A Red Coat

Today I picked up Esther and her friend, Leona. They are both legally blind, but Leona wears special glasses and can see better than Esther can. They still can't see much. Esther called me a couple of time the past two days to make arrangements for today-- that I was to pick them up on the corner of Dartmouth and Portland Avenue in Gladstone at 9:20 a.m., I would take them to Esther's eye appointment and then to a nursing home to visit their friend and then to Gillman Park an assisted living facility for a free lunch and tour. When I arrived at the appointed corner to pick them up they told me that they had both been standing on corners on the opposite sides of the street and waiting. They each thought the other was not coming because they waited "so long", but they just couldn't see each other. Esther said, "And I wore this red coat just so you would see me." The red coat was actually a very long, bright orange robe. I didn't want to embarrass Esther by pointing that out. So we went to the eye doctor in the orange robe. Fortunately she got warm and took it off in the waiting room. ( She had a sweater on underneath as well as a turtleneck shirt. ) She left it in the car after that. Thankfully.

IDA!!!

Last year Esther wanted to see her neighbor. The woman next door uses a walker and a motorized chair to get around. Esther got very worked up about wanting to get in and see her. Ida called me later to complain because she was just out of the shower and heard Esther calling her name over and over, very loudly. She threw something on and slowly made her way out to find that Esther had tried to push herself into her apartment, even though the chain was on the door. She had gotten herself wedged in the door with one half of her body inside the apartment and one side out. "Help, I'm stuck."