Day 503. in which a letter is delivered from 1974.

My father is 70 years old. What he owns can fit into a small bedroom.

There are hundreds of business cards, wrapped up with rubber bands; soaps and shampoos, collected from motels; beer coasters he habitually nabbed from bars; a large Xerox box full of maps; a variety of adhesive he used during his sock-gluing phase, among a variety of other odds and ends that had somehow called to him. In all of these items, I am aware of something intrinsically 'Bob' in all of them. To an outsider, they would signify little.

But what stands out the most in this room is an object lately untouched by Bob: a plain hard-covered, black brief case. The brief case that carried back and forth various documents from the Federal building in Albany, the mysterious case I was not to touch on pain of death. I recall it being a source of mystery for me. What could be so very important in that black brief case...?

The brief case left me deflated. At the end of the day, is that all there is..?

Now here I was, alone, with Bob's brief case. I opened it and in my mind, I could see Bob opening it. Bob, still living, felt gone. Here I was, packing up his room, organizing his items, like he was dead. Alzheimer's disease takes away more than memories; it takes a way a family's ability to mourn. Bob is still here, but is gone, at the same time. How can this be?

I shuffled through the papers in his briefcase - most of them had long ago lost any significance but were safely stored away. The typed up IRS tax codes on over-sized index cards struck me as being very 'Bob' but weren't satisfying. I wanted there to be more.

Rummaging through, paper by paper, one type written paper struck me. It was a letter Bob had written from Great Falls, Montana, a month before my birth, to his family back home in New York.

October 6, 1974

Greetings:

No doubt you have all been wondering if I made it back alive from the outer limities of the great State of Montana. Well, I did, but I had to get a piston replaced on our Maverick before the trip was over. That necessitated taking a bus to the next town for my audit appointments and coming back 3 days later to get my car. Which meant that I had the joyous opportunity to ride on the Missouri Valley Bus Lines, an experience not to be forgotten. If you wonder what happens to old school buses in N.Y.S, they're sent to Montana for use as commercial buses. Greyhound does serve this area, but it only stops at towns with traffic lights. Coming back to get my car on Saturday, the bus broke down before it got to Glasgow and I had to ride in a Ford Galaxie station wagon with 3 drunk Indians, 2 old fat women, and the driver with at least 1000+ pounds of cargo. I was considering taking up praying again before I got out of that thing. Fortunately, the repairs came to only $140.00 (I was expecting $240.00).

It was the most miserable two weeks on the road that I've spent yet. I'm not on the road this month, because I think that Bunny and the doctor are both wrong about the baby being due on November 23 - I think it'll be October 23, the way Bunny looks. I've given Bobby instructions to keep sharp objects away from his mother.

We considered buying a trailer to live in, but decided not to. The way the dealer talked it sounded like a good thing, but since I have developed an aversion to signing my name on contracts that I have to pay for, I did some checking. After finding out what all I had to pay besides the trailer payment and parking space rent, I was sick. Fortunately, I hadn't signed anything. We'll be renting a hell of a long time unless interest rates go down. 11.69% interest? That's robbery.

Is your car still running? Mine is, but it needs work on the ball joints which burns me up since it has only 26,000 miles on it. Apparently, neither the dealer who sold it to me or the dealer in Great Falls who serviced it a few times before I found a decent service station, bothered to grease it or tell me that you can't grease the ball joints on a Ford now. You can only replace them. Lovely.

I went to see a E.E.N.T. specialist this past week. The doctor I was going to sent me after he finally decided that he couldn't do anymore. I've been having this damned sinus drainage which runins (that's "ruins") my sleep. The specialist said I had a beautiful nose structure (whatever turns you on, I guess.) and in his opinion I probably have an allergy to something. So now I take some more of the same pills and then I call him and next I proably (that's probably) go to an allergist.

So, we are going to paint our apartment and maybe buy a rocking chair and stay put for awhile. But, if I can get transferred back to the East, that's what I'm going to do. We may or may not be home for Christmas. Have to wait to see how everything goes. "East" to a Montanan is anything east of Billings.

Bunny had hysterics the other day when for the first time in 3 months I bought her a cup of coffee in a restaurant and some cowboy asked the cashier why he didn't have a fingerbowl like all the restaurants in New York are required to have. Now I know what these characters are who stick their fingers in your water glasses. They're not tough guys - they're Montana cowboys.

I'm sorry to hear that Genevive and Carl and family were all killed or had their arms broken in accidents. I won't be expecting any more letters from them. Did you get that, Genny?

It's Sunday morning and I have work to do so I will end this and you can all write sometime. I have to set up some taxpayers for collection.

Yours Trulies,

Bob, Bunny, Bobby, and 8/9

Day 478. in which signs are only good if you know where you are.

And clearly, I didn't.

When I look back at when my father first moved in with me, I cringe.

I expected more from him than he was capable.

He had only recently stopped driving (a blog, for another time...). He had been home most of the time alone, sometimes for days, nights, while his partner was away at work.

I wonder now what those days and nights passed alone were like for him.

At first, I thought he was OK to leave home alone; he simply needed visual queues.

This one served as a reminder to Bob to eat lunch while I was at work.

I littered the house with pointers. Nothing fancy. Simply Sharpee-scribbled reminders of who he was, what to do, and where to go on colored construction paper.

Bob's Room.

Bathroom.

STOP! Bob! Stay inside the house!

Attic.


Stupidly, at first, I sometimes left him in the house with notes in 'joke' format, like 'Hey Bob, don't leave the house! The police are looking for you!" which would have been really funny if my father didn't have Alzheimer's. It was the type of smart ass note I would have left him as a teenager.

I didn't think twice about it, until he called me on the phone at my office, terrified that he had done something, but could not remember what? Now the police were looking for him...

Oy.

Shortly thereafter, I lost him.

He made it all the way from Kingston, passed through Rosendale, and ended up in Bloomington. Apparently, Dad's determination to drink had not despaired. He was trying to buy a beer at a low-end strip joint, but had no money in his pockets.

The bar called him a taxi.

