Well it’s another Friday night and it’s 10:30 as I finally settle in to write to you. I got here tonight at like 7:30 and immediately sent Kim back out to Walgreens to pick up moms prescription, some water, some pads to go under the potty, some bleach and some oxy stain remover as I went to put on a new white t shirt for mom and discovered that almost all of the 8 tees she had were stained in some fashion. They smelled clean so they had been washed mine you, they just had stains and I will be damned if my Mom will be caught dead in stained fricken white tees on my watch! Then I discovered that one of Mom’s happy pills, had made it on the bed pad and not in her and I had run out of the medicine that controls her spasm in her colon/rectum and she was in pain. Luckily the prescriptions were all ready so armed with pills, heating pad, extra pillow and a Tylenol we were able to get her to relax and start her first sleep. I also discovered that the potty dish was in backwards to which I promptly pointed out to Debra, there was not enough water in it, and there was no powder on the seat either which really annoys me as it is not that difficult a task to remember I also handed her a pseudo checklist of things that must be accomplished throughout the week, which I will share in this post below. I also checked the laundry room as I had to place the shirts in the wash and discovered that the place was a disaster. The only good thing was they finally figured out what I was saying about the concentrated detergent and it wasn’t ½ empty like the week before last. The container does 110 loads and they managed to finish it off in a week! There was soap leakage all over the wooden shelf the container sits on so I cleaned that up and placed an old towel under the container. I also located it directly above the wash so any dripping should now make it into the damn washer. I cleared the floor/pathway so you could walk in there as stuff had fallen over and rather than pick it up they just left it on the floor. The bag for trash like old dryer sheets and lint from the screen was missing so I hung a new one up. I started a load of whites with the tees and a bunch of crumpled up towels and stuff.
I bought mom a cool atomic clock that is 14” and hung it on the wall tonight so she can tell the time now. She seemed to like it. She must have told me three times before she crashed how much she missed me. It was nice. She seemed in good spirits now and I can honestly say that I have slipped into a kind of groove with this care giving thing on the weekends I am glad I don’t try and kill myself and see her everyday the advice I got about the from a guy at work, (Paul Boberg – thanks) and Father John (Moms priest) was right on the money. They said that if I developed a routine of when I would see her that it would be a lot easier on me and my family and even my mom. It turns out that the only rough part is the fact that my house and chores get neglected and that Monday morning for work comes really early when you haven’t had much sleep on the weekend. Both of those things however are relatively small compared to my sanity and stability on that front. The president of my company asked me how I was doing today as did his assistant and it felt good to unload a bit on them. I shared with Dawn the assistant the difficulty when the money situation regarding the care we have for mom, the insurance I looked into to cover me in the event that it happens to me and how worthless that is. I explained that the insurance is $214 a month and it covers only $4000 if I was to need to care today. With me doing weekends with mom the total cost right now that we pay all out of pocket of course, is $7000 a month. As you can see even with insurance you would have deficit of $3000 which renders the policy worthless in my opinion. Even as a man in my prime working age I currently bring in less than that a month as is. I also during my investigation happened to have discovered that John McCain’s health policy forces you to pay out of pocket for any home health care so when December rolls around and Medicare and Disability kicks in for mom they would normally pick up the tab for the home health care. If he gets elected and mom makes it that long we will tap out all the equity of Gram’s house in order to pay for Mom’s care. That thought is VERY scary if you ask me. This in turn lead to another politics related discussion with her admitting that she did not know whom she would vote for. She said she had reservations about Obama because of his religious views so I posed this question to her. “Do you know what religion I am?”, to which she replied, “no.”
I then asked, “Do you know what religion John McCain is? or how about your boss Alan?”
“No and No” came the replies.
So then I said, “So you don’t know what religion or belief we have but you are concerned with what religion he is in order for him to be your leader correct?” I continued, “In addition you and I are friends and we discuss personal details of our lives with each other, and sometimes I offer advice which you follow and you never question my beliefs correct? But for some reason you think that Obama’s religious beliefs matter to you when choosing a person to be the president. Tell me then, can you tell me the religion of the last say, 5 presidents? No? SO how much does it really matter?” Then on top of that if you are still not convinced what about the people you work for? Or with? DO you listen to them and let them make decisions for you that affect you and your family’s livelihood and yet you never ask what religion are they.
At the very least I accomplished my goal of having her think about it. Personally I don’t give a rats ass what religion the person is I care about their morality and their integrity and their honesty mush more. I also want to respect their intelligence and their wisdom in decision making processes and quite frankly I base ALL my relationships on these principles form the people I choose as friends to the people I follow at work. If they don’t fit that criterion from me, they can bugger off.
So that leads me to the nice discussion I had with my leader and friend Alan. He is the president of our organization and he is a family man, a caring man, and a good listener and I admire him.
