CafeChatNoir

My grandmother passed away yesterday morning.  After a a Monday, “This may very well be it” phone call.  Followed by a Tuesday morning “Yeah, about that, she’s having breakfast” phone call.  At which point we just figured it was a new baseline/plateau.  Then I got the Wednesday phone call saying she was gone.

The overwhelming emotion in the house is relief.  Dementia is a hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone, and it was her worst nightmare.  I’m glad she is finally free of it.

Really, there are days I do wonder if someone whispered that curse over my crib in the nursery.

Over the past couple days, I’ve discovered that I am once again jumping every time the phone rings.  Then I remind myself I don’t even know who is calling and I should take a breath – except for the fact that I pretty much have to answer the phone anyway.  The level of consistency in Caller ID numbers with regards to the care center and hospice leaves much to be desired.

So, note to whomever has 410-321-58** – oh for the love of all that is good and holy, I told you that you have a wrong number three times, STOP CALLING ME.  This is why your number goes straight to voicemail every time now.  (Yes, I know that 410 is Maryland, but I also regularly receive phone calls from Phoenix with a Minnesota area code, so area codes are fairly meaningless anymore.)

I have figured out that while the hospice nurses do not always call from a “restricted” number, all “restricted” number calls come from them.  (Do not get me started on this.  HIPPA be damned, I am the MPOA, you should damn well show the number you are calling from.  If you are concerned about calling a wrong number and giving away info, then you need remedial phone dialing training.  If you are worried that I will call when you are not on-duty, put your phone on silent.)

So, the phone rang, I jumped, saw the “restricted”, my heart sank, and I answered the phone.  Yup, hospice nurse manager just giving an update – which was that my grandmother still had pneumonia and that she was seriously tired and no one was even remotely inclined in doing anything but letting her sleep…  I was SO good and resisted the urge to respond with, “Well, DUH, she’s near 89 years old with end-stage dementia and pneumonia, she might not be chomping at the bit to make a badminton match, so yes, LET HER SLEEP.”  I’ve already had to go a few rounds of reassurance in the past of, “If she’s sleepy and you choose to let her sleep, that is OK.  It’s best to not go poking badgers with spoons.”  I have personal experience of waking her up when she wasn’t in the mood to get up.  Trust me, while it was satisfying to finally be able to retaliate for all the times she woke me & my brother up at the crack of dawn for no good reason, it still wasn’t pretty.

The amount of snark I have to contain when it comes to my grandmother convinces me yet again that I am SO not cut out for this.  It is (and has been) a serious situation, and yet I fall back on inappropriate humor pretty much every damn time.  Somehow I cannot help but  think that everyone that is dealing with eldercare issues always has a calm, measured, appropriate response for everything – and I never quite seem to have that – or I have to choke back several completely inappropriate responses while trying to come up with the appropriate one.

That all being said, I have to thank her for holding out until the end of the semester, especially since I nearly dropped my classes when she had her bad spell the week before classes started.  Makes me wonder if Sharyn told her Donald was taking classes and not me. ;)

Cause I’m not keen on playing God.

My grandmother has pneumonia.  It does not surprise me that this happened, I have actually been expecting it.

I did not expect that the care center would put her on antibiotics for it.  They say it is pallative, but in an 88 year old woman with end-stage dementia and very clear advance directives, antibiotics are a curative measure.  There is a reason they call pneumonia “the old man’s friend.”

I really would have thought given everything else that managing it rather than trying to cure it would be a no-brainer.  Instead, I had to call the hospice nurse and tell her they need to find another truly pallative treatment for this and to pull the antibiotics.  (Fortunately they do have an absolute boatload of things they can do that will keep her comfortable.)

If my grandmother could have a lucid and rational moment and I told her, “Hey, you’ve got end-stage dementia, and a bout of pneumonia, but don’t worry, they’re gonna clear up the pneumonia so you can just have the dementia that much longer” she would sit up and punch me in the face.  (Advance directives are great, but it’s also good to be able to say I REALLY know what she wants, cause she made it crystal clear over the years.)

It would be one thing if clearing up the pneumonia would give her a normal life again, but it won’t.

Still feel like a bit of a schmuck, though.

We’re staying put for Christmas.

I’ll go out there for a couple days afterwards.  I can do Christmas or her birthday, but not both anymore.  (Lord knows I didn’t manage it with any grace or dignity up until now anyway.)  The stress isn’t even remotely worth it, and she’s to a point where she doesn’t know if we’re there, and on the off chance that she does, she has no idea how long we’ve been there, and certainly doesn’t know what day it is and whether or not we’re there on Christmas or if I’m just there myself a couple days later.  (Nevermind the fact that it costs near 3x as much for both of us to go out there for 8 days vs me there by myself for 4 days.)

I have to say, my attitude towards the holidays has improved immensely since making the decision.

I was in PHX wondering, “Well WTF do I do now?”  I mean, hell, when they said my grandmother was “death imminent” I actually thought, “Well, at least this time I know what to do.  I have INSTRUCTIONS!*”  So, yeah, there has been some emotional whiplash to say the least.

My grandmother is what I would describe in a “very crappy but stable” status. Everyone agreed that there was no harm in heading home – no real sense in standing around watching nothing happen.  Now, whether this “stable” is short, medium or long term is anyone’s guess, but the hospice nurses have assured me they are going to try really hard to make sure I REALLY need to jump on a plane before they say to jump on a plane.  It helps that I know she won’t die alone by any means, and I don’t have an overriding psychological need to say goodbye.  The woman that was my grandmother left a while ago.

Her anxiety was through the roof and we all thought it was the two day gap in her meds, but I finally figured it out – we’d been barking up the wrong tree all week.  Everyone had been focusing on anxiety management, because that has always been a very, very large problem for her.  It hit me that it needed to be about pain management. There had been a couple occasions where you could tell she just couldn’t get comfortable, and the Best Nurse Ever** gave her some morphine – which calmed her down immensely.   She also didn’t want to open her eyes, and tended to have a death grip on the armrests on her chair.  I mistook the closed eyes as light sensitivity (she’s had issues with that for quite some time – figured the episode last week made it worse) and the hands just a manifestation of anxiety.  Until it hit me – they’re both natural responses to pain.

Now, if you ask her if she is in pain, she won’t admit it.  She will not admit a pain of unknown origin – because then  you have to see a doctor!  (I know that is still cemented in her head.)  She also has intermittent aphasia, and likely had a TIA last week, so if you say pain, she may translate it to chartreuse – and no, she’s not chartreuse today, you moron.

