Turned out to be a long day

4/11/06 Tuesday
Not doing too bad this morning. Tired from the slow down yesterday evening.
Let’s see, been busy already and it is 11:20 so here is what I remember doing so far. Other than the normal morning get up and get ready stuff I took Fred to the hospital for blood tests. It was rush hour at the hospital with cars lined up, parking spaces hard to find, and the Life Flight helicopter just flying in. We waited patiently in the line, inching up till I could drop Fred at the entrance. Then I went to the races. If a car was seen backing out of a space there was a mad jockeying for position to get there first. I watched a car creeping slowly along behind a couple who were walking to their car to claim their spot. Heck with all that. I’m physically healthy enough to walk a mile or two so I headed to the far side of the parking lot, dodging the cars coming the wrong way down the one way lane.

Finding a spot I parked and rushed to get back to the entrance, watching the helicopter land forty yards away as I braced against the gale force wind it stirred up. Fred was waiting patiently so I led him to the lab he needed to be at. Once there I answered all the questions the guy on the other side of a phone was asking to verify that Fred was Fred. “Fred, is your Social Security number xxx-xx-xxx? Is your birthday xx-xx-1917?” (It is) I relayed the questions asked. This irritated Fred but he can’t hear good enough or see his insurance card so it required my help. “That’s none of their business. They don’t need to know that” Fred complained. Fact is they had all this on their computer, just wanted to verify that some other 88 year old wasn’t trying to sneak in on Fred’s insurance. It’s a nasty world we live in. Identity theft is so prevalent hospitals and video rental agencies all have security measures in place. Hell, you can’t even just throw your garbage out without making sure documents are shredded.


Fred got his blood drawn and I got the car to pick him up. I took Fred home cause he was starving having had to fast for the blood test. I went and picked up the window I had repaired for Sharon. (No it wasn’t cause I am great guy, I broke it) I dropped it off at her place and came on home.

At 11:30 Fred had me take him to pick up Barb and get her phone fixed. He was in a grand mood and it was going to get much grander before this day would end. This phone was only four or five days old and the tale of getting it is worth going back to read. That one my wife wrote. We stopped at Page Plus and sure enough the phone didn’t work. They said it was under warranty so we had to take it down the street to Cricket. Fred is getting a little boisterous with his “I’m tired of being screwed” and had a hard time grasping the concept of having to take it back to Cricket for the warranty.

At Cricket it only got worse. The lady behind the counter didn’t seem to be real with it. She dialed the phone and what a surprise, it didn’t work. Then she started looking around for a screw driver and disappeared. Fred was getting tired so sat down. After a while I was getting tired and also sat down. We waited, Fred bitched, we waited, Fred and I both bitched, we waited more and I went up to the counter and asked if she was rebuilding the whole phone or what. The guy said they had to follow procedures so it would take a while. “I want a new phone. I paid for that one and I’m not paying for another one. This better be a new phone. I’m tired of getting screwed” Fred was saying in a loud voice.

Finally the lady came out and handed the phone to Barb saying “The wire to the ringer was loose so I put it back on”. “Is that a new phone?” Fred asked. Upon learning it had been repaired he started on a tirade about it being under warranty and he didn’t want to hear any “bullshit”. “Fred, it’s just like a car. If it’s under warranty they fix it” I tried to settle him down. Barb and I both hustled Fred out of there.

He was still grouching in the car. I had told him a day or two before that the car was running rough and probably needed a tune up. Just as we were going to pull out it died. Took a few attempts to get it started so I told Fred again it should be looked at. We dropped Barb off and went to Firestone. Fred had a coupon for new plugs at $39.00 at Firestone so we went in to see about it. They told him that his Caddy would cost $126.00 to change the spark plugs. When he exploded they pointed out the fine print of the ad where it explained the price was for four cylinder non electronic ignition vehicles and others would cost more. I don’t blame Fred for being upset. We took the car to the dealership he bought it from and learned it would cost $85.00 for them to look at it. I brought Fred home then and he was not feeling well at all, holding his chest.


5:39 – I never finished the above entry. I was pretty much exhausted so went to bed. Turned on the TV but don’t remember any of it. Probably snoozed. I am pretty slow right now. Running about a 3 on the Bob scale. The lawyer in Texas just called, getting me up. He was not able to read all of the will I had sent him so I just resent it. He said he would call me after reviewing it.

Cherie just got home. I am pretty slow. Hope I am doing better when the lawyer calls back.

This is Virginia with my now deceased grandmother
When the lawyer called I started out OK but it got hard to follow. Right now I am processing what he said. We will send him a retainer as soon as we can. He tells me that Virginia is the one who is running the show down there. She has what he termed “Broad powers”. Patrick says we should be allowed time to get financing to buy Larry’s half of the estate. That would probably require me to go to Texas and talk with some banks. I need to talk with Virginia.

I cleared up quickly. I basically have two types of slow downs. One is the partial seizure that can last for hours or on rare occasions a whole day. The other is very different. It is a result of stress and having to process allot of information quickly. That is what I had to deal with when I talked to the attorney. He was telling me things and asking questions and it was hard for me to keep up. By the time we got to the end of the conversation I was having a hard time. Cherie asked me what he told me and I was only able to give her a rudimentary outline. That is why I do much better with written communication. Gives me time to think things out. I am writing a long letter to the attorney to give him a clear understanding of where we stand on things.