I just received my fifth email this month on the same topic. In the email, my friend informed me he’s canceled his landline service and has chosen to use only his cellphone for voice communication because of the abundance of robocalls and scams he was receiving. Unfortunately, this will not solve his robocall problem. A [...]
I volunteered to work at the recent Thousand Oaks Chili Cook-Off for a friend who was going out of town and didn’t want to leave the Rotary Club that puts on the event short-handed. It was to be an all-day assignment, so I asked my husband if he’d like to join me. I have no [...]
If you live an hour or more away from a loved one who needs your care, you’re a long-distance caregiver. Based upon the needs of the care receiver, as well as the skills, abilities and limitations of the caregiver, every long-distance caregiving experience is different. I’ve been a long-distance caregiver on two occasions, each [...]
I have a dear friend, Nancy, whose husband died unexpectedly several years ago. She was recounting the situation to me and how another friend of hers, a physician, wanted to give her some medication to calm her during the experience. Nancy’s response: “I have too much to do. I can’t be out of it.” We [...]
Aging is something we learn from family, our community and our culture. Sam, I’ll call him, is what can only be described as an 87-year-old curmudgeon. As a widower suffering from congestive heart failure, mostly homebound due to his fatigue and need for oxygen, he is bitter about his lot in life. Sam’s son and [...]
My husband is a finance guy, a CPA with a master’s in taxation. He is, by all accounts, a meticulous, detail-oriented individual. It’s nice to have one of those in a family. At least one of us should be reading the dishwasher manual when it malfunctions, checking a contract’s fine print before signing and making [...]
Recently my mother returned home to New Hampshire after two wonderful weeks visiting me and my husband here in California. I had lots of goals for the visit, and we accomplished many of them. Two remarkable things happened that I did not plan for. Because we finally had some quality time together, my mother opened [...]
My nephew Tanner is a pretty accomplished young man. He has a knack for mechanics. During his high school years, he worked for a company that made sensitive equipment parts for the military. On the side, he bought lawnmowers, dirt bikes, jet skis and other small vehicles that needed repair. He fixed them and resold [...]
After the recent wildfires ripped through our community, I mentioned to my husband that I didn’t want to let too much time go by before we debriefed on what we did right and wrong when we evacuated. I wanted this natural disaster— the first my husband and I have really experienced since moving to California [...]
After a 15-year hiatus, my mother is coming to California to visit me. During the many years she was caring for my father, who had Parkinson’s disease, my mother could not bring herself to leave his side. But now that he’s gone, she is ready to make the journey from New Hampshire. For the past [...]
