Staff of life

    Very little in life can be counted on. Death. Taxes. Gluten-free bread tastes like ass. And now we're back down to two eternal verities, and the savior is, of all companies, Aldi. Aldi's new gluten-free bread is rocking our little world, and it's odd how apt that cliche is. When you give up on bread, you give up on a lot of the things that you ate before. When you get it back, you get a lot of stuff back. Garlic bread and patty melts, my friend thought of. French toast and egg-salad sandwiches are more my speed. And PBJs, for gosh sake! I'm plotting and planning my first foray into French onion soup. (Oh, and Trader Joe's has a fake cheese that I kind of like. Suddenly an embarrassment of riches!)
    I've warned all and sundry that Aldi will break your heart. Whatever they sell that you love the most will get discontinued sooner or later, with no more warning than seeing it in the clearance area for a couple of weeks. You can usually track down where Aldi is getting a product by googling the ingredient list, and that worked this time. Aldi's gluten-free bread is also sold by Western Family of British Columbia, Canada. No way to mail order as far as I can tell. I'll just have to move to Vancouver. Darn the luck!

Facebook fun

    For years I've been Facebook friends with several of my favorite singers. Mostly, I attained this status because I asked when they were first getting on Facebook; I don't think it would work for anybody these days. One of those is Peter Case, formerly of the Plimsouls, and long a fave. He's coming to town next Sunday so I promoted him a bit on Drinking Liberally Columbia's Facebook page, and tagged him. And he replied! I think he was wondering whether mentioning that he's a left-winger would be a help in SC, but I assured him that in Columbia and at the venue he's playing it would be a badge of honor. I thought about mentioning, but didn't, that in the rest of SC we'd have to come up with a Confederate general he looked like or wrap him in a Gadsden (Don't Tread On Me!) flag. Anyway, fun with zero degrees of separation!
    I went out walking on Old State Road and kept going. An hour out and an hour back. This is the part of autumn that I like: the temperate part. It was great. I barely even got thirsty. Kicked a few yayas out, I hope.

Oh no! Second middle-age-hood!

    We had a much more pleasant visit with Dad this afternoon. He was back to crooning tunes to Margaret of every kind. For once, he strayed into my era, doing "Something" by the Beatles, more or less. Of course, he was 40 before Beatlemania hit, so this might legitimately be thought of as second middle-age-hood. Then again, so could the song from '55 from the other day. It's all a matter of perspective; the stuff I can't remember seems a lot longer ago than the stuff I can.
    In general, we seem to be coping a little better. The fabulous weather isn't hurting. I took advantage of it to walk the grounds out at Lowman Home during the first part of our visit this afternoon. The place is really lovely.
    All this is good, because the cats are picking this moment to drive me straight up a tree. Amelia is acting out and Harry continues to eat as if he has a tapeworm. Also he insisted on staying out even though the temperature got down to 40 last night. I guess we know now who is really a Norwegian forest cat!

It is NOT!

    (You'll be glad no doubt to hear that the subject line isn't about my dad, nor anything important at all. We did have a slightly grumpy visit. More on that later, maybe.)
    It's now been three weeks that there has been a "Right lane closed" temporary sign on Huger st. at Blossom St. in Columbia. It was true for maybe as long as one day. After two weeks, it was knocked down or fell, but some idiot went and picked it up. It's really kind of a risky situation, because if people take it seriously, they might get into accidents trying to merge to avoid the imaginary lane closure. So I wonder: is it civil disobedience to knock down such a sign when doing so would make driving significantly safer? Or would that be actual civil obedience? I seriously doubt I'll get around to it. I drive that road often enough that there's no chance that I'll forget that the lane isn't really closed. It's just odd.
    Then again, it's an odd place. A building was there; inexplicably it had fake yellow road signs on the front reading "Crowd Control?" and "Moron Control" (or possibly the other way around). Then that building was knocked down and now there's a foundation and a pile of sand. A really big pile of sand. Nothing ever seems to happen, but there's still equipment there. And perhaps sometimes the right lane is closed. Just never when I'm around. Go figure.
    Grumpiness at Lowman Home was pretty minor. I think we're all just tired and stressed out and uncertain. And it's frustrating that Dad doesn't hear better. But on the whole we had a nice visit. Unlike at the hospital, the football game (again on the SEC Network) isn't magically going to appear on the TV. So I ran over to the nearby WalMart and got him a little radio. I hope that works OK for him.

