The Two Lucys See Dr. T

Today was Lucy#1’s first doctor’s appointment since she moved to Oklahoma. I made the appointment last week. I expected a fuss when I told her, but her reaction was resigned and sad. It broke my heart to see her little face when she said, “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

My primary care doctor takes Medicare patients, so now the Two Lucys have the same doctor! This Lucy thinks that’s pretty cool, but I am not convinced the other Lucy shares my enthusiasm. J The best things about us both seeing Dr. T are that he seems to be a fine doctor as well as quite personable, and that his office and nursing staff are simply wonderful. There are no duds in Dr. T’s office!

The appointment went well. The nurse and Lucy#1 joked around during the taking of the vitals and the completing of the exam-room paperwork, and the nurse didn’t flinch at all when she asked Lucy#1 if she smokes and the reply was, “YES!!!” in a rather loud-and-proud voice. So far, so good.

I’m not sure whether Lucy#1 is as well pleased with him as I am, but I now like Dr. T even better than before! He spoke to Lucy#1 with so much respect and courtesy, introduced himself as “Jim T” rather than “Dr. T,” gave her a hand up onto the exam table (and didn’t drop her like a hot potato when she told him in quite testy manner that she did not need any help), then suggested she sit back in the chair after the exam as it would be so much more comfortable while she waited for the nurse to take her for blood work, and helped her down from the exam table. Not only that, but (unlike any of her Texas doctors whom I met) he told her everything he was doing (“I’m going to listen to your lungs now. I’ll lift up your shirt in the back just a little bit.”), and answered the questions I asked. What a guy!!

The results of the visit with Dr. T:

• Chest x-ray taken (re: COPD) 
• Blood work done
• Oxygen level measured; weight recorded; blood pressure checked and pronounced good (with medication)
• BP medication prescription refilled
• Application for handicap placard in my hand
• Bone density appointment pending
• We found out that a patient taking blood pressure meds can take Allegra 30mg for allergies. (Yay! Maybe, if she will take the Allegra, she can cut down on her coughing and cough drop consumption.)

The funniest parts of the visit with Dr. T:

• Lucy#1 would not / could not wait patiently for the lab and x-ray techs to be available. She marched up and down the hallways, no doubt going where she should not have gone. The staff is apparently used to such behavior; no one said a word, but just walked around her and smiled at her.
• Lucy#1 gave me the Hairy Eyeball when I offered information she failed to mention, such as “the doctors at Baylor said you have COPD” and “she sometimes seems to have difficulty getting a good breath.” And, whoo-baby, the Super Hairy Eyeball when I asked about getting a handicap hanger for the car!!
• When we got to the checkout window, the receptionist was away from her desk. Lucy#1 waited about five seconds for her to reappear, then tapped on the glass. No one else (i.e., neither of the two ladies on the phone at other desks) came to the check-out window immediately, so Lucy#1 banged on the glass. I asked, “Would you like to go out and smoke, and I’ll wait here and get you checked out?” I couldn’t help but add, “That’s probably why you are so crabby.” Lucy#1 replied, “That’s not why I’m crabby. I’m crabby because I hate having to wait.” She left. I laughed.

When I had checked her out and made her follow-up appointment, I found Lucy#1 standing by my car and smoking. Knowing she was probably not all that thrilled with me, I got behind her, wrapped my arms around her, rested my head on her shoulder and said, “You love me! You may not want to, but you do! You love me!” in a sing-songy voice. She said, “Well! You know that’s true.” I said, “I know, but I like to remind you of it when you’re probably mad at me.” She gave me the Hairy Eyeball again, then grinned, and got in the car.

Whew!

Oh, nuts! Peanuts, that is.

