Where to start?

Life is being interesting these days. On Monday, March 8th my mother didn't wake up when it was time for her morning medications. I was a little concerned, but thought that she might just be really deeply asleep, so I decided to wait an hour and see if she woke up, and then waited another hour until I decided that this was just too long for her to be unresponsive to my shaking her shoulders, etc., and called 911, whose response in regard to my saying my mother wasn't waking up was to send paramedics and an ambulance right away. That would have been around 10:00AM, I guess, well, just a bit later as I got dressed before calling. I let the paramedics in, and provided answers to their questions while they checked mom out, and finding her still not responding, and her muscles being pretty rigid, pull on her arm and it would resist and move back to the same position, and apparently she had some slight vomit that I hadn't seen due to the positioning of her head, they packed her up and took her out to the ambulance once it arrived. I tried to track down our copy of her advanced directive, but couldn't find it at the time, she'd been thinking of redoing it and it wasn't in any of the locations I could think of, and I decided that getting her to the hospital was a bit more important than looking for the advanced directive. I rode in with them, taking the perspective that I could catch a bus home if need be but wanted to be there with mom and if I rode with them I'd get to the right place. Instead of going to Kaiser, mom being a Kaiser patient, we went to OHSU [Oregon Health Sciences University] Emergency Services, guess it was closer and they were not sure what was going on. Got checked in at Emergency, they cut mom out of her clothes which she hadn't taken off from the day before, discussed with me inserting an airway to keep here breathing clear in case she were to vomit or have problems swallowing, and while I know that mom didn't want tube feeding and various other forms of life prolonging treatment, this struck me as a reasonable preventive precaution, the idea of giving her a fighting chance. I'm not sure when they installed the catheter, but when they did there was a lot and nasty looking. They got her on an IV, and took her in for a CAT scan and had me wait in the waiting room at that time. That's when I called Beth, my older sister, to let her know what was going on, got her voicemail and left a message; Beth lives in Olympia, WA, and is a self-employed Piano teacher. Beth had been down jsut a few days earlier, on Thursday, to go to a meeting with mom's doctor, who was of the opinion that it was time to start looking at some variety of long term care, that mom shouldn't be living at home any longer, her dementia and incontinence, specifically the problems keeping clean, were such that she should have assistance greater than she could have at home, that we were past the help I could give with my own problems which were why I was on disability. Anyway I left a message on Beth's voicemail, and waited. After a while, long enough to read through the only interesting magazine and then some, they came out to let me know they were moving mom to ICU, that she didn't seem to have had a stroke or anything, but she was dehydrated and still hadn't woken up. So I went with them as they transported mom to another section of the complex, up to the 12th floor of another wing, possibly another building it's hard to tell, and had me wait in a waiting room while they got mom set up. This is the one section where I'm not happy with them, it wasn't made clear to me how I could get in touch with them when I was left in an unattended waiting room, I was there for hours without any contact. During that time Beth called me, her phone was out because of construction work cutting through the trunk line to her subdivision, the phone wouldn't have the physical connection repaired until the 13th, but voicemail worked since it was voicemail and not an answering machine, they'd borrowed a cell phone from a neighbor and had finally gotten a chance to check their voicemail and found out that mom was i8n the hospital, and that they were going to come down, they'd contacted her students and rescheduled the rest of the day, and Beth had a copy of the advanced directive and would bring it. About that time I said enough was enough, I was done waiting for someone to come talk to me and was going to go looking for mom. Turns out there was a phone on the wall next to the door which could be used to contact the nurses station, I called and told them I was looking for my mother [with her name] and they checked and said I could come back, so I did and found the nurses station and they then directed me on to the room mom was in. No, wait, they had come out while I was in the waiting room, three doctors, to ask me questions about mom, but no one had said how I'd be able to go back to see her. And being in a waiting room didn't do mom any good, but if I could be back with her I could at least hold her hand and let her know someone who cared about her was there. Which was what I did, held her hand and petted her head like she was a cat, to let her know someone cared and was there, she still hadn't woken up and it was late afternoon, but they were pretty sure now that it was a bad urinary tract infection, and it had started to go systemic, so they had her on antibiotics and saline, she'd gotten very dehydrated and her kidneys weren't happy with her. Oh, and I'd also called my uncle Richard earlier, to let him know something was up. I don't remember precisely when in all this I called Richard, but I think it was before I went on mom search. Beth and Karen [Beth's partner] arrived after visiting hours were over, and had a fun time getting into the building, but snazzy staff members helped them find their way to the proper area. They sent me off to get food, I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and we were now into late evening, and they talked with doctors whilst I was off. 10:00PM or so we decided that it would serve no purpose to stay the night with mom, so they ran me home and went to stay with Allison, a friend of ours who they normally stay with when they come to town. I think they'd already started calling students to clear Tuesday, the neighbor who'd let them use a cell phone had a spare cell phone that he'd sent with them so they could do phone stuff [good neighbor, yes].

