trampoline days

"it's your birthday, it's your birthday we gonna party like it's your birhtday and we don't even care cuz it's your birthday."   50cent.      Remember the days of trampolines, when we called them tramps and did not think twice about it???? and we did not have to have safety nets that surrounded a tramp??? we would just jump and if we fell off oh well!  we did not care if we broke an arm! bring it on!!!! we were not scared of falling off.  And now you cannot buy a trampoline without a safety net, which i suppose if fine?? but come on, here i am showing my age, "when i was a kid.... " yada yada yada.  who cares i suppose the lakers won tonight OOOh OOOh. love to ya mother.

Shop til the Salesgirl drops. . . .

or goes crazy.  Annie has been in such a great mood lately, so Jo, my mother-in-law, dementiamama and Annie went shopping.  As we were trolling the mall we decided to go into Coldwater Creek, beautiful stuff for the mature ladies.  Well they also have knick knacks and Annie loves herself a knick knack.  Little bowls that were displayed and came in a set to buy really caught her eye.  Throughout the time spent in Coldwater Annie managed to approach the same saleswoman five times asking the same question, "Can I buy this bowl?"  the saleswoman repeated the same information "why no it comes in a set."  I of course just stood back and watched, maybe I should have stepped in but it was too much fun watching some sort of take on a Seinfeld episode. (Annie the equivalent of Kramer maybe).  My mom hates it when I speak for her so I decided to go with the flow.  You could tell the saleswoman was confounded as to why this woman kept asking her the same damn question.  To the credit of the saleswoman she was polite everytime without getting frustrated.  Each time Annie would take the answer do her little "hmm" with a smile and walk over to another set of bowls.  Two thumbs up for Coldwater Creek and trained staff for great customer service.   Here is a link to the bowls as you can see they are quite cute.  Anyone wishing to donate don't hesitate to contact us. (kidding of course) Annie would be so happy.    http://www.coldwatercreek.com/Products/Detail.aspx?productid=50476&ensembleid=56543&colorid=000&refLink=decorative-items.aspx  As you can see from the picture above Annie still loves, and has a flair, for decorating.  After the mall of course we had to dine on some delightful crab croissants hmmmm delicious.

Annie is back to her old self; happy, laughing and enjoying Whit, her grandchild (pictured here with her).  She has had a great couple of days so we are hoping the trauma of the trip has passed her by.   Now we have to figure out how to incorporate many of her belongings into the house without her breaking down due to a loss of her own home, any suggestions?? We are still trying to decide how to add on to our own home so she has more space and privacy.  Privacy is an issue with a six year old who thinks nothing about walking in on you in the bathroom.  Yes i will say between the two of them privacy has left the building.  Oh but as hard as it is at times I would not reverse the decision to bring Annie here.  Whit loves her so much and tells everyone he sees "That's my grandma!"  That makes it all worth it.  They are definitely on the same wave length which is cool to see.  They both love PB and J sandwiches, Enough said.

Long strange trip it's been

Well let's just say Annie was in fine form!  Taking her to see her parents turned into a big mistake.  She became totally disoriented. (Lesson learned don't take the dementiaed out of their environment).  The alzheimer's demon reared its ugly head and produced a scared, spitting fire mama. In fact i am pretty sure i saw some head spinning and projectile vomitting, yeah it was that gross and unpredictable.   Four days of random vocalizations and i still couldn't figure out what she was infuriated about.  Turns out on sunday i needed to hospitalize her with the help of my friend Charona.  After about six hours in the E.R. it was found out that her blood pressure was quite low and she was admitted into the hospital for medical reasons. One day later it is best guessed that a minor/silent heart attack had occured several days ago.  Poor Annie! 

No worries she is fine and last night went out and about living the vida loca in the big city of Elko, Nevada.  She wanted to go out so the casino was her outlet where she was able to walk away with close to 200.00.  what luck. 

Here is a rundown of her night:  casino making money, belligerent with security forcing her back into the hotel room, sleeping peacefully, talking in her sleep and laughing at me for drinking diet coke at 3:30, now snoring.

Never a dull moment with Alzheimer's Annie. 

Court is now in Session

Today may be the day that the court custody contest is finally over.  It has been 44 weeks since the court allowed an ex-husband, Marde, divorced over twenty years ago, a voice in my mother's life, despite the support of guardianship we have from her entire family.  Yes I said it, the entire family's wishes have been ignored for 44 weeks.  My grandparents, uncles, aunt, siblings and grandchildren have been overridden by Marde who simply wanted to be able to walk into her house and claim items as his, which the court allowed to happen--legalized theft.  So let this be a lesson, please parents if you haven't put together a living will and a power of attorney do so now.  Adult children please make sure you have the wishes of your parents written down in legal documents, I would not wish this experience on my worst enemy.  There are many online sites that can provide a cheap alternative to having an attorney such as Legacywriters.com that guides you through living wills, medical directives and other legal documents.  I did legacywriters and it was simple and direct, it is your turbotax.com for legal documents.  It is that easy and helpful.

 Now maybe we will go around the corner and have a turkey and swiss panini from our local sandwich shop. peace be with you and if that doesn't work fight like hell:)

Attention: May Contain Adult Content :)

Bad Night and Morning.  Alzheimer's is a fucking nasty disease ( I warned ya).  Annie had two episodes(emotional breaks) because of her inability to recognize time anymore.  It makes me so angry that this disease is stealing my mother from me a little piece at a time. My mom is a smart, funny, logical and talented woman who is being devoured by this disease.  The disease sometimes turns into a nasty selfish bitchy litle 13 year old girl, who wants her way NOW! You know the creature Golum?(sp) from Lord of the Rings?  Split personality seems to be what is breaking down at this point.  Alzheimer's can't decide which creature will manifest itself, Golum or Smiegel.  (sorry if spelling is incorrect) She wants to go see her parents and can't seem to understand we can't go right now because we have to take Whit, my son, to kindergarten.  Or that my grandparent's house is not just up the road.  She can't comprehend that it is over 700 miles from where we are living.  She gets angry and then can't really make any coherent sounds and goes and cries, saying "Fine, I'll just go to bed."  Then five minutes later will come out of her room to show me something pretty outside and she giggles, thus the 13 year old.  Bizarre disease.


 Note: Alzheimer's is the 13 year old, so don't get bent if you think I am calling her these names, Alzheimer's is the nasty girl, not my mom. I differentiate between the disease(which is a MoFo) and the sufferer.

Happy Easter??

It was not that long ago that kids had a different concept of Easter, working in factories or mines was not uncommon.  No holidays for them no candy eggs.  Today, we have children, not to provide labor, but so we can labor for them.  What a twist.

Today, we had our "cousins," Daisy and Bubb, here to celebrate Easter with Whit.  The Easter bunny is still a believable concept and so the kids had alot of fun.  The E.B. of course stayed up until midnight making sure that candy and toys were evenly distributed.  In the morning chaos ensued.  My mom tried to hide from most of the noise but was unable to totally escape the tornado.  Annie did not enjoy the festivities as much as the kids.  She followed them around picking up candy and toy wrappers.  Well maybe that was her fun, she loves cleaning.  Now that the sugar high has worn off the kids have all passed out and our napping.  Good Times.