We played hooky

Mom looked up at me from her perch on the computer chair. "I want to excape" she said furtively. We looked around outside to make sure nobody was coming, then quickly got into the car and drove away. It felt so good to be away from everybody's beck and call! For the past week, only a few minutes would pass in between people calling or knocking on the door. The yard sale on Saturday really wore us out, too.

I got us lost on some dirt roads in the nearby National Forest. We passed quite a few ranches and mini homesteads and only saw a few cars. We popped back out onto pavement and found ourselves near Pinetop-Lakeside, a fairly good sized town. We then drove to Show Lo and picked up some things at Home Depot.

The screen door on this house is impossible. It's bent all to heck, pieces are falling out of it, and you really have to yank to get it open. We sprung for a $88 storm/screen door. We also picked up some pansies, rosemary, calendula, nice yellow flowers of some variety, chives and a small pot of basil. We already have primer and paint for the front porch. This place is going to look a million times better!

While we were out, I splurged on something for myself. I bought a cowboy hat. :-) It's black with a black hatband that has small silver studs and intervals of brown leather strips wrapped around it. With the black leather cowboy boots I found laying around this house, I'm now ready to run off and join a ranch. :-)

In other news, we recieved the newsletter from the nursing home my grandmother will be moving to permanantly. An excerpt from it:

Gentle Reminder
Recently some concern has been expressed about the motorized scooters used on the property. If you drive a motorized scooter, please be mindful of others. We have had complaints of residents being run off the sidewalks and almost run over in the rec room because of excessive scooter speed.
Your understanding and cooperation in this situation will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

We went to see Dick in his nursing home yesterday. He was acting like his grumpy old self. He swore, shouted, and was very irate. They have him on 5 times the normal dose of sedation just to keep him managable. You can tell he's really going downhill fast. Last time we were there, he remembered who we were. This time, he had no clue. He's making less and less sense as time goes on. The only thing he's sure about is that he wants to escape.

As we went to leave, the nurse came out to say goodbye. In the time that she did that, Dick slipped out the back door and made it about 30 feet over lava rocks in just socks. (They took away his shoes so he can't make it too far when he does manage to get loose). I saw him in the rear view mirror, so I stopped the car and went to lead him back inside. When the nurse had him 10 feet from the door, he asked "Are the people who came to see me gone?" She said yes. I was standing right there and he didn't even realize that it was I who had just been in there visiting him.

I hope that when it's my time to go, I fall off a cliff into a solid bed of limestone. Something quick and relatively painless. Alzheimers sure seems like a sucky way to go.