Winter afternoons

First snow here last weekend!
Felt a little early to have the swirling white stuff outside while we are still enjoying fall colors. 
My God, I'm English and I just wrote "fall", not "autumn". Have obviously been in Japan too long.

Okaasan isn't dealing with the changing season well.
Many days she fails to get out for a walk in good weather...leaving it till 5 or 5.30 pm, usually when one of us comes home bustling noisily into the kitchen - THEN she decides to go out for a walk.
Such a waste of good, sunny weather. By 5 pm here in October it's dark and cold. A few times I've tried telephoning her mid-afternoon and reminding her to go out. It sometimes works. But, if the TV catches her attention again then she settles down to slump and doze.

So we have an 85 year old tottering around the local streets at dusk as people are hurrying home. Not downtown, she only goes to the local supermarket. Buys yet another magazine to go with the identical one at home (or identical two!), and then home she comes.

But at least she is getting out and walking a few days a week. As the weather gets worse those chances get less and our responsibility to take her somewhere for a walk increases.

Only new thing we've noticed about her recently: green tea making. She is getting confused about that very, very familiar task. Something she has done all her life, probably as the girl child in her father's home business, as a young working office woman, as a wife, as a housewife. 70 years of tea making.
First put a few shakes of tea powder in the cup, then add hot, but not boiling water and whisk or stir it.

That order of doing things is getting mixed up.
The other night she poured hot water in a tea cup. Then picked up the teabox, took a spoonful...and put it in the water tumbler. Then started to pour more hot water into the glass. :-(

Ahh!!! Okaasan...no no...not a good idea! The glass might break, it will be hot for you to pick up...um...no.....

We rescued the situation and helped her get tea powder and water in the same place.

Other days she puts the water in first. Then the powder, so of course it doesn't dissolve, and the expensive tea ($40 a box) floats in balls round and round...then she drinks a bit of the hot water and leaves it all on the table....

So. A common action she has done all her life...losing the ability little by little.

Next week is November and our big trip to Okaasan's hometown is approaching.
About a week before I will take some of her better clothes for dry cleaning, and get her to the hair salon. And then tell her we are going....

And then the adventure will begin.

Everyday is...

Everyday is....this.

I'm promoting the films "Everyday is Alzheimer's" currently and it's made me think about the everyday....everyday....

I took this photograph in the evening. But it could have been 9 am. Or lunchtime. Or mid-afternoon.

Because every day, every hour for Okaasan is the same. She sits or stretches out between the sofa and the heated table, with a blanket over her - and clothes and papers and bags all around.

Sometimes I clean. Take up a layer of paper and clothing. Remove the rotting food and important letters. Leave the rest.

This IS Okaasan's world.

And I expect this scene is repeated in the homes of many dementia sufferers.

Okaasan is experiencing this moment. "Later" she will tidy up, or put that away. Always "later". Meanwhile, the familiar things are all in sight and can be reached easily. She can pick up the same things and look at them for a few moments. Watch a bit of Tv. Then pick up the same things again. Sleep. Wake up. Tv. Look. Sleep.

Apart from going to the toilet and coming to the kitchen for food - when Okaasan is at home she is here. She has two rooms. But hardly stirs from here.

It looks awful to us: we feel the need to clean and tidy. Make it 'nice again'. Is she leaving it like this because she lacks the energy - mental and physical - to do anything about it? Where to start? Depressed about doing it?

If I offer to help...she gets very stressed, picks things up and puts them down in quick succession, nervous that something important will be thrown away.

 But I stress about it myself less now. It's Okaasan's familiar nest and I don't disturb her. Just let her be.

Recently an 80 year old student went to visit an old friend who she knew from the mountain climbing club. My student is still an active member of the club. And the church choir. And her residential community. And. And .And. Everyday rushing around doing things.

Her dementia-free life is so different from Okaasan.

My student's friend is 90 plus and living in a care home in the hills near the city. Still recognizing family members and visitors, but needing help for feeding and toilet etc. Repeat stories, locked away in the 1920s Japan of her youth.

