(Jack)Hammer Time

I finally started my back yard renovation.  I want no watering, no weeding, nothing to do in the back yard.  I have been saving up for house renovation, which has been easy with the pandemic.  No place to go, no where to go shopping and I still have to go to the office every day.  I think I accidentally cut out the margins of my budget but it'll work itself out by January barring any emergency.

I really wanted to start with the floors.  But I can't pack up all the crap in my house because I have nowhere to put it.  My plan was to end Mom's storage unit by the end of this year, but I think the pandemic has put that off til end of next year.  Once my back yard is done, I'll have space to put some big furniture outside and make room in my garage.  Tent or no tent?  I think I would like a tent over the temporary storage.  I'm leaning away from a shed.  That's just an excuse to not throw away what I don't need in my garage.

Wow, 3 hours to get all the existing slabs out.  I didn't originally budget for that but I agree, it'll look so much better when it's homogenous.  They've already started flattening the terrain.

Help is not coming (rant #2)

Mom was discharged from nursing home last Friday and is back in assisted living.  I did a little math.  Hospital kept her a week for intravenous antibiotics but she was too weak to go back to assisted living, so she went to a nursing home for physical therapy.  Only they kept her there for as long as Medicare would pay for without out-of-pocket expenses, which is 21 days.  She did bounce back to hospital twice while she was there, but she probably could have been discharged 5-7 days earlier.  It's just all about insurance.

The caregivers are spread thin so I must go every night to be her private caregiver for a few hours every night.  I didn't go back Friday evening but I went early Saturday.  It was July 4.  I just wanted to make sure she is eating, she lost so much weight the month she was away in a black hole.  She preferred the boneless ribs I brought for my dinner to her cheeseburger so we traded then she had extra helpings of the watermelon I brought for her. 

Sunday, I was a bit late for dinner, 6:30-ish.  She was left in bed since lunch and her dinner was on the table.  Well she can't get out of bed herself, so nobody showed up in 2 hours to help her eat.  She's one-handed now, she's not able to cut up the chicken by herself.  I got her out of bed, she ate everything & more watermelon.  I don't have the confidence that anyone would come to help her if I choose to take a day off.

Monday, a work day for me, my stomach acids were churning up again, so I left the dinner I cooked on the kitchen counter and went to see Mom.  She ate all her dinner and had been put to bed already by 7pm.  They didn't take out her dentures.  I don't know when she was changed, but I asked them to look in on her by 10:30.  I don't know if it happened, but if they don't change her on schedule, I'm afraid she's headed for another UTI.  I was so tired, had to go home.

Tonight, Mom had already finished her dinner when I got there.  I had like 30 min turn-around time at home, which is no time to eat.  I packed my dinner & rushed off to see her.  I don't know what she had for dinner or how much but I she enjoyed the watermelon while I ate my dinner.  The nurse is new, Mom wasn't taking medicine from her.  I got her to take it.  I asked the caregiver to come back to help me put Mom to bed at 8pm.  Nobody came for an hour, so I pushed the button.  And pushed again after 20 min.  Nobody came for another 30 min.  By that time, I already prepped mom for bed & had her in bed.  I just needed help in cleaning her up.  Mom's very squirmy, doesn't like the cold disposable washcloths.  So my laundry doesn't get done again.  I know the caregiver is spread thin, she's tending to over half the residents all by herself today.  She's supposed to be training a new caregiver who went MIA tonight.  So that's me working over 12 hours today.

Another Japanese recipe

This weekend's recipe is okonomiyaki.  I had to make alot of substitutions after I couldn't find ingredients at the asian market.  I see them on Amazon for twice the price.  Okonomiyaki is savory pancakes stacked up and covered in sauce.  LOL, much like egg foo yung.

