It can now be revealed.

Now that my father is safely returned to the homestead, being lovingly tended to by his devoted family, I can make fun of him.

But first, a word or two for those of you who might soon have a parent in the hospital. If your parent is over 65, no matter how vigorous or youthful they may appear, they will be described by the hospital staff as “elderly.” You may scoff at this. My parent is not some addled 90-year-old gumming his tapioca pudding! you may say to the doctors, as I did, and they will smile indulgently at you and continue to refer to your vigorous youthful parent as Elderly. Breathe and let it go. Whoooosh. There!

Okay, so the “elderly”—well, they’re a colorful bunch. Apparently they are prone to developing something called ICU delirium. Which means that the blinky-blinkiness of the lights and the constant beeping of the monitors and the nurses prodding them 24/7 seriously messes with their sleep/waking cycles, and they go (and I’m going to use a technical term here), completely fucking nuts. Now, I’m telling you this because when my father began to behave, ahem, colorfully!, our doctors did not clue us into this. They didn’t explain that this happens all the time. They cheerfully referred to my father as “psychotic” and when we asked, “But why, doctors? Why?” they shrugged and said, damned if we know! Whoops!

I don’t know what led them to do this, except some sadistic streak running through the staff of Mt. Sinai. They watched us as we scurried about, wringing our hands and knitting our brows, and they chortled darkly. Luckily I have a good friend in the medical profession (hi, Mike! Hi!) and he kindly took my 8 a.m. phone calls and explained the matter to me as if I were not, in fact, an idiot. Thanks, Mike!

At the time, when my dad had just woken up only to reveal that he was batshit insane, my mom kept prodding me to write about it in my blog. “Hey, you should write how he said [insert hilarity that could only be concocted by the insane here]! That’s some funny stuff, what he said!”

“Well, mother, I suppose, but wouldn’t that be disrespectful of our poor ailing patriarch?”

“What could he say about it? He’s so nuts, he believes that [insert witty delusion here]. Haw, haw!”

[Note: the above conversation was edited to make me sound good and my mother sound bad. Also, my mother never once said “Haw, haw” in her life. No one says that, except the heathens in Jack Chick publications. Please alert me if you have evidence to the contrary.]

[But she did want me to make fun of him. Just for the record. Because crazy people is funny.]

After a few days of wacky nuttiness, the Father regained his mental clarity, and we rejoiced. And then he said some things that made me laugh with him, and not at him. Because he is a funny man, even when sane. At one point he asked my mom to shave him. “But it looks like the nurse has been shaving you already,” my mom observed. To which my father rolled his eyes and responded, “Do you know how they shave you, here? They dump ice water over your head, and when you stop screaming, they start shaving.”

At another point, he was mocking a roommate he had suffered for a few days—a whiner who had to loudly regale anyone in his presence with the details of his aches and pains. I guess over the course of a day or two, the whiner had also revealed himself to be an idiot. And my father said, “It boggles the mind, how such a person can be smart enough to live. How does he have the mental capacity to get through the day? To simply leave the house and find a sandwich?”

I am glad you're no longer with the idiots, Dad. Or at least, now you're with the idiots you know.

I seem to be rather angry these days.

For various reasons, my dad is now in the Cardiac Care Unit of Nassau Medical Center, the ugliest hospital I have ever had the misfortune to visit. This monstrosity is the worst example of 1960s architecture—huge and ramshackle, like a suburban high school but with curious summer-camp touches. Not only is it ugly, but it’s obvious that there are forces working diligently to make it smell terrible and be as unwelcoming, cold, and grim as it can possibly be. Because it’s a hospital! Where people are sick! So why would anyone want to make them happy?

My dad is stuck in a corridor, basically. The Cardiac Care Unit is a corridor. A dank corridor with no windows and unsmiling attendants who only interact with him when they have to perform unpleasant procedures. And even then they’re not nice about it. Oh! And there are teaching doctors who approach him with their gaggles of med students so they can treat my dad like a circus monkey while they, say, use the temporary pacemaker to lower his heart rate to almost nothing and then turn it waaay up and watch him twitch. I asked my dad why everyone seemed to be so unfriendly and he said, “It’s because most people here are going to die soon*. They don’t want to get attached.”

Does this not boggle the mind?

Dear dying person,

You say you're going to die soon! So why should we be nice to you? Won’t you take our feelings into consideration? How about thinking about someone besides yourself for a change, jerk?

Since these might be your last days on earth, we thought we’d put you in a dimly lit hallway without a single window or any indication that the sun even exists anymore.** We’ll serve only the most unappetizing of food, too! Mmm, unsalted meat sludge. Eat it and shut up. Also, you’ll never get a television. Or a telephone. Even after you ask several times for both these items. And while we’re at it, we won’t give your loved ones any number or human being to contact when they have questions. So that when we wheel you in for surgery, no one will know! And then while you recover you’ll be alone! Listen: our hospital is the best and doesn’t at all deserve to be destroyed. So shut your trap.

