Alzheimers Buddies

Several weeks ago, we received an invitation from Atria to come to an "Alzheimers Buddies" brunch on October 8.  I called to RSVP but nobody that I could find had heard of it.  I asked my old friend Brianna, who is in charge of the facility, and she didn't know anything.  She apparently knows nothing of what goes on in memory care.

I sent an e-mail to Jen, who is in charge of memory care, asking about the brunch and saying we had RSVPd.  Jen never answers e-mail, so I did not hear back from her, but when I called this morning to find out if there really WAS an Alzheimers Buddies brunch and was assured that yes, there was.  I still wasn't sure what it was all about.

Unfortunately, I had completely forgotten about it and had already eaten a full breakfast, but Walt had not so he was ready for a brunch.  They said to come at 11.

At 11, we arrived and I asked about the brunch and was told there are "a lot of people in the dining room."  The dining room was closed but when I went in the back way I could see a long table and no other people.  There were a lot of people (including my mother) in the common room.  My mother seemed to be chatting with a young woman an smiling at a child who was also in the room.  I didn't want to interrupt that rare social interaction, so I sat in the empty dining room with Walt.

Finally Ali, one of the aides, whom I really like, told us what was going on.  There is a club at UCD that has made it its project to interact with people in Alzheimers units.  Once a week, they will come and visit their assigned person and try to make a connection.  Nice idea.

The brunch apparently was just to get us all together, buddies with family with Alzheimers clients to have kind of a "family" feel to it all.  I actually only saw two other families, in addition to ours, and they said that not all the buddies could come, so there weren't enough to go around.

They finally invited us all in to the dining room.  My mother was very confused.

.....but in truth, so was I!  They said that the buddies would go and get lunch for their partners and I guessed that "family" was to get their own lunch.

Someone came around and poured drinks for the Alzheimers patients and ignored the family.  They got everyone at the far end of the table fed and we were still waiting ... and as I have said before, my mother does not wait well.  She kept asking what we were doing and saying she didn't understand any of it.

I took some pictures and finally got a picture of her roommate, Marge.  I have never understood a single thing Marge has said and if you ask her something, or tell her something, she answers in a complete non-sequitur.  I don't know if she understands at all.

However, when I took this picture, I was interested to see the two watches on her wrist.  You may remember that some time ago, I ran into Marge's daughter who said that her mother had been "shopping" again.  She was holding a fancy necklace and her daughter was going to see if she could find out who it belongs to.  Marge is comfortable just walking into any room and helping herself to what she finds.  I actually don't mind because my mother has nothing of value and if Marge wants it, I'm not going to make a fuss.

But her watch has been missing for a long time.  I was kind of glad it got "lost" because it doesn't work and she checked it often and drove me nuts trying to figure out what the time is  Today, i discovered that it got "lost' on Marge's wrist.  I kind of suspected as much and she can have it as far as I'm concerned, but I found it humorous to see the long-lost wrist-watch on Marge's wrist.

Food finally came and my god you'd think they thought they were feeding stevedores!

My mother's plate (left) came heaped high with food.  I knew it was overwhelming for her and I got another plate and removed at least half of it (right) before she could start eating.  It reminded me of those Air Force Thanksgiving meals Walt used to talk about, with several courses all piled on top of each other, with a slice of pumpkin pie on top.  The slab of roast beef, which she didn't want, was the size of a man's shoe!  

But once I got the plate down to what looked like a big meal, but a manageable one, she actually finished almost everything but her vegetables (which surprised me because that's usually the thing she most eats.  Or used to be.

I didn't eat nearly as much and they had to throw away most of my meal, but I was still full from breakfast.  Walt managed to finish his.

When came time for dessert, they again skipped Walt and me and I had to ask for dessert.

I still don't know what this all accomplished, but it was a nice brunch, the "buddies" seem nice and dedicated and maybe it will give my mother a bit more socialization in the future.  They seem intent on getting people more active.

Here We Go Again

It hadn't happened in nearly a year and I thought we were past it.

But at 10 this morning, I had a call from Atria letting me know my mother had been unresponsive when they tried to wake her up and they were sending her to the emergency room.  While the initial reaction is to wonder "is this the time?" in my heart of hearts I knew how it was going to happen, and I was not wrong

When I got to the ER, she was still unconscious and they were trying to wake her, to no avail.  Her eye lids were blinking very quickly, but her eyes never opened.  Everybody tried to wake her up, but unsuccessfully.

