A Normal Day

I had lunch with my mother yesterday.  As days go, it was more less normal, but occasionally I like to record how the day went, so I can track whether I see deterioration or not.

I got stuck trying to solve a thorny computer problem and suddenly it was nearly 11:30.  I usually leave here at 11:15 and we frequently go to lunch at 11:30 or a little after, so I called to let her know I might be a little late and not to go to lunch before I got there.  She sounded groggy and I asked if I woke her up.  Most of the time these days, I wake her up when I get there for lunch.  She swears she only naps occasionally, but I think she naps in the morning and again in the afternoon.

When I got to the apartment, her paper was still in the box where they put it in the morning.  That is the first thing I always check, to give me an idea of whether she might have died in the night or not.  But since I had just talked with her 15 minutes before, I figured chances were good that she was  still alive.

But when I knocked there was no answer, so I finally started to dig out my key when she opened the door.  Her hair was flying in all directions and she looked like this picture of Albert Einstein (without the moustache).  That was when she told me that she just woke up, that she had difficulty sleeping the night before and was shocked when she woke up to discover that it was nearly 11:30.

She is always disoriented when she first wakes up and today was even more so, since she had just awakened after several hours of sleep.

She finished brushing her hair and putting on makeup and brought me her lipstick to show me that it was pretty much gone.  I reminded her I had bought her two lipsticks a week ago, which, of course, she did not remember, and we went searching for them, but couldn't find them in the bathroom, where she keeps her makeup.

I finally found them on the dresser in her bedroom, so that crisis was averted.  She repeated, as she has every single day since she moved here two years ago, that she is going to have to start keeping a list so she can remember what she wanted to talk to me about (to date there has never been a list).

I told her that I had thrown out the loaf of bread that was in her freezer, since I bought it for her when she first moved in two years ago and I didn't think it would be any good now.  I wanted to be sure she didn't find it in the garbage and take it out again.

We had the usual "I'm old" discussion and the talk about how much she likes at Atria and, to my surprise, she mentioned that she had made a few friends here.  That's the first time she has said that.

We went off to lunch and she headed for the table where Margaret and Robert sat, where we usually sit, but there had been two people there before us and so there was no clean place settings and we sat at the next table, but as we passed Robert, she greeted him (not by name, of course) and told me he was her friend.  She later indicated Margaret and told me she was a nice lady.  

As we sat down, she suddenly could not get her breath and for a minute I was ready to get someone to come and help, as she bent down toward the table and held her chest and tried to breathe.  But the incident was over in a couple of seconds and after that she was fine.

As she does every single day she perused the menu thoughtfully and then chose fruit salad and vegetable soup, but had to refer back to the menu several times to remember what she was going to have, though she has it every day.  And, as always, she took the broth from the soup and left the vegetables.

We were joined by a man who has probably had a stroke.  He is worse off than she is.  Very pleasant guy, but could not get his words out and would start talking and then forget what he was going to say.

We went back to the apartment and I did some flower arranging for her.  I had brought her a floral arrangement at Easter, pink and yellow carnations in a nice basket with a big bow on it.  Talk about getting a bang for your buck.  She has raved and raved over how beautiful the arrangement was, even as the flowers died off and she was left with only dried fern in the backet.  She always asks if I brought her the basket. She said she didn't understand why the flowers died, because she kept watering them.  I have suggested throwing the basket out, but she says she likes looking at it.

I had brought her fresh flowers the last time I was there to bring her pills and she put them in a vase but stuck the vase in a dark corner where she couldn't see the flowers, so I took those flowers and put them in the basket with the dried ferns and now she thinks that the basket is the one I brought her at Easter time, which is nice because she seems to spend her day looking at either the flowers or out the window at the trees.  She loves plants so much.  Ed brought her a lovely orchid plant at Christmas and though it has been totally dead for months, she has hung a plastic lei on it and it still stands there so she has "something pretty to look at."

She has mentioned that she "has to do something with her hair" and I offered to make an appointment with the hair dresser for her, but she wants to "think about it" first.  I didn't press her on it, but when I have free time I'll just make the appointment and take her.  That's the only way she will ever go.

I picked up her laundry to bring home to wash.  I pointed out that I have only done underwear for the past month and didn't her other clothes need washing?  She wears the same 3 outfits in rotation every day, despite having a full closet of clothes, but she insists they aren't dirty and when they are, she'll give them to me to wash.  Whatever.

