The Complaint Department

Hi There!

I can't believe how long I've been away from The Complaint Department!  I'm still busy fat-busting over at my other blog, but Fat Chat is just so . . . one dimensional.  And not very interesting to a majority of people, I'm sure.

It's drizzly, drab and dreary today, and I'm making a nice beef stew here at home.  There's laundry churning away and a big stack of papers that needs organizing.  A lot of my downsizing and organizing goals have been sidelined, lately, since Jack the dog joined up with our family.  He's a very large toddler, weighing in at almost 75 pounds at just 12-18 months of age.  You can see a few photos here.

Jack is a little less needy every day, and we're slowly getting a handle on his various physical issues--severe ear mites, mange and a skin infection as a result, intestinal parasites, a fungal infection, etc.  Under what conditions can such a young animal's health become so compromised?  You'll just have to imagine because Jack was basically snatched off private property, and I can't relate too many details.

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Last time I posted, we were preparing to have new carpeting installed.  It's done, and I'm completely happy with it.  Stuff is slowly finding its place again, and my office is taking shape.  The room really houses my treasures, which I've collected and lugged around for years and years, through marriages and different living situations.  Old books, family papers and all kinds of tchotchkes, mostly.

Well, I really need to take better pictures of the overall room, I see.

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In other news, Pamela-J and I went on a little outing to Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, earlier this week.  As you will read from Pam's blog post about the day here (with photos), the original plan involved looking for a couple of lampshades and eating Lebanese food and browsing around.  Nothing really out of the ordinary.

But then I went and bought a very large piece of furniture and the whole afternoon's planning soon involved the careful dance of feeding the parking meter, eating a meal and arranging to have the dresser (or, as they called it at the furniture store, the commode) loaded into my Ford Focus station wagon and secured.

So, little leisurely browsing happened, but we're going back!

Here's one of the lamps for which I needed a shade (above), and here's the shade Pam found--the perfect shade for this lamp, I think!

The shade is broader in the front and back and narrower on the sides, so it fits well in this space on the credenza in the dining room.

Are you curious about the dresser?  Well, it's enormous--six feet long, to be exact.  Once it was loaded in the car, the front seats needed to be pushed up all the way, and Pam and I drove back to Maryland with out faces practically jammed up against the windshield.  And because Pam is so trim, she was able to do this while holding two large lampshades in her lap!

I bought the dresser for Tony.  Tomorrow is his 64th birthday!  He probably would have preferred a new hard drive or something, but I'm not too knowledgeable about stuff like that.  And he needs an all-in-one place to put his clothes.

I like everything about this piece--the wood, the hardware, the fact that the front has a slight curvature to it.  It's neither too busy nor ornamental--good for a guy.

Here's the other lamp with it's new shade.  Not as fancy as the first shade, but neither is the lamp.  Again, good for a guy.

Well, that's it for now.  I'm going to try to do a better job of posting here at The Complaint Department.  Maybe I'll shoot for weekly posts.  If I can do it over at Fat Chat, I can do it here!

Anyway, thanks for popping by.

Couple of Things

So, I mentioned over at Fat Chat that I finally had a long-overdue colonoscopy, along with an endoscopy, for good measure.

I spent days and days fretting about the whole business . . . and all for nothing, really.  The days leading up to the procedures were not all that pleasant, as there was a lot to keep track of, like what I could and couldn't eat and, of course, swallowing some rather vile concoction.  I was unhappy and cranky for a time, when not able to eat or drink anything for quite a few hours--or was it days?--beforehand.  Then, too, there was the pooping.  It wasn't as bad as I expected, though.

Pretty soon, I found myself at the point of no return, dressed in a hospital gown and laying on a gurney, as I received an intravenous cocktail of valium and twilight anesthesia.  And I was out like a light very quickly.

I only remember feeling some discomfort when, I'm presuming, air was forced into my colon, but the sensation didn't last long . . . I don't think.  And, my throat was mildly sore that evening, but okay the next day.  I woke up, after about 90 minutes, feeling pretty good . . . maybe just a little dazed.

So, that was it.  Everything checked out okay, too, so big relief there.

In other news, things are all in a jumble here at The Complaint Department.

New, upstairs carpeting is on the horizon, and we've been busy tearing up the old, nasty carpet and padding.  At the same time, we're shifting some of the furniture around, getting rid of stuff that doesn't fit our lifestyle any longer.

