The tale of a mother and her dentures...

I just went to help my mother at the dentist. She wants to get new dentures. There are many things a good daughter must endure in this life, and one of them is the aging parent, but did I ever think it would include this adventure in denture world? I did not. Silly me. I have been through lung cancer with my father, which at one point he had a huge sore (sorry, it's gross - I know) on his tail bone and as he sat on the toilet I had to put some numbing creme on it for him. He said that this is one of those moments he never thought he ever have to ask me to help him with - I said, "neither did I Dad, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do..."

So now we are at the dentists with Mother while he gropes inside her mouth as I stand and watch. He talks about how her gums have this strange dent in them on the lower front to which she explains that when she had her extractions, they took out some of the bone so they could make her dentures fit better. My mind wonders why they just didn't make the dentures fit to the mouth the way it was? I don't know - I'm just sayin... At any rate, he says that we can go to this other dentist (with a huge specialty title type of name of which I've never heard) and we can pay him upwards of $4 to $5,000 dollars to make it all right! Seriously dude - she's 84, almost 85! Who the hell has that kind of money for freakin dentures???

So then we determine that maybe that since the uppers don't really bother her that much that we look into just getting new lower dentures - which he announces will cost around $1,100 if we go with him. I tell him that she and I will talk about it and make a decision. As we wheel out of there shaking our heads at the cost for lower plate dentures - she says that when she got her current pair 10 YEARS AGO, they were $800 for both sets. "That was ten years ago mother, I'm sure costs have gone up since then..."

"well I can't imagine that they've gone up that much..."

"I can't imagine that they haven't mom, it's been ten years..."

"I'd really like to check back with that lab I went to in Lansing..."

"okay, why don't you call them..."

"I don't know if I have their number..."

"Look it up on line..."

"oh, you can do that...?"

silence

"I think I have an old phone book"

"okay - use that then..."

"that's a lot of money"

"yes, it is, but if it makes things better for you....just give the one in Lansing a call."

"that would be a long way for you to take me.."

"mom, its not like I never go out that way"

"well..."

"I'll talk to you later..."

I've included some lovely photos of the flowers that are in my backyard this summer. I don't spend enough time out there and I should. Especially after conversations or visits with my Mom. I need reminders of the beauty of summer and how much we take things for granted. Even mothers and their dentures....

A long time...

I haven't been on here for quite some time as I've been pretty busy in my fairly new job of six months. I am currently working for a small regional theater as their Director of Education. I just completed three weeks of Summer Kids Camp where we rehearsed and eventually performed Seussical Jr. with twenty-two amazingly talented young performers! I had an amazing team of people to make this happen and can't wait to work with them again.

So, life lately....hmmm, where do I begin. It's been a whirlwind of job, mother, children, dogs and cats and wedding. Erin is getting married next month and the festivities have already begun! We went to Brooklyn mid-July to assist Megan in throwing a fabulous shower for Erin at her apartment. It was a lovely day and she received many wonderful gifts. It was a quick trip but enjoyable. Now we are preparing for a shower here in Chicago. Another crazy, wacky weekend of family and friends. I'm a lucky woman.

Last week we had a very sad thing happen to our family. My grand-dog Hudson went to visit my Dad in heaven. It happened on the same day that my father passed away which made it even harder. Megan and Chris left the city and the state to grieve and get away from the house where Hudson ruled. I will miss our boy very much, but we all know that he'll have more fun with Snickers and Chloe and Patches and Taffy and Grandpa in heaven. Even typing this I'm having a hard time keeping it together.

Well, I best end for now - I have to attempt to draw a turtle for a meeting tomorrow!

Sweet!

Today I managed to pull myself together and brave the arctic cold to have brunch with my friends and former co-workers Kelly and Laura. We had actually planned to meet a week ago but we were in the middle of a huge snow storm on that day! SO - instead we reschedule for one of the coldest days of the century! We venture out anyway because we wanted some Anne Sathers Cinnamon Rolls dammit! 