As I said, it was a normal day, but I wanted to record how this day went.

Billows of Books

.I read someone's profile on SwapBot the other day and I absolutely loved her phrase "at home in an ocean of literature, in a storm, flooding all the floor, the tables, and the chairs — billows of books" How delicious does it sound to live in "billows of books," though as I look about me at every floor, table and flat surface in addition to numerous book shelves crammed full of books, perhaps I already do.

I don't know if anyone ever pays attention to the ever-changing left column of this page, but I have been changing the "Books Read in 2015" entry frequently lately.  I'm in a real book-reading stage right now.  Of course it always helps to read several books at once and in the last week or two I finished four books I'd been reading at for a long time.

The most recent was "How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness," written by my friend Toni Bernhard.  It's her third book inspired by her chronic illness, which she developed on a trip to Paris in 2001.  Though they first thought it was a virus that would pass in time the virus affected her immune system and has never left. It has resulted in her having to retire from her position teaching at the UC Davis School of Law, and she has been mostly house-bound, and often bed-bound for the past 14 years, missing the opportunity to spend as much time as she planned with her grandchildren, often having to miss holiday events, etc.  Her first book, "How to Be Sick," was a Buddhist-inspired how-to book which told how she has adapted to this life she never wanted to live.  It has won prizes and many in her situation have started following her.  She now writes a regular columnn for Psychology Today.  Her next book was "How to be Well" (and I don't remember the jist of that one).  This third one will be published in October, but she asked if I would review it for her, as I reviewed book 2.

Though I enjoyed her first two books, I found this the most "relatable" of the three.  There is less Buddhism (though there was really not all that much) than in Book 1 and by the time you finish, you have a very clear picture of what chronic illness is, and how best to cope, while still making the most of your life.  You also learn what not to say to someone with a chronic illness ("You look terrific!" is right up there, said to someone who has been able to go out for a short time and may look normal, but may be in pain), and, alternatively, you learn what someone with a chronic illness wants to hear from people who want to contact her (not "let me know if there is anything I can do for you," but "I'm going to the store; can I pick something up for you?" for example).  Also many of her exercises to help the patient make it through a difficult day work well for helping those of us who are not suffering the physical debilitations of a chronic illness, but still have to get through difficult things in our lives.

This book was quite a change from the audio book I had been "reading" for the past several weeks.  "Stolen Innocence" by Elissa Wall tells the story of a girl, born and raised in the FLDS (the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints -- the guys who still practice plural marriage).  It tells of the power the FLDS authorities have over their followers.  Elissa and her siblings were removed, along with their mother, from the father beause he was deemed to be "unworthy of the priesthood," and the mother was given in "marriage" to another man (who already had several wives).  Elissa was forced into a marriage at age 14 with a 20 year old cousin she hated.  She tried everything she could to get out of the marriage, but ultimately was forced into it, in threat of losing her chance at entering the kingdom of heaven, which you can only enter with your husband, apparently (and the husband can only enter if he has at least 3 wives).  

My heart ached for the 14 year old Elissa who didn't know the first thing about relations between men and women, had not been told the facts of life (this is nothing you are permitted to discuss in the FLDS and a bride must learn about sex from her husband), and was essentially raped an abused by her husband regularly.  She ultimately finds the strength to leave the FLDS and her husband and marry a man with whom she had fallen in love, after several years of marriage and five miscarriages.  She ultimately played a big part in the arrest and life sentencing of Warren Jeffs, the self-appointed FLDS "prophet" who made her life a living hell for so many years.

And then there was "While I still Can," a book by Rick Phelps, diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers in his 50s, determined to record what he was going to in the hopes of it being of some help to other Alzheimers victims and their caregivers.  Realizing that he would eventually not be able to do the writing, he connected with another author, Gary Joseph LeBlanc, who chronicled Rick's decline and his feelings and what was going on in his head.  The last sections of the book are no longer about Rick but about the last years of LeBlanc's own father, who died of Alzheimers.  I assume this was beause Rick was no longer able to communicte effectively.

One of the things that Rick did was to start group called "Memory People" on Facebook, a place where people suffering from Alzheimers or dementia...or mostly their caregivers...can communicate with each other.  I joined immediately and have found it quite helpful.

