ritzy snitzy

Dad and I are now listening to Ruth Reichl’s “Tender at the Bone,” but we only made it to the 3rd side of tape before the player went crazy and pulled all the tape out of the cassette. I tried to fix it, but it got to the same place and did it again, so I think I’ll have to dig out my copy of the book and read this part to him myself. I can’t remember if it was this book, or another Ruth Reichl book, that I read aloud to my mother as she was dying in the hospital.

On Sunday Dad and I made the trip out to East Flatbush to Kate S’s house for Brianna’s birthday celebration. Getting places with Dad always makes me feel like those frazzled parents you see in airports; there are so many odds and ends to remember - teeth, glasses, are his clothes right-side out? Do his socks match? Got teeth? Glasses? Wallet (his and mine)?, etc. - and watch out for and you can’t do anything fast. Plus, you have to make sure he pees before leaving, like a little kid. I guess I’m the right age for it – people I went to school with keep finding me on Facebook, and they all seem to have little kids. So, they have their little kids and I have Dad.

Coming back, we had a young, Caribbean driver who was playing his “Caribbean Fever” radio really loud. He heard Dad say something about it and wanted to know if the music was too loud, but Dad was just saying he liked it!

Dad on swine flu: “I hope I don’t get spanged by it.”

Dad was eating his dinner when I got here, a little after 6pm, but now it’s 9pm and he’s eyeing my black bean burrito, so I cut a piece off for him. Halfway through eating it, he asks “Did I eat at 6pm?” When I tell him he did, he takes a few more bites, and then says, “that’s enough for one day.” Marie-Jo, who is filling in for Marie while she’s on vacation, told me that she only puts one banana on the counter and keeps the bunch on top of the fridge, where Dad won’t find them, because he will eat them all at once.

“Good lord, you have a tough life, pulling stuff out of sandwiches all the time,” says Dad, listening to me complain about the hardships of vegetarianism in a City where people go around ruining perfectly good grilled cheese sandwiches with bacon.

“Your pants are inside out,” I tell Dad, observing that the fuzzy inside and the seams of his pants are on the outside. “REALLY?” he says as if it’s the most astonishing thing he’s ever heard. I have him feel both sides of the pants, and then he understands. Then he starts examining his outermost shirt, a striped t-shirt that he’s wearing on top of his sweater. “This has decorations on it,” “Yeah,” I say, “stripes.” “Pretty ritzy, snitzy,” he says.

“I’m still trying to get a bed for you,” says Dad, referring to the sofabed. “John’s coming to get the old one this weekend,” I tell him. “What’s his name?” Dad wants to know. “John. John Henry.” “That’s a classic name,” says Dad.

The cat walks over and stands by Dad’s legs. “Hello, kitty cat,” he says in a high-pitched falsetto. The cat sits between his feet. Dad looks around. “I don’t know where it is,” he says to me. “Where what is?” “The cat.” I take his hand and guide it to the cat.

“My boss is very strange,” Dad says. “For one thing she makes a hell of a lot of noise. Just banging around, loud talk, slamming things.” He must mean Marie-Jo, I think, though she always seemed pretty quiet to me. “I think she’s kind of a compulsive, because today or was it yesterday, she made an awful lot of noise. And today she came in, put the thing down there, and down there, and down there, two or three minutes, and then she tore out. This time she had a huge bag of clothes, I think she said she was going to clean them. She was in a hellish hurry anyway.” I think it's pretty funny that he considers his employees his boss, but I guess it makes sense in a way - they tell him when to eat, what to wear, when to bathe . . .