Joy Riding Around

DOB and TCG are going out. For her to do some banking. She just had her visit from the home healthcare giver and had bath, and her wet hair is plastered to her almost bald scalp.

UCC Are you ok to go out with your head wet? It’s cold out.

DOB: Feeling her head, finding it wet, acting like a sleepwalker abruptly awoken. Saying, in surprise: I’d forgotten about that.

WISIMH: Of course you have, bless your little heart. It happened more than 2 minutes ago.

UCC: And do you want a hat?

DOB: Feeling her head, finding it wet, acting like a sleepwalker abruptly awoken. Saying, in surprise: I’d forgotten about that, or words to that effect.

WISIMH: And had you forgotten that the popularity of Jell-O peaked in the mid 1960s, and was often made by incorporating real and artificial dairy products. Had you forgotten that these days, gastronomic experts consider Jell-O déclassé. , the war on poverty, financial meltdown, the GWOT, or the madwoman screaming in the attic?

UCC: Blah, blah, hat?

And, accompanied by the sound of crickets from both DOB and TCG, I got my gardening hat and handed it to her, but finding her too dumbfounded to take it, putting it on her fucking head.

UCC: … there ya go.

Much huffing ensues as the party departs from the front door.

Two minutes pass.

My cell phone rings.

UCC: Yellow.

Pause, sound of fumbling, hang up.

Cell phone rings.

UCC: YELLOW!

TCG: …know if you could you go into Mother’s room....

WISIMH: Blah, blah, could YOU provide a bit more information? For example: relating the funny story about, say, WHY the fuck I should I go into DOB’s room? Is there an Improvised Explosive Device waiting to send me to Allah?
Sadly, I understand, you are incapable of using too many words at once. You are running out of your words. Increasingly, you are relying on me to supply the fucking context you no longer can muster. What happens when you begin to run out of thoughts, in addition to running out of words to express them?

UCC: In breathless anticipation: Ok, I’m there.

TCG: Can you get her phone on the table?

WISIMH: I’ll buy a clue, Alex. Which of the three tables in DOB’s room?

(Crickets)

UCC: Got it! (on the third table, honestly.)

TCG: Can you bring it to us?

UCC: OK, I’ll wait ‘til I hear the driveway alarm bell.

TCG: We’re here. We haven’t left yet.

WISIMH – although I may have said aloud: What the fuck?

Sushi Wednesday

Our weekly outing as a family. Here's a sample of the conversation driving to the restaurant.

TCG: There’s one of those trees from the south… you know… marigold?
UCC: Magnol-
TCG: Magnolia! Is this the street where we turn?
UCC: No, I think it’s past that light ahea-
TCG: And there’s more of that funny orange bougainvillea that Mother loves.
DOB: Ugh! Look at that car. What a horrible shade of blue.

Something about bright car colors aggravates her, but it’s usually taxicab-yellow.

TCG: Is this the turn?

Time passes like cold molasses dripping down a tree in Vermont, in February. When I regain consciousness, we’re at the restaurant.

DOB: What’s that?
UCC: Crunchy tuna roll
DOB: What’s this?
UCC: That’s the teriyaki chicken bowl you ordered. Is it good?
DOB: Yes. No. Not the broccoli. Or the carrots. Are you using that?

Pointing to my tiny saucer I’m using for dipping sushi in soy sauce and ignoring her empty saucer adjacent. Not waiting for my answer, she begins stacking her broccoli on it. Not uneaten broccoli, mind you. She can’t see what she’s eating, so she shovels amazingly large bites into her mouth and begins to pre-chew – pre gum actually – things. Then she is able to remove things too al dente (being nolo dente herself) by rummaging around inside her mouth with a finger, pinching lumpy things dripping in saliva daintily out, and placing them carefully on the reject pile in my soy sauce saucer. Carrots, she can mostly see, so they’re stacked, mostly unmasticated, among the broccoli.

DOB: What is that?
UCC: It’s my crunchy tuna roll.
DOB: What’s in it.
UCC: Crunchy tuna mostly.
WISIMH: But it also has a bit of wasabi and sesame seeds, and the barest hint of bitter regret at the breakdown in social discourse. When I eat it, the crunch makes a barely audible cri de coeur that sounds like faint mourning for all the lost opportunities for assisted suicide.

DOB: Oh, more broccoli. I can’t chew broccoli, even though I’m getting a new tooth. Right here, see?
WISIMH: Jesus Christ cosigning on a foreclosed mortgage, we don’t need to fucking see it every time you eat.
UCC: Yes, I see your new tooth. What is that? (pointing at her teriyaki bowl)

Blank look. Like the expression on the face of a dishrag crumpled in a corner of the sink. In fact, with miscellaneous peices of chicken and rice stuck to her chin and the front of her shirt, very much like a dishrag.

UCC: It’s your teriyaki chicken bowl. Is it good?
WISIMH: You’ve got some stupid on your face, right there, in the corner of your mouth. No other side.