Kitty cat, where are you at?

“Is there any possibility of my moving down there?” Dad asks, referring to my house, making my heart sink. He’s asked this several times recently, and I haven’t really been able to get to the bottom of it and find the concern that’s making him ask. “You could,” I say carefully, “but you might have trouble finding your way around. You might be better off staying here, since you know where everything is. Is there a particular reason you think it’s a good idea?” “I could take care of the place,” he says.

I’m touched – and I wish he could. But in reality, we’d have to do a lot of construction to convert the basement into an apartment for him, although there’s already a bathroom down there – and he’d have access to a door that leads directly to the outside world, which scares me, in case he gets to a wandering stage. But if I put him in the guest bedroom upstairs, there’s the possibility of his falling down the stairs, not to mention that he might get awakened by me coming home late at night, since the guest bedroom is adjacent to mine. And the issue of orientation is a real one – I’ve seen him get turned around here, where he’s lived for 40+ years – he’d never be able to learn a new layout.

I try to distract him, “really, what I need is a wife.” “Have you ever tried to find a wife?” he asks. “It’s hard to find a woman who wants to stay home like that anymore,” – I’m trying to avoid getting into the gory details of my dating history.

“Do you have all your eyes?” Dad asks me, an odd inquiry that actually means he’s worrying about my vision. “I can see fine as long as I have my glasses on.”

I’m trying to write a note – on Dad’s table is an ancient cut glass vase full of pens, pencils, and ,uh, items. I grab what looks like a grubby grey pen and take off the cap, only to find a metal point instead of a writing tip. Pulling it further out, it turns out to be an old mercury thermometer! Apparently, at one point, they made thermometers disguised as pens – I have no idea why. Grabbing a tiny notebook off the table, I flip through, looking for a blank page. What I find are Dad’s notes, written who knows how long ago, ideas for stories and books he never wrote.

The cat comes over and hangs around Dad’s legs, so I lift her into his lap. Dad pets her and she luxuriates in the attention. “Kitty cat, where are you at?” he says softly to her several times as he pats, not so much looking for information, but just enjoying the rhyme.

Dad has been having periods lately where he gets down, thinking that the fact that he doesn’t remember anything means he didn’t do anything during his life. We’ve been trying to correct this by telling him stories, particularly of things he did with me as a child. Apparently this is sinking in, because tonight he says, “I didn’t realize that I spent so much time with you.” I affirm this, saying “we went to the beach a lot.” “Where was your mom?” he asks. “Mostly working.” “But she never saved any money.” “Nope.” My mother was freelance and lived hand-to-mouth. “And then she died.” “Right.” “What did she die of?” “Breast cancer.” “She was only 40.” “She was 56.” “I didn’t realize she was that old. It was ten years ago.” “Right.”

Surprise!

We had quite a surprise yesterday – Kate S. and Brianna were visiting Dad, and Marie/Obama happened to call, and while talking to Kate S., she mentioned that they’re going on a cruise, leaving March 7th!!! We had no idea – apparently Dad made the arrangements with Marie and then forgot all about it!!! We would have been totally shocked if we had shown up at his house on the 7th and found him gone, although we probably could’ve figured out where he went. When Dad goes on a trip, there are two main clues: he leaves HUGE bowls of food and water for the cat, and his battered olive green duffel bag goes with him. He has traveled all over the world with just that bag – he never takes much luggage.

We still don’t know where they’re going, but since it’s only a week, I’m guessing the Caribbean. Dad doesn’t go on cruises for the destination, he goes for the experience of being on the ship. Cruising is the safest way for him to travel these days, because there are railings and things to hold onto everywhere, and a very high staff-to-passenger ratio. He enjoys the food, and the feeling of the boat in motion, and smoking his cigar on a sunny deck. He doesn’t get off at any of the stops – the activities like hiking and such are too strenuous for him, sight-seeing is pretty pointless when you’re blind, and he says the shopping is just endless souvenir stands. Well, I take that back – he got off when he heard about a trip to the nude beach!!! He said it was the young women and older men who went nude, and that everybody else wore swimsuits or something.

