Keeping the Brain Busy

Keeping the brain busy is a virtue

Except at five am on Sunday morning.  You'd rather be sleeping and finishing a nice night's rest. Instead, a busy brain keeps you tossing and turning, until you get up, make some instant grits and instant coffee, and write an entry in your journal.

In the old folks home, many residents have trouble finding things to do.  An activity director presents them with lots of little projects, like making baskets of construction paper, building houses out of cookies, doing word search puzzles, or coloring with paints and crayons.  Those are suitable for folks who forget which apartment they live in, or who need help finding the dining room three times a day.

I, however, measure the height of the flag pole, the distance around the garden path, keep a list of residents by room number, track who sits where in the dining room, write a journal and post it on AOL, photograph the roses' growth, and do art work in the computer's Paint program.  I try to keep my brain busy.

But a busy brain is a restless one, and, Lord, do I need rest.  Especially early mornings.  Especially early Sunday morning.

Oh, dear, another Sunday morning, and breakfast is a couple hours away.  What will Sunday morning breakfast be like THIS week?  It is better to go the dining room with GOOD expectations.  My USUAL expectations become self-fulfilling prophesies.  Expect bad service and you will get it.  I must force myself to look forward to the biscuits and gravy, sausage, bacon, hash browns, and scrambled eggs.  Today they will be hot, spicy, toasty brown, and peppered to perfection.

Uh-huh.  Stay tuned.

Later: Well, they weren't, but today I didn't let it bother me.  That's progress.

Tags: Sunday morning breakfast, life in the old folks home, geriatrics, self-fulfilling prophesies