Guest Post From John

Moving Day.

I don’t know why Jean was so wound up. It’s nice and peaceful here. We passed in the airport, I saw someone skipping and doing cartwheels in the middle of the airport. Odd I thought, even odder to be Jean. We (she) talked (I listened and took notes.) She left me with a 2 inch binder full of documents, copious notes, and a 20+ item todo list. No worries I got all week...Plus she really did all the hard work.

So moving day was scheduled for Tuesday. Tom was due in sometime, no one could really pinpoint. I guess Emeritus time is like Jamaica time. It happens when it happens. I decided to visit early to knock a couple items off the list and survey the land.

Emeritus is a national long term assisted care provider. The facility itself is rather nice. It’s in Jensen Beach, across the road from the Indian River. From Tom’s window, if you look though the palm trees, you can see the water. The downside is that this a special memory care unit, specializing in Alzheimer’s care. Which means the ‘inmates’ are locked in to prevent them from wondering off. After conversing with a few of the residents, physically wondering off was certainly a possibility, mentally wondering was ongoing. I’m not sure which land some may have visiting. But as is their motto at Emeritus, ‘Every day is a new journey.’

Upon entering the ‘unit’ (basically the 3rd floor), I observe the daily news and story time. This is where John the memory unit director, relays the daily news and stories of the day. All the mobile residents were in attendance circled around a couple of tables. Thinking this was poker time, I asked what the ante was, and I hope it’s not strip poker (cause the old gals had way more clothes on than I.)

The story of the moment was about a gator that was in someone’s yard. I had heard that earlier in the day, but I expressed my surprise anyway. To this Abby #1 and #2 both expressed great interest that I was involved somehow.

Abby #1 & #2: “Did you see it?”

John: “Oh Yes, it was enormous”

Abby #1: “How big?”

John: Pointing from one wall to the other. “Big as a boat.”

Abby #2: “Really”

John: “Oh Yes, I was afraid to get out of my car.”

Oh, what stories we can tell at the memory unit. The rest of the visit fairly uneventful. I went home afterwards to rest up for the 3 o’clock visit. Knowing Tom would probably be there and Carol would be along.

Honestly I don’t know what to expect when I see Tom. But I’m guessing that he will want to go home, and that’s about what we got. We arrive to find him in his chair (he doesn’t realize that it’s his chair, even though the cushions are molded to his butt.) He’s smelly, unshaven, and confused. Carol is good with him, explaining five or ten times what happened to get him here. She helps him change clothes, cause he really needed too.

Sidenote: It took me a while to figure out why he had a latex glove sticking out of his pocket. It wasn’t in his pocket, but tied around two or three belt loops acting as a de-facto hospital belt. Who thinks of these things?

Jean did an awesome job furnishing his room with his clothes, chair, bed etc.. But Carol and I had our best laugh after changing him. For some reason he thought that long pants should be the outfit of the day, so we tried to outfit him with the only pair of long jeans in the dresser. We were complexed, because they were too small, which is odd because all of his clothes are normally 3 sizes too big. Carol eventually realized that maybe the pants were hers, but also surprised that they almost fit him.

While changing again, I excused myself, because really... who wants to see that? So while I was waiting in the commons area, outside of Tom’s room, Abby #3 walks by. She waltzes straight into Tom’s room like she belongs there. I have no idea what happened next, but about a minute later, she came out and then took a chair across from me in the commons. I study her, not really knowing what to say. About a minute of silence later, she looks at me and states, “Well it looks like you can handle this area, I’ll leave it under your control.” And then further, “I need to go home and take care of the kids.” My reply, “I, I mamm, got it covered.”

The rest of the day, mostly uneventful. We visited about an hour and a half. At around 5pm, we escorted him to dinner and made our get-away. Moving day complete.

Day 2.

Same people, different personalities. I knew Carol didn’t put on a new patch yesterday, but didn’t push her on it. It was a potentially explosive day and this mine field is new to me. However she was eating well and generally quite sociable. Today was a different story. She didn’t want to eat and when it came time to visit Tom, she was very apprehensive, with heavy sighs and breathing. I thought she may start hyperventilating. I gave her an option of not visiting Tom, saying that Emeritus suggested that we don’t visit the first two weeks, so Tom can adjust to the surroundings (they did indeed suggest this.) But she said that it was her “job” and that she needed to do what she needed to do. She attempted to bring back the same soiled cloth that we brought home yesterday. Not remembering that we did that.

