The 85th

My visit to Boston for my father's 85th birthday wasn't as difficult as I anticipated. For one thing, the lawyer cancelled our appointment on us, so although it was annoying not to be able to get that done, one potential source of strife was eliminated.

While some clouds had silver-linings, some silver linings were pretty cloudy. Dad's birthday dinner went well enough, except that L's handbag was stolen with ~ of course ~ everything in it. We found out that the thieves managed to run up $600 in charges on a credit card within about 15 minutes of boosting it. We still don't know how they managed it in the first place.

It was, as always, particularly nice to see Howard and other family friends.

Dad wasn't mean to me on this trip, and we actually had one pleasant, if repetitive, conversation. The giant hunks of money we're spending on his behalf are, at least, giving him a decent lifestyle. Too bad he can't really appreciate any of it.

I went to the bank to close out my parents' safety-deposit box, and of course they needed a key. Which I didn't have. And despaired of finding.

I went back to Dad's place and ransacked the junk-filled, chaotic filing cabinets and drawers. In despair, I called my sister and told her that I couldn't find the key, and that yet another reason for my visit was being thwarted.

Right after I hung up the phone, the strangest sensation took hold of me. I felt obligated to search again in a chest of drawers that I had thoroughly rummaged. LIke a woman in a trance, I returned to the drawers, opened them, and laid my hand blindly on a specific spot and withdrew it to feel the key in my hand.

It was an utterly bizarre experience; it felt like being on auto-pilot. All I could say was, "Hallelujah and thanks be to God!"

I met my sister back at the bank and we closed out the safety-deposit box, which had nothing much of interest in it, and an awful lot of perfectly pointless paper. My parents were ridiculous packrats.

All in all, the whole thing went about as well as I could have hoped. Just so you don't get the wrong idea about it being relaxing, though: I spent the last 45 minutes at my sister's place lying on a sofa trying to doze off a crashing migraine.

On the plus side, I got to the airport in time to catch an earlier (delayed) shuttle flight home. I gave a ride to a nice man I met on the plane. And I arrived to the enthusiastic greeting of my little girl, who spent about an hour and a half this morning assuring herself by much face tapping and nose licking that I WAS INDEED IN THE BED and available to answer her every whim. All is now clearly right in her world, if nowhere else.