I Think

Yesterday we put a taller toilet in one of the elderly resident's apartment. The originals are very low. I recently gave him a grab bar, but it was not enough. When he comes home from the hospital today, he will likely be surprised that it was done this quickly. I was happy to help out, but it started me to thinking. Of course, we need to help the elderly to help themselves like that, but where is the line between helping too much and helping not at all? The fact is, the less effort an old person puts into physical activity, the more likely is atrophy to set in. On the other hand, we cannot, in general, decide for them because we can only guess at what each one goes through. All I know how to do is take each person on an individual basis and hope things turn out right.

Every morning my first few posts on here either disappear or else don't show up for me until later in the day. Is it just me or does anybody else have the same problem - If I try to repost, the hampster tells me I have already posted it.
Edit: By posting a follow up post I sometimes can see my last entry, as I do now, but not always.

That is the bump that you read about often.

When your last post does not show up...just post a post with the word "bump"...and the new page will show up.

In this case I'd ask. You yourself must have fantastically strong legs (all those refrigerators taken up staircases), but you already know that very often the elderly have weak legs, sometimes very weak. Falls are bad.

I think that imaginative, creative types would look for alternatives for "bump". Smack, thump, wham, fist, nudge, shove etc. Reboot.

That's what everyone is talking about re Bump. It's a glitch in the system, and apparently not easily fixed - though some of the bump problems have been stopped. You don't see the earlier post until you or someone else posts another one, to "get the page to turn".

You must be psychic, osso. I have to take a refrigerator up some stairs on Monday.

Oops, just noticed Frank and Spendi's comments.

That's true osso. I was playing football into my thirties. I did the 26 mile three-peaks run. And now I can't get from the sofa to the porcelain without eeking and oohing and ahing and ohhing.

I don't know how ed manages it.

The trick is to keep moving and keep the stress to the muscles constant. Also diet.

You are correct, Spendius...that is what an imaginative, creative type would do. When you are correct...you are correct.

@Farmerman...use something other than "bump" to move the page forward when the need arises. Use "schborgalschnizen." That is particularly imaginative and creative...and has the advantages of being able to be spelled so many different ways.

Sometimes I use "fish" as in "go fish"...but I spell it ghoti.

"schborgalschnizen" is not in the least imaginative. What I had in mind was words which are suitable to describe the action we used to do when the old radios went on the blink.

"schborgalschnizen" would, of course, turn the page satisfactorily just as, say, joisey would, but it would demonstrate what Another Brick In The Wall was getting at.

I beg to disagree with you, Spendius. The word "schborgalschinizen" (sometimes spelled with a "w" and a silent "j") is a coined word (I know this because I coined it)...and it means a word suitable for use in changing a page in an Internet forum without using the word "bump.")

It derives from the ancient Psythian words for "turn" and "elephant excrement."

Well at least you get in your walk to and from the pub, plus hitching the old bod up onto the stool. Or booth sliding.

I keep imagining some sort of "walking cage" for the ones who have taken to falling down. But I am not imaginative enough to figure a practical way to make it. Walkers are helpful but I have seen the elderly fall while using one. One woman who refused any kind of help used to struggle along for short distances and then rest a while before venturing further. There were times I followed her, because I did not think she could make it. I had to pretend that our meetings were coincidental so that she would not get angry. When finally she relented and accepted a walker it was too late. She pitched off the sidewalk, walker and all, and had to get rescued. The very next day, her family hustled her off to a nursing home. Another woman's solution was to spend her whole days in a Hoveround. She chewed up the cabinets and doors with it and left a wide trail of grease in the carpet, which she then demanded we shampoo two or three times a week. Then she would complain that we didn't move all her furniture and get the entire floor. One who was a personal friend spent the bulk of her days practicing walking across the room without assistance. Something similar to a baby's walker comes to mind, but I don't see a way to make such a contraption workable.

We can send a robot to Saturn and take a picture of a specific area of one of its moons...and we still allow our infirm people to essentially use a cane, a device once used by cave dwellers, to get about!

We ought to be ashamed of ourselves for allowing marginally mobile people to fester...rather than make devices they can use to further their mobility.

They keep messing with my television. March Madness basketball bumped the Mentalist beyond the time I can keep watching. But the commercials never cease.

I almost have the last corner of my house buttoned up. Then follows lots of caulking and a total paint job. After that I hope to get the interior improved.

I hope to make up a compilation list of the books, songs and movies that not just compliment my life, but are a part of who I am. It would mean nothing to anybody but me, but it would be nice to have it all laid out and easily accessible. Sort of like a collector who displays his Beatles memorabilia or his Picasso collection, except it's an index of the self.

It's on the cold side this week. Punky the dog likes to sleep in my easy chair when it gets like this.

On my home repair: The skirting is back up 100%, as of yesterday. The siding is a concrete of some sort. Hardiplank. I think the squirrels would play hell trying to move back in now.

I'm a bit tired this week. Did more strenuous stuff than I am used to. For too nately I don't have to work on Friday. I took down the big antenna, because it did not help me get better pictures than the little square thing. Put it by the curb. In fifteen minutes it was taken away by an interested party. The house looks less cluttered now. I have a few preparations to make but the house is practically ready to get painted.

I have the DVD of Lincoln. I watched a few minutes of it before bedtime. They got his voice about right, from what I have read. I want to view the whole thing when I'm alone, because I can't understand the dialog without making it very loud.

Somebody told me a person we both know very well has been showing up in judge TV shows. First in Judge Alex, which airs from Florida, but now Judge Judy, which airs from California. I researched enough to know that these audiences are for the most paid regulars. I looked in a few times, but missed the episodes supposedly with my friend.

I went to the rock yard yesterday and bought two bags of 2x4 rocks to put in my back yard for a little bit of touch up work. I try to keep up with these garden projects to get my exercise. Will have our roof replaced when I return from vacation to Portugal and Spain (leaving tomorrow) on a wine cruise, and will be back on April 10. Will keep contact with a2k with my tablet when I'm abroad.

Till later.