Laura picked me up in her cute little mini-cooper, I love that car! It's is so adorable and it has the best butt warmers. Off we went down the street to look for parking. Around and around we went until we found a perfect spot right in front of Cheetah Gym. Yippee. I gotta say, one of the bright spots about these frigid days is that there seem to be plenty of parking spots around. We started walking over to the restaurant saying, "hey it's not that cold"....continue walking - three feet from the restaurant...."god, that hurts" Yeah, our faces hurt already. It was that cold. I looked on my iPhone and it said the temperature was -3 degrees. Ouch. 

We were shown our table towards the back where our hostess was busy with an elderly woman who clearly was unhappy with whatever table they showed them. I hope I never get to the point where I have to argue about everything just because I can. If I turn into an annoying old lady, my children will surely call me on it! Anyway, we watched as the famous cinnamon rolls "rolled" past us coming out of the kitchen door towards other tables. Mmmmmm. Piping hot cinnamon rolls were soon going to be ours as well! We discussed whether we wanted breakfast or not - but clearly we did because that was the only menu's placed in front of us - so breakfast it was. 

Kelly walked in and we had a lovely moment of reunion for the three of us. It was good to see my right hand people. The ones I counted on to keep everything going smoothly at the theater. It didn't seem right that we didn't work together anymore. We traded some stories of what was going on in our lives. Showed some pictures and waited....for the cinnamon rolls. I ordered the eggs, sausage patties and hash browns and the cinnamon rolls. Laura got oatmeal and a side of eggs. We decided to share my cinnamon rolls. Kelly got the breakfast burrito and cinnamon rolls. As we sipped our coffee and continued to tell our stories and show our pictures, the beautiful rolls were suddenly sitting in front of us! Wheee. Just what the Doctor ordered for our frozen toes and fingers and noses and to cheer us up from our employment woes.

Wait! Mine weren't piping hot! The frosting wasn't exactly melting off the plate! What the crap? In fact, when I put my fork in and pulled the roll away, it was kind of hard to pull away. Aren't they suppose to be so fresh that it just falls into my fork? As I put the cinnamon roll into my eager mouth, it became apparent to me that it was kinda cold! Huh. The cinnamon rolls we had talked about and dreamed about and braved the weather to have WERE COLD? How could it be? We braved forward and continued to eat our cold cinnamon rolls. We didn't speak of it, no one mentioned it. We just picked and poked at the rolls because that's why we came here. 

I'm going to Florida on Monday. Visiting the mouse and hoping to do some much needed relaxing. I'm now afraid to hope too much for this vacation because if I do I'm sure to be sorely disappointed - much like the cinnamon rolls. So instead, I will approach my time away as just another trip - no expectations - no hopes for warm weather and quiet time, because then I'll be pleasantly surprised when I do get those things - or not. I just don't want a repeat of the cinnamon roll expectation. But then again, it's Disney - and they would never DARE to disappoint...would they?

Ridiculous!

It seems as if all of the titles of my postings are negative - well being unemployed ain't no picnic my friends. But, here's the real thing here. I'm unemployed and yet there are those who are employed that aren't properly trained for their jobs. This makes my head go - Whaaaaaaaaaaat?

Let's look for example at the young boys and girls that are employed at McDonald's. 

McDonald's has a new experience (an AG term, sorry) added to their line-up of goods called McCafe. The fast food, drive-up window version of Starbucks, of which I am already having an affair with. I loves me Starbucks - whether it's a Mocha or a Soy Chai Tea Latte....mmmmm, I loves 'em.  Now, McDonald's makes it a little bit easier to obtain some yummy goodness in the form of their Mocha.

