What's That Sound?

Every other Wednesday I help Mom call her sister Daisy, who lives in Chicago; she also has dementia. While I am on Mom's land line, I talk her through dialing Aunty Daisy's number on the cell phone. (She can't remember how to use the cell phone.) They both enjoy the phone contact. But this week Mom said her cell phone was not in her purse; she asked me to call it so she could find it by listening for the ringing. I called her cell phone 10 times but she did not answer, so I called the land line to find out if she was close to finding it. She said she heard it and wanted me to continue calling. So I tried 15 more times with no luck. Later I texted Curt to ask him to help her find it on the weekend. He texted me today, he found it! Mom's cell phone was in his car; I'm not sure what it was that she insisted she was hearing on Wednesday!

SOLD!

While I was in the NAACP meeting this evening I received a phone call from my real estate agent; she sold my house this evening! Yay! One more thing that can be crossed off the list. This was not the usual type of house sale, I went through someone who finds houses for people who buy them, remodel them, then sell them again. While some people think I should have sold it the usual way in order to get the highest price for it, what I liked about going this route was that I did not have to stage the house and we did not have a whole lot of strangers wandering through the house. I got the amount of money that I need for the next phase and that's what really matters to me.

So why did I put all that work in to the trellis? I got to meet the couple that bought my house. They intend to remodel it, then sell it to someone who wants to live in it. And they liked what I have done to the yard already, especially the fruit trees. Since it was not going to be torn down, I decided to complete the trellis and get the hardy kiwi up where it belongs. Here I am starting to place the vines on the wires.

(Photo by Bo)

And here is the final result. There are still a bunch of vines hanging below the level of the wires. I left those because they had a lot of flowers; perhaps having more flowers will provide a better set of fruit. Last year there were only a dozen flowers but no fruit.







When I called Mom this morning, I talked her through filling up her pill pack since my brother forgot to do it over the weekend. When I called her up this evening to remind her to take her pills she was surprised at how many pills she had to take! It was as if we had not spent nearly half an hour filling up her pill pack this morning.

Happy Birthday to Juan, Bill, and Holly!

Trellis Building 101

Today I finally started putting up the final parts of the trellis for the hardy kiwi, with help from my friend Bo. We only had 4 hours today but were able to get the cross arms installed. We only need to string the cable, then tie the kiwi on to the cables. Here's a before photo.

That's Mei Lee on the right by the Siberian iris; she's one of the people that works for my friend David who is helping me with the yard. Today Mei Lee and Michael were removing aged compost from the compost bins and spreading them around the plants. The posts were put in place a few years ago, I just never got around to adding the cross arms. Here's what the trellis looked like today when we had to stopped.


That bushy clump at about the middle of the center post is the one kiwi plant that I have. It is called Issai and is supposed to be self-fertile. Last year it had about a dozen blossoms but they all fell off. This year there are a lot more blossoms and there are a bunch of bumblebees to pollinate them! The instructions for it does say that it will set more fruit if you have another variety to act as a pollinator. But since everything I have read about kiwis says that they give A LOT of fruit (~150 lbs per plant), I figured having less fruit (~75 lbs) was not necessarily a bad thing.

The house sparrows were a little put out by us since we were working so close to the feeder. But the black-capped chickadees brought their babies to the feeder, there were 3 of them along with the parents. The hummingbirds were also not bothered by us; they kept buzzing around, driving off other hummingbirds. A male goldfinch and a rock pigeon also came to check things out but neither stuck around too long.

Had a great visit yesterday from the real estate agent and a couple that is interested in buying the house. I hope to know more about the outcome tomorrow or the next day.

Happy Birthday to Angie and Ruby!

Totoro Movie Night

At Mary Ellen's house last weekend there was a watering can that looked (to me) like a rabbit - cotton ball tail, long pointy ears sticking up. I was told, however, that it was Totoro. I noted that I had only seen a couple of pictures of Totoro and always thought he was more cat-like than rabbit-like. This prompted Mary Ellen to declare last night as Totoro Movie Night!

It was a small group; Mary Ellen, Michael, Jim, Vivian, Margaret, Mary, Kai and I. And Louie. During most of "My Neighbor Totoro" Louie slept on the recliner next to Michael. However, when Mei first meets Totoro he is asleep and snoring. Louie was instantly awake and quietly growling, he jumped off the recliner to find the intruder. Finding no one, he returned to his sleeping place. Good boy, Louie!

