Dr. Wukelic

He is the man. We went to my mom's appointment today and he gave my mom a memory test. This was the second time she's taken this brief questionnaire. She couldn't name the day, year, county or month and she didn't know the name of this doctor's building. She knew the name of our city and said Fall when asked the season.

But she could count backwards by 7 from 99 and do it accurately. That was impressive. Next she copied a block design perfectly to almost the exact scale. He reported that her memory has gone down a rapid slope since he last tested her. He prescribed Aricept said she may get some help with this drug. He also said moving at this time would be a good proactive step.

She protested and said she wasn't going to a nursing home and he corrected her by saying she was going to a retirement apartment. He mouthed to me that in the past family members sent their parents to nursing homes to die. I'm sure that must be what she thinks so now we just have to keep using the proper language. These new retirement centers are like cruise ships inside with everything you could possibly think of to do.

She likes her doctor and so we will keep pursuing this course and hope for a move by the first of October. I think she will like showing the apartment to Cyd this weekend when she and Dave visit. The move will be simple as we have two weeks to work on it and Betty suggested we move the furniture while she's at bridge so when she comes home to the new apartment it will be all set up. The doctor also said we could offer this as a trial run and generally she wil be accustomed to it after a week or so.

Well that's enough of that subject. It is sunny here today but the pool is green as I've been ignoring it lately. I'm going to see Broken Flowers this afternoon.

Babysitting Practice

Today I get to watch Taylor, Charlie's 15 month old son so I can get some variety in my babysitting skills. Taylor is darling and entertains himself by discovering new toys and figuring out how they work. I followed his dad's orders to the letter and he's now in his crib talking to himself hopefully on the way to napping.

I added a counter to this blog so now I know I need to be adding more posts more often so there is something new to read once in a while. The only problem is I have very little to write but maybe I can come up with something I suppose.

Lucas just returned from visiting his maternal grandparents in Santa Barbara so he stopped by for a visit. He did well with the Well's boy in the house and even offered him toys. He wasn't happy leaving however but maybe that was just because he got home last night at midnight.

I did a stupid thing Saturday and drove my mom past Harbor Crest Retirement Center where there was a sign that said Tours Today. I suggested we look at the place and a friend of mine working there gave us the tour. My mom sniffed at the theater, the dining room, the card room and the beauty shop and when we got in the car she really started in haranguing in earnest. She said she liked where she lived and wasn't moving. I mentioned the nothing to do at her house versus the activities at this place, I told her I couldn't drive her to the Senior Center this winter as I'd be gone, and then she started saying I didn't need to bother with her anymore as she could get rides from other people.

Jill mentioned the movie Fifty First Dates in which Drew Barrymore's character has no memory so each day she begins fresh with the same guy but on a new date. This is exactly what my mom experiences which is lucky for me as she does not remember looking at Harbor Crest or talking about it at all. We went to a 90th birthday party yesterday and there was no mention or recall of any moving. So now I will go back to my plan A which I should have stuck with anyway but for some reason I thought perhaps she might rationally say, "Arla you know what's in my best interest and I trust you to make decisions for me." My plan now is just to go forward and get her moved sometime after the 20th of September. I know I have to do it and if she is angry about it I'm sure she will be over it in a few months if not sooner.

It just took thirty minutes of babbling and now Taylor is asleep. This baby thing is just cake so far.

BOYS, BOYS

Cyd phoned today to tell me that she is expecting twin boys. Things are going well for her so that is the most important thing. Her blood pressure is good and she's feeling good, just slightly tired. She is continuing on with her job and working on a short nap each afternoon. Now we just need to keep things moving along towards the January delivery date. It will be nice to have four grandsons and before long I won't remember what it would be like to have a granddaughter.

Special Education

What could be more fascinating than to spend two days discussing this topic along with ideas pertaining to how you teach teachers so that all over the state of Washington they have equal training? I was invited to be a part of this discussion as a replacement for a missing member of a state group of higher education faculty and I have to admit that I accepted because it was being held at Sleeping Lady Retreat Center in Leavenworth. Never mind that I had just been to Leavenworth the weekend before.

