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I went to visit my mother this weekend, aka "fun in the nuthouse".
As I came through the glass door on Friday morning, Toney, pictured above, was poised very still by the door waiting for her big moment.
The door was open and she ran out. Shouts of "TONEY!" and I turned to run after her but the same nurses aides called out, "Don't chase her, she's dangerous!" as they rushed past me.
Toney is 100 years old. She stands very straight and has a full goofy white haircut which you can see I could never get right in my sketches. She was RUNNING- she's 100 years old but she was running, and she jumped on the bus parked at the entrance. When the nurse's aide jumped on to catch her, Tony ripped off the aide's top "exposing her to the world", and scratched the aide too. She told her, "You have an evil heart and God will never forgive you."
Woah! No wonder my mother's one of their favorites. They say Toney is wearing a bracelet which locks the doors when she gets near them but she's figured out how to stand just out of lockdown range and then break out when someone opens the door unsuspectingly. She's 100 years old! She moves like an athlete.
As for my mother, her trip continues, but now it's sometimes by rail. We were in Florida on Friday and in England on Saturday. In England I was trying out for a stage role, but she didn't think I'd get the part. Something about not being forceful enough, and she wondered why I was dressed like I was Chinese. ? She carries on a monologue that's filled with curious details and funny comments, but I had the feeling I could have been there or not, for all the real impression it made on her: "so grand that you could come, taa taa".
When the 300 plus pounder nurse's aide waddled in to the small room where we were hanging, she said, "It's my husband!" My father was tall and slender and looked like Abraham Lincoln.
It was stuff that was funny but when it's your mom it isn't so funny. And there were all the other patients which I could have fun describing but I'll leave it alone. I only knew how to spell Toney's name because they've posted a sign for her on another door telling her to turn back (before it's too late?)