Are We Having Fun Yet?

I got home from Canada on March 9, just as closures & lockdowns in the US were starting to take full effect. Michael arrived home from Ireland a week later, on March 16; he was three days early on his return, but international flight restrictions were being instituted and we wanted him home before every airline was grounded.

And since then? Well, nothing much to report.

I've been working from home as part of my general practice of the past 11 years. The San Francisco main office has been evacuated so everyone is now working from home, whether they want to or not. Business travel, our core business, is 20% of what it was this time last year so while our parent company Enterprise has told us to continue with our original product line & releases, hiring has been frozen. I did get a $10k raise just this past week, and my position is secure. Even if they did lay me off, they'd still be contractually obligated to give me a pile of severance, unpaid vacation time, and a large bonus already scheduled for next February.

Kent's office has gone to work-from-home as a matter of policy, replacing their grudgingly-permitting-it-only-once-per-week. They have done some staff reductions, but Kent's position was spared.

Michael's travel business has all but evaporated at this point: his Milan trip for the international LGBT travel agent convention is cancelled. We are still planning to go to Amsterdam in August, pandemic permitting.

Nearly all of our square dance gigs --dancing, calling & running events-- are cancelled indefinitely. The only thing left in the next several months is the IAGSDC convention in Denver in early July. Hopefully, the worst of this will be over by then.

Karate has also closed, but we started doing online sessions last night. It's been a huge comfort to see the gang together again, even if just virtually.

Weightlifting at the gym is my preferred method of de-stressing, but that hasn't been an option for two weeks now. Last week, I was checking websites to see if there was a gym ban in neighbouring states, but yup, there was.

I had hoped we could go to the trailer this coming weekend at Roseland, West Virginia. We haven't de-winterized yet: everything is still stored in our basement. Alas, yesterday, the shelter-at-home order was given for West Virginia, essentially closing the campground and restricting movement, so our trailer plans are dead.

Virginia and DC school systems have both announced their academic years are toast: the schools will not re-open before June. I expect our county at least in Maryland to do the same shortly. Most of our square dance clubs follow the school boards' open/closed policies, so we've lost our venues for a while longer. Ditto my karate dojo.

Back in Canada, things aren't much better: nearly every province has a shelter-at-home order, or nearly so. None of my family are sick: even Mom and Grandma are doing fine, just frustrated by being housebound. My brother and his wife were about to move from Nova Scotia to Ontario; while the sale & purchase of homes has closed, I don't know if they've found a moving company still available to actually do the move yet.

So far though, this has just been a major annoyance, not a crisis for us. The local grocery stores are still open and while there are shortages on some shelves, we're doing OK with things we can buy and the supplies we already have in stock. We had no pending medical appointments to cancel, and our prescriptions were already stocked. While our dentist's office is closed for elective stuff, they were open to finish outstanding dental projects, such as the final filling cap on my root canal of Feb 5, and the replacement crown installation for Kent this morning.

So I'm still working from the basement computer bunker, stess-eating a lot, going for four mile walks when weather permits, and reading more than I have in years. We'll get through this mess somehow.

My flight home from Canada a week ago was uneventful. Per my usual luck, I had to join a work-related defcon situation the moment I walked in the door at home: no one else in the company has experience working with Solaris, Veritas volume manager, or Veritas Cluster Service. Indeed, I'd rather not myself but until we phase out that stuff in a few months, I'm still the go-to guy.

It's been 9 days since Dad died. Oddly, I don't really feel it yet. I do have moments of sadness that I'll never see or talk to him again, but nothing I would call grief or intense emotion. I suspect a huge part is that once he passed away, my primary task was to keep Mom grounded and to help her get through the essential paperwork. In essence, Dad became a project rather than a death in the family.

The Christmas holidays and the sudden trip to northern Ontario have upset my usual routine considerably. It's not a bad or resentful upset though: I was glad to spend time with the kids, and always love going back home to see the farm although the circumstances of this trip were horrible. But it was nice to get back to karate last Friday: I've missed that. Heavy snows this weekend and a dental appointment this morning have kept me from the gym, but I'll probably be back tomorrow, the first time in nearly three weeks.