My student was sad after the visit: "From the care home you can see the lights of the city, but it is far away. There is nothing around there. She must be so lonely and sad. I NEVER want to live in such a place. Her family say she is 'happy'...but..."

I wonder. I suspect her friend is happy in her own way. 

Now her world is her room, the care home dining room, bathroom, living room. The blanket. The TV. The smiles from staff. The flower in the windowsill. The magazine.

A much smaller world. But giving her reassurance and pleasure in every day.

She has no concept of "I haven't been out to the shops for weeks", no concept of being away from the city. I am guessing.

Here and now. This moment.

Everyday is Alzheimer's.

Happy ??? Birthday

What's a good birthday present for somebody with dementia?

It's a thought that has been rattling around my brain this week.

We took Okaasan to a Day Spa last weekend and she seemed to enjoy it ok...I guess. She enjoyed being with us and chatting, the car ride, the fruit farm...maybe she enjoyed the hotel and the spa and the lunch.
Maybe.
I'm not sure because I do think the new place - the hotel - and the new activity - going to a spa in this hotel, then buffet lunch in a new restaurant - all of that...I wonder if she really could enjoy it or not. A lot of it was confusing for her really. Was that a good birthday present?

On Monday a student whose mother is a bed-ridden invalid mentioned that it was her mum's birthday and we discussed what on earth would be a good present for someone who basically stays in bed and sleeps 90% of the time....

Made me think some more.

Yesterday I did some cleaning in Okaasan's room - actually WITH her, for a change.
I did it in stages, and stopped it when she started getting stressed.
First I asked her if she could help me by neatly tieing up the newspapers for recycling - a household job she is good at.
Then I introduced the vacumn cleaner and while I used it, asked her to pick up a few things....well "few" means "tonnes"...in front of the vacumn machine.
She gathered up stuff and dumped it in other places - the clothes, the bits of paper, random plates and cups.
I tried to help her sort some of the clothes: basically into winter-and-don't-need-now stuff....and dirty/clean.

It's hard this: to tackle the pile of clothes Okaasan keeps permanently around her on the carpet and sofa, on the table, under the table.

But I got an insight into her thinking about this jumble of clothes. She seems to think that all of it is out in sight at the moment for a reason:

- this needs mending
- this needs washing
- this needs to go to the dry cleaners
- this is old and I will show it to Dear Son who will buy me a new one
- this is clean and still drying

Of course, sadly, these plans hardly ever turn into action. Days and weeks go by and the clothes stay where she has dropped them.
She picks them up and examines them occasionally, then there is something on Tv that catches her focus and she puts it down to be forgotten again.
Okaasan doesn't go to the dry cleaning shop. She doesn't actually DO anything with the needles and threads in her sewing kit, she doesn't talk to Dear Son about needing new clothes.
It's all in her head. She is permanently in the middle of doing all this clothes sorting out, always in that loop of necessary activity - but never finishing it.

She and I sorted clothes a little, I managed to get out some beyond repair pajamas. Take out one sweater for dry cleaning. Change the blanket for a summer one. Put away a winter muffler out of sight.

Then I sensed she was getting a little loud-voiced and over excited about WHERE I would go for the dry cleaning. In her mind there is only one good dry cleaning shop in the whole city and it is right back across town, near the first apartment she lived in when she came to start her life with us. I don't go there now - it's too far - but I tell her I do...and cut off the shop tags when I return any dry cleaning to her.

So. A productive 30 mins cleaning with Okaasan.

And today?

After an internet search for ladies fashion brands I located a shop in a department store downtown. I went in today and bought two pink flowery, summer pajamas - exactly like the ones that Okaasan has had for years, which are now tattered and beyond repair.

Tonight I will give them to her: maybe they are a better birthday present. Something familiar and important to her, the clothes she lives in every day. The same brand of clothes. The same pattern.