Of course, Dad didn't know where he lived; he couldn't even pinpoint the correct county, let alone the town, the street, or even our house.

And of course, everything looked familiar to Dad in a fuzzy sort of way that must make everything seem like déjà vu - this seems right, but something is off...

So the taxi driver drove him up and down streets, stopping in front of one house, pausing in front of another, patiently trying to help my Dad find his house.

An hour later, the taxi driver, despite my father begging and pleading with him not to, brought him to the police station, where I had already reported him missing hours earlier.

When the phone rang that evening, I jumped on it.

"Is this Alex Brown?" asked an officer.

I awaited an update about Dad with bated breathe. My eyes were closed, as if that could prevent the delivery of bad news from being heard.

"We found your father. He's here now. So is the taxi he's been riding around in - the taxi driver is waiting here. You owe him $22.50."

I'd like to say that I've never lost my father again. But I have. More than once, Bob has walked out the door, never intending to leave but becoming easily distracted by whatever passes in front of his eyes.

Before he moved in with me, he used to wander about all day, often riding his bicycle from Cambridge over the border to Vermont and back. This was until he ran out of bicycles to leave behind someplace other, someplace he couldn't return to.

I wasn't entirely clueless in regards to Alzheimer's. But what I didn't quite get, however, is just how far my father had already progressed.

Because, in truth, my father had always been a bit eccentric. He'd always been a wanderer, had always littered the house with reminders. Even my brother thought a lot of his memory issues were his way of joking with us; he didn't believe they were real.

Indeed, Dad had developed some savvy tricks when his memory started to fade. It seems to me that Dad always utilized such tricks, and that his memory problems had emerged many years prior to any formal diagnosis. Even his neurologist insisted for a long time, perhaps because Dad was so young, that he simply had an attention problem that made it difficult for him to follow directions.

If he could only focus, he wouldn't be so forgetful; his absent-minded nature was some form of attention deficit.

In retrospect, I wonder if even his love of maps were because of issues with his ever-degrading memory. When he moved in, he came with little more than his clothing - and two large XEROX boxes of maps.

Bob's Maps.

The night Dad talked to Jesus in our attic, who told Dad he couldn't sleep in his bedroom, I had to take a step back and realize this was not the Dad that told me to eat my vegetables and brush my teeth. I was no longer the daughter who dutifully would acquiesce to his commands—even if I wanted to be.

It was like losing Dad without losing him. Physically, he was the same person. But where was Bob? What made him 'Bob'? What version of 'Bob' was he?

All of my knowledge of metaphysics had to be reexamined, reprocessed to reconcile Bob with the universe.

We never had the opportunity to discuss the diagnosis in a way that was meaningful. By the time the neurologist agreed that he did, indeed, have Alzheimer's Disease, it was too late to discuss.

He wouldn't talk about it. He was belligerent about it. He didn't have Alzheimer's. He didn't need to discuss it.

He had maps. He knew how to read maps.

Unfortunately, maps are only useful if you know where you are. If you have no point of reference, you may as well not have a map.

Dad left the house long before he moved into mine.

I hadn't even realized he was gone until after he had left.

And not even the best map can point him back from where he came.

Day 456. in which our holidays are always twisted.

Sasquatch!

Day 421. in which you might not want to respond to your mother's beck and call.

Bob's most quiet time of the day is the morning. While words often escape him in the evening, the morning is relatively coherent, when a dialogue is still possible. The panic does not settle into Dad's eyes until the sun begins to set on the day. This morning, his head was resting on the back of the couch, and his eyes were closed. He was quiet.

The couch pillows were arranged so that the ones which were supposed to go behind him were instead piled up on top of him. He clutched the over-sized pillow close to his body, hugging it tightly to his chest. Only his glasses peeked out over the top, the rest of his face hidden by the pillow. Dana and I were sitting on the other side of the room on the love seat, engrossed by our digital devices. The morning show was droning on in the background but none of us were minding it. The children had already been shuffled off to school so the house was unusually peaceful.

With his eyes still closed, Bob said dreamily, "When I close my eyes, it's amazing how clear the picture of my mother is."

my father's mother, Ivy Regina Mark Brown, with her children, standing near the paper mill in Rossman, NY, which my grandfather, Roy Jesse Brown, oversaw. Ham Turner owned the mill at this time.

And then, he was quiet again.

"You're scaring me, Dad..." I said.

Dad opened his eyes and popped up his head quickly. He looked across the room at me, as if he were surprised to find someone else in the room with him.

"Why?" he asked.

"Well...Is your mother waving you to her, or away from her?"

Bob laughed, and asked, "Well, why would that matter? What difference would that make?"

"It makes a really big difference, Dad!"

"Well, she's just there," he said.

"Is she making an angry face? Or a happy face?" Dana asked.

"Yeah, Dad, it really all depends on how she is looking at you," I smiled at him.

I'm not quite certain if he understood what I was getting at, but he gave me that look like, 'I'll get you yet, kid', and he laughed.

I miss that look. It's one I remember getting a lot before my father developed Alzheimer's.

It feels good to know I can still hassle my dear old Dad.

Day 389. in which I suspect I lost count...

"guy with no arms" by lilith arden soechting, age 3.

Day 382. in which leroy c. cornell is identified?

Often Dad's reality is mismatched from the moment actually transpiring to a moment from long ago. In addition to the Alzheimer's diagnosis, Dad has recently been plagued with pneumonia, and other random viruses passed along to him from his goobie grandchildren who are laden with germs so he's been more confused than usual.

Sometimes it seems like my father is already gone.

In truth, he cannot do any of the things he once loved to do. He spends most of his time on a couch in a living room, and cannot find his way back to the living room once he wanders out of it. Attempts at dialogue are a challenge. Dad talks with me like his words are making sense but more often than not, they are not.

And other days, he cannot talk at all.

I recently began scanning Dad's old photographs. One of my regrets is that my father kept some mementos and photographs but that their story could be 'die' with him. Most of his photographs are not notated and while some of them I am able to piece together, the history of others are lost entirely.

