Dad

Well, Dad died this morning.  Technically, it was kidney failure, but at age 92, there wasn't much that WAS working.  He was basically comatose for the past week, but before that he had expressed a desire that all the difficulties "would just end"...

I wrote an obituary a couple days ago, but those are so incomplete.  I will summarize his life a bit more tomorrow.  We kids are sad that both Mom and Dad are gone now, but neither death was a surprise and my family has never been big on serious mourning.  Tomorrow, we will get on with the rest of OUR lives.

Impending

I got an email from Sister saying the doctors guessed Dad would die early this evening.  He hasn't, and I'm not surprised; he is tenacious...

My siblings and close in-laws have been holding vigil when they can.  But Dad is in a coma and he's not aware of their presence and they have jobs. And I am hours away.  There is little good I could do there, so there isn't much point in driving there.   He might not make it until I arrive, or he could live a week.

My understanding of Mom's death was she was aware right to the last moment.  It mattered that Dad was right with her all that time.  But this is not one of those times.

I have written the obituary.  That was singularly weird.  I probably won't write another in my entire life.  I think it is a good one, but not adequate for his total existence.  So I've written a longer post to place here after he dies.  Its not like there will be anything new to add in a few days if he lives longer.  He;s in a kidney-failure coma after all.

He was a special person to ME because he was my Dad, but he was a pretty unusual person on his own, so he deserves more than just an obituary notice.  We weren't identical people (well some Fathers/Sons are, (and they worry me)) but most aren't.

I expect The Call Sunday, but if Dad wants to stay around a few more days, I won't be terribly surprised.  He never gave up easy about anything.

I've spent hours tonight unspooling his life as I know it.  And its not like he told me everything.  But I'll mention the good things I know.

Everyone deserves that!

Politics

I try to avoid politics here.  Everyone has their opinions and I don't really want to upset my friends.  But I just have to say something today. 

I've voted both Republican and Democratic over the years; "party" hasn't historically mattered much to me.  I'm not especially liberal or conservative.  What I AM is "progressive".  I believe that government has a legitimate function in organizing society to advance The General Good.  I believe in empowering the will of the citizenry to improve the lives of as many people as possible.  I believe that democratic (small "d") government is a protection against the sometimes overwhelming influence of the very powerful.

And I have a degree in "Government and Politics", so I know a little about the inside game.  And heck, when the local newspaper  is 'The Washington Post', you can't help but stay informed about the political games. 

But some things are going on politically that just baffle me.  FLOTUS (First Lady Of The United States, Michelle Obama) is being attacked for (please don't snort milk out your nose) "supporting healthy lunches for schoolkids"!  What a shockingly outrageous idea...  How DARE she!

Well, that's how current Republican politicians are reacting anyway.  "Governmental over-reach", "Nanny State", "Regulations", they are screaming.

OH COME ON...  Now its a political crime to suggest that kids should eat healthy lunches?  This is a controversial idea?  For many children, the lunch they get at school is the best meal they get all day.  Who can be against healthy meals for children?  I probably don't have to tell you (except by mentioning I haven't voted Republican lately)...

And then the MSNBC (yeah I watch that a lot) host mentioned something I had not thought about.   Those kids who only get their one healthy meal at school have been getting them there during the Summer too.  Never occurred to me (and I am embarassed not to have realized that).  Now Republican politicians want to stop THAT too.  For URBAN kids...  Wait, don't all children need healthy meals equally?  They want to continue it in their rural districts of course.  Where they consider government support contemptible...

I want all children to be fed well enough to grow and thrive.  Children are growing brains as well as bodies, and healthy children grow up to be more productive and skilled adults.  Even if I just looked at it selfishly, healthy children today are going to support the world I live in tomorrow.  Of course, I'm not just looking at it selfishly.  Children should be helped to a healthy adulthood for their own sakes.  I cannot conceive contesting such a basic premise.

But I want to close on the politics of this idea.  The proponents of this idea of reducing the schoolyear quality of childrens' lunches and the idea of eliminating their lunches during Summer vacation are all conservative Republican polititians.  Can't we at least agree that children are not to blame for the poverty or lack of parenting skills of their parents and agree to feed them enough decent food to help them become mentally and physically healthy adults? 

I don't even care what political views they have when they reach adulthood.  I just want them to be healthful and mentally clear-thinking adults. 

Some Background

I mentioned being well off and know many of my blogger friends arent, so I thought I should explain a bit.  It wasn't easy at first.

I failed out of college in the early 1970's because I was screwed up.  I worked years at minimum wage in some department stores.  I took a government exam in 1976 and scored a perfect 100% in several categories.  "Screwed up" doesn't mean stupid. 

