rainbow pizza

I come back from the Dyke March and find Dad searching high and low for his cat. “She’s in her cat bed, Dad,” I tell him. She rarely moves, unless she’s coming out for food or toile on the couch. 15 year old cats aren’t that active. “Do you have any cats of your own?” he asks. “Yeah, 15, Dad,” I tell him. He’s startled. “15!! Whoo-hoo! You’re certainly cat conscious,” he says.

As I’m getting dinner together, he asks “What are you going to do about that?” “About what?” I ask. “About whatever you’re going to do? What are you going to do, anyway?” he asks, confusing both of us.

Dad and I are discussing the plans for tomorrow’s Pride parade and I’m trying to persuade him not to give me his last $20, in case he needs it for cab fare. “It costs more the farther you go along?” he asks. “In a cab, the farther you go, the more it costs,” I explain. “What about walking?” he wants to know. “Walking is free, Dad,” I tell him.

There’s a new dog in the neighborhood and it has a barking problem. “That thing, that animal, has been barking for hours now,” Dad tells me. “It’s a dog, Dad,” I say. “It’s a dog?” he says, sounding surprised.

I’m telling Dad about how it only poured during the time I was trying to get back to his house from the March and stopped as soon as I got indoors. “It’s crazy, the sky is all blue and pretty again,” I say to him. “What guy?” he asks, making me think of the Blue Man Group, who perform with their skin painted blue.

Dad is bored with the lack of variety in his pre-prepared meals. I tell him we can get take out and run through the options. When I get to pizza, I discover that it has disappeared from his memory banks. He starts asking me various questions about this item, reminding me of a creative writing exercise where you have to pretend that you are explaining everyday items to an outer space alien. One of his questions about pizza: “They come in various colors?” I wonder why not. They seem to put dye in pretty much everything else these days. Why not have a rainbow pizza?