Journal: The Last Excursion

 

My week went something like this:  Tuesday, I started setting up my new computer, an Acer Predator Helios 300 laptop.  Wednesday, I went on setting up my new computer.  Thursday, I went on setting up my new computer.  Friday, I went on setting up my new computer.  Saturday, I went on setting up my new computer.

Of course I got a handful of other things done, too, such as taking meals to Loren, washing dishes, doing a wee bit o’ housework, feeding the cat, and petting the cat.  Mustn’t forget to pet the cat.

I had a bunch of programs to load on the laptop.  I saved all the last couple of weeks’-worth of photos and journals on the old computer to the external hard drives and then loaded what I wanted of all that onto the new computer.  Can’t load it all; it won’t fit, even though it has a terabyte of storage space.  I like the screensaver to draw from my photos.  Tuesday when I stopped for the night, since there were no pictures on the laptop yet, and I had to leave it running, as a number of things were downloading or installing, I set a screensaver with fancy-schmancy gold text to bouncing around on the screen.  It read:

I do really ‘important’ things like that right away.  >>snicker<<  The very first thing I do every single time after firing up a new ‘puter?  I crank up the mouse and touchpad speed as fast as it will go, that’s what.  I find nothing more aggravating than a pointer that moves so slowly, you have to lift the mouse or your finger, move it back to the top of the mousepad or touchpad, and start over, just to get to the other side of your screen.  Aarrgghh.

There were a few quallyfobbles that I hoped to change, such as our old email address – remember lajack@megavision.com? – that was in the Outlook .pst connected to all my data, such as calendar, contacts, etc.  My address has been sarahlynn.jackson2@gmail.com for a long time now.  Email is forwarded from gmail to Microsoft Outlook.  

As it turned out, the computer took care of the defunct address for me; I didn’t have to change it in the Account settings.  So that’s an improvement from Outlook installations on previous computers. 

I loaded the Chrome browser on the laptop and synced devices and browsers.  Signing into Edge, Firefox, and Chrome was all I needed to do to have all my tabs, bookmarks, and homepages working.  The computer already had Edge and Firefox; I use all three browsers.

Early Wednesday afternoon, I hurried off to the cleaners to pick up Larry’s suits.  They close early on Wednesdays, and our midweek church service was that night.  All of Larry’s good suits were at the cleaners, and I didn’t want to forget about them (not that I ever, ever do such a thing, ahem), so Monday after dropping off the suits, I set up a notification on my computer.  It went off faithfully at the time set, though for once I wouldn’t have needed it, as I’d been remembering Suits!  Suits!  Suits! with all my might and main.

Here are the school children playing outside, back when the playground was the gravel parking lot next to the parsonage.  Keith is the third boy from the right; Bobby is the first boy on the right.  It was May 9, 1996.

After giving Loren his food that afternoon (battered Alaskan cod, green beans, sweet potatoes, Chobani blueberry Greek yogurt, lemon-limeade, and pears), I reminded him that church that night was at 7:30 p.m.

“Yes, I know!” he said, glancing at his calendar.

Since the previous week he’d headed off at ten ’til 6, found the church locked, wandered about for a while, and then gone back home, arriving at his house 40 minutes later and never to exit again that evening, I said, “It takes you about 12 or 13 minutes to get to the church, so you don’t need to leave home before 7:00 to get there in plenty of time.”

He looked surprised.  “That’s what I always do!” he protested a bit testily.

I smiled, nodded, and headed for the door.

He reconsidered.  “Well, maybe not always.”  Then, “Did I go at another time?”

If he asks, I answer.  “Last week, you got there an hour and a half too early, found the doors locked, and went back home.”

“Nooooooooooooo,” he said in a pooh-poohing tone, like that was the nuttiest thing I’d said all day.

I grinned, shrugged, and started down the steps.

He frowned thoughtfully.  “Was it last week?”  He considered.  “Maybe it was.”

“Oh, well,” I said, pulling open the door.  “Nothing bad happened, so everything’s all right.”