Tuesday mom started to be somewhat responsive, but only somewhat, we weren't really sure how aware she was of things, if she was really responding to us or not, as the whole time she'd been having twitches, I'd forgotten about that until now, she'd been twitching a bit the whole time this was going on, from when I first saw her Monday morning, so the whole asking her to squeeze your hand or move a foot or whatever was totally bogus because she was having these twitches and you couldn't presume any meaning to them. Her eyes being somewhat open didn't mean anything. But once or twice it seemed that she was turning slightly towards the voice of someone talking to her, but we couldn't be sure she was really responding. Partway through the day they determined she had stabalized enough to be transported to Kaiser, and I again rode over with her, Beth and Karen bringing their car, and around this time B&K decided they'd probably be here the rest of the week and to start clearing her schedule of students, because they weren't heading back to Olympia until they had some idea about where to move mom after she was released, but it sure looked like it wasn't going to be back home. And boy were they glad we'd gotten mom to sign a Power of Attorney on the previous Friday before Beth had to go back to Olympia. We'd drawn up a PoA that named me as the Agent, and Beth as an alternate, but real quick we realized that I just wasn't up to what was going to need to be done, so Beth was going to have to become the primary. If we'd started out as Beth as the primary mom might not have signed it, which is part of mom being a bit weird, but she'd signed it and we could now shift it to where the person capable of dealing with stuff would be the agent. Things have blurred together in regards to what day and precise order, but we got Beth all the information on the various life insurance policies, IRAs, etc., which could help with funding, she already had the long term care insurance policies; I might not have been up to dealing with the various people and entities, but I was able to lay my hands on the information needed for Beth to do so. I do know that Wednesday mom started being clearly responsive, they'd taken the tubes out late Tuesday before we headed out for the night, Wednesday when I drove over she was in a chair, not doing well in regard to talking, but clearly someone was home. I honestly can't remember how many days she was at Kaiser, B&K had to head back up to Olympia and see about finding a facility to transfer her to upon her discharge from Kaiser, because they really had to handle things and that meant it would be best to find a place in their neck of the woods. I was in what I refer to as "deal with it" mode, with jsut enough adrenaline permeating my system that I was functioning well, so I was making it out to see mom each day while she was at Kaiser, staying until I could feel my edge start to fade and then get home while still safe to drive. Part of my problem is that I don't seem to produce adrenaline and various other neurotransmitters properly, so I can't be relied upon, too much day to day what will I be up to, and getting myself started on things, meh, totally undependable, the gradual decline from what I used to be able to do has me totally depressed when I allow myself to think about it. Anyway, B&K found a Nursing home/rehab facility in Olympia to shift mom over to, which they did, not cheap but very good, and she was there for the better part of a month, she's gotten back pretty much to where she had been before the infection, so it's been determined that an Adult Foster Care situation is what would be best, and Thursday I think they transferred her over.

The long term care insurance may not cover this, but it's more appropriate at this time. We're going to have to sell the Portland property to fund things long term. But that requires that we have someplace for me to move to. Due to my being on disability Medicaid will allow mom to set monies aside to help me, and my IRA is enough for a good sized down payment, but the order in which monies are made available is going to be crucial, if uncle Richard or my cousin Glenn can buy out mom's interest in the family farm in Grand Ronde that will cover getting me re-situated which will then allow for disposing of this property where I'm currently living, which has been "home" since 1976, even when I lived in Chicago for six years this was home. So as funds are made available there will be a search for a place near Olympia, in one of the lumber towns most likely, where the economy is really depressed and home values are down, for me to move to so I'll be close to mom and sis. And I have to start getting my stuff organized for a move, and this is something that is difficult for me, which is a problem for precisely the reasons they approved my disability claim. I've got to sort stuff, throw stuff away, recycle stuff, dispose of things to worthy homes, sell some stuff, whatever, drastically reduce what I have and determine what things I actually might use again.

One of the things I've always identified myself as being is an Oregonian, a fourth generation native born Oregonian, and that will become a thing of the past, I'll be moving and never coming back. Of course, another thing I always believed was that I'd marry and have children, at 48 that doesn't seem so likely anymore, so looking at keeping things to pass onto further generations doesn't seem to be a consideration at this time. Beth and Karen have raised Karen's niece, Caillie [or however it is spelled, Gaelic for dance or some such thing], and look to be passing things down to her, so the family stuff is being funneled to Beth for preservation and distribution.

