"Anything" on the table...

Oh.

She ate it. The soil...and seeds...for the cat grass kit.....!!!

Oh.

My fault because I left it on the kitchen table in the morning. I'd just found it in a little-used cupboard and thought: "ahh, good for winter, I should start growing cat grass for the cats again...."

But I'd left it on the table and in the rush to work forgotten it.

Also on the kitchen table - on the usual place mat where Okaasan sits - were a box of rice, another of simmered Japanese veggies, some salad on a plate, a pack of soup and a fish sausage. The usual lunch pickings for Okaasan to heat in the microwave and eat.

But the cat grass seeds and soil packs were 10 cm to the left.....

What did she think they were? I know Japanese food can look pretty odd. All the seaweed, fish and dried vegetable products. But they look odd to a non-Japanese person. To an old Japanese lady who has spent her life dealing with the stuff not so much.

I'm not sure WHAT she thought it was!

But food, for sure.

I got home between classes to prep dinner and as I chirped a greeting into Okaasan's room I noticed the two packets of brown-something on her kotatsu table. And then the bowls...

Bowls in two places - kitchen table and kotatsu. So she'd tried it in the kitchen, and found it strange, and then....forgetting that experience...a few minutes later - taken the package of stuff in another bowl into her room to taste as a Tv-watching snack!

Oh my God.

Well. She is still alive. I guess the seeds are just a kind of seed. If actually poisonous her body would be reacting by now...

So. Lesson learned. Must be very careful in future about what I leave on the kitchen table! I already know that if I want any chance of eating fruit or cookies myself, I should take some upstairs for later. Okaasan will often eat all of something over a day - all the oranges, all the cookies....far more than a non-dementia sufferer would eat.

But, until now I've never thought about the dangers of leaving a non-food item on the kitchen table.

And yes, there IS other food in the kitchen that she didn't eat. The fruit bowl was on a side counter and in the fridge were more fish sausages and some yogurts.

But Okaasan sampled the soil and seeds...

* Dear Son has left the building. Gone ski working. It was for 10 days, until Xmas. Then came the phone call last night....till December 30....sigh. Ski widow. 

Plus sides: TV remote 100% control! Computer wordgame time without guilt, even LESS housework....reading time.

Happy 86 Okaasan!

Happy Birthday Okaasan!

86 years old today.

Doesn't she look GREAT in this picture!!!

Last night we took her out to a fish restaurant in the city fish market for a crab feast - bowls of rice topped with all sorts of marine yummyness, AND grilled crab legs.

She enjoyed it. Quietly in the restaurant. Not much chat. Really focused on the food, getting it from bowl to mouth and chasing the bits that dropped. But sweetly, finally, taking the bowl off the table and cradling it at chest level so she could get into the yummyness easily.

But - when we came out of the restaurant and I got mother and son into this jokey face board she just lit up and gave this wonderful smile :-) We should use this picture as her funeral picture as a wonderful way to remember her?

 :-)

This brilliant Oyomesan had the idea of going to this restaurant. Past years we've gone to a crab specialty place, and had a multi-course dinner in a private room.

But I thought that wasn't so great - it takes too long, it's just the 3 of us sitting a a table with nothing to talk about apart from print pictures on the walls, the waitress is kind of formal...and the food is too much.

So - I suggested the less formal fish place in the market, with a shorter service and eating time, laid back staff, things and people to look at around us while eating.

MUCH better.  I am brilliant.

Dear Son ordered a cup of sake for Okaasan. But after watching her gulp into it for 3 minutes he sneaked the cup away and hid it behind the napkin and toothpick stand on our table, and we put water and tea within Okaasan's reach...which worked well...she never mentioned sake again and stayed happy and safe throughout the evening.

He added the sake to his drinking line-up. I was designated driver.

We ordered good choices. Gave her lots and lots of de-shelled, easy to eat, grilled crab bits. Chatted to the waiting staff and even found that the waitress shares the same birth date as Okaasan! About 60 years difference in year, of course.

At the end of dinner Okaasan told me the childhood memory about her father the truck driver, who sometimes brought crab when he worked near the sea. He'd come home and she'd be allowed, as the oldest child, to wait up and have bits of crab  with him. That happy memory is still intact.

And we strolled back to the car on a balmy, summer night. Son and mother hand-in-hand. A successful night out.

Today we both have work and things to do. But I'll probably give her some flowers and snacks.

86 years and going strong.....mentally definitely weaker than when she first came to live with us, quieter, more pliable, accepts help more, needs to focus more on walking and eating, does less personal care, does less of most things.

But still walking, sitting up and down, dressing herself, feeding herself, reading magazines, enjoying TV, shopping - and most importantly LAUGHING at life!!

Happy Birthday Okaasan.

The business of eating

Eating is maybe become more of a mental challenge for Okaasan.

Not the actual physical act of food in mouth, chew and swallow. No , she still does that very well. Positively stuffs it all down. Huge bowls of ramen and soup curry, mounds of snacks. Huge appetite. We are always amazed at how much she can eat (of course while saying "overeating is bad for you, I once survived 6 months on a glass of water every second Tuesday).

No. What she is finding harder is the business of getting the food from plate to mouth.
She has always dropped a lot of food. And that has really increased this summer. It makes her mealtimes very long, because then her focus switches from the plate to the food on the floor, or her clothes. She is reaching for tissue paper and scrubbing away at stains.
Usually discovering old stains on her clothes and getting sidetracked into scrubbing away at THOSE too with tissue paper. We sometimes have to remind her to come back to the food on the plate :-)

She has never been very communicative while eating. Now that is a total wall of silence. Even if we talk to her directly, she kind of starts and looks up - almost surprised to find us across the table from her.

GREAT concentration on the chopsticks, the bowls and plates. The water glass. The beer glass (if she is lucky!). The tissue.
Japanese people, of course, use chopsticks without thinking. But I notice now Okaasan often looks at her chopsticks, and repositions them in her hand. Sets herself ready for eating, again...and again.
She picks up plates/bowls carefully. Sets them down just so. Brings great focus to every act of eating.

But dropping a lot.

It is probably too early still for a spoon, or some kind of assisted chopstick design. She would think that was strange. But the process of the implements is harder for her.

And. here we go again.
BBQ time approaching.
Okaasan's dreaded day, when the garden is full of people and noise.
I've booked her a hair appointment for 1 pm, so I can feed her lunch and then take her away from the house as the BBQ gets going. Hopefully from the hair salon she will go to the nearest subway entrance and a train will take her downtown for a walk. So she should be away from the house for at least 4 hours....

But I will have to juggle BBQ hosting with Okaasan's needs. Such is life....onwards!

Roses....roses...roses....my garden is FULL of roses!!