Lucy#1 likes peanut butter, and she has a PB&J for lunch at least once per week. She likes JIF peanut butter. (She also is trying to limit her salt intake, and has digestive issues that preclude her eating whole nuts. This may seem like TMI, but you really do need to know this. J)

Recently when I went alone to buy groceries, peanut butter for Lucy#1 was on the grocery list. That seemed easy enough to me – right until I arrived at the peanut-butter row. I have an oddball allergy to something related to the processing of peanuts and unless I’m willing to have big, itchy hives, I can eat only “natural” or “organic” peanut butter. I discovered Smuckers several years ago; that’s the brand I buy and I never even look at other peanut butters. Imagine my surprise when I saw how many varieties of JIF peanut butter were available! It took me a while to wade through the peanut-butter display, but I was eventually thrilled to see a lower-sodium JIF option. I chose a jar of creamy, lower-sodium JIF peanut butter, the label of which states it contains 90% peanuts.

Here is the conversation we had when Lucy#2 looked at the jar of JIF at home:

Lucy#1: “I can’t eat this! It’s 90% peanuts!”

Lucy#2: “Yes? Um, it’s peanut butter?”

Lucy#1: “No, I can’t eat peanuts. I can’t eat this. It’s 90% peanuts!!!”

Lucy#2: “If it didn’t contain 90% peanuts, it wouldn’t be peanut butter. The peanuts are what make it peanut butter.”

Lucy#1 (becoming pretty indignant): “But I can’t eat peanuts! You’ll have to get me something else!”

Lucy #2 (as the lightbulb f-i-n-a-l-l-y comes on): “No, no, it’s creamy peanut butter. It’s just like your other peanut butter, except with less salt. There are no chunks of peanuts, just smushed-up, creamy peanut butter.”

Lucy#1: “Oh, okay. I guess this will be all right then.”

 

This conversation is, of course, a small drop in the bucket of interesting conversations over here, but it was a real zinger for me at the time. I think I’m getting a little faster on the uptake, but I don’t know how quickly things will progress on either of our parts. I hope I can keep up.

Get out of the way, Lady!

I am an avid cross stitcher. Some folks have even gone so far as to say I am obsessed with cross stitching. Whatever!! I say those people need to get a hobby. J

Cross stitching (and other needlework) is relaxing, makes me calm, and gives me something else to do while I watch movies at home – and all while I create something pretty from a piece of plain fabric and some thread. As cross stitchers say, “Stitching is cheaper than therapy.”  In my eyes, you just can’t beat all that with a stick.

There is a wonderful cross stitch shop in Tulsa: The Silver Needle. (It’s located at 6022 S. Sheridan; if you have even the slightest interest in cross stitch, Hardanger, punch needle, etc., and are ever near Tulsa, go there!) The Silver Needle puts on various different events every year. Some of my friends are also avid cross stitchers, and we sometimes attend Silver Needle events.

Ann, Christine, Lynn, and I went to The Silver Needle last week to meet the designers from Just Another Button Company and The Cross-Eyed Cricket, two fabulous companies we cross stitchers love. The four of us arrived in Tulsa Wednesday afternoon and left Sunday afternoon. We enjoyed a lot of togetherness. We carpooled; we shared a table at the event and for all meals; we shared a hotel room. We are good friends and we had a blast!!

As one might imagine, we talk a lot while we are stitching. Since we don’t all see each other all the time, we have stories to share. Inevitably, we end up cannibalizing parts of each other’s stories and taking comments out of context to make each other laugh later. We laugh a LOT.

This trip, Ann told a story of her youngest son when he was two or three. He had learned (from his dad, of course) to say to errant drivers of other cars, “Get out of the way, Lady!” That was funny. Then one day when Ann had the child in the cart at the grocery store, they came upon a traffic jam in the aisle. Ann did not think it was funny when her adorable boy shouted, “Get out of the way, Lady!” to the other shoppers. Ann was horrified! She chastised her child. The other shoppers tried not to laugh. Everyone got out of the way.

"Get out of the way, Lady!” became our phrase of the week. We said it to each other (four women – one hotel room); we shouted it in unison to slow drivers in other cars. We laughed and laughed.

