I haven’t written in my blog for a while, and I’ve meant to
write one specifically about some adventures I’ve had with my dad (aka
grandpa), but it keeps getting further and further in the past, so I’ve been
telling myself that I shouldn’t bother writing such old news. But then I thought that some of these
experiences were so amusing that I just have to share them anyway. Pretend it’s still winter and Thanksgiving
was just a few weeks ago! It doesn’t
seem that long ago to me, anyway. How
time does fly when you’re getting OLD!
The most recent tales began last Thanksgiving. Dad came to spend the day with us, and since
there was nobody else to push it off onto, I had to do the cooking myself. Gina came too, and Dad wanted to invite Tim
Wolf and his family, too. Tim is a guy
that Dad met by accident a number of years ago.
If I remember correctly, Dad was doing some land surveying somewhere off
the Beaver Dam road, and Tim, who is a land surveyor who happened to work at
the Water District at the time, drove by.
He saw the equipment and decided to stop for a chat. And so they got to know each other. At the time that they met, I didn’t know Tim,
but not much later we both arrived early to a meeting and, while making small
talk, realized who we were. After that we
had fun chatting from time to time, and his father was dying of prostate cancer
right about the time my dad was diagnosed with it. Fortunately my dad survived; his father
didn’t. My dad has become something of a
father figure to Tim since then, though.
Tim has gone up to Caliente to visit Dad many times, sometimes with his
wife and kids, sometimes without. Tim
left the Water District a while back and opened his own land surveying business
here in Vegas, just in time for the market to crash. Isn’t that how it works sometimes? I understand that Tim is now preparing to
take over Dad’s land surveying business.
I asked him recently if he regrets leaving the Water District, and I got
an emphatic yes.
Anyway, Dad wanted to invite them to come for Thanksgiving,
and I didn’t have a problem with it, in spite of the fact that I had never met
Tim’s family; my only problem is that when “company” is coming and it isn’t
just family, there’s more pressure to not mess up any of the food! I was surprised when Tim and his family
actually accepted.
Something else a little different was going on at the same
time. Without going into too much
detail, Jenny was sort of seeing two different guys, George and Mike. They knew about each other and kind of
rotated through the house. She had
already invited Mike to come for Thanksgiving, so I expected him to be
there. Imagine my surprise when the
night before, Jenny walks through the door with both Mike and George in
tow. I have to admit that I’ve always
had a soft spot for George. I’ve
mentioned him in my blog before; he’s the guy who was raised by his Jewish
grandmother who was a holocaust survivor from Hungary, and when we went to her
funeral, Jimmy ended up being a pallbearer with yarmulke on his head. George also had leukemia as a child. He is such a sweet guy, so willing and eager
to help. Mike is nice, too, but I
haven’t become as attached to him.
Anyway, on Thanksgiving Eve, Jenny arrived with both guys, and they
crashed on various couches for the night.
The next day, Thanksgiving, both were eager to help with whatever they
could. I sent Mike outside to do some
yard work and George helped me in the kitchen.
He went to chef’s school for a short time, so he has a few kitchen
skills, and it was fun ordering them both around. In his enthusiasm, Mike pulled up a few
plants in the front yard that I wanted to keep, but I didn’t say anything to
him. No point in that!
Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, I was also directing Dad to
assist here and there. I asked him to
peel some potatoes. I’ve never been very
good at judging how many potatoes you need, so after he peeled some, he asked
me if it was enough. I wasn’t sure, so
he kept going. I got distracted with
other kitchen chores, and before I knew it, he had finished the whole bag! It was a Costco bag of potatoes, too! We had leftover mashed potatoes for quite a
while.
Eventually all the food was prepared, Tim and his family
arrived, and we had dinner. We used
Mom’s china, and it was very nice, except that Dad forgot to bring the serving
dishes, so we had to go non-matching for those.
You can’t have everything! The
hardest part was dragging all the guys away from the football game on TV so we
could eat. They do have their
priorities. For my whole life I’ve never
known Dad to be much of a football fan, but when he wants to, he can sit and
watch with the best of them. I guess
he’s usually just too busy with other things to watch a game.
We had dinner, which must have been fairly uneventful, since
I don’t remember much about it. Tim had
asked if they could bring wine and Dad said okay, but they didn’t, we had the
usual sparkling cider to drink. After it
was all cleaned up and we sat around for a while, Tim and his family left. Jenny then asked me if she could borrow my
car to drive Mike and George home. I
said okay, but first we had to move Dad’s car.
He had parked in the driveway behind the space in the garage where I
keep my car. I asked Dad for his keys,
and he asked why Jenny didn’t just take his car instead. I wasn’t sure if that was such a good idea,
but he seemed pretty confident about the idea, so he produced the keys and off
they went. Of course, not long after
they left, he wanted to know when she was coming back. I told him it shouldn’t be too long, but you
know how these things can go, especially when the person has two boyfriends in
tow.
