Just visited my Nana.

Lis is in Washington DC for a conference, Elizabeth Bear(matociquala) is in Boston for a signing at Pandemonium Books (pandemonium_bks), and I just went with my parents to visit my grandmother and grandfather in Marblehead.

My grandmother has Alzheimer's, and I don't much like it. My grandfather is dealing with it okay, all things considered, but their kids who are reasonably local -- which is most of 'em (the farthest one away is Providence, Rhode Island) do try to make sure to visit a fair bit to help take some of the stress off of Papa. Besides, they like their parents, and Nana is still Nana even if she does get confused as to where she is, when it is, who you are, and what you just said.

She mentioned several times that she wanted to go home. She asked Papa to complain to the manager because she didn't like the room we were sitting in. She told us several times that she didn't feel comfortable entertaining in someone else's house, but she'd LOVE it if we came over to HER house in Marblehead, because she had a GORGEOUS house. At another time, when Papa was explaining that this WAS their house, that they'd lived in it for fifty-two years, she said, "Oh, yeah, big shot rich man -- says he owns a house."

Have I mentioned that Alzheimer's terrifies me? Well, it does. I'm hoping they come up with a cure for it before Mom gets it. And I'm REALLY hoping they come up with a cure for it before I get it.

Anyway, it's funny what Nana does and does not lose track of. She ALWAYS knows that she's married to Papa Tunny, who is a good man, and adorable, and whom she loves very much. She doesn't always RECOGNIZE him, although she almost always does.

The weird thing is -- I think she only vaguely recognized me, and only intermittently. But she wanted to know where my wife was, and when I told her she was at a Christopher Marlowe conference in Washington, DC, she said how my wife was SUCH a smart girl, and so pretty, too. I couldn't do anything but agree wholeheartedly.

See, I think she doesn't always remember ME, but she remembers Lis. Even though I was there and Lis wasn't.

It's possible, of course, that, in her mind, Lis got conflated with one of her daughters, since I guess you could see some similarities -- all of her daughters are black-haired Jewish women, as is Lis, so it's possible that Nana just remembers Lis as among her daughters, and thinks of me as "one of the guys who married one of her daughters," rather than me being the grandson and Lis being the one who married in. Which would explain why, at family gatherings, Nana always seeks out Lis to tell her that she and her husband should come over and visit, rather than telling ME. It really is kind of adorable -- I guess there's not much of a question that Lis is an integral part of our family.

My parents just left and Lis just called me from the airport in DC

I was supposed to bring papersky's book FARTHING with me to Nana's, to lend to Mom, but I forgot. But then, when we were at Nana and Papa's, Papa had been experimenting with baking with candied fruit, and had made a cake-like-thing. Both Dad and I quite liked it, but Papa wasn't thrilled with how it came out, so Mom and Dad took half and I took the other. But I forgot my cake. And I left before Mom and Dad.

So they phoned and asked if they could drop by and drop off the cake and pick up the book and visit for a while. So they did.

As Mom and I were talking, Dad happened to see an old Alan Dean Foster paperback I had lying around on the kitchen counter, and started flipping through it. I told him I was done with it, so he could take it with him, so he was. And, later, as they were getting ready to leave, Dad started flipping through FARTHING, and started reading it.

Mom teased him, "Your son is standing RIGHT THERE in front of you, and you're standing there reading, instead of talking to him?" I said, "Well, see, now you see where I get it. Seriously, I can't be offended by this, since, among my friends, this is a perfectly normal social interaction -- standing there reading next to each other. Sometimes we'll read particularly cool passages out loud."

Mom and Dad laughed.

I really like my parents.