//----------------------------\\ Adventures With Grandpa (tm) \\----------------------------// Monday, May 2, 2005 Edition #007 ____________________________________________________________ C O N T E N T S 007.1: Current Condition in Brief A quick summary of Grandpa's current condition 007.2: 90th Birthday Looming Though often told, Grandpa knows nothing about it 007.3: A Monster Is Born Marc says, "I've created a monster!" 007.4: Grandpa Returns to Canby Marc and Grandpa having a driving adventure 007.5: Grandpa Pulls a Funny It's hard to tell when he's joking 007.6: Question of the Week "What does Grandpa do with his time?" 007.7: Colophon ____________________________________________________________ 007.1: Current Condition in Brief A quick summary of Grandpa's current condition Doing well, though he's got some dental problems that we need to take care of -- that'll be the next hurdle. The incision on his hip was slightly infected at one point (just a surface wound), but the doctor put him on antibiotics for a couple weeks and it seemed to clear it up. It was right where he'd sometimes bump it getting in and out of the wheelchair, but amazingly, that's the only pain he's talked about since his surgery! The most recent concern has been his appetite, but fortunately this appears to be resolved (see 007.3). So things are looking good. ____________________________________________________________ 007.2: 90th Birthday Looming Though often told, Grandpa knows nothing about it This weekend we're going to celebrate Grandpa's 90th birthday with a party at my house -- everyone's invited! Printed invitations have been mailed so you should have one with directions and a map, but if you need anything, don't hesitate to call me (toll-free at 877-364-5922). Technically Grandpa's birthday isn't until next Monday, the 9th of May, but Saturday seemed like a more appropriate time for a party. Doors will be open from noon onward, so come any time and stay as long as you'd like. We'll have sandwiches and chips and cake and snacks so people can drop by any time for some goodies. Gifts are not necessary, though I'd like to put together a memory book for Grandpa. If you have stories you'd like to write down, or photos you'd like to contribute, please send them to me ASAP or bring them to the party on Saturday. I've told Grandpa about the party -- even had him proofread the invites -- but of course he knows nothing about it, so I guess it will be a surprise! (Kinda takes all the adventure out of the surprise, though, doesn't it? He makes it too easy.) ____________________________________________________________ 007.3: A Monster Is Born Marc says, "I've created a monster!" After I returned from my trip, I noticed Grandpa complaining about a troubled stomach and he often would refuse to eat. He wanted to eat -- he was hungry -- but when at the table with food in front of him his stomach would rebel and he wouldn't eat a single bite. This was definitely different from before the surgery, when I'd gotten him to eat regularly and eat decent-sized meals. I tried tempting him with various favorite dishes and foods, but it didn't help. He'd leave his chocolate mint uneaten, turn down chocolate ice cream, and even refuse a milkshake! The kind of food seemed to make little difference, though he definitely leaned toward plainer foods and would sometimes eat crackers or a slice of bread with peanut butter. Even when he would occasionally eat, he would never clear his plate -- and I didn't give him much to begin with. After a week or so I noticed a pattern: he'd eat a hearty breakfast but wouldn't eat lunch or dinner. Since he takes his pills in the morning, this had me thinking the medicine was upsetting his stomach. A trip to the doctor earned him a switch in one medication, but it didn't help. After a week I called back, really concerned. A ninety-year-old hardly eating for over three weeks is not healthy. The doctor was out for a few days but a nurse suggested switching his meds to the evening instead of taking them at breakfast. Well, it worked. At least it seems to have done the trick so far. Now Grandpa eats. All the time. We're talking seconds at dinner, followed by ice cream, watermelon, and then he's famished a few hours later! Let's just look at what he ate yesterday, Sunday the first of May, as a sample. I made breakfast of "milked rice" with cinnamon and sugar and a slice of toast. He ate every bite. By eleven a.m. he was wandering the kitchen, wondering about lunch. He snacked on a few crackers. For the noon meal I served baked whitefish (Tilapia) in tomato sauce with rice. He had half a filet to start, then added a tablespoon of rice and fish for seconds. I noticed he fished out a couple of the tomato chunks -- he particularly liked those. He finished the meal with a wedge of watermelon, which he raved about for an hour. By three o'clock, he was famished again, rummaging in the kitchen for snacks. At five he was starving, so I got him a bowl of chili sprinkled with Tillamook cheddar and tortilla chips. He then polished off a bowel of ice cream -- six golf ball scoops of Tin Roof Sundae. After his evening nap, he awoke at eight o'clock and headed for the bathroom. "You ready for dinner?" I joked. Big mistake. "Oh yes," he crooned. "I'm starving. I'll be right back." He was serious, too. He had no recollection of eating dinner! He had more crackers, then had not one, but