Progress

[susandennis]

I'm back at the hotel and another day is done. 

I got Mom a flat screen monitor that really is about 400 times easier to read and looks much nicer, too. And I convinced one of the staff to haul away the old monitor. Oh and the new monitor has sound so I was able to unload her speakers, too.  It's all about real estate when you live in a room that is about 14 feet by 12 feet. Mom says the new monitor makes the whole room feel bigger and I think she's right.

The Tivo was a pain in the butt.  No matter what tricks I tried, I could not get it to hear the dial tone. Trouble shooting was really fun as I have one telephone jack that is servicing the Tivo, the DSL modem and the telephone answering machine with the telephone attached. One by one, I unplugged and repugged and tried again and again.  It was making me nuts.  I could hear the dial tone but Tivo couldn't.  A couple of years ago the modem on Tivo died and I bought an external one.  I was down to 'it has to be the modem'.  So I unplugged it and figured I'd use the one that I took off the computer yesterday.  I plugged the phone directly into Tivo and tried it just for fun before I went out to the car to get the other modem... and, of course, the damn thing worked!

So now the computer is always on the internet, Tivo is tivoing - oh and I installed the wireless tv headphones she made me order way back when but my brother couldn't install.  They actually work great.  She was pretty jazzed about having them.  She doesn't want to be one of those old people who sit with the TV screaming. 

Tomorrow is the closet.  Polly is tallish. My brother and sister-in-law are tallish. Mom is short and shrinking.  Everyone who put anything in Mom's closet, used the top shelves for some reason. She can't get to shit.  So tomorrow she's going to sit at the closet door and tell me where she wants everything.  Plus I have a meeting with her stock broker.  I need to get him to get agressive with her investing.  She's got $30,000 in her checking account and she never writes a check. She lives off Daddy's trust so social security keeps sending her money and it just sits there.  She's all for investing it but just needs guidance. 

This place where she lives is really elegant and lovely.  The care staff is gracious and kind and fun.  The management - the people in charge - make me nuts most of the time but the people that Mom deals with every day are great and she loves them.  Linda comes in every morning and helps Mom with her shower and scrubs her back which Mom just loves and then covers all over with lotion.  Mom says it is heaven and Linda is really sweet.  Mom told her I know computers and Linda said she lost her sound icon on her tool bar (system tray is what she meant).  I showed her how to find it and she was delighted.  I was so glad she asked.  

Their food service is also very good.  Mom can get any meal she wants delivered to her room.  She always has breakfast delivered.  Then she eats lunch and dinner in the dining room.  The dining room has a different menu for every meal with lots of choices.  She can get a hot meal for either lunch or dinner or she can get a sandwich.  It's really nice and varied.

She is assigned to a table and eats with the same people every day - Della Jo, Laura, Suzanne, Sally and Mary Anne.  Sally is gone this week so I get her spot.  None of them can hear worth a damn and Laura has recently lost most ofher sight.  Mom and Della Jo are on oxygen. They are a crew.  And the conversation is hilarious.

Suzanne:  Has anyone watched the news today?
Della Jo:  I had a nice snooze this morning, why?
Suzanne (finishing her orignal question):  I heard something about Bush and the CIA.
Mary Ann:  What about the church by the sea?  I thought it was called the Chapel by the Sea.
Mom (to me):  What did she say?
Laura:  I wish I could snooze in the morning.
Della Jo: The Chapel by the Sea... you mean the one in Georgia or the one in Florida?

Swap out a random nouns and verbs and you've got every single bit of every conversation for the three meals I've had there so far.  It's pretty hilarious.  The funniest part is that no one really cares.  Mom says it sure beats eating with some of the other people who are really just zombies.

I'm back at the hotel and plan to read the morning paper next.  I finally remembered to look for the hotel directory thing and learned that there are washing machines on the 3rd floor and they have a same day laundry/dry cleaning.  My plan is to leave my suitcase here again like I always have but before I could use Mom's washer and dryer in her apartment.  I'm going to go check out the 3rd floor option tomorrow and if it looks doable, I think I'll just carve out some laundry time Friday and do a load of wash.  Then I can leave clean ones for next time.

I talked to the day manager for the hotel this morning and he said that the wi fi really doesn't reach much of this buildig where my room is (it's kind of an annex).  He said next time ask for a room in the main building to get wi fi in the room.  But tonight I'm connected using Treo and it's honestly working just fine. 

Comments

[annenahaymus.livejournal.com]

You are amazing!

[rsc.livejournal.com]

That dining-room conversation sounds like the dialogue from a bad sitcom.

[treebreeze.livejournal.com]

Priceless conversation....I so have to tell them at work about it!