The Golden Girls and the Giants

That sounds like the title of some kids' book, but it's actually a literal title.  

In the morning, I went to Atria to bring my mother her laundry, which I had done the night before.  It as a real shock to have her open her door and show three women sitting there visiting with her.  Well that was progress!!  But then she introduced me to one of them (she couldn't remember the name of the other two).   It was a good friend of hers, a former bank colleague, whom I had not seen in so long I wouldn't never have recognized her.  The women had been visiting relatives in a nearby town and decided to stop and visit my mother as well.

I sat there listening to them and realized, with a laugh that I was hearing The Golden Girls.  The three women have lived together for years and run a business together.  One of them was tall, very intelligent, and did most of the talking.  Dorothy, obviously.  Another was perfectly coiffed and more quiet and while not exuding sexual overtones, she was very definitely Blanche, which made the remaining one Rose (and I guess my mother as Sofia).  I enjoyed my mental image as I watched the four women enjoying their visit.  The nice thing about visits like these for my mother is that when you have someone like "Dorothy" taking over the conversation, my mother can laugh and enjoy herself and doesn't have to reveal the extent of her memory loss.

In the afternoon, Walt and I drove down to Walnut Creek, where we left the car at the BART station and took rapid transit to AT&T Park, where we were meeting Jeri and Phil and other friends to go to a Giants-Red Sox game.  I figured that with us rooting for the Giants and Jeri & Phil fans of the Red Sox, somebody was going to go home happy,

We got there earlier than expected and had time to kill, so I stopped by the Giants' store and finally got myself a Giants t-shirt, which I have been wanting for a long time--and even found one for sale.

It was perfect in the park, with our seats giving us a sweeping view of the Bay and the low-lying fog creeping into the financial district.

We had left 103 degree heat in Davis and it was delicious to shiver as the night fell and the air began to get cold.  Fortnately, with my 2 layers of shirts and my jacket, I was comfortable.

The Giants didn't do well though.  It's never a good sign when your team looks like this on the field.

Jeri was not at all gracious as she watched us go down to defeat.

But the evening wasn't a total loss.  There was a full moon and with my new camera, I was able to find the setting that would allow me to get the photo I've been trying to get with a point-and-shoot camera for years.

Starting at around the 6th inning, the seagulls began arriving, circling the field over and over again, trying to tell all of us humans that it was time for us to leave their park and let them do some clean up of all of our leftover nachos, hot dogs, and soft pretzels.  I tried to get a picture of them, but they were too fast.  But as the park began to empty after the game, they really took over and it was easy.

 
We took BART back to the car and came home.  I discovered as I got out of the car and was so completely exhausted that I staggered  right to the couch, went to sleep almost instantly and for the first time in so long I can't remember, I slept 7 hours without waking once.

Sunday Stealing

This week's questions come from Cinematic Symphony.

Let Me Give Your Heart A Break Meme  (why would I want a heart break?)

Do you prefer a lot of ice in your drinks or just a little bit of ice?
Lots and lots and lots of ice.

Which condiment (ketchup, mustard, etc.) do you use the most of?
I don't use a lot, but ketchup more than mustard.

Does war scare you?
War is definitely trouble for me / it starts when two people disagree / then they go out and have other people kill other people for them / War's a bad thing and it makes me mad. (Lyrics by Lawsuit)

Do you know any songs that are older than you are?
I probably know more songs that are older than I am than I know songs that are younger than I am!

Are you comfortable sharing drinks with your friends?
Not really, though I'm not fastidious about it.

What season were you born in?
Winter.

Have you ever spent over $100.00 on an article of clothing? What was it?
Probably only shoes (have you priced Birkinstocks lately?)  Fortunately, I only buy a new pair of shoes every 10-20 years! (you think I'm kidding, don't you)

Do you think you’re too hard on yourself sometimes?
Often, often, often...or so I've been told.

What pizza place do you usually order from?
Rarely order pizza, so "usually" os hard to say.  Mostly I make my own.

Honestly, have you ever mooned or flashed somebody?
Good heavens, no.

Do you have a least favorite color?
Orange.  It's a nice color, but I look terrible in it.

Honestly, have you ever written something on a bathroom stall?
Yes.  In my misspent youth.

Who do you consider to be the king of pop?
In my day, it was probably Johnny Mathis

Do you know all of the words to any childrens song?
Oh definitely.  I am a mother (and grandmother) after all.

