To interrupt the scintillating story of travels with morons (working title), can I just talk about Johnny Washer going to Peru.
While I was gone in Europe, and my brother was taking care of my mom, Johnny was also going to be leaving at the tail end of my trip, to Peru for a month. Johnny works 7 days a week and hasn't taken a day off since the Reagan administration. Johnny is a fixture, a frolicking water fixture, at my house, 3x a week for almost two years now. He washes up mom and makes her fresh, and we talk about soccer and not about how he's super gay since his god wouldn't allow that.
Anyway, while Johnny is gone we're assigned Spring, a cheerful squatty black woman, who will be helping out til he gets back, hospice says.
Spring! You think, fresh water! Gurgling clear creeks, green fresh flowers, all things hopeful.
Spring mostly calls with long explanations of car trouble. Spring lives far, in the desert. Spring's mom has doctor's appointments. Spring says she will be there first thing, we're her very first patient in the morning and she shows up at 1pm.
We have seen Spring once. In that one time she did teach me to fold a sheet under mom's bedpads so that if I have to turn her I can grab the sheet and she flips to the side pretty easily. Why haven't you taught me this Johnny
Also Johnny sends me pictures of him in Peru that are mostly him looking sad like he's hanging up lost dog posters onto brick walls. You're at Macchu Picchu, maybe zoom OUT a bit, on the camera. And smile.
Also, Johnny, come back I sob
Because of the lack of Spring, the instead eternal summer of 2022, I learned that I can wash mom while she's actually sitting on the toilet. I did this after the one time Spring showed up, and washed her hair and it was hard and gummy. I'm pretty sure she didn't rinse. I decided if experienced professionals can do a shitty job, then I certainly can.
So when Mom was on the toilet I put a blue waterproof pad on the floor underneath and one around her shoulders and then I basically dumped a bucket of warm water over her head. You'd think she'd react to the confusion of water while on the toilet. But no, it must've felt pretty good. It helped that I was singing Whistle While You Work. She got her whole body all soaped up and rinsed off, and bonus! The floor was now mopped.
I hope Spring never comes. In fact, when she called last and said the traffic was bad I said hey you know what? Take the day off. My floor has never looked better.
