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 . . .
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Allergic to me?
As soon as I walk in, Dad tells me that someone called him, but can’t tell me who. After a lot of guesswork, I finally figure out that it was his friend Peter. Talking to Peter has gotten Dad thinking about his memory loss. He says “I think it was probably the outstanding conversation of the god-damn world. I just could not believe it that I knew all these people. He named a dozen people so it’s somehow a wonder to me that all these names came up or occurred and they were forgotten and I knew all kinds of people and people and people and I don’t know their names any more. All these people from way back, 50 years ago, I wonder if it’s had any, there must have been a lot of people who abandoned me or I abandoned them because I didn’t remember the names and I didn’t want to embarrass myself.”
Dad continued describing the conversation as it dawned on Peter that Dad doesn’t remember any of their mutual friends. “He was quite upset after about 20 minutes. I said ‘well, I’ve forgotten a lot of people.’ He said ‘You’re rather unique. Most people are completely dumbfounded and don’t know anything and wind up in a place where they won’t be bothered.’”
A while later, he asks “Will I be a different person?” and when I ask what he means, it turns out that he’s still thinking about the dementia. He says, “Is there any percentage of people who don’t know one end from the other?” “People who can’t remember things?” I ask. “Yes.” “Several million in the US.” I reply. “And I’m one of them and I didn’t realize it until today. I don’t know how I managed to avoid all that,” he says. I don’t bother trying to explain that it’s the nature of the illness.
The cat is sitting on Dad’s lap. “What’s that water running for?” he asks me. “She’s making you tea,” I tell him. “Guess we’re going to get some tea,” he says to the cat. “Would you like some tea?” The cat doesn’t answer.
“What’s guacamole?” asks Dad. “It’s kind of a paste made out of avocados.” “Paste?!” says Dad, undoubtedly thinking of glue. “They smash up the avocados with seasoning and stuff,” I explain.
We’re discussing Dad’s cat and suddenly he says, “I wonder if she’s ever fucked?” I’m startled by the question, but just tell him I don’t know.
“You’re sneezing,” Dad says, “Think you got a cold coming over?” “No, I’m allergic to something,” I tell him. “Allergic to me?” he asks. “No, I think it’s the plants outside.”
Dad continued describing the conversation as it dawned on Peter that Dad doesn’t remember any of their mutual friends. “He was quite upset after about 20 minutes. I said ‘well, I’ve forgotten a lot of people.’ He said ‘You’re rather unique. Most people are completely dumbfounded and don’t know anything and wind up in a place where they won’t be bothered.’”
A while later, he asks “Will I be a different person?” and when I ask what he means, it turns out that he’s still thinking about the dementia. He says, “Is there any percentage of people who don’t know one end from the other?” “People who can’t remember things?” I ask. “Yes.” “Several million in the US.” I reply. “And I’m one of them and I didn’t realize it until today. I don’t know how I managed to avoid all that,” he says. I don’t bother trying to explain that it’s the nature of the illness.
The cat is sitting on Dad’s lap. “What’s that water running for?” he asks me. “She’s making you tea,” I tell him. “Guess we’re going to get some tea,” he says to the cat. “Would you like some tea?” The cat doesn’t answer.
“What’s guacamole?” asks Dad. “It’s kind of a paste made out of avocados.” “Paste?!” says Dad, undoubtedly thinking of glue. “They smash up the avocados with seasoning and stuff,” I explain.
We’re discussing Dad’s cat and suddenly he says, “I wonder if she’s ever fucked?” I’m startled by the question, but just tell him I don’t know.
“You’re sneezing,” Dad says, “Think you got a cold coming over?” “No, I’m allergic to something,” I tell him. “Allergic to me?” he asks. “No, I think it’s the plants outside.”
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
weird weird weird dream
Dad’s still shaken by last night’s hallucination. He says: “Last night I had a very weird weird weird dream that went on and on and on. I had houses that went on and on all around and when I wanted to be myself I couldn’t find my home, but there I was right in the middle of where I’ve always been. Everything was foreign, it was all different, all I was standing on was what I was standing on and all around was foreign things. I don’t know why I’m confessing all this.”
“A lot of people talk about their dreams,” I tell him. “I think a lot of people are scared of their dreams. It’s the wildest, weirdest dream I ever had. All the houses were brick without a single brick missing.” “You woke up eventually,” I remind him, trying to get him to realize that it’s over. “I woke up? I finally came to but I wasn’t awake. I went from one room to the other, back and forth, I could feel it, but I couldn’t see it. Weird. Weird. Weird. In fact, I’m kind of scared of it. It was all all all bricks and stone and everything was screwed up nothing was regular but everyplace was completely done, there was not a brick out of place ever. Finally I said ‘gee whiz where am I?’ and I was scared to death. I could see right through everything that I was feeling, that was the weird part of it. I’m almost scared to go to bed tonight. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
After a pause, he says, “What I think is I’m going back into things I never dared go into before. After you left, I was lost,” “I know you were seeing the houses before I left,” I say. “That’s the trouble, I was seeing them too much.”
