Due date + 7, or Filmapalooza

Today I decided to really tempt the fates by going to yet another movie. After all, if going out in public wearing white shorts isn't an invitation for my water to break, I don't know what is. But no dice.

But hey - I think Batman Begins is the best that franchise has ever produced. When I first heard Christian Bale was cast as the new Batman, I thought he was a good choice based on the theory that he has the right combination of both acting ability and chin (since all previous Batmen had either one or the other, but not both). And I was right - he's great as both Bruce Wayne and Batman. Michael Caine is a magnificent Alfred. The atmosphere and characterizations were great. They resisted the temptation to kill off potentially reuseable villians two at a time. And of course, no nipples on the Batsuit, which alone made my day.

Oh, and go check out what my brilliant brother strephon had to write on the subject of Batman.

And happy Father's Day to the men who are fathers in my life. And the almost-father as well (I would have tried more strenuously to go into labor today for his sake, but it seemed cruel to take my ob away from his own family. The man has four children, for goodness sake, so I don't care to be the cause of his missing Father's Day).

So I made my obligatory call to my father, which was somewhat difficult. I had already talked to both of my parents on Thursday, so calling a mere three days later meant that I had to sit for a while and think up things to talk about. With most people, this would be a sign that they don't have enough in common with their parents. Unfortunately for me, I've always had the good fortune to have an excellent relationship with both of my parents and this is actually a sign of something much more tragic.

See, the way my father's Alzheimer's has always manifested most strongly is trouble with language. It first became apparent there was a problem because he was a professor and was having trouble giving lectures, and actually didn't teach for the entire year before he retired due to that (they were very kind to him at the university and rather than force him out when it was apparent he could no longer teach, they allowed him to be on sabbatical for a year until he was 62 and old enough to retire). Three years ago, he could still hold a conversation but have trouble coming up with the right word. As time has gone on, talking to him has increasingly become like doing a crossword puzzle, where he talks around the word he needs and you guess at it. But now, he can barely ever get out a proper sentence.

So as he's gotten quieter and quieter, talking to him on the phone requires me more and more to be able to babble on about anything that comes into my head. Mostly about gardening, fixing up the house and funny things the cats have done, since he's always been a consummate gardener and handyman and seems to enjoy funny pet stories.

I've never been a very good one-sided conversationalist, but he seems to appreciate it. He even seems to absorb most of it. He still seems fairly lucid these days, but it can be hard to tell, what with the poor short-term memory, ever-decreasing mechanical skills (the last time I talked to him on the phone, it took a couple minutes for it to work because he put the phone to his face upside-down) and inability to communicate. On the one hand, he always seems to understand what I'm talking about. On the other hand, if I repeat the same story to my mother while he's still in the room, he reacts as if he's hearing it for the first time. No doubt that whole pesky short-term memory issue. But he still has his sense of humor, one of the few saving graces of this whole hellish disease. For instance, when I was telling him about trying to decide between different types of cloth diaper, he told me the type of diaper I really needed was the kind that never needed to be changed.

I actually meant to write an entry today talking about all of ways he was and is a wonderful father over the years, but that would require dwelling on the man he was and I don't much feel like sobbing my way through half a box of kleenex at the moment. For reasons I can't fathom, it's much easier to clinically describe new symptoms than focus on everything he used to be.

In any case, happy Father's Day to my father, who is still one of the most gentle, kind and intelligent men I've ever known, even in decline.