Well, two days after we returned from our Italian vacation, my parents descended on the Houseboat. About two months ago, dad had asked for me to book their next flight to Taiwan and at that time, I urged him to use SFO as a stop over. In other words, fly out to California, stay a week, and then fly direct to Asia. Or, stop over here on the way back. It breaks up the trip. Nope, didn’t want to do it. He wants to get there directly and “not waste time.”

I mean, every time he goes to Taiwan, he stays at least a month and a half. What’s another five to seven days added to the beginning or end? He says he prefers the route through Narita in Toyko instead of flying through SFO. Yeah, makes sense if you do the entire trip in one push, but if you split it out into two journeys: east coast to west coast and then west coast to Asia, it’s more tolerable. Whatever. I’m not going to argue with you about scheduling a brief stay (that is along the way) to visit your only daughter. Jesus fucking Christ. I mean, seriously. It makes NO sense unless he’s factoring in some cost factor. Like if he’s using points, a roundtrip from DC to Taipei costs the same amount as a roundtrip from SFO to Taipei. If you split it into two separate trips, you’re basically having to pay extra for the DC-SFO leg. He claims it’s a timing thing… he doesn’t want to bother us and just wants to get over to Asia as soon as possible. And anytime you comment that the flight to Asia is ridiculously long (about 24 hours door-to-door), he responds that he’s done it so much, it’s NBD. Yes, his response is yet another one of his “I’m a soldier who’s fought a thousand battles” kind of things.

John is starting to call him a Tooter, bc my dad likes to toot his own horn. Like anytime you ask if he got good sleep the night before, he says he’s always been a good sleeper. And he can function on just 4-5 hours of sleep. He did it his entire career. Blah, blah. Ok, whatever. Mind you, only like some ridiculously small percentage of the population can function and thrive on 4-5 hrs/night, but sure, you’re Superman. SMH. Anyway, when I was booking his flights, he asked me when might be a good time to visit. I said that I was really trying to hustle before my office anniversary in June bc any transactions I did from now until then, I would earn my full commission without having to pay out the office split. That split resets in June.

So then what does he do? He wants to come in early May bc that works better for his Taiwan trip, which seems arbitrarily selected anyway. OMFG. That’s what I mean: why ask if you’re going to completely disregard my response? I’ll just make it work.

So they came and overall, it was a good visit. We stayed locally and did a variety of activities: Stanford gardens, bocce ball, open houses, new construction, meals out, meals in the backyard, etc. Mostly though, if you get them a Chinese newspaper every morning and eat seafood meals here and there and have Chinese programming at night, they’re happy.

Mom is doing ok, but still declining cognitively. The weird thing is, she is an entirely different person now than the woman who raised me. She used to be so damn fearful and neurotic and naggy… now she’s easy going and holy crap, she lives in the present. We used to fight ALL THE DAMN TIME and my brother always came up as a point of contention. Now, there is no mention of him. I feel sad that she requires so much care and repetition, but at the same time, she just seems so much happier. She laughs a lot. I sometimes wonder how our relationship would have been different had she been this person while I was growing up.

As expected, my father is still involved in a gabillion things. He just won’t fucking let up and the caretaking responsibilities for my mother are visibly wearing on him. He basically never leaves her alone, and bc her short-term memory is so bad, he has to repeat things super frequently. And she gets confused easily, even with daily conversation. On the other hand, bc she’s so chill now, there’s no more bickering and fighting between them. Still, I can see that he’s lost a peer and a companion. I’m sure that handling so many important decisions alone is lonely, overwhelming, and burdensome.

As usual, John is amazing with my parents. Honestly, he is like the child they never had: smart, patient, successful and just so damn considerate and kind. He found a Chinese soap opera and started watching it with my mom (while I was working on my computer). He talked to my dad about healthcare and stocks and tech and stuff on CNBC. I feel so blessed for myself and my parents that Bubbey is such a caring and gentle soul. I bet my parents wonder where/how they went wrong to produce such asshole dickwad punks. Sigh.

We had some serious conversations on this trip too. I got a tiny bit more insight about their medical directives and the living trust. I mean, for someone as detail-oriented as my dad, he really shared some bare bones, vague shit but I’m working on getting it all spelled out. Goddamn, it reminds me of that potential seller I met months ago… every important document she had was physically printed and she just lugged them around with her. Nothing was digitized. SMH. Kinda similar but at least my dad has a computer and a cell phone that he actually keeps turned on.