Our Lady

Dad is winding down a phone chat with Kate S. “Is there anything else you want to tell me? To confess to me? Do you want me to turn you over to our lady?” This mystical-sounding title refers to me and makes me feel like I should be the patron saint of something, like “Our Lady of the Vegetarian Kitchen.” Vegetarians could pray to me in that anxious moment when they’re going someplace and don’t know if there will be any vegetarian options.

I played some videos from the NY Times web site for Dad, and now he keeps asking me what station that was. I’ve been trying to explain that computers don’t have stations, exactly, but it’s a losing battle.

Dad is washing dishes and I hear his voice, “I don’t know where the god-damn soap is.” He’s not exactly talking to me, but rather to himself as he gropes around, but I go retrieve the soap and give it to him.

Marie called today, worried because when she gets here, Dad has often fixed himself a beverage, but he’s making strange concoctions, like coffee with orange juice instead of milk, or hot water with milk in it and no coffee powder. I tell her not to worry, that if these things taste OK to him and he’s not bothered by it, we should just go with the flow, but she’s a person who wants things to be done “right” and it won’t be easy for her to let go of that way of thinking.

She suggests that maybe we should hire another person – she’s less worried about the evenings, which have been bothering me, than about the mornings before she comes in. Her idea is that she could come in earlier, at 9am, so that she’s here for breakfast and coffee, and then she would leave earlier, and then her friend Mary could come give him dinner after she finishes her job nearby. It’s an idea.