"Dear Grandpa,
Today was a good day. I watched a movie at Gretchen's house called "Everything Illiterated", or something like that, about a young man who is on a quest to find and meet the woman who saved his Grandfather's life during World war 2 and hid him in a house where sunflowers grow. This young man finds two people to help him find this woman because it is in a foreign country and the young man cannot speak the language (Russian, I think). The two people that help him are a young man of similar age and his grumpy old Grandfather. They eventually find a woman who is actually the sister of the woman they were looking for, but the woman tells the story of the war and how her sister fell in love with the young man's Grandfather and had a baby.
The two guides (the other young man and his Grumpy grandfather) eventually get into a fight because the other young man hit his Grandfather's dog, but eventually make up when the grandfather learns to appreciate his grandson when he finally lets go of the war and all his anger when he hears the woman's story. Unfortunately, the Grandfather of the other young man then kills himself, but I guess he died happy because he finally felt better about his memories of the war. The travelling young man leaves and he is happy that he finally learned a lot about his grandfather and his past. The young man scooped up some dirt from the river bed that was near the place in that foreign country and took it home to add to his collection of things about his Grandfather (like me with your old cowboy hat). It was a great movie because it made me want to write this letter to my Grandfather and many others to come.
My writing teacher, Mr. Grady, has suggested that I pick a movie and re-write its ending. I decided to pick "Everything Obliterated" because I wanted to re-write the ending so that the other young man's grandfather doesn't kill himself, but instead buys his Grandson ice cream (just kidding). Actually, instead of killing himself, he teaches his grandson about how war never solves anything, but instead destroys families and villages and leads to many hungry people. And that the travelling young man learns about how lucky he was that his grandfather survived so that he could be born and collect things. Oh. Actually that part did happen in the movie.
I think Mr. Grady liked the idea, but seemed a little surprised that I didn't pick the X-MEN. I told him that the X-MEN is already perfect and doesn't need to be changed, except more scenes with Mystique in it (see picture).
Which movie would you pick Grandpa? and what would you change?
Love,
Your Grandson,
Jem 3"

I decided to write a little before Mom drives me to school in an hour or so. From my room I smell breakfast cooking and this is the first morning since Grandpas fall that things seem back to somewhat normal. Grandpa came home on Sunday from the hospital and is recovering slowly although "one never knows for sure how the brain will recover from such an injury" said the doctor. We now have a nurse looking after Grandpa and her name is Anna. She works for an "agency" that provides home nurses. I think that having Anna around has been a big relief for everyone and it has only been one day since she started. Grandpa seems to like her but Dad says that with the medication for his pain that he should like her a whole lot when its time for his next pills. The doctor said that as long as Grandpa rests and doesn't try to get up too much that he should get better, but that the "mild stroke" he had should cause Grandpa to have problems doing simple things that he used to do fine before. I was curious what that might be and how I could help and the doctor said that I could keep talkng to him as much as possible to help keep his mind sharp. I said that I will try but "sometimes Grandpa Jem doesn't feel like talking". Dad then said that I should write him letters so that it will help Grandpa to remember things in case he starts to forget. I agreed and today at school during free period I will write him a letter telling him about my morning classes. I will try to remember to post it later.

Gretchen and I haven't seen very much of each other lately because of my trips to the hospital to see Grandpa and she has been spending a lot of time with her friend Beth who lives on the other side of the county. Her Mom has agreed to allow Gretchen to finish the trimester here which means she'll be staying until the end of July, but which also means that she will only be here for two more months. Gretchen and I are going to go see the X-men this weekend with Cousin Bruce, which will be great.
The blanket was designed by Paul Palcko and it shows the nurse as an earth angel. Mr. Grady said that it is ok to use images from the internet like I have because I am not trying to make money with my blog, but that I be sure to give the artist credit for his or her work of art. I usually only show pictures that I like so I really like telling everyone who made the artwork anyways. So, if anyone out there wants to send me pictures of their artwork then I will put it on my blog for the whole world to see. I had forgot to write that when I used a couple photographs before that they were made by my friend Amy Caterina from Orange County. I would like to see more photographs from Amy of flowers or other things and I also would like to see more pictures by "Cornbread" Anderson. Speaking of cornbread, Mom is telling me that breakfast is ready.

