life in quarantine

I organized a Zoom meeting for Women's Night friends last night, using National Martini Day as a theme. Nick & Aud, Penguin Pam, Mr and Mrs Lounge, along with me and MonsterMustDie conversed for two hours from our four separate quarantine locations. I've been considering themes and events for Zoom meetings with friends because I don't want to burn people out with my own neediness for human connection and/or activity.

I've kinda let myself down by not taking all of this time to concentrate on learning a new skill. After hearing me say I wish I had learned how to sew, Karen gave me an old sewing machine a month ago. I finally got it repaired this week for $110.00. Parts are everywhere and I need to find a manual online. Then I need to find online tutorials and scrap materials around here for trying to teach myself sewing for a hobby. So there's that.

Afterwards, MonsterMustDie watched Captain Marvel and Avengers Infinity War for the second time this week. He watched it just a couple of days before and had no memory of doing so - he  couldn't even remember the punch lines or the final easter egg in Captain Marvel. I went to bed before he started watching the Avengers movie again. This is deeply troubling to me and I really hope the memory lapses are because of his heavy drinking lately. There were two days last week that he actually had a significant hangover, which is a rarity for him, because he drank himself silly.

When he  completely loses a day in memory so soon, my darkest fear is that it is a foreshadowing of Alzheimer's Disease, which took his mother and aunt. I have absolutely no way to deal with him becoming disabled by it, if he does. We were living on an island of social isolation here in North Carolina before the quarantine and it's become so much worse since the loss of both of the jobs I had here. Now, I have no income or healthcare. This is a mostly lower class blue collar area where everything is substandard.

Troubled

MonsterMustDie seems to be missing more words than usual lately. I hope this is just because of fatigue at work and lack of quality sleep. It worries me because of the gorilla in the room - the fact that his mother and aunt died of alzheimer's disease. He never misses names and words, unlike me, so when he starts making mistakes or struggling to remember an actor's name it scares the hell out of me. I wish I could talk to him about it without upsetting him. I wish I could simply ask him to have a checkup and make sure everything is working right. There is also  the complication of the strokes he had years ago, which might mean this is just a temporary effect of that, brought about by stress and/or fatigue. We need to know what's going on. Otherwise, everything is fine. He was especially nice and attentive tonight. He even got off facebook long enough to sit on the couch and watch an old DVD with me.

Maybe I worry too much about these things.

Ages

Roommate is beginning to forget things and it is worrying both of us. He can't seem to keep up with his inventory lately and has had to decline buyers of things he has on sale because he can't find the items and doesn't recall if he should still have them or not. He's also loosing simple things around his office and the house. He asked to borrow my xacto knife today because he can't find the one that he keeps in his office. He sleeps a lot more now too. I don't know if this is a sign of being under stress or foreboding something worse. When he is short-tempered and needy simultaneously, it already gets to be too much for me. I feel sorry for him and I want to bitch-slap him at the same time.

The 600 pound gorilla in the room is how his mother's family has a strong occurrence of Alzheimer's disease. I would think he should have at least 15 to 20 years before he has to worry about that but he has been breaking apart on a daily basis lately. He is normally someone with a better than average memory and sense of organization. Now, when I'm home, I have to manage him. In a way, the time I get to spend house-cat sitting in away from home is a bonus, not just because I get to take a vacation from home, but because it also shows him that things get out of place or go missing when I can't be blamed for it. It gives him a bit more humility when undeniable lapses of memory occur that he can't blame on me and he has to face up to. He appreciates me a lot more when I'm not there.

Still, he could just be suffering from too much stress. Here's hoping this problem will be past us soon.

sick

Everyone but the cat has a cold this week. MonsterMustDie is taking a second day off work, after getting up this morning and deciding he feels worse than he did yesterday morning. I am on the mend, but producing glorious amounts of mucus and trying to to speak and/or cough. Mostly, I am worried about the room mate because this is the first cold he's had in a very long time. The last time he had a cold, things went very very badly for him.

Good morning, October.

Last night, I had to get up and make MonsterMustDie go back to bed. He was high from the pain killers, itchy and speaking in a strange voice similar to a 5-year-old. I told him that he needed to be in bed on the same level as the bathrooms and that I would sleep in the sofa if necessary. I did not want him slamming into walls or falling down stairs. I got him back in bed and he slept through the rest of the night.

He is very sore in the jaw today but he's looking much better. There is still little or no swelling in his face, which is a very lucky thing. He felt good enough to go out treasure hunting this morning and brought back a few cool things - vintage miniature power tool toys that are just like tiny versions of the big boy tools and a groovy Tiki ceramic bowl manufactured for Trader Vic's that has a soft triangular shape held up by three standing figures similar to the salt & pepper shakers.

Now he's back down on the sofa for a day of Gamera movies.

some progress today

I have another interview on Thursday in Conyers. It's another friend of a friend reference. The last lead did not amount to much - at least not yet.

MonsterMustDie had an appointment for a consultation with an oral surgeon this morning. Pain will make someone take a lot more interest in maintaining their health. I am looking forward to seeing his latest health issues dealt with.

I sent out the invitations this morning to one of the two annual parties we host here at Rancho de WereMonster. I am probably going to post the other one this week as well even though it is far in advance, just so the day is not lost to another scheduling conflict. Then I can just let other seasonal social events fall where they will without stressing over things too much.

Another large tree branch fell into our back yard this afternoon. I heard the crack and looked out the back window to see it drop. Now we need someone with a chainsaw to remove it for us.

The Toothache

My housemate, who should know better (since his stroke) to put off seeing a doctor, has his toothache back this morning.

This is an ongoing problem he has put off for months. He knows he needs an extraction but he hasn't been in any hurry to have it done because: 1. He actually has several things lined up that he has put off too long while he did not have dental insurance for years like the root canal he just went through. 2. He does not seem to fully realize how much worse things can get when dental work is put off (like taking one bad tooth ruining the teeth on either side of it). 3. Although he has some money in the bank and (better still) a credit card, he thinks the insurance deductible is too high.

This makes me furious because: 1. I worry about how far he takes his health issues every time. 2. I am the one with the burden of caring for him WHEN he puts it off too long.

Goth Picnic 2009

The Annual Goth Picnic at Oakland Cemetery was awesome. The beautiful weather made for a very long picnic this year and nearly everyone stayed til it was dark. Some people were there a bit after sundown, still cleaning up and talking with friends they'd not spent time with in a while.

In the absence of Kisa Bastet, I brought coffee this year, which was hardly touched. Previous, much colder picnic days have seen a lot of coffee and hot beverage consumption. This year, there was more wine and beer consumed - which also led to more painful Mondays this year. One housemate in particular could not rationalize how he got so drunk by the end of the day when I drove him home, where he crawled into bed and I went back out to join the Gillimonster and her inebriated hubby for dinner.