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cw - I am with you but it is better being left alone than being criticised. My sis who lives overseas does come and visit - once a year these days - and that is understandable. But I am sick of it too, amd the put downs. She has no idea...
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I'm tired of it always coming down to me to be the eyes, ears and gofer person, it's not like I am an only child. I guess if I just stayed away from the NH I could live in blissful ignorance as well, what you don't know can't bother you. If I wasn't here would anybody visit mom at all, ever?
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madge I think you are right. I try ti nail down a nurse that responds well and ask her. I see why you bring her food

cwillie - ah there you are. I would ask for numbers. What you describe doesn't sound very appetizing, Ontario realy going through it politically.

gershun -I am with you I rarely vote.. It gives me the right to not complain lol
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CWillie, my Mom had Dowager's Hump so she was tiny when she went to the Nursing home. I think she weighed in at about 80 when she arrived there and although I don't think they ever reported on her weight after she had been there a while, I'm guessing she was probably about the same when she died. She was given snacks throughout the day but most of the time they just sat there or she would try to hide them.

I hate to admit it but I rarely vote and if I did I think I'd get someone to blindfold me, twirl me around and I'd pin the tail on the closest a**, I mean candidate. :P
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A non caregiving related whine:
I just got back from voting in our provincial election. This is the worst most stressful decision ever, it's like having to choose between cutting out your brain or cutting out your heart.
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If I only had a dollar for every time I've been told "they get soooo much food here and with snacks they eat 5 times a day!" Mom doesn't get snacks because they don't provide any pureed snacks, although they do give her thickened juice (usually). And a "big" breakfast of oatmeal, eggs, toast and juice sounds like a lot until you use your head and eyes and realize it is about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of oatmeal, a blob of "bread pudding" equivalent to 1/2 slice of toast and the equivalent of one egg (or slightly less).

They tell me her weight is stable but I haven't heard any numbers, last I heard she was 115lbs (at 5'7"). I can't imagine how skeletal the folks from other forum threads must be who weigh under 90 lbs.
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My experience has been that it is easier for staff to reply with a generic - she's good, she ate well blah blah blah

Staff rarely know if they ate well or at all - they are not present in the dining room

The Viking needs help to eat and hates the hoca puree - she might eat well 1x a day if she's fully awake and she's got something she likes - last night, our housekeeper brought her a baked potato, fruit and banana bread - she ate well
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cwillie - is she losing weight? I am finding for all the fancy building etc in the NH I an not as confident that I know what is going on with mother. More phone calls needed I guess. However, they did arrange to have thingys installed on mother's hearing aids so they can't get lost as easily on their own which is a huge bonus,

I love having banking stuff online - so much more convenient and reduces my filing!!!
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bookluvr, I also feel the same way about cyber banking, but times are a changing. Thus, I am starting to use auto-payments for some of my bills.

I, too, rather go inside the bank to get cash or to deposit checks. Ha, my flip phone doesn't take photos of checks to be deposit like you see with ads on TV. If I was 40 years younger, all of this new way of banking would be second nature.

I also get paper delivery of bank statements and credit card statements. Let them spent the cost of paper and ink :)
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It's was a l o n g day yesterday and today is shaping up to be even longer. I could busy myself with the dozens of little chores and projects around the house I keep putting off but... meh.

I'm having some trust issues with what the NH is telling me, I still think that mom is regressing. When mom eats very little I'm often told "oh, she had a good breakfast/lunch!" so I've taken to popping in at the end of meal time to see what mom is actually eating when I'm not there. Uh, no she didn't.
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We always advise our clients in using their debit cards when traveling. Recently, I found out that my SIL uses her debit card when she travels. She doesn't have a credit card. I told her that it's very dangerous to use her debit card because if someone illegally withdraws from her checking account via the debit card, most banks won't protect her.  They can wipe out her whole checking account and the bank will not reimburse for the illegal transaction. ... Whereas, if it was a credit card, the bank will not make her liable for the illegal purchases, less the bank fee.
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My mothers bank told her to use a credit card not her debit card for all purchases at stores and online. She used to use her debit card till she had her debit card skimmed ( I think thats whats its called) at a gas station. The credit card is not attached to her bank account.
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I'm slowly being pulled into cyber banking. Well, I still get my bank statements/credit card statements mailed to me. But, I do go online to make sure no hanky panky is being done without my knowledge. I'm so resistant to change, I have only used the ATM twice in my whole life. I rather go into the bank with my credit card and withdraw it from the cashier/teller - if I'm desperate.

On another topic, I was reading a cozy mystery. In this book, twice elephant ear (food) was mentioned as being delicious. Elephant ear? So, I googled it. Hmmmm. I don't know. Those snapshots of the elephant ear bread looks more like a pig's snout. Don't you think?
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CM,
Keeping cash in the house...$1.00 today.
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Well, PayPal kind of works like that, doesn't it? I hardly ever use it, don't do enough online to bother, but I do have a PayPal account that's linked to a bank account that only ever has a tiny balance - in fact, the bank account was the one I used for mother's petty cash, so it's as basic as can be: no direct debits or overdraft facility or regular payments into it or anything like that. If anyone went to the trouble of hacking into that I think they'd be pretty disappointed :)
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It seems to me that having a secure re-loadable card that is totally separate from your bank account would be the most secure option but for some reason they aren't popular and seem to be less trusted by merchants. It bothers me that all your bank information is linked to your bank/debit card and hackers are managing to raid data stored by the businesses where you've used it and even the banks themselves.
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I have a less convenient but more secure (I hope) take on this, Book.

