Planning 101

Well my cold is settling a bit so at least I don’t sound like I’m a frog. Am busier being off this week than if working but it is good to have leave to deal with things.

Today I headed in to run errands in town and didn’t realize how frantic I was until it took a group of people to look after me. I stopped at the post office to mail a package to baby daughter then headed over to the garage to drop off the first born daughter’s car, getting a lift to the dentist. The dentist appointment consisted of x-rays and an impression for the new bridge I’m getting (which my dental insurance is paying only half of) and the impression goop pulled out the existing bridge so now I have a large hole with sharp edges in the back of my mouth until the second appointment next week. On the walk from the dentist back to the garage I stopped at the pharmacy for cold medicine and…discovered I didn’t have my debit card so I decide I must’ve lost it on Monday on the way home in the storm as I wasn’t out of the house yesterday. This caused a mad search in the purse; call to the life partner to look in the truck (like a dump picking expedition if you’ve ever seen that cab) and a call to the prodigal on at home to search there – no luck. I made my way to the garage and was informed that the daughter’s car was in need of safety inspection (since October) four new tires as they were slick as glass and they wondered how I’d made it in this morning, only had daytime running lights and needed to be aligned and new ball joint so they would find me something to drive home in. The mechanic cleaned off a new Sebring and I headed out to the bank to close out the education account but was told by the teller that this wasn’t possible as the account wasn’t opened here and I’d have to go to Yarmouth to do that. I insisted that I had to at least withdraw the money and that was okayed, with me agreeing to a bank draft, as I obviously couldn’t even manage to keep my debit card. The bank draft cost $6.50 but instead of taking it out of the funds in the account what does the teller do but withdraw all the money and then the $6.50 overdraws the account into the overdraft so I have to give her the cash (what little I have in my wallet) to redeposit so I can actually close the account when I get to the place of origin. I head over to Frenchy’s to pick up a pair of dress pants for the prodigal son as goodness knows what he’d be found in at his grandmother’s funeral if not. Then I head down to the graphic design shop to pick up the photo, which they have printed for the memorial service and we retrace my steps and discover I must’ve left the debit card at the post office. The ladies there had kindly found it and were going to send it along with the rural route driver tomorrow so I retrieved it, picked up a photo frame and decided I was better off at home at this rate.

This afternoon brought the kindness of a neighbour and former co-worker bringing fish cakes to feed a gang. The minister stopped in to plan the service for Friday and we had a very therapeutic chat. She was concerned I was managing too well and was just being a professional and I assured her there had been many tears over the past eight years of the dementia torture my mother lived in and actually more tears than I’d expected still this week considering her life well lived. The flower shop delivered a beautiful bouquet of flowers from my workmates this evening and the card was obviously transcribed by someone who had never heard of our job titles because it read “your section control and occupational health friends”. Well really, what are an infection control let alone a section control friend? Lots of phone calls, emails and condolences from near and far. Tomorrow afternoon is visitation and daughter # 2 has arrived from university so things are getting busy again, time to go.