I missed little work over the past while. The load was light during the holidays, even though I was on-call. Almost nothing came up while I was away, although I did log in from time to time, just to read emails and to make a few tweaks here & there to help keep the production systems stable. My task list is only just now gearing back up to a normal load, and there are good things in progress.

So, it's all a return to normality & routine now. It just feels so anti-climactic.

Dad died very early Sunday. We collected his personal effects and brought Mom back to my hotel room for the night. After a few hours of sleep, we headed back to the farm in Englehart.

On Monday, we began the process of paperwork on Dad.

There won't be an extensive funeral. The body was collected from Kirkland Lake by McDonalds Funeral Home in Englehart; it will be cremated in Haileybury today. We chose a small wooden chest for his cremains. There will be no service immediately but a celebration of life at the United Church in Englehart in April, followed by burial in the Brentha Cemetary, plot I-16. We paid Mark at the Home for their services, $3,870.

The funeral home is updating the federal government, so we don't have to make extra calls about Dad's Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Supplement or such. The CPP has a $2,500 death benefit; that should be arriving in a couple of months once we get the last paper signed. She will get a reduced survivor's benefit from Dad's CPP, as well as her own CPP and her OAS.

I've made phone calls to Primerica about Dad's life insurance policy, and to his union about his death benefits. The paperwork for those will be mailed to the farm for completion.

Dad's union pension will continue to Mom at full for ten more years, then 50% after. She will continue getting the union's supplemental health insurance gratis for the next six months, then receive paperwork to obtain it in her own name in future.

We have some issues on the credit cards: they have two Visa cards which appear to both be under Dad's name exclusively. We have to cancel those, but we also need to ensure Mom has some credit card available to her.

There were no outside investment accounts. The property & bank accounts were all jointly held so Mom retains control without probate. The Ford Escape is exclusively in her name, but the pickup truck was in Dad's: we'll have to figure that one out, but it's not a pressing concern this week.

The township has been notified of Dad's passing and we have confirmed that we will be using the plot the parents purchased some years ago.

They both had extra accident-only insurance coverage. I've cancelled both of Dad's policies to prevent further premium payments, and confirmed Mom's are still intact.

Beyond this, I'm helping put away a lot of Dad's personal items. We've taken bags of his medications to the local pharmacy for disposal. Some clothes have already been donated. His toiletries have been removed from the master bath room. I'm eating my way through is chocolate stash and his assortment of potato chips.

My parents collectively have kept a huge pile of bank statements, legal papers, invoices, receipts and so on for decades. I'm sorting out items of no consequence and documents older than seven years, burning the old stuff and sorting the current things into some vague order.

Tomorrow (Wednesday), we pick up Dad's remains and a stack of copies of the death certificate from the funeral home. We will also stop by the township hall to sign some papers prepared for us. And then we go to New Liskeard to stop by the provincial government offices to formally close his Ontario health benefits and various supplemental services he received as part of his Crohn's, COPD and mobility support. And return Dad's beer can empties as we can only recycle those in New Liskeard or Kirkland Lake --we need to keep up with the practical day-to-day issues too.

I return to Maryland Thursday; perhaps an extra 24 hours might be useful, but not enough to justify the expense of rescheduling my flight. I'm taking lots of photos of various documents & contact info with my phone, as well as recording information in Evernote and emailing my siblings daily with my progress so they know where we stand when Angela comes up this weekend to continue the battle on paperwork. At least I'll be able to say that we got 80% of the heavy lifting done before I go; we just need to complete the appropriate forms when they arrive via snail-mail in the coming week.

I've finally made it to Kirkland Lake. One of my sisters flew in from Halifax to Toronto's island airport where we met up, then few together to Timmins where I had a rental car waiting. We're now checked into our hotel and had a brief visit with Mom & Dad at the hospital.

Dad is currently in the palliative care ward. While he is not in any particular pain, he is receiving moderate doses of medication to make him comfortable, mostly by keeping his stress & anxiety at bay sufficiently so that his lungs' low performance is still sufficient. If he exerts himself in anyway, physically or emotionally, his COPD is sufficiently advanced that he cannot function and therefore becomes even more anxious, feeling that he is suffocating --because, well, he is, in slow motion.

