My "whine moment today." What's yours?

Agreed Veronica...completely. If you can't properly care for an animal, or don't want to risk it being around your livestock, don't bring it home in the first place. If you have an animal that has become a nuisance, find it a home. I believe God expects us to protect and defend those who are vulnerable...those groups to me include not only children and the elderly, but also animals. I have spent a lifetime of observing people who think it is amusing to push peoples buttons with certain topics ...especially cruelty to animals, and find it ignorant and repulsive. I will refrain from commenting further about the issue, but I have never been able to just ignore an issue without speaking my mind as well, on a topic that means so much to me...and to our society...Cruelty in any form lessens humanity...and we are already on treacherous ground there....

Capt I too am a life long animal lover and have kept horses who wer beyond the useful life but I felt a comfortable retirement was owed due to their life of productive work. My own father who worked with horses his whole life never allowed an animal in our house. My half sister had a pet rabbit and Dad killed that and had her mother cook it for Sunday dinner. That to me was truly terrible but they were short of money, living well below the poverty line and dinner without meat still was not acceptible. There is no way I would have ever done that to my children but when an animal was at the end of it's life I never hesitated to have it euthanized.
Hope I do believe the Capt tells these stories for the reaction he gets. He has had a life time of experience observing people and knows just how to press peoples buttons. If dementia does overtake him and all the filters are gone he will become the patient from h*ll for his caregivers unless he realizes soon enough and self destructs.

Thanks, humidity is not bad pretty normal right now, will dry out tomorrow with the chill coming this way. I think part of it has become second nature, he is not realizing he is doing it.

tgengine what is the humidity level in your house? if it is low it could be the reason dad can't clear the remaining mucous. Put a humidifier by his chair. talk to the Dr about something to liquify the mucous.

Dad has had the congestion (cold is gone now) for over a week now. The constant hacking and clearing of the throat and what sounds like a mule deer hacking up a lung. Anyone have a recommendation? He had the round of antibiotics, decongestant, Cepocol, fluids. Now he as usual sits around all day in his chair at a 45 degree angle. I tell him to sit up with pillows so the fluid does not run into his throat. I want to take him out to lunch for his birthday but not with him hacking and clearing (level 10) of his throat all day.
Will the colds in the house never end? This is week 4 of colds making the rounds. I don't think anyone wants to have visit them or vice/verse.... wife, me, Dad, wife.....

Changing the topic to a lighter subject for a moment...

Cap, the wooden wheel story put me in mind of the ingenuity we have to show sometimes...

My sister and her husband are often out of state - he works on oil rigs, and she travels with him. They're gone for several weeks, then home for a few days each month. They had an old camper trailer they took with them to live in during their absences, and on one trip home last winter, they brought it home to exchange it for a new one they had just purchased. About 100 miles from home, they noticed the tire on the trailer was starting to go soft. They stopped and aired it up, but it went flat again, so they put the spare on. Then THAT went flat by the time they were about 5 miles from home. Not one to be beaten by circumstances, my bro-in-law took the trailer off the truck, drove the few remaining miles home (sis stayed with trailer) and rigged up a wooden ski. Took it back, strapped it to the flat tire on the trailer and SKIIED it home! :-)

I can understand on a farm life is tough. If dogs ran thru your pasture and ran your cows it was just understood they would get shot.That's why I keep my dogs up because as great as I think they are when dogs get in a pack even Lassies becomes a wolf again.I don't know about killing a dog like cap stated in front of a child like this but like I said , farm living can be all about survival, you can't have your livestock being killed. I had my dogs and horses long before my mother came to live with me, in fact her 2 dogs live with us. That's why AL and NH weren't really a viable option because of the dogs, she loves those dogs and I believe a lot of her mental health depends on those dogs.It 's not that I put animals as a priority over my mother,I see her dogs as part of keeping up her mental health and to deal with depression. It's just with her narcissistic personality she can't stand to see me have any kind of life that doesn't revolve around her. She knows that as I start riding again I will be going off to ride with other people,she won't get all my attention.I refuse to let her start using "illness" as a way of controlling me.

