Less than a week after walking out, Dad's back in the hospital under orders of his new kidney doctor. Looks like he'll be there a while, too, which means I'm responsible for taking care of his poodle, Rambo, for the duration.

That's not too bad. Rambo is an old boy who spends most of his time napping, and Henry and Louis are appropriately cautious of Rambo's ill-temper. The most I really have to worry about here is whether my back can sustain carrying 65-pound Rambo up and down the stairs from my bedroom to the door outside a few times a day.

The bigger problem is that this also happens to be the week my mother and her sister have gone out of town to a veterinarian conference in Orlando. (No, neither one is a vet. This is just what passes for a vacation opportunity in post-COVID America.) So I, who am also not a vet, am also tending to Audrey and Kelley's 3 dogs and 4 cats (and to a lesser extent, 2 goats and a Shetland pony, though that mostly just means trips to Tractor Supply for Neigh Nibblers and Saddle Snacks).

Splitting my time between my house, Kelley's house, and the hospital has proven challenging. I may have bitten off more than I can chew. Some of these dogs are just going to have to take care of themselves.

Fortunately for all of us, I think they're more up to the task than I am.

Comments (2) | Leave a Comment | Tags: audrey dad dear diary dogs family kelley louis mom rambo

More True Tales from the Hospital

NURSE: Sir, have you experienced any domestic violence?

JIM (pointing at me): Only from him.

WALTER: He's kidding.

NURSE: I can tell.

WALTER: And if he says anything like that again, I'll shut that smart mouth of his for good.

...

For the record, that completely true conversation took place when Dad was being introduced to his seventh-floor ward nurse... after six hours spent in the hall of the overcrowded ER. His hematologist didn't like something about the looks of his blood test so a CT scan was ordered, and his nephrologist didn't like something about the looks of that. They agreed that Dad should go to the ER for more tests. When we got there, the attending physician asked, "Why are you here today?," and Dad answered, "I don't know."

The only thing Dad says he's really worried about is being discharged in time to watch Monday night's UGA game from his own recliner.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dad dear diary family illness walter

Today, the UGA Bulldogs won their first SEC Championship game since 2017 in dominating fashion. Hooray!

But the real news of the day is that I have a new dog.

Like Henry before him, this good boy is a rescue puppy whose first family couldn't care for him. His original name was Ricky, though his temporary foster parents discovered he didn't seem to know it. They renamed him Coco Puff, but he never really cottoned to that name, either. Mom decided we might as well call him something that sounded good alongside "Henry."

(Side note: I might have ambushed Mom with the idea of a new dog just yesterday, so she justifiably needed some appeasing before she would allow another standard poodle in her house run by Audrey the Hungry Havanese — whose birthday is tomorrow! If that means Mom gets to name my new dog, so be it.)

Therefore, allow me to introduce Louis, pronounced like a French king, unless you're my dad, who insists on saying it "the American way."

Of course, I'm particularly sensitive to whether Henry might get his feelings hurt by having a new dog in the house, so I woke up early (for me) to take Henry to the PetSmart in Peachtree City for an interview with his prospective new playmate. As it happens, the Peachtree City PetSmart is right beside a cemetery, and when Henry and Louis (nee Coco) politely paused their inaugural rollicking to let a group of funeral-bound mourners pet them, I was pretty sure we were going to be all right.

I'm quite pleased that Louis is a brown poodle, a first for my family. White poodles can be pretty, but you really have to keep them on their pedestal, especially on rainy days when playing with new puppies in the mud.

Immediately after this picture was taken, I introduced Louis to my bathtub. It was an eventful day, indeed.

Comments (2) | Leave a Comment | Tags: audrey dad dogs family football georgia henry louis mom poodles walter

DAD: Easter is not a federal holiday.

ME: I didn't think it was.

DAD: Everyone should get a day off for Easter. Postal employees should get a day off for Easter.

ME: A day off... on Easter Sunday?

DAD: Yes! Martin Luther King Jr has a holiday. Everyone gets the day off for him. I don't think he's more important than Jesus.

...

I seriously can't tell when he's being serious and when he's jerking my chain. I try to assume it's always the latter, but when he says things like "I can't vote for anyone who looks like Stacey Abrams," I do have to wonder.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dad easter family holidays racism

Today we put down my father's 7-year-old poodle Scarlett because we discovered that cancer had eaten her liver. She'd been lethargic for the past week, had stopped eating, and at the last, her skin and eyes turned yellow. But she didn't complain. She wasn't that kind of dog.

Scarlett's last haircut, Oct 5, 2021

Scarlett loved chasing squirrels, walkies (especially when she was stalking a squirrel), belly rubs, and escaping through open gates to chase the squirrels who wouldn't stay inside her fence, probably in that order.

