Anger, anger...

NOT a good day for Okaasan.
Brilliant day for us.

I am sure we will pay for it somehow.

She sat ready all morning to escape our BBQ party. We'd arranged for a lunchbox delivery for Okaasan, so that we didn't have to do her lunch prepping just as guests were arriving for the BBQ. Seemed liked a good idea...we kept telling her, so she  wouldn't go out.
Also kept telling her that she didn't NEED to go out, that she could just sit and have her normal day with the TV etc...tried.

But the delivery didn't arrive at 12 o'clock.
Instead the temperature rose, the noise in the garden rose...and Okaasan's hunger and tension matched it all. I started giving her food from the BBQ on little plates....and she got stressier and stressier.
Finally at 12.45 pm she decided to evacuate. Pretty unhappy with all of us. Pretty rude to me when I checked to make sure she had money for outside food purchase.

The fact is, with our house layout - Okaasan could just stay in her rooms and use the toilet without hardly seing the BBQ. But she could hear people arriving and hear the alcohol-juiced noise.

At 1.20 pm the delivery lady arrived with the lunchbox. We complained a bit.
"Oh! The lady we deliver to said later was ok, she said she was always home and not doing anything and that anytime was ok, 1 pm or anytime!".

agghhh.......THAT'S why the lunchbox delivery has often been late recently!
Okaasan herself had told the delivery people that "anytime is ok".
But it isn't. Really isn't. She doesn't eat breakfast and usually has lunch anytime after 11 am.....
Okaasan unknowingly made her own life harder by saying her usual little spiel of food-isn't-important-to-me-anytime-I-once-didn't-eat for-a-year-and-look-at-me-I'm-healthy...

So, standing in our garden with a BBQ party in full blast around us we set the nice delivery lady straight and asked her in future to follow instructions by the customer who pays: Dear Son, and not the person who eats....

Then....BBQ....................

Not sure how many people came - awesome BBQ though. A good mix of people, food and drink - and various friends meeting eachother for the first time - oh YOU are that person on Facebook comments! etc - and the crazy noisy man two streets away came and shouted at us, and the neighborhood kids came to hang...and the sun blazed...and the whole upper body and head heat rash I've had since Friday blazed too....

About 2.30 pm Okaasan came home, surprisingly soon. Seemed more settled.
She walked thru the party to the front door, saying "Hello" to people. Headed for the steps.

And fell. Staggered and fell into the flower bed.
Huge gasp from our guests and the strongest guy rushed forward to pick her up...bruises and little cuts only...maybe...LUCKILY about 20 cm away from the stone garden ornament carved by my Dad.
Wouldn't that be darkly ironic, if my late father's stone bird was instrumental in seriously injuring my partner's mum???

So, I got her inside and settled in her room with the fan, a cool towel and the TV....

BBQ...................

6.45 pm I start prepping Okaasan's dinner (actually replating the uneaten lunch box).Okaasan saying "Yes" to wanting dinner.
Then"No", then "Yes".
Then angry about the guests still being outside...worried about the neighbors, worried about the noise, worried, angry, DON'T want dinner....angry...angry....

We get rid of the guests by 8 pm...and finally Okaasan comes to the table to eat food in silence.

And we have a garden and house full of BBQ stuff to clean.....

Next year? What do with her?
One year I bought her a ticket to go to a jazz concert while we were having a party, but that kind of plan also means she would be fussing to leave the house amid a kitchen full of BBQ prepping AND she might need help getting to the place.
Aggghh...

Obviously make sure her lunch is ready at 12.
But you can't send BBQ guests home much earlier than 8 pm.
We have one big BBQ party a year and Okaasan just has to lump it...but...but...she hates the whole thing.

I'm sure there will be repercussions of her anger this week. Hopefully just emotional angst from the anger and nothing seriously physical from the fall.

BBQ Day dawneth...

...and Okaasan is ready to leave the house.
At 7 am.

