Tying up loose ends

Well just to let people know what is going on....and at this point I am not sure what I have and have not told anyone.

My uncle Don died this morning at 1:08am. He arrived from Seattle last Wednesday to my Grandfather's in California. He was home for a day and a half before they hospitalized him for possible liver failure. As of this weekend they were trying to stabilize his liver so that he might be able to undergo chemo, but there was still a possibility. As of Sunday, it became apparent that he would not become healthy enough for chemo---the timeline was weeks. As of Monday, everything began to shut down....after he spoke with a priest we sorta went to sleep...but at this time we still thought that he would last a few more days. At about midnight the nurse called my Grandfather and said that his breathing had becomed labored and that it would be hours. They got there, they held his hand, and then...his breathing....just....stopped.

Grandpa called my mom this morning. And as I was raving this morning about my partner for my testing project walking into work, my mom called me. We are stuck in an odd spot. This has happened so fast. Just last week we were annoyed with my Uncle for not coming to stay with us to get treatment. He knew then. And he kept it from us. He lived and died only on his terms.

Tomorrow my mom and I drive down to California. My Dad, my brother and my beloved Mr. 3 are unable to change their schedules to come down. I asked for a week off, but I hope to be back before then. The thought of seeing family again under such horrible circumstances is awful. But I think that being gone from Mr. 3 will probably rip my heart out.

I will try to post during this time. I have already looked up the free wireless locations down by where my Grandpa lives (he has dial-up and I am afraid that I have become spoiled---plus for the amount of research that I have left to do for my paper-dial-up would kill me). So now, dear readers, you know what's going on with me.

An Update

My uncle was hospitalized last week and we have learned that he is in the late stages of cancer of the esopagus and that it has spread to his liver and possibly the stomach and pancreas. Mr.3 and I offered to have him come and live with us: we are a five minute drive to the Huntsman Cancer Institute, we have room, we have the energy, and most importantly we have the time. But my uncle is a stubborn and selfish man. He only wants to go down and move in with my grandfather...who is 86 years old and struggling with cancer himself. Somehow my uncle believes that everything will be hunky dory and that all of the ancient aunts and uncle that live in California will be able to take care of a 55 year old man dying of cancer and undergoing chemo. The worst part is that my grandparents are going to let him. I understand why they are doing this, and I can understand them thinking that they will be physically and mentally able to handle this situation. But my mom, my aunt Kathy and Mr.3 think that they don't seem to realize how difficult it will really be.

I think that the most disappointing part of this whole situation is that my uncle, a grown man of the ripe age of 55, is still operating under the delusion that his parents can take care of him. There is a point where the parent is no longer able to take care of themselves and the younger generations must become the caretakers. We are worried that instead of one funeral, that it will be three. It is also insulting the way my uncle has been acting towards my mom, his only sister. He kepts referring to her as not part of the family...like there is only grandpa and him in this world.....this coming from the man who has ignored his family for years and lives like a hermit, only coming to the family when he needs something. Mr.3 and I are willing to give up a hell of alot for him----Mr.3 hasn't even met the man----and we are willing to give him the 24/7 care that he needs and he won't even consider our offer.

This is eating my mom alive and I hate to watch this happening....no one deserves to be treated like this by their family.

Target is not meant for people who actually hand wash their dishes.

Today Mr.3 and I ventured forth to Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond to use some of the wedding gift cards that we have been given. Unfortuately, as things have been tight financially, we had to use the Target cards for needed items instead of fun stuff...things like shampoo, deoderant...that kind of thing. Normally these are items that we would get from Kmart (I refuse to go to Walmart-one for family loyalty and two I find the store and a lot of the people I see shop there as scruzy). I came to the conclusion that Target really is a department store for those who have more money than they probably need. Everything is designed for impulse buys. Cookies, knickknacks, etc all marked down to a dollar something...you walk past it, go "hey what a good price!" and throw it into the cart....conveniently forgetting that the astringent you are buying costs the same at Target as twice as much does at Kmart. I don't impulse buy at Kmart, Mr.3 says that's because I grew up in the store, but after today I think that Kmart is really focused on selling people stuff that they need (that isn't really glamorous) at a decent price. We needed dishsoap...now when we go to Kmart they have a huge section of their aisle with different brands and different varieties for you to choose from, they have about the same size of display for dishwasher soap....Target on the other hand has three brands to choose from and no varieties (I currently have been using the Palmolive with Bleach--and there was none of that it sight.) They had a HUGE section of dishwasher soap---apparently regular Target shoppers don't handwash their dishes....but they have plenty of stuff to make it look like you do regular housework. For instance they have a huge selection of fancy-smancy mops that look really neat, but I doubt that they would hold up to the amount of cleaning that I have to regularly do....and trying to find sponges to clean something was near impossible....I guess that people now clean everything with some sort of a wand-stick thing instead. Don't get me wrong, Target is nice, and they do have some really good deals. We got an excellent tall floor lamp for $8, and we bought a coffee maker for the office this morning for $10...but they aren't high quality by any means...something that you can easily throw away. Today I fully understood why Target is getting the nickname: the rich man's Walmart.
At Bed, Bath and Beyond we got some more functional than fun items, but at least these were items that we didn't desperately need to survive....a couple of laundry hampers, shoe polisher stuff for Mr.3 and a shoerack for his shoes that are taking over the bedroom, and a coffee grinder for the bag of coffee beans we bought ages ago but never bothered to get ground.

Let's see...other than that...Mr.3 has been sick since Friday with something that I had the previous Wednesday...it seems to be hitting him harder than it hit me...and I can tell you, it's bad. So he is napping at the moment, and I am blogging instead of the homework that I badly need to focus on.

My latest Global Voices posting...

For this week's article I compared what the Kurdish bloggers and the Turkish bloggers were saying about the recent violence in the Southeast of Turkey. I am slightly paniked that people will hate me for what I need, but then again, I felt that it was needed comparsion. Please read the article (I warn you, it is long) and let me know if you think that I was balanced in my coverage. So far the feedback has been positive--at least from those at Global Voices.