We had a really good time, although we came home with NO fish. I’ve never seen it so dead. No one was catching anything, and what they did catch wasn’t big enough to keep. The exception was one fellow fishing on a big rig at the end of the pier who hauled in a 70 lb. cobia.  Kelsey caught 2 or 3 tiny rockfish, and Brendon caught a small spot and a small flounder, all of which went back into the water. Other than that, all we got were some really nice sunburns.

Here’s my boys… (Alex had too much excitement and finally gave out on my lap.)

Mike looks so much like his older brother Matt with that buzzed hair and some weight on him. The folks at work tease him for being so skinny; they should’ve seen him 14 years ago!

(PS - Yes, Kelsey’s wearing the same shirt he had on for the tea party [post below]. It’s his new favorite shirt. I had to get him a hat to match. Truth be told, it’s Mom’s shirt that she just let him borrow for the tea party, but he loves it so much she realizes she’s never getting it back, lol.)

We’ve had him for a year or so now and in that time he’s gone downhill so much that we just can’t keep him here safely anymore. The house isn’t built for it. The safety measures we’ve put in only go so far, and he’s taught himself how to get around most of them. The “confounding” door lock on the front door is the only thing he hasn’t figured out.

He had an interview at the facility last week and they agreed he’s definitely got Alzheimer’s (well, duh) and Mom and Dad got the majority of the paperwork filled out and his room reserved. After that he had to have a physical exam, which he passed with flying colors (the doctor, who is in his late 60’s or early 70’s, said Jess’ heart is in better condition than his after looking at his EKG results). There is also a mental test that has to be done but the doctor wouldn’t do it; said he just wasn’t comfortable filling out that part since he’s technically not a psychologist.  So this coming Wednesday afternoon Mom and Dad will take Jess in to the facility to see the psychologist there and have him do an assessment.

The facility itself though is outstanding. Mom and Dad looked at a lot of different homes in the area and narrowed it down to two; then I went with Mom and looked at those two and gave a flat-out “no” on the second choice.  Where Jess will be going is a newer facility that is really posh. I honestly wouldn’t mind living there myself, out in the “retirement” part of it.  But what sold me is the Alzheimer’s wing.

The other place we looked at had a so-called “Alzheimer’s wing”, but really all it was was a sectioned-off portion of the building complex that was built just like the rest of the retirement community.  Tons of long halls, confusing turns, places where a resident could get confused and stuck and could be there for up to an hour waiting for a nurse to come by and notice him/her.  We saw a lot of residents in that very situation. There were also at least 60 residents there, if not more, and we saw maybe 4 caretakers total.   There were doors to go outside all over the place, and the only thing to keep the residents from going out (into the unsupervised and unfenced area) was door locks and alarms.  The alarms just kept going off while we were there, and no one was trying to see who was setting them off.  Residents were wandering around aimlessly lost, and it was dinnertime. Everyone was *supposed* to be going to the dining area, but most of them were just sitting in any of the numerous seating areas scattered all around in the dark, windowless,  confusing hallways or were wandering back and forth trying to follow crowds and getting nowhere.  We were there for twenty minutes and witnessed one poor little woman who still hadn’t made it to the dining area in that entire time - she kept walking and changing direction whenever someone passed by her and of course no staff member noticed.

