Hi, friends!
I hope your weekend went well. I went to the final local farmers market of the year last week. There’s other farmers markets for a few weeks, but not the one 5 minutes away.
So anyways, now I’m sad about the eggs. I’m bougie with eggs. I love eating eggs. I happily spend $6/dozen for the local farm eggs because holy crap are they richer and better than the one at the grocery store. It’s fine, grocery store eggs are totally fine too. I’m just bougie about it.
Do you have anything really specific where you like what you like and there’s no bones about it? I also prefer the loose leaf tea I buy at a nearby shop, but will drink Lipton etc when necessary. Meanwhile I’ll happily buy generics of almost everything else.
I could certainly buy cheaper coffee, but like you said, I like what I like. Plus, I’m supporting some home-grown businesses with my purchases, even if they aren’t local to Boise.
Coffee is an interesting one to me. Full disclosure, all I drink is iced black coffee so details specific to other preparations, I don’t know shit about fuck. My peasant palate can definitely taste a huge difference between Starbucks and some local roasters (Kaldi’s, for example), but comparing like cheap gas station iced coffee from QuikTrip to Starbucks? I don’t get the Starbucks hype.
I have become a complete beer & wine snob in my old age. If I go someplace with a crappy beer menu or only cheap crappy wines I will go for hards. I have no standards when it comes to tequila & vodka.
Same about beer. Since I don’t drink much beer, I’d rather drink a really good (expensive) beer. A 180 from my cheap beer university student phase.
I don’t eat a lot of butter, but I really like the premium high fat stuff from the farmer’s market.
There is nothing that can compare to a small farm egg.
I’m very specific about a wide range of things. Whether it’s audio or kitchen knives or camera lenses or any number of ingredients for certain dishes, I know what I like and what I don’t.
Do you prefer Southeast Asian cilantro or Central American?
I prefer raw sewage to cilantro, even though they both taste pretty much the same.
Parents update.
Mom ended up at the hospital yesterday for the 5th time this damn month. Her dementia is so bad now that I can see her mood swings going from sobbing to normal to spiteful to angry/vicious change almost hourly. The doc prescribed her mood stabilizers but she doesn’t take them regularly which means they’re not going to help (even so there is a chance they might not.)
My poor dad can’t deal with her (even though he claims he can.) From what I can tell he keeps her in the house till he falls asleep then she runs out to play in traffic to go to the bank.
Even worse she deliberately hit her head on something so it looks like dad smacked her around with all the bruises on her upper head. This happened on Thursday when the case worker showed up (oh yeah!)
The only reason I know dad didn’t is that his hands are free of any bruises or cuts. Even the cops and nurses examined his and my hands at the hospital.
I can’t stay with them 24/7 unless I go on leave from work (getting paid 55% of my base salary via Employment Insurance) but I can’t get leave from work till I get sufficient paperwork which I don’t have at the moment.
Well, the geriatric nurse found a hospice that will take both in till we can find a seniors home. It ain’t cheap, but I have power of attorney and I wasn’t going to waste this chance to keep them safe and give them the necessary care.
Today I dropped of some clothes and toiletries while my mom both cried and screamed at me. Then said I’m not her son anymore. I just shrugged as my mom yelled at me more.
The careworker was wondering why I put verbally abusive as an issue for mom because she was so nice and polite when she arrived. Today she didn’t wonder.
Now I have to take care of their house and clean it up (it’s bad.)
I am exhausted.
I’m so sorry you have to deal with all that. She really needs to be in a 24-7 memory care facility. I don’t know how that works in Canada but assume it is better than the US? Best of luck navigating whatever services are available & just know that is not really your mom saying those things.
Hell, I don’t know how it works here but it’s not good.
The Long Term Care Facilities (senior homes) have 18 to 24 month waiting lists and we just started the paperwork.
Respite/hospice care is better than putting them in hospitals because their geriatric beds are full and for emergencies only but it is damn expensive. My parents finances are good so we can afford it for now.
