(I don’t know if you know, but I went with Jackie, the daughter of my paternal grandmother’s sister, and her son Shaughn [Four of Seven] to visit her parents [my grandmother’s sister and her husband] this weekend. There are other names in here: Margaret is the wife, Jack is the husband, Meg is One of Seven, Grady was Margaret and my grandmother’s second-oldest brother [Two of Nine], Sport [a nickname] was their brother Henry [Five of Nine], Steve is Jackie’s husband. Margaret and Jack have lived in the same house since roughly 1951.)

We left around 8 am and got there around 3 pm. Jackie has the drive down to a science, knows exactly the best places to stop, and so on. Shaughn was the only one with us, and it had been a year since he was there, but he knew the route too. I offered to drive but she didn’t take me up on it.

The house looks exactly the same as the last time I saw it twelve years ago! Jack & Margaret look a little the worse for wear, as you’d expect, but honestly not as bad as I had feared. Jack sits in a wheelchair because it’s easier to get in and out of than the sofas, but he walks around the house. He uses a walker Steve got him, but he moves fairly easily, and he gets in and out of the car and the house just fine. Margaret uses a cane outside the house and a walker sometimes in the house. Her knee seems to be really bothering her, but she didn’t seem to have any trouble bending to pick things up, and sitting/getting up.

Jackie took the shopping list and went to the grocery store, and Shaughn and I stayed to visit. The pictures from the wedding, and especially (surprisingly) the picture and stories of Jasper, were a big hit. Shaughn had been reading “Flags of Our Fathers” in the car as part of his summer reading for school (going into 9th grade) and he became a little obsessed with Iwo Jima. He got all kinds of stories from them about things that happened during the war. We also got lots of stories of the Butlers. Margaret kept saying that Jeff’s picture, especially the profile, looked just like her brother Grady, and Shaughn is just like Sport.

Jack doesn’t seem to be able to see much of anything; he moves around the house with familiar ease but I’m not sure he can actually SEE the house. He cups his hands over his ears to hear, and Jackie told me yesterday that she and Steve have tried to get him to consider hearing aids but he hates the idea.

But I was heartened to see that both of them are completely … I’m not sure what the word is, the opposite of dementia. The sense of humor is still there (I do so like to make people laugh and I was able to), the stories come out, they aren’t forgetting people’s names. Jackie and I agreed, after seeing it happen (Steve’s dad, two of my grandparents), that it is better for everyone that her mom and dad have the problems they do, as opposed to suffering through Alzheimer’s.

It was a couple of hours before Jackie got back from the supermarket. She apparently does this every time; the fridge upstairs and the freezer downstairs (Margaret can still do the basement stairs, apparently, though I didn’t see it happen) are stuffed with easy-to-make things (frozen pizza, steakumms, etc.) and baked goods. I could have quite happily lived there! Jackie forgot a few things that weren’t on the list and I offered to go out and get them. Shaughn went with me. I was planning to fill the car up with gas while I had it, but Jackie had beaten me to it. $2.57 a gallon in Parma. I wanted to fill the trunk!

We went out to dinner. Guess where. Did you guess Red Lobster? Because I saw that coming. Shaughn rolled his eyes, doesn’t like seafood, but came along gamely and ordered a steak! I had snow crab legs and a beer. No one would let me pay, but I tried. We sat and talked some more, and I was very tired so I went to bed barely later than Jack did, maybe 9 pm. I slept in what I remember being the playroom, Jackie in the guest room, and Shaughn on the sofa.

I was repeatedly invited to Mass but declined. When they got back around 11:30 on Sunday, Jackie and I went out to Subway and got lunch for everyone (this is also apparently part of the routine for these visits). Jack had asked her to get an anniversary card for Margaret (“something with a lot of words”), so we went to Walgreens on our way back with the sandwiches and read them *all* before finding one that seemed to fit. We had apple pie for dessert, and then Jackie went through the mail and the bills and whatnot with Margaret (again, routine).

We left around 1:30 on Sunday. Traffic was pretty bad on I-70. We were stuck at one point and went about a mile and a half in two hours. Shaughn was bummed because the other boys were going to go see the Simpsons movie last night and couldn’t wait long enough for him to get home. I was able to get online from the car and figure out where and what the delay was. It was close, so we didn’t bother trying to go around, and the traffic was fine the rest of the way.

We got back to Gaithersburg around 9, and I got home around 10.

In other news, Meg cut her hair, way up to about chin level. It’s so thick and wavy that it’s hard to tell how long it really is. She donated the rest of it to Locks of Love, the cancer-wig cause. We agreed as how those guys were probably pretty happy to see her hair walk in. It looks really cute short. I don’t think it’s been that short since she was very small.

Maybe this is more information than you wanted. Sorry. I’m glad I went, anyway.