By stark contrast, the facility that Jess will be going to was obviously designed by an architect who either really understands what an Alzheimer’s patient needs, or where the staff was heavily involved in the designing.  The wing itself is just really one enormous “great room”, with the bedrooms around the sides and all of the activity areas in the middle.  There’s plenty of places to sit, different conversation areas, there is even a little dance floor with a disco ball tucked up into the ceiling.  The outdoor area is at one end of the room and opens onto a nice garden with a fountain that is fully fenced in, and the residents are allowed to go out there anytime they like during the day.  Most importantly for Jess is all of the space there is that he can walk. The resident’s rooms are really large, with huge bathrooms that can handle walkers or wheelchairs no problem. There’s a small kitchen at one end that’s been “Alzheimerized” (my term) - all of the switches, knobs, and handles have been removed from everything and the fridge is padlocked.  There’s a tv room separated from the main area (it’s on the side, like the bedrooms) but it’s fully glassed-in so the caretakers can see into it at all times and the residents can see out.  Importantly for an Alzheimer’s patient, you can stand at ANY one spot in the wing and see EVERY other spot in the wing, except for being able to see into the private bedrooms.  There’s no confusing hallways to get lost in, no turns that you can’t see around or remember which way you were going, no temptation that whatever it was you were looking for must be right up around the next corner.  You can see everything.   I also can’t say enough about the staff.  While we were there, we watched a caretaker getting a resident up from the dining tables and taking her to her room to wash up.  He helped her up, and then got her walking by singing to her and dancing with her. She moved *so* slowly, and it was obvious it was going to take him a good five minutes to get her from the table to her room, but he just kept smiling at her and singing to her all the way there. The look on her face of pure delight and happiness as this young man was “dancing” with her (shuffling backwards oh so slowly as she teetered forward inch by inch) was priceless.  There are only ten (yes, TEN) resident rooms in the wing; so the staff to resident ratio is really high. The whole wing is bright and beautiful, well-lit as well as full of sunlight pouring in.  There’s so much more I could say about how wonderfully designed the place is, but you get the picture.

The only downfall is that once he becomes non-ambulatory, he will have to go into a nursing home. Who knows when that might be. It could be next week, it could be years from now.  This facility is just so *perfect* for an Alzheimer’s patient that I dread looking for a nursing home that meets the standard of this place.  I honestly don’t think we’ll find one.

The reasons we can’t keep him here anymore are numerous.  It’s too dark, it’s too small for his “walkabouts” (he walks constantly, non-stop for hours on end going back and forth from one end of the house to the other).  He binges on whatever food is available -it’s the only thing he’ll stop walking for- so we’ve had to lock up all of the food.  He was gorging himself to the point of physical pain. Now that the food is locked up, he’s poking into all kinds of places trying to find it. We’ve had to put locks on the fridge, but we can’t lock up our cabinets (they’re really old metal cabinets and none of the locking devices available will work on them, plus the handles are too far apart for the pretzel-style locks).  Our windows -I call them “jailhouse windows” are really high off of the ground (I have to stand on tiptoe to see out of them, and I’m 5′10″)- are too high to see out of and don’t let in enough light for him. He constantly complains that it’s too dark in here; and it is, for him, with his Alzheimer’s-induced reduced eyesight.  Whenever we take him outside now he tries to take off; and he lost any idea of who we are long long ago.  He’s become more and more combative and argumentative with us, and with the boys.  There’s a long laundry list; this is just the tip of the iceberg. We just can’t keep him here anymore, and Mom and Dad can’t, either.  Even if Mom were to quit her job and stay home with him, she’d run into the same safety problems that we’ve run into. It would actually be *worse* at her house though; she has a glass-top stove that he could still activate by pushing random buttons on the front (like he does with our microwave), and they have stairs that he could hurt himself on (he has yet to meet a safety gate he can’t figure out or brute-force his way through).

So our hopes of keeping him with us until we were no longer physically able to care for him came a lot sooner than we expected, and it’s so sad.  I don’t know how the people who take care of their elderly parents or spouses for years upon years do it. Not mentally - that part is manageable - but just the physical safety issue. They must have houses where they can easily block off access to the kitchen or unreachable places where they can put chemicals and drugs (even ibuprofen can be fatal if an Alzheimer’s patient thinks it’s a bottle of candy).   I’d have to think, too, that the most successful of them don’t have young kids living in the house at the same time.  A house that is “safe” for an Alzheimer’s patient is akin to a “prison” for a young kid.  Triple and quadruple-locked doors, safety gates everywhere, locks on the fridge that have to be undone whenever you want a snack or a quick drink, not being able to leave the front door open and let the sun and fresh air in, not being able to leave any windows open… it’s just no way for a kid to live.  Not to mention the mental roller-coaster of a great-grandfather who is loving and laughing one minute, then yelling and cussing the next, and who obviously doesn’t even know their names.

