Everything I take for granted in my life--walking, eating, seeing, hearing, etc.--is an incredible struggle for Gramps. I'm thinking back to past 87-year-olds I've interacted with, and in most cases it was in the context of a nursing home. Now, there was my great-uncle Donald who just died at age 91, but he was an exception in a lot of ways. The only reason Gramps is even able to function at all on this trip is that he's unbelievably stubborn. A man in his condition with a feebler personality would probably be in a wheelchair. Or dead.
The food at his assisted care place is shit, so he doesn't usually eat it, preferring instead to hobble to the mall and eat steaks at Applebee's or burgers at this other place whose name escapes him (words have been escaping him lately), but where he says we'll have to go on Friday after I drive him back to Duluth. But anyway, it's a good plan, this eating out, as long as he's well enough to leave his room. He's had a bad cold for two months now, though, and he's down 15 pounds from where the doctor wants him. He looks it, too, all bone and grizzle, so I've been trying to fatten him up these past two days.
I also told him I'd buy him a fridge/freezer for his room so he can find some frozen meals he likes, something better than the cheap shit they serve in his cafeteria. A year is a long time when you're that old, so it's amazing to compare last year in Grand Marais to this year. They're identical trips, from where we're staying to days of the week we're here to restaurants, but in every single other way it's completely different. Who knows about next year. Hell, I asked him what he wants to do tomorrow, and he said he'd have to see. He's having fun, though. The sunshine. The lake. The non-shitty food. The adventure of it all. I'm having fun, too, for the exact same reasons.
