Playing Catch Up

I’ve been a bad blogger and a bad follower lately.  My deepest apologies.  I wish I could regale you with exciting tales of what I’ve been doing while I haven’t been blogging and commenting, but I really don’t have anything very interesting.  I haven’t found the cure for cancer (not that I expect to, since I don’t work in the medical field), published the next Mastering the Art of French Cooking, or been to exciting places.  So here’s what’s new in the land of Sweet Tea :

 

My grandparents are in an assisted living facility.  It’s a nice place, and has taken a lot of pressure off of my parents.  My grandfather has reached the stage (that everyone says is common) in Alzheimer’s where he’s being really mean to everyone.  It’s not pleasant, but the staff at the facility has been great about everything.

 

In an incredible stroke of good luck my sister and one of her friends took both of their cats, instead of my husband and I ending up with at least one of them.  (They were allowed to keep them, but for reasons unknown to the rest of us chose not to.)  Don’t get me wrong, I love cats, but these cats don’t like dogs (we have one) or most other cats (we have four).  Based on the stories my sister is calling me with this is about the same level of good fortune as winning the lottery would be. 

 

My mom broke her arm.  Not good!  When she called to tell me what had happened the story didn’t make much sense at all.  I actually made the comment to my husband that if anyone else was telling me what she was I would swear that copious amounts of alcohol had been involved.  Definitely not the case with my mom! 

 

She somehow (this is where I get my clumsiness from) tripped over nothing in their carpeted hallway.  What should have been just a minor annoyance resulted in a broken shoulder (and possibly more damage depending on what today’s MRI shows) because my mom now has a raging case of osteoporosis.  The doctor she saw yesterday told her that at this point pretty much any fall will result in a broken bone. 

 

My mom is only 56, so that’s a little scary.  She’s on some pretty serious pain medication right now, so I’m not very clear on what can be done to help with this.  I did get a lecture on the importance of calcium, from Mom and my husband.  It turns out that my yummy gummy vitamins (seriously, they’re like gummy bears, not vitamins) don’t have calcium.  So now I have to add calcium to my daily pile of vitamins. 

 

I took food to my parents’ house on Monday since my dad doesn’t cook.  My sister and I agreed that I would be mostly in charge of keeping them fed and she will be mostly in charge of dealing with care giving if my mom ends up needing surgery on her arm.  It works for us.  My sister doesn’t enjoy cooking and surgical sites make me queasy. 

 

I had forgotten just how far my dad’s not cooking goes.  Keep in mind that he is of that generation of men who has a mama, a wife, and daughters, so the men don’t cook.  They cut the grass, change the oil, and take the trash out, but they don't cook.  I brought a few casseroles and dinners to freeze.  I had them clearly labeled and was explaining to my dad what each one was and that he would need to decide in the morning what they wanted to have for dinner that night and take it out to defrost, then just heat it up for dinner. When I finished my spiel my dad looked at me with panic in his eyes and asked “Do I have to cook each one?”  It was so funny.  I then explained the difference between cooking and reheating.  He was very relieved. 

 

I won a giveaway!  Linda Jackson, of Writers Do Laundry Too, had a giveaway on this blog, and I won a copy of Chicken Soup For The Soul; Here Comes the Bride, which has one of Linda’s stories in it.  I confess I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but I’m looking forward to it, and it was very exciting to win something.  I don’t think I’ve won anything since I was about 13.

 

So what about you?  How have the past couple of weeks been for you?