Now I'm trying to clean up the living room. A man says, "It's alright, I can handle it, but no, I wouldn't be honest unless I tell you it really does bother me. I don't like mess." I feel angry and helpless because its not my fault I have arthritis and can't keep it up. I feel guilty because maybe I don't try hard enough. Its not a priority for me. I see a dulcimer hanging on the wall and pick up several other instruments and hang them up in a lovely arrangement. I ask Millie how it looks and she shrugs, unable to come to an opinion. I decide I want to counsel her and start talking and asking questions like I'm a detective. I get her to talk about her childhood. She describes how she was always reprimanded for making mistakes. No matter what she wanted to do or believed she could try, Grandma Mildred and others would say, "Oh, you couldn't do that." Millie describes how her mother had a 7-year-old hooker (a 7-year-old boy that hooked rugs). They'd laugh and have fun and Millie felt left out and like the ugly duckling. Now my mother and Millie are at the sink cleaning up and talking. I'm to the right side listening in. I see a plate of pancakes in the sink and feel hungry for them. I see a piece of chocolate cake and chocolate frosting on the counter. Millie says, "I remember her. She had an infection." My mother thinks and then says, "Oh yes, I do remember now, a cyst." "Yes, an infection on the cyst." I say, "No wonder you don't think you can do anything!" I move over between them but that has broken the flow of memories they had. I regret doing that. So I move back to my other place and think, "Just be quiet and don't interrupt." Finally, Millie who has resisted this idea that she might be more capable than she thinks, gets what I'm getting at. She says, "Once I wanted to be a beauty operator." She chuckles, "Yeah, the stinky perms and even hand beauty scent." We smile. She moves my chair, telling me not to get up, she just has to get her apron on now. She pulls it out from under my chair. She puts it on saying, "I just feel better when I wear it during my 'official duty time'," said like "Howdy Doody time." My mother laughs at her joke. I wonder how to get her to the next step, which is to let go of the old training and reframe the attitude and get on with it.