Journal: Let Us Wax Profound

 

Early Wednesday afternoon, I heard a bird singing a little more vociferously than usual, so I tiptoed to the back patio doors and looked out.

There was a little male house finch on one of the feeders, bobbing around, spreading his tail feathers out in a dapper, look-at-me air, warbling his beak off.  The object of his affections, a little female house finch on the same feeder, went on industriously pecking up black-oil sunflower seeds, cracking them open, and eating them.  Every now and then she flurried forward and gave him a good beak-poke.  “Leave me alone; I’m eating dinner!”  Each time, he flapped backwards to evade the beak, and resumed his warble in double-time. 

I worked on two more flower gardens that morning.  The north front gardens and west gardens looked pretty good when I finished.  

After showering and eating breakfast, I went upstairs to hem that new pair of pants I got for Larry, the pair that matches the western suit jacket Andrew and Hester gave him for Christmas.

I bought the matching [unhemmed] pants in January or February and hoped Larry could wear it for Easter, but he never remembered to try them on until last Sunday after church.

He thought I could just compare them to other pants that fit him correctly, but pants are not the same!  I wasn’t about to do that; those britches were pricey.

When we were cleaning out Loren’s house, I found a new white western shirt with tan metallic stripes in Larry’s size (too big for Loren).  Larry has a few ties that match, too, and some new brown shoes that he stole from Kurt, for which we specifically got the suit. 

Well, uh, that is... somebody gave those shoes to Kurt, and they didn’t quite fit him right.  Larry tried them on, and they fit him perfectly.  So Kurt gave him the shoes. 

But I like to say he stole them from Kurt. 

It’s like this suit – but the model’s shirt and tie don’t match nearly so well as Larry’s did.

Our Wednesday evening church service starts at 7:30 p.m.  It takes 7 minutes to get there.  At 6:48 p.m., I texted Larry, who would need to shower and dress for church:  “You’d better hurry home, in case the Mercedes won’t start.”

Larry got home two minutes later.  It took him 30 minutes to get ready.

The Mercedes didn’t start, and had to be jumped.  We were late.  

Why does the battery keep going dead?!  It checked out fine at both O’Reilly’s and Advanced Auto Parts.

That evening, we had our graduation ceremony.  The school children sang several songs... and Ethan has now graduated.  That makes three of our grandchildren who have graduated:  Aaron, Joanna, and Ethan.

The battery was dead again after church; but the battery pack Larry had brought along got it started.

Thursday morning when I went out to work in the yard, I had to use insect repellent for the first time this year.  I hadn’t been outside five minutes before a BIG mosquito landed on my arm and attempted to extract a pint of my lifeblood from me.  Several more were buzzing around my neck and legs.  I’d stirred the nasty little things up by attaching a hose, rinsing out the birdbath, and filling it.

I hung this new garden flag on the empty holder in front of the porch.  I found it in a falling-apart box in the cubbyhole under Loren’s steps; Janice had ordered it about 15 years ago.

Just before sunset, the clouds looked threatening.  There were several layers, and they all seemed to be going in different directions at once.  They passed over with nothing more than some 45-mph winds and a few higher gusts, affording us a bright sunset.

But those wind gusts – which were NOT 7 mph, as it said on NOAA – blew over that heavy birdbath and cracked it.  It stood through the 50-75-mph winds we’ve had throughout this spring – but as soon as I filled it with water, over it went.

A couple of weeks ago, high winds blew over the other birdbath and broke it.  I need some new birdbaths!

I didn’t do anything in the flower gardens Friday morning, because it was quite chilly, in the low 50s.

It snowed in the Panhandle.  The altitude is high enough, and the topography is such, that storms that come swooping through Colorado and Wyoming and South Dakota really spill on the Panhandle.  Makes things dicey this time of year, when the ranchers have thousands of new little calves.  The snowstorm caused blizzard-like conditions on into Wyoming, and I80 from Cheyenne to Laramie was closed for several hours.

Larry came home for lunch that day.  Before going back to work, he used the weed eater around the front flower garden.  Some time later, I heard a strange noise.  Looking around to see what it was, I peered out the window over the sink into the garage – and there were the barn swallows perched on a high cord.  I opened the overhead garage door... they went out... I closed the door.  Larry had left the walk-in door open while he used the weed eater.

