Made Me Think

Today, thinking about my own aging, I considered the importance of desperately wanting my time to be my own, of hoping Mom and Dad can forgive me for that. MMT--I'm not as good about forgiving transgressions that I, myself, haven't already committed.

Made Me Think

Last night I finished a book about China written by a Peace Corp worker who lived there and taught literature at Fuling University ("River Town" by Peter Hessler). I now recognize the futility of attempting to understand a culture using any language other than the one that gave it birth. MMT

Made Me Think

Last night, I sat on the edge of Dad's bed holding his wasted and emaciated body against me as tightly as he clung to the IV pole and to life. I had just released him to hospice care, while at the same time I was fighting to keep him from a fatal fall. MMT

Made Me Think

Today, while walking the dogs out by Cedar Fort, I slipped in the muck and fell. My feet went high and to the left, my hands frantically, and unsuccessfully, tried to get rid of my pockets, and I landed with a harmless thunk and slurp on my right hip. Had Dad been there, we'd have been doubled over in laughter, sliding and flailing in the mud. But he wasn't and I just slithered to my feet, hands still in my pockets and walked on, with cakes of mud falling from my jeans as they dried. Didn't even crack a smile. MMT

Made Me Think

Yesterday, Mom told me of a visit from an old friend. The friend reminisced with Dad about all the jokes he used to play on her. Mom said Dad "lit up like a Christmas Tree." I realized his friend gave him the gift of being what he once was instead of what he is, even if it was only for a moment. MMT

Made MeThink

Last night, I asked Dad how his day was. He made the same gesture with his hands (wagging them slowly back and forth above his head) that his mother used to make when she didn't want to speak for fear of betraying her true emotion. MMT

Made Me Think

This week, Mom lodged a formal sexual harassment complaint against her dark, young, and handsome CNA. She said he wanted her to get naked and have fun in the shower with him. In her mind she is still the beautiful, buxom, sweet sixteen she once was, needing protection from a world of hormone-crazed men. MMT

Michigan in April

July 4th Salt Lake City

Austin

Finally

Looking North
From the north corner
Looking East



Looking South


Looking West
Right of the gate

And while I worked like a dog...

What's left

Everyone else's stuff...

Final WIDTW

I used the T that we used to hold the drywall for the ceiling up and lifted a couple of old cabinets up against the wall in the furnace room while I quickly put in a screw. Then I mounted them more firmly and put all the building tools and materials from the hall into the two cupboards

I reorganized everything in that room so that the cat boxes weren't right next to the furnace cold air intake, and put a Febreeze dispenser there instead. Much better upstairs!

So all I have left to do is clean out the exercise room. Whew!!

WIDTW #3

Here is the hall way before this weekend
Looking right of the stairs, then left. Actually, this picture was taken much earlier. This weekend, there was a couple of layers of left-over drywall and lots of other c__p!
Here's after

WIDTW #2

Before this whole thing started there was a room. Dank and dark and musty, but it stored all the things that you saw in the last post.

I moved all the stuff into the room next door, tore the walls down....
Then Cal rebuilt them. Over Thanksgiving, Sus and Alex, Liv and Dennis put up the dry wall and the first layer of mud. Over the next several months I managed to finish the mudding. then I laid the tile and finally primed it. Took me a really long time to get motivated to do ALL that.
This weekend, I painted it, hung the door and...
Filled it again. The hardest part was moving that 7 foot-tall stainless steel unit from the garage, down the stairs, and into the room. Did I say it is on wheels? Turned out to be pretty exciting once I got it unjammed out of the stair well--that bugger is heavy!! The second hardest was moving 20 plus ammo boxes full of brass and lead. Dropped one of them on my foot...