Next up--Hunnert!

When my mother first moved to Atria, all those many years ago, the thing that she hoped most of all was that she would live to be "hunnert."  She thought it would be really cool to live to 100 and I remember countless discussions about whether or not I thought she would live to "hunnert."

Today she turned 99 and is only one year from that goal, but she refuses to believe she's 99 and "won't" be 99.  She has forgotten her goal of "hunnert,"

But we doggedly celebrated her birthday anyway.  And actually by the end of lunch, she was remembering that we were celebrating her birthday, which was a great surprise.  Also, we went to the main dining room and she actually briefly recognized the woman she had lunch with every day for 2-3 years.

Ned and I got there early.  He, who thinks of everything to make a party festive, brought stuffed eggs--her favorite--as an "hors d'oeuvre."

She was also pleased to get a box of chocolate for a gift.

I had hoped there would be some cards for her to open since she loves cards so much, but there were none, except the one I brought (Walt's sister sent one, but to our house and it has not arrived yet).

Ned decided we should eat in the main dining room, instead of the memory care dining room, and he walked her down there, while I followed in my walker.

As I took this, I remembered taking the exact. same. picture of my cousin walking my aunt down the hall in the facility where she lived.

Momma didn't remember ever being in the dining room where she ate 2x daily for 3 years, but she thought it was a nice place.  Ned tried to take the traditional "Grandma birthday" picture.

It turned out pretty well.  Does this lady look 99?

I tried to get a picture of the table...

By the end of lunch, as I said, she had an inkling that it was her birthday and I think she enjoyed herself.  I know she enjoyed her birthday ice cream.

It was so nice to do something that had absolutely NOTHING to do with Kaiser today!

High Tech/Low Tech

This was definitely a day of highs and lows, technologically and otherwise.

It started with the morning feeding at 5-something. I stayed up to work on the photo show for my mother's party. Jeri got up, had breakfast and went off to a nearby coffee shop with free wi fi. Walt got up, had breakfast and went to work. I sat in the recliner and fell asleep until the puppies woke me at quarter to eleven!

Jeri, who had an on-line discussion for the on-line class she teaches, got home about the time I was up to my elbows in formula and when the puppies were all back asleep again, she suggested we work on installing the router so she didn't have to go back to the coffee shop again tomorrow. I was thrilled.

Well, this is a Linksys router that comes with an installation disk. The first thing the disk does is to check if you have an internet connection, and it told me that I did not, despite the fact that in order to see what to do next, I used my non-existent internet connection to get onto their web site and try to find out what to do next. Jeri finally used the low-tech way of getting the answer (since I was having no success with the high tech way). She called customer service.

Miracle of miracles, the phone was answered by a real live person. Whoda thunk. This nice lady in the Philippines spent about an hour on the telephone with us trouble-shooting, her in the Philippines, me at the desktop, and Jeri on the floor with the cords and plugs and stuff. It was alternately fun and annoying. Fun because in the down times when we were waiting for my computer to reboot (3 times), we chatted a bit about personal things. Annoying because she seemed to be reading from a script when in her "tech" mode and called me ma'am about 3 times in each sentence. She never listened to what we were saying. She asked Jeri which lights were showing on the router, for instance, when Jeri had plainly said more than once that she did not have the router plugged in or turned on, according to the directions she read.

Ultimately, after trying three lengthy work-arounds to the installation disk, she decided I had a local server problem and referred me to my local provider. I thanked her profusely, Jeri packed up the modem, and I realized that in doing all the stuff we had been doing for the past hour, I had erased all of my settings for the local LAN. This is the blessing of a local connection and why it's worth it to me to pay more for it...I called the DCN office and in a matter of seconds, was back on line again. But we've given up on the router for now. The coffee shop isn't THAT far away.

Jeri invited me to go with her and Phil for lunch and then to take the dogs to the dog park (I hadn't seen Lester yet). But there were all sorts of problems with that, not the least of which was what to do with badly behaving Sheila and Lizzie at a restaurant (Lester is well mannered). I also was in the midst of the photo project (and tearing my hair out about that), so I suggested they go off to lunch and the dog park with Lester and I'd stay here and work.

