It's been a mixed weekend at Campus Dr. This is the first time that I do not have a positive report about the subject we are all most concerned about. I was sorry, and and more than a bit alarmed, Mom, that you have been feeling more pain lately, and haven't felt up to doing any of that regular walking practice with the walker, which is so crucial to maintaining the strength of your legs.
I was also sad to hear that for more of the transfers to and from the wheelchair, you've wanted Sandy to lift you, having had too much pain to exercise those leg muscles yourself.
I plan to try to communicate more often with Marisa to see if this lack of activity is a temporary downturn or a long-term pattern. Perhaps, when I see her this morning, she can estimate for me how much you have been walking with the walker, on a daily average, during the last month.
I guess it's the statistician's daughter in me, but I wish I could see some sort of on-going chart, to see "the big picture".
As lack of exercise is a real danger in itself, perhaps a doctor appointment is in order? Or the family could hire, privately, a trained physical therapist to come in regularly, evaluate, and supervise that level of regular exercise which is low enough to be safe but high enough to prevent atrophying of leg muscles.
Also, I do hope that soon we can find some vitamins which are easier to swallow than the large ones you have now.
On the bright side, the tea was lovely. I had thought perhaps we should cancel because you had been feeling poorly lately, Mom, but the smile which lit up your face as your friends arrived made me glad that we had not. It was the dozen or so regulars attended, but the gathering seemed especially animated and warm.
Polo and Diana, the couple who teach tango classes, were excited because they had been approached by the Hillside Club and asked to teach some tango classes there, to beginners. That evening, after the tea, they were on their way to a class which was aimed at teaching women to be able to be the leader of the couple (specially aimed, I think, for women tango teachers who were sometimes faced with a class with more women than men).
Their other news was that they know personally the Argentine tango dancer who danced with Obama when he visited there.
Paulette is still glowing about having had her cataracts operated on, and getting a good result on the follow-up exam. It would be scary to have your eyes operated on, so I can understand how wonderful it would be to have that ordeal over with.
Unfortunately I completely forgot to take any photos!
Oscar and I always do about a half hour of music at the end of the teas, from around six to six-thirty. Their seemed to be a livelier reaction to the music than usual, and I think we went on until quarter to seven. Thinking back, I think it's probably that I've been performing at the Renaissance Festival for about eight weekends in the last two months, and without realizing it, was more in the "performing mode".
On Sunday Sandy and I ended up re-organizing the children's books at Campus Dr. It started because Sandy had gradually brought so many of these books into the kitchen that there were foot-high piles covering the entire cabinet under the fax machine. I had moved two of the piles into the living room so that I could put down my coffee cup.
Before the tea he came up to me and said, "It may be inconvenient to have the books by the couch, but it's essential they be out of the living room for the tea."
I said, tongue-in-cheek, "Well, it's essential that I have a place to put down my coffee cup!" I moved them into the hall, saying that I would put them back in the bookcase in the morning.
It was a time-consuming chore because the shelves were so full. That every time a book was inserted, one or more books had to be taken off the end of that shelf and moved down, which meant taking a book off of the end of each shelf, all the way to the end of the alphabet. And there was no room for the W's, at all, I had them over by the food trays on the shelves by the foot of the stairs, for a while. (Some of the books which had been sitting under the fax machine had been brought into the house, not all of them had been taken from those hall bookshelves.)
Many of the books already on the shelves were out of order, as well.
Once I started filing books, Sandy also got involved and ended up doing a great deal of reorganizing and culling. (There were a lot of double copies of the same book, for instance, and some books which we both agreed were not really worth the space they took up on the shelf.)
I had asked you, Mom, to help by picking up books which needed to be filed and reading off the last name of the author. What was nice was that you found several books which you yourself would be interested in reading, in the near future.
It was pleasant to encounter, over and over, "old friends" from my childhood, books I'd loved but had not thought about for years.
The children's book-shelves are now in order. The fairy-tale collections, poetry collections, and non-fiction are now the length of the top shelf (some of them had been up there to start, and some had not). He lowered another of the bottom shelves so that all of the picture books for small children are on two shelves at the bottom, and because both shelves are at the lower position, even the larger picture books all fit on those shelves. And everything else is alphabetized, and all placed vertically, no books side-ways on top of the other books! Wish I could say that about my own bookshelves at home!
I was very pleased that the picture books for small children are all now right where the little great-grandchildren can now just toddle up and look for a book they'd like. For obvious reasons, Sandy did not alphabetize those little kids' books!
It was a nice project to get done.
Speaking of books, during our conversation yesterday morning, Jennie said, "Why so many books?"
"We just like to read, I guess."
"When I first come here, I think, 'they mus' have a library!' I never see so many books!"
P.S. BART has taken out seven of their double seats in each car, and replaced them with single seats, so that during commuting hours the wider aisle can accommodate more of the standing customers.
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