Ugh Monday

 I need to start pulling Lady out and giving her extra feed, darned prima donna old mare is getting pretty thin on me  Hopefully Tanza doesn't get too hard to catch not having to 'get dressed to eat.'   I may pull him out instead and Lady just not get as much a couple times a week, but she needs the extra most days and its not like I'm riding out regularly.   If I get lined up to have an aide in weekly on Saturdays and get an invite I can always fall back to putting Tanza in the small pen on Friday nights.  

Dad had dire rear today.   He's been irregular in bowel movements for the last couple of months.  Apparently this is common when people get to a point of hardly moving and they don't have a great diet.   So from my two minute internet scanning it is not a big concern.  I told him I guess I can't feed him bacon and ribs on the same day again and he chuckled.  I'm still a bit worried about the urine reduction the last 2-3 days but I don't want to borrow trouble.  

Two weekends in a row I've enjoyed my coffee so much and wanted more.

But I don't want to end up with caffeine jitters and the french press process takes some effort, so I haven't made a second mug.   I was half remembering trips with dad and sis this morning as I sipped my coffee and dad and I munched bacon that I fried up after the farrier had finished trimming and left.  We three had some good times together.   Never perfect bliss, as I would be frustrated hunting that we were not getting out early to increase chances of getting an elk and on trail riding trips I'd be thinking I had to get moving soon to saddle horses so we would get to the next campground before dark, but we managed to mostly enjoy things. 

I'm a bit nervous that dad's kidneys are shutting down.   But possibly his bladder control is improving and he is not leaking nearly 100% of his urine into the depends and overflowing onto the chucks pads so I don't want to panic just yet and tell sis she needs to come down ASAP to make sure she gets a last visit. 

p.s.  I asked dad yesterday if he wanted to go to a clinic, you seem sick.  "no I feel fine."  I didn't have the gumption to try to have a conversation of "are you peeing in the toilet now, or just generating less pee" so I dropped it.   I don't want to not take him to a doc if he has an electrolyte imbalance or something and they could fix him up with a couple hours of IV drip.   But I don't want him stuck in a hospital if he is just fading away and they could only prolong things.   Plus he is still bigger than me, if he doesn't want to go see a doc or have a clinic run some blood tests, it is not happening unless I call 911 behind his back and the paramedics just take him against his desires.   I really don't want to go there. 

Last night his hearing aid wasn't working for him, so I put in a new battery, nada,  put in a new filter after we finished eating country pork ribs.  (Side note to self, the country ribs are NOT mostly bone so don't have to be super cheap to be a good value; and they were fall off the bone tender with pressure cooking and very tasty with brushing bbq sauce on and broiling for a few minutes after the pressure cooking.)  I was playing with the transmitter, sometimes the battery contact works squeezing it and it came on so I called Sis so dad could talk to her for a bit.  She got to experience some of my frustration of dad not hearing clearly and making wild guesses to fill in blanks.   Dad is getting dementia so now some of his guesses are really wild. 

Tuesday p.s.   The urine output seems to be getting more normal.  Hopefully he was just a bit dehydrated.  I have been pushing tea on him like a jewish grandmother would push chicken soup.   He doesn't want water, I get the same way when it is colder and ice water doesn't appeal as much.   Our well is pretty decent but the water doesn't taste great if it is not cold.  

Maybe I should compile a song list with lonely in the title.

 Its a common theme, but usually in song its about romantically lonely, not "wait I am tired of being a virtual hermit, how do I break out of it"    

Largely a side effect of embracing social media and then dropping it because of commie big brother; but also so many people migrated to the big SM platforms; and they don't email or text anymore.   I miss the smaller bulletin boards.  They could be a big time waster too and had some of that narcissistic feedback that I was prone to fall into, but there was more signal to noise ratio.  Oh well, I'll get over this eventually.

Also:   @##%%!  PCS.    IT keep trying different things to keep it from acting up, maybe they'll eventually get it ironed out; but the cost in amount of man hours from them and from me on the ops side if totaled up would probably give management ulcers. 

Lonely Teardrops,  Jackie Wilson 

Lonely Hearts Club,  modern

Mr Lonely.   Bobby Vinton 1962

Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts club band

Only the Lonely,  Frank Sinatra

Only the Lonely (know the way I feel)  Roy Orbison 

You're only Lonely.   J.D. Souther. ** I like.  

Only Lonely,   Bon Jovi

Are you Lonesome Tonight.   Elvis Presley

I'm so Lonesome I could cry.  Hank Williams

So Lonely,  the Police

Lonely Avenue,  Ray Charles

Tired of Being Alone,  Al Green

Alone,  Heart. 

