More notes from the world of research protocols...

Yesterday was about the closest I’ve come to giving myself a sharp talking-to about “dragging” Jeff into clinical research. I know, I put stupid quote marks on the word dragging. Because I can’t decide if it applies. I do not force, neither do I coerce, arm-twist, or hornswaggle him into participating. BUT, I do profoundly understand at this time that between the two of us, I do the thinking. If I think something is a good idea, I say so and he agrees. Likewise, for bad ideas. So, when it comes to anything that may have uncomfortable aspects, I have to do two things: Explain, such that he understands and can assent. And measure my grasp of his nature (altruistic) and current ability to tolerate bothersome procedures against what is likely to occur.

Because, truthfully, I don’t believe there are too many people with AD-like processes going on in their brains who are completely capable of making these decisions for themselves. Which leaves me to bear the responsibility if a day feels a bit too arduous. Yesterday at NIH skated pretty close to the too-arduous line.

I like NIH, as a site for research participation. As I’ve mentioned, the people are nice. They’re also very casual. About half of everyone has jeans under his or her lab-coat. The others wear scrubs. Our main doc-in-charge was off for the day (as were 3/4 of the other folks you’d normally see milling about. Friday may just not be a big day for government work. Even the Au Bon Pain had let their stock dwindle in anticipation.) Instead, we had a Nurse-Practitioner who introduced herself as Dr. Hyphenated-LastName (which I forget in its entirety.) “Were we expecting an NP?” I asked. “Oh,” replied Dr. N-P, “I have about ten degrees, including a doctorate.”

She also was sporting NIH denim-professional, and possibly had not combed her hair in two and a half days. Prior to the prep process, she asked Jeff if he had any questions. True to form, he replied, “What is the meaning of life?” “42,” I said, “You already know that.” But Dr. N-P had another lengthy response which led me to fear a full-gospel evangelization was about to occur. I don’t think she understood that Jeff was being silly. She, fortunately, stopped short of the religion-specific details of the meaning of life, but I sensed it was difficult for her.

But, Dr. N-P knew her way around a PET scanner, and that’s what really mattered. Actually, so did the other 5 or 6 people who were in attendance with varying degrees of attentiveness. This was the most well-attended PET scan I’ve ever seen. Actually, it’s the only PET scan I’ve ever seen, as Jeff’s diagnostic one, in ’07, had me in the waiting room. Not so at NIH. I was free to expose myself to radiation, so long as I knew what I was doing.

The things which added up to me second-guessing myself were basically these two: For this inflammation-measuring PET scan, an arterial line was required. An arterial line is inserted in (typically) the non-dominant wrist, and requires a local anaesthetic, plus a bit of immobilization, courtesy of a splint-like board. This was not sufficient to keep him from risking dislocation of the stop-cocks by waving his arm about, which meant that--at pre-scan bathroom time--I needed to keep BOTH arms (the other had the regular IV) out of trouble while dealing with all the jeans-zipper and undies concerns myself.

I would say, though, that the worst of it was 90 minutes of having to keep still in the scanner. That’s a long time for someone who forgets from one minute to the next that he’s not supposed to move his head. To help with this, a plasterish sort of mask is employed, as a reminder not to jerk about if you wake up from a doze, mid-scan. I still had to remind him. Many times. At 30 minutes left, I started an encouraging countdown, and (thankfully) we made it.

We will be returning in May for an MRI. I’m pretty sure the MRI is easier. At that appointment, we will also consider the option of another PET study which does not involve an arterial line. Let’s see how it goes.

Here’s the thing that always happens though--Jeff does not complain. He does not mind needles. He does not freak out. And--once they bring up the hockey-puck cheese pizza with green salad and two orange juices in tiny cups--he’s as happy as can be, and completely free of the sense that he’s been put through the wringer. So I will ponder. Research is valuable, and we’re doing what we can.

cogging the wheel...

Tuesday: Were we in Nevada? No desert to be seen. Must not have been Area 54. Perhaps it was Area 45. Aka NIH, or the National Institutes of Health.

Yes, we have once again plunged brain first into the sea of Clinical Research, where parking is validated and all the anglers wear white coats. As per the emailed instructions, I ferried us to the West (I think, or was it North...I think they like to disorient you) entrance on Cedar Lane, and we proceeded through the 12 steps of decontamination.

Well, we were thoroughly inspected, at least. You drive up to and almost over 3 orange cones, as gestured. You forget how to pop your trunk, thinking he meant “hood,” and instead get out and open the back hatch manually. While the guy with the funny wand gives your car the once over, you enter the gatehouse, wait for the lady to get off the phone, then present i.d.s for her scrutiny. Then they give you a yellow dashboard seal of approval paper, remove the orange cones, and dispatch you to the Parking Garage of  Never-Bring-a-Hummer-Here. Where there are no available spaces, despite the fact that you even threaded your car along the entire golf-cart width circuit without a scratch. You still have to turn your keys over to the guy with the impossible accent so he can double park you. You think. He might have said “I get good price. We give you pretty bicycle after.” But you couldn’t understand him, so you take your claim ticket and head through the double doors. At which point you switch back, narratively speaking, to the first person.

The thing is, everyone at NIH is nice. I don’t know why this is. I’m used to encountering folks who barely tolerate their jobs, no matter where I go, but at NIH they apparently take their hospitality training directly from Minnie Mouse. We arrived with 30 minutes to spare before we were due at admissions, and knowing our first day of rigmarole would be lengthy and arduous, sought a snack. So I stared at the “You Are Here” chart by the elevator, scanning for a coffeeshop. Not on there. At this point, very nice person #1 asked if we need help, and pointed us in the direction of the atrium wherein one may find an Au Bon Pain outpost. Hooray! Coffee! Tea! Cinnamon rolls! And an architecturally intriguing space in which to consume them.

At the appointed time, we presented ourselves at admissions where we were given a friendly greeting, a “welcome packet,” and a 45 minute wait time. The packet contained phone numbers and a booklet detailing the whats and wheres of being an in or outpatient at NIH. The waiting room contained people, whom I tried not to examine too obviously while secretly wondering what studies they were all into. Meanwhile, very nice person #2, who was something along the lines of “patient hospitality coordinator” checked that all was peachy with us, and it more or less was, give or take 45 minutes.

When our name came up, very nice person #3 checked us in, and we were escorted upstairs by the young lady who, evidently, administratively assists the physician in charge of our study. From here on in, things were pretty familiar. The doc explained the study, gave Jeff a check-over including the usual things like “draw these 2 interlocking pentagons” (no way,) “spell WORLD forward and backward” (half-way,) and “remember the words ‘apple,’ ‘penny,’ and ‘racecar.’” (2/3 of the way...not bad.)

This was only interrupted by very nice people #4 and #5, in the guise of patient advocates, whose job was to make sure we hadn’t felt coerced by our referring physician, and also to ascertain whether I was using Jeff as my entry in the Science Fair, but they apparently bought that since I’m only studying Japanese right now he was with me at NIH as a willing and semi-lucid participant. So we passed. And signed some papers that allowed me to sign all the rest of the papers.

Several bouts of poking, prodding, and EKGing later, Jeff was clearly pretty exhausted and our day at NIH was nearly concluded. Our little admin assistant showed us to the atrium alcove where we would obtain our “Extended Visitor badges” with photos (lordy, mine is bad,) and bade us farewell.

We are scheduled to return next week for the PET scan which will measure brain inflammation. Our new badges will let us bypass car inspection, but not--I suspect--the parking conundrum. This depends, of course, on whether the government’s playground standoff means everyone scoops up his marbles and takes them home for the week, or whether services including NIH will carry on as normal.

It will be shorter, and less tiring for Jeff. This time, I rewarded us with a pizza at Matchbox Bistro in Rockville, complete with beer in goblets. That helped a lot. Here’s how I can tell. After our early dinner, we got into the car. “Pleasant day,” Jeff remarked, as we settle in. I chuckled. “What did we do?” “Had food, took a nice ride,” he said.

Was it all gone? The atrium, the nice people, the mental calisthenics, the needles,  the paper signing? Well, for that moment a good feeling in the tummy was all that counted.

Sand, ethernet and wormhole socks

When Apple designed the 11" MacBook Air, they had to leave some stuff out to make it so slim and light. One thing they left out was an ethernet port. When I packed our bags for a short trip to North Carolina I had, likewise, to leave some stuff out in the interest of space conservation.

But I didn't have to leave out the dinky little pigtail of an adapter that converts a USB port into an ethernet port. I just forgot to bring it.

Here in Gillespie Cottage things are not so high-tech, and there is no wifi. Net access by wire only, thanks. So I'm about kicking myself. Mom's li'l Toshiba is here, and available mostly, but you know how I like my own stuff. Well, if you didn't, you do now. I'm blogging by iPhone. It's a pill.

Among the tasks: We've got some lattice to reattach to the deck railing to keep inquisitive small-fry contained. A bedspread to replace. (K-Mart doesn't sell bedspreads. What's up with that?) And about 6" of sand on the parking pad under the house that we'll have to call the Bobcat man to clean up. Except for the not-inconsequential portion our shoes will track into the car.

Meanwhile, we seem to have brought along a sneaky sock. It's Jeff's sock. This morning, when he went to put his shoes on before breakfast at the Holiday Inn Select, one sock had up and disappeared. So I got him out another pair. We ate. Mom and the waitress became fast friends as usual. Then, 20 feet into the lobby, the waitress charged after us with a left-behind object. It was Jeff's dirty sock. I cannot imagine from which part of his anatomy it must have tumbled, and I was a bit abashed to have left behind a crumpled sock, of all things. Well, maybe false teeth would be worse.

Anyway, we pressed on and got to Nags Head late morning by which time I'd noticed that Jeff had pretty well smudged his jacket and pants with pasty unidentified substances, so I got him a fresh outfit and threw the dirties in the wash. Including the errant dirty sock and its more well-behaved partner.