However, it is confusing to me in this day and age how the teens they train (or not train as I'm finding out) have no idea what Sweet-N-Low is. WHAT? The pink packet has been around FOREVER! I can remember it being a part of my days in the small town of Eldorado,Illinois with my Grandparents. My Pappaw would put tons of it in his ice tea every single day. So I know its been around and available for mankind at least since the 60's. Since then, there have been many other artificial sweeteners that have have been introduced to society. There's Equal, which according to my friend Miles, kills your brain cells. He said, "after you use some in your coffee, don't you feel a little bit of a headache? Those are your brain cells dying." So, I've always avoided using Equal - plus there are other things they've discovered about it that are apparently worse than your brain cells dying - which I can't remember now because of the loss of my brain cells. Then they came out with Splenda, the yellow packet. Splenda is much better for you apparently but my daughter Megan says that it gives her the poops. I'll use Splenda, but I have to be very careful where and when I use it so that I'm near a bathroom - just it case. So now we are back to Sweet-N-Low, which causes cancer in laboratory animals. I have been a long time user as my grandfather - who died of some form of cancer, but none of us remember. I hope it wasn't because he used too much Sweet-N-Low! 

Anyway - I digress. So, I pull up to McDonald's one afternoon to order me a medium Mocha and I asked the faceless girl at the intercom if she could put in a packet of Sweet-N-Low.

"I'm sorry, what?" - she responds

"Sweet-N-Low - you know the pink packet?"

I hear her struggling for words through the intercom.

"Um, we don't have anything pink."

"you know, the sweetener, in the pink packet..."

"I don't know...." (her voice trails off into the abyss of McDonald's busyness)

"NEVER MIND - I'LL TELL YOU AT THE WINDOW"

I pull up to the payment window and this young lady with overly bleached hair and what looks like pulled up corn rows looks at me as if I had asked her for a bag of cocaine with that - "we don't serve that here" kind of look.

"Sweet-N-Low" the sweetener that you add to your coffee?" 

She shrugs at me.

"I'll get it at the next window then."

OH MY LORD! Johnny sits there sniggering as I pull forward. I say sniggering because what he wasn't doing was laughing out loud or even snickering - there was a sniggering quality of which I'd never experienced before. I liked it.

"So, can I get some Sweet-N-Low and a stirrer thing?" I said as they handed me the mocha.

The person at the food retrieval window gets me "something" - right now I don't remember if it was a pink packet - a blue packet or a yellow packet...but I had to ask for the stirrer again and off the sniggering Johnny and I went - questioning kids these days and how could they not know about the "pink packet" and why aren't they being trained properly to serve customers at McCafe?

Fast forward to a month later. We are heading to Indiana again for a rehearsal for previews of the upcoming season. I mention that I'd like to stop and get a Mocha from McCafe to which my passenger says - "well this should be fun." My thought is that I won't ask the faceless girl taking my order this time because of the communication breakdown that occurred last time. I blame it on the fact that she can't see my face and therefore has no vision for my needs. I'll wait until they hand me my yummy mocha and then I'll ask. I'm a planner - you see. I plan these things out in my head prior to them happening. I also plan my route of walking when I go down the street in my head. I look ahead at the sidewalks and decide where I'm going to cross the street. Weird huh? I know.

I order my Mocha from the faceless girl, who sounds like she is a very nice young woman and pull forward to pay her. When I think back now, she gave me a look as I gave her my money that now makes me think that she recognized me from the "incident" a month earlier. She was coy and could barely speak. I'm sure she knew who I was.

I pull forward to the window and plan HOW I'm going to ask for the sweetener AND the stirrer. It will work perfectly! I'll get what I want and everyone will be so happy to have had the pleasure to have waited on me! This was going to be so satisfying (insert sigh here)

He hands me my long awaited mocha.

"thank you - can I get a Sweet-N-Low?"

"I'm sorry - what"

"A Sweet-N-Low - you know the pink packet?"

My car partner begins to snigger - see there it is again!

My voice begins to have this incredibly irritated sound to it as I blurt out...

"SWEETENER - PINK PACKET - BLUE PACKET - SWEETENER!"

The kid looks at me with the "I don't speak your language" kind of look.

"hold on..." he says.

