Lights

Only a few weeks ago I received my new Limited Edition Fire Orange Alien Bees B800 strobes. Looking to put them to good use very soon. Now if only I can find a willing victim model...

Changing the Sun With A Piece of Nylon

For portraits taken outdoors a very handy tool is a large, translucent panel often called a silk. My friend John often uses a silk in film and video work to soften harsh, direct sunlight and make soft, more pleasing lighting on the subject. A silk is basically a big sheet of nylon stretched onto a frame of some kind. Photo/film/video gear is usually expens(overpriced)ive but I recently learned on the Internet that one can be home-made for a fraction of the price. My first task was to locate the appropriate fabric, rip-stop nylon. DONE! Next I need to build a frame, probably from PVC tubes and figure out how I want to attach the fabric. Since I can't wait, because I have little to zero patience, I did some test shots by just hanging my nylon sheet to one of the beams over my back patio so that one side was hit by full sun.


Using my self as the reluctant "model", here are 3 examples: a. Direct sun. Notice how uncomfortable the subject is. b. Sun is shining through the silk. Hard to believe it's the same person! c. The silk can also be used to bounce (reflect) the sun back onto the subject so shadows aren't so harsh or, as in this example, to fill in some nice light when the subject is backlit. Gah...I need to get someone else to pose for my experiments! But this hopefully gets the idea across.

photography

I don't know, ever since getting my nikon d90 in October I've taken probably close to 5- or six-thousand photos. Not that they're all keepers and surely leaving the camera in continuous shot mode results in a lot of accidental duplicate images (is this one better or this other one?). Still, I'm shooting something almost every day. And it's not like I have such a wide variety of subjects, either. I rarely go anywhere so I've just about shot everything around the house that could make at least an ok picture. Doesn't keep me from looking though, or coming up with some new silly thing to try. It does present a particular creative challenge to try to see boring household items in interesting ways. I took pictures of the Weber for kry's sake.

My latest deal is flash photography. I never owned a flash back in the days of film, and cameras then didn't have built in, pop-up flashes. So I've been playing around with an SB-600 speedlight, bouncing it off walls, white cardboard, or through stuff trying to get a soft, diffuse quality of light that doesn't look like a flash. It's been kinda fun, and kinda dumb. The SB-600 is great in that it doesn't have to be fastened to the camera's hotshoe to work. It can be triggered remotely by my camera's built in flash and any camera tripod can be used as a light stand. I've realized this flash I have will suffice for a lot of the things I want to do, but I don't want to buy a lot of add-on equipment that's available to make it do all of the things that bigger studio strobes do better. My goal is to have proper lights to take portraits of friends and family so I think my next move is get a hold of some gear that is really designed for that.

Lost Toys

About a year ago I cleaned off my desk and temporarily threw a bunch of stuff into a plastic bag, including some of my favorite desk toys. Somewhere along the way I misplaced the bag, thinking I'd accidentally thrown it and its contents away. My WACOM pen was also missing and I thought it was gone with the toys (but it later turned up somewhere else entirely).

This morning while collecting unused items to be donated I stumbled upon the bag with the long lost toys! Yay! Here's a pic.

Scatter

My desk is strewn with random notes on stickies and empty envelopes that were headed for the recycle bin. That isn't to say my desk isn't normally a disaster area...it's totally normal for there to be piles of stuff scattered about, just waiting for me to spill my drink on them (which lately has been the only thing to force me to clean up). It's just that I DID just clean off my desk last week, anticipating a visitor who was a no show. People are always flaking but that's a different story. There are a lot of details to handle when one's dad passes on. Especially if you're the person responsible for Everything (with a cap E).

