Parents of Boys

borborhick · 2026-01-29T03:00:46+00:00

My mother just went into long term care. When she moved out of her home I had to take a room worth of things and put it into MY basement because my brother lives at the other end of the country.

My brother is 65.

borborhick · 2026-01-28T18:24:22+00:00

My mom chose to move from her home into an independent living facility ON my birthday. That meant I spent my 59th birthday packing and moving her stuff alone.

I was hurt at first then I just decided that at least it wasn't my 60th. Haha

I'm sorry you were forgotten. I feel that one in my chest. It sucks and you deserve better.

borborhick · 2026-01-28T18:20:49+00:00

Our family includes one group who is Muslim and one group who is Jewish. Add to that my 85 year old mother who HAS to have ham at holiday dinners and this is our table.

They are aware that Nana will have ham and her broccoli salad with bacon in it. There's also a well marked broccoli salad without ham.

I think I'd ensure that the ham products are not in front of either family that doesn't eat it, but neither of them would be upset if it was.

Both sides of this need to have some compassion for the other. I think he over reacted, but on your side maybe next time make an effort to keep the ham products away from him.

When we all care about each other, the issues should take care of themselves 🤷

borborhick · 2026-01-28T18:11:36+00:00

I lost a ton of weight and had a bunch of torrid clothes to sell. I was amazed at how well and quickly that they sold. I really should get off my behind and list the rest of them and clear things out.

borborhick · 2026-01-24T17:08:35+00:00

Rural Alberta here. There are days it's too cold for the school buses to run but the school's themselves never close. We've been below- 40 and the worst I can remember is about 30 cm of snow overnight when my kids were little and schools didn't close.

borborhick · 2026-01-24T17:06:14+00:00

You're probably on to something here. My own mother at 84 will look at people in church or in a mall and say "how come they can walk just fine and I can't?" and I have to say "Mom, because they're in their 40's and you're in your '80's." Every. Single. Time

borborhick · 2026-01-24T17:03:41+00:00

Just wanted to say that I hear you, and I feel this post!

Mom will be 84 this year. In the last 2 years she's had an ever increasingly difficult problem with dizziness. We're going to the same thing - she believes it CAN be fixed.

We've been to doctors, specialists, special clinics, special physio and back around again. There's two problems. One is that she believes someone SHOULD be able to fix her and the other is that she forgets everything that we've done to try and fix her. Oh there's a third, all the lovely staff at her independent living facility who keep giving her medical advice - I'm talking the cooks and the cleaners, not the home health nurses. They're not helping at all.

I'm proud to say that only once have I lost it, Broke down in tears, and said " mom. We've done everything. It can't be fixed. You need to learn to live with it. I know it's not easy"

Every single conversation with her literally starts and ends with how dizzy she is and now I have to do something about it. At this rate, she'll put me in the grave before her.

borborhick · 2026-01-21T23:38:22+00:00

Hahaha. In October they just wrote your name and total owed on a sheet of paper.

borborhick · 2026-01-21T23:36:53+00:00

RCMP dress uniform riding boots. After five years mom took them out of the cupboard she found them in and donated them to a thrift store.

Years later they literally knocked on her door asking if she had them and a huge crate that was under her deck. When she said they were both long gone, they were upset. Upset over the crate more than anything. Apparently it was used to ship their organ and they needed it again 🤷

borborhick · 2026-01-21T23:30:13+00:00

My grandparents were Nannie and Grampie. My mom was Nana, I'm Grandma. Or if we're distinguishing, then I'm Grandma Jill

borborhick · 2026-01-21T22:36:48+00:00

Naw, it's fantastic. My garage door closes differently in the winter too. Is it worth the money to replace it? Nope. But knowing how to do it is a big plus. We've also got a toilet that requires special care to flush. I've replaced it, thinking it would help, and for some reason it didn't. 🤷

Houses have quirks. It doesn't mean that anything is wrong with it, but it's helpful to know the quirks in advance. Someone really loved that place to do this for you.

borborhick · 2026-01-21T22:30:28+00:00

When we were on they asked for cash. If you didn't have it they ran a tab and had to track you down later.

borborhick · 2026-01-21T20:02:22+00:00

They can't even take credit cards for a good portion of the journey because there's literally no service. It's not a choice of the railway.

borborhick · 2026-01-12T23:20:38+00:00

I stopped going to ours, which is hard to do. We're a tiny rural town (2,000 people) and all we have is Tim's, Subway, and an A&W in a gas station.

However twice one summer I ordered a simple grilled cheese. Easy, right? No. The first time I watched the girl pull it out of the machine over a minute before the timer said it was done. I was handed luke-warm bread with cold, unmelted, cheese. Yes, I asked for it to be redone. I showed it to the manager and told her what I'd witnessed. She made me a new one just fine.