Love,

Nassau Medical Center.

Next up: idiot people who sneer at “Park Slope Mommies” on their idiot blogs. Ha, ha! Because all mothers are stupid! Stupid mothers! It’s a good thing the rest of us were created asexually so that we can be disgusted by the disgusting women who have progeny! Ick, ick, ick!

* Not my dad--he’s just fine, I’m happy to say. He will soon be out of this hellhole.

**When I was there yesterday, another patient called out to me, “Please, what is it like outside? Is the sun shining?” I’m not making this up.

Fretting is like aerobics for the mind.

So my dad’s going in for surgery at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.

This is insane, but I might as well tell you: this surgery seems impossible to me; I mull it over and read up on the gory details and every time I end up feeling altogether poorly about it. And here’s the crazy part: it’s because I can’t figure out how such a surgery is possible. Are you with me? If I can’t figure out how to do something, it stands to reason that no one can. I don’t know when I got so egomaniacal, but there it is. Operating on a heart! Who ever heard of such an insane act? You need the heart at all times; you don’t go fiddling with it. Much less opening it up and sticking pig parts in there.

If I were a surgeon, I’d be in the operating room saying things like, “Okay, let’s just, you know, start cutting this nice person open, and—hold up a minute here, I have to vomit for an hour or two. Okay. No, I’m good. No, wait, still sick. Wow. Didn’t think a person could vomit out through their eyes, did you? Well, we all learned something today. You know what? This whole surgery thing doesn’t seem right to me at all. Who’s for lunch?”

Obviously we’re all grateful that I didn’t pursue a medical degree.

In general I tend to be unable to relax when I’m not in control. You should see me in a plane. I’m the one in 34F, flying the plane with my mind. It’s not easy but someone has to do it, and what, I’m going to trust those drunks in the cockpit?

In conclusion, I am insane. Thank you. I have to go fret now.

Welcome to Williamsburg. Here's your beret.

First off: my Dad thanks you for the prayers and good wishes. While I may be lacking in religiosity, or at least let’s say I don’t cotton to the church-going, my Dad is one holy bastard (and I’m sure he would be charmed by that turn of phrase) and appreciates very much all the praying. So if you have any more you feel like serving up, you go right ahead.

Okay, also? Apparently in addition to getting a Dacron stent inserted (what’s with the Dacron? Didn’t one of my commenters mention this? Can someone tell me why Dacron is the fabric of choice?), he’s also getting some pig valves. Pig valves. “Available only from Hormel,” as my Dad put it.

I don’t know what to say about that.

Last week I wrote an entry about a conversation with my family-in-law, in which the older members of said family quizzed Scott and me about what a “hipster” looks like, after I made some comment about the hip kids in Williamsburg. It was a funny entry. Oh, how it made me laugh. I was going to post it, to share the surreal joy with you. And then evil gnomes invaded my computer and destroyed the document because, well, didn’t I say they were evil?

What I can recall of their guesses as to what hip people wear:

1. Berets. (Or some other manner of “interesting hat.”)

2. Fringed and tie-dyed apparel. (“You mean hip like hippie?”)

3. Sweaters and sportjackets. (Yes. Hip people dress like Bing Crosby.)

4. Spats and corncob pipes.

Okay, I made that last one up. I wish I could remember the rest. Oh, it was funny. Hoo boy.

I couldn’t tell them anything about the attire of the hip, because when the hipsters approach I’m so shamed by my comparative absence of hipness that I am temporarily blinded and all I can do is roll about on the ground shrieking until they retreat.

Moving on:

Yesterday Henry and I had the following exchange, after I came upon him curled up on the ground next to his Star Wars dolls (THEY ARE NOT DOLLS, my husband shouts even though he’s not here), I mean figures.

Me: Are you okay?

Henry (eyes squeezed shut): I’m a baby.

Me: You’re my baby.

Henry: No. I’m just a baby. [After a second, he gets up.] I will have some water in a big boy cup. [This is as opposed to a sippy cup, you see.]

Me: Good idea!

We go get some water.

Henry: You feel sad.

Me: I do?

Henry: Water will make you feel better.

Me: Sure, I like water.

[We drink water.]

Henry: Do you feel better?

Me: You know, I do! Do you feel better?

Henry: No, you were sad. Do you feel better?

Me: I absolutely feel better now. Thank you.

Henry [putting his cup down]: Good. Now it’s time to spin around and around.

And dear god, he was right.