After that small to-do about nothing, Loren didn’t come to church at all, nor did he set foot outside, at least not out front, according to the Moultrie cam.  The tracers showed no movement at all.  Oh, well.  He was home safe, and Larry wasn’t squished in our pew.  I wonder why a person – even if they do have dementia – cannot realize that when someone is squished against you on your right, if you have oodles of space on your left, you should move over, for pity’s sake?!  And Larry, for some reason, cannot often find it in himself to simply ask Loren to scoot down.  (Maybe because Loren has a couple of times decided to be funny and move closer, rather than farther away.)  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

By Thursday, my new computer was mostly set up, except for rules in Outlook, which I worked on that afternoon.  Most of the aforementioned ‘important’ things were done, such as setting up the screen saver (pictures! – lots of pictures), and putting four different colors of lighting on the keyboard (brilliant blues, purples, teals, and fuchsias!  Pretty!  Pretty!). 

I do love to see my photos scrolling through on the screensaver.

I loaded Microsoft 365 (Word, Publisher, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, PowerPoint, etc.).  It took me a while to get my Custom Dictionary, Autocorrect, Calendar, and Contact files transferred.  It’s been long enough since I did it that I couldn’t remember without looking it up online where those files were located on the old laptop.  Found them, copied them to an external hard drive, then plugged the hard drive into the new laptop and replaced the new files with my own files.

I’ve been adding to those Custom Dictionary and AutoCorrect files since I first started using Microsoft Word in 1999.  There are tens of thousands of words in them, and I certainly don’t want to ever start them all over again.

I downloaded EQ8 from the Electric Quilt website, where my account showed the program paid for and ready to be installed wherever I should like (it can be installed on two separate machines concurrently), loaded eCAL Lite (for my Sizzix eclips2 cutter), and pulled up Sticky Notes.  They were instantly synced with the old computer.  Sticky Notes are highly important, because it’s there that I keep a list of all the flavored coffees we’ve tried from Christopher Bean!

In adding data to the new laptop from external hard drives, I discovered one pronounced improvement, a detail that should’ve been in place since external hard drives began:  when a file is deleted from them, it goes into the Recycle Bin on the computer to which the drive is connected, rather than being permanently deleted without even a ‘by your leave’.  It’s about time someone fixed that.

Hmmm... when a window is small on the screen, if I grab the top or bottom edge and move it quickly to the top or bottom edge of the screen, the window expands to the same height as the screen, while keeping the original width.  Dragging the window up and bumping it at the top of the screen maximizes the window.  There are also ‘snap layouts’ which are quite useful.

Yeah, I like new gadgets, new programs, and new features on the computer. 

Mistakenly thinking I had loaded my old 2015 Corel PaintShop Pro X8 from a DVD, and since there’s no DVD reader on the Acer, I tried transferring it via external hard drive, but components were missing from the registry.  After a small effort at replacing them, I gave up, as I didn’t want to mess up the new computer.  There are other solutions.

First, I tried a few free photo editors, starting with Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2020.  I chose it partly because it has good reviews and purportedly all the tools I need, and partly because that’s a funny name, ‘Ashampoo’.  Ah have poifectly good reasons for evvyting ah do, yes ah do!

Next, I started the process of moving my entire pile of data from one external hard drive onto the new 4 terabyte Verbatim drive.  I’m unimpressed with it.  It seems that it’s not completely compatible with the laptop, and it tells me the Recycle Bin has corrupted files in it.  But at least it does hold data; so I backed up all my files on it.  I have nearly 1.3 terabytes of data, and that takes a while to copy.  When the transfer began, I was told via the File Copy window that the process would take ten hours.  The time bounced around from ‘More Than One Day’ to ‘five hours’ and everything in between.  I left it working and went to bed.  I think it took pretty close to ten hours.

The fan speed on the Acer is adjustable, as it’s a pro-gaming machine.  I tried it out, got it up to high (which was really stirring the air), and then hit ‘Turbo’.

Blew all the dishes off the table, it did.

So last year’s reviews on this machine, saying that it periodically gets too hot while gaming, have probably been well taken care of in this latest model.  If not, well... I’ll have to quit gaming so violently, won’t I?  heh  (I haven’t allowed anyone to install games on my computers since the year 2000, when one of the boys did that, after which both email and Word locked up constantly and regularly and lost whole pages of documents.  I wiped out the games (“My scores are gone!” howled the boys) (“My pages are gone!” I howled right back), and presto, Outlook and Word were in good working condition again.

Here’s Larry with a Ford Explorer he rebuilt.  The picture was taken May 21, 1996.

We had turkey, baked potatoes, carrots, and onions for supper.  We had to warm ours up, but at least Loren got his hot from the oven.  I also took him red grapes, orange juice, and peach Oui yogurt.

