The Chinese Warrens

Tuesday, April 16, 2013 Dementia Dinner "You know, I'm the only one using this ketchup. Don't you guys need any?" my grandfather said, dipping a piece of pork loin in the little Pyrex dish filled with the familiar tangy red sauce. Ketchup in the upper left "No, the rest of us don't need any ketchup," my mother replied. "Maybe this is why they always look at me weird at restaurants when I ask for it and then they don't have any," my grandfather sighed, his brows furrowed. "Well, I put it out for the sausage that I made earlier," my mother explained, referring to the appetizer she put out on the table to keep my grandparents occupied while she finished cooking. "And then you guys ate it all." My mother held her hands out to show about a foot in length. "I made this much sausage and they ate all of it," she said to Afram and me. My grandparents' eyes got large and then they laughed....

"Don't worry so much; they haven't bathed in this long.  What's the worst thing if they don't?" Afram asked me on our way home from the gym yesterday when I was telling him about how I couldn't stop thinking about trying to get my grandparents to bathe while I was on the treadmill. "I don't know... I guess you're right," I sighed. "I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm just trying to get you to think logically about it." "Yeah, I agree.  They're fine not bathing..." "Baby steps.  If they don't agree to bathe, you can at least do some laundry like you said," he replied, patting my leg. I felt better.  If it really upset my grandmother, it probably would be fine if at least I could just trick them into some clean clothes. *                *                *                *               ...

I was looking over my blog and realizing I haven't written since August of last year.  My grandparents really don't say much anymore, and there seems to only be a few stories left that they can remember. I woke up around midnight last night and couldn't fall back to sleep for a couple of hours. It would be easy to blame the fact that we took a red-eye back from our Kauai honeymoon yesterday morning, came back and napped for a few hours until around noon, but it was my mind that was keeping me awake. We arrived back on a Tuesday, and my mom hosted our weekly Dementia Dinner, which is now my tongue-in-cheek name for dinners with my grandparents. My mother was kind enough to cook Chinese dishes for us, and my grandparents were half an hour late. I called them at 3p to tell them that dinner was at 5p - my mom was trying to be considerate of us since we were exhausted from our trip. She called them again at 4:55p and they hadn't left the house yet and still h...