One of those pieces is a giant, mirrored cabinet monstrosity, which surrounded our bed, with built-in lights and electrical hook-ups, and gold trim and white-finished oak wood--holy crap!

As I told Tony the other day, I'm getting too old to have furniture that I have to climb ladders in order to clean.  It's time to dispense with the Arab Dictator Chic line and go for something more practical for the American geezer set.

Same goes for the white carpet!

I can only describe the new carpet color as a shade of a Weimaraner.

What a disaster!

I'm taking over this bedroom to use as an office.  My former office was a tiny desk adjoining Tony's much-larger one, which my friend Peanut referred to as Mini-Me's desk.  Tony's work would often spill over into my small area, creating issues.

We switched out the king-sized bed from the guestroom, which took up the entire room, with the awful (IMO) marshmallow bed from our room, thereby assuring that overnight guests will not overstay their welcome.

This bed, in the spare spare-room, has been broken down, and will be replaced with the bed in my soon-to-be office, where the piano will also be situated.

All of our crap is currently residing in the bathrooms.

I can't even begin to tell you how this kind of disarray affects me.  Especially since we still have no idea when the installation of the carpet will take place.

And the whole business of getting rid of stuff and rearranging rooms and furniture has caused some flaps between husband and wife, possibly indicating some major power shifts and reverberations.  I'm sure you all felt it, wherever you are!

The Divine Miss Gladiolus

Yesterday afternoon, my next door neighbor brought me a bunch of gladioli.  When I cut their stems and set them in water, the flowers were closed up tight.  This morning, I saw that the buds had been very active overnight, and there should be quite a show over the next few days.

A lot of people don't like gladioli because of their strong association with the dead.  They're popular flowers in those big, funerary arrangements.

But, the gladiolus is a favorite of mine.  The gladiolus is like the Auntie Mame of the flower world.  Big, gorgeous and unapologetic.  The best female impersonator in the show.  Like Divine in Hairspray.  The gladiolus wears loads of makeup and big, shiny jewelry.  She is a flower that IS a flower!

Haunted

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Random Ramblings on the GOP Candidates' So-Called Debate

Like Pam, I'm intensely interested in the field of GOP candidates shaping up for next year's presidential election.  Why?  Well, partly for the entertainment value . . . and partly because, as an Independent, I can flippy-flop around on a whim, if I want to.

Audience:  One left-leaning, registered-Independent voter, former-First Lady Nancy Reagan, and a whole bunch of other people.

Moderators:  Brian Williams (NBC News), John Harris (Politico), and some guy with a vague accent who walked on to pose a singular question about immigration reform.  Can anyone enlighten me as to his identity?

Candidates:  Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Herman Cain and Jon Huntsman.

Here are some off-the-cuff impressions.

Candidate who avoided answering most questions, yet used up their allotted time nattering on about other stuff, over the barely-discernable tune, "If I Were King of the Forest":  Michele Bachmann

Candidate who was the most consistently bizarre and single-minded:  Ron Paul

Candidate about whom I will probably never alter my low opinion and who I perceive as a giant windbag with an enormous ego:  Newt Gingrich

Candidate who may or may not have had something profound to utter, yet seemed unable to capture and form the words swirling around in his brain:  Rick Santorum

Candidate who was most predictable:  Mitt Romney

Candidate who reminded me the most of Ronald Reagan during the Iran-Contra Affair, when the signs of Alzheimer's Disease were becoming more pronounced:  Rick Perry

Candidate with whom I would like to sit down and seriously pick their brain about how they would fix all that is ailing this country:  A tie.  Herman Cain and Jon Huntsman

Interesting moments included Rick Perry's statement about Social Security being a Ponzi scheme and his inability to accept the science of global warming, on its own merits and at the expense of The Economy.

Ron Paul seemed to convey that government regulation of the nation's airways and auto industry were unnecessary, implying that the free market would determine what was safe and leaving me to understand that once I was killed while driving an unsafe car, I would certainly never buy another!

And, while Michele Bachmann criticized the Obama administration for U.S. involvement in Libya because there are no American interests at stake there, she conveyed that more should be done to ensure that Iran is not developing nucular . . . I mean nuclear . . . weapons.  The line of "American interests" is ever-shifting, it seems.

My major beef about this debate was the moderators' focus on frontrunners Romney and Perry, at the expense of the others.  I found myself wanting to hear more from Jon Huntsman, in particular.  But not Bachmann or Paul.  No, not them. 