[left: an unidentified couple from manila? friends of bob?]

A few days ago, I wouldn't have even tried to ask Dad about his photographs. He was really struggling to grasp his immediate reality, and I knew I wouldn't be able to trust that any answer he gave me was sensible.

But today was a good day. Though they come less and less, they still come, and it surprises me every time Dad seems to resurrect himself from wherever he's been.

So, I tackled his Air Force photo album, scanning a handful of pictures. There was one man in several of them so I showed this picture (below) to Dad and asked him if he knew who they were?

unknown 'tough guy but nice guy' on left; leroy c. cornell on the right.

Without a moment of hesitation, Bob said, "That's Leroy Cornell! Leroy C. Cornell!"

He has no idea who his two grandchildren are that he has lived with for nearly three years, but he could still identify Leroy Cornell! Not just Leroy Cornell, but Leroy C. Cornell!

He came into my bedroom the other morning, and stood at the foot of my bed.

"I'm going to enlist," he said.

I think this might place Bob in 1961? It's all coming together now...

I just need a time machine to get him back.

Day 375. in which I could use a lecture.

Before my father moved in with me, I'd occasionally go up to Cambridge to spend the weekend with him while Barbara was working.

"So, are you planning on spending the night tonight?" he'd ask.

When I'd announce I was spending the entire weekend, he would look overjoyed, "Oh! Good, good! So..., you'll be here all weekend, then? That's great!"

Sometimes, he would ask me this more than once and when he realized it, he would simply laugh and say, "I already asked you that, didn't I? Why am I repeating myself?" and he'd laugh, and then drink another glass of wine.

I'm not quite sure why - if his intention had been to regulate his amount of drinking? - but he often drank wine out of a small juice glass.

Unfortunately, he had a tendency to continually refill his juice glass. It was difficult to tell whether his drinking confounded his memory, or his memory confounded his drinking.

It's hard to know.

Today, Dad asked me, "Are you going to be here all weekend?"

I don't bother explaining anymore that this is my house, that we live here, that of course, I'm going to be here this weekend, just like every other weekend for the past two years.

I simply said, "Yes, Dad, I'm going to be here all weekend."

And he looked like a happy Bob.

"You're my favorite daughter, you know," he said.

I'm his only daughter.

"Yes, Dad, I know. And you're my favorite father."

He doesn't talk much anymore. I miss his political rants. Even though I mostly disagreed with him, I'd relish a debate with him now. We used to argue nearly constantly. It was a lot of fun. He understood validity and didn't just argue randomly. It's an art form I miss. I guess I argue more with Dana than probably anyone, but he's not good at it, so it's no fun at all. Indeed, I may never meet someone who is as good at arguing with me as my Dad was. Skillful.

"We should write a book of fatherly lectures together," he had suggested one morning in the car, after eating our hundredth breakfast at the Hutte in Kinderhook. We ate most of our breakfasts here - early in the morning. He liked to drag me out of bed around 6 in the morning - he'd already been out for the past hour on his bicycle. He knew he could always lure me out with the promise of french toast at the Hutte. Around 8 - in the morning - Dad would go down for his first nap. (Napping is a family sport.)

He cleared his throat and dramatically announced, "Bob Brown's 'Fatherly Lecture Number Three-Hundred and Twenty-Two. Do not leave behind the price tags from new clothing after removing them from the garment. They should be disposed of immediately! After all, someone might choke on them!"

I remember looking at him like he was an idiot but I was laughing—on the inside.

He continued:

"Fatherly Lecture Two-Hundred and Seventy-Nine. Do not rotate your tires at a traffic light. Make certain to keep them straight when you are stopped at a red light. If you do not, someone could come up behind you and push you! Ram you right into coming traffic! I knew some girls once in Hudson. Used to stop in at Dell's Shell, where I pumped gas at my brother's garage. They were goofing around one night, not paying attention at the intersection. Driver turned her wheel, someone smashed into her, and pushed the car right into oncoming traffic! They were all decapitated by a snow plow...you know, you should never distract the driver at an intersection..."

Half-serious, half-mad. All I know is I sure could use a good fatherly lecture right about now.

Day 365. in which we remember what we have written.

For many years, I mocked my father for the trail of enigmatic notes that littered our home. They never made much sense to me so it was easy for me to poke fun at them. But the older I become, the more I appreciate how genius this truly was. His notes were obviously a part of his master plan to overcome his memory loss. Written in his own hand, he was not required to rely on his degrading memory. He would remember anything - and everything - by writing a note about it which he could simply refer to later. Who needs a memory with a trail of documentation?

I think this one may be my favorite - a typical Bob Brown grocery list. Guinness Stout and Scotch tape. He wrote this one shortly after he moved in with us - hence, our address on it as well.

Dad used to walk up to Rite Aide in Cambridge every day, when he was still able, and alternately purchase rubber bands, paper clips, and scotch tape. A cashier told me this one day when I was with him, and Barbara confirmed he had an ever-growing collection of these items. Apparently, one thing he appreciated perhaps as much as notes were items that would keep his notes intact.

Often, he'd wrap his business cards and index cards full of notes in a rubber band, keeping them always in his front shirt pocket. He also had his cell phone wrapped up in a sock and secured tightly with a rubber band. No one could ever get a hold of him but he didn't want it to get scratched up. This was a bit nerve-wracking when he still had a license...


And, of course, no master plan would be complete without the threat of death. The one thing about Dad's notes is they often involved threats of bodily harm. After all, notes are only useful if you can find them...

Day 360. in which I confess about the fire.

My father had systems that boggled me for years. I didn't understand them and often what we don't understand, we tend to mock. It was much easier to poke fun of his enigmatic notes littering our home than it was for me to try and understand them. Sometimes, I feel angry that he never discussed his memory problems with me until we could no longer have a dialogue about them.

Feeling somewhat frustrated, I said to him the other day, fruitlessly, "Why didn't you ever talk to me about your memory problems?"

And he looked at me with this pleading look of confusion, "I never knew that I had a memory problem!"

Whose fault is it that we never had a discussion about this? Is it his, or is it really mine?