My mom will receive a change in her Social Security from what I was told. Technically it is an increase. Practically she won't see ANY of it. Once again, Medi-Cal laws ruin everything. They only allow an old lady to keep $35 a month for personal expenses. The mistaken theory is that if a person is living in a care home, almost all of their personal needs are met. But the care home doesn't buy her clothes, cut or fix her hair, trim or manicure her nails, supply lotion, candy, sodas, or pay for her to have a root-beer float or some kind of entertainment once in a while. Not only that, the food there is not very good...some residents don't even eat it and their family bring their meals. A couple of weeks ago when my niece was visiting at dinnertime, the food was so salty it was inedible. By the way, my mom is supposed to be on a low-salt diet.

So of course, $35--which is a figure that might have worked back in the 1960s, and certainly the last time it was reviewed for acceptability--doesn't cover it all. And I didn't even list non-covered medical expenses like transportation to her doctor or over the counter items. Lawmakers in this country really aren't concerned enough with my mom's well-being.

Century

My dad passed away peacefully just past 7 a.m. Tuesday, June 3. Plans will be made soon for a memorial service. He would have been 100 years old--a full century--on August 31st. I'm willing to give him the next two months, so I'll just round it up. My mom has taken his passing okay considering they were married for 73 (!!) years. As for myself I'm doing the best I can to look for the silver lining...although some of my parade has been rained on because losing my dad means I'm also out of work a double hit. And this might seem redundant to say: After working to exhaustion with barely any time off in the past 5 years don't expect me to be looking for a job any time soon!*

In an unusual coincidence, my landlord's mother died the same morning as my dad. Weird.

It may be a while before I'm comfortable with an empty house.

*For unemployment insurance purposes I can neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of this statement.

The Day Everything Changed

Friday was a big day. I don't mean big in a good way, but also not in a totally bad way. I'm trying to mind the positive aspects of what just happened, on the fringe of a trajedy that isn't yet over. I read The Power Of NOW months ago and I think it's helpful that I've been practicing living in the moment and worrying less about the past and future. Yeah, that is a helpful way of thinking for this.

My dad went to ER Friday and is going to be in the hospital for a while. In fact, he will not return home.

Suddenly I must adapt to this change, one that I knew would come eventually and that I have been bracing for, preparing best I can (as if I even know what that means), knowing there wasn't "enough" time to really be "ready".

At home it is just me and the dog. That is strange, scary in fact. You'd feel the same way if you'd never lived alone in four decades. Both my parents' bedrooms are now empty. I'm okay right now except that earlier, for no reason, the dog barked at "something" in my dad's room. He almost never barks. I know people say their dogs don't bark when they actually do bark often, especially people who are trying to rent an apartment. But I'm serious, my dog hasn't barked in the past 3 months until today. I checked and there was no one out in front of the house, no one at the door. Weird. Scary. Creepifying.

I'm gonna just take things slow for a while.

Cost of Living Adjustment BS

Every year the U.S. Treasury "gives" people like my dad a token adjustment to their Social Security checks. It's called a Cost Of Living Adjustment and, since our government was founded on the basis of acronyms, it's sometimes referred to as a COLA, as in Coca- (R). You might think the adjustment is given to stave off inflation but you'd be incorrect. Since the amount of the COLA falls well short of the rate of inflation and the actual cost of living for most people in this country, one can only conclude that the COLA's true purpose is "to make it appear as though the U.S. government cares about the people who receive these increases."

My dad's income is low enough he must rely on help through Medicare and Medi-Cal to meet his ever-increasing medical expenses. The Medi-Cal program has varying levels of eligibility for different income levels, but the laws that calculate these levels have not been fully updated in more than a decade. That puts my dad's modest Social Security income at a level where a very high share of cost (SOC) is required out of pocket before Medi-Cal pitches in to help. It's the state's way of saying, "We'll help you afford that (medical expense you can't afford) as long as you pay most of it yourself FIRST. Oh, sorry if you can't afford to do that." The dirty secret is that this arrangement ends up saving Medi-Cal lots of money, because if a person can't pay the SOC Medi-Cal doesn't pay any part of it either. But it also means people end up not getting medical attention or care they need. My dad is in this situation on a monthly basis. If his income was only slightly lower he would have no share of cost and Medi-Cal would cover every last cent. Under current Medi-Cal rules, every dollar over a certain limit raises his share of cost.

