bjarvis: (Default)
I just realized I haven't written anything here since April. Time flies when a global pandemic is raging.

Short version: We're healthy and doing well, no big issues. Life rolls on.

Now for the detailed version...

Work continues for both me and Kent. Michael's travel business has cratered, as you'd expect with international travel down to a trickle, and global tourism almost non-existent. We're all working from home still with no significant issues or problems.

Square dancing is still also non-existent. Yeah, there's virtual dancing and a lot of 1-couple or 2-couple calling, but it lacks a significant social component and I find it generally unsatisfying. Michael has gone into yoga as an exercise alternative, and I still have my karate (now senior brown belt as of last week).

Kent bought a treadmill a few weeks ago and is doing extended walks on it so he can get some exercise without being exposed to humans, nature or the universe in general.

I started going back to the gym in early August, once the state allowed them to reopen with restrictions. I'm delighted that my crowd there has been 100% compliant with wearing masks, wiping down equipment, keeping spacing, etc.: I've heard horror stories about other gyms where the rules have been utterly ignored. I have noticed that a lot of people have given up on the gym entirely and are no longer regulars: I do wonder what this means for the business viability of the place, although it's nice not having to wait for equipment.

Edwin (three years old next week!) is back in full-day daycare as of late August, although there was a brief scare when another kid's parent was discovered to be an asymptomatic covid carrier. The daycare was closed for two weeks and Edwin & his family were all tested, and were all discovered to be negative. There will inevitably be more scares like that in future though.

Elodie had her fifth birthday at our place in June. She began virtual kindergarten classes this week, but I haven't heard how that works or how her parents are adapting to this. More soon, I hope.

It was announced yesterday that Maryland will be edging into stage 3 re-opening Friday. All manufacturing can re-open, malls & retail can re-open to 75% regular capacity, salons & barbershops can open to 50% capacity with appointments, indoor rec facilities can open to 50% capacity, and theaters can re-open to the lesser of 50% capacity or 100 people. My county is currently reviewing the stats to see which components they may implement, if any.

The biggest inconvenience for me is that I'm still effectively locked out of Canada. As a citizen, I can return but there is a two week quarantine period on re-entry, and a full quarantine plan must be presented upon arrival describing where you'd be staying, how you'd be getting food & care, etc.. I do have a plan ready in case I need to make a dash to see Grandma in southern Ontario, but there are extra logistical issues if I had to go to northern Ontario. And since my preferred airline, Porter Air, is not flying currently, I'd have to fly to Buffalo, then drive a rental car across the border. Let's hope that there's no reason to rush back to Canada for a while.

Our respective extended families are doing pretty well too: no illnesses or major changes. We've all been pretty lucky.

So we're chugging along, doing ok and generally going about our regular business. I don't see any major disruption to this routine through the rest of this calendar year.
bjarvis: (Default)
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.
bjarvis: (Default)
I've been feeling a bit down the past couple of day because of some family issues. Given a choice between venting here and eating my feelings/my body weight in ice cream, well, here we are. You're welcome.

Reports from family indicate my Mom's mental health is sliding dramatically. Memory loss, emotional instability, cognition impairment. We've reached the point where intervention is required.

Problem: Half of my siblings are simply staring at me, insisting that I do something. Why me, you ask? Why don't they do something themselves, you ask? Largely because they don't want to. They want something done, but they don't want to be bothered.

Problem: Mom doesn't think she has a problem. She knows something is off, but insists it is the universe with issues, not her. Her memory is perfect, it's the other 7 billion people with memory loss. Her thinking is clear, everyone else is messed up. Olympic gold medalist denial.

Problem: Mom lives on the farm alone since Dad died this time last year. The nearest relative is 250 miles away. The nearest town is 8 miles away. There is a nursing home in that town, so that's an option, but.... that implies either institutionalizing her near her friends & social connections, but away from family. Or bringing her closer to family, but ripped away from her social network & home of 50 years. Both options suck.

Problem: When/if she's declared incompetent, I have medical power-of-attorney, but I live in another country. Two other siblings have general power-of-attorney for all other matters --and one of them didn't know it until I sent him a PDF of the docs a few days ago. He's not happy.

Problem: None of us even know the name of her regular doctor or what meds she's supposed to be taking --when she remembers. How does one legally intervene? What are the ramifications? We have a lot of homework ahead of us.