What’s really got me is the alarming rise in the percentage of elderly with Alzheimer’s.  Of course, with the baby boomer generation reaching 60+ there are going to be more people with Alheimer’s (just because there’s more elderly people, period), but the *percentage* itself is rising every year.  It’s not natural, which has me wondering what the cause is. The percentage has more than doubled in the last century, along with the percentage of kids with autism.  Makes you wonder, and long-term studies on vaccinations (both with mercury suspensions and without) and other factors should be done.  There’s something manmade out there that’s causing this rise, and we need to figure out what it is.  But anyway, I digress.

Hopefully later this week Papaw Jess will be able to move into this facility (I’ve not mentioned the name purely for privacy/safety reasons) and his quality of life will skyrocket compared to what measly environment we’ve got here. And we can take down all of the locks and the gates, put stuff back where it should be and give the kids a “home” again, instead of the prison-like feeling it’s become.  I’m just grateful we were able to find a really *quality* (albeit very expensive) facility that is truly built around what an Alzheimer’s patient needs.

I’ll keep you updated, and maybe post a few pictures once he moves in - assuming the interview with the psychologist goes well.

This evening we attended the Hampton Roads Tea Party at Chesapeake State Park.  What a great experience! There’s my Mom and Kelsey wearing matching USA tshirts in front of some other attendees.  There were some great picket signs made up and TONS of information to be had from a variety of booths.  The next time I attend one of these rallies I’m definitely taking a bookbag with me.

Some of the booths:
Campaign for Liberty
Family Foundation
Virginia News Source
Ayn Rand Center
Fair Tax Org
Chesapeake and Portsmouth Taxpayer’s Alliances

We came home with all sorts of documentation, some t-shirts, some buttons, and lots of good info and resources.  Loved the presentations by the speakers, wish they’d had more time to speak. Towards the end they were all getting cut off and hurried off of the stage.

Can’t wait to attend the next one, and hit up some of the Libertarian meetings in the meantime.

I don’t know any of these folks, they were just kind enough to pose or sit/stand still and allow me to take their pictures.

Me, Lately.

This is me lately.

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged on my Kindle 2.  I read it straight through (with much bitching and yelling at the characters in the middle of the night as I stayed up late, unable to put it down), and am now reading it aloud to Mike and the boys.  Kelsey and I are also taking on Anthem as a read-aloud; the way it’s structured and its length makes it a fantastic literature study (reading comprehension, guessing at plot developments to come, etc - not to mention the entire “what do you think of this kind of lifestyle” issue) to tackle over a couple of quick days.

My hat.  I LOVE my new hat.  I’ve gotten so many great responses to this, as I’m now wearing it whenever I step out of the house.  Folks do double-takes.  First they just glance up at it in the normal passerby curiosity, and then a split-second later their eyes jerk back to it and they stare at it, soaking it in.  Then a grin spreads across their face as they get it.  So far I haven’t met anyone who treated me negatively or said anything negative about it.  If you want to pick up one of your own, head over to RightWingStuff.

I’m also working my way through The 5,000 Year Leap.  We recieved our package from the NCCS and dove into it eagerly.  A More Perfect Union is a very well-done movie (the boys were able to sit through it without getting bored and distracted, even), and the Principles of Liberty DVD is well worth the watch.  We’ve been passing out copies of the pocket constitution (I bought a bunch of them) and referring to our own copies at least once a night. Anyhoo; 5,000 is the first book in years that has driven me to highlight passages and scribble notes in the margin. When I get done reading it, Dad’s claimed dibs to read it next.  I can’t wait until Kelsey is patient enough to read through this one.  I’ll probably try to work through it with him this summer, bit by bit, and see if he can handle it.

I highly recommend all three things pictured above… after all, I own ‘em!

So I tried it while I was listening.

…and yet the politicians will tell you that (insert arbitrary, made-up-on-the-spot percentage here) of people think the economy is doing fine, or is on the upswing, or are in a positive mood on the outlook of the economy.