But first Phil brought Lester by. She is taller, definitely heavier, but other than peeing in my office (submissively, when surrounded by 3 dogs, all sniffing her) and tearing up the pergo strip between my office and the family room, it's nice to see her back. She seemed fascinated by the puppies.

"Hey! That was my bed!!!"

It's difficult to believe that when Lester first got here and was called "Tot," with her sister "Tater," that she was the size that these puppies are now!

(But speaking of puppies, it appears that after an initial rally, Alfie isn't doing well even with Mom, even when he has one on one time with her. Ashley is thinking he's not going to make it.)

While Jeri and Phil were out, I found out how to fix my most vexing problem on the photo frame and so went to town scanning, tweaking and saving photos. Then I discovered that I could not get the new photos on the thing. Many expletives were uttered. I was about to give up entirely, but kept going back and trying just one more thing. I finally figured out a back door work-around and was thrilled.

Time for a celebration ("Dark and Stormy" for Jeri, Walt and Phil; water for me and a plate of bruschetta for us all)

(dogs convinced they will get their share)

Then we had dinner -- some beef strips Jeri and I bought at Costco and spaghetti with some great pesto sauce that Pat's husband Rich had brought to me after we returned from our Europe Trip party the other night.

Then I brought out the top of the wedding cake I've been storing in my freezer for a year, and gave Jeri and Phil some martini glasses for their first anniversary.

In deference to their >4000 mile "jaunt" to get here with Lester, I found an anniversary card with a photo of two dogs in a car.

They were a bit dubious about cutting a year-old cake...

But except for the outside frosting, it wasn't bad and we each had a piece. But everyone was quite tired, especially Walt...

...and everybody went to bed shortly after dinner, except me. I went through all 2,000 photos from last year's wedding, taking out the best ones of my mother to add to the photo project and when it was all finished and I confidently did what I was sure I needed to do, realized that I couldn't get the new pictures on the frame again. I just cried.

BUT, as I was typing this, I tried one more thing...and it worked. I'm not touching this frame again until I set it up for the party on Saturday!!!

The Organizer

Jeri leaped up from the table and went to the counter to get a napkin and a piece of paper on which she could write. "We need a plan," she said. "Now what still has to be done?" Quickly we listed all the things that remained undone and that needed to be done between now and Friday morning.

We were sitting at In-n-Out Burger having lunch at 2 p.m. Jeri was feeling very guilty because she was there without Phil and texted him to apologize, saying I made her come without him.

In truth, she lied. It was a mutual decision. We wanted to go to the Subway next door, but service was so slow and I was aware that the puppies would be waking up hungry very soon, so we chose In-n-Out instead. We had just come from a big shopping at Costco.

Jeri has been just the tonic I needed. It's been so long since I've "entertained," that I'm at the point where I'm just frazzled and don't know which needs to be done first and feel like I'm spinning. But we had done most of the Costco shopping, for all the hors d'oeuvres and drink stuff. We had soft drinks (both Coke and Pepsi--Peach has called twice to make sure there will be diet Pepsi for her to drink), some fruit drinks, 7-up and water. Tom will have wine and Ed (my mother's stepson) has rented a keg of beer. If we run short of food, we can always drink ourselves into oblivion (which, knowing the alcoholic history of my family, is not entirely beyond the range of possibility!) There will also, of course, be vodka and tonic, because you can't have a party for my mother without vodka there.

(I bought three bottles, only two of which show here)

We also solved the decoration problem with a trip to Woodland's new huge Target, and I also treated myself to a deep fat fryer to make cooking Mexican won ton easier.

We were quickly checking things off of Jeri's list and it felt good. As she was in Europe, Jeri is a great support system and her unflagging enthusiasm and refual to think negative becomes infectious

We've decided to buy birthday cakes because there has still been no word on the new stove and I'm afraid that I'm not going to have enough time to bake two big cakes and decorate them. While I'm disappointed that these won't be "home made," I'm also relieved because it's one job I don't have to do. I ordered an undecorated sheet cake, so at least I'll be able to decorate it, but won't have to worry about the baking part.

I still have to make Mexican won ton, and stuffed jalapenos. We'll also have tortilla chips with cheese sauce, and I am thankful that I have a crock pot to heat it up.

Jeri was just what the doctor ordered. It's all starting to feel more "do-able."