Obsession

I am naming Dad's newest behavioral phase Obsession. (sounds like a perfume huh?) Past phases include 'escape artist', 'anger', 'going off the deep end'...

I characterize a phase as a strange behavioral conduct that consumes him for longer than a week. The last few weeks he would get someone's name in his head and then become obsessed with seeing that person. Right now he is obsessed with 'Paula' (our Mom). The reason I use quotations around her name is that we're pretty sure that most of the time he is confusing her for someone else (mainly he's thinking of his Step-Mom who is 91 years old).

He's driving us crazy because it's like talking to a person that has amnesia every 5 minutes. "What about Paula?" five minutes later "I need to see Paula" three minutes later "Where's Paula" and on and on... We have also talked to him on the phone four times in the past 48 hours about Paula and even visited him and talked about Paula. We have told him numerous times that Paula will visit him next week, but of course he forgets. After the tenth time of him asking about her whereabouts I said nonchalantly, "She's probably dying of the heat right now." It was over 100 in Fallbrook that day and he said, "She's dying?????" SHOOT. No, she's not dying Dad, never mind. I was losing my patience fast.

I really have been trying to get a hold of his family so that he can go see his 91 year old Step-Mom, but I'm having a tough time getting someone on the phone. I had to tell Dad that they are on vacation, because he thinks we can just get up and go see them. How do you explain to Dad that you have to call someone first before just showing up at their door? There's no reasoning with him. Everything is very urgent and dramatic to him. He has to see them NOW.

On the plus side though, Megan and I had a great day with him yesterday... Yay! Megan finally got a good day. He was sweet and funny and talkative. We took him to an antique store and he was very engaged in everything we were looking at. Sometimes we would look back at him and he would be looking at a picture of John Wayne or sitting in a chair like he was testing it out or asking us questions. We listened to Frank Sinatra station on Pandora in the car-ride and he was singing along to everyone song.

We also saw Dad's girlfriend and he told her to "go get on your mop and fly away." (Basically calling her a witch.) She responded by saying that they were over and done with. Dad took his hand and dramatically wiped it across his forehead and said, "Whew!" Then they both laughed. I don't think he'll be getting rid of her that easily!

The video below is a conversation that we had with him in the car. We were teasing him and making him laugh... and then he said some funny things... :)