Grandpa with Santa and his wife. Happy smile!

I know the Santa couple; they have been doing this for many years and played Santa for our boys some ten years ago. It's like the Circle of Life, Santa-lap style.

The staff at Claire Bridge gave us complements about Grandpa's lovely smile and how much he enjoyed the holiday party that day. He was very outgoing and flirtacious with all the women.

Rather fiesty today

"Get out of here! You're the dirtiest one of the bunch!"

We went to visit Grandpa last night, and as we approached his door, he was coming out of the room, with his belt coiled in his hand. Upon seeing Vince, he raised his arm and threatened him with these words and with a whipping motion of the belt. Thinking he was joking, we come up close to hug him and distract him. Got the belt away from him. Got him calmed down, and back into the room. I was bringing him a new cordless razor, and since he needed a shave, I got him to stand quietly with his eyes closed while I shaved him. He almost fell asleep standing there. Then, got him to brush his teeth... which he refused to do at first, then refused to stop doing.... and got him tucked into bed. And brought the belt home with us.

On the way out, we mentioned his behavior to the night nurse Mo, wondering if he was this way just with us or with everyone. Turns out it's pretty common. "Yup", he said. "That sounds like him".

Interesting how his sudden flash of emotion made him very articulate with his words.

He put a pen to paper, and this is what he wrote.

Dear Han,
We are apartment in i.
We are clearly @ fairly but and are looking higher performer each higher week



rather poetic, isn't it?

Compare it to the poetry he wrote for me back in 1998 (posted in Nov 2010).
His decline with words echoes the artist's decline with painting (see the amazing self-portraits by William Utermohlen, posted in Jan 2010, at the beginning of this blog)