And all THAT got me was a temporary summer job as a GS 5.  At the end of the 3 month job, I was offerred a permanent position as a GS 5.  In 1976, that was $8,000 annual.  At the time, I was kiting checks to pay the rent, had 4 other really crazy roommates, and could barely get a decent night's sleep. 

My job was to keep track of furniture, and purchase carpet and drapes to other government offices at the General Services Administration.  Which meant I was at the very bottom of the heap.  But we also purchased those things for Congressmen and Senators, and Presidential Committees and Commissions.  There were 4 older guys who had been doing the same thing for years before me.  

I did it a LOT better!

And believe it or not, geometry does have some practical applications.   I could calculate office space areas better than my co-workers, deal with drapery contractors better than them, describe available government equipment better, and as minor as it sounds to me today, just process the daily paperwork faster.  I realized I was in "my right place". 

I was quickly assigned to the Congressional and Committee offices.  I probably talked to more Congressmen and Senators than some professional lobbyists. 

From that, I was assigned to write telephone orders.  No idea why.  Maybe I was just good at finding out what people needed.  Maybe because my resume' included programming in Fortran and Cobol.  That stuff was easy.

From there, I went into telecommunications policy management at the HQ.  Well, I always could write instructions clearly.  And I spent 20 years doing that.  Bought my house with that promotion. 

I'm no computer genius, but I figured out ways to translate vendor telephone records from proprietory and damn secretive files into Windows Access and then Excel spreadsheets.  Created an entire video Conference network and records-keeping.  Much acclaim.

But in the last 3 years, top-down decisions sent me into an office that didn't have the slightest idea of the program I was managing.  Worst 3 years of my career.  Fortunately, the last few months involved a new supervisor 2 levels above me from private industry.  He invited us to describe what we were doing.  My co-workers had 1-3 items.  I had 25.  He was shocked.

He talked to me privately in his office a few days later.  He had talked to folks at his old company.  They told him they had 5 people doing what I did.  Well, I sort of knew that, but the statement was very satisfying.  He asked me a very interesting question "how do you manage it all"?  I answered honestly "In constant desperation, its just me and I have to".

I'll give the private industry guy some credit.  He said I needed some serious support, but he didn't have the funds to do it.  To which I responded I was retiring March 2006 (in 3 months).  I had told my immediate supervisor that I was retiring then, a year earlier but apparently she choose not to tell him that.  I did not know that.

I am told that I was replaced by 3 FTE (Full Time Employees) and the program fell apart in spite of that. 

Sorry, but I'm kind of glad about that.  I offerred to stay employed as a contract employee at my current salary to train my replacements and they just dismissed the idea.

I do often have nightmares where I am still employed in the various offices I worked in, but mostly because the jobs I held are done so badly.  Nightmares are weird.

I WAS offerred the job of my immediate supervisor because she rather suddenly retired 2 months before I did (gave a week's notice).  But her job was really stupid and I did not want it.  To be precise, her job and the job of all the other people in my last office was to coordinate policy among the other offices.  Nothing to do with what I did.  Oh sure I could have done it, but I was already on my my to retirement.

Just wanted to explain all this.

Reorganizing

Every couple of years, I get this thought stuck in my head that I should move.  I'm tired of the stairs, the garden is too shaded by neighbors' trees, I've lived here 27 years, etc.  What I want is something more modern-wired (or communicationally wireless), one level, half-walled rooms (except for bathrooms and bedrooms, of course), on a few acres of sunny land.  Ridiculously expensive...

It may be almost genetic.  My paternal grandpa used to design homes to be built into the side of a hill for environmental reasons.  Long shafts of mirrored skylights, massive passive temperature control, wind turbines for electricity, he was ahead of his time.  He never built any of his designs of course, they were all impractical in the 1940s and 50s

Dad was a very practical engineer.  The closest he got to radical ideas was a "Yankee Barn" in NH, and only then because the structure was standard in the planned community he bought into in 1979.   But even then, he redesigned a lot of the structure (and did lots of the actual work - you just can't stop an engineer from building stuff).

So I have this idea of a house I would like for myself.  I found a basic layout on the internet that I'm adapting (because really, I have some ideas but also, you have to stick with professional water supply and toilet connections close together.  Some things just have to go together, and the basic water-stack is one.

I'm going to start diagramming my "perfect house".  I could buy a CAD program, but quite frankly Excel offers sufficient line drawing for the basic design and I would need an architect to turn it into a real design anyway for the details. 

What holds me back is a fear of actually packing stuff up and moving.  I've mentioned this before and gotten good advice and I appreciate that.  It's just scarey to contemplate, is all.  And I have the thought of buying a new house outright and THEN selling this one after I fix it up after moving when it is empty.

