Timing

I wish there was some way to get Mom back onto a normal day/night cycle. Last night she went to bed at her regular time and all seemed well (she got up only once to go to the bathroom)--as far as I knew. I woke at four in the morning to find her light on and door open and her not in her room.

She was in the living room on the couch, in the dark, eating the last of her dry breakfast cereal by the handful from the wax paper inner bag she'd pulled out of the cereal box. She was very co-operative as I shepherded her back to her room.

This morning I fixed pancakes for breakfast since there was no more of her cereal available. I should say I made the batter since I suspected she wouldn't rise on time and didn't want to actually make the pancakes before she did. When I heard her in the hallway about 11:00 a.m., I fired up the griddle. Half an hour later she still hadn't made it out into the dining room. I checked on her and she was back in her room making and remaking her bed in a vain attempt to find her glasses.

Thinking she could have left them almost anywhere during her ramblings last night, I searched the entire house only to find them folded neatly on her bedside table.

She finally sat down for a short stack and coffee at noon. When she was done she carefully took a piece of tissue, daubed it into the remaining syrup on her plate, and began to cut it with her fork.

I said, "Mom, what are you doing? You can't eat that!"

"Why not?"

"Because, it's not food. It's a Kleenex."

"It is? I couldn't tell what it was."

"Yes, it is. Are you still hungry? I can fix you something else."

She stared at her plate for a moment.

"Are you still hungry?" I repeated.

"I guess so," she admitted.

I fixed her an egg and toast and more coffee. I think that counts as lunch so maybe we're all caught up now.

Mom-Sequiturs: "Dammit, Jim, I'm a Doctor Not a Stripper!"

I took Mom to one of her eye doctors this morning.

As usual, on the trip in, Mom turned to me and asked, "Which doctor are we going to today?"

I had told her once already before leaving the house but I told her again.

"Ah, yes," she said, nodding. "But that's his work name not his real name."

Line For the Bath Forms In the Bamboo

My brother bought one of those concrete lotus birdbaths a few weeks ago. He put it just out beyond the edge of the lanai. It's taken a while for the birds to notice and become comfortable with its presence, but recently they've taken to it with a vengeance. The end of Rainy Season may have something to do with it, too.

A couple of evenings ago I noticed three blue jays sitting together in the bushes up against the lanai. The one closest to the birdbath leapt over to it, took a sip of water, and then began to bathe ferociously, ducking its head under and flapping its wings, water spraying everywhere, until it was soaked through. When it flew off it was noticeably slower and lower due to the additional water weight. The second blue jay moved in and repeated the show. The third one hopped over. Just then a luminous deep warm-copper-colored bird, a thrush of some sort landed on the opposite rim. It had something in its mouth, either a very large berry or a small snail. They stared at each other for a minute and then the blue jay left. The thrush took a long messy splashy bath and a good drink, picked up its prize again and took off.

I went out and refilled the water in the lotus basin. Fifteen minutes later the last blue jay was back and was able to enjoy its bath uninterrupted.

The jays repeated the show again last night. A couple of ring necked doves have discovered the place, too. Mom doesn't always notice when the birds arrive but, if we point them out to her, she gets a kick watching them.

Under the Onion Tree

Mom's eyesight is not what it used to be despite daily applications of drops for macular degeneration and retinal problems. (I apply the drops ever since I discovered she was not hitting her eyes when she tried to administer them herself. She wasn't tilting her head back far enough and was just dribbling the drops down her cheeks. Not surprisingly, her check-ups have shown stabilization since I took over.)

Anyway, yesterday morning she looked out the large window through the lanai and said, "Well, there's absolutely nothing going on out there today." Meaning there's no significant gale blasting through. Normal breezes are too subtle for her to detect. She can also see the occasional bird if it's sitting on a wire and contrasted against the sky, but she frequently thinks a dark blue sky is clouds and vice versa, a light gray overcast becomes clear sky. "Yep," she said. "Nothing going on at all . . . except those three onions."

Onions?

So I tried to see where she was looking. The lemon tree has three almost ripe lemons clustered together like a pawn shop sign.

So now we have an onion tree.