean forfeiting the coveted $10 card. We may not be the brightest bulbs on the bush, but we’re not dumb enough to leave any cards on the counter.

The only drawback to the gift cards was that they must be spent by December 24, or lost forever.

I can handle a lot in the way of commercial bonuses that border on blackmail, but “lost forever” is more than even I can take.

So today, when my shopping was already finished and I was in the mood to put festive finishing touches on four loads of laundry and dust the cobwebs off the wreath that’s been hanging on the door since this time last year, I realized that time was not on my side.

If I didn’t hightail it to Kohl’s whether I wanted to or not, I would forever lose $80 worth of merchandise.

It took me TWO HOURS to decide how to spend $80. Not counting traveling time! I wandered through that store several times, meeting the same forlorn looking husbands coming and going. First, I’d see them in fragrances, then in lingerie, and finally in jewelry.

The fact that I didn’t meet the same guys back in spatulas speaks well of their good intentions and their hard-won experience from disastrous Christmases gone by, but what does it say about my desperation to spend down my cards?

Spatulas? It’s come to that?

Then there were the women. Two varieties scoured the aisles, and I didn’t fit in with either group. The first were the career gals, dressed for the office and trolling the store during their lunch hours, looking dazed and frazzled. I heard one of them screaming into her cell phone, loud enough for God to hear, “Why didn’t you TELL me you were going to Sam’s? You could have picked up a brisket! What am I going to feed these people? You should have CALLED me!”

If her husband ends up at Kohl’s later to pick up a little something for her, I have a feeling she may score a meat thermometer.

The second group consisted of young moms wheeling toddlers, most of whom have endured about as much shopping as I can stand. “I want my MOCHA!” I heard one yell, and then her little kid said that Starbucks sounded good to him, too.

I spent my cards, and charged another $50 bucks worth of stuff, because Today And Today Only’s Additional 15% Discount If You Use Your Kohl’s Charge was too good to pass up.

Thank God they weren’t passing out any more gift cards, though. I’ve lost the will to shop.

Posted by Katy on 12/21/05
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Time Out (#847)

Yesterday in Starbucks, my current favorite barista, Abby, had on an odd looking Christmas brooch. Or at least that’s what I took it for until I got a closer look.

“Was is that you’re wearing?” I asked. It didn’t sparkle or blink or twinkle or glitz or gleam, so what could it possibly be?

“It’s a digital timer,” she said. “I had a task I needed to complete in ten minutes, so I timed myself. And I got it done.”

“Whoa, baby! I need one of those,” I said. And then out of my mouth came these words, words I didn’t plan or expect to emerge, and yet there they were: “I haven’t gotten anything done in years!”

Of course, that’s not entirely true. I’ve gotten LOTS of things done, just not the kind of things that generally appear on a thoughtful, motivated person’s list of New Year’s resolutions.

Hey, just yesterday I finished wading through Missouri’s 42 Medicare Part D prescription plans to find and sign up for the one that’s best for my mother. By my calculations, and those of the trusty federal government of these United States, she stands to save more than $10,000 on her prescriptions next year.

Ten thousand dollars, people!

If I’d known last January that I’d be called upon to untertake a momentous task like making sense of Part D, you can be sure I would have added it to my list so that I could check it off now!

Wouldn’t THAT have been an eye-popping resolution: “Score drugs for Mom, on the taxpayer’s dime.”

I may get myself one of those timer brooches like my barista has. I need the challenge of getting important things done on a timely basis, of setting, meeting, and exceeding personal goals.

But after the way this year’s gone, I’ll tell you this much: If I get one, it had better have a snooze button.

Posted by Katy on 12/21/05
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Desperate Housewife (#846)

They say desperate times call for desperate measures. What they don’t tell you is that in desperate times, desperate measures don’t seem nearly as…desperate.

I’ve done things these past few months I never imagined doing in my life. Allow me to illustrate.

Last week, when the Funny Farm called to say they were throwing Mom in an ambulance, I grabbed my pre-packed overnight bag and threw my toothbrush in. We didn’t end up staying at the hospital, and Liz volunteered to spend the night with Mom, so I came on home.

I dropped the bag on the counter by the door that night, figuring I might need it again before morning came. Stranger things have happened, believe me.

The next day when I went to brush my teeth, my brush was missing from its holder. I immediately remembered that the toothbrush was in the bag by the back door, a distance of perhaps thirty paces. Exhausted, I took another look at the toothbrush holder exactly zero steps away.

An aged, bristle-missing toothbrush of questionable provenance peeked from behind Doug’s pristine brush.

“Looks good to me,” I heard myself say, and the next thing I knew that puppy was inside my mouth, doing its thing.

This from a girl who not that long ago wrote about how I couldn’t handle it if Doug’s toothbrush and mine were FACING each other in the holder.

Come on, people! Toothbrushes don’t have faces! Lighten up, already!

And WHO CARES that the funky brush I plunged into my precious oral crevices might have seen combat duty scrubbing grout in the shower? I’ve got BIGGER ISSUES!

So. Suffice it to say I’ve thrown all my oral hygiene Standards Of Excellence to the four winds. Unfortunately, they’re not alone out there.

Also blowing around somewhere in the great abyss is my cell phone. If you listen carefully, you may hear the faint ringing riding in on a wintry breeze, and you may be asking yourself right now, “Is anyone EVER going to answer that phone?”

Ummm…probably not. It’s been Out There Somewhere for three entire months, ring-ring-ringaling, ting-ting-tingaling, too. Deal with it. I have.

I’ve now taken the desperate measure of driving in the boonies and beyond largely phoneless, or—if in possession of Doug’s phone—performing the duties of his unwitting and unpaid over-the-road admin assist.

I can now mindlessly multi-task by fielding calls from Doug’s important clients while ambulance-chasing my way to the nearest hospital.

Who knew the old girl had it in her?

One more thing I never thought I’d do: drive without a license. That’s right. I lost it the same day I lost my cell phone, back in September.

The day I realized it was gone, I told Doug he’d need to drive me to the Department Of Motor Vehicles to replace it because I’ve never, NEVER broken the laws of the State Of Missouri by driving licenseless, and I didn’t intend to sully my perfect record now.

He said, “I can’t get away today. But I’ll help you tomorrow.”

By the next day, folks, I’d become a Hardened Criminal—a speeding, red-light-running, ambulance-chasing, someone-else’s-toothbrush-using fugitive of the laws of both God and man.

Now when a check-out clerk asks to see my driver’s license, I just twirl my car keys in my hand, pick up my shopping bag, and say, “Sorry. Don’t got one.”

I’ve got to tell you: once you let yourself cross over to the desperate side, it gets easier and easier to be badder and badder.

Some days I wonder if I can ever go back.

Posted by Katy on 12/17/05
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Where Has She Been All Her Life? (#845)

I called Mom early this morning, right after she should have finished breakfast. I hoped to catch her before she went down for her after breakfast nap, which comes right before her before lunch nap.

Too late. She was sound asleep.

Still, she wanted to talk, so we talked. Um…kind of.

“I am SO MAD,” she said.

“What happened?”

“I woke up at midnight, and patted myself and realized that I had on a diaper!”

“Yeah…”

“And I got furious to think none of my daughters told them that I do not wear diapers!”

“Except that you have for the past three months or so…”

“I NEVER wear diapers when I am in my own home, and this is my home!”

And she’s been back there for five weeks already. This is the first time she figured this out?

“Mom, you can go back to wearing your own underwear, with a pad. All we care is that you have some protection, so that you don’t pee on the floor and slip in it.”

“They started making me wear diapers because six drops of pee landed on the floor. That makes me so mad.”

“You’ve fallen twice now in a puddle of pee, Mom…”

“I DON’T wear DIAPERS.”

“Okay. Well, Mary’s supposed to bring you a new supply today. Tell her she can just take them back to Walmart.”

“Or she can give them to her grandkids.”

“Um…I don’t think they’d fit, would they?”

You should know that my mother weighs 250 pounds.

“Why not?”

“Mom, I think it’s going to be a while before any of those little kids weighs over 200 pounds.”

A pause, during which I hope and pray she’s putting 25 and 200 together.

“Well, I don’t know how much they weigh!”

I’m not going for a chuckle here, people. Right this minute, I’m rather dismayed. I’ll find something to laugh about later today, I’m sure.

I’m going to need a venti latte first, that’s all I know.

Posted by Katy on 12/14/05
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Hey, Can We Drive Through On The Way Home From The ER? (#844)

Thank you all so much for your prayers and well wishes for Mom.

I put in my ten hour shift yesterday, the end result of which wasn’t as bad as I expected. The bone doc said Mom isn’t really much worse off than she was before: that’s the good news.

The bad news, of course, is that she was really bad off before!

