Travels with my Mother III: .... YVR-FRA - MomTown

I get up at 6:00 to get my laundry out of the drier.  I was just tooooo tired last night.  And I don't want to think about today.  It's going to be a LOOONG day.

8:00 

The daily ritual of taking care of Mother's medical needs.  She cooperates less every day but we get it done.  I'm not looking forward to injecting that anti-thrombosis thing with the loooong needle again. 


My agenda for today is overwhelmingly full.   So when my relatives just sit there at the breakfast table and wait for me to serve on them, I'm close to blowing my fuse.  SOMEHOW I manage not to.  It's probably the prospect of being in Athens in 4 days.  Without that mental relief, I don't know how I would  manage.

8:45
I'm getting stuck in traffic on the way back to the hotel and on my way to the gas station and the rental car return. 

A cyclist was run over by a car driver down-town and the back-log stretches all the way to North Vancouver.  I am SO GLAD I'm leaving this hell hole today.

9:15
The Albanian car rental people ask me whether I watched the soccer game between Germany & South Korea.  Nope.  But I admit I enjoy the news that South Korea won TWO to NOTHING and that Germany is OUT.   Mexico goes to the next round!   Go Mexico Go !





10:30
I had planned to check out at 11:00 but at 10:20 the TV dies.  And all the lights.  Power failure.   EVERY SINGLE time I stay here, the power fails.  It's not the hotel's fault.  The gas stations, the other hotels, even the traffic lights are all out.  This happens at least once a month.  NO, there is NO wind.  I don't mind living in a Third World country if the cost of living and the lack of reliability in services are kind of related.  But Vancouver is EXPENSIVE and things don't work.  Bad Combo!

I try sticking the 1 cm long needle of the Anti-Thrombosis syringe into my mother but both my mother's behaviour and my own squeamishness cause me to say "FUCK THIS, I'm waiting for a Nurse Next Door".  With Nurse Next Door, mother all of a sudden smiles, and cooperates like a lamb.   I definitely owe Jessica a bottle of Rose !!!!

NOT the SeaBus escalator.
I'm too busy carrying suitcases to take a picture ..

Didn't I only very recently state that things DON'T work in Vancouver?  We've crossed Burrard Inlet on the SeaBus.  On the downtown side. BOTH escalators are OUT of ORDER.  And these are TALL & LONG escalators.  When I have finished lugging Mother's suitcase up the stationary escalator, I can't help but shout loudly "SHIT CITY! NOTHING WORKS!".

During a smoking break at YVR, I notice something strange.   

They have built solidly anchored Anti-Terror-Truck steel pylons into the sidewalk.  

Then they camouflaged them to look like natural rocks?

But WHY would they have EXCLUDED a 20 meter wide section of sidewalk, right next to where the cop cars are parked, right in front of a door to the terminal building?  Think those cops will stop eating donuts for a second to heroically stop a truck?  The usual these days:  Think little, spend lots !

We get to the check-in counter and find that the plane is delayed by one hour..... ....

At Milestones at YVR, eating bland, greasy & tasteless Fish & Chips for $14.99.  What is the minimum wage again in this province?  Actually, Minimum Wage was JUST increased to CAD$ 12.65 three weeks ago, but even at this higher level the minimum wage is a Starving Wage if trying to survive Vancouver's high cost of living !  

Aside from the money: it's the flavour and digestibility that will make me regret this food for hours to come.

Frankfurt, 14:00 CET

Mother is already complaining about EVERYTHING and I'm exhausted. And it's WARM in Frankfurt. 28 degrees! So we take a taxi instead of taking the bus.  It already starts during the taxi ride and culminates in the hotel. NOTHING is as Mother wants it.  Where are we?  WHY am I here?   My room is too hot!    



Time to visit REWE.  

I NEED wine or my tongue will give sound to the thoughts that my brain is thinking.   

Rioja Rose.  What could be a more comfortable way to approach the state of being comfortably NUMB?

