No Dinner as normal.

Weird can get normal eventually.
Just another night...Okaasan buys a bunch of stuff during the day and eats it, leaves it around her room and the kitchen - although thankfully this time she put the scallops INSIDE the fridge.
At 6 pm she decides to go out for a walk again. We remind her about 7 pm dinner.
At 7 pm I am cooking dinner.

Yujiro calls her: she is in Macdonalds down the road having a coffee and...
Comes home and bringing her chicken McNuggets in a napkin.
She flops down at the kitchen table.
I start serving dinner.
"No, I'm not hungry...no...nothing for me."
We sit and eat the scallops...the eel that I bought....and Okaasan sits acoss the table and chats a bit. Occasionally she looks around the kitchen as if wondering where she is and why she isn't eating. But when we offer food she says "no".
We finish our dinner. We clear the table. She goes into her room and watches Tv, and sleeps. We go upstairs and watch our Tv and sleep.

Another increasingly typical evening in our home.
We could almost not bother cooking for her. But then sometimes she eats. But about 3 nights a week she doesn't. We have to have the miso soup and rice ready in case she does, because you can be sure the night we have cheese fondue all cooked up for us alone - will be a night when she DOES want to eat.
No way to stop her going out and buying stuff at the end of the afternoon.

*  News from England. My step-mum had her polyp operation. She is ok. But has low blood pressure and  they may give her a blood transfusion...

Sainthood only a step away...

I gave my Sunday to Okaasan.
Step aside Mother Theresa.
I am The One.
Pity I'm not Catholic. Does going to a Catholic school count?

Cooked lunch for Okaasan. Chatted to Okaasan. Got her interested in Hula Dance Festival. At 2.30 pm loaded her up in the car and took her downtown. Walked her to the festival. Found her dance class members (BIG excitement to meet the Gaijin Oyomesan). Walked her round the food and trinket stalls. sat and watched Hula with Okaasan.

Then went off shoe shopping and to get an eye test myself. Left Okaasan happily watching the hula under the trees. Called her later to check she was ok with her class members eating icecream etc. Relieved to hear she would make her own way home.
Came home myself. Cooked dinner for Mother and Son.
Chatted to all.

I did it. Feel good I did it. A bit of rare Okaasan/Oyomesan Bonding Time.
I know there are going to be horrendous times ahead with Okaasan and I should try to make some kind of Good Memory connected with her. So. I did good. 

And then went to bed early to get UP early for the England vs. Germany FIASCO!!!! THAT WAS A GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am writing right now to FIFA and if I can keep it up I will write every single day until they review this ridiculous "No 21st century technology in the Pure Game" rule.

And today it's 31 degrees in Sapporo. I can't sit near a computer any more. Going back outside to melt.

Warning: Grossness.

If you are eating. Put it down right now.
This is gross. Sorry. But truth will out...in this record of Life with a Lady Sadly Descending into Dementia and Foreign Failing Daughter-in-Law.

I was just now sitting in the house entrance hall playing with the kittens.
Popo was lounging on the chair and pawing with the lace cloth that covers the shoebox.
As there is a flower in a vase on top on the box I gently folded the lace cloth up and back out of his reach. So the shoe box interior is revealed.
I glanced at the shoes - mostly Okaasan and Yujiro's shoes. A garden candle holder. A pot of shoe cleaning cream. A shoe cleaning rag. Another very dirty shoe cleaning rag.

No. Hang on. NOT a shoe cleaning rag.
It's pink. It has a lace edge. It's not brown shoe polish.

Oh YUK. It's a pair of Okaasan's very, very soiled underpants.
On the shoe box shelf.

GROSS.

Very gross. I've thrown them away now. Washed my hands. Washed the shoebox interior.
Oh gross.

I've read about this: dementia sufferers soiling underwear and hiding it/leaving it in unexpected places. But, apart from the plastic bags with wet underwear in Okaasan's room that we always find, I have never found any dirty underwear elsewhere.
Until now.

I'm trying to imagine HOW she did this?
She soiled herself while she was out or on the doorstep as she was coming home...and then took OFF her underpants outside/in the hallway???????? Came in and stashed them under the lace curtain on the top shelf?
Is that what happened?
I can't begin to think. Actually don't want to think too closely.

