I hope Jazzy will bring her little Yorkie, Willy. It would be interesting to see how an imaginary Lodge creature like Fluffy would interact with a real-world creature like Willy. Will the lion lie down with the lamb?
I picked up a sheepskin rug on Amazon--one of those that is two sheepskins sewn together...a white one...so am putting it over the back of our sofa at the Lodge. (I love this virtual, pretend shopping...my virtual, pretend credit card is already smokin'. : D
OK, now what else do we need? (If the group doesn't like the sheepskin, we can put it beside somebody's bed, or maybe just let Fluff have it to sleep on. Or Willy, if Jazzy brings him.)
I brought "Elf" and "Fred Claus" for us to watch. Not a clue whether they're any good or not. I'm wearing the new blue sweater with subtle sparkles in it that I got on sale at Macy's. Hotsy-totsy.
Thanks, Myrtle. Hey, it's all good with Fluffy--maybe she wants to run loose. She can sleep on the rug in front of the fire, or under the Christmas tree. Is there anything to drink? Hah--don't need to worry about that with this crowd. (Just kidding--cinnamon tea is about all I can handle.) It is soooo nice to just relax with friends.
Forgot to post that I had a courteous discussion with DD after supper--told her that when school starts again on Jan. 4 after the holidays...that I want to make supper and watch the kids up at her house instead of mine. It isn't that I don't love them dearly, but five afternoons/evenings a week is just too much...if they're going to run around like wild hooligans and trash the place (i.e. acting like normal kids)...they can do it in their own home. I will still be tied down, but at least I won't have to have dishes piled to the ceiling in my kitchen and have to clean out my den with a backhoe every day. This is step one of extricating myself from this nanny Mary Poppins situation...I'm intending to take back the peace and privacy of my own home. And I do have to say that it makes me lonely that they aren't expected to sit down at the table and have dinner as a family...at 5,6 and 8, they are still allowed to just kind of run around and come and go (usually go) from the table at will. I told DD that I will make supper and then leave them to it, while I put my portion in a plastic container and come home to eat at my house. I truthfully would rather set one place and sit down and eat by myself (probably with a book...maybe listen to some music) and actually have dinner...rather than cook, serve, and clean up in the midst of chaos all the time. I never heard of not making your kids sit around the table and exhibit some semblance of good behavior...I guess it's a generational thing. My cousin has the same situation with her grandchildren...hates it as much as I do. Anyway, step one of loosening the apron strings.
Number 1 is Gone With The Wind. It's nearly the last line in the movie announced by Clark Gable to little Miss Muppet. My suggestion for an alternate ending would be Scarlett mews "Oh Rhett, Rhett, why can't I ever seem to grow up?"
It's also the segue into the much better scene with Carol Burnett who takes down the curtains and makes a dress but leaves the curtain rod in.
Number 7 is the second movie in the Grumpy Old Men series which is my opinion is far inferior to the first movie but is best liked by some. Walther Mathau is outside Maria's restoirante practising for his date.
Number 20 is My Cousin Vinnie with the girlfriend in the hostile witness box explaining how a limited slip differential works.
Elizabeth - I played the flute and saxophone which I could not sing along with. I still have my flute in storage. Maybe I will dig it out and bring it along!
When you mentioned nanny Mary Poppins - it is on TV tonight. I am recording it to watch later. Love that movie.
Will be there shortly to sit staring into the fire (love being mesmerized by a fire - favorite past time when camping) with my hot chocolate. So looking forward to it. Hope fluffy is still around. I love my Jasmine but miss having a cat.
The flute would sound great with the harp. The good thing about us playing music in the Lodge is that it's all virtual...hee-hee...we can make ourselves sound like we're ready for Carnegie Hall if we want to.
Was watching an old episode of I Love Lucy today. It had Harpo Marx on it playing 'take me out to the ballgame' on his harp. I use to play "Flight of the Bumble Bee' in slow motion. I was not the best on the flute so switched to sax eventually the last two years of high school I played the baritone sax - that was a lot of fun but horrible to fit on the bus and carry the mile walk home.