Plan: I'm going to head to northern Ontario as soon as I can to spend a week with her. I trust the reports from family, but I also need to satisfy myself of the necessity of any intervention.

I went to high school with the lawyer who made the wills, powers-of-attorney, etc.: I'll have an appointment with him to catch up on the legal issues. One of my sisters went to high school with her pharmacist: we can find out more about her meds. Did I mention this is a small town?

We need an expert medical evaluation. I expect however that Mom will fight us at every step and will not cooperate with any exam. There is a real possibility she will see this as a global conspiracy including her own doc & lawyer, cut off all contact and refuse her current meds.

It's not so far fetched: in Dad's last two years, she was convinced that only she could treat Dad, and that all doctors were in cahoots to secretly murder him. She even accused two of my sisters of being part of that conspiracy. She was almost barred from two hospitals because of her threats of violence against the staff. It was ultimately dismissed with a warning as the ravings of a scared, distraught wife watching her husband suffer, but we had to monitor her while she was monitoring Dad.

So in all, I have a mess of stuff happening back in Canada and I don't have any good answers at the moment. I'm trying to thread my way through, but I'm not getting much sleep and the weight of it sometimes makes it difficult to breathe.

A year ago Monday, my Dad died. The Mom I knew is nearly gone, while a stranger like her but not her inhabits her body. And we have to come up with a plan to care for this not-quite-Mom that won't destroy what's left of her. Ugh.
bjarvis: (Default)
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.
bjarvis: (Default)
A busy day...

We telephoned the Ayr News to submit an obit in the next edition; we then emailed them the copy & photo. The funeral home here is handling the obits for the Temiskaming Speaker, and the Northern News; they have been submitted and should be in the next editions.

Dad's ashes have been collected from the funeral home, along with twelve embossed copies of the Funeral Director's Proof of Death. They have submitted the paperwork to the federal government for the CPP death benefit, as well as updates to CPP and OAS.

We discussed monuments while at the funeral home. Mark showed us some photos of existing ones so we could get an idea of options; naturally, we knew the people mentioned on those headstones, so it was funny/awkward. Mom prefers solid black stone with high contrast lettering, polished front & back, no fancy photos or images chemically etched into the surface although there may be some standard scrollwork along the edges. She needs to think about the general text (full names of course, but month, day & year or just year for birth & death? Any extra titles "Beloved father & grandfather"?).

There are models which have a primary headstone and then a smaller second stone below for secondary names (like me), the stack resting on a foundation. Because this is a single plot, the stone would be 24-30" wide and therefore pricing would likely run $3800-5000 CDN, depending on sourcing and style.

Turnaround time for a monument is about a month, not that they need that much time to create one since we're using mostly locally-sourced rock, but because the firm only delivers up this way once every 3-4 weeks.

At the credit union, the accounts were updated to remove Dad's name, retaining Mom and my sister Angela ("6 of 6") on the bank accounts. The credit union now has one of the certified death certificates for their files. They also volunteered to photocopy the extra documents for me: I wanted copies of Dad's will and Mom's will & powers-of-attorney papers for my own files, should they be required some day.

The credit union also told us that their Visa is in Dad's name with Mom as the secondary. When we notify Visa about Dad's death, they will likely nuke the account and ask Mom to re-apply in her own right. They have no current balance, but it is likely Mom will have a lower credit limit as a single cardholder than both of them combined.

We then dashed to New Liskeard to Service Ontario where we returned Dad's driver's license and health card, as well as another copy of the death certificate. They say that the truck vehicle transfer can be done in Englehart when convenient; Mom will need the ownership papers, the current odometer reading, $32 fee, a copy of the death certificate, a copy of Dad's will to show her as trustee, and her own ID. Mom isn't planning to do this any time soon as the vehicle isn't needed and is currently snowed in near the barn. She'll worry about it in spring.

Mom isn't planning to update the CIBC bank accounts as those are being closed in another month anyway.

The beer cans were dropped off for recycling.

