I shouldn't have thrown a fit; things have been good between my parents and I lately, and that should have meant I would give them some latitude in case something happened. I will explain and not excuse, and ultimately nothing came from it, thank Buddha, because My Father didn't react to it. But I still need to talk about it because I didn't like what I did.
Last night I wanted to exercise, but My Father wanted help figuring what to do at the three ports of call on his cruise next week. No problem; I wanted to help. But while I was on the computer, I slowly started to feel my energy drain from me. I was able to sleep a little later because I was not working (please don't tell my parents that). But I got tired again, and I wasn't able to take a nap before I had to eat dinner. So my fatigue crept back. And unfortunately, when that happens, I get crabby.
Meanwhile, my parents remained upstairs after cleaning up, and I was getting a little testy that My Father wasn't coming down and asking me if I found anything. I did, although the things Wikitravel and Fodor's recommend wouldn't exactly be things that I would like to do for 11-13 hours while docked. Eventually I had to go; while I later was fighting my body over exhaustion -- seriously, more than once on the elliptical I thought that I would just quit because I was too tired -- I wanted to go because this was going to be the last Friday this community center was going to be open Friday evenings, and I wanted to, for lack of a better phrase, "send it off" by being there for the last Friday evening in, oh, a month.
So I went upstairs and grabbed My Father, who was plopped down on the couch, just as lethargic as I was feeling. And from the moment I showed him the recommended things to do, he got on my nerves. He kept asking me what cities they were going to, and what dated, even though the itinerary, which he printed, he gave me. So when I pointed out where in the printouts was the itinerary, he had trouble looking at it. His eyesight isn't the greatest, but there was nothing stopping him from bringing the papers closer to his eyes and squinting.
Then, he kept asking which city the attractions I'm pointing out on the computer is it for. And then when I said that, he kept asking which day of the month it was, even though he could, at least theoretically, see it on the sheet of paper he was holding. My Father was unsteady mentally. He was as jumbled as, dare I say it, Grandmother was, and that just ignited some bad feelings when he, this guy who's acting as confused as Grandmother did, threw her out (with Mother's help). If you're going to act like this, why don't I send you to a nursing home, I thought to myself as he continued to look at his itinerary and not putting two and two together. He has been doing this more and more, but I thought he could at least see this and understand what I'm telling him to do on his cruise, or at least not worry about where to go, or what fucking day it was, just know what the attractions are. It was bizarre, both what he was concerned over and what he couldn't comprehend.
Finally, when I continued to tell him what experts recommend he do in Alaska, he gave me the sheet of paper and said, "Why don't you write it down." And that sent me over the edge. All this time herding him around a schedule any fool could see, and then he needs even more help from me, thus wasting my time helping him help himself. Why didn't I just write this down in the first fucking place? So I took this paper, shoved the keyboard out of the way, threw the paper down and wrote down all the places he and Mother could go to. This was typical me throwing a tantrum, although -- again, explanation, not excuse -- this came after a lot of frustration over Father. For his part, he didn't react. Sometimes he would say, "Son!" and get angry I threw a fit. But he did not this time. Maybe he couldn't see me doing it, although, like the printout of the itinerary, it was right in front of him.
So I wrote it down and printed out another bus schedule for them. In Seattle they needed to get from the pier to the closest light rail station, and there are two buses that could take them there, and I had only printed out one, and I wanted to make sure they had the second so they're aware of it. And after trying to take a nap for five minutes, I was gone.
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Yeah, I thought about quitting exercising. I wanted to go to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition), then grab some ice cream and coffee. But I knew that this was the last Friday evening this place would be open for a while, plus I had to say and fight the good fight for my health. Good thing I powered through my 40 minutes.
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