The Virtual Salt

Howie Update After Long Absence

2011-01-15T10:19:00.000-08:00

Yes, I have been quite remiss in posting. I do have a few events to recount, although for the most part, things have remained the same with Howie.

First news is that in November, Howie got into so much back pain that he wanted to be taken to the hospital. Considering his phobia for doctors, this was remarkable. I told the emergency room doctors that Howie did not have any insurance, but they graciously accommodated him anyway. The entire visit took five hours (once again making the term "emergency room" quite an oxymoron), but in the process, Howie did get a good examination.

His pain was the result of a spur on his spinal vertebrae. The doctors offered him a pain pill and he took it without hesitation. You'll recall that I can't get him to take even an aspirin at home. Anyway, he was given an X-ray, a CAT scan, a bunch of blood work, and the usual physical. His blood pressure was slightly high, and one or two blood results were slightly out of range, but considering his general chronic poor health, he was in better shape than I suspected.

What I thought was Howie's testicular tumor turned out to be a hernia. The doctors told Howie that there was a hospital that would surgically repair it without charge, but Howie said he didn't want any surgery. The doctors wrote two prescriptions for antibiotics and one for pain med. I filled them on the way home. To this day, Howie has not taken a single pill of any kind. His back pain eased, though, so now he is back to feeling pretty good.

After perhaps 30 straight weeks eating at Coco's, Howie finally agreed to branch out again, and we have eaten at the buffet and at Del Taco, and a pizza place. We almost got to Wendy's, but once we got inside it was the old line, "They don't want us here," so we had to leave.

Howie's microwave oven burned up, quite literally, so I got him a new one for Christmas. The previous oven lasted at least ten years, so I guess it had lived its life. I did ask Howie what he was cooking before it caught on fire, and he said a chicken pot pie. So it evidently wasn't a case of putting a metal item inside. Microwave ovens have gotten really inexpensive, and I found Howie one that has a stainless stell exterior. When I asked Howie how it worked, he said it was really nice. (Asking him was to make sure he had figured out how to use it, since the controls are just a bit different from those on the old oven.)

Howie still hears voices. I once asked him how he knew that a store didn't want him to shop there, and he said, "The man whose voice comes from the refrigerator told me." Another time, when I asked Howie what was on his shopping list (something I do every week), he read off these items: Candles, incense, headline cards, combo pens, a move around button, powder, a $20 radio. (Combo pens are the ones that have a highlighter on one end and a ball point pen on the other. The move around button is on his list every week. It would let him transport himself from place to place and level to level instantly.) Now, as for the clock radio, I had gotten him one just a few months before. When I looked, I noticed that it was gone, so I asked where the other one was. He said, "They insulted me so badly that I threw it away." He bought some Christmas lights that fairly soon ended up in the trash, because they flashed wrong.

I've mentioned in other posts that Howie throws away many items I get for him--pants, radios, food, and so on. The reasons vary: those weren't paid for, not my group's product, they told me not to wear or use them, those weren't mine, those are for girls, etc. He won't buy a certain kind of bath powder because the brand name suggested to him that it was for cats.

I've Made a Few Notes

2010-06-10T22:12:00.000-07:00

I've been quite remiss in updating the life of Howie. However, his life is so regular that you haven't missed all that much. I have made a few notes, so here is the update.

Howie is still pouring ammonia and bleach on the floor, leaving a white haze that is difficult to mop off. He adds body powder in some places, making the situation even more of a challenge.

After perhaps 20 trips to Coco's in a row, Howie has occasionally wanted a pizza instead, and last week he took me up on my suggestion of Chinese food.

I bought him 10 pairs of white athletic socks because his others had holes at the heel. He looked at the package and said, "Hanes won't sell to us." I told him they sold to me and I gave him the gift. So after a few minutes of indecision, he put on a pair.

He continues to cut up thin carboard (such as that packaging soft drinks, cigarettes, and grocery items) into one inch pieces. They litter the floor in the kitchen and in the workshop as the drawer and baskets are full to overflowing.

The workshop door is covered with tags such as "Corn Dogs 11562" or "Buy Old Golds."

He continues to want to buy a new radio that "gets our stations." The radios he owns don't play his music and don't play any stations that haven't been taken over by adversaries. For awhile he said that the current stations wanted him to pay a fee to listen.

In addition to the socks, I got him two pair of pants. He looked at them and said, "They switched them." So I don't know if he will wear them or not.

A "move around button" is still on his shopping list.

He won't drink Dasani water because it comes in a blue tinted bottle. "I don't want to turn blue" he told me.

At the dollar store he wanted to get some body powder. I found some, with the label Purity After Bath Powder. I showed it to Howie and he wouldn't have it. "That's for cats," he said, referring, as I learned after asking a few questions, to the name Purity, which suggested Purr and hence cats to Howie.

He rejects so many things that it's becoming harder to shop for him.

Looking for Brie

2010-01-18T00:15:00.000-08:00

Howie was already up and dressed this week when I arrived about 12:15 from the grocery store. He was wearing a ripped yellow shirt (his favorite color). I asked him if he still had the shirts I got him recently and he said yes, he was wearing them and they were in the laundry. I made a note to get him some more yellow ones, if I could find a brand he likes.

I asked him where he wanted to go to lunch, and he said, "I can't decide between a hamburger and pizza. I mentioned the usual suspects, In-N-Out, Wendy's, and so on, and then looked up pizza places in the two-year-old yellow pages he had. I offered to call Round Table to see if they were still in business, but Howie didn't say anything. Then he suggested (shudder) Coco's again and added, "Maybe they can help me go home through the gate." I told him that they hadn't helped him do that the last ten times we were there and he seemed to remember that.

So, we ended up at Wendy's where we had a hamburger and some chili and French fries. I told Howie not to over eat so he wouldn't throw up, and he said okay. Fortunately (or blessedly) he didn't.

Then we went to the "big dollar store," as he calls it, taking the non-freeway route so Howie could look for another lot that he had bought (in his imagination) to build houses and stores on. He also said that his group was going to move into a large area one level down from us and asked me to take him there. Once again, I told him I didn't know how to go down a level.

Howie bought his usual supply of candles and ammonia and incense. Then he wanted to stop by the Fresh n Easy store to get some Brie cheese. So we did. He got some Brie and some artichoke hearts and some Muenster cheese too. We also stopped by a smoke shop so he could get "some extra smokes."

Last time, Howie had filled the memory card on the camera, so I took it and printed about 90 photos for him and gave them to him. He liked them. He also gave me the new memory card (I have two that I can alternate) which has twice the capacity. He said it was full, so there must be about 180 photos on it. That's a lot for a week's shooting.

In addition to my usual mopping, I took a few minutes to look through Howie's canned goods and refrigerator supplies, and tossed out the expired stuff. There were a few cans of soup dated June 2008 and some applesauce dated September 2009, so I tossed them out, together with some dehydrated cheese that had been left out of the wrapper.

Howie's complaint this week was that he had "stickers all over." It was more of a comment than a complaint of current pain. He did say at one point, "I need medical attention," so I took the opportunity to ask him if I could take him to a doctor. He said, "No, I'm all right." He appears to think that when he can move to the other town or go down a level or through the gate or into a new house, that he will meet up with his group (and his relatives?) who will help him with whatever ails him. As much as he thanks me for helping him each week, Howie doesn't seem to think I'm much more than a butler.

At any rate, Howie was cheerful enough when I left and as usual thanked me for helping him.

He May Be Crazy, But He's Not Stupid

2010-01-03T09:33:00.000-08:00

My helper and I arrived a little after nine o'clock this week, so that we could continue to make progress cutting up that huge branch that fell from the pine tree. I inadvertently woke Howie up when I unloaded his groceries, but I told him he could sleep till noon if he wanted. He got up about 10:30, I think.

I decided to give Howie my old digital camera, thinking that it would ultimately save money over the purchase of disposable cameras and the processing charges. I showed him how to use it briefly, and he started taking pictures. I told him the current card would hold 83 pictures, so he had plenty. He very alertly asked, "So this camera doesn't use film?" and I told him it was electronic. Later on, while I was cutting up wood, I saw Howie roaming happily all over the property taking pictures. When we were getting ready to leave, Howie asked me, "Do you have the book on the camera?" He wanted to know how to use all the features.

