Birthdays and Dogs

As promised, I fixed French toast for Alice Nan for her birthday.

She was able to get on the road early and should be on her way back to Santa Barbara.  We will miss her.  She's such fun to have around, and always looks on the bright side of things, a talent I don't always have.  Polly has accepted her, so there hasn't been a lot of barking, which is a blessing.

I was up too late and up way too early in order to start the French toast so after she left, I was very, very sleepy and, in fact, fell asleep with my head on my desk, waking when the phone rang.  I was so disoriented I couldn't place where that noise was coming from.  I"ve been sleeping so well these past several months that 3 hours just doesn't cut it for a night of sleep any more, though it used to be my norm.

Diana Ross was one of the few "names" that I recognized on the Grammys last night, a vision in red.

Someone said she was 75 years old and I thought to myself "I'd like to look like that at 75," and then laughed since I will turn 76 next week!  Too late!

The tree guys finally showed up to trim two of our trees.  We expected them 2 weeks ago, but their "cherry picker" (the machine that lets them ride up to the top of the trees) was broken and they had to wait for it to be fixed.

But it's fixed now and our trees are finally trimmed.

Norm came by around noon.  The schedule had him arriving early in the morning and spending the night, but he had to work in the morning and has to work tomorrow morning as well, so he just came for a few hours.  When the schedule was set up, we needed a lot more help than we do now, but with Walt close to back to normal--or at least a new normal--we don't really need physical help as much as we have appreciated the mental stimulation of having a rotating number of folks in the house.

Norm and I ended up watching the Westminster Dog Show (Day 1).  In truth, I think contests to see which dog is the most beautiful is as dumb as a contest to see which woman is the most beautiful, but I do love looking at the dogs.  This one, unlike the coverage of the National Dog Show, which only shows the Best of Grou and Best of Show categories, this coverage was of the Best of Breeds.  Polly was unimpressed by the Chihuahuas but I thought seeing so many altogether was cute:

I also decided I want a Xolo.  Not so much because I like the look (or description of the dog) but because I want to tell everyone I have a Xoloitzcuintli (once I learn how to pronounce it!)

We also learned about poodles.  Norm looked up the story behind the silly poodle cut and discovered it's not so silly after all.

The traditional poodle look stems from the 17th century.  Poodles are water dogs and since a Poodle's thick outer coat can get heavy when wet, the bottom half of the body was shorn back to help keep the dog afloat. To keep his organs warm in cold waters, the hair was kept long over the chest and head. Bracelets of ankle hair were left to protect joints from rheumatism, and a topknot was used to keep long hair out of the eyes when swimming.  So now you know it's just not some sort of frou frou affectation on the part of owners.

After Norm left, I watched the Westminster agility trials, which were so much more fun.  Watching dogs competing in athletic competitions made more sense than conformation.  Those dogs are amazing.  Even when things go wrong....

...they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and continue on.

I believe this dog was in the top 5.  The dog that won was tiny and barked through the entire course.

We are on our own for the next two or three nights, then Norm will be back and Ned will be home.  I think Ned is going to be very pleased to see the progress his father has made during his absence.

In My Easter Pajamas

It was 3 p.m. before I realized I was still in my pajamas.  I waited until the movie Easter Parade was over and then the plan was to get my mother and bring her here for a roast leg of lamb dinner.

I should add here that this was the line-up of movies on Turner Classic Movies today:

--Barabbas
--Ben Hur
--Easter Parade (?!)
--The Robe
--King of Kings
--Ben Hur--Tale of the Christ
--Quo Vadis
--Spartacus

I love Judy Garland, but how did she get into this list???  Still, I had not actually sat and watched the film in a long time...it's one of those movies I know so well, I can put it on as background while I'm doing something else.  But today, I sat and actually watched it.  It was like seeing it again for the first time.  A nice way to spend a couple of hours on Easter.

 

I had been mentally going back and forth all afternoon about whether or not I would actually bring my mother over here for dinner.  In the early afternoon it rained, moderate strength.  I knew she would not want to come out in the rain, especially since holidays mean nothing to her any more and she had no reaction on Friday when I told her I would bring her here for dinner on Easter. 

The rain finally let up and there was just a drizzle, which looked beautiful adorning the tree outside my kitchen window, but it still was wet and I was getting more and more convinced that I shouldn't try to get my mother.  I knew she would not remember that I said I was going to bring her here, and was not aware that it was a family holiday day, so I finally decided not to get her.

Then I got dressed.

"You're not wearing your pajamas," Walt said, in surprise, around 5:30. 
"I decided to dress for dinner," I told him.

Mother or no mother, I went ahead with plans for dinner--a roast leg of lamb, Cousin Nora's recipe for peas (from Ireland), and mashed potatoes, with salad.  All was delicious.  I wish lamb weren't so darn expensive.  It is my favorite of the red meats.

It was just Walt and me for the holiday, and we spent it watching the Beverly Hills Dog Show on TV, which was won by Ripcord, a gorgeous Doberman.

I've never been a doberman fan, but this guy was so strong and regal looking, it's easy to see why he won.

Well, actually no.  It's not easy to see.  Every time I watch a Best in Show competition, marvel at the judges who aren't judging one dog against another, but judging the look of one dog against the standard of the breed.  There were some beautiful dogs, one in each category, competing for the top slot.  My money was on the English Springer Spaniel, but I was happy for Ripcord and his owners.

So our Easter came without any bunnies, but with lots of dogs and a bit of lamb, and that was OK.  

Today I'll stop and visit my mother.

I Win!!!

It's not often...in fact it's rare ... that I can fool the dogs. They have been carefully training Walt and me over the past few years and I suspect they think they are close to winning the battle.

But not today.

We are creatures of habit around here, mostly because the four of us are home together all the time.  The dogs, bless them, are usually very patient with me.  No matter where I start the night, I usually end up asleep in the recliner.  Lately, after years of insomnia, I'm actually getting sleep.  I wake up in the middle of the night and move to the recliner.  To put myself to sleep, I have the TV on (lately I've discovered that Morning Joe is the very best sleeping pill, since it comes on at 3 a.m. here).  Even if I sleep as late as 9 a.m., as I did this morning, the dogs are very quiet and respectful, though they  are eager for breakfast.

