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| message board November 2011
There was snow on the rooftops this morning. The snow had melted on pavement and most of the lawns, and once the sun came up it took very little time for the snow on the rooftops to melt away, but the fact that snow fell and didn't melt everywhere upon contact means the Winter season is upon us and snow can be expected. I do love snow. I love the change of seasons in general and I love the ebauty of a snow-covered amndscape. But shoveling snow I hate. I don't even mind driving in snow so much - if nobody else was driving at the time (nobody ele seems to have a clue how to drive in snow). But we deal with it. At least I didn't have to clear any snow today. That's small fortune but welcomed. Posted at 11:11 AM
I'm waiting for the day when I don't have to accomplish a series of tasks that day or at least set up for a series of tasks the next day - all of which are important, time-consuming, and for one reason or another dragging on and on. It's not that I mind doing tasks. In fact I get a lift out of the sense of accomplishment from every task I complete. However, having a whole list of tasks that has to be done staring you in the face, many of which have been delayed or stretched out through no fault of your own, gets frustrating and depresing and makes you feel as though you'll never get caught up ... which in truth you won't (there will always be something else to be done). I really just need a week - even a couple of days - where I'm on top of the major things thatneed to be done and any tasks that I could do are just things I'd like to do, not need to do (like the home inventory I've wanted so I could better set up my insurance; that task has been set aside repeatedly for twenty-three years ...). Is it so much to ask for a week without extra tasks? Posted at 9:18 AM
Sanity is going the way of chivalry and hospitality. Posted at 1:48 PM
Mother Nature must hate me. It's not like I really enjoy doing any kind of yard work anyway, but every time I simply must get something done (i.e., mow the grass because it's too long, cut back plants, or in this case rake leaves) it rains or storms on every possible day I could get out of the house while my grandmother is at day care. On the rare cases the weather is decent it's on a day my grandma's at daycare but there is an unalterable appointment or errand that has to be done. The whole year has been like this - at least Spring, Summer, and Fall - and here we go again. I've had no end of difficulty finding a chance to rake leaves and get them to the curb around the city's leaf pick-up schedule, and Thursday is the first day of the last pickup in our area. That means I could try on Tuesday or Thursday to get the leaves out while my gramma is at day care, but the forecast is for rain through Wednesday (and if today is any indication it won't just be a few sprinkles), and Thursday I have to run the car back to Elyria early in the morning and get it back in the afternoon, essentially leaving me no time to work the leaves. I might be thrilled to get out of raking leaves but there are so many layered in the lawn it will kill the grass if it stays. It's all very annoying: I don't want to do it but I have to but I can't even though I must. Ugh. Posted at 11:23 AM
Yesterday was the first outing with my grandma in the car. In short, everything worked fine. It's not quite like I'd hoped, but it's fine. You see, when I was test driving cars part of my concerns were thinking about my grandma, specifically, could I set her in the car and pick her up from the seat as well or better than in the Cutlass and would the wheelchair fit in the trunk or hatchback (unlike in the Cutlass where I had to use the back seat and as a result had minor damage to the car from scrapes). The Veloster seemed to fit the bill as well or better than any of the other cars I looked at except the Honda Civic, but a number of other things pulled the Civic out of the running for my consideration. Of course I was eyeballing these things. I couldn't take my grandmother with me during test drives, so I couldn't experiment with getting her in and out of each car. As it turns out I was pretty good at judging how well I could get her in and out of the car. It's a bit different than with the Cutlass, but I don't see any problem getting my grandma in and out. Right now I am comparing it to moving her in and out of the last car. After I've moved her about a few more times it will feel more familiar, and it should be more natural. My judgment of the space for the wheelchair was unfortunately off. It's not a real problem because there's plenty of room to still put the chair in through the hatchback, but I have to have the back seats flipped down to have enough space. I'd hoped to have space to set it inside without moving anything about, but it turns out I'm about 4-6" short of having the right amount of space. It's frustrating that it's such a small amount off, but it's not a big deal. I just have to get a routine for flipping down the seats and all before I put my grandma in the car - and it's not like I'm taking her out in the