not-so-sticky

"What I would like is a piece of ice, something that would make me hungry right now for at least two hours...oh well..." Bob sighed . "Such is life." Dad and I are sitting on the sofa, enjoying a surprisingly sedate moment. Any moment in my house that is sedate is a surprise. I can hear Lil and Liam pestering Dana in the kitchen. He's breaking open pistachios for them - a tedious chore. Seth is upstairs, being his reclusive teen-aged self. I'm poking around online while Dad is chattering. He's peering over my shoulder at the screen of my laptop, resting in my lap on the couch. We already ate dinner, and are lazying about in our pajamas. "Why is it that when you are hungry, you are really hungry? but that when you're not so hungry, you're not. It just seems so strange that it is this way. I mean, I was just wondering what I was going to be eating tonight. not that I'm going to be eating tonight... because it's just too cold to go out...

Even now, Dad tries to hide the issues with his memory. It's embarrassing to him and I think it was for a long time before anyone could identify a 'problem' with Dad. In some ways, Dad is still very clever so it's hard to tell when he's kidding and when he isn't. And I think because of this, I am uncertain the problems with Dad's memory really began. A couple of Friday afternoons ago, Kyrce and I wandered Uptown to Hudson Coffee Traders with Dad to meet an old friend of ours we hadn't seen in a year. No one was around to keep an eye on Dad so I decided to bring him with me. I thought he might enjoy tagging along and getting out of the house for a bit. Dad was truly in rare form on this afternoon. I don't think any of us could get a sentence out without Dad interrupting. When I asked him to please not interrupt, he insisted that if he didn't interrupt, we'd never let him get a sentence in! Disgusted with us trying to quiet him, he decided he...