Last Leaves, old friends

     Not too many years ago, I was having lunch with Lucile Kirk, who had recently lost an old friend, and she said to me, "I don't want to be the last leaf on the tree."

     I think about that, often.

      Because I am one of two close friends remaining from the CSG class of 1937.  I am also one of two close friends remaining of the Wellesley Class of 1941, and also one of two close friends still alive from our memorable Saturday Night Crowd of seven couples.

     This gives me a 50% chance of being the last leaf of three different groups of old, old friends.

     Not that there is anything wrong with that! It doesn't sadden me, or make me happy, and I have figured a way to stay in touch with all of those who have left us. I write a little something to them every now and then, and they reply, in my dreams. They speak to me, directly, and I don't need a dream-book interpretation. I get the message, I truly do.

     I can send an up-date message to my missing friends, here on my blog. That's a totally new concept for most of them but I am sure they will catch up quickly. Just remember wedeb90 blog spot, and we're back in communication. This is comforting to me, even if it sounds as if I am slightly nuts.

     I just need to believe that our memories are the way we never really lose anyone.

  Dear all,

Where ever you may be, my old friends-- you could actually be anywhere, I have no idea of the choices for the after-life-- but I just know that there has to be a way for me to reach you, sophisticated as communication is today. I always like to think that people in heaven are making phone calls to me when a face or a name or a dream comes to me, unaware. But how do I know if you are getting the messages from me to you?

I see you, each in your own outdoor, garden-y rooms, amid soft, pinkish, purpley clouds, in hidden grottos, and in clover-filled pastures, beside the still waters of a diamond-clear stream, in the gardens I always wish for but have never achieved.  Bob’s special cloud, I know, must have a small road banked with day lilies , under overarching trees, just like the short, quarter-mile stretch of country road on the way to Hide-A-Way Hills.

     Watch for my next blog.  Bit by bit, I will fill you in on what's been happening to me since last we met.

                                                                                              With love to all of you

                                                                                  

                                      

  

  

Common courtesy

     We are all aware that the culture in this country is in a deplorable condition. We have become accustomed to men wearing backward baseball caps in restaurants, to high school students with either their bosoms overflowing their tops (girls) or their bare butts on display, pants falling down (boys). Some of us, from another generation may not like it, but we are used to it.

     We live with the fact that old-fashioned manners have disappeared with the years, that even the columnist, Miss Manners herself .has become something of a dinosaur, and opening a door for a lady is macho and anti-feminist. We hardly notice the boorish and the vulgar.

     In the last few weeks, I have had three experiences that brought me up short. It was none of the above that made me sit up and take notice.  It was that my use of common courtesy astounded-- well, not astounded-- but so surprised the recipients.

     I mailed a check to pay my Wellesley Club dues, and the treasurer called to thank me. Now, it was I who was really astounded. I have paid those same small dues since 1941, the year I graduated. Thank me for paying my dues? She explained that some of the older members who no longer attend meetings do not pay. I understand; there are some organizations to which I have always belonged that I now do not pay, either. Those organizations hound me year after year to re-join. This is much ado about due(s); nevertheless. It was so nice to be thanked.

     Next, Temple Israel called to say they had a gift for me, and a volunteer would bring it to my door. I told her that I couldn't get to the door at that moment, but I would in a very short while. She asked if she could leave it by my door, which she did. Because I didn't get a chance to thank her in person, I sent an e mail to the Temple administrator, asking where I should direct my thanks, and did I receive the box of Purim goodies because I was 90? She said my e mail was more thanks than was expected and it wasn't really because I was 90.  I could read between the lines that my acknowledgement was a surprise. Why?

     And finally, I ordered a magazine for a friend on-line and the order went through but there was no place for me to pay for it. So, I called the subscription department, and they were surprised that I had
made the effort to pay them.

     There is a moral to these stories, somewhere in this blog.

     To be nicer. more polite people,  instead of going with the flow, we could try to divert the flow from spiraling down ward and begin, like salmon, to run against the tide.

     Using common sense, we might find a consensus on the rules of common decency.

