Over the weekend—Saturday—I proposed to out-of-town guests that I drive them around, showing them the sites. Was there any place they were particularly interested in seeing? Yes, the Mall of America! I talked them out of that and instead we went to Minnehaha Falls and the Sculpture Garden, both of which were also on their list. After they'd left, I did something by myself for the first time ever: held an umbrella over a dog while he took a crap in the rain. I would have memorialized the event with an Instagram photo, but I had the leash in one hand and the umbrella in the other.
Then, yesterday, I helped my sister empty out our dad's old house in preparation for an estate sale—he's moved to an assisted living facility. It's sort of sad to come upon mementos of me that my parents thought to preserve, like report cards now close to 50 years old. They weren't even that great but I guess mom and dad were proud? An upside to what the whitecoats call "mild to moderate cognitive decline" might be that you are not up to the task of noticing that high hopes for your offspring appear to have been affected by gravity. What's the last line of that Melville story?—
Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!
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