Friday at last - been one very long week.

Ma got moved to the nursing home, there for a week (maybe two) so that she can get more concentrated physical therapy than medical assistance will pay for if she's at home. Yep - they'll either pay $280/day + PT for 3 hours every day in a facility, or $0/day + PT for 4 hours A WEEK if Ma is at home. Can somebody please explain to me how that makes financial sense?

Ma wasn't thrilled about going, but she knows she's got a get outta jail free card she can use at any time - one call, and we come scoop her up and bring her home. After a day there, she seems to be settling in and working with it. We'll see how it goes........

Got to escape for a couple hours Tuesday (THANK YOU BARB!) to go out for a loverly dinner with Darling Wife to celebrate me hitting the half century mark. I say I'm now old, she says I'm still vintage, which played into where we went for dinner: Vintage 50 in Leesburg, VA. Excellent food, excellent staff. Highly recommend the place.

Grinding through work crap today, really hoping to hit Joanie's tonight, gotta figure out why the red Miata is eating batteries and get Gustav's shiny new (rebuilt) alternator installed this weekend. That and do a superfund site style clean up of the downstairs bathroom that Ma and Bear (the leaky cat) had been sharing. Hazmat suits and pressure washers just may be necessary.

Well, I hope your mother will either improve or at least go quickly...Now before you condemn me for lack of feeling listen to this.

My own mother who passed 3 years ago was resolutely anti-medico..which means she did not go to doctors from 30-83.

When the end came she simply wanted to be left alone in her room, 5 days later we found her dead.
That was how she wanted to go, not that I am advocating such, but there you are.

The autopsy, which I agreed to indicated advanced colon cancer, for at least 6 years previously. What a strong broad she was.

Ramonajim- Thoughts and prayers are with you guys and I hope ma can get some relief.
I'm not doing squat this weekend....I'm waiting for the snow to come and I'll veg out infront of the tube and watch crime t.v.shows. Maybe I'll listen to some Verdi arias. have a good one you guys.

No condemnation coming from here Carleton - I understand completely.

Ma was told in November 2008 that she likely would not see New Year's 2009. We were told around Halloween 2009 that she would not likely see Christmas 2009 (hence the gigantic Ma Day Thanksgiving party). Two weeks ago (when she went in to the hospital) we learned that the cancer had spread to the lining of her brain (tumors are still holding back though). Doc Oh said the chemo should also hold back spread of the bugs eating her brain lining - if not, she'd be gone in days. If so, could be a couple months.

Strong is not one of Ma's attributes. Stubborn is. She gets confused some, she gets scared now and then, sometimes she gets angry. Sometimes her short term (minutes) memory is crap. Sometimes she goes all child like. But she is mostly happy. She is mostly comfortable. And we've had the great good luck of having lots and lots of time to share with her.

Taking her to the nursing home, right across the street from the hospital and less than 5 minutes from our house, was a tough call. She will certainly benefit from the more focused PT she'll get there for a week or two, but the home is what it is - most of the folks there have been dropped off to die.

We have no idea when Ma is gonna go - all signs are that she's stable right now. Darling Wife is with her every day - whether she's at home, the hospital, or the nursing home. Plan is to get her beefed up a bit (told her last night she could come home as soon as she could bench press 150 pounds :P), get her home in a week or so, and figure out the next version of a daily routine. Because home is where she wants to be, where she is most comfortable, and where she wants to be when it's time to go. It's where we want her to be as well - even if that means occasionally having to employ the Hazmat suits.

Thanks Mistress.

A little something to add to your playlist. Amazing doesn't begin to describe the skill involved:

Nathan Milstein: "Paganiniana" 1968

Ok, whose job was it to update us on your lives yesterday? This was buried on page 4. Some of us read it weekly even though we don't wade in (often). Sheesh, you guys are slacking. ;)

Pushy today, are we?

Friday was work, cycle through 800 square feet of tissue due to seriously runny nose, and shoveling the first foot of snow off the mostly flat spa room roof. This after spending a couple hours at the nursing home with Ma trying to make sure the paperwork needed to spring her after Snowpacolypse 2010 is history is all lined up.

So WTH did YOU do?

I spent the day being trained by my dogs to throw AND fetch a ball in the warm sunshine! I'd throw the ball, they'd bark, look at me inquisitively, I'd go get the ball and repeat the process. Daschunds! Training them to do anything which they don't already want to do is a chore. It reminds me of E.B. White's quote on training his doxie, "I raise neither my voice nor my hopes when it comes to training Fred (his daschund)".

Still recovering from surgery so I'm getting a bit stir-crazy. 4 foot of snow here (on the mountains:P). Looks pretty, up THERE!

I did manage to replace the clutch hydraulic system on the 250C. I did it while the wife was taking a nap. Hopefully, today, she'll take another nap and I'll bleed it out.

I think the dog needs to be born with instinct or the desire to fetch.

My mini dachshund think she's a retriever. Fetching is her life's work, bordering on obsession.

When I got her at 8 weeks old, she wanted to fetch from the first day I brought her home.

Not the least bit pushy. I just make it a habit to check in on this board on Wed and Fri to see what you guys have been up to. No one posted Friday. I particularly enjoy your detailed musings of your life.

As for me, I'm going on my third week of living 500 miles from home with my mom helping her get her life together and plan for the future after my dad passed away. They were together 70 years and it's quite and adjustment for her. Luckily (rolls eyes), I was laid off Jan 15 so I have the luxary of time.

I realize I'm late but Friday was an unpleasant on thanks to a nasty stomach bug that made it's way through our house starting on Monday and making its way to me Thu evening-Sat morning. Prolly TMI but much time was spent driving and riding the porcelain bus. :P

I was really bummed because I was supposed to head to Boston for the New England Grows show. We had an exhibit up there but I was going to spend most of the day with my cousin (she's a landscape architecture major and lives in Boston) wandering the floor checking out what's new and exciting and try to think Spring.

Swamp I hope your feeling better now that Your Personal Storm is on its way out.....

Finish digging out my cars and trying to think of something creative to do for Valentines Day......have a good one everybody!

VERY much looking forward to a three day weekend. Some work stuff threatening to spiral out of control (not really, but folks a couple layers removed from the day to day reality perceive it to be so, therefore it must be so, right?). Have moved about 897 gazillion cubic yards of snow in the past week. And only one out of the six cars in the driveway have been freed.

So, weekend will be a combo of hoping for a fast melt and yet more shoveling. And resting, cooking, trying to firm up new routines now that Ma is back in her room here. New routines cuz Ed's here too - his ticker's been misbehaving so we strong armed him into staying here until the storms clear and he gets in to see his cardiologist.

Next week will bring Alan and Warren, a couple second cousins of Ma's, in from Australia for a stay of undetermined duration. Their dad, Chester, was Ma's godfather. He passed away last week at the ripe old age of 92. The boys are bringing him home to Baltimore to be laid next to his wife.

And if the weather wizards are right and another snowstorm is heading our way by Tuesday, I just might crawl in to a corner and rock myself to sleep. Don't need no more snow!

I have just returned to work from ripping the gutters off my house in an effort to stop the water damage I've been getting from the ice dams on the rood. I briefly considered going in the garage and getting the gas can out and just torching the place, but, alas, I thought better of that and got the ladder out instead.

Hopefully I will have sold that place long before the next big snow and won't ever have to go through this again!