I'm going back to Cali...

We booked our flights for our one-year anniversary/vacation trip over the weekend. Two one-way tickets to Los Angeles, CA and two one-way tickets from Seattle, WA with 9 nights/10days between the two destinations… yes, a road trip up the Pacific Coast Highway is how we are celebrating our 1-year anniversary this year- We are so excited! And now the biggest challenge is finding a rental vehicle to drive on our road trip… the best part is that we are not even booking our hotels stays. Yep, we are just going to “wing-it”… Lots of planning will have to happen between now and September, but I am sure in the end it will be lots of fun for us! Besides the fact that I have never been to California, much less LA… again- Exciting! It will be so nice to see the Oregon coast again… I had the luxury of traveling up the Oregon coast back in 1997 when I went out to Eugene for a software training class for work. It is so wild how different the west coast is from the east coast… breathtakingly beautiful to say the least… I really need to start purchasing camera film now…

Thou shalt respect another man's property

We received a phone call Friday from our real estate agent on the East Point house telling us that an ugly old car had been parked in our driveway since Thursday and did not seem to be leaving any time soon. So guess what we did over the course of the entire weekend? Deal with getting rid of it! Yes, and deal with it we did… Did you know that the law has an actual process that you have to abide by to remove a vehicle off your own personal property? Yes, you cannot just have it towed… you have to post a sign on it for 24 hours before they will tow it and you have to sign all kinds of paperwork “allowing” the tow company to tow it off of your property too! After calling every towing company in East Point on Friday evening, I finally found one that would help us out. Of course, they were already closed by the time I finally reached them on Friday, so we had to go by there on Saturday morning on our way to Pine Mountain. We meet Bob the Owner (what a pleasant soul he was), sign all the pertinent papers, get our Notice sign and one of those bright orange stickers. Next, we go post the sign, stick the sticker and grimace once again at all the dark, black oil and rust the car has dripped all over our driveway. I am so sure that any potential buyer would just love to see that large black stain on their future driveway! We spend the rest of day rushing Memaw around town and celebrating Father’s Day with the family in Pine Mtn. As we made our way back to Atlanta on Sunday morning, the looming thoughts of the oil-dripping jalopy invade our conversation at breakfast. We were dressed for Sunday service and dreading the towing saga that laid before us on our way to Church. I made the call to Bob to remind him that 24 hours were up and that we were 20 minutes away from the house. As we make our way down Sylvan Rd I have both sets of fingers crossed and attempting to cross my toes too… and it is gone!!! Hallelujah! We cheer and do high-fives… I stare at what remains left behind and think to myself…. Thanks to the Owner of the pale yellow piece-of-crappola 70’s model Cadillac that left the 2 ft diameter puddle of coal black oil and Lord-knows-what-else on our beautiful, once clean parking pad and driveway. Thanks for the stain you left on our memories of this Father’s day weekend. The audacity of some people just makes me sick.

My ongoing internal battle with WHY?

Well I did it. Yep, I sucked it up and went to my first Alzheimer’s Support Group (ASG) meeting. A little background info: There is this really nice assisted living center near our home and I pass it each and every day on my way to/from work. Every so often I will see their purple colored sign out front advertising the ASG on Thursday at 7:30pm. I always think to myself each time I see it that I should go sometime… just once to see what it is all about… anonymously of course… maybe a fake name would be my disguise…
Anyhoo, I had long discussion earlier this week with one of our extended family members regarding the last few weeks with my grandmother and she told me I should go to one of those meetings (she brought it up- not me) and I told about that purple sign… yada, yada, yada…I finally made the decision this past Tuesday night to go for it. Now you can imagine how I have analyzed this experience for the 48 hours before the meeting and my imagination can be a really scary sometimes! Needless to say, I had pretty much concocted this idea in my mind that this meeting was going to be like an AA meeting… you know the story- I show up…there are 20+ other people there… we take turns going up to the podium to tell about ourselves… it is my turn… I stumble to the front… my voice is shaky and my palms are sweating and my heart it beating 100 mph… I manage to choke out, “ my name is Kelly, I am 33, and I am an Alzheimer’s caregiver.” And the 20+ people just stare at me as I attempt to tearfully summarize me and my story. And then I sit through all of their stories. With this scenario running over and over in my mind, I was all worked up even before I left the house last night! Well…. Let’s just say that my anxieties were nothing more than anxieties… There were only 3 people there and one was the group leader. They had a platter of very inviting oatmeal and raisin cookies greeting us at the door. We sat around a conference table and had an hour or so long chat about ourselves and our situations. They offered some opinions and insight in response to my line of questions. I guess the best thing that I took from this hour was having the opportunity to talk to someone who a) does not know me b) does not know my grandmother and c) has not heard my daily gripes for the past 6 months. I admit that having a fresh set of ears was nice to talk to and see what their thoughts were. I haven’t decided if I will go back next month yet or not… maybe I will or maybe not…

The telethon is on!

