Mary

Posted September 5, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Aging, Mary
Tags:

Time for an update. Saints be praised! Mary went to church with us on Sunday. For the past 6-8 weeks, Mary has begged off on going to Church on Sunday and Bible study on Wednesday morning. Every time we suggested that she get dressed and go to church, she told that she was too dizzy and too tired.

So what’s different today? Well, for one thing we stopped one of her meds that was prescribed by her neuro doctor. She had an appointment with him a week or so ago, and we brought up our suspicion that it was making the dizziness worse. So the neuro doc agrees and takes her off of the med. I forget the name, but it doesn’t matter.

So she got hugs all around from the folks who hadn’t seen her in a while including Pastor Jacques. I think she enjoyed the attention. After the service we went out for lunch at the Gaffey Street Diner (one of our usual restaurants). Mary had some clam chowder. She pretty much finished the bowl.

We have Mary using the walker full time now. She grumped about it at first but she has gotten used to it. I think that she has come to understand that if she doesn’t use it she would likely fall again. Stowing the walker is a PITA when getting her into the car, but we deal with it.

A couple of weeks ago, Paula and I got away for a weekend up in the Bay area (Oakland) for an OES reception. We had our usual care-givers from CarenetLA to look after Mary. It was nice to get away for the weekend.

We’ll see if we can get her to Bible study this week.

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RIP Dick Nicoll

Posted August 16, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Aging, Freemasonry, Obituaries
Tags: ,

Dick at Jake Wirth’s before Grand Lodge Quarterly in Boston.

Our good friend Dick Nicoll died on Monday. Dick was a past master of Thomas Talbot Lodge in Billerica, MA and a past district deputy grand master of Massachusetts Grand Lodge AF&AM [ A note to men who are reading this: When was the last time you had your PSA checked? PSA stands for prostate specific antigen and indicates the possible presence of cancer in the prostate.] Early detection is so important in saving lives. Sometimes early detection only delays what is inevitable. For Dick, it probably meant a few extra years to be with his family. Here’s the link to Dick’s obit.

The above picture is the way I like to remember Dick when he was healthy. I would rather not remember Dick as he looked after suffering the ravages of cancer. The picture was taken at Jake Wirth’s which is a pub that is [conveniently] around the corner from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. Thomas Talbot masters and wardens would meet there for lunch every quarter for the Grand Lodge Quarterly. Good times indeed.

jake wirth

Whatever Dick did, he was all in. He was actively involved in Lodge, Boy Scouts and Church. Whatever Dick did, he did it with a smile on his face.

Dick and is wife Carol shared many happy years of marriage. Both were very interested in their Scottish heritage. He served as an officer in multiple capacities of the Clan MacNicol Society. Over the past few years Carol and Dick enjoyed several trips to Scotland.

After Dick’s diagnosis, Carol retired early to assist in his care. With his doctors’prescriptions and an exquisitely healthy diet, he was able to live six years longer than his doctors had originally expected.

Dick’s wake and Masonic funeral service will be on Thursday. It saddens me that I cannot be there for Carol. This is one of the problems I have with living on the west coast and friends who live on the east coast. Attending funeral services would be expensive. Air fare, rental car and hotel would cost upwards of $2,000 for the two of us. It’s just not in the budget. In addition to the travel costs, we would have to arrange care for Paula’s mother and that’s not cheap either.

So Dick was 69 when he died (born in January 1947). He was about a year older than I am. It bothers me no end when members of my generation pass away. It bothers me more when friends who were 10 years younger than, I pass away. Living a long life is such a blessing. Of course it is also a curse in that you see your friends die before you.

So mote it be.

Joe

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Mary

Posted August 5, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Aging, Mary
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No pictures today.

It’s been a tough week. On Sunday, Paula and I went to the Chili Cook-off at lodge. Mary decided that she didn’t want to go. Okay, no problem. When we got home at about 8 pm we got Mary up to offer to have some dinner and watch the TV news.

Paula and I both had sat down. Mary gets up from the dining room table and heads for her room. Then she had a whopping dizziness episode and falls on her back. We helped her sit up and we tried to take stock of her condition. She was conscious and didn’t seem to have broken anything. We decided to not call the EMT’s and wait for the morning to call her primary care doc.

