visiting my grandfather

Last weekend we brought baby Doodle to see his great-grandfather (his only living great grandparent) on Long Island. We've been caught in awful traffic on Staten Island, in Brooklyn and Queens many many times, thankfully this was not one of them. We made it in three hours with a stop to go to the bathroom in a Home Depot and one wrong turn, which I will argue was not my fault.

Grandpa was doing quite well on Saturday. He was walking around well. He designated his bedroom as the smoking room so baby Doodle didn't have to be around air filled with cigerette smoke. While my aunt and cousin were fishing in the bay near Grandpa's house Mr. Doodlebug and I helped Grandpa clean the pool (the same pool I told my friends was olympic sized when I was nine and didn't know better). I was impressed with how well my 83 year old grandfather could maneuver the net to capture the pine cones and needles that had sunk to the bottom of the pool. This is not an easy task for an able-bodied 28 year old let alone an elderly person. The deep end of the pool is nine feet and the pole attached to the net is about 12 feet. So you can imagine how difficult it is to get the right angle and balance the long pole with the weight of the water.

My aunt made a delicious dinner that night. I was proud of my grandfather for eating so much of it. He doesn't normally eat or like to eat healthy foods. We had baked halibut, trout and red snapper with fingerling poatoes, fresh corn on-the-cob and a Greek salad. For dessert we had home made tiramisu.

The next day Grandpa reported that it took him a half hour to get out of bed. He walked extremely slowly to the kitchen table and managed to throw his body into the chair. He didn't have his teeth in yet, but he was even more difficult to understand than most mornings. I was worried about him, and I'm glad we brought baby Doodle to see him again. I'll try to make it a regular trip.

It must be awful getting old and not being able to function normally any more. Grandpa is a good sport about it though.