Lonesome, on'ry and mean,  Waylon Jennings

Hey, kind of helps :P

Today I made dad fried eggs

 Noteworthy because I only eat eggs scrambled so I have no technique for frying them but I did them the way he recently described to neighbors visiting how he liked them.  He ate them so they didn't turn out too bad.   They were no doubt crispier on the bottom than his preference and I had to just hope that the runny yolks were cooked enough.   Only way I'm eating egg yolk not cooked solid is in a custard.   Also noteworthy because he requested them instead of just pop tarts.   He had pop tarts at 2:30 am after he woke up needing to use the bathroom.   I don't do great with interrupted sleep, but he was sleeping very hard when I went to bed about 10:30 pm and I just couldn't work myself up to try to force him to get up and use the bathroom then.  That would have postponed my sleep by half and hour or more plus the emotional turmoil on me so it wouldn't have been much better for me.  

I hope this is not a blip rally before a crash in his health, it is encouraging.  Yesterday P came over and visited with him for a bit and dad was coherent for that mostly.   He was talking about some huge brown dog had come in the house and I have no idea what year that was.   I cleaned the big horse pen with the snowplow blade P had on the tractor.   It worked pretty well.  I could only get loose stuff on top but since I had cleaned a few weeks ago that was pretty much enough.  When I'm scraping with the bucket, it is very easy to take too much and make divots plus bog the tractor down. 

The disadvantage was having to crane my neck to look behind to see what I was doing.  But some pain wizard on the neck and taking one ibuprofen at 6:30 and one again right before bed and the neck didn't keep me awake and it feels ok today.  

Dad was up again at noon and had a slice of pizza for lunch and then up again just now a bit before 4 pm. I hope this means he is over whatever bug he seemed to have caught during the early Jan ear and eye doc appointments.  Now if I can just find gracious words to let B know I don't expect her to ride with me every week, I just want to pick a regular day for having someone come in that is likely to be the better day for maybe riding together every few weeks.   I did finally ask neighbor to add me to the neighborhood text group.  I don't know how active they are but at least I'll get the general group chats, should help me feel less isolated. 

I'm all Yay Me, I remembered dad had done a vehicle registration in Aug and ran errands and it kicked his butt; but that meant he must have gotten tags for his p/u.  Looked in his car this morning and found them.  Then I dragged out the kerosene heater I bought 15 years ago, wiped and blew dust out of it and poured in some of my old diesel and it fired right up.   Hopefully it will start and stay on outside on Wed and the farrier can at least warm his hands up.   When I was on FB I would have posted these fun little triumphs there.  Now I'm like,  sis, nor B really want to interrupt their life for a couple minutes to read a just a little tidbit from my life, text.   I've been kind of tempted to go back to FB lately but telling myself "no, don't give Zuckerberg and his commie buddies any extra info to use against you, plus you do not want to be tempted to over share frustrations about dad and have some Karen sic the state on you, or red flag law him or invite some other big brother 1984 dystopia outcome"  

Oh boy Saturday, time to catch up on laundry

I have to do MY laundry today, I'll probably want to wash chair covers by Monday if not tomorrow.  Tanza's breeder picked up his/my awards at the convention I missed and riding buddy B boards there and texted that she had them and we should ride sometime.   I texted back what weekend day did she normally ride cuz I've been thinking of setting up to have aide come regular.   Radio silence since I sent that and I'm struggling with "nobody wants to ride with or be around me" again.    I went to more endurance events last year since the small group seems to not want me along when they ride;  B reached out to me a few times to ride and I reached out to her and we rode just the 2 of us and a couple times with K so B is not completely rejecting me; but it feels like at minimum she doesn't want to say "M and J and xx and I usually ride on X day of the week" because they'd prefer I not be along.  Oh well, this too shall pass.

I should also do the floors again.  The floors are getting mopped more since dad got so ill and I've randomly done some dusting and washing various surfaces too.  But I'd rather be getting out for some fun and having the house in disarray; plus if I get an aide in I can have them do laundry and clean and not be playing catchup with house for a week afterwards every time.  But it would sure help me pull the trigger on arranging an aide to come on a regular day if there was a good chance of a riding date somewhere about every other time.  

Well crap

 Dad was much perkier the last few days but the saint John's wort started giving him dire rear.  I found some capsules I bought and never took a few years ago that are supposed to be a precursor for serotonin.   I guess I'll try those if he goes back to being in the dumps.   Maybe after the 2nd round of IVM he won't need much of anything.   

I did nothing on personal business today and spun my wheels with work stuff.   

I missed the regional endurance convention

 It has usually been the Saturday before Presidents day.   But that is later this year so they had the convention yesterday.   I had thought I would go to the banquet to visit but not do the whole day with wanting to have an aide in to be gone for more than a couple hours but not wanting to figure out several hours of stuff for them to do; and I was not 100% excited to even go to the banquet, but moot point now since it was last night.   