So, just because he is mentally ill, and just because his brain is awash in way too many neurotransmitters, don't think he's dumb. He can't think straight half the time, and he is extremely confused, delusional, and hallucinatory, but the Howie who has to live with that dysfunctional brain is still there and fighting to think and learn. I've argued in the past for mind-brain dualism, that the "I" in us, our thinking mind and being, is separate from our brain, and we have to deal with the limitations of our brain to a greater or lesser degree. I might have mentioned that irritating occurrence when we can't think of the right word. Our mind knows what we mean, but our brain is letting us down.

Speaking of delusions, Howie wanted to eat at Coco's again (how many times is that, now?), so we headed on over. Howie had a prime rib sandwich and a "Corona Cerveza," as he calls it (instead of a Corona beer). This time he didn't overeat and didn't throw up.

At the end of lunch I went to the necessarium, and when I came out, Howie was talking to the cashier about going through the gate. The conversation was just focusing on the issue of whether the other Coco's in town had a gate. The poor cashier did not understand, of course, so just as Howie asked, "Does it have a gate I can go through?" I looked at her and said, "We'll see." And we left for the dollar stores.

Howie got his usual supply of items at the dollar store, including four half-gallon jugs of ammonia. I got him some extra batteries for the camera, since he forgot. (And I noticed that he was forgetting to turn the camera off when he was finished with it, so he will be needing batteries.)

Next week I will swap memory cards with him and print off the pictures he has been taking. We'll see what he has shot.

Feeling Better?

2009-12-29T20:54:00.000-08:00

When I arrived on Saturday, I asked Howie, as I always do, how he was feeling. He said he was feeling better. (Later in the car I learned that he had been up all night earlier in the week fighting off ghosts, so that his feeling better meant he was being persecuted less in the middle of the night.)

When I asked Howie where he wanted to eat lunch, he said, "Let's go get an enchilada." So I suggested the take out fast food places and a regular Mexican restaurant. He chose the latter. At least being interested in Mexican cooking took his mind off of Coco's, so that we didn't have to eat there for the tenth or fifteenth time. So off we went.

As usual, Howie doesn't have a sense of prices until after the fact. I don't want to challenge his ordering in advance since he has so little enjoyment in life as it is, but I sometimes point out the cost of what he orders so cavalierly. This time he ordered a Margarita ($6) along with his food. I suppose that's not exorbitant, but I'm rather, um, thrifty when it comes to restaurant beverages.

The food was really good. Howie had an enchilada and chile relleno with rice and beans. -->caution, grossness ahead--> Just after he finished his food and the waiter took his plate away, Howie threw up. I pushed my plate over for him to catch the barf. I asked how he was and he said OK. He went to the restroom to clean his beard and wash up.

This is the second or third time he has barfed right after lunch. He did that after a big meal at Marie Calendar's a couple of weeks ago. My guess now, which I told Howie, is that he doesn't realize that he is overfilling his stomach. When we eat at restaurants with smaller portions, he seems to do fine.

I could look back in the blog and see when it was, but for awhile he threw up regularly after lunch. Just before he did, he would say something about feeling like throwing up. Afterwards he always responded to my question by saying that he felt okay.

At the house, I checked the new fluorescent lights in the workshop, and they are working fine. But before we go there, I should say we visited two of the dollar stores, where Howie got more candles, some home decorations, more ammonia and bleach, and foot powder. He still has "move around button" on his shopping list each week, but can never seem to find one. (I mentioned earlier that such a button permits instant travel from one place to the next.)

I spent part of the time at the house cutting up dead trees (some smaller ones than the huge branch I have told you about). Then I mopped the floor of the kitchen. The dried ammonia or bleach makes mopping quite a bit more involved than would starting with a regular floor surface.

For Christmas I got a new digital camera, a Canon PowerShot SX120, so it is my intention to start taking some pictures around Howie's place to let you see how he lives, while maintaining his privacy. If I may take a moment to plug the camera, it is vastly superior to my old digital. I did a lot of research before settling on this model.

Howie didn't seem to have any angina this week, which made me feel less anxious about him. What makes me the most frustrated are two things. One, as I've mentioned many times, is that I can't get him to see a doctor, dentist, psychiatrist, optician, barber, etc. Second, he keeps asking me to do impossible things (go half a level down, take him to the other town of the same name "down south," take him to Gordon's or Jumpy's, help him go through the gate, buy a radio that gets 210 on the dial, find his supply house) or do things I know will not be good for him (take him to the airport and get him a ticked to Hawaii), or do things that are both impossible and would not be good for him (buy him a $300 Lexus so he can go driving again). The upshot is that I feel bad that I keep denying him what he wants. Perhaps we are all victims of our own imaginations to some extent, but the sane among us, upon reflection, can realize that, while Howie cannot.

The only other thing I can think of this time is that I continue without success to get Howie to close the back door when the heat is on. I will come back from cutting up some wood and see the back door wide open. I close it. Five minutes later, I come back and it's open again. I tell Howie that he should keep it closed or turn the heat off, and he sometimes says okay. But a few minutes later, it's open again. Good thing we don't live in North Dakota.

Case in point: When I left, I closed the back door, said goodbye to Howie, got in the car and drove around the shop, where the back door came into view--wide open again.

At any rate, except for the lunch episode, Howie seemed in reasonable spirits and seemed to feel physically no worse than usual. He as always thanked me for coming and for helping.

Howie's Still Howie

2009-12-24T15:37:00.000-08:00

Once again I apologize for such a delay in my posts. The fact is, there is not really much new in Howie's life. I continue to visit him weekly with his groceries and take him to one or more of the dollar stores. He continues to look for a "move around button," and in both restaurants and dollar stores he asks if they can take him home or to the other city of the same name. He has recently begun to offer the other person $20 if they will oblige.

Once and still again we ate at Coco's last week and when he asked to be taken to "the main Cocos" or "home," the cashier told him where there was another restaurant down the freeway. Who knows--we might end up there this weekend.

Howie's life of futility continued by his looking for more things that don't exist: a string of laser lights, Gordon's dollar store, a radio that gets 210 on the dial, Jumpy's, the city "down half a level," and so on.

At the house, I have been cutting up an enormous branch (20 inches in diameter) that broke off a big pine tree there.

A week ago, I installed two new fluorescent light fixtures in the workshop. I happened to notice the light switch was on but only one bulb in one fixture was lit. I asked Howie about it and he said that was the way the lights were. I told him he should tell me when things don't work and he said okay (as he always does). At any rate, the new lights really light up the shop.

I got Howie a new wristwatch and an auto-setting clock radio with a huge digital clock on it for his Christmas presents. He likes both of them (gave them to him early).

Howie is still pouring ammonia and bleach on the family room floor and sometimes the kitchen floor, creating a white film that takes awhile to mop up.

So, things as usual. I'll attempt to be more diligent in posting.

Deferred Maintenance

2009-09-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

Howie has been much the same since my last posting. We have still been going to Coco's for lunch almost every week. Except for twice in the last 10 or so weeks, lunch has been at Coco's. Yesterday, after lunch as we stood outside the restaurant, Howie asked me earnestly if he could go through the gate and leave. I told him again that I didn't know how that could be done. He must feel disappointed and frustrated trying to leave for the other town where his nice house and family lives with all his kids and so forth. It's really sad that they exist only in his imagination.

He showed me pictures of a vacant lot a few blocks from his house and said that it was where he was supposed to build a house to live in. I think I've mentioned before that he often points out a house, business, or church and says that "I was supposed to live there, " or "That's one of our houses."

Yesterday when I was getting ready leave, Howie asked me, "Do you know how I can get registered, so that I can leave?" I asked him what he meant by getting registered, and he said, "So that they know that I exist and can go home." He also asked me how he could get some money. I think he feels constrained with the little allowance he gets. (However, it prevents him from buying airline tickets to distant destinations, as he has done in the past.)

The last several weeks I've had a helper--let's call him Mike to protect his privacy--come out and work on the landscaping and housecleaning with me. We've also been working on the very weathered and partly termite eaten woodwork around the living room windows. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a gallon of Kilz 2 to prime the scraped off woodwork. Last week it was gone. I immediately thought that Howie had seen it and, because it said "Kilz," he had thrown it away. He is phobic of anything that suggests poison. So Mike and I turned over a couple of trash cans and found the gallon can in the bottom of one of them. Needless to say, we have hidden the can and turned it around so the label doesn't show.

We have now primed the three window areas and are ready to paint. This week we also installed a fireproof desktop for Howie's workbench out in the workshop. We primed and painted the surface to make it more pleasant.

