Back ...sort of
Apr. 13th, 2019 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. I'm back from my four day trip to visit my parents in South Carolina. They are doing better than they were in December. Dad is puttering along. He's at least walking (albeit with a walker) now. No longer in the wheel chair. And I can have a half-way decent conversation with him. He has rear-brain Altzheimers, like Terry Prachett had, which is painful to watch for well the same reasons it was painful to watch with Prachett.
We did the memory test with him today, which he passed about two years ago to get into their community, but can't pass now.
Mom: What season is it?
Dad: hmmm..fall, january...ah, Spring.
Mom: What day of the week is it?
Dad: Monday.
Mom: Eh..
Me: Uh..
Dad: It's not Monday?
Mom: It's towards the end of the week...the very last day in the week.
Dad: Saturday
Mom: What is the date?
Dad: Hard one...April...15?
Mom: 13. What year is it?
Dad: 2019
Me: I got an easy one who is the president?
Dad: I'm blocking that one out, deliberately.
Then we discussed how weird it was that a lot of people have no clue who the Vice President of the US is.
Other than that, he's not so bad. Although, he does have a tendency to think there's a lot more people in the house than there actually are. Altzheimers isn't easy or any cognitive disorder. It's painful to watch. My Dad is no longer the Dad, I remember. He's aged dramatically in the last ten years. And shrunk. He used to be 6'3 and now he's 5'10, and half his weight. Yet, he's still in there, and I still see the love in his eyes. He's still my Dad. He told me how proud he was of me this morning - made a point of it, after I'd shared various project I was working on with them last night.
Mom is okay. Struggling with Dad. She's trying to be his caregiver and really struggling with it. First off, she's not in the best of shape herself. More sloped in the shoulders, and her knee should be replaced but she can't do it -- and take care of my Dad at the same time. So she gets shots instead, which help. Can't walk all that far, and is struggling to shed weight. OTOH -- they are still socially active. Heck, they are more socially active than I am. And Mom is still singing in the choir...and playing bridge.
Me: So how as choir?
Mom: Well, it was okay. But we had a little drama.
Me: Oh?
Mom: The choir director needs us to sing in a block, but there's limited seating in front, and three sopranoes, several tenors, a couple of bass, and the altos, but the altos file in last and have to hunt a spot to sit and can't sit together. And well, one of the tenors is 6'4 and 250 pounds and he sits in front of me, I can't see over him or around him. I told him that I liked him a lot, but I hated it when he sat in front of me -- because I can't see around him. He got really upset. And said he couldn't help his size and refused to move. So he gets to sit next to another tenor, I can't see, and I don't get to sit next to who I'm used to sitting next to, and the director needs us to sit in a block so he can direct..
ME: So...basically coordinating the seating of choir members is akin to seating cats?
Dad: Yep.
Mom: Yep.
You'd think the big tenor would be mindful of others, who are much shorter, and volunteer to switch seats, wouldn't you? But you would be wrong.
I love my parents dearly, but I'm somewhat relieved that they chose to retire in Hilton Head and not New York. (I grew up in Kansas City. My parents moved from Kansas City to Hilton Head, long after my brother and I moved to New York. Also, there are no jobs where they are. I know, I looked, several times. Hence the reason they moved into an Independent to Assisted Care Retirement Community -- they knew their kids couldn't come down and take care of them, nor did they want us too.
2. The weather was lovely, clear blue skies for the most part, with the occasional afternoon or evening shower. Saw a Gator, which I rarely see, sunning itself at Jarvis Park (a small community park and lake on the island). Also walked on a few beaches (by myself, my parents no longer can walk on the beach with their bad backs). And went shopping with my Mom, bought some clothes. Watched a baseball game with my Dad -- I think the Mets actually won for once.
I'm glad I went down -- and it turns out that four days was enough time. Took a page out of my brother's book and went down for a shorter amount of time. It's better to go for a shorter period of time, or so I've discovered.
3. Saw some TV shows with my Mom. We watched the first episode of Fosse/Vernon together and the first of "A Discovery of Witches" - enjoyed both a great deal. But I'm going to wait until I see all of them before writing a full review.
4. It's good to be back. Tired. On the plane ride home was astonished to see three families in first/business class. Where it's $44 more a seat. I didn't pay that much because I used frequent flier points. The trip down and back was blessedly uneventful. We had some traffic on the drive to and from the airport, both ways. In NY - typical NY traffic. Although I was bit astonished to see heavy traffic on the BQE and Belt Parkway, also in line for the terminal at 5:00-5:45 AM in the morning.