I finally stopped procrastinating and called Mr. Shetty, Dad’s bank guy, to schedule an appointment for the three of us to meet. It’s way past time for me to “take over” managing Dad’s finances – Marie deals with the day-to-day details of his bill-paying and deposits in his checking account, but his investment account is at another bank, and I’ve just been letting it sit, but of course, that won’t work in the long-term. I’ve never had to deal with large amounts of money, or stocks and bonds and stuff like that – except for the Tofutti shares that Dad bought his vegetarian daughter for her 13th birthday! It’s weird – even though I’m about as empowered a woman as you can get, there are two areas where I just fall right into “helpless woman” mode – financial stuff, and repairs/construction.

With regards to financial stuff, I’m in better shape than my grandmother, who had only a high school diploma and depended on my grandfather to do all their banking, and my mother, who was such a financial disaster area that her house had to be put into a trust to protect it from her creditors. But I’m still really nervous about taking on the responsibility of Dad’s money. I always thought he would be the one advising me when I had money (given my tendency toward nonprofit work: never), not the other way around. I feel like I’m suddenly being catapulted from my comfortable “kid” position into the stressful “person in charge” role, and I feel unprepared.

The Duke of Edinburg

Yesterday, I arrived to find Dad, in his words, “hysterical.” Dad’s hysterical is rather understated, but he was definitely worried. Apparently the dentist’s office called to confirm his appointment and woke him up. He groggily told them he’d be there and then when he woke up, he was alarmed because he thought he’d made an appointment without checking to see if Marie or I could take him. It took quite a bit of reassurance before I could convince him that Marie was actually the one who made the appointment, so she’s definitely available.

Today he’s in better spirits, smoking a cigar at the counter. He says to me, “I would nominate you for man of the century.” All I did to earn this accolade was serve him a glass of coca-cola and a piece of carrot cake.

Dad washed the dishes, but instead of putting them in the dish drainer, to the right, he piled them all on the stove, to the left. He can’t remember simple things like that, but today he told us, accurately, the populations of China and India. Alzheimer’s is so quixotic.

When Kate S. and I got ready to give Dad his bath, something went wrong with the faucet and we couldn’t turn the water off. There we were, two hefty queer women and a naked octogenarian, crammed into a manhattan bathroom, fiddling with the faucet. Eventually, Kate S. sent me for the screwdriver and managed to repair it.

When it comes to baths, Dad prefers duration to frequency. He likes to soak in hot water for hours, refilling the water as it cools off, but only believes in bathing twice a week, unless, as he explains to us, “I’m going to sit next to the Duke of Edinburg.”

“One of the things I like most about you is the fact that you’re not afraid of all kinds of strange cookery,” said Dad while spooning down tonight’s dessert – chocolate crepes filled with ice cream. From him, I think that was a compliment. He called the crepe he was eating “a thin fabric,” which makes me wonder if, in some part of his brain, he knows that crepe is also a type of material.

“You do more god-damn things for people than five other people,” says Dad, watching me clean up his apartment after dinner. He’s gotten ice cream between the floorboards. I don’t think that’s ever coming out. Maybe we should have given him dessert before the bath.

Dad quote of the night: “I have never been normal. Never, ever been normal.”

Chocolate Seeds

Dad is eating his chocolates, and he comes to one with something hard in the middle. He holds it up “Is this a seed?” he asks. What a great idea, I think, seeds so you can grow your own chocolates. But, alas, it’s an almond.

I’m opening a box and Dad is examining the packing materials. “They look like . . . if you’re drowning, you won’t . . . “ “Life preservers.” “Aren’t they?” Kate S. explains that they’re an eco-friendly packing material. “I wonder what I should do with these? I could put them under the bed. They might be valuable,” he says. He keeps examining them. “You can’t inflate and re-inflate them. Anyway, you can demonstrate that it was god-damn well packed.”

I take the new crepe pan out of the box and hand it to Dad. He holds it by the handle, like a lollipop. “This is good for playing music,” he says and bangs out a rhythm with his fingers on the pan.

Kate S. and I are talking about the various things that one shouldn’t feed a cat, among them chocolate and onions, and Dad says “I’ll have to have a list if you’re going to give me a cat.” “Dad," I said, “you’ve had a cat for years.” “Oh, my god, that’s right! What have I been giving the cat?” We had to reassure him that he gives Kristen cat food. Luckily, she’s not the kind of cat that begs for table food.