Shortly after midnight, I finished adding Roooolz (said in a Barney Fife tone) to Outlook.  Email was landing where it was supposed to, and audio notifications were giving notice each time an email came in.  The Inbox collected a lot of mail as I worked, all those that had no rule set up when they arrived, so they didn’t go into designated folders.  At least the same mail shows up on both computers.  Last time I was setting up a new computer, if I had Outlook up on the old laptop, it stole the email from the new one!

I tried fruitlessly to find a Verizon Messages app that would download on my laptop.  What in the world?  I found an older (and better, according to multitudes of reviews) version of Verizon Messages; someone had posted the link on a forum.  I downloaded it and installed it.  Will it work?

Nope.  It hangs up on the final step, and refuses to accept the security codes Verizon sends to my phone, telling me there’s ‘a problem with the server’.

On a review list under the Google Play Store app that wouldn’t download, there were over 74,000 reviews – all bad, near as I could tell.  And each and every review had an identical ‘form’ answer from a ‘Verizon tech’ apologizing for the inconvenience and assuring one and all that ‘the problem is being worked on, and will be resolved shortly’.  Many of those reviews were written over a year ago.  That’s not ‘shortly’, is it?

It seems they’ve been unable to fix the bugs in the app that’s specifically for Windows computers, so they’ve made the app inoperative, and not bothered to say so or explain why.  I only learned why it wouldn’t download after trying half a dozen times, and then checking out a few forums for information.  Ugh, that’s aggravating.  Verizon’s customer service can be extremely trying on the patience.

DropBox downloaded without a glitch.

I made myself a big mug of steaming Tiesta citrus tea and sipped it while I worked.  Mmmm.

With most of the necessary programs installed on my computer, including the HP Smart app so I could use my printer/scanner, I started playing with Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2020.  

This photo was taken near Valparaiso on Memorial Day, May 27, 1996.

I soon discovered that the reviews saying that Ashampoo is ‘simple and easy, with everything you need’ were only partially true.  It’s so ‘simple and easy’, it does not have everything I need – namely, retouch, clone, scratch removing, text additions, layering, background removal, etc. 

After a little hunt and more reading of reviews, I downloaded the Gimp Photo Editing program.  Reviews say it has a ‘steep learning curve’, but I’d rather have a steep learning curve than only a small amount of the tools I need.  Gimp was said to be similar to PaintShop, so I thought I should be able to figure it out. 

Friday, I discovered that the laptop had come equipped with PhotoDirector8, another new photo editor.  Hoping it would be similar to the old Photo Gallery I used so often for simple and minor editing, I promptly gave it a try.

It wasn’t long before I knew PhotoDirector8 wasn’t the ticket; the majority of its tools are inactive unless I purchase an upgrade for $38-$99, depending on which version I want; and I can see that it doesn’t have some of the tools I most like and need.

Ever since I turned on my computer last Tuesday, I’d gotten a handful of notices telling me that Windows 11 was available, and asking if I wanted to upgrade. 

Yes, of course I did!  But the download kept stalling out on account of being out here in the sticks where we don’t get the greatest Internet.  Friday night I used Larry’s faster hotspot, and I woke up Saturday morning to find Windows 11 finally downloaded.  Larry’s hotspot is on his phone; mine is on my tablet.  And his is always faster.

The salesman at Nebraska Furniture Mart told me to wait until March to download it, as beta releases often have bugs.  I waited until Friday.  heh heh  I like new stuff!  I like computer stuff!  Gotta have Windows 11!

I got back to scanning photos that day – or at least, that was the plan.  However, I was not very pleased with the Gimp photo editor.  Although it has most of the tools I need, the ones I use most often are buried, so I have to click three or four times on various menus each time I use them.  These particular tools cannot be added to the visible toolbox, either. 

I try to use any new program long enough that I’ve really learned how it works before I decide whether it’s good or bad.  I look things up... try all the options... and read what others have to say.  The more I searched for various instructions for one tool or another, the more I discovered that there’s a whole raft of people who are dissatisfied with this latest version of Gimp.  It has a good name, though, doesn’t it.  Haha!

I discarded of Ashampoo and downloaded PhotoPad.  I was starting to think that perhaps it would do, though it wasn’t spectacular, when I noticed the small print:  it was free for only 29 days.   After that, it would cost $35.

I looked at the clock.  It was 9:00 p.m.  I would do one more hour of scanning, I decided.  I should’ve finished the album I was working on, but I was too busy making adjustments to the laptop and the photo editor.

