Not All Jobs Work Out

A couple of weeks ago, I started a short-term assignment, caring for an elderly man with dementia.  He had been hospitalized with sepsis and then spent a couple of weeks in a rehab facility to gain strength before going home.  Once home, he was to have round-the-clock care for a couple of months to see if he could go back to his previous pattern of help just a few hours a day or would need to be moved to a care facility.

The timing of this job worked well with my schedule, as I’ll be caring for BabyBoy full-time in January and so wasn’t looking for long-term work.

The odd thing about this job, right from the get-go, was that I was interviewed by the other caregiver, not a family member.  It’s not unusual to get work through caregiver networks, but most of the time, a family member is involved somewhere.  Not in this case, though, it was just her.  She placed the ad, did the interviews, and hired me.

I had some misgivings during the interview, which was at the rehab facility.  CaregiverK (as I’ll call her) kept misusing common medical words, and not just once in a while but continuously.  She kept using the word “apnea” when she was clearly talking about cyanosis, and prostrate instead of prostate, for example.  The other thing that raised my eyebrows was the way she was talking to and about the client, who was sitting right there in his wheelchair.

He was upset because she had put denture paste on his upper plate, something he never used.  (Denture paste is very sticky stuff.)  He had his plate out and was trying to get the goo off his palate with his fingers, which just got his fingers all sticky.  He got very agitated because he wanted the goo out of his mouth and he wanted his fingers cleaned.  He repeatedly asked for hot water and baking soda to rinse out his mouth, saying that he always had a clean mouth and didn’t like the stuff in it and why wouldn’t she get him hot water?

CaregiverK was cleaning his upper plate with a tissue, then went to the bathroom nearby to rinse it and bring the client some cold water.  He wasn’t pacified, again insisting that hot water would help him rinse his mouth.  I suggested we go to his room to get him some hot water but CaregiverK didn’t want to, it was too far away from the lounge where we were sitting.  She insisted that the client was just being ornery.

That bugged me.  He had a valid complaint and she was not dealing with it purely because she didn’t feel like going down to his room.  But, I wanted the job and knew I’d be nicer to the client when it was just us, so I didn’t pursue it.

The other thing that struck me as odd was that when I said I could work through Wednesday mornings but I had to leave at seven on those mornings, CaregiverK said that she couldn’t get up that early and I could just leave the client on his own until she was able to get there.

That was really weird.  Clients needing 24-hour care don’t usually get left on their own.  She insisted it was okay, though, saying he used to be on his own all the time except for a few hours a day.  

Whatever.

I got the job.  CaregiverK was to be my contact.  She said the client’s son, who lived nearby, didn’t want to be contacted by me, that he wanted her to handle everything.

A week later, the client came home and three days later, it was my turn to stay with him.  I started Saturday.  Sunday he complained of burning on urination, so I informed CaregiverK.  Monday morning, she got the client an appointment with his doctor, and I took him there.

It was a urinary tract infection, which we’d guessed, as his sepsis had been caused by an inappropriately treated UTI.  While in his office with the client, I heard the doctor say to his assistant that the client couldn’t have a certain antibiotic.  He wrote a prescription for another antibiotic, which I filled at the pharmacy on the way back to the client’s house.  Once back at the house, I gave him a pill and let CaregiverK know by text what the upshot of that visit was.

CaregiverK called me, very upset and angry, saying the doctor got the prescription wrong, that the client was not supposed to have that medicine but another one instead.  There happened to be a full prescription of the other medicine in the kitchen, and she wanted me to give the client that medicine.  I told her I was sorry, but that I wouldn’t do that without a doctor’s order.  She kept insisting, getting very emotional.  I told her again that I was sorry, that while I believed her, changing a medicine without a doctor’s order was a line I wouldn’t cross.

She came to the house, found some documentation from the recent hospitalization, went to the doctor’s office, got the prescription rewritten (because she had been right, the doctor was using old and erroneous information) and brought the new prescription back to the house.

Okay.

The biggest problem I had with the job to that point was that the client didn’t sleep at night.  He would be up every half an hour to hour, needing to go, getting confused, yelling for help, or just yelling at himself.  That first night was horrible.  The next night was a bit better, and of course I knew things would probably settle down some once the medicine kicked in and his bladder was happier.

The advice from CaregiverK, regarding the nighttimes, was that I should just ignore the client and not get up.  She suggested doing as she did, keeping my door closed (it was) or buying earplugs.  Oh my.  Why bother with overnight care if the caregiver was going to ignore the client?  This man was way too confused to be ignored.  CaregiverK told me that on one occasion she drank some of his brandy to get to sleep.  Oh my again.  I didn’t get earplugs and didn’t drink brandy and just managed.

