10:18 – Barbara is trying hard to keep things as normal as possible despite her dad’s condition. She refuses to go over to the nursing home and just sit there all day watching him die. I think that’s the best decision. Dutch is sleeping most of the time anyway, and when he’s awake he’s often so confused that it’s difficult to hold any kind of conversation with him. Barbara wants to remember her dad as he was, not as he is now. At our age, she’s been lucky to have him around all of her life, and in pretty good shape until recently. And, like me, she’s been lucky enough to live locally to her parents rather than living across the country and being able to see them only once or twice a year.
So at this point, the emphasis is going to shift to doing what she can for her mom, to help her get past the inevitable loss of her husband of almost 70 years. In fact, Barbara and Frances are heading over to their mom’s apartment today to do some stuff and then take her out to dinner.
During her four-day weekend, Barbara is also getting some stuff done around the house and yard, and helping me build new batches of science kits. I haven’t booked the 20 kits we sold earlier this week to a small private school, and won’t until we receive the check and it clears. Even so, we’ve already done three times the business so far this month that we did in May 2012, and kit sales continue to accelerate.