NO Good Deed Goes Unpunished

You'd think the Department of Labor would want you to pick up part time work while unemployed. I'm not so sure. I did a one day project in November and dutifully reported it. As promised, the DOL docked my next check and I thought that would be the end of it. Then a week went by -- no check. Another week went by -- no check. Nor any other communication from the DOL.

I finally searched the entire DOL site to find a number at which I could talk to an actual person. Fortunately, Ric, the guy who answered, totally got it, solved the problem and released my checks. But would it have killed them to tell my what was going on instead of holding my money and ignoring me?

Here's the stupid story: because I worked, the DOL started holding my checks until I could explain why I wasn't continuing to work. Even though I filled out the form that said I worked one hour on one day. Full time work that ain't!

But Ric is the silver lining in the story. He not only understood, but empathised and gave me his name and direct number in case I ever need his help again. Let's hope I don't.

Begining to Look a Lot Like Christmas

There's nothing like a lovely little overnight sugar coating to get the Christmas spirit rolling. Sure is pretty in the sunlight.

Kind of takes the edge off spending the last 4+ months unemployed. Well, the odds of a new job between now and the end of the year are pretty much nil, so I'll just have to relax and enjoy the season. With a renewed appreciation that it is not about the price tags on gifts as it is about the people. I think I'll take some of this spare time and give it to a good food bank or something.

See America First

No need to pine for exotic locals. Our beautiful countrysides and coasts have so much to delight. Case in point, Cape Ann, north of Boston. On a gorgeous fall day, it's as pretty as anywhere on earth!

Cocktails for the Season

Came up with a couple of fun seasonal cocktails: Pumpkin Pie Martini and Cranberry Relish Martini.

Pumpkin Pie Martini

Combine in a shaker:

1 part Vodka

1 part "Pumkin Spice" liquor
1 part dairy 1/2and 1/2

1/2 part maple syrup
Crushed Ice

Shake until frothy then pour into martini glass. Sprinkle with nutmeg and dress with a dollup of whipped cream.

Cranberry Relish Martini

Combine in shaker:

1 part Black Duck cranberry liqeur
1 part orange vodka

1 part fresh orange juice

crushed ice

Shake until frothy and pour into martini glass. Serve dressed with craisins and an orange slice.

Justice is a Black Woman

Had a pleasure rare in my free lance experience today. I got to sit in the room when an audience viewed my work for the first time -- hear the reactions, the laughs in the right places, the nods, the applause. There were even a few teary eyes. Today was the symposium at the Quinnipiac Law School for Judge Constance Baker Motley. I wrote the script, my husband produced and directed it, and NPR's Juan Williams did the narration.


In preparing the script, I waded through hours of interviews from some of the pivotal players of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as Motley's son, Joel. There were comments from a Supreme Court Justice, District Court judges, a member of the Little Rock Nine, and key players from the NAACP of the 50s and 60s.

Every story pointed to the fact that, as one of them put it, when it came to the key legal cases of the Civil Rights Movement, Constance Baker Motley's fingerprints were all over them.


Think about this young black woman going through Columbia Law School in the 1940s (!!) and then going into courtrooms in the Deep South with the opposing position in the 50s and 60s. She must have had nerves of tungsten! One story says that blacks weren't barred from federal courts in the South the way they were state courts, so they'd crowd in and fill up one side of the gallery (whites on the other) just to hear this young black woman talk back to the white lawyers. It was said they didn't even care if she won (which she usually did) it was victory enough that she was there!


Constance Baker Motley also argued 10 times before the U.S. Supreme Court -- and won! Actually, she won nine cases outright. But the 10th was reversed 20 years later, perfecting her record. I could go on about her becoming the first black female NY state senator, first black president of the borough of Manhattan, first Black female District Court Judge...it would take a book. It would also make a great feature film. But I'll have to be content with our small documentary that Juan Williams titled, "Justice is a Black Woman: The Passionate Work of Constance Baker Motley."

Summer It Ain't

OK. July is gone and good ridance. Could it have been wetter? But now August is here and the fog outside is so thick you can't see across the street. The weekend might be so-so, but then it's suppose to rain again for the first half of the week. ENOUGH ALREADY!

Happily Ever After

Sometimes it's nice to cap a really bad week -- saaay one where you lose your job and dozens of others you know and like lose theirs, too -- with a beautiful wedding. Follow that with a smashing party where you get to shuck your troubles and have a blast with many of your fellow unemployed (including the bride!!) AND a few of the somewhat unfortunate souls who kept their jobs but are stuck cleaning up the mess, and somehow things kinda seem OK.