Then came Wednesday morning, the end of my shift.  The client had gotten up early, so I had time to give him breakfast and his medicine and get him settled in his favorite chair in front of the television, then I left.  I sent CaregiverK a text that he was up, had eaten and had his medicine, and was watching tv.  

I’d spent three days with the client and disagreed that it was safe to leave him on his own.  He needed a walker and was confused to the point that he needed directions to find his bathroom.  

I went to KidOne’s house to watch BabyBoy while she went to class.  A couple of hours after I’d arrived there, I got a text from CaregiverK, asking if the client had eaten, as he didn’t have much appetite.  I sent back that he had, and got a response saying she’d wondered why he didn’t seem hungry.  Hmm.  Clearly, she hadn’t read my text, or hadn’t bothered to understand the words in it.

Over the next several days, CaregiverK sent me several texts, including one that said she was tempted to give the client valium to get him to be quiet, a sentiment I certainly understood.

She also forwarded a text to me that she'd sent to the son at one in the previous morning, a long, rambling, angry rant that looked as though the writer were under the influence of something.  I, in turn, forwarded that text to both Sweetie and KidOne, both of whom agreed that it was seriously inappropriate (to put it mildly).

A little after that, she sent me a text asking if I thought she'd gone too far (in the text to the son).  In a masterpiece of understatement, I told her I thought it was a conversation better had in person.  Her response cracked me up--she said she communicated better in writing.

Then it was time for me to relieve CaregiverK.  I got to the client’s home that Saturday morning after nine, as I’d stopped on the way to pick up another prescription for him.  CaregiverK was in the middle of fixing the client’s breakfast.  After that, she stayed for a couple of hours to visit.  Among other things, she referenced a bottle of wine she’d brought, calling it her sleeping pill, and told me that she had given the client one of her valium so she could get some rest.

Oh lordie.  I had been considering leaving the job because of the difficulty getting some sleep, but while that first night had been so horrible, the following two hadn’t been too terribly bad, but after hearing that CaregiverK had given the client her valium, I decided I was probably going to quit.  The only problem with that was that I really liked the client, and certainly needed the money.  What to do, what to do, what to do.

Then came Sunday evening.  I went to give the client his medicine from the pill tray that CaregiverK had filled.  Hmm.  For some reason, there were six pills in the tray for that evening, instead of the usual three.  I took out the extra pills and gave him the usual ones.  The pills had come from containers that were empty, so I didn’t know what the extra ones were, but enough was enough--that was all too much liability for me.  The client’s son, whom I had met once during my first shift there, was due the next day.  I decided to give him my two weeks notice, but wasn’t sure how much I was going to tell him about the other caregiver.  On the one hand, he certainly needed to know, but on the other hand, CaregiverK had been caring for his father for almost a year and I had only been on the scene for ten days.  Plus, he really didn’t want to deal with any of that sort of issue.

What the hell.  He came by the next day and I gave him my notice (saying I’d work the following week), and I told him why.  I told him the lack of sleep was a problem, but that the real reason was that I wasn’t comfortable with the level of liability I faced.  I told him about CaregiverK’s drinking to get to sleep, giving his dad her Valium, and messing up his dad’s pills.  I also told him I thought his dad should be in a care facility.  

The son wasn’t happy to hear any of this, but understood.  He told me he’d been looking into some places for his dad, and asked if I’d be willing to help while he made arrangements.  I told him I would be willing, but that I wouldn’t work with CaregiverK.

I don’t think he really understood about the liability issue, but he accepted my notice and said he’d handle things.

Well.  Several hours later, I got angry texts from CaregiverK.  She was furious that I’d talked to the son, furious that I’d given my opinion, furious that I’d cost her a job she needed.  She called up, still furious, wanting to fight about my experience v hers, etc., but I wouldn’t engage in the fight she so clearly wanted and she hung up.

The angry texts continued throughout the evening, but then she stopped and texting returned to dealing with client issues.

For my part, I told Sweetie and KidOne that I’d gotten it over with.  To KidOne, I said that I thought CaregiverK would not have my work that last shift, that she would want to deprive me of the money for those last days.

I also remembered that evening that pill containers had a description on them of the pills inside and so checked to see what the extra pills in the tray were.  Wow--the client would have had a double dose of his prostate medicine, and a TRIPLE dose of his hypertension medicine.

Wednesday morning came around and I left the client in front of the tv again, having had his breakfast and his medicine, and sent a text to CaregiverK saying so.

A couple of hours later, I got a text from her asking if he’d eaten.  Geez, I was glad I’d resigned.

