The dinner this evening was a ticketed affair - only four tickets per resident, and a limited number of residents allowed. I believe it was based on a sign-up system; first come first served. Mom picked up the tickets before she left on vacation so that we could go. It was a pleasant affair. Dinner was served by the staff of the facility and volunteers. My first impression is that the staff is a caring and good-natured group of people. That's reassuring.
I could see that Grandma was happy that we came. I was struck by how frail she is becoming. Her hearing seemed worse than the last time I saw her. On reflection, there was a lot of background noise, which probably was a big part of the problem. At one point my youngest daughter Kiran, who is almost six, said to me, "How can you talk to Great Grandma?" What she meant was that Grandma didn't seem to be hearing anything she said and would start to talk over top of her. I told her to speak loudly and be a clear as she could.
We enjoyed the meal and the visit. Well, I did. The girls were reasonably well-behaved and, to be fair, did try to engage Great Grandma in some conversation and to tell her about what is going on in their lives. Grandma recited several brief memories, as she usually does. I like these glimpses into what her life was like when she was a farm girl in Saskatchewan or a farm wife in Alberta. Some of the stories were entertaining for the girls. There was a definite Christmas theme to the remembrances tonight. Probably the one they liked best was about how Grandma used to make ice cream in a ten gallon syrup pail:
"The syrup used to come in ten gallon pails. It was Rogers syrup and thick. So thick you couldn't put a spoon into it. Not watery like the syrup today. You can just pour it out! I would take an empty ten-gallon pail and fill it with fresh milk and sugar and vanilla and mix it all together. Then I would set it outside in the cold to freeze. It was colder back then, not like it is now. You would have to stir it every so often so the frozen parts would mix in. You scrape the outside with a spoon and mix it all in to the middle. This would go on for a long time and eventually it would be solid and frozen. Was it ever good!"Much of this detail was prompted by questions from me or the girls. The other story that stood out for me, and also was very amusing for Kavita, was about a time that two of her cousins, two boys, tried to scare her. The story was introduced with the fact that her one cousin, who lived down the road, used to cut her hair. Apparently he and another cousin were hiding in the trees that lined to drive to Grandma's house late one night and were making "all sorts of noises" to try and scare her. She wasn't having any of it though and loudly told them that they might as well give it up and come out where she could see them. I had an image of her as a young girl of ten or eleven indignantly telling off the two boys. I don't know what she looked like then. I'm not sure that I've ever seen any pictures of her as a child, but I imagined a skinny little dark-haired girl.
Grandma told me that on Friday nights they play wist. She also confied that some of the residents don't really know how to play the game properly which really disrupts the flow of the game. I don't remember ever playing cards with Grandma. I used to play cribbage with Grandad Hofforth, but I really don't think we played cards other than that. I told her that I will come and join in on a wist night soon.
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