Grandpa Jem hurt himself getting out of the shower last Saturday and had to be taken to the hospital. Everyone is really worried, including myself, and although he has hurt himself before, it has never been this bad. No one is quite sure what will happen because he hit his head on the floor and had lost consciousness. He is more aware now, but doesn't remember the fall. It took him a few moments to remember who Dad was when he woke up in the hospital, which scared everybody, but he soon remembered everyone, although he seemed more confused about why he was there than who anyone was. The doctors say that he may have had a serious "concussion" and may have bleeding in his brain, but they have to take tests first to know how much damage was caused. What makes matters worse is that he had been feeling sick a lot lately and that he may have had a "stroke" or maybe fainted and that is what caused his fall.
Dad has been trying to hire a nurse for Grandpa to take care of him even though Mom and Dad help him with almost everything, but Grandpa has refused to allow that. So, Dad was outside tending to the horses and Mom was cooking breakfast when Grandpa decided to take a shower and get out without anyone's help. I was getting dressed and didn't hear anything, but Dad eventually came in and found Grandpa lying on his bathroom floor unconscious. He quickly yelled to me to call 911 and Mom heard Dad and came in and took the phone and told the 911 people what had happened as Dad was yelling to her that Grandpa's head was bleeding and that he was "out cold" which means to be unconscious, but was still breathing. It took the local ambulance 15 minutes to get there which seemed like two hours or more and finally they came in and put a mask on Grandpa and slowly put him on a stretcher while wrapping him in a blanket. Dad told me later that he started to wake up in the back of the ambulance, but then lost consciousness again.
Everything in my life seems less important right now and all I can think of is Grandpa Jem and that he gets better. Although, I was curious and to help pass the time in the hospital I looked up a few of the words I have heard from the Doctor.
A "Concussion" is a "temporary unconsciousness caused by a blow to the head. The term is also used loosely of the aftereffects such as confusion or temporary incapacity."
A "stroke" is "a sudden disabling attack or loss of consciousness caused by an interruption in the flow of blood to the brain, esp. through thrombosis." "Thrombosis" is "local coagulation or clotting of the blood in a part of the circulatory system". It sounds like this "thrombosis" is what may have cause Grandpa to have a "stroke" and fall which caused a "concussion". I read that last sentence to Dad and he said that "one small problem can cause a lot of damage".
Dad seemed very relieved when Grandpa opened up his eyes, but I have never seen Dad look so worried and his worried look still hasn't gone away.

The first week of the new school trimester has come and gone and I am taking a drawing class as well as my usual project classes (Math, Earth Science, English literature, and Advanced Journalism). They are called "project classes" because many of these subjects are combined together in a single project that can overlap between the different classes. For example, last semester my Mayan project earned me credit for my History class as well as credit in English (writing) because I wrote an analysis of their alphabet system and talked about how they recorded their historical stories. I also am still trying to earn credit in Math because I wrote a seperate report on the Mayan number system and how they developed different cyclical calenders to keep track of time. I am not sure it is enough however because Math has to specifically involve our own current system like Algebra. I guess I am just trying to avoid having to take more Math classes because I dislike it.

Dad discovered Raccoons in our barn that have been making a mess of our garbage at night and spent all weekend (with my reluctant help) trying to trap them. Dad says he thinks he has seen a mother with large nipples which means she probably has a litter somewhere in the barn and is trying to feed herself enough because she is probably still nursing. I decided to find out more about raccoons so I looked on the computer to see if they as harmful as my Dad says and how best to deal with them. Raccoons are "nocturnal" which means they come out at night, and they are often thought by many people to carrie rabies, which is a disease that humans can get that can be deadly, but they rarely get rabies and instead can get canine distemper which has similar symptoms to rabies. Distemper can effect dogs, but not people so it is probably best to catch the raccoons and move them somewhere else, but Dad wanted to catch them and kill them. I didn't like that idea and told Dad so, but he said "it has to be done".
Dad set up the cage in the lower part of the back barn and put a cracker with peanut butter on it in a cage (trap) on Friday night. I was hoping to get up early on Saturday to see if the mother raccoon was in the cage, but I guess Dad put the cracker only part of the way in to make the raccoon "comfortable" and so it would continue to come back. Raccoons are one of the smartest animals and therefore you have to take time to be able to "outwit" them into eventually taking the cracker at the end of the cage past the "trigger plate".
More about raccoons...
Female raccoons usually have an average of four babies in a litter and pregnancy usually lasts for nine weeks and cubs are born in the Spring (like most animals). The young begin to accompany their mother on excursions by early June, but until then they are dependent on the mother's milk. They have had to adapt to changing habitat because of Humans and often make homes out of abandoned buildings, old beaver lodges, car bodies, wood piles, abandoned badger and coyote dens, attics, chimneys, and hay stacks. The hay stack is probably where they are living in our barn. Many raccoons are killed because people like their fur and can sell it for a lot of money and some people even eat the raccoon because they taste good, although I have never eaten one.
Raccoons can be driven out of chimneys and other locations by placing a flashing light near the entry to their den and by turning on a talk radio station and putting the radio near by. Spraying garbage with ammonia will also keep the raccoons out of the garbage, especially if the lid is fastened tightly. I also read that if you leave a sandwich with peanut butter mixed with hot sauce that when the raccoons eat it, it will be upset enough to leave the area thinking that all the food there will taste like that. I guess the peanut butter hides the smell of the hot sauce. I heard it can get rid of bears also.
I told all this to Dad and I said that I don't want him to kill the mother because then the babies will die too and we should try some of the things I read about first. He reluctantly agreed (thats twice I have used my new word "reluctant") and we decided to drive them out with sports talk radio at night and Rush Limbaugh during the day, which Mom said "would drive anyone away". So far, as of tonight, it hasn't worked yet, but the website said to give a mother and her cubs up to a week to relocate. If that doesn't work than we might have to try the "peanut butter and chili" sandwich.
"Reluctant" means "unwilling and hesitant; disinclined" and an example is "I am reluctant to kill anything as cute as a raccoon".