Up next, the CNN tea party debate on Monday.

At Home at Winter Growth

 

It's been a while since we checked in with Mom here at The Complaint Department.

I was up to see her, as usual, last Saturday, after missing the week before due to Hurricane Irene.  We stopped by the bank to get her a little walking-around money, went out to lunch and took a drive.  Upon returning to Winter Growth (formerly referred to here as Antique Village), I took a few shots of the place where Mom lives.

Let's start at her bedroom.

When Mom first moved into Winter Growth over 3.5 years ago, I was a basket case.  I struggled with guilt, sadness and worry, although she had reached a point where continuing to live alone was out of the question.  Even though Mom's outward appearance looked (and still looks) completely normal, she struggled with memory loss and cognitive difficulties (which have steadily increased over time).  While her physical health remains quite good, she does have a diagnosis of probable Alzheimer's Disease.

Concerned that Mom would not be able to find her way around Winter Growth in those early days, I painted and decorated some six-inch, cardboard letters I found at Michael's, which I attached to the door of her room.  See my signature initials?

While Winter Growth has a large number of people who come in for the wonderful day program, there are only about a dozen or so residents who live there full time, giving the place a cozy dormitory or group-home feel.  Each resident has a good-sized bedroom, but the bathrooms are shared (there are a lot of them, and Mom has one right outside her room), as are the communal areas--TV room, sunroom, library areas, garden.  It was hard to photograph the entirety of Mom's room, but it accommodates a twin bed, chest of drawers, writing desk, easy chair and a few small tables and lamps.

Although Winter Growth provides furniture for their residents, if desired, the things in Mom's room are her own belongings--and many of those things she's lived with for over half a century.  It was meaningful for both of us for Mom to be among her own things.  Before Mom moved in, her room was freshly painted and cleaned, and it was in great condition when Tony and I were ready to take her things over.

In addition, her room has a very nice bay window with a wide ledge for pictures, ornaments and clutter.  Maybe you can see that Mom is quite the clutter-bug.  Even though she no longer reads, she has stacks of books.  There are used tissues and cups about, geegaws representing her winnings from bingo games and a variety of other stuff.  I try to do a little de-cluttering each time I visit.

Out in the hallways and common areas there is a variety of bulletin boards that the Winter Growth staff do a wonderful job of designing and changing often.

Mom's birthday will be acknowledged next month, in October, when she turns 88!

Mom loves animals and small children, so she's enjoyed these most recent boards a lot.  They've helped her remember the beloved pets of her past.

There are plants everywhere!  Here is the longest-lasting poinsettia in history, which has been around since Mom moved in, I think.  If the staff can keep a poinsettia going this long, I don't worry too much about the care that Mom receives at Winter Growth.

In the center of all the bedrooms, common areas, offices and activity rooms is a garden/outdoor-sitting area, with a tranquil koi pond in one corner.  Animals feature largely at Winter Growth, with regular visits from volunteer dogs, the presence of pets of staff members, an indoor fish tank and a rabbit.  One former resident even brought her aged cat to live with her there.  It is exactly this kind of open-door policy and flexibility that makes Winter Growth such a special place.

The wonderful, outdoor area simply comes alive in the spring and is used well into the late autumn.

Each morning, Monday through Saturday, the day-program people arrive by special Winter Growth buses or with family members.  They come through the front door, where staff members greet everybody, assist them with their coats (if it's fall/winter) and locate their name badges.

A weekly schedule of special events is nearby.

The many day-program attendees and residents are divided into groups and circulate through several different activities throughout the course of the day.  Some of the folks require a little less activity and commotion, and they are assisted and cared for in more peaceful surroundings.  Morning and afternoon snacks are provided every day, as well as lunch, and medication needs are handled by certified individuals, under the direction of registered nurses.  Of course, as a resident, Mom receives breakfast and dinner, too, as well as an evening snack.  I also keep her stocked with her latest addiction--Baby Ruth candy bars--which she keeps hidden away in a drawer.

For 18 months before Mom moved into Winter Growth, she attended the day program two or three times each week.  Her familiarity with Winter Growth eased the transition when she decided to make Winter Growth her home.

Still, anyone with elderly parents, who's recognized that a change in lifestyle has become necessary, knows that the adjustment to a new environment and routine can be full of pitfalls.  It was no different with my own mother.

