Russian River The Microcosm Of Acceptance

The Dahlias are spectacular

Well, we came back. Wally and I sat on the porch at our cabin. It was lovely but it didn't start out that way. No sooner had we arrived than the next day Wally developed a bladder infection. Fortunately, there is in Santa Rosa, and very close to where we stayed, an excellent Kaiser hospital. Once we got to the 101 the hospital was off the next exit, no more than twenty minuets. Wally had to spend a day there, being released that Wednesday, so we still enjoyed ourselves.  

Beautiful days, two days at ninety the rest low to mid-eighties, and every night cools to the low fifties. Our cabin stays remarkably comfortable even with a fire in the hearth in the morning and night. It sits beneath tall redwoods, shaded save for dappled light in the morning and early noon. It is very nice.

Our cabin at Ferngrove

I was hoping to launch our inflatable boat and perhaps fish but that didn't happen. They removed the dams at this time of the year so the water in the river has receded quite a bit. The dams are pretty funky, as if built by kids having fun making pools in a stream. If we had the opportunity earlier in the week it would have been great but Wally's care came first. That's okay, because Wally and I sat outside  where I read to him and wrote, enjoying the day the best we can.

Ferngrove is a perfect place to stay. On the edge of town, you can walk to all the cafes and bars easily, even to the river if you like. There is a market open twenty-four hours nearby and yet the lodge is nestled among tall redwoods, and beautiful well maintained gardens filled with ferns, dahlias and fuchsias as big as bushes. My fuchsias are spindly and hanging on to what life they have. These, however, are grand, growing in a climate perfectly suited to them.

In fact, Guerenville is suited for all life forms. It is a place that respects others and their differences. Rednecks, gays, hippies and intellectuals all mingle in the bars, cafe's and on the streets. Even the panhandlers are respective, not the kind that get in your face type.

Guereville gives you the feeling of being in a village rather than a town.  There are only a few streets off the main highway and everything is within walking distance. The bars are fun. Most have some kind of live entertainment going on. Bands, piano with song and eye candy for all manners of taste.

Wally and I have some happy--happy memories of the Russian river, especially Guerneville. I'm not sure, in fact real doubtful if Wally can do another trip, unless a short one but I do have Wally, and he has me. Like his doctor said when he visited today. It's so peaceful here and you're a family.

What more could want?
 

Russian River Adventure Or Nightmare?

On Sunday we're leaving for the Russian River. It's in Sonoma county at Guerneville.  Beautiful place near the coast, forested with coastal redwoods, oak and bay. Wally and I have gone there a number of times cycling with our club. This year it will be Wally, me of course, Juan, the caregiver and his girlfriend. Not exactly the way we did it years ago but we are together and on vacation--of sorts.

I'm trying to whip up some enthusiasm. It's hard to do this year. The caregiver is a heavy pot smoker, his girlfriend the same. The only thing the two of them are interested in is a place to smoke weed. He does take care of Wally, and the price is affordable, you get what you can afford and try to make it work but the man is stoned from morning to night. The two of them about as interesting as Freddy the Freeloader. They talk nothing but of marijuana, it is their entire world. It drives me up the wall and when left alone with the two of them I want to scream but don't, at least not out loud. They'll have a small cabin of their own and Wally, myself and Juan will have another one with two bedrooms, fireplace and a full kitchen.

I want to read and write but I can see what is going to happen already. Juan needs to be entertained. He won't leave you alone until you pay attention to him. I don't think I'll be able to do much writing, as much as I am hoping to because he'll bug the living shit out of me until I do whatever it is he wants to do. Forget what I want to do.

I know this about him. But if Juan doesn't come, I'll have to drive the rental car myself for the entire trip there and back. The caregiver can't pass the driving test, I'm serious, failed. And if he could drive, I sure as hell don't want to be in the car with him. It's a long, long drive.

I bought an inflatable boat. It's pretty cool, I think, for a hundred bucks  to help keep Juan entertained, I'm hoping. It seats four and can hold over a thousand pounds. That's pretty cool, I think. Comes with two oars and can, if you want, have a motor attached which I'm thinking of doing when we get back to do some fishing at a local lake. That's the other thing, Juan and Beto both expressed an interest in fishing. I like to fish too, use to do a lot of it. You would think the two of them would be thrilled to have a boat to fish in.

When the boat came today, I followed the directions and blew it up, assembled the oars and readied the boat. It's about eleven feet long and  about five feet across. The material is very thick and durable, also heavy, about sixty pounds. I was pretty excited about it and in the reviews on Amazon other fishermen who bought this and mounted electric trolling motors also put in a plywood bottom. There is a bottom, of course, to the boat but it is inflatable and kind of difficult to walk or stand up on. Then they added folding camp chairs and it said it worked great for fishing.