I hope I am right :-)

But, before we all get warm and fuzzy here. Let me admit: it was far, FAR easier to go in and buy the pajamas myself, alone. If I'd taken Okaasan to the store and let her shop for them herself - although she would enjoy it....I know for sure I would hate it: the endless toing and froing, the decision making, the trying to buy other stuff, the wandering around looking at the same stuff repeatedly.
I couldn't do that. Just can't. Not patient enough.

So, I am a good daughter-in-law...up to a point.

Hope she is happy with the pajamas though.

Yes! She can!!!!

Oh here we are - on a caring roll. :-)

Sunday night when I went into the kitchen (after writing the last post) I realized Okaasan had actually washed up the dinner dishes for me. Excellent.
She doesn't usually - some reason about you should let the body rest after eating, but while she can put a little water in dishes and leave them "till tomorrow", by tomorrow she has forgotten and we almost always wash up after meals.
But Sunday night - she obviously remembered that Dear Son was away and I was busy prepping Christmas classes - so she washed the dinner plates for me. :-)))

It's a small thing - but all good.

Then yesterday: my day of  leaving home at 9 am for classes and two end of year parties - getting home at 9.30 pm.

I left Okaasan in charge of her own dinner AND asked her to feed the cats!
And she did it. I'm officially an Okaasan Trainer now. :-)

I copied and pasted one of Dear Son's letters to Okaasan that is on the computer. My Japanese isn't good enough to write an original letter, but I can cobble together a letter from his old letters.

I deleted and added in some sentences: telling Okaasan that I was out at a party in the evening. Telling her that lunch would be delivered as usual. Telling her to heat up the oden in the table top cooker for dinner and telling her to open a pack of dried cat food and put it in the bowls on the stairs.
Then I set out the oden on the kitchen table. Put cat bowls on the stairs - and marched into Okaasan's room to give her the letter and ask her to follow it.

She was pleased ( I think) to be asked to do something for me. She got up and came into the hallway to check the cat bowls, and wished me good luck at end of year party madness.
I set out thru the snow and ice and RAIN! to my day of work and parties. The streets are baaad.

......

And I came home at 9.30 pm and...

She had eaten ALL the oden (it was a pack for two people) - and not burned the house down.

She had fed the cats one pack of food.

The other pack was still on her table....not to worry - it wasn't their only food of the day and I was home eventually - Japanese doesn't have plurals - and my letter hadn't specified "give the cats BOTH packs of food".

The only failing? Dear Son's mistake methinks: the lunch delivery didn't come. Which is why Okaasan ate all the oden - for her lunch and dinner.
He organises the lunch deliveries, maybe he got the dates wrong.

But MY side of it all - all went well.

Using your Okaasan. It is very important! She can be the cat sitter in future :-)

It is so easy with old people to do everything for them. It's quicker and simpler. But getting them to do stuff and asking them to do favors for you - it's good physical activity and everyone likes to feel needed.
I've just been in Okaasan's room and given her big thanks for feeding the cats. Hope that gives her nice warm, fuzzy feelings about herself and life.

To clean. Or not to clean.

That is the question.

Should I go into Okaasan's room this weekend (as I always do) and clean a little - enough so that the rats aren't partying-on-down amid the rotting food, soiled underpants and layers of dirt...but not enough that Okaasan notices any difference?
Always a fine line to walk.

Monday morning a city office Care Manager person will come to check Okaasan and her living situation.
I'd like them to see her normal living space - the clutter, dirt, unfinished/forgotten activities. Because it is all clear evidence that she needs help in life.
But I don't want them to report me for Old Lady Abuse to Social Services!!!
"My GOD! What kind of Oyomesan is this, that lets this confused old lady sit and sleep amid piles of trash? What terrible people!!! etc etc".

So. A bit of a quandry this.
Hmmmm.

I'm not sure when Yujiro is going to TELL Okaasan that a Care Manager is coming at 9.30 am Monday. Knowing him, probably about 9.15 am.
The news is sure to stress her and panic her into room cleaning. That usually means scooping all the clothes off the sofa and dumping them on the floor in the other room.
I'm hoping/guessing the Care Manager will view both rooms.......