When I fished everything out of the dryer, the bad sock had once again vamoosed. Until afternoon errand time when I threaded Jeff into his clean jacket only to discover a sock dangling saucily from the cuff. I'm not sure where it had been planning to jump out--probably while we were eating dinner at the Outer Banks stalwart, Owens' Restaurant.

But I caught it. Who knows what that sock will try tomorrow? Next trip, I bring my ethernet port adapter for sure, but screen socks for precociousness.

and tomorrow...room coffee from a filter pack!

Not a bad drive from Severna Park to Norfolk this afternoon. People don’t seem to do much on a Sunday, apart from breakfasting at Garry’s Grill. (Which thwarted my morning spontaneous plan. With several folks hanging out the vestibule door at Garry’s around 10am, Jeff and I went home and settled for frozen flatbread vegan pizza. Good choice.)

But traffic was light down the eastern shores of Maryland and Virginia, and we made good time. Though initially aiming for The Great Machipongo Clam Shack in Nassawadox, Mom and I decided that 4pm was too early for dinner, so we pushed on to Cape Charles for salmon-topped salads at Kelly’s Gingernut Pub, where the waiter--for some reason--showed us the propane torch they use to melt the sugar on the top of the crême brulée.

Now we’re nestled into the Holiday Inn Select, Norfolk, where I’m wondering a few things. 1) Did they really wash the glasses before they put those little paper caps on top of them? 2) Not sure about one of the towels either. 3) Can other people stand compact fluorescent bulbs, or am I an oddity in finding the light they cast best suited for a morgue? 4) Am I going to be absurdly tired at 7pm for the rest of my life, or is it just a caregiver rhythm? And 5) Why did I bring a Sundance Catalog? Oh, I know. Because I knew I’d be too tired to do anything more intellectually challenging than admire jewelry I will not buy on the principle that I could probably get something more unique, that is not sold by Robert Redford, from Etsy.

But here we are. Mom is across the hall. The minute we walked into our room Jeff said, somewhat conspiratorially, “I know--why don’t we go home and use the bathroom.” “Because we’re in Norfolk,” I replied. “Home’s a little too far.” “How did I miss that?” he said.

So here we are. Tomorrow, the cottage in Nags Head for some inventory and repairs.

ouch parking.

In America, we can’t really fit our cars into our cities. I mean, for a country that opted for extensive interstates over a truly useful public transportation system, we should at least be able to park. But sometimes we can’t.

I’m certain that this is at least half of why people here like suburbs. Because you can park. You can park at your house. You can (except during the 4-5 weeks surrounding Christmas) park at shopping venues, or at the doctor’s office.

Actually, I’m going to take back that part about the doctor’s office. Gradually, over the past decade and a half, most of our docs (whatever their specialty) have moved to the medical complex surrounding the local hospital, and you do have to allow an extra 15 minutes for one of those vertigo-inducing spiral climbs through a parking garage in order to reach one of the 2.5 remaining spots in the open air at the very top.

But the real fun comes when we either must drive or wish to drive ourselves into Baltimore, Annapolis, or Washington D.C. Each of which exemplifies the practical dissonance created when children of Eisenhower’s interstate system attempt to utilize colonial era towns. It’s like trying to link Newtonian mechanics to quantum theory. It doesn’t compute, and the String theory of transportation is decades from perfection.

Did I mention the time, years ago, that Jeff and I stopped in Frederick, MD in the rain and--anxious to avoid an excessive wetting--we scrounged the crevices of our minivan for any coins our children might have tossed about? We needed to feed the meter you see, but there was nothing to be found but a Chuck E Cheese token. Don’t tell anyone, but we discovered that (at least in about 1995) Frederick, Maryland parking meters accepted Chuck E Cheese tokens. Yes, apparently I have mentioned this before.

The thing is, having gobs of coins on hand for meters just rarely happens in 2011, and at least municipalities are trying to adapt. I kind of like the system where you go to one of those “Pay Here” automatons, feed it a credit card, and take the receipt it spits out to place on your dashboard. At least I like it if the boxes aren’t all broken.

Yesterday we encountered something new. Well, at least new to me. We were headed into D.C. for Jeff’s neurology appointment, about to exhaust every one of the 105 minutes I’d allotted to get there. I decided not to even try the parking garage at Georgetown University Hospital. It fills by 10 am, but you don’t know until you’ve reached the 7th level below the river Styx. So I went for neighborhood parallel parking and--amazingly--nabbed one right away. But I had only 2 quarters. Then I noticed the ad, right on the meter: Call a certain number from your mobile phone and pay by credit card! The trouble was, I had 4 minutes until appointment time, and about 37 numbers to input in order to give the dial-a-robot the license plate number, my phone number, my credit card number, and probably a couple other vitals which have slipped my mind in the angst. And then, in attempting to light my iPhone screen back up as it helpfully tried to spare its battery power, I hit enough erroneous keys that the whole process defaulted me to a human operator who had to talk me through the entire process again. So that was fun.

But we got inside where Dr. Turner confirmed that Jeff’s version of Alzheimer’s is in fact Posterior Cortical Atrophy. And, after discerning that Jeff could not put his right thumb on his left ear, or do anything else that involved crossing his midline, the doc exacted reassurance from me that Jeff no longer drives. No, I said. That was an easy call I made several years ago. Now all the parking fun is mine and mine alone.

They had other skills.

Over the years, among the things I’ve noticed about my Gillespie ancestors of the last century or so is that they were crappy carpenters.

The evidence is in a goodly number of pieces of furniture which have been handed down through four or five generations. Today, it was a flourish of trim from the antique bed that used to be my grandmother’s, and before that belonged to my father’s uncle and so on. I don’t know which of my forebears attempted to fasten this chunk of wood, which is roughly the size of a cutting board (if a cutting board had two auxiliary pieces of trim fastened to it) back to the bed frame when it cracked clean off, but I can’t believe that even in 1890, or whenever, they didn’t have something better than a couple of half-penny nails and a messy squirt of Elmer’s glue.

To be fair, the fact that I am only compelled to re-fix it now--in 2011--suggests a repair that at least hung in there a bit, but visually the effort was pretty slipshod. Sometime this week or so, I will employ some wood glue and a long clamp, and see if we can’t do it right this time. Fortunately, I have a couple of genes from the Branches--my mother’s side of the family--where carpentry was heard of and skillfully practiced.

Now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure my grandmother and great-grandmother (Gillespie side) made a regular habit of knocking figurines and such off their perches, then cobbling the heads back on with too much glue. Come to think of it further, despite my slightly better grasp of joinery, I didn’t escape that legacy.

One of the wedding presents Jeff and I received in 1984 was a lamp with a capiz shell shade--one of those top heavy things, where the translucent shell panels are held together in a grid of flexible metal. Well, we each did our share and--all in all--we probably tripped over that thing’s electrical cord 5 times before finally declaring the lampshade an irretrievable loss. Also, I clearly remember the time in my teens that I walked by my Mom’s dining room table, snagged the veneer with the hammer loop on my overalls, and ripped off a 1” x 3” strip. I don’t remember who glued it back on, but I’m pretty sure it was not my grandmother Gillespie.

smushed things, large and small

It is day 12 of waiting for the body shop to complete reconstructive surgery on my car. 3 weeks ago, during a day of high winds, the resident tulip poplars hurled a few of their unwanted branches at the Earth, a sizable one of which smashed my hood, windshield and roof rack, in addition to creating several extra minor dings. (Its final flourish was to punch a hole in the garage door.) Luckily, as a no-fault event (unless you find accountability in anyone parking a car in a neighborhood where the trees are older than the oldest humans,) the repairs are covered by insurance, and I will suffer little out of pocket. Furthermore I have, for the time being, use of the SUV which used to belong to my dad, and which my mom has retained for purposes of traction during episodes of Maryland “wintry mix.”

So I don’t, frankly, have much to complain about, and today’s news photos of cars and houses swept into Godzilla-sized eddies in northeastern Japan do tend to put my bashed Subaru into perspective.

Still, I will be happy to have my car back. For one thing, I will get a break from buckling and unbuckling Jeff every time he takes the passenger seat, and reaching across to open the door for him when we stop. (The handle being trickily located under the armrest, and less intuitive than average. Not that intuition helps in our case.)

In the interest of gumming things up a little more, the wiper motor on Becca’s car decided now would be a good time to go wonky, so that we must now hope that the rain which seeped into the basement this week, and turned our yard into the swamp thing is done deluging for at least a few more days.

For now, I am sitting. I’ve got Japanese homework on my left, and The Power of Passive Investing by Richard Ferri on my right. A hefty cat who would prefer to be on my torso is settling for occupying my feet, and I’ve finished my latest Alzheimer blog for The Fisher Center. Plus, I had tea.

Oh, and as an extra bonus, Becca and I got in a trip to Whole Foods Market while Jeff accompanied his sister on a visit. Which means I got to skip this scenario I wrote up a couple days ago, which describes a typical visit to buy groceries:

We don’t move through crowds well.

For some reason, which I can’t quite piece together now, we ended up in Whole Foods on Saturday last week. Luckily only for an item or two, but--even for a couple targeted strikes--it’s not the best plan.

Lately I find myself, more often than not, with one hand grasping Jeff’s arm as we shop. It’s a bit like shopping while pushing an upright vacuum and a shopping cart. What happens if I let go is he stops. Well, some of the time. The other thing he’ll do is fixate on someone...almost anyone, really...and the minute that person veers off, Jeff is right behind him or her. So that’s why I hang on.

It poses a problem when aisles get tight. I don’t think other people understand why we have to be a double-wide trailer. Sometimes it’s not until you can no longer behave “normally” that you start to observe what normal behavior is. In crowds, it is (for one thing) this: A herd of humans with normal processing skills move, when necessary, like a school of fish. When they approach a constriction through which passing in a wider-than-single-file format would violate cultural space bubbles, they instinctively break formation and goosh through before re-grouping. Jeff can’t, so when a passage will only allow for one I find that I must thread him through first, while holding an elbow, then follow. It’s more awkward than it sounds.

