Maybe not the sweater when it's 90 degrees
City will enforce parking rules but they make no sense
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We moved to Glens Falls from Malone in 1993 and never gave a thought to air conditioning, but the climate has grown unpredictable, and so have we.
Earlier this week, the temperature was 90 as we were getting out of our car at the Fire Road pull-off to take Ringo down the path to Halfway Brook for a swim.
Bella was wearing her favorite sweater, a loosely knit, rainbow-colored one she found at a garage sale but which, she says, was given to her by a young stranger.
“She just said, ‘You can have it. It’s yours. Who does that?’” Bella says.
“A nice person?” I say.
But at Fire Road, my patience was overheating.
“You should take that sweater off. It’s 90 degrees. You really shouldn’t have a sweater on,” I said.
Bella began to walk away across the turn-out.
“Honey, stop,” I said. “Hey, stop. Stop. This isn’t a good place to take a walk.”
Bella goes off every day on solo walks around our neighborhood, circling blocks with her favorite sweater on, along with a purse that holds a phone, allowing me to track her.
The walks relieve the agitation she feels because of Alzheimer’s disease. I let her go for about 45 minutes, by which time her bad mood has been forgotten.
“How did you know where I was?” she’ll say as she climbs into the car. “Thank you for saving me.”
Oddly, she usually has a story to tell of getting beaten up by bullies during the walk.
“Bitches,” she said recently. “There were two of them, and they pushed me down and kicked me. They kicked me right in the face for no reason.”
Bella endured serious bullying as a kid, at home and outside it. She pushed those experiences away, but they’re resurfacing now.
Thursday, on Fire Road, I was scared of the traffic on Upper Glen Street, a couple of blocks away, that Bella was walking toward.
“Stop,” I said.
But she kept going, not hearing or not caring to hear, and Ringo jumped out of the car to follow her.
“Ringo!” I shouted. “Bella!”
I ran after one, then the other. I was sweating. A laugh rose up in my chest.
I got Ringo back in the car and Bella turned around the other way. I drove to Dixon Road to make sure she crossed safely, then parked and tracked her as she circled Ashley Place.
It was an hour before she agreed to get in the car, her face crimson and her T-shirt soaked.
“Let’s take that sweater off,” I said.
People may think I’m irresponsible, that I’m not doing this right. I believe I’m doing what is possible.
A physician assistant asked me recently about a drug she’s taking.
“How is that affecting her?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said — How can I, when the symptoms change every week?
“I’m not a professional,” I said to my therapist in one of our first sessions. “It might be better for Bella if I could act more like one.”
I’m on a balance board, sliding back and forth on a roller until I’m too tired.
Bella’s legs never seem to tire.
It’s her tireless spirit that drives her out to walk for miles, whether it’s sleeting down rain or the sun is blaring like a siren. She can’t escape Alzheimer’s, but she won’t sit and wait for it.
Parking
The city of Glens Falls has hired an officer to begin writing tickets for parking violations, which seems premature. Many streets lack signs that spell out what the city’s parking rules are. Did you know, for example, that, except where otherwise indicated, the time limit for parking anywhere in the city is two hours? That’s what the city code says, although no one, out in the neighborhoods, follows it, and no one gets a ticket for it. Is that going to change?
I won’t bellyache for the hundredth time about the city’s overnight parking ban, which prohibits on-street parking, even for 5 minutes in front of your own house, from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. But I will point out that signs informing drivers of this policy are absent from the city’s streets. Some of us are familiar with the law from painful experience. But how are new residents supposed to know they’re not allowed to do what is common practice elsewhere — park overnight in front of their own house?
The parking rules are also in desperate need of updating. The designated “loading zone” for Glen Street, for example, runs “From the crosswalk at Scoville’s jewelry store north for 40 feet,” according to the city code. Really? If you go 40 feet north on Glen Street from the Scoville building, you get, at best, three buildings up, to the Gourmet Cafe. Meanwhile, trucks regularly stop in the street to unload in front of Spot Coffee, with drivers wheeling boxes over to the alley and in the side door to the coffee shop’s kitchen. Spot Coffee is more than 200 feet north of the Scoville building.
More examples of inaccurate and vestigial parking rules reside within our city’s regulations for exposure in a future column.
Flying things
Our cone flowers have been attracting bees and butterflies of various sorts. The big, splashy butterflies are nice, but I like noticing the variety of smaller ones with duller colors. Here, for example, is the epargyreus clarus, or silver-spotted skipper, which I’ve been seeing a lot of recently:
Here is the erynnis horatius, or Horace’s duskywing (I think — all identifications are done through my phone and may be wrong) that showed up last week:
Finally, when we were walking in Cole’s Woods earlier this week, Ringo spotted something moving on the ground, and I saw this odd-looking bug, which turns out to be an American carrion beetle (necrophila americana). Apparently, they eat carrion, but also fungus and “sapping tree wounds.” Also, according to the Bug Guide of Iowa State University’s Department of Plant Pathology, Entomology and Microbiology, they prefer larger carrion — “rat-size or larger.” Finally, they eat maggots, too.
They move in a jerky way, as you might be able to see in this video:
What an amazing gift you are giving yourself and Bella by indulging in her need for autonomy and a daily walk, while using technology to track her movements and ensure her whereabouts and safety. Thank you for sharing this. I hope someone else will read it who has elder care responsibilities.
I'm picturing a sort of Alzheimer's bubble that Bella lives in with you, Will, protecting that bubble as you help "it" move through this complicated world. You show us such an amazing amount of agility and patience and strength....to just keep UP with the amazing amount of energy Bella exhibits! Week after week....just astounding what you describe but you add so much with the observations and information you provide on your walks. Ringo seems to understand his role, too. You are writing a book here, chapter by chapter, week after week. A "thank you" is not enough but you earn a continuing huge thank you.......