At the dollar store, Howie was looking for "two way pens," by which he means pens that are a combination ball point and highlighter. I haven't seen him highlight much, but then I haven't looked at his headline cards recently, either. He also had on his list again a "move around button." I've mentioned in the past that this handy device would allow one to move instantly from one place to another and even go up and down levels, if I understand Howie's explanation correctly. We all could use one of those, and if they are ever available at the dollar store, the price couldn't be beat. Occasionally Howie asks if the dollar store sells cigarettes, and one time (as I've mentioned), he said that one of the stores has them "three packs for a dollar." When I ask him who told him that, just as when I ask him who said he can't eat at a particular restaurant or shop at a particular store, he doesn't answer clearly.

On this trip, Howie bought more ammonia, dishwasher detergen, candles, incense, headline cards, facial tissue, some colored foam squares. He asked me about antacid again, but the dollar stores carry only the kinds he doesn't want.

Howie walks around quite a bit, evidently. He seems to have walked down to the shopping center near his house and gone into one of the stores, perhaps Best Buy. At any rate, he told me last week that he wanted to buy a "looker screen," by which I guessed he had seen a netbook or notebook computer. He said he could communicate with his group with it.

This week Howie complained of a queasy stomach before we left for lunch, but he managed to eat a French dip sandwich and fries without any problem. He did complain about some angina for a bit, but was feeling good by the time I left. I got him a supply of Gatorade to help keep him hydrated along with his bottled water.

As usual, Howie thanked me for the help and waved goodbye as I rolled down the driveway.

It's Crazy to Eat There Six Times in a Row

2009-08-09T07:51:00.000-07:00

Those who joke about mental illness often say, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." That definition took on some cogency yesterday when Ivisited Howie. When I asked him where he wanted to eat lunch, he said, "Let's go to Coco's and see if I can go through the gate and go home." Even after a gentle reminder about the lack of success five times in the past, and after my suggesting that we eat somewhere else and then go to Coco's, Howie wanted to eat there. So we did.

We were seated near a dish collection area, and as usual, the busboy clattered the dishes as he dumped them into the bin. After a particularly loud dish slam, Howie made a face and asked me, "Did you get croaked by that?" I asked him to explain, but he didn't say anything. He kept turning his head around to look behind him (where the collection area was). At one point he asked again, "Did you see where they zonked the thing at us?" A bit later he put his hand to his ear while his face had a pained expression. I asked him if his ear hurt. He said no, it was "that klonker thing."

We had lunch and went over to the cash register to pay the bill. Howie asked, seemingly of no one in paticular, "Can we go through the gate?" No one said anything, so we left.

The sewer lines were clogged again this time. That's three times in about two and a half months. I asked Howie if he had been trying to use less toilet paper. He said, "It's not that. They kronk the inside deal some way through the wall. Some guy wrecks it." Some people think everything bad is their fault; others think that nothing bad is their fault. Howie is in the latter category. Either someone (human, ghost, whatever) did it or else he doesn't know. Maybe the ability to accept responsibility for misadventures or errors is a sign of sanity.

At the dollar store, Howie bought candles, paper towels, note pads, ammonia, hand soap, and so forth. He now has ten half-gallon jugs of ammonia, some partially filled. As I have mentioned, he likes to pour ammonia out on the floor to prevent "them" from coming up from under the floor.

Speaking of under the floor, Howie again asked me to "signal down half a level" while we were in the parking lot of the dollar store, because "we have our stores there." I asked him how and he pointed to the wiper lever. So I operated it to its various positions and we waited to end up near Gordon's or Jumpy's or the supply house. But we remained in the parking lot.

On the way home, we picked up some film Howie had left for developing last week.

Back at the house, I made another attempt against the ants, who are having a Party. They even got into the fresh grapes I had just brought from Stater Brothers. (I had to submerge the grapes in a bowl of water to float the critters out.)

As I left, I again told Howie that the air conditioning would work better if he didn't leave the back door and the windows open. He said okay and did nothing about it. He was feeling okay this week, not complaining about any back pain. He said he slept better the last couple of days. The weather was better, too, being in the high 80s instead of the high 90s.

Always the Same, and Yet Always Different

2009-07-26T19:56:00.000-07:00

When I talked to Howie on the phone Friday evening, he told me he wanted to eat at Coco's again, to see if he could go through the gate. That would have been five weeks in a row. However, when I arrived yesterday, he first suggested the large Chinese buffet, and then the take out Chinese on Main Street. When we first started to eat, Howie said, "They switched my food." He ate some of it, but seemed dismayed that he was eating the wrong stuff. He mentioned something about getting potatoes as one of his items instead of what he asked for. I didn't notice when they dished up his order whether he pointed too generally or what happened. Anyway, he took home what he didn't eat, to save for later instead of throwing it away.

Not to get ahead of myself, when I arrived, the ants had returned en masse, running their four to six lane thick highways in various directions. I hit them with some diluted Mr. Clean in a spray bottle, and that fixed their wagon for the time being. I checked the toilets to see if they were working. The sewer line has been stopped up twice in just over a month, so I wanted to be sure things were working. They seemed to be. I once again tried to suggest some practices to Howie that would keep the line from clogging with too much TP, but he didn't seem interested. He said something like, "They blocked it for awhile, but I think it's all right now."

This reminds me to report a brief conversation to demonstrate how difficult it is simply to chat with Howie.
Me: "Do you use scissors or an electric beard trimmer to trim your beard?"
Howie: "No. The other one burned out. It turned out to be a British spy thing. It started talking to you."

On our way to one of the dollar stores, I asked Howie what was on his shopping list. He read it to me:
candles
incense,
paper towels,
computer convention cigarettes
kleenex
fizzy stomach pills [meaning something like Alka Seltzer]
a move-around button
color bandaids
ointment

I asked him if "computer convention cigarettes" was a brand name, but he said he didn't know. I'm not sure where that idea came from.

This was the second time a "move-around button" got on his shopping list. When I had asked the first time what such a button does, Howie was not very clear but apparently it allows one to move from place to place without the need for a car or bus ride. I would pay a dollar at any dollar store for such a button.

The last three weeks I have been taking cedar planks out to Howie's and we have been replacing the shelving in his lath house, where he has many cactus plants. Many have died, but he is beginning to take a bit better care of them now, I think. We took out the rotted, termite-eaten boards and cleaned off the redwood support two by fours. Many of the boards had some viny plants growing all over them, and Howie wanted to save every piece of it, including small sprouts growing out of the wood. This week he finally explained that the plant was his group's only plant, and that it could be sold for a profit.

Week before last, Howie said he was "going to the smoke shop and try to leave" (since Coco's has been a bust). As I had done once or twice before, I said, "So I might not ever see you again?" And he said, "Yeah."

Random items from the last few visits:
Howie is putting Barbasol shaving cream in the toilets.
He once remarked in the kitchen, "It smells like a dentist's office." [He hasn't been to a dentist's office in at least ten years.]
Previously, Howie had 12-15 bags of microwave popcorn on top of the microwave oven. Then one week it was all gone. I asked him what happened to it and he said, "I threw it away. It was the wrong company." Most of it was Orville Redenbacker, but some was another brand or two. I never know what gets eaten and what gets thrown away.

Working on the shelving was a good thing, because it gave me an opportunity actually to do something with Howie. I had him move plants, take the old boards outside, carry boards, and so forth. I hope it was mentally good for him.

This Saturday, Howie complained of back pain, but not of chest pain or any other problems. It was at least 95 degrees and humid, so we went back into the house for a rest after working on the lath house. He was fairly cheerful when I left, and he thanked me as always.

Just Get a Regular Brand

2009-06-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

I arrived as usual with Howie's groceries yesterday. He got up and got dressed, and reported feeling okay.

When I asked Howie where he wanted to eat lunch, he said we should go to Coco's, so that he could see if they would let him "go through the gate to get home." I reminded him that he had asked them the last two weeks (week before last, he went in and asked, and last week we had lunch there, where he also asked). He said we should still go there, so we did. At the end of lunch, someone clattered some dishes nearby, and Howie thought he had been hit in the head, so he was not in the mood to ask if he could go through the gate to "Jarry [cityname]." (You might recall that the other city used to be known as "Yibi [cityname]," but that has apparently changed.