Indeed. I’m going to study some vocab now, so I can beam encouragement toward the people of Japan, and think a couple thoughts that--if they’re tuned in telepathically--they might understand.

season of play

Back when I began spawning small humans, we purchased a playpen. (That's Jeff and Rachel, circa 1987.) Ahem...a playyard. Because that’s what manufacturers had begun calling them by the enlightened 1980s. (Well, maybe other people had trouble penning their small-fry, but I didn’t, so I didn’t ever keep with the times and break the habit of calling it a playpen.)

Not that my babies were ever content to while away more than a few minutes at a time in an enclosure full of the most tempting diversions you could scrounge up to buy yourself a moment, but I did employ the thing. And the whole notion popped back to mind when, recently, I suddenly visualized myself as, once again, the guardian of a playpen.

In the visual analogy that sprang uninvited into my cranium, my house is the playpen. My Soobie Outback is our stroller, and Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, or The Fresh Market (plus a half dozen recurring lunch venues) are our outings in the park.

I used to imagine that if I were imprisoned for some reason, I would find a way to take advantage of it. (this is, of course, assuming a low-intensity form of incarceration, in which I had access to books and other learning materials.) Essentially now this is what I am doing. I am determined to stay active, body and mind, but I think the playpen metaphor does a better job at capturing the nature of our day to day existence, apart from the fact that the toddler is winding down, not up.

Sometimes I think I should be feeling pretty mellow because--in many respects--this is a fairly easy job. We have not reached the levels of stress that dog many of my cohorts in caregiving whose AD spouses are incontinent and/or belligerent. (hoping we can skip the latter, the former will be inevitable, eventually.) We are comfortable and well-fed. I deal with deteriorating building infrastructure as it arises, and rarely go berserk from excessive demands.

I must confess though, that the obscure nature of the end-game, and the relative isolation of being “home with the kid” play a bit of havoc with my mood and motivation. People need to interact--it’s a sort of “self-winding” feature of humans. A certain level of requirement keeps us stepping, and when the demands sink to too quiet...too alone, even all the Rosetta Stone and elliptical trainers in the world lose a little of their sparkle.

In fairness, there is room for malcontentedness all around. Demanding careers can feel like indentured servitude, undoubtedly. My position is not hugely more undesirable than many of the other options, and I am a strong proponent of positivity.

I believe that I am, at present, somewhat fogged as a result of finding myself--caregiver-wise--in the narrow channel between relative mobility and the need for sitters.

Classically, we caregivers deploy whatever help resources we have access to reluctantly and late. Sooner more than later I will need to work out what kind of helper(s) I need and how to engage them. What I am afraid of is that I will have no idea what to do with myself outside of the playpen.

this time meta, next time betta...

As of this morning I had resolved, easily, that I was overdue for blog posts both here and on my “official” gig at the Fisher Center. Epic Mickey is...well...epic, but I finally achieved the grand finale and felt the release of Mickey’s white-gloved grip.

So I made another resolution: I’d base both pieces on whatever stuff happened today.

As such, I owe Jeff one for providing the perfect springboard for a Fisher vignette. And I owe Becca one for cleaning him up when--while I was at Japanese class--he helped himself to a big batch of Rocky Road, sans dish. Becca discovered him chuckling at the kitchen sink eating ice cream out of his hand, while liberally spreading the excess about his face, sweatshirt, floor, countertop, dishwasher handle, and probably the dog.

But I pretty much kept Jeff out of mischief for the remainder of the day, and our most exciting side adventure was a brief foray into Trader Joe’s. Now, we did replenish our decimated ice cream stock, as you might expect, and the free sample coffee on offer was a very worthwhile cocoa-laced special, but you can hardly expect a whole blog post out of a grocery shopping expedition. Actually, maybe you can. In fact, I’m almost certain I’ve done it at least once.

But today I’m resorting to meta-posting on the nature of blog-thought. Yesterday, you see, I defeated the evil Blot. Today, I merely carried on as usual in the brick and mortar (well, maybe beam and drywall) world of ordinariness, where cups of coffee are new and special, but I have to make sure I don’t eat too much chocolate.

Epically bad, but working on it.

I’ve always had a little bit of a computer game problem. Never life-impacting in any serious way, and certainly--compared to legions of Gen Xers who grew up just behind me--it’s nothing more than an occasional distraction, but they do attract me, and sometimes I feel a little indolent when I jump in for too long.

I think it’s fair to say that I bought my toddlers the early HyperCard based Cyan game “Manhole” in roughly 1989 because I wanted to play with it. Undoubtedly I lost at least a couple of parenting karma points for insisting to my three year old that the hipster dragon who offers you a biscuit was not scary, and we should play on. Because I wanted to play on.

Sometimes when the littles napped, in our early plug-in external modem days, I went as much online as you could in 1988 and played a text-only multi-player quiz game on Compuserve called...what was it called?...oh yeah--”You Guessed It!” When Jeff came home and asked how my day had been, I did not like to tell him that I had played “You Guessed It!” I’m not sure that an itemized list including 3 coloring book pages, 1 trip to Giant, and 2 loads of poopy diapers would have been more impressive, but for reasons that are not quite clear to me, computer games have always been a slightly guilty pleasure.

And yet, despite the fact that Pong emerged in hotels everywhere when I was 11 years old (I played an embarrassing game once, against a random man in a hotel lobby who just wanted to try it, and needed a partner...I missed every return,)...yes, despite that, my fascination with computer games never extended to console-based games.

What was our first console guys...the PS2? I think so. I never played with it, except for a little Karaoke Revolution and DDR. Ok, ok...I also did a good bit of drumming on Rock Band when we upgraded to the PS3. Beyond these large-muscle things though, I never diddled with joysticks and button-based controllers. Too confusing. Too visually chaotic. On the rare occasions that a kid would insist, I’d clutch my controller like a pilot in a death-spiral, trying desperately to discern whether I was the green thing with a mustache bouncing around on the screen, or the red thing with sparks flying out of it. I really didn’t know. The television speakers would yell “ee oo ah...wheeeeoooooo....eeeeeeehhhhhh.” The kid would say “want a rematch?” I’d say, “did you win?” Because I really couldn’t tell, except in that there would be electronic confetti and applause exploding onscreen.

So, I was a little surprised to find myself kind of wanting to buy Epic Mickey, from the moment I first got wind of it this winter. I don’t know what the hook was. But then, my friend Betsy began detailing her progress through the Epic Mickey's “Wasteland” Environment, as a running Facebook status commentary (thing #1,) and Amazon emailed me a 24 hour opportunity to buy the game for $29.99 (thing #2.) So I did.

My first thought was that it was for Gabe. It is true, of course, that Gabe’s usual taste in games runs to post-apocalyptic wastelands where rusted, lag-bolted metal structures are smeared with guts, and zomboid ghouls are apt to be trying to rip your lungs out. But he’d still like Mickey. It wasn’t for me. Until I started, and it turned out to be for me.

So, apart from this confession that I do waste a certain amount of time on video games of both the computer and console varieties, there is this second confession: When I control Mickey Mouse, he has the hand-eye coordination of a 3-legged moose who has just been hit with a tranquilizer dart. He tends to fall off cliffs and stuff like that. Most of the time I’m waving my wiimote around shouting “Where’s my aiming thingy?” while streams of spladooshes, bashers, and blotlings pound Mickey into the pavement. Nevertheless, with the help of those who have gone before (online walk-throughs and videos, as needed,) I have made my way 2/3 of the way through the game.

I wonder where that Pong guy is now? I could offer him a rematch. This time on my quarter. I might return 2 or 3 volleys.

It's a lot of different things, actually.

Not that I’ve been a terrible slacker where exercise is concerned, but my mom’s recent report of less-than-optimal bone density has galvanized my determination to hit the elliptical as close to daily as possible. It helps tremendously when I’m reading something equally galvanizing on my Kindle, and What is America? by Ronald Wright is doing a pretty good job of motivating me to step and read.

Rachel recently brought home a couple of elementary school textbooks from the 60s (My era. The books look awfully familiar, even if they weren’t the specific ones we used in Mrs. Randall’s 3rd grade classroom.) They brightly remind me of what a blond and Eurocentric world of childhood memes I grew up surrounded by.

Ronald Wright’s relatively analytical retelling of the cultural behaviors and histories which led to the launch of the U.S. is not going to be a staunch latter day patriot’s cup of tea, but as much as I enjoy visiting the courage, follies, and struggles of early Americans through such venues as HBO’s John Adams series, it would be disingenuous of any fair-minded person not to look, with honest eyes open, at the perspectives of all the peoples involved in the settling and expansion of the U.S.

That’s what Wright does in this book, tracing cultural tendencies and clashes back a good ways, into the religious and political (usually the same thing,) maelstrom of Britain and Europe into how it all spilled over onto the turf of the New World.

Thus far, there are only 11 reviews of What is America? on Amazon, with the only 1-star reviewer bashing Wright’s book as an anti-American rant. Which doesn’t surprise me. Because it removes, utterly, the whitewash which was splattered thickly over history as it was presented to young minds, mid-20th century, (which is the only educational era I can vouch for with first-person accuracy.)

I’m not going to rant anti-Americanly either...because I’m not anti-American. But I am willing to face what seems obvious--that humans, as cultural groups, are and have always been driven by ambitions and methods that seem to defy the good-heartedness of people I know individually. There were always eye-witness voices willing to state--with refreshing candor--the facts of what occurred to clear the path for America as it exists today. But I don’t think they read us those voices and accounts in 1967.

And as for now--and as for ever--all any individual spawned into a point in history can do is say “Here’s where we are. Here’s how we got here. What did we do well? What did we do poorly? And what can we do better?” Then you vote.

my...um...person I take care of.

I took Jeff to the Hair Cuttery today for a trim. I’m never quite sure how they perceive us at such places...can they tell he’s impaired? Is my behavior--as “director” of the expedition--coming across as unnecessarily managerial, or is it clear that someone needs to be at the helm, and it’s not Jeff?

Sometimes, even when an appointment or similar starts out nebulous, by the end I’m sure they know. I sat with Jeff’s coat and played “Spider: Bryce Manor” on my iPhone while the overly bleached hair lady took care of Jeff, but when he was done and clearly perplexed about which direction to walk in, there was no sign of misunderstanding on the hair cutter’s part when I stepped up to pay.

