Living With Dad

This is going to be an adventure I am barely prepared to take.

The Background:

Mom died in 2010 from old age and Parkinson's at 84.  Her body failed while her mind was still capable.  She hated that, and I understand.  I miss her.  Dad is the reverse.  He's old physically, but shuffles around just fine.  He does just fine with physical activities like setting the table for meals, personal things, dressing, etc.  It's his mind that is going.

He is lucid for periods; remembering investments, family, and events.  Then, suddenly cannot recall where he is, who I am, or where any of his investments are.  At those times, anything I tell him is forgotten immediately and asked again in a few minutes.

Now:

I and my siblings live in MD.  Dad lived in FL.  My brother Matt and I flew down May 18, packed all the documents, personal affects, and clothes into Dad's car.  Matt drove Dad's packed car to my house.  Dad transferred his car title to Matt and Matt drove home in the car.  Dad (briefly?) understood that he could drive a car safely any more.

So Dad is here now with all the stuff we could fit into the car.  And into a standard bedroom.  It can't hold all his stuff.  I have some ideas about helping with that (shallow bookcase so he can stack his folded clothes where he can see them - seemingly important to him), a shallow secretary desk with a drawer for his checkbooks and will (important to him), and a tall narrow dresser (space is limited).

My immediate concerns are to get his clothes sorted into 3 piles.  Summer wear, Winter wear, and Never wear. He has enough clothes for 5 people!  Most, he would never have any occasion to wear.  He DOESN'T need 10 pairs of golf pants, for example.

But also, because he feels cold all the time here, he sure doesn't need the 10 pairs of shorts or the short sleeve shirts.  Those have to go to Goodwill.  The hardest part is getting him to wear long sleeve pants and shirts.  He puts on 3 short sleeve shirts and complains his arms are cold!

I told him that he can put on warmer clothes, but I can't wear much less clothes than I do.  He doesn't quite grasp that concept.  Basically, he wants the thermostat at 85 (in shorts) and I want it at 70.  In between is no good because I melt into a pool of sweat at 72.  I want to buy him long sleeved knit shirts tomorrow.

The good news is that he loves my cooking.  I'm always been a "fresh-food", pork or chicken/veggie stir fry type, with baked chicken thighs, and the occasional steak type.  With salads and lots of veggies.  He seems to like that too.

Sadly, he LOVES bread.  I think he was making whole meals of bread before I got him up here.  On the good side, I make great bread and he likes it.  And he is enjoying having salad and meat with his bread.  I'm taking the meals one day at a time while I figure out what he likes that is healthier.  I did get him to agree to start taking my own regular "Men+50 multivitamin today (doctors orders).

My own diet is basically some meat, lots of veggies, a tossed salad, 2 glasses of red wine, and mixed fresh fruit for "dessert".  I haven't introduced the fresh fruit yet, but we are going grocery shopping together tomorrow and I'll see what interests him there.  Irrelevant in a way, since I will be buying a variety for myself anyway.  But I need to find what HE likes.

The cats will be a problem.  He hates cat fur around his bedroom.  I mean, he likes cats "OK" but hates fur.  So far, we are keeping his bedroom door shut all day, but that won't last.  Dad forgets about the door.  They had a cat until about 2000, but dad doesn't remember.  MY view is that cat fur isn't fatal, but it seems to bother his (oddly variable) sense of cleanliness.

We'll work that out...

There are still 5 bags of Dad's clothes down in the basement.  He thinks he has sorted through ALL his clothes.  Tomorrow will be another surprise for him.  Sorting confuses him.  So I think I will do it directly from the bags in the basement.  My idea is to present him with types of clothes (long pants, short pants, long sleeve shirts, short sleeve shirts, etc.  Then ask to him to choose the best 7 of each that fits.  He understands that some of his clothes should go to charity.  90%, actually, but I won't tell him THAT (because it would seem giving "away" too much".  I will have him fill a box of clothes that don't fit (most of them) and remove them each day.  He will forget about those each time, I think  And when I present him with a bunch of donation tax reductions, he will think that grand.

