Archive: September 2026
Plodding along
This much we can agree on, anyway
A lackluster update from greater Palm Springs, as I continue my second week here.
Since the last post, I've had one day dealing with a relatively lucid Dad for most of the day before the confusion about where he was set in again. That came after he had a long sleep, which I imagine helped matters. Yesterday, though, we were back to bouncing around in time. He asked me how school was going, referencing things from my high school years, and was a bit surprised to hear that I graduated a long time ago. He seemed to get that I lived in Seattle now, but also thought we were in Tucson and that I was "home" for a while.
I tried—successfully, I think—to engage him with some old photos; he has a few displayed on a cork board here of old family gatherings from his childhood, so I asked him who everybody was, and as that's not a short-term memory, he was on the ball for it. Knew everyone, knew how they were related, all that, but didn't know when the pictures were taken or what the event was that had him, his dad, and his brothers decked out in white tuxedos. But that was good. His eye caught on some other photos of people from much more recently and things went downhill a bit, he didn't remember names of some (and they were of people I never met, so I was no help).
Today I had to be up early with him as Marty had to go to a medical appointment for himself and do some other things, so I groggily hung out with him and fielded queries about how long the drive back to Tucson was and what the route would be; who was joining us on the trip; and where we were stopping for lunch on the way. There were also many urgent requests to find the flyers to put in the mail and concerns about whether or not any of the furniture had to be returned somewhere before we left. Also, just now he asked me what my mom was doing today, which is like kicking a dude when he's down. Sigh.
On the other hand, mobility has been good for a few days straight now, only mild dizziness and no big vertigo spells.
I gave up on the bedrail after my ingenious improvisations worked, but not well enough to justify having bought the damn thing. I took it apart and sent it back. Marty bought it from the hated Amazon, which though contributing to the rise of evil and predatory corporate rule does mean returns are super easy. Disassembling the damn thing was easier than assembling it, but we'd already tossed out the packaging in the recycling, so hopefully there won't be any issue with the refund. One of the problems was it didn't ship with all of its parts, so again, hopefully they won't be jerks about it. I ordered a replacement in a different model, making sure to check ALL the specs this time. :-)
Meanwhile, I keep doing things to aggravate my sprained wrist, so that's probably still going to take a couple more weeks to heal. Straining it trying to carry heavy grocery items is one thing, but you don't realize how many wrist tendons are in play when you brush your teeth or use certain tools until you drop the toothbrush/tool because you've inadvertently moved at just the right angle for it to HURT LIKE FUCK.
Anyway.
While out on an errand today I noticed the prices at the gas pumps were 50¢ to $1 more than when I last filled up on the way down in Victorville. I've not been paying as much attention to the news, so for the moment I can only imagine it's because President Felon Dumbass escalated his war somehow at his hatefest "convention," where he also apparently tried to bribe voters and asked his supporters to cheat in the midterms. Add those to the ever-expanding list of crimes committed by Felon47 and abetted by Republicans in Congress and two-thirds of the Supreme Court. Alas.
For my few readers of Star Trek reviews, I will have one for Strange New Worlds 408, "Orders of Magnitude," in a day or two. It's less gimmicky than the rest of the season and therefore doesn't suck, but it is derivative as hell and has some missteps. Might be the best ep of the season, though.
Tagged
Dad,
Health,
Politics,
Posted on September 11, 2026 at 5:19PM | Permalink | 
| 
Conference agenda
Do not assume the features implied are what you think they are
The past couple of days have been frustrating but also starting to border on routine.
Some of the frustrations are of the more typical sort—for example, the bed rail we bought arrived and upon assembling it I discovered that (a) it shipped without the "night light" attachment, and, more importantly (b) it does not have a fold-down function as implied in the description. That's partly my own fault, I neglected to delve deeply into the specs, instead merely relied on the video that showed a person folding it down. For our purposes, that's an essential feature. The thing wasn't cheap, nor was it easy to install, so I don't want to go through the mess of returning it and trying again with another model, so I've decided to improvise something that will make it work like we want it to. My idea is a little janky, but worth trying, I think. Just have to wait for a span where Dad's not in bed and Marty can sit with him while I muck about with it.
