Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Katy is represented by
Rachelle Gardner at
WordServe Literary
Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net
Recent Posts
- Soul Train
- Live Out Your Dream And Discard The Box
- Tears In A Bottle
- From The Young Mom I Once Was, To You
- I Can’t Help Falling
- What A Difference Ten Years Makes
- The Next Best Thing To Robert Redford
- The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
- Where Have All The Years Gone
- Fun With Kiki Cullen
- Stuck On Mom
- Ten Years Later, Our Girls From Northern Ireland Remembered
- The Thrift of Grief
- Job Security
- The Party’s Over
Syndicate
E me at katy @ ngenius.com
Finally!
My favorite barista (waving at hubby Doug!) just made me the yummiest latte ever. I’m pretty sure this is the second happiest I’ll be today.
The happiest I’ll be? In four hours, Kevin will land in Kansas City from Switzerland!
He’s between terms, and has ten days before classes start up again. So, hey, baby. He’s comin’ home.
Could I be more excited than I am right now? Ummm….NO!
Bingo! We Have A Winner!
Nancy Wood, you have won a free copy of Hot Tropics and Cold Feet by Diann Hunt. Email me with your mailing address and I’ll get your book right out to you. :) And again, Diann, thanks for joining us here at fallible for such a fun and frothy interview!
The Thrill Of The Hunt!
When you’re an aspiring author, you get to meet THE most fun people ever. You can participate in local and online writers groups and you may even venture farther afield and attend a large national conference now and then. These days, if you’re trying to break in, these networking opportunities are invaluable, almost essential.
Not, of course, as essential as actually writing a good book and selling it to a wonderful publisher. But still, relationships—which in this business, often turn into friendships—matter. Since I had the joy of meeting humor author Diann Hunt at the American Christian Fiction Writers Conference last fall, I’ve been blessed with one more friend than I’d ever counted on.
Now I’d like to introduce her to you, too, because my fallible readers deserve the best of everything.
Katy: Diann, in my book, you are the Queen of Comedy for boomer-aged readers. How did you get started writing the funny stuff? Did a hormones-and-chocolate combo put you over the top?
Diann: I guess I’ve always been a little quirky, but hormones have definitely given me a dark side. I used to be this nice person and now I scare myself. If I saw someone in a dark alley with a box of DeBrand truffles—well, I just can’t be trusted, that’s all.
Katy: Have truffles, will travel, eh?
Diann: Oh, yeah. Chocolate and humor help me cope with the growing older thing. Life’s a journey, and I’m taking in every minute of it. I mean, what’s not to enjoy? Scientists have discovered dark chocolate is good for your heart, for crying out loud! It’s a great day to be alive!
Katy: Well, we’ve established that chocolate is of supreme importance to a successful transition through mid-life. Does chocolate also get the credit for your menopausal funny bone?
Diann: Not completely. That literally (ha!) came one morning when I looked in the mirror and saw my grandmother looking back at me (I didn’t know my biological mother, so I couldn’t envision her there). Anyway, with one glimpse, the seed for Hot Flashes & Cold Cream was born. Scary, I know, but there it is.
Katy: I’ve got the shivers just thinking about it. And a hot flash. Kind of at the same time. Weird, huh? I’ve read three of your books now: Hot Flashes and Cold Cream (which I’d just enjoyed right before we met in September), RV There Yet?, and Hot Tropics and Cold Feet. The theme of friendship is one you keep coming back to. As a woman in the general neighborhood of fifty years old, do you look for different qualities in a friend than you did when you were, say, twenty? Your characters are fabulous at nurturing their relationships. How do you keep your own friendships perking along?
Diann: Oh, those are great questions.
Katy: Why, thank you.
Diann: Very deep and thought provoking.
Katy: I know!
Diann: Which begs the question, why are you asking ME? :) No really, women are all about relationships. We need to be surrounded by other women. There are some things men just don’t get. When my husband sees me crying over a Hallmark commercial, it scares him. He picks up the phone to call 911.
Katy: I like a proactive man.
Diann: Sure, you do. A girlfriend, on the other hand, would cry with me and pass the Kleenex. See the difference? I don’t think my tastes in friends have changed all that much over the years. I look for the type of friend that I want to be—someone encouraging, positive, upbeat, and fun. Oh, and they MUST love chocolate and coffee. ;-)
Katy: Them’s my sentiments exactly!