“At one point he was asking me questions and questions and questions,” Dad says. “Charlie was?” I’m not sure what we’re talking about. “Charlie Burgess was, and he was smiling.” “You thought Charlie was here in the house asking questions?” “No, he didn’t appear in this thing at all. He was somewhere else. This thing was very strange, very hilly, no streets but walls, walls, walls, everywhere was a wall.” We’re back to this again.
“Those remind me of the stone walls in Gloucester that mark off the edges of the property,” I say. Dad replies “I think I’ve wiped Gloucester off the map. We were going to go and check up on what I owned and what I didn’t own but we never got to it at all. I don’t remember the following trip at all.” “We went there for your birthday in August,” I remind him. “You and I and?” he asks. “Kate,” I say, filling in the blank. “I don’t remember a damn thing about it at all. I tell you, when you get to be my age you run into all kinds of crazy things. But they never seem to be dangerous. And you never saw anyone else. Just walls, walls, walls, crazy looking but they were always peaceful and you never saw a person, no one, just houses, houses, houses. The moment you left I was scared, really scared, but then I calmed down and began to see the apartment and walked from one room to another but still you could see these houses all around.”
“But no snakes?” I ask, thinking of the other day. “No any other animal at all, nothing. Just houses and houses and walls and walls and crooked walls. You could look anywhere and see houses but they never got above the first floor. I’m kind of anxious to see what comes next.”
“I smell the oil from the oil truck outside,” I say, trying for a distraction. “I think my smelling apparatus is dead.” he says. “It seemed to me you had four or five books and a strap around them, that’s all, and we were talking and talking and talking and then you went and then all these strange buildings and I just sat there for a while and finally the real house that I lived in began to come out.”
“A lot of people talk about their dreams,” I tell him. “I think a lot of people are scared of their dreams. It’s the wildest, weirdest dream I ever had. All the houses were brick without a single brick missing.” “You woke up eventually,” I remind him, trying to get him to realize that it’s over. “I woke up? I finally came to but I wasn’t awake. I went from one room to the other, back and forth, I could feel it, but I couldn’t see it. Weird. Weird. Weird. In fact, I’m kind of scared of it. It was all all all bricks and stone and everything was screwed up nothing was regular but everyplace was completely done, there was not a brick out of place ever. Finally I said ‘gee whiz where am I?’ and I was scared to death. I could see right through everything that I was feeling, that was the weird part of it. I’m almost scared to go to bed tonight. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
After a pause, he says, “What I think is I’m going back into things I never dared go into before. After you left, I was lost,” “I know you were seeing the houses before I left,” I say. “That’s the trouble, I was seeing them too much.”
“At one point he was asking me questions and questions and questions,” Dad says. “Charlie was?” I’m not sure what we’re talking about. “Charlie Burgess was, and he was smiling.” “You thought Charlie was here in the house asking questions?” “No, he didn’t appear in this thing at all. He was somewhere else. This thing was very strange, very hilly, no streets but walls, walls, walls, everywhere was a wall.” We’re back to this again.
“Those remind me of the stone walls in Gloucester that mark off the edges of the property,” I say. Dad replies “I think I’ve wiped Gloucester off the map. We were going to go and check up on what I owned and what I didn’t own but we never got to it at all. I don’t remember the following trip at all.” “We went there for your birthday in August,” I remind him. “You and I and?” he asks. “Kate,” I say, filling in the blank. “I don’t remember a damn thing about it at all. I tell you, when you get to be my age you run into all kinds of crazy things. But they never seem to be dangerous. And you never saw anyone else. Just walls, walls, walls, crazy looking but they were always peaceful and you never saw a person, no one, just houses, houses, houses. The moment you left I was scared, really scared, but then I calmed down and began to see the apartment and walked from one room to another but still you could see these houses all around.”
“But no snakes?” I ask, thinking of the other day. “No any other animal at all, nothing. Just houses and houses and walls and walls and crooked walls. You could look anywhere and see houses but they never got above the first floor. I’m kind of anxious to see what comes next.”
“I smell the oil from the oil truck outside,” I say, trying for a distraction. “I think my smelling apparatus is dead.” he says. “It seemed to me you had four or five books and a strap around them, that’s all, and we were talking and talking and talking and then you went and then all these strange buildings and I just sat there for a while and finally the real house that I lived in began to come out.”
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Snarling Snakes
Even with his language problems, Dad still uses the word “defenestrate” in conversation, talking to Kate S. on the phone. They’re talking about cats, but Dad keeps getting confused, using the word “Kates” and “cats” interchangeably. All of a sudden, I hear him say, “how much do you weigh, or don’t you care?” to her. Apparently the idea of never asking a woman her weight has gone out the window, along with the idea of wearing pants to open the door.
“Kate wants two books,” I tell Dad. “They’re about vampires.” “I don’t think I like talking about vampires – ewww,” he says. I never knew Dad was squeamish about anything. When the sewer at the old house backed up into the garden, Dad would put on his Gloucester-fisherman hip-high boots and go shovel it up, and when cheese in the fridge grew green and fuzzy, Dad would just slice off the bad part and eat the rest. Apparently vampires get to him, but in true open-minded Unitarian style, he says “But if she likes vampires she can get vampires.”