When I was younger, it was easy to make jokes about it. One Christmas, when I was in my early 20's, I bought him a book on how to improve his memory as a joke. I thought it was funny. I don't think it is so funny now. And apparently, the book wasn't very useful, either...

Then, when the issues became more tangible, I stopped the dialogue entirely. I knew that it caused him embarrassment so I avoided it altogether. Instead of discussing it together, we ignored it together.

Later, I took to helping him hide it - not just memory issues, but lapses in judgment.

About eight years ago, my father was living in Columbia County with his partner, Barbara. They lived on Maple Lane North in Valatie, just down the road from where I had my first job washing dishes at St Joseph's Retreat. Their little house was set back in from the road a bit, in between two other houses, and behind their house were fields and fields of Columbia County corn.

My father enjoyed setting things on fire. Not random things. Paper garbage, mostly. He had a burn barrel which is illegal but surprisingly common in rural areas. He liked to burn paper, brush that had fallen from trees - that sort of thing, mostly. It seemed mostly harmless.

At this point, I'd like to remind you that we didn't know he had Alzheimer's Disease. He seemed eccentric, and forgetful - but these were two characteristics that had forever been 'Bob'.

My father called me frequently around this time when he was home alone. He was drinking a lot of wine, and honestly, this didn't concern me, either. He had always been a bit of a drinker, and he was sitting safely at home with his box of wine, so no harm. He'd call me on the phone a lot then, giving me play by plays of what was on every television channel as he clicked through with a remote control. I found it a bit frustrating, and I admit to not always answering Dad's calls when he called on the phone. He thought this play by play was very funny, and often cracked himself up. I would shake my head at Dana as I listened to my father ramble on about whatever, chalking it up to drinking too much.

During our phone conversations, Dad often expressed to me that he was afraid Barbara was going to kick him out of the house, that she was angry with him, and he didn't think it would be long before she threw him out of the house. In retrospect, I don't believe that Barbara ever intended to do any such thing. However, the fear for Dad was nonetheless real - and because I loved Barbara dearly, the fear became my fear, too. They had been together all of my adult life, and the thought of them breaking up caused me great distress. I enjoyed having a mother/father family, of which I had not had as a child, and did not lose it anymore than Dad did.

I know now that my father's sense of Barbara's anger was (mostly) entirely imagined because he has since displaced the same fears he had with her onto me. It is challenging not to become frustrated with Dad from time to time. Even though the reality is that he cannot help the issues with his memory, it is still frustrating - and I'm certain at the beginning, it was even more frustrating because it seemed like he was either being stupid, lazy, or both. Barbara would come home from working a hard day, and find Dad had not done anything around the house. In fact, quite the opposite was true - and the house would often be torn apart, objects misplaced and rearranged. Indeed, Barbara was frustrated with him but I do not believe she was ever on the cusp of 'kicking him out'.

He would sometimes call me, sounding sad and agitated, asking me if he could come stay with me for awhile, if Barbara kicked him out.

So, Dad's fears became our shared fears. Unfortunately, we were both needlessly worried about the wrong thing.

One Memorial Day weekend, the whole family had gathered on Maple Lane. Dad was noticeably anxious and kept wandering out of the house into the back yard. He was tending to various chores outside and in the garage looking here for this, poking around there for that. He always had the appearance of being very busy though the end results rarely suggested this.

I was washing dishes at the kitchen sink. The sink was positioned underneath the window that overlooked the back yard and I could see Dad quickly making repeated trips with a bucket from the back of the house, over through the long yard, back to the edge of the property near the corn field.

Back and forth, he carried a bucket, looking harried. Sometimes, he would stop in the middle of the yard, distracted by something I could not tell what.

Barbara walked into the kitchen behind me.

"What is he doing out there?"

"Oh, I don't know. He's been doing that," she said.

I finished up the dishes but I couldn't keep my eyes off of him. In the front yard, the family was gathered for a game of croquet but I wandered out to the back yard to see what Dad was doing. I came up behind him as he was filling up his bucket on the tap on the backside of the house.

"What are you doing?"

Dad jumped up suddenly. I hadn't meant to surprise him. He turned on me quickly, and had a frantic look in his eyes.

"Look. You have to help me. I'm going to tell you something, but you can't tell anyone about this, OK?...Especially Barbara... Barbara is going to kill me. If she finds out, she's going to kick me out!"

He ordered me to follow him and we headed out towards the back yard with the bucket full of water.

"Come on. Follow me."

When anyone starts a dialogue with the words "I'm going to tell you something but you can't tell anyone...", it's a sure sign that you should tell someone.

But he is my father, and I'm the dutiful daughter.

And so I obeyed.

Dad glanced over his shoulder, more than once, in the direction of the house. When we were safely out of earshot, he started, "There was a fire yesterday..."

He brought me to the edge of the property, where the corn began in the back and bordered the neighbor's yard, beneath their tall oak. The ground, in the midst of greenery, was black and smoldering.

"Oh my God! What happened?"

"I was burning some brush out back here yesterday. The whole damned fire department showed up! They yelled at me about not having a permit, and then the neighbor got in on it, too! I've always burned brush!"

The weather had been dry so the ground - and grass- was dry. Not a good time for a scheduled brush fire.

"What the hell were you thinking?" I asked him. It was not like me to talk to Dad like this but it just didn't seem like something Dad would do. Dad was eccentric, but not prone to making poor judgment calls.

"Not now, OK? You have to help me. I need to get buckets of water out here to keep it from starting up again and I need you to keep Barbara out of the way."

"But why?"

"She doesn't know. And if she finds out, she's going to kick me out."

"She doesn't know...? Dad!"

"Look. Not right now. I need your help. Will you just help me? I heard everything you're saying from the fire chief yesterday so I don't need to hear it again. Just help me," he pleaded.

I ran to the front of the house while Dad continued to run back and forth with buckets of water. The croquet game was coming to an end.

I went over to Dana and whispered in his ear, "Keep everyone playing croquet. Dad started a fire and I'm trying to help him... I'll explain later...just make sure you keep Barbara in the front yard!"

