I saw my mother sit in that chair so many times... This time it was my brother's daughter's seat.

  

Dad's old now. He's been having health problems. My brother drove in from Blacksburg while I was crossing the country. Dad showed us the red folder with the power of attorney and will and stuff like an address list to sent copies of the obituary to. I'm wondering if this was the last real conversation the three of us are going to share in real time.

     

Dad's lungs have enough fluid in them that he needs Oxygen all the time. When he has to go to the bathroom, which is often because of the state of his bladder, he has to push the Oxygen tank that feeds the tubes under his nose. Sitting in his chair he gets Oxygen from this machine that plugs into the wall and separates Oxygen for the breathing apparatus from ambient air. Teasing Dad, I called him an astronaut, considering the way he carts his air around.

Dad's big concern is his legacy. He wants to be remembered well. We got into an argument because he wants his estate to be used to pay Shane and Teresa to write a book about it. It didn't seem to me to be the kind of money that would boil down to fair pay for that much of work. Evelyn said something like "just give them the money and hope for the best." My brother was thinking there might be a way he could provide oversight by dolling out the money as they achieve milestones. Not sure anything got resolved.

  

It wasn't really a photo op, but at some point my brother showed me the copy of his first book that he gave my father. It was full of charts and tables, with brief but informative paragraphs contextualizing the information. I'm sure the intended audience gets lots of value from reading the thing. I found it drier than a Nevada summer wind.

     

My brother and his family left after a day or so. Brandy and the kids went off to Minnesota to meet some cousins they just found out existed. My brother went home to go to work the next day. Before they left I got them to pose for a group shot. What a sweet family!

After they left I took a long walk. It was a rainy day. Than meant it was only about 85 or 90, and this soft, warm water was falling out of the sky. The drops were much bigger than the ones from my shower head. I used to love being outside in that kind of weather. I stripped down to as little clothing as I could decently wear and enjoyed it. Probably it was the nicest (only good) rain walk I've had this millennium.

The next day I woke up long before my Dad and Evelyn and spent the time watching TV. I don't have cable, so it was hard to resist seeing what was on.

Don't remember another time when I saw Romney give a speech live on TV. I watched the whole thing. Funny that they picked the booing as the most important line from the speech. I saw it on every newscast for what seems like days afterwards.

  

I found it funny to see a green man on TV. He or she was part of a commercial for some evil corporation that is too targeted with their advertising money to broadcast their message where I could have seen it before. He or she was in heavy enough rotation that I could see the ad in one break and remember it well enough to get a good shot the next time the ad came around.

  

  

When Dad finally got up the first thing he did was reach for the paper. He's still addicted to it, and he still finds fascinating articles. Check out this one about the Green Party by clicking above.

We hung around and talked about this and that for a couple of days. Then I left for the Green Party convention in Baltimore.

     

Many times over the years my Dad told me "you just never know which page of the Washington Post has the front page news on it." That was true again this time, when the big story on the front page was that some commuters had to wait half an hour because of what was probably a software bug. Buried in the style section was a flippant but reasonably factual report on the Green Party convention.

One thing about having a 42 plus year State Department Career was it left my Dad comfortable. Not only does he have plenty of money for the bills, but he has good insurance. That pays for more than just the doctors, pills, and hospital visits. He also got home visits from this home physical therapist. She supervised the guy working out in a cheerful and helpful way. Before she left she told him he was in much better shape than he had been a week before. I was so glad to hear that. Maybe arguing with family is good for him! ;-)

Not long after that I left for my brother's place on the other side of Virginia.