Clinker dust, tsunami, fugedda bout it

My mom loved x-mas and x-mas baking and giving gifts and sending cards and singing x-mas carols and everything about x-mas.  Here's the strange thing, mom never put up x-mas outside x-mas lights or decorate the outside short of a wreath on the door.  For years I thought it was because of my dad and maybe he didn't want to put them up.  My father is a very frugal man and I could just see my dad calling they lights a waste of money and an additional cost on the utility bills.  One year I asked mom why we didn't put up outside lights and I fully expected to hear that it was because of my father.  However much to my surprise, it wasn't.  In fact it was my mom who didn't believe in outside decorations.  She told me that x-mas is a time for the warmth and comfort of the home and she decorated the inside so that instead of looking at the outside, people would come in and enjoy the togetherness  and love inside our home.  It made sense.  Regardless, mom always liked to drive around Canmore and see what the townspeople had put up in their yards and on the outside of the houses.  So, this year when I heard that the facility would be doing some x-mas light tours I signed mom up for the outing.
Getting a dozen residents into the handi-bus is not small feat.  Many of the residents, although walking, don't have have the strength to use the stairs to get up into the bus, so the lift must be used.  Others are in wheelchairs so the lift must be used again to get them in, then with help they are transferred into a seat and then to get the wheelchair back down, the lift must be used again.  Most of the wheelchairs look exactly alike so when they are lined up they must be labelled so no one gets the wrong chair upon return.  Many residents are very attached to their chairs and don't like the idea of them being left unattended and we have to explain to them that it is okay and their chair will still be there upon the return.  Then getting the big Broda chairs into the bus is an even bigger feat.  The platform on the lift is very sensitive to anything touching the safety holds and if one little screw or foot rest is touching the lift will not move.  The Broda chairs are not at all like a regular wheel chair.  They weigh, I swear 150 lbs and then add the weight of the person in them and they are heavy.  There are little screws and levers all over them so that any part of the chair can be manipulated for comfort and to accommodate bathing or commode use or whatever.  Loading the Broda's onto the lift means a series of adjusting and lifting parts of the chair until the lift platform is clear and it moves the resident up into the bus. Then manoeuvring them around in the bus to be able to attach the safety belts and chains is another feat.  Needless to say, getting 10 residents and 3 Broda chairs onto the handi-bus, at night, takes at least a half an hour.
Now that mom is off of the drugs and out of the drug induced zombie-like state, yes she more alert.  However, what we are now seeing are more dementia symptoms and traits surfacing.  When mom is tired many of these traits appear. Sometimes mom will be sitting at a table and she will fold and unfold and fold and unfold a paper napkin, over and over.  This is common in dementia patients and some days, as I sit with mom and others at the dining room table, the whole table will be playing with their napkins or playing with the bowl of sugar packs.  Another common symptom is the repetition of phrases or words.  It's like someone with OCD, turning the lights on and off a hundred times.  Mom was tired by the time the light tour started and 5 minutes into the tour she started repeating, over and over and over these three things, "Clinker dust, tsunami, fugedda bout it".  I just let mom repeat and repeat and repeat.  When I engaged her in conversation or pointed out a house on her right to look at, she would stop and say "Those are nice lights," but then immediately go back to  repeating "Clinker dust, tsunami, fugedda bout it".  For the entire hour mom repeated those words.
I know where the words she repeated came from.  What I don't know is how her mind is working that she would fixate on those three and at the same time.   The clinker dust of course comes from her years of working at Canada Cement Lafarge.  Mom was always washing her car because it was always covered in clinker dust and it always bothered her that her vehicles never looked pristine and new because of the clinker dust.  I'm sure at some point she must have requested that the management do something about the clinker dust on her car.  The tsunami of course is because of the big one that happened in the areas of the Indian ocean that killed over two hundred thousand people on Boxing day 2004.  Mom had travelled over the years to many of the places that were devastated and it bothered her that so many people that she had met, were probably now gone.  But the 'fugedda bout it' and in a Jersey shore accent yet, now that I didn't understand at all.  Mom never liked the Soprano's.  She didn't like the sex and violence and she especially didn't like the mental health issues that were prevalent in most of the episodes.  She hated even more the early seasons when Tony struggles were blamed on his mother Livia.  Those who are reading this that know of our family history will understand why portions of the TV show disturbed her.  Still it was funny to listen her talk in a Jersey accent.
When we returned to the facility mom was disappointed and told me "I didn't like the tour".  As I rolled her back to her ward, I asked her why.  Her answer astounded me and at the same time it made me smile from ear to ear.  Mom said "We didn't go to Gary and Lana's".  It didn't matter that mom didn't realize that we weren't in Canmore or that Gary had passed away a few years ago.  What did matter is that she remembers.  Every year we would walk to Gary and Lana's house to see the spectacular lights and figurines.  There are pictures of me as a child in front of their house by the school and pictures of my kids at their house on 9th ave.  It was another Christmas tradition that mom remembered.