We stopped by Bill Ramsay's law office in Englehart in the late afternoon. His recommendation on amending the title to the farm is to do nothing. Since Mom was on the title already, there is no advantage to an update unless Mom sells immediately. If she does it now, it would cost $750. If she waits until selling, it gets bundled into the legal sale papers and would cost only $250. The home insurance company may pressure that update to happen, but Bill recommended pleading impoverished & grieving widow to delay it. Bill also gave us five official copies of Dad's will in case we should need that elsewhere. Beyond that, he has nothing else to offer us as we have the essentials already under way. And he didn't charge us for the consultation, bless him. (I went to high school with Bill... we were lab partners in Grade 13 computer electronics.)

I've telephoned Bell Mobility to cancel Dad's phone, 705-544-3847. The account was in Mom's name and retains her mobile number and the home wifi service.

Other utilities such as NorthernTel and Ultramar are all in joint names. I don't see any compelling reason to update any of these. The 407ETR transponder account is in Dad's name but since it is a use-as-you-go service and the bills are sent to the farm & paid electronically, I don't see a need to change this either. If Mom gets her license back, she may use it; if she doesn't, the account should go dormant anyway.

I'm informed by my sister Donna ("5 of 6") that dropping Dad off the HydroOne account means that Mom would qualify for a single person dwelling discount on her electric bills. Alas, I learned this after business hours so I may try to make a phone call in the morning.

Dad's standard wheelchair is apparently a loaner from the Lions Club in Charlton. Had I known that a couple of days ago, I would have made arrangements to return it. Figures. Mom wants to keep his electric wheelchair however as she feels her Mom may required it sooner or later.

Still to do:
  • The life insurance claim paperwork from Primerica should be arriving shortly. It needs to be completed and returned asap.
  • The paperwork from the union will come in two sets: the death benefit and the pension/medical adjustments. These should be arriving in snail-mail very soon and need to be completed & returned. The paperwork for the modification/continuation of Mom's health benefits should arrive in about 4-5 months; her existing benefits are gratis until July 31.
  • There will be an outstanding bill at the funeral home for $73.39 for the obit in the Northern News. Mom plans to pay that when she's next in Englehart.
  • Notify the Canada Revenue Agency of Dad's death. I presume this is to cancel any expectations of quarterly tax submissions, and to pave the way for one final income tax submission.
  • Visa needs to be contacted concerning Dad's death. They will almost certainly close the account (Mom was only a secondary, not joint). Mom will then have to apply for her own Visa if she still wants a credit card.
  • We returned Dad's health card, but we don't know if that nullifies his Ministry of Health & Long Term Care - Ostomy Grant, claim 1000364615. I didn't know it existed until Mom brought it up after we were home. It may be outstanding still.
  • Mom may choose to return Dad's passport, but she insists that she wants the government to cancel it, marking it appropriately and returning it to her. If they can't/won't, she won't turn it over and will simply hold it until it expires in five years.
  • The farm & house insurance should be updated. They may demand the farm title be updated as well, but that's not obligatory.
  • The title of the truck may be updated when convenient, or when it is to be sold. The old title, an odometer reading, Dad's death certificate, Dad's will, Mom's ID and $32 will be enough. It can be done in Englehart.
  • Select/design a monument for installation in spring or summer.


No action Planned:
  • The farm title doesn't need to be updated unless/until the farm is sold and it can be done at the time of sale.
  • The utilities (Northern Telephone, Ultramar, 407ETR) are all in joint names, or are harmless.
  • Updating the CIBC. Mom is closing those accounts in February anyway.



I'm still planning to fly home tomorrow from Timmins and should be driving out no later than 11am, weather & road conditions permitting. We had blowing & drifting snow all day and getting home at 5pm was an adventure: I hope the roads are clear before I head north tomorrow.

I depart Timmins around 4pm to Toronto's island airport (1hr flight time), then catch a plane to Dulles (1hr20min flight time); I should be on the ground by 7:30pm. With the government shutdown, however, I have no idea how many TSA and ICE people are actually working: I've heard many are calling in sick or effectively working other jobs since they need the paycheck, and there's no functioning HR to which one can send a resignation letter. What a mess.
bjarvis: (Default)
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.
bjarvis: (Default)
Dad passed away at approximately 12:50am, Sunday, January 6, 2019. It was three days after his 77th birthday.

