Water polo is my new favorite sport

The pool is a beautiful blue, the competition is intense, the men look great in their suits, and the commentators are my favorite ice hockey broadcasters.  I’m hooked.  Dad just shook his head.  “What about gymnastics?” he asked.  “I’m not interested in watching little girls contort their bodies,” I answered.  “Well, what about the men?” he asked.  “Boring unless they fall off and their costumes look effeminate,” I replied.  “What about basketball?”  “Overpaid professional athletes and Coach K.  No, thank you.” 

“Some of the track and field is interesting,” he kept trying.  I won’t argue that point, but the scenery isn’t nearly as good.  I enjoy the diving and the rowing.  I like the swimming too, but watching someone just swim from one end of the pool to the other without anyone trying to drown them isn’t as exciting as a sport where the competitors may need stitches mid-match.  Before you think I’m simply bloodthirsty, I don’t enjoy watching boxing, judo, taekwondo, or wrestling.   

Dad tried to convince me that I should give badminton and table tennis a try.   I’m willing because I find the non-marquee sports the most interesting, but those matches are generally broadcast on weekdays.  So is the next water polo match, but I’m planning to tape that.  

I'm enjoying the Summer Olympics.  Watching them always brings back good memories of Granny.  She loved the Summer Olympics and particularly enjoyed the swimming, diving and gymnastics.  

Don't tell me where it hurts

As soon as the doctor’s office opened this morning, I called to see if I could schedule an appointment for Dad.  He didn’t say anything about it this morning, but I figured he’d get around to it right about the time I was ready to head to work.  I was pleased to get an appointment for today at 11 a.m.  I went to find Dad to give him the good news.

He made a face at me.  Apparently, today at 11 a.m. wasn’t what he had in mind.  “I don’t care if it hurts or not.  You have an appointment at 11 a.m. and you’re going,” I told him, then turned on my heel and went back inside, fuming.  He’s the one who said he was going “to let” me make him an appointment on Monday.  I guess since he hadn’t given me the instruction this morning, he was annoyed.  Tough. If you wake me up in the middle of the night, you’re going to the doctor. 

At lunch, he announced that, “the good doctor essentially told me to go away and stop wasting his time.”  “That’s what I wanted to tell you Saturday night,” I replied.  “He couldn’t find anything wrong,” Dad continued. “Well, now if you drop dead in the middle of the night, I’ve done my duty and made you go to the doctor,” I said.  Dad just shook his head.  “He doesn’t think I’m in any danger of dropping dead,” he assured me.  “That could be up for debate if you wake me up in the middle of the night again,” I assured him.

“It must have been a something that bit me,” Dad mused.  “If something had bitten you there would be a mark,” I said.  “Well then what the devil caused the pain?” he snapped.  “I don’t know.  I’m not a doctor.  That’s why I made you the appointment,” I answered, feeling vindicated.

For the record, if I thought a  mole was bleeding or hanging by a thread, I’d first check and notice that there was no blood on my white sheets.  Then I’d try to use my nice big hand mirror to look at my back before waking someone else up in the middle of the night and then arguing with them about what they saw.  Why can’t men do that?

Say what?

On the way to breakfast this morning, Dad informed me that the switch on his right hearing aid hadn’t been working exactly right for a while.  Now it isn’t working at all.  So his hearing aid is on all the time.  Which means the batteries will run down really quickly.  I don’t know what this is going to mean in the long run.  I do know that it’s difficult enough carrying on a conversation with him when his hearing aids are working.

Case in point.  I had Dad stop at the grocery store on the way home so I could pick up a few necessities.  We were almost out of eggs since I baked him a cake yesterday for his strawberries.  I’m about to run out of chocolate chip pumpkin bread and the recipe calls for 4 eggs.  I only had 3 left. I believe every day is better with a little chocolate, so why not start the day off right.

We also needed milk.  Dad starts his day with cereal.  And no, I don’t feel a bit bad about that.  Luckily, we still had a little milk left because the Food Lion on the Avenue apparently doesn’t sell much milk.  Last time I tried to buy milk there, the expiration date was almost upon us and that was the case again today.  I’ll have to make another trip to a different grocery store to find fresher milk.

I was complaining about that to Dad.  “You didn’t like the cantaloupe?” he asked.  “What cantaloupe?” I replied.  “You said you didn’t buy cantaloupe because of the expiration date,” he answered.  “I didn’t say I didn’t buy cantaloupe.  I said I didn’t like the expiration date on the milk.”  “Well all I heard was expiration date,” he said.  “Cantaloupes don’t have expiration dates,” I said.  Carrying on a conversation with my father is always an adventure.