Some friends were discussing the bad news of the day.  It caused me to recall how, once upon a time, many years ago, my brother was sitting at my parents’ kitchen table reading the newspaper and getting all alarmed over this and that, as he was oft wont to do.  My father, who was a minister for 48 years before passing away in 1992, slid the newspaper out of my brother’s hand and pushed his Bible, which he often had at the table to read as he drank his coffee, in front of my brother.

“When the newspaper’s bad news bothers you, son” he advised with a smile, “read the Good News instead!”

I was only 8 or 9 years old, but I never forgot that. 

Last Saturday when I visited Loren, it was suppertime, as I mentioned in last week’s letter.  When I was leaving, standing at the desk waiting for a nurse to show up and push the button that releases the door, there were three men, residents of the nursing home, standing in the hall near the dining room.

One hiked up his shirt and informed the other men, “I have no stomach!”

Man #2 responded, “Where’s the men’s restroom?”

Man #3 began counting his fingernails.  There should be one nail per finger, right?

Man #1 flapped his shirt for attention.  “I have no stomach!” he repeated.  “I have no stomach.”

Actually, he did have a stomach.  It was fairly flat, but it was a stomach, all right.

“Where’s the men’s restroom?” Man #2 asked again.

Man #3 went on counting his fingernails.  This is an important thing to do periodically, as fingernails like to toddle off and hide themselves in flowerpots and sock drawers and suchlike.

And then the nurse arrived and pressed the button to unlock the door, and away I went, never to know if these Important Issues were resolved or not.

Larry went to bed late Friday night and then got up early for work Saturday morning, so he was tired when he got home around 1:00 p.m.  It’s not fun going anywhere when the driver is falling asleep before getting to the other side of town, so when he debated whether he should take a nap or just guzzle down an energy drink, I voted in favor of the nap.

He slept for almost two hours.

The battery in the Mercedes was dead again.  How many times has this happened??   Six?  Ten?  Twelve?

After getting it started, Larry happened to glance up at the DVD player in the ceiling behind the front seats.

“I think I’ve found the culprit,” he said.

The player’s little light was on.  And it doesn’t go off when the ignition goes off.

He got out, climbed into the back seat, opened the player, and turned it off.

Now the question is, has the battery been ruined by getting drained all those times?  Time will tell, I guess.

We got to Prairie Meadows around 6:00 p.m., and found Loren and his friend Roslyn just inside the door when we went in.  Both of them recognized and greeted us immediately.  Roslyn set to explaining (in her odd, long-worded but makes-no-sense way) that she had moved to that place because she had heard that we would be there.  (Never mind the fact that she was a resident there before Loren was.)

We went into the sitting lounge where the TV is, and gave Loren a cup of red grapes we’d gotten at a convenience store on the way.  Larry opened it for him; those plastic containers are hard to pry open.  I described how I pulled one apart once as we were driving along in Larry’s pickup, and when the lid finally popped off, grapes flew everywhere, bouncing off of Larry’s head and all over the pickup. 

Loren laughed, “That’s good for him!” 

The TV was on.  It wasn’t bothering me, and certainly not Larry (who can turn down his hearing aids as needed), but it was definitely bothering Loren.  He suggested we move to another room, first pointing out the dining room.  That room was locked, however; so we headed for the smaller room where they sometimes serve snacks and play games.  It was locked, too.

“My husband Reggie can fix that,” said Roslyn, jabbing an accusatory finger at the door handle.

(So can Larry; but we prefer not to set off the alarms.)

We headed toward a bright area at the end of the hallway where there are some chairs near the doors that lead into the courtyard.  A couple of ladies and a man (let’s call him John McGregor, since he looks a whole lot like ol’ Mac in the children’s Golden Books) were already there, but we figured we could sit on the other side of the sitting area and mind our own business.

Why would we ever figure such a thing as that??

I tried showing Loren some pictures on my phone from our Paducah trip.  The other people moved in to look, too.  I don’t mind this – unless they start reaching for my phone.  And Loren is very prone to just hand it over if someone reaches for it, especially if it’s one of the ladies.

Roslyn decided to tell the man that he needed to go down the hall ‘that way’ (pointing). 

He preferred not to.

“Let’s go to the sitting area by the other doors,” I suggested, hoping to avoid any impending confrontation. 

So off we went.  As we went past Loren’s room, I took a picture of this photo they have on a placard beside his door.