Diann: I try to keep my friendships perking by scheduling regular coffee get-togethers. I’m terrible at talking on the phone, but if I schedule a coffee time, I can keep up on what’s going on in their lives. I’m trying to “give back” more this year by mentoring some younger women.
Katy: How young? Because by my mother-in-law’s standards, I’m an ingenue.
Diann: Uh-huh. It’s a selfish thing, really. As a writer, it’s easy to get into my own little world and not reach out around me, so this is helping me feel more in touch with my physical community. Though it does require me to actually “share” my chocolate.
Katy: Ouch! OK, tell me this. Once you’ve gotten a reputation for being a comedienne, do people treat you differently? Like, at parties, are you expected to be the “life of”? Are people always saying stuff like, “Say something funny!”? Being funny on demand, now THAT sounds scary!
Diann: My friends don’t do that, but when I’m asked to speak now, an audience expects me to be funny. And of course, when I’m expected to be funny—especially if I’m nervous—it’s just not there. Besides, I don’t see myself as funny. Weird, yes. Funny, no. My brain just goes off in quirky directions.
Katy: Any exotic chocolate in your future?
Diann: Every day. My calcium comes in the form of a chocolate chewable. It’s not DeBrand’s, but it helps.
Katy: If you’re like me, O fallible ones, you want a fun book to go with your goodies. Hot Tropics and Cold Feet has just hit the stores, so you’re in luck. And one of you is in even MORE luck. Leave a comment on this post, and you might just win a free copy of Diann’s latest. (I’ll randomly draw a name from among the commenters and post the winner on, we’ll say, Thursday.)
In the meantime, check out Diann’s site, and then take a spin over to the group blog she hosts with three other great authors—her buddies, Colleen Coble, Denise Hunter, and Kristin Billerbeck. The friendship of these four ladies is yet another testament to Diann’s heart for women’s relationships.
Thanks for sharing some time with us, Diann! I’ll lift my next latte to you.
Fallen Apple Makes Good, Tree Notwithstanding
I’ve been waiting a good long while to make this announcement. If not for the virtue of patience, gracefully refined in me lo these fifty-three years, I would not have been able to keep my blog shut. Ha.
I’m proud to announce that Scott Douglas Raymond (my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased) is now a published author! He was approached by O’Reilly Publishers to write a book entitled “Ajax on Rails,” which—contrary to what many of you fallible readers are thinking right now—has NOTHING to do with the diligent, abrasive scrubbing of filthy train tracks.
No, my friends. No housewives will be harmed in the reading of this book, or in following its instructions, either. It’s a computer language manual, a fascinating tome that I was honored to help edit—at least, the parts of the manuscript that include actual words. I don’t edit code too well, in case you were wondering.
Not to brag or anything (OK, to brag and everything!), but Scott is considered something of a world-renowned expert in this field. He’s regularly invited to speak at conferences around the US and even in Europe. Pretty cool for a young whippersnapper, eh?
Please join me in congratulating Scott and his lovely wife, Brooke, now a seasoned pro herself in (among many other things) living with an author-in-progress.
Here’s the link to Ajax on Rails!
If you’re in KC on the 27th, pop by the house for Scott’s book launching party!
My Idea Of Outragious Fun, Except For The Hungry Masses Yearning For Their Next Meal Part
I had to get in the grocery line behind the girl with the cornrows, I just had to. If you’d been there, you would have done it, too.
I knew it would take 11.3 minutes longer in that line than any other, but for once, I didn’t care.
We first encountered each other in the health food section, which in HyVee Stores is really rather nice. Lots of bulk nuts and grains and spices, plus organically grown this and that, and some sugar-free items that never fail to call my name.
She was young, maybe 25, and looked at first to me to be the funky student type. Her plaid wool skirt hit her just above the knee, and although she had a cute figure, the thick knit leggings with the baggy knees did not do her justice. The leggings ended at the ankle, and beneath them she wore heavy socks of the same color—brown—and over the bunched-up socks, leather toeless sandals strapped the whole multi-fibered concept together.
Now this get-up, replete with a sweater vest and then a fleece cardigan, might have been overlookable if it had been cold outside. But the thermometer hit sixty early on, and seeing her dressed like that made me have a minor hot flash. OK, make that a major one.
