A little of this...a little of that.

Nothing earth-shattering today. Just a couple thoughts on Grandpa. Dementia does a funny thing to Grandpa's mind. The obvious is the forgetfulness. Something else that happens, though, is obsessing. He gets a thought/event/idea in his mind and he can't move beyond it until it is resolved. He has two main obsessions right now. The first is new shoes. He needs some new shoes, but this is a MAJOR ordeal and undertaking. I haven't had the time or energy to go yet. It involves finding a babysitter, wandering the aisles to find the EXACT replica of the shoes he currently wears, spending a lot of time on the floor putting shoes on and arguing that his size 9 1/2 foot does not need a size 12 shoe even if the right size feels tight at first...blah, blah blah. The point is I haven't taken him. So I don't really have the right to be irritated that he asks me at least five times a day if I know he needs new shoes, when we might get new shoes, if there will be time to go shoe shopping, when we'll get shoes, if I can tell him the schedule and timeline for getting some shoes...you get the idea. I just need to break down and take the man shoe shopping! His other obsession is remembering all the homes in which he has lived, their addresses, and the dates he lived there. And by "remembering", I mean going through all his old tax records and writing the year, address, and details about the year on a yellow legal pad. Fascinating, right? Too bad his writing is completely illegible.