Without question, Dana complied and challenged the players to a new game. I excused myself, went into the front door, through the kitchen, into the garage and out the back door to Dad.

Dad was standing out back by the smoldering ground, staring down at it. I took the bucket from him and began running buckets as quickly as I could. The back yard was mostly clear of trees so that I was conspicuous to anyone who may be observing - the primary reason to keep everyone playing croquet in the front.

I'm not sure how long we kept this up. Later in the evening, we had a barbecue and stood around near the front near the yard by the driveway. Occasionally, either I or Dad would sneak away to make certain the fire stayed out.

That night was a long night. It was difficult to sneak out after dark without detection because the house - as well as Columbia County - was still and quiet. We had saturated the ground but it must have been a fine fire the day before because the ground would not stop smoldering.

Dana and I laid in bed, each of us staring the ceiling, saying nothing, listening to the still house.

He asked me quietly, "Do you think she's going to kick him out?"

"I don't know..."

Sometime after midnight, I heard the sound of rain hitting the roof and though I am not a religious person, I am certain I thanked God that night.

The fire had simmered out slowly until it was extinguished.

And I hadn't really helped at all.

Day 349. in which we should have agreed on the definition.

I would be amiss if I ended the year without telling you about the pool table that now resides in my dining room.

At the beginning of the year, I had a dining room. It wasn't a deluxe dining room, but it was big and held an enormous table so that if I wanted to host a dinner party, I could. Of course, I never actually hosted a dinner party in this dining room but I would have. eventually...

Eating Maxwell's pie in what used to be the dining room.

Or, at least I would have had it not been transformed into a make-shift billiards room.

Many of you have already heard about the pool table. At first, I only shared it with those I'd absolutely have to tell because they would be entering my house, and see that my dining room had been overtaken by a gigantic pool table with a very ugly, cheap-looking base that says ESPN on the side of it...

One day, at the end of August, Dana and I were at Sears. There was a pool table on sale for $150. That simple. Dana asked if he could get it. Sure, what the hell. It was only 150 bucks and I knew it would amuse him to no end. Dana is a complete billiards fanatic. He actually records it on the DVR box to watch - over and over and over again...

For his birthday, I sent him on a trip to see the International Tournament of Champions at Mohegan Sun! He was so excited when he found out, he actually started calling his friends to tell them all about it.

He came home with an autograph book and even had his photo taken with Stefano Pelinga! That killed me!

dana with stefano!

Honestly, I cannot understand it. I shake my head at it. I sigh a lot. For all of the passion Dana has for the game, I am void.

Anyway...this is all by way of explaining that Dana loves billiards. He lives billiards. When he is in a waiting room, he plays Pool Pro Online on his cell phone. He holds the high score on our cell network.

So, let's get back to Sears.

The purchase of the pool table was contingent on one very simple rule - it would live in the basement, obscured from public viewing. The only time I'd have to see it was when I was in the basement tossing the laundry. If his friends came over to play, they might even help with the laundry while they were down there. (wishful thinking)

Are you absolutely certain that this thing is going to fit in the basement?

Well, that's where I made my mistake. My criteria for 'absolute certainty' is far more rigorous than Dana's.

Dana took his measuring tape down to the basement and concluded after making some expert calculations that there was no way the pool table would work in the basement. The table itself wasn't too big but to play on it would be challenging since there would not be enough room between the table and the wall for the cue stick.

So he tackled our attic. He pulled it apart and made plenty of space. In fact, by the time he was done, I was jealous I hadn't thought of setting up my office up there! I had dragged some old carpets we had rolled up in the basement outside and shampooed them to help make his attic billiards room pleasant. I could ship the kids and him up there. I wouldn't be able to hear anything on the first floor...I was thinking, selfishly for a few moments, this might work out in my favor. somehow.

But I was wary of the logistics of getting a pool table up to our attic the entire time. The door to the attic is in Grandpa Bob's bedroom. There is not a lot of turning range to move up the stairs. The stairs were narrow and steep and I could not see how, logistically, Dana would be able to navigate the flat table piece around the corner on the stairs and up into our attic.

I thought it was impossible but Dana remained confident. He was convinced it would be like a previous pool table we owned which came in several pieces of slatron.

Well, we got the blasted thing home and after a lot of cursing, it was determined it was one big cheap piece of wood and there was no way it was going to make it through the door to the attic, let alone up the steep staircase.

"Well! There's only one place where we can put it, then! It has to go in the dining room!"

"There is no way in hell that I'm having a pool table in my dining room!"

It was summer then, and our windows were wide open, so I'm sure our neighbors heard an earful about the stupid pool table but they are completely insane, and scream constantly, so perhaps they found it consoling...

We reached a stalemate.

There we were with a pool table and no place to put it. Dana drove off to the store and I sulked in the kitchen. While Dana was gone, I felt pretty stupid. As much as I liked the dining room the way it was - in fact, I had just finished redecorating it and was close to picking out new paint - it seemed like a petty thing to be arguing over. Not that the loss of a dining room isn't a big deal since there are 6 of us, plus whoever else might show up, every night at our dining room table. After a childhood of consuming frozen dinners in front of a TV with my father, I relished having dinners at the dining room table as a family.

After sulking for a bit, I sucked it up.

Don't get me wrong. I was really angry about it - which is one of the reasons I didn't write about it when it first happened. The other reason was that I was embarrassed about having this cheap pool table in an otherwise nice dining room.

But then a wise friend of mine put it to me this way: how bad is it, really? On a scale from 1 to 10, how bad is it - really - to have a pool table in your dining room?

In the big picture, did it really matter?

It made Dana happy.

Well, we tried eating in what I was calling the 'breakfast nook'. I don't know why. I guess I thought it sounded more quaint than the pool table room. It didn't work out so well, though...There just wasn't enough room for all of us to easily move around the table and it really seemed to challenge poor Dad.

the breakfast nook did not last long.