So on Monday morning, Paula makes an appointment with her primary at 11:45. Her doctor ordered X-rays. X-ray showed fractured rib (non-displaced). He gave her some kind of strap to help stabilize her rib cage and wrote her an Rx for pain med.

At this point, Mary is noticeably weaker and noticeably disoriented. Paula has been sleeping on the extra bed in her bedroom. She has needed help sitting up and getting up out of bed. We are insisting that she use her walker rather than her cane when walking around our condo. She fought us for a little bit but has come around on the issue. We told her if you don’t use the walker you WILL fall again and next fall will kill you. So she’s on board with walker.

Last night she got up at about midnight when Paula was about to go to bed and she asked “Is it time to get up?”. Paula gives her a big sigh. No.  Paula gave her a bottle of Ensure and put her back to bed.

One good thing happened this week. Her lawyer dropped by yesterday with his notary in tow to sign her new estate docs. She managed to get it done, but she had trouble. Lawyer says to her “put the number 4 here (between August and 2016), initial here and sign here.” She had trouble with those simple directions. Eventually, we got through all of the paper work along with notary stamps. Lawyer will make copies for his file and call us to pick up the originals. We breathed a big sigh of relief to get this task done.

So the docs include updated will, durable power of attorney, health care power of attorney and add Paula and my names to her family trust.

So to finish off the week, we took Mary to get her hair done. Paula got the car and meet us outside the elevator. I started to walk with Mary to the elevator. The distance from our front door to the elevator is about 25 yards. She almost couldn’t make it. Navigating with the walker is very tough for her. While she was getting her hair done, we did the grocery shopping.

So here’s where we stand. At the end of the week she is noticeably weaker, noticeably frailer and much less aware of whats going on in the world. We’re beginning to feel that the end is near. Her internal fuel gauge is pointing at a big red “E”. But then again she might bounce back. We need to make another appointment with her neuro doc to talk about one of her meds. We feel that might be making the dizziness worse not better.

As it stands now, we feel we can’t leave her alone. One of us has to be here. We may start scheduling our caregivers for an evening every other week so that we can go out and have dinner and see a movie. Our goal all along has been to avoid putting her in a nursing home. But after this week, we beginning to think that maybe the time has come to look at that.

We are so looking forward to our trip up north on August 19 to get away for the weekend. We have scheduled our caregivers for the weekend.

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Saturday

Posted July 30, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Baseball, Family, Politics
Tags: ,

Here I sit at our dining room table writing a blog post. We have no appointments, no things that need to get done, no errands, no grocery shopping. Nothing.

Paula is working on cleaning up our bedroom. Organizing and dusting. Me, I’m just writing a post.

So I’m done reading the NY Times and Boston Globe. The conventions are done. I’ve done two crossword puzzles. Saturday puzzles are the hardest.

img_4456Mary finally got up at about 11:45. Fed her breakfast and made sure she took her meds. Now she’s back in bed. She probably won’t be up until 6 pm to watch the evening news.

It’s afternoon and that means time for iced coffee. We started getting a product from Starbuck’s that is cold brew unsweetened coffee. Sold in the supermarket dairy section. Good stuff.

Once again, the conventions are done. Can anyone explain to me why in this day and age that we have to wait until November to vote in the general election. If you haven’t figured out by now who you’re going to vote for you, you’re not paying attention or something. BTW, I’m voting for Hillary. If you follow me on FB, you probably know that already. Though I expect that 100 days will be enough time for Trump to shoot himself in the foot a few times.

So tomorrow is the Chili Cook-off at LA Harbor Lodge in San Pedro. So I will be getting out the crock pot this evening and getting my entry ready. I will be doing a pork tenderloin and black bean chili. Here’s the recipe.

Later this evening I will be watching my Boston Red Sox play the Angels. Since the Angels are a local team, that means that the game will be blacked out on MLBtv. I will have to find it on the feed from our cable provider (Time Warner).

Well the iced coffee is done, that means it must be time for my martini.

TTFN

Joe

 

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Mary

Posted July 28, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Family, Mary
Tags: ,

Time for an update. The process of updating her will and other related estate documents is moving forward. I should have a draft for review in the next couple of days. We have been making contact with her investment banks to make sure that a TOD Beneficiary has been signed and filed. (TOD stands for Transfer on Death.) I have only one or two left to do. I need to do it when Mary is up and alert, because the banks generally want to talk with her.