Street legal

    Getting street legal again cost a couple of grand, which is a couple of grand more than the car is worth. But I am fond of it and comfortable with it and have a fairly nutsy idea of getting it fixed up almost as good as new and then trying to keep it maintained that way for a while. I grew up in a household where we never took care of anything, not the house, not the cars, not anything. So until I show some signs of knowing how to maintain a car, I don't really feel comfortable buying a new one, since it would cease being a new one double-damn-quick. Also with nothing more difficult than getting a new stereo, a decent carwash and vacuuming and maybe three or four new hubcaps, this one would be pretty sparkly.
    I must say though that the rental car was a bit of an eye opener. I dug being able to control the radio from the steering wheel and was the tiniest bit frustrated to get back in my own car and not have that ability. But even at 20 years old, it has a better ride and better seats than the Mazda 2. So there.
    Car was done late so I had to turn in the rental before I had my car back. This made for a good deal of walking, which I never mind. But it just started raining; I'm so relieved that this didn't happen an hour or two ago when I was doing the stroll. Nice timing on the part of all concerned!

Care meeting

    We had Dad's first care meeting at Lowman Home. I talked with the social worker, the physical therapist and an RN. We had a nice chat. The takeaway is that taking him away will be tricky. Usually patients like Dad with gall bladder drains see the flow taper off, but that isn't the case with Dad. So, basically, unless he and Margaret can work out how to empty or change the drain bag, he'll need 24 hour skilled nursing care. Not to mention his continuing bathroom problems.
    Anyway, we all got along well and are all on the same page, more or less. And he definitely needs rehabilitation and physical therapy just to function at all regardless of whether he's eventually going home, so the course as of this minute is set no matter what. I forgot to ask whether he could get a hearing aid, but I will. I left with a pretty good feeling, a lot more optimistic than I was when I took him to the place for rehab 3 years ago.
    Then I turned around, went back to town, picked up Margaret and came right back. (1 pm, the care meeting time, is kind of early for her.) We had a nice visit, if too heavy on TV watching. But they sang some old tunes, too. And that's always sweet. Saturday, the State Fair comes to town and to my neighborhood, so I may not be able to bring her out to see him. But brother William is an excellent substitute.
    Meanwhile, the car was supposed to be ready this afternoon, but the call never came. The rental car is due tomorrow morning, but I guess I won't spit too many razors if I have to pay for a few extra hours. Maybe I'll try to chisel it out of them because of the non-working USB drive. Yeah, that'll happen!

So that explains it!

    I think I mentioned it already. Dad has a pacemaker. The pacemaker has a monitor. The monitor is usually hooked up to a phone line to phone home and tell the heart clinic that Dad's heart is still a-going and not a-flutter. His room at the nursing home doesn't have a phone line. So for a week now, we've been trying to suss it out. This is where English communication skills are or would be useful.
    The nurse said that the heart clinic said that if the monitor had a USB drive, they would be able to monitor Dad without a phone line. It does have a USB drive. Unfortunately, what she meant to say was that if it had a specific device plugged into the USB drive, they would be able to do it. That's different. I'm the last to criticize anyone for their technical knowledge or lack thereof, being a confirmed technopeasant, but the difference is an important one.
    I checked at Margaret's but there was no item that could be plugged into the USB drive. There was, however, a phone number for the rep at St. Jude's who installed it, so I called him. When he called back, he explained that since there had been a phone line, they hadn't provided the USB doohickey, but that he would send me one at no charge. So that explains it; we couldn't find it because it wasn't there. I wasn't looking for it because somebody couldn't convey what was needed. But all's well that ends well and we notice that after 3 weeks, the heart clinic isn't exactly all up in arms about the need to monitor him. So week it'll take for the doohickey to get here probably won't worry anybody further.
    Dad was mainly concerned that he didn't have TV at this dialysis, so I called. The secretary there said they would make sure he did. Hopefully that turns out to be the case.