So I used regular pancake batter instead of plain flour.  Awesome sub!  I don't keep bacon around anymore.  If I want want the taste of bacon, I eat out. A full slab of bacon is just going to go bad in my fridge after I cook a few strips.  So I substituted SPAM.  It fit the bill of "pork" and had the saltiness of bacon.  I couldn't get hold of Japanese mayonnaise, I didn't miss it.  I didn't find okomi sauce, so I used Teriyaki sauce.  I couldn't find the seaweed sprinkles or bonito fish flakes but the furikake I had on hand was an awesome sub.  Wow, what a pile of food!  I ate a little over half and saved the rest for tomorrow's lunch.

So Mom has been in and out of hospital 3 times in the last month.  Last week I had an unsuccessful phone call after she returned to the nursing home.  Mom couldn't hear over the phone.  Today I was able to get a FaceTime.  She was not verbal but she mirrored my gestures like waving & blowing kisses.

I'm still overwhelmed by the back yard overgrowth.  Maybe next weekend.

Update on the yard (a day later):  I was scrolling for other tools to use on my back yard.  I found electric shears so I went to home depot.  They only had one brand in stock.  Ugh, I didn't want to spend $100, I didn't want a cordless but that's all they had.  I wanted something in the $20-50 range but what can you do.  I get the convenience of cordless but, like wireless computer mouse, they tend to be extra heavy because of the battery.  I"m still going to need the lopers for the bougainvilleas because the branches have had 2 years to get thick.  So now I'm motivated to go out and play with my new tool.

Help is not coming

I tried for two days to schedule a FaceTime or help for Mom with the phone.  I left messages and put my errands on hold waiting for a call back.  I have to wait near the home wifi because Sprint data is too sucky for FaceTime.  Yesterday, I couldn't stand to waste the whole day so I finally went to the back yard and 30 min in, I missed the phone call.  So pissed.  I wrote a letter to Mom, drove over there to hand it over at the front door.  There's a note on the envelope that someone should read it to her.  I just found a pile of greeting cards, I'm going to drop one off every day on my way home from work.  My boss is even more of a jerk that I can't talk to the nursing home when I'm in the office.  She's basically been in a black hole since she left assisted living, which I'm still paying for, btw.

Re: the overgrown back yard.  I've been trying to hire help ever since I had the dead tree removed.  I'm just not the energizer bunny that I was 20 years ago.  There was a young guy I cancelled on, he just wanted too much money to weed whack the tall grass.  So I decided to tackle the project in small bites, the swiss cheese approach.  My 20-year old electric weed whacker is not up to the task.  So hiring the other guy, the one that looked like a homeless ex-convict who would have had to use my tools wouldn't have worked either.  I've discovered a new use for the hedge trimmer - yeah it works on the tall grass.  I'll take another bite next weekend.

masking my frustrations

I'm still thinking about art.  I have no time for it but I have a whole box of blank canvases.  On one of my visits to my pharmacy, the pharmacy tech says "we just got in masks & gloves, do you want any?"  At first I declined but when I went back, I figured we may be wearing masks for a while so I got a box.  I don't believe gloves are as good as washing/sanitizing your hands frequently.

I was aiming for a panda nose.  Everyone sees a cat.

My take on Joker (played by Joaquin Phoenix).  I think I scared a couple little kids LOL.  One of Mom's caregivers did a double take, she thought it was blood.  Just acrylic paint.  I've got more ideas.

Mom went to the hospital a couple weeks ago.  It was a UTI & bacteria in her blood.  She stayed for 5 days of intravenous antibiotics.  She was still lethargic on our one Facetime but she was still out of it, barely opened her eyes.  Then she got transferred to a nursing home for physical therapy until she qualifies to go back to assisted living.  I was able to get one Facetime only because I took the whole day off to deal with phone calls.  She talked to the girl holding the iPad, thought she was showing a picture of me and kept asking for a copy.  So I thought I'd try the phone.  The front desk would transfer the call to her bedside but Mom's not going to pick up.  So I had them hand the phone to her.  They must have walked away because after the initial hello, I didn't get any more response.  I think she dropped the phone.  So next time I have to ask the nurse to hang around while we attempt another chat.  This COVID thing is keeping me from seeing her.  She'll talk to me in person.

