Father's Day Visit

For Father's Day we decided to surprise Dad with a Lobster dinner. He always enjoyed lobster and used to talk about how he ate lobster three or four times a week at the Old Hook Inn in Westwood, NJ. Sadly, Alzheimer's seems to have robbed him of the ability to talk much anymore.

I checked all the local grocery stores in advance only to discover that they were all using the "our lobster tank is broken" excuse. So, I had to send Jim and Keith to the Hong Kong Market Sunday morning to get a lobster. While they were gone I got the crab pot going and made a baked potato and salad.

When Jim got home we plucked the lobster in the pot.



But first we had to satisfy Zoom's curiosity.



Then we packed everything up. The hot stuff in one cooler and the cold stuff in another...including a Heineken for Dad.



I reserved the activity room at the nursing home for the occasion. Jim prepared the lobster.



And he was the waiter too.



There was little reaction from Dad and he only spoke a couple of times. The grandkids all kept him company. That's Reid, Troy, Keith and Grandpa.



I sat and tried to get my Dad to talk.



Jim took the lobster meat out of the shell and cut it up for Dad.



Dad only drank about half the beer. He didn't seem to know to tilt the bottle up to get more beer out. We kept telling him to hold it up higher, but he just didn't seem to understand.



Then he opened his Father's Day presents in slow motion. Dad has been doing everything in slow motion for a couple of years now which seems so strange to me since he was always a little hyper in his younger days. I never thought I'd see Dad slow down. It must have taken him ten minutes to open each card. We kind of stepped in and helped him with the presents.



It was really hard to tell if he enjoyed himself and if he'll even remember this day. Even if Dad doesn't remember I will. I like to think he had a good day.

On the way home we stopped and ate dinner and had a little celebration for Jim too.