I do buy shampoo.

Today Helen called. One piece of her agenda was to mention something she had noticed recently. Jeff’s hair is not always washed adequately. I know, I said. I’ve been aware. Sometimes he wears the same t-shirt for what seems like a week at a time. I already know that attention to grooming is a skill that tends to dwindle in people with Jeff’s condition, but...um...I wasn’t ready for it yet? I am grateful to Helen for sharing her impressions with me. Sometimes I don’t quite want to believe myself when my own observations point to signs I’m not, as I said, ready for yet. He can wash, and that, I allow, is a good thing. How well he will take to me prompting him on one more subject--that I can’t predict. Yikes-a-hootie, as someone I know says.

We took the Odyssey to get a tire replaced today. I followed Jeff in my Soobie. He appropriately assessed and skirted the 9 a.m. elementary school traffic choke, but pulled into Goodyear instead of Mr. Tire. I pulled alongside him. “Did you mean to come here?” I asked. No, he had not. He couldn’t remember how to get to Mr. Tire. He followed me out the back entrance from Goodyear, around the traffic circle, and into Mr. Tire’s lot. 2 blocks in all.

Later, we had a flare-up of the usual discussion. “What am I supposed to do, now that I’m retired? What do you think about buying a house to renovate?” I pulled out my one-trick pony. All the unvarnished woodwork, all the unpainted walls--see them? Just waiting for you? Jeff did see them. He decided to start by getting a piece of plywood he could wrap with oak to build a short door for the short closet in our bedroom. I am good with that idea, because it doesn’t involve applying sharp tools to anything that’s already in place. He set out in his Odyssey with its new tire and proper alignment. He couldn’t find any of the 3 area Home Depots and came home. He says he will go to Johnson Lumber tomorrow.

Jeff has been on his full complement of meds since last February. I know they work for a time, then they stop. I don’t know when they will start stopping, but I’m beginning to wonder.

I’m already bad at enforcing hygiene practices with the intractable adolescent boy who lives here. Who thought it would be a good idea to give me this job? So, more opportunities to play “control freak.” It is impossible to explain that I neither enjoy nor wish to control anybody. That the flip side of the 45 is negligence. I would say I already list a little too far in that direction.