Oft

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Pop got up early today. I was awake early, too, but I didn't get out of bed until I heard him lumbering down the stairs. 

Usually, I'm downstairs at least an hour before Pop wraps up his morning routine—id est, brushing his teeth, making his bed, dressing, a bit of weight lifting, and a ten-minute walk on his bedroom treadmill.

Normally, while he's upstairs doing that, I'm in the kitchen organizing the day's regimen of pills, slicing the banana he takes with his meds (he needs a little banana to help stretch his "smaller-than-average" esophagus), sweeping and/or mopping the kitchen and living room floors, fetching the paper from the driveway, and straightening up his "piles" of letters and financial statements. 

Most days, after Pop’s through with the Trib, he spends his waking hours reading financial and business periodicals. 

Sometimes, for a change of scenery, I drive him over to the library. There, he reads different financial and business periodicals—although he claims to read some poetry, too.

April 28, 2004

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