Sneaky Joe

Working two jobs I don't get to spend much time during the day overseeing Dad's care. That falls mostly to my wife. This week, however, I had a meeting about a mile from the care center where Dad spends 5 hours a day 4 days a week. I was running ahead of schedule so I drove to the center to watch Dad in his "own environment." This is the place where he says he doesn't want to go. They are slower than him in their abilities. That is the gist of his arguments for not liking it there. Watching him revealed another thing altogether. He was sitting right next to the lady who was reading them a story. He looked like the top kid in the class. He looked quite happy.

I had plenty of spare time to talk with the director for a while. She told me about his petition to get to play more days on the piano. He had told me that he had passed around a petition to get his three days back. He told me about all the people that had signed it. Well, they did. The reality, though, is that they were quite unaware of what they were signing. She told me that when he asked them to sign, some of them said why, what is this? He told them he was just seeing how many of them could write their names. Sneaky. She approached him and asked him what that was at the top about Joe playing music. He said, "Oh, nothing, nothing. I am just seeing how many of them can write their names." Remember, he is never wrong, so it isn't a lie since he told it. He only tells the truth.

She also told me an interesting fact that I wasn't aware of. When we were going through the stress of getting him to go to 4 days a week instead of 3, right at the time he was going from 3 days a week of playing piano to one, I had talked with the director by phone. I had told her that he really liked to play cribbage. If she found someone to play cribbage with him he might like it better. I had never heard anything back from her. Well, it seems that she had found another man to play cribbage with him the very next day. They play it every morning. Two days later, without telling him that I had been there to observe him, I asked him if he ever had a chance to play cards with anyone there. "No, no, I never play cards there." Admitting that he is having fun, or that he is wrong, is just too much for his mind to bear, I guess, so he has his little pleasure but is too sneaky to admit it. At least, however, I do know that he is enjoying life a whole lot more than he wants to admit. I am very glad for that.