So my great commutes are only just good now until schools open up again and they go back to sucky.  Restaurants are sucking.  The lunch time lines are taking 20 of my 30 minute lunch break, especially since I was told I can't leave 5 min early anymore (after 10 years).  So it's a difference between a 10 min lunch run or 20 minutes.  Having to inhale my lunch certainly does not help my digestive problems.  I tried to go to the local Mexican restaurant.  OMG so many people in the restaurant at 3:30pm, nobody wearing masks.  So I drove on to Krispy Kreme.  The drive-thru was into the street and they're not letting anyone in for take out.  You must order through the app and pick-up only at the window.  I ended up at the small Walmart (groceries only) to pick up ingredients to turn my old roasted chicken into a chicken salad sandwich.  Admittedly it was much better for me than the (failed) choices.  It was a damn good sandwich, too.

Monday update: Mom was sent from the nursing home to the hospital today.  I got a call from the ambulance driver as he was taking her.  Then nurse called me from the nursing home when she went back.  Mom was alert to talk to me on the phone.  Finally after two weeks.  I mean it was repetitive as all hell but that's her old normal. 

Cinco de Mayo, the date

Feeling accomplished after this weekend.  Last year, my neighbor replaced the wood fence with block wall.  I was okay with it, I paid half.  The workers he hired, though, didn't care about how they left the place.  They overturned two of my huge pots and left them on their sides on the lawn.  They apparently cut the roots on one of my 22 year old italian cypress.  I was driving past my back yard one day and I noticed it was looking redder than the others.  Then the heavy rains came and soaked the ground, followed by a week of heavy winds.  I turned the corner one day in early December to notice the space between the trees.  The tree fell on top of the overturned pots. Because I've had so much to do for Auntie's estate, this weekend was the first time in 18 months that I've been in my back yard.  I hate gardening, so it was the at the bottom of my list of chores.  The grass must be chest high in places.

I finally hired someone to come out, chop up the tree and haul it away.  I don't know if $500 is a fair price in California, but it was another $300 if I wanted another tree gone, $200 if I wanted it trimmed.  Wow. I think these trees cost me less than $10 when I first moved in.  Four guys came out, it took them less than 30 minutes, they had a big chipper & truck.  I think Mom had her italian cypresses trimmed for $50 each (about 15 years ago).  Well, she had time to shop around and they didn't haul away the branches.  They packed what they could fit into her green bin and left the rest in a pile.

I didn't have walking space in my garage because I was digging for tax history for the CPA.  I thought they would go through the garage and make their way around the house to the gate, so I pushed everything back into place.  That is accomplishment #2.  Then I weed whacked the side of the house to get to the downed tree.  The grass was knee-high in that area.  Accomplishment #3.  So at the end of the day, my back was hurting and my sinuses were stuffy, even after a shower.  I felt so bad, I didn't go to see Mom that evening.  Woke up Sunday, still stuffed but it cleared by noon.  Now I remember why I hate gardening.  Allergies!  I never wanted a garden. 

So Sunday, I was trying to make Almond Jello.  It's a Filipino thing that you have with fruit cocktail.  It's milky (sweetened condensed milk) with almond extract.  Mom used to extract flavor from actual almonds but that's alot of work!  Anyway, it's supposed to be really stiff because it was originally made with Filipino gelatin which is actually dried seaweed.  Unflavored gelatin is the modern adaptation.  I didn't put enough gelatin and I added too much water.  It's too soft and too sweet.  I'll try again after I eat my first attempt.  I'm using up my aunt's gelatin and her almond extract.  She used to make this alot because it's a light & simple dessert, hence all the gelatin I inherited.  I can keep trying.

I found toilet paper!

