Scattered Updates … and Actual News

Friday, May 21, 2010

I’ve settled into a happy routine of showing up for Bingo early so I can spend some time just talking to people before the frenzy of the game sets in. Tonight I caught Mike just before naptime and learned that not only did he get his wheelchair back, but they changed the battery and a circuit breaker, so now he could pop some serious wheelies if he wanted to. (I kind of think he wants to.)

I left Mike to sleep and found Ken in the Activity Center, where he was reading Womans Day. I never realized how many pharmaceutical ads were in Womans Day, but we amused ourselves for quite some time trying to pronounce all those new must-have medicines (our favorite: oscillococcium).

Other Bingo tidbits:

1. Ray McDade reported that he hasn’t had a chance to try his new cribbage tees yet, because his card-playing partner is "very elusive." Ray had a good Bingo night. He plucked the coveted strawberry jam from the prize cart, then later snatched the perfect accessory: creamy peanut butter.
2. Gary updated me on the rest of his day at the Muckleshoot Casino, where we’d met on Tuesday. Before I had left the casino, I had given Gary a "lucky penny" I’d found by the ticket-redemption machine. The first thing he said tonight was: "Remind me to give you back that damn penny." I guess it wasn’t so lucky: Not only did Gary lose, but the lady who’d hijacked his lucky machine won $600 right in front of him. Ouch.
3. We had a new prize-cart pusher: Charles, the bus driver from the Recreation Department. We shook hands, and Wesley chimed in: "Sandy is a very nice lady." I laughed out loud, because the past few Bingo games, Wesley has called me "sir" three times. "Thanks for not calling me a gentleman," I told him.
4. I blushed on two separate occasions tonight. The first, I was talking to Gary, Dorothy and Mac about the gambling trip. I told Dorothy and Mac I was sorry I hadn’t seen them there. Gary said maybe they just hadn’t recognized me, since I was doubling as a cocktail waitress. "Oh," said Dorothy. "Were you the one in the fishnet stockings?" Gary said, "Yes, and that’s all she had on." Well. I certainly didn’t expect that, but everyone thought it was hysterical, so I chuckled through my flush.
      The next time, Stan called me over and said he had a question. "How many of these games do I have to win before I win you for life?" he asked. Hmm. Didn’t expect that, either. "Four-hundred and eighty," I told him. By the end of the night, he had figured out that would take him six months, and since he had already won four games plus a blackout, he was partway there. Uh-oh.
5. Tiny, but important, update: They got a new microphone for Bingo. And it works.
6. Seemingly tiny, but really HUGE, update: David has met my son at least half a dozen times. Each time, he’s had trouble hearing (and remembering) his name. A couple Bingos ago, he’d asked me again, and he wrote it down. "I’m writing it on the boys’ names page," David told me. "So I don’t get it confused with the girls’ names." Last Sunday, when my son came to the Soldiers Home with me, I reintroduced them, and David got my son’s name right on the first try. We thought that was real progress. Tonight, though, David out of nowhere asked: "Where’s your son, Carson?" I seriously almost cried. "You remembered!!," I squealed like an idiot, all bouncy and beaming. David was nonchalant, but grinning hugely: "Did you pack him up and kick him out?" he asked.
   7. Speaking of packing up: The other Big News is happy and sad all at once. Wesley is leaving the Soldiers Home. He’s moving back to San Diego, where his family lives. He is excited, and I am excited for him, but I will really, really miss his sweet vitality. "I don’t belong here," Wesley said. But for a time, while he grew stronger and literally got his legs under him, the Soldiers Home was exactly where he needed to be. And the Soldiers Home needed him, too.