Sticking to Plan A: Riding the Downeaster to Brunswick, then Zipcar to Augusta. It's a nice break from the three-to-four-hour drive from Somerville. We have hotel and transportation plans booked only to cover tomorrow morning's funeral, followed by the gathering that my Aunt Jan would like to hold at a nearby hotel, plus miscellaneous day business ( Read more... )

Word of the day: Sundowning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SundowningRead more... )

Mom fell in her apt last night and got two minor cuts on her head; went to hospital. Doctor subsequently alarmed at the level of dementia she showed, and relayed to me that the retirement home manager he spoke with essentially said "She's with you? Awesome. Don't bring her back." So she stayed at the hospital overnight ( Read more... )

Moved mom into a retirement facility called Sunbury Village last Saturday. Almost daily since then I have received concerned phone calls or emails about her. Nobody's said the words yet, but I'm getting afraid that they're going to tell me soon that she's just not a good fit for that place, and needs to be moved elsewhere. Finding this place, ( Read more... )

Here is an obituary I wrote: http://blog.jmac.org/blog/2013/05/16/an-obituary/Read more... )

Here's what happened this week, starting from the night that dad's social worker summoned me to Waterville ( Read more... )

Dad is halfway through a two-months-to-live prognosis handed to him quite frankly from a cancer center. He's being tended to daily by home hospice care, who are awesome. Amy and I met them by chance three weeks ago, when they were on the verge of calling Adult Protective Services because both my parents had stopped bathing or eating or changing ( Read more... )

Amy and I were browsing film trailers on the AppleTV when we happened into the one for World War Z, and I started to act squirrelly, biting my knuckle unconsciously. When she stopped the trailer and looked over at me, I angrily snapped at her to bring it back. "No," she said, and shut off the TV. And thus did zombies spoil another evening in our ( Read more... )

In the last few years I have settled on what I can't help but feel is the inarguably most elegant way to resolve time travel when used as a plot device, particularly in regards to in-story concerns over "temporal paradoxes". These ideas synthesize descriptions seen in works like Greg Benford's Timescape and the film Primer, which, as I think their ( Read more... )

I want to thank all of you who offered kind advice about my parents, when I last posted in March, after my most recent and very disturbing visit with them. I've been putting off proper followup action for a long time, but now feels like the right time to act. I intend to spend the rest of the evening re-reading your responses, drawing definite ( Read more... )