The Grumpy Grammarian: Who vs. That

I am continually astounded to hear evening newscasters use these terms incorrectly, and I cringe each and every time it happens. These terms are also unfortunately misused in newspapers and magazines, as well, bringing my flow of reading to a screeching halt with the wrongness of it.

PLEASE REMEMBER:

Use "who" when referring to a person: Mary is the girl who is dating Jim.

Use "that" when referring to anything that is not a person - a dog, a chair, etc.: Can you help me find the ball that rolled under the house?


Thank you, and please pass this on.

Mother's (and my) Progress

There have been many positive changes in Mother's quality of life issues - which have also been quality of life issues for me! I am mostly past the point of being embarrassed when having to address hygiene issues. I've made suggestions, gradual changes, and sometimes outright bullied her into taking these steps.

I didn't realize until just before our move here that she was NEVER brushing her teeth. She had gum surgery several years ago, and was always very conscientious about brushing and flossing, even taking a toothbrush and floss to work with her and using them after her lunch in the company break room. But her increasing dementia, and perhaps depression after my sister passed away, had given way to no attempts at regular hygiene at all. I finally told her that she HAD to brush her teeth at least once per day and (taking a page from the "dealing with small children" notebook re: offering options) asked her if she would prefer to brush her teeth in the morning or in the evening. She chose just before bed, and now she faithfully brushes her teeth every night, promptly at 9:30 p.m.

After her initial appointment with her new primary care physician, we were referred for an Activities of Daily Living (ADL) assessment, and ended up having several weeks of physical therapy, and a health tech aiding with showering. Mother's poor balance and increasing weakness were, for the most part, due to her amazing levels of inactivity. She was not moving around much, she was not getting any exercise; she just sat (or lay down) and watched TV all day. After a few weeks of 3x per week PT with increasing levels of exercise, and my gentle observation that if she became incapacitated, I would not be able to care for her, she has been walking around more and is generally in better shape. She did not continue the exercise regimen the PT set up for her, but neither did she return to her previous level of inactivity. As she is VERY interested in what the mailman brings us, I told her that I won't get the mail, so that she will at least make the walk to the street and back every day. I still can't get her to walk around the grocery store with me, though. She walks from the car to a bench at the front of the store, and waits there until I'm done, then walks with me back to the car.

She now sees a podiatrist every other month for footcare that she is no longer able to do for herself. She has new, comfy shoes purchased from SAS shoe outlet. We almost had a fight in the shoe store, as she was appalled at the cost ($80) and said she wasn't going to pay that for a pair of shoes. I told her they were good quality, leather shoes, and she WAS going to replace the old, wornout, ill-fitting shoes she had. I also told her that if she didn't buy them at this store, we would just have to go to another store - and another and another - until she found some new shoes that suited her. At that point, she must have realized that I was dead serious, and decided that buying what she thought were expensive shoes would be much easier in the long run. She is now quite pleased with them.

A health tech comes to the house on a weekly basis and assists with shower and shampoo. After the initial PT sessions, which included shower help, Mother realized that showering wasn't all that scary (the master bath has a large walk-in shower). But she was still resistant, and oh-my-goodness, I was quite reluctant, to me giving my mother a shower, and so it just wasn't happening as often as it needed to. I finally told her that I was arranging for weekly bathing visits by a nursing service, and it was going to cost $28 per visit, and as it was a health issue, it was no longer negotiable.

We have also moved through a series of steps to her wearing Depends (or actually, the Publix brand equivalent). I was worried that she would take offense at the suggestion, but her reaction was totally positive. She just seems to consider them to be a handy, helpful item. Thank goodness!!

For those of you who realize the import, I am also very happy to report that the Big White Purse is GONE! I had tried several times over the past two years to get her to go through it and replace it with another of her bags, but she was always extremely resistant. I guess we finally reached some tipping point of me really insisting and her getting tired of arguing. We cleaned out gasoline receipts that were over 10 years old, got rid of notes and phone numbers that she had no idea whom they were for, and got everything switched over to a nice beige purse (see photo above). And as with the shoes, after the painful act of change, she is now quite pleased with her new bag.

In addition to all these life improvements over the past nine months, Mother has recently started spending one day per week at a local senior program. But that will get a blog post all its own.

My New Job

After eight months of intermittent (and mostly un-) employment, I snagged a mostly full-time job with health, dental, vision and retirement benefits. The company has stores nationwide, the atmosphere is fun, and my boss and coworkers are genuinely nice people. And yet I am still finding it difficult to come right out and tell people that I am now employed - at a bowling alley.

Every time I think the words "bowling alley", I see the scene in the Dudley Moore film, Arthur, where the butler tells Liza Minelli's character, his voice totally deadpan, "We usually have to go to a bowling alley to meet a woman of your caliber".

It is very nice, however, to have a regular paycheck, and health insurance has been an almost forgotten dream these past few years. The only thing I don't like about it is my schedule, which shifts back and forth from afternoons to late nights (sometimes at late as 3 a.m.), plus I am generally working all weekend most weekends, including every Saturday evening. Another positive, though - lots of fodder for future blog posts.

