Tired Of The Pity Pot

I'm going to change what I'm doing. It's time for me to pick myself up, dust myself off and get back in the ring.

IT'S FAIRY TALE TIME

The Help

Rich people, really rich people have good help. Unless of course the lord and lady are complete assholes, and even then, with enough money, you can still hire good help. I suppose Donald Trump fits the picture, money plus assholeness will still buy what you want.

Not so much for the rest of us. I've given up on finding someone without  personal problems because--you get what you pay for. And we can't afford a registered nurse around the clock and an orderly for the daily care. We don't have room in a two bed-one bath, WW2 cottage. It's nice and cozy for three people but they would have to get along. And there is the problem.

We have a nice place, something we made it into with organic gardens of vegetable and ornamental. There are five chickens in a hen house for fresh eggs and fertilizer. A patio with a running fountain  under a grape arbor and comfortable patio furniture nearby. A place to relax, have a drink and chat with friends while entertaining outside. We like it. Wally still enjoys going outside when he can.

You would think someone living in their car, or in a flop house, or someone's living room would appreciate a room with a view. But what happens is they want more. They always want more. A taste, even the taste of middle class is delicious compared to what they had before. And that's the case for all the help we've hired.

They are always very appreciative at first but as time goes by it isn't enough. There is free room and board, and a thousand a month. They can have friends over, within reason, because more than one, wanted either a lot of friends over any time and another that wants a girlfriend. I have had to put up with a crazy fucking German Shepherd and its Mistress that doted  on the dog constantly. And, get this, one was pimping out his girlfriend for blowjobs in the backyard. Strangers were coming over for fucking blowjobs by his bitch. I've had it all. Drunks, addicts and people with attitude problems, and I mean real attitude problems, the kind that are debilitating.

And all along there is Wally and me, trying to survive for a while longer, floating in the river, going with the flow, watching the day past. There is a humiliating factor in getting old. When you have to depend on others for survival, for things that not too long ago were not a problem, like the twist cap on a bottle of beer.

More later.

Queer Nation, Is Anyone Out There?

It's been a while since I've hit the keys. Wally, I'm realizing, is on a steady decline. I've had to hire two other people to help. One gay and someone I know--friend of a friend thing, helps me on Beto's day off. The other is to help Beto when I ride my bike on Wednesday. He likes women a lot, Beto, being a healthy hetro. He has a recently divorced woman with a wonderful brilliant child to help him. The kid is a delight, already the smartest in the family.

But it is a living hell here. Not in the since you might think.

You see, when Wally and I met and during the course of our romance, we never thought, like most couples in love, that some tragedy would enter our lives.

The problem with dementia is that, unlike cancer, there is no hope. It is always--ALWAYS--fatal.

And in the most twisted, cruel way imaginable. The patient isn't really aware of it, only that everyone else is acting strange. And you, the one that loves them has to deal with that.

At the gym one day, years ago, I saw a guy with a T that said, "Adapt Or Die." No truer words are there in all of knowledge. And, I try to live by them. "One Day At A Time." That's a good one to keep you from going fucking looney.

So I have adapted and I try, with good success, to keep it one day at a time.

I gotta go, and I'm not going to save this for later and let it pile up like my e-mail is anymore. More later on having help, help you, that's a whole other dimension.

Writing And Life

It's been hard for me to sit down and write anything. I can't blame Wally's care demands solely on my lack of writing nor can I blame it on the sudden death of a friend and her husband, another writer. But it seems to add up, in some sort of strange way, to a lack of will in committing myself. I haven't worked on much anything let alone this blog. Could it be depression? Maybe.

The only thing I can do about all of this is to persevere and try to move forward the best I can. I desperately would love to go somewhere for a while but can't. That's just a reality I'm faced with right now. Wally has gone to the Hollywood Bowl every summer since he was seventeen, but I can't take him this year, it's just too hard to do anymore. It tears me up inside not to take him but I don't know what else I can do. If we need to use the public restroom to clean him should he have a bowel  movement we're fucked. It's one thing to clean a baby's bottom at a public bathroom but a full grown adult? They don't have the facilities for that.

