Is someone here?

Posted on July 5, 2015 by judithclarkewrites under Chores, Dementia, Laughter

My longtime friend Bonnie and her husband Paul visited us for a couple of days last week. They were on their way from Florida to his high school reunion in Ohio.

Bonnie had emailed several times the weeks before. She wanted to make sure it was OK for them to stay with us. “Will it upset Peter?” she wondered. “Please tell us. We understand completely. We could get a hotel room.”

I reassured her that Peter remembered they were coming, though he wasn’t sure he remembered them. They were here two years ago and he’d met them at several of our class reunions, but as he says, he can’t remember what he had for breakfast.

During the days leading up to their visit Peter was extra helpful. We’d had workmen here for a week fixing our sagging carport. Sawdust and grime had drifted into the house, crusting everything. I vacuumed and dusted while Peter scrubbed the bathtub and tidied the flower beds. He mowed the yard almost willingly.

They arrived on time, well, a minute late actually. She texted an hour earlier that their GPS said they’d arrive at 12:11. They rolled in at 12:12. But what’s a minute between old friends?

It was a pleasant, sunny day, so we ate lunch on the terrace. Then Bonnie and I chattered and reminisced the whole afternoon like two women of a certain age who have known each other for all but the first two years of their lives. Paul chimed in now and then because he knew some of the people we talked about, and Peter listened, smiling. We carried on through dinner and sat outside until the lightning bugs’ glow wasn’t bright enough for us to clear the table.

Back inside, Bonnie pulled out the eight millimeter movie film she’d brought along. She had never seen it, but she’d checked beforehand to make sure I still had my dad’s old projector. The film showed her learning to walk and on through Christmases and birthdays to the age of six or seven.

Peter laughed at us laughing with tears in our eyes.

The next morning I was having my second cup of coffee when Peter came downstairs. He looked puzzled. “What’s going on upstairs?” he asked. “Is someone in the bathroom?”

I chuckled. “Well, it’s either Bonnie or Paul,” I said.

He was still confused.

“Bonnie and Paul…they got here yesterday!” No matter how enjoyable the day and evening had been, he could not remember that we had overnight guests.

He slathered his usual two slices of toast with Keillor & Sons orange marmalade, poured coffee into his big green mug, and sat down to read the paper. He reads the paper again every afternoon because he forgets the news he’s read hours earlier. And he truly can’t remember what he has for breakfast, even though he has the same thing day after day after day.

Gold Coreopsis brightens shady spots, while Black-Eyed Susan vine (at top) seems to glow in the dark.

Header photo: climbing Susans.

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.

Inside out or outside in?

Posted on April 27, 2015 by judithclarkewrites under Chores, Laughter

When he’s inside looking out, Nobby presses his nose against the family room window. When he’s outside and wants in, he presses his nose against the same window. The lower panes are always smudged with doggie nose prints.

Friday was brilliantly sunny for a change. I suggested to Peter that he might wash that big window. “What do I use, and how do I do it?” he asked.

I set him up with spray cleaner and cloths and suggested he start in the middle section. Next thing I knew he was washing the kitchen window on the side of the house where a step ladder is required. No doggie slobbers on that window. I nudged him to the back of the house.

A few minutes later I noticed he had the yucky old rag I use to wipe spills off the kitchen floor. Bad enough he was using the grungy cloth, but besides that, he was outside and the spray cleaner was inside.

About then a friend walked in and complimented Peter on the sparkly the window beside the table. I laughed. “He hasn’t done that one yet,” I said.

“I have no idea which ones I’ve done,” Peter said. “I’m just trying to do what I’m told.”

An hour later, the designated windows were shining! I don’t know how he did it, and it’s probably better not to ask. At least he does windows!

Header photo: Window, cleaner than it was before!

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.

Note: A good time to laugh is anytime you can.

Posted on April 18, 2015 by judithclarkewrites under Laughter, Remember

Adventures. That’s what my friend Joanne and I called our treks to out-of-the-way places for lunch, sight-seeing or shopping. Sometimes we were gone most of the day. That stopped when I realized I couldn’t leave my husband on his own for so long. So one day Jo and I decided we’d walk right around the corner to Lefty’s for lunch.