I used Gimp a little longer... but not very efficiently.  Exasperated, I stopped with the inferior photo editors and downloaded (and paid for) Corel PaintShop Pro 2022.  It was $40 (half price Amazon deal), and I’m sooo glad to have it.  Free isn’t always the ticket!

Well, if you cannot abide computer/programming talk, then all this chatter has doubtless bored you to tears, and I apologize.  I write about what happens, and this last week my brain has been full of computer/programming jargon and lingo, all mixed together with worry over Loren.

We have a bird clock that chirps various bird calls on the hour.  At the moment, it’s all mixed up, and when the hour hand is pointing at the cardinal, a song sparrow sings; and when it’s pointing at the dove, a blue jay screeches.  In order to get the right birds to sing at the right time, one must stand on one’s left foot, cross the second and third toes on the right foot, and sing I’m A Yankee Doodle Dandy whilst simultaneously whistling Dixie and winding the clock backwards through all the hours 33 times in a row.

Therefore, the birds keep singing at the wrong times.

One time when Lawrence and Norma were visiting, the clock did its chirping, and Norma exclaimed, “Lawrence, we have to go!  We’ve been here for two birds!” 

She usually didn’t even mean to be funny, when she said things like that.

We also have a car clock that Jeremy and Lydia gave Larry, with old vehicles such as Model T’s and Model A’s and old John Deere tractors and 1935 trucks with Cummins engines.  On the hour, horns honk or motors start.  They’re all mixed up, too, because I reset it for Daylight Saving Time or the end thereof without doing the Yankee Doodle dance.  But who would ever know the difference between the starting sounds of a 1930 Ford pickup truck 

and a 1940 Chevy pickup truck?

Larry tried calling Loren at about 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning, as he usually does, to make sure he is awake and remembers it’s Sunday and Sunday School starts at 9:45 a.m.

He didn’t answer.

This isn’t entirely unusual, as sometimes he’s in the shower, and every once in a while he’s still sleeping.

And then one of us realized we had notices from Moultrie Mobile, and we saw by the game cam that he’d left his house at 7:48 a.m.  I took a look at the trackers.  Look at this:

He was busy!  His first foray past the church was at 8:00 a.m.  Of course the doors were still locked.  He then went hither and yon, with side jaunts through various parts of town.  At one point, he went back toward his house, but drove right past his road.  He then made a U-turn and headed back to town.  He was finally able to go into the church at about 9:05 a.m. when they opened the doors.

He was in his usual place when we got there at about 9:35 a.m., looking like everything was fine and dandy.

After the morning service, Victoria asked us to stop by for some food for us and for Loren – sweet potatoes, turkey, and pumpkin dessert.  Larry picked up the lidded dishes containing the food, remarked, “Well, looks like we’ve got all we’re gonna get; guess we’ll go!”  😄

We all started saying that years ago when Uncle Howard and Aunt Evelyn came to visit, and just as they were about to leave – ‘sitting in their car with the engine running in the driveway’ about to leave – we learned (or Mama remembered) that it was Uncle Howard’s birthday.

We gave him strict instructions:  “Don’t go yet!”  And then we all scattered like rabbits to our close abodes to rummage up gifts.  Ere long, back we came, trippity-trop (as Hester used to say), pretty packages in hand.  Uncle Howard, all humble and surprised and ‘aw, shucks’ schoolboyish, opened his gifts, thanked us with heartfelt appreciativeness, then, in practically the same breath, turned to Aunt Evelyn and said, “Well, Evvie, I guess we might as well go; it looks like we’ve got all we’re gonna get!”

We laughed the rest of the day over that.

In the picture above are cousin Jeanine, Aunt Evelyn, Uncle Howard, me, my dog Sparkle, and Daddy.  Our Airstream is behind us.  In the picture below are Uncle Howard, Daddy, Aunt Evelyn, Jeanine’s dog Blossom Belle Brisbane, and me.  We were visiting them at their farmplace in North Dakota in the summer of... hmmm... probably 1973. 

After leaving Victoria’s house, we stopped at Casey’s for grape juice and a container of grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew, and pineapple for Loren.

He seemed quite chipper and lively when we got there, despite his long morning.

I figured he’d be exhausted after all that driving and then the church services too, so I didn’t mention what time the evening service started, in the hope that he might just stay home and recuperate.

He didn’t.

