Yee-haw and, you know, howdy and stuff. Here I am, safely* in Missouri. For those interested, it's been a non-adventure so far. Meaning--all has gone well and no disasters.

I flew into K.C. on Friday, to be met by the L-i-K-S and a series of thunderstorms that made us both quickly agree that starting a long highway drive just at that time was a bad idea. Instead, we called Rapunzel and Pippi and invited them to meet us for dinner. I was very happy about that, since I hadn't been sure I'd have any time to see them on this trip.

After dinner, Rapunzel went off to work and the L-i-K-S and Pippi and I sidetracked through a couple of bookstores on our way back to a peaceful evening at their place. I didn't buy any books. I'm rather proud of that. So frugal! (Maybe it was just the security of knowing I had eight books, nine DVDs, and an internet-enabled laptop with me already.)

After that, a quiet evening at their place. They have a Dog-Inna-Box they needed to let out when we got there and he seemed to be very happy to have company. He insisted on smelling me. Many times. Later, after that palled and I was roaming around in my pj's, he took to sneaking up behind me and putting his cold nose on the backs of my knees. I was starting to think that the Dog-Inna-Box should have stayed inna box, but he really was just being friendly and he was very well trained, in all matters that did not involve smelling.

They have two cats, too. The cats, as cats will, ignored me. I like cats.

Pippi wasn't working that evening, so she took an hour out of her busy teenager's schedule to do my hair for me. She got a hair-straightener-gizmo for Christmas and apparently loves playing with it. I have to admit, my hair really did look great. I could use that gizmo now, after two days of washing my hair in the water at Mom's place. I look scary.

Later, Rapunzel was off work, so I tracked her down in her room and made her talk books with me for an hour or so. I don't get a lot of chances to chat with the girls face-to-face, so it really was a nice evening.

The L-i-K-S and I drove down here, to the Joplin area, on Saturday morning.

Getting right down to it, Mom looked--old and ill. Granted, she's 73 and has health problems, but it's still a shock when you haven't seen an elderly person in a couple of years*, to see the changes.

Much of that, of course, is the effects of the hospital stay. It takes longer, as you get older, to shake off the residual medications and stuff. Especially if they're feeding you oddball drugs so they can do tests.

The arrangement with her sister and brother-in-law, Billy Jo and Billy Bob, seems to be working for her so far. She has a little bedroom with a bathroom right off of it, like a little guest suite, and she can get from one to the other in two steps. She has a hospital bed, a walker, and a wheelchair, for getting around.

Everyone's being kind and rallying 'round. They do that. They fuss and fight and feud with each other endlessly, just like the stereotypical backwoods family, but when there's a crisis, everyone rallys around in an amazing fashion.

The first day or two, pretty much all of her surviving siblings showed up to visit (no small number in a bunch that originally had ten people), some with spouses. Billy Jo's two kids showed up, one towing a spouse and 7 month-old baby. Billy Jean's two kids showed up as well. My own brother, Pest Boy, turned up later that first evening. I think we wore her out with too much excitement, but she did like seeing everyone.

Mom seems to be stronger and a bit more alert every day. She's come to terms with the diagnosis in a way that surprised me at first, before I remembered the rallying 'round in a crisis mode they all possess. In a woman who's been known, in the last ten years, to argue with you because you mentioned, just in passing, that the sky was blue, it's a relief to see that she's not going to fight the diagnosis or the steps we need to take to keep her safe.

She's not happy about it, but that would be ridiculous, so that's okay. They have things set up to try and give her as much independence as possible, and all of this crowd, or at least the older generation of it, has a certain amount of experience in nursing the elderly, the ill, and the terminal, so they're not wigged out by the necessities of the situation.

Much still needs to be done. At some point they're going to have an estate sale to get rid of her furniture and knick-knacks and stuff in her trailer, then she'll sell it, but not for a couple of months, until things really settle down. (I don't think she's ready to 100% accept that she'll never be able to come "home" again.) In the meantime, her trailer gives me and other visiting offspring a place to stay, so that's working out okay for us right now.

I still wish we could bundle her up and haul her back to Colorado, where we could see her every day, but that's just not the right thing to do. She's finally found a really good doctor who runs a clinic that specializes in neuromuscular diseases. Mom doesn't want to leave him, and I don't blame her. Also, she lives with people who don't work for a living, so they're around 24/7 in case she needs anything or just wants to chat with someone. That's good for her as well.

She has most of the necessary financial and future arrangements paperwork done, according to her. I haven't prowled around her desk yet to make sure the papers really exist and she wasn't just thinking she'd done them, but I guess that will be necessary one day this week. The only paper she hasn't done is the medical one, what to do in extreme cases sort of thing. She's supposed to do it this week.

Aside from that, we need to make a few financial arrangements around her living with Billy Jo and Billy Bob. So far I can't get them to discuss it with me, but we need to pay them for taking care of her. They don't feel it's right to be paid for taking care of family, but we're trying to get them to see that Mom, if we let her be a part of these conversations, would want to feel she's contributing and not being a drain on their slender resources. That's a battle I'll have to keep fighting this week.

And now, I'm on dial-up, so I'd better stop before this entry goes to a length that will choke the phone lines. (Dial-up. How primitive.)

Also, there is a dead beetle in the bathtub. Now that it's daylight, I need to deal with it.

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* "Safely." Hah. This place is alive. There are bugs of all sorts, lurking in every nook and cranny of this part of the country, just waiting to jump out at you. Flying bugs and crawling bugs and biting bugs and stinging bugs and more. I am so not a fan of bugs.

I know what an ecosystem is and I completely understand the place and value of bugs in one. I just don't think people should be living here, amongst it all. We should leave the back woods to the bugs and the critters and let them get on with it.

I am not the stuff the pioneers were made of.

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** Yes, I know. "How could you let two years go by and not visit your old, widowed mother, Anne?" As a quick reminder, I've been unemployed twice in the last two years. My finances have been a bit shaky.