Hiatus

Los Angeles, California


This pink LA, CA above could mean anything. It could mean I've been in the pink. Nope. It could mean I've been drinking . . . a lot, as in pink elephants on parade. Not really. Or, could it mean it's spring, when a young girl's fancy turns to . . . (ok thanks, everyone, for thinking she's not young!)?


My mom was in the hospital. It started when her caregivers reported that her dementia was getting much worse and very fast. My mom does not suffer from Alzheimer's. She knows who we are and can get pretty close to the correct date (come on, even I have problems with the date sometimes). What she has is vascular dementia. Her mental deterioration is quite slow, and mostly about loss of short-term memory. So this sudden increase in the dementia was suspect. After an episode of syncope (I want to say she had an episode of synecdoche -- you know: once an English major; always an English major), she was taken by the paramedics (who were pretty, um, hot) to the hospital, and subsequently diagnosed with a urinary tract infection. Now why am I engaging in all this TMI? Because here is something I didn't know. In the elderly, UTIs present with confusion and agitation. And that, my friends, along with extreme dehydration was the reason for their perception of her increased dementia.


After the hospital she went back to a rehab facility for physical, occupational, and memory therapy. And that was when Billy and I got to work. It became apparent that her living situation with part-time caregivers was not enough. The doctor and the physical therapist recommended full-time care. That meant a nursing home or a board and care facility. One of my fristers recommended a network-colleague who runs a placement service for assisted care and board and care facilities (for info about Concepts for Living click here). And she helped me find a board and care home in our neighborhood.


This is a home with five residents and three or so caregivers (one of the caregivers has a son who also helps out). It is close to our home. The owner lives on premises and engages with the residents on a daily basis. She is a gardener, and the grounds are lovely. My mom's room looks out on the garden and pool. So far it has been a pretty good fit. But not perfect.


We had to ask my sister to take Mom's cat, Ashley Wilkes. Since my sister doesn't help at all with my mom's care (don't get me started), we weren't sure she would assist us in this way. But she's one of those cat people, or as my mom often says, she cares more about her cat than about people. It seems like this is true, though it is hard to tell for sure. My sister refused to give the other unit of blood needed when my mom was having knee replacement surgery and couldn't provide her own blood before the procedure. But then, my sister will never be put to that test with her cat, so, again, who knows where her priorities lie? Anyway (as I fear I'm tainting my blog with this stuff), let's move on.


So, Mom no longer gets to live with her cat, and that is no small thing to separate her from that comfort. But, of the homes that said they would let us bring her cat along with her, none of them provided any security against the cat getting loose or being mistreated by residents and staff. It was too iffy. So we made this tough decision.


Before placing her, we moved her out of her apartment at the retirement village. This required a lot of work, as you might expect. Billy did all the heavy lifting on weeknights and weekends, and we got her moved to her smaller space, while we stacked boxes of her stuff on top of other boxes of her stuff from her last move. A lot went to charity, but I was pleased that some of my friends took bits and pieces of furniture and kitchenware. I gifted a ceramic mug each to my Las Chicas fristers. It feels good to know that people I love will have something of hers. After all, my fristers are family.


Needless to say, her hospitalization and rehab was a long haul; the second of these that we have experienced this year; the third in the past eight months. Things could be worse. She knows us, and is always glad to see us. She lives close. The owner of the home, Hana, is wonderful, and Lana, who cooks all the food, is a wonder. It could all be worse than this. But still . . .


So I took a hiatus. It wasn't planned. I just found that the days blew past and I wasn't writing. Not here; not in my journal. I was walking around with a lot of thoughts in my head, but none of them coalescing into a post that I could put up here. At least not until very recently. I then picked up my pen and got back to my journal. When you concentrate on three things in your life, it is discomforting to let one of them stall, or more accurately, come to a screeching halt. But that is what happened. The mom stuff and the dad stuff is hard. It's hard for most of us. As I said to someone who offered me some solace for what I've been going through: we're either going through this; we've gone through this; or we will go through this. There's mostly no way out. Trust me, if you have a conscience, and from what I've seen with some of my friends, even if your parents weren't good to you, you will do this. Unfortunately, hiatus doesn't mean escape. But those who have been through this assure me that, when all is said and done, Billy and I will feel good about all that we have done for her. They tell me I must trust them about this. And, I guess that most of the time, I do. Thank you for reading my blog. Now go eat some cookies (see last post) . . . if you made it to here, you really deserve a reward!