Which brings us back to the COLA. Every time the government gives my dad a small raise to cover the cost of living every last cent of it has to be applied to his share of cost, essentially making the adjustment worthless, as if the adjustment never happened. You might think this sounds completely insane, or that somehow I have it all wrong, there must be some mistake; how can it possibly be this way? Sadly it's true, and one of the many reasons existing laws are inadequate and need to be changed.

What do YOU think it is?

To paraphrase Brian Williams' intro on the Nightly News a couple of weeks ago, it's enough to make you wonder just what is going on in this world of ours. He was referring to all of the crazy disaster-type events occurring around the globe lately. With the disaster in Myanmar, viscous tornadoes in the US Midwest, fires, the earthquake in China plus aftershocks, volcanoes, economic problems in the US, including high cost of energy and transportation...and more, it seems there are more than the "normal" amount of these kinds of things happening. Is it just me or does it appear the world itself my be in the process of a massive disruption?

What do you think is going on? And what if anything are you doing about it?

Xray

After going accident free for quite a while my dad fell a couple of times recently, both a few days apart. In the two months before the first fall he'd been mentioning random back pain that he'd never had before. I was paying close attention to the pain to determine if anything needed to be done, and he would usually tell me he had no pain and that it comes and goes. After the falls the pain seemed to worsen so I took him to see a doctor. Xrays revealed mild compression (fracture) in his L4 (vertebra). Definitely painful. Interestingly, the doctor he saw, an associate of my dad's primary MD, did not prescribe any new meds.

Flash forward (Hoffs/Drawlar for LOST fans) 3 days. My dad was sliding off the bed and he was in serious pain when I tried to move him so I called an ambulance and took him to ER. Once the paramedics got him on the gurney, probably taking certain pressure off his back, my dad seemed to feel better. Since he'd just had an xray, the ER doc just sent us home with an Rx for Vicodin. He didn't even examine my dad. Interesting. Maybe because he seemed to be ok right then.

At 99 it is amazing my dad is as well as he has been. Up to this point he has had very little pain and no major disabilities. He'll be 100 in August. The new back trouble changes things somewhat, and gives me some things to think about. Though he's able to walk for the moment and his pain is under control, at any time his status could change. It would not take much now for him to lose his ability to walk, and if that happens he will be beyond my ability to care for him by myself, much like what happened with my mom. I realize now that I have to accelerate my efforts even more to prepare for this change. I need a good plan, maybe even plans B and C, for what to do for my dad and myself when the time comes. I've been working already toward this, because there's no way to predict when anything will happen, you can only prepare as well as possible, but with the new injury there seems to be more urgency. It's scary, it's scary doing this all alone...how do I know what will work? But I think things will go smoothly...at least I'll be more prepared than if I was just ignorant of the whole situation. I'm not sure exactly everything that I need to do, but I have ideas. I know it's a ducks and row kind of thing.

What Happens When You Use A DVR

It's been at least 4 years since my VCR died. I hesitated to buy another VCR, refusing to invest in an outdated technology. I don't watch a huge amount of tv, but there are shows I like. During this time I either had to miss shows or watch what my friends recorded. Gah. What I needed was a Digital Video Recorder, but simple, inexpensive DVRs were not available. I still don't know why. Eventually TiVo became popular, but when my cable provider finally offered TiVo, it was only the bare-bones older model and I didn't want to lease it for the price they wanted. Finally a couple of weeks ago my provider started offering a DVR for a decent price.

I picked one up, and it turns out to be FREE for a couple of months while the cable company sorts out some issues. I've been trying it out and it makes life easier not to have to work around tv schedules. (I usually would miss shows rather than not get important or fun things done, btw, now I can do both. Yay! I think. This is new.) There are other benefits, too. As I was flying through some comercials somehow...I DON'T KNOW HOW...I happened to catch a glimpse of a familiar face, fast forwarding at 300x: MY DOG IN A TV COMMERCIAL!