Meanwhile, as I focused mainly on the transaction, I noticed a fellow customer--a women about 60--helping Jeff to put on his coat. This surprised me. Not that an observant person wouldn’t spot the problem with his fumbling, but that someone would be so quick to act. I finished paying, and thanked the coat-lady for helping Jeff. “Your father?” she said. We’re getting this occasionally now. A few weeks ago, when the vet led us into the back of the animal hospital to view Otis’ belly x-rays, she briefly referred to Jeff as “Pop.” “Come on Pop.” Someone could construe that as rude, but it was clearly meant to be a friendly gesture. I took no offense, and Jeff didn’t even notice.

Meanwhile, “no,” I said to the coat-helping lady. “My husband. But whatever it is you’re thinking, you’re correct.” (She could, of course, have been thinking that we’re Brangelina...but I doubt it.) “Yes,” she replied. “My friend’s father is like that.”

Jeff did not take a speck of that exchange in, fortunately. As much as it is important to give what autonomy and acknowledgment you can to an Alzheimer’s person, it is also true that you can often talk about him to another person, completely circumventing his ability to realize that he’s the subject.

But my father, eh? Mom told me she thought that would start to happen. Jeff has always been very youthful looking for his age, so--despite our 14 year age gap--he has almost never been taken for my father. Confusion ages people. And there’s a thing about eyes, which you may not pay so much attention to until you’ve been intimately involved with Alzheimer’s. But intelligence and focus beam right through our optical orbs like a laser and, when it is gone in a loved one, you become a keen observer of it in others--particularly others who may be older than your faded loved one.

Then there’s me, too. I guess I look about exactly the right age to be classic sandwich generation. If you had to peg me vis-a-vis Alzheimer’s, you’d presume it’s a parent I’m caring for, not a spouse. Ok.

beeeep

What happens in the last chapter of The Wolf in the Parlour by Jon Franklin, is that his dog (whose personal tale is woven into the narrative alongside the story of Franklin’s search for insight into the nature of the human-canine symbiosis,) alerts him and his wife to a house fire, thus getting all three of them out in time.

I am very glad to have a dog (except for when I’m not...she can be awfully barky,) but since I already do, the main action Franklin’s book spurred me to was checking the smoke detectors. Thus was this afternoon’s agenda set.

We have three smoke detectors, all (theoretically) wired, such that if one smells smoke, all will blare. The one upstairs is so high into the peaks of the beamed ceiling that I can only reach it by dint of my Little Giant ladder. Which I’ve done to replace the back-up battery. The unit on the main floor lives on the normal-height ceiling, just outside the bathroom and around the corner from the kitchen. It has had a problem for some time.

The problem with it was that--at some point--Jeff replaced the detector, but not the ceiling bracket. This resulted in its not locking into place at all, and--for years--it has functioned, but dangled on its wires, six inches from the ceiling. There have been many household maintenance details that I’ve ignored over the years, and this is one which today I resolved to fix.

As for the detector in the basement, well, today it failed inspection. Not only could I not push the button to test it--I couldn’t even reach the button which seemed to be unnaturally sunken into the unit. It too was hanging, even though it had a bracket. But the bracket was only half-installed as it turned out, anyway.

My best guess is that an electrician connected the upstairs unit, but that the other two were some of Jeff’s last work--when he still understood the basics but was missing details all over the place. While both semi-functioned, neither was properly installed or wired, so I’m happy to report that replacing wired smoke detectors is pretty easy, even for someone who’s only working on her junior handyperson merit badge.

Green lights on? Check. Red lights flashing once/minute? Check. And all on the ceilings, where they belong. No dangling. Just before Christmas, the house across the street from my Mom’s burned to a crisp. The homeowner got out, but the whole thing’s a goner. This is not something we expect in today’s world of homes which are no longer heated or lit by open flames. But it happens. So I’m a little better prepared now. But I also hope the dog will wake me up.

Ruts are places too.

Did you ever wiggle your fingers just before beginning to type? I never did until yesterday, when I sat down to work on my first official blog post for the Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation.

It was more reflexive than anything, and I felt very silly as soon as I did it. I also assumed that such a stereotypical gesture would guarantee me a case of writer’s block. Well, maybe not block. But at least a 3-day stint in the Inescapable Rut of Trite Phraseology.

And it did. I’m stuck there at least through tomorrow. Still, I think I managed to scrape enough mud off the sides of the IRTP (you know...the rut,) to smudge it up just enough that it wasn’t an entirely hopeless freshman entry.

Meanwhile, I’ll toss thoughts for the next contribution into the slow-cooker and refrain from adding any seasoning until the IRTP is a sad but distant memory.

coming...to a blog near you...

I am planning another cross-country trip by train. Working name: West by Northwest.

While it feels a bit right on the heels of the last one (known as: West by Southwest,) and I feel a trifle extravagant and/or frivolous, there are creditable reasons to go sooner, rather than later. Primary among them: Making hay while the sun shines. Beyond any impending sense of decline I may be experiencing as Jeff’s caregiver-in-chief, there is also the realistic acceptance that if probabilities hold, stage 6 of his illness (the last in which we can expect any kind of travelability...and only in the early phase at that,) will be over within 2 years.

There is also my mom, and our decision to do something together. I hope my lovely healthy mother will find many more opportunities to explore the world, but since her primary travel partner’s (my dad’s) death from Parkinson’s in ’09, I would love to fill any available niches to the extent that I can. (Though she should note: Olivia, aka daughter #3, has offered to accompany Grandma to almost any exotic location of Gma’s choosing. Is that a deal or what?)

Hence, last week we found ourselves poring over an expansive pile of brochures and magazines offering trips to every corner of the globe. We wanted to take the one down the Peruvian Amazon by riverboat. Sold out. We almost booked a small-ship cruise to the Galapagos Islands. The rivers of Europe looked awfully pretty. But the more we thought and weighed Jeff’s limitations against the imperative to maintain a pleasurable, non-stressful traveling atmosphere, the narrower our parameters became.

Substantial changes of time-zone will knock a healthy person’s IQ temporarily down by several multiples of 10. We don’t want to turn Jeff into a zombie. Airport security is hassle enough with someone who can’t manage his own items. Adding customs to that seemed excessive. Many boat trips required numerous transfers into rocking zodiacs where the nimbleness and visual requirements might trip us up. Tours by land would have us changing accommodations nightly, increasing disorientation.

Finally, I told Mom that ever since our Amtrak Southwest Chief trip, I’ve been eyeing the Empire Builder covetously. Would she be interested? Mom is a sport, and an adaptable one at that. So yes. This has, therefore, become much more of an Emily trip than a Gale (mom) trip.

So--barring unforeseen downturns in function or other eventualities--we will, in late April, chug from Washington D.C. to Whitefish, Montana (with a change of train in Chicago.) I don’t think much happens in Montana in the Spring, but that might be ok for us. Glacier National Park will be there, and we’ll drive in and have a look around. We’ll see what museums are open year-round, and relax at the inn. I’ll post, with an eye toward making it look exciting and enviable.

not so old blue eyes

There’s not much sillier than Jeff relaxing with earphones, emitting sounds that are clearly meant to correspond with the phrases in New York, New York by Frank Sinatra. This is not a guy from a particularly musical family, let us say.

Today’s purchase was an iPod shuffle. It’s the most affordable form of iPod by far, and if--like Jeff--you hardly care in what order your favorite tunes are broadcast, then it might just be the device for you. I spent a good part of the afternoon loading various albums--jazz, saxophone, Sinatra, Johnny Cash--into iTunes, then feeding them into his tiny iPod shuffle. It is, in fact, so tiny (smaller than a matchbook even,) that I’d fear for its disappearance were it not snugly plugged into a set of sizable earphones. Fiddly earbuds, in this case, need not apply.

(Now he’s singing Blue Skies, with Willie Nelson. I’m surprised I can tell.) I’ve discovered a website--The Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation--which breaks down the classic seven stages of Alzheimer’s, giving clearer cut guidelines and milestones. “Stage of illness” had been a tricky thing to gauge. Jeff’s process has been, all along, more forceful in its consumption of his visual capabilities than his memory per se. Hence, a cursory review of the seven stages sometimes misses the points with which I can identify, in his case.

But Fisher has helped me out. Assuming you consider it helpful that I can now place him at stage 6a in a process where stage 7 represents the end-game. Stage 6 is subdivided into a through e. And it appears we’ve crossed the border from 5 to 6 on the following donkeys: We can no longer be counted on to put clothes on in the right order, let alone right-side up, and speech is, not infrequently, having trouble coming out in an articulate sequence. (Eventually it does, but it’s often a bit stumbly.) Apparently, by the time we’ve traversed b through e of stage 6, we can expect him to “manifest overt breakdown in the ability to articulate speech.” We will also see an end to continence. There’s one I’m looking forward to.

I was a little surprised to discover, in reviewing the mean durations of the stages, according to Fisher, that we are not far off the averages. Which means (if we stick with the program,) that we’ll complete all the requirements for Stage 6 in approximately 2.5 years. At which point--in Stage 7--relative mobility becomes one of the leading predictors of timetable.

I hope I’m not too morbid. It’s difficult, if one has a mind for research, NOT to probe into this kind of thing.

Ultimately, of course, one cannot call these things anymore than one can predict the stock market, and I’m very happy that listening to Sinatra, and singing along, with a complete lack of regard for key, is a source of happiness.

we'll tak a cup o' kindness...

I am concocting the perfect auld lang syne hot buttered rum. It’s a guid-willie waught, or a festive draught, that is. For reasons understood only (I presume) by my mammalian brain-layer, I’m having a rather nice New Year’s Eve at 8:50 pm, in the kitchen, in the company of quadrupeds. Tonight, all of them got bits of my salmon (leftover from lunch at Garry’s Grill,) but none got buttered rum. They’re relatively certain that’s ok.

