Vancouver, again

Vancouver – My father (turned 93) and I landed a week ago, planning to stay 5 weeks, if all goes well.  With three Chinese or Asian food courts within close proximity, food, especially Cantonese, Shanghai, Taiwanese comfort foods usually made in homes or sold in stands, is delectable and easy.  The very yum dim sum.  With the help of friends, I’ve engaged a caretaker to watch him so I can site see using the Sky Train.  I trekked the ‘Grind’ a 2,800 vertical foot hike up Grouse Mountain and survived, fully drenched!  I’ve resumed Tai Chi with Master Paul Tam, Chinese lessons, and Chinese history (Great Courses).  And biked 57 miles on my 30 year old chromolyb/steel.  

It’s been a banner week of reading:  John Sanford’s Silken Prey, Jimmy Connor’s Outsider (autobiography), Michael Pollan’s Cooked, and Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven.  The third highlights the importance of fire (grilling), water (braising, stewing), air (bread), earth (fermenting) and social congealing effect of cooking that is being lost to fast foods and microwave.  The fourth recounts near death experiences of an otherworldly realm as ‘perceived’ by a comatose neurosurgeon without a neocortex.  I recommend them as thought provoking.

It hasn’t been all fun, eats and exercise.  Getting Dad here on/off planes was more challenging.  He rides more than walks on his walker.  He sleeps more, and falls asleep easily, while sitting.  He is usually pleasant and his long-term memory is immaculate.  Yet, he is becoming more lost in fantasies, albeit them positive and grandiose, e.g. I will be made Dean of the Medical School and we will move to Vancouver permanently.  I completely lost it two days ago when he accused Ben and I of disrupting a 75 year old friendship last year that in fact ended disastrously as a result of his fantastical actions.  But who am I arguing with, my father or his demented alter ego?  How long is he safe to stay by himself, living independently, largely unmonitored?  Will this be our last stay together in Vancouver?

Madison – In one day, I spent quality time with Ray and Memee Chun, with my best friend Steve and Mary, held their brand new grandbaby Korben, and played tennis, ending with a family barbeque.  What a memorable ful-filled day!

Shanghai – Earlier this month, I gave several talks at a national peds GI conference, in English with a voice-racked Mandarin introduction.  Treated like an emperor, 10 course feast upon feast.  Temperature > 100.  Walked through Tian Zi Fang’s old narrow alleyways and Xin Tian Di’s new UPscale mall complex.  24 million.  Construction cranes punctuating the skyline.  Housing prices 400K US$ for 800 ft².  Visited the new Zhao Meng-fu museum in Huzhou for my father who wrote two books on his paintings, Lake Tai (3 white fishes), and Suzhou’s Humble Administrator and Lion’s Garden.  Experienced 4-handed massage à trois. 

As I travel in Teri’s favorite footsteps, I still see things through her eyes.  Today, I first realized that one of her gifts to friends, me, and especially the kids, was fully unconditional acceptance and love.  Accepting us warts, differing racial, ethnic, viewpoints and all.

I asked someone out.