“Peter, come with us,” Joanne said.

“No, no, I’m good,” he said. I knew he really didn’t want to listen to us chatter the way we do.

The restaurant is quite small, so we went early to beat the lunch crowd. Our mouths were going faster than the traffic outside when I, facing the street, saw Peter walk past.

“Wonder where he’s going?” I said. I wasn’t worried because he often walks to the grocery a block further. We took our time over lunch. When we got up to leave, I glanced at a table a few feet away, and there sat my husband, his back to us, with a beer in front of him.

Neither Joanne nor I saw him come in. We sidled over to his table and I slid into the chair beside him. “Can I take your order, Sir?” I asked.

He was startled. “I’ve already eaten,” he said, straight-faced. Joanne started laughing.

“I saw you walk past an hour ago.”

“I came back…!”

“Didn’t you see us?” I asked.

“No, didn’t you see me?”

“No, but you must have looked right at us when you came in…”

“I didn’t see you.”

That shouldn’t have surprised me. It isn’t unusual for my husband to come into the room and not see me sitting on the sofa. I wasn’t surprised that we hadn’t seen him since we were at a right angle to his table and his back was to us.

Artist Rebecca Murtagh’s, Post-it notes installation, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY

A few weeks later, our friends Jerry and Shelia were here. We were going to Lefty’s for dinner, and I told them about Peter not seeing Joanne and me there one lunchtime. They laughed, as did Peter, though I was sure he didn’t remember the day. I stage-whispered to Jerry, “Good stuff for my blog.” He nodded. I should have made a note.

We went around the corner, and while we waited for our food we amused ourselves trying to identify the photos of famous lefties beside our table. We knew da Vinci and Rembrandt, Einstein and Edison, but were stymied by a man I thought was Woodrow Wilson (Henry Ford), and a woman who, we found out, was Helen Keller. Peter joked he’d never met any of them.

As we carried on like the old friends we are, I suddenly thought, this is good stuff, too, but the idea I’d had a few hours earlier hadn’t stuck. I asked Jerry if he remembered my idea.

“Unh uh…oh, Lefty’s!” he blurted.

Shelia hooted. “You two can’t remember the story and we’re in the restaurant where it happened!” She looked at my husband and laughed. “Pete, who has memory problems now, hm?”

Shared laughs are the best.

Art Fry, co-creator of Post-It® notes, started using the “light tack” notes — 3M’s “solution without a problem” — to mark his hymnal at choir practice. Art’s bright idea is one I use to help Peter, and should use to help myself!

Header photo: Rainbow of Post-It notes.

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.

This is the way he makes our bed.

Posted on April 12, 2015 by judithclarkewrites under Autism, Control, Dementia, Laughter, Lifelong

Peter helps around the house…creatively. He can no long fix or build things like he used to, so he’s invented chores and ways to do them.

He scuffs at embryonic maple leaves and tiny pear blossom petals — they hitch rides inside attached to Nobby — off the family room rug with the edge of his shoe, then picks them up and carries them to the wastebasket. Using the hand vac would be quicker and do a better job, but he likes his shoe method.

After I’ve done my weekly run-through downstairs with the vacuum cleaner, Peter straightens the fringe on the rugs, sometimes with the dog’s wire brush, sometimes with a comb, once with my pastry fork! I don’t care whether the fringe is untangled or not, but the pastry fork is off limits!

My husband has an ongoing obsession with picking up the tiny twigs that snap off the trees. He mounds them into piles in the woods or crams them into an empty birdseed bucket that I dump when he’s not looking. He polishes the kitchen countertops until they gleam, but he doesn’t move appliances out of the way to do it. There’s no doubt where the coffeemaker, knife block, tea kettle, and mixer live because the unbuffed areas tell the story.

I’m usually up and out at least an hour before Peter is, but when I come back from my walk he’ll have “made the bed.” That is, his side of the bed is smoothed, pillows plumped, spread straightened. My side remains as it was when I crept out — strangled pillows, tossed quilt, crumpled sheets.

