I love the Internet

What a surprise!!! I worked for several years for the Physics Department at the University of California in Berkeley. I was at first secretary to 3 professors, but one retired, one moved to the Radiation Laboratory and so was never around, so I was mostly secretary for just one professor, Fredrick Reif, who wrote a book while I worked for him (It’s still used in physics classes today–and today costs more than $100. It has been translated into many different languages, my favorite being Japanese because he showed me the Japanese version and in the Acknowledgements, the only thing NOT in Japanese is my name).

Anyway, Fred and I remained friends when I left the job to have my first baby. He eventually left Berkeley and moved to Carnegie Melon University. We remained friends for all these years. I wrote to him every year on his birthday and we exchanged Christmas email cards.

Eight or so years ago, his birthday message was returned as a bad email address. I have tried everything to find him, including contacting the Physics Department at Carnegie Melon, checking the obituaries, etc. I even sent a letter to his wife. No answer anywhere. He is 12 years older than I am (which makes him 88, next week, if he is alive) and the last time I saw him, when I spent a weekend with him and his wife in Pittsburgh, he was not in good health, so I assumed he was either dead or in some convalescent hospital. But there is no obituary for him and no way to find out if he is in some sort of a hospital or not.

In 2017 I wrote an entry about him with a big photo I had found on the Internet, captioned "Where is Fred Reif?"

I was shocked today, 2 years later, to find a simple message on that entry from Fred Reif saying "Hello." I didn’t know if it was really him or if it was someone playing a trick (since you can enter any name when you sign the guestbook) so I wrote "Is this really you or is someone playing a trick on me?" He answered, saying where he now lives and giving me his phone number.  I haven't called yet, since I remembered too late to call (he said call before 2 p.m. his time), but I will call tomorrow and renew our friendship, I hope.

The internet is a strange and wonderful place!

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This afternoon was my coronation.

At least that is what the receptionist at Cindy's office called it when she reminded me that I was to come in to have my permanent crown put on.  I told her I would bring my scepter with me.

As always it was an uneventful, painless, and quite short meeting and I was out of there in under an hour with a new crown that feels like a normal tooth and already I forget that it's not real.

The plan had been to go to Atria when I left Cindy's.  Everything is gone except the things in the display ase outside of her apartment, which one of the tech people needs to open.  We're also supposed to have a "walk through."  I'm not sure why.  THEY do the house cleaning and there is nothing in there for a person with dementia to "ruin."  But whatever.  I was so glad to think of it being completely over and to never have to go to that place again.

But as I left Cindy's there were big black clouds in the sky and as I got into the car, a huge roll of thunder and the start of rain.  I decided to skip Atria for today and see if the weather is better tomorrow.

 I went and tested my new crown on a McDonald's hamburger (guilty pleasure).  It absolutely poured rain the whole time I was eating my burger (in the car) and I was glad I had decided not to go to Atria, as much as I want to be rid of that place.

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For anyone on Facebook, if you check out Elder Villa, you can see a picture of my mother just posted today, along with a picture of the turkeys in front of the place.  I had a note from Sandy saying she is interacting well with the other residents.  I am feeling more relaxed about things by the day.

The Book

The excavation of the Big Bedroom upstairs continues and our living room is just about packed solid, with one narrow pathway from the door to the couch, but every other inch of space filled with boxes, book cases, and books.

When you do such an in-depth excavation, you are bound to discover lots of long-forgotten gems.  A couple of days ago, Walt handed me this:

 

It's the book everyone got when they attended our wedding Mass, along with a couple of newspaper articles, our engagement announcement, and the invitation to the wedding.  I wonder where those treasures had been buried.

Then yesterday, Ned handed me the book.

 

In November of 1980, Curtiss Reed, of The Experiment in International Living came to visit.  He brought with him this guest book, which he charged me to fill with our international guests.  He was the first to sign and for 27 pages, up to October of 2000, it is filled with names and addresses of visitors.  Peggy was the last to sign, adding "I'll be back." Uh...I guess not.

But going through this book brings back 20 years of memories of people who came from foreign countries, people who came from Davis for dinner or something...a whole host of guests, most of whom bring back such memories.

 

You can tell when a group of kids from another country were here because suddenly there is a raft of names of people I don't remember, but they are all from Brasil or Chile or Japan.