Finally.  I was into my last roll of my preferred type.  I mean, I still have several rolls of what I inherited from my aunt. I could survive on it but I don't like it.  Now if only I could get the preferred diapers for Mom.  I've been driving around the county looking for the better fitting kind that she doesn't leak out of.  I actually found some today that'll work, for only $4 more than the preferred ones I buy at the warehouse store.  Last month I paid about $16 more.

So it's been a month since my last update.  I'm still going into work Mon-Fri.  I finished my projects, so the boss has me doing IT work.  I wouldn't mind a furlough (be careful what you wish for, right?)   I was hoping to use the weekends to clean out the house but the Goodwill & Salvation Army stores aren't open or accepting donations right now.  I don't have the space to stage the stuff so I'm just not working on it.  However, I need a new face mask.  I've been using the same one almost a month.  So I'm going to dig around tomorrow to find material or an old shirt to cut up.

The stomach issues resolved itself before the doctor's appointment.  I credit the bone broth, though I started taking the probiotic gummies at the same time.  A week before the appointment, the doctor's office changed it to a phone appointment.  Oooh, I wish it could be like that forever!  I had my list of issues to talk about so we could stay on track.  I could still use a massage, but I'm going to wait 2-3 months even after they're allowed to open up.

March life update

Drag my butt out of bed.
Work 8 hours.
15-90 minutes at home for dinner.
Visit Mom.  Home by 10pm.
Rinse & repeat.

Except now her community is locked down.  No visitors.  I get in because I'm there for a medical reason, to inject her insulin.  They give medicine but not shots.  So I have to do it every night.

I'm just waiting for probate to end.  We have a court date in May.  I have nothing left to do but wait.

So my stress has turned into physical symptoms.  I've been dealing with digestive issues since September.  Then it went up another level when I went back to work after the 2 week holiday break.  I think I've finally got it under control, except for gas.  Gas can get painful.  It's certainly not pleasant.  I mentioned this to my friend.  She gave me some Mexican herbs to make tea.  Meh.  So I've been trying probiotic gummy's.  I could eat the whole jar in one setting, takes alot of self-control to limit to two a day.  I think it helps but I think I found the cure:  bone broth.  I should have just bone broth for dinner every day.

I could use a massage.  But I don't trust the massage people to wipe down properly between customers for coronavirus.  Some tables are barely acceptable when it's cold & flu season and the place at the mall skimps on their table covering.  I'll give it another month.

It's still 2019

Wow, tough year.  Alot of pressure relieved after escrow closed.  Mom is settling in, though I bet I can now write a drama from what goes on in memory care (other residents, not Mom).  Alot of people get rubbed the wrong way because of other resident's false memories or faulty reasoning.  But I'm glad memory care exists for these otherwise physically healthy people.

Probate is almost done but we won't be able to close by end of the year just because the Los Angeles County courts are so slow.  Maybe in January? Definately by March.  Meanwhile my goal of ending the storage of my Aunt's stuff by the end of 2019 is going to happen.  I have the last two weeks off work (company shutdown) so I can deal with it.  The movers packed up alot of things I told them not to, so I will have to dig through boxes to get rid of stuff I don't have room for.  It'll be much easier when the stuff is here, rather than in LA.  Next year's goal is to end Mom's storage by Dec 31.

Oh no, I've got another fixation!  Years before I got the Instant pot, I wanted a donabe, a Japanese clay pot you use on stovetop or in the oven.  I finally sprung for a small one (7 inch diameter), supposed to serve 1-2 people.  First attempt - damn it's too small.  There's only enough room for a baby bok choy so I have to bring noodles into the broth a little at a time while I eat.  I still needed Instant pot to make the soup stock with meat, so no regrets there.  It was also too small to cook the noodles, so I had to do that in a separate pan.  I thought I'd be able to treat dobabe like the thermal cooker I tried to buy before Instant Pot, it doesn't look like it'll work that way.  It doesn't retain heat as efficiently as the thermal cooker.