I have spent this week promoting a Memaw-telethon to drum up some more visitations for her. I sent emails to those email-using folks back home, called several of her closest friends and extended family and had lengthy discussions with them during my rides between the office and jobsite during the day. (It is really hard to reach folks her age after work hours… must be a senior citizens thing?) I feel so strange too when talking to her friends... it feels almost like I am advertising for her... like I am describing my puppy for sale in a newspaper ad... cute, petite grandmother for sale- loves long walks, rocking chairs, and southern cooking- inquire within...
In the meantime, I am dancing on egg shells with I am on the phone with her… just waiting and dreading the next “bad” conversation or should I say the next outburst?! One thing I have discovered is that if I call her with a subject in mind to talk about and start off the phone conversation with that subject right away, then she gets too involved with that subject to remember her complaints! Funny subjects work really well because they keep her laughing and her mind off the other. In the mornings though I get so frustrated with her because she goes through the same line of questions each day: “How are you feeling today?” “Is it raining up there today?” “Be careful driving because there are crazies on the road.” “Don’t hurt yourself.” And I love this one: “Your going _(insert exercise here)__ in this heat? Well don’t haul off and have a stroke!” Thanks, Memaw… how morbid are we? Why would you tell me that? That is such an elderly thing to say to me! Ha! Anyhoo, I know that I am fortunate that she is able to say those things to me today, because tomorrow she might not be able to any more. I also know that I am truly blessed with every new day I have with her… and that all of these “bad” or “stressful” talks that I endure now will be a cherished memory down the road… I just hope I can survive and keep my wits along the way.

Raindrops are falling on my head

So our new love for mountain biking has really taken off these past few weeks. Mike has been going almost every day up to the park in Canton. I go with him on the weekends to that same park. Well yesterday we decided to try a new spot and met after work at the Yellow River Park near Stone Mtn. The humidity was so much I felt like I was being choked the entire ride. I have to say the park is a lot nicer maintenance-wise than the Canton one, but not as “technical”- meaning not as rocky or twisting. After about an hour of hard riding around the park (keep in mind this park has TONS of winding trails that really are not mapped out too well) a big thunderstorm starting brewing in the distance and seemed to be coming our way pretty quick. Of course, I started spazzing out since the trail never seemed to end and my legs were feeling mushy from all the hard work in the 200% humidity. It is almost like a feeling of panic and despair… just hoping that we make it back to the Trailhead before lightening starts zinging through the trees. Needless to say, we finally found a short-cut out and wind up taking the paved road back to the lot where our trucks are- just in the nick of time. We fly away toward the interstate homeward with the storm on our heels… Finally, sushi at our favorite little hole-in-the-wall sushi bar near my previous home in Atlanta while watching the thunderstorm made for a great ending to our biking adventure.

My Patience Jar Runneth Empty

I am so incredibly busy at work these days that it seems that every thing else in my world has taken a back seat temporarily. I know- NOT good. We have a full weekend of stuff planned too starting off tomorrow evening... I suppose no rest for the weary really applies here! And on top of all of that, the dreaded is happening right before my very eyes... yes, my grandmother seems to be teetering these days on the fine edge of reverting back to her old ways. It has been over five months since we moved her into assisted living and here in the past three or so weeks she has been showing clear signs of her old behavior from the first couple of months... and it feels awful! I started noticing it around the second week in May and it sort of peaked on Memorial Day morning. I was brushing my teeth after another wonderful morning of getting to sleep in until 9:00am (Yeah!) when I heard the cell phone ringing. I called her back noticing that I had 2 missed calls from her earlier in the morning (I am thinking to myself... why is she calling me early on a holiday?).. She answers and her words are just LACED with sarcasm and sassiness. I do not ask what is bugging her at first... it just eventually erupts in the conversation... she is sobbing so hard I can not understand a single word she is saying... something about hating this place and I want to see my friends and I have no way to go anywhere...I cannot drive... I want to go to my house... it all comes out in loud phrases... I am speechless as I ponder to myself- how can this be happening AGAIN? I wind up confessing that I just do not know what we are going to do now at this point... she knows deep down that she will never be able to go home on her own. By the end of the call she is calm and I am mentally exhausted. I do some investigating the next day... turns out that a 3-day long holiday weekend with absolutely NO activity happening at the facility was just too lax for her and there is also a culprit to blame for re-embedding the seed of flight in her mind. Yes, the loud-talking resident two doors down from her has been ranting for days to any one who will listen about leaving and going to a place of her own and how her children have robbed her blind and she is abandoned and poor now... yada, yada, yada... and my grandmother chooses to listen to that crap and somehow mimicks it in her own mind. Thanks a lot old loud lady with the walker! You have just turned my life back to the hell it was in the first 3 months of this journey as a Caregiver. Lord, please grant me patience...

It's Times Like These

It’s times like these that make me wanna go UUGGHHH… My company’s Atlanta office seems to be on the downhill these days considering we have not landed a decent project in well over a year now and here lately the trend seems to be “every man for himself”. We have lost a large amount of people from the laborer level up to Project Manager. We lost another PM today. That leaves this office with three total left. 3! I am now one of THREE… and I am at a loss. My phone rings off the hook every day now with another recruiter asking about my position with the company and can they get a copy of my resume… At first I was flattered, but now it is almost borderline stalking! I had two calls at the same time on Friday afternoon while I was talking to a third party- it jammed up my new cell phone! I had to reset the damn phone because it cannot handle so many incoming calls I suppose! It really saddens me the whole situation at work… does not make for a very fun environment for those us of that are busy and still emplyed there…I did pull out the ol’ resume this past weekend and update it… just in case. I do not think I will have any problems finding a new gig if the need arises. I guess what irritates me the most is the amount of dinero these other firms are offering… some over $20K above what I am making now…makes me sick to my stomach… makes me want to hop across the fence and see if the grass really is greener on the other side. Yep, every body wants a good woman on their team for some reason… probably that whole minority thing again… just not sure what I am going to do…