Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
A Surprise Visit
25 October 2025
On Friday I walked Joyce down the hall to the fish tank on our way to the scale -- as usual -- when we saw a familiar face. Was that Blake? Yes, it was. And here's Judy and Carol, too. And the new face next to Blake was Lynn, his fiancee.
Hugs and kisses later we were sitting around a table in the Pacific room while Joyce recovered from the shock of seeing family from Rochester and Los Angeles.
But today was even better.
We'd all planned on a picnic at the West Portal Playground because Andy was bringing his kids from Sacramento and Mike Kloess was coming from Richmond. But there were two problems with that.
One was the half dozen or so tables at the playground had been reserved until 3 p.m. And the other was the rain, which made an outdoor event a little soggy.
We thought about taking the kids to the zoo (because who doesn't?) but the zoo has, in its wisdom, decided to charge adults something like $25 each and kids only, uh, $22.
So everybody came to our house instead.
Joyce was the first to arrive. She made it up the stairs pausing just once to catch her breath and then, with me behind her, into the house over the threshold with no trouble at all. Twice in a row now.
Then Judy, Carol, Blake and Lynn arrived. They had dropped off a few things they picked up at Mollie Stones earlier.
Then Andy and his son Andy and daughter Nora arrived. And finally Mike Kloess came bearing ice cream and cookies.
We caught up on Mike Kloess's daughter Caitlin's wedding in Colorado and Andy's new job in Sacramento, had sandwiches from the Submarine Center to go with the salads from Mollie Stone's, drank Blake's 23-year-old Cabernet Sauvignon, had a ghost cake with vanilla ice cream (of course), played Uno, found Nora's sparkly jacket she lost on a walk, someone had a chair for everyone and plenty to eat and drink.
It may not have been the Miracle of Loaves and Fishes but you could call it the Miracle of Submarines and Chairs.
It was late in the afternoon when I took Joyce back to Golden Heights. Keanna the Nurse asked how the picnic was as we came in.
"Wonderful!" I told her.
The only thing that dampened the day (besides the rain) for me was having to return Joyce to Golden Heights instead of keeping her out with her sisters. But I knew for a few hours she had been the person she always was.