duck and cover

Today was the day I was dreading a little(can you dread something a little?). It was the first day to leave the house to go to lunch. It's always beena bit of a production in the past between my mom's stroke and my dad'd bad knee. But it's worse now because she's on oxygen and I've been very worried that I wouldn't set the tank properly. My sister has always done this in the past.

It went okay, the only small hiccup was that I was in the middle of reading the instructions and tightening screws on the tank and my mom was rambling like she often does. I asked her to be quiet for a second and she started shaking her arms like a 2 year old having a tantrum. My dad says she does that a lot; so that's another thing to watch out for.I did manage to get the tank on without blowing anyone up or strangline her fro lack of oxygen.

Lunch went okay but her temper really gets the better of her. The restaurant we were in is in a mall and has an entrance on two sides. Every time someone would come in one door heading to the other door she's loudly say"they're just walking through"; even if they were actually stopping to look at the menu. This place also has a butcher shop and she was having a hard time paying. There was a youngish woman who was trying very hard but was getting frustrated with mom so I tried to help by counting out the money and repeating the names of things. We had this odd moment where she looked directly in my eyes with this look of sympathy and gratitude and 'm sure I looked like a WWII prisoner looking at a Red Cross advisor with a look of despair."

But the lunch went okay, nobody passed out, or had nose bleeds(I'm toldI can look forward to that). Tomorrow I'm going to try do do some cleaning.