In addition to the fact that Mom already felt comfortable and at-home with Winter Growth, we agreed, when Mom finally made the transition to becoming a resident, that we would try it out for three months.  If, at the end of three months, Mom was unhappy living there, we would look at other alternatives.  We even wrote the date--when we would review and discuss her thoughts about the matter--on her calendar.

At the end of the trial period, Mom was happy to sign on permanently as a Winter Growth resident.

Living at Winter Growth has provided Mom with activities, companionship, and a sense of belonging--all so important to combat the isolation that can be experienced by some of the elderly.  Mom has an outgoing personality, loves to joke and tell stories about her past and enjoys engaging with anyone who will listen.  Needless to say, those characteristics helped to make her adjustment to Winter Growth that much easier.

Mom is the star, the headliner, the Big Show!

Me?  I'm the back-stage support.  And having Winter Growth in MY life has made my job easier on so many levels.  It's like having a whole staff of people assisting me in my job to make sure Mom is safe and happy.

Mom gets good meals and snacks, so I don't have to worry about her using a stove or subsisting on donuts and sandwich meat anymore.  Or consuming alcohol.

Mom's medications are managed, so I don't have to worry about her not taking them, taking too many, running out, refilling, calling to remind her, fighting with her about them, coming up with new, but never successful, reminder arrangements.

Mom gets help while bathing, so no worries (or many fewer) about falls.  Also, no worries that she's not even taking baths and not keeping clean.

Mom's laundry gets washed, dried and put away.  No worries about Mom going over the stairs at home to do this and no worries about Mom wearing the same clothes for days and days on end.

Mom's doctor makes house calls at Winter Growth.  Need I say more?

Mom has immediately-available help 24/7, if she needs it.

Mom lives across the street from a large, regional hospital.

Mom has a number of committed and caring people seeing to her needs at all times.  They pay attention to everything, like, for example, the fact that Mom was unable to recognize her long-time doctor when he came to see her at the end of August.

I'll just close with this sentiment, repeated by Mom many times:

"Winter Growth.  That name just makes me laugh.  It's the winter of your life, and they're trying to grow you!"

Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

 

Weather

There were some stunning clouds across the Chesapeake Bay tonight, around 7 p.m., part of a thunderstorm system leaving our area.

I dashed out with my camera and got a few unremarkable, hazy shots.  While I was cropping and editing, I enhanced one of the photos for clarity and depth.  The photo software spit this out.

I love it.

(Click on the photo to enlarge for full effect.)

It's Fall!

For me, the first signs of fall are the yellowing, dropping leaves from the tulip poplar in the back yard.  It's always nice to see--even when it's still hot and humid--because then there's real certainty that fall is just around the corner . . . in a couple of months, anyway.

I like the sound of dry leaves on pavement . . . the way they scratchily whirl around in the wind and collect together in bunches.

Here's Tippy the Cat enjoying a nap on the warm pavement.  Usually, I have to chase her around if I want to catch her and bring her inside.  When she's like this, I can often just scoop her up.  It's almost as if she's paralyzed by the warmth--all floppy and droopy.

Here's one of the many squirrels that visit our tiny patch of woods.  Can you see him?  He's enjoying some sunflower seeds.  We routinely see groundhogs, opossums, rabbits, deer and turtles.  Once--only once, during the years and years I've lived here--I saw a river otter cross the back yard at the cliff's edge.  Oh, yeah, and the chiggers.  There are lots of them!

There are bald eagles, ospreys, Great Blue herons, kingfishers, turkey vultures and a wide variety of smaller birds--both woodland and shore types.  Occasionally, we find a dead fish in the yard.

I snapped this pic on the way home from my visit with Mom last week, at our little, fire-department annex near our community.  Actually, sometimes forest fires are unavoidable, like the one down there at the Virginia-North Carolina border--in a place called the Great Dismal Swamp.  Hard to imagine a 6,000-acre fire burning out of control in a swamp.  Nevertheless, it's true.

We've had the smoke and other airborne material all the way up here in Calvert County to prove it.  It's reached up to Annapolis, I understand.

The material burning is kind of like peat, and the particles must be very oily.  We had some rain one day, and cars were skidding off the roads into ditches because of the slick surfaces.

Check out Smokey's belt buckle!  I think Smokey and friends could use a make-over.  This sign looks about 50 years old.

I Love Lucy

Many, many years ago, there was something called disposable income.  Can you say it with me?  Disposable income.

