Lunches.

There's a Peanuts cartoon strip of Snoopy moving the clock forward so he can get Charlie Brown to feed him earlier and earlier....


I get that feeling with Okaasan sometimes.


Eating times...such a fluid subject.


I fed her lunch yesterday about 11.30/11.45 am (that's actually how we refer to this task - either "feeding Okaasan" or "doing Okaasan") and chatted a bit in the kitchen with her as she ate rice, simmered fish paste and vegetables, salad, pickles, soup etc - explained that I was going out shopping with a friend and would eat later.
After serving Okaasan with her rice I put the rest of the cooked rice in freezer boxes, and left them one one side to cool down.


Then I left home and spent 4 wonderful hours with my recently arrived friend and her baby in a shopping mall and big recycle shop. Just wandering and shopping, chatting and stuff. She needed non-slip shoes and was thinking about an automatic baby rocker...I was ambling happily.
We were once room mates long ago, then friends through email and phone calls for years, with once a year meet-ups for lunches or overnight stays.
Now we are able to amble together on a Saturday afternoon. Still can't get over this really.:-)


I got home about 5 pm to think about dinner.
Lunch stuff was all eaten and the plates as usual were sitting around with bits of water in them on the draining board...ready for Okaasan to wash in that never-coming-"Later".


And one freezer box of cooked rice was missing. And the eggs were on the table.


Okaasan had helped herself to yet ANOTHER box/bowl of rice mid-afternoon. I guess she'd wandered out into the kitchen sometime between 1 and 5...seen the rice box and ....


In her room on the carpet I could see the empty rice bowl, with egg shells in it (Japanese people consider rice and raw egg and edible mixture) - I popped my head into her room to see if this all meant she didn't want dinner...


"Dinner? Oh yes, I want dinner! That rice and egg? Oh that was lunchtime...."


And so it was in her mind. Maybe after the first lunch she'd slept until about 2 pm....woke up and felt a bit peckish...wandered into the kitchen and found the rice boxes....the first lunch and chatting with me in the kitchen was gone from her memory (even though the dishes were still there where she'd put them) and this lady who swears by the mantra "Thou Shalt Not Overeat" had tucked into yet more food.


And then: at 7 pm we sat down (some ski teacher popped in for dinner and bed, don't know who he was...)....and Okaasan ate a large bowl of spaghetti, salad and soup.


I MUST make sure there are snack-type foods for her in the kitchen. It doesn't matter if she eats  rice multiple times a day of course, but her increasing weight isn't going to help mobility etc...it would be better to get her snacking on a piece of fruit or a yogurt.


Okaasan sleeps a lot in her room. She wakes up and has no sense of what time it is. Yes, I know there's a clock in her room...but...


And today? Learned that lesson. I laid out lunch for her about an hour ago - I'm upstairs here hiding cos I can't be bothered to have lunch with her - and I've put some long stewing raddish and tofu potdish up out of sight on the microwave...so she can't: a) attempt to join in the cooking of it and b) eat it.


From tomorrow: the LOOOOOOOOOONG haul of solo-Oyomesannning. He is goes off tomorrow for 14 days...yes FOURTEEN days...of ski work out in resorts in the center of Hokkaido. He won't be back till Feb. 5th.


I've got lunch deliveries.
I haven't got the car.
I've got another bottle of homemade plumwine.
I've got my friend and her baby.
I've got this blog :-) and all you nice people!!!!


I'm buckling up for the ride.....14 days.......