The Mysterous Case of the Missing Cereal

A few years back, my dad encountered a mystery in his home.

He lived alone in a condo, on the 13th floor, in downtown Austin.

And every morning, he woke up to find that someone had eaten his cereal.

He would find a bowl sitting on the counter,

and there would be an empty cereal box and a carton of milk next to it.

He was baffled, but totally convinced someone was breaking in to eat his cereal every night.

The voice of reason said NO, this can't be so.  It doesn't make sense.

And then we realized, he was on the sleeping pill Ambien...

which causes people to sometimes sleep walk.

and sleep drive.

and sleep eat.

"nocturnal eating may be a side effect of the popular sleep medication, Ambien."

So, he solved his mystery. 

He was his own culprit. 

And he stopped taking Ambien.

How do you rate your Holy Communion Bread?

I love my father.

And by father, I mean my Dad.

Not the big man upstairs.

My Dad cracks me up. 

He's elderly, 80 years old, and he'll say anything.

I've posted about him many times before.

Yesterday we had lunch together.

And he was telling me that the bread he had during communion at his church was fabulous!

He said it was from "Panteries."

I eventually figured out he meant, "Panera's."

"Dad, how did you know it was from Panera's?" I asked.

"Oh, I asked."

So, apparently my dad enjoyed the Holy Communion Bread so much, 

he asked the minister where he got it.

I can only hope he waited until the Service was over to ask.

*   *   *   *   *


Also, he's waging an epic war against the electric company, 

although they may not be aware of it.  

He's determined not to use A/C or Heat...

to see how low he can get his bill...

constantly trying to outdo himself. 

This last month?  

His electric bill was around $26.
And despite the fact that we're hitting BELOW FREEZING at night now,

he still has not turned on his heat.

I'm turning Into My Dad

I have a really cool boss right now.

He lets me bring Annie to work with me!

Because he has a horse-sized dog that she can play with all day.

His dog's name is Aslan (like the lion from Narnia), 

and he is half-Great Pyranese, half-German Sherhard.

Beautiful and majestic.

Yesterday, when I left him inside after one of his backyard potty breaks,

he grabbed a clump of dirt in his mouth as he ran inside.

Exasperated, I followed him inside, 

saying to my co-worker, "He's brought in mud!  It's going to make a mess."

and went after Aslan to retrieve the mud before he made a big mess in the room.

I made him "drop" the clump of dirt 

and picked up the mud with my bare hand...

only to discover, IT. WAS. NOT. MUD.

I then squealed like a little girl and ran around screeching.

And proceeded to wash my hands for an hour straight.

and I posted this on Facebook for friends and family to laugh at me.

and one of my sisters commented, "Okay you're starting to scare me, This sounds a lot like a Dad story!"

And I realized she's right.

Our father was always picking up things that didn't turn out to be what he thought they were 

and ended up being nasty surprises.

Like the "sock" on the floor that ended up being dog poop 

or the "leaf" on the floor that ended up being a scorpion.

I'm turning into my dad (aka Lord of the Flies)

We're re-naming my dad, Lord of the Flies

My dad is in an epic battle with his utility company...although they don't know it.

He's determined to get his electric bill down to the lowest possible amount.

Last week, he achieved his lowest bill yet...$26 for one month!

How does he manage to get his bill so low?

He turns the air off.

Completely off.

And leaves his sliding glass door to the apartment balcony open...

which in turn led to a swarm of flies taking up residence in his apartment.

They even trickled out into the hall...a large enough amount of them that apparently the neighbors feared he was dead!!

One neighbor burst down the door to check on my dad...only to find my dad merrily watching TV in the nude...with a bevy of flies filling the room.

I don't know who was shocked more...but I do know, my dad's new name is Lord of the Flies.

We went the very next day to buy a fly swatter for him. 

Please, don't let me end up in the Bathtub.

My elderly father, who lives with us, is church shopping.

And I think he's found one he likes.

He asked me if I'd heard of these things called "missions" where church members go on trips to help less fortunate people in foreign countries.

Yes, Dad, I do believe I have heard of such a thing.

Well, he thinks it's a great deal, a cheap way to go on a trip and see the world...the less fortunate side of the world.

"But, Rhea," he said. "I don't want to end up in that bathtub."

Excuse me? What bathtub?





Apparently he meant the one at the front of the church, near the altar, where people are baptized.

I don't know why he fears the tub, but he does.

He's a strange one.

Silver-lined Excrement

My mom and stepfather are in Hawaii right now.

I'm so jealous.
I get emails from my mom talking about all the whales they're seeing.
The only whale I've seen in real life was Shamu at Sea World.
My mom takes fabulous photos, so I can't wait to see her pictures.

I digress.

While my mom is in Hawaii, her 13-year-old black Labrador, Seamus, is staying with us.






13 is really old for a Lab.
Seamus is an old man dog.
He has a gray muzzle, it's getting harder for him to see or smell, and he has trouble getting up and down.

And...wait for it...

he has trouble keeping poop in.

That's right, it just randomly pops out.

I warned the whole family to keep an eye out for poop.
And every day I've found some here or there.






Well, then we come to yesterday. I'm getting ready for work (at my new job!), and my dad calls me to his part of the house. He says he needs my opinion.

huh. That's unusual.
Does he want advice on what to wear?
His vision is bad.

Well, turns out, he wasn't sure what the big mess was on the carpet outside his room.
The mess that was smushed and tracked everywhere.

I gave my opinion.
"That's not mud, Dad."

I'm sure you've guessed by now, Seamus had struck again.