Getting out a Good Humor bar for Dad, I notice the slogan on the box, “Brings back the Memories,” and start to laugh. If only . . .
Dad is pondering the ancient couch, which is really more of a daybed. “They lie on it and they’re more discomfortable when they lie on it than if they’d stayed off it. It’s older than the civil war,” he says. Our friend John, who lives in Gloucester in the house Dad grew up in, has agreed to drive down to NYC and take it back with him, thus clearing the way for the new sofabed. You can’t just throw out something that’s been around since before the civil war.
“You know what amazes me and bizarres me and crazies me?” Dad asks. “They have things in the middle of things. They can be handled and they can’t be handled and then they disappear. I can’t see anything there, but if I look long enough, I see a thing.” “What kind of thing?” I ask, confused. “A weird thing. I wonder what happened to it.” He peers into the empty space in the middle of the room. “Maybe I’m going crazy. Twenty minutes ago I looked and there was a whole picture with snakes and whatnot and it’s gone now. I don’t know where it went. There was a whole picture and it was snarling.”
Hallucinations, especially of snakes, are not a new symptom of Dad’s – they appeared pretty early on and were one of the things that prompted me to get the evaluation which led to his diagnosis. He used to say he saw snakes lying along his bookshelves, but it’s been years since we heard about the snakes. At the time, I wondered to what extent his failing vision and his developing dementia were intersecting to create the false images. I searched the medical literature, but only found one article on the subject. But, as his eye doctor theorizes when I talk to him about it, the optic nerves are part of the brain, and maybe there’s a sub-type of dementia where they fail first. I met someone the other day who told me their parent had a combination of blindness from “glaucoma” and Alzheimer’s, just like Dad. What if some people’s optic nerves are degenerating as part of a dementing illness, but they get lumped into the glaucoma category? Dad’s intraoptic pressure was below normal as a result of the glaucoma treatment, but still his vision deteriorated, frustrating his eye doctor tremendously.
While I’m typing this, a silence has fallen, which Dad breaks by leaning to one side and saying, in a strange voice, “Hello, hello, hello.” “Dad?” I ask “what are you doing?” “I’m talking to the cat,” he says. She’s across the room, not paying him any attention. I put a pillow in his lap and then the cat. They look very cute together.
“Kate wants two books,” I tell Dad. “They’re about vampires.” “I don’t think I like talking about vampires – ewww,” he says. I never knew Dad was squeamish about anything. When the sewer at the old house backed up into the garden, Dad would put on his Gloucester-fisherman hip-high boots and go shovel it up, and when cheese in the fridge grew green and fuzzy, Dad would just slice off the bad part and eat the rest. Apparently vampires get to him, but in true open-minded Unitarian style, he says “But if she likes vampires she can get vampires.”
Getting out a Good Humor bar for Dad, I notice the slogan on the box, “Brings back the Memories,” and start to laugh. If only . . .
Dad is pondering the ancient couch, which is really more of a daybed. “They lie on it and they’re more discomfortable when they lie on it than if they’d stayed off it. It’s older than the civil war,” he says. Our friend John, who lives in Gloucester in the house Dad grew up in, has agreed to drive down to NYC and take it back with him, thus clearing the way for the new sofabed. You can’t just throw out something that’s been around since before the civil war.
“You know what amazes me and bizarres me and crazies me?” Dad asks. “They have things in the middle of things. They can be handled and they can’t be handled and then they disappear. I can’t see anything there, but if I look long enough, I see a thing.” “What kind of thing?” I ask, confused. “A weird thing. I wonder what happened to it.” He peers into the empty space in the middle of the room. “Maybe I’m going crazy. Twenty minutes ago I looked and there was a whole picture with snakes and whatnot and it’s gone now. I don’t know where it went. There was a whole picture and it was snarling.”
Hallucinations, especially of snakes, are not a new symptom of Dad’s – they appeared pretty early on and were one of the things that prompted me to get the evaluation which led to his diagnosis. He used to say he saw snakes lying along his bookshelves, but it’s been years since we heard about the snakes. At the time, I wondered to what extent his failing vision and his developing dementia were intersecting to create the false images. I searched the medical literature, but only found one article on the subject. But, as his eye doctor theorizes when I talk to him about it, the optic nerves are part of the brain, and maybe there’s a sub-type of dementia where they fail first. I met someone the other day who told me their parent had a combination of blindness from “glaucoma” and Alzheimer’s, just like Dad. What if some people’s optic nerves are degenerating as part of a dementing illness, but they get lumped into the glaucoma category? Dad’s intraoptic pressure was below normal as a result of the glaucoma treatment, but still his vision deteriorated, frustrating his eye doctor tremendously.
