This week in grandma: The realtor, the photographer, and, can I cry?
I got grandma to myself on this Sunday's phone call. My parents were out at a brunch and they weren't home by 1 PM. Grandma actually answered; I guess she's been a lot better about that as of late. I got to tell her about how busy last week was for me as well as my concert. She then started to go into how her life recently has been flipped, turned upside down, and she's overwhelmed by the whole thing. I get it; I'm not even directly involved and it's a lot. It's all very sudden thanks to my uncle just going gung ho over the whole thing and nobody really knew what was going on. At one point grandma asked, can I cry? Yes, grandma, you can cry. I would. Then again, there are reasons the family as a whole wants this to happen. I told her, think of all the times we've tried to reach you and gotten no answer after multiple phone calls and we've driven down only to find you watching TV in your bedroom, or napping. Now, we can call a main desk and they can walk down the hall--or my uncle can drive over easily. She'll be within 10 minutes of multiple family members. She went, I didn't think about that. And, I told her, you're so friendly; you'll meet lots of people and maybe get to do more things. She brought up her car again, and I reminded her, it won't be safe for you to have your car there, but they'll have a shuttle bus to get you around, and we can always pick you up and take you places, too. She won't be close to us, but she'll still be closer. She then mentioned that when she moved to her current place, she didn't think she'd ever move again. Well, that isn't how it worked out. She did say it would've been different if this had been 10 years ago. I'm sure it would, but as mom has said, do it now while she can still enjoy it. She's still relatively mobile.
Tuesday food day. When I was first looking at taking this week off, mom said something about making sure I was available on Tuesday the 10th. My hackles were raised, and I would find out grandma was supposed to have a party with some of her senior center friends. Mom wanted to be sure she got her food and went off to her party, though her friends were going to pick her up and take her, so I didn't have to worry about transportation, phew. In the intervening weeks, suddenly she was moving and mom was contacting a realtor and all this stuff, and Tuesday ended up being canceled for us going out there because a photographer would be coming on Wednesday instead, so that was the better day to go. Then Tuesday totally got screwed up from the original plans, because the instigator of the gathering got sick, so the party was off, and while mom called grandma to remind her about her food, grandma fell asleep and woke up and went downstairs around 12:30. We hadn't gotten a call from Meals on Wheels, so we figured maybe they were late. Well, no--grandma never got her food, and MOW didn't count it as a miss, so *somebody* got her food. We don't know if it's someone who knows who grandma is and said they'd get it to her, or if it was stolen, or what. I mean, good news, she's still on the list, but this is precisely why she can't be on her own. Even when mom calls, she still misses getting her food.
Wednesday. The photographer was going to be there around 1 PM, and mom wanted to be there an hour beforehand, so we left about 10:30. It took us a few minutes to get inside. We'd walked in with a four-person cleaning crew, and they were all using their cellphones to call people...to get in, I'm not sure...and when none of them got the door to buzz, mom finally used the building's keypad to call up to grandma. She did answer but didn't say anything; I could hear her TV on in the background. I told mom to call using her cellphone, duh. But then one of the cleaning ladies got buzzed in and we all went in together, though we took different elevators. Grandma was waiting for us and we set about doing some tidying, only to discover, once the photographer arrived, that she wanted surfaces to be a cleared as possible and to make the rooms look as big as possible. So, yeah, we had to hide grandma's ten bottles of pills in a basket, then move the basket. Since grandma was sitting in the living room, the photog started in the bathroom and bedroom, but grandma has this chair in front of her bed to sit and watch TV. (I've realized our rooms are pretty close in size, though her windows are on a different wall and her door is 90 degrees from where mine is. That makes it seem bigger.) We had to move the chair--and I discovered that chair likely hadn't been moved in years. There were three pills, lots of dirt, and...a prune? Ew. Later, I saw two more "prunes" still on a vine, so they likely were grapes. She loves grapes. Yeah...not