Oh, dear younger and wiser sister, you were right. Couscous is not so bad.
I served a Middle Eastern beef stew tonight, and it was ladled over couscous. Dear Husband liked it…better than he liked the stew.
So….I bow low before you and acknowledge that you knew better than I.
(Is that enough, or do I need to keep this up??)

Dear Husband and I went to visit Elegante Mother today. I took her a bowl of cheddar chowder and a slice of an amazing chocolate cake with fudge frosting and fresh raspberries. She wasn’t terribly thrilled with my homemade chowder, but she ate several spoonsful, along with the oyster crackers. The chocolate cake was something else, again. She ate half of it at lunch and saved the rest for later this afternoon. In EM’s opinion, there’s nothing better than chocolate!
We are seeing extremes in EM’s memory. Some days we visit and she is clear as a bell, discussing the family in a way that lets you know she recognizes everyone. Other days she hasn’t a clue who we are talking about. She informed my brother that she had never been married or had children. He asked her about the pictures on the wall above her bed and could see her trying to process the question without any luck.
Our brains are funny creatures.
EM is physically well, and still casing the joint. The nurse told me today that she gets frequent calls to send someone to guide EM back to her own wing. She has taken to walking the halls of the facility. I don’t know if that is to get out of her room (or away from her roommate), or whether she feels the need for exercise, or whether she truly is looking for a way out. I’m relieved to know that she is able to get around on her own.
I’ll return Monday. I promised to bring a Greek salad with me this time. Her eyes lit up at the thought of Feta cheese!

I should be blogging, but I just don’t know WHAT to blog about. The absolutely crazy winter weather? Ed, who was ill yesterday? The incredible sale I found at Bath and Body. Elegant Mother’s dislike of the nursing home?
There’s not a lot of news in my corner of the world. I took lunch to EM on Monday and you’d think it was the best meal she had ever eaten. Unfortunately, she can’t remember the LOBSTER that my brother took to her on Friday night. My offering was a simple tuna sandwich, fresh raspberries and part of a clementine. She ate all that, and was too full to eat the salad that came with it. Probably what she liked the best was a small iced coffee from Starbucks. I can see that she both wants and needs to drink more, and the iced coffee might have been the part of the meal she enjoyed the most.
EM has been in a nursing home about three weeks, and they lost her bottom teeth (temporarily), her shoes ( for a couple of days…and in the meantime, someone has given her a pair of embroidered felt slippers….we haven’t a clue who they belong to),and now her glasses. I had to take her prescription sunglasses to her because she had been without glasses from some time on Saturday until lunch on Monday. We have informed the administration that they are missing, but no one seems to know anything about them. I’m going to print out a sign that says….Does EM have her glasses, her teeth and her shoes on this morning? to remind the aides to check for what seems obvious to us.
I’ll be vising EM again today, and I’ll take French onion soup, maybe half a sandwich, and something sweet to finish the meal. And, you can be sure I’ll take her more iced coffee! The Empty Nester Ladies will be visiting this morning at 11:00, so she should have a nice day.
I think it’s okay to say that I am TIRED OF THE COLD! I’m ready for spring. I want to be browsing the plant catalogs and planning what will go in our gardens. I doubt that I will have help with them this year, so I want to plant things that will make it with a minimum of assistance. Don’t you get that green-thumb syndrome this time of year, too?
I suppose I should cut this short so that I can get ready for exercise this morning. I’m trying not to miss any of the sessions, because it’s so hard to get back into the traces after being away several days. My exercise session, compared to what my younger sister does, is a laugh, but I can tell you that it makes a significant difference in my life. so I go. I don’t like it….but I go! *G*
I hope you all have a good Wednesday!