I feel your pain

I went to bed at 9 o’clock last night.  I was tired.  Dillon was huddled in the bathroom sheltering from the thunderstorm.  There was no chance he was going outside for his last bathroom trip of the day.  I considered staying up another hour, waiting for the storm to pass, but decided to heck with it.  He could either hold it all night, wake me up later, or have an accident.  I needed my sleep.

As it turns out, it wasn’t Dillon who woke me up later.  At 12:15 a.m., I woke to the hall light shining in my eyes and the sound of my father’s voice demanding, “Nancy, I need some help.”  Apparently, he didn’t get the memo that my day’s duties end with the evening meal.

He claimed it felt like one of the moles on his back was torn and “hanging by a thread.”  It felt like someone was stabbing him with a knife.  I was supposed to examine his back and apply a bandaid.  I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.  No blood, no torn flesh, nothing.  He didn’t believe me.  There had to be something.  There wasn’t.  He kept arguing with me that if I’d just look, I’d surely see it.  I can’t see what isn’t there.

I had to follow him into the bathroom and hold a mirror so he could look.  Only he went about it backwards and since it was the middle of the night, I didn’t realize that he was never going to be able to see anything the way he was going about it.  He finally told me to just put a bandaid over the spot where it hurt.  “Maybe then I’ll at least be able to turn over in bed.”  I just wanted to get back to my own bed.

Dillon has heard the commotion and come in, tail wagging, eyes bright, ready to join the party.  I took advantage of the opportunity to take him out for a bathroom trip then went back to bed.  Of course, I was wide awake by that time.

This morning Dad informed me that the bandaid at least meant he’d been able to sleep, but the pain was still there.  You know, since he spends the majority of his day sitting in a chair and taking the occasional nap, I really am not overly concerned with how he sleeps at night.  But since I apparently don’t get to sleep if he doesn’t, it’s in my best interest if he does.

“You notice I’m not wearing suspenders today.” I hadn’t, but kept that fact to myself.  “And I’m not wearing an undershirt either.”  Okay, whatever.  “Tomorrow if it still hurts, I’m going to let you call the doctor for me.”  I loved his use of the phrase, “let you”.  As if, I live to serve.  Which we all know, I don’t.  God didn’t bless me with the caregiving gene, a fact you would think my father would have accepted by now.

Trying to make a doctor’s appointment means wading through the automated system, leaving a message, and then waiting for a call back.  I probably won’t be around when the call is returned, and Dad won’t answer the phone, so I’ll be playing an annoying game of phone tag while he grows more and more impatient.  He could go to the doctor’s office and make the appointment himself.  It’s not like they’re located out of town or he’s bedridden. 

And of course, if they do any cutting, I’ll be forced back into Nurse Nancy mode.  Dad’s not the only one who needs help.

An unexpected surprise

When I got home from work tonight, there was a brown paper bag on the kitchen island.  I reached in and pulled out a round sandwich wrapped in white paper with No C/S written in blue.  There were two more sandwiches in the bag.  “What’s this?” I asked Dad.  He went to Littleton this afternoon, for some reason he wasn’t inclined to share, and picked up BBQ sandwiches for supper.  He even remembered to bring me two.  What a wonderful, unexpected surprise.  I actually feel like I can breathe.

Anger management

It seems like I spend some part of every day mad at my father.  I need to find a way to get past the resentment, but damn I hate being assigned the role of unpaid servant.   Just because I’m female doesn’t mean I like meal planning and grocery shopping and cooking.  And it never ends.  There’s always another meal to fix or clean up after and another day when I have to make sure there are bananas and milk for breakfast and bread for sandwiches and all of the ingredients on hand for whatever we’re having for dinner that night. 

It annoys the hell out of me to come home from work and have to rush to get dinner ready while he just sits in his chair and reads, making absolutely no effort to help.  He waits until I’m ready to put it on the table to come into the kitchen and get the plates.  That puts him right in my way. 

While it was so extremely hot, I tried to plan meals that wouldn’t heat up the kitchen.  That meant no baked cornbread.  I finally fixed a pan last week and Dad made a point of saying how good it was with the vegetables.  I told him that was nice, but when the temperature went back up, there would be no more cornbread.  He just said again how good the cornbread was, looking hopeful.  Tough.  I’m not sweltering just because he wants cornbread.