They cut her out of her shirt because she wasn't able to help them get her undressed.  They put on diapers, but first took a urine sample so they could test for a UTI.  She slept through it all.

The nurses left and I saw her eyes flicker, like they had been, but also to open a tiny bit, so I got up and talked to her and she started to come alive.  I asked if she knew who I was and she slowly nodded.

About then Ebonee came in to take blood.  She had about the very best dreadlocks that I've seen.  I'm sorry I didn't take a picture from the front because it was truly beautiful.

She had lots of blood to collect and fortunately she had a great sense of humor, so she got my mother chatting and laughing.  She was now coming back to whatever her normal is, which was a relief.

Then we played the hurry up and wait game, waiting for time for her to be taken for EKG, CT-scan, and chest x-ray.  

 

I think it is not an exaggeration to say I had to explain to her 100 times where we were and why we were there, after which she always said she didn't want to be in the hospital and why hadn't I told them to just leave her alone.  And then she would ask again where we were and why we were there.

They finally took her off for her various scans and after she returned we waited again ("where are we and why are we here?  I can't understand a thing you say...")

Finally the x-ray guy came back with the report that all was fine, so we waited for the doctor to give her the all-clear.  And waited and waited and waited.  He finally came and told me what I knew he would--they can find no sign of anything.  She has no UTI, her blood sugar was fine, there was no sign of stroke, lungs are clear, etc., etc., etc.  He mentioned her going home by ambulance, but I told him I would drive her.

So we waited and waited and waited for the nurse to disconnect her from all the machines.  She does not wait patiently and asked me many times what we were waiting for. I finally had to go and get someone, because they were waiting for the ambulance.  They got her dressed, and gave me a gown to replace the shirt they had to cut off, and while I went to get the car, they got her into a wheelchair and outside.

Naturally there was no parking to be had at Atria, so I parked illegally and told the girl at the desk that I was taking her to memory care and asked if I could borrow a wheelchair, since I didn't want to walk her through the building in a hospital gown.  

 

A woman we know in town whose mother just moved into Atria was happy to see me and started chatting, but I had my mother who kept trying to get out of the car, and the wheelchair that was not arriving and I was probably kind of rude to her and her mother.

Finally a new desk person called again for a wheelchair and then two of them came.  We got her into one and someone pushed her while I followed along behind as the beast of burden, carrying a bag with her stuff (mostly her sheets), pillow, doctor's orders, my cane and my purse.  

 

We got her to her apartment, which she has never seen before and didn't know where she is.  Most of the aides came to see her and I realized that though this was her fourth trip to the hospital, she had never had one of her spells in the memory unit so they were much more worried about her than I was (though one of these days she's going to surprise me and die during one of these "normal tests" trips to the ER)

I was going to leave her when they took her to the dining room to get some food, since she had not eaten anything yet, but she was terrified, said she had never been there before and didn't know anybody.  I tried to explain to her that someone would help her get back to her apartment, but she didn't know she had an apartment.

About then there was a blackout.  All electricity went out and an alarm started to ring and the aides were looking worried.  Automatic doors slammed shut.  Just what my mother needed!  It didn't last more than 5 minutes, but when it was over, all the aides were off somewhere discussing it, and nobody was around for me to ask to take my mother back to her apartment. She started crying and asked what she should do if the two of us got separated.

I finally found someone to take her back to her apartment and I got the heck out of there ASAP.  My patience had about reached its breaking point.  I told Walt she was worse than a toddler and I just had to get out of there.

And I do feel guilty about that.  But at least I left her in good hands.  I feel guilty that I forgot to kiss her goodbye and that guilt will probably bite me in the butt and she'll die tonight and I'll have to live with my last act being to ignore her when she felt alone, lost and frightened.

I am a bad person.

Weird Stuff

I've had the weirdest experience this week.

When we returned from Santa Barbara, there was a caller id on the phone from a Robert Yates.  Now when I was first babysitting, I babysat for a Robert Yates and his sister and so I was curious about this phone call and tried calling him back, but got no answer (and no machine) so just forgot about it.

A couple of days ago, Robert Yates called again, trying to figure out why I had called him, forgetting that he had called me.  I asked him if his middle name was Elton, which it was not.  (the kid I babysat for went by "R.E." and I have since found him through Google, and apparently he is some big name poker player...I didn't try to contact him).  Since this Robert Yates couldn't remember why he had contacted me in the first place our conversation was short.

Then this afternoon, while I was on my cell phone with Ned, he called again and I let it go to voice mail.  He left this very long, very complicated message.  He "remembered" that he had contacted me before and that I had sent him a photo of myself and my husband and he rambled on and on and on and mentioned other relatives of his and thought I might be related to them.