Hmm..what to do.

If the visitor sees the trashy room they will get a very good idea of Okaasan's abilities. Hell, they might even decide poor-full-time-working-Oyomesan is so pressured they'll send a care staff to HELP Okaasan clean once a week!!!! That would be awesome.
Or: they will think I am ignoring the plight of this old lady and report me to the police.....

Hmm.

Nice day today. I've just cleaned my living space and put bedding outside (we are both having nasty insect bites at the moment from being forced to share our bedding with two cats...)...hmm...nice day...this afternoon I am going to see the autumn colors at the university...and then to a movie about Tohoku.
Tomorrow? Forecast says rain. I may stay home and watch movies on TV, read newspapers.
Hmm....busy weekend.

Don't think there is any time in that for cleaning Okaasan's room.....

Think it's a "Not to clean" then.

Very. Bad. Oyomesan.

:-)

Room cleaning...and how.

A mammoth chance to clean Okaasan's room came upon us.
And boy, oh boy - did we clean.
And...SHE cleaned. In a way.....

Mid-week she was complaining about some pretty savage looking insect bites and swellings - her hands, arms, feet etc
Maybe mosquitoes, but also highly likely to be the untold beasties that live in the carpet and blanket Okaasan lives, sleeps, eats, pisses and sits on 19 hours a day and night.

Great! Let's clean your carpet and blanket!
hey - why don't we try and get rid of half the stuff on the table and actually SEE the table surface below for the first time this summer?
Shall we? Oh yes :-) Let's.

She happily accepted us sweeping in and putting piles of stuff from the carpet to one side, then taking out the carpet and blanket and moving the table top to the floor...along with a mound of stuff.
I cleaned carpet and blanket. I vacumned. She hovered and basically let us do it. And...

...And Okaasan sorted thru the table stuff herself!
Mid-afternoon I saw table surface. Hurray!

Late-afternoon she went for a short walk. Then I realised.
.......Three piles of stuff had just been moved to the floor in the other room - the room Okaasan only uses for changing clothes. There are piles of stuff in there that have been the same since she arrived here 3 years ago.
But. But. Plus side is: she won't remember what was what and where.

So today, I slipped into the other room and skimmed off the bottom third of each pile :=)

It's the usual stuff: little squares of old supermarket flyers cut into squares for notepads, endless little notebooks and purses, recipes from Tv written on bits of paper, cuttings of recipes and clothes from newspapers and magazines, handouts of shampoo samples, shopping receipts, bits of random English from TV programs on notelets, screwed up balls of newspapers to stuff into bags and shoes as shape-keepers - the debris of careful old lady life. Times 10, cos she thinks about keeping these things every single day.

Aghhhh. Her room looks much better. Two boxes of old magazines have gone too.
Cleansed.

Had a jump into it week of Oyomesanning as Yujiro's blind lady customer was in town and he was working late. Had a dinner or two with Okaasan a deux. Usual mindless stuff - weather, cats, food, wartime.
A week ago I was still in the UK. Bye bye holiday....

Had a dinner out with a friend and her family. Got an overload of advice about: are you sure Okaasan HAS dementia, why don't you get her tested and then outside help etc etc. They are kind people and I know they meant well, but it gets me all defensive. I get on my soap box and shout on the topic a bit.
Must stop that. Otherwise I won't get invited anywhere.

Oh, and took MY body along for the health service annual check up. Was too badly organised (well okay, a bit scared actually) to do it last year. Thanks to a Japanese friend explaining what was on offer and where, I took my body to the community center on Saturday afternoon  and paid for all the fun extras I could. So I had pee tests, heart scans, chest and eye X-rays, touchy feely all over by semi-retired doctors and gave a lot of blood.
Now I wait about 3 weeks for the results. The Japanese health service costs me lots, so I want to get my value out of it. But X-rays in this country, honestly - doctors here give them to any human form that flits briefly through their office, I reckon. Short-sighted docs probably X-ray passing shadows.
Aren't too many X-rays meant to be bad for you? I've had a whole whack in the past few years: for the knee, the melon monster, the thigh spasms...and now my lungs.
If all is clear in 3 weeks time I think that's enough X-rays for a few years.
Darkly ironic in a country with a big throbbing blob of radiation in the center since March 11th last year.