But the second I touch the lever that lowers the footrest on the recliner, the dogs leap out of wherever they are sleeping and come running into the family room.  Lizzie is there for morning cuddles, Polly yeah, kinda wants to be cuddled, but even more she wants to eat.  NOW.

Walt never has to wonder if I'm awake or not because Polly starts barking immediately and barks and barks and barks and barks until she sees that their bowls are on the kitchen counter and being filled.

The day is pretty dull mostly with the dogs, exhausted from eating, spending the day recovering in their beds.  Once in awhile they go outside to see if there is anything interesting in the back yard.  Lizzie is amazing.  There is a spot in the yard where she stands and barks.  She doesn't seem to be barking at anything, but I swear if I let her she would bark in that spot all day, if I let her. 

But after 5-10 minutes I call them in.  They come in, running, because they know that they will get a little treat when they respond.

On nice days, Polly spends a lot of time outside, and if I am in the recliner and decide to get up, she races into the house, doing her happy dance, barking and turning circles because she thinks I will give her a treat.  Sometimes  do, sometimes I don't.  The other day she went out to the patio, barked twice, then poked her head in the door and looked for me as if to say "did you hear that?  I barked."  

I used to feed the dogs their dinner after Jeopardy.  When the "think music" for the final Jeopardy question came on, the dogs would get up and stand there looking at me. This worked well for a long time until we went away on a cruise.  Ashley fed them earlier and after we got home, there was no living with them until 7:30.  I finally agreed to feed them at  6 and since then, they have been trying to get me to feed them earlier and earlier.  I'll be in there in my office and I'll feel a nose pushing my elbow around 4 p.m., and when I don't move, they'll try again in a half hour. I refuse to feed them before 5 p.m., at the very earliest.

Even if they haven't yet started telling me they are ready to eat, all I have to do is get up to go to the bathroom an Polly starts barking and Lizzie starts leaping. I have put off going to the bathroom for as long as half an hour just to avoid Polly.

During the day they will interrupt me for three reasons:  Either they are hungry and want to eat NOW, or their water bowl is empty, or they want to go outside (we leave the sliding glass door oen for them, rather than using the dog door.  Not sure why.)

Polly has definitely become Walt's dog.  When she first arrived here (about 8 years ago), she was terrified and bonded with me, so she slept with her nose in my armpit and eventually felt comfortable enough to turn around and slept like a normal dog in my lap, and always slept on top of me.  Some time ago I realized that she was spending her time in Walt's lap.  I'm not jealous.  I think it's cute.  When she hears him coming down the stairs that little tale could take off like a helicopter, if she weighed less.  If he makes the mistake of walking through the family room without petting her, she stands on his chair and barks and barks until he comes back and pets her, then she lets him leave. She sometimes still starts out sleeping on me, turning and turning to find her sweet spot, settling down for about 30 seconds, then getting up and moving to a chair, where she spends the night.

Tonight the dogs were out in the yard, barking.  I suddenly realized that it was 5 p.m. and wondered if I could sneak into the kitchen and start putting their dinner together,  Their hearing is so acute that I can stand in the kitchen and whisper "treat time" and Lizzie leaps up from a nap and runs to the kitchen.  

But I snuck out of my office and quietly picked up the food bowls and put them on the counter.  I opened the tiny can of dog food I mix with kibble.  I managed to get it broken up in their bowls and was just opening up the bin where I keep the kibble when suddenly they were there.  I don't know if it was the aroma of the canned food or the noise of the kibble as I scooped it up that made them realize I was ahead of them.  

But I did it!  I managed to get their dinners mixed for them without any leaping from Lizzie or barking from Polly. 

These days you have to find your triumphs wherever you can.

---

But speaking of triumphs, I met Ned at Atria this morning.  He had brought a watermelon and coffee cake for us to share with my mother.

I was pleased when we got to her apartment to see that the newspaper had been picked up again. When we went in, she wasn't there.

Ned decided to check the dining room, and left me in the apartment with his dog, Bouncer, the whiner.  Bouncer spent most of the time (15-20 minutes) Ned was gone (he called me from the dining room and said they were finishing up there) standing at the door whining.

They arrived back at the apartment, my mother once again pushing her walker.  ("Is this my apartment?" as she sat down and looked blankly around the room.  I wish she could learn to recognize where she has lived for the past 3+ years.)

We had a nice visit, though most of the time she didn't make sense and when Ned and I talked, she usually didn't understand our words (but laughed about it).  "You know, I see you both speaking but I can't understand a single word you are saying."

But after the blow up earlier this week, it's been so nice to have three really positive days.  When she is good, she is very, very good...when she is bad, she is horrid.   And it's nice that Ned often brings out the best in her because Ned will not tolerate anything less than positive.

A Family Drama

I observed a great drama in our family room tonight.  As a professional theater critic, I think I'd have to give it 5 stars.

The family room has 3 dog beds and two chairs for humans.  It worked out perfectly when Sheila was alive.  A soft spot for everyone.  But Polly's favorite place to be really is in my chair.  The second I get up to go to the kitchen or the bathroom, she's in that chair and has built a bed for herself out of the rug that I put across the seat to keep her from digging in the upholstery.  I have to smooth out the lump of bed she's created for herself so I can sit on it, and she'll jump off my chair.

Lizzie, on the other hand, when Walt goes upstairs and his chair is empty, usually goes to sleep in his chair.

Tonight I was in my office and then came out to watch Go Call Saul.  Lizzie was in my chair, so I sat in Walt's chair.  Polly stood there just staring at my chair for about five minutes.

She finally gave what is kind of a cross between a growl and a whine, but very softly.  Lizzie didn't even notice.

Then Polly went outside and stood on the patio and gave 2 soft barks, which is usually the signal for Lizzie to join her and for them to check for critters outside.  Lizzie immediately got out of my chair, walked outside, and Polly ran back inside and took possession of my chair.  Lizzie came in, looked at my chair, gave a big sigh, and went into the living room, where she sleeps all night long.

Polly won.  But it was just so funny to watch that little head figuring out how to get "her" chair back!

So how's it going with the clean-up project?  Well, if you were to come in here and look at my office, you'd swear that I hadn't done a thing, but you would be so wrong.