car all that often anyhow. I was also pleased to find that the seat cover I found for my grandma's seat works well (after a little tweaking from me). I wanted a seat cover in case my grandma had an accident during a drive. It hasn't happened yet, but we're getting closer to where that is a real concern. So I found a waterproof cover that is almost like a seat mat rather than the stretchy covers you think of when someone says seat cover. The big concern for me was whether it would stay in place as I sat my grandmother down and shifted her around, but not only did it stay right where it should, but the vinyl surface actually made it easy to scoot her and swing her around. Good stuff. My grandma always used to bring in al sorts of stuff on the bottoms of her shoes,when she used to get in by herself and even after I was setting her in the car - it was just one of those things. So I looked around for snow and slush mats and found a great set that actually could have been designed for this car. They fit exactly in the foot wells and go edge to edge. They're also deep enough that melted off snow and such won't drain off anywhere. They're were a great (and affordable) find. So the Veloster passed this next test just about perfectly. This is my car, and I expect to have it a while, but for the time being and probably for a while into the future it has to accommodate my grandma's needs as well, and it seems like it fulfills every one of those needs very well - all the more reason to be in love with this car. Posted at 10:44 AM
Well ... there it is. Posted at 10:14 AM
I'll gobble you up, pretty boy. Muaha-ha-ha-ha!! Posted at 9:27 PM
The dragons weep, and I feel their pain. Thank you, Anne, for everything. Posted at 11:46 AM
This day is just dragging out from the first moment until the last. How can any day take so long and yet leave me feeling like I've been running to catch up every minute? Posted at 8:52 PM
My grandma seems (I stress seems - we'll see how everything goes) - seems to be getting slowly, slightly over her cold. There seems (seems) to be less of a runny nose, less coughing, and less harsh coughing when she coughs at all. That's all wonderful if it does indicate what it suggests. Unfortunately during the last two days I observed this possible improvement but I've also observed and dealt with a much more senile, spacey woman. She gets like this mentally when she is more tired, and I suspect the energy her body is putting into fighting the cold is draining all of her strength in every other aspect ... but I don't know that. She may just have slipped a little more mentally and this is how things will be from now on, or it may be the result of something else entirely. Regardless of the cause my grandmother has been even more tiring and needing observation - all while I myself need to try to recuperate from my own cold. It's exhausting and frustrating dealing with her in this condition. I can only hope this isn't the new normal: it's really rough. So as usual, even a hint of good news can't come alone but has to be accompanied by other problems than what you had before. Great. Any other person would be out enjoying their new car and setting it up. Not me. Not by a long shot. Posted at 11:54 AM
I can't tell if I'm finally just catching up with convenience technology or if my new car is overloaded with an outrageous amount of tech features, but it's probably a bit of both. Let's face it, I'm going from a car that only had a driver's side and passenger's side airbag (and a passenger airbag was a fairly new thing), and it came with a GM stereo with a cassette player. Seriously. I had better tech in the car I owned before that, the '95 Eagle Talon, and the car I had before that, the '98 Dodge Dakota. Even though I knew I'd finally be seeing more tech features it still takes a bit to get used to. Having controls on the steering wheel for the stereo is new, and using those controls for my iPod will be a great new experience, too, but being able to control my iPhone through Bluetooth using controls on the steering wheel as well is amazing to me. Being able to use voice controls to make phone calls or do navigation or change the song that's playing - amazing. I have XM Radio free for 30 days or 60 days as a bonus, and it's nice, but I can't see paying for it, and I won't miss it. I also have BlueLink free for a year, and while I won't pay for that when the free time period is up, it's impressive, too. In fact, if BlueLink were priced better I'd be willing to pay. Having emergency services available at the touch of a button (like OnStar) is great. Knowing that crash notification is sent to BlueLink as well is great. Being able to disable the car remotely if it's been stolen in fantastic. But there are limits to what I (or anyone) can spend for such services. Currently the price is too high. But for this first year I'll gladly enjoy the comfort of having those services available as well as having the convenience of all the other available services. Some things were unexpected, the kinds of things you expect in high end cars or at an additional cost: heated mirrors, a power window on the stealth third door, an iPod/mp3 USB outlet, all sorts of power jacks around the car, and even a standard AC outlet (just like you'd have in your house). The six different things recorded by the trip odometer alone sort of amaze me. It's all very cool. Much of this will rarely get used, and a lot of it will take me a while to set up and get used to using, but it will definitely change how I use my car and even how I drive, and I like the prospects. It should be great fun, and that's what I really wanted to get most of all when I got a new car: making it fun again to drive. Posted at 10:49 AM
