Perambulations

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Swapmeet: Russell Wright.

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Duck: Ate some of his dinner. “Here’s your coffee,” I said for the second time worried that he wasn’t eating. Sotto voice with a smile he said, “Maybe I should have just picked up the cup and held it.” Me: Walked, ate lunch AND dinner out, woke at 0317 thinking. Were my dreams turning into thinking? Need to call those people I was dreaming about. G: Walked, two favorite meals out, computered, had a great day off. Work: Padre’s 2008 Schedule. We only have to work 77 out of 84 games this year. Wow.

Here......... peace still, despite me…..not G. He carries his inner comfort with him. Sometimes all I can do is smile.

Right now the house is quiet, the clock ticks louder than G snores, and there's only one or two cars passing by to interrupt the silence. I woke at three. Here I am at the computer practing not thinking. Perhaps my dreams turned into reality, and I didn’t like the reality.

• Everyday we continue to suit up and show up at the nursing home to face a new surprise. Someday’s it's a small one....last week the receptionist telling us she had to repeatedly take him back to his room. He kept getting lost. This week, he keeps trying to go home, and home is now Whitewater WI.
  
  "Does he have a car?" That question came three times yesterday from the folks sitting at the table near him.
  
  He must have been driving them mad while he was looking for his car. I explained that he used to have a car. In all actuality, he used to have a lot of things, a lot of money, a lot of houses, and a lot of cars before he drank them all away. We haven't said a word about his drinking though if he makes mild drinking jokes to us, he’s making drinking jokes to them.



• These last few weekends, we have been window shopping........swap meet and yard sales give us both cheap retail therapy, since we don't buy anything, and long walks. Yesterday we slowly perambulated around the swap meet at a snails pace for hours. Heavenly. Lunch was at the ultimate in breakfast diners, Perry’s. Two pancakes and extra butter are all I need, thank you. Later we wandered through Target looking for the “Ultimate long sleeved T”….which were all gone at the grand sale price of four bucks. I was pooped by the time we got home and nodded off over my book.



• Soon I need to be able to stand and perambulate for 12 hours stretches….smiling all the while. I’m not there yet. I think of this all as training.



• Yes, that “Happy Light” has truly been a gift. George continues enlightened.......sometimes to the point I could cheerfully put a 2x4 over his head to douse the humor. Around here, laughing all the way to the bank meant exactly that yesterday. I play the straight man to things like this but in reality am delighted….tho so slow to catch on to some of the jokes.



• Home things today. I’ll box those last journals into cartons and put them away. Housekeeping online too. My computer runs well but is beginning to burp a bit. It’s four years old. Time to clean it out more ways than one. It’s a Model T in this supersonic computer world. His computer is older. He needs a new one. We are determined to pay off this year’s debt….that Condo assessment, the tires, the stove, the car…which is now under a thousand, and the upcoming trip, before we do anything else. Life used to nickel you to death, now it five hundred dollars you to death. Then again, maybe we are finally out of the nickel tax bracket.



• The sun is an icy white today. More cars move on the city streets than did when I began this. An airplane moves on by over head sounding more like a steam boiler than a rocket to LA. Here’s a jogger, there a walker. If you want me, I’ll be digging in my closet and trying on my old things. What fits? What doesn’t? Can this twenty year old shirt be reborn? I bet it can.

See you all tomorrow. We are off to Duck’s to reset his clocks. Don’t forget to do yours and your smoke alarms too.