tiring day.

[derien]

It's a long drive to Belfast, and an even longer one on a foggy, rainy night down Rt. 1. I don't know what the hell I was thinking taking Rt. 1. I should have come home the way I went - Rt. 3 to I95. Maybe if I'd gone inland the fog wouldn't have been so bad. I knew I'd made the wrong choice when I found myself wondering if I should tape a white cane on the front of the car. At one point I found myself leaning forward over the steering wheel trying desperately to see the lines on the road. As I went by where littleredhead and groundctrl live I considered stopping and asking for a cup of tea and an asprin, but I just wanted to get home so badly that I wasn't willing to even stop. I waved, but only in my mind since my hands were welded to the wheel. :) When I finally got on the highway at Brunswick that I literally burst into song - "The Fox Went Out On A Windy Night."

The visit went well, though odd. I never can tell how it will go with Dad, it's a toss up whether things will be great or not, or maybe get weird. Quite often I can get upset and annoyed talking with him, but today... today I became aware how much he's losing it. He asked me if I graduated from Belfast high school. He remembers having hepatitis but doesn't remember that my mother had it, too. (In fact I thought he caught it from her, and she got it working at the hospital in Camden, though I may misremember.) I was surprised, though, that he said he cut the burdocks out of my hair that time when I was a kid, and I had thought I remembered my mother doing it.

I'm not sure if the digital picture frame was a really good gift. I thought it would be, because it's been so long since he's had photos from anyone as we all went digital and he has no computer (his wife had one, but it was killed by water) but this frame goes to quickly for him - he can't focus on a picture and understand what it's about before it's gone on to another one, even though I have it set as slow as it will go. I spent quite a while trying to find a way to get the thing to pause, hoping he could just pause it on one he wanted to look at for longer, but the damned thing is frustrating even for me - the remote doesn't seem to want to pause on the picture you want, it flips to the next one or even three further on and pauses there - and if it's frustrating for me it'll be impossible for him.

I do wish my step mother would be nicer to him. Every time she speaks to him she has this edge to her voice as though she's completely fed up with him.

Oh, and apparently he approves of my new look even though he didn't want me to get my breasts reduced before I did it. He said, "You look so good you don't even look like Wendy* anymore!" Sounds like kind of a backhanded compliment, but I know he means it well.

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*as he calls me.

Comments

[derien.livejournal.com]

It is heartbreaking - but oh, your Mom, ow! Sounds as though she's at a much worse state than he is so far.:( I could visit more often, but not a lot because it takes at least two hours to make it up there. Eor suggests I should start writing him letters every week, because at least that would be something he could take out, re-read, and absorb at his own pace. I think I should try. It would do me good, anyhow, composing. (I don't know how Eor does it, but he writes his Mom every week like clockwork.)