Journal: A Home Is Found

 

After a few cold days, it warmed up to the mid-50s today.  The sun is shining in a pretty blue sky with little skiffs of clouds drifting lazily along.  Clouds don’t usually drift lazily in middle Nebraska.  If they weren’t so high in the atmosphere, they’d be scuttling along like anything, because the winds are gusting up to 25 mph.

Teddy stayed with Loren a few times last week so Larry could get some other things done.  Teddy relates funny things to me – like how Larry goes into great detail about whatever it is he’s working on under the hood of his pickup, while Loren looks like a deer in the headlights.  haha  Loren does like Larry to tell him what he’s doing, even though he often won’t remember it more than five minutes.

Last Monday, Teddy headed for home, pleased that all had gone well while he stayed with his uncle.  What he didn’t know was that soon after he had departed, Loren said to Larry, “I think that boy was eating my food!”

I, of course, relayed this to Teddy.  I mustn’t let my offspring suppose he is ‘getting along’ better than I am, you know.  😄

“I gave him something good to drink from Costco!” replied Teddy indignantly.

I consoled him by telling him that Larry told Loren that the Biscoff cookies he was scarfing down were from Teddy.  ”He gave them to you!” said Larry.

Loren reconsidered, and decided that it was all right if Teddy ate some of his food, after all, if he was hungry.

Loren then decided that Larry could have some of his food, too, if he was hungry.  “That would be all right,” he concluded, albeit somewhat doubtfully.

Larry must’ve felt just as indignant as Teddy had sounded.  “Half of that food is mine!” he told Loren.  “I went to the store, I bought it, and I put it in the refrigerator and cupboards!”

Loren was surprised.  “Do I owe you something?”

“No,” said Larry, “Sarah Lynn takes care of that. She divides it up... checks the receipt... and uses PayPal to pay it.”

Really, there’s no telling what makes him think things, or when it might happen.  He can go from acting generous and appreciative and kind to being sure we’re robbing him blind in a few scant minutes.

Teddy stayed with Loren for a little while the next day, too, while Larry painted a Colorado pickup in Genoa.  Do you think Teddy, who doesn’t particularly like his picture taken, would feel funny if I informed him, “Teddy, you are wearing out the batteries in the Moultrie game cam with all your pacing to and fro on the driveway while talking on your phone!” 

There’s a snowy owl that has migrated into our neck of the woods.  I haven’t seen it myself, but local reporters have taken pictures of it out near Loren’s house somewhere.

Tuesday evening, a while before Larry came home, I heard an odd noise and thought, That sounded exactly like a bat hitting the stairs door.  I went and looked at the crack under the door for a while, but nothing materialized, and I didn’t open the door to check, because a) I didn’t have the tennis racket in hand, b) I thought, Surely not, in the middle of winter, and c) I preferred to remain ignorant than to open the door and find a bat.

I was in my recliner when Larry got home.  He sat down at the table to have some gelato, turned to talk to me, stopped in mid-sentence and stared over my head into the living room.

I knew he’d spotted the bat before he said a word.

The bat was soon cooling its heels, which were pointed ignominiously skyward, out in the front yard somewhere.  Let’s hope the coyotes that I often hear yipping and howling out there will find it before I do this coming spring when I’m out there innocently and harmlessly caring for the flower gardens.

I got 112 photos scanned that day, and then watched an ‘extreme-clean marathon housecleaning’ – whilst sitting in my recliner, heating pad behind my back and neck, covered with a fleece blanket.  😅  I did order some handy-dandy cleaning supplies.

Wednesday, I read an article that mentioned something I had not known:  Bell’s palsy can be a risk factor for Parkinson’s disease much later in life.  Loren had Bell’s palsy when he was young.  Stands to reason it could have some correlation with Lewy Body dementia, since both Parkinson’s and Lewy Body dementia are identified by the Lewy bodies or abnormal protein deposits that form in the brain.