While I’m typing this, a silence has fallen, which Dad breaks by leaning to one side and saying, in a strange voice, “Hello, hello, hello.” “Dad?” I ask “what are you doing?” “I’m talking to the cat,” he says. She’s across the room, not paying him any attention. I put a pillow in his lap and then the cat. They look very cute together.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
The stuff that grows
Dad wants to know where I was last night. He’s a little confused because I had to leave his house suddenly to deal with a situation at the shelter. “I was at home last night,” I tell him. “You have a home, oh, good,” he says. “How are things down at the old hatch?”
Dad is feeling around the table when he encounters the xylophone. “That’s the baby,” he says “isn’t that the baby?” “That’s the xylophone,” I tell him. “I thought it was something grossly important,” he says.
He stumbles across his red plaid hat on the table and trades it for the baseball cap he was wearing. Holding the baseball cap, he says “I don’t know where the rest of the caps are.” “In the bedroom,” I say. “My knowledge, my education, my everything is falling away by the wayside,” he says, heading back there.
“I forgot where my pants are,” says Dad, who is wearing pants and plucking at the corduroy covering his legs. It turns out that he means his elderly denim pants, which appear to be precursors to modern jeans. He had them on yesterday, so I find them easily on the floor by his bed. “I’m going to change my pants,” he announces. “Feeling too warm?” I ask. I certainly would in corduroy pants in this weather. “No,” he says, “they’re fresh. I was going to put them on for celebration, but we celebrated and that’s that.” Dad returns after a long time, wearing nothing put his underwear. “I thought you were going to put on your pants,” I say inquiringly. “I can’t find them,” he says. “They’re on your bed.” He goes back to try again, and is gone even longer. I think about going to see if he needs help, but I don’t hear any cursing, so I wait. When he finally emerges, it turns out he put them on three different times – the first time he thought they were backwards and reversed them, only to find that then they really were backwards.
Dad is thinking about his cat. “She’s easy to spot because she has spots.” I put her in his lap, with a pillow between her claws and his thin pants. He says, petting her, “I suppose I’m not really engineered to keep nice kitty going, I’m still kind of strange to it.”
Dad is a few forkfuls into his dinner, when he pauses “You know what’s good about this? The stuff that grows.” I survey his plate – we’re having deconstructed tacos, with the ingredients served in salad form instead of in difficult-to-handle shells, dressed with lime juice and cumin. ‘The stuff that grows’ must refer to the lettuce, I think. After he’s done, “You know what, that’s one of the nicest small sessions I’ve ever had. Usually they give you too much, but this was just right.”
We listen to another disc of the ‘Tis book. After we’re done, Dad says, “I’m beginning to suspect that when I talk to that Irishman that it takes away a certain amount of – of what? Of everything, of what I’m saying. After a couple of hours of talking to him, I can’t see as much, I can’t talk as much. Why does it take away so much? It’s weird. I can’t understand it.” I try not to laugh out loud at the way Dad phrases it, making it sounds like Frank McCourt has been here chatting away.
Dad is lost in a story and I can’t figure it out. He says, “He takes a lot of time because he had a . . . I don’t know what to say – I can’t think of a lot of things I used to think of 5, 10, 15 years ago. I can’t think of the words. I can think of all the wrong words, that’s the weirdest part of it.” “That must be annoying,” I sympathize. “Yes, it is,” he says emphatically.
It’s time for a distraction, so I put Kate S. on the phone with him. “Oh, it’s you,” he says to her. “I imagine you have a hard time finding things to do because you’re just lying there, lying there, lying there.” Later he tells her “I’m not doing anything, I’m just sloping blah, blah, blah. I used to do more, but I don’t do it now.” As he’s getting off the phone he tells her, “Good luck, good luck, good luck. Help your shoe, your foot, get as good as it was before.”
“I’m afraid I’m getting a little dotty,” Dad says, “but I suppose if you’re 85 you have to expect something a little bad.”
“You know what’s troubling me?” he asks. “What?” “I can’t tell the difference between you and the other girl that’s in the hospital.” (he means Kate S.) I’m at a loss as to how to respond to this. Finally, I say, “she’s bigger than I am.” “That’s right,” he says, apparently satisfied.
Dad is relaxing after his dessert, vanilla ice cream with strawberries cooked in simple syrup and whipped cream. He lights his cigar, and starts talking. “I had a period when I was in my 30s, I was going to be a great writer. I wrote all of these short stories and sent them off, and they all said ‘do this, that and the other’ and I said ‘to hell with it.’ Yes, and I had about ¾ of a novel, in fact, I finished the novel and that wasn’t very good either so I junked the whole thing. One guy said ‘if you had started between 15 and 20 you might have been a great writer, but you have to start early.’” Then he snaps out of it for a minute. “ I’m doing a lot of confessing, aren’t I?” he asks, self-consciously.
“I probably feel like moving in, but all those cats, I don’t know,” says Dad, out of the blue. “You know your way around here really well,” I remind him, “at my house you’d be lost.” “How would you feel if I moved down to your place?” he asks. “I’d be OK with it.” “You don’t think I’d squash the cats?” “They’d learn to get out of the way.” “It would be like out in the wilderness for me because I’ve been in midtown Manhattan for 60 years. I don’t know 110th st., I’ve been very limited.” A call from an upset client interrupts this conversation.