Dad is trying to tell us something. “I need holes in my socks,” he says, “I need clippings on my feet.” Then he tells us a long story about how someone, every two months, takes his cat to have her claws clipped. This is puzzling, since I cut his cat’s nails myself. Suddenly, it dawns on me – the story’s not about the cat. “Dad, it’s you who gets clipped every two months.” He reaches down and pulls off his shoe and sock, revealing an astonishing length of toenails – apparently his appointment got cancelled and this is four months’ growth, and they’re making holes in his socks. He’s going next week.

We’re trying to get Dad to move around and exercise more, since he doesn’t go out much in the cold weather. I say, “Dad, you need to move around more.” He replies, “I should walk more. I should do a lot of things more. I should fuck more.” Kate S and I are flabbergasted.

I hand Dad his one-pound weights, and he starts thrusting his arms in all directions, like a clumsy, drunk cheerleader, and with each arm motion he goes, “Bang! Bang! Bang!” until he’s breathless and tired.

Dad is having trouble sleeping. His neighbor told us he hears him walking around at 3am, 4am. Dad himself doesn’t usually mention it, but today he complains that he was up all night. “I was hectic or static, something was bothering me,” he says. “I had been going to bed at 9pm and getting up at 11am, so they said ‘we’re cutting back.’” This is a relatively new idea of his – the idea that “they” are making basic decisions about his life – “they” decided it was time for him to go blind, “they” decided he was sleeping too much. I guess “they” are kind of like his higher power.

Feb. 15th 2009 Part 2

After dinner, Dad gets in a silly mood – lots of sugar in dessert? He reaches out to punch me in the shoulder to emphasize a point, but he’s blind, and so he punches me in the boob. When I protest, “Dad, that’s my boob!” he turns his hand around and starts feeling my chest to “see” where my boobs are. “Well, I won’t hurt anything there,” he says.

Today I brought Dad a cd called “Steel Drum Party” and now he’s inspired, banging away at the one we gave him for Christmas (alzheimer’s patients are known to enjoy rhythm). He’s keeping time with his foot while experimenting with different tones, some quite loud. Then he moves on to the table, banging on the antique wood with his drumstick. I take the other stick and we experiment with hitting different things , including Kate S.’s aluminum water bottle, which makes a great sound. “I’m having a great time. This is sort of fun,” he says, laughing.

Dad looks at me and Kate S., sitting around the table with him, and says “what’ll happen to the two of you after 50 years? I’m only going to be around for another five.” “Five!” says Kate S. “You said ten.” “I’m cutting it back.” He starts talking about his health. “They can’t find anything wrong with me, that’s the trouble. The doctor says, ‘there’s not a god-damn thing wrong with you except that you’re a bitch.” This is not really what the doctor said, but it’s so funny that Kate S. and I burst out laughing. “Something’s got to happen,” he says, baffling me. “Like what?” I ask. “Anything. I’ll have this and that,” he says, pointing to various parts of his body, “and then Blecchhhhh,” he makes a noise while clutching his throat.

He starts reminiscing about his teaching career. “I hated grading papers.” “I know, Mom and I used to help you.” “I didn’t realize how much you and your mom did for me.” “You did a lot for us, too, Dad.” “Like what?” “You bought us a house.” “What? I bought you a house?!” “Yes, the house on 9th st. where I grew up.” “I paid for that?” “Yes.” He ponders this in amazement. “A whole lot of activity just dropped, DROPPED, boom!” He’s referring to his memory loss.

“We need to measure,” I say to Kate S., “so we can get a new couch.” “Who needs a mother?” Dad asks. “You need a nice, washable slipcover for the cat hair,” says Kate S. “That cat hair has the most cat hair of any other cat I ever heard of,” says Dad.

“What are you doing,” Dad says, peering at my laptop. “We’ve been over this. I’m writing about you.” I read him the paragraph about the doctor. “This, you just wrote?” says Dad. “This, you just did,” I say. “ I give up,” says Dad. “You’ll leave a message when I’m dead.” “I’ll leave a message where?” “Who is it that’s writing all this stuff, is it you?” he asks. “It’s Kate,” says Kate S. Dad falls silent and starts drumming on the table with his fingers. He comes to the end and goes “Ruff,” bark-like. When we stare at him, he says, sheepishly, “I had to do something.”