That afternoon, I got a text saying I didn’t need to work that next (and last) week, that she’d hired someone who didn’t need her beauty sleep.  She said I’d stepped way out of bounds by talking to the son, that I was out of line, and that she took full responsibility for things turning out badly because she hadn’t called my references to see if I really had any experience caring for the elderly.  It was a lulu of an email, even for her.

On the plus side, the son had clearly honored my request to not repeat what I’d told him about CaregiverK until I was out of the line of fire, as she didn’t reference any of those issues.

When KidOne came home, I asked her if I was right in thinking that a triple dose of hypertension medicine could have caused the client’s blood pressure to bottom out and give him a heart attack.  She said it sure could.  If I’d given those pills to the client and he died, it wouldn’t have been CaregiverK sitting in jail, it would have been me.  And on those Wednesday mornings, if he’d gotten hurt after I’d left and before she arrived, it would have been me charged, because I’d been the one to leave him on his own.  If I’d changed that one prescription on her say-so with negative results, it would have been me charged with neglect or endangerment, not CaregiverK.  CaregiverK was just that, a caregiver, with no more legal relationship to the client than I had.  I could just hear a judge, “Ms. Brown, you’ve been in healthcare, on and off, for thirty-five years, and you did WHAT?”

I’m well out of it.

Now to get my paycheck.  I’ve asked the son to mail it to me, since I won’t be going in to work on Sunday morning (it would have been waiting for me there).

We’ll see.

A

The Birth of an Afghan

I crochet a lot, usually making several afghans a year.  If it weren’t for crocheting, I’d never be able to sit still long enough to watch a movie or TV show; I’m just too twitchy.  But crocheting?  It’s like a form of meditation almost, when I get into the rhythm of it and my fingers fly--it bleeds off enough of that excess energy so I can sit still long enough to watch whatever it is I want to watch.

A new afghan sometimes takes no effort at all--it’ll be a pattern I know and I’ll have plenty of yarn, and so not have to worry about arranging a pattern so as not to run out of a vital color.

Other times, though, it can take me a week or more to get going, which was the case with my current project.  This afghan is one I’ve had in my head for a long time, but that I didn’t have the yarn for.  It’s wool, which is expensive, so it took me a while to buy all the yarn needed.

Finally, though, I had the yarn, albeit just barely enough.  This is because I bought the yellow and green some time ago, then bought the purple (it’s a rainbow pattern), and then the other colors.  When I bought the yellow and green, money was very tight and I didn’t get as much as I would have liked, buying only five skeins of each instead of six or seven.  The manufacturer stopped making that shade of green and there wasn’t another suitable, so the amount of green I had would be the limiting factor in whatever pattern I chose.

Finally, though, I had enough yarn.  The next step was to choose a pattern.  I’d had one particular one in mind, but it wouldn’t work for reasons that don’t matter here.  The young man I was caring for at the time (he was post-surgery) pointed out that rainbows should have a curved pattern, so I brought my book of ripple patterns and we looked through it.

**When a pattern is new to me, I make a small sample piece of it to see how it works and if I like it.  If I do like it, then I make a piece using one entire skein of the yarn I’ll be using, then measure that piece to figure out how many square inches per skein that particular yarn will make in that particular pattern.  This is especially important when I have a limited amount of one or more colors, as it wouldn’t do to be going along and then find out I’ve run out of yarn when the afghan is a foot or two shorter than I am.

I made several small samples, not being particularly pleased with the first several but finally hitting on one I really liked.  It’s a pattern that I’ve been wanting to use for some time, but always avoided because it’s single crochet (a small stitch) and so would take longer than an afghan made with a bigger stitch.  Since this afghan was to be for me and out of real wool, I decided it could be made with a small stitch because the yarn and I were worth the extra time.

But there was a problem with the pattern, a problem that happens on a lot of ripple patterns.  The ends of the first rows end up curling outward because the initial chain and first row or two are usually bigger than the rows that follow.  Never mind why, just trust me, or I’ll bore you even more with an explanation.  That curl drives me bats.  Absolutely bats.  (Not that it’s a far drive from me to bats.)

My sample had that curl.  I made another sample, making some adjustments to the first row, but there was still a bit of a curl.  After several more samples, I’d hit on a way to get the curl to go away. 

**A hint to beginning crocheters out there: the pattern is all well and good, but if something happens that you don’t like, guess what, you can alter the pattern!  To compensate for something like this, I usually remove some stitches from the ends of the first row, then add them back bit by bit in the next rows.

Then I had to decide a stripe pattern.  Most crocheted things are made with a horizontal pattern, as crocheting doesn’t lend itself to complex color patterns the way knitting does.  I knew I wanted to make a rainbow, but I didn’t want a straight six colors and then repeat, but instead wanted to go up the rainbow from purple to blue to green to yellow to orange to red and then a purple stripe and back down the rainbow again, red to orange to yellow to green to blue to purple, and then back up the rainbow again.  You see?