Capn is right that we animal folks are a bit touched. I have always been crazy. But it is really okay being crazy. It keeps all the normal, sane people away. The trouble now is people tend to get more normal and sane as they get older, and I'm still crazy. No one likes a crazy old lady. My roommate rabbits like me just fine, though. Nice thing about rabbits is they never argue and they are happy just to get a plate of food and some good petting.

I had a rooster and a hen... one night last fall, something crawled through the fence (totally fenced in back yard) grabbed my hen from their roost, plucked it all the way out through a drainage pipe leading under the the fence. Where was my big tough rooster? Outside my bedroom window squawking for help. Why? He knew I could help... We all need help one way or the other.

I am not right in the head then. I have spent my life as a wildlife and animal rescuer...I do not have the time or energy to get into a debate with someone who does not care for pets or animals...your opinion is that..your opinion..as wrong as I think it is...and you really don't want to know what I think of your "phsycologocial science and personal experiences"....I'm going to leave it at that.....but I find it to be personally offensive.

it isnt meant to be a funny story . its a story about keepin it real . if you have no rooster your hens are going to disappear one at a time to predators . im not opposed to pets but people whos foremost priority in life is their pet , arent right in the head . phsycological science and personal experiences back me up on that .

horrible...absolutely horrible.. :(

hope, capn is like someone with dementia. You can't fix him or argue with him. I don't know why he writes stuff like that. Probably his filters aren't in place anymore.

Captain...I love you but as a lifelong animal lover and rescuer that is a horrible story...nothing funny whatsoever about it.

my favorite dog story was told to me by an old fellow at the factory years ago . as a young boy on a poor southern dirt ranch he befriended an old stray dog and of course the dog made himself at home . while building fence with his dad one day they were taking a rest break when the snoozing dog started that dream twitching thing they sometimes do . " earls " dad picked up a 3 lb sledge and knocked the mutts brains clear out the back of his head . he said " thats fer killin my rooster last week " . isnt that a heartwarming story about survival and priorities ?

Bob... you love dogs. Yes, I realize you think yo don't... one smell of puppy breath and the funny antics like scratching their own back on the rug... watching them roll over n over......ahhhhh will surely melt even the most finicky heart.

Venison makes great sausage!

jeanette , stripping sound is more like starter gear drive ( bendix ) failure . splash motor oil on the nosecone of the starter . aluminum tends to corrode and bind things.

texarcana,
your problems are easily solved . feed all those fn dogs to the horse , give me the horse and ill make link sausage out of him . 2/3 rds of your workload dissipates practically overnight .
i do love me some homemade link sausage -- and 100 mg morphine tabs .
thats pretty much it . everything else annoys me .

It's like a stripping sound... like something isn't turning properly. New battery... tuned up this spring. grrrr Ok... going back out to clean the cables and maybe beat the h*ll out of the alternator.

The starter has given me problems in the past.... gonna tap that also!

sounds like an electric starter problem jeanette . zsszsss , sounds like possibly battery cables need cleaned and tightened before going farther into the starter motor . battery terminals loosen themselves over time . cheap bolts stretch and loosen .

Bob, what the h*ll happened to my riding mower? It was running fine when I stopped it to pick up a bag that had blown in the yard. Tried to start it and it just...goes zsszsss, like the wheel or whatever it is that turns on the inside it frozen. How?

goldengirl,
if we were a more socialist country ( like germany ) the elders would be cared for by prostitutes who are way past their " sell by " date , thus creating legitimate employment opportunities .
just kidding , but with a baby boom generation aging all at the same time some serious solutions are in order .