So, she’s back on vicodin with a side of morphine when needed, and while she’s tired and kinda quiet – she’s calmer, which is very good.  I’m still kicking myself that I didn’t see it immediately.

Me, I’m dealing with some re-entry issues – mainly trying to figure out what on earth I was doing before I went down the rabbit hole for a week.  Oh, yeah, trying to get ready for classes @GMU to start next week.  Which I’m now wondering if it was overly optimistic to think that things were stable enough with her in the first place to attempt such an endeavour.  If nothing else, I’ve got until September 30th to drop them.  I still need to pickup my books & parking pass – that was something that was going to happen at the beginning of this week…  Ah well.

And to top it all off, we’ve got a bit of weather headed our way, so today I was out getting supplies.  Figure if I have water & non-perishable snacks, it should help guarantee that we have power & water service.  3 1/2 days of water, Slim Jims and 3/4 of a tank of gas – should be good to go.  (Nice thing I realized tonight – if the power goes out, we will still have hot water.  Gas hot water heaters FTW.)  It’s just a bit of stuff I don’t really need right now as I’m trying to concentrate on getting my brain back in “home” mode and losing a weekend to weather wasn’t on the agenda.

* Quite literally, written instructions.  We call it the Big Book of Death.
** She really is.  I absolutely adore her.

The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here’s one.
The Dead Collector: That’ll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There’s your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not dead.
The Dead Collector: ‘Ere, he says he’s not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not.
The Dead Collector: He isn’t.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he’s very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you’re not, you’ll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I don’t want to go on the cart.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, don’t be such a baby.
The Dead Collector: I can’t take him.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I feel fine.

Got in last night.  Talk to nurse at care center.  Grandma is sleeping.  Ate like a horse at dinner.  Interacting with people.  Decidedly not on the “dead in 24 hours” list.

Mind you, she’s tired as all get out (the aneurysm-rupture-that-wasn’t did take her down a few notches) and her meds are all kinds of farked up because the MD discontinued everything but Xanax Thursday night*, assuming she was on her way off this mortal coil, but she’s definitely not dead, or actively dying.  It’s undoubtedly shaved a few years off her lifespan, but she is decidedly still among the living.

*This is a good object lesson for the next time I get this call.  If she still has a pulse, leave her damn medication regimen intact.

Got a call this afternoon, “Your grandmother is not doing well, do you want her to go to the hospital?”  Insert string of unprintable language here.

Push for a slightly more comprehensive version of “not doing well” and the symptoms line up perfectly with her aneurysm finally rupturing/leaking, which is something that we certainly saw coming.  Doctor is talking 24 hours.  Hospice nurse called in.  Discover upon having the paperwork faxed to me that of course, the care center doesn’t use the hospice services that are in the building they share. (Of course not, that would make sense.)  Regardless, she will not be going to the hospital – her wishes have been made exceptionally clear over the years.

Booked a flight for tomorrow.  Sharyn is a bona fide wreck – she doesn’t want to admit at all that this could be the aneurysm, and keeps insisting that it’s not that bad.  (While not even remotely arguing with my coming out west less than a week after I left, so it ain’t good.)

So, I’m flashing back to this time last year where I was headed out to PHX on 24 hours notice with two versions of what is going on, with reality likely falling somewhere smack in the middle of things.

So, tomorrow I head out and probably move her to the hospice center just down the hallway and wait.  Now, knowing my grandmother, I’ll probably walk in and she’ll be sitting up in bed asking, “Why the hell is everyone hovering over me?”

Having a local advocate for my grandmother is A Good Thing.  However, it can get interesting at times because she is very hyper-sensitive to nursing home issues, and I am utterly numb to it.  (There may be a touch of residual caregiver fatigue.  Just a little.)  With these sensitivities at the opposite ends of the spectrum, there are bound to be times where we view things a little differently.

The care center where my grandmother resides is certainly good enough, but they do have some left hand/right hand issues on the administrative side, which annoys me to no end, but they have not impacted my grandmother’s care, so I pick my battles.  As long as she gets her meds on time, it’s all good – and trust me, it is in their best interest to get her the meds on time.  You don’t want to be around her if she hasn’t gotten her Xanax.

So, this weekend she sustained a minor injury to her arm, including a small cut that someone mended with a couple little butterfly bandages.  Unfortunately, there was no corresponding paperwork, so all we know is that the band-aid fairy came around.  When Sharyn called me last night about it, she was seriously spooled up about it, and frankly it sounded more like my grandmother had managed to get into a fight with a weed-whacker.  When she gets spooled up, then I get spooled up, because I’m thinking, “Crap, now I have to go all MPOA militant granddaughter on them, and that isn’t going to solve anything either.”  Fortunately, I have a rule:  If it isn’t life threatening, I ignore the situation for 6 to 18 hours so I can cool off before calling and asking, “OK, what’s the story?” knowing it will end up being somewhere in between what I’ve already heard and what they tell me.

So today I call the charge nurse – she still has no info on what happened, but the butterfly bandages are already off and the cut is closed up and it was in fact, a very minor injury.  The Assistant DoN is investigating to see why no incident report was done, and I’ll call her back in a day or two to get the details.  I have my own suspicions that my grandmother likely whacked her arm on the night table, someone came in and patched it up and then got caught up with another resident and flat out forgot the paperwork, or it’s in someone else’s chart.  (I’ll not comment on the fact that there are only 9 people on her wing over the course of a weekend and it shouldn’t take that long to make 9 calls of, “Did you bandage Vynne’s arm?”)

But this is the type of stuff that is just going to be the death of me.  I’m going to be out there next month for a couple days and I am going to have to have a Very Serious conversation with them that will pretty much only consist of this:  Stop pissing off the advocate. Seriously, she gets pissed off, I get an earful and am left feeling like yet again, I am not quite measuring up to the herculean task that is being my grandmother’s granddaughter in her declining years.

Additionally, Phase II of “Cindy gets her life back” (yes, it’s just like Stella & her groove) is kicking off once I get back home, and I am going to be incredibly busy for the foreseeable future, not even remotely as instantly available as I have been, and certainly not at all inclined to have to be the voice of reason over administrative cock-ups.  I cannot put my life back on hold again.  I made that mistake for 3 years, and I will not repeat it.

Honestly, I really cannot figure out if I am totally cut out for this whole eldercare (or really elder-paperwork-care) misadventure or of I am the last person on the planet that should be tending to these things.