For one thing, I decided I probably didn't need to keep 40 years worth of bank statements, which have been stored in several places in this office.  They are all now neatly in a box awaiting the city's next "shred it" day.

There have been huge piles on my desk, to the right of my keyboard, and on the desk to my left, supposedly my "work space" which had at least 12" or more of "crap" piled on it.  Both piles were totally chaotic but I managed to gather all of the Compassion letters in one pile, all of the stickers into the sticker container, all of the SwapBot postcards into the drawer where I keep them and the blank cards people have sent me into the postcard boxes, and all of the photos I removed from photo albums upstairs to scan into a special drawer until I get around to taking them back upstairs again.

I even found a stash of memorial cards...'cause you can never throw them away, can you?  This one is for the priest who was the pastor of the Newman Center in Berkeley when all the folks in our Pinata group met and married.  The only reason he didn't marry Walt and me was because he had been transferred by the time we married.  We did, however, name Paul (Paul Joseph) after him.

There was even the program for my cousin Shirley's memorial in 2005.  What do you do with this stuff?  I guess I'll hang it on the cork board above my desk along with the memorial for my cousin Kathy and the memorial cards for my friend Sister Anne (who died in 1992), and for Char's husband, Mike.

I opened up big areas in my desk area, but still have tons more to go through in order to make it better.  Then I can get started on the rest of the office.  This is obviously going to take longer than the week I figured I could devote to it.  Next week isn't clear like this one is, but it's not full either.

In the meantime, Walt continues plugging away upstairs and makes nightly trips to the recycle place.  I'm going to have to get him to cart away several years worth of Photoshop magazines that I know I will never look at again, especially now that I only have "Photoshop Lite" instead of the full program.

If we both keep at this, we might actually get the house in a shape where we can consider moving.  It shouldn't take more than 20 years or so...

The Golden Dog

I didn't think it was a big problem at first.  Lizzie started limping on Monday.  It was more than limping; she wasn't using her right hind leg at all.

She had a session of limping a few months back.  I let it go a couple of days and she stopped, so I didn't worry about it this time for 2 days, but she was still not using the leg and had become lethargic (except when the dog over the back fence was out, then she ran out barking like she always does, which is why I wasn't worried about her).

I finally called to make an appointment with the vet and we hobbled in to see her yesterday morning.

She could find no problem with Lizzie's foot, which she had been licking, so took her in the back for x-rays and came back with the bad news.  She had torn her ACL (anterior cruciate ligament).  She laid out two options for us  The first involved having an orthopedist come in, break her leg and reset it.  That would "only" cost $4,000, but would be the surest way to fix it for good.

The other is a simpler procedure that the vet can do in house and will "only" cost ~$1,500.  

Whenever something like this happens--and it seems that most of our dogs have had at least one "big" thing in their lives--it makes me wish for Peti-Care, but all things considered, Lizzie is about 9 years old and this is the first major problem she has had and if we had contributed monthly to a pet insurance we probably would have paid more.  I don't think Sheila ever had a big expensive thing happen to her in her 12 years.

Given her level of activity (not very active), I decided to go with the less expensive procedure. So she's scheduled for surgery.  She'll wear the "cone of shame" for awhile and won't be able to race out to chase after the dog in back.  It won't be a fun time for any of us, but hopefully the outcome will be good.

Our lives ("our" being a generic term meaning anybody who has and loves a dog) revolve around our companions.  I know that Lizzie and especially Polly are in charge of what goes on here during the day.

I wake up in the recliner and the trick is to sneak my iPad, which is on a shelf right at my elbow, into my lap so I can check e-mail before I have to "wake up" officially.  Polly never reacts when I take the iPad out and open it up, but no matter how silently I put it back, those bat-ears pick up the sound and she's wide awake.  When Polly is wide awake, there is no rest for the wicked until she has been fed.  She barks and barks and barks that shrill bark of hers that pierces you to the core and there is nothing to be done but to get up and fix breakfast for the dogs.

Lizzie is the one who legs me know if they need something.  If she needs for me to open the back door, or if she is out of water, I will be sitting here at my desk and will feel her nose poking my butt.  She's so polite about it (unlike Polly) that I get up right away to find out what it is that she needs.

On Sunday morning, Walt fixes his breakfast and it's the day of the week when he cooks sausage.  He always gives one sausage to me and gives me one sausage that I split between Polly and Lizzie.  Whenever Walt goes into the kitchen on Sunday morning, suddenly there is Lizzie under my feet and Polly standing behind me, both waiting patiently because they know they are going to get a bit of sausage.

They are insistent about dinner too.  It takes several weeks/months after Ashley has been here for them to get back to my schedule to feed them.  She feeds them earlier than I do.  They can be sound asleep and suddenly the dinner bell goes off in their heads and the are going to die of starvation of I don't feed them immediately.  Both pace and Polly barks.  When they are back on my schedule, they get fed after Jeopardy is over (7:30) and as soon as the theme music starts, Polly leaps off of the chair and starts barking to be fed.

But they are also nice to have around.  I never have to wonder if our bi-weekly water bottles have been delivered or if the Blue Apron guy has showed up with our box for the week because they bark the "you are an enemy; go away or I will kill you" bark.  By the same token, I always know when Walt has ridden up on his bike because of Polly's happy welcoming bark.

They don't like it when I sleep in the recliner and are often so restless if I stand up that I finally give up and go sleep on the couch for a few hours.  I have often put off writing this entry because the dogs want me to go to sleep.  Fortunately they don't seem to mind when I get up at 3 a.m. and move to the recliner, or decide to write a journal entry in the middle of the night.

---

Just a heads up -- I am going to Char's tonight to go to a lecture by an author whose book we read a couple of months ago.  I am spending the night there and won't be writing an entry until I get home Friday morning.
 

Potpourri

 I thought about this sign I saw this morning as I was sitting in my recliner, on a lump of a towel Polly had tried to shape into a nest, with cramps in my toes and a bit of restless leg syndrome. I was also very thirsty. I desperately wanted to get up.  But Polly was sleeping so soundly and she hadn't slept in my lap like that in quite awhile -- not sure why not.  I hated to disturb her.

It reminded me of this morning when I was wide awake and needed to get up and come into the family room to change positions before going back to sleep, but Polly was curled up on my back and Sheila was stretched out in front of the couch blocking the place where my feet needed to go in order to stand up.  But she was so comfortable....

