Misha Day

My father had been agitating to see his grand-daughters after almost 3 years, and while my sister-in-law tried to propose something in Las Vegas (as being close to him in New Mexico), I convinced her and my brother just to let him come up for Easter weekend and then I was going to put him to work helping me fix up the condo. He, of course, was delighted to be of assistance, especially after the year I spent in NM, and he also had 7 boxes of beads and some other art stuff of Mom's that I'd dibsed when we packed up his house.  

Se he drove up with the boxes and a few power tools. 

Then the Family Drama commenced because he left early to beat the snow and my brother calls me: Dad's early, I use the guest room when I'm on call and Niece #1 is getting braces! So I played go-between, told Dad to slow his roll, and Dad still gets to Bend a day early, but spends a night in an AirBnB, has a blast chatting with the host and everyone is happy. (I don't think my nieces really know what to do with Distant Grandpa, but I'm still holding Favorite Auntie status)

Dad showed up here Sunday night. He spent the night at an apparently HORRID AirBnB and I proceed to put him up at a local hotel instead for the rest of his stay. The front desk gal was awesomazing and got us a discount AND free parking even without us asking for it all. I would have taken AAA and been happy! Really pays to be nice - a little bit of commiseration over flooded apartments and BAM!

I took Monday off. We headed to Kitsap and cleared out the last few things in his storage unit in Belfair (the remnants of an attempt to move to the PNW 15+ years ago) There were three large boxes of Christmas ornaments that I hadn't found the spoons to deal with at the appropriate time last year, and of course, at Easter no one wants them. We might have left them on a table in front of the one thrift store that was closed. I felt so naughty, donating and dashing. Realistically, they'll get tossed, but the onus is no longer on us. 

The rest of the week I've been attempting to put in at least half days at work, and letting Dad work on things he can do himself, and lending the extra hand where needed. We've replaced the old track lighting in three places, the dining room fixture (I took it down months ago so as not to knock my head on it every time I stood at my standing computer desk) and the three baseboard heaters, tore out the old drop-in stove, cut the countertop and shoved a shiny new stove in its place. Dad patched and I painted the ceiling where some of the track lighting was and the old incandescent bulbs had scorched the old paint a bit. 

The stove I got at the Best Buy outlet up in Lynnwood. It was sort of funny - Dad had already cut the slot for a standing stove, as drop-ins are a dying breed of stove, and I had selected my replacement standing stove when I saw it: a drop-in stove! One, solitary stove. (At a steep discount, too.) But the cuts had been made, and the standing stove was STILL cheaper. So. 

Today we finished it all up with replacing one of the thermometers that was broken, shoved my books and my big-ass green chair into storage, and went for ice cream. Whew!

I still have a long list of Things Which Must Disappear, so as to genericize and blandify my space enough to fool people into buying it, but the tasks which required power tools, three hands or the willingness to puzzle out a wiring diagram have been done. 

So Mom's gotten better and worse and better again, for a certain value of 'better' that includes 'still severe memory issues/dementia, losing weight and still under hospice care.' ( More details... )