This is going to be a venting whine. I had all the house work done,started at 0500.This is when we get the phone call from her ladyship that she is now ready for coffee and her pain pill. So my husband makes the coffee,it's mostly fiber,brings it to our bedroom so he can help me out of the bed because my right hip is freezing up and hurts like a b*stard,I don't have anything but motrin and I am taking 800mg twice a day, a little more than the adult dosage.So I finally can stand,get her coffee in one hand and her 100mg morphine capsule in the other ,take it to her room. Make sure she has the pill in her mouth, then I pick up her shi Tzu and carry him and place him on the front porch because even after 2 yrs he will still pee on the floor. I then place her 0800 meds in her bathroom that she takes after she tell my husband what she wants him to cook her for breakfast.If it is a Monday I then take her to PT for an hour and half, get her home , get her in the shower,help her bath one of her dogs, get her dried and dressed,get a snack , then take her on the golf cart down to her little art studio in the basement, where she has a large cable tv,a twin bed to lay on and a lazyboy and of course numerous lamps and table for her paints.she keeps her phone around her neck and calls us when she wants to come back upstairs. One of us is always at the house. Today she decided she was going to have a pity part, still not sure over what as she actually physically is doing well. I was trying to get to a massage I had been looking forward to all day, my lower back was cramping after a day of vacuuming, sweeping,taking the dogs to the groomer and the driving to pick them up,,her dogs.Putting the laundry up.Then I spent about an hour on the computer typing up a new med list for her with allergy alerts, numbers of her PMD and Pain md and some of her basic diagnoses so then I placed a copy in her wallert, 2 in mine, one in my husband s wallet, one on the side of the refrigerator for in case emts came Icould just hand it to them, also one for my friend that is a paid companion take her shopping and out to eat so she had something to give the emts if they had to call 911.Also mopped kitchen and den. Then went to the barn, groomed the horse and fed them. Get back to the house and she is crying because she never sees me to talk to me. Now this is a laugh because when I lived at home with her she made me feel like I was imposing if I alerted her to any bleeding I might be having.Now her complaint is I don't sleep all night but denies she is in pain,she has told this to her pain MD who I told her would not be giving her ambien on top of 200 mg morphine a day, he did okay melatonin 3mg a day,I don't think she was happy with this; My husband and I have caught her napping on the bed downstairs and in the chair in front of her big screen Tv and she just doesn't believe us.She states she keeps her cpap on but just wakes up not sleepy,denies hurting, oh and when she gets up to the bedside commode ,does her business and gets into bed she is short of breath, well aren't we all. She should have seen me last night trying to go to the bathroom.,my right hip was so cramped I almost fell as it did want to support me.I guess just after all these years being a nurse and seeing the things I did I have compassion burnout.I had patients that would love to sleep 3 hours at a time and then be awake and not hurting,they sure didn't b*tch about it.Oh , and I am so busy I don't have time to talk to her, about what ! She pulls this as I was trying to get to a message for my hip and relax after all the housework and she starts crying like I have been neglecting her,that just crawled all over me.I just took her to PT for over an hour the day before and got her showered and even got her dog washed.I couldn't even enjoy my message, I hurt wors after and instead of sticking on my diet I bought comfort food.I m afraid I let her have it about when I was a kid she never seemed to be interested in talking to me and in fact made it clear that I was wasting her time and that I was bothering her(this was when I was getting bullied a lot at school, coming home with bruises) her responses are classic, what do you want me to do about it, it must have been something you did, you are to sensitive, yeah I am sensitive toalmost having my fingers cut off in my locker when someone tries to slam the door on them constantly and then I am expected to go to church with these monsters and act like everything is cool and even in church it didn't stop,as soon as the adults back was turned the hitting started,I never wore short sleeves just so I could cover the bruises, after a while I would just lie and say I got hurt when I was riding my horse.So today she was going to boo hoo because I was running around so fast she couldn't talk to me,boo hoo. and complain that was awake at night, not hurting,told her to turn on her 150 channel big ass screen tv.I think this is starting up because she is actually doing well, and I have gotten better and I am out at the barn more with my horse with she knows I am going to start riding more and hope to compete again. If she thinks she is going to sabotage me, well she has great insurance and I won't hesitate to callthe emts,i'll call the er later for an update and hire a private sitter for her,but I refuse to be held hostage.