The other frustrations are Dad's-brain-related.
We've seemingly moved on from him thinking we're in hospital-provided housing on a giant medical campus to him thinking we're at some sort of convention center or hotel at which there are important things happening with a professional group of people. He wants to see the program listings, he can't figure out where certain people are or where they went when they "were here a short time ago." He's tried sending either me or Marty "downstairs" to the sign-in desk to determine who is driving us to and fro and when, and he's convinced a guy that worked for him in 1979 has been calling with important details on some seminar or other. He's had me walk him around the house to all the windows so he could try to figure out where people have gone off to. When I left to run an errand for my janky improvisation plans on the railing, he insisted I be back in time for the event and that I be aware that there will be a lot of people here for it.
This was an all-day thing yesterday; today it was absent for the first part of the day and returned in the later afternoon. We had been watching the Mariners game (hey, they won! Astounding.) and not long after it ended the questions about the conference were back. On the other hand, there were no vertigo incidents today and he was walking without the aid of a cane or walker (not my preference, but there's no convincing him sometimes) without stumbling at all.
One of several medical appointments is coming up on Friday; I'm curious as to how easy it will be to get him in and out of the car. We did buy a "transport chair" for him (kind of a lightweight wheelchair) that has yet to be put to use, so hopefully that will help.
This is tough. But as I say, it's starting to also be more routine as I get further experienced with this circumstance; at one point yesterday I felt like we needed to get some sort of professional help in here within the week, then later realized that, no, this is not appreciably different than what Marty's been contending with for a few weeks now, I am just panicking. Yes, having that help would be a boon for sure, but it's all still quite manageable—if I can figure out how to respond and engage with the beliefs of being at a convention center and the staff from the U of A Med Center media department are milling about downstairs without him.
Right now, though, I'm going to watch the new episode of Strange New Worlds. May it not suck as badly as last week's.
Posted on September 10, 2026 at 12:25AM | Permalink | |
A week in SoCal...with more to come
I've been down here at Dad & Marty's place for a week now, and it appears I'll be here at least a couple more. I have mixed feeling about that, to be sure—I miss my kitties, I worry about them; plus, I'll be glad to get away from these damned mosquitos. But Dad's deterioration is becoming too much for Marty to handle solo, so I'll stick around for a while, maybe until there's a support system in place. We'll see.
Also, not for nothing, when I do eventually head home I'll be glad to be out of the scorching desert. I mean, I grew up in a similar environment, so it's not foreign or anything, but I am so very not used to this anymore. It is 106° outside right now. My car is an oven. It's oppressively uncomfortable outdoors, and I've been getting basically zero exercise. I'll take the rain instead, thank you.
Anyway.
So far I've had to pick Dad up off the floor twice after falls. I've spent more time cleaning up bloody cuts than I'd anticipated having to do. He's got a vertigo issue and we got a referral for seeing someone for a kind of inner-ear rebalancing therapy, but I'm a little dubious. As I understand it, that sort of physical therapy is pretty intense, I'm not sure Dad can handle it, but I know the vertigo is already awful so it's be worth it if we can get him in soon.
He's also bouncing all over the place in his mind. He was telling me about things we'll need to do "once we get back to the mainland," indicating that part of him jumped back to when he lived in Hawaii. He tried to get up to go see about fixing a tire on his car, a car he hasn't owned for decades. A bunch of stuff like that.
Marty and I are trying to get the house a little more livable, putting a safety rail on the bed and making the furniture more accommodating and so on. It's slow going, but by necessity.
Meanwhile, the world keeps spinning along, and I'm feeling a little weird about not keeping up with the news as much as I usually do; in some ways that's probably not a bad thing. There's enough here for me to fret about without adding the crackpot orange menace to the mix.
Posted on September 8, 2026 at 2:25PM | Permalink | |
SNW 407: Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass
Trelane has successfully brought humans to the attention of the Q. Thanks a lot, Trelane.
Strange New Worlds delved into yet another gimmick this week. Are we sick and tired of gimmick episodes yet? Yes, I dare say everyone not on staff in the SNW writers' room is well and fully sick of them and would like for once if the gimmick they chose was to write a Star Trek episode.