I've been going to this Chinese restaurant for about 20 years where they make a spicy eggplant casserole in a clay pot.  I want to learn to do that.  Seems complicated, so I'm going to try other things in the donabe first, like mung beans.  I've done mung beans in the Instant Pot already but now that I'm only cooking for me, I'm trying to cook smaller going forward so that I don't throw out half the batch when it gets old.  I have a small freezer.  Until I use up my aunt's walnuts & cranberries, I don't have room to freeze half a batch.

I think I mentioned previously that I realized I had a room full of "models who don't move much" when I go to visit Mom in memory care.  So I've been trying get a sketch at every visit.  It doesn't always happen.  Sometimes I feel more like writing than sketching, or maybe I'm just busy with Mom, or sometimes she wants to go to her room early so I don't get an opportunity.  It's been a few years since I filled up a sketchbook.  I think I started to get busy with caregiving around 2015, because that sketchbook is still around with lots of pages to fill...well, it's probably in a box now but it'll come back out when I settle in with Auntie's furniture.

Burnout

So shortly after my last post, I reached total burnout, pushed over the top by the boss, who wrote me up for leaving probate papers on my desk after break was over.  If I get one more write up, I'm fired.  This is what happens when you burn a two ended candle at four ends.
(1) work stress
(2) mom caregiving
(3) night time caregiving (6-hour sleep interrupted 3-4 times/night)
(4) Auntie's probate

He was complaining about my time on the phone--hell, my mom had only been in assisted living for a month and I hadn't been on the phone in that time.  I had no need to watch the home camera anymore.

I know he was under alot of pressure.  He has two partners in the business.  One has retired out of the company, and tho the other still comes to work, he went through health issues for more than half of the last year.  He doesn't have the energy he did 2 years ago.  So the whole company has been riding on his shoulders for all the time, I'm sure he was feeling burnt out because he then went of to Hawaii for a week and came back with a better attitude.

While he was away I recognized my burnout and put in for 2 weeks vacation.  I didn't go anywhere, I was just away from work stress, I stayed at home to work on mom-care & probate.  Lots of probate.  If I can't be on the phone when I'm in the office, I can't be in the office.  The sale confirmation hearing was on Oct 1.  I didn't have to go to court in downtown LA, but I had to be available by phone in case they needed a decision from me as Administrator of the Estate.  Then I moved everything completely out of the house.  Anything I didn't take from the house was left for a cousin to sell off Craigslist & Facebook market place.  Anything that's left after that, the real estate agent will hire someone to haul away.  I made an extra trip to donate the last boxes & to sign escrow papers at the probate lawyer's office.  The other days were dedicated to moving stuff out of my house, 2 medical appointments for Mom and one for me.  I didn't really get physical rest, but there were half as much mental stress on me.  My bro took me to the movies twice.  With less stress, my gastric issues went away.

However, my first day back to work--OMG, my neck was killing me by 9am.  That's only 1.5 hrs into the day.  My acupuncturist wasn't answering the phone, I tried massage, heat packs, muscle relaxant & Tylenol.  Pain level was 0-1 when I woke up in the mornings but my the end of the work day, I was dying again.  I finally got an appointment with the acupuncturist (their phone service was broken) and VOILA it was like magic.  She stuck 3 needles at the top of my head and asked if I was feeling any pain.  No, nothing!  Just like that.

I have to work more at managing my stress, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  My aunt's house escrow will end this week.  In that run to the lawyer's office, I also signed papers for the last probate issue--it's wait & see on that one.  But like I said, last issue.  For all my troubles, I found out I will get paid for all the work I did equal to what the probate lawyer will get.

Honestly, the past year has been a blur

Mom went to assisted living about a month ago.  I thought it would be less work, it's not.  I still do alot of work on her behalf, now split in two locations.  She simply has round-the-clock caregivers.  They're not any better at getting her to shower or getting her to eat.  The residents there like the food, but mom is really picky and they keep forgetting to put her dentures in place in the morning.

