Hula Hell.

This is the garden across the road - Hoshiba-san aged 83? does this pretty much all on her own...and I get to enjoy it every time I look out of the living room or office window.

What's happened in Okaasan's head about her Hula Dance class?

Somehow this thing she loves, this group she seemed happy to go to has become ...bad, bad, bad!

Yesterday, unfortunately Yujiro got his days mixed up and sent her off to Hula Dance on the wrong day. God help us - someone in this family had better keep a grasp on the days of the week...

And this morning Okaasan had another little melt down on the subject of Hula Dance: I don't want to go, I feel tired, I don't have a T-shirt, they didn't tell me about the dance festival earlier this month, they always have breaks, they don't have a bath....and on and on...

I wonder if it's the Didn't Tell Me About Dance Festival situation. They gave her the information paper about it, but of course she forgot it and left it in a bag...and didn't apply to join the festival...so didn't know about it...we didn't know and the other women in the group don't intrude enough to make sure Okaasan is aware of what they are planning.

It's easy to see how people with dementia can isolate themselves from things - they just miss the forward planning and they are not very interesting at conversation...so social situations can slip away and all that's left is a negative feeling of being left out.

Anyway. If she doesn't want to go so be it. But it WAS a thing she enjoyed, it got her out interacting with people and exercising in a happy situation. Hopefully next week she'll have forgotten all about this negativity...maybe....

This morning I've tried to jolly-her-along with chat about the flowers and sunshine. She's outside right now endlessly reorganising the clothes line. This is one of her fixations: she stands there rearranging her (and my!) wet laundry...pegging and unpegging, moving the hangers round...staring at them...then changing their position again...then she goes inside and moves her socks, T-shirts, pajamas around on the floor and the sofa....some kind of reassurance in life....

The book I read about dementia said clients can go round and round the home doing things that seem ok in their little world - packing and unpacking, getting ready to garden or rearranging the books...something that they remember doing in their past and it feels safe. For Okaasan: handwashing/hanging clothes/drying clothes - VERY reassuring.

Meanwhile Yujiro has seemed to slump about his fruitless job hunting. I swept him away last night to a huge department store buffet place - using a voucher that a student gave me. We stuffed ourselves indecently on Chinese/Italian/Japanese food and drink. Tried to pep talk him. Tried to give him positive feelings. But it's hard to be hopeful for a 50 year old in an economic slump.

Haaaaa. What a happy summer!

Small things, small things. Just concentrate on the small things....my sweet peas are great. We can pick our own tomatoes. I'm going swimming today....small things...