So here we are.   Two days into 2012 already.    With the first of the year being on Sunday - the Packers playing on Sunday then the Rose Bowl Parade and the Badgers playing IN the Rose Bowl today, Monday, it seems like there were two New Year's days.

We did have two health aids from the VNA come today.   The nurse, Rachel, and the home health aid to give Dick his bath.   Aside from that, we were home alone today.

I did go to see Mother after lunch, as it is Monday and  I like to keep the Monday visit as regular as possible as this is the day we check the bills and visit.   She seemed a bit weaker today but was in good spirits.   Shortly before I left, Uncle Pat and Aunt Joan came to visit her.  They stopped on their way to see Kathleen.  A couple readers might not know that Uncle Pat is Mom's youngest brother and is only about 6 years older than I am.   He looks more like my Grandpa the older her gets.    A handsome man.    I stayed for a short visit with them, then left so they could really visit with Mother.

Yesterday, Mom was trying to remember the name of the boat that Phillip King's parents went down on.    It was the Lady Elgin.    I think I have discussed this before in the blog.    When Phillip's parents died, he was taken in and raised by Timothy Clifford who would be my 2nd great grand uncle.   Then Phillip married my great grand aunt Charlotte Bowser.  That was why I got such a pleasure out of A Rising Wind - The Lady Elgin Story a play presented by the John Michael Kohler Art Center.   It may be on public television soon.   They were negotiating at the time it was presented in Kohler.  It is an amazing play.   On the order of Driving Miss Daisy on stage or Our Town.   Very little as far as sets.   The actors tell the story.   

When the Lady Elgin went down it changed whole political landscape of Milwaukee.

Mom had gotten the Phoenix disaster in her head, so I brought her the book by my friend John Textor, Phoenix, the Fateful Journey for her to read.    John was in the Sheboygan Writer's Club.  He died a couple of years back but his book is great - about the disaster that occurred withing sight of the Sheboygan Harbor.   A couple of hundred settlers of Dutch ancestry died in that sinking.

So this is my day.   The Rose Bowl game is still on.   It seems to be lasting at least as long as the Packer game did yesterday.   Don't know what is wrong with these Wisconsin players. 

Dia Dhuit

Mary