good. Also, she had this coat rack in a corner that had a bra prominently featured, so mom threw something else over that, only to have the photog ask to have the rack moved entirely. I spent a good half-hour moving things out of a room, only to move them back in. After a little bit, grandma got curious to see what all we'd done with the room, only the photog was still in there. Grandma, honey, you need to just sit. We had to move her around a little, since the kitchen and living areas are open to each other. First she was in the kitchen, but when the photog had to get long shots from the back of the room toward that way, she had to move into the bedroom. Eventually they had to go downstairs into the garage to get a picture of her parking spot and the storage unit, which required grandma to move her car; I couldn't bear to watch that so I stayed upstairs. Mom reported back that grandma got out of her spot okay but couldn't get back in and the realtor had to do it for her. (She backs in, but only comes at it from a certain angle and wasn't able to do it from wherever she'd pulled over to. That was not unexpected.) The good news is that it sounds like the starting price will be a shade under $200K, because it sounded like it could've been as low as $180K. We're waiting to see if there will be an open house this weekend or next, but I've checked Zillow a couple times and it's not yet listed, so chances are it won't happen this Sunday. The realtor wanted the listing up for a few days ahead of time but that potentially was a tight turn-around. No worries.
Once they left--and grandma, with mom's help, signed a bunch of real estate paperwork--we finished up and made sure much of what we'd moved got back to approximately the same places. I don't think everything did, but we got a lot of it close. Before we'd gotten there, mom mentioned the possibility of bringing back a small bookcase grandma had and no longer needed. It was more of a storage unit, a few feet high, maybe a foot wide. It fit nicely in my trunk area and I didn't even need to put my seats down. While we were out, I'd wanted to stop by The Container Store, since I could make it on our way home; it took us over an hour to get there since it was almost 4 when we left grandma's. I'd also gotten spoiled by previous trips there, since I'd get off work at 3 PM on a Monday and the parking lot would be relatively empty. On a Wednesday after 5 PM during the holidays, when you suddenly realize that seemingly every restaurant at Oakbrook is in the vicinity? Holy crap, I found a level of hell. Lucky for me, someone was pulling out as I was coming down an aisle so I managed to get parking still within eyesight, but the bitter cold was working its way into the area so the walk wasn't super pleasant--but we did pass a Corner Bakery on the way. Neither mom nor I had lunch, and hadn't eaten much all day (though I did bring some granola bars, which helped), so that was our second stop after I did my wandering and drooling bit at TCS. I have some drawers I use for snacks that I think would be good for work, so this was good to get a visual on the different drawers they carry, plus I had a hard time looking them up online. I wasn't about to buy them myself; work should pay. But now I have item numbers and such. Then I also wanted to see what they had in terms of travel containers, and I found some of those and mom decided to buy them for me for Christmas. The third items were related to ornament storage--funny, since we haven't even touched our decorations so far this year--and she also bought me some stuff for that. I've seen their ornament bins for a couple years now and got two that hold 24 ornaments and one that holds 12. This is for the miscellaneous ornaments I've stored in random containers; this should be better as well as faster since I won't have to unbox them any longer. They fit into TCS's 74-quart box, but I held off on picking one of those up in case what we already have will work just fine. Plus, those they carry year-round so I can always come back if necessary. Oh, gosh, I see so many things there that can help organize work and home and I could go hog wild, really, but I need to do more decluttering and seeing what exactly we even have before I buy stuff to contain it. Then, off to Corner Bakery, where we discovered the pick-two option still came with a side. I legit didn't want anything more but mom picked chips for me since we could take those home. I got a frou-frou salad and fancy mac & cheese. Oh, it was good. It had bacon and tomatoes in it, plus breadcrumbs on top. I also got a Fresca as my fountain drink. I've never had it before but it was pretty good. Today I had a taste for a fizzy drink but we don't have any in the house any longer, boo.