Dad ate most of his chocolates overnight, but he has a few left. I put the box within his reach on the table, and he immediately picks a foil-wrapped chocolate and goes to pop it into his mouth “aaaah!” I scream, stupidly, and grab it from him. “What?” he asks. We point out the foil and he removes it, balls it up and then says, “now what?” When neither of us responds, he says, “I’ll put it right here,” and places it neatly on a random spot on the table. Kate S. removes the foil from the other wrapped candies for safety’s sake.

feb. 15 2009

Dad is fingering a few dollar bills that are lying on the counter. Kate S. says “that’s the money for the delivery guy.” Dad says “Oh, I was about to throw it out. I thought it was paper.”

Holding a cookie in his hand, he asks “If I bite into this what happens?” Brianna answers, “ You eat the cookie.” He’s still hesitating “Nothing runs out?” He must be remembering the jelly donut fiasco.

Kate S. is heading out to do an errand. She asks, “Addison, do you have any cash?” He responds “ I have a cat, she’s over there somewhere.”

I’m making a terrine recipe that calls for amaretto. Kate goes to the liquor store and comes back with a huge bottle that will take us a lifetime to use –it was the only one they had. I give it to Dad so he can “look” at it with his fingers. “What is it?” “Amaretto.” He looks blank, so I explain “Alcohol.” “Alcohol must be very heavy, “ he says. “I think it’s the glass bottle, Dad.”

We’re getting ready for dinner and Dad’s thinking out loud, “should I wash my hands?” he wonders. “No, I washed them last week,” he answers himself. “Last week!” we all shout. “I mean last hour, an hour ago, “ he says.

As I’m setting dinner on the table: “I don’t know what we’ll do without you, Kate, if you disappear” “ I don’t plan on disappearing,” I say reassuringly. “Nobody does,” he says.

2/14/09

The role reversal is complete. After years of Dad bringing me and Mom valentines, today I brought him candy. “Is this a birthday present?” It’s red, it’s heart-shaped, your birthday is in August . . . “No, it’s a valentine’s day present.” “It’s full of goodies, right?” “Yes,” I say, opening it for him. Dad starts feeling the chocolates, finding out how many there are. “A whole lot of goodies, wow,” he says. He chooses one at random and pops it in his mouth. “Delicious. Deeee-licious.” “is Valentine’s Day an official holiday?” “Sort of. A lot of people buy flowers and candy and sometimes jewelry.” “Expensive stuff.”

We have accidentally given Dad a false idea – today I put on the cd of Peruvian flutes, so he could listen to it after I left and he said “that music hardly got out of peru, but now it’s suddenly very popular.” I was confused at first – it’s not like Peruvian music is suddenly on the top 40 – but then I realized that because Dad likes the music, all of his visitors keep playing it for him and, since he hears it so much, he assumes that everybody is listening to it all the time, like people are driving down the street blasting pan flute music from their cars.
I stumbled upon another misconception that’s apparently been bothering Dad for a while now –

I’d noticed that he was washing his eyes a lot and fussing about them. The other day, he even asked me for his eyedrops, which we had stopped bothering with, basically because there’s nothing left to lose. When I gave him the tiny, expensive bottle he started to pop it into his mouth – I had to grab it from him to stop him from swallowing it. I said “Dad, you asked for drops for your EYES,” and he said, “Oh, yes,” and asked me to put them in for him. Anyway, it turns out that after hearing about Edith, Kate S.’s cat, who had to have her eye removed after a severe infection, Dad had been thinking that they might have to take out HIS eyes. I was able to reassure him that they weren’t going to do that to him, and he seemed to feel a lot better.

2/11/09

Arriving at Dad's house today, he said to me, "can I get you anything?" "No," I said, "I'm just putting my hair back." Dad looked surprised "You have special hair to put on?" "No, I'm putting back my regular hair, in a pony tail, with a rubber band."

This picture is from the early 1980s - it's Dad on an expedition in Copan, helping to sort and re-assemble Mayan ruins.

Dad was always interested in archaeology. He used to build large, elaborate sand-castles that were more like sculptures, in the shape of Mayan temples. He had me, at the age of six, holding flashcards while he learned Mayan numerals, and he decorated my mother's freshly-baked cookie cutters with mayan themes.

When I was 13 or so, he started paying me to tape record the more technical magazines he subscribed to, the ones the Library for the Blind didn't record. I was probably the only pre-teen reader of Archaeology magazine. It was excruciatingly boring, and my voice on the tapes was punctuated by yawns. Sometimes my voice would trail off and start to slur and then turn to snores on the tape, but Dad paid me for recording for years, and when I ran into his neighbor on the subway platform he told me he was used to hearing my voice through the walls.

