Aunt S's passing
I wrote here about my aunt's eminent passing. So that you don't have to read that whole post, let me give a brief history up to Sunday. My aunt's health has declined a lot in the last 10 years and over the past year or so she's found it almost impossible to leave her house and even difficult to breath WITH oxygen on. One week before that post, Aunt S went to the emergency room with what turned out to be a heart attack. Because the hospital was full, she was in the ER for 30 hours. The next day, in her hospital room she was incredibly difficult to rouse and having so much breathing that they put a CPAP machine on to help her. They had planned a procedure to look into her heart and see just how bad the heart attack was, but with this worsening breathing condition it was eventually decided to not go forward. Instead they looked at palliative and eventually hospice care. A few days later she was transferred to the local hospice home and everybody from the in house doctor to the nurses visiting her regularly, gave her hours to live.
Her children came to her bedside with one eventually returning home. He had to come back just a couple days later as she was now much closer to passing. I saw her Saturday and thought she would pass at any moment as her breathing was inconsistent moment to moment. Fast and deep at one moment, slow and shallow the next. My visit on Sunday, just after posting that previous post, didn't change anything. She was going to die and it was going to be soon. I gave mom my phone number at work with word to let me know if anything happened. Previous to this situation, she simply had my cell phone to call, knowing that I would get any message possibly hours later. I didn't want to wait hours this time. I eventually went home early, sure that something happened but I learned that Aunt S was in the same condition. Work was barely tolerable on Tuesday and I repeated my early retreat... but this time it had happened. Twenty minutes before I got to my car, Aunt S had passed away.
I took the next couple days off from work but learned frustratingly that there would be no funeral. A gathering of 10 or more people was no longer recommended because of the Covid-19 crisis. I'd heard of weddings, funerals, and even church services being canceled, but it never hit me how that would feel until it happened to me. No funeral means no goodbye. I know she's passed. It's not like there's doubt there that needs to be convinced. But... I couldn't say goodbye. I couldn't gather with my family, my cousins, my brothers, my mom, my uncle, and say goodbye. I couldn't gather with my aunt's friends and co-workers and learn those enticing little pieces of her that I'd never seen or known. I couldn't go to her body, touch it, make it real in my mind and soul, and say goodbye.
Aunt S was cremated the following day.
I was with my cousin, her husband, and my mom as we went to the funeral home to set everything up. Even without a funeral and with Aunt S's cemetery plot already paid for, the costs for that day was still close to $2,500. Most of that was the cremation, but there was also an earn to buy, the extra cost to get one that would act as it's own cemetery vault, some cards for the memorial service, the placement of her obituary, copies of her official death certificate, and some mementos (Silver hearts that each had a little bit of her ashes placed in them. The next day the costs just continued as opening the cemetery pot, setting up a tent for the graveside memorial, and burying her urn was over $1,500.
My Aunt's church, or rather the pastor at her church, offered to hold the memorial at his place of worship. We will have a memorial in their worship area and then a lunch afterward downstairs. There's no cost for this at the pastor's insistence. Not even for his personal services.
I'm sure it will be a beautiful ceremony, but it will be in June. From now until then, I'm left in this hellish limbo of my Aunt passing away but not being able to say goodbye.
My Aunt's House
As said above, my aunt S passed away. She had her house paid off long ago and it naturally goes to her children. One, my cousin R, currently lives in Connecticut. The other, J lives in the upper peninsula. It's my understanding that my cousin R wants to keep the house and plans on getting a mortgage to pay off her brother's half. But their life, for now, is firmly in Connecticut. Her son is going to school to be a respiratory therapist and has classes and clinicals through at least the summer. Both her and her husband have jobs that don't simply transfer to my home town. So with all that in mind, that house might sit with no one in it until Autumn. Maybe until next year.
One thing I've always thought about was buying that house myself. My Aunt had that house built almost 50 years ago for her husband who was in a wheelchair. The entire house sits on one level. There are no stairs, so you can go from the driveway to the garage to the entryway with no barrier. The master bath has a barrier-less shower which means no baths but also means just walking under the shower head and turning it on for a shower. It has three bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms. It has a family room and a living room in addition to the combined huge kitchen and dining room area. There's a decent back yard with an uncovered but paved patio. There's a beautiful tree out front and it's in a good quiet neighborhood.