Last night when I went to the kitchen to fix supper, Lucy #1 went in there, too. She puttered around. I couldn’t get to the pots and pans. I left the kitchen. She left the kitchen. I went back in the kitchen. She went back in kitchen. I told her she was welcome to do whatever she wished in the kitchen, but the kitchen is too small for two people. I told her to let me know when she was done in there and then I would fix supper.

Then I sat down at the table and texted Ann.

Tonight when Lucy#1 joins me in the kitchen, I am going to tell her Ann’s story. Lucy#1 knows this child (who is now seven) and she will love this story. From then on, when Lucy#1 goes in the kitchen while I am trying to cook, I will say, “Get out of the way, Lady!”

 

I hope we will both laugh. I hope she will get out of the way.

(Below is a little heart I stitched for Lucy#1 while I was in Tulsa. Christine framed it for me, and I'll give it to Lucy#1 when I get home today! Yay!)

I also made her this little pin cushion, since she collects elephants. All I had to do was cut out the ears, and sew everything onto the pink felted ball. The quarter is there to show the elephant's size. It's not as well done as the heart, but hey! I'm a cross-stitcher, not a button-sewer. J

 

 

Are you okay?

I trip and fall; someone who saw me go down asks, “Are you okay?”

I have a screaming headache and it shows in my eyes; a coworker asks, “Are you okay?”

I am taking a bath (and Lucy#1 knew I was choosing a book to read in the tub). After 30 minutes, Lucy#1 bursts into the bathroom to say, “You have been in here for a long time. Are you okay?”

It’s Saturday, the only day I don’t have to be somewhere early. I told Lucy#1 last night that I plan to sleep late in the morning. It’s 8:30 a.m. Lucy#1 comes into my bedroom and says, “You’ve never slept this late before. Are you okay?”

The first two of those scenarios seem friendly to me. I appreciate that someone cares that I may be injured or ill.

The last two are my new normal. They do not seem friendly to me. I am growing to dislike the question, “Are you okay?”

A part of me understands Lucy#1’s “Are you okay?” queries are born of care, concern, love, etc. That part of me understands she means well and worries about me.

A part of me realizes Lucy#1 has some dementia. Her boundaries and filters have changed. Her logical thinking capacity has altered. That part of me realizes she isn’t connecting the book with a long, soaking bath; she doesn’t remember that 8:30 a.m. is not “late” to me on a Saturday morning.

A part of me thinks, “Why does it matter how late I sleep on Saturday, or how long I talk on the phone?” That part of me bangs my head against the wall when the bathroom door bursts open as I’m drying off after my shower because Lucy#1 no longer hears the water running and needs to know if I’m okay.

A part of me wants to be alone. That part wants to stay up until 2:00 a.m. to finish a good book, work on the Pampered Chef business in private, take a nap on the couch, talk on the phone, read posts on Facebook, and do many other things that are no longer possible without hearing, “Are you okay?” That part tries to give an explanation for what I’m doing, how long it will take, and why there is no need to worry.

Slowly, we are working toward a reasonable compromise. I am trying to remember to tell Lucy#1 how long I expect to be in the office or on the phone. She is trying to stop checking on me so often.

Neither of us is perfect.

Neither of us is really okay.

We are both doing the best we can.

Whoa, Amaretto!

No one knows where or when she got it, but Lucy#1 had a brand-new bottle of Amaretto in her liquor cabinet when she moved to Oklahoma. She’s not much of a drinker; she had never tried Amaretto and had not opened the bottle. I’m not much of a drinker, either, but I do like Amaretto. So, Lucy#2 having told Lucy#1 that Amaretto is an almond liqueur, we decided to crack open her bottle and give it a shot. Literally.

Unfortunately for class and style, neither of us owns liqueur glasses. Fortunately for us, we don’t worry much about being classy around here. Her wine glasses were not yet unpacked and mine are enormous; we opted to just use juice glasses for the taste test.