The next day, January 13^th, would be Joanna’s 19^th birthday, so I gathered up the gifts I had collected for her:  a Lilla Rose beaded hair clip, an antique bronze Olivia Riegel picture frame with jewels on it, a devotional (I forgot the name of it... maybe ‘Streams in the Desert’?) that used to be Norma’s, and a silver necklace with flower pendant and garnets.  Arriving late will be a mug with pictures of pretty churches from Joanna, South Carolina – and I just got a note from the company today informing me that it’s one of those heat-activated mugs!  I had not added that option, because it was more expensive.  This mug looks all black – until a hot beverage is added, and then the pictures show up.

I ordered a similar mug for Emma.  I wonder if hers will be heat-activated, too?

When I got home from church that night a little after 9:00 p.m., I was freezing cold, so I put on a flannel nightgown and a fleece robe, and hoped no one came to visit.  Then I warmed up some Campbell’s chicken corn chowder.  Mmmm... that’s good stuff.  Next on the menu was fresh, sliced pineapple, strawberries, and kiwi.  Yummy.  I had old-fashioned eggnog for dessert, along with a little bowl of Rolo Colliders layered caramel/milk chocolate.  I spotted it at Hy-Vee near the yogurt, and had to give it a try.

And the verdict is... Not bad, but I’d rather have the Rolo chocolate/caramels.

Larry arrived a little after 10:00 p.m.  He waits until he’s sure Loren is asleep for the night, then comes home to take a bath, change clothes, and collect water, food, or whatever he needs for the next day.  Sometime he eats a late supper here, if he hasn’t had one at Loren’s house.  And he relates the day’s events.

That day, he changed the ball joints in his pickup.  Loren had walked with him out to the detached garage to get the rolling jack to use under Larry’s pickup, and Larry had made the mistake of commenting that the Buick was dusty.  Loren was immediately determined that they needed to back it into the driveway and wash it.  Larry didn’t have the keys with him, and said he’d do it later.  Loren acted agreeable, but then went immediately to the spigot and started getting the hose out.   Larry finally convinced him it was too cold to wash the car on the drive, and helped him put the hose back.  He came home and got the key, returned to Loren’s, then drove the Buick to O’Reilly’s for a tool he needed.  After driving the car through the carwash, he picked up Subway sandwiches – a steak and cheese for Loren, and a marinara meatball for himself.  He gave Loren his sandwich and left his own wrapped up in the bag at the other end of the table while he went out to finish what he was doing on the pickup.

By the time he got back inside, Loren had eaten (or at least hidden, maybe) his own sandwich, gotten Larry’s out, and pawed through it with fork and spoon, making it look pretty much like a classroom of kindergarteners had stomped their way through it.  He had eaten all the green peppers, despite often saying he doesn’t like them and/or they give him a stomachache.

Loren, obviously knowing he was doing the wrong thing, kept his back to Larry and wouldn’t look at him.

“Are you eating my sandwich?” asked Larry, surprised Loren would even try eating it, as he has said he doesn’t like meatballs.

Loren looked carefully blank. 

Larry took the sandwich, which at least still had all its meatballs, and moved it down to his own place at the table.  He then went to wash his hands.  When he came back, Loren had retrieved the sandwich, squished it together tight like a hotdog, and was just getting ready to take a bite.

Larry protested, “Hey, that’s my sandwich!  I didn’t mean you could eat it!”

Loren put it down.  “I didn’t know that!” he said, still not looking at Larry.

Larry gathered up his messed-up sandwich, looked at it, debated – and ate it.  😜

“You must’ve been hungry,” I commented.

“I was!” he exclaimed.

Here are Larry and I near the Missouri River on Memorial Day, 2000.  I think we’re at Niobrara State Park.

Thursday, I went out to fill the bird feeders.  I emptied the bag of black-oil sunflower seeds, then ordered more from Wal-Mart.  It was supposed to be here in two days, but it’s not here yet.  The next day we would have a bit of sleet, drizzle, snow, and freezing drizzle, so the birds would be clustering around the feeders.  At least the feeder in the front yard that holds twelve pounds of seed was nearly full.