And so....tomorrow is back to full schedule work for me....

We have other, meaningless stuff ongoing -
* one of the cats is sick and we are doing vet visits and mopping up of little piles of cat vomit.
 *The garden looks great now I've weeded it.
* Adam Lambert is Japan doing promotion for the second album and looking good on TV.
 *The forgotten potatoes in the garden grew and multiplied and today we harvested 20 more.
*Ordinary Lives, the Fukushima people documentary is nearing completion with the English sub-titles.
*I'm fighting to get rid of 3 kg of British carrot cake. (Surely I ate MORE than 3 kg??!! Where did it go?)
* Oh deary me...I've been asked to give a talk IN JAPANESE about going-to-the-Olympics to the ladies of Rotary. But it's in October, so no need to panic just yet.

Life ongoing.

@ Google have totally mucked up Applications and now Blogger doesn't seem to recognised 100% of the time - so I am fighting to get into this blog sometimes. If there is a long silence it's probably for that reason.
Computers, doncha just love 'em.

Shaking up the nest.

This is Okaasan's nest AFTER a massive spring cleaning. You can?? imagine what it was BEFORE.


First day of an 8-day holiday and what am I doing? Crouching on the carpet with Okaasan sorting through the trash on her table top, guiding her to putting it in Burnable or Unburnable trash bags and trying to make a dent in the trash mountain.


Yujiro was off on his first day of summer work as a bike taxi driver downtown. So after he'd left I swept into Okaasan's room and told her that the dry cleaning shop was offering a great discount on cleaning kotatsu blankets, so I'd better take it right now.
A kotatsu is that table in the picture. A low table containing an electric heater, all covered with a big soft blanket, and then the detachable table top goes on top.
Okaasan lives in the kotatsu. Sits watches TV there, sleeps. Eats snacks. Eats dinners when we are out there. Will probably die there.
She nests right there in the center - between the left-hand corner of the kotatsu and the clothes-covered sofa. Sits on the floor amid all this stuff.
There must be some part of dementia about needing to SEE possessions out all around you - not put away where you might not find them. But all around you. As you can see Okaasan has the sofa and the floor and the table covered with things-important-in-her-world.


I was in there an hour picking thru the stuff with her and getting 60% of it into trash bags.
Then I gave her another blanket for the kotatsu and whisked the other away to the dry cleaners.


Also moved her over-loaded laundry stand (covered with clothes and itsy bitsy shopping bags), so she can get in and out to the outside laundry stand in summer....and told her that the Glen Miller Orchestra concert she was excited about...was...err...sorry the one we went to LAST year, this is an old flyer....see?
But she did have a flyers for another big band concert THIS year, June in the local concert hall. In the afternoon - after a relaxing time at the gym and lunching with a friend - I went and bought her a ticket. One ticket. She is quite happy to go to concerts alone, that day I'll make sure she has bath and lunch and get her to the concert hall on time.


Okaasan remained shaken and stirred all day. The cleaning was a real shake-up to her nest and mind. She fussed around her room for ages afterwards, examining bits of paper and clothes. She even took out the old hula dance dresses from the closet and left them on the futon she has never used.


And in the evening she went out for her walk - took the subway downtown and got lost.


Yujiro had 3 phone calls between 6.30 and 7.30 - to and from Okaasan - and once to a helpful passerby who'd found her in an unfamiliar part of downtown. She was asking directions to the subway station near our old apartment - a long walk from where she was lost.
All topsy-turvey. The cleaning experience disturbed her calm quite a bit.


By 7.30 pm she got home and we had family dinner......and I stopped Yujiro badgering Okaasan about WHY she'd been in that part of town and why she'd been trying to go to the wrong subway station etc. No point in rehashing all of that.....


