Update

Well, progress has been made. Mom has been in the dementia care place for almost 3 weeks now, the aides have her pretty well figured out. They are coaching her on using a walker, and getting her out of her room for activities. Dad visits her every other day or so, for 2 to 3 hours and the visits are pretty good. Mom doesn’t always know him, but she’s usually nice to him which is a big victory over her anger and caustic tone with him the last week weeks that they lived together. We're moving Dad to be closer to her this weekend, into an assisted living facility just across the parking lot from where she is.

Mom’s birthday was Tuesday, we just showed up after lunch with a couple presents and cake. Telling her anything in advance leads to severe anxiety - she cries that she doesn’t have clothes for the occasion, she frets and doesn’t sleep, So, no more advanced notice. The facility had a conference room for us, decorated with balloons and a festive tablecloth. We first celebrated with cake, which she ate with her fingers. Wow - if she could see herself, she'd be appalled. It's very hard to see her this way.



Dad is better now that he's not the full-time caregiver, but he is declining too. I’m noticing some short-term memory lapses. But he is looking better now that he’s getting good sleep again, and not living under constant criticism. We think Mom knew something was wrong, but not what, and it made her very angry.

In preparing for Dad’s move, have been sorting through old stuff from both their families, trying to make sense of it and compress it. I have been reading letters from my Grama's best friend to her. I feel like I never got to know my Gram, and sometimes I feel such loss that it's hard to breathe.

Dear Lucy Jo,

I never met you but I have come to know you through pictures of you and your friends, including your best friend, my Grandma Flo, and your letters to Flo. I love your sense of humor, and the poems you sent Gram. The pictures show a sparkle in your eyes and it looks like you two had a devil of a time when ever you got together. Your correspondence lasted decades - as you and Gram had children, and they had children. You were always supportive and reading your letters has lifted my spirits as I’ve been sorting through the family memorabilia. I hope to treat my friends as well as you did yours.

6!

Well what a set of mixed emotions I am having on this trip. It is great to see Greg, Andrea and Gavin. Their house is such an oasis of “real life”, and the setting is like being on a camping trip, but with beds & showers. Living on the pond keeps you in touch with the planet always. The sunsets are spectacular most days. And then there’s the mosquitoes that come out at dusk, possibly carrying West Nile virus; and the geese who live on the pond - and must be chased off the yard several times a day. What poop machines they are! Yuck!

On Saturday, we moved Mom to a new facility, a dementia care unit. She required help with everything now - eating, walking, bathroom - and Dad could not do it anymore. We decided to not tell her in advance, as she gets very anxious about things that are upcoming. For example, she was fretting for 3 days about what to wear when I visited. So, we had orchestrated for an aide to come take Mom & Dad to lunch, and we swooped in and moved out Mom’s bed, 3 dressers and a table. We had gotten clothes before, but got more and all her toiletries. Then Greg & Andrea drove that over to the new place, fortunately 15 minutes away, and set it up. I stayed with Mom & Dad until I got the call that the new room was set up. I loaded her up and took her over there, all was OK for a while. Then when we took her to her room, it got a bit tense. Andrea is amazing, kept telling Mom that this is her room, Dad has his room and they both need to have good rest. That Dad was getting too tired out to care for her, and he needed a break. She did remind Mom that she has a brain disease, that makes her need more care that she can do herself. So, it took a while to leave, and it was very difficult to not respond to Mom’s imperious commands when she sounded like her old self. But it was finally done. Exhausting and tense.

That evening we went across the street to a neighbor’s 40th birthday pig roast. What fun. The houses across the street border on Long Pond. There were fireworks, and a bonfire (Carole plays with fire!) and boat rides on the pond, and swimming on the pond. A great antidote to the earlier day.

I have gone once again to the folk’s old house, it’s really nearly almost empty now. Got the final bits of random china boxed up - none of us kids knows where it came from and Dad hasn’t a clue - and the old ping-pong table that had become a storage center broken down and out to the curb. 2nd floor completely empty; first floor has some stuff we’ll have to put in storage, basement has a small bit of minerals, Dad’s old teaching tools; a couple of skulls, also from Dad’s work, and some tools and Greg needs to look over & decide if he wants. Huge progress. And we’ve started showing the house to sell it. All good, an emotional upswing. Need to sell the house as the expenses for the folks have just doubled. Oooh, taking an emotional hit there.

I squeezed in some shopping. I have not been able to buy jeans lately. They are very expensive in Munich, as in all big cities, I guess. But what makes a pair of jeans worth 239 Euros? ( About 350 dollars.) Ye Gods. So I went to the local mall, into Old Navy and Wet Seal. Cheap, and inexpensive stuff. But the last pair I got at Old Navy was cut wrong for me, they didn’t stay up, I was always tugging at them, and I remembered that in time to not make that mistake again. I had given up and was on my way to get slippers for Dad when I happened upon the Express store. The clothes looked good so I went in. Grabbed a couple pairs of size 10 jeans to try, and a pair of ‘city shorts’. The 10s swam on me.