I got a bit of insight into this other town and "signaling down half a level" this week, when Howie said, "I was going to have you help me find Gordon's [the name of a tobacco store he ran for a few months in the late 70s]. It's two levels down south." I said I didn't know how to get there. He said, "You signal down with that [pointing to the windshield wiper control]. I once turned the wiper on when it started to rain and ended up 200 miles north in another realm." Whatever that experience was, it has stuck with him and he continues to think that we can signal down and get to another level of reality.

This week Howie wanted to get some mustard, so when we went to one of the dollar stores, I showed him a display of Moorehouse Mustard (regular, brown, Dijon, jalapeno, etc.). I asked him which one he wanted, and pointed out the regular and the Dijon. He said, "That's owned by Moore's group." He wouldn't have any of it. Later, we went to another dollar store, where he remembered seeing mustard, and we found the display. The brand was Koop. "They have a lawsuit against us," Howie said, and he refused to get any of it. I offered to get Howie some mustard at the grocery store next week, and asked what brand was acceptable. He said, "Just get a regular brand." I suggested Stater Brothers house brand, and he seemed to be okay with that.

Back home, I noticed that one of the stuffed animals had a glazed donut sitting in front of it, instead of the usual cash. Much of the cash in front of the stuffed animals has been moved, apparently to the two bowls.

This week I took the opportunity to copy the information on some of the notes taped to the workshop door. Here are a few, written on 3 by 3 pieces of paper mostly, though some are 3 by 5 approximately: "LADA 12141 Born 1214, Corn Dogs 8991 Registered, Laser 121105 18 Born 1211, Cheese 3855195 Born 3855, Corn 3151, Apple 1616125 Born 1516." In most cases, the word Born and the number after it are circled.

One anomaly I haven't reported yet, I think, is that Howie seldom completely empties liquid containers. In his refrigerator are half a dozen 500ml water bottles with half an inch of water left in each. On the kitchen countertop are two or three hand soap pumps with half an inch of soap left--and three or four relatively full ones. He sometimes leaves a little soda in a can, and the cleaning products often have similar fates. Perhaps he subscribes to the dregs-of-the-wine idea, thinking that the last bit of product is less pure.

This week I cleaned up the kitchen sink area a bit (a monumental challenge considering that virturally every square inch of countertop is covered with stuff), and then noted that I need to call the plumber tomorrow, because the mainline is once again stopped up. The toilet near the back door appeared to be working, so that is a relief.

Howie was sipping a cola as we waved to each other when I left.

Wait a Few Minutes and See If I Come Back

2009-06-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

Howie was already up and dressed when I took him his groceries this week. He said he was feeling okay, though he was having a problem with intermittent pains ("They keep putting stickers in my heart, but they are out now"). I again told him to take some aspirin and he again ignored me.

Last time I mentioned that Howie has about 71 photo albums filled. Each album holds 96 photos, so that's about 6800 pictures of pretty much the same things: areas around the house, strip malls we go to, and himself. There's an occasional picture of me in there, too.

Howie continues his almost obsessive-compulsive cutting of thin cardboard (the kind that packages soda cans and cigarette packs) into rectangles and squares about an inch on each side. He has three or four baskets filled with the pieces out in the workshop and a kitchen drawer half full. The kitchen floor always has a dozen or two pieces on it from where he apparently spilled them when moving them from one place to another.

The kitchen ceiling and walls about three feet from the ceiling are brown with cigarette smoke staining. If I had the time and energy, I'd wash them. But cleaning at Howie's has a feeling of futility. It doesn't do much good to mop the family room, for example, becasue by the next week there is another white haze from the ammonia and/or bleach he's poured over it, and in several spots more baby powder.

Howie had the usual uncertainty about lunch this week. At first he wanted a hamburger, then the buffet, then "Let's eat in town" (he thinks the buffet is in the next town, despite my repeated assurances that it's not), with the suggestion that we go to a Chinese place he named. So off we went. But then he decided on the buffet, so we finally ended up there.

After lunch we were heading toward the drugstore to pick up some more photos, when he spotted a Coco's. He said, "Can you take us there so I can see if they can send us through the gate to go home?" I said, "Right now?" and he said yes. So we drove on over. He got out of the car and said, "Wait a few minutes and see if I come back." I waited for him and he came back out in five minutes or so. I asked him what he found out and he said, "They don't know what I'm talking about."

We were heading toward one of the dollar stores when Howie said he had to go to the bathroom, so we stopped by the library nearby. After he came out, he stood around the entrance, smoking a cigarette, for several minutes. I wondered whether he forgot where I parked or whether he was waiting for someone else to come and get him. Just about the time I started to go get him, he walked on over to the car. I guess I'm his last choice.

At the dollar store, he bought the usual--candles, incense, potting soil, and so on. Last week, he took a shopping cart instead of a basket, and got eight bags of stuff (lots of paper towels and napkins in addition to the usual). This week he took a basket. However, we needed to go to another dollar store to get the kind of candles (and ammonia, etc.) that he likes, so he still ran out of money.

Back at his house, I noticed that the door to the workshop now has little pieces of paper taped to it, each one with a message such as "Frog 1021."

Howie was feeling pretty good when I left.

Maybe I Can Pay Them to Take Me Home

2009-05-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated my visits with Howie in awhile, although I continue to see him every week. He continues to say and do bizarre things, but the variety is limited. For example, each week he asks or says most of the following:

Do you know where Jumpy's is?
Do you know how to get to the teen store?
I want to buy a $20 radio that gets station 210.
They said they don't want us to eat [or shop] here. Let's go.
Do you know how to get to our supply house? It's half a level down. You signal with that lever [pointing to the windshield wiper control].
They klonked me on the head when I left there [a store or restaurant].
Let me see if I can leave to go home. If I can, just put the shopping stuff in the house.

Occasionally, Howie will say, "Nobody in town wants us to shop or eat there." Hence, our difficulty in deciding on where to eat each week. He also will say, "They said we have a store near here. Can we go there?" To which I ask, "Do you know where it is? Or do you know what it's called?" and he says no. I explain that we can't find a store when we don't know its name or where it is. Other comments have been, "What do you do when they switch your food ten times?" and "That popper almost killed me," said when he hears a loud noise.

Howie's shopping list remains fairly constant: headline cards, novena candles (in the unprinted glass jars--he won't buy the ones with people on them because they are "guru candles"), photo albums, paper towels, potting soil, hand lotion, dishwashing detergent, bleach, ammonia, extra cigarettes, notebooks, pens.

I think I mentioned that at last count, Howie had 71 photo albums, almost all filled with the pictures he has taken with the one-use cameras.

The neighbors down the street trimmed back their very overgrown pepper trees, and now almost every time we drive down that street on the way to lunch, Howie says, "They wrecked the trees." I tell him the trees will grow back out and look great.

Howie continues to melt bars of soap in bathroom sinks filled with water. He has put up more aluminum tape on the walls (to short out the zappers). He continues to complain about "butt stickers" and says that pouring bleach and ammonia on the floor helps to ward them off. When he complains about chest pains (he has angina) and I offer to take him to a doctor, he declines with, "They put a sticker in my heart, but I got it pulled out."

So far, Howie has been hanging in there. He was stubborn before he became mentally ill, and he was resistant to dentists in those days, too. And, with his schizophrenia, he is suspicious of doctors and certainly of psychiatrists (even though in the past he has seen several).

That's the update for now.

What Did They Swipe?

2009-04-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

I've been remiss in my postings. Here is a composite of things from the last few visits with Howie.

First, his health continues about as usual: he feels tired most of the time, has occasional bouts of angina, has some back pains, and doesn't sleep well at night (when "they" attack the most violently).

Howie has taken to cutting thin cardboard and some paper up into pieces about an inch square. He has a drawer full of pieces in the kitchen and a wastebasket full in the workshop. When I asked him what he was going to do with them, he said, "Confetti. For a party."

Random notes I've scribbled on slips of paper (it's difficult for me to remember everything he says or does):

As we drive down the road, Howie remarks on how the town has grown over the years. Then he asks, "What's the deal with the people moving in here? Do they want to ruin the world government?"

At lunch at a Chinese restaurant, with the numbered menu that has about 48 choices: "Number 77 is not on the menu."

Howie keeps complaining of getting klonked at the restaurant and some of the stores we visit.

He continues to put "wooden Q-Tips" on his shopping list. The dollar stores don't carry them.

In the family room: 5 bottles of hand lotion, 3 bottles of bath and shower powder. In the kitchen: 6 pump bottles of hand soap, 2 bottles of dish detergent.

Howie puts hair conditioner in the bathtub and hand lotion on his hair.