You want to play 'Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy"? I can hear it now on the harp - beautiful.
Let me explain about Fluffy. This is the Lodge’s cat, not my cat. However, I do bear some responsibility (or is it blame?). When I made my first reservation at the Lodge last year, I requested a room-with-cat. I specified a fuzzy cat with a good motor for purring. Wolf supplied this magnificent creature, who I called “Fluffy.” But all guests at the Lodge have access to this motorized furball, so if you want Fluffy to sleep on your bed or sit on your lap or do a surveillance of your room for mice, go ahead and issue an invitation.
Being a Lodge cat, Fluffy has magical properties. One is that people who are allergic to cats are not allergic to Fluffy. (Jazzy discovered this.) Another magical feature is that Fluffy can lower high blood pressure by sitting on a patients’s lap and purring for 20 minutes. (I am not sure if Fluffy is actually certified as a hypertension therapist or not.) As you get to know this feline better, you may notice other magical talents.
[Found a baritone sax and harp duet but not a good one. Closest balance I can get is a sax and harp duet. Listen to the music but switch the harp player for Elizabeth and switch the sax player for Charlotte and turn the sax into a baritone sax, put them both in a corner of the lodge, play the music without watching and imagine we're all listening.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByBt-CKT8Tk
I came in hearing live music and noticed Charlotte and Elizabeth doing a version of Autumn Leaves. Both of them were hitting some fine notes playing off each other as I flopped down into one of the wing chairs in front of the fireplace and tripped along with the music that seemed to be flowing around the whole room.
Good heavens, I can play Autumn Leaves...but I only play it in the autumn. And certainly not at the level of the pedal harpist on the video. What a nice arrangement with the saxophone. Charlotte and I are much more likely to be playing "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer". Hee-hee.
My harp is not a pedal harp. It's a lever harp...a Dusty Strings FH36S, made in Seattle. I lean toward murky, spooky-sounding medieval stuff...but one of my favorite Christmas songs to play is "Winter Spell" from the Harry Potter soundtrack. My second favorite one is "The Christ Child's Lullaby", which dates from the 1800's in the Hebrides...I am trying to memorize a Gaelic verse (I don't know Scottish Gaelic, so this is a stretch). The tune is actually far more ancient than the words--it's an old lament from when some guy fell into a lake and drowned while trying to catch a horse. Then I like to do "Joy to the World" just because it's easy. My teacher makes me do all kinds of hard things that I can't really play, but if I like a song I like to cop out and just play the melody with my right hand, and do some simple two-note chords or just a drone with the left hand. As long as a harp is in tune, it's hard to make a bad sound on it. The instrument itself sounds beautiful, as I'm sure you could tell from that video.
I played along a bit with what you two were talking about. It's just fun. Dianne played Flute and Piano. She could have taught music and has certificates from the Royal Conservatory for advanced theory. Just like all the rest of us though, she was a complete idiot at some things and average in most. Einstein was the same. Newton believed in alchemy. Only DaVinci seemed gifted in everything he touched. None of them were happy. None of them developed enough to have a great life partner. And I have no confidence that any of them would have been a good caregiver. Ask your spouse in another lifetime about that compared to Einstein's theories.
Being rich makes you happy. Being rich means you're smart. Being smart means you're rich. It's all bunk. Much work has been done analyzing lottery winners 'afterwards' and it's not good either in the USA or in Canada. Many people that taste real success get eaten up by it. I've made fun of Justin Bieber but there's a very long list. Some don't but I put it to you that most of the people that had a truly great time overall are people no one has ever heard of. Why would we?
My work shows that the human experience has much to do with involuntary wrestling with our own conception of ourselves. This has much to do with our own situations. As an example the more inexperienced person proving themselves because that's their conception of what they need to do, whereas what is wanted is useful translation of the knowledge and leadership. I'll make that clearer.
