Monday 4 February 2013

Order and chaos

Feb. 3 in Japan and it's the day when people throw beans around the house to drive away evil spirits and buy sushi rolls and eat them for luck...silently and facing a designated direction (designated by a sushi making business in Osaka I think...).

Okaasan had been showing me a supermarket flyer at the weekend with its pictures of the sushi rolls and talking about "tanonda"...which I finally realised meant "ordered".
I'd ordered? As in a question? No...she'd ordered????
Some very confused story about the lunchbox delivery person last week and ordering a sushi roll?
Gyaaaaaa!!! A box of sushi rolls was heading our way? Or not?
Nothing came. There is no lunch delivery at weekends, so I'm guessing that she had a conversation with the lunch delivery person ABOUT sushi rolls last week...and in her mind that gelled as "I have ordered sushi rolls" by the weekend.
It would be strange for them to be delivered today, after the festival.

Quiet Sunday....I was working on my tourism seminar speech...trying to marshall my supposed knowledge about foreign visitors in Hokkaido into a 45 minute, scintillating performance.

Mid-afternoon I went downtown to meet Cutest Baby in the World and his mum, and took Okaasan with me to the subway station. It was SO scarily icy we held hands and picked our way carefully over the frozen streets and giggled with joint relief when we reached the safety of the subway area.

Okaasan's choice of clothes is getting stranger and stranger.
Before going out I found her in two T-shirts, a long sleeved jacket...and then a toweling house-dress...put on back to front....and again not so keen on a coat.
Got her OUT of the housedress and INTO the winter coat.

If dementia sufferers go back in time and abilities...why is choosing clothes and dressing one of the abilities which gets messed up?
Okaasan can feed herself. Go to the toilet herself. Put on shoes. Order cups of coffee in a cafe.
Why is choosing season-suitable clothes and putting them on in a good combination hard? Cutest Baby is only 1 year old and he can choose the coat and shoes for going out already.
Interesting.

And just in case I come over as too much of a saint in this blog...wouldn't want that...when Dear Son gave me some hassle  for not telling him his mother was likely to call him for a pick up in the car after he got back from skiing and had consumed a beer....I told him "I look after you fucking mother for days  and weeks and weeks...so I think it's time you did something"......

Felt so much better after that.
Ready to smile again and assume saintliness.

2 comments:

  1. Didn't work. I still think you are a saint.

    Perhaps CB has his wardrobe choices already pared down to seasonally appropriate items. My one year old can go fetch her coat and shoes, but if my 6&8 yo had all their clothes available they'd wear sundresses and sweatpants with galoshes all year round. Would it be possible to put away okaasan's out of season clothing? "I'll just put this in storage until spring so you have more space..." Much harder with a grown woman.

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  2. I have tried to put away a summer coat and skirts....I don't know where she got the housecoat out of...but she is heading into the stage of going out in strange combination clothes...and I always worry a little that she will accuse me of stealing clothes if I remove a favorite.

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