We Had a Day

I took Mama to the ENT in Olympia this morning. She’s been looking forward to it; they told her last time she might need a new ear mold, which she continues to think means a new hearing aid, which might mean she will hear better. As in magically, since she insists it’s not the volume that’s the problem with her hearing. Except when it is.

I convinced her to get the new mold, even though the audiologist said there’s not anything seriously wrong with this one. When she realized it’s ten years old—dating back to when Mama got the fancy new hearing aid—she said it would fit tighter and might improve Mama’s hearing. What’s to lose, I figure. Why wait for a crisis. Turns out it has also been ten years since she had her hearing checked, and it could be the aid needs to be reprogrammed. Who knew they did that? The audiologist said a hearing test should be administered annually. And it has been a decade, why?

Back in the car Mama asked what is the mold and why isn’t that the same as the hearing aid? I tried to explain: the aid is behind her ear, the tube transfers the sound from the aid to the mold which holds it all together and conducts the sound to where she can process it. I have no idea if that’s right, but it sounded smart. And it satisfied her for the moment. And that is what it’s all about.

After the ENT, we went to Target for Gas-X, both the pink and the orange, and a grandson birthday card. Then we went to Anthony’s at Budd Inlet for lunch, where we agreed to get dinner so as not to have to cook tonight. I was informed that my choice of shrimp and cheddar melt, French fries, and salad was not dinner fare. Who knew.

She was excited at my suggestion that we walk across the parking lot to the Farmers’ Market. She said to let her know if I was wearing out.

At the Farmers’ Market she wanted rhubarb then decided she should find out when the season ended and she would wait and I said why would you wait so we got nine stalks. Nine. Then we went to Bed, Bath and Beyond to look for a nearly-no-weight bed cover to replace the faded-to-colorless floral sheet that may or may not have been on my bed in junior high. I told her they didn’t have sheets in floral print or her favorite ghastly shade of yellow because such keeps most people awake at night. We got a duvet cover to try because she has a comforter, though she doesn’t know for sure where it is. (As a matter of fact, there are at least five in the house.) The fact that she has never used it, nor wanted to, not withstanding. Maybe she will, she said. And maybe she will.

Now I’m worn out. Mama’s cooking.

Postscript: I put the duvet cover on the bed so Mama could see what she thought. But she can’t see it  now that evening has fallen. However, somehow she can tell it doesn’t go with the ancient Navaho rug. Which she also can’t see. And now, suddenly, she is all about everything going together? Insight: This is why she never gets anything she wants. If she gets something new, everything has to be perfect; since it can’t be, she sticks with the old and the ugly. And complains for decades that she never got what she really wanted. She said the faded floral sheet matched the dogwood wallpaper she no longer has. (Not). Which hardly went with the Navaho rug.