Long Day

I’m a little more than half way through my 48 hour parent sitting shift. I have been here for approximately 28 hours but I swear it has felt like 9,000.

Nothing bad happened today, it just seemed to drag on forever. My father has been fine. The home health worker sat around bored for most of her shift, but she was able to pitch in with dad on the couple of instances where he needed a little help. My mother hasn’t had a bad day pain-wise, but memory wise has been difficult. They were supposed to go and get their haircut at 1:00pm. My sister was going to come over and pick them up and drive them to the appointment. On the way over the woman who cuts their hair called her and said she was on her way to the house. What?

So instead of my sister and my nephew coming over and then everyone leaving the house but me, every one stayed and we added the hair stylist too. It was really hard to work while all 600 people were here. My step son coming over for lunch made it all better, but I ended up putting noise canceling headphones on and cranking the volume so that I could almost shut them all out. It didn’t work that well, but it was better.

The whole time the hair dresser was here my mother kept asking her how she found them. She was constantly insisting that this is not her house even though all of us assured her that this is the house she’s been living in since 1969 or so. She wouldn’t have it. She was positive she wasn’t in her house and she didn’t know where she was and therefore the hair dresser should not have been able to find them. My father whispered to me that she is getting much worse. She is. It’s heartbreaking and it’s awful.

Tomorrow is another day. They have another appointment in the afternoon, but it’s a tele-health appointment with their primary care physician. My brother is going to come over and take the call with them. I have a meeting at about that time so I don’t know if I will be able to join them. My father has been plowing through bottled water this week and we ran out of his favorite kind. Also, strangely, he is craving Rice Krispies. My sister stocked up on both today and will bring them by tomorrow. My goal is to focus on work as much as the situation will let me, and then when 6:30-7:00pm finally arrives I will get the fuck out of here, go home and watch The Suicide Squad with my wife and my step son, and not come back here until Tuesday night.

I need this to be over. I need to spend time with my wife. I need to spend time with my step son before he leaves for school in a couple of weeks. After that, I need my fucking band to get back together and that can’t happen while I’m parent sitting. I need this to be over.

My Step Son is the Best Person on Earth

My step son is literally the best person on Earth. Holy crap is he amazing!

Just as I was about to start my lunch break he called me. He asked if I was busy and I said no. He asked if I could come out to my car. What? Sure! I went outside and there he was. He brought lunch for both of us. Five Guys, to be exact. Can you believe that? Can you believe how amazing that was?

I love my step son so much I just don’t have the words. That was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. Ever. I am so happy. I honestly think I might cry.

Heroes of the Heatwave

Say hello to my two best friends.

Humid

Things stayed quiet last night, other than the 3:30-4:00am bathroom experience I mentioned in the last post. Outside of that it was okay. I failed to hit the five hours of sleep mark, but only because I was awake for that half hour. I only came up short by a few minutes. My SleepWatch numbers weren’t great, my heartrate dip was only 11%, but I am feeling okay right now. We’ll see how I feel around 3:00pm today. I’m guessing I will be a bit of a mess.

My parents are okay, dad is still asleep. I have 20 minutes to go until I have to give them their meds, and the home health help should be here around the same time. None of that is the story today.

No, the story today is the weather. Specifically the heat and humidity. It was still 80 degrees out at midnight last night. It’s 77 right now, but the humidity… There is so much moisture in the air that just sitting here has me drenched in sweat. There are two air conditioners in the house, one in my mother’s bedroom and a huge one in the living room. Neither of my parents like to have them on. I don’t even know why I put them into the windows this year. The big one displays the air temperature in the room and my father doesn’t like to turn it on unless the room temperature is above 80. Yes, you read that right… 80 degrees.

I have my little desk fan, which is pretty much the hero of 2021, and someone also brought a bigger, yet still small enough to keep on the desk, fan that I have on the floor blowing straight up at me. Those two things together will hopefully keep me from overheating or literally drowning in my own sweat. The forecast is calling for mid nineties with humidity in the high nineties (it’s 96% right now) and a heat index (whatever that is) that should make it feel about 10 degrees hotter than it is.

