A Day in The Life of a Retired Person with ADHD

 Why is that blasted phone ringing over and over and over?  I got up to see why it was ringing.  Realized it was himself needing some attention.  I also remembered that I had shut off the sound on my cell phone YESTERDAY at the doctor's office so he was calling on the landline! 

I stagger into his room, fix him up medically, and start to stagger back to my bedroom.  Himself hollered, I went back.  Now I'm cranky and out of sorts.

Bathroom next.  Brushed teeth but I always forget and flush the toilet before brushing my teeth.  I have a stream of water the size of a pencil lead at the sink, while the toilet fills back up.  Halfway through, I hear another holler.   I try yelling with a mouthful of toothpaste, and nearly choked myself.  Got cleaned up, and went BACK to himself.  Don't even remember what he wanted.

Now I get my clothes on because Sophie won't come back in the house, and himself can't get on the lawn without sinking in his wheelchair to China.  Dog in, no sinking accomplished.

I go to the kitchen, and realize that the couch cover is still draped all over the bar stools because my dryer bit the dust.  Take it, wad it up in a ball and put it on the end of the couch.  Notice lots of dirt on the floor.

In the rec room, I see that I need to put some stuff in the back bedroom - known as a giant closet.  So I clean off the top of the DOA dryer, and take it to the back bedroom.  Look at the bedroom, that by now, I can hardly get into.  I think about 2 seconds about rearranging and thought NO WAY.  

Realize I need to pack a couple items to send back to Amazon.  Go to rec room, find it online, fill out the paper work to get it ready to send.  The confirmation is sent to my phone.  Now if I can just remember where I put my phone.  No packing needed Amazon says, but since we break down all boxes to recycle, I don't have one big enough for the stuff I'm sending back.  Out to the garage.  Back in.  Tape up a box so at least himself can carry the stuff into the UPS store.  See the things I need to send to my granddaughters still  on the kitchen counter.  Back to the garage to get another box.  Make sure no spiders are in it.  Back inside, I put the items in the box and tape it really good.  Got a label out of my desk drawer, put it on, put my return address on and think about something I need to do in him self's bedroom.  Go in, see a bowl that belongs in the kitchen, decide to take it to the kitchen.  Start out the door, realize his bed needs straightening because it looks like a hurricane hit.  Straighten it out, realize the top of the dresser needs straightening, and I do that.  Pick up the bowl to go to the kitchen and decide I need to use the restroom.  Set down the bowl in the bathroom.

Finish there and start back to the kitchen, and realize the bathmat has slid to the floor.  Picked it up, put it back on the side of the tub, pick up the bowl and head for the kitchen.  

Realize I need to get the clothes out of the washer and hang them outside because said dryer is DOA.  Back to the kitchen to scrounge clothespins because we use them to close the chip bags.  Back to the rec room, get him self's jeans and journey outside.  It is COLD.  It is WINDY.  But I got them hung up.

Get a heavy shirt from the laundry basket and hang it in the hallway where I rigged up a temporary rope clothes line.  Get that hung up.

Start another load of  laundry.  Realize I haven't finished addressing the package to my granddaughters.  I get the address card out of my roll a deck, and then go to the kitchen and put on the right address.  Back to the rec room, put address card back in my roll a deck.  See the kitchen floor, - it is a mess.  I sweep it up, get the dirt in a dustpan, finally shove the bar stools back to the counter, put all the boxes together for himself to take to the post office or UPS.  

By this time, the next laundry is done.  I scrounge heavy hangers from 3 closets, and hang up the heavy shirts on them.  Take them outside and hang the hanger on the clothesline, and clip it with a clothespin.  Think that I need to call himself and tell him to get a new roll of rope and a package of clothespins in case this happens again.  Think about going and digging through our camping stuff and get another rope and clothes pins out of the van.  Nope - too much work.

Came inside, decide to hang the rest of the stuff outside after all.  Find clothespins, hang up the clothes and come inside.  Notice that my throw rug by the backdoor is full of dead grass.  Take it outside, shake it good.  Notice my rec room floor is full of dead grass and who knows what.  Try to find  the  broom - but its not where it should be.  Walk to the kitchen - find it there.

Sweep the rec room, and take the dirty clothes basket back to himself's bedroom.  Put the broom up, and decide to eat a snack and rest.  Nothing sounds good.  I eat some Easter Eggs like whoppers, drink some tea and try to figure out what to do next.  Oh yes, my bedroom.  Its a mess  Don't care one bit.  Just leave it. 

All this in less than 2 hours.  I need a vacation on a beach.  Nice warm sunshine.  Adult beverage in my hand.  Good snacks that I DON'T HAVE TO MAKE.  Wave sounds.  Birds singing.  

Not in the cards!  More work.  More dishes. More food to cook. GRRRRR 

I LEFT MY KIDS IN WAUKOMIS

 This is the sad tale of when my MOM badge got crushed, annihilated, ran over, and shredded.  Now before true confessions, I have to qualify this post.

