Crustathrustphobia

I’m going to be drinking a lot this year, I can tell. My 95-year-old mother just moved in. Fresh out of the hospital, partially disabled but gets around astoundingly well after we invested in her wheels. We’re calling her “Helen” now – “Helen Wheels.” She has the coolest walker in town – Schwinn red, with handbrakes reminiscent of a 10-speed bike, complete with fabric basket and leatherette seat for when she prefers being pushed. A matching wheelchair is coming by UPS next week. She’s full of stories of the good old days. My drinking will come in handy because the stories she is full of are the same ones, repeated and repeated and repeated.


My great-niece’s friend nailed it last weekend – you mean, he said, she’s a right-wing Republican moving to the Big Easy to live with a couple lesbians? Yes, that’s the case. Let’s pitch it as a reality show. I could use the cash.

After two days, I dreamed I was in the kitchen, making dinner. Mom was in the living room, talking and talking and talking and, yes, talking. I started throwing shrimp at her. Flinging crustaceans in my sleep. Is there a fear of having shrimp thrust upon you? Crustathrustaphobia?

In the last 8 days, I’ve become adept at pounding dozens of meds into a powder, thinking but dismissing thoughts of straws and a misspent youth, and mixing the nasty concoction into chocolate pudding. Got to be a waste of perfectly good pudding. I’m horrifying her with exotic cuisine. Exotic by Ohio standards, kind of tame for New Orleans. She gamely tries most of my dinners, but I hear her in the night hitting the cheese curls and cookies.

We’ve managed, at length, to change her address with Social Security, make a doctor appointment, tire her out with shopping trips, get her clothes that actually fit and finish furnishing her room with a comfy chair and writing desk. She’s trying to do her own laundry, even though the effort requires a nap immediately after. Actually it’s kind of like having a cat. Feed her & let her sleep.

We’re admittedly still in the honeymoon period, she’s grateful to be out of the hospital and it's been less stressful than I’d thought. She’s trying hard to edit her racist comments before they’re made, which I appreciate. But 95 requires a lot of attention and I’ve never been responsible for another human being before. Gulp. The adventure begins. Cocktails, anyone?