But see - that Okaasan nest above. That's clean:-)

Cleaning...to make no difference.

Cleaning a room and making no discernible difference?
I can do it. So far.


This morning Yujiro took Okaasan off for another dentist trip, so I could safely clean in her room knowing she wouldn't suddenly reappear.


The trick to cleaning is: Clean it all and throw away some trash, but in the end it must look as though nothing is changed!


It's a strange thing to be setting aside piles of stuff.... vacuuming the carpet underneath...and then gently putting the stuff all back in place....arranging old shopping receipts just so, the empty plastic bags, advertising flyers etc I could get a job as a set dresser in Hollywood maybe.


In the past Okaasan has got very angry about me going into her room and taking stuff, so I am super-careful that I clean and throw out the really bad trash (rotting food and dirty underwear), but leave a good layer of stuff so she doesn't notice... much.


And yes - she is definitely making a collection of screwed up newspaper or flyers, I found several bags of them today. People make balls of paper to stuff shoes or bags to keep their shape in storage and maybe that's what she is doing. But I am going to ask some of my older students about this, I have a feeling it is something else...some wartime custom...did people stuff balls of newspaper under their clothes for warmth maybe? Why is she rolling up so many balls of paper?


The underwear situation has spread into the living room recently. She always used to put it in one of two laundry boxes in her Japanese-style room. But now I'm finding urine soaked pants in little piles in her living room....if they migrate to the kitchen we may have to build a safety wall.

A timely reminder

Welcome to Okaasan Land - where shopping receipts, magazines, supermarket flyers, half-eaten food, bits of tissue, packs of instant coffee, mouldy vegetables, underwear, hula dance plastic flowers, cosmetic samples and much much more... go to hide.


There's the clock! Nicely set in its new position just a few eye-moves up from the Tv screen and near the calender pages that are always consulted to check what month we are in now.


In the foreground is the sofa. It has a blue cover. But that is buried beneath all the clothes that are permanently kept all jumbled up on top. It's only been cleared twice in the past 2 years...both times when we had a BBQ party and Okaasan worried that a child guest would come into her room and watch TV.


Between the sofa and that black/white furry carpet thing is where Okaasan sits for hours and hours. The furry thing is the kotatsu cover - the kotatsu table actually has an electric heating system and the furry table cloth keeps the heat inside. Okaasan usually sleeps on the floor with half her body under the furry cloth. We gave her a futon and a bedroom next door - but she has never used it - the futon is permanently covered with underwear and T-shirts.
Here in her main room beyond the kotatsu and the TV is a no-man's land of newspapers and food packets and magazines and stuff doing a good job of covering up the space between the sofa and the trash boxes.


I come into Okaasan Land about once a week to clean a little. I take out stuff from the bottom of the piles so that the top looks the same. I throw out mouldy stuff and dirty underwear. I move some magazines onto the bookcase near the door. I hunt for any important letters that maybe Yujiro should see. I vacumn when I am absolutely sure she is away downtown and won't suddenly reappear.
Okaasan never cleans. She folds up newspapers for recycling. She puts trash in the two boxes. I've offered her the vacumn cleaner many times, but she always says "I'll do it later"...and doesn't. I think she's vacumed maybe twice since we moved here?
She leaves the rest  from day to day, week to week, month to month..and actually year to year....there are clothes on the sofa and floor that have been there since 2009. 
And no - that isn't a joke.


Why? Why does a once-Super Housewife live like this? Don't know. I think in her mind she is always just taking a break from housework by sitting for a bit in front of the TV. Only her "bit" is actually a whole day. I think she thinks she is constantly in the middle of doing things.
Her home in Saitama was far worse apparently, because nobody cleaned for years. She slept on a pile of old clothes on a bed. Newspapers were everywhere. And mouldy food.


Anyway - now she at least clearly knows what time it is. There is the clock. 
Another small step of helping her connect with the world around her.  I hope.

Operation ok. Okaasan Ok. Oyomesan...hanging in there.