Well, that's three hours plus of writing, and crying at times. Maybe I won't take so long before my next entry.

Shed Lumber Storage, post 1

I can't recollect if I've actually posted concerning the shed that Bill was building for us, I think I haven't. It's big. 8'x20', near 10' on the tall side [it has a sloped roof], door in one end and on one side, two big windows courtesy of having replaced some and needing a home for the old windows. Sturdy. Well framed. Proper roof with shingles and everything. Still has some work that needs to get done, steps to the doors, gutter, and paint, but other than that the structure is complete. Will need to get someone else to finish it, Bill's now got hernia problems and continuing to do this kind of work, well, it just isn't going to happen. The intent is that all of our yard related equipment and storage can shift to the shed, and that the vast majority of our lumber storage can also shift there. To this end I've, you guessed it, bought more lumber, so that appropriate shelving can be constructed. I'm using a tried and true shelving methodology, or at least one that I've successfully used in the past. 4"x4" uprights and base, forming an 'L' shape, with 1 1/8" holes drilled in the upright to allow for 1" steel pipe, the kind used in plumbing, to slip into and form the shelves. To encourage the pipe to stay in the holes, and to make gravity our friend, the holes are drilled at a 5 degree angle from horizontal, so everything wants to shift towards the uprights. The pipe gets wrapped in pipe insulation so that it doesn't discolor the lumber. The 'L's are joined together to form a unit via 2"x4" cross beams set into notches in the back of the 4"x4"s, and these cross beams are also attached to the shed frame. Angle brackets and bolts hold the uprights to the base legs. Once it's all put together it's solid, very solid, not going anywhere solid, and able to hold lots of lumber. Covers one entire wall of the shed, so it'll handle a lot, with the base and then six shelves coming out from the uprights, 28" sections of pipe. There are a couple of tricky bits, one being all those angled holes. I'm currently 5/8s done with drilling them, would have been 2/3s but the drilling tool came unadjusted on me and shifted to a 15 degree slope on the last upright I was drilling, didn't realize it until I'd drilled several holes, so that upright is going to turn into base pieces. The tool I'm using is at the end of this link; this tool allows you to drill holes at a specified angle, 5 degree accuracy if you are careful, using a standard power drill. If you have a drill press and appropriate outfeed supports by all means use it, but if you don't, this puppy sells for $39.50 from Lee Valley, and Rockler, Woodcraft, and Harbor Freight all sell variants on it. A drill press would be a much easier way to go, but not having space currently to assemble my drill press, this is what I'm using. Anyway, the settings came lose thanks to vibration after drilling 30 holes, I've reset the thing and will check more frequently to make sure it doesn't come loose again. I've got 18 more holes to go, and my arms are getting sore. Then I'll need to cut the base legs, and break out the dado gear to make the notches, and go get 2"x4"s and the able braces and bolts, etc., to put the things together, and do so. Then I'll be able to look at moving stuff into the shed from the basement. The goal is to clear out all the lumber, etc., which is underneath the plumbing, because the plumbing is at the stage where we really need to think about replacing it. The building is 90 years old, there abouts, and much of the plumbing is original; the pipe is rusting up on the inside, needs replacing. I'm not looking forward to selecting plumbers. Frankly, I'm terrified, my various stress-related reactions are all triggering, and it's not going to be a pretty sight. That I'm working on the storage shelving is nothing short of miraculous. The only thing I can figure out is that one of my medications just changed manufacturer, and they're using a different mix of "inert" components in it, and that I'm not reacting to them the same as I was to the previous manufacturer's product, which I need to bring to the attention of my doctor, because seriously, I'm being far more functional than I have been in some years now. This is what is known as a "good thing".

Governmental Fiscal Responsibility

There is a mailing address in Salem which is used by various Political Action Committees; one of these days I'll actually try to find out who is the official address holder. All of their mailings have a certain slant to them. And they do themselves no good mailing stuff to me, because I've come to the point where if I see their address, yes, I read their mailing... and vote entirely against them, every time. The address, by the way, is 3421 Del Webb Ave. NE, Salem, OR 97303.

They'd almost get me to see their way this time, except that the current situation is partially the result of their previous actions. There are a couple of tax measures on the next ballot, and they're against them, and have nice things to say about not raising taxes in bad economic times, and how government should be fiscally responsible.

