Life in Threes

My mother has this odd verbal pattern.  She often speaks of things in threes.  It's worse now, with the dementia.  I can't remember when it started.  For a long time whenever she can't remember something, or can't figure things out, she will hit herself in the head and shout "stupid, stupid, stupid!"  She also does this when she sees old age spots on her arms and doesn't like them.  It makes me angry when I find myself doing the same thing from time to time and I try very hard NOT to.

But it's not only stupid-stupid-stupid.  When we go driving around in Davis, she often says "cars, cars, cars," when she sees cars parked on the street or in an apartment parking lot and then comments on how there are no old beat-up cars in Davis, but they are all new looking.  

In the dining room, she will look around and say "people, people, people."  She always says "people" and "cars" in a tone that implies she thinks there should not be so many people or so many cars.  I never really know how to answer that.

But then she also often says "trees, trees, trees" when we are driving around somewhere green--and I know she loves trees.  And if we happen to pass a field of cattle, it's "cows, cows, cows," in a tone that asks "what are cows doing here?"

In a noisy place, it will be "talk, talk, talk," as if when people, people, people are gathered together in a place they shouldn't be talking because it disturbs her, or if people have brought their children into a restaurant, it's "kids, kids, kids."  I know she likes kids but when people, people people and kids, kids, kids get together there is always talk talk, talk and that upsets her.

I think a part of this verbal oddity is that even pre-dementia she was ever the social butterfly who took it upon herself to keep conversation going.  Never to let silence just be.  In the days when she was still going to Santa Barbaa with us, I really got to hate the 8 hour drive because she kept herself awake and kept a conversation going.  Walt and I generally either drive in silence or listen to a book on tape.  It was exhausting to have to have an 8 hour conversation so that silence didn't bother her.  So I think that now when she has nothing to say, she can always say cars, cars, cars or trees, trees, trees and that kind of fills the vacuum.

Today we went to her last appointment at Kaiser.  Her wound is healing nicey and I have antibiotic to put on it daily until the scome off (unless her rubbing her face rubs them off, in which case we'll have to watch for another infection).

Add to things she does not handle well:  waiting for a medical person to come and see her  I think it took maybe 10 minutes for the nurse practitioner to come and look ather, and there was lots of heavy sighing, lots of asking what we were waiting for, lots of asking why people were standing around doing nothing.

But the news was good and I told her that because she was such a good girl, I would treat her to an ice cream sundae.  I had decided this after yesterday's Chinese food lunch, which she seemed to enjoy so much.  There is a wonderful ice creamery, Fentons, in Vacaville, about 20 miles away, which makes outrageous ice cream treats and knowing how muh she likes ice cream, I thought it would be a nice treat for her.  I got her to eat another cereal bar for breakfast, so at least she has something slightly nutritious (but not much).

The place was full (people, people, people, kids, kids, kids, talk, talk, talk) and in that open barn-like restaurant there is no sound-absorbing material, so the noise level was high.  But we each had straberry sundaes which were very decadent.  Fentons' sundaes always come with a bowl so full that the syrup poured over the ice cream always ends up pooled in the saucer on which it is served

She ate every single bit of her sundae (as did I) and we went away happy and sated....and maybe a little big naughty!

I decided to go home "the back way," up Hwy 505 to Winters and then through the orchards back to Davis. What a GREAT idea.  She was in heaven with all the trees--and the vareity of trees.  I was happy to find a field of sunflowers that ere in full bloom and facing the right way so I could get a photo.

As we were approaching Davis she started yawning and I could see that she would take a nice nap when she got home.  She actually told me she had a nice day today.  I can't remember the last time she did that.

I'm going to have to find more activities like this, that take minimal walking and especially that are cheaper.  I've spent nearly $100 the past two days, but it's been worth it to see her enjoying herself.

BIG NEWS!!!!!  Ned and Brianna's's video is now on line on YouTube.  I'm so proud of him!  I hope you take the time to watch it!

Lookin' at Houses

When I was a little kid, one of the activities of our family on Sundays when there were no other plans was to pack us all in the car and go "looking at houses."  What a thrill that was for a couple of little kids  Sitting in the car all day while we drove around and oohed and aahed at houses.

I grew up in a flat on one of San Francisco's steepest hills.  My mother was pregnant with me when they moved in.  The building was owned by a friend of my grandparents and she offered them a good deal on the rent.  The idea was that they would live there until they found a home of their own.