Yujiro's leg is now empty of all the metal work.
He spent the night on painkillers and will be in a wheelchair today.
Then tomorrow they get him up and walking again.
Incredible really.
I hope to go and see him on Saturday.

Yesterday was ok too at home.
I did housework in the morning. Gave Okaasan her lunch. Tried to exhaust the kittens.
Later I went downtown to check stuff about airtickets for a quick trip to Tokyo next month, to woodchip (ahhhhhh!!!) and to shop.
Back to watch TV and then give Okaasan a good fish dinner.
Sapporo had SNOW all day. And strong winds. So she didn't go out of course. But she seemed good - it took a while to get her chatty, but after about 10 minutes I got her down memory lane about milk/fish/mother/Kawagoe/father/crab....and she seemed happy enough with Yujiro being "away working".

I'm reading two books about dementia at the moment. A bit scary really, if this is our future experience. I hope by then we have built up enough trust and routine with Okaasan that she is manageable.

A friend asked in an email if Okaasan ever does/helps wth housework.
No. Not at all.
Her room is a mess of newspapers. clothes, supermarket flyers, plastic bags of half eaten food.
When I vacumn the kitchen I offer her the vacumn cleaner and leave it out in sight for her. But she has never used it.
A few weeks ago she surprised me by buying a bathroom surface cleaning sponge and actually using it in the bathroom sink.
But apart from that - no.
She washes up plates after lunch or dinner - usually - and she occasionally puts trash in the trash bins. And she hand washes her own underwear and T-shirts. She puts them in the spin dryer and hangs them up...eventually.
But basically housework is something she has forgotten all about.

Don't blame her! I wish I had reached that convenient stage.

Spring fever...good and bad. (J)

Early morning we went to Nishioka Park to see the swamp plants bursting into spring green. Thankyou to Tamiko and Ritsuko for inspiring this - Tamiko's recent pictures of Nopporo Forest Park and Ritsuko's recent visit to Nishioka reminded me about this beautiful place.

Then we came home and I started fence making!
Well actually hole making and fence putting up. Amazingly luckily the elderly lady who lives across the road had a workman in to take down the winter wrapping on her garden bushes - and HE lent me his hole digging tool.

It made it so easy - and now I am the proud owner of a picket fence.



Okaasan spent the whole morning watching TV and hanging laundry...and telling me again that I could hang my laundry in a better style. This time I let her bully me into hanging my bathrobe differently...and I noticed she rehung some towels after I came inside. That's ok ...if it is so important to her, she can rearrange laundry. I don't care, but I don't like the whining if she thinks she isn't going to get her way and the handing out of unasked for advice.

I am such the opposite of her. Housework/cooking is something I do because I have to, in between the more interesting things of life. To her it is everything. Doing it correctly. She must despair of me as a woman.

In Japan it's this older/younger thing. Olders feel they should guide youngers.
Maybe I should advise HER about leaving bowls of wet laundry around so long that they go mouldy, or the food in the fridge that goes uneaten, or the clothes strewn around the sofa and floor...or maybe not. Grrr...

But all was basically well. I went to work. I came home. We ate savory pancakes. We chatted about stuff.

Tried to prod Okaasan on using the packet of lilly bulbs that have been sitting in the fridge for 4 weeks...but she seems so detached from food once she has bought it. She looked at the packet a few times, talked vaguely about making savory custard with the lilly bulbs..and then put them back in the fridge.
If I have time this weekend I'll try and get her to make/help me make the custard dish..but if not - I'll just throw away the bulbs. They look like they are going soft in the plastic bag. There are two more whole bulbs too...I am gonna plant those!

Okaasan seemed a bit tired. She claimed to have walked all the way from Minami Hiragishi to Tanuki Koji downtown! We don't think she actually did, maybe a subway and walk trip. But...it is possible maybe...she is an amazingly active 78 year old.

The night was horrendous.
The cat seems to have gone crazy. He had me up and down from bed between 1 am and 3.30 am with yowling to be allowed out. Really loud. I finally slept on the sofa in my bathrobe.
I don't know what's wrong with him. Alczheimer's Disease maybe? Spring fever? Grrrr...

