Tinoose's Other World 2

So, the agency that provides my mom with a Japanese caretaker 2x a week called me yesterday with the FUNNIEST story! Apparently Y-- was finally successful in getting my mom to take a bath. Let me back up a bit... When we first moved mom into an assisted living home, she refused to bathe. The caregivers at the home spent the whole month trying to get mom to allow them to help her bathe 3X a week. Their first attempt resulted in one of the caregivers, a woman about my size, to get "beat up" by my mom (at 4'11" and 75lb dripping wet, no pun intended). I thought they were joking when they told me about it because they were giggling and carrying on. I was just horrified (and secretly very proud of my mom) when I saw poor C--'s bruised arms and haunted eyes. (Ok, joking about the haunted eyes part, but those bruises were HUGE, black and purple all up and down both arms!). Since then, apparently, they've never been successful in getting mom to bathe again. I'm guessing that they mean "willingly bathe," because one of them told me that it takes 5 of them to give her a bath. This is despite the fact that they tried to accommodate my mom by buying a makeshift bathtub (a huge plastic storage crate!) and adding a stool so that she could bathe Japanese style.

Now back to the story of how Y-- finally got my mom to take a bath. When she tried to coax her into bathing this Thursday, my mom asked her if she would take one with her (Japanese tradition of community bathing). I would have loved to have seen Y--'s face at that moment! Lo and behold, she agreed! Bless her dear heart!! I just started howling with laughter when the owner of agency got to this part in her report. She couldn't stop laughing either! I've never met Y--, but I was picturing this little Japanese woman squeezing herself into the plastic storage crate with my mom in order to help her bathe! And then I was picturing the other caregivers at the home-- eyes widening in horror at the thought that on the days that Y-- isn't there, that's what it's going to take for them to get my mom to take a bath! Oh my goodness it's just so funny! I still can't stop laughing about it! Y-- definitely deserves some extra pay for her efforts! Anyway, they said that my mom was happily taking a bath with Y-- and then afterwards, she got upset and told her to go home! Awwww... I love my mommy!

Hee hee hee!!!

~Tinooseus!

These photos were actually taken in June of this summer. In the midst of what had been going on, I have forgotten all about them. Looking at the frames now, I find myself instantly transported back to that particular day. We were at the Stapleton Park, near the man-made pond and dock--one of our favorite spots to take doll pictures. It was around 9:30 in the morning, the day was gray, rainy, windy, and just plain cold and uncomfortable! Normally I would have been able to brave the elements and would have taken hundreds of pictures, but I just didn't have it in me on that day. I took about 25 pictures at Stapleton before I just gave up.


So Ms. Margaret and I grabbed a late breakfast and then we just moseyed on back to her house, talking up a storm. It was still cold and wet, but the urge to take pictures was still strong for Ms. Margaret. At first, I just hung out on the back porch watching her, but then I started posing Mina and then taking pictures myself. I took over 130 pictures in that back yard!






Thankfully, it was much more comfortable in the back yard than it was at the park. Perhaps because it would only take a moment to get indoors where it was warm and dry. But more so because of the tantalizing and comforting odor of a baking cake wafting from the kitchen where Ms. Edna (Margaret's mom) worked while listening to a CD (turned up a bit too loud) of Burl Ives singing folk music. It was such a precise moment in time to be photographing Mina-- the weather suited my mood and the music, well, the music worked somehow! Outside, everything was so wet and green and lush-- the perfect backdrop for a perfect doll, my Custom House Saint Mina.




Such moody pictures! I love this doll, my sweet little Mina... And I wish I could show them to my father, who was a photographer. I think he would have liked them very much.

~Tinooseus!

Mina went down to the Sand Creek Park in Aurora, Colorado today. She just wanted to look around for a bit. While she was there, she found this strange little doll in a torn jumpsuit.
And so she picked it up and carried it around with her as she explored.

Mina often found that it fell out of her pocket when she once again spotted the doll on the ground before her. It was as if the doll did not want to be taken home with her.


So Mina put the little doll back where she found it, took a quick picture of it, and left.



~Tinooseus!