Tag: nana sitting

Welcome to July

Happy July 1st, everyone. Summer in full swing. The forecast calls for a high of 80 degrees today with rain every day for the foreseeable future. Hooray.

Today is the day that my company’s Covid-19 lock down kind of comes to an end. Prior to Covid I worked in the building four days per week and at home one. Now it’s sort of the opposite. It’s not in the office once per week, it’s more like in the office an average of once per week. Flexibility is our friend. It’s actually in the office 20% of the month… so about once per week.

I was hoping to make my first day back July 13th as my last day before lock down was March 13th and it would be funny for it to be exactly 16 months. Nope. My nana sitting schedule will not allow that. I need to sneak in at least once before the 13th.

Change of subject, I went to sleep around midnight last night and woke up a bit before 5:00. I felt okay, even though I failed to get even five hours of sleep, but my SleepWatch app is telling me my heart rate dip was garbage. It says I was in restful sleep for about three quarters of the night though, so I’ve got that going for me. It’s going to be a long day.

The 50/90 challenge starts in four days. Are you ready to be bombarded with posts regarding awful, pointless, idiotic music, guitar playing, song writing, and recording? I strongly suspect this year’s challenge will end in a crash and burn, and it will likely happen quickly. As of this moment though, I am still thinking I am on board. In fact, I was thinking about swapping out my amplifier. I don’t want to go with a two amp setup like last year. I don’t want to take up that much room in the bedroom anymore. I have been using my Vox AC15 for the last few months. This weekend before things kick off I might swap it for my Fender Bassbreaker 15 again. We’ll see.

Did I mention I have an eye doctor appointment on Saturday? Does it make me sound like an old fart when I say I am seriously looking forward to it? Probably. Okay (son of) boomer.

Right, time for my Nana Sitting duties. I need to bring her the 8:00am meds.

Until next time.

Good day, eh?

Nana Sitting Again

Nana sitting once again. Jen and Harry are at home and I’m not. Harry had his first official day at his new job today. He had some remote orientation sessions last week, but he was on the premises today. He said it went well. He said there was air conditioning. Good thing. My Tuesday was stressful when it probably shouldn’t have been. I need to calm down but there is so much piling on right now that I don’t know how.

Tomorrow is July 1st which marks the day we have to start going back into the office. Not full time, we’re still mostly telecommuters, but it needs to be about an average of once per week. I worked out 4-5 days that will fit into my Nana Sitting schedule as well as our planned overnight trip to visit Bellana. We’ll see if I get pulled into anything that requires in-person attendance that will screw with my plans. Fingers crossed, I certainly hope not.

The Red Sox had a rain delay tonight but they should be starting soon. Game two of the Stanley Cup Finals is tonight. May Montreal suffer a humiliating loss at the hands of Tampa Bay. Distract me from my misery, please.

I am so sad that I’m not at home having Marvel Burgers for Dinner Night with Harry and Jen. Watching Loki, eating burgers and fries. Being together.

I hate this.

Sunday Nana Sitting

My mother doesn’t have dementia, but she does have memory issues left over from the brain tumor she had about 10 years ago.

I got here a little after 6:30. I asked her if she had eaten dinner. She had not. I asked her if she wanted anything. She said she didn’t know. Did she want me to order something? No. Did she want me to make her something? No. She said that she had a big lunch and maybe she didn’t want anything at all. Okay. She takes a lot of meds at 8:00 so I suggested maybe she should have a Boost (it’s like an energy drink geared toward seniors) with her pills. She said that was a good idea.

10 minutes later she was in the kitchen making herself a sandwich. It wasn’t that she changed her mind. It wasn’t that she ignored our little discussion. From her point of view our chat never happened.

Every time I come here I have to tell her how old I am, how old Jen is, how old Harry and Bellana are, where I am going to sleep, that I am going to be working, where I work, how long I’ve been working there, which sibling will be relieving me, which sibling was here the night before.

She doesn’t forget everything. A few examples: She knows who I am married to, she knows who my step kids are, she knows they are going to the same college (or they will be shortly), she knows which channel the Game Show Network and NESN are on. She knows Dad is in the hospital and she knows what’s wrong with him.

I don’t know why I am writing all of this out. It’s stressful and it’s sad, but it doesn’t really add to the difficulty of the situation. It’s just part of how things go. I don’t know. I might delete this later. I don’t know.

She’s complaining about pain tonight but it’s not too bad yet. She’s been up and around and she hasn’t seemed tired, but she just turned off her bedroom light. Maybe she’ll get some sleep. I’m pretty tired, but I am planning on staying awake for a while. TBS is showing Marvel movies. Captain Marvel is on right now. Rick and Morty is hovering out there at 11:00. I already looked up what channel Comcast runs the Cartoon Network on.

Well, I spoke too soon. She just got up again. It’s leg pain tonight. Probably arthritis. It might be a tough night.

Scenes from Nana Sitting

There are alarms on the door but you can’t see the switch without standing on a chair… or taking a picture.

Also, my parents have a weird, foreign, multi-lingual toaster. Weird.

Say Uncle

Holy crap.

Yesterday was the work equivalent of getting run over by a bus. Today has been the work equivalent of getting run over by 10 buses. Tomorrow is probably going to be 100 buses.

It’s not bad things at all, it’s just a lot of things all piling on at once. Holy Toledo, eh?

It’s almost time to punch out. Then I have to wait an hour or so for my sister to get here. Then I fill her in on how the day went, give her the pill caddy, and head home. Jen had a pile driver of a day too so we’re probably going to do some professional venting when I get there. It’s all good. I have missed her like crazy today.

