A women's weekend

That title conjures up images of fluffy towels, bottles of champers, masseurs-on-tap and a stripper.

But in fact it was just 3 days of me and Okaasan co-existing on different floors of the same house and coming together briefly for what needed to be done.

Dear Son is away for the final gulp of ski teaching work. The weather was foul. I spent Saturday in my pajamas and took Marie Kondo's decluttering advice to my overflowing bookcases. Sorted out piles of stuff - old teaching materials I once cut up and laminated...and then haven't used in years. Endless little notebook presents....I don't have enough thoughts to fill all these little pads of paper that students and friends give me. Four bags of trash at the end and a much more organised book case.

Meals with Okaasan. Pretty silent. She doesn't talk much. Even when prompted. Conversation flickers around the food, the flowers in the vase, the cat on my knee.

I tried to spike some interest in the topic of spicy food - Korean - food - Korean restaurants - that Korean place in Ikebukuro station you used to go to...

Zilch. That memory has vanished. Permanently probably. Used to be one of her stock stories about going to the Korean restaurant at the top of the department store, before getting the train to the suburbs. How it was so popular lines of people sat at tables.

Now I could be telling my OWN story. She listened to my words and had no reaction to them. Nothing in what I said sounded familiar.

So, pretty silent meals.

Okaasan sits or lays on the carpet in front of the TV a lot. Often what is on TV is a topic that she can't be interested in: making cabinets for a garage or economists discussing the price of oil...but she just watches it. I wonder how much she is understanding now. If I notice it is the shopping or weather channel I switch it onto something more entertaining.

But on Sunday afternoon she responded to my prompts and accepted a lift in the car to the subway station. Disappeared alone downtown for about 3 hours. Came home safely - well, confusing the station staff as usual with a rail pass/ticket combination. Had no memory of what she had done downtown. Handbag receipts told the story of going to her usual coffee shop and eating a cake.

All pretty boring. Sorry. this blog IS boring now......I wonder if  I should stop?

I started it in the expectation that Okaasan would only live a few years, that her decline into dementia would be sharper....that our struggles to care for her would make interesting reading.

But...here we are. 7 years on.