Still, I surreptitiously followed her from the flax cereal to the check-out lanes, where I got a good, long chance to view the contents of her cart.
Placed in an unrelentingly methodical fashion were three piles of frozen veggies. Does “stacks” sound more precise than “piles”? I don’t know. Maybe “pillars” is the right word. Five bags of corn niblets were laid one upon another with the perimeters of the bags lining up like a perfectionist might match the edges of a folded towel. I wondered what would happen if one tiny niblet got separated from its compadres and forced its way into the corner of a bag, causing a seismic shift of such magnitude that the whole tower came off kilter, but of course, I kept my fears about such a mishap to myself.
Exactly three inches separated the stack of corn bags from the stack of five bags of broccoli. And another three inch path delineated the broccoli from the stack of five frozen bags of peas.
These fifteen items occupied the side of the cart closest to the girl, who I now remember wore no glasses although she looked (because of her costume) like the sort who would need coke-bottle lenses and even then would stumble in semi-blindness. As it was, she carried herself flawlessly erect, with the posture and composure of a classically-trained ballet dancer. The only item separating the girl from her veggies was her purse, which sat squarely in the very center of the kiddy seat, until it began squriming and begging for candy at the check-out lane. OK, I made that part up. Her purse was very well behaved, indeed.
On the far end of the cart were three see-through bags of fresh produce. One bag contained three large yellow onions, one three large green peppers, and the third three large orange oranges. Each bag had been twisted at the top, the twisted portion had been fixed beneath the bag, and they’d been placed in the cart at the exact same slant—with the little twist at a 45 degree angle, pointing directly at the clerk who was about to serve this customer.
I could not WAIT to see how the girl would empty the cart, if there would be an equally fascinating arrangement made on the counter. I smiled to myself when she reached for the top bag of corn and placed it alone near the scanner. She watched the monitor as the clerk scanned it, making sure the price rang up to her satisfaction. Then she removed the next bag of corn and repeated the procedure—watching the monitor again.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Never more than ONE item on the counter. Time passed. A very, extremely large quantity of time. The store emptied. Clerks punched time-clocks and sped out of the parking lot.
Finally, a manager walked by and said, “Here, let me help you unload your cart…” and she did not object. The bags of fresh produce, though, she handled herself. She picked up the bag of onions, unwound the twist she’d made at the bag’s opening, rewound it, tucked the twist under the bag, and laid it near the scanner at an angle replicating the angle she’d used in the cart. The broccoli and the oranges? Untwist, retwist, tuck, place, and point.
I knew, knew, knew by then that she would be paying with cash. I also knew her payment would probably be drawn from a neatly folded pile of one-dollar bills.
“What do you mean, you knew?” Doug asked me later. “Easy,” I said. “Some things you just know.” Sure enough, while the sacker placed her groceries in plastic bags, she counted out what she owed from a pristine collection of dollar bills.
I was still chuckling over all of this as I tossed my groceries carelessly onto the counter. I don’t even have the decency to keep multiple copies of the same item together, much less a system for fastidious organization of what I figure will just become a messy situation when I get home anyway. I guess I purchased fifty items, paid, threw the bags in my cart and turned to leave when I realized the girl’s cart was still there—parked right in front of mine.
But where was she? She was removing each bag from her cart, carrying it over to the station where the fellow had sacked, and inserting the bag into another bag in order to achieve the two-ply effect. Then she’d carry that one bag back to the cart, remove the next one, and so on. And so on. And so on.
“Have a nice day,” I said, as she moved her cart and I scooted past her.
“Oh, I will,” she said. “Once a week, I make lunches and deliver them to people who can’t get out.”
What a kind soul, I thought. “That’s sweet of you,” I said. “So, tomorrow’s your day?”
“No, actually, it’s today.” She smiled as she calmly double-bagged her three oranges, but I couldn’t help worry about those poor starving shut-ins.
It was already three o’clock.
It Only Hurt When I Laughed
Only three times in my life have I produced something so beautiful, brilliant, and original that the events themselves became annual holidays.
Twenty-two years ago today was the third time. I don’t expect ever in my life to feel as happy again as Kevin Patrick Raymond made me feel that day.