The gimmick this time is soap operas. And in the midst of this silly, deliberately overdramatic, parodic sendup of soap opera tropes, there is a real story trying to get out. And while using the soap conceit is a way to get to it, I doubt it's anywhere close to the best way.
Let's get into it.
See full post: "SNW 407: Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass"...
Tagged
Star Trek,
TV,
Posted on September 7, 2026 at 4:51PM | Permalink | |
Identical buildings and morning baseball
I continue to be challenged in my understandings of my dad's condition. Maybe there is no understanding to be had, but I'm one of those that has a compulsion to theorize. I'm inclined to lean heavily on the "postoperative delirium" theory for some of what's going on. Alzheimer's is tricky enough, and my comprehension of that is quite limited, so maybe the post-anesthesia issue isn't really in play here; plus, I always thought Alzheimer's was concentrated in loss of memory, but I'm learning there are other aspects too.
Regardless of reason, the things about Dad's behavior that have perplexed me today are not really memory-related.
First, and from what I'm told this started shortly after his surgery, he is more often than not utterly convinced that he is not at home but in a hospital-provided housing unit that is connected to many others and on a vast campus very far from his house. He has repeatedly expressed amazement that so many of the buildings are identical to each other in layout and furnishings, and has asked me how the building I've been sleeping at looks—is it the same as here? He also has been impressed with the quality of the TV as being "much better than the one at home," and is confused about why there's a pool in the yard as that seems dangerous for a place like this. This isn't something that varies, it's consistent in his perception even when other things are not.
It does go away from time to time, sort of—when the cat comes inside or goes out, he's not startled that the cat is here rather than "at home"; he has wanted to go out and get the mail, which is only an at-home thing. But soon afterward he remarks on when he goes home after being here, or how he's been in this place for a long time and shouldn't he go home soon.
I've been trying to figure out how this concept got lodged in his head, whether there was an event while he was in the hospital after surgery or while in again after a subsequent fall that locked in and the experience of going home was skipped over or never registered or something? I also realize that trying to figure that out is a fool's errand and not worth spending my energy on, I just can't help wondering.
The other thing today was that, after a nap in the afternoon, he got out of bed around 6:00 and greeted me and Marty with "good morning," not facetiously, and a little later when I rigged up the TV to use my MLB.TV account to watch Your Seattle Mariners lose again he found it very, very odd indeed that they were playing baseball—in a packed stadium, no less—at 8:00 in the morning. It was dark here, it was dark outside the ballpark on the screen, we'd mentioned it was evening, Marty was serving dinner, but he kept coming back to morning baseball. "Did you stay up all night so you'd be sure to be awake for this game?" he asked me, knowing I am not at all a morning person. "No, Dad, I got up around noon." Did not compute.
The morning baseball confusion is less perplexing to me than the not-at-home thing. He had slept during the day and got up in early evening, habitually he gets up in the mornings, given the overall condition I can understand that at least somewhat.
All of this is really hard to see, though. It's one thing to be informed from afar that Dad's in decline—even when the informing is greatly detailed—it's another to actually witness it. And that's just from me being here a couple of days. I expect Marty's pretty much crushed, or would be if he could relax long enough to just feel instead of being on guard as the caretaker while still trying to manage regular stuff. I think my being here at least helps him, even if it's not doing a lot for Dad. Though Dad is glad I'm here, and asks me two or three times a day how long I'll be here for. I've taken to just answering "a week or so" instead of attempting the more honest answer of "I'm not sure yet, it kind of depends" that I gave the first couple of times.
Also, I have been so preoccupied with all of this that I let it slip my mind that yesterday, September 3rd, was what would have been my grandfather's 106th birthday. Like I said last time, Grandpa never had to deal with dementia of any kind and lived to be 92½, fully cognizant all the way. I still miss him, though I admit to thinking about him less as time has gone on as it's been "normal" not to have him around. Bums me out a little that I missed acknowledging the day on the day, though.
