Woke up about 815 this morning. I slept in. Not much going on in the morning here. Takes Dad a long while to get out of bed and get moving. So there is no rush for us.
Mimi, his caregiver, had coffee already made. How nice is that. I really had nothing to do. So I drank coffee and read the paper. Without interruption. A mini vacation. Marika got out of bed and made breakfast. What a fine day.
Dad does not get around well, he is unable to walk and uses an electric scooter. So we don’t usually go anywhere when we come to visit. This morning we sat around and talked. I had to go pick up some reports from dads broker and scan and email them to another broker. That took about an hour and a half.
I got back about 2. Marika was kicking dads ass in dominoes. He probably forgot that we play dominoes. And can kick his ass. She beat him up a couple of times. Nice.
I can tell it’s tax season. I have received about 10 calls today already. Far too many when I am down here on a visit. I would rather be sitting around doing nothing. Anyway, I spectated and kibbutzed the domino game. My supervision was required.
We have been sitting around watching TV for a time. Dad says he is ready to go out to dinner. It’s 425. Seniors eat dinner very early and go to bed early. I always forget. So I guess we are doing that soon. Nothing stopping us. We are going out for Chinese. Or as my grandma would say, we are eating with the Chinaman. This place is interesting. We ate their a few years back. No rice. They had run out. I am not kidding. What kind of a Chinese place runs out of rice? The Central Valley is a strange place.
So we managed to get Dad into the car. Much easier said than done. With all his physical infirmities it is a true test of our patience transiting him around. He is not a happy guy while doing it either.
We are in Zen Asian finally. Without any more griping. Seems like everyone here knows dad. I am thinking that’s a good thing. Maybe better food? We ordered a variety plate of appetizers. Nice and hot but mostly just deep fried food. I like grease though.
The dinner of king pao chicken and broccoli beef with chow menu was actually very good. I would not expect decent ethnic food out here in the wastelands but I must live right.
After the meal we sat around for a long time just chatting about nothing in particular. Grandpa mentioned he had photos from his 70th reunion. Marika and I had gone. We are going to look at them when we get home. We were there at the restaurant a good 30 minutes after we finished eating.
We reversed the load up and move dad process on the way back home. It is truly a pain moving him around. I hope he will be able to come up and visit our new house in Auburn. He says he is going to try.
We are home watching Jeopardy. It qualifies as great TV. But it’s only 30 minutes a day. Not much is good on TV.
We are leaving soon. Going home late because we have shit to do early tomorrow.
I would like to mention something. We have a cat, picked up as a stray back in 2003. She showed up at our farm house all scraggly kitten with a serous bowel problem. We kept her and named her Pepto, for various reasons. She has been a fine cat for the last fifteen years. The last few months she has been in chronic bad health and lately has been losing much weight. We discussed with the vet yesterday and we know what to do. Emily called early today to tell us how bad it was last night. She decided to take the cat to the vet today to have her euthanized. It’s always tough to lose a pet but she is better off. I will miss her sleeping on top of my head every night. And then growling at me when I had the audacity to move. I know we will miss her.
I hope we leave soon. It’s almost 8 o’clock.