It's the perfect home for my mother. We are currently 4 adults living in the same home with one bathroom. I don't often talk about bathroom details, but more than one of us have issues with going to the bathroom including sudden needful urges. It's awful when two of those happen at the same time, let alone the normal tiresome waits for a shower while someone else is using it. There's room for two entertainment viewing areas, which means Mom could watch her TV in one room while I watch what I want in another. And importantly, whenever mom eventually passes away herself, it's a house that I'd like to live in long term. It's honestly a nice house.
I might bring it up, but it certainly isn't something I can talk about now. In the meantime, it might be a nice retreat soon... but more on that later.
My cousins understandably want to just keep the house as is until they make a final decision on it. That means leaving the appliances, furniture, and even my aunt's jewelry in it. So, naturally they're going to want to keep a security system up and running. My cousin J recently added what they're calling a google security system, but I'm fairly sure it's a simplisafe system. Regardless, it requires a working wifi connection to the internet. Otherwise, who cares that it has cameras and such. So they can't eliminate the internet. They also can't eliminate the electricity. If they keep the electricity, it makes sense to go ahead and keep the gas going in case we have some freezing nights. Oh, and they'll also keep the water service up because... reasons? And since they aren't making any changes to any of those, they're also keeping the cable on.
So that house is going to sit empty and completely ready to live in, including bedrooms, smart thermometer, and fully functioning bathroom and kitchen. It will have bed clothes, sheets, blankets, and a working washer and dryer.
Working as a nurse with Covid-19
Now, I'm going to put on some brave face and act like I'm the heroic nurses and medical professionals working in hospitals and clinics that are front and center in the care of people with possible and confirmed Covid-19. BUT, I am a nurse and every population is at risk for Covid-19.
It's kind of funny because most people's jobs have changed because of this viral pandemic. Many businesses have shut down and those that haven't are dealing directly with the threat to their employees and customers alike. For instance, my brother B works at a casino and my brother R works for the local housing commission. The casino has closed down and at least up until now are paying all their employees their full wages for not working. They're even including tip income as my brother is a table dealer and technically makes about $5 an hour plus tips. With tips though, he makes well over $20 an hour. The housing commission has changed to emergency maintenance only. If your heating stops or your appliances get busted, they'll come to fix it. But if a lightbulb goes out or there's a hole in the wall? Tough, you can wait. As such, they don't need the full maintenance staff on duty. My brother, who is the maintenance manager and normally works Monday through Friday, now only works a couple days a week.
But I don't work at a place like that. Work doesn't stop at the prison. Corrections officers still maintain a full working schedule. Healthcare still works a full schedule. Administration, maintenance, food service, and even some extra services like education, are all at full staff and working conditions. In fact, they're taking precautions to make sure people DO show up to work, taking a closer look at those who call in sick. And to help keep the inmate population safe, all visitations, beyond legal ones, have been canceled. More than that, everybody that comes into the facility, whether into the secured perimeter or not, has to submit to a health questionnaire and a temperature screening. If you have a fever, you're out. If you have had a connection to a person under investigation for Covid-19 or have had contact with someone diagnosed with Covid-19, you're out.
So oddly enough, my routine hasn't changed during this pandemic. Sure, I can't go out to a restaurant, go bowling, or go see a movie.. but didn't go out that much before. I CAN get food delivered like I do often. I DO go to work every day. I DO watch television and movies online. I DO play computer games and interact here online. My only routine that's changed at all is shopping. The hours have changed slightly and they're making a growing effort to keep people safe. Some retail places limit the number of people inside, so when I went with my brother to get his new phone (Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra), we were the only customers there and their hours had been cut dramatically. When I go shopping at the grocery store, many of the shelves are bare (seriously, why are people suddenly hording toilet paper? Why!?) and some selections are less than ideal. I went to pick up 4 eight-packs of Gatorade as I use three of them a day when I work (one for the drive to work and lunch, one for inside the perimeter, one for the drive home), I usually select from a dozen or more varieties. I like a few of the Gatorade Zero ones as they have just a few calories per bottle. I like a few of the G2 ones as they have like 80 calories per bottle. And so long as most are those less than full calorie versions, I'll pick up some of the regular flavors that I like. This morning? They had exactly 4 varieties to choose from. None of them were ones I normally drink.
