(no subject)
Tues Oct 10, 1 PM
I've missed the one potential highlight of the last two days. Ya see, Mother has been talking for years about Dr G. I've been picturing this sort of rotund, avuncular white haired gentleman. Heh. I met him for the first time on Sunday, and he is neither rotund, avuncular, or white haired. In fact, the man is a fox. In thinking about this, I realized I don't know if "fox" is used for men or not, but it seems apropos if it's acceptable. He is trim, beautifully dressed, with cheekbones to die for and salt-and-pepper hair. Women go crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man, indeed. Especially when they look like this. Mother said "His wife died years ago" and I started having those silly half-baked fantasies about living in Richmond again, and I'll bet I could have fun with him, and maybe.... well, just insert "LOL" here and be done with it.
The highlight that I've missed was being at the hospital when he visted yesterday and today. Oh, well. Nice to think about, anyway. The funny thing is that Mother was telling Danny about a different doctor she thought was "cute" and I flat didn't see how she got that. Anyway. Back to earth.
Daddy was moved to a rehab facility today. Not the Betty Ford kind of rehab, silly, the other kind. He's been out of bed and "walking" the last two days. He's also sat in a chair for a while each day. I thought maybe that would help make him more realistic about his current limitations, but it doesn't seem to have completely sunk in yet-- he told Mother he was going to get out of bed and go to the bathroom this morning instead of asking for a bedpan, and this evening he was unstrapping his legs from the spacer pillow so he could get out of bed to go to the bathroom. Stubborn old coot.
He is definitely more alert and with it now, but there are still moments when I wonder what on earth he's talking about. At this point it's probably about half and half misunderstanding on my part and disorientation on his. I think a lot of the miscommunication is that he makes a lot of assumptions or I guess he'd call them logical steps, and jumps straight to the end of the progression instead of filling us in on the steps in between or even giving us a clue what part of his world he's talking about. I don't think the drugs per se are a major factor at this point. He says he does have pain meds if he requests them, but he says they're more like sleeping pills than pain pills.
I realized this morning that I am basically in a very cranky mood, and I think it's because there's not a lot I can do. It got some better when I had errands to run, but I was still really out of patience with Mother, though I hope I didn't display that attitude-- she definitely has enough to deal with, without having a daughter go all teenaged-angsty on her. I have to laugh at myself, because I just realized that's EXACTLY what I felt like all day.
I'm leaving in the morning to go back to Raleigh. Thank god.
On Saturday I have to take a language equivalency exam that, if I pass, will exempt me from taking 2 semesters of a foreign language. At this point, I'd damn well better pass, or it'll be another year before I can graduate. Anyway, my plan before all this happened was to buy a spanish-english dictionary and practice translating "Que Pasa?" which is the Triangle area spanish language free newspaper. On Sunday it dawned on me that I hadn't bought the dictionary yet, and I almost panicked. I finally remembered that this IS a collge town, and yes, they have a bookstore, and yes, they actually have a spanish-english dictionary. Duh. The next step was to find something to practice translating. Aha! The front of the dictionary has a whole section explaining in spanish how to use the dictionary, so I've been working on that. I'm hoping the goal of the exam is to provide a translation that conveys the overall sense of the sentence, because some of these sentences have parts that I can only perceive as "extraneous." Or maybe repetitive. I think it's idiomatic phrases; I am able to figure out the sense of sentences reasonably well. I'm working on parts of the notes that I don't know what they're about instead of the ones that are about english grammar. I figure those bits would be full ofwords for parts of grammar that I'm unlikely to need on the actual exam, plus it might be too easy to figure out the sense of the sentence if I know what it's about.
I've read every fiction book I brought that I am in the mood to read at all. It's an odd sort of mood. I'm not in the mood for silly, and it's confusing to my poor brain to be reading a mean-streets mystery and look up and have to re-orient myself to a hospital in Richmond, KY and my sweet Baptist parents. I started a legal mystery that Mother had, but it was so silly, with a lawyer who was too stupid to keep his mouth shut, and called the judge a drunk in front of a full courtroom and kept doing ridiculous stuff like that. Give me a break. Not in the mood for soul-searching novels either, and there aren't that many magical realism books that I know about. Not to mention the disorientation factor there, vs the hospital setting again. Aaaarrrrgh!!11eleven! Frustrating.
So. Off to beddy bye now so I can get up tomorrow AM, pack up all the random stuff I threw in the car and most of which I never used, and go HOME. Thank god.
