There is no ever being content or satisfied, I guess. I don't know. I spent the first night back in my own home in a very long time. This morning I'm writing from the old place with the coffee from my expensive burr grind coffee maker. And it is odd. Of course, the coffee maker leaked coffee over the countertop. And Jesus, my house is cold. A hundred year old wooden house leaks cold air like a sieve. All the old problems have not fixed themselves while I've been away. And I trapped a rat that had decided to watch over the place while I was gone.
It hadn't done a very good job, so. . . the wages of sin.
I've cancelled my cable long ago, so I have no access to local, network, or cable news. I'd gotten used to watching it at my mother's house each night over dinner.
My house is also much darker than my mother's.
I don't know if I slept all that well in my own bed last night.
I guess I've romanticized the heck out of my own home. And so it goes.
My mother slouches toward remedies for her miseries at the hospital. She was supposed to get an MRI yesterday morning, so I held off rushing to there. Later she called me to complain. She had not had the MRI.
"These people don't like me. They don't talk to me. They've moved me to a new room. I can't find my purse. I don't know whats going on."
"I'm on my way up."
"Good."
When I got to her new room, two of the women from her neighborhood were there. They had moved my mother, but it was the same shotgun room with one folding chair and no place to stand. One of the women had found my mother's purse. It was in the bed with her. I'd only been there a few minutes when a doctor came in. Brand new, just out of the box. A good looking guy like all the young doctors are now, good skin and teeth, trim and athletic, and cocksure. He began a litany of all the things that could go wrong with tranquilizing my mother for the MRI, telling her that a kyphoplasty had only a 50% chance of helping. He wanted to know if she thought she could manage without the procedure. They could give her stronger pain meds. Of course, my mother couldn't hear most of it and couldn't comprehend what she heard. She kept turning her eyes to me. I tried to answer for her, but the doc didn't want to hear from me, so he kept pushing her harder.
"Do I have to decide right now?" she asked.
"No." And with that, doc was out the door. It had been uncomfortable and mom's guest were now in a hurry to go.
"We'll let you two discuss. . . ."
I walked them out. When I came back into the room, mom was telling her nurse she would go ahead with the MRI.
She had just created a delay in everything, I was certain. When the nurse left, I sat with her.
"I just peed myself," she said. The diaper had not held. "Get somebody."
I went to the nurse's desk and told them, then went back into my mother's room.
"I'm going to let them clean you up. I'll be back later."
It was past noon. I thought about that Capresse sandwich I'd had the day before. I decided to get another.
I was wrong about the kind of bread the mozzarella, tomato, and basil was on. It was ciabatta, not focaccia bread. I took my sandwich outside to eat.
It has been the coldest winter on record here, but this day had warmed, the first day in the 60s for awhile. This is how it is supposed to look this time of year. If you don't like this, keep voting republican. Drill, baby, drill.
But the sandwich wasn't nearly as good as the one the day before. It seemed that they had forgotten to put the balsamic glaze on it. But I knew well that you can never have the same experience twice. I'm simply still a little lost and could think of nothing else to do.
When I went back to see my mother at five, they still had not taken her for the MRI, but an hour after I got to her room, the "transport team," arrived. I told my mother I would call her later to see how it went.
I did, but she didn't answer. Just before eleven, though, she called me. She didn't say anything, and I heard someone talking to her. Then she said, "Siri. . . call my son."
"Hello mom."
"Here. . .. talk to my son. Tell him where we are," my mother said in a panic.
"You're in the hospital," said the voice.
"Really? Where were we before?"
The nighttime madness had kicked in.
When we hung up, I prepared for bed. Everything was both familiar and strange.
It is gray and raining this morning in prelude to another cold front. I must learn how to manage my time. I'll see my mother for hours, but for the rest of it. . . I need to be more productive.
The world is changing rapidly. When I was in college, a book called "Future Shock" was published.
"The premature arrival of the future."
We hadn't seen nothing, yet.
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