When we arrived, Carol didn’t want to go in at first but did anyway. Tom was more combative today. Wanting to know, “where the hell have you been?” So in general more like Tom. Carol too was ready to fire back. I thought maybe we would have MMA battle. New day, new journey.

At first I remained silent, mostly because I feared to tread in unknown waters, secondly because I couldn’t not watch. Eventually, I did start to steer the conversation to calm waters. Carol decided that she needed a break and bounced from the room. John the director must have saw Carol in the commons area, so he came to visit. Tom reran the same conversation past him. To which I saw John start to get flustered. Once again steering the boat back to calmer waters.

The man has a single focus. I’m used to repeat conversations with Tom, but generally, the topics switch between Jim, work, where am I living, where’s my hair, etc... Not now, one and only one topic. I can understand why the current topic is stuck, but holy cow, it necessitates patience.

Tom: What is this place?

John: It’s a assisted care facility.

Tom: What?

John: It’s kinda of in between a hospital and home.

Tom: Why am I here?

John: Because you had some health issues a week ago.

Tom: Really?

John: Yes, you were in the hospital for a week.

Tom: Honest to God, I don’t remember a thing.

John: Yes, I know. That’s why you are here.

Tom: If you weren’t telling me this, I would think that I’ve gone bonkers. (I bit my tongue on the obvious comeback here)

John: Yes, I know.

Tom: When will I get out of here?

John: When you get better.

And so on and on. Rinse and repeat. I stop counting the times, but somewhere beyond a dozen time we had this conversation. Eventually it dawned on me, I was having a Groundhogs Day moment. Bill Murray keeps repeating the same day, making adjustment along the way to improve the outcome. I was doing the same with Tom’s conversation. I was fine tuning the replies to avoid the pitfalls. Example, steer clear of the doctor topic:

Tom: Who’s keeping me here?

John: The doctors will decide when you are healthy enough to go home.

Tom: Which doctor?

Carol: Doctor So and So

Tom: Agitated. I’ve never even seen him! How can he make decisions about me!

And so it went on and on....

Eventually dinner time came. We walked him to the dining section and sat him with 2 old-timers, who may or may not have been conscious, but seemed harmless. Maybe their were on a far away journey....

JB

Guest Post from Mom
I thought I'd give Erika a break and post a blog. I got to Florida on Monday night. Tuesday seems so long ago but I drove to the other side of Florida to get my brother Joel so we could make decisions together with Carol. What seemed obvious to me and maybe anyone reading this blog, is that my Dad can no longer be taken care of in his home. Kind words and patience, which Carol had more of than most of us, cannot keep him from being frustrated and confused, irritable and frightening. Fortunately, I think, the hospital and his doctors agree. I hope our family does too.
They gave us a list of places to look at and while Carol and Joel went to visit a couple of them on Wednesday, I rummaged through the pile of bills, flyer's and notes that were on Carol's desk to see what, besides the water bill, I had missed since she just stacks them and doesn't let anyone see them. I looked on the desk, in the desk, under the desk and under her pillow (where we last found her car keys). Each advertisement for a pizza joint was just as lovingly attended to as the final notice for payment of "HOUSE INSURANCE". Just one of the many details to attend to this week.
Joel and Carol came back from there trip just as Erika and I got back from a seminar about how to apply for aid and assistance benefits from the veterans administration. They are depressed about the homes they visited but Erika and I were pretty pumped up about the number of euphemism that one man could use when talking about the needs of our "loved ones". We all had a little wine which seemed to help. That and that fact that we got a new list of places to visit.

Joel and I went a visiting on Thursday and found two places that we thought were pretty good. Of course I liked one and Joel liked the other better. Now we wait so they can interview Tom and see if they think he will fit into their establishment. Joel goes home and Carol and I go shopping for food. Do you know how many kinds of cookies there are in Publix? I do now. Toll House are the preferred favorite. Erika and I go shopping for baby presents and little girl birthday presents---- spent too much money. I think because it felt so good to do something life affirming.

Friday Carol and I went to both the homes that Joel and I had agreed were ok. She sided with Joel and both places were willing to take Tom. So we are signing him up for a lovely place where he can see the ocean from his room. He can't move in until Saturday so that will give us some time to furnish the place. I went to the lawyer on Friday afternoon after taking Carol home. Now all I have to do is find more documents, including a marriage certificate for Tom and MY Mom which should be interesting since I can't ask her and she eloped AND I don't know when exactly or where exactly they were married. The veterans administration certainly knows how to keep their money by making it difficult for you to access. Here's my advice to anyone ------ Preplan for your own demise and do not make your children and "loved ones" hunt for documents under your bed.

