cat-farming

When I finish reading him a chapter in which Ruth Reichl describes her affair in Paris, Dad sits and looks dazed. “Where am I?” he asks. “In your apartment, at the dining room table,“ I tell him. I thought I was in Paris,” he says “Have I ever been to Paris?” “Yes, you’ve been Paris, several times,” I tell him. “You were there about ten years ago, with Andy Dupee. You took a ship across and back.” “Where was Fred Dupee?” he wonders about her husband. “Dead,” I tell him. The story of Dad and Andy goes way back to their college days, when Dad and Andy were students, and Fred was a professor. Dad was madly in love with Andy, but she married Fred, who wound up having a not-so-secret affair with Gore Vidal. After decades of no contact, Dad and Andy ran into each other after Fred’s death, only to discover that they’d both gone blind. Oddly, they went blind in complementary ways – his glaucoma left him with central vision only, and her macular degeneration left her with only peripheral vision. So, what do you do when you re-discover the love of your life and you’re both in your eighties and blind? Get on a trans-Atlantic ship, of course!

Interestingly, Dad doesn’t remember Paris, but he did remember Andy’s name and that she’d been married to Fred. Kate S. says that she was talking to him about Mohonk the other day, and he remembered the massage he had while we were there a year ago and told her “I talked to that lady until her ears fell off.” She says he also remembers the names of classical composers and will name them when they listen to music together.

“Have you ever been married?” Dad asks me. “No,” I tell him. “Are you planning on getting married?” he wants to know. “No, I’m being a cat farmer,” I say jokingly. He takes me seriously, “Can you make much of a profit, cat farming?” he asks. “I don’t do it for profit,” I say, laughing.

He takes me through a series of questions, and then says, “I didn’t know who you were, until you told me.” “How came we together?” he wants to know. “You’re my Dad,” I explain. “When I was born, they called you on the loudspeaker while you were teaching, and you got on your bicycle and came to the hospital.” This stirs something in Dad. “You were teeny-weeny,” he says, remembering my premature state. I repeat what he told me as a kid, “My head fit in your palm and my feet were in the crook of your elbow.”

“How old are you?” asks Dad. “33,” I say. “83?” he asks, as though that makes sense. “33!” I yell. “Oh,” he says.

“You know what I’ve been seeing in the last three days?” “Flowers, different sizes, and then they’re gone. I don’t think I’ve had one tonight. Yeah, they mentioned them.” The last phrase is a little baffling. “Three different sizes, big ones, little ones, littler ones,” he says.
“You know what I see when I close my eyes, round and the same thing everywhere, different sizes, yesterday and today and the day before yesterday, I never noticed them before. Am I cooking up these things?” Now, there’s a question . . .