And it gives me the serenity to stay calm when Mother insists that she is BORED and will go for a WALK, when all I can only think of hitting my mattress to SLEEP.  I tell her that since she can't even figure out how to open her room door with the magnetic key, she should refrain from going for 'walks', because she would have no chance of finding the hotel again, never mind getting into her room.  
"But WHAT am I going to do?"  she asks.  READ (you brought TWO books), watch TV (it's right there), sleep (after all it's 7 am Vancouver time and we were up most of the night)........

I sleep like a log

19:00
What is that noise?   It's the telephone in my room !   It's the reception calling me!  Mother is standing at the reception desk.  I quickly check her room next to me, she left the key in the energy-saving switch and used the waste-bin to block the door from closing.

I'm not in the least hungry, but I take mother to dinner to keep her from cruising the hotel hallways.

It's very odd, but somehow I KNOW that Germany will NOT be on the list of stop-overs in the future.  I'll miss my pseudo relatives in Frankfurt and some VERY DEAR friends (Hello Hofheim am Taunus, Norderney & Bad Schwartau), but after the experience of the last 10 days, I don't see myself coming back to Germany soon)

I'm coming back from my first cigarette at 6:15. Still sleepy and groggy.
It's almost natural that I find mother wandering the hotel hallways on the way back to my room.   She insists that she has NO room key, NO watch, NO bracelet, NOTHING.  EVERYTHING magically vanished overnight.  I have to tell her in a voice REPEATEDLY to stay in her room and that I will visit in 20 minutes to deal with her injections and take her for breakfast.

Breakfast is torture. I'm still dead-tired.  I'm still reeling from the "Everything is GONE" drama at 6:30. Mother heaps various things from the breakfast buffet onto her plate and at the table tries them and then pushes them away again.  Accompanied by that "I deserve better" facial expression.  I keep quiet. What's the point?  6 hours and it will all be over.

Deutsche Bahn did it again. NO, I don't mean that the train is late. THAT is expected.  This time they did something else.  The reservations are for a car with individual compartments of 6 seats.  The car we enter is a car with continuous seats without divisions.  So seats that were together in the compartment car are now in different rows.  GRAND CONFUSION.  The fact that the NEXT car is is an entire car with compartments and NONE of the seats is reserved doesn't help.  
I realize with HORROR that the reservation system in the Reunification Express in Vietnam WORKS and that the reservations system of Deutsche Bahn in Germany does NOT WORK.   A big grin appears on my face.....



Oh, and the dining car neither has power nor real food, so that instead of a croissant I have to eat M&Ms and the white wine is warm.   It would be funny if it wasn't so sad !

No WiFi either (of course).

But then every train journey comes to an end.  And the end of this train journey has a VERY special meaning!

Mother is happy to be home. She waves at people and people wave at her.  I bring her suitcase to her room, hand over the left-over medication to the staff, and then give them Mother's passport.  

That settles it.

13:45

Deliverance !

Travels with my Mother II: FRA - YVR and a family reunion

I first get up at 5, but that's way too early.  A smoke and another nap.... 6:30 feels better.  I don't want to sleep too much, otherwise I won't be able to sleep in the plane .... but then I have a feeling that Mother won't let me sleep anyway ....

By 7:00 I have prepared Mother's pills for the day.

I make the mistake of turning on the TV.  OH NO, Trump first thing in the morning is TOO MUCH, LOL.

Doesn't he look like a phony Televangelist?
Surprise:  HE IS ONE !
For the DARK SIDE !

And I have an epiphany.  Never mind that the US is now running Concentration Camps for children forcefully separated from their parents, Trump for another 7 years is actually quite likely.  He keeps telling Americans how great HE is and how much better their lives have become.   People actually believe this kind of BS if they hear it often enough.   Vancouver's persistent rating as the WORLD's 3rd most livable city (The Economist's rating is based on polls of residents of the cities) is proof of that.  Just keep telling people that they live in Paradise and soon they feel like Adam & Eve.  

OK, back to reality.  


I am on a schedule here (all the while secretly hoping that Mother hasn't left her room, or much worse, the building.....).




8:00
I'm getting good at this glucose measuring and insulin injecting.  But I just hope the nurses get less abuse from Mother than I do.  Having a job with ungrateful patients must be hell !  Here is a hint for you if you are old and possibly demented:  If someone helps you with your condition, just saying Thank You could make all the difference for those assisting you.












