Sewing Labels and Smuggling Pie

This morning I sat in my mother’s hospital room sewing name tags on a bag of her socks. “You sewed?” my husband asked incredulously. “I never told you I couldn’t sew, just that I don’t like it and used to smuggle my home ec projects home for my mother to finish,” I told him. “Besides, a few little hand stitches on the ends of name tags hardly constitutes sewing.”

My mother’s bags are packed and in the car, ready to head for Gig Harbor and Manor Care tomorrow. As Lorraine has observed it’s all rather surreal despite the fact that as an only child I’ve had to do more for my mother than those lucky Baby Boomers who have siblings. My husband will tell you that I’m not a particularly organized person so the pressure’s been on to think of everything I needed to choose, mark and pack for her and everyone I needed to touch base with before the ambulance comes to get her tomorrow.

I was hoping that they could be off right after breakfast tomorrow so as to arrive in Gig Harbor in time for lunch. It isn’t looking like that will happen. The doctor has yet to sign the orders for my mother to be transferred for rehabilitation at Manor Care and since his schedule for doing rounds is somewhat…well, random…they are likely to be on the road at lunch time. At least I won’t have to listen to the “I’m hungry.” Knowing my mother, she will suggest that they go through the drive-through at Dairy Queen in Raymond. In the movie version of this episode, not only will she suggest it, they will actually drive the ambulance through the drive-through and get Classic Grillburgers and milkshakes for all of them.

In the movie version they will also get lost. It is very possible that they will in real life. When my cousin was sent from Ocean Beach hospital to Vancouver Hospital in an ambulance that is exactly what happened. She had to sit up and tell them how to get to the hospital.

My last task before I can turn my thoughts to Amy’s and my things is to smuggle one more piece of pumpkin pie into the hospital. Fortunately she’s only a borderline diabetic and she said that she needed pumpkin pie.