And when you look at those two crazy-in-love kids you can be pretty sure everything will turn out all right -- for them, and for the rest of us.

That Was Close!!

OK, everyone knows Duncan is famous for being a "Girly Dog." There's the family story about him barking in terror at deer near our woods, and running back on the deck after he spotted a large rabbit in the yard. So imagine our amazement and horror at his reaction to finding a teeeeeny tiny bunny pressed down in the grass trying to look invisible. Duncan instantly snatching it up in his mouth!!! YIKES! He didn't even take a second to sniff it. Just CHOMP!

If you've never heard a baby bunny shriek in terror -- be grateful. It is an awful sound. Thankfully I had the dog on a leash and could keep control of him. But I had to literally bonk him soundly on the head a few times before he let the little fellow go! Geez Louise! He picks a tiny, 5-ouncer to get tough with?

Happily the tike shot under a bush the second he hit the ground, terrified but evidently none the worse for wear. Whew! I'm telling you -- this dog is full of surprises.

In the "It's Hell to Get Old" department...

Who Says High Definition television isn't really realistic? This poor woman was sure her home was on fire. Actually, I could see my dad having the same kind of confusion. :-(

We Want a Refund

This is a fact: it is illegal to talk on a cell phone in Connecticut while driving, unless you use a hands-free device. (Personally I think that part is stupid. It's not so much the phone-holding that gets people into trouble, it's the phone-using, but that's another story.)

So why is it that every time I realize someone is tailgaiting me, I look closer and find they are mindlessly yakking on the cell phone pressed to their ear. Or that the person next to me at the light has a phone pressed to their ear. Or the person turning through the intersection in front of me -- has a cell phone pressed to their ear!

A rough survey during my commute showed about 3 in 10 drivers are on the phone -- and that's only the ones holding the phone! Who knows how many more are talking on headsets.

So why aren't all these people being ticketed? I have yet to hear of ANYONE being cited for this highly dangerous violation. Frankly it's not likely anyone will be, because any trooper will tell you, the law is too difficult to enforce.

Accepting the truth of that -- I want my money back. A friend of my husband makes a great point. We should demand back all the money we spent paying legislators to draft, debate and pass and publicize the no-cell-phone law. It was a complete waste of time and of our money.

I suggest we transfer the money into the healthcare bucket to help pay for all the accident victims who will be hurt by this completely irresponsible behavior. So law or no law -- HANG UP AND DRIVE!

a-HEMA

Being something of a student of Web innovations, I'm always on the lookout for new ideas. Sometimes they are concepts I can use to improve our corporate websites, and sometimes they're just plain fun.

Case in point, a friend sent me this companion catalogue page for a Dutch department store called HEMA. You can't actually order from this page, but who cares? Just let it load, then sit back and enjoy. Turn up the sound, too if you want.

Enjoy this calorie-free eye candy.

D*MN!!

Boy, I didn't know how right I was. The mission was impossible!

I spent the last three weeks serving on a jury -- you knew that. But the fact that it was a murder trial puts it in a higher strata. So after spending seven of those days in deliberation, we ended up exactly where we started on the first day -- 10 of us said the defendant was at the crime scene and pulled the trigger, 2 said they weren't sure. In the end we were deadlocked; the judge had to declare a mistrial. That was frustrating enough. What happened next had us pulling our hair out.

The judge came to talk to us in the deliberation room. That's when we could ask all our questions about gaps in the case. The judge actually had the answers -- and ALL of his answers cleared up the doubts of the 2 hold outs. The defendant absolutely committed the crime. The 10 of us were right -- and there wasn't a damn thing we could do about it.

So -- the good news, such as it is -- the defendant does not go free, he gets tried again. And being a full time drug dealer, he's in jail on other charges and won't be getting out any time soon anyway. The sad part -- this was NOT a drug deal gone bad where the victim was a criminal, too. Nope -- this scumbag popped one of the good guys. The victim was a 24 year old father of two, honorably discharged from the navy who was a criminal justice major. He was about to be hired by the department of corrections and had plans join the state police.

And while I hate the unfinshed business we were a part of, what is much worse is the victim's family has to go through all this again. It's a bad business. A very bad business and whether I did the best I could or not, I'm sorry it ended as it did.

... getting 12 disparate people to see the same information the same way. Even after days and days of trying! Who knew it would be so very, very difficult?

Life Immitates Art

I've been grateful this week for the support and encouragement of friends, family and colleagues concerning my new assignment.

I was chosen to serve on a jury in a criminal trial that is expected to last more than a month. I feel humbled and sobered at the prospect of this responsibility.