It was a really long day, especially given that it involved being stuck in a car with mom for hours, but we survived. Even when she wouldn't stop complaining about the sun being in our eyes when we left grandma's. Like, okay, I get it, it sucks, but you're not even the one driving into it. She'd already questioned why I was wearing my sunglasses. Well, that's one reason. And then she was cold leaving the restaurant because the wind was biting. Well, now we're in the car and the heat will kick in and you'll be fine. It's okay. This should not be a surprise since it was predicted and it's December. She gets stressed pretty easily and all this with her mom is kind of putting her over the edge at times. We did have some good moments, which were nice, but I wasn't afraid to tell her when she was being annoying. Like my route. I will take the route I'm comfortable taking, thank you; you do not need to keep making suggestions.
Tuesday food day. When I was first looking at taking this week off, mom said something about making sure I was available on Tuesday the 10th. My hackles were raised, and I would find out grandma was supposed to have a party with some of her senior center friends. Mom wanted to be sure she got her food and went off to her party, though her friends were going to pick her up and take her, so I didn't have to worry about transportation, phew. In the intervening weeks, suddenly she was moving and mom was contacting a realtor and all this stuff, and Tuesday ended up being canceled for us going out there because a photographer would be coming on Wednesday instead, so that was the better day to go. Then Tuesday totally got screwed up from the original plans, because the instigator of the gathering got sick, so the party was off, and while mom called grandma to remind her about her food, grandma fell asleep and woke up and went downstairs around 12:30. We hadn't gotten a call from Meals on Wheels, so we figured maybe they were late. Well, no--grandma never got her food, and MOW didn't count it as a miss, so *somebody* got her food. We don't know if it's someone who knows who grandma is and said they'd get it to her, or if it was stolen, or what. I mean, good news, she's still on the list, but this is precisely why she can't be on her own. Even when mom calls, she still misses getting her food.
Wednesday. The photographer was going to be there around 1 PM, and mom wanted to be there an hour beforehand, so we left about 10:30. It took us a few minutes to get inside. We'd walked in with a four-person cleaning crew, and they were all using their cellphones to call people...to get in, I'm not sure...and when none of them got the door to buzz, mom finally used the building's keypad to call up to grandma. She did answer but didn't say anything; I could hear her TV on in the background. I told mom to call using her cellphone, duh. But then one of the cleaning ladies got buzzed in and we all went in together, though we took different elevators. Grandma was waiting for us and we set about doing some tidying, only to discover, once the photographer arrived, that she wanted surfaces to be a cleared as possible and to make the rooms look as big as possible. So, yeah, we had to hide grandma's ten bottles of pills in a basket, then move the basket. Since grandma was sitting in the living room, the photog started in the bathroom and bedroom, but grandma has this chair in front of her bed to sit and watch TV. (I've realized our rooms are pretty close in size, though her windows are on a different wall and her door is 90 degrees from where mine is. That makes it seem bigger.) We had to move the chair--and I discovered that chair likely hadn't been moved in years. There were three pills, lots of dirt, and...a prune? Ew. Later, I saw two more "prunes" still on a vine, so they likely were grapes. She loves grapes. Yeah...not good. Also, she had this coat rack in a corner that had a bra prominently featured, so mom threw something else over that, only to have the photog ask to have the rack moved entirely. I spent a good half-hour moving things out of a room, only to move them back in. After a little bit, grandma got curious to see what all we'd done with the room, only the photog was still in there. Grandma, honey, you need to just sit. We had to move her around a little, since the kitchen and living areas are open to each other. First she was in the kitchen, but when the photog had to get long shots from the back of the room toward that way, she had to move into the bedroom. Eventually they had to go downstairs into the garage to get a picture of her parking spot and the storage unit, which required grandma to move her car; I couldn't bear to watch that so I stayed upstairs. Mom reported back that grandma got out of her spot okay but couldn't get back in and the realtor had to do it for her. (She backs in, but only comes at it from a certain angle and wasn't able to do it from wherever she'd pulled over to. That was not unexpected.) The good news is that it sounds like the starting price will be a shade under $200K, because it sounded like it could've been as low as $180K. We're waiting to see if there will be an open house this weekend or next, but I've checked Zillow a couple times and it's not yet listed, so chances are it won't happen this Sunday. The realtor wanted the listing up for a few days ahead of time but that potentially was a tight turn-around. No worries.