They moved out 30 years later.

Over the years my father came to regard the owners, Irma and Joe, as family.  He was particularly close to Joe, who was Italian and my father always said he felt he was part Italian (he was Irish through and through).  As Irma and Joe got older, they relied on him more and more and he became the manager of the building (4 flats and a grocery store).  After Irma and Joe died, their daughter, Inez, owned the building and continued to keep my father as manager.  She also continued to keep their rent extremely low.  In 1972, when they moved, they were paying $47 a month rent...and they had apologized to them when they had to raise the rent a couple of dollars a few years before.

After they moved out, they rented the place for $250 and I'm sure it now rents for hundreds, if not over $1,000.

But my mother never gave up her dream of a home of her own.  In the early years, they were building the huge Richmond District in San Francisco, a large housing development to meet the needs of the post-war baby boom.  They were the kinds of houss Malvina Reynolds wrote aboaut in her song "Little Boxes," pretty much identical houes, with different designs on the garage, or a different arch over the entry-way.

The houses were selling for around $2,000 and my mother was excited about the prospect of owning one, but my grandmother, whose erroneous ideas changed our lives more than once, convinced my father that money belonged in a bank and that investment in property was risky.

So we never bought a home.  My mother lasted on the flat until long after it was an empty nest and then told my father that she was moving to Marin County and he could either come with her or not, but she would not live in that flat any longer.  They went house shopping and found a lovely home in San Rafael and my father was very happy having moved.  But of course it was too late for Karen and me to have enjoyed growing up in a neighborhood with other families.

But we did spend a lot of time driving around looking at the houses of those who did buy those homes.

Yesterday I went to Atria to take my mother her morning's pill.  She slept until 11:30 so never had breakfast, though I got her to eat a breakfast bar.  She was complaining, as she frequently does, that there was nothing exciting happening for her.  She had nothing to do, nobody to see, etc.  All the things her hermit-hood has brought her and that she is unwilling to do anything about.  

But I decided to take her out to lunch, just to give her something different to break up the monotony of her day.

We went to a quiet Chinese restaurant where I have taken her before.  Busy restaurants are too noisy for her and she gets confused, but this place is perfect.  It's quiet and she likes Chinese food, which they don't serve at Atria.  And she ate.  I had asked her which she liked better, mushrooms or broccoli (thinking I'd find that out ahead so we could order a vegetable dish) and she said "uh...neither."  Another change.  She used to practically go into ecstacy at mushroom dishes and was always pleased with fresh vegetables.  But she now says she doesn't like vegetables. We we had honey walnut chicken and chow mein.  She even went back for seconds on chow mein, but because it's difficult to dish up she mainly had meat and celery, so I figure she had something nutritious.

And then after lunch was over, I decided to go driving around looking at houses.  She is always so happy to look at trees and greenery and flowers and I figured we would just drive around a couple of housing developments so she could look at what the houses were like.

It was a good idea.  She loved the houses.  She loved the vegetation and she seemed to be in a good mood when I dropped her off at Atria.  I came home to do her laundry before returning for the afternoon pill.

I even managed to sneak out the clothes she has been wearing all week, which she insists don't need washing, despite the stains on the pants.

When I came back in the middle of the afternoon for her second she had no memory of going to lunch or driving around looking at houses, but in the moment she enjoyed it and that made it worthwhile.

In the evening, we had a Facetime call with Santa Barbara and were able to join in the singing of "Happy Birthday" as Tom blew out his birthday candles.  It was the next best thing to being there...but we didn't get any cake.

Safe and Sane

It was definitely a safe and sane 4th of July around here.

Walt went off to the Little League field in the morning for the annual Little League pancake breakfast.  He started doing this many years ago, but has not been ever since we started spending the holiday in Santa Barbara.  They used to hold the breakfast at the local community center, but it has moved to the Little League field and, from reports, was as fun as it used to be, though he only saw one person he knew this year, a fellow musician who played in the Rebel Band with Jeri back in the day.  Walt saw him with his two sons.

I went to Atria for the first dose of medicine around 10:30, but it was after 11:30 before my mother woke up.  I had brought my Kindle and sat there reading "Still Alice," kind of a surreal experience, as it is about a woman with Alzheimers.  I saw the movie a long time ago with my friend Lisa and I enjoyed it (if you can "enjoy" a movie like that) but the book was so much better.  The movie shows Alice as she begins to deteriorate from this  awful disease, but the book gets inside her head and you not only see what happens to her, you experience it from inside her head.  Reading things like this always helps me understand what is going on inside my mother's head.