Ok, it was NOT actually my dog...but it looks just like him! See the Spanish version of the commercial here.

Some People Don't Get It

I was stopped by my neighboor the other day when I went to the mailbox. She told me that while she was at work the night before she'd receieved like a half-dozen voicemail messages from her 20-something daughter who had been home alone. The girl said my 99 year-old dad had come to their house and she didn't know what to do because I wasn't home and she didn't know how to reach me. I was at improv class. This neighbor has my cell number but I guess the girl doesn't know that. My dad had somehow navigated in the dark across their rock garden, around a low brick wall, and up 5 concrete steps to ring their doorbell. She was extremely worried because my dad didn't recognize her daughter, a person he has not seen face to face in probably more than a year.

My dad has mild Alzheimer's. Most of the time he's fine but has memory problems. He sleeps a lot. He's supposed to use a walker, but often forgets and leaves it behind. The fact that he can do this at his age is a blessing, albeit a scary one sometimes. Last year he liked to take walks in the neighborhood without telling me (I can't know what he's doing every minute) and would get lost and I'd have to find him. This past summer he was only inclined to wander out of the house a few random times. By the way, it is against the law for a caregiver to restrain a person against their will without specific diagnosis and orders from a physician. He also appeared to have gotten over a phase of falling: He has not fallen in more than 6 months, a strange improvement, but one to be thankful for.

Since my dad hadn't been wandering outside in some time, I made the guilt-ridden decision that I should go out once in a while to take a break. The key word is OUT, away from this constant obligation. It would not be the same to just have a friend visit, I have to physically leave the premisses. While this may seem ridiculously irresponsible, it was only after careful observation of my dad's behavior (at night he is most likely in bed and therefore low-risk) and consideration of available options (none) that I attempted this maneuver. It must also be considered that I have no workable options; there is no one else who can take care of my dad, no friend or family who is both willing and qualified. Plus, this was actually a matter of self-preservation; remaining home as if under house-arrest was sending me on a walk down a dark alley. So I started spending a little bit of time out with friends, and even though I worried about what might go wrong, even though I felt guilty about doing so (and still do), something interesting happened: I got better and the dark alley walk became a healthy jog on a sunny day. And my dad was fine.

Even if I didn't go out for my own selfish reasons, I still have to leave my dad home sometimes because it's often absolutely unmanageable to take him with me. I have to get groceries; I have my own doctor's appointments; sometimes I have to take my mom to the doctor. I have tried to make arrangements when I know these things in advance, but getting help is mostly a lost cause.

So our neighbor, who has known of my dad's illness for some time, has had the impression my dad should be put into a care home right away. She reminds me of this often. She doesn't seem to see the big picture. So the other day I felt I needed to explain in more detail than I had previously. She wasn't getting it, and it was pissing me off.

Placing a family member in a care home is an extremely challenging, traumatic, life-changing event for everyone involved. It takes hours, weeks or even months of phone calls, inspections of facilities, self-doubt, wrangling with insurance and/or government assistance agencies. The person going to the care home is not going to be happy about it, may become angry and will actively resist the idea. My mom was already suffering deep depression before going to the care home where she now lives, and moving her there made her significantly worse. It took her more than a year to begin feeling better. The decision to take her there was mine alone to make, it was not shared with any other family member. I still feel terrible for it, and the fact that I had no other choice does not help much. So pardon me if I don't ever, EVER want to go through that again.

So I explained this as best I could to our well-meaning neighbor, along with some additional details which I'll leave out here. I still don't think she understood. So I gave her my phone number again with specific, simple instructions in case my dad wanders over there again without my knowing (just coax him back home and tell him to stay inside). Since my dad may again be prone to wandering, I'll stop leaving him alone for now and keep an eye on his behavior for a while. It's most likely temporary.

