On Being Assimilated...

First of all, I'm back home again. My father is doing wonderful and the only thing I really could do to help him out any would be to stay and cook fattening meals for him. But, since both my mother and my sister can do that, all I'd really be doing is getting in the way and moping around becuase I wasn't at home.

A home health care nurse and an occupational therapist came out to evaluate Dad on Thursday. The nurse will be coming out a couple of times a week to check healing on his stump and check vital signs. The occupational therapist won't be back. She watched Dad use his walker, checked out the house for things that could be problems, decided there weren't any, checked his strength, all kinds of things. After standing in the living room where all of the airplane things are for over 20 minutes, she told us that Dad didn't need her, he could already take care of himself. Yeah, we knew that, but home health care had to see it for themselves, I suppose...

A physical therapist comes out early next week to evaluate what he needs, and he also has an appointment with the prosthesis maker to get started on that process.

When we were little and were getting ready to leave on long trips, which meant getting up super early to get into the car and go back to sleep, Dad would walk through the house and ring these huge cowbells to wake us up. They also went to football games, and were a source of great embarassment for us as teenagers. Anyway, Dad woke us up with them yeterday morning. I staggered to the hallway to find Dad on the other end, standing there with his walker, all of the cowbells in the basket, the dog barking at him, and an impish grin. It's good to have Dad back. :o)


Now, about this assimilation thing... I have spent 37 years and 7 months detesting the taste of coffee, even though I've been surrounded by it. Up to now, if I drank coffee, it had to have so much stuff in it to disguise the taste that it wasn't coffee anymore, it was some sort of flavored syrupy stuff.

Anyway, Wednesday morning, I got up early in a hotel room to finish the drive to my mother's house so I could go with her to pick up Dad. The only caffeine available was in the form of the complimentary coffee maker in the room. Needing something to help wake me up badly, I decided to choke some down.

I fixed up a cup of it, put in the small amounts of sweetener and creamer that were available, and promptly burned my tongue on the awful stuff. !@#$!!!!! Into the sink I went to put some cool water in it so I could suck it down quickly. Maybe I won't taste it too much if I gulp it down, right? I took a test sip to make sure I wasn't setting myself up for a blistered throat. Hmmmm.... what is this stuff? It tastes good..... how can this be coffee???? I wrote it off as a fluke as I enjoyed, yes... enjoyed that cup of coffee, without a mountain of sweetener and cream.

On the way home last night, I stopped at a convenience store in Knoxville, about an hour away from the house. I decided to give it another shot, to test the fluke theory. Didn't take me long to suck that cup down, either.

*Sigh*. I have been assimilated.