It's the cold that would not die, possibly coming soon to plague-house near you ... Posted at 10:34 AM
As much as I'm excited about my new car I suppose I should look back at my previous car now that I'll never drive it again. After all, I had that same car for ten long years, and it deserves some recognition. In fact I know things will never be the same in this new car as they were in the old one. I'll always miss ... uhmmm ... well .... Wait! I'll miss having ... errr ... ummm ... well ... ... Okay. That part - not so much. But I surely know I won't miss:
I will not miss any of those things, and I specifically chose the Veloster so that I wouldn't have to endure ANY of those annoyances and hindrances again. Good riddance, 1998 Oldsmobile Cutlass GLS. You very much overstayed your welcome. Posted at 11:29 AM
Today a long and bizarre struggle finally came to a positive end and I purchased a new car - specifically a Triathlon Gray Hyundai Veloster. It started, believe it or not, as far back as the first year I was caring for my grandma, almost ten years ago. My sister made an off-hand comment that if I cared for my grandma long enough maybe she'd buy me a new car as a thank you for my help ... once the old one was, well, old. At the time I didn't think much of it, and in years to follow, as my sister came to claim I was "talking advantage of my grandma", as not so much a suggestion but as a jab at me. The car issue was never something I approached because, although I have hated the Oldsmobile Cutlass I had been driving and was constantly having to make repairs or one sort or another here and there, I didn't see how I could afford a car (even a new-to-me used one) and I didn't see why my grandma should lay down so much for me, Flash forward to a couple years ago and a couple of expensive repairs that, in fairness, were fairly expected for the mileage and age of the car. My mother was upset that the car was costing me so much and made an off-hand comment that she wished we could use some of my grandma's stock portfolio to purchase a new(er) car, but with the fall of overall market value for my grandma and everyone else it wasn't really something that seemed at all possible. Flash forward again to this Summer,May. My mom, out of the blue, said that she and my sperm-donor had been talking and thought it would make sense to get a newer car while there was still money to use and before the Cutlass simply died one day leaving us high and dry. This time, as it wasn't made as an off-hand comment, I played along. After a couple of weeks I actually realized my mom was serious and not just dangling a carrot in front of me. I asked more about what she was thinking and made some clear points of my own. I was massively shocked when my mother said she was thinking about around $15,000 toward the car. I was shocked. That plus the trade-in of the Cutlass (and maybe a little advance from a credit card) would get me a small new car. Amazing. In June, during a visit my Mom made, we even test drove a Honda Fit. It looked like we might proceed quickly but my mother came up with a bunch of bizarre ideas such as having the car in my grandma's name and even the insurance in my grandma's name - a woman who hasn't driven in twelve years. My mother and I hit a wall with this because neither of us would budge. I wasn't going to give up a car I possessed in full (even if I hated it) for nothing, no matter how nice a car it would be. I also wasn't convinced we could even get insurance through my grandma. Anyhow, it seemed the car deal was dead, and I chalked it up as just another casual promise withdrawn without regret. I was frustrated but had always tempered my expectation - that means I never really let myself believe it would ever come to fruition. Flash forward yet again just a month and a half to my sister's late Summer visit. My sister was concerned to find out that I wouldn't leave town on the days my grandma was in day care because I was worried the car would break down and I might not be able to get back in time for her. This was a valid concern for me, but my sister took it to heart and exaggerated it a bit in her mind such that she didn't feel the car was safe for me to drive our grandma around in. My sister also knew vaguely about the car offer through my mom using my grandma's money, but she didn't know why it had been dropped. I explained the impasse I had reached with our mother and my sister pretty much sided with me. That might have been the end of it but about a month later my mother called to tell me she had heard from my sister that the car was