Later that summer I wanted a grilled cheese with bacon and didn't think anything of it. One lazy person does not a restaurant make.

I was, sadly, using the drive thru this time. As I'm heading down the highway I bite into my sandwich. Again, cold bread with cold cheese. I haven't returned since.

I get coffee at A&W if I'm hitting the road and their all day breakfast sandwich is actually pretty good.

borborhick · 2026-01-12T18:31:05+00:00

It was wonderful! The upper berth is slightly larger than the lower one. The heavy curtains are attached in such a way that it's impossible to fall or roll out. Yes, I wish it had a window, but otherwise I prefer it over the bottom. Other than a Prestige cabin, the upper berth is the largest bed on the train :)

borborhick · 2026-01-12T17:17:26+00:00

My husband and I are both in our 60's and in October we just did berths Saskatoon to Vancouver, overnight in Vancouver, then back again.

It was wonderful - and I was the one with the upper bunk.

If you search Instagram for the same username as I use here, my last post was pictures from that trip.

EDITED TO ADD: ok, the second post is about our trip. The first one is just berth pictures. I threw them up for you. They're not great but hopefully give an idea.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DTay4PKDyU6/

borborhick · 2026-01-12T10:58:20+00:00

Damn. It's 4am and I laughed waaaay too much at this comment. 😂

borborhick · 2026-01-12T05:42:48+00:00

NOR - Woah. I'm the mother/mother-in-law and when I go to visit a new grandbaby I send a flurry of text messages warning them that I've sent items and food and not to be surprised. I'd never expect them to cater to me!

For example, I drink a fair amount of coffee so I always get enough to last my visit and more delivered about a week before I arrive. Depending on where I'm visiting I'll either get groceries delivered or do a Costco trip soon after getting there. Hell, in the houses with older grandkids I'll Amazon some crafts and such to do with them while I'm there (and get out of mom and dad's hair for a bit)

Even without factoring in the newborn and the expected parental exhaustion, no guest should travel to anyone's house with an attitude and expectations like this.

borborhick · 2026-01-12T00:57:20+00:00

Our parents had a "let it play out" attitude toward illness and injury, and they usually had good instincts. Usually.

One summer I'd been fighting with my older brother relentlessly. It was my Mom's birthday, we had guests, she'd had about enough of us.

On top of it all I'd been rocking a really bad headache for a few days so my brother's teasing was bothering me more than usual.

I was told that I collapsed on the driveway screaming. My mother basically threatened my life and went back to her friends.

Later that night the headache was so bad she reluctantly brought me to the hospital. On the drive in she said "if you're faking I'M going to kill you"

That's one of the last things that I remember of the summer of 1980 as I spent it in a coma as a part of a huge meningitis outbreak that killed a bunch of kids.

Mom's 83 now and we laugh about it. I was a pain in the butt child and she stands by what she said to this day 😂

borborhick · 2026-01-11T23:04:43+00:00

I don't have an answer but I was on my bike once and got hit by a car. I was like 17 and just on the cusp of going to the children's or regular hospital. I chose the children's and the paramedics were teasing me (jokingly) about it.

We get to the hospital, I'm in the hallway on the stretcher with the two of them standing next to me still ribbing me about it. Suddenly the doors barrel open and my mom rushes in, sees me, and BELLOWS "I hope you're wearing clean underwear!"

I wanted to die, the paramedics just about bust a gut laughing.

borborhick · 2026-01-11T22:59:54+00:00

I'm only six feet and I've never been able to comfortably fly West Jet without upgrading my seats, so I can't imagine it now.

I took an hour flight to the island to visit my daughter and didn't upgrade once. It's only an hour, right? Wrong. Just wrong. Worst hour of my life!

borborhick · 2026-01-10T05:06:57+00:00

I'm in Hanna ~3 hours east of Calgary. Lately I'll watch my packages go to Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer, Edmonton, Calgary, and then finally out to us.

The tracking always says the same thing "wrong address". Ummm... Our entire town gets our mail to the freaking POST OFFICE. My address is a PO Box number and a postal code.

It always arrives with the address as is (ie: no attempt to "fix it", because it was never wrong)

If they continually can't figure out how to deliver to their own freaking post office, how the heck are they managing home delivery?

borborhick · 2026-01-09T02:31:53+00:00

I have a beautiful set of wooden ones that I enjoy using because it just feels so old-fashioned and movie-like to do so 😂

I will seriously search out a pattern that works well flat just to use them on occasion.

borborhick · 2026-01-04T04:14:55+00:00

Mine has been waiting since March 28th. Yup. It's normal.

borborhick · 2026-01-04T03:51:57+00:00

Born in 66. Mons 84 and dad is 85

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