I can't wait until I'm old.

Actually, I can. But I do love old people. Perhaps because I never had grandparents growing up. My mom was a foster child and my dad's parents were deceased before or shortly after I was born. So, I always felt a little jipped on the grandparent issue. When I was in high school I adopted a grandmother through a service. The adopted grandmother was named "Mary" (aren't all old ladies named "Mary"?). Mary lived in a nursing home. She was in her 80's, in a wheelchair, and had a stroke so her left side was non-functional. Because of her stroke she had a hard time speaking. Her sentances were usually less than three words, and were very labored.

Mary's only family was a niece who lived across the country. The niece came to see her maybe once every three months, and for some reason didn't like us visiting. I think Mary may have had money or something. It was a nice nursing home, after all. And maybe the niece thought we were after it? Just a guess. When the niece was there she always asked us to leave and made a comment about how her FAMILY was there or something along those lines. And Mary would get upset, but we would just come back when the niece wasn't there. She wasn't there that often.

Anyway, when Bryan and I started dating he went with me to see Mary. When we got engaged Mary was so excited! She tried to tell everyone that walked by us in the nursing home about the engagement, but just ended up making squealing noises, so she would take my hand with the ring and shove it in the air. She was so cute.

There were others in the nursing home that we got to know a little bit while we were there. One lady, who I assume had alzheimers, would light up when we walked in the room. She would see Bryan and exclaim "LIVINGSTON!". Or sometimes she would see me and yell "BEVERLY!". Bryan, who later worked as a social worker at a nursing home, would come over to her and say "hello", and it would just delight her that "Livingston" came for a visit. For the longest time when I was kidding around with Bryan we would call eachother "Beverly" and "Livingston". I assume they were relatives of hers.

Now that I'm pregnant I seem to be very popular with the older generation. I walk in the room and they flock to touch the belly. Yesterday a tiny white haired lady came over and asked the typical questions, and then asked "Do you feel her move?" I said "Oh, yes, a lot". She looked at Bryan, looked at me, then whispered in a I'm-hard-of-hearing-so-I'm-not-wispering-but-I-think-I-am voice "well, she's going to have huge feet, so she's going to kick the HELL out of you". ROFL.

I love old people.