The Spice of Life

Weddings one and two are over.

So are vacations one and two.

Home repairs have been made, and garage doors have been painted.

Now for a little bit of the other stuff that has been going on.

For a year or two now, my mother and Phil have talked about selling their condo and getting down to two properties – one at the Lake and one in Florida. Over that time, my mother has been thinking about how to best clear out the condo. Nothing is to be thrown away. That would be counter to her upbringing. Her first preference is to redistribute items among the two remaining properties and give items she doesn’t have room for to grandchildren, children, and other family members (in that order). So, for the past year or two, we’ve been hearing things like “That green chair goes there,” and “Who wants the green chair here?”

As most children do, we have been ignoring her. And we haven’t bothered to figure out what green chair she was talking about or where here or there was. And some of us may have occasionally called her ridiculous.

But things ramped up over the weekend of the 4th when they accepted an offer on the condo.

That same weekend, she seemed especially tired (though she still managed to do some swamping and make her famous pot roast dinner – for the grandchildren.) She thought she had pneumonia again (a couple of Thanksgivings ago, she was in the hospital with it) because she felt the same way – tired, feverish, and her side hurt her.

Yes, it turned out she did have pneumonia. And a cracked rib. And cancer.

The breast cancer that she had a while back and that we thought had been put to bed has traveled to her bones.

With that, she has managed to capture our attention.

So, I’ve gotten involved in specifically identifying each green chair and its intended destination (with the use of my computer of course). We’ve taken photos of 140 items (to date), shared them via “the cloud”, and annotated them with indications of where each item is going. So far, items have either been distributed (and redistributed) to nine different locations or are pending delivery to seven additional locations. Amazingly enough, there haven’t been too many family squabbles other than the one that almost broke up Thelma and Louise.

The Green Chair Going There

Since we are moving a lot of the stuff from the condo up to the Lake, I recently asked her what her top priority items were to get up there since I was making a trip up with an empty car.

Her response:

In one of my previous posts, I promised to explain why “stud finder” and “spices” were found in the same text message.

But I really can’t.

Now, for a little background. We were raised to be independent. We like that about ourselves. It doesn’t even occur to us to ask for help from anyone. In fact, it often makes us uncomfortable to receive help. However, sometimes we need it. One example was when I became a mother for the first time. Boy, did that throw me for a loop as to how over my head I felt. For the first week, my mother showed up to tidy up, start dinner, bathe the baby (which left me in a cold sweat), and reorganize my kitchen. In moments of crisis, like when I thought the baby had turned blue, she told me to go take a nap.

So now I will make her dinner, tell her to take a nap, and reorganize her households.

I will attempt to be there when she is feeling over her head.

And when I get an email saying “If you haven’t thrown all away….I need cumin, paprika and ginger,” I will pay attention.

But I might still occasionally call her ridiculous.

Swamping