The Personal Property Distribution Document

Do you ever get obsessed over things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of life? My latest obsession has been to figure out what the tiny orange light is for on my laptop’s touchpad. It would have been an easy quest for information if I had remembered what that area on my keyboard is called. I don’t use the touchpad because I’ve added the dong so I can use an external mouse. So first I tried to google keyboard schematics to find one that labeled the various keyboard areas, but in order to do that I had to figure out how to spell ‘schematics’ and Alexa was having a PMS day and wouldn't help out my dyslexic brain. Finally, I figured out that googling ‘laptop configurations’ would get me the word I was looking for and from there I learned that I’m not the only person who got obsessed over why the tiny orange light appeared out of no where to drive us all nuts. I was in a large club and some techies took great delight in explaining that sometime in our tiptoeing around the keyboards we must had accidentally tapped twice on the upper left corner of the touchpad to turn the silly little light on and to turn it off we had to tap it twice again. That’s twenty minutes of my life I won’t get back.

I allowed myself to get distracted from what I actually sat down at my computer to do because I have been putting off creating the document I’ve needed to write for over month now. Remember back when I had a Trust drawn up? Everything that had to be done regarding my estate planning book has been done except for a ‘Personal Property Distribution’ sheet of things I want to go to whoever like jewelry, art, family artifacts and my car. You should see the Personal Property Distribution document I had the last time I did my estate planning back after my husband died and before I did a major downsizing to move to this continuum care complex.  It was three pages long and most of that stuff I sold or gave away in recent years. Now, I’m down to twenty-five items on my draft and they’d all fit in a average size suitcase except for my car which may or may not get sold long before I die if my ability to drive safety goes first. 

If you followed my blog during the epic downsizing project that literally took me two years you’ll know my husband and I were materialistic by nature. Don had a T-shirt once that said, “The one who dies with the most toys wins” and, boy, did he try to win that contest. His favorite thing to do on a Saturday morning was to get up before dawn and get to the flea market while the sellers were still unpacking their goods. His family had lost most of their worldly possessions in two tornadoes that hit their farm ten years a part and and I think he was trying to buy back his childhood. He never passed up a collectible toy, hand tool or advertising piece made before 1950. And Barbie Dolls. In his lifetime he undressed more Barbie Dolls at flea markets and garage sales than a whole gaggle of little girls could do in their dreams. He never did find the elusive 1959 Barbie worth today around $8,000 to $10,000 but he did find 6 or 7 that we resold for $100 each which was good price back in the last century when we were buying and selling antiques. Don had the ability to read a book on a certain type of collectible and remember the key dates and the markings to look for.

Now, I look at my list of twenty-five items and think, “What does it really matter what happens to, say, a trench lighter from WWI that my dad had acquired? The youngest members of my family didn’t know my dad and as far as I know none of the middle aged one are into wartime history or collectibles or collecting Tobacciana even if that lighter does looks does like a Rube Goldberg contraption. What do you do as elderly person trying to find homes for stuff? Do you try to explain what something old and useless is and why you like it? Do your best to make them like it too, or do you sell it to stranger who doesn’t have to be talked into anything? Or do you keep it until someone hauls your stuff off to Goodwill where a collector like Don likes to shop to find their hidden-in-plain-sight treasures?

I’m seriously thinking of making a twenty-five page picture book of my favorite old things with their histories included. I know exactly where this longing to keep generations connected to family objects comes from. I didn’t have grandparents growing up but my best friend since kindergarten had two sets, one living within walking distant and her grandparents all told such wonderful stories about all their treasured antiques brought over from the old country. I was still in my teens when I started buying antiques and they spoke to me as clearly as the elderly people in my friend’s family. I could imagine, for example, all the places an old whale oil lamp had traveled before it landed in my hands. My old lamps are still some of my favorite possessions and young people don’t even recognize them as a lighting source today. 

The bottom line is that when I downsized I was happy to sell and give stuff away to people I thought really appreciate the stuff I had. For example, one time we went to an estate sale and many of the things the old man had, had notes attached that gave the history of those pieces. I bought the first pair old long pants the guy had as a child in 1902---a beautifully tailored, tiny wool pair of nickers---and I left his note in the pocket with one of my own when I sold those pants on e-Bay in 2020. The woman who got them was thrilled with the notes and said when she was ready to part with them she’d add her own note. If I were King that’s what would happen to all the interesting objects in the world. They would come with pedigrees. ©

* The pants at the top are actually nickers---knee length---that the old man had labeled "my first pair of long pants." Note the tailored hole in the crotch for little boys to use when they needed to pee. 