I brought the idea up to Beto, but he was excited as a clam about the idea. He didn't really look at the boat either. Of course he just came home from work and tired but his lack of enthusiasm drained mine. And that's where I'm at right now, kind of drained.

We're going to the river, I use to be so excited about it, Fall in Northern California wine country is about the prettiest place to be, especially with a slow moving, easy river coursing its way through a valley filled with redwoods. Yet now I'm worried, is this going to be a nightmare or an adventure?  

Dealing With Dementia

It's a disease that progresses very slowly, at least that is our case. One comment that's common is, "I don't know how you do it." They mean: they find it overwhelming when you begin to talk about what you're going through. Not that the subject comes up often, but when it does, and I tell them what's going on when they ask, "How is Wally," and my answers seem to startle them, I wonder why they feel that way until I realize it didn't happen last month or last year but several years ago.

At first you believe it is a misdiagnosis because there are changes but they are not real big changes. In fact, at first, I thought, Wally isn't that bad, we can still enjoy life, go places, see movies, go out to dinner, have friends over, all the things you enjoy in life. Bridge playing, I think, was the first thing noticeable because bridge playing requires a great deal of memory, and Wally was a very good bridge player, a game he loved to play the most. So, we played Gin instead and Wally loved playing the game. We took walks, rode our bikes, gardened, went to movies, the theater, concerts and dinner, it lasted for quite a while, then card playing, any card playing began to go. The same with everything else. And when I say everything, that is exactly what I mean.

I found out today why Wally has this interest in spicy food. The food censors have began to shut down, leaving a desire for spicy foods he can taste. You're happy he enjoys the fresh hot chilies from the garden but it also means the disease is progressing to its inevitable conclusion. That's the hard part.

Facing the end, that now draws nearer, and the more things he won't be able to do is where we are at.  I'm having a hard time holding on at times. It comes and goes, like a tide, in and out, in and out, this feeling of fear and dread hits hard then leaves. It makes the rest of life, the life you have to keep doing to survive in the world, much harder. To plan anything is fraught with peril. It all can change in a blink of an eye with Wally's care. Needs that can and will come up immediately must be dealt with immediately.

 To give you an idea of what that's like, today I spent an hour and a half this morning going fifteen miles on the freeway for a root canal. I was a half an hour late but so was the dentist. Once home, I couldn't rest because bills needed paid since it was Friday, shopping for the house because now it is not just me and Wally, but the caregiver and his girlfriend who visits him on the weekend, otherwise the caregiver goes into town to visit the girlfriend. Another helper for the household who is in and out and invaluable in assisting the full time caregiver when I no longer have the strength, plus he helps maintain the house. It all costs money and time and it is all on my shoulders. So after the root canal, the traffic and paying bills it's time to get Wally up for his geriatric appointment and to stop at the feed store afterwards for a hundred pounds of chicken feed, more traffic, then dinner to fix while the caregiver does his job and I feed the animals and us. I'm tired, my tooth aches in spite of the second pain pill, and with it now getting beyond 9 P.M, I'm ready for bed. But sleep is not something I can afford. Taking a sleeping tablet is a very bad idea. If an emergency, and there has been these emergencies that happen at 3 A.M. on a Sunday morning or holiday that has occurred and I've had to deal with them, you can't be drugged or drunk or anything but awake.

 It's waking up when he is in discomfort to see why. Is the catheter plugged? His breathing normal? It goes on from there. You wake up so much that it stops bothering you no matter how tired you are. And maybe, you can take a nap now and then. They become a treasure, the naps. If lucky I can take a shower before laying down for an hour unless I'm so tired I don't care and that's, unfortunately, what usually happens.

But it didn't start this way, it took years, and you find you can do it because time smoothed the road to get there. It's why the answer always come out to: "I don't know how you do it," as, "I don't either." You don't know because you haven't thought how it got that way, you've been kept busy while all that happened. 

Water Wars In Our Organic Garden In The Middle Of The City

Lake Oroville California

 To have enough water for the vegetable garden the front yard is in dire straits. The gardeners have nothing to cut but to rake up debris that collects out front, mainly from the neighbors next door who think our place is their place for trash. It's not enough for them to have left Israel as their personal umping ground, now they want to trash America, specifically our property. Anyway,  as much as I try to conserve water there is only so much you can do with four people in the house plus guests and all the laundry it entails.

 We are fortunate, for this August has been cooler, as a whole, than most Augusts in the past where temperatures have soared over a hundred--day after day. Most of August, to date and for the rest of the predicted month are in the eighties to low nineties. That's great for us, especially with everyone watching the water use. Everyone that is but the Iranian Muslims next door. They have the greenest lawn on the block, a water sucking green both front and back.