They induced labor, since I was a gestational diabetic and they didn’t want the baby to be overdue. I protested for the first six hours or so that if they didn’t crank that drip up several severe notches, the child would never be born. I was used to hard labor in the early stages, and figured unless suffering was intense, progress would not occur.
“Relax,” the nurse would say at regularly scheduled five-minute intervals. “You’re moving right along. We don’t need to increase the drip as long as you’re continuing to dilate.”
How could I be dilating? I wasn’t even having to do ridiculous breathing techniques, not that I would have submitted to them anyway. Let’s just say I am NOT a big Lamaze aficionado, the proof being that during labor with my first son, I threatened to kill my poor “It’s-not-pain-it’s-discomfort” instructor for “lying.”
At two in the afternoon on Kev’s birthday, my mother and three sisters—all of whom had taken the day off to be with me and Doug—decided to turn on my then favorite TV program, The Guiding Light. Right there in the room where I was trying to get them to turn up the drip, trying to make myself work harder than God intended, trying to be a serious mother.
I don’t remember what the episode was about. Josh and Reva’s storyline was the entertaining one, so likely they were involved in what became high shenanigans surrounding my bed. Mom and the girls got me laughing SO HARD about my soap opera that the labor pains (and they really ARE pains, for the uninitiated) were horribly magnified.
In between spasms of laughter and contractions off the chart, I said to Doug, “Get them OUT of here! NOW!! And turn OFF the blasted TV!”
It only hurt, you see, when I laughed.
I still credit the women in my family for making my labor kick into high gear, without which I might still be dripping with little more than irony in that earth-toned room, sucking ice. Oh, wait. They didn’t let us have ice back then.
Within two more hours, Kevin was here in all his adorable glory. Before long, I forgot all about The Guiding Light. Kev’s been making me laugh all these years, and since that very first day, it’s never hurt a bit.
Happy Birthday, Dear Kevin.
And A Lifetime’s Not Too Long…To Live As Friends
By now, we all know that nothing lasts forever, except, well…forever.
But when you get to be my age, you also come to realize that a few things come awfully close. I’ve got a picture of myself standing on my grandmother’s brand new Victorian reproduction settee, when I was a toddler of two. I wore patent leathers and a scratchy crinoline petticoat underneath my flocked velvet and dimity dress, but baby, I had a huge smile on my face.
I couldn’t have known then that someday Grandma’s sofa would be an antique and a family heirloom, taking up residence in my own living room, where I’d often picture my future grandchildren standing in the middle of it, having their portraits made. A few things really do last nigh unto forever.
More valuable than the things, though, are the people, the ones who’ve known you since before you could read or write or exchange notes in the third grade by lifting up the lids on those made-for-sneaky-chatter desks at St. Elizabeth’s Catholic School, Miss Byrnne’s class, 1963. I took this picture myself with my brand new Brownie Starmite camera, and it must have been class picture day at school, which explains why we weren’t dressed in our navy blue uniforms and saddle oxfords. See that cute little brunette on the far right, in the front? I saw her again tonight quite by accident, my friend Patty, and I’ve got to say she looks exactly the same. But why wouldn’t she? I just met her in 1959, which seems like only a few days ago when my mind plays tricks on me. Other days, it feels like the better part of forever.
By 1968, we graduated from the eighth grade. Here we are in our official class pictures. Patty’s hair is curly now and mine is not so long, but honestly? We’re the same girls we’ve always been.
On our eighth grade class outing, they actually let Patty drive the motor boat. I didn’t look frightened, but I’m pretty good at keeping a poker face when I’m scared out of my wits. And where the heck were our life jackets? I couldn’t swim as far as the next boat (the one containing Tim and Danny and Biff) to save my life, but I sure wouldn’t have admitted it on that glorious, carefree day.
To have people in my life who go back as far as I go with Patty, well. It grounds me, it gives me a rootedness that makes me happier than any material possession.
And it makes me so very thankful to think that some friends really do last forever.
Update On Projects Undertaken In 2006
I kind of like being accountable, in a way, to my fallible readers. After all, occasionally some of you jump on a bandwagon of mine (waving to Staci, who gave up pop when I gave up Starbucks) and you demonstrate remarkable success. But what about me? Do I ever actually succeed in following through on one of my harebrained ideas, or is the instant gratification of starting enough for me?
