It takes a little time

It's hot out. And the bugs are bad.

We have retreated into the house and King has, for the second time in three years, turned on the air. It's not working correctly, but if we don't move around a whole lot, it's relatively cool.

Our first morning since Mom's arrival at our house she slept until 9:30 a.m. Mom is usually an early riser, so yes, I went into her room to check to see if she was breathing. When she finally got up she came out dressed in wool slacks, a turtle neck sweater and a sweatshirt.

"Too hot Mom. You need to wear something a little cooler."

Of course she doesn't understand what I am telling her so I helped her choose some capris and a knit top and we were good to go. The week was off to a great start.

We are slowly adjusting and getting into a routine. We go out for coffee and get the mail each morning and, other than riding around in the golf cart changing sprinklers, we don't venture out into the heat very often. One can work up quite a sweat just walking out the door, add waving arms in the air to shoo away the meat-eating deer flies and it's understandable why we don't go out often. But Mom doesn't get it.

She asks daily, "So, what are we going to do today?" And telling her not a whole lot of anything until the weather turns cooler doesn't really mean anything to her.

So we do what we can to keep busy without expending much energy.

We've picked the last of the peas and shelled them. I wanted to make a peas and peanut dish that Clarence Tuma in Mount Pleasant made famous. His recipe was supposedly secret, but I've seen several variations of it online and in church cookbooks. The dish calls for raw peanuts, which are easy to find in Mount Pleasant. If it's not the holiday season they are not so easily found in southwest Michigan. I settled for Peas and Macadamia nuts. Expensive but pretty good.

That was one day. We learn to spread things out so as not to cause too much excitement.

We drive around looking at the beach. She sleeps. King watches golf. I play mindless games on Facebook.

I know Mom isn't entirely with us as she is still looking for the woman with the two little girls. We still have no idea who this woman is, but I've quit trying to figure it out. Her obsession has turned to concern that the woman is angry with her and does she know where Mom is? I keep telling her the woman is happy she is with me and is not mad. The conversation is repeated at least six times a day.

We will get there . . . it's just going to take a little time.