unsafe for driving grandma and that my sister insisted she work something out. I was still open to the idea but also expecting as usual that it would result in nothing, so I discussed things again. As it happened, an investment of an annuity that my grandmother had held came to term, but it was an annuity that was not held by my grandma' s brokerage firm. It had managed to go under the radar for the whole ten years it had been invested and reinvesting in itself. I suggested ways to reinvest all or most of it, and my mom had similar thoughts, but my sister saw an opportunity and made clear that the money should be used to cover the new(er) car issue. My mother came to see that view, too, and I suddenly found it possible that I might get a new(er) car. I did a lot of research, figuring what my cash purchase price point would be and then building and comparing just about every car in the market. A lot of cars were eliminated quickly because they priced out, if not right away then certainly after they were similarly equipped to the standard I was looking for. I narrowed things down by price, then based upon specifications, and finally had a list of thirteen cars. Those thirteen I test drove, noting my feelings and observations in a big Excel chart and then rating each category of observation with best and worse. In the end the car with the most 'Best' observations and no 'Worse' observations was also the car I like most for looks - the Veloster. With a car in mind I then wheeled and dealed at three different Hyundai dealerships, finally pinning down a great price with a great trade-in value for the Cutlass, some great rebates, and a lowered starting price as well. Then we had to find a car with the color and feature set I wanted - that was harder than you'd think. The Veloster was a new line in 2012, just introduced, delayed due to problems from the Tsunami and earthquake in Japan, and strong demand across the country. Finally, though, I got it today. I have a huge stack of manuals to wade through (it's a very tech-rich car with all sorts of stuff even a tech guy like me has to take some time to figure out), and I have a lot of stuff to set up in the car that I pulled out of the Cutlass before I said "Good riddance." I'll probably be spending the next couple weeks arranging and rearranging and learning things about my new car, and I'm pretty excited, truth be told. I will, without a doubt, be commenting about the car and the good and bad and unexpected that I go through during the next few weeks, and hopefully I won't drive you nuts during that time. I'll get some photos up as well, but for now I suggest looking at the Hyundai website for the Veloster or maybe checking out their YouTube Channel. More later. Posted at 9:24 PM
Even with my mother here to help feed my grandma, wipe her nose, and keep an eye on her, I am still struggling to keep up with the demands of caring for my grandma. This cold that's now taken hold in me adds to the difficulty, but honestly - how is one person supposed to be able to do this? I'm here for as long as it takes, but I have to wonder who will die first - my grandma or me. This is not an occupation for the weak I assure you. And who else would ever give my grandma such close care? No one, I tell you. No one at all. Posted at 2:14 PM
I've felt my grandma's cold trying to grab hold of me for a number of days, eliciting some coughs and drying out my eyes to the point of making a massive ark of head pain to accompany my normal migraine. It's been bearable but uncomfortable and of a bit of concern. I've been caring for myself, though, so it has been kept in check. Last night I slept 'wrong' - at least in a way that isn't usual for me - and as a result my throat is slightly sore and irritated and my nose is running in a post nasal drip. I'm again doing what I can to mitigate things, but it's frustrating that sleeping wrong has made this so much worse. Wasn't it bad enough that my grandma has a cold and I've had to deal with that? Now I have to have on, too? At the same time? Posted at 10:19 AM
You might think I'd be used to being stabbed in the back without any warning. After all of the times I've been truly fucked over by someone I trusted and called a friend you'd think I'd learn to just figure it had to be coming. But alas, I'm not called theDreamer for nothing, and for some completely unfathomable reason I generally expect the best - or at least the most indifferent - out of people, not their worst. But the truth is that more often than not human beings are selfish, cruel, lacking compassion or caring for anyone unless they themselves can obtain something from even just common courtesy if not more. Human beings are vindictive, jealous, petty, suspicious, and manipulative. And while the good that can come from human beings can in fact outweigh all of the bad, it is sadly to be found so rarely and in so few people that it can never overcome the smothering darkness and pain caused by most people most all of the time. My dreams are many, but they most often center on the good - not the good that can come for me but the good I ca (or could, given the chance) do for others. I find great peace in the hope that I can do good for others, help people, and my most fond and cherished memories of my life are of times I have done exactly that. I have great dreams of what I would do if I came into sudden wealth, such as a lottery win, and the ability to become a philanthropist for needy, abused children and homeless gay youths has been my greatest hope. For a long time, back almost twenty years, I fantasized about taking an old, abandoned campground just off the Indiana Toll Road, buying it and making a combined children's home, youth hostel, and campground for homeless and abused gay kids. I kept that dream alive for a decade until the property was bought and made into a housing development, and I was crushed when the campground was gone because even as impossible as my dream had been, the availability of the campground still made it something that could happen given the right circumstances. A few years ago, as part of a Dungeons & Dragons game I was involved in, I had my player buy property and provide food and shelter for the homeless children of the town. My character was a 14 year old boy living on the streets and by his wits who suddenly became an adventuring hero with treasure gathered up regularly. Much was spent to better his armor and weapons, but he used other money to help his friends and acquaintances from the street - not only something I felt strongly about myself, but something that to me seemed like exactly what a fourteen year old boy would do if he suddenly cam into a lot of money. As it happened that character died while adventuring. Hi s group of fellow adventurers, rather than bring him back to life as would often be the case with a party member, chose to leave him dead - and when it became apparent that he had made arrangements with a will for his possessions to go to his business partner and that the business partner planned to resurrect him, the adventuring party objected and tried to stop his return to life. They also learned of the abandoned farms he had bought which he had been rebuilding and refertilizing and using as homes for the homeless and to provide jobs for the jobless, and they decided that these actions meant he was "Empire-building" - whatever that means. The fact that the farms wouldn't make money for years and despite the fact that my character had been helping the homeless, poor, and needy, they drove him out of town and forced him to sell off all of his possessions, leaving nobody to care for the sick and homeless. These last things were done recently and in my absence. I haven't been available to drive to Toledo to play D&D with my "friends" because of my responsibility to my grandma, and I wa fine with letting things go since my character, having died, was simply supposed to be brought back to life and then decide to lead a simpler life closer to town where he would care for the needy, as he had arranged. To say that things turned out much differently than expected is an understatement. To say that the people playing the other characters in my adventuring group went above and beyond the call of assholery doesn't begin to paint a clear enough picture. I expect friends to be flawed and to do things you might not like. I even expect at times that friends disagree and even fight - sometimes stridently. I do not understand stabbing a friend in the back. Certainly not when there is nothing to be gained, and even less when you were doing good works. These actions may have been simply part of a game, but they were very personal. That character - my character - would have had no further involvement with the other characters but they went out of their way to destroy all of the good things I had done. All of the things I would dream to do in real life I was doing in that little fantasy setting, and while it wasn't real it still gave me a small amount of comfort. It may seem silly to associate the actions of the characters with the people playing them, but this is by far not the first conflict between us - and often for much the same basis. My character would try to better himself or help others and other characters would accuse him of being greedy or plotting something, and it was all simply due to how a certain player perceived me in real life. Sadly not just he but everyone fell into this paranoia and persecution, and it was all the more sad because I thought of these players as my friends. And while it may be a game, friends don't just do something like this when there's nothing to be gained. This is like going into an alley and cutting up the refrigerator box a homeless person sleeps in; this is like killing someone's pet bunny just because; this is like telling social services that your friend was raping his foster child even though you knew he wasn't but because you didn't think he could be a good parent. My life seems to be a timeline of me becoming close to people, loving and trusting them, and having them turn on me somewhere down the line. Is this true of all of my friends? No! Certainly not. I still have great friends who are even better than I deserve. And I had the best of friends who died way before their times and would never have done such things to me. But among those good people I manage to also draw in the hurtful ones who take some sick joy from seeing me upset, and those are the ones who fuel my depression, who gave background to my nervous breakdown, and those are the people who make me want to be dead. And who could think differently? Who would want to live in a world where people that have pretended to be your friend attack you for no reason? Who would want to live in a world where the only people who honestly love you die? Who would want to live in a world where humanity is defined by it's cruelty and selfishness and not for even a single noble trait? Who could want that? Posted at 10:44 AM
