Moving day tomorrow

Preparing to move KP, in a sad rain, to her new personal-care home. Have to halve the contents of her clothes-closet, take to the dump a stained sofa and over-reclining recliner.

Like dropping her off at sleepaway camp, in preparation for The Next Destination. There will be tears, aerobic sobbing, and many phone calls if she can find her amplified phone in its new spot.

Worried about how light it isn't. (Will her famed claustrophobia kick in?) How the chandelier in the windowless dining room is missing two bulbs ... carelessness or economy on the owner's part? How we're literally putting her underground, again foreshadowing the Big Move.

Okay, she's 97. Her "lower level" (don't say basement) room has a nice window onto the street. Her familiar stuff will be there (tons of clothes, her yellow bedspread, a flower-painted dresser and nightstand we bought in the Juvenile department of Sears).

Still can't help feeling it's "goodbye to the light." Her old places were so light-filled ... that's why we chose them. (I would happily have lived in each one.) Now she'll get the dark(ish) room she always created for herself in the midst of light. Maybe there'll be a paradoxical reaction this time? She'll thrive in the dark? Hope so.

Took KP (the 97-year-old) to Denture Cottage yesterday, trying to salvage 20-year-old backup dentures she had sequestered in a cottage-cheese container in her old house. (Unearthed, incredibly, by Bro as he shut the place down.)

Notable events:

1. mistaking jawbone-erosion display for coat rack (me)

2. inmates of her nursing home singing organ-accompanied, dolefully adagio "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" as we enter, "Abide with Me" as we leave

Verdict: Dentures are not salvageable. Her lower plate will always rattle, no matter what. Denture lady's best advice: Take them out when you're not eating.

Tearful yet bellowing phone calls later (3): "I don't want to live!"