And friends, they mean well but for the most part friends act like friends. For instance, on Saturday I try to have some people over for company, what happens is they show up not when I've asked them to, while Wally is napping from one to four, so that I can have some time to be with them, but at four or after. Now I have to deal with the friends and get Wally up. This last Saturday, after getting Wally up after his nap, my guests showed up at last, one of them needs to eat before seven, so I put on a pot of potatoes to go with the fried chicken I was buying at Popeyes. When I returned with the chicken, the pot of potatoes boiled over, both friends were right there waiting for my return without so much as turning the heat down. And on top of that I got static for taking so long, they had no regular chicken only spicy so I had to wait for it. Now I'm trying to get the chicken out, mash potatoes(what was left of them), get Wally's medicine, and I asked one of them to set the table. He threw out in the middle of the table: forks, knives and napkins, literally threw them on the table, no organization. That was the help I got.

I was a little miffed and announced that next Saturday would be different. I'm getting take-out. No more cooking for me. You should have heard the comments. It was like they thought they were entitled to a home cooked meal. But I'm like everyone else, I want to sit in the shade and be waited on.

Then there is the caregiver. Humberto isn't as crazy as the others I've had, but he likes women A LOT. To the point that twice now, I've had to have women with their dogs or their kids live here with us in a one bathroom home. The latest is from Columbia with a young son. They don't speak English even though the father sent them here to learn English, he wasted his money, for the only time I hear English is when they have a question for me. Outside of that, they speak with each other in Spanish while I'm feeding or giving Wally something to drink. It's like living in your own home and at the same time being a visitor.

I think that's what bothers me the most. I have to share our home with strangers so that I can get help for Wally. There is no privacy for us. There are no intimate moments anymore, no mornings together with the newspaper and coffee. I cannot get ten minutes without an interruption. It took all day to write this between the caregivers girlfriend interrupting me, her son, or the caregiver. Then there is Wally's needs, and that's a whole different subject. I'm tired all the time now. I wake up tired and go to bed tired and still I keep trying to find time to write. It is very, very hard.

Seahawk Our Rubber Boat

Cost is a hundred bucks. What you see in the photo is what you get for the hundred, except for the lake. Nice lake too, but where we launched, after about six hundred in upgrades, the lake didn't look like this. Not to complain, with our drought we're happy to have water to boat in.

A friend from Atlanta came here a month earlier to photograph, and that's a whole other story,  helped me build a wood floor that folds in half because the bottom of the boat is all some sort of rubber that inflates. The floor fit well and everything worked like it should. I did stand up out on the lake, changed my a chair around and then got back in the chair without falling in the water. Mexican Monkey waited for the splash that never came.

The electric motor did especially well. The battery for it is real heavy though. We launched on the lower lake, the upper, larger lake of Castaic  had white tops as far as the eye could see. Even the lower, better sheltered lake, had white caps but near the shoreline more calm. The ranger at the upper lake, after seeing how terrified I looked with Mexican Monkey itching to get us out in troubled waters, suggested killing the old geezer on the lower lake, it wouldn't look so obvious that way. Mexican Monkey agreed.

I was happy, the kid at the gate at the lower lake had a nice manner, and cute enough for a tip jar. We didn't have to go through all the formalities of checking the boat because this was its maiden voyage. Virginity does have virtue. Otherwise we would have to inflate it first there at the station, and let him examine the motor. An invasive mollusk that clogs drainage is around and they're trying to keep it out of lakes. Good luck with that.

Mexican Monkey wanted to steer the boat. He wanted it so bad I could taste the want. So I said, "Go ahead, steer the boat, but do not hit anything. He was so happy, and like a pup with his head out the window, steered us directly into the middle of the lake where the white caps danced. Each wave brought another splash over the bow of the boat that soaked the entire front of me. Pleas of mercy went unattended and I thought, if I don't drown, we will at least take on too much water. Mexican Monkey didn't care though and wanted to make sure to soak me clean through to my underwear before steering to the calmer waters along the shoreline.

Once we settled down to drown some bait, the warmth of the day, the water as it lapped against the boat, all had a calming effect, even on Mexican Monkey. There is a peace that descends when you're on a boat out in a lake. Even fishing from shore gives a serenity that only a fisherman knows. We didn't catch anything but then nothing caught us either and it was a hell of a lot of fun just to get away.