I couldn't go to the deli counter to get some lunchmeat, but they did have recently sliced meats available in pre-packaged packs. My carrots and english cucumbers were fine. My trailmix was low in stock but still available. My cheese sticks were there.
But back to Covid-19 as a nurse. I love that as a society we are recognizing that this is serious and taking all these socially distancing precautions are worthwhile. But I wonder if people think this will save them from the virus. Because as a nurse... no. No, social distancing won't prevent you from getting the virus. It will only lengthen the timeframe where most people will get it. Intead of almost everybody getting sick in a very short timeframe, they'll get it over a period of weeks or even months. That's great as it stops the healthcare system from getting overwhelmed, but it still should leave everybody that has a loved one with a compromised immune system or respiratory issue fearful for what may come.
Have I mentioned that my Mom has severe COPD and more or less feels like she's already living with pneumonia right now? Well she does have it and she does feel like that.
You see, as a nurse if you show me a new virus that we have no, or almost no, natural immunity for, I'm scared. Tell me that the virus is far more infectious/contagious than influenza (which is already frighteningly contagious), and I'm even more scared. And finally, tell me that this virus can last up to 3 days on plastic and metal surfaces, tell me that it can last up to 1 day on cardboard, and I'll tell you that I'm fairly close to losing it. And the cherry on top? Tell me that you can be contagious with this virus before you have any symptoms and I'm done. I'm certain that most people will get this. It's unavoidable. Just think about it, even with all the social distancing... how often do you go somewhere that someone else has been. It's still there. You shop, you go to work, you get food. Those are all interactions.
Even if everything is sterilized so that you don't get it on your hands, let assume I have this virus. Let's say I got it a couple days ago and have it raging in my body, but am not yet showing any signs or symptoms (it can take 2 to 14 days for symptoms to show up while spreading it is possible from the very same day you get exposed. Now, I'm a smoker, so I naturally cough. It's not often and it's not excessive, but I cough every single day. Say I'm in the store getting my Gatorade and getting upset because they don't have any of the varieties I want, let alone any toilet paper, and I politely cough into my elbow. BUT, I missed part of it. Those droplets in my cough are now viral ridden, and can stay suspended in the air for up to 3 hours.
Now it's unlikely that YOU walk through them. That's a million to one lottery ticket right there. But you know who IS likely? The guy going around and sterilizing the shelves that everybody touches. He's contagious later that day. While the bleach mixture he's using on every store shelf and shopping cart is good enough to kill what he's breathing and coughing on, is he getting it when he coughs and spread those virus riddled particles onto the recently shelved toilet paper? It's plastic, so that can last there for up to three days. But it doesn't matter, because someone is going to buy that hot commodity right here and now. And they'll likely touch that area, and they'll likely touch their face and breath in the virus even though they're giving an honest attempt at not touching their face. Then they take it home and infect their family in short order. His wife also works at the same store so soon enough they're spreading it everywhere, while his elderly mother works part time at the bank. Sure, they shut down the lobby, but she can spread it to the container that goes to and from the cars in the drivethru. A couple days later, I recognize I have might have it and go to the doctor, but it's still at least a day before they get me a test (if one is even available) and get it read. When they see that I've been to work and infecting everybody there, they'll try to shut that done... but damn it, that's a prison and they can't shut it down. So it starts spreading like wildfire inside those walls. And the store? Well they haven't gotten aggressive enough to close down every place I've been in the past two weeks, or even test all those people that have been to those places.... but even if they could you're talking about possible contact with hundreds if not thousands of people.
So yeah... as a nurse, I believe everybody is going to get this. I pray PRAY that my mother either avoids it all together or gets a mild dose. But because of where I work and the number of people I have to interact with, if she gets it it will likely come from me.
I bet you see why I mentioned a use for my aunt's house now. I believe that if they announce that someone at the prison has tested positive for Covid-19, whether that's a fellow employee or an inmate, I'm going to have to move out and a good place to be would be that unused, but ready to live in house. I can only hope my cousins will allow it.
New Music
Without talking to much about each song, I wanted to share some of the new ones that caught my interest. I have to say, I can go months without finding a new song to love on but in the past couple months I've found 13 new (or at least new-to-me) songs! I won't list them all, but here are some of my recent faves:
Ariana Grande "no tears left to cry"
Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox "Lovefool"
I love Postmodern Jukebox's take on a lot of songs. They recently put out an album called "BACK When They Called ItMusic: The '90s, Vol 1" and I love the combination of old style and 90s. In addition to this sweet Lovefool remake, I snagged All Star, Tearin' Up My Heart, and Wannabe.
The Bangles "If She Knew What She Wants"
flying DOG "Galactic mermaid"
Trust me on this, this song is hillarious. Listen to it all and then put it on your phone and drive to it. It's great!
Lady Gaga "Stupid Love"
Lady Gaga (and Bradly Cooper) "Shallow"
Ava Max "Kings & Queens"
Norah Jones "I'm Alive"
I just love all these songs and really like that if I listen to all of them (plus a couple other new ones that I didn't list) the playlist goes for 47 minutes! That's an entire drive to work!
Getting all this new music into Nina
I give up. I just seriously give up.
I used to use an iPod to get music into the car, but iTunes got so bloated that it wasn't worth it. Even if it was, they had such stupid limitations and it's interaction with an iPod and the iPod's interaction with the car were just crap.
So when I moved my collection to Google Play Music, I had to find a new way to transfer music. I came upon my Sony Walkman and it was glorious for a short while. Sure, it was a pain as I had to maintain my Google Play Music playlists as that's how I got them to my phone, computer, and iPad, but it wouldn't work with a non cloud based device. So I had Google Play Music, then once or twice a month I'd bring the Walkman in, update all my playlists on the Sony software, going so far as to purchase the new individual songs just to get them onto the Walkman, sync it, then have to take it back out to the car and wait for it to index (taking between 1 and 20 minutes). That was fine on Isabella and honestly, it sounded spectacular. I wrote about the whole experience here.
But for some odd reason, it just didn't work well in Nina. I've played with the Walkman outside of Nina plenty of times and it works flawlessly on it's own or when hooked up to the computer. But half the time Nina won't even see that it's connected. Sometimes it will see just the Walkman and not the SD card inside it (the Walkman only has 16G of storage which only works for my most played playlist, so I have a 64Gb SD card for all of my music), other times it will see the SD card but not the Walkman.
At it's best, the Walkman was a pain in Nina. I'd start Nina up and it would start playing right where it left off (so long as it actually saw it). Then, 10 to 15 seconds late, it would "lose" it. It just disappeared as if it were disconnected. The car stereo would default back to the FM station I last listened to (most often an NPR station). Then 5 seconds later, it would find it again. But it wouldn't change back to it, I had to click back to the audio source, and click on the Walkman or SD card. Oh, and if I had connected my phone to get Android Auto, I would have to click to it's main menu, click exit, click audio, click audio source, and THEN click on the SD card. And once it was playing, I'd have to click back into Android Auto and then onto the map view I like to have.
GAAAAHHHH!!!!!
And it's not like it was getting better. In fact, for a solid week it wouldn't see the Walkman as usable at all. It would see the SD card just fine, but that didn't have the playlist I wanted, so while driving I would have to hit skip over and over and over and over. During that week, if I tried to select the Walkman, it would try and try and try to get it to work. But it never did. And it never stopped trying. Basically just TRYING the Walkman would lock up my car stereo until I turned the car off. And yeah, that happened at the beginning of my 50 minute commute on plenty of occasions.
My solution has been in front of my face ever since I got Fiona, and especially when I got Isabella. My phone. I now hook up my phone for almost any drive over 15 minutes so that I have Google Maps at the ready, even if it's just to watch the map scroll by. It's great to listen to podcasts and that's worked for the past few years... but music through that system is through Bluetooth and Bluetooth compresses audio just enough to hear. I know some will say that it's imperceptible, but I hear it. So I simply crossed it off the list of possibilities.
So why go back now? Why not go find another digital audio player (used to be called MP3 players)? Well, only Sony's have that software to manage them. The rest of them seem to want you to mange your playlists ON the system. I could just copy all my music over, but if I wanted to listen to just a playlist of my newest songs, I'd have to copy the songs over then sit with the device and curate the playlist there.
Fuck that noise.
I'll take a slight reduction in quality for ease of use at this point. I manage my music on the computer, but when I add a song to a playlist or add a new song entirely, it's available on all my devices in a few moments. My phone, my iPad, and now my car through my phone.
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