When I hang laundry out back, I often ask him to bring it in. He brings his jeans, his shirts, his socks. His excuse for not bringing my clothes, our sheets or our dishtowels is, “I didn’t know you wanted them!”

That excuse, and the novel bed-making, has ASD (Austism Spectrum Disorder, fka Asperger Syndrome) written all over it. It’s nothing to do with dementia.

Peter charms this lass.

I’ve often said, my husband’s dementia is much easier for me to deal with than ASD. Neither can be “cured,” but ASD sometimes manifests as what I call “The Mt. Rushmore Effect” —stone-faced, remote, cold. And yet, the man I fell in love with all those years ago can be funnier, sweeter, and more charming than anyone I’ve ever met.

I’m sure Peter thinks his ASD is a non-issue since he’s lived with it successfully all his life; dementia, though, has foiled him and he does not go gently.

An excellent “Masterpiece Theater” series*, “Doc Martin”, makes both of us laugh no matter how many times we watch it. The Doc (Martin Clunes) is a highly intelligent surgeon who has a blood phobia and serious relationship issues with his patients, and with Louisa (Caroline Katz), the woman he tries to marry. Although sometimes cringe-inducing, the series is doubly funny to me, first, for its pure comedy, and second, because Doc Martin is my husband all over again. Peter doesn’t see himself, while I relate to Louisa’s devotion to and frustration with the man she adores.

* “Doc Martin” is also available on Netflix.

Header photo: All pictures, Middleton Place Gardens, North Carolina, 2011.

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.

Guess who’s the top banana in our house?

Posted on January 23, 2015 by judithclarkewrites under Laughter

At nearly 76, overripe and brown-spotted, I didn’t know that another symptom of advancing years, mine at least, is that I can no longer eat a big apple, for instance, or a large burger, and I certainly can’t eat a whole banana these days.

This morning I guillotined a banana right through its yellow-green jacket and sliced half onto a small bowl of granola. At lunch, I plopped the remaining banana half onto my husband’s plate along with his usual two-and-a-half pastrami sandwiches, carrot, pile of crisps, and hunk of Cheshire cheese.

My lunch was two pieces of cold pizza, just the toppings, no crust.

Peter ate everything except for the banana. It was still reclining across his plate, yellow peel draped elegantly across the cut end.

“Eat your banana,” I said.

“I did,” he replied.

“No, it’s still there. Look.”

He lifted the peel and peeked inside. “I hate half of it!” he protested.

“No, I ate half of it. I gave you the rest.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t eat a whole banana anymore.”

“There’s only half here.”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s the half I couldn’t eat. I put it there for you.”

“How am I supposed to remember that? That’s ancient history. I finished eating five minutes ago.”

I laughed.

“I’ll eat it later.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said. “You’ll forget.”

“Forget what?” he asked. And he wasn’t kidding.

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.

Is it over easy?

Posted on January 13, 2015 by judithclarkewrites under Family, Laughter

Here’s a laugh without tears as per my New Year’s resolution. It’s a memory from a hot sunny day to counteract the miserable, icy January scene outside my window.

Vacations on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, or other spots along the Atlantic coast, have been family favorites for years. Well, favorites for all except my husband. Peter doesn’t really enjoy the beach, but he can be lured with a good breakfast first — part of our tradition. One diner we stopped at had a long, varied menu. Peter, as usual, didn’t have his glasses, though he insisted he could read the fine print. Nonetheless he kept asking the table at large, “What do I want?” as he so often does anymore.

“Order your usual,” I said. He nodded and continued squinting at the menu.

When the young waiter returned, the rest of us ordered quickly, but Peter looked at me and asked again, “What do I want?”

Leslie and I grinned at each other and, in unison, recited, “Two eggs over easy, sausage, home fries, whole wheat toast.”

The waiter was startled. After a pause he asked, “What, is this guy mute?”

It probably wasn’t all that funny, but even Peter laughed with the rest of us. The only tears were caused by laughter.

The young man got a nice tip.

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.

When the edge is gone.

Posted on December 7, 2014 by judithclarkewrites under Defined, Laughter, tears

Our son-in-law Martin launches into contemplative ruminations occasionally, usually about some subject so obscure that no one knows what he’s talking about. We all laugh and pay him no nevermind. Some eyes may glaze over as he rambles.