You have just had a heart attack or something and know without doubt that you have a minute or two left on this earth. Go there. Lay on the ground breathing your last. Now answer this question:
What (in the seconds you have left) do you think about this life you had?
And with that answer in hand, why is being you such a struggle?
That is a baritone sax but will do. I went from flute to soprano sax to baritone sax. Elizabeth what is the difference in how you play it and sound from the pedal and lever harp?
Sounds fun to play - Grandma got run over by a reindeer! To this day, still love all the fun and silly Christmas songs.
I have thoroughly enjoyed playing music at the lodge.
That WAS a fun play. Grandma got run over by a reindeer. Sure, I remember that. Off broadway costume thing in the MGM tradition but with Monty Python overtones. The reindeer had attention deficit disorder or maybe it was sick and tired of having 150 lbs of frigging antler sticking out of it's forehead - who knows?? They did another one I think in Waiting with Grandma for Godot which never made it out of the corn belt.
Imagine Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, the musical. Sung by Nat King Cole.
It came one night upon a midnight clear Burst out of the wood and took out grandma dear Oh goodness none of us wanted to be here The night grandma got run over by a reindeer.
Grandma got run over by a reindeer. Walking home from our house Christmas Eve. You can say there's no such thing as Santa. But as for me and Grandpa, we believe.
She'd been drinking too much eggnog. And we begged her not to go. But she forgot her medication. And she staggered out the door into the snow. When we found her Christmas morning. At the scene of the attack. She had hoof prints on her forehead. And incriminating Claus marks on her back.
Now we're all so proud of Grandpa. He's been taking this so well. See him in there watching football, drinking beer and playing cards with Cousin Mel. It's not Christmas without Grandma. All the family's dressed in black, and we just can't help but wonder: Should we open up her gifts or send them back?
Now the goose is on the table, And the pudding made of fig, And the blue and silver candles, That would just have matched the hair in Grandma's wig. I've warned all my friends and neighbors, Better watch out for yourselves, They should never give a license To a man who drives a sleigh and plays with elves!
Fun song, but shockingly politically incorrect, especially if sung at an Office for the Aging Christmas party. (No--never happened...would have been insensitive and mean.)
A pedal harp is the big one you see in an orchestra. You change the key by using your feet on the pedals. A lever harp, or folk harp, comes in many different sizes--anything from a little lap harp to something big enough to sit on the floor. (Like mine.) But it is smaller than a pedal harp. You change the key by flipping levers--also flip levers if you have to play accidentals. Other than that, you play them the same way. A pedal harp is louder.
Think I'll take a room at the Lodge tonight, so I don't have to drive home in the dark. I will sit and make sure the fire is out and close the glass doors before I go up--I'm reading a good second-hand book, and have another old paperback with me to read in bed. I like the way there are Christmas lights strung across the headboard--very cheery. If Fluffy is sleeping with Myrtle it's OK if MouseBane sleeps in my room. He has the shiniest black fur, and I love his four little white paws. He and Fluff seem to get along well...glad to see they're relaxed and don't compete for territory. Cats are good company.
Helen Hunt at the top of the stairs when Jack comes calling in As Good As It Gets.
03. Who are those guys?
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when they're pursued by the special group hired to hunt them down.
04. Oh no thank you Harry, neckties don't suit Mr Eckland
The love interest on Father Goose when they're getting married. Harry is a girl.
05. She was yar wasn't she? Katherine Hepburn to Cary Grant in The Philadelphia story about their boat.
06. I was told there would be some kind of award, and a check.
Jim Carrey in The Grinch showing up in Whoville to get his award. Cindy Lou reminds him again that she didn't say anything about a check.
08. And one day I'll come to your funeral wearing a red dress!
Cher in Moonstruck when Johnny asks for his ring back and she throws it at him.
09. I could never be with someone who likes Joni Mitchell.
Tom Hanks to Meg Ryan while they're shopping at the market in You've Got Mail.