Can you name 3 purple foods?
Plums, eggplant, and some little potatoes I bought recently.  Also grapes (bonus answer)

When was the last time you made a pinky promise?
I don't know that I ever have.

What celebrity do you wish would have a big comeback?
I don't know from celebrities these days.  My favorites are all dead...and that would be quite a comback!

Do you think your parents know things about you that you don’t want them to?
With a dead father and a mother with dementia, the answer to that is "not any more" !

Have you ever walked into a spider web?
Oooo....yuck.  Too many times!

What grocery store do you usually get your food from?
Nugget Market and Costco.

What would be your happily ever after?
Not to follow my aunt, mother, and grandmother into dementia, to die before I become incapacitated and incapable of living independently.  And to have no more of my children die before I do.

When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group of people?
A few years ago when I won a theater award.  My speech lasted only seconds--but there were nearly 1000 people in the audience.

Who is the worst driver you know?
A woman I won't name, but I got so scared riding with her that I rarely see her any more rather than trying to find excuses not to go in her car.

How about the best driver?
I'm irrationally uncomfortable with any driver, even myself.

Are you shorter or taller than most of your friends?
About the same, I think.

Do you know anybody who was born on a holiday?
My mother's late husband was born on Christmas; my late aunt was born on Halloween.

What is one thing you really don’t like sharing?
Definitely my toothbrush.  You use it, I have to buy a new one.

Have you ever been hit on through text message?
LOL.  Uh...no.

What was the last junk food you ate?
A cheeseburger and onion rings.

Do you prefer sweet or sour candy?
Sweet.  Definitely.  But tossing in something salty makes it much better.

What was the last alcoholic beverage you consumed?
I almost never drink alcoholic beverages any more, but I had some fermented apple cider last night.  I drank about 3/4 of the bottle.

Currently waiting on something/someone?
Waiting to start our trip to the Ukraine in a little over a week.

What was the last thing you watched on television?
Washington Week in Review

How old will you be in 12 months?
71

Do you sleep naked?
Never have.

Have you ever held hands with someone in a car?
Of course.

Could you go the rest of your life without smoking a cigarette?
Well, I've made it 70 years without smoking a cigarette, I think I can go the rest of my life without it.

What do you say during awkward silences?
Nothing.  I just get more and more uncomfortable.

When will you next see the last person you texted?
The minute I leave my office...it was Walt and he is sitting in the next room.

Honestly, when is the last time you have been to Texas?
Probably 2000, I think.  I went to Houston to visit a friend.

Get Me to a Vomitorium

It's a myth, you know.  The Romans didn't really have places where they went to vomit after gorging on food so they could eat more. Apparently Aldous Huxley first misused the term in his "Antic Hay" in 1923.  A real vomitorium was "a passage below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheater or stadium through which big crowds could exit rapidly at the end of a performance."

ANYWAY, I want to use the word in its "misused" sense.   I need a place to vomit and empty my stomach so I can start over again.

This morning started after we'd all had a nice night of sleep and I made blueberry waffles for us.  From scratch, even.  Not even with the assistance of Bisquick.  They were yummy too.  I was so glad, later in the morning, that I'd only had one of them, though I was tempted to take a second.   Somehow I knew that I shouldn't.

After Jeri and Phil got dressed, we headed over to Atria for a visit with my mother.

Phil and I checked out each others phones.  He has the Samsung and its picture taking ability is far superior to mine.  E.g., I took this picture with his camera and I took the identical picture with my camera and I could not get both women into the picture.

My mother invited us to have lunch at Atria, but we are eating there tomorrow, at the Sunday brunch, with Ned and Marta so we decided to take her out to lunch. I'm always thinking that an excursion away from Atria will be fun for her. That may have been a mistake.  She has become like Walt's mother, whose appetite had diminished so much that she got angry with restaurants for serving her so much food.  My mother is the same way.  But she's also, like Walt's mother, a product of the Depression and she can't see wasting food, so whatever she can't eat, she has someone wrap up for her, she brings it home, and it sits in her fridge until I throw it away.  When we were served our meals today, she told me more than once that it was "disgusting" that they served so much food (though everyone cleaned their plate except her!)