I called him back and told him that no, I didn't know any of those people.

But then he mentioned a woman named Monica and I asked about her.  He said "Yeah...Monica Richmond" which didn't really mean anything to me until something flashed and I said "do you mean Monica SCOTT Richmond?" and he said yes.

She is his cousin, and the daughter of my mother's cousin, Chester, who has lived in Argentina most of her life.  So this Bob Yates is my cousin of sorts--I haven't figured out which level of cousin he is and he told me about the people in Argentina (gave me information I didn't give him).

 

I couldn't keep track of exactly where in the family he is, but I know that Chester was his grandfather and Chester was the brother of MY grandfather.

Chester and Monica

My mother never wanted to know about Chester because he was two years older than she was and she was very proud of being the oldest in the family.  So whenever I mentioned Chester, she acted as if she knew nothing about him.  Monica thought he'd make it to 100 but he died a couple of months before his 100th birthday, so if my mother keeps on going the way she is, she may outlive him and be the only person in her family to make it to 100....at least as far as we know.

Damn, I wish Peach were here!  Peach was the first person to "find" Monica and she would find all of this fascinating.

So I had this long conversation with my new cousin Bob and found out that there is Alzheimers in his family, but I don't know if it's in my blood line or not.  And I have his e-mail address.  And I have written to Monica to ask her to send me her email so I can tell her about my experience today.

I still don't know where R.E. Yates is, but how odd that he was the person who led me to finding this long lost relative!

---

Today Walt and I met Jeri and Phil for lunch.  This would be the other Jeri and Phil, our daughter Jeri's godmother and her husband Phil.  They spend their year driving around the country in their RV and visiting friends and relatives and this is their time to be here in this area.  Jeri and I realized we have been friends for 57 years and it seems like each time we meet, we are a little bit more feeble than we were the last time!  Last time she had a cane and I did not.  Now I have a cane and she has a walker.

But we had a wonderful lunch and a nice visit and they will be down in the Bay Area next week and will catch up with Char at that time.  Nothing better than getting together with "old" friends!

The Long, Long Road Home Again

And so we are home.  Just in time to hear the Morning Joe wrap-up of the Trump visit to Puerto Rico, which, apparently should be grateful they didn't have a "real" catastrophe, like Katrina ... and then tossed paper towels out into the crowd.  The visual I can't get out of my mind is the woman who explained to him about the tablets you drop into dirty water, wait 10-12 hours and have clean water.  With a look of sheer disgust on his face he said "and you actually drink that?" and then with a shudder handed it gingerly to someone behind him, as if he could not believe this woman would drink dirty water.

I am running out of synonyms for "disgusting" to describe this embarrassment to our country.

But I digress.

We had a leisurely last morning in Santa Barbara, having our last visits.  Kind of a 4-hour "Hour Baur" inside the house, over scrambled eggs, leftover sushi, and English muffins.  I pretty much gave up stressing about anything this weekend and wasn't worried about how late we left.  But it was only noon when we drove away, and we were home before 8, which was pretty good time.

I realized when I was talking with Alice Nan that I had not thought of my mother at all over the weekend, and that was nice.  There was no point in calling her because even if she answered the phone, she would forget I'd called before she got the phone back in its cradle.  And I knew that the staff in the memory unit were aware I was gone and would be looking in on her frequently.  So having that emotional "vacation" was nice, though I did occasionally have twinges of guilt about it.  But very brief twinges.

The drive was uneventful and, bless him, Walt did all the driving while I napped off and on.  For the first 2 hours we were finishing the Michael Connelly book we had been listening to on the drive down and then started a Harlan Coben.  I missed some stuff in the first three chapters because of dozing off, so downloaded a free "sample" of the book on my Kindle so I could go back and see if the sample was long enough to fill in the gaps!

We stopped at our favorite comfort food diner in King City for a lunch/dinner around 3.

I wasn't really hungry, so a nice bowl of chili sounded good to me.  But the bowl was humongous and way over-salted, so I only ate half of it.

The "garlic bread" that accompanied it had no taste of garlic whatever.  A disappointing lunch for me.  Walt fared better with his salad bar and "Dagwood-sized" BLT.

We ran into some pockets of heavy traffic, but overall they didn't last long.

The dogs were very happy to see us and both of them wanted to be in both of our laps right away.  It was nice to have been missed.

So today it's back to normal and I will be visiting Atria sometime after lunch.  But it sure was sweet while it lasted.