I trotted ahead, hurrying, hoping Loren and Roslyn would hurry, too, so that we might possibly get to our destination sans entourage.

But I could hear Mr. McGregor’s metal cane clankity-clank-clanking along behind us as he put forth serious effort to stay up.  The two ladies came, too, because that’s what they do.  Those two often look quite sad.  Dementia can cause facial changes, but patients are frequently sad, because they are having a progressively harder time trying to understand things around them, and sometimes their families don’t visit much (or the patient doesn’t remember it if they do), and some of them have physical ailments that may be painful or make everyday activities steadily more difficult.

Larry and I walk in and immediately attract all sorts of attention, with many coming closer, the better to see us, converse with us (if they are able), or just to get right smack-dab in front of us and stare into our faces.  I suspect this is partly because we come in smiling at all those we meet, greeting them, and being friendly and cheerful.  They might not understand things very well, but most of them will recognize kindness and compassion right up until their last days.

When I tell funny stories about our visits, I trust you understand that I do indeed have a great deal of compassion for these people.  It is neither their fault nor their desire to be in the various conditions they are in; and the rest of us might very well find ourselves there someday.  When I first realized what was happening with Loren, I often felt like crying about it.  I’m thankful to have gotten through that initial reaction so that now I can see the humor in many of these situations.  Knowing there is a better life after this one, a wonderful heaven beyond our imagination for those who believe in God, helps immensely.  “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”  - Revelation 21:4

By the time we got to the end of the other hallway by the other doors, where the sitting area was considerably smaller with only two chairs, Mr. McGregor and the two ladies were only half a hallway behind us.

Roslyn smiled.  “This will be fine for them,” she told Loren, taking his arm and trying to lead him away from us down the hall.  “Let’s let them visit together quietly.”

Loren took a step or two, and I wondered if we’d have to trot along after them, if we wanted to visit with him.

Then he pulled away, saying, “No, I want to stay here and visit with Larry and Sarah Lynn!  They haven’t been here for two months!”  (One week; two months.  Who can tell the difference?)

He sat down in one of the chairs, and Larry sat down in the other one.

Out the big glass doors and windows was another part of the courtyard, with trees, bushes, and grass all springing to life.  I pointed out a bush with small yellow blossoms on it.  “The potentilla bush is blooming,” I remarked.

“Yes!” nodded Roslyn.  “The pokentilla bushes start blooming at this time of year.  The lady in the green jacket—” she pointed down the hall, though nobody but McGregor, Lady #1, and Lady #2 were there, still stumping along in our direction “—is a horticulturist, and she planted all those bushes out there and programmed the sidewalks last week.”

The ladies in green jackets are nurses; they don’t plant the bushes (or program the sidewalks, for that matter).  Furthermore, those bushes have been there for several years. 

Loren looked at me, obviously noticing the difference in the name of the bush.  “What did you call it?”

“Potentilla,” I answered.

Roslyn nodded vigorously.  “Yes, there are pokentillas, and then there are potentillas.  They are two different but similar varieties of bushes.  They look just alike, but their blooms are individualistic.”

Hmmm.

Roslyn ran a hand down the window with its enclosed blinds.  “My husband installed these windows,” she told me.  “His name is Reggie.”

I wonder if her husband is (or was) in construction? 

I took out my phone, went back to the pictures, and handed it to Loren, telling him, “That’s Lake Barkley.  The cabin we rented was right beside the lake.”

Roslyn, spotting water in the picture, nodded knowledgeably.  “Yes!” she agreed.  “That’s Lake Okoboji!” 

I scrolled on down.  Every time water showed up, she announced, “Lake Okoboji!” – and there was a lot of water to see, there at Land Between the Lakes:  Lakes Kentucky and Barkley; and the Cumberland, Ohio, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers.

I pointed out our cabin, saying, “We rented that cabin—”

“Yes,” interrupted Roslyn; “That’s right on the west side of the lake.”  (Actually, it was on the north side of an arm of Lake Barkley, which is the easternmost of the two lakes.)  She turned to me.  “Lake Okoboji is just to the north.”  She pointed south.

Loren smiled and pointed north. 

“We have a very large lake a short distance to the north,” she told me.  Could she be talking about Standing Bear Lake, a few blocks to the north of the nursing home?  A little to the northeast is an even larger lake, Glen Cunningham Lake, and northeast of that is Lonergan Reservoir.  “I am reasonably acquainted with the comprehensiveness of the extension, because I was born and bred in the vicinity of Omaha.”  ...pause...  “And Lake Okoboji.”

