Small Thoughts for Small Minds

Kel’s mom is getting worse.

Her diabetes, previously requiring only two (I think) shots a day, now requires regular monitoring and shots or snacks (sugar). This came about a couple of months ago when she woke up in the middle of the night and started babbling manically. Since coming home from Carrington Place, she avoids talking whenever possible. She’s embarrassed because she can never say the right words. That night, she talked more than she had the previous year (not that it made ANY sense). When it happened, we didn’t know what was wrong and called 911. Turns out her blood sugar was too low. (And we had another episode like that early Tuesday morning.) As I mentioned, since then we (and I mean Kel, Jerry and Karen*) have to check her blood sugar at least every two hours. Depending on a schedule from the doctor and the blood sugar level, we give her one of two types of insulin or give her something to eat.

The caregivers (Mon-Sat, 10 - 4 p.m.) are NOT nurses. They are not allowed to give shots, so either Kel or Karen has to be home during the day. Kel has a couple of leads for a good job. Once she’s employed, that leaves Karen to handle the shots during working hours. Which means that Karen can’t leave the house for more than about an hour and a half at a time…

We can’t go out for dinner as a family (Kel, myself & the kids) without coordinating with Jerry and Karen (mostly for Haley’s cheerleading practices, tumbling, games, etc.). We can have Haley babysit Keira and Dyson, but not the old folks. Unfortunately, Kel’s brothers are not willing to help out with the shots and potty duty, so the four of us (Kel, Jerry, Karen & I) can’t go out together for dinner and drinks, with or without the kids. (Luckily Ian (Jerry & Karen’s 20-year-old son, who’s currently staying at Mike’s (Kel’s oldest brother) house in Daleville (nearby), and he’s been willing to take care of them, but he’s going back to college in January.)

We’ll have to make a decision soon - hire full-time nurses (instead of part-time caregivers) or put her in a nursing home.

Even though she can’t express herself very well, Nana seems to know that we can’t take care of her at home much longer. And she seems to accept this…

Kel has found a nice place associated with a Catholic church in Roanoke (her parents are Catholic) where they can share a small "apartment".

But Pop, as opposed to Nana, is going to be really pissed when we move him into a nursing home. He isn’t sufficiently aware of his shortcomings to understand the need.

Plus, he’s a bit paranoid - on a number of occasions, he’s told the caregiver that we are stealing his money or similar accusations.

While Nana has given up, and doesn’t even try to communicate, she seems more mentally cognizant than he is.

We can’t let him get his own pills out of the pill caddy any longer because he can’t keep track of which day/time it is.

He used to be able to put away the dishes after the dishwasher finished (although he couldn’t tell the difference between "clean" and "rinsed but not washed"). He can’t remember where to put stuff any more, so that’s out as well.

Pop doesn’t have good control over his, umm, bathroom functions, which leads to the caregivers and Jerry/Karen/Kel** having to clean up messes in his bathroom on a regular basis (sometimes more than once a day). That kind of thing is grinding them (Jerry/Karen/Kel) down.

I used to believe that he’d live to over one hundred. Now that doesn’t seem too likely…

It is hard to watch. I never knew him before his first stroke. Apparently he was a very different person (personality) before.

Sigh…

* Yes, I am a bad son-in-law. I’ll do the testing and shots if I’m the only one in the house, but that’s rare…

** Again, the bad son-in-law. I will NOT wipe Nana or clean up after Pop. Sorry. Just can’t do it. I had serious gag reflexes changing Keira and Dyson’s diapers, but I did do that because they were my own children. I just can’t handle strong odors… At least I do the cooking when I’m in town…

I’ve got a LOT of these mushrooms growing just in front of my house. (The north side, which gets absolutely no direct (and very little indirect) sunlight.)

So, the question is, "What are they and, more importantly, are they edible?"

I feel fairly confident that it is Clitocybe. But which one?

Perhaps Clitocybe geotropa (edible)? Maybe Clitocybe clavipes (inedible)? Possilby Clitocybe rivulosa (deadly poisonous)?

Hmm…

Edited to add:

Here is a detailed cross-section of an individual mushroom:

This is one of the smaller ones. You can see the size relative to the nickel.

This is the barn across the street. Now if we only didn’t have a road between our house and this view, I’d be happier.

Maybe our NEXT house can have a bit more privacy…

It’s been awhile since I’ve provided an update on how our resident stroke victim has been doing.