Early that afternoon, I got a phone call from the director at Edgewood nursing home:  a room was available for Loren.  She would come to Loren’s house at 3:00 p.m. to make the assessment.  

I texted Larry, “Be sure the house is not hot.  It was unbearable the other time.”

It was hot, Larry said.  Loren turns the thermostat up to 85° and beyond.  Larry quickly turned down the furnace and opened the downstairs door into the garage, which Loren would be less likely to notice.

The director, Ann Smith, had something unexpected happen, and was a little bit late.  While we waited for her to get there, Larry helped me fill the BMW with another load of stuff from Loren’s lower level. 

Then Ann arrived, and we all sat down around the table.  She introduced herself, and began asking some questions.  When she asked Loren what sort of work he had done, he announced without hesitation that he was an assistant pastor.  (He was pastor after my father died in 1992 until my nephew Robert became our pastor in 2000.)  “But I’m retired now,” he added.

“Oh, that’s great!” said Ann.  “What church?”

“Bible Baptist,” said Loren, without even pausing to consider the issue.

The lady was delighted.  “You can lead devotions at my house!” she informed Loren.

Loren gave us a worried look.  “I don’t know if I should,” he said.

Larry and I smiled blankly.  And mutely.

Ann, assuming his reluctance was merely because he’s retired, said exuberantly, “But everyone needs to know about our Lord and Savior!”  Loren went on looking worried, so she pressed, “Don’t you agree?!”

I wondered if it would be all right if I crawled under the table.  Or, contrariwise, if I announced, “He can’t even find Genesis!”  😅

Loren reluctantly agreed; one has to agree with that statement, doesn’t one?  “Oh, yes, I’ll always agree with that!”

Ann laughed, and said to me, “He promised to always agree with me!”

“We should’ve been recording it,” I laughed, and Loren laughed, too, partly because Larry laughed.

Victoria, 1995

At one point, Loren said that he was the assistant to his father, and his father has retired (Daddy never retired, though he wasn’t well enough to preach very often in the last year or two before he passed away), and Loren just ‘waits to find out what to do from Daddy’. 

I said quietly to the lady, “Our father died in 1992.” 

She nodded; she remembered that from the overview I had written, wherein I mentioned that Loren often thinks our parents are still alive.

I waited until the subject had been somewhat exhausted, tension slightly abated (did not the lady realize she was being too pushy to suit Loren? – or maybe she was goading him on purpose, to determine his reaction), and then I pointed out various trophies and awards throughout the room that Loren had won selling for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States and then for National Federation of Independent Business. 

Loren stared at me.  I have no idea if he was amazed, or if he wondered who I was talking about, or if he hadn’t wanted to admit to those jobs, or if he was sorta kinda remembering, and wondering when that had happened.

Ann asked if he knew what town was to his south, and he looked at her like she was silly, and said, “Columbus!”  

I quietly said to her, “That notion comes and goes.”

She said to us, “Sometimes the symptoms can subside a lot when there is someone staying with them, as opposed to being alone.”  

That’s absolutely true, we’ve discovered.

The woman ‘invited’ Loren to visit her at her house, since she had visited him at his.  He looked amazed, as if she had just propositioned him, right there in public.

He then asked, “What’s your title?” and I wondered, Eh, what will she say to that?

She told him she was an Executive Director and an RN.

That seemed to suit him all right, and he reached for a pen and a napkin, and proceeded to write down her name, rank, and serial number.  Uh, address, that is.

Ann winked at me.

“He’s going to start thinking all sorts of unknown ladies just randomly come along without any invitation, waltz right into his house, and start asking all sorts of personal questions,” I told a friend.  “And every time it happens, Larry and I are there, seemingly in cahoots with them!”

