Observations on quality time with my 84 year old father, day 5:

• He doesn’t like to eat out unless it’s:
o A Chinese restaurant that has Chicken Chow Mein
o An Italian restaurant that has Chicken Cacciatore (“On the bone!”)
o A Diner with bland fish
o Starbucks for a Mocha Frappuccino, although he tells me he prefers coffee from McDonalds (“Only 69 cents! Ya can’t beat that.”)

When I got married in ’97, the catering was handled by a high end Seattle restaurant. It was a food fest to say the least. After the reception, my parents came back to stay at my place. As my new wife and I are preparing to leave for our honeymoon, I hear sizzling and smell food in the kitchen. My mother is making him an egg sandwich. How could we have forgotten that staple of any Jewish wedding: the egg sandwich? My bad.

• I never drove until I moved to the west coast in my early 30s, so driving him around is a new experience. I don’t know my way around LA so I use a GPS. “Don’t use that crazy gizmo. I know the quickest way.” Invariably, it’s not. He also never tells me when to turn until we’re about five feet from the corner and we’re in the wrong lane. In spite of driving with my mother for years, he’s never heard of the diamond lane. When I use it to bypass the line for the light entering a freeway, he’ll say “What are you doin’? Yeeoow!” I tell him, “Dad, that’s what the diamond lane is for. Cars with at least two people in them have a priority lane. This encourages people to drive with as many passengers in each car as possible, cutting down on traffic, gas usage and pollution.” His response: “Well they’re not doing too good. Look at all this traffic and smog!!”

• While he starts eating breakfast about 9:30, he rarely finishes until 11:30. He has to read the paper and do the crossword puzzle. He also must have read one of those etiquette books that says you should chew your food at least 25 times before swallowing. When he finishes, he either wraps up the leftovers of his Herculean meal or throws it in the garbage. After brushing his teeth he takes a nap. It can be quite exhausting with a morning workout like that. After he has had the sleep of the just, I try and get him out by one to visit my mom. Mind you, every time I come to visit I tell him if we leave at 10 we can beat rush hour, stay with mom until 3 and beat it back. My sisters will be there with her in the evening. All I get is an impish grin in return. Lou Weiss lives by no one’s schedule except his own! Invariably, he’ll have me make all sorts of stops in all directions, finally dropping him off at the gym, where I’ll be stuck in rush hour traffic.

© Curt Weiss 2014

• He actually pronounces “Thai” food as “Thigh” food. Once a leg man, always a leg man I guess.

• He often talks about trips he took to Switzerland to get stem cell therapy on his heart in the early 80’s. “They used aborted fetuses. It’s illegal now”, he says. He’s claimed that Zsa Zsa Gabor and Robert Cummings were there too. He’s also spoken about other trips he’s taken to North Africa. Big game hunting perhaps? None of us (me, my sisters or my uncle) have any knowledge of any of this. I need to check his meds. But first, I checked the Bob Cummings entry on Wikipedia. It says: “He was a staunch advocate of natural foods and a healthy diet and in 1960 authored a book, Stay Young and Vital, which focused upon health foods and exercise.” Ok…It’s possible. On second thought, I really think it’s more likely that it’s another Zelig moment after watching Green Acres right before Casablanca on the Turner network. I’ll check his meds.

• Despite his fridge being filled with food, he wants to go shopping for more food every day. Perhaps it’s the hunter/gatherer instinct because it’s not like he cares about freshness, based on the “sell by…” dates of everything in the fridge. He’s convinced that this out of the way, Mediterranean grocery, frequented only by immigrants, has the best prices. Perhaps he learned this in the food stalls of Casablanca? And God forbid they don’t have watermelon. Luckily for me, they do have several choices of Vodka there. I’ve never checked the prices though. I’m so desperate for a drink by that point…

© Curt Weiss 2014

Spending some more quality time with my 84-year old father.

Observations:
1) in spite of my mother’s demands, he refuses to use his cell phone. He’s says its too complicated. The only thing simpler would be a jitterbug phone that only calls a select set of numbers. It’s practicaly a starter phone for kids. We should have gone with the jitterbug. He says he can’t find the charger either. I checked all of the power strips and after finding four plugs to nowhere, I found the charger. It was plugged in, about 3 feet from the phone.

2) He uses bowls made for Andre the Giant but is only 5 feet 5 inches tall and 135 pounds. I think he uses recipes for four servings but refuses to do the math to make less. He usually puts the remainder in the fridge for the next day, but the fridge is filled with lots of saran wrapped plates. It may be time that I clean his fridge. I’ve already cleaned the microwave which looked like a bowl of chili blew up in it. I can’t even describe his food. I try not to look. It’s kept him alive for 84 years so I might want to rethink that.

3) While he does use napkins, he has a 3 inch pile of them under each elbow as he eats. I guess he likes padding.

The knife is still only for scratching his back.

© Curt Weiss 2014