But, there was a problem there.  I had only five skeins of green, so would be using five skeins per color.  Five stripes of each color would mean that I would go up the rainbow and down, then up the rainbow and down, then up the rainbow again and stop.

No way could that work.  Not with my OCD self.  I could never leave myself hanging there at the top of the rainbow; there would have to be a way to get back down again.

A word on stripes: most afghans are color one/color two/color three (or some variation thereof) in stripes of an even or symmetrical number.  Do you have any idea how boring that gets, after forty years of crocheting?  It’s mind-numbing, and I don’t mean in the positive meditative sense of mind-numbing.  It’s dull, boring, and repetitive.  Think catatonia-inducing v contemplative.

So, I try to avoid that.  Sometimes I’ll make the afghan symmetrical around a center axis, other times I’ll make some stripes symmetrical but then have a secondary and asymmetrical pattern doing something else entirely.  Sometimes I don’t make the stripes even but instead crochet a skein until it ends and then start the new color right there, instead of starting each new color at one side or the other as is usually done.  

Back to my rainbow afghan.  Since I had a limited amount of yarn that would make an afghan about as small as I ever make them (because I like to be covered from my nose to my toes, the heck with the traditional 50” by 60” size), I had to use every scrap of every skein.  My rainbow had to have colors ending wherever they would.  This was a good thing, as I like the vaguely patchwork patterns that result.

But I was still stuck with the fact that I had an odd number of skeins per color but needed an even number so I could get back down the rainbow again.  What to do, what to do, what to do.

Aha--I had it!  I could divide each skein in half--that would get me ten balls of each color.  Remember that little mention of OCD up there?  Well, I wasn’t going to just guesstimate where the middle was in each skein.  I brought our kitchen scale out to the side table next to my crocheting chair.  Each skein was supposed to be 50 grams, but I only found two or three of my thirty that were that.  Most were 51 grams and some were 48.  I weighed each skein, then left it on the scale as I pulled out yarn and wound it into a ball.  When the amount of yarn left on the scale was half what I started with, I cut off the ball I’d wound up and then wound up another ball with the remaining yarn.  I did that for each of the thirty skeins, ending up with sixty balls of yarn that were anywhere from 24 to 26 grams each.  There were ten balls of yarn of each color, meaning I could come back down the rainbow every time I went up it.

Then it was time to start the afghan itself.  Starting an afghan is a bitch.  That first row has to be done so carefully, so consciously, each stitch counted and recounted.  A mistake in that first row means tearing it all out again and doing that blasted row over.  

**Another hint to beginning crocheters out there: you don’t have to count the initial chain.  Really, you don’t.  Make a chain a couple of feet longer than the afghan will be wide, make your first row of whatever stitch and pattern, then cut off the extra chain to within a couple of inches of the afghan and unpick those couple of inches.  SO much easier than trying to count to two hundred and sixty-seven or whatever number of chain stitches is dictated by your pattern.

Remember back at the beginning of this interminable explanation of the birth of this afghan where I wrote that I’d done the math to figure out how many square inches this particular afghan would be?  It was projected to be about fifty by seventy inches.  But when I did my sample, it didn’t feel like it would be seventy inches but instead would be shorter by a little bit.  Shorter wouldn’t work.  A couple of inches narrower would be much better than several inches shorter, because I’m 5’ 7” and want the afghan to cover my toes, not stop at my ankles.  Or shoulders.  There has to be enough to tuck under my toes and over my shoulders.

So I second-guessed my math, which never works but which I keep doing anyway.  Instead of doing the eighteen ripples my math dictated, I did seventeen.  And I got that afghan a few inches long and measured and measured and damn it all to hell no matter how many times I measured the seventeen ripples would have made too long an afghan; it needed eighteen ripples to make it work.  The measuring I’d done on that initial sample just didn’t quite correlate.

I ripped out that beginning and started again, eighteen ripples this time.  

And it worked.  I got the first purple stripe and where the yarn ran out, I started the blue stripe.  And so on and so on and so on.

The afghan is half done now and I couldn’t be more pleased.  There’s enough asymmetry that I’m not bored at all with the work or the appearance of it, but the color pattern is as regular as could be, the usual rainbow colors (and yes I know I left out indigo) in the usual order.

It’s so pretty.

(If any man has read this blog entry to this point and thought, “oh thank goodness, I thought it would never end,” now you know how pregnant women feel.)

When Jennifer Kathleen suggested writing about our style icons, I made the comment that I had no style icons, as I had no style beyond the ladies who give out the blood donor t-shirts.  Someone then suggested that I blog about those ladies, so I got to thinking about the ladies and donating and t-shirts, and decided to blog about the t-shirts.