Sure doesn’t look that way to me.  Those searches look like a helluva lot of worry.

Btw, this audiobook is a free download from Audible.com. Go grab it.

Previews! Lots of ‘em!

http://www.atomicpopcorn.net/harry-potter-6-international-trailer/

http://www.atomicpopcorn.net/harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince-teaser/

http://www.atomicpopcorn.net/new-harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince-featurette/

http://www.atomicpopcorn.net/brand-new-harry-potter-trailer/

This one is a repeat from one of the ones above, but the full-screen quality on it is absolutely superb (start the teeny video on the left side of the page, then click the full-screen icon)
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1609458/story.jhtml 

and the old one we all saw last summer, before they delayed the release

http://www.atomicpopcorn.net/harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince-trailer/

I can’t wait for July 17th!!

What do you get when you have a husband who flips out anytime you try to throw away or donate something?
This.

Those are the shoes that were in the bottom of our coat closet.  I stopped counting at 40 pairs.
FOURTY PAIRS.

And we had already tossed out a couple that were falling apart - which Mike caught us doing and tried to stop us.  Brendon was taking them to the trash can, Mike saw him and grabbed the shoes away from him and started heading back to the closet (in spite of the 40+ pairs that were lined up in the hall) barking about how they were “brand new” (they’re 4 years old) and was going to put them back.  We had to physically show him where the shoes were coming apart and insist that they were trash repeatedly before he finally surrendered them.

Fourty pairs.
How many shoes can a kid wear at one time? Seriously.
This is why I usually do this when Mike is at work - he stayed home today to take the car for inspection.

Oh, and that dog you see in the picture? That’s Diva!! She’s finally home with us!
The wood stacked at the side is what we bought on Memorial Day 2008 to build Kelsey a loft bed. Yep, it’s been stacked there for a year. It’s getting stuffed in the utility room today if I can find a bungie cord to keep it from falling over (I’ll be standing it up).  There’s a load of wood in there already for the bed that’s twice the size of this one.

Her name is Diva, and she’s a little over a year old.  Due to space limitations, the humane society has placed her with a foster family right now, so she’s not actually *at* the society’s kennel.  We can’t just hop in the car, drive up there and meet her.  The foster family has to be told to bring her up to the kennel so a potential family can meet her.

Monday as soon as the humane society opened (at noon) I called and spoke with someone about being able to meet with her and seeing if she liked us.  The gentleman promised that he’d call the foster family and try to arrange a time when they could bring her up to the kennel, and then call us back.  The rest of the afternoon goes by, and I don’t hear anything.  They close at 5:30.

Every Tuesday they’re closed for “staff training”; so I put in an adoption application online through their website along with an official request that Diva be brought to this weekend’s adoption showcase at our local Petsmart.  (You can request that a pet be brought along from each pet’s adoption page.)  Got an email confirmation saying they’d received my application.

Wednesday I still didn’t hear anything.  I tried calling and got the “we can’t answer the phone or are on another line, press 1 to…” robot.  I skipped around the robot by hitting 0 and left a message asking (again) for someone to contact me so we could come up there and meet Diva, or to confirm that she’d be going to Petsmart on Saturday.  No one called back.

Thursday I call, get the robot, and skip around it again.  I actually get a real person this time and tell her of what I’ve done so far to try to adopt this dog.  She hunts down the fellow I spoke with on Monday (Brian) and comes back to tell me that Brian will contact the foster family and WILL call me back before they close.
5:30 comes and goes with no phone call.

Now it’s Friday, and I still have no confirmation on when we can meet Diva.  No idea if she’ll be taken to Petsmart tomorrow.  We all (including Mike) fell in love with this beautiful girl as soon as we saw her online, and we really want to bring her home - if she likes us, of course.  The cost to adopt a dog from our humane society is $147.  I can’t help but think that this cost would be lower if they could actually get potential owners together with potential pets in a more timely fashion, thereby decreasing the time the animals spend in the society’s care and as such, decreasing the cost it takes to house these animals.  I’m also left wondering why in the world they’d not procure a way to contact a foster family during their business hours. Work telephone? Cell phone? At least requiring that the foster family has an answering machine if they work out of the home during the society’s business hours?  But I’m just frustrated, and it’s the frustration talking.