Indeed, he said to Larry after Ann left, “Isn’t it something how these women just start showing up for no good reason, asking all kinds of questions?”  He thought about it for a moment.  Then, “They’re fishing, is what they’re doing.  Trying to find things out.  And if you don’t give them the right answers, –”  He made a thumbs-down gesture.

Larry told him it was because anytime there are nice days in the middle of a cold winter, people like to go visiting.  HAHAHA

What in the world!  I was so proud of myself for finding another text messenger (Mighty Text) for my laptop – but just got informed that I’ve almost used my limit for January, and do I want to subscribe to unlimited texting?  The price is ‘only’ $89.99 a year.  $89.99 a year!!!

Thanks, NO.

After Ann left, Larry and I finished loading a few more things into the BMW.  By the time I was ready to go, Loren was saying, “Bye!” and waving at me, like a little kid who wants you to go, NOW!  haha

I took the load of jetsam and flotsam in the BMW home, sorted it, kept some sewing and quilting tools and supplies that had been Norma’s, then took a bunch of stuff to the Goodwill and Norma’s old computer tower to Chopper’s Computer Shop uptown.  They will clear it out, put a new OS in it, and resell it.

All that, and my Fitbit said I had done only 5,219 steps so far that day.

I went back to setting up the digital picture frame for Loren.  It’s a big, 17-inch frame.  It was taking a while, because I gathered tens of thousands of pictures to put in it, and I had to compress the majority of them.  The frame will not accept photos over 3.96 MB.  Mine are anywhere from 5-12 MB.  I was attempting to put 27,830 photos on it. 

Why must I make a major marathon out of every last thing I do?!

Answer:  Well, I suppose, because... who wants things done in a middlin’ sort of way?  Loren needs 27,830 photos!  (Doesn’t he?)  I cannot seem to be a person of moderation, no matter how I try.  Or maybe I don’t try.

Corel PaintShop Pro 2022 is capable of compressing quite a lot at once, though I had not yet used it for that purpose.

I pulled up the program and gave it a try.  Yep, I did know how to compress batch lots of photos in Corel PaintShop.  Now the question was if that poor unsuspecting program was capable of compressing a batch lot containing over 20,000 photos all at once.

(That’s enough photos to keep Loren entertained, don’t you think?)

It was not.  Not capable of compressing them all at once, that is.  1,500 was about the limit, though I did get away with 2,000 a couple of times.  Anything over 2,000 caused the program to crash and burn.  Or at least freeze and crash.

Whew, I’m glad I have this gaming computer with the turbo fan system!  The fan kept speeding up, running faster and faster, trying to cope with the heat it was generating, working with so many pictures all at once.  What’s really neat is if I think the laptop is still getting too hot, I can always hit the manual Turbo button on the keyboard, and the fan will come on with enough power to blow dishes off the table.  Quite satisfying, ’tis. 

{Aside:  If I get fat, it’s Tiger’s fault.  He’s lying on my feet, preventing me from exercising as I like to do as I stand here typing on my computer.  He’s so cuddly and sweet-tempered, I wouldn’t jar him loose for the world.  😉 }

It was almost 2 in the morning when it occurred to me that I had forgotten to look in my email folder called ‘Quilt Stuff’.  I’ve been faithfully monitoring that folder all month, except for that day.

Annnnd...  There it was! 

An email from AQS that had been loitering there for 7 ½ hours! 

Yep, the New York Beauty quilt has been accepted at the Branson AQS quilt show.  (That’s not a redundancy; ‘AQS’ stands for American Quilting Society.  Thus, it’s the American Quilting Society quilt show.)

The quilt was accepted in all the other AQS shows in 2020, but then the shows were canceled that year, and for all of 2021, too.  I have entered it in the Paducah, Grand Rapids, and Des Moines 2022 shows, too.  I will find out if it was accepted in February, June, and July, respectively.  I hope to go to at least one of these shows – Paducah, in particular.

The seniors’ dinner was Friday.  Ethan invited us, but we didn’t go, since we couldn’t both go. 