My grandmother's cough is much more troubling now. While it hasn't gotten worse in harshness it has gotten worse in regularity and constant coughing fits, not just during the day but on and off throughout the night as well. We are now officially into a full blown cold. I'm doing all I can to sooth her throat, get her rested, and keep her eating good foods that will aid her recovery. Even so, I'm quite concerned to be at this point. A frail, underweight 97 year-old woman is not well equipped to fight a cold any more than she is to fight a mature grizzly bear. I can only hope that my efforts will help her through this until her body can somehow manage to fight off the last of the cold virus. Wish us both luck. Posted at 9:34 AM
My mother arrived last night for a short visit (five days). My grandma is still in the beginning stages of a cold - no worse but no better either - and how my mom's visit will affect this is anybody's guess. My mom wants to get her mom (my grandma) involved in things while she's around, be it looking through old photos or playing cards or whatever. That's great, and it's truly wonderful, necessary stuff for my grandma, but my mom just goes from one thing to the next with my grandma without a break, and it's too much for such an elderly lady. Usually my grandma ends up quite tired - sometimes to exhaustion - after a visit from my mom, but this time that can't be allowed or this cold could get much, much worse. So I have my work cut out for me as much or more than usual. Keeping my grandma alive and well is getting increasingly more difficult. Posted at 10:20 AM
The adult day care center where I've been sending my grandmother two afternoons a week has been a tremendous asset in that I have time to go to the grocery, bank, pharmacy, gas station, post office, hardware store, or other shop and to mow the lawn, rake leaves, cut back plants, or do other tasks in the yard or garage or around town that would keep me from watching my grandma. I'm grateful for that and the costs (while still more than we can actually budget against simple income) are reasonable. The service of the adult day care center is more questionable. It's great that they offer to pick up and drop off my grandmother, but when the pick-up times and the delivery times can range over a period of more than two hours each it ends up being more frustrating and problematic than helpful. Sending my grandma home in adult diapers that are soiled is honestly quite unacceptable. Choosing to wheel her and pick her up from one chair to another rather than have her walk is what got her to altogether give up trying to walk at home even though she had the body strength still t do so, and picking her up bodily and pulling down her pants rather than having her stand on her own during that time has gotten her to where I can barely get her to stand (and it's fine for them with multiple attendants but not at all practical for me alone). It's also totally unacceptable to have a 97 year old woman in a car with the windows rolled down when it is 40 degrees and breezy and just as bad to send her home in only slightly warmer weather not wearing her coat and with her pantsuit top unzipped (these last two to me are just about criminally negligent, and they had without any shadow of a doubt led to the cough nd cold that developed immediately after these incidents). On top of that the billing situation is as disorganized and juvenile as anything I've seen since being in a high school student organization. The bad outweighs the good in any normal circumstance and I would honestly choose t quit using this service, but this isn't a normal situation. Without an adult day care service I can't get groceries or other items because I can't leave my grandma unattended, and in this dinky little town there is only this one place to choose from. Home caregivers cost too much unless I cut back to just one afternoon a week instead of two, and most home caregivers won't work for that few hours per week. So I'm trapped, and I suspect the adult day care people know that. It burns me, truly. Posted at 11:29 AM
11:11:11 11-11-11 Posted at 11:11 AM
I've kept my grandma from getting a full-blown cold so far, but I think I may be losing the battle. I'm certainly not gaining any headway at the least, and while her cough hasn't worsened (not too much anyway), she is becoming much more lethargic and slow-witted. This happens when she is tired but it also seems to me what to expect as the developing cold is sapping her strength. I don't like this at all. Posted at 12:58 PM
