Punch under sidewalk to cleanout for phone/TV

Front Door

Garage side

Nothing but non sequiturs

So moving day came, that was Wednesday, here it is Thursday night at
10PM and moving day is almost over.

Through a wonderful logistics ballet of drivers and cars and U-Haul,
Linda and Mark and I helped move Dad and Mom yesterday to Clearlake
Oaks. Yes, we did start at 4AM, yes there was plenty of driving, yes
Dad did hire three day laborers to help load, yes Uncle Earl did
bring in three others to unload, yes the truck seemed big enough in
the morning and no, Mom had little idea what was going on.

Wednesday ended with me sleeping on the floor of the new house and
Mom and Dad in their little camper (the tic tac). Linda and Mark had
gone home and Dad and I continued opening boxes until about 9 PM, we
were both exhausted but the piano was installed, there were couches
and chairs in the right places and Mom was too tired to complain for
the 35th time that the light still did not work in the bathroom. Dad
has annoyed the entire neighborhood and violated just about every
rule in the homeowners CC&R's. He has moved in before final
inspection, there is no PG&E in the house, the front drive slab has
not been poured and the propane has not been hooked up. He has water
and sewer and a power cord from the nice neighbor. Remember his
house sold more then two months ago and he has run out of time living
there, he had to move to the new place and his install contractor has
been dragging his sorry little feet. And Mom has little idea what is
going on.

While driving across the state, one of several times with Mom, she
asked me if I had any brothers or sisters when I grew up.....

She told me about the wonderful 50th wedding anniversary party her
boys from Tennessee tossed for her, I told her I was there also and
she asked me, "why?"....

She spoke to Mark by name all day Wednesday and on Thursday asked me
who the young man was with Linda... I explained that Linda and I were
married and Mark was our son. She said, "well, that is all news to
me, I guess no one tells me anything these days..."

She has lost the names of common places, things and events and
replaced names with long sentences of description that get her lost
regarding where she was headed in the first place....

Today, Dad and Mom and I drove back to Cirby Creek with a rental
trailer to clean the garage and pick up the trash. It was the largest
rental trailer in Clearlake and there still was not room for all the
final bits and pieces, so Dad and Mom will drive back again on Friday
and finally all, except for the greenhouse, will be moved and this
will be over. I knew that Dad was stressing about getting all the
pieces of his life ready to move but I had no idea how over extended
and stressed he was until we walked into his old house yesterday.
Most of the house still needed to be packed and he had precious few
boxes to do it with. Bathrooms, untouched, kitchen, partly packed,
master bedroom, barely started, garage, untouched, refrigerator and
freezer, full, with no where to put the food. Linda and packed and
packed and thru things in boxes and garbage bags for hours while the
hired fellows hauled stuff to the truck. Hours and hours of this till
finally we ran out of big stuff and Dad paid off the help.

Dad is pretty toasted right now. Mom is probably still looking for
the light switch and just about everything they own is in the new
house or in the garage. On Friday Dad will go back to Cirby Creek to
just be hauling off the trash and loading some favorite rose bushes
and other bits and pieces, I may go up there in the afternoon to
continue working on the kitchen so they do not have that to do.

Mom does not know what day of the week it is....

She can not count backward from 20...

She can interject unrelated sentences into any conversation... it
seems like sentences of non sequiturs.

She told me a very sad/funny tale about the evil people at the DMV
who took her license and she called the worst DMV employee a bitch,
mentioned it several times, used the word properly, "that bitch was
the meanest person I ever met..." Oh yes, I was laughing on the inside.

She usually knows she has three sons. They were all good boys.

She tells Dad off for all that is wrong with the world, usually it
revolves around no light in the bathroom or some such.

I don't know... Dad mentioned years ago he was uncertain if he should
move early or move late, seems he moved late and the next few weeks
are going to be sad and interesting all at once. Late today, while
Dad was meeting with the contractor, I got Mom to sit in the living
room and tell me stories about when she was young. Once I got her
going she talked with little prodding for about forty minutes and the
more she talked the more she relaxed and calmed down. The stories did
not always make sense but that was not the point, she was gradually
calming down and that was good.

It is Moving Week

It has finally arrived. This is the week that Mom and Dad move to the
"lake house".

That is my name for it, even though Linda points out you can not even
see the lake. Here is the logistics plan for the week. Dad is pulling
a trailer full of stuff over to the new house on Tuesday. On
Wednesday at 5AM Linda and Mark and I will be arriving at the new
house to pick up mom and dad and drive to Chico to collect the moving
van. Then we all go to Cirby Creek to load the van with the help of
several helpers that dad has hired. Load the truck, eat lunch on
paper plates and then head back to the lake. Uncle Earl has said he
can come to the lake house with some helpers to help unload. That
should use up all of Wednesday. On Thursday I will still be at the
house with dad to keep making a home out of things and then I have to
work Friday before returning Friday afternoon. It should be a week.

Mark and I went up to the lake last week and helped dad on details.
Vacuuming, dusting, digging a ditch to lay a drain pipe, setting up
book shelves. It was a good day of work. That day, the water and
sewer was hooked up and the electrical needed to be inspected before
the final and the driveway in front of the garage needed to be
poured. Hard to seem it is ready to move into but dad is pushing his
contractors and pushing on with the move.

Mom is struggling. Last week when Mark and I were cleaning she
reminded me how pleased she was that all three of us boys were at her
place for a day this summer. She was not quite certain what the
occasion was and she did not remember that Earl and Nellie were there
but she remembers we were there. That was sort of cool. During the
move and the packing she is quite confused. She connects our pictures
on her refrigerator with her reality that we are actually there at
the house. She talks to us, and brings food to our pictures to feed
us and she gets upset when dad is not supportive of her care for her
sons. Yes, it weirds me out and Dad has been having a tough time with
it also.

I hope you guys are calling dad from time to time, or he is calling
you. He needs every smile over the phone he can get. I will put up
another update after the moving is over.