Category: Skitter

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A Visit With Mom, During Bruce Week: Part Two

Whenever we get inside the front doors of Millard Care and Rehab, Skitter prances her way to Mom’s room. She doesn’t dilly-dally. She makes a beeline for Mom. When Mom notices us at her door, she is quick to say, “Hi, Skitter! What are you doing here?” (To heck with me or Suzanne. Skitter is Mom’s favorite by a mile. I don’t blame her.) Skitter then leaps up on Mom’s bed, and snuggles as close to Mom as she can get—where she remains for the duration of our visits. During our last couple of visits, Mom has sort of forgotten Skitter was by her side. In fact, she almost ignored Skitter once Skitter got up on her bed—to the point that Suzanne and I have been extra worried about Mom’s state of mind. But when we visited Mom a few days ago, Mom was back to her old Skitter-petting self. They were inseparable. Whew! When it was time for us to leave, Skitter would not get off the bed, even when Mom did. Suzanne had to physically remove The Skit from Mom’s space.

Suzanne’s leg is a focal point of one of these photos for a real reason. I thought I should document Suzanne elevating her leg on Mom’s bed because her foot was swollen. She and Mom had a dandy time commiserating about the woes of their swollen feet. What a couple of exciting broads I was hanging out with! For the record, my feet don’t swell. Except for that time when I was 16 and discovered I was suddenly allergic to bee stings—and at the old Delta hospital, the nurses had to cut my new Nikes off my feet because all my appendages were swollen up like I was auditioning to be the Hulk in a movie. Or Popeye with his spinach-ed arms.

During our visit with Mom, we laughed so much that I can’t remember what silly thing Mom was laughing about so hard she covered her mouth as if pretending she didn’t say something irreverent. But isn’t that a great picture of Mom looking like the mischievous dame she is? She can say anything she wants, and she gets away with everything she says because she’s so Old Gangsta Old Lady about it. And also because what she says is usually both funny and dead-on about the topic being discussed. BTW Check out how Mom is not wearing her purple housecoat for the first time in a long while. And note her bigly flower ring and brooch. She was stylin.’ She says she couldn’t get her earrings on that day.

For my part, I wore my pig earrings for the visit because Mom likes to see them so much. I wore my bee socks for her, too. She mentioned many times how much she liked my brand spankin’ new bejeweled Bow Tie o’ the Day. Mom does love to see the bling! We took her some shrimp and some sugary treats, too. It was all for Mom. It always is.

FYI The weather is not looking good for our scheduled flight from SLC to Portland in the morning. To that news, I say, ” &*+($^#@!*^~#^@$#^^&!!!” That mess o’ symbols was my silent swearing. Rest assured, those words are not silent in my head! 😡

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A Visit With Mom, During Bruce Week: Part One

I wanted to spend a few hours with Mom before we left on our quick trip to Portland this week, so we jumped in Abra the Maverick over the weekend and drove to my beloved Deltabama. (To be honest, I think I love my hometown more than it loves me.) Mom is not just a cool person—she is a wonders-of-the-world vacation destination. Spending even a tiny amount of time with her is a rejuvenating experience, even though her mind is not as steady or accurate as it once was. She has one of those rare spirits that remains optimistic at all times. Her compassion and fun spills over onto those around her. It doesn’t matter who you are—Mom loves the real you. Mom has always been a come-as-you-are kind of woman. Oh, don’t be fooled: she sees your mistakes and imperfections. But she sees that you are so much more than your worst qualities. She loves you even when you struggle to be better. She loves you because you try to do better. I’ll write more about our visit in this afternoon’s post.

I’m busy getting ready for our Portland trip to see Bruce Springsteen in concert on Saturday. We’re supposed to fly out tomorrow, but SLC is about to be hit by a major snowstorm later today and tomorrow, and I’m betting our morning flight is going to be delayed or canceled. I’ll keep you updated. Must. Not. Miss. Bruce!