10. Hey! I'm walking here!
Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy when he almost gets run over by a taxi.
11. He said Princeton could use a guy like Joel!
Joel's dad to Tom Cruise in Risky Business, Tom's first movie.
12. It goes by pretty fast. If you don't look around once in a while you could miss it.
Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
13. I realize that when I met you at the turkey curry buffet I was unforgivably rude and wearing a reindeer jumper.
Colin Firth to Bridget Jones in Bridget Jones' Diary.
14. Sargent Hulka isn't always going to be there to be your big toe.
Bill Murray in the movie Stripes.
15. "Put your little hand in mine. There ain't no mountain we can't climb, babe." Rise and shine!
It's what you hear when the clock strikes 6:00 am over and over in Groundhog Day.
16. Dana? The guys want to go hunt some slime in the sewers. Do you want to blow this dinner thing off and go with them?
Ghostbusters 2. Dana is staying at Bill's apartment and they were going out for the evening leaving the secretary to babysit when the guys showed up in the ghostmobile. She didn't want to go.
17. C K Dexter Haven you have unexpected depth.
Jimmy Stewart to Cary Grant when he notices he has bought Jimmy's book.
18. That's not spagetti - it's linguini. Oh yah?...well now it's garbage!
Walter Mathau to Jack Lemmon in The Odd Couple. Jack is laughing at him that he can't tell spagetti from linguini so Walter throws it across the kitchen so parts of it stick to the wall.
19. Louie, I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
The last line in Casablanca. Ingrid is safely on the plane, they've dispensed with the Germans and are walking off into the fog to join the French Foreign Legion.
I didn't know any of the movies...although some of the quotes had a vague familiarity.
I edited my above post about the virtual cat, MouseBane, to say "Myrtle" instead of "Mabel." I think the autocorrect went berserk on that one. (MouseBane has a little white on his chest, and vivid green eyes. He likes to sleep under the Christmas tree, but if Fluffy is there he may retire to the hearth rug.)
Wolf, I have been thinking about George's comment above...and I have to agree. In all seriousness, I think you should consider going back through your posts here and putting them together into a draft copy for a book. It could be a book of essays..."The Wisdom of Wolf: A Journey With an AD Spouse", "The World According to Wolf: Fighting the AD Fight", "Wolf versus Al. Z. Heimer." I don't know--Something like that. Give it some thought, anyway. The theme pulling the whole thing together would be your whole Alzheimers struggle, both before and after the loss of Diane. You could edit it out into something uniquely helpful, I think. I can't always make head or tail out of what you write, but there has been a lot of good stuff in your postings over the past couple of years since I've been on this site...unusual and rich content that gives a good perspective on this AD journey. You could leave out the most obscure stuff...or not. : D
George said that here last year too. I tickle his intellectual fancy I think. I've said at different times that I'm researching a book but am stil in the experiment. I'm the luckiest guy in the world and I owe it all to me. I have discharged the patient. I'm still a mess but, I was coming in. I no longer need protection and healing. I need my actual, real life.
Time has slowed. Life outside my door is the largely banal sometimes outrageous thing it has always been. Easy to navigate difficult to master. I continue to kick grief in the head or would if I could find it. It will take time to knit everything together and build the past I wish to remember. That is a difficult thing and I respect that. But I'm out of things to kill behind me. It's time to want to drive again. I feel voltage flowing out of my fingertips and yet am afraid of the thing I haven't done yet. Which is absolutely perfect because that is my normal. All joy aside, I'm humbled beyond words.
Change what you believe and change reality. Say you change and nothing does.
Well, maybe not beyond words.
(thank you Elizabeth, the things said here were things said raw, real, and in the moment and they're going to stay that way)
Hi all, I was just sitting by the fire at home with my paperback and thought I might as well come over here and do the same thing.