In addition to the aluminum foil on the windows, he has now put some metal tubing against two or three walls, taped down with aluminum tape.

I happened to meet one of the neighbors last visit and asked him if Howie bothered them. He said no, but then added that Howie had been in the neighbor's house a couple of times. He said I should talk to Howie about that. (Quite a few years ago, with a different neighbor in the same house, he broke out all the windows during a rampage. He went through the county mental health system for a few months after that.)

I talked to Howie when I got back in the house and told him, "The neighbor says you have been in their house a couple of times." Howie said, "Oh really? What did they swipe?" I reminded him that the police would arrest him if he did that again.

His "swipe" comment made me wonder if he went over there because he thought they had taken something that he couldn't find or didn't remember throwing away or never had in the first place. "They" are always suing him, stealing his $800 million dollars, and otherwise absconding with his stuff and his people. He will often say "They hurt one of us downtown" or something similar.

The debate about where to eat gets more extended every week, because Howie thinks no one wants him at the eateries we've been to. Last week, we went to a Wendy's we hadn't been to before and he seemed to be okay with it.

Last week I was pleased to see that the nearly one gallon of Round Up that I sprayed on the driveway weeds had produced the desired effect and left the weeds brown and ready to blow away. I've been sawing some of the dead wood into firewood sized pieces, but it's a long task. The real trimming that needs to be done around the house, Howie is against, so I just leave the bushes to grow for now.

Relearning Old Lessons

2009-02-22T15:38:00.000-08:00

This post will be a big shorter than sometimes, and you'll see why in a bit.

When I called Howie on Friday and asked him if he wanted anything special from the grocery store, he told me not to buy any more spaghetti. He has been on a lots-of-spaghetti kick for awhile (after he wanted salisbury steak and then tired of it), so it's about time for a change. He likes meatloaf now, as well as a variety of other TV dinners.

We entered the usual discussion about where to eat. Howie suggested fish, so I said fine. Then he said he wanted a hamburger, so I named six places. Finally, he decided on a Chinese place, where we did eat.

We went to two one-dollar stores (though the second one charges more than a dollar on many and an increasing number of items). At the first store, Howie seemed to be holding his chest more intensely than usual. I asked him if his heart was bothering him and he said yes. "They put a sticker in it," he said. I asked him if the pain was really bad, and he said, "No." I asked him if he had the pain during the week and he said, "Only a little."

Howie had left the first dollar store after buying only a few items because, "They don't want me to shop there." So we went to the second store, where he got a few more items, but forgot to look at his shopping list and left early because, "They don't want me to shop there."

I decided to mop the kitchen floor when we returned, so I got out the mop and filled the kitchen sink with water and Maestro Limpio (the Spanish version of Mr. Clean). I use the kitchen sink now because the laundry room tub has about a dozen bottles and plastic containers (filled with soapy water) in it and it's easier to use the sink. I pulled up the drain plug and the dirty water started to run out slowly. The usual problem with this sink is a couple of cigarette butts and some lint blocking the drain, so I reached down to grab it and promptly cut a nice gash in my left index finger. (Hence, typing this is slow, difficult, and painful.) I grabbed some Kleenex and asked Howie where the bandaids were. The blood was freeflowing, but I got it stopped after the bandaid was soaked with it. After the water finished draining, I looked in and found a large piece of broken glass. I asked Howie where the glass had come from. He said it was probably part of a glass-jar candle that had exploded. "Do they often break?" I asked. He said, "Someone shot the candle through the window." I didn't bother to ask him why there was no bullet hole in the window.

So the first old lesson learned anew is, "Don't reach where you can't see."

Next, I wanted to wash off the furnace filter, so I went down into the garage and pulled it out. (It's the cleanable type, made of plastic mesh.) I headed out toward the hose faucet and promptly banged my head on the garage door. This is an old steel door that has rusted thoroughly, especially along the bottom, from the days when Howie sprayed it with the hose several times a day. Now it doesn't open completely without a good push, so I just left it half open, hanging in mid air so to speak. I forgot to duck on the way out.

Lesson number two, learned anew, "Watch where you're going."

As usual, Howie thanked me several times and volunteered that he felt much better. His angina was evidently gone and he no longer held his hand over his heart.

He gave me two disposable cameras to get developed. I had brought him photos from four cameras the week before.

Too Much Medicine Isn't Good for You

2009-02-01T15:36:00.000-08:00

Howie was feeling somewhat better this week. He didn't complain of any pains. Last week he said he had a hole in his head and that someone klonked him. He did say he felt tired, but I interpreted that to mean he is a typical human. I feel tired, too.

Howie asked where we could eat that was different, so I suggested the pizza place we had talked about but not been to. He agreed and off we went. On the way, I tried to make some idle conversation, so I told him I had reordered some of my medicines through the mail. "You shouldn't take too much medicine," he said. "I almost got killed." Then he added after a bit, "Too much medicine isn't good for you." Perhaps his belief that some medicine he took almost killed him explains why he is so hesitant to take even aspirin.

We arrived at the pizza place and went in. The TV was on, and Howie stopped and listened for a few moments. "They don't want us here," he said. "Should we eat at the Chinese place?" (One of the Chinese fast food places where we have eaten before was in the same strip mall.) I told him we could do whatever he wanted. I reminded him he had wanted pizza. Soon he said pizza was okay, then changed his mind and said we should eat at the Chinese place, reiterating the comment that "they" did not want us to eat at the pizza place. Any kind of music or voice (as with TV) seems to make Howie think that the owners of the store (whether tobacco shop, restaurant, or other store) do not want him to patronize their establishment. He seldom can be talked out of his conviction.

As we got in the car after lunch, Howie said, "There's a dungeon under the Chinese place with people in it. Maybe if I had left a dollar on the table, some of them could have gotten out." He acted as if I had said okay, he would have gone back and left the dollar. But I didn't respond with any comments one way or another. He repeated this when we got a ways down the road.

After lunch we stopped by the "big dollar store," where Howie got the usual--candles, paper towels, cleaning products, ice cube trays (several sets at his house seem to have disappeared), and so on. Outside, he saw a store that said, "Metro PCS here," and he interpreted it to be a ticket station selling tickets to a tram that would take him to the "other" city he lives in. I let him go check and he soon came back without a ticket. I could have told him it was a cell phone store but he (1) wouldn't know what that was and (2) wouldn't believe me.

Back at the house, I decided to vacuum some more, so I moved the sofa in the living room and vacuumed under it. I also vacuumed Howie's bedroom. At that point, Howie asked me to help him move his bed into the family room, so I vacuumed the family room (which has a linoleum floor), then mopped, and then we moved his bed. His bed has been there before, though on the other side of the room. Next week I will vacuum the floor of his now former bedroom.

I should mention that under his bed were three folding chairs, two wood panels (from sliding doors on a cabinet), and a metal wastebasket. All this is apparently designed to short out the electrical bolts and/or keep the ghosts from attacking him from below. Sometimes I glean from his mumbling to himself that he still hallucinates being anally raped (which apparently occurred when he was in the county jail in the 1980s I think it was). Once I asked him why he poured bleach all over the floor, and he said, "Bleach kills the involuntary bottoms." So all the junk under the bed (which in the past has included metal rods, a piece of railroad rail, and other metal objects) is for self protection.

As I looked around thinking about dusting, I noticed that he has half a dozen strands of Christmas lights still lit, and interspersed with gold tinsel. Dusting the window sills would be quite a feat, having to move all that stuff. And there is the other inhibitor--the futility of knowing that body powder would soon be squirted back on the cleaned surface.

I used the rest of the time at Howie's to cut up some of the tree limbs that I had cut down earlier. Many of them were infested with termites--little white bugs with brown heads wiggling around. Some of the wood had gigantic (from a termite perspective) caverns chewed in it. There is a huge amount of work to do out there. I asked Howie if he watered the plants (so many of the trees are dying) and he said he waters a lot.

Howie was happy with the three rolls of photo prints I had developed for him. He bought two more disposable cameras on the way home. He asked me to take several pictures of him in various spots around the house, so I did.

Howie was in good spirits when I left.

Where Did You Put The Vacuum Cleaner?

2009-01-25T15:57:00.000-08:00

Howie was already up when I arrived with his groceries. He said he was feeling better and apparently had slept better than usual. (When I called the night before about 9:30, he said he had been in bed and was sleepy. Usually he's up until the early hours.)