Today we (Carol and I) bought Tom a bed and have begun discussing what of his things we should take to his new place. He looks terribly frail and right now it would be hard to believe that he could frighten anyone. Carol is handling it with far more grace than I could hope for but we are helping her to put her husband in a home-- one he's not going to come out of. It's #$&^ing sad.

Good news, John is coming on Monday so we can tag team and Erika and Carol will have some help getting Dad settled. I will go home on Monday to my "real job".

MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2010

Grandpa was upset about his car and saying someone "stole it," then talking to my mom, calming down, then getting worked up again for pretty much the whole weekend straight. On Saturday I decided I had had enough and went to visit Joel and his family on the gulf coast (3 hours away) for the night. I got Tom and Carol fed a big lunch and got their medicine in them, packed a bag and walked out the door as Grandpa continued to shout at me.
Going to visit Joel's family was just what I needed. Their new home is nice and open with a pool screened in the back, and located in good location between cities and the beach. I went from being told to get out of Tom's home and missing hugs, to feeling like I belonged, could relax and barely had a moment where the kids weren't giving tons of affection. A big breakfast on Sunday and we were off to Manesota (like Minnesota!) Beach. But, later on Sunday I had to go home to make sure the Grandparents had eaten all day and had taken their medicine, so I headed home reluctantly.
I knew Grandpa hadn't calmed down when Bill told me that he had been calling him all day. I walked into the house through the back door because I had been locked out of the screen entrance in the front. Grandpa was on the phone with my mom talking about his car, and Carol asked me, "Where did you come from?" So, I told her that the front screen door was locked, and can she please try not to do that anymore. I swear I didn't say this in a mean way, but she started crying and saying that she didn't mean it. She must have been yelled at a lot since I left. I calmed her down telling her that I knew she didn't mean to and it wasn't a big deal.
Back to Grandpa, Kenny and my mom had decided to lie and tell him that it would cost $2,500 to fix. After showing him a map of where his car was on the computer, and more answers from my mom, they decided it would be best if they had it towed (unfixed) back to the house, and wait until Bill came down to try and fix it for cheaper. I wrote him a letter explaining all this, and even drew a little map of where his car is. He said thank you for doing all that, and seemed generally calmed down. I took this time to start getting ready for bed. Right when I'm about to fall asleep, Carol knocks on the door saying I needed to answer some questions Grandpa has. So, we stood in their bedroom with him in his boxers as I continuously explained the situation with his car. Finally I located the note I had written him and read it to him. I told Carol I had to go to bed because I had to work the next morning and she said she could understand because she had to as well (she had even written PGA on the calendar). I told her that she was just going to have to keep referring him back to that note, and fell asleep exhausted.
At about 3am I heard a forceful knock on my bedroom door. So I groggily said, "What?" to which the reply was "it's the police" WHAT?! I came out and he explained that Grandpa had hit Carol (was very vague) and referred me to some pamphlets on domestics abuse that had been placed on the counter. He said that they had to hold my Grandpa for awhile, but decided to take him to a mental health facility instead of jail. They had also debated for about 20 minutes deciding if they should take Carol to the hospital or not, but since she was still breathing heavily after all that time, they decided it was for the best. Yes, I slept through all of this. The police officer was the very last one to leave and was going to lock up the house, but noticed my door shut and decided to "make sure".
So I get to the right hospital and find my way to Carol who looks incredibly small in all the hospital blankets. I talk to the doctor, I put my mom on the phone with the doctor, and a few nurses gush at how sweet my grandma is. Since she left the house without her shoes, purse and only in her night robe, we walk out of the hospital with her wrapped in hospital blankets and shuffling in hospital socks. The nurses assure me she doesn't have these things, but she keeps asking where they are, even at one point telling me that we should find Tom in the hospital because he probably has her stuff. I tell her that Tom isn't in the same hospital and she peers at me confused. I get her home at a little before 5AM and explain the importance of getting some rest. I'm shocked she doesn't go straight to bed with all the relaxers they gave her. She knocks on my door within ten minutes and shows me her cell phone and her necklace which she thinks one of the police officers left at the house, adding that we should "put it somewhere where the kids can't get to it." I walk her to her room and tell her we will figure it out in the morning.
I went to work this morning, and when I get home at 3pm to check on her, she's still sleeping. When she wakes up we have some food and the doctor in charge of Tom calls to hear what happens. I find myself reminding her of things to tell the person because she starts out being like, "Oh, he was stressed this week...he gave me a kind of hurtful love push..." Then I get on the phone with the doctor to explain Tom's behavior since I've lived here, and give her my mom's number who she also talked to. She seemed like she was really understanding and helpful. Even explaining that it is common for people who are losing control to act out in these ways.
Otherwise, my mom is coming into town tonight (I leave for Palm Beach in about an hour) and Carol is kind of lost still. When I went to the bank and came home she asked me where Tom was. I reminded her that he is going to be gone for a few days and we need to concentrate on her being healthy and SAFE. She says it's too quite and keeps saying how it's a good think MauMau is around so it's not so lonely. Hopefully having my mom around will liven the house up some.
She just came in and asked where Grandpa is again. She says she really wants to make sure he's OK. We went from an angry house to a very sad house.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2010

