Before I left for San Diego, a good friend of mine came up to Carson City to stay for a few days. She is a long time friend and familiar with my Mom and her dementia and does very well dealing with my Mother. That is always important to me when people come to visit because Mom can easily offend the faint of heart. It makes the visit more enjoyable for me as well because I have a tendency to over worry about the situation and run interference when it often is unnecessary.

It was particularly hot in Carson City as a heat wave hung over us for the entire week of my guests visit. To manage the heat in a house without central air-conditioning, I have a series of fans and portable air-conditioners I position about the home to maximize the cool air flow. For this to work it takes cooperation from all in residence NOT to turn anything off during the peak cooling hours or the house is miserably hot in the evening.

Mom of course is always the foil in my planning to keep the house cool. She refuses to believe that we need the AC running or the fans on because to her reasoning it is not hot in the house. I will respond to her “That is because I have the AC running Mom, so you need to leave it on to keep it cool.” Mom will insist I am wasting electricity that she has no money to pay for and on and on the argument will go. Finally, I have to resort to putting big signs on everything with an explanation as to why it needs to remain turned on and when that stops working I just follow behind her turning back on what she turns off.

One evening during this week, before I went to bed, I walked down the hall to check on Mom to see if she needed anything. I went into her room to find Mom standing by the foot of her bed wearing a bathing suit. I had put out some pajamas for her to wear and they sat untouched at the end of her bed. I looked at her outfit of choice and said “Mom I put out pajamas for you to change into. Do you want me to help you get dressed for bed?” Mom replied “These are my pajamas.” Knowing were this was going I still corrected her and said “Well no, actually that is your bathing suit” pointing to her bed I said “Those are your pajamas.” As expected she responded with “I always wear my bathing suit to bed. I will just wear this.”

Considering the temperature in her room was about 80 degrees, because of my unsuccessful attempts at keeping Mom away from the fans and AC units that day, I responded “OK then I am sure you will be nice and cool” and said my good nights and was off to bed. I figured there was certainly no harm in Mom sleeping in her bathing suit and it did stand to reason she would be much cooler wearing that than her pajamas.

The next morning at breakfast, my friend came out to greet us and when my Mom was out of the room she said to me “Your Mom scared the shit out of me last night.” I instantly went into my over worrier mode and imagined all sort of awful scenarios that could have befallen my unsuspecting guest during the night! I asked “Oh no, what happened?” She began to set the scene, and said she was not sure why, but she woke up at about 2:00 a.m. and as she told it “I sat up to find your Mom in my room!” Then my friend looked at me with dismay and continued “And she was standing there in her bathing suit!” I broke out laughing and relayed the story of the garment debate of the previous evening. When we both stopped laughing, I asked her what she said to Mom and she replied “I asked her what was she doing” and she said Mom answered “I am not sure” and walked out of her room.

My friend said that was when she realized the fan in her room was off, so surmised that Mom had heard the fan and come into her room to turn it off. I remarked “I hope you turned it back on” to which she answered “Hell no! I was afraid she would come back in so I left it off and it was hot as an oven in my room all night!”

Thank goodness for great friends with a good sense of humor! Motel six may leave the lights on but at Casa Flynn it is every woman for herself!