An Expensive Picture

Pat and I at the LOVE statue Philadelphia November 2013

The photo above was taken at the LOVE statue in Philadelphia during the first visit Pat and I made to Philadelphia in 2013 during my birthday in November.

I had only met Pat the previous August during his visit to Delaware after he retired from his job.

After I met him we both decided we wanted to see each other again so we began a ritual of getting together four times (quarterly) a year. 

My birthday in November and springtime we meet in Philadelphia. 

February we meet in Palm Springs during Modernism Week.

Labor Day week we met in Pat hometown of Hamilton, Ontario Canada.

Because of COVID restrictions and my caregiving responsibilities Pat and I haven't seen each other in person for two years now. However, we do "see" each other every day via FaceTime and Zoom calls. 

I remember well when this photo was taken. A young man approached us as I was taking a picture of the LOVE statue. He asked "Would you like me to take a picture of both of you?" Oh, how kind! "Yes!" I said. Well, that obliging young man hustled us both out of $20 each. He was good. He did it so fast we didn't even realize what happened until he was bopping away looking for the next sucker.

How did he do it? After he took the picture with my iPhone he siddled up to me and whispered "$20." I realized what happened and thought "Why not? Just a young man trying to earn a few bucks." Of course I knew I was being hustled but blamed myself for being such an easy mark. I gave him his $20.

I told Pat. Pat said "He got me too for $20!"  Well, that was fast. I didn't even see him talking to Pat. 

Pat and I decided that he deserved the $40 because he was so good at what he just did to us, two old men tourists ready to be taken advantage of.

The sad part of this story though is the next year when we were at the City Hall Square, a young Asian man offered to take our picture. I was ready this time and asked "Sure, how much is this going to cost me?" He gave me a shocked look and said "Nothing, I'll take your picture." But he did look hurt when he took our picture. 

I've always wondered since then, was the second guy on the up and up for a thwarted con guy? Probably on the up and up.

The other guy, not the first time my natural good nature has been taken advantage of and probably not the last time. It is sad that there are always those people among us who are always looking to lie, cheat and steal and take advantage of the inherent good nature of most of us.

At least he took a good picture of me and Pat.

Super Bowl Sunday And Commercials

I'm not watching.

Bah humbug! (Says this 80 year old curmudgeon). 

Oh sure, I may tune in for a few minutes to try and catch some of those expensive, inventive, original commercials.

Maybe I'll even tune in to catch some of the half-time show but I hear it's all rap and I'm not a rap fan. 

There used to be a time when I was an avid sports fan. The two sports I followed closely was baseball and football. But like so much else in todays entertainment world, the overabundance of commercials have sucked all the life out of watching The Game. Even regular shows which are my favorites like "Judge Judy." I DVR "Judge Judy" because of the half hour at least eighteen to twenty minutes are local commercials. Which, by the way, are the WORST. Local car company pitchmen screaming at you and half of them have their kids in the commercials (their Five Minutes of Fame), who I can't understand a word they say or why they are even in the commercial. But I digress.

One of my little luxuries here at Casa Tipton-Kelly is a private loo. That's a little separate room from the main bathroom where I can sit on The Throne and contemplate today's great challenges and mysteries and how I'm going to get through the next day. I've often thought as I am in my own little private room, how is somebody going to figure out how to get a commercial going on in my private loo? I have absolutely no doubt folks in advertising have given that Last Refuge From Commercials a way to intrude on your private Meditation Room. Believe it.

A little off the subject of this blog, we're back to what passes for normal around here. I've gotten over my snit about Bill taking all my camera equipment out and spreading it all over our basement wall to wall carpeted floor. Just where I want that stuff. It is the way it is, I just have to accept that. 

Tonight we had another cognitive issue. I make Bill pudding in Tupperware pudding cups. Four at a time. I noticed earlier in the week I was missing one pudding cup. Every time I go into the refrigerator to give Bill his evening snack of pudding, (which I alternate with a yogurt cup), I look for that pudding cup. "Did I push it back in the refrigerator?" "Am I going crazy and only did three pudding cups." 

