Responsible. I. Am.

I am in charge again.

The Decider.
The shopper.
The cooker.
The washer.
The cleaner.
The banker.
The trash collector.
The reminder.
The checker.
The fountain of ALL conversation.

Me.

He's left for his annual piss-up with old friends down Tokyo-way. Gone a week and left me and Okaasan to cope together.

In the past this has resulted in minute by minute blog postings as I pee in trash boxes and hear stories about wartime food/Ishihara Yujiro's house/Nishi-guru/Kawagoe city/JTB guides and Korean food etc etc etc.

Who knows what this week will bring?
I expect the mystery, nightime doorbell ringer will be joining us in the next few days.
Dear Son left this morning for the airport bus without saying "Goodbye" to Okaasan. We decided that it was best that way: she won't realise he's gone till tomorrow and so no point in setting off the stress levels now.

I've hardly been involved with Okaasan in the past week as Dear Son was home and doing (most) of the above jobs. My focus was really on the cat and his giant plastic-collar, taking him out for daily walks and trying to stop him ripping out his wound stitches. The neighbors have seen a lot of me in my dressing-gown with a cup of tea....standing around while the cat sits thoughtfully in the neighboring bike garage at dawn.
Yesterday the vet finally took out the stitches and the cat is free to go fight again, or lick the wound raw and need more stitches..

Okaasan was fine. The pickles she made a week or two ago - they finally dried and she soaked them in soy sauce and carefully turned them over every day. We both noticed that she brought great focus to this task and really did it well. Did it normally, of course. But for her: well.

And she demanded wine :-) At dinner the other night I was drinking beer and Dear Son had a glass of red wine. Okaasan had green tea.
Suddenly she spied the wine across the table.
"Yujiro! I can drink wine too, you know!"
He gave her some. A tiny amount, because we've seen her tipsy and her walking/standing gets more dangerous.
"Hmm, that's a very small amount...a bit sad really...." she grumbled cheerfully. I was giggling into my beer. But she accepted her tiny amount and luckily didn't ask for more.

Giggle, giggle...that'll teach him to drink red wine in her sight. Usually we drink beer at dinner and she doesn't ask for some. If I drink white wine she maybe thinks it is water. But red wine? Oh!! Noticed THAT.

And so. Off we go - into a week of solo caring. I hope the weather is good enough that Okaasan goes walking a lot. I will knuckle down and do the dinners with her and chat.
Just a little while longer and then I hope we'll hear from the city office about day service in December. That hope is gonna keep me going this week.