I know there has been size number deflation, but it still was an emotional high to go to smaller sizes. Plus, I have been working at my fitness, and have really toned places that needed toned. The very helpful sales clerk got me 8s, still too big. I left with 2 pairs of pants in size 6. 6! Woo hoo!

Home on the Pond

These are some pictures of Greg, Andrea & Gavin's home on Cranberry Pond.

Greg & Gavin sitting towards the water, the back of their house is behind them


Yes, they do get sunsets like this. Looking from their back deck, over Cranberry Pond.


A May sunset


Looking from their deck to the garage, the Pond beyond



Andrea and Gavin in the treehouse

Back In Rochester

So I’m back in Rochester. 6 am Wednesday July 5th. The flights yesterday were uneventful which is always a good thing. On the flight from Munich to Boston, my seatmate was a convivial young man who’d just been touring Rome, then Greece with a bunch of friends. He had the best time, seeing the sights. Said he liked Rome but Greece was so beautiful and moving. They sailed between some of the islands, saw Athens and Delphi and Mykonos among other things. We talked for quite a while. I was feeling retroactive envy - he’s 16 and last summer he’d been on a cruise down the Nile. I’m very glad that lots of young Americans are traveling abroad, I think it will help the U.S. participate better on the world stage. But, man, do I wish I’d been able to do things like that in high school! My family would have never supported that kind of travel.

There was “weather” in the Boston area and the connecting flight to Rochester was about an hour late departing, so I got to see some of the Germany/Italy game in the bar. I don’t know who won, will have to check when I go online to post this. The flight was fine, we flew around and then through magnificent thunderhead clouds as we were descending. The light was beautiful, low in the sky and it lit the clouds up with a rich creamy glow for miles. I got into Rochester around 6:30 pm local time on the 4th. Greg, Andrea & Gavin were there to pick me up, what a treat to see them!

We got home to their place and had a feast for dinner - grilled steaks and onions. Then we grabbed our drinks and went up the street to friends of theirs, to watch the neighborhood fireworks. Greg & family live on the shore of Cranberry Pond, and across the street is Long Pond. Their friends are on Long Pond, and had a small barge out on the pond filled with fireworks. They started going up and kept firing for at least 30 minutes. All along the shoreline we could see other displays too - some in the distance and several just next door. It was beautiful - a lightly cloudy night, breezy, with the sky just deepening to azure blue. People had ground displays and bonfires going, the kids were running around waving glowsticks (I didn’t see any sparklers). It was a great party. We walked back home in time to watch some fireworks on Cranberry Pond too. Big displays, the large chrysanthemums and multi-stage starbursts. It was much nicer that driving somewhere, jockeying for a spot on the ground, and facing the mob of people all leaving at once. And it was much warmer than New Year’s Eve in Munich.

The big work over the next couple weeks will be moving Mom into full-time care. Then Dad will move into the same facility when he can, perhaps in a month. So we need to consolidate their stuff once more. I’m hoping to find a small, climate controlled storage spot for the photos. I really don’t want them to disappear. This slow dissolution of their household is finally striking me as weird, but it can’t be any better dealing with all this stuff after someone dies either.

We also hope to move forward with selling the folk’s house. I will get over there soon, maybe today, to see what’s left and do some final clearing out. Greg’s meeting a prospective buyer there after work this evening.

Now I’m off to forage for breakfast. It may be time for my first shopping trip to Wegmans; the world’s best grocery store. There’s one a couple miles from here and they’re open 24/7. What a concept!

Whaaaat?

England is out, France beat Brazil ... France beat Brazil!!! I think I've slipped into an alternate dimension where things have gone terribly wrong.

It has been beautiful summer weather here since June 10th. (The second day of World Cup 2006). I feel like I've not taken enough advantage of the weather - have not been out on my bike, nor found a place to splash in the Isar - so I keep reminding myself that it's not been nice for that many days, and the football has been on. I have watched many games, sitting outside in a lovely courtyard. The masses of happy people on the streets after Germany has won have been fun to watch, although I get bored of the chanting and honking after about 30 minutes. But they don't, it goes on for hours.

I am headed back to the U.S. on Tuesday; Rochester NY to be specific. Time to visit family, relieve my brother & sis-in-law (Greg and angel saint Andrea) of the day to day grind of caring for the parents. I am not looking forward to any of this except seeing Greg, Andrea & their son Gavin. At least most of the job of clearing out the folks house so we can sell it has been done, I'll have to find some other form of exercise this visit. And they promise me summer weather. I'll post more from there.