She woke up in a silly mood and we laughed a lot.  Her wound is looking much better and today will be her last day of the antibiotics.  She still doesn't remember that it's there and doesn't remember why she doesn't have her glasses, but I think I will bring them back to her today, as well as her lipstick. If she decides to rub lipstick on the wound now it won't make a difference, except cosmetically.  Tomorrow she has her last follow-up with the nurse.

At noon, she remembered it was time for lunch (she had only been awake half an hour, so had no breakfast) and I walked her down to the dining room and left her at a table with some people she knew, so I was sure that she would actually have lunch.

When I got into the car and turned on the radio, the late Gene Burns, long-time personality for San Francisco's KGO radio, was reading the Declaration of Independence. I found it surprisingly moving, putting myself in the place of those early Americans hearing this information for the first time and how there must have been feelings of pride...and fear...standing up to the King.

I spent the afternoon agonizing over a review I've been wrting.  I don't know why this particular review, about which there should be absolutely nothing difficult, has given me so much trouble, but the words just won't come.  I am almost finished, but had to go off for medicine #2 before I ended it.

She was sleeping when I got back to Atria and I read for a bit longer, though she woke up about 10 minutes after I got there.  In the afternoon she was groggy and then got into "all this crap" mode waving her hands at the cabinet on which she has all of the famiy photos and saying repeatedly "how did I get all this crap?" with a disgusted look on her face.  I reminded her each time that those were photos of people she loved and she would remember that she reguarly sits in her chair an talks to them and then a few minutes later she would wave her hand at them and ask about what she should do with all this crap again.

When it was 6 p.m., I walked her back to the dining room.  On the way out, she saw the food I had bought for her on the stove and said "look at all that crap.  I should just throw it all away."

I know one thing for certain.  When I get to the state where my mother is now, and I am convinced I will get there eventually, I definitely won't be worried about "all the crap" in my living area, since "all the crap" has been my life.  In fact, i am still worried about all the crap in the living room and moving it into the office.  It had been (and still is, sort of) my intent to do it in an organized fashion, but there is just too much crap and too little space so it does weigh on me.  It is what is taking so long to re-settle into the new office because there is much more stuff than will fit in here and I'm just not sure what to do with itall.  Also a lot of the stuff consists of things that really had no "place" in the old office.  It was just stuff piled on top of other stuff, but stuff that was, at least at the time, important to me.

I left Aria and went to buy a 4th of July dinner--hot dogs, potato chips and corn on the cob, a far cry from our Blue Apron meals, but somehow it just seemed appropriate.

After dinner we walked to the home of our friend Nancianne, who lives near the park where the yearly fireworks are set off and who invites people to come and watch the show from her front lawn. 

I had to laugh, as we watched the display to realize that there were four people taking pictures of the fireworks and I was not one of them.  I had not brought a camera...but Walt had.

This was not the best show, nor the worst.  It started pretty boring, with explosion after explosion the same but it grew an was kind of cool the further we got into it.

Our friend Stephen drove us home and the dogs were extraordinarily happy to see us, so I assume they had been shaken up by the explosions, but were locked in the house, so not much they could do about it.

And that was it.  Our celebrations on Independence Day.

World Premiere

I can only assume that when my granddaughters look back on their childhood, they are going to have wonderful memories.  At only 8 and 4 they have already done such wonderful things (like yearly trips to Hawaii and those pictures with birds each year).  They have been involved in lots of diverse activities from gymnastics to karate, to zoo excursions, to days at the aquarium.  I sometimes envy the things they do.

When Ned an Marta were in Santa Barbara the last time, a few weeks ago, they made a movie.

Now, Ned has been making movies since he was Brianna's age, and his expertise has only grown over the past 30 some-odd years.  His movies are so professional looking.  

The girls are into Star Wars, which seems strange for girls, especially at their young age, but Brianna wanted to make a Star Wars movie.  They spent his time in Santa Barbara filming scenes, which he would then come home and put together.  He warned her the movie would only be about 3 minutes long, but by the time he finished it was apparently 15 minutes long.  The big premiere was going to be over this 4th of July weekend.

It was one of the things I was most sad about missing, when we decided not to go to Santa Barbara this weekend.

Yesterday, Laurel posted a video on Facebook (sadly, it's not on YouTube, or I would include it) of the "red carpet" before the premiere.