The two sections of broken bone have shifted rather dramatically, but don’t seem to be hitting a nerve (she still has feeling and movement in her hand). And evidently the only other thing we’re to be “watching for” is the bone actually coming through the skin.

That would be something to see, huh? Should we charge admission?

The bigger event actually happened before I arrived yesterday morning. My sister Liz had spent the night with Mummy, since the ER doc had wrapped her torso tightly in a sheet so that her arm couldn’t move, and she needed extra help.

In the middle of the night, Mom must have pushed her call button, though she doesn’t remember doing it. The aide came in and asked Mom what she needed.

Liz listened from the couch in the next room. Mom only answered with one word, “Bathroom.” But then the aide couldn’t seem to get Mom out of the bed. The girl was about to give up and leave the room when Liz arrived on the scene.

Mom was sweating profusely, couldn’t speak clearly, and later remembered that her good harm had fallen limp to her side and she was unable to lift it.

Liz took one look at her and said to the aide, “I think you should check her blood sugar.”

It was 42. A dangerously low level for anyone, and Mom’s an insulin-dependent diabetic. The aide brought orange juice which Mom could barely swallow, she was falling so hard and fast. They rechecked her blood sugar every hour until they got it up to 70.

Liz doesn’t consider herself to be “medically inclined,” but I told her any 50-year-old woman who’s raised kids and has a lick of sense can discern when someone’s in obvious physical distress.

She said, “But isn’t it terrible that I had to be the one to suggest that the girl test her blood?”

“Yes,” I said, “it’s terrible. And necessary. Mom could easily have died if you hadn’t been there.”

Then Liz remembered that on the way home from the ER the night before, Mom wanted some of her trademark chili-cheese tater tots from Sonic.

“I’ll bet it was the tater tots that did her in,” Liz said.

“What are you saying?” I said. “You don’t think Mom should become a tatertotatarian?” That’s the hilarious word Sonic has come up with in their latest TV ads.

“What I’m saying,” Liz answered, “is that if she’s not careful, she’s going to become a comatosatatertotatarian.”

Score one for Liz!

Posted by Katy on 12/13/05
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Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down (#843)

Some of you will remember that on Saturday, August 6, my mother fell and broke her left humerus (upper arm) and a right rib.

You may or may not know that her arm is destined to never heal, and that she’s such a poor candidate for surgery that two well-respected ortho docs agreed she shouldn’t go forward with an operation.

Only a couple of you will know that she fell again on Saturday, October 8, and broke a rib on the left side. I didn’t blog about it at the time, because there was the small matter of a very undignified detail that would almost have to be said in order to make the story compelling.

Today I’ve decided to reveal that small detail. Why, you may ask? Because yesterday, Saturday, December 10, Mom fell again in the exact same manner as Fall Number Two, and reinjured her broken arm, in the precise same area as Fall Number One.

How did she fall? She slipped in a puddle of her own pee, that’s how.

She’s been advised she can take off the annoying fracture brace that she’s worn since August, and only put it on if she’s going to be doing something “strenuous.”

Unfortunately for her, strenuous can easily be defined as trying to pull up her own pants, or perhaps turning the pages of a newspaper.

So she wasn’t wearing her brace yesterday, since she was taking the nap after lunch that comes right before the nap before dinner. Neither was she wearing a disposable undergarment or any long pants.

Yeah, you’ve got the picture now. For some reason known only to God, she was naked from the waist down. A fall-in-a-puddle-of-pee not waiting long to happen.

She insisted she wasn’t hurt at all, but when I arrived there this morning, I could see the shiner from across the room.

“You hurt your left arm again,” I said.

“Well, it hurts a lot, but I don’t know why.”

“You fell yesterday in the bathroom, remember?”

“Yes, but I didn’t hurt myself. I already told you that.”

“But, Mom, there’s an eight-inch diameter green bruise on your arm. And it’s swollen even more than usual.”

“I can’t imagine why,” she said.

“You fell, Mom. And another thing: Why are you lying here with your long pants down around your knees?”

“I couldn’t get them pulled up all the way.”

“This is really dangerous, Mom. Walking like this.”

“I’m not walking. I’m sleeping.”

“When did you pull your pants down?”

“When I went to the bathroom.”

“How did you get from the bathroom back to your bed?”

“I walked, silly.”

“Bingo! We have a winner! Mom, if you can’t pull up your pants, you have to ring for help. That’s why Patricia and Kania are here. They want to help you. You can’t try to walk with your pants around your knees.”

“No one’s ever told me that before.”

“I’m telling you now, okay?”

I called the ortho doc, and he said, “If the bone is not poking through the skin (“Hello! Don’t you think I would have mentioned it if THAT had happened?”), I don’t think you need to bring her to the ER. But do come into our office for an xray first thing in the morning.”

Um. Okay. Whatever you say, Doc, but I have a feeling something evil this way comes. In the meantime, I guess I’ll go get another venti latte to replace the one I got on the way to Mom’s which I spilled ENTIRELY in my car without taking the first sip, and head home. I’m really anxious to let Doug experience our vehicle’s “new latte smell.”

Before I sign off, I want to mention that the weird thing about this latest fall—besides the fact that Mom’s falls are spaced two months apart and always on a Saturday with an even-numbered date—is that…

RED ALERT! INSERT FOUR HOUR BREAK FROM BLOGGING FOR EMERGENCY ROOM RUN WITH ELDERLY MOTHER HERE!

I have no idea how I might have finished that thought. I’m not even sure what my name is anymore. Oh, yeah. Fallible.

So the nurse called mid-typed-sentence from assisted living to say Mom’s arm had swelled to something like twice it’s already bizarrely shaped self since I’d left there a short while earlier, and that she was shipping Mom to the ER in an ambulance.

There’s some serious derrierre (or derierre, or derierre or possibly deriere, but I don’t think so) covering going on right about now, because today’s nurse believes with all her caregiving heart that yesterday’s nurse should have called an ambulance while Mom was on the bathroom floor—puddle of pee notwithstanding—and that just because THAT woman was derelict in duty doesn’t mean SHE intends to be.

Still, I think she made the right call.

They took a new xray and the two sections of broken bone have apparently done some serious shifting, which clearly could have happened not so much from the fall itself, as from being helped up from the floor by two women at the facility, one of whom’s job description is the assisted living equivalent of a Cruise Director.

Sheesh.

Anyway, they put her arm in a sling and then bound it to her body with a folded sheet and taped it tightly together, rendering her arm completely useless and her unable to use her walker until further notice. I’ll take her at the first opportunity tomorrow to see her ortho doc yet again.

“Hey,” I said, always looking for an opportunity to inject levity into an otherwise awful situation, “Now instead of calling you Mommy, we can call you Mummy.”

And you know what? In spite of everything she’s been through, the lady very nearly smiled. And then, just for good measure, so did I.

Posted by Katy on 12/11/05
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To Do Or Not To Do? That Is The Question (#842)

I’ll be the first to admit I’m crummy at setting goals and even more pathetic at reaching them.

Making to-do lists, though, is a task at which I excel. Unfortunately for me and the various and sundry people who might ride to their own personal success on my over-achieving coattails, I am clueless when it comes to prioritizing the items on said list.

I’ve read “Getting Things Done” or, I should say, part of it. I couldn’t even get THAT done. I think I’ll put it back in the to-be-read pile and give it another go.

Who knows? I might get it read all the way to Chapter Three next time.

Then there’s “The Tipping Point” and “Blink,” books that would have no doubt infused me with the understanding that if I could just take a project so far, it would then magically develop a life and ambition of its own, and carry itself through to a wildly sensational conclusion.

I’m afraid the tipping point for me came when I blinked once, then twice, and then fell asleep altogether.

The truth is, I’ve never been able to ignore the urgent for the sake of the so-called important. I’m not even sure I know the difference.

One fellow whose motivational daily e-letter I read insists that every night before he goes to bed he makes his to-do list for the next day. I’m okay with this strategy so far, but what he does after bulleting the items is where he loses me.

He marks each item according to whether or not it’s urgent, whether another person will get on his case if he fails to do it, whether it might cost him more time or money down the road if he postpones doing it, or whether it’s truly important.

I’m confused by the fact that the folks who are able to discern the urgent from the important never find ANYTHING important about the urgent.

The “urgent” seems to be even worse than an interruption to them—it’s more like an annoyance, like a fly that won’t stop buzzing around their ears. They refuse to dignify that pesty fly’s actions by responding with a good old-fashioned swat and having done with it.

Invariably, these masters of the to-do list end up advising me to ignore the urgent, even if she’s on her way to the emergency room with multiple broken bones or abscesses on her liver and gall bladder that will kill her within 48 hours if something isn’t done about it RIGHT NOW!

Instead, according to those in the know who are WAY more advanced on the board game of life than I am, I should take my daily list of 25 items, and choose to do the four or so that I determine will be the most important to me FIVE YEARS FROM NOW.