However, she would later inform us that she had come from Denver, where she had ‘lived extensively’.  As for Lake Okoboji, that’s about 100 miles east of Sioux Falls, Iowa.

Loren pointed out a picture of the rocky banks along Lake Barkley, just below our cabin.  “This looks steep!” he commented.

“Oh, yes, it’s very steep!” responded Roslyn quickly.  “I’ve lost my footing many times on that precipice.  But if you hold onto the trees as you’re going down, it’s not too aurithmatic.” 

She may have meant ‘arduous’.  Maybe.

I showed Loren pictures of the big trees that had gotten snapped right in half by the tornado that hit Land Between the Lakes on December 19, 2021.

“Yep, yep,” nodded Roslyn.  “But now the government is studying the efficacy of regulating the velocity of the fortitude of the magnitude of those types of trees, and whether hardwood provincial atmospheric conditions might warrant the proficiency of the suitableness of reducing the momentum of the acceleration of the, ummm...” she gestured and frowned, then triumphantly ended with, “those sorts of pictures!”  She pointed at my phone. 

Then she reached for it.

I slid it deftly out of Loren’s hands.

I think what she said was that the government will soon be putting a stop to tornadoes.

Or trees.  Or photos.  Phones?

I’m never sure if I get those long-winded, long-worded, nonsensical spiels written down right.  I can never remember all the nonsense, especially since it’s beladen with a whole lot of long words that may or may not actually be in the dictionary.

“Do you know where the doctor is?!” asked Mr. McGregor, coming out of the trance Roslyn had temporarily put him into.

“No!” said Loren, a bit louder than necessary.

“Are you the doctor?!” he demanded, pointing at me.

“No,” I smiled.

“Are you?!” he asked, pointing at Larry.

Larry shook his head, and Loren said, “No!!” a little louder.

“Where is the doctor???” he asked.

“We don’t know!” said Loren, sounding testy.

“Do you know where he is?” asked the man, looking at Larry.

“NO!!!” said Loren, quite loudly this time.

This only made the man re-ask his question louder.

“Do you need the doctor?” asked Loren.

Mr. McGregor did not know what to make of questions coming his way, and could not seem to figure out how to answer.  So, “Is the doctor coming?” he queried.

“NO!!!” said Loren.  And again, “Do you need the doctor?!!!”

“If I do,” said the man, waving one arm, “I might!”

“Then you should call him on the phone!” said Loren reasonably, “or go see him at his office!”

Mr. McGregor and all three ladies looked blankly at Loren. 

Roslyn took matters into her own hands.  She marched over to the man, took his arm, tried to turn him around, and told him, “You need to go right on down the hallway,” she told him, trying to urge him along.

He took exception to being urged.  “NO!” he yelled, jerking his arm away.  “You can’t stand there and tell me what to do!”  He shook his finger angrily in her face.

Roslyn, undaunted, said in her ‘calm’ tone, “Yes, I have to inform you—”

“No you don’t!” yelled Mr. McGregor, and I thought it possible that he would try to deck her if she didn’t cut it out, though he might knock himself down in the process, him being somewhat frail and unsteady on his feet.

“Norma!” said Loren in an urgent tone, scooting forward in his seat, wanting her to stop trying to tell the man what to do.

She ignored him.  ’Course, her name isn’t ‘Norma’, either.  That was the second time he called her ‘Norma’ while we were there.  The other time, he thought she needed to move away from a door, because one of the McGregor gang members wanted into it.  But then, it wasn’t her door, and it was locked, so she couldn’t get it.  Roslyn tried explaining this to Loren at the same time the other lady tried explaining why she needed in (she was hunting for the ladies’ restroom, and the situation was getting dire 😧).

Mac proceeded to say loudly to the woman trying to get into the locked room, “What are you doing!” and then, directly to me, “She needs a doctor!”

No, she needed the restroom; she’d said so herself.  But I had no idea where hers was, and there was no nurse in sight.

I’d had enough.  If there was going to be a rumble (or any other untoward occurrence), I preferred not to be there when it happened, lest I be suspected of instigating it, or, at the very least, of not somehow preventing it.

“Well, it’s time for us to go!” I announced brightly, looking at my VeryFitPro watch.  The VeryFitPro watch refused to light up; but it didn’t matter; it was time to go.

