Saturday, December 3, 2011

WalMarts, Christmas Decorations and Changing Clothes

Joshua finally got on google talk, and we had a great chat this evening. It's nice to have him a second away. My husband, Max, was at a company Christmas party, which I missed, pout. Josh's wife was at a fraternity Christmas party, which he missed. So we yammered at each other for a while.

This afternoon I took a WallyWorld trip and went to the WalMart in Fulton, KY/TN. I'm not clear enough to know which state it's actually in. We needed a few things, and I made an executive decision and decided I needed a small TV in the kitchen.

To my friends who don't watch TV :-P sorry. The kitchen is isolated, and I'm sick of my own mind. I've listened to every book I own so many times I'm becoming able to quote them as much as kids Josh's age can quote "Big Trouble in Little China." Word by word instant replay.

WalMarts in little towns (Fulton, pop. 6, 855) are different from WalMarts in Oak Ridge or Memphis I've discovered.
There were about 5 lovely models of small TVs on the shelf with prices ranging from $128 to $198. There was a model I really liked for $158, 19", skinny, wouldn't take up much room on the table or a shelf. BIG problem. There were none, I mean, none, zip, nada, of any of the models on the model shelf. First week of December is not a good month to go shopping for a small TV in a small town.

Max may get this one from tigerdirect.com which is a place he's found and likes:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1284137&CatId=5987

I just don't like buying something I haven't seen and felt. Odds are it's no worse than any I looked at. For that price, the world won't shatter. It will likely be fine for the kitchen. Surprisingly, though, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and the quality of the TV in there actually does matter a bit.

I got an oven thermometer to see how Mom's oven runs after all this time. Things have not always cooked the way I thought they would, so it needs checking. I finally got a rolling pin for here. For $3, it didn't break the bank. I don't do a lot of stuff that needs rolling, but biscuits might turn out better with a rolling pin than a water glass. I could actually, gasp, make a pie crust. Since I've been wanting some pasties lately, that would be cool. Yum, potatoes, carrots, onion, celery, and meat, in a nice crust, baked in the oven. Yes!

Shopping for a Christmas tree for Mom's house was a dud. I couldn't even find any Christmas trees there. We're talking about artificial, here. What WalMart doesn't have a Christmas tree display? um, Fulton I guess.

Lola has boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations in the basement. The problem is that old people let things go. Nearly everything I've found down there is plagued with mold or dry rot. They have a tree, but the bottom of the box is soaked from the basement leaking. Yuck. I don't even want to open it. They have boxes of lights. Who wants to try 25 different strings of lights to find 1 that works? But, there are no boxes of ornaments. What? Where on earth are the ornaments Mom had for years?

There are bundles and bundles of Christmas ribbon. I'm going to put that where? There are some porcelain houses that became all the rage some years ago. With every available table top jammed to the gills with something that MUST stay, there's no room for them.

Last Christmas I spent it with Max and his family and let the sitters handle the decorations. Poor girls. I don't think either Mom or Dad even realized it was the season they used to go all out on.

Tomorrow I may try moving some of my stuff into Dad's bedroom. I haven't had a closet for my clothes in two years, and my shoes are lined up in front of the washing machine. I've gotten the majority of Dad's clothes out of his walk-in closet, and am really ready for a place to hang my own. We'll see if Lola can handle that.

The other night I tried to sleep on Dad's bed. It's a friggin' plank of cement. I lasted 5 minutes. How on earth that man slept on that thing I will never ever fathom. I think it needs a new mattress because I don't think any foam pad on the face of the earth can make that thing comfortable. Mattress companies actually sell these?

Last night at 1:30 a.m. Lola revealed she'd lost her teeth. What is it with old people and losing their teeth? I finally found her bottom ones in her housecoat pocket and the upper ones in the tissue box she keeps on her bed. You think you're keeping a pretty good eye on them, but they do these squirrely things that sneak by you.

After weeks of wanting to be in bed until I finally get her up, this week Lola has been getting up at 10:30 or 11:00 a.m. Before, that didn't keep her from wanting to stay up until 2:00 a.m. Tonight she was ready for bed at 10:45 p.m. Her sleeping is getting erratic is what I'm trying to document. I didn't get it down at the time, but I think it was last Saturday that she thought it was bedtime at 3:00 p.m., 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.

It's a quandary between letting her be in bed as much as her age and body needs and trying to keep her active enough to keep her body functioning as much as it can. If she quits walking and getting up at all, her body may keep on functioning for years. Dealing with bedsores and bedpans is not appealing. So I'm going to keep forcing her to get up and go as long as she can.

Tomorrow I'm going to have to force her into changing clothes. I've had a clean pair of jammies hanging on the closet door for days now. Every night she asks if she needs to put them on in the morning. The next morning, she's forgotten all about clean clothes and goes to her chair and sits down. This doesn't seem like a big deal. You say "Go change your clothes," and it's a done deal.

But it is a big deal.  Walking back into the bedroom hurts. Not remembering how to put your pants on is a deal. The caretaker has to stand by and help at every step. Take the pants off. Put clean panties on. Put this leg in this opening here. Put this leg in the other opening here. Take the top off. Let me hold the shirt so you can get your arms in the right openings. She's worn out just from changing her clothes. You're ready to scream at the universe because your mother can't change her friggin' clothes.

Okay. So I think I may just go play World of Warcraft for a while. Yes. Let's go kill something.

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