The idea is that five years from now, I won’t regret it if I’ve exercised, travelled, written a novel, invested wisely, and taken care of my health, because those things will have kept me alive and kicking, and probably increased my health, wealth, and wisdom.

But this is what I keep asking myself: What will be the most important things on my old earthly to-do lists when I stand before the Lord?

Does He really value my fledgling writing career more than me caring for my mother?

In five years, I doubt I’ll have her in my life to care for anymore. Will I look back and say she was just an urgent demand on my time and attention that I rightfully ignored, and that I’m so much closer to my personal, professional, financial, and spiritual goals because I deleted her from my list?

Or will I realize that sometimes the urgent and the important are one and the same?

I guess only time will tell.

Posted by Katy on 12/10/05
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Freak Out! (#841)

At Halloween, I posted a vintage pic of an endearing group of miniature clowns, consisting of my kids and their cousins. My sister Bridget commented that clowns have always freaked her out, and I had to admit I feel the same way.

The only way I could handle dressing my innocent kids up in red wigs and atrocious make-up was by repeating over and over to myself, “These $2 costumes were the cheapest deal this side of the Mississippi. Get over yourself!”

But the Christmas season holds a particular terror for me, one that’s WAY scarier than clowns will ever be: Nutcrackers!

Doug and I enjoyed a lovely day of holiday shopping today, except for the fact that everywhere we went, we were fairly assailed by the sight of them. Golfing nutcrackers, bagpiping nutcrackers, cowboy nutcrackers, all with the selfsame squared off jawline and beady eyes.

I made myself pull the lever on a couple of those dudes, because you know, it’s very important to face our fears.

And when their mouths jerked open and then clamped down like a vise, I’m proud to say, I only screamed a little.

Anything about Christmas that terrifies you?

Posted by Katy on 12/10/05
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Santa, Baby (#840)

It all started last Christmas when my niece Erin and her fiance Josh threw their lots in with a couple of their cousins to purchase my mom a life-sized singing and dancing Santa Claus.

Now, Mom lived in a small one-bedroom place, where the only spot she could find for her table-top tree was on top of a kitchen counter. But did that stop her from embracing a jolly new fellow with a tummy like a bowlful of Jello?

Of course not! She absolutely loved the old coot.

At the end of the season, her disassembled decorations were boxed and crammed into her one walk-in closet—actually her only closet. She had to get rid of two extra bedspreads and a 30-gallon Rubbermaid container of photos to make room.

But then last March, she moved into a different apartment in the same complex, a unit in which the closet was clearly not meant to accomodate a tree, must less a Claus.

So I loaded her Christmas stuff into my station wagon (you read that right; we’re the last SUV-hold-outs in the lower 48) and added her stash to my own enormous basement holiday storehouse.

At the time, I didn’t imagine she’d live to see another Christmas, the diagnostic news was so grim.

I was pretty sure back then that I’d seen Santa to his final resting place, so much so that the box containing his remains was laid out horizontally on the cold steel shelf. Rest in peace, good man…

Since March, Mom’s spent three months in a nursing home, and now has switched apartments yet again—back into assisted living.

Not long after settling into her new digs, she began asking about Mr. Claus.

“You have him at your house, right? ‘Cause I’m going to want him here soon.”

Then the emails started in earnest. My brother John, whose children have put the ornaments on Mom’s tree the past few years, wanted to verify that I would be delivering the goods to Mom’s apartment.

“I’ll have them there on Saturday morning,” I responded, as efficient as all get-out. “You can begin the festivities as early as Saturday afternoon.”

Doug and I loaded up the wagon and hauled the tree, wreath, decorations, and Santa into Mom’s place, right on schedule.

We pulled Santa out of the box by his beard and were shocked to find that since last Christmas, he’d become a double amputee.

“Where’s his rear end and legs?” Mom asked, as if Doug and I hadn’t noticed the poor gent’s boggling disabilities.

“Don’t worry,” Doug said in that ever-optimistic way of his. “His tush is here somewhere. We’ll just unpack the rest of these boxes…”

Mom sat and watched, her eyes getting bigger and sadder with each passing moment. When the final box was emptied, she couldn’t take it any more.

“Santa can’t very well dance without his hips, now can he?” she said, stark disappointment coloring her features.

I got the feeling she was calling into question not only my organizational and administrative skills, but perhaps my caregiving sensibilities, as well.

“Look, Mom, we’ll find his rear end, OK?”

I sounded more confident than I felt, because I knew Doug had hauled everything of Mom’s our basement had to offer. I also knew we’d just come from a trip to Goodwill, where we’d dropped off umpteen boxes of who-knows-what, any one of which might have accidentally contained the Claus’s patoot.

Instead of visions of Santa Claus dancing, I had visions of Santa Claus qualifying for a very special-needs wheelchair. With a little luck, on Medicare’s dime.

Doug and I left my freaked-out mother (who wouldn’t be a little dismayed by the sight of half a life-sized man propped up by the sliding glass door?) and hustled home to scour the basement and the attic, too.

Nothing. More emails, to all the sibs this time.

“Buttless Santa Alert!”

I begged them to check their own basements and attics, in case I was wrong about me being the one who took all Mom’s Christmas stuff. One by one, the dismal news came back to me.

“No Santa butts here. Or Santa legs, either. Sorry. Better luck next year. Ha-ha-ha-ha.”

I resigned myself to shelling out fifty bucks to get my mother another life-sized singing and dancing Santa. I figured the double amputee could be re-interred in the box from whence he came, and reshelved horizontally in the depths of the basement, along with my reputation as a caring, loving daughter.

And then, one final email—one message of redemption to save me from myself during this emotion-charged Christmas season—arrived from my sister Liz.

“This came to me like a flash in the middle of the night,” she wrote. “I remembered something Erin told me when she purchased the thing. He collapses on himself! If you twist his head, his legs will pop out.”

We all have so much to be thankful for this Christmas, don’t we?

I’ve got to say, though, that in all my years on earth, this is the first time I’ve given thanks for Santa’s rear end.

Posted by Katy on 12/08/05
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Too Bad I Didn’t Know About Title Loans Back Then (#604)

If you dig down in my archives as far as you can, you’ll find yourself in December, 2002.

I didn’t know this until last night—when I went to find the very first blog post I wrote back in December, 2000—but the first two years worth of posts didn’t make it into the archives when we switched to a new blogging tool a while back.

I’ve got a really cute guy, though, and he’s got my complete archives on his computer, because he’s the one who exported them all from Blogger.

But he’s the only guy who’s got them, and even though he’s in the next room and I can see the archives whenever I want, you guys aren’t as…um…fortunate.

Perhaps my guy will be able to figure this out, since he’s already determined that the reason the rest of the archives didn’t transfer is that I didn’t title each post then like I do now.

In the meantime, you’ll have to take my word for it that December 7 is my blogiversary. Five whole years!

Who knew being Fallible could be so much fun?

Posted by Katy on 12/07/05
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Footloose (#602)

So my sister Liz purchased these really cute shoes for Mom when she was about to leave the nursing home and move into her assisted living apartment. They’re slip-ons, a must for a lady with a permanently broken arm, and resemble mocassins. Or moccasins. Or possibly moccassins, but I don’t think so. Whatever.

I liked them so much that I couldn’t wait for a chance to get over to Payless to grab a pair. Today I wore them to Mom’s. We sat side by side on her couch, going over some paperwork and chatting.

She had both leather-clad feet firmly planted on the floor, but I had one of my feet resting on the coffee table right in front of us.

I waited and waited for her to say something about my new shoes, and got nothing.

“Mom,” I finally said, “I can’t believe you haven’t noticed that we’re shoe twins.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “Oh,” she said, “I thought that was my foot.”

Posted by Katy on 12/06/05
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But Then What Would I Do With All My Bad Judgment? (#601)

The emails and phone calls have begun.

You know the ones I mean, where the circle of friends and family finally becomes unbroken, as once a year everyone tries to worm out of everyone else what everyone wants for Christmas.

I haven’t even started shopping, and already I’m exhausted.

“Mom, can you find out from Carrie and Scott and Brooke what they’d like? And while you’re at it, how about you and Dad? And Aunt Lynn, Aunt Nancy, Uncle Craig, and Grandma Adele?”

Sorry. Carrie and Scott and Brooke have already given me their short lists, and those items are mine, all mine. I’m not sharing with the likes of you! As for aunts and uncles, you figure it out. I think I can help you with Grandma Adele, though. She wants her car keys back, and her car, too. Good luck with that!

“Hey, Mom, I’ve only got today to shop, so if you could answer me in the next five minutes before I head to Best Buy, that would be great. What should I get for the McKenna family gift exchange? Would Grandma Mary like Waking Ned Devine on DVD, or does she even have a DVD player?”