two slices of bread slathered with peanut butter! Yikes! It's like he hasn't eaten in a month and he's making up for lost time. I'm going to have to cut back myself. For a while there I was eating for two, since he wasn't, and now I'm feeling full all the time but feeling obligated to sit down at the table with Grandpa (I certainly don't want to discourage him from eating). I've created a monster, but I guess having Grandpa eating too much is better than Grandpa eating too little! ____________________________________________________________ 007.4: Grandpa Returns to Canby Marc and Grandpa having a driving adventure Last Thursday I took my mother to the airport for her trip to California (her ex-husband Ben Van Wagner passed away and she was heading down for the memorial service) and stopped at Costco on the way home. I'd called in a favor to get Grandpa's doctor to send in a renewal of one of his prescriptions to the Costco to save me time and money. Then, like an idiot, I did my shopping and drove home without going to the Costco pharmacy and picking up his meds! Part of my problem was I was distracted by my new purchase. You see, I'm been wanting a satellite navigation system for my car for ages. (Anyone that's driven with me knows that north and south are meaningless to me, and though I've never gotten lost, I have, uh, wandered a bit.) Anyway, in my recent new car explorations (over the past six months) I've noticed how expensive the sat/nav options are. For the car I was leaning toward (the Mazda3 5-door) it's an extra $1700 plus you have to buy an additional $1000 package for the sat/nav system to even be an option. That seemed rather expensive. Plus, I have two vehicles now -- a built-in system would be limiting. So I've been toying with the idea of saving money by buying a portable unit. I put it off because the technology is expensive, complicated, and I needed to do lots of technical research. I was also nervous about buying such a thing via the Internet since I might want to try a model in person to make sure I really liked it. On the day of the Costco trip, I thought I stopping by Fry's Electronics (right nearby) and checking out their options. But when I walked into Costco, what was at the front of the store but a display for the Magellan Roadmate 700: This was exactly what I was looking for: a complete handheld unit with color touchscreen and a built-in hard drive with maps for all of North America. It could be updated via USB connection to your computer (sadly there's no Mac support), but since it's got so much data built-in, that's not mandatory. It wasn't cheap but it wasn't a bad price, either, especially compared to buying a built-in system. After much agonizing, I splurged and went for it. It's awesome. It works just like a built-in system. It has a cable that plugs into the cigarette lighter and it attaches to your windshield via a superstrong suction-cup device. That's it. Turn it on and go. You can program in addresses and then it calculates a route, either the shortest time or shortest distance, and you can tell it use more or less freeways, depending on your preference. A voice warns you of turns in advance, and if you miss a turn, it immediately figures out a new route. Before I bought it, I was thinking of a sat/nav thing as something I'd use occasionally -- it's one of those things that when you need it, you _really_ need it. But now that I have it, I'm discovering all sorts of benefits I hadn't considered. It makes driving safer and more fun. For instance, it's remarkably liberating. Now I'm not afraid to take strange shortcuts since I've got a built-in map that will always show me a way home. So I'm discovering all sorts of new roads, beautiful scenery, and enjoying driving. Since I'm in a new area, this is delightful and exciting. I've also found it helps with safety. For instance, the other day I was stuck on the freeway behind a slow semi. I thought about passing, but knew my exit was coming up. Should I risk passing? But a quick glance at the Roadmate showed me my exit was exactly 2.3 miles away, giving me plenty of time to do the maneuver safely. In the past in that kind of situation I've often stayed behind the semi until it drove me nuts and I finally zoomed around it, only to find my exit was right away and I had to cut back dangerously (well, not _that_ dangerously, but you get the idea). Anyway, I find driving much more relaxing when I don't have to worry about when my turns are coming up. Since the unit always shows me exactly how far to the next turn, I can just sit back and enjoy the ride. Another benefit is fantastically useful: points of interest (POI). The Roadmate 700 has over two million built-in. When I got home from Costco I had a quick lunch, then convinced Grandpa to go to back to Costco with me (after all, they were his medicines). In the car, I brought up the POI interface and typed in "Costco" -- and the unit came back with, "There are 65. Which do you want?" I choose the Wilsonville, Oregon one, and bingo, we had a route! We took the country roads to get there, making it much more interesting. Grandpa really enjoyed the beautiful Oregon scenery. After getting the meds from the pharmacy at Costco, I needed to deliver on my promise of getting Grandpa a milkshake. So I brought up the restaurant guide and quickly found a Wendy's just 3.3 miles away! In a few minutes we were there (Grandpa also