I had to go through the back porch door when I got home from work because the screen door in the front was locked. In the kitchen Grandpa had a phone book in his lap and asked why I was coming in so much later than usual. I reminded him that I was actually an hour earlier than usual, but maybe he was thinking about Cynthia. Why did he have the phone book in his lap? On Wednesday he decided that since his car wasn't working (Bill took a fuse or something out which I have) that he would have it towed to a shop. Not only does he not remember what shop it got towed to, but for the past few days he has been pretty sure Carol and/or I took his car somewhere behind his back, i.e. "NO ONE TELLS ME ANYTHING!" He's calmed down in the past few days, even telling my mom yesterday "Everything is fine here. My car's being repaired and it should be ready tomorrow," but the search continues. Perhaps it's better wherever it is and with whatever idiot towed a car for a man who clearly couldn't make that decision. I wonder how many places he had to call before someone said, "Yea, you can't have a normal conversation for 5 minutes, but yea, let's tow your car." So anyway, I ask Grandpa where Carol is and he says he doesn't know but she took the little car. By the looks of Grandpa, I'm guessing he was yelling at her about the car and she escaped (on Wednesday it got so bad me and Carol took a 2 hour dinner at Olive Garden). He said he had just eaten a sandwich so I gave him his medicine and took a cue from Carol and headed out to a yoga class.
When I got back Grandpa greeted me at the door in his boxers asking, "Are you finally home?" Then looked taken aback when he realized it was me. "I sure am, miss me?" I answered anyway. I headed towards the kitchen and he said, "if you find Carol will you tell her to come into the bedroom as soon as possible?" Uh? "I'm in the kitchen!" Carol sang from the kitchen. So Grandpa decided to come to the kitchen in his boxers to confront Carol with the important thing he needed to talk to her about, "Do you have a light?"
Grandpa shuffled off to his room and Carol said, "Well, yea, like I was saying, I had a good day." Uh, when did we start this conversation? This is the first thing she's said to me today. I play along as I look for dinner and nonchalantly ask her where she was when I got home. She said no where special, then said not too far from here. I'm pretty sure she couldn't remember. When I opened the fridge I noticed a bottle of wine that was 1/4 full and definitely wasn't there Wednesday night. I know because I had to tear apart the fridge on Wednesday trying to find all the water in there to brush my teeth, etc, as the water was shut off until Thursday afternoon. Maybe it would be a better situation if I didn't remember all of these things.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2010