The reason this is significant is that New Year’s Eve has, since the time Jeff’s brain devolved to little more than reptilian, seen me in a funk, and I’m just as glad to have broken with an apparent tradition.

I’m not saying it means anything for 2011 (though I won’t protest if it does,) but a light spirit is a thing of beauty and you might as well take one if they’re handing them out.

Jeff dozed through Easy A on Comcast-on-Demand, (a valid response, though I didn’t mind the low-demand entertainment...it was better than Eat, Pray, Pointlessly Self-Indulge,) and has now been pilled and tucked into bed. Hazel is keeping me company in the box-top from a carton of Harry & David pears, and Otis is harassing Chessie around the kitchen. Not nice. (No guid-willie waught for Otis.)

Now there is Peruvian music by Agua Clara playing, and dancing--not sitting--is called for.

Kampai, Slan, and bottoms up! Ok 2011...let’s see what happens...

Storm's a'comin'...

I am enjoying a book by Jon Franklin, called The Wolf in the Parlor. At the 20% mark, I don’t yet have a good idea of what he’s going to conclude, but he is--at the point I’ve reached--struggling to come to grips with the nature of the ancient relationship between man and canine.

Most interesting has been a tangential trip into the tri-partite condition of the human brain. It seems, evolutionarily speaking, that the reptilian reflex-based version of a brain emerged first, followed by the more flexible and emotionally complex mammalian edition, while the primate addendum--with its ability to create cognitive models and formulate detached rational conclusions--is the Johnny-Come-Lately in brain styling. And apparently, we inherited all three types, one on top of the next.*

It is possible, following the logic of brain hierarchy, to conclude that most human angst stems from the knotty problem that all data--even if it’s the kind you’d clearly delegate to the primate brain--must first traverse the reptilian and mammal brains before it can even be considered. Hence, it (the data) is, by the time the primate brain even gets ahold of it, saddled with all the baggage of need and emotion that the reptilian and mammalian ascribe to it in passing.

I have a point. My point is going to be that this insight into the internal struggles of the human brain has shed some light, retrospectively, into some chapters of my life which, at the time, were hard to narrate in an articulate way. One such chapter in particular is the one about my foray into nursing school during the academic year ’02/’03.

I completed the first year of a two year program at Johns Hopkins with an almost 4.0 (felled by the fact that the A- I clawed my way to in Pharmacology conveyed only 3.8 points.) And I liked it a lot. When I withdrew, one day into my second year, it was a little hard to explain to my friends and advisor, not to mention family. But I tried, using terms like “writer,” and “time,” and “family.” Still it was vague. All I knew for certain was that I’d been hit by an unanticipated emotional tidal wave that no rational explanation could adequately analyze.

But I understood it in a primitive way. I knew that emotion had delivered a knock-out punch to reason. Now I can articulate that my mammalian brain knew something which my primate brain could not, and it forcibly took the reins.

You know how dogs can sense storms coming, or know--when she’s still two miles away--that a favorite person is returning? Or know that the word “walk” has flickered through my brain long before I’ve batted an eye? My inner dog sensed the storm system called Alzheimer’s, but all it could tell the primate brain was this: “You have to spend time with your husband.” My primate part understood that message, but didn’t see how dropping out of school was the logical response. So the mammal walloped the primate and did it anyway.

At the time--Fall of ’03--Jeff had the faintest hint of symptoms. But it was mostly irritability. Except for his failure to install the bathroom tile properly (a job which I took over,) there was nothing discernibly wrong with him. But the thing I’ve learned about dogs is, if they’re really going berserk--I mean surpassing any sort of baseline berserk--then you’d better pay attention, regardless of what seems logical. My mammal brain sensed the storm system and went way more than baseline berserk. It’s just that it wasn’t until a year or two later that I had an inkling of the type of storm.

This is, so far, my favorite quote from The Wolf in the Parlor, on the “triune brain”:

We weren’t individuals, we were committees--and, like all committees, we were given to inner uncertainty, dispute, and even feuding. We were the only creature in nature capable of ganging up on itself.

Which is exactly what it felt like at the time--my brain ganged up on itself. Nowadays, when I get particularly crazy or out of sorts I try to say something akin to “What is it Lassie? What is it girl?” Unfortunately, my mammalian brain’s language skills are still not much better than Freddi the dog’s. So, as the I Ching is always telling me, with the most admirable of patience, I just have to chill and trust the Sage. And possibly batten down the hatches.

*On the notion that the "triune brain" model is outdated or simplistic: well, probably so. But I still love this quote from Wikipedia:

In this sense, the triune brain (more properly, perhaps, the "triune mind") is seen as a highly simplified but powerful organizing theme. The statistician George E.P. Box once quipped: "Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful."

Be 92. Or 3½. Or at least just act like it.

I will admit: I am not really all that old. I realize, it depends mostly on from which direction on a chronological timeline you’re looking, but my point is that I don’t usually have a self-image of oldness.

Nevertheless, there seem to be some fairly universal lateral changes in the quality of interface with the world that become apparent to most adults as they rack up a handful of decades, give or take.

Our good friend Bill stops by once a month or so to take Jeff out to lunch. Lately, he looks out the back kitchen windows at the five birdfeeders I’ve got stocked with seed, and says something akin to: “I can’t believe how much I’m into birds now. And plants. I find this very disturbing.” Bill recalls being aware, in decades past, of how this partiality to birds connoted aged person and how he, at the time, forswore such a future, but now reckons it was inevitable.

This was fresh in my mind last week when I sat down to knit the finishing rows into a hat. (Hats are what I’ve been working on lately. I invariably start off having committed some kind of planning error, such that the finished product would be unviable, could it even progress that far. I either misgauge the size, or don’t factor the right multiple of stitches for the pattern I intend to use, or--in a spectacular mistake that I didn’t notice until 2 inches in--I let the row spiral around the circular needles, creating an unstraightenable helix instead of the leading edge of a stocking cap. Just now I spontaneously switched to a rib pattern based on 5’s, forgetting that I’d cast on 72. Not a match.) But, back to the aforementioned hat which I did, in fact, complete. I sat down to complete it in a rocking chair. And I chuckled at myself, because it felt so good. Almost sensual, in fact, to be relaxed, sitting in a rocker, and knitting.

Without a doubt, I have the foibles of aging more in the forefront of my everyday thoughts than the average not-quite-50 year old. All I need to do is look at the adaptations I am continually making in dressing Jeff. Today he has on his new pull-on Sperrys, a t-shirt, and a half-zip pullover. The pullover is new. I grabbed a couple at Kohl’s thinking this might be a good step away from button-down shirts which can be buttoned in any number of interesting and askew configurations if lining things up properly is not in one’s skill set. The problem with the pullover is that it hangs a little long. This means that Jeff keeps noticing the bottom edge and being inspired to curtsy. So far, he has demonstrated curtsies to Olivia about 5 times and Becca maybe twice. This, therefore, may not turn out to be the perfect solution to dressing ease, but I’m always on the lookout for new ideas.

Some cats can dance.

Yesterday, Jeff had a conversation with Chessie the cat. Chessie is a good cat--stout of stature, good of heart (mostly,) and only inclined to whine when you disrupt her poundage from atop your chest. So, as cats go, you might as well talk to her as to any. But, when asked by Jeff whether she knows how to tap dance, Chessie did not respond in any meaningful way. Becca, meanwhile, seated at the kitchen counter (unlike Chessie, who was seated in the chair at which Jeff was addressing his question,) did respond. “Are you talking to me?” asked Becca. “If you’re talking to me, I’m over here.” Jeff indicated that yes, he was talking to her, but he still said all this to Chessie, who did not assist in correcting him. As far as she was concerned, I’m sure, his behavior was completely appropriate.

Conversations with cats pose no problem. I wonder, though, about the ifs and whens of implementing other measures to which I’ve given pre-need consideration. When will I employ sitters? Should I investigate day care? I’m already concerned about leaving for more than the shortest of outings. Not that Jeff does much. I think the most pressing trouble he might get into would be locking himself out of the house while on a front yard stick-breaking expedition. Troublesome thought, when it’s below freezing. Should I move him downstairs? Yet? Don’t know that it would suit him. Don’t know how he’ll respond. But I do know that, if not before, the first time his visuo-spatial system fails to navigate the staircase, to hazardous effect, will be the impetus.

It is common wisdom, among the AD caregiver community, that most caregivers initiate any kind of change--day care, in-home help, placement, hospice--later than they should have. I completely understand why.

möbius-ity

42 might as well be the meaning of life. It’s as good as anything anyone else has come up with, as far as I’ve noticed.

Today, after the usual pets and breakfast routine, I met a friend for tea and “breakfast cookies” at The Big Bean. We had a wonderful (but too short as usual) chat, then I bundled up against the wind chill and quick-stepped the 1/2 mile home. By then, Jeff had managed a shower without a shower-director. I noted the extra undies scattered around the bed, a rejected t-shirt, his washed-with-conditioner (instead of shampoo) hair, and the same old dirty jeans. Good enough.

We headed back out into the chill to tick the next item off my list--replacing the ceramic birdbath, whose basin had cracked from freezing water. Just before my immersible de-icer arrived a little too late.

The new birdbath top--positioned with hodge-podge imperfection atop the existing pedestal--is (with de-icer at work,) doing its job.

Furthermore, Otis the kitten will (I hope) soon pass the colon-load of paper, or whatever inedible he consumed, that prompted 2 trips to the vet and an x-ray in the past 3 days. The water heater, meanwhile, is back in operating condition after a day’s work by Yank the plumber yesterday, and our upstairs is once again, therefore, heated.