At a quarter ’til eleven, Ann Smith called.  They had agreed to accept Loren at Edgewood Vista Memory Care facility.  Ann had not yet received Dr. Carlson’s report; so she made an appointment for me to come in and sign papers at 1:00 p.m. Monday (today).

In the early afternoon, we got a bit of frizzle (freezing rain and drizzle) (should be a word!).  At a quarter ’til two, I looked out the window and discovered it was snowing like everything.

It didn’t continue for long, though; we only wound up with maybe three-quarters of an inch or so.

While my laptop and PaintShop Pro worked away at compressing tens of thousands of pictures, I scrubbed the tub, swept and mopped the floors, vacuumed the big rugs, shook out the small ones, and washed the dishes.  I needed to dust, but all the new Swiffer duster refills were at Loren’s house, and I didn’t care to putter around with a cloth. 

By 7:30 p.m., the pictures were all compressed.  This frame can play music, too.  I’ll leave that off, so as not to annoy other residents of the nursing home.  Loren himself cannot cope with music for long periods of time, either – and he certainly will not know how to run this digital frame.

I rummaged up the SD card with the micro card that I used to use in my camera until my older laptop stopped recognizing it, plugged it into the SD/USB adaptor, and it worked.  I started moving compressed photos from the WD Passport external hard drive – and spotted a photo with the aspect ratio clear off kilter.  I canceled the operation and scrolled through the photos.  A whole lot of them were skewed.  I had the correct box checked!  I looked again, and there it was, with a checkmark in ‘Lock Aspect Ratio’, as big as you please!

Bah, humbug.  Photo editors should be made tough enough to handle several tens of thousands of pictures!!  Shouldn’t they??

I compressed a batch of three pictures with a variety of shapes.  They compressed properly.

I upped the quantity to 30.  The aspect ratio was lost on several of them.  I didn’t want pictures like this in the lot!  It’s just not... right!  à

I’ve found my way around the glitch by forcing one side of the photo to be a certain length, and the other side to accommodate it so as to make the picture keep its original shape.

So, after deleting 90% of the pictures (because it would take way too long to pick and choose, as opposed to redoing the works), I was once again compressing photos.  I would not get them done that day.

At midnight it was 16°, with a wind chill of -3°.  The wind was blowing from 45-50 mph, and the house was rattling. 

By 10:30 the next morning, it was only 10°.  Still, it was a bright, blue-sky, sunshiny day, without a cloud in the skies. 

House finches and goldfinches were on the Nyjer seed feeders, but the sparrows and the juncos and all the bigger birds were pretty much out of luck on the back deck, except for the suet.  Maybe I should put up a sign directing them to the feeder in the front yard?

I’ve been getting requests to do quilting, and I’ve been turning them down.  We need to get Loren moved into the nursing home.  We need to clean out Loren’s house and sell some of his things (house, vehicles, etc.).  Soon it will be time to do our taxes, and Loren’s taxes, too.  I need to finish scanning photos.  I need to finish Kurt and Victoria’s quilt.  I need to make quilts for Joseph and Jocelyn and all of the grandchildren.

I have a couple of customers who, when told this, commiserate sweetly and then say, “Okay, you just take your time and do whatever you need to do!  I won’t send my quilt until next Tuesday.”

I finally finished preparing the pictures for the digital picture frame.  I plugged the SD card into it, and soon it was scrolling through pictures.  The pictures are on for five seconds before changing to the next one.  I can choose up to a minute for the picture to stay on the screen.  Five seconds might be a little fast for Loren, but he enjoys the laptop photos, and they go by faster than that.  The next choice is ten seconds, and that’s so slow, he’d get distracted and forget to watch it.

It has many different ways of changing to the next picture.  Sometimes it looks like someone closed a set of blinds.  Sometimes it’s like sliding doors coming together.  Sometimes it rotates or slides in from the top or the bottom or the sides, and sometimes it looks like a jigsaw puzzle putting itself together.  Pretty neat.