And, true to form, it was quite late when Jenny
returned. I’m so sad I missed this part
of the story because I was sleeping quite soundly upstairs in my bed, rather
exhausted from the long day. But this is
what happened, or so I was told.
Dad went to bed, but he woke up at some point and wondered
if his car was back yet. I believe this
was about 2:00 AM. He went downstairs
and, just as he was peeking out the window, Jenny came in … with George. I can’t remember what the story was, but
somehow she dropped off Mike but ended up bringing George back with her. I imagine Jenny was surprised to see her
grandpa standing there, and he wanted to know what had been going on. Gina, who was sleeping in the den downstairs,
heard the commotion and came out of the room, not wanting to miss anything.
Dad told Jenny and George that they should get married. Jenny said that they couldn’t, and he wanted
to know why. She said there were
problems. Dad said that if they would just
get married, they would work out their problems together. Dad then told them to go get in the car, he
was going to drive them downtown, yes, in the middle of the night, so they
could get married. They managed to
convince him that the marriage bureau was surely closed at that time (not sure
if it is, but he believed it).
Sometime during this discussion, a cockroach of impressive
size also became agitated by the discussion and decided to run across the
floor. Dad was very impressed at how
efficiently George dispatched it. He
picked it up with his fingers, snapped it in half, and put it in the trash. According to George, though, Gina was “three
houses down” by the time he grabbed it.
I guess the cockroach appeared to be chasing her and she left the room
in a hurry! George’s explanation of his
cockroach skills was summed up in a minor statement: he was born and raised in the Bronx. So there you go.
Not long after this holiday fun (the very next week, in
fact), Dad had to go to the hospital in St. George for his heart
procedure. He had been feeling short of
breath while jogging or even walking too much, and the doctor wanted to do an
angiogram. When they do that, they
decide on the spot if they’re going to do heart bypass surgery or put some
stents in there, so we knew that after the test, there was a good chance he was
going to have one procedure or another. I
think they had to be there at 7:00 AM Utah time, which is 6:00 my time, and I
got a little lost looking for the hospital, so I was a little late (that’s my
story and I’m sticking with it).
Honestly, they have moved the hospital, and that’s a fact. I headed for the hospital that was near the
temple, and it wasn’t there anymore, and since it was so early, I had some
trouble finding someone to tell me where it was.
Kevin drove Dad to St. George, and when I got there, they
were in the area where you wait to be taken into getting whatever done (it
ended up also being the recovery area).
Dad was in a hospital gown and lying on a bed, and Kevin was with him
(Kev was standing up). Nurses came in
and out to ask him questions and stuff, and Dad was having his usual fun
flirting with them. He was happy that a
cute nurse shaved his groin area (where they accessed his artery for the
angiogram – not sorry I missed that part).
Eventually they took him away, and Kevin and I went to the waiting
area. After a while the surgeon called
us back to where Dad’s bed had been and, using a dry erase marker, wrote all
over one of the lovely landscape pictures (on the glass), describing what he
had found. He drew a picture of the
heart and showed and described the various arteries that are attached, noting
on the picture that “this area is 80% blocked” or “that area is 70% blocked.” All of the areas were pretty bad,
really. He said that if Dad was younger,
they would immediately do a multiple bypass on him, but since he’s over 80,
they’re just going to do a couple of stents.
I want Dad to be as healthy as possible, so I tried to talk to the
cardiologist about how Dad’s really healthy and isn’t your average
80-something-year-old (and how!). The
doctor said that it doesn’t matter how healthy the patient is, their organs are
still that age and a bypass operation would bring more possible complications,
like a stroke. I knew that Dad
absolutely wouldn’t want to risk a stroke, so I quit arguing. Kevin and I returned to the waiting area.
A while later (seemed forever), they called us back to the
same area, where Dad’s bed was back with him in it. He was happy that he didn’t have a
bypass. The doctor came and asked Kevin and
I if we wanted to see a film of the procedure.
Dad wanted to come and see it too, but the doctor wouldn’t let him get
up. Dad was crying foul as Kevin and I
left with the doctor.
On the screen, we could see Dad’s beating heart. The doctor pointed out a small little vein on
the screen, then showed us the stent being placed. Suddenly, the small little vein plumped up
and became much larger and much longer, obviously showing that it had been
pretty badly blocked. Then he showed us
the next vein, and how the blood running through it suddenly went from a
trickle to a flood. Pretty amazing. Like I think I said on my Facebook post, it
was cool, kind of creepy-cool, for us squeamish types. If my memory serves, they did four stents;
they had no idea he would need that many, and the last one was in an area the
doctors call the “widow maker,” and it was really badly blocked. He said that if they had done that area
first, they would have just gone ahead with the bypass surgery regardless of
his age, it was so bad, but since they had already placed three stents, they
just placed a fourth. It’s very scary to
think that Dad’s heart was so badly compromised and how easily we could have
lost him.
Meanwhile, back in the recovery room, Dad wasn’t very
happy. Not because he was in pain or
anything; it was because all of the “cute nurses” were gone and the nurses now
on shift were all guys. What a letdown!