I poured a shot into one glass and before I could pour anything into the second glass, Lucy#1 knocked back the first glass in one gulp! 

There was a little bit of a gasp, a little bit of a cough, and her eyes got big for just a second. I said, “Whoa, you’re supposed to sip that stuff! It’s hot if you shoot it like that! Are you okay?”

She (eventually) replied, “I’m fine. I don’t want any more of that. You can have it.”

I’ve since suggested she give it a try in a more innocuous manner, say, as an ice cream topping. (Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate ice cream with a little Amaretto on top is A-okay!) She’s not interested.

We both learned something from The Amaretto Incident. I learned to give Lucy#1 a heads-up about anything tricky when she’s trying something new. She learned not to take a big drink of something she hasn’t tried before.

We have decided to stick to white wine when we feel wild and crazy in the evening. We have drunk a bottle and a half of wine in two and a half weeks. We sip together, relax, and chat. It works.

The Men in Red

I mentioned earlier that Lucy#1 has some worrying signs of dementia. The most noticeable is her inability to remember words or know what things are called. She recognizes the item. She knows what it is, what it is for, and how to use it. She just doesn’t know what to call it.

The first time I thought “uh-oh” was when she forgot “calendar.” She tried a couple other words, knew they were not right, and finally described it as “the thing I write birthdays on.”  

My favorite description of a forgotten word is “Men in Red.” One of the boxes she packed in preparation for moving up here was labeled as containing these three items: 

Blue Vase

Men in Red
Bed Eleph[a]nts

 

Blue Vase, check.

 

Bed Elephants, check (small stuffed toy elephants we’ve given her that she keeps on her bed).

 

Men in Red? Beats me.

So I asked her, “Hey, what are the Men in Red?”

Reply: “Those little men with red clothes. One of them has a wheelbarrow.”

Aahhhhh, gotcha! The Men in Red are garden gnomes.

My parents bought the gnomes when we lived in Germany (yep, I’m a military brat). How they’ve remained intact all these years (my dad retired from the Air Force in 1969) is a mystery, but survive they have done, and they are cute. (I am pretty sure they used to have a couple friends, but I guess those guys didn’t make it.) One gnome has a wheelbarrow and the other is reading a book. They were adorable on Lucy#1’s hearth. They are now adorable by our front patio.

I am frightened by the loss of “garden gnome,” but I just love the new descriptive name. Men in Red. Yup, I really, really like that.

I’ll probably never say “garden gnome” again.

 

Payback!

I grew up hearing stories of me as a baby, crawling into the kitchen while Lucy#1 washed the dishes, using her as my climbing post to stand up, then standing between her and the cabinet, holding on to her legs the entire time she was at the sink. When Daddy would make me stay out of the kitchen to give Mama a break, the story goes that I would sit in the doorway and cry until she came out of the kitchen. Then I would glom onto her again. Definitely a Mama’s baby all the way.

You know that old saw that I guess all parents say to all of their children at some point? You know, this one: “I hope when you grow up you have a kid just like you.” I thought I had avoided all that when I did not have children, but guess what!?! Lucy#1 is giving me the payback herself now! There’s some kind of beauty in that, isn’t there?

The kitchen in our house is very small. It’s a galley kitchen, narrow, with very little counter space. What counter space there is, is right by the sink, and that little counter space now houses (in addition to my knife blocks, for which I would not find another place) Lucy#1’s coffee maker and iced-tea maker. This leaves very little space for meal prep.