I've missed the one potential highlight of the last two days. Ya see, Mother has been talking for years about Dr G. I've been picturing this sort of rotund, avuncular white haired gentleman. Heh. I met him for the first time on Sunday, and he is neither rotund, avuncular, or white haired. In fact, the man is a fox. In thinking about this, I realized I don't know if "fox" is used for men or not, but it seems apropos if it's acceptable. He is trim, beautifully dressed, with cheekbones to die for and salt-and-pepper hair. Women go crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man, indeed. Especially when they look like this. Mother said "His wife died years ago" and I started having those silly half-baked fantasies about living in Richmond again, and I'll bet I could have fun with him, and maybe.... well, just insert "LOL" here and be done with it.
The highlight that I've missed was being at the hospital when he visted yesterday and today. Oh, well. Nice to think about, anyway. The funny thing is that Mother was telling Danny about a different doctor she thought was "cute" and I flat didn't see how she got that. Anyway. Back to earth.
Daddy was moved to a rehab facility today. Not the Betty Ford kind of rehab, silly, the other kind. He's been out of bed and "walking" the last two days. He's also sat in a chair for a while each day. I thought maybe that would help make him more realistic about his current limitations, but it doesn't seem to have completely sunk in yet-- he told Mother he was going to get out of bed and go to the bathroom this morning instead of asking for a bedpan, and this evening he was unstrapping his legs from the spacer pillow so he could get out of bed to go to the bathroom. Stubborn old coot.
He is definitely more alert and with it now, but there are still moments when I wonder what on earth he's talking about. At this point it's probably about half and half misunderstanding on my part and disorientation on his. I think a lot of the miscommunication is that he makes a lot of assumptions or I guess he'd call them logical steps, and jumps straight to the end of the progression instead of filling us in on the steps in between or even giving us a clue what part of his world he's talking about. I don't think the drugs per se are a major factor at this point. He says he does have pain meds if he requests them, but he says they're more like sleeping pills than pain pills.
I realized this morning that I am basically in a very cranky mood, and I think it's because there's not a lot I can do. It got some better when I had errands to run, but I was still really out of patience with Mother, though I hope I didn't display that attitude-- she definitely has enough to deal with, without having a daughter go all teenaged-angsty on her. I have to laugh at myself, because I just realized that's EXACTLY what I felt like all day.
I'm leaving in the morning to go back to Raleigh. Thank god.
On Saturday I have to take a language equivalency exam that, if I pass, will exempt me from taking 2 semesters of a foreign language. At this point, I'd damn well better pass, or it'll be another year before I can graduate. Anyway, my plan before all this happened was to buy a spanish-english dictionary and practice translating "Que Pasa?" which is the Triangle area spanish language free newspaper. On Sunday it dawned on me that I hadn't bought the dictionary yet, and I almost panicked. I finally remembered that this IS a collge town, and yes, they have a bookstore, and yes, they actually have a spanish-english dictionary. Duh. The next step was to find something to practice translating. Aha! The front of the dictionary has a whole section explaining in spanish how to use the dictionary, so I've been working on that. I'm hoping the goal of the exam is to provide a translation that conveys the overall sense of the sentence, because some of these sentences have parts that I can only perceive as "extraneous." Or maybe repetitive. I think it's idiomatic phrases; I am able to figure out the sense of sentences reasonably well. I'm working on parts of the notes that I don't know what they're about instead of the ones that are about english grammar. I figure those bits would be full ofwords for parts of grammar that I'm unlikely to need on the actual exam, plus it might be too easy to figure out the sense of the sentence if I know what it's about.
I've read every fiction book I brought that I am in the mood to read at all. It's an odd sort of mood. I'm not in the mood for silly, and it's confusing to my poor brain to be reading a mean-streets mystery and look up and have to re-orient myself to a hospital in Richmond, KY and my sweet Baptist parents. I started a legal mystery that Mother had, but it was so silly, with a lawyer who was too stupid to keep his mouth shut, and called the judge a drunk in front of a full courtroom and kept doing ridiculous stuff like that. Give me a break. Not in the mood for soul-searching novels either, and there aren't that many magical realism books that I know about. Not to mention the disorientation factor there, vs the hospital setting again. Aaaarrrrgh!!11eleven! Frustrating.
So. Off to beddy bye now so I can get up tomorrow AM, pack up all the random stuff I threw in the car and most of which I never used, and go HOME. Thank god.