I spent most of Saturday at the hospital in Kirkland Lake with Mom & Dad. Because of leg pain in the overnight hours, his pain meds were increased earlier. Dad was very groggy, rarely fully awake and was struggling to speak; I presumed it was the medications, but it may be that he was regressing at that moment and we didn't recognize it.

Dad was also struggling to clear his lungs: between coughing spasms, he was gurgling so much it reminded me of a coffee percolator. My concern at that moment was possible pneumonia, or at least ideal conditions for coming down with pneumonia.

After running some minor errands for them, I sat with Mom & Dad from about 3pm to 7pm. Dad never said a word to me because of the exertion required, but he did glance my way, nod & smile. Mom and I had made plans for Sunday --I was going to bring lunch to the hospital around 11am, consult with the doctor, sit for a couple of hours, then we would go to the farm so she could collect the papers she was going to hand over to the card tournament organizers at her Monday meeting. I left the hospital around 7pm, had dinner, then went to my hotel room for the night.

The hospital called at just after 1am to inform me that Dad had died. I immediately dressed and went to the hospital; the staff had already notified the ER that I'd be arriving and going directly to the 4th floor.

Dad was still in his bed, and Mom was sharing stories with two nurses. I sat next to Dad and listened for a half-hour or so. When Mom was ready, we collected her things and Dad's personal items, then we went to the nursing station to sign papers. I went back to the room to see Dad one last time and to say goodbye --I never did have that final conversation as I really thought we had at least a few more days-- and then we went back to my hotel room for the night. I don't think we slept until 3am.

This morning, we checked out of the hotel and we're currently at the farm. We're clearing away some of Dad's items from the dining room table, such as his unused medications & clothing items. I've carried his electric wheelchair to the basement. I imagine we'll do a lot of that in the next day or two.

We had already made an appointment with the Mcdonald Funeral Home in Englehart for 11am Monday to discuss what the next steps would have been. Obviously, we are now making arrangements rather than merely making plans. I should have more to report after that.

Mom is still holding to the no-funeral plan, with a celebration of life at the United Church in Englehart in April. My personal concern was that I wanted to at least have a private viewing; I got that last night at the hospital so I can say at least my personal needs were met. I hope everyone else got what they needed when visiting earlier.

I know we need several copies of the death certificate, and that we need to update the union and insurance companies as quickly as possible; we'll also need to update the government concerning Dad's pension. Eventually, the bank accounts will also have to be cleaned up, but at least Mom is joint on all of those, as well as Angela, I'm told.

I'm still planning to fly out on Thursday from Timmins back to DC but I'm open to rescheduling if needed.
bjarvis: (Default)
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.
bjarvis: (Default)
We are 11 hours into 2019 and so far my recurring theme is death.

My mobile phone died. It just won't power up. Great.

Our water heater has been acting strangely. It may be gone soon.

And my Dad, 77 years old this coming Friday and in failing health for the past couple of years, may finally have reached the end of his rope.

He is currently in the hospital in Kirkland Lake in north-eastern Ontario. There is apparently a bubble of air outside his left lung inside his chest cavity and it is causing great discomfort. Normally, this would be addressed by intubating the patient, opening a small hole in the chest with a syring to release air, and inflating the lung manually to compress the gas out of the chest. Because of Dad's advanced COPD, the fear is that once he is intubated, he may never be off a respirator again, and he explicitly does not want that.

At this moment, I don't know what his plans are. Live with the discomfort, be medicated for the pain, and gently fade away? Attempt the procedure but demand the tubes be removed following, hope he can continue but absolutely do not resuscitate if he doesn't?

I'm sure Mom knows his intentions, but she is --how do we say this gently?-- a narcissistic & manipulative eater of souls. Honestly, I can't actually say if Dad is nearing death right now, or if this is a manipulation by Mom to get some attention for herself, dragging in her kids & grandkids from all corners of the country. It could be that Dad is genuinely reaching the end. Or perhaps not. We can't tell without bypassing her somehow.

I know that sounds rather angry & bitter, but honestly, I'm not either. I figured out her mechanisms decades ago and have been immune to 95% of it, so that's just Mom being Mom. This is what she does. I can see how it damages her connections with people around her and her own extended family, but her issues are hers to deal with, not mine.

