Thursdays and Saturdays

Weird surreal existence has been mine since Thursday. Well maybe since Tuesday. I wasn't sure if or how to blog about this, but it's becoming pivotal to my life, so, blog on, right? No one is dead, no one is dying. After a long week of odd occurences and refusals of treatment my mother is in the local hospital with no-one-knows-what. The theories surrounding her condition have ranged from simple to insane. She's fine, then not fine, then fine again. Tests on top of tests. Lots of conversations. The short story is that for now, she cannot live alone. She's going into a nursing home for a bit for some rehab and we'll see what develops from there.
There's been some ups to this whole fiasco. Like I now have a fur-baby, temporary or not we won't know for a while. But here she is - Dazee - making her fist blog appearance.I am going to knit her a sweater. I think Noro. And maybe a nice cabled pullover in a color that compliments her fur-tone. Winter is coming, and if she's here she'll need it. Because my mother has not been able to walk her for a long, long while, she's not housebroken. Or rather, she is housebroken, she just uses puppy pads. Since coming here Friday afternoon she has not had a single indoor "accident" on or off her pad. She asks to go out, as if she's wanted to all along but was only using those pads to humor the humans. She loves to chase chickens and run in dirt. She is a disaster of mud and dirt and grass stains, and if my mother saw her she'd probably call the ASPCA. Dazee, for her part, is thrilled at being a dog. She's utterly dominated Boo and the cat. She's a very in-charge sort of girl. But she's bumped into a head stronger than hers (mine!), and she's loving it. And oddly enough, so am I.
Thursday was the awesomest day in a long, long while. Mr. W. and I went to Hartford and saw Brad Paisley with special guest Jewel (and Julianne Hough and Chuck Wicks, but since I don't really know who they are...well, they both have strong singles out right now; she's got "Had That Song in My Head All Day" which drives me bonkers and not in a good way and he's got "Stealing Cinderella" which makes Mr. W. weepy and makes me kind of gag a little)
Things I learned in Connecticut
1.) Fan club seats rock, totally. I will pay for the fan club membership again just so I can get seats like this. We were right next to a catwalk, way down front. No more nosebleeds for me where Brad is concerned. This was too perfect.
2.) One single phone call, well-timed, from a parent who thinks she's having a heart attack but refuses to go to the hospital can nearly ruin a concert.
3.) I love Jewel.
She did mostly old stuff, and I love her old stuff.
4.) This man knows how to distract me.
Added to reasons why I love Brad Paisley (there's a list - he's a Mason. He loves his wife. he's a fantastic picker. He sings real, wry and funny. There's more but I won't beleaguer you.) we now have 'comes out on stage and says that whatever worries we have he wants us to forget them for a while'. So I did. I screamed and yelled and acted in general like a 13 year old freaked out fan. Mr. W. laughed a lot. I like to think he was laughing with me, not at me. He likes Brad too, so sang right along. I did all the screaming for both of us though.
5.) My husband, who is the most wonderful man on earth (hence the blog name...) has some little issues.Note the bag of chips. On our way down we stopped at River Valley Market for something healthy to eat, so we would not nosh our way around the food vendors at the Meadows (or whatever. Dodge Music Center??). I got a nice salad. he got a nice roast cow sammich with veggies. I got water. He got...soda. And chips. I said "Chips? Chips are not healthy..." Ready for this?? "But it came from the health food store, so it must be."
Sigh. I said "It is not a health food store. Just because they have soy milk and local food does not mean they are a health food store."
"Nope. Health food store. And do you know what else I saw there?" (smiling now, like a small boy who's just discovered toads).
"No. Please. Tell me. What?"
"Oatmeal Cream Pies" (big grin).
I quit.
Today or tomorrow I am going to pop my mother in a nursing home, which I feel a pretty intense amount of guilt over. It's just for rehab and she should be out in a couple of weeks. But still. It's not my favorite thing. I left for a reason. And I am putting her into that same system I left because of the unsafe staffing issues and the compromised patient care. It's an ethical nightmare, really.