Hate to break it to you, kiddo, but Grandma Mary is currently mystified that the remote control for her lift recliner won’t turn on the TV. She would think a DVD was an old 45-rpm record that had been left out in the sun too long.

“Katy, I really need some ideas for your kids. And soon. I’m shopping online, and I’m gonna lose the free shipping deal if I don’t get my order in by midnight. No pressure, though. As long as you call me back by 11 pm, I’m good to go.”

Okay. My kids have given me a very few ideas that I don’t plan to personally pursue, so I guess I could pass those along. The most useful list came from Kevin in this morning’s email.

I’d asked him for his best ideas, more to facilitate the needs of other gift-givers than for my own purposes. He mentioned a few technological items, and even provided links for ease of purchase. He threw out the names of a few movies and CDs, too. I’ll pass on most of his requests to others more desperate than I am.

But the piece de resistance, the hot potato I’m definitely NOT planning to pass on, was the last item on his list.

It read “Clothing items. (Use good judgment.)”

I’m sorry, but obviously God gave me all this patently bad judgment for a reason, right? Far be it from me to waste so precious a commodity at Christmas, of all times.

Where’s the fun in that?

Posted by Katy on 12/04/05
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Starbucks: The Day Care Center From Hello (#600)

“Hello. I’d like a non-fat venti two-Splenda latte,” said the young mother.

She carried a baby on one hip and had two other toddlers in tow. The little boy wasn’t happy from the minute he stomped through the door, and the $2 cookie she purchased for him didn’t assuage his beligerence one little bit.

I could have told her it wouldn’t.

They moved to the back room, where they met up with another apparently prosperous stay-at-home mom and her child. The Starbucks I frequent is really large, but after today, I realize it’s not spacious enough for my brain not to get fried in the presence of such persistently obnoxious behavior.

And I’m not talking about the kid, either.

The noise was one thing, and after a full hour—during which time I decided not to leave until I observed how the drama unfolded—my stressed-out deaf ear resounded with a high-volume ringing to rival the bell on any red kettle in the country.

Noise, though, I can handle.

I have a very, extremely low tolerance for parents, however, who imagine not only that ignoring their misbehaving children is a wonderful form of training, but also that they are entitled to practice this “training” in a public venue, as if the rest of us innocent folks deserve that level of holiday punishment.

Near the end of the hour’s disturbance, the two moms and their kids meandered toward the door, little Jake still screaming bloody murder. It sounded like he was shrieking “I want the paper!” over and over again, and while it doesn’t make much sense to me to lust after the Kansas City Star when you can have cookies out the wazoo, there’s no accounting for taste.

The toddler ran in and out among the tiny tables, knocked into a display of CDs with his fist, beat his head against the glass windowpanes, and punched his silent sister while his mother and her friend purused the shelves of Christmas coffees and ornaments.

Mom never glanced his way or spoke a single word to him until she finished her shopping, at which point she walked to the door, opened it, and said, “Come on, Jake, honey.”

The last time I saw him, he was running through the bustling parking lot like a banshee. Mom never looked his way as she calmly buckled the baby into the carseat.

What exactly did little Jake learn at the ritzy Starbucks Day Care Center today? And how much more than the cost of a gourmet cookie will it end up costing all of us down the road?

Posted by Katy on 11/29/05
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So Much Less To Be Thankful For… (#599)

Thanksgiving has come and gone and we’re all stuffed to the gills. But that’s no excuse for our homes to be stuffed, too.

Last fall, I wrote about the book I had to buy because of it’s catchy title, “Lose Two Hundred Pounds This Weekend!” I spent about a month weeding through every inch of this place, or so I thought.

What’s amazing is that I haven’t had five minutes to shop in the entire past year, and yet here I am, losing another gazillion pounds. And it feels SO GOOD!

Last night, Doug listed a bunch of stuff on eBay. This morning we had the happy news that we’d been paypaled a cool $60. Motivating, huh?

Today, we’ve made a run to the library with a book donation weighing a hundred pounds or so. I’ve accumulated into one bag the baby clothes I’ve been buying on clearance for a local ministry, and I’ll deliver them tomorrow. And I’ve dragged the trash bags of clothes down from the attic for the annual donation to the local thrift store.

We’ll make a run to the toxic waste drop-off site with scores of old paint cans and other household chemicals, and on the way take a bunch of new gifty items (with the tags still on) to the Salvation Army for their Christmas gift store.

In the process of weeding, we’ve uncovered more unadulterated trash than any household has a right to be hoarding, and hauled it to the street.

In one day, we’ve probably processed several hundred pounds of stuff that will soon cease to be a part of our lives. Think how much money slipped through my fingers to purchase it to begin with, and then how many times I’ve ended up handling each item while I tried to decide how on earth to dispense with it.

There’s a lot of worthless guilt associated with these accumulation/possession/maintenance/dispersal behaviors, and I don’t have time for it anymore. I’m through holding onto stuff just because I “should”—especially when sometimes “should” just means that I feel so bad for buying it to start with that I have to justify myself by holding onto it!

Who needs that kind of long-term punishment? Not me!

I keep imagining that one day God might speak to us in our heart of hearts, and say something like “Go.”

And that instead of answering, “Yes, Lord. Just name the place!” we’d have to say, “Do you have a few years, God? Because that’s how long it’s going to take us to get rid of all this junk.”

Man, I’d hate to have to say that to someone like Him.

Posted by Katy on 11/26/05
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The Highlighter Of My Day (#598)

“I wish I had your life.”

I would have looked over my shoulder right then to see who the classy young woman might have been speaking to, but I knew there was a thick wall behind the couch on which I sat. Besides, even though I might have heard her wrong, there was no mistaking the fact that she stared directly at me.

Me, of all people.

“Huh?” I said, impressing her even more, no doubt, than she must have been by sizing up my ratty jeans and Old Navy t-shirt, on which the screen-printed American flag and the year “2001” had nearly flaked off.

“Your life,” she said. “I want it.”

She twirled a short blond curl that had managed to escape from the crocheted cloche on her head. She was dressed entirely in black, in that super-put-together way that New York City women have.

In fact, the only colorful item on her table—besides a red leather cell phone case—was a yellow highlighter.

“I’m studying so hard,” she said. “And I have to highlight everything, just to help me concentrate.”

I had noticed, in the two minutes I’d allowed myself to sit at Starbucks before digging into the caretaking duties of the day, that she was one of those students for whom the textbook manufacturers should just publish their materials on yellow paper and call it a day.

“What are you studying?” I asked.

“I’m going to be a certified financial planner. And then I’ll work for my father full-time.”

“Hey, that sounds great—”

“But you don’t understand. It’s really, really hard. I had to call my dad to ask him what a ‘zero coupon’ is and he said something about interest rates, but I still don’t get it. So now I’m trying to find where I highlighted about zero coupons in my book but it’s really, really hard to find…”

I could have told her why, but I held my peace.

“...And all I do is study for the little tests that happen at the end of each of these books, and then I’ll have to study for the really big test that happens at the end of all twelve of the books, and I really hate tests.”

“How often do you have to show up for class?”

“Oh, it’s all online, and it’s at my own pace. And I have lots of free time. I work part-time, but my weekends and evenings are free. I live at home, so my mom does my laundry and cooks my meals. But it’s really, really tough and now I’m pretty sure my boyfriend’s going to propose to me over Thanksgiving and that’s got me all nervous and then I’m distracted and so I have to highlight everything I read or I won’t be able to remember it.”

I wanted to help—I really, really did.

“Well, when he proposes, make sure you get a really, really big diamond, because maybe looking at it will help you calm down during all those tests.”

Yeah, I know. Pretty lame.

“Oh, I’m not that kind of girl,” she said. “I really don’t care about things like that. I wouldn’t care about an engagement ring at all except for the fact that I really, really love huge gemstones of every kind and so I do want a really big diamond. But only because I really, really like them—that’s the only reason.”

By this time, I’d stood because my five minute break had ended and because I had to stand closer to her so that I wouldn’t miss her answer when I asked my final question. I leaned in a bit so no one else could overhear, and a straggled piece of my unkempt hair tangled for a second with her one perfect curl.

“So why exactly do you wish you had my life?” I asked.

“Because,” she said, “you have all day to do nothing but relax at Starbucks.”

