Mission ongoing...

Mission  all a.o.k. today.


Left food in the flasks on the table for Okaasan's lunch and went off for work.


Came home late afternoon with a box of great, cheap veggies to create a stuffed-full of veggies soup I'd seen on a TV cooking show.
Of course the TV show chef had an underling chef to carefully peel and cut all the veggies for him, but it was ok - while Okaasan stirred herself up for a 5 pm departure ("I've been watching Tv today, I didn't notice the time"), I chopped veggies and made the soup, AND made the potato/cabbage fry up she likes.


There was a brief...very brief moment - when I considered asking her if she could help me chop the vegetables - but I beat that thought down quickly - Okaasan in the kitchen is just a whole performance of increasingly confusion and unfinished work. With 90 minutes of time for prepping and eating I don't need the stress of that and SHE needs to go out and exercise.


Checked the GPS at 6.15 pm and could see her heading home - so I started getting it all table-ready. She got home and did her usual trip to the toilet - walking from her room via the kitchen to the toilet - in her UNDERPANTS!!! Kind of strange to see her do that - in the house the kitchen is the shared-family space and pajamas are the norm for all of us, or I may dash across it late at night in a towel after a shower...I've never seen Okaasan in the kitchen in her underpants.


She and I had dinner together. I talked a bit about Yujiro going to Tokyo by a 20 hour ferryboat trip, but she wasn't so interested - and after a few non-starts of conversation she alighted on the word "Otaru". It's a port town in Hokkaido, and I was gabbering on about ferries and harbors...and she alighted on the name "Otaru".


OFF she went - Otaru!! - Ishihara Yuiro (the Elvis of Japan long ago) he lived there! - Otaru - Yujiro lived near my cooking school in Tokyo - my cooking school in Tokyo - Yujiro a BIG star - someone told me the Ishihara family house was near my cooking school - even my husband came to look at the outside of the house - it was near my cooking school in Tokyo - I went to a cooking school - someone told me Ishihara Yujiro's family lived near the school - my HUSBAND even wanted to see the house - Ishihara was a big star - my cooking......


At 7 pm I exited for the class, and left Okaasan happily eating veggie soup and potato/cabbage fry and rice.


All ok.


Yesterday in a quiet moment at work I was looking on the Internet at videos about dementia training workshops etc - and realizing we are still VERY lucky with Okaasan. After watching lots of videos of dementia sufferers in states of vacancy, shuffling silence, gibbering - I thought we are lucky to just have hamster-wheel stories/dirty underwear/dirty room/a fridge-full of yogurt/money-hair salon-dentist management and the endless checking questions ("There are two cats aren't there?").


Lucky, so lucky.