I watch as he walks over to a fellow Luddite and talks to her with his back to me - she looks over his shoulder to me with this grin on her face like I'm the crazy McDonald's lady who is requesting something of which they know it not! I look right at her and mouth - "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"

I discover that I'm thisclose to pounding on the drive-up window but then that would be crazy of me wouldn't it? I could be taken away in handcuffs or something and the thought of my loved ones having to bail me out in what will be become known as "The Pink Packet Incident", just isn't worth it.

He walks away from the girl and goes to the "back" - probably to check the picture they have posted to see if it is really me - the one they've heard of but never have seen. He walks back up to me with yellow packets - Splenda, and says,

"are five of them enough?"

"yes, thank GOD!", I state, "thank you."

He starts to close the window because I'm sure he wanted to run as far as he could...

"hold on" I say with pointed emphasis - "can I have a stirrer to stir it with?"

He hands me the stirrer and apologies with a "sorry about that"

Yeah...right, I think in my head. The sniggering is continues as I drive away with yellow packets and stirrer and mocha in hand, wondering where the world has gone wrong and why it is so hard to get what you need when you need it. Even at McDonald's...I'm not loving it.

Weird :(

Oh boy...it's getting close to the time when I won't be getting anymore severance pay. This is a scary time for me. I don't know if it's the holiday season or the fact that my mom has been in the hospital for the past month and couldn't come home for Christmas, but I've just been so sad. 

In spite of everything swirling around me - Christmas was lovely. Erin and Hunter drove home and spent the holiday with us. They stayed at Chris and Megan's house. Doug continued his quest to hump everything in sight by trying to hump Hudson constantly. Again, what is a gramma to do? We had a lovely Christmas Eve where Erin wowed us again with her culinary skills and then we started cooking our Christmas dinner. Chris was officially in charge of the dinner and he did himself proud. The meal was amazing - the turkey was tasty and the dressing - shut up about the dressing! It rocked!

Speaking of rocked - Erin and Meg and I formed a rock band and we discovered that we are AWESOME at the Xbox Rock Band. I was amazing on the drums - Erin on vocals and Megan on guitar. Most of the songs we had never heard but dang we were good! I surprised everyone with my drumming skills. Little did they know that as a kid I wanted to be a drummer so bad and I was pretty good then. My parents had bought me a small drum set that I played often and honed my drumming skills on. My friends and I formed a "band" if you want to call it that. We wrote songs and called ourselves, The Compositions. You know - after the black and white notebook. Weird right? The strange thing is that no one played the guitar - they just strummed it so that it sounded like they were playing it - AND someone played the tamborine. Oh, I also played a mean tamborine. Anyway - here we were on Christmas having a ball being a rock band. The name we came up with was...Tonipail. There is a story behind that. My mom has been in the hospital for a month. She ended up having a lung biopsy because she wasn't getting over her pneumonia and they couldn't figure out what was going on. So, after ICU she went to rehab where they finally washed her hair and they pulled it into a little ponytail in the back. A new look for her because she is always going to the beauty shop to get her hair into what the girls call her "gramma 'fro" She looked really cute! Since this was like her second day in rehab, her speaking was rough and she wasn't thinking clearly. She says to me,

"they put my hair in a tonipail...wait, that's not right - hold on...a tonipail! 

No! - (deep heavy sigh) - wait - a TONIPAIL!"

We giggle together here at her inability to say ponytail.

"okay - hold on....pause....pause - deep breath - "Tonipail"

When I told the girls this story we laughed and laughed. I'll remind gramma when she is feeling like laughing at herself. But we couldn't resist naming our rock band Tonipail. Sort of a homage to my mother - sort of.

So - here I am, still unemployed but working on my resume and getting up the nerve to begin sending it out. It's just so weird that I'm having to do this. I stupidly thought I would retire in my previous position or at least with the company. It's weird to be 51 years old and having to start over again - it's weird. 