I first donated blood when I was sixteen.  A woman in our area had been grievously wounded and as part of the process of saving her life, she had been given dozens of pints of blood.  At that time, each pint had to be paid for by the recipient or replaced in her name.  Our church was one of probably many that took up her cause, encouraging parishioners to donate in her name.  My parents were regular donors, but neither could donate just then, probably because of colds or cold sores.  So, my then seventeen-year-old sister decided to donate and, armed with a permission slip from our mother, took me along for moral support.

When she was tested, though, my sister was rejected as a donor, probably because of low blood count.  Hmm.  What to do.  What she did was to point to me and say something along the lines of, “what about HER?”  WTF wasn’t in our vocabulary then, but some pg-rated version of that was what went through my mind.  As our mother had written the note as a general “my daughter has my permission,” leaving out any mention of which daughter she was referring to, it pertained equally to me.  I was tested, accepted, and stuck but good.  Ouch.

I don’t know if I got a t-shirt then or not, but blood donor t-shirts were around the house as mom used to get them.  I donated a time or two after that and remember getting my own shirt back then, then I joined the Navy (at 17).  The Navy used to get its blood donations from sailors, and I was a regular donor.  Sailors who donated got four hours off; we called that Vampire Liberty.  No t-shirts, but then we already had all Navy clothes, all the Navy time; t-shirts would have been a little redundant.

But, even then, I got blood donor t-shirts.  Since Mom was such a regular donor, she got more t-shirts than she could use, so she used to send them to me.  (Mom is 81, and still a regular donor.  Blood Bank ladies never say die until their donors do--hahaha!)

After the Navy, I started donating at the bloodbank near my work.  This alarmed my boss, who thought I would run out of blood if I didn’t stop donating, but I needed the wardrobe, so I kept it up.  Back then, the ladies gave t-shirts more often then not.  

At one point, my collection of blood donor t-shirts must have included about two dozen shirts, more from my donating and the rest sent by my mother.  When the girls were younger, they used blood donor t-shirts as nighties.  We also used them on spaghetti/pizza/tomato soup nights, or anything else in that color spectrum.  I had four red t-shirts, one each for KidOne and KidTwo, and one each for FriendL’s younger daughters, who stayed with us whenever their mother was hospitalized.  I’d announce dinner by telling the girls, “put on the red shirts!”  They’d all go get their shirts, which, being adult size, fit right over whatever they were wearing.  Shirts on, they’d come to the table and enjoy whatever tomato-based food I was serving that night.

The best t-shirts had jokes on them.  I had a brown one with a chicken on it that said, “Don’t Be Chicken,” something that took me a minute to figure out as I’d received that shirt in late fall and thought at first the bird was a turkey.  I had one with an American flag on it, with raised blood drops on the red stripes.  I wore that one to a secular humanist meeting, as I wanted to know what secular humanist meetings were like, and was totally weirded out by one older man who kept twisting around in his seat to stare at me.  After whatever the talk was, by whoever was giving the talk, that man came up to me, stared at my shirt again, then figured out the logo and that there were supposed to be blood drops on the red stripes.  He apologized to me for staring, saying he thought I might be someone not friendly to their cause, the implication being that only professed religious folks would wear American flags on their shirts.

The bloodbank here has a line of t-shirts with the caption, “Life Is Unpredictable; Give Blood.”  The cartoons vary: one shows a stick figure with a safe falling on him in the first panel, then the stick figure with an IV-pole getting a blood donation.  My favorite of those is a new-ish one, with a giant octopus engulfing a ship as the unpredictable event.

Another favorite shirt was one I got when I was in the Bay Area for a bit.  It celebrated the closer of my baseball team, who was known for his beard.  The shirt had a cartoon of his beard and the logo, “Fear the Beard, Not the Blood!”  (He shall remain nameless here.  I understand the need for work that led him to sign with the enemy and so hold no personal enmity, but my bureau also no longer holds the shirt.)

Most of my t-shirts left home when I lost weight three years ago, as they were too big.  Those still in decent shape I donated, the rest went for rags or in the garbage.  My collection now is down to about a dozen.

Times changed, my bloodbank changed location, and budgets got tighter.  T-shirts are no longer given out automatically, but are reserved for apologies for Oopses.

My most recent Oops apology shirt came when I was donating platelets (my usual donation).  Things were going along just fine when, all of a sudden, my arm hurt like hell.  I called out to the lovely nurses and had two of them there within seconds.  Uh oh, that vein had blown and the donation hadn’t been quite finished.  One of the nurses explained that they could try to finish on my other arm, if I were okay with that.  I was and she poked me, but drat and blast, that vein blew immediately--the needle had gone right through.  That one didn’t hurt very much, but the nurses both grimaced and told me that the next day I was going to have a spectacular pair of bruises.