At the moment, it doesn't appear he can go home again: his ability to physically function & care for himself, even with Mom's help, is too degraded.

This afternoon before I arrived, he had a chat with the hospital staff about medically assisted death. We don't think he's actively investigating this at the moment, but is considering his options when/if his situation further degrades to the point where he will be utterly dependent on machines to survive.

When I arrived this evening, Mom was on the phone to her mother, explaining that Dad had little time left, that he wished to be cremated, that there would be no immediate funeral but probably a memorial celebration of life later in the summer when his cremains are interred in the Brentha Cemetary near their farm. Dad was sitting upright in bed this entire time, listening to the conversation.

Dad's skin tone was definitely greyer than I've ever seen, but he was talkative, clear-minded and lucid, although periodically fighting for consciousness against the medication. His mind is good, but his body is simply worn out & failing.

At this moment, I would say that Dad is reaching the end, but it is not imminent. He will die in his own time, perhaps a few days or perhaps a few months. I have no doubt though that tomorrow will be his last birthday (77), and I wouldn't put any money on him seeing their next wedding anniversary (July 4).

As I write this, I'm OK with all of this. I will miss him, but I can see that this is no longer the life he wants, an active mind trapped in a decaying body. If he has made peace with his ending, then I'm at peace with it too. I love my father: I will not demand he live in pain just to assuage my fears or sadness, so I'm letting him go.

Mother, however, has not made peace. To the contrary, she's declaring war on the universe.

While she has somewhat accepted that his end is coming soon, she's fighting it tooth & nail. She won't leave the room because she believes the hospital will stop treating him if she's not present & monitoring. She's sleeping in his hospital bed beside him, even though crowding Dad and wrapping her arm over him makes it harder for him to breathe. She won't let Dad finish a sentence, insisting that she knows better than he does what his wishes are going to be --or tries until he glares his annoyance at her while he catches his breath to finish speaking.

She still holds that at least two of my sisters are part of the great conspiracy to murder our father, a notion she latched onto a few years ago when Dad first was diagnosed with Crohn's and his COPD became undeniable. Since one sister is a nurse, Mom has identified her as the secret agent of the medical profession, sent to monitor Dad and report back on better ways to torture him. I know how ridiculous this sounds --because it is utterly ridiculous-- but it is causing very real headaches.

Before we arrived this afternoon, Mom began shouting at Donna as she inquired about Dad's medical regimen. At one point, Mom charged at her, presumably with the intent of doing something violent; Donna, who has faced this before and is quite tired of the stupidity, simply turned and left the room, refusing to be an witness for Mom's tantrum. This made Mom even more furious and she began directing her rage at Angela, who had done nothing to this point. Angela told her directly to stop behaving like a child and that we had all come to see Dad (laying in bed, witness to the whole thing), not be held hostage to her tantrums.

As you can imagine, this didn't go over well with Mom, who became louder & more obnoxious. She then turned and kicked away a chair and a rolling tray table that were in her way. At this point, the hospital staff had to step in to address the noise level. If Mom does this again, the staff will address this as a "code white" (violent person, whether patient, visitor, staff or other) and Mom will be ejected from the hospital and refused further entry.

I have some sympathy for her: her husband is dying and she's ill-equipped to live without him, at least in the way they've been living for decades. She has mild dementia, the residual effects of mild strokes and a brain tumour. She's survived breast cancer in recent years. Most of her old social network has largely died of old age by now. But I can't accept the damage she is doing. Dad doesn't need this stress. Our last memories with Dad should be about Dad, not about Mom's exaggerated drama, conspiracy theories & inflated sense of self-importance.

I have no good answers for this. All I can say for my part is that if she goes into drama mode again, I will leave the room. I will not be an audience for her performance art. After a brief family conference this evening, my siblings are in similar agreement.