The goal here is to avoid probate. Probate involves time and lawyer fees. Both are to be avoided.  Unless of course, you happen to be a lawyer.

Mary seems to be having trouble getting functional in the morning. She hasn’t been going to either church or Bible study. Church is at 10:30 AM and Bible Study is at 10 AM. Usually she is complaining of dizziness. She goes back to bed. The dizziness  usually passes by noon. So I have started making her appointments for noon or later.

So on Wednesday night, we all went to a 50 year ceremony and dinner at Lodge for Bob Haynes. Bob was a good friend of Harold’s when he was alive. Being a Mason for fifty years is a very big deal in the Masonic fraternity. Hell, doing anything for fifty years is a big deal. We all had an excellent steak dinner. Mary has trouble with the buffet line, so Paula usually gets Mary a plate of food. After dinner, we went into the lodge room for the ceremony. Bob was escorted into the lodge and then to the East. Introductions were made of all the friends, family and Masonic dignitaries.

Then Bob got up to speak. He told us that he written a few words on his computer at home but he had left them at home on his computer. Nevertheless, he was not short of words. He gave a shout-out to Mary. Glad to see you here.

On Sunday, we will be going to the lodge’s chili cook-off. I will be doing a pork and black bean chili. Good eatin. And on Monday, we will be going to our OES meeting. More eating.

TTFN.

Joe

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Star Trek Beyond

Posted July 28, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Movies, Reviews
Tags: ,

Star Trek BeyondTuesday night is usually our family dinner night where our son and his family come over for dinner. But last night they were heading up to San Francisco to visit with Theresa’s extended family in the Bay Area. So Paula and I were free for the evening.

So Paula picked up some fried chicken on the home from her shift at the Assistance League in San Pedro. We fed Mary and turned on the news for her on the TV and we headed out to see “Star Trek Beyond” at 7:40 PM. This was a bit later than we normally go to movies, but the price was right. Adult tickets were $5. Didn’t even have to be a senior.

If we wanted to go up to Torrance, we could have seen it either in 3D or IMAX. (For more money of course.) But we decided to do it on the cheap.

I am not sure about the title. It is emminently forgettable. I said to myself, Star Trek something. I had to look it up again on IMDB before I started this post.

Just so you understand, they have the good old NCC-1701 Enterprise along with Capt. Kirk, Spock, Scottie and the rest of the gang. It’s a new story with a new cast of young actors. This reboot was produced by J.J. Abrams.

All of the lead actors are pretty much unknown. The actor who plays Capt. Kirk is Chris Pine. Here’s a bit of trivia. He was the first lead Star Trek actor born after the franchise began. Here’s his link to his IMDB page.

So overall, we enjoyed the show. I thought it was better than the Star Wars reboot that we saw a few months ago. The casting was done well. I felt just a little bit of nostalgia for Leonard Nimoy. In fact, during the credits they had a “In Memoriam” to Leonard Nimoy. Nice touch.

Okay, here come the spoilers. If you want to see the film, stop reading here and go and see it.

So the Enterprise is cruising around the galaxy and they head into a deep space star ship port called “Yorktown”. It was a place where the crew could get some R & R. They were hardly there a day when they get a call to go to some planet deep inside a Nebula or something. You know deep down in your soul that something bad is coming down.

Before you know it Capt Kirk and his band of merry men were under attack. So 15 minutes into the film and the Enterprise crash lands on the nasty planet. That wouldn’t have happened to the old Capt Kirk. Maybe the new Capt. Kirk doesn’t know how to use the shields or something. So the new Capt. Kirk has 1 hour and 45 minutes to make things right.

So most of the crew gets captured by the bad guys on the planet. But our heroes avoid capture and manage to save everyone. That should be enough. It was a fun movie with lots of action. Sometime it was difficult to keep track of everything going on the screen. There was even a motorcycle scene.

 

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Wild Fire

Posted July 25, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: California, Los Angeles, San Pedro
Tags: ,

Well, it occurred to me that our friends back east might be wondering whether we were affected by the current wild fires in Southern California. The current fire that is called the “Sand Fire” is big in the news out here. I am not always quite sure how the locals come up with a name for a fire. But they’re fighting the fire, they can name it whatever they want. 

