Finding things for dad to do

Posted on Friday 12 February 2010 at 10:52

My mission today was to find some more structure for dad to do:

1. So that he can remove his butt from the armchair to which it has suddenly become glued
2. So that he remains physically and mentally active
3. And finally, so that we have a break from the repetitive conversations, all of which we are pretending that we've never had before! 

On this latter point, we bought him here to look after his mental well being but hadn't quite factored the strain it would put on our own. 

So today saw a visit to a Senior Citizens Center that I had been made aware of by the wonderful expatriate coffee group that I'd emailed looking for help.  Every area has these expat wells of knowledge so I know I'm not alone in getting an advantage from such a great informal network.  Anyway, as is always the case with such groups, a friend, of a friend, of a contact, of a friend (you get my drift), knew of the Senior Citizens group as her father goes there regularly.  They kindly sent me the details of the center, along with their February schedule of events: 

As you can see, it is a non stop hive of activity!  Dancing, card playing, ceramics, dominoes, lunches – it’s FANTASTIC!  Dad and I chatted to Pat, the lovely Activities Director, and he met with a few of the attendees – joking with them all instantly and fitting right in.  He’s very excited and is going to go for his first day on Tuesday of next week.

I could have kissed the floor, as I was so relieved to have found such a wonderful resource for him.  I was already feeling guilty because I was still having to go to work and leave him, hubby was having to take over duties in the morning when I was at work, dad was going to get bored just sitting around, global warming was increasing due to the steam coming out of my ears…………….and the list of guilt continued.  So now I can part that guilt at the door of the Senior Citizens Center as he’s going to love it!  Hubby will be able to resume normal duties, dad will be out of the armchair and the steam coming out of my ears, whilst not likely to recede completely because that’s just life, will no doubt ease a little.

As dad’s first day there will be Tuesday of next week, I’ll blog at that point to let you know just how he gets on.  I have been joking with my girlfriends (all of whom I love so much for putting up with all of this and more) that I’m having visions of him meeting a bouffant haired Texan lady who is 90, but with the skin of a 40 year old thanks to Houston’s penchant for plastic surgery (!) whom he will fall in love with and run off to Florida.  Now wouldn’t that make a great blog!

Good luck

Posted by Dave+Jules on Saturday 13 February 2010 at 08:16 - Link

Great start to your blogging, personal and we feel your challenges (my father came over for 4 weeks and took over the arm chair) I admire your bravery to have a 80+day visit

Bravery.......more like momentary insanity!

Posted by ukintexas on Sunday 14 February 2010 at 12:32 - Link

Not sure how brave I am to do it as didn't really think about that at the time. Just went into the mode of what needed to be done. It's not until everyone kept telling me how brave I was that I started to panic :-).