The thing that likes to drive me crazy on a regular and ongoing basis is this question: Is any of this of consequence? I think if I could send a letter back to 1973...have a little word with myself...deliver some advice, the letter would contain the following: First, I would list the areas in which the grown up me has a modicum of both skill and interest. This part is important, because that 11 year old had no clue what she liked and even less motivation. So I would tell her that she’d be a decent writer and had skill at language acquisition and usage. She should relax and not let math frustrate her so much...approach it with less fear and loathing and she’d be capable. She should stick, arduously, to her study of viola, and add in fiddle while she’s at it. Finally, she should steer herself in the direction of a helping profession--most likely in the area of scientific research. I’m going to have to anticipate that--being a tolerably bright child--she’ll ask what she’s doing heading into research if she’s good at languages and writing. So I will answer that question for her: She will not find a way to be useful to the world as a writer or linguist, so--while she should hone these skills as personally edifying--she will need to be a provider of value to the human race in order not to fret later, as an almost-50 year old, about adequacy of being the caretaker of an impaired spouse and the saver-of-kitties, who writes works that the world does not require.

But back to 42. Apparently I do what I do, because it is what the world requires of me. Or at least a sufficient part of it is. What I really think is that--if I sent that letter to the 11 year old, and even if she took it to heart (the lazy little underachiever,)--I would merely trip the existential feedback loop of Möbius, and end up exactly where I am. So, I don’t know exactly what 42 means, but I think it’s that.

but she got published, at least!

Ok, I watched it. I watched Eat, Pray, Love.

I didn’t even wait for it to be released on Netfix--I actually told Comcast-on-Demand “Yes. Yes, you may charge me $4.99 for this movie. Go ahead. Do it.” I wanted to pick a fight, and I wanted to pick it with that movie. I’m not sure what I expected, but I obviously (not having even read the book,) needed to view the film before I could launch a cathartic quibble.

Later, I read some of the reviews of the book on Amazon. I wanted to see what people thought of the source material. There were, basically, two strains of comment: There were the 4 and 5 stars reviewers who admired Elizabeth Gilbert’s turn of phrase, and lyrical manner of describing nebulous philosophical concepts. (I can’t argue with such reviews. One need not admire a main character to rate writing highly.) Then there were the 1 star reviews, in which readers largely took exception to the narrative. It was the author’s behavior and autobiography earning their thumbs down, and--way with words or not--they were annoyed at having bothered with it.

I mention this about the book reviews for the following reason: What you get in the film is the narrative, without the benefit of the author’s stylistic ramblings. Hence, it’s hard not to render judgment simply on the basis of that: the narrative.

And here’s what I got from the narrative. EPL appears to be nothing more than a segment out of the life of a woman who--for no reason apart from existential angst, apparently--tanked a marriage to a fine, caring man, jilted a decent lover, and proceeded to spend a year (at her publisher’s expense, I believe,) navel-gazing and eating a lot in attractive and exotic locales. In the end she takes up with a third seemingly decent fellow, and publishes a book which--by dint of Oprah--is a financial success.

It is possible that, in the book, Liz Gilbert describes some sort of philosophical resolution. It is, in fact, likely that she does so. This was not conveyed by the film, and I’ll wager that that’s fair. Itchy people do not become un-itchy people by running away from themselves. (And here I speak from very personal experience.) Maybe Gilbert did rhapsodize eloquent in some form of denouement. But I wouldn’t believe in any real change. Surely she could spin a pretty philosophical picture with equal skill before she launched her odyssey.

Still, people must carry out their lives, and I have no personal reason to object to hers. But I do have personal knowledge and experience: That skittering about does not change, in any fundamental way, your manner of interface with existence. So, regardless of the book’s conclusion, I will draw my own on this review: I watched the film to null effect. Something ventured, nothing gained. But the landscapes were pretty.

A shoe holds more ounces than a jigger.

The Nordstrom shoe salesman betrayed the usual amount of quizzical uncertainty as Jeff and I approached to look over the deck shoes in the men’s section. I may not be the most socially adept human east of the Mississippi, but I can read body language. Hmmm...why is this woman taking charge? If the shoes are for the dude, what’s with this dynamic?

But he too, evidently, had the capacity to catch on, and as I briefly explained that we were leaning toward laceless models, and he attempted a couple different prompts before Jeff put the proper foot on the size gauge, he understood.

Jeff’s Clark’s “UnStructureds” is a fine pair of shoes, and they served us well on our southwest sojourn, for train-riding and light hiking. But that’s why I brought that pair...for their sturdiness. Once home, he’s reverted to wearing the world’s oldest Sebago docksiders, with layers of leather peeling off, and laces that look like sun-dried and run-over jerky. The laces don’t much matter, is the thing. The shoes are old, relaxed, and go on and off without any need to tie or untie.

We ended up with a pair of pricey Sperrys. They’re somewhere between a classic deck shoe and a loafer, are soft of leather, and stout of sole, and should work for everything once I stash the diversionary beat-up or laces-required pairs in the closet, under Jeff’s lower rack of shirts.

For now I will help with the belt. For now I will help get the shirt buttons on even kilter. And occasionally run the razor over his neck, which is a hair-sprouting zone he usually seems to forget about.

It was not a bad day to be at the mall. Christmas shopping is, of course, in full spate, and the California Pizza Kitchen filled up with lunchtime diners, shortly after we started on salad and pasta. Still, it was Monday, early, and not bad...especially when you are free to look around and think Ah...Christmassy-ness, without having any pressing agenda of your own. At such a pace, I could happily snag a couple of stocking stuffers at Crate & Barrel, in addition to a jigger--something which I have heretofore lacked. A jigger is the amount of rum you add to a hot buttered one (rum, that is.) Though I had ascertained that a jigger is approximately 3 tablespoons, depending on the relative generosity of your bartender, it will enhance the experience to make it using the proper measuring vessel. As it will enhance our shoe-wearing experience to not have to re-tie laces every 15 minutes.

Eye be home for Christmas.

As I mentioned in the last post, my right eye had a run-in with a vine and took one for the team on Thursday, in the process of helping me get Otis out of the tree. As of today, Sunday, except for some watering, light sensitivity, and a minor burning sensation, I’m functioning as normal. Mostly.

I cannot recommend corneal scratches. Like many body parts that you don’t give that much thought to as you go about your daily business (feet, knees, fingertips, teeth...,) do one an injury and you find that its incapacity renders you near-useless for days. But, after an intermittent pirate eye-patch, indoor sunglasses, antibiotic drops leftover from someone’s pinkeye, and lots of doing not much, it is with great gratitude that I welcome my right eye back to the world of useable body parts.

This weekend--the first in December--seems to be the one for getting the Christmas game on. As of last night, numerous houses in town had sprouted an assortment of carefully or carelessly (mostly somewhere in between,) lights. Hence, I did mine today, taking care that the job did not involve any peripheral objects ready to take potshots at my face. I don’t do much--just some strings of white lights more or less following the contour of the front porch and its railing. Additionally, we bought a tree and stuck it in a washtub of water on the back patio. Voila...I am maxed out! Until such time as I bring the tree in the house.

Susan Reimer, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun, opined this week that she would never--no matter how weak her motivation--slack off on the holiday fussiness, due to the fact that she perceived such a slow-down in her mother to have represented a slow fade of vitality. And maybe it is. But I don’t plan to worry about it when the time comes. I’ll fade if I good and want to. Meanwhile, it is most fortunate that I set the holiday bother bar very very very low for myself from the get-go, and have never upped the ante.

It is with equal measures of wistfulness and wry chuckling that I think about certain images that so tantalized me as a kid and hopeful romantic. Holiday special magazines, in which the snug log house in the distant snow-frosted vale, glowed golden-warm at dusk. Inside, a festive garland hugged the banister, while mom (that would have been the future me,) greeted dad (that was the unsubstantiated future mate with a twinkling eye or two) in a kitchen with a couple not-too-aggravating children and a pleasant pet or so. The funny thing is...as I stand in my kitchen looking across the eating table toward the stairs descending, mid-house...it looks almost just the way it was supposed to look. Except there’s no garland. That would be just too many pine needles to sweep up later. The pets are there though, and sometimes so are the children--they’re just a little overgrown. As for the dad...sometimes his eyes do twinkle. It’s a rather unfocused, uncomprehending twinkle, but then, we’re not in a snow-frosted vale either.

I think I'll take the finger in the eye.

My worst residual problem is eye pain. But with a salt water rinse, and some leftover pink-eye drops, I hope I’ll be fully binocular by morning.

See, here’s the thing about the anatomy of the 12’ no-man’s-land (aka county right-of-way) behind our back fence: It is full of huge bamboo (flute-makers may apply,) a couple decades’ worth of fallen limbs, and vines to make Tarzan proud. I could have picked a more agreeable site to spend 6 hours of the day getting a kitten out of a tree.

But Otis didn’t ask my advice before scampering 4 feet up an old silver maple, then thinking hey cool, and going higher. Twice, actually, before getting to the first crook and realizing he was completely out of his league. So he pretty much spent the next 6 hours crying piteously, while I attempted to get him down.

Becca was home for the first couple hours of effort and, after much coaxing failed, we implemented plans A and B. A was my Little Giant ladder. The only extension ladder I can manipulate without dropping it on my head with unfortunate consequences, or breaking a window. Sadly, it did not extend enough, and put us (standing on the highest safe rung) just over half-way there. So on to Plan B. After much detangling of line from itself and the aforementioned flora features of the back lot, we succeeded in heaving a bear bag (used for suspending your food, safely away from bears, on camping trips) over a branch near Otis. Then, we pulleyed up an open-topped picnic basket, enticingly loaded with a cup of tuna. He did not care to get in that basket. Barely even gave it a passing thought. Then Becca had to go to work. I had to take a break. Still, I didn’t want to remove the option, so I tied an orange juice jug, partially filled with water so that it would just be outweighed by Otis, to the other end of the line, and went to do some necessary errands.

When Jeff and I got back, Otis hadn’t budged. I brought 100 feet of poly rope back with me though, and I doubled and knotted it in such a way that a daring and agile person might use it to climb enough higher than the ladder permitted to snag a cat. Once at the top of the ladder though, I found myself less daring than required, and returned to the drawing board.

So did my Mom, who--learning of my plight, and knowing me to be, essentially, an army of one--came to help. We tied a sheet to the tree, and she held the other corners while I ascended the ladder and attempted to push Otis from the other side with an extension broom. Alas, due to the angle of the tree, and the thickness of the underbrush, there was no means to connect sufficiently brush-to-cat, and Mom had nothing to catch in her makeshift fireman’s net.

