Hot tomato soup for lunch.

Bill got back last night from Japan.

The piano teacher finally emailed me back confirming that I had, in fact, left my day planner there. I have found my mind.

My dad is out of the hospital and mobile. Broken hips aren’t like broken legs, and they get you up and moving around fairly soon. He has to use a walker, but we aren’t going to call it that, because old people use walkers. I’m going to call it a “four-point crutch.”

My mother is a Registered Nurse. She does home visiting and happened to be telling me several weeks ago that people don’t like to use the term “nursing home,” because nursing homes, like walkers, are for old people. Instead, when she has a patient who needs some “assisted living”, she tells them that they need to go to Rehab. It’s still a nursing home.

Yesterday she called with an update about Dad and said he’d be leaving the hospital probably that day. She said he’d be going to rehab. I said, “Oh. You mean he’s going to a nursing home.” She laughed, remembering how she had clued me in on that euphemism just recently.

So, my not-so-old Dad is going to practice ambulating with his four-point crutch at a rehab facility. He should be home before Christmas.

Lastly, Billy informed me that, for France, he is to take chocolate for the party. Doesn’t get much easier than that. I have a bag of M&Ms in the cupboard…