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Truth, Beauty, Goodness

Yesterday, Skitter and I packed our various water bottles into the truck and headed south to spend some time with Mom. It was a no-brainer for me when it came to choosing Tie o’ the Day for the occasion. The tie had to be Mona Lisa—a tie o’ beauty for a visit with my beautiful mother. Skitter and I were surprised to find Mom wasn’t wearing any earrings. It’s been quite a long while since we’ve seen her ears naked. She also didn’t mention my earrings, which she always does. She did mention liking Skitter’s tie a number of times. Of course, she remarked about Mona throughout the visit. She also made a bigly deal about liking the taco socks I was wearing. Mom told me she is content with not doing much anymore. She said, “All my life I did everything, all the time.” She took a long pause, looked into my eyes, and said, “But not all of me is here anymore. Do you know what I mean?” I told her I knew. I did not tell her how many years I’ve already missed so much of her. Nor did I tell her how she sometimes melts farther away from me, even as I am sitting right next to her. And I certainly didn’t tell her how helpless and ineffectual it makes me feel that there is not one damn thing I can do for her to make it stop. 🕯

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Mom Deserves To See Double

I wasn’t available to post yesterday. We made an early Xmas visit to Mom’s kingdom, for my true Christmas morning. I knew I would wear the leg lamp Tie o’ the Day for our visit, because Mom loves it so. But she also likes the tie on which Richie wears—and abhors—the bunny pajamas. I decided a two-fer festive Tie o’ the Day was necessary for our get-together. (She made a bigly deal about how much she liked my “ugly sweater”-ish green holiday jacket.) Skitter was a constant at Mom’s side, in all her elf-collar glory. When I pulled the phone out for pix, Mom playfully showed off one of the soft peppermints we brought her. I showed Mom a couple of Christmas “stockings” she had made me over my kidhood, and she remembered them, mostly. As you can see in the first photo, Suzanne and I found Mom the perfect Santa hat for her gift: it matches her purple housecoat AND it sports a tiara—befitting Mom’s eternal Queen Bee status. As Mom drank from a convenience store Coke with lots of ice—which she said her friend, Dot, had brought her earlier that morning—she said to me and Suzanne, “I’ll drink FOR you, and TO you, and WITH you kids—for ANY reason, ANY time.” She was having such a good time. She sounded like she had been drinking eggnog with extra whisky in it. I’ll have to quiz Dot about what she really put in that drink she brought Mom.

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A Skittery Christmas, Eccentricities Included

Skitter is as tortured by her elf bandana as Ralphie is by his pink bunny pajamas. Check out how Skitter’s tail is clinging as tightly as is possible to her tummy in mortified embarrassment. I, on the other hand, am jolly and completely smitten by my Santa-going-down-the-chimney hat. 🎩 🎅 (This A CHRISTMAS STORY holiday Tie o’ the Day is a longtime fave for me.)

Allow me to share with you a few more of Skitter’s eccentric behaviors. First, you must know Skitter sleeps shut in her crate at night, at the foot of the bed. If she hears me stirring in the bedroom in the morning, but I don’t immediately open her crate door, she does this odd thing: she daintily fake-coughs. The message she sends me is clear: “Helen, I don’t want to be a bother, but have you forgotten me? [yet more fake coughing] I’m still in my crate. [some even more dramatic fake coughing] Would you kindly open my crate door, so I can go potty and begin my day?” I’m telling you, she can really act: her “coughs” gradually escalate to ever-increasing levels of dramatic intensity. They are pity-worthy fake coughs of the highest quality. I have been known sometimes to stir around doing nothing for a long time when I crawl out of bed, just to provoke many rounds of Skitter’s fake coughing. It is so cute and polite. And pathetic.