This evening I got the answer. After Bill finished his pudding cup this evening he asked "You don't keep these do you?" Viola! There's my answer. I check out recycle bin and there at the bottom of the newspapers, empty cracker boxes (I eat a lot of Town House crackers with my soup), Progresso soup can (Tuscan Bean), and plastic yogurt (Activia) cups, was my lone gray plastic antique Tupperware pudding cup.  Cleaned and trashed. 

Oh Bill.

Of course he felt bad about it. 

I told him, "Please don't try to 'help me'. Just put the finished container on the sink and I will dispose of it." I've told him this numerous times before but to little avail. He just wants "to help." 

It is what it is. 

I'm dealing with a 93 year old child. He means well, which means a lot but still. I have to watch everything he does.

Could be a lot worse. 

I could watch the whole Super Bowl game from start to finish.

I think not. I have to make more of Bill's favorite cookies tonight. 

Enjoy the game!

P.S.

I know the photo I posted on this blog has nothing to do with what I talked about on this posting but I happen to like the weird humor of Gary Larson and "The Far Side."

Not Helpful

 

Drainage pipe buried

This afternoon I got up from a deep afternoon nap to find out that Bill had dragged out all my camera equipment from the breakfront I have in our basement. "Just trying to help" Bill says. 

There he goes again with the "just trying to help" trope. 

All he did was make my life harder.

This makes me so angry. 

I hope when I never reach 93 years of age and cause this much trouble for anyone, let along my full time caregiver.

Because Bill was "just trying to help", my late afternoon schedule of today was delayed by half an hour while I tried to put all that camera equipment back in the breakfront sort of in the order I had all those pieces organized. 

I cannot remember all the times in our fifty-seven years together I've asked Bill:

LEAVE MY THINGS ALONE!

He will never learn. Never. 

Our very first fight was Bill "Just trying to help."

I'm the cook in our family. When cooking a meal I like to have all the preparation dishes cleaned before I sit down to eat. Bill wanted "to help" and insisted on cleaning the pots and pans AFTER WE ATE. 

I grew up eating meals with dirty pots and pans sitting in the kitchen sink in cold, gray, greasy water. My Mother never did the dishes. From about eight years old I did the family dishes. She let me, there was never a problem.

I grew up living in a chaotic, "Grand Central Station" house. People coming and going.

NO PRIVACY!

I'll get over this latest invasion of my privacy.

This latest attempt "just trying to help you" event.

But I have to tell you folks, I am exhausted. 

I managed the best I can caregiving for a ninety three-year old man who can't even dress or feed himself. 

For over fifty-years Bill and I had a good working arrangement living together. I ran the household. Paid the bills. Did the shopping and cooking. And for the past thirty-eight years the sole income earner in our household. Bill retired early at fifty-five years with a small settlement. Seven years with no income then collected early Social Security, a modest amount. Fortunately Bill is not a SPENDER like yours truly. God knows this family couldn't have two Spenders in this family. We would have been in much more modest living circumstances if Bill spent money like I did/do. 

However, since Bill's two strokes last year, his part of our arrangement - handyman work (which I am no good at), has been left up to me. 

This week alone I had a new microwave oven installed then taken out.

Yesterday I had a guy in to clean out my rainspout gutters which were clogged.

Also yesterday I had several guys in to install an underground drainage for the one rains-sprout that was leaking into our basement wall around the sewer pipe. Lovely. 

Today I had a service man in for our annual heater maintenance. 

I think I have something scheduled for tomorrow but right now I am too exhausted to look. I have to vent with this posting which some of my readers will no doubt find heartless. "How can you not have compassion for a ninety-three year old blind man who has lost his cognitive abilities?" 

I do folks, I do. It's just that some days are harder than others. And I'm not perfect.

But I'll tell you one things, I hope and pray that I never reach ninety-three years old, blind and totally dependent on someone else just to get through another days that I can't do what I love doing. If I'm lucky I'll just go to sleep one night and now wake up. That is my wish folks. 

I've had a long and interesting life. Full of ups and downs, mostly ups. 

Today wasn't a good day. 

Tomorrow will be better. Spring is coming. And I finally have that basement wall leak fixed.