I have a very old black cat by the name of Edward Scissorhands. Ed adopted us about 17 years ago, during the height of an extremely cold winter. He found his way into our unheated garage and curled up on the seat of the lawn mower. I discovered he was there, and immediately worried that he would freeze. Dear Husband was against letting him into the basement, so he put a little heater out in the garage. Hmpf! Like that was going to do much.
The weather got worse, and DH had to put that heater on the back of the loft bathroom to make sure the pipes didn’t freeze. Ed got to go to the basement, and he’s been directing our lives ever since.
I originally put a litter box in the bathroom off the bedroom hallway. Ed is an indoor-outdoor cat, and virtually never needed the litter. It was just “in case.” But, in the past three years, the cat has aged to the point where winter weather in not as easy to bear. I was sure he was dying the first year he chose not to go out. What else could it be? After all, THIS was the cat who much preferred to be outside, who ran to the door to signal his need to be OOOOOOWWWWTT! Admittedly, it was cold outside. I suppose he was just being a smart cat!
The unfortunate side to staying in, is that the cat needs to use the litter. I have a litter pan in the basement, but Dear Husband tells me that it needs to be changed more frequently than once a month. (Out of sight, out of mind). And, this cat is a champion at filling a litter pan.
Ed’s kidneys are going bad, and he drinks a great deal of water. You know the deal. Water in, water out, or something like that. I can change the litter pan, use a new litter liner and fill it with litter, and I SWEAR he can fill it in twenty minutes! I can scoop for one day, but every other day we need to start fresh.
And the litter…..there are little granules of litter everywhere. I had to move the litter out of the bathroom to make things safer for my mother, and the only other place we could put it on the main floor was the mud room. Ed is doing his best to make the mud room live up to it’s name. After he’s used the litter, he paws at it, and dumps some of it over the side. Then he walks through it, and tracks it past the pantry and into the kitchen. I’ve found it half the house away, on the seat of the secretarial chair at my computer in the living room!
I love this cat dearly, and I know we don’t have a lot of time left together, but couldn’t he just be a LITTLE NEATER!???

I received a note from my youngest sister, frankie, with the command: BLOG!
And so I am. I’ve thought of two dozen entries to make in the past week or so, all when I can’t get to my computer. Frankie and I were talking about the phenomenon of the perfect sentence for a blog entry, which pops into our heads when we are in the shower. and can’t write it down. It’s really aggravating to know that I’ll forget that perfect sentence before I can get to a notepad. Darn it all!
So today is a pastiche….a collection of short comments, if you will.
Elegante Mother is doing better! YEA!!!! She is speaking in complete sentences, and her voice seems to be getting stronger. She is lucid, focused, and appears to understand where she is. She also understands that she needs help to get better. AND, she is clear that the food stinks! She’s lost ten pounds. On my next trip to see her I will take an avocado, or some guacamole, and I’ll stop at Culvers for a milk shake. Mechanical-soft fattening food, coming up!
EM and I bird watched while we were on the way to appointments. This week, I saw TWO hawks. One was sitting on the top of a light standard over the roadway, and the second was holding it’s position in a stiff breeze over a field…no doubt watching for a mouse to appear. They are amazing birds
Friends traveled this weekend to Starved Rock about an hour west of us along Interstate 80, to watch the eagles. I think they said they saw 100 eagles! What a great way to spend a Saturday in January. The eagles also winter on the Mississippi south of Rock Island, Illinois. We’re blessed with big birds.
One of my nieces has been my house cleaning guru while we have lived in this house. She came last week to help me take down and box up Christmas. I HATE to take down the decorations! Left to myself, I’d probably leave them up for months. The only advantage of all this is that we did some spring cleaning in Elegante Mother’s rooms, and I was able to get several hours of filing done in the office. My niece’s son joined us to carry things to the basement, and to do a little high cleaning. He’s 6’6″, so those high jobs are easy for him. My house is ready for spring. Where the heck is it!?
Well…I’ve finally made the binding for Dear Husband’s quilt. I could possibly get it finished in time for Valentine’s Day. There’s hope yet.
I was thinking that we might start an American book meme. Adele pointed out that the children’s books on the meme I posted earlier made her think that the meme had originated in the U.K. I think she’s right. I’d offer to do the meme, but I’m not a regular enough poster to be well read. Shall we encourage Joy, or Patty at Texas Trifles to start a meme for us?
I dragged my feet on making dinner tonight. I wanted to be under a quilt, near a roaring fire (it’s bitterly cold here). I made chicken planks, an Uncle Ben’s mix of rice, wild rice and orzo with chicken broth, peas, French bread with mozzarella cheese melted over the top, and a green salad with dressing from Olive Garden. The point was to use up things in the freezer, or things that would go bad in the fridge, if we didn’t use them up. It took thirty-five to forty minutes from getting off the couch to serving dinner. In all fairness, I should say that DH made the salad. A piece of French chocolate served as dessert. YUM!!
And that’s about all the trivia I have to share with you at the moment. I’ll have more posts once I download some pictures. I hope you have a great week!