Woke up this morning at 5:48am to Carol hovering over me. "Holy shit," I say. "What's the matter?" she asks. "I'm sleeping. Let me sleep. Please shut the door on your way out. I need to sleep," I say in a high pitched, wtf/terrified way. After tossing and turning for about an hour I finally wake up and get ready for work. I walk into the kitchen to get my breakfast to go. No, "good morning"'s were interchanged. As I'm about to walk out I can't help but ask, "So, what were you doing in my room this morning?" "I heard something and came in to see if something was wrong." "OK," and with that I was out the door.
There isn't a lot to say about yesterday because I simply did not come home from the time that the car rental place picked me up at about 8:45am (an hour late) until 10:45pm (after work, working out and a movie). I told Cynthia, "hope you can make sure they take their medicine while you're there, because I'm not messing with them AT ALL today."
Why? Well, if you read Bill's post on Bultman.com, then you have a good portion of the story. When I got home Grandpa and Carol were in the garage looking at his car so I assumed they tried to drive it and Bill's plan to disable it worked. Grandpa looked pissed as he directed the car into the garage space. Never mind the fact that I can park a car in a garage on my own. It took me a second to get the bag of laundry detergent and paper towels I bought that day out of the back and by the time I turned forward, Carol opened my door and asked me if everything was alright. "Yes, except Grandpa looks like he's ready to kill me." She started mumbling about how a long time ago she realized she just needed to let his anger slide off her back... right. Grandpa was guarding the door to the house and demanded the keys. I said I had to set things down and that I needed the keys. I manage to get by him, but he yelled at me the whole way in to the kitchen. He wants to know why I took his car. He wants to (loudly) inform me that no one asked HIM if I could take that car (we have a lot). He says he needs the "little" car because the big one doesn't work and something about getting the neighbor over to look it over. I escaped to my room to see if Bill left me the pieces to put it together, but realized if I went to the garage I would surely be caught in the act of putting it together and yelled at even more. I suddenly felt trapped. It was getting dark outside so I didn't feel safe really walking anywhere by myself and if I took Carol's car I was surely doomed when I got home. I decide that I would have better luck walking in the dark then staying the rest of the evening with Grandpa so I go to the kitchen where he sat fuming (not smoking so I knew he was mad) to get everything taken care of health wise before I potentially ran away and never came back.
I ask him if he had had dinner and he starts yelling about how they already ate and he's not a decrepit who can't make his own god-damn dinner. So I give him his medicine and he explodes on how he doesn't need medicine. I try to rationalize, but this only gets him angrier until he says "get the fuck out of my house." I say "fine", grab Carol's keys and go. While I'm at the gym Bill talks to him telling him something like "this type of abuse is unacceptable and we're taking you to a home straight away if this behavior continues." and my mom reserves me the lovely rental vehicle I am driving now (a Ford Focus ironically). I don't really want to go home, but I'm encouraged by Bill's voicemail, plus I brought nothing with me except keys and my license.
When I get home I take a shower and I go to the kitchen to make dinner (I hadn't eaten in 9 hours) and Carol comes in to tell me that she needs the keys to her car and she'll just drive me when I need to go somewhere. I tell her that she has keys to her car and I probably wont need to drive her car anymore, but I might need to early in the AM for work and she wont be up. "Remember I told you those are my only keys to that car," she says like I am 5. "Carol, you drove your car last night, so I'm sure that isn't true," because she did, in fact, take her car for a drive at 2am early Monday morning. "No, I didn't" she says, and I'm literally shaking from head to foot because I'm so hungry and angry and sick of just having to internalize all of it. "I am not talking about it right now, I'm going to eat dinner in peace." I put my foot down. "Fine," she stomps off.
I'm looking into the freezer unable to concentrate on what I want to eat when I hear the distinct sound of Grandpa shuffling towards the kitchen, so I run to my room and lock the door like I really am 5. This doesn't help because then he's screaming at me from outside my door to give him back his car (WHAT?!) and I am afraid to open the door because he sounds so angry. Which means I'm basically locked in my room. I call my mom to have her call him so he backs off. So, then I'm curled next to my door trying to hear their conversation which starts off with him yelling at her that he's not yelling at me, telling her that he wasn't told I was going to take his car, then him asking her when I'm going to leave. Apparently he also said this nice line, "I don't really like being taken care of." and, to this I agree with my Mom who says, "No shit".
When he gets off the phone with her and I get ON the phone with her, I hear him quietly knock on my door, "Uh, can you come move the car into the garage?" He's so polite and calm I tell my Mom astonished, but he started losing patience in the 20 seconds that I didn't immediately open the door because he asks again in his normal tone.
So he has me guide the car into the garage under his stern dictation and then follows me back to the kitchen where I get to work on nachos because it's the easiest thing I can think of. Here we have this conversation over and over, "do you have the keys to my car?" "I need 20 minutes to eat." "well, do you work tomorrow?" "I need 20 minutes to eat peacefully." "You really had to call your mom?" "She's worried about me." "When you're done will you put the car in the garage?" "We just did, you can go check." [He goes and checks and comes back] "Do you know anything about my car not working?" "I need 20 minutes to eat dinner." By the 5th time we have the same conversation his voice is angry and menacing again. As I'm putting away my plate, he walks over to me and starts getting in my face about getting out of his house and I'm actually scared of this old man so I'm practically cowering and so he asks "what the fucks the matter with you" and I admit that I'm afraid that he's going to hit me. To which he announces is a "great idea."
Wish me luck.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2010