This page, for example, has several kids who came in the last group from Japan that I coordinated, along with one of the Pinata kids, a couple of guys from Brasil, another coordinator for The Experiment from Cedar Rapids, Iowa (I had completely forgotten that he came to visit), one of the priests from Newman Hall in Berkeley, and my former Experiment in Int'l Living "boss," who by this time (1984) had quit and was now running an antique shop in Vermont.

My father, Walt's mother, sister and brother came to be with us on Christmas in 1980, while my mother and her husband came two days later.

There are two guys from Kinshasa, Zaire, now Congo, a woman from Brasil and a guy from Davis, who eventually, may years later, married and now have grown children.  There are friends now long dead.  

Good memories, bad memories, like Dimar and Gaby, from Zaire, who were two of the most unpleasant guests we ever had, topped only by Ricardo from Brasil.

But mostly the memories are good.  In 1981 Ned, newly returned from his year in Brasil, signed with his Brasil address.

 

This page also has a woman from Paris.  I don't remember ever having someone from Paris here.

It's such fun to read through all the pages of this book.  It is a sketchy history of 20 special years of our lives, which, along with many of the people who signed, are now dead.
 

Kids

In my note yesterday about artistic genes, I neglected to mention Ned, who not only has the music gene, but he's also a terrific artist.  He has his traditional "guy" who adorns anything he signs and right now he is working on a project for Bri's upcoming birthday (which I won't describe, because it's a surprise).

For her birthdays 1 thru 10, he made terrific videos, like this one for her second birthday.  Each year they got more and more elaborate, and they each end with a clip from Sesame Street.  But the baker in Sesame Street who falls down the stairs only goes as far as 10, so Ned let Bri know last year that this would be his last video for her and that he would think of something else for this year

After her birthday, I'll include a sample of what he is making, but I tell ya, he amazes me every year not only with his creativity but his dedication to make it the best it can possibly be.  He came by this morning and showed me a sample and I can hardly wait to see the finished product.  Brianna will love it.

Last year he got together with a bunch of kids of the Lawsuit parents and took them to Tahoe to make a movie.  Ned doesn't just "make a movie."  He's the Stephen Spielberg of home movies.  The kids got together and created the script and then they filmed for three days, in several locations.  Ned did the post-production which included special effects, and a soundtrack, and then a grand opening to which all the kids and their parents were invited.

He has also made movies with Brianna and Lacie that get the same treatment.  He can't just throw something together.  It has to be special and each of them is special.  He even has a green screen that has seen a lot of use (as you can see in the video I linked).

I truly don't know where all these talented kids came from!

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Yesterday I got a packet for a new Compassion child I will be corresponding with, from the Philippines.  She just turned 6 last week.  She is in kindergarten and the information says she is performing "below average."

I don't know her family situation, but no parents are listed, but a guardian is.  She likes art and drawing and also likes listening to stories.  I will have to find some stories to send her.

She is my second correspondent child from the Philippines.  The first, Fred, is one of the first kids I began writing to and I have been writing to him for 10 years.  In the beginning his mother wrote wonderful letters because he was too little to write himself, but once he was old enough to write (not in English--her letters were in English), he wrote the letters himself and they were traslated by some Compassion worker.  He started out as a correspondence child, but when his financial sponsor decided to drop him, I took him up because he had been one of my favorites.

He's 16 now and his letters are the same as they were when he was 6, though he now writes in English.  In every letter he asks me how old I am, asks me to pray for someone ("Please pray for my lola because she sick and getting older") and thanks me for being his sponsor.  He always sends a drawing, always a house with a tree and clouds in the sky.  Ten years of that house, though it is looking more mature than it did when he was younger.

I wrote to Compassion today inquiring about his family and hope they will give me an update because his parents are no longer listed on his bio and his last name is now the last name of the caregiver listed.  I don't know if his parents died or what.

Compassion also sends you something like a report card, which I received for James, in Kenya, as he enters a new class, letting me know what he is currently doing in the spiritual, cognitive, physical and socio-emotional areas. 

They also periodically send a letter from the pastor of whatever church is the Compassion center for a specific child.  It talks about the church itself, its plans for the future, describing where it is situated, etc., etc.  It's a nice touch that keeps you more aware of what the lives of the children are like.

Gravin is another new child that turned up in my inbox recently ... another correspondence child.

He's from Kenya and is 8.  He likes drama, bicycling and running...sounds like he'd be a perfect fit in Davis!

He is in second grade and, like Francia, has no parents listed, but the name of a caregiver.  His letter is written (and translated) by a Compassion worker, where he says he is in 2nd grade and loves learning English and he promises to "work extra hard."

