Pissing in the Wind

I haven't written about my friends at the care center for awhile, not because I don't go every week, I do. Rather it's because there's either too much or too little to say, I'm never sure which one it is.

I've fallen into a routine now, where I arrive on the second floor and peel off my layers of coats and visit with the gals at my old table. I ask if they're hungry tonight and always tease Dorothy about wanting sugar on everything. I talk about the weather with them (hey, I'm a Minnesotan, it's in my blood) and compliment their sweaters every now and then. After a few minutes I move on to my regular table and pull up a chair between Eileen and Mary. Mary always starts talking immediately, saying everything that comes into her head but in no particular order and for no particular reason. The other ladies around the table all look at Mary with an amused curiosity, like they're never sure what the old lady is going to say. It's interesting that they seem to think she's the different one because she's older and says all sorts of whacky things. Alma was wearing her purple tam, as usual, and Mattie looked ready to rock Madison Square Garden as a backup singer for Tina Turner. She's really a great looking woman. I ask them all questions about the new Valentine's Day decor that has infiltrated the dining room, but none of them seem to know much about it. Angie looks glum, which is unusual for her, she's usually so cheery. Eileen is pretty new to me but I'm already in love with her because she always laughs at my jokes and that's all it takes for me. I don't have a clue if she knows why she's laughing, but it always seems to be at the right time, so I don't question it. She has smiling eyes and eats well and then suddenly breaks into a high falsetto song for no particular reason. Last week she did have one confused moment when, suddenly during her meal, she asked me, "What am I supposed to be doing now?" That moment broke my heart. 

My heart would break a million times a night there if it weren't for the more, shall we say, lighthearted moments. Tonight's moment was courtesy of Melvin, one of the few men on the unit. He's a very tall man who could be forty-five years old or seventy-five years old, I can't tell. He's a bit of a scamp, and has no concept of personal space. Thankfully tonight he wasn't near me as he decided, standing right in the middle of the dining room while nurses busily cleared trays and I fed Mary, to open his fly and urinate all over the floor. One of the nurses caught him just as he started, but it was too late to go back in time and he continued until he didn't have to anymore. There was a new nurse on the floor tonight and she looked at the regular nurse and asked, sadly, if it was her job to clean up the mess. She was assured that, yes, it was. I just continued to feed Mary and listened to her tell me that the doll in the cupboard was ready, the bears are always running late into the night, and the little girls need something right away. I continued to interrupt her odd sentences to ask if she's hungry, to try to bring her back to the present, to try to slip a spoonful of pureed cheese sandwich into her mouth. Neither she nor Eileen noticed Melvin at all. This was one of those times that being in their old little world wasn't so bad.