In Savannah -- it was a four car accident that had backed up traffic for several miles, but just two on our end. Didn't delay us that much though.
5. Got into a weird-ass mini-debate on an FB fanboard. Nothing serious -- it's too heavily moderated for it to become serious. But at one point, one of the moderators yelled "TROLL IN THE DUNGEON" and I thought...uhm, okay, who? Is it me? (I don't think so, no one called me out and one of them clapped at my response, at least I think they were clapping -- hard to read those teeny tiny emoticons...I swear the internet is making me blind.) I figured it was most likely the person that the moderator and I were arguing with - some kid named Chino. (He looks like a kid in his photograph.)
What were we arguing about? Ah...the actor turn-over on soap operas. Yes, really.
Two of the posters were upset that 8 actors out of a cast of 75 had left the show.
8. And they felt that was a high turn-over and had NEVER happened before. "Why is Everybody leaving?" Apparently their definition of everybody is 8 out of 75 people.
Also they were upset that all 75 weren't on the show daily. Eh, it's a 45 minute show on 5 days a week, 12 months a year. They also insisted that the show only revolved around 4 characters, which they disliked, and not their fav's who were never on. When in reality the 4 characters are on about the same amount of time as various others.
This reminds me of a fight in the Buffy fandom over how the over-exposure of Spike was ruining the series, and he was on more than the other characters, specifically Xander and the core characters. So, one Spike fan decided to check it out and did a complicated graph of all the appearances of all of the characters in every episode of the series. The results basically proved that the fans who thought Spike was on the most or taking over the show, were full of crap or BS. It also proved how perception lies. Reality is often not what our mind is telling us it is -- troubling, but true. Also proves how illogical most fans are, but that was pretty much a given.
We did the memory test with him today, which he passed about two years ago to get into their community, but can't pass now.
Mom: What season is it?
Dad: hmmm..fall, january...ah, Spring.
Mom: What day of the week is it?
Dad: Monday.
Mom: Eh..
Me: Uh..
Dad: It's not Monday?
Mom: It's towards the end of the week...the very last day in the week.
Dad: Saturday
Mom: What is the date?
Dad: Hard one...April...15?
Mom: 13. What year is it?
Dad: 2019
Me: I got an easy one who is the president?
Dad: I'm blocking that one out, deliberately.
Then we discussed how weird it was that a lot of people have no clue who the Vice President of the US is.
Other than that, he's not so bad. Although, he does have a tendency to think there's a lot more people in the house than there actually are. Altzheimers isn't easy or any cognitive disorder. It's painful to watch. My Dad is no longer the Dad, I remember. He's aged dramatically in the last ten years. And shrunk. He used to be 6'3 and now he's 5'10, and half his weight. Yet, he's still in there, and I still see the love in his eyes. He's still my Dad. He told me how proud he was of me this morning - made a point of it, after I'd shared various project I was working on with them last night.
Mom is okay. Struggling with Dad. She's trying to be his caregiver and really struggling with it. First off, she's not in the best of shape herself. More sloped in the shoulders, and her knee should be replaced but she can't do it -- and take care of my Dad at the same time. So she gets shots instead, which help. Can't walk all that far, and is struggling to shed weight. OTOH -- they are still socially active. Heck, they are more socially active than I am. And Mom is still singing in the choir...and playing bridge.
Me: So how as choir?
Mom: Well, it was okay. But we had a little drama.
Me: Oh?
Mom: The choir director needs us to sing in a block, but there's limited seating in front, and three sopranoes, several tenors, a couple of bass, and the altos, but the altos file in last and have to hunt a spot to sit and can't sit together. And well, one of the tenors is 6'4 and 250 pounds and he sits in front of me, I can't see over him or around him. I told him that I liked him a lot, but I hated it when he sat in front of me -- because I can't see around him. He got really upset. And said he couldn't help his size and refused to move. So he gets to sit next to another tenor, I can't see, and I don't get to sit next to who I'm used to sitting next to, and the director needs us to sit in a block so he can direct..
ME: So...basically coordinating the seating of choir members is akin to seating cats?
Dad: Yep.
Mom: Yep.
You'd think the big tenor would be mindful of others, who are much shorter, and volunteer to switch seats, wouldn't you? But you would be wrong.
