Red Light of Albuquerque

Anders, as you know, is really funny.

One of our intermittent struggles is to get him to eat regular amounts and proportions of food. Last week when Mom was here, we went to Miller's Chicken, which we now seem do to often since it's about a five minute walk down the hill. They have a lot of chicken paraphernalia on the walls, which interested Anders more than the chicken on his plate. Well, Anders knows many animal sounds, so Anna started doing the chicken sound, which for Anders is Anna saying "Bock!" nine times then "Chicken twice." This sequence led Anders to start eating his chicken, so I joined in. Anders would then mimic us under his breath by saying "bock, bock, bock..." Then a couple of days later we were at China Panda and Anders was unsure of his meal, which was chicken, so we started doing the chicken sound again. Once again, Anders started eating his chicken and said "bock, bock, bock" under his breath. It was magic. Then, a couple of days later Mom made a roast, which as you know is not chicken. Well, despite Mom's protests over the dietary incorrectness of it all, Anna and I started in on the "Chicken" sequence and wouldn't ya know, Anders ate his "chicken" (beef roast)! And bock, bock, bocked...

Anders also now randomly says people's names. He has said "Mamie" everyday since Mandy left. He says Roger's name, "JAW-juh" at random times and he is a twitter with excitement when we drop by to visit Paul. For Athens vets this will make sense, we turned off of Shannon St. onto Lincoln, which is a good four blocks from Paul's house near Bob Evan's and Anders started his joyful shouts of "Pau! Pau! Pau!" interspersed with growls to show he's still in charge of the situation.

Tonight we had our going away party. As our guest were leaving, Anders woke from a dead sleep, said "Bye, bye" and went back to sleep.

Anna decided that if Anders wrote a book it would be called "Red Light of Albuquerque" because he loves to say "red light" and "Querque." His memoir is already titled. He would have a lot to say if he could remember our time here in Athens...