With her diminished appetite, she also isn't interested in "new" food.  It's really no special thing for her to go to a new restaurant. She almost ordered a veggie pita sandwich (which Jeri had) today. She loves vegetables and this was loaded with all kinds, including mushrooms, her favorite.  But for some reason she went for a turkey sandwich, which is what she has been eating for lunch most of the time for the last couple of years, when she made it for herself in San Rafael and now in the Atria dining room.

But the rest of us embarrassed ourselves by finishing our lunches and we were all so incredibly lazy that we decided we all needed a nap.  We dropped Momma off at Atria and she staggered off to her couch.  The rest of us come home and instantly went to the nearest bed-like thing where we all slept for about an hour.

The last thing I wanted when I woke up--or ever again for the rest of the day--was food, but we had been invited to a BBQ at Ned's friend Jon's house.  Jon is the guy who roasted the whole pig the last time Jeri came home for a visit.  A little bit lower key this year, but still Jon is not noted for skimping on the foodl

It's a good thing my mother didn't come to this dinner!

Before dinner we were treated to the sight of some parachuters jumping from planes, since there are a lot of empty fields around Jon's farm, and the Yolo county airport is nearby.

Ned also made friends with one of Jon's sheep, Periwinkle (the other one, Zinnia, is hidden in this picture)

It was a lovely evening and I didn't feel I ate all that much, so I guess this feeling that I could use a vomitorium is leftover from our lunch.  I don't want to eat again until tomorrow's brunch at Atria.

Midnight Pizza

Today was the big day.  This is the day my mother has been asking about for about two months now.  This day she can remember.   Every day it's "When is Jeri coming?" "When is Jeri coming?"   

Well.  Today was the day.  I told my mother many times that she and Phil would arrive today, but that she would not see them until tomorrow because they would not arrive at the Sacramento airport until 11 p.m.

Walt, his sister, and the kids have developed this text shorthand whenever they are traveling.  Whenever they stop somewhere, they send everyone a one-word message, the word being the name of the place where they have stopped.  It's difficult enough for me to write in 140 characters.  To send a one-word text message goes against the grain.  Sometimes I do it, sometimes not.

But the first Jeri text message came around 2 p.m., when I was visiting my mother.  It said "Logan" and I knew they had made it to the Boston airport.

By the time I got home from visiting my mother, Jeri had had a chat with Walt, saying that they wanted pizza when they got home.  Their flight was delayed in Dallas so they had only enough time to switch planes and no time to get anything to bring on the plane for dinner and knew they would be starving by the time they arrived here (as it would, by that time, be 2 a.m. their time!)

She said Phil would love a Symposium pizza.  Symposium is our local Greek restaurant and they have very good pizza.  In fact, I forgot how good their pizza was.  It's not the typical crust that you get with Italian pizza, but something much lighter, crisper and oilier...probably more calorie-laden, since I like it so much!

So before our dinner, Walt went out and got a Symposium pizza for Jeri and Phil.  He got an extra large because he figured he and I would probably have some too, though we would have had a real dinner by the time they arrived.

At 10:30, Walt drove out to the airport and I cleared off the kitchen table in preparation.

Phil was thrilled that we had Symposium pizza.

Walt even had some beer in the fridge outside, so we all sat around eating pizza and drinking beer (except me, because I was still into water).

Jeri, who does not watch TV, had gotten interested in the TV show Smash since the recent class that she taught did all Smash songs at their concert and she wanted to know what the show was about, so she had just gotten the tapes at the library had a marathon Smash watching session, watching both seasons of the show, and we were talking about it.  Neither Walt nor Phil had seen even one episode of the show, so Walt started a conversation with Phil about football, which Jeri joined and Walt was (jokingly) upset that Jeri had switched from the girl conversation to the boy conversation.

We sat around chatting about theater and dogs and cars and I don't know what all until the Bostonians started to fade, badly.  By the time they staggered off to bed it was 4 a.m. their time.  We had all but finished the whole pizza by then, save for one piece.

 Tomorrow morning after breakfast we'll go over to see my mother and on Sunday Ned and Marta are going to join us and we'll all go to the Sunday brunch, so we have a chance to all visit together.

The trip is going to be a whirlwind, since they have so much to accomplish and need to drive Jeri's new car back to Boston by a certain date.

I'm not sure what my mother and I will talk about after Jeri leaves, but it will be lovely for her to get a chance to visit with Jeri at least briefly.

An Exercise in Futility

When I dropped my mother off at Atria this morning and drove out of the parking lot, I was fighting tears.  I don't know what I expected, but something more than what I got.