Got the mailbox opened.  Maybe not with 100% of the paperwork, but at least with 90% + 10% acceptable-in-the-right-eyes paperwork.  (I didn’t work with the same person today as yesterday and I played on that like nobody’s business.)  On that triumph, I got the phone shut off as well, even though I did not have the account number handy, even though I was told that it was like, seriously, totally required.   (I *never* have the account number for the phone when I need it, cause CHRIST, I HAVE THE PHONE NUMBER!)

All this just makes me think it’s not about breaking the rules so much as working with people who don’t necessarily know what the rules are in the first place and who also think there is no reason you would lie to them in the first place.  Not that I just go about lying to everyone I encounter, but I have found that there are a few places where mild deception helps grease the wheels.

I truly hate lying.  I really do.  My grandmother’s decline has taught me that sometimes you need to lie out your ass, and it’s kind of OK as long as it’s for the greater good and not hurting anyone.  I remain truly unconvinced that I am not going to hell for it, but I get the necessity of it.  Still don’t like it that much.  Still don’t like that I am much better at fabricating pretty untruths now than I was this time 3 years ago.

And, here’s the rub:  I have a Durable Power of Attorney!  With pretty much every possible contingency signed off on by my grandmother!  I have the legal authority to Get Shit Done.   Given that she lives in God’s Waiting Room, you’d think the general populous would be more familiar with a DPOA, and yet… they all look like a deer in the headlights when I whip it out and try to explain that Granny ain’t exactly in a traveling way, and I have the legal authority to tend to her various and sundry stuff, such as her mail, or bills, or whathaveyou , and she is not going to show up at their front door wielding fountain pen to sign off on whatever it is I have come to request.  Because if she COULD come forth and harass them, she certainly wouldn’t in a million years need me to do it for her.

I’m still leaning towards wholly unqualified for this particular adventure.

And all that happy horseshit as my mother would say.  I’m trying to fight my way through this head-cold induced mental fog and look on the bright side for this trip to PHX.

– Unlike last August, this is a pre-planned trip, which is much better than the alternative.

– The weather will be sunny and in the 80s.

– It is a short trip with no holidays involved, which makes packing a matter of just tossing some wearable crap in a bag and that’s it.

– It is a short trip, period.  Less time for us to get on each others nerves.

– The hotel is wonderful and has an absolutely killer breakfast.

– There are several really good places to eat right next to the hotel.  (Kabuki and Yard House are on the must list.)

– If history is any indicator, the Detroit Red Wings will be staying at my hotel.

– No one expects me to sit around at the care center all day and watch my grandmother take naps.  (If she could juggle in her sleep or something, it might be different, but she can’t, so…)  This is a pleasant contrast to being expected to sit at her condo all day and watch her take naps.

– I will get the mail situation locked down once and for all via a UPS store, as USPS hasn’t exactly been up to the task with forwarding since everything went to hell in a handbasket.   (Mail to the care center is a no-go, and I still need her to have a local address, cause I am not going through the potential confusion of having tax documents print out thinking she lives in Virginia.)

But holy hell, once again I am within 48 hours of getting on a plane to PHX and I am in the midst of the galloping crud.  Granted, I should have seen it coming, as I have been spacey as all get out this week – seriously, since about 2PM Tuesday, I couldn’t have told you what day of the week it was without consulting a calendar.*  This is invariably the precursor to a cold/sinus infection for me, but I never recognize it until it’s too late.

The overly rational part of my brain chalks it all up to unfortunate coincidence and the ridiculous changing of the barometric pressure at this time of year.  The not-quite-as-rational part of my brain says, “Going to PHX is bad for you!” The smartest part of my existence which isn’t even attached to me says – “It’s the anxiety leading up to the trip that does you in.”  That smart part would be my brother trying to assure me I’ve not totally lost my mind.  (If you don’t have a brother to help you out in matters such as these, I highly recommend you get one.  I’m pretty sure there is a category on Craigslist for this.)

Seriously, I can’t remember the last time that I wasn’t sick either when my grandmother visited here, or I visited there.  (Same thing has happened to my brother as well.)  Invariably this has lead to my grandmother being more than happy to tell us that we were weak, lazy & pathetic and got sick on purpose just to get attention.  Yes, because I’d so much rather feel like total crap and have people saying, “Would you like a Ginger Ale?” than just happily going about my business without desperately needing to sleep for 24 hours straight.

Damned if I know why my body decides to betray me this way, but I’m very much over it all.  Seriously, I’m staying at a nice hotel with a pool and everything – I’d like to take advantage of it rather than sleep every hour I’m not at the care center…

*No matter how broken my grandmother’s brain may be, I never have and never will fault her for not knowing the date or day of the week without looking at the calendar.

For those looking at your calendars, let me just reiterate what my mother used to say: “We don’t march to a different drummer, we have our our own whole brass band.”

The first year we went to PHX for Christmas was 2007, and we didn’t really make any other holiday plans – BAD idea, but we had no idea WTF we were doing, either.  After that, I decided the house would get decorated to some extent, and we would have our own little Christmas with brunch and presents and mimosas – because Christmas in PHX tends to just be another day in the desert.

So, we picked a day to be Christmas upon our return, and it is TOMORROW!!!  There are presents under the tree.  I am still extorting good behaviour out of the pets with the phrase, “Santa Claus is watching!!”  And I cannot wait to see how my little brother likes what Santa brought him.  (As well as the gifts  procured by the pets.  I have no idea how they got hold of my credit card and Amazon.com password.)

But at the moment, I am looking over at the Christmas tree and it would certainly seem that Santa has had a small sleigh accident here. :-D

TOMORROW IS CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!

With three good, easy days in a row, I should have known there would be a bad day. At least it wasn’t *on* Christmas, so that’s something!

Given that my grandmother had *zero* interest in going back to her room after lunch unlike every other day so far, I should have realized something was up. She went back & forth with knowing who we were (that doesn’t bother me at all – maybe it should, but it doesn’t) – unfortunately she realized it was us (or my parents) just enough to get all spooled up about paying for dinner, money, her checkbook, her wallet, etc, etc, etc. All the things she doesn’t worry about when her brain has decided to happily park itself circa 1978, or what she worried about 24/7 for the past 3 years before hitting the care center. Yay family time?

Seems the lunchtime Xanax didn’t kick in today, and our presence threw things into just enough disarray in her mind to make things that much worse. The memory resets and the repeated questions aren’t fun, but I can deal with them. The anxiety? Not so much – just kills me every time.

