Who Is This Person

I am talking about this old man living in my house. Just what goes on in the human brain when we get "old?" OK, I guess I'm complaining, again, but really, who is he?

For example, he no longer wants to take a shower. Ever. That's not my father. Yeah, he used to get sweaty, dirty, stinky when he was working, but he always got cleaned up. Now, I swear, he would never take a shower if I didn't make him. And have I ever discussed things you should never have to see? That's the top of my list, but it has to be done...

Speaking of things you don't really want to see, he has new habit of pulling down his drawers in the hall, before he even steps a foot in the bathroom. Not only is it something I don't want to see, he doesn't walk well in the first place. That does not help.

He goes through periods when he will not wear underwear. Not "real" underwear, not Depends. He refuses to wear pajamas. Summer or winter. If I'm lucky, he will wear his Depends and a t-shirt. If not, well, back to things I don't want to see. Not wearing jammies bumfuzzles me. I recall him being very offended when he took one of my uncles on a camping trip years ago, and my uncle wore underwear to bed. And now he does what?

He drops his dirty clothes wherever he happens to be when he takes a notion to strip. Middle of his bedroom, the bathroom, hall, occasionally the living room. How did this come to be? Mom had him trained, he would never have dared to do that when Mom was alive!

He also just drops his dirty kleenex right over the side of his chair or his bed. If it hits the wastebasket, good. If not, he does not worry about it. He goes through 2 boxes of kleenex a week, he creates small mountains on the floor.

Speaking of things he would never have done when Mom was alive, he spits in my kitchen sink! It's one of those things I can fuss about, and he just ignores me.

Need I talk about gas? I know he is about deaf, but you won't convince me he doesn't know exactly what he is doing when he pastes on that cheesy grin. Does not matter who is here.

I confess, I am worried. Am I going to inherit his bad habits when I get older? Is there any hope?

What Did You Say?

OK, so my dad, once again, decided to have aspiration pneumonia and landed in the hospital for a couple of days. The Doc comes in to talk to me the first day he was there, he was only there 2 days, and says we may need to "consider different options."

What were those options? He mentioned hospice and palliative care. It aggravates me no end, every time he ends up in the hospital, they think he is demented and doesn't really understand what's going on. Every time, I explain to them, no, he is not normally confused, demented, whatever you want to call it. He is sick, and he does get "crazy" when he is sick.

I blew it off, did not want to deal with his suggestion, sorry, but we aren't there yet. I told Carol, my sister, about the conversation. Today, she asked him what he meant by palliative care. He said we would just not treat any future pneumonia, we would provide care to make him comfortable, but sort of "let nature take its course."

What???

Would anyone really do that? Could anyone really do that? How would you let someone lie there with pneumonia and just die? How cruel would that be?

I'm a little worried about the future now. I would be the first one to say that, if I were in a lot of pain, had a terminal disease, something like that, just make me comfortable and let me go. But if I am lucid, not terminal, if I'm not in pain, I really don't want to be lying there, miserable, dying from something like pneumonia. I can't imagine how miserable that would be.

I think I'm afraid.

I Hate the Rockies

No, not the mountains. The baseball team. Those who know me know I have no use for any "professional sport." (I'm not a fan of "sports" period, but that's a whole other philosophical debate.)

But I hate, detest, despise, abhor the Rockies. Why, you ask? Because I am sick and tired of trying to get home from work in the unholy mess they create downtown.

All summer, those of us who work downtown are dealing with their afternoon games that get out right at rush hour. My office is about a mile from I-25. Tonight, it took me over 30 minutes to get to the highway. Why, you ask? Thanks to the Rockies and all of the crazy people who think it's fun to go to a baseball game in the afternoon and then screw up downtown.

