Summer is leaving us....

Here I am on a beautiful Monday afternoon in August looking through my week.

Alex returns to school on Wednesday to being 3rd grade! She is really excited about school this year. Her teacher is a young, enthusiastic teacher, the type of which we have not had since kindergarten. I hope we are not setting our hopes too high for a successful school year, but we've been so frustrated with our day to day experience so far, we are really hopeful. Alex worked hard with a tutor all summer and has done her best to keep reading. She struggles and for once we are hoping the teacher is really as passionate as she seems.

Steve has the big Francestown Labor Day celebration this coming weekend. It's the only "holiday" they really do anything for. As a result they pull all the stops and all officers must be on deck. It is a really nice weekend, everything from a town dance to a town wide yard sale. There is a road race/walk which I'm going to try to convince Alex to do with me, maybe she can ride her bike. Last year Steve was in the dunking booth...I'll send pictures if that happens again.

I am striving to support my mom concerning the care and placement of her parents, Barb & Irv. Both are suffering from forms of dementia and their respective diseases are manifesting themselves in such a way as to make them terribly hard to place. Most facilities, we are finding, are not equipped or adequately trained to take care of a patience with "A Typical" behavior and as a result families like us are being put through the paces trying to make sure our loved ones are safe from themselves and everyone else! What a racket.

I am beginning to develop a theory about the elder care system in this country. It starts with the basic thought that the elder care system in this country is similar to the jail system. There is an entire industry building around the needs of these people and the bureaucracy created results in less care available to the patient and more salaries being paid to the administrators. The facilities are beautiful and/or extremely costly, but as a result the corporation behind the facility cannot afford to pay adequate salaries to the direct caregivers. If they paid adequate salaries and actually hired nurses (instead of LNAs and others with less training) the facility would actually provide the superior care they advertise. However, the cannot do that while supporting the infastructure required to keep the engine moving (so to speak). Instead you find (especially after hours when noone is checking in) only people giving direct care to your loved one who are more frazzled with life and/or maybe less concerned about your loved one since they don't know him/her. When your loved one is difficult or uncooperative he or she may be treated unkindly, because quit frankly there are too many uncooperative patients in these facilities when there is a 10 - 1 ratio. It makes me nuts.

I'm going to have a story to put together when this is over....I can feel it building now.

I'm looking forward to a productive fall. Mom helped me get a couple of gardens in and this weekend I transplanted 2 lilacs to the front yard. I'm hoping for some color next year. This year was too boring in our yard.

On August 21st, we (Steve, Trish & Alex) took Greg & Diane to see The Beach Boys at the Hampton Beach Casino in Hampton, NH. Of course, most of you know how much dad has always liked The Beach Boys, well, believe it or not, he had never seen them live!!!
It was Alex's idea. She read about the performance in the "New Hampshire" magazine and asked me if that was a good idea for Grampa's birthday present. So we asked him if he'd like that, and he said sure. What a treat. We had a blast although dad and I were sorely reminded why we can't stay out until 1:00 am on a work night. What a long day on Friday!

That's all for now....love to you all.

trish