Dad meets an ipod

Dad’s in a much better mood today. He’s talking a lot and hardly mentions being blind. He’s also being a little silly - seeing some boxes on the floor, he asked “do I have to jump over that?”

Upon being shown the door buzzer by Kate S., he said “Hey, that’s really something! Now I know how to get people in. I usually go downstairs.” Thinking about going downstairs, he remembers his escapade w/ Marie/Obama: “ That was not the first time I went down there bare-assed and someone was very upset about it. They must have thought they were in the house of a lunatic. I guess it got around. People talk about it.”

Later Kate S. and I were discussing dessert “Does chocolate mousse cake need cream cheese?” she asked me, “ No, but we don’t have any rum. We have some Bailey’s,” I told her. Dad, who was listening, asked “bay leaf?” Kate S. responded “Bailey’s, it’s like coffee . . .” “but it’s alcohol,” I interjected. Dad said, puzzled “it’s alcohol disguised as coffee?”

“Dad, would you like some tea?” I ask. “Tea? Tea? I’d like some tea. I haven’t had much tea all my life. Just coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee.” Kate teases him by declaring “Coffee Marches On.” “It certainly does,” says Dad, smiling.

“Where is that music coming from?” asks Dad, tortilla chip in hand. We’re listening to the pan flutes again. “From the cd player on the couch,” says Kate S., brightly. “I know that.” says Dad in a tone of mock annoyance. “Oh,” says Kate, “this music comes from Peru.”

Dad asks Kate S. if she reads on her long commute home. “No, I listen to music,” she says. “I have this little thing,” and she gets out her ipod and shows it to him. “This can hold 4,000 songs,” she says. Dad is shocked. “4,000 songs!” He says “what next?” She lets him listen to it. “I never suspected anything like this! How much do you have to pay for that?” “This was $140,” “That’s all? How do they get that many in that thing?” Kate S. tries to explain digital music, but it’s hopeless. She proceeds to spend the next half hour answering his questions about ipods.

February 7th 2009

Dad’s been pretty quiet today. He’s convinced that he’s blinder than ever and that it’s getting worse by the hour and he’s quietly brooding. He says “I’m trying to put on a devil-may-care façade but I don’t think I’m making it.” I tried distracting him with music (the pan flutes again) and food (ice cream with homemade chocolate sauce) and it worked – for a while.
We were finishing our ice cream, when he suddenly asked, as polite as if he were at a formal luncheon “If you don’t mind my asking, what did your mom die of anyway?” Here we go, I thought. At least he knows she’s dead today. “Breast Cancer,” Breast cancer. How old was she?” “56,” “She was older than I thought.”

I so don’t want to go over the details of the long, horrible night of struggling to breathe before her death in the morning, but I cautiously venture, “you were there, Dad.” In fact, he was the only one there – I did the never-ending night watch, while she pulled out her tubes in a vain effort to get us to let her go and the nurses, more frustrated each time, kept jamming them back together and pumping oxygen into her failing lungs. I was there for her last words “I’m thirsty” – heart-rending because she couldn’t breathe in enough to drink so all the nurses and I could do was wet her lips and tongue. And I was the one sitting there in the middle of the night when, across the room, I saw her roommate draw one last breath and then start spilling blood from her nose and mouth. I went and got the nurse and this lady’s whole grieving Italian family crammed into the room while I tried to shrink into our corner. When Dad got there in the morning, I was exhausted and hungry, so I told Mom I was going home to feed the cats and she nodded. He climbed onto the bed and put his arms around her and started gently kissing her neck and shoulders – the only time I ever saw them that intimate – and I had barely gotten home and fallen asleep when he called to say she was gone. Anyway, Dad just said “I know” and let it drop.

I was telling Dad about my latest plumbing troubles – a bedroom radiator that suddenly started squirting water from one of the valves. I was grumbling about how expensive the plumber is going to be, and Dad said “What’s expensive?” “Plumbers,” “Summer?” he asked. “Plumbers!!!” I said, very loudly. “Oh.”