Mei meeting Totoro

We decided the food theme was Japanese, so we started with gyoza, yakitori, and grilled asparagus. Afterwards we had several types of sushi and a brownie cake with fruit topping.


Amelia was unable to be there. But she left instructions that I was to wear her Totoro outfit during the movie. There is a slight height between us, so there was an excess of Totoro! I would be the small Totoro of the movie...


After watching the movie, I think Totoro has the body shape and feet of an owl, the head and tail of a cat, claws of a bear, and human lips and teeth. Totoro also appears to play a type of ocarina. Totoro makes noises but doesn't really speak.

The Nekobasu (Catbus) in the movie reminded me of a tardigrade. Later I discovered that there is a creature named after Totoro because it reminded the German scientists that discovered it of the Nekobasu when it moves. Eoperipatus totoro, aka velvet worm, is about 2&1/2 inches long and is seldom seen because it lives in the soil and under logs and rocks.

We were originally going to watch Princess Mononoke after eating. But it was so late we decided we needed to have another Studio Ghibli Movie Night instead! Date to be determined.

Happy Birthday to Clancy!

It's Now Real

I packed my bike tonight. This one action has made moving back to Hawai'i real for me. Up till now it just seemed like something way in the future. When I moved to Washington, I also packed my bike and brought it here with me. It was both my transportation and my exercise, as well as recreation. That bike was stolen about 20 years ago, so it is a different bike that will be returning to Hawai'i with me. Here's the box my bike is traveling in, I thought it was quite appropriate!









I am now having Dad take probiotics to repopulate his gut with "good" bacteria. After you complete a round of antibiotics it is a good idea to take probiotics so that the "good" bacteria get a stronger start so that they can help to keep the "bad" bacteria under control. He seems to be doing better, he sounds less confused.

I also talked with a real estate agent today. Mary does commercial properties and has 2 buyers who are interested in my house. I will meet with her again tomorrow to finalize the details.

Happy Birthday to Robert, Mark, Neal, Susan, and Danny! And Happy 36th Anniversary of the (most recent) eruption of Mount St. Helens!

Last Day for Dad's Antibiotics

Dad took the last amoxicillin capsule at dinner tonight; he finished the acetaminophen with codeine yesterday. He goes back to see the dentist tomorrow for a check up. If there are more medications he needs Curt will let me know tomorrow.

Because of the many interactions I needed to do with each call, I had Mom put the phone on speaker so that if she got distracted during a task I could remind her to stay on task. It also helped when she forgot where the phone was, I could hear her asking where she put the phone and could call out to her to help her find it! I will continue this even after she no longer has to deal with Dad's medications.

I read an article about a new study on dementia that suggests, "that the neurological decline common to these diseases is caused by 'auto-inflammation', where the body's own immune system develops a persistent inflammatory response and causes brain cells to die." I will have to keep an eye on this and see where this leads.

Happy Birthday to Allison!

Hello, Mom?

Had a somewhat frustrating day. I called Mom 11 times today. She would put the phone down, walk away to look for her pills, forget that's what she was doing and start on something else! In the meanwhile I am on the phone yelling to get her attention! On the 5th call this morning I had her put the phone on speaker so that she would be more likely to hear me yelling if she put the phone down and started doing something else. It worked surprisingly well! (Two calls were to her cell phone which she did not answer.) We did the same thing at lunch and at dinner after a couple of distractions again. I think I will have her routinely put the phone on speaker mode since that seems to work better now that she is getting more distracted.

At dinner, when I asked her to get a piece of banana for Dad to eat before he took the antibiotic, she said they were out of bananas. She started telling me what fruits they had and was stumped by one of the fruits she found. She said, "It's red and big with lots of seeds." I guessed pomegranate and was wrong. Turns out it was watermelon!

I have noticed that she is at a loss for words for more things and concepts than she was a year ago. But she can still describe it so that we get in to a guessing game. Sometimes it is hilarious! (She thought the pomegranate was pretty funny!)

Happy Birthday to Anank, Candice, Francis, Myrtle, and Sarah!