Maybe, like Fred, he will one day be able to write to me in English, though I hope he doesn't ask me how old I am every time he writes!

The Artistic Gene

My aunt was a wonderful artist.  She painted, she drew and everybody's house is filled with her artwork.  One uncle also created great "monsters" that we all love and after his death, everyone took one or more to have.  My father was a musician.  He may have worked for the post office his whole life, but his love was music and the only times I remember him "happy" are when he was either listening to his vast collection of jazz records, or sitting at the piano playing.  I am told that his mother was a good piano player, but gave it up and in all the years I knew her I had no idea of how good she had been in her younger years.  His father was an Irish tenor in vaudeville. All of those genes passed me by, but filtered through me to my children.  All five of them were musical.  Jeri has made a career out of it, but all the boys played guitar.  Ned still sits in with other bands and sometimes performs in public, either on guitar or drum, or both.  He was the drummer for Lawsuit. 

Tom doesn't perform in public, but he can play his guitar.  Dave played guitar too, and Paul was lead singer of Lawsuit and played guitar.

Before she got her degree in music at Berklee College of Music and then joined their faculty, where she has  taught for more than 10 years, Jeri was a theater major and got her masters degree in Theater Design.

While she was here this past week, she cleaned the last of her "stuff" out of the house, mailed a lot to Boston, and threw away lots and lots of her work from college years.  There were two set designs, for example, which are incredibly intricate and which Alice Nan insisted she had to keep, though she had no room for them, so left them here, with instructions to us to throw them away if we wanted to.

Sadly, I can't remember which shows these were for, but Walt particularly liked the top one because the back of it is a map of Ireland. They are both so incredibly intricate that I, with my two left thumbs am amazed that a child of mine can create something like this.

Then there are the costume designs, which she tossed in the garbage and I insisted she take out so I could at least take pictures of them.  These two, for example, from Midsummer Night's Dream:

Puck and Francis P. Flute

She has always drawn great cartoon-y figures and I love how these look.  You can't see it, but the sign pointing to Puck's flower says "squirt flower."  Obviously this was a modern day production.  Sadly, my favorite from the Midsummer collection somehow disappeared, but it was beautiful. 

Then there are these from The Cherry Orchard

And these from Another Part of the Forest

These are the sorts of things that you hate to throw away but really....what is the point of keeping them when you are trying to downsize.  I have now photographed them all, and I guess I'll have to do what Jeri tried to do -- throw them away.  Sadly.

Things Winding Down

Last night we went to see a wonderful production of 42nd Street at the Woodland Opera House.  I sat in the gimp section at the back, but they gave comp tickets to Jeri and Alice Nan too and they were able to sit together closer down.

 

Today was Alice Nan's last day here.  Jeri, who made a delicious dinner last night, pulled together the contents of the refrigerator and made a delicious breakfast.

 

In the early afternoon, before Alice Nan turned her wheels south she came with us to Eldervilla to visit my mother.  She was eating lunch with two other women when we got there.

 

It looks like she's grumpy, but she actually seemed to be enjoying herself.  We sat at the table with her for awhile and I was able to get a nice 2-dog picture.

 

Alice Nan liked her bedroom and she stayed to chat for a bit longer, but finally had to get on the road.  Jeri and I stayed, though Jeri was very sleepy and fell asleep on her grandmother's shoulder, while Simba napped on Jeri's knee and I watched the MSNBC coverage of the newly released Mueller report

 

We finally left and my mother didn't seem to be stressed by our leaving her.  It feels like she is settling in, thank goodness.

Jeri and I came back to Davis and stopped at Borders for an asparagus quesadilla and a nice chat, then home for a bit.  I took a short nap, then cooked dinner and everyone (but me) was off to an early sleep.  Jeri will be going back to Boston tomorrow and we will miss her.

Family

I sat surrounded by my mother's things and thought "My mother is in a board and care home in Woodland, all of her remaining earthly belongings are here, and her brain is--who knows where."  It made me feel very sad.

Jeri and Ned, bless them, spent the day cleaning everything out of my mother's apartment at Atria.  They brought most of it here, with the idea of either donating it to someone or having a garage sale...or both.

The stuff that was not worth anything to anyone they took on a separate trip to the dump.  

They did it all, knowing that I would be worthless in trying to carry furniture, and so that Walt would not have to do it.  I loved them both for all of their work.

