Days 4 and 5 in California:

Back to our regularly scheduled program. Pardon that temporary interruption, but the cold weather took over my primary brain functions. Now that it has warmed up a bit, I'm feeling more normal.

On Thursday morning, my aunt and I packed up our stuff and checked out of our hotel rooms. We went and paid a quick visit over to my sister and her hubby to say goodbye to him and the cats. (Darn, I should have taken pictures of them, they're gorgeous.) We followed my sister in her car over to the lady that takes care of her mother-in-law, Katherine. She's 101 years old, God bless her. She has short term memory problems, but in the past has always remembered me. She has good days and bad days, but I think this was not one of her better days. Unfortunately, she didn't remember me, so the visit wasn't very long. Plus she does tire out easily.

Her son, my BIL got tired of answering the same questions over and over, so he made a card file. On each card, he wrote down her most common questions on one side, and the answer on the other. And he used some of her more common phrases in the answers. One of our most favorite phrases of hers is, "Don't TELL ME!" One of the cards asks about her house, which was sold years ago. His answer to the question is that the house was sold and the money's in the bank. Another question asks about where her money is. The answer is, "In the bank, earning interest." Then below that it says "That's nice," another of her frequent sayings. So now when he goes to visit her, and she asks him one of these questions, he just opens up the card file, pulls out the card and has her read both sides, that way he isn't repeating himself 50 times, lol.

It's amazing that she is 101 years old, after the life she has had, but she is a terrific lady, and I consider it an honor to know her. We stayed about 15 minutes or so then were directed back out to the freeway so we could head north to Los Angeles and my aunt's house.

We stopped at this cute little place for lunch. I don't remember the name of it, or even exactly where it's located, so looking on a map doesn't help much. There were a few shops, and some activities for kids during the summer months. Most of it was closed for winter. If I really did some digging I could find it, maybe another day I'll look into it more fully.

We stopped in Glendale so I could see the nursing home my uncle is at. He was sleeping when we got there, and was not real aware of things, so I'm not sure if he knew me or not. He's suffering from Parkinson's, and being unable to swallow on his own, he has a feeding tube and needs constant care. They are taking very good care of him there, and he's close to the Red Cross where my aunt volunteers, and a hospital.

She took me on a quick tour of Glendale (where the Tournament of Roses Parade is held each year.) We then went to relax at her house and get settled in. After she showed me around telling me about all the improvements she's had done to the house, I went out to her patio and saw the following sunset.

This was to be the last sunset during my stay in California. The next day dawned overcast and rainy. Because of the rainstorms approaching California, we changed our plans a bit for the last few days of my stay. We agreed to drive up to Lancaster to see my nephew Dennis on Friday instead of Saturday, since it looked like Friday would be less rainy than Saturday. Unfortunately, that meant his new wife was working, and when we attempted to go meet her at her work, she couldn't spare any time because she her boss was there. Maybe next trip I'll get to meet her.

Dennis' son lives with him, along with his wife's son and daughter. Dennis also has two daughters, they are currently living with their mother. I'm not sure why he didn't ask to have them there when we came to visit, and we didn't want to ask, thinking it might be a touchy subject. The mother seems to think that all her children are sick (she's a hypochondriac) and wants them all medicated. The girls are about 9 months apart. From what I was told, the younger one is no longer medicated, but unfortunately is her mother's daughter. The older one is still medicated (I believe) but has other issues too. They are both teenagers, but the older one has no female hormones, so she is not going through puberty like all the other girls at school. I believe she is taking medicine for that, not sure how well it's working, or if it's working.

Our visit was relatively short, we saw the son (my great-nephew, he's 15 I think) for about two minutes, then Dennis, my aunt Val and I went to lunch at Panera. While there, my cell phone rang, and checking the number I said to Val, "Who would be calling me from the 818 area code?" She had no idea, so I didn't answer, and no message was left. We dropped Dennis back at his house, and Val and I left to come back to her house. On the way back through the mountains, it started raining harder, and we saw an accident on the other side of the road, involving a couple cars, that had traffic backed up for several miles. We were glad to not be in that mess.

Once back at my aunt's house, she checked her messages and it turned out the nursing home had been trying to reach us (hence the call to my cell phone from the 818 area code.) My uncle had been transferred to the hospital, they thought he might have pneumonia. Val had thought he felt warm when we saw him on Thursday, but never mentioned it to the nurse at the home. We drove in the rain to the emergency room, and I sat with all the walk ins while she went to go see Bob and talk to a doctor. Turns out it was only a urinary tract infection, so he was going to be admitted. She gave them the information for his urologist, due to his repetitive infections in the past. He was kept there for a few days, and then returned back to the home.

After the jaunt to the hospital, and the lousy weather, my aunt and I just relaxed Friday night with a glass of wine and a board game. She had several suggestions: Monopoly, Scrabble, and two different Sherlock Holmes board games. We decided on one of the Sherlock Holmes games, called appropriately enough 221b Baker St. We had a lot of fun going around trying to get clues to solve the mystery. Before we knew it, it was near midnight, and we needed sleep.