Hannah with 4-month-old kitten Tad

I have it set to choose randomly from the lot of photos.  It’s running on the kitchen table, and any time I walk past, I see different pictures than I’ve seen before, which is good, since the editing screen told me there was only a total of 84 pictures.  Maybe it just can’t count any higher than that? 

Believe me, there are better digital frames.  If I hadn’t’ve wanted a 17-inch one, I could’ve spent the same amount of money on a higher-quality frame.  But I wanted a big one, and I didn’t want to put any more money into it, just in case something happens to it at the nursing home.

There’s a little remote control that goes with it, but Loren won’t know how to use it.  Larry said he’d probably try to shave with it.  😂   I’ll have to give it to one of the nurses, with a request to please turn it on and off for him now and then.  It can play music... movies... and supposedly it will accept photos emailed to it, though there’s nothing about that in the instructions, which were written by a Chinaman who didn’t learn English until he was in his dodderage.  Anyway, I don’t need it to do that; I just need it to scroll through photos. 

I should’ve put more pictures of people into it.  Oh, well; Loren loves all the mountain pictures, too.

Teddy has hurt his ribs again, so he’s been unable to work, and stayed with Loren several times last week.  He was there Saturday while Larry went to LensCrafters in Lincoln.  The eye that had the mini stroke in it is still bleeding, and the doctor is concerned that if it isn’t stopped, Larry could lose eyesight in that eye.  He didn’t get all the shots he was supposed to have, because they are horribly expensive, and insurance doesn’t cover it.  Plus, it’s a pain.  Literally.

Hester with the doll Janice made her for Christmas, 1995

Loren keeps wanting to go to the ‘meetings’, as he calls them, and sometimes when Larry is busy doing something, Loren goes off and gets on his good clothes (though lately his ‘good clothes’ consist merely of a wool vest donned over everyday clothes), never mind what time of day or what day it happens to be.  But we’d just as soon keep him home and watch the service on my old laptop that’s at his house, because truthfully, he can’t follow along anyway.  The sermon goes by too fast for him and he can’t find references very well anymore, and makes a mighty commotion trying.  Larry tries to help him, and thereby misses a good part of the sermon, too.

Wednesday Larry was outside working on his pickup, and Loren came out thinking he was dressed for church, though he only had casual clothes on and had put an outdoors vest over the top.  “I’m going to head on over to the church,” he announced (though how he was going to drive with no keys, nobody knows).

Larry convinced him that they needed to stay home and watch the service online.  So Loren sat down at the table and prepared to watch the service, although it was only about 6:30.  The service starts at 7:30.

He’s been a lot less confused with Larry staying there with him, but he did say the other morning, “I don’t know where my wife is; she was here earlier, and then left.  Maybe she went to visit her cousin.”  (She had no cousins – at least none around here, and none that we know.)

Larry’s been making sure to keep his keys in his pants pockets, because he saw Loren picking up Larry’s jackets, shaking them, and feeling the pockets.  The last time he saw his keys, way back before Thanksgiving, Larry was putting them into his jacket pocket. 

Saturday Loren had one of his front garage doors open (Larry unplugged the one behind his Jeep because he kept running it up and down – this time the open door was behind his pickup) and he’d also opened the garage door on his detached garage where his Buick and tractors are.

When Loren bumped into Teddy near one of the open doors, he went suddenly from looking intent and breathing sorta fast (from trotting rapidly around, doubtless looking for keys to vehicles), to a somewhat sheepish look, and he hemmed and hawed and came up with something about ‘trying to lock the front door of the house’, which wasn’t at all what he was doing. 

Teddy later found a bunch of keys on the kitchen windowsill.  Some were for the John Deere tractors.  Teddy quickly pocketed all those keys and then gave them to Larry.

Larry said that Loren had earlier that morning been determined there were ‘meetings’ he needed to go to.  Larry thought he’d gotten him talked out of that notion and convinced it was Saturday.  Evidently not; he just waited until Larry left and tried to go on his own. 