Whenever I am in the kitchen to prepare a meal, Lucy#1 comes into the kitchen, too. Sometimes she comes to set up her coffee maker for the next morning. Sometimes she comes to get some Coke or iced tea out of the refrigerator (which is directly across the narrow floor space from the working countertop). Sometimes she comes to wash the dishes I am dirtying as I prepare the meal. Why ever she is there, the kitchen is too small for two people, and she is running the risk of being accidentally stepped on, elbowed, pushed, bumped, etc. A couple times she has literally squeezed between the counter and me to do something. A couple times I have had to rinse and dry dishes she just washed before I could wash the vegetables we were having that night, or rinse out a measuring cup I needed to re-use.

It drives me nuts!

It makes me wish I could buy a house with a 200-square-foot kitchen!

Last night, supper required chopped onions and pressed garlic. Lucy #1 headed straight for the sink to wash the Food Chopper and Garlic Press the minute I dropped them into the sink (full of hot, soapy water).

I said, “Those need to soak, or else they need to go through the dishwasher. You cannot wash them right now.”

She thought for a moment, then said, “And besides that, I’m in your way when I wash the dishes while you are cooking, aren’t I?”

I said, “Yes, you are, and I’m afraid I’m going to cut your arm off one day when I lose control of a knife.” (I’m notorious for cutting myself and everything around me when I use my knives. They are extremely sharp and I am extremely clumsy.)

She pulled a chair around and sat in the doorway. For a little while.

Then she came in the kitchen for a glass, some ice, and a Coke.

Then she sat back on her chair in the doorway. And she didn’t even cry.

It's Not All Fun and Games . . . . .

My sister and I had been trying to get Lucy#1 to move in with me for about five years before she finally did so. We have had grave concerns about her health. She has COPD (she started smoking at age 19); osteoporosis (resulting in a hip that broke when she stood up one evening); poor eating habits (TV dinners, chocolate candy, Coke, iced tea, and coffee); and unsteadiness on her feet. She denies or pooh-poohs most of these issues, of course, and accuses us of conspiring against her if either of us mentions them.

In the last few months prior to her finally moving in here, we added dementia to our worry list. She sometimes cannot come up with words in conversation; she forgets a conversation from twenty (or fewer) minutes ago. These are not uncommon signs of aging. What concerns us is that she is now forgetting things that occurred in the more-distant past. She tells stories we’ve heard a million times, but now the participants at events have changed and/or the endings of the stories are different. She looks at photographs and doesn’t know who is pictured unless it’s a family member or very close friend. For probably ten years, our parents had a 14x16 photograph of my sister and me hanging in their living room. Over Mother’s Day weekend this year, while we were helping her sort and box things for her move up here, she saw that photograph and asked where I had gotten it because she had never seen it before. The very fact that she uses the word “conspiring” suggests the paranoia common in people with dementia.

Lucy#1’s mother had dementia. Serious dementia. She ultimately didn’t recognize anyone, and my understanding is that she basically starved to death because she forgot how to chew and swallow. My sister and I think Grandma’s symptoms were first obvious around the time she was 77 – Lucy#1’s current age.

If we dwelt on this, we would be scared to death.

So – we don’t dwell on it. But neither do we discount it. I’m preparing nutritious meals. I’ve gotten her to switch to decaf iced tea at home. I make sure she drinks at least one Ensure every day. I’m giving her a little more grace time, but soon I will take her to see a doctor here. We'll see what the doctor says and go from there.

You Love Me!

My friend Becky invited the Two Lucys to join her and her family to see Despicable Me 2. I was surprised when Lucy#1 accepted the invitation, as I know of her attending only two movies in the past 25+ years. We went, we enjoyed the movie, and we posed for a photo by the movie poster.

The movie started at 10:45, so it was 1:00 by the time we got back to the car. We decided to stop for a sandwich on the way home.

While we were eating, I started razzing Lucy#1 about her wild and crazy life since she has been living with me.

I said, “Admit it! You are having way more fun here than you did in Hawkins.”

She gave me a look. (You know the one.)

I said, “You like going all over the place with me.”

She gave me a look. (Not a good one.)

I said, “You love me!!”

She grinned and said, “That is very true.”

Butter is Fattening.