Today they are working to carry all of our books and bookcases downstairs and add them to the pile in the living room so that we can go through them seriously and decide which we want to keep and which we are willing to give away.

It's a herculean task and for anyone who wonders why you have children THIS is why you have children.  Well, this and the joy they provide all the time for lots and lots of things.  But at times like this when it all seems so overwhelming I am very glad to have children who love me, whom I love and who are generous enough with their time and energies that they can help us with what has seemed, to us over these years, as an overwhelming, perhaps insurmountable task.

Ned, in trying to create a living space for himself and Marta, when they move here eventually, has made the insurmountable mountable.  He wants to have a garage sale, maybe in April, but I pointed out that in April students will be getting rid of stuff and going home and that if we wait until August or September, we will have better success, so we will live with the mounds until then.

Yesterday we attended the funeral of Pat Hayes, one of the friends who died this week (I learned of the death of another, a woman I worked with for 12 years in our medical office family, this morning).

It was a beautiful service and made me feel the beauty of "family."  The church, a small church, was packed with people from the many aspects of her life, including aspects of our lives with all of the Lawsuit family there.  And I do think of them as "family." I looked around at all these middle aged men, some of them balding, and remembered when they were young and vigorous and jumping all over many stages across California playing with the band.

But old habits die hard and when space became tight in the church, Ned was the one who folded up some chairs and moved them to the side so newcomers could sit while the older, more able bodied among them would stand at the back.

 

I smiled when I wondered how many years  Ned and his friends have been moving furniture for gigs?  This may be the first funeral gig, but a gig nonetheless.  (And probably not the last funeral gig.)

When I went to the reception, I checked my phone and found this picture:

 

This is a picture of the Eldervilla family at "family time," as Sandy described it.  There is one more resident, who I think is unable to leave his room, but these are the girls and I love seeing them gathered together like this.

My mother was always the gregarious one and, coming from a family of 10, always used to being around people.  Atria was not conducive to her making friends, especially with her Alzheimers, and this place obviously is, since everyone is in about the same condition that she is and yet the smiles on their faces tell you how much they enjoy getting together.  Plus, they are the same people every day, whether they ever learn each other's names or not.

This week the notion of "family" looms very large in my mind. 

After we left the funeral, we drove to Walt's brother's house, which is on the way home.  Jeri hadn't seen Norm since she'd been here and Alice Nan is always happy to get together with both of her brothers and it was a fun evening spent over pizza and laughter.

No Perks of Aging

This is what happened one day last week.

1.  I woke up to an email saying that a friend who had a stroke recently had died the day before.  We've known this woman for most of our time in Davis and were all in the Davis Comic Opera company.  She was one of the sweetest people you'd ever want to meet, though as she got older, she became more scatterbrained.  She was instrumental in organizing and running a group for the mentally ill for many years and "Ciizens Who Care," which provides help to the frail elderly and their caregivers.  Here she is with her husband, following the Citizens Who Care winter concert that they organized and ran until he died in 2012.

 

2.  When I signed on to Facebook, there was a note from Ned's friend Greg's sister, saying that their father had died the night before, after being ill for many years.  It does give one pause to realize that people are saying he had "lived a good, long life" and that he was only 3 years older than Walt!

3.  When I told Jeri about the death, she told me about the father of one of the guys in Lawsuit (the kids' band), who is in the final stage of some kind of cancer and is not expected to live much longer.  He is the guy who sold all those oranges as a fund raiser for a local music group each December.  We have been buying crates of oranges for more than 15 years.

4.  After dinner, I had a note from another Lawsuit guy, letting us know that his mother had lost her battle with cancer.  We will attend her funeral today.

 

5.  The evening ended with a phone call from another friend -- the one who hosted the recent Chinese New Year Party -- saying that something had happened and she can't walk.  She spent some time in the hospital and is being assessed to see if she is safe to stay in her house or will have to to go a convalescent hospital.

And of course the middle of the day was taken up with going to see my mother for the first visit.

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Phil is gone now, off to Oregon to see his family but before he left, he and Jeri took us out for a lovely sushi dinner at Zen Toro, which may be one of my favorite restaurants in Davis.  They are the only Japanese restaurant I've seen which offers "musubi," which I prefer  to call Spam sushi.

Walt was raised in Hawaii, so he likes Spam.  My mother cooked it often when I was a kid so I've always loved it.  But with rice and seaweed, it is particularly delicious.