Scarlett wasn't my dog, but she kind of was. And I miss her. Even the trouble.

Comments (2) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dad death dogs family poodles scarlett

I watched only 8 new-to-me movies in October — partly because I spent time watching several movies I had seen before, movies like Unforgiven, The Bad News Bears, and Metropolis. I'm still 17 short from 150 on the year with only 2 months remaining. Will I get there? Oh, the drama!

125. (1984.) The Rocket Man (1954)
Plot: A boy with an unusual voice is given a magic gun by a spaceman who wants him to do good; hijinks ensue. Is this what ran in Saturday morning matinees before everyone had television? (Fact: I watched the whole thing just because the female lead was Spring Byington, and my Mom likes Spring Byington.)

126. (1985.) The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019)
This movie was widely panned for its lack of focus, but I think I enjoyed it more than the original. Damning with faint praise?

127. (1986.) Penn & Teller Get Killed (1989)
This dark, dark comedy is not a great movie but is still totally worth a watch for Penn & Teller fans, but it blew my mind when I discovered that the director of this movie also directed Bonnie and Clyde. How does that happen?

With Penn & Teller, you half expect one of them to drink the drain cleaner. Drain Cleaner: the original uncola!

128. (1987.) Frozen II (2019)
Two-thirds of this movie is better than the original, but illogical third acts are what this franchise is all about, I guess. (This was watched on Disney+, by the way. I finally went ahead and just reset Dad's password. Sometimes a manchild has got to do what a manchild has got do to.)

More to come.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: coke dad family mom movies

I think father is getting well. In fact, I'd day he's almost back to normal. Yesterday, he watched several hours of Fox News and praised the governing efficiency of Hitler's Germany.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dad family illness

Dad has been released from the hospital into my care. I'm not convinced he's ready, but I understand why the hospital wanted to be rid of him. I made the mistake of telling him that CVS had sent a text warning that his new prescription for melatonin was not covered by his insurance. "Good," he said. "That's the drug the nurses were using to hack my phone!"

I left behind a giant bowl of Halloween treats for the excellent staff of Piedmont Hospital Newnan's 8th floor who cared for him for the past two weeks. In essence, I traded the nurses my Dad for a bowl of candy. Trick or treat! It's nice to still have a father, but I'm pretty sure the hospital got the better deal.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dad family halloween holidays illness

True Tales from the Hospital*

NURSE: Your son is here. Walter's here.

JIM (irritably): Walter Shears? I don't know Walter Shears.

NURSE: What is your son's name?

JIM: My son is Walter Stephens. I've never known any Walter Shears. Send him away.

*That Might Be Heartbreaking If They Weren't Objectively Hilarious

...

Also funny (and totally true): thanking his nurses after they settled him into a fresh gown and sheets, he said "Thank you. You've done a great job. That's how I know you're not really my nurses. They're not this good."

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dad family illness

While Dad's been in the hospital, you'd think I'd be watching movies on his Disney+ account. But I don't have the first idea what his password is, and he is in no state to tell me. Let that be a lesson to you, kids: steal your parents' passwords early and often.

112. (1971.) Onward (2020)
I did, in fact, watch this on Disney+ with Dad long before the current health complications. It's as well-crafted as anything you would expect from Pixar, but I'd say that level of polish removed some of the potential sparkle. I'm sure I would have loved it more if I had seen it with young eyes.

113. (1972.) The Rainmaker (1956)
I don't think that either Katherine Hepburn or Burt Lancaster were particularly well-cast in their roles in this Music Man-ish unmusical romantic dramady. But then, I didn't much like the whole movie, so maybe it wasn't the casting that was the problem.

114. (1973.) Katharine Hepburn: All About Me (1992)
The actress presents her own autobiography directly to the camera (including an admission that she had a "more-than-friends" relationship with a woman before such things were publicly tolerated). I've always admired her, and everything I saw here only reinforced that opinion.

115. (1974.) The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox (1976)
The only word for this is "awful." Worse than just a Western with no heroes, it's a comedy with bad timing. Blech.

117. (1976.) Gorky Park (1983)
It's a relatively dry crime suspense thriller set in contemporary Moscow that wisely uses a Soviet empire crumbling under its own mismanagement to its advantage. I liked it.

118. (1977.) Taxi! (1932)
James Cagney plays my least favorite Cagney cliche, the little man with a giant chip on his shoulder. Getting past that was hard for me, but there are plenty of other enjoyable, mostly comedic, moments from the supporting cast.

More to come.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dad family illness movies