I know it's hard to believe, but many families--not all, though--were able to pay for food, shelter and clothing, for cable TV, landline and wireless phone services, for auto, health and home insurance, and for a variety of miscellaneous expenses.

Even after all this, some of these people had money left over.  This is what is known as disposable income.  Disposable income was used to buy any inane thing which struck one's fancy.

Lucille Ball would have celebrated her 100th birthday yesterday, if she still lived.

I don't remember when I first saw I Love Lucy.  I wasn't even born when the show first aired, so I'm sure I was probably over 10 years old when I started paying attention to the show.

Did you know that I Love Lucy has been in syndication for 60 years?  Apparently, it never been off the air since the original shows aired in the early 1950's.

I love my Lucy doll and all her outfits.

My Lucy doll and her wardrobe will be interred, along with me, in my mausoleum when I die.

Do you recognize any of the outfits, which appeared on the I Love Lucy show?  If you look closely, there are little accessories with some of the outfits which provide clues.

Happy Birthday, Lucy.  I continue to make your kids rich.  You are welcome!

A Trip to the Big City

Earlier today, I met Pamela-J here, at the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art.  We had arranged earlier in the week to sign up for a Japanese flower-arranging workshop!

While Pam took the subway in from the north, after smashing her finger in her car door and having to seek out first aid, I arrived in the city from the south and drove around endlessly, looking for a parking space.  Legitimate spaces are hard to come by on a summer's day on the National Mall, so I squeezed into a questionable space, offered up a prayer to the God of Non-moving Violations and walked the two or three blocks to the gallery.

I snapped this photo of the center courtyard of the Freer Gallery before finding my way to the conference room, where the workshop was being held.  I wandered aimlessly through the dark corridors on the lower level, and stumbled across the location entirely by accident, thanks to the directions from the guard at the street-level door.

Pam had similar problems finding the location, arriving, as if by magic, off a (secret?) elevator and through the back door of the conference room.

Today was god-awful hot, especially when traipsing along concrete sidewalks next to the four or six lanes of traffic on Independence Avenue.  Pam and I fell into each other's arms upon meeting, as though we had been separated in battle.  Then, after mopping our sweaty faces and brows, we calmed down and got on with it--gabbing, that is, about all kinds of stuff unrelated to the task at hand.

Once the program got underway, we were introduced to the people who would be working with us, none of whose names I remember, except for the docent who took us on a tour to discuss a half-dozen or so Japanese screens, ceramics and lacquerware items, depicting seasonal themes.  She was either Tammy or Tanny.

(I hope Pam posts an entry on her blog about the program, because she might have some images of some of the items we looked at on the tour of the exhibit.  I seem to have been more interested in the food.)

Each of us--and I think there were 25 or 30 people in the class--were supplied with a wine bottle (empty, darn it) and a round, glass vase.  The yellow bowls were filled with water, and we were advised to cut our flowers underwater.

After a short and, to me, confusing, mini-lecture about Ikebana--the shin, the soe and the hi kae--the straight and true, the supporting and the receiving--the heaven, humankind and earth--we got to work on our arrangements, after being supplied with some willow branches and orchids and some other green stuff.  Well, sort of.  I was enjoying gabbing with Pam and not concentrating on what I was there to do.  An instructor came by and asked, "How is everything going here?"  I was back in first grade and had been caught talking in class.

 

After fiddling around with the thing, like, forever, and depriving a heap of poor greens and flowers of water and killing them off for certain, I came up with this.  Rather than talk about the arrangement, I will say that black plastic is probably not the best table covering for an elegant picture and that I really need a new camera.  One like Pam's, where the flash can be turned off and where there won't be shadows, making everything look like you're seeing double.

Well, I guess I will mention the arrangement.  That's a piece of curly willow on the left and some leafy willow drooping down in the wine bottle, with a stem of pink orchid in the center, from which I cruelly stripped off all the opened blooms below, using only the uppermost piece.  In the clear, glass container are the just the blooms from a white orchid, floating on the water.

I decided to donate my masterpiece to the Smithsonian, rather than shlep it back to my car.  I'm sure it will be enjoyed by legions of visitors for weeks to come.

The workshop was quite brief, just about two hours, so there really was only time to touch briefly on two subjects--seasonal depictions in Japanese art and Ikebana.

The best part of my trip to the big city was getting to see Pam, of course, which was the whole point to begin with.