And then to lighten the load a bit, I also finished Dick Francis' "Twice Shy."  I haven't read a Dick Francis book in a long time and had read just about all of them up to a certain point.  He is the former jockey to the queen and so his mysteries all concern some aspect of horse racing.  This one had very little actual horses in it, but revolved around track betting.  It wasn't his best, but I enjoyed it.  

Now I'm starting a whole new raft of books.  The audio book Walt and I are listening to together in the car is David Baldacci's "Last Man Standing," which it will take us a couple of trips to Santa Barbara to finish, because it's longer than most of his books.  On my own, I'm listening to a new Harlan Coben book, "One False Move," which I haven't gotten too far into yet, but Coben is the master of the simile and/or metaphor and I about cracked up when I read that something "chaffed like a tweed condom."

And I'm also reading a book called "The Rosie Project," by Graeme Simsion, which I am reading for a new book club, one that Char belongs to.  I'm going to try that one, though it means driving a bit over an hour once a month to meetings.  But that's actually a perk because it means I can get through my audiobook that much faster and she seems to really enjoy this group.  I am loving "The Rosie Project," about an awkward intellectual who has decided he needs to find a wife and sets about doing it scientifically. Anybody who is a fan of The Big Bang Theory will recognize that, though this book is set in England, the guy looking for a wife is exactly like Sheldon Cooper.  

Thursday I'll be back at Logos and will choose a fresh book to read there.  Yes, my life may seem like it's only television, but there is a huge dose of reading in there too.  Is it any wonder I rarely get any housework done!  But I'm lovin' being surrounded by "billows of books"

All That Jazz - the French Quarter

The evening of the kids' performance at the competition was to be the fulfillment of a dream that Dick Brunelle had for years, that of taking a group of his jazz choir kids onto the streets of the French Quarter and just having them perform at the drop of a hat, as he imagined people did there.  It wasn't quite what he expected.

With boom box and piano accompaniment tape in hand, we joined the crowds at the Jazz Festival in the French Quarter and discovered that trying to keep 28 people together in a crowd of drunks was well nigh impossible.  Bourbon Street, we discovered, had become quite sleazy and was one t-shirt/junk souvenir shop after another, with a club or two thrown in, many of them playing what sounded to me more like rock than jazz.

The streets, in places, reeked of vomit and from the smell, the crunch of the crowd and the overall feel of the place, one of the girls started feeling ill and wanted to return to the hotel.  But we pushed on and actually found a fairly empty spot on the street, where the kids decided to do Birdland.  The show choir from Alabama was also there and helped form a circle so the kids could get started.

They did their whole number, some more embarrassed than others (Comment from Jeff afterwards:  I've done some embarrassing things in my life--and this is one of them!) The Alabama group then put on one of their tapes, a rap number, and did some of their own dancing.  It was all kind of silly, but fun and memorable, and it was nice for the interaction between the two groups.

By now some people were getting disgruntled at all this stifling "togetherness," especially Jeff, who longed to get into a club and listen to some jazz.  Dick seemed to be feeling a little unhappy that it wasn't all going well.  We left Bourbon Street to go to Royal Street, which was a little less sleazy and Dick suggested that Walt and I take Jeff and David and whoever else wanted to go to a club and just go off quietly on our own. But just at that time, we met Darrell Johnson.  Johnson was standing on a corner and started doing a tap dance for us as we passed by.  The kids crowded around him and someone encouraged Mara to dance with him. Soon Mara and Patrick were both dancing.

At the conclusion of the dance, Johnson said he was going to "sing a song for y'all" and launched into a Louis Jordan song.  Louis Jordan happened to be Jeff's favorite singer in the world, so Jeff started singing with him, with the choir singing the verse.  This turned into about a 15 minute jam session and was by far the highlight of the whole trip.

 

This is my favorite picture of the whole trip.

 At the conclusion of the singing and dancing with Johnson, the kids decided that since he had performed for them, they would perform for him.  Out came the boom box, Johnson blew his police whistle to direct traffic so that it wouldn't run the kids down, and they went through about four of their numbers, drawing an audience and collecting more money for Johnson.

As the fourth number was ending, a police officer came up to ask if anyone had a license.  That pretty effectively ended the show, but it was truly one of those moments that just "happen," that can't be planned, and that help erase any discomfort or inconvenience that has gone on before or might come after.  It was a night we will all long remember

By now it was getting late, we were all on a high and we decided that jazz in any club would be anticlimactic, so we just headed back to the hotel, stepping over the bodies on the ground and trying not to notice the foul odor or pile of excrement on the streets.

