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Sigh. Last Thursday we took my wife's Mom to a local rec center, as we had done several times before, to give her a soak in the hot tub, do some rehab exercises, and give her a shower. It was later in the day than we usually go, but... She is sitting on the toilet, Sheri is helping her and I am off returning the plastic PVC pipe wheelchair the center has, and fetching her own. Mom goes grey and collapses backwards on the toilet. Sheri freaks and calls 911. We decide to play it safe and have her sent to Parker Adventist Hospital. The doc calls us the next day, amazed we have been caring for her the past year, because in his words, she is a handful. He decides to have her sent to a rehab facility to get some strength training, (lately she goes ragdoll on us more and more and is less willing to try to walk or use her arm). And I think the Dr could see we needed a break. Joy. But my wife and kids and I are now trying to adjust to not having her constantly needing us. You'd think that would not be stressful, but we are coping with the change and breathing a cautious sigh of relief. I had a couple good job interviews. Something may turn up soon. This morning, I am driving my son to school (it snowed last night) and as I drive to school, I get rammed from the right side by a driver who slid through the stop sign of a side street. Her Buick LaSabre hits my wife's Jag on the front right corner, hard enough to trigger the airbags, and then her car spins and hits our right rear quarterpanel. We sit, waiting for the police to come fill the police report and get all the info on the scene. I get my wife to bring me my trenchcoat (I was in my PJ's; ironically I constantly scold her about driving to school in her robe.) and the digital camera. Its a few hours later and I'm home now, a bundle of nerves and a little more sore than I realized. We are several thousand upside down on our car, so I hope and pray they do not total our vehicle, otherwise all we have is my old volvo with 250,000 miles on it and no money for another car. C'mon God... give me a break. I guess it could have been worse... a second later and she could have slammed into the right passenger door where my son was sitting. But sometimes I feel like that peasant in Monty Python's Holy Grail who insists he's not dead yet, he's feeling a bit better, and gets whomped on the noggin. Current Mood:  crushed
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[Sung to the tune, "Video Killed The Radio Star" by the Bangles... just Google it okay?]
Bit Torrent Killed My Old VCR
(an original bit of insanity I just came up with... Hey, Wierd Al, Feel free!)
I stayed up late to watch SNL on Channel 2 Lying awake up late to tune in back in '82 There was no tape or tivo, watch it or you’re screwed. Oh-a oh But in the nineties I could catch more must-see-tv Recorded on machines with new technology But even VCR’s obsolete now I can see. Oh-a oh Just ask my children Oh-a oh The ‘nets consumed them! Bit-torrent killed my old VCR Bit-torrent killed my old VCR Episodes download from near and far. Oh-a-a-a oh. And now I watch shows in my basement studio We watch it off the drives it digitally flows And no more commercial in-ter-rupt-sh-uns in tow. Oh-a oh With my SATA TB drive… Oh-a oh They are now always live. Bit-torrent killed my old VCR Bit-torrent killed my old VCR Hulu, Youtube, thepiratebay, help catch missed shows the very same day. Oh-a-aho oh,
Oh-a-aho oh Bit-torrent killed my old VCR Bit-torrent killed my old VCR Hulu, youtube, and thepiratebay, help catch missed shows the very same day. Episodes download from near and far. Its time to scrap my VTR. I forgot to set my VCR I forgot to set my VCR (who cares, because--) Bit-torrent killed my old VCR Bit-torrent killed my old VCR Bit-torrent killed my old VCR Bit-torrent killed my old VCR Bit-torrent killed my old VCR. (Who wants my old VCR?) Tags: comedy, song parody, torrents
Current Mood:  contemplative
Current Music: Bangles
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They turned off our cellphones.
That was the Yahoo IM I had on my Blackberry, sent by my wife as she drove off for work. But that was not how the day started. I was awakened about 4am by my wife (I had fallen asleep in the basement after the family watched a Smallville Season 1 Marathon, and my 1am catnap on the sofa down there had run a little long). It was my mother-in-law, who needed to be taken out of bed and put in the wheelchair and helped into the bathroom. No, first she wanted water. I'd stumbled upstairs to flop on our bed, nudging our 11 year old son to one side. Back out of bed, and back downstairs to the first floor bedroom (which used to be Sheri's home office in a dining room right off the front door). Sheri'd already got her in the wheelchair, but knowing Ellen's penchant to play ragdoll at night and flop all her weight on her helper, I didn't want to risk Sheri hurting her back. I mumbled I had her and I'd get her to the toilet. Sheri nodded in grateful acknowledgement and went back up to bed to get some rest before work.
I parked her wheelchair outside the bathroom door. (We'd had our best friend help us flip so it swung outward. That and a row of rails along the wall of the bathoorm I'd installed were all the modifications we could afford.)