The Education of Jeri

It has always saddened me to know that our children don't remember when we revered government.  I remember when we were in Hyannis Port with my mother, who was thrilled to visit the Kennedy memorial.  Jeri asked me at the time what was the "big deal" about the Kennedys, that her generation could not understand.

They never knew "Camelot," nor did any of us, I suspect, but we loved thinking about the fantasy, loved the tragic young president, his beautiful, noble widow, and the brother who was to take up the mantle for the family who had suffered so much.  To Jeri, Bobby was barely a blip in history.  A footnote.

Yesterday, Alice Nan was going to a luncheon to hear a speaker with whom she was very peripherally familiar.  She hoped to remind him of those Kennedy days and talk about her role in the election of JFK and her work with Bobby's campaign.  As it happened, that never happened, but Jeri again talked about how her generation doesn't "get" the Kennedys and Alice told her about what she did, as a teenager, to help JFK get elected and to work for Bobby's campaign as well.  I knew most of the story, but I certainly didn't know all of it.  And I am probably forgetting a lot of things in reporting it here.

She volunteered for the Kennedy campaign when she was about 15 and she worked closely with people coordinating his schedule.  (The family lived in Bethesda, so she was close to the action.) She particularly worked with one guy who later, as it turned out, was responsible for sneaking young women into the White House.  This guy was also responsible for keeping track of Kennedy's pills.  As they did for FDR, the press was good about not reporting exactly how much pain the candidate/president was in and how many pills he took a day.  This guy saw to it that he got his pills and Alice Nan remembers being in Kennedy's bedroom in his house, counting out pills into container with this guy.  At the time she didn't think much about it but now, she can't believe she was in Kennedy's house counting pills.

She often entertained Bobby's kids when they were around and needed to be distracted.

Anyway, as a result of all of her work for the campaign, she got an invitation to the inaugural ball (the main one) and went with her brother Norm, who had to borrow a suit, and wore the borrowed suit and tennis shoes to the ball (that part I remembered).  She still has her invitation and her ticket from that event.

Fast forward to Bobby's campaign.  She wrote to RFK and reminded him of the days when she used to babysit for his kids at campaign events and asked if she could help in his campaign.  He found her a job working with his advance team, the folks who plan the candidate's events every day.  Each person on the team was in charge of a day and wrote up a complete schedule of everywhere the candidate was going, and then kept track of where he was in the day, calling ahead to the next venue if he was going to be late.

As it turned out, Alice Nan was responsible for Kennedy's very last day.  She still has the sheet on which she recorded that day, the last event being "The Ambassador Hotel."  She was in the hotel when the assassination happened and remembers hearing the gunshots.  

It was a fascinating account, all of it, even though I knew most of it.  I don't know that it helped Jeri understand the mystique of the Kennedys, but she certainly learned a lot about her aunt yesterday!

We had a fairly quiet day.   The girls were in school so we hung around here and then met Jeri for lunch.  She had been out bike riding, visiting her old haunts at UC Santa Barbara, from which she graduated.  

After lunch and coffee with Alice Nan, who met us at a nearby cafe after she finished her own luncheon, AN went back home and the rest of us went to Tom's for a bit of a last visit with the girls.  Jeri played the "story game" with Lacie, a game we gave the girls for Christmas last year, but which I had not seen played, since the one time I tried to play it with them, it was a disaster because the girls just wanted to fight.  But it's a neat game.  You have a bag of little objects -- people, animals, things like a coffee pot or a car or  what have you -- and then a stack of cards, each of which has a background on it.  The idea is to choose 8 things from the bag and one background from the stack and then tell a story using all of those things.  It's the perfect thing for kids with an active imagination and I loved hearing Lacie talk about how much she loved the game.

Then we went outside, where Bri had created a whole city out of chalk outlines on the patio.  They found a chair for me and I owned a Trader Joe's and kept track of the parking lot out in back, as well as selling Gatorade inside.  They are so lucky to have a huge back yard with no grass because the girls get a lot of exercise running around and riding their bikes...and fighting. 

Eventually they had to go to softball practice, which meant saying goodbye to Aunt Jeri, which was very, very sad.  Bri tried to negotiate ways in which Jeri could stay another day and Jeri had to explain that she was a teacher and had students to teach the next day.  

Lacie just cried.  It was hard to get them to go to the car, but probably good that they had an activity to go off to.  Jeri said there was lots of sobbing in the car.