I don't want to sound morbid, but I am practical and realistic.  Dad is 92 and entering hospice care.  My inheritence will be about the cost of a new house.  I neither consider that something I am due or that I have "earned" in some way.  But it is going to happen soon.  Its not something to  ignore.  Just as I will die someday with a similar estate and pass it on to my siblings or their children some 20+ years from now. 

And, for the record, "yes I know I am exceedingly fortunate to both have some accumulated wealth of my own plus anticipated wealth from my parents".  If I'm being too honest, feel free to complain, borders are not my strong point.  I lived much of my life "hiding my candle under a bushel basket" (as my paternal Pennsylvannia Deutch gramma would have said). 

But I wrote all that to explain why I am rearranging the house to get rid of excess junk...  I'm a pack-rat.  Not a hoarder; there are not stacks of newspapers or weird stuff in the house.  But after 27 years, you just collect a lot of "stuff" you would not really need in a new house.

I double-stacked the bookcases in the computer room and packed 7 boxes of books into wine boxes.  I filled the recycling bin with "useful stuff" that I never use.  I filled 5 bags of trash.  I cleaned all the living room bookcases and arranged "decorative stuff" in them.  Looks great.

Next week, I will attach plywood sheets to the attic joists to store good moving boxes up there.  No books or old clothes, the humidity is too high.

But I spent 12 hours working in the house today and accumulated enough stuff to get rid of, that makes the flat rate landfill fee reasonable.  All I have to do is fill up the car as much as possible to take advantage of the flat rate per car.

I'll probably regret saying some of this, but Dad was big on honesty and I think  talking about reality is important.  Not everyone has the same situations, and in my life I've gone from roach-filled apartments shared with 5 other guys to a decent home.  So I can say "been there, done that".

Back To Work

I spent the last week getting over the 2 teeth extracted.  But I got back to yard work yesterday morning.  One thing I read about was growing corn in bins. Well, guess what, I just happened to have some!  THe County recycling system changed from carryable bins to one huge one, and they didn't want the old smaller bins back. 

So now they are 3'x2' x18" planting containers!  So I'm recycling recycling bins, LOL!  I'm goin to use them to empty out soil in the raised framed beds and plant corn in them in the sunniest part of the the yard.  But thaose bins needed soil, AND I had to clear some space in the old garden for new raised beds.

So first, I had to level the old box with a butternut tree and some roses.

It took 30 minutes of hard chopping and digging to clear the first framed bed out.  Here is just part of the butternut tree and roots.  They actually spread 10' in all directions.  Digging and chopping them out took most of the time.

Then, it was on to the old lost herb bed. 

There were still herbs in there, but things had gotten so confusing that I decided to just start again.  I dug that right to ground level.  I'm any herbs survive that I recognize, I'll save them.

Then I started emptying the old trellis framed bed into the bins.  Which I discovered were WAY too heavy to carry.  I tied a hand cart, but even with a strap around it, it was too awkward to move (with all the dug-up carpet, there was no path out of the garden area). 

So I switched to 5 gallon buckets to carry to a wheelbarrow.  That works, but it was slow work.  And quite frankly, after staying up all last night and doing this hard work in the morning, I went to bed.  Best I could do was strapping the bins to the handcart, and that was too awkward to move around.

Mowing The Lawn

Sometimes mowing the lawn is not so easy.  In early April, I pulled up some chicken wire and laid it to the side of the garden.  I wedged up some 4'x4' posts to and set them on the chicken wire.  On top of that has come a series of dug-up carpet (still solid after 25 years) black plastic, landscaping fabric, and at the lowest level there was synthetic burlap (also un-degraded).  I can't imagine I ever used some of that stuff.

The removal of all that stuff has been brutal!  Each layer has required spade work under each layer to pry it up then yank it away from the intruding vine roots by hand a few inches at a time.  Each exposed layer has had tree roots running through from the neighbor's yard.  It terrible!

But the grass was growing throught the chicken wire and I had to do something about it.  I pulled the chicken wire up, and it was like ripping asphault off the driveway.  Each 25' piece took 15 minutes of hard pulling up from the grass.  And then there were all the previously pruned pieces of thorny rose bushes and tree trimminings.

It took 45 minutes before I could even mow the overgrown lawn area.

And then it took multiple mowings over the overgrown area to get them down to height.  The grass won't like that.  The rule is never remove more that a 1/3 of a grass height.  I removed 4/5ths .  I'll have to tend to them kindly for a few months.

I am so far behind this year...

Intersections

I have this blog for myself, and I have a separate blog for my cats.  I try to keep this one for my own thoughts and I try to leave the cats to theirs (with some usually unseen help on my part).  But sometimes, both blogs intersect.