Posted by Katy on 11/22/05
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		more fallible attitude »

Personal blog of christian writer & fallible mom Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri Katy is represented by Greg Johnson at WordServe Literary Read more Katy at LateBoomer.net Follow Katy on Twitter Follow Katy on Facebook 123 Recent Posts Try Becoming Brenda Starr Off Beat Scattered That’s It So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What? The Spoon Sciatica Sweetheart A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices. As with everything in life, balance is key. Slow down, you move too fast… Yeah, I know. I have issues. Search Advanced Search Syndicate Login E me at katy @ ngenius.com	Ready! Aim! Charge! (#848) The only credit card I ever use is a Kohl’s card. Other than that one, I’m debit all the way, baby. But Kohl’s lured me a couple Christmases ago when I was about to plunk down a huge chunk of change, by offering an easy 15% discount if I opened an account that day. So I took the bait, knowing I would pay my account off in full every time it has a balance, and also knowing that 15 times per year, Kohl’s would be mailing me—a Very Special And Obviously Loaded Customer—a coupon for 15% off a day’s total purchases. Two weeks ago, Doug and I made our annual visit to Kohl’s to do some serious holiday shopping. I had my sales circular in hand, plus my 15% off coupon. I addition, there were doing that fabulous thing they do every Christmas—the one where they give you a $10 gift card for every $50 you spend. We made sure we spent our hard earned credit in multiples of at least $50, because to fall short of that miraculous number would mean forfeiting the coveted $10 card. We may not be the brightest bulbs on the bush, but we’re not dumb enough to leave any cards on the counter. The only drawback to the gift cards was that they must be spent by December 24, or lost forever. I can handle a lot in the way of commercial bonuses that border on blackmail, but “lost forever” is more than even I can take. So today, when my shopping was already finished and I was in the mood to put festive finishing touches on four loads of laundry and dust the cobwebs off the wreath that’s been hanging on the door since this time last year, I realized that time was not on my side. If I didn’t hightail it to Kohl’s whether I wanted to or not, I would forever lose $80 worth of merchandise. It took me TWO HOURS to decide how to spend $80. Not counting traveling time! I wandered through that store several times, meeting the same forlorn looking husbands coming and going. First, I’d see them in fragrances, then in lingerie, and finally in jewelry. The fact that I didn’t meet the same guys back in spatulas speaks well of their good intentions and their hard-won experience from disastrous Christmases gone by, but what does it say about my desperation to spend down my cards? Spatulas? It’s come to that? Then there were the women. Two varieties scoured the aisles, and I didn’t fit in with either group. The first were the career gals, dressed for the office and trolling the store during their lunch hours, looking dazed and frazzled. I heard one of them screaming into her cell phone, loud enough for God to hear, “Why didn’t you TELL me you were going to Sam’s? You could have picked up a brisket! What am I going to feed these people? You should have CALLED me!” If her husband ends up at Kohl’s later to pick up a little something for her, I have a feeling she may score a meat thermometer. The second group consisted of young moms wheeling toddlers, most of whom have endured about as much shopping as I can stand. “I want my MOCHA!” I heard one yell, and then her little kid said that Starbucks sounded good to him, too. I spent my cards, and charged another $50 bucks worth of stuff, because Today And Today Only’s Additional 15% Discount If You Use Your Kohl’s Charge was too good to pass up. Thank God they weren’t passing out any more gift cards, though. I’ve lost the will to shop. Posted by Katy on 12/21/05 Permalink Time Out (#847) Yesterday in Starbucks, my current favorite barista, Abby, had on an odd looking Christmas brooch. Or at least that’s what I took it for until I got a closer look. “Was is that you’re wearing?” I asked. It didn’t sparkle or blink or twinkle or glitz or gleam, so what could it possibly be? “It’s a digital timer,” she said. “I had a task I needed to complete in ten minutes, so I timed myself. And I got it done.” “Whoa, baby! I need one of those,” I said. And then out of my mouth came these words, words I didn’t plan or expect to emerge, and yet there they were: “I haven’t gotten anything done in years!” Of course, that’s not entirely true. I’ve gotten LOTS of things done, just not the kind of things that generally appear on a thoughtful, motivated person’s list of New Year’s resolutions. Hey, just yesterday I finished wading through Missouri’s 42 Medicare Part D prescription plans to find and sign up for the one that’s best for my mother. By my calculations, and those of the trusty federal government of these United States, she stands to save more than $10,000 on her prescriptions next year. Ten thousand dollars, people! If I’d known last January that I’d be called upon to untertake a momentous task like making sense of Part D, you can be sure I would have added it to my list so that I could check it off now! Wouldn’t THAT have been an eye-popping resolution: “Score drugs for Mom, on the taxpayer’s dime.” I may get myself one of those timer brooches like my barista has. I need the challenge of getting important things done on a timely basis, of setting, meeting, and exceeding personal goals. But after the way this year’s gone, I’ll tell you this much: If I get one, it had better have a snooze button. Posted by Katy on 12/21/05 Permalink Desperate Housewife (#846) They say desperate times call for desperate measures. What they don’t tell you is that in desperate times, desperate measures don’t seem nearly as…desperate. I’ve done things these past few months I never imagined doing in my life. Allow me to illustrate. Last week, when the Funny Farm called to say they were throwing Mom in an ambulance, I grabbed my pre-packed overnight bag and threw my toothbrush in. We didn’t end up staying at the hospital, and Liz volunteered to spend the night with Mom, so I came on home. I dropped the bag on the counter by the door that night, figuring I might need it again before morning came. Stranger things have happened, believe me. The next day when I went to brush my teeth, my brush was missing from its holder. I immediately remembered that the toothbrush was in the bag by the back door, a distance of perhaps thirty paces. Exhausted, I took another look at the toothbrush holder exactly zero steps away. An aged, bristle-missing toothbrush of questionable provenance peeked from behind Doug’s pristine brush. “Looks good to me,” I heard myself say, and the next thing I knew that puppy was inside my mouth, doing its thing. This from a girl who not that long ago wrote about how I couldn’t handle it if Doug’s toothbrush and mine were FACING each other in the holder. Come on, people! Toothbrushes don’t have faces! Lighten up, already! And WHO CARES that the funky brush I plunged into my precious oral crevices might have seen combat duty scrubbing grout in the shower? I’ve got BIGGER ISSUES! So. Suffice it to say I’ve thrown all my oral hygiene Standards Of Excellence to the four winds. Unfortunately, they’re not alone out there. Also blowing around somewhere in the great abyss is my cell phone. If you listen carefully, you may hear the faint ringing riding in on a wintry breeze, and you may be asking yourself right now, “Is anyone EVER going to answer that phone?” Ummm…probably not. It’s been Out There Somewhere for three entire months, ring-ring-ringaling, ting-ting-tingaling, too. Deal with it. I have. I’ve now taken the desperate measure of driving in the boonies and beyond largely phoneless, or—if in possession of Doug’s phone—performing the duties of his unwitting and unpaid over-the-road admin assist. I can now mindlessly multi-task by fielding calls from Doug’s important clients while ambulance-chasing my way to the nearest hospital. Who knew the old girl had it in her? One more thing I never thought I’d do: drive without a license. That’s right. I lost it the same day I lost my cell phone, back in September. The day I realized it was gone, I told Doug he’d need to drive me to the Department Of Motor Vehicles to replace it because I’ve never, NEVER broken the laws of the State Of Missouri by driving licenseless, and I didn’t intend to sully my perfect record now. He said, “I can’t get away today. But I’ll help you tomorrow.” By the next day, folks, I’d become a Hardened Criminal—a speeding, red-light-running, ambulance-chasing, someone-else’s-toothbrush-using fugitive of the laws of both God and man. Now when a check-out clerk asks to see my driver’s license, I just twirl my car keys in my hand, pick up my shopping bag, and say, “Sorry. Don’t got one.” I’ve got to tell you: once you let yourself cross over to the desperate side, it gets easier and easier to be badder and badder. Some days I wonder if I can ever go back. Posted by Katy on 12/17/05 Permalink Where Has She Been All Her Life? (#845) I called Mom early this morning, right after she should have finished breakfast. I hoped to catch her before she went down for her after breakfast nap, which comes right before her before lunch nap. Too late. She was sound asleep. Still, she wanted to talk, so we talked. Um…kind of. “I am SO MAD,” she said. “What happened?” “I woke up at midnight, and patted myself and realized that I had on a diaper!” “Yeah…” “And I got furious to think none of my daughters told them that I do not wear diapers!” “Except that you have for the past three months or so…” “I NEVER wear diapers when I am in my own home, and this is my home!” And she’s been back there for five weeks already. This is the first time she figured this out? “Mom, you can go back to wearing your own underwear, with a pad. All we care is that you have some protection, so that you don’t pee on the floor and slip in it.” “They started making me wear diapers because six drops of pee landed on the floor. That makes me so mad.” “You’ve fallen twice now in a puddle of pee, Mom…” “I DON’T wear DIAPERS.” “Okay. Well, Mary’s supposed to bring you a new supply