They were right.

While the one nurse was cleaning up that arm and giving me a bandage to match the first one, the second nurse left the scene, only to return moments later with my Oops t-shirt.  It’s a lovely wine-colored one, albeit a bit dull, as it lacks the funny cartoons that some have; it just has the bloodbank logo in one corner.

So how do we get t-shirts now, if our veins hold up?  We earn points with every donation, and can redeem those points.  A platelets donation is five hundred points and t-shirts are usually nine hundred points each.  Once in a while, there’ll be a special and a particular t-shirt will be available for only two hundred points.  

Recently, there was a “sale” where about six t-shirts were all available for two hundred points each.  I had several thousand points and had just been given a six-month deferral for a very low blood count, so I decided to use up the points I had and just buy the darned Kindle I’d been saving points for.  I ordered myself one each of the t-shirts that came in large, and another set of each that came in medium (as some of them fit me in medium, and others in large).  Then I used up the rest of my points to order one each that came in extra-large, for Sweetie, even though he already had a couple of them.

When I told him what I’d done, he howled with laughter, saying, “that’s the difference between us--you order one of everything to use up all your points, and I order just the one I didn’t have yet!”

Because, you see, Sweetie also donates regularly.  He gives plasma mostly, but is going in for platelets this week as someone from the bloodbank called and specifically asked him to do that.  When Sweetie and I first started seeing each other, one of the things that cracked up KidThree was that he had all the same t-shirts I did.  At one point, when he came over for dinner, she looked at his shirt and laughed, telling him, “now don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re like the male version of Mom!”  Sweetie just grinned at her and asked, “now, why would I take that the wrong way?!?”

(Sweetie told me recently that my lack of fashion sense was one of the things he likes about me.  Makes me less scary, I think.)

Sweetie told me a couple of weeks ago that I could look at the goodies to see if there was something I wanted him to get with his points, as he wasn't saving them for anything just then.  I looked and saw there was a new t-shirt at the special two hundred point rate, so I used four hundred of my five hundred remaining points to get myself one each in large and medium, then went on as Sweetie and ordered one for him, and a car sunshade and a coffee cup for myself.  The shirt is a light gray with the California Bear Flag on it and the logo, "California Blood Donor."  It's a very nice one and I think is almost my new favorite, second only to my favorite ship-snatching octopus.

And, of course, every so often, I still get a shirt in the mail from my mother.

A

The Boxes Never, Ever Stop.

Today I started going through the boxes that KidTwo left when she moved. Some of the books she just doesn't need to keep, so I sent her an email asking permission to purge the extraneous ones; fingers crossed, she will say yes. That will be a big help. She left more boxes than I thought she did--there were twenty. I figure I can find room for about half the books in my room, reducing her number of actual boxes to under half a dozen if she lets me give away the books that are not worth hanging onto while she lives down south. My big goal is to get to the point where there are no more boxes in this apartment, none at all, except for seasonal items such as Christmas ornaments. The half dozen that KidTwo will have after I de-book the twenty boxes will go live under the table in my mother's office.

Today I spent seven good hours with LadyP. We took a walk to the park, passing a sign advertising a garage sale. She grinned at me and said she didn't need a garage, she already had one. After our walk, we went back to her home, where I read to her from a book of fairy tales. Then we did some puzzles. I found she can match the occasional piece more easily if I point out the dominant color on the piece and ask her if she can see another piece that has that same main color. We stick with puzzles with two dozen or fewer pieces, or she gets too confused. We also colored a bit; that was cute. After we had lunch, we took a nap, then sat in her backyard and played with the dog. Then another puzzle, then her husband came home.

KidThree and I took her friend, FriendK, to his friend's home. That poor kid. At least he got several days of clean clothes, hot showers, and plenty of food. I sent him off with toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, and deodorant, along with a few dollars. What lives these poor kids lead. No kid asks to be born to drug users and their inamorata of the moment. No kid deserves that. Every child deserves at least one adult who is always there, who can provide love and stability and security, along with food and toilet paper. Every child should have that and it breaks my heart that they don't. I wish I could win the Lotto so I could do more to help, at least for the kids who are still fighting to break free from the drug culture they were born into. At least I can provide respites.

Someone bought my Lotto house, so I had to find a new Lotto dream. To help get the wheels turning, I treated myself to a Lotto ticket--two whole dollars worth of permission to build castles in the air. Then I came across an empty lot on a street that I liked, so that is my new Lotto dream. It's even better than my former Lotto house, because now I can build my imaginary home from the ground up, making sure it is all completely accessible. That will give me something to do while riding around on buses or stuck in long lines at the credit union. All I need to do is spend a dollar every month or two on a ticket, and I can dream as much as I like. It's cheap at the price.

