The drive to and from Mom's rehab place was fairly uneventful. We got confirmation from the social worker that she's definitely being moved into the long-term care center on Thursday afternoon, which news I duly relayed to my brothers in the lands of ice and fire. The move will be supervised by my CA bro flying in tomorrow, while I go back into Manhattan for the next couple of days. Even though the drive was a bit over an hour each way, the rehab room has only one chair and is pretty uncomfortable so both Robin and I are in a lot of pain now, and I can hardly walk on my right leg, which of course took the brunt of the driving. Meanwhlie, because it's still That Time of Year (and yes, the foliage is spectacular in the NJ mountains!), here's some creative pumpkin work:
As you might imagine, I got very little sleep last night after being awakened by the news about Mom. Fortunately things have now settled back to whatever the new normal is, she's back at the rehab center, and my brother made his flight after all to the land of northern lights. I let my folks know I'd be out tomorrow as originally planned, and made it through the workday with about an hour or so of dozing in the recliner in between tasks. All is about as in readiness as it can be for tomorrow's journey. And I really am looking forward to driving in the beautiful foliage, if nothing else. But other than that I'm ill prepared for Hallowe'en; I don't even have my jet pack costume ready yet! Also, I don't think the weather got the memo, as it reached near 80 degrees today and is slated to be even warmer tomorrow...
A much-needed reset day, and I needed one where I did absolutely nothing. The Mets gave it their all but I don't think anything's going to stop the Dodgers, who now face the other New York baseball team in the World Series. But the significant thing was, right after I'd toked a bit and was in bed, I got a text then call from my brother that my mom had taken another fall, this time from her bed at the rehab center, and was at a nearby hospital. Turned out to be a nasty facial bruise but, near as the doctors can tell, nothing more serious. But quite the scare, during which tons of stuff went through my head all starting with "this is the beginning of the end, my life will now change completely again." After the scare, my brother is still planning his vacation out of the country this week, my other brother is coming in from CA on Wednesday night and will move Mom from rehab to her long-term care home on Thursday, and I'll be visiting her on Tuesday. Could life please be a bit less complicated next time? Like, the history of jack cheese or something?:
Even though there's tons of noisy work right outside my home office, in the patch of "no man's land" (which some man seems to have claimed now, and has razed the lovely plant life in an apparent plan to pave paradise and put in a parking lot), we have no plans this weekend to go anywhere - not to Mom, not to New York Comic Con, not to see any foliage since it's all around us now anyway - except food shopping and to the local Optimum store so Robin could transfer his phone number from his old iPhone to his new one (which has an e-sim and apparently has more stringent security measures). I bought tons of beans for the bean salad I'm hoping to make for next Saturday's annual college frat reunion, but of course so much depends on Mom. And my stomach. Good job I didn't attempt to go see my comic industry friends! Besides which, even the thought of crowded indoor spaces still freaks me out a bit. Interestingly, Nature's Dick Pics doesn't freak me out at all.
Thank goodness the weather took an upturn today, although my stress-related gastorintestinal issues persist and aren't helping my body temperature. I did a foolish thing this evening whilst watching the Mets game (hoorah, they won and it looks like the Yankees will win as well!), I turned the space heater up to "high" and thought I'd blown a fuse; turns out it tripped the surge protector, which is good as that's what it's there for. Fortunately I found when Robin fixed everything that I was so worked up I no longer needed the space heater. Not sure what I need now, besides to stop burping every time I eat. Maybe another Yankees win tomorrow. Maybe a butt planter...
The frigid-for-autumn weather should break tomorrow, but first I had to get through today. Once I was on the express bus things were a bit better, and of course the office isn't as cold as the apartment. But I slept lousy after yesterday's convo, so I've been awake since around 3:30 AM or so, and at 4:30 PM I decided to leave as I just couldn't concentrate any more. Now the laundered clothing has finally been put away after the bag sat for two days, and the space heater is working beautifully in the bedroom, so I don't even care that much that the Yankees lost and the Mets are losing. After all, who would with chicken daddies to look at?
The sibling conference call was a difficult conversation, but we do have a plan moving forward, and maybe in a week or so my stomach will settle. The weather continues its frigid pace, and I needed space heaters most of the day as I worked from home. If you don't mind, I'd rather not see a gallery of crocheted pants...
Early winter weather has us in its grip now, naturally since I had to go to Manhattan. Fortunately I was busy enough not to have to think about Mom's situation, about which I'm more pessimistic than I've been. My brothers and I have a major conference call tomorrow about it, but in the meantime the stress is affecting us all in different ways, and for me it translates into gastrointestinal distress, lots and lots of burping from nowhere. Ah well, it could be worse. Oh, it is, we're in the middle of election season. Here's a silly site about that:
I had so much going on this weekend I completely forgot to note how much around-the-house organizing I got accomplished, everything from reconciling finances to doing my Woolite wash to finishing about three months' worth of the local paper to throwing out our trash. It helped a lot to come back to an organized apartment after all that. Unfortunately, and I'll blame the Mets because why not (but more likely my stomach and inability to breathe properly) I slept pretty lousy, and was up from 4-5 AM then had Robin wake me again at 7, so I sleepwalked through my work-at-home day doing stuff that required expertise rather than deep thought. I filled my eight hours and was able to watch the Mets win this time, tying their series (as much as I love them I don't think they have a chance against the Dodgers, but I'm happy about the one win so far). Yanks are on now and looking fairly nice so far. Maybe what I like about baseball is that all the players wear caps; when did hats go out of style, anyway?
Today was the second day of Family Obligation Weekend, as we ventured into my ancestral spawning grounds of Rockland County to celebrate my uncle's 90th birthday. All his progeny, and their progeny, and THEIR progeny, were there (my uncle's eldest embraced ultra-religious Judaism and had a quiverfull of kids who in turn, well, you get the idea), as well as my godson and various cousins and my bro and sis-in-law, and a grand time was had by all. Even though I could do without the religious aspect of everything, the kosher food wasn't bad and I love love love Rockland County in the autumn, my favorite season in my absolute favorite place. I told my cousin I feel like I'm unstuck in time; when I look at the cousins' grandkids I'm that age, then their now-married children and I'm that age, and of course the age I'm at now, then my uncle and Mom yesterday and I see my future at that age too. But it's a pleasant unstuck-in-time feeling, and being there and then kept me grounded despite my exhaustion. We decided to try our favorite sushi place on the way back, and we now know a shortcut from the Saw Mill Parkway so it was technically not out of our way, but I think the whole last month or so finally caught up with me and my stomach only let me eat about half of what I usually put away there. So glad I'm home now, I'm not fond of night driving any more (for those interested, the car is still purring fine) and the southbound Deegan was slammed at this hour, but we're home now and maybe I'll have my appetite back by tomorrow so I can try some AI-generated potato chip flavors...
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