"have you met my ex-wife?"

that's the line my dad has used countless times in the past to make in-laws laugh and relative strangers feel uncomfortable. that's the line he used today when his nurse came in to check on him. that's the same nurse we would later learn is the mother of a girl i once dated which led to me making akward conversation and feeling relatively uncomfortable.

chalk it up to our famed y-chromosone and our unwillingness to treat serious stuff too seriously. for the first time today i heard the story about how my dad (and his friend john (who was my junior high principal)) arrived back from their long trip to india in the early seventies. keeping in mind that he hadn't seen his wife (my mother (not his nurse) in six weeks, and could have possibly gone through a beattles-esque rebirth during that time, donned the traditional indian robe and head piece he'd bought there, in the airport bathroom. my mom failed to recognize the skinnier, tanner indian man who looked like her husband. But of course her mother (my grandmother (his in-law)) picked him out of the crowd i'm sure with relative bewilderment.

another revelation by dad concerned the previously mentioned post-op yard trenching therapy session. why he didn't dislocate his new shoulder, he did cut up a few sprinkler system pipes which he had to fix and relocate. doing so required hours of crouching which led to his knee surgery a year later and made his legs constantly fall asleep. now he believes that that same poor circulation caused the current clots.

again, he is feeling fine but is still confined to his hospital room. furthermore, today he discovered room service and with it their nice selection of ice cream. i promise i'll tell his donkey delivery story soon.