Two days in a row without blogging!

Probably the last harvest of grape tomatoes today. It is getting cold! I love how teeny, tiny these are. It's a little blurry - that's a dime with them.

My son playing his cello on the street corner. He has been wanting to do it for a long time and today was the first time he had a chance. He didn't put out anything to collect money. He said the thing he learned today is to have a good repertoire of songs memorized and planned. He didn't play classical, he said, but his rock and roll stuff and improv.

The purple room is really more of a family room, finally. The dollhouse is only temporary. I am going to try to sell it and send Emily the money.

I DO love this coffee table. Jennifer gave it to me and I made the designs with the colored stones beneath the glass. I will kind of miss having it in the front room. I think I am planning a similar treatment for the back door, however, so I can still go a little nuts with my glass stones. Right now there are just a bunch on the bench/coffee table in a pewtery metal dish, and the mirror has them in the corners.

I will probably hang the Kandinsky now. I have had it tucked a way in a closet for a long time, waiting for a place for it. I am not sure of its placement yet.

Good thing I had FB to do the quick "I'm not dead and neither is Dad" update. The cut cable line is repaired by a giant orange cable snaking across the yard. The last time they did that it took them about three months to come back and bury it. As many times as the companies came and spray painted my grass and put little flags up, I can't believe they still managed to dig through something installing fiber optic lines for phone service I no longer have...

Here's a copy of an email I sent to my SIL today, and then posted on a FB note for those of you who don't FB!

I was in Lafayette yesterday. Dad seems to be better. His swallowing and speech are the most impaired thing and he will definitely be going to a nursing home and not home.

Linda Bennett, Gary's wife, is a coordinator for an agency that helps get this stuff set up. It turns out she is the one who found the right place for Aunt Mary Lou and got all her care and financial stuff arranged. MaryLou, Jennie and Jimmy came to visit yesterday and had nothing but absolute praise for her organization and services. She is getting started on dad's stuff today.

Mom is accepting the fact that Dad will not be coming home and it is difficult for her, but she realizes that she cannot care for him and has acknowledged that she couldn't care for him or keep the house up even before.

I will let you know when services are arranged and a facility is chosen. I am sure Mom would appreciate any calls or notes anyone can send. I have the direct number to the room, but I left it down in my car right now. I can send it if anybody wants it.

And added: Editing to add: I did not call Mom today (I am always the bad daughter, it's accepted). Heather called and talked to Mom and she said Dad refused to eat today. I am going to call in the morning and see if Mom thinks I ought to give it a try. He ate dinner pretty well from me yesterday when he had refused to eat lunch from Mom. Just my luck - I'm the one who can't stand doing that kind of thing! I am willing to do what it takes, though.

Now adding: I hate to miss work, especially because Donna, my coordinator, felt really bad today and will probably take off tomorrow, and Thursday is the deadline forSunday auction ads and always very busy. If I call Mom 1st thing in the morning, though and get on the road by 10:00, I can get there by lunch, see if Dad will take food from me and then drive back in time to get Michael to cello lesson and to his DATE tomorrow night, probably. I will just call Mom in the morning and see how it is going.

Now my own selfish self: One of my auctioneers - the place where I bought my couch and Eames bench - has a huge collection of documents, scores and manuscripts from a very well-known opera singer and scholar of Jewish music - Marko Rothmuller. He said his regular crowd probably won't know a thing about it and he'd probably end up throwing it away. I told him I put in a bid for $10 - he'd better not throw it away. When I Googled the deceased I found that the widow had donated much of his stuff to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and their web site makes it seem like a wonderful thing that they have that part of the collection. I guess he left this stuff to his son, who no longer wants it. I emailed the JTS to let them know it is going up for sale and see if they want to buy it. If they don't I will try to buy it and sort it out and see if it is just crap or maybe the real thing that could be valuable. I don't know what my deal is lately with getting the family documents and now wanting these. I guess it is just history, and real and I don't think it should be neglected. If I had chosen a minor in college it would have been history and I took Latin American history and Jewish history classes. I guess it is an indicator that my big projects were about the roles of families in the lives of the conquistadors, and the role of women in families and the economy in Jewish history prior to the diaspora (when the Jews became more scattered across Europe). Or maybe I am just nuts to think of one more thing in which to be interested and spend all that extra time I have!

I planned to bake mo Mo' Buttah cookies tonight, but it is too late now. Then tomorrow who knows what will happen. I have an idea that maybe it is the eggs reacting with the molasses so I will try the next step of an egg substitute and see if that solves the green problem! If not - maybe I will just have to market those cookies as "A sweet way to eat your greens!"