After I get off the phone, we talk about work a little, and then he asks “Are you going to give it up?” “In a way,” I reply. “ If you go on a long trip to South America . . .” says Dad, trailing off. “I’m not going on a long trip to South America, that’s what you would do,” I say, laughing. “I guess so,” he says. “In fact, you’ve been on long trips to South America!”
Dad is feeling around the table when he encounters the xylophone. “That’s the baby,” he says “isn’t that the baby?” “That’s the xylophone,” I tell him. “I thought it was something grossly important,” he says.
He stumbles across his red plaid hat on the table and trades it for the baseball cap he was wearing. Holding the baseball cap, he says “I don’t know where the rest of the caps are.” “In the bedroom,” I say. “My knowledge, my education, my everything is falling away by the wayside,” he says, heading back there.
“I forgot where my pants are,” says Dad, who is wearing pants and plucking at the corduroy covering his legs. It turns out that he means his elderly denim pants, which appear to be precursors to modern jeans. He had them on yesterday, so I find them easily on the floor by his bed. “I’m going to change my pants,” he announces. “Feeling too warm?” I ask. I certainly would in corduroy pants in this weather. “No,” he says, “they’re fresh. I was going to put them on for celebration, but we celebrated and that’s that.” Dad returns after a long time, wearing nothing put his underwear. “I thought you were going to put on your pants,” I say inquiringly. “I can’t find them,” he says. “They’re on your bed.” He goes back to try again, and is gone even longer. I think about going to see if he needs help, but I don’t hear any cursing, so I wait. When he finally emerges, it turns out he put them on three different times – the first time he thought they were backwards and reversed them, only to find that then they really were backwards.
Dad is thinking about his cat. “She’s easy to spot because she has spots.” I put her in his lap, with a pillow between her claws and his thin pants. He says, petting her, “I suppose I’m not really engineered to keep nice kitty going, I’m still kind of strange to it.”
Dad is a few forkfuls into his dinner, when he pauses “You know what’s good about this? The stuff that grows.” I survey his plate – we’re having deconstructed tacos, with the ingredients served in salad form instead of in difficult-to-handle shells, dressed with lime juice and cumin. ‘The stuff that grows’ must refer to the lettuce, I think. After he’s done, “You know what, that’s one of the nicest small sessions I’ve ever had. Usually they give you too much, but this was just right.”
We listen to another disc of the ‘Tis book. After we’re done, Dad says, “I’m beginning to suspect that when I talk to that Irishman that it takes away a certain amount of – of what? Of everything, of what I’m saying. After a couple of hours of talking to him, I can’t see as much, I can’t talk as much. Why does it take away so much? It’s weird. I can’t understand it.” I try not to laugh out loud at the way Dad phrases it, making it sounds like Frank McCourt has been here chatting away.
Dad is lost in a story and I can’t figure it out. He says, “He takes a lot of time because he had a . . . I don’t know what to say – I can’t think of a lot of things I used to think of 5, 10, 15 years ago. I can’t think of the words. I can think of all the wrong words, that’s the weirdest part of it.” “That must be annoying,” I sympathize. “Yes, it is,” he says emphatically.
It’s time for a distraction, so I put Kate S. on the phone with him. “Oh, it’s you,” he says to her. “I imagine you have a hard time finding things to do because you’re just lying there, lying there, lying there.” Later he tells her “I’m not doing anything, I’m just sloping blah, blah, blah. I used to do more, but I don’t do it now.” As he’s getting off the phone he tells her, “Good luck, good luck, good luck. Help your shoe, your foot, get as good as it was before.”
“I’m afraid I’m getting a little dotty,” Dad says, “but I suppose if you’re 85 you have to expect something a little bad.”
“You know what’s troubling me?” he asks. “What?” “I can’t tell the difference between you and the other girl that’s in the hospital.” (he means Kate S.) I’m at a loss as to how to respond to this. Finally, I say, “she’s bigger than I am.” “That’s right,” he says, apparently satisfied.
Dad is relaxing after his dessert, vanilla ice cream with strawberries cooked in simple syrup and whipped cream. He lights his cigar, and starts talking. “I had a period when I was in my 30s, I was going to be a great writer. I wrote all of these short stories and sent them off, and they all said ‘do this, that and the other’ and I said ‘to hell with it.’ Yes, and I had about ¾ of a novel, in fact, I finished the novel and that wasn’t very good either so I junked the whole thing. One guy said ‘if you had started between 15 and 20 you might have been a great writer, but you have to start early.’” Then he snaps out of it for a minute. “ I’m doing a lot of confessing, aren’t I?” he asks, self-consciously.
