Month: May 2016

I stayed with my mom recently while my dad was out of town. I noticed how despite her Alzheimer’s dementia she can easily follow certain routines.

Laundry is no problem for her: she can do the wash cycle, transfer the clothes to the dryer, dry, then remove the clothes, fold them and put them in neat piles upstairs.

But one task she cannot do is make coffee. My parents have always used a percolator. This requires judging the water level and amount of grounds, monitoring and adjusting the flames on the gas stove, letting it boil and sit for certain periods, then decanting into a thermos.

With the laundry, each step can wait until attended to and there are visual cues as to what to do next. With the coffee percolator on the other hand, each step is of varying duration and judgement and attention are needed throughout.

I almost didn’t want to look, but I flipped through my mom’s word search books. In the picture below, she did the word search on the left well. But on the right she didn’t understand the goal of the puzzle, and absentmindedly wrote my little niece’s name, likely because my niece was present and talking at the time (she talks constantly). Sadly the word searches are incredibly simple compared to the New York Times crossword puzzles my mom did for fun only several years ago.

This demonstrates the rapid decline of the brain’s executive function while associative memory remains robust.

In observing dementia in my mom I’m struck with how the small things matter: if my parents had used an electric coffee maker all these years, my mom would still be able to make her own coffee. On the other hand if she wasn’t such an avid crossword puzzle fan she would’t have this constant verbal-lexical exercise that seems so beneficial to her now.

I just wrote about when it’s appropriate to confront shitty drivers. Today while walking I had an interaction that corroborates and refines my reasoning.

I saw a man get in the face of a woman on a bike (who had her kids with her), saying “What’s wrong with riding in the street!?”

She rode off, wisely avoiding this guy. I told him there was an exception to the rule if the road is unsafe. Ford Parkway, where we were, is definitely unsafe. Bringing kids on bikes into the street would be irresponsible on this stretch. I asked him if he often shouted at strangers about what to do and what not to do and he said yes! I don’t think he knew the sidewalk law; all he did was shout, “Call any cop, they’ll tell you there’s no exception!” etc. Then he got in his car and drove off.

But cops can’t protect you from distracted or intoxicated drivers. And there was a bike festival (Tour de Highland) going on that morning a block away, so he should have held his tongue.

The sidewalk was wide and uncrowded. Just that morning I walked through the intersection where a pedestrian was killed in 2012 (the driver was not charged. He would have been punished more if he had damaged a sign instead of killing a person.) (http://www.startribune.com/st-paul-nun-dies-after-being-struck-by-truck/164319406/).

So I will avoid being like this guy, shouting over minor sidewalk courtesies. At least we were arguing over what the law says instead of just telling each other to shut up. I will however continue to confront people when I see something unsafe or illegal.

The real killers (drivers) need to be held accountable. Cyclists, who do not kill people, should not be harassed for keeping themselves safe.

 

Very alarming: ​Woman in her 60s edges past stop sign, hits another car, then speeds off. I chase her for a block, shining my flashlight, until she finally stops. I explain she must go back to the intersection and exchange info with the other driver. She seems confused and vacant the whole time. I get photos of her and her plates and give the emergency operator all the info I have so that the other driver, who had left, would be contacted by an investigator.

​Somewhat alarming: woman darts right in my path as she goes for a parking spot, almost hitting me as I walk. I explain what happened and she also seems confused, as if she is doing too many things at once.

Finally, a run-of-the-mill distracted driver: young woman talking on cell phone misses two opportunities to turn left, then almost hits an SUV rolling out of a parking lot, then hits the curb as she tries to park. She is a neighbor and at least she seems receptive when I recount what she just did.

I’m conflicted over whether it is worthwhile to confront drivers (except in the first instance where I absolutely had to). I don’t want to scare anyone. I’m not sure they learn anything from it. And the justice system is not on my side: the recent case of Carlee Bollig demonstrated that a driver in Minnesota can kill two people while texting and still serve zero days in prison.

I think I just need to stay safe until a technical solution such as driverless cars make 30 000 traffic deaths a year seem like just another absurd fact of history.

I like living in Highland Park, Saint Paul. I like being half a block from the river and having a bustling retail district and light rail connections as well as Minnehaha Regional Park and the restored Coldwater prairie. I like being able to bike to work along mostly parkway and riverfront and even a historic site and state park.

However, this area has serious flaws. As I walked on this beautiful day to get 1) a shot of espresso and 2) some dish soap I had to be hyper-alert for vehicles. It seems like they are either going 40 miles per hour or they are idling in a blocks-long traffic jam on Ford Parkway.

In addition there are some really ugly spots. I see a lot of parking lots, and most of the retail district on the south side of Ford Parkway is in fact a strip mall. There is a huge parking ramp right in the middle of the hill.

Somehow, parts of my neighborhood do not even have sidewalks.

This could change with increased density. Perhaps redeveloping the former Ford vehicle plant will bring better land use. But recently a city councilmember proudly wrote an editorial in the neighborhood newspaper highlighting further building height restrictions he had helped enact for the area.