today. Tell her she can just take them back to Walmart.” “Or she can give them to her grandkids.” “Um…I don’t think they’d fit, would they?” You should know that my mother weighs 250 pounds. “Why not?” “Mom, I think it’s going to be a while before any of those little kids weighs over 200 pounds.” A pause, during which I hope and pray she’s putting 25 and 200 together. “Well, I don’t know how much they weigh!” I’m not going for a chuckle here, people. Right this minute, I’m rather dismayed. I’ll find something to laugh about later today, I’m sure. I’m going to need a venti latte first, that’s all I know. Posted by Katy on 12/14/05 Permalink Hey, Can We Drive Through On The Way Home From The ER? (#844) Thank you all so much for your prayers and well wishes for Mom. I put in my ten hour shift yesterday, the end result of which wasn’t as bad as I expected. The bone doc said Mom isn’t really much worse off than she was before: that’s the good news. The bad news, of course, is that she was really bad off before! The two sections of broken bone have shifted rather dramatically, but don’t seem to be hitting a nerve (she still has feeling and movement in her hand). And evidently the only other thing we’re to be “watching for” is the bone actually coming through the skin. That would be something to see, huh? Should we charge admission? The bigger event actually happened before I arrived yesterday morning. My sister Liz had spent the night with Mummy, since the ER doc had wrapped her torso tightly in a sheet so that her arm couldn’t move, and she needed extra help. In the middle of the night, Mom must have pushed her call button, though she doesn’t remember doing it. The aide came in and asked Mom what she needed. Liz listened from the couch in the next room. Mom only answered with one word, “Bathroom.” But then the aide couldn’t seem to get Mom out of the bed. The girl was about to give up and leave the room when Liz arrived on the scene. Mom was sweating profusely, couldn’t speak clearly, and later remembered that her good harm had fallen limp to her side and she was unable to lift it. Liz took one look at her and said to the aide, “I think you should check her blood sugar.” It was 42. A dangerously low level for anyone, and Mom’s an insulin-dependent diabetic. The aide brought orange juice which Mom could barely swallow, she was falling so hard and fast. They rechecked her blood sugar every hour until they got it up to 70. Liz doesn’t consider herself to be “medically inclined,” but I told her any 50-year-old woman who’s raised kids and has a lick of sense can discern when someone’s in obvious physical distress. She said, “But isn’t it terrible that I had to be the one to suggest that the girl test her blood?” “Yes,” I said, “it’s terrible. And necessary. Mom could easily have died if you hadn’t been there.” Then Liz remembered that on the way home from the ER the night before, Mom wanted some of her trademark chili-cheese tater tots from Sonic. “I’ll bet it was the tater tots that did her in,” Liz said. “What are you saying?” I said. “You don’t think Mom should become a tatertotatarian?” That’s the hilarious word Sonic has come up with in their latest TV ads. “What I’m saying,” Liz answered, “is that if she’s not careful, she’s going to become a comatosatatertotatarian.” Score one for Liz! Posted by Katy on 12/13/05 Permalink Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down (#843) Some of you will remember that on Saturday, August 6, my mother fell and broke her left humerus (upper arm) and a right rib. You may or may not know that her arm is destined to never heal, and that she’s such a poor candidate for surgery that two well-respected ortho docs agreed she shouldn’t go forward with an operation. Only a couple of you will know that she fell again on Saturday, October 8, and broke a rib on the left side. I didn’t blog about it at the time, because there was the small matter of a very undignified detail that would almost have to be said in order to make the story compelling. Today I’ve decided to reveal that small detail. Why, you may ask? Because yesterday, Saturday, December 10, Mom fell again in the exact same manner as Fall Number Two, and reinjured her broken arm, in the precise same area as Fall Number One. How did she fall? She slipped in a puddle of her own pee, that’s how. She’s been advised she can take off the annoying fracture brace that she’s worn since August, and only put it on if she’s going to be doing something “strenuous.” Unfortunately for her, strenuous can easily be defined as trying to pull up her own pants, or perhaps turning the pages of a newspaper. So she wasn’t wearing her brace yesterday, since she was taking the nap after lunch that comes right before the nap before dinner. Neither was she wearing a disposable undergarment or any long pants. Yeah, you’ve got the picture now. For some reason known only to God, she was naked from the waist down. A fall-in-a-puddle-of-pee not waiting long to happen. She insisted she wasn’t hurt at all, but when I arrived there this morning, I could see the shiner from across the room. “You hurt your left arm again,” I said. “Well, it hurts a lot, but I don’t know why.” “You fell yesterday in the bathroom, remember?” “Yes, but I didn’t hurt myself. I already told you that.” “But, Mom, there’s an eight-inch diameter green bruise on your arm. And it’s swollen even more than usual.” “I can’t imagine why,” she said. “You fell, Mom. And another thing: Why are you lying here with your long pants down around your knees?” “I couldn’t get them pulled up all the way.” “This is really dangerous, Mom. Walking like this.” “I’m not walking. I’m sleeping.” “When did you pull your pants down?” “When I went to the bathroom.” “How did you get from the bathroom back to your bed?” “I walked, silly.” “Bingo! We have a winner! Mom, if you can’t pull up your pants, you have to ring for help. That’s why Patricia and Kania are here. They want to help you. You can’t try to walk with your pants around your knees.” “No one’s ever told me that before.” “I’m telling you now, okay?” I called the ortho doc, and he said, “If the bone is not poking through the skin (“Hello! Don’t you think I would have mentioned it if THAT had happened?”), I don’t think you need to bring her to the ER. But do come into our office for an xray first thing in the morning.” Um. Okay. Whatever you say, Doc, but I have a feeling something evil this way comes. In the meantime, I guess I’ll go get another venti latte to replace the one I got on the way to Mom’s which I spilled ENTIRELY in my car without taking the first sip, and head home. I’m really anxious to let Doug experience our vehicle’s “new latte smell.” Before I sign off, I want to mention that the weird thing about this latest fall—besides the fact that Mom’s falls are spaced two months apart and always on a Saturday with an even-numbered date—is that… RED ALERT! INSERT FOUR HOUR BREAK FROM BLOGGING FOR EMERGENCY ROOM RUN WITH ELDERLY MOTHER HERE! I have no idea how I might have finished that thought. I’m not even sure what my name is anymore. Oh, yeah. Fallible. So the nurse called mid-typed-sentence from assisted living to say Mom’s arm had swelled to something like twice it’s already bizarrely shaped self since I’d left there a short while earlier, and that she was shipping Mom to the ER in an ambulance. There’s some serious derrierre (or derierre, or derierre or possibly deriere, but I don’t think so) covering going on right about now, because today’s nurse believes with all her caregiving heart that yesterday’s nurse should have called an ambulance while Mom was on the bathroom floor—puddle of pee notwithstanding—and that just because THAT woman was derelict in duty doesn’t mean SHE intends to be. Still, I think she made the right call. They took a new xray and the two sections of broken bone have apparently done some serious shifting, which clearly could have happened not so much from the fall itself, as from being helped up from the floor by two women at the facility, one of whom’s job description is the assisted living equivalent of a Cruise Director. Sheesh. Anyway, they put her arm in a sling and then bound it to her body with a folded sheet and taped it tightly together, rendering her arm completely useless and her unable to use her walker until further notice. I’ll take her at the first opportunity tomorrow to see her ortho doc yet again. “Hey,” I said, always looking for an opportunity to inject levity into an otherwise awful situation, “Now instead of calling you Mommy, we can call you Mummy.” And you know what? In spite of everything she’s been through, the lady very nearly smiled. And then, just for good measure, so did I. Posted by Katy on 12/11/05 Permalink To Do Or Not To Do? That Is The Question (#842) I’ll be the first to admit I’m crummy at setting goals and even more pathetic at reaching them. Making to-do lists, though, is a task at which I excel. Unfortunately for me and the various and sundry people who might ride to their own personal success on my over-achieving coattails, I am clueless when it comes to prioritizing the items on said list. I’ve read “Getting Things Done” or, I should say, part of it. I couldn’t even get THAT done. I think I’ll put it back in the to-be-read pile and give it another go. Who knows? I might get it read all the way to Chapter Three next time. Then there’s “The Tipping Point” and “Blink,” books that would have no doubt infused me with the understanding that if I could just take a project so far, it would then magically develop a life and ambition of its own, and carry itself through to a wildly sensational conclusion. I’m afraid the tipping point for me came when I blinked once, then twice, and then fell asleep altogether. The truth is, I’ve never been able to ignore the urgent for the sake of the so-called important. I’m not even sure I know the difference. One fellow whose motivational daily e-letter I read insists that every night before he goes to bed he makes his to-do list for the next day. I’m okay with this strategy so far, but what he does after bulleting the items is where he loses me. He marks each item according to whether or not it’s urgent, whether another person will get on his case if he fails to do it, whether it might cost him more time or money down the road if he postpones doing it, or whether it’s truly important. I’m confused by the fact that the folks who are able to