Scrabble Day

So here I sit, snowed in -- yet again within a 3 day period! I think the Delaware Valley (the region where I, gulp dare say it, reside) has received almost 3 feet of snow! Thats a alotta effing snow I tell ya. The one joy I do get to see is my Lucy traipsing through the snow and pooping in it -- its kinda cute, yeah, I know, I am obsessed with my dog. Moving on.


I'm not going to blog about the 2nd largest blizzard to hit the Delaware Valley in eons, so don't worry there. I wanted to share with you my games of Scrabble and such with my Mother, who is ailing with mid-stage Dementia. Yes, its sad, and yes, its lame that I'm going to blog about it, but yes, its the reality of my life right now. Most of you know, if you know me, that I moved back to the Philly region three weeks ago and left behind a pretty sweet life in sunny San Diego, Carlsbad region. (I feel I need to say region apparently after each neighborhood I type about) I came back to move in with my Mom and to also find a career job. I found the job (we hope) and start next week - so that was nice and quick, I can't complain there. But oh how I can complain about being 42 and moving IN with my mother! I lived with my Mom six years ago for a few months and all I remember is that I drank a lot of her wine and treated her poorly. Hence, now I've been given the opportunity to treat her with more respect and dignity than I have in years past. Living amends if you will. But, still, who'd thunk that life would plop me back here like this? I certainly didn't, but God works in mysterious ways.

One of my Mother's main obsessions right now, and most likely forever, is game shows. She watches the Game Show network most of her day and between Lingo, Family Feud, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune and 21, I don't know how anyone could watch soo many effing game shows and be content doing so. Hence, the Dementia. Back in the day, which by the way was a Tuesday (thanks Dane Cook), my Mother went on Game Shows as a contestant. She was on 3 game shows in the 1970s; the original Jeopardy, Concentration and Split Second. If you don't know the last two, google them, because they were pretty darn cool. Mom won a car, a boat, a piano, trips and a bunch of money -- so yeah, you can see why she is a tad obsessed with the GSN. And to even add a fun fact to the family tree on this obsession, my older brother, Eddie, was a finalist on Who Wants to be a Millionaire with Regis. Sadly, he lost to the $16,000 question. Ironically, his question was "How long did Prohibition last?" He used two life lines and still lost. The answer was 13 years and the reason its ironic to me is that I don't drink anymore and I just find it kinda funny.

So I digressed on yammering away about the GSN -- back to the Scrabble Day title of my blog; Mom likes to play Scrabble. To amuse myself and to kill some time while we are snowed in I indulge her and agree to play Scrabble. I've been playing Scrabble with my Mom for years, its a Mom activity to do. And she has ALWAYS kicked my ass Now, as I sit snowed in and winded from shoveling the driveway for the 4th time, I'm ready to play Scrabble with Mom when she asks. I figure she can't be that good now, her keen sense of know how has to have waned a tad in the last few months. I found myself using some big 3 and 4 letter words; ie, cute, rain, zit, nag, and of course I added "s" at the end of any noun that I could. To my own defense though I was multi taksing, IM'g, watching TV, texting, ya know the drill. But Mom was able to use her Z, Q and J letters without a care in the world. Without giving you any of the gory details the final result of our game...Mom = 260, Nan = 159. Yup, Mom's got Dementia! WTF? I don't mind though, it makes her happy; which does make me happy. For the time being that is.