Once they left--and grandma, with mom's help, signed a bunch of real estate paperwork--we finished up and made sure much of what we'd moved got back to approximately the same places. I don't think everything did, but we got a lot of it close. Before we'd gotten there, mom mentioned the possibility of bringing back a small bookcase grandma had and no longer needed. It was more of a storage unit, a few feet high, maybe a foot wide. It fit nicely in my trunk area and I didn't even need to put my seats down. While we were out, I'd wanted to stop by The Container Store, since I could make it on our way home; it took us over an hour to get there since it was almost 4 when we left grandma's. I'd also gotten spoiled by previous trips there, since I'd get off work at 3 PM on a Monday and the parking lot would be relatively empty. On a Wednesday after 5 PM during the holidays, when you suddenly realize that seemingly every restaurant at Oakbrook is in the vicinity? Holy crap, I found a level of hell. Lucky for me, someone was pulling out as I was coming down an aisle so I managed to get parking still within eyesight, but the bitter cold was working its way into the area so the walk wasn't super pleasant--but we did pass a Corner Bakery on the way. Neither mom nor I had lunch, and hadn't eaten much all day (though I did bring some granola bars, which helped), so that was our second stop after I did my wandering and drooling bit at TCS. I have some drawers I use for snacks that I think would be good for work, so this was good to get a visual on the different drawers they carry, plus I had a hard time looking them up online. I wasn't about to buy them myself; work should pay. But now I have item numbers and such. Then I also wanted to see what they had in terms of travel containers, and I found some of those and mom decided to buy them for me for Christmas. The third items were related to ornament storage--funny, since we haven't even touched our decorations so far this year--and she also bought me some stuff for that. I've seen their ornament bins for a couple years now and got two that hold 24 ornaments and one that holds 12. This is for the miscellaneous ornaments I've stored in random containers; this should be better as well as faster since I won't have to unbox them any longer. They fit into TCS's 74-quart box, but I held off on picking one of those up in case what we already have will work just fine. Plus, those they carry year-round so I can always come back if necessary. Oh, gosh, I see so many things there that can help organize work and home and I could go hog wild, really, but I need to do more decluttering and seeing what exactly we even have before I buy stuff to contain it. Then, off to Corner Bakery, where we discovered the pick-two option still came with a side. I legit didn't want anything more but mom picked chips for me since we could take those home. I got a frou-frou salad and fancy mac & cheese. Oh, it was good. It had bacon and tomatoes in it, plus breadcrumbs on top. I also got a Fresca as my fountain drink. I've never had it before but it was pretty good. Today I had a taste for a fizzy drink but we don't have any in the house any longer, boo.
It was a really long day, especially given that it involved being stuck in a car with mom for hours, but we survived. Even when she wouldn't stop complaining about the sun being in our eyes when we left grandma's. Like, okay, I get it, it sucks, but you're not even the one driving into it. She'd already questioned why I was wearing my sunglasses. Well, that's one reason. And then she was cold leaving the restaurant because the wind was biting. Well, now we're in the car and the heat will kick in and you'll be fine. It's okay. This should not be a surprise since it was predicted and it's December. She gets stressed pretty easily and all this with her mom is kind of putting her over the edge at times. We did have some good moments, which were nice, but I wasn't afraid to tell her when she was being annoying. Like my route. I will take the route I'm comfortable taking, thank you; you do not need to keep making suggestions.