Two minutes to quittin’ time. In the immortal words of David Lee Roth, I think the clock is slow.

Confusion

Well that was fun.

My father is coming home today and I think that’s messing with my mother’s head. We had an argument this morning, the first real argument we’ve had in this run of nana sitting. I had just come out of the shower and was starting to get my shit together for the day and she walked passed me and said she was going out. Ummm… what?

First it was that she needed to go home. This one comes up once in a while. I told her she was already home. No, this used to be home I need to go to the new home. Then it turned into she needed to go meet Dad. But Dad is already coming home today, you just have to wait here for him. No, I need to go to where he is. Do you know where he is? No. Then how can you go to where he is? I’ll find it. You don’t have a drivers license anymore. So? Are you going to walk to Concord? What’s in Concord? Dad. No, I’m not going to Concord. Then where are you going? I’m not telling you. And on and on it went for a solid five minutes or so.

That happened about an hour ago. There haven’t been any more discussion, and she hasn’t made a break for the door. I believe whatever she was thinking of has cleared up now. She sometimes has little moments of confusion when she wakes up. Today she had been awake for a couple of hours, but I think while I was in the shower she dozed off for a few minutes. I know she’s done this a few times when my sister was here, and I think my brother has seen it too. It’s not unusual, and in my limited experience she is able to figure things out on her own as she talks it through. Today felt similar but a little different. She was just so insistent that she had to leave the house, even though her reason to leave changed a whole bunch of times. She was a little pissed off at me for trying to stop her. I’ll take that.

On top of all of that, my work group is down by half today due to vacations and sick days.

I’m thinking today is going to suck in a big way. At least Dad is coming home. Keep focusing on that, Robert.

Addendum: She’s on the phone with my father. I just heard her say she wanted to go out and buy him something but, “Rob wouldn’t let me go.” Maybe she wasn’t confused, maybe she was just being secretive. Who knows.

Another Song for May

Things have been pretty quiet here on Nana Sitting duty. She had a good night last night. Today started out all right, had a bit of a pain hiccup, but has since calmed down again. Fingers crossed for a quiet day.

I watched Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead last night. Eh. Not terrible. Kinda dumb, but not unenjoyable. I actually started it last night and finished it this morning. Every time I put it on my mother would come into the room and I’d pause it to avoid questions of gore. I was watching on my laptop with AirPods in, but I didn’t want to risk grossing her out. When I was 18 I probably would have just let it go. I guess I’m more mature now.

Speaking of mature, the 50 year old red head mixed a song. How grown up of me!

Have I mentioned my beloved wife bought me a new Les Paul for my birthday? Have I mentioned that all of the guitars on this song are that new Les Paul? Have I mentioned that I love my new birthday Les Paul? Not as much as I love my wife, but that gitter is sah-weeeet.

I’m not sure if I am going to submit this one to the RPM site for the Record Every Month thingie. I have three. This one, the last one I posted, and one more that isn’t mixed yet. I haven’t decided which one sucks the least.

Nana Sitting – One Day Early

Tomorrow night was supposed to be my next Nana Sitting night, but my brother and I swapped so I could go to Vermont on Tuesday and he could go to his daughter’s soccer games near the Cape tomorrow. I got here about 6:40 and my mother was asleep. My sister woke her up to say goodbye and she immediately fell back to sleep. She woke up as I was walking into her room to give her the 8:00pm meds. She’s heating up some leftovers for dinner now. I have a feeling it’s going to be a late night, but hopefully it’s a late night with manageable pain levels. Fingers crossed.

I watched the third period of the Lightning/Hurricanes game. As expected, Tampa Bay won. The Avalanche/Golden Knights game just started and the Avs are already up 1-0. As expected.

We had a very nice low key anniversary today. We went to a bakery in Windham that the kids clued us in to and picked up our anniversary cake. Then we just went for a drive. It was lovely. It dawned on me that as I am now 50 years old, driving around to nowhere on a Sunday morning officially makes me a “Sunday Driver”. I joked about trying to find a Bennigans or a Waffle House and Jen joked back that we should go to Cracker Barrel. Getting old sucks, but if you can’t crack wise at your own expense, what good is it?

The Avalanche just scored again. 2-0, halfway through the first.

When we got home the kids came over for an hour or so. We ate the fantastic cake and just spent some quality family time. It was awesome. Unfortunately, I think that’s the last time the four of us will be together before Bellana moves into her apartment in Vermont. We’ll see her tomorrow, but Harry won’t be there. If I stop and think about that, it’s painful. Instead I am choosing not to think about it. I’m choosing to focus on today.

Now I’m here at my mother’s house and I am missing my bride like crazy.

I love you, Jen.

Pill Distribution (Mostly) Complete

I did my Saturday Nana coverage duty. I filled the pill caddie for the week. Mostly. One med ran out so I technically filled the pill caddie for the next three days, and 99% of it for the rest of the week. The pharmacy should be calling for a pick up on the one remaining prescription later today. No problem.

Similar to last night, she was good until just about 9:00am and then, like a light switch flipped, she was bad. Probably not as bad as last night though. We will see. Hang in their, Mom.

Call it a Night

It’s 1:30am. My mother is still asleep. She woke up enough to get under the covers, but that’s it. Fingers remain fully crossed. My alarm is set. My CPAP machine is plugged in and the tank is full of distilled water. I think I’m good to go to sleep.

Wish me luck.