MANOR PEEPHOLES

LITTLE GLIMPSES of goings-on at the Manor:

• On Fridays when we gather on the patio for wine and cheese before supper, Jack Frost gets out his harmonica and plays from his very large repertoire of songs. Camp songs, Americana, cowboy tunes, he knows them all.

Couldn't resist a shot through my wine glass.

•  This sign in the laundry room reminds me of the saying, "Can you read my lips?" or "What part of 'No' don't you understand?" I can feel the frustration in the attempt to communicate to the residents that they must store the iron upright.

• Somehow I thought they might pull the ad in the paper after Mr. Bob lost his hair and I got all puppydog sad looking, but the ad still runs once a month in three newspapers and friends keep discovering it for the first time.

• One of the things I most looked forward to doing at the Manor was working the ever-present jigsaw puzzle. Turned out it was not to be (a story unto itself, which I may or may not decide to tell you someday). We could work on one in our room if I'd just get my act together. It's the one place in life that I can create order out of chaos.

• I observed this one day last week. One of the nurse's aides was performing a spontaneous hula dance during the day's entertainment and one of the residents attempted to swat her on the backside.......out of what, I'm not sure......playfulness? irk? As it happened, she didn't connect, but I love the expression.

• Mr. Bob is on new medication.....something that helps his mood to be more mellow and coincidentally it helps one sleep at night. Well, it results in Mr. Bob sleeping on through the day. Here he's getting dressed, stopping for a nap before he gets his shirt on. True, it's hard to get angry while sleeping so I suppose one could say the medicine is working.

• The picture below was taken when Owen last visited. He was as delighted as I upon seeing for the first time that our elevators are fitted with a bench for resting between floors.

• At dinner, I turned to talk to Lorraine (facing) and Jeanne, both relatively new residents. Nice ladies, both. In fact, when Lorraine heard of Mr. Bob's diagnosis, she put her arms around me and offered to do our laundry, which was such a dear gesture, even though I didn't take her up on it.

• Two weeks ago we encountered Lorraine outside of her room. She was barely recognizable following a fall. I've never seen anyone so battered and bruised, bless her heart. I have to admit that I didn't offer to do her laundry, but we did take her our DVD player and some movies to help pass the time. We've not seen her since, but word has it that she's healing.