This and That and T'other.

My friend Lana, whom I speak to every week has started hallucinating in this dreadful disease of Alzheimer's. It has worsened lately. But she still knows my name when I call her.

Last night her hallucination was a man and his daughter coming to take her to a shoe shop to fit her with new shoes as she had broken her foot. I went along for the ride. She said she wore the shoes to bed as they were so comfortable and would never take them off again. I think it might have been her son and granddaughter who took her. But she had lost track of who they were and their names. If it happened at all.

She has a new friend who is thirty years old (living in a senior's full care facility?) but even though she protests at reception she, Lana, is not allowed to take her for walks with her which is, she says, totally unfair as she'd like some company. As they were spying on her all the time now she couldn't tell me her name.

We don't abandon our friends of such long duration though, and I focus on the few minutes of joy she has in hearing my voice and know that I am forgotten so very quickly until I call again in a week.

Blogger, Master of the Blogverse, decided that a post I had written about Iraq, way back in the day, was offensive in my critique of the politics of that so-called war invasion. Oddly enough, everything I wrote has been proven since.

Daughter booked our trip to my homeland for October. I did the pro and con list and will be interested in reading Andrew who is writing about his very last trip to the homeland of his partner in the UK. Always challenging with aging, disabilities, medications, too old for insurance, etc. Plus the roundabout way of getting there from here with the cancellation of direct flights to Dublin from St. John's. Now we have to back trek west to Toronto and then fly east to Dublin in a sardine can. My pro and con list for the trip had pros winning though. 14 hours.

In love with my air-fryer.

Flowers from my daughter in April.

A very faint rainbow landing in the middle of the lake outside my window this past week.

From a Distance

From a distance, we see things more clearly, don't we? Today I re-read these few lines from "Seating Arrangements" by Maggie Shipstead. One of the funniest books I've ever had the pleasure to read.

"An airplane crossed the sky and she imagined its interior - people packed in rows like eggs in a carton, the chemical smell of the toilets, pretzels in foil pouches, cans hiss-popping open, black ovals of night sky embedded in the rattling walls."

How a few short lines can encapsulate the current awfulness of air travel! But only from a distance. When we're on board other anxieties intrude - in my own case smoke from the dollhouse kitchen, non-stop crying babies - their wee ears affected by the air pressure, and those drunks, you know the kind, my tribe calls them "messers". Twice we overshot runways, another time the sudden turbulence was so violent our breakfasts hit the ceiling. Not to mention the odd nasty flight attendant who keeps one cowering, well-behaved, in one's seat, crunching one's legs together, not wishing to incur his/her wrath by going to the toilet.

This geezer remembers the times when air travel was a joy. Playpens for the children. Hammocks for babies and free assistance at plane changing airports. China! Real glasses and cutlery! Table linens! And oh yeah, smoking!

I'm sure you fliers out there have your own stories to share.