With the digital picture frame percolating along nicely, I headed upstairs to scan pictures.  I got 111 pictures scanned in 3 ½ hours, nearly making it to the halfway point in the second-to-the-last of the albums upstairs.  That’s a better-than-usual rate, because I’m scanning one of my newer albums from the year 2000, and the pictures were taken with a good Minolta camera, so I don’t have to do much editing.

When these two albums are done, I’ll start on those in the hope chest on the main floor.  So the majority of old photos are scanned, and, though there are a lot left to do, I’m definitely coming down the homestretch.  I have now scanned 25,384 photos.

Caleb, Lydia, & Hester

Teddy stayed with Loren Sunday morning so Larry could come to church.  It was nice going to church with him again; he hadn’t been there for... ? about three weeks, I think.  I’d been feeling exactly like David described his lonesomeness in Psalms 102:6-7  “I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert.  I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.”

That night, Larry got out a package of Loren’s favorite Biscoff cookies.  On the package it says four are a serving, and amount to a little over 200 calories.  Larry took four.  Then he got involved watching the service streaming live on my old laptop that he has there, and didn’t notice what Loren was doing ------- and Loren polished off the entire package!  There are eight servings in a package.  Loren had seven servings – over 1,400 calories.  That’s sometimes more than I consume in an entire day!  Furthermore, instead of folding down the package like he usually does after he gets a handful of cookies out, he left it sitting there whole and unfolded – with the open end turned away from Larry, so Larry wouldn’t notice that Loren was industriously emptying the thing right out.  This was undoubtedly because a couple of days ago when Loren was scarfing down the same kind of cookies, Larry said, “You’re going to get sick if you keep eating those!”

Loren stared at him like he had no idea what Larry meant – and went on eating cookies.  Larry took them away and hid them.

Loren’s been doing that, this last week – just throwing back the food like we can’t believe.  He ate half a jar of creamy peanut butter the other day – with a spoon.  And he’s a small person, weighing about 165 pounds.  He’ll get over it (being small), at this rate!  🤣

This, after telling me that if he ate the smallish portions of meat, vegetables, fruit, cheese, juice, and yogurt I’d brought him not too long ago, he’d “be sicker’n a dog!”  Maybe he’d already had half a loaf of bread by the time I go there.  haha  (I did sometimes find him eating toast with peanut butter and honey when I arrived, even though I’d called just 45 minutes earlier to tell him I was bringing him a meal.)

He wants good, nutritious food less and less, and junk food more and more.  This, too, is another symptom of most types of dementia.

Hester & Lydia in their room

Here’s a story I told my cousin Ann yesterday about her father, my Uncle Bob, my own father’s next older brother:

It was 1973, my Grandma Swiney had died, and we were at the funeral in Shelbyville, Illinois.  I was 12.  I don’t remember all the whys and wherefores, but there must’ve been some sort of congregating at the cemetery, maybe?  The city park?  There was a large tent/pavilion, and people were milling about, inside the tent and out on the lawns. 

Along came Uncle Bob.  He greeted me in his friendly way, patted me on the shoulder – and proceeded to inform me that I was ‘the most beautiful young lady in the entire Swiney clan’. 

I was shy.  But I laughed and shook my head (though of course I figured it must be true, ’cuz Uncle Bob said so!).

I wandered out of the tent feeling pretty proud of myself... walked around it – and came to a stop on the far side when I heard Uncle Bob talking to my cousin Jenny, Uncle Bill and Aunt Helen’s daughter who was about the same age as me. 

“You’re the most beautiful young lady in the entire Swiney clan!” he told her.

Well!  Hmmph!!!  Of all ze noive!!!!!

After that, I was a little more cautious about the balderdash and baloney people doled out, and I tried a little harder to be humble.  haha

Today at 1:00 p.m., I signed all the necessary papers at Edgewood Vista Memory Care facility.  The order from Dr. Carlson arrived via fax while I was there, so Larry will take Loren there tomorrow morning after 9:00.