First, the "interesting" bit…

Last Tuesday, while making a bathroom run, she tangled her feet in the bathroom throw rug and fell. After a few days of saying she was okay (but complaining about pain) we finally dragged her to the emergency room. (She’s terrified of leaving the house…)

Turned out that she had a hairline fracture of her upper humerus. Since the fracture is so close to the shoulder, a cast wouldn’t work so well. As such, she’s got her arm in a sling. Of course, since it is her right arm (her stroke-affected arm), she held it immobile anyway. Not much functional difference…

When she was at Carrington Place, she was always excited to see visitors, especially the kids. She kept telling us that she was getting better and she would be able to come home soon.

Once it was time to come home, she was very scared. She said she wasn’t better yet.

At home, any time we asked her if she wanted to go out, she’d get scared and say that she wasn’t ready - that she’d do it when she was better.

We told her that this might be as good as she was going to get, so she should enjoy life as best as she could. Perhaps we were too convincing. She seems to have given up.

Whereas, once upon a time, the kids playing in front of her would fill her with joy, now she just worries that they’ll hurt themselves or break something. She’d rather not look at pictures of our trips, which she once loved to do.

Even at Christmas, she showed no enthusiasm for her gifts or for watching the kids open their gifts:

Like Kel, Karen & Jerry, the caregiver (Monday - Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) will usually make her walk to the bathroom and to the dining room. (Although Nana complains…)

Outside of bathroom trips and meals (and an occasional bath), Nana never leaves her chair in the sunroom. She doesn’t care what is on the television. Sometimes Kel will put a movie on, some type of movie like they used to watch together. No interest. Her only interests are going to the bathroom, getting her shots (insulin), meal time (although she has no comment on the actual food) and bed time.

Every now and again, we can see a spark of her old mischievous self. Maybe a smart aleck comment or a smile at a joke. Rare though.

She is self-conscious of her inability to say the words that she wants to say. I think that has really caused her to withdraw. Although, she can speak pretty clearly when irritated - but if she stops to think about what she is saying then she usually gets it wrong. Since her world has contracted so much, it is pretty easy to know that, when she tells us, "I need, can have, my fish", she means she wants her blanket. Or if she says, "The wall, I mean, please house!", means she wants us to turn on the light…

Bottom line? She’s given up on life and is just waiting to die. I sometimes wonder if she’d be happier in a home without the pressure (self-inflicted) to be her old self.

Pop is getting worse as well. His dementia is gradually increasing. His health seems pretty stable - no recent heart, prostate or other problems of the past, although he does seem weaker. After Nana’s fall, he was told that he shouldn’t walk her to the bathroom. I think that’s a bad idea - helping her out (walking her to the bathroom, getting her a drink, getting her blanket, etc.) is about all he can handle anymore. (He does still put away the dishes from the dishwasher in the morning, although I’d rather he didn’t. When it comes time for me to cook dinner, I have problems finding stuff… Plus, he sometimes puts away stuff that has not yet been washed and I have to go through all the cabinets looking for rinsed-but-not-washed dishes. And hoping that I got all of them…)

I’ve been told to stop buying ice cream - Keira and Haley are upset, but Pop eats too much and apparently it leads to diarrhea (and he is too proud to wear his Depends) which leads to major messes…

He hasn’t had (many? any?) rage episodes recently, which is a relief. I guess I’m safe from his killer angels for the time being…

If I’ve gotten any of this wrong, hopefully Kel or Jerry can comment with the correct info…

More miscellany…

For some unknown reason, Haley and Keira decided to convert the stairs into a slide. Using blankets, pillows and a lack of good sense, here we are!

(The girls insisted that I document their insanity…)

Haley got lucky with the placement of the pillow. Unbeknownst to me as I was snapping the picture, while sliding down the not-so-slippery slope, she almost completely lost her pajama bottoms…

Keira laments her nearly straight hair. One night she marched into the basement TV room and demanded that I braid her hair (while it was still damp so it would be wavy in the morning when she took out the braids).

Not a single "thank you", by the way…

I was in London for a couple of days in December. I took a LOT of pictures of different cask ales (provocatively posing by their pull handles…) but very few other pictures. Of course, I still have a LOT of pictures from my previous trip to London in September that I haven’t bothered to post…

I have no idea what the back story (if any) is on this building. Just caught my eye as I was walking back to the hotel…

This is the Natural History Museum.

