This past week will go down in my book as being one of the most surreal, odd, and disturbing: The tone was set by the horrific marathon bombings in Boston leaving us in disbelief. The events played out minute by minute by the media and as they unfolded I wanted to ask, “who wrote this story; it surely had to be made up?” It was the strangest five days of ghastly events, lows and highs, from explosions to veritable celebrations once the second of two suspects was captured. And let’s not forget the fertilizer plant in Texas that blew up,  self-destructing and demolishing a neighborhood.  neighborhood.

Explosions.

What can I say about my own week? Anything and everything pales in comparison, looks joyously like nonevents that are delightfully safe and boring. In fact, I am glad that I finally sat down to write this as it does put life in perspective. I am here and in one piece. It’s an honor.

So, if I talk about cats and mothers it may sound ridiculous, but it tends to be the little things that we worry about and stress over. The bombings were out there, the horror was out there; the cats and mother events were still here.

This was a week I dealt with animals, sick animals. Thankfully, I was able to get Princess Blue a home in a sanctuary. Getting there was not without its stresses but we made it.

Back at home, diabetic kitty, Play, came home from the vet after a week of insulin maintenance and brought back a terrible cold. A shot of antibiotics did nothing to stem the violent, explosive sneezing and spraying which led to his mother and brother getting sick: one would let out a sneeze and the other two would startle and jump and stare. These animals were taken in eight years ago and never have gone out or have been sick. In fact, that is why it is impossible to get them to a vet: they’ve not been in carriers for transport and one male is so squeamish he has never allowed me to pick him up. He tolerates petting and that took a long time to evolve.

Ampersand

It was disturbing that Play’s brother Ampersand, the huge mush, stopped eating, stopped drinking, stopped peeing–except for an episode on a towel where he was hiding under my desk, for almost five days. He is having such a lousy time trying to breathe; I can see he is miserable. He was extremely large and has now deflated but his crash diet due to illness can’t be healthy. I tried to get fluids into him every creative way I could. He and the family seem to like a little water in a bowl with a few crunchies thrown in. At least they got some liquid. I opened a can of tuna and let him drink the water, then kept making more tuna soup. Cats need to smell to get cues and he lost his bearings to food and the litter box.  He’d just slink off and bury himself somewhere and for the life of me I have no idea where he was hiding one night.

The good news is, despite them all sneezing, the cat family seems to be getting better. Play, the diabetic never stopped looking for food and I was so angry at myself yesterday evening when I thought I had given him his insulin but his fur was wet. It is likely I missed,  a no-go, and you can’t give another shot.

So, relatively speaking, my microcosm doesn’t hold a candle to the real world.

Then there is the wacky dishwasher that needed a new pump after three years. Thankfully that is now working. But while the repairman was here on Friday the phone rang. Caller ID: Florida. It was the Hospice nurse.

I paused and took a breath. There was a problem with my mother. This happened a few weeks ago when she accused the aide of going out in the middle of the night and leaving her. This time the melée had to do with her getting physical therapy for her arm at my request: She felt so empowered that she thought she could do anything herself by grabbing her walker and speeding off to the bathroom. In addition she felt bad that she was waking the aide up in the middle of the night three times to help her get to the bathroom; she’d just go herself. It can’t be easy to deal with the loss of independence, after ninety-five years.

When the nurse called I felt like I had become my mother’s mother. I have felt that for a while. She was being told on. I could hear her yelling (!) in the background that they would make me think she was crazy (!), that they prevent her from talking to me. On and on … she was having a tantrum. It was redolent of the years she would bicker with my father.  And just like the horrible events in Boston gave me that sick feeling, so did this. As small as it seems in comparison. I told the nurse that I had a repairman here and was distracted and that I would call back.

When I did, all had settled. This seems to be the pattern: an outburst triggered possibly by the feeling of powerlessness and then a resolution. “Everything is OK, the nurse said.” My mother got on the phone and tried to clarify the series of events leading up to her explosion. Sometimes her bomb dropping frightens me, makes me feel like something is unstable, brewing, about to change. “It seems,” said the nurse, “your mother’s true personality is coming out. She’s funny!”

While she was ranting and raving–all eighty-two pounds of her–she began holding her chest.

“Oh my God!” said the nurse, “I thought she was having a heart attack! What’s wrong?” she said to my mother.

“My brassiere was falling off,” was the response.

That’s my mother. Her arm was fractured by her funny bone is back.

In the grand scheme of things … I’ll take her explosions anytime.

This series is linked: see “continued here.” Also, below the line there will be links for the previous post and the next.

The series starts here

continued here