The French Quarter -- glitz and sleaze, jazz and junk, glitter and gloom.  Definitely a slice of life.

Nuts on the Family Tree

I had a fun phone call this afternoon.  It was Brianna who, at age 7, is researching her family tree.  I was able to give her the names of her great grandparents and her great-great grandparents (though I mistakenly told her my grandmother's name was Grace, when it was actually Lucy Grace, but don't tell her, OK?) and that my ancestors had come from Ireland and Scotland (I keep forgetting my father's mother's family came from Germany because we had absolutely no contact with that part of the family and I grew up knowing of my Irish and Scottish heritage and not realizing there was a German side too.

Peach spent years researching our side of the family, tracing the Kilpatricks back to Scotland and the guy who was a sidekick of Robert the Bruce.  

It's where we learned of the family crest, which shows a hand holding a bloody dagger.  The Kilpatrick web page (because there are people who are VerySerious about such things) describe how this came to be our crest:

In 1232 A.D. the Kilpatrick/Kirkpatrick coat-of-arms was authorised by King Alexander II of Scotland. The crest of the coat-of-arms, a hand holding a dagger dripping with blood, represents the instrument used by Sir Roger Kilpatrick when he went to the Church of Grey Friars and killed the tyrant John "The Red" Comyn, thus ending his rule and saved Scotland for King Robert the Bruce.  The motto on the  coat-of- arms, "I Make Sure" or "I Make Sicar" also refers to the same circumstance, meaning that he had made sure that Scotland's arch enemy was dead.

So don't mess with me or my family, you guys...I come from a long line of violent ancestors!

(I had to laugh when doing some research on John "The Red" Comyn.  Wikipedia lists his occupation as: claimed the throne of Scotland through his father and mother, Lord of Badenoch.  Beats "accounting," I guess!)

Since both sides of my mother's family come from Scotland, I get confused about who first arrived in North America and when.  I think it was the Scott side where two brothers immigrated to Canada.  Their name in Scotland had been Mathison and somehow because of their country of origin, it got changed to "Scott" here and the place where they were living in Canada became known as Scott's Corners.  (It is now a different name)

From beginnings of cohorts of the King, and having a town named after you, somehow my ancestors, both the Kirkpatricks and the Scotts, ultimately settled in Iowa and the Carolinas and became farmers.

I am fascinated by the genealogy shows on TV, watching big name personalities trace their roots.  Of course they hire genealogists to do the research for them, but it's amazing the things they uncover.  Peach did amazing work recording our lineage and had a whole closet full of binders on the story of our family, all of which she had to leave behind when they moved to Iowa. She made a lot of friends during her explorations, though, including uncovering a cousin in Argentina we did not know we had.  Her father is my mother's cousin and is the only person in the family who is older than she is (he turns hunnert this month).  My mother ignores any talk of him because she wants to be the oldest one!  I hear from his daughter periodically, and that's always fun.

The problem with ancestry is that we don't really appreciate it often until it's too late and all the people who could have told you all the stories are gone.  I am sorry I never asked my grandparents about their history in vaudeville, and though I know my grandmother was a child during the San Francisco 1906 earthquake and fire, she was so terrified at the memories that I never knew more than that she lived in a tent city for awhile and I don't have a clue what it was like for my grandfather, who was also a child at that time, or what their memories of the quake itself were.

One of the second cousins took all of Peach's binders to store, but has no interest in researching the family history herself.  Maybe someday someone in my children's generation will want to know where they came from and it will be there waiting for them.

I was going to research my father's side of the family once and signed on to Ancestry.com, but it's a long, time-consuming project (and a bit spendy to boot) and what I did not need then (or now) is another time consuming project.  I did, however, find someone who was also researching that side of the family.  She was my age and her father had been my father's cousin, whom I don't believe I ever met.  I was able to share photos with her of my grandfather's family and got from her a few names of people on the family tree I didn't know before.

Brianna's interest in her family tree will probably end with this project, but should she ever want to investigate further, boy can I give her some place to start!

Sunday Stealing

This isn't actually this week's Sunday Stealing, but an old one I never did:

The phone rings. Who will it be?
A telemarketer


When shopping at the grocery store, do you return your cart?
I am a bad person.  Not usually.

In a social setting, are you more of a talker or a listener?
Definitely a listener!

