Saturday Afternoon

This afternoon offered up the chance to experience the full range of emotions from anger, frustration, and sadness through neutral and on to joy, gratitude, and wonder. I spent about four hours with Mom and Dad today; an outing to Magnolia for Mom's hair appointment with Trina and Dad's trip to the barber coupled with lunch out at Taco Time, and other errands/to-do's around the home front of Merrill Gardens.

I wanted to start this piece with titles varying from "It's OK, Kate", "Forgetting the Hairnet", or "Work Is Never Finished" but decided instead that a simple "Saturday Afternoon" would be best. There is nothing really surprising about this block of time; predictable in it's unpredictability but in some senses striking for the wealth of individual moments; some really good and some so awful, I wanted to run off into the wild blue screaming and cursing.

Pick up time was to be 12:30 PM for the hair appointments; I arrived on the dot. Parking was challenging as usual. Mom and Dad were to have eaten lunch and I thought maybe they would be waiting in the lobby for me. Dad was there but Mom was upstairs, using the phone to call me. Turns out they had not eaten lunch; service was slow in the dining room, they got frustrated and abandoned that plan to sit in the lobby to wait for me. In all this confusion, the pick up time was apparently lost, was it 11:30 or 12:00? Certainly not 12:30 which was verbally confirmed and visually confirmed on the wall board in the apartment. Running smack into this scene made my every synapse zing with adrenaline; what could I have done to clarify this issue and to avoid the chronic occurrence of poor timing and miscommunication? Why does it keep happening again and again? I fled the scene to get the car all the while cursing and ranting at the fates but pulling myself together in the 3 minutes required to get parked at the front door.

I loaded walkers into the back end of the car, got them seated and belted in and we were on our way to Magnolia. A gorgeous day, 55 degrees and crystal clear, the snow capped Olympics lit up by the early afternoon sun like diamonds, the bare trees still in winter's mode despite the unseasonable weather. Twice I was able to park right in front of the barbershop and help Dad into and out of the shop (this is like praying for an open parking space on a busy Saturday afternoon and have it appear both times). And just as delightful was the lack of the typical long cue of people waiting for a spot in one of three chairs; we generally avoid Saturdays for this reason. But people must have been drawn to be outside instead of inside and I was able to leave Dad in the able hands of the Vietnamese ladies who run the shop. They always fawn over him as a respected elder and he seems to enjoy his time there.

Then, on to Trina'a shop a mile down the road where another perfect parking place awaited me right in front of the salon. A customer leaving asked if I need help and as I assisted Mom up the 3 steps, she carried the walker from the sidewalk into the salon for me. Very, very nice. The appointment was a success; quick, easy, and Mom looked great. Back in the car with Trina's able help in getting us back down the steps and then off to pick up Dad at the barbershop. He looked great too, all dapper and trimmed up. He was smiling. He rarely does that these days and I love to see it.

Recall that neither had had lunch because of miscommunication and agitation about the time of the pickup coupled with slow service in the MG dining room. Dad suggested Ivar's and Mom suggested Taco Time; we settled on the latter. This is the moment when I really wished my camera had been on me; there they sat in "their" booth at Taco Time eating their crisp bean burrito meals with mexi-fries and coke. This is where I often found them many a Sunday afternoon as they stopped of for a bite to eat after church. I would drive by on my way home from on-call work, spot the Jetta in the Taco Time lot, and pull in just so I could sit there with them and eat a mexi-fry or two. This was a touching moment to sit with them again, in the same booth and enjoy the same food. Why is it that we all love sameness? This time it felt very different even in its sameness; the passage of time has changed us all, all except Taco Time.

When we left the restaurant, a man eating at a table close by offered "an extra pair of hands". He could see I was struggling with my purse, a coke, the leftover fries, and some small tubs of hot sauce plus Mom and Dad with walkers and a journey ahead to the car. I didn't need his help but was pleased that someone noticed and wanted to be of service. I thanked him. The second person to offer help in one day struck me. People can be very thoughtful.

Back at MG, I had to park along the curb as all places were taken in the lot and several cars were parked in the open area dropping off others with walkers and the like. The challenge here was the uneven ground of grass, potholes, and soft earth between car and sidewalk. Walkers don't move well on terrain like this but we persevered.

Back at the apartment there were things to do; mail to open, bills to pay, clean-up and preparation of a shopping list. No paper products this time but edibles, including candy. I think the caregivers must eat a lot of this sweet stuff; the bags and bags of Hershey's kisses, mini chocolate bars, mint patties that get eaten every week is phenomenal (even for a chocolate lover). I can't imagine Mom is eating all of that. Dad has some but he's into beer, cashews and chocolate Ensure more than candy.

Out I went to Bartell's and Metropolitan Market. Eighty-five dollars later I arrived back with the loot and put it all away, delighting Mom with the array of candy, including the cheap as dirt Valentine's Heart Box of Russell Stover's chocolates. I felt really good about where I was; the pink tulips in a vase on top of the TV, the incredible light and warmth in the apartment and a sense that my work was coming to a close. Mom lay back in her new power lift recliner looking relaxed. Dad sat with a can of Heineken sipping from a blue straw. "All is well", I breathed in quietly.

As I gathered my things to leave, Mom says to me, "You didn't happen to see any grey hairnets while you were at Bartells, did you?" Speechless. Me. She had asked me to look for those hairnets; they must have been on her mind since she'd been at Trina's and wanted to preserve the nice hairdo overnight. I had told her I would get them for her. And I didn't because I forgot; they never made it to my list.

I let it go. I took a deep breath in and said, "I'm sorry, Mom. I completely forgot". She said, "That's ok, I can use what I have here."

Lessons learned:
1. There will always be something in the "in box".
2. Ordering in bulk will never cure the endless need for things (like hairnets)
3. The most stressful situations carry threads of beauty and tenderness.
4. I will never (ever) use a hairnet.