 
After we had dinner, we walked a couple of bocks to a bar, where Ned (who had by now arrived in Davis) spied an old friend, and sat around drinking beer and visiting.  Walt and I went home early while Jeri and Ned stayed to see Phil off on his trip northward.

Old, Old, Long-Time Friends

Phil and Greg are two of Ned's best friends.  They've know each other since high school (or earlier) and have continuously been actively in each other's lives for all these years.  I still remember that I always knew when Greg came in the house because he's about 10 feet tall and all I had to do was look at the dog and see how far up she was looking to know that it was Greg

Phil and Ned talk on the phone frequently and Ned and Greg still do lots together.

So it was great to be invited to dinner at the home of Greg and his wife Kendra last night.  Their sons have grown up and are out on their own, so I want to say it was only the adults, but of course Walt and I are old enough to be everybody's parent, so from our perspective it was just us and the kids.  We sat around the fire pit and visited while Greg got ready to barbeque.

Kendra

 

Phil, the "greatest dog lover of all time" got up close and personal with Reese.

 

Jon, whose house was flooded in the recent rains, was less enamored

 

Ned helped Greg with dinner (or at least entertained while Greg cooked).

 

The dinner was delicious.  Greg had cooked the beef "sous vide" and it was amazing.  I had to come home and look up more about sous vide.  But everything was delicious and we sat at the table late (8:30 p.m....which shows how old I am!). Walt and I finally went home and the others promised to bring Jeri and Phil back, but around 3 a.m., I had a text message saying they were spending the night and would see us in the morning.  Phil is leaving tonight and taking the train to Oregon to visit his family and they wanted to spend as much time as possible with Greg, I think.  As I write this, at 11 a.m., there is still no sign of anybody, though Ned said that the plan today was just to "hang out" before Phil leaves.

The Psychiatrist

I spoke with The Psychiatrist this morning.  He will go and see my mother on Thursday and confer with Sandy about the right medication for her.  Maybe she'll bite him. (sardonic smile)  I told him I was more than happy to pay him and he said that wasn't an issue, since I'd done so much for him during the years.

So my fingers are crossed that this will be the start of the right solution.

Ж Ж Ж Ж Ж

 

Polly was a dog today.  After yesterday going to Petco to get a fresh new harness...

 

...which she isn't so sure about yet, this morning I gave her the crust of an English muffin.  It was larger than the crusts I usually give her and at first she took it to her bed, where she usually eats, but then took it outside and started walking all around the yard.  Finally she stopped at the end of the patio, under a bush, dug a hole and buried the crust.  I've never seen her bury anything!

A little later, a squirrel came to about 3 feet from the same spot and dug a hole and put some sort of a nut in it...then thought better of it and picked it back up again and ate it.

A couple of hours later, Polly went back and dug up the English muffin, brought it inside, then thought better of it and took it back outside.  We didn't see if she buried it again or not.  I guess I'll know if an English Muffin tree starts growing.

Ж Ж Ж Ж Ж

Ned came by in the mid-morning.  They had talked earlier about either going to Atria to do more cleaning out, or going out to Elder Villa to visit my mother, but did neither.  He and Phil got involved in a long discussion, while Jeri was upstairs going through all of the things she still has here, trying to decide which she wants to keep and which she can get rid of (preparing for the day, sometime in the future, when Ned and Marta will move in here and need the space).

 

I just love photos like this.  One of the things I love about our family is how well our kids -- and their spouses -- get along.

Ж Ж Ж Ж Ж

A bill for April came today from Atria.  I had to call the bookkeeper to let her know that we had given our 30 day notice and that my mother had vacated the building on March 2. She promised to cancel the bill.  But they recently informed me that her rent would be raised because she "needed more supervision."  We had been paying $7,122 a month (well she had been paying it -- thank GOD she saved enough to cover her current situation when she was still lucid!).  They added an additional $800 a month, bringing it to a grand total of $8,434.91.  

With all the "extra care" we were now supposed to pay for (in addition to the full time caregiver I was supposed to hire), I found that the quality of the care had deteriorated.  I was not surprised to hear that the director (the 3rd since my mother has been in memory care) is gone and they are searching for a new one.

Thank God we found Elder Villa, which is $5,300/month -- and they include things like foot care (for which we were paying an additional $40 a month, and I never did figure out what that covered since the podiatrist never even cut her toenails, which were very long). If she settles in enough, they will also cut her hair, which is quite long, but which she doesn't want touched.