We had to move the dining room table into our kitchen, to eat like heathens! Dana tried to sell it to me as a benefit because we'd be 'closer to the fridge', making it easier to fetch something forgotten...now you could just reach over from your seat at the dining room table to the fridge...

I gave up the dining room...but I was determined to work a benefit out of it. So, I created the Laundry Rule. The Laundry Rule dictates that if there is a pile of laundry on the pool table, you must first fold the laundry before playing pool.

Also, at the end of pool playing, you must cover the pool table so I don't have to look at it.

I'm getting about 38% compliance in these areas.

lil is already a good shot...she's 3.

So, that's the story. Dana told me he was going to make a giant buffet out of it with his carpentry skills and cover it in such a way that no one would ever know it was there. But these lofty ideas were in August, and it's now December. I don't see how there would ever be a way to make it not look hokey. Now, I try to just keep that room out of photographs. But it's always there - looming in the background...

As I write, I've been listening to billiards hitting against each other for nearly five hours now. (Dana had the day off.) Seth is playing Halo2 on XBox Live with friends and speaking some mysterious language that sounds just like English but of which I can make no sense. Lily is running around the downstairs, signing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star...

I hope this explains my incoherence from time to time...

my nephew colin.

Day 348. in which ice melts.

"Daddy! Look! Someone took the ice cube!"

Lil stared despondently into her purple cup as Seth began to snigger.

"Ha! No, Lily, it melted..."

"It melted?"

Day 347. in which, apparently, dinner was not satisfying.

"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 there like that, you know?... I don't know. I can't think of anything that's going to be...well, we'll just have to wait...I want a...I want a, something really nice and warm to my lips tonight. "

A few moments later...

"What's for supper?"

Sometimes, it can be difficult to understand what Dad is trying to get across to me. Other times, it's rather translucent.

Day 341. in which I irritate Liam with my camera.

i feel this way myself sometimes, liam.

Day 330. in which no subjects yelled, but objects were launched.

The proprietor of Hudson Coffee Traders is awesome, indeed! He kindly acquiesced to my demands for a larger 'Alex' sized cup of coffee!

One evening, an anonymous comment was posted on my former blog - Day 188 - simply asking, "What size would give you the caffeine boost you need?"

I called Kyrce on the phone almost immediately.

"What size do you think would make the 'perfect' size coffee cup? Ideally? What did they used to have at the Citgo before it shut down?"

This was very important. Just recently, I had ingested the largest size cup available at Hudson Coffee Traders by the time we hit New Paltz on our commute to USR. Two stops on the way to work wouldn't work, if we were ever to be on time!

Kyrce is great because I can call her and ask her stupid things and she doesn't suggest they are stupid. We discussed various coffee sizes available at various vendors and settled on 20 ounces.

20 ounces is the perfect sized cup to get you from Hudson Coffee Roasters in Kingston, New York to Pearson Education in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Wonderful, blessed coffee!

And so I replied to the anonymous query on my blog, praying, hoping it may come to fruition!

The next time I walked into Hudson Coffee Roasters, the proprietor presented me with the new, 20 ounce cup of coffee. It was like Christmas!

bliss in a cup = 20 ounces.

I was so excited that I spilled half of the cup all over all over their beautiful floors! Ack!

It hasn't been 'officially' launched yet but it's available! So be sure to go in and ask for an Alex-sized cup of coffee!

There are many pleasant things to write about Hudson Coffee Traders. Kyrce and I agree it's the highlight of our day. No one yells at you if you spill stuff, and the French-pressed coffee is amazing.

And while I never thought the combination of apples and raisins blended into chicken salad would taste good, it does! I'm glad they sold me on it because it's a new favorite! so be certain to grab one of these tasty sandwiches while you're in there! I like to eat them for breakfast...

Make sure to scoff at the Dunkin' Donut consumers from the other side of the street, too. Bleah. Half the fun is mocking those who can't appreciate a dark roast. Heathens! (that would be you, mark!)

Day 323. in which oats and beer are left behind but we continue the practice.

My father never knew what to do with me. I lived alone with him from the age of 10 on, and I realize he really did the best he could as a single father with a preteen daughter. I wouldn't have wanted to trade places with him.

Now that I'm on the caregiver side, I'm more empathetic with his motives even if the actions sometimes seemed askew. He was concerned with my well-being and success, and tried to point me in the right direction, but I imagine it was hard for him to know what the right direction was. Unfortunately, growing up has unmasked the illusion that parents always know best.

We can aim to be good parents but it's a constant practice, not an end goal of perfection to be attained.

As the primary caregiver of my father, I practice to be a good caregiver. But I will be the first to admit that my practice falls short from time to time. With diligence, I pick up and try again.

And so did Dad. Again, and again. And that really is something.

* * *

The important things Dad got right but when it came down to 'daily' things, he was a bit 'off'. I don't think I really combed my hair until high school, and even then, I was clueless about it. One of the reasons in my adult life that I chose to grow my hair long was the advantage it gave me over my flippant hair, which invariably turned up at its ends. No amount of combing could tame it. And even though I was a child of the 80's, hairspray was an unknown in our household. Combed hair is overrated, anyway.

Dad was not much of a cook, and he will be the first to admit now - though he wouldn't admit it then. He'd put oatmeal in our hamburgers, and tuna in the Ragu. Consequently, most of our food was either frozen, or came from a pizza shop. Once a week was 'Bumby's' - that was sub night. I invented 'bacon bit' sandwiches. Delightful.

On Friday nights, we would often make a quick round of the bars in Columbia County. At Brookside Hotel in Stockport, I would pump quarters into Galaxian faster than my father could hand them to me. Some places had juke boxes. There was Joe's in Hudson. And Georgie Heintz, down by the tracks, used to serve pepperoni sandwiches. I can't count the number of pizzas we ate from Four Brothers in Valatie. Indeed, Dad knew all the places that let me sit at the bar! It didn't even seem 'weird', at the time. It was as if it was perfectly normal to take your 10 year old daughter to the bar.

