Drama!

My Dad is in the hospital with the kind of problems that sedentary, tobacco-addicted, Filipino-food eating, sugar-loving, and deaf (in that he dismisses with a snort any suggestions for changing his lifestyle) people will sooner or later meet. The nurses (all Pinay, thank God) think he's a little wacky because he refuses to take off his jeans, UGG boots, or baseball cap. "I gotta be in charge of something," he says, by way of explanation.

He's incorrigible, stubborn, and maddening, but with a soft side that makes it all forgivable. After going to the Bindlestiff reading last year, for example (and no doubt inspired by Miz Barbara Jane, Jean, Gura, and all the other poets who read), he wrote a poem. He is not a writer, mind you. And his reading is self-restricted to the newspaper and fly-fishing magazines. But I will share his poem because...well, because it's my blog.

POEM BY NORMIE
They were launching a new book.
A gathering of writers, poets, comics, enthusiasts of the written and spoken word.
My daughter was reading her part. The spotlight lit up her face.
My vision was blurred. It was difficult to see clearly.
I kept wiping tears.
Macular degeneration.
Wet type.
Getting old is a pain, man.

So, you see, I'm crazy 'bout my Dad. And because I am the baby of the family and the only girl, the feeling is mutual. No wonder, then, that yesterday I was speeding at a brisk 85 mph down a crowded stretch of 280. The stereo was screaming (you know that song--I'm breaking my back/just to know your name...?--it makes me turn the volume up) when I heard a strange sound. I thought perhaps it was the wind, so I glanced at the trees lining the highway. They were still. I clicked the stereo off. What is that sound?

Then my truck fell.

Or so it seemed. I checked my side-mirror and saw my back tire roll onto the side of the highway. Holy fucking shit. I said, "Okay, okay, okay, be calm." I hit my emergency lights, pressed slowly on the brake, turned my steering wheel subtly in the direction I was being pulled, and moved two lanes over (very telling that it's easy to do 85 in the third lane of 280) until I was safely out of the way.

I had just called the spousal unit and was in the middle of unnecessarily hyperventilating when a truck pulled up in back of me. And that's where the drama ends. Because it was a guy from some auto shop, and he changed my tire for fifty-five bucks.

Oh, but wait! There's more! While Dad and I sat in his room eavesdropping on the highly inconsiderate amount of activity occurring on the other side of the curtain (the patient was asleep, but his television was on full-blast, and he had at least six people in his room, all screeching into their cell phones), he said, "Hey."

"Yeah?"

"Tell Mom to get rid of all the sticks before I get home."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I tried to quit two weeks ago, but then she went out and bought some."

"Okay, good."

"You should go home now, Toots."

And after awhile, I did.