Thursday - posted Friday

Cecil was back at the Kiwanis' meeting this morning, Thursday.  He was in a wheelchair prior to his severe stroke, so physically he appears normal.  He is able to recognise and greet people too, but sadly that is where normality ends because he is so intellectually impaired he doesn't understand what people are saying, and he is not coherent enough for them to understand him.  It is very sad but one has to admire his determination to carry on as normal.  Louise is now taking him to all the meetings he used to go to.

The Kiwanis speaker who was booked cancelled at the last minute, but Louise managed to find a speaker at the last minute.   She had taken Cecil to his Masonic Lodge meeting, and while there asked someone to talk to Kiwanis about their vision testing programme; the Masons have bought special cameras which test the vision of all the elementary school children in Shawnee.

Are Freemasons less secretive than they were, or are they just more open in America?  I know in Britain their activities are all very shrouded in secrecy, but here they are out and about in the community doing good works.

After Kiwanis I put the finishing touches to some of my cakes, frosting and decorating, then was off to the bake sale at the posh retirement home.  I think I heard someone say it cost $4000 a month to live there.  I knew I couldn't afford it.   I haven't heard yet how we did but I'm sure we didn't make as much as we do on the first Tuesday at the Senior Centre where there are more people.

My contributions are in the foreground.  Triple chocolate chip muffins (with white, dark and milk chocolate chips) apple pie cakes, lemon crunch, chocolate orange, and ginger cakes.

The firemen are having lunch in the background.  Unfortunately they were called away before they could buy any cakes.    I love the way the residents can display a photograph on a table to share with others.  It is these little touches that set this place apart from other assisted living places in Shawnee.

Pauline and Mary, two Kiwani members who were helping.  Mary also volunteers in the hospital gift shop, Pauline is treasurer of the local AARP.  In this small town one has a sense that everyone is swimming around in a very small pool.   They are outside the newly dedicated Veterans' Lounge.  I had a look round all the memorabilia on the walls, it was very interesting.

In the news......the Ukraine of course.

 

My understanding is that Ukraine want to join the EU, while the former KGB thug, President Putin, is trying to drag them back into the former Soviet Union.  Would someone politically savvy explain to me why we in the west seem to be backing Russia, why the Olympic Games are being held there?



 

A minor news item.............Because of the bad weather on the east coast the state of New Jersey has run out of salt to put on the roads (they've resorted to pickle juice) whereas up in Maine, a port on the Canadian border, they have plenty but they can't send it down the coast to NJ because the crazy laws here won't allow a US ship to travel from one port to another.

 

Another bit of trivia.  Emmanuel hands out about 50 packed lunches a day to the homeless and each month Fr Bill requests certain items for them.  This month it is bottled water and apple sauce.  Apple sauce!!   You can imagine how that mystifies me.  Are the homeless really lacking apple sauce on their pork chops???