I love my parents dearly, but I'm somewhat relieved that they chose to retire in Hilton Head and not New York. (I grew up in Kansas City. My parents moved from Kansas City to Hilton Head, long after my brother and I moved to New York. Also, there are no jobs where they are. I know, I looked, several times. Hence the reason they moved into an Independent to Assisted Care Retirement Community -- they knew their kids couldn't come down and take care of them, nor did they want us too.
2. The weather was lovely, clear blue skies for the most part, with the occasional afternoon or evening shower. Saw a Gator, which I rarely see, sunning itself at Jarvis Park (a small community park and lake on the island). Also walked on a few beaches (by myself, my parents no longer can walk on the beach with their bad backs). And went shopping with my Mom, bought some clothes. Watched a baseball game with my Dad -- I think the Mets actually won for once.
I'm glad I went down -- and it turns out that four days was enough time. Took a page out of my brother's book and went down for a shorter amount of time. It's better to go for a shorter period of time, or so I've discovered.
3. Saw some TV shows with my Mom. We watched the first episode of Fosse/Vernon together and the first of "A Discovery of Witches" - enjoyed both a great deal. But I'm going to wait until I see all of them before writing a full review.
4. It's good to be back. Tired. On the plane ride home was astonished to see three families in first/business class. Where it's $44 more a seat. I didn't pay that much because I used frequent flier points. The trip down and back was blessedly uneventful. We had some traffic on the drive to and from the airport, both ways. In NY - typical NY traffic. Although I was bit astonished to see heavy traffic on the BQE and Belt Parkway, also in line for the terminal at 5:00-5:45 AM in the morning.
In Savannah -- it was a four car accident that had backed up traffic for several miles, but just two on our end. Didn't delay us that much though.
5. Got into a weird-ass mini-debate on an FB fanboard. Nothing serious -- it's too heavily moderated for it to become serious. But at one point, one of the moderators yelled "TROLL IN THE DUNGEON" and I thought...uhm, okay, who? Is it me? (I don't think so, no one called me out and one of them clapped at my response, at least I think they were clapping -- hard to read those teeny tiny emoticons...I swear the internet is making me blind.) I figured it was most likely the person that the moderator and I were arguing with - some kid named Chino. (He looks like a kid in his photograph.)
What were we arguing about? Ah...the actor turn-over on soap operas. Yes, really.
Two of the posters were upset that 8 actors out of a cast of 75 had left the show.
8. And they felt that was a high turn-over and had NEVER happened before. "Why is Everybody leaving?" Apparently their definition of everybody is 8 out of 75 people.
Also they were upset that all 75 weren't on the show daily. Eh, it's a 45 minute show on 5 days a week, 12 months a year. They also insisted that the show only revolved around 4 characters, which they disliked, and not their fav's who were never on. When in reality the 4 characters are on about the same amount of time as various others.
This reminds me of a fight in the Buffy fandom over how the over-exposure of Spike was ruining the series, and he was on more than the other characters, specifically Xander and the core characters. So, one Spike fan decided to check it out and did a complicated graph of all the appearances of all of the characters in every episode of the series. The results basically proved that the fans who thought Spike was on the most or taking over the show, were full of crap or BS. It also proved how perception lies. Reality is often not what our mind is telling us it is -- troubling, but true. Also proves how illogical most fans are, but that was pretty much a given.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-14 02:14 pm (UTC)Maybe I'm very old fashioned, but is it usual these days to have choir members sit willy-nilly within the choir block? I only remember two basic choir seating types: Men on one side, women on the other or men in back and women in front.
I remember a girl having problems sitting next to me in high school Spanish class when we sang. The teacher always picked a fairly high key to fit her own voice. That worked fine for the sopranos, but it was frequently too high for me to try to sing tenor. So I sang an octave lower. Most people had no problem with that, but the girl who normally sat next to me would get up and move, then come back when the singing was over. It was a little embarrassing, but neither of us could help it. She might have had similar problems if I could have sung harmony a little higher. A few years before that I was in our Junior High choir as a tenor. The guy I was assigned to sit next to then, sang with so much vibrato (effectively constantly wavering on and off key), I could barely stand it, so I did sympathize with the girl!
no subject
Date: 2019-04-14 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-14 03:27 pm (UTC)And, yeah, my mother's description confused me as well. Normally all the tenors, bass, sopranos and altos sit separately in their own groups. Otherwise they'd get thrown off. Also Tenors are usually seated behind the Altos, with Sopranos in the front. Because why would you sit a tenor next to a soprano?
I don't sing -- tone death. When I tried, I'd throw people off. My mother is the only person who sings in our immediate family. The rest of us can't.