"Build the past I wish to remember." Not to drive you all crazy with that phrase, but it's been helping me all day. Facing the future..looking forward... as I have been doing has been rather daunting, and I keep slipping back into lonely, bereavement misery. But thinking about if it were 20 years from now and I were looking backward...wow, has that ever helped me get in gear. Just a different perspective, I guess. I don't think Future Me wants to see Past Me being unhappy in a ratty life. So I decided to try to make today a happy day, so Future Me would like looking back on it.
It has worked really well. I put a little more effort into everything, thinking that Future Me would like seeing Past Me with makeup and nice hair, cooking an extra- good dinner for the family, giving three people Christmas presents, and playing pretty holiday songs on the harp. I didn't really intend to bake this year, but then I thought Future Me would like to see that Past Me bought the ingredients for some of the cookies we traditionally had at home when I was a child. So I'm looking forward to doing the cookies tomorrow...and Future Me would probably like to see that Past Me had a good time this weekend, so I'm going to go see the new Star Wars movie tomorrow with DD. (Future Me would no doubt rather see me with a guy, but I don't know anybody. lol)
And for Wolf......I've mentioned this before but I have to say it again.
I've known so many men who have lost their life's partner. And all they want to do is write stories about her and their wonderful lives together. In my own family, there are four typewritten binders stored away in some family members closet, Unknown and unavailable to most of us. I went to considerable trouble to find and read these great stories but to most friends and family. they are as good as lost.
I myself am one of these story writers, but I found a much better way to preserve them. I have a little website where I can put them along with photos and videos and old audio recordings. I love to spend time reading the stories and enjoying all the stuff I have placed there.
Now Wolf.........I've looked around on your Flikr ... "Wolf von Munchcake" site and there's no stories and it's difficult to find a good photo of Dianne. You can do so much better than that. .................Now I've had my say.......... GeorgieBoy
Wolf ..... Maybe you can't get such great candy bars in Canada. The only place I can get them is the Smart And Final stores. But when I was a kid, Abba-zabas were everywhere. The only candy bar containing absolutely no chocolate.
I baked my Butterballs today...also called Russian Tea Cakes, or Mexican Wedding Cakes. I put them into that Christmas container with the snap-on lid, and they're on the kitchen counter for anybody who wants some. They contain walnuts.
I made some of my candy cane cookies and brought some of them over, too. There, folks, I can't believe I baked Christmas cookies for the first time in years. Wolf is over on the Dec. 2015 thread, but I told him to come over here. I'm going to sit in the recliner for a while with MouseBane and Fluffy, and just watch the fire before I head back out for home. Anybody else stopping by tonight?
Nicolas Cage has just thrown the kitchen table across the room because it was inbetween him and Cher. The lost love that obsessed him for years just fourty five short minutes ago (eight minute movie time) is now over and no longer on his mind. I'm trying to guess what's on his mind. Cookies maybe. A little dessert after the lunch they just had. They could have a drink but all that stuff is shattered across the floor. Maybe he wants to dance. I have him paused right there and accepted the invitation to come over and have some cookies.
Moonstruck, cut off around the edges, but it's the whole movie:
I've been watching Stargate SG-1 on my Amazon Prime. I'm up to the middle of season 3. (There are 10 seasons.) I think the mood of exploration and "anything can happen and probably will" is tying in with my own position in life right now. Anyway, it is entertaining and fun, and fairly mindless. For years I just didn't watch much TV, and now during these long, quiet evenings alone, I am catching up with some of the old series. Then when I get tired I go to bed, curl up in my "nest", and read until I get so sleepy I have to turn the light out. I've been continuing to sleep all night...what luxury. I sleep for around 7 hours, and wake up naturally...so nice...and a real sea change for me. I never realized how sleep-deprived I was...or how bone-tired I was. I mean, it's been not quite 15 months and three weeks, and I'm just now sleeping like a normal person.
Fluffy, get off my lap for a minute, I want to go out and make a cup of tea. MouseBane, get Off! I am not the human cat pillow.