Goin' OK

So, improv class has been fun, it's going OK and there's one thing that's sure: I suck at improv. Well, you say, that is why you're taking a class on the subject. Of course! But I will be in a scene/game and following key improv tenents--always agree, don't ask a question, LISTEN--and moments go by and the other players have little support from me. My mind just blanks. Well, it doesn't totally blank 'cuz I'm enjoying what everyone else on the stage is doing. Usually with a large, out of character grin on my face. And I just don't seem to form words and sentences that fit. Sometimes I just have a brain glitch.

This week I somehow couldn't remember the word "dome" and that the Astros play at the Astrodome.

I know very little about baseball, and the fact that I know what the Astrodome is but couldn't think of it is scary.

When I got home from the class I noticed my dad had been up and had unlocked the front door and didn't re-lock it. Yikes. This week he's wanting to go outside for no explainable reason again, he hasn't done that in a long time. I'm gonna have to stay home and not go out at all for a while (again, gah!) and watch to see if he continues this and actually goes outside and wanders. He wanted to go outside early this morning, IN THE DARK, but he came right back in. This is kind of scary. Of course, he waited until the weather finally turned cold outside. He didn't try to leave the house much at all during the summer. More on this later.

Whose Class is it Anyway?

A few months ago I was looking around for some local acting classes. So after being discouraged by the price of other acting instruction in the area I was tipped off to this awesomly priced beginning improv class and enrolled immediately. Wednesday was the first session. Though it's a beginning session there were some more experienced improvisers in the group, too. We had some brief instruction/lecture, followed by several games, most of which I did poorly since they required very fast verbal and simultaneous physical responses. It was fun, but I don't think my brain is hardwired for that. I'm hoping to do some rewiring with the class.

So THAT Happened

Yep. It happened in August, actually. I was pretty much not upset about it, since it was me backing into my friend's (very hard front) bumper. Gah!

Picture of Depression

I read an article recently pointing out the importance of treating depression in the elderly. Seems it's often untreated partly due to being unreported, partly due to the assumption that it's normal for one to be depressed about aging, losing abilities, and therefore it doesn't need to be treated. My dad has been getting increasingly depressed over the past six months, especially the past three. It makes sense...he's more tired, has few things to do (sleep, eat, watch tv [which also means sleep since he falls asleep]), and he has very little social interaction. I take him to visit my mom once or twice a week, and even then he usually just naps in a chair. But just because it makes sense that his depression would worsen it doesn't mean treatment is unnecessary.

Last weekend I called for an appointment with my dad's primary physician. The callback came early Monday and I had to cancel it due to my own lack of adequate sleep...it wouldn't have been safe to drive. The next available time was Friday. Ironically, my dad seemed to be very upbeat that day and was joking around with the doctor. His doc prescribed a low dose antidepressant to start. I asked why Kaiser's policy is for him to see his medical doctor for this instead of seeing a psychiatrist who specializes in elder psych but the doctor just shrugged her shoulders, saying they change rules all the time. Hmm.

It's too early to have results from the new medicine, but for whatever reason my dad was also in good spirits yesterday. That was enhanced later in the day by a visit from some long-time acquaintances from my dad's church. Instead of sleeping my dad stayed awake and chatted with his visitors. It could have been that one of the med's side effects is wakefulness, or just that he had something to do besides watch tv. Bottom line is he was better. I thanked our guests and explained to them that it has a big, positive effect when people stop by to see him.

Ghost or Ninja?

This Halloween was the first time in years that I've had an idea for a costume that I was excited about. It was also the first time I had a use for it. It's not so much I'm a boring person as being a caregiver 24/7, I haven't recently bothered b/c I'm generally stuck at home. It's only in the past year or so that I've started forcing myself to get out and do my best to have fun, despite the guilt, which was probably wise because if not my head might explode. This year I had two spooky options lined up. When the first one fell through late in the game on party weekend, there wasn't enough time for plan B. I also got no love from friends later in the week so I had no choices to explore. Bummer. I'm not going to describe the costume idea just in case I can put it to use next time. I always seem to have to wait for "next time".

It's too depressing and low-value to say my friends ditched me and even just saying I stayed home might make it seem like that's what I do, like I'm not interested in fun things. So I came up with a slightly amusing (to self) response if anyone asked...