Tomorrow, we're planning to have some brief one-on-one chats with Dad to say goodbye. Nearly everyone is returning to their individual homes Friday or Saturday: kids have to be back in school, work has to be resumed, etc.. I'm here until at least Tuesday, and depending on how things look, I may extend that. We've already discussed the possibility that once we've each had a chance to say our farewells and celebrated his birthday, Dad may simply let go of his own accord. Or not. We just don't know.

And we have no idea what to do about Mom once he does pass away. What do you do when the only things which could possibly make her happy are utterly impossible, and that the only theoretically choices are Great Evils To Be Violently Opposed? How do we deal with a situation where the best possible outcome might actually be Mom's stated wish to die immediately with Dad? Again, I have no answers.

This year's US Thanksgiving has sucked on a colossal scale.

On Monday, Elodie (2 yrs old) was running and stumbled, smashing her face & particularly her nose into the side of a table. The bruising & swelling was rather ugly, so she was whisked off to urgent care for an exam. Fortunately, all appears to be well and the swelling was much improved by Tuesday morning. She's completely rebounded from her minor ordeal.

On Tuesday, her aunt in Cleveland passed out at home. Once she was examined at the ER, it was determined that she had suffered an ectopic pregnancy and that fallopian tube had ruptured. Following emergency surgery to remove the destroyed tube & ovary and to drain 2.5L of blood, she was home again in 24 hours and is recovering well. That said, there is no way her family would be able to come to Maryland for Thanksgiving has had been originally planned.

Wednesday evening, it was noticed that Edwin, Elodie's 9 week old baby brother, was having difficulty breating. Michael and I stayed at their house to mind Elodie (already in bed) while Edwin was taken to the ER at Children's Hospital. There are no signs of a viral infection or mechanical issue, he just doesn't seem to be using his diaphragm to breath deeply. At the moment, he's on supplemental oxygen but is otherwise feeding, gurgling and flopping around as 9 week old babies do. We expect he'll be discharged in another 24 hours or so, once they have run additional tests and are comfortable that he's breathing sufficiently well on his own.

So, this Thanksgiving: much medical drama and no family travel. All our plans are out the window. With luck, we might still have the big holiday meal on Saturday but it will be limited to two families instead of three. We'll see how it goes.

I flew into Buffalo, NY, last Wednesday to spend a few days in Toronto, ostensibly to see family at Thanksgiving and to ship home some personal items which were stored in my parents' basement until recently. It's been much more than that, of course.

I've walked a lot, seeing the same old sites I usually do when in town. I've frequently said I could walk through this city repeatedly until my feet bleed --and they did. The first full day, I logged well over 10 miles, from Pape & Danforth, west to Yonge & Bloor, south to the lakeshore, east a bit, then back north to Bloor again. It never gets old.

My feet were in severe pain Friday, but I went walking again, Pape & Danforth to Broadview, south to Gerrard, west to the downtown, all directions on various side streets, then south to Queen where I finally caved in and boarded a street car to Carlaw. I walked north back to my place from there.

Here, I feel lighter, faster, smarter, brighter & younger, more than anywhere else I've been except perhaps lower Manhattan. When I'm in Toronto, I really believe the sky is the limit and I can accomplish anything. There are no constraints, or at least nothing meaningful I couldn't overcome with a snap of my fingers. Everything is possible, all things are filled with potential, and nothing is beyond reach. Except returning here to live.

My biological family is in Canada, but my chosen family is in the DC area. Even if I could pry myself out of Silver Spring, I can't bring Kent & Michael back to Toronto. I can't bring the grandkids either. It wouldn't be fair of me to even try.

Whenever I cross the border into Canada no matter which province, I am seized by the feeling that my life in Canada is incomplete, an unfinished project. I don't know what my emotional self wants me to do, but it does distinctly shout that there is something urgent & large awaiting my attention where which has remained undone since I left in 1996. I am in Toronto and loving it, and yet am incomplete because I am in Toronto. I have no explanation.

At the moment, my only plan is to make more frequent trips back to Canada, maybe 3-4 times per year instead of annually. My grandma isnt' getting any younger, my parents are ailing, my aunts & uncles are fading away. There is so little time left before the generation before mine is gone and I must do what I can with the time that is left.

