I wrote a poem today:

Walking Down the Hill with Dad

Walking down the hill with Dad on a summer night

it's been cool and wet all day, but finally this evening

the clouds are burning off, the sun is coming out

Dad is wearing a heavy down jacket.

I put my arm around him,

"You're a tough customer, Dad.  I want to keep you warm,

so you'll hang around here longer

but you don't like to be cold, but you don't like to wear clothes."

"Yeah, I like to be in my underwear."

"You need a woman to keep you warm."

Dad chuckled, "Yeah, I had a good woman keeping me warm for a long time,

she's still keeping me warm, your mother, I sleep with her quilt every night at home."

I look at his face, weathered brown by the sun,

his eyes look down, he shakes his head, looks up,

"Where's Murray, oh there she is."

down the hill we walk, the dogs leading the way

So that's my poem, trying to recreate part of the conversation I had with my Dad as we walked the dogs after getting home from work around 4:30 or so.

It's almost 11 pm and the phone rings, it's Howie, "Hi, Dad, today was intensity day, I was super tired, it was such a workout I was never so tired in my life."  He sounds good, just wanted to call home and stay in touch with his Dad.

The other highlight of my day was waking up in the middle of the night with Buddy and Ziggy in bed with me and Murray on the floor next to the bed.

With the boys gone I finally fell back into my "normal" routine of riding the bike for half an hour, walking the dogs, having a bowl of cereal while reading Time magazine, then going to work, stopping at the Post Office and the bakery and getting to work around 9 am.  

I jumped right into dealing with salesman and trying to get my work done.  Bud the Coke salesman was there, who I needed to see because I need a new Coke cooler to replace my broken cooler.  No problem - should be here by the end of the week and they should be able to help get rid of my old one. Then I dealt with the wine guys - then my Dad called to get picked up.  Got him and the dogs, came back, did my deposit, worked on paying my bills, the associated order showed up and I had to help bring in the boxes.  Then back to paying bills.  At around 1:30 had lunch with Dad.  After lunch I finished up most of my paperwork, bills paid, left a few things for tomorrow like balancing my check book and doing a quarterly audit report for workmans comp.  Dad and I took a walk with the dogs to buy myself a new pair of Keens, as I thought I might head home and then go fishing.  As it turns out we left the store around 4:30 - after helping Lauren fix the cash register drawer that wouldn't open - it had money jammed into the mechanism.  

When we got home I asked my Dad if he wanted to go for a walk with the dogs and I and he said yes, but he needed his down jacket which I found for him in our coat closet.  It wasn't that cold out, but he insisted.  He gets cold. It's an issue. Oh yeah, you've already read the poem.  Anyhow we walked the dogs - ran into a construction guy who comes into the store who of course started talking business and how slow it is in the construction world.  Buddy found this other small white dog to play with, who had no owner around.  It had a tag with a name and address - it was the small white dog that usually barks like crazy from its kennel whenever we walk by, I was able to pick him up and put him back in the kennel, not sure if and how he got out, but I just put him back in there.

Back at the house, I took my time, next door Chris was having a birthday party for Stephanie who just got back from Guatemala.  She looked great - we saw her when she stopped to say Hi as we were walking the dogs.  I got on the computer and worked on that poem.   Then the phone rang it was Chris asking me to come over for a glass of champagne.  I told her I would be right over.  I set up Dad on the t.v. with the All Star Game and went over for a drink.  There were about 5 women and her husband Mike.  Mike and I needed to leave soon thereafter to head to our Baked Moose softball game which we won decidedly 20-10 against the Big Sky Beavers, whose name makes for a fun-filled evening of double edged cheers...

Back home, I made a couple of vodka lemonades, my Dad's new favorite drink, plus warmed up the leftover french fries as an all star snack as we watched the end of the game together.  After the game, AL won 4-3, for its 13th win in a row, I made a quick dinner of salad with the leftover steak and we sat at the kitchen table and ate and talked about family. Dad was talking about family and how his grandmother first had 5 sisters and then 5 younger brothers or something like that. Dad told me he's sleeping better here than he was at home.  I have this desire to try to remember everything he says, but when our conversations are naturally interesting I know I will remember them without too much effort, maybe not word for word, but for the most part pretty close.  So I try to have faith in my memory and my writing ability to recreate the interesting conversations or funny conversations or both.  And in the meantime just enjoy our time together - it's been so far very relaxing, I think for both of us.

After dinner I took a shower and then it seemed that the animals wanted out.  I opened the door and Murray bolted up the hill of wildflowers.  And then I saw them in the horizon on the edge of the hill, their silhouettes in the dark blue of dusk, some young bucks - deer running along the top of the hill, bopping up and down. I call for my Dad to come, there is one just perfect silhouette of the young buck at the top of the hill, and I was hoping maybe Dad could see it, but he couldn't, it was too dark, I think.  He tried, but he couldn't see the deer, I didn't think he could, but it's always worth a try.  Then I took the dogs for a short walk down the cul de sac and back.  Dad was playing solitaire and then decided to go to bed as I turned the computer on.