Howie wanted to eat where we hadn't eaten before or at least not recently. I suggested a pizza place we had seen but not patronized, then mentioned some strip mall eateries we had not been to. I mentioned the buffet. Howie said that would be okay. Then as we drove he said, "Let's eat in town." I told him the buffet was in town, so he agreed. Howie had a plate full of items, including some spaghetti (one of his favorite dishes), and even some cherry cobbler for dessert.

After lunch it was off to the dollar store. Howie went back and forth between the Main dollar store and the Big dollar store. He settled on Big, but just as we reached the ramp for Main, he said to go there. I had repeately offered to go to both, but he wanted to choose one. At the Main store, he bought potting soil and some cleaning stuff. When I got outside, he said he wanted to go to the Big dollar store, too, so we did. There he got some jar candles, headline cards, bleach, ammonia, paper towels, and ointment (for his sore ear).

He mentioned that he needed a new radio. I asked him why he didn't use the radio in the music set I got him over a year ago (the set that has a record player, CD, radio, and tape player in it). He said, "They told me it wasn't paid for." That's the same comment he has given me before about it. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that he had put it out with the trash for awhile. But, of course, radios are now "electronic hazardous waste," and the trash men won't pick them up. So now the set sits in the workshop, still bearing the label, "Please take away."

I was planning to vacuum again (after long neglect) because the rain made it undesirable to use an electric chain saw on the dead trees outside. I have been a bit frustrated with the vacuum cleaner at Howie's (same model I have), because, even though it stops the dust, there are several filters and other parts that need regular washing. The sponge filter clogs up quickly in the tobacco-ash dust all over the place. Well, earlier at Home Depot I had seen a vacuum cleaner on sale for $30--bagless, only one filter to clean, 12-amp motor, automatic carpet level adjustment--so I got it and took it to Howie's.

The vacuum worked astonishingly well. It isn't very noisy, but the brushes loosen the soil and the suction grabs it. I vacuumed three rooms and two hallways, and (keep this confidential) filled about a third of a 33-gallon trash can with the dirt. There was a surprising amount of gray dust (from tobacco ash, I think). Lots of carpet lint (which seems at least in part to have been dug up by mice).

Now, the down side. When I brought the box in and started to assemble the vacuum, Howie asked, "What's that?" somewhat suspiciously. And after I'd finished vacuuming, he asked, "Where did you put the vacuum cleaner?" I showed him where it was in the closet. The potential problem, you see, is that the vacuum brand is Dirt Devil. Howie won't eat Deviled Ham, and is quite put off by devil anything. So, it may be that when I return next week, the vacuum cleaner might be standing out in the rain (as happened to a can of chain saw oil), or it might have disappeared altogether (having been put in the trash, for example). We will see.

I hope to be vacuuming more often in the future, in spite of my limited time at Howie's. It's difficult to mop, vacuum, dust, and cut wood all in one visit. Most of my visit time is spent with Howie on the way to or from restaurants and dollar stores.

When I left, Howie gave me two more cameras to have developed. It's usually at least one camera, and often two, sometimes three or even four in a week. The pictures are of ordinary items (bushes, trees, some of his cactus plants), himself (he takes a lot of self portraits), and shopping areas (when we part at a dollar store or the drug store where he gets his cameras, he takes several pictures around the parking lot).

Howie waved as I drove off.

New Year, Old Habits

2009-01-11T20:28:00.000-08:00

This week I took Howie some shelving to put some of his magazines on and get them off the floor. It seems that he never throws any magazines away, so they accumulate on the floor. He has a few old shelving units that are all full, except for a very large on in his current bedroom. I vacuumed the carpet where I intended to put the new shelves. The vacuum filled up rapidly, telling me I have neglected vacuuming (something I neglect at my own house too).

I put up the three units (four shelves each) and put most of the magazine from the floor onto them. I also cleaned off the large metal shelving unit in the bedroom and told Howie to use that for magazines. He said he would, but I won't know what he really thinks until I see what's what next visit.

This week Howie said his heart was not bothering him (though he said a few days earlier it had been).

We had the usual discussion about where to go for lunch. A hamburger sounded good to Howie, but of the four or five places I named, he said "they don't want me to eat there." I also named a buffet, a couple of Chinese places, a pastrami spot, and one or two others. He finally said we should go to the A&W root beer place and get a hamburger there. It's also a Long John Silver's fish place (one of those combo restaurants), so we went there and Howie had a bacon cheeseburger while I had some fried fish.

I have not mentioned it, but to my relief, Howie almost never throws up after lunch now. He seems to have outgrown that. He used to vomit at least half of the time after eating.

After lunch we visited two of the dollar stores, where Howie got his usual supply of candles, bird seed, notebooks, headlinecards, talcum powder, cleaning products, and some candy and soda. (The soda--in bottles--is in addition to the 36 cans I bring him each week. He usually drinks all of it.

I did a bit more dusting, but it's really difficult to dust through a thick layer of talcum powder on top of the real dust. When I get down to the surface, the rag comes up yellow from all the cigarette smoke deposits. Poor Howie. Think of his lungs.

I had brought out a new chain saw to do a bit of work on the dead trees (Howie has stopped watering outside in most areas), but with the vacuuming, assembling shelves, and dusting --Oh, and mopping with a new mop--I ran out of afternoon and had to put that off.

Howie was still asking to go to Jumpy's to shop and also to eat, but I told him I didn't know how to get there,

As we drove to and from lunch and the dollar stores, Howie, as he usually does, pointed out various buildings and said, "I was supposed to live there." Then he would explain that someone else took it over. Sometimes he says, "I was going to buy that," or "That was supposed to be my house." He often points to a commercial building (such as a law office) or a church when he says that.

I filled a yard waste container with weeds and then had to leave. Howie was fairly happy when I left.

Howie gave me a couple more cameras to have developed.

Laser Lights

2008-12-14T17:23:00.000-08:00

Howie said he was feeling somewhat better when I visited this week. He said his heart pains were largely gone, at least for the time being, because "they keep sticking a sticker in my heart."

We discussed where to eat and Howie said he wanted pizza. So I looked in the phone book and found a place that has dine in. But as we started driving, he said we should eat at one of the Chinese places we've been to. So we started that way. Howie asked, "Do you know where Jumpy's is? We should go there." I told him that if he knew how to get there, we'd go. He said, "It's half a level down. You get there by signaling with the lever on the steering thing."

When we got to the Chinese place, there was a pizza place almost next door. I told Howie it wasn't too late to choose pizza, and he began in that direction. Then he stopped and said, "The owner doesn't want us to eat there." He then told me that the same "owner" ran all the places in the strip mall and that this person didn't want Howie to eat at any of his places. I more or less led him into the Chinese place anyway, and he went along.

After lunch we went to one of the dollar stores. As we walked toward the door, Howie asked, "Should I ask them if they can put me through the gate, so I can go home?" I told him I thought they would not know what he was talking about, and reminded him that he had asked the same thing the previous two weeks in a row at the same store. I went on in to the store while he smoked a cigarette, so I don't know if he asked.

In the car I had asked Howie what was on his shopping list, and he said, "Candles, headline cards, laser lights, green liquid, clear alcohol, and ammonia." He ended up buying green alcohol (the color has something to do with disinfecting or detoxifying things). He also bought birdseed, and some incense and some matches. He's been looking for "laser lights" for three or four weeks, but has found only standard Christmas lights.

On the way home, Howie wanted me to stop by a cigarette shop and asked where there were some. I named the three we have stopped at before. The one he used to frequent the most he said did not want to sell to him (though he bought some cigarettes there a week or so ago). He named the store he hasn't been to in awhile, so we drove over there. I waited in the care while he went in. He soon came back empty handed. "They don't want to sell to us," he told me. "They're Democrats." This is the same store that "didn't want to sell" to him before because they had a blue sign in the window, and once even earlier because they had a doorbell that rang when he walked in.

At home it was a bit cool to work on the weeds outside, so I thought I would dust a bit. I had bought a few new rags at the dollar store to help with the cleanup, so I mixed some Mr. Clean in a spray bottle and went to work. The dust quickly turned to mud, if you need a clue about the state of things. Howie wandered around after a bit (he is always checking up on what I'm doing--at lunch he asked what I was writing on the placemat) and I asked, "Do you ever dust?" Howie said, "Yes, there's a lot of dust." He is getting a bit hard of hearing now. The dusting rags got so filthy so fast that I didn't get very much done.

When I turned my attention to the microwave, I dusted it and wiped under it. Then it occurred to me to clean the inside. Let's just say that I had to use a putty knife inside on the ceiling.