We didn't go to the Brain Gymnasium yesterday.  Well, we did, but my mother got very dizzy and said she had to go back to the apartment.  I walked with her, holding onto her because she was kind of staggering.  She's had dizzy spells before, but not since she moved to Atria (or at least not that she has told me). Ordinarily I would have waited to see if she had more spells, but I am nervous about leaving her alone while we are on vacation and as she had not yet met the doctor I signed her up with, I decided to make an appointment just to make sure everything is OK.

She hates to go to the doctor, so the fact that she agreed to go without an argument told me a lot about how she was feeling.

This morning she wasn't feeling dizzy and so she was angry that we had to go to the doctor.  I swear she turns into a 10 year old at the thought of seeing any medical professional.  Of course I have a warped sense of terror since I worked in medical offices for so long and see nothing terrifying about them.

But she agreed to go.  I chose Dr. S for her because when I went to get her on some doctor's service, he was the only one available who listed "gerontology" as one of his special areas of expertise.

On the intake sheet, she wrote "dizziness and insomnia" for reasons why she was there.  I had previously written him a letter of introduction in which I outlined her memory problems and what had (and had not) been done in San Rafael.   She never took her neuropsych evaluation because at the time they scheduled it, we were in the process of moving her here, so her official diagnosis is still "mild cognitive impairment," which was given her more than a year ago.

Dr. S got into the room and introduced himself to us both, the last time he looked at me throughout the exam.  He asked where my mother had lived before she came to Davis and she laughed and looked at me and said "I don't know, Bev...where did I live?"  She made it sound like a joke, but she really doese not remember where she lived.  He then launched into a story about his family going to Sausalito for a boat class and having to stay in San Rafael and how there was a race going on and so the hotel rooms were going for $600 a night and they stayed at a Motel 6 where they paid $200 a night.  The story went on and on and on.

He finally got to her first complaint and spent an exhaustive amount of time on dizziness and its causes, all in terms that I could see clearly she was not following, though she pretends well.  At some point when he had run the subject to exhaustion, I mentioned that she was also there for insomnia.  He snapped "we'll take things one at a time."  He then went to her last bone density exam, done in 2007 and suggested it might be time for a new one.  She growled that she didn't like tests and he said "Well, I'm just here to suggest; the decision is up to you and I gather your decision is no."

He looked at her diagnosis of "mild cognitive impairment" and said "When you wake up in the morning, you know what day it is and what date it is, don't you?"  She said "oh sure."  I said "You do NOT" and she got angry with me.  Later, when I mentioned the neuropsych evaluation which had not been done, he poo poo'd it and said that was for head trauma and that because she knew the day and date and remembered 4th St. in San Rafael (which he had mentioned and she agreed was a nice street--it's the street she worked on), that she should remember that a little memory loss was inevitable as people age.

He didn't do a THING to check her memory.  Not one thing, but get her to say that she did know the day and date, thought he didn't ASK her the day and date, which she would not have been able to give him.  That's her biggest frustration every week at Brain Gymnasium, not knowing the day and date, to where Michael now writes it down for her each week so she won't be so frustrated.

Dr. S ordered some labs to be done (which she also growled at) and then sent us on our way without even addressing the insomnia, which in the confusion of his trying to explain his four page medical report to her I completely forgot to bring up again..  By her report, she has not slept for about 3-4 nights, lying awake until 5 a.m. and the doctor didn't even address it.

In all honesty, I don't know what I'm expecting.  But something more than this.  He offered her a shingles vaccine, saying that even though she had shingles before, she could still get it again, but she doesn't like shots, so he didn't push it.  He didn't push a bone density exam though she takes no Calcium supplement and her biggest fear is having to use a walker or be in a wheel chair, which would certainly happen if she happened to fall (like maybe when having a dizzy spell) and break a bone.  

He did order labs and I'll get them done, though she's angry at having to go to the lab, especially when she's fasting, so with Jeri coming for the next week, I don't know if I'll do that now or wait until we get back from vacation.

She's very, very nervous about our being gone for 3 weeks.   She must ask me a dozen times a day what will happen to her if something goes wrong while we are away.  I reassure her that the manager will be aware that we're gone, and he will have both Ed's and Ned's phone numbers in case someone needs to be notified.   I have also arranged with my friend Peggy, who lives at Atria, to send her photos while we are on our trip, and she will bring my mother to her apartment and show them to her on her computer.  