I try to work on the assumption that if I would mind any data of mine becoming public, I shouldn't put it on the internet. *Anywhere* on the internet. There is no such thing as a totally secure site.

Obviously this is a bit impractical if you ever want to shop online; but at the very least never allow even a trusted organisation to "save your payment details" for next time.

I'll resist online banking for as long as I can; but the trouble is that the banks love it and eventually it won't be optional. Think of the overheads they save! Financially it makes sense for them no matter how many helplines and complaints lines and reporting lines they have to staff; not least because when there is a problem and the lines go berserk people can't get through, so they give up and go away and just have to sort out their own problems - the new house they now can't move into, the contract they can't deliver on time because they can't pay for supplies.

We had a biggish problem a few weeks back which is still being sorted out. It wasn't the Russians. It was an - you have to smile - "upgrade."

I don't think you need to buy in wholesale to the wicked Russians targeting ordinary innocent members of the public like you and me because they are so cruel and unfeeling story. The world is quite scary enough with spotty Herberts buggering about in their bedrooms and thinking it would be fun to hold a whole country to ransom; and technology having got so far ahead of almost everyone's understanding they may well do this by accident.

We are in strange new territory. God knows what the answer will be; but people will find a way - they always do.

Keep a couple of days' cash in the house.
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I completely forgot to do this until I heard it again from the mainland radio news talk. Russians are hacking normal people's routers. They're not targeting companies, just individual people like us. Through our routers, they are able to obtain all our passwords, online logins, etc... into all our online banking, orders, etc....

There is a very simple solution. Please reset your router. Turn it off for 60 seconds. Then turn it on.
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Used to love crab, but in the last few years I have developed a severe allergy to shell fish. Ugh. Used to love crab legs, shrimp etc. So now I don't eat it. But I still love catfish, tilapia and other fish.
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I don't eat crab either, for the reason bookluvr noted. What I know about coconut crab I know from watching survival shows. Apparently the flesh has a slightly coconutty flavor which is delicious. Or so I've heard...
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I don't know. I hate eating crabs. It's so time consuming just trying to get those tiny bits of meat out of their skinny legs. I don't have the patience to crack it, and suck on it. Those tiny leg meat just doesn't fill me up. I tend to bypass crabs at parties. Plus, I'm a picky eater. My family loves to eat the inside of the crab - as in the inside icky stuff. Not just the legs. I cannot do that. I will only eat the legs. They say that I'm missing out on the good stuff.
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Seems like if they eat coconut they would be a sweeter meat?
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Yes, people do eat coconut crabs. It's just big crab that eats coconuts. They tend to dig holes on the beach and the dirt ground further away from the beach. My brothers used to drive out at night along the roads near beaches. The crabs come out and waddle across the road. They would stop the car, jump out, grab the crabs and throw it in the trunk. Usually, there's a container to put it in. My niece and her husband were returning home from a party late at night. They saw the crab crossing the street and the grabbed it, threw it in the trunk (no container.) When they got home, they put it in a container and fed it until they were ready to cook/eat it. They were so proud to have caught their very first crab that they took a photo of it and posted it on FB.
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Do people eat coconut crabs?

Raccoons make all sorts of racket. Kinda surprised the my little raccoon family live is a rotted out stump so close to the ground.
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Pigs! Brilliant! I would LOVE it to have been little pigs, in jackets, out gathering acorns..!
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CM, we don't have squirrels, raccoons, skunks, monkeys, etc. in our island. We have lots of snakes, iguanas, geckos, turtles, coconut crabs, chickens, dogs, cats, pigs, etc...
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Book if you'd held your nerve and looked more closely at the tree I expect you would have spotted the varmints making it shake - squirrels having a boundary dispute, or wood pigeons getting it on would be my prime suspects, and I'm sure your trees have similar inhabitants. I mean, it could have been the tree having a good scratch and ridding itself of some insects it didn't like, but I think they have subtler mechanisms for doing that.

Trees are our friends! Whatever it was up to it certainly wasn't shaking its fist at you :)
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I watched a story once where they were talking to a former logger. He said he had what he referred to as a supernatural experience where he started hearing the trees scream when they were being chopped down. He knows people think he is a wack job but he believes firmly to this day that he heard what he heard. He has since found a different line of work.
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Speaking of trees, decade or so ago I finally got a chance to go back to the city where I grew up from the age 2 to 22 after being away for 30 years. The house still resembled its old self, but was missing was the grand old chestnut tree out front.

Just seemed so weird not having that tree there any more, in fact, many of the big old trees were gone from that street... sad, it just didn't feel like "home" as I remembered it.
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I remember all those old scarey movies,, I still love "animal" horror films! The one that scared me for life was Frogs.. handsome Sam Elliot.. lonely southern mansion in the swamp;; almost put me off camping!!
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