ordered a bacon cheeseburger, claiming he was hungry). Since we were at the Wilsonville exit, literally on the road that leads to the Canby ferry, I suggested we go across it. Grandma and Grandpa always enjoyed the ferry ride. We used to take it almost every Sunday on the way to church. So off we went. Initially I was foolish, thinking I didn't need to sat/nav to show me to my old town, but dang, things have changed! When I went to highschool in the mid-80's Wilsonville was a dot on the map. I remember when the Dairy Queen was put in -- it was the only thing for miles. Now there's car dealership, restaurants, motels -- and thousands of new homes. I completely missed my turn and we ended up wandering the hills. That was okay, since the views were breathtaking and we were having a good time. But after a while, I programmed in Canby as our destination and soon we were back on track. The ferry ride was fun (though it costs $1.25 instead of a $1 now) and Grandpa enjoyed it. We stopped at the state park on the other side (a park by the river where I used to ride my bike for picnics) and drank our Frosties and Grandpa ate his burger (The whole thing!). Then we went to see Grandpa's old house on 12th Avenue. He enjoyed that. And as long as we were in Canby, I figured we ought to visit Grandma's crypt. I wasn't sure exactly how to get there and didn't have an address or name of the cemetery, but Uncle Phil came me directions and soon we were there. (The sat/nav helped as it shows the names of cross streets before you get there, much easier than trying to see street signs.) At the mausoleum, Grandpa got out and we went and saw Grandma's crypt. It had been years for me and probably almost as long for Grandpa (I doubt he's been back often since moving to the coast). There were no flowers in the holder, but I spotted one on the grass nearby. I grabbed it and discovered it was a beautiful purple flower, artificial, but very pretty. It was just lying on the grass, abandoned. I took it to Grandpa and let him put it in the holder. He seemed very moved. Then we wandered around a bit, enjoying the immaculate greenery of the place. It is very peaceful and pretty. Then Grandpa wanted to see the crypt again. After a few minutes he suddenly became very emotional, tearing up and shaking. I gave him a hug. Then, abruptly, he wanted to go home. We left then, and I tried to distract him a little from his emotions, since I didn't want him to be upset. I pushed the "home" button on the Magellan and it mapped a route home for us and we were off. It was a wonderful afternoon. It was a bit silly of me to forget Grandpa's meds, but it turned out to be a good excuse to get Grandpa out of the house and adventuring. When at home he likes to sleep and relax and claims he doesn't want to go anywhere, but when he actually does it, he really enjoys it. Of course it does wear on him a bit -- he slept well Thursday night. ____________________________________________________________ 007.5: Grandpa Pulls a Funny It's hard to tell when he's joking The other day I placed all my mail in a pile and was separating it. Grandpa was watching with interest. He saw my new Macworld magazine. He picked it up. "It should be Marcworld," he said seriously. ____________________________________________________________ 007.6: Question of the Week "What does Grandpa do with his time?" This is a repeat question, but the answer has changed since his surgery. The short answer is that now Grandpa sleeps all the time. He gets up between seven and eight, usually, and after breakfast sleeps until noon. Then he has an afternoon nap until dinner time. Then a post-dinner nap with a brief interruption for a late night snack. Finally, around eleven or midnight, he's ready for bed. I don't remember him sleeping quite that much before. He often claims to be very tired, though he seems healthy enough. I haven't been able to figure out if he actually sleeps at night or is up most of the time. He does read, or at least leaves the light on while he sleeps with a book or magazine over his face. Sunday afternoon was surprising: he was awake reading for a couple hours instead of conking right out as usual. Hopefully he's just old, though his lack of energy worries me a little (it's a sign of a decline). But it also could be mental: when strongly encouraged (i.e. forced) to do something, like go to the doctor, he seems hearty and fine and he enjoys getting out. But before going out he seems to think he's too tired to go anywhere. So I haven't figured out if he's really that exhausted, just thinks he is, or imagines the going out process to be more strenuous than reality. ____________________________________________________________ 007.7: Colophon Publication Title: Adventures With Grandpa (tm) Frequency: Occasionally Price: $1,000,000 per issue Publisher: Marc Zeedar Author: Marc Zeedar Photographer: Marc Zeedar Copyright: Contents (photos and text) (C) 2005 by Marc Zeedar All Rights Reserved Telephone: 877-364-5922 Website: http://www.zeedar.com/grandpa/ To add, remove, or change your subscription details; make suggestions or complaints; report typos or errors; send millions of dollars; or send Grandpa or Marc a comment, send email to . If you'd like to telephone Grandpa (he loves to hear from people and he'll chat like the wind though he won't remember the call ten minutes later), you may call him toll-free at 877-364-5922. ###