{"id":901,"date":"2014-10-06T15:59:59","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T14:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janelaverick.com\/?p=901"},"modified":"2014-10-06T15:59:59","modified_gmt":"2014-10-06T14:59:59","slug":"another-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janelaverick.com\/?p=901","title":{"rendered":"Another day."},"content":{"rendered":"

Another day another trip.  My mother is getting two visits this week because we\u2019re changing her usual day from Tuesday to Wednesday.  The other half has a gym class on Tuesdays that he\u2019s just not getting to, so we\u2019re swapping the visiting day.  In order not to leave my mother for a week and a day, which is too long at present, we\u2019re fitting in an extra day.  It\u2019s Sunday at the behest of the care agency.  A situation is brewing regarding the carers.  The agency is losing people and getting new staff at a rate of knots, some of the carers are youngish and at the stage of careers where a shift upwards is desirable, one is going on maternity leave and so on and Sunday is the day with carers thin on the ground, can I help out?  \u00a310,000 a month, can I help out?  What is this, the boy scouts?<\/font><\/p>\n

The following day.<\/font><\/u><\/p>\n

We went, we returned, I realised when I got to bed and closed my eyes that I had a migraine and I\u2019m still not up to much today.  My mother tried her damnedest to get the pregnant carer sacked.  She was also hysterically resistant to having a new carer.  One had been reeled out to her at nine o clock on Saturday night and she had gone ape shit at least.  She says she cannot have anyone new now.  So we had Sunday lunch which we had taken, the other half did steaks and I did chips and the under-manageress, who had done all morning, called someone else and ran away before lunch and it was quarter to four when I discovered that a carer had gone nuts with the sell-by dates and emptied the fridge into the bin leaving no food, so we drove to the posh supermarket at breakneck speed and I did a shop in ten minutes actually running round the store with a trolley.  It\u2019s a good job I\u2019m fit.<\/font><\/p>\n

What was achieved?  Well, I managed in the morning, while the under-manageress was there, to persuade my mother by logic and gentleness and being super reasonable and matter of fact that enough people had left the agency one way and another that a new carer, no matter how unknown, would therefore be essential and I then offered to pay for a double shift so the new carer can be there for seven hours with the trusted old carer to save my mother from any horrors of newness such as being handed a heating pad two degrees too cold, frinstance.<\/font><\/p>\n

I did it.  It felt like Captain Kirk talking down a rogue computer with an atomic laser about to destroy a planet full of something fluffy with big eyes.  The under-manageress, who was assuming the role of the new crew member, that you have never set eyes on until this episode, crashed and burned continuously throughout the conversation and eventually said she was going to say nothing else and did so.  When the space monster finally agreed to the new carer for a trial seven hours, which will cost me over \u00a3100, I thought the new crew member was going to burst into tears.  Through the airlock, in the porch, the new crew member asked about the pregnant carer returning to the house.  I said I was only willing to fight one battle a day and I\u2019d leave it up to her for now, whereupon she climbed into her escape pod and drove to a planet far far away.<\/font><\/p>\n

On the phone this morning my mother said she had found yesterday tiring and immediately started to castigate the evil pregnant carer who does nothing but play with her phone.  This is not true, the carer, both pregnant and previously has done everything required of her and, further, has successfully resisted plunging a carving knife into the caree, has avoided battering the caree to death with the tea tray (this last a miracle, no one has ever managed to pour my mother a cup of tea the right shade first go, ever) or just quietly smothering her with the two heating pads, heated slippers and two heated wraps, not one single one of them ever delivered at the correct temperature.<\/font><\/p>\n

I think, once returned from maternity leave, the carer could well be in line for the next captaincy.  I meanwhile, am due for some shore leave, if you know of a planet with no demented people on it, email me.<\/font><\/p>\n

STOP PRESS I was half way through writing this when I got a phone call from the gym.  The other half had lost his car keys, could I drive the car of the S&H out to him with my keys so he could drive ours back and then search for the keys?  I asked if he had looked in his pockets and was screamed at, which was the second time today and just what you need with a migraine.  So I did it, encountering the other half driving our car in the opposite direction on the gym drive, with his car keys which he had discovered in his pocket.  He flashed his headlights at me, again, fabulous with a migraine.<\/font><\/p>\n

Alternatively email me if you can find a planet where all the people do thinking.  It\u2019s not this one, that\u2019s for sure.<\/font><\/p>\n

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JaneLaverick.com \u2013 unending joy, or thereabouts.<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another day another trip.  My mother is getting two visits this week because we\u2019re changing her usual day from Tuesday to Wednesday.  The other half has a gym class on Tuesdays that he\u2019s just not getting to, so we\u2019re swapping … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[569],"class_list":["post-901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dementia-diaries","tag-carers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t