I mean... So...

When we were looking for a place for my mother, just about this time a year ago (if you can believe it!), I remember walking through the place in Petaluma where we almost signed a contract.  We were going through the dining room and since it was about 1 p.m., most of the place was deserted, but there was this one table with three women at it.   They had finished their meal and were just sitting there talking and laughing.

I thought to myself at the time, "This is what she needs.  She needs friends in her life again."

At that time, some of her close friends had died, one had developed Alzheimers, one had moved to a facility with her husband and was too far away to see often.  Her best friend, several years younger, still had the stamina that my mother no longer had. So she sat in her house all day long and it seemed she never saw anybody but her hairdresser.

I felt so hopeful that getting into a facility would bring her friends again.

Well, that didn't happen right away.  She talked with people at mealtime, but had no interest in forming friendships, a good deal of that, I'm sure, being that she couldn't remember them once she returned to her apartment.

Over the months, her resolve not to get involved has strengthened, and mine to get her involved has weakened, so that I now accept what she is, where she is, and how she is.

Today we went to lunch and chose a table where nobody was sitting.  The table nearby had three people at it, including Loretta (my mother doesn't know her name), an artist who recently had some of her paintings on display in the state capitol and was interviewed on TV.

But Loretta barely remembers that, and my mother doesn't remember it at all. But they are friends. They don't know each other's names, but they laugh about what they can't remember. They insult each other and laugh together and they are like the women I saw at the other facility. Like my mother, Loretta was raised on a ranch and they share a lot of the same growing up experiences.

They will probably never visit each other's apartments, or make plans to do anything together, but they recognize each other, they recognize that they like each other, and when they get together, it's like they are old friends, who understand each other in a way that I can't really understand either of them because I'm not there yet.

I left Atria today feeling very good about how far she has come, socially, in a year...when I thought she wasn't progessing at all.

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Most of the time when I have the television on, I am not paying close attention, but sometimes I do sit and listen and I'm noticing a strange new trend.  (Or, as the new way of phrasing it is, "this strange linguistic thing that is trending these days.")

I don't know if you've noticed, but listen to interviews sometimes.   I am amazed at how many times someone will be asked a question and the answer always starts, "I mean...." and then go on with the answer.  They haven't said anything yet, but the answer starts out as if they are explaining what they said previously. 

"What do you think about global warmng?"
"I mean there really is a lot of strange weather these days."

"Did you see Jim Brochu's new show."
"I mean it was just fantastic."

"Did you buy a new car?"
"I mean, we really needed one so we went shopping for one the other day."

It's really very strange how this linguistic quirk just popped up one day.   (Or should I say "I mean it's very strange how this linguistic quirk just popped up"?)

This is one of Beverly's odd thoughts, which I have from time to time when the brain is not otherwise occupied.  Another way of starting sentences (though not as common) is with "So..." 

"So there really is a lot of strange weather these days."
"So it was just fantastic"
"So we really needed one so we went shopping."

It's odd thinking about how these things come at you from out of nowhere.  I remember when there was no Valley Girl speak and nobody started a sentence with "like..."

I remember when people spoke and did not end every sentence by going up in tone as if they were asking a question, but really they aren't.  

"Like there really is a lot of strange WEATHER THERE DAYS?"
"Like it was JUST FANTASTIC?"
"Like we really needed one so we WENT SHOPPING?"

I guess I always figured that when some major grammar/language shift was going to come into being it wouldn't be quite so subtle and you would be able to figure out where the trend started. Somebody would issue a memo or something.

I mean no real opinion about it; so I just thought it was worth mentioning because I was just like THINKING ABOUT IT TODAY?