Waukomis - a tiny little town about 7 miles from where we lived.  TINY.  As you turn into the town, they have a Quick Shop , and just across from it used to be a Jeep Repair shop and not much else.  Maybe 400 people live there.

So now that you can picture this town, I must add - our Jeep Wagoneer loved money!  It gulped it down in huge amounts by breaking something ALL THE TIME.  So my jeep was in the fix it place AGAIN in Waukomis.  My parents had come to visit us in Enid, and then were going to Midwest City (near OKC) to help my sister fix up her house to sell.  My Jeep was fixed (so they told me) so dad said they'd drop me off to pick up the money gulping jeep on their way to OKC.  My kids were 8 and 9 at the time.  They had money that was burning a hole in their pocket.  So they asked if they could go to the quick shop after we got dropped off in Waukomis.  I said yes, and good grief - it was like Christmas and Halloween all rolled into one.  All by themselves they would go across a tiny street to the Quick Shop to spend their money.

OK.  Now that we have established all that nonsense - here's the setting.  My dad had a Suburban that he had crammed full of stuff to help fix up my sister's house.  Literally - lumber, all his tools, saw, etc.  There was one tiny space in the second seat that I sat in, and the kids got in the very back of the Suburban in a little space that dad made for them.

So we go to Waukomis, the Jeep place, the exciting Quick Shop.  My kids bailed out of that car like their clothes were on fire.  They shot across the street to the Quick Shop to spend their money on junk food.  I hugged my parents goodbye, and sent them on the way.  

Now I'm sad because they are leaving, I am agitated that more money will be gulped down by this Jeep Wagoneer, and also sad that my sister was getting a divorce and selling her house.  I went in and said hi to Jim - who was the repairman - who we know - who was a BIG guy - who knew Charley - who was a big Teddy Bear.  Paid for THE JEEP again, and got in it to go home - thinking the entire time - this blank blank thing had better not break again.  So I pulled onto the highway, and started back home.  Remember - 7 miles back to Enid.  About 2 miles out of Waukomis, I suddenly had this horrifying feeling that I was forgetting something.  It hit me like a ton of bricks that my children were still back in Waukomis.

I literally screamed hysterically, drove full speed across the median to the other lane (I'm shocked I didn't hit anything) and still screaming, hysterical, shoved the gas pedal to the floor.  I hit 100 mph in seconds and I didn't slow down until I turned into Waukomis.  

Now I knew if I was hysterical, the kids would be too.  I straightened my butt up, wiped my face and turned into the repair shop.  Here came my kids running out, with Jim right behind them.  He grinned at me and I KNEW he knew!  But I polished my mom badge up, told the kids that I just took the Jeep for a test ride to be sure it was fixed.  Asked them what all they got at the store.  Jim said they came into the shop and I wasn't there.  He said, "Did your mom forget you?"  April was being brave for her brother but they were both scared.  So Jim just laughed and said, I'll call your dad at the police station.  Jim said he'd call the PD again and let Charley know I had the kids.  

I made it home.  I don't know how!  But I made it home with my precious cargo.  When we got there, my kids ran off to play, and I went into the bedroom, shut the door and proceeded to have a complete and total mom meltdown.  I cried so much, I threw up.  Charley came by, and calmed me down and nothing more was said until ..........  they were older.  I think High School.  They asked me about the time I had "left them in Waukomis" and what that was all about.  I confessed.  I told them the whole horrible story.  

The ending to this story is that for the rest of my life, I have been harassed unmercifully about leaving my kids in Waukomis.  There is not a single family gathering at which this horrific mom failure is not brought out and paraded around.  Over and over and over.  Much laughing ensues again and again and again!

My 16 year old granddaughter texted me the other day.  She is practicing driving alone to a little town 7 miles away after school.  She goes alone, stops at a convenience store and buys goodies for her siblings.  Her last line?????? " But I never left anyone at the store, Mimi!" Her dad put her up to that without a doubt.

So my mom badge was tarnished badly, but at least it gives my kids AND grandkids something to pop off to me when we meet - "well, at least we didn't leave our kids in Waukomis."

VW The Dog - not The Car

 The life and times of our dog - VW.  He was family!

In the mid 80's, EPD started the first K-9 Unit.  It started with a dog called Bandit, and my husband was the handler. My husband drove to Moore, OK twice a week to train with Bandit.   Unfortunately, way into the training, they found out that Bandit was gun shy!  Well, you can't exactly have a police dog who is afraid of guns.  So Bandit was given back to the kennel he came from, and VW came into our life.

This was way back in the day that lots of Police Departments had no clue how to set up and maintain a K9 unit.  EPD got Bandit for $200, which just rolled over to VW.  Today, K9 dogs cost around $10,000 and have hundreds of hours of "professional" training beyond that.  We had none of that.  We did the best we could with very limited resources, and most of that came out of our own pocket.