Attempting to make a graceful exit was a bit of a challenge – especially when you know that YOU are the cause of the anxiety, but leaving could also cause MORE anxiety… This is where the care center is a godsend. We could tell my grandmother that we needed to go run some errands, warn Andrea (her CNA) about how wound up she’d gotten thanks to our presence, and head on out knowing that dinner would be in a hour (a good distraction for her) and Xanax (thank god for pharmaceuticals) and then bed around 7:30 – and she has multiple people around her to reassure her that it isn’t the end of the world. Fortunately, Andrea says she doesn’t have days like this terribly often (thankyoujesus) and everyone knows the “right” answers to queries about checkbooks and wallets and such.

As Donald pointed out, if it wasn’t for the care center, she’d be up and worrying herself sick until 2AM – and we’d get the brunt of it. These people are saints.

Christmas out here is weird enough as it is. Christmas always seems to be something happening back on the East coast while we’re here trying to find somewhere to eat dinner. This year has been one for the books.

First, it’s 70 degrees. Don’t get me wrong – it’s GREAT. But we haven’t had weather this nice any other year we’ve been here, so it’s odd. (This is year 4 out here for the holidays…)

Got to the care center today and grandma was in a lovely mood, up and ready for lunch and absolutely zero recognition of who we were. (And it didn’t seem to bother her one bit, and we weren’t going to cause problems.) But, we had a nice lunch and she liked her presents, so it’s all good. Classic moment: After lunch, we’re sitting in her room chatting, and she rolls herself out the door and says, “OK, well, turn the lights off when you leave!” We took that as our cue that she was done with visitors for the day. :)

There is a football game starting in about an hour and a half right next door. This is great because all the restaurants at Westgate are open this evening. If you lived in the area, I can see how a Christmas evening football game could be fun – and others must agree since the parking lots are filled with tailgaters. However, the hotel is also filled with football fans and I can’t say I can really wrap my head around traveling at Christmas for a sporting event. Hell, I’m not even thrilled with traveling at Christmas for Christmas itself, so this is really lost on me.

It’s just been a really, really odd day.

If this weather holds, this will be the nicest weather we’ve had out here at Christmas in 4 years. It’s in the 60s and sunny and a far cry from the 30 degrees with 40 mile an hour winds that we left in DC yesterday. Flight was fine, but for a 5 hour flight it felt like it was about 12 hours. Hotel is great, and breakfast this morning hit the spot.

Popped over to the care center today to see Grandma – caught her after lunch and just before her afternoon snooze so we sat and chatted and watched some TV. Her room setup is perfect. The bed is on the one side, and then she’s got her two chairs and end table on one side, some of her pictures from home and such – it’s not “home” but it’s very cozy and nice and doesn’t feel like an institution. She’s kind of out in left field, and there is some occasional aphasia when she’s talking, but she sure as hell knew Donald was there when he said hello.

Overall she’s in good spirits, and frankly, the meds they’ve given her to keep her from being all wound up are working very well – she was in a perfectly pleasant mood. However, she did ask Donald, “I know I really shouldn’t be worrying about these things, but am I going to die here?” (I was out of the room and missed this gem.) Apparently it was said with about the level of curiosity and concern as if she’d asked, “Are we having pizza tonight?” Donald fielded it with something along the lines of “Since you don’t know when you’ll die, there’s no real way to know *where* you’ll die.” and she found that perfectly acceptable.

Went and got her Christmas goodies. (Yay for her finally just saying, “Oh, candy would be wonderful for Christmas!” and having people around who can read the labels and help her open them!) Hit the Dollar Tree for a gift bag and tissue paper – SO much better than the dollar stores back east. They have actual brand name items, rather than anti-freeze laden toothpaste called “Coldgate”. And a whole damn aisle of Willy Wonka candy. My brother & I may have gotten ourselves a few goodies. (As Donald said, “We’ll be lucky if we don’t end up in a diabetic coma before the week is up.”)

Thanks to the Arizona/Dallas game, the hotel restaurant will be open from 6AM to 10PM tomorrow – very nice considering that a) little if anything else will be open tomorrow, and Christmas Dinner at the care center is actually Christmas Lunch, and though I am sure it will be very good, I think we’ll probably be a touch hungry once the evening rolls around.

So, we’re off to a good start I think.

You’re running a care center. The bed alarm for one of your residents is too sensitive and goes off when she rolls over in bed at night. This has caused the resident across the hallway to complain. What do you do?

A) Tell the complaining resident to suck it up and deal.
B) Look for other alarm options that will not go off unnecessarily while not compromising patient safety.
C) Remove the alarm altogether as a stop-gap measure while waiting on permission to move said resident to another hall, under the guise of “she might like it better there.”

If you answered C, come forward so I can punch you.

If you answered B, nicely done. Feel free to slap anyone you know that would answer C.

If you answered A – well, it’s understandable, but doesn’t really address the underlying problem.

Yes, that’s why the care center wanted to move my grandmother. The bed alarm has now been replaced with a clip-on alarm so she can move about in bed and not set it off. This had to be suggested by someone WHO DOESN’T EVEN WORK THERE. No, I have no idea where their problem solving skills are. (I will be combing through her charts to see if I can find out whose brilliant idea it was to remove the alarm altogether.)

These folks really don’t seem to understand that I AM checking up on them, and I am not going to be pushed around just to make their life easier. I’ve not had the easy end of the grandma stick for 38 years, they can certainly learn how to deal with it for a little while.

First off, to anyone reading and thinking “Aww, shit.” – Grandma is fine.

But Care Center, I’m fairly certain you’re stalking me and choose to only call when I am moderately relaxed, thus undoing said relaxation. You called when I was in Vegas. I take a sick day today, I’m strolling through the market for some awesome comfort food and feeling rather cheery about the snow and the dreaded “Unavailable” pops up on my caller ID.

First, there is no “good time” to talk to you. Ever. I appreciate the politeness, but really, whenever you call, it is a suck time. So, you’ll have to pardon my lack of chipperness on the phone. Also – stop saying, “We just want to do whatever it takes to make you happy.” My happiness is not the issue here, and there is nothing about the situation where the word “happy” could POSSIBLY be used. Do what ever you need to do to keep my grandmother safe and relatively healthy and moderately non-hateful, and we’ll be good.

Second, I really thought that I had made it abundantly clear over the past 4 months that I do not make snap decisions regarding my grandmother’s health and well being, unless it is an emergency. Thus, the best you got today was, “My gut says it’s a bad idea and we’ll discuss [your completely asinine, and frankly STUPID proposal] further next week when I am in town.”

