Gil and Sandy Mercier offered a bolt-hole in France.  Such wonderful friends we have, and France did look good to me.  Rod and Claude Anderson offered Montreal and Florida, too.  But, Elvon is not very mobile, so none of these is an option for him.  We are making do pretty well in the Carmel Highlands, at the lovely home of Candy and Ernie Scalberg.  I’ll be happy to get back to assisted living, though.

Ulla and John Brown made a more practical offer.  They have a house in Palm Desert, to which they have retreated, as their Napa house hurned to the ground.  As of yesterday, when I wrote this, we were hoping for Belmont Village in Albany, near Berkeley, where we would get all the services we have at the Lodge.  It looks like we will be moving back to the Lodge around the middle of November.

What some of you may not understand is that Elvon is post-Polio and has Alzheimers’, which his doctor rates as “severe dementia”.  His left leg is essentially useless, and he cannot always command the other one.  He does not consistently understand that you have to push down on a walker.  Sometimes he tries to get into it by pulling up.  Other times, it’s fine.  Friday night, I had to call the Fire Department at 1:00 am, to get him off the toilet.  This is why we need assisted living.  I am not enough of an assist, by myself.

Sunday morning, just now, I spoke to Robert May, Executive Director, Fountaingrove Lodge.  The news is not great from that end.  Robert is working at the Albany facility, Belmont Villages, and he doesn’t exactly have us moving in the day after tomorrow.  Elvon is too much of a care.  So, they would put him in their Memory Care building, if there is space, and charge appropriately.  Some money would come back from Fountaingrove Lodge, but we will still be paying most of our rent here.  It looks like the plan I started last week, including getting him into Cyprus Ridge Care Center, is the better one.  I started that last Monday, but it got stalled, when our own doctor was unreachable to fax the workup.  He was affected by the Napa fires, of course.  I’ll get back on that first thing Monday morning.  Robert is pretty sure that’s our solution.

So, that’s it for a beautiful Sunday morning in Carmel.  I only got up at 10:45 am.  My nights are weird.  There’s always a break in the middle, where Elvon needs me for an hour or so, and it takes me another hour to read myself back down.  I am letting myself sleep in, because I know how important it is to keep my strength up.  So far, so good.