Trench lighter were flameless and were used during WW1 so the enemy couldn't see where the soldiers were hiding in dug-out trenches.

 

The Dementia Diagnosis

One of my frequent dinner partners here at the continuum care campus is an 80 year old I nicknamed Ms. Social Worker who you may or may not remember had a series of falls a few months ago that, rumor had it, was due to a misuse of an opium-based pain medication. After her seventh fall, a long hospital stay and the addition of a walker in her life, she’s no longer falling but at dinner last night she told me she finally has a diagnosis of what’s going on with her: Dementia. She said a scan of her brain showed “masses of white spots, more than most people have at her age” and that she's been noticing symptoms for six months.

What do you say to someone who tells you that and then starts talking about going to a state where they have assisted suicide? “I wouldn’t mind dying of cancer, a stroke or a heart attack," she said, “but I don’t want to die of dementia.” I asked her if the doctor talked to her about medications that can slow down the progress of dementia---I know they have a few because my dad was in a trial for Aricept that was eventually brought to market and there have been newer ones developed since then. She said he didn’t but she has another appointment with a neurologist and her daughter is flying in to go with her. I told her to try not to panic or do anything rash because she’s probably got a few years before she wouldn’t be able to manage on her own. Knowledge is power, I told her. She’s still got time to build some good memories with her family. I didn't tell her I'm against legalized assisted suicide. (Ya, I know from past posts that some of you reading this take the opposite side. No need to debate this issue here again.)

When she was hospitalized her kids came to her apartment and took all the drugs out that they didn’t want her taking anymore including prescription sleeping pills and the opium based pain pills and thank goodness for that because the way she was talking at dinner I’d be worried she’d engineer her own death before Christmas. I don’t suppose any of us knows how we’d react to learning we had dementia but I’m pretty sure my first priority would not be how can I off myself. I’d hope I’d still remember the pleating words of Dylan Thomas to his dying father----

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

That said, I’ve been going to the dementia education group meetings here on campus since my brother moved into the Memory Care building. Last week a new-on-campus couple attended and the woman has dementia and it turned into a support group more than a lecture. The guy in the couple did a lot of talking and as he shared his history of dealing with his wife’s prognosis I recognized myself in his almost manic wanting to do everything possible to hold on to his old wife, going from one kind of therapy to another. He talked so much FOR HER that the Director of Dementia Programs at one point asked her specifically how she felt about having dementia. It took her forever to form her words while the director gave non-verbal ques to her husband not to speak. Finally she answered that she felt like she was just waiting to die, that nothing mattered anymore.

The couple reminded me of a come-to-Jesus moment I had with my husband around 5-6 years our from his stroke that left him right side paralyzed and with a 25 word vocabulary. I had spent those years fighting to get him into every physical and speech therapy I could including swimming pool work but nothing really brought improvements in him. So I asked him if he wanted to stop therapies and he did. We got off the merry-go-round after that and just tried to live as normal of a life as we could.

The director said to the woman, “We have a support group just for you---no spouses or kids allowed---where you can talk with others going through the same thing. I think it would help you.” All the time the director was taking to her she looked directly at the woman, never gave her husband a glance. Leading up to this one-on-one exchange it was easy to see that the husband was so used to speaking for her that she had penned up frustration. I remembered that look in my husband’s eyes. With his speech issues he was frustrated a lot. At the dementia lecture before this one they highlighted how important it is to look dementia patients in the eye so now I have two people to practice that strategy on when we talk---Ms. Social Worker and my brother. This is not something that is normally in my wheelhouse.

Since my brother moved into the next building where Memory Care patients live, people here in independent living have asked me about what it’s like over there. And I tell them honestly that visiting the place takes the fear out of the possibility that I might have to move there someday, that I see compassionate caregivers and an attempt to offer the residents stimulating activities---they even took them downtown to the museum last week to see a Walt Disney exhibit last week and this week our bus is taking them to sculpture garden to see Christmas trees from around the world! 