Staggering like a drunken hunchback, my mother-in-law weakly fought to get her left leg, partially paralyzed by the stroke she'd sufffered while in the hospital for knee replacement surgery, to take a faint step forward. Her left arm dangled at her side like a dead and forgotten piece of meat. I stood beside and waited patiently, resigned to the routine, and kept the waistband of her pants and her Depends firmly in my right hand while I steadied her. Two falls, resulting in one broken hip and one broken arm at the shoulder socket had taught us that we could not leave her side for more than a moment. Now finally in position, I pull her pants down, gently working the depends to her knees while quickly glancing to make sure no surprises awaited me, and to keep my hand clear in case she loses bladder control again before I can get her seated in the raised toilet attachment.
All the while I am filtering, ignoring and echoing the repeated dialogs, eyes averted to give her some semblance of privacy while responding automatically to her queries about why there is no toilet paper on the spindle (We keep it behind her out of reach and out of sight, so that she does not get stuck in a loop of wiping, forggeting she wiped, wiping, and flooding the bathroom with a toilet clogged with half a roll of paper). Her bladder emptied, I give her paper to wipe with, and try to ignore the urine's smell. We have to constantly cajole Mom to drink more water. Now I help her stand to her feet and making sure she has a firm grip on the rail, I lean her over a bit and check her wrinkled 81 year old backside for "prairie dogs" or any other surprises that might require additional attention.
She chants the repeated mantra of how her arm, leg, back, shoulder, and legs hurt as she wobbles back to the wheelchair, leaning heavily and quietly thanking me for the rails she leans on. Same dialog every time. Like tired dancers I help her to pirouette and ease her slowly down onto the wheelchair. A short roll back to bed, and I scoop Mom up and lay her in bed, saving her the exertion of trying to to stand and scootch herself up into the hospital bed. I made sure her left arm was in proper position, and the night brace she wears on her left hand and wrist is in place to keep her withered hand from curling up into a claw. A quick check of the heating blanket completed, I position the TV tray next to the bed, partly so the brass bell used to summon me is in reach, and partly to dissuade her from attempting to climb out of bed unaided. Already on autopilot, I mumble a gentle goodnight as I trod upstairs, my thoughts haunted by the concern that Colorado's legislature is considering cutting back funding to seniors even more, and the subsidized shuttle service that helps get her thrice weekly get to senior day activities may soon end.
Sunrise. Its 6am; thereabouts... And the weak tinkle of the brass bell that haunts my sleep rouses me. She needs to go to the bathroom again, and the concern in her tremulous voice warns me that I have a unpleasant surprise. Fortunately the Depend's has done its job and only a few drops of diarrhea have leaked through to her pajama pants, and nothing has made it to the bed. That doesn't stop her from asking and repeating more than 6 times her concern that she soiled the bed. After the sixth time, the growling tone change in my voice finally gets through to her that the discussion is over. I carefully separate the sides of the diaper and dispose of the toxic payload. Then the cleanup begins and any sense of body privacy is pretty much gone. My wife, who is in the shower upstairs trying to get an early start for work, gets the bad news. I wrap Mom lower half up in a towel, then as gently as I can pick her up in my arms and carry Mom upstairs to the shower and the waiting lawn chair within.
While Sheri takes over, I dash back downstairs and hurriedly make my wife a PBJ sandwich and some scrambled eggs she can eat while driving to work. With me out of work for over a month now, and the unemployment checks not coming on schedule despite my jumping through ever hoop the CUBLine demands, we are very dependent on Sheri's part time job to keep things going. The Veterans Benefits Mom is owed are a year overdue and tied up in so much bureaucratic red-tape that I'm wondering if Vegas odds-makers are making book as to which will get here first, the check or the grim reaper. The social security check barely covers her thrice-weekly daycare, and her life savings have been irresponsibly frittered away on personal indulgences by another relative. I add some extra touches to Sheri's eggs, like some curry and paprika, and some shredded cheese, then fill her travel mug with English Breakfast I hurredly brewed and sneak a love note in her napkin in the car front seat with the food.
Grandma is dressed now, and clean, her weekly bath a day early but none too soon considering. I take Ellen in my arms again and gingerly go back downstairs to the main floor and her waiting bed, both of us praying my feet will not slip nor my back give out.
She rests and I feed the dogs and log in after many weeks absense from LJ.
