What to say

When people used to ask "How's your dad doing?" I used to be able to say that he's got some pre-alzheimerish condition, but he's mostly OK. He does crosswords and keeps his mind active and he seems just fine.

Well, no more. He's not fine. A stack of crossword puzzles might slow his progression, but he's getting worse. He's not bad yet. Bad will come. In our family, we've all seen what bad looks like.

He can dress himself, he knows who people are, and largely where he is.... but.

There's a million little heartbreaks. A new one every day. Things he can't do or doesn't remember. It's sad, but has to be hardest on my mom. She's the one who will be prone to depression.

Anyway. Small post today to ease me back into this.

TG

Our Thanksgiving was perfect. I slaved days in advance cooking. Well. Actually I made one pie, and I made the cranberries.

Mom made: Beets, Pumpkin pie, Mincemeat Pie, Sweet Potato Casserole, Green Beans, Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, and a Turkey!

It was easily the best meal we've had in this house so far.

Like any good holiday, it's not just about the food. Mostly, but not all.

The day started with tears and ended with laughter. Mom had to give Dad very specific instructions on what to get out of their RV so that he could shower in the house. Get a towel and a washcloth, or something that simple. He came up from the rig twice without it. After the second time, Mom started crying and said "It just breaks my heart."

Nothing horrible, but it all just points to where Dad is headed.

On the good side, we invited friends Mark and Amy up for Thanksgiving. Nice to have someone beside our same faces to look at and talk to. And besides, it's nice to have two highly skilled photographers along.

It was a really great time, with lots of laughs. We never did calculate out the ratio of pounds of butter in the meal to people eating the meal. Really, no good can come of that.

Then Mark and I finished the day playing too many songs in the basement while everyone watched movies upstairs. Rock and Roll will never die.

Some Data

Some early returns on my parents visiting us.

Length of time they've been here: 4 weeks.

They moved to a nearby RV park for a week in the middle, as a trial run of "giving space", and it was lame. They used the excuse that they had to dump their tanks, but they moved there for a week and rented a car for a while. Our hick-run truller park quickly made them change their mind about that. There's been no further talk about them searching for other places.

Catholic Masses attendeed: 4

We told them that there are plenty of churches they could go to. We understand if they don't want to attend with the wacky catholics. Still haven't been able to disuade them. Of course this week with the kids singing in the choir, and with me playing bass in the music group, it was a pretty strong draw for them. High marquee value right there. Perfectly targeted to the DT/JT demographic. I think if we had the kids singing in the local Church of Satan Children's Choir, Mom and Dad would be in the front row with big smiles.

Kiddie sporting events attended: 5

Two Z soccer games, two Z basketball games, one V indoor soccer game. Each time they've praised the kids to an level Kathleen and I have been unable to match. Z is not a great basketball player. Not really a super good one compared to other kids at his level. But Mom and Dad have used words like 'hustle', 'scrapper', and 'heart' to lay on the praise. It's nice to see.

Hmm. That's the same kind of way they used to praise me when I played baseball. Now I see what they were up to. Ouch.

Campfires sat around: 2

One was at a boy scout campout. The other was around a little fire pit/table that we have on the back deck. It was great to sit around and roast shmallows with the kids. Sit there and watch Caveman TV.

Dad likes flashlights. It's one of his things. I guess it always has been. It was very handy when he had his flashlight out when we we reaching for the twigs and logs to put some more on the fire. It was less handy when he kept shining his flashlight onto the fire. Mom had to tell him a couple of times that we didn't need his flashlight shined on the fire, that we could see it just fine.

Meals Mom has cooked for us: More than 50% of the meals we've eaten.

Times I've been to the gym: 10

Pounds I've put on: 5.

I didn't know that I missed some of the dishes I grew up with. I have many of the recipes thanks to S.T. collecting them into a book many years ago (still one of the enduring great Christmas gifts of all time, by the way). I see the recipes, but didn't think I needed to cook them. Jeannette's hot-dish casserole. Perfectly simple, but so tasty. It was comfort food in the purest sense, and a forgotten taste from my kidhood.

