When IT hits the fan

Next weekend I am dragging my daughter 3000 miles away for a family meeting in suburban New York.
The purpose of the meeting is to discuss my aging parents, their changing needs and, in particular, my Dad's worsening dementia, as he is starting to show what appear to us to be mid-early stage of Alzheimer's. My parents are in their late 70's. My Dad was 40 when I was born and I am the youngest of 4. One of my brothers died in childhood when I was an infant. My other 2 brothers who are much older than I am will be there, as will my Mom. Luckily my brothers are very intelligent, articulate, caring people whom I have a good relationship with. My daughter thinks we are going there so she can bake cookies with Grandma. I am leaving the baby back home in CA with dad since he's almost completely weaned now and a nightmare to travel with. During the last visit back east after screaming for 45 minutes, he projectile vomited all over me, his car seat and a sympathetic man from Boston. This time I'm not taking any chances.

One of the top items on our agenda is devising a strategy for removing driving privileges from my father. This step is becoming increasingly necessary as he has been known to disappear for several hours with a car, returning it with various dents or parts missing, and occasionally, a police escort. This is going to be a very tricky situation because since my dad's retirement, driving and running errands has become his job. (Besides picking leaves and berries off of trees--but that's for another blog page) Also, my father has a volatile personality. Also, he's completely paranoid and he can be mean.
Well anyway, stay tuned...this will be fun.