As for mom’s vicious verbal attacks at dad and I. We both know that’s really not her anymore but sometimes it stings a little. I just shrug off her verbal jabs and it pisses her off more. However, as my sisters can attest, she can be really good at getting under one’s skin.
Jesus Christ that’s too much for a person to deal with. I know that statement doesn’t help as clearly you’ve been having to deal with it.
It’s hard. It’s really hard. I have a friend whose mom was almost kicked out of her facility for being a risk to other people. The best that’s possible in that situation is keeping your head up and doing what you can. People can tell you’re trying.
Thanks everyone.
This week when I spoke with the family doc, he mentioned that older people go one of two ways, quiet or crazy. I replied “well I got both.” He snorted a little.
For a while I was semi seriously thinking I could chain mom up in the backyard, but we never even did that to our dogs and my sisters objected. I suspect the cops and social workers and the neighbors would have objected too.
Also got a taste of life for folks with mental issues while waiting for the doc and geriatric nurse. Worse for those who take hard drugs that fuck up the brain. I saw someone get put in a locked room and the dude was screaming his head off.
That’s so awful and hard for you and your family. I’m sorry that you don’t have much support from the government and that the care facilities have such a long wait-list. What an impossible situation to navigate. On top of the responsibility of it, there’s the emotional side of losing most of your mom to dementia and only getting the worst of her. My mom is vicious too (when she lashes out). I feel for you.
To be fair to the government support services, they are trying but my mom’s mental health is going down faster than they can help. She was so so in April/May, but after that she’s fallen off a cliff. After the 2nd incident with the cops in mid Sept, I started calling folks but these guys are so overwhelmed with cases that it takes time. My mom’s mental collapse went from to bad to horrible in roughly 6 weeks.
I’m still maintaining some sanity (not control) in mom’s situation only because I acted on advice from friends who had been in similar situation (my mom is in a real bad place, but at least she didn’t try to kill my dad – my friend’s dad tried to kill his mom for an imaginary affair.)
I’m mourning my mom’s mental death and coming to acceptance slowly. I keep my sisters informed so they know what the hell is happening.
Manchu, I have no advice, because your situation is infinitely worse, and you’re dealing with a whole different set of rules & systems up there. But you have ALL my empathy, and remember to take care of *you* and tap out those duties to someone else, to get an hour or two for *you* to breathe, too!💖💞💓💗💝
Dude, I am sorry for all that you are going through. We’re all thinking of you.
The only yogurt I will eat yogurt is at least 5% fat and the only chocolate I eat is at least 86% cocoa.
I have some of both every single day.
My biggest boogie things are probably Cheese and Apples.
I can’t *stand* “sticky” cheeses which *ought* to be dry-ish, and refuse to eat them… I have friends who like the Yancey’s Fancy cheeses brand–but to *me*, that whole brand is TRASH!
The flavors are great!!!
But the *texture* is like a slightly-drier/denser Velveeta–for all the flavors I’ve ever tried… gross, excessively “bouncy,” yet *sticky,* and practically paste-like!
It’s just NASTY, as someone who grew up with good Colbys (Longhorn Colby, in particular!), and Cheddar.
And on the Apples–after learning the hard way, I refuse to buy U of MN-bred apples, which are grown in Washington state or similar places.
All the Northern/Cold-Climate Honeycrisps I’ve had were good. Even the Chilean ones–which i presume must’ve been grown in the colder/more southern areas of Chilean.
But the Washington ones? Mealy, Mushy, and GROSS!!! Folks at the U’s Apple breeding program have talked about the various mistakes made, when they released Honeycrisp–that they didn’t make *sure* the first batches of trees went to places that were cold, that they didn’t license production to maintain high quality, etc…
It SUCKS, that the new varieties they breed today are only at a *few*, licensed orchards for the first few years, ngl!!!
But the *QUALITY* that ensures with the new varieties–Sweet Tango, Rave, First Kiss, etc., are sooooo much BETTER, because they ensure that *Only Orchards in the right climate* get access to the apples in the first decade or so–so that the quality standard for the fruit is set & *upheld*, and so that people KNOW what a good one should be like.