I tapped on Larry’s arm in order to activate action, and he dutifully rose to his feet.  I hurried off down the hall, and Loren hurried along beside me, looking concerned. 

“Do you need to see the doctor?!” he asked.

I laughed.  “Nope!”

Loren laughed, too.  “Oh, that’s right...”  He glanced back, seeming to remember that it was Mr. McGregor, not me, who’d been asking for the doctor.

I did not glance back; but I am very much afraid that the chair Larry had been sitting in got itself pressed into use as a commode.

As we waited by the lobby door for a nurse to unlock it for us, a lady in a wheelchair came rolling up to us, smiling, and trying to ask us something.  She’d start into the question, then pause, trying to think of the words she wanted, squinting, shaking her head, and rubbing at her temples.  She never did get her question out, poor dear.

The nurse pressed the button to open the door then, and we headed out, waving and saying goodbye to Loren, Roslyn, the lady in the wheelchair, and several others who waved, too.

We scurried out the door, walked through the front lobby, out the main front door, and headed across the parking lot to our vehicle.

“Where are we going?” asked Larry.

“We’re going nuts!” I answered, then looked hastily behind me.  “Did I say that too loudly?”

I think the entire kit and caboodle of dementia patients was suffering from ‘sundowning’ (i.e., when they get more confused in the evening).  Loren was perhaps the least confused of the lot.  That’s not to say he wasn’t mixed up about this and that.

Larry decided to drive to Platte River State Park, since Caleb had told him they were planning to go there on Memorial Day. 

“Do you need me to put it into my GPS?” I asked.

“Nope,” said Larry.  “Just sit tight.  I know exactly how to get there.”

He drove straight to the park.

Schramm Park State Recreation Area, that is.

Schramm is on the north side of the river.  Platte River State Park is on the south, a couple of miles southeast of Schramm.  But it’s an eleven-mile drive, because one must go to the bridge at Louisville and then turn back west.

Larry was quite surprised to find that the park rangers had put the wrong sign at the entrance to the park.

I showed him the above map.

“Oh,” said he.

The sun was already low in the sky, so we pulled on in, parked, and went for a walk around the fishponds.  Coming upon a fish-food dispenser, Larry stuck in a quarter, got a handful of food, and tossed it into the pond.  The koi and the trout roiled the water, jumping at that food.

Along the edge of a pond, resting in the warm sunshine, were a pair of Canada geese with their goslings. 

Leaving the park, we drove east, crossed the Platte River at Louisville, then went west to Ashland where we got some taco pizza and cinnamon sticks at Breadeaux Pizza.  We took it to Platte River State Park and ate in the car (it was breezy and chilly), watching the sun go down and the sky turn from pink and cadet blue to rosy red and indigo.

A friend laughed at that fake French word, Breadeaux.  That inspired me to the following heights:

How about a boutique for ribbons and clips called Hairbeaux?  Or a mechanic shop called Cargeaux?  Garden supply store called Rakenheaux?  Coffee shop called Cuppajeaux?  Scissor lift dealership called Highenleaux?  Lawn mower place called Cuttenmeaux?  Golf tutorage named Swingpreaux?  Seed Co-Op called Cornreaux?  A wrecker service named Carteaux?  (not the French painter)  Counseling practice called Tellyerweaux?

It was Levi’s 12^th birthday and Lyle’s 15^th birthday Saturday.  We gave them their gifts Sunday.  

For Levi:  a long metal plaque picturing the front end of a car.  It was at Loren’s house, and one day when he came with Hannah to help us clean out the house, he spotted that plaque and remarked, “I’d sure like that!” 

Hannah immediately told him, “Levi, we came to help, not to get things.”

Of course, that was good and right, what she said... but as soon as Levi wasn’t looking, I squirreled that thing out to my vehicle and put it in the front seat to keep, rather than in the back with the things I planned to take to the Salvation Army.  I would save it for his birthday.

We also gave him a set of State quarters, and a little bag of arrowheads and a tiger eye stone.

For Lyle:  a 1:18 diecast vintage car with opening doors, hood, and trunk, in a display case; and a stainless steel and pewter pocketknife with mountains and deer molded into the handle.

Last night we went out to Loren’s house to get more things from the detached garage.  The Mercedes is now chock full of things I need to take to the Salvation Army.

And now it is bedtime.

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,