(Said proposal being they think she “might like it more” in a different wing that has more permanent residents. Yeah, let’s take the dementia patient who has FINALLY gotten settled into her room, knows the staff that works on that wing and MOVE HER.)

You can also bet I will be talking with every single nurse and CNA if she is REALLY having issues with the fact that some of the residents in her wing are non-permanent, or if you just want to get all the permanent folks in one place. If that’s the case – it sucks to be you. If it’s a level of care issue, don’t couch it with pansy-assed phrases like “she might like it better” – SAY SO. If it’s the fact that she’s been a little cranky lately – well, congratulations – now you’re finally meeting the woman I’ve known for 38 years. You can’t say I didn’t warn you on that one.

For the money she is shelling out, your floor plan issues are not my problem. Hell, for the money she is shelling out, there should be complimentary hookers and blow every night.

So, Grandma will be staying at the care center for the foreseeable future.

They called yesterday to let me know that she’d pretty much maxed out on rehab progress. I reacted as well as I normally do to any and all calls from the care center, which is to say I was a blithering idiot for at least 3 hours after the call. (I’m quite certain they think I am a complete moron.) The care center comes up on caller ID as “Unavailable” (which is different from “Unknown”) so I knew it was them, and my heart stopped and my blood pressure went through the roof at the same time – which I am fairly certain is not physically possible, and yet, that seems to be how it works. So, I had to put off the social worker and say I’d call back today with a decision, because I have discovered I seriously SUCK at any situation where I perceive the need for a snap decision when it comes to my grandmother. (Despite the fact that I didn’t actually have to make a snap decision because Medicare requires at least a 3 day notice before any facility turfs a patient, yet I was still a mess.)

So, we’re at a decision point again… The initial plan had been once rehab was done, she’d go home w/ 24/7 care. It was NOT what I wanted, but it’s what SHE wanted, so that was the plan. But life, death and aging are hardly static, and plans have to change with the circumstances.

She’s made a connection with Andrea, her primary CNA (which I did predict would happen when I was out there last month) and – this is the heart-breaking part – “home” isn’t much more than an abstract concept for her anymore. And if she went home w/ 24/7 care, the consistency of care would be a fair amount less than at the care center, and a different person in and out all over the place would be even worse for her. I said at the outset that if going home would be nothing more than a situation where her world got turned upside down yet again, I wasn’t going to do it.

So yes, keeping her on at the care center is the obviously correct answer. She’ll be on a “restorative care” program to prevent her from backsliding from her PT that she’s been doing, and she’ll be able to continue being part of all the activities they have there, which is really great for her, and she won’t be isolated like she’d been when she was at her condo. (Yes, she had friends and helpers coming about, but she was still much too isolated.)

So yes, staying at the care center is the best thing for her. And what I wanted. And yet, somewhere in the back of my head, I think I hoped I’d be wrong and she’d be all up in everyone’s grill about going home, but she isn’t.

So, in theory, I win. I got what *I* wanted for her. And yet, it feels like more than a little bit of a hollow victory. I can’t help but wonder what my Mom would have done – because Mom always had all the answers. Would she have gotten herself a transfer to a gov’t job in PHX back when my grandmother started going off the reservation? I think yes, but Don says she would have done exactly the same as I have done. (I love his faith in me!) Yet I still feel like I could have somehow done…better. Couldn’t tell you how, but I still feel that way.

Though I will still claim victory that she didn’t put ME in a mental institution before she had 24/7 care. That was pretty iffy for a while.

I guess I’m just a little sad that the woman who would give me all kinds of hell for not being dressed up and wearing makeup during all waking hours of the day doesn’t give a damn that I’m wearing hiking boots on a daily basis nowadays.

I think you need Skinner, Bart. Everybody needs a nemesis. Sherlock Holmes had his Dr. Moriarty, Mountain Dew has its Mellow Yellow, even Maggie has that baby with the one eyebrow.

Short version: She’s fine.

Just got off the phone with the care center, and it seems that Little Miss Greatly Improved Mobility has decided she is Superwoman. Apparently she was sitting in one of the recliners in the lounge, decided she was ready to go do something else and couldn’t be bothered to ask anyone for assistance. Before anyone could get to her, she was on the floor. She pretty much just slid out of the chair, not a violent crash or anything, no injuries – but – ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???

Not 48 hours after I find my titanium ovaries and book the trip, she falls again???!?

Oh, no worries, I’m still going to Vegas. I’m just going to call the care center and have them duct tape her to her chair while I’m gone.

Some time back, I got myself on the email list for the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas.  I suspect the reason I signed on to the list in the first place is that I still want to get in touch with my inner six year old who is in love with sparkly ponies.  From what I’ve heard, the Bellagio is the place to go for that very reason.  Plus, they have sparkly fountains.  (Given that I was absolutely entranced by the Disneyland fountain show as a child, so this makes quite a bit of sense for me.)

A couple days ago, I got an email that the Bellagio is doing a food & wine weekend with a couple of their sister hotels over the first weekend in November.  I love food and I love wine and I’ve never been to Vegas, and this is certainly a spectacular excuse to go to Disneyland For Grownups for a couple days.  (Grownup Disneyland being my mother’s description of the place after going there for a conference.)  In theory, this should be well BEYOND a no-brainer.  Go and eat, drink, and spend the $100 in complementary chips, and wander about marveling at the plethora of neon signs on the strip?  Who wouldn’t sign on??  (Or simply cash the chips in and buy more food!!)

And yet, I still find myself having a very, very hard time calling the hotel and saying, “Count me in!”

I find that I am having a hell of a time with the idea of non-availability for my grandmother.  She is in a very good care center, and they are being exceptionally attentive to all her needs & wants.  (Even more so after she fell a couple weeks ago.  I am totally OK with the fact that they’re still terrified of a lawsuit if it makes them more hyperattentive – not that they weren’t attentive before now, but that’s life in the big city.)  So – my taking a couple days leave from the real world shouldn’t be an issue.

And yet in my mind, it is still quite an issue. I am primary POA/MPOA.  And yes, should grandma break a hip while I’m in Vegas, it’s a just a 5 hour drive to PHX from Vegas, and that’s still a hell of a lot faster than trying to get there from IAD.  But when the care center called this past Saturday morning to ask about a flu shot (no) my heart skipped a beat when the phone rang and I saw the Caller ID.  And when Sharyn called this evening (they asked her when she came in about a pneumonia shot when she came in to hang out) my heart skipped a beat yet again.  So, I still can’t hear the phone ring without becoming mildly nauseous.