Feeling depressed and lonely and frustrated on so many levels. I am so glad my sister has stepped up to the plate and is helping out with mother now. My brothers said they would help but have yet to do so. My mother is total care now after over 40 days of hospitalization/rehab. She still cannot walk or transfer only so she can not be left alone by herself. It is so frustrating because she owns a home and has a few other assets so she can not qualify for Medicaid which would pay for her to have home services, nursing home care or adult day care. She really does not make enough to pay for full time care on her own. It is terrible that after working hard, the elderly have to basically give up what they worked hard to get to be able to get care. If my sister had not stepped up to the plate the past couple of weeks I would have had to quit my job, which would have been difficult with a child graduating college in December and one graduating high school in May. I don't see a solution right now which is making me more depressed and feeling very stuck. I hate the person I have become, very tired, withdrawn, angry....I just want my life back

Stopped briefly to see dad after work. As I suspected he did not bring up yesterday's conversation. whew. I am sure he didn't remember. However even though it was only 4:30 he was prepping to go to bed until I told him it wasn't even supper time yet.
My husband and I usually spent Thanksgiving with his family as I usually worked the next day. This year his AL is having a dinner with residents and staff on 11/21. Dad will come with us. Hubby not super thrilled about that but Dad loves to be around little kids and there will be quite a lot of them.
This will be first Christmas without mom. My sister is coming as usual. I will not have to do a lot of menu planning since dad will come over Christmas Day for sure. Have to figure it out yet as mom and dad last year had just relocated close to me. Hoping my sis will do stuff with dad.

i hear the renter upstairs blubbering her guts out to her son . it could only be over the arrangement for her dogs . the weather just turned cold . her son aint having them in his house , double ditto here . id paint my walls with my own s*it if i wanted to smell a** all the time . never again ..

veronica,
the mid east will settle down eventually . the frothing lunatics are being vaporized by drone missiles and the young kids just roll their eyes at the very concept of religion . im not attacking religious belief , i just detest phsycotic fanatacism . the men who authored seperation of church and state into the american constitution should be revered as the most forward thinking people in history imo .
my day was quite nice . we recovered my log splitter , delivered a big load of wood , brought another home and got to nh just in time to accompany edna to the hearing aid appointment across town . the nh van driver and i worked together to make the trip as gentle as possible for edna . great timing all around .
i hope i spend the holidays in my bunker baking bread and cramming jars of venison thru the pressure canner . that would be my idea of enjoying the moment with an eye to the future simultaniously .

I can only say count our blessings we are not refugees living in a camp in the Middle East.

I've always loved the holidays, although not all the work as ff write about. But like everyone else here, they've taken on a bittersweet feeling as we lose dear ones and see others slipping from us. It'll be tough this year without my MIL and we need to come up with a new Christmas Eve tradition to help my sweet FIL. What gets to me the most is the subtle adapting of our traditions to accommodate my husband's changing energy and tolerance for all the hoopla. It's not the adapting I mind....it's the dang illness existing in him that gets me. I gnash and snuffle, then I figure out how to be sure he gets rest before the big day. How to work beside him so he can still make his pies. How to let him be the supervisor of the big clean up without having to be on his feet doing it. It is what it is for all of us. Just have changed expectations. Hugs to all at this time of year.

JeanetteB, same issue with my Mom and my Jeep, she can no longer get into it even with a step stool.

It was funny, in the past Dad would bring out the step stool and say in a loud voice "ALL ABOARD" for Mom to get into the Jeep.

Dad can still climb in and out of the Jeep with ease..... soooo much easier than him getting in/out of their own Oldsmobile sedan..... with the sedan it can take Dad 5 minutes to be able to pull himself out of the car, such a painful struggle, and there is no way I can help him. Now Mom can only ride in the sedan which I dread driving as it is so uncomfortable for me. A good fit for everyone would be a cross-over vehicle, but my parents are too attached to their Oldsmobile.