Book Recommendation – One Puzzling Afternoon

I had this book in my “favorites” on the Hoopla app for a while. The title intrigued me. I “favorite” a book I want to read and when it is time for a new read, I search there. After finishing my prior books I clicked on the book to read it, but it kept giving me an error. After a few weeks, I typed the title back into the search bar and found it again. This time it had a different cover and it loaded without any trouble.

I remember when it loaded thinking, “Well, after all this, I hope it is good!” I am happy to say that it was a good read, but I had some trouble reading it. Before I get into that, here is the Goodreads synopsis:

A mystery she can’t remember. A friend she can’t forget.

I kept your secret Lucy. I’ve kept it for more than sixty years . . .

It is 1951, and at number six Sycamore Street fifteen-year-old Edie Green is lonely. Living alone with her eccentric mother – who conducts seances for the local Ludthorpe community – she is desperate for something to shake her from her dull, isolated life.

When the popular, pretty Lucy Theddle befriends Edie, she thinks all her troubles are over. But Lucy has a secret, one Edie is not certain she should keep . . .

Then Lucy goes missing.

2018. Edie is eighty-four and still living in Ludthorpe. When one day she glimpses Lucy Theddle, still looking the same as she did at fifteen, her family write it off as one of her many mix ups. There’s a lot Edie gets confused about these days. A lot she finds difficult to remember. But what she does know is this: she must find out what happened to Lucy, all those years ago . . .

I enjoyed this book a lot. I mentioned early that I had trouble reading it. This was not because it was difficult to understand or follow. The main character, Edie, is forgetful. She is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s or dementia. This is where it got to me, and I suppose it was in a good way.

My grandmother had dementia. In the early stages, she would repeat a lot of things. She would have to stop mid-sentence because she couldn’t come up with the right words. She’d forget ingredients when cooking meals. I can still remember us having dinner at her house one day. She told us she thought she was “getting that Alzheimer’s.” My grandma deteriorated pretty quickly and eventually had to go to a nursing home for care.

The thing about this book was that you are getting the story told by Edie. She acknowledges that she is having trouble remembering thing. She relays the frustration involved in that. She is well aware of those “episodes” where she can’t remember something. She also remembers how it felt to come out of them. She deals with them the best that she can.

When she sees her friend from all those years ago, little things jog her memory. She knows that she went missing. She struggles to put the pieces together to get the whole story. She knows that her memory is fading and she needs to know what happened. Thus begins her quest to find answers.

As I listened to Edie throughout this book, I couldn’t help but compare her to my grandma. I wondered if her thoughts were the same thoughts that Edie was having. The struggle that Edie feels as she tries to remember was painful and sad to hear. It truly made me understand how terrible it must have been for her.

That being said, it was a good read. I wasn’t able to figure out the ending, and Critchley does a good job bringing it all together. My only beef with the story itself was that I wanted to know a bit more about what happened next. But that’s just my opinion.

4 out of 5 stars.

Book Recommendation – And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer

What a powerful and moving story. This short novella has all of the heart and emotion of Fredrik Backman’s full length stories. I found myself lost in this beautiful book.

My great grandmother had dementia. My grandmother had dementia. It is a terrible disease. I remember going to see her the last time and her not really knowing who I was. With Alzheimer’s and dementia, they call it “the long goodbye.” It is a very difficult thing to deal with for both those who have it and those they love.

Here is the Goodreads synopisis:

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, and Britt-Marie Was Here comes an exquisitely moving portrait of an elderly man’s struggle to hold on to his most precious memories, and his family’s efforts to care for him even as they must find a way to let go.

With all the same charm of his bestselling full-length novels, here Fredrik Backman once again reveals his unrivaled understanding of human nature and deep compassion for people in difficult circumstances. This is a tiny gem with a message you’ll treasure for a lifetime.

The “goodbye” and how to handle it is what drives this powerful story. I listened to the audio book, but want to go buy a physical copy just to highlight some of the content. For example:

“Almost all grown adults walk around full of regret over a good-bye they wish they’d been able to go back and say better.”