I have turned into my mother.  Her dachshund, Max, was the most spoiled dog in the world.  In fact, in those meme questions that ask if you could come back as an animal, what would you come back as, I usually answered "my mother's dog."  Remaining in an uncomfortable position in order to let Max remain sleeping is something I can see her doing many times!

Speaking of my mother, as unpleasant and frustrating as Atria was yesterday, it was a 180 degree change today.  I dragged my feet getting there, dreading a repeat of the day before, but knew I had to get there because she needed her next set of pills.  But we actually had a good visit, this time mostly concentrating on her family, how much she misses her sister Marge (Peach's mother) and how lately she's been dreaming about her mother having very real conversations with her, and waking up convinced that she was still somewhere in the room.  She seems happy to be having those dreams, and just sad to wake up.  I hope that some day she'll just decide to take her mother's hand and go off with her to find Marge and the rest of her siblings.

I came across an article today that said that the very first drive-in theater was built in Camden, New Jersey in 1933.  The innovative idea turned 82 earlier this month (June  6).

How many of you remember going to the drive in as a kid...or with your kids?

I don't know how often my family went to the drive in, but often enough. We would bring stuff to eat, Karen and I would dress in our nightclothes and we would have blankets to wrap up in when we inevitably fell asleep.  Seems to me we felt naughty going to the snack bar ('cause you always had to go to the snack bar) in our jammies to get popcorn and a soft drink.  Some of the theaters had playgrounds where the little kids could play until it got dark enough to start the movie.

The sound was always awful, I remember.

Those speakers that you hung on your rear view mirror or on the inside of the front window always had static and sometimes didn't work at all...then you had to drive to another station and try again.  Apparently at some point they found a way to connect the speakers to your car's radio, but that was after we stopped going.

I went a few times as a teenager, and was one of those "good girls' who went to see the movie, with maybe a little chaste necking thrown in for fun, but you never saw the car I was in steamed up.  I was there to see the movie.

We took our kids to the drive in a few times, I remember.  It was a way for the whole family to see a movie at less than theater prices (and bring the baby without disturbing other patrons), but they were pretty much waning by the time our kids came along, though it was always fun to catch a snippet of the current movie as you drove past one on the highway at night.  

I wonder if Jeri, Ned or Tom remember being in a drive in with us.  The very last time I was in a drive in, I wasn't exactly in a drive in.  There was one drive in left in this area, a XXX porn film drive in.  No catching snippets from the freeway because the screen was turned to face the cars and the empty field behind them.  But Walt and I had gone out to dinner with our friends and Dave decided we should see if we could see something by driving down the road alongside the theater.  We could, but we didn't stay long.  That ended our drive in movie going history.

But it was fun to have that memory of being a part of this icon of American culture.  At its peak, there were 5000 theaters across the country (which seems a remarkably low number to me) and today there are fewer than 500 (which seems a remarkably HIGH number to me!)

Bev 1, Mom 0

Sometimes you win.  It's a good feeling.

When I left Atria the other day, I stopped by the front desk to make a reservation for brunch on Mother's Day.  For once I was in time to get a spot and I felt good about that.  (The last two holidays I tried to get a reservation for they were full up and weren't taking any more reservations.)

Then Sandra, the girl at the desk with whom I have become friendly, told me that my mother had brought another bag of clothes that "didn't belong to her" to the front desk a few days before.

Well, of course they belonged to her, so I spent an hour yesterday going through photos and found the one at the left.  It's her wearing one of the shirts she says don't belong to her (it's from a Cousins Day in 2011).  She had also brought two pairs of pants and I found a picture of her wearing one of them.  I printed both pictures off.

The last time this happened it resulted in a very angry argument between us, her insisting she had never seen the clothes she brought, me telling her that I bought some of them for her, her insisting she had never worn them.  I told her I didn't see what a big deal it was because even if they weren't hers, all of her clothes were second hand anyway, purchased at the thrift shop where she worked, so she is used to wearing second hand clothes.  But she was adamant.  She didn't want anybody at Atria seeing her wearing their clothes and think she had stolen them.

It was classic dementia talking and I got caught up in it, trying to bring rationalization to it, which was, of course, impossible.  I ended up giving the clothes away, after trying to sneak them back in a couple of times.

After that I started bringing her laundry back in a laundry basket, rather than just piling it on the bed for her.  I made a big deal about "here is your laundry and I will pick the basket up later."  Since that time we haven't had any problems.

Until this week.

I figured that the problem was that her last load of laundry was small and so rather than bring it in a basket (which makes my back ache when I carry it), I brought it in a bag and maybe that was what caused the mix up.

Anyway, I was prepared this time.  I took out the sweatshirt and said that she had returned it to the desk, but really it was her shirt.  She spread it out and said "I don't ever remember wearing this shirt."  I whipped out the photo and showed it to her.  She could not deny it.  Then I showed her the photo of the pants.  And as she stood there with a blank look on her face, I suggested that the next time she doesn't recognize her clothes, she should realize that her mind is playing tricks on her again because nobody is going to be bringing strange clothes into her house.

I don't know if it worked, but there was no argument.  She took the photos and she kept the clothes, but whether they will get back out to the front desk or not, I don't know, but I figured I had handled things much better this time.  And from now on I will never bring her laundry back unless it is in a laundry basket!

---

I also did some shopping for her at the local CVS.  She needed lipstick and toothpaste, so I bought those and then I saw some dog beds.  We really needed a new one.  Sheila has taken to sleeping in this very tiny dog bed in the family room and I thought one that was at least a little bigger would be nice for her.  All the dogs have tried it out.

It's still a little small for Sheila, but if she curls into a ball, she fits.

It caused a great kerfuffle when I first brought it in, though.  Everybody sniffed at it and within seconds, Sheila and Lizzie were in a bloody battle that I had to break up by dragging Sheila off of Lizzie.  After that, none of them went near the bed, but eventually Polly got in it and then later Lizzie tried it out and as I write this, Sheila is sleeping in it.  That means there are now three beds in the family room and, if they want, room for everyone to have a comfortable bed.

