The Wave

Thank heaven for major league baseball on tv! Alleluia, and then some. The romaine growing on my patio is doing The Wave (in slow motion). I am doing The Wave with inflated beach balls. If the magic invisible stadium organist played the macarena, I would do that, too. If Kate Smith bumped me out of my seat in the seventh inning stretch and started belting, "God Bless America," I would buy her a hot dog with relish. And one for my dad with kraut. And one for me with extra mustard. Life is good.

Dad is charged up about the exciting Cubs game today. He knows all that went on, even if he can't figure out how to turn down the volume when I call.

For several months Dad's only interest has been cracker jacks. The staff advised me that eating caramel corn was considered a fine motor skill work-out at his age. Now we've got peanuts and pine tar. Yippee. So let's root, root, root for the old folks' home team. If they don't win it's a shame.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Downhill combined

Dad has no patience for the Winter Olympics tv coverage. He was glad to be freed from figure skating competitions when Mom died five years ago. Now he can't tolerate any of the downhill events. Instead he wants to be scooting his wheelchair out the door to keep tabs on the hallway happenings of the skilled care floor.

Dad is assisted living's answer to Dick Buttons and Scotty Hamilton. He is all about scoring, judging, and commentating on the skilled care facility medal events. The nurses, aides, food-servers, bathers, therapists, activity coordinators, and housekeepers are all being judged on a his strict Eastern European Cold War scale.


It took three phone calls Thursday evening for Dad to fully judge and report the carpet cleaning event. One phone call was to inform me that the one-man sawed-off bobsled was actually a National Sanitation Service (NSS) Pony 20 SCA carpet extractor for cleaning the hallway.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder