This is the second most exciting indoor sport, and the other one shouldn't have spectators. --Dick Vertleib (this in honor of...or perhaps in memory of...the end of the Kings season last night) Yesterday's Entries 2000: My Day TODAY's FOOD Breakfast: Special K
& toast CURRENTLY READING The Oath TODAY on DVD A Lion in Winter (Afterwards I was moved to check the Internet for info on Eleanor of Aquitaine, a name I've always heard and knew nothing about--what an amazing lady!)
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IS ALZHEIMERS CONTAGIOUS? 21 May 2004 "So our next meeting will be on June 3rd. It’s the first and third Thursdays of the month," Joan said to our little group. Surely she was mistaken. It couldn’t be Thursday. Surely she meant Wednesday because I know that today is Wednesday. It has to be Wednesday because my plan for the rest of the week is that I’m going to go some shopping after the meeting, getting supplies for the Altered Book project (I’m really getting into this thing) and then spend some time this afternoon and tonight designing the program for Dr. G’s seminar. I’ll get the program finished tomorrow so he can proof read it and get it to the printer by Friday. But wait. What did I watch on television last night? Omigawd. I watched West Wing. This is Thursday! Well, that set in motion an entirely new plan for the day. I hadn’t yet figured out the best program for designing Dr. G’s program, nor how I was going to do it and now I knew that he was planning on having me fax it to him mid-afternoon today. But wasn’t it just yesterday that he dropped it off? And didn’t we have a discussion about dates at that time when he said "I’ll get that from you tomorrow" and I reminded him that he meant day after tomorrow? I’m so confused. Maybe Alzheimers is catching. Well, I scratched plans for wandering around a craft shop. I’d already finished my altered book for this month and was only going to get a head start on next month’s book, so it could wait a couple of days. I rushed home and began work on the program. I was 3/4 of the way finished with it when Dr. G called to say that he had just realized we got our dates mixed up and that he was expecting the draft of the program today. I was pleased that I could report to him that I planned to FAX it to him within the hour. I swear, sometimes I don’t think I’m fit to be let out in public without a keeper. However, I’m glad that I did go out in public. This group at Joan’s house is an outgrowth of a memoir-writing group that first met at the Senior Center. When Joan’s health prevented her from traveling to the Senior Center twice a month, she suggested they move the group to her house and they have been meeting twice a month for a long time now, sharing the stories of their lives. I’m a Johnny-come-lately to the group, but found old friends there already. I also wasn’t the only totally new person, as one gentleman was only there for the second time and was only sharing something he’d written for the first time. It’s unfortunate that we don’t start to value our own history until it’s too late to speak with the people would could provide the most information and fill in the bits we were too young to remember. Yesterday afternoon, at Peach’s house, we were going through the letters that our great-great-great grandfather had written to his grandchild. Somehow these letters were preserved in the family all these years and Peach has now transferred them all to acid-free plastic sheets where they will, hopefully, last for many more generations to come. There comes a day when there is value in these bits and pieces of our past and the past of our ancestors, if only to understand how we have become the people that we are. In my own family, the thing that amazes me is that writing predominates in all generations. It certainly must have been highly unusual to have a farmer, and a man at that, who was such a prolific letter writer. What would he say of his descendant--me--to know that my passion for writing began with writing letters? I also had a great grandfather in the newspaper business in Santa Rosa. I’m not sure if you’d call me in the newspaper writing business exactly, but I’ve certainly had my share of newspaper work, especially these days. You tend to think that things like this are happenstance. I didn’t start loving to write letters because a distant relative did. I didn’t go looking for newspaper work because printers ink was in my veins. Or did I? Maybe there’s more to this genetics business than I originally thought. But, bottom line was that I shared the story of "The Peep Doctor," which contrasted sharply with the intelligent, well-written, and insightful stories the others were reading, but I’ve always gone for the cheap laugh rather than the deep meaningful insight. When the meeting was over, there was no time for insight or anything else. I had to rush home and slap a program together, which, miraculously, I managed to do. This is Thursday, isn’t it? |
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Created 4/30/04