discern the urgent from the important never find ANYTHING important about the urgent. The “urgent” seems to be even worse than an interruption to them—it’s more like an annoyance, like a fly that won’t stop buzzing around their ears. They refuse to dignify that pesty fly’s actions by responding with a good old-fashioned swat and having done with it. Invariably, these masters of the to-do list end up advising me to ignore the urgent, even if she’s on her way to the emergency room with multiple broken bones or abscesses on her liver and gall bladder that will kill her within 48 hours if something isn’t done about it RIGHT NOW! Instead, according to those in the know who are WAY more advanced on the board game of life than I am, I should take my daily list of 25 items, and choose to do the four or so that I determine will be the most important to me FIVE YEARS FROM NOW. The idea is that five years from now, I won’t regret it if I’ve exercised, travelled, written a novel, invested wisely, and taken care of my health, because those things will have kept me alive and kicking, and probably increased my health, wealth, and wisdom. But this is what I keep asking myself: What will be the most important things on my old earthly to-do lists when I stand before the Lord? Does He really value my fledgling writing career more than me caring for my mother? In five years, I doubt I’ll have her in my life to care for anymore. Will I look back and say she was just an urgent demand on my time and attention that I rightfully ignored, and that I’m so much closer to my personal, professional, financial, and spiritual goals because I deleted her from my list? Or will I realize that sometimes the urgent and the important are one and the same? I guess only time will tell. Posted by Katy on 12/10/05 Permalink Freak Out! (#841) At Halloween, I posted a vintage pic of an endearing group of miniature clowns, consisting of my kids and their cousins. My sister Bridget commented that clowns have always freaked her out, and I had to admit I feel the same way. The only way I could handle dressing my innocent kids up in red wigs and atrocious make-up was by repeating over and over to myself, “These $2 costumes were the cheapest deal this side of the Mississippi. Get over yourself!” But the Christmas season holds a particular terror for me, one that’s WAY scarier than clowns will ever be: Nutcrackers! Doug and I enjoyed a lovely day of holiday shopping today, except for the fact that everywhere we went, we were fairly assailed by the sight of them. Golfing nutcrackers, bagpiping nutcrackers, cowboy nutcrackers, all with the selfsame squared off jawline and beady eyes. I made myself pull the lever on a couple of those dudes, because you know, it’s very important to face our fears. And when their mouths jerked open and then clamped down like a vise, I’m proud to say, I only screamed a little. Anything about Christmas that terrifies you? Posted by Katy on 12/10/05 Permalink Santa, Baby (#840) It all started last Christmas when my niece Erin and her fiance Josh threw their lots in with a couple of their cousins to purchase my mom a life-sized singing and dancing Santa Claus. Now, Mom lived in a small one-bedroom place, where the only spot she could find for her table-top tree was on top of a kitchen counter. But did that stop her from embracing a jolly new fellow with a tummy like a bowlful of Jello? Of course not! She absolutely loved the old coot. At the end of the season, her disassembled decorations were boxed and crammed into her one walk-in closet—actually her only closet. She had to get rid of two extra bedspreads and a 30-gallon Rubbermaid container of photos to make room. But then last March, she moved into a different apartment in the same complex, a unit in which the closet was clearly not meant to accomodate a tree, must less a Claus. So I loaded her Christmas stuff into my station wagon (you read that right; we’re the last SUV-hold-outs in the lower 48) and added her stash to my own enormous basement holiday storehouse. At the time, I didn’t imagine she’d live to see another Christmas, the diagnostic news was so grim. I was pretty sure back then that I’d seen Santa to his final resting place, so much so that the box containing his remains was laid out horizontally on the cold steel shelf. Rest in peace, good man… Since March, Mom’s spent three months in a nursing home, and now has switched apartments yet again—back into assisted living. Not long after settling into her new digs, she began asking about Mr. Claus. “You have him at your house, right? ‘Cause I’m going to want him here soon.” Then the emails started in earnest. My brother John, whose children have put the ornaments on Mom’s tree the past few years, wanted to verify that I would be delivering the goods to Mom’s apartment. “I’ll have them there on Saturday morning,” I responded, as efficient as all get-out. “You can begin the festivities as early as Saturday afternoon.” Doug and I loaded up the wagon and hauled the tree, wreath, decorations, and Santa into Mom’s place, right on schedule. We pulled Santa out of the box by his beard and were shocked to find that since last Christmas, he’d become a double amputee. “Where’s his rear end and legs?” Mom asked, as if Doug and I hadn’t noticed the poor gent’s boggling disabilities. “Don’t worry,” Doug said in that ever-optimistic way of his. “His tush is here somewhere. We’ll just unpack the rest of these boxes…” Mom sat and watched, her eyes getting bigger and sadder with each passing moment. When the final box was emptied, she couldn’t take it any more. “Santa can’t very well dance without his hips, now can he?” she said, stark disappointment coloring her features. I got the feeling she was calling into question not only my organizational and administrative skills, but perhaps my caregiving sensibilities, as well. “Look, Mom, we’ll find his rear end, OK?” I sounded more confident than I felt, because I knew Doug had hauled everything of Mom’s our basement had to offer. I also knew we’d just come from a trip to Goodwill, where we’d dropped off umpteen boxes of who-knows-what, any one of which might have accidentally contained the Claus’s patoot. Instead of visions of Santa Claus dancing, I had visions of Santa Claus qualifying for a very special-needs wheelchair. With a little luck, on Medicare’s dime. Doug and I left my freaked-out mother (who wouldn’t be a little dismayed by the sight of half a life-sized man propped up by the sliding glass door?) and hustled home to scour the basement and the attic, too. Nothing. More emails, to all the sibs this time. “Buttless Santa Alert!” I begged them to check their own basements and attics, in case I was wrong about me being the one who took all Mom’s Christmas stuff. One by one, the dismal news came back to me. “No Santa butts here. Or Santa legs, either. Sorry. Better luck next year. Ha-ha-ha-ha.” I resigned myself to shelling out fifty bucks to get my mother another life-sized singing and dancing Santa. I figured the double amputee could be re-interred in the box from whence he came, and reshelved horizontally in the depths of the basement, along with my reputation as a caring, loving daughter. And then, one final email—one message of redemption to save me from myself during this emotion-charged Christmas season—arrived from my sister Liz. “This came to me like a flash in the middle of the night,” she wrote. “I remembered something Erin told me when she purchased the thing. He collapses on himself! If you twist his head, his legs will pop out.” We all have so much to be thankful for this Christmas, don’t we? I’ve got to say, though, that in all my years on earth, this is the first time I’ve given thanks for Santa’s rear end. Posted by Katy on 12/08/05 Permalink Too Bad I Didn’t Know About Title Loans Back Then (#604) If you dig down in my archives as far as you can, you’ll find yourself in December, 2002. I didn’t know this until last night—when I went to find the very first blog post I wrote back in December, 2000—but the first two years worth of posts didn’t make it into the archives when we switched to a new blogging tool a while back. I’ve got a really cute guy, though, and he’s got my complete archives on his computer, because he’s the one who exported them all from Blogger. But he’s the only guy who’s got them, and even though he’s in the next room and I can see the archives whenever I want, you guys aren’t as…um…fortunate. Perhaps my guy will be able to figure this out, since he’s already determined that the reason the rest of the archives didn’t transfer is that I didn’t title each post then like I do now. In the meantime, you’ll have to take my word for it that December 7 is my blogiversary. Five whole years! Who knew being Fallible could be so much fun? Posted by Katy on 12/07/05 Permalink Footloose (#602) So my sister Liz purchased these really cute shoes for Mom when she was about to leave the nursing home and move into her assisted living apartment. They’re slip-ons, a must for a lady with a permanently broken arm, and resemble mocassins. Or moccasins. Or possibly moccassins, but I don’t think so. Whatever. I liked them so much that I couldn’t wait for a chance to get over to Payless to grab a pair. Today I wore them to Mom’s. We sat side by side on her couch, going over some paperwork and chatting. She had both leather-clad feet firmly planted on the floor, but I had one of my feet resting on the coffee table right in front of us. I waited and waited for her to say something about my new shoes, and got nothing. “Mom,” I finally said, “I can’t believe you haven’t noticed that we’re shoe twins.” She didn’t miss a beat. “Oh,” she said, “I thought that was my foot.” Posted by Katy on 12/06/05 Permalink But Then What Would I Do With All My Bad Judgment? (#601) The emails and phone calls have begun. You know the ones I mean, where the circle of friends and family finally becomes unbroken, as once a year everyone tries to worm out of everyone else what everyone wants for Christmas. I haven’t even started shopping, and already I’m exhausted. “Mom, can you find out from Carrie and Scott and Brooke what they’d like? And while you’re at it, how about you and Dad? And Aunt Lynn, Aunt Nancy, Uncle Craig, and Grandma Adele?” Sorry. Carrie and Scott and Brooke have already given me their short lists, and those items are mine, all mine. I’m not sharing with the likes of you! As for aunts and