Seismic Twitch

I took today off (yesterday was Canada Day and therefore a statutory holiday) so I’m in day 2 of the 4 day long weekend. I’ve not done anything today. Yes, I’ve truly taken the day off. I got up at 4 pm and other than editing photos, I’ve not done a whole lot. I’m just uploading them to Flickr right now.

It rained again today. When I got up we were in the midst of another thunderstorm that Environment Canada had a “thunderstorm watch” for. This means it’s a big’un. At the end of the storm, when the light breeze was blowing a tornado warning was issued for our area. This means that a funnel cloud or rotating clouds were seen around. I have no idea if anything came of it, but nothing happened at our end of town. I went out onto the front steps and took a few photos for you.

After the storm (I’d been reading my online comics while it was going on) I edited up some of the photos from my Edmonton trip. Considering the scenic photos were taken through a dirty window of a van travelling at 110 kph, they turned out not too badly.

Now, the photos have all been uploaded and are ready to go so…first we’re doing the trip to Edmonton.

One way there we saw this weird cloud wall. It appeared to be like looking at mountains with clouds that are lower than the top of the mountains. It was very spooky:

It wasn’t until we got closer that we realized it was a fog bank with higher level clouds. Then the conversation turned to Stephen King’s novella (short story?) The Mist. It’d been made into a bad movie. The movie (no, I haven’t seen it) could not possibly compare to my own imagination. That story has been haunting my pre-sleep brain since I first read it in the late 70s or early 80s.

Next are some lovely prairie shots. When people ask me why I love the prairies these photos demonstrate why. Yes, I know we’re not as cosmopolitan as the larger areas to the east. Yes, I know there is a frustratingly large population of people who could be best described as “hicks”. But it would be hard for me to live anywhere else. I really am a stubble-jumper to the core.

And now for the two best photos of our rain this afternoon. I took the photo of the houses because of the overflowing gutters and the massive outflow from one of the spouts. It was amazing to watch. I should have taken a video. If I get my spit together next time I’ll do that instead of taking still shots. It’s hard to get a real feel for the sheer amount of water moving in a still photo.

This is our intersection. You can’t tell the difference between it and and a river.

Boy got me a bonus Pokemon that was being offered as a “gift”. He went to all the work of going to a new city and getting the gift being offered. He’s so sweet.

Bran made me Kraft macaroni and cheese for supper. It’s all I could think of on the spur of the moment that wouldn’t take a lot of time to make.

I’ve got a lot of feelings around what’s going on with my Dad. I’m sure that’s normal. Along with the grief and fear and other things I’ve got other stuff happening. I’m not sure it’s quite normal to have the odd resentment I feel that my cocoon of uninvolvement has been taken away. Now I have to get involved in the goings on of my Dad’s life. Now my sister will have more involvement in my life, even if peripherally. It is this that leaves me wishing that Dad had just outright died instead of this slow crawl to the grave. I feel very selfish and bad for feeling this way.

Well, I’ve done some processing of my visit to see Dad this past weekend. I don’t like processing. It implies feelings and I don’t do them very well.

What it all boils down to is that Dad’s mental condition is such that he’s not going to go home again. His needs far outstrip my brother’s capability of caring for him. Dad needs 24/7 care. My brother would have to have someone come in and, in essence, babysit Dad just so that grocery shopping and the like could be done.

I think the most painful thing for me was to see Dad, in his moments of clarity (and there were few of them) didn’t realize the state he was in. It’s better for him, I know. I mean, it would break him to know the state he’s in. But it brought home to me just how bad he is if even in times of relative clarity, he can’t recognize things. The weirdest thing was he remembered Bran’s name. I’m not sure he remembered it more than a hand full of times since we’ve been married in 1986.

Dad’s short term memory is shot. If you leave the room and come back he’ll greet you like he’s not seen you for an age. His cognitive abilities are damaged. He can’t keep track of conversations. He regresses in his memory, thinking that the entire family is at home or remembering my sister or oldest brother as living in Saskatoon.