VW was a purebred German Shepherd.  He was beautiful and incredibly smart.  Because he was a K-9 dog, he lived with us, his family.  At first, VW lived in a fenced in cage outside - where dogs are supposed to be (so to speak)!  But VW didn't quite believe in that.  We got several calls early in the mornings that he had gotten out and was running down our street.  We were baffled!  Finally we came to the realization that he had figured out how to flip the latch up on the gate, thus letting himself out to be free!  We put a pin through that and VW was no longer an escape artist.

However, VW also was awake all day, barking at things, running around his cage, and doing dog things.  Then at night, when it was time for him to go to work with his human, he was tired!  So he slept in the patrol car.  

Of course, that was not acceptable.  A police officer sleeping on the job!  Shame!  The solution was to bring him in the house when they got off duty in the morning, and let him sleep in his human's room during the day while his human slept.  Then he was wide awake and ready to catch those nasty criminals when his job began at night.

Big tough police dog!  Right?  Well, that depends upon who you were.  If you were a criminal - yes.  He was a big, bad, snarling, snapping, biting terror.  But with his tiny humans, he was putty.  His favorite activity when he was off work, was to lay on the living room floor and act as a pillow for his tiny humans and their friends.  He was the perfect, patient pillow for them.  They loved him, he loved them.

Now some police dogs don't really think on their own.  They follow orders given by their owners.  VW was not like that.  When he was being trained in Moore, OK, his trainer would lay a path for him to track her.  She found out in two days that she could not lay the same track EVER.  He didn't even bother to scent her out, he just remembered the path and went right to her! Trust me, it wasn't an easy path.  Very heavily wooded, on many acres.  So she had to reset the path every single time she trained him.  He was amazing.

His owner/trainer/human/my hubby was on duty one night. Hubby left the opening between the back partition where VW rode and the front seat open.  He also left the driver's window down. Hubby's criminal decided he didn't want to be arrested and proceeded to fight him viciously.  VW heard the uproar, went through the small partition into the front seat, jumped out the window, and went to rescue his human.  The fight was over the instant VW clamped down the criminal's leg!

VW loved people.  As long as my hubby told VW a person was ok, VW was a teddy bear.  But if hubby said for him to watch - it was all over but picking up the pieces.  We had an insurance guy here one day, and he loved on VW the whole time he was there.  Just fell in love with him.  Charley told him that the minute he left the house, VW would be a different dog.  Of course, being of the male species, the insurance guy said that VW would not growl at him, or anything.  They were friends.  He'd spent the better part of an hour playing with VW.  So hubby just grinned and let the insurance guy out of the house. Once the screen door shut, hubby put VW on watch, and VW nearly tore the door down to get to the insurance guy.  I was laughing so hard, I had tears running down my cheeks.  Yep - it's who you are, and what his human told VW to do as to how he acted.

VW loved being outside.  We took him everywhere with us.  To Colorado camping, to Branson, to Keystone, etc.  At Keystone, we got him into the boat with difficulty, because he was a big dog, and he wasn't sure he wanted on that strange thing in the water.  But we finally got him on the boat!  We went to a tiny island, ran the boat to the shore of the island, and called VW off the boat.  He jumped off the boat, and we spent several hours there.  He played in the water, swam, chased the kids, swam some more, and collapsed on the sand when he was tired.  He remembered that trip, and was always ready to jump on the boat after that for a trip to the little island.

VW was very very protective of his family.  While camping in the mountains, we tied a long rope between two trees, and put a leash on the rope so it would slide back and forth.  Connected it to VW's collar.  That gave him freedom, he was close enough to protect us, and we didn't have to worry about cooping him up in the motorhome.  We were at the bonfire one night, heard VW go berserk barking, and a terrified voice yelling.  Ran over to VW.  A lady had decided to cut through our campsite to get to her space.  VW heard her, decided she was too close to his humans, and raised holy hell.  He didn't bite her, but he sure scared the beejeebers out of her!

After he retired, VW would sleep in the hallway between our room and the kids room.  He wanted to be able to protect both ends of the hallway.  The kids knew he was there, so if they got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, they just learned to take a giant step over him going and coming back.  Both kids say that even after all these years, they still take that giant step in the hallway if they are here visiting - like they used to do to step over VW.

They say dogs don't have strokes.  But our VW did.  Vet confirmed it.  He lost control of his bowels, and could barely walk.  Hubby was heartbroken.  We were all heartbroken.  We knew VW needed to go over the rainbow bridge, but hubby was not having it.  We finally had an intervention - pointing out to hubby that VW was suffering and it was cruel to keep him alive.  So hubby took him to the vet, who sent him gently over the rainbow bridge.  

What a dog.  What a companion.  What a wonderful friend he was to us for years.  Still miss our VW.