Other than that, he is doing well.  More next time...

Post Mother's Day

I couldn't say it on the day.  Missing Mom for the 2nd Mother's Day now...  I guess it won't get any worse, but it won't get any better either..

Planning For Dad

I have a new bed bought and the new guest room all cleaned out for it.  I have the travel plans all set.  I have the never-ending kibble feeder cleaned and ready.  There are normally 4 litterboxes and I have 4 more cleaned and ready for fresh litter.  There are water bowls and a big bubbler water bowl ready to be set on the floor

The cats will only be left for 2.5 days.  Sometime this month (I do not know when - depends on Dad's rehab report at the hospital), I will be gone for 2.5 days.

Dad will be here for "X" years until he needs better help than I can give.  But the exact day is not yet known.  It won't be THIS night, or tomorrow, so I will waste off tonight with playing Risk and Scrabble online.  Because I think it will be a weird week getting Dad up here with me, and I deserve a blow-off night.

I expect to get up about 2 PM tomorrow.  LOL!

I go to pick up Dad's new bed ("firm" as he likes it) on Tuesday.   It only took an hour at a local bed store to get the best combination of bedframe, foundation and mattress that matched what he is used to (and I don't want to change what he is used to).  And it wasn't terribly expensive ($700 all told) and its hard to get a decent one less than that. He will be a bit annoyed that the headboard and footboard seem "fancy and expensive", but it was the simplest one I could find in "twin" size, so he should like that.  He's miserly, and hates any spending.  But it was the simplest one I thought he would be comfortable in. 

So I am set for him at least 2 weeks ahead of arrival.

Watching the cats adjust to Dad will be interesting.  Fortunately, he only shuffles his feet, so he won't be stepping on him.  And quite frankly, if they can't stay out of his way when he shuffles his feet along, it THEIR problem.  Seriously, if they can get stepped on by Dad shuffling his feet slowly, they deserve it.

The whole group of us 3 children are participating in getting Dad from FL to MD, each doing some part with their own abilities.  That's the good thing.

Brother Matt doesn't mind driving, Sister Susan is good at emptying old houses for sale, and I am good at planning trips, arranging to shut off services, etc.  And I'll be having Dad here which will be a lot of daily personal effort.

This will be the biggest change in my life in 30 years...

Slightly Good News

The rehab hospital has been approved by Medicare to keep Dad in physical therapy for another week, so there is time to plan things better.  Yay!  I got the old guest room (recently storage room) cleaned out today.  Major work.  And I had the entire guest room closet filled with "stuff".  I got that all moved to otgher rooms and the attic.  Lots of old junk to the landfill (but a lot to the recycling center too).  I could have done that years ago, but I'm a man~ana type. when it comes to household stuff.

I figured out the logistics of the move last night as I was trying to fall  asleep.  And, nicely, it still all made sense in the morning.  So its a plan.

It's "one day at a time" now...  I don't know how things will work out with Dad living here with me.  I'll do the best I can.  We might just get along fine, we might not.  Only time will tell.

But I want to give him the best last days that I can.  That means a lot of adjustments; I'll make those adjustments.  Until I can't help him enough anymore.  Then it will have to be an "assisted living facility".  And eventually a hospice center nearby where we kids can visit him often.  We are all going there someday.  But I will do what I can in the meantime.

Elder Care For Dad

Well, Dad turned 90  in April, and he's not doing too well.  Basically healthy, for sure, but old age is getting a grip.  He has to shuffle his feet to walk, can't make turns well, and falls sometimes.

He fell and hurt his head in two places last week.  He drove himself to a hospital, which was apparently a harrowing trip.  It is very fortunate he did not injure himself or others on that trip.  He has been treated and is currently undergoing rehab treatment for balance exercises.  But he must not drive again, and he really can't take care of himself anymore.  He seems willing to stay in the rehab hospital until I can bring him here.