And in joking mode, I tell her that if she dies, I will make arrangements for the chef to hang her in the dining room kitchen freezer until I get back.

I wish I felt better about this doctor, but after today, I have a feeling this is not a guy to discuss anything with; it's a guy to order tests and that's about it.

I wonder what he learned in his gerontology class...

Joe Special

We had Joe Special for dinner tonight.

It's my go-to dinner when I'm uninspired, if I have hamburger and spinach in the house.  

I think it originated with Original Joe's in San Francisco, because I remember eating it as child, though it does not appear on the menu for that restaurant now (and I'm impressed with the number of "Original Joe's" on the internet!   That Joe was one busy guy!)  But it is still on the menu for Marin Joe's, which was a favorite eatery of my mother and her husband.

It's not a difficult dish to duplicate (and definitely not worth the menu price tag!).  You brown hamburger with garlic and when it is browned, add   a package of chopped spinach, cooked and drained, and then when that is pretty well incorporated with the meat, add 4-6 beaten eggs.  When the eggs are mixed and nearly set, pour in a cup of grated parmesan cheese.  Voila:  Joe Special!

I told my mother today that I was making Joe Special.  "From SCRATCH?" she asked.  Then she said that I was always an adventurous cook and that even in the days when she remembered how to cook, she would never have attempted anything so exotic.

My mother was always a good cook and she made some things that were just wonderful and that I have never been able to duplicate (and am angry because she threw away her cookbook when she got tired of cooking, without asking me if I wanted it!).   But she was a plain cookin' kind of cook.  Roasts, steaks, pot roast, mac 'n' cheese, spaghetti, fried chicken, tuna casserole.  That was the kind of thing she cooked.  I've never been able to duplicate her pot roast, which I loved.  She made a great turkey stuffing, but toward the end of her cooking days, she couldn't remember how to do it, and it wasn't the same as the kind I'd always loved.  In the meantime I had developed a recipe of my own that I use now.

The most exotic thing she made was enchiladas, because a Mexican neighbor showed her how to make them (it took 2-3 days to make chorizo, because it had to age).  I finally did get her to sit down and tell me how to make that recipe, but it was after we moved to Davis and long after she had made them the last time.   I'm not sure she remembered the recipe correctly.  They don't taste the same as hers did, served up on romaine lettuce cups.  I loved those enchiladas.

She never taught me to cook when I was living at home. I can't ever remember cooking with her.  She liked doing what she was doing and it never occurred to her to show Karen or me how to do any of it.  (Just like ironing.  She loved to iron and was impatient when I didn't do it the way she wanted it to be done, so I never learned to iron until I moved out of the house [and never could understand the love she found in it.  How happy I was when the "rumpled look" became popular]).

I learned to cook by cooking for a bunch of guys living in a house near my dorm.  Walt was one of those guys.  I don't what prompted me to volunteer to cook for them, but with only one exception, they all let me cook when it was their day to cook.  And that's how I started experimenting with recipes and realized that I loved cooking.  I also learned how to feed 9 of us on a ridiculously small amount of money (breast of lamb was a big favorite in those days--I could buy it for 25 cents a pound!)

When I moved into my own apartment, I experimented with recipes.   My roommate Gerry and I made so many things out of bananas that I ended up putting together a banana cookbook (would you believe banana meatloaf?  It wasn't bad!)

Most people cook the things they know when they are having guests.   If a person I know (or knew) was going to serve something new to guests, she would make it for her family a couple of nights before so she knew how it was going to turn out.

Not me.  I rarely made something I had cooked before when we had guests.  I almost always tried out new recipes on the unsuspecting guest and with very rare exceptions, things always turned out very good (difficult lesson learned:   unripe avocado does NOT improve by cooking!  Learned that back in the early 1960s).  I taught myself to prepare an Indian meal, I took a series of classes in Chinese cooking, from having all those Brasilians around, I became a pretty authentic Brasilian cook for awhile.  I even tried a few of Julia's French recipes.  And of course, Italian is a given--it's the food I grew up on.

 

My mother has always marveled at my expertise, but really I am, like her, a simple cook.  I look at a recipe, decide if it has more steps than I want to take and if it does not, I make it.  A few simple techniques are all you really need and you can look more impressive than you really are.  The difference between us is that I'm not afraid to try anything that sounds good to me.