Next, on Skitter’s non-fake coughing days, which is most days, she follows her own set schedule. Here’s Skitter’s usual morning routine: She wakes up promptly at 6:00 AM each morning, at which time I let her out of her crate and then out back, where she goes potty at 6:01. She wants back in the house by 6:02. By 6:03, she has curled up in her bed on the couch—right beside me—and she snoozes, while I write. At 10:00 AM, Skitter wakes and leaps out of her bed to visit her food bowl. She’s not hungry. Nope. She is inspecting her the contents of the bowl to make sure her always-full-of-dry-food bowl is topped off with a few dollops of fresh wet food. Does she have a bite to eat while she’s conducting her inspection? No. She rarely eats any of her food before late afternoon or evening. She simply likes seeing the wet food is there where it’s supposed to be. The wet food sits in the bowl, just drying out all day long. Yes, she wakes up at 10:00 AM for the sole purpose of making sure her wet food has been put in its proper place. She wakes up in order to inspect my work. If I have not put the wet food where it should be in her bowl, she panics. She prances back and forth in front of me, until she gets my attention, then she turns her face in the direction of her bowls. I occasionally—and purposely—don’t put wet food in her bowl, so I can watch her freak out when she sees it’s not where it should be. After I successfully pass Skitter’s rigorous inspection of my doggie cafeteria duty, she hops back up in her bed for her post-inspection nap.

Skitter also strolls over to check out her water dish a number of times each day. She usually just keeps an eye on it, and rarely drinks anything until late in the day. She alerts me when her water is “gone.” Skitter panics, and paces, and sometimes performs a leap in order to get my attention. I know what her various leaps mean, and she has one which means she is distressed about her water bowl situation. I initially thought her Water Leap o’ Worry meant she is askeered her water bowl is empty, and she feared she would soon dehydrate into a furry dust-puddle. It sounds like her behavior makes sense. Who doesn’t want to have water in their water bowl? I know I do. But the weirdness of Skitter’s I’m-out-of-water frenzy lies in the fact that she gets antsy about it way before she is out of water. It took me a long time to figure it out, but I eventually caught on to why Skitter worries over a not-yet-empty bowl of water. You see, I discovered it has nothing to do with her panicking over the somewhat low water itself. Her panic is about how she dislikes it when her tongue touches the bottom of the bowl as she gets a drink when the water level is approaching low. She hates when that happens. She’s just finicky. So I make sure there is always a more than sufficient amount of water in her bowl to prevent her precious tongue from touching the bottom of the bowl when she laps it up. She’s just weird. After 9 years with us, Skitter is still a puzzle of idiosyncrasies. And you know how I like putting puzzles together. 🐶 🚰

Banned Book’s o’ the Day: I’m re-reading Jack London’s CALL OF THE WILD, and Jean Craighead George’s JULIE OF THE WOLVES. They are evil books. NOT.

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The Snow Stats O’ Centerville

On our patio table this afternoon, we had 3/4 of a Skitter of snow. For you non-canines, that snow total amounts to over 12 inches of powder which has fallen over the course of 2 days. For the official measuring o’ the snow, Skitter wore a Christmas Tie o’ the Day to show her reserved enthusiasm. After her snowy table affair, Skitter asked me if I would like a real snow gauge stick from Santa for X-mas, so she won’t have to sit in the freezing snow again to pose for TIE O’ THE DAY photos. I told her I understood her not-so-thrilled perspective about getting her paws and belly ice cold in the accumulated snow, but I also told her about how all the TO’TD readers like to see her do fun things for my nefarious purposes.

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It’s A Girl!

Although my truck finally got to me during the first week in October, Oakley’s death made it impossible to celebrate its arrival—which I had eagerly awaited since I ordered it in November of 2021. After almost a year of gestation at the Ford plant, the truck I adored from afar just didn’t seem all that important. I knew that deep inside I was happy about it becoming officially mine, but I couldn’t muster up the happiness at the time. Losing Oakley was the only thing on my mind for weeks. I am only now beginning to feel the glee of getting a material thing I have wanted for the last couple of years. I have only two stickers on the truck so far. One is political. One honors Oakley, so her spirit rides with me wherever I drive.