I do cut her a great deal of slack: her husband of 54 year is in poor health and , and she's not exactly a tower of youthful vigour herself after multiple cancer surgeries and multiple small strokes. Mom has every right to be concerned for his well being, and for her own future without him. Both of them have been so deep in denial about their own mortality, neither has made any meaningful plans for surviving the death of the other, and now what should have been gradual planning over the course of years is coming crashing down on them hard as a present & unavoidable emergency. I fault them both for their procrastination and for their insensitivity to each other: did they actually believe they would both die simultaneously somehow? So yes, she should be emotionally distressed at the possible death of her husband, but some of that drama is by her own design.

In my mind, I'm composing a eulogy for Dad, trying to paint a picture of a man's life of 77 years in a 5-10 minute speech --as if that were even possible. Also in my mind, I don't think this is the end: I strongly suspect this will be considered a fire drill exercise, and we'll be back to the status quo for a few more months.

In any case, I'm flying out tomorrow, Jan 2: Dulles to Toronto Island Airport, then to Timmins, where I have a rental car reserved to drive to Kirkland Lake. Because of the uncertainty, I flew on a one-way ticket and booked the car & hotel room to Jan 8; I can extend that if needed. All of my siblings are currently en route except for "5 of 6," who can't afford the trip from Prince Edward Island. Before writing this, I sent her an email offering to buy her airfare & hotel room; if she can get herself to Halifax though, she & I can be on the same flight to Timmins and care the drive south.
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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.

Empty Nest

Oct. 13th, 2017 07:24 pm
bjarvis: (Default)
The kids have moved out.

Maurita along with her two year old daughter Elodie had moved in with us at the end of July so that she would have an adult near her 24/7 during a pregnancy which we knew would be challenging. Not only did we want to be on hand if she had a medical emergency, but she needed rest to help ensure running to full term, and assistance in caring for Elodie as her new baby was growing and making physical movement difficult.

In time, Edwin arrived, and we then helped Maurita with the new baby and caring for Elodie while she recovered from a c-section.

And during all of this, they sold their old house in Prince George's County, Maryland, and moved into a new house in Montgomery County, near us. There was work required to pack up the entire household and unpacking it at the new house.

We have reached that point however, where our assistance is no longer required on the same scale. Maurita is out of danger and has recovered from her delivery, the new baby is doing supremely well, Elodie is as delightful as ever, and their new house is slowly getting to look more like a home as each additional box is unpacked. In short, mission accomplished.

For us, it's another moment of transition. It was never a bother to have them living with us, but now I don't need to sneak into the house for fear of waking up the children during a nap or at bedtime. We aren't going to have Elodie's toys everywhere, or cajole her to collect them up before bedtime. Laundry is a smaller operation now. Even our sleeping arrangements are massively simplified. And I don't have to take regular breaks to change diapers. And dear god, I want that diaper pail in the powder room gone.

And while in theory I can now walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night without putting on pants, we have a house guest for a few days so that particular victory parade will have to wait until next week.

I'm sure we'll be babysitting once or twice per week in the near future until Elodie starts pre-school, and Edwin is past all of his early development medical checkups & vaccinations. I can handle this.
bjarvis: (Default)
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.
bjarvis: (Default)
Life is moving apace. Baby Edwin is now over two weeks old and is doing very well, especially considering he was about 4 weeks early. He's much more active & forceful than I anticipated from a baby of his age & development: that child kicks a lot, and it's a firm kick. He's also pretty good at swatting things away from his face he doesn't like. In short, he's in great health, growing & gaining weight exactly as he should.

Elodie is doing well too. She's a happy & active two year old toddler who loves to run, usually with little grace or coordination, just as one might expect of a toddler. She's accumulating her share of scrapes & bruises from her adventures, but all minor and easily remedied with a kiss and a cookie. I swear she's grown an inch since she moved in with us in late July.

And yes, the wee ones and their mother are still living with us. Maurita is still feeling some discomfort from her c-section and isn't allowed to lift heavy objects (eg. Elodie) yet, but is quite mobile, able to drive, and is easily tending to Edwin's needs. We expect they will be with us for at least another two weeks, perhaps longer if medically recommended.

Their move to their new house near us is complete, and their old house in the next county over is sold. The painting & floor refinishing in their new place is done, and while much furniture and kitchen stuff has been unpacked, there is a long way to go before all of the boxes disappear.

