Courtney woke me up at 8:15. I changed clothes, and brushed my teeth, deciding to shower when I got home. The toilet wouldn’t stop running, and Courtney yelled from upstairs, “John, are you handy?” We got it to stop running, and she left it precariously set, sure to not work properly on the next flush.
Court drove me to the airport, and I caught my 9:45 flight without incident. I was in Group B again, and still ended up with a window seat. A mid-50ish couple sat in the two seats next to me, the husband in the middle, and the wife in the aisle seat. He was reading a book about the Bible.
I tried to work a couple of puzzles in my new New York Times Crossword Puzzle book, but didn’t get very far on them. They’re hard! As I was getting into my seat, one of the flight attendants, an older guy, in the back said, “New York… what’s that say?” looking at the book I was holding by my side.
“New York Times Crossword Puzzles, and they’re hard,” I said.
“I got one for you. We tried to get this one once in a New York Times puzzle. We ended up announcing over the PA system on the plane, ‘If anyone can get this one for us, we’ll give you a free drink.’ It was a five-letter answer, and the clue was, ‘Causes scarlet fever.'”
“Hmmm,” I said.
“I’ll even give you the first two letters. R-H.”
Nothing.
“I’ll even give you the third letter. E.”
Still nothing.
“T-T,” he said, “R-H-E-T-T.”
“Oh! Scarlett fever! I get it.”
Back at the purple lot, I found a pair of Old Navy sunglasses on the ground between my car and the one next to me. I took them for Robert. I considered hanging them off the windshield wiper of the car next to me, but 1) I couldn’t be sure they were his or hers, and 2) I had no confidence they’d still be there whenever that person returned. Writing this now, it occurs to me that I could have left them with the attendant at the cashier’s booth. Oh well.
I drove home and took a four-hour nap.
I left for Jacksonville at about 7:00PM. I called just as I was leaving to let them know I was coming, and asked Dad if I could go to his doctor’s appointment with him. “Sure,” he said. Mom was at bingo.
I arrived in Jacksonville at about 9:15. Mom got home a little after 10. I worked on the scribing the minutes, from flipcharts, of the Raleigh Community Meeting we had on Wednesday. After inputting all the data, I spent some time categorizing the needs.
I worked on this until about 2:00AM, and the entire time Mom talked about dad. All the things about him that are so irritating, and how he has changed in the last year or so, especially since the diagnosis that his prostate cancer “is back.”
I talked about either or both of them thinking about seeing a therapist. By the end of the evening, she was considering it for herself.