The local hour long news this evening spent about 45 minutes covering the fire. Then the national news led the program with news about fire in Southern California. Okay, Los Angeles is a huge area. LA County is about as big as Rhode Island.

So here’s a map of Greater Los Angeles.


We live down near Long Beach which is mostly an urban area. Not much chance of wild fire. The current fire (called the “Sand Fire”) is up near Santa Clarita. The 14 freeway that runs from Simi Valley to Palmdale has been shut down due to the fire. Many people have been evacuated due to the fire.

There is certainly a risk to owning a home up near the mountains especially now due to the drought. Risk is much less for us down south in an urban setting.  A lot of the people that live up there own wild stock, horses and the like. So, evacuating is not easy.

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Mary

Posted July 16, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Aging, Family, Mary
Tags: , ,

Time for an update on Mary. It has been a challenging week to be sure. She is doing okay. Not much change from the previous report. Physically, she is fine but she is still struggling with memory. No falls. She actually asked to use her walker a couple of nights ago.

Our word for today is “Probate”. Back on Monday, I made an appointment with Mary’s lawyer to update her will and related estate documents. She had done a full will package back in 2010 and I thought it would be prudent to review and update the package. So I made an appointment to meet with him on Thursday at 11 AM.

So when Thursday came along, she was coming up with all the excuses in the book as to why she couldn’t go to see the lawyer.2016-07-15 19.24.17 So she was digging in her heels. So Paula and I went without her. We brought all the documentation from the previous will. It was probably just as well. I pretty much knew what needed to be done. Having Mary with us would have just slowed the process down.

So right now, the only things that will get her out of the house are either her appointment to get her hair done or a doctor’s appointment. So in the future, I think I will schedule bank visits right after her hair appointment. That way I will already have her in the car and going places. Just one more stop. Laws of physics apply here, “A body in motion, tends to stay in motion”. So it is with Mary. Getting her to move in the first place is the hard part.

The previous will had our son Mike listed as the executor. I wanted to change the executors to be Paula and myself. Mike doesn’t have the time to deal with this stuff. The 2010 will was done when we were still on the East Coast and Mike was living in LA. It made sense at that time. Now, not so much.

We also asked our lawyer to look into her “living trust”. Mary’s condo deed is held by her family trust. So we need to be added as trustees to Mary’s family trust. This allows for the transfer of the title of the condo to pass to us after her death with a minimum of fuss. The last thing that we asked for was a “Durable Power of Attorney”. This would allow us to manage Mary’s personal affairs.

We will need to transfer her investments to the trust for the same reason. As it stands right now, her investment accounts don’t have any beneficiary named. That means that were she to die tomorrow, her investment accounts would be tied up in probate for a couple of years while we probated her will. Not a good thing. So we’re dealing with a new will, new durable power of attorney, trust doc’s, HIPPA documents, etc.

So I made a call to her investment account advisers to see whether or not a beneficiary had been named. So she has about six accounts set up with various bank’s investment companies. I suppose that having the multiple accounts spreads the risk, but it makes it a pain in the ass to deal with. Of course, she has no knowledge of any of the accounts. Eventually I will merge some of the accounts so that I am only dealing with a couple of accounts rather than 6-8.

So we should have a set of draft documents in a couple of weeks for our review. Then we will schedule the signing. At that time, I will bring the lawyer to her. Once I have updated trust documents, I should be able to do most of the changes to the investment accounts. The thing that gets this complicated is that most of her signatures will need to be notarized. More trips to the bank.

So the big question is why didn’t I start to do this a long time ago? No easy answers I suppose. It’s just a painful process to get all of the paperwork prepared, signed and notarized. I guess maybe that I had hoped that she had set up all of the accounts the right way in the first place and that we wouldn’t need to redo all of the estate documents. Sigh…

We’re off to the Greek Festival in Redondo Beach.