I'm sure I'll think often (as I already have done) about Twelve Angry Men, the classic film on the power and importance of careful deliberation. A stage version I saw last year starring Richard Thomas keeps it fresh in my mind. Now the difficulties of that situation hold a new clarity for me.

Wish me luck. Or better yet, wish me the courage of my convictions.

Portent

I have often found birds to be portentous. I remember seeing a great blue heron fly over the day I moved to Connecticut in 1981. That character has shown up again and again at significant moments in my life. My daughter has since taken on the great blue as an omen of good as well.

And there are the recurring "visits" from the purple finches that I have found to represent my sister-in-law who passed away in 1990. The first time I'd ever heard one sing was when it sat outside my window on the day she died.

So yesterday morning I didn't know what to make of the turkey who flapped and flopped up into a tree in our back yard. From a practical perspective, he appeared to have been fleeing a cranky rival who kept squawking on ground below. But it was still an odd sight.

Our hero stayed up there for 15-20 minutes until the rival wandered off, then he very unceremoniously fell out of the tree; flapping and flopping down through the branches until he landed with a FWUMP! and just walked away.

I guess sometimes a bird is an omen, and sometimes a big, dumb turkey in a tree is just a big, dumb turkey in a tree.

And three days later....

We are definitely phasing out the siezure medication. I can't WAIT until we put that behind us.

This was the scene we returned to from a party on Saturday night. Notice he ripped the pantry door right off the track!

Here it is Sunday afternoon and we're still not sure if we've seen all the after effects. What really got under the Dad's skin is the fact that the dog had to drag ALL of his loot into the family room.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like MaDuncan?

"There's many a thing you know you'd like to tell him,

Many a thing he ought to understand!!!!"

Soooo, psycho dog strikes again. Our best guess is there was thunder at home while we were at work. We came home to find he'd taken out:

• 10 panels of curtains
• three curtain rods
• Three sets of blinds
• chewed through a suitcase
• knocked the keyboard and mouse off the desk
• and left a "present" under the piano in the office!!!!

All in a day's work, apparently. We can't tell which parts were weather-related, which parts were medication-related and which part was just Duncan being Duncan, but he is obviously caninus non gratis at the moment!

A Little Poke

Sometimes we are prodded by the unexpected to do the right thing. Case in point:

I recently read a very sad blog written by a friend of mine. He told the story of losing a dear friend quite suddenly to skin cancer. It was wrenching because his friend was only in his 40s and died just weeks after being diagnosed.

That was all I needed. The next day I made an appointment with my dermatologist to finally have him look at this sketchy patch on my shoulder. It had been there for a while and I'd kept putting off having it looked at. Well the dermatologist didn't much like what he saw. He said it could be pre-cancerous (not good) or basal cell carcinoma (still less good). He treated it immediately, and, God willing, that will be the end of that.

The take away -- if you feel like you're getting a cosmic poke ... pay attention!

New Chapter

It's a bittersweet day. One chapter is ended and another is begun. At the crack of dawn, Mom and Dad (with David) boarded a plane to start their new lives in Arizona.

Everyone rousted in the dead of night to start the exit process. Folks were organized, both at home and at the nursing home, so things went smoothly.
We got to the nursing home at 5:00 a.m. to find Dad sleepy but in good spirits. For the most part, he understood what was happening. Although he kept forgetting that I was not going with them. (He wanted to know who would be picking up the car from the airport.) But more than once he said, “Boy you kids sure did a good job with this. Got everything organized. I didn’t have to do a thing!” It was nice to think him still aware enough and appreciative that we have all been trying to help him.

We were at the airport by 6:00 a.m. and got great service from a retired Navy chief working as an aide for people in wheelchairs. He had to start with I.D.s so when all the military I.D.s came out it was game on. He attentively called Dad “Commander” and ribbingly called Dave “half Colonel.” The chief arranged for me to be able to go to the gate too, even without a ticket. Very nice.

Then in a blink, our trio was gone. An airline employee pre-boarded them very early, so by 6:15, I was on my way out again, having barely had a chance to say good bye.

By dinnertime today, Dad will be settling in to his new digs. If things go as smoothly as they went this morning, everything will be all right. Now I’ll just have to go home and reintroduce myself to my husband. It has been quite a year.

I Want to be Angela Lansbury When I Grow Up

OK, given all her Tonys and Emmys, I'm probably too late in my ambition, but at the very least, I want to have Angela Lansbury's energy when I am 83. Heck, I want to have her energy now!

Ms. Lansbury's plays the batty medium Madame Arcati in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirits, currently running on Broadway and she is nothing short of a delightful hoot. She flounces and frollicks into trances and the audience goes happily along for the ride. Combine that with the dashing Rupert Everett in an evening jacket (and his Broadway debut, surprisingly enough) and what's not to like!