Mom left because she had to. I wondered, via text, when Rachel the tree-climbing wonder-daughter might be able to perform a rescue. But, being a real-life employed teacher of children, there was no way for her to get here by dark, and I was left to ponder. And fret. In installing the rope-which-I-couldn’t-climb, I’d removed the escape basket. That seemed wrong. I couldn't give up for the night with no such option in play so, taking a tip from the internet (go net!) I re-threw the bear-bag. (This took about 20 tosses, and as many detanglings.) I got it. This time I hoisted a laundry basket--the floppy kind with two handles. With the tuna, of course.

The nice thing about the floppy laundry basket was that it showed a greater willingness to snug up close to the branch, in a way that the stiff picnic basket had not. Before I’d even gotten my orange juice jug counter-weight tied to the other end of the line, I saw--in addition to the shadow of the tuna container in the bottom of the basket--four paw shadows. I did not waste time. I lowered the basket-kitty contraption and snagged a kitty who was never so glad to be apprehended.

Oh, my eye. It was on one of the about 60 or so trips up the Little Giant that one of those ubiquitous vine or stick things poked me in the right eye. It still hurts, quite a bit. Otis is sacked out on the dog bed, having been properly cuddled and fed. I do not wish for him to go outside ever again. I’m afraid he will.

Jeff used to propose that cat brains looked as follows: One neuron, dangling by a thread in the middle of the skull. I surely hope Otis’ neuron absorbed some aversion therapy about trees today.

on not forgetting to remember everything

Today Becca and I almost lost our newly purchased socks and tights at The Fresh Market grocery store. A composite of what each of us was 97% certain we remembered suggested that the small shopping bag from South Moon Under (an overpriced, except for socks, boutique,) disappeared somewhere between our entering Fresh Market with a double-decker two-basket shopping cart, and getting to the check-out. We found it a bit surprising that someone sneakily lifted our bag while we were selecting apples, or considering yogurt, but it was the only plausible explanation.

Still, once we got home and realized we were without hosiery, I called the store to see if such a bag had mysteriously turned up. Not yet, I was told, but they took my name and number. Within an hour the call came. Our bag had turned up in a random abandoned cart in the store. This meant that during the two and a half minutes that Becca and I were both in the ladies room at the same time, Jeff had managed to switch the cart he had been entrusted to stand with for another empty cart--identical except for the presence of our socks bag in one, and its absence of the other.

The most intriguing thing about this for me is not that it happens, but how things like this seem more likely to happen than not, given half a chance. Not that we like to blame Jeff too much--neither of us, after all, thought about the socks bag until we got home--but it is illustrative of the concept that I’m more apt to slack off in my diligence when I have a fellow Jeff-watcher along on the outing. I stop trying to remember everything I might ostensibly have the slightest cause to remember.

It was just as well anyway. Becca wanted everything bagels, which we’d forgotten on trip #1, and I also grabbed a couple canisters of wipes, which are useful for cleaning the floor up after Otis the kitty, who--when he poos--aims about 18” north of his litter box. Bad kitty.

strides, and life as normal.

Last night, I went to bed leaving Gabe with nothing but the advice to get his stuff organized for this morning’s Amtrak ride back to Connecticut. Remarkably, as I discovered this morning, he’d done exactly that. IPod, phone, and computer were all charged and stowed, clothes were re-stuffed in the duffel, and his college keycard/i.d. was clipped to his jacket. Oh, and his retainer was fizzed clean and back in his mouth. As we got in the car he asked me if I had his train ticket. (I did.)

Now he is northbound, by rail, and one Fall term more grown-up. Next Year has clearly been a timely topic at school, as many of his group plan to continue as full-fledged Mitchell College students next year, and, indeed, we got a related pack of info by mail a couple weeks ago to keep parents in the loop, as kids get their records in order. But I had barely broached the topic upon his arrival home when he replied, with unequivocal resolve, that he would stick with Plan A: Finish this year at Mitchell, then head off to Guilford in North Carolina to study creative writing, Japanese, and an eventual semester abroad in Japan. No waffling on this it seems.

Meanwhile, this morning I ventured out the back door without a jacket. Otis the kitty had zipped out for his morning scamper and seemed--in this late November dip below freezing--to be ready to come back in. He squinched through the fence and around to the front yard, where I apprehended him at a moment during which his urge to scoot and play was offset by ambivalence about the air temperature. But then we--Otis and I--found ourselves at the front door, which I had not yet unlocked from the inside. Drat. Carry the cat around back, or ring the doorbell for Jeff? Luckily, Freddi the dog would not allow Jeff to ignore the doorbell, but he positively could not process what to do once he arrived at the front door. I stood there, clutching the kitten for a moment, as Jeff stared through the door panes gazing at apparently nothing, which was located somewhere beyond my right shoulder. Freddi, in the meantime, wagged her tail at me, wondering why the heck I was not coming in. So I raised my voice to insulated glass-penetrating volume and hollared “Open the door!” Twice or so. Finally, recognition dawned and Jeff did exactly that.

Tomorrow, Rachel’s back to teaching, Gabe and Olivia back to school, and Becca into work as usual. Jeff will get something other than a peanut-butter sandwich for lunch.

Capes R Not Us.

I got a mini-startle as I drew back the shower curtain this morning thinking to step in. The scene resembled what you’d see on-set, just after Norman Bates had carted off Janet Leigh, shower curtain and all, with the following critical cast change: Janet’s role was being played by an alien with pale aqua blood.

Well, I was taking a shower anyway, so it wasn’t hard to clean up. But I will note that a full 33.9 fluid ounces of Target brand dandruff shampoo does make the shower floor a mite slippery. And it had spread quite nicely, dripping as it had from the higher of the two metal accoutrement baskets we have appended to the shower stall wall. Because it had been placed there improperly closed and upside down.

So one of the things we did today was buy Jeff some more shampoo. My goal was prevention. What kind of bottle would one either be most apt to close properly and/or least likely to replace upside down? Not a boxy cap of the type so common and popular for reasons I don’t quite grasp. But since I’ve been giving Jeff anti-flaky shampoo, that limited our options right off the bat, and a small bottle of Selsun Blue, with a normal sort of round cap, seemed the best bet. I even performed a small assessment right on the spot: “How,” (I said,) “would you place this bottle on the shelf? Like this? (upside down) or like this? (right-side up.)” “Like that, I guess,” replied Jeff, choosing correctly. And, in fact, it would take a bit of a balancing act to place it the other way.

It’s the kind of little accommodation I make daily. Another of today’s errands was a foray into Eastern Mountain Sports, in search of a light (but not too light) mens’ jacket. Here was my starting parameter: Can this be fastened without me there to do the zipper? There are ways. There might, for example, be auxiliary snaps, or, even better, velcro. But not, alas, in a jacket of the right weight. Yes for heavy coats, but jackets were stubbornly determined to exist only in zip format. So, on the fly, I came up with a new option: How about a half-zip? If the zipper-starter doesn’t need fiddling with, pulling the pull should be no problem. Such things, double alas, did not exist but in the lightest of fleeces. Something in-between was not to be had; not today anyway.

I’ll keep looking even though it is, in truth, something of an arbitrary goal. The thing is--even with velcro, snaps, or a half-zip--you’ve still got to put the jacket on properly in the first place.

Case in point--an anecdote from this very morning: Jeff headed for the stairs, post-elliptical trainer. “What are you after?” I asked. (Even though I knew the answer since he was wearing a t-shirt and had taken his button shirt off to exercise.) “A shirt,” he replied. “You left your shirt in the kitchen,” I said. “No,” said Jeff. “Not that shirt. That shirt is like a cape. It’s like a Superman cape. I can’t wear that shirt, I need a regular shirt.” Because I live here I knew what this meant. Because I’ve watched Jeff try to put on shirts. He must have tried to put it on (pick one) upside down, or armless, or head in the armhole, or without unbuttoning first. So I said, “let’s see,” and helped him thread his arms in one at a time. Then I started the buttons. He pulled the two sides of the lower placket apart a couple times as I buttoned downward, trying to demonstrate that this was a cape, not a shirt, but finally realized--with a sort of an I’ll be darned expression--that it was, in fact and when donned correctly, a shirt.

There are lots of things that continually surprise me about this brain dysfunction process. One is this: Why is there no sort of meta-analysis going on of the problems we encounter? Why would you not even think your wife asking whether it’s okay to put a shampoo bottle on a shelf upside down is weird? Or not think: wait...a shirt is never a cape. How does it make sense for me to think this is a cape?

But he doesn’t think this stuff. I guess it would be too multi-layered for an Alzheimer brain to take anything except at face value.

Now I’ll check REI online for a heavy-ish half-zip. I will not bother looking in the cape section, because I know we don’t want that.

say what?

Jeff loves to listen to a Bill Bryson book. Any Bill Bryson book. But The Mother Tongue: English and how it got that way has probably (by page 90 out of 245) been our biggest challenge to date.

We are firmly into Chapter 6: "Pronunciation." I am already reading with the exaggerated enunciation of a Henry Higgins protégé, but that isn't quite doing it. I try, for example, to read the following passage:

"...when bits are nicked off the front end of words it's called aphesis, when off the back it's called apocope, and when from the middle it's syncope."

The reading of it doesn't go off quite as smoothly as vanilla ice cream. Rather, I carefully iterate a key term--apocope--and the following conversation ensues:

Jeff: "what?"

Me: "apocope."

Jeff: "escarfee?"

Me: "No, ay-pah-co-pee."

Jeff: "Oh, calumny."

Me: "NO...AY-PAH-CO-PEEE!"

Jeff: "Right, ok...papeerollee..."

Me: "shuddup."

Mind you...my last line in the above dialog was completely uncalled for, and I apologized right away. But this illustrates the basic challenge of this book as read-aloud material for us. It is, compared to some of Bryson's lighter narratives, quite academic and quite full of segments which call for a keen ability to differentiate amongst subtle distinctions in pronunciation, as well as an ability grasp certain points by picturing spellings in your head as I read. Hence, as we're dealing with the twin deficits of so-so hearing and seriously compromised processing capacity, I keep wondering if we should persist, or switch to something a little easier where getting the gist is generally enough.