But he evidently took too long of a nap, and when he woke up, he just rushed off to the 6:30 p.m. church service – in casual Sunday afternoon attire:  khaki pants and thin zippered khaki jacket over a blue dress shirt, and his everyday shoes.  After the service, he said in a kidding tone to Larry, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to dress up as fancy as you did!”  (Larry had on the usual suit.) 

That ‘wasn’t able’ phrase made me wonder if he was again thinking his suits were at his ‘other house’, as he had said to Larry a week ago. 

Later that night, he would inform us that he’d dressed casually like that because “you told me to!” (pointing at me).

It isn’t as if the world stops spinning if someone wears casual attire to a church where more formal wear is the norm; but it’s highly unusual for Loren to do that.  He’s always been a fastidious dresser.

When we got home, we made ourselves turkey sandwiches from a turkey breast I had bought from Schwan’s and baked a couple of days earlier.  Their turkey is kind of pricey, but the package had already made two meals apiece for Loren, Larry, and me, and there was still a generous portion left for our sandwiches.  So the cost isn’t too bad, per meal.

It was a little before 9:00 when I checked to make sure Loren had made it home safely.

He had not.  He was on the Monastery Road, about 4 miles east of Platte Center.  And of course he didn’t have his cell phone.  He has not often carried that thing with him for the last year and a half, probably because he has trouble remembering how to use it.  He forgets to charge it, it goes flat and turns off, and after he plugs it in and recharges it, he doesn’t know how to turn it back on.

Before long, he was past Creston, 24 miles to the north and 7 miles to the east.  We were scrambling to get ready to go after him, putting on socks and shoes, grabbing wallet and purse, wondering if we’d be able to find him.  It’s dark out there in the country, and the trackers are always a little behind.  We scurried out to the Beemer.  I had my computer on my lap, Vyncs and SpotTrace pages pulled up.

As we were heading out of our driveway, my phone rang.  It was a farmer who lives near Creston.  Loren was there, confused as to his location, and he said his wife had been following him in another vehicle, and he didn’t know where she was now.  SpotTrace showed that it had taken him 48 minutes to get there, because he’d gone on a few fringe trips down country roads.  Fortunately, he still had my number on a card I put in his wallet several months ago.

After making sure I wasn’t on speaker phone, I told the farmer that Loren’s wife had passed away a year and a half ago.  That struck the poor man speechless.  To those who don’t know better, Loren sounds totally credible and convincing.  One really wouldn’t know anything was wrong, from short, casual conversation with him.  I told the man that Loren has Lewy Body dementia, and asked him to please not let him leave before we got there.

“We can do that,” he assured me, and I thanked him, saying that up until now, Loren has driven fairly well; but I guessed now was the time to take his keys, and that wasn’t going to be fun.

He made sympathetic noises, and we hung up.

As we headed north, we talked about the fact that this year alone, quite a few elderly people have wandered off, some in vehicles and some on foot, and an alarming number have been found – too late – in country creeks and ponds.  I thought of this, because I had seen that he was driving somewhat parallel to the winding Meridian Creek.

So imagine how our hair stood straight up on end when, yards from the farmer’s house, we had to cross a dilapidated one-lane wood-plank bridge with old iron railings that had been bent out all whoppyjaw and useless from farm equipment hitting them as tractors, combines, and other big vehicles towed wagons and bailers and suchlike across the bridge.  Plus, the bridge came immediately after a sharp curve, and it was pitch black out there.  The slightest miscalculation, and a vehicle could tumble right over the edge and down into the Meridian Creek some distance below.  Yikes.

Loren and the farmer saw us pull up at a quarter ’til ten and came out to meet us, with a humongous yellow Lab trotting happily along behind, tail a-wag.  I obligingly petted him.  Dogs (and cats, for that matter) always seem to know I like them and head straight for me, in order to get petted, patted, rubbed, and talked to, and to drool and shed on me.  ha

Loren was in fine spirits, just as he was in the early afternoon.  We headed home, with Larry driving Loren’s Jeep, Loren in the passenger seat; I followed in the BMW.

On the way back, Loren told Larry that he didn’t know what had happened, or why he wound up where he did.  He asked him if he knew where Norma was, and when Larry said she had passed away a year and a half ago, he said he wasn’t talking about that Norma. 