Do you take compliments well?
I guess. 

Do you play Sudoku?
Absolutely not.  I have never been able to figure it out.

If abandoned alone in the wilderness, would you survive?
I could probably get through the day, but not longer.

Did you ever go to camp as a kid?
No.  I always wanted to, but we could never afford it.

What was your favorite game as a kid?
Monopoly

Could you date someone with different religious beliefs than you?
Sure.

Use three words to describe yourself?
Fat, round-shouldered, sorta-bald (for now)

Do any songs make you cry?
Sometimes.  "Funny"(the world) used to make me cry all the time, but it doesn't any more.

Are you continuing your education?
Not since 1962

Do you know how to shoot a gun?
Good lord, no!

How often do you read books?
Daily

Do you think more about the past, present or future?
I don't think much about the future--too scary.  It's probably a toss-up between past and present.

What is your favorite children’s book?
I loved "Little Women" and read it many times as a child.

What color are your eyes?
Hazel.

How tall are you?
I used to be 5'7-1/2"; now I'm 5'6"

Where is your dream house located?
I'm happy where we are now.  I don't know if this is the dream house, but to move to a dream house I'd have to...you know...get rid of clutter.

If your house was on fire, what would be the first thing you grabbed?
Delicate Pooh.

When was the last time you were at Olive Garden?
Friday.  They were having a $5 offer for their salad, soup, breadstick lunch so my friend Kathleen and I returned to Olive Garden, where we used to meet once a month.

Where was the farthest place you traveled today?
Well, since I've only been up for an hour, the farthest I've traveled is from the living room into my office, the length of thehouse.

Do you like mustard?
I'm not a huge fan, but I do like some mustards (Mendocino Mustard, grey poupon, Coleman's)

Saturday 9

Saturday 9: Careless Whisper (1984)
Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) You can't miss George Michael's gold hoops in the photo at the left or in the "Careless Whisper" video. Are you wearing any jewelry right now?
I wear only two pieces of jewelry, a necklace that says "Grandma" on the front and "a Grandma's love is forever" on the back, that my grandkids gave me for my 70th birthday, and a pair of earrings that they gave me for Christmas last year.  I don't ever take them off.

2) Though the label says this hit is performed by "Wham! featuring George Michael," George Michael is the only member of the pop duo who appears in the video. Do you remember the name of the other guy who was in Wham?
Not only do I not remember the other guy who was Wham, I don't remember Wham!  In fact, I had not heard of George Michael until he bought John Lennon's "Imagine" piano and my friend Steve Schalchlin got to play it.

3) Much of the video was filmed on Watson Island, a man-made island near South Beach. Have you ever been to Miami?
Florida is one of only a handful of states that I have never been in, so no.  (I've missed most of the southern states and the ones straight down from No. Dakota)

4) Born Georgios Panayiotou, George Michael is of Greek descent, the son of the Greek restauranteur in East London. When you think of Greek cuisine, what comes to mind?
Spanakopita, the Greek spinach pie, which I have made a couple of times.  Also, isn't baklava Greek?  (I've made that too)

5) Today he lives in a tiny suburb called Highgate, and his neighbors are Kate Moss and Sting. Tell us about one of your neighbors.
This is kind of a difficult question, since, though we have lived here >40 years, I really don't know my neighbors.  There was a difficulty early in our years here and I was told "nobody in the neighborhood likes you" and most of those neighbors are still living here, so I have not extended myself to neighbors, almost none of whom expressed sympathy at the death of either of our children, though it seemed that almost everybody else in Davis did. However, it was a huge surprise and touched me deeply when one of our neighbors took up a collection from all of those neighbors and presented me with >$200 in donations when I had my head shaved for cancer research.

6) George Michael fans can purchase officially licensed merchandise from his website, including an iPhone cover with his photo and signature. Tell us about your cell phone. Is it Apple or Android? Is it a smartphone?
It's an iPhone 4, so not as smart as other iPhones, but smart enough.

7) George Michael sang Stevie Wonder's "You and I" for Prince William's wedding to Kate Middleton. What's your favorite love song?
I don't really have a favorite, but I do like John Denver's "For You," which I watched him sing on video when he shyly joked that he was just a sentimental guy.  (When Walt and I were dating, "our song" was "Puff the Magic Dragon.")