Yippee.

Should be an exciting day. Duck and cover and stay cool, folks.

Patiently Waiting

I went to bed a little before midnight. After 1:00 I woke up enough to hear my mother go into the bathroom. Next thing I know it’s 3:30 and she’s in the bathroom. I knocked on the door but it took a couple of tries before she responded.

The question then is this: at 3:30 was she in the bathroom again, or was she still there from 1:00. We may never know. I just know that it’s 3:45 now. I can hear her moving around in there, but now I need to take a piss.

Fun.

20 Songs Down, 30 to Go

20 songs down. 40% of the project is complete.

I told you I was going to mix a song tonight.

Here it is:

I still have five minutes of “exercise” to do, and then maybe I’ll try to sleep. It’s 11:06 and all is quiet on the parental front. Fingers crossed.

I Love My Family

I love my family. They are the best. You will never meet finer people.

Knowing that I am going to be at my parents’ for two whole days and that I won’t see them at all during that time, they asked me if I wanted to play a game of Ticket to Ride Online with them. We all have it on our iPads and figured it would be a nice thing to do together even when we aren’t together. Look me in the eye and tell me that isn’t the nicest thing anyone has ever done. I mean, seriously. How wonderful are Jen and Harry? I know Bellana’s not a big fan of that game, but maybe we can find something we can all play, assuming we can sneak it in around her work schedule as she is working up a storm in the final weeks before school starts.

I’m not sure who setup the network at my parents house, but I am pretty sure they have a firewall of some kind that is blocking online games. I’ve mentioned my troubles with World of Warcraft in the past, and tonight I had to switch from the wifi to my iPhone’s hotspot in order to connect to the game. I know my sister’s kids were doing some of their remote school here last year. I wonder if they put something in to keep them honest.

Speaking of online games, Jen and I have been playing World of Warcraft for the last month or so. WoW is owned and operated by a company called Blizzard. Blizzard has been getting demolished with charges of various kinds of sexual misconduct in the work place. I believe their CEO resigned over it recently. Karmically speaking (I do not believe in Karma, but the principal still applies) we are both starting to feel uncomfortable supporting the company so we’re looking for something else to play. Jen was looking into Star Wars: The Old Republic today. She won’t have to twist my arm to play that one. A game where I can be a Jedi? Sure! A game where I can get in touch with my dark side and be a Sith? Sure! I’ll have to download that one when I finally get home from this nana/papa sitting shift, sometimes in 2043 or so.

Last time I was here I mentioned that the only place I feel comfortable doing my “exercise” is in the cellar, and I don’t like going down there and leaving my parents alone without having a legitimate reason to go down stairs. There is laundry to do tonight, so I have my reason. I didn’t have a chance to start it until a little after 9:00, and only had five out of 30 minutes done, but I think I can close the ring. I have been down stairs once and I got my time up to 15 minutes. I think I will have two legitimate reasons to go into the cellar before midnight and I think I can get in the 15 remaining minutes. We’ll see. It’s really hot here and the humidity is unreal. We’ll see.

I left work for the day at 3:30 today so that I could spend some time with Harry before I came to my parents house. We watched the first episode of What If…? It was really good. I can’t wait for more! While we were busy with the Marvel fun, an email was sent to the whole company saying that our return to the office policy was changing again. Our requirement to come in approximate once a week has been temporarily put on hold due to the increasing Covid-19 numbers (which reminds me, I haven’t updated my spreadsheets yet). My boss called me a little while ago to make sure we were all on the same page. It’s looking like going into the office is off the table until (probably) mid-October. Obviously that could change at any time, but I feel much safer. It was pretty uncomfortable being there the last couple of times. I didn’t feel unsafe per se, I just didn’t feel comfortable. Tonight’s announcement was like a sigh of relief.

Okay, I need to update my MA and US Covid-19 numbers spreadsheets, and then I need to mix a song. All of that sandwiched around laundry and “exercising” and actually going to sleep and stuff. Here’s hoping the quiet night stays quiet. Fingers crossed.