Something I have not mentioned is that Lucy#1 does not weigh 90 pounds. Depending on when you asked her, she weighed either 82 or 87, and those weights were before she recently and inadvertently lost five pounds. We left her scale in Texas and I haven’t been able to talk her into going to a doctor up here, so her true weight is unknown at the moment. However, she is very thin, pretty much skin and bones. I can wrap one arm almost completely around her. Even at her current height of probably just at or a little under five feet, she is way, way, way too thin. (That’s one of the reasons my sister and I were so determined to move her in with me.)

So, a few nights ago, I made a pasta dish. It is called Fiesta Chili Mac (although I billed it to her as “goulash,” something similar she made when we were growing up). It has ground beef, corn, bell pepper, pasta, and spices, and it’s quite tasty. I got some pseudo-French bread to go with it (pseudo because the crust was soft) since she likes bread, and I thought bread would give her a few extra calories. When I offered butter for the bread, she declined because “Butter is fattening.” What does one say to that? I said, “Yes, it is, but it tastes really good with this bread. I’m fat enough, but I’m having a little bit of butter. Are you sure you don’t want some?”

She ate butter on her bread.

I need to air up my bike tires and hit the bike trail. 

I'm as Full as a Tick on a Hound Dog.

Earlier this week, we Two Lucys met a Pampered Chef customer to deliver an order. We met the customer at a Braum’s at 5:30 p.m. Since we were 30 minutes from home and I had an appointment at 7:00, we decided to eat leisurely at the Braum’s instead of rushing to cook and eat at home.

We have figured out that the best way for us to eat out is to find something we both like and split it. Lucy#1 cannot finish a whole meal, and I am too full if I do, so sharing works out perfectly. At the Braum’s, we ordered a bacon cheeseburger with fries. (Yum. Braum's iced tea is very good, too.)

When the order came, Lucy#1 said she didn’t think she would be able to eat half a burger that size, so we cut her half in half. She ate burger and fries until she had one bite of her first quarter of the burger left, at which time she announced she wouldn’t be able to eat the other quarter. I urged her to eat at least half of the remaining piece. Nope. She was as full as could be, and simply could not force down even one more fry. She was stuffed. Full as a tick. Could not eat another bite.

About 30 seconds later came a question: “How much does an ice cream cone cost here?” I didn’t know, so she fished money out of her wallet and went to find out.

She came back to the table with a waffle cone overflowing with chocolate ice cream. Huge cone, at least two (huge) scoops of ice cream!

She ate it all.

The moral of this story is, no matter how full you are, you can always eat ice cream.

Amen!

It's Suppertime!

If you have ever seen the stage show, You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, you probably remember Snoopy singing about suppertime. I’m not sure I’m getting these words exactly right, but part of the song goes something like this:

Oh, it’s suppertime, sup-sup-sup suppertime, very best time of day.

It’s suppertime, and when suppertime comes, can supper be far away?

……

It’s suppertime, it’s supper, super-pepper-upper, supper, super-duper suppertime!

That’s always been one of my favorite songs from the show, and suppertime has never been more super-duper for me than now when Lucy #1 and I are living in the same house. I enjoy cooking, I enjoy eating, and it is way more fun to cook for someone and eat with someone than to go it alone. I enjoy eating supper with Lucy #1 while we talk about what happened today and “back in the day.”

I’ve gotten a few surprises and chuckles from supper lately, as well as from the preparation of supper.

Here’s the first big chuckle:

The first Monday night we lived together, I made Shredded Pork Tostadas. The pork is cooked with chipotle rub and tomato paste. The tostada shell is spread with refried black beans, topped with pork, and a lemony coleslaw goes on top. (It's a Pampered Chef recipe.) I thought it was fantastic! I ate two!! I posted a photo on Facebook! (I would post one here if I could figure out how.) Lucy #1 ate one, which was a lot of food for her as she is very tiny and says she doesn’t have much of an appetite.

