39: green playing cards

Every week when we play cards, my dad bemoans that the card backs are blue and red. "Why aren't there green cards?" he asks, over and over.
So like a good little daughter, I found some green cards. The Bellagio in Las Vegas has green & brown decks. A guy on E-bay was selling them as a a pair, one green and one brown. He agreed to send me two green decks instead. He's from Canada, a foreign hostile country far from here, so clearly that's why it took THREE WEEKS for the package to arrive. Those Canadians--who do they think they are?
The cards came on Friday. I had to buy a gift for a baby christening, so I made sure the tissue I got was green and I wrapped the decks up and gave them to my dad.
He was underwhelmed.
Reminded me of the dreadfully expensive Far Side book I got him last year, which is still in its wrapper under the coffee table.
He wants to play war where we each have our own deck of a different color. He doesn't understand that the decks won't stay that way, or that his green special Bellagio decks don't match the standard red and blue decks we were playing with.
Sigh.
My mom said he's hardly driving at all. If he goes to "work" he's been walking--it's only down the hill and across the street. The street is route 5, however. Hopefully no one will run him over. Although some days, it seems like that would be a blessing.

38: more on the accident

Mayatime: 12.19.12.4.14 13 Ix 12 Uo May 6, 2005

I have a few more details about my father's accident. He's never been in a car accident before, EVER in his life. That's pretty impressive and I wish I could say the same. He said he looked, there were no cars, and he pulled out, and there was a car, and he hit it. Then he panicked and just kept going.

I have to wonder if the "car from no where" ran a stop sign or something. I live 2 houses from an intersection, and I always look before I back out, but EVERYONE runs the stop sign, so one moment no one is there and the next moment some idiot comes barreling down the hill (it's REALLY steep) and flew around the corner: right behind my backing-out car!

My father just continued to his destination, which is where the cops caught up to him. The guy who works there came out and defended my dad (how nice of him), who is a regular customer. My father gave the cops a card with my mom's number at work, and they called her. I guess they didn't believe he's got Alzheimer's, even though he's got the Safe Return bracelet on. So many people don't know what it's really like. I didn't...even a year ago I had no clue what it really was. We learn the hard way sometimes.

Evidently, when I came over on Tuesday, my father had it in his head that my mother called me and told me to come over and yell at him. That's why he wouldn't look at me or talk to me. I would NOT yell at my mentally-ill father. If my husband had done it, yeah I'd yell and kick his butt too. But it's not my dad's fault. His thinking is impaired. Aliens have stolen his brain. Damn them. Damn them to whatever Hell they believe in.

37: the accident

This is a first, to post here first instead of my regular website.

Yesterday my dad got into a car accident. I found out when I went over there for something else yesterday afternoon. My mom didn't give me a lot of details. She just said that he hit someone (car, I assume, not pedestrian) and didn't know it and kept driving. The person chased him, called the cops. The cops wanted to take his license on the spot. They called my mom at work. She went there; don't know what she said but they didn't take his license.

He was folding the laundry in the dining room while my mother and I were working on something in the kitchen. I realized he hadn't come outside to greet me, hadn't said hello, so I went over to the counter between the rooms and said "Hi Dad, you didn't say hello to me yet." He barely glanced up, said hello dutifully, and put his head back down.

My mother and I finished what we were working on and I had something to drink. I went to sit in the living room and harass the fatherbiter cat. My parents came in and sat on the other couch, and the evil cat decamped to go sit with them. My father just sat with his head down. He wouldn't talk to me or look at me. He was so sad. I just wanted to cry. I was talking to my mother about the break-in at my house on Monday and he didn't respond at all. Usually he'd be all heated up, saying he'd go kick the person's ass, etc. (He's totally non-violent, he just likes to say things like that.)

for more info on the break-in, see my other blog: www.ofsinitiate.blogspot.com.