Back in LaLa Land, Mowing War

I'm back with my parents having arrived yesterday. The drive was beautiful, but, man, alive, I had to go out of my way to avoid the flooding in the area. I ended up driving to Jackson and taking 45E all the way up to Fulton before getting back to my normal route. Even then I encountered places where I wondered if the water was going to be on the road.

Additionally, I counted 26 trees down on I40 just before Jackson. I have no clue if the storms got them or if they simply toppled over because the wet ground couldn't hold them up anymore. There were a lot of trees down in Milan, Tennessee, too. Those looked like wind got them mostly.

We've had Round 1 of the Lawn Mower War today. I was talking to Max on the phone when Dad came in. Again, Dad plowed on into conversation regardless of the fact I was on the phone. Max just shut up and listened to this round. He sat rather quiet for a long time after Dad left. It is stunning to someone who isn't dealing with this on a daily basis to realize that the same thing is going on day after day and sometimes hour after hour.

The Seroquel seems to be having an effect on Dad's behavior, however. Yay! He's not getting quite as mad as before, and he seems to let go of the subject in a shorter amount of time. Thank you for any small miracle.

About an hour after Round 1, we had Round 2. He wanted the key again. The neighbor across the street was mowing his front lawn, at least part of it. Darn. I apologized profusely and told Dad he just didn't weigh enough anymore to keep it working, and he kept breaking it by running the battery down and hurting the blade.  He said, "I break it?"  I said, "Yes, sir. I'm sorry, but you do." He turned around and walked off.

He seemed to take these spats in stride. He was back in a good mood by supper time. For some reason, when he wanted to go to bed about 8:15 p.m., he had to take me out to the garage and the den. I still don't know why, but I had to walk him through his shutting things down. I still had to go back in later to turn off some lights and turn on different outside ones.

I finally took the curtain off the door between the den and the living room.  This has proven to be such a problem in keeping up with Joe, but Mom has resisted so much I've needed to change.  Today, I just told her I needed to take it down, and she said it was okay.  Go figure.