conversations with my dear demented da

had a relatively peaceful morning with JT - as Lucia was leaving she said he'd woken her up asking if they were actually married, he'd thought it was a trick of some kind (giant wry face) I was laughing so hard when I greeted him he asked me about it, and when I asked if he'd given up on the concept of marriage he said he thought marriage was a wonderful idea and he liked it a lot. Repeat wry face. He was talkative, and restive, and we went around a bunch of the usual topics; personal (I'm your father? Who is your mother? where is she now? why did we split? What's Mattie up to? I'm yur father?) grocery adjacent (I should go with her to do grocs - I could push the wagon and lift things... why does it take so long? and then reconstructing the proces of grocery acquisition and detailing all the steps[ALL the steps]) and then the ship's clock dinged and we got in about 20 minutes of cheerful discussion of watch systems and four hour, Swedish watch, and 6 hour watches might do for the organization of a ship and people's sleep schedules. He was fussing over how long it took for Lucia to do groceries again at 1130 and I told him it was because he looked at his watch too often. He could read, or nap, or talk to me, and he just closed his eyes and napped, and even through Lucia coming home and unloading groceries. At one point I mentioned he probably could still remember his times tables, and asked what 7x8 was - he shot back 56! with such pleasure. That is a kind of in-joke in our house as well, because Al taught the kids plutification by starting at 7x8 becaus eit was the hardest, and you might as well have that lodged in there early on. Me da and I worked our way through some more of the times tables just because we could and he remembered them, and I think remembering things is good for him, in some way I cannot put my finger on.

I feel like I should document these because they are where he is now, and it will change and become different, just like the kids changed and became different, just, yanno, in the other direction.