Things Have Calmed Down

Tim's mom got released from the hospital Friday. We went up to Birch Run to the house to turn the heat on for them (the weather underwent quite a change over the last week), mow the lawn, water plants, etc. in anticipation of their arrival. As well as shut the garage windows they had left wide open the previous Sunday *rolls eyes*. I would have gone up there during the week to check on the house. But Tim and Jim deemed it an unnecessary road trip, and luckily the place had not been broken into.

We thought it would be really nice to bombard both mom and dad with new cell phones, a new home phone, and of course they needed to have mom's implanted heart monitor transmitting device set up and activated. Hey, and look at all these phone messages from the 5 days you've been in the hospital, and this big pile of mail.

Umm, NOT nice. But what else could we do? Tim had to leave for work and I was pushing being awake for 24 hours straight. We had a limited window of time to get all this stuff in place. And yes, it was probably the worst possible time to dump all this on a couple of exhausted, stressed-out 80-somethings. The cell phones were Tim's brother Jim's idea, not ours! But they really ought to have something if they are out somewhere and need to reach us quickly.

But things seemed better Sunday, when we sort of made up a white lie about visiting friends in the Frankenmuth area as a pretext for nothing short of checking up on them. Mom didn't look like a ghost with big brown bags under her eyes, and she felt a little better. Her feet are still pretty swollen, though. We had to explain to dad again that the heart monitor transmits info through the phone all on its own without any downloading from them. Except if mom does feel something unusual, she is supposed to press the big green button on 'Freddie' as she calls the belt-clipped part of the device she is wearing. And they are still not used to the concept of having 5 different (read: easily accessed!) handsets scattered throughout the house that are all part of THE SAME phone. They've lived all these years in a two-story house with only one phone/handset in the kitchen on the main floor. The time for them to move to a more senior-friendly home came and went a long time ago.

We brought them some grilled cider-glazed chicken breasts to supplement the baked fish, pumpkin soup and pflaumenkuchen we'd restocked their fridge with on Friday. Mom still can't stand very long without getting woozy, so the less cooking she has to do, the better. They both got downright emotional when they told us how grateful they were for what we'd all done. A little foot-shuffling, nervous laughter aw-shucks-it-ain't-nothing ensued, but it was good to get positive feedback.

Then we played tourist and walked around downtown Frankenmuth a while. We amused ourselves by checking out how much Bavarian Inn and Zehnder's bake shops (or is it shoppes?) charge for one strudel or a loaf of stollen or a package of 6 butterhorns. I SO ought to open my own bakery some day. I smirked at all the tourists eating at the lower level cafeteria-style restaurant in Zehnder's and shopping the exorbitantly overpriced gift shops (shoppes) while a truly awful elevatorized version of 'The Greatest Love Of All' was being piped overhead. Then we stopped for a beer (a very forgettable Oktoberfest) at one of the other restaurants.

But I still get jealous when I see the still spectacular-looking hanging flower baskets and spilling window boxes everywhere in that damn town. First week of October, and all their flowers STILL look unbelievable!