Yet again, so sad that this lady (and her son) won't get a doctor into their lives so that she can be taking some kind of medicine to help her control bladder and bowel functions. Because while it IS part of the dementia - forgetting that you might need to go to the toilet soon - there are medicines which would help control.

Sad.
I'm a pretty practical, non-finikky person. I can clean poop - kitten poop or Okaasan poop. But it's a sad sign of where we are all heading.

Meanwhile...

* Yujiro and Okaasan got eachother all riled up this morning over that missing sun parasol Okaasan lost a week ago. I was listening from upstairs.
I think Okaasan asked for money to buy a new parasol. Yujiro gave her the money, but he made the BIG mistake of challenging her use of the word "stolen". As in "the woman sitting next to me on the subway stole the parasol after I got off the train".
"Stolen" or "lost" - who knows. But since Okaasan came home originally last week and said she didn't know  WHERE she'd lost it...maybe coffee shop or train - "lost" is probably more accurate.
But not in Okaasan's mind of course. By now she had decided that some poor Sapporo subway passenger who was sitting next to her on the subway STOLE the parasol after she got off the subway car!
And Yujiro - stupid man - decided to endlessly challenge her version of events. Their voices got louder as each got stressed. "Lost!" "Stolen!" "Lost!" "Stolen!".
WHY does he do this? Why does it matter what Okaasan thinks? Why does he want to argue the point with her?
And even after he came upstairs and I gently remonstrated with him...to just leave it be and accept her story - he went right back downstairs to go to work and started AGAIN with Okaasan in the kitchen.

Is the man a fool? WTF????????????????

Anyway.
I've had a busy week with work, translations and Couch Surfing guests. I am giving myself a quiet Sunday at home with TV and books and kittens.
I'll feed Okaasan lunch and see if she fancies going by car downtown to see the hula dance festival. I need to buy some summer work shoes and it would be easy to take her in the car too.

Hey! Okaasan could buy more underpants at the same time...........

Hula...yes or no?

Well, the hula may be on...or off.
Okaasan said she isn't sure she wants to be in a hot park in the center of the city dancing (fair enough at the age of 80), and as the class members and Yujiro were worried about that too everyone is happy.
But he thinks we should just not talk about the hula at all now - whereas I think on Sunday at least Okaasan might like to go and sit and watch the festival - she desn't get much of a social life and I'm sure she would love to at least watch the hula performaces from a shady seat.

But of course - THAT would mean me giving up my time to get her there and make sure she is ok.
I kind of wonder if she'd be able to find it herself though - if I remind her about it on Sunday morning and chivvy her out of the house around 12.30 pm....

Hmm...how nice an Oyomesan am I?
Shall I bugger off and do my own things or shall I stay home and give my energy/time to her?

Will probably depend how friendly I am feeling towards her!

Yesterday I had two friends come to the house late afternoon - actually homestay CouchSurfers who are sleeping in the English classroom - and after taking them into the kitchen to introduce them politely to Okaasan we sat out on the front doorstep with beers.
Okaasan who had been preparing to go out never actually appeared at the front door. After 30 minutes I checked inside to see what was happening...and found she'd grabbed her shoes from the entrance and gone out through the big living room windows!!!! So strange! How hard is it to come to the door and say:"I'm off shopping now" and then head out. It's like a child sneaking out the back way to avoid the adults. Very odd behavior.

And then she forgot her mobile phone...so we couldn't call her and remind her to come home for dinner. So I cooked...and surprise surprise...she didn't come home till 8 pm. We ate at 7.15 pm. At 8 pm I got up from the sofa and the Tv and went back downstairs and got Okaasan's dinner cooked/heated and served. She apologised for being late. I left her to eat in the kitchen...

So, Sunday will really depend on how well she behaves today!

* Tokyo International University English Project team have sent me a wonderful parcel of Kawagoe booklets about life in Kawagoe, festivals and old shops and people. I think I can trickle this stuff out to Okaasan over the coming weeks, months, years everytime I can't think what to talk to her about.