Not long ago, Leslie and Martin, Peter and I went out to dinner. Leslie and I chattered about this and that, Martin chimed in now and then, and Peter listened, silent as usual.

Into a gap in the conversation Martin said, “You know, Pete reminds me of a well-loved old kitchen knife. A very good knife, once sharp, but a bit dulled by time and use.” Leslie and I chuckled, and Peter smiled as if he got it, but I know he didn’t. Martin was pleased with his metaphor and, I admitted, it was a good one.

Old knives did all sorts of jobs in the right hands — they peeled apples and potatoes, chopped cabbage, loosened sealed jars, dismembered chickens, even acted as screwdrivers in a pinch. Even when they don’t hold their edges anymore, those knives still hold pride of place in kitchen drawers, for sentimental reasons, if for nothing else.

My great-granddad Tommy’s whetstone and an old knife from my drawer.

Header photo: Veg for stew or for the compost bin?

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.

One good thing.

Posted on October 28, 2014 by judithclarkewrites under Laughter

In my husband’s case, his continuing sense of humor makes a horrible disease tolerable for both of us. Plus, I’ve discovered there are several things that are “good” about his dementia.

Peter doesn’t know how to describe pain, not even in the moment. Maybe he never did and I’m only now noticing. He can’t say if pain is sharp, dull, throbbing, piercing. He can’t say if it’s a three or a nine on a scale of ten.

Several months ago, he came to me nearly doubled over with pain. His shoulder was scrunched up towards his ear and he was gripping the back of his neck. “I don’t know what this is, but I need to go to the doctor,” he said, grimacing.

My husband never thinks he needs to see a doctor, and he never complains that he hurts. I calmed both of us down with a cup of tea, and after questioning him, I decided he’d had muscle spasms, not a heart attack. That was a Friday evening.

I watched him over the weekend, and though he winced from time to time, he never said another word. But Monday morning he complained again so I made an appointment to see the doctor.

By the time we arrived, he had no pain and no memory of it. I knew he hadn’t been faking, but I couldn’t believe he didn’t remember. Further, he didn’t know why we were in the doctor’s waiting room! When I asked how he felt, he shook his head dismissively, and shrugged his shoulders. Then he stood and patted himself down — chest, back, arms, legs — and said, “Yep, I ‘feel’ just fine.” His eyes twinkled.

The doctor said arthritic spurs on his upper spine were making the nerves twang like too-tight banjo strings. He prescribed ointment, pain pills, and physical therapy.

One good thing— check!

Header photo: Sweet state in a North Carolina garden.

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.

Bubble troubles suck.

Posted on October 5, 2014 by judithclarkewrites under Helpful hints, Laughter

Ever since he retired, Peter has cleaned up the kitchen after dinner, no small job when I cook. He’s always been rigid about loading the dishwasher, as an engineer would be, but now he stacks and restacks, never sure he’s done it right.

These days he doesn’t actually wash the pots and pans, but he dries them meticulously. I grit my teeth and remind myself to wash them before I use them. Recently, I got a pan out and realized it had gone directly from stovetop to pot drawer — mashed potato bits were still inside.

It has become my job to put the detergent in the dishwasher and either turn the machine on right away or set the timer. My husband has a history of putting liquid Dawn in the dishwasher because he forgets it’s only for use in the sink. We’ve had bubble floods several times. If that happens, and I’m not close by, he panics and can’t remember how to turn the dishwasher off, nor that the wet/dry shop vac lives right at the bottom of the basement stairs.

At least, by the time the mess is mopped up the kitchen floor is cleaner that it has been in weeks! Both the liquid Dawn and Cascade powder are labeled so he’ll know which to use, but he doesn’t always read them.

Over one Christmas holiday, the guys — Peter, Martin and Bill — were to have day out. Before they left, I noticed suds oozing up in the sink. “I hope you didn’t put washing-up liquid in the dishwasher…” I said to Peter. He was positive he hadn’t and it was already cycling with no apparent problems.