Yes, I know, businesses like the games. They like to take money away from Rockies fans. For parking, for food, for whatever they can dream up. I have to drive right by the ballpark and I don't like any of them. Case in point, tonight. I got to sit at the same traffic light through four (that's 4) cycles until the police decided to stop the flow of Rockies minions coming out of the ballpark and actually let traffic move. Does anyone appreciate sitting in traffic, waiting for crazy people to get off the street, in 90 degree heat, wasting gas. Considering the price of gas? I sure don't.

Then there are the absolutely stupid "fans." The ones who have no better sense than to walk right out into the street against the traffic lights. Maybe there should be a minimum IQ required to be allowed to attend baseball games.

Why is it necessary to schedule games to start at a time when you know they will end right at rush hour? Which brain surgeon thought that was a good idea? Oh, gee, they lost today? Good! While I question my ability to "hex" anyone, I do negatively curse them every day when I drive by Coors Field. And, no, I'm not going to stop until they stop scheduling games that end right at rush hour.

While I'm complaining, why is it necessary to start games at 6:00 p.m.? That doesn't have a good impact on rush hour, either. Have you been downtown to see all of the idiots who work for the parking lots who are standing in the street, trying to get people into their lots? Stay the devil out of my way! I don't want to park in your lots and I sure don't want to see a baseball game.

Are the 6:00 games supposed to be enticing for those who work downtown? Start the game at 7:00. Gives people more time to waste money on food and alcohol before the game. Stop pissing off those of us who work downtown and just want to go home after work!

Personally, I am thrilled that the Rockies are having a crummy year. The good news for you fans out there? I retire in December 2012, so I will only be cursing them for one more season!

Just Thinking

It's dangerous when I think, no?

Not this time. Yesterday was Mom's birthday. I kept myself real busy, spent a lot of the day at the kennel playing with the 2 week old puppies and letting my beasts play. I always figure it's better to stay busy than sit around thinking. Didn't really work, tho.

So, today, I'm cleaning the house. As I'm vacuuming, I'm thinking, how did Mom do it? She was a stay-at-home mom, but let's be honest, taking care of me and Pa was no picnic. I now realize she is partly to blame for how spoiled Pa is now, but I also know he was no easier to take care of back then. He couldn't do anything without making a mess and he was never good at cleaning up the mess when he was done. (I still remember the time he was painting the outside of the windows, and got about as much paint inside as out...Ma was less than thrilled!)

The "routine" stuff was a lot to do. Monday was laundry. It wasn't as easy then as it is now. The family will recall that when I was a little brat, I stuck my arm in the washing machine ringer and tried to remove my arm at the elbow. After that, they got one of them fancy automatic washing machines. But it wasn't as big as the ones we have now, so it took longer to get it done. Even after we had a dryer, Mom would still hang clothes out to dry. I remember the clotheslines strung all around our back yard, from tree to tree. She would go out and wipe down the line to make sure it was clean before she put out her clean laundry. When one load was done, part of the previous load might be ready to take down. In and out, check the laundry. She didn't want to leave it out too long, the birds had a habit of christening it, and then she had more work. If she was lucky, she was done with the laundry in time to sit for a few minutes before it was time to cook supper.

Tuesday was ironing day. I KNOW! Ironing! Can you imagine? That routine actually began the night before. For those who don't remember, back in "the old days," we didn't have them fancy irons that had steam. The night before, you would get out the sprinkling bottle. Usually, an old Coke bottle with a top on it that had holes in it to "sprinkle." Lay the shirt or pants or whatever out on the kitchen table, sprinkle it, roll it up and stick it in a plastic bag. Repeat until all of the laundry was in the bag, ready for ironing. Sometimes, she would just sprinkle as she ironed. Ironing was hot and miserable. Thank God for permanent press!

I can't remember now if Wednesday or Thursday was cleaning the floor day. The floor in the kitchen, hall and bathroom was this nasty black tile, and she had the "scrubber" to clean it. Then you had to wait for it to dry. Then wax it, because it was really ugly without wax. The rest of the house was hard wood floors, so "all" she had to do was run the vacuum. Sometimes she would just use the dust mop. (Do they even still make dust mops?)

