BITTERSWEET.........

My last four days have been spent with my two sisters. Marie comes into town to visit and stay with Shelly for awhile. We spend time shopping and eating salmon whenever possible....yummy.

We found a really wonderful store called Tai Pan Imports. We could spend hours in there. It's like being in a huge garden with so many seperate spaces and places to explore. Marie bought big bouquets of silk flowers to take home. I lusted after all the clocks for sale and the paintings on the walls, and the picture frames. Ahhh, bliss. Marie found wheelchairs for both Shelly and me to ride in. I'm supposed to be as bad off healthwise as Shelly is. I think it helps her feel better to think so. Sometimes I just need to sit down for a minute. For awhile Marie gave us turns being pushed in the chairs. Then we took off on our own. I must say, I think it did me some good, wheeling myself around...quite an upper body workout. Of course we had to go get hot dogs after.

Khrys and I drove out the next day to settle The Great Outhouse Debate. They were having an argument about what that old outhouse in Wyoming looked like. How they ever found this for discussion is the question of the day. But the debate was settled...by me...when I described what I remembered and it coincided with Marie's memory. TeeHee. Shelly was outraged. She is supposed to know/remember Everything.

But the difficult part of all this is: My favorite oldest sister is getting old. There's no way to say that favorably. She can't walk very well and has a bad time getting up and down stairs, in and out of chairs, or in and out of cars. It's just not fun for her anymore. But she remains spunky and feisty nonetheless. She has fallen at home several times in the last few months. She had to 'bumwalk' down the hall from her bedroom to her couch so she could get herself up again last week. It's funny but scary. As Marie and I are coming to realize the perimeters of aging and all the complexities of just trying to help out, I hope we can maintain our sense of humor. This dear lady gets grumpier by the day. There is a lot of anger surfacing from her life. I hope I don't get angry when I get old. Obviously, it's old issues coming to light. Mama did the same thing, although in a much milder way. I think I'll try to get my anger out of the way long before it becomes troublesome to other people. Hmmm, how do you do that?

Anyway, it was good to spend time with them. It was very good to know that my little sister and I are in the same corner in this situation. There's really not much we can do, but it's hard to do nothing. I should go see Shelly once or twice a week. That's an hour drive each way. Marie lives out of state....a good four hours drive each way. It becomes a problem,so this is just worrying for me...this posting a blog where what I'm struggling to express or conclude just doesn't quite come forth. I don't know why I'm typing this.....maybe that doesn't matter. It's an affirmation, or determination, or something. I wanted to say, what a good time we had, but it looks like now, you can't have one without the other. That's sad.