Physically he’s very feeble. This man, who used to walk upwards of 10 miles a day doing errands can’t walk 10 feet without losing balance. His strides are about 1 foot.

He’s totally preoccupied with his watch and time. When he first arrived at the hospital the nurses took it from him (as they do with all jewelry in ER) and it distressed him enough that they gave it back to him. He told them that he was a navigator in the war and precise time was very important to him.

The practicalities are taken care of thanks to him creating a power of attorney for my sister and I. He thought that was what was needed in case of his death. It’s a good thing he had it drawn up because now we don’t have to go to the work of a competency hearing and such. The down side is that neither my sister nor I live in Dad’s city. We’ll be doing things as a team. That’s how the power of attorney works. Anything that needs to be signed needs both our signatures.

Interestingly, a power of attorney ends at death, so it would have done no good then. The business of the decedent is handed over to the executors (again my sister and myself) to dissolve, pay taxes and distribute the estate. However, it’s a damn good thing it was made up to take care of things now.

So that’s how things are right now. My sister is mailing up some paperwork for me to take care of when I get back from Edmonton at the end of the week.

Speaking of Edmonton…I have to be at the office at 6:30 am. (0630 – for those on the 24 hour clock). I’ve got most of my stuff gathered together but not packed up. I’ll be doing my showering in the evening before we go anywhere (if we do) tomorrow evening and Thursday) I imagine the other 2 women will want to shower in the morning. This saves some congestion at the bathroom.

That’s about it.

Ta-Ra

and we got a flat tire.

I need a bit of time to process yesterday’s trip to see Dad.

In the nonce, enjoy the new PR site (promos, give-aways and ratings) created by Smelly Anne It’s new so there’s not a lot there yet, but I’m sure there’s going to be a lot there to take advantage of given some time. It’s called Fishing and Wishing. Just click on the image on the right and you’ll be taken there right away.

Writing has always been my chosen form of expression. When I get highly emotional talking, being able to form cogent sentences abandons me. However, I can write. Maybe it uses a different part of the brain.

Speaking of brains. Yeah. Dad’s in hospital and won’t likely be going home. He’ll probably go to a home, just not his own. Apparently in the past months (who knows really how long) Dad’s mind has been leaving him. Because of issues I have with my older brother I haven’t gone down to visit Dad. The last time I saw Dad was when my oldest brother (not the one I have issues with) was visiting him and was able to drive up here. That was several months ago. Dad didn’t want to drive 2.5 hours on his own. That was ok though. I was content with short monthly phone calls.

On Monday my sister phoned. Dad is in hospital she says. Dad probably has dementia she says. It sounded bad enough then when she hadn’t gotten much information but hearing back on the history of things, yeah, it’s worse.

Apparently Dad has been forgetting who people are, like not remembering my brother, who lives with Dad. He wanted to know where Mom was. She’s been dead 17 years. There’s more, lots more.

Today my sister called to say that Dad won’t be going home. Even if my brother were to take advantage of the EI program for caregivers (a year off with unemployment benefits similar to maternity leave but designed for people who are caregivers of elderly parents) he’d have to be alert and on duty 24/7. Dad’s a wanderer. The hospital had to put him in a restraining chair. Yeah. And Dad figured out how to get out of it. He’s always been able to figure things like that out. This time it wasn’t a good thing. He was found to be wandering from room to room in the hospital.

He doesn’t appear to be worried about going home, at least that’s not the impression I was getting from my sister. I hope that’s the case. I’d hate for him to be fretful about being surrounded by strangers (but even family is getting to be like that) and wanting to go home. I’d like for him to be ok wherever he is.

We’re going down tomorrow to see him. My sister is going to be on the bus from her home in Alberta tomorrow as well. She arrives there sometime around 9 pm. We might see her. It depends on sunset times. Bran doesn’t want to drive home facing into the sunset. The glare is difficult enough when the sun is behind.

So now I get to grieve losing Dad. His body will be there, but he might not. Or at least the Dad I’ve come to know as an adult might not be there. It’s possible that I might be looking into my own future where I don’t know my son, my husband.

Life has gotten more difficult all of a sudden.