Friday, Jan. 24, 2020—Today I’m resuming the diary, mainly because for the first time in 32 years LaVona and I are living separately.  About a month ago, LaVona was ordered by a doctor at Allina Owatonna hospital to a memory care facility.  Her daughter Melody recommended Timberdale Trace just a few blocks from our house in south Owatonna.  Since she’s been in room 18 of Timberdale, her memory loss and general bewilderment has increased noticeably.  Several times this week she asked me if we were married. If I ask her the names of her eight children, she can’t remember a single one unless I ask her to sing a song that the doctor who delivered all eight composed for her, one that lists the names in a catchy rhyme and melody.  

   

   She continues to request to return home.  I continue to tell her Timberdale is her current home as prescribed by her doctor.  She doesn’t find that answer very satisfying.

  I’m writing this at Old Town Bagel where I stopped in for a bagel sandwich and coffee. Now it’s time to pack up and walk the two miles along the Straight River trail to the car and drive over to Timberdale for a visit before heading home to make supper.  

  Being home alone is a novelty after 32 years of living with LaVona.

Wednesday, Sept. 11--

Tonight we watched Men Go to Battle (2015), a movie about two brothers in rural Kentucky during the civil war.  It's in the cinema verite style, which is not everyone's cup of tea--grainy film, jiggling camera, etc.--but we were impressed.

Tuesday, Sept. 10. 2019--Today LaVona and I will celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary by going to Hy Vee for coffee and an apple fritter this morning and to The Kernel for barbecued ribs tonight.  We were wed in a courtroom of the Stearns County courthouse in St. Cloud on Sept. 10, 1987. That morning I first walked to campus to teach a class, then walked 10 blocks to the courthouse, picking flowers from private gardens on the way.  I met LaVona at the courthouse, handed her the flowers as her bridal bouquet.  After the brief ceremony, LaVona returned home and I went to my 1'o'clock class where sitting in the front row was LaVona's daughter and my new step-daughter, Melody. 

Sunday, Sept. 8, 2019--I'm restarting this blog/journal after a four-year pause for no particular reason.  Life has changed/not changed in those four years:
--LaVona now has Alhzeimer's disease, a diagnosis made by a Mayo clinic doctor about two years ago.  He did it after a memory test in in which after a brief conversation he asked her to recall several words he had asked her to remember moments earlier.  She was unable to recall the words. I was there and forgot some of the test words too.  Which left me wondering.
--LaVona and I now watch a movie every night after supper dishes are washed.  We get the movies from the Owatonna Public Library which boasts an admirable collection considered the library's size.  Tonight we will watch Orson Well's "Citizen Kane."
--I go on three-to-four mile walks almost every day while LaVona takes her daily naps.
--We go for coffee at Hy Vee, a grocery/restaurant a mile from our house or downtown at Central Park Coffee or Home Town Bagels.
--Our 2014 Dodge Van has 24,000 miles on it, which means we drive less than 5.000 miles a year.  The farthest I've driven is Edina, about 60 miles away.  Since we moved from St. Cloud to Owatonna six years ago, we've never returned to St. Cloud.
--I post a daily picture of our backyard every day on Facebook every day.
--"The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee is my current read, an unusual choice for me, a lover of fiction.

   This week repairs will continue on the 128-year-old Steele County Courthouse in downtown Owatonna.

The Central Park Coffee Shop is empty of customers now, except for me and my grill cheese sandwich.   I count of vehicles that pass by the shop door on Cedar Street.
11:26 a.m--
Gray sedan northbound
gray sedan southbound
maroon sedan northbound
gray sedan northbound
black sedan southbound
black SUV northboud
white charter bus southbound
light gray sedan northbound

11:31 a.m.--
Gray sedan southbound
maroon sedan southbound
white sedan northbound
white SUV northbound
gray SUV southbound
white sedan northbound
black sedan northbound
black sedan southbound
gray SUV southbound
white SUV northbound
red van southbound
gray SUV northbound
white SUV northbound
tan convertible northbound
chartreuse SUV northbound
gray pickup southbound
gray sedan southbound
white SUV southbound

11:36 a.m.--
Red SUV southbound
tan SUV southbound
bicycle northbound
red station wagon southbound
white van southbound
black SUV northbound
gray sedan northbound
black van northbound
maroon SUV northbound
tan SUV southbound

The pleasures of Elmore Leonard's fiction include exquisite run-on sentences.  For example, early in Cuba Libre: 
  "He came out on the train from East Texas and was waiting for Tyler the first day of the new year, 1898, on the porch of the Congress Hotel in Sweetmary, a town named for a copper mine, LaSalle Street empty going on 10:00 A.M., the mine shut down and the town sleeping off last night."

What’s he doing?, she asked.
My guess sleeping, he said.  He took a sip of coffee.
What else can you do in this fucking town.