Calm, Sweet Calm

We have visitors this week. My niece Stephanie and her friend Jessie are here. Steph is staying for a few months to intern with an artist/metalworker in Leesburg. He has agreed to teach her a trick or two in exchange for some help with his work. She brought her cats and they are having a ball here. They are inside cats and we have an enclosed lanai that they think is outside. The girls are going out in the evenings and staying up way later than we are used to; look out Margareta ville!

Jessie is only here for a week but I think she likes it here because she is pitching the virtues of TV to her grand parents. We got them a sales package, and you know how we feel; the more the merrier!

We have had some fun with RC’s mom. We took her to St Augustine, and to the Golf Hall of Fame. The next field trip is to Miami to see Paul McCartney. I can’t wait. It is one of the things that Erika and I have both put on our Bucket lists is to see a Beatle!

Burt has gone back up North and calm has been restored. I hate to speak badly about him so I will only say I am glad his disruptive behavior will be inflicted elsewhere. Mom is more settled when he is gone. When he’s here he makes her mad, and when he’s gone he makes her sad. I’ll take sad for the time being! I think we have a good handle on her medicines, finally, but as is often the case for the octogenarians, something else complicates the Health landscape. The Doctor found cancer on her nose. We are having the spot removed at the end of the month, and look forward to her physical health continuing to improve.

Her mental health seems to stay about the same. Some days are better than others. She enjoys the warm weather and the kids and cats running around. She likes to be pampered a little like getting her nails done, and loves to shop. When the dark days come she has “dreams” that taunt her and she will often get stuck on a subject that makes her very sad. She is at the point in the disease where she realizes her memory is going, but is not ready to accept the extent to which loosing ground. Alzheimer’s disease is a cruel thief. I hope we are giving her more good days here in TV than she would have had up North.