The phone rings, and Dad listens while I talk to a potential new client for the shelter. When I hang up he says , “Some of them drop off and some of them get new, some of them stay quite a while, all kinds of people.” It’s a pretty accurate, if somewhat jumbled, description of the shelter residents.

As I’m getting ready to leave, Dad says, “I’ll miss you,” “I’ll be back tomorrow ,” I remind him. Silence. “At 84, you can’t complain.” “You’re 85.” “85? Are you sure?” “Yes, 85 and a half.” “I’ll be 86 next august?” “Uh-huh.” Dad seems to be brooding again, so I lower my pitch, and use his words: “Time Marches On,” I say to him. Dad giggles, then says “Nothing stops it.” He pitches his voice lower: “Nothing stops it.” And then he repeats it over and over in all kinds of voices. “Nothing stops it. Nothing stops it. Nothing stops it.”

Feb. 6 2009

Is it totally evil of me to be jealous of elderly people with intact brains? When I talk to Dad’s friends and neighbors who are close to his age, I find myself wishing that I could snatch their brains and install them in him – but, of course, even if you could transplant brains, you wouldn’t wind up with the same person. Talking to Inga, another of Dad and Charlie’s college friends, really brought it home – while Dad is struggling to remember words like “juice,” Inga is writing her third book!

Today on the train on the way to work I was feeling teary – for some reason, around 3:30pm is when the sadness of Dad’s situation hits me – either my subconscious knows that’s when he used to pick me up at school or, more likely, the train ride to work is the only time when I’m both awake and still and so that’s when the thoughts creep in. At work the kids pretty much drown them out and at home there’s always dishes to wash or litter to change or somebody trying to hypnotize me with their purring, but on the train I think and cry.

Anyway, there I was, and, as often happens at moments of intense emotion, ideas for sculptures began to flood my mind, which makes it harder to live with my decision to prioritize Dad over sculpting. I find myself thinking that maybe I should just give up a shift so I have another evening free – it’s only $90 a shift, so it’s not a huge financial loss, but it does feel like taking a step away from the shelter and our little community of kids, staff and volunteers, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I already feel that like I’m letting go of Dad, little by little, like a spool of thread slowly unwinding.

2/4/09

Dad’s four-flight walk up is never convenient but tonight, with my already-painful ankle throbbing from a cortisone shot, it seemed as impossible as climbing a Mayan temple. But, I have to get to Dad, so I hop - like a large, overburdened kangaroo - up the four flights and land at his door, out of breath. “Want one of these donuts?” says Dad, offering me a banana.

So, it’s February now, and I still haven’t worked out my conflict about sculpting vs. being w/ Dad. I want to go back to the studio – I left half finished sculptures sitting on the shelves – but I can’t give up my Wednesday nights with Dad. He’s too happy to see me, thrilled by my weekly “surprise” visits, and I’m too attached to our little rituals, cupcake night and books on tape.

We’ve been listening to Frank McCourt’s Teacher Man. I’ve read it before, and bought Dad the audio version for some holiday years ago. Recently, I found it, unopened, in a cabinet, so I started playing it for him. He’s following it eagerly, laughing in the right places, remembering which tape we’re up to when I get the machine out each week. He can relate to the stories about teaching, having had many similar experiences himself in New York City public high schools.

You never know what you’re going to get, linguistically, with Dad – tonight I put a plate in front of Dad and started to open a package. “What hast thou there?” he asks. “It’s a chocolate cupcake with coconut.” “Ooooh, oooh, oooh, you really know how to serve.”

I brought Dad a cd of Andean Highland music. Dad loves music of all kinds, but he’s particularly fascinated by the idea that these are flutes. “It’s very, very good,” he says. “Where is peru?”

More quotable Dad:
“Do some people live longer than others? I’m beginning to suspect they do.”
“I’ve already accepted the fact that going blind without being able to see anything is much, much worse than going blind when you can see everything.”

Snow

It’s snowing today and I’m going to have to shovel the sidewalk. Snow makes me think of Dad. For most of my life, Dad shoveled the sidewalks of our houses, even though he has always lived in Manhattan and had to travel to Brooklyn to shovel. I would “help” with my little shovel, but he did most of the work.

Once, a snow drift blew up against the front door of our house and we couldn’t open the front door until Dad came and shoveled us out. Another time Dad took me out to play on a day when the snow banks were well over my head and the whole world was endlessly white. And I remember how mad he got when that rare treasure of kids and teachers, a snow day, happened while he was on sabbatical, sitting on a beach in Honduras.