8:30
I remembered something.  About Mother and my Spare-Mother.  Both of them obtained the URL of this blog back in 2013.  Mother looked at the pictures for about a month and then lost interest.  Personally I think she didn't want to pay that monthly internet bill, but her excuse was "My tablet broke". And NO, dementia was not an issue in those days. Mother never belonged to the cerebraly gifted or even just motivated people.
Spare-Mom on the other hand got her son to organize her a laptop and got him to install WiFi in her apartment.  She followed this blog and picked up on little nuances.  She made me feel special.   Miss You Regine !

9:00 
Only 2 hours to Must-Leave time !   The anti-thrombosis syringe has a 1 cm long needle that I'm supposed to stick into my mother's belly fat. 
OH NO !!!!!  Definitely NOT ME !  Let's hope there is a doctor's office at the airport !

There will be NO taking the bus with mother today.  She is whiny enough already.  So I order an airport shuttle.

It's amazing what kind of detours the shuttle HAS to take.  Only buses or bicycles can take the more direct route.  When we finally stop in front of the terminal building it seems like we laid track routes all over the state of Hessia. NO, the driver took the most direct route but the crazy number of intersecting highways prevents a more direct route.










Check-in is reasonably quick and painless.

Time to see Medical Services.   Let's have a professional do that anti-thrombosis injection with the murderous needle.  We fill out the paper work, prepare to pay money, and wait.  Only 15 minutes later someone tells us that the doctor isn't even in the house (an emergency somewhere), that he is not expected back for another 45 minutes.  WTF?  I might as well do it myself.  And IF I happen to faint, I'd be in the perfect spot, wouldn't I?
But they're nice, they give us a room for self-administration, and a nurse, who is not permitted to do the injection without a doctor present, walks me through it.

SUCCESS !

Waiting at the gate.   The LA times can't be read in most European countries (The internet version!). 

30 years ago, humanity invented a new medium, whereby information could flow freely across borders.  Now, they're doing their damnedest to FUCK it UP again ! 

13:08.  

One hour until lift-off, we hope.  Time for another cigarette and some apple juice for Mother.

When I get back, there is someone else sitting in my seat next to mother.  "Next time, please tell people that this seat is taken" I manage to say in a calm tone, but then what is the point of telling things to a person with dementia.  I come to the personal conclusion that the diagnosis of 'EARLY state dementia' for my mother is a misdiagnosis. 

Mother is at the window, I'm at the aisle.  But then I see THREE empty seats in the midsection.   I hop over into the middle seat and I now have a 3-seater to sleep on ;-)

It gets better:  this is the 1st row behind the PREMIUM economy seats, where people pay hundreds of dollars extra for marginally better food and maybe 1 cm of extra leg room.  And PREMIUM economy is PACKED.  So not only did I pay 100s of bucks less than the big spenders, I am the one with the sleeping couch, LOL.  Thank you, Karma !!!

During the 10 hour flight, Mother gets lost repeatedly. Refusing to remember where her seat is or, Lord forbid!, her seat number, she just plops down in the first presently not occupied seat after each washroom visit.

 Half way through the flight I hear THIS from her:   SHIT, I only just heard that we are flying to VANCOUVER.  That can't be right, is it?  

And so on ...

When it comes to navigating Immigration at YVR, I frequently physically have to move Mother to where she is meant to go......  

Her facial expression more and more turns to that pout I know so well:

How dare anyone expect ME to do all those things...

But I manage to maneuver her to the Skytrain, into the SeaBus, and into a taxi to Grandma's place.

The big moment has arrived:  These two haven't seen each other in over 10 years and haven't talked in more than 8 years.  How will it go?

When it's time for me to take a taxi back to my hotel, Mother pipes up: Yes, pick me up at 9:00, I have to go to my job tomorrow.   Looks like she is not demented enough yet to now be mean to her mother.....

The taxi brings me to my hotel room, where I am FINALLY alone !

Time to check my mail:

Travels with my Mother I: MomTown to Frankfurt ....

I sleep well today, until about 5:00

So it's already 6:30 when I'm sitting on the cold tiles of my Chinese WiFi 

spot for the last time. 