“Those who hasten to live are in a hurry to miss,”

“It’s about fear and love, and how they seem to go hand in hand most of the time.”

The relationship between this grandfather and Noah (Noahnoah), his grandson reminds me of my relationship with my grandfather. I didn’t want to lose him.

“Why are you holding my hand so tight, Grandpa?” the boy whispers
again.
“Because all of this is disappearing, Noahnoah. And I want to keep hold
of you longest of all.”

“Noahnoah, promise me something, one very last thing: once your good-bye is perfect, you have to leave me and not look back. Live your life. It’s an awful thing to miss someone who’s still here.”

One of the most amazing exchanges in the book:

“Our teacher made us write a story about what we want to be when we’re big,” Noah tells him.
“What did you write?”
“I wrote that I wanted to concentrate on being little first.”
“That’s a very good answer.”
“Isn’t it? I would rather be old than a grown-up. All grown-ups are angry, it’s just children and old people who laugh.”
“Did you write that?”
“Yes.”
“What did your teacher say?”
“She said I hadn’t understood the task.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said she hadn’t understood my answer.”

The audio book look just over and hour to listen to. I would imagine you could read the novella in just one sitting. It is truly an amazing story. I highly recommend it.

Forget the Nose Pickin’

Remember that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry is itching his nose in the car and the driver next to him thinks he is picking his nose? I can think of a few stand up comedians who have also used the topic of nose picking and boogers to bring laughter from their audience. Today, I read an article about nose picking that is “snot” funny at all …

An article from http://www.sciencealert.com says that a study done last year shows a “plausible link between picking your nose and upping the chances of developing dementia.” Apparently, this happens in “cases where picking at your nose damages internal tissues, critical species of bacteria gain an easier path to the brain, which responds to the bacteria’s presence in ways that resemble signs of Alzheimer’s disease.”

Now, for what it is worth, “the supporting research is based on mice rather than humans, but the findings are definitely worth further investigation.” The scientists in Australia say that the bacteria that can cause pneumonia can actually travel from the nose to the brain and that bacteria has been seen “in the majority of human brains affected by late-onset dementia.”

“We’re the first to show that Chlamydia pneumoniae (the bacteria) can go directly up the nose and into the brain where it can set off pathologies that look like Alzheimer’s disease,” neuroscientist James St John from Griffith University in Australia. We saw this happen in a mouse model, and the evidence is potentially scary for humans as well.“

The scientists were surprised by the speed at which the bacteria took hold in the central nervous system of the mice, with infection happening within 24 to 72 hours. It seems that viruses and bacteria see the nose as a very quick way to get to the brain.

They are unclear if the effects would be the same in humans. They certainly feel that further study should happen as the origins of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are hard to determine and both diseases are extremely complicated. There are many studies happening and with “each piece of research brings us a little bit closer to finding a way to stop” them.

Incidentally, nose picking isn’t such a rare occurrence. Believe it or not, it is believed that 9 out of 10 people are “pickers.”

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/nose-picking

I’m Sorry, I Can’t Remember

Lately I can’t seem to remember anything! Well, I shouldn’t say “anything,” because there are things that I can remember from years ago, but can’t remember what I read 5 minutes ago! Ask me about a character actor in an old movie, who wrote a specific song, how long a song is (or even better, how long the intro of the song is), or to quote a movie and I can do it in almost an instant! However, ask me about something I am reading and I seem to lose it.

I talked to an RN friend of mine and asked if there was something I could do about my memory. She said many of the supplements that claim to help don’t do a lot for you. “A good night’s sleep” is always a good place to start, which is always a challenge for me (or anyone else who works midnights)! I’m lucky if I get 5-6 hours of sleep, and that is usually very fragmented.

So is it Attention Deficit Disorder? I don’t know. Some days, I find myself reading a paragraph from a book two or three times because my mind wanders in the middle of it unintentionally. God help me if a book mark falls out of a book, because I’m not really sure if I’d know where I left off.

