Sonoma Sojourn

My friend, Ron, tells me that EVERYONE experiences anxiety the day before they leave for a trip — even if the trip is only for a week. I have to agree with him now … the three days before I leave for Sonoma are fraught with anxiety – except for the visit on Sunday with my friend, Carole, who is recovering miraculously from pancreatic cancer and who looks beautiful with the sparkle back in her eyes and her voice strong again and her hair fabulous (it’s a wig, she tells me!!!!). I also visit with Hayes as Graham and McKenzie work on putting together a display case at the Studio. Nothing compares to hearing a baby giggle and sing and I swear Hayes said  “football” as we watched the Atlanta/Seattle game. There is nothing like the touch of a baby, too, and I take a million videos of Hayes to bring with me on this trip –I’ve already watched them so often I can almost mouth every word (every sound) he makes in them … but best of all, I can recall his sweet, soft touch when I see him onscreen.

Ron and I didn’t get into details about the level of anxiety one might experience when traveling for more than one week; my guess was that it might be exponentially increased when the trip is for three and half months. I now believe that to be true.

The weekend flew by with activities unplanned:  Aunt Ann (who is turning 98 in April) fainted at lunch on Saturday and was taken to the hospital. Alexis, Lisa, and I drove up to Beverly to see her — after so many years of good health, Aunt Ann began a decline into dementia that rapidly progressed over the past year. She is an inspiration in many ways: a NYC career girl at Esso (before it became Exxon), she never married, invested wisely, and traveled extensively. She’s now been retired longer than she actually worked; I don’t know if Esso/Exxon imagined paying her annuity and insurance all these years. In fact, I wonder if Aunt Ann might be the oldest (longest) retiree on their books!

Still extremely stylish, even at this age, Aunt Ann in her younger years was stunning. She took no medicines; she never needed them, and she wouldn’t consider taking an aspirin if needed because she suspected anything medicinal that was ingested could lead to addiction.

She employed incredible discipline when it came to eating: she made herself a healthy, balanced meal every night (even before balanced meals came into the national psyche), and she accompanied her culinary creations with a martini every night as well. Given that Aunt Ann lived alone most of her adult life, I found her commitment to healthy eating extraordinary, especially since my meals when I’m alone usually consist of bowls of popcorn or maybe an egg or maybe nothing at all. Vegetables? Don’t think so. Protein and carbs? Probably not. Martini? Well, yes … that IS part of dinner for me regardless of what I’m having (or not). I consider it homage to Aunt Ann.

It’s hard to say how many miles Aunt Ann walked during her 30+ years in New York. She would much rather walk than take a bus or subway if possible, and the combination of walking and eating well (she would add her nightly martini to that list) brought her into her 90s in phenomenal condition. Spry, agile, fearless when it came to going into Boston from the suburbs where she now lived,  Aunt Ann remained an intrepid and frequent traveler; it always surprised us and those who met her en route to learn how far she had traveled that day and how many buses and or trains it took to get there.

Now Aunt Ann lives in a “gracious retirement living community” on the North Shore of Boston and scoffs at all the residents who push through the hallways and down to the dining area behind metal frames on wheels — they are SO old.  These days, however, Aunt Ann’s mind has taken the hit that her body hasn’t, and Aunt Ann travels between the worlds of what was and what is. We work to keep her safe and happy, but the managers of the gracious retirement living community call us often to tell us she knocks on people’s doors during the evening or has the television on so loud (she’s lost two pairs of hearing aids within three months) that neighbors down the hall can hear it or that they found her outside the building at four in the morning — and when the cleaning lady knocked on the door this past Wednesday to clean Aunt Ann’s apartment, she was greeted by a very nude Aunt Ann.  And so, the gracious retirement living community managers have asked us to move Aunt Ann somewhere else by February 15; clearly seniority (in this case meaning that Aunt Ann was one of the first residents to join this gracious retirement living community when it opened in 2011) doesn’t mean a thing when one complaint too many is lodged against the woman living in unit 443.

Before we can move her, though, she faints at lunch on Saturday and the hospital calls us and we go to see her and she is agitated; she is tired of being confused like this and is DONE with being in this condition (she glides her finger knife-like along her throat as she makes this declaration). It is not the first time we hear this from her: her friends are gone, her eyesight is gone, her hearing is going — after a lifetime of bridge games and cultural events and the morning newspaper and extensive travel, what is left for her to enjoy?

Martinis. That’s what’s left: Tangueray and vermouth, stirred (or shaken) martinis.

Even as she lies in the emergency room, Aunt Ann wants a martini. In HER mind she hasn’t had one since Christmas (even though she has). Whenever we take her out to lunch, we instruct the bartender to water down Aunt Ann’s martini because a full-strength drink can quickly send her 94lb body into a drunken dither. Don’t make it TOO watery, though; Aunt Ann can assess its strength from the very second she raises the martini toward her lips.  Aunt Ann is gracious, however, and doesn’t ask that the drink be remade; she sips her martini and smiles at the ritual she’s engaged in for over 70 years. Some martinis are better than others; some smiles are deeper than others.

When it comes time to leave Aunt Ann on Saturday as she waits to moved from the Emergency Room, I tell her we’ll see her tomorrow. She shouts after us as we head down the hall, “Don’t forget the martinis!”. What the hell; why not?

And so Aunt Ann’s fainting spell absorbs precious hours from the weekend that I planned to use for the final preparations for departure. I fall behind the eight ball and don’t emerge until I put Smokey under the seat in front of me today on the plane. Forget the fact that yesterday was overbooked anyhow and I couldn’t get out of the office when I needed to, and forget the fact that the ATM machine kept spitting out receipts with zeroes on them and then flashed a message that my password was invalid and it doesn’t seem to care that I have NO money and need cash for the trip — and forget the fact that Linda, who has generously offered to drive me to the airport this morning, tells me she thought it was TOMORROW that she was driving me when I call to find out why she isn’t here 10 minutes after she was supposed to be.

It doesn’t matter: Smokey and I are on our way to our Sonoma sojourn.