However, they have been against fiscally responsible government when times were good, so I can't sympathize with them.

Fiscally responsible governments raise taxes when things are going good, and build reserves so that when things are going poorly they can continue providing desperately needed services. Fiscally responsible governments retain revenue surpluses against future revenue shortfalls. Fiscally responsible governments do all the stuff that we expect good, fiscally responsible individuals to do. Buy low, sell high. Set a budget that reflects routinely recurring periodic expenses, like roof repairs and a new paint job, which don't happen every year but which are expensive when they do, and which you know will happen; you set aside money every year towards them so you have the funds when needed. Plan for emergencies; things go wrong, set aside a bit more each month to provide for the truly unexpected expenses.

This isn't new. Take a look in the Bible, fer crying out loud! Pharaoh had these dreams, remember? Joseph interpreted them as foretelling seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, and set up a system whereby that plenty was capitalized, food reserves were build up, and some of the surplus was sold to build up cash reserves, but enough kept that when the famine came they had all they needed, and enough to sell to their neighbors, as well.

A balanced budget is balanced for the long term, not just this week, month, or year. Properly, you should be looking 20, 30 years ahead, all the time, so that the various cycles can be taken into account.

This is a tough sell to the general public, they don't want to hear about long term planning, they want to have their cake and eat it, too. They are disinclined to listen to the voice of experience if it doesn't say what they want to hear. There is a reason our founding fathers set up Congress the way they did, and our fiddling with it has been detrimental to our fiscal well-being. The Senate has two seats per state, because initially those seats were filled by individuals selected not by the state at large, but by the State government, to represent the interests of The State; they were to be our House of Lords, to counter-balance the House of Representatives, our House of Commons. They were given a longer term of office, so they could really buckle down and work on long-term policy. The Senate was to be that voice of experience, given force. But that's water under the bridge, there's no way we'll ever switch back.

But the next time someone starts talking about responsible government, think a moment, or longer, about what a truly responsible government would be doing.

Kumoricon 2009

So on Friday I was reading the latest installment of Girl Genius, and saw a note that the Foglio's were going to be at Kumoricon that weekend, and also the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, and said to myself, I did, "Hey, the Nikkei thingy is in Portland!" and proceeded to type a quick search on Kumoricon and found that it was an Anime Convention, seventh iteration, held at the Portland Hilton. Labor Day Weekend. $45.00 at the door. And I thought about it. It would be crowded. I wouldn't know anyone. The video list was all stuff I wasn't familiar with [not having watched Cartoon Network][or anime in general for far too close to 20 years]. I'd also need to buy food. And if I went to the Dealer's Room, I'd spend money, probably. And I thought about it. It was a 15-20 minute ride by bus from my front door. I wouldn't need to worry about where I was staying. Given my lack of current anime/manga knowledge, I wouldn't spend that much money at the Dealer's Room. And I hadn't gone to any kind of con in at least ten years. I wouldn't need to explain to anyone who knew me why I'd been a hermit and vanished off the face of the Earth for seven+ years. If I didn't enjoy it, I could always go home. So I went. Got there Saturday morning, stood in line [in the rain] to get into registration. Noticed that anime fandom has bigtime costuming going on, and that this was a young crowd, teens through twenties on the whole, some of us older folks but not that many proportionately, which ties in with my discovery that many of them got introduced to anime via the Cartoon Network, so it's a Cable Generation thing, I got introduced in an earlier period, back in a much more word-of-mouth period, where the anime was available in Japan and what we saw was multi-generation copied... kinda like Blake's 7 fandom was. Anyway, back when I was watching in college it was a dedicated core and only starting to get to where some of the stuff was being imported to the states. So I'm waiting in line, in the rain, listening to the folks in front and behind me, and it felt good, it felt like a con, full of media fans. And I just know it's going to be bursting at the seams crowded, as I can remember what it was like when Orycon used the Portland Hilton, and I can already tell this will have far more than Orycon had when last we used this venue. Get registered, look at the pocket program guide, and start thinking about what I'm going to do. Some stuff on the third floor looks interesting. Now how do I get to the third floor... Much latter, after searching unsuccessfully for stairs [they did exist, I found them later on, but not this first time], and then standing in line for an elevator, I reached the third floor. Which is where I spent most of my time while at the con. Seems there was a programing track on writing fan and original fiction, which I found interesting, and the presenters amusing, so I just hung out there. Did make it to the Exhibitor's Hall, spent not that much money, and didn't stay very late either day as I found myself getting tired and went home, but for a first foray back into the world of fandom, and just back into being around other folks, felt pretty good about it. Fandom is a separate and distinct culture, homogeneous even in it's diversity, and I really am comfortable in it; my kind of people. I did, a couple of weeks ago, buy an Orycon membership, so I'll be attending Orycon in a couple of months, the first time in over ten years, and there will be folks I know there; that'll be a different situation, re-establishing contact.

