Bitter Wind Boston and Lady Diapers

 

Fiona made a present to bring to the girl who we're going to see at the Wilbur tonight.  There is a cardboard cat Fiona cut off of a Tyler the Creator sock package, an American Apparel gift card that a very nice German couple gave her today because they thought she was poverty stricken.  (I was giving her a lesson in how to organize her money so that when she paid for items she didn't haul wads of crumpled bills out of her pocket, but it may have looked like she was scrounging enough money to buy a warm winter hat to the Germans.)  There is only one dollar on the gift card, which I can't explain.  No one can.  The Germans had a terrible time at the store and so did we; the people working there looked very inconvenienced that they had to stray from their internet searches to tend to customers.   To show their dissatisfaction they sabotaged each transaction.

There is also a circle of Taza chocolate that is made in Somerville where my Uncle lives.  It's salt and pepper chocolate.  (No one likes that flavor very much.)  There are a couple of notes -- one explaining about the Germans and another about how much love Fiona has for the performer.  Finally, on the bottom, there is one lady diaper, because you never know when that will be needed and sometimes in city drugstores and also in airports they are not sold for some inexplicable reason.  It is a good gift and topped off with a red and white striped ribbon.

The new hat.  Tokyo.  Pink.  Right behind Fiona (you can't see her) is a little girl -- maybe four years old -- and she is licking the entire chair where she is sitting in this food court near the theater district.
A parental nightmare.  We were so cold and windblown that we sat and ate a late lunch and then came back to the hotel to read and swim for a while.  I want to go the the Natural History Museum at Harvard because that is one of my favorite places ... but the wind is dragging me down.

We had a very nice visit with Uncle John.  He brought the chocolates to us.  We ate the Vanilla and the Cinnamon with our lunch.  Here he is with Fiona by the Robert McCloskey Make Way for Ducklings statues.  We walked past Burberry and he told us about when his mother told him that he needed to buy a new raincoat ... and then she died.  He held onto the sleeve of Fiona's coat because it didn't look like she was paying attention, and told her that he came right home to Boston and went to Burberry and got a new raincoat -- and he still has it.  His mother, my grandmother, died in 1984.  I was twelve.  I was there and I remember how upset Uncle John was.  The whole ride back to Boston he ate M&M's in the car until he got so sick of them he threw the rest out the window.  My brother and I looked at each other; we would have helped him out with the M&M's, no need to toss them on the highway.  We had flown up to Pennsylvania from Florida where we'd been visiting our other grandmother.  Uncle John will turn 72 in April, which is the age his mother was when she died from a stroke in her bedroom.  She died on April 20th and his birthday is the 25th.  We had a very quiet birthday party for him that year.  My dad is like his mother ... more than Uncle John is.  My dad has the very same circulation problems that his mother had and he can hardly walk.  Uncle John still walks all over the city.
Last year my dad was convinced that he would die on Good Friday, just like his mother had.  We thought it might be true.  We were all down here in Boston with him after a surgery that had gone bad.... Terrible complications and he almost did die.  He was terrified.  And then once he was well enough he was angry ... because that's how dad is.  One day I was sitting in his room and he started ranting about John and how he doesn't even care, he just comes over to the hospital for the meals and the coffee.... And then, in the midst of a conversation with a nurse in the hallway, Uncle John replied, "I can hear you, Tom ... and I do care."  Uncle John was always bringing gifts for the nurses because dad was so rude to them.  Uncle John wanted to make something up to them.
It was awful for dad, but he used some very bad language and didn't behave well at all.
Years ago, dad took care of Uncle John for months when he had a series of open heart surgeries.  Dad can be very helpful.  But he does not make a good patient.  And he is scared to die.

Broken windows outside the city.
I better go read for a while.