I don't know if I taught my kids to cook.  I like to think I did.  I got two gourmet cooks out of it, so maybe I did show them some things.   Tom and Ned are great cooks.  Jeri married a good cook and has learned to be more adventurous from him.

We enjoyed our Joe Special tonight.  I should let Walt know that he was eating what he would have paid $12 for in a restaurant!

SARTA

I didn't visit my mother today, though it had been my plan to do so.   I woke up and checked my calendar and remembered that I had an article to turn in to the newspaper.  Normally, I have articles that have a deadline written before the deadline, but it couldn't be done for this article.  Every year a group known as SARTA (Sacramento Regional Theater Alliance) gives out its Elly Awards, our local Tonys.

Named for the late Eleanor McClatchy, a devoted patron of the arts and former publisher of the Sacramento Bee newspaper, the Elly Awards celebrate excellence and the outstanding achievements of community theaters and artists in the greater Sacramento area. Created 31 years ago by local community actors, the Elly Awards have grown from a local Sacramento tradition to now include theatres within a 70-miles radius. Each year the number of theaters submitting shows to be considered for awards grows. This past season 272 shows were submitted by 82 theaters (up from last year where 244 shows were submitted by 78 theaters).

It's nice being a critic because it means that a few days before the nominations are announced (at a big party in a Sacramento theater), we get an embargoed list of all the nominees which are going to be announced.  We can write an article, but you can't reveal any of the names until they have been made public by SARTA.

(Aside:  I was nominated for an award in 1999, as co-author of an original musical with Stephen Peithman.  We won, but I always felt I cheated, since Stephen did most of the writing and I just sat there and brainstormed (a little) with him.  I had to get up and give a thank you speech.  It was right after Paul died and I just raised the award and said "this is for Paul."  I was still angry with him because he was the one who was supposed to win a theater award and stand on stage and thank his parents for all their support.)

Anyway, when I write these articles, I always incorporate interviews with one or more people who have been nominated, so I can't actually start writing until the morning after the nomination ceremony.

With 82 theaters submitting work to be considered for awards, out here in little old Davis/Woodland, there are generally few nominations.  Occasionally one or two of the schools get nominations, but that wasn't the case this year.   Nominations, if any, are usually divided between the Davis Musical Theater Company and the Woodland Opera House. 

Last year, DMTC beat out Woodland in number of nominations.   DMTC had five for its regular theater, and four for its Young People's Theater.

Woodland received five nominations for the regular theater and one for its Young People's program.

What a contrast with this year, where Woodland received 29 nominations, spread out among productions of Peter Pan, The Drowsy Chaperone, Goodnight Moon, Pinkalicious and Stuart Little.  That meant that Woodland had the second largest number of nominations out of all 82 theaters.

DMTC didn't do too shabby either, with 14 nominations spread out among Hairspray, Urinetown, Oklahoma!, Cats, and The Wizard of Oz.

So I had a lot of interviewing to do.  I try to pick either key people, or people I know will have something interesting to say...or sometimes just people whose phone numbers I happen to have!

This time I interviewed six out of the 8-10 I thought I might interview.  I love it that I can type fast, because it makes telephone interviews very easy for me.  As I started the interviews, I also started writing the article, figuring out which direction it was going to go.  It seems that for every person I interviewed I needed to go back and rewrite.

It had been my intent to do a nice interview with an actress named Emily Jo Seminoff.   She was nominated for both theaters.  In Woodland she had played Peter in Peter Pan and she was the "bad girl" in Hairspray at DMTC.  I have been watching this young woman's progress for years.  The very first time I interviewed her, she was playing Peter Pan in a DMTC children's production of the show. I was impressed with her maturity.  She seemed to have been acting forever (and she was barely in her teens at the time). She has since grown up and is now an accomplished multi-award winning actress.

Unfortunately, nobody that I spoke with had her telephone number but someone did give me her e-mail address, and I dashed off an e-mail asking her to please call me.

However, in the meantime, it seemed that most of the other people I talked with gave me comments about Emily Jo and ultimately I had to send her a note asking her NOT to call me because I had submitted the article already (and if she had called me it would have seemed like the Emily Jo article because of the concentration on her!)

I finally finished the article in the early afternoon and got it submitted.  There was enough time to visit my mother, but Walt had gone over there earlier in the day to have her sign some papers, and I figured that was enough. I took a nap instead. Tomorrow is the sing-along and then next day the Brain Gymnasium, so I decided to skip today.