The video opens sowing the open door of their house with a red "carpet" (rug? towel?) on the floor.  To the left there is a barricade set up and the waiting audience is standing there cheering.  The girls and Ned walk through the door, dressed up, with flowers in their hair (did I see a crown?) and walking into the family room, where special seats were set up in front of the b big screen TV, ready for the start of the movie.

Now they could have just put the movie on and watched it, but I love that they made such a big production out of it--and what fun memories this will be for the girls.  The movie will eventually be on YouTube and I can link to it, but for now I have not seen it, except the very beginning, which starts like all Star Wars movies, with a typed prologue fading up and into the atmosphere.

It's the one time when I wished I were a grandmother and not a daughter.

But it's not so bad being a daughter this week.  When I last mentioned my mother, I had taken her to Kaiser to have her stitches out, but the doctor decided they weren't quite ready to come out and so we made an appointment to come back in two days.

When I picked her up two days later, she looked like a clown.  For some reason known only to her, she had put lipstick on the stitches and on her cheeks.  She denied doing it, but you could not deny that her face had these big red splotches on it, and when we got to Kaiser the nurse started dabbing at the splotches and red came off onto the gauze with which she was dabbing.

She got as much of it cleaned up as she could and took out either all or all but one of the stitches, swabbed the wound area with disinfectant and got a nurse practitioner to come and check things.  She said that the area was infected, so prescribed an antibiotic for her to take three times a day for the next week.

That was when we canceled our plans to go to Santa Barbara and I have been going to Atria three times a day to give her her medicine (I told the girl at the front desk I was earning frequent flier miles at Atria!).  I had hoped to maybe get someone at Atria to give her the evening pill for 3 days so I would not have to come in at 7:30, but she has to be on their "medicine program" for them to give her3 damn pills, so that wouldn't work. 

The nurse practitiona also decided that her glasses were rubbing against the bridge of her nose and making the infection worse, so she shouldn't wear her glasses.  Fortunately, she sees as well without them as she does with them, she has told me ever since she had her last cataract surgery, and the glasses are now merely a habit, so not wearing them would not be a problem for her.

I told her NOT to wear her glasses and NOT to touch her wound and spent my time the first day yelling at her whenever she touched her wound, which she does not remember that she has.  I took her glasses off and wrapped them in a paper with DO NOT WEAR GLASSES written on it and rubber banded around the glasses.

The first morning I went over to bring her coffee and give her her first pill of the day.  She was already up and dressed, and had put lipstick on her wound and was wearing her glasses, my note not to wear them, neatly lying on the kitchen counter.  I asked her if she had put anything on her face and she said "just makeup."  Sigh.  I was so frustrated with her and she was so depressed that she couldn't remember anything.  I cleaned up her wound and put some Betadyne on it and then ended up taking all of her make up and her glasses home with me and as we talked, every time she touched her wound, I would reminder her not to do it.

When I left, she looked like a very depressed, very old lady and I went home feeling guilty

But there is an advantage to seeing her three times a day, I discovered, when I went back in the mid-afternoon to give her the second pill of the day.  She was a different person.  Much more "with it" and cheery and seeming to have forgotten the problems of the morning.  We had a nice visit an I told her several times that the dining room was serving prime rib for dinner and to remember to go.

When I returned at 7:30 for the last pill, I asked her if she had gone to dinner and she said she was eating it now, pointing to a bowl of potato chips.  The next morning, a woman stopped me to ask if my mother was OK because they haven't seen her in the dining room lately.  I guess she's just eating snack food.  So I went out and got better snack food -- cashews, for example, which she loves.  I bought a pound or so of them.  I also got a box of ice cream cones and some oatmeal cookies as well as some breakfast cereal bars.  Nothing nutritious, but better than potato chips for dinner.  There  are better things I could have bought, but I had to buy things I knew she would actually EAT....and she has no microwave or stove, so I couldn't get anything that had to be heated.

Yesterday the wound was looking better and I decided it didn't need Betadyne any more and that it was starting to heal properly.  Also, somewhere in that demented mind, the message to not touch the wound must have sunk in because I noticed that she would rub her eyes, but avoid the wound, though she doesn't remember she has one. (I went and got some Visine for her itching eyes).

She feels bad that I have to come three times a day and keeps asking why I can't just leave the pills because she will remember to take them.  I think even she realizes that's a silly thing to expect.

