They all can't be "easy" runs.

4 on the trails. 

At noon, Mom and my brother moved Pop to a new memory care facility. I went in to visit at about 3. He thought he was a realtor again, I guess. He started describing the various features of the house (none of which is true). ... "This place was built by old man Hamilton.... on the other side, he has an oven built into the wall..... next to that is a half bathroom, not a full bathroom, but a half bathroom..." That cracked me up. We started asking him questions about the property. He was incredibly knowledgeable. 

trails. earlier than usual.

Then visited my dad in the afternoon. my mom was there, when I showed up. He was stubborn, confused, and uncoordinated. And our entire visit was sabotaged by the limitless questions required by "the process." It really coudn't have gone much worse.

Let me get this straight. We're paying you people 6 grand a month, and if he gets a scratch on his arm, you are not authorized to put a band-aid on it? Even if we supply the band aids? Are you familiar with how brittle old man's skin is? I've seen his elbow bleed after a strong breeze. So what's the proceedure then? He gets a cut. You call me up. I drive over here and put a band aid on him? Is there a preemptive band aid sleeve we can put on this guy? 

Then we got news at 9 pm that my son was accepted into Spirit of Atlanta. I think this will be great for him. Spirit of Atlanta

green hat: Facebook

Pop was much better today. He's still not there, but at least he was happy today. He even laughed a couple times. At one point he got up with his walker, moved to the middle of the room, and yelled out "I need everyone's attention!" These were the clearest words I have heard from this guy in over a month. Everything else has been mumbling. Then he made another announcement, along the lines of "Welcome to Detroit." He thought we were in a train station, and that he was in some position of authority. Pop and I have never been to Detroit. So why he chose that town is a mystery. Also, we have rode trains maybe 3 times in our lives. The whole time, he had this smile going, like this was the set up for this great joke he had in mind. And he was letting me into the joke. Almost like, watch, this is going to be hilarious. Or it could be that I was reading too much into what was happening. 

The point is - I'll take embarrassing, but happy pop over frustrated and angry pop every day if I can. It is amazing how similar handling a father with dementia is to babysitting a really drunk buddy. 

4.5 on the trails. 2.5 with the shirtless tire dragger. He texted me and asked me to go run with him. I'm really not used to talking when I run. He was getting beat up with horse flies. Dude, just wear a shirt. Then he was going in a direction that looked like it was going to be an ankle twisting route, so we split up. Summer is here. It is quite warm and humid. It hardly rains in May around here, so all the plants and grass look brown. Not my favorite season.

7.5 miles hood route to legacy trail and back. 

Yesterday, when I was running with the shirtless tire dragger, I dusted off an old Krong line - "I can run a lot of miles, because I run a lot of miles." I was talking about the runner I was 8-10 years ago. And I got to thinking about how I don't run as much as I used to. So I decided to go a bit longer today. We'll see if I can keep this up.