Lots of Visitors Today!

Mom had a lot of visitors today. Curtis said Nurse Staci stopped by this morning at 7:30 (before she started her shift at the ATC). Then Aunty Judy came by on her way back from a service in town. Later Curtis & Lori's neighbor Anita dropped by with a freshly baked pie! And Lori brought her parents by for a visit. Everyone was still there when I arrived. (Yes, just call me Captain Obvious; would not have been able to get the photo if they weren't there!)

L, front to back: Lori & Aunty Judy; R, front to back: Anita, Mrs. Nomura, & Mr. Nomura. Curtis & I stayed outside.

I came a bit later today, 4 pm. I was finishing handing out fliers about Momo to the last 2&1/2 blocks or so in the 1 block radius from the house. But I had problems with the printer last night, the black cartridge ran out after 4 pages; I picked one up this morning as soon as Office Max opened so I could make 96 more fliers. But after about 10 pages the color cartridge began to run out! Auwe! Fortunately I had bought the set of black & color cartridges so I didn't have to run back to Office Max. I got 86 fliers out of that color cartridge but the last 3 were streaky. All total, it took me 3 hours to hand out 100 fliers and I still needed 4 more to finish the final block that I was on. (The app on my phone says I walked 5.4 miles today.) I had not realized how dense the residences were in our area. In the block bounded by 7th Avenue, Maunaloa, 8th Avenue, & Kilauea I found 58 residences and there still might be a couple of units that I missed. That's residences, not people, and these are single family residences not apartments. According to census data, the average household size in this tract is 3.1, so that would mean there are about 180 people on that block; that's a lot of people that might see Momo! (All total I have handed out 200 fliers, that means there are potentially 620 people on the lookout for Momo.)

Screen shot of Google Maps

As I was walking around the neighborhood I saw a pair of mejiros eating something from the aloe flowers at one woman's house. She said they are there whenever there are flowers. She removes the flower stalks after they are totally dry so the mejiros can feed on whatever it is they are eating.

Mejiros (Zosterops japonicus) on Aloe barbadensis flowers.

As I was walking around I met a couple of people who had a connection to us. It was interesting to  hear what they remembered. Norma remembers playing with Mom & Dad's dog Rina, who passed away about 1980. (Norma also has a light orange cat that has a similar body type to Momo, as well as a tortoiseshell cat.) Her neighbor Elizabeth remembers Curtis' yellow mustang with the black top that he had about 1975. Here's the flier that I was handing out to people.

After nearly 3 hours of walking around the neighborhood looking for Momo I arrived at the Kaiser Moanalua facility. As I was walking from the parking garage elevator to the hospital entrance I looked over to see which cats were in the construction area by the building and saw a Momo look alike! Usually there is a white cat with small black patches and sometimes a black & white tuxedo cat is also there; this is the 1st time I have seen Momo's twin.

Momo's doppelganger.

After leaving the hospital and dropping Aunty Judy off, Curtis went to drop off food for Dad and got a call from Isaac who thought he saw Momo! Isaac said he was driving along, about 4 blocks from our house, and saw an orange cat crossing the road. So Curtis went out to look for the cat but could not find it. I am expecting more calls since 2 other people that I talked to today said that they had seen orange cats near their house in the last 3 weeks.

The cafeteria called Mom about 5:45 to see if she wanted to order dinner. I showed her the menu & she decided she wanted the fish entree with steamed vegetables, miso soup, gelatin, & green tea. But 45 minutes later when everything arrived, she ate one bite of the salmon & said she wasn't hungry. She only ate the miso soup, gelatin, and green tea. I ended up eating the salmon & vegetables.

L to R: grilled salmon with rice & steamed vegetables, miso soup, & gelatin.

The nice thing about dementia is that everything is new! Tonight Mom watched the 48 Hours episode "Stalked". It was aired twice, one immediately after the other. And she watched them both. The 2nd time she reacted as if she had not seen it before. We can leave the TV on one station and she is content.

Happy 1st Anniversary to this blog! I started this blog one year ago at the request of CJ. Thanks, Chris! I have really been enjoying putting things together for this blog.

Happy Birthday to Paul, Gregory, & cousin Justine! Happy Chocolate Covered Nut Day and Clam Chowder Day! Get ready to celebrate Pistachio Day and Tell a Fairy Tale Day tomorrow.