Yesterday was a case in point.  I read about 80 cat blogs every few days (for my own pleasure and to help my cats keep in touch with their friends).  You never know what you are going to find when you visit one.  One cat will have just caught its first mouse, another may report the death of a beloved old cat, another may have had a trip to the vet. 

Sometimes I read a serious story about a cat that brings me to tears.   I have read many of them over the years.  Sometimes about lost cats, sometimes about cats killed in sad ways, sometimes about rescued cats.  Isn't it odd how both happy and sad stories can bring tears to us?

Today I'm writing about an old neglected cat who found a friendly home to pass her last days.  I won't repeat the whole story here; it is written so much better at Max, The Psychokitty.

There aren't many sad endings that also feel happy when you stop crying.  If you haven't read that post, go there now!  Go there NOW!

Memorial Day 2014

Well, this is a bit embarassing.  I thought I had this simple graphic above scheduled for earlier today but apparently I only had it saved to draft.  I only just checked it now because there had been no comments in my email folder.

I spent today somberly and with reflection on the events in our history that this day is about.  I watched a few ceremonies on TV, cleaned house a bit, mowed the lawn.  Things my WWII generation parents would have approved of...

But celebration is not out of order.  Engaging in cookouts and happy events celebrates the "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" that my ancestors fought for.  I'll just let it rest with that.

Meteor Shower Fail

It was a dud!  Here, for me.  I sat out on the front steps for an hour with my back resting against the door.  That had me staring at the correct spot.  After 5 minutes in the dark, I was seeing all the Big Dipper, Casseopia, and several Little Dipper stars.  So I was light-adjusted. 

Nothing...

I tried some tricks.  I focused on one spot for a while.  I let my eyes go out of focus for a while.  I looked slightly to the side for a while.  None of my usual tricks of seeing in darkness had any effect.

Nothing...

If they were there, they were too faint for me to see through the light pollution.  But I could see most of the major constellation stars, so I should have seen some meteors.  I will be interested in finding if others did see them.  But for now, I'm just disappointed again.

Tooth Pulled

Well, I ended up having TWO teeth pulled Thursday!  It was much less bad than I feared or had read about.  The novacaine worked well enough so that I never really felt anything during the extractions.  Oh, there was some pulling sensation, and I got poked on the other side by accident a few times, but the most disturbing part was the tooth-breaking noises and the dentist complaining that the main tooth just didn't want to come out.

He gave me a prescription for vicodin, but I didn't really feel that bad after the novacaine wore off, so I took the minimum dosage.

But I also had a plan to get through as much of the first 24 hours as easily as possible!  First, I stayed up all night and day before the appointment.  Then after the novacaine wore off about 5 pm, drank 2 bowls of soup (cream of mushroom and chicken noodle). 

I went to bed at 8 pm!  Other than taking another vicodin whenever I woke up after 4 hours, I stayed in bed until 4pm.  Yes, 20 hours!  And I only got up then to feed the cats...  So I had a bowl of spaghetti.  It seemed like the softest solid food I had.  But it meant I pretty much slept through the 24 hours after the extractions.

A curious part of the whole operation was that the dentist put a blood pressure cuff on me that automatically inflated, displayed my blood pressure, then deflated.  And did that every few minutes the entire time.  I'd been wondering about my blood pressure for years.  Sitting in a dentists chair, awaiting the operation, it was 120/70.  The highest it got the whole time was 157/85.  The dentist was surprized too.  When he saw the first one, he laughed and said "You're going to be just fine".

I don't consciously do meditation or related relaxation techniques, but as I was sitting there waiting for the novacaine to take effect, I recalled snippets of a mantra from the sci-fi book 'Dune'.  I basically came up with "Fear is the mind-killer.  I will not allow fear to control me.  I will adapt to the requirements of the moment."  I don't know if that actually had any effect, but it seemed to do no harm either.

Naturally, I looked up the quote when I got home.  It reads, in full, 

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

But there is another part to my scheduling plan.  There is a brand new meteor shower that will be visible in all of North America from 2-4 am EDT Saturday (as in 2 to 4 hours after Friday midnight, Washington DC time.  It may be a spectacular Meteor Storm (1,000+ meteors per hour) or it may be a dud.  The meteors will come out of a spot dead north (just to the right and down from the Big Dipper.

So be staying in bed so late today, I will be awake at that time!  And for once during the regular meteor showers, it will be warm AND the sky will be clear.  I sure hope it is spectacular.  I've never seen a good in my life!  

Back to the dental work.  My tongue tells me that there is a HUGE GAPING HOLE in the back right upper side.  The jaw hurts to open fully, but that's from the novacaine shot (I've experienced that from past dental work).  I suppose I will wait longer than necessary to chew on that side of my mouth agai.  Well, I've been chewing on one side for a couple months, so another week won't matter.

But I seem to have gotten through...