You Just Gotta Love Old Folks

My Grandmother had an early eye appointment this morning, so I cut my weekend with Hubby short to make the drive down to her place yesterday afternoon. As I predicted she was ecstatic that I came down to spend the night with her… she was so was excited that I think she worked herself into almost a slight state of confusion. At least more confused than her normal level of daily confusion. Taking her to supper at the cracker barrel was not too bad but, the simple act of walking to, through and from the restaurant proved to be a task. You see she has this mental block about walking in unfamiliar territory. She just automatically assumes that the surface is uneven; therefore, she keeps tripping over invisible obstacles and walking in little baby steps in a really, really slow pace. I feel like I am practically dragging her around the parking lot! Of course, assuring her all along that I will not let her fall… After the ordeal of getting her in the place and seated, she ate everything on her plate and did not even make too big of a mess! She would have licked the remaining honey mustard off her plate if I had let her! I just kept thinking back to when I was a child and she was the adult and how she used to fuss at me for my manners… boy, have times changed! Although, I do not fuss at her… as a matter of fact, I welcome her using her fingers to pick up her food to eat it… since her use of utensils is practically gone… anything to help her eat more food.
When, we made it back to her apartment, I opened up my nail salon and went to work on her finger and toe nails… I will not even go there on trying to describe what that awful experience was like…
And then I discovered the bathroom… after a wild goose chase for cleaning products, I spent the next hour mopping her bathroom floor three times and cleaning the toilet, sink and all other horizontal surfaces in there.
Next, I spent over an hour trying to get her to change into her pajamas… she just could not pull it together mentally to complete the task. I finally wound up helping her…
All night was spent either burning up or freezing to death in her apartment… it was awful. I do not think I ever fell into a deep sleep the entire night. I kept getting up to turn the AC on… and then she would wake up and start asking me what was wrong… I finally tried to just sleep on the couch next to the AC unit… and then froze! Needless to say, I was very ready to rise when the waking hour happened upon us.
After a trip to the eye doctor that included a 2-hour wait in the waiting room, I was very ready to head back to the metropolis late this morning… but, not until after I overheard a conversation between two elderly ladies in the waiting room watching one of those cable news networks on the waiting room television. One lady said to the other (after watching a report titled “Palin is the newest TV star”, “She isn’t no TV star, she is a god-fearing normal person with good values and good judgment who just wants to represent the rest of good folks”. Amen, sister. You just gotta love old folks…