I have got to make a point of taking better care of me and my stuff.   I've been managing to keep horses fed and take basic care of dad but neglecting me.  That is not just a "super busy now with dad care in the mix"; I have been punting on getting to a dentist for two years since not working in Boulder anymore and didn't feel like driving in just for dental visit; but not getting in gear to find a new dentist close by; and punting on the mammogram and on the colol-rectal screening, which is just drop off a poop sample, not the hassle of bowel flush and colonoscopy.  

But I also forgot my chiro appt last month and then felt so busy, plus felt bad about forgetting it that I haven't made a new one and I need to get my p/u serviced and the trailer lights cord replaced and turn signal fixed.   Must remember to ask them to check fuse? or sensor for the heat.   The temp gauge has been stuck on the cold setting when I drive it and it has radiator fluid and blows warm air from the heater.   Then I need to get my car serviced too.  I had decided I was not going to have either in a shop until I had proof of insurance for dad's vehicles.  I think those should arrive early this week.  

And I also need to text B and see if she is willing to ride with me this spring.  I've been so cold that I keep going "oh no, I don't even want to think about hauling out to ride but I should try and get away from the place a couple times a month. 

Signs of life from dad today.

Hopefully this continues.  When he plants himself in his chair and doesn't get up for 18+ hours it is gross even with the pads.   When I buy them they always show re-usable ones as well.   I suppose maybe if you only have the odd accident that might be workable but I always shudder.  I'm doing a bunch of extra laundry as it is.  The landfills will just have to get the disposable pads. 

I felt like I might be coming down with a bug earlier but feel better now.  I'll have to monitor.  I don't want to be taking IVM every other week because of a tiny bit of coughing or other cold symptoms, but don't want to risk getting more than slightly sick either.   The neighbors would cover for me if I did get knocked on my butt with illness, but I'd hate to add it to their busy lives. 

I spent a huge chunk of the weekend on recliner project

 Took me a long time Saturday to get the backrest off of one of the old recliners so I could take it downstairs.  Sunday I got the new recliner with the power lift and water resistant faux leather upholstery set up and I even brought a nightstand down and set next to it.

So of course Dad has not even given it a test sit, sigggghhhhh.     But I have it available, if he gets weak again, I can tell him "you have to use the bed or the lift recliner so I don't have to help you stand up" and he has gotten stronger again and able to get out of his old recliner w/o me having to get my arm under his armpit to provide extra lift.

He seemed depressed this weekend so Sunday night I decided I should give him some of my blue Vervain, and then light bulb "I don't have to worry about dad sunburning, I can give him the St John's wort I bought  this summer and decided not to use because of the sun sensitivity warning on the label"  Knock wood, but I think they are helping a bit.   Last night I reset his preferred TV remote.  I don't know that it was messed up, I just had the slide on TV only rather than on the directTV but that remote is set now to work properly.   If I want to adjust the TV channels I can walk across the room to the other remote if dad's is driving me nuts with its stiff buttons for channel selection.  

Monday morning he was calling "Gail, Gail, get up"  at the head of the stairs to the basement.  Out of a sound sleep sounded like help and I thought he had fallen.   I was annoyed at him all day.  Dementia moment calling for mom when she is 10 years dead, but the rudeness of wanting to wake her up when all he needed was his tea and pop tarts irked me.   This morning he got his own pop tarts.  I'm glad he didn't try to handle the tea mug on his walker tray; high chance of spill and fall or burn but its good he decided to be self sufficient with the pop tarts.   Pop tarts is almost all he's eaten the last week.  He is drinking a protein drink most days and had a small bowl of turkey soup Sunday night when I heated it up and walked into the living room with it.  I was thinking he might be enticed if he smelled it, otherwise I would have eaten it.   I can live with the pop tarts diet, I just have to remember to buy plenty of them. 

Update.  He ate the salad Sarah made him for supper last night and said yes to to a grilled cheese sammich instead of 'just pop tarts.'  Knock wood I think he is feeling a bit better again.  But he doesn't want to go to the dr. appointment.   I told him he has to go.  Hopefully it is not a big fight when its time to get cleaned up a bit and get in the car for that.   I hate going to Dr too, but he hasn't seen his doc in several months and should get the bloodwork to see if medications need to be adjusted since he is on them. 

2nd Update.   I had to call and cancel the doc appointment.   I suppose I'll have to see if dad's regular doc will to 'tele-health' visits and just order whatever bloodwork he needs.   Wasn't a fight, dad flat refused to go and after a few attempts of "you have to, the appointment was made a month ago"  I quit trying to push him.