Ursula

They call it twilight sleep, I think, when it happens in between that awake time when you first go to your sleeping place and the actual sleep that happens after random thoughts flit through your head while trying to get to sleep.   I've had some really weird twilight sleep dreams through the years, where my mind takes over and it goes off on flights of fancy all on its own, sometimes thinking about real things in my life, sometimes true flights of fancy that I had no notion were rolling around in my head. Because I'm busy trying to get to sleep, I have no control over where my thoughts go.

I'm not sure what you call it when this happens in the morning, during that time between deep sleep and fully awake.  

I've started sleeping until about 8:30 in the morning and I'm lovin' it.  Now that doesn't mean 8+ hours of uninterrupted sleep.  That means 2-3 sleeping on the couch, then an hour or more (usually more) awake watching TV and trying to get back to sleep in the recliner, and finally getting to sleep, waking around 5:30-6 and listening to the local news and the Today Show, aware that I'm dozing off and on while "watching."  

It's in those "dozing off" times when I have weird thoughts.

This morning I was thinking about Char's youngest son, Cam (Cameron) and realize that I know his middle name and I knew how he happened to be named Cameron (but not how he happened to get his middle name).  Then I wondered if I remembered all of her kids' middle names.  It's kind of like one of those things that you should know about your best friend, but since the kids are all >50 and pushing 50, it's not something I've had to think about in 50 years.

I started with the oldest.  I knew she was named after Mike's cousin in Belgium and I even remembered her middle name.  But I didn't know how the 2nd daughter got her name and couldn't remember her middle name.  The next daughter was easy because she's my goddaughter, though I didn't remember how they happened to name her either her first name or her middle name.  Tim was easy because one of Char's very best friends at the Newman center was a priest named Tim (in fact, he was the priest who married Walt and me -- we were his first wedding after he was ordained).   I remembered his middle name too, and that brought me back to Cam again.

I told Char about my dream and she filled me in on the name I didn't remember and gave me the story behind how each one happened to be named.   She then shared with me something I hadn't known before, that she herself was apparently named after her mother's favorite childhood doll.  "Not exactly inspiring," she added.

I thought about her being named "Charlotte" and then thought about how the Latin word for "bear" is "ursus" and thought that since she is such a huge fan of the UC Berkeley Bears she should have been named "Ursula" and told her that.  "Sounds good to me. You may call me Ursula from now on," she tells me.

I probably won't, but who knows.  I just may.  That will confuse passengers on our upcoming cruise to France.  Go Bears!

* * *

I falsely maligned our dogs this evening and had a brief moment of panic at the same time.  Walt is off at the opera in San Francisco and the four of us 2- and 4-legged critters are here alone.  I wait to watch the evening shows (mostly Jeopardy) until Walt gets home so we can watch them together, so I decided to watch a movie instead.   I got into the recliner, kicked off my Birkenstocks, and settled in to watch the movie. The dogs paced in and out of the house during the last half hour or so because it was getting to be dinner time and I wasn't getting up to feed them instantly.

When the movie ended, I got out of the chair and there was only one shoe.  I looked under the chair, on either side of the chair and all over the family room.  The dogs are not chewers and I never have problem leaving anything on the floor (other than a plastic waterbottle) because I know that they won't run off with it.  But the shoe wasn't anywhere.  I pushed the chair forward and it wasn't under the chair either.

I went outside in the fading light trying to find it before it got completely dark.  But no shoe.  I checked the living room, the couch (where the bottles they carry out of the family room end up) and everywhere they might have taken the shoe.  I asked them many times what they had done with my shoe, but nobody talked.

I finally lifted the chair up to see better under it.  Still, the shoe was not under the chair, but it looked a little odd under the folded up footrest and when I examined further, the shoe had gotten folded up when I went to get up and there it was.  Whew.

I wear my Birkenstocks every day and they are wearing out badly, after about 20 years, and I keep meaning to get a new pair, but just have never done it.   No time tomorrow because I'm having lunch with Ursula and her cousin Susan (of Logos) and won't have time to get downtown to shop.  But definitely on Thursday morning I need to get a replacement pair of Birkenstocks, just in case I ever lose one again.  I'll keep these ratty old friends in the closet in case I ever lose a shoe again.

But the dogs are off the hook.  They were good dogs after all.

Day 71:  Brianna is getting more like Uncle Ned every day

Doggie Dementia

Maybe I've just been spending too much time at Atria and other facilities, and maybe I see dementia everywhere I look, but I swear that, at 12 (84 in human years), Sheila is developing dementia.  Because of the barking problem, we have blocked off the dog door to the back yard more than we have in the past, keeping the dogs inside until we're ready to let them out through the sliding glass door.  But when we do open the dog door and let the dogs out, and Sheila comes back in, she can't remember that the dog door is open.  She doesn't even try to go into my office to see if she can get out.  She just stands at the sliding glass door and scratches at it.

Her mealtime has changed too.  Forever, I have fed Polly in the kitchen, Lizzie by the water cooler, and Sheila in the family room.  In fact, Sheila has  eaten in the family room for all 10 of the years we've had her.   When I begin dishing up dinner for the dogs, mixing in the spoonful of cottage cheese that they get, she sits, as she always has, near her eating spot and waits patiently for me.  I feed Lizzie first, then Polly and then Sheila.

When I feed Sheila, she watches me intently, as if she's not quite sure what to do.  If I leave the family room, she follows me.  She has reached a point where she won't eat unless I'm actually sitting my chair watching her.   Then she scarfs it down like she always did. But if I get up, she'll stop eating again.

These guys are so funny.  They say dogs thrive on routine, and these guys are thriving so much that it is they who have gotten US into a routine.  When they are out of water, Lizzie keeps poking me over and over again until I get up to see what's wrong--and it's always an empty water bowl.

(Sheila just licks her water bowl until I can't stand the noise any longer and get up to refill it.  Sheila, for whatever reason, would rather suck on mud than drink out of a full bowl that the other dogs use!)

All three dogs are very patient with my sleeping past what they think is their meal time, but the minute I touch the handle to lower the footrest on the recliner, Polly lets out a bark in the direction of the living room (where Lizzie usually is) and another bark in the direction of the back yard (where Sheila usually is) and both of them come running in.