     It's not Jane Austen I yearn for.  It's just Emily Post.

and I can't get health care, health care off my mind

     I hope most of you heard Keith Olberman's remarkable comments on CNBC about his father who has suffered the tortures of end of life health care. Tubes and stents and tracheotomies and surgeries, all the horrors of life in the care of fine doctors, whose sole mission seemed to be to keep his father alive!

     The comments were aimed at the recalcitrant Republicans who are making a public option, pre-existing conditions and escalating insurance premiums impossible to enact.

     Mr.  Olberman has medicare and the finest part D policy, but the out of pocket expense have been huge. For that family, money is not the issue, at all. For most Americans, it would be.  It is.

     I live with the issue of death and dying lurking somewhere in my mind. I think most ninety year old people are aware of its possibility! I am not worried about it, and my children and I have  talked it through and are on the same page. So is my doctor.

     No heroic measures! Do not resuscitate! Call Hospice to allow me to die with dignity. It's as simple and humane as that. It is all on paper, in my file at the doctor's office, in a desk drawer at my house, and with my power(ful) attorney, which is what my daughter, who has my power of attorney, calls herself.

     Designated Daughter, the book we wrote together, was the memoir of our journey from the early good years when she became my companion after Bob died to the later years when I began to fail, the bad years. I felt the book was the rehearsal for my death, only I recovered from Hospice and am still around.

     So ,we have finished rehearsing; we are ready for the main event. It won't be soon, but we will be ready. I only wish the very smart Keith Olberman and all the physicians had been able to relieve his father of his terrible physical suffering and admit that when it is time, it is time.

     My grandmother ( I cannot even calculate the year she made the observation) said there should be a sign of every hospital's front door: "Abandon Hope all Ye who enter here". I don't know if she was a pessimistic kind of woman; I know she was a smart woman.

It's my fault if I get an ulcer

     I have spent the entire morning on the phone and the computer, trying to do two simple things: order a magazine subscription as a gift and order some easy-open caps from my new prescription provider.

     Unfortunately, I made it much harder for myself than I needed to.

     There was one of those tear out forms in my magazine on a pre-paid postal card. My identity is hardly worth having, but I was hesitant to send my credit-card info out into the great unknown. So, without thinking about putting it in an envelope, I decided to call the magazine. I was asked to leave my number and they would call me back. But, they didn't. So, I called the editor, who couldn't have been nicer. Had the situation been reversed, I am sure I would have been annoyed at the chutzpah of a reader, making a nuisance call like that. But he transferred me over to the subscription manager, who also asked me to leave a message. Feeling more frustrated than before, I went on line and placed the order, but there was no place that asked for my credit card info.  So, I called again, leaving a message that I wanted to pay for what I had ordered. When he called me back, the manager took my card number over the phone. He was mildly surprised that I had gone to so much trouble to pay for what I ordered.

     This has to be some shady world we live in.

     Next, I tackled the drug provider. Surrounded by all my needed information, I waited and waited and waited to speak to someone who could send me the right size , easy-open caps for my bottles. While I was endlessly hearing that an agent would be with me shortly, my call was interrupted by my CPA who had a few matters she wanted to discuss.

     After our conversation, I went online again, and tried to order the caps. Following directions of page after page, I still came up empty. We don't even need the damned caps for a week or two.  Finally, after lunch I found another phone number, and,just like that I spoke to a helpful woman who is ordering them for me today.

     I'm really not going to get an ulcer, but how many ulcers have I given to the people I do business with?  

Health Care Hazard

     I am having a most unfortunate problem with the health care system. Not nearly as difficult a problem as the Republicans are making for Obama. Annoying, though. Very annoying.

     I am not even sure of the questions to ask to find the solution, or even what to do if I finally frame the questions.

     First off, know that the problem has nothing to do with my provider. Medigold is an HMO under the auspices of Mt. Carmel Hospitals. They do everything right; we joined when it was first offered eleven years ago and have not had a problem through MDs and RXs and Hospice and Home Health Care, routine visits or ordering meds through the mail. They are very available on the phone. Everyone should be so lucky!