For some reason, Howie thanked me several times during the day for helping him. He seemed to be a slight bit more lucid than usual, though he was still quite delusional ("One of ours got killed over there yesterday. I hope he's all right").

The heater has been acting up, so I need to call the repairman tomorrow. It was working when I left, but I've had to reset the high pressure cutout on the outside unit twice now. (It's a heat pump.)

Howie has continued to cut paper up into little rectangles. He was cutting up a cigarette carton when I noticed, and letting the pieces fall into a kitchen drawer. I asked him if he was going to do something with the pieces, and he dropped the scissors into the drawer and closed it.

Howie came outside and waved when I left.

I'm Sorry They Were Eating People at the Sandwich Shop

2008-12-06T20:23:00.000-08:00

When I visited Howie today, I finished unloading the groceries while he got dressed (as usual). Since I brought him three packages of his developed photographs, he wanted to look at them before we went for lunch. So I began sweeping the kitchen floor. There were the usual broken pieces of ceramic or stoneware in the corners. I asked Howie, "Are these pieces of broken plates I'm sweeping up? There's pottery around here." Howie said, "I don't know." I asked again, "You don't know what they are?" He was preoccupied looking at his pictures, but said, "Uh huh" (rather than uh uh!). Then he added, "I almost stepped on some. I don't know whether he really had forgotten that he smashed the dishes (cups, usually) or whether he was being less than forthcoming. He is so confused about reality that he often doesn't know or remember what really is going on. But he can also be a bit misleading when he wants to.

I asked Howie, "Where do you want to eat today?" and instead of getting the usual indecisiveness, he said, "Let's eat at Blimpie's." It took me awhile to hear the name of the place correctly. But he knew where it was, and it turns out he had a coupon for the place. I said, "This gives us $5 off if we spend $10, so that's a good deal." Howie said, "Don't use the coupon. They're just getting started."

As we drove, I asked Howie, "What kind of food does Blimpie's serve?" and he said, "I don't know." So we drove to Blimpie's. It turned out to be a Subway sandwich copy, right down to the $5 footlong specials. Before we ordered, Howie asked, "Should we eat here or go somewhere else?" I told him that he had wanted to eat here. He said something like, "Don't they have a regular meal?" I told him they had a combo that included chips and a drink. So we had some sandwiches.

While we ate, Howie said, "Let's find a place where we own a sandwich restaurant." Reading between the lines, I think Howie thought earlier that his "group" owned Blimpie's, and that's why he wanted to eat there.

After lunch we went to one of the dollar stores, as we always do. Holiday music was playing. After five minutes, Howie came up to me and said, "Let me go and see if they will put me through the gate. The man on the radio said they would." I said, "Didn't you try that here last week?" (he had the same idea at the same store a week earlier). He said, "It didn't work. They wouldn't let me." It evidently didn't work again, because when I left the store Howie was outside smoking away. We went back to the car, where Howie looked up and said, "Sandkik group, come over here!"

On the way home, we stopped at the mailbox (one of those collections of individual boxes with keys). Howie said, "I don't know if I want to open it now. It blows up sometimes." However, he did open it and retrieved what appeared to be several days' worth of mail.

I decided to work on the floors and toilets instead of trimming vegetation today, so I did that. The floors have dried something on them--bleach, cleanser, ammonia, who knows. (And there is still a combination of cleanser and talcum powder spread all over creation, with a little laundry detergent mixed in.)

I was about to put the used rags in the washer when I notoiced it has clothes in it. "Are these clothes clean or waiting to be washed?" I asked. He said, "It was Sunday twice, so I didn't do it."

As I got ready to leave, Howie said, "Thank you for taking us downtown. Sorry they were eating people at the sandwich shop." I asked, "They were eating people?" and he just said, "Yes."

Going Through the Gate

2008-11-30T17:40:00.000-08:00

Howie talks fairly consistently about wanting to "go through the gate so I can go home." The location of the gate varies. This last Saturday it was supposed to be inside one of the dollar stores. A couple of weeks ago it was in the Civic Center. Earlier it was at an appliance store, and before that it was at a music store. Once it was inside a senior citizens' apartment complex. Unfortunately for Howie, the gate is never there or at least not open when he visits.

Saturday Howie was already up and dressed when I arrived. I unloaded the groceries and we discussed where to eat. After the usual indecision and the usual "they don't want us to eat there" responses to a few suggestions, Howie decided on the big Chinese buffet. During lunch he had some angina pains, but they passed and he felt better.

We shopped at two of the dollar stores, where Howie got his usual supplies of candles, bleach, ammonia, purple cleaner (the color seems to be significant), incense, paper towels, napkins, lotion, rubbing alcohol, headline cards, miniature Christmas lights, and some cigarette lighters. He kept saying he wanted "laser" Christmas lights, but not finding any, he settled on the regular ones.

While we were driving around, he made a comment to the effect that he liked the dollar stores, where he could get so much stuff for his money. As usual while we were driving, he asked me to "signal down half a level" to get to the area where his group's stores and restaurants and smoke shops are. I said, "Tell me how and we'll go there." And, as usual, he just said, "You use that thing," and pointed to the wiper control.

(Last week, after shopping at one or two of the dollar stores, Howie was surprised that he was broke--that is, that he had spent all the money in his allowance. We went through what he had bought to demonstrate that indeed he had spent it all. Last week's expenditures included four disposable cameras and a few other items that added up pretty fast.)

Howie has a new practice of cutting things up into little pieces. He has done some trimming of a few plants, and he has cut the twigs and leaves up into pieces about three inches long. He has filled two trash cans with these pieces. When I arrived Saturday, Howie cut up a cigarette carton into pieces about one inch on each side.

A couple of weeks ago there was a brush fire in the area. I pointed to the smoke plume in the distance and said, "Look at the smoke." Howie asked, "Is that a bomb?" and I said, "No, it's a brush fire." He asked, "Where did it hit?" From then on, he referred to it as a bomb.

Howie was feeling fairly happy when I left. Earlier in the week when I had called he said he had been feeling a bit depressed. Considering the psychological burden a paranoid schizophrenic carries, it's a wonder he isn't always depressed. (I think I mentioned at one point that for years Howie would not leave the house because he feared being murdered by assassins.)

We waved to each other as usual when I left.

Knock It Off Down There

2008-10-26T07:38:00.000-07:00

When I took Howie his weekly groceries yesterday, he said he wasn't feeling very well. I tried to get the how, but he wasn't responsive. (While he was still in bed, he told me a bomb just went off nearby. I asked him if he was okay, and he said, "I think so.")

We had another of those indecisive exercises when it came to choosing a place to eat lunch. Howie asked for some options, so I mentioned a few places. He said, "Where can we get some regular food?" So I suggested some coffee shops and the buffet. He said, "Let's eat in town. Is there a buffet in town?" I told him that the one we usually visit is still in town (though on the outskirts). So, he said the buffet was okay. Then a minute later, "Let's eat in town. Let's get a hamburger." I said okay. Then, "Let's go to the Mexican restaurant in the freeway shopping center." Okay. Then, "Let's go to the little Chinese place next to the big dollar store." By this time we were in the car and heading toward downtown. "Where is it you want to go?" I asked. "I need to know soon to make the right turn." "Let's go to the Mexican place." So we did.

After lunch we drove across the parking lot to one of the dollar stores. As we drove, Howie said, "Let's go to the Home Depot after we shop so I can go through the gate and go home." I said okay. I didn't point out that shopping would be pointless if he were to leave this level and go to another world right afterwards.

At the dollar store, Howie got the usual: candles, hand lotion, bleach, cleaner, incense, etc. He wanted headline cards, but the store did not have any. Similarly, he still wanted wood Q-tips, but this store, like the one last week, carries only plastic ones.

As we drove across the parking lot, I said, "Do you want to stop at the smoke shop since it's right here?" Howie said, "I don't know if they sell to us." I said, "They always have in the past." He said, "What is the sign in the window?" We drove by the shop and Howie looked and said, "It's for blue liberals only." Since I was driving, I didn't get a chance to see what he was looking at. The "blue liberals" must have come from the blue state versus red state idea that's on the radio.

We headed for home and again Howie said, "Let's go to the Home Depot. See if they put us home." So we did. I waited in the car. Howie came back and said, "It didn't work."

