FireVaney

“Deal, No Deal,” Pop calls it. He’s too cheap to spring for the “or.” When Betty’s with us on the weekends, she’ll watch it with him, but she’d never watch it on her own. So they were watching it this one time, and I happened to be in the kitchen, and there’s like a faux window between the kitchen and the TV room (because the TV room was an addition to the house), and Pop says to Betty, “She’s not wearing any lipstick. I don’t understand that.” Betty doesn’t respond—at least, not verbally. Whether Pop meant the contestant or one of the briefcase models, I didn’t ask. Now, let me be clear, Howie Mandel is very talented—and I get it, work is work and money is money—but this show is truly idiotic. Pop, along with every other dirty old man, enjoys watching it because it’s got money and it’s got models. Big surprise, Pop also watches all the beauty pageants, too. But that’s where Betty draws the line. Whenever Pop tunes into a Miss Whatever pageant, Betty leaves the room. Pop’ll keep watchi...

Nearly every weekend, Betty says to me, “Firey, don’t get old.” She means it in both a funny and an honest way. She tells me she was perfectly healthy before the radiation treated her breast cancer, some twenty years ago, when she was sixty-something. The cancer is all gone now, but arthritic aches and pains affect her daily. She can easily recall her phone number and her home address and also the game show that’s on Channel 7 every day at 6:30 post meridiem. She has no problem naming the show’s host and co-host. Monday through Thursday, over the phone, she’ll say to Pop, “Time to watch Vanna.” She means it, too. Ever the accountant, Pop will dryly confess that he “likes to look at figures.” Betty never forgets to call Pop first thing in the morning and last thing at night. But ask Betty to ask her pharmacist three little questions? Forget it. Ask her to repeat those three questions right after you’ve stated them, and she’ll get them all wrong. Poor Betty, she’ll fumble all the words i...

Pop spent his 96th birthday in hospital room 4132, recovering from the removal of his gallbladder. His dinner tray came with a frosted cupcake he couldn’t eat. Why? Well, he’s lactose intolerant. That aside, in honor of his birthday, the doctors cancelled the liquid-only diet he’s been on since last Wednesday. Pop’s birthday was yesterday (Sunday). Today is Monday (duh) and I really hope he’ll get to go home. By the way, I learned a new word a few days ago: “sundowning.” According to one of the nurses, this happens when an elderly patient forgets where they are and hallucinates that they are anywhere else. As you might’ve guessed, it often occurs around sunset. Nobody really knows for sure, but it might have something to do with “circadian rhythms.” Supposedly, thanks to “sundowning,” all new hospital rooms are required to have a window. * Last night, in room 4132, Pop kept asking me for the time. Repeatedly, he wanted to know how much “this house cost to rent.” Again and again, he’d ...

Betty’s bad back has a beef with every chair and sofa in the house. * So I drove her and Pop over to Wickes and, after a lot of test-sitting and indecision, Pop ordered some new furniture: a sandy-colored reclining chair, a matching sofa, and a matching loveseat. You might say they’re more comfy-looking than they are stylish. By the way, Pop’s bad ears have misled him to refer to Wickes as “Wicky’s.” Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve explained that the name is pronounced, “Wicks,” —as in the “wick” of a candle—it’ll always be “Wicky’s” to Pop.  Before he made the purchase, I measured the room so everything would fit. † Only I forgot to measure the doorways. Turns out the new sofa wouldn’t fit through. So we changed the order to two loveseats and the reclining chair.  Now Pop’s worried about the two OLD sofas that have to go. The Salvation Army is sending a truck the day before the new furniture arrives. Pop, though, he’s not convinced the old sofas will make it through the d...

She’s somewhere around ninety-five, my Great Aunt Hattie. Her three younger brothers couldn’t say for sure when she was born. Hattie can barely walk now. She’s fallen a few too many times. Her hips couldn’t take the punishment. Even with hearing aids, she can hear about as well as she can walk. Pop, Betty, and I pay her a visit nearly once a week. Toward the end of a recent visit, I overheard Hattie telling Betty that every week she expected to die. She choked back tears when she told Betty this. Betty, with her ever-sunny disposition, did her best to raise Hattie’s spirits. As I see it, Hattie couldn’t ask for much more out of her ninety-something years of life, save for a little less death. When I kiss her goodbye, I usually kiss the air near her face. She doesn’t stink or anything. It’s MY hang-up. Well, this last time when I did it, Hattie chuckled and said, “You give cold kisses.” So I went ahead and pecked her cheek. She said it again, “You give cold kisses,” but at least she kep...

