It seems as though it has passed too quickly, Lindsay's visit to her father and grandmother this pre-Thanksgiving, and as the rain, early snow/sleet falls outside on this chilly, miserable day, the busiest of the year for traffic and travel, we get ready to drive to Philly Airport, a good 3 hours before my daughter's departure time for her Delta flight to Atlanta, 7:20 p.m.
Showing posts with label Feby's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feby's. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Sunday, October 27, 2013
27 October 2013: Sunday, a brilliant sunrise and lingering milk smoke downstairs from Cream of Wheat overflow (fan and open windows and door/door window)
I thought about this e-mail, seriously, and wrote it this morning after an "extraordinary" Saturday with our father and a Dutch couple's dinner visit to our home:Doug,
In thinking of a subject header for this post, which I will make brief (sort of) honoring your skill at being concise, I came up with "extraordinary" to cover a wide emotional space.
The first and foremost was the drive, one of our last, in the country with our dying father, still with it, thankfully, and how perfect I felt it went. Not talkative, dad, still, in his silence, soaked in the beauty of that Sat afternoon.
The second event was my imposition and its initial, though not continuing, upset on you, dad and mom. It was an imprudent and selfish decision on my part to invite the Stams over for dinner. Granted it was thrust on me by the couple's overt, encompassing generosity, but, nonetheless, I should have discussed (it with our parents and you and Norma). Enough said. My apologies, post-incident.
We are entering a new phase of our lives. We shall soon, hopefully not too soon, be the surviving generation. My hope, my dear brother, is, that despite our divergent temperaments and worldviews that we continue to share the beauty of a fall afternoon and realize what is truly lasting -- our love as a family.
May it be so ... and in loving humankindness, your brother, always,
rudy
Went to church and with no choir practice, went for a walk around Paper Mill Park and came to a trail that led me to some nice homes and this horse and baby/small goats with budding horns:
Doug posted some amazing photos from our Saturday (yesterday) afternoon trip to the country with our father:
Travel to the country and The Whip this afternoon but it was packed due to the Eagles football game versus the Giants (they were losing 15-0 late in the 4th quarter) and so we traveled, thanks to Doug's expert GPS in his droid phone, to the Greathouse at Loch Nairn and had a nice late lunch, leisurely served by 18-year-old Eliza, younger than the cat that observed the dining area through the door outside (Doug went out to her and fed her some bread), who might be 19 or 20 years of age. Dad ate well -- an oyster stew -- and even drank a martini, his first in ages.
Male Muslim attire required at Greathouse lunch table ... with apologies to the Muslim faith.
He waxed a little nostalgic about the place, he's eaten here so many times, he goes back a long way. Prior to coming into the restaurant, took a nice photo of Norma and dad, which I sent to Doug, Norma, and Norma Virginia via an e-mail and attachment. Here is the photograph:
Norma and dad posing in front of the Greathouse at Loch Nairn waiting for Doug to return after parking the car and going in for lunch on this sunny, beautiful Sunday, 27 October 2013.
Mid to late afternoon, Dancer needed a walk so I got Norma to come with us to Bark Park for a walk, even though she wasn't wearing the exactly right shoes for the trekking adventure. We did the trails and the park for a little over a mile walk into a brilliant sun which became my thrown together Daily Dancer pic for the day.
A few short hours after our fairly big meal (good bread, filling) at the Greathouse, Doug made reservations for Feby's but dad was unable to go. We left our parents recumbent on mom's bed watching a TCM offering on the wide screen TV. Prior to that, I'd brought up the oxygen for dad for a second time and he fiddled with the nasal cannula to get it fitted properly and I set the level at 2.0. Doug had ordered, earlier, pulse oxygen reader on the Internet and it should be arriving soon. We will determine dad's levels and see if he does need the supplemental oxygen, but now, if he feels the need, he's going to get it, of course. Dinner was too filling and the restaurant was packed, many ordering the lobster due to a special of 3 courses for $30.00.
The view of Feby's as you turn into the restaurant's parking lot off Maryland Avenue.