New Microwave Oven Delivered -Damaged!

This morning my new microwave oven was delivered. 

The delivery started out well. The truck arrived at the ideal time, around 10 AM. Morning deliveries are best for me. 

From my computer desk in my home office, I can see any traffic that goes by the road in front of our house. 

As I was talking to Pat on FaceTime I see this huge truck out front. "Oh no!" I said to Pat. I don't want them driving up our driveway, which so many delivery trucks do.

 

I've had them stuck in the grass when they try and back out. 

Make deep ruts in the grass when they back out. 

Run over and damage my sprinkler heads when they back out. 

Run over and damage the flagstones that line the daffodil garden beds that line both sides of our driveway.

I've had it all folks.

"Get the dolly out guys and bring the box in that way!"

Some years ago I had a heck of a time getting one delivery guy out of my driveway, the wheels of his truck were embedded that deep in the wet ground along our driveway.

I managed to get out there in time to warn them. 

Three masked guys came in. Even masked I could tell they were all Hispanic. Language challenge here. 

They were pretty efficient in taking out my microwave after asking me to put a plush town on the cooktop and getting them a step ladder and removing my condiments from the top cabinet above the microwave so they could pull the plug and put the new plug in.

However it was all for naught folks. They couldn't get the new microwave oven in. The frame was bent. Someone obviously dropped the box the microwave was in. 

Try as they might they couldn't easily slide in the new microwave as the above video shows. They tried so had the one guy almost lost his pants.

After I refused to accept it and they took it back. 

I cancelled my order. 

My old microwave is back in place. 

My old microwave oven back in place. It's a GE Spacemaker. Although a little creaky, it still works. I'll keep it until it gives up the ghost. I like it better anyway.

The beat goes on.

Move To Palm Springs?

 As regular readers of this blog know, I have considered spending my sunset days living in Palm Springs, California.

Pat and I visited Palm Springs seven years ago for the first time and promptly fell in love with that desert paradise. 

Since our first visit to Palm Springs in 2015, we have returned every year for Modernism Week. COVID put an end to those annual visits last year. If not for COVID, we would be visiting Palm Springs right now here in February for two weeks. Maybe next year, if we survive COVID or whatever else may befall us in the months ahead.

Yesterday Pat found a house for sale in Palm Springs which meets our specification. Ten foot high ceilings, fee land (not Indian owned), plenty of windows letting in light, three bedrooms (one of which I would use for a home office), two and a half baths, a big open floor plan and a private swimming pool and a nice big patio. Many of the previous houses for sale I've seen in Palm Springs have eight foot high ceilings. I can't stand ceilings that low. I feel like I'm in a cave. And I need a LOT of light. Windows every where! Check it out yourself HERE:

Of course I'm not ready to move yet. I can't move as long as I'm caregiving for Bill. But there may come a time when I need caregiving. That can't happen here where I live in Delaware. If Bill should pass before I do, I am here alone. I have no one. And I can't bring Pat down here in Slower Lower Delaware to take care of me. While I like the Slower Lower lifestyle, that would be a slow death for Pat who loves the big city life style. I actually like that lifestyle too. 

My problem moving though is that I love our house here. And an even bigger problem is what do I do with all my stuff? Oh I know as my friend Larry told me on our FaceTime call this morning, "It's only things Ron." But, and big BUT that "stuff" gives me a lot of comfort. The memories and pleasure I receive from living among my lifetime collection of artwork (paintings, water colors and photos) is priceless. The furniture I can leave behind or give away. But my wall hangings, I can't take all of them with me to a new Palm Springs home but if I was facing living in an assisted living facility (which as regular blog readers of this blog know I will never do), I would have to part with that "stuff." 

That time of life folks, to make BIG DECISIONS.

I'm sure I'm not the only old folk to face these life changing decisions. It's hard folks. But doesn't that Palm Springs home look great? And the lifestyle of Palm Springs if very appealing. 

I call Palm Springs "The Elephant Graveyard of Older Gay Men of Means." 

I'm going there folks. That's where I plan to die. 