On his annual joke show, Garrison Keillor cracked one that went something like this: Grandfather was lying on his deathbed.  The family gathered around him. Grandfather inquired, weakly,  “Are my grandchildren here?” “Yes,” someone gently replied. “Are all my sons and daughters here?”  “Yes,” someone said, “they’re all here.” “My sisters, and brothers, and cousins, too?” “Yes, Grandfather, everyone.” “If everyone’s here,” Grandfather asked, “then why is the light on in the kitchen?”  Twice, Pop has fallen in the dark. Both times, he busted a piece of furniture to break his fall. The first time, it was one of those fold-up “TV dinner” tables. The second time, it was the divan in his bedroom—he broke one of the arms off it. Both times, he got away with minor bruises. He’s fallen in the daylight, too—when he’s been in a hurry. To be sure, nobody has ever, nor will ever, accuse Pop of being a slowpoke.  Last night, I came downstairs and found him watching his favori...

Betty says she has fibromyalgia.  Also,  Betty suffers from cold feet.  It's genetic,  her cold feet.  Nothing can warm them.  Even so,  the warmer the house,  the better for Betty.  Even in August.  Even when the temperature outside  hits the high nineties.  In winter,  a hot house is  not so much an issue,  not for me.  I'll go around in a loose T-shirt,  thin shorts,  and bare feet.  And,  when I'm in my room,  I'll throw open a window.  But that’s in winter.  In summer,  by the time the outdoor air heats up to eighty,  I  NEED AC.  But Betty will complain.  Pop’ll complain, too;  not because he's cold,  but because the AC costs  money  to run.  Not that times are tight.  Pop knows when the AC  condenser's running.  It blows the backyard bushes.  Using the furnace costs money,  too.  Only Pop...

You would never characterize Betty as an irritable woman. Never in a million years. If anything, she’s too cheerful, she’s too polite. That said, when she settles into bed every night, if she isn’t greeted with absolute silence, then she’ll have to take a pill. * She won’t sleep in the same room with Pop because he snores. She’s taped the vents in the guest room over with cut-out rectangles from paper grocery bags. She doesn’t like “the blowing,” she says. It’s not so much the feel of “the blowing,” but more the sound of “the blowing” that keeps her awake. Even if it’s the middle of winter, and what’s blowing is heat, she’ll want the vents taped over. Never mind her interminably “cold” feet. What’s also interminable is the ringing in her ears. Does she prefer absolute silence to hear the ringing better? At the senior village, where Betty spends most of her time, a neighbor of hers plays loud music and owns a dog that barks too much. So Betty complained. The music stopped and the d...

ME: You're right, Nate. *  NATE: I've been right before.  ---  DICK: What do ya know, Howie? †  ME: Not much. You?  DICK: Less.  ---  Pop hoists himself out of my car and into the February night.  He proclaims, "It's cold out here."  I nod.  Pop shuffles over to the house, unlocks the door, and enters.  He proclaims, "It's warm in here."  I nod. ---  BETTY: Howie, what do you put in the trashcan to make it smell so good?  ME: Trash. I put in trash.  BETTY: But it smells so good.  ME: Perhaps you should move next to a landfill, Betty.  ---  Whilst strolling the trail…  POP: The sun is hot today.  ME: We'd be in trouble were it not.  ---  Whenever Pop says he's going up to "wash" his teeth, he means he's going to brush them.  Late 2003, Early 2004  * [Nate was Pop’s youngest brother.]  † [Dick was a semi-retired CPA in Pop’s old accounting firm.] 

A few years back, Betty moved from her condo in Old Mobville to a fancy senior village out on the edge of New Knottydart. One of her brothers had talked her into it. He already lives there. He’s got his own “cottage.” But before Betty made the decision, Pop invited her to live with him. "I can take care of you,” she told him, “but who's going to take care of me?" *   Betty very much enjoys playing “the nurse.” She even worked as one for about a year, many moons ago. When she's here, at Pop’s house, I pretty much stay hidden away in my bedroom. Pop doesn't need two nurses. He isn't an invalid—at least, not anymore. He’s just old, is all.  Travelling back and forth between the senior village and Pop's house, Betty likens herself to a gypsy. She spends nearly every weekend with us. When we pick her up, Pop climbs into the backseat to sit with her. If he didn’t, in addition to playing “the chauffeur,” I’d have to play “the human hearing aid.”  And you might as...