“I probably feel like moving in, but all those cats, I don’t know,” says Dad, out of the blue. “You know your way around here really well,” I remind him, “at my house you’d be lost.” “How would you feel if I moved down to your place?” he asks. “I’d be OK with it.” “You don’t think I’d squash the cats?” “They’d learn to get out of the way.” “It would be like out in the wilderness for me because I’ve been in midtown Manhattan for 60 years. I don’t know 110th st., I’ve been very limited.” A call from an upset client interrupts this conversation.
After I get off the phone, we talk about work a little, and then he asks “Are you going to give it up?” “In a way,” I reply. “ If you go on a long trip to South America . . .” says Dad, trailing off. “I’m not going on a long trip to South America, that’s what you would do,” I say, laughing. “I guess so,” he says. “In fact, you’ve been on long trips to South America!”
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
something is wacky-poo
We spend most of the evening listening to Frank McCourt’s “’Tis” on CD. Dad’s old CD player has died but I figure out how to play the audio CDs on his TV.
When he’s had enough for the night, we sit and talk. “I want to try out a restaurant near your house,” I say to Dad, “it’s on 53rd st.” “I keep saying I’m on 30th st and yet it’s 55,” says Dad. “How the hell did it get like that?” “You must have stayed on 30th st sometime in the past but it still sticks,” I tell him, “brains are funny things.” “Yes, every once in a while something is wacky-poo and you can’t get rid of it,” he agrees. “Did I ever live on 30th st?” he asks. “If you did, it was before I was born,” I tell him.
“I had fun and your mom just didn’t pay much attention to you. I paid more attention to you than she did,” Dad tells me. He’s struggling to remember the time we spent together when I was a child. “I wonder what it is that kills so much of the things I did?” he asks. “You remember all kinds of things I barely remember. I spent a lot of time with you, you know that, and your mom was doing what?” “Working,” I tell him. “Typing.” “And what happened to her?” Here we go again. “She got sick with cancer.” “Now I remember that,” he says, “just barely remember it. How old were you when she died?” “Just out of college.” Dad seems to be interviewing me. “Where did you go to high school?” he asks. “Stuyvesant.” “That was a really good high school and you went to college?” “Yes, Hampshire, three years.” “Yes, I remember that. ‘ three years’, I said ‘she’s really good.’ Had the disease struck you by then?” “I hadn’t been diagnosed yet.” “But you had the problem for years years years and nobody knew what it was. Did it have any effect on your mentality or anything?” “No, I don’t think so.”
Dad’s in a talkative mood. “Every week you do the cooking, and you enjoy it, you enjoy all kinds of things. I don’t know anyone who enjoys all kinds of things like you. You don’t have to do them, you really enjoy them because you like to do it. You like to do a lot of things that people don’t want to bother with and you never complain about anything. I have never heard you complain about anything. You say ‘oh, well I’ll do that, I’ll do that, I’ll do that’ and you do it without any bother. I don’t recall, I cannot recall any instance when you complained about anything. I don’t believe you complained about much.” It’s true that I’m not a big complainer, and I certainly wouldn’t complain about anything I do for Dad.
Dad’s having trouble remembering Kate S. I’m trying to explain that I want to wait for her to get better before we go try the new restaurant near his house, but he’s having trouble thinking of who she is. I tell him about our Sunday dinners, but it doesn’t help. “I must do a lot of things and just trash them apart,” he says. I get Kate S. on the phone. They start discussing her bad leg. “A little trick and bing all of this is following. I never heard of such a thing.” Dad is constantly amazed that she hurt herself so badly just by tripping. “I’d go bugs if I had a month to lie down.”
“She has a cat to keep her company,” I tell her. “You’ve never been without a cat,” he says to me. “Except in college when I couldn’t and I had a rabbit instead.” “Yeah,” he says “but your real address was still . . . “ Even though he’s lost in the sentence, I know what he means. “I still had cats at home,” I fill in. “Yes.”
“How often do you take a bath?” This sudden question makes me laugh. “That’s an odd question,” Dad acknowledges. “Some people say they do it once a day but I don’t see the point of it unless they work in a mine or some dirty place like that. Very often I went two weeks, even, but, of course, it depends a lot on what you do. If you work in a mine, every day you have to clean up. But I’ve never worked in a mine.” “I bet you had to clean up a lot when you were cutting fish,” I offer. “When was I cutting fish?” “On the docks in Gloucester during World War II after you got thrown out of the army.” “I got thrown out of the army right away.”
Dad’s watching me type. “Boy, you sure do know how to work those fingers! Do you think you can go any faster?” I make an effort to speed up. “You’re going goddamn fast, I can tell.” I speed up some more. “Jesus Christ, you’re going right out! Whoo-whee! God, you’re going about ten times as fast as I would go. Wow.” By now I’m laughing too hard at our little game to keep it up.
“Are you writing anything in particular?” Dad wants to know. “ I’m writing about you.” Having made the decision to be open with him about it, I stick to it, even if it’s sometimes awkward. “ I always write about you. I have 63 articles about you.” “WHAT! Wow!” “They’re not long.” I read Dad the “Star Trek” entry. “Wow, Wow, Wow,” he says. “Wow. I don’t know what to say.”
