Monday, September 19th, Junie came to visit. She arrived in the evening and went straight to Papa's apartment. Claude and I drove into Georgetown to have dinner with them at Papa's favorite Mexican restaurant, Camino Real. After dinner, she had me ride with her and we took Papa home, then met Claude back in Sadieville. The car Junie rented for the trip was the type of car I'm thinking of replacing mine with if and when mine wears out. It was great to be in one and see how it handles. Loved it. Claude sat in it and tried it out and we are both satisfied that is the kind of car we will replace my current car with...way down the road. We had a nice visit and then headed to bed so Junie could be rested for the next three days of driving.
Tuesday, September 20th, was Claude and my turn to staff the Family History Center. We also had a Chamber of Commerce breakfast to attend prior to going to the Family History Center. We were out of the house by 8am. After our shift at the Family History Center we had lunch at Schlotzkys. Then back to Papa's apartment to gather Tiny and take her to Sadieville while Papa was out of town.
At Papa's apartment we took a turn through his garage. You see, it is a little hard to clean around Papa. He thinks he is ready to get rid of things but when he starts to go through them they suddenly seem like he needs to hang on to them for a little longer or they need to be given to someone who will use them. Reality is that Papa has not set foot in his garage for a year. He hasn't used the items on the storage shelves for many years. Some of them have not been opened since we moved him there in 2005. These things really don't need to stay and some of the electronics have been patched and repaired and are so out-of-date that only a museum would want them. Claude and I went through the shelves. He took the heavier boxes off the shelves for me to go through. We loaded up some obvious things to take to our home, some for disposal and some to recycle. We left the garage so my Wednesday could be spent cleaning out the remainder of the items in the garage.
Poor Tiny is really in bad shape. She curled up on my lap and shook all the way to Sadieville. Then Claude curled up on the sofa to watch television for the evening. Tiny curled up beside him and he was sure she was going to have a heart attack before the night was over. I spent my evening in the basement working. I did come up for watermelon with Claude during the evening. Claude put Tiny's pillow in the chair in our bedroom and lifted her onto it. She stayed there all night long.
I finished my scanning and headed to bed about 11:30pm. By the time I put my head on my pillow it was just before midnight. My tummy was not in good shape. I don't know how many times I was up during the night but it ended with me hurling in the wee small hours of the morning. This did not bode well for a day of cleaning Wednesday. No sleep and a very tender, empty tummy. I decided I would sleep in as late as my poor body wanted. I did just that.
I was up and ready to leave the house by 10:30am. I thought, given the circumstances, that was really good. Claude had meetings in town in the afternoon that finished at 3pm. He would come to the apartment after them and help me load any other items into our cars and haul trash to the curb for Papa's garbage collection on Thursday.
It felt great to clear out that garage. These things loom large over my head. I know that at some point we will have to move Papa from his apartment. I'm not sure what the circumstances will be that cause that to happen but it will happen. Then I will have to go in and empty that apartment. I want to leave it now so that Papa has the things he might enjoy using or that give him comfort to still have close, even if he isn't using them, around him still. But, everything else I truly feel should go so that emptying the apartment when the time comes is a little easier on me. May sound selfish but that is precisely how I feel. And I honestly don't think it is selfish.
Claude came and I was starving. I needed to sync Papa's Lifeline button to his machine. That is another story to blog about in it's own right. Claude went to Burger King to get his honey some lunch while I set up the Lifeline button. When he came back we ate and then set to work moving things out to the curb and loading the cars. The end result was a clean garage with only three boxes of tapes and records for Papa and I to go through as a winter project. I cleaned out under his bathroom counter finding medicines that expired in 1996. Yike!! I clean out the two file cabinets in his storage room and we hauled one away. I cleaned out the hall closet and tossed some old linens and things. It felt so good to get these things hauled off now rather than later.
Thursday, September 18th, Papa and Junie were to return. Junie alerted me to their schedule. Papa was tired and ready to relax at his apartment in his big chair. She would drop him off there and come to Sadieville. I took Tiny in and deposited her in the apartment, put clean linens on Papa's bed, broke up some of the styrofoam items left in the garage for the next garbage day and put them in the garbage can, did the grocery shopping for Papa and put that away. Then I was ready to return to Sadieville just before Junie got back. Papa came home to an apartment that he couldn't tell had been lightened of its belongings. That was a good thing.
Papa had a great trip. Junie posted this picture on Facebook of the two of them.
Thank you Junie for giving me the time to clear out some things that loom large over my head. It feels good to have part of that weight lifted.
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