Memories from Camp

The summer camp I worked at for two summers, 1977 & 1978, has changed it's operational methodology over the years, but is still in the same family and finding a way to survive; I just discovered their website, so I know they're still around. Sherwood Forest or as it was known in my time, Camp Sherwood Forest or Greiner's Camp, at the time was run by Alan & Barbie Greiner, who were the Theatre Arts faculty at The Catlin Gabel School for many years, and during the summer ran their camp on the Long Beach Peninsula of Washington, near Nahcotta on Willipa Bay. It is currently spearheaded by their daughter, Susie Andrews, and her husband, Gordie, who are attempting to maintain it as a gathering place for like minded individuals, friends, family, and somehow make it relevant in the modern world. Not entirely sure how they are doing, the website hasn't been updated in a year and the email is invalid, but the yahoo group appears funct, I've submitted an app to be added to it. I have some fond memories of my two summers there, one of the highlights being a canoe trip where we left camp, circumnavigated Long Island, and returned in four tides, a little under two days. I was a bow paddler on that trip, and that's when we learned I paddled twice as fast as anyone else, and had to throttle back to keep from exhausting everyone else. By the end of that trip Gordon Leeds, my stern paddler, and I had gotten to where we could go from a semi-broken down camp to in the water paddling in around five minutes, including loading a passenger in the canoe; we were organized, in the zone, and didn't waste any motion. It was a wonderful trip, and also the last time I was in a canoe; haven't had the opportunity since. Thinking about it, I think that's the last time I've been on the water, which says not good things about the last 30 years! Haven't even been to the coast that many times since, and, well, I think I'll leave this be before I start getting depressed, yes? And on other fronts, the painters finished up yesterday, so the major maintenance projects are done for the moment, although the next ones are already under consideration, the plumbing needs upgrading as previously mentioned. And Bill has started building the new outbuilding/shed, which will clear out a bunch of the basement, which will hopefully enable a lot of re-organizing of things. I guess that's it for now, next Wednesday is part two of tooth extraction.

Teeth Extraction, primus

Right now I have cotton gauze pads crammed in my mouth, helping to control bleeding as an aftereffect of having nine teeth pulled; the first of four Adventures in Tooth Extraction. They pulled mu upper molars and bicuspids [I think they're bicuspids, I might be wrong, they're the not quite molars just forward of the molars].

Was a bit of a trick doing it, with the level of decay and the fact that I've got good and solid roots, that really didn't want to let go. There wasn't much to grab onto, what there was to grab onto wasn't the solidest, and they really didn't want to come out. In other words, a good set of teeth for a dental school, they got to learn something dealing with my mouth.

In other news, it's over a hundred, my a/c is busted, and the painters have started work so my windows are shut; only way it could be worse would be if I had a south exposure. I don't, I'm on the north side of the building.

Oh, and my bathroom sink drain is clogged back in the wall, and a major nut on the pipe that I need to remove to get at it doesn't want to move. The next major project we need to save money towards is replacing a lot of the iron pipe in this building, the plumbing is anywhere between 70 and a 100 years old and is demonstrating that rust causes iron pipes to shrink internally.

So I'm not in the best of moods just now, and mom wants to talk, not catching on that right after oral surgery might not be a good time. Parents!

And I just demonstrated that the local anesthetic is still doing a good job, can't use my lips properly for drinking, nice spill all down my front.

*sigh*

It's a good thing I'm innately cheerful, otherwise I might really be down in the dumps!

Think I'll go read something silly.

The Roof, Heights, and Me

I don't deal well with heights, at least not when I have any sense that I could fall. When I helped some friends when they were shingling their roof, I was the ground crew; was on the roof a little bit, but just couldn't handle it.

So the fact that I actually did get up on the roof of our building to look at the job being done says something. Mind, I never stood up, stayed firmly knees to the roof, but I still got up onto the roof, which is how I know it has slope and all. And the roof covering, this reinforced 60mil PVC sheet stuff, is smooth and slick; Wade [the boss] made it clear that if anything went wonky, call them [hey, 15 year guarantee], and don't even consider going onto the roof in the rain, and really don't consider it with ice, you'd be on the ground way too fast in an uncontrolled fashion.

But I actually got onto the roof. I'm not sure if it was courage, or insanity, or if there is a difference.