I had not planned on having lunch with her yesterday, but walked her to the dining room to make sure she went to lunch, but there was nobody at her table, so I ended up sitting with her.  She always orders just fruit and dessert and I have learned how to order at least vegetable soup for her and make her think she has ordered it.

I don't know if she went to dinner, but I suspect not, but at least she had something slightly better than potato chips to eat.  

Seeing how things have gone with her since we saw the nurse, I'm glad that I stayed home to be around 3x/day for her.

But I sure would have given anything to have been a part of the world premiere of Ned's new movie.

Sunday Stealing

We Found this gem from a blogger named Erik Rubright who lives in Pea Ridge, Arkansas. The blog’s name is “Gambrinous with Griffonage” which he explains translates to “full of beer with bad handwriting”. It was written over seven years ago, so we had to update a few questions. Erik states that he stole it from the blog  “The Melancholy Diary of a Cynic” who undoubtedly ripped it off another blog. But that’s as far as we will go. You’ve probably already stopped reading this and started the meme.

1. Would you try a recreation drug if all were legalized?
No.  I'm too old, and have too addictive a personaity.  I'd be terrified that I'd like it too much.  I don't even drink liquor much any more.

2. Are you happy that the U.S. Supreme Court once again upheld a woman’s right to abortion?
God, yes!  My word, Roe v. Wade was settled in 1973 and we are STILL fighting for a woman to have the right to make her own choices about her own body, with the help of her doctor.  I don't imagne that this will settle things...there will still be "right to lifers" willing to KILL over it, I fear.

3. Would our country cope any differently with a woman president?
Let's hope we get the chance to find out.  I can't imagine that the US would fare any different from the other countries run by women (like German, for example).  I suspect that the country would cope quite differently if the current Republican candidate were to be elected

4. Do you believe in the death penalty?
No.  I think life in prison without the possibility of parole would be much worse...and it's much cheaper too.

5. Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
Well, medicinal marijuana is legal here in California, and I'm happy about that.  Not for myself, but for those whose suffering can be eased by marijuana.

6. Do you believe in God?
I believe in something, but not an old man sitting on a throne with a long beard amd a bird flying over is head.

7. How do you feel now that same-sex marriage is legalized?
Thrilled.  I was tired of making wedding cakes every time my friends got married (I think they were married in Canada and in Massachusetts and when it was temporarily legal here in California...and finally legal for good).  It's about time gay people get the same rights (and duties) as straight people.

8. Do you think it’s wrong that so many Hispanics are moving to the USA?
This is a country built on the work of immigrants.  Immigrants are a huge part of the economy in California.  I wish it were easier for them to either immigrate, or have temporary visas to work here.  They say they are stealing the jobs that American want...but I have yet to find a bunch of Americans wanting to do the backbreaking field work that many people I see from Mexico do here.

9. A 12-year-old girl has a baby… should she keep it?
That's entirely up to her and her parents.  It's not my place to offer an opinion without knowing all the circumstances of the case....but I sincerely hope she has a lot of support no matter what decision she makes.

10. Should the alcohol age be lowered to 18?
This a toughy.  I would like to say no because of young people who would not drink responsibly but if we are asking young men of 18 to go and die for our country, they should have the right to drink, if they choose.

11. Should the wars in the Middle East be called off?
That's entirely too complicated a question for me to answer.  If it were as simple as just withdrawing troops and letting them fight it out themselves, I'd say definitely yes, but there are too many other factors that enter into it.

12. Do you believe in spanking your children?
Heck no!  They are all bigger and stronger than I am!  I'd look pretty silly trying to spank my 50 year old daughter.

13. A mother is declared innocent after murdering her 5 children in a temporary insanity case… what do you think?
Again, not enough information about what her defense is.  It's easy to make snap judgments, it's more difficult to take the time to examine all the evidence.

14. Would you want to prosecute someone for burning their country’s flag as a method of protest?
I never have understood that.  The way to legally get rid of a flag that has gotten old is to burn it.  How is that different than burning it in protest? 

15. It’s between you and a person who is being kept alive (with NO hope) by life support machines… one has to die? Who?
This is a crazy question.  What is the condition of the person on life support?  Is s/he comatose, vegetative state, have a DNR, etc. Why does one of us need to die in the first place?  Who is going to kill us?  For what reason?

16. Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
I'm 73 years old.  I gave up caring about what people think of my opinions long ago.

Saturday 9

Welcome to Saturday: 9. What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love memes, however, and here is today's meme!