Mom is coming home from the hospital on Wednesday. She'll be bringing an oxygen tank with her and will have to be on it all the time now. It's weird. She will bring with her a whole new routine and a bunch more medicine. We went and cleaned her apartment tonight - no easy feat, mind you. But now she will have a comfortable home to move around in. Our routines are going to have to change. We discussed how we're going to have to take over her bills - her grocery shopping - all of that. Cleaning her apartment more often will become a part of our routine. So, while I'm whining about how weird it is for me to adjust to not having a job and how much my life sucks - I can only imagine how weird it is for her to realize how different things are going to be for her now. When I put my weird up against her weird - I think her weird has got my weird beat. I just pray that she doesn't let her weird get her down as much as I do. Otherwise we're going to be two sad weirdos.

Adventurous!

Yes, being unemployed can be adventurous at times - most times. Not having a job offers me the opportunity to say, "hey, lets go see at movie on a Monday night" because God knows I don't have to get up in the morning for work or anything...unless mother has a Dr. appointment.

So - off to the movie theater we go to take in what we hope will be a hilarious romp, "Zack and Mirie Make a Porno" - or something like that. Mostly, I was looking forward to the big bag 'o popcorn, butter in the middle please. Which leads me to another topic - why is it so difficult to do your job as popcorn girl or boy and put the butter in the middle and then more on the top? Am I asking you to melt the butter for me? No - that is provided for you. Am I asking you to do anything that is so taxing that your arms may fall off at any moment? NO - I'm asking you to put the stinkin butter that I request on my damn popcorn! That's all. Your job - for which they pay you - is to put the popcorn in the bag and enjoy doing it AND put the butter on my popcorn - as much as I want - because you know what? I'M THE CUSTOMER!!! This is coming from someone who has never done this job, but I have made and sold taco's. Seriously, how hard is it to do this AND to look at me when I'm telling you what I want? Even going to the movie theater is an adventure anymore isn't it?

Anyway - I digress, enough old lady rants for now. So into the movie we go with our reluctantly given popcorn - a box of raisinettes and the much needed soda's. I'm trying to drink more water - but soda is needed with popcorn. Luckily on a Monday there is nary a person in the theater so we park our butts in a row where we won't be behind or in front of everyone. However, we have this problem in theaters that no matter where we sit - everyone comes and sits around us. There could be seats EVERYWHERE ELSE in the theater, but no - they have to sit right in front of us - next to us - right behind us kicking my seat (always my seat - I'm cursed). Maybe there is some weird energy we're giving off - kind of like the same energy that attracts all of the crazy's in the city of Chicago.

We enjoy the coming attractions trailers - which are sometimes much more entertaining than the movie themselves. Our high hopes for a "40 Year old Virgin" type comedy are quickly dashed within the first hour. It did have some moments that made me chortle - but for the most part I just thought - "eh". 

As we depart the theater we discuss our likes and dislikes and reminisce that the last movie we all saw together was "Tropic Thunder" - of which we had problems with as well. Although Robert Downey Jr. was amazing. Nice career comeback. We proceed through the lobby and take note of the posters announcing all the upcoming holiday films. Some interesting stuff - Australia - Curious Case of Benjamin Button - and then a film I can't recall but the big cardboard cutout was AWESOME! Of course we had to take a picture - cuz the iPhone takes great pictures and allows you to become an photo artist! Nah - my daughter is the pro in that area. 

I've posted the picture of Johnny with the cardboard cut-out. Exciting and real looking isn't it? I love it! Maybe this will be a new artist outlet for me. Taking pictures of friends with movie cardboard cut-outs. Hmmmm. There is a new gallery I was just in recently that might hang my genius type work. 

See - yet another new potential adventure for me. All because I'm unemployed. (insert evil laugh here)

Refreshing

There have been a few moments these past few weeks when I am actually okay with being unemployed. For instance, if I was "working" right now, I probably wouldn't have been able to take the weekend to go to New York City to experience my daughter Megan run and finish the New York City Marathon. I'd probably be getting ready to open the Holiday show at American Girl. 

