Marian

One of ladies in my book club is named Marian. Marian is 91. Which, in itself is awesome that she still is getting out to book club. She doesn't ever read the books anymore but she comes and has a couple of glasses of wine (no idea what meds she's on but I bet she sleeps great later) and whatever food we are having. We basically have 2 sides of the neighborhood (Club) and she lives on my side.  So lately I have become her ride to book club.

Today I picked her up. Her neighbor next door is named Linda and I hope someone is slipping Linda some money for taking care of this gal. She runs over when I drive up and helps Marian get into the car. When I get back she runs out of her house, comes next door and helps her back into the house. Marian gets along pretty good for 91 but likes to have an "arm" on one side to balance out the cane on the other.

Every time I pick her up/drop her off she points to metal flamingo in her  yard and says "See that flamingo? They were popular in the 30's. I love it!"  Today she asks me who's house we are going to. I tell her Traci's. I'm sure she doesn't even know what my name is but she gets in my car haha. By the time we are leaving book club she's asking who drove her there.

Today at book club she told us that she had been a twin. She said her sister was mongoloid. She said that's what they called people back then. I think she said her name was Maureen and she lived to be 35. She said Maureen went to school with her and would color and such all the way until 8th grade. She started crying when she was talking about her.

When they got older their mom went to work and Maureen went to live in home with a woman who took care of several children. She said this woman was a Christian Scientist and they found out that she beat the children so they took her sister back out. She says who would think that someone that was a Christian would treat people that way.

She said after that her sister went to another place in Santa Cruz that was much better.

Last month at book club she was telling us how her mom would paint the rooms in the house and when she was done she would mix all the paint colors together and that was what she painted the bathroom with. Always some god awful color! She seemed pretty repulsed by the memory of the bathroom paint color :)

In between last month's book club and this months she had gotten sick and had to go to a care home facility. She was there for about a week I think. When I picked her up today she was telling me how it was nice there that there were so many people around. I think she gets really lonely in her house by herself.

After book club was over I showed her where we were having book club next time, at Carol's house.  When we drove up to her house she pointed out the flamingo and asked me where we were having book club next month.

It makes me sad that she can't remember but she was pretty good up until a couple years ago. I guess if you can make it to about 90 before you start losing your marbles that's pretty good right?