[This week links to a recording that was made of Andy Williams at RFK's funeral, but I'd like to add the marvelous version that Judy Garland sang as a tribute to JFK, after his assassination.  She wasn't allowed to mention him on her show, but there was no question about why she sang it.]

Saturday 9: Battle Hymn of the Republic (1968)
... because it's 4th of July

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

 

This performance of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is from Robert Kennedy's funeral. So this week, we focus on him. 

1) During WWII, when he was just 17, Robert Kennedy enlisted in the Navy. He was disappointed he was never involved in combat. Tell us about a time when you felt fate/circumstances kept you from something you wanted. 
It was in grammar school.  They were starting a ballet class in our school and I really wanted to take lessons, but my mother told me, sadly, that I was too fat and she was sure they would not take me.  I still remember te pain of that day and wonder if my weight problems and low self esteem would have followed me all my life if I had been allowed to take ballet.

2) Bobby was trained as an altar boy and throughout his life regularly attended early morning mass. When is the last time you attended a worship service?
It's been many years.  There were lots of straws on that camel's back, but the final one was when the church forbad a priest and nun from having ecumenical services for the gay community in San Francisco.  I decided that the allegiance I pledged to the Catholic church each Sunday was a lie and I didn't believe in it any more, so I decided to stop being hypocritical.

3) He may have been an altar boy, but he was no angel. During junior high he was suspended for punching a classmate. Who is the last person who made you very, very mad?
Very very mad?  I can't think of anyone in my personal life, but all I have to do thse days is turn on the television and there are plenty of people who make me very, very angry.

 

4) He had his first date when he was a senior in high school. Looking back, Mary Bailey Gimble told Kennedy biographers that she knew he had a crush on her and wondered why it took him so long to ask her out. Tell us about one of your early crushes.
My first boyfriend was Bill Farrngton.  He was the nephew of our next door neighbor and we became friends after he was hospitalized following an auto accident.  When he got out of the hospital, we started dating and dated for 3 years, until he decided to go into the seminary, where he remains today, as a Jesuit brother.
 

 

5) Bobby's wife Ethel is as bubbly and talkative as he was introspective and shy. He was organized, she's messy. While opposites may attract, do you believe the happiest marriages are between partners who are more similar than different?
I've only had one marriage, s I can't say.  Walt and I are similar in some ways, different in others.  it works for us.

6) By November 1960, when he was 35 years old, Bobby already had served as legal counsel to two Senate committees and run his brother's successful Presidential campaign. He was looking forward to a quieter life teaching law but gave in to family pressure to become President Kennedy's Attorney General. Tell us about a time when you were at a crossroads. Who influenced your decision?
My plan was to become a nun after high school.  I had my trunk packed and my plane ticket purchased when my friend, Sister Anne, came back to San Francisco to talk with me. She said she and the other sisters didn't think I was quite ready yet and suggested I wait 6 months to see if I really still wanted to go. Six months later, i enrolled at UC Berkeley and never entered the convent.


7) In 1777, Colonists celebrated July 4 with the firing of cannons and muskets, followed by a public reading of the Declaration of Independence. What is your neighborhood doing to observe the day?
There is always a big city-wide celebration at the park a few blocks from our house.  Good food, activities for the kids, music (our kids' band, Lawsuit, used to play there every year), and after dark, fireworks.  We went regulrly when the kids were younger, but now that we have an empty nest, we don't really go, though Walt goes to the Boy Scout pancake breakfast at the high school in the morning.

8) The Revolutionary War still raged during that summer of 1777. General George Washington allowed his soldiers to celebrate with a double ration of rum on July 4. Do you know anyone who is serving in the military this 4th of July?
No, I do not.

9) Celebrity chef Rachael Ray says she considers mini-hamburgers, or "sliders," the All-American food. What will you be eating this 4th of July?
We had planned to go to the big BBQ that my son and my brother-in-law throw on the beach in Santa Barbara every year.  It's our son's 46th birthday and it's always a gala celebration, with every possible meat that can be barbequed (e.g., tri trip roast, ribs, hamburger, hotdogs, chicken, salmon, and even pork belly).  About 60 people attend and everyone brings something to eat, from potato or macaroni salad to fresh fruit. I usually order a big cake.

  But because of my mother's fall and the need to give her antibiotics 3x/a day, along with some workmen who can only come to fix our garage door on the weekend, we decided we would have to give up the trip this year.  I don't have a clue what we will be eating but it will be nothing traditionally 4th of July.