But a few minutes after they left, I noticed a dribble of water on the floor in front of the dishwasher, then a frothy stream. I peeked inside. Betty Grable needed those bubbles for her bathtub scene in “My Heart Tells Me” (1943).

Carolynn was here helping fix dinner. She ran to get the shop vac, I grabbed old towels to soak up what I could, and together we attacked the bubbles and water, proud that we were coping so brilliantly!

“Mom, turn it off!” she yelped suddenly.

Water was shooting out the vac’s exhaust and spewing across the kitchen. The vac was more than half full of soapy water, so we dragged it outside — that much water is heavy — and managed to dump it down the carport steps.

Then she suggested that she hold a big leaf bag over the exhaust’s opening, a prophylactic of sorts, while I finished clearing the dishwasher. The bubbles were nearly all sucked up when she yelled again, this time while laughing hysterically. “Turn it off! MOM, TURN IT OFF!”

The bag, inflated from the powerful exhaust, was pulling the vacuum cleaner into the laundry room. My daughter was skidding along behind it, while I slid to the floor laughing.

We were Lucy and Ethel in a scene even they never imagined.

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.

Short-term memory long gone.

Posted on September 24, 2014 by judithclarkewrites under Helpful hints, Laughter

Years ago, when I was a single mom, my tools for household repairs were glue gun, duct tape, and WD-40. If those didn’t do the job, whatever needed fixing remained broken.

Where’s the glue gun?

Then I met Peter. After our first date forty years ago, I brought him home to meet my young daughters. He made an impression on them, as he had on me, but when he looked beyond us, at our house, he shook his head and rolled his eyes. He brought his tool box to our second date.

From then until five or six years ago, he fixed all sorts of things with ease, built and refinished furniture, made games and toys, painted and wall-papered, took care of the cars, grocery-shopped, and occasionally cooked meals.

He can no longer do any of those things, nor does he notice they need doing. For a while he was mad at himself because even simple tasks were beyond him. Now he doesn’t seem to care.

I care.

I care that he doesn’t notice, that he can’t do little jobs, that he can’t care. It frustrates each of us in different ways, though there’s a common denominator — dementia.

Household repairs piled up undone, but I long since surrendered my glue gun. Then I realized that a member our writers’ group writes in his spare time, but is a handyman by day! Several members of the group have used him and all speak highly of his work.

John! He studies the problem, figures out what should be done, what parts he’ll need, and arrives on time — often with bounty from his garden — to do the work.

And Peter likes him, he really likes him. Usually, if someone he doesn’t know comes to the house he hides upstairs to work on his Cutty Sark model. But from the first, he laughed with John as if they were old buddies.

Last week, John asked Peter if he’d like to go to Lowe’s with him to get supplies for my most recent to-do list. Peter was out the door before the question mark arrived at the end of the sentence. He returned laughing and John was amazed he’d talked about such a variety of subjects — WWII, soccer, cars, “Generous” Electric— common topics for my husband who had a new audience in John. Peter’s short-term memory is long gone, but he remembers the good old days.

That evening I told him I was surprised he’d been willing to go to Lowe’s spur-of-moment. “I don’t get to go everyday like I used to,” he said, a nod to when he could still drive himself wherever he wanted to go.

My to-do list for John grows daily, and I’m thrilled he’s “on call.” I think I’ll pass these fixes on to him. Might come in handy sometime!

Great pumpkin drop.

Q. How do you fix a broken mallard?
A. Duct tape.

Q. How do you fix broken dentures?
A. Toothpaste.

Q. How do you fix a stolen rifle?
A. Hot glue gun.

Q. How do you fix a broken pumpkin?
A. Pumpkin patch.

“How do you fix…?” glue jokes. Trevor, the Games Man.

Header photo: Restful space, Montreal Botanical Gardens, 2010

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.

Dementia isn't funny.

Caregiver Judith Clarke looks for laughs every day.

Category Archives: Laughter

Is someone here?

Inside out or outside in?

Note: A good time to laugh is anytime you can.

This is the way he makes our bed.

Guess who’s the top banana in our house?

Is it over easy?

When the edge is gone.

One good thing.

Bubble troubles suck.

Short-term memory long gone.