Just a short note to say that Kate and I had another interesting conversation at lunch on Sunday. We ate at Andriana’s. Before we reached our seats, she pointed to a photo of Frank Sinatra. I told her who he was. That began our customary conversation about him. She asked if I had told her about the time she and her mother had eaten there. She hadn’t. No surprise. Her mother died before we started eating there. She pointed to a photo of Sinatra and proceeded to tell me that her mother looked it and asked who it was. Kate told her it was Sinatra. She said her mother was vaguely familiar with him. She told her about his relationships with women, and that was all her mother needed to know. They didn’t go any further.
It is interesting to me how much she is drawn to his pictures. There are other pictures and art work in the restaurant. The only other thing she has been curious about is a large poster of a bottle of Cinzano vermouth. Even that has only come up in the past six months. It came up again Sunday. She always wants to know what it is. I tell her, but, of course, it is impossible for her to remember.
Kate is at least occasionally aware that she frequently asks me about Sinatra. Yesterday she said, “I know I’ve asked you before. I don’t know why I can’t remember.”
Apart from Sinatra, we had another interesting, though brief, conversation. It grew out of something one of us said about our having grown up so far apart. That led to a discussion of how the choices we make can open or close doors for us. Before choosing to go to TCU, I had considered going to college in Florida where I grew up. Kate chose to go out of state her freshman year but returned home and to TCU for the rest of her college education. From there we talked about other choices that we and others make about our life styles and health and nutrition. This was not a deep conversation, but it was another reminder of the kinds of things that she is still able to do without a memory.
