Notes from eldercare

My dad, age 92, spends most of his day sitting in a recliner.  He lets mom run the remote.

He uses a stool for an occasional table.  It is short enough to slide beneath the piano and large enough for a cup of coffee or a mug of oatmeal.

There were two complications:

• My dad likes his food and drink hot enough to blister the paint off the hinges of Hades
• My dad likes his cups and mugs served on a ceramic saucer to make it easier for him to grip and so he does not scar the wood on the piano should he park it there.

A ceramic mug on a ceramic saucer is very slippery.  The stool is tippy because the feet have small, plastic glides that sink into the pile of the carpet and provide very little support against rocking.

I left the ends of the zip-ties untrimmed until my dad agrees that this is "a go".  I don't want him to think I decided without his input.

Today I sacrificed a $6 pizza pan and four zip-ties.  Surprisingly, the arrangement slides much more easily that the plastic "glides" that sank into the pile, even with the four zip-ties dragging through the carpet's pile.

It is also more resistant to rocking.  I estimate that it deflects 25% as much as it did before.

I think we have a winner here and expect dad will direct me to trim off the zip-ties and make it tidy.