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Last night we were treated to the culinary delights cooked for us by TJ and his friend and classmate, Dustin. The two had to create a French dinner, consisting of appetizer, entree and dessert and serve it to us. We had delicious cheese puffs, chicken tenderloins roasted in apple cider, carrots with apples and chocolate banana custard for dessert.
Kudos to the chefs, the dinner was delicious… and my kitchen was returned to its pre-dinner state which was a nice treat.
This afternoon we attended a party/fundraiser for our dear friend and neighbor, Tom French who suffered a stroke a few months ago. The party was a welcome back to Vermont party and a fundraiser to help offset some of his medical expenses.
All I can say is if I have 1/50th of the number of people that care about me as Tom had there today, I would consider myself a very, very, very lucky woman. It was pouring rain today yet the party held at the beautiful home of The Johnsons in Clarendon in their pavilion (which was absolutely gorgeous) had at least 500 people purchase tickets to attend. There were people everywhere and so many, many familiar faces.
The parking lot looked like we were at the fair or a concert with all the cars parked everywhere.
Tom was happily greeting all his well-wishers and was totally enjoying himself. It was so nice to see him back in his element. If love and well wishes could provide energy then Tom could have easily been propelled to the moon and back, many times over this afternoon.
Yesterday morning Tom and I took a drive over to Hanover, New Hampshire to visit our friend and neighbor, Tom French. For those of you who don’t know (and quite honestly I cannot imagine how you couldn’t know Tom) he suffered a stroke in February, four months ago this week. We had been all set to visit him while he was at Dartmouth, but the day set for our visit was the day that they decided to move him down to Salem.
I must say that I was a little apprehensive, but he is still the same old Tom. His verbal ability is limited, but that doesn’t really stop him from getting his point across. He recognized us right away and was most happy to see us. Tim made a card for him with lots of pictures and he was thrilled, it found a place on his bulletin board. He was sure to give us his guestbook for our signature and to show us the scrapbook that Laura has started for him. We went through each page and he nodded and pointed to various things.
He also has a box of cards and photos that rivals the weight of a bag of feed. It is apparently only about one month’s worth, so I am sure that there must be a few more like it in Laura’s possession. He took us on a tour of his new facility, smiling and waving and saying hi to various people along the way. It was nice to see Tom being Tom, something that I thought might be gone forever as a result of the stroke.
He also kept pointing to the calendar and counting off 4. We were puzzled, but after stewing on it over the afternoon, it occurred to me that he was trying to tell us that it would be 4 months since the stroke today. Ah, Tom – so much smarter than I am, evidently.
We happy to see him in such good spirits and to see that he recognizes and remembers so much. We brought my laptop and went over pictures of my boys, the Hill, the snow, the goats and the dogs. He even recognized our friends and my brother and voiced his amazement at how big our niece had gotten when we got to those pictures. When Tom showed him the video camera view of his house he recognized it and shrugged and sighed indicating that he knew he couldn’t go back just yet.
I’m glad that we got to visit with him and we’re looking forward to taking the boys back when the weather is a little warmer so we can go for a stroll outdoors together.
