Sunday, November 15, 2009
Correspondence File
My 98-year old grandmother has been feeling a bit under the weather lately, which has meant that my sister and I have had to up our entertainment value for her. We started out by calling her in the nursing home on my mother's cell phone, but that quickly devolved into a lot of shouting, as apparently her neighbor's oxygen machine is very loud. So we decided to get all old fashioned by writing letters, which we then scanned and emailed to my mother. These were a delightful hodgepodge of things older people enjoy, including comments on the weather, scandalous overuse of the word "fun," and occasional synopses of The Young & The Restless. Later, my sister suggested that we add a visual component, primarily I think so she could force me to ask my secretary to take pictures of me in my office. Then last Wednesday we got really adventurous and brought out the video camera for a bravura performance of some unidirectional small talk. I don't advise anyone to ever watch footage of him- or herself talking to an older person; the effect is somewhere between Forrest Gump and Rain Man.
Anyway, by all accounts grandmother is starting to feel better, but if you've got any extra good thoughts (or prayers, if you're into that sort of thing) to send her way, I'd appreciate it. She may have survived me accidentally dropping her on her front lawn two Christmas Eves ago, but she's not the Terminator. For one thing, the Terminator has that hilarious accent.
My 98-year old grandmother has been feeling a bit under the weather lately, which has meant that my sister and I have had to up our entertainment value for her. We started out by calling her in the nursing home on my mother's cell phone, but that quickly devolved into a lot of shouting, as apparently her neighbor's oxygen machine is very loud. So we decided to get all old fashioned by writing letters, which we then scanned and emailed to my mother. These were a delightful hodgepodge of things older people enjoy, including comments on the weather, scandalous overuse of the word "fun," and occasional synopses of The Young & The Restless. Later, my sister suggested that we add a visual component, primarily I think so she could force me to ask my secretary to take pictures of me in my office. Then last Wednesday we got really adventurous and brought out the video camera for a bravura performance of some unidirectional small talk. I don't advise anyone to ever watch footage of him- or herself talking to an older person; the effect is somewhere between Forrest Gump and Rain Man.
Anyway, by all accounts grandmother is starting to feel better, but if you've got any extra good thoughts (or prayers, if you're into that sort of thing) to send her way, I'd appreciate it. She may have survived me accidentally dropping her on her front lawn two Christmas Eves ago, but she's not the Terminator. For one thing, the Terminator has that hilarious accent.