And looking to my own extended relations, I'm heading to Toronto October 4-10 to spend Thanksgiving with my gene pool, and to collect some personal items from my sister in Mississauga to transport back to DC. Michael has also given me a shopping list of things to acquire while in Canada... I may need an additional suitcase.
bjarvis: (Default)
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.
bjarvis: (Default)
Our home life has become a little weird lately. Well, weirder.

[profile] cuyahogarvr's youngest daughter & her husband are expecting a baby boy, due Oct 5. Elodie, currently two years old, will be promoted to big sister, but I'm sure she's not going to enjoy having to share the spotlight with a younger brother. That's all good news and not that weird.

Maurita is experiencing something of a high-risk pregnancy, as she did with Elodie in 2015. And we're taking the same steps as before: she & Elodie have moved in with us so that she stay rested, have some help with Elodie, and so that she has constant company in case of any emergency. The husband, Lucas, is visiting & staying with us as long as he can, but they still have four dogs at their house which need attention & care, as well as his fulltime job.

We expect as well that the baby may arrive somewhat earlier than Oct 5: Elodie was a month early. In any case, Maurita will need some post-partum recovery time, and there will be a newborn and a toddler to care for, so they will be with us for probably a month following delivery.

So yeah, weird. We're once again up to our eyeballs in diapers, kids toys and other such family fun. For another three months, give or take.

So let's throw another layer of weird on top of that.

We had initially be working on a plan for Maurita & Lucas to buy the house next door to us. Our neighbourhood is much closer to Lucas' work so it would reduce his commute by an hour each way; we're near the Metro; our county's schools are much better than the ones in their county, on average; they would have a built-in daycare & babysitting service next door (ie. us).

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to come to terms with our neighbour. He wants to move to Florida, he's looking to sell, and he had a golden opportunity to sell without real estate commissions, but while he agreed to a particular selling price, he kept moving the goal posts in terms of the closing costs, post-sale access to the garage to remove his stuff at leisure, the closing date, etc.. After fairly intense negotiations through June, we collectively gave up on that plan. Tim has since admitted he was going a little far, and has approached us twice since to see if we would be willing to re-open negotiations but the kids have already found another larger place ten minutes' drive from here for the same base price. It's not as convenient a location as next door, but it's pretty good.

We don't have a closing date for their new house yet as we're still going through the motions of inspections and remediations, but there are no show-stoppers on the horizon and since the owner only used the house as a summer home a couple of months per year, there's no occupying family needing time to coordiante their exit. I expect a settlement date in early August. No renovations are needed, just some paint here & there to relieve the monotony of the existing beige interior.

The sale of their current house is taking more effort. We helped move much of their furnishings & possessions into a storage pod over the past few weekends, and it has been staged for sale. A buyer appeared at the first open house at the asking price, but there was a long (and rather unreasonable) list of contingencies the buyer wants. Yes, we expected some requests as fixing a stair bannister and unsticking a window, but asking the house be entirely rewired and the kitchen renovated is beyond reason. I presume it's just a bargaining tactic: they can drop 50% of their laundry list for a small decrease in the price of the house and appear to be reasonable, even when the list itself was utterly unreasonable.

The kids are taking care of some of the sensible items currently. Even if this current deal falls apart, they would still be needed for some future buyer. Since we helped pay off their existing mortgage, we have disconnected the purchase of their new home from the sale of the old, so they could walk away from this current buyer if needed, and perhaps rent out the house for a couple of years before eventually selling it. There are many options.

So that's my home life at the moment. Never a dull moment, although one would be very nice right now.
bjarvis: (Default)
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.
bjarvis: (Default)
This was Pride Weekend in DC, but for the first time in years, I skipped it entirely.

For starters, there was a lot of family visiting so they were the higher priority. The youngest grandkid, Elodie, was celebrating her first birthday with a small party at our place Saturday afternoon and we had our hands full hosting the bash, preparing the food & drinks, and generally amusing the very young children. I think the entire event was a success.

Sunday was the official day of the pride festival in the downtown but it was also hot & humid, and frankly, I don't get as much out of these events as I once did when I was a young gay. Maybe I'm an old fart sitting on the front porch, yelling at the kids to get off my lawn. Maybe the modern pride festival speaks to this current generation of young gays in a way which doesn't appeal to my own generation. Maybe I just don't need the public reinforcement happy times like I once did. In any case, I just felt no desire to attend.