I'm thinking of renaming Lizzie "Prewash" because whenever Walt or I load the dishwasher, she is there to lick remains of food she can reach off of the plates.  I have to admit Walt thinks this is cuter than I do (I often only half open the dishwasher while I'm gathering plates so she can't lick them.  I know they are sterilized while being washed, but I still don't always like it)

As for Polly, she and I are in a nesting war.  Polly must nest. She can't not nest.  I have put towels on my recliner so that she can dig in them and make a nest out of them instead of digging in the upholstery. When I think of it, I try to leave a quilt on the chair so she can nest in that, but if I don't leave the quilt, she digs in the towels and lumps them up to make her nest.

But she watches me like a hawk.  She doesn't sleep in my lap so much any more, but as soon as I sit down (after smoothing out the towels again), she jumps off and goes to her little dog bed, from where she can watch my every move.  If I get up to answer the phone, get a drink of water, or go to the bathroom, when I return 2 minutes later, she has built her towel nest again and we go through it all over again.

Some day I should count how many times I have to smooth out her lumpy nest so I can sit in my recliner!

Think she looks threatening?

---

Spent all afternoon waiting for a friend who sent a message last night that she would be in town today, apologized for contacting me at the last minute but said she really wanted to see me and would I be home?  I answered her message and never heard from her again, and as it is now 6 p.m. and she just posted pictures from a bar where she is with friends, I think it unlikely I will see her.  I'm not surprised, but I'm a tad pissed off about it!

Maybe she has transient dementia.

Two Bites

staring at me intensely, as I eat an ice cream bar "I can keep this up as long as I have to..." Following my hand as it moves the ice cream around Patience pays off

When you get into dog training and trying to make your home a  pleasant, organized place where the routines are clear to everyone involved it takes time.  It takes constant repetition over days, weeks, and months, but finally one day you realize that the goal has been accomplished and everything you wanted to accomplish seems to be coming into place. The dogs have been very patient with us.  Slowly, slowly, slowly they have started to mold us into the kinds of parents they want to have and now I realize that we have achieved that place where we do exactly what they want us to do, with minimal explanation necessary on their part. It's a give and take process.  They are willing to make small concessions when they know the end result is just exactly what they intended it to be. The most successful trick that we do is to follow the two bite rule.  Now, the dogs would be happier if it were a four or a six bite rule, but they have agreed to the two bite rule. The two bite rule means that whatever I'm eating (Walt is less maleable than I am and he will probably take more training), each of the three dogs gets two bites. I usually have toast for breakfast and I sit in the recliner to eat it.  Each of the three  stands in front of me staring at me, their eyes never leaving my face.   Sheila often drools.  I share my crusts with them and as soon as they have had their second crust, they leave, because they know there are no more coming.  At dinner they don't beg, they just sit there and stare at me until I cut up part of my dinner and give each two bites.  After two bites, Sheila walks away because she will not get any more. We don't often have dessert, but when we do it's usually an ice cream bar or a small dish of ice cream.  The two bite rule doesn't work here.  This is Polly's special rule.  She sits in the dog bed opposite my chair and as soon as she figures I've had enough, she jumps on the chair, and sits there staring at me.  When the cone or the bar gets near the end, I let her finish them off (if it's a dish of ice cream, I let her lick the bowl). On Sunday mornings, Walt makes himself sausage, to go with his eggs and hash browns, and he used to make a sausage for me and bring it to me in my office.  I think Polly was the first one who realized  there was good stuff being shared between Walt and me and she wasn't getting any of it.  Shortly after she figured it out, Sheila did too and for months now, whenever Walt is in the kitchen cooking, Sheila leaves her bed and comes to the family room to lie across the door to my office. Polly is in the recliner, ears perked, watching his every move and as soon as he leaves the kitchen, she leaps off the chair and sits under my feet under my desk and Sheila stands by my chair.   Recently Lizzie, who didn't figure this out for quite a long time, has joined the Sunday sausage club, so now Walt has to make two sausages for me or I won't get any at all. They all know that they only get one bite of sausage and as soon as they've had that, they turn around and leave my office. At night, when it's time to bring them in and close the door, Polly will go outside, sit on the patio, look at the back fence, which separates us from the yard of our neighbors, who have a big dog, and she'll just bark...just a little.  Bark-bark ... [space of silence] ... bark-bark ...  As soon as I get up and turn on the patio light, she and Lizzie come running in, I close the door, turn off the light and they go into the living room to go to sleep. They let me stay up as late as I want, but they don't like it.  Around 11, Sheila gets up from her bed in the living room and comes in to check on me.  If I show no signs of being ready to go to sleep, she lies across my office door and every 20 minutes or so she'll get up and look at me until I feel so guilty that I finally get up and go to the living room, whether I'm sleepy or not.  Sheila has stepped up her training lately and some nights she paces back and forth until I finally give up and go to the couch. I have to at least try to sleep for about an hour before they will ignore me if I get up and go back to the family room again. Walt and I aren't perfect, but we are coming along nicely and I think the dogs are starting to feel that all of their work is finally paying off.

Routines

I came across this quote today.  Obviously written before 2003, because Fred Rogers died in 2003.

Nearly every morning of his life, Mister Rogers has gone swimming, and now, here he is, standing in a locker room, seventy years old and as white as the Easter Bunny, rimed with frost wherever he has hair, gnawed pink in the spots where his dry skin has gone to flaking, slightly wattled at the neck, slightly stooped at the shoulder, slightly sunken in the chest, slightly curvy at the hips, slightly pigeoned at the toes, slightly aswing at the fine bobbing nest of himself... and yet when he speaks, it is in that voice, his voice, the famous one, the unmistakable one, the televised one, the voice dressed in sweater and sneakers, the soft one, the reassuring one, the curious and expository one, the sly voice that sounds adult to the ears of children and childish to the ears of adults, and what he says, in the midst of all his bobbing-nudity, is as understated as it is obvious: "Well, Tom, I guess you've already gotten a deeper glimpse into my daily routine than most people have."

I don't know when this interview (this is just the start of it) was written, but two things struck me.   First was the description of this 70 year old man.  Harumph, 71 year old me wants to say!
But the second thing was the last sentence which led the article writer into talking about Mister Rogers' daily routine

The first time I called Mister Rogers on the telephone, I woke him up from his nap.  He takes a nap every day in the late afternoon--just as he wakes up every morning at five-thirty to read and study and write and pray for the legions who have requested his prayers; just as he goes to bed at nine thirty at night and sleeps eight hours without interruption.