Wolf, Don't interrupt your movie; I'm just going to sit back in this comfortable chair and put my feet up on the matching ottoman. (Now let me see, has the Garden Calendar changed the date of "last frost" or is it still late May?) Oh Hi, MouseBane, what a sweet little black cat you are! And what nice white mittens! Come sit with me. I wish Fluffy were half as affectionate as you are.
Eeeeeeeek! A mouse! Fluffy just took off after it. OMG! I think Fluffy's killing it! I can't warch! (This part is gross!) MouseBane, You don't have to hide. There's no shame in being afraid of mice. Now let me figure out how you and I can get down from this table. Oh, thanks, Wolf. . . I'll hand MouseBane over to you and then I'll climb down.
I see something I hadn't seen before in Moonstruck. She goes to see the brother to invite him to the wedding and she's going to marry Johnnie which would be a nice relationship if a passionless one. When she goes to the bakery and they jump on each other like animals there is a brief exchange while Ronnie is preparing for launch. "I was dead inside." "Me too." they say.
When Loretta wakes up and realizes what she's done she wants to make things right again. She agrees to go to the opera because Ronnie promises he will then step away from this. She is sincere. We know that because she won't let him kiss her when they meet outside the opera house and she's upset that he walked them to his house and sincerely resists.
Here's the part I learned. She's struggling with herself. In fact she's not aware she has split into two people. One is just going to the opera. The other is getting her hair done, her nails done, a beautiful new dress, and red high heels. Norman Jewison spends lavish time showing her do all that without facial reaction. She even has some wine and dresses up looking at herself.
Being in the Met at the opera we are invited in just enough to understand that when you open your heart wide tears often flow whether happy or sad and it is the passionsof life that are shown. And when Ronnie tells her that love doesn't make things better, it breaks our hearts, and holds out the half a hand he has, she takes it and now there is only one Loretta.
That leads to one of my favourite scenes in all movies. It would be in my top 10. Loretta comes home kicking the can around Brooklyn and we spend some of my favourite time in a kitchen waiting for Johnnie Camerarie. Norman Jewison deftly sidesteps because Johnnie doesn't conceive life beyond his mother and has so little passion invested that he simply asks for his ring back because in time she will see this is for the best - except in time his mother really will die and he's back to needing a wife.
That's when she throws the ring down and answers "and one day you'll be dead and I'll come to your funeral in a red dress!" Ronnie borrows that ring immediatly proposing which Loretta accepts. "Do you love him Loretta?" the mother asks. "Ma, I love him awful." she answers. "Gee, that's too bad." she says shaking her head. Love breaks your heart. But only if you're lucky
I love that movie, although I can't analyze it as closely as you do, Wolf. I've just been sitting here watching a couple more "Stargate SG-1" episodes on my laptop. I really need to stop eating all these cookies...I'm going to be as big as a house. Speaking of big houses...the Lodge looks fabulous with the Christmas lights on it. It just looks so welcoming when I come up the drive.
Kitties, I'm sure someone gave you supper tonight, and neither of you could possibly be all that hungry. You are just trying to get fed twice. Yes, I am going into the kitchen, but it's just to wash up these couple of dirty dishes, not to feed you two again. Shoo away, you're going to make me trip over you.
Charlotte, I hope that sheepskin on the recliner is helping your back. Just take it off if you don't like it. If a heating pad would be better, I think we have one in the cupboard. And Myrtle looks so comfortable in the big chair with her feet up on the ottoman. It's nice to see you--I know you have a lot going on with the family right now. Anybody else here tonight? Maybe we can watch a Christmas movie together...something more on the cheerful and silly side.
The Bishop's Wife perhaps with David Niven who wants to build the cathedral and Loretta Young his darling wife and Cary Grant as the angel with scenes like this little clip in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9GKQrn7mo4
Hee hee hee.
It also has scenes like this where everything is exactly the way it should have been if life were an old MGM movie. Gotta love it though.