I had visited the retreat center a few years ago with Ron and Dorena and thought it would be a great place to stay. Sleeping Lady was built with environmentally sensitive construction methods and it incorporates environmental conservation into its daily operations. They only serve free trade coffee but I really enjoyed the no television best. Even the organic food was wonderful. I wonder if we could afford it for a reunion?

Last night Lucas spent the night. First we went to Ferris so he could ride his tricycle around the sidewalks. About 12:30 a.m. he woke up and requested tv so we watched the ending of Willy Wonka. His parents are going to have fun with him at home tonight when he wakes up at midnight. Grandmas have such a good deal.

Pat Kubin mentioned Camp Delaney for a Memorial Day so the state sent me an application for the Environmental Learning Centers again. I'll put down some preferences but there is no final decision until November 7 when they make their selections. Since we have very slim options I figure it's worth a try.

Speaking of Pat, his Memorial Day cd was well worth the wait. I even like the chicken coop door.

Print this Cyd and Brett

I want you to have this in writing that I WANT to go to a retirement place when you decide I need to be there. I will love having my own apartment with matching draperies and bedspread and I will love having old friends next door to visit with daily. I will enjoy the time alone reading, writing and talking on the phone and I will enjoy the dining room with three prepared meals a day. So don't worry one second about telling me when it's time for me to go to a retirement home because I will be among the twenty percent of new residents who are eager and ready.

At least I feel that way today when I've just made a deposit on a room for my mom at Harbor Crest, a nice retirement place only 12 blocks from my house. I like the place, I like the people there, and I think my mom will like it there but now I am dreading telling her she has to move. Almost every day she tells me how much she likes her apartment. She likes being near the grocery store and she likes doing things independently. She is simply going to say she doesn't want to move. My plan right now is to get her physician to break the news to her. I think she will listen when he recommends a safer environment for her. Anyway I hope she listens and then eagerly accepts the change.

Fall is in the air here when you go outside in the morning. The shadows are longer and it is just slightly cooler. I'm sure there will be plenty of hot days left but you can feel the change coming.

Floating

This was done in an inner tube on the cool Wenatchee River on a hot August day. The six Kubins plus Dorena and I made the trip yesterday and it was delightful. I hope we can do it again next year when maybe the water will be even higher. The tubes we rented were equipped with back rests, bottle holders, and several hooks around the outside for attaching into one giant raft. Ron made the mistake of saying he didn't want to go so he got to watch my mom and Max for 4 hours while we were floating.

Max is a German Shepard mix dog who is Jill's new favorite being. The entire family is crazy about Max but Jill choses her every action in response to what Max wants. He is a friendly dog who is eager to please Jill and each family member is allowed so much time with him. A dog should have it so lucky.

My mom and I drove to the Chiwawa River cabin on Saturday and spent the night there with the Kubins and Margy's daughter Vicki and her daugther Maia. Ron and Dorena had Jessica and Maia for the annual Girl's Week. It was a busy time with lots of entertaining and visiting. I asked Ron how many days it would take the get the house back in order and he said they were planning to just light a match and burn the place down when everyone left. It actually was no where near that bad but that was a typical Ron response.

During our float time Betty, Brice, Jim and Diana stopped by to visit at Ron's cabin. They had spent the night in Leavenworth and were seeing several plays there. During the ride home we talked about their visit and Alberta said she didn't see Diana. I think she was worried the entire time I was gone because she wasn't sure how she was getting home.

Linda Bloom and her husband Mike were in London during the British Air strike last week. Mike is not an avid traveler but he agrees to go on some trips with his wife occasionally and hopes for the best. This turned out to be quite a fiasco for him. I love his description of this Econolodge room so I'm adding it.