Eventually he was moved to a room, and he was told that he
would have to spend the night. I said
that I would stay with him and drive him home to Caliente the next day. Kevin went home. The following are a few exchanges that I
noted as they happened.
Nurse: Do you have
any pain?
Dad: Lots of pain.
Nurse (with concern):
Where?
Dad: Just being here.
The nurse brings Dad a pill and hands it to him.
Dad: What’s
that?
Nurse: It’s Prilosec,
in case you get a stomach ache.
Dad: I don’t have a
stomach ache!
Nurse: Well some
heart patients get stomach upset from the procedure.
Dad: What about if we
wait until I HAVE a stomach ache to take it?
Nurse: OK. Fine.
The nurse comes in to talk to Dad about taking a pain pill.
Nurse: Even if they’re
not in a lot of pain, some people will take the pain meds just to help them
relax.
Me (silently to myself):
Please please please, take it!
Dad: No. I’ll relax when I’m dead.
Me: We don’t want to
speed up that process, do we?
(Dad ignores me.)
Me (to nurse): Well,
then I’m the one who needs to relax, so give it to me.
(No pain pills administered to anyone.)
I spent a fitful night on the couch-that-turns-into-a-“bed”
thing in Dad’s room. I had thought about
going to my car to get the faux fur throw I had brought, but I thought I’d be
warm enough with the hospital-provided blanket.
I woke up freezing several times.
I missed my pillow, too. Oh well …
When we woke up the next morning, we were ready and raring to
go home as soon as possible. It’s funny
how one night can seem like forever when you’re in a hospital. We practically had the bags packed and the
car warming up when the doctor appeared and told Dad that he had to stay
another night. You would think that
someone spoiled Christmas. Both Dad and
I were very sad at the news, but the doctor said that since that last stent was
so bad, they needed to have him there for close monitoring for another 24
hours. I couldn’t take another day off
work (already took two days and at that time I still had a boss – my “new boss”
only lasted a little over a year and I’m currently bossless), so I called Kevin
and he said he’d come get Dad the next day.
I intended to leave fairly early, at least early afternoon, but I had a
hard time tearing myself away from Dad.
I didn’t want to leave him alone.
I eventually left after it got dark outside. Kevin arrived promptly the next morning and
took him home, hale and hearty, with instructions to take it easy. We’ll see about that!
I should have more adventures to share in another month or
so. I’m driving up to Washington with
Dad again, this time to celebrate Samantha’s graduation, and we’re stopping to
visit various people along the way, as always.
Right after we get back to Vegas we’re going to fly to Dallas for Neal’s
wedding. That will be 10 straight days
with Dad, 24/7. Can’t. Hardly.
Wait. =)
I’m going to post my recipe for Spinach Dip. I hate to claim it because, like I always
tell everyone who asks for the recipe, it’s on the package of the veggie soup
mix, but people still seem to have trouble replicating it, so I’ll just publish
it once and for all, and maybe yours will turn out better. I’ll include descriptions of each step, just
in case something gets lost in translation.
Karen’s Spinach Dip
1 package frozen CHOPPED spinach (Make sure it’s chopped, not whole leaf or whatever else they
sell. I always get one of those square
boxes of it, the cheap kind. It’s
probably about 8 oz., I’m not sure.)
1 can water chestnuts, drained and diced (whole or sliced or whatever, the can is about
the same size as a standard can of tuna)
1 cup mayonnaise
2 cups sour cream (I
believe the original recipe says one 16-oz. Carton. I buy sour cream in the super-size cartons,
so I measure out two cups.)
1 package Knorr or Mrs. Grass vegetable soup mix (NOT spring vegetable; use the regular
vegetable mix)
Chopped onions (I
never add onions, but it’s on the recipe so you can add some if you like them. Mom and Dad used to like to make it with
triple onions and thought it was great.
Whatever!)
1.
Defrost the frozen spinach. This year I didn’t plan ahead, so I put the
frozen block into a colander and ran water over it until it was defrosted. Squeeze as much water out of it as you can by
pushing down on it with a spoon (or squeezing it with your fingers) while it’s
in the colander. Do NOT cook the spinach
(Jill said she saw a recipe that said the spinach should be cooked.)
2. Mix the sour cream and mayonnaise together in a
bowl. Add the squeezed-dry chopped
spinach and the dry soup mix and stir it together.
3.
Chop up the water chestnuts. I drain them and dump them into my Ninja food
processor and push down on the button a couple of times. You want them to add crunch to the dip, so
don’t puree them. Add to sour cream/mayo
mixture.
4.
Add the onions if you want them.
Refrigerate at least a couple of hours or overnight to give
the soup mix a chance to “wake up” (those veggies have been dehydrated, you
know).
Serve with bread or tortilla chips (must be bread).
That’s it! Someone
can feel free to post it on the Smithalicious blog if you want to. Like I said, I didn’t exactly invent this
recipe, but this is how I make it.
And that’s it for now!
