Tag: parent sitting

Holding it Together

The first half of the work day was nice and busy so I didn’t have time to freak out over the future or anything freak out worthy. The afternoon might be a little slower, so I could let my mind wander to things that scare the hell out of me.

On the upside, we’re going to try to do our Wednesday burgers and Marvel thing with Harry. Jen and I are planning on having burgers for dinner after I finish work, and we’re going to sneak in today’s episode of What If while we eat. It’s not set in stone yet, but Harry is going to try to join us via an group watch thing. He won’t be here with us, but he’ll be watching with us. I’m looking forward to that enough that I haven’t even let myself look up the topic of today’s episode. It is not set in stone yet, of course. He might not get back to his dorm in time. That is perfectly all right though.

The floor in the cellar is still wet, but when I last went down stairs to check there wasn’t a lot of standing water. I’ve gone there 2-3 times this morning and vacuumed up whatever I found. Also, the dehumidifier has been working it’s tail off. I know that at some point after I leave tonight the dehumidifier will be full enough to auto-shut off, and then there will be nothing to fight the flood until I come back tomorrow night.

It’s going to be a long second half of the work day. Then once I get to my parents’ house it’s going to be a long night taking care of things there. Then tomorrow… I don’t want to talk about the rest of the week because I am afraid of jinxing things. Shut up, fat boy.

Okay, back to work. The email is piling up and I have a couple of meetings to get to.

Rock on, constant readers*

*Constant readers! It just popped into my head! In a post a couple of days ago I was trying to remember the phrase Stephen King uses to address his readers in his afterwards. Constant readers! That’s it! Kick ass, Mr King!

Wednesday News

Oh, it’s Wednesday again. When we dropped off my step son at his dorm last week, Wednesdays were the days I was most worried about in terms of being sad because he’s not around. Wednesdays are the days that the new Marvel TV show episodes hit Disney+. New Episode days (they used to be Fridays, but Disney changed it for some reason) have been spent in the living room eating burgers and fries for dinner while watching the latest. That dates all the way back to WandaVision, which seems like ages ago, but was really only a few months back.

On the ride home from Vermont I said to my wife, I’m not looking forward to Wednesdays when he’s not around for Marvel and Burgers night. Sad face. It’s okay though. I can be sad for me and thrilled for him at the same time. He’s starting day three of his University Academic Career today. Put simply: He’s the man.

Tonight is a parent sitting night for me so I will be staying over there. I’m super nervous. There are things happening over there that will hopefully resolve all of the out standing issues but I am scared shitless to write about them out of fear of something going wrong and all of it falling apart. I’ll keep my mouth shut for a while longer. Hopefully only a few days.

I just vacuumed up Lake Asshole. The dehumidifier is running and I’ll empty it as soon as it fills. We have another hurricane remnant on the way tomorrow. I haven’t checked the forecast yet today but as of yesterday the potential for tons of rain was very high. I need Lake Asshole to be as dry as possible before I leave tonight.

I keep forgetting to take the trash barrels in off the street. Trash pickup was yesterday afternoon and the barrels are still out there. Remind me to take care of that, will ya?

The potential for freak outs over the course of the rest of the week are very high. Just be warned. If I start losing my shit in the middle of the night while I’m at my parents’ house and have no one to talk to about it, I’m going to unload here.

Okay. Time to punch in to work. I have a bunch of meetings on the schedule today. Here’s hoping that distracts me from all the other shit for a while at least.

Happy September. Summer is officially over and Winter has officially begun. San Diego is calling me and I am not sure I can resist her for much longer.

Roll Reversal

Big time childhood roll reversal going on this morning. Morning pill distribution is at 8:00am. At the stroke of 8:00, thanks to the iOS Reminders app, I brought them both their morning meds and accompanying stuff (water, food, ect). They were both sound asleep. Neither of them wanted to wake up. It was 8:15 before I got any real response out of them.

Flash back to me at age 6-18. 12 years of schooling with approximately 180 days per year worth of me not wanting to get out of bed each morning and my parents constantly yelling at me to get my ass in gear.

Life is weird, you know?

#Sarcasm

<sarcasm>

I’m back to my parents place for the night and it’s awesome. It’s a total blast. I have no residual emotional stress relating to spending nights in the house where I was so depressed that my best friend once told me he was worried I was going to do something to hurt myself. Nope, I feel great now. Just wonderful.

Obviously those fears were unjustified, but there were times when I was worried about the same thing. All of that was in this house. Yup, I love it here. Just love being here. Sure, the day I moved out ranks in the top five happiest days of my life*, but that doesn’t mean that staying here again isn’t the most awesome, awesome thing I could do.

Being here is the best.

</sarcasm>

*Off the top of my head, could my short list of happiest moments be?…

1. Our wedding.
2. Jen saying yes when I proposed.
3. Falling for Jen.
4. Meeting the kids.
5. Moving in with Jen and the kids.
6. Buying and moving into a house of our own.
7. Harry being his old self again after a couple of days worth of near unconsciousness in the PICU.
8 & 9 (tied). Bellana and Harry graduating from high school.
10. Raising the double freedom rockets and giving a hearty fuck you to the previous 33 years of failure and misery in my life and finally graduating from college.