One bright spot from today: I was wearing my Mariners cap and a J.P. Crawford jersey T-shirt while running an errand to the local Walmart (in typical circumstances, I would never patronize Walmart, but this is a "when in Rome" situation). A young (maybe 20 years old) employee at the store approached me and I was prepared to dismiss her, thinking it was going to be one of those, "can I help you find what you need" sorts of accostings that I usually avoid, but instead she indicated my attire and asked if I was from Washington. "I am," I said. Seattle? "Yep." She told me she had just relocated from Vancouver, WA, and was experiencing culture shock/weather shock/environment shock as she got used to living down here. I didn't press, but it sounded like she was questioning her life choices; I probably would be too if I were a 20ish young woman raised in the PNW and found myself living in the scorching desert populated by mostly senior citizens, retirees, and gay dudes (and gay retirees). Especially if I didn't play golf. I mean, what would I do for fun? Go to LA? Anyway, running into a friendly Washingtonian seemed to make her day, so I'm glad there was something to smile about amidst all this.
Meantime, my sister texted me from a Los Angeles movie theater that was among the many nationwide celebrating the 60th anniversary of Star Trek by showing some of the feature films, tonight's selection being Star Trek—The Motion Picture. Part of the event tonight was a Q & A with Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry Jr., and among the things texted to me was a short video of my nephew Ben asking Rod a question about how Gene Sr. would have felt about some of the newer series maybe straying from the original's ethos. Also a photo of Ben with Rod. Very cool. Glad my sister's raising him to be a proper nerd. (Rod's reply included his lack of affection for my favorite Trek series, Deep Space Nine, but I see where Rod's coming from even if I think he's missing out.) Then she complained about the movie being too long. Can't argue with her there, STTMP is bloated with nothing scenes that exist just to show off new-for-1979 special effects and pad the run time. I've long thought I could do my own edit of the picture, cut a good 20-30 minutes out of it and lose zero dialogue. It'd surely be a way better movie that way.
Tagged
Dad,
Health,
Star Trek,
Posted on September 5, 2026 at 12:51AM | Permalink | |
Status report
There isn't much to report in terms of updates from down here. I'm getting a much better sense of what Marty had been living with regarding my dad's condition, I'm finding things frustrating but also manageable, but then I've only been here a short time. There are things in motion to get some help here, but as with any bureaucracy it will take time to further.
Meanwhile, I'm helping out where I can, keeping Dad company so Marty can go out and do things that have been put off for a while, and trying not to be too frustrated when Dad asks the same questions over and over or insists he needs his shoes before we go wherever he thinks we're supposed to go. It's so weird. Everything I've been reading on the subject of relating to dementia patients suggests that contradicting them is counter-productive, so I've yet to figure out how to respond to queries about when we have to leave, how far is the walk, how big is this campus of buildings that he thinks we're in, when do I have to pick up Marty (he left on his own with his car), and so on. I try to keep it short and redirect, but that's anxiety-inducing for me.
Anyway. The wrist is worse today, probably because I strained it supporting the weight of a full dishwasher rack that came loose from its rails earlier. That's on my list of things to fix now. (The dishwasher rack, not my wrist, which I can only refrain from using to help it fix itself.) I also want to assist Marty in disconnecting their expensive satellite TV service and replacing it with a leaner, less expensive internet-based service; try and organize some decent meal options; whatever other small conveniences I can facilitate. Otherwise, I have once more become a mosquito buffet here and need to find a drugstore and get some hydrocortisone. Dad never gets bitten by mosquitos; I think it's because biter mosquitos are always female and they can tell he's not their type. I, however, remain tasty.
For distraction, I watched tonight's season finale episode of Silo, which just served to create more mystery even as it answered other questions while moving the various plots along.
I'll get to a review of the latest SNW soon, but I'll have to watch it again to form more coherent thoughts on it and it's mostly a dud, so I'm not motivated yet. There's a kernel of something worthwhile in it, but it's surrounded by silliness, and not the good kind. Maybe it's not a bad thing there's only one truncated season left after this one.
Tagged
Dad,
Health,
TV,
Posted on September 4, 2026 at 12:48AM | Permalink | |
WTF, SNW?
I just watched this week's episode of Strange New Worlds. Unlike with the rest of this season's episodes, I don't have questions. I have question. Singular. With variants. To wit:
Why was this even made?
Who thought this was a good idea?