I remember being very impressed with the unspoken rituals. Dad pushed his empty pint forward on the bar, next to a small pile of loose bills. The bartender would take his money, fill up his beer, and lay his change down - and Dad didn't even need to open his mouth. Amazing!

After making the rounds in Columbia County on Friday evening, we'd stretch out with our pillows on the living room floor of our home, furnished with stacked-up XEROX boxes, to watch Elvira, Mistress of the Dark on local Channel 45. Attack of Killer Tomatoes was one of my favorites... It was one of the few things my father and I agreed upon perfectly. It would sometimes take a few minutes for our TV to 'warm up', and Dad would endlessly have to move around the bunny ears until we got a good picture. Once adjusted, we'd sit together in the dark, basking in the glow of the TV, and eating mint chip ice cream.

He wanted to spend time with his daughter. He just had no clue about how to do it. But he tried. And honestly, I love to spend time with my father. But more and more, I find that I don't know what to do with him, that I do not know him anymore. He is Bob who is trying to find his father and mother, who is missing his brothers, who wants to go home. He is a Bob who doesn't have a daughter, who isn't married, who is in the service. He is a Bob I do not know, but I try.

Time is precious. Change moves swiftly and nudges you from the comfortable place you are in.

* * *

I try to be the 'best' parent, but I know I fail at this, too. I don't take my kids to the bar, but I am easily distracted and not always as focused on them as I should be. We must do better than our parents, who aimed to be better than their parents; we must pass on the good and leave behind the bad.

In this spirit that I ordered a Mystery Science Theater movie from Netflix. Seth and I used to watch MST on Saturday mornings when he was little. I thought it was time to share the same with Lil, who lives to be frightened.

"Want to watch a scary movie?" I asked her.

"Waaahhh!" Lil still doesn't pronounce her 'y' words quite right, so it comes out as more of a waaa when she says 'yeah'...

"It's the Ring of Terror!"

"Ring of Terror?" Lil's eyes opened wide.

"It's going to be scary!"

"It's going to be scary?" she repeated as she jumped onto the sofa, in between me and Dana.

So, with the lights out, Dana, Lil and I nestled into the sofa, hunkering down to watch the DVD. The movie, of course, was just awful - but in the best possible way. Dana had been reluctant to watch it, but he was laughing, too. Lil seemed genuinely confused.

She quite plainly said to me, "...Mommy, this is not scary..."

Quality aside, we were together. Laughing in the dark, being stupid, we were together.

Perhaps that is all any of us can get 'right'.

Day 321. in which Alex explains her mysterious disappearance.

Fear not, dear reader! I have not disappeared!

However, I am participating in this year's NaNoWrimo. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month of November. There are no claims that your novel is actually 'good'; the only requirement of 'winning' is to complete 50,000 words.

January is for revising...

With a full-time job, a father with Alzheimer's, two kids under the age of 3, a teenager, and a Dana, it's a bit tricky. And I'm afraid, next to impossible to maintain both a blog and a novel!

Unfortunately, I'm supposed to have hit the mid-way point already but I'm stuck at word count 8,618...My characters are ambling about at the moment, trying to find their way around...or way out...

I'll be back in December to tell you of my success!

alex not writing...but the interruption was so sweet.

Day 283. in which Bob's shoes are propagating.

I've been meaning to take Dad sneaker shopping. His current sneakers are a nondescript gray pair that Velcro shut. Dad always had a preference for the plain. The Velcro is very handy but there isn't much in the way of support for his arch. Just a bland, ordinary gray sneaker.

Lately, I've been hiding his sneakers from him. It's far more comfortable to lounge around the house without shoes. I also take his shoes, though, because he is less likely to wander outside without shoes. I will not say it's entirely impossible, but it's far less likely.

A couple of nights ago, I was helping Dad was sitting get ready for bed. He was sitting on the edge of his bed. I kneeled down on the floor in front of him and unstrapped his shoes so that he wouldn't wear them to sleep. I pulled the shoes off of his feet and turned to set them on the other side of the door that leads up to the attic so that they would be out of Bob's field of vision.

"That's odd..." and I stopped abruptly. Because on the floor blocking the entrance to the attic door was a pair of nondescript Velco grey snakers. In fact, the very exact pair I had taken off of my father's feet - only in better condition.

"I didn't know you had two pairs of these sneakers."

"Well...they probably came there from down the line, you know," Dad tried to explain.

I meant to ask Dana about the shoes. Maybe Barbara had uncovered them in Cambridge and brought them down for Dad when I wasn't home? But as soon as I was out of the room, I was distracted and forgot about the sneakers.

* * *

While we were making dinner, there was a knock at the door. I wandered down the hall from the kitchen to the front door and was surprised to find it was one of Seth's friends from Tony's Card Shop who had stayed overnight recently.

"When I stayed over, I forgot my sneakers here," the boy said.

Yikes. My eyes opened wide for a second as I processed this. Then, I closed my eyes briefly and sighed.

I walked over to my father sitting quietly on the couch in the living room. Of course, he was wearing the better pair... I removed the sneakers he was wearing. They were warm and a bit damp.

Humbly, I returned the Bob-like shoes to the boy and sheepishly sent him on his way home.

Day 282. in which the cake is microwaved.

Lil put a new spin on an old nursery rhyme today. We were sitting on the edge of my bed, dressing Liam, when she launched into song.

patty cake, patty cake, baker's man -
bake me a cake as fast as you can.
pat it!
roll it!
and put it in the microwave!
and oh! yeah! put a 'b' on it!

Our children (and I mean this collectively) are the product of an expedient age. Expediency, however, is not necessarily a good thing. Putting a cake in the microwave may 'bake' it faster, but it's definitely not going to taste very good.

However, I can certainly see why Lil might be in a hurry to get her cake baked...

Day 281. in which Dana chooses poorly.

Tonight Kyrce and I wanted Indian for dinner. We generally order a few different things, and share. Garlic naan, palak paneer, shrimp korma, some yummy eggplant dish...I can always count on Kyrce to partake in all of the truly splendid things Dana does not appreciate.