Here’s a run-down on my progress or lack thereof. I hope it inspires you to know that while I am old, I am capable of new tricks, or at least new attempts at old tricks. Therefore, young readers (and by my standards, believe me, most of you are YOUNG!), take courage!
Doug and I succeeded in completely avoiding coffee joints for two entire months. Then, slowly, over a period of a month or so, our resolve not only began to slip but slipped completely. We went from having one coffee per week to two, then every other day, then daily. What can I say? We are of all addicts most to be pitied.
Now, I am humbled to say, we are back on an every other day coffee run. I plan to move us into every third day as early as next week. These steps must be made as imperceptibly as possible, for the sake of my whiplashed husband’s equilibrium. The poor thing.
Next subject: Getting and staying out of debt. Well. As you know, we are in the final stretch of the most expensive years of our lives. During the period beginning Sept 1, 2006 (Kev’s opening day at the expensive two-years-in-ten-months bachelor’s degree program which will complete his education as far as our wallets are concerned) and ending June 30, 2007 (when our daughter Carrie marries Marc), we will indeed continue to rack up debt.
However, we are monthly throwing money at the paying down of this debt, and making excellent progress. By the time Carrie gets married, I believe we will have finished paying for Kev’s education (three college graduates, all debt-free!) and will have paid for the bulk of her wedding expenses—if not all. So far, the down payments on her dress, the venue, the photographer, etc. have been strictly pay as we go.
I gotta’ say I’ve become quite a fan of Dave Ramsey. He’s only been on the radio here in KC for a few months now, but he’s got my attention. When callers call claiming to have household incomes WAY below ours, and that they’ve paid off umpteen dollars in debt and have even paid off their mortgage in only a few years time, well. I’m on board.
How about losing weight? I started in earnest dropping pounds in June, after realizing that my Mama Escapades of 2005-2006 had caused weight to creep back on at an insidious but alarming rate. Since then, I’ve shed a cool 27 pounds. My jeans are a size 2, but as we all know by now if we’ve read anything about “vanity sizing,” 2 is the new 10. Now Doug and I have embarked on a renewed effort to EXERCISE, which for us means trodding the treadmill. Today is Day Three.
And the decluttering project? Oh, my. Carrie moved in on July 31 with all her stuff, and will stay until she gets married. Kevin moved all his stuff in before leaving for Switzerland. It’s a freakin’ zoo around here. It’s nearly impossible to make headway with the added stuff, so I’m having to concentrate on not bringing any more into the house than is already here. When they move out, they’ve got to take ALL their things, or they will be donated to charity and WE’LL get the tax deduction.
What about that novel I’m writing? NaNoEdMo went reasonably well, although November started and ended with my mother-in-law’s health problems. Four hospitalizations in a six-week period did NOT add to my productivity, but she’s doing a bit better, and that’s the main thing. I am STILL working on my novel, and the darned thing keeps improving, making me think it’s not time QUITE yet to stick a fork in it and proclaim it “done.” So I plod (if not plot) along.
There you have it. Some successes, some failures, lots of room for improvement. All in all, just another old chick, Muddling Through.
Firmly Resolved
There are a few things I must have resolved somewhere along the way that have actually stuck. They weren’t New Year’s resolutions, just things I determined to do or not to do, and succeeded.
As prone to addictions as I seem to be, I decided as a young woman that reading racy romance novels would not be in my best interest. I knew that I’d end up one of those girls who reads one per day and can’t go to sleep until she finishes the one she started at the office and turns down offers of a social life so she can stay home and devour another morsel. I also knew old ladies (my grandfather’s live-in maid was one) whose otherwise sparsely-furnished one-room apartments were filled with cardboard boxes from the A&P stuffed with yellowed paperbacks, whose well-worn covers were as ripped as the bodices within.
Yikes! I did NOT want to be one of those old ladies! I firmly resolved not to get started, so I wouldn’t have to firmly resolve to stop!
Even so, I managed to get sucked into The Guiding Light after Scotty was born in 1979. I watched that darned thing every day until Kevvie came along 5.5 years later. I used to send Scotty and Carrie up for their naps so I could imbibe in peace, but come on. Do other 5-year-olds still take naps? Finally, one day Scott said to me, “Why is this show OK for you to watch, but not OK for me?”