He goes silent and the silence feels heavy, so I direct his attention to his Easter basket and unwrap a couple of candies for him. “Some of these are plain and some of them have a whole lot of things in them,” he says. “Most of them have big nuts and it takes ten, fifteen, twenty hours for some of them to dissolve. It’s great work. I never had candy as good as that. Never.” He’s eating mini-Snickers at the moment. They should hire him for an ad campaign.
When he’s had enough for the night, we sit and talk. “I want to try out a restaurant near your house,” I say to Dad, “it’s on 53rd st.” “I keep saying I’m on 30th st and yet it’s 55,” says Dad. “How the hell did it get like that?” “You must have stayed on 30th st sometime in the past but it still sticks,” I tell him, “brains are funny things.” “Yes, every once in a while something is wacky-poo and you can’t get rid of it,” he agrees. “Did I ever live on 30th st?” he asks. “If you did, it was before I was born,” I tell him.
“I had fun and your mom just didn’t pay much attention to you. I paid more attention to you than she did,” Dad tells me. He’s struggling to remember the time we spent together when I was a child. “I wonder what it is that kills so much of the things I did?” he asks. “You remember all kinds of things I barely remember. I spent a lot of time with you, you know that, and your mom was doing what?” “Working,” I tell him. “Typing.” “And what happened to her?” Here we go again. “She got sick with cancer.” “Now I remember that,” he says, “just barely remember it. How old were you when she died?” “Just out of college.” Dad seems to be interviewing me. “Where did you go to high school?” he asks. “Stuyvesant.” “That was a really good high school and you went to college?” “Yes, Hampshire, three years.” “Yes, I remember that. ‘ three years’, I said ‘she’s really good.’ Had the disease struck you by then?” “I hadn’t been diagnosed yet.” “But you had the problem for years years years and nobody knew what it was. Did it have any effect on your mentality or anything?” “No, I don’t think so.”
Dad’s in a talkative mood. “Every week you do the cooking, and you enjoy it, you enjoy all kinds of things. I don’t know anyone who enjoys all kinds of things like you. You don’t have to do them, you really enjoy them because you like to do it. You like to do a lot of things that people don’t want to bother with and you never complain about anything. I have never heard you complain about anything. You say ‘oh, well I’ll do that, I’ll do that, I’ll do that’ and you do it without any bother. I don’t recall, I cannot recall any instance when you complained about anything. I don’t believe you complained about much.” It’s true that I’m not a big complainer, and I certainly wouldn’t complain about anything I do for Dad.
Dad’s having trouble remembering Kate S. I’m trying to explain that I want to wait for her to get better before we go try the new restaurant near his house, but he’s having trouble thinking of who she is. I tell him about our Sunday dinners, but it doesn’t help. “I must do a lot of things and just trash them apart,” he says. I get Kate S. on the phone. They start discussing her bad leg. “A little trick and bing all of this is following. I never heard of such a thing.” Dad is constantly amazed that she hurt herself so badly just by tripping. “I’d go bugs if I had a month to lie down.”
“She has a cat to keep her company,” I tell her. “You’ve never been without a cat,” he says to me. “Except in college when I couldn’t and I had a rabbit instead.” “Yeah,” he says “but your real address was still . . . “ Even though he’s lost in the sentence, I know what he means. “I still had cats at home,” I fill in. “Yes.”
“How often do you take a bath?” This sudden question makes me laugh. “That’s an odd question,” Dad acknowledges. “Some people say they do it once a day but I don’t see the point of it unless they work in a mine or some dirty place like that. Very often I went two weeks, even, but, of course, it depends a lot on what you do. If you work in a mine, every day you have to clean up. But I’ve never worked in a mine.” “I bet you had to clean up a lot when you were cutting fish,” I offer. “When was I cutting fish?” “On the docks in Gloucester during World War II after you got thrown out of the army.” “I got thrown out of the army right away.”
Dad’s watching me type. “Boy, you sure do know how to work those fingers! Do you think you can go any faster?” I make an effort to speed up. “You’re going goddamn fast, I can tell.” I speed up some more. “Jesus Christ, you’re going right out! Whoo-whee! God, you’re going about ten times as fast as I would go. Wow.” By now I’m laughing too hard at our little game to keep it up.
“Are you writing anything in particular?” Dad wants to know. “ I’m writing about you.” Having made the decision to be open with him about it, I stick to it, even if it’s sometimes awkward. “ I always write about you. I have 63 articles about you.” “WHAT! Wow!” “They’re not long.” I read Dad the “Star Trek” entry. “Wow, Wow, Wow,” he says. “Wow. I don’t know what to say.”
He goes silent and the silence feels heavy, so I direct his attention to his Easter basket and unwrap a couple of candies for him. “Some of these are plain and some of them have a whole lot of things in them,” he says. “Most of them have big nuts and it takes ten, fifteen, twenty hours for some of them to dissolve. It’s great work. I never had candy as good as that. Never.” He’s eating mini-Snickers at the moment. They should hire him for an ad campaign.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Down to the Nothing
I made Dad an Easter Basket today. I’ve never made an easter basket before, but I thought that with his new-found sweettooth, Dad might appreciate one, and I was right. He’s very excited and immediately starts eating the candy. “Do we have to give the basket back?” he wants to know. As it happens, I have converted an antique basket that has been hanging around his apartment. “No, it belongs to you.”