I have been thinking about routines today, and how our lives have changed since Polly entered our lives and essentially put an end to the sporadic fostering of dogs and allowing us to settle into a pretty set routine around here.  Every time I visit my mother she asks "what have you been doing exciting?" and I always tell her "nothing" because unless I'm reviewing a show, pretty much things are routine around here.

I love how the dogs are really very polite.  I end my night of sleep in the recliner.  Sometimes Polly sleeps with me, but mostly she sleeps in Walt's recliner, though with ears erect, waiting for me to wake up.  I confess that I often don't let her know I'm awake for as long as half an hour after I wake up.  The dogs either sleep in the living room or walk outside, but they never bother me. 

The minute I decide to get up, Polly leaps off the chair and gives one sharp bark, which brings Sheila and Lizzie running from wherever they are and all three leap happily, knowing that I will feed them.  Polly sometimes barks until I go into the kitchen, but lately, once she knows I'm standing up, she just acts excited because she knows that the routine is that I will feed her.

When I put down the bowls, Lizzie scarfs hers down instantly, and then goes in to where Polly is eating and sits quietly until Polly has finished, when she eats whatever (if anything) is left.   I love that there are never any fights over food.  Lizzie is the one who eats the leftovers, but she never challenges anybody for food.  She just sits and waits her turn.

The dogs go back outside but when I get up to make toast they can hear it going into the toaster and all return to the house where they stand in front of me begging for toast crust.

They never fight over the crust.  They know Sheila gets hers first, then Lizzie, then Polly.  I am constantly amazed at how they never try to grab a piece of crust that isn't theirs.  They each get two pieces of crust, after which I put up my hands and say "that's it," whereupon Sheila walks back outside because she knows it's over (the other two haven't figured that out yet and remain ever hopeful).-

When they are outside and start barking, all I have to do is open the sliding glass door (which scrapes on the frame because Lizzie has knocked it slight off the track) and they come racing inside.  One of these days I will get a video of it because it's so cute, but usually even if I sneak to the door with the camera, by the time I get the camera ready, they are already inside.

The time changes each season have kind of done away with the routine they had for awhile, which I loved.  When the end of Jeopardy came, Polly would leap off whichever lap she was on and starts barking, letting the others know it was time for their dinner.  She still barks to let them know about dinner, but it isn't connected with Jeopardy any more.

At night, when we are eating our dinner, they take their positions around me because I'm a bad dog owner and do feed my dogs from the table.   Sheila takes stock of the dinner.  If there is something meaty she knows she will get a sample, if there is no meat she may or may not, so she doesn't commit to the full sit, staring at me.  Instead, she lies down, with her back to me, pretending she doesn't care, but if she senses sounds of food sharing, she can be up in a flash.  Meanwhile Lizzie is staring at me from my right side and Polly is sitting unobtrusively under the table until food is shared, whereupon her nose appears on the chair seat, between my legs.

Starting at about 11:30, when The Daily Show is over, Sheila, who has been sleeping in the living room, starts getting antsy.  She doesn't want to go out, she wants me to go to the couch and sleep.  She checks on me several times, sometimes sleeping under my legs at my desk.  When I finally get up, she is as excited as if I had announced dinner.

She stands behind me and lets me enter the living room first and then waits impatiently for me to make up my bed.  When I lie down, Lizzie jumps up on the table behind the couch, Polly settles in under the blanket on the level of my waist and Sheila first walks down in the left direction from my head, presenting me her backside to pet (not my favorite part to pet) and then turns around and comes back in the other direction so I can scratch her ears and her chest and run my hands over her shoulders.   Then she lies down in front of the couch and we all go to sleep.

When I get up in the middle of the night, nobody moves.  I go to sleep in the reciner and everyone continues wherever they are (except sooner or later Polly will move into the famiy room, to either sleep with me, or to sleep on Walt's recliner) and then in the morning the routine starts all over again.

The thing I like most about our routine is that it's mostly silent.   I'm a quiet person and though I talk to them, I don't talk all that much. We don't yell at them for barking, we just open the back door.  I don't have to call them for meals, they know. I learned how acute their hearing is when I once said "treat time" in a very low tone and the dogs, who were outside, came right in, so I don't call out "treat time!" any more, I just say it in a low tone. They know when I'm thinking about going out and react accordingly (getting ready for a treat, which I always give them when I leave). I try to be aware of dog body language and while I can't be quite as attuned to them as they can be to me, I have gotten much better at reading them over the years. I feel that we five have a real partnership that just works for us, thought it's not every exciting to read about.

October

Wow.  It's October already.  Also, if he were still alive, it would be my father's 99th birthday.  Whew.  Good thing he died at 72.   He would have made a miserable old man!

I'm missing Walter White today. I'd rather be watching a maniacal drug czar cook methamphetamine and murder his way across the southwest than listen to what is going on in Washington.  I am so incredibly depressed by the inability of our elected representatives to represent us.  I am almost paralyzed by the depression of watching the government fall apart before our eyes.

While we are being held hostage by 1/3 of the members of one house of congress, We are dealing with our own tiny tyrant around here.  I was watching her race down the hall, tail wagging furiously, when Walt got home from running an errand the other day.

I was thin

king back to that terrified, skinny little girl we first took in.  How she hid behind furniture and trembled like she had palsy whenever anybody tried to touch her, especially men

Now she is a fat and sassy self confident little dog who runs the house and who has come to prefer being in Walt's lap at night to my own (until we go to sleep, and then she sleeps with me).  I looked at her in Walt's lap last night and as he scratched her back, she had this huge grin on her face.  Polly is not a "grinning" dog.

Polly's life depends on scheduling, and she is rigid in her sense of schedule.  When she decides it's mealtime, she takes no prisoners.  I usually feed the dogs while I'm making coffee, so breakfast is pretty set.  Dinner is at the end of Jeopardy (7 p.m.) and Polly continues to let me know she thinks they should eat 2 hours earlier, but, like the Republicans in Congress, I remain rigid on the mealtime.

