Eccentricities of the Elders

An Elderfest Day. Don't hardly know where to begin...

But lets start with my Aunt Emilie. Her cat has some sort of alergy. The poor little bugger licks her skin raw - her belly is largely pink - and she has pink and sore spots on several of her legs. This has been going on for six months or so. I take Emilie and Baby to the vet for a shot of steroids and that helps for about six weeks. These trips are always something of a trial.

Today, I got to Meem's - that's Lindstromese for 'Emilie' going back 50 years or so; apparently I could not say her real name as a toddler and it came out MeMe which over the years became Meem.

Today, when I arrived at Meem's abode - the cat was nowhere to be seen. I finally located the wretched beast in the laundry room in a closet. This was after forty-five minutes or so of searching...and several calls to the vet by my aunt explaining - at length - the delay. With a pair of gloves and thanks to my foresight of wearing a long sleeve sweater I was able to grab the little dickens and stuff her in her cage without any serious injury on my part. Lots of cat cursing however.

At the vets the cat was on relatively good behavior. However my social - yet socially deprived aunt - managed to turn what should have been a 15 minute encounter into an hour long engagement. The vet got to hear the whole Emilie/Bud Lindstrom pet history....which includes numerous dogs and cats. The vet finally managed to give Baby a steroid injection. Once we got out of the exam room, I took Baby out to the car in the hope that my waiting outside would expedite matters at the front desk. Fat chance. Another half-hour elapsed before she emerged. When I asked her about the drug regimen for the cat and after she told me what SHE understood, I immediately had to go back inside to get that straightened out - she would have killed the damn puddy tat with steroids. Sigh...

Then it was off to Fred Meyer's for a shopping trip. When we entered the store we had to check-out the electric go-carts for the handicapped. I really don't think she needs one. However she thinks otherwise. There was only one there and it was plugged-in for recharging. We unplugged it; and not surprisingly it did not want to budge.

We got a regular cart and I went off to the pharmacy to get drugs for my other elders and myself while she tottered-off towards produce. When I caught-up with Meem she was driving a cart - don't know how or where she got it - and I did not ask. Hopefully she didn't roll a real handicapped person for it.

Meem's shopping list was eclectic. Meem does not cook. Yet the first thing in the basket was a huge ham. When I inquired, she said this was for my mom, i.e., mom would cook it and invite her for dinner. OK.

Then she sent me on a sortie for 5 lb of unbleached flour, 5 lb of sugar, and Bisquick. She then selected 3 bags of marshmellows (3 for the price of something), grabbed some ice cream, two large packages of cookies (2 for the price of something), a large bag of pork rinds, and low salt saltine crackers.

Then, as the coup de main, we were off to incontinent supplies for a thorough, and I do mean thorough, examination of the products on offer. As I understand it, Emilie had once found a product that was ideal - but it apparently went off the market - and she has since been on a quest for a similarly satisfying substitute. With her comfortably ensconced in her scooter it was my task to bring her selections. She would then read the product descriptions out loud. While I am a prostatectomy veteran and have had some (thankfully brief - pardon the pun) experience with incontinence products, I am certainly no expert on the long-term incontinence needs of elderly women. FINALLY, she made a decision - buying one product because it was cheap and another because it was expensive but on sale. I hope one of them is the product she has been looking for...

And then...not as trying...but just as long...the cat food conundrum. Is this, or is this not, the dry cat food that Baby craves? The color of the bag looks the same...but the pics of the bits just doesn't look quite right. Again, I had little to offer...

I love my Aunt Emilie dearly...

We then motored over to my folks - transfered the ham, one bag of marshmallows, and one bag of cookies to another bag as an offering to my parents.

I had taken my Jeep to the shop for servicing this morning and was driving mom's car so my mother came along with Meem and I to Meem's house downtown to allow me to collect my Jeep at the Jeep dealer after dropping auntie and her provisions.

The good news of all of this is that mom is seriously interested in purchasing a new Jeep Compass. With luck, this will replace my sister's decrepit 1990 Honda Accord AND my mom's equally decrepit 1988 Honda Accord. Both Linda and mom are ready for a new car.

That still leaves dad's 1970 something Toyota pickup with manual transmission and manual steering (it amazes me that a 93 year old can even turn the wheel); but I'm not ready to fight that battle yet. My goal is to have one vehicle in the household that can be driven by my sister in the Winter in the unlikely event that I can find a way to get out of this place.

Ain't life grand?