I couldn’t come up with a good answer fast enough. The TV got turned off once and for all, at least at 2 in the afternoon M-F.
One other thing I’ve sworn off before starting—because I could somehow see the end from the beginning and the end involved me being a bag lady—is scrapbooking. I realized that shopping for the various elements of the making of the books would be the thing that would latch on to me and not let go. I prophesied that no actual scrapbooks would be created no matter how wholeheartedly I claimed to be embracing the hobby. Only shopping would be accomplished—and lots of it.
So I just said no, to myself and to all those who may have imagined themselves as hopeful future recipients of a Handmade Lovingly Fashioned Katy Scrapbook. Darn. Even now, I’ll admit I’m still tempted…
There you have it. Two things I’ve never done, because of my firm resolution and yes, I’ll just say it—strong constitutional willpower.
You can stop laughing now. And tell me: Any resolutions you’ve accidentally made that have actually taken? Because the ones I made yesterday, they are SO over.
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All the retail shops are open on New Year’s Day, you know. I guess I didn’t quite realize that, until now.
You see, I’m not really much of a “day after” shopping gal. Although, I’ve gotta say that Carrie and I hit pay dirt on the 28th. Walmart had Christmas boxed sets of crystal hurricane-style candle holders for cheap—$2.50 each. They had exactly 30, the precise number we needed for centerpieces at her wedding reception. We cleaned them out, baby! Then, two days later, they marked the Christmas clearance stuff down again, by another 50%.
Darned if we didn’t hightail it in there and get a $75.00 refund! Oh, so gratifying. And cheap. Gratifyingly cheap.
But that was then. Today, I honestly didn’t even know if Starbucks would be open. Which would be a tragedy, since we received quite a number of gift cards to said establishment, gift cards designed—we are certain—to lure us back into daily imbibement. So far, by the way, they’re having their way with us. But I digress.
We did coffee and then Doug said he had a list of things he needed at Walmart. I said, “Well, I know we could use eggs and milk. Let’s pop in and check it out…”
Now, those words frighten men. Men don’t check out stores, at least not the men I know. Especially if they’ve just checked out the same store yesterday. Besides, Doug knows that I am DEDICATED to the proposition that not only SHOULD we be out of debt, but we WILL be out of debt, provided I apply the same discipline to not spending money as he applies to earning it. Therefore, my husband considers it his DUTY BEFORE GOD to help me live out my commitment by pulling me back from the edge—no matter how close, no matter how often.
He’s good like that.
Nothing, however, prepared me for what happened in the furnace filter department, the first stop on our shopping jaunt, where we put a year’s supply of that oft-forgotten home-maintenance item into our cart.
“What else is on your list?” I asked. I hoped for a brief but fruitful fling through housewares, crafts, groceries, car parts, home decor, electronics, DVDs, and maybe even—if he was feeling lucky—lingerie, with the man of my shopping dreams by my side.
He crammed his hand into his pants pocket and rooted around for awhile. Finally, his face registered success and he pulled out a comprehensive list of all his earthly needs. You know that saying, “Objects in mirror are larger than they appear”? Forget about it! This image of Doug’s fallible list is EXACTLY the size it appeared in real life.
A smidge more paper, and he’d have had room to add “nightie” to his list. Ah, well. Times are tough everywhere.
Holidaze
So. The plan was to have our little family (Scott, Brooke, Carrie, Marc and no Kevvie, ‘cause of Europe calling his name) over at noon on Christmas Eve. Then, at around five, Doug’s family (Mom, Lynn, Nancy and Craig) would arrive and we’d all have my homemade Christmas dinner.
I cooked and cleaned and cooked and cleaned and….yeah. More cooking and cleaning. The only thing I didn’t do was break out my grandmother’s wedding china (circa 1925) from the attic and set the dining room table. The hours ticked by, and still I felt no urgency to pull out the cloth napkins and gravy boat. I’m not usually that relaxed, folks. In fact, I’m never that relaxed.
At 1:30, Adele called Doug. “I feel awful. I sure hope I’m better by the time Lynn picks me up at 4:30…” Her voice faded into wistfulness.
For weeks, through four hospitalizations and a nursing home stay, Adele had talked of nothing else but how much she looked forward to coming to our house for Christmas. But when it came down to it, another Executive Decision had to be made—by me, the Chief Home Executive.