I am home from London. Sara found one available ticket for
me on Virgin Atlantic and Continental. Linda talked to British Air just before I left. They said they cannot get her a flight back to the U.S. until Thursday Aug. 18th. so Linda is still at the Elizabeth Hotel. British Air is paying for her to stay,up to $200 per day for a Hotel room and $100 per day for food. They are going to pay me back for my ticket on the alternate flights.

I got into Newark last night about midnight. It was still 90 degrees
outside and humid. I tried 6 hotels ( all full) When I called Econolodge, they did have a single room. I took a cab over there and checked in. The key card did not work. I went back to the desk to talk to the annoyed East Indian guy. He got a key and let me in.
I could see why the key card did not work. They wires for the mechanism
were torn out and hanging out by the doornob. The T.V. was missing and there were no drapes for the window. There was the framework for the drapes so I hung one of the blankets up on it. The toilet would not flush cause there was no water in the toilet tank.
When I turned the water on it made a real loud howling noise. The air conditioner was on the inside wall about one foot from the bed. It was so loud that I knew I could not hear my alarm clock so I basically laid there until 5 A.M. then got up to take a shower. There was no shower head so the water basically just blasted straight out from the pipe.

I'm still envious of Linda biding her time in London.

Posting Recipes

It has taken me a few days to figure out how to do this and then really it was Brett who scanned it for me and told me I needed to change it to a pjeg file. It enlarges if you hit on it. This was only because I made this cake for Brett's birthday last week and I thought the recipe was cute the way Grandma wrote it. She knew the time and temperature so she left it off. I had to guess but it did turn out to be very good. I have many more recipes of hers that I can add now like maybe her cinnamon rolls.

It has been hot here so I've had my usual summer friends. The highlight so far was Brett's grade school friend, David, who arrived with his 8 children. It was great seeing them and they loved the pool. It was good just watching Brett and David laughing and visiting together. David did his traditional cannonball which almost empties the pool. He reports that he did two from the top of our garage when he was in high school but thank goodness we didn't know that then. The pool is now being refurbished after 30 years as I anticipate more use from Lucas, his brother and his cousins.

I can't say what I've been doing the past month. This past weekend I went on the Eight Lakes Leg Aches Bike Ride to Cheney and back which for me was a One Lake Leg Aches Bike Ride. You needed to go 50 or 80 miles to see all eight lakes. Sunday I volunteered at an aid station for a half triathlon. That was an eye opener for me. I wasn't so much in awe of the participants as I was puzzled by why they do this kind of thing.

I lost my mom yesterday but she was not lost. She was going along doing her thing while I was beside myself with imagining where she might be. I dropped her off at her senior lunch with instructions to meet me there in an hour as we had appointments for pedicures. When I arrived she was not there. I searched her usual haunts-Safeway, Dorothy's apartment, Fantastic Sam's. Then I searched again. I called all the places I could think of, I visited her apartment several times and still could not find her. After more than 2 hours of frantic searching I spotted her walking into her apartment. She didn't know where she'd been, she didn't think she'd eaten lunch, and then I looked at her nails and they had new polish. I asked if she'd polished them and she said she'd gone to a nail place and had them done. Somehow during that time she had also gone to Safeway and gotten her groceries. It was 94 degrees outside so she is not afraid of the heat. I'm afraid of lots of things now.

Lucas spent the night Sunday and then he went in the stroller with my neighbors for our morning walk. He is crazy about other kids, baseball and watermelon. The potty training is coming along with the proper bribes, usually marshmallows or M & M's. He also is enjoying the bounce castle and I have discovered I can take it down and put it up by myself though I usually leave it for Brett to do.

I'm noticing this morning that it is darker at 5:30 now. I'm not sure it is good to have summer coming to an end so soon. Maybe it will be time in another month. Today is cookie day so it will be a busy morning followed by mother to lunch, and final reports for student teachers.

Grandma's Banana Cake Recipe

Grandma's Banana Cake Recipe
Originally uploaded by arlal.