We had to get going too because we were driving Jeri to the bus station to catch the bus to the Los Angeles airport, where her plane left at 11.  No tears for us, but always sad to say goodbye her her.  Easier when we know she will be back in a couple of months for Christmas. (And always a relief to wake up in the morning to a text message saying she had arrived safely.)

We waved goodbye and then walked back out to the car.  The kids who were in charge of the check-in desk got excited to see my t-shirt, which is my "Lion King" shirt, which shows Rafiki lifting the young Simba over his head to show all the other animals...only on my shirt, instead of Simba, it's Elvis Presley ("the King," ya know).  Only theater people ever "get it" and even then not many, so I was thrilled that these bus people knew what my shirt meant.

We came home to watch the last 3 episodes of Jeopardy that we had not yet seen, have some dinner and I totally passed out because I had about one hour of sleep the night before, one of my insomnia nights.  Alice Nan had to wait up to go back to the Santa Barbara airport to get Joe, who had spent the weekend golfing with some buddies in Oregon.

So our time here is over and we will pack up the car and head home today and I will spend all evening finally getting these entries posted.    I have to admit that this has been perhaps the least stressful visit here in memory and I think it's because I resigned myself to NOT publishing FTW every day, but to publishing it all when we get back.  Certainly has eased the headache of wi fi problems!  I still get to write it.  It just has to wait for a few days before it goes public.

The Book Club

When we were at Tom's last night Laurel was off in a corner trying to finish "Prince Caspian," which she had read many years ago, but had not finished reading for the upcoming book club meeting.
 

In the morning, Alice Nan was out in the family room in her rocker trying to finish "Prince Caspian," which she had almost finished.  Norm, who had planned to skype in to our meeting, decided not to because he hadn't finished the book.

I was sitting in the living room in the recliner, reading through the long Wikipedia summaries of both "Prince Caspian" and "A Horse and His Boy" because though I had read both books a few months ago, I couldn't remember anything about either of them.

Alice Nan and I laughed about how silly it was that we adults were all working so hard to be ready for a book club meeting led by a 9 year old.  But we all did our homework well and by the time Bri called the meeting to order, we were each able to answer questions and contribute to the discussion.

It had been a quiet day.  I woke up at 5 and made coffee, then settled down with a cup and Wikipedia and promptly fell back to sleep, waking at 9:15 or so to an empty house.  Alice Nan's car was gone and I figured she and Walt had gone off to Mass.

I watched Meet the Press and studied my Wikipedia notes more.  The girls had softball practice, but we decided not to watch them and just hung around home until time to go to Tom's house.  Walt and Alice Nan picked up sushi-to-go for lunch and we gorged ourselves on that.

Around 3, we went to Tom's.  Jeri and Lacie were playing kind of a modern day electronic version of "Clue" and invited me to join.  

Well, "playing" was kind of relative.  You can play with three players if all three players play, but if one of the players isn't really interested in the game and wants to play standing on the table in her bare feet, or hanging out under the table with her feet peeking over the top, or throwing the dice across the table, all the while protesting that she does so want to play, it makes it difficult. Jeri, bless her, managed to get Lacie through a couple of games, but then we gave it up as a bad idea.  Bri had also decided that while she didn't want to play, she wanted to intrude herself on the game by pounding on the piano or climbing over and under Jeri's legs and making comments about what Lacie was doing wrong.  It just was not the most pleasant experience.

Lacie showed me the books she and Jeri had made and then had an argument with Bri over how much Bri contributed.  Jeri explained that Bri wrote the story, Jeri drew the pictures and Lacie colored them in, so Lacie made sure to point out how colorful each page was.

We watched a bit of football, Tom frustrated because the 49er game was blacked out in this area and so he had to just watch the scores as they came in on his cell phone.

Eventually Brianna set up the play room for the meeting and, as it did last time, a miraculous transformation came over both girls once the meeting started.  Bri was mature, prepared, had great questions, great activities, and a power point presentation she had made herself as well as a "find a word" puzzle she had made on the computer.  

Lacie sat quietly in the hall outside the room and just waited for about an hour while we were talking about the books.  I was so incredibly impressed.  She was lying behind a big bean bag chair and Walt observed that must have been the "green room."

Before we ended with the puzzle, Bri said she had a surprise for us and called Lacie in as a special "guest."  Lacie is too young to read and discuss the books, but she is learning to read and Bri had her read a couple of simple books and she just beamed to be part of the group.