So for Halloween I went to this party dressed as a ghost, and it was like my best costume ever! I know this because a few days later i was talking to some hotties I met there, and they were like, "Well, what were you?", and I said, "A ghost," and they go, "I don't remember seeing you there," and I said, "EXACTLY!"

I would like to sub ninja for ghost but ghost is a lot easier to say with the right cadence for the bit.

Turnaround Time

At long last, my IHSS paycheck for April 06 (yes 2006!) has been fixed and I finally got it Wednesday! Lost "hours of care" for my dad that hadn't been properly (by law) given to him that month have been finally paid. It took 13 months to resolve and it would have been so much simpler to just give up the fight, which I'm sure a lot of people do, which is partly why agencies like this get away with it. It was a pretty extreme bunch of hoops I was made to jump, a lot of time spent waiting as IHSS dragged it on, and on, and it's great that I can finally put this particular issue behind me. Now financial goals I'd had to put off are finally in the works! Booyah! or whatever. This means I can also begin to make other plans that I also had to cancel or postpone last year. Seems like I've had a lot of bad luck the past year and it's time for a turnaround.

While all this has been going on I've been spending as much time as possible working on music. It's something I can really zone out with and gives me an outlet for some volatile energy that could be explosive and maybe unhealthy if not expressed somehow. For a variety of reasons I have not been doing anything related to animating :( I'm going to return to the world of animation, just I've had too many negative things to deal with and it was affecting my attitude toward all creativity. Luckily, music wasn't impacted so heavily, thus that's what I've been working on. There are so many ideas in my head for tunes and it just takes so much time to get any of them arranged and recorded. For the curious, I've posted some samples on my music myspace.

3% Minus 7% Equals Negative Cost of Living Adjustment

One more related item and it's not good, either. My dad's share of cost for Medi-Cal went up after the recent "re-determination" (why don't they just say review?). It is now 90% of his gross income. Let me repeat that because it seems so ridiculously wrong: My dad's Medi-Cal share of cost is ninety percent of his income! My parents, who along with millions of other retired Americans receive Social Security, got a cost-of-living raise of less than 3%. This caused their shares of cost for Medi-Cal, based on income level, to increase 7%! As ridiculous as that probably sounds, something tells me my parents have it easy compared to some people out there. How can this unfairness be allowed? It's insanity.

IHSS Derails Celebration Again

I finally received backpay that IHSS has owed me since last April. That was a big relief. The process required new timesheets for the months affected. But there was a hitch; payroll mailed timesheets for me to fill out and mail back, but the one for April was missing. I had to call and request it twice and it took 2 weeks to finally get it in the mail (postal delivery time is usually 1 or 2 days). The good news I alluded to in my last post is that I was also given an extra 10 hours of pay for some of the other months last year. But my celebration was cut short.

When my paychecks arrived I found a rather large error to my detriment. Once again, IHSS over withheld the share of cost from my wages by $800!! I was fuming. I only just got reimbursed last month for a similar screw-up that happened 10 months ago, and now they've done it again! I phoned payroll immediately and was told they'd inform the social worker and get back to me. Days later I hadn't heard from anyone so I called again. This time they said it would take "a little bit of time". The social worker was not in the office, so I left a message and still haven't got a callback. I seriously hope they're not gonna make me wait 9 months for reimbursement again. This is beyond unbelievable!

It's a good thing I was cautiously optimistic. Experience with this agency taught me to be wary of errors and delays, so I put off some of my plans (like paying down my student loan), and had saved up just in case. I'm very lucky to have done this 'cause it could have been a financial disaster otherwise. Once again, my plans have to wait.

I'm beginning to think maybe this is just how things go when you're dealing with government agencies. I gotta wonder though, how much damage is done to other IHSS recipients and their families who don't have the capacity to fight for a correction or even know they've been cheated. Something more has got to be done to protect people from ongoing abuse for which there are currently no consequences.