Pop likes to ask, "If God's in charge of everything, who appointed God?" He's asked rabbis and he's asked priests. He's being honest, too. You see, Pop was an accountant by trade; out of habit, he's got to account for everything and everyone.  Pop belongs to two temples (the reasons are somewhat complicated); he goes to one or the other every Friday evening. Since he doesn't like to drive at night, I chauffeur him and his "companion," Betty, to and from whichever temple. Thanks to his two lousy hearing aids, he can't even hear the service. He goes all the same. Afterward, Betty, with her shaky memory, does her best to sum up the rabbi’s “drasha” on the car ride home.  Back when Grandma was alive, Pop rarely went to temple at all. Sure, like everybody else, they’d attend a service or two during the High Holy Days—Pop would even serve as an usher. But after many years of this, Grandma finally asked, "Why are we paying dues to two templ...

Pop,  God love him,  has an aversion to using flatware  —but especially knives.  He prefers to push food  onto his fork  with the side of his index finger.  He'll grab a slice of  butter–and–syrup smothered  French toast  right off the plate  with both hands and  shove it down his gullet.  Pop never puts his napkin on his lap.  No matter its condition,  he’ll leave it  bunched and  smudged  beside his plate.  He prefers to drink his liquids  only after having consumed all of his solids.  That's my Pop.  For starters. *  April 8, 2004  * [Two decades ago, The FireVaney refused to limit himself to one blog. Blogging was—and, for him, remains to this day—an excellent way to avoid writing anything worth publishing, staging, or filming “IRL.” One of the half-dozen or more blogs he maintained back in 2004 was called, The Braeside . With apologies, Dear Reader, he will not al...

When Betty sleeps over, she sleeps in the room my mother and her older sister once slept in. Betty spends some part of the night and some part of the morning in Grandpop’s bedroom. She’d spend all night in Grandpop’s bedroom if he wasn’t such a snorer. One night, five years ago, I heard them trying to have sex. When they came downstairs the next morning, Grandpop said, “She’s my diamond. Sometimes I need to shine her up.” He laughed. Betty laughed, too; then said, “Sometimes he needs to shine me up.” Five years later, in the middle of the night, I don’t hear anything; but that doesn’t stop me from plugging my fingers with my ears by which I mean plugging my ears with my fingers whenever I have to use the upstairs bathroom in the middle of the night. That is to say if I plug my ears with my fingers or vice versa I only do it in the middle of the night. Have I not made myself clear?  A doctor recently asked Grandpop how he managed to look so young. Grandpop’s reply? “Lots of sex.”...

Betty slid two frozen Eggos into the toaster oven. I didn’t ask why she didn’t use the toaster. True, there is a “toast” setting on the toaster oven, but did she use it? Nope. She turned the temp dial all the way to max and burnt the hell out of those poor waffles. We’re talking burnt enough to trigger a freaking smoke detector. For real. Did she apologize? Nope. Instead, she pointed at the crumbs scattered over the bottom of the toaster oven. She blamed those crumbs for triggering the smoke detector. In other words, she blamed me. True, there are many scattered crumbs and, yes, I should probably clean them out. But I use the toaster oven several times a week, and I’ve never caught its crumbs smoldering. What’s more, I’ve used the toaster oven several times since Betty charred the Eggos, and the smoke detector hasn’t once peeped. Ergo, the crumbs are not to blame. Such being the case, I’ve left the crumbs alone and I’ve banned Betty from using the toaster oven.  29 April 2005 ...

Pop’s hearing gets worse when Betty’s around. That means every weekend he hears less of me. I’ll say something and he’ll turn to her and ask, “What did he say?” But when Betty’s back at Presby. Homes for the week, Pop, in general, hears me just fine.  I’m tugged between relief and resentment at everything Betty does for Pop. Her presence makes me feel like a leech for living here. Betty’ll say, “I have to earn my keep.” And I’ll say back, “No, you don’t.” Because she doesn’t, and I do. But she likes to cater to Pop; and he prefers her care to mine. In sooth, she was a nurse for two years some sixty years ago. But, now? Betty can’t entirely care for herself . That’s why her brother moved her out of her condo and into a Presby. Homes assisted living apartment. What this means is, on the weekends, I’m playing caregiver to two old-timers—when I really only signed up for one. Last weekend I caught Pop tweezing whiskers from Betty’s chin. She hadn’t asked him to do it, but he didn’t l...

