June 28, 2003
Not that long ago, I blogged about being good at beginnings and good at endings, but not being so good at middles. So I have to try a little harder to hang in there through the ordinary times, including ordinary blogging times – that in-between middle of nowhere feeling.
Of course, these days I find myself these days smack in the middle of the tough stuff of a generational sandwich -- kids and grandkid on the top, aging parent on the bottom, and me in between, trying to keep the sandwich together.
It’s a good thing that I’m also good in crises.
Like when, coming home from vacation in Maine, my friend P announces -- when we are about a half-hour south of the state line -- that she left her pack with her meds and makeup lying on the couch in the cottage. We left early to avoid the major lines of going-home-from-the-beach Sunday traffic. So much for leaving early. And it was starting to rain.
Ten minutes later we get to an exit and turn round to go back and get her stuff. Ten minutes after that, the traffic going in our original southerly direction is crawling bumper to bumper. And did I already say it’s starting to rain.?
But that’s the kind of the thing I can take in stride. A friend of mine needs my help. No problem.
As it turns out, after we go back and get her stuff, we stop for lunch (lobster quesadilla) and sit and chat long enough so that by the time we get back on the road, the traffic has lightened considerably. All’s well …..and all that – at least for that part.
When I get home, my mom informs me that she’s been having severe leg cramps, so I took her to the doctor yesterday. Diagnosis? Leg muscles knotted from recent lack of use and from all those early years of wearing high heels. The doctor prescribes Quinine capsules and shows her how to do stretching expercises for her calves.
So, of course, last night she overdoes the stretches and this morning she can’t move out of bed because now her badly deteriorated lower spine is also irritated. On Monday, I’m scheduled to drive out to my daughter’s in Boston to help her out while she’s having some repairs done in her kitchen; she’ll take care the baby and I’ll oversee the work. I can’t wait to see my grandson, who’s on the verge of taking his first solo step.
Ah. There’s my mother flat on her back; there’s my daughter who arranged for the work to be done when I said I could be there. Crisis!
I massage my mother with that great Blue Stuff and put her on a heating pad; email a directive to my brother that I’m expecting he’ll drop what he’s doing and get up here to stay with her while I’m away (that’s not saying he’ll do it, but I was awfully adamant); go out and buy a massage mat for my mom and foods to make cold salad meals for both her and to take with me to Boston. I go to the library and get two mystery books on CD to listen to in the car and stop at the drug store for up Arthritis Strength Tylenol for both me and my mother.
I’m taking lots of deep breaths while I’m marinating batches of chicken, which I’ll cook tomorrow, when I make the potato salad, broccoli and carrot (with craisins and walnuts) salad, pesto chicken and pasta salad, and shrimp and toasted almond pilaf salad.
When it’s a crisis, I cook. The results of which, in this case, will go pretty well with the sandwich I’m caught in.
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Old Comments (1)
Kate S. on 01 Jul 2003
Yum! Too bad you weren't in the PR tent with Colin Powell and that other General, feeding them delectable treats like these...maybe some good home cookin' would have calmed those boys down some. We might have had a whole different turnout to that war!
Personally? I've always like the white creamy filling, in between the two cookies, so I don't hear any crisis here. You getting on the phone and getting your bidness all over your brother to get his ass up there and help you out is proof of the power of the filling in the middle.
Good luck and may the force be with you (and your bro'.)