Up-to-date in the Sunshine State.

Thank you all for your good wishes and healing thoughts!  Life here is slower, and maybe gentler, than back home, and so we waited three hours yesterday for Mom's primary doctor to see her.  The slower, gentler doc was alarmed by some things we told her, and then we spent five hours again in the ER so that slow, gentle healthcare providers could monitor and evaluate her.  I can't bust on these people;  their good work Monday morning stabilizing her in their ER absolutely saved her life.  They wanted to put her in a helicopter to Jacksonville, but weather was too bad, so they loaded her into an ambulance with 75 miles of screaming sirens.  [*falls over*]

She seems to be improving.  Her appetite is stronger.  She walks around, and got dressed today.  She doesn't tell me how to do the housework, however, so there is a long road of recovery ahead. Today I did something called "dusting."  I've seen it on TV, and apparently I did it right because everything is much dustier now.

This area doesn't get cell reception or iPad signal, and the landline is full of static.  Internet connection is dial-up, which means that as fast as I can chisel a message into a rock, run to the mule, and deliver it personally to each of your screens, I can communicate with just that kind of late-19th-century speed.

Still, I'm sitting with the window open and a warm breeze carries in birdsongs while I type and drink my Coke on the rocks.  Life could be worse in three or four ways.

Annie isn't telling you, but she is powering through on her own up there.  List?  Check.  List?  Check.  Check, check, check.  We think that as soon as Mom and her husband have the routine of medication in hand, I'll fly back and we'll head south together.  Her husband drives, but doesn't hear, so right now she needs someone to ask questions, remember the answers, remind her of the answers, explain the answers, or just make up answers.  And drive.  She doesn't have dementia, but it's all been a big shock and she's not completely tuned back in.

While I was running errands today, I got the greatest shot!  The problem is that I didn't bring my picture-uploading-cable.  So, imagine this:  there's this extravagantly run-down building, see, and no roof, see, and it's all grown up, see, and there's this sign ...

I guess I'll wait for the picture.  You will, too.