 I'm still moving things into her apartment.  I'm torn between bringing her "real furniture" and the more lightweight patio furniture or portable furniture because I still have reservations about this place.  Assisted living is not cheap. She fell within the first week she was there.  I was called to the ER, she broke her arm, THEN they stepped up care. I had already told a couple people before that event "I don't think they're very proactive."

I have to excavate, yes, dig out some of her furniture.  One of the reasons she fell was because the bed was too high.  I had planned on using my aunt's bed & furniture for Mom's apartment, but she was having trouble adjusting.  On her second day, they had to put her in the Memory Care unit because she kept trying to leave. So I changed the plan to use Mom's bedroom furniture with a new mattress & no box spring, to lower the bed height.  I figured she'd be more comfortable with the familiarity.  When I dug out her bed frame, it created an avalanche (now all over the floor) so I've been, admittedly, too intimidated to  dig out her dresser.

I finally have a court date to confirm the sale of my aunt's house.  Then escrow closes within 10 days of that date.  I will have to move her furniture this month.

But look what I did this weekend!

1) I hate cleaning blinds.  I cleaned all the blinds in the house when I first moved in almost 20 years ago.  I've literally never touched them again.  Any blinds which have moved up/down or open/close slats have fallen apart.  So I've replaced the crap blinds with window film.  Now I can open the window!  Look how bright it is now.  My kitchen used to be so dark and  cramped.  There used to be 3 hanging baskets over the left side of the sink.

2)  I saw over the sink shelves on Amazon $20-50.  Well I had to go to Home Depot to get a shelving unit for Mom's apartment, so I got myself the pre-painted shelf plank for $5.  I had to cut it because of the plumbing, and I propped it up with 1x4's I had in my garage.

3) I've tried keeping herbs (in dirt) in the kitchen before.  Big fail because I hated the little bugs that would not go away until I got rid of the plants.  Plus I never get the water right.  So, left to right, I've actually managed to keep the Christmas cactus alive for 3-4 years now.  I've got a bunch of cilantro in water.  I've been too busy for to even water the front/back yard this year.  Everything is dead or almost dead.  #3 is a bit of Mom's vine that I cut from the front yard.  It's got roots :)  And lastly, spring onions in water.  So, if/when the cilantro or onions fail, it's like 33 cents to get a new bunch at the Mexican grocery store. 

Mid July

We're supposed to be having a heat wave this weekend, so I absolutely don't want to go to my Aunt's house where it's over 100 degrees.  However, I have been waiting for a hot day to clean my carpets.  I live near the beach, so the sun didn't come out until afternoon.  Then it didn't stay long, it was gone by 4pm.  I vacuumed with the intent to follow up with the carpet cleaner but it never got warm!  I only had enough time to go for a quick grocery run--oops I needed gas.  So hard to find an open pump today, what gives?  I got some ingredients to complete the chicken/potato salad. 

Meanwhile I found some freezer burned rib eye in my freezer.  Had no idea what to do with it but I wanted it out today. I bought a huge brown onion, thinking I'd do a "pan fry" in the instant pot.  Had a change of heart by the time I got home with the onion.  Threw in the frozen steaks, threw in a can of mushroom soup and a can's worth of water.  It cooked, it was soft.  I noticed a slight freezer taste.  Fed Mom but I needed more flavor and I wanted to thicken the sauce.  Doctored it up after dinner and cooked a bit more.  I got what I wanted, minus what we ate for dinner.  Success despite myself.

The pressure cooker that has been my life for the last 10 months has finally let up.  Caught up on my  projects at work.  Auntie's house is up for sale and I've got the first two offers.  I packed up the valuables but they're going to stay in the house until a month before the probate court date.  I'm going to have to rent storage space.  Then I'm going to rent more storage space & hire movers for my house so that I can make room to renovate. I figure everything will come together by the end of the year.