Food disagreements: None so far, but only because we haven't brought it up.

We're not a fake-sugar house. We think real sugar is bad enough. It's the devil you know and fake sugar is the devil you don't know. But Dad has used fake sugar of different types in his coffee for a long time. Still no conflict, until...

JELLO! Nanny tought V how to make Jello, and it was SUGAR FREE! (If this were a reality show instead of a sitcom, this is where we'd edit a quick shot of me picking up the empty Jello box, looking aghast, we'd drop in a DUN-DUN-DUN music sting, and then go to commercial... The Drama!)

Well, it's not that big of a thing. I can agree to sugar free jello if we use it to make jello shots. That's what I can do towards compromise.

Home improvement projects completed: More than in the prior 18 months of living in this house.

This includes painting the kitchen. As of 4 weeks ago, it had taken K and I 18 months to get about 80% of the wallpaper off. Then in the space of about 10 days it was completed. Stripped, primed, painted. Two colors, two coats. Totally great.

It's the kind of work that Mom wants to see Dad doing more of. She says it makes him think, measure, figure. She wants to keep him doing work like that. And we're happy to oblige. I do need my chimney swept before winter I think, and that Japanese Koi fishpond is not going to dig itself....

Dad seems to have lost some of the verve behind crossword puzzles. He used to do them daily, or at least try them daily. Now Mom and Dad do them together when they do them. Mom told me the other day that he's stopped being able to recognize some words. Words he knows. I saw him do it when we were at a restaurant. He pointed at the word on the menu and said that he didn't know what the word said. Sorry I don't remember what it was, but it wasn't a difficult word to read. It was a disappointing sign of things to come.

When we've been at restaurants there's more help given to Dad than I thought there would be. He looks over his menu, but it's always Mom who helps him figure out what he wants. When the waitress asks him a question, we're not answering for him, but we're watching closely to see if we need to ask him the question again, or if we need to answer for him. Most the time he does okay, but I guess we can see where it's going.

He also doesn't remember how many of the recent meals he's paid for, so we can get him to pay for most of them. I just say "Dad, since we've gotten the last 3 or 4 meals, why don't you get this one." And it works like a charm. So that's nice. Kidding.

Alone time dates for Kathleen and me: 3

Three in 4 weeks. That's a new record. Not since Zane was born have we had this kind of alone time. (And we had only about 8 weeks of it from when we were married to when Zane was born... Amazing short gestation period! Call Ripley's!)

On the first of the 3 dates, the kids each separately asked Nanny and Bop: "Are they going out for their anniversary?" Kind of a sad sign. But it got us some sympathy points.

Times I've made my mom cry: 2.

Ok, I didn't make her cry, but we've had discussions about Dad and about what she needs, and where he is right now. I asked her if her will and other aspects were up to date. Like if something were to happen to her, what becomes of Dad. That's a pretty frightening aspect, but one that shouldn't be ignored. He's a long way from needing full-time care. We pray a very long way. But he's below self-sufficiency. Certainly if something were to happen to Mom, he'd crumble emotionally and probably spiral downward. It should be considered.

So we talked about it, and Mom started talking about how kind and caring he's been first to his parents as they aged and died, and then to her parents. She told the story of Grandpa T, living in the nursing home in Fillmore. Dad went there every day he was off work, and took Grandpa's soiled clothes and washed them himself in the sink in the garage. He wouldn't even let Mom touch them. She told him that he should let the nursing home people take care of it; that's what they pay them for. His response was that most of the Charlie he knew was gone. But if there's an ounce of himself still left in his head somewhere, Charlie wouldn't stand for someone outside the family taking care of him that way.

What got to Mom was when she was talking about the kind of care that Dad deserves, after having been so giving and so kind to his own parents and then her parents.

I never thought about it too much before, but Dad knows where he's going. He knows what's coming. We see these signs, warnings of things to come. I of course have only seen a few. Mom has been telling us about others. But Dad knows them all. He knows where he's going. He knows from seeing his own dad slope slowly downward over probably 8 years, and his own mom do the same over less time, under his own roof.

