Saturday Minutia

8:00 AM: The sound of my cat “typing” on my computer keyboard tells me it's time to get up. Either the furry little genius turned it on, or I left it on overnight. In either case, I find and watch the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica. Holy Frak.

8:52 AM: I decide to tackle the Christmas tree before my mom gets up and we go to visit my dad at the nursing home. She wanted to keep it up until company came over and saw it, or until my dad came home to see it. He wanted the thing down and out two weeks ago, so I know he wouldn't be too happy to see it up in March.

9:15 AM: My mom runs frantically into the kitchen, shouting about how she's overslept and demanding to know why I didn't wake her. She swears she may have slept 4 or 5 consecutive hours, and I point out that she needs that much rest and more; one sick parent is enough of a crisis right now.

9:27 AM: With the ornaments and lights all off the tree and properly boxed, I manage to lug the whole potted plant out into the yard. I lift with my knees and use all my strength, and I wonder how an old man with no rotator cuff and the early stages of what would become a serious infection managed to get the thing into the house in the first place. It's probably another one of those contributing factors toward why this thing hit him so hard. I'm honestly the only person I know who's more stubborn than that man.

10:03 AM: The sun is shining, giving the deceptive illusion of warmth, so while my mom eats breakfast I grab the strongest shovel I can find and fight the sheet of ice covering our driveway. I win a few battles, but the ice ultimately wins the war.

10:57 AM: I've finally had my breakfast, and gotten cleaned up and dressed. My mom is just about ready to leave when the phone rings, a sound that has us both jumping lately. I answer, and it's her oldest brother, my Uncle Ciro, checking how things are going. I relate the tale of our dire first impression, and he agrees that while we need to give the place a chance, we definitely shouldn't hesitate to get my dad out of there if things don't improve. He then tells me his tale of misfortune. Apparently, in the 2 or 3 hours he was at the hospital visiting my parents on Friday, someone smashed a window in his house, located in a very nice area mind you, and stole a ton of stuff, including his digital camera, his checkbooks, and some of my late aunt's jewelry. He has alarms on all the doors, but not those windows. I'm just glad he was with my folks and not home when it happened, although it's just as likely the thieves had been watching and chose to enter when no one was home. The guy spent a month in Florida not long ago without incident, but in just two hours he became the victim of a smash and grab. I didn't think people on my mom's side had that kind of luck.

12:01 PM: Of course my mom has to talk to my uncle once she hears what happened. I tried mouthing the words to her while I was on the phone, but she kept asking “Robert? What happened to Robert?”, so I finally gave up. Meanwhile, I dismantled the wall “tree” she makes every year by taping all the cards we've received together in ascending size order from top to bottom. At the nursing home, we find my dad sitting up and alert, answering the questions of a therapist. The place looks much different in the daytime, with plenty of sunlight streaming through the windows. The decor is still off by several decades, but seemed brighter and cleaner. The therapist was breaking down what they would be doing to keep my dad active, to keep the circulation going with a few sessions a day so his arms wouldn't lock up. She even promised to show him things to make his life easier once he was home. With his arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome, he sometimes needs our help with buttons, shoelaces, and other challenging aspects of getting dressed. As you can imagine, this is a great pride issue and while we're here to help him, he prefers to do it himself. More than once he's sighed in angry frustration when I'd take a utensil or some other item wrapped in plastic from him in the hospital to open it for him. The therapist told him about these hooks he could use to button his shirt, strings that could help him pull on socks without having to bend as much, and shoes with clasps instead of laces. All in all, it was very positive, planning for the future and focusing on the “when” and not the “if”.

3:30 PM: There's something about the air in a nursing home, perhaps the way they crank the heat up to “11”. After pushing my dad through the building on a wheelchair tour, I find myself dozing in a chair in his room, losing consciousness on more than one occasion. I even have a weird dream in which I'm driving at night through a desert, and an alien bug smashes on my windshield. I freak out because I'm right on the other side of the glass, lying across the dashboard rather than sitting behind the wheel. As the car goes off the road and hits bumps, I try to roll over the steering wheel and into a seat, only to find my mom shaking my arm to wake me because a nurse can't get past me. We decide to leave and get some errands done before mass.

4:15 PM: After leaving my mom at a store, I fill up my gas tank and try to put air in a tire that looked low. The bell on the pump isn't dinging, and I'm pretty sure I'm letting air out. I pull a gauge out of my pocket and check, and while I haven't lost air I haven't gained any either. I give up, get my mom, hit a few more stores, then head home to feed a couple of starving cats and check the answering machine.

6:00 PM: It was really weird hearing my dad's name, which is also my name, read when the lector prayed for the sick in our parish. I imagine he had a similar experience seven years ago when it was me everyone was praying for. Back at the home, my dad is happy about the dinner he was fed, which is excellent contrast to his roommate who smiles and stares at everyone but refuses to eat no matter how much his wife and kids implore him. My father isn't remotely there yet. We stay until he gets his second dose of antibiotic for the day, and he actually dozes off and seems to be sleeping comfortably. I glance from his bed to his wheelchair, where my mom sits with her head back, also snoring. They're almost twins, and it's such a cute scene ripped from some Sunday comic strip that I'm probably going to end up drawing it when I have a moment to breathe. I doze off myself for a bit, half hearing what sounds like a new Joe Rogan game show on the television. I assume I'm dreaming again.

8:45 PM: “WHERE'D YOU PARK YOUR CAR!” shouts my dad's slightly demented neighbor, breaking the silence and addressing his son. “Huh, what?” asks my groggy mom. “Huh, what? I didn't say anything?” replies my bewildered dad. We're 45 minutes past visiting hours, and I'm starving, so I don't feel too guilty in suggesting we call it a night. I've been toying with the idea of getting a small portable DVD player so I could keep up with my movies, maybe watch them during the week on my lunch hour in my car, or bring headphones and watch in the nursing home when my dad is napping. I figure I can kill two birds with one stone on Saturday night by stopping at a Target near a mall with a food court, and treating my mom to Arby's, which is very rare around here. Other than that food court, I only know of one other in Queens. We used to have a lot more when I was a kid.

9:25 PM: In Target I see one or two demo players that I like at decent prices, but the shelves haven't been restocked and the store is close to closing. My mom picks up a few boxes of graham crackers for my dad, and we check out and head over to the food court, to discover Arby's has been walled up as though it never existed in that corner of the food court.

10:15 PM: I end up driving 15 miles back to my home town to the same damned Burger King I eat at nearly every Saturday. My eyes are bigger than my stomach and after a day of not eating, I order one or two sandwiches too many.

10:25 PM: I find messages on my home answering machine and via e-mail from college friends I hear from once or twice a year, inviting me out to see Notorious. There's no time or theater specified, and as much as I'd like to see my buddies I probably wouldn't be right in taking off with everything that's happening right now. I'm also exhausted and full of fast food, so I return their messages thanking them for the invite and explaining my family's current focus.

11:35 PM: I sit down at the computer and, after checking my usual haunts, start typing. Hopefully I've made some sense of the day.

12:45 AM, SUNDAY: Spell check, post, sleep. Repeat some steps tomorrow....