So my father came to town last Thursday. Poor guy. His flight into SFO was delayed FOUR hours. On the plus side, he was upgraded to first class with free drinks and meals, so you know homeboy maxed out on the amenities. Like father, like daughter. Unlike past visits (last one to Mountain View was September 2013 after I left my previous job) where I had him and mom stay in my bedroom with the Westin bed and bigger master bath, I set him up in my office. He came solo this visit and I figured with just one person, the air mattress would work better holding him than holding both John and me. His bed setup involved my CB2 Lubi as a base, then a 2-ft thick air mattress, then a 2-in foam mattress pad, then a heated mattress topper. Yeah, I forgot to share that a few months ago, my heated mattress topper stopped working. I assumed it was on a 1-yr warranty, so I just reordered a replacement. Well turns out that topper carries a 5-yr warranty!! So after the fact, I requested a free replacement to use on my dad’s bed. Yup, I can never have enough heated surfaces in my house. Even Marty has two heated beds. Anyway, my point is that my home office is working out great for dad, bc he set up his laptop at my desk along with his blood pressure monitor (daily), and a stack of books. Yeah, who knew he was reading so much. He lugged a pile of Chinese novels that he loaned from the library!! It’s pretty cool to see him find things to watch (tons of Taiwan politics– the elections are happening this week) and read and learn. Piquing that curiosity and all.

I went to work on Friday, and then we did a bunch of stuff over the weekend. We did a combo of dining out and eating in. He insisted that he didn’t have to have seafood, so we branched out and ate Korean bulgogi, Italian, Burmese… And I threw in a few NuWave meals, of course. Yup, roast duck, lamb chops, roasted veggies, and yesterday, I mastered Chilean sea bass. I am on a freaking roll with that appliance. I also made porridge, steamed squash, and oatmeal in my second fav appliance, the pressure cooker.  My dad was def being a good sport about eating outside of his comfort zone, but man, as soon as he had that fish and rice, you could see that that will forever be his sweet spot. I’m telling you: we’re from different worlds with our food preferences. Funny thing, for the first meal I made at home, my father was like wandering around the kitchen for five minutes, and then finally he asked, “Where are your chopsticks???” Oops. They’re hidden away in a secondary drawer, bc we never use them! I’m so unAsian!

What else. On Sunday, we went to Vasona Park in Los Gatos. After a nice stroll (clocking steps on his FitBit), we took him to Campo di Bocce, a restaurant (where my division had this year’s holiday party) with indoor and outdoor bocce ball courts. My father never played before, but as I anticipated, he enjoyed it. I always feel like activities requiring precision and hand control are good for him: bowling, ping pong, etc. Those surgeon hands have so much strength and control and are highly attuned to making small adjustments. For example, we were comparing the weights of the iPad Pro tablet and the Surface. John and I held each one individually, and we were certain they were the same weight. My father, who was known for extreme accuracy calling baby weights straight out of the womb, said the Surface was lighter. Yup, about 5 oz lighter!