 

Falling

Lake at the end of our driveway

 Yesterday, while attempting to get our mail from the melted snow soaked grass and lake in front of our driveway, I fell . . . . . again.

I've done a lot of falling in my life. 

I've fallen in love. 

I've fallen for cons.

I've fallen for lies (different than cons, I'll explain in a future blog).

But perhaps the most dangerous is when my six foot three inch (now six one, I'm shrinking) body falls to the ground.

The earliest fall that I've been told a bout was when I rolled off the porch roof from a second floor window when I was just a baby (probably not even a year old). My uncle Bruce (who was a teenager at the time) was babysitting me. From what my Mother tells me I somehow got my curious little body to the second floor window and got out, rolled down the porch roof onto the cement driveway. 

I was unconscious when my screaming Mother rushed me to the hospital. She said the doctor told her I probably had brain damage (explains a lot in my later life) and he didn't expect me to regain conscientious again. There I was, a little pudge ball of babysat, didn't even make it a year. But, and a BIG BUT, somehow I regained conscientious after several hours and there I was, ready to begin this eighty year journey of falling. My poor uncle Bruce, my Mother told me he was very upset. I guess he would be, he was supposed to be looking after me.

Yesterday's fall was caused by me taking out the trash cans (recycle day yesterday, thus two trash cans), then slogging through the spongy melted snow grass to try and traverse the lake that always appears at the end of our driveway after a rain or snow melt. (See photo taken of said at the beginning of this post.)

I was attempting to step over the flagstones of the flower garden that Bill built at the end of the driveway. My arthritic encased spine didn't get my foot all the way up and that foot hit the stones and I went down, my left knee in the mud and my left hand bracing my fall. Thank God I didn't do a full face plant (which I've done in the past). However, my left hand and wrist is painfully sprained now. 

You don't realize how often you use both hands to do everyday functions. I did last night as I tried to feed Bill then myself. Typing at my computer wasn't too bad but every time I moved my fingers on my left hand, a dull pain reminding me of my stupidity of falling yet again.

A couple years ago I fell in Palm Springs while walking and looking at my iPhone. I didn't see that contraption they use with sandbags to block of the streets for the street festival they had during our holiday. Again I automatically braced myself as I was going "TIMBER!" down. I turned my left hand palm out and SLAM! I went down. Unfortunately my newly upgraded (and insurance covered) iPhone cushioned my fall, not breaking but seriously scratching the glass of my iPhone. I took the iPhone to the Apple store in Palm Desert. Those Apple people, they replaced my iPhone, free of charge.

Several years ago, while Pat and I were in Philadelphia, I stepped off the curb into a construction pothole and did a face plant on the black macadam 21st Street. Good thing Pat was too my left because he stopped the traffic and helped me up. After that fall I looked like someone had beaten me up. Several times I felt the need to explain myself when I was in a restaurant with Pat and the waitress gave me a semi-shocked pitiful "should I report domestic abuse look"

My full face plant fall in Philadelphia

to me as I was giving her my order. Poor Pat, me putting him in this situation. I've often wondered, what if Pat wasn't with me, I think I would have been run over on 21st and Chestnut Streets, never knowing what hit me. What an ignominious end for such a storied and celebrity person such as myself. But I did live to fall again.

Of course my most damaging fall was in 2015. I was leaving work at the hotel on a snowy night and as I was rounding the snow and ice covered corner of the building I slipped and fell and hit my left knee on the drainpipe with frozen water ice sculpture out of it, dislocated my knee and as I attempted to stand up my full body weight tore my left leg quadricep muscle which was the beginning of a months long ordeal to sew up that quadricep muscle and months of rehab. My left leg never was right since then (feels like it's asleep/numb most of the time but at least I can walk. 

Me in the emergency room after my fall. My bottom left leg below the knee wasn't working because I tore the quadriplegic muscle when I stood on my dislocated knee - a very strange feeling

Over the years since we moved to Delaware I've had several other stupid falls. One when I was going into the American Legion to reserve a ride to the Veteran's Hospital in Wilmington. I failed to step up over the yellow painted curb and fell straight forward again bracing myself with my left hand for the fall thus fracturing my lower left arm. That took months to heal. Very painful.