This entry starts with a reposting of a comment I made on the entry titled “Theft!” It’s in response to a joking comment made by my youngest sister, who has been visiting with us this weekend. (What a joy….more to come on that!)
“Sniff!??? And, do you not qualify as a “Baby Boomer,” too?
What’s really eating you is that YOU are the teacher of English and Literature in our family, and as such, you feel that you should have by-passed me on this, as you do in SO many other things! *G* I think I just had the benefit of schooling in a different high school, and I have a few years on ya.
I’ve printed a copy of the list and checked seventeen books that I will begin to add to my book orders, to expand my reading. And this morning, the editor of the crossword puzzle blog that I visit suggested a book by Amos Oz: “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” which I might look into.
Heck…this is turning into an entire entry, so I’ll just go post.”
Frankie and I chatted (very briefly) about the list of books in the last entry. She’s right in that it is not a definitive list of literature from the past several hundred years. I have no idea how this particular list came to be. I’ve seen others like it, or perhaps even this list in past years, and just accepted it as a list of suggestions gathered on someone’s blog. I know the American Film Institute has lists of the 100 best movies, or the 100 best dramas, or the 100 best comedies, and so forth. I wonder if there is a site that gives a similar compilation for literature?
As Frankie pointed out, there are genres which are not adequately represented here, but a “Personal Favorites” meme would not be concerned with that issue. I was astonished to find any science fiction, and that classic children’s stories were on the list.
We both, Frankie and I, need to learn more about “memes,” from how the word is pronounced, to a definition of the term, to how one gets started and passed around. Can anyone fill us in?

Elegante Mother is definitely the Comeback Kid! After seven days in a hospital bed or a nursing home bed, she woke up yesterday to smile at Dear Husband and me, and eat a bowl of applesauce! I’d just about counted her out, and here she is, acting as though nothing had happened.
Of course, she can’t remember the past fifty years, and doesn’t know who her children are, but she recognized a picture of herself from about 35 years ago.
Dear Husband drove me to the nursing home yesterday because we had had an overnight snow and the roads were just awful. We arrived around 10:45 or so, and as we rounded the curtain to her bed, EM looked up and smiled, apparently happy to have visitors. She seemed to have remembered DH, and repeated his name when I said it. I wasn’t sure she knew who I was, but when my oldest sister talked with her today, she talked about going home, and mentioned my name. She may recognize me by name, but I don’t think she realized that I am her daughter. She is very firmly mired in the past, and we think that past is now b.c. (before children).
I was astonished that she let me feed her the applesauce, and when I asked if she had eaten any breakfast, she muttered that she would when they gave her something she liked. They’d offered oatmeal and scrambled eggs. I could have told them she wouldn’t eat that. But…she eats chocolate chip cookies now, after a lifetime of disliking them.
I was relieved to learn that My-Sister-The-Nurse found Elegante Mother sitting in the dining room this morning. She had allowed the aides to dress her and get her into her chair, and take her out of her room. I see that as a major step in her care.
The weather is going to be daunting this week. We’ve had easily 6-8 inches of snow in two days and we are expected to have more during the week. Our high on Thursday is supposed to be -2F. I had planned to visit EM several times a week, but I may be waylaid by the weather. I hope she continues to make progress, even if I can’t be there to watch.

For those of you who feel as though you know Elegante Mother, and those of you who have actually met her, I have some disheartening news. EM is facing some medical problems. We had to call the paramedics on Saturday morning to take her to the hospital.
She is resting comfortably, and is in the care of good doctors. Unfortunately, she is not clear on where she is, or who we are. It’s likely that Elegante Mother will go from the hospital to a nursing home. She will need more care than I can give her, even with caregivers to help.
This is a very difficult time for us. EM has lived with us for the past 19 years, and she lived in an apartment next door to us for another two or three years. It’s a long time to care for someone else, and even though Dear Husband and Second Son are here, the house is strangely quiet.
I hope that you will keep her in your prayers, or send positive thoughts her way.

