Their's A Change In The Weather And A Change In Me

I've been waiting for this day, rain in L.A. We are expected to get three days of rain. Thanksgiving was so warm we had it outside and sat in the patio until after dark. Wally is doing better after the latest incident, that started the day before the holiday, with his bladder. We got him through Thanksgiving and in time for the nurse to get here on that Friday.

It was a bit frightening. On Thursday, Wally was dead weight, no lift and it took all of me and Beto's strength to lift him, dress and care for his needs on top of all the holiday cooking. I was pretty stressed and while asking friends for help, cried. I felt so helpless right then. So overwhelmed with Wally's care and cooking for nine. It came off fine. I was tired, no sleep the night before tending to my mate through the night. Wally was a tad better though during our Thanksgiving meal, which cheered me up.

Wally's resting well right now, the bladder issue might be solved. It's a host of things that he is faced with but he's a fighter and keeps coming back. Today, he can walk again with our help and that's good.

And now the rain, a change bringing much needed water. It's been hard here, letting the front lawn go so that we had enough water for the back where we grow food and enjoy our garden. The one place that hasn't been taken from Wally and I by his disease.

I have time to write. A window of opportunity, because a change in the weather gives me a change too. I'm one of those that loves rainy days. So few of them occur when you grew up in Southern California climate. But when rainy days occur, I'm as happy and content as Millie sunning herself in the patio. Wally is doing better and for this brief interlude of Cosmos balance, we're together, alive and doing the best we can.

What more can you ask for?

Our Dacha In The Middle Of The City

L.A is a great city. So large that you could move around the city until you found the weather right for you on any day. But it is still a city with all its good and bad. We have turned our home into a getaway for our friends living here in L.A. People, say its peaceful at our home. I'm glad they feel that way because it is the way I feel as well.

Now that the craziness is over with Stan, and his ghetto L.A. drug culture gone, I'm beginning to calm down and feel safe. Not only safe, but at peace. It is peaceful here, for me too, once again. And I think Beto, our new caregiver is a keeper. He is older, quiet and personable. Doesn't drink much, doesn't smoke and is interesting to talk to. It's like having our house back. There are only three of us here and we have some distance between us. There is enough space now for everyone.

The garden is looking good. We have our winter crop in and the flower beds are waiting for spring. If only Wally would be getting better as well, everything would be perfect but this is not a perfect world. I'm fully aware of that, even our Dacha won't keep reality hitting us square on. And though there is a kind of prison to Wally's care, I can accept it. It's hard but I'm use to it now. The idea that with Wally, our days together are numbered, and for now, I'm as housebound as Wally because of the day round care he needs.

Learning Curve

It's been a whirlwind around here--that's for sure. Wally can go about three weeks before he begins to have catheter problems. The last was Sunday, Nov. 2.  He was fine that morning and by the afternoon we had to take him to emergency with a clogged catheter. We spent hours in emergency, until by the time they saw Wally, his belly became distended and he had a fever with high blood pressure. We didn't get home until three in the morning. It's hard on Wally as well as us, me and Beto, our new caregiver.

Stan, the last one, reached my tolerance level when he began to verbally abuse Wally, blaming him for the cause of his back pain. He began to jerk Wally up, rather than gradually get him up gently, the way I want him to get Wally up. He said he jerked him because Wally hurt his back but Stan told me he hurt his back helping a friend move cabinets.  Who knows, the fat fuck stayed stoned from morning to midnight. The girlfriend thought I ran a hotel with room service. She woke around eleven in the morning to take her first shower of several for the day, before looking for food, then hop back in bed. The woman went through a role of toilet paper a day. A day, and there would be this rolled up, in toilet paper, tampons in the waste basket as if someone spent time mummifying mice.   I had my fill of Mexican low-life and their L.A. marijuana drug culture and fired his lying, marijuana filled ass. 
Get this, he said he got a job at twenty-five an hour. There is this minor problem, however, about the job wanting a drug test. Good luck with that.

I feel bad for the guy, in some ways. Always trying to find an angle to fuck you out of something, he never was happy with all the things I provided him, always wanting more. Before here, he lived in the living room of a cousin with two autistic boys. He had no privacy, having to rent a motel room, now and then, to fuck his girlfriend.  I gave him a room with wi-fi, multichannel TV, air condition, but once settled in he wanted more and more. Smoked all three gallon bags of my grass from last year's crop. Fed him, his lazy-ass girlfriend, and assorted other friends he invited weekly.

That's all gone now. We are at peace here with Beto, who is older, and quiet, so that it is like having the house back. The bathroom is accessible most of the time.  I'm hoping this is the last caregiver because Wally isn't getting better. He is now in the later stages of dementia and it is getting harder to care for him. If I fucked up on hiring Beto, I'm pretty screwed because finding a replacement now, with Wally's deteriorating condition could be very difficult.