I don't know what it is with them, they fly an Iranian flag on days, I'm guessing, are special for Iranians but not the American flag on our important flag flying days. In fact that don't fly Old Glory period.  I don't care if you fly a flag or not, but to fly one of a country that hates us, well that's a bit much. It's all a bit strange. There here in America with a newborn and act like its Tehran. 

And the price of water, gad, don't ask. It's on a tier level. You suck up so much water and then it goes to another price range. Once you hit the end of that tier, it goes into the stratosphere in price.  We've hit the second tier now and then because it ain't hard to do. The problem is there is no feasible way of seeing how much water you've used. The meter is in a hole in the ground and even after lifting the slab of cement covering it, what exactly is the reading?  I have no clue, except to be careful with the water.

So while we watch the drops, our Muslim Brotherhood next door lets it fly through the air cast by sprinklers that run all night. There lawn is lush and green as a Japanese golf course while ours looks more like dirt than grass. There is one thing though, unless Muslims eat grass they ain't eating near as well as we are from our Organic Garden In The Middle of the City. And we fly Old Glory, not some goddamn rag-head mop on a stick.

We've Got A Jew Problem On One Side & A Muslim Problem On The Other

Us in the Middle

Jews to left of us

Muslims to the right of us.

It's a weird kind of set up. Jews from Israel bought the house on one side of us. The next thing that happens is our neighbor on the other side of us for fifty years up and died. In moved a Muslim family from Iran. They both speak their native tongue.

The Jews like to argue in their backyard in Hebrew. Loud and clear so that no one has a problem knowing their at it again. They don't worry, they're the only Jews around for four houses at best on either side. Hispanics live next to them on the other side that you only hear the sound of children playing and birthday parties. Really wonderful to hear in the neighborhood--I think, families having fun with kids doing what kids do is music in the night.

But even with the laughter of children, the Jews go outside to smoke cigarettes and scream at each other in a language that is guttural. Like chewing rocks, the words come out in a crushing avalanche of hate. Their rage  ascends like a holocaust to a long lost god. It's a daily affair with the Jews that when they come home from work to pleasure themselves they hurl angry screams at each other.

The Muslims are another story. They don't scream at each other very much. Once in a great while, but what family doesn't at some point when shit hits the fan. They do though have other quirks. At first we were both friendly with each other. I introduced myself, they did as well, but though I invited them into our home, they haven't. Worse, they left me to stand at the front door without opening it. I had brought them produce from our garden. When they came knocking on our door, I let them in showed them our house, took them outside where they fell in love with the garden, commented on it quite a bit. So, when I saw them go into their house one day shortly after, and knew they were home, I knocked on their door just as they did on ours. They left me standing there with organic grapes freshly picked, and choice clusters at that. I could hear activity inside and so knocked again a bit louder. Nothing. It was loud enough to let them know someone was at the door. After some time, and feeling embarrassed, I left to walk across the street to really wonderful neighbors, the wife Czechoslovakian, her husband Filipino and knocked. They opened with smiles and gratitude for the wonderful grapes locally grown and pleasantries passed about what was going on with their kids and the hood. Wonderful people.

Then one day I saw the Muslim husband when I was watering the front and said, hello. He did as well, asking how we were. I told him fine and that I had grapes for him if he liked, that I had knocked at his door a few days ago but apparently to busy to answer.

"If I want something from you, I will let you know," he answered.

I got the picture. He found out we are gay with the tour of our home. Muslims from Iran, even the college educated, are profoundly homophobic. And it works for me, we smile, nod our heads if pressed to acknowledge one another and that's it.

"No grapes for you Jihad warrior."

Here's another thing. The Muslim mother, they had a child after this, complained to me about the chickens making noise disturbed her Jihad terrorist brat from his nap. I have five hens in the very back of the property next to the alley. Much further from their house than what the law allows. They are well maintained and do make a clucking sound in the morning but they are hens and don't crow. They make a call many times, not all times, after laying an egg or startled for some reason. I told her there wasn't much I could do, but I would try. They complained to our gardener that he made too much noise. Not their gardener, our gardener and he asked if he could come on another day, I said not if he wanted to keep the job, he gardens the front on Fridays and both theirs and our gardener show up just hours apart on the same day.

Okay, two can play the game. I complained about the brat when he went into screaming fits in their backyard. I complained loud, over the fence so everyone could hear it. No fucking knocking because they don't answer, I do but they don't. And that's another thing. The next time their Jihad ass show up at the door, I'm not answering either. They don't complain to me anymore and they don't knock on the door.

Mike, across the street and two houses up hates them. They fly an Iranian flag, not an American flag. In fact, they turn out all the lights on Halloween even though they are home. Cheap fuckers too apparently.

