But for now, I am worrying about this..............
That damn fuki - wild celery. Okaasan bought it last Saturday. On Sunday I got her to prepare it - cutting and peeling off the rough bits. Then I alternatively soaked in water and boiled in water for days. I asked Okaasan and she told me to soak it and boil it some more.
We have been trying to use it. Mixing it with tofu, adding soy sauce. putting it in miso soup.
Isn't very nice, to be honest.
Celery farmers have done a better job at creating an edible vegetable from this wild ancestor.
The biggest problem? Okaasan has no interest in what to do next with it. This is one aspect of dementia - or at least HER dementia. She enjoys the shopping for something and brings it home.
Then puts it on the kitchen table.
Then: loses interest in it. Either can't remember that she ever bought it, or has no idea what to do with it next.
If I ask her. And I have tried an annoyingly number of times.
"Okaasan, this fuki that you bought. What shall I do with it? What is delicious? How do we use it?"
"Fuki? Where? This? This is very good for the stomach. After winter you have constipation, this helps clean your stomach out. What month is it now? This is very good for your stomach. very delicious. Use it? Oh...I forget. But it's very good for your stomach after winter....is it spring now.?.."
And so it goes.
We can't be bothered anymore. Our lives are full of holiday preparations and watching football. And something called work.
So today I have bagged up the damn fuki and I'll give it to some students. Okaasan won't miss it. And we can't be bothered.
Holiday preparations.
The day care team will come next week to consult about how to care for Okaasan while we are away. We have to make a list of info for them. We are already making little preparations around the house: extra toilet rolls in view, cleaning the kitchen so the team doesn't know I am a bad housewife...
And last night. The kind of incident that doesn't fill us with confidence a week before we go.
Okaasan went out at 2 pm for a walk - because I sent her early.
At 7 pm she was still downtown.
We ate dinner as I had an evening class at 8 pm.
At 8 pm Dear Son got a phone call from the staff at Susukino subway station downtown: your mother is here, she doesn't have a subway card and she doesn't have any money. What shall we do? If we give her money, can you pay us back?
She's gone out without the subway pass. Then used all the money I'd given her for a going-subway ticket and the usual coffee, cakes, snacks....and then had nothing to get home.
It's exactly the kind of situation we worry about while she is in the care of the day care team.
They will come 5 to 7 pm. We hope Okaasan will take her phone/subway pass/keys/money every time she goes out. We hope she will come back before 7 pm every day.
We hope.
After I came back from work we sat and talked about it: deciding to make several big signs between her room and the front door, so she is reminded to check she has all the necessary things. Wondering whether to change the No. 1 Call button number on her phone so it rings thru to the house telephone. Wondering whether the day care team will end up waiting for Okaasan every day at 7 pm, calling her to get her to come home a lot etc
Wondering.
Gosh....I need a holiday.
Oh. Right. I'm going to get one once all of this stuff has been worked thru....
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