Yesterday I took the train to CityPlace Station, and a bus to Preston & Beverly, then walked to work at the library. Left the Buick in Plano. I can't write comments on the Morning News blogs supporting mass transit if I don't ride it. Right?

So, when I walk out of the library at 5:40 the sky is a bit cloudy. By the time I'm walking through the shopping area it is windy and sprinkling. If I'd had any sense I would have waited for the bus outside the Tex-Mex restaurant, but I had time to kill, so I walked up McKinney to the next stop. It's raining, but it feels refreshing. At the stop a sprinkler system or storm sewer has gone haywire and is shooting gallons of water into the air in front of some trendy apartments AND fireworks are exploding in a tree. Lots of fireworks whizzing around, and big dogs running like crazy. So I walk on north up McKinney to where I think the next stop must be. And walking, and walking. My cell phone is ringing. It's Dad. I don't try to answer because the hail is marble size and I'm standing under an awning asking patio bar customers where the bus stop is. They look at me like I'm a crazy homeless bag lady, which I am starting to resemble. So I keep walking north figuring I have to find a bus stop or Mockingbird Station eventually. Once you are soaked to the skin it's not bad once the hail stops. Kind of like running through the sprinkler fully-clothed as a kid. Finally find a bus stop and the bus arrives. I leave a puddle on the bus.

At Mockingbird Station I call Dad back while I'm waiting for the train. He's gotten himself into a panic, calling and calling my sister and I at our various numbers and getting no one, no longer knowing who he is dialing. He says he's got a big problem. I figure he's fallen on the floor again and can't remember to push the call button. No, he got a bill and he wants to write a check, but he can't tell me who the bill is from or for how much. He's all into how the bill had been forwarded in the mail. And he's got to pay it by the 25th of something, but he's not sure what.

So I'm standing there dripping wet, talking loudly into my cell phone about Milk of Magnesia and Rx charges to my father who can't hear. Some people are moving away. Others are coming up to me to ask the time. A train goes by. I try to explain to Dad that this is not the best moment for me and I'll call him when I'm dry, but he's too anxious about the bill. Okay, he can write the check and stamp the envelope. Then I realize he will try to get out of his chair to go find the stamps in the drawer. Sigh. I've got most of the bills coming to me or automatically paid, but this one snuck through.

I stand up on the train all the way home, dripping, so I don't leave a wet seat for some unwary passenger.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Making a list and falling down twice

The weekend my column about fear of falling appeared in the East edition of the Dallas Morning News, my dad fell twice in three days. I spent last night compiling and annotating a list of my father's falls and other incidents over the past two years. Very sad to see the evidence of an average one fall per month, even though most injuries were minor.

The weekend ahead will be difficult as my siblings and I meet with Dad to convince him the time for assisted living has arrived. Dad is frail, depressed, cantankerous, and penny-pinching. He's also a sentimental fool and very funny storyteller. I'm calling up all my memories of that outstanding, ethical, hilarious, inspiring character to form my arguments for assisted living.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Stir fry, bright eye

Dad picked up his new eyeglasses today. He hasn't been comfortable reading for way too long, despite his cataract surgeries last spring. The eye doctor told him it might take two weeks to adjust to the prescription.

I'm so excited that Dad read the stir fry basics from the Lincoln Journal Star Food section to me over the phone. The information was interesting to him and perhaps useful to me. Best of all, he was enjoying reading again!


© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Rolling cookie dough before dawn

First time I ever set my alarm for 5:45 so I could bake cookies, but it worked. The kitchen was cold, except for the preheating oven. The dough rolled easily without getting sticky.

Dad has requested cut-out sugar cookies like his mother used to make. He wants them thin and brown, the way we both prefer.

I'd hoped to make cookies for Dad when I was in Lincoln over Thanksgiving. Even if I had found Mom's cookie cutters, I could hear her warning the kitchen was too warm to roll cookies.

In December Mom would also be frustrated when the kitchen was too cold to bake houska or cardamon braid, our traditional Christmas breads. The yeast needs a warm winter day to rise -- a steamed kitchen.

Found my cookie cutter collection odd. The butterfly, hearts, squirrel, and roller skate cutters went for clay art projects long ago. The bell and other Christmas forms must have gotten too rusty.

Dad will be getting a package with a few reindeer, helicopters, brontosaurus, and one ghost (of Christmas past). There will be boots and pine trees, and several states of Texas. And there will be lots and lots of owl cookies. He should just pretend they are arctic snowy owls.

My grandma would arrive for the holiday on the Greyhound bus. She would climb down carrying two cardboard shirt boxes tied with string. One would be full of sugar cookies. The other would hold prune and apricot kolaches. I hope my little mailed tub of cookies gives Dad some taste memories.

Packing tape

I'm hearing a continuous loop of my mom enumerating her instructions for trip preparation. Fritzi seems quite nearby this week. The little gray-green bird has been in the playground shade tree at recess. A pair of hawks sat on the utility pole today. A slate gray junco has been calling attention to itself at my patio feeder. The birds all want to know the next plan for my dad.

Dad is still calling most of his own shots, but he's getting frail. We have to discuss options for assisted living this holiday visit.

Fritzi would have things more planned and organized. She would have a clear solution to Dad's living arrangements. There would be no doubt as to her opinion, but the birds just suggest she's on the premises while I must try to find my own preferences and negotiate an arrangement.

Thanks to new airline restrictions on baggage, I'm breaking Fritzi's first rule of travel:

Always, ALWAYS, take a spare pair of shoes.

Some of Mom's other travel rules follow.

Rule #2:

Have "a little something" in your purse in case you get too hungry. Fritzi's "little something" was usually a butterscotch candy or lemon drop.

Rule #3:

Take salty snacks in case you get queasy. Fritzi never traveled without saltines, Fritos, or pretzels.

Rule #4:

Cover the toilet seat with bathroom tissue before you sit down!

Rule #5:

Loading the car trunk is an an art form best not left to mere mortals.