But Jeff continues to want to listen, and does not seem to frustrate. That's all me. Plus, I'd like to read it, and this smallish trade-paperback with undersized print is neither going to stay open nor be legible on the elliptical console, so read-aloud is my best shot.

Besides, Chapter 7 is not called "Pronunciation," it is called "Varieties of English." Chapter 8 is called "Spelling." Maybe we can skip it. And maybe it doesn't help that we tend to combine reading time with 5 o'clock glass o'wine time.

But for now we will persist. Besides, when we come to unfathomable words in Welsh or Gaelic I have the enormous privilege of pronouncing them however I like, and Jeff just laughs.

the in-betweenies

I'm in the caregiver in-betweenies. It's a term I pulled out of the air, but I think it does an adequate job of connoting both the wiggly restlessness and the inescapable vague limbo-like doldrums of the stage. Except for the afternoon biorhythmic slumps when nothing trumps a nap, I have health, curiosity, and energy to share, and I need to remind myself that wheel-spinning is neither good for the wheels nor the ground.

At the same time, I can think of almost anyone else I know, and imagine him/her saying "I'll take some of that," when she gets a whiff of the relative placidity of days in which making the coffee, freshly ground beans and all, can be an anticipated ritual, where grocery shopping can be gently interlaced with a salad at Punk's Backyard Grill, and where--in the early evening--I pour out two ruby glasses of La Vieille Ferme Farmhouse red before we sit down, covered in pets, to read a chapter of Bill Bryson aloud.

Yes, I am fortunate to have a generally pleasant-natured caregivee who, at the moment, is taking his afternoon nap. Afterwards, he will come down and sit quietly in the kitchen chair to await the next activity I suggest. (Most likely, we will be at roughly the point of Bryson by then.)

I read something in AARP yesterday about how caregivers should consider doing the hands-on stuff (bathing, dressing, etc) themselves, reserving the do-nothing interludes (naps, quiet sitting, breaking sticks in the front yard,) for hired attendants. This is because doing something...doing anything...tends to be a much more personally rewarding way to pass time than just being there, as the person in charge in case anything goes amiss.

I can, of course, take the "being there" segments of the day and use them to (for remarkable example) write! I have made minor progress this week, compared to the inverse of minor progress (which looks something like 1/minor progress, and must be measured with an electron microscope) which had been the grand total for the previous month or so.

Furthermore, no matter how I squint, I can't really see hiring anyone as a rational choice for now. We're doing just fine, and no one is overly stressed. It is when the caregiver becomes overly stressed that it is time to pry open the doors of the hired help magazine. I assume (because I remain more or less grounded in reality) that incontinence and greater functional blindness are in our future, and it is that horizon whereupon I imagine the hiring will occur.

In the meantime...no matter how much you sometimes don't like the day to day bother of going to your job, I do think there's a bit of a self-winding aspect to the action of kicking yourself out the door and interacting with the other humans. I sort of have to wind myself--not by obligatory activity--but by jumping up and down, and giving in a bit to the wiggly restlessness of the in-betweenies. Then I tell myself this is good...this is a moment to write the silly book...and I tap out a line and a half.

And that is what life is like. You tell yourself...eh, I'm doing ok with this, aren't I? And most likely, you are.

grounded but ready...

I didn't want to buy the wrong suitcase. Which is how it came to pass that I spent a creditable chunk of both today and yesterday researching specs and reviews of a variety of roll-aboards.

I've had my navy blue L.L.Bean model at least since 2000, when the entire family set out for 10 days in England pulling (with the exception of Jeff--always an inveterate duffel lugger,) 5 navy blue international regulation carry-on sized cases, and nothing more, on the pack-less-than-you-need theory. I recall waffling, to the last minute, over whether to stuff in a zip-front wool blend sweater, and being mighty glad that I did since I wore it about every July day we were in the UK.

That case has accompanied me on quite a few jaunts since then, so it was with some dismay that I noted--as I stowed the luggage in our Amtrak Capitol Limited bedroom--that sizeable chunks of a wheel from my suitcase were turning up all over the industrial berber low-loop carpeting of the compartment. It was the outer shell, it turned out, of a wheel made in two layers, and I spent the remainder of the trip pulling it on the remaining inner portion of the wheel. Not difficult, but a wee lopsided.

I am somewhat committed, it seems, to flying with just carry-ons whenever I can. I realize that the rest of the world is also, which makes for some overhead compartment competition at the worst of times, but I knew one thing--that I required a replacement case that would easily pass the ubiquitous airport "is your carry-on small enough?" test.

I checked Amazon, I checked Travelsmith, I checked Magellan's. Today we even popped by the AAA office to see what was on hand, and inspected a few things at The Leather Store. (Which should actually be called The Luggage Store since it's way more about luggage than it is about leather.) I ended up placing two orders--one with Magellan's, one with Amazon--and should, by next week or so, end up with an Eagle Creek Hovercraft 20 roll-aboard, which--though a little short at 20"--compensates by being 16" wide. Additionally, I will make a PacSafe backpack serve as my "personal item," since it's small enough to squish under the seat, but large enough to hold a netbook, reading material, and whatever other sundries I need to transfer into a smaller Eagle Creek Travel Bug backpack once I reach a destination.

The thing that I don't have, is any travel plans whatsoever. I don't see this problem being correctible before Spring, and not in any big way, at that. When the new stuff comes, I may just have to fill it up with laundry and a cat and tote it around the house in the spirit of (but lack of, in any reality-based way) adventure

maybe it's silvery, not gilded.

Two weeks ago, in the moments during which I was concluding that the top bunk of the bedroom compartment on the Amtrak Southwest Chief made for an ungainly platform from which to help Jeff with his middle of the night bathroom needs, I became aware that I'd shifted. I don't mean that I did the shifting in that moment--in fact, in the top bunk, I could barely shift at all. The headroom allowed for crunches, but not sit-ups, and one had to perform a motion much like that of a pole vaulter twisting her body so that she'll land feet first to even consider climbing down from the bed.

No, the shift I noticed was something that had already happened, but I'd yet to take heed of and shake hands with it. It was a particular milestone I'd reached in the gradual translocation of emotional tectonic plates that comes with Alzheimer's spousing. I looked down from that fold-up bunk and thought two thoughts: The first was that it would be easier and more comfortable if we both just squished into the lower bunk. The second was that I was happy to do so because it was easier to do my job from close-up. The job of caregiving. The job of helping find the bathroom and providing middle of the night reassurances to a disoriented mind.

It may seem a little strange to say that I've finally shifted, after 6+ years of diminishing cognitive function on Jeff's part, into the role of caregiver. I've been doing it for some time, 'tis true. But I didn't own the job. I didn't particularly want the job. And approaching the caregivee with the emotional closeness that enabled me to contentedly switch bunks was the new thing.

When a life partner slips from your grasp such that he is sometimes not, then rarely, then never your mind-mate again, you might, like I have, start to seal off the emotional receptor places that were shaped to receive feedback from him. Those spots are safely coated with several thick layers of New-Skin®, liquid bandage for the soul, and--like that gilded room in Captain Von Trapp's fancy chateau--nobody goes there, dammit. There are some rooms in this house we just don't use.

So, when I felt the impulse that propelled me (carefully and stepwise) from the upper bunk to the lower (other than the practical one,) I recognized it as a new row of emotional crops. Ones that have been growing, and emitting tiny whiffs of their usefulness since they sprouted, but not so much that I really understood how they worked or what you could do with them until that moment. This crop is not from the gilded room (nobody goes there, still,) but they come from another room, almost as nice and certainly better outfitted for the task at hand.

I didn't know I had that room, and now it seems I do. And it also seems that it was on our trip westward that the construction crew ripped down the final piece of plastic dropcloth, allowing me ready access. I still don't particularly want the job, any more than I want presbyopia, or pets with skin allergies, or bamboo poking through the fence in the backyard. But it's my job, and I appreciate the tools.

No rolling. Lots of shaking and rattling.

The two porcelain pedestal sinks in our master bathroom have rattled since installation. I can't remember whether Jeff or Yank the plumber hooked them up, but it was after I tiled the floor and walls (in the epoch where, of necessity, I acquired many new skills.)

A pedestal sink consists of two parts: the pedestal and, obviously, the sink. While the pedestal provides a supportive stand, the two pieces are not attached to each other by any means but gravity. For true stability, the sink is meant to be fastened to the wall it abuts. Ours never were.

If you bumped into them (a normal occurrence for us) they rattled. If you scrubbed them (a normal but less frequent occurrence) they rattled. They rattled with a deep but clanging hollow chime--or sometimes rumble--of porcelain on porcelain. And they banged into the tile wall, which was more of a boomity boomity thing. It was an unsatisfactory and somewhat disconcerting condition for sinks.

When I learned (via our handyman who never showed up again) about their improper installation, I began to puzzle over what I might do. The bathroom framing had been done when Jeff was on the verge of losing his powers. Had he, correctly, provided a plank behind the now-tiled wall? He didn't remember, of course. He'd been faltering enough by the time I finally tiled, that it never occurred to him to mention the need for bolts.

Yesterday, I detached the J-bend from the wall, shut off the supply valves, and unhooked the supply pipes which run from the floor to the sink. Then, after carefully walking the sink/pedestal assembly away from the wall, I drilled through the tile. The initial hole was the hardest, requiring the pin-prickiest of drill-bits, followed by sequentially larger bits until I'd achieved two nice half-inch holes. Then, I plowed in further to see what I would hit. Drywall, then air, then...wood? Yes, wood.

I walked-rocked the sink back into place and, with a socket wrench, ratcheted a nice fat hex-headed bolt and washer through each hole (the holes that were always there) in the back of the sinks.

The solidity of the now rattle-free sinks is a satisfying thing, indeed. Next up--replacing my cruddy stiff faucet handles.