Baking Cookies

I received the following email this afternoon:

I left a voicemail on your cell phone just a bit ago, but wanted to follow up with an email. Yesterday afternoon, I was walking past Lorna’s apartment and heard her smoke alarm going off. When I went in the room there was smoke in her kitchen, in the living room, and her microwave was open. I opened her windows and got Lorna into the hallway, which she was not happy about. She let me know that she was baking some cookies in her microwave as she felt the ones from the dining room were only halfway baked. She is unsure about how long she had set the microwave for. Our maintenance team was able to clear the smoke from the room, and Lorna was not in any distress, didn’t cough, or have any side effects from the smoke.

I wanted to let you know that we are going to be removing her microwave from her room this evening while she is at dinner due to concern for her safety. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. Thank you!

 I wrote back to the nurse with supportive and sympathetic words. I am deeply hoping that mom doesn’t notice the microwave is missing. She’s always liked a crisp cookie.

While opportunities to cause mayhem (mainly light fires in inopportune places) are incredibly reduced as compared to when mom was living independently, she managed to accomplish it. On a more serious note, this feels like a lowering of the bar that defines how mom is doing.