And then I heard about the mass killings in Orlando: 50 deaths, 26+ injuries. That completely took the wind out of my sails: a party & festival just didn't feel appropriate. I tried to ignore it all so I didn't cause any commotion with the kids here, but it was hard to look at any news outlet as the body count mounted.

Saturday night, friends Josh & Skip in Manassas, VA, lost their apartment to fire. The fire burned out two apartments on the top floor (3rd floor), but the water damage destroyed the apartments below them, including theirs in the ground level. In all 7 units were destroyed but more than 20 families are displaced because the neighbouring units had to be evacuated as well. Good new: there were no injuries beyond minor smoke inhalation. Josh & Skip are safe, as are their dog & cat. Bad news: Josh is the property manager so not only does he have to deal with his household problems, but he has to help sort out this mess and help the displaced families as much as possible.

They are now staying with a friend of theirs nearby the property. Today, they're working on getting replacement medical prescriptions, eye glasses, minor personal items, and replacement documents & credit cards, not to mention contacting their renter's insurance agency for assistance. I'm planning to visit tomorrow to take them out clothes shopping to help rebuild their wardrobes so they can at least attempt to go back to work asap.

There is an IndieGoGo fundraising campaign to help them with the costs of replacing, well, everything. Insurance will cover a significant amount of the replacements but not all, and probably not swiftly. If you can spare a few dollars, here's the link: https://www.gofundme.com/292u5jf8
bjarvis: (Default)
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.
bjarvis: (Default)
I'm currently in Punta Gorda, Florida, here with Michael & Kent for a memorial service for Kent's mother, Zoe Forrester, who passed away last August. Kent's parents and paternal grandparents have wintered here since 1980 and consider it their primary residence (at least for tax and insurance purposes) so it is very fitting that we distribute the last of Zoe's ashes here on what would have been her 80th birthday.

This is my second visit to Florida, the first being the GALA Choruses festival in 1996 in Tampa, just north of here. I didn't see much of Tampa except for the downtown core where the festival was being held, not to mention nothing outside the city. This trip is a bit different.

We always joke about how Florida is God's Waiting Room, a place packed to the rafters with the retired, near-dead and dead. Yup, it's much truer than I knew: In our drives about town, there is a medical clinic or a funeral home on every other block. And the clinics are all hyper-specialized: not just ophthamologists but specialists on cataracts, not just surgeons but specialists in coronary bypass and knee replacements, not just dermatologists but skin cancer treatments, and so on. And huge billboards for no-frills cremations, starting at $650! And I haven't seen a single elementary or secondary school yet.

The senior demographic skews local business in a way I hadn't anticipated: if your customer base doesn't keep/care about office hours, then the routine of the day takes on a new tilt. Meals skew to earlier times: peak dinner hour here seems to be 5-6pm, but DC's is more 7-8pm. We went out for Thai food last night naively thinking we were going to beat the heaviest of the dinner crowd at 6pm but found we were in the trailing edge of a mass of people. Our lunch with family yesterday was 1pm, barely beating a hoard of people arriving after 1:30pm. It's going to take some time to map out other peculiarities of local timing.

One thing very unexpected: cows. As we drove through the rural space between Fort Myers and Punta Gorda, among other places, we passed several open fields of cows. While Florida paid a lot of money to be successfully known as a producer of orange juice, I had no idea it was also a significant player in beef production. Huh.

The past 48 hours have been a bit of a blur, largely because I was fighting off a nasty cold and have been severely medicated to mediate the symptoms enough to let me (barely) function. Today, we're having brunch, picking up some supplies for the memorial service (the cake, some ice cream, flowers, etc.), then heading to the RV park where the family has gathered. I'm hoping for a bit of spare time to lift some weights at their gym and perhaps soak in the pool before the service starts at 4pm.

No one is sure exactly how long the service will run as, well, how to put this delicately... Forresters make god-awful project managers. Seriously. Not a one of them can focus on an agenda item for more than three seconds before willing drifting off onto some unrelated tangent. It's a constant chorus of "Oh, say, that reminds me..." Great for group therapy, lousy for getting things done. Bless their hearts.
bjarvis: (Default)
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.

January 2021

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