This weekend we are visiting my father as well as visiting wineries in the Charlottesville area. Today we spent the bulk of the day visiting wineries. We arrived at my father’s house in the evening with some food to make for dinner. My father is old. He informed us he doesn’t eat anything after 3:00 PM. We made some rice for dinner to go with the steaks we bought. He said he could eat some soft foods but once we made the rice he said he didn’t want any. My father is old. While looking through the cabinets in his kitchen for things we needed to make dinner, we ran across a several medicine bottles. When I picked them up I realized they were empty. He is saving all his old medicine bottles. Why is he doing that?

Under his kitchen sink he must have are a half dozen or so bottles of 409. But each bottle is labeled. They are all filled with other solutions than 409. My father is old.

Sitting on his kitchen counter is two boxes of Borax, a hair dryer from the 80s, and several pairs of gloves….the industrial type gloves…like he’s going to burry someone in his back yard. I just don’t get my father. My father is old. Recently he spent a few thousand dollars on dentures to replace some teeth that needed to be removed. He refuses to wear the dentures unless he is going out. And even then if he is going out to eat, he takes the dentures out. What is wrong with him? He walks around his house with no dentures wearing a winter coat saying he is cold but yet it’s 77 degrees in his house. My father is old.

My father has taken in two stray cats. He has a history of taking in stray cats and caring for them as his own until they die. The two he has now come and go as they please. They go to the door and meow until he opens the door. He also feeds other animals by putting bird seed on his deck. He says he has two possums, a raccoon with babies, and many birds. I didn’t believe him until I saw one of the possums come to the deck to eat. Unbelievable. He encourages these wild animals to come to his deck!

He can’t sleep very well. He gets up at 2:00 in the morning, feeds the cats and then sits on the couch and falls asleep. When I got up early to use the restroom, I found him on the couch with his cats…one is on the floor under the chair. He has his bedroom door open when I got up to use the restroom and I saw him sleeping in a sleeping bag on top of his completely made bed. I asked him the next morning why and he said the sleeping bag keeps the warmth in better than his bedding. I said get a heavier blanket! He said he likes the sleeping bag. So bizarre!

Please don’t let me get old like my father. I simply couldn’t live like he lives. I sure hope Warren doesn’t let me turn into my father.