     At first, I thought that the constant ringing of my phone, only to hear the beep, beep of a Fax machine was the fault of my phone provider. After many attempts to use my *60 to block the calls, I eventually went far enough up the chain, to corporate, to report this. They sent a technician to the house, and it took him a long time to block the three numbers who had been frequent callers.

     One of the barriers to blocking the calls is to insert the offending number super-fast. I have a caregiver who can do it; I simply cannot. I suggested that perhaps the blocker might be given three-seconds more to make the report. It is still barely one-second.

     Now I have six blocked numbers, and they all have been made by health-related facilities.

      One the first faxers was Ohio Psychiatric Hospital. I called them on their real phone and was given a helpful hint.He thought the person running the fax machine had not used the 1 or the 614 before dialing, and by being one digit off, the call came through to me. I so alerted Altercare and blocked them.  I thought I had blocked Monterey Nursing Home, but they are at it again.  Consulting the yellow pages, I find multiple Montereys in the state of Ohio. Different facilities, different personnel, different fax numbers.

     My theory is that they are all ordering medication. Some have pre-set their machines to send at 1:00 a.m. My phone has been quiet all morning. But when this happens again, I am only allowed 14 more numbers to block.

     Would I change my phone number ?  Never.

     Could I add an amendment to the Health Care bill that all medical supply companies, all pharmacies, everywhere use the same fax number, which then would be able to direct them to a specific supplier? Who would care how long the queue? Who would care how long Fax 1 waited to be sent to the supplier of their choice?

     If only I had a congressman who would listen to me.

  

Facebook and the dueling grandmothers

     It is just a basic fact of life.  Let's face it (or rather let's Facebook it).  There is nary a grandmother who doesn't want to show off her grandchildren, and now we all have a new, much more effective way to do it. There they are, lovely grandchild after grandchild; They come to us in profile pictures, and posts, and, e-mails, too.

     I remember baby brag-books. Most grandmothers carried one; whisked out of purses at first greeting. There are many different opinions about the internet, the many constructive ways it can be used. Admittedly,  frivolous uses, time-wasting uses also exist. Think forwarded jokes. But it certainly is a fine way to share your kids. Only to your friends, but now you have more" friends" in cyberspace who touch you every day than you have in real life.

     There are a lot of sweet babies out there, but none as cute as mine.  There I have said it. 

     In the interest of full disclosure, as they say , I must confess that I am not talking about my absolutely magnificent grandchildren, because they are in a completely different age category. I,  for their competition, will enter them in the 20-30 year old category. But I do not know how to post a picture. Let alone put this blog on my Facebook page.

      It is as a great-grandmother, that I join the competition with Zach 5 and Nate, 2. 

       And I have a very good chance of winning this competition because both of their parents are technology wizards. ( This is not bragging about my granddaughter and her husband. Didn't I just say my grandchildren cannot be in the competition, because they don't qualify, age-wise?)

      Maggie and Jon post so many beautiful photos that I  look forward to each day. I could win on quantity alone.  I can see the funny things they say and the notes Zach writes  I am their Wede and I can feel them near, even if there is most of the country between us.

       I can hear my daughter, the grandmother, shouting with joy. I am declaring her  the winner.

       And, I am the only judge in this contest.

   

Everybody talks about

     The weather. Always have, always will. From the meaningless "how do you like this heat," to the inane "this is some snow," it is a sure conversation starter.

     But I am really not blogging about the ten inches on my lawn, or repeat how blessed I am that my caregivers are making it to me in a Level 2 emergency. Yet, the truth is that the snow is almost up to the mailbox on its' high stand at the top of my drive, and these wonderful women continue to be true to they're calling and to me.

     When Bob called last evening, as the snow was  continuing to fall, he asked what was my level of anxiety.  I answered honestly; Zero.

     By now, you are scratching your head and wondering why in the world am I even writing, saying a lot of nothing.

     I am writing because I cannot not write!  I can Facebook or real book,  Shadow Tag, by Louise Erdrich. It is making me think a lot. These are weird people; do they love or hate each other, they are destroying their children in the tension. It is a lot more interesting than how I have chosen to spend this half hour.

     But write I must.  It is not my Judeo-Christian work ethic or my need to be creative.

     It seems to be a basic need. 

     Now I feel better.