And here’s the kicker – my grandmother has a CD that will roll over two days after the first weekend in November when this event will be taking place.  Of course, Wells Fargo & Wachovia still not being able to get their collective shit together after the merger – I can’t reset the damn thing to cash out without showing up in person at a Wells Fargo branch with the Big Book of Death.*  (Nope, can’t do it at a local Wachovia branch – I asked!)  So, were I to go have some fun in Vegas, it would be nothing to tack on two more days, go to the rollercoaster at the Stratosphere and hit a local branch of Wells Fargo (which they have in Vegas) and take care of it, or even pop down to PHX and scare the hell out of the care center folks with a surprise visit.  (Though my presence would convince my grandmother she was at death’s door.)

And yet, I feel like going to Vegas for a long weekend would be a horribly irresponsible thing to do, as in my mind it minimizes my availability to tend to my grandmother’s needs.

So seriously – WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME??!?

*Big Book of Death sounds awful, but that is what we christened the Book of Important Documents.  My grandmother even laughed about the name we gave it.

Last night I had a goofy dream where Little Bro was all tweaked out because I insisted on using the ice maker in the freezer. There was some upcoming holiday or other event and he kept saying we needed space in the freezer and had to dump the ice and we could buy more ice if we needed it. (The scene was fairly reminiscent of my favorite Thanksgiving episode in Mad About You where the MIL is going on about the fact that they dumped the ice trays to make room in the freezer – because they could just waste all kinds of money buying more ice – while everything else went to hell in a handbasket thanks to the dog…)

But for whatever reason this evening, I was just sitting there and my goofy-assed dreams of last night made me think of another dream that I had when I was much, MUCH younger. It would have likely been when sometime between 1st and 4th grade – while we were either in DC or Virginia Beach and spending some of the summers down at my Grandparents house in Sandy Springs, GA – and it was a summer when my Dad was able to come down south with the rest of us. I remember it as clear as if it were three days ago. (And yet I have to search for my keys on a daily basis.)

I dreamed that I had gone fishing and caught the limit on largemouth bass. (Dad and I fished a fair amount in the summers when he was not deployed, so the concept of fishing to limit in a day wasn’t beyond the limits of reason. The limits of reality? Perhaps, but that’s a whole other dimension.) I told my Dad about the dream the next morning. He informed me that we had obviously gotten our dreams mixed up, because he’d had a dream about being locked in an ice cream parlor. I was totally sure he was right and somehow our dreams had DEFINITELY gotten mixed up somehow, because as much as I loved fishing (and still do) being locked in an ice cream parlor was SO MUCH MORE AWESOME!

Given that I still have nary a clue how 99.44% of the world and life actually works, I can’t say that maybe our dreams didn’t get mixed up somehow. Or maybe they were both spot-on, cause I did and still do love to fish and Dad always did love ice cream. But to have that little random memory pop up tonight did put a very large smile on my face.

Sweet dreams, kids – may they give you some random goofy smile on your face tomorrow.

At Christmas, our angel Sharyn mentioned that she’d recently noticed that my grandmother needed some new bedsheets, and she’d not had a chance to get out and procure them. Not a big deal, we could easily make a Target run and take care of it, which we did. An exceptionally easy task – and in the past two and a half years, there have been precious few of those. We agreed to keep any “change is BAD!” drama to a minimum and we’d leave the new sheets in a cabinet in the garage and she’d swap them out on another day. (There was enough upheaval by our presence to begin with, there was no reason to actively add to it.) Nice sheets were procured and left in the drop zone and I thought nothing more of it until the other evening.

I was talking to Sharyn on a completely unrelated matter and she mentioned,

“If you see a check for Costco, it’s because I have to get new sheets for her.”
Me: “Wait, didn’t you find the sheets in the cabinet after Christmas?”
Her: “Yes, but they were white.”
Me: *Thinking, thinking, thinking…* “Well, yes, I guess they were white…” (I thought her old sheets were white as well, but perhaps not!)
Her: “Apparently white sheets make her think of the lining of a coffin.”
Me: “WTF??!?? I just got white, cause I thought she had them, and because white goes with everything!!!!!!”
Her: “I know, I know.”
Me: “Christ, now she doesn’t only think that I want to ’stuff her in a nursing home’, she thinks I want to put her in a coffin!!!”
Her: “Nah, I told her that I bought them – she doesn’t think you want to kill her.”
Me: “Thank you for taking that bullet for me, cause, well, I already have many strikes against me.”
Her: “You’re doing the best you can, and I am not going to give her any unwarranted ammunition.”

I swear, I am the only person that could go out and buy nice super-high thread count sheets and my grandmother would interpret it as a sign of death. And to top it all off, I sent purple/blue irises for Mother’s Day. (Which I sent to all my ‘Moms’ – cause they were REALLY PRETTY!!!) and now that I think about it – back in the day – purple flowers were funeral flowers. Yeah, I’m the only idiot on the planet that sends ‘funeral flowers’ to an 87 year old woman. I REALLY THOUGHT THEY WERE PRETTY!!!!!

I really cannot fathom how I could be any worse at this endeavor of taking care of my grandmother.

On at least one or two occasions, I have stated that whenever my grandmother shuffles off this mortal coil, I will go out to Phoenix, settle things and come home via a couple days in Las Vegas, preferably at the Bellagio. Partly cause I’ve never been to Vegas and partly because I think that *not* doing the now-too-familiar IAD/PHX/IAD round-trip would cement a bit of finality in my brain. (Despite the situation with my grandmother being quite stable at the moment, I feel that it will never end and I will always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. A change of routine should help. I should have been a psych major.) And yes, it’s quite OK to speak of my grandmother’s eventual demise, as it’s one of her very favorite subjects.

My brother knows of these lofty yet tenuous plans. Tonight he tells me that he has realized that six months after my grandmother dies, he’ll be watching Pawn Stars and I’ll show up in the shop selling all of grandma’s stuff.

Mind you, should I ever find myself in Vegas, I will have to stop by Rick Harrison’s shop if for no other reason than to see if I can catch a glimpse of the Old Man or Chumlee. But I doubt I’ll be trying to sell my grandmother’s old school radio/turntable that doubles as a sideboard. (One year when we were out there she told us we could stack the Christmas presents “on the radio” – it wasn’t until halfway through the trip that we realized “the radio” was the 5 foot long cabinet with a receiver, turntable and speakers where I had put things anyway. I had been expecting her to yell at me for putting the stuff in the wrong place.)