“We’re taking Christmas to her,” I told Doug when he got off the phone. “Call her Funny Farm and ask if we can use that private dining room off the lobby. I’ll start packing.”
And that’s what we did. Adele got wheeled down to the party, and didn’t have the hassle of trying to drum up the strength to get in and out of a car and up the three steps to our front door. She seemed SO relieved when Doug called her back to say the location of the shindig had been changed. Sometimes, I’ve found, our elders are just BEGGING for one of us to bail them out of an obviously untenable situation, without them actually having to say, “I am not able to make this work.”
It was a fun party, and I think Adele enjoyed herself. Since then, we’ve made more progress on the process that began with her last hospitalization—that of attempting to get her medications sorted out, since they may be the source of many of her health problems.
Just in case you don’t know: Doctors are EXCELLENT at prescribing meds, but not so good at removing them. It often, if not always, takes determined effort and vigilence on the part of the patient and her family to revisit that old medication list and adjust it to reflect changing needs. As an example: When a woman loses 100 pounds and then has repeated episodes of her blood pressure plummeting to something like—I don’t know—zero over zero? Might be a good idea to eval whether or not she still needs meds for high blood pressure, don’t you think?
During her first three runs to the hospital, no doctor picked up on that. Or if they did, they didn’t let on. On the fourth trip, we hit pay dirt. A doctor willing to play the part, and not just on TV.
I’m rambling. I know. This past year or so, it’s what I do. It’s a coping mechanism, I guess. Rambling—touching on the high and low lights of a million tangential subjects while attempting in vain not to obsess about any.
Maybe my New Year’s Resolution will be to “Get Focused.” Sounds strong, but I have a feeling it’s too non-specific. How would I be able to quantify having achieved my goal? Here’s one that sounds a lot more doable, and I’m sure it will give me that sense of accomplishment I seek: “Muddle Through.”
I’ll be 53 tomorrow. If I can Muddle Through an event like that, I guess I’m up for anything.
Mail At Year’s End
Doug’s mother got home from the hospital today, for the second time since Monday. I’m watching the clock, since she’s been back in her assisted living place for about six hours, and that’s how long she made it the last time before they found her blood pressureless and non-responsive, still holding the newspaper in a death grip in front of her face.
I’m not superstitious, you understand. I know there’s a very good mathematical probability that she’ll beat her old six-hour record and we’ll manage to stay out of the ER till tomorrow. Hey, it could happen. For today, we took our joy where we could get it—in Adele’s ten days worth of accumulated mail.
Doug’s sister Lynn wheeled her into the apartment and Doug got her situated in her recliner. Then she asked for the freakin’ huge stack of mail she’d witnessed them hauling out of her box. Some people live for money, others for power, and many for pleasure. Adele? She lives for junk mail.
Since we, her heirs, have only recently cut our own inheritance by two-thirds through the process of dejunkmailing her apartment, it behooves us to keep as much paper from entering therein as possible. Because folks, once it finds its way onto her couch, kitchen table, bookcase headboard, or TV tray, it becomes a part of her. She can’t distinguish the good from the junk, and therefore will part with none of it.
She opened a Christmas letter from a supposed friend today and started reading. Two pages of single-spaced typewritten annual news. After a few paragraghs, which Adele read aloud to us, she asked, “Who is this FROM?” Then she turned it over and said, “Jan? Do I know someone named Jan?”
Doug, Lynn, and I started chuckling, but Adele was not deterred from catching up on Jan’s life.
“She’s gone to visit her daughters, Charlotte and Renee. In Colorado. The girls came to Kansas City over Thanksgiving, this says.”
“But do you know a lady whose daughters are named Charlotte and Renee?” Doug asked.
“No.” She used her index finger to track along the page, reading aloud to us. “She says, ‘I sat by the pond on our old property and watched the Canadian geese land on the water and then fly away again. I bet I watched them for a whole hour.’”
OK, people, when an hour spent watching the geese gets top billing in your annual Christmas letter, you’re either very old, extremely boring, or Henry David Thoreau. Somehow, I figured Jan didn’t live on Walden Pond.
“Oh, no,” Adele said. She’d read under her breath for a few seconds while the three of us rolled on the floor. “It says here Ira died.”
“But we don’t know anyone named Ira,” Doug said.
