It is interesting how going into this fairy book and looking for what is already there can be so comforting. So the lesson must be that whatever I am searching for is right here….I just need to breathe deep and start looking.
We had a little help with that when our masseuse showed up in costume, walked the trail with us, blessed the space we live on and then flitted off. Wonderful David.
I have always made the time to do the drawings a day.
Another big one
from the wing on the other
side of the turkey.
A dirty feather
left by an otherwise clean
well-groomed mourning dove.
A river birch tree
has leaves that look like these here
from the ends of stems.
A hardy weed with
dark green leaves and lavender
blossoms sprouting forth.
And just this morning waiting for the caregiver to arrive I had time to draw some saddle shoes in the My Life in Clothes book.
I heard from our long term care insurance contact this morning that Lee will not have to be evaluated for another six months. The covid virus makes it too difficult to do in-person interviews. So he is good until late February and then another decision will be made. We also have finally met our ninety days in requirements so from now on all those expenses of having someone look after him will be paid for. This is a very good thing. For the three afternoons a week it has cost about $1500 per month. And that is also the amount of a new washing machine and dryer this month. So good new all around from the insurance company.
I notice that I have had to do things in such a hurry now with Lee’s dementia. I race through so I can help get him ready for the next thing I have to hurry up with. I plan every move from the time I get out of bed. Get his toothbrush ready and make sure he has put some clothes on before he heads out to get the coffee I put on right after putting paste on the toothbrush. Next hurry my way through a shower, get dressed to join him in the kitchen. Tune into whoever “is in the box”….friends on facebook to read to him. Get out to feed the deer and birds right before daylight because that is when they come in. Then get Lee into the shower and have clean clothes ready to help him with when he gets out. Then go fix our breakfast before having to hold his tee shirt or tell him his shorts are on backwards. Then breakfast, then the news with a cup of coffee. Then the dishes, clean up. Go for our walk on the trail. Return to start the drawing a day with whatever we found on our walk. Then feed the cats, the fish in the pond, maybe do laundry, or maybe just the ironing. Then get him pointed in a direction that I think will hold his interest and I can make necessary phone calls. I think about having a drink but it is only 9:30 in the morning.
Plan dinner, make sure things are out of the freezer, remind him not to go up where the chiggers will bite him, tell him again that the neighbor is not pushing the property line closer to us, get him interested in something else. Walk to the mailbox to put a DVD in and hope that another one comes with today’s mail. Fix lunch, eat lunch, clean up lunch. Have a cookie with the noon news on what horrendous thing the president of our country is up to today….this can become an obsession as you wait for him to simply implode. While thinking about it I pull another part off the advent calendar. He is wearing considerably less now…some hair gone, private parts exposed, footless and almost legless.
I might go into the yard and while I fill the fish pond once again, I will help him line up some rocks, convince him to take them from one line and put them into another. If it is a caregiver’s day, I make sure the TV is tuned to the cop channel and scoot downstairs to see what needs to be done. So far this past two weeks I have one pair of pants and the other that just need the hems today. I brought down some other tops I made to see if I can use the extra linens of grey and darker grey on them to change their look.
I find I am wearing the same things in the five days between laundry. Lee is too. Clothes wear out quicker if you wear them so much. I look at the other women in line when I go fully masked to pick up a take out. At first it used to bother me that I might look a bit tattered, wrinkled….seems my favorite clothes are those I have added patches to over spills or loose linen that is a bundle of wrinkles by the time I get out of the car. My hair is not combed….it hasn’t been in in the last six months. I don’t put on earrings….seems a bit silly when you get the rest of the picture. Anyway, those other women are not wrinkled, they are not patched….but they are masked for the most part and keep six feet away from me and anyone else. They are not my people. I am now totally convinced that my real people are down in Australia….a land that taught me how to be comfortable and be myself. A land that calls me “gorgeous” and makes me believe it……no matter how wrinkled and somewhat messy I may appear. Maybe we could call it frazzled. That would be better.
It is time to clean out the closet. I noticed that yesterday we tore Lee’s half completely apart three different times looking for his electric razor and cord. He said he put it in there so it would be ready when he goes…..goes where? I explained again that we can’t go anywhere, we are going to stay here for now. But the search went on. I was about to just order another one when I pulled out the towel drawer again and lifted up the towels. There it was. I lectured him on the importance of keeping it on the counter and plugged in…he got it ….. at least for now.
I glance at the time….if it is near 3 o’clock, then I can have some wine. If it is later and dinner is all set except the heating up, I might have a scotch or gin and tonic. He will have the gin and tonic. Anything that requires sipping, he has lost the concept. Sometimes he will ask for a wine and then dump it down the sink. I have learned to pour just the tiniest bit in his glass.
So now I had better head into the studio where the sewing machine is waiting for me to put the hems in. The ironing board is wondering what to do next, the pincushion is losing its pins, the patterns are waiting to go back into their baskets, some mending of even older clothes than I have on now are waiting to be “fixed”.
So til later.
I am trying not to think too hard on my friend’s surgery that she was finally able to get scheduled this morning. The whole idea of being in a hospital now with covid is frightening.
Off to those hems….and a sewing machine that is making noises like it could use a good cleaning….it has been at least ten years or more since I found someone to do that.
Bye..