We Made It

Holiday Inn where Wally, Beto and I stay every year.

Another Holiday season nears its end. It seems I began to write 2014 on checks without thought when I'll need to go through a few checks until 2015 formulates in my brain. Wally will be eighty-three in January, I'll be sixty-nine in July.

The hen house was cleaned by Mexican Monkey. He trimmed the grape arbor too, and today I cut up the vines for smoking meats this summer. Grape vines, I think, make the best smoke for barbecuing. Way better than hickory or mesquit. Better even than apple. Especially with chicken, pork or fish, it has a wonderful mild smoke flavor that is not overbearing but enhances the flavor of the meat.

A friend of ours house caught on fire today. The heater in his adjacent tenants rental was the cause. He has no heat, electricity, phone, gas or water. And the fire department batter-rammed his front door so he has to stay there until he can secure the building. We are expected to get rain in a day with the temperature near freezing.

But he'll get a better building, if the insurance works in his favor, and next year, if he lives through this, may be a better year for him.  It doesn't look good right now, but it could change.

Wally had another urinary problem where we spent Christmas Eve and day with nurses and doctors but it looks like there will be a solution to this too, and it may make Wally's life better and ours trying to care for him. 

So here is to a better year. With all the hope and goodwill to make it so, we might have a better year than the last.

Burn Out And What To Do Aout it

"Shit happens," and, "Adapt or die," another truth of the universe, explains, in very simple terms, what life is all about. That's it folks, the secret of life described in two or three words without the disorder of religion to warp what is true.

Every once in a while, it hits me that Wally's days are numbered. The doc said, one maybe two years. Then I think of my own death, and with a slight calculation of years lived and years I may have left, the tally seems mighty slim. And what the fuck am I doing? Do I like doing what I'm doing? And if I don't, then why aren't I changing my choices?

Winter's Crop

It is burn out. It's when you feel like the deer in the headlights. You see what's coming but you can't do anything about it. You fizzle, feel helpless and that makes it hard to look for a life line.

I'm doing okay. I'm adapting to the shit that's happening. I take a step back, a deep breath, pick myself up and get back in the game.

My solace is our garden. It's fussing in the garden that gives me a chance to step back, breath and feel okay once more. Writing is another and that's the cure for burn out, my opinion. What's yours? 

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?