KidTwo posted a note where she told me that she was wearing a helmet when she rode that atv up that mountain. That did help. A little bit.

KidThree had a bad time last Wednesday. At group, she revealed her fears about testifying against her assailants. When she said she would be happy just to see her school after testifying, the social worker thought she was referring to the comfort of returning to her routine, so I had to tell him that she is terrified of being murdered, that she was referring to surviving, not stability. The young man whose Catholic funeral she attended a couple of weeks ago was murdered because he made statements against gang members when he disassociated himself from his gang--KidThree's fears aren't unreasonable. This all can't be over too soon for us; we just can't move forward with this hanging over our heads.

KidThree's classmate who died the end of June was planning to go with her when she testified, so instead she will wear to court the t-shirt she got in remembrance of him. It has on it his name and picture, and the dates of his birth and death. That way, he can be with her in spirit. When I suggested that to her today, she lit up at the thought. She'll also have the little Inca heart-gouger-outer dude, so she'll be surrounded by love and ferocity. And by me.

Time for bed now. Tomorrow is coming and I have to be ready.

A

Past the Hump.

This morning I spent several hours with LadyP. We did jigsaw puzzles and looked through a catalog. Today she was not interested in imaginary shopping but did enjoy the puzzles. One of them was just pairs of mother and baby animals: the object was to pair the piece with the mother to the piece with the baby. LadyP was able to match a couple of them unaided. When I had all the pieces out on the table, the number of choices was too overwhelming for her, but when I reduced the number of pairs to four or five, she was able to make a couple of matches. We also had a good walk to the park where we enjoyed watching several little boys and one little girl play that they were robots. The children had small traffic cones that they were 'wearing' on their arms to make their arms stiff and robotic. That was a lot of fun. LadyP had a good morning: she was alert and engaged almost the entire time.

After LadyP's, it was home for a nap, as I'd been up since four and was sleepy. While I was gone, KidOne came by to pick up her boxed belongings and to borrow my car to move some more boxes and recycling. KidTwo had a dozen or more boxes in KidOne's storage space, a storage space that KidOne is no longer renting, so KidOne brought those boxes here. I'll be going through them to see what needs to be sent to KidTwo, what should be saved here, and what can be given away. KidTwo had so little time to do her move that her belongings did not get properly sorted out. I love sorting, so I get the job. The things that are to be stored up here will go down to live under my mother's table in her office; she's already cleared space for them.

Tomorrow morning KidThree and I have a date with the wheelchair repair folks. We have to be forty minutes away from here by eight in the morning, not something that will be pleasant with a teenager. Fortunately, KidThree wants her own chair back even more than she wants that extra bit of sleep, so she is amenable to the time. The repair guys need to see what is wrong with the chair so they can order the needed parts; they'll also check to see if the chair needs adjusting for KidThree, now that she has been in it longer and is better at using it.

***Wheelchairs are sort of like bicycles: when someone is just starting in a chair, she gets the equivalent of fat tires, training wheels, and no gears. As she gets better at using her chair, she can progress until she is in the equivalent of a racing bike--sleek, light, and incredibly maneuverable. KidThree is at the stage where her training wheels have been taken off, but she still has the big fat tires.

KidThree's FriendK is still here. Tomorrow we take him to the home of a friend of his, a home where he will be staying. This evening I'll be doing his laundry; I'll also try to get to the sporting goods store to find him a duffle bag so he doesn't have to keep using plastic trash bags to carry his worldly goods.

The other job for this evening is to continue digging through the pile of 'stuff' in my room. If it wasn't for wanting to watch politics, I would be doing that right now. It feels so good to finally be dealing with that mess. Last night I was able to sleep in there for the first time in months. Of such small things is happiness built.

A

What a Lovely Day.

I got so much done in my bedroom. The only reason I stopped was that it was time to take KidThree to group, and even that I forgot--she had to call from school to find out why I hadn't come to pick her up. Oops. I got all the bookcases moved from one side of the room to the other (this mattered, really it did), which took forever. De-booking, moving bookcases, re-booking, over and over and over again. Then finding out that a bookcase hit an outlet in the wrong spot, then another one was one inch too close to the desk, and I had to do it all again. Finally all the bookcases were where they were supposed to go, and the books were back on the bookcases. Not in any discernible order, mind you, but they are on shelves. For now, that will have to do. I kept coming across odds and ends like odd socks, and a missing bra (I KNEW I had three bras that color!) and a shirt I had given up for lost, along with a box of goodies for NephewC and many, many things belonging to KidOne. KidOne's things are all in a box by the front door; I'll get them to her tomorrow afternoon when she comes to borrow my car to move boxes. NephewC's things will go down to the parents' house; he is living with his other grandmother right now and doesn't need the lovely black and white things I bought him for his kitchen, and my mother has some storage space in her office. Goodness only knows I have no storage space here. I got so much done in that room today, there may actually be room on the floor in there for my futon.