Pretty Good Cookies

Los Angeles, California


I have to tell the truth. It's not really April. Its way past April, and I am fudging on my commitment to write at least two posts each month. Truth is, I've been on hiatus, and I will explain this shortly in a soon-to-be-published post entitled Hiatus. But I just couldn't go there after the last post. I needed some time out (from many things), and I needed to put down something that wasn't sad. I needed something life-affirming. I needed . . . cookies.


Besides, my other pledge was to include a recipe in every other post, so that I could consider what I was doing here as a sort of a food blog (delusional, but humor me). Ok, that didn't exactly turn out as planned, and that's not to mention dubious entries like that Graham Cracker Mush thing, or the Popcorn thing (even though I do think I prepare amazing-tasting popcorn). So, here is the one enlightening thing I've been doing lately. I've been reading happier books. All the books about people growing up in Afghanistan or fighting evil in Scandinavia (see previous post: The Girl with the Stupid Tattoo, available here, free, and for a limited time) were, frankly, wearing on me in my recent state. One shouldn't need psychotropic drugs just to get through their book stack. So I decided to hop on the happy train. I started in my stack of unread books, and found one that had been gifted to me several years back. It is Cooking for Mr. Latte, by Amanda Hesser. This one got me to sleep (since I read at bedtime) in a contented state of mind, with visions of sugarplums instead of heinous crimes.


You have to love a food memoirist who actually shares a recipe entitled: Frosting Minus the Cupcakes. When my mother was in the hospital this spring, I spent time in her room (in an uncomfortable chair. Why? Why?!?!) with my feet propped on her bed, cataloging Ms. Hesser's recipes on a lined tablet. It's been my go-to cookbook (even though it is ostensibly a food blog with recipes) of late. And here are the cookies, ta-da!


Chocolate Chunk-Pecan-Coconut Cookies


2 sticks         unsalted butter, softened
1 cup              sugar
1 cup              packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large           eggs
3 cups            all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon    baking soda
pinch              sea salt
24 ounces      best quality-bittersweet chocolate, chopped into 
                              chunks, shreds & all
2 cups             toasted chopped pecans
1 cup                grated coconut


Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease two large baking sheets. In a mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk, cream the butter with the sugar and light brown sugar until it's good and fluffy like a mousse. Add the vanilla and eggs and keep beating until it's smooth.


In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add it to the mixer in small portions, beating it on low until blended in before adding more. Once the dry ingredients are all in there, pour in the chocolate, pecans and coconut. Fold them in by hand, with a spatula -- it is a bit of a workout, but the best way to coat the ingredients evenly.


My mother (Note: this is Amanda's mother, as I've copied the recipe verbatim) likes to chill the dough a little (30 minutes or so) before baking, which helps the cookies hold their shape better when baking. Then she uses an ice cream scoop to drop the dough onto the sheets. She flattens them lightly with her fingers, so they spread evenly. They should be about 1/2 inch thick and two inches around before baking. Bake for twelve to fifteen minutes, until lightly browned on the edges and cooked in the center. Cool on racks. Store in a cookie tin (Oh, come on. That's a little bossy!).


Makes two dozen large cookies.


Ok, so here we go. In spite of my snide commentary, Ms. Hesser's recipes are excellent, and easy to follow. And also, despite my damning-with-faint-praise title above, these are pretty amazing cookies. It makes an inordinate amount of dough, and for those of you clever enough to figure out how to use one and-a-half eggs -- you go and make a half of a batch. I made a dozen large cookies following the recipe exactly, but froze the other half of the dough. I'm planning to bake that half this week to greet approaching house guests. This should have them eating out of my hand.


One last note, Ms. Hesser's story about these cookies is that they were finishing up a stay at a vacation home (I don't know, Hamptons or Martha's Vineyard or something, I can't remember) and wanted to make a sort-of kitchen sink version of cookies to use up ingredients in the larder. This tells you (in case you didn't already know) that you can change out the nuts and play around with the chocolate, if you like. I used a lot of different bittersweet chocolate that I had around the pantry, including different percentages which rendered some of the chocolate extra-bittersweet. I even threw in some Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips. Just hit the ounce requirement, mas o menos.


If you love these cookies, and/or I've piqued your interest in Amanda Hesser, feel free to check out her foodblog here. I intend to read other books by her, sometime after I finish the very thick World of Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. Did you think I was kidding about reading happier books?


So, did Cooking for Mr. Latte cheer up the sodden mess I call me? Did eating these cookies do the trick? Well, no. And no. But everything helps a little. And I will try to explain this in my coming posts. Stay tuned . . . and thank you once more for hanging in there with me and reading my blog!