Cause I’m not feeling it just yet. Could just be the sucky weather reports for the next couple days, but it’s just not been a whole lot better than 2009.

The back window in my car has decided that it doesn’t want to work anymore, which would normally be something that I’d simply leave alone for another time, but unfortunately, the window is open about an inch and a half, and as such, actually needs to be tended to. So, I’m looking at being carless for a couple days and that annoys me, too.

There was a 6.1 magnitude aftershock in Haiti today. WTF, Mother Nature, didn’t have enough fun with the first one?

It’s sounding more and more like the health care legislation may be dead, so yay, I can look forward to my premiums continuing to rise unabated, despite my decent health and fabulous looks, and then being cancelled if I ever have to actually use it.

I have taken to turning off the ringer on the phone in my bedroom and leaving my cell phone downstairs at night because I’m done with answering tax question calls from my grandmother at 3AM. (She has a little problem with boundaries and bothering to look at clocks.) I’m pretty sure this makes me a bad person, but I need sleep to effectively be the CEO of “Keep Grandma out of a Nursing Home, Inc.” and she certainly has no problems picking up the phone during the day.

On the upside, the animals are all quite well. Carmen decided to have herself a good old fashioned feline crazy this morning and was chasing me, the dog, invisible bugs, and anything else that caught her eye. However, the Christmas tree is a little worse for the wear for her fun this morning. She is happily sleeping on my lap as I type this, which thrills Moxley to no end, because it means she is not in his crate. He was not having a super awesome time this afternoon as he couldn’t sleep in his crate because Carmen was in it (why he won’t just walk in and sit on her is beyond me) and Lily kept trying to sleep on his tail and feet. (She LOVES him and is also just a little obsessed with his feet.)

So yeah 2010 – I’m just not impressed so far. We’re stuck with each other for 11+ more months, so let’s get it together, shall we?

Yeah, I know, it’s technically Tuesday, but the muse is still on PHX time.

– Carmen is about 91% back to normal. She still looks at the ceiling fans with a suspicious eye, but is back to hanging out in the living room, and decided food was the winner in the fear of ceiling fan vs. eating in the bedroom. It may seem silly that it worried me as much as it did, but it’s just a tiny bit heartbreaking to not be able to explain that the ceiling fan is not a predator. Lily still looks at the ceiling fans and then looks at me with an expression of, “Seriously, I don’t get the issue here.” Or it’s, “WTF, why is the fan off?” I’m not quite sure which it is.

– Is it wrong that when I come in and want to know where the kittens are I say, “Where are my single ladies?!” and then sing a few bars from Beyonce’s Single Ladies song? They do show up when I sing it. (And I use the term “singing” loosely.)

– Sharyn* called today, and I’ll admit my first thought when seeing her number on the Caller ID was, “WTF has my grandmother done???” Yes, I know I’m going to hell for that. But, it was just an update. First being that the hot water heater is ON – and to expect some calls about that. (I couldn’t even get her to voluntarily leave it on when we stayed with her. So I just turned it on and didn’t tell her.) But, she’s not been super great about showering of late, for several understandable reasons that I am completely speculating upon because she won’t actually tell anyone:

a) Afraid she’ll fall & hurt herself
b) Not like she’s out running a marathon
c) Doesn’t give a rat’s ass, cause she’s 87 years old
d) Hot water costs money

But Sharyn is getting her a shower seat (the shower has a built in bench, but she could quite easily slide right off it it – hell, *I* could slide off it were I not paying attention) and will be there so my grandmother knows if she has any issues, help is immediately there. (And as Sharyn said, “Hell, if she wants me to get naked too, I’ll do it.” God bless this woman.)

Additionally, we’d previously talked about Meals on Wheels for more hot food options**, but they’re kind of insistent on “coming in & helping” and my grandmother just is NOT comfortable having strangers about (which I think is a good thing) and Sharyn did a little more poking around and one of the local hospitals does a pretty kick ass meal plan that can be picked up, which is better for all helping out. Given my grandmother’s good financial situation***, it will cost……$4 a meal. Christ, our Chinese takeout tonight cost way more than that. And she was reading one of the menus to me – Swiss steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, salad & milk. Hell, where do *I* sign up for that?

I’m very glad she found this, cause she has been cooking up things to take over to my grandmother, which is awesome, but I’m really glad to have this off her plate (so to speak) because I do worry that she’s doing too much already, despite her protestations to the contrary.

* The angel sent from heaven to Sun City to prevent me from tossing my grandmother into the middle of traffic on Bell Road.
** My grandmother would live on sandwiches & ice cream if left to her own devices. I am at the point of “Whatever the hell she wants” but I am outvoted, LOL. She will eat *anything* you put in front of her, but will never admit that she’d like anything beyond sandwiches & ice cream. As I have said before, she’s taken self deprivation to an art form.
*** I have told my grandmother on more than a few occasions that if I had her resources at her age, I’d be ordering Lobster Thermador & a Cabana Boy every night. I will be getting the contact info for this hospital meal plan and a nice donation will be made so they can help a few more people who *can’t* afford it, because frankly, she’s being ridiculously undercharged for this service.

Upon further investigation, it has come to my attention that Boxing Day does not mean I can go punch someone.  Damn.

I will say I am greatly tiring of my grandmother’s attitude.  I completely sympathize with her situation and frustrations and it is why I am completely hellbent on getting her more help to make things easier in any and every way possible for her and allow her to continue to stay in her home for as long as humanly possible.  I am really not that much of a bastard, despite what she may think – I don’t want her to have to go into a nursing home unless it’s an absolute 100% necessity.

But her attitude still sucks – and it’s not the Alzheimer’s/dementia/mad cow/whatever the hell it is, it’s been this way for a very, very long time.

She’s perfectly content to use us for errands and taxes and whatever else that will keep someone from calling social services on her, but other than that, we’re just cluttering up her life.  She does it to others as well, but it’s always been family that has taken the brunt of it.  (I still do not know how my mother managed to never shove her down the stairs.)  After a while, I cannot help but find myself thinking, “I left my home, my pets, and my friends at Christmas for this?” I can only hear that we’re throwing her day into disarray so many times before I am tempted to say, “We can fix that, we’re outta here.”  But I have not.  Not sure if it because I am nice or an idiot.  (Idiot is probably the right answer.)