After group, KidThree and I went to pick up her friend, FriendK, and go to McDonald's for our Wednesday date. We met FriendK at a light rail station. I knew things might be problematic with him because he appeared to have his entire wardrobe in a garbage bag that had so many holes in it, I couldn't figure out how he hadn't lost half his clothes already. Sure enough, FriendK's mother had kicked him out that morning because he wouldn't let her sell his food stamps card to get drug money (for her, not for him). That poor kid. He has a friend who is going to let him come stay, but he had no money to get to that friend's home. FriendK will spend tonight and tomorrow here, then Friday I'll have time to take him to his friend's home and to a welfare office so he can apply for aid. After twelve years working for welfare departments, I speak fluent social worker and can help FriendK with the paperwork. In exchange for a day or two of room and board, FriendK gets to move the futon.

KidTwo's friend came by with the gifts she sent from down south. KidTwo is the best gift-chooser ever. She knew KidOne was trying to reduce her number of knick-knacks, so she sent KidOne a small wallhanging. She knew KidThree was going to have to testify shortly and was terrified of doing so, so she sent KidThree a little talisman, a miniaturization of a ceremonial 'weapon' used by the Inca to gouge the hearts out of their enemies. KidThree will wear it on a chain when she goes to court. For me, she sent a zippered tote bag/purse that is a beautifully woven rainbow of colors (I had asked for a bag only). Poor KidTwo's grandfather was sure that wasn't enough of a gift (it was!), so he sent a lovely shawl to keep me warm on my walks. The shawl is about the prettiest thing I've ever had. I may have to get a really snazzy outfit just to give me something to wear the shawl with; it would be serious overkill with my jeans. The grandparents down south also sent beautiful ponchos to the grandparents up here. I do have the loveliest in-laws. Yes, I divorced their son, but they kept me and I kept them; we didn't divorce.

A

Got Some More Stuff Done.

This morning I had a good time watching BabyJ for several hours; he is such a sweetheart. While we were outside walking around the block, we saw the little claw truck scooting around the street, picking up piles of clippings and trimmings, then putting it in the big truck. That was a lot of fun; we ended up following it for an entire block so we could keep watching it. When the two trucks left the block, BabyJ got cheerful good-bye waves from both the drivers. A little further on in our walk, BabyJ found a pine cone, then when he found several more, he had a hard time figuring out which pine cone he should keep. Sixteen months old, and already an analyst.

KidThree stayed home from school as she didn't feel well. When I got home after watching BabyJ, she was ready to be up and about, so she worked on math and I helped. After that, I went to her school to drop off the work she completed last night and to pick up two more assignments for this evening's homework session. KidThree is working on her schoolwork like she's never done before; it is wonderful to see. When I went to the school to drop off her work, two of the teachers made a point of telling me how hard KidThree has been working and what a treat she's been in class, cheerful and participating. I told them that was the KidThree I've known for years, and that it was about time she let other people know what a terrific kid she really is.

And then, I started working in my bedroom. We moved into this apartment last September--it has taken this long for me to get to work on my room. When we first moved in here, I was still working, and whatever time I had at home was used to try to make KidThree's room and the kitchen functional. Then KidFour showed up, and then KidOne showed up, and then KidOne's bed showed up, and my poor bedroom never got touched, other than to get more piles of stuff added as I moved things around, trying to fit everyone and everything in. But now, now, I got started in there. Oh my, it felt good. It felt marvelous. I got a good-sized spot of carpet cleared (picking up one thing and putting it away, throwing it away, recycling it, whatever), then got going moving the bookcases where they will stay for good. I kept coming across odd socks that had mates in the odd-sock box; that was fun. Yes, I know, it doesn't take much to amuse me. When both the bedrooms are completed cleared, whatever socks are still unmated will be tossed, but for now they live in their box, hoping their partners will be unearthed in my excavations. By this weekend, I should have enough space cleared to move the bed from the living room into my bedroom, then I'll actually be able to sleep in there. It's the little things that make a difference in life, like being able to walk across your bedroom floor and being able to sleep in your own bedroom every night.

Now I'm going back in there to do some more archaeology. If I didn't know the apartment was completely empty when we moved in, I'd think Jimmy Hoffa might be in there.

A