Flibbertigibbet

My Parents Aren't Listening

My mom told my dad that we went to a restaurant and we had a "portofino" cheese with some "portofino" ham. My dad grunted his interest.

The reality is that our appetizer consisted of mozzarella baked in prosciutto ham.

My dad has the flu right now. He's been asleep for nearly 24 hours at this point. He has a fever and a headache and all that.

Over the course of the day, though, my dad has had more than half a bottle of Glenfidditch single malt whiskey.

Apparently, the consensus between my parents is that this will help with the cough and small bit of congestion my dad has.

I have not said a thing to them about how ridiculous this theory is.

I'm sure that all that alcohol has not helped his immune system fight the virus. And I'm sure it won't help with his remaining hydrated through the fever. And the sleep is supposed to allow your body to heal itself and regenerate, but feeding it poison in the midst of disease is... well, crazy.

But I haven't said anything.

It struck me just a bit ago that they don't care.

I think my mom is talking to just tell my dad that she had a good time at dinner, but her words don't make any sense in themselves. How is my dad supposed to know what she's talking about. Is "portofino" cheese good at all? I've never heard of it and I'm sure my dad hasn't.

My dad is downing some more whiskey right now. At least it's mixed with Pepsi at the moment. I guess.

Every time we've come back to my apartment to regroup, they get stuck either napping, watching television, or just wandering about jibbering about something or another. Forget about trying to get them to make decisions about what they would like to do.

The last time they were here, I made them make a list of things they thought they might like to do and then I planned an itinerary for them. This time, they had only a couple of things they really wanted to do and we were to just wing the rest of the visit.

They don't like choosing what to do, though. So, we usually spend about two hours getting ready and talking about what we MIGHT do. We don't know what we're going to do, literally, until we're standing on the sidewalk in front of my building.

But obviously applying reason isn't critical to this whole experience to them. They seem to be enjoying themselves.

Still, it's hard to have conversations with these people. It's hard to even make suggestions for them because they don't claim any preferences about things.

*sigh*

My parents are enjoyable people on some levels. I keep them around not because I feel something I would qualify as love, but because I feel deep familiarity with them.

When I spend short periods of time with them, I don't mind them so much. In fact, I enjoy my time with them. But once the visit takes more than two or three days, I find that I become... strained. We crossed that mark yesterday.

They're leaving Tuesday morning.