So I'm in MN because my mom's in a rehab facility (she's doing well), called The Colony, right? Here are a few classics from the past few days for those of you who don't know my mom:

"One of the memory questions they asked me when I first got here was 'What's the name of this place?' 'The Colonial?' I said. 'No, but you're close.' 'I know it has something to do with ants,'" she said.

I was trying to print maps of local walking trails when her color inkjet cartridge ran out. She told me where her spare was, and I said I'd buy her some more, because they're cheap on ebay, but very expensive in the store. "That printer is so old, I don't think you can buy cartridges for it any more," she said. "If I can't, I won't." (I could, and did.)

Finally, I asked her where there's a pencil sharpener. (She has pencils about the place.) "Well, there's one on the little desk, but that's broken." "I saw that one," I said. "Then there's the electric one." "Good, where's that?" "I think I threw it away."

In her defense, she was probably on a bypass machine during her surgery, which means we're all in for another year of "pump head" where she's confused, but doesn't know she's confused. In my defense, these stories aren't too unusual for her. For example, we used to have a ping pong table in the basement which we wound up only using as a holiday dinner table. One time I came to visit and it was gone, and I had a vague memory that some guy she used to work with wanted it. "Oh, that's right," I said, "you gave the ping pong table away, didn't you?" "I must have," she said.