All great fun and a nice escape from the daily grind.

Tucson Bound

Well it’s amazing what there is to learn about the world of long term care, specialized nursing, etc., especially what those kinds of services cost! We’re counting ourselves very lucky that, because we are all over the country, we can explore more possibilities than most folks.

CT, it turns out, has one of the highest nursing home care costs in the country. Tucson, AZ, on the other hand, costs 62% less for comparable care. Fortunately for us, my brother lives there and is willing to step up. We were stunned to learn that we would be able to save Mom upwards of $75,000 a year by relocating her and Dad to Arizona! A no brainer.

Unlike Connecticut, Tucson offered numerous housing opportunities. We were lucky to find a beautiful facility less than 2 miles from my brother’s home. So Mom will live with his family and Dad will be in his new, nicer digs nearby.

Target date, 4/1/09. Quick turn around, but the facility has an opening now and we don’t want to risk losing it. So wish us luck. Experts say a big upheaval like this can really stress dementia patients. But Dad’s at home in an airplane, and is used to moving a lot, so we’re hoping that will work in our favor to make his transition smooth and comfortable.

Dad spent his life trying to do that for us -- making transitions smooth and comfortable. We hope to be able to return the favor and preserve their assets for a time when Mom may need similar care.

Blast de la Past

Sometimes it's kind of fun to look at old favorites from a new perspective. N'est pas?

It Was Worth a Shot

We had hopes of helping Dad regain some of his mobility by reinstating a drug he'd used early last year. But his neurologist checked him out yesterday and decided there was great risk with little expectation of reward.

The Doctor said the drug carried too much psychotropic risk for someone in Dad's condition. And that it could set him spiraling into the red zone. On top of that, the Doc didn't think it would, in fact, help him walk at this point. Too much risk, pretty much no reward. In the end Dad said, "Not what I wanted to hear, but we'll go with what you say, Doctor." Ever stoic. Until the next time he wants to walk which was about 10 minutes after we left the doctor's office. ;-)

Soo, we tried. Now we know what we need to plan for, at least in the near term. The Doc said our main objective needs to be keeping Dad safe and off his feet, unless he has assistance, and carrying on with the drugs he does have as (infections aside) the seem to be doing a pretty good job of managing sleep and the red zone.

Live and Learn

Well, we found out the hard way last week that simple infections can have a terrible psychological effect on the elderly. This is apparently especially true for seniors given to dementia.

Poor Dad went down a very rocky road for a few days, becoming paranoid about everyone around him and seeing danger in once-familiar people and things. Apparently the infection prevents his meds from working the way they should. Happily a good round of antibiotics brought things back to “new normal” in a few days.

But Dad remembered his quixotic battles with those around him and was sure his next stop was going to be the hoosgow. He felt tremendous shame and remorse. He even wanted to know if I’d gotten him a lawyer. Imagine his overwhelming relief at learning no one was pressing charges. He didn’t quite understand why they weren’t, but he didn't much care.

Believing prevention is worth a pound of cure, I hope to have him tested more regularly from now on, so things don’t have to go so far before they get fixed next time. Live and learn.

Here's to you Mr. President

The Road Not Taken

-- Robert Frost, 1916

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Who or How to Remember

We continue to struggle to help my Dad – help him cope with his new circumstances, help him understand what is going on around him, help him comprehend why he cannot come home with us. For the most part, we’re failing miserably. But as I read more about caring for the demented, I understand that the value is in, must be in, the effort. For me that effort is what frees me (most of the time) from the guilt inherent in facing these responsibilities.

I am charmed to know Dad has so many very good and longtime friends. They keep reaching out to him and Mom, even from long distances. Some even want to come and visit.

Knowing the Bob they know, they struggle to imagine a guy who cannot even converse cogently, let alone be taken out to lunch. So chats with these friends are both sad and heartwarming.

In the end, everyone must decide for him or herself at what point to stop. Is it better to not see him again so that the Bob remembered is the bright, handsome, cheerful, friendly guy who can turn anything into a flying story?

Or to come to know him as he is now, and know that you love him no matter who he is?

We each find our own answers. None of them are wrong.

Succeed to Launch

Chick Flick fans know the Matthew McConoughey movie "Failure to Launch" about a far-too-old son still living at home. That story is the antithesis of the facts in our world as the recently graduated Mia packed up most of her stuff and made her big move to Boston (technically Brighton).

She started her first "real" job today, complete with benefits, a commute and a steep learning curve. All is right with the world.