November 25, 2007 – Cool, sunny. Here’s a request from Poor Paula, so named for her unfortunate choice in marriage. Readers tend to think of my wife, Paula Span, as possessing either saintly patience for my shenanigans or a well-honed gift for denial. In actuality, and in addition to those traits, she’s a veteran journalist (she spent 16 years at the Washington Post) and a professor at Columbia University’s journalism school, and she’s been hard at work for nearly two years on her own book, to be published in 2009. It’s called “When the Time Comes.” My daughter Emma Span, who is writing a book about New York baseball, says we are all cranking out our own books, making us like the Royal Tennenbaums.
   Paula is writing about how American families care for their aging parents.
   Month after month, she has followed families up and down the East Coast as they decide what to do when their elders need help – home care or assisted living? Assisted living or a nursing home? The hospital, once again, or hospice care at the end of life? Her hope is that these stories, and the information she’s collecting from researchers and  gerontology experts, will be useful to the millions of people who take care of elderly relatives.
   Now she’s trying to find a family that’s about to move an elderly parent into their own household in the next few weeks or months. She’d like to talk to the family before the move takes place, then follow along through the transition. And she need this family to be within a four or five-hour drive of New York City, so that she can visit regularly.
    If you are about to make such a move, or you know of someone else who is, she’d love to talk with you and explain more about the book and what’s involved. Her e-mail is [email protected], and she is also happy to accept collect calls at 973 -746-6777.
  Paula thanks you and I thank you, and the donkeys above, thank you, as Paula loves the donkeys and the only farm chore she regularly goes is donkey care and brushing. It would be nice to  have her working up here more, I have to say. She is great to have around.