Sunset Observer #1: Parking Close…by Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture | @MDWorld

May 16, 2013 Whitney Farmer 11 Comments

Mom said yes when I suggested we play hooky from our spring cleaning and hit IKEA for plastic stuff and cinnamon rolls. Since Mom hasn’t died as soon as she thought she would, she has instead decided to put shelves up in her room.  This makes sense if a person is planning on staying somewhere for a while.

Wanting to take advantage of her energy reserves before the effects of her chronic insomnia crush her in the early afternoon, I quickly put on hoop earrings and red lipstick in order to look good from a distance, and raided my cleaning supplies to douse myself with Febreez. Unlike my reorganized bathroom, I hadn’t been scrubbed yet. Why not perfume? Wouldn’t that work? Ha. Take the pebble from my hand, Grasshopper…

Being Mom’s designated driver has the advantage of being able to use handicapped parking.  She carries the car pass in her Africa print purse so that her entitlement goes wherever she goes. In Orange County, those blue passes make you a blue-ribbon VIP.  You can even valet park at hospitals for just a tip-out.

I parked close to the exit in the blue VIP section because exhaustion and arthritis hit my heroine at the end of shopping adventures, only after she is done hunting. Before that, the endorphin pump from fantasizing about living in one of the 400 square foot display rooms gives everything a glow. The heroine is high on (natural) heroin imagining being single in the city with Swedish books crammed into her newly installed shelves. It’s not that she hasn’t loved Dad for over sixty years and the other generations that have flowed out from them in the wake of their lives. But with Mom, stopping and staying in one place is a choice. Just like with her choice to follow Jesus, it is a genuine act of will instead of just a painless unconscious reflex. Her natural disposition tends to anonymous shenanigans.

We decided to first go to the children’s section because of the liberal use of primary colors which Mom loves.  Kids were climbing all over everything, clearly relaxed in their natural habitat.  Mom commented that she was glad that we had come during feeding time. They are more active then. The viewing abruptly ended when we saw a darling toddler try to clean up a fake bedroom by putting some trash into a crib, and Mom told the mom that she has a very responsible little daughter. Honest mistake due to the long ringlets on the little boy that the mom must have thought conveyed “Europe” rather than “Girl”. We backed away and moved on…

Walking through the aisles, our laughter and banter was accessible to anyone who cared to listen. She talks loudly now and I’m okay with it. Mom’s hearing loss has left her with only her wits and newly developed skill at lip-reading to hold a conversation. Wearing red lipstick helps her capture my words as long as I make the effort to articulate. My volume doesn’t help her so much as making sure we are face to face before I speak and slowing down my pronunciation.  She now reads faces and mouths as well as she reads books. And when she is tired of ‘listening’ to you, she simply shifts her gaze away from your lips. It’s brutal, but I don’t blame her. Like other aspects of growing old, being deaf is hard work.

We left the DIY cathedral minus $27 but carrying a huge blue bag filled with clever things and a dozen warm cinnamon rolls. Despite wearing my healthy patent leather Mary Jane clogs with my cutoffs, I was hot and tired and glad that I had a Handicapped VIP with me so that we had scored a great parking place.

But to be honest, I would rather that she didn’t qualify for the blue pass.

Author’s note: I haven’t written in too long. My apologies and warm thanks to everyone who has been concerned. My life is very different now and I’ve needed to figure out how to write truthfully. No angst, and everything I’ve written in the past was honest. But it has felt now like I was putting on clothes that don’t fit anymore. A big part of my life now is being with my parents until – as Mom says – “well…you know…” I’m witnessing things that I hadn’t expected that are very important to me. I want to write about them whenever I can because they might be important to someone else as well.

NEXT TIME: Dad gets injections in his eyeball…  

Picture of me, from my sister’s cell phone.