my mom

[Greg]

Maybe they've learned a few new tricks in the therapy game since you got your degree over thirty years ago?

Wow, hard to believe that a house went unrented for 8 months in the Bay Area housing market.

[Drunk Monk]

Maybe they've learned a few new tricks in the therapy game since you got your degree over thirty years ago?

Wow, hard to believe that a house went unrented for 8 months in the Bay Area housing market.

You know I've been actively doing psych for the free clinic ever since, right?  Sure, it's mostly detox and addiction, but it kept me in the game, up on the lit, and active in the psych community.  I'm thinkin maybe the MDMA for PTSD therapies might work...

It took us that long to get it repaired.  Repainted, new appliances, redid the kitchen sink and bathrooms, recarpeted, yard repairs, and so on.  Plus we got a new property manager because the previous one was a tool and should never have let our tenant trash our place so badly.  We got it rented out pretty quickly once it was all done.  But it was a lot of work, and a lot of cash.

[Greg]

Oh, sure. Use facts to defeat my argument.

And like Elsa, I'm going to let it go

[Drunk Monk]

It's Ellen time at my mom's.  Sheryl Crow sang a duet with Stevie Nicks.  Did they really need that many guitars? It nearly drowned out Stevie's masterful tamborine work.

[King Bob]

I've seen fliers for a caregiver support group at Kaiser. So not quite therapy, but you could talk with other people in the same boat.

[Drunk Monk]

You know, I need to go by Kaiser for a blood draw that I've been putting off all summer.  Not sure about the support group tho.  My mom was involved with Skill+ for my dad.  She still goes out to breakfast with the surviving caregivers because they all became friends.  Honestly, I'm behind with so many other things - chiro, dentist, some lunches with friends.  I'd much rather just whine about it here to you guys.

---

Actually I realized I erred in my math. It’s 21% of my time so closer to 1/5 than 1/4.

[Drunk Monk]

i called my mom a few hours ago to confirm xmas plans (stacy's dad is picking her up and bringing her to our little family tea & cakes xmas gathering).  but when i called, no answer. tried several times, then finally called her neighbor for a welfare check.  he's a great neighbor.  he has a key, went over, but no one was home.  panic sets in.  i call my cousin who lives in svale, and sure enough, she was with him and his family.  they took her out to dinner - it was a spontaneous thing, arranged this morning, and really no need to notify me, but damn, that scared the fuck out of me.  and i had just grabbed a moment of me time - wrapped presents that i've been meaning to do for days, took a bath, did some laundry, cleaned some found raybans, and was just settling into a nice cuppa tea...

no rest for the wicked. 

[Drunk Monk]

my mom can now ascend and descend the staircase by herself.  she doesn't do it by herself because she has me and caretakers that we pay a lot of money to help her to do things like climb stairs, and it's not worth the risk.  i just walk near her, ready to catch her if she missteps.  but it's amazing improvement. 

she's doing much better but now she's walking about more, disturbing me when i'm trying to work.  i'm happy she's doing better of course, but it's a little more annoying sometimes, especially when i've settled into a writing groove and she asks for some random favor, or a question that she's asked me before.  

nevertheless, we've found an improved rhythm.  i wish there was some way i could decrease my svale time efficiently next.  we shall see.

---

i must be slippin

i can't believe i posted about my lost vambraces frustrations and neglected to post this:

[Drunk Monk]

The good news is my mom's health has improved significantly.  She's walking on her own without a cane, and seems fairly comfortable.  We've fallen into a decent copesetic rhythm with my telecommuting days. 

On Tuesday nights, after I arrive from work, we go out to dinner somewhere.  We've been frequenting restaurants that we used to go to, and everything is really good to her, but after a year of tv dinners, that's understandable.  She's always amazed by the little things on our trips - the flowers, new construction, the traffic - she's seeing the world again, with new eyes.

Wednesday I telecommute and tend to the various chores around the house, shopping, garbage, various odd errands.  She has a pattern of TV watching: morning news, sometimes game shows, Murder She Wrote, Emergency, Ellen, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, evening news, plus she's really into the Masked Singer.  The volume is at max so I listen along, sometimes solving Jessica's murder cases or answering Alex's questions. 

