(no subject)

TiVo is transformative. After a while, you set it up with the shows you watch--and even the shows you wouldn't watch if they entailed the slightest inconvenience--then it records them when they're on, and you watch them when you watch them. A side effect is that sometimes we get a few episodes behind and catch up all at once.

This has happened recently with HBO's Six Feet Under, which we finally caught up on tonight. This season they've been covering a lot of issues related to love, family, and relationships, and choices they entail and the prices we pay. These are issues I've been stuggling with a great deal lately, so it's been especially meaningful.

I marvel sometimes at how much I am my parents, and how much of the rest of me is in reaction to them. It's so easy to be trapped by that, and to some extent I would be even more so. And while I absolutely believe I can change a lot of that, it's strange, even now, how little I noticed the connection or believed I had alternatives.

All of which brings me to my father, who hasn't been doing well. He's also been morose and absentminded, which we have attributed to depression. As I mentioned, his wife is his savior, which is great for him, but must be rather draining for her.

( Now my father's in the hospital. )

Thanks, Dad

When my brother didn't call me back last night, I figured that our father wasn't in immediate danger. I just got off the phone with my brother, and I was right. A blood test in the emergency room last night revealed a simple cause for the disorientation and blackouts: my father's blood alcohol was "off the chart."

He has always drunk more than was good for him. Whether he's an alcoholic is something you could quibble about, but it never interfered with his job and he never took out a family of four with a Buick. So I never put much energy into deciding whether the label really applied.

The doctor last night told him to cut way down (but not to quit cold turkey, for fear of serious withdrawal symptoms); at age sixty-four, he should not be drinking to the point of blackouts. And normally he doesn't, but he's reacting badly to his wife's absence. For her part, she's coming home tonight, a day early.

I suppose this is some twisted kind of good news. Drunkenness wears off overnight; Alzheimer's does not. Still, my dad has had memory problems. At the very least, he's badly depressed, and there were enough sigs of problems before that they had scheduled an MRI.

Thanks to everyone for their good wishes.

On the plus side, my wife's sister delivered a baby boy by caesarean section this morning. Mother and child (and father, for that matter) are reported to be doing well and provide a welcome distraction from my failure to produce grandchildren.

Drugs! Drugs! Drugs!

As mind-altering chemicals have worked so well for my father, I've decided to give them another shot, myself. As of this morning, I have a shiny-new prescription for antidepressants, a sample pack, and a dry mouth.