Today at Logos

When I arrived at the store today, there was a homeless guy sitting and talking with Sandy.  From the sound of his voice and the look on her face, I assumed he had been there a long time and she was desperate to get away.  As soon as I got in, she told him she had to leave and waved goodbye as she walked out the door.

He continued talking, seemingly uaware that his audience had changed.  I guess I wasn't as receptive, though, because he didn't stay long.

However, as he talked, I got increasing worried about the bottle of yellow liquid sitting on the desk and worried, given his obvious homeless state and all his earthly possessions in a shopping cart outside, if maybe it was a bottle of urine.

Fortunately he eventually took a sip out of it.

It was such a quiet day that I almost didn't feel guilty reading my Kindle instead of a real book, as I usually do.  I was finishing the 3rd in a series of Harlan Coben books and was really into the series.  I finished book 1 on Tuesday, read all of book 2 on Wednesday and finished book 3 while working at the store.  Walt said they must be short books, but they are all over 300 pages, so not very!  But they were written with a young adult audience in mind and so perhaps easier reading. Also, wanting to get all the answers, which only came at the end of book 3 kept me reading faster and faster.

It was nearly an hour before my first customer came in, a very tall, very thin woman with a sinewy build, ropy veins in her neck, a Prince Valiant type hair cut and wire rimmed glasses. She looked like John Denver might have looked had he lived that long. She wandered around for awhile and then left.

A UC Davis guy came in.  I know he was a UC Davis guy because he had "UC Davis" writ large down one leg of his sweat pants and the bag he carried had UC Davis written on it.  I could see a blue glass beaded necklace under his t-shirt. He got down on his knees to look through books and finally bought "Pathoophysiology of Disease."  He saw me staring at the title (I wanted to remember it to add here) and he said.  "Doctor.  I'm a doctor."

A guy who reminded me of Raj from Big Bang Theory was wearing a t-shirt with "INDUSTRIAL" on it.  I couldn't read the smaller print, but "INDUSTRIAL" leaped out at you  He had earbuds in his ears and was carrying a cell phone  He spent a lot of time going through the show biz section and bought a book on film making and another book about Monet.

A guy I described as "younger middle-aged" came in, dressed like a business man going for a golf game, in neat khaki pants and a navy blue polo shirt.  He looked around for awhile, stopping to look through "Knives 2005), then asked if we had children's books.  He looked around the kids' room for awhile and asked how the prices compared with new books.  He finally left without buying anything, but saying he should come back with his kids.

A woman brought a donation of a book called "Manhattan Transfer" which wasn't about either the music group or the sale by the Indians but about New York in the 1920s.

A tall white curly haired man with a white beard was entering when I went into the back room to unload the 3 bags of books Walt and I had brought in, but he was gone by the time I came out again.

An unlikely looking fellow in shorts with a beard was looking for romance novels.  He didn't find any in the store, but found one outside, with a big bare-chested picture of Fabio on the cover (has Fabio ever been photographed without a bare chest?) 

My friend arrived at 4:10 and bought a math book and a guide to the Musee D'Orsay.  He asked what I was reading and by then I had finished Harlan Coben and was into "Still Alice," the book about a woman with Alzheimers.  It is much better than the movie because it goes ito her thoughts, which you don't get in the movie.  So very familiar, so much of it!

A tall guy with a baseball cap perched on top of his head, not pulled down like most caps wore blue jeans with suspenders over an orange shirt.  He had 2 bargain books and looked thoroughly thru the craft books, but ended up buying the two bargain books, $2, for which he paid with a $100 bill..  I tested the bill with our counterfeit-detector, but it appeared to be legit.  Giving him change took most of the paper money in the cash register.

A woman came in just to look at our cards by local artist Sandy Granet but didn't buy one and left quickly.

My biggest sale of the day was to a woman who bought 8 bargain books, a book of photographs, and 5 children's books, for a total of $34.04.

The last people in the store before Peter arrived were a nice looking young couple.  He had a camera over his shoulder and she wore a tiny backpack with a stuffed panda hanging from it.  He bought a book of poetry.

We were going to see Cyrano de Bergerac tonight and would have to leave fairly soon after I got home so Walt, bless him, ordered Chinese food from the restaurant near Logos and picked it up as we were on our way to the car.  It was delicious and there is enough left over to have for dinner before tonight's show, Bells are Ringing.