Every year we have a big BBQ with 30-40 people and 3 days of prepping/having/cleaning up.

Okaasan gets stressed about it. Strangers coming to the house - and she prefers to go out walking downtown. The worst times were when she didn't want to come home and hovered down the street in the evening, peering at the house and garden and waiting for it all to be finished.
Even yesterday she knew something was up.
"Is there some schedule today? Can I go out?" she asked.

This morning at 7 am she was already half dressed and sorting thru her handbag. Usually at 7 am she is in her pajamas, stretched out on the carpet and watching TV. And will stay like that until lunchtime.

But today she tuned into us in the kitchen prepping stuff and obviously noticed the mountain of BBQ stuff in the hallway....

 

We talked to her several times AND gave her a large note for her table: there IS a BBQ today, but you don't have to change your routine. Lunch is ordered for you, dinner will be made for you. The guests won't come into the kitchen or your room. Relaaaaaaxxx!!!

 

Hmm... she is still sitting there with her handbag, ready to take flight.

A MODEL son.....and a model.....

He remembered - took Okaasan to the dentist. Mass apologies all round.
Son duty done.

And then....meanwhile...100 km north of that...more interesting......

Oyomesan cast off her domestic shackles and became a model - for a day.

 

A friend whose daughter does model work introduced me to a local model agency who were looking for a middle aged woman to play MOTHER of the bride in a brochure photo shoot for a Hokkaido wedding company.

Mother of the bride. I am officially middle aged. Despite wearing shorts and Tshirts and no make up (ever)...I am now publically typecast as a Middle Aged Woman.

It's everyone's dream, right? We all secretly prance around our bedrooms, hand on hip and do a twirl. Hope to get spotted for our true beauty in the supermarket?

 

This was my chance. Night before I shaved my legs, shaved my moustance, attended to the nose hair and fretted over the cat scratches and bruises. Ready for my close up.

Took the train north with a fellow teacher/part-time model who was my husband for the day and we arrived at a European castle style wedding complex in Asahikawa.

Met our "daughter" - a sweet faced 17 year old professional model from the Czech Republic (who WAS scouted in a supermarket whileout with her mum!) and the son of another local teacher who doesn't talk much at his Sapporo high school about his model gigs. Modeling for a young guy isn't cool.

After lunch with the camera crew, dresser, make up guy, lighting guy and casting director The Family were ready for performance time.

Enjoy....(we did!)

 

 

 

 

Is dementia catching?

So.
Dear Son.
FORGOT to take his mother to the dentist.
Bugger.

He took the day off - actually so he could watch his team Brazil in the final game of the Confederation's Cup - and then he twittered around the house all day, watching TV, playing with cats, scratching his bollocks....and sometime after 3 pm the dentist's staff telephoned to check whether Okaasan was ever coming to her appointment!
He completely forgot.

Embarrassing. Last week Okaasan got to her appointment 40 mins late after failing to find it. This time Dear Son had a mind blank. It's a one-man dentist business - so two mucked up appointments is very much wasted  time (like my business, so I sympathise). There will be major apologies when they go for the rescheduled appointment. He may even have to take another day off work to make sure she gets there because I am working out of town (more of THAT later!!!).

Actually I think he was pretty shocked. Recently he forgot several other appointments too - he is just a little paranoid about what this means.
I think it just means he should stop scratching his bollocks so much. And focus.

Otherwise all well here.
Last week day care took their charges out for a cheap sushi lunch at a revolving sushi bar. Okaasan loved it. She was ready to go well in advance, and she has been talking about it since then. She hardly ever talks about day care after she's been - not much more than a general "Yes, it was fun" - but this time the sushi outing clearly made her happy and she has remembered it.

And I escaped for the weekend and went to visit friends who run the family onsen - and to visit 5 big gardens out in the center of Hokkaido. Mainly British style gardens - blue sky and sunshine - flowers and food such as carrot cake and scones.....happiness for an ex-pat Brit.