2001-07-17 - 10:12 p.m.

Now playing: nothing. I can hear nothing but the whirr of the fan, the spinning of the hard drive, and whatver noise makes it in from outside. Oh, now that I'm typing, I can hear that, too. :D

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Tomorrow morning myself, Dad, Melanie, and Karen-by-phone are meeting with Grampa's Power of Attorney-holder, some attorney at a trust group downtown. I have no idea what to expect.

I even thought about dressing up. Two seconds later, "Fuck that!" became the current thought.

So, Grampa is still nuts, but seems to be doing somewhat better physically. Tonight, Melanie and I arrived to find him sitting in a regular chair outside the dining room. !! He used his walker to walk the 50 or so feet back to his room. I was impressed. He didn't say a word about not having it, so I guess the "Special Assault Vehicle" wasn't so special.

He's also supposedly getting his phone tomorrow. That will help, although since he's let his hearing aids go to pot, I don't know how well he'll do. He is still refusing to let me replace the batteries in his hearing aid. Singular, because I think he left one in a shirt pocket which then got washed. Dumbasses. Don't they know to check the laundry??

As better as he's doing physically, he's *nuts*. N-V-T-S nuts. One of the many outrageous stories from tonight was how he was going to have to walk a military highway / footpath from here to New Haven tomorrow. Then there was how he was head of the Republican Party in Springfield. There was something about Pope Pious XXIII too, and six cardinals, but I didn't really follow any of that. Also, my sister Karen is 60 years old (she's 40) and the big birthday party we threw Grampa in 1999 was for his sixtieth b-day, not his ninetieth.

I did make Melanie laugh so hard that she had to go out in the hallway, though. Once again, humor saves us.

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So, how'm I doing? Ellen asked me. My reply was that I was surviving, and trying not to think of the crappy parts of my life, and when I did think of the crappy parts, to try and remember my many blessings.

At least Granny hasn't bugged me much lately. Thank God for that.