I had an overnight flight to London (as is typical in that direction). I got to the hotel at 10 a.m. (London time, of course). Naturally, I couldn’t check in until around 2 p.m. I left my bags with the bell captain and took a walk. (Exhausted since, as usual, I barely slept on the flight over. Coach seats are NOT conducive to relaxation…)

Just a couple of blocks from the hotel I found the Natural History Museum. It is pretty impressive - both the structure and the displays. I spent a couple hours there, mostly looking at the dinosaur exhibits. Dyson would’ve been TOTALLY pumped…

A view of the Tower of London from the train (on the way back from a dinner with a customer in Essex)…

Jerry and Karen came down to the dungeon to watch the Steelers/Jaguars playoff game (5 January - wild card weekend). Karen, being a native Pittsburgher proudly displays her Terrible Towel.

Note: the guy who came up the the Terrible Towel, Myron Cope (infamous broadcaster for the Steelers and sports writer), died just a couple of weeks ago. In an interview after he retired in 2005, Myron Cope said:

"I’ve often thought that, when I kick the bucket, there’d be a story that said, ‘Creator of towel, dead.’ I would like to be remembered as a pretty decent writer.'’

As for the chip clip on Karen’s bangs… well… umm… Nope. I just can’t explain that one…

For some reason, Keira wanted to pose with the stuffed animals she got for Christmas. (This was not long after New Years - after Kel & Donna stripped the tree of ornamentation and before my lazy butt dragged the tree to the roadside for removal…)

Of course, monkey-see monkey-do…

I somehow managed to copy this picture into the wrong folder on my hard drive when I was putting together the post with the turtle pix from Hawai’i. This turtle was quite memorable because of the polyps growing around the point were its flippers emerged from its shell. Both front and back flippers…

Whew! A lot of posts the past couple days… Let’s see if I can keep up the momentum…

…that don’t justify individual entries…

Even an old dog (Barley will turn eight on Monday) needs a bit of comfort now and again..

Dyson and I went down to Martinsville to see the Virginia Museum of Natural History to feed his current insatiable demand for dinosaurs. Not much of a museum, but he was pumped.

Apparently, as part of the grand opening (reopening?) of the museum, Martinsville played on the dinosaur theme and had local artists and volunteers paint fiberglass dinosaurs which were placed all around town. There are still a few around town, including this one just outside the museum. (Seems to be a spreading meme in urban America - I’ve seen pigs, dolphins, cows…) Anyway, Dyson was enthused:

A few brewing pictures from my February 2nd batch - my only brew session since early September 2007 (and I split that batch with Dave).

After pumping the bitter wort into the fermenter, there were a few hops left over in the kettle. This goes up to about the three gallon mark. Yes, I like hoppy beers…

One problem with putting eleven gallons in a 12.5 gallon fermenter, especially using a relatively powerful pump, is that the bitter wort foams quite a bit. (This is before I aerated with oxygen.) Makes it a bit difficult to put the lid on…

Even with the lid clamped on (in three places), the pressure of the fermentation forced some of the foam out through the seal. Despite the one inch ID (inner diameter) of the blow-off hose…

After two plus weeks of dry-hopping and a few days chilled to 40 degrees F (to generate any chill haze and then applying the gelatin to clarify), I’m ready to keg this batch tomorrow. Can’t wait to have some homebrew again!

When we were up at Wintergreen for our annual ski weekend (with Anne, Dave & Julia (plus Julia’s friend), Donna, and Matt & his daughter Maddie), I volunteered to make dinner on Saturday night. (Since I wasn’t skiing, it gave me something to do other than sit around and drink beer and snack…)

I started off with a creamy potato/leek soup with smoked salmon. (Slightly amusing story - I was surfing the web for a recipe. Usual procedure - looking at each recipe and doing a quick evaluation on whether or not I would like it. As I was clicking on the results, I realized that one of them (on the first page of results even) was from this very blog! I forgot that I had included the recipe when I posted about making it… So, of course, I made MY version of it…)

For the entrée, I made one of our favorites, seared pork tenderloin with a cocoa spice rub. (Make it TONIGHT - it is soooo easy and soooo good…)

I also sautéed some asparagus (in olive oil, with plenty of garlic, naturally). After I was done sautéing the asparagus, I put it in a backing dish and grated some Parmesan over it. I washed the skillet and dried it off with some paper towels. With my left hand, I set the pan down on the counter and with my right, I used the damp paper towel to wipe off the glass surface over the stove’s eye (still very hot). By trying to do two things at once (while talking to Anne as well), I failed to do either very well. I only managed to get the pan less than half on the edge of the counter. As it, inevitably, fell, I put my (bare) foot out to break the fall. At the same time, I tried to keep my balance by leaning on the stove, burning my hand on the eye. The handle of the pan, of course, pointed straight down and hit the top of my foot.

