My favorite tv shows are back for a new season. I can’t watch them while I’m sitting with my mother in the evenings because she gets upset by anything that looks like blood or a hospital or dead bodies. So I have to tape them and stay up late to watch them.
On Nip/Tuck (which repeats at midnight and so I can watch it then) last night, Brooke Shields took on a dark and serious role as a therapist, and she pulled it off quite nicely. It took me a few minutes to finally recognize that it was Shields. I think her character is supposed to get even darker as the series progresses. Nice challenge for someone who has always been considered a lightweight in the acting department.
And then there’s House and Bones, and Lost will be starting up again soon. b!X is a Lost addict as well, even more than I am.
And, of course, there’s the bizarre Desperate Housewives. I started watching Three Moons Over Milford. I really miss Kyle XY, which won’t be back until next summer. Yup, I’m a tv addict.
But I never just sit and watch tv. I’m also always knitting or crocheting or fixing clothes — both mine and my mom’s (she’s shrinking fast).
We have an electric eye set up to beep both my sib and me when my mom gets out of bed. When I went over to her room this morning to check her out, she was standing in the middle of the room in bare feet, clutching the bottom of her nightgown. She looked at me and said, “I forgot how to get up.” I think what she meant is that she forgot how to get dressed. This is what is happening more and more. The forgetting.
In the morning, before I’ve had to deal with her all day, I can be very nurturing. I hug her, do a few dance steps to songs I make up on the spot (this always makes her smile and makes her forget what she was upset about forgetting), and coax her along on starting her day. My personal day ends when hers begins and vice versa. Her needs and her fears are all consuming, and when she “sundowns” about seven each evening, I don’t have much left to give her, and my sib usually has to take over for an hour or so while I take care of myself. He gets up at night with her; I take the day. We’re both pretty stressed out with the whole thing.
I’ve always wondered whether the saying was “no rest for the wicked” or “no rest for the weary.” Now I know.