As I’ve gotten older my wish list for Christmas has changed. Has yours? Elegante Mother would still like to have a fire engine red sexy convertible and a handsome young man to chauffeur her around. My “wants” are usually simpler. I don’t need or want a fur coat. Dear Husband used to give me a burgundy scarf and mittens every year, and I haven’t quite worn out the last two. (I rather miss those gifts.) I have a perfectly good car that gets me where I am going, so I don’t need to follow EM’s footsteps. There are a few things I’d like to have that I need to buy for myself, and other than that, DVDs, CDs, books and gift certificates to my favorite quilt fabric shop make up my list.
This year I received “Wall-E,” “No Country for Old Men,” “Bucket List” and the fourth episode of the Indiana Jones story. I also have my first Michael Buble CD and the Josh Groban Christmas CD. I’m a happy camper!
The big item that I need to shop for on my own? Two, actually. One is a new sewing machine, and the other is a long-arm quilting machine. I need to try out different models so that I can choose the one I’d like to use. I hope to buy them before we retire. I’d also like to purchase the cabinetry to set up the sewing machine. Right now I sew at a Samsonite table, and it’s a bit crowded.
We used to say of my father that anything he wanted that he didn’t already have we couldn’t afford to get for him, and I may have hit that point in my life. There’s an exception, though. My youngest sister and her husband gave me earrings and a necklace this year that are gorgeous. She managed to find stones that incorporate my favorite colors and added an elegant silver necklace. They weren’t on my list, but I’m delighted to have them.
Perhaps we should stop with the wish lists, and just let people give us gifts of their own choosing. What do you think?

At a time when I should be buoyed by the lightness of the season and be filled with good cheer, I’m ticked. I know that I shouldn’t have let this situation get to me, but I really regret the loss of manners that I see everywhere these days. I sound like an old fogy, and I probably am one, but where in the world has the ability to treat others civilly gone?
Last night my youngest stepson and his wife came to exchange Christmas gifts. They had gone to her family for Christmas rather than joining his family. Stepson Three called several days ago to ask if they could visit with us yesterday. When I asked him what time he said, “Afternoon.” That left a lot of leeway, but I figured we would be having a quiet afternoon at home, so it wasn’t a problem.
I should insert here that my daughter-in-law (I only have one of them) has been put on a very restricted diet. It’s so restricted that I hate to ask her about it, because rather than telling me what she can eat, she always goes down the list of things she can’t eat. It gets confusing trying to remember everyone’s likes and dislikes and cans and can’ts, and after a while, I shut some of it out. I’m not perfect, and I have a lot of other things on my mind.
Sooooooooooo….the kids finally arrived around four, and sat with us to watch an hour of Dr. Who reruns. Dear Husband was getting hungry and assumed that I hadn’t planned any dinner. (We all know better, but he didn’t ask me what I had planned). It was decided that he would order pizza. Well, I knew that my DIL couldn’t have pizza. There was some discussion of offering a salad, but no one made a move toward the kitchen, so I assumed that it was my job. I got up and emptied the refrigerator.
I offered seven veggies, three meats, four cheeses, five condiments and about six salad dressing. Too bad I didn’t have the partridge and the pear tree, to go along with that! I laid it all out in an attractive pattern, put out bowls and forks, and set out beverages.
The pizza came, and the guys got up to help themselves. I fixed a salad for Elegante Mother, and added it to a plate with little squares of pizza, and some Greek olives. I took it into the living room for her, and encouraged my DIL to join me in the kitchen so I could tell her what I had laid out. (I had diced up lunch meat, so she might have needed to know which was ham and which was turkey.
Her response was, “NO! I’m not eating.”
What ever happened to “Thank you.” Why did this girl’s mother not teach her any social graces? She was sitting where she could see me putting all of this together. Did she really think I was doing it for the guys, who would be consuming gargantuan amounts of pizza???
A simple, “Thanks, but my diet is so restrictive, I’ll have to pass on dinner,” would have fallen more kindly on my ears. I was ticked then, and I’m still ticked now.
AND, it bothers me that she never speaks to my mother. I thought we might have a problem, because my mother has never cared for my DIL. She has always felt ignored. I don’t know if my DIL simply doesn’t know what to say to her, or doesn’t care to acknowledge her. For whatever reason, my mother has always disliked her, and unfortunately, that was one of the things EM could still remember. I needed to reassure my mother that she would be okay, and that my DIL wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.
I think we need to have compulsory Manners 100. A crash course to cover the near future, leading in to 101, 102, 201, 202, 301, 302, 401, and independent study would be a really good idea!!
Do you think I am asking too much?