Friday was always grocery shopping day. Oh, what fun. Not. I think I inherited my dislike of grocery shopping from Mom. Even shopping was a lot different. There were no bar codes. Everything had a little price sticker on it. The "checker" actually had to punch in each individual price of each item. It's scary to think that back then, about $5 worth of groceries would fit into one of those paper grocery bags.

Cleaning the bathroom was different. We didn't have all of those miracle cleaning products. Mom had rags, Comet and elbow grease. She was forever washing rugs, drapes, windows. There was dusting and just plain picking up after Dad and me. She painted the walls and ceilings before they put in ceiling tile and paneling in some of the rooms. She made curtains for the kitchen windows, for the bathroom and for my room.

She made a lot of her clothes and my clothes. I would drive her nuts. She would take me to pick out a pattern for something and I always picked out stuff that either wasn't easy to make, or wasn't real practical.

If that wasn't enough, she loved to garden and for several years we had that for her to take care of, too. Personally, I hated picking strawberries and peas and beans. She liked flowers, too, but that was a losing battle with my father and his lawn mower.

All of that, and she always had dinner on the table at 4:30 p.m. for my father.

Then, when I was 8, her parents moved into a mobile home in our back yard. Gradma did the routine cooking and cleaning, but Mom did their laundry and the hard stuff that Grandma couldn't handle.

I wonder that she didn't lose her temper more often. Like the day Grandpa was going to walk the 5 miles in to town because she wouldn't drive him (he had Parkinson's and couldn't walk worth beans) and she tied him to his chair in the back yard because he refused to go back into the house. Or the time Pa bugged her once too often too early in the morning, and she smacked him on the head with frozen sausages. (God knows, I've been tempted more than once!) Or the time she shoved the Maypo (nasty cereal I screamed I had to have in the grocery store, and then refused to eat) down my throat.

I don't know how she did it. Guess I just miss her today.

Stinky Things

Yep, bizarre title, but stinky things are on my last nerve this week. No, not bad stinky things, things that people think "stink" good. I can stand the routine bad foot odor, the dog fart, but those perfumy things absolutely kill me.

Why do people think you want to be subjected to their favorite stink? Hey, people! Here's a clue! If you walk down the sidewalk and leave a cloud of "aroma" half a block behind you, you could stand to cut back on the stink-juice. If people getting in the elevator a half hour after you were in it can still smell you, it's too much. If you make the eyes of the person sitting next to you water, tone it down. If small animals sneeze when you approach, please, cut back!

There are some of us out here who really have problems with strong scents. There are many perfumes that give me an instant headache. I don't complain to be mean, I complain because it makes me sick!

Why am I venting today? Because I got in the elevator at the court house today and had to walk right back out. Nope, there was no one in it. Just the "ghost" of whoever was in it before me. Someone sitting next to me in the court room also had on enough perfume to choke a horse. People wonder why my office door is closed all the time? Let me explain: I can't stand the perfume and "air freshener" wafting up and down the hall. (I also have a constant battle with the cleaning people in the building using stinky cleaning products in my office. I have had to leave my office at times and let it air out.)

While I'm thinking about it, "air freshener" is not air and it ain't fresh. It's darn near a deadly weapon.

I would love to be able to wear scented things. I can't. People think I'm lying or exaggerating abut how their pretty smells affect me. Nope, not. You will find me in the "unscented" section of the store. Soaps, lotions, you name it. Perfume? Absolutely not!

All of you young 'uns out there, laugh if you want, but things change when you get older. My dear sister was pretty unsympathetic about my allergies and sinus infections when I was younger. Guess what, the Universe decided to 'splain it to her. Ask her about allergies now!

The bottom line is, you may think it stinks really, really good. That's fine. But please, just like I don't want to be inhaling second-hand cigarette smoke, I really don't want to be inhaling your favorite stink, getting a headache, and having to dig out my inhaler because I can't breathe. Take it easy on the stink!