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ROOSTERS?

05 Monday Dec 2016

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THE MARGUERITE CHRONICLES, AUGUST 31, 2016. 3:19 AM:
A loud, high-pitched, prolongued screech, amplified by the baby monitor next to my bed, propelled me straight up, wide awake and into heart palpitations.

If you’ve ever had chickens, you know that sound. Roosters aren’t born knowing how to crow, and when they start practicing, it sounds plumb awful – other-worldly – nothing else anywhere sounds like that.

I ran back toward Mom’s bedroom, wondering if I’d find a stray rooster in full-out attack mode, or some kind of crazed intruder, but the crazed intruder thought didn’t kick in until I’d passed by all the kitchen knives.. Unarmed, I walked into the room.

Nobody. Nothing. Nada. Zilch – except for Mama, who’d pulled the covers up over her head and was still breathing, no blood anywhere, sleeping peacefully after whatever crazy dream made her screech like an adolescent rooster.

It was a good 2 hours before I could get back to sleep. And that, my friends, is why I fell so easily into rainy-afternoon-nap mode. Wonder what tonight holds?

The Indian Village

05 Monday Dec 2016

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THE MARGUERITE CHRONICLES, SEPT 16, 2016:

Today, on my dad’s 93rd birthday — our 9th without him — Mama is having one of those deer-in-the-headlights episodes, during which she talks nonstop, to or about people who aren’t there. And she tells us about the Choctaw women she sees walking from the Indian village down in Neshoba County, where the casinos are now. She talks about this every single time she goes into one of these episodes, which usually last about 24 hours and are followed by a couple of days of deep sleep.

“Looky there — there is a young man I used to see every year down in the Indian village.”

And I wonder. What will you and I talk about when we are 96?

Talking to the Indians Again

05 Monday Dec 2016

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THE MARGUERITE CHRONICLES – SEPT 16 2016 – PART 3
Aunt Polly tells me that on Saturdays, the beautiful Choctaw women with long, shiny black hair would walk to town to shop and socialize. Dressed in long, beaded dresses, they’d stand on the shady side of the the courthouse square to watch the comings and goings.

So those are the people Mama is talking to today. And while ago, she asked,

“Did the Indians build this house?”

And I answered, “No, it was built by the contractor that left the kids in the attic.”

05 Monday Dec 2016

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THE MARGUERITE CHRONICLES: SEPTEMBER 16, 2016, PART 4:
3:00 AM. George elbowed me awake to say, “Your mother’s in OUR bathroom flipping the lights on and off.”

Yep. She was. She had to walk past her bathroom into our room to get there, and she’s never done that before. I guided her back to bed, but she was in the throes of a full-blown Looney Toons episode, talking nonstop and intermittently making sense, and if her brain thought it, she said it.

Up again at 6, talking to the Choctaws. At 8, she snuck downstairs, this woman who hasn’t taken her own pills for 5 years, and bragged to our houseguest that she had taken her morning medicine.

Only it was her nighttime medicine.

Which meant she was going to be groggy on top on wacko. And then, Sister Margie calls from the beach condo to say there’s standing water on the floor of a bedroom and the sheetrock is wet, and I started calling Benchmark mulltiple times to get somebody over there…and then we were due at UHaul to pick up a truck for getting some furniture from my brother-in-law in Fredericksburg and there is not one spare inch in this house for another stick of furniture even if it is a zillion-dollar fine reproduction mega-desk, and I had to talk Mama down the stairs and out to the car one leg at a time because her brain was on the night shift.

There was nothing to do but strap her in a seat belt, pick up some grandsons and haul ’em all up I-95. And now we have a UHaul truck out front and no place to put the stuff that’s in it even though we do have a double garage and an 8-stall barn, and nobody to help unload it even if we did have room, and our front yard already looks like West Virginia but it has been too hot this summer for me to clean out the garage. So it’s not just Mama who’s Looney Toons.

The apple didn’t fall far, and it whacked me on the head on the way down. 

About and OUT

05 Monday Dec 2016

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THE MARGUERITE CHRONICLES: 21 SEPTEMBER 2016.

George had made some surprise dinner reservations – I had the boys lined up to come and Memomma-sit, and we planned to do something special. (I have no idea what, because he won’t tell me.)

BUT — our day started with Mama needing medical attention. I told her we’d go to the doc.

“I’m too weak to get to the car. You better call those 911 people.”

So, I did, and the Powhatan Rescue Squad (the Squishy-Squash, as Emily used to call it when Chip was a volunteer) sent 2 fine EMT’s to help, and they hauled her to the hospital.

The ER at St. Francis was packed — they were OUT of rooms, but she got prompt attention, and they found that she had a raging UTI, in spite of preventative antibiotics — and it presented differently than the many she has had before. I had nothing to eat the entire day. though one of the kind staff brought me a little can of Pepsi.