My snowiest memory of Dad is of a trip we took to Gloucester when I was about 7. It was a school vacation during the winter, and Dad took me and my best friend, Georgia, on the train. It was snowing the whole way up, and by the time we switched to the commuter rail in Boston – the train with the big purple stripe – it was really heavy. On the way to Gloucester, a tree blew over, blocking the tracks.

From years of roaming the woods around Gloucester, Dad knew where we were, and knew a route through the woods onto our property that would have brought us through our woodlot to the back of our house. But the conductor wasn’t about to let Dad off the train with two little girls in a blizzard. A group of men got off the train and rolled the tree off the tracks.

When we got to Gloucester, we were stuck with no way to get to the house. The only thing open was an old fisherman’s bar across from the train tracks. Holding Georgia’s hand, Dad headed for the bar with me trying to follow right behind, but my mother had dressed me in a waterproof poncho that kept blowing up and covering my face. Somehow we all made it to the bar. I had never been in a bar and didn’t really know what it was, but it was warm and there were lots of the happiest adults I had ever seen and they were all singing. A bartender fished out a couple of dusty packets of hot chocolate for us to drink while he and Dad discussed what to do.

Eventually, the Gloucester police, with their snow chains and four-wheel drive, came and gave us a ride – my first time in a police car!

Don't Try This At Home

Today I got to Dad’s house and found him washing the dishes – with peanut butter! He hadn’t been able to find the dish soap (because we keep it hidden since the time he mistook it for a beverage), so he decided to use “the sticky stuff.” Dad likes washing dishes and it makes him feel useful, so I took away the peanut butter and gave him the dish detergent and a sponge

Speaking of the Dish Soap Incident, it came up tonight and Kate S. couldn’t resist asking, “Did bubbles come out of your nose?” Dad replied, “I don’t know where it came out of, my ass, my nipples . . .” Kate interrupted “Bubbles came out of your nipples?” and we all burst out laughing.

I noticed Dad was wearing a plain red cap instead of the Obama hat. “Dad, what happened to the Obama hat?” “I haven’t seen it in days, someone must have stolen it.” I sent Kate S. to the bedroom to look and she found it easily and brought it to him. He proceeded to put on the Obama hat over the red hat and wore two hats for the rest of the evening.

Dad keeps burping. I don’t know what’s going on. It started a couple of weeks ago and, as far as I know, he hasn’t been eating anything new or unusual lately. I wonder if I should take him to the doctor. I asked him if he was in any pain, and he wanted to know why, so I pointed out the burping to him. So then he got silly and started faking burps, and now every time he burps he makes an announcement about it.

We gave Dad a dish of ice cream with chocolate sauce. He dove in, then asked, “are there little rocks in this?” as though rocks were a normal part of our cuisine. “No, Dad, they’re little pieces of chocolate.”

A random Dad quote: “I think they wait until you’re 80 and then they give you cigars. They say ‘you’re not going to be around much longer’ so then they give you cigars because they know they’re not going to have to keep it up for fifty years.”

Another Bad Day

Another nightmare about Dad last night. I was looking for him in a grand hotel and the hotel clerk was telling me he was dead. I woke up screaming. Tiger Lily, my grouchy calico, climbed over my shoulder so she could settle her chubby body in my arms and purr the lingering bits of dream away.

Dad’s having another bad alzheimer’s day. He says, “it’s only a few days since I became blind and I don’t know what I’m going to do. How do they decide when you’re going to be blind?” “Nobody decides, Dad, it’s just that something stops working, like when a pipe leaks, nobody decided . it’s just broken.” “I’m not so sure about that. Are you sure nobody decides?” “I’m definitely sure, Dad.”

Reading Dad an article about the octuplets, he got confused and thought they were kittens. Then, when he finally understood that they were people, he thought they were my eight babies! Then, ordering his groceries, the delivery slot I wanted was taken and I was grumbling. Dad was totally confused – I tried and tried to explain, but he started making this gesture which he’s started to use lately, kind of a cross between the twirling-finger “crazy sign” and a salute off the top of the head. It’s his I-don’t-understand sign.

I’m used to being able to explain things so he understands and this new lack of comprehension is really distressing. It’s not all the time, but I know it’s going to happen more and more.