He knows, but he's not depressed. Or at least shows no signs of it. He sees mom doing things for him he used to be able to do on his own. When Mom sends him on an errand to go somewhere and get something, he goes to the where, but sometimes forgets the what. And he doesn't come back frustrated. Or in self-pity. He still calls what he has "The Mad Cow".

He still has joy. He laughs. He still tells dumb jokes and makes bad puns. He is still himself. Though we have less of him today than we had yesterday, he is still himself.

Redneck Halloween

Just a couple quick notes about Halloween.

We love halloween. Our kids went trick-or-treating 3 times before the 31st. Different civic and school, and other functions.

At the Florence Freedom (local minor league baseball) stadium, there was a mid-week kiddie costume and candy event. Mom and Dad got to see the yokels in full force.

They got to see adults, not in costume, going up to the candy givers saying, "I got a baby at home," as justification to get some candy.

I like that. Adults for whom Halloween is still about candy. It's not about fun or dressing up, or being festive. It's about free candy. Probably just like when they were the babies at home.

It would all have been funny, except that the candy ran out. Mom was angry that the kids in costumes, like ours, sometimes had to be turned away because the redneck moms glommed on to all the smarties. Awesome.

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Having Mom and Dad at home was double good at Halloween. They got to man the candy bowls at the house while we got to roam the neighborhood as a foursome. We've never done that. In our area, a lot of people take their lawnchairs down to the end of the driveway, maybe bring a firepit and a cooler, and make an evening of it. It's great. And it was great to go together.

Mom and Dad had a great time passing out candy also. Dad got a kick out of seeing the kids in all their getups, and they were both clearly in the spirit.

My favorite house we visited was the one where the mom came to the door, ashed her cigarette at my kids feet, blew smoke in their faces, and handed them Christian literature. Solid. It was right out of a movie. I'm going back to that house next year. Maybe they'll throw dog crap at my kids and call them druidic satan worshipers.

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Some images (if I can get this thing to work.)

By the way, there's nothing more frightening than seeing one's daughter in a cheerleader costume.

Not a Sitcom

But if I were to pitch it, I think it would be picked up by TBS. Characters welcome, after all.

So here's my pitch.

Normal middle class family. Dad is a dryly comic geeky type. Like a less creepy Jeff Goldblum. Mom is a cute and perky and overbooked. Courtney Thorne-Smith, but funnier. 9 year old son is a bit of a scamp/troublemaker with a heart of gold. 7 year-old daughter is his rival and provides the emotional center of the show.

Then, enter the parents. The granparents come from California to live with the above family for possibly six months. Seriously.

You've got the fish out of water stuff with the Californians learning about life among hicks. You've got the guest becomes live-in comedy. And here's the difference. The grandpa has partial alzheimer's-ish condition. Sometimes funny, sometimes touching. It's that spice of life touch. I see a Donald Sutherland or Michael Caine type in that role. Maybe James Brolin.

So it's begun. They got here almost 2 weeks ago. We weren't ready. We had planned to paint the kitchen, clean the carpets. rake the leaves, warn our neighbors about a Winnebago coming into their neighborhood.

All of that didn't amount to much. Mom and Dad have decided to help us. They raked the leaves, they are painting the kitchen. In less than 2 weeks, they made friends with our neighbors to nearly the same extent that we have. Walked the neighborhood selling Cubscout popcorn. They have been tireless. So much so that it's gotten me in trouble for letting them do stuff and not making them stop working and cooking and doing everything. I guess it's come naturally to me since a I was a kid to let mom cook for me. It'll be hard getting her to stop. Shhh. I might not even try.

They have come along to soccer games, and church services at school where Zane sang in the choir, and come to a scouts campout.

I have seen Dad have gaps here and there, but nothing too bad. I'll explain more as I go along.

Really so far so good. All is going well. I'm still listening for the laugh track.