We got to the hospital at noon, and eight hours later, we left to get prescriptions filled.  I  dashed into Panera to grab something for both of us to eat while Groggy-Mama reclined in the car. And Panera, the people who MAKE bread, were OUT of baguettes, soft rolls, and all other side items that I wanted. And OUT of most of the 99-cent bakery items offered with the meal.. And OUT of the green tea I craved. Disappointed, I dashed out with something that would suffice, and drove to Walgreen’s.

And guess what? They were OUT of one of the prescribed medications. Can’t get it till Friday. So, I said I’d take what they filled, and to put the unused prescription with it so I could take it elsewhere. Grabbed the bag through the drive-thru window, and halfway back home, realized they had not put the unused script back in the bag.

But the good news is that Mama was able to walk up the stairs to get into bed, and unlike the Emergency Room, Panera and Walgreen’s, she is not OUT of anything. For now!

Election Debate

05 Monday Dec 2016

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THE MARGUERITE CHRONICLES, September 26, 2016:

Mama may be 96; she offers me the use of ‘her’ car whenever we need to go somewhere; she asks if Lester Holt is any kin to us every single night; but she’s still savvy enough to say “Make sure I’m up at 9:00 PM, because I want to see the debate.”

She’s as politically interested as ever, this woman who read every word of the Greenville News, Charlotte Observer, or W-S Journal (including the classifieds) every morning at breakfast for most of her life. However, she lasted about an hour into the shouting match, and said, “I’m going to bed!”

Teeth Storage

05 Monday Dec 2016

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The Marguerite Chronicles: September 29, 2016 

Mama looks over at me from her recliner and smiles.  “I’ll tell you something funny on me…you’ll get a laugh.” (This is the first conversation she has initiated in quite a while. She usually responds, but doesn’t start off on her own, so I am thrilled.)

“This morning, I discovered that I didn’t have my teeth. So I looked all over, and guess where I found ’em?”

“They were in my shoes!!”

Praise in the Park

05 Monday Dec 2016

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THE MARGUERITE CHRONICLES: October 2, 2016.

Got Mama out for the first time in two weeks to go to Emmaus Church’s Praise in the Park, the annual event on the James River in the new state park, complete with fried chicken and covered dishes. She enjoyed being out, and while we were there, seemed to recognize and call people by name, even her great-grandson, baby Ian.

But when we got ready for bed tonight, she said, “A lot of those nice people thought they knew me, but I’ve never met them before. And the pastor of the church came up and kissed me — he kisses me every time he sees me!”

So, I chimed in, “That’s because he’s your grandson.”

“He is?? I forgot that part!”

Hair-do

05 Monday Dec 2016

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THE MARGUERITE CHRONICLES – November 3, 2016:

Today, I took Mama to get a haircut. I thought the stylist and I had agreed on things; however, her definition of ‘not too short’ and mine were several inches apart. (In 6 weeks, it’ll look really cute. For now, we lie and say it’s cute.) So, George came home, and in spite of being a man who might or might not recognize a haircut several weeks after the fact, looked at her and said, “Well! You got a haircut!”

Mama glanced up at him with a frown and said, “Who told you?”

Lipstick

05 Monday Dec 2016

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The Marguerite Chronicles, November 10, 2016:

Geriatric doctors have explained to us that people of Mama’s age will often rifle through anything on countertops, in closets, boxes, etc., and not to be surprised if, in the middle of the night, a closet door is open, she sees clothing, and decides to get dressed. Every night this week, we experienced variations on that theme. She and I shared a hotel room in Greenville, SC, so my things were stored on the lavatory.

Night #1 – 2 AM — she returns to bed after a trip to the loo. I tuck her into bed, and glance down at her face — she is completely lipsticked-up — in MY shade. I don’t like to share lipstick with anybody I’m not kissing, even if it is my Mama, so I turn off the lights, sneak back to the bath, grab all the lipstick and hide it. As if that will solve the problem. Right..

Night #2 — 2 AM -she gets up and I go to check on her. I have some stuff that’s supposed to cover up my Herman Munster scar, and the tube looks like lip gloss. Mama has found it, and is leaning over the counter, peering into the mirror, and applying a heavy coat of flesh-colored Dermablend to her lips. Now she’s the one that looks like a Munster. So, I help her back to bed, then tiptoe back to hide the forbidden fruit.

Night #3 — 2 AM — yep, we’re on a roll. Only this time, she’s carefully applying black mascara to one eyebrow. . The woman is obsessed with her eyebrows. One black eyebrow from Greenville to Columbia – all day long. Tonight, we’re back at the beach, and, oh, sweet bliss, we have separate rooms and separate baths, and there is NO make-up in her line of sight. But I have hidden everything anyway!