To Dana's credit, he has tried Indian on several occasions but he simply doesn't like it. So Kyrce and I stopped at Planet Wings (which also doubles as Planet Taco) on our way back from the Indian Grill and picked up his dinner: chicken fingers and french fries with barbecue sauce.

I can't even begin to wrap my head around this choice.

Our kids fell somewhere in between so there's hope for them yet.

Day 273. in which it should be obvious.

It should be obvious to you by now that I recently bought a scanner.

Day 271. in which Alex uncovers a memento from Bob.

I recently bought a scanner so I've been scanning all of my old treasures. In my scrounging around for fun items, I uncovered the best postcard I have ever received. Postcard writing is a lost art, and my father was a masterful postcard artist.

This was a postcard I received from him when I was 11 years old. I was on a Girl Scout bike trip from Fort Ann to Saratoga and back again. It rained the entire time I was on this bike trek so I'm particularly glad this item survived the trek. I remember smelling like mildew for several days...

The 'ugly doll' he references was my beloved Cabbage Patch doll...

[And for those of you who didn't realize 'Alex' was not my first name growing up, I think you'll understand why I abandoned it, and I don't want to hear any comments about it!!!]

Day 270. in which Seth is lucky he is visiting family out-of-town.

Neither Lil nor Liam have ever had a 'professional' photograph taken in a 'studio'. I currently have over 3800 pictures of my family on Flickr so I think I have it covered...

home-grown photo of liam taken by alex at forsythe park.

However, my sister-in-law, Christine, has studio photos taken frequently. She has already had photographs of my three-month-old niece, Rae, taken twice! I've never pulled it off once!

I've always been impressed with Christine's ability to both organize and execute group events. If it was not for her, my brother's visits would be no more than the two of us getting together under one roof to nap (the first hour of our visit together, the two of us spent napping).

Christine knows this. So, she scheduled the appointment at Sears and posted the details on my Facebook 'wall'. All the cousins were to get their photo taken together at Sears on Saturday at 5.

Seth narrowly escaped this event as he is visiting family out-of-town...My brother had suggested we cancel until all of the cousins were in one place, but Christine has portraits done so frequently that she countered this suggestion; we'll just do it again, soon, with Seth!

There will never, ever be a next time. But we didn't know this then.

* * *

We arrived with 1 pre-teen, 1 3-year-old, 1 almost 2-year-old, and 1 3-month old, both smiling and on time. This, alone, is no easy feat.

30 minutes after our appointment was scheduled we were still waiting in the waiting area. Our photographer approached us at 5:30 not to take photographics but to hand us paperwork. Christine had scheduled the appointments on-line through her Super Saver account, an account which she has maintained for years. I wonder why many companies seem to have paperwork redundancies. They require that you fill out actual 'paper' work when the online appointment registration required the same information.

And do they really need to know the age of my children and their names? What if I don't want to give you that? What do you intend to do with this information?

I honestly probably would not have balked at this redundancy if they had given us the paperwork when we first checked in with them. However, they didn't.

For those of you who have had to entertain a child in a waiting room before, I am certain you will be empathetic. 30 minutes with 1 pre-teen, 1 3-year-old, 1 almost 2-year-old, and 1 3-month old. In defense of the kids, they were actually well-behaved, considering...

But I really wonder at a portrait studio geared towards family photos that makes you wait 30 minutes with 4 kids after your appointment is scheduled, and then hands you paperwork to fill out...

We bring the kids into a cube of a room with little room to negotiate each other, let alone the camera, flash, and shelves of props. Across the hall in a more spacious room is a teenager there for her senior yearbook picture. It's ungodly hot. They have a fan going in the main room but it's ineffective.

The photographer was ready to take photographs. She took a couple but then couldn't get the camera to move 'up' or 'down' the camera pole. She left us awhile with the kids half-posed while she ran out of a room to find a customer to help her move the equipment.

Yes, a customer.

Sears advertises a variety of backgrounds. In reality, all I saw was this white backdrop. The kids were forced into unnatural positions. The photographer took so long posing them that it was difficult for her to get back to the camera in order to capture the pose as she saw it in her mind. So, it was mostly a lot of posing and chasing the kids back onto the backdrop, and doing this all over again. and again. and again. with 1 pre-teen, 1 3-year-old, 1 almost 2-year-old, and 1 3-month old.

lil dismantling the prop flower.

There were photos of Lil and Liam, of Patrick and Rae, of Lil, Liam, Patrick and Rae, and back again. It was grueling. I couldn't take it anymore. We begged her to stop. The kids were tired and had enough. But she wouldn't stop. Until we absolutely insisted.

lil in a strangle-hold with a begrudging liam.

Don't get me wrong - I love pictures of my kids strangling each other. It's authentic and wonderful, and reminds me of me and my brother when we were kids. But I can take pictures of my kids strangling each other at home. In fact, I have taken a number of them already. And the lighting is better with less shadows when I do it...

liam eating the prop apple. i had to wipe the dye off his mouth and pull out the top bit he actually bit off...all while the photographer was still snapping photos...

After we escaped the photographer's clutches, we were told we had to come back in 10 minutes. So, Christine lead us on a walk to get pretzels with the kids and back again. We waited...and waited some more...we waited another 20 minutes...

Then, we were told that we would have to come back for another appointment.

But Christine lives out of town and it's not convenient for me to come out to the mall. So, we don't want another appointment. We will just order them online later.

No, you can't do that.

Well, then, forget it. Keep the pictures. They were pretty awful, anyway. We'll just pay the sitting fee and be on our way home now.

They actually continued to argue with us and debate store policies with us. Apparently, they differ across Sears locations - so anything you see on the web site might as well be pretend.

Our appointment had been for 5 p.m. It was now 7:30 p.m. And we had 1 pre-teen, 1 3-year-old, 1 almost 2-year-old, and 1 3-month old. Typically, Liam would be wrangled into bed by now. He hadn't even eaten dinner.

Family photography at its finest.

Next time, naps it is! Sorry Christine! :)

p.s. they later changed their mind about how, when, and where we were 'allowed' to order prints but we decided they weren't worth ordering, anyway.