２００９年４月２５日（土）

春先の憂鬱・・・いいこと悪いこと

朝早くワタシたちはにわかに新緑となった湿地植物を見に西岡公園に行ったの。ここを思いついたのはタミコさんとリツコさんのおかげよ・・・タミコさんが最近撮った野幌森林公園の写真とリツコさんが近頃訪れた西岡のことがこの美しい場所をワタシに思い出させてくれたわ。

それからワタシたちは家に戻り、ワタシはフェンスを作り始めたの！

まあ、実は穴を作りフェンスを建てるのだけどね。驚くほど幸運なことに、向かいに住む老婦人が職人さんに庭の木々の冬囲いをほどいてもらっていたの・・・それで彼が穴掘りの道具を貸してくれたのよ。

とても簡単にできたわ・・・それで今ワタシは誇り高き杭垣のオーナーよ。

お義母さんは午前中いっぱいテレビを見たり洗濯物を掛けたりして過ごしたわ・・・そしてワタシにまた、洗濯物をもっといい形に干せるのに、って言ったのよ。今回はワタシ、お義母さんがワタシにバスローブを掛けなおさせるのを許したの・・・それにワタシが中に入った後お義母さんがタオルを数枚掛けかえたのに気づいたわ。いいわよ・・・もしお義母さんにとってそんなに大事なことならば、お義母さんは洗濯物を掛けかえることができるわ。構わないわ、でも自分の思い通りにならないと愚痴をこぼされたり、頼みもしないアドバイスを押し売りされるのは嫌いなの。

ワタシはお義母さんとはまるっきり反対なの。家事、料理はしなければならないからするものよ。生活のもっと面白いことの合間のこと。お義母さんにとってはそれがすべてなのね。それを正しく行うこと。お義母さんは女性としてワタシに失望しているに違いないわ。

日本ではこれは老人と若者の問題なのよ。高齢者は自分たちが若い者たちを導かなければ、と思っているのよ。

たぶん、ワタシは濡れたままの洗濯物をカビが生えるほど長い時間洗面器に入れっぱなしにしていることや、食べられなくなるまで冷蔵庫に入ったままの食べ物や、ソファや床に散らかされた衣類を注意しなければならないのかもしれないし・・・しないほうがいいのかもしれないわね。うーん・・・。

でも、すべて基本的には良かったわ。ワタシは仕事に行き、家に帰り、ワタシたちはおいしいパンケーキを食べ、いろいろなことを話したわ。

４週間も前から冷蔵庫にある包みのユリ根を使うようにお義母さんを急かしてみたの・・・でもお義母さんは以前買った食べ物から気持ちが離れているようだったわ。お義母さんはちょっとその包みを見て、そのユリ根でおいしい茶碗蒸しを作ることを曖昧に話したわ・・・それからそれを冷蔵庫の中に戻したのよ。

もし今週末時間があればお義母さんに茶碗蒸しを作らせるか、ワタシが作るのを手伝わせるつもりよ・・・でも、もしそうでなかったら、捨てちゃうんだから。ユリ根はビニール袋のなかで軟らかくなっているように見えるわ。他にも２個丸ごとあるの・・・それは植えちゃおうっと！

お義母さんは少し疲れたように見えたわ。お義母さんは南平岸から狸小路への全区間を歩いたって言い張ったの！私たちは本当だと思っていないわ。たぶん地下鉄と歩きじゃないかしら。でも・・・たぶん可能だわ・・・お義母さんは驚くほど行動的な７８歳なのよ。

夜はとんでもなかったわ。

ネコが狂ったみたいなの。彼は午前１時から３時３０分の間、外に出たいと鳴き、ワタシをベッドに出たり入ったりさせたの。本当に大きな声でね。ワタシはついにバスローブのままソファで寝たのよ。

ネコがどうしちゃったのかわからないわ。もしかしてアルツハイマーの症状？春先の高揚感？うーん・・・。