My foot immediately bruised, swelling up to a half-golf-ball-sized welt.

Over the next week or two, the loose blood from the bruise gradually followed the influence of gravity. At one point, it pooled on the tops of my three middle toes:

I visited Wilmington, North Carolina, a couple of weeks ago. One of our field service engineers, Paul, was up from Charleston for a couple of days to do some "clean up" work on the new cranes. For the heck of it, he decided to stay in Carolina Beach instead of Wilmington (it was only a 15 minute drive to the port). I couldn’t complain - my friends, Esther and Kelly, live in Carolina Beach. Plus, the Fat Pelican bar was just across the street from the hotel. (Kelly used to own the place years ago. Back then, it was a wine & beer store, not a bar. He bought a used 40′ reefer (refrigerated shipping container), refurbished it and used it as a walk-in cooler. It is still in use in the bar. Want a non-draft beer? Walk in and pick one out from the generous selection and, upon exiting the reefer, show it to the bartender to add to your tab.)

Paul headed back to Charleston on Wednesday afternoon, but I stayed to have dinner with Esther and Kelly (their house was less than a mile walk from the hotel). We sampled all of Kelly’s homebrews and Kelly made a fantastic shrimp scampi. We then walked to the Fat Pelican for some after-dinner drinks. Good times were had by all…

February really isn’t the best time to visit the beach in North Carolina. But the view from my hotel room wasn’t so bad. Actually walking on the beach, with the temperatures just above freezing and a strong wind, didn’t seem terribly attractive…

One of the things that Jerry, Karen & Haley brought with them was Haley’s trampoline. A few days ago, Dyson was tumbling head over heels, and the contact with the nylon surface seemed to electrify him…

That’s all for now. Gotta do some laundry and take a shower - Dyson and I are going to the Science Museum of Western Virginia (Roanoke) after he and Keira finish their riding lessons. (Kel & Keira, along with Donna, are going to a movie…)

Exciting stuff!

Kel felt that it was inappropriate that my hair was almost as long as hers. Or maybe she just felt it was unprofessional. I guess I couldn’t argue with the latter.

Six weeks or so ago, I completely spaced on a haircut appointment. Since I haven’t had any business travel in that period, I didn’t rush to get my hair cut. One of these days, I’d like to let it go, but considering my trip next week to a potentially big customer, well, now’s not the time…

Here’s a before and after shot.

Maybe I should’ve gotten a side shot to show how dang long it was on the top - big sweeping wave…

Natalie (the stylist that does the whole family’s hair) cut off between two and four inches…

God. What a boring post!

Sorry…

Inspired by I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? I felt compelled to create a few of my own…

Keira:

Keira again:

And even more Keira:

Dyson:

Dyson again:

Barley:

Seamus:

Oliver:

Shyza:

And Shyza again:

And others…

Okay, enough playing for tonight…

…since I am cavalierly disregarding copyright laws…

I haven’t had time to post lately, so here’s a little cartoon that seems appropriate…

Earlier this week, the rehab center ran some blood tests on Kel’s mom. They found that she had way too much rat poison (warfarin) in her blood and her blood was too thin (thin? what does that REALLY mean?). Upon that discovery, they sent her to ER to monitor her closely. They adjusted her meds and kept a close eye on (what exactly?) before sending her "home" (the rehab center) today.

Before leaving Charleston earlier today, I got an email from Michelle (who’s been staying with us providing a lot of wonderful support while I’ve been gone and Kel’s been wrapped up in providing coverage (and dealing with) this insane VT massacre) stating that Mom was being moved back to the rehab center. As such, I stopped by on my way home from the airport.

She seemed to be asleep when I got there. I stood just inside the door to the room. I didn’t want to wake her if she was actually asleep, but I did want to talk to her. After waiting just a minute or two, she opened her eyes and saw me. She was really happy to see me.

When I pulled out my camera, she was concerned about the appearance of her hair. I assured her that everyone just wants to see her smile, so I told her to smile pretty while I took the picture. After I took the picture, she told me she was getting pretty…

She showed me that she could move her right arm quite well, but she still has trouble with control of her fingers. She also reasserted that she was going to get better…

Michelle stopped by (before I did) and brought her some of her mail, including a slew of catalogs. Surprisingly, Mom wasn’t interested in looking at them - which is pretty atypical of her pre-stroke behavior (and she was a big fan of QVC…)

Before I left, she told me I was beautiful. Now I’m really concerned about her mental recovery…