10.18.2007

Conversations with the Oldies

I have been spending several days a week at work, rather than the two days a week that I signed up for. At any other job, I would have been a little irritated about this, but at this one, there is never a dull moment.

On Wednesday afternoons, after Bingo, we have our little "Betty Crocker Social" where we get ingredients from the kitchen and we have one of the residents read the directions to the recipe and we make some sort of snack. Yesterday, we made pumpkin cookies with chocolate chips. We invited the more lucid Alzheimers patients in because, to be honest, they crack us up. There are two of them who are together all the time and just listening to the conversations they have makes me so happy. It helps that they laugh at themselves constantly for not remembering why they are carrying empty purses around with them all day or having to ask me my name 7 times. Anyway, we invited them in to help with the cookies and we let everyone take turns adding ingredients and stirring the batter. At one point, there was a conversation that almost put me on the floor.

My coworker was trying to engage the Alzeimers patients with conversations to jog their memories about baking when they were kids or when they had children and the conversation went like this.

Coworker to Alzheimers patient #1 (Ms. M) : Did you ever bake when your kids were small?

Ms. M: No. (she scratches her head quizzically and giggles).

Coworker: You didn't?

Ms. M : Well, I guess I MUST have!

Coworker: What did you bake?

Ms. M: Well...I don't know...(she thinks back)...what the heck DID I bake?

Alzheimer's patient #2 (Ms. P): (Very seriously) Children?

This is when I spit my Diet Coke across the room and laughed hysterically for five minutes straight.

Ms. P: Your face is RED, honey! (Laughing.)

Me: I know! I didn't realize that anyone baked children in real life!

Coworker to Ms. P: At what temperature do you bake these children? About 350?

Ms. P: About 101.

Coworker: Oh! So it is a long, slooooooowwww bake!



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Now playing: Ray LaMontagne - Three More Days
via FoxyTunes

3 comments:

nadthemayor said...

i just wet the couch... thank you i needed some of that (yes baked children).

spaceface01 said...

Hee hee...I do what I can...

Dani said...

I like the new look!