Elodie is about 25 months old. She's a fun toddler, fully of energy, running everywhere, relatively short attention span, a growing vocabulary, and frequent bouts of frustration at not being able to express herself fully or simply being told no, what she wants at that moment isn't possible/practical/feasible.

In short, a perfectly normal toddler.

I've spent a large portion of my life around babies & toddlers so I'm mentally tracking her progress and development. My ears perk up when she suddenly uses full sentences, or fully articulates 2-3 syllable words. She has solid recognition of colours, visually & verbally. She gets shapes and can name the simple ones. She can recognize & recite numbers and letters although she doesn't yet get that the digits symbolize a count of objects.

There are things which come with this toddler which are new to my experience. This kid comes with her favourite shows, movies, music and games. And watches them obsessively & repeatedly.

I swear to god, I am going to burn down Mickey Mouse's fucking clubhouse before this month is over.

And what's the deal with this so-called Doc McStuffins? She's supposed to be a cute kid with a gig a toy doctor, but she's more like a capricious demon, bringing toys to life on her whims to perform for her entertainment, and she then silences them with a gesture, cruelly snatching away the life she once granted. With musical dance numbers. This is childrens' entertainment?!

Elodie has this particular game on her tablet. For each round, a series of cut-out coloured shapes appear on the left half of the screen, and holes which match the shapes & colours appear on the right. The child then uses her finger to drag each shape to the correct hole, matching shape & colour. There is a small caterpillar which obsessively crawls towards the place on the board where she last touched the screen, sometimes obscuring a shape or hole. For every correctly placed piece, the caterpillar acquires a balloon, and when all pieces are in place, the caterpillar floats up to the top of the screen and fades away as the board is removed and a new one is presented.

I've explained to Elodie that the caterpillar is actually a zombie which is pursuing her to consume her brain. When she completes the board, the caterpillar is released from his curse and his ghost floats up to heaven, aided by the balloons she earned for him. Otherwise, he's doomed to traverse the mortal plane, terrorizing toddlers like her forever. I didn't tell her about killing it with a head shot, but she has enough to think about now. She still plays but she seems more serious about it...

So that's my home life right now. Between diaper changes, anyway.

I'm not planning to die any time soon, or at all. While I'm assured that my death is inevitable in perhaps 40-50 years' time, I'm personally against it. I am by nature a cautious person so it seemed prudent to ensure I'm prepared for my theoretical demise.

We already have wills in place to dispose of my earthly assets. And while I'd prefer to be buried body intact and in a nicely appointed coffin (dark wood finish, brass fixtures, free wifi), getting my hydrocarbons across an international border would require significant effort by my executor, not to mention a great deal of money. It would be vastly easier to cremate me and carry my ashes in one's carry-on bags.

While we were in the Charlton area, I stopped by the township hall to talk with the clerk, Gisele Belanger, to enquire how one goes about being placed in the Brentha Cemetary near my childhood farm.

My parents (also still alive) have a plot there, I-16. Gisele informed us that a plot may contain a coffin & three cremains, or a total of five cremains. My parents are planning to be cremated so as long as my parents stop by the office to officially RSVP me into their plot, my position is guaranteed. There is an administrative fee of $265 if it were to happen today, but otherwise all expenses are covered.

The cemetary contains a lot of childhood memories for me. Rather, it contains a lot of people I knew. I went to school with several occupants. Some I knew through church. Some we shared a telephone party line with, while others were merely neighbours we sometimes saw. There were parents or grandparents of my childhood friends. There was my bus driver for my first & second grade, as well as the fellow who was the janitor of my elementary school, buried with his late wife. There was the couple who owned sold us our farm, and their extended family. There was the local telephone switchboard operator until the systems went digital in the early 1970s. And so on. I could give a mini-biography on nearly 2/3 of the people at rest there. And I'm intrigued by the ones I didn't recognize: there are no more families named Goldstein, Schultz or Kiehna in the area, and I'm curious what brought them, and why happened to their descendants.

Like any good story, I'm left with a lot of answers, but a few extra questions too.

There isn't much to say about today, travel-wise. We slept in a bit, then joined some of the clan at the Alma Country Diner for lunch.