uncles, you figure it out. I think I can help you with Grandma Adele, though. She wants her car keys back, and her car, too. Good luck with that! “Hey, Mom, I’ve only got today to shop, so if you could answer me in the next five minutes before I head to Best Buy, that would be great. What should I get for the McKenna family gift exchange? Would Grandma Mary like Waking Ned Devine on DVD, or does she even have a DVD player?” Hate to break it to you, kiddo, but Grandma Mary is currently mystified that the remote control for her lift recliner won’t turn on the TV. She would think a DVD was an old 45-rpm record that had been left out in the sun too long. “Katy, I really need some ideas for your kids. And soon. I’m shopping online, and I’m gonna lose the free shipping deal if I don’t get my order in by midnight. No pressure, though. As long as you call me back by 11 pm, I’m good to go.” Okay. My kids have given me a very few ideas that I don’t plan to personally pursue, so I guess I could pass those along. The most useful list came from Kevin in this morning’s email. I’d asked him for his best ideas, more to facilitate the needs of other gift-givers than for my own purposes. He mentioned a few technological items, and even provided links for ease of purchase. He threw out the names of a few movies and CDs, too. I’ll pass on most of his requests to others more desperate than I am. But the piece de resistance, the hot potato I’m definitely NOT planning to pass on, was the last item on his list. It read “Clothing items. (Use good judgment.)” I’m sorry, but obviously God gave me all this patently bad judgment for a reason, right? Far be it from me to waste so precious a commodity at Christmas, of all times. Where’s the fun in that? Posted by Katy on 12/04/05 Permalink Starbucks: The Day Care Center From Hello (#600) “Hello. I’d like a non-fat venti two-Splenda latte,” said the young mother. She carried a baby on one hip and had two other toddlers in tow. The little boy wasn’t happy from the minute he stomped through the door, and the $2 cookie she purchased for him didn’t assuage his beligerence one little bit. I could have told her it wouldn’t. They moved to the back room, where they met up with another apparently prosperous stay-at-home mom and her child. The Starbucks I frequent is really large, but after today, I realize it’s not spacious enough for my brain not to get fried in the presence of such persistently obnoxious behavior. And I’m not talking about the kid, either. The noise was one thing, and after a full hour—during which time I decided not to leave until I observed how the drama unfolded—my stressed-out deaf ear resounded with a high-volume ringing to rival the bell on any red kettle in the country. Noise, though, I can handle. I have a very, extremely low tolerance for parents, however, who imagine not only that ignoring their misbehaving children is a wonderful form of training, but also that they are entitled to practice this “training” in a public venue, as if the rest of us innocent folks deserve that level of holiday punishment. Near the end of the hour’s disturbance, the two moms and their kids meandered toward the door, little Jake still screaming bloody murder. It sounded like he was shrieking “I want the paper!” over and over again, and while it doesn’t make much sense to me to lust after the Kansas City Star when you can have cookies out the wazoo, there’s no accounting for taste. The toddler ran in and out among the tiny tables, knocked into a display of CDs with his fist, beat his head against the glass windowpanes, and punched his silent sister while his mother and her friend purused the shelves of Christmas coffees and ornaments. Mom never glanced his way or spoke a single word to him until she finished her shopping, at which point she walked to the door, opened it, and said, “Come on, Jake, honey.” The last time I saw him, he was running through the bustling parking lot like a banshee. Mom never looked his way as she calmly buckled the baby into the carseat. What exactly did little Jake learn at the ritzy Starbucks Day Care Center today? And how much more than the cost of a gourmet cookie will it end up costing all of us down the road? Posted by Katy on 11/29/05 Permalink So Much Less To Be Thankful For… (#599) Thanksgiving has come and gone and we’re all stuffed to the gills. But that’s no excuse for our homes to be stuffed, too. Last fall, I wrote about the book I had to buy because of it’s catchy title, “Lose Two Hundred Pounds This Weekend!” I spent about a month weeding through every inch of this place, or so I thought. What’s amazing is that I haven’t had five minutes to shop in the entire past year, and yet here I am, losing another gazillion pounds. And it feels SO GOOD! Last night, Doug listed a bunch of stuff on eBay. This morning we had the happy news that we’d been paypaled a cool $60. Motivating, huh? Today, we’ve made a run to the library with a book donation weighing a hundred pounds or so. I’ve accumulated into one bag the baby clothes I’ve been buying on clearance for a local ministry, and I’ll deliver them tomorrow. And I’ve dragged the trash bags of clothes down from the attic for the annual donation to the local thrift store. We’ll make a run to the toxic waste drop-off site with scores of old paint cans and other household chemicals, and on the way take a bunch of new gifty items (with the tags still on) to the Salvation Army for their Christmas gift store. In the process of weeding, we’ve uncovered more unadulterated trash than any household has a right to be hoarding, and hauled it to the street. In one day, we’ve probably processed several hundred pounds of stuff that will soon cease to be a part of our lives. Think how much money slipped through my fingers to purchase it to begin with, and then how many times I’ve ended up handling each item while I tried to decide how on earth to dispense with it. There’s a lot of worthless guilt associated with these accumulation/possession/maintenance/dispersal behaviors, and I don’t have time for it anymore. I’m through holding onto stuff just because I “should”—especially when sometimes “should” just means that I feel so bad for buying it to start with that I have to justify myself by holding onto it! Who needs that kind of long-term punishment? Not me! I keep imagining that one day God might speak to us in our heart of hearts, and say something like “Go.” And that instead of answering, “Yes, Lord. Just name the place!” we’d have to say, “Do you have a few years, God? Because that’s how long it’s going to take us to get rid of all this junk.” Man, I’d hate to have to say that to someone like Him. Posted by Katy on 11/26/05 Permalink The Highlighter Of My Day (#598) “I wish I had your life.” I would have looked over my shoulder right then to see who the classy young woman might have been speaking to, but I knew there was a thick wall behind the couch on which I sat. Besides, even though I might have heard her wrong, there was no mistaking the fact that she stared directly at me. Me, of all people. “Huh?” I said, impressing her even more, no doubt, than she must have been by sizing up my ratty jeans and Old Navy t-shirt, on which the screen-printed American flag and the year “2001” had nearly flaked off. “Your life,” she said. “I want it.” She twirled a short blond curl that had managed to escape from the crocheted cloche on her head. She was dressed entirely in black, in that super-put-together way that New York City women have. In fact, the only colorful item on her table—besides a red leather cell phone case—was a yellow highlighter. “I’m studying so hard,” she said. “And I have to highlight everything, just to help me concentrate.” I had noticed, in the two minutes I’d allowed myself to sit at Starbucks before digging into the caretaking duties of the day, that she was one of those students for whom the textbook manufacturers should just publish their materials on yellow paper and call it a day. “What are you studying?” I asked. “I’m going to be a certified financial planner. And then I’ll work for my father full-time.” “Hey, that sounds great—” “But you don’t understand. It’s really, really hard. I had to call my dad to ask him what a ‘zero coupon’ is and he said something about interest rates, but I still don’t get it. So now I’m trying to find where I highlighted about zero coupons in my book but it’s really, really hard to find…” I could have told her why, but I held my peace. “...And all I do is study for the little tests that happen at the end of each of these books, and then I’ll have to study for the really big test that happens at the end of all twelve of the books, and I really hate tests.” “How often do you have to show up for class?” “Oh, it’s all online, and it’s at my own pace. And I have lots of free time. I work part-time, but my weekends and evenings are free. I live at home, so my mom does my laundry and cooks my meals. But it’s really, really tough and now I’m pretty sure my boyfriend’s going to propose to me over Thanksgiving and that’s got me all nervous and then I’m distracted and so I have to highlight everything I read or I won’t be able to remember it.” I wanted to help—I really, really did. “Well, when he proposes, make sure you get a really, really big diamond, because maybe looking at it will help you calm down during all those tests.” Yeah, I know. Pretty lame. “Oh, I’m not that kind of girl,” she said. “I really don’t care about things like that. I wouldn’t care about an engagement ring at all except for the fact that I really, really love huge gemstones of every kind and so I do want a really big diamond. But only because I really, really like them—that’s the only reason.” By this time, I’d stood because my five minute break had ended and because I had to stand closer to her so that I wouldn’t miss her answer when I asked my final question. I leaned in a bit so no one else could overhear, and a straggled piece of my unkempt hair tangled for a second with her one perfect curl. “So why exactly do you wish you had my life?” I asked. “Because,” she said, “you have all day to do nothing but relax at Starbucks.” Posted by Katy on 11/22/05 Permalink Page 35 of 84 pages « First < 33 34 35 36 37 > Last »


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Personal blog of christianwriter & fallible momKaty McKenna Raymondin Kansas City, Missouri

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