After some analysis of some work orders and invoices I ended up going to lunch with a supervisor Tony who unfortunately I will never trust as he lied to me and betrayed me in an earlier time at work and my personal relationship with him ended. I am always cordial as my Gram taught me to be and Ernie left the building instructing him to take, Mike, Kurt Laing, and myself out to lunch and I never pass up free lunch or free anything for the most part, (lol) so I went. We choose winghouse which was cool as a couple of old bartender friends of mine manage the place and I really like their naked, blackened hot wings. They have no breading and are all drummies. Perfect. I can also make conversation with Tony and he generally seems interested in the topics we pick to discuss so it passes the time nicely. I also have difficulty with Mike as my gut tells me he would stab me in the back if given the opportunity so I make certain he does not have such. The other member in our party Kurt Laing is an interesting chap from <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />South Africa I thin or something like that. And he always has some good input when I have been around him, which isn’t much but it has been pleasant every time. I have even added him to my friends list on Facebook or MySpace or both I can’t remember which. I killed my, MySpace account as you know and I am pretty sure I won’t renew it although it sucks that none of the SYTYCD kids are on Facebook. Oh well.
The food was decent as always and my friend Steve came by a few times and said hi and such and checked on me, which was cool. I have always been fond of networking and I have learned over the years that it is a small world and if you choose your friends wisely it will reap you and them rewards throughout your life.
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After lunch when we returned I gathered up my backpack and headed out. I got home and did some email. I also burned a few more DVD’s on my cool new toy, a Panasonic DMR-EZ47V Up-Converting 1080p DVD-Recorder/VCR Combo with Built in Tuner. I got it on Amazon for $147. According to Consumer Reports it retails for $400 and is the top of the line. IT KICKS ASS! Basically you stick in a VHS tape and a blank DVD hit a couple of buttons and come back in an hour and a half (or however long the movie is) and Viola, instant DVD! They even have chapters built in every 5 minutes. There are advanced features to create the chapters yourself but I could give a rats ass. It is mostly for copying all moms old VHS chick flicks so she can watch them here. It makes a pretty good copy. I even had a movie from 1982 Sophie’s Choice and it made a great copy. There are a ton of features this thing can do and when I have more time and a brain to concentrate I will explore it all. I managed to make like 6 DVDs for Mom in the last two days. I brought them over tonight and she seemed somewhat interested. This is the weird thing she directs me to do stuff then she kinda blows it off. It makes it tough to gauge what she really wants but hey at least I’m trying.
Next on the list of discussion is my daughter. Miranda’s birthday is on Tuesday and I had asked her repeatedly what she wanted and never really got an answer so I checked with my friend Drew that I do the website for Winton Music (http://www.wintonmusic.com) and told mom and we agreed to split the cost of getting her a new flute that should take her into the beginnings of High School. We got a flute from the Wisemann company the same manufacturer that makes Yamaha flutes and when I told Lisa this on the phone we got into an argument well how it started was she informed me that Miranda’s flute that I bought her was broken and she went to a shop to repair it and they told her it was junk and that she could buy the flute at “Tuesday Morning” and some other store she said implying that it was crap. I didn’t spend a boatload of money on her first flute because, quite frankly it was her first flute! And, as most parents will attest kids change their minds about what they are into quite frequently and purchasing an expensive throw away instrument is not what this father is all about. Well the backstory is that when I got this flute apparently Miranda’s teacher gave her shit because it wasn’t a big name instrument and then afterwards at least according to Miranda she relinquished that after hearing it played. I guess this may have been a lie according to Lisa and then she also proceeds to tell me that she took the flute to two people and they both said it was junk and since I bought another named instrument Lisa didn’t know…. Blah, blah, blah. SO I said fine I will take it back and you can handle getting Miranda her instrument. If you want her to have a Yamaha so bad you can get it for her. End of story. Coincidentally if you eBay Yamaha flutes and really pay attention to the details most people do not sell real Yamaha instruments for under $750 used. Most are knock offs and they use the word Yamaha in the main description then in small print under manufacturer it says some shit brand you’ve never heard of because mostly all of them are made in China now like everything else in our great country. Anyway, as I said I’m done. Miranda wanted a pair of Apple headphones for her IPod and when I told her Apple sells like six different ones and I didn’t want it to be the wrong ones she then agreed then came up with some sort of thing she needs for an upcoming marching band event she has and it is something that hold sheet music on her wrist so I said no problem I will get whatever that is just call me back with the model number and do it soon and I will get that for your birthday. After the call I called back Drew and asked him if he could return the flute I bought. Fortunately it wont be a problem and at worse he will just sell it to someone else.
So did I mention Kim is here with me tonight? It’s nice to have her here. She is asleep next to me right now but I enjoy her company. She is playing a great supporting role with my new adventure and I appreciate that she has stepped up to the plate and is understanding of the situation. Well, its now 11:55pm and I am about due to be called for a potty run with mom so I am going to sign off for now. We are going to try to take mom to the beach tomorrow and perhaps to home depot to buy a ceiling fan for her room and maybe a pair of black sandals at Kmart that she has been bugging me for. We will see how she feels. Talk to you later….
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