Mom On Line

We now share a "party line" with Mom. Those of you over 60 know what I'm talking about.

When Mom moved in nine years ago, we had two phone lines. We had a dial-up modem, so "Mom's line" was also the modem line. She never understood why "her" phone also rang on the two-line phone in our kitchen, while "our" phone never rang on the one-line phone in her room. She always assumed that all calls were for us, even when the incoming call was on her line. She'd say to her friends, "I always let THEM answer the phone."

Last summer we changed internet service providers. We no longer needed that second line, although we kept it for awhile out of inertia. When our answer machine recently died, I decided to get "Home Voice Mail" from Verizon. However, Home Voice Mail was not available if you had two phone lines. Something about "rollover" and "hunting." So we got rid of the second line.

Mom was pretty mad at first. Her line was dead for four or five days until a helpful neighbor rewired her phone jack, putting her on our line. "My phone hasn't rung for two weeks, " she complained, peevishly. Now the woman who never used to answer the phone answers it constantly. "What? Who do you want? Who? Sorry, you must have the wrong number." Mom gets just one regular phone call a week, from her old neighbor, Barbara, who calls on Tuesday afternoons. I've told Mom to just let the phone ring, unless she was expecting a call, so that Home Voice Mail would record the message if I could not answer the phone. Such knowledge is too wonderful for her.

During the days of Arlo, our beagle, we had an expression: "You might as well talk to the beagle." When it comes to Mom and these new-fangled telephone services, you might as well.

Something Just Clicked

For years I've wondered how my husband could stand to watch so much TV. 'Anything that flickers" is the way he puts it. Talking heads, screaming heads, murder, mayhem, baseball, basketball, boxing, football, golf, hockey, Dog Whisperer, Meerkat Manor, and sometimes even the insufferable Bill O'Reilly. He lounges on the couch, remote in hand, click-click-clicking away. Sometimes I'm passing through the room when a fleeting image catches my interest. A frantic-looking woman will be saying, "--but when our dog dug up that skull in the back yard, we--" CLICK!

"Phil! Get that back! I wanna see that!"

"Wha--? Huh? Sorry." Click, click, click.

But the segment has already ended. "Even the toughest grass stains come out with --"

I can no longer point fingers at him. We've had our new computer for nearly a year. I've discovered blogging and now spend WAY too much time click-click-clicking away on the keyboard. Is there a 12-step program for blogaholics?

Losing It

This morning I lost it.

I hadn't slept well. I'd been awake since 3 AM. At 8 AM, Mom shuffled out of her room to complain, for the hundredth time this year, that something was wrong with her sliding door. Georgie, the cat, wanted to go out on the porch, but the door was stuck. Phil went in to open the door. He tried to explain, for the hundredth time, how the latch worked. I went in just in time to hear her say to him, --"and I don't need a lecture from YOU on how to open my door!" Well, I lost it. I screamed like a crazy woman. "I don't want to hear another word about that door! NOT ONE WORD!"

Mom is losing it too. Later, as I was driving her to the salon for a shampoo, she asked, "What ever became of that little girl who was living with Gram and Gramp when I married your father?" That little girl was me. It seemed futile to try to explain that to her, so I just told her that the girl was my cousin, Elaine. Mom said, "Of course. I knew that."

Hissy Fits Are Tiresome in Very Old Ladies

Monday morning I was at the dentist's for one and a half hours, having prep work done for two new crowns. When I got home, numb from chin to eyeball, Mom was in our family room, rocking in the big brown recliner, hands folded, with that aggrieved expression on her face.

"WELL! Where have YOU been? Two cancelled appointments in a row with Debbie! (Debbie is her nurse practitioner.) First, Friday and now today! No one around here ever tells me anything."

"Mom," I said, "you're the one who wanted to cancel your appointment on Friday because you were too tired."

"I know. I know. I just never dreamed you would cancel my Monday appointment too," she replied indignantly."

"But you never had an appointment today. The swelling in your feet went away by itself by Friday, so I didn't make another appointment."

"Well, if I were still in Meadville, I would be seeing Dr. Thomas every six months. He was so good about that. Better than Debbie. The girls would call and say it was time to come in."

"You saw Debbie in January. You don't have to go back until July."

"But if I were in Meadville--"

"OK. OK. I'll get you an appointment with Debbie, but there's a lot going on already this week. On Friday, you have an appointment for a shampoo and set."

There was nothing more she could say, so she trundled off to her room to check on the cat. Later, she came back out and said, "I guess we can put off my appointment with Debbie this week. Can I have some ice cream?"