87th Birthday

I called my dad to wish him a happy birthday....... he's 87 today...... although he insists (with a wink) that he's 49. He's been "49" since his 49th birthday, so I guess he thought that was a good year to stick with. Daddy sounded just fine over the phone, but I think he's lonely. The assisted living community just isn't his style, or maybe it would be if it was closer to the family home in Queens. As it is now, he can't get there on his own. He doesn't drive anymore, and the medication he has to take every day makes it unwise for him to travel alone anyway. Thankfully, he's paying attention to that little side-effect of the medication.

I don't know what I can do to fix things for him. Years ago, we tried having him down here with us, and that only worked for a little while. He got homesick for the family, for NY, for "a local bus," for the subways, for good Italian bread, for "real" pizza, for The New York Daily News. For the entire six months that my dad lived here with us, he never thought The Houston Chronicle was a real newspaper. And when my father thought it was time for him to go back to NY, he turned from a quiet daddy into a loud Italian who had nothing good to say about southeast Texas.

As soon as we realized that my father wasn't going to embrace the Texas way of life, we made arrangements to get him back to NY. He was happy, and so were we. Now he's not happy anymore, and needless to say, my husband cringes when I suggest that maybe we should try it again. Moving from NY to TX at 87 years of age is just a ridiculous idea, and I really know that. But it's still hard to talk to my dad over the phone and know how lonely he is up there.


Today has been cloudy and foggy... much warmer than it had been, and the rain they promised never found us. But it's so foggy and wet out there, it may as well just be raining. A bad-hair day for sure, and not a day to be outside walking around the streets, which means I'll be doing exercises in front of the television in a little while. If nothing is on the Home & Garden channel, then I'll exercise while I watch the Olympics. I haven't seen much of the Olympics since they started, except for a few of the ice skating competitions. I don't know why, but I just haven't been much interested in any of the events this year.