I will be bringing him here to live with me in the next month or so.  So I will be gone for a week at some point, though I won't specify exactly when.  I'll leave a few scheduled posts in the meantime, and let you know when I am back. 

The neighbors will all know when I am away and will be watching the house closely.  They will be advised that there are NO plans for ANYONE to visit and to call the police IMMEDIATELY if anyone shows up attempting to enter the house!

I will hate this trip.  I hate travelling.  I haven't travelled by plane since before 9-11 and worry about the restrictions.  But it has to be done.

The difficult part is that he does not want to move.  He's fighting it, but weakening as he discovers how having others provide better meals and help him get around IS rather nice.  He HAS to have someone like me to watch over him and feed him well.  Wish me the best of luck.  It is possible that I will fly back home alone, but I will drag him out of his house short of legal kidnapping.

I'm working out a step-by-step list for all the things that need to be done to get Dad here...

Doing Useful Stuff, 5

The trees drop branches, I cut down weedy saplings, I trim desirable trees, some shrubs need severe pruning each year.  It adds up to a large brushpile.  

So I finally piled all the debris into the hauling trailer and brought it to the County landfill.  It was 8 feet high in the trailer.  After tying it down tight with ropes, I crushed it down to 6' high.  And delivered it.  Not as trash, but as compostable material.  You see, the County here has a huge composting area.  They pile all the organic debris into rows 20 feet high and a football field long.

In return, County residents can obtain "mulch" (more like halfway between shredded bark and compost) for free).  They will even use a bucketloader to fill trailers or pickup trucks for residents for free on Saturdays.  Its not quite either, but it IS free. 

I usually shovel it out of the trailer into a pile, use a mulch-fork to take out the large parts to use as real mulch, then let the smaller stuff compost (covered by a tarp) to become soil amendment.  Between moisture, time, ants, worms, heat, and microbes, it is really good stuff after a full year.

So it is really a "give raw material this year" and "get back a useful product the next".  And free, did I mention that?  LOL!  Free is good...

Doing Useful Stuff, 4

My back yard has a lot of mature trees, and a lot of volunteer saplings grow as a result.  Vines keep growing all the time, and I am constantly fighting wild ("mock") strawberries.   I deliberately left half of it "semi-wild".  Well, I'm not the typical suburban yard-like-a-pool-table-top with bits of shrubs and flowers type.

So there is always SOMETHING invading the more domesticated parts of the back yard.  Today, I finally got tired of the wild blackberries infesting the astilbe section of the flowerbed.  No, they aren't blackberries worth eating.  They are small, seedy, and hard as dry raisins. 

So...  I got out my poacher's shovel (a curved shovel with a blade only a few inches wide but 12" long - so named for digging up valuable wild plants with the least soilball for transport).  Its a really nice tool for digging up deep-rooted weeds among close-planted desirable plants. 

An hour later, I had a nice pile of brambles.  I had to work at getting as much of the roots as possible without killing the astilbe and baptisia.  The astilbe are well-grown, but the baptisia are just sending up shoots (they are rather like hostas shoots at emergence).  I still snapped a few baptisia shoots in the process, but was relieved to discover that each of the 6 plants had at least 6 more shoots emerging.

And there is not a briar/bramble to be found in THAT section...

I rewarded myself by standing on the deck with a beer, and classical music on the radio while I contemplated what best to do tomorrow.  And I admired the pile of brambles.  I sure wish I could have had the cats outside with me.  I miss that.  

Tinkerbelle (1982? to 1999), Skeeter (1992 to 2008), and LC (1993 to 2010) were always outside with me.  Tink and LC went over the fence routinely and sometimes stayed out for the night, but they always ran home in the morning.  Skeeter seldom left the yard (crawled through a rabbit trench under the fence a couple of times and then hated it cuz he couldn't find his way back and would moan on the other side until I removed a fence board to give him a return point).

When Ayla stayed out several nights because of "in heat" and then Marley jumped the fence, I had to stop their outside fun.  And there are owls around now at night and they didn't used to be around here.

