the long version

as promised... as if this is exciting... heh

(1) road construction: going less than 10 miles in 2 hours on the interstate is pretty outrageous... whoever's in charge of pennsylvania interstate construction should know better than to filter 3 lanes of harrisburg interstate traffic through a rest area PARKING LOT! it's one thing to merge everyone into one lane, (which some people can't handle already!) it's a totally other thing to filter that one lane through a parking lot where people are pulling in and out and blocking the one lane of traffic... summary: i was incredibly annoyed friday afternoon.

(2) best lunch for $1.35 ever made up for the construction though =) to get to g-ma's i drove the better part of 200 miles on the PA turnpike... a few of the travel plazas have farmers markets and this trip was the first i'd noticed any of them being open.. for $1.35 i got two huge green bell peppers and a cucumber and ate them as i drove for lunch... it was a party :-)

(3) i rambled about the g-ma thing already before i left... i guess the weird part is, although she's been in the nursing home for 4 years now, for the first 3 or so, whenever we visited her behavior was consistent... not really better, not really worse.... from my most recent visits (june 2003, august 2003, november 2003, january 2004, this weekend) there's been noticeable changes from june/aug to nov/jan and from nov/jan to now... last summer g-ma was slow to respond and didn't speak clearly (half her vocal chords are paralyzed and half her mouth muscles too so that's how it is), but she answered the questions you asked her, and remembered things.... in november she started acting kind of weird... like would have me push her in her wheelchair "to my other room" or "to the room at the end of the hallway" giving me directions as we went and then she'd end us up at a fire escape or something and seem extremely disoriented... but at least in november she was happy to see us and had a "good day" the first day or two we were around even if she got tired later in the visit... this time, the first 3 of the 4 days we were around the response to "how are you?" was "miserable"... reaching for things that weren't there... responding to different questions than we asked, or completely neglecting to notice someone had asked her something... and just about every time she did answer what was asked of her, the answer was completely false (e.g. mom asked her how church was last week and g-ma's response was "i didn't go... my stomach hurt too bad"... but mom's sister debbee was up for the weekend and took her to church!)... mostly it's weird to see someone who you remember clearly as who they used to be become trapped in a physical and mental prison and slowly slip away from you... i have issues with this and i'm not sure how to phrase my thoughts... i have a hard time with the fact that i'm the only grandchild who has opportunity to visit her reasonably regularly and isn't "afraid" of her like my younger cousins are... i have a hard time with myself that i feel like i need to bring "props" (e.g. my photo albums) to be able to talk to her... i feel ridiculous when g-ma tries to speak and we all have to ask her to repeat multiple times before anyone has a clue what she said... i miss the friend of a grandparent she once was and have a hard time responding within myself to how she is now, even if my mom and her sisters compliment me on how i respond to her and engage her on the outside. yeah, i have issues with this

(4) mom and i had planned to see "raising helen" on saturday, since she wanted to and i was willing to see it again for her sake... turns out though that the time we showed up for (based on friday's posted times) turned out to be a sneak preview of "the notebook" which doesn't come out for 2 more weeks... it was remarkably serendipitous that that's what happened and that we got to see it together... basically an old man is reading a story to an old woman and it flashes back and forth between him reading to her now and to the story he's telling about the 1940s... it comes out eventually that they're married and he's reading their life story to her because she can't remember it because she has senile dementia... the ending is a tearjerker, even for me, who reacts, but doesn't usually *cry* at movies... best line?
alli: (lady with senile dementia, in a rare state of knowing what's going on) "so what are you going to do when i don't remember anything at all? how will you deal with it?"
noah: (her husband): "i'll still love you and still be here for you... even then"
considering we had just been talking about changes with g-ma over dinner right before it, it hit especially close to home to watch that later on... duuude.

(5) besides taking my step g-pa out to lunch on sunday after church (which is interesting b/c out of mom's generation, he talks most freely with her, and out of the grandkid generation, he seems to have the most idea of what to say to me), mom had plans to have lunch with her best friend from high school... i'd heard lots about karen but never met her, which was entertaining since mom considers her to be one of her closest 3 friends, and i know the other 2 extremely well... very cool lady... it was fun... and entertaining to see another side of mom for a bit.

(6) today, after visiting w/ g-ma for a bit, mom and i drove up to alleghany cemetary... my g-pa, his parents, and my uncle (mom's brother who died of cancer at age 6) are all buried there at the top of the highest hill in the place... to put it in context, this place is hundred of acres huge and has graves dating back for hundreds and hundreds of years... impressive mausoleums and war monuments in many parts... all my schumann relatives are buried though at the top of a hill overlooking the city, with a huge statue of jesus holding up a dove to the sky in the middle of their section... it's kinda nice... no one had been up there to clean off the headstones since christmas time, so we worked on that for a bit, talked a bit, and then headed back to aunt pris's before mom had to fly and i had to drive home... i guess in summary it's been kinda a death/old age oriented weekend...

(7) on a cheerier note, when we got back to aunt pris's place, i chatted with her for an hour while mom read, and then headed home to jersey... i like chatting with aunt pris... she talks to me as an equal and relates to me and vice versa, and i like that. =) plus she's not nosy in a mom/other aunts kind of way... maybe it's the she's the youngest in her generation of the family and i'm the oldest of the next generation thing, but whatever it is, i like her. =)

(8) upon returning, ben and i saw "stepford wives" which i enjoyed, but a couple parts freaked me out to jumping halfway out of my seat... doht... also noted a new starbucks on the way, which is the 3rd one within a 5 minute drive of my place... this makes me happy! =)

(9) no new project for work yet... i guess this means tomorrow i read and convince myself to start preparing my dreaded talk for the REU kids for next tuesday... yikes!

(10) amanda basically moved out yesterday since she's done with her summer internship... she'll be in and out but mostly out for the rest of the summer, so i'll probably read a lot and be nocturnal by choice... by all means, please call and entertain me :-)

yeah, that really *is* the loong version, eh?

i'm done, really, i am.

night y'all. =P