The next night when I started into the kitchen, Lucy #1 said, “Why don’t we go out for supper tonight?” That was a pretty interesting question from a lady who doesn’t like to leave the house. We ended up ordering a pizza from Hideaway Pizza (best pizza in town!) that I went and picked up because …….. she didn’t want to leave the house.

So, did she not like the tostada, or did she want to go out for supper because I had done so well the night before and she didn't want me to have to cook two nights in a row? The jury is still out, but I will tell you this: she hasn't suggested we go out again. J

A Personality Transplant

My friends, family, and I are still trying to figure out how my personality transplant occurred. All of my young life, I was quiet, shy, and honestly almost incapable of talking to people I didn’t know. Seriously. When I was old enough to drive and Lucy #1 sent me to the grocery store for milk and bread, I would force my sister to accompany me so she could hand the money to the cashier. Going away to college helped me come out of my shell quite a bit, but even for most of my adult life I would not have dreamed of starting a conversation with a stranger or speaking in front of a group of people.

I think the transplant occurred around the time I turned 45. Or maybe 50. If you are reading this and have already passed 40, you know some odd things can happen to one right about age 40 – for example, I went to bed one night with reasonable near-sighted eyesight and woke up the next morning too far-sighted to read a book or do needlework unless I took out my contacts or used reading glasses. Based on what happened to me around 40 (sadly, the eyesight wasn’t the only thing to go!), I think the personality thing may have been a by-product of approaching and then turning 50.

Whatever the cause and however it happened, the fact is that at some point I became gregarious. I was perfectly willing to sing and act out a song for the residents of the assisted living community where I was the business manager, and please note this was true even though I cannot carry a tune in a bucket. I began to chat up strangers in grocery-store lines and elevators. I knew something was definitely up when circumstances dictated that I quit my full-time business manager job and I chose to sell Pampered Chef products rather than seeking another full-time office position. (And I LOVE selling Pampered Chef!)

I’ll admit to still being awkward in situations where small talk is the order of the day, but give me a reason to “perform” and I’m there! Need someone to stand up in front of the church and show off the artwork for the new member directory? I’ve done that! Need a co-teacher for a class? I’ve done that! Want someone to go to your home, cook a recipe, provide information on the tools used, and tell funny stories to you and all your friends? I do that all the time!

Who’d have thought it could happen?

Who are those Two Lucys?

Since the beginning of my unexpected (and possibly ongoing) personality transplant a few years ago, I have been toying with the idea of writing a blog, but only when my mother recently moved in with me did I decide to take the plunge. I’ve never blogged before -- actually never written nonfiction before -- so please bear with me while I learn about both how to blog and how to live companionably with an aging parent.

I named this blog “Two Lucys” because my mother and I share the name "Lucille." It's a family name. There are Lucilles on both sides of my family. Using "Lucy" to identify us is a good way to link my mom and me together, rope in some more of the family, and make me smile.

A little background on the two Lucys:

Lucy #1 (mom) is #1 in my book. She was a good mother to me, and even when I look back and think, “Oh, wow, I’m lucky to not be strapped to a psychiatrist’s couch,” I realize she did the best she knew how to do. She was born the fifth of six children during the Depression, and, as is true for pretty much everyone, her family life shaped the way her life would be lived.

Lucy #2 (daughter) is me. I am the oldest of two daughters. My sister is almost six years younger than I, so in some ways my sister and I are both the only child. I was the totally malleable test case; she was the determined go-getter. Our relationships with Lucy #1 are completely different even today when we are both in our 50s.

This blog will certainly talk a lot about my mother and me and how we are learning to live together for the first time in 37 years, but I expect I’ll run off down some rabbit trails about life in general, hobbies, friends, and whatever else pops into my head. I am an independent consultant for The Pampered Chef, so I think it’s fair to say you may also sometimes find out what we had for supper.