I see other things, too, like a woman who picks up objects in one person’s room and leaves them off in other resident’s rooms and how little real privacy they have over there. But I don't tell the people living here in Independent those kinds of things because at our ages most of us already know what goes on behind the public face of places that house dementia and Alzheimer's patients. The fear of dementia is, in part, based on its ability to rob us of our dignity and if a little sugarcoating helps lessen that fear then call me a confectioner.  ©

The Season of Parties

Saturdays are a crap shoot when it comes to trolling for conversation at the cafe’ here at the continuum care complex where I live. We old people seem to be creatures of habit honed to perfection back in our working days when Saturdays were for shopping and catching up on laundry and housework. It was never my day off day per se. Being in the wedding business for twenty years, my Mondays were other people’s Saturdays but here Saturdays are slow. No classes take place, no card games. It’s not unusual for me to be the only one keeping the waitress and cook off the unemployment line. Today, however, they were hosting a viewing party for residents who are into college football so they could watch a game together. Me, I don’t like contact sports---baseball isn’t one, is it?---so when I came down for lunch I sat in the farthest corner I could get away from the TV.

My brother played football in high school so I understand the objective and rules of the game and I spent a year during my chameleon dating era pretending an interest in more than the chips and cheese at tailgate parties while my jock of a boyfriend went full-out fan supporter. His life, thus my life by the rules of The Chameleon Girlfriend Club, revolved around college and professional football schedules. I really thought he was THE ONE and I can’t help thinking about him when ever I hear the song, Unanswered Prayers.

Speaking of parties here, birthday parties are fast becoming my favorite thing to do around. The guy they hired for our latest monthly party is well known at the local bars and summer outdoor parks where he makes his living singing Jimmy Buffet and the playlist of my life from the ‘50s to the ‘70s. He even throws in a little Willy Nelson who was my husband’s favorite country western singer/song writer. I don’t know what they pay the people the activities director hires but it’s got to be their standard rates because we don’t get amateur hour entertainers here, even though the number of people who show up for these parties is often an embarrassingly low number under two dozen.

Another activity was added new to our holiday calendar this year. A gingerbread house building contest. They furnished the kits with all the trimmings but I made a run to the Dollar Store to buy alternative candy so mine will hopefully look different. Stupid me, at the Thanksgiving dinner table we were talking about the contest when someone said, “That won’t be any fun. The houses will all look the same.” I had to open my mouth to mention my trip to the Dollar Store. "Is that against the rules?" someone asked. "Not that I read," I replied, "but all gingerbread house contests require everything on the house to be eatable so I'm assuming that rule applies to us." I'm having fun making mine and I'll take photos when they are due for the judging. I really hope the 'only edible' rule applies to us because someone has already waved it off and is adding plastic figures. A friend from my writing group is making spun glass/sugar windows and I want him to win. He showed me photos, his house is spectacular!

We also had a holiday decorating and tree trimming party. They had one last year and I didn’t go. Even the promise of hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies couldn’t make me cancel my standing haircut appointment, but that was only half the story. I was also avoiding getting involved with the other x-floral designer here on campus who was trying to volunteer my services (along with his) to decorate all the public spaces. It was a good call. I have zero interest in reliving my past glory the way he does. Now, every holiday large or small he has taken to provided our lobby with decorations. Although at one point I felt sorry for him as he sat alone at table making dozens of bows for a Christmas tree. I stopped to talk to him but I didn't cave when asked to stay awhile and help. This year I fully intended to help decorate the lobby but as I walked through the staging area there were 12-14 people standing around discussing their own ideas. When it comes to creative decisions, I don't like making them by committee so I kept on walking. They printed one of my poems in the newsletter, so no one can say I don't contribute to the community.

The holiday season is bringing lots of musical events to the residents here but I have very little interest in going downtown to hear Christmas concerts or to churches in the area to hear their choirs sing so I can’t write about what I don’t see and hear. I’m just not into that kind of music but if I was we do have new transportation that will make it safer and more dependable than what we’ve been using. We actually have our own bus now! I’ve been in the tin can they rented last summer but I wouldn’t ride in it during the slip and slide, crash, boom season. I have an unnatural fear of dying in a car accident. Had it ever since the '80s when we had a neighbor who worked as an EMT driver and she’d come home from a shift all excited to share her experiences like holding a person’s eye ball or an amputated leg in her hand. She loved the gore at bad accidents, but she described the gory details to the wrong person once and got fired. After that she worked in a hospital drawing blood. The  'vampire' nickname people have for blood draw techs fit her to a tee.

We have a wandering choir coming to campus to sing Christmas carols up and down the road. I'm sure that will remind me of a Hallmark Christmas movie. And, yes, I'm one of those who binges on Hallmark Christmas movies starting in November. At least they aren't fattening and they point out a little known secret to all the single women of the world. The secret is that all the hot guys who are ready to settle down are back in the small towns of America. So if you're out there looking for Mr. Right, go home and visit your parents or grandparents this holiday season. ©