1. When I arrived at Mom's room, around 9:40, she was asleep. She had on her pajama tops and her day clothes pants. An aide explained to me that Mom had refused her shower. I wondered if she'd get another chance and the answer was "yes" in about ten minutes. Sure enough, an energetic aide convinced Mom she'd enjoy a warm shower and whisked her away and Mom returned freshened up and fully dressed.
Mom and I talked for close to an hour. She wanted the eye appointment I had canceled rescheduled. I texted this news to Christy who made her a new appointment in September. Mom also wanted to brush her teeth, so we went over to the sink and got out Mom's denture cleaner and adhesive and with great focus and purpose, Mom got the job done.
I asked Mom if she'd like to go on a Sunday walk on Monday and she said, "No. But I'd like to take a Sunday snooze." We had a little laugh and before long, around 11:15 or so, an aide put her back on her bed. Mom fell asleep. She slept through lunch. She slept through a stop-in, an intended visit, from Lois Dahlberg. Later, she would sleep though a similar stop-in from Maxine Milot.
2. I left Kindred shortly after 2:00 and I went to Yoke's for groceries and returned home and did prep work for the fajitas I was going to make for dinner when Christy got off work at 7:00. I returned to Mom's room around 4:45. She was asleep. Suddenly she lurched forward a bit and with as strong a voice as I've heard her employ in weeks, she almost bellowed, "Good morning!" I cheerfully returned her greeting. Mom started to wake up and around 5:30 an aide delivered her dinner. Mom picked at it, ate a little bit of this and that, and mostly wanted to go back to sleep. Around 6:15, I told Mom I needed to go cook dinner and I'd be back after we ate. I returned about 8:00. Mom was asleep and responded with a big smile and the okay sign with her right hand when I kissed her on the forehead, wished her good night, told her I'd be back tomorrow and that I loved her.
3. This evening I was suddenly in the mood to watch some great acting take place within a tight story accompanied by a simple and haunting piano soundtrack. I'm sure other movies might fit this bill, but for me it meant watching Gene Hackman, Teri Garr, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest, Elizabeth MacRae, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall, and others in one of my favorite of all movies, Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation. In particular, this evening, I marveled at the movie's first ten minutes, not only for how artfully it establishes the movie's investigation of audio surveillance, but also for the snapshot it gives us of Union Square in San Francisco in the early 1970s: the upbeat sound of the steel drum and saxophone, the mime, the drunk passed out on the bench. As the couple having the conversation walk, as Mark says, "in circles" around the square, Union Square seems free and easy, but its cavalier surface is in contrast to the drunk's destitution, Ann and Mark's shallow response to the drunk, the fact that the whole scene is being spied on, and the chilling reality of what we later learn is the content of Ann and Mark's conversation.
No comments:
Post a Comment