As if fixing regular meals isn’t enough, he bought a bushel and a half of peas last week.  He picked them up Monday night.  They were shelled, but that meant I had to do something with them.  It took me two nights, cooking 3 huge pots of peas each night, to get them all done.  I had to stay up late for them to finish cooking.  Then I had to measure them out into freezer bags. 

When I finally finished, I politely instructed him not to ever again bring home that much produce on a weeknight.  “I’d have helped, but I don’t know how,” was the response I got.  He may not know how to cook peas, but he could have helped wash and pick through them.  Or he could have measured them out into the bags.  He could have helped clean up the kitchen.  The thought never crossed his mind.

Since he won’t answer the telephone, I relay his phone messages.  A friend that he roomed with before he got married left a message on the answering machine this week that he had called to check on Dad.  I gave Dad the message.  Just out of curiosity, I asked him this morning if he’d written Bush a note in response.  “No,” was the surprised response. “Well you should,” I instructed.  “Just because you can’t hear doesn’t meant you get a free pass.   Since you won’t call him, and I’m not going to, you need to write him.” 

Being old and hard of hearing doesn’t give him a get out of jail free card.  Dad is way too quick to say “I can’t” when the truth of the matter is he just doesn’t want to.  I don’t care if he is old.  I still expect him to take responsibility for doing what he’s able to do, not just what he wants to do.  As he used to like to tell me when I was a teenager, “Life isn’t fair.”  So suck it up and pull your share of the load.

I just wasn't made to live with another human being.  I get along much better with my dog.  Dillon helps me clean up the kitchen and he never minds doing the dishes.

Le Tour de France

I’ve been watching the daily tv coverage of the race.  I don’t understand the sport of competitive cycling, but that doesn’t really matter.  I just watch for the scenery.  I love seeing the chateaus and French villages.  They say the French, especially the Parisians, don’t like Americans.  That may be true, but I find their country fascinating.  

We did it

Most of the choir was going to be away this morning, which left Jane scrambling to work out the music for this morning’s church service.  She e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I’d be available to play a bell duet with Cheryl while she accompanied us on the piano.  I guess Jane’s a glutton for punishment or maybe everyone else turned her down first.  I love playing the bells, and miss it when we go on hiatus for the summer, so I was happy to say yes.

For a seemingly simple hymn, it proved to be surprisingly difficult.  Both Cheryl and I played 3 bells individually and shared a 4^th.  If you do the math, you quickly realize that means that you have more bells than you do hands.  You have to figure out which bells to put down when and which hand you need to hold them in.  It’s a little like juggling.  Only you’re not supposed to throw the bells, which I found myself doing a couple of times in practice when I fumbled switching hands.

Despite several practices, we still hadn’t been able to play it properly all the way through.  I guess God was smiling on us this morning because while our last minute rehearsal prior to the service was still far from perfect, we nailed it when we performed for the congregation.  I was so proud and very relieved.  When there are 8 ringers, it’s easy to pretend that someone else made the mistake when a bell is rung at the wrong time.  When there are only two of you playing, there’s no place to hide.

Is that any way to treat company?

Dad’s brother called on Wednesday to ask if Dad would be home on Friday.  He wanted to come visit.  I told him as far as I knew, Dad would be here.  Dad doesn’t inform me of his plans in advance.  Uncle Thomas then asked if he should bring a sledgehammer to get in.  He came one time without giving us advance notice and he couldn’t get Dad to answer the door.  Ever since that experience, he’s called first. 

The good news is that not only puts Dad on alert, it gives me time to straighten up the house if I’m so inclined.  Luckily, I’d just vacuumed Wednesday, although the way Dillon’s shedding, an hour later you wouldn’t have known I’d bothered.  I gave the bathroom a quick cleaning and left it at that.  I wasn’t in the mood to dust.

Speaking of dust, the last two times Uncle Thomas has come, he’s probably had to blow the dust out of the glasses he’s chosen to drink from.  Dad hasn’t offered to serve and Uncle Thomas has an uncanny knack for picking the glasses that I normally never use.  I told Dad that this time he should be a good host, get out of that damn chair, and offer them a beverage instead of just sitting there and pointing at the cabinet where the glasses are stored. 

“He’s younger than me.  He’s in better shape to serve himself,” Dad announced.  “You’re older.  You’re supposed to be setting a good example,” I countered.  Dad’s 86.  Uncle Thomas is 85.  It’s not as if either of them are spring chickens.  I don’t know if Dad followed my orders took my advice, but there were no dirty glasses on the counter when I got home.