What a wonderful day it was for us. To be able to see your child achieve such a huge goal is exciting and wonderful and I could not be prouder of her. Sure, she has run the Chicago Marathon twice - I was equally as proud, but this was New York! She got in the first time she tried - a big accomplishment.

We all stayed at Erin and Hunter's apartment in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. What a great neighborhood to live in. They have a wonderful place that they have worked hard on decorating and they were excited to show us what they had done. We were all quite impressed. 

Megan and Chris had stayed in mid-town the night before so that she would be able to catch the bus to the starting point so we didn't see them in the morning before the race. Erin made coffee and we all started to get ready to walk up the street and stand at the curb so we could see her run by. We stood at Bedford and 3rd on the corner - watching and waiting for her to come by so we could cheer her on. Suddenly, the actor Ryan Reynolds and his entourage ran by - "RYAN!", yelled Erin, "WHOO - GO RYAN!" He waved at Erin. 

"Ryan Reynolds waved at me - we're having drinks next week." says Erin. 

My cell phone rings - it's MEGAN, calling as she runs! She wants to know where we are standing - I tell her and as I try to continue talking to her (what was I thinking - she didn't want to carry on a conversation at that time.) she hangs up.

The phone rings again - "I'm just turning onto Bedford" 

"OK", I yell into the phone, how are you?...she's gone again.

We are standing at around mile 10 - email updates are coming up on my cell phone to tell me how her pace is, we think she should be here anytime. Our eyes are scanning the sea of runners for a girl in a kelly green long sleeve shirt. Way to0 many girls wearing kelly green.

In the meantime, a friend of Erin and Hunters comes by with his dog - Riley - who Doug proceeds to try and hump...it's a puppy Doug! Have you no shame! They pull Riley away and Doug continues to air hump - a proud moment for this grandma.

We keep scanning and looking - big waves of people come and go - suddenly - THERE SHE IS! YEA - HOORAY! YEAH MEGAN! 

She stops by us and takes off her vest and hands it to me - puts away her phone and readjusts everything she's wearing and then she is gone! Back out into the sea of people she goes - my little girl. My little one that took her time deciding to walk and talk is running in one of the worlds most prestigious races in the world! I get all teary eyed as I watch her go. Is it possibly to be so proud that you feel you are going to just break down and have the biggest cry you've ever had? I was overwhelmed with pride for my girl. What an amazing young woman she has become - and not just for running a race. She is amazing for so many reasons. She is smart and beautiful - she loves her mom and her momma knows it - she loves her family - she has a smart and good man in her life - she is successful - she is driven - she can be crabby and funny at the same time - she is hilarious and I'm pretty sure she has a killer belt voice that we'll probably never hear - she's accomplished in so many things - she's a great photographer - and a wonderful, caring human being. How is this amazing person my child? I don't know, but I am so happy she is. 

Off we went back to Erin and Hunters where Erin prepared for us a scrumptious brunch. THAT is another thing - Erin is a great cook and a wonderful host! The meal was amazing! The cauliflower frittata - delicious. The onion, rosemary and leek flatbread - shut up about it! Everything was wonderful. Erin created such a wonderful atmosphere for us to celebrate Megan and for her to come back to after her triumphant finish. My girls - my world - my life. Two incredible women that each bring something completely different to me and to our family. I wouldn't wish anything better for either of them. They are happy and loved and what more could a mother ask for? 

So, while being unemployed can be refreshing - it can also be rewarding. I am rewarded daily by the reminder that I have two of the most brilliantly talented daughters in the world. They're the reason I go on - the reason I make the choices I do - my reason for everything. I love and adore them more and more each day. 

Congratulations Megan - you did it! You never have to do it again if you don't want to. 

Congratulations Erin - you made a wonderful weekend for your family - we are grateful and proud of you and we are so looking forward to your wedding to Hunter. 

Congratulations Mr. Hayes and Hunter for choosing my girls - you have two of the finest women at your side. You are lucky men indeed and we are lucky to have the two of you.

One big event down - next, the wedding of the year! Gotta go to the gym to get ready for a different type of marathon!