TTFN

Joe

 

 

 

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Write Me a Letter

Posted July 10, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Aging, Family, History
Tags: ,

We spent Saturday doing another deep dive at the storage locker. We took a lot of glassware to the Goodwill. We threw a bunch of stuff into the dumpster. And we brought back a couple of boxes of pictures and memorabilia worth looking into. We continue to struggle with lack of dates and info on the back of pictures. We found a bunch of black and white pics from the 40’s and early 50’s. Paula didn’t recognize anyone and I’m sure that Mary won’t have a clue. Also, the pictures were too small to bother with scanning. So in the trash they go.

We did however find some treasures. We found a couple of pictures that I had taken during a vacation trip in Maine and PEI.

Cadillac Mt. Acadia Nat’l Park
Prince Edward Island

EPSON MFP image

The other interesting tidbit was a letter sent by Pvt. Paul Stanley (Harold’s Father) to his wife (Mimi). The letter was sent in November 1942 from Midland, TX where Paul was in the Army. We’re not quite sure exactly why Paul was in the army. He was a bit old for active duty (he was born in 1898). So here is the scan of the envelope. Two thing to note. No stamp. Postage was free for personal letters home. Addressed to Mrs. Paul Stanley, not Mrs. Mimi Stanley. Married women were always referenced as Mrs. [husband’s name] [husband’s last name.]

Apparently Valley Falls, KS was a small town. No other address info. I suspect that the letter reached the intended recipient without any trouble.

Apparently, Mimi (aka Mabel) joined Paul in Texas soon after the letter was sent because there was an ID card for Mabel at the Army Air Forces Bombardier School in Midland issued in Jan. 1943. So at this point, Harold was 24. Harold was born in August of 1919. Paula tells me by that time he was working at the Douglas Aircraft Co in Long Beach, CA. Interesting how people moved in those days to help with war effort.

EPSON MFP image
EPSON MFP image

So Mabel was 43. Her statue was listed as “Stout”. There’s a euphemism for you. That’s what you called someone who 5’2″ tall and weighed 156 lbs. The letter begins, “Dear Mother”. To which I replied, Huh? Apparently a term of endearment. I guess.

EPSON MFP image

EPSON MFP imageEPSON MFP image

By the way, Paul (or Paw-Paw) as Paula called him, died of a massive heart attack in the summer of 1954 while traveling up to Lassen National Park in Northern California.

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Beautiful – The Carole King Musical

Posted July 8, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Reviews
Tags: , ,

Last night was an extra special date night. We went to see “Beautiful – The Carole King Musical” at the Hollywood Pantages Theater. This is the touring version of the hit Broadway show. The show covers the story of Carole King’s beginnings in writing pop hits in the sixties and eventually her emergence as star performer in her own right.

We have done other shows but they were in downtown LA. The Pantages is a well restored Art Deco styled theater that is just so beautiful to look at. “Beautiful” is doing a three week engagement. It’s got to be a tough job doing a touring gig. I’m assuming everyone loves it.

The theater was sold out. It seems that most of the people attending were over the age of 60. There was a lot of gray hair. There some 40-50 somethings but not very many.

This was the first time that Paula and I managed to make it to Hollywood since we moved to LA four years ago. There is a reason that we don’t want to go to Hollywood. The traffic is just horrible.  I loved the Righteous Brothers baritone doing “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling”. It was fun to read the stars on the Hollywood Blvd. Some were performers that we had heard of, many we had never heard of.

Anyway, Paula had asked me if we could try to get tickets to the touring Hamilton that is in LA this summer. I looked at the prices. Yikes!! I’d need a second mortgage. Not that Beautiful was much cheaper. Anyways, I’m not much of a fan of rap music, and I am huge fan of Carole King.

At any rate, the show was awesome. I particularly loved the Shirelles and the Drifters. They nailed the dance routines. It felt like going back in time. The music and dancing was awesome. If you get the chance, go see it.

Carole King was played by Abby Mueller and Gerry Goffin by Liam Tobin.

Now for the links.

Oh, a note to my lodge and OES pals. You’re going to be hearing many of these tunes on the piano over the next few meetings.

One final comment. I was amused how easily the stage crew moved sets on and off of the stage. Pianos, desks, couches and other props seemed to just magically glide on or off stage. Even the concert grand glided off like it was on an ice skating rink. I asked one of the ushers how did they do that. She told me that “We have a union shop”. I told her that must be it then.

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