Got home after 8 p.m. and dad was still up, but not for long, and they said their goodbyes and headed for the Holiday Inn Express, an early departure in the AM in the plans, probably 5 a.m. Doug set his phone alarm for 4:30 a.m., as though he needs it. Well, it was a good visit and we got a lot of time with dad as he went out of his way to travel in the Chrysler 200 (a car Doug poo-pooed as inferior) over the hills, valleys, and narrow causeways of rural Maryland and Pennsylvania. Just a beautiful weekend. The challenges remain and Doug will be here if I need him. Tomorrow, it's back to the office in the afternoon after flying in to Atlanta in the morning and making their way, about 45 minutes, to their home in John's Creek.
In thinking of a subject header for this post, which I will make brief (sort of) honoring your skill at being concise, I came up with "extraordinary" to cover a wide emotional space.
The first and foremost was the drive, one of our last, in the country with our dying father, still with it, thankfully, and how perfect I felt it went. Not talkative, dad, still, in his silence, soaked in the beauty of that Sat afternoon.
The second event was my imposition and its initial, though not continuing, upset on you, dad and mom. It was an imprudent and selfish decision on my part to invite the Stams over for dinner. Granted it was thrust on me by the couple's overt, encompassing generosity, but, nonetheless, I should have discussed (it with our parents and you and Norma). Enough said. My apologies, post-incident.
We are entering a new phase of our lives. We shall soon, hopefully not too soon, be the surviving generation. My hope, my dear brother, is, that despite our divergent temperaments and worldviews that we continue to share the beauty of a fall afternoon and realize what is truly lasting -- our love as a family.
May it be so ... and in loving humankindness, your brother, always,
rudy
Went to church and with no choir practice, went for a walk around Paper Mill Park and came to a trail that led me to some nice homes and this horse and baby/small goats with budding horns:
Just off the asphalt track around the athletic fields of Paper Mill Park is a trail that led to this enclosed area with goats and this sociable and obviously, hungry, horse. I had nothing to offer him/her but an iPhone. Not going to get it but I did grab this image as I walked prior to the start of service at UUSMC. Walked for a total of 1.5 miles. Nice activity prior to the service where I got to sing with Kristen and Laurie on a hymn late in the service with Larry Stomberg accompanying on cello. He is an Assistant Professor of Cello at University of Delaware School of Music (Loudis Recital Hall).
Doug posted some amazing photos from our Saturday (yesterday) afternoon trip to the country with our father:
Travel to the country and The Whip this afternoon but it was packed due to the Eagles football game versus the Giants (they were losing 15-0 late in the 4th quarter) and so we traveled, thanks to Doug's expert GPS in his droid phone, to the Greathouse at Loch Nairn and had a nice late lunch, leisurely served by 18-year-old Eliza, younger than the cat that observed the dining area through the door outside (Doug went out to her and fed her some bread), who might be 19 or 20 years of age. Dad ate well -- an oyster stew -- and even drank a martini, his first in ages.
Male Muslim attire required at Greathouse lunch table ... with apologies to the Muslim faith.
Norma and dad posing in front of the Greathouse at Loch Nairn waiting for Doug to return after parking the car and going in for lunch on this sunny, beautiful Sunday, 27 October 2013.
Mid to late afternoon, Dancer needed a walk so I got Norma to come with us to Bark Park for a walk, even though she wasn't wearing the exactly right shoes for the trekking adventure. We did the trails and the park for a little over a mile walk into a brilliant sun which became my thrown together Daily Dancer pic for the day.
A few short hours after our fairly big meal (good bread, filling) at the Greathouse, Doug made reservations for Feby's but dad was unable to go. We left our parents recumbent on mom's bed watching a TCM offering on the wide screen TV. Prior to that, I'd brought up the oxygen for dad for a second time and he fiddled with the nasal cannula to get it fitted properly and I set the level at 2.0. Doug had ordered, earlier, pulse oxygen reader on the Internet and it should be arriving soon. We will determine dad's levels and see if he does need the supplemental oxygen, but now, if he feels the need, he's going to get it, of course. Dinner was too filling and the restaurant was packed, many ordering the lobster due to a special of 3 courses for $30.00.
The view of Feby's as you turn into the restaurant's parking lot off Maryland Avenue.
