After yesterday’s post, you might be wondering if we went to the Bands at the Basin

I struggled with this decision all morning

About noon, I decided if we go, we are definitely going to try to watch from the Petaluma Yacht Club dock, if we can, if not we’d use chairs I’d put in the car to find a place to sit on the shore

The big variable was how Matt was doing, how he was functioning in the world that specific day

He was slow to get up, slow, albeit somewhat beligerante, to eat his breakfast

He was wondering around a lot, touching things, in bed, out of bed, mumbling

He said “I am going to go poop” and headed to the room upstairs

Then I heard a loud bang, thud….so I ran upstairs

He was laying on the floor, he fell

He may have hit his head on the angled ceilings, or perhaps, he could have slipped on the area rug, not sure

Most likely he wasn’t watching where he was going and hit his head on the ceiling, but there was no mark on his head, so it could have been the rug

I got him settled down, sitting on the edge of the bed, asked him if anything hurt

His head, his hand…later I found a red scrape on his back bone that must have come from that fall

Finally, I made the call, we can’t go to this event

His behavior was unpredictable, its hard enough to manage his behavior at home, where the environment is constant, there are no other people around

If we went to the event, not only would there be more variables for me to manage, but there would be a lot more that Matt would have to work hard to try to sort out

The soundness of my decision played out later in the day

The only excursion we did was to Sonoma Market, our local grocery store

I usually ask him to “drive” the shopping cart in the store, which he did

But he wandered aimlessly, often when I focused on getting a thing off my list, I’d turn around and he’d wandered off

It was one of the worst grocery store trips we’ve had yet

He said he had to go to the bathroom, which I now take those announcements very seriously as the consequence of not have been nasty

I directed him across the store to where the bathroom was, showed him the door, he drove the car away

“Here is the bathroom, don’t you need to go?” Apparently not, he drove the cart away

As we were finally checking out, this quiet cashier who we see a lot, was helping us

He had all the things scanned, was working on totaling it all so I could pay, as I noticed Matt was helping himself to the caramels at the beginning of the checkout conveyer belt

I looked at the cashier and said “did you add one of those?”

He smiled, quietly said “yes”, with a look of complete understanding

That little thing, that little moment, was nice

We left, put the groceries in the car, and Matt offered to ‘”drive” the cart back to the store

As he walked back, I had my eye on him

He wasn’t headed in the direction of the car I was in, luckily, I drove the Jeep and the top was down so I could call his name, redirect him pretty easily

The car next to us had been struggling getting 2 young children and their groceries in the car

The wife was in the drivers seat, the father in the back seat with at least one of the kids

Matt was walking behind the car as they were trying to back up

The father looked at me and said “we are trying to back up”

I started to say something, the father knew I was engaged in the situation, not ignoring him when Matt took a turn and approached their passenger side door of their car

We both noticed this at the same time, the wife was confused

The father said “I’ll help him” and got out of the car

I got out too and we both coaxed Matt away from their car and into the Jeep

Lordy…….Thank God we didn’t go to that event, no telling what would have happened

Later, when we were home and he was wandering around, in one bed, then up again wandering, then in the other bed, unsettled, he said something to me, the only piece I got was “you embarrased yourself”

I don’t know what he was talking about, using those specific words, but my thought is he was aware of some of what happened in the grocery store and he transferred his embarrassment onto me

Whatever…….made myself a bourbon, the first one I’ve had in a week or more

Matt was just having a very off day, Uncle Lewy was in full activation mode

I am so glad we stayed home, played it safe

Let’s just get this day over, try again tomorrow

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