8) In 2014, George had a health scare. He was rushed to the hospital for tests and released the next day. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance?
My only ambulance ride was after I fell off my bike at the end of a 32 mile charity ride in 2003 and dislocated my shoulder.  As the attendants huffed and puffed trying to get me into the ambulance, I told them that I'll bet they were happy I had lost 80 lbs that year.

9) Known for hard partying in his youth, George is now in his 50s and says he's quite happy to spend his evenings eating takeout and watching DVDs. Are you doing any socializing this weekend?
I am reviewing a show in Sacramento tomorrow night but nothing planned for Sunday.  I will undoubtedly visit my mother at some point to bring her her meds for next week.

Today at Logos

Walt was in SF going to a matinee of the symphony today.  Char invited me to come, since she had Mike's ticket which was going to go unused.  But today was Logos day, so I passed.  But that also meant I didn't have a car, so I went to and from by bus.  (A friend has offered to drive me on days like this, but it was kind of nice taking the bus).  The nice thing about taking the bus is that I discovered everybody has headphones connected to their electronic devices, so instead of trying to read my book on the bouncing bus, I listened to my audio book, which was particularly nice on the ride home, which takes about 40 minutes.

As i walked through the alley way toward Logos, I realized I was following Bruce, but he was not in the store when I got there, so I guess he walked on by.

I arrived a little before time to take over for Sandy.  I was eager to find out if she had news of her friends in Nepal, and thankfully she has found out they are all OK, though she doesn't know the condition of their house. Since there is no wifi in Nepal at the moment she was able to contact a friend in Germany who was able to get in touch with a German friend in Nepal and get a report on the people.

We chatted for about half an hour.  I don't remember how the topic of Paul's death came up, but I started my diatribe against the coroner and probably bored her to tears.  When a customer came up with a book, she beat a hasty retreat (sorry, Sandy!)

It was such a slow day today that I usually fill up 3-4 pages in my notebook for this entry and today I only filled barely 2.

The first customer after Sandy left was a woman thrilled to find a huge book about Chinese archaeology, liberally illustrated with beautiful photos, for only $8, but she also needed a bathroom and ours is not fit for a public restroom, so I directed her to the bank building across the street, which does have a public restroom.  She left her husband browsing outside at the bargain books.  (They eventually bought 2 books in addition to the one one China and I asked her if she had been there, which she had)

A woman wanted books on nutritional health, but didn't find what she was looking for.

A couple came in.  The man, wearing an aloha shirt, also needed a bathroom and I directed him across the street too.  The woman bought a Paul Coelho book, one I had not heard of.

A man who looked like a cross between our friend Clyde and actor Ralph Waite came in.  Barrel chested man wearing white trainers with orange and green stripes.  That was a new combination for me.  He didn't buy anything, but turned and gave a cheery wave when he left.

A tall man with a shiny bald head, a chartreuse t-shirt and bright red shoes came in carrying his silver rimmed sunglasses in his hand.  He didn't stay long and didn't buy anything.

The man with four books on Myths and/or Religion ($28) was my first credit card customer of the day.  Susan had just replaced the old credit card machine with a slick new one and I hoped that I wouldn't screw things up.  I didn't and it runs so much faster than the old one!  I was very happy with it (Susan says I'm the only volunteer so far who likes the change!)

The antiquarian, whom I have not seen in several months, walked by, looked in and waved, but didn't slow down.

The 4-5 hour came and went with no sign of my friend again.  This is the third week in a row he has not come in.

A couple came in and chose two books on stories from the Caribbean.  The woman paid and the man explained that she was just learning American currency and that coins confused her.  I told them I could sympathize, having had that coin confusion before in most countries we have visited!

A woman asked if we had the Decameron Nights, couldn't find it and bought Waiting for Godot instead.  I screwed up her charge.  I kept trying and trying but the machine would not read her card and there doesn't seem to be a way to enter the number manually (I'm sure there is, but I couldn't find it).  When she pointed out to me that I was swiping the card upside down and I turned it the right way it worked fine.  Doh!

My last customer bought Rick Steves' "Europe Through the Back Door" and a Spanish dictionary.  She and her friend were going to try to see as much of Europe as they could, starting in Norway.

Susan arrived a bit early and I left right away because I had to get to the bus stop, 3 blocks away.  I turned on my audio book when I left the store, so walked the three blocks listening to the book and listened to it all the way home.  I may take other bus rides around the city (they are free for old folks) just so I can finish the book!