Joseph by the Missouri River at Indian Cave State Park 05-27-96

When we got back to Loren's house at 10:25 p.m., we told him it was time for him to give up his keys.  He was properly amazed, believing there was absolutely no reason for this.  I said we couldn’t risk him getting lost again, or having an accident and getting hurt, or hurting someone else.  He informed me that he had not gotten lost.

“You missed the turn on the bypass toward your house,” I said, “and kept going north all the way past Creston.”

He said in a belligerent tone, “I did that on purpose!”

The American bulldog Chance said the same thing in Homeward Bound, when he ran ka-BONK! into a light pole while prancing along, showing off for a pretty little white poodle.  “I meant to do that!” 

Then he added (Loren, that is, not Chance), “I knew why I went there!”

“Why?” I asked.

“I went there to pick up a unit from that farmer!” 

We looked at him blankly.  He looked back, just as blankly. 

“What kind of a unit?” I asked.

“You know!” he said, gesturing with his hands, “one of those radio units!”  Then, “It was mine; I just went to pick it up.”  He considered, then added, “The farmer knew it was mine.”

At one point, when he insisted Norma had been driving another vehicle behind him, I trotted out to the BMW and got the papers I printed a couple of weeks ago and have been carrying for just such an occasion:  Norma’s obituary, complete with pictures, and Loren’s name listed as ‘surviving husband’, big as you please, and also a copy of her death certificate.

But I don’t think those pages made so much as a dent.  Of course I understand that even if they had’ve, no realization of the moment will last.

After a bit more nonsense, I told Loren, “Here’s the way it is:  it’s late, and I know you are tired and need to go to bed; but we are not leaving this house without all your vehicle keys in hand.”

Well, I soon called our nephew Robert, who is our pastor, and asked for some help convincing Loren his driving days are over. 

Robert came... Loren put on a new attitude... though he did say that I had had far more accidents than he had.  Robert looked at me. 

I grinned and shrugged.  “He counts differently than I do,” I explained. 

The last accident I had was in 1983, when I was in my little red Le Car at a stoplight behind a big car, and another big car (most cars were big, in comparison to the Le Car) slammed into the back of mine, squishing it good and proper between the two cars. 

Before that, I had a small accident with a purple Le Car in 1977 when I was 16.  I admit, I was driving too fast for uncontrolled intersections.  The woman driving the other car, with two toddlers racketing around loose in the back seat, was late to pick up her husband, and was flying down the gravel street from the left (I was on pavement).  She was on the wrong side of the road, which contributed to my not noticing her in time to get stopped.

The law states, “When two vehicles approach or enter an intersection from different roadways at approximately the same time, the driver of the vehicle on the left shall yield the right-of-way to the vehicle on the right.”  Therefore, she should have been at fault – but the police and insurance companies decided it was a shared-fault accident.  Boo, hiss!  Things like that often happen when a teenager and a mother with children have an accident – sympathies are with the mother.  The child seatbelt law in Nebraska would not go into effect for at least another two years.

Ah, well; I learned a valuable lesson:  never drive so fast on streets with uncontrolled intersections that you can’t stop in time if another car approaches said intersection!

There’s the front of my poor little car after the 1983 accident.  That’s Keith on his Big Wheel on the right.  That accident happened two or three months before Teddy was born.  So Keith was 3, Hannah was 2, and Dorcas was 1.  They were not with me, fortunately.  I’d gone to a doctor’s appointment.

Those are the only two accidents I have had.  I don’t know how many Loren has had, but I’m nearly certain it was more than two.  It would have been years ago.  He’s always been a good and coordinated driver, though he was pretty reckless when he was young.  His driving ability and experience is no doubt the reason he’s been able to continue driving for so long.  In fact, his driving skills are not the problem even now; it’s his confusion about where he is at the moment, where he needs to go, and why, and when.

I’ll skip the gory details, and just say that when we left his house, the keys for the vehicles were ‘in hand’.  But it sure made us feel bad.

Trouble is, there are probably duplicate keys somewhere.  We should’ve searched the center consoles in all the vehicles, I suppose, but it was late, dark and hard to see, and Loren needed to get some sleep.  Moultrie Mobile will let us know if he finds keys and goes somewhere, and then we’ll go collect those keys, too. 

Before leaving, I checked his refrigerator to see that he had food for breakfast, and I told him I would make sure he had everything he needs. 

“We won’t leave you high and dry,” I promised.

I have prayed that this day would come without the trauma of an accident, or Loren getting so lost we couldn’t find him, maybe on foot or something, as happened with one of Mama’s brothers.  He wasn’t at all dressed warmly enough for the weather last night.  It was about 35°, and all he had was that lightweight khaki zippered jacket.  God answered that prayer, didn’t He?

