the egg cup

My mother had a blue glass dish, every morning she boiled an egg and put it on a little tray with the dish. If the dish got moved or put away she would freak out . Today the dish 'jumped off the tray' and shattered all over the hall way near the front door. Her reaction was elation. M reported that since she had been so worried that it would break, now that it finally broke she was at last free of the anxiety.

Sisterly Visit

My sister, or more correctly 'her other daughter' came for a brief visit for the Thanksgiving holiday.

My mother apparently complained about me the entire time I was "a lair, eating all her food , spending are all her money etc" The food thing goes between :my eating all her food or I keep stuffing her fridge with 'more food then she can ever eat"

My sister seems to have bought some food and managed not to get yelled at until she tried to say good bye at 5am to go and catch her flight. My sister reported that mother yelled and mother reported that my sister 'made a weird face at me for no reason'.

Hot Cocoa (HC)

This post will be about my search for the best, or even an acceptable hot cocoa in NYC.

I can admit that my standard of excellence is a traditional Mexican HC, dark, unexpectedly spicy, frothy and very light on sweetness.  This of course is not the norm and hard to find , I accept that. However in this day and age in a multi-cultural city like New York it is my opinion and goal as a HC activist is that

1)  at least some sort of HC should be offered along with all the varieties of Tea and Coffee on the menu at most decent restaurants.

2)Those that do offer HC should offer more than one  variety such as a spicy and an unsweetened variation.

1) MAISON KAYSER @ 326 Bleecker

This clean and well lit world wide chain offers exceptional service by waiters and waitresses dressed oh so French- as to practically look like mimes. Serves a respectable cup, with steamed milk and a rich french chocolate syrup, although we asked for Cinnamon, the dose was either too light to be tasted or forgotten  

2) SERENDIPITY THREE @ 225 East 60th Street

Iconic New York, with long waits, blue stocking set and famous for Frozzen Hot Chocolate.  The relatively expensive (7$) Hot cocoa is served in an under sized cup for the amount of whip
cream piled on top considering the reputation this place has for over the top serving size. If one
either eats the cream to get to the beverage or tries and stir the cream in, the drink will cool
either from the cold cream or the time it takes to eat through the snow drift. The pluses are the
whip cream is real and barely sweetened. Cinnamon, shaved chocolate and orange peel are
embedded in the top of the cream. However the cocoa in the cup is not rich or dark enough.

3) Cafe Cubano @ Prince and Mott (several locations)
A cozy cafe and bar serves 'traditional' Mexican hot cocoa in the sense that it is probably Nestles 'Abuilitta ' brand is equivalent to SwissMiss. (not notable) The milk is steamed and foamy but not hot enough and the serving size, a heavy old fashioned coffee cup is not generous. No garnish on top.

tea

My mother asked me to make her a cup of tea to help her feel better because she was sniffling. I have black tea here because I like it and not much else, but I remembered that I had put some ginger root in honey a while back and then when I used all the honey I had covered the ginger in apple cider vinegar to add to salad dressing and such...so I took a few slices of tht ginger and boiled them in water. I served her a cup and walked out of the room . I bit later she asks me in a very annoyed tone "why did you only give me one cup of tea?"

I laughed and asked 'does that mean you want more tea?' and I brought her another cup.

Then she had a third.

Still no consistent aide and a crisis ending in a fall

Today a new aide, in fact of the 5 days when we expected an aide we had 3 different aids and 2 days of no one  showing up. Today's aide is a very tiny woman wearing scrubs and kind of smelling like stale perfume, and speaking only spanish. Probably my fault as I introduced myself in spanish. However I intentially pointed out the garbage in english, even though "basura es aqui" She arrived while I sat in the car waiting for alt side parking to be over. Her name in Angela , very promising. One problem is she locked the door behind her, and the door must not be locked as my mothers hands can no longer negotiate the locks, and she locked me out. And again when she came in from throwing the garbage her instinct was to lock the door, understandable ...but FUCKING STOP LOCKING the door . And she keeps looking at me like I am nuts when i speak in english...so you know this is going to work out great!

AS for the crisis, M had started drinking more and more, up to 8 oz of vodka a day and then one day 4 oz in about an hour and a half. After that she sobered up some since I had hidden the vodka and then at a point several days later she had asked me to buy some vodka and I refused, So M ordered from the liqueur store and in her anger and indignation -proceded to drink about 8 oz in five hours until she got up and fell over, giving herself a nasty bruise and road rash on her upper arm. I must say that dialed it back and now she is on about three drinks, maybe four a day.  The fall was tuesday and today is friday.

When coming off her binge my mother said horrible and vile things to me , including telling me to "get out right now" I did eventually leave and spend a night at home after I felt confident she was not going to drop dead from withdrawal. Today she asked me :

How can you stay so even tempered when I am harassing you every 5 minutes.

WTF an aide 3x a week?

6-7 aids in the bast 2 months!!!!!!!! I found this out when trying to co-ordinate --get a better aide for my mother. While I was away there were 4 different aides. The last one was supposed to stay but did not show up today- the agency had it down as:  we refused. ? It is possible that my mother called very early, but I doubt it. SHe was busy this morning driving herself mad, hiding her EBT card from herself and freaking out about it.

More work for next week.

OMG meals on what?

The whole time I was in Seattle I thought that my mother was getting meals delivered if not daily the 2x a week. I returned after two weeks to find this was not true. After a phone call and a follow up phone call I was told that a box of meals had been delivered YESTERDAY

 Every meal requires a microwave and FYI my mother has no microwave. and the box is HUGE and there is no way she could get it since she does not go down to the lobby and even if it was brought to her door she could not get it inside. If she did manage to get in inside , she could not lift it, or lift the food out of it from floor level. HOLY SHIT what a waste of tax payer dollars.

On Oct 22 her social worker agreed to get meals sent , but I found out that the request /paper work was not put in until Nov. 1st. Additionally this SCHMUCK told me that there is no vendor who can deliver meals in all of MANHATTAN . These meals are sent from Iowa.

I was so upset and I went to email the schmuck -copying the email from the 22nd and managed to forward a whole string of emails between me and the other SW where I complained about him to her. OOps I wish I had not done that. I hate when I get blinded by rage. Meanwhile all my mom has to say is how she does not want to eat those meals.