Leo took a break from his grandpop’s delirium. Let Betty, the old man’s “lady friend,” play the nurse for the afternoon. Leo, he’d been up every other hour during the night during the past five nights. He’d spent a lot of that time listening to the old man recount and relive any number of hallucinatory and out-of-body experiences.  Leo found himself repeatedly lifting a pile of “branches” that had landed on the old man’s chest. How they all at once crashed through several stories of hospital without anybody taking notice remains a mystery. But once that was done, grandpop would appoint, or re-appoint, Leo to some Board of Trustees involved with endless hostile takeover bids from invisible corporate raiders.  One of the nurses calls it “sundowning.” But Leo’s grandpop doesn’t have dementia. His delirium doesn’t get worse when the sun sets. It gets worse the longer he stays cooped up in a hospital room. Leo thinks it’s more like an acute case of cabin fever. The cure has always ...

Those of us seated at the far end of the table spend most of Jacques’s birthday dinner discussing what makes for real art, why I’m too old to drop acid, who the Bong Boy * is, and when at least three of us are going to try hallucinogenic mushrooms. We reach no solid conclusions, we set no firm plans.  And it looks like I’ve made a mistake with the Super Blowing Ball Series II UFO. As Jacques unwraps the gift, Mr. Wench proclaims, “Uncle Fun strikes again, huh?” I thought Jacques would dig it. It’s a rare, or seemingly rare, or at least somewhat unique, sci-fi-esque toy. I figured he’s had his fill of Star Wars stuff. But he seems a bit uncertain as to what to make of the gift. Ah, well.  Ry makes a cameo. He’d made himself scarce after he broke off a wedding engagement, twice , with one of our number. I hadn’t known that he worked at this particular tapas bar. (Whose idea was it to come here, anyway?) For obvious reasons, he would not wait on us. He said doing so might resul...

…in Chicago? Is an empty lot. * Ma takes a photo of it anyway. Then she takes several. She aims her camera at the overgrown grass, zooms in on the empty beer bottles, focuses on the heap of bald tires, too. She snaps at all the fenced in trash. Maybe she’ll paint a picture of it.  There’s also a faded sign facing the sidewalk. It says: “NO DUMPING.” That’s the picture I take. Eighty-odd years ago, the bungalow that stood here housed Pop, his five siblings, and his parents. This is near Humboldt Park, where yuppie gentrification has yet to push out the natives. Pop wanted to go. Return. See what’s left. But of the old neighborhood, he only recognizes Humboldt Park’s park.  We get there, and he walks right past the lot—ignores it entirely—and points to the three story building at 9*6 N. Mozart. It’s clearly less that eighty or even fifty years old. He turns around and hustles over to the much older bungalow at 9*2 Mozart. Pop scratches his head and paces back and forth between...

Pop wakes up with an itchy neck. He calls Betty about it. It makes sense. She was a nurse for two years, albeit some fifty years ago. She says to him, “Try Ben-Gay.”  When he tells me what Betty told him, and he asks whether or not we have any Ben-Gay (and we do), I explain that Ben-Gay is for sore muscles and minor arthritis pain. The tube doesn’t say anything about treating itches. But since I’m not a nurse, what I say doesn’t matter. I’m just the chauffeur, housekeeper, bookkeeper, cook, errand boy, and human pill dispenser.  Pop smears Ben-Gay all over his neck. He says it works. It also stinks up the whole house.  I ask him (too late), “Why not use the hydrocortisone, instead?” Pop uses it to treat his itchy rump. Hydrocortisone exists, in part, to treat itches. It says so right there on the tube.  But Pop's pleased with his smear of Ben-Gay.  I say, “But the hydrocortisone doesn’t stink as bad as Ben-Gay.”  And Pop says, “I like the stink.”  18 ...

Once, Mr. C., who was one of my high school’s performing arts teachers, posed this question to the class: "Where do you go for peace and quiet?"  When it came my turn to answer, I said, "The beach."  Truthfully, whenever I sought “peace and quiet,” I’d go to my bedroom. Boring, right? Perhaps a sensible answer would’ve been the local public library. But the beach seemed somehow poetic. *   My lie impressed Mr. C., and that was my aim— to impress —because, in that particular place, and at that particular time, he was in a position of power.  In a way, he still is.  That teenage memory resurfaced earlier today, as I traversed a rocky beach in my bare feet. My eyes were drawn less to the gently lapping expanse beyond, and more to the broken beer bottles and castoff condoms strewn along the shore. ~  ~  ~ Here, from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling, from smell to sound—Pop, Betty, and moi—we're cocooned within a world of cozy vapidity. If not for the da...