For updates on the weekend here at casa loco, please see Bill's posts at www.bultman.com. Also, scroll down to see William in his school's production of Alice in Wondertime if you haven't. We might have a thespain on our hands! I'm also told Ginny made quite a few costumes in it. If she wasn't going to Mexico next week I might be inclined to beg her to create my costume for me and Logan's Halloween trip to Miami.

For now we are off to... well, anywhere there isn't a haze of smoke. Happy 10.10.10!

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2010

Today I got home at 7:30 and Carol was sleeping (she hadn't taken her meds) and Grandpa exclaimed when I brought him his meds, "Oh, I forgot you were stopping over tonight." Yup, just stopping over. I put Carol's meds (patch clearly marked 10/5 on top of pill container) on her bathroom counter. Hopefully she will wake up and take them, but she's been up worrying most of the night for the past two nights, so the sleep might be more benifitial then the medicine. Source of her extreme all night anxiety? I got into a smaller car crash on Sunday (not to be out-done by the Joel Bultman clan) and am driving her car until my is fixed. She's so stressed about it in fact, that after giving me a key later Sunday night (after some convincing from Bill and my mom), she went and moved her car to the neighbor's house. When I left for work yesterday morning, I asked her where her car was and she asked why I needed to know. Did I needed her to move it so I could get my car out. I reminded her that I was going to drive her car to work, and she said that she didn't think that was a good idea. Can she drive me (an hour there and back two times everyday?). Finally I spotted her car and took off towards it.
She had stayed up all night going through her bills so when Cynthia came yesterday to take Tom to his vet's appointment, Carol was short with her. Carol also kept saying that someone had messed with her check book. I asked Cynthia if Tom was at least in a good mood, and she said he was. I think that depression medicine is working. It seems like Carol is the one that starts arguements with him now, like, "I told you to turn off the lights when you left the bathroom." It's certainly a different world then the one I first arrived at.
And I know it's not my news to tell, but I can't help it. Today Beth had a precious boy, Wyatt Robert Hagstrom, 7oz 20 inches. He's both healthy and gorgeous!

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2010

This morning I went to the grocery store before they got up, but I knew they were awake when I got home because I was locked out. Not just from the front door that I have a key to, but to the screen door as well. I walked around the house with arms full of groceries to the back door where Grandpa got up from his chair to let me in. "Now, what the hell?" he said. "Carol locked me out." "Yea, she does that." Of course, having Grandpa in the kitchen when I put away groceries means that I get berated for buying too much. It's like a race to put everything away before my sanity gives in. Then, we had a breakfast of banana nut muffins and strawberries.
I went to the doctor in Palm Beach today, but not just any doctor, a Chinese herbalist and acupuncture specialist type doctor, Dr. Lin. No typical doctor here takes Health Partners Insurance, so I gave her a try, but it was kind of odd. She asked me all about myself and my health while examining my tongue and checking my pulse by hand. Then she took me to a room where she put a needle in the top of my head, 2 in each of my arms, my wrists, 2 in my knees and 2 in my feet. After twenty minutes of feeling like my body was falling asleep, she came back in and told me all the things I can no longer eat in order to get better, things like papaya, watermelon, cold drinks (DIET COKE?), salad (in excesses), red meat, spicy foods and cinnamon. She was especially concerned about the cinnamon situation repeating it sternly to me several times with her thick accent. Then her assistant mixed me up 32g of herbs/vitamins/weird dirt colored powder to drink like tea 3 times a day, and I was good to go. Since I was in Palm Beach anyway, I also stopped at the Garden Mall for some new age therapy.
When I got home I realized that breakfast never really ended, because 4 muffins (I kid you not these things weren't little), all the strawberries, 5 cake cookies (the ones with yellow frosting and sprinkles) and a handful of fun size candy bars were gone. To top it all off Grandpa was sitting at the counter spooning fudge brownie ice ream onto one of the muffins to eat. When he left the kitchen he put away the ice cream in the fridge again. But, I didn't mind much that there are now crumbs in the melted Kemps, as my medicine woman doesn't want me to eat ice cream either.