All things brown
That time from mid-November to Thanksgiving is always a time of anticipation, organizing, scheduling for me. Throughout my career, I'd had to be extremely on-task and vigilant for any moment or two when I could accomplish any chore or complete anything under my responsibility. And though now retired, it seems my schedule continues to be hectic. So I make lists. And because I abhor crowds and all the commercialism of the holiday season, I like to do my shopping before Thanksgiving. I'm more mindful and enjoy it more. So when the day blossomed bright with sunshine yesterday, I took off for the cities after fitness class, list in hand. I had over six stops to make and a pretty good idea of my route, both TO the stores and within them. Call it compulsive...I call it survival. In and out, quick and efficient. Home by 4 to visit Mom; home by 5 to prepare dinner for Pete and engage him in a game of cribbage, our only "together" time we seem to be able to share these days.
Successful trip. Most things on the list were found, most crowds were avoided, craziness averted. Or so I thought.
I've never been attracted to brown, though I can't say I dislike it. But given a choice in clothing or decorating colors, brown isn't at the top of the list.
Brown, however, IS the color of chocolate. And when I finally walked into Mom's apartment just after 4 pm, just after experiencing the joy that being on the road brings, I heard her call, "I'm in here!" from her bathroom.
I have to say I can resist some things, but the big Hershey bar Mom had on her counter tempted me, and I gave in. I was relishing the flavor a melting morsel in my mouth when Mom called again, "I think I need some help in here." OK, help in the bathroom. I shored up my courage.
I found Mom standing facing the toilet with her black knit pants haphazardly pulled up around her hips. "I'm not sure what happened here," she admitted, staring at the toilet...and then I saw it--brown poo on the toilet seat and on the floor. The bit of chocolate I was enjoying suddenly reminded me of something else...the something I was looking at. Ugh.
I quickly realized Mom wasn't wearing underwear, which is pretty curious, because she always wears underwear. She had no idea what had happened to it and I had no idea the extent of the poo issue--was her butt clean? Had she again traipsed through the stuff and did I need to clean off her shoes? Where were those undies?
We finally found them in the wicker trash basket next to the toilet. Apparently she'd reacted to poo on her undies by tossing them there. And of course our next steps were to clean Mom's butt, put on new undies and then...oh then...clean up the poo on the toilet and floor. Clean up the brown.
I was pretty darn thankful for those rubber gloves I'd bought and left at Mom's, and in about 15 minutes, we were in business again. Bathroom was clean, washcloths and undies were in the washer, all was well.
On to the kitchen. I usually find a pile of dishes in the sink and know that if I just leave them there, the staff will eventually put them in the dishwasher, but then by the time the dishwasher is full, most of Mom's dishes will be missing from the shelves. So I just do those in the sink each day, cleaning out the left-over food and washing plates/containers from the fridge.
I was pleased to see the staff had brought a pot of coffee in for Mom (some coffee was still in the pot), but apparently they'd not brought it before she'd tried to make herself coffee, for again the microwave was speckled with brown mist from exploding coffee crystals. More brown to clean up.
Things were pretty much in order when I left. Pete and I played our cribbage game, I fed the animals, we had dinner, I washed another load of clothes...and then I heard it--the dog retching. Super. Dog puke. And you guessed the color--brown.