Water Ballet - Oil on Canvas - 11x14 inches

Finally finished the painting today in open studio. As usual I had a great time painting and hanging out with my friends. There were only four of us today. 

After painting Helena walked down to meet me through the chaos of sidewalk changes that have caused one of the main streets in Bellingham to be almost impassible. I waited at the corner for her so she could see me and I could be sure she made it past all the equipment. She did and we took off to visit Arvin.

When we got there we found him sitting in a wheelchair enjoying the company of other residents. We sat with him and talked. Today was a day of confused speech for him. He had a lot to say but honestly neither Helena or I could quite figure out what he was talking about. I took the approach of just saying, uh huh, yes, oh I see, what happened then, etc. That seemed to work well even though we never did figure out what he was trying to tell us. Luckily he seemed calm and not frustrated or upset by our conversation. 

I kept wondering where the wheelchair came from. Nobody seemed to know. I took some classical CDs with me so after dinner we went to his room and listened to a wonderful guitar suite by Albeniz played by John Williams. Arvin loved it. And I figured out where the chair came from. I think it belongs to his new roommate. I know he has a chair and a walker and both were missing from the room. It looks to me like it might be time for us to get one for Arvin. I'm waiting until I find out if his balance issues are due to his Alzheimer's or perhaps to some other health issue. That happened once before so I asked the nurses to check and they plan to do that as soon as they can.

I took Helena home and drove home. the kitties were happy to see me arrive because it was past their dinner time. I took this photo of my painting after bringing in all my painting stuff. It was a good day even though it is hard to see Arvin losing ground so quickly these days. It helps a lot that I trust the people where he is to care for him and give him as much help and care as he needs. That makes a big difference to me.

Oh and... this really is a Steller's Jay. I think somebody switched my brain to "off" yesterday. Not only did I call the flicker a jay, I went down the driveway a second time to get the newspaper, forgetting that I had already gotten it the first time. I trust that my cognitive weirdness is caused by stress. But it feels strange to be so absent minded.