And the Jews? Lazy is one term that comes to mind. Anytime an ad paper falls on their driveway, they toss it on our property. And now they are putting their trash barrels in front of our garage in the alley so they don't have to pick up the fucking trash that falls after the trucks come and empty them. They are in for a surprise. One more time of that shit and I'm hauling their fucking trash containers down the alley to some distant house. Let's see if that shit happens again.

If it is war these fucking Middle Easterners want then so be it. The rainbow colors don't run anymore.
 

E.R. Eye Opener

Wally's supra-pubic catheter had clogged last night. He was breathing fast and was in a cold sweat that soaked the bed sheets, it was about three in the morning and when I checked him, noticed the urinary bag had blood in it with little else. It should be about half way full or more with urine at that time in the morning. I did the procedure they showed me to do at the urologist office but the catheter still wouldn't drain. We needed to take him to emergency since Urgent Care wasn't open.
 
Getting in was a snap, there were only a few people and this was a Saturday night during a full moon. A special full moon at that since it is called a Super Moon being it is the closest it will get to earth for a while. That was good fortune, if you can call going to the E.R. fortunate.

The nurse we had was Asian with a thick accent. It's okay by me but she had difficulty with English. Like the word soiled. She wanted a rectal temperature of Wally and his weight. Okay but Wally has dementia and there was no scale for people in wheelchairs. I said, "Wally has soiled himself as they began to put him on a gurney.
"What?" she asked.
"When we were getting him in the car, Wally soiled himself, you need to clean him if you're taking a rectal."
"What do you mean soiled himself."
"You know, he's messed his Depends."
"What?"
"He took a shit in his pants. You know, shit? He's crapped in his underwear."
"Please sit down, we will take care of this. What is your relationship to the patient?"
"We're married."
"Your his brother?"
"No, we are married to each other."

Now she has discovered Wally's poop and of course it is dropping out because she had his nappy pulled down and some of his shit is now on the floor. "We need towels," she announces.

"We have to clean him before we can take his temperature."

"No kidding," I'm saying under my breath. 

"Get the gurney with the scale," she says.

Wally is stood up again and they have to clean the old gurney and the floor, meanwhile Wally is in pain and having difficulty standing. One of the assistance tells him to stand up, another Asian.
I say, "Wally has dementia, he's doing the best he can."
"Stand. Mr. Wallace, do you understand me? Stand up."
"Wally has dementia and is doing the best he can. He's in pain."
 "We'll handle this. What's your relationship to the patient?"
"We're married."
"Your his son?"
I gave up. "Look you have to hold him, he can't do it by himself. He has dementia."
The idiot turns to the Asian nurse and says, "He won't respond."
I go over and hold up Wally while Stan, our caregiver cleans him and the medical staff watch. It's easier that way and fortunately they stayed out of the way until we're done with their job.

Put him on the gurney. That takes a while because they don't know how to put up the sides and once they're up find out it can't weigh Wally because the batteries for that are dead.

Here we are in an E.R. dealing with people with poor English skills and equipment not maintained. Finally they ask me his weight, which I told them at the beginning.
"You are a good son," the Asian nurse told me.
So much for the hard fought battle for equality in marriage. We aren't husband and husband, we are son and father.

The E.R. doctor was from India. He was good too, competent and very versed at English. Wally came home after a catheter was inserted in his penis. He has antibiotics to take and we need to make an appointment on Monday to have the supra-pubic catheter replaced and have him checked. 

It's a bit frightening though when you think what could happen if you're having a heart attack or can't respond and your spouse is a sister,  mother, son or father and the staff wants to weigh you first.

We Will Rock You At the Ahmanson

For old rockers, as ourselves, this was a walk down memory lane. The playful choice of words that came from old songs and lyrics to fill in the dialog of the characters was well done. The story line, to correlate along with the music, was your simple boy meets girl which, I thought, since Freddie Murphy was tres-gay--not right. Why didn't they have, boy meets boy? Or boy meets trucker since he liked truckers so much. When I looked up some info on Freddy,  I found we were born two months apart in the same year. Of course a lot of people were born that same year, the start of the baby boom generation. 

We went by way of the underground, The Metro red-line boarded at the North Hollywood station. After taking the elevator to the lower level, we came to a strange scene of television monitors and flashing strobe lights saying to evacuate immediately, yet no one seemed concerned. Maybe it was a teaser for the performance later that afternoon, and we disembarked at the Civic Center where the signs of a rainstorm in the form of puddles everywhere made a nice cleansing of the whole area. Little did we know that later in the day another rain storm at Venice beach would bring lightening that killed one person and injured others. Such strange weather we have.

After the performance we took the red-line to Hollywood and found a dive on Hollywood Blvd. Huge margaritas, big enough to call a bird bath but not really that good. But after diving into one, the food came, which made the food that was so-so, okay.

It was a good day and though I feared a hang over the next day, it never came, making it a real good day.