My mom hired caretakers for my dad.  Thus far, it has been for one event – meeting me an hour away to watch a child’s athletic competition – but in theory also a dry run for when Little gives birth and my mom theoretically leaves Dad with said caretakers for a few days.  It went well – Dad slept through most of Mom’s adventure, and woke oriented and remembering why the caretakers were there.

Mom had two people stay, at the same time, with Dad.  One was the handyman she’s employed for legit reasons the past year or so, who was there because Mom thought Dad would appreciate a familiar face.  But also, the handyman was assigned washing the windows while there so it wouldn’t be obvious he was really there to make sure Dad was OK.  I don’t know what the cover story for the other (presumably trained) caretaker was, but it weirds me out that Dad’s dementia necessitates these nearly 007 type subterfuges.  It’s as if reality is warped not only inside his head, but to some degree outside him and pervading the real world.  OTOH, I am not there, and don’t know crap about dealing with dementia.

Mom seemed to do well at the athletic competition, only leaving twice to make sure her phone battery was fully recharged, and only checking messages four or five times.  She reports Dad recently informed her he now understands his dementia is bad enough he shouldn’t drive anymore, thus ending a multi-year fight between them.  Glad they are not fighting.  Somewhat gut punched at the assholery of life that Dad can be so demented he can’t drive, but peppered with enough insight to understand his predicament.  Fuck you, dementia.

According to Mom, Dad is less argumentative these days, but sleeping quite a bit.  Guess that is not a good sign.  When I said something positive about her hiring caretakers, she said, “Well, it was time,” in somber tone.

Later, I found out via Middle the decision “it was time” actually came after a screaming throw down, come-to-Jesus argument between Mom and Middle, allegedly because Middle made plans to be out-of-state (and therefore not available to step in and take care of Dad) around the time of Little’s due date.  Middle felt (and this seems reasonable to me) that maybe Mom was going to wait until the very last minute and then hope someone showed up to take care of Dad.  Allegedly, Mom totally denied that was ever the plan.  But also shortly thereafter, hired the caretakers.

Anyway, aside from petty bitchery, I’m adding this detail so fellow dementia-related readers know the deets:  caretakers were obtained by basically all relatives refusing to cover for Dad’s care.  Which?  Pretty harsh.  But also, Dad’s care is far beyond what a non-trained person would know how to do.

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In other news, I mentioned I’ve been outing my blog to people I know IRL, bit by bit.  When none of their hometowns showed up on my statcounter, I realized how blissfully safe I was, that middle-school truism: Nobody cares about me but me!  Was liberating!  Unifying!  Deeply satisfying to hide in plain sight, neither lying about myself nor suffering any consequences for not lying.   Then all of those IRL people decided to show up at my blog in the past week, all landing on a post about my vag.  Also like the middle-school truism: The world can both not notice you, while at the same time also point out your exposed ass.

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Finally, for no good reason at all, I am currently addicted to podcasts.  Specifically enjoying murder mystery podcasts.  Here are some of my recent faves if you want to check them out.  If you have good ones, let me know!

My Favorite Murder   (Just yesterday I sent in my hometown murder!)
In The Dark This one is currently going, covering the 27-year-old abduction/murder of Jacob Wetterling

Non Murder –  Reply All  The best ones are when they do Yes, Yes, No.  My favorite is The Grand Tapestry of Pepe.