A long mess...

This weekend my stepfather died-he went out to fetch the paper and let the dog out, fell there, and I reckon was likely dead when he hit the floor. In the scheme of things, probably not a bad way to go.

My mom was a bit estranged from both me and my brother over the last few years, and I didn't see either Mom or my stepfather for a long while. So it wasn't particularly easy to go to the house today. Mom has a litany of health problems, as did my stepdad at the end. It got so he couldn't do a lot of any domestic stuff. And the two had, well, let's just call it 'some issues' and leave it at that.

Obviously, there's a lot to do. Aside from the normal logistics of arranging a funeral, getting survivors' benefits and the myriad of paperwork in order, the house looks, to be honest, like a small war went through. Bangar has written about 'the leech', his housekeeping, and the cleanup. That would be a piece of cake compared to this. My aunt and I cleaned up the kitchen some, and we've got a beachhead established, but this is going to take a while. I cleaned out some food items that had expiration dates going back to 1998. I think tomorrow we'll try to tackle the refrigerator. I'm not looking forward to that.

I don't know what I'm going to do with Mom. She seems to want to stay in the house-and if we can get it grubbed out that might work for a time. I'd like to look into visiting nurses that could come in and make sure she's OK and that she has all of her meds. When things degrade, perhaps assisted living closer to where I'm at (right now it's about a 100 km drive to the old hometown). I don't know. One thing at a time. There's a lot of things I can do on the weekends there-mowing, laundry, and any minor home things that need to be done. Also, my aunt (her sister) lives in town, so she could do some minor errands when I can't make it up there.

Life, kids, just got a little more interesting. I suppose the comms here are going to get spotty for a while. Much to do. So you lot play nice.

And to steal BigBadAl's phrase: 'Be good and kind to each other".

yankeedog out.