A quick breakfast at 7:00 and at 7:15 I must discover that the local LIDL doesn’t open until 8:00.   

And here I was trying to numb myself for the day ahead with a fresh bottle of wine …..

That is one of the reasons why I check out early at 9:15 so that I'm surfing & drinking in the Gelato place at 9:45 ;-)

YES, I drank all their white wine ....

10:00

Mother packed the towels and wash cloths in her suitcase AGAIN.  She also has 7 full size containers of Moisturizer in her suitcase.  I manage to convince her to take only 4 of them.  

I meet mother's legal guardian. More a social occasion that one related to mother's travel ;-)
She tells me the tale of an older man in a wheel chair in an old-age home grabbing a knife in the kitchen and threatening to attack another patient.  Seems the anger originated in what the Caretaker calls herd-style soccer-watching.  Mr. potential stabber apparently tried to maneuver his wheelchair into the first row of the herd of watchers but bumped into another wheelchair during this. 
WHY is everyone obsessed with getting OLD if THIS is what awaits us?  


11:15  It's time to LEAVE !

11:50
We're sitting at the ice cream parlour for a meal. 

 Mother is already fussing like mad over the fact that she can't find her comb.   Put together an extremely uncomplicated traveler on one side and my mother on the other.  A recipe for disaster !

12:30 On Y Va !

It's not raining in Frankfurt, so we're going to take a public transit bus to the hotel.

Add caption

17:50

Not my hand, not my pen, not my pic

I have successfully injected my mother with insulin.  The whole time she behaves as if I was subjecting her to an utterly unnecessary and unnecessarily painful procedure. Until I tell her that I'm enjoying this even less than she does.

When it comes time to go for dinner she insists that I never gave her the room key.  It magically re-appears while I go check my room for it.   Mother being Mother of course REFUSES to tell me where it was.   OMG, my mother and grandmother are IDENTICAL.

My mother's facial expression when we enter the Thai restaurant says it all.  Completely beneath what her royal highness deserves, she is thinking.  When ordering the food, she first says that she's not hungry but then picks a duck dish, BUT she doesn't want the onions, she doesn't want the red peppers, etc etc etc.

When the food arrives, she INHALES the duck as if she hadn't eaten in days.  And she likes it.

I had played with the thought about taking my mother on some Indochina travels with me, but after today, I KNOW that this will NOT happen.  

Some shopping at REWE to conclude the evening.  A nice evening walk and some Rioja Rose ;-)  Good thing I already consumed some when I call Grandma to inform her of our arrival time.    Bickering about irrelevant stuff.   One week with 2 female ancestors who are completely detached from reality.  That's going to be SO MUCH FUN, LOL (That was the Rose laughing ;-)

On the way back from REWE
To all those German tourists who keep insisting that the people of Indochina are pigs...

Oh mother, where art thou? V: I don't like Mondays, I don't like Mondays !

If that title sounds strangely familiar, you're old enough to have listened to THIS SONG in 1981 ;-)

I'm sitting on those cold tiles at 6:15 today ....

which is quite late in comparison, but then I've finally slept quite well.

What's in the news?

A mosque was set on fire in Edson, Alberta?    Now if someone tried blaming Muslims for that, it would be Reichskristallnacht 2.0.   Doesn't anyone revoke right-to-live certificates anymore?  Some people's kids really don't deserve one !

Burning Synagogue in 1938

Touch of Pink
LOVE that movie
I can't wait to dig the DVD out of storage !

A string of cyclist deaths in Toronto ....   
How far behind the rest of the world can a city be ?  

As the ghost of Cary Grant points out in Touch of Pink "I don't consider Toronto a holiday destination".









7:00 Breakfast
I'm eating another soft-boiled egg.  Ever since people around the world are afraid of the Avian Flu, it is pretty much impossible to get soft-boiled eggs in hotels.   NO, they must be hard-boiled to eliminate even the tiniest of minuscule risks of getting the flu.   Fortunately for me, the breakfast lady in my hotel believes that this kind of thinking is just a big blob of baloney.  But then she probably also would start laughing at anyone demanding gluten-free bread.

