Ken the Kompanion

Haven't posted for a while. With Ken, Gregory's companion since last May and living with us since Easter, things have been going pretty well. As I have mentioned, both Gregory and I get along well with Ken and he, us.

If you missed them here are two BLOGS about the experience: It's Only Fair and Companion

Ken is easy to live with, allows us our privacy, and keeps his own. We also spend many dinners together and often times will just sit around the living room chatting. Gregory and I have learned a lot about the Japanese culture and Ken has heard a lot about the American as well as Gay cultures.

Ken has met many of our friends, has joined several parties that we have hosted, and has chatted with Roger, Scott, and Richard about their experience in Psychology as Ken will be starting his masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Vanderbilt University in September.

Ken and Gregory make a good team when cleaning up after meals. A few meals into Ken's tenure with us, I smilingly suggested, "You know ... it's ... only ... fair ..." And they both finished with, "that we clean up since you cooked.)

Among other support activities, Ken sets the table, takes out the trash and recycle, helps bring groceries from the car and even helps put them away. Often Ken will pick up a few things at the close by Whole Foods or return books to the library. He brings up the mail and when I need an extra hand fixing something around the condo, his are very able.

Gregory and Ken go swimming at the pool in the building two or three times a week, go for walks, go for haircuts and manicures, and spend time at Starbucks.

Today I am just home from a week in New Orleans. Gregory and Ken spend 24/7 together very successfully and I felt totally at ease with not being home. Periodically I would send them texts with added photos of what I was doing in NOLA. A day or two into my getaway, photos of what they were doing began showing up in their texts to me.

Following is a gallery of photos from Gregory's Great Adventure:

Gregory & Ken at the beach

Gregory out on the pier

At home with a sandwich and 

soup from "Pret-a-Mange"

Gregory in the swimming pool

Gregory at "San Germaine" with

a dinner crepe

Gregory at "San Germaine" with

a dessert crepe

Letting Go

When I run across something that speaks to me, I like to share it here on my Alzheimer's BLOG. Maybe it will speak to you, maybe not.

From: http://www.dailyom.com

March 7, 2013 Letting Go of Understanding Deeper Meaningsby Madisyn Taylor We don't always need to know the deeper meaning of everything that happens in our lives. All of us who seek to be conscious and aware regard our experiences as teachers, and we try to discern what lessons we are learning from the things that happen in our lives. Sometimes the lesson is very clear from the get-go, and other times we have to really search to understand the deeper meaning behind some event. While this search often yields results, there also comes a point in the search where what we really need to do is move forward. It is possible that we are not meant to know the deeper meaning of certain occurrences. Answers may come later in our lives, or they may come as a result of letting go, or they may never come. We are all part of a complex system of being, and things work themselves out in the system as a whole. Sometimes we are just playing a necessary part in that process with a result larger than we can understand. It may have very little to do with us personally, and while that can be hard to understand, it can also free us from overthinking the matter. Sometimes it is best to see it in terms of karma, a past debt we have been able to repay in this way, or as the clearing of energy. We can simply thank the event for being part of our experience and let it go. This completes the process that the occurrence has made possible. To make this letting go official, we can perform a ritual, make a final journal entry on the subject, or sit in meditation with the intention of releasing the event from our consciousness. As we do so, we summon it one last time, honoring it with our attention, thanking it, and saying good-bye. We then let it go out the door, out the window, out the top of our heads, or into the earth through the bottoms of our feet, liberating ourselves from any burden we have carried in association with it.