What I'm Reading Now

I'm almost finished with America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation. I'm fascinated by the stories that help make our historical figures more than two-dimensional ones about which we were made to memorize name/date/battle factoids. I'm glad I didn't arrive with the Puritans!

I chose Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs because I just finished the Gary Jennings novel Aztec Autumn his sequal to Aztec both about the Spanish conquest of the Americas, but told from the conquered point of view.

Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs just looked interesting.

I'll let y'all know.

(A sub-note: Blogger is making me learn HTML in order to format this the way I want it. I've resisted learning HTML this long; I resent having to learn it now. Hmph!)

Drum Circle

I went to my first drum circle in Florida this evening. (See my little-used-of-late doumbek above; it seemed happy to have a night out.) The circle was facilitated by Shannon Ratigan (http://www.drumcircles.net/) and is held every 4th Wednesday at Coconuts Comedy Club (http://www.coconutsclearwater.com/). It was very nice, low-key, about 20 people were there and Shannon had a variety of hand drums and various percussion toys for people to play with, if they did not have anything of their own.

I asked the bartender about the comedy club stuff, and I found out that they have open mic every Friday night at 7 p.m., $5 cover, and professional shows on Friday at 9:00, and Saturday at 7:30 and 9:00. I asked a couple more questions about how open mic night worked, etc., and then she gave me two free passes!

There was also some bellydancing, courtesy of Kimara and a couple of her students (http://www.beledibay.com/), plus whoever wanted to get up and dance some, including a young woman with a light-up hula-hoop! Since bellydancing is ALSO something I've always meant to get around to learning about, I put my name and e-mail address on their mailing list and got a copy of the class schedule.

The drumming circle ran from about 7:30 until probably about 9:30, but my ears got tired around 9:00 and I headed outside to go home.

Once outside, I chatted with a few people who were also taking a break, one of whom was Shannon's wife, Marti. She said she had taken her first bellydancing class with Kim the night before and really enjoyed it. When I mentioned that I was jobhunting (which I'm trying to make a point to tell EVERYONE), she said that someone who was normally in attendance, but wasn't there tonight, had been looking for an office manager, and she took my e-mail address, in case the position was still open. Wow! Drumming, a bellydancing class connection, free comedy club passes, and networking all in one evening!

My New Library Card and What I'm Currently Reading

First Official Florida Blog

We have officially landed in Oldsmar, Florida. The house we’ve rented was built around 1958, and while it feels quite spacious, the closets are pretty small, which means I have difficult clothing choices to make. *sigh* The kitchen, however, was recently redone and has great countertops, plenty of cabinets, a ceramic stovetop and a built-in microwave/convection oven, which I have become quite fond of in the past couple of weeks.

In the photos above, you can see the front of the house as we rented it, and then again after we spent this past weekend trimming back plants that had not had attention for at least a couple of years. It gives the front yard that awkward got-a-haircut-today look, but that will remedy itself in short order, and it has vastly improved our view through the dining room window.

There are many, many, many lizards in Florida. And many of them live in our yard.

I am currently job-hunting. I have had a couple of interviews, and the last one is quite promising, but I haven’t heard back from them yet, so I am still hitting the employment websites daily and sending my resume’ on ones that sound like a good fit and aren’t too far away.

Mom seems to be settling in nicely. We have cable that includes the Encore Westerns channel, and this is the one she watches most of the time. We had the movers put the comfy couch from Kerrville in the den, back by her bedroom and the office, but she prefers being in the living room, which is airier, has more light and windows from which she can watch for the mail carrier. So, we may be rethinking the use of half the rooms in the house, which will necessitate major furniture moving. Wheee!

Whichever of us gets up first gets the coffee pot started. If she gets up first, she lets me continue to sleep and does not turn on the LOUD TV until I am up. (Thank you, Mom.) If I get up first, I get the coffee started and when it is ready, I wake her up (at her standing request) for us to have coffee and read the newspaper together. By which I mean, we drink coffee, I read the newspaper, and she eats six to eight cookies and sometimes glances at the headlines of the newspaper before going into the living room to turn on the Western channel. At which point, I usually retreat to the office in the back of the house to play on the computer. The television is barely audible from back there, and if I shut the office door, I can’t hear it at all!

I have found a program here similar to the Dietert Center’s Take Five Club, but it is a little longer and costs $65 per day, so until I am working, I am reluctant to even introduce her to it, as I can’t take her now, and if she knows it costs anything, she will refuse to go at all.

So, she gets dressed so she can get the mail from the streetside mailbox, and we go grocery shopping on the weekend. She has a sandwich and chips for lunch after the noon news, and I have whatever sounds interesting whenever I finally get hungry sometime later in the afternoon. I cook dinner, either for Mother, Steve, and myself or for just Mother and me on the days he is busy with Scouting activities.

I am gradually getting the last of the boxes unpacked and things put away as I continue to wait for my new employer to call, whomever that might eventually prove to be. I know my perfect job is out there – I just hate this darned waiting part.