I've had several falls on slick floors at work (the hotel). Those floors are like ice. No damage done (thankfully) on those falls. 

I've also had numerous falls outside gardening. The dirt cushioned my fall. 

One fall I recorded inadvertently. I was rounding the corner to our driveway (yep, same driveway) while I was talking to my friend Larry my iPhone (FaceTime) and I slipped on the muddy driveway and went down, again bracing myself with my left hand. No damage to my iPhone nor me but muddied pant leg. That ending my days of talking to Larry on FaceTime during my morning walks. 

Folks, I can't afford to fall again. Bill needs me. I am his sole caregiver. If I'm gone, he's gone too. He just cannot handle living in a facility. 

Bill took care of me when I was out of commission for twelve weeks when they sewed my quadricep leg muscle together so I could walk again. He can't do that now. I have to get a lot smarter. 

I remember something Judge Judy as the most helpful advice her father gave her to live a long time.

DON'T FALL!

Snow Gone!

Last of the snow - view of our backyard

Yes! The snow is gone! 

The temperature right now is 61 degrees. I'll take it!

It is raining lightly now. A dreary day but doesn't dampen several pieces of good news.

Yesterday Bill's hospice nurse measured his blood pressure and it came in at 103 over 62. That is excellent! First time since Bill came home from rehab last year at this time that his blood pressure was over 90. I took his blood pressure twice after she left just to make sure she got a good reading. I got similar results! Looks like Bill will be around for a while which is excellent news. Bill is a survivor. He's not the way he was before he had his two strokes last year but he is significantly better than he was when he came home from rehab. 

Bill will never be the way he was before his strokes but we can manage this way. He still needs me to help him dress and shower and feed him and give him his pills. He still has cognitive issues, slurs his speech, legally blind and stopped over but we're managing for which I am so thankful. I cannot imagine living her alone knowing he was in some facility. 

This morning I got a haircut. Exciting news huh? Well, I was supposed to get a haircut (which I badly needed) last Friday but the snowstorm put a kibosh on that plans. I was embarrassed to go to my barber this morning looking as shaggy as I did. I was starting to look like a bedraggled homeless old man, not my usual sharp self. 

I'm getting a new microwave oven! I was attempting to replace a burned out light in our fourteen year old microwave and the top vent fell off! Seems like everything in my life is falling apart. The microwave still works but the top vent is just held on my hope and chance. Get a new microwave Ron! Delivery expected this Tuesday.

More good news, our basement wall where our sewer pipe exits is not leaking! Fabulous news! Hopefully I paid #1,450 to get rid of that headache. Now if COVID ever goes away, I can resume my quarterly trips with Pat. This is the time of year that I would be in Palm Springs. Not this year because of my caregiving responsibilities for Bill and COVID. I will never travel as long as I'm caring for Bill. You never know how life works out but maybe life will return to normal or what passes for normal these days with so many of my fellow Americans willing to overturn our democracy in support of The Former Guy and his Republican enablers. Never in my life would I have imagined that our very democracy would be at stake because of the cowardice of so many and so many of my fellow Americans so easily conned by the Former Guy. I'm not feeling optimistic about the future folks with Joe Biden as our president. He's too old and he's a year younger than me! I cringe when he talks. Worst communicator ever. Sometimes I can hardly hear him and when I can he sounds like he's talking from the bottom of a well. Not an inspiring figure at all. Is the best we can do Dems? In the meantime Merrick Garland, our Attorney General is paralyzed to do anything to hold the Former Guy accountable for trying to overturn the presently election. Trump again gets away with breaking the law like he has his whole life. And yesterday Rachel pointed out four cases of voter fraud where Republicans did it. All voted for a dead person. All except one received probation except one who gove five days jail time. Yet a black woman attempted to register to vote, and was advised to do so by her probation office, got a SIX YEAR JAIL SENTENCE because she made this mistake. Yet, as I saw on the Rachel Maddow show last night, Republicans who are convicted of real voter fraud receive light sentences.

See HERE:

 

One day at a time folks, one day at a time.