Alzheimer’s? I don’t know about that either. My grandmother definitely had that along with dementia, and that was scary and sad to witness. My grandfather probably had it, too, although he passed away before there was ever any kind of diagnosis.

So what can I do to help improve my memory? Just doing a search for pictures to accompany this blog, there were plenty of “How to” books that came up in a search. Let me be honest with you, I barely have time to read the books and stuff I NEED to read for my Bible classes! My stack of “to read” books is so big, I may never get through them in the next 3-4 years. As much as I love to read, I doubt a book on the subject would help me.

There are occasions where I can recall a bit of information, a passage of Scripture, or something mentioned in an online article, but I can’t remember them exactly. What website was I on? What chapter was that in? I know I saw/read it somewhere! It is maddening.

Maybe it is nothing to worry about, however, knowing that there are some memory issues in my family history, I do. This is a bit more than “Where did I leave my car keys?” The other day, I picked up our grocery order at Meijer. I literally had just texted our shopper to let her know I was in the parking lot. I got out of the car to help her load things, and when I got back in the car, I couldn’t remember where I put my cell phone! I checked my front pockets. I checked the cargo pockets on my shorts. I checked the passenger seat. I looked on the floor and in between the car seats! I got out and looked under the van. I was frantic! “I just had it!” I kept telling myself. The woman next to me was also waiting for her groceries, and was watching me like I was nuts!!

I must have patted my pockets 4 times! I eventually found it in my back pocket, which I NEVER checked, but thought I did. I searched like a fool for at least 5 minutes….

I was gonna write more, but I forgot what I was going to say …..

Cuckoo for Cuckoo Clocks

If I am being completely honest with you, I have no idea what brought up the topic of today’s blog! It certainly didn’t come about because of a Cocoa Puffs commercial! I guess it was just one of those random memories that popped into my head earlier today.

Every Sunday, my brother, my father, and I went to my grandparents house for dinner. For as long as I can remember, she had a cuckoo clock on the wall. Before blogging I meant to ask my brother if he had a picture with the clock in it, but never got around to it. I remember it being quite a simple clock. It wasn’t too big, but wasn’t real small either.

Apparently, a cuckoo clock can come in all sizes. Notice the huge one next to this guy in a picture I found online –

I was amazed at some of the detail in some of those clocks! They are truly amazing!! Below are pictures of clocks which are closest to how I remember her clock looking.

Three things about the above pictures stand out. First, I remember grandma’s clock had Roman numerals on the face. While searching for images, the ones with real numbers looked odd to me. Second, I remember the weights attached to the chains. Every morning, my grandpa would walk over and pull the weights back up to the bottom of the cuckoo clock. As the clock works throughout the day, the weights move down toward the floor and you have to pull them back up with the “winding chains.” Finally, I remember the pendulum. In the pictures I found, the all seem to be leaves. I don’t recall if grandma’s was a leaf or not. I do remember it clicking or ticking as it swung back and forth.

As kids, I remember my brother and I waiting for the top of every hour. It was then, that the cuckoo bird would come out “cuckoo” the number of what time it was and retreat back in the door. After that, the clock would play a musical song. I don’t know what the name of the song was, but I can hum most of it from memory with about 85% accuracy. It may sound stupid, but I actually watched clips of cuckoo clock songs on YouTube hoping one of them might be the one from grandma’s clock! no such luck!

Frankenmuth is very close to where I live. The town is often referred to as Little Barvaria. If you are German, you need to visit there. It is just amazing. There is a clock company in Frankenmuth that sells cuckoo clocks. I may have to drive up there and stroll through to see if I can find one that plays the same song as grandma’s.

Here are just some of the cuckoo clocks in store….

Frankenmuth Clock Company – Cuckoo Clocks

Years later, my grandma moved in with my folks because of the onset of Alzheimer’s and dementia. My folks built a dormer on their house for her. In the main living area of the dormer, grandma had yet another cuckoo clock. The one on the wall there was white and a lot smaller than the one I remember. I don’t even really recall what happened to the original one, but I wish I had it.

By the way, a real cuckoo bird looks nothing like the Cocoa Puffs, cuckoo….