Mom

Mom died early on a Monday morning with the blue sky outside her window and a little blue jay-bird pecking at the feeder. Jeanne was holding her hand as she took her last breath.

The last few days had been difficult as we struggled to deal with her pain and anxiety. 

When we first got here, she was surprisingly cognizant of the world around her, far more than we had been led to believe. It's difficult to adequately convey the mindset of an ailing person when you've been dealing with them day after day through a spectrum of ups and downs, highs and lows; you tend to focus on the frustrating moments, the failure moments, the blank-brain episodes when they can't quite remember the words or they can't understand yours; and then you amplify your them in importance as the despair envelops you and you need to make others understand the depth of your feeling. But there were moments when the clouds cleared and normality returned and it was as though there was nothing wrong in the whole world other than the fact that she was still dressed in her nightgown in the middle of the afternoon.

Jeanne and Jan and Dad had been dealing with it for weeks by the time we arrived. In that time, she had lost a lot of ground. Her mobility was nearly gone; she could not walk; she could not stand by herself; her only mode of transport between the bedroom and the bathroom and the dinner table and the back room was the wheelchair. While we were there, she became even more constrained and was confined to her bed. The hospice nurses were now coming every day. In the last couple of days, the hospice nurses were coming every day, and we were administering medications every hour. We were not getting a great deal of sleep. Dad was on the trundle bed in her room; Jeanne and her dog Wendy were in the room across the hall; Cheryl and I were upstairs in Dad's room. Sleep was difficult if not impossible. I lay on the bed with my face glued to the monitor which displayed the night-vision image of my mother as she lay dying, jumping to my feet whenever it appeared that Mom was restless and needing assistance. But my help was superfluous: Dad and Jeanne were right there on the spot and dealing with it. 

We tracked her transitions through the phases of death. Saturday morning was the last time I was able to talk to her with any kind of response. By Saturday afternoon, she had moved onto the self-focused phase where she was unable to communicate in any real sense. Her eyes were mostly closed and she breathed in rasping, rattling sounds which continued all night long. Her medication doses were increased to reduce the apparent pain and discomfort she was experiencing, and she slept more peacefully throughout Sunday, although her breathing was still loud due to some kind of aspiration.

Monday morning around 8 am, we administered a scheduled dose of pain and anxiety medications and then turned her over so that she could breathe more easily. Dad went upstairs to get a shower. Jeanne held her hand. I went into the kitchen to get a drink. And then Jeanne called out that Mom had stopped breathing.

And she had.

Front-Loader Issues

Several years ago we transitioned from the old-fashioned top-loader washing machine to the modern, fancy-dancy front-loader. Everyone said it was much better than the old ones: more convenient, more efficient, more durable, better for the environment, etc..

It does have a few little quirks, though. For instance, they recommend that you leave the front loading door open when not in use.

We didn't discover the reason for this recommendation until we discovered, much to our horror, that the front-loading door seal/gasket/thingie on our washer had turned into a mildew factory. And we didn't make this discovery via our eyes, but rather with our noses. The entire laundry room started to smell really bad. It wasn't hard to pinpoint the source of the smell, either. Just open the washing machine door and take a good, long whiff. Eww!

So we ordered a new seal for the machine and I pulled the old one out and installed the new one over the course of a couple days. Due to the extremely strong wire-and-spring mechanism used to ensure a good seal, it took me several hours of pain and torture -- and the purchase of a special spring-stretching tool online -- to install it.

I'm lucky to have all my fingers after that little jaunt into the world of appliance repair.

But this wasn't the only anomaly which presented itself with this particular design. At some time after we'd been using it for awhile, water started leaking out the front of the unit -- just under the dispenser drawer -- and onto the floor (which is just above the basement bedroom). We called the Help line for LG and were able to speak with a few different people (in some far-off land where English is not the primary language, e.g. India, Philippines, etc.) who assured us that it was due to the fact that we were not using the correct detergent; we were supposed to be using the liquid concentrate instead of the powder. That sounded completely ludicrous to me, so instead of taking their idiotic advice, I tore the washer apart and discovered that there was no one-way flapper valve to prevent the water from back-flowing into the dispenser once the fill/rinse cycle began, so every time the basket started to turn, it would fling water back through the dispenser mechanism and out onto the floor. Genius!