So we headed home. At the house, I noticed the radio/CD player that I had bought him for Christmas last year was sitting in the shop (still covered with baby powder), with a note on it saying, "Take away please." The large office chair from his desk has also been moved--put out by the trash cans at the curb.

In the family room, Howie tripped slightly on a plastic sheet that was hanging to the floor from a chair. He glared at the floor and said angrily, "Knock it off down there! Get out of the house and leave or something!"

I mopped the kitchen floor (it was in particularly bad shape), cleaned the rear toilet with some hydrochloric acid toilet cleaner from the dollar store, and trimmed some more bushes to allow the septic tank pumper truck access up the driveway to the tank at the back. I made a bit of progress uncovering the lid to the tank, but it's covered with asphalt (the tank is under the driveway), so it was slow going.

Howie was again appreciative of my help. Recently he has been more emphatic about it. I always tell him I'm glad to help him. I only wish I could do more. But he's always been an independent and stubborn person. And being slightly paranoid still, he doesn't trust doctors and hates needles. I still ask him pretty regularly if he wants me to take him to a doctor, but he always says no.

He seemed cheerful enough as I left.

The World Is Against Him

2008-10-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

It just occurred to me than one of the manifestations of persecution in Howie's life is the delusion of being rejected or unwanted. Each week when I visit him, I hear him say things such as, "They don't want us to shop there," "They don't want us to eat there," "They told us they don't want us to listen to their radio stations," "They told us not to watch that TV." "We need a radio that gets our stations," he frequently tells me, because "they" don't want him listening to "their" stations.

When we do find a store that will allow Howie to shop there ("Do they want us to shop here?"), we have the next problem of the wrong brands. "That brand doesn't want to sell to us," I hear regularly. And sometimes it's not the brand. Last week at one of the dollar stores we were looking for candle holders for stick candles. I found a nice one, made of brass and ceramic. Howie looked at it and said, "That's a guru one. Find one that's not a guru one." Unfortunately, the only other one was a tall glass piece that would probably fall over and break quickly. So, Howie left without a candle holder.

I think I mentioned in an earlier entry that "lasagna" has become a prohibited word (taken over by Howie's enemies, it seems), so I can't buy him any food with that word on the label, regardless of brand.

Finally, once we find the permissive store and the right brand, the goods often go astray. "They switched my camera," "They switched my food."

I might have mentioned this before, but will risk it again. I once suggested that for lunch we get some fried chicken. Howie said, "That's bird meat. I don't eat birds." The oddity in this is that he suggests Chinese food frequently, where he has various chicken entres regularly. He will also eat chicken pot pies. But no turkey TV dinners or chicken legs at the buffet.

Smoke Old Golds

2008-10-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

When I arrived last week, Howie had posted a handwritten sign on the workshop door, "Smoke Old Golds." There was an Old Gold brand of cigarette many years ago, but I don't think it's still around. On the walls of the workshop, Howie has taped pieces of packaging and labels. There are labels from Wild Cherry Pepsi, Sunny Delight, Capri Sun, Basic cigarettes, a picture of a Cadillac from an ad, and a few others. As I think I've written before, the kitchen walls have a few similar items, including receipts, taped up.

When I entered the house, I discovered bleach poured all over the lineoleum, puddling in some places. Even I could smell it. I asked Howie why he did that and he said the house smelled funny.

Howie needed some new underwear, so we went to Target after lunch. We found the style he liked, but, alas, they were made by Hanes. "Hanes won't sell to us," Howie told me. I offered to buy them for him, but that didn't work. Then we found some undies by Fruit of the Loom. "Fruit of the Loom might mean we're fruit cakes," Howie said. After a few more false starts and hesitations and changes of mind, we ended up with a store brand.

We ate at the Chinese buffet this week. It was okay, but still not worth the money. However, Howie asked to eat there, and Saturday is his day. During lunch he said, "They switched my food and put ick in it," and afterwards in the car he said he felt as if he had to throw up. However, he didn't.

We visited two of the dollar stores in town, where Howie got his usual supply of green alcohol, candles, headline cards, and miscellaneous items. He's been buying vanilla wafers recently as a snack, too.

By the time I was ready to leave, Howie was humming to himself happily.

Everything Here Gets Dirty in Just a Few Weeks

2008-09-21T15:45:00.000-07:00

Howie was feeling a bit more spry than usual this week. When he got up and dressed, he did complain about his back hurting him, but after lunch I noticed a little spring in his step.

When he got dressed, he asked me to take him to the mayor's office to see if the mayor would let Howie "go through the gate to home." This has been a frequent request, and a few times I have taken him to the civic center. Because I visit Howie on Saturdays, the civic center is always closed. This time, I simply reminded him that today was Saturday and that ended the request. (Later, Howie asked me once again if he could get a car "and an income" so he could drive to the "other town." I usually tell him that he needs a driver's license and insurance, but this time I didn't say anything.

A few weeks ago, Howie put his stereo receiver out by the trash at the curb. He didn't want it because "it doesn't get the right channels" and because the channels it did get told him the wrong things. A couple of years ago he had a much nicer receiver that he also threw away. At any rate, for some reason no one picked up this item even after about three weeks, so Howie finally retrieved it and hooked it up again. (He still wants to buy a radio that gets 210 on the dial, but we can never find one.)

Last week, Howie had rearranged some of the furniture in the family room. He told me he was planning on moving his bed back in there, but he decided it was too much work.

He continues to pour bleach on the linoleum floor and down the heater/air conditioner vents (in the floor).

At the dollar store last week, a car alarm went off, and Howie stopped walking back to our car and stood there looking in the direction of the sound as long as it went off--which seemed like quite a long time. He appears to belive that honking, alarms, sirens, and other such noise are messages or signals to him.

Yesterday, while I was mopping, Howie said, "Everything here gets dirty in just a few weeks. I don't understand." This from the guy who half the time lets his cigarette ashes drop to the floor (not to mention wrappers, chips, grapes, toothpicks, and whatnot).

The garden hose at the lath house (where Howie's cactus collection is) burst somehow, so Howie wanted another hose. After lunch we went by Home Depot and looked at the offerings. He said he wanted a yellow hose (probably because the old one was yellow), but he settled for a gray one. He got the economy model because he had only $10 left in his weekly allowance, and he turned down my repeated offer to subsidize a better hose.

We had Chinese food for lunch, which Howie said was good (while he was eating it) and not so good (when I asked him again half an hour later).

Howie bought the usual miscellaneous items at the dollar store, though some of the things on his shopping list (photo albums, a soup bowl) he forgot. He did get three bottles of "green alcohol."

I was glad to see him in good spirits when I left.

Water Under the Bridge

2008-09-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

I see it has been too long since I posted.

Things are generally the same with Howie. At times he seems to display a glimmer of rationality and expresses consciousness of how much I am helping him (he thanked me three or four times last week), but then he begins talking about going through the gate to get "home" and how all his other relatives are there and so on.

I had a number of details on my pocket voice recorder to enter here, but it had some kind of failure and all were erased. So here are a few details I remember.

When I talk to Howie on the phone, I usually ask him what he had for dinner and whether he liked it (finding topics of conversation is a challenge). Recently he said he had a Salisbury steak TV dinner, which used to be one of his favorites. I asked how he liked it and he said he didn't, because "it had ground up people in it." He asked for more spaghetti and meatballs dinners.

The ants are back. There are little piles of potato chip crumbs on the counter and in the sink, which they enjoy immensely.

This last week was Howie's birthday (he has turned 60), so I suggested we go to the Sizzler and have a steak. He said okay. Then the phone rang. Apparently it was a salesman or a recorded message, since he listened for a minute or two and then hung up. Then he said, "They don't want us to eat at the Sizzler. The lady on the phone said so."

So we went to the big Chinese buffet, which was better than the last time, though Howie said it was too expensive--quite a sane realization for someone who thinks he can get a Lexus for $300 and stay in a board and care home for $30 to $40 a month. He actually did bring up the board and care topic, but not as an idea of a place to stay, but as a means of "going through the gate to get home."

Howie's dollar store purchases continue to include candles (jar and stick), incense, detergent, bird seed, headline cards, purple Fabuloso, green alcohol ("It's not alcohol; it's our group's chemical"), bleach, and cosmetic items. He appears to buy things not for their labeled use but because they are some special substance, such as a ghost repellent or anti-poison chemcial.

The plumber has had to come out twice since my last posting, to unstop the mainline.

Howie's angina seems to come and go. Still can't get him to see a doctor.

He was feeling okay and was relatively cheerful this Saturday.