Emergency is a little triggering because all the Paramedic traffic reminds me of so many strung out shows.  Oddly, the episode on today is one that I totally remember.  I used to watch Emergency as a kid.  I'm kinda trippin about remembering an ep.  I mean, I forget my zip code sometimes and I've been living there for 7 years.

Never did find my vambraces.  I found some in the back of the TC warehouse and got it done.  One of these days, I should start excavating my stuff here better.  I've been looking for my D&D dice forever, in hopes of passing them on to Tara because some of her High School friends play.

[Drunk Monk]

Today hasn't gone well.  Stacy did my mom's taxes and we figured she's spent about $27K on home care this year.  We have good home care, just shy of nursing, which she doesn't need anymore. There's one good caretaker who bends the rules and does a lot of stuff for my mom.  The rest just do trivial things, walk her around the park, do her laundry, make her bed, bring in the garbage cans. We are trying to convince her to get cheaper care, but she's attached.  It's been a challenging discussion.

I've been working at convincing my mom not to go out.  I know she's getting really stir crazy here.  She watches the news every day, morning and evening, but the impact of this is barely sinking in.  She's in her own weird bubble.

Beyond this, my mom's TV just died.  It's a monster cathode ray tube that I bought my folks as an xmas gift well over a decade ago.  Weight a feckin ton.  I nearly busted my back just now moving it off the stand to the floor.  I brought the upstairs TV downstairs - that's been disconnected since her accident and replaced with my wifi so I can telecommute from here.  However, that's also a CRT, not digital, an even older unit, so she can get sound but no picture.  I'm going to pick her up a new digital TV and get it running here next week.  The mobile library drops off today so she'll have plenty of books.  Not sure how I'm going to move the old monster CRT.  Maybe I can borrow a dolly from work.  I just need to get it to the garage.  Fortunately, I have her wheelchair ramp so I can get it over all the steps in the way.  That's next week's problem.

My mom lost her hearing aids a few weeks ago which has been really frustrating.  She got a call from her banker, to tell her not to worry about the tanking stock market.  I was in the next room so I overheard most of the conversation.  Her banker called me soon after because he knows my mom's situation and was concerned that she wasn't following the conversation. I had to call him back because I was at my mom's accountant at the time, dealing with her taxes (hopefully we can secure some sort of homecare write-off).  I told him about the hearing aids and thanked him for looking out. We filled out the hearing aid insurance app today together, which I was annoyed with at first because it seemed simple enough for her to do on her own, but in the end, there was some things that were confusing enough to justify her needing help.  The hearing aid thing is a real pain in the ass.  

I'm starting a new schedule, heading home in a minute instead of spending two nights here.  This is mostly for my own sanity.  It means I'm adding an extra trip over hwy17 and time at the local library to finish up the day's work, but I think it'll be worth it.  I can add it back when she needs it.

[cranefly]

Not sure how I'm going to move the old monster CRT.  Maybe I can borrow a dolly from work.  I just need to get it to the garage.  

Do you have a rug of convenient size?  You could rock the TV onto one end of it and drag it by the other end of the rug.  Sort of like a skid.  Just a thought.  I did something similar with big rocks (for stone carving) in the garage to move them around.  Or an appropriately sized piece of plywood.

Just a thought.

[Drunk Monk]

I'm pretty sure I need a dolly.  It's hella heavy.  It was brought in and set up by pros, and they left the loading strap behind because it was stuck underneath it.  I just need to look at the dollys we have at the warehouse.  Hopefully one will work. I have a small dolly at home but it's too small.  I don't even know where I got that.  Found it somewhere.  It's not really that useful because it's so small.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Is the new TV being delivered? If so, a small fee can often get rid of the old one...

[King Bob]

When my mom moved into the memory care unit, I contacted 1-800-GOT-JUNK to haul away everything in her old room. Altogether it was about $500. They charge depending on how much of the truck volume you take up.

So you might gather a bunch of junk in the garage and make a bigger cleanout.

[Greg]

Anybody giving any thought that all our moms are in the center of the outbreak zone and are in the perfect demographic to be hardest hit by this disease?