Like I said, that’s just off the top of my head. If I really sat down and examined my emotional state during all of these experiences, number 7 would likely jump a lot higher on that list. Possibly because the events leading up to that wonderful moment are hands down, no question number one on the list of the worst moments of my life. Like, no contest. As bad as things are now and as bad as all the bad things that have happened to me and to those I care about throughout the last 50 years, nothing comes close to being as terrifying and horrible as Harry’s time in the hospital during the first days of diabetes. That first time he got himself up out of the hospital bed and sat up in a chair and talked to us as if nothing happened… fuck me, that was a glorious moment. That was bliss. I will treasure that particular happy moment forever.

Damn Phone

I’m here at my parents house and it’s been a relatively quiet day. I sorted out the pills, started some laundry, and did a couple of other little things. The Home Care Professional (hero) is here and she was helping dad with some things. My mother was in her room reading the paper.

I thought to myself… do I dare? Do I dare watch a show on Netflix while I wait for the laundry to finish? Let’s try it. Toast of London, season one episode three (I am trying to decide if Matt Berry is the funniest person on Earth. Still not sure, but I do know that Ray Bloody Purchase is an asshole), I put on my headphones and press play…

…and the fucking phone rings. Oh for crying out loud.

Calming Down

I don’t know if I was over reacting a little this morning, or if I’ve just been so busy at work since then that I lost perspective, but things have calmed down quite a bit today. They both took naps (I’m jealous) and the sense of impending doom I felt earlier is gone. That’s good, right?

I was expecting Bellana to drive back to Vermont today but instead she made a salon appointment and planned to spend the day in Boston (I’m jealous). That means she’s going to be at our house when I get home tonight. Actually, I might get home first, but whatever. She’s going to join us for Marvel and Burgers night. What If…? Season one episode three. It should be fun.

During the earlier days of the Covid-19 pandemic, someone bought my parents a digital picture frame that can be loaded remotely via an app. We all added tons of pictures to it and it’s been running around the clock* ever since. Today I had to go out to the porch for something and I saw a couple of old pictures on the window sill, hidden by 100 years of stuff. One had a picture of my mother’s mother. The other had a picture of my father’s mother, and a picture of my father’s brother. I thought I would scan them and add them to the picture frame. I had to dig through a pile of stuff, it felt like Harry Potter in the last movie robbing the LeStrange vault, but I was able to grab them. I was surprised to find two more pictures hidden behind my father’s mother. One had a picture of one of my father’s aunts and one of his uncles, and the other was a picture of another aunt.

I scanned them all with my iPhone and added them to the picture frame. I’m still waiting for one of them to pop up, and for my parents to notice. That might actually take a couple of days as there is a little league world series game on and one of the teams is from New Hampshire. Suffice to say, distracted.

*It doesn’t exactly run around the clock. When the ambient light level drops below a certain level the unit shuts itself off. Outside of that it’s been running around the clock.

It is Ramping Up Now

Nothing bad really happened on last night’s parent sitting shift. My mother had pain issues but she eventually went to sleep and slept through the night. My father was fine.

It’s ramping up now though. It’s 8:21am and they both are having problems and I can already tell it’s going to be a colossally shitty day. The home health worker gets here around 9:00, and I am coming back to work after two days off.

So far the only issues have mostly revolved around one parent taking too long in the bathroom which causes problems for the other parent. Happy morning, everyone. My sister is supposed to be coming with a delivery at some point today. My schedule looks clear in the afternoon so hopefully work stays quiet enough to let that go smoothly.

My general mindset right now is the same as it is pretty much every second I spend here. I feel like I am going to start screaming, and when I start I don’t know if I will ever be able to stop.

Song Number 24 of 50 (I Hope)

I mixed three songs tonight. Hot Damn! My brain feels like mush now, so I am going to bed.

My mother was asleep when I checked on her a minute ago, but she was still up. Explain? Okay. She’s sitting up on the edge of her bed, slumped over to one side asleep. I woke her up and told her she should lie down. She said she will and then went back to sleep without moving. Her back is going to be searing agony tomorrow. It’s like talking to a brick wall sometimes, except you can usually get pissed off when people act like that. I can’t get pissed off now. I don’t think she can actually process that she’s doing anything that will have a negative consequence.

It’s pretty friggin’ frustrating.

Song Number 23 of 50 (I hope)

I’m on a bit of a mixing roll right now. Only partly because my mother is having a rough night. She had all of her discretionary meds. If she doesn’t fall asleep soon I don’t know what we’re going to do. It’s quiet in her bedroom right now, and she hasn’t come a-wandering out in a little while. After I post this I will go check on her.

The song is nothing special, but I kinda like it. The rhythm guitars sounded like crap so I had to EQ them. I always feel like a failure when I have to EQ guitars. I should be a talented enough recording engineer to actually capture my own friggin’ instrument correctly. I’m only being partly sarcastic when I say that, but rest assured I am being sarcastic.

On the up side, my father was flipping back and forth between the Red Sox game (that’s good) and a little league fucking world series game (oh, that is so not good). The little league game is over. Thank the baseball gods for that.