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. 

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.