Monday 23 May

about Gramps, he did not have a great weekend. Saturday he really slid back and was having some breathlessness and coughing during the day. This cast a cloud over the house and a definite cloud over him. So on Sunday morning I had a chance to talk him through it, to remind him of how much he had done in the past week, getting up and getting dressed most days,  three outings, no naps, pushing the boundaries re time off the oxygen machine. Too many tests in too short a time. So he was paying the price! Losing recovery gains that he had made during the week before. He took this on board and deduced to stay in his pyjamas for the whole day. MOnday was a repeat of this plan. Jane was coming on Monday so he was looking forward to seeing her. Greatfully she said the same things to him. She said "you are like a flower now, anything can knock you over". She recommended a back to basics approach, warm, rest, sleep eat drink, oxygen. This was exactly what he needed to hear and he followed this to the letter on Monday and was feeling better and talking freely by the end of the day.

Because of this backward slide Linda put forward the suggestion to delay the move to Atria to Wednesday. Noni was quick to agree to that and while I think there is some risk in delaying the inevitable, there is still a lot to be moved up before they can operate out of their rooms and another day for gramps will be useful. 

I am still making bowls of cut fresh fruit each morning. Yesterday I introduced a mango as these are everywhere at the Mexican markets. Noni watched me cut it and I showed her the cut and flip method as well as the slices method. She enjoyed that, always so fascinated and interested in food that is new to her, I honestly think she would taste anything. 

Noni has been worried about her best knives, certain that no one will be able to tell the difference between the good ones among the many knives she has. So we pulled out the 5 best and I made cardboard sleeves and put these together in a labeled envelope. Who knows what their future will be. 

Noni had another visit from her knitting friend Joanne so there is a picture here, always difficult in the front room as you are looking into the light. JOanne is from Texas but arrived in CA at age 15 and went to Mission HS. She just loves Mom and has a totally different relationship with mom than the people she has known for so many years. It is refreshing really, she is really up front and mom really responds.

Linda and Noni spent Monday morning up at the rooms, organising furniture, unpacking the stuff that has already gone up, getting ideas for other things they want. There have been some small discoveries that have added delight to the move, things that  Noni has found that will be useful to her. One is a small crystal lamp that was sitting on something in the sewing room covered with dust and no longer working. This has been cleaned and bulb replaced and it now has a new life at Ateia. They stayed for lunch and she came back very positive, sharing with Dad how the rooms were shaping up and the schedule for Atria for this week. 

I finally got the chance to help Noni select her tools yesterday and although we did not finish the job she had a ball looking through all of her many tools. One of my current projects is to collect all of the recipes that are free floating around the house, with the main two locations being a small pile near the fridge and some envelopes in the dining room drawers. But then there are many cookbooks with stuff shoved inside as well. This exercise has shown that Nonis favourite things either to make or to eat are Amaretti (Italian macaroons) Delias chocolate sheath cake, rice pudding, bread pudding, rice torta and of course her ravioli and her pasta sauce. Recipes for these items are everywhere.  In among the envelopes of recipes was this wonderful photograph of Noni and her Dubuque work line crew with their supervisor Mary Helen, the tough looking one. These ladies all remained Nonis friends and there is a picture of them in later years. Note Nonis hairnet required to cover the bouffant hairdos of the day. Only she and Evelyn Martin are wearing the fancy ones. This hairnet is the same as the one Noni wears to bed each night, down to the tissue you can see wrapped Round her hair under the net, this has been a lifelong routine.