"I'll be better when I'm older ..."

Even earlier ... EARLIER ... phone call this morning. Grandma F wanted to tell me that someone had found the key to her room, and they told her she should always keep it around her wrist. I reminded her that we had tried to show her how to unlock her door with the key when she moved in, and she never could do it well enough to feel comfortable. So I kept the key, as well as the key to her mailbox. Apparently I dropped them on my way out yesterday ... thank goodness someone found them and turned them in.

So now she wants to keep the door key herself. I took the mailbox key, and luckily we had already made a copy of the door key ... so I still have one of those for me to use, if needed. We practiced again today with the unlocking of the door. Still not very practical.

She wanted me to slice the caramel cake she received for her birthday, and put it into a container. Somebody please acknowledge the maturity and restraint it took for this fat girl to do that ... and not sneak a single taste. It looked incredibly good. She also wanted me to put her pumpkin pie into baggies so she could keep them in the freezer. After all the food re-arranging, we read the weekly letter from home, and laughed about how funny dreams can be. She was telling me that she had been putting on her pajamas, sitting on the sofa ... and had dozed off with one pajama leg on, and one pants leg still on. (Now that's drowsy.) She dreamed about her table-mate's little dog, and dreamed she was wrapping it in a gold chain, until it looked like it had a metal jacket on it. She was both amused and puzzled at the fact that she had dreamed about Millie's little dog.

Then I told her about my dream of Jimmy going to see the doctor, walking through the parking lot buck nekkid. She laughed pretty hard.

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This morning, I was doing a bit of Christmas shopping here at the kitchen table (thank you Internet), and looked up to see that it was 9:40 AM. Frances ALWAYS is out of bed around 8 or 8:30. This morning ... no sign of her. I sat here and got myself so worked up ... positive that she was either incapacitated with a stroke, or was lying in there, already gone. I felt sick to my stomach. I finally screwed up the courage to go and knock at her door ... and she answered immediately. I told her, next time she planned to sleep in, to leave a note or something. Damn.

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Nothing much going on around here today. Just some minor Internet shopping, and a trip to Shady Acres. Looking forward to going to bed tonight, as I dug the down comforter out of the closet earlier this afternoon. Toasty toes for me tonight!