The little computer within the washing machine (everything has to have a computer inside these days) precisely calculates the amount of water to use for the rinse/wash cycles by 'weighing' the clothes and determining how much water is needed to ensure every nook and cranny of the clothing is filled with cleansing suds. But if the clothes are already wet, as sometimes occurs when those 'clothes' happen to be wet towels which have been used to mop up the occasional spill, the little computer will over-estimate the amount of water needed because it doesn't realize that the fabric is already completely saturated. The result is an overfill; too much water in the basket for the amount of fabric to be washed. Thus when the basket begins to roll to and fro, the excess water will back-flow up through the basket inflow hose. And since there is no backflow valve, that water rushes back up the hose and into the dispenser and then out onto the floor.

So we have to be careful about the types of things we put in the wash. Pre-saturated items must be thoroughly wrung out first.

(Also, we had to buy a shallow pan to put underneath the washing machine just in case it leaks for any other reason, it doesn't end up flooding the basement!)

As if that weren't enough, lately it began leaking from the bottom of the door. Not a lot, and only during specific cycles (i.e. Delicates) which was very confusing. It took us a few observations to discover that the water splashing up onto the front glass during those cycles was then coming down through a vent hole in the outer door seal -- a hole which is not a tear or rip in the seal but one which is apparently designed to be there! -- and then into the shallow pan.

But why now? Why after all this time? Another mystery to ponder.

My only recourse at this point, I suppose, is to order new inner and outer seals and replace both of them, and then see what happens. Of course, they aren't cheap. The inner seal is somewhere in the neighborhood of $90. I haven't priced the outer seal yet.

I'm beginning to miss the old top-loader.

Things To Do : 2024 Version

The end of 2023 caught me by surprise because there are still so many things that need to get fixed before the New Year.

But it's too late now! The New Year is upon us, and the things that didn't get fixed last year have been dragged kicking and screaming into this one.

House

I've got my office set up in the front room now -- probably the most usage this room has had in the nearly twenty years we've been living here -- but it's a disorganized mess and needs to be organized before my next job begins.

The basement is currently occupied by our tenant but needs to be finished, since there are still ceiling panels and baseboards missing. And the library room is only used for storage right now since there isn't room in the house for all my electronics and some leftover items from the Swiders.

It's too late now to find out where the wasps made their nest, but I still need to figure out how they got in the house into the little bedroom down there. I'm afraid they built it somewhere inside the walls. If I don't locate it, remove it and destroy the hibernating queen, it's going to be worse next spring. 

The back deck still has planters (with plants) on it, along with the outdoor table we purchased last spring. I was able to hide all the chairs up in the loft, but the whole deck needs to be cleared off before the snow falls -- because the snow generally remains on the deck all winter.

Garage

The 3rd bay of the garage is a cluttered mess. It is full of junk that needs to be sorted and put in the (1) attic or (2) loft or (3) trash. It always takes me way too long to decide in which category they go.

The 2nd bay of the garage containing my worktables is a cluttered, filthy mess. I need to toss the garbage, clean the work surfaces, and put away my tools.

The 1st bay of the garage has overflowing shelves and overflowing junk on the floor (e.g. unused flooring from the basement that we're keeping in case we need to perform repairs). It all needs to be organized.

The (dead) 2013 Elantra is still sitting askew in my driveway. The third bay of the garage, which was supposed to be its winter parking spot, is jammed full of other things that need to be placed elsewhere.

The 2001 Corolla has a weird headlight wiring issue which must be resolved before Adam can safely drive it to his second-shift job.

The 2000 Camry is still sitting in the storage unit waiting for my attention. One of the wheels has gone flat and I need to check the battery charge.

The new-to-us 2011 Camry has a non-functional heater which is a no-go for Michigan winters. I'm hoping it's a simple case of needing a radiator/heater core flush. Or maybe a bad thermostat.

Mary is still trying to find a car of her own. She got a pre-approval letter from the bank and is just itching to get into a loan situation so she can be like the rest of us debt-ridden citizens.

The 2010 Rav, while now possessing a functional parking brake system for both sides, needs to have the passenger-side cable replaced as it has been stretched too much and it doesn't match the length of the driver-side one. This causes a noticeable 'jump' point in the parking brake operation when one side has gone taut and the other side still has a ways to go.

The Yard

I probably shouldn't even mention the yard since it is winter and we can't do anything with it, but I'm still (kind of) using the compost pile to put our 'used' veggies in, so that needs to be raked over and prepped for winter. It would be nice to have a cover over it to retain some heat in order to keep the fermentation/breakdown of vegetable matter going.