Some of the candies are giving Dad’s 7 teeth a challenge. “Since I’m 185 years old, it’s no wonder that some of my teeth have gone to hell,” he informs me. “Maybe you should put in your teeth,” I suggest, but he declines.
With some effort, I get Dad started changing into the fresh clothes Marie has laid out for him. Partway into undressing he says, “Take off everything? Down to the nothing?” I tell him yes, and he gets out of the old clothes and into the new ones. As we’re leaving the building he says, “I should have taken my . . . they’re sliding.” Closer inspection reveals that the missing word is “belt” and that it’s his pants that are sliding, but not badly enough to make it worth going back upstairs.
We get a cab blessedly quickly, but Dad has developed the little-kid are-we-there-yet thing. Every 20 blocks or so, he says, “we must be nearly there,” and I have to explain that we’re going to East Flatbush, Brooklyn, and that we’re not even out of Manhattan yet.
Eventually, many questions later, we arrive at Kate S’s house. I head into the kitchen to prepare a kosher-for-passover easter dinner, while Briana surprises Dad with a genuine Jamaican ginger beer. Though it’s too strong for many novices, Dad finds it delicious and drinks the whole thing, adding to my theory that his taste buds are fading and that he mostly picks up strong flavors now.
I serve dinner and Dad is eating his matzoh ball soup. “This has great lumps in it!” he says. “Those are the matzoh balls, Dad.” “Oh.” On to the roasted potatoes with parmesan and rosemary from my garden. “I’ve never had this before, it’s sharp,” he says, meaning the hard edges.
On the way back, Dad somehow gets it into his head that he lives on 30th st. “Where are we going?” he asks me, when I tell the cab driver his address. “Your house.” “But I live on 30th st.” “You live on 55th St.” “How long have I lived there?” “Forty years, my whole lifetime.” “When did I live on 30th street?” “Maybe before I was born.” “I make a lot of mistakes. I’m getting cracky.”
He’s still dwelling on his “mistakes” when we get up to his apartment. “Kitty cat,” he addresses the cat, who having greeted us demanding dinner, is eating happily, “do you realize how smart you are? You’re smarter than I am now.”
“I wonder if that trip was worth it,” he says. “It was worth it because Kate S. had surgery and she’s stuck at home for a month and it was important for her to see us.” “I feel better now,” he says “I’ve been wondering why we went. Now I know.”
Some of the candies are giving Dad’s 7 teeth a challenge. “Since I’m 185 years old, it’s no wonder that some of my teeth have gone to hell,” he informs me. “Maybe you should put in your teeth,” I suggest, but he declines.
With some effort, I get Dad started changing into the fresh clothes Marie has laid out for him. Partway into undressing he says, “Take off everything? Down to the nothing?” I tell him yes, and he gets out of the old clothes and into the new ones. As we’re leaving the building he says, “I should have taken my . . . they’re sliding.” Closer inspection reveals that the missing word is “belt” and that it’s his pants that are sliding, but not badly enough to make it worth going back upstairs.
We get a cab blessedly quickly, but Dad has developed the little-kid are-we-there-yet thing. Every 20 blocks or so, he says, “we must be nearly there,” and I have to explain that we’re going to East Flatbush, Brooklyn, and that we’re not even out of Manhattan yet.
Eventually, many questions later, we arrive at Kate S’s house. I head into the kitchen to prepare a kosher-for-passover easter dinner, while Briana surprises Dad with a genuine Jamaican ginger beer. Though it’s too strong for many novices, Dad finds it delicious and drinks the whole thing, adding to my theory that his taste buds are fading and that he mostly picks up strong flavors now.
I serve dinner and Dad is eating his matzoh ball soup. “This has great lumps in it!” he says. “Those are the matzoh balls, Dad.” “Oh.” On to the roasted potatoes with parmesan and rosemary from my garden. “I’ve never had this before, it’s sharp,” he says, meaning the hard edges.
On the way back, Dad somehow gets it into his head that he lives on 30th st. “Where are we going?” he asks me, when I tell the cab driver his address. “Your house.” “But I live on 30th st.” “You live on 55th St.” “How long have I lived there?” “Forty years, my whole lifetime.” “When did I live on 30th street?” “Maybe before I was born.” “I make a lot of mistakes. I’m getting cracky.”
He’s still dwelling on his “mistakes” when we get up to his apartment. “Kitty cat,” he addresses the cat, who having greeted us demanding dinner, is eating happily, “do you realize how smart you are? You’re smarter than I am now.”
“I wonder if that trip was worth it,” he says. “It was worth it because Kate S. had surgery and she’s stuck at home for a month and it was important for her to see us.” “I feel better now,” he says “I’ve been wondering why we went. Now I know.”
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