Was there a point in its development in which it was at all funny?
Or relevant to the series?
I will do a real review later. It will not be favorable.
Tagged
Star Trek,
TV,
Posted on September 3, 2026 at 1:42AM | Permalink | |
Road trip
Map from Mapquest, as they're the only ones not kowtowing to the "Lake America" bullshit
I am back down at my dad and Marty's place in greater Palm Springs, about a month-and-a-half ahead of schedule. I drove down beginning midday Monday, taking about 30 hours to make the trip including various stops along the way. I only stopped for rest and food, but even though I was kind of hurrying down, I did opt for the more appealing route. I-5 after you pass the mountains around Weed is just boring as hell, so I cut east around Eugene through the mountains and a few small towns over to a road that takes you down to Klamath Falls and eventually to US 395.
It's an interesting way to go, a route I've done more than once in each direction before, and if I were being leisurely and willing to spend extra time and money I'd avail myself of the many recreation areas and little towns and other points of interest. Lake Topaz is interesting and pretty. Plenty of nice mountain camping areas. And for historical import there's Manzanar and Tulelake, but I've stopped at those before.
It's also more hazardous in some places. I nearly hit a deer in the middle of the night south of Tulelake, for instance. That was a nice test of my brakes (successful!) and made the point that the big cooler on my passenger seat might be better off being seat-belted into place.
All in all, though, it was a rather uneventful drive and, thanks to my Prius getting better than 2½ times the mileage of my old Subaru, I only had to fill up the tank three times, the last when I was nearly at the end of the trip. (Had I started out with a full tank, I'd have only needed to fill up twice. Gas for coming here and going back combined is going to end up costing less than half of what a plane ticket would have.) The lengthy drive did reveal some new annoyances regarding my sprained wrist; you wouldn't think there'd be much wrist action with driving, but there is, especially on stretches of windy road. My wrist brace was helpful, and it's now a week since the injury so range of motion is almost normal, but I'm hoping it'll be less/not at all painful on the return trip.
Rushing down did result in my being pretty wiped out when I got here, though, and I ended up sleeping much of today; not what I had in mind for this visit, but now that I've gotten caught up I should be able to right that ship somewhat. Because there's simultaneously a lot and not much for me to do here.
My dad isn't doing well, he's 83 and has Alzheimer's (definitively diagnosed just recently), which hasn't been a huge deal yet, but as mentioned before, a recent general anesthesia surgery has exacerbated things. Marty is understandably overwhelmed, and after just 24 hours or so here I have a better understanding of why. Sometimes our discussion is normalish, other times he's really confused. Sometimes he's convinced he's staying in some sort of hospital-provided facility on a campus somewhere and not at home. He referred to my sister by my mom's name a couple of times. But I've yet to see how he does early in the day, I imagine things are better then. I did meet his in-home nurse today, someone who's here once a week for a while, at least, and she seems on the ball and helpful. Physically, Dad appears to be a little better than the last time I was here in the fall, though he sure sounds more feeble when he talks.
I don't know, it's all fairly sobering and yet somehow ... not? My vocabulary fails me at this. Dad's deterioration has seemed very fast to me, but that's likely because I only see him in person once or twice a year; on the other hand, he's not really taken care of himself for many years, he's never been one to engage his mind in the sort of exercise one needs to do as they age—unlike my grandfather (on my mom's side), who lived into his 90s and was sharp the whole way through even as his body failed him; Grandpa read a lot of fiction, loved crosswords, followed baseball, kept a social circle of sorts even as it kept diminishing as he outlived his peers. Dad's never done those things and has no local social circle to speak of outside of Marty. So from an objective point of view this isn't a surprise at all, yet, you know, it's my dad, so even when it's predictable it still lands differently.
I'm getting accustomed to the feeling that I'll be an orphan soon. And I'm getting equally accustomed to the idea that that will be OK. It's a very strange state of mind to experience.
Later tonight there's a new episode of Strange New Worlds. I'm looking forward to that as a mental palate cleanser. (Even though I'm expecting it not to be very good.)
Tagged
Traveling,
Dad,
Health,
Posted on September 2, 2026 at 8:36PM | Permalink | |