I've noticed a pattern in Florida dining establishments: When they tell you the wait for a table is X, it is most likely to be 2X. I have never been seated immediately at any establishment, but that says much of our poor timing concerning peak dining hours here (see prior post). My general rule is that I'm willing to wait 15-20 minutes for table; beyond that, I would prefer a different establishment, grab a bite through some fast-food drive-through, or visit a grocery store.

In each instance this weekend, we were quoted a 30 minute wait. The quickest of these waits however was 58 minutes, the longest 74 minutes.

I'm unsure if the staff are blissfully unaware of their actual turnover of tables, or perhaps they lied knowing that customers wouldn't wait an hour. Or perhaps by some random chance we managed to hit a genuine timing mistaken/clerical error with every restaurant visit we made.

Aside from the late lunch, we went to a local manatee preserve to see some of the local wildlife. Alas, the viewing season for the manatees in this location is January-February so we saw nothing but the park itself and its waterfront. At the moment, the river is too warm for the beasts as they prefer temps of 65-70 degrees F, so the manatees are out among the gulf shallows. Still, nice park.

This evening at dusk, we distributed the rest of Kent's mother's ashes. We had previously scattered some in Frederick, MD, an area she loved but at a particularly beautiful site with a view to their home in the distance. Today, we scattered some at the RV park's memorial pavillion and at their RV site. No tears, just happy memories.

Dad will be coming back to Maryland in the first week of April and we will be aggressively preparing the house for sale. I'm sure he just wants the project over & done, although he's not going to be taken for a ride concerning the pricing of the house. There's priced-for-sale and then there's priced-by-a-moron, and he's not a moron. We'll help move some of the contents, distributing pieces to relatives, getting surplus items to charity and shipping the items which Ralph will keep. My personal goal is to ensure everything is ready for a sales close well before Labour Day to get the best possible timing for a good price.

As we returned to our motel room tonight, I noticed yet another cultural activity I had never seen before: some families in our motel had parked charcoal grills in the grassy strip in front of their motel rooms to cook. Interesting.

I have several theories about this but have no information or experience which would indicate which is correct. It could be that the family simply prefers home-cooked meals, perhaps for cultural, religious or dietary reasons. Alternatively, it could be a cost-saving measure as dining out as a family regularly while also paying for a motel may stretch one's resources. Or it could be that some are semi-permament motel residents, sheltered & subsidized here by the county authority, but since the rooms lack a kitchen, this is an improvised way of cooking at home as desired, again saving precious money. Or perhaps it's simply fun, a planned part of a vacation as much as visiting parks or events. Anyone have guidance for me on this?

Tomorrow, we meet up with the clan for breakfast after we check out of the motel. Our flight home is at 2pm and we should be home by mid-evening. And much laundry will await us.

Every now and again, I see a posting on LJ, Facebook or some such thing about how we did stupid things when we were kids. Kid stuff like skate boarding without helmuts, biking along major highways, throwing lawn darts at each other, exploring obviously dangerous areas, operating heavy equpiment beyond our skill to manage. And we did it without parental supervision, without safety gear and without extraneous regulations.

The saying goes something like: "See all the stupid things we did back then? And we all turned out pretty well! Who needs this nanny state/safety crap?!"

But not all of us turned out pretty well. Some of us didn't live long enough to turn out well.

When I see these postings, my mind drifts back to the Brentha Cemetary, a small civic cemetary near where I grew up. Some day I will be buried there. I knew most of the people buried there, and a significant number of them were kids when they died. We went to the same elementary school, we rode the same school buses.

When I see postings scoffing at the "obvious" absurdity of common sense safety precautions, I think of Jeffrey, Donnie, Terry, Gord, Brian, Matthew, Ron and several others. Most died before they were ten years of age, none to age 16. I won't bother you with a list of the ones I lost in high school.

I survived, partly because of dumb luck but largely because of safety-conscious parents. Regulations have become better, equipment is (sometimes) better designed, and fewer risks to children are accepted by society as a whole.

"We turned out pretty well!" is boastful claim made by the living in ignorance of the silent dead.