Thus, Jeopardy has become a Pavlovian response.  Polly sits next to my chair, looking at me and sometimes whining softly during the show.   When the think music starts for Final Jeopardy, her ears perk up, and when the final theme music plays, she puts her paws on my chair and looks at me with a question on her face.  When I say "is it time for dinner?" she answers with one sharp bark (which I assume translates into "Yes!") that brings the other two dogs running.

Mealtime is one of Lizzie's favorite times of day too.  She comes in on springs and leaps, leaps, and leaps up and down waiting for me to fill her bowl.

(Showing her new haircut, courtesy of Ashley and her friend Megan)

The one command the dogs all know very well is "sit" and I've started telling her to sit when she leaps up on me, which is making my life easier.   I have had a lot of problem this past year with my left thigh.  It's where Polly sleeps on me and when something exciting happens, she digs her claws into my leg as she springs off of the chair.  Whenever I come in the front door -- or get ready to feed the dogs -- Lizzie leaps up over and over again clawing at my left thigh.  As a result, I've been having shooting pains in the spots where the dogs hit...and their continuing to hit them over and over again hasn't been helping.

When we were on our cruise, my thigh got a chance to recover for 2+ weeks and it was starting to feel better when we got home, so I've been doing what I can to keep the recovery going.  I try to always have something padded on my leg, usually a quilt, which keeps Polly's claws from my flesh.  And I'm discovering that the "sit" command is actually working with Lizzie.  I have to keep repeating it as her patience doesn't last that long, but so far in only a week, I'm kicking myself for not thinking of this before.

As for Queen Sheila, she is such a peaceful entity in this household.   Mostly she sits (or sleeps) outside, guarding the house--or on the couch in the living room protecting us from garbage men and mail carriers.  Sheila's problem is that damn spot on her left hip.  It comes and goes.  Either it's fine (which it was a week ago), or she gets an itch and starts biting at it, so that now, in only 3 days, she has a bald spot there the width of a quarter and the height of a dime.  Time to get out the oinment and the pills and start dosing her again.  This has been going on for several years now.

(As someone who frequently has an itchy back, I identify with this compulsion of hers!)

I do love these guys, and on days when it seems like the whole country is going haywire, it's nice that the only problems that affect me are Polly's orders, Lizzie's leaping, and Sheila's backside.

Ruling the Roost

Polly is barking at me.  Not loudly.  Not the bark-bark-bark-feed-me-now bark that I get before her breakfast and before her dinner, but just an annoying yip....yip....yip.

It's her way of telling me that it's 10 p.m. and she wants me to go to the living room to go to sleep now.

Polly and I have different internal clocks, and even though we have been having these conversations for more than a year now we still have not come to an agreement about a lot of things.

The dogs are very good about letting me sleep in the morning.   It's no great inconvenience for them, since I usually wake up around 6:30 or 7.   If it's earlier rather than later, I move to the recliner.  This used to be a difficult time because I wasn't really ready to start the day, but I would like to go to the computer, but if I go to the computer, that signals the dogs that it's MORNING!

Now that I have an iPad, I climb into the recliner, open the back door so they can go out.  I quietly check e-mail and Facebook on my iPad.  I am aware that while I am otherwise motionless, both Polly and Lizzie check on me from time to time.  If I stay very still, they both find somewhere to sleep.

The second I touch the handle of the recliner to lower the footrest Polly lets out a trumpeting bark.  This bark brings the other dogs racing from wherever they are, living room or back yard.  I haven't figured out if the bark is "dog" for "She's UP" or "It's time for breakfast!" or both.  When I bend over to pick up Sheila's bowl, Polly sets up a continuous bark, a circle dance all the while backing in front of me into the kitchen.  As I turn to put Sheila's  bowl on the counter and pick up the other two both Polly and Lizzie are leaping at my legs, stopping only when I start to put food into the bowls, and add cottage cheese and stir them up.  

Things quiet down while the dogs eat and are generally pretty quiet most of the day.  Occasionally Polly and Lizzie will start barking at the dog in the yard behind us.  Then I go to the back door, call them and they both whirl around and come racing in at top speed (one of these days I'm going to be successful at catching that on video because it's so cute).  I give them each a small treat for being such good dogs and coming when called (ignoring what bad dogs they are for barking!)

All three dogs get their required 13 hour nap, broken up a bit by trips to the back yard, but always back inside.  For Lizzie and Polly sleep is the order of the day, for Sheila it is "protecting the house," from either the front couch or her bed in the back yard.

Polly's orders start again around 5 p.m.  I've been fairly rigid about feeding everyone when Jeopardy is over--and they know it because as soon as the "think" music begins, Polly is standing in front of my chair with that quiet "yip ... yip" reminding me that it's time.  But any time I get up out of any chair between 5 and 7, both Lizzie and Polly start dancing around me, and Polly yapping, but I ignore them.  I have to be the boss sometime, you know.

At 7, they get fed, again with yipping and jumping, and then things calm down until around 10.  The dogs really want me to sleep at 10 and I am not ready to go to sleep until midnight (or later).  Polly will stand here whining and whining and whining.  I decide to let her outside, but she runs in the direction of the living room instead, but when she realizes  I'm not going to follow her, she runs outside, and for a long time just wanders around, but eventually stands on the patio and yips quietly...hoping I'll get up and go to sleep.

The longer I'm with these guys the more I begin to understand "dog" and the better we hone our interactions and get the routine around here down to a firmer schedule.

---

I had another good visit with my mother today, who managed to get herself to the hairdressers without me.  I suggested to the hairdresser that she call her to remind her which, apparently she did (my mother remembers that she received a call).

She talked at length about how satisfied she is at Atria.  She said she was afraid she might be bored, but if she feels bored she either walks down and works the puzzle in the meeting area or she goes out and sits in the lobby and sooner or later there will be someone she can talk to.

We talked about how Ed had brought papers for her to sign so he can go ahead with the sale of her house and she says, again, that she can't remember what the place looked like.

Dear God keep her healthy for awhile.  If she doesn't fall or develop some sort of infection, she could have several happy years at Atria, now that she feels like it is "home" And it only took two months.

I'm reading another book on Alzheimers and other dementias and it is loaded with valuable information, which I hope to be following up on, specifically first getting her to a doctor to get her level of impairment measured as a baseline.