Texas Homeboy ended up on his hands and knees cleaning up miles of poop out of the carpet, while I finished getting ready for work.

Before I left, my dad said to me, "You know, there's a silver lining."
me: "Oh, really? What's that? (as the smell of poop permeated the entire household)"
Dad: "It could have been MY poop."

Oh. huh. He has a point.

And then, he took it too far...
Dad: "I bet my poop smells better."

Thanks, Dad.





That was the silver lining yesterday.


Do you look for silver linings in your bad situations?

Want to share one?

The Old Man and the Sink

I've shared before that my elderly father lives with us in our nut house.

He's a pretty easy person to live with.
He even tries to help out with dishes sometimes.

When he lived alone in his condo (up until a year and a half ago when he moved in with us) he never used his dishwasher. He just rinsed his dishes and put them back.

But when he came to live with us, we talked him into using the dishwasher.

Did I mention his vision is pretty bad?
Yep, it is.

So, often he thinks he's washed off a dish when in fact it still has a LOT of nasty food crud left behind...but the dishwasher takes care of that now.

Over Christmas, we went out of town for a few days to Austin.
And when we came back, we found evidence of dissent.
I think he tried.
He really did.
But he obviously didn't use the dishwasher.
He just rinsed dishes (minus soap) and put them back in the cabinets.
silverware back in the drawer.
I guess he couldn't see how dirty they still were...

We sure could.

But you have to appreciate his effort, you know.
He's 78.

And, he's gotten rather particular about what kinds of implements he will use to clean dishes.

This is our usual suspect.

But apparently he doesn't like it.

So, I went on a buying spree to try to find the right kind he would like.


Nope, he didn't like this one either.

or this one.

This yellow blob was better. He would use this one.





This ended up being his favorite.

Whew.


What do you use to wash your dishes? Who washes dishes in your house? Do you wash dishes every night or do you sometimes skip a night like I do?

Just a man enjoying his meat

My Dad.

He doesn't need no stinkin' forks and knives.




He's a Longhorn fan, a meat fan and a wine fan...and he's a character.

This photo says it all.


He's had two ex-wives, both of which he's still on good terms with.
He has six grown & married children
and 11 grandchildren with the possibility of more.


He's almost 80 and has a lot of stories to share.
Some are actually appropriate.

I've blogged about him before with our crazy conversation

and how I almost sneaked him out of the hospital.

He makes for good blog material...but I try to restrain myself.


What do you have to restrain yourself from blogging about?

Rebel with a Cause

For those of you who have been reading for a while, you know my dad ended up in the hospital last week (and read his drugged conversation transcript). Well, he's home now and doing great! However, getting him home was a problem. This hospital was not big in speediness and competency, in my opinion. The doctor told him the night before that he was going to discharge him...but somehow they didn't actually sign the orders and let him go until 4pm the next day. He spent that whole time just sitting around, nothing happening. I went up there to pick him up and got very frustrated with the lack of communication and action.

So, I decided to rebel against the system. (This is not like me.) His nurse would disappear for hours on end, never helping my dad with the shower he'd been trying to get ALL day. I innocently asked the aid (who was super helpful), "Does it create a lot of extra paperwork if I just take him home on my own?"

And wouldn't you know it, the head nurse was in our room within 5 minutes, and we were out the door and discharged within 20 minutes. hehe

FYI, leaving the hospital like that would have been called AMA (Against Medical Advice) but since he was already told he was being discharged, and it was just taking TOO LONG, I figured we could get away with it.

I was seriously ready to just whisk him out of there. There's nothing to pulling out an IV, right?

Disclaimer: No old or sick people were offended in the publishing of this post. My dad gave his persmission to share the photo, which was taken right before the Great Evacuation of 2008 begin (you don't want to know, trust me).

More ER Escapades

So, unbelievably, I found myself back in an emergency room yesterday. My elderly father (who's in his upper 70's) lives with us, and he began having some GI bleeding. He didn't want to go to the emergency center, but we (a group of family members) talked him into it. He's a retired doctor and hates having to be a patient himself.



So, I'm the one who was nominated to take him, which was fine, no problem. However, while in the waiting room, I headed to the bathroom..and after taking care of business, find myself locked IN the bathroom and can't unlock it! It was awful. I felt like a helpless two year old unable to get out. Finally someone had to come help me. There was something wrong with that lock, I swear, it wasn't me!



The nurse/aid was a young man training to be a firefighter. He had to draw from my dad (a vein my dad calls "Old Faithful") and proceeded to drop just about everything on the floor during the process. Granted, my dad's on a blood thinner, so he tends to bleed copiously, but this guy made a mess! I was picking things up after him while he held onto the other stuff. It was hilarious, in a hazardous, non-professional sort of way but, hey, we are all students at one point and another, and he had to learn somewhere, right? lol

After five hours in the emergency center, my dad was then transferred by ambulance to a local hospital. I followed behind to meet them there, fill out lots of paperwork and then find his hospital room. He's legally blind, so he needs a little help at times. There TV was too small for him to see and mounted too high on the wall...and he can't read very well without his special device that isn't very portable, so he was pretty bored (not to mention bleeding) but not in any pain or too uncomfortable.

However, the real fun began after he took a sleeping pill for the night. My dad started looking at me real closely, examining my face with a suspicious look.

Me: What's the matter, Daddy?

Him: You don't look like Rhea.

Me: I don't? What do I look like?

Him: You look weird.

Thanks, Dad!

Him again: You have black eyes (my eyes are green) and markings on your face like monkeys. You look really weird...See that thing wriggling up there? That's weird.

Okaaaaay. Can I have some of the happy juice?