“I do,” Adele said. “Nicest fellow you’ll ever meet. And his wife? Lovely woman. Marian is her name.”
“How do you know them?” I asked. “From your old neighborhood? Or maybe from church?”
Suddenly, the lights came on. “They live here!” Adele said. “Well, now it’s just Marian. Ira died. Says here they were married 68 years.”
I didn’t say anything, but I couldn’t help thinking Marian’s hour of geese-staring got him.
“I’m confused,” I said. “If this letter is from Marian, who is Jan?”
Doug took the letter from his mother’s hands, turned it over, and melted into a puddle of holiday cheer. “Marian’s gone to Colorado, all right. Her last line says, ‘See you in Jan!’”
If I don’t post much in the next few days, you’ll know why. I’m either staring at the geese on the pond next door, or I’ve decided to see you in Jan.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Bingo!
I’m baking whole wheat bread today, and yeah, I grind the wheat at home, immediately before baking. I’ll crank out at least ten loaves, maybe fifteen. A whole bunch of them—however many will fit—will get packed into an enormous rolling cooler and become my entry in the McKenna Family Gift Exchange. I fully expect my nephew Andy (who LOVES my bread) to fight for the right to walk away with the cooler and its contents. THAT will be fun to witness.
In the meantime, my anticipation level while grinding and mixing and kneading remains on high alert. Why? Because ANY SECOND NOW, I expect the doorbell to ring, and the good old FedEx guy to drop off another holiday package from Kohl’s or Amazon or wherever.
I can’t explain it. But the juxtaposition of the floury mess, the apron, the divine smells, the twinkly lights, and the doorbell really does it for me.
Any combinations you can’t get enough of?
I’m Sorry, But That’s REALLY Pathetic…
You know what’s just wrong? When you don’t know which of the indie coffee joints around town have free wifi, but you know EXACTLY which hospitals do.
When All Else Fails, Change Hospitals?
I wonder if it bodes well that two blog posts in a row have titles that end in question marks, but I digress. Wait a minute. Can I digress before I’ve started? I just don’t know anymore. But if I can, I do. So there.
By all indications, it’s morning. It’s light outside. Carrie left for work, I know. I stumbled into the kitchen and made coffee. Did I mention it’s light outside?
Doug and I drove separate cars last night, just because. I was in my pajamas when the call came that we were to meet the ambulance at the hospital, so I wasn’t sure how long I’d hold up.
The last thing I said to Doug before we each jumped in a car was, “You’d better do some fast thinking. If I were you, I’d make an executive decision to switch hospitals, now.”
He ended up redirecting the paramedics to a hospital clear across town—45 minutes from us. But at least the ER doctor took enough of an interest in her case to pursue getting her admitted. Have any of you tried to get admitted to a hospital recently? It’s no small trick.
The deal is that most of the primary care physicians in big cities seem to no longer have admitting privileges at the hospitals. In other words, if you show up in an ER with heart attack symptoms or whatever, they are NOT going to call your doctor to discuss your situation. Each hospital has its own staff of specialists and generalists, and it will be one of them who decides your fate.
Remember the old days, when your tried and true doc would visit you every morning in the hospital, while making his rounds? No such thing any more, folks. You will see all docs you’ve never seen before, who have no stake in your past or your future, no relationship with you at all, unless you’ve been there just last week, in which case they’ll want to dispense with you at the first possible opportunity, as you appear suspiciously like a liability.
Yeah. It’s like that.
Doug and I recently switched doctors, and we LOVED our old doc. But a couple of months ago, Doug’s sister was admitted to the hospital and we went to see her the next morning, a Saturday. While we were there, who should walk in but her very own actual doctor! And, it turns out, he has admitting privileges at an actual hospital! Unheard of around these parts. We liked everything about him, so we switched.
I can’t help but believe the continuity of care suffers tremendously when a patient is thrown in with a whole group of hospital-employed docs who are not vested in him as a person. I spend inordinate amounts of time and effort establishing good, solid relationships with those in whom I entrust the care of my loved ones so that when they need attention, the doctors at least recognize our names.
Anyway, last night we started over with Adele. We had no choice. Now we need to get up and go meet a whole new group of doctors, and hope that interest in her as a person is sustained long enough to provide some much-needed answers.