I told Loren that we should be thankful that he found kind people to help him. 

He started to agree, then frowned and said, “I didn’t need help!”

After all that, I couldn’t sleep after I finally went to bed.  My brain thinks it needs to draw out any and every possible scenario for any and every possible occasion, and then determine any and every possible solution.  I know very well what our Lord Himself said in the Sermon on the Mount:  “Take therefore no thought for the morrow:  for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”  - Matthew 6:34. 

Nevertheless, I draw out scenarios, occasions, and solutions.

I eventually went to sleep sometime after 5:00 a.m., and got back up again much too soon.

I showered, washed and curled my hair, filled the bird feeders, put clothes in the washing machine, ate breakfast, and washed the dishes.

Here’s Hester on the front porch of our house in town in May of 1996.  She would be 7 in a month.  We had just finished planting all those petunias.

This afternoon, I took Loren some food:  ancient-grain-encrusted cod, broccoli, beets, Oui strawberry yogurt, peaches, and cranberry juice.  I put some Chobani yogurt and peach mango Bai tea in his refrigerator.

He was all right, though quite subdued.  He said Norma had just been there a few minutes ago, clearing stuff off the table; but he didn’t know where she was now.  (It just occurred to me, Larry and I cleared things off the table last night.  There was a pile of junk mail addressed to either Norma Fricke, Norma Swiney, or Lawrence Fricke.)  He wondered where she was, so I said what I always say, “She has passed away.”

“No,” he shook his head, “I’m not talking about her!”  And then, “And there’s not ‘just one’; there are two Normas.”

I quickly doled out his food and distracted him with a description of all the ducks and geese on the ponds nearby, and flying overhead.  There are several red-tailed hawks sitting in the trees surrounding the water, watching for stray waterfowl to nab.

Then I gave him this page I’d printed:

 

I was thinking of these verses today; I hope they help you.

 

 

Philippians 4:10-14

 

But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity. 

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. 

I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. 

Notwithstanding ye have well done, that ye did communicate with my affliction.

 

 

We love you.  I know changes in life can be difficult to cope with.  But we’ll do everything we can to be helpful.  

Love, Larry and Sarah Lynn

 

He stopped eating and read it while I gathered up dishes, and then he thanked me and said, “This helps.”

Lydia, almost 5

As I was heading down the stairs to the front door, he said, “We’re thinking of going somewhere.”  (Uh-oh, I thought.)  “It’s getting colder by the day,” he explained (meaning, they needed to hurry and go now, of course). 

I nodded.  That’s true about the weather, after all; and there’s no sense in telling him he can’t do something when there’s no way he can do it in any case. 

I don’t want to be like some people we used to know.  Let’s call them Gunther and Dagmar, just for the fun of it.  When their oldest, let’s call her Pansy, was a year old, I met them in a local store.  Pansy gazed up at the 20-foot-high ceiling, as babies do, spotted the huge, hanging chandeliers, smiled, pointed, and said in her cute little high-pitched voice, “Lights!” 

Both parents simultaneously grabbed her arm, jerked it down, and snarled, “NO!  YOU CAN’T HAVE THE LIGHTS!” 

Stornry Good Parenting 101.

Anyway, Loren looked at me for a moment, and then assured me, “I won’t just go off without letting you know, and I won’t be driving.  I wouldn’t do that, right in everyone’s faces.”

So I smiled and nodded again and said goodbye.

I left a pencil and a little paper on the table with a heading, “Grocery List”, and told him to write down anything he needs, and I’ll get it.  (The note will be lost by tomorrow.)  He needs peanut butter and jelly, though he worried that jelly has too much sugar in it.  I’ll take him some of that yummy Smucker’s jelly that’s only sweetened with pear and apple juice.

He’d gotten his smile back by the time I left; I was glad for that.

The writers of Pickles and Garfield apparently have an ear to the chimney at our house.

It’s 5:20 p.m. and already nearly dark outside; the sun went down 15 minutes ago.  I always look forward to December 21, when the days start getting longer!

The laundry is done, folded, and put away, all five loads of it.

Now to reheat some pizza Larry brought home Saturday from the company dinner.  Shall I finish scanning that album tomorrow, or shall I let it cool its heels while I wrap and bag Christmas gifts?

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,