Lemony Snickett never fails to impart exceptional wisdom:
Posted at 11:06 AM
Okay, I've had enough. You can stop now. Really. Seriously. That's enough. What exactly do you want? Another nervous breakdown? Suicide? A psychotic murder spree? Come on Universe, tell me what you're shooting for so we can just get this over. Posted at 9:09 AM
I finished reading Dracula, Dracula's Guest, and finally Dracula: The Un-dead yesterday, about a week later than I'd hoped to finish (it had seemed like good material for Halloween. All together I read them in about a week - not bad considering everything else that's been going on - and I'm glad I reread Dracula before rolling into the others; it allowed me to catch a lot of things I would surely have missed with even a short delay between the readings. I've had Dracula: The Un-dead for a number of months now just sitting and waiting with a bunch of other books to be read. I'd looked forward to it since I first read about its release, and I must say I wasn't disappointed. Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt have managed to create the same wonderful suspense and anxiousness of the original novel even while using a different voice and different sort of perspective than the original. They were true to the original to a fault and expanded upon it beautifully, adding in historically accurate details to truly expand the Dracula mythos very nicely. They even left quite a bit of room for a sequel or more. And I must say that their book lends itself well to a film adaptation, although I feel they'd be hard pressed to choose what to excise due to time constraints. A movie could never include everything in their book, but what to cut? I've enjoyed a number of wonderful books this year, and after having gone for a couple months with reading only online works it was nice to have my hands on some books. Hopefully I'll be able to fit in more reading between now and the end of the year. I still have a stack of great books I want to read. I just have to find a way to make time. Posted at 10:01 AM
My grandmother's cough is no worse but it's hard to tell if it's any better. I suppose I should be happy that I've at least kept things from growing worse into a full-blown cold, but I'm still worried about the potential of a rough cough for a frail woman of ninety-seven. I need a break from all of this. It's truly exhausting. Posted at 9:52 AM
Come on Science; where's my clone so I can possibly get everything done in a day that needs to be done? Posted at 9:33 AM
On Tuesday the woman who runs the adult day care center drove my grandma home. This was unusual as she usually has others do the driving - in fact this was the only time I've ever seen her pick up or drop someone off. That in itself wouldn't have struck me much, but when I came out to get my grandmother the windows on the car were all half down - on a cool fall day. How that makes any sense with a ninety-seven year old woman in the car is beyond me. I Simply hoped that it wouldn't have affected my grandma and I certainly hoped she hadn't been driving the car with the windows down like that. Two days ago, on Wednesday, the following day, my grandma had an occasional runny nose and an occasional cough, but neither of those has been uncommon during the past year on any given day, and neither were constant or consistent enough that I was overly concerned. Yesterday my grandma went back to day care. She had an on again off again runny nose in the morning - again not out of the norm - but when she came back in the late afternoon she had quite a nasty cough. I gave her a throat lozenge to suck and kept an eye on her, and while she coughed a little more it seemed better by bedtime. This morning she seemed from the moment I got her up that she had traded vocal cords with a frog. The cough is there and more pronounced and I am - rightly so I feel - quite concerned. I've had her drink hot tea (rather than her unfailing cup of coffee) and had her suck down another throat lozenge. She is better but still coughing and still a bit hoarse. I plan to keep up with the tea and lozenges, and I plan a good afternoon nap. In fact I plan this for the whole weekend through Monday. I am hopeful that I can clear this sore throat before it becomes anything more, but I am nearly terrified with the possibilities. At her age and with her minimal weight and general fragility, a cold could be horrible for my grandmother - even deadly. Wish us luck. Posted at 11:14 AM
Getting up early on these mornings I send my grandma to day care are killing me. I get barely enough sleep to get by on a normal day, and then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I get two hours less than normal - and never have time to make up for it. I am so fucking tired and achy today it's nearly painful. Fun times, as always. Posted at 9:13 AM
I can think of a number of far better ways to spend a beautiful Autumn day ... Posted at 11:11 AM
... and another month passes by ... Posted at 9:16 AM
Journal, by Paul Cales, © November 2011
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