Got home after 8 p.m. and dad was still up, but not for long, and they said their goodbyes and headed for the Holiday Inn Express, an early departure in the AM in the plans, probably 5 a.m. Doug set his phone alarm for 4:30 a.m., as though he needs it. Well, it was a good visit and we got a lot of time with dad as he went out of his way to travel in the Chrysler 200 (a car Doug poo-pooed as inferior) over the hills, valleys, and narrow causeways of rural Maryland and Pennsylvania. Just a beautiful weekend. The challenges remain and Doug will be here if I need him. Tomorrow, it's back to the office in the afternoon after flying in to Atlanta in the morning and making their way, about 45 minutes, to their home in John's Creek.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
23 October 2013: On this overcast Wednesday, dad is resting, saying he's not slept but he is quiet and even arose to look at the monitor of my FB family photo at the airport ...
Dad ordering at Feby's Fish Restaurant on Maryland Avenue.
He could not think of the name of the fish just prior to us ordering at Feby's Restaurant, a favorite place of my dad and mom's when they dined our regular, after we'd added me to his checking account at Wells Fargo in Greenville through the help of Ghanaian personal banker Kwaku Boateng, who actually studied building engineering science in school and has been in the U.S. for about 2 years. He plans to go back to school and possibly return to Ghana where they speak about 32 languages but English is the official one. But back to the important issue: Dad EATING. He couldn't remember the fish and when he looked at the menu, it turned out to be Crab Imperial, which he ordered. Crabs are not fish I said after having gone through a litany of species only to be rejected at each mention. Well, at least he ate the crab and some veggies and applesauce. Nice to see him with a little appetite. Our waitress, didn't get her name, in the pic played basketball in HS and was 6'2" tall and could easily reach the glasses above her. Another waitress stretched to reach a glass and claimed that she needed platform shoes.
Dad eating his crab imperial at Feby's.
It happened again, only dad was in the car and he did not see my tears, but they came streaming as WRTI had listener request and the music of Wagner played, the immolation scene of Brünnhilde in the 3rd Act of Götterdämmerung (Der Ring des Nibelungen, a famous production from Bayreuth 1976, recorded 1980. Gwyneth Jones as Brünnhilde, Fritz Hübner as Hagen. Conducted by Pierre Boulez, directed by Patrice Chéreau. Finale of Wagner's tetralogy.)
(?) ... will search YouTube for a clip and audio. Just unbelievably moving music, so varied across the orchestral spectrum and the mourning theme is just heartrending, that's what brought out the tears. (As I type this, dad is downstairs listening to a record of Heifetz and Brooks Smith playing a Mozart sonata and drinking a cup of tea that I heaped with three teaspoons of sugar, damn the diabetes, and which he feebly held as he brought it to his mouth, leaning forward from the couch). It's the strings that just come out of nowhere (7:08 of video) that jerk the heart strings and then the brass but those violins, what a sound, heavenly as the body moves to another plane.
Boy, in his suffering, dad tests me. I put on an old, well played record of the Franck Sonata with Heifetz and Rubinstein, the album worn and tattered (one of his oldest records, where did you find that, he asks. In the TV room on the shelf, the first record, I respond), and then I notice all the pills, Alprazolam and Vicodin, a total of about 8 pills. Why so many, I ask, and he goes to the store in the extra room and takes out another Alprazolam adds it to the group and takes them upstairs with shaky step to mom. It his focus and he comments that I leave the records running on the turntable. So critical, no thanks for playing the beautiful Mozart sonatas or the Franck at the present time, only the fact that I don't change the record after it completes playing (the record does not end playing but keeps rotating on the turntable and needs to have the needle moved up and over to its resting spot, the turntable turned off and the record lifted up and placed back into the album cover, that will make him happy. I know it's the pain and the suffering he's going through that clouds his judgment. All he can do is what he has done for all these years, those routines that bring him solace and meaning to his life. He can't break out and I can't blame him for this. I need to love him and give him a break and just try to understand his motivation.
The Rubinstein Collection, Vol. 7: Franck: Violin Sonata / Fauré / Poulenc / Albéniz
(Arthur Rubinstein; Jascha Heifetz)
The Rubinstein Collection, Vol. 7: Franck: Violin Sonata / Fauré / Poulenc / Albéniz
(Arthur Rubinstein; Jascha Heifetz)
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