Our Hood -- Climate Change--And The Threat Of The Global Warming Denyers

Hasn't  rained in a while here in L.A. and we're still waiting for at least cloud cover. Once in a while Weather.com comes up with rain in the ten day forecast, but it's replaced in a few hours with another sunny day. I guess a post of possible rain in the future is to keep us interested in coming back to see if any rain is in the forecast at all. If this was August, with low eighties for a high, I would be overjoyed, but it ain't. It is February, we should be wet and cold and reading about the Spring Baseball lineup while we wait in anticipation to wear short sleeves and eat a hot dog. Instead of winter weather, I'm in shorts, sitting outside, wondering if it would be a good idea to break out the fans for the patio.  We cook outdoors, the day's heat is enough to warm the house. Cooking inside makes it too hot though, as if it were August. That's what worries me, it's been like this for the last three years. Creepy in a way and all because our country is being held hostage by people who deny there is a problem. And that if there is, it is not because of human activity.


Then there is us. Those that feel we can do something to keep our planet healthy. Do we need more gas guzzling cars? Are there alternatives to fossil fuel? Do we need huge volumes of consumption and more and more people to feed, house and maintain?

To us, we are living on something like a spaceship traveling in our galaxy. We are so fragile that when earth is compared to our galaxy, we aren't even a speck. So we better take care of our spaceship. There is no life raft, no other planet for us to disembark on. We need to practice good husbandry, leave the earth well tended for future generations to enjoy the splendid condition of being alive.

What's going on now is a rape of our planet with this advertized need to consume more. We are overpopulated with starvation's of entire regions occurring constantly.  There are children in America without enough food. You don't have to go to a third world country to see hunger anymore. And we're suppose to be the bread basket of the world.

We need to all work together but there are those, in power around the world who want to do nothing, or worse, prevent the rest of us from doing anything. We need to eliminate these global warming denyers anywhere we find them in an office of power. They are the real threat to us all. The need is urgent, it is no longer something in the future, it is now.

Remember to vote, making sure the candidate actually has a plan to curtail global warming, it is a matter of life or death for us on earth. 

Let's Bitch: How Petty Can You Get?

I bike with a retired group of riders. It is the Wednesday ride, one of two days in the week I can get away for a few hours--if lucky. For the most part it is an odd group of riders, two retired teachers, one retired doctor and me. Sometimes we are joined by the husband of one of the teachers or an outside group of retired professionals who are also, former bike racers in their youth. All are Jews save me.

Why that's brought up is because one of those that joins us on occasion, one of the former bike racers and regards himself as progressive, hates Germans. He hates them so much he wants to exterminate all Germans. Not just Nazis, but ALL GERMANS. Besides that quirk, he enjoys talking about how much he has, his stuff, his money, on and on to ad-nausea. None in our group like him, BUT he's a Jew. And for some reason, I cannot understand, we have to sit with him when he is there.

I ignore him for the most part and once he found out I was of German decent and not a Jew, he has, for the most part, kept his mouth shut about exterminating Germans. One of the teachers in our group enjoys baiting him for comments on killing Germans. Movies, books, anything presently public that concerns Germans, the teacher brings up to entice him into his rabid behavior.

It's uncomfortable. First, they are all Jews and I'm not. And I'm of German decent and queer. The funny thing is, none of them have a problem about the queer part and none of them are particularly religious, most being atheist.

So, it is a very odd group of retired riders to say the least. But now there is a new problem to contend with. The teacher in our group, Mickey, who enjoys baiting the German hater, also likes to tell everyone what they should do or not do, what they should wear or buy, what movies they should watch and what books they should read. It's annoying and he has now fixated on my using my e-reader to read the New York Times when we are at our rest stop, The Corner Bakery. I bring it with me of late and am really enjoy sitting outside with coffee and roll, reading. I also get in the conversation from time to time but not a lot. The reason being is they enjoy talking about films, travel, and dining, none of which I can do because of Wally's condition. We use to do all those things but not now. I'm okay with it, doesn't bother me but one day I thought, why not read, like Wally and I did when we traveled. The first thing we would do in the morning when on vacation would be to find a cafe nearby and the local newspaper. We would buy a couple of papers, if they had more than one newspaper to read, and sit with our coffee and breakfast with a good read. It was for us one of the best parts of the day. Something we both enjoyed.

If I'm lucky, I can get away for a few hours on Wednesday to ride with the group and Saturday to ride with Juanster, when he can get away himself. Those are the two days I have for a little R&R. As it turned out yesterday, I wasn't able because Wally's catheter had plugged up the day before and we spent the night in emergency to replace it.

Of course I'm going to continue reading and avoiding the, Kill All Germans guy, but how petty can you get. And this from educated seniors.