This place is a godsend and if we can only get her emotional outbursts under control, it will be a wonderful place for her to live out her life. ....Otherwise she will end up in some mental hospital like her mother did 60 years ago.

The First Visit

I hadn't seen my mother since we left her at Eldervilla 2 weeks ago.  Today, Jeri is here and so she, Phil and I went to Woodland for the First Visit.  I was shocked when I saw her.  She was sound asleep but her face looked like she'd been in a prize fight.

Also her arms were covered in big red bruises and the back of her left hand was nearly black.

Sandy explained that the other night when he tried to give her her pills, she bit him and would not let go of his finger so they had to pry her jaws off of him, which resulted in the bruise on her jaw.  He also showed me the picture of his finger.

He also says she has been bumping into things a lot, which I know she did at Aria, but she never had bruises like these, but there are more things to bump into in a house than in a sterile facility.

Apparently "when she is good, she is very very good and when she is bad she is horrid." He says she has been refusing to go to the bathroom and he showed me a picture of her sitting on the floor in a pool of her urine.  But he also showed me videos of her laughing and interacting with the other residents. 

She broke her bedside lamp and tore up someone's book.  She has intruded on other people's bedrooms and tried to order one resident out of the house.

He thinks that once they get her medications right, things will be better, so I have called The Psychiatrist will ask him to please go and evaluate her and help determine the best medication for her--and we will happily pay.  I would feel worse about this if I didn't know that the Psychiatrist is very familiar with Eldervilla and recommends it highly, that he has a patient of his own there, and that he visits every couple of months.

Most of our visit went very well and Phil made friends with Simba the dog.

And I finally got a good picture of the dog myself (Nala, the other dog, was very wary of us).

We sat and visited on the porch and Jeri even took my mother on a short walk around the back yard labyrinth.

We visited for an hour, I signed tons of papers (I had to re-do them because when I signed them before Sandy thought my name was Beverly Rynders).  I'm not sure when I'll be back, but Jeri and Ned will probably go later this week.

St. Paddy's Day

Yesterday I let loose my Irish roots for St. Patrick's Day.  The Irish think that our reaction to this day is silly.  It's just a day in Ireland, where we have parades, green beer, green bagels, and more corned beef cooked on this day than any other day in the year.  Given that Irish-Americans aren't really a big deal these days, everybody is Irish on St. Patrick's Day (I remember Walt's brother's African-American roommate wearing a button saying "Kiss me, I'm Irish")

But I am Irish.  Irish and Scottish, so I feel vindicated in celebrating the day of this saint who lived in Ireland in ~400AD and who is credited with chasing the snakes out of the country, if there were any there to begin with.

I decided to go Irish by making Irish soda bread.  Whenever we visited Ireland, Walt's cousin Nora always made sure we had soda bread and, to tell the truth, I never liked it all that much, but the recipe I chose yesterday was pretty good.  It's supposed to have currants, which I was out of, but I used golden raisins, and it was a nice substitute.

For dinner, of course, we had corned beef.  I didn't cook cabbage because Walt doesn't really like it, but cooked carrots.

It was an Instant Pot recipe and supposed to cook in a little over an hour.  I didn't realize something had gone wrong with the setting until the cook time ended and it did not go into the keep warm mode.  I think I somehow brushed the wrong button when I was moving the pot and maybe it seared for 70 minutes.  I don't know.  Almost all the liquid (about 8 cups) was gone and the meat wasn't fully cooked.  I pressure cooked it for another 20 minutes and that did it.  Delicious.

We were just finishing up when Ned, Marta, Jeri and Phil arrived.  Jeri and Phil had flown in from Boston the day before and they spent yesterday recording at Timber Trout studios with other Lawsuit-type folks.

They hadn't had dinner, so I carved up the rest of the corned beef and they had that along with soda bread for dinner.

After dinner, Walt brought Jeri something Ned found when he moved a bookcase out of the big bedroom last week:

This is a goodbye message when Jeri left Holtzmuller Productions, a theatrical rental place in San Francisco (the circled message in the lower left was from Paul, who also worked there).  She was working there in 1989 and left -- I think -- when she moved to Boston to get a music degree from Berklee College of music (where she has been ever since!).  We never throw anything away in this house!

It is nice having Jeri and Phil here.  Phil is going to Oregon to visit his family tomorrow; Jeri will stay here and help Ned clear out the Atria apartment...and also we plan to visit my mother either today or tomorrow.  I'm anxious to see how she has adapted to Eldervilla in these past 2 weeks.