8:00 
I wait in mother's doctor's office for 45 minutes before I get to see her.  Oh! Mother gets TWO insulin injections per day.  And FIVE different pills at various times of the day.  Nice that someone finally tells me all that.  I have the prescriptions, the certificate for the airline, as well as the medication schedule. 


When I take Mother for a coffee at the Cafe.   Pills?  NO, I NEVER take ANY pills !, she exclaims.  Oh lovely.  Apparently mother hasn't taken her pills in months.  WHAT am I supposed to do now? Force-feed her?   Add to that the fact that she has that whiny and unjustly suffering look on her face that I know so well.  Poor Mother is forced to visit her mother.  Aside from the fact that she WANTED to, it also would NEVER occur to her that there is much more effort involved for me than for her.
It gets worse.....
Now we need a cooler for the insulin pens.  After running to TWO stores we have a small insulated bag and ice packs. 


Mother needs a suitcase.  NO, NOT a regular size suitcase.  She WANTS a HUGE one.  She is unwilling to do laundry at her mother's and consequently thinks she NEEDS a LARGE suitcase to travel over there for one week.   She gets her wish and instantly starts pouting because SHE has to pull her new suitcase back to the old-age home. 

  I'm a facilitator, not a servant.











Back in her room.  She wants instructions what to pack.  WTF?  I manage to convince her NOT to take her winter coats to Vancouver.  She pouts more.

BULLSHIT !

Then her room mate pipes up:  Mother needs to buy pants and T-shirts !  
Oh, go fuck yourself!  (Oh Horrible Vision. After One has SEEN Mother's Room Mate, One NEVER can use this vulgarism the same way)
No-ONE bothered to mention clothes in the 4 days I've been here.  And I left a lot of Euros with mother just 2 months ago for this very purpose. If she didn't use the money.... that is her problem.  I am NOT going clothes-shopping with my mother.  No matter what ugly and unforgivable sins I may have committed in my lifetime, THIS would be CRUEL & UNJUST punishment !

By now I've HAD IT.  I need to leave NOW or I will start saying unpleasant things.

Are two bottles of white Rioja too much for the next 24 hours?  Naaah, definitely NOT excessive under the present circumstances !  

Back at my hotel, I get more confirmation that the Cassandra of my gut feeling spoke the truth again.


STILL NO WIFI !

After a glass of mind calmer I realize that every horribly painful step I take NOW is just another step bringing me a little bit closer to My Beach ;-)  

There is another life out there ;-)

18 sleeps until Saigon.  And THAT is ALL that matters !

I'm still restless after waking up after 45 minutes.  Living my life for others does that to me.  No WiFi doesn't help.  I feel trapped in misery & boredom. I turn into a whiner, LOL. NO NO NO, oh PLEASE NO!


I pedal to my Chinese restaurant, BUT:  Closed on Mondays !  Now I'm getting cranky. 

 I've pedaled to the other hotel owned by the same owners, WAYYYY UUUP that hill.  Finally Fabulous WiFi.....  even though the serving staff is cranky as hell up here. 

I made it back to the hotel, but I'll still have to see mother again.  I have to learn how to use insulin pens !

Mother is packing towels and wash clothes, as well as 7 or 8 pots of Nivea products.  She'll look like an Eskimo in Canada.  Her skin glistening from too much applied grease!

The home provided me with insulin measuring thingies but not with a meter. So I have to buy one.  Of course, the drug mart doesn't have the meter that matches the free blood-collecting thingies, so I have to buy a whole new system ....
NO, that is NOT the end of the story.  Since I'm administering insulin according to a table of glucose values, we actually have to make sure that the new system provides the same results in the same units as the system they use in the old-age home.  A nice male nurse volunteers to let blood and the values 136 and 158 are close enough to each other .... Thank you, Nice Nurse !

Back in my hotel. Time to drink wine and numb the anticipation of the week to come.  During the time at the ice-cream parlour, I downloaded that movie again.   Look who's back (Er ist wieder da). I'm watching it for the 4th time and I'm loving it more every time I watch it ...  No wonder, it deals with TOO MANY STOOPID peole on this planet !