Yesterday, for all intents and purposes in Chez Schoen-René, was the Fourth of July. But it was a near thing. Part of mom's disease is the inability to make decisions easily. Or at all sometimes. I do my best to limit her choices, so that choosing becomes either/or or yes/no. Even those decisions can be trying for her. And for me. I don't mind choosing and making decisions for her, yet, I am eager to have her make as many decisions for herself as she can. I think that choosing is important in life (life is, after all, choice in my universe). Only she can tell me if there is some small part of her that actually knows what she wants. Sometimes it is like pulling nails from hardwood with a pair of tweezers getting it out of her.
Over the past few days mom has vacillated between wanting to go to see fireworks to wanting to watch the fireworks on TV. On again, off again, on again, off again. And so on. The last flop, flip, whatever on Wednesday morning was in favor of staying in and watching fireworks on television. So around 4, I went to run errands: bank (new teller), library (audio CD and I, Clavdius DVDs and a sullen librarian), and food shopping at Wegman's (momma's got to have her pistachio ice cream). I also stopped in for some deliciousness at Leaf Kitchen - Southern Tier's Crème Brûlée Stout. (I don't know if they use all of the diacriticals - but if one uses one, I guess one must use them all...) My goodness that beer is so yummy! I hope they get it at Wegman's soon. Had a lovely time hanging with Tatiana and a new to me guy named David.
I got home, ready to start thinking about cooking dinner and mom asks about when we are going to go and see fireworks. What? Again? Really? Well, I had learned last night (Tuesday while drinking beer at the FLounge) that our localist fireworks at the American Legion were happening on Wednesday, not on the Fourth. I guess so that they had a rain day available? Who knows? That being the case, I told mom that if she wanted to go, she needed to get dressed and shoed (shod?). I put out some great stretchy red pants that Juliet had purchased for her, and a dark blue, warm (but short sleeve - which I didn't hear the end of for a couple of hours) shirt for her to wear. Typically it takes mom about an hour to get dressed. Most of that is time taken to get herself motivated. I wandered off thinking to check back in about half an hour. Barely had I started my laptop to check FB and DC and OKC and such when mom asked where her shoes were! Who is this person? What had she done with my mom?! Dressed in less than five minutes from me putting out her clothes! Eeeek! She found her shoes, I gave her a shoe horn and she was ready.
There might have been a schedule posted somewhere about what time things were happening at the Legion. The last time we went, we took the three young women from Turkey and I didn't remember what the deal was at all. But I like to be early and not rushed, so we left almost immediately. Turns out we probably could have stayed home and watched the BBC news first. Who knew?
Early is good. One gets a decent vantage point from which to watch the fireworks, one gets to scope out all the food and rides and such. And people watching opportunities abound. Since I was with mom, we utilized her handicapped placard and parked really close to the hill where people sit for fireworks gazing. I carried her big heavy folding chair (which I bought at Big Lots a couple of years ago) and a blanket and staked out our place. Fearing wetness seeping through the blanket, I went back to the car and got out my emergency blanket (bright orange on one side, silver on the other) that is water proof and put that under the woolen blanket. Yay for having too much stuff in the trunk of the car! (Later, when mom said she was cold - trunk yielded a hoodie that helped immeasurably!)
And then we found we had about four hours to pass waiting for the fireworks. Four. Hours. First off, food for mom - she ended up eating two hamburgers, some french fries, some fried dough and some popcorn over the course of the evening. I had two beers (maybe three - it was a lengthy four hours) some fries, some popcorn and a sausage. Yay food. And yay for getting up and having to get food. My favorite part of the experience was all the people watching. I was not tempted by the rides that had been set up, at all. Ok, the slide ride looked kinda fun. But I didn't do it. And I liked one of the games - the spray the water into the mouth of the clown game always appeals. But I didn't do it. Too abstemious. And no one to impress really. Mom has enough stuffed animals for the time being.
We mostly sat and stared at people around us. Mom got nasty whenever someone sat to her right or in front of her. And that is not pleasant for me or anyone. Especially the people who are the focus of her vituperation. She generally isn't very loud about it, but still, it is not pleasant. I did point out to her that the fireworks were going to be up in the air and no one in front of her was going to block her view. But as she has pointed out to me frequently, and as I have learned through trial and error and observation, logic really doesn't work with her at this stage of her disease. Not that it actually worked all that well earlier in her life either...
Finally, at 10, kaboom! Nice set of fireworks! I still maintain that I could do a better job designing a display. It seems like fireworks are musical when people are as close as we were where we could here the fwump of the fireworks leaping up and then all of the sundry explosions and whistles. Designing for just light would be a different thing - but still I could do better. Though these were pretty good. Yay fireworks!
Home again. Mom was exhausted and went almost straight to bed. I played for a while and put out the recycling. As I was putting it by the curb, I realized that the recyclers might not come since it is a holiday. Then again, they might - we shall know after noon - if they have come it will be gone - if they haven't come - will they come on Friday? I can call on Friday and find out. Maybe they will just skip this week. In which case, will they charge us less for recycling? Hmm. What deep and pithy speculations I share with you all...after the recycling was out, I went to bed. Yay sleep!
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| Mom rocking the 4th of July! |
