Sisterly stuff

Yay! I found the rubber spacers for the Mario pot/oven. Those of you who've seen my home (thank you for not running screamining into the night, by the way) know that many things reside there, some of which have been "put in a safe place" and so, um, well, occasionally I run across those safe places while on a completely different errand. Whoops.

This photo also gives a better idea of the color, sort of a darker orange, like the persimmon fruit they are named after by the Mario folk.

Remember how I, er, mentioned that I have a lot of STUFF? Well, my previously semi-empty cookbook bookcase is rather full now. Oops. In fact one night, I came back from the compactor room downstairs (see? I do really try to chuck stuff out!) to find my sweetie rearranging the shelves (he's an engineer -- he likes things organized, heh) which inspired me to tidy the shelves up a bit this week. Librarian + food nut = ever growing collection of cookbooks. You are SO shocked, I can tell.

Yesterday I treated my sister to a Wednesday matinee showing of JERSEY BOYS. I am happy to say she had a great time, since Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, although perhaps "oldies" for my generation, were popular (the first time around) when she was a teen. In fact, she told me yesterday that Sherry was one of the only things that would get get me stop crying when I was a baby, and so now I know why she always sang the phrase "Sherry Baby" to me when I was a little girl. HA!

We had a fun time, being part of the matinee crowd (despite the nighttime photo of Times Square from my cellphone that I am sharing from another evening) and it was quite eye-opening to see the demographic of the normal Wednesday matinee Broadway crowd: my sister may be 60 but she certainly doesn't LOOK 60! And my hair looked positively pitch black in comparison with the sea of blue that surrounded us! Whoa!

In fact, when we got there around 1pm, there was such a long line that I was startled and wondered f the performance was at 1:00 and not 2:00pm! I mean, it's a Broadway show, not a movie theater: you have assigned seating! When I asked the box office clerk what was up, she politely indicated that she had NO idea but hinted, "YOU know to come back at 10 minutes to, right?" (heh) Why yes, yes I do.

So my sister and I went off to have a quick lunch at the corner diner (an excellent one I will have to keep in mind) and of course, to use their facilities (hey -- would YOU want to battle all of the blue hairs for the very few restrooms at the theater before a 2-1/2 hour show?!)

It was interesting to see the matinee cast, because there was a different actor portraying Frankie Valli (he only does the 2 weekly matinees -- the singer I originally saw in December, Jarrod Spector, does all of the evening performances and was on the 2009 Emmy telecast) and they had switched the performer who played Bob Gaudio. I preferred my "evening" Frankie but sister liked her "afternoon" Frankie and was perfectly happy with his performance, and since yesterday was all about having a fun day out for her, that's all that matters :-)

We continued our day out with a nice dinner at the Elm Street Oyster House where we had delicious seafood. I wound up splitting my towering crab and avocado stack appetizer (yes, that was an appetizer) with my sister.

We then went on to our respective entrees, a pan-seared red snapper with broccoli rabe for her, and the pan-fried oyster appetizer (yes, I ordered an appetizer) for me. Yuummmm... no wonder our server said the pan-fried oysters were his favorite (appetizer), and they were rich enough that the smaller portion was perfect.

Afterward, we came back home to my brother-in-law and the home health aide (she and my older niece were waiting for him when he arrived home from the adult day care center in the late afternoon) and I saw how my sister patiently negotiated things with him, and gently taught the aide the best way to manage him.

Once again, I was impressed by how much grace, strength, and good humor my sister has, dealing with a spouse of 35 years who has regressed to the mental status of a child. As anyone who is the parent of a toddler knows, they can frequently be frustrating enough to make you want to scream, but my sister is just calm and persistent when trying to get him to change his clothes (left to his own devices, that doesn't happen very often), or put on his coat, or drink his juice, or ... the list is endless.

Fortunately, as I've mentioned before, his temperament is still similar to before the disease -- gentle and good humored -- but he can be very stubborn: just like a two year old, sometimes "No!" is the easiest answer to any request, especially if you don't understand what the person is saying, and he frequently no longer does (comprehend your meaning, that is).

If I understand it correctly, (which I probably don't, since I don't have his test results) my brother-in-law has a combination of Alzheimer's, frontal temporal lobe dementia, and fluent aphasia. The aphasia is best demonstrated by his communication style, which is clearly articulated, fluently spoken, but incomphrensible, as if you threw in the air a pile of the magnetic poetry words used on fridges and used them to converse with another person.

Occasionally, he will still surprise you with a short burst of coherent conversation, so you can't completely discount what he says. For example, he asked me how my mom was and it was at a moment when he understood who I was, and (presumably) who my mom was. Then again, my sister asked him yesterday how his day was, and he replied that it should have been taller.

So I do what little I can, whether it be to take my sister out for a show (she is really surprised/amused by my fondness for Frankie Valli songs) or to act as her own personal geek squad for her computers, although replacing the missing period key pried off by my younger great-nephew is a little beyond me.