I think I need to make the under-the-deck patio area a "catio".

That Collapsed Storm Drain

Well darn, I thought I had posted this 2 weeks ago, but I saw it was just sitting in "draft" mode...

It lasted 25 years with flood waters pounding it from almost ALL of the rainwater that ran down from the upslope neighborhood of about 1 square mile.

It finally fell apart.


Well, there it was all fallen down.  "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up".  So I called it into the County Maintenance office as a safety hazard that children might fall into.  They came RIGHT out and surrounded by this "child-proof safety fence", LOL!  Yeah, THAT will keep the kids away for SURE.

Well, better than nothing, I suppose.  More impressive, they returned in only 3 weeks to do the actual full repair.  I was expecting more like 4-6 months.  My County is not rich, and I'm sure scattered odd repairs are not their favorite ways to spend tax money.  But they did a really good job.

The first person examined the entire structure.  He decided it needed complete rebuilding.  I asked him about that and he pulled out 1 brick and broke it in half with his bare hands.  Yup, it needed new (and better) brickwork.  And he said he didn't get any extra money for recommending full rebuilds.

Here is the finished product.  I asked the guys rebuilding it if I could take a picture of them, and they said they would rather I didn't.  So OK.  Its not like taking pictures of my cats, who don't have a choice.

But they did good work!

They said the bricks were stronger and the morter more waterproof, so the storm drain might outlast me. 

Doing Useful Stuff, 3

Biannual Trash Dump:

I visit the landfill twice a year.  I recycle and compost so much that I seldom have anything for the trash collectors to haul away.  Maybe 1 bag per month.  And since I have to pay private trash collectors at least $40 per month, that's not a good deal.

And since what IS trash isn't organic, it doesn't smell.  So it can sit in bag in the garage for 6 months.

The kitty litter is the bulk of my other trash.  I can't compost THAT! But with the scoopable litter in plastic bags in the plastic tubs the litter comes in makes a good storage. I can wait on that too.  Seriously, the scoopable litter in the plastic tubs it comes in DOESNT cause any odor.  To me anyway.

So I filled up the car with the tubs of used kitty litter and the bags of  clean trash and drove to the landfill.

I can't BELIEVE I didn't take pictures of the SUV all filled up this time...  This isn't the picture from THIS year, but it is about the same amount.

The difference is that I learned that if I could put it all in the back of the car, I could pay just a flat fee of $5 for the whole load.  A trailer MUST be paid by weight (and that weight cost $10-$15)  So I do that by carload now.

Now I start another 6 months kitty litter and uncompostable, unrecyclable trash collection in the garage.  LOL!

Doing Useful Stuff 2, Planting Tomatoes

Planted tomatoes.  Heirlooms.  Can't wait for the ripe ones.

First, dug nice wide holes with a post-hole digger...  4 per box.

 The hole is deeper than it looks.  They are a foot deep.

Scatter some 2-6-6 organic slow release fertilizer and some pulverized eggshells (for calcium) in the bottom.  Lay the rootball in, add soil and some more fertilizer and eggshell.  Fill it up

Tomato seedling looks happy but floppy from the handling (yes they react to handling).

Add a short stake and a plant clip to hold it upright.

Put a 5 gallon bucket over the seedling...

Put a Wall O' Waters around the bucket...

Put the pointy nozzle on the hose...

And fill up the tubes.  1/2 at first for balance, then 2/3 to hold the teepee upright on its own after you pull the bucket up and out....

Strange as it may seem, the cooling water at night actually releases heat into the center.  The inside is 20F warmer than outside.  I've measured it!   That's great on the occasionally cool nights that drop to 40sF, but the main advantage is that it keeps the soil around the roots warm.  That really matters more.  The soil temperature stays around 60F.

Earth Day

OOPS!  I missed it yesterday somehow...

So, Happy Earth Day, Earth.  Thanks for supporting all of us another year.

It was probably not a coincidence that I saw my first hummingbird of the year Sunday morning!