What name did I decide on for the truck? I named her ABRA, as in abracadabra. It took a lot of magic to get her here. Abra is also the name of a minor character in one of my fave novels: John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. The name has stuck with me since I was 11 and I first read the book. I liked the name so much I thought if I ever had a daughter, I would probably name her Abra. The book’s larger theme is about good and evil, and how we always have the agency to choose which way we will live. We are the sum of our choices.

I wanted to order Abra vanity plates that said ABRA, but my experiences with ordering vanity plates in Utah told me there was no way “they” would approve it, because it has the potential to be read as A BRA, and that’s a scissor hop, skip, and a jump away from almost inducing bad thoughts in other driver’s minds. Seriously, to the DMV, ABRA would be considered almost pornographic and, therefore, dirty because naughty-minded people might read something into it. And we can’t have ABRA being mistaken for A BRA by innocent children, you know. So I didn’t even apply for a plate that said ABRA on it: it would have been a waste of time and effort. Instead, I legally transferred my BOWETRY plate from the Vibe we are selling. When I ordered BOWETRY a few years back, I had to explain to the DMV what it meant. I explained that it is a combination of my two obsessions: bow ties and poetry. Those folks at the DMV who are in charge of approving orders for vanity plates had no problems with my BOWETRY after my explanation. Abra seems pleased to be wearing the BOWETRY plate, too.

Without further ado, I introduce to you the gorgeous Blue Beauty of 2022 Mavericks—my Abra. Skitter and I decided our cowboy hats were a must for pix of us in the cow-named Maverick. Skitter is also wearing what she refers to as her official sheriff ‘s badge Tie o’ the Day. She has called it that since our good pal, Herschel Walker, once told Skitter that the stars on her tie looked like the honorary token sheriff’s badge he carries. My cowboy hat has a silver star right smack-dab in the middle of my hatband, so I’m a sheriff too. I chose my bolo-design Tie o’ the Day. Skitter and I are cowgirls in our bones. Or, at least, dang true rednecks. 🤠 🐶 🏇 🚙 🍩

TIE O’ THE DAY’s next post will cover Suzanne’s recent revelation about how I drive. She’s close to accurate, but not quite.

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Big Helen Is Now 92

Skitter and I made our way to see Mom yesterday, on what was her 92nd birthday. I told her she’s had so many birthdays that she’s starting to go backwards in time: I told her she didn’t look a day over 29. Someone on the staff stuck their head into her room to check on her and Mom informed them she’s 29. When the staff person was gone, Mom winked at me and said, “Do you think they believed me?”

The first thing Mom said to me when I walked in was not “Hi!” Nope. She said, “You just missed Joyce Moody! She gave me this pillow.” And then she showed me the birthday card Joyce gave her, and we laughed about that. Mom clutched her new pillow the entire time I was there.

I brought Mom another stash of snacks. Gummy bears are always a hit with her. I introduced her to pretzel bites filled with peanut butter, which she fell in love with. I also gave her a Fruity Pebbles Birthday Cake candy bar, which she finished off right before the nurse came in to check her blood sugar. Oh, boy! I felt like apologizing to the nurse for Mom’s extra high blood sugar. But the nurse didn’t fuss about it. “I’ll just give her some insulin,” she said. Whew! As far as I’m concerned, when you’re 92 you can eat whatever sugary things your heart desires. When I gave Mom her Hostess Birthday Cupcakes, I decked one out with candles. I explained to Mom that I thought it wise to not attempt to put 92 candles on it, so I just went with the 2 candles—plus the one orange Bow Tie o’ the Day candle at the very front of it. I love Mom’s photo here. Still clutching her birthday pillow, she’s giving the thumbs up. I chose her birthday tiara to sort of match with the purple housecoat I guessed she’d be wearing. And yes, Mom managed to easily blow out all of her candles. We had the best time together yesterday. I love Mom so very much. I can’t wait until next year—when Mom turns 28. 🎂 🎈