Larry took Loren with him to Genoa this morning to pick up his RZR.  Loren asked multiple times coming and going where they were going and why.

Then, on the way back, he asked Larry, “Did you know they took away my keys?” 

Larry knew he meant me and ‘that other fellow’ (as he once said), so Larry said, “That was me,” and tried to explain why – and Loren had another of his nasty little(?) meltdowns. 

Larry reminded him of driving to the farmplace near Creston when he intended to go home from church.  Loren, as usual, said he hadn’t been lost, and “I called that farmer myself!”

As he did with Bobby a couple of weeks ago, he told Larry he had no right telling him what to do, because Loren is older.  And on and on, more of the same.  Larry took the opportunity to remind him that we have been looking for a home for him where people can help him. 

“I have to get back to work,” Larry told him, “I can’t just go on staying at your house.”

Loren said he knew nothing about this.  “Nobody told me!” 

Many things, he truly forgets.  Some things, he remembers and says he forgets.

Meanwhile, Larry’s blood pressure has gotten way too high the last few days, and I imagine it soared this morning, as the eye with the bleeding in it is worse this afternoon.  I’d say we’re getting Loren into that home just in time — for Larry’s sake.

Here’s Loren on Thanksgiving Day, 1995.

We bought some new sheets at Wal-Mart for Loren tonight; we have to provide those for the nursing home.  Larry and I will gather his clothes and drop them off tomorrow after Larry takes Loren to the home.  The lady, Ann Smith, said to bring about five days’-worth of clothes.

One of the papers I signed said that I agree to remove Loren from the home if he becomes aggressive or ‘commits elopement’.  (Runs off with the little lady in the wheelchair?)  (All right, all right; I know that means ‘he escapes’.) 

They don’t use medication to calm people down there.  They use ‘distraction’ and ‘diversion’.  So I’m praying and hoping that things will work out.  He can be difficult.  And sneaky.  Sort of like a bad toddler and a juvenile delinquent all rolled into one.

He does respond to Bible verses.  I’ll print some out and take a page or two each time I visit him.  He likes my old albums, too, and enjoys cards.  I have plenty to take and switch out now and then.  I’ll add a couple of those Biscoff cookies... maybe that’ll soften him up (if not literally, at least figuratively, heh).  Nowadays he will read the same page or even the same paragraph (often out loud to whoever happens to be nearby) in a magazine or book over... and over... and over, never thinking to turn the page. 

Teddy says, all friendly, “Can I see that?”  Loren gladly hands it over, happy to share.  Teddy looks at it, turns the page, hands it back.  “Here you go.”  So Loren starts on a new page.  hee hee

I laughed, “Teddy, that same old page wasn’t bothering Loren in the slightest!  It was interesting and new, every single time he read it!” 

I told him about President Reagan saying that the nice thing about having Alzheimer’s was that he was always making new friends.  😄

Here are Andrew’s and Hester’s school pictures in 1995.

We’ve decided that it would be best if Larry drops Loren off tomorrow without me going along, since Loren has had a tendency to blame me for his recent and not-so-recent troubles (winding up at the State Patrol office in North Platte a year ago last August, finding the hitch lock on his camper, having his keys taken away...).  I want to be able to visit him at the home each day without him being angry with me.  He needs to think I’m one of the good guys.  😏

The poor nurses at Edgewood are going to have their hands full with Loren, I’m a-thinkin’!  I’ve tried my best to give them an honest description of what he’s like, and they’ve assured me they’ve seen it all, and have had extensive training in how to cope with such things.  They’re in for a wee bit more of ‘such things’ than they’re used to, I imagine. 

Oh me, oh my.  This nursing home thing is going to be a shock to everyone’s senses but ours, isn’t it?  😲😄

Next, we have the big job of cleaning out his house.  We’ll get started tomorrow.  There are so often all kinds of things people have, things that are very important and valuable to them, but nobody else wants them.  Ah, well.  That’s what the Salvation Army is for.

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,