Speaking for Sarah

On Friday, the day of Christmas Eve, I had not been planning to see my father, since my sister and I had plans to get together with him the next day. But it turned out he needed some help and some company that day, since the aide who usually comes Friday mornings was off for the holiday. I went over to his apartment in the afternoon, helped him with some of the things the aide usually does for him, and then told him I had brought him some bagels. I figured he had not had his coffee yet. When I said I had time to sit with him and have coffee also, he was very happy.

I told him to sit down while I prepared the two cups of Sanka for us, but he hovered over me as I was spooning the instant coffee into the cups "About this much?" I asked him, showing him the teaspoon of brown powder I was preparing to put it in his cup. "Yes, that's good," he said. "Not too much, because it takes a lot of milk."

At first, I didn't know what he was talking about, but then I understood. After probably 70 plus years of drinking coffee with some form of whole milk (he is 88, and I'm sure he must have been drinking coffee as a teenager, since coffee was a big feature of the household he grew up in), he is now, as of the last six or nine months, drinking it with skim milk, because that is what comes with the Meals on Wheels that he finally has agreed to have delivered. It takes more skim milk to get the coffee to the flavor and color that he likes.

He sits down while the water is boiling. When it is is done, and I am ready to pour it, he says, "You know what, bring the cups over to the table and pour the water here."

I am a little exasperated that he doesn't trust me to pour boiling water into a cup two thirds of the way full, but, after all, it is easy enough for me to accede to this request. I bring his cup to him and pour the water under his watchful eye, stopping at just the right moment.

After we have had our bagels and coffee, and I am cleaning up the table, he acknowledges, "I'm getting used to drinking the coffee with the skim milk." 

"Yeah," I say. "It's not bad."

I'm not actually finished with my grading, but I have a little bit of a grace period because my students are still sending me their final papers. Grades are due around January 3rd, so somewhere in the next week or so I will have to get back into the mode.

As my loyal readers know, I am a part-time college instructor but a full-time book editor. So my life feels a little too busy at times. Even when there is a break in the teaching gig, between semesters, the other job keeps going, But, finally, tonight, it's the beginning of the holiday weekend.

Christmas is going to be low-key this year. (Well, we're Jewish, but that's another story.) Usually, there is a family gathering at my sister's, but my nephew will be celebrating with his girlfriend's family, my niece and her husband and her two-year-old live overseas, and my brother, who is wheelchair bound after a stroke several years ago and lives in a nursing home nearby, let my sister know he did not feel like being brought over to her apartment for a gathering. So my sister and I will go visit my 88-year-old father, since it is hard for him to get around in any case. We will do what Jews are supposed to do on Christmas and eat Chinese food. But we will also exchange presents.

Last night I went out with some friends that I teach with, to see one of our colleagues perform at a  storytelling event. The challenge given to the audience was to figure out which two of the eight performers were telling a made-up story rather than a true one--or lying, in the ungentle terms of the event's title. The show was held at a performance space that was also a bar. It was utterly raucous and lots of fun. After the show was over my little group went to another bar, next door, and hung out with our friend who had performed and some of the other performers. We had some food and more drinks and rehashed the whole thing, talked about who we had thought was lying and why. Also about our students and our families and our plans for the holidays. I had way too much beer (especially for a work night!) but it felt good to let loose a little bit. 

Today I went to work, then braved the insanity at Macy's at Herald Square, then made my way home and ate a yogurt. Now I am lying on the couch under a blanket, awkwardly typing this on the little Netbook that is propped open on top of tme. The angles are all wrong and I think I am giving myself a repetitive stress injury in my left shoulder.

So, time to stop I think, and wish you all a peaceful and happy holiday weekend.

This morning I took a few hours off from work because I had an appointment to have my piano tuned. I will not confess on the internet how long it had been since I last tuned it. The piano tuner, a very charming Russian man in his mid-50s or so, was scandalized when I told him. "You don't like your piano very much," he said, half teasingly, half sorrowfully. I said, "I do like it--that's why I keep bringing it with me whenever I move. I just get out of the habit of playing."

After that he worked for a little bit and we didn't talk. I sat on the steps that lead down into my living room from the dining area and watched him as he took the piano apart and examined a couple of the keys that were not working at all. At one point, when he got up to get something out of his bag, he said to me, "I can see that this piano was tuned in 1970." I thought he was harassing me some more about how long it had been (not that long, don't worry), but then he said, "The tuner left his initials." I said, "No way," and he said, "yes, look," and there it was, a tiny inscription on one of the keys, initials and then the date, 12/70.

"1970," I said. "That was the height of my piano playing time." The piano tuner laughed, getting that I was being a little dramatic, or rueful, or superior to the 12-year-old who was so dedicated to the piano. But then I told him all about being that age and taking piano lessons and how my father, who worked nights and so was home in the afternoons, would pick me up after school and drive me to the piano teacher's house and then my mother would pick me up afterwards. "It's a lifetime memory," he said, and it's true.

Seeing that inscription inside the piano, which I never knew was there, felt like a gift,  a secret road back to that time. Also a connection to my mother, who has been gone for a long time, as I have written here before.  She was the driving force behind my taking piano lessons in the first place and also, I am sure, behind the purchase of the brand-new Yamaha upright in 1967 to replace the used piano I had started learning on a couple of years before, when I was seven.

Now the brand-new piano is over 40 years old.

 After the piano tuner finished his work, he played a few bars of music, something pretty and show-tuneish. I sighed with pleasure.

 "Sounds good, yes?" he said. "It's a lovely piano."

"Yes," I answered. "It is."