Its 10am now. Sheri is at work, hopefully on schedule so as to not give HR any excuse to cut off our lifeline. Time to stop goofing off with the blog and make grandma her Eggo Blueberry Waffles with peanut butter and syrup. Every day, same meal, but its the important one that helps keep the weight on her. I take a moment to greet my 14 year old son, just waking from a Saturday morning sleep-in, and take a moment to think about my own mother, shut in a secure nursing home, her memories all stolen away by alzheimers. It sucks getting old. I hope I get a job soon. I am tired. Tags: alzheimers, bathroom monologe, senior care, venting
Current Mood:  anxious
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Meme instructions: 1. Reply to this post and I will pick five of your icons 2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose if you damn well feel like it. 3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts. 4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee  Some time back I found the funny and cute animation of a bunny bemoaning that everyone else on earth has had more sex than him. I combined it with a "MindBlast" motivational poster parody and stuck the little bunny in the middle instead of Wilford Brimley. Thought it would be a silly icon to have in the pool. And no, I get more sex than most. So nyah. :-)  Dolphins. Love em! I also love steaks. And I thought it was another silly icon I made myself for when I am writing something absurd. I've swam with dolphins. I've touched them, caressed their heads, held their fins, and played with them in the water. Magical. Someday I dream of swimming with orcas.  The Laughing Man. I found this picture when I was searching for pictures of Heath Ledger's Joker. (before the movie it was hard to find). The Laughing man had had his face cut into a permanent grimacing smile. An icon I use when I am responding to the insane, the absurd, or the madness of the world. "We're all mad here, Alice..."  HUH. I liked the movie, and the dramatic scene of "Tonight we Dine in HELL!" It makes me laugh to look at the dramatic juxtaposed with the mundane. I like things that make me laugh. We need more hellos, and laughter. I'm all stocked up on pain.  TDSM. Short for Trapdoor Spider Man. Amy Borden drew him for me many years ago. Here is the full picture. He's also the dangerous cyber-net-tech side of me.  TDSM is one of my superhero characters from the Superguy mailing list. Check it out. Its been around longer than the world wide web. Real name: Unknown Status: Active and founding member of West Coast Defenders. Notes: Trapdoor Spider Man first cameoed in the SPECTRUM series before becoming one of the original West Coast Defenders. He is now appearing in West Coast Defenders. Known Powers: Trapdoor Spider Man lives underground, his origin shrouded in mystery. Drawn to evil, he strikes suddenly and without warning, popping out of a concealed hole in the ground. He can spin webs, tunnel through just about anything, and has a venomous bite. He is very strong, and his body is nearly bulletproof. He can see in the dark very easily and has tracking skills. Description: Trapdoor Spider Man is man-sized huge hairy spider with multiple eyes and terrible mandibles. He can use his multiple arms independently, and speaks in a rasping voice. He is downright scary to look at, but stays out of sight. Note: Trapdoor Spider Man is secretly an agent of the MOOse Illuminati, and spends most of his time hacking cyberspace, monitoring all the world wide webs. His codename is SpiderMOOse. There's a lot more to this guy, but you'll have to subscribe to the superguy mailing list to learn more. http://lists.eyrie.org/mailman/listinfo/superguy/ Oh, and its thanks to him and my other characters that I can claim a tag on Wikipedia. Think of him as a off-kilter representation of a Spiderman hero...just like a lot of superheroes in the Superguy Universe. Wolverine's lethality, with a scary mutation, and the don't mess with me or I'll tear you to shreds attitude. When the movie comes out, he'll be CGI, with Samuel L. Jackson doing the voice. ;-) Tags: meme
Current Mood:  calm
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This is one charitable project I volunteer for yearly. Once a year I haul the arcade cabinet to Aurora Central High School. I set it up in the area set aside for child care, and I let dozens of children beat on it all day. The Christmas store is an enormous project involving churches and other groups to transform the large cafeteria into magical toy store for needy families. Families line up all day and are able to buy a gift for their children at 25 cents on the dollar. That way they can get them a gift and have the dignity of buying it without breaking the bank. They have helpers with laundry hampers help them pick out the gift(s), then take them to be gift wrapped. Meanwhile, the kids are in the childcare area, and the arcade helps some of the older kids stay sane while they wait. It starts about 8:30-9,and runs until 6-7pm. As you can imagine, the need has been greater this year than in past years. I am blogging from the store*. Its running now. The organizers have food/snacks for the volunteers, and basically its me helping kids have fun playing video games all day. Sometimes though it seems like the devil is trying to do everything to keep me from helping out. Last night we hauled it here early, and one of the guys in the Lifebyte group (more on that in a minute) had to bail out on helping haul it and set it up. His wife had a collapsed lung, and his daughter had to go to ER with stomach pains. So that prevented him from helping today and his wife/daughter(s) had signed up to help in childcare. So my son's stepped up and were willing to put in a 8-2 shift. Lifebyte (the charitable group I work with on this) donates about a dozen computers we refurbish to give away in a drawing for the needy families that sign up for one. We're a little shorthanded today. Last night, I finished setting the arcade up, plugged it in, and the computer that runs the arcade died. I had to stay up late and scramble to build a new brain for the cabinet. But I found backups halfway through the day, and had been able to cobble together enough games last night to keep things fun all morning. We are going to probably help around 1600 familes today. *Laptop tethered to my Blackberry Storm, on verizon evdo network...fast! Tags: charity, christmas, lifebyte, volunteer
Current Location: Newark and 11th Street, Aurora, CO
Current Mood: grateful
Current Music: Arcade music
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