Correction

My wife has requested that I post a correction in regard to a recent post where I mentioned our pending vacation:

It would not be a good time to break into our house. We have dogs. Big, mean, rabid St. Bernards. They take basketball-sized chunks of flesh from the bodies of anyone who tries to enter our home uninvited. Furthermore the captain of our neighborhood watch is an ex-Marine Sniper with 137 confirmed kills. And last but not least we have rigged every valuable in the house with tripwires, which will send poison darts shooting out of the walls just moments before a giant ball rolls down from the attic on a ramp and blocks the entrance, thus sealing you in until you either starve to death or wander into the tiger pit.

So as you can see it would not be a wise idea to break into our house. Don't try it, don't even think of it.

I'm glad that's cleared up.

Afterwards

Respite

One more week before vacation and we fly out to LA. We are going to visit the wife's sister, do the Disneyland thing, etc. We will be gone for two weeks. If ever you were planning on breaking in sometime when we are gone, this will be the time.

This day started with bucketfulls of rain and is ending with sun. Shortly the child and I will go on a bike ride. We need to take advantage of every good day we have left to us in this summer.

I'm glad that we are taking this vacation. Especially because it is forcing me to close out some of my projects at work. It's been a busy summer, which has in no small way been responsible for it going by so fast.

Sorry, I know this is a lame post.
I will try to make it up later and post some pictures.

Rescripting

Summer is wizzing by at breakneck speed. I have not gotten out fishing again and August is halfway over. I spent part of yesterday afternoon visiting with mom at the hospital. There are rumors that she may have recovered to the point where she can be placed in a nursing home. It's hard to imagine that as an improvement on anyone's circumstances but in her case it is. The isolation and the amount of time she is spending alone is making her fuzzy around the edges, in a mental sense. I helped to sharpen her up by quizzing her on her sister's family. Who married who, who had what kids, which ones went to jail for writing bad checks, etc.

Well, I didn't ask about that last part, she just offered it up. The message is loud and clear to me that every day we have this woman around is a gift. She is not going to be able to answer these questions later, they need to be asked now, today. I have always been a bit of a genealogy buff, but this latest onset has come with a greater sense of urgency. The clock is ticking. And really there is no better time than when she is laid up with nothing to do. For a couple hours yesterday my mother had some purpose and was able to feel useful, which is something that she has not been able to do for quite some time.

I didn't get all the answers I wanted. There was a lot of grey area, but then again many of the facts I can get from my sisters. The point was to hear it from the horse's mouth. It is sad that the American cultural norm is to stick our elderly into storage, with little or no real mental stimulation. The mind dies off first, and the body lingers on like an unwelcome guest. I married into a culture that reveres their elderly and looks to them for wisdom and guidance. I get so caught up in my day to day life that more often than not I find myself more an American than the 'Filipino with a skin condition' that I boast of being. When I think of how much time I have let slip by, how many unanswered questions there are that I would like to ask my parents, I feel ashamed.

I thanked her for sharing and I promised to visit her again soon.

I meant it on both accounts.