Cross your fingers for us that we’ll get to meet her soon, and that she likes us and we like her.  Every day the boys ask me when we’re going to be able to go meet Diva. Every evening Mike comes home and asks if we’ve got any word yet on when we can meet Diva.  Good things come to those who wait, right?

…and the humane societies wonder why more people simply buy pets instead of adopting them.  *Picks up the phone to make the daily request-a-meeting phone call…*

UPDATE 04/20:  Friday we were able to arrange a meeting at 2:30 on Saturday, and we came home Saturday afternoon with our new doggie! It’s only been a couple of days but she settled right in like she’s been here for years.  

The tea parties all across the nation were a great success!
Now there are hundreds of thousands of people all fired up and feeling energetic - let’s not waste that momentum. Don’t go home and fall back into the complacency and apathy. Keep it going!

So you’re angry about your taxes? Boy, you should take a real look around.  Educate yourself.  Really read the Constitution (warning: you may be branded a terrorist suspect by the Homeland Security Agency for doing that) so you understand your rights.  Read up on the founding fathers, everything they did for us, what they sacrificed, and what their vision for the country was.

Watching the coverage of the tea parties I heard quite a few people mention a book called “The 5,000 Year Leap”, so I hopped onto Amazon to read more about it and see how much it was.  Well, it’s $30 there, and they’re actually sold out of it at the moment.  So I went snooping around the net to see where else I could get it, and found a great deal - especially for homeschoolers.

The National Center for Constitutional Studies is having a great special to help you educate yourself.  If you go to their homepage, about halfway down you’ll see a blue box that says “Glenn Beck Recommends” - in this special offer area you can get all three of their “American Classics Series” featuring George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin for just $35.  That’s cheaper than you can get them on Amazon, folks (they’re selling for $14 each there).

Not only that, if you combine those three books with The 5,000 Year Leap, they’ll toss in all kinds of stuff.  You get a copy of their pocket-sized Constitution, and their Principles of Liberty DVD.  Also, if you promise to email (or tell) 10 of your friends about the offer (which I’m doing here), they’ll toss in their award-winning 2-hour movie, A More Perfect Union.  That movie is one of their actual study courses, and they offer for free a teacher’s manual for helping to teach kids about the Constitution along with the movie.  Can we say homeschoolers? Yes we can!

You get all of that for just $50. $50! At Amazon it would cost you $72 without the movies and pocket Constitution.   All you have to do is use the link for buying it in that special blue area on their front page and then on the ordering page, click the “I Accept The Challenge” link in another special blue box at the top of the page.  You pledge to tell 10 friends about the offer, on an honor system - it’s not tracked in any way.

Even if it had been a bit cheaper on Amazon I still would’ve gotten it from NCCS.  I’d rather give my money to them than Amazon, as much as I love Amazon.   So hop on over there and get yourself a great deal.  There’s lots of other deals too, like discounted copies of pocket Constitutions and movies, etc when you buy them in bulk to give to friends (or wayward liberals).

Giving kudos where kudos are due: Jack Windolf, CEO of Bollinger Insurance, surprised his employees in March by giving all 434 of them a $1,000 check to spend on themselves. This was his money, a deferred bonus that he received from selling part of the company last year. He included a star-spangled note with each employee’s check that encouraged them to indulge themselves and give the economy a mini-stimulus.

What a brilliant man. For a mere $434k, he gets an entire company of overjoyed, motivated employees, a host of publicity for his business in countless newspapers and television shows like Fox News, lots of link love from bloggers like myself who want to show our appreciation, and I’m sure a flood of new customers who vote with their wallets.

Someone send Obama a note on his Blackberry and tell him that a $3.5 Trillion budget and resurrecting the Death Tax isn’t the way to spread the wealth… this is.