Then Bri passed out "find a word" sheets with names of several of the characters hidden in the mass of letters for us to find, then she collected each of the puzzles and corrected them (we all got 100%)

This was a game Lacie could play too and she did surprisingly well...even almost beating Alice Nan, who had trouble finding the last couple of names.  But with Jeri helping Lacie and me helping Alice Nan finally both finished the puzzle and then we moved into the family room, where we watched the movie of Prince Caspian again, since Alice Nan and Jeri had missed it when we watched the night before.

While we were watching our movie, Tom and Walt first sat on the patio, drinking beer and watching football on their outdoor TV (such a great father-son thing to do) 

and then Tom cooked dinner and served us all on the couch while we continued to watch the movie, occasionally commenting on something that differed from the plot of the book.

It was just such a fun afternoon and once again I am totally impressed with Brianna's talent for leading the group in such an adult fashion.

Now we are tasked with reading "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" for our next meeting, which will probably take place in Davis in December.

The Queen of Pot

I learned more about growing, harvesting and making money from marijuana last night than I ever dreamed I would.  My daughter-in-law (who wails she has never even tried pot) is Chief Risk Management Officer at a local bank and has become an expert on laws pertaining to pot.  It's extremely complicated.  (She's also the bank's expert on elder abuse and cyber security.)

With marijuana legalized in California, but not nation-wide, you can grow  and sell the stuff here, but any money you earn can't be banked because it's a federal crime to sell it!  It's a LOT more complicated than that, but that's the main problem as I gathered it.  And with both Trump and Sessions vehemently opposed to marijuana, it's only going to get more complicated.

There are growers all over the state making literally millions of dollars that they can't deposit because to do so would be a federal crime.  Laurel apparently gives talks on this everywhere and meets with pot growers, etc. 

Our pot discussion came at the end of a long day.  Both girls had soccer games, Bri's at 11:45, and Lacie's an hour later on a field near where Bri played.  I took a few pictures of Bri's game but not many because (a) she's constantly in motion...that girl can play soccer! and (b) the referee stood in front of me almost the entire game, so I was shooting around him.  

But her team won and played very well.  She didn't score a goal this week, but scored two last week, her proud Dad tells me.  I love the bridge at the end of the game where both teams walk under a bridge made of the hands of parents and others in the "audience."

In contrast, it was very easy to photograph Lacie, who obviously wanted to be anywhere but on a soccer field.  When her team ran down the field, she followed behind them at a slow walk.  She stood with her head down most of the time.  She had a few bursts where she would run with the team, but mostly she just walked.  If her team was running west, she walked west, if they turned around and started running east, she would turn around and walk east.  Her biggest bursts of energy came when they called time for water or snacks.

(that's Lacie on the left)

The best part for both girls is snack time after the game.

When the games were over, the family went home while Alice Nan, Walt and I went to Trader Joe's.  It was Saturday and so the place was mobbed.  It was difficult to push a cart through the store, and even more difficult to find a place to wait with a cart while Alice Nan and Walt went looking for specific foods.

We eventually came home, loaded with new foods to try, and Alice Nan microwaved some frozen pot stickers.  We sat around dipping those in sauce and eating them.  We polished off the entire bag.

Then I got into the recliner, turned on MSNBC and was asleep almost immediately.  I slept more than an hour and it was after 6 when I woke up.  We had been invited to Tom's for dinner, and stopped first at CVS to buy me a new cane because the rubber tip had worn away on mine and I was in danger of having it fall out from under me on slick surfaces.

While Tom cooked dinner and Bri was in her room reading a book, Jeri and Lacie were on the floor making a book that apparently we will all see today.  

This is Lacie's forte -- creative stuff.  Laurel was telling us that she has such an analytical, geometric mind that she builds incredibly complicated Lego structures. At six years of age. When we were watching TV the other night, she was reading Lego instruction manuals, and in the morning got up and built a complicated structure based on the manual.

Over dinner, Lacie dominated the conversation, giving us all riddles to solve.

You're in a locked room with no windows and only locked doors.  The only thing in the room are a piano, a calendar and a couch.  How do you eat and drink and get out of the room? You eat the dates on the calendar, drink from the springs on the couch and use the piano keys to open the doors.

Each time we thought we had answered all of her riddles, she had more of them.  They apparently came from a book called "World's Worst Riddles," an aptly named book!

The girls finally went off to bed and we listened to Laurel explaining the problems of making a money off of marijuana growing.  It was after 11 before we came on home.

But it was such a fun family evening.  Just perfect.  I do love this family.  What is nice, I have to guiltily admit, is that I haven't worried about my mother once since we have been here.