I have still managed NOT to get into any fights with her – it’s been a record length of time for any visit with her in my entire life.  So I’ve got that going for me, and I’ll be damned if I don’t take a hell of a lot of credit for it.

Though there has been a bit of Festivus action today, on the whole it’s gone better than I thought it would.  We did accidentally wake her up from a nap, which had her in a bit of a mood for the first half of the afternoon.  (She doesn’t nap on any kind of consistent schedule, so the only way we could guarantee not waking her would be to not show up at all.)

She actually decided that eating in was preferable to standing in line for over an hour for the exact same food.  However, we did near come to blows over the microwave…  She doesn’t use it, and has decided it is broken, which must be why she doesn’t use it.  No, she doesn’t use it because she can’t even begin to read any of the buttons and can’t remember what order to hit them in.*  Then even if it did work, she was sure I wouldn’t know how to use it, because it’s not the same model as mine.

But, we finally got past all that and had a relatively pleasant dinner.

The Snuggie seemed to be a hit, (yes, we got her a Snuggie, no I am not proud of it) though I wish I had remembered how damn big those things are (it’s pretty obvious from the ads that they’re huge) and had I been smart I would have opened it up before we left and hemmed it up, but hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it?

Despite feeling like death, and it greatly affecting my mood to the negative side, I am happy to say there have been no knock down-drag out fights yet, and even today when she was getting a touch on the bitchy side, I did not take the bait.

*Thankfully others bring her home cooked stuff so it’s not like she lives 100% on cold food.  But would certainly do so if left to her own devices.

Either my grandmother will recognize I took some initiative to make Christmas dinner just as tradtional but 100x easier, or I have ruined Christmas.

I made an executive decision this year, and it was that we would NOT be going to JB’s for Christmas dinner.  It is a perfectly fine place, but it is the only place that is open on Christmas day in Sun City, and as such, it is a madhouse.  Unless you get there the minute they open for the morning brunch, you can count on a minimum of a 1 hour wait.  There are not enough places to sit when waiting, and given that it is Sun City, about 2/3 of the guests NEED to sit while waiting.  Finally, it is a buffet, which is near impossible for my grandmother to navigate with the cane & balance issues.

Yet, she has made noises about doing it again this year.  (I suspect she has forgotten the buffet/insane asylum aspect of it.)  Rather than even argue it, we are just going to surprise her.

With the help of Safeway’s deli & prepared foods department, we’re heading over with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, pasta salad and rolls.  Everything we could get at JB’s without the wait or standing in line to get it, and without the noise and insanity of being stuffed in a small restaurant with 120 other people.  (I also fully admit this may be nothing more subconscious revenge for the year she arrived and simply announced we would be having ham for Christmas dinner and that was that.  I beleive that was also the year I banned her from my kitchen.)

This one really could go either way.

I brought the laptop to the condo so we could avoid going to the bank.  I think we almost have my grandmother convinced that her checkbook is in fact up to date and perfect and matches the bank records and we don’t need to run that little hellish errand.  (She has quite the reputation at the bank, and it’s not a good one.  I am still surprised that no one there has called Social Services on her.)

Of course, now I am just using the laptop because my god, no offense to my grandmother, it is so incredibly boring here, cause we don’t talk about anything besides her checkbook, taxes, or death.  And I can certainly talk about her checkbook and surf the internet all at the same time – I am quite the multitasker.  I also need to keep track of where Santa is, dammit.  I think keeping my sanity intact is very important, lest I start saying what I’m thinking out loud.

Today’s conversations have been split between the checkbook and the fact that our presence has thrown her day into disarray.  Her nose is also out of joint because Sharyn isn’t coming over today.  Sharyn isn’t coming over because a) we are here and can help out and b) Sharyn’s grandchildren are here and she wants to spend time with them.  Though given that Sharyn is the only thing keeping her out of a nursing home, it’s a good thing she likes her.

And yet, my head cold rages on.

We made it.  Grandma is still grandma, if flakier and more frail.  Nothing unexpected – she’ll be 87 in a week and has never had a healthy habit in her life.  The fact that she is still alive is amazing, though I would have to say that one good fall with a broken bone, and she’d be toast.  In talking w/Sharyn it’s agreed all around that the “caregiving crew that can’t be called caregivers” needs to be expanded and we’ll be working on that.  The biggest problem is when she is alone, no one gets any peace.  Whenever something pops into her head, she goes to the phone – it’s a pure reflex at this point for her, not a conscious decision, which results in her making everyone else crazy.

This is probably also the last Christmas she’ll have any clue who we are.  Kinda sad, but again, hardly unexpected.  I’d say it could be her last Christmas here on earth, but we’ve been saying that for the last 10 years.

The calendar says it’s Christmas Eve, but you couldn’t prove it by me – the biggest downer of being here at Christmas is that it has never, ever felt anything like Christmas.  Everything that makes Christmas what it is to me is back home, not here.  So, that part fairly well sucks, but it is what it is.  (And though I have fears to the contrary, my grandmother will not live forever and I’ll have many years of finally doing Christmas my way.  Just not this year.)

On the upside, we have made a few brilliant decisions this trip.  The first being the hotel.  (Mad props to my brother for coming up with this idea in the first place.)  We’re at the Renaissance Grand over in Glendale, and it’s really nice.  It’s right next to the town center which has a bucketload of restaurants, the hockey arena and a movie theater – and people under the age of 60.  And given that it doesn’t seem that Phoenix is a big Christmas destination, we got a really good deal on the room to boot.

The second brilliant decision was in making the travel days separate from any interaction with my grandmother.  (This comes from my last trip out here.)  It may sound harsh, but I can deal with US Airways, or my grandmother, but not both in the same day.  Just isn’t going to work.

Last but not least – deciding to fly out of Dulles instead of National.  Amazing how when you decide you will take flights that are convienent for YOU and not anyone else, things are a lot easier.  I hadn’t flown out of Dulles in 10 years and I was blown away at how much better it is than National.  Between having many hours in the morning to get the pets to the kennel (*sob*) and not having to take a death cab to the metro and fight with that ridiculousness (and I’m not even sure our metro station was open) and deal with the service impaired folks at National – it was actually a stress free travel day.

I’